Dear Sittoo.... Far Away but Close in Spirit......

Grandson of Sitto Giza Plateau Egypt

Oh my Sittoo, you find yourself in the intensive care unit in Cairo, now as you navigate your ninth decade of life.

May Allah continue to bless you and keep you comfortable.

I imagine no less than 50 family members surrounding your bed as I write this post.

Just like in earlier years where every Thursday at least that many came to your small flat in Zaytoon, Cairo where you would be laughing much, while keeping track of no less than ten ongoing conversations.

May you feel the support of all of us whose lives you have touched and enriched over the many years.  My you be comforted by our love for you as you are lifted ever higher by Allah in spirit.

When I close my eyes and think of you, I feel your massive kindness to all, and I see you addressing Allah with thanks again.  Your sweet way of  sprinkling this throughout all living and conversation is your hallmark, Sittoo.  You make us all feel loved and welcome.

I image you there now being helped by the nursing staff and that of the doctors, all the while communicating with and thanking Allah.

Seems to me it is so that Allah is as close to you as your own breath.  May you be well my Sittoo, reassured and strengthened in your mind, body, and spirit as from this moment to the next.

Khaled Shines the Light

What and or who was it that lit your path along the way?  

My grandfather lit the way for me the first two years of life.  He gave me so much love and attention that I still remember everything about him.  What he looked like, the clothes he wore, how his hands were chubby, and where is favorite chair was on the back porch of the farmhouse.  He had a slaughter house and I remember he smelled like sawdust because they used that to sprinkle on the floors before sweeping.  Grandpa died before I turned three.  It was devastating.  I understood, and this was a great loss.

My grandmother, his wife also lit my way in different places over the course of my youth and very young adult life.  She was in a precarious position though, being the mother of my narcissistic mother.  NM's are very jealous, and Grandma knew this so she tread very carefully about how far she would go to be a source of emotional support.  Still, she was clever enough to figure a way to walk that wire while both being kind to me and not igniting NM's punishments.  Whew.  Thank god.  I only realize now how I escaped THAT upset by Grandma's great brain and awareness.

My father was a constant source of both support and emotional agony.  Although love never hurts, I know he loved me.  I think that he really didn't realize his parenting style was damaging.  Being told often that you are "Dumb dumb dumb" is bad enough, but another thing, he was paranoid.

NM had my dad convinced that it is normal for children to try to drive the parents apart and she encouraged him to be cruel in his tone and attitudes with me and my siblings.  It was a clash with what he really wanted for his children, but he believed the NM.

I remember when a family from up the street experienced a divorce.  Dad worked with the father of this family at the Ingersol Rand in Athens, Pa.  He would come home with updates at dinnertime, and over and over the NM would say things like "You see!!  I told you all kids want to drive their parents apart.  Look at that Linda (the eldest child in the family divorcing).  She not only drove them apart, but now she's going to drive out his new wife!!  Mark my words."  My Father would nod his head and agree that she must be right.

Me and my siblings would clean our plates and walk on eggshells to keep from being accused of trying to tear apart our parents.  Think about it.  What child would EVER want to do such a thing??  Isn't that always the worse thing about a divorce?

But my dad made me a fishing pole and he took us to the beech.  He played Santa once, and taught me how to drive.  He came to my horse shows and listened to my endless horse stories.  And he took me to buy my first brand new car and co-signed for the loan.  So he was intermittently very supportive.  I loved him.

In between all of those things that my dad  did for me over the course of 20 years, NM would punish the both of us.  So the light shinning on my path was half blown out most of the time after the death of my grandfather.

I picked up a torch after 20 and started shinning my own way.  I mean who of us in a dysfunctional family didn't ??

It's a lonesome feeling being miles away from home, contemplating divorce and knowing that you can't call home because NM doesn't care, and if Dad did, she'd punish us both for it.  It (I) would cause trouble (needing support), should I call home.

In the first of three major depressions to follow over my lifetime, I forced myself to get out and get a job.  Working like a zombie, barely making it, I managed to do it.  I was able to hold down that job even without proper sleep and still being very depressed.  It was a miracle.  I made more money than my husband was and he was asking me for money for his drinking habit.

I wasn't working to pay for a drinking habit. I was working to save money and GET OUT and get a divorce.  That I did.

Khaled walked right into my life.  He shone a beautiful light on my path from then on.  He took that torch from my hand and polished it all up, filled it with fresh fuel, and lit it high and bright.  My depression totally lifted.  I was never so loved in my whole entire Life!!

When I wasn't looking, the most wonderful loving man came into my life and wanted ME.  He loved everything about me... Just the way I was.  Just the way I am.

Khaled I love you.  Thank you for shinning a fresh light on a jagged path even when I was falling...... Even when I was dying..... Even when I was leaving...
Not only when things were wonderful, it was steadily throughout the 30 years of our marriage that my sweet sweet Khaled has lovingly carried that torch for the both of us.

For all of us...   He, Me, Khaled, Joey, and Sarah Jasmine, and Sittoo.

Khaled and Sittoo

I love this photo of my mother in law and my son, Khaled.  Here she is very old .. over 90 and living in Cairo.  We try to visit between all of us at least once a year.

This boy was born there and he has always been like another one of her children.  In fact one of her daughters took care of him after the birth through my recovery, and she still refers to herself as "Omie Amel"  or Mommy Amel.  She loves him really like a son.  And I always thought that was so sweet.  I love her for it.

The two of them always make me smile on thier own but put them together and you have a real smilefest!!

The Slight of Hand often gets its way ...... When the Narcissist Rolls the Dice

My Narcissistic mother's jealousy of the love our father had for her children was her main motivation behind most of her kick-outs and the resulting devastation.

And this jealousy had to be masked because my father hated jealousy.  She used lies and diversions, kick-outs and more lies to both cover this up and to accomplish our alienation.

Only thing is....  it's so difficult I noticed for me to TELL the main point.. the pivoting point which is the REASON for why she would do such things.

Here is one example:

In the last blog entry I mention the major Kick-out in Lowman NY at the mobile home in which she'd settled with my dad.  I tell how NM didn't like the boundaries I was placing and so fourth, but the main reason she had for kicking me out of the family was FEAR.  She had one major lie hanging over her head that she feared would be exposed.

 She saw I was at the point where I didn't care if whatever I said would rock the boat.  And she was in danger of me spitting out the one thing she was afraid of.  A lie she told me about my father that if exposed, would surely be an upset he would NEVER be over.

Just prior to the sale of their home and buying this place, my dad retired from IBM and I threw him a big retirement party in my home in Wilkes Barre Pa.  I invited all his brothers and sisters and other relatives from all over the country.  People came from everywhere and he was so surprised!!  It was a wonderful day.  It was the first time to see many of them in decades and the last for my dad to see his family as it turns out.

Nothing was too much for my dad and NM Hated  that.  He loved me and I loved him and that was that.  Whatever she did or said to destroy that never totally took over the years, which clearly frustrated her.

I could go on and tell of the party but suffice it to say there were no holds barred and some of these relatives kept in touch with me until their deaths after this party.  They never forgot that day.  I'm not talking about having a lavish event...  We were young, .... Sarah was the baby still...  IT was about the LOVE that was so evident.  People were touched.  Happy for my dad.

Not too long after the event ... I think just over a year, NM gets me in the car on a visit (away from my dad) and tells me OUT OF THE BLUE (like so many devastating attacks by her) "Your dad doesn't ever want to come to your house again.  He told me that at Thanksgiving, Khaled was speaking Arabic with his friends who were there and your father was feeling left out.  Then he couldn't get away from them.  He would leave the room and they would follow him, speaking in Arabic.  Anyway, you know your father.  He's done.  Never wants to go back and that's that.  I'm telling you this so you finally STOP inviting us.  I don't want to have to be the one making excuses when you ask."     .....

!!  I was SHOCKED!!   You can imagine all the questions I had.  All the tears...  All the bewilderment.  Of course NM sat there stone faced.  Satisfied.

Satisfied, but.... that was on shaky ground.  If I didn't believe her, there was the possibility of me confronting my dad.  However she counted on the fact that I would believe her and choose not to humiliate my dad with what "he said."

This had to have been on her mind during the Lowman kick out.  It was a real possibility that I might bring this up to my father.  The more vocal I became during the shouting match, the more diversionary she was and THAT'S when she said "You need to leave here and not come back for at least five years."   Bam.  She was safe.

She was really lucky.  I never once told him.  Just in case he said anything like it.. Even if he only said he was insulted that Khaled was speaking Arabic and he couldn't understand..  I would NEVER hurt him with the fact that I knew he said anything like that.  And with my NM, I knew that usually her lies were sprinkled with other half truths - so you never knew exactly what to say or do about what she said.

The last thing I ever wanted to do was to hurt my dad.  So like she figured.  I never said a word.  Not even until his last breath.

Had I told him this worst of all her lies, (well for me anyway), he would have left her.  Religion or not.  He would have left her.

Narcissists don't really hesitate to roll the Dice.

But don't you see? NM in discussing this to this day doesn't see her culpability. She sees only that innocent babies and children are responsible for hating each other.

The Golden Child and my brother

It just occurred to me that I knew of hate from a very early age.

From where did I get such a notion?

From the age of two, three, four, and five, I hated my little sister and it wasn't jealousy of the baby or the attention the baby was getting -  simply because this baby got little to no attention at all.

I was following suit with the NM.  My narcissistic mother hated us all except the golden child, and that was made very clear.

I, in turn, hated my little sister.

I feel robbed of not having been given the gift of loving myself as a child and my little sister, but worse, I am sickened by how this all had to have made my baby sister feel.  For her whole life.

(Not looking for anyone to say it's okay that's kids stuff it's over.  This isn't about wallowing and looking for forgiveness. I realize we were children and do not blame myself as a child).

At least my kids I'm sure didn't experience hate within our own home as little children.  That much I can be thankful for, but this other... The very idea that innocent children were introduced to hate by their own mother just makes me shake my head.

I wasn't the perfect mother, but I sure loved my kids and thoroughly enjoyed them loving each other.  Something the NM couldn't stand.  You were rewarded in my family of origin for hating your siblings - especially the ones being scapegoated at the time.

When my father was on his deathbed, with the limited breath he had, he kept repeating "Love" over and over... The one and only thing that resonated with him of importance or of substance left to say was, "It's really big....    Love."

I wonder if he had the breath, energy, and time left to elaborate ... would he have said something like?.... "Your mother didn't ever love any of us.  I didn't do anything about it.  But I see you took from me the love I have for you.  Somehow it was enough to give even to your own kids. Somehow this drop of love allowed was enough to send you off into the world to find a good husband like Khaled. To raise a good family.  I did what I could. I love you all regardless of what the NM said, and regardless of the numerous times she kicked every one of my children out of our lives. I still loved you all.  And somehow.  I guess by the sheer power of love itself, you knew this and you knew me.  You knew love."

I think so.  But all he could say was "Love.  It's so big."  I guess that does say it all.

Those three days on his deathbed he would look confused like he was trying to make sense of the very things it's taken me five years to make sense of here in this blog, and then he would relent with, "It's so big."

From the bottom of my heart I could only reassure him that whatever it was he was discovering, remembering, or trying to untangle...  It's okay.  And that he is correct that in the end what does it all matter anyway.  Where there is love, all else pales..

It was a little contradictory though with the NM steaming that I was there and the Golden Child Narcissistic sister glaring from across the room - but ...  so it was.  Business as usual in the narcissistic dysfunctional family of origin.

Others looking on in confusion of the negativity hanging in the room, experienced the contrast of that with the wonderment and the love between my dad and me.  A kind of a metaphor for our lifetime relationship, my dad and me.

 An unspoken under the radar kind of loving relationship it was, for in such a family, this is not allowed.  Any and all love and attention is to be given to the NM. Period.  And every single member of the family either abides or walks away.  It's one or the other.  I had long since walked away.  Hence the negative barbs and vibes on this deathbed visit.

But yeah.  Hate.  It's something about which a toddler should have NO idea.

I would be mortified if my little kids hated each other and would do everything in the world to show them love for themselves and each other until they had it down.  I would stop everything to straighten something like that out, unlike the NM who enjoyed hate and encouraged discord between the siblings.

And mostly I would want to know what it is about me that my little children were showing hateful behaviors as toddlers.  This would be a very serious issue for me as a mother.  I have to shake my head again at the thought that the NM was no mother at all to me and my siblings. If anything, she was an enemy - a monster ..  A terrible example for children.

To this day NM mentions in conversations with the golden child (GC has told me) that I was hateful of my little sister due to jealousy.  I would agree if it was correct, but it is not correct.  I never had a jealous bone in my body.  But besides that, how could jealousy be an issue when we are talking about being jealous of a baby/child who was ignored, isolated, abused?

I was a child following suit.  My brother did the same.  He hated me and for sure there was NO reason for him to be jealous of me.  and on and on.

But don't you see?  NM in discussing this to this day doesn't see her culpability.  She sees only that innocent babies and children are responsible for hating each other.

Pointing Fingers..... There's those three others pointing back at you....

So here I am at the point in my recovery that it's just really time to stop pointing fingers.

Those three pointing back at me?  Yeah you know, the ones that point your way while your hand poses to point at antoher.  Those are the ones.  They have been after me to look at my own behaviors.

Don't get me wrong here.  EVERYTHING I've written so far is true and I still believe needed to be recorded here - if not only for me, for others who are still searching.

So to begin,

I know I've mentioned the fact that as a child I followed the lead to persecute my little sister, but I took it further than following what the NM and golden child did.. I HATED her (my little sister.. not the golden child).

Sure she was only a couple of years younger than me, but I saw us as a decade apart and her as a nuisanced rotten little brat that didn't belong.  When the Truth is she was severely abused and neglected by the NM - Even so, she was just a little kid.  She wasn't evil or rotten at all.  WE all were that for isolating her.

I have already told her a million times how wrong this was and how I wish I could go back there in some way and hug that child or even her and squeeze into her the love I have for her now - BUT yeah, somehow that wasn't so appealing to her as it was to me.  I get that though.

The fact is even while I was still in contact with the NM I was also complicit in the NM's destruction.  I listened to the endless lies and complaints about all other family members and often chimed in.  (I sit here shaking my head).

I mean, if you are in any kind of contact with a narcissist you MUST be complicit.  Really that's it plain and simple or they have no use for you.  This is very clear and you all know it.  Man I hate writing this.

I was a total BITCH to my first husband.  I could tell about him but I don't want it to seem like I'm trying to make excuses for me being verbally abusive to anyone.  Divorced him.

I was a BITCH to Khaled too.  It's so easy coming from a narcissistic family to see an overall picture as never good enough.  BUT, the difference here is Khaled told me he wouldn't allow anyone to speak to him with disrespect.  And that my friends, was the first leg of my awakening!!

Sill, I smothered my babies.  OMG I loved them SOOOOO much of course .. BUT I know I smothered them with love, clothes, toys, parties, hugs, kisses... TOO MUCH.  And , again, nothing was good enough.  I was a demanding mother. :(  

All those years, I was dragging my kids every week on a three hour ride to the NM's house where she ignored them completely and of course forced me to listen to endless shit about my siblings and father.  AND also to be her slave.

I started to put up some boundaries and things between us became strained.

The first one was I was no longer her slave.  In fact, after one of her rages about how I took out the garbage, I decided to NEVER touch another chore in her home again.  And I never did.  That was noticed and didn't go over very well .. Until the final contact and confrontation with the NM she told all the others how "Lazy" I was.

A major kick-out of the family was because of one of these boundaries.  I was fed up with my kids being forced to eat outside on our visits, and surely I was just as fed up with myself for being too cowardly to insist to let them in.  I still shake my head.

Anyway, when the NM moved out of the home my father built for her and she and my dad moved into a mobile home in Lowman, NY, I saw an opportunity to stop bringing the kids.  I couldn't force the NM to be a grandmother, BUT I figured I could be a mother and leave them home.

WELL!!  That bitch had a fit and forced me to tell why I didn't bring them anymore, and when I did she totally exploded.  Told me she couldn't wait to see what kind of a grandmother I would be and that I was CRAZY and so crazy that she and my dad (he sat right there and she aways spoke for them both) would be way better off not seeing me for at least five years!!  In those years away, she said, she expected me to find therapy for being crazy.  You know what?  I told her that's a great idea!  If you pay for it, I'll go this minute.  Yeah.  Not a word.

(btw they were not destitute.  It was NM's idea to downsize in retirement.  Half the year in NY and the other half on the beach in South Carolina).

Anyway, the point is she was right I was in need of therapy.  Narcissists don't care about you though.  She didn't suggest therapy to help me lol... that was said in anger to hurt me. But they forget that we don't have the ego they have.  Whatever.

I left the visit that day and was gone for the next eight years at which time I earned a Bachelors degree at Wilkes University in Wilkes Barre, PA by 2003.  I was doing fine.  Well much much better.  And without therapy, however, I would have welcomed it had I been able to find what I needed.

The simple fact is that people suffering from the abuses of narcissistic and complicit parents experience the greatest chunk of improvement just by going no contact with them.  Therapy then is also needed, which you all know I did find in the end.

In those years though my dad thought and though about her kicking me out and what I had said and she said and he told her he was done.  He wanted to divorce her!!  I was still NC.  I wish I knew about this!!  I would have supported him, but as you may have figured narsissists always have an ace in the hole.  She promised to become Catholic if he would stay and take her to classes.  If anything would do it, that would.  Since his whole married life, he had to practice his religion alone after she ridiculed him and it and told him she wouldn't have it in her house.

He was amazed and figured maybe God could help her.  Poor guy.

Yeah this monster became Catholic and made this the new connection with our dad and renewed their whole marriage.  In this time, NM wrote me asking for me to return.  That "Your father and I regret how things went last."

My god.  I know.

First I wrote this blubbering letter going on and on about how grateful I was to ever hear from them again since I wrote many times and send cards and gifts, never hearing from them back.

Then, my girlfriend read the letters, NM's and mine, and told me "Are you crazy??  Rip that up and tell them NO."  lol

I thought about it and she was right.  I was going to give this bitch licensee to begin the destruction once again with this clearly vulnerable (STUPID) response.  I did rip it up.  I rewrote it, saying no thanks.

NM STILL talks about the many poison pen letters that I sent her in the years she kicked me out.  I guess all the cards, letters, and gifts were conveyed as poison.. and then when I did send that last letter saying UH NO THANKS...  She may have showed it.  This is how they authenticate their lies.

Anyway, I thought about this and even Khaled said that maybe I should write back and tell them that I do forgive them and I just needed a little time to digest hearing from them.

So by the mere fact that first I write a thank you letter blubbering, then I rip it up and write a refusal letter, then I write again...  Shows confusion.  I needed first of all NO contact forever, and secondly, for that confusion, I really needed therapy.
But like my psychiatrist told me recently, I must not have been totally ready then for the healing that I have now.  Simple as that.

But without the therapy, I was missing the key element in my emotional evolution.  Self love and self care.  Two things I limped along with and without for my whole life, which affected every single thing I ever tried, did, or accomplished. I'm sure that every person I ever met saw this in me as a first impression.  It is carried with you like a weighted picket sign.  Plain as day.

My poor kids and husband. They have been through it.  But we all survived ... and survived well, I say with the knowledge of my great fortune.

So there it is...  only a smidgeon of what was under those fingers pointing back at me.  More next time ..   Peace.....

What full Recovery looks like in a few words or Less

It took me the last five years to sort out and organize my thoughts and emotions well enough to tell a story and make a serious point without having to log a scattered document.

As a result of past traumas, my brain learned early on to store full memories and details of events in the same area that is meant for emotions.

This caused great difficulty in relating properly and clearly events which were especially trauma related.

As a result of my brain retraining, here is an account of the last trauma ever in my life just prior to my father's death.  It is told here in a clear and easy way to follow, which took me all of four or five minutes to record:

This is a comment I left on Youtube with Daylight out of Darkness:

You hit on something here for me.  I often said the NM I have tells the enablers what she wishes happened instead of the truth. For instance she had what became a habit of kicking me out of the family (for placing boundaries) but she cannot tell the enablers the real reason she kicked me out, so she totally embellishes the story.  The last time on a visit (I'd have to fly there) when because of her controlling all I said was "You cannot tell me what I am allowed to say to my father and what I am not. I will say whatever I want to him.".... She told me this is her house and if I don't like it I can just get out right now!!   She told the enablers she didn't understand why I left abruptly.  I was crazy.  Everyday life presented a problem here and there and my reactions were "crazy"..  She added that on the way out, I almost ran her down with my luggage and then I ran down the road pulling my luggage by foot!!  Further, my ill father had to chase me down the roadway and beg me to get into the car. 

 THE TRUTH IS that I packed my bags and started down the hallway where at the end my narcissistic mother stood to block me.  I stopped and waited but she obviously was starring me down not budging on purpose. Knowing her and wanting to both expose this to my father AND to get by her with my luggage, I called out loudly so my father could hear, "Could you please MOVE?"...   She immediately turned to look to see if he was looking and budged a foot or so as I slowly squeezed by, not touching her.  I waited in the driveway while my dad got his shoes on and came out to drive me to my sisters in the same neighborhood where I stayed until my new flight left.  Now what she told are lies.  Not really delusions yet for her.  But she eventually tells it so much and so often (according to my siblings) even years after I leave that surely she may end up believing it herself to a degree.  I'm not clear on that yet.  They are deliberate lies to not be detected for bad and wrong behavior. For justification.  And for the enablers to shake their heads with her and agree that I must be crazy. 

 I have seen her do this with me over the years about anyone she was targeting at the time.  It is repeated and repeated as she enjoys the whole reliving of the fabricated now delusion as it is reinforced by enablers that she is right.  She is good.  She is a victim and other people they love (my dad) and I love are victims of me.


Maybe it's more that early on my brain 'didn't' learn the correct way to store the details of an event separately from the emotional part of the event, and those details.

Whichever, for a very long time I found recording an emotionally charged injustice such as is above very daunting to spit out concisely.  I was back there reliving it and feeling it - which made calm organized on task requirements painfully daunting.

But you see here this problem has been solved.  With the therapies I have invested in and a diligent dedication to wellness, I am now able to relay exactly what happened in an emotionally charged trauma in a few paragraphs with no difficulty whatsoever.

Amazing.