This Annoying Habit Of My Father's Girlfriend Is Toxic
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Hi Dragonflies,
I felt like writing an entry today. There has been someone who has been asking me questions on the abuse that I suffered from my father and his girlfriend and I thought it would be a good idea to write some entries explaining some elements of the abuse so they can understand more clearly why I don't speak with my father and his girlfriend and why the trust there is totally broken and irreparable.
So when I was about 16 years of age my father's long distance girlfriend came to live with us. She was toxic on so many levels but she projected this sweet soft spoken persona to everyone else so people would often not believe me if I told them that my father's girlfriend abused me as well and I do believe that my father became more abusive when she came along. Before this woman came along my father seemed to be trying to help me recover from the abuse of his ex and he was very sorry for his part in it but when this woman came along it was like my father ditched this version of himself to become more like his new girlfriend and to be like her he had to behave like she did towards me. I saw it as the ultimate betrayal and he often put her needs before mine but I also think he put her needs before his own because he was always very submissive to her.
Anyways not being validated and not being encouraged to develop my own sense of self at this age made it very hard to express myself verbally. On times when I knew exactly how to fight for myself and exactly how to articulate what his girlfriend and my father did to harm me, his girlfriend would frequently interrupt me and make it difficult for me to keep to my train of thought which I felt was her intention. To distract me from a time when I was really standing up for myself and seeing past her facade she would be able to confuse me and disorientate me to win an argument.
The other annoying habit is when she would do around others because it appears she is trying to help me but she is not. When I had a temporary truce with my father she still continued to do this but things had changed a lot. I will explain this a bit later. The thing was I had trouble as a teen articulating what I wanted to say and she would often interrupt me when I was struggling to guess what I wanted to say. For instance I would say "I find it uhhhhh" and she would interrupt "Difficult, complicated, interesting?" Like we are on some game show but it would appear as being helpful because I was struggling to find the words but if she had been a bit more patient and cared about me developing my own sense of self, she would wait until I found the right word myself. At the time I found this helpful but also very annoying that I felt like I needed that kind of help to articulate myself. When I saw her after my Grannie died she tried to do the same thing but this time my confidence in expressing myself and my ability to articulate what I was trying to say was well established and too advanced for her. She tried to interrupt me with a word she thought I was trying to find and I said "No, I mean such and such" and I did not thank her for doing this. I found this time very empowering the way I handled it because now I had found my power and confidence and she had been out of my life for too long that she couldn't even catch up to my level of assertiveness and self assuredness. This time she didn't know me well enough to be able to take the words out of my mouth so to speak. I also wonder whether that scared her that couldn't figure out where I was at. That she had no control over me after all.
On another occasion I had told my father that I had two miscarriages and was trying to get pregnant. I don't know why I told him this but I don't regret it and now I feel like it actually falls into my plan with my path to motherhood, but that's a story for another time. Anyways I knew my father had been sharing my personal information with his girlfriend (why would he keep my personal information secret, he percieves himself and his girlfriend as one person) and his girlfriend asked me a question as to why I was not drinking coffee. I knew she was fishing for information and even though I told my father (who would be a grandparent to any child I have) I would not be sharing this kind of information with someone who not only is abusive towards me but is also not related to me. So I responded with "Oh I just don't really drink it anymore" or something to that effect. This was another indication to her that she could not manipulate me and that even though I was being nice to her I still didn't trust her. Her energy was awkward after that but I felt really good about myself because I felt like my future plans are none of her business and still aren't.
So the lesson here is that abusers can take on a persona they know pleases people and can pretend to help you but they are really trying to take away your independence and autonomy. The best revenge is becoming a healthy, assertive, boundary making person that makes it impossible to manipulate you. All they want is power over you and you taking back your power is kryptonite to an abuser.
Bibliography
https://themendproject.com/when-abuse-creates-a-maze-of-confusion/
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