Trigger Warning:
NY 2023 - 10 Years Ago, I Broke Up With My Mother.
Part 6 - Surviving Emotional Incest
Part 6 - Surviving Emotional Incest
Emotional incest, also known as covert incest, refers to a situation where a parent relies on their child for emotional support and intimacy that should be reserved for adult relationships. This dynamic can be emotionally damaging to the child, impacting their psychological well-being and ability to form healthy relationships later in life. Here are some aspects associated with survivors of emotional incest:
Inappropriate Emotional Boundaries: Survivors often struggle with blurred emotional boundaries. They may find it challenging to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate levels of emotional intimacy in their relationships.
Difficulty Establishing Healthy Relationships: Emotional incest can impact the survivor's ability to form healthy, balanced relationships. They may struggle with trust issues, fear of emotional vulnerability, and challenges in establishing boundaries.
Impact on Self-Esteem: Survivors might experience a negative impact on their self-esteem. The emotional burden placed on them in childhood can lead to feelings of inadequacy, guilt, or shame.
Guilt and Confusion: Survivors may grapple with feelings of guilt, confusion, or a sense of responsibility for their parent's emotional needs. These emotions can persist into adulthood and affect various aspects of their lives.
Impact on Intimacy: Emotional incest can impact the survivor's ability to engage in healthy emotional and physical intimacy. They may fear vulnerability or struggle to establish and maintain intimate connections.
Therapy and Healing: Recognizing the impact of emotional incest is a crucial step toward healing. Therapy, especially modalities like psychotherapy or counseling, can be beneficial in helping survivors process their experiences, establish boundaries, and develop healthier relationship patterns.
It's important to note that each individual's experience is unique, and the effects of emotional incest can vary widely. Seeking professional support and understanding the specific nuances of one's personal experiences can be instrumental in the healing process.
Adult survivors of emotional incest may experience a range of mental health challenges, and it's important to note that not every individual will develop a mental illness. However, some common mental health issues that may be associated with emotional incest include:
Depression: Feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and a persistent low mood can be common among survivors of emotional incest due to the emotional burdens they carried during their childhood.
Anxiety Disorders: Survivors may experience heightened anxiety, including generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety, or panic disorder, stemming from the difficulties in establishing healthy emotional boundaries.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): In cases where the emotional incest was particularly traumatic, some individuals may develop symptoms of PTSD, such as intrusive memories, nightmares, or hypervigilance.
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD): Emotional instability, difficulty in maintaining relationships, and identity disturbances are traits associated with BPD that may be exacerbated in individuals who experienced emotional incest.
Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD): C-PTSD can result from prolonged exposure to traumatic events, such as emotional incest. It may manifest with symptoms beyond those associated with traditional PTSD, including difficulties with emotional regulation and interpersonal relationships.
Dissociative Disorders: Emotional incest can contribute to dissociative symptoms, where individuals may mentally detach from their emotions or experiences as a coping mechanism.
Codependency: Adult survivors may exhibit codependent behaviors, as they may have learned to prioritize the needs of others over their own due to the role reversal and lack of appropriate emotional boundaries in their early relationships.
Substance Abuse: Some individuals may turn to substances as a way to cope with the emotional pain and distress resulting from their experiences of emotional incest.
It's crucial to understand that not every survivor will develop a mental illness, and individuals may cope with their experiences in different ways. Furthermore, a comprehensive assessment by mental health professionals is necessary to accurately diagnose and address the unique challenges faced by each individual. Therapy, support groups, and other therapeutic interventions can play a crucial role in the healing process for adult survivors of emotional incest.
Deets Surviving Emotional Incest
Survival is going to sleep with your wounds and waking up to a new day to fight in your lifelong war in the battleground that is your own mind… To maintain a fragile grasp upon your very sanity.
A battle that am well-worn in.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever lived a conscious day in which I was not encumbered with crippling depression and brain fog, with that dark passenger of suicidal ideation following close behind.
Eight years old.
That dark passenger has cast its shadow upon the light of my life for almost thirty years.
Gently calling. Whispering. Deceiving.
In a world of instability, that dark passenger has stayed resilient in its mission.
Being your only friend. Being all you know. Being your world.
It was her responsibility to be my mother, but she instead made me her partner and imparted her darkness unto me.
As my birther drew me in closer to her center of orbit, the passenger only got louder and more convincing.
She who forced me into being against her own doctors warnings chose her Christian martyrdom over my quality of life.
And instead of accepting me for who I was, she used the very disabilities she gave me to manipulate me and warp my mind.
She used my disabilities to be her coping mechanism.
My life became enmeshed around her mood and if it would change.
My entire consciousness became centered around what would place her, or what would set off that flare with a hit of violence.
That flare my siblings are well aware of, whether they admit it to themselves or not, whether they excuse it or not.
And when I tried to start a life of my own?
When I wanted to go to college? You shipped me off to be someone else’s problem and rendered me homeless.
When I asked you to get a place so that I wouldn’t be homeless? You guilted me about your finances.
When I had partners? You were jealous.
When I got married? You made excuses.
When I graduated from college - the first in the family to do so? You forced your way in, asking to carpool with us at the very last minute while we were on our way to the graduation, never mind the notion of whether we already had plans after the ceremony or not. I worked my ass off for that degree. Like always, you barged your way in last minute and made it about you.
When I told you we might try to start a family? You asked to move in.
When I finally found a way out of that marriage and told you about the domestic violence and that I was trying to get out for years? You suddenly found it in your heart to make my abuser your new best friend.
When I found a new partner? You constantly accused her of being pregnant months after making a scene at planned parenthood begging her not to get an abortion… Never mind the fact she was there to get tested because her ex cheated on her.
When I went public about certain allegations that have been made? You chose literally anyone over your own son, even though I had supporting witnesses of the allegations being made.
My life has been revolved around you in one way or another, and it was always negative. Yet you were hurt and offended when I started setting boundaries and ultimately went no contact?
It was no contact or suicide.
But, I guess at least with the suicide you could get that sympathy attention and everything that I knew would have been buried with me, so would my death really have been that big of a loss to you?
I’m thinking not.
I tried to make a life even with the would you inflicted upon it. I really did. Even to the point of being working homeless, numerous times.
Even when I had to resort to self-medicating with alcohol to pass out most nights because every antidepressant I would try would ultimately fail, and you can only repeat months long insomnia episodes for so many times… And Missouri was still years away from medical marijuana access.
But I couldn’t. And in December 2019, the little life I had started crumbling down, and the disabilities simply became too large of a weight to bear.
I went on short term disability.
In March 2020, I was diagnosed with PTSD. Followed by Autism Spectrum Disorder in June 2020. C-PTSD followed closely with that that being diagnosed in July 2020.
That all led up to August 2020, when I started having dissociative events and my passive suicidal ideation started tipping towards active.
When that happens, I start literally feeling my neck being tight. I envision that noose. The ideation image starts becoming crystal clear and that dark passenger starts to slowly squeeze my trachea with its cold yet strangely welcoming bony fingers.
I admitted myself to the ER and spent three days in-patient at the psych ward.
A few months later in November 2020, I filed my initial SSDI (disability) claim for depression and PTSD.
So… That was my 2020… On top of losing my mind from seeing the bodies stack up because the “respect your elders” MAGA crowd didn’t respect their own elders enough to put on a simple mask in order to prevent Grandma from choking to death on a ventilator due to COVID-19 sniping her blood oxygen levels to zero.
And, in 2021, after a series of hospitalizations including a blood transfusion, I did indeed do just that. I lost my mind in a prolonged dissociative episode, where my mind reverted to a state of pure survivalism that drove me to file paperwork for a U.S. Senate run.
All while that dark passenger sat closely by, biding its time for opportunities to strike up that same old conversation… I was constantly teetering on the precipice between passive and active suicidal ideation.
My SSDI claim was denied twice in 2021, leading to an ALJ hearing in January 2022…
In which the judge found me mentally limiting and listed a bunch of jobs that were automated out of the economy 50 years ago that he deemed me capable of performing.
A few days after receiving the denial letter, I terminated the campaign while the passenger’s voice grew louder.
In March 2022, I finally had an intake consult with a treatment-resistant depression clinic, after failing even more antidepressants. That’s where I received my Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis, meeting 8/9 DSM-V criteria and 9/10 Zanarini criteria when we met for the assessment review in April… Including the inability to form and maintain relationships. I haven’t been able to form a platonic adult friendship, and I haven’t really had friends for over a decade.
That was enough to get me started on Spravato in July 2022. Around that time, I was experiencing severe weight loss, and was soon after diagnosed with IBS-Mixed, gastroparesis, and pelvic floor dysfunction - all of which are associated with at high incidences in patients that also present PTSD symptoms123. During those assessments, I was also diagnosed with MALS.
Back in January 2022, after the ALJ denial, I appealed to the Appeals Council. They finally reviewed that request and upheld the ALJ’s decision in October 2022.
Now that I had more physical diagnoses along with the BPD diagnosis, I decided to file a second claim, dated to the day after my ALJ hearing. I also received my first positive SIBO test that month.
Fast-forward to April 2023, and I am found at an intake rheumatology appointment to be assessed for Sjögren's syndrome. Well… All the assessments came back negative for Sjögren's, but… They did confirm a Fibromyalgia diagnosis, meeting 14 out of 18 trigger points.
In April 2023, I also received a letter from SSA that notified me that I was scheduled in May for both mental and physical consultive exams.
The mental exam went well. The physical exam… Not so much.
A couple of weeks later, I got a denial letter from SSA, so I appealed. That appeal got denied in November 2023. As of January 2024, I am awaiting to be scheduled for a second ALJ hearing.
And that has been my life for over four years now. Constant mental and/or physical pain from disabilities inflicted upon me as a child, while the government keeps telling me that I’m disabled, but not disabled enough for them.
And that’s how I am surviving. My life, on hold, awaiting for the government to deem me disabled enough by their standards to get awarded the disability that I paid into receive.
So…
When you see me advocate for trans kids, it’s because I know what it’s like to be a suicidal minor at the religious whims of your parent.
When you see me stand against Trump, it’s because I studied the damage he already inflicted upon our nation.
When you see me preach against Christian Nationalism, it’s because I know what it means to suffer under the hand of the Evangelical Church.
And that’s what survival means to me.
It’s too late to salvage the life I could have had. But it’s not too late to save the youth of our nation from suffering similar fates.
What MAGA tried to tear down, Millennials and Gen Z will cleanse with the fire of accountability and restore to unprecedented glory.
We have a choice to make, every one of us.
Do we let the weight of our cross destroy us and kill us, or do we craft that cross into a bridge that could not only save ourselves, but save those who follow behind?
We can let our dark passenger dictate our destiny or we can look that sum bitch right in the middle of its biddy little eyes, flip that fucker off, and proclaim “I’m still here, and the longer I’m here, the more time I have to stop you from infecting the next generation with your toxicity and your poison!”
And so I survive. Day by day. Spravato session by Spravato session. Therapy session by therapy session. Blog by blog.
And I hope that with this blog, others may find the tools they need to help them survive to their next day.
The more we survive, the more we fight. The more we fight, the more we change. Change within ourselves and within the world we have found ourselves in.
And, my friends, it’s time for a change.
Deets