HOW can I learn WHAT I need to learn? Clearly I don’t know whatever caused the mess I’m in – assuming my departing mate is correct about how awful I’ve been to him, without having any conversation with me about it, just giving an edict. As far as I can tell I’d have to have been smiling all the time, not showing negative emotions – let myself be subsumed into serving him?
He’d never let me talk about my needs, only tell me that I’m doing wrong, not satisfying him. All that tells me I could learn from is – what? He’s an inappropriate partner? I’m an awful person? I don’t know how I’m expressing myself? My unhappily genuine “resting bitch face” is the liability it feels like? It was a relationship, but you can’t MAKE a partner (or anyone) talk with you – how to understand? On what knowledge would I base decisions about what to learn? It’s a major boggle, not knowing what you don’t know, nor how to decipher clues – nor how you present yourself, how people see you. I’ve even been blatantly discriminated against because I’m perceived to be Jewish, and am not – so I know perceptions matter, I know that how one appears – both visually and emotionally – is critical, but I have NO idea how I come across, how others see me. They see me well and happily when I am doing/giving to/for them, giving gifts and doing favors, but how can I learn to be “just” me and find some companionship/group to be with? It’s a quandry – oh, and I’m a late-middle-aged straight, female, only child who didn’t grow up feeling loved; I felt always on the defensive – sadly, I expect those are factors in all this . . .

oh god. I just found out this is what’s going on with me at age 37. I had no idea they have been gaslighting me for 3-4 years. It destroyed my relationship and then my business as i gradually became so unable to focus that I couldn’t function on other peoples problems anymore.
and I live in a house I built near them, they still own the property and I’m fighting to get the title for my house at the lowest point of my life. As soon as i started telling everyone I wanted to in the family my strength began to return and crippling anxiety lessened. Found out my mom has been gaslighting me about family members and who they are most similar to in order to prevent me from seeing who she really is behind the facade. And who is who in the dysfunctional family roles.
So weird. I feel like I’m in a movie that never ends. But at least I don’t feel trapped anymore. She’s horribly sick with all of these autoimmune diseases and I keep telling her to stand up with me so we can solve this with honesty and fairness before they die and my brother rushes to cash in on my work. She tells me i’m the one who is mental, but its all a smokescreen. Even now that I’ve deconstructed all of it and explained to her there’s no point in continuing the game, all she has been able to say to me is that I was ‘smart’. Then tell me I need help for my ‘mental condition’. I fear that she’s gone, and i inadvertently went very low contact for 7-8 months last year and this sudden state of permanent denial of reality is the aftermath of that. She went to this therapist and i don’t think the lady knows she most likely has narcissistic personality disorder. The therapist interrogated me in front of her and didn’t know anything about me or the unique situation but knew the exact points that my mom has been repeating from her greatest hits bag of reasons why I don’t deserve to own my home. I explained to this woman that they say these things ad nauseum to pretend that they are “supporting” me and have been giving and generous time and time again. They have given me nothing but a life of self-doubt, fear, depression, guilt, shame, etc. I was naive to ever trust them. All of the things they pay a portion of have been to prop up a rental agreement that i only was able to get a copy of about 6 months ago. Their self-serving list of contributions only exists to protect them from me being able to easily take the title because of how long i’ve lived here and been the owner by intent. Then, exasperated, she said “do you have any idea how much money your mother has spent on therapy?”
I read that people who have this get worse if the therapist isn’t aware of it. She seems like she’s turned into my grandma. But that’s what she’s been trying to hide all these years. Planted little things in my head for a long time about my aunt and grandma being alike. My cousin and I talked and he confirmed its my mom that is like grandma. I’m pretty sad about this. Years ago she told me she endured the abuse and worked hard to not pass it on.
when you said “I was told that I lacked the competence to survive in the world, when their game was to keep me dependent on them, so that they could exploit me for as long as they saw fit, and to discard me when I no longer served their interests” i gasped in horror, because that is what it appears happened to me. They told me they would die someday and have withheld information to keep me in the dark and paying them “rent” on something i should own outright by now. It’s bled me dry and i was about to self-file for chapter 7. Then the eviction theater that never ends started up again. 60day notices came with a second page attached…basically a list of demands about me and how often i need to come check in at their house and inform them of my progress in meeting these demands. They hired some woman to “serve” me and i took their envelopes and threw them down direct return to sender on their floor. They went silent and wouldn’t say if they filed or not. Isolated and alienated from all my brothers and their families and told I can’t be helped because they would have to help everyone the same way. Said they were trying to prepare me for the real world. They made a lot of money off of this property by tricking the old man they bought it from, their next door neighbor. He died and they mocked him and pretended he was the crazy unstable one till his death. Then tricked their daughter into signing a rental agreement (they took out 100k on my house and i agreed to pay off that 15 year loan then get another 15 year loan for the remaining 150k. all for just one acre of land and the privelege of paying them rent while we built the house. over 80k just to rent something that would have been torn down and work on it over 7 yrs. 100% our money all the materials and labor. Monsters. Absolute monsters.
Fighting every day to keep them from selling it. Not interested in ever giving them another nickel after i discovered what they were trying to do with this rental agreement. And now discovering i was used as a useful idiot to build them a free house then pay for it twice until i am one day ejected. Dad says mom keeps watching it rise on zillow and its over 400k. They own like 7 other properties mostly rentals. Sell one of those! ffs
I always thought i was barely able to take care of myself let alone handle having a child. Doing anything other than this to a child, just loving a child for who they are and not inflicting this upon them seems so easy to me now. Never thought that this is what they were offering when they offered us a chance to own a home. Didnt even know people like this existed.

Er… what does that mean??? :/

God be with you!!! He will come home and be new again praying for you

I think one of the ways that psychotherapy can improve as a field is to provide long term clients with more skills about termination and learning how to let go, with education, information, and practicing. I feel that was a weak point in my own therapy, and that I am paying for that now in feelings and emotions that are rather difficult to navigate by myself. I did have a gifted trauma therapist, but the ending was not therapeutic in any way. The rest of the therapy, however, was truly life transforming, and a precious gift.