Grandma Clare, my stepmother, is a narcissist. Over the past decade, I have set boundaries and distanced my family from her emotionally abusive behavior.

“It would be weird for the average person to invite their twenty-two-year-old granddaughter, who still lives at home with her father, mother, and younger sister, over for a birthday celebration while not inviting the rest of the family,” I acknowledged. “But unfortunately, it’s classic Grandma Clare behavior. She doesn’t typically consider other peoples’ feelings.”

“So, should I go,” Harper asked. “I’d like to see Grandma and Grandpa; it just feels strange going by myself.”

I encouraged my daughter to go to dinner and spend time with her Grandparents since she wanted to see them. Even though my stepmother was self-centered and manipulative, Harper’s had a decent relationship with them over the years, and I always fostered that for her sake. Harper was the first-born grandchild, so Clare was fond of her. Sadly, the novelty wore off when my second daughter, Abby, was born, and Clare has mostly ignored her.

When Harper came home from dinner, she had half a birthday cake.

“Grandma insisted I take the rest of the cake home,” Harper told us. “I told her no thank you a few times, but she pretty much forced me to take it.”

Harper filled me in on some updates about her cousins and said it was mostly an enjoyable time, with a handful of awkward silences. I smiled and told her that I was glad she enjoyed the dinner.

After Harper left the kitchen I looked at the half-cake sitting on the counter with a lump in my throat. Clare makes that cake for everyone, for every birthday. It was the cake I had for each of my birthdays throughout middle school and high school. And even though I am the one who opted to go low contact with that side of my family, looking at that cake brought me to tears.

It triggered a mix of emotions in me. I felt hurt and anger from being reminded of my tumultuous teenage years growing up without my own mother, who had passed away, and being raised by a stepmother who didn’t care much for me, to put it mildly. I also experienced resentment because I’d done a lot of work to heal and grow, putting boundaries in place to protect myself and my family, and it could all be shaken by something as absurd as a cake. I was surprised by grief, a sense of mourning the loss of my relationship with the family I grew up in.

My husband walked into the kitchen as I was about to leave, “Are you okay?”

I told him what was going on and said, “I don’t want Harper to see me upset, I’m glad she has a relationship with them. It just hurts to see that cake, the cake that was a part of the family that I used to be a part of, but I’m not anymore.”

Harper was coming back towards the kitchen and overheard us talking, and a few days later, she approached me. We talked about the cake and Grandma Clare.

“At first, I thought Grandma was just trying to be nice by having me take the cake home,” Harper said. “But after hearing you and Dad talk, I had a conversation with my friend Emma about it. You know Emma’s a psych major, right? She said it sounded like triangulation.” Harper went on to tell me she looked it up and read about how triangulation is used to play favorites and pit one person against another so that the manipulator feels a sense of control and supremacy.

“I think Grandma may have had me take the cake home on purpose to get to you,” she disclosed. “I know that sounds like a bit much, but I tried to tell her I didn’t want the cake, and she literally made me take it home.” Harper continued, “And then hearing how it did upset you made me think that may have been her intention. I know you don’t really talk to her anymore, so the only way she can bother you now is through other people. I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Harper, you have nothing to apologize for,” I reassured. “Her psychologically abusive behavior is the reason I opted for low contact all of those years ago. She tends to pull in her favored kids and grandkids close while snubbing the ones she doesn’t like as much. Sending you home with cake certainly could have been her way of showing me what I’m missing. Her using you to bring something home that would get a reaction out of me does sound like a triangulation tactic,” I admitted. “But it’s also a good reminder that we can engage with her if and when we want to, yet we do not have to succumb to her ploys of manipulation. Doing what we’re doing right now, communicating openly with each other, will hopefully shut down future attempts to influence us. Instead, we can dismiss them as her pitiful attempts to feel superior to others.”

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Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Sadie Montgomery

Sadie Montgomery was born and raised in the Midwestern United States, where she currently resides on the shore of Lake Superior with her husband and children. She is the award winning author of Atlas of Scars, her debut memoir on Complex Trauma. “I write to connect with survivors, advocate for the community, and raise awareness.”

www.sadiemontgomery.com/

I started going to therapy and taking antidepressants in my early twenties, continuing a variation of both over the next two decades. In my mid-forties, I was diagnosed with Complex PTSD and began working with a trauma-certified therapist. I started EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) therapy to treat my C-PTSD. While doing trauma therapy I had a breakthrough, I finally understood that the way my stepparents treated me was abusive. That discovery sent me reeling as I began questioning everything I thought I knew about my upbringing. I’d always struggled to be sure about myself, now knowing it was because I was groomed to believe that my perception of reality was flawed and not to be trusted. Acknowledging that I’d suffered from childhood abuse and that the caregivers who had raised me were abusive left me feeling disoriented and distraught. I spent months digesting what I’d uncovered and struggled to make it make sense.

Once I was able to accept that I was abused, I gradually began to tell others. I started by telling my husband, and all he could do was gently nod with a look that told me he had already known this was true. Next, I told my adult children, who also seemed to comprehend what took me most of my life to figure out. After my immediate family, I started sharing with a few close friends and my in-laws. The more people I told, the less doubt I had that it was merely fiction that I’d somehow made up. I began to believe in myself and my memories. I started to feel a sense of validation; I’d been abused; it was real, and it wasn’t my fault.

I was close with a cousin on my stepdad’s side of the family; we talked and spent time together. I told her my story and filled her in on what had happened. Her reaction was vastly different from the supportive responses I had been receiving. She was outraged that I was saying that I was abused and that my stepparents were the abusers even though we were raised with the same mistreatment.

“What if they find out you’re telling people,” Beth demanded. “They would be so hurt because they love you.”

I was speechless and let her vent, wanting to understand why this was so incomprehensible to her when she experienced the abuse as well.

“And you had a biological dad; if it was so bad with Uncle Duane, why didn’t you tell your dad and make him step up? You could have gone to live with him.”

Taken aback, I answered, “Because I was a kid. I didn’t have the tools to articulate that. I never thought it was an option. That’s like when people ask an abused spouse why they didn’t just leave their abuser.”

The rest of the conversation went along similarly, with me trying to tell my story and Beth dismissing my claims in favor of shaming me. I became more incensed over the next few days as I replayed our exchange in my mind. We had been close, and I thought I could trust her; instead, she went straight to victim-blaming. Beth witnessed the screaming and the cruelty, but she didn’t perceive it as abuse. Instead, she excused it by saying, ‘That’s just how they are,’ while admonishing me for calling it out as abuse instead of keeping the secret.

“Have you heard of secondary abuse,” my therapist asked during our session the following week after I explained my conversation with Beth.

She went on to explain that secondary abuse happens when a survivor speaks up or asks for help and instead is met with invalidation or blame that causes more harm. I suppose it made sense; I’d been in therapy off and on throughout most of my life, doing intense trauma therapy for the past couple of years, and I have made significant progress. I know that Beth had some sessions in the past, but nothing related to trauma and abuse. Beth experienced the same type of abuse and had been conditioned to tolerate and hide it, just like I had.

“I wonder if Beth just isn’t at a place in her life where she’s able to acknowledge it for what it truly is,” I said. “She’s always so positive and lets everything go, maybe too positive?”

“That’s called toxic positivity,” my therapist substantiated.

After the session, I considered that Beth may not have recognized that she was gaslighting and manipulating me with secondary abuse. She was coming from a place of submission and obedience to her abusive parents. Accepting my childhood abuse could have meant she’d have to acknowledge her childhood abuse, and that may have been beyond her limits. It was likely easier for her to keep it all compartmentalized, minimize the issues, and instead dispute my claims as the person rocking the carefully constructed toxic boat.

I resolved to allow Beth and anyone else to believe whatever they needed to believe; I now know my truth. I refuse to allow others to cause me harm because they cannot or will not heal their trauma. I’ve worked hard to heal my traumas, and I’m proud of how far I’ve come. I refuse to be influenced by those who are set on upholding abusers at the expense of survivors. I’ve put boundaries in place to protect myself and my family from those who would harm us, and I will apply those boundaries to anyone who attempts to perpetuate the damage. My commitment to speaking out is unwavering; I will continue to tell my story of survival in the hope that it could guide others who still struggle.

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Sadie Montgomery

Sadie Montgomery was born and raised in the Midwestern United States, where she currently resides on the shore of Lake Superior with her husband and children. She is the award winning author of Atlas of Scars, her debut memoir on Complex Trauma. “I write to connect with survivors, advocate for the community, and raise awareness.”

www.sadiemontgomery.com/