A lot of the things for which I was blamed as being the problem-maker were needs. I had undiagnosed disabilities, including PTSD… ironically, you might say THEY are the reason *I* have had problems. My mother pushed me into therapy repeatedly as a child but it was under the pretense that I came pre-equipped with all these problems, with no accountability on her end. Even though one of my disabilities didn’t have a name yet (and wouldn’t until I was an adult), and the other was the elephant in the room everyone ignored… how was my needing extra TLC as a kid such a horrible thing?

Any time the therapist tried to talk to her about things that came up or invited her to come in and sit with me, my feelings and needs were used against me, to threaten me because I had a “big mouth.” I also got to hear that I was “ungrateful” – well, exactly how many times am I supposed to bend over backwards and say thank you? Should I lick the mud off your boots too? I learned to stop talking in therapy and became convinced it was useless until a few years ago, when I found someone around whom it was safe to talk.

When I told my husband about being blamed for the family’s problems, he got angry. He said, “How can you be to blame when you were the last one to come along? How can they blame you for problems that were already there before you were even born??”

Yep, I’m the youngest… and yet somehow, their perfect world got screwed up when I entered it? What, wait, seriously? Did they have a bridge to sell me too? Wow.

A light bulb went off in my head the night my husband said that, and then, I finally became angry over it too. Until then I stuffed my emotions every time they said it. It took decades for me to be able to reject that bull. I thank God my husband helped me find the voice to do so.

In reconnecting with old classmates and teachers over the years, they remember me as being a very different person than the one my parents and brother told me I was. They saw the good in me, and it has been healing to hear them say so.

It is wrong to blame a child for an entire family’s dysfunction, and to dismiss a child’s need to be a child. That’s evil and wrong, and it’s a terrible burden to put on an innocent soul.

Sarah,
That comment you got from work is horrible. Who says those kinds of things anyway? I used to hear those things and think that maybe they knew better, but now I think that healthy, mature people don’t go around saying things like that whether it’s true or not. So that got me thinking that maybe it wasn’t true, which led me to more examination… I’m so glad you’re seeing the truth about yourself!
Hugs, Christina