How and why I was trained to be overly giving.

 

My mom is a taker, by nature.

She was always stuck in super-selfish mode, because of an emptiness she couldn't heal from.

-Mostly because she was trained to need parental validation ... and then denied that validation.

It turned her into a perpetual vacuum of needs.

It helped create a deep dependence on MEN, and on the ultimate Male Father Figure called "God".

But abusive men aren't a viable source for social/emotional/spiritual needs. 
- While good men would fail at that too (in her case) ... but in different ways, and for better reasons.

---
In any event, ...

Neither a husband nor a GOD were ever really going to satisfy that emptiness.
---

As a partial remedy,
she conditioned her firstborn child (me) to be an endless supply to her endless need for:
 kindness, as an analgesic. 


Much of the active manipulation came in the form of pushing a ~narrative of identity~
where "selflessness", "unconditional love", and "long suffering" were true virtues; especially when offered to someone "over you" ... who is revered (the more revered, the better). 

She got those imbalanced ideas from Christianity; a primary root source of her dysfunctions.

So she raised me to think that my worth as a person
was conditional upon certain things ... that (in reality) my TRUE worth was NOT conditional upon. 

Among the things that would define my worth ... are those "virtues" (which really weren't virtues at all).

So she would say "oh, how I wish I could be as giving as you.
You're so unconditional, so selfless, so patient, so long-suffering.
I wish more people were like you.
I wish I could be more like you."

And I would think "yea. that would be a great world.".

So I grew up with those ideas in my head; very deeply seated into my psyche.
-That my greatest moral character ...
my most noble and wonderful self ...
would be as:
 an endless wellspring of selfless kindness to those in dire need; especially those who are too broken to give back. 

So the more DIRE the woman's need ... and the more SELFISH she is ... the more I would "SHINE!". 

So, naturally, I would only feel satisfied with a woman like that. Because:
that's how I'd "be my best possible self".

Yes. I sought a woman who was overly needy. But I foolishly imagined that such a woman could learn to be reciprocal. 
They can't.

 First, that degree of need ... causes a person to be so sensitive to 
criticism ... that even the gentlest weight upon their ego feel like a finger's touch against a severe sunburn.  
 
If they have to tell you more than once "that hurts!" ... they will start to feel literally "attacked"; because they TOLD YOU how much that hurts ... but you kept doing it anyways. 

But because your EXISTENCE is defined by whatever you provide for them, ... your pains are all irrelevant. You shouldn't burden them with complaints about their sharpened spurs against your flesh. 
 
You are the horse.
They are the rider.
The journey is theirs. 

REJOICE ... in being a utility for Special People; for it gives you a grand purpose! 
- which is what gives you worth. 

-According to the Special People. 

However, ...
they cannot respect someone who overly gives.

So the only kind of person they SEEK ... is also the exact sort of person they wouldn't be able to respect.

- Whereas the kind of person they can RESPECT ...
is not the kind of person that will give them much at all.
So then they STILL wouldn't be happy.

It's a catch-22. 

The only kind of relationship that is healthy and REAL ... 
is exactly what they don't want and wouldn't tolerate, because it would involve two-way-compassion and "equitable reciprocation". 
 
They can't feel compassion.
Faking it is exhausting. 
 And equality is neither very flattering (to them)
nor very rewarding (for them). 

But then they lose respect for anyone who lets them get away with ... what they'll insist on getting away with. 

So they go through life sabotaging themselves 
and blaming everyone else for it.
And sabotaging others
and blaming their victims for that too. 
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But I didn't understand any of that, until about 6 years ago. 
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It never occured to me that being self-less was a form of self-abuse.

It never occured to me that being an over-giver to an over-taker is the definition of abuse. And that I was COMPLICIT in my own abuse.

It never occured to me that everyone SHOULD have "conditions" that have to be met; 
healthy ~boundaries~ and social equality; 
so they are not being abused.

It never occured to me to consider the MEANING of the words.
- To notice that:
over-giving
to an over-taker
meant I was being "over taken", and "taken over";
conquered;
strip-mined as an expendable resource ... to people who IMAGINE themselves as decent and giving people ... based on how GREAT they are to ALLOW someone like me to even be in their lives; their story; their world.

Such people never see themselves as a figure in someone else's story.

YOU and ME are just characters in theirs.
So that's the only available premise for our worth (as far as they are concerned).

It's why very-religious people take it PERSONALLY if you leave their religion.
That's when they'll start notifying you how conditional their "love" and "respect" were (all along). 
You are just a character in their story.
Thus, your worth is defined by fulfilling 
your purpose
in their story. 

 It's like some part of their brain is simply not convinced that we are objectively, autonomously real. So they define us only in the context of what we provide to them, as a personal resource.


It never occured to me that such people can't actually love anyone at all. Because they can't see the PERSON.  

- So they behave exactly like some diehard capitalist deciding
(each new day) if another day of FRACKING is going to give a proper return vs their risks and costs.

That's what clinical Narcissists are like.
Their values are "transactional".
They can't mentally process life any other way.

That's why bibles make sense to them, when the entire OT AND NT portray us all as expendable slaves
to be "purchased",
and
whose entire WORTH must be defined by how much utility and praise we provide to a larger-than-life parent ...

who will throw us away like trash (eternal discard; or worse) if we don't live up to that potential as a SOURCE of those things;

- as people defined entirely by HIS narrative.

We are in his universe. He is not in ours.

"I brought you into this world,
so I can (am entitled) to take you out".

"You exist for my pleasure".

Same as my mom's thinking.
It's where she got those ideas from.

It's also where she learned to feel extra righteous as a MARTYR to every imaginary offense. 

She couldn't get through a week without someone's sword to throw herself upon, or cross to hang herself from.

"Look at what you just did to me.
Oh, how I ... an innocent .. suffer for the sins of others.".
 -ignoring how she herself planned and manipulated people into those situations.  
-and ignoring how no one ASKED her to martyr herself.
- and ignoring how she wasn't really making monumental sacrifices. In fact, she stood to gain the most. 
 (just like Jesus). 


That book and that culture really messed up her head.

That book and that religion convinced her that manipulating people counts as "prudence", martyring yourself is true virtue, and abuse counts as "love";

-which is why she made sure to find a proper fragile/toxic-masculine clinical Narcissist ... to marry, so he could brutally rule over us all "In God's name".

--while she used that sick book to jack around with my head, and that of my siblings.
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It wasn't until after I de-converted,
that I became able to understand and identify the self-abusing bullshit she conditioned me with, in order to strip-mine my soul.

She's a vampire.

I was trained to be a thrall.
----------------

Once I realized
"If our compassion does not include an equal portion for our self, ... then our compassion is incomplete."
-as the Buddhists teach...

that's when I realized I had to break up with my then-GF who was abusing me in the same ways.

I woke up to my true worth,
when I discovered the difference between love and abuse, and realized that I am worthy of ACTUAL love;
not the sick twisted narcissist-vs-supply that her religion calls love.

----
However, I still have some latent over-giver wiring in my head.

So I have to be very self-ware, and situationally aware.

I have make sure I don't accidentally foster (nor allow) unequal social relationships.
Because:
 Once we establish a difference for our social value relative to someone else's, ... people tend to reject renegotiating our worth.