A few days ago, Bill Zeller, a 27-year-old graduate student at Princeton University, died. The cause: suicide. The reason: He was tormented due to being repeatedly raped as a child.
Zeller left a 4,000-word suicide note that eloquently explained the effect that the devastation had on his life. There is a link to it in this article:
Princeton student kills self over rape as child, on CBSNews.com.
Story suggested by a Lovefraud reader.
hurtnomore
I relate very much to your story. My spath father molested me ONCE. He was VERY drunk and I will NEVER forget it. I told NO ONE. My stepmother found an assertion to it within my diary and she responded to it and it was about how I needed help. BOy did I ever, but they didn’t provide it. No mention of it was made ever again to anyone except my son’s therapist in family counseling and now here. I’ve kept that secret for years. My spath daddy is also quite well off. Money was used in every capacity to control and manipulate. Later on in life and before I went NC (I’m 47 now, went NC at 45), he NEVER loaned me a dime (I asked for ten dollars once and NEVER asked again), but would use his monumental assets in the will to try to control me and say that I wasn’t getting SHIAT unless I “obeyed”. I asked to be cut out of the will. I WAS executor. Who knows if that was even the truth. My spathy sis and bro, when they found out spathydaddy was sick, swooped in rather quickly. They had me booted out of my mother’s will too, but I didn’t find out about that until after she had died. So instead of spathy bro and sis fucking me royally over again, I asked to be cut out of the will. This pissed Spathy daddy off, because he could no longer, A. Control me and B. he couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
That freed me in so many ways, but as sky says, I am VERY crippled emotionally from all of the abuse. The fact that I can sit here and type this out to you, is literally a miracle in that I’m alive at all.
Sky is also right about your college education and funding. PSL (Parent student loans), are the PRIORITY vs. student loans you’d otherwise get on your own without their income being the guiding “force” for financial aid. There really isn’t much THEY can do either, if you go NC, however, IF you do and something were to happen in that they refused to pay or you moved out of their home (in other words, you don’t go “home”for vacations, etc), I do believe you can acquire loans and grants on your own.
It is VERY difficult to heal from spathy parents when you are still in contact. Their mission in life is to control,destroy and disseminate. If that means through money, so be it as far as they’re concerned.
Ultimately, money did NOTHING for me in my spathy family. I could care absolutely LESS about it. Money can’t buy me love. And it’s something they had little of to give, but lots of money to control and to HIDE their abuse. They know what they’re doing and they know why. It’s up to you to discern how much you want to take of it. This is a very individual, very personal decision that only you can make for yourself, keeping in mind what’s best for you and, in my opinion, I think as long as you can manage to keep an emotional distance for now, and working with a therapist on these memories that are coming up, there is nothing I see inherently wrong with them footing the college bill so to speak.
If it helps, I hope you know that I validate what you’re saying. I don’t think anyone here would not. You’re in a really difficult place. I hope you keep posting and feel encouraged by those that support you here. What you’re dealing with is SO very difficult and I support you. Whatever you feel is best for you.
One piece of very good advice though, already suggested, but I’ll underscore it. Be VERY careful about whom you reveal your abuse too out of your father. Work on it with the therapist first. Sometimes, telling may be WORSE for you in your situation than not for now because you don’t know how people will react. I already knew, from having revealed my molestation by my stepfather for four years, that it was NOT safe to reveal when my spath daddy did it too.
Keep your chin up.
LL
LL, great post to hurtnomore.
It’s so difficult to have icewater in your veins. We can only fantasize about it. If we can get someone else, who has no EMOTIONAL investment in it, deal with our problems, it is easier. The emotions are our achilles heel.
hurtnomore,
LL’s post confirmed one very important thing for me. spaths behave in very unexpected ways. If you are not one, you will have a hard time predicting their bullshit. Do the best you can, try to be unemotional as this is a hindrance. otherwise keep reading here. it is going to help you understand how they think, and what to expect.
It sucks, having to deal with this crap, I can barely handle it myself, but in the end, it will help create a more resilient hurtnomore and innoculate you from the crap.
I don’t know you or your capacity for BS. Some of us cannot deal with it. Personally, I see that I overestimated my ability, it’s much more debilitating than I imagined. And furthermore, there are more of them than I imagined. Play it safe as much as you can.
Love,
Skylar.
Sky
Very good point. The bullshit. Part (but definitely not ALL) of the reason I cut contact with my spathdaddy was because of the bullshit. It got REALLY old to be having HIS money hanging over my head as a tool to manipulate me to keep my mouth shut, or to control me by keeping me in the fold for he and the rest of spath family to exploit. It didn’t bother me to cut ties anymore. Even with parents, they can only cause so much pain before it’s time to bail.
I also worried about their influence on my children. I know that sounds contradictory, given my relationship with exPOS, however, he didn’t have the contact, (nor did he care too) with my children that my family would have. They KNEW my fam was toxic as toxic could be. As sad as that is, my children have NO family to call their own. Their P is too toxic and the children want nothing to do with him and his family is too toxic as well.
So we’re a unit unto ourselves I guess.
Sad.
But necessary. I hope, at least for some of my children, that the bonds of generations of spath’s will stop.
LL
From being here at school, I’ve learned from other students that there are tons of people here that wouldn’t mind co-signing on student loans. I was told from one of my friends that if I go to the financial office here on campus and explain my situation I may get an increase in financial aid. She knows of a girl who is in a similar situation who went to the financial office and spoke to them. They gave her an increase on financial aid and a book scholarship. I do realize that I have to wait until my parents say they don’t want to pay anymore. That might not be for awhile because my mom will try every tactic to keep control. But I think I’m prepared but I’m worried about FAFSA and other things that require my dad’s information.
one_step_at_a_time
I’m not sure they bring you to the relationship to abuse you consciously. I think there is a short golden period where dwells this initial thought that MAYBE there is a woman who is “good enough” to be able to save them from the self abuse, the alcholism, the gambling and the lying. They are briefly looking for salvation but no woman is ever good enough so when the relationship is not magic enough to do that work and they are not able to change the pattern of destructive behaviour then you are to blame, so its OK to punish you by torturing you and ripping you off. You were supposed to fix them, inspire them to achieve blah blah and you FAILED.
Dear Denise,
I’ve been away for a vacation while you came on LF so haven’t had the opportunity yet to welcome you, but glad you are here. I agree completely with your above post from 6:13 a.m. Welcome!
Hurtnomore,
Darling, in the US your dad is NOT required to pay for your college, however, the loan and student aid take into consideration your parents’ incomes in deciding how much they will give you. If your father and mother refuse to assist you in college financially, there may not be anything you can do, but I do encourage you to go to your student aid office and explain the situation to them. There may be a way around it so that you can get more aid, however, you may also have to get a part or full time job and cut down on the number of hours you go to school in order to get financial independence from your parents.
As long as your parents are contributing to you financially they will maintain some forms of control, and try to continue the emotional control as well.
Your recovered memories of your father raping you physically and your mother knowing about it but keeping quiet may be correct, or they may not be entirely correct, memories are a difficult thing—repressed memories as well, and there is always danger in trying to recover these memories, but you DO KNOW for sure that your father is CONTROLLING and that he is NOT HEALTHY FOR YOU ***NOW**** and the past is gone into a murky abyss of memory that may or may not be actually correct, (memory is not like a video tape recorder where everything is filmed to be kept forever) but your relationship with your father and with your mother is NOT healthy NOW and that is what you must deal with TODAY. I had a biological father that raped me (but I was older) and an egg donor biological mother who also was not supportive of me, and I cut off contact with my biological father more than 40 years ago and with my biological mother a few years ago. I do not regret it at all.
You are young and starting out in life and to do so without help and support from your parents is difficult, but I sense that you are a very strong young woman and you have some good support here…I think you are also growing in your own healthy way in realizing that your parents are TOXIC and that you cannot trust them, and that they will attempt to use financial help as a method of control. It may take you longer to get through school without their help, but at the same time, I think you can succeed, though it takes a bit longer than just going straight through school in 4 years. You are not the first to need to do it, and won’t be the last but if you set your goals and work toward them, YOU WILL SUCCEED! Keep on learning about how psychopaths control others so you can protect yourself not only from the psychopaths in your family but the other ones you will meet along the roads of life in the future! God bless you! ((((Hugs))))
Beth V I am truly sorry about the terrible experience you had. In your case it was only your mother. In mine case both of my parents and my older brothers. It was like living inside a mad house. Endless lying, extreme arrogance, rage was instant on insignificant things, but when major things happened there was dead silence. When I cam across anyone from outside the immediate family and they expressed genuine emotions, I felt them, but family could not understand them and scoffed at them as if they were fake. The parents of those children showed interest in things I talked about but my parents did not think it is worth their while to listen to me. I felt so isolated in my own house. There was no one around to listen to me. It was so painful that I often contemplated suicide because of the sheer criminal negligence.
Welcome, Nadeem, I’m sorry that you have had a need to come here, but glad that since you had that need you found your way here.
There is a great deal of good information here in the archived articles, so I hope you will stay around and read and share with us.
This isn’t a site just for the people who have had romantic affairs with them, it is for anyone who has been wounded or injured by people with psychopathic traits! Again. Welcome!
Hi Nadeem,
welcome. many of us had P-parents so you are in good company! We will listen and we will empathize.