Narc/Ambient Abuse: Your Self-Esteem takes a HIT and you may not know it

Growing up being raised by 2 covert narcissists/sociopaths has more lasting damaging effects than I realized.  Hindsight provides a lot of AHA moments, things I see now that were foggy or just completely blind to before.  Growing up, I wanted to be an actress, singer and dancer.  Practicing routines for drama class, dancing around the house, and constantly being mocked and laughed at by my parents, them calling me stupid all the time they watched me.  Abuse really does change you as a human being.  Abuse changes the outcome of who you were supposed to be.  You lose yourself in an abusers image of you.  You are mentally molded into what THEY think you are. 

Let me tell you a story of part of my life.  I was 27 years old, with a 3 year old daughter.  Her father, a sociopath and physical abuser, dumped me for a married woman because, in his words, "I acted like a man, I wouldn't cooperate, I couldn't be controlled". He also told me that no one would want me since I had a child, and that I was a piece of shit, and that I had a welfare mentality.  I didn't understand it, it didn't sound like that was the way I was.  I was shattered! I believed that that's how I was.  I went into a deep depression feeling unloved, unworthy, ugly and worthless. I felt like garbage, unwanted garbage.

After that I started forcing myself to do things to self improve, to make myself feel like I was worth something, to anyone.  I had no self worth to me.  I finished an associate degree in paralegal studies, and went on to work at an advertising agency, then left there to go work at a bank.  All of which had nothing to do with being a paralegal.  Why?  Because I was scared to death I couldn't do the job.  Again, a blow to my self-esteem.

Now working locally, close to home, I met a guy.  A great guy.  I was deeply attracted to him, and him to me.  He treated me like I mattered to him.  Like my opinion mattered, like my thoughts mattered.  He would introduce me to his friends and coworkers like I was important to him.  I truly could not handle it.  I was not used to being treated that way.  I knew I loved him and I knew he loved me.  But I did not feel worthy of his love.  The creeping brainwashing kept slipping into my mind, no one would want me because I have a child, I was worthless, ugly, I had a welfare mentality, I acted like a man, feeling unwanted.

So what did I do?  I broke up with him to go back to being abused by my daughters father, because I felt everything he said about me was right. I allowed the beliefs of someone who innately hated me to destroy what could have been the love of my life.

So now I see in hindsight how ambient abuse can destroy a victim from within.  You carry around all the nasty things they've said to you as firm subconscious beliefs all the time as regular operating procedure, and not even know it.  Like the snake in the garden of eden, they push you ambiently to do their bidding, and you wind up taking the hit and the blame.  They'll say, you did it to yourself.