"Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed." - G. K. Chesterton
In memory of my dad Danny/Balem, wherever you are, and my grandma Elvira/Seraphi, I hope you are in h*l but since I don't believe in h*l then that you may have learned from your mistakes for your next lifetime. I'm in disgust of your behavior but maybe at the end of this story I will understand you and forgive you.
Disclaimer: This is FICTION, not real, any coincidence is coincidental. Also, emotional abuse is just as vile as physical. Maybe even worse because there is no proof, the sweet words that come out of the predators mouth makes you question your sanity, and nobody believes that such a saint could be so manipulative. That's my other grandma too. She can talk you into 'cutting your nose despite your face' and you would do it joyfully because its for your own good! There's only so much injustice a person can take before they explode.
Will probably move to T later just to be safe but in my opinion any child over the age of eight is ready for reality. Knowledge is Power. The best Covert Abuse information currently for Kids is "Tangled (rapunzel)," "Coraline," and "Ever After (cinderella)" movies
Foreword
Let me tell you the story of the real Seraphi. She was born into a noble family; she became a target of negligence and abuse. She might have become another wan girl-victim of the patriarchy, but she was smart and strong and she had the survival instincts of a wildcat. Scratching through school, purring at kind strangers, slinking in the shadows and strutting in the light, the woman struggled into adulthood. She became a paragon of achievement and an expert at social grace. She was deemed a beauty, which impressed other women, but she chose to enter the professional world of men, where she defied the odds and won a modicum of professional prestige. These triumphs where not enough to give her a sense of her own reality and security, however, so her energies evolved increasingly into a lust for control and a hunger for power. She scanned the horizons for a king who would admire and protect her—a partner whom she could safely manage. When she found a likely candidate for the job, she married him. She felt she was safe, empowered, and in control. She crowned herself queen.
And then something awful happened. It seemed that fate had tricked her cruelly. Her man was no protector—he couldn't even protect himself against the larger world that she had learned to fear and revere. Indeed, her supposed king cowered like a frightened puppy in the face of danger. Horrified, the woman discovered that this whimpering cur was no king at all. The woman felt terrified, desperate, and alone. Her only make may have adored her, but there was no salvation in the adoration of a worm. (Seraphi Abrasax had not learned to experience the simple humanity of herself or others, so for her, men were either kings or worms, and she was either a queen or a victim.) She had survived and even thrived in the patriarchy's jaws, but she was growing older, weary, and impatient. She realized that she was pinned under a professional glass ceiling, like a precious but inarguably dead butterfly who is pinned under and entomologist's mounting slide. In this deteriorating state, how could she continue to feed her huger for professional success and personal gratification, without a championing mate by her side? She lusted for a mate who was worthy of her, and she hunted him with quiet desperation. None where deemed worthy.
After numerous attempts to find that champion and failing, she decided that the only way to have that champion was to make him. He would be someone who would be strong for her and never betray her because she made him. She was the best and from the best she created her son, her champion.
Balem was created only for her. His triumphs were her glory. His gifts were her gold. He was rewarded for his achievements with her glowing praise and encouragement. She inflated his life to match her dreams and he soared on the wings of her ambition. When he seemed too weary or faltered, she gave him a taste of her hunger so that he could feed on others and live on their life force, just as she was living on his.
True, there were moments when Balem grew uneasy, when he felt that his life was laid upon the altar of his mother's needs and was therefore unavailable to him. In these moments, the son felt flickers of resentment and anger and, eventually, hate. Of course, he was appalled as soon as he perceived his dark feelings, and he buried them under mountains of guilt and penance. But as the years passed, Balem held onto his anger long enough to struggle against his mother's embrace. He would journey afar and speak treasonous words of rebellion. When Seraphi learned of these betrayals, she raged in private, but to her son's face she smiled indulgently. Then, softly caressing the ego she had worked so hard to create and inflate, she called her son back to her side with the siren's song of ambition, suspicion, and arrogant elitism. Apart from her, he could not appease his over-blown hunger; only by her side could he ease his yearning for more.
As he grew, Balem tried in the gentlest way possible to gain a little independence. But when his mother's sugary tactics foiled his efforts, the former champion was transformed by his raged and frustration into a control-hungry abuser. On the receiving end of this ugly transformation was Seraphi, who was reduced by her son's fury into an epitome of the long-suffering though undeserving martyr. At the sight of her eloquent pain, Balem was wracked with remorse and self-recrimination, and he vowed never again to turn on the pathetic creature whose rescue was his very purpose in life. The son submitted a humble apology to his beloved mother, and then retreated into his original heroic position, mumbling to himself that he was lucky to have such an appreciative, deserving mother.
But just because Balem apologized did not mean that the duet immediately reverted to its original form. His mother, skilled at this particular dance, realized that a whole new ration of blood life could be sucked out of any remorseful champion who was attempting to apologize; as long as Seraphi refused to accept her son's apology, she could remain in the role of a righteous martyr whose suffering cold demand any price in return for her gift of absolution. So she always maintained her injured, unmollified sate for as long as possible.
In the course of this guilt game, Seraphi used many strategies to extract her son's life foruce, but her most effective tactic was to punish him with a siege of shunning. Anyone who has been subjected to the "silent treatment" knows the anguish that this tactic can induce. Balem's anguish is so immobilizing because he knows that nothing he can say or do will penetrate the wall of disdain he has unwittingly erected around his mother with his own reprehensible behavior. He feels that, short of separating himself from his beloved completely, he has no choice but to linger alone near the wall of disdain, desperately performing acts of penance in the faint hope of winning back her fake love. Balem bleeds out his life force into his penance, right up to the moment when he is about to abandon the whole notion of earning his mother's pardon. And then suddenly, just at the very last instant before he packs up his meager resources and leave, his pardon is handed down from his beloved mother's pinnacle of magnanimity, and he is permitted back into his mother's arms.
Seraphi called their profane relationship "love," and her son came to believe in her definition; that is, he came to see "love" as an alliance of inflation, manipulation, and mutual feeding. And so they lived, mother and son, in an unholy marriage where they danced their mesmerizing duet of mutual emotional embezzlement. Sometimes Balem's rebellions would last for years. And sometimes Seraphi would yearn for a depth of union with him that was unspeakable – unspeakable to him, to herself, or to anyone who venture near their duet.
The people are only too happy to encourage the champion's inflation so they can benefit further from his largess of life force—the more blood he pumps, the more they can reap the fruits of his power. The more ReGenX-E they could consume without having to look at the atrocities needed for its creation. The Queens champion would take care of all the distasteful tasks that where necessary.
If you empathize with and are enthralled with Balem as I am. Below are some self-help books that will help better than any professional.
Drama of the Gifted Child by Allice Miller
Unholy Hungers by Barbara Hort
***The [dysfunctional] Family: Diagnosis and Treatment by Donaldson-Pressman*** No blame and helping you break the cycle of covert abuse