My Childhood Nightmares Were Real

My grandmother's truth healed me, exposing her need for control.

A few days passed before my grandmother started calling me regularly again. She always did when cracks in the family showed up.

This is part 3 of my story. If you have missed the first two parts, check the following links:

Part 1: The Day When I Finally Had Enough

Part 2: Saying No To My Mother One Last Time

In calmer times, it was always me who called her. I regarded it as my duty and never really cared about the one-sidedness of things.

I thought she wanted to fix things. After all, my mother was her first daughter, and she knew her much better than I probably ever will.

Doubting my childhood memories

My grandmother avoided asking me about what happened between my mother and me.

Maybe she knew... maybe she didn’t.

Instead, she started asking me things about my childhood. She wanted to know why my parents asked her not to tell me any fairy tales.

I was confused about this. But she told me that I had nightmares back then and wanted to know where these were coming from.

Memories came back instantly to me as if I switched on the TV.

As a child, my parents dropped me off at my other grandparents’ when they went on holiday. They wanted their freedom when they traveled.

My other grandparents were deeply religious people and belonged to a somewhat hard-core sect. They believe that the devil was chasing my parents while they were on holiday. So they prayed the whole day for God to save them.

This made no sense to me. Nevertheless, I could not shake it off and had nightmares that I partly remember even today.

But there was more to my grandparents. I never really liked them and was scared of them. Nevertheless, my parents kept dropping me off there whenever they craved free time.

One day, these grandparents visited my grandmother while I was staying with them. When they went home, I did not want to go with them and begged my grandmother to stay with me.

It was a very traumatic experience, which I doubted was real for a very long time.

The simple reason...

My mother always kept telling me how much I liked these grandparents and that I enjoyed being with them.

But that was not my first experience with gaslighting.

The moment my grandmother told me her version of the story, without ever knowing mine, I began to understand that my memories were real and not just childhood illusions.

Things got wilder from there...

As a baby, I had an almost fatal accident and luckily survived a skull base fracture. I fell out of my baby bouncer, which was placed on the table, and hit the table edge.

„You were too greedy and fidgeted non-stop“, was my mother’s version of the story. She made the accident my fault.

She told me this story many times in my childhood as if she wanted to hammer this truth into me. I always felt wrong and inconsistent.

My father refused to give me an answer. Instead, he joked around that they spoiled me too much in the hospital and that he had to give me cold showers to get me off the diapers again.

I wanted to know my grandmother’s version. She told me that my mother arrived home several hours after the accident. They brought me to the hospital as I didn’t stop crying.

I will never know what really happened that day, as my first fragmented memories from childhood indicate that it wasn’t an accident...

But at least I now know why my mother’s story felt inconsistent.

The body keeps the score

The phone calls with my grandmother made me question my whole childhood more and more.

So many unpleasant childhood memories began popping up out of nowhere. I decided to look at them and not push them away yet another time.

For far too long, I doubted my own memories and refused to admit that my mother was gaslighting me.

I wish it had been a simple realization, something like a sudden insight.

But it was more than that. It was pure horror…

One day, it made me so dizzy that I almost collapsed.

Another day, old memories triggered levels of anxiety in me that were so uncomfortable that I just wanted to get out of my body.

Learning about my grandmother’s childhood

My grandmother became an orphan when she lost her parents at the age of five during World War II. She lived in different places and, as a German, had to flee from the Russians.

She learned that as a refugee, she had to work hard to be accepted. And even then, most people treated her badly.

It was the times that made her bitter.

My grandfather helped her out of misery, they married, and they stayed loyal to each other. But that was it.

She never really experienced love and warmth.

And that alone explains a lot about my mother, who, as her daughter, also never experienced love and belonging.

Pulling the strings

Weeks went on with daily calls from my grandmother.

She switched more and more to tell me about all her pain. I listened and hoped it gave her some relief.

But it didn’t.

More and more, I got a taste of how bitter my grandmother was inside.

She told me so many stories about my mother that I did not want to hear. Yes, I stopped having contact with my mother. But I was not interested in stories that put her in a bad light.

I just wondered why my grandmother was telling me these stories. After all, it was her daughter.

At one point, it became unbearable, and I asked her to stop.

She did. But after a while, she began telling me bad stories about my cousin. Same bitterness, just directed at a different person.

And the crazy thing was, I had seen this pattern before.

My great-grandmother did the same thing. She spread horrible stories throughout the family and set the relatives against each other. This led to everyone more or less hating each other.

She did that to be in control and pull the strings whenever needed. This way, she made sure no one could escape her.

In other words, she would never be completely alone.

This pattern made pretty much sense for my grandmother, too.

Trying to find a soft way out

I told my grandmother that I was not feeling good about all these stories and that it was basically too much for me.

My grandmother knew how much stress all the re-awakened childhood memories had given me.

Not having a job also did not make things any easier.

I didn’t expect empathy from her, but I hoped she would at least understand me on a rational level.

Maybe she understood me better than I was aware of and just didn’t care. She wanted control; I wanted some air to breathe and distance.

She couldn’t handle it and got mad.

A few days later was my birthday. She took the obligatory call as an opportunity to release all her anger.

It was the day I least expected this.

She knew how traumatic some of my former birthdays had been. I let her get her steam off and didn’t offer any resistance.

Later that day, my aunt called me.

She was irritated about what I did to my grandmother. It was all lies. I couldn’t explain that to my aunt. She would never believe me that her mother played such games.

I finally got a taste of what stories my grandmother was spreading about me.

But even more painful was to experience how the dynamics of the family system worked. I knew there was no way for me to change it or get my truth heard and understood.

There was only one option left.

I decided to cut my whole family off to find out who I really was.

My birthday became the day when my healing journey started.

And that, my dear readers, will be the subject for the next chapters.

---