School is in Session -- Commodity Kidding Edition
The Financial Exploitation Matrix of the Dark Tetris Mother
Tetris song
Gather up, kids. Take you seats. Put away your Trapper Keepers. Class is now in session.
Today we will deliver up some fine toothed learnin’ all about how your in home psychopath provider will use any available opportunity to take your time, your money, all your emotional strength, and anything you enjoy.
Lesson #1 -- You are not your family’s charity. You are a commodity kid.
Anyone who tells you “charity begins at the home” might just be lying, especially if he/ she/ it is suggesting you fork over some hard earned cash or give up some free time, of which you are in constant short supply.
Instead, if you have at least one psychopath parent (or sibling), they probably see you as, what we refer to here at the Handbook, as a “Commodity Kid”. A Commodity Kid is the child who performs 90% of the emotional or physical labor[1].
Commodity Kids manage the parent’s moods and fix their faux meltdowns. Commodity Kids keep the peace, to end the wars they start. They are “useful” but never valued. They do most of the sorting out. Commodity Kids fix most problems that arise out of nowhere. They will arrange and organize things for everyone else. All at their own expense.
I know this because I am one. Or, at least, I was until I saw the light. Now I am going to tell the world all about it.
Source: PPFFK#7
What’s worse, though, is they make you think that helping them out is your own idea. Your family has you convinced they love you, and that this is how you think you want to repay that love.
Key Takeaway: If you find yourself solving all or even most of your family’s problems -- when they only create problems for you -- and especially if you hand over cash when they ask, forget everything you think you know and start over.
Lesson #2 -- The Art of Noise
Peter Gunn: The Art of Noise
The Hannibals intentionally make noise, to keep you disoriented. So much noise that you can’t hear your way out.
To maintain her image as the good mom, she needs a place to dump her problems, shame and failures. So the child becomes the repository for everything that goes wrong. In a Commodity Kid family, the child’s excellence is co-opted as the parent’s success, while the child’s struggles are treated as betrayals or weakness.
Most people in the outside world think I have great parents because of appearances and some successes here and there. They don’t see the noise. Many family members, folks from Hansford county or from Amarillo, or even people I met later, when asked, will say I have a great mom and a great family. They don’t see my parents accusing me of things that I never actually did, or that they were actually doing themselves.
There is another lesson. Projection is one of the key tactics of psychopaths, narcissists, cluster-F personalities, borderline humans, etc.. Whatever they would shame me for doing, is what they were actually doing.
Key Takeaway: If you want to know what a psychopath, etc. is up to, it is usually what they are accusing you of doing.
So, I ask Myself
Source: PFFK#7
Am I the problem? Am I a bad person? I have asked myself these two questions countless times. I’ve made mistakes, and will continue to[2], but now I know Hannibal was my biggest problem, and it is up to me to make certain I put a stop to her harvesting my emotions and my successes. No one else will stop her. That’s because, in families headed by psychopath moms, you will typically have the one Commodity Kid, while everyone else will have become weaponized and aligned against said Kid. So, in my case, it is at least 5-to-1 against me. Probably more when you add in spouses, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, chickens, etc.
They will try to hit you with the “respect and honor your mother” mantra.
So, do I respect my fat mommy-pig mother? Or, does it make me a bad person if I do not?
I have tremendous respect for most moms because they are good moms. However, this mantra is a tool that keeps Commodity Kids, some say Scapegoats (I say Escapegoats), in their assigned role, which often gets said goats labelled as ungrateful or problematic. If that doesn’t work, the goats might get labeled as irrational, or angry, or full of rage, or losing it -- all usually followed by some plea to get their head right and get on the right team.
Within the family, however, this is a status protection maneuver. They seek to make disrespect or dishonor the ultimate sin. It even says so in the Bible.
The Counterfeit Parent, the parasitic mom in particular, is ensured that his or her own behavior is never questioned or talked about. Ironically, the Commodity Kid is often the truth-teller but is shouted down with “respect your mother” mantra.
If you have been told to respect your parent who is actively harvesting your identity for their brand, you are being told to participate in your own liquidation.
Becoming Unkillable, which is the goal of this Handbook, means accepting the role of becoming your own driver, in their counterfeit story.
Stepping away from the counterfeit family, some say no contact, is it’s own souped-up supercharged engine. I was in a rigged game not in a role as a daughter.
Speaking of engines and cars, while I was so-called “respecting” my mom, she and my brother(?), Myron, were tracking me via OnStar and shut the vehicle down one day while the keys were inside, thereby locking me out. That event backfired on them, though. I called the OnStar people, who sent out a service truck and opened the doors with these cool little flat inflatable packets that you inflate, opening the door just enough to slide in a hook to pull the door handle.
I got some for myself, from Amazon
So, to the question, am I bad for not “respecting” my mom?
I say the question is wrong. Respect goes both ways and is earned. The real question is: Should I respect someone who has no respect for anything -- certainly not me -- except those things she can put her fat hands on and steal?
Also, I should point out that there is no commandment saying honor your kids, and they do not anyway. Not at all.
In addition, psychopath moms are a crime against nature and not really human. So, I don’t consider them “moms” at all; therefore, technically the question never arises and, as the lawyers say, is “moot”. Hmmm. I think I am going to call them Moot Moms.
Lesson #3 -- The Manufactured Crisis Loop
Let’s all create fake emergencies or angstomanias!
These can take several forms.
Pity the poor me. They may gaslight or suggest you made a promise to pay this or that or that you would take care of them in their older years. You are not obligated. They could have worked and prepared. Instead they would bleed you dry.
Exaggerated medical events or bills. This happens a lot. The number of times of heard stories of Hannibal needing an ambulance, fainting, passing out, falling down and breaking ribs (i.e., getting beat up, probably deservedly), coding in the ambulance, which then pulled over (yeah, right) to resuscitate her (maybe should have unsuscitated her). Or the numerous tooth surgeries. Or car accidents. Or a bad case of colitis (again, is there a good case?). Or falling through the ceiling.
That’s a true story, I think. Her friend, Floyd from Floydada told me. She was apparently up in the attic, stepped in between the ceiling joists and fell through the cheapo drywall.
I couldn’t stop laughing. I can imagine her legs protruding out of the ceiling dangling, furiously swinging, drywall dusk smoking through the air. It reminded me of that Lionel Ritchie song, “Dancing on the Ceiling“. I just change the words in my head to “Oh, what a feeling, When we’re falling through the Ceiling”.
Lionel Richie: Dancing On the Ceiling
Property disasters. Oh man, these are legendary and probably caused by Hannibal.
Examples include: needing new roofs, sewer back ups, new fences after a hail storm, new hot water heaters. A new microwave. Seriously, do microwaves ever break down? Occasionally, they would refer to that as mine, for some reason. Like I just own a microwave at #6 Accosted. That might be, though, seeing as how Hannibal has probably stolen everything that is actually mine -- including my cheerleading bloomers.
Then there are the carpets. Hannibal tried to destroy one of my Edward Fields collector carpets, and let me blame Myron. I reckon she spilled coffee on the carpet. Turns out, it was easy to clean.
She did once nail a carpet to the floor. It currently sits on the second floor of #6 Accosted, next to Fredo’s “office” space, i.e., wooden desk. Whenever I passed by said nailed down carpet, I would wonder what was underneath that needed to be hidden. I’m thinking blood stains.
Plumbing Problems A-plenty. Not to mention plumbing problems, usually backed up toilets but sometimes drains. That would happen pretty much every place Hannibal smoldered through, e.g., her own toilets, her sink drain, my Grandmother’s toilet, my sister’s(?) toilet. A few months after she visited me at home, back in like 2016 or something, the upstairs drains backed up, and this ungodly black mold came out. I tried to kill it with a combination of lye, bleach, Draino (which is lye and bleach), then vinegar, then baking soda and vinegar. Then I tried copper chloride, which I made from mixing copper sulfate and hydrochloric acid -- with a little boric acid thrown in for good measure. That worked for a few years. Then I had the plumbers change out the drains pipes in 2019. That worked.
Anyway, remember back to Devil With a Kickstand, where I told you about how Hannibal burned her mom’s vinyl record collection. Psychopaths like to destroy or break things, especially if they can act all Munchauseny about it and get some juicy victim points.
Key Takeaway: These typically happen when they feel their adult children are pulling away or gaining independence.
The crisis is created and is not a string of bad luck. They are a calculated strategic leash designed to drain their son or daughter’s resources so there is never surplus energy or capital to permanently escape fat mommy-pig’s orbit.
Lesson # 4 -- Hinged or Unhinged
They will try to poke you, over and over, to provoke a reaction so they can say you are crazy or unfit, allowing them in extreme cases to then assume control.
Then they will wait until you isolate yourself or work your self into exhaustion to say that you can not handle it.
Here is a real example of how this might happen. This was in maybe August 2021 -- though I may have the date wrong. I had started looking into Hannibal in late 2020 or earlier. As I mentioned in the Episode entitled “Is this the Way to Amarillo“, in 2020, I experienced a short sharp change in my family’s behavior, when it seemed everyone had turned on me, and when they isolated me from my Nieces -- whom I love. That is when the light went on, when I realized Hannibal is not who she says she is, and that something else far more sinister was going on.
So, I threw out everything I thought I knew, especially anything beginning with the phrase “Hannibal said . . .”, or “Fredo said . . .”.
By 2021, I was deep in research mode and even got a DNA test. I am telling you, as much as I didn’t want to get an Ancestry account and do that DNA test, there is a wealth of information there. Probably too much, as you end up going down some pretty deep rabbit-holes and not resurfacing for weeks.
Anyway, I was looking into all of them. They knew that. Fredo even said I was “snooping and spying on them”. I said that looking at public records — or my own DNA results — is not snooping.
Anyway, one day in or around August 2021, Fredo called me up asking my net worth, how many Birkin bags, etc., I had. I was like what that the hell? I said “What, are you watching Sex and the City now?” That shut him up . . . momentarily.
It was like he was going down a list or form -- e.g, (and I am only lightly exaggerating here) “so, what would you say is the value of your real property minus debt or other obligations?” Or, “what would you say your total net worth is?” Then he asked my about specific Hermes handbags and other items. And, if I were to list out the 10 most valuable items I owned, what would they be. The line of questioning really felt like he was reading from a form: the kind of form you need to fill out in order to file for a conservatorship.
So, I looked up the procedures for filing for a conservatorship. Sure enough, there is just such a form. What is scary, though, is how easy it is to do something like this. There are law firms specializing in estate law that advertise on their websites how easy it is to do.
My uncle did something to my Grandmother in 2022, without telling anyone, of course. This happened one month before they put her in a home. He then sold her house, along with 14 acres of land located on top of a nice aquifer, less than two weeks before she died.
There are two ways, generally, to get control of someone’s life and assets. One is “voluntary” using a Durable Power of Attorney. The other is “involuntary” by getting a conservatorship or guardianship through a judge. In my Grandmother’s case, it was voluntary, though I have to say her signature did not look very voluntary to me. Anyway, these documents have to be filed deed office to be effective, so I eventually found it. I am right on the dates. I would not, in case you’re asking, sign one of those things — unless it were to pre-empt someone else trying to go the involuntary route and therefore get there ahead of them.
As for conservatorship, they are pretty sinister. The laws vary by state, so depending on where you live it could be easy or less easy.
This is after they had put me in a family fog of engineered chaos. Often times, I was the Beast of the Burden. After being Hannibal’s emotional and financial pack mule, they were going to have a right over my entire life and keep me enslaved.
Sudden legal threats like guardianships or conservatorships are their goto fall-back plans, in case of emergency break-glass type of plans.
The Entitlement of the Parasite
The dark tetrad mom, like Hannibal does not view their son or daughter’s wealth as their wealth, instead that wealth belongs to the mom. Because Hannibal brought me into the world, she views my time and assets as her permanent property. Hannibal feels absolutely zero remorse or guilt for attempting to bleed me dry because, to a counterfeit human an adult child is simply an asset to be liquidated. They view everything the commodity kid has from relationships to finances, wardrobes (cheerleading bloomers) accolades, all of it belongs to the mom types like Hannibal. If you ask yourself “will there ever be enough?” The answer is no, not ever. Nope! You need to stop the drain, grieve the living and you may feel at times you are living in your own private Gitmo but is the only way to save yourself.
My therapist was correct, when I was worried about them and swirling in the family fog, when she said “First you have to put on your mask. And remove theirs” I had to learn, heal and remain far away from Camp Hannibal. You will only be OK when you first take care of yourself. You can’t go back, you can only go forward.
The Smear Campaign Weapon
Hannibal weaponized the rest of my immediate family, supplemented with the occasional aerial attacks by her flying monkey friends, to enforce the battle damage. If I tried to set a financial — or any other kind of — boundary, Hannibal would flip the script and play the victim. Oh how they love playing the victim. I had to release myself from the manufactured guilt.
As my therapist says “these people will do anything to have their own power, pleasure and privilege needs met”. These attempts aren’t a family emergency, they are a hostage situation.
If you are in this dynamic, stop providing your time, your income and resources to the bottomless pits of parents. I stopped all contact with my mom and it was the best yes I have given to myself in years. My nervous system healed, my TMJ went away and I became more healthy and productive. Do not communicate with them or give them any information at all. Any info you provide them, no matter how small, they will find a way to use against you. I was never a daughter to Hannibal, I was a storyline, support and income generating asset. It’s like she believed I owed her everything because she gave me life. Or because she’s a psychopath — in my completely First Amendment protected opinion, that is.
The parasitic deficit thereby created . . . Hannibal would leverage my guilt and treat any boundaries as a hurdle to be bypassed. I paid a debt I never owed and it was time to close the account forever.
[1] Mathematically, Commodity Kids provide way more than 100% of the labor, because the rest of Mr. or Ms. Kid’s family provides negative percents, so the math works that way.
[2] Seriously, though, I kid. I have never ever made a single mistake ever! That’s totally true. Usually I make multiple mistakes all at the same time.