Triangulation

Triangulation

Psychology

Triangulation is a term most closely associated with the work of Murray Bowen called Family Theory. Bowen theorized that a two-person emotional system is unstable, in that under stress it forms itself into a three-person system or triangle.

My yelling in Starbucks spawned a year or so long grouping of sister and myself trying to figure out what we needed to do, to get our mother into therapy. We had tried before, and I failed that time too. 
I was working for DCF at the time, I was sitting out in the parking lot talking to my sister about how the family wanted me to talk to her about the idea. 
When I say the family, I mean the whole kit and caboodle: dad, brother, sister.
We were trying to figure out a way to make her go, but also sacrifice one of us to go; So I volunteered.

Calling her ended up with her refusing flat out and if I needed therapy so bad then I just needed to suck it up and go by myself.

Botched attempt and years later, 2019, we dragged our brother into the fold when our mother called each of us and started bitching about things he was doing. Instead of carrying on the facade, I told her to figure it out since she let him move back in after he left my house, told her it wasn't my issue and I hung up and called my sister.
Finally! We got our bother in the loop and we let him know what we figured out and knew about moms bullshit.

He agreed with what we ended up coming up with.
Triangulation. 
It's the only thing that made any sense, she was playing us all against the other and we were tried of it.
It started with: Mom gets pissed at one of us, she starts playing the victim to two out of the three and the third never hears the whole story because the others are now pissed off at the third because mom pulled her bullshit.
 The sad thing about this whole story is for years, after I volunteered for the family behest their pleading because they couldn't live with her being miserable, I stepped up to the plate and became the sacrifical black sheep and family asshole: I'm still being shit on after all these years.

I was taught to stick up for myself.

Then in 2020, she got lung cancer.
The best thing that could ever happen to her because now she was immune to the bad things that were creeping up. Us planning on having a family sit down and come to Jesus talk, and from a rumor I heard about her possibly getting fired.
The spotlight was now on her.
I know this will come off as callus; but you don't know her like I know her. You don't know the shit I've put up with, the mental anguish she put me thought and the nights of crying myself asleep wondering why she hated me so much.

This put a halt to our plan to confront her and then everything came crashing down. 

I thought she'd be humbled by getting fucking lung cancer, but it only made her more bitter and harsh.
Well, I attributed that to being a staunch Trump supporter also, along with many other thoughts I'm not willing to go into now. But the woman lost her ever loving mind in 2020.
First she lost her shit over my husband and I collectively fostering a kiddo; I was following her footsteps. 
Definitely wasn't, by the way, because from a normal parental range of 10 she's at a -10 for being a bad human.
She would bitch my sisters ear off about how I suck as a parent, how I shouldn't have had kids (shit I'd been telling her for years, because I never wanted children), how I was only wanting to see my little sister because we had our foster draughter, and so much other bullcrap I can't even remember it all because my trauma goldfish brain started to push that out.

The family made me make them masks, and after busting my ass to do them, I get told they don't believe covid was a real thing, it was a hoax because Trump said so and they refused to wear them.
Like, what the hell?
I'm sure they stocked up on toilet paper, bleach and Lysol too.
It was a shitty start to the year dealing with them and how they kept my little sister away from me, like I wasn't worth talking to.

I know too much and they don't want me to 'turn her against them.'

Over the years my dad and bother had lost their minds too, I don't recognize them nor do I like who they are.
They have so many conspiracy theories I start to have panic attacks when I'm left alone with either of them in fear of them cornering me. 
The last time my father started on his theory crap, I made it exactly five feet away before I started crying, stated I wanted a nose piercing and my husband drove me to get one.
It was physically painful to see him and listen to him, and know my dad was gone. I rather go on living without ever seeing them again, that's how bad it has gotten with my family.

It's a strange place, finding yourself stuck between caring and not. Between the few good memories and the absolute shit fest life had been for years.
By having something jar a memory to where you get lost long enough to be stunned when you show backup in reality, like being shoved into a pool and getting shocked by the cold.
Every holiday, every birthday, every plea to come by the house because I hadn't been by in a while (when no one made a move to come see me), every single time was a time I watched a reality show on how lack of mental health really hurts a group of people.
Mom has a masters degree, dad used to own a very sucessful business and was now downgraded to the Donut man, and then there's my brother.

He's on a complete different level that he deserves his own chapter at this point.
He's drugged out, in debt up to his eyeballs because mom let him get duped by a pyramid scheme, he's been enabled his entire life to the point where he still lives at home after a small (regrettable on my part) stint living with my husband, roommate and myself for less than a year, and the inevitable fallout because I was fucking up his hippy vibe because I asked him to clean up his nasty ass room.

Amongst...other things.

So, in summery. 

Hi, My name is Rheana Earnhardt.

My mother is a narcissist.

My family sacrificed me to the narcissist so they could live a better life, because when mom loves you; she really loves you.

She buys you vacations and nice things, promises you things that you absolutely love; only if you're on her side.

I sacrificed my peace of mind to save people who threw me to the wolf.

But when she hates you?

You end up like me; a social pariah to your family who put you there because no one else could stand up, to be talked about behind your back to outside family and friends who don't understand the family dynamic and sent them after you to gather in formation, you become paranoid wondering if people who are saying they support you, actually support you, insulted you for years, and was shunned.

 

The Songs that Move Us

  For as long as I could remember, I let music move me. I spend days going down musical rabbit holes in search for new jams and inspirations. I'll sit in my studio before clients come in jamming out to new music and sew.

Music has been there through my many highs and lows of growing up, to love and divorce.
I once spent an entire summer combing through my late Uncle Mikes vast collection of unmarked burned CD's, wrote down lyrics to research lyrics later so I could find out who sang what.
This was a summer where my whole life was changed and upturned. My grandfather had past away, then a week later Uncle Mike died. We also moved from Las Vegas to Pensacola in a whirlwind of boxes and crazy music choices. This helped me cope with a lot, an ending and a beginning. Dark and light battling it out in my deep dark little soul.
At this time I was enjoying my dark phase: Evanescence and Disturbed. 

I've had a Walkman where I taped my own mixes from radio edits from the hit radio station in Vegas. I'd had my diskman when Napster was prevalent and you had to pray no one picked up the damn landline during a download. 

I've been through all these things, the blooming of technology: my first boyfriend bought me a Zune where my first few downloads were a movie for my long ass flight from Canada back to Florida and then later I bought an iPod touch for my birthday since my ex husband really sucked at gift giving
Think $20 dish set from Walmart. 
We already had dishes.
That I bought.

Music, for everyone, holds something special. 
It's what binds us to emotion, to memories, to life.

I can go down the list of my favorite songs and tell you what part of life I was in, what I felt and why this was a song I would listen to on repeat. The memories vivid, beautiful in all their dirty glory. 
Sunshine and rainbows didn't describe my childhood, but I managed to grow and get through a lot of really dark times without giving myself fully to depression.
Music and writing were what saved my soul, it's how I learned I would be okay. It gave me an outlet for my emotions, belting out the lyrics in my car as I drove, crying or laughing, good or bad mood, music has been my constant companions. Never had I had someone known me quite as much as music.

This is the short Playlist of my life:

Pink- Family Portrait
Years of abuse at the hands of adults had caused me to go down a dark path of wanting to commit suicide on several occasions, so I no longer had to live in a constant state of fear and unease at being a failure. But also battling a deep sense of being someone someday, someone that would speak out and be a soldier for kids like me. 
Walking on eggshells, staying up late so I slept until noon because then I would only have a few hours less of fucking up. Hearing this song with my step sister made me realize I wasn't the only one out there being hurt.
Hearing this as an adult I will still belt it out in the garage and my car as a type of continual

Evanescence- Bring Me to Life
I found this song at the airport as we were leaving Las Vegas for the last time to move to Florida.
Sitting in McCarren Airport, CD freshly bought with a magazine because I saw it had a Disturbed song. I was full of angst.
I had gone through the worst year of my young life and everything had changed.
I saw death for the first time, I saw the inevitable fall of my step dad emotionally when we got the call that my Uncle Mike was found dead and I was the only one at home to hold this strong man as he cried in my arms. Bring me to Life was the theme song of my next year of high school, played on repeat as I sat at the front of the bus; new girl and all.

Lady A- I Run to You
'I run my life
Or is it runnin' me
Run from my past
I run too fast
Or too slow it seems
When lies become the truth
That's when I run to you'

The summer I met my ex husband.
This song was on repeat for me even before, I feel head over heel for that man. Young dumb and in love was definitely the title of that portion of my life. 

A Great Big World- Say Something
'And I will swallow my pride
You're the one that I love
And I'm saying goodbye
Say something, I'm giving up on you'

I'd drive to work early in the mornings singing this at the top of my lungs. This was in the middle of our two year marriage, right after we married and I found out he felt like I made him commit. That it was my fault for him getting called to duty for the military because I wanted to get married.
I still remember walking in the door of his mothers kitchen and receiving the news that he was going over seas two weeks after getting married.
Learning your husband low key hated you because you thought marrying him would make him love you more, is a sad realization that no, if he didn't like you before; marrying the man wasn't gunna change that.

Sam Smith- Stay with me
'Oh, won't you stay with me
'Cause you're all I need
This ain't love, it's clear to see
But darling, stay with me'

This song broke my soul after my divorce.
I would cry in the car anytime it came on the radio because it was gut wrenching how his voice portrayed so much emotion but it also painted a picture of my ex being alone. I know I wasn't his favorite person because of how he treated me, but I had found this broken man and I just could not keep pouring myself into a cup that refused to stay full. 
And even though I moved on, I still grieved for a year after.

Halsey-You should be sad
"I wanna start this out and say
I gotta get it off my chest (my chest)
Got no anger, got no malice
Just a little bit of regret (regret)"

Coming to terms with a hate I had for my ex and wondering why, for years after, he hurt me so much. What had I done to him, besides love him enough to hurt me so bad and still stay. I was never pretty enough, or skinny, I didn't have the same aesthetics as sexy women he wanted me to be like, I dressed in polka dots when he wanted me dressed as a 'slut'. Realizing that my ex probably wasn't all that bad because his mother latched her hateful nature onto him because she's just an asshole.
Still don't like her after eight years.
Still wish I would have sent her a glitter bomb.

The part about her not wanting babies with the source of her song, also rang true. I would have been stuck if I agreed to that.

Little Big Town- Better Man
'I know I'm probably better off on my own
Than loving a man who
Didn't know what he had when he had it
And I see the permanent damage you did to me'

It took a long time to love myself after back to back child abuse and domestic discourse with a verbally abusive spouse. I sat a lot stuck in my head and in a  rut, on whether or not I was actually loveable or if it was just me. If all these people treated me so bad, was it me really me? Or was I exuding a sort of pheromone that said, 'Hey, look at me, I'm weak."
It took until 2020 for me to stop apologizing to the people who hurt me, for standing up for myself and putting my emotional health first. 

Lana Del Ray- Summertime Sadness
'I got my red dress on tonight
Dancin' in the dark, in the pale moonlight
Done my hair up real big, beauty queen style
High heels off, I'm feelin' alive'

After months of struggling with right and wrong, self hate and a deep hate for my ex and what he was putting me thought emotionally; I wore my red dress that night. I went out to a dance social and looked beautiful in a dress I didn't feel too comfortable in, but I was stepping out of my comfort zone for the first time and saying 'fuck it, my happiness came first.'
And danced the night away with a man who later became my second husband.

John Legend- All of Me
'Cause all of me loves all of you
Love your curves and all your edges
All your perfect imperfections'

When Andrew came into my life, he made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. He never told me, but it was the small things he did or said; all while respecting that I was married. He knew my emotions and would ask me when he knew something was off; with him I could never hide anything that was wrong, still can't. He would ask me about my day and we would talk about our plans and dreams while sitting at the local colleges racket ball courts in between our ballroom/swing dance practices or at Sonic over a drink before parting and going our separate ways.
It was the way he took my hand to help me down the flight of stairs on Swing dance nights, and how I actually longed, each week, for the next time he took my hand going down those steps every Friday night.

Lady A- Compass
'You wanna give up cause it's dark
We're really not that far apart
So let your heart, sweetheart
Be your compass when you're lost
And you should follow it wherever it may go'

This was my theme song when I moved into my very own apartment, establishing a dominance over my ex husband, and letting him know the ball was in my court. It took a trip to Favor house, a domestic violence center, and one night with the family, to show everyone, I wasn't crazy and I had a legitiment excuse for wanting a divorce.
When my mother said, 'It's like you were a different person.' when referring to my behaviors with my ex, is when I knew I was done.
I was done.

We the Kings- We'll Be a Dream
'Do you remember the nights we
Stayed up, just laughing
Smiling for hours at anything?
Remember the nights we, Drove around crazy in love?'

When I told my now husband that I loved him, I was married. I told him I wished I would have met him sooner. This song was the start of that romance and both a unhappy ending, but a truly happy new beginning.

Passenger- Let her Go
'Well, you only need the light when it's burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go
Only know you've been high when you're feeling low
Only hate the road when you're missing home
Only know you love her when you let her go
And you let her go'

And Let Her Go was the end.
I spent a week once driving around the PSC campus looking for his mustang so I could set the gummy bears I bought him on his car, to let him know I still loved him. But given the social norm and the fact that my marriage was still crumbling (not a huge shocker), I felt that if I didn't show him I cared, then it would be over.
I knew he was my soulmate.
And after the last fight with my ex, a packing of his things and basically helping him load it up into his truck. 
We were done.
And since that last time, songs have powered everyday of my life.

So it's not surprising that I find my writing inspiration with music. I make playlists for the books I'm working on and have them saved on YouTube, but also write out the songs and put them under which chapter or inner story that it attaches too. 
If someone comes into my office and looks at my story board, I will have to answer a lot of questions. 

What are the songs that move you? What stories do you hold inside with your favorite songs?

Yelling in a Starbucks

‘I think moms putting us against each other.’ The whirlwind in my heard seemed to solidify to this one sentence and I was powerless against stopping it from making its presence known by way of yelling it across Starbucks. 

But there it was, a solid, stand alone sentence that held so much for my sister and I.

The meaning that stood behind it meant our mother, had been playing us all against each other, causing such a chaos within our family that it drove a wedge so far into each of our 

We had spent a couple of stupid years holding bitterness against each other, brought forth by our own mother. 

The other day my sister said it perfectly:

I find myself being bitter and jealous that she (our little sister) gets the best of mom. I had wished she had even shown me an ounce of that energy she bestows on her.

Maybe things would have been different. 

The truth is, Is that I don’t understand what changed. 

I know her ACEs score is high and I fear her not getting mental health help has caused her brain to simply decay. 

Because it was always bad; but not THIS bad. 

This ‘mom’ is not the mother of my childhood. I didn’t know a parent could harvest this much hate and resentment, and enough so to cause a disaster everywhere she went. 

After reading A Boy Called It…I understood more.

Dinner in my Car

The year is 2013, my marriage was failing, I was living in a camper in my parents backyard because I rather become homeless than actually live in their house. 

And we were gloriously close to having our cousin live with us due to a DCF issue and no other family members stepping up. 

It was February 4th 2013 and we sat down for dinner: I suggested steaks grilled at home with a cheesecake for dessert.

I’m a fairly simple creature who loves the same things back then, that I do today: a medium-rare steak, a good book, and people leaving me the F—k alone. 

My husband at the time was in Texas for pre-deployment training so we didn’t really talk. 

Which was purely beautiful. 

As bad as it sounds: I was enjoying not talking to him. Or being around him. Or having to fight off unwanted sexual advances.

I could literally go to bed at night and not have to fear sexual intercourse. 

Segue to my birthday.

The peace is shattered when my brother complains that his steak is too cooked for his liking to an extent that makes dad pissed off, which makes mom mad. So three people are yelling and screaming while I heft my plate and walk my happy ass out to my car and start eating in it. 

If you don’t see a connection yet; I have zero issues going and sitting in my car once I’m emotionally spent. 

I always bring a book. 

My sister followed shortly after, then our brother and then mother came out to inform up that she was thinking of divorcing dad.

I’m sitting there like: fucking do it already! It had been yacked about since day one, stop threating him and just do it.

Shit on a cracker, you underachiever. 

All of us spoke up and basically told her to just do it, that she had talked about it so much it was getting old. 

At this point in my life, I was beginning to see how truely messed up our family really was, but it wasn’t until years down the road then I really noticed the magnitude of the abuses. 

All the truth in my apartment 

There was another inter spousal fight between mom and dad to where mom called me a few minutes before getting to my apartment. 

The woman never shows up to where I’ve lived, just this night, randomly, seemed like a good night. 

I was divorced from my ex at the time and with my new boyfriend (my husband of 6 years now) when she comes in, I fear already half a bottle of wine deep and bringing another bottle. 

She was on the divorce train again, unhappy, drunk, overly truthful. I just wanted them to piss or get off the pit so I could stop hearing about their miserable lives. 

The normal for her: bitter, drunk, high on her ego.

Abuse Q&A

The past several years I have tried to be the bigger person, but this year I gave up. 

When I was younger I was told ‘what goes on in this house stays in this house’ and today I spill it.

I will not be quiet any more.

The ‘peace’ came crashing down when my parents touted their undying love for Trump, and caused political upending and fights during holidays. 

It got to the point where I hid fireball in the trunk and got drunk enough to deal with them. 

I knew this was a horrible coping mechanism but I couldn’t physically force myself to go to family functions without having a panic attack before hand then a complete meltdown once the car backed out of the drive. 

That was my turning point.

This was not okay.

Why did I stay the status quo?

Fear of retaliation. Fear of being ignored; like usual.

Fear of segregation.

Just plain, fear. 

I tried to last as long as I could for my little sister, my deepest fear was of losing her and her love. 

Why am I coming out now?

Because I don’t even have that to hold onto now. 

Me keeping quiet has made things worse than I could have possibly imagined and I can’t keep quiet any more.

I’m coming out about the abuse my mother dealt. 

When did the abuse start?

Domestic Violence was always present between my parents. 

So around 23 years.

My mother would hit my step dad, but I never saw him hurt her. She threw things and broke things; ex: two glass stove tops.

There is a picture frame coving a hole in the laundry room where one of them punched the wall. 

She is vindictive, manipulative and mean.

He admitted to me one day that he liked pissing her off.

I remember getting older and deciding the quickest way to get them to stop was to get in between them and turn their anger on me. 

It was always verbal, never psychical, but everything they said still hurts. 

I used to wish for physical pain over knowing my parents hated me. 

Both of my siblings would hide and cry in their rooms.

lnoeing this has me vigilant. 

I used to sit with my door cracked, waiting. 

There were fights 2-4 times a week.  

I was in fight or flight every single day.

I married the first  asshole I could just to get away, just to find myself in another abusive relationship.

What happened behind closed doors? 

I was verbally abused, attacked and degraded weekly. I was told I wasn’t smart enough, got punished for bad grades when my bad grades were because of memory issues stemming from years of child abuse. 

But no one connected the dots. 

Child abuse wasn’t really a frowned upon thing back then. 

Anytime I stood up for myself I got knocked down, told I was ungrateful, a spoiled brat, that my thoughts abs feelings meant nothing because my mother suffered worse abuse than I ever had. 

I was in college the day I got up the nerve to tell her I was moving out, I was done being their target child and she called me an ungrateful bitch and that she didn’t withstand having her grand father shove his fingers inside her pussy, for me to threaten her. 

She got in my face and was spitting mad; I was being punished for a trauma I didn’t commit. 

I was being forced to stay in that situation based off her own threats, that she would cancel my phone and car insurance the minute I walked out that door (that I couldn’t afford working for them and being in college full time).

they controlled my living arrangement, my income, my transportation…my peace….everything. 

I was depressed, suicidal, thought so low of myself that I eventually got out and moved to Alabama into my own DV hell by trying to escape the other. 

Because of them I didn’t know what a healthy relationship was or how it looked, but it wasn’t mine.

When did it get worse? 

Yearly.

It got even worse when Trump became president. 

Instead of normal conversations, everything funneled back to politics, even when I asked for a peaceful family gathering not involving arguments. 

Things began to get verbally violent, yelling matches, crying and screaming. 

Anytime I walked away, they would follow me and keep me in their clutches. They wouldn’t stop until I broke down and yelled back, then I needed to calm down and that I was over reacting. 

Gee, couldn’t I take a joke? 

Mind games. 

Two decades of graduating abuse has driven me crazy for years. I’ve thrown myself into studies about ACEs and the effect on the adult brain, I’ve read up on psychological studies of everything possible, on mental disorders and family dysfunction.

I study serial killers, child abuse cases and anything I can get my hands on literature wise.

This has consumed my entire life; trying to figure out one, not so simple thing.

Why is my family so fucked up?

Unchecked mental health. 

What now? 

My Past: Part II

Present day 2021:

I was going through a lot with my ex, my family and losing a lot of friends at this time, bare with me.


The Past 2016:

   So on top of her spending money, he got 'her word' that she wouldn't touch the money.
While I was in Pensacola, living in my parents backyard in a camper, she not only managed to berate me on Facebook with nasty messages, but she would be snarky to me in phone conversations. Then I came to visit one day and get my mail and some boxes from the house (another big blow out fight about my trust issues with his family and my stuff having to stay at the house instead of in a storage unit). Walked into their house to see several things of mine laying around their home, walk over to mine and find my boxes had been riffled through as well.
Boxes I had neatly packed and stacked.

The Bowl


  The one thing that bothered me was The Bowl.
This was the first object I had bought for my Hope Chest (which turned out to be a Hope WALL). It was plaster or ceramic, had lovely ivy vines all over it and it was normally a $45 bowl, but found it for $15; it was my treasure. That bowl had been sitting in the center of their coffee table. To me it seemed they had gone home goods shopping through my stuff and it pissed me off so bad because we had had several conversations about not going through my shit.
My shit, not yours, go buy your own.

   Several days later there is a package on my front door and I knew exactly what it was:
The Bowl.
When I had gotten home from his parents house, I laid into him. He then went back and reported to his family and then I received The Bowl and a nasty note from his brother stating that it was 'just a bowl.' I get that, but again, what no one got was that I packed everything away so they wouldn't go through it, we had a trust system.
So I was in the wrong.
I was blasted on Facebook and then my family got dragged into it defending me and then something else happened that I wasn't expected: I was being called a cheater.
I was stealing money.
I was an ungrateful bitch.

  The only thing I was at that time was heart broken.
Yeah I was having issues with him and was talking to him about it, but then he voiced everything back to them, stuff I thought private, and yeah, I even brought up us going to counseling and getting help for our marriage and when he refused, I mentioned divorce.
That's when everything hit the fan.

We had more arguments over Skype than good chats and I had given up. He never wanted to talk face to face about our problems when he was in the states, and he avoided it even more on Skype.

  So we fought over everything, and nothing, for nine long, excruciating months.

Present Day 2021:

Young me forgot to mention that during this time, I had learned my high school best friends turned spy for my ex and he told them to 'keep me busy'. 
He told my mom bullshit lies and they talked about me behind my back.

I started feeling awkward and managed to go some light hacking and got into facebook account and read all the messages  between my 'friends' and my mother. 
I was floored.

I had been having marital problems way before all this, but his deployment was when things got juicy.
I started understanding there was more to the story.