Character Development - Week One

Midwestern family, mother is controlling and distant, father mostly absent mentally and physically at times.

Childhood mostly spent with mother present, yet not really interacting w/child. Father at home after work but not really participating in any of the childrearing except to punish. Love was not given, rules never explained.

Mother stays in her bedroom most days, child left to take care of themself.

Emotional wound:
Forgotten. Alone. She woke one time in her crib. No one answered her cries. For long moments. At least an hour? 1/2 day? all day?,
Another time she wakes. She is older, in a baby bed, not a crib. She cries for mother. No answer. She gets out of bed, no way to get out of her room. Is the door locked?

Feeling like no one cared for her as a child, spilling over to adult life where friendships are hard to make and keep, a romantic relationship seems impossible, And as a result she feels alone and unloved.

Lies clinging to:
No one loves me
No one cares for me
So why should I care for anyone else?
My parents didn’t care for me - why should anyone else.

Behaviors:
Lies about past. Makes up new back story with every new person she meets.
Leave friendship - romantic relationships - before they get serious
Controls those she works with - when in control, she can predict outcomes.

Triggers:
Making her act a certain way if she doesn’t feel like it
Telling her she is stupid, or dumb, or lower class; they make her doubt her power


All her life she feels like she has been forgotten. Shoved aside, not worth much. No one is there to help when she needs help.

So, she finds help when help is needed, but when that help is done being useful, she drops that person, that job, that love.

Father is standoffish, he was never shown how to be a father. He is not allowed to interact with a child by the mother.

Mother thinks she is the only one that can care for the child correctly. Her reading of all the childcare books makes her an expert, she thinks.