Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Histrionic PD
gratitude28:
PR -
One more note I can add from the addiciton side as it pertained to me. Your D DOES want help. She wants someone to fix what is wrong with her and make her whole and not addicted. But you cannot do that for her. So she is angry that no one can fix her, but unwilling to make the change herself. She needs to get to that place herself to shed the addiction.
The father issues could have even been emotional games. Ns love to hurt others, as you well know. But, ultimately, your daughter can live with it and move on and be responsible and ADULT or she can be bratty and awful as she is being. No one has a perfect life. We all need to make our lives the way we want them to be. It is disappointing that she does not think more of her children - that is what made all the difference for me.
xxoo
Meh:
--- Quote from: SilverLining on June 27, 2012, 11:29:55 AM ---The last time I watched a movie with my father, I was treated to a mini lecture on what makes a "good" movie. He doesn't qualify this as his opinion, or personal preference. He is actually tapping into objective truth. And since he knows the truth, there is no room for reciprocity. It's like listening to a college professor do a lecture. This is pretty typical of my interactions with him. Since I know nothing I say even registers, I just shut up and watch the clock.
I did a search yesterday on temporoparietal junction. I think they are really onto something with this research. They are identifying parts of the brain responsible for self awareness, distinction between self and others, self definition, theory of other's minds. This hits on many of the issues I've identified in my FOO. My father is 78 years old and still seems to be caught in the childhood project of defining himself, generally in opposition to others. He's too stuck at this level to ever have a real reciprocal interaction with an other adult.
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I wrote something earlier and then my computer stalled out so second rendition:
I concur. Lets see oh yes, well my father did insist that I should take on his opinion and perspective if I didn't I was verbally badgered by him. "My way or no way"
Meh:
--- Quote from: SilverLining on June 25, 2012, 11:36:56 AM ---
And the interpretations of the N's make figuring out the cause (of their problems and our own) even more challenging. My mother has had plenty to say about the supposedly dreadful conditions and abuses she endured in her own FOO. So it's pretty clear she doesn't believe her own nature is the cause of her problems.
But in my forties I started to question these stories, which had become something of a family mythology. Her assessment of her own situation is part of her personality problem. When she's "up" she'll have at least a few positive comments about people. But then she cycles to a more negative frame of mind, and everybody outside her gets turned into a villain.
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When I read what you wrote a few days ago it lodged in my mind. I've wondered about this more than once. How did the N become an N. My mother doesn't have a clear description of her childhood problems, I mean I know there was alcoholism and maybe that is enough to make somebody the way that she is. I do wonder if it wasn't her parents, although it could have been that formed her psyche or whatever into a Narcissist.
It's been a life long headache and as immature as it is I'm still hoping that instant karma is gonna get em.
Maybe it's not the extremeness of the abuse that causes Narcissism in children maybe it's the mental configuration of the parent that screws up the mental config of the child. Because I can not find anything glaringly horrendous that would explain how empty my mother is. She has been a curse.
Sometimes I think I should be an adult that isn't impacted by any of this---and I think of this fake personality for myself and I try to step into it. A personality that has transcended any FOO stuff and is constantly on-the-ball, like over competent. ("I'm mature, I'm competent, nothing gets to me, I'm impermeable") but it's just fake. Sigh. Somehow when it comes to FOO stuff I'm still emotionally sensitive to it.
SilverLining:
--- Quote from: gratitude28 on June 27, 2012, 07:36:20 PM ---Silver- couldn't help but laugh at your dad's expertise. Lord, they are pathetically funny at times. Interesting... the self and others link. So much of what NM "assigns" me are her feelings. One day I was looking at a picture of my sister (we were all together) and she was wearing a dress that was pretty, but didn't completely flatter her. My instinct would have been to say that the dress was a nice color (it was). M turned around and snarled, "And don't you even say your sister looks heavy in that dress." Uhhhh... her thoughts and she puts them on me???? Then I look like the bad guy even though I had no intention of saying that. They have no boundary of self at all.
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It always amazes me how the members here have such similar experiences. The assigning of her own feelings to others is one of my mother's favorite methods. It turns the family unit into a sad tangle of screwed up relationships, because the N insists on being in the middle of everything and playing everybody off against each other. I'm guessing next your mother goes and reports to your sister YOUR opinion of the dress? That's the sort of game going on in my FOO.
SilverLining:
--- Quote from: Mild Salsa on June 28, 2012, 10:38:21 AM --- My mother doesn't have a clear description of her childhood problems, I mean I know there was alcoholism and maybe that is enough to make somebody the way that she is. I do wonder if it wasn't her parents, although it could have been that formed her psyche or whatever into a Narcissist.
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Same here. During my early years, I got a good dose of stories about the general problems both of my parents experienced, but never any clear descriptions or specific events. My mother likes to present a picture of material and financial poverty. But I've seen where she lived and know they were in relatively good shape for the era.
These stories then become rationalizations for how they treat their own offspring. My mother always considers her own material needs before others. But that's because she was so badly deprived growing up.
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