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Ns, empathy and death of a close friend

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JustKathy:
LOL Bones. Yep, but at the same time, not at all surprising for an N.

BonesMS:

--- Quote from: JustKathy on December 19, 2012, 07:13:05 PM ---LOL Bones. Yep, but at the same time, not at all surprising for an N.

--- End quote ---

True!

Hopalong:
I was so stunned, 40 years ago, when I heard about the death of a friend (a peer,
someone I truly liked--who was the young wife of my mother's friend's son, and
had two young children). She was a sweet person. She had drowned.

It was the first time I'd experienced the death of a friend. I sat at the breakfast
table feeling shock. Mom said, "Oh well, it's probably for the best. She had a
drug problem, you know."

 :shock:

In hindsight...I know she couldnl't feel empathy and she actually wasn't trying
to be cruel. She was probably trying to tell me something that would make
me "feel better."

But...

 :shock:

Hops

JustKathy:

--- Quote ---Mom said, "Oh well, it's probably for the best. She had a drug problem, you know."
--- End quote ---

Yes! That's what I hear every time. I hear it from Co-Father as well. Not only a lack of empathy, but dismissing it as no big deal because the person somehow "had it coming."

Hopalong:
I never would have anticipated this at the time, because it took me decades to get
unreactive to my mother's Nism and lack of empathy. Full compassion only took
hold in her very last years, and in a way I am lucky she lived to 98, so I could get there.
(In another way, whew. My decade with her was the longest of my life.)

But, maybe because I'm getting long in the tooth, or just had so many years to
work on it...I actually got to a place where I really mean it that I am not angry
with her (her memory) for being who she was. I truly believe that some of her
Nism was hardwired, and the rest likely solidifed by trauma (her father).

I yearned for an explanation at the time, and was damaged and confused by her
deficits. And it was decades of pain (and therapy and ... church, I guess) before I could
grasp that when I judged her, or stayed angry, or experienced...OUTRAGE, I guess is
the best word...it did nothing. None of my reactions or feelings or needs changed
anything about it, because I actually don't think it was changeable.

Any more than weather. And...in other moments and ways, I saw her as in her
own reflexes, trying to love. I think she did try. I think she literally couldn't be
different. So she expressed love in being dutiful and busily involved. She took good
physical care of me, and was hugely dedicated to child education for which I'll
always be grateful.

All this was easy for me to get to (well, not easy) because she was never overtly
abusive. Neither verbally nor physically. And that made a heck of a difference.
Her damaging behavior was more unchecked N-supply addiction and a whole lotta
manipulation. But I don't even think she knew the meaning of "manipulative" nor
ever pondered it. It was a reflexive as all the rest of the signs of her nature.

I think what she may have also meant by that remark was partly a punitive thing
(she was raised with ideas of hellfire and brimstone, and to her generation, "drugs"
were frightening and shockingly "evil") -- but also perhaps she thought (not knowing
anything about addiction or treatment at all), that it was in a way a "mercy."

It is really, really hard to see the N and Co-N people in our lives as ... more than
that.

I hope nobody ever defines me by my worst aspects. But we're human, and
I sure am judgmental myself.

Work in progress,
Hops

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