Please Explain

[steve]

Hello my friends:

I have a question that is in search of some answers. Some quick background. Dad is a N!

Fine, now we can continue.

Just kidding, I wish it was that simple.

I was on the path to a very successful career, which in ways that I do not wish to elaborate at this point in time, was sabotaged by dear old dad. At this point in my life, I am hanging on by a thread and have very little in my life with which to speak.

So my father and mother come to visit today. What joy. Anyways, we are visiting a sick friend and the conversations are flowing in several directions. Interesting enough, my father moves away from his sick friend (best friend) which he hasn't seen for weeks and comes and sits close to me. Why is beyond my knowledge because if anyone ever received negative vibes it should be my father. I try to project on him the feeling of stay away from me. So why would he even dream of coming close. I go as far as not to even have eye contact with him. Its almost like a dead stare.

Anyways. After a while he starts to fire off. This person did this and is making XXXX amount of dollars. This person is doing this and is making XXXX amount of dollars. They are all people in my former career. He keeps going. I just sit there and say, yes thats true, people can make that amount of money in those positions.

Needless to say, at this point I am feeling down. These are people doing what I should have been doing and I am starting to feel bad for lost opportunities. I see the failure that is my life and just start to recede.

So my question is: Why would he do this to me? He does not do this to others. He always puts out these successful people in front of me when he knows that I am struggling. Is this his idea of giving me the motivation to continue. Does he actually think that this is helpful. Help me understand.

If you don't get my drift. It would be like you were some professional athlete and then due to some accident you can no longer play. Your father then comes up to you and starts to list off these other athletes and all their accomplishments. It is quite cruel actually.

Please, if any of you have some insight share it with me. Perhaps I am being over-sensitive. If that is the case, then please tell me so. That I can work on, I think.

Anxiously waiting your replies,

Steve

[Hopalong]

Steve,
I'm sorry your Dad seems to be judging instead of supporting.
Without much more background, it's hard to understand the whole context.
But it's clear you're hurt and angry...

I don't know if he is in some clumsy insensitive way trying to "wake you up" because he does care...but that sounds pretty unlikely if you've got him pegged as a narcissist. If he's an N, then it just sounds like cruelty.

You sound pretty beaten down. This is a good place to tell your story.
Can you get more distance from your father? Do you live with or see him often?

Welcome, and write more when you'd like...fill us in.

Hopalong

[Plucky]

Hi Steve,
I cannot think of any excuses for your father.  He did this to hurt you.  You would know if he was so clueless that he didn't know the result.   You did kind of see it coming.  Next time he sits down next to you, go to the loo or get a cup of coffee.

It hurts.  But consider the source.  That sick man is trying to destroy his own flesh and blood.  How ill can you get?  There is something really wrong with him.    I have to say that I have seen the same behaviour in my own mother many times.  Right now, I have a hard time thinking of anything she can say to hurt my feelings.  I do not care what her sick little mind thinks.

Plucky

[nightsong]

Hey Steve,

Firstly, I am so sorry your father is doing this to you. His behaviour is NOT ok in any way. I know how hard t is to blank this kind of thing when it comes from a parent, but please try not to let it get to you too much. You sound like you are feeling quite low at the moment and this kind of behaviour from your dad is the last thing you need. Build a wall around yourself when you have to be with him, so his poisoned arrows can't get in and hurt you.

My partner had a successful but very stressful career. He worked in finance and earned more than his dad. Eventually he burnt out and was off work with long-term stress. Guess what? His father comes round to 'talk' to him. The talk consists of a rant about what a failure my partner was, how he had never done a 'real' job in his life. how he should have followed his father's advice etc etc. Afterwards my partner was the lowest I have ever seen him. I wanted to hurt his father so much.

A therapist later described my partner's dad as a sadist. And I think that's the bottom line. He was jealous and always had been, from the day my partner was born and dared to take away some of the attention his mother had previously lavished on his father. He was incapable of being the adult and the parent, and could only be the competitive sibling. Pathetic isn't it?

I dn't know if any of this relates to your relationship with your father, if not sorry, I hope it wasn't too irrelevant. It's just that I've seen the kind of damage that can be done here. You sound like a great guy Steve, worth so much more than this kind of sadistic bullying. Please believe in yourself.

With all good wishes, nightsong

[raven]

Hi Steve,

I'm new here, and I wanted to reply to your note because - it resonates.  From my own experience, and my limited knowledge on the topic, these kinds of parents (I have one) seem to have a gift for making you feel like shit.  Why is this so?  I think its because of alot of reasons, but mostly because its incredibly dehumanizing to be seen and understood as a thing; a machine of sorts: a money machine, a thinking machine (in my case); a charm machine...oh, you name it.  I remember my mother coming over to my apartment in the depths of the deepest and darkest depression of my life.  While I sat there, in this crappy one bedroom apartment, funciton well, well below what I'm capable of, unable to finish anything, alone, despaing - well, I could tell it just pissed her off.  There was no compassion, at all.  And it wasn't that she was oblivious either.  It was just that - the fact that I had feelings, and was actually indulging in them or whatever -- it made her mad.  At that point, when for the first time I EVER tried connecting with this woman on an emotional level - I just saw that it was and always would be utterly impossible.  I mean, it was rejection at its most blatant.  But enough about me! (hah)...if you don't mind me saying so, your father sounds like a bit of an asshole.  Why else would he say all those things that of COURSE are only going to make you feel badly?  What is the point?  To shame you into success?  These people deny their own humanity and they expect you to do likewise.  But if you don't want to become them, you hang on...because on some level you just don't buy the arrogance or agree with the cruelty.  The lie is that this hardness is strength - of course it isn't.  Or that having feeling is weak - which is to my mind the essence of being human...well, please excuse my riding roughshed over boundaries if I have.  That is not my intent, and it goes without saying I am interpreting your own message through the lens of my experience - hopefully that is constructive in some fashion only insofar as it offers another point of view, and hopefully the knowledge that you are NOT alone in struggling through the mind-warping cruelty of these damaged humans, and the daunting task of healing oneself.  I apologize for the long message.  It's not a habit, and probably bad form for a new person.  I only do so as a way of introduction.  I feel great empathy for you Steve, and wish you well.

[Hopalong]

The lie is that this hardness is strength - of course it isn't.  Or that having feeling is weak - which is to my mind the essence of being human...

Thank you, especially for this, Raven, and welcome!
Hope you'll be just as long-winded as you like!

Hopalong

[steve]

Hello again:

Your replies were awesome and confirmed plenty of my suspicions.

I do understand that he has a sick mind. It has been obvious to me for years. This whole issue of being successful so he can have bragging rights but not too successful that you overshadow him is so true. It has confused the hell out of me and has left me immobilized. It is so Jeckel and Hyde. I do not know which way to proceed. I seem to always sabotage myself when I get close to success. I guess my problem is that I analyze him through the prism of my own reality. This is clearly a mistake. It has cost me dearly.

On the other hand, I just can't seem to let go. Believe it or not I feel sorry for him. And this is why I try to do what would make him happy. The problem is that I can't let go. I do not know how to put up the wall.

I have so many more stories that it would make you scream if I repeated them. One time in front of family and friends he basically called me a loser in front of everybody at dinner. That was so unreal. I just sat there in disbelief. I guess the only reason no one came up to me and said anything afterwards is that I tend to be quite intelligent and it shows. People do know that he is wrong and thus just let things pass because of the obvious. Still, it hurts a lot.

So, tell me the secret. I mean I despise him on one hand and pity him on the other. This is not getting me anywhere. Help me construct the wall. I have heard this mentioned so many times but I just can't understand how to do it. Please tell me how you have constructed your walls.

Steve

[Hopalong]

Steve, hon...
You need to hie thee to a very good therapist and tell him or her what you just told us.

Then, in my humble opinion, you need physical distance and time without contacting your father.

It doesn't have to be a permanent wall...but I think it DOES have to be enough time (say, three months--I'm making that up out of the air) and enough distance (NO contact during that time) -- to help you break through the wall you DO have.

The trouble is, you've constructed your own high, thick wall around your own right to feel good.
That's the wall you need to take down.
Once you can touch again your own right to feel good, learning how to set new boundaries around NDad will come more naturally. (There are plenty of people who started at absolute scratch in learning how to get a healthy emotional detachment--doesn't mean they stop loving, means they stop being doormats--from the Ns in their lives. And YOU CAN TOO.)

Since you love and can't yet disconnect completely, don't. But do say (leave a letter if you can't manage the confrontation) -- I am taking 3 months to do important private work on myself, so I won't be in touch or talking or visiting. But I will be back, and we'll see if we can relate to each other in a better way then.

Something like that. I don't know (pray not) if you live with them, but if you do, that would be step one. Getting out and getting physical distance. Step 2 (and maybe simultanesouly)--is a supportive therapist.

That's how, imho.
Hopalong

[jordanspeeps]

steve,

that emotional wall folks are talking about is "indifference."  we are all looking to get to a place with our Ns where we don't have to get so "riled up" in their presence, or in their absence, either for that matter.  we should be able to hear their criticisms and critical innuendo yet not allow them to seep into our core being and cause harm.  like water off a duck's back, your ndad's inhumane words and actions will not soak through your exterior, once you develop your wall of indifference. you, too can do this, steve.  i am just beginning to employ this "emotional wall," over the last several months. it works and it's quite liberating, actually. whereas, i used to have this big stress/anxiety response whenever my mother's number showed up on the caller-id which would cause me to initially avoid her until i could 'pull myself together' to speak to her. but now, i have this whole indifference thing going and she's actually (appears to be, at least) losing interest in terrorizing me.  i just answer the phone (i can tell she's suprised i pick her up on the first ring now, she used to just leave vicious voicemails until i returned her calls), and have the conversation she called me to have.  i just listen and say nothing, she doesn't care, anyway.  when she's finished, i say, okay, and hang up.  now, at first, i would be upset for days later, trying to figure out what she was getting at in her conversations, convinced there was some great reason (a mind game) for whatever she chose to discuss with me.  but, as the calls have come fewer and further between, i spend less time fretting and there's more time to enjoy good things. the book, children of the self-absorbed, talks about creating an "emotional wall."

mine, personally, is large, igloo shaped, warm and cozy inside, sturdily-built with mirrored tiles covering it's outside.  (both for aesthetic beauty and for reflecting the many projections, key mind-game tool for the N, right back towards them.

good luck with your journey steve. 

welcome, raven, feel free to create a message all about you, so we can get to know you a little better.  it's good to do some of your journaling here online. 

tiff 

[daylilyasguest]

Hi Steve:

I think that the first step toward building a wall that stands is to realize that it needs cracks--kind of like the "weep holes" at the bottom of window frames.  (I love that term.) The wind has to blow through your wall or it will tumble.  

Secondly, I think you have to realize that the wall must have a door.  If you view the wall as some sort of impenetrable barrier between you and your parent (or anyone), you will defend your space vigorously and reflexively.  You'll always be ready to fight.  But if you recognize that people can pass through the wall and back out again--and that you control their access, for the most part--you won't be as defensive.  Remember, you're not building a wall so that you can hide behind it and throw the occasional rock at your enemy.

At this point, you might be wondering what value the wall has, if it is so easily breached.  Tremendous value, I think, because you have gathered everything about yourself that matters close to you.  You have said, "This is what I value, and this is what I hold dear about myself, and this is what you can't take from me."  And once you know that, you can never "un-know" it.  The value of the wall mostly lies in the work of erecting it.  After it's built, the wall becomes a memorial--a reminder of what you know, the losses you've suffered in the learning, and how precious your knowledge is to you.  The words of your journey are inscribed on it.  Somehow, once that happens, other people--even your parents--can't hurt you as much.

best,
daylily

[Hopalong]

Daylily,
That was stunning.

Thank you.

Hopalong

[Brigid]

Steve,
What finally pushed me to leave and not go back to my n father was the affect he and the relationship he and I had on my children.  He would become such a drunken bastard in their presence and I could no longer allow that.  My children lived in a home which was peaceful and for the most part happy (despite their father being an n--but he was not a nasty n, and we did not know about his deviant behavior), and for them to be subjected to the constant criticism, name-calling, bickering, and heavy drinking that took place in my parent's home, was unacceptable to me.  I also got more and more stressed out when in his presence, that I could not be the good mother that I normally was.

I fortunately lived about 350 miles away from them, so surprise visits were not possible.  I finally returned to visit when he was dying and too weak to be abusive.  A month later we returned for his funeral and I never cried or felt a moment of sadness at his passing.  It has been over 5 years since he died, and I still don't miss him for a second.

What I would say to you is that your future is dependent on disconnecting from this man who is hurting you.  I see the affect my ex n FIL has had on my xnh and the fact that they are still very much connected by working together and the fact that my xFIL supported him so actively throughout our divorce.  My xh perhaps could have turned out OK, if not for the constant presence of my very self-absorbed, demanding, drunken, exFIL in his life.  It takes strength, determination, and a very strong will to survive and be happy in order to walk away and live your life apart from the abusive parent.  In my case, my mother supported my father rather than me, so we were disconnected as well.  It is not easy, but I wish I had done it long before I finally did.  I wish you well.

Brigid 

[steve]

I think I get it.

Whatever he says and whatever he does is meaningless. I have been trying this out. It is not easy but I do sense that it is easier to deal with.

One thing that I have been careful of is not to be tricked. He can be charming at times and pleasant, but then he can turn on a dime. So no matter how he is acting or what he is saying, I will be totally INDIFFERENT. I like that word and I think it works.

One problem that I had before was that I would feel bad if I treated him poorly. But I am coming to the realization that it doesn't matter. It is all an act. No matter what you do they will find a way to make themselves feel good.

This part of it is hard. You do not know how sorry I feel for him at times. Even after everything he has done to me I still have pity for him. And these are the times that I strive to be his hero and these are the times that my life and self esteem get sucked down the drain.

It is nor black and white and I think that is why this is so difficult. Anyways, I will keep on working at it.

Steve

[Anastasia]

Unfortunately, I have some company coming over so have limited time and did not get to read others comments.  I only read your base letter, Steve.  But what you said in your first letter so reminds me of a similar situation I was once a party to observe.
I went with a girlfriend to her family's house.  They were having a card party and invited her.  She invited me to go along.
Well, from the minute we got there practically, her Aunt and other female relatives (we were in our mid-20's then) were all over her about her sister being married and WHEN was she (the big loser that they, obviously, saw her as) going to get married.  It was get a man, get married, have babies all night.
As an objective observer, I remember experiencing such sadness for her.  She was buying into their horsecrap and always feeling bad about herself because she wasn't married.
Now, let's not give her ANY credit whatsoever for working all day, having her own apartment and taking responsibility for herself or for going to college at night to finish her degree.  No...the only thing they harped at her all night about was how her older sister was married and when was she ever going to get married.
I felt horribly sad, depressed and damned angry about it by the time I left.  I felt they were just cruel to her, but she didn't see it that way.  She was buying into their message that something was wrong with her.  I, personally, saw it as controlling and demeaning.  I felt they felt powerful by putting her down.
Personally, I would have been delighted to see her tell them to shove it up their fannies and to mind their own friggin' business.  She took way too much abuse from these old biddies.  She bought into their crap.  And it made her feel weaker and less effective as a woman. 
Why do we stay in these situations at all with people who suck your strength away? 

[raven]

I have to say its almost eerie to be on this message board - I mean, Steve - you could be describing me!  Clearly, there are patterns at play here.  I too sabotage my own success; its like I REFUSE to give my mother the satisfaction, or something.  I don't know.  I mean, I guess I know that I've always been used as this kind of show horse for her own n gratification.  I used to think that my failure was about getting even; some passive-aggressive strategy motivated by anger.  But when I've really been honest with myself, I know it isn't about that.  I don't want to hurt this woman - I just don't want her cannibalizing ME.  And I feel really, really weird drawing that line.  And also, I know that deep down, I just don't feel I'm worth it.  I hate her admiration.  All I ever wanted was her love.  And so through some twisted association, I hate my own gifts because that's all I have ever been valued for, in her eyes.  The rest of me - heart, soul, spirit - she'd be more than happy to just -- get rid of.  I haven't figured out how to integrate all of this, but I'm working on it...