Asking again, for any who choose to share...

[GAP]

Hops,

I enjoyed your explanation of what it feels like to understand narcissism.  You cannot underestimate the power of understanding narcissism and how it not only helps you in your relationship with the narcissist but also with others.  Both my mother and my husband made me feel as if I was responsible for their behavior.  Therefore, I felt I had the power to make everyone behave in certain ways.  Realizing I have nothing to do with other people's problems or behavior is so freeing.  Not accepting responsibility for people's bad behavior is powerful...raising a child to have no emotional boundaries is one of the legacies of narcissism.

Gap

[reallyME]

If I may say so, it's not love...it's more than attachment...it is Stockholm syndrome, fuelled by the abuser, usually.

[Jynna]

For me, I've to re-learn what love is.  My parents gave me a twisted example of love.  With them, love is something you earn by "being good" (i.e. meeting their needs).  There is no room for making mistakes, learning from those mistakes.  If I messed up, then I didn't deserve their love.  Yet, as I type this now, I see that for them it was just the opposite.  I was obligated to love them.  I HAD to love them no matter what.  This meant saying nice things about them in front of people. (This was big for them.), oh and many other things that were just illusion and not honest love. 

They didn't need to do anything to earn my love, but I had to earn theirs.  Even more so, they could do anything and I still had to love them.

My husband and my kids have helped me to see a more healthy view of love.  Love the person not their actions.  It's confusing for me.   I remember the time I got into a minor fender bender with our new car.  The first thought that crossed my mind was that my husband would leave me.  It just isn't natural to me that I don't need to earn other people's love.  Yet, I would never expect my husband and children to earn my love.

I guess I'm saying that for any of us who grew up in this twisted world of love, the idea of unconditional love is going to be very mixed up.  I don't want anyone telling me that I HAVE to love anyone, yet I do love my children unconditionally.  I can't imagine a thing they could do that would make me not love them, it doesn't feel overwhelming to me. 

Is unconditional love a choice or an obligation?

[penelope]

wow jynna,

I am speachless.  That is very insightful.  What you've said resonates with me, although I couldn't verbalize it.

GAP - I totally agree.  Understanding N we gain a game plan and heal... both invaluable.

Plucky - thanks for not seeing my question as an attack (I don't know why but I was feeling slightly attacked by your response - even though that was not your intent, I don't think - another reason why continued communication is so important for ferretting out what people are really trying to say).  I tried to phrase it so that it would come across more like - what do you mean?   Rather than: you're wrong!   The you're wrong would have been based on my (false) understanding of what you'd just stated.

Does this make sense?  If so, did i succeed?  How did it feel to read what I wrote?  need feedback, if possible.

laura and hops,
I am having great difficulty with this concept of whether to have contact with N parents or not, so finding it very difficult to respond.  What's right for me (cutting off all contact with my N parents) is not necessarily right for everyone else, I realize.  But this choice I've made does seem to be totally right for me at this time, even if I can't easily explain why.


hugs,
bean

[Brigid]

I would like to think that I love my children unconditionally, but they've never done anything which would ever test that.  If my child turned into a Jeffrey Dahmer, or one of those kids who shot up Columbine HS, I'm not so sure I could sustain that love.  But I have to assume there were signals in their childhoods and adolesence which would have indicated that they were troubled individuals, which no one was paying attention to.

I don't think I ever had unconditional love for my parents--certainly never felt it from them.  There was a time when I felt very close to my mother and did everything I could to protect her from my father.  After she chose to support him in his abuse rather than me in my attempt to protect her in so many instances, I finally gave up and my love for her just fell away over time.  I've never felt anything for my brother since he was a little boy.  I cherished him when he was little and was like his second mother (we're 10 years apart).  But that love was never returned once he was old enough to understand what love meant, and I had to let go of him too.

I'm always amazed to hear people say "my mother or my father has done thus and such to me, but they're my parents and I still love them."  I just felt nothing, aside from the occasional guilt for not feeling anything.  It was easier than to continuously be hurt by their treatment of me.  When they died I felt relief, as I was relieved of feeling any more guilt.


Jynna,
I just read your post.  I agree about the earning of love.  I feel that too.  I just loved my xnh, but always felt insecure in his love for me.  Rightfully so, I guess, since he never really did.  But his leaving has left me feeling even more insecure about loving someone else.  I do feel like if I am not continuously working at it, I will be left again.

Brigid

[GAP]

Brigid,

One of my brothers actually said that the reason my mother couldn't be a loving and good mother to all of her children was that she got some "bad seeds" for children that drove her crazy and spent their entire childhoods antagonizing her.  He acknowledge I did nothing to antagonize her as a child but just annoyed her with my being.  This guy is actually raising kids....I couldn't talk sense into him.  Mind you the children he is calling bad seeds were cute, smart, hardworking children that never did anything wrong besides basic childhood silliness.

He refused to buy my theory that the children weren't annoying she was annoyed.  The way to raise healthy well adjusted children is to let them know that if all the kids in the world were lined up and you got to pick which ones you wanted you would pick the ones you got.  You respect them and give them a voice.  If a child truly receives unconditional love, respect and a voice I don't think you will ever have to worry about them becoming a mass murderer. 

Gap

[Hopalong]

Hear, hear.
Bad seeds my cantaloupe!

Grrrrrrr. Original sin. Phoeey.

Hops

[Hopalong]

Sov,
I felt horrified when I read this:

I finally gave my father a book about NPD and I asked him to please read it.
Afterwards I said, "Do you think that any of this applies to you?"

and he said, in a very even, non emotional tone, with a HINT of pleasure...
"What if it ALL applies to me?"

I was so stunned. I coudlnt speak.

A few weeks later he totally and completely dismissed me from his life.

Full-blown NPD is really breathtaking. Much less in a parent.

It seems like a theme to me, also, how narcissistic parents toy with their children about inheritance. Fairness is insignificant, the security they might contribute is just another weapon.

I salute you, Sov, for declaring yourself safe from him. You are.

Hops

[GAP]

Dear Sov,

Thanks for sharing...what a story!  Thank God you found a sane therapist.  My NPD husband only connected with one therapist and just like with your Dad the therapist was a narcissist.  When I asked him could he help my husband (this was before I knew what narcissim was) he said if he came and saw him everyweek he could keep him balanced and behaving better.  I was new to therapy at the time but even I knew that wasn't a game plan.  I now realize he would have basically been a good source a nacissistic supply for my husband and for $175 a week he would keep him balanced.  It seemed crazy at the time and I remembered saying you can't be human medicine to you patients, shouldn't the end game be you get better, gain insight and function on your own.  (I now know of people who have seen this guy weekly for over 5 years).

My brother who just had an awakening to the fact my mother is NPD wants to give her a book.  My gut said:   Very bad idea...your story validates my prediction.  How sad.

Regards,

Gap

[moonlight52]

Dear Sov & Safe ,

My n parent thought he threw me over a cliff and I really owe him a great big thank you.

I am now living my life happily and snapped out of the trance and I had a lovely fall though space and made a quite nice landing.

I have freedom and he knows it. Its not a case of win or lose I am not in his game that's all no hard feelings.

As a matter of fact I keep his secret about child abuse well there's other folks that know also my oldsest sis...................

100 years from now what will his money mean what does it mean now nothing.

What matters is love that's it.

moon

oh yeah remember to love them too they need it a lot

[Plucky]

Plucky - thanks for not seeing my question as an attack (I don't know why but I was feeling slightly attacked by your response - even though that was not your intent, I don't think - another reason why continued communication is so important for ferretting out what people are really trying to say).  I tried to phrase it so that it would come across more like - what do you mean?   Rather than: you're wrong!   The you're wrong  would have been based on my (false) understanding of what you'd just stated.

Does this make sense?  If so, did i succeed?  How did it feel to read what I wrote?  need feedback, if possible.

Hi Penelope,
what, where is it, did I miss something, did you mean me?
Plucky

[penelope]

heh.

yes, but it seems insignificant now.  If you get a chance, maybe just reread what I wrote in response to what you wrote and give me feedback if it sounded defensive or attacking.  I think I'm just getting very insecure about this, as I'm accused of it daily at work (being attacking when I respond to my boss)

have a good day

bean

[Plucky]

hey stormy,
Quote
But you know - none of us loves unconditionally. Not really.

hmmm.  Do you think I'm naive then, expecting my mother to love me, baby bean, unconditionally.  Even when I throw up and cry and have poopy diapers, and get sick and keep her up all night?

 Shocked
bean

Hi Penelope,
do you mean this? That was Stormy.  Was it something else?  You'll have to point it out - I'm not getting it.   Was it on another thread?  If the question is, was I offended, I guess the answer would have to be no!   I am curious though - maybe I didn't read it.  My reading is kind of spotty.  Last week I posted without realising the thread had a second page. Also, my very own blind spot, recently discovered, is my occasional insensitivity.  I'd like to work on this, if I can get others to point things out to me.

Plucky

[Plucky]

I do not love my parents and I have never loved my parents. I realised that recently and it’s been quite liberating.

Portia, I am with you on this.  I recently realised that my mother, who I loved desperately and intensely all of my childhood and much of my adulthood, I no longer love, well maybe just a tiny bit.  I just observe her.  After having children, I realise that what she did for me, she ought to have done.  She was not a terribly bad parent, but she could have been much better, and today she is terrible.  I no longer feel I owe her my life.  I have to save my life from her.

A lethal combination of duty, guilt, habit, fear, and resignation.

All not necessary for life! And not lethal either. Fear of what?? Being alone?

Many fears.  That we will somehow hurt the person who is hurting or has hurt us the most.   That the world will judge us as harsh and ungrateful.  That our perceptions are not accurate so we'd better be a good child just in case.  And on and on.....

Pluckily,
P

[Gaining Strength]

My father has never been  diagnosed as NPD by a professional but he has absolutely no regard for the whole field of psychiatry and psychology.  In the late '80s he was forced to see pshychiatrists by the courts and he did so most unwillingly and then told his own attorney that he would go along with the psychiatrists to get out of his legal trouble.

Before that his doctor who was also a personal friend sent him to Mayo's for a workup.  But Mayo's really screwed the whole thing up by scheduling the psychological evaluation two days after the physical exams so of course my father refused to stay the extra time.  That is one of those tradgic mixups because had he had that evaluation it could have helped all of us so much and gotten us much needed help and perhaps started the healing process as a family back over 25 years ago.

He has been diagnosed as OCD and my psychologist, who has met him, thinks he may fall under NPD.  My mother on the other hand has been diagnosed as having N traits.  She is so normal and tolerable in comparison to my father.  And as others have said - NPD explains my father to a tee and explains my life so completely whereas nothing else has even come close.  So for me - I am fully convinced of my father's NPD regardless of what anyone else might say.  It gives me a framework to really make progress in my healing where I have just coasted along for so many years before.  Now I am making progress - excruciatingly painful progress.  The NPD label allowed me to finally turn the corner on what my T has called for years - the double bind.  And in part the double bind allowed me to shin a flashlight on what my parents did to me but I couldn't get passed my responsibility for what they had done.  They had always told me it was my fault and until I found NPD I couldn't quite get beyond that.

Ever so slowly - gaining strength