grrrrr

[cj]

I'm glad this board is here.

Its only now I feel I am realising how 'lost' I have been. Why should i be anxious around my parents for example?
Well, I really don't believe that could be attributed to genes soley.
You love someone, you shouldn't be scared of them, if there is nothing to fear. Right? If they love you? Quite logical. So... they have ****** me up a lot it would appear. This in part relief, to realise, while combined with no doubt anger, (soon to surface). Also my 'self' seems to be coming back slowly or at least feelings.

Today I got an email from my cousin in the other side of the country.
She knows of my situation (no family mentionings though on my part, as yet) re: depression. She suggested I come over, telling me they have a spare room, and 'a holiday would be good for me!'. It would be great to see me she says, and one of my cousins has a terminal illness as well incidently.
I've never been close to my cousins. Party, I reason through social anxiety, even around them. And never thinking about it. We've always been a 'cliquey' 'family'. (I recal my grandad calling her hubby 'weird'.
'My' 'family' have always been a bit... well...funny about them.
My grandad resents it seems his sister 'deserting' the family (this goes back a while). My mother talks of her aunt (my aunt) in way which is sometimes...well i dunno...maybe she is jealous. Even thought she speaks on the phone to her a lot etc. Now the crux of this is......I DONT EVEN KNOW what I think??????!!!!!!!! My social anxiety aside, what do i think of my relatives??? It made me realise, along with (only since the net, and my uncle passing away, and a resulting visit from my relatives) having had contact more than usual (almost none) with them..... and some sparse visits now and again..... that I dont know what i feel!!!!!!
I'm actually starting to realsie i have so little idea what i feel about things. Like I havent been there.! Havent been a person! Not really!
I have a feeling if I DID go, without my parents, it was cause problems, although i can't say how. Sorry....its just i am realsing how I have been so subservant with my parents.....suppressing my feelings, and supressing my self because of the potential outcome of *not* repressing them. I feel a fool. This is all guesswork by the way, because I don't really know what 'I' feel.

[clj_writes]

cj,
I know this "don't know how I feel" place.  My parents also controlled my thoughts to a great extent. (Until a year ago I thought they could read my mind...this wasn't a conscious thing but I did believe they'd find out anyway so I might as well tell them everything.)  

Anyway, the good news is now you can start figuring out how *you* feel independently of how others think you "should" feel.  If you visit your relatives out of curiosity to see if you do like them and resonate with them, you may have a surprisingly good time.  Or not!  Either way you would have data on how you feel.  

The difficulty comes, of course, if there is emotional charge from other family members on the issue.  Perhaps you could test the "what do I feel" waters on smaller things for some practice first?  It will take time to remember who you are and what you believe after years of having to camoflauge it!

Good luck with this!  

[rosencrantz]

One thing you might find useful is to work out the difference between what you 'think' and what you 'feel'.  

I 'think' it's one of those things we ACONs find difficult to differentiate between (at first).  
R

[clj_writes]

Now it is my turn to want to "grrr"!  I've only realized I'm probably an ACON in the past day and the issues I've spent years figuring out (like the thoughts versus feelings one) are surfacing as common knowledge!  I wonder what other "obvious" things I've been missing!!!!  Anyone got a master list of typical ACON manifestations handy?

Thanks, R, for the wake-up call.

[cj]

Thanks for the replies. Its really weird thinking about this. Its like i have been in a bubble. Brainwashed even. I didn't even realsie how unevolved my sense of self was all these years, if it was (see, still in denial(?).)
Today my grandad chapped on my room door and asked if i would call him a taxi. (so he could get to the pub of course!).
I said 'eh, I've no money in my phone.' and looked a bit puzzled.
He looked up at the window (it was raining and cold outside) and looked sorta (what am i gonna do now). It was like as if I was supposed to jump up and say' Oh no, its raining and cold! How ARE we going to get you from A to B, when its raining and cold outside???I think 'we' have a crisis on our hands here!'.
LOL, I mean there is a phone box a few yards from my house y'know??lol.
He had money in his hand, and I seriously thought he thought i might actually offer to go along in the rain and call him a cab. Eh, no way!
And wouldya know it, when i went downstairs 20 minutes later, he was gone! No problems after all then.*ahem*
I dunno, I'm starting to realise my family is waaaay disfuctional.
My mother always runs errands for my g/d, always has done it seems. I think he has taken on a role of victim, so you can never critise anythign he says or does, or he will (partly spoken by my mum) be upset. And yeah, she seems to have fallen for it too.
The upshot of it of course, is my mum never feels appreciated, and no doubt I've gotten someof the resentment shot my way in the past. So many screwed up things going on there. And games on both peoples part no doubt! I remember my mother using guilt on HIM at times, (when she couldn't get what she wanted), because when i was a kid he 'used to' take me for a walk on saturday mornings into town, and making him feel guilty because he didn't seem interested in doing it anymore.
So yeah, this reminded me of that 'poor' him role, and 'dont do anything to upset him'. Had to type this, as I have to get it out!!!!
I'm wondering how essential family is, anyway.
Can you exist without them, I mean totally cut of and not suffer for it? I mean sorry but lifes short, and for these things to be going on for so long in it, I can't imagine them changing. Its just too much, and goes to far back. These guys certainly aren't gonna entertain therapy! I'm strting to think all they could ever be to me is a hindrence.

[cj]

Very good point rosencratz Re: differentiating between Feelings/ and thoughts! (I don't think I even was aware of not differentiating between the two, or even taking into account feelings! Funny that eh?

Yep Clj. Whenever something is bothering me, and I happen to tell my mother (maybe i subconsciously feel I 'have to' so always end up doing so), she is fond of saying 'I knew something was wrong, I could tell!'

[cj]

Thanks for that jacmac.

[Sally]

cj: Your story was great about your grandfather and needing to use the phone...could just see it! And I know everyone too in my family would have expected that i would run out in the rain to help anyone do anything.

Things are different now,  I don't speak to my mother anymore (we live about 30 minutes from each other), and my father passed away over twenty years ago. My sister and I have had a very rocky relationship, but are getting along now.  Not seeing my mother has been easy and  a great blessing for me.  Hasn't bothered me a bit.  She will never get help to change and thinks she is perfect anyway.  

You asked if there was a guide describing characteristics of ACON and in Trapped in the Mirror, there is a discussion about that. Below are some excerpts from the book:

1. "Children of narcissists fear to know themselves, particularly when what they find within is anger.  When things go wrong they retreat and do not know that much of what they fear from others is a projection of their inner lives.  Feellings of their own that are attributed to others make the world a frightening place".

2. "They are oversensitive, which means that we overreact to what other people say and do, are hurt and confused by the belief that someone intends the worst.  We perceive neutral behavior in a negative light. Being hypersensitive is like having skin so badly burned you cannot lie beneath a sheet."

3. "A common problem for children of narcissists is that we do not know when to stop being mistreated. We do not even know when we are actually being mistreated since we accept suffering as a means to winning favor. "

4. "Sometimes we feel wounded and do not notice the wound as we are pulled into the need system of the person harming us....it is our lot in life to be mistreated and to ingnore it....In the opposite direction, after being so long mistreated, we can find mistreatment when none is there.

5. "On the other hand, hypersensitivity to how one is treated or to what one fears can have the paradoxical outcome of making us undersensitive toward others. To safeguard our skin we ferret out and over-react to anticipated mistreatment.  We run from it and accuse the person of intending to mistreat us. Our charges are hostile but we call the other person aggressive and charge him or her with having sinister motivation. Our tone is one of trial and punishment. We retaliate in the present for wrongs we have suffered in the past, the suffering of our narcissistic home."

6. "Addiction is another common response to being the child of a narcissist. It is easy to fall into a self-destructive lifestyle after being treated as expendable and worthless.  Destroyed by our parents' narcissistic blindness and without someone to observe and comfort us, we now destroy ourselves."

7. "Procrastination is a common shortcoming of one whose performance has been attacked. Low in self-esteem, many of us think we should put off action unti we feel sufficiently confident.  It is an error to believe that we must love ourselves before undertaking a difficult project or relationship. We postpone what we think is beyond our grasp, giving ourselves no opportunity to learn from error. Raised to magnify our limitations, inferiority feelings keep us from the world. We fail at school, job marriage, work, child rearing, and so on. We fulfill our predicted destiny."

8. "In addition to being hurt we have learned many of our parents' narcissistic habits since they taught us that narcissism is the better way. We do not recognize that we have narcissistic defenses and patterns of perception that make us behave insensitively and feel morally correct. If others complain about us, we cannot understand."

9. "Another common narcissistic habit is to criticize. The child of a narcissist who emulates his parent is always trying to improve the other person.  That is what his parents did to him and to everyone else. As an act of identification with his parents, he responds to people's errors with the kind of rage his parents showered on him."

10. "Ofen children of narcissists don't know how to read their bodies because their parents did not give the child's emotional and bodily sensations an appropriate label, did not call a spade a spade. The parents were not in tune with the child's emotions and labeled the child's feelings according to their own moods and needs. ...If we said we were lonely they tried to make us think that people were unimportant. They made us eat when they thought that we were hungry, feeding us portions that they felt suited our needs."

Whew!! that was a lot to digest!  I am so new to understanding the very concept of narcissism that I don't yet want to start focusing on things I may do due to my narcissistic upbringing.  That stage is yet to come, although I certainly see some of those charactestics in me.

Well, cj hoped that helped.  Hugs. Sally

[clj_writes]

Dear Sally,
Thank you so much for the list you provided (I was the one who asked..my initials are also cj....sort of confusing).  Numbers 1, 6, and 10 are big ones on my list.  Some other ones *used* to be major issues but aren't as much so now.  I do have an N book en route as I see there's much more for me to learn.  I always wondered why ACOA stuff always resonated with me when neither of my parents drank!

Regarding addiction (#6), I recently read that binging is *always* an attempt at self-help and I believe this is true and probably applies to other addictions as well.  We did not develop healthy internal caretakers and are "helping" ourselves through something that inadvertently adds to our pain.  In my case, I'm mostly avoiding overwhelming feelings--either positive or negative.

Thanks again for your post!

[cj]

I wonder what other "obvious" things I've been missing!!!!  .

Man, tell me about it. So many things have never occured to me in my life, so many questions I never thought to ask myself, thoughts and feelings, all that come with being a 'person'. I feel like I haven't been a complete person, or half complete even. I always wondered why I was never quite 'with it' in so many capacities.

[cj]

1. This may be strange, but I'm not sure I've even known anger. Or I can't recal knowing it, because I have blocked it out I think. Didn't want to acknowledge it in myself (i.e. because its 'bad'). Theory of course. And I am very scared, always have been.

2. Ticks box. Reading the most innocent of comments as an insult, or forerunner of potential harm.

3. Yep, put up with shit treatment all the time, not even aware I've been doing it half the time. Its like I don't know when I'm being mistreated. The boundries don't exist for me.

4. ticks box.

5. Yep. I can be a cold emotionally constipated person. Even though I don't want to be. Or feel somehow it is wrong.

6. Ticks box. Although any addiction on my part would be too much for my poor fragile parents to bear *sob*.

7. Yep, crap at everything.

8. Undecided.

9. Unsure.

10. Ticks Box.

Phew indeed.

[cj]

I know what you mean Sally, about how you might react after wards, and anger. I feel like ive been brainwashed in a way. I've always been the most placid of people, and not for the good of course, in retrospect. Whenever anger did come out, it came out in confusion (usually in arguments with my mother) and I never really 'felt' it, it was so...just couldn't hold it anymore, but it rarelly happened, and never felt justified (although I used to curse out loud in my sleep of and on).

Of course half of me is saying about all of this 'Don't be so stupid' and can't accept. *ahem*

The yardstick though is the very fact at the age of thirty, I can't say what I feel about my parents. I can't stand back and say what I feel, as a a person, like what do 'I' feel ( not 'think'   ), and sometimes when I remember that fact, its all I need for confirmation!!!!

[clj_writes]

cj wrote:  
"Although any addiction on my part would be too much for my poor fragile parents to bear *sob*. "

This resonates with me.  In the early 90's when I was in therapy I told my parents I was getting help for an eating disorder and it was like I hadn't said anything.  They could ignore it because although I was binging, I was still thin (an unusual combination but I'm from skinny stock).  It was like the behavior (and I!) did not exist.  They only saw what they could handle.  The fragility is what has had me "hooked" all these years; especially with my mother and her painful childhood.  ARRGGHH.  I am frustrated again that I'm treating myself like they treated me--either defective or invisible or pretend perfect.  What a vile taste this leaves in my mouth!

[cj]

Yup, its hard to differentiate, or blame wholeheartedly sometimes, although my parents not accepting anything was wrong initially (with them!) can be blamed!
Its like when my mother found out i was taking drugs when i was a teenager. She found out (or got me to tell her!) by making up some bullshit story that someone had told her (she could tell, because I spent all next day in bed on sundays, well... I mean she 'knows me outside in' y'know, so no surprise, really (sarcasm!) anyway.....Firstly, due to not being too intelligent and/or ignorant, she assumed I was a heroin addict or something, and 'how are you going to pay for such a habit'? *DUH*
And secondly, and this is the frustarting thing in retrospect 'whats this going to do to your grandad when he finds out???'
GRRR. Makes me wanna ****ing scream.
Ok, thats maybe an exceptional, and not very good example, all parents worry about kids taking drugs.
I do recal one time however when I first experienced depersonalisation. The doctor had told me it was depression, (which it was, but never told me about depersonalisation), so when experiencing depersonalisation for the following *two weeks!!!!!*, I began to think I was going ****ing mad. I was pacing around the house in panic, trying to get the doctor on the phone. And my mother just ***Ing sat there, calmly, like nothing was wrong all the time. Not to mention the fact it ANNOYED her, when I acted confused/introspective and like something was on my mind.

cj wrote:  
"Although any addiction on my part would be too much for my poor fragile parents to bear *sob*. "

quote]

[clj_writes]

cj,
It seems a healthy parental response to a child taking drugs would be to get the child help as clearly something was "up"!  These bizarre responses (oh, that's expensive and oh, what about grandpa) are crazymaking and make you doubt what is and isn't real and/or appropriate!  Likewise the depersonalization lacked both empathy and mirroring of your experience.

Hmm, I'm in touch with that elusive anger now!