The What Ifs

[Cinderella]

With the pain that we have endured as children, I have been curious about how a narcissistic parent can maybe inadvertently affect our spiritual growth.  This is what I mean.  If we had  normal parents, that nurtured us, loved us, and encouraged us, would we have been better people?  We may have been more self confident, more successful and well adjusted adults, had direction in life and able to love and trust, but has this narcissistic experience been for a more divine plan?  Have our lives played out in such a way to meet the most important challenge of all----UNCONDITIONAL LOVE?

Now, I am not saying that one should sit back and let the narcissist take advantage of us.  Of course there needs to be boundaries, but how interesting to think that a person who is not capable of ever loving anyone but himself, might just be loved unconditionally by us.  And, by doing this, we fill their childhood void of not being loved, and ours as well.  This act of kindness and forgiveness might just be the healing that we need, and the spiritual growth that we were intended to claim.

I guess, I believe that everything in this life is not by chance, but for the benefit of our personal growth.  We can choose to wallow in our "poor Mes" ( I know I do this), or we can be better than that.  What if we turned out to be better people,  loving parents, good friends and neighbors; just because we had a narcissistic parent that never loved us.  A parent that instilled in us a drive and determination never to have chosen the path that they did.

[rosencrantz]

Yes, I'm realising that I have some good parts to me that wouldn't have developed in the way they did had I had different parenting.  For example, being self-sacrificing, and striving to give the perfect unconditional love.

However, I'm not sure those things are GOOD for ME!!!

They are what my parent required of me. This could be 'good'.

But they are also what my parent cannot stand me to give to her because it offends her self-esteem (nor can she stand for me to give it to anyone else because it takes the attention away from her).

We are constantly being required to 'be' and 'not to be' at the same time.

Try to give unconditional love to your parent and she'll destroy you!!  If you've internalised her messages, you'll probably destroy (self-sabotage, hate, etc) yourself.

And that's what makes it so despairingly hopeless.

[mary]

We must not forget to love ourselves too.  I am sorry that I have been so whiney!  I am trying to get a handle on all of this and I believe that I will.  It is so helpful to read what everyone writes.  It is also very helpful I find to write about this.  It is like you think things through or at least begin to as you write.  I never knew about N until just recently...what a nightmare it is for everybody!

[CC]

I respectfully disagree, Rosencrantz, though we often share similar outlooks.  I believe you can love your N person unconditionally if you truly have processed through healing - AND depending on the degree of the personality disorder.    Unconditional love does not mean you have to be intimately close to the person.  You can do this from afar, so to speak.  

I can tell you honestly that over my last several years of healing, I have raged, felt hatred, felt pity, betrayal, etc. - but I have loved my mother through it all.  I have managed this balance with my mother, but only through a series of episodes of excercising extremely firm boundaries, and a constant awareness of knowing when to pull away if it becomes dangerous.

This is not for everyone, because not everyone has been able to heal.  But I believe the key is EMPATHY.   And dare I suggest, at the risk of getting clumps of dirt thrown at me from the forum: are some unable to unconditionally love that N person because they have inherited that common narcissistic trait- the inability to EMPATHIZE?

I am not a particularly spiritual person, but isn't this what Christianity teaches us?  I  think for some it does come easier than others.  Lack of empathy causes much of the hatred that we see in our social and political world today  (I am not a liberal, mind you, by any means).  Bottom line: I think it is not only possible, but that we should strive to love someone - while setting boundaries that protect ourselves, and not tolerate abuse from them.  Even if it means no contact at all.

[rosencrantz]

I believe that the ability to empathise is one that can cause children of N parents real problems - when I empathise with my mother I feel her shame and her misery.  

In fact, I can't even begin to find the words to express the sheer awfulness of the feelings I experience when I empathise with her.  She doesn't even need to project anything into me - I'm diving right in there to feel it with her.  When I feel those feelings, I also begin to experience helplessness, hopelessness and depression.  I suspect they begin as her feelings and end up as mine.  Or they might be entirely mine.  Or they might be entirely hers.  But with that depth of feeling, I no longer function 'out in the world'.  So they don't help me to help her one little bit.  

I'm aware that my buttons have been pressed by the preceding post. 'I respectfully disagree' is one of those wonderful put-downs that makes most people see red and then wonder why!  I also feel that I've just been invited to audition for the role of the Wicked Queen in Snow White. "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the healthiest of us all" LOL - so whilst trying not to rise to the bait, I then have to anticipate that my last paragraph is going to get me a rather unhealthy put-down.  And, as 'saying so' prevents it happening, I'll then receive a 'you're just paranoid' rebuke.  Hmmm...  

It reminds me of a recent occasion when a relative tried to tell me that if only I wasn't so sensitive, I wouldn't have these problems with my mother.  I pointed out that this was a message this relative was also giving to herself about her own relationships.  If I accepted what she said to me, then I'd also be helping the abusers in her life keep on abusing her.  And I'd be helping her abuse me, too!!  So I didn't.

Indeed, yes, we all have N traits.

And sometimes humility is really just too much of a challenge...
R

[rosencrantz]

As far as unconditional love is concerned, I'm not sure that it actually exists.  (Joke : only God, Mother Teresa and psychiatrists practice unconditional love - the psychiatrists get paid to do good, Mother Teresa wants money to do good, and even God wants your soul back when you've finished with it!!).  

I'm sure it's something Nparents desire for themselves.  So they can do anything they like, no matter how awful, and still be revered.

In that case, I choose not to give unconditional love. And I can't think of a good reason to want to!!  

Actually if I did think I should offer unconditional love I'd be very concerned about me in particular (as the adult child of an Nparent) wanting to do so because I think the concept feeds off the self-sacrificing 'gene' that Nparents plant in their offspring. Red flag time again.

What I do practice, in spiritual terms, is 'forgiveness'.  And I have forgiven my mother for the past.  And that benefits me!  So it's neither unconditional nor self-sacrificing (so I reckon that's healthy!).  

Whether or not that will continue into the future, I don't know. If NPD isn't acknowledged in my country, there isn't much chance of my mother receiving help or me being helped to help her.  Or of the wider family understanding what has caused the pain, bewilderment and psychiatric problems in their own little nuclear families.  Being 'so near, yet so far' ('never to be believed') may just make me a little bitter.
R

[Cinderella]

Rosencrantz  

It is interesting that my post provoked such strong defense mechanisms in you.  Maybe I hit a nerve.  First of all, UNCONTIONAL LOVE to a parent or anyone else will not destroy you.  Hate and anger will destroy you.  Regarding your joke about God and mother Teresa---I didn't laugh!

CC's "respectfully disagreeing" what on earth is wrong with that, and how can that be condescending or a put down?  It is a very polite way of saying, that she respects your opinion, but disagrees.  CC has proven herself on this site to be an articulate and thoughtful person, who has given all of us some great insight, always in a possitive way.  She may not always say what you want to hear (perhaps like my post did) , but she is usually right on.  You on the other hand remind me of a Rottweiller ready to attack (that was my joke).

Don't forget that we are experiencing the same situation as you are, only maybe a tad less bitter.  That means that we understand your pain and support you, because we have the same emotions as you do.  You say that you practive forgiveness.  Forgiveness is a form of unconditional love, or putting aside the wrongs of another person and embracing them.  We can still set boundaries, and love at the same time.  You set boundaries and forgive at the same time, right?  My post was intended to inspire all of us to call on our higher self.  I am truly sorry that you didn't see it that way.

[mary]

I appreciate what has been said here.  Once my  husbands aunt told me that she went on a trip with my husbands parents.  They both had small children, my husband was one and the aunt had one about my husbands age.  That night after traveling and being in  a strange place the two little ones cried and cried at bedtime.  They were just little and over tired and in a strange situation.  The aunt held her baby and let him cry while she loved him and rocked him.  At last he finally went to sleep.  In the next room she could hear my husbands parents screaming at my husband to shut up and slapping and hitting him until he was histerical.  This is a sad sad thing in my husbands past that ofcourse he was too little to remember it now but it makes you wonder how many nights he was beaten and yelled at .  Did he feel love ...ever.  So my poor husband who makes our lives pretty tough sometimes did not bring this on himself he is a victim also.   When he was little and should have been loved and nurtured it was not happening for him.

My husband mother who is the manipulative witch...."I can make anybody do anything"  plus a lot of other really nice traits that have endeared her to myself and my children.  When she was a little girl about 2 years old I think her mother had an appendix burst.  She almost died and she lost a baby.  It ruined her health and my mother in law was taken away to go and live with her grandmother.   This was around 1925.  I think her mother was very ill for at least two years.   I dont think the grandmother particulary wanted her and I never get any feed back on her being kind or loving.  I am sure the little child must have felt unloved and seperated from her mother.  My mother in law to this day has no patience with those that are ill and doesn't want anything to do with them.

Both my husband and my mother in law have tragic stories I think.  Both are pretty miserable people really but both are a result of what happened to them when they were little people and the marks left on them are deep.  My husband sees the world differently than me.  He is still trying to be nurtured and loved and it is obvious that all attention should turn toward him...it really doesn't matter if it is good or bad as long as he is the focus.  I would guess that he is still looking for that love that his mother and dad should have given him but didn't.....his mother couldn't give it because her mother wasn't there to give it to her when she was little.  I am sure that to her she had been abandoned by her mother.  

I think I have to forgive them.  At the same time I have got to find me and give myself a chance to be.  I have been so lost in being the supply for N husband that I am not sure who I am or what I am about.  My kids have been in the same place.  Our world is a strange one where we have lost ourselves feeding this N monster that has been demanding and has made himself the only important one.  we love him  but we are all going to find ourselves and while we have our lives here together we are going to  try to protect ourselves and find out who we are.

My mother in laws constant manipulation is just too much for me.  I forgive her for the lousy things she does but she cant stop herself so I must protect myself from being her victum.  Christ did tell us to love others as we love ourselves.  We have to love ourselves too.   See I told you I was going to get passed being so whiney!!!   Now to find out how to forgive and not allow myself to be a victim!

[Tinkergirl]

Hi All,

Before the posts keep coming to this thread, I wanted to just put a reminder to all of us that nobody is judging one another and that all of our experiences, while similar, cannot and should not demand the same outcome or healing mechanisms (ie unconditional love, forgiveness).  

As an outsider reading all of your posts individually, and then again as a thread, it is so clear that we have had varying degrees of abuse from our Ns and also are all in different stages of what i call "healing and dealing".  So try not to get caught up in semantics of definitions of unconditional love, forgiveness, empathy...they all have different meanings to each of us individually.  You all have valid stories, valid ways of dealing with your Ns.  All of these topics (ie empathy) are valid theories we each practice in our own ways, let's not start assigning how, who, or what each of us should say, do or feel.  

I'm not preaching, but again seeing the stories, I see the potential for a much more constructive debate if we recognize our similarities and differences in order help each other heal, not to scrutinize someone else's methods.  That, my friends, would be entirely inherited from our Ns.  

[Nic]

Tinkergirl,
All I can say is well put! Well done and said.  We have indeed all had such pain, and we all have had to deal with it with survival mechanisms or tactics. We were too young to understand.  Now that we are older and seeing our situations with the benefit of hindsight, of course we get angry, and then some.
Situation X dealt with by me and my knowledge and all other variables at the time is different than the same or almost the same situation X dealt with by you for example.  The important thing is we all survived these situations using whatever means we had to deal with them at that time.  And we come here to talk about them and heal, slowly or quickly or in spurts.
I think we must remain encouraged with our decision to heal and get this horrible inheritance in check and behind us.  Speaking for myself and being a Christian I must confess that I find it very hard to forgive people who continue to make my life very difficult.  I know I must forgive them, I know that forgiveness comes from the heart and I have conluded that I must go on with them in my mind but at a distance.
Sometimes I really pity my mom and dad who are 76 and 80 respectively, and other times i'd like to drown them! Yes I would!  The hardest thing for me to do is let it all go because I am so used to living with it.  I want to let it go, I long for it all to go away and it will, bit by bit.
Again I thank each and everyone of you for your posts..I'm still so astonished at how similar our experiences are and have been.  Reading your experiences, reading you on your good days and your bad days makes me feel like i'm a part of something.  I cannot have these sane conversations with my parents or my brother and it is very refreshing to come here and receive such validation.
Nic

[mary]

I read a book about forgiveness and it asked , Do you think forgiveness is required for the befit of the theif, the murder, the abuser.  No it is required of us because it is for us and our own welfare.  When we dont forgive it is like carrying around rocks in a backpack but forgiving does not mean that we set ourselves up for more abuse.  We should love ourselves too much for that

I do not wish to imply judgement here!!!  THis is what I read and I am having to find my way in this forgiveness thing too.  Two of my kids wanted to take their lives because of N father.  I am a pot of anger and confusion and hurt and shame and shock and not understanding and on and on including self blame.   I am not judging how could I?

[CC]

My, my, what a lot of hoo-ha has come from the original post.  Just wanted to say that I would never intend to put down anyone, I am only here to post my own experiences as how they might relate to the original subject.  Perhaps I should not have singled you out R. We have shared some experiences in previous posts, therefore I would never have thought you would take something I wrote so personally.  My 'respectfully disagree' was exactly what it was - no hidden meaning.  I DO respect you, and I do disagree with your opinion as it related to the subject.  I am sorry if this offended you somehow.   I would never want anyone to feel unsafe here as a result of something I said.

We are all trying to muddle through this pain together and I think Tinkergirl was very wise to remind us that we are all progressing at different rates and have had DIFFERENT DEGREES of experiences.  I have mentioned before in older posts that some of you have had worse experiences than I.  In my experience, I have been able to come to terms with unconditional love.   Perhaps were I in your shoes, I would feel differently.  My intent was not to assume that you should feel what I feel, only that it was POSSIBLE to arrive at this under certain circumstances.  

Cinderella, just wondering- if you were to choose a canine likeness for me, what would it be?  

[Cinderella]

This post was very meaningful to me, and something that I wanted to share.  Thank you for sharing.

I am sorry that things have escalated in a negative way, and I apologize for my part in any comments that may have offended.  We are here to support each other and that is a positive thing.

[rosencrantz]

http://www.bpd411.org/nonassessment.html

Maybe we need a new thread : How many buttons (for pressing) does it take to make a nonN.  

I've got more than a few to share!

But, put another way : as on this thread, so in life...I have to put up with the most appalling s&*^ and then have to 'grin and bear it'.  Find the humour, keep the healthy side up, find ways to be rational and honest.  

It's just occurred to me that such an attitude is, in itself, patronising, controlling and false. Yuk!

Well, I think it's my turn to give back some of the s&*^ - I'm sick of being strong and 'containing' other people's reactions when I want to give them a great big smack back!!  

But you can be sure that the first step I make outside what's expected of me and there's total outrage.  Why doesn't anyone express total outrage on MY behalf! (That's not an invitation, just expressing what I feel!)

Now...trying to be a human being again...

Cinderella, I'm sorry that you felt I said things that squished tender feelings.  It was not my intention and it hadn't even occurred to me that you had a 'hidden' intention 'to inspire all of us to call on our higher self'.  

My views were sincerely and honestly, if passionately, expressed and were based on my personal experience.  My view continues to be that you don't mess with an N and you don't get psychologically close - because they're dangerous.  And if I'm a rotweiler, it's because I (misguidedly albeit because I'm always trying to rescue people) wished to protect you from your own niceness.

I would have preferred you to have expressed your feelings without sticking quite so many pins in me but I've had a good (horrible, actually) sob and learned a few more things...
R

[rosencrantz]

I posted last night and then woke up with an additional perspective.

The comment about different people being at different levels of 'healing and dealing' was useful.  For example, I can respond to CC in a way I wouldn't necessarily respond to someone else because, intuitively, I believe CC can meet me on that level. (And, just to prove it, we've had a quick kiss and make up behind the scenes!!)

Whereas Cinderella somehow got in between us and got caught in the crossfire without understanding we could handle it.  (I've done that plenty of times myself as a child, drawing the flak away from my parents but had to learn as an adult not to keep trying to 'save' people who don't actually need saving)

This could be complete fantasy, but as I woke up this morning, I suddenly experienced CC and myself as parents with Cinderella expressing her pain of childhood faced with these parents.  Somehow, the parent represented by me was always kicking over something which Cinderella was trying to build.  And she hurts a lot... And perhaps if that parent was an Nparent, she never heard Cinderalla's hurt.

But, hey, Cinders, I hear you.  Come and have a hug!!

You know, if we were over at Nic's ranch, I suspect there'd be a healing group cuddle right now...

I wrote both these posts before I saw your earlier reply, Cinderella, so perhaps it's all become irrelevant in between time but I thought I'd offer it anyway.

As for myself, I tried to read your original post without defences and recognised that I felt a great deal of hopelessness and pain.  I would if I could, Cinderella, I would if I could.  But my mother nearly destroyed 50 years of relative sanity (and my business, and my marriage) in just a few short weeks of empathy and unconditional love.  I don't recommend it - but it doesn't make me less of a person.

In peace
R