Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board

The What Ifs

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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

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