Hi all -
Sometimes I can't express myself quickly.. So I do searches. This quote is from a website that I found when I realized that my mother was an N. It has some gallows humor to it which makes swallowing the truth easier.
They will attack you (sometimes physically) and spew a load of bile, insult, abuse, contempt, threats, etc., and then -- well, it's kind of like they had indigestion and the vicious tirade worked like a burp: "There. Now I feel better. Where were we?" They feel better, so they expect you to feel better, too. They will say you are nothing, worthless, and turn around immediately and say that they love you. When you object to this kind of treatment, they will say, "You just have to accept me the way I am. (God made me this way, so God loves me even if you are too stupid to understand how special I am.)" Accepting them as they are (and staying away from them entirely) is excellent advice. The other "punishment" narcissists mete out is banishing you from their glorious presence -- this can turn into a farce, since by this point you are probably praying to be rescued, "Dear God! How do I get out of this?" The narcissist expects that you will be devastated by the withdrawal of her/his divine attention, so that after a while -- a few weeks or months (i.e., the next time the narcissist needs to use you for something) -- the narcissist will expect you to have learned your lesson and be eager to return to the fold. If you have learned your lesson, you won't answer that call. They can't see that they have a problem; it's always somebody else who has the problem and needs to change. Therapies work at all only when the individual wants to change and, though narcissists hate their real selves, they don't want to change -- they want the world to change. And they criticize, gripe, and complain about almost everything and almost everyone almost all the time. There are usually a favored few whom narcissists regard as absolutely above reproach, even for egregious misconduct or actual crime, and about whom they won't brook the slightest criticism. These are people the narcissists are terrified of, though they'll tell you that what they feel is love and respect; apparently they don't know the difference between fear and love. Narcissists just get worse and worse as they grow older; their parents and other authority figures that they've feared die off, and there's less and less outside influence to keep them in check.
Oy, this described my mother in a nutshell.
Ami, you asked me a question; It seems like you have gotten some distance and detachment from it.How did you do this? Did it take time?
What's the old expression? "winning a war is a victory, but it's the battles that leaves ugly scars"
Once we got my old lady into her Geri-psych facility, I shut the door. It was 2 years in May. I have had no physical contact since that day.
I know now that it's the physical separation that is healing me. Just not being in her toxic presence is helping me out immensely. It takes time, but I still wake up around 3 in the morning and start going over all the "why did she do that to me" in my head. I worry when I will eventually have to deal with her again. Like when the money runs out and we have to move her to another facilty.
I know in my heart of hearts that I am still not strong enough to face her. Not yet.
M~
xo