Ami - Understanding your dad

[Motherless]

Ami -

It broke my heart to read your post.
Ami, you know that so many of us who have had to deal with Ns have spent our time trying to win their love, to please them, to coddle them. All it did was to wrap our lives up in pain and anguish.

To obtain and keep my mother’s love was like a Holy Grail to me. The more she rejected me and pushed me away, the more I would seek it, unquestioningly.

No matter what you did; it never was enough, was it?

They were insatiable in the desire to control, manipulate and have you dedicate all your energies to just them. Our energy seem to channel to them making them more empowered and all omnipotent (in their warped minds).
As you said, suck you dry.
They will drain anyone that they have close and familiar contact.

My father was an enabler, made weak in the same way she made me weak. He would rather give in to her than to cause a fight or a rage. He drank to kill the pain.
You said: Maybe he could be seen as a co-conspirator but I think he tried to keep the family together with the best he knew at the time.It's my perception through personal experience was that your father was in sort of a self-preservation mode. He gave in to protect himself and then probably tried to smooth situations over when she acted up, softening the blow. Giving in offset her rage – once that happened things went to back to somewhat of a normalcy for everyone involved?
It was like that in our family - my father would back down and meekly submit to my Nmother. What he didn’t realize that all he was doing was to perpetuate her becoming stronger and stronger over the years. The trickle down was that others didn’t see strength and fairness. Only one person ever won, her.

What Lupine said when her father was diagnosed with cancer: My mother said "well who's going to take care of me now".
That really hit home. My father lost both legs to diabetes when he was in his late 60s.
She totally lost it. HE ruined her life, HE ruined her image, HE ruined her retirement. How could she be seen with an "invalid"? The words out of her mouth were exactly the same, who is going to take care of me!?
It amazes me to remember what a horrible thing to say to someone who will never walk again.

After he died and I got sick at one point, and she said the same thing, all over again to me. Who is going to take care of ME?

I didn’t fault my father once I came to the realization as to who she really was.

I hope these words help.

M~
xo

[tayana]

Motherless,

First of all, (((((())))))).  Secondly, your post really hit home for me, since it describes my parents too.  My dad is an enabler, and everytime I've gotten angry with my mom or hurt from her comments, he'd say, "Just take it with a grain of salt."  That's hard to do when she is stealing from me and boxing me into a mountain of debt I didn't think I would ever escape from.  I have though.  She seems to have a special hatred for me.  I don't understand why. 

The "who's going to take care of me comment" really hit home as well.  My mom has made a similar comment, "If something happened to your father, I don't know what we would do."  Well, I do, we'd go on.  She always wanted to leave my dad, but she has no idea how to live on her own.  My dad has frequently counseled me to make nice with my mom and not to do things I'd regret, but she's hurt me too much to make nice now.

And you're right, no matter what I've done, nothing has been enough. 

I'm so glad this board is here.  I'm so glad there are people who understand. 

[lighter]

tayana:

That's the very best thing about this board.  Not having to explain and justify every imporbable thing the N's do, bc everyone here already gets it. 

[Ami]

Dear Motherless, Tayana and Lighter,
   We did live  the same thing.
  Tayana-when you ask "Why did my M hate me so much?"-it is such a "normal " question. It is the question of a little kid. Why would my own mother hurt me?It says so much.
 It reminds me of a part that I read in Vaknin's book-today. He says that the N's purpose is to try to 'disorient" you. They try to make you go "topsy turvey". IOW, they respond in a very disorienting way so that you question your reality and your sanity.. After awhile, you are lost to yourself and then they can manipulate you. Basically, they try to take your internal core of perceptions away from you. You are like a boat without a rudder or a compass without a needle. They purposely want this. They are wanting to make you doubt yourself and deny yourself.Then, you are easy prey.It is a purposeful thing. Maybe ,it has subconscious parts to it,but this is their plan.
  I was so amazed at reading this because it describes my life with my mother perfectly. I could never have expressed this in words but I was living and breathing it  every day.
    She had made me in to a person who was a shell-waiting for her to direct me.I was waiting for her direction on everything.I  had become"her"..
   Isn't this unbelievable? Isn;t it almost incomprehensible?
   That is what you were asking ,Tayana(IMO).
   I always had a dream that my mother would be "normal" and I could have normal talks etc with her. Well, this part of the book told me the naked truth.The dream has to die.
    Motherless- you so understand how it is. It seems like you have gotten some distance and detachment from it.How did you do this? Did it take time?
  My mother made  a comment similar to yours. She thought that my F had cancer and was going to die. She said,"Boy, the house looks bad. I . I have to clean the andirons."   Love to you  Ami

[tayana]

Ami,

Your comment about the N's making us topsy turvy is so right on.  That's exactly what my mom does.  She'll be wonderful and normal and loving, and then just turn nasty.  I never know how she would react from minute to minute, so we walk on eggshells constantly. It's awful.  I've had to let go of the dream that I will ever have a meaningful relationship with her.  I don't think I will.  For a few years, I thought things had changed, and then I realized she was just using me to get to my son. 

I sometimes wonder if I'm just like her.  I'll say or do something and I'll think, no, that's just like her, I don't want to be like that.  She's so negative all the time, like some sort of soul-sucking vampire that takes the joy right out of life.  Just tonight I got a package that had a bunch of gourmet tea samples.  I'd gotten one for my son who loves blueberries.  So she gave me instructions on how to brew my tea, even though she doesn't drink it.  The tea was fine.  My son loves it.  I got a lecture over tea.  Ridiculous isn't it?  I have gotten to the point where I hate coming home.  I used to dread going to work, now I dread going home.

Sorry, I didn't mean to end up ranting.  It just happened.

[Hopalong]

I think those incredibly insensitive comments about others' suffering are N hallmarks.

The first time, ever, that I realized something was wrong with my mother (I think I've told this tale here before) was when she told me about a young mother I knew who had drowned. I was in shock (about age 21) and she said brightly:

Oh well, it's probably for the best. She had a drug problem!

Only took 30 more years to find out the name for it.

What confusion we could save children by teaching them about disorders like this...I'm not sure how but I wish there was some SIMPLE literature on Nism.

Hops

[lighter]

Yup yup yup.  Some simple literature on Nism would be helpful.  It feels like I'm trying to demystafy one of those puzzles wrapped in an enigma stuck up somebodie's nose most of the time. 

[Bella_French]

Just as an off-the-cuff reaction to the topic of this thread, I didn't find any fault with my Dad until I recognised for myself that I had choices and options (regarding the qaulity of my relationships), and so he had choices as well (except that his choices affected the lives and self-worth of his 6 children, whereas mine only ever affected me).

I love my Dad with a passion. But knowing that he has chosen a humiliating and overtly abusive relationship instead of self growth, and that he has chosen an abusive mother to his children and watched her harm us for over 30 years is so hard to respect. The reality is that his choices harmed us. However much I understand him. And however much I love him.

I don't mean to be grouchy about this, and I don't really enjoy focusing on my father's faults, as we all have them. I just think its wise to assign blame where its due, rather than take it all onboard ourselves. As we are prone to do.

[Ami]

[I sometimes wonder if I'm just like her.  I'll say or do something and I'll think, no, that's just like her, I don't want to be like that.  She's so negative all the time, like some sort of soul-sucking vampire that
 
Dear Tayana,
   Vaknin talks about"wondering if you are like her". I used to be afraid that I had her characteristics. One little test that came to me(or that I made up) is,'Do you have a sense of humor?. They have virtually none. My H(maybe N traits) has very little. I know that I have a good sense of humor and can see subtleties. If you have this, I don't even think that you can be an N.
 However, Vaknin says that we get a "learned psychosis" from living with them. We get infected with their traits.
  I think the key is to find the" us" that was there before they interfered. Just from knowing you on the board- I don't see N traits. You could not understand subtleties if you were an N.
  I am thinking of you and praying for you    Love Ami

[Motherless]

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

[Overcomer]

I love my dad, too.  He is truly everyones friend-everyone likes him.  But he is so controlled by my mom that he said to me, "If mom tells you to put your glass here, put it here."  Well I told him no way.  He does it to keep peace.  She holds all the purse strings and wont let him make a financial decision-I told him if he divorced him he would get half of her fortune and then could not tell him if he could spend it.  He is part of her lie and I do not think he will ever stand up to her!

[Hopalong]

My Dad was certainly a CoD.
But he was born in 1911, and reared in a genteel home with gentle parents.
To really identify what was broken or toxic about my mother would have been beyond him.

He was raised to be wholesome, chipper, a boy scout and a gentleman.
It would have horrified him to think of aggressively confronting his princess bride.
He literally was not made of the stuff it would take.

So even though I wish he'd interceded, I do accept that to him, he would have been comitting a terrible violation. As it was, I believe my mother's dramas and odd distances were deeply bewildering to him. But he never failed to love her and cherish her...because that's who he was.

He loved me too, but never would have had the psychological language to help me offset my mother, even if he'd grasped there was something quite 'off' about her.

Then again, he wouldn't have tolerated overt abuse, and I was very lucky to be spared that.
What I got from him was just gentleness, quiet affection, and the certainty that he loved me.

More than good enough.

Hops

[lighter]

(((Bell, Motherless, Ami, Overcome, Tayana and Hops)))

So much pain you had to endure and figure out.  I can't imagine how badly you must hurt.

Motherless:  Thanks for providing that last post with a bit of humor added in.  I enjoye reading it. 

[tayana]

Motherless, that quote is my mom in a nutshell.  I don't talk to her about my work anymore, but I mentioned something I did recently that's probably the selling point for us buying a different computer system than what we'd planned at my work.  I work in government, and I used to work for a larger agency, but I went to a smaller one for less stress and more pay, so I have tons of contacts in the area.  Well, I used a few of those.  So my mom goes on and on about how I should be telling people what I did at my previous job, which I don't want to talk about, and I just hate the whole thing.  It's like I should be telling people this is what I did so I can show off, and that's so not me at all.  I really prefer to stay in the background.

Vaknin talks about"wondering if you are like her". I used to be afraid that I had her characteristics. One little test that came to me(or that I made up) is,'Do you have a sense of humor?. They have virtually none. My H(maybe N traits) has very little. I know that I have a good sense of humor and can see subtleties. If you have this, I don't even think that you can be an N.

Ami, my mother has no sense of humor.  My son adores cartoons and comics.  He draws them, has invented his own comic strip, and has tried a few "graphic novels."  Everytime he shows her a cartoon that was particularly funny she says, "I just don't know what's so funny about that.  Those cartoons never do a thing for me."  Anytime you try to joke with her, or tell her a joke, no matter how funny, she doesn't laugh.  Half the time she's offended.

[Ami]

Dear Motherless,
   I was thinking about one thing that you said. You got better the more that you had NC. I think that when we have contact we are pulled in because since they are familiar, we can't see or face how bad they are. We question how could my own mother be THIS bad?We doubt ourselves and then we get pulled in again.
  There is a part of us which wants to say ,"Maybe I imagined the whole thing(or exaggerated). With NC, we can see the truth better..                                       Love Ami