Has anyone dealt with an NPD parent who physically and psychologically tortured them at a young age (1-12)? I can’t really relate to people here, because most were not physically abused, which makes it different…
I'm new here.
My story:
I'm an eighteen- year old female college student. This year was my first in college and my first taste of freedom. I have learned in the last two months that my father has NPD, and that my mother is/was a brainwashed pawn, too afraid to leave him.
He verbally, physically,emotionally abused all three of us (my sisters and I) when we were young. I was the oldest so I got it the worst. It started as far back as I can remember, probably around age six. I was constantly mocked and belittled and he would use homework to humiliate me. He would scream and yell and tear away at me until there was nothing left. I would start to cry-I would be mocked for it-then I would hate myself for crying and he would threaten to beat me (or burn me with an iron) if I cried and I would be too nervous to do the work right. Then i would get a beating with a belt. These sessions would go on for hours on end, at night when my mother was at work. I now realize that these were torture sessions. One time when I was eight, I was beaten until my leg split open. My sisters and I have had to stand in dark closets for hours on end, eat dog food, sleep outside half-naked ("like dogs") and live in fear. I had no self-esteem (still don't). I hated myself so much. By age ten I wished I would just die in my sleep. Good times.
I can not describe the terror. He would blow up over nothing. He wanted us to be afraid of him. He stopped being physically abusive in 1999 with an incident with the police (family dispute where he strangled my mother).
But my mother would invalidate our experience along with him. I guess it was to make herself feel better by what she ultimately condemned us to. We would be so afraid of him, and she would get mad at us, "Why do you act like he is some monster..other kids would love to have a father etc..or my favorite: “he loves you” (keep telling yourself that bitch) He would say: "It's all in your head...you are making it into a big deal..."
So I never really knew what to think. And I have so many problems. I might have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, I have no sense of self.. coming to college and living among others who have not had to deal with this has made me realize how dead I am, how utterly empty and hollow I am. I realize that I live in permanent depression. It feels like I am not even really living, or something. Until just recently, I learned to stop hitting myself. At fourteen yrs. old, I was starting fires at school and cutting words into my hands. I think I have dissociation episodes. I can’t even comprehend how messed-up I am. And I feel like I have become him. For instance, I can't understand love and why it is such a big deal. At the end of April I read a book titled, "People of the Lie". And it trigged so much rage, now I understand what is wrong with my sick, sick “family”. So I have gone NC with my father and mother too, since she is his pawn. I have cut them off, completely just, last week as a matter of fact.
Has anyone dealt with an NPD parent who physically and psychologically tortured them at a young age? (5-12) And last year he told me this: He told me that he is not crazy, that all that stuff he did on purpose to destroy what I was and to create what he wanted.
