Chilly Cerebral N

[Certain Hope]

Oh, Iphi... I do know what you mean by running on fumes to the point of an empty tank. And thank you for the hugs... (((((Iphi))))) they are so much a part of my life now. With my children, my husband... I feel like I don't ever want to miss an opportunity to hug each of them and show them how special they are to me. It really impressed me when we were with my parents last month that we hugged each other when we left for home...
now that we're 1,000 miles away, I guess my mother can spare one.

This is the first time in my entire life that I've felt myself within a space of health and safety. Ever. I guess that's why it's taken so long for this rubbish to come to the surface. I know it was always there... my busy-ness with raising my own children, and then the various turmoils and npd, and my later drinking... all that masked it. But there were times when it would pop... at the births of my babies... I didn't want my mother there. That was a very strong feeling... keep her away. So many things... all under cover.

And yet, through the most difficult years, I trusted my mother to share with her the struggles I faced where my childrens' dad was concerned. Now I see that word "trusted"... and it does not fit. It's not that I trusted her at all. It's that she was the only person in the world with whom I knew how to relate.
That is pathetic. I say that with clarity and not with anger or even deep hurt... more of a putting into place that last piece of the puzzle - the magic piece - which lifts the fog from the entire scene and brings it clearly into view.
She taught me to trust no one but her and if I doubted her perspective... I was to find myself motherless.
It is exactly as you wrote, Iphi -  this "meant I was refusing to acknowledge I needed real fuel and real relationships - because there was 'nothing wrong with my relationships.'  I refused to see and failed to learn and got stuck."

Until I met the male version of my mother in NPD ex and spent 3 years living with the wizard of word salad...
you know, sometimes I wonder whether I'll ever run out of rant.
Anyhow, I am thankful. Very thankful, to see the real picture.

They don't withhold fuel. WE are their fuel. They are human siphons.

I doubt whether I could maintain pity for their plight if I had to deal with them on a regular basis, Iphi. As it is, takes the grace of God to hold me in check. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with all this knowledge... as far as they are concerned, I mean. Because it's not just my mother... it's my dad who has been her symbiotic... whatever... for all these years.
As far as my own family is concerned, I do know that this stuff that's in the light now can all be worked together for good... to break this cycle once and for all. For the rest, I'm trusting God to get them out of my head.

Well, I was just catching up here and still want to read your last post about the withholding of info. Might not reply to that one till tomorrow... longgg day here. Hope you and baby have a good rest tonight...   And again, thank you for sharing your thoughts here. I feel very privileged to be a part of this discussion.

With love,
Hope

[Certain Hope]

Dear Iphi,

Your descriptions are priceless! I read them last night just before bed and had one of those combination guffaw/grimace experiences... lol 
That is my mother, 100%. The only difference is - she holds in her rage and becomes solid ice.

Dad does the grocery shopping now. She clips the little ads out of the local sale paper and tapes them to the shopping list.
But wait - that's not enough. Then she makes notes of the colors, shapes, sizes of packaging, and detailed descriptions of the step by step process involved in determining whether or not one has actually located the product in question. It is truly bizarre. I actually have copies of these somewhere, that dad has sent me. When he does that, I get the guffaw-grimace, too. It's sick... but I feel disloyal to her and despise that he is disloyal to her... let them keep their games to themselves.

The mailbox story... every one within a 20-mile radius had to be inspected... lol... (((((((((Iphi's sister)))))))))
I have to give her hugs because I have been there... and I thought it not strange at the time. I actually believed that was the proper way of doing things! Oh, it gives me chills to recognize full force how deluded I was. NO ONE could do anything as right, as thoroughly, as absolutely efficiently (that is the BIG lol) as my mother. Aye yay yay... there is nothing efficient about that style.
Sometimes I think that surely there must be a huge dose of ocd in these people.
But the main factor seems to be... any excuse to keep people dithering about in their service.

I have dithered about, plenty. She had a personal servant/secretary/slave in me for years... and when I wasn't acting out the role of her
Girl Friday, I was feeling guilty about not being there for her.
Growing up, I felt so sorry for her, because my dad is not the sort of knight in shining armor a fine lady like my mother deserves.
He is very crude, uneducated, and just the sight of him I think was a constant affront to her. She wanted me to feel affronted, too... and superior.
I remember when they'd go to choir practice one night a week, I was 7-8 years old.
 I'd turn down her bed and put toothpaste on her toothbrush, just so that she would find some relief when she got home... from the horrible experience she always let me know it was for her... having to deal with such commoners. She never said that, but it was crystal clear to me.
I wanted to take care of her.
And I just now realized... she's lost her only friend, now that I've seen... I don't run and jump any more when she expresses a wish. I am not her genie in a bottle. I honestly think that I am the only one she ever let that close...
and at this point, I run out of thoughts.

I see her failing... health-wise and mentally. She just turned 81. I don't know what will become of her and I can't imagine what I can write to her which could make any difference. So I'm praying about that.

(((((((Iphi))))))))  There must be some reason why we were presented with these particular challenges. I am still thinking and hoping it's good enough for me to say, "the cycle stops here!"

Love,
Hope

[Hopalong]

Same here, CB. I was thinking of OCD in Iphi's Dad and in your Mom.

Iphi, if it weren't so awful, it'd be funny. Subtract the rage and you've got benign insanity. But the rage on top of the irrationality and compulsion is just too much.

CB, I often have thought that women who read all the "ladies' magazines" for too many years begin a sort of compulsion. I had a cousin who admired Martha Stewart to the point that she grew literally obsessed with wreaths and artificial flowers and cute sayings and crafted everythings...and the themes of the items were always cutesy country-ish, but everything assembled from things like plastic and styrofoam, and the woman never met a piece of wood she didn't want to staple fabric around.

I wanted to give her a wooden spool of thread for a housewarming. It was like a monster of perfectionism and compulsion had eaten her from within.

love
Hops

[Iphi]

I am driven to post a bunch now that the ball is rolling.  Thank you for your responses Ami, CH and Hops.

Ami - I think my dad would really rather die than believe that others are in control, not him.  I just don't know what it's about - why he is that way.  He thinks control is life, maybe?  I don't know - all I know is what happens and what I see.  He never explains and does not seem to know himself.  He never grows either, and I think that is a very important aspect of it.  It's always the same.  It was the same 30 years ago.  Although, it seems all much darker to me now - the self pity is much more toxic, related to his illness and disability - lack of power and control over his own body.  It's strange how his physical symptoms are so intertwined with his mental issues.  Turning other people into extensions of himself when his own limbs will not obey him.  Expecting his body to function under his command for no acknowledgement and appreciation - and it rebels - and he never stops trying to force it.  But that is really subject for another post probably.

Okay wow CH - Ns and routine housekeeping tasks - I swear it could be a book, or at least a dark comedy. 

Hops - And you know, a lot of times I had a hard time not laughing hysterically, helplessly.  It's just so nuts and you have to wonder - whatever next?  Because it is definitely going to be soemthing.

CH - I cannot believe you turned down the covers and put toothpaste on the brush for your mom because of the grueling horror that was choir practice, which is presumably voluntary not compulsory.  I mean it wasn't like choir practice in prison camp.    Or was it? Did they lash the altos with a whip because someone was off key??  And the annotated shopping list with visual aids!!      I am humbly grateful that this idea never occurred to my dad.  You know, I notice my dad doesn't disdain the human race though unlike a lot of Ns I hear about - but he isn't too aware of it either, which may explain things. 

CH it just shows the extreme degree of brainwashing and the extent to which you had sacrificed your own needs and put her 'needs' (whims, indulgences) in place of your own best interest - that you would worry about her wellbeing because you weren't there to slave for her.  Because she didn't lose a friend in you, but a slave.  Maybe a slave and master can have positives in their relationship, and there is certainly intimacy in a master/slave relationship because we slaves know so much about our masters, but it is too unequal for friendship.  But still if we didn't care so much, we could not have been slaves.  So certainly they lose those who cared for them most.  Very sad.  But my dad seems to get by just as well on flattery and vanity type interactions and doesn't notice a difference anyway. 

After I started this topic I felt disoriented for a while this weekend because it occurred to me "But I know so much about him."  I know so very much about him.  I have thought about my dad and studied him and observed him and contemplated him more than any other subject during my whole life.  Far, far longer and harder than becoming a doctor or gaining a Ph.D., but with much much less prestige.  lol! But CH when you pointed out that your mom is the person you know how to relate to - yes I know exactly what you mean - look how much time and study and energy has been put into it, right?  But seriously - my life has been about this topic, this person.  It needs to stop being about this, if that can even be managed.  Who am I besides this?  Who are we?

Hops - never considered Martha Stewart-o-mania as particularly evil before, but you make me see things in a new light.   

[Certain Hope]

Dear Teartracks,

You wrote:
"CH,
As I read about your friend who emailed about her new job but only mentioned mundane things like early emails and making coffee, it made me think that maybe she really doesn't have a job (for whatever reason) and that she is ashamed to say so.  Just a thought."

This friend is an enigma to me, but I don't believe that she would lie.
However, I hadn't thought of this - (thank you, tt!) - she may be feeling shame about the job itself... if it is far less than what she'd desired in prestige and... hmm... autonomy, I guess. That seems to be very important to her... to call her own shots. I don't know. The secretive aspect of her approach to this announcement is what set me off to thinking about my mother's manner of withholding info as though it were some priceless treasure, all her own.
I wrote back to this friend, asking whether she had a sense, yet, of the permanency of this job. No response. I think that she is treading a tightrope of her own, at this stage of her life (59 and widowed).. and I do know that she's attending CoDA groups to overcome some issues... about which she's also been very vague. I'd like to understand, but I'm not up to any more missions in life, at this point. Thanks, tt.

Dear Hops,

Chairwoman of the Martha Stewart fan club... o boy.
My mother substituted travel magazines and catalogs for the crafty side of life. She's not into "country style" a bit... much too common, for her; I guess you could say she's much more "continental". Nowadays, she looks through stacks of catalogs of all sorts, and assigns craft projects to my dad.
Most recently, she had to have a birdhouse she saw in one of these publications. Dad can barely see through his eyeglasses, they're so scratched; he doesn't get dental treatment, although he can barely chew meat anymore; but she has spent thousands, I understand, on her own mouth, all for the sake of avoiding dentures. Who cares if Dad can't chew.
But I digress. This birdhouse... it's more of a condominium complex.
It required a 200 mile round trip to a certain shop, in order to purchase a $25.00 piece of copper, I think it was, for the green roof.... all so that the queen could have this luxurious item which she'd seen in a mag.
Doesn't matter that no bird in its right mind would occupy the thing.
It looks great next to her ceramic rabbit that never poos on her deck.

Anyhow... my husband 's explanation of these things begins with the saying:
"Nature abhors a vacuum."
No empty space can remain so for long.
To me, ocd is all about refilling that leaky bucket... and the faster you pour in (whatever), all you do is create more force to drain it out. It's never enough.
Combined with perfectionism, it's not only never enough, it's never good enough. Those two, combined with lack of empathy, extreme envy,  almighty entitlement, supreme grandiosity, and pathological lying = npd.
To my knowledge, my mother lacks only the lying behavior... however, she holds in her rage, for the most part... so maybe she holds in the lies, as well.
I'd say that she must... because no human being could continue this farse without having lied to herself continually, for a lifetime.

Hugs, Hops.

Love,
Hope

Iphi... I'll be back!  Break's over here... but I'll be contemplating these things while I work and try to type some more as able. I'm so glad that you're keeping this ball rolling, because it's having the effect of a giant fan, blowing that stinky old fog away. Hugs : )

Love,
Hope

P.S.  LOL @ Martha Stewart-o-mania 

[Certain Hope]

Iphi,

Back with another installment here...
I think that my mother is dying because she realizes that others are in control. Envy and pride consume the one who hold them close... 

And I believe that N's always view others who are in the role of "supplier" as extensions of themselves, I think. When my mother called this afternoon (I posted about it over on Gaining Strength's thread - Starting Over) I heard her utter despair at realizing that I am no longer one of those extensions... and, correspondingly, neither are my children. I sensed that she was very angry and, for a moment, I wondered whether she'd come right out with it and rage. She's making more and more errors these days... and that's killing her, too. She can no longer maintain the pretext of perfection and she's not getting any supply, positive or negative, from me or my family. Honestly, I think she'd be just as thrilled to have another horror story about my life as something positive and wonderful, with which to feed her need. The fact that I'm simply happy, healthy, growing, and safe...  how dull for her!

Iphi, about your dad's lack of awareness (and disdain) for the human race... that's how npd-ex was. He didn't speak with disdain about others like my mother always has. He was an island unto himself, unless someone crossed him.

And that brainwashing... it's not even that I sacrificed my needs to be her slave.
I equated my needs with her own... just like I did with npd-ex :S
Invasion of the body snatchers, only this snatching happened at birth.
 Until very recently... very, very recently... I felt selfish to even notice an unmet need... even for something as simple as sleep, or food. What she taught me is that I shouldn't need anything... only walk in her footsteps and keep refilling her.

The disorientation... is complete. When you identify so absolutely with an empty person, the search is on for those missing ingredients. You figure that there must be more to this puzzle...
but there isn't.
Empty vessels, they are.
Clouds without water, driven by the winds of their own design.

Who are we? Fully human and fully alive.... something NPD never will be.
All of those empty spaces we've tried to fill...
oh, I just remembered. The picture... a circle with an inner circle, with another circle within that one... that's us. Now put a dot in the very center.
That dot is NPD. We think there are spaces around the dot which we can fill in, but there aren't... it's just a dot, with an impermiable shell... nothing reaching out and nothing allowed in.
(((((((Iphi))))))

Love,
Hope

[Iphi]

CH - I was just dying reading about your mom's special bird condo.  A total N-ightmare.  I can imagine no birds living in it, but all of them pooping on it....

When you wrote that your mom holds in her rage, I wondered if it is like when my dad is all icy and frigid and won't speak or look at you.  Or if he is in public, he is elaborately polite.  Is that the kind of holding in? 

You were saying about how your mom would get NS if there was drama and horror going on in your life.  It's something I've been thinking about.  I'm the person in my family who something is 'wrong' with.  I have gone to therapy.  I work a perfectly decent job but never pushed forward to a masterful career (big issue in my family).  As long as I relate with my dad from the position of 'I'm messed up' then you know, he can be all advisory.  And you know, it's almost like a real relationship.

It's a real heart of darkness of dysfunction.  I've been perturbed ever since the perception started bubbling up from the depths.

I am not sure I was able to notice an unmet need for the most part, so I really know what you mean.  Were we pod people?  Stepford children of the N cult?  Eek! 

The main unmet need I had was for wholesome physical affection.  It was visceral suffering.  I was thinking last night - do I remember being hugged by my dad since... the 1970s?  I really don't.  I used to hug him on the (apparently incorrect) theory that it just didn't occur to him to hug or that he didn't feel okay with it or something. No.  But it never occurred to me that it was a 'need' (I had no 'needs') or that he would be the person to fill it.  Well, it's back to how I completely excused him.

The other big aching needs were for guidance (nix!) and for acknowledgement/parental pride (nyet!)

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences CH.  It means a great deal to me.  I am also happy for you that you and your family have managed to navigate some really harrowing past adventures  ((((CH))))

[Iphi]

Another story I need to exorcise.  This one - caused me pain to the point of muteness for years.  I couldn't even describe it and never spoke of it to anyone.  Maybe it won't seem so bad, but... it was just the worst to me.  Even writing this right now - on the inside I feel like I am grimacing and twisting in anguish - but on the outside there is no change in my expression.  That poker face is a skill I learned at home.

I applied to several colleges in the next state over.  I arranged 3 on-campus tours and interviews.  The third interview would be for my first choice school that seemed so wonderful and great to me, and I really wanted to go there.  But I was worried because I had been seriously depressed and my grades had tanked in 10th grade.  Since then I had worked hard and ever grading period was better than the last.

First 2 interviews went well.   My dad drove on the way to the third interview (can you see where this story is going?).  The way to the third school was -- take the highway east in the direction of our home city, but then take an exit and turn north.

So we are heading east, and I (disastrously) confide in my dad that I am really nervous about the 3rd interview because I really want it to go well and it will be crucial because I believe that otherwise the school will reject me because of my grades.  I'm not sure I can get into the school even with the interview, but I really want to go there.  I was a little tearful (shame about my depression and past bad grades and having dropped advanced math and advanced science - would they think I was 'good enough?') and I was all open and vulnerable.

So we approach the exit to turn north, and he drove right past it and straight home.  I said 'there's the exit what are you doing?'  and he said there was no reason to waste any more time on me since I couldn't get into that school anyway.

However that strikes you, please know that it completely leveled me like a bomb.  It was extremely, extremely damaging.  It was a complete, killing body blow that he would do that to me.

Really feeling the hate for him right now just in describing it and it is almost 20 years later.  But I stuffed it at the time, because it was far too dangerous.  I paid a really high price for my undergraduate education. 

I got into one of the schools that I did interview with and they gave me good financial aid as well, better every year because it was tied to my GPA and I kept it high. 

The following year my sister got into and went to the school that had been my first choice and that rejected me.  Yes, she interviewed there.  Additionally, she applied to a school on the opposite coast and they went on a tourist vacation around the interview.  She told me 'it's not about you.'  Like, you know, I shouldn't make comparisons in how we are treated, that would be very wrong of me.  And I believed that she was quite right about that so I stuffed it. 

Anyway, for myself I was happy with the education I experienced except that for the first year I feared my dad judged me because my school was not 'good enough' and obsessed about transferring (I had no evidence that any thoughts re: me even crossed my dad's mind - it was just a 'why can't I please him' anxiety thing).  Eventually that kind of passed though.  And it was quite a good school and I did well there.  I visited my sister at her school and though it was a great, dynamic place I was glad it was not where I ended up.  It all worked out fine.

But the actions of my dad toward me that day - he delivered the killing blow and he never paused.  He planned it and executed it. 

I tried to make it about me not being good enough - tried to believe his lie - so I wouldn't have to see the truth about him.  Believing his lies hurt me a great deal - I mean not only emotional pain - but structural damage. 

I've never really recovered in that I have always believed I am 'not good enough.'  It connects in with the stomach pain, which I am feeling right now - and sick and shaky too.  Toxic, toxic stuff.  And my great anxiety about how to be good enough/can never be good enough.  Can't achieve an unassailable degree of perfection - not capable of it.  Anxiety.

Thanks for this forum - letting me put this out there.

[reallyME]

IPHI,

What the N did to you, driving right past that school, has been done to me more times than I can count.  It is nothing short of CRUEL AND EVIL!  N's are such JERKS and MORE!

The Bible says it this way "fathers, provoke not your children to wrath."  That was clearly a way to build up bitterness and even hatred in you over the years, from that moment on!

Bless your heart, IPHI.  I can FULLY understand and even FEEL your pain from that.

~Laura

[SilverLining]

Anyway, for myself I was happy with the education I experienced except that for the first year I feared my dad judged me because my school was not 'good enough' and obsessed about transferring (I had no evidence that any thoughts re: me even crossed my dad's mind - it was just a 'why can't I please him' anxiety thing).  Eventually that kind of passed though.  And it was quite a good school and I did well there.  I visited my sister at her school and though it was a great, dynamic place I was glad it was not where I ended up.  It all worked out fine.

But the actions of my dad toward me that day - he delivered the killing blow and he never paused.  He planned it and executed it. 

I just started reading this thread and see a lot of similarities to what I went through with my Asperger/N father.   In my family it seems to have passed down the generations (hopefully ending with my father ).  Like your father, my father and my grandfather talked nonstop about their own "knowledge" and experiences, while everybody else had to sit and listen.  There was rarely any real dialogue.

Driving past your college exit was pretty clear cut N-ish sabotage.  Since your father relies so heavily on knowledge, maybe your pursuit of college seemed a threat.  The sabotage of my education was more subtle.  My father declared it wasn't his obligation to provide any school assistance (financial or otherwise) past high school, unless he happened to have "surplus" funds. Then he never said a word to encourage my pursuit of any college education.  He was always careful to keep the true state of the family finances under tight wraps, so his offspring and wife wouldn't expect too much out of him.   But then when I went to an inexpensive state school,  he was critical of the choice.  Only in my later years have I come to realize how he manipulated the situation to his own ends.   He worked to sabotage my ambitions, but then turns it around so it seems I made poor choices.  This way he gets to think of himself as a good parent, even though he really didn't do much of anything for me.   It was like growing up in a poverty situation, when my parents were actually very well off financially. 

I hadn't heard the term "cerebral N" before.  Now I wonder if this isn't a better description of my father than Aspergers syndrome.  I always learn something new from this board

[finding peace]

Dear Iphi,

I am so sorry.

You wrote:

it completely leveled me like a bomb.  It was extremely, extremely damaging.  It was a complete, killing body blow that he would do that to me.

I had a very, very similar experience with my F (different context but hauntingly familiar).  I felt as though he calmly looked me in the eye, stabbed me through the heart, and then stepped on my body as I lay bleeding on the floor as he calmly went on with his life.

I can't even put into words the emotions I was feeling at that moment:  horrified/sickened/hurt/ashamed/shocked/devastated/destroyed.  I just wanted to vomit at the realization of how cruel he really was.

For me, it was also an eye-opener.  When that happened to me, I became fully aware of what he was capable of - and knew from that point forward that I could never, ever trust him in any way, shape, or form.

I am so sorry you too experienced this.  When it happened to me, it was one of the worst experiences of my life.

Much love to you - you deserved so much better.

Peace

[Starfish]

So we approach the exit to turn north, and he drove right past it and straight home.  I said 'there's the exit what are you doing?'  and he said there was no reason to waste any more time on me since I couldn't get into that school anyway.

However that strikes you, please know that it completely leveled me like a bomb.  It was extremely, extremely damaging.  It was a complete, killing body blow that he would do that to me.

I would have been devastated. 

[Certain Hope]

((((((((((((((( Dear Iphi )))))))))))))))

He is obscene.... Perverse!! I am so sorry that you've been within his grasp!

I don't know whether this can help you to feel any better, but maybe it will explain a bit... and I hope... ease your suffering.

There is something I've learned about cerebral N which is very predictable.
When you are his source of supply, you must never express a doubt, confess any lack, or indicate the slightest sign of weakness.
With N, you are permitted to co-exist without punishment only in a glorified state, as his positive supply.
Then you are available for N to view you as an extension of himself... perfect, just as he believes himself to be... albeit a lesser deity.

This was your role as you interviewed at those colleges... up to the point when you confided your humanity.
At that moment, it was to N as though you were his right arm, reaching up with a knife to stab him in the heart.
He didn't see you, Iphi... any more than he's ever seen you. To him, you were his own shame, personified... and he had to obliterate that.
I'm so sorry. It really was all about him... always. Not one ounce of his shame belongs in your bucket!

Love,
Hope

[Ami]

Dear Hope,
 That was the BEST explanation that I ever heard of a cerebral N. Either that or it just clicked in to my brain after all this time. That explains my whole childhood. My M 'loved" me when I made her look good-- did well in school, married someone she thought looked  good, had kids, kids did well etc. Whenever, I was hurting--- She STABBED me. WOW-- I am getting a panic attack, here.
  Iphi--- I am so, so so sorry. You deserved someone who could see your "greatness'. I can 'see' it over the internet-- honest.. .Iphi--- it was a horrible, horrible betrayal  with the schools. Any kid would feel like they could confide in a parent. It was a knife in the back and a stab in the GUT( our poor,poor stomachs absorbing all this abuse)
   Iphi-- I am really glad that you risked to share this. I could hear how very hard it was for you   Love   Ami

[Iphi]

reallyME, tjr100, FP, starfish, CH, CB123 and Ami - thank you for your compassion and understanding and sharing your stories too.  I am sorry to have company in this and my heart goes out to each of you.  Thank you for your kind responses.

Your description makes so much sense CH, and the additional insights of CB123 do too.  It's hard to grasp in my mind how incredibly delusional he has to be in order to really interact with us (my sister and me) as extensions of himself to such an extent.  And it doesn't always add up the way one would think or else why would they hate the graduation or the wedding etc. of an extension - you would think they would like it/bask in it.

It really helps me see why I could never do things and just be bad at them and enjoy them.  This is a big key to the paralysis I think.  Do others agree there might be something in this - not being able to do things as merely human? 

FP - it's actually a saving grace that you began to distrust your NF when he knifed you.  I just held harder and squeezed my eyes shut.  It especially was problematic for me in forming other relationships in that I see I did not defend myself or even distance myself from cruel people.  Because I refused to see.  And you know, I really wanted to be normal so I just umm faked it.  And when they hurt me I... stood there and pretended it didn't hurt and kept hanging around.

tjr100 - I'm interested in what symptoms lead you to wonder about Asperger's in your dad and family.  Your experience with your dad bending everything around to his advantage is so depressingly familiar though not in that specific way.  I was terrified the entire college experience because he had to come across with some $ - it's a miracle he never pulled the plug on me, but believe me - it was in my mind. 

I want to say I don't think my sister should not have applied to that school or anything and I hope I didn't give that impression.  The problem was not being able to mention my gaping, sucking wound because it would be a distasteful inconvenience and 'selfish' of me.  Posting here is really making me realize that holding out hope for my relationship with my sister is also very likely BS.

Earlier when I had been in that depression - I was terrified to tell him my grades were suffering (he never asked to look at report cards - I forged his signature on that and permission slips etc.).  Anyway, I went in to his study and started to tell him I was feeling very troubled and low and he said (no longer remember it exactly) "Don't expect me to listen to this or expect to ask for anything from me beyond shelter and food.  That's it. Do you understand? That is IT."  But you know we cleaned his house and mowed his lawn and washed his dishes and etc.  There was no end to what we had to do for him to make up for his life not being what he wanted it to be.  Anyway, learning about N-ism and really looking at what I did without and had to pretend to not want - really gives a new perspective on the depression I experienced at 15-16.  And finally it seems that maybe I can feel compassion for that young Iphi instead of blame that I proved to be a flawed creature not able to be always brilliant etc.  I was always apologizing.    

I've really squashed my own life and potential greatly because of not feeling good enough. I am hoping others can speak to that problem and coming through it because it has been with me so long now.  Feels like I'll never be free.