Varying Sibling Reactions to NPD

[Hopalong]

he only title I can suggest is
When Things Fall Apart...and it's PEMA CHODRON

(I read another a few years back but don't recall the title).

Hope you'll enjoy it, Lupita.

Hops

[sun blue]

Hi all:

As always, reading your posts with interest.  I will be sure to look up the Pema Chodron book as well as I like to read whatever I can on the subject.

It seems judging from what you've been writing that whether you live with your NPD parent or not, they seem to have frequent contact with you.  Even though I live with mine (for the time being until I can find a new job), there is very little contact.  I know that will only continue when I move out.  Neither my NPD mom nor co-depdent dad ever initiate contact with my brother (the happily married one).  He calls them weekly to see how they are and occasionally drops by with my niece for a quick visit.  But they never, ever initiate it.  No phone calls, no e-mails.  They, of course, chose my NPD sister long ago and spend every holiday, weekend and vacation with her so he doesn't see them on those occasions (nor do I).

Also, because my older sibling (NPD sister) is the chosen one, I have no doubt that she will control everything when my parents do become ill and need help coping.  I am confident this is one more way my NPD mom will "punish" my brother and I by not allowing us to be a good son and daughter to her, all the while screaming out to everyone she knows just how terrible it is that we aren't there for her.  Fortunately, both my parents are still active and healthy and it hasn't come to that.  But I have no doubt she will exclude my brother and I even from this.  Of course, that will bring a lot of guilt.

As I've said, because my NPD mom's preferred method of abuse is total neglect and disinterest, she makes no effot to communicate to me or my brother.  No conversation, no questions about my life (or my brother's).  I know very well that when I ultimately move out, there will be no contact unless I initiate it.  That will be hard for me.  My "healthy" brother seems to have accepted it and is fine with the occasional phone call or visit.  For me it is much harder to accept that at best, we can only expect to have the most superficial of relationships.  No close mom-daughter or dad-daughter relationship.  When I see others who have this close relationship, I really feel sad and cheated.

Oh well.  I wish I was in the place where some of you are.  Thanks for listening.

[Poppyseed]

Sun,

I so hear you on the wishing for a closeness that will never come.  And the seeing of others and their seemingly close families and feeling sad inside.  I have SO been there and still am sometimes.  It has taken me many years to accept what my parents can be for me and what they can't.  I have learned to not expect anything of them.  And then, once in a while, they do give or try to give to me.  Then I am simply grateful for the offering.  Trying to rid myself of expectations of their behavior is a constant struggle.  I still feel such profound emptiness and pain from that great discrepancy between the childhood I had and the childhood I needed.  I am lucky, I suppose that my parents are not abusive.  My situation is probably very different from yours, but I hear that pain you feel and know it so well.  I am learning to fill those spaces and trying (uphill battle all the way for me)  to open myself up to the love that the universe has for me and allow that love to come to me from whatever creative place it may.  I am confident that you will find that place too.  Where you have "family" around you and filling you up and recieving love from you.  I guess it is hope, you know?  What else do we have?  I just saw this movie starring Diane Lane, "Under the Tuscan Sun". (I may be getting that title wrong).  Have you seen it?  It is about a gal whose husband leaves her and she has no family.  She goes on a vacation to Italy and ends us buying a house there.  In one scene, she looks out in her new garden and wishes that she had people to feed and to someday have a wedding in her backyard.  At the end of the movie, she realizes that all of her wishes were granted, although not in any expected or forseen way.  I think it will be like that for us!!!
So, here's to the universe!  and all of its possibilities!

All my love,

Poppyseed

[Poppyseed]

thanks CB!  I think I might really enjoy that. I give it a look see!

--poppy

[Iphi]

Sun blue I've been thinking about your posts for several days because your situation is so familiar to me.

First they teach you that there is nothing of worth about you.

Then they teach you that your only value is going to be judged on how well you serve them and their expectations and attend to them.

Then they ignore you.  And it also sounds like they don't even give you the chance to 'prove your value' their way - which is a trap anyway.

It's confusing and makes no sense, but there's also no solution by the rules of this 'game' as to how you can have value and be valued.  Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.  This whole game is a pack of lies.  You already have value and live among those who have already decided, and show day after day, that they will never acknowledge the truth.  So, they live a lie and you suffer for it.

In my experience, when the parent gets sick they will not call upon the GC.  They will call upon you.  And you will think "here is a way I can show my love and prove to them my good faith."  Personally, I found this to be a trap, but I can see from Hops posts that it really depends on where you are in your life.  Meanwhile, the GC looks down on you for willingly slaving for your parents (because it is willingly if misguidedly) and says to herself how lucky she is not to be a sucker and to have a life so much better than yours, and your parents make your life a living hell while treating you as a worthless slave whom they despise.  Meanwhile, they write their will to leave all the money to the GC.

If you go into caretaking thinking it will lead to some resolution, peace, understanding, relationship - no.  I did not find that it did anything but intensify the issues.  It does not sound to me that you have even begun to discover nurturing and caring for and enjoying and cultivating yourself, your innate value, your worth, your happiness.  I hope that is where you ultimately put your interest and future.

My therapist asked me "when will you stop mourning your dad?"  And she was right.  I was in mourning and it was a mourning that was untimely. I didn't even recognize it.  It had no natural course, because he isn't dead and it is never over.  But something is dead, and that is hope.  Something is dead - and that is a good relationship.  My illusions - dead.

I hope so many things for you.  I've been so depressed too.  I hope you mourn what is dead and move on.  I hope you choose to live because you are so alive.  Hope you get a new job soon and you can put some distance between yourself and these twisted, toxic, invalidating people.

[Poppyseed]

Iphi,

Great insight!  Your descriptions of the "trap" really helped me to understand my own feelings better.  So often I get confused when I fall into the caretaking or proving value roles.  Thanks for saying it so clearly for me.  I often feel that one reason I need to distance myself from my N family is that I get so confused and lose my center so fast when I am with them. 

Anyway, thanks for shining the light and speaking clarity!!

--poppy

[towrite]

Welcome, Sunblue. For me, the answer to your question lies in sensitivity. Please get a copy of "The Highly Sensitive Person" and find yourself there. I know this was true for me - I was the sensitive one and the smartest and the only girl. Now one brother is dead b/c he could not cope and the other has his head in the sand, is totally passive, and has been divorced going on the third time.

All your questions are at home here.

towrite.

[sun blue]

I LUV THIS BOARD!!  It's amazing how much alike many of our situations are.  I will definitely get that book about "Highly Sensitive People".  Definitely sounds like me.  In fact, I've been accused of being "sensitive" by my family forever, usually when I would balk at their hurtful behavior.  Here's a perfect example.  A few years back, I was in a job where I had the opportunity to travel a bit.  One year, I knew I would have work responsibilities that would take me to Hawaii for a week.  For Christmas that year, I told my parents, brother and sister-in-law that as a Christmas present, I would be taking them with me for a week.  I booked the trip, carefully planned the itinerary with a travel agent, reserved a very nice condo on the beach at Maui.  I was to leave a week before everyone else for work and they would follow a week later.  Well, two days before I was to leave, I received the tickets from the travel agent and I discovered the itinerary was wrong.  I had arranged for them to stop over on the Big Island so they would have a chance to see Pearl Harbor before flying home.  Well, apparently, my NPD mom didn't like that idea.  Instead of talking to me about it, she went behind my back and convinced the travel agent to change the itinerary.  I was livid!  When I confronted them, my dad just said "Oh, don't be like that.  It'll be fine."  Just me being "sensitive" again.  Needless to say, my trip was ruined.

When one of you posted about how they never value you but set you up to try and prove you have value only to ignore you, well you hit it right on the button.  Exactly!  It is so hard to be ignored and rejected constantly.

I find myself getting more angry and resentful, even at my "healthy" brother who seems to have gotten everything he wanted.  He has a great marriage, a child who adores him, a nice home, a great job (which he got thanks to a former colleague).  He's never had to struggle for anything.  He's always got those things that are most important to him.  On the other hand, I can honestly say no matter how hard I struggle, how hard I work, nothing ever works out.  I never get a break.  I know this must sound terrible but sometimes it is just so hard to take.  I look around me and people seem to be happy, have loving relationships, good jobs and aren't in the kind of pain and rejection cycle I am. 

I'm wondering if this has been a pattern for any of you?  Do you think there's a connection between our NPD parents behavior toward us, our so-called "sensitivity" and depression, and lack of positive things in our lives? 

For me, at least at this point in the process, what is most difficult is knowing I am entirely alone.  There is not a single person who cares what I want, believe, think or feel.  In my family, everyone seems to go on with their lives with the attitude "to hell with her".  That is just so hurtful.  I find it nearly impossible to tolerate a lack of empathy and willingness to compromise in people.  I feel like I've compromised for everyone and it is never reciprocated.  I'm still left alone.

Oh well, sorry.  It's one of those days for me.  I didn't sleep at all last night.  This just eats at me.  Like one poster said, the hope is gone.  I will never receive the attention, love and interest I so desperately needed from my family.  And if you can't receive it from your own family, then there's really no hope.

Thanks for listening...

 

[Hopalong]

And if you can't receive it from your own family, then there's really no hope.

Time to make yourself a family and a community you can thrive in:
women's support group
volunteer group
12-step group
therapy group
church
meditation group
singing group

This is how people build families of choice. And you can too, dear Sunblue.

The real hope in life is to know that you can learn how to go out and intentionally construct healthy relationships with a variety of good people who, over time, can become as precious to you as any relative.

love
Hops

[sun blue]

Hi All:

Me again.  I read your posts and can certainly identify.  My brother has chosen to "distance" myself and I am certainly feeling the consequences of that.  It just adds to my sadness.  Not only do I mourn the lack of closeness with parents and an NPD sister, I also now have to deal with the realization that my "healthy" bro wants to distance myself.  He is the healthy one with a wonderful wife and child, lucky career and nice home.  If he has been affected at all by having an NPD parent, I see it in his need to constantly "do".  He literally cannot sit still.  He is always working around the house or on the run doing something.  So, he claims he doesn't have "time" for me.  I've always been of the belief that if someone matters to you, you make time for them.  So, once again, I feel not good enough and abandoned.  But oh well.

Recently, I went out of town for a few days to get away from everything.  As usual, I traveled alone and this time it kind of got to me.  When I returned, my NPD mom never even asked if I had a good time or anything.  It's like I don't exist at all.  It just is so very heartbreaking.

I want to get that book about "highly sensitive people".  I have to wonder though if people who aren't sensitive would be affected by an NPD parent or significant other.  It seems like people who are labeled as "sensitive" are blamed for feeling the way they do.  But wouldn't any halfway normal human being be affected by the way NPDs treat us? 

It leaves you feeling very lonely and hopeless.  At least it does with me.  Oh well, thanks for listening and sharing your insights.  If anyone comes across any good books on the subject, let me know.  I'd love to read more about it.

Thanks!

[Iphi]

Hi sun blue.  It was sad to read of your incredibly generous Hawaii trip present and the way that worked out.  It was like seeing you spend an incredibly amount of yourself in a show of your faith in them, in modeling how you would like to be loved in return.  You went by the better to give than to receive idea.  I've never given such a huge present to my N-ish family but I've had plenty of experience in the spurned or unused gifts department.  My dad will ignore gifts that he has even requested.  Even from my sister who is the GC.  He asked for Netflix and she got him a subscription - never activated it.  I got him a cell phone package because he is disabled and it would be handy to have with him if he ever ran out of battery on his chair or experienced any other difficulty.  He never touched it.

Sad fact of the matter is that even with a non-N, you and I cannot control how a present is received.  We hope and wish that it will be wanted, liked and appreciated - but it is not up to us.  We do our best when we give it.  However, there is NO reason to keep giving our best to people who will only always do their worst.  If you gave a present to someone who truly liked it and truly liked you and appreciated the gift and appreciated you - it would be a wonderful wonderful experience.  I want you to have that experience in your life, but it won't happen with your parents or sibs.

It's like all your life energy is pouring into bottomless pits.  That's why people call them vampires.  You have to stop this energy drain and conserve it for better uses.  Please don't squander yourself.  You are a wonderful person.  Hey, give me a trip to Hawaii - I will appreciate it!  I joke. 

I think that I had said in my original post that I had experienced clinical depression.  I've had extended low periods after that depression, but never as black.  So I do know that experience from the inside.  When I read your posts, I can hear the depression at work on you - I see you saying things the way I said - that there is no hope and you will never be loved - because you are focused in like a laser beam on the same people who have never been able to reciprocate with you.  Focusing on them is very depressing.  I know.  I was there.  And living with them - oi!  Your well being is so important and it is not good to live with the people who undermine it.  I realize you are between jobs but I will rejoice the day you are ready to move out. 

You have to save yourself.  You have to save yourself from them.  You keep going to the same people who never gave you love and asking them "now will you? How about now?  And now?  What about now?"  I did that for decades too.  Who knows, if I have a vulnerable moment tomorrow, next week, next year - I bet I will do it again too.  Despite everything.  But I know what will happen - same thing as has always happened - I will get rejected, ignored and mistreated.  Again.  So that's why I stopped asking them and focusing on them. 

You must find new beings to love who can love you back like you deserve.  You need to get away from them.  You need to open up your future and to NOT KNOW the answers.  If you stay with them you know what the answer will be - it will be No. 

Come on out.  Come away with us escapees.  We escaped and we left them behind and we found new life and new mysteries and questions.  And they are better. It is better. 

It sounds like you have given them plenty of chances.  Give yourself some chances for a change. 

Anyway, I've been dying to say these things to you because I guess I wish someone had been around to say them to me.  ((((sun blue))))

[sun blue]

Iphi, thank you for your lovely post.  I know you are so right.  It is so hard not to zero in on the NPD parents and siblings.  I went away for a few days over Labor Day and when I came back, my NPD mom never even asked if I had a nice time or what I did, etc.  It just immediately brought be back to the "rejected, ignored, disrespected" feelings I know I get from them each and every time.  It just made me cry.

Mostly, I just feel really alone.  It seems when it comes to people, the overriding them in my life is rejection.  I always seem to care so much more about others than they do me.  They all just seem to do whatever they want without any regard whatsoever of me or my feelings.  Consequently, I guess I'm the needier person.  They have the people they want in their lives.  My "healthy" brother has his wife, daughter, in-laws and friends.  My NPD mom and co-dependent dad have each other and their "chosen child" NPD daughter.  And I have no one.  Plus, no matter how hard I try (and believe me I have tried hard), I can't find a new job which would allow me to move.  I really wish I knew what I did to deserve to get to this place.

There's a therapist in my area who specializes or at least is knowledgeable about NPD and I would love to see her for some help but that will have to wait until I am employed again.

This feeling of total worthlessness and hopelessness can be so overwhelming.  So I really appreciate all your posts and support.  It is good to know that it is not just me, that others experience what I do.  When you deal with these NPD parents, especially when they're accompanies by another NPD sibling and co-dependent father who do nothing but support the NPD parent, it is so hard to know what is and what isn't healthy anymore.  THey make me feel like I'm the loser, the failure, the sick one.

Oh well.  Thanks again for posting....