A painful pattern with my D just reared up again.
I am helping her financially get moved to go to grad school.
It has involved serious sacrifice. But it was my choice.
That said, she called last night to ask my opinion on a car repair--because she didn't know if it had been done. She also mentioned she'd had a rotten day at work. I offered sympathy and asked what had happened. She said that was irrelevant. So I suggested she contact the dealer where she bought it to see if they had a record. She said that was illogical and wrong thinking because they wouldn't keep records, they wouldn't know the history of the car. I said because it was an expensive local dealer they might have orginally sold the car as new, and had the same customer trade it in when they traded up. She kept insisting it was naive, wrong, incorrect, etc. Very hectoring and insistent, and I was tired. I said I have bought and sold a lot of cars and although I wasn't sure it would pan out it seemed like a reasonable first step to take.
Bottom line, it is an exhausting thing. She insists it's a "conversation" and to me it feels like being flayed alive. She says she's "offering me criticism" about my reasoning. I said, I have said goodbye to a friend today and I don't feel like listening to criticism. She was then extremely indignant and lectured me longer about what a terrible thing that was, to shut her down and refuse to accept criticism, because "I think I'm perfect." Relentless, exhausting. Finally, because she is relentless, I simply shut up, watched the captions on the TV program and held the phone at a distance and let her rip. When she subsided I was again warm and kind and when she had finished all she had to say, she was done. End of conversation.
So today I wrote her a lot of questions, like: why can't you let me be imperfect or inaccurate? Why do you keep going until I become submissive? I feel as though complete capitulation is all that will satisfy you, and I worry about what this bodes for your future relationships. I want you to have a happy mutual respectful relationship and when you are this rigid it won't work. And I told her it reminded me of how her father would treat me when he came home from a rough day at work and picked a fight. I asked a lot of questions like that, and closed by saying that the thing that really bothered me was that I told her I'd lost a friend, and she didn't ask me one thing about him. Such as, I'm sorry you lost a friend. Who was it? Tell me a little about him. I told her she needed to remember that other people weren't receptacles for her bad moods.
Her response chills me. It may sound familiar:
I did not unload my shitty day on you. Nor did I even mention my shitty day more than once, except to put it in the reference that we all have shitty days no matter what happens. I was trying to engage a conversation but you had no desire to be a part of it. I am not sorry for anything I said last night. Nor do I feel in the wrong about anything.
When things like this happen I feel bowed over with the fear (not the certainty -- if you feel it's hopelessly obvious, please be gentle...) that my daughter is a narcissist. She is very nice to me when she wants something or needs me. But if she is stressed or agitated...she's cold as a glacier.
I feel heartsick about it, and boy, would I love to be wrong.
(I called her dealer this a.m. and they had the records, and the answer I had thought they would have. I sent it to her.)
Hops
