This is long, but it has a good punchline at the end....and I hope it helps just one person out there by giving them some hope that you can start to feel better about your own situation.
I want to share my journey with you. I hope it helps someone out there as much as so many of you telling your own stories has helped me.
At times I would get on this board and work during the past 9 months I have been in recontact with my totally classic Narcissistic mother. Then I would have to take a break as the pain was too much from all the horrible memories of my childhood came forward in my mind. Being away from my Narcissistic mother for 21 years (38-59 ages) allowed me to repress so much alot.
It has not been a fun 9 months lately, but so beneficial in the end. If it doesn't bore you, I would like to tell you some of my journey.
Someone mentioned that narcissism shows up in a couple types on the Enneagram (thank you whoever you were!). I know the Enneagram well, but neglected to that part of research. Maybe it is the old story of things "coming to you when you are ready to receive them."
If anyone knows my story they will understand that I went thru years of confusion and torment trying to understand how my classically Narcissistic mother could put me thru so much (sex addicted stepfather, totally ignorning my needs, choosing him over any of my needs, harshness and cruelty as a way of dealing with me--and I was a "good" kid--just put-downs, insults and cold/hard/harsh ways of dealing with me, etc. etc. etc. In short, nothing I did was right or good enough). I know that was part of the motivation for my getting a degree in Psychology, and dating a couple therapists (ironically, well known ones). I really wanted to get to the root of this and heal for years.
Getting away at 19 from that house was like a divorce from them to some extent. And having no contact for 21 years (not my choice but Nmother's) was the best thing that ever happened to me, ultimately, when I raised my son.
Now I have come back to the area where Nmother lives. We are in contact although she lives in another city. The cruel stepfather died almost a couple weeks before I came back.
More than ever, I see how totally Narcissistic my mother is, how cold/cruel/harsh and how miserable she is in many ways. It's been hard to cope with and brings back too many bad memories.
But, of course, she is oh-so-charming and delightful to her "friends" or strangers--but aren't all Narcissists that way? In the house, the family knows them as harsh and cold and cruel. Big difference.
I only came here to live for awhile because my son is here for school, and I didn't like the area we lived in for 21 years, anyway, and wanted to leave there even tho I had good friends and a decent business going. Just some circumstances caused me to come back here for a couple years, and don't plan to stay here long. I just needed a change, really. Don't want to live with my son (26), but it is nice to see him every week. One day, we will be in different cities probably but the bond between my son and I will go forever.
I love my son. Loved being a parent "most" of the time (he is a sometimes smartass boy, after all, and did the normal boy things that drive us mothers crazy..haha!).
One of the strongest bonds my son and I have is "humor," believe it or not. We both are witty and make each other howl with laughter alot...even when we are mad at each other, our biting sarcasm can stop the anger and make us both start chuckling.
But one thing I did right was to PARENT HIM in the manner that I WISH I had been parented. I do know that one of the ways you HEAL YOURSELF is to parent your child in the manner you wish you had, and this I did. Gladly. I wasn't perfect by any means. Not at all. I made mistakes: yelling at him and raging sometimes when it wasn't fair to him. But I did give him all the love I never got and wished I had. I always allowed him to SAY whatever he wanted to me...he just couldn't DO whatever he wanted as I was the ultimate say on his hours and other parental things. |
I had NO idea that this was giving him "voice" until I read Dr. Grossman's articles the other day. Maybe that is why he seems healthier at his age than I was. This is why I keep saying to you lately to go read Dr. Grossman's articles: I never even found them until the other day. You put in "voicelessness/narcissism" in the address bar of the computer and they will come up. Click on all of them and read.
The point of this letter is to say that between finding the Narcissistic mother on the Enneagram (which I happen to have studied for two years! Can you imagine not looking for her personality in this when she was the root of alot of my problems? Avoidance? Scared of what answers I might find?) AND.............................................................
Between Dr. Grossman's articles and realllllly studying her personality type in the Enneagram, BINGO! All the marbles of who she really is, why she is that way just fell into place. I mean, overnight!
I feel as is 100 lbs. has been lifted off me. I can actually feel renewed vigor to work (I have been just blocked about even getting off the couch for the 9 months since I have been here! This means, I have gone thru a pile of savings, too, and it is so NOT me.). Is this called "insight"?
Just being in contact with my Narcissitic mother these past 9 months brought back so many horrible memories of things that were done/said to me that have been hell to deal with. My childhood was coming back to me again, and it was torturing. I was in alot of pain when I found this board. I was desperate to find answers to why this was, and why my Narcisstic mother was so harsh to me always, clingly dependent at times, cruel and pushing me away at others (a pattern with me from day one according to my grandmother). But always her first needs was: what is in it for HER.
But finally "getting it", is this the "insight" that they talk about? If it is, it's great!!! I feel--almost in the last week--that I understand all this now. I don't feel a need to rage and be upset and ruin any holiday with my severe depression (I really wallowed in self-pity then by myself) because I had no family who loved me...and I was 1,400 miles away.
I look back at how much I wallowed in so much pain from my childhood, so much self-pity (for good reason, though), so much hurt and so much RAGE! My Narcissistic mother has done so many horrible things to me that others just have no comment--their jaws are too busy falling to the floor-- when I start telling them just a few of the stories. Just the fact she stayed with my cruel, rejecting (with a cap R) stepfather who had a host of his own severe problems is enough to vote her "Shitty Parent of the Year."
BUT, she "thought" her husband/my cruel stepfather "loved HER so," and she didn't want any kids anyway so I could just tolerate it. And, for god's sake, don't cry or tell her about the pain you were in as she would start screaming at how wonderful he was!
And she says NOW (that he is dead) that he was, "jealous of you from day one." She KNEW how he felt about me all those years and denied he was anything but just wonderful to me. I was not allowed to express hurt or pain about his treatment of me because, if I did, she raged and screamed at me to shut up: he was "wonderful." I was in the position of just having to eat his shit. No wonder I have had pent-up rage all these years. She KNEW he hated me for living, hated me for being her child from a first marriage, was raging jealous of me all the time, was cruel to me--she KNEW and DIDN'T CARE! She...did...NOT...CARE!!!!!!!!
She never wanted any kids...and I was supposed to be a boy. Dang! If I could only have grown a penis. I guess she felt girls weren't worth so much, cause that is the message she got from her own mother. So, since I was (1) born and (2) was a girl--I could just like it or lump it. I lumped it.
I realized when I came back 9 months ago and she and I talked about her husband and my cruel stepfather--she's angry with his dead self now as she realizes what a fool he made of her by cheating on her all those years (she didn't suspect but I did)--so now he is on her shit list, and she will now talk rationally about him. No more defending his horrible behavior towards me now, no more screaming how wonderful he was, no more defending his behavior--a total turnabout 100% from her now. Talk about Kharma! Talk about we should all trust the Universe to take care of things! WOWIE!!!!!
He told her himself the last 6 years he was alive, how much it really WAS all about HIM and all the many times he cheated on her (her ultimate indignity in her mind--it was okay to abuse her daughter--but cheat on her was too much). As I say, they were so in love: him with him and her with her. A pattern she also had with my real biological father: do narcissists marry each other often?
Me, of course, loved it: she ultimately got hers and out of his own mouth! This is great to me! Sorry for the rejoicing, but she has always put me thru hell and back. Again, trust in Kharma! Trust in the Universe, although it is so hard to do at times.
Now that I am back in contact with my Narcissistic mother, I see so clearly how miserable of a person she is inside, how she used me as her whipping boy because she is/was miserable, what a fake act she puts on for others and how she DOESN'T really LISTEN to what anyone says (Dr. Grossman states this in one of his papers). This has been eyeopening, and I see things clearer now than I did even before. She is a fake, phoney, miserable human being who realizes she has wasted her life, her opportunities (she was a model before she married that jackass and a great beauty), and has nobody who REALLY cares for her. She has some people around her (neighbors, her maid, people with no close ties to her) who do things for her and help her, but she is emotionally ALONE. Kharma.
Before I left, 21 years ago (38 y.o.), I just saw her as selfish and self-centered and neurotically anxiety ridden.
Now I see even more deeply into her. I am now 59, so it took some time. Of course, I was away from her for the past 21, also.
Regardless, I have gone a long and tortured journey. There will probably be some more fallout from all this as she is still in the area, but I do understand why and how now. I feel so much more at PEACE within myself. I feel reinvigorated all of a sudden.
This has taken me years to really understand (psych degree and all). It has been difficult and painful. I feel it is coming to a close insofar as the pain is concerned. I could not have done this by myself. I thank this Board and all your wonderful people in pain for your insight, your kindness and your patience with each of us. Thank you. This, literally, has been a life-changing experience.
I wanted to relate my journey to you in the hopes it will give some of you hope in finding your own "insight." I hope it helps.
And, when the craziness of this Narcissitic mother gets to me again or I start having bad memories of the cruelty I have endured comes up again, I will have to tune myself up again with this board and my books. I know you will always be here, and it has helped me so much to read your stories that I, of course, relate to since these Narcissists are similar in behavior to us "unimportant" children of theirs.
In the meantime, thank you all for your stories. They are sometimes painful to read, but so helpful. I know they are painful to tell as you relive the pain when you tell them (which, of course, is healthy for you).
You all have saved my next 30 years from alot more pain...hoping that I live to 90, of course. I feel I actually am on my way to freeing myself from this burden I have carried for 59 years of the WHY I was so abused by my own (Narcissistic) parent who made me feel GUILTY all the time for not worshiping her and my cruel stepfather (yes!), told me how much of a responsibility I had to help her feel happy, how much I OWED HER for the "wonderful" (she means abusive) life I had!!! YES! The ultimate classic narcissist.
Hope this gives just one person hope by writing this.
