Beth,
I really appreciate the opportunity to talk like this. Thank you! See, this isn't stuff that I necessarily recognize as having been figured out, by any means. It's more like a process of thinking aloud, prompted by your circumstances (with which I've always felt a great deal in common) and recognizing what all has fit together into a bigger picture... and that helps me alot, too. So these are just some more thoughts....
About your sister and knowing her.... there's nobody home (yet), you know? There's a candle flickering in the attic, but each time the wind blows, it threatens to extinguish. It's just a very fragile state of affairs. She is probably so into people-pleasing that she tends to become like whomever she's with at the moment.
I mean, your sister doesn't really know who she is, either.
If she is like I was, all she's had, so far, is a series of roles... and as intelligent as she is, at a gut level - she probably needs to receive "permission" to simply break from all that and practice being herself!
This has got to be affecting her marriage, too... because she has most likely never been able to emotionally leave the original family and cleave to her husband.
It's quite a predicament. I remember my long-ago husband saying that I was so different around my original family... and he was right. That's a common complaint, from all that I've read, and it can go on for many years, if a person doesn't deliberately choose to make that break into emotional adult-hood.
Your sister probably knows that she does not, can not ever actually measure up to the Golden role. I bet she is too honest to fall 100% in line with the whole game of pretend, but N keeps the bread buttered just attractively enough to keep her trying. When the carrots aren't as effective, then guilt and pity are employed. Keeping a dirty, messy house may be part of that whole set-up. A kind-hearted, empathetic individual would feel sorry for someone who was unable to even tend to her surroundings, right? It may appear to be a pathetic mess.... but just watch the sparks fly if you tried to help clean it up. Manipulators do love their tools.
What especially got to me was... when you're Golden, N won't let you admit to faults and failings within yourself or encourage any sort of realistic self appraisal, because if you can see your own shortcomings, then you can see hers... and that is absolutely not allowed.
For an individual who wants to practice integrity, this presents an impossible dilemma. Any attempt at self-examination and growth threatens the relationship with N, which - for a lifetime - has been viewed as the source of all sustenance. Truly, that umbilical cord can grow to monumental proportions. The really major break for me was marrying NPD-ex. Okay, so it wasn't a break... it was a trade-off. In fact, sometimes I've wondered whether my mother didn't see her own N-self in him... because he certainly was the straw that broke alot of camels' backs. Long before he ever became a real menace, she actually told me that I could come back "home" to get away from the "overgrown infant", as she called him. Later, when I discovered info about NPD and gave her all the descriptions of it... oh, man, was she quiet.
At that point, I still didn't get it... how much the NPD description fit her.
Now I see... those two are kindred spirits. No wonder she hated him.
And another semi-random thought...
To me, the game of N is much like that of a non-custodial parent, where each visitation is made to appear like a weekend at Disneyland. Well, that may be a nice place to visit, but who wants to live there? N does. So do some Goldens... the ones who never grow up.
Well, you know how some non-custodial parents make it their mission to bash the other parent? To the prize (the child) they'll cast the other in the role of the perennial bad guy, who enforces all the discipline and deprives the prize of all pleasure. Between N and Golden, there is always some character who's got to wear the black hat. In my case, it was my dad and brother... well, men in general. Later, it was my husband. With your sis, the black hat changes places depending on how introspective she might be feeling that day. Most days, I bet she places it onto herself... simply because she can't bear to try to blame someone else. That's what I did. It was easier for me to wear it than to choose between others I loved.... and that is how it felt - like I was being asked to choose. All I knew was, I did not want to be the "prize" anymore.
How I'm getting free of this is a work in progress. Mostly, I'd say... I got to feeling like I'd used up my "do-overs" and ran out of ways to try to destroy myself, so... it pretty much became an imperative that I had to choose once and for all - do I want to live my own life or keep trying to get someone else to do that for me? Focusing on all of these other people was not getting me anyplace.
That's really the choice your sister must make... that we all must make, I think.
Hope this helps... it has really helped me. Thanks again (((((((Beth)))))).
Love,
Carolyn
