Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: genuine on March 22, 2005, 01:28:40 AM
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Hi All,
As some of you know, I have cut off contact with my NFamily and no longer converse with relatives as they "spy" for my parents or want to be the first to find out the goss and spread the news to everybody else. Well its gotten to the point where they are now harrassing me.
Just recently a cousin of mine who lives out of town dropped by unannounced with her mother (now my auntie never visited me when I first fell out with my parents because she didn't want to be in the shits with her brother - my Dad) so how thoughtful that she decided to pop around.
Anyway the door was slightly ajar but my fiance and I ignored them. We made a pact not to open our door to any family member while we are recovering from our toxic parents + siblings. They remind us of a cult.
Anyway my cousin and her mother were banging on the door, banging on our bedroom windows they were relentless even desperate to talk to me. I know my cousin, she always has to act the hero and I could just picture her reassuring my mother "don't worry I'll get through to her, she'll talk to ME" type of thing, so she came for a reason and wasn't about to leave.
She called "I'm not leaving until you open the door" and I was thinking WTF? isn't this harrassment. My fiance said she fumbled through a rip on the screen door to try and unlock the latch and let herself in. I would have exploded, this is my home. She did manage to drop a note along the lines of "came past to see you but didn't open the door to me..".
She and her mother finally left and I thought I heard the last of them until a couple of hours later I was sitting out on my front steps and my cousin was suddenly there running across the road determined to speak to me. I just got up, went inside and closed the door before she had a chance to corner me. She started bothering me again "at least I know your alright" (why wouldn't I be?) "can I just give you a hug?" "no one knows I'm here" yeah sure.
The next day I recieved a message on my answering machine from another auntie who was here from out of town and she told me she was disappointed that she didn't see me a "the christening" and asked me to ring her but I knew she was another pawn in my parent's game.
It all just clicked to me, my oldest Nbrother and his Nwife must have christened their second child. I wasn't invited so of course I didn't know. Oh what a farce that wouldn't have been. I wonder what excuse my parents gave everyone.
What angers me is before I stopped talking to my parents and was discussing my wedding day, I pointed out that I didn't want my abusive brother there and Dad exploded "Why wouldn't you want your brother there?" yet its obviously alright that they didn't invite me to a family christening.
I am so glad that I don't see any of them anymore and its funny how certain relatives who never concerned themselves with me when I was around suddenly want to talk to me. They are not the only ones, a male cousin tried ringing me a few months ago and even my other brother's inlaws tried contacting me. They are all mad!
Thanks for reading,
genuine
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Good for you to not let them in under so much pressure. My assumption is in the nar/dysfunctional family, a lot of triangulating is going on. I see it in mine. SIL will tell me what other SIL did. Mom will complain about a brother or Dad. They always avoid going directly to the source. Maybe that is why the sudden interest form the distant relatives. Again great going for keeping the moat up in the face of nar.
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Good Lord. These people are out of their minds. You might have to ponder a restraining order. I suppose they are excited by the "drama" of your cutting them off, and they all want to gossip about you. Each is eager to gather information and give reports on the latest sighting. No boundaries at all... :cry:
bunny
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Go genuine go!
You're right, it is a cult. You and your fiance are seeing what is really there, and it scares 'em. Think of it as a crab bucket. You don't need to put a lid on a crab bucket, because every time a crab is on the verge of escaping, one of the others pulls it back down.
You and your fiance are sitting on the rim of that bucket, out of reach. Good deal, resisting all that pressure. Don't feel too badly about missing the christening - my Nmom deliberately didn't tell me about many, many relatives' deaths and funerals, then painted me as a heartless b**** who wasn't there because I didn't care. These people can be evil incarnate.
On the plus side, this gives you a way to tell who's worth bothering with. The ones who like their malice 'straight, no chaser' - who swallow anything foul that's said about you without question or an attempt to find out from you what the other side of the story is - aren't worth the time of day. (No matter who they are in relation to you.)
Hang in there!
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Stormy,
Think of it as a crab bucket. You don't need to put a lid on a crab bucket, because every time a crab is on the verge of escaping, one of the others pulls it back down
Priceless. :lol: :lol: :lol:
My sister gave my brother a Christmas present one time. It was a wooden sign that said "An old crab lives here" with a picture of a crab on it. Now she's in the bucket with him. :(
mud
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genuine, what a great job setting and *defending* your boundaries! I can't imagine trying to let myself into anyone's house by reaching in and unlatching the door, unless I was convinced someone lay dying inside. That is outrageous!
I've recently started setting boundaries with my wife by not volunteering my experience. Baby steps for me. Hearing your story helps me to see where I'm headed. I'm sorry that have the need to protect yourself from these people in your family, but you seem to be doing a marvelous job!
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Wow. Genuine, I loved your story. Thanks for sharing. Hard to believe people like this exist....but we all know them first hand (glad to say I don't know those particulars, however). I'm really impressed with your behavoir. I shake and cry if I stand up for myself in the smallest way, I can't imagine having them breaking down your door. Sounds like restraining orders are in order!
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That's the kind of stuff my aggressive N family would do - confront someone right at their own front door. It's maddening how they think they have the right to do whatever they want. No boundaries. If they're like my wing-nut N family (all co-dependent) then your departure has been an exciting time for them - drama queens and kings that they are. Somehow they get something from it. Now they can rescue you for reasons of their own - it has nothing to do with you - I hope you see that.
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Just to give you a sense of what it might have been like if you did talk to her--
I had a similar situation a few months ago where I wasn't talking to my parents. I hadn't involved my siblings in this at all, but negative gossip travels fast. After a WEEK of much-needed distance, my sister called me and said "Dad wants to resolve this. He wants the three of us to have dinner tomorrow night." I said it had been about a week, which wasn't enough time for me, and I would rather not. To which my sister yelled at me so loudly I had to put the phone away from my ear:
"I will NOT be put in the middle!"
(I did explain that when you call someone to tell them what someone else says and then ask what you should report back to the other person, you are putting your own little self in the middle. We didn't have that dinner. I have had minimal contact with my sister since then-- she never calls me anymore, I guess because I am no longer doing her bidding).
The truth is these folks will always see themselves as messengers of your family, and will secretly like it and secretly resent it too. And it will always be insulting because the implication is that your side of things is somehow not legitimate. Have any of them commiserated with you? Asked you your opinion without mocking it? Told you they have similar feelings to your feelings?
I agree with Bunny-- until they show that you are as much a legitimate force as anyone else, then all you will be is someone to manipulate and gossip about and stir up drama.
It's a way for them to keep from really looking at themselves.
Bleah.
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Wow! Vunil!
It's a way for them to keep from really looking at themselves.
Hits home in a very big way. Wish I had realized it earlier. :oops:
Good for you Genuine! Stick to your guns! These people are trying to force you to communicate. To push their way into your face! To control who you will speak with and when... big time!
And you're not letting that happen any time soon.
Good for you!! My heroine!! 8)
GFN
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Hi Everyone :)
I have been using a library computer until I get my home PC fixed so I can't reply individually like I would like to. Thank you from the bottom of my Heart for your wonderful support and wise words. I feel like I'm amongst old friends who are looking out for me.
Love genuine
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Hello all,
I am grateful to have found this forum, and I really appreciate that you all have been willing to share your personal experiences here. It makes me sad to hear about how folks have had to suffer at the hands of such wickedness. I take comfort in the fact that there is "strength in numbers," and reading all of your accounts reassures me that I am not nuts after all.
I can truly relate to those of you who find yourselves being harrassed by narcissistic relatives. After having cut-off all contact with my parents and most of my siblings for the past three years, they resurfaced last week, escalating tensions to a new level and doing yet more damage.
Without writing a book that would rival "War and Peace" in length, I'll sum-up my childhood by saying that I was a kid who "did all of the right things"(i.e., good grades, always followed the rules, never rebelled) but it was never enough. I was raised in a strict, controlling and volatile home. I always knew that something wasn't quite right in my family, but, being a kid and all, I couldn't quite articulate what it was or put my finger on it. Whenever I did try to address the abuse(sometimes physical, mostly emotional), my Nmother would always deflect it back on me, saying that I "set the tone for the relationships" that I had with other family members, and that she, my father and my siblings were only "reacting" to how I "treated them."
Over the years, my Nmother wielded guilt like a sword. If I didn't wear a smile on my face while meeting her unreasonable demands, I was subjected to a 45-minute diatribe on why I was an ungrateful disappointment-for-a-daughter(do you know how many times I had to hear, "sharper than the Serpent's tooth is an ungrateful child"?!). I could go on with many examples of abuse that occurred over the years, but I don't want to go off on too much of a tangent.
Fast forward twenty years. My brother marries, and my Nmother and Nsisters go ballistic because my brother has the nerve to follow the generally accepted course of evolution wherein when one marries, the spouse generally takes priority over parents and siblings. My Nmother gossips non-stop about how much she hates my brother's wife, thereby fanning the flames for my Nsisters, who take every opportunity at family gatherings to mistreat my brother's wife.
I have to insert here that over the years, my Nmother usually saved her nastiest treatment for me(her attitude was that "everything was great" in our family and "look at how close our family is" in spite of me, the source of every problem in the family), but her behavior toward my sister-in-law opened my brother's eyes to what was really happening.
About three years ago, I had finally had enough, as had my brother. I gave my Nmother a piece of my mind regarding the unfair treatment being leveled at my sister-in-law, and at about the same time, my brother told my parents that if the mistreatment did not stop, he was cutting himself off from the rest of the family.
My brother and I kept our distance from our parents and other siblings for about a year, after which point our mother called us to tell us that our grandfather had died. It seems that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer two months before he died, yet my family deliberately kept this information from my brother and me.
At the funeral, my father marched my brother and me into to the mausoleum at the cemetery, pointed to his and my mother's headstone, and proceeded to tell us that "this could have been your mother or me that got buried today." He then told us that we were to "either find a way to make peace" with our mother, or he wanted us to "go away." My brother and I chose the latter.
Fast forward two years, which brings us to what happened last week. After many years of suffering from Alzheimer's disease(the last six months gut-wrenchingly so), my husband's mom passed away. My mother-in-law was a wonderful, generous woman who was loved by so many people, and she was the best mother-in-law a married woman could ever hope for. My brother and his wife attended the wake and arrived at the funeral home the following morning for the funeral.
When the funeral procession entered the church, we discovered that my parents and other siblings had come, unannounced(and most definitely uninvited). At this point I must insert that NONE of them ever knew(or had even MET) my husband's mom or the rest of his family, despite the numerous invitations my in-laws had extended to them over the years. They never cared to know them. I can only assume that it was because it "posed a threat" to my mother's warped idea of "preserving" the "original" family unit.
At any rate, after the church service, the funeral procession exited the church and everyone went to their cars to continue the procession to the cemetery. My brother and his wife, also part of the procession, got into their car and waited to leave the church with everyone else. This is when it happened.
My Nmother and Nsiblings ambushed their car(in front of everyone), hijacking the procession in progress, and they began screaming at my brother and sister-in-law, all at once---a verbal clusterf**k, if you will. My Nmother leaned into the car window, grabbed my brother's arm and shrieked, "You're MY SON, and I don't even know you any more! What did we ever do to you?! Do you know how embarrassed your father is at the fact that his family knows about the problems in OUR family?!" My Nsister screamed, "You know, that could have been Mom or Dad in there(being buried) today!" It deteriorated from there, with my mother and sister accusing my brother's wife of "stealing" their son/brother away from his family, telling my sister-in-law that she had my brother "shackled." And then my other Nsister shrieked, "why don't you come and see your nephew some time, he's almost one now!"(she had had a baby, but the news was kept from us). My brother and his wife sped out of the church parking lot, leaving my family still standing there screaming.
The next night my brother arrived home from work to find boxes of all of the things he had given to one of my Nsisters over the years, accompanied by a note that excoriated him and his wife for their "disrespectful treatment" of my mother and siblings at the church(I can't begin to tell you how totally skewed that is--they crash the funeral of some poor person they never knew, they create a huge scene, then my Nsister has the gall to chastise my brother for his treatment of her?). Attached to the letter were pictures of my other Nsister's baby, along with a parting shot telling my brother that maybe someday if he "cleans up his act," he can have a relationship with his "REAL" nephew(a cheap shot taken at my sister-in-law---my brother and his wife have a baby nephew on her side of the family).
I apologize for the length of my reply, but I hope that my story might help someone else suffering at the hands of an Nfamily. I never knew how completely out-of-control my family was until this latest episode. My brother and I are at the point where we're wondering if we will have to get a restraining order of some sort. Have any of you had situations escalate to such a degree? I would be very grateful for any insight or suggestions. In the meantime, thank you for letting me vent my spleen.
Oh, BTW, years ago when my Nmother applied for her first job, it was for a psychiatrist's office, and after passing her typing test, her future employer asked her to spell a word---can you guess what it was?(if you guessed "narcissist," you were correct!) Suffice to say, she spelled it correctly.
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Hi promqueen ( I love the name),
First let me say welcome, and how sorry I am for the family you are saddled with.
I really only have one certifiable N in my family. However he controls the rest of them to the point that my wife, daughter and I have had essentially no contact with them for about two years.
I have gotten no support from any of my siblings. You are fortunate that your brother has seen the light so to speak, so that you have an ally.
My brother has accused me of various felonies, engineered numerous damages to my family and basically destroyed my reputation to such an extent that no one wants to touch us with a barge pole. Either that or he has made it clear enough that taking our side, which in his mind includes merely talking to us, will result in the same results for them, so they simply don't want to get involved. I can hardly wait until he turns his guns on them. You can bet they will receive the same energetic defense from me in their hour of need that I have gotten from them.
My reaction for a couple of years was to duck my head and let him destroy my life hoping it would all just end someday. It didn't, so my new reaction is to seek compensation in court for the tremendous damage he has done to me and my family. I am fortunate that he put a lot of it in writing and spread a lot of his slanders amongst people who realize that he has some serious problems, so I have a pretty good chance of hammering him.
My advice if you would like it is, do WHATEVER it takes to keep these lunatics out of your life forever. If that means a restraining order so be it. Whatever it takes up to and including criminal prosecution if there is criminal conduct, which it certainly approached at the funeral. These people are pathological. It sounds more like a cult than a family.
My brother and his wife sped out of the church parking lot, leaving my family still standing there screaming.
It sounds like he should have sped out then backed up, sped out, backed up, sped out, backed up. Quicker than a restraining order. :wink: :twisted:
Sorry you are obviously in a tough spot, but that's what came to mind. I couldn't help myself. I bet others here thought the same thing. :roll:
No need to apologize for the length of your spleen venting. In fact it was some of the best spleen venting I've read. Keep on posting.
mudpuppy
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Hi PromQueenCasualty, (I wonder how we will eventually shorten that?)
Welcome to this site.
I am speechless and so totally disgusted by the behavior of your family.
:evil:
I have no experiences of this degree and my family are all dead now anyway so I don't have words of wisdom, but I would say that you and your brother are handling yourselves the best way possible by staying away from these head cases.
I'm sorry that you have had to go through this. You are fortunate to have your husband, brother and SIL as your allies. Continue to support one another and recreate your family unit without the rest of the animals. Don't let them suck you back in through guilt or obligation. You don't owe them anything. You owe yourself the right to be happy and have peace in your life.
Good luck and God bless.
Brigid
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Welcome PQC,
Good God, what a chaotic mess these people are. I'm so sorry you were victimized by them growing up. And now they are losing it completely and unravelling. If they ever converge on you in public again, call the police!
My condolences to you and your brother. And I'm very sorry for the little one-year-old. He has a grim future ahead.
bunny
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Hi, PQC--
Welcome! This is probably the only place where everyone will admit to having such nutty families. And I must say, your family is impressively nutty. They had to have really planned that ambush-- how did they even know when and where the funeral was? Imagine the mental and physical energy that went into that crazy display. Wow. And I bet in their minds they were just ever so justified.
I kept thinking when I read your story that they are REALLY mad at you for not doing what they want. Really, really mad. I posted a story a couple of pages back that is nothing compared to your story but that has the same feeling to it-- just blind fury at not getting their way. They remind me of three year olds. In a way they are. I mean, showing up where they have not been invited and being surprised not to be welcomed. And then shrieking like banshees and wondering why no one wanted to talk to them.
Why do they care so much? Anyone know? I guess they liked controlling you all and now they can't, but why not just find someone else to be mean to? What is in it for them?
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PQC (thanks bunny),
Your post brings up an interesting question I was thinking about. I was going to start a thread but this one seems to be pretty close to my question already.
Does anyone here have a theory on why some siblings in families grow up batty and others are relatively normal? Why are PQC and her brother seemingly well adjusted (with some obvious scars) while their siblings are flaming Ns?
Why is my brother a classic case of NPD while the rest of us are relatively normal?
I really don't understand the dynamics at work here. Does birth order effect it? Apparently gender doesn't.
Bunny, you seem wise in all things psychological, any thoughts?
Brigid, Patz, others with whacko siblings, any idea why they turned out with Napolean complexes and we didn't? :? This one has me stumped.
mudpup
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Why is my brother a classic case of NPD while the rest of us are relatively normal?
I really don't understand the dynamics at work here. Does birth order effect it? Apparently gender doesn't.
Parents' and babies' interactions mold the baby's future ability to manage emotional states. Parents project their templates on the baby. The baby's responses affect the parent's reactions. Also the parent has pre-programmed responses from THEIR childhood. A parent projects emotional states on the baby; personality traits on the baby, future careers on the baby, and so on. The baby will internalize a lot of this stuff and it will have an effect on them.
All siblings don't have the same reaction to the parents' projections. They internalize the parental projections differently. And siblings have different genetic temperaments.
If you look closely at your brothers vulnerabilities and his acting out, you will probably see something from your parents in there. I'm not blaming them. But usually narcissism doesn't come out of nowhere.
bunny
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One thing: parents projecting on babies is not a bad thing. It's normal. But when you have a pathological parent, and/or something goes wrong in the attachment process, there's going to be a problem.
bunny
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Thanks bunny,
The problem is my parents wern't bad parents. Neither one was very demonstrative emotionally, but I always knew they loved us. My mom has a few issues but nothing serious, I don't think. They didn't mistreat us, in fact they were pretty darn good parents. I have really fond memories of my childhood. So I don't know where my brother picked up his NPD. Of course he is several years older than me so maybe there was something going on that I don't know about.
Its still a puzzler to me.
mud
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Mudpup,
Does anyone here have a theory on why some siblings in families grow up batty and others are relatively normal?
I have often wondered this myself and as I said in another thread, I always thought I was a changeling in my family. I don't pretend to have any of the psychological knowledge of some of the others on this board, but when I look at my brother and I (just the two of us, 10 years apart--I'm the wise, older sister, duh!) we could not be more different from each other. I thrive on relationships, friends, lovers, etc. He has only had one girlfriend in his life and that ended 23 years ago. He lives alone and has no friends. If I were him, I would shrivel up and die.
My father was an a$$hole N to his family, but Mr. Charm to his friends and business associates. My mother was an enabler with her own set of issues. I can only think that my brother and I just have very different personalities that dealt with our family dynamics in very different ways. Sorry I don't have anything more profound.
Please tell me I'm the one who is relatively normal--whatever that means.
:lol: :lol:
Brigid
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Brigid,
Please tell me I'm the one who is relatively normal--whatever that means.
It means you're not an a$$hole N. It also means you thrive on people. You don't shut out the world because you're old man was a walking skunk cabbage.
Now get going on that vacation. I thought you already left. :wink:
mud
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mud,
It doesn't mean the parents are bad. But something happened in the bonding-attachment process that went south. Sometimes a child was traumatized during childhood, while by contrast his sibling feels he had a perfectly fine childhood. That's how the child internalized the experience.
bunny
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bun,
I wish I had a relationship with my mom to ask her what, if anything, went on during his first few years.
Thanks for the info though.
mud
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Dear PQC:
I don't believe I have seen such behavior in all my life! How on earth did you ever survive in such a family! Many have posted here and can attest to the fact we have real "nuts" in the family. I have no idea why some turn out "ok" and others are full fledged Ns. I have to admit yours really " takes the cake" so to speak. However, I must say, as I have related, that I also had a funeral epsiode as well. The only difference is that the preacher decided that I need a proper "evaulation" of my "behavior" toward my n father. I had not spoken to my father the previous eight years before his death. The preacher decided I needed "correcting" in front of everyone for my behavior and "unforgiveness". It was incredible. PQC I can only say STAY AWAY FROM YOUR RELATIVES. Anything you would do would make matters worse. Make your own life because you cannot fix these folks. Just my 2c. Patz
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re: Why one child turns out N and another doesn't:
I have two ideas. One is that the child who is chosen to be thoroughly bashed, the one who is treated as if everything she does is hopeless, none of her ideas is valuable, etc., is less likely to turn out to be the N child. This is because she doesn't get much chance to act out N impulses; she isn't allowed to. The child who is chosen to be the exalted one, or the co-N, is more likely to turn out N.
The other is that the development of N versus other qualities depends on early friendships. If the childs' peers early on are not fans of N behavior then they discourage it in the child, and the child learns other ways of acting. Peers have a big influence on kids. If on the other hand the peers are themselves N-acting, then the child can't learn any new way and becomes more like the N parents.
Who knows? I think heredity probably plays a role, too.
If the parents aren't N, then I have no idea. I always assumed that at least one had to be to make an N kid. It's interesting that this might not be true.
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Welcome Promqueencasualty:
My family sounds similar, in ways, to yours, so I do feel like I can really relate to some of your experiences. Mine were quite prone to ridiculous and embarassing outbursts, such as what happened at that funeral, only there might be violence thrown in for good measure. All the freaking and hullabaloo is a bit like a tornado or a wicked storm, isn't it? Then, it moves out and all is forgotten, as if it never happened (in their view).
All the big scenes and the chaotic psychodrama seem almost unreal and unimaginable sometimes. These people really did track you like prey and are doing their best to put everything on you, so they don't have to look at themselves (I think that was already spoken of in this thread..was it Genuine? I think so). It's true. If they can make you out to be the villan and stick together on that, then they will never, ever be inclined to shoulder even the tiniest bit of responsibility for the way things have turned out. It's very handy for them to have you to hunt and shoot at.
Anyway....take comfort in the idea that your sanity is your biggest asset. If you must take drastic legal steps to preserve it, so be it. I'm glad you have an ally in your brother and sister-in-law. That's a good thing. You don't need the rest of them and their lunacy. :roll:
As to Mudpuppy's question of why one or other sibling(s) are N and others are not, I think there are more genetics/inherited traits in some than others. :shock: I don't really believe that all N's are always produced by environmental influences. I do believe some things are inborn. Some people's brains are born imperfect/with any number of health issues/problems. My guess is that Nism has definate ties to genetics that have simply not been pin-pointed yet. Maybe in time? Who knows?
GFN
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Thank you all for your outpouring of support and encouragement---it truly means a lot to me. I, too, have often pondered the question of why my brother and I turned out so differently from our other siblings, and vunil, I think you might be on to something.
My brother and I are the oldest children in our family, and there is a big gap in age between the oldest and the youngest. For years, my brother and I talked about the presence of "two separate families" within our family. We may share the same DNA with the other three siblings, but we are WORLDS apart re: how we interact with the rest of humanity.
Our parents were extremely strict and punitive when we were young. Any minor infraction that my brother and I committed(like forgetting to say "please" out in public) was treated like a crime against humanity. Our parents were quick to remind us that THEY were in control---we were more like their subjects than their children. The prevailing parenting dynamic during those years was one of "good cop, bad cop," and the relationship we had with our parents was dictated by fear.
Vunil, what you proposed (re: the child reared in an oppressive environment being less likely to act on N impulses) really grabbed my attention. My parents were quick to put me down if they thought that I was conducting myself in a manner they found to be "inappropriate"(i.e., acting like a child my age, rather than the little trophy child automaton that they aspired to have). When we were growing up, our parents were on my brother and me like flies on poop.
When the other siblings arrived, our parents were that much older and they took a laissez faire attitude in rearing the younger kids. By that time, my father had also retired from his high-stress job and was far more approachable with the other kids than how he had been toward my brother and me. I would have to say that the absolute worst N in our family is my youngest sister. This is where the question of genetics comes in, because I can remember my sister from the very beginning of her existence, and as soon as she was old enough to have a personality emerge, she was a mean child. She took delight in gossiping about other family members and passing along hurtful information from one sibling to another("do you know what 'so-and-so' said about you?"). Because my mother indulged her(she was the "baby," and to this day, my mother still treats her this way), my sister's N behavior ran rampant, as it continues to do to this day. My other two younger siblings exhibit similar traits, but not nearly to the degree that my youngest sister does.
One thing still blows my mind: because our parents have projected their attitudes about my brother and me onto our younger siblings(i.e., their use of control and intimidation to try and get us to conform to meet their needs), our younger siblings obviously believe that they, too, have a right to use this approach when dealing with my brother and me. The obnoxious attitude of entitlement that they take with us is sickening, like my brother and I owe them something.
Mudpup, I appreciate your "suggestion" for my brother---believe me, I had the same thoughts! ; )
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Hi PQC!
Wow. I can relate. Your Family of Origin (FOO, and wow is that appropriate) sounds even wackier than mine... and the two different families thing sounds just like the split between me and my younger sib. I was the one ruled with the iron rod, my sib on the other hand could come into the kitchen and tell my parents to go **** themselves - this was 35 years ago - and five minutes later demand, and be given, $20.00.
The cops brought my sib home one night in a drugged-out state and after they left, she pulled a knife on my folks... all of this around 2 a.m., I was home for the weekend from college and asleep when the cops arrived, the screaming after they left woke me. My sib had slashed my mother across the palm and my parents were just standing there like sheep. I tackled and disarmed my sib and handed her over to my father, then called the cops and had her taken away. Thank God I was over 21 and could do this. You realize... of course... my parents blamed **me**, once they got back from having my mother's hand stitched back together in the ER.
A year or so later they calmly announced that they'd made a will that disinherited me, because they knew I could take care of myself but my poor younger sibling was always going to have problems.
So yes, I know what family insanity is like! I'm glad you have your husband and his family as a refuge and antidote. It's a lot easier to stay sane when you're not standing on jello being told it's bedrock.
((((PQC))))
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Hello All:
It never ceases to amaze me about our families. I stopped long ago trying to appease them. My mother at one point called me an "outcast" and also added that "my friends" treated me better than my brothers. I just looked at her like a space alien. She told me this after I had married and moved away from home.
I can relate to the "two family" concept. I was treated much different than my brothers by my father. My father had no value in me at all. He had no trouble treating me as if I were invisible. I just did not exist. We really did not have much of a relationship at all and he was a "unapproachable and remote" kind of person. He was very hypercritical and negative person. Nothing was good enough for him. I can remember when my brothers were playing in the little league baseball team. He would go to the games and if my middle brother lost a ball or missed a play, he would berate him for not playing better. It would not be just a little comment, he might even give him a spanking for it. My brother was only about 6-8 at the time.
Now my middle brother is in the process of living vicariously through his own son i.e. a football player. He has this notion that he is going to a big league college on a scholarship. Nevermind that my nephew is learning disabled, never mind that he does not have the GPA to enter college. More importantly my brother has ignored his son being LD to the point of taking him off his medicine when he was a young child. NOW my brother wants to do something about it and his son is 18. It is really to late. The point is you can see how the impossible expectations of my father have been passed on to my brother. I think we can be genetically predisposed to some of this Nness, but by and large I think it is environmental.
I just look at my two brothers, their N lifestyle, the N children they have produced and wonder how can I be so different. My mother knew I was different, why else call me an "outcast" within the family? It is a function of a different mindset on how to look and interact with the world in general. I have ceased to wonder about it and just know I cannot cope with chaos and Nness that is produced.
I remember going to a 4th of July party at my brothers house. My nieces and nephews had a lot of their college friends etc. there. This was ok with me it was a party after all. However a lot of drinking etc. was going on and one of my nieces friends got extremely drunk, the next thing I know this young girl was lying face down in the swimming pool, floating and on the verge of drowning. I looked at my brother and told him that this behavior was deplorable and he was at risk of being sued if this girl had any residual damage. He just looked at me "oh they are just being kids, leave them alone". He saw no urgencey, no problem with what was going on. I finally got my two nieces to haul her out of the pool. It was a very hedonistic type environment. I got out of there after that experience. Any type of family gathering is always a chaotic experience even in public. I have ceased to go to any of these family gatherings because of it. They are truly lunatics as GFN stated. They make a spectacal of themselves everywhere they go.
My general take on this is they want everyone to look at them, to look at their behavior and see that they are "entitled" to this and everyone just might as well accept it. Patz
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I wish I had a relationship with my mom to ask her what, if anything, went on during his first few years.
Hi, Mudpup--
Something funky-weird must be going on in your mom's coping mechanisms for her to choose an NPD guy over you. Or to choose at all-- what makes her have to choose? I have worked with people with NPD, and dated them (:() and it's not as if they are so difficult to detect as defective. Yes, it takes time, but eventually it's clear they lie and care only about themselves.
I think about how loving you are to folks here, how involved you are in being a good person, and I just don't "get" your mother's behavior. Something in her ignorance (or blindness to your brother) may help explain where he came from.
Not that we can ever really know, of course. Heredity does seem to be part of the game, too.
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promqueen
Your story sounds like something from a horror flick.
How dare your family pull such low life tactics at a funeral.
I'm glad that you have your brother and his wife as your family. Your NMom and siblings sound more than toxic.
Sorry that you were born into such a monstrous family.
mia
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Vunil,
My wife and I have pondered this.
My mom once told my wife that my brother didn't have any body to take care of him so she had to. I guess her idea is if you treat people nicely, get married and have kids (like me) you're strong and you don't need help; the defective ones do. My brother is never married and no kids.
Plus I believe he has oppressed her to quite an extent. I have heard him call her an F*****g b***h to her face as have others.( I should have knocked his teeth out years ago.) He frequently berates her and tells her how stupid she is. I just think she is a victim of him the same way others are oppressed and victimized by Ns. Add in a pinch of good old mother henning to protect the weak one of the litter and you have a recipe for mommy protecting her own oppresser. Pretty sick.
mud
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My mom once told my wife that my brother didn't have any body to take care of him so she had to. I guess her idea is if you treat people nicely, get married and have kids (like me) you're strong and you don't need help; the defective ones do. My brother is never married and no kids.
She spoiled him and didn't set limits. I don't think it's a big surprise that he ended up with no boundaries and the maturity of a 2 year old.
I just think she is a victim of him the same way others are oppressed and victimized by Ns. Add in a pinch of good old mother henning to protect the weak one of the litter and you have a recipe for mommy protecting her own oppresser. Pretty sick.
Your mother has co-signed the BS on this. She may look like his victim, she may even be victimized by him. But something in her internal makeup needs to submit rather than set limits. It takes two to tango.
bunny
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the next thing I know this young girl was lying face down in the swimming pool, floating and on the verge of drowning. I looked at my brother and told him that this behavior was deplorable and he was at risk of being sued if this girl had any residual damage. He just looked at me "oh they are just being kids, leave them alone". He saw no urgencey, no problem with what was going on.
A person who is sociopathic isn't stimulated by danger the same way that a non-sociopath is. It takes a lot to make them worried. They enjoy it more than feel threatened. [And maybe he was totally drunk.] It is indeed deplorable.
bunny
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Dear mudpup,
I do not know about the dynamics of co-dependency, but could it be that in some bizarre way, your mom is "getting something" out of this relationship with your brother?
I know very little about psychology, so forgive my ignorance---but in situations like this I wonder if there might not be some symbiosis present. I can only offer the perspective based on my own experience: My youngest brother decided to drop out of college and move back in with my parents full time, and when my Nmother told me about this(this was years ago when we were still talking), she said to me that it would "be a comfort to have [my brother] around all the time." My mother does not drive, she has no friends nor interests of her own(as she claims that she sacrificed all of those things on the mighty altar of parenthood---what a load---but I digress), and now that the nest was empty I think she found herself wondering what to do with herself now that there were no young children who "needed" her.
My juvenile brother's full-time presence in my Nmother's home allowed her to go back to parenting on a level that she felt "comfortable" with(and Lord knows, with an Nmother, HER comfort level takes top priority over everything and everyone else), whereas my other brother and I were full-fledged adults who had married and made new families with our spouses(or, to quote my Nmother and Nsisters, we "brought OUTSIDERS" into our family of origin). I think that my mother cannot deal with the fact that she no longer has control over our lives, so she makes excuses for our youngest brother's irresponsibility and immaturity because it suits her own twisted needs(his neediness strokes her ego).
As far as your mom's willingness to put up with your brother's abuse, the only thing I can offer is that as children who were abused, my brother and I did not want to believe that our Nfamily was evil---sure, our folks were very punitive, but it was always cloaked in "we only have your best interests at heart." I guess that it just got to the point were my brother and I were brainwashed---a child never wants to believe that his/her parents are bad or(worse yet) pathological. Maybe your mom does not see your brother for the psychopath that he is, maybe she continues to project upon him a false image of how she would really like him to be. It's kind of the polar opposite of what my parents projected on to me---I was the "bad" child(and boy, when you hear that often enough it's hard to shake).
Furthermore, was your brother was indulged in as a child?(I apologize if you already addressed that in an earlier thread--my head is spinning from all of the posts and the vast amount of information on this site!). In my experience, if a child repeatedly engages in behavior that is emotionally destructive to others and it goes unchecked, the child has the potential to grow-up into a monster(as is the case with my youngest Nsister---I do not advocate physical violence, but over the years my brother and I have joked in passing that what our Nsister needed was a good, swift kick in the pants).
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Just a quick note here: I think everyone is right about what makes an N, all kinds of different factors contribute to make the N, it be several of these or just one, I don't believe anyone really knows. But maybe a child can also become an N due to events that take place outside the family, providing they are traumatic enough. In the same way, experiences of having our voice heard and being accepted as we are outside of the family (or by other members of the family), can help us to grow up more sane. I know I've been talking a lot about Trapped in the Mirror lately, but it does a good job of exploring the issues of why we turn out the way we do and why we turn out different. I can recommend it to anyone here who hasn't read it yet (but if you're in the U.K. you had better order it on the internet, Waterstones are soooo slooow, I still haven't received Nina Brown's book that I ordered six weeks ago).
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Mudpuppy:
I think PromQueen may be on to something here. Anytime you give something up i.e. your brother, your mother would have to replace him with something more productive in her life. Maybe she felt she had nothing else but him to give in to. It is amazing that she would put up with such verbal abuse. My middle brother is very much like that. He is very crude and bigoted. He has no problem calling women b*****s, myself included. I usually try to talk to him on Sunday when I get in from church. It used to be I would call him on Sunday morning and not go to church and I realized he was prempting my worship life in order to talk with him. So I stopped that as well. Anymore I mimimize the amount of time I am on the phone with him.
My younger brother goes to church, but on the other hand he has no problem in his business life in sandbagging his customers. For example when some of his workers installed new carpet in a customers house, the workers somehow broke the water pipes in the house and the entire house was flooded. The man threatened to sue my brother if it were not replaced. What did he do? He convinced the man that he should file this on his homeowners insurance and the man did it! The reason my brother did this was because he did not want to pay for it. The customer does not realize when filing claims on homeowners insurance it is going to raise the premiums. Besides that customer had to LIE about how it happened. My brother thought it was funny. Yet, he goes to church every Sunday. His son is very similar about how he conducts his business. He will over charge and pad the statements and sees no problems with this. Amazing. Patz
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Oh, Patz, I ended up homeless because of a "Christian" contractor who was a deacon in his church! [Not homeless now. All fixed.] This man was building a house for me in a very small town about an hour from where I work. The house was not 'custom' at all, and he had several other similar houses going up, un-spoken for, just across the state line [importent detail].
A month before closing, I moved to the small town - temporary digs - with my three cats. I was in a rental townhouse (council houses, you UK foilks, but privatised) and the guy in the house next my rental turned out to be an alcoholic stalking lunatic, who fixated on me within two weeks and started leaving me very scary love notes while I was away at work. (This was in 2002).
I asked the "Christian deacon" to exchange my house contract for one on a house he hadn't yet sold, across the state line, because stalking is merely a misdemeanor in my home state (like loitering or spitting in public) but if the stalker crosses a state line it becomes a felony at the federal level.
The sanctimonious b*****d refused, even though the prices would have been the same, and even though I showed him the letters this creep was leaving me. So I had to break the contract, losing a LOT of money, and get my stuff out in the middle of the night. I got the cats out a day early: stalkers often harm animals or destroy possessions in order to cause their targets emotional pain, and I wanted to be sure they were safe before I left.
I lived in a friend's living room for a week, and another friend's spare room for several months. Fortunately they let me stay rent free because of the situation, so I was able to afford to board my kitties and save up to replace the money I'd lost on the contract, but one of the cats had to be put to sleep due to complications of aging during this time.
People like your brother, and this creep, give Christianity a coating of muck in the eyes of the world. And I will probably never buy a piece of real estate in my life, given this foul experience.
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Thanks guys,
I really don't know what to make of my mom. Like I said my wife and I have hashed it over, but finally pretty much gave up trying to figure it out. Maybe she's got more going on in her noggin' than I know.
PQC and bunny I'm sure are right. There is some kind of co-dependancy thing going on. It definitely does take two to tango. Too bad. She has made NO attempt to even see her grand daughter for two years.
Patz and Stormy,
I have a good and wise friend who estimated once that he figured maybe twenty per cent of the people in the typical church were actually Christians and who try to live as Christ did. And I can't disagree. Church is a magnet for grifters, stalkers, misogynists, and those looking to salve their conscience and hoodwink their fellow citizen. Too bad so many people judge God and real Christians by what these slimeballs do. I'm proud to call you two (amongst others) my sisters.
Patz, I've always wondered what people like your brother think when they hear sermons on the rich young ruler or the love of money. Do you think it goes in one ear and out the other or do you think he's actually sitting there looking for some new member of the flock to fleece?
mudpuppy
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Mudpuppy:
I really don't know but I do know that it is really embarrasses me that both of my brothers take advantage of people in such a way. They are always looking for the "angles" to get ahead.
I remember I had a dear neighbor who married again after her husband had been dead a number of years. She married someone she met in church. Oh, he was so good, so glib. Her house was paid for so he moved in with her. They were married about two years and this friend was diagnosed with breast cancer. Well, needless to say, this guy she met in church did not count on this. The next thing you know he was suing for divorce and taking her to court for half of what she owned. There was no prenup. So much for meeting someone decent in church. She thought it was "safe" since he was a church member in good standing. Did the deacon thing the whole bit.
I feel my younger brother uses his positon in the community and uses the church he attends as his platform to perform and then has this bad rap in the business community. The two simply don't go together. It has been my observation that integrity is not a flag you have to wave around for people to see. It is a living ingredient in your life. It is not something you advertise. All this makes it hard to even tell people what home town I am from for fear that they know who my two brothers are.
Much like your own brother, they are such an embarrassment and huge disappointment because of their behavior. I hope this is not coming across as "holier than thou" because it is not my intent. It just seems the more they engage in this behavior the more they seem to get "away" with it. Patz