Hi All:
Just thought I would post about an observation I made earlier this week.....I was sitting in church this past Sunday looking around and noticing all the families who were together and feeling a bit out of place and lonely.....And I got to thinking that when it comes to being raised in Narcissistic families, there are levels of extremes in terms of the amount of isolation, neglect and control that occurs.
For instance, after reading posts here awhile, I recognize that narcissists share many gut-wrenching characteristics, the way in which they control their families comes in varying in degrees. Some N parents will control their children well into adult life on many levels, but still acknowledge their need to have relationships of their own (boyfriends, husbands, children).....They may belittle everything about those significant others of their grown children, they may criticize and insult them...but they still allow them. In other cases, perhaps more severe N family cases, children aren't allowed even that.
In my family, my N mom and Co-D dad were extremely controlling and isolating. No extended family or friends. No neighbors were allowed into our homes or hearts. No effort to make friends...No effort to teach their children to make friends or develop relationships. That is such an important skill to learn at a young age. Yet, if you grow up in a house where no one was allowed in except the N circle....then it is stifling....but it also appears normal to the children growing up in that house. That was my case. Unlike my two siblings, I never made friends...not good ones anyway. No one ever came along who took even minimal interest in me. Perhaps that's why I'm the only sibling who is alone...and who didn't "get" the narcissism of the household until much later, indeed only fairly recently in life.
In these circumstances, is it any wonder that it's difficult to disengage from them? When no one else was a part of your life, and the only people in your life treat you as if you're nothing, that you don't matter?
So my observation was recently just about the extremes. I still find it odd that even in my severely N family, never once was there a conversation about relationships or boyfriends or sex or friends or socializing....It's like you weren't human....you weren't entitled to those human needs and feelings. And that's where I am....That's why I'm alone and lonely I guess...Or it could be sheer luck. My brother was lucky...he always had friends and significant others. Even my evil N sister found someone as co-dependent to her as my mother found in my Co-D dad. But not one of them has every spent a day alone...certainly never a weekend, or holiday or vacation or spare moment. How different I am from them in that way.....when it is so rare that I have someone to speak to on a weekend or holiday or vacation......
So merely a thought. Do you think the extremes of narcissism is dependent on the level of narcissism contained in the parent who passed the N gene down to our parents or loved ones? Perhaps it has more to do with the partners they choose and to what extend they are co-dependent or enabling of them?
How sobering is that
.....
Sunblue
