In this post I was bashing myself for not living up to what I perceived as the ACON ideal: having no contact with one's narcissistic parents.
There's also the ideal of my culture - being nice and polite to one's parents and remaining in touch.
These two perceived ideals fight over me and cause me anxiety. As a true ACON, I haven't asked myself: "What do you WANT? How do you FEEL?"
Having allowed myself to imagine hearing the news of my father's death, I was surprised to find that my emotional reaction was one of disappointment and being cheated out of something. I'm not done with him. I don't want NC.
I won't see him until late October and we only exchange the occasional sms or e-mail in which he asks how we are, and I reply "Great". And I miss... not him, but the opportunity to grow stronger in relation to him. It may be sick, but I want him as a sparring partner. I want to be strong enough to feel perfectly calm and happy in his presence. I'm almost there. I find I've grown and changed so much since the apartment saga and he very seldom succeeds in pushing my buttons.
I don't even really believe he'd throw us out of the apartment, and even if he does, it's not the end of the world, just an inconvenience - we'll move into the one that he's using, which is legally mine. This was my rationalization of why I'm not fulfilling the "ideal" of NC. Because I'm not allowed to do what I want (in this case stay in touch with full awareness of my father's NPD) but instead always strive to fulfill every ideal that I can read between the lines of blogs and fora.
PA - I did not mean to impose my "shoulds" on you, and I did, so I must apologize. I think that asking yourself what YOU want is the most important question you could have asked yourself.
ReplyDeleteI believe your reasons for continuing your relationship with your NF are just as valid as others' reasons to cut contact with theirs. It is a very difficult but powerful thing for you to be able to keep up a relationship with him on YOUR terms. I don't think wanting him in your life under the terms you've set is sick. I understand completely that you want him as a sparring partner...totally get that one (sometimes, I wish that DH was there too).
The choice is yours. Whatever choice you make is the right one.
This was a post lost during the Big Blogger Crash and I tried to recreate it here as well as I coul remember. I'll repost the comments made on the original post
ReplyDeleteJonsi said:
ReplyDeletePA - I did not mean to impose my "shoulds" on you, and I did, so I must apologize. I think that asking yourself what YOU want is the most important question you could have asked yourself.
I believe your reasons for continuing your relationship with your NF are just as valid as others' reasons to cut contact with theirs. It is a very difficult but powerful thing for you to be able to keep up a relationship with him on YOUR terms. I don't think wanting him in your life under the terms you've set is sick. I understand completely that you want him as a sparring partner...totally get that one (sometimes, I wish that DH was there too).
The choice is yours. Whatever choice you make is the right one.
Jonsi, of course you didn't - I do this to myself all by myself. It's an ACON thing. ;) We don't need anyone to even implicitly "impose" any ideal in order to feel like failures for not living up to it. The ideal just needs to be SEEN by US as EXISTING. That's all it takes :D
ReplyDeleteBecause our parents used all sorts of various conflicting "ideals" to judge us and deem us "imperfect" and thus No Good.
I really appreciate your input here and elsewhere! Thank you for hanging out with us :)