My main motivation is purely scientific curiosity. It enables me to conduct an experiment. I wonder if my aunt - and all the others he keeps in touch with more frequently than he does with me - will be forwarded these pictures and in what manner. I want to know how he uses pictures and other information he gets from us. My aunt is as curious as I am.
Secondly, he has made a much better attempt at communication today. He sent me an email personally, in which he forwarded all the birthday photos he'd received from my aunt, followed by just a little polite and sugary chit-chat. This is an improvement. It felt kind of normal and sane to send some photos to him in response. Like something members of a functional family would do too.
I feel like I'm rambling. I haven't slept in 40 hours. I couldn't fall asleep at all last night, I kept imagining we were being thrown out of our apartment (we're just about to begin a phase of acute and costly redecorations, which will truly make it the perfect home for our family).
If my father indeed has a network of acquaintances in front of whom he badly wishes to appear as a doting father and grandfather, and for which purpose he asks me for information about and photos of my family, this is actually good news. Throwing us out of our home would not sound good to them.
I don't know why I feel like the weak one here. We have an agreement according to which I use his apartment, and he uses mine. They have the same market worth. My weakness, I guess, lies in the fact that this apartment means something to me and my family and that we've invested something in it, financially and emotionally. And I know that narcissists will sometimes take away something they can just because they can and because you want it.
No more rambling. Off to sleep. The big apartment project starts with its realization first thing in the morning!
Sleep is good. I hope you get plenty. Sounds like you are making baby steps in a good direction. I so understand your concern. The Narc gives and a Narc takes away. I had a hard time saying what I liked in case it would be taken away. The counselor noticed that my fear had spread to all my relationships. He worked a lot with teaching me that many people do not behave this way.
ReplyDeleteOMG, 40 hours awake.
ReplyDeleteRuth has felt that level of ingrained fear of/about a family member. (Ruth, have you read any Dorothy Allison?) I'm lucky not to have such firsthand experience. So please forgive if it sounds fatuous to say that even if your father does have some of the power you think he might over the apartment, he doesn't deserve your overnight vigil.
From my own milder experience, a guess:
Having been told so often by your father, "you don't care enough about me/others", did you fear that it might be dereliction of duty to your family if you didn't give nonstop attention and adrenalin to your father's challenge until it was resolved? FWIW, it turns out there's no such duty. Really, there isn't.
- GKA
Hope you got some sleep, and wishing you luck with the renovation!
ReplyDeleteThe threat of having your home taken away is real frightening! Looks like he really cares about projecting the right image to others though, that's good in this case.
Wait, he emailed YOU pictures to show you that he'd received them? And then you sent some more? He really needed to tell you that he obtained them from someone else? Not at all like a normal functioning family!
NLR
"I had a hard time saying what I liked in case it would be taken away"
ReplyDeleteMe too! I wondered why that was!
Thanks, GKA. There always seemed to have been the obligation to worry whether I was currently "loved" or in trouble.
ReplyDelete"The threat of having your home taken away is real frightening! Looks like he really cares about projecting the right image to others though, that's good in this case."
ReplyDeleteYup, I agree. Thanks.
"Wait, he emailed YOU pictures to show you that he'd received them? And then you sent some more? He really needed to tell you that he obtained them from someone else? Not at all like a normal functioning family!"
He forwarded me the photos he got from my aunt, taken by her camera - I hadn't received all of those, and he pointed out proudly that he had them. I thought that sounded taunting, but my husband warned me that I might be reading too much into it. Is there such a thing as "reading too much into" correspondence with a narcissist, I wonder?
The I sent him some photos taken by my ILs. I'll see if they end up with my aunt and with what sugary lines.