Narcissistic father acknowledges some failings

He just called me on Skype to tell me he 'almost died'. He has acute pneumonia and chronic heart & blood pressure issues, not a good mix. He'll live.

But he went sort of sentimental and wanted me to thank my ILs for being there for me and my kids. Then he said "I know I haven't been there for you when it comes to this stuff. But you know you can come to me when you need money".

This is true. And he and I can now be honest about the scope and extent of his being a father to me. He knows what he is capable of, and I feel safe being thankful for those several times in my life when he offered me money for something needed and I accepted.

I feel freer. I cried. And like I can allow some more emotions now.

Defending myself from love

I've used defense mechanisms against people in my life that could have been close to me.

I don't hide stuff, or lie, or refuse to engage. But it's like I enter every relationship with the idea that I can't be really close, that I can't expect anything from another person, and that I could easily be rejected at any moment.

Still, I've felt hurt and pain over some relationships with people who were not my parents. Boyfriends, friends. But I deny and minimize that too. I wasn't really all that attached. I don't need anyone. He never really loved me, so what's the difference?

Or, if someone is ready to end a friendship with no explanation for what later turns out to have been a stupid, stupid misunderstanding, then, you know, good riddance.

No, I don't mean that. This one hurts. It's fucking sad. And I feel a lot of shame surrounding it because I've been so stupid and lacked social skills and somehow it all led to losing a good friend over a fucking smiley in a fucking text.

So I'm telling the story.

I had a good friend. A female friend who was actually female and feminine and was into talking and sharing and not only drinking beer and discussing politics. Then we both fell in love with the same guy for a while, while we both had boyfriends. We were all friends. It was a crazy situation. They eventually got together. There were secrets involved. They broke up a lot. Somehow, I ended up talking to both of them about their relationship and listening to what the other did. There were inconsistencies and I'd point them out and this sometimes led to them getting back together. I somehow found myself in the middle. Acting as some sort of peace-maker, go-between, intermediary. It was stupid, but I never said "I'm not interested" to either one of them when they wanted to pour their hearts out. They were both good friends and people I felt things for. Basically decent people. I still feel that.

Then, they definitely broke up and it was nasty and the guy didn't want to talk to the girl at that moment and called me and begged me to simply inform her where she could leave his stuff, as she'd asked him that when they last spoke.

I didn't want to do this. He begged me and said "If I call her now, I might lose my temper and say nasty things I don't mean to her. This will be easier on her."

It was a stupid idea to begin with. I had no business doing that. But I didn't know any better at the time and trusted everyone's social skills were better than mine, and he knew what he was doing when he asked me to do this. 

I sent a stupid short text to her with just the information. And then it sounded too unfeeling, too curt, too formal.

So I added a smiley.

<:-)

That was it. It was supposed to be short for "I'm sorry and I love you" or something. Things I was unable to actually say, even in writing.

"You don't have to gloat," she responded. I didn't understand why she'd say that. By no means was I gloating. Really. I wrote back "Sorry, I'm just transferring information." See the lack of social skills? I felt something here, but could only function like a machine.

Then she called me and asked if she could bring his stuff to my place, instead of where he wanted it. I said "OK" and hoped that we were now fine. I still didn't quite understand what I'd done wrong.

When she dropped the stuff off, I asked her if she wanted to have coffee with me. She replied "Our coffee-drinking days are over," turned around and walked away. I didn't ask why. I didn't understand. I just said "All right then."

If she hadn't been so vulnerable, insecure, and dramatic, she might have explained; if I hadn't been so eager to defend myself by easily letting people go and writing them off, I would have demanded an explanation. But we were both too messed up to talk about the issue.

I only learned what the issue was from her ex, years later, recently, in fact.

Her phone had translated my "<:-)" into "he he."

Un-fucking-believable.

And I was suddenly hurt. Because I understood and could no longer write her off. I could no longer rationalize that "I don't really need a friend who was willing to end it just because I sent a stupid message that may have been misguided, but certainly not malicious."

I wrote my parents off decades ago on some unconscious level. I don't know what it would take for me to be able to feel hurt by them.

The Black Hole Swallows Me Whole

After I learned that I had messed both my children up, my husband was annoyed that I wouldn't stop biting my nails and cuticles, which were swollen and bloody.

So I screamed that biting my nails is just a defense from what I'd really like to do, and that's cut myself, stab myself, kill myself, really hurt myself. Then I slapped myself and punched myself in the face.

Then I shut myself in the bathroom and sobbed uncontrollably for two hours because no one has ever loved me and no one could, because if they feel something for me it's because they don't know the darkness in me, and my husband will never truly understand me and if he does he'll be disgusted at how weak and evil and empty I am, and yes, my children love me, because they're naive and innocent, but they shouldn't, they'd be better off without me.

I know none of this is true. But I feel it now and don't know what to do about it. Telling myself it isn't true doesn't really help.

I'm not sure where to go from here. Now I'm just down. Maybe up is next, maybe what's next is digging downwards through rock bottom.

(Still) Tangled

Disney's Tangled reaaally hit a nerve. I cried throughout the first time I watched it. It doesn't really matter which personality disorder mother Gothel can be diagnosed with (although, of course, I believe it's NPD), the important thing is that she symbolizes the parent who is not "real" because she is unable to love her child unconditionally.

She keeps Rapunzel trapped solely because her magical hair provides her with an ever-fresh source of youth and energy and narcissistic supply. Rapunzel has learned well that she is only needed and loved for her hair and the services it provides.

Which is why Eugene cutting her hair off is such a cathartic moment. He refuses to use her magical hair to save his life and cuts it off, setting her free.

Although "love will save you" and waiting for a prince on a white horse to rescue you are dangerous concepts because a person or a relationship will not do your hard work for you, I do believe we ACoNs need someone - a spouse, a friend, a relative, a therapist - to show us that unconditional love and acceptance exist and what kind of work we need to do. Someone who won't leave us when we say "no."

Someone who'll cut our magical hair off.

My husband is here to do that for me. I just don't seem to completely be able to let him. I still hold on to it. I don't want to upset him. I want to do stuff for him. I want to be useful to him. We're both aware of this problem in our relationship and his current method of fighting it is gentle humor.

Here's to cutting our magical hair off!

Plato's cave

Charity's original hurtful comment made me realize what we're really all doing here.

Born to narcissistic parents, we grew up without love. We didn't even know what it was or that we lacked it. Just like prisoners in Plato's cave, all we knew were shackles and shadows. We were lied to and told that was all there was, and the fire that created the shadows was the only light that existed.

Then we either realized we were in shackles looking at shadows (if we learned about NPD) or we caught a glimpse of the sun (if we had a real human relationship with someone real) and we decided we wanted to live outside in the sun. So we started our journey out, helping each other on the way and sharing directions. Supporting each other out as the sun hurts our unaccustomed eyes.

And then, someone will say "Stop whining! My shackles are tight and I have to lie on the cold floor starving and I'm being tortured, and you're shackled to a soft bed and have plenty to eat! I wish I could be that lucky! You should be grateful! Get back in here!"

And it makes me at least feel guilty and ashamed. I shouldn't be whining. I shouldn't be blaming. I shouldn't be angry. I should be grateful my parents didn't torture me, starve me, rape me, or try to kill me. I am.

But that's completely beside the point. It's not about listing abuses, or complaining, or blaming. Narcissists do those things in order to control others by making them feel guilty. I'm not interested in doing that.

I'm just interested in telling my truth: I was born in a dark cave, and I'm getting out into the sun.

Spoiled AND abused... but never loved

So, I realized I needed to lose weight again - I'd been spoiling myself with too much greasy food, beer, and sweets lately, feeling emotional and vulnerable more than usual. It was almost openly and explicitly self-destructive, and I felt with every bite how I'm ruining my body because I hate myself.

But I can only approach this task in yet another self-destructive way - by abusing my body with too little food and too much exercise. Otherwise, there's no motivation at all.

So I wondered why it was hard for me to find a balance and just get healthy. And then it hit me: "healthy" is an empty word I distrust, much like "love," "mom" and "dad."

It's not a simple matter of finding balance between two extremes - it's about loving myself enough to want good things, like being healthy, for myself, in which case there are no extremes to balance. They disappear.

I cannot do that. I can only overindulge or overdiscipline myself to an unhealthy degree.

Much like my parents did to me. Much like all parents who can't love their children do. Extremes of indulging and abusing the child all at the same time. Lavish praise and cruel put-downs, huge expensive presents and going without shoes, being allowed to drink myself half to death until 5AM and not being allowed to opt out of going to a family lunch when sick and in pain.

It's only possible when there's no love for the child. When you're unable to truly love. When you're trying to sing from a sheet of music but you're tone-deaf.

They come in pairs

Sigh. Had lunch with my father and his girlfriend.

My father's girlfriend is a narcissist too. A nicer, weaker, more compliant narcissist, but still undeniably one.

Come to think of it, how can anyone be "intimately involved" with a narcissist, who by definition is unable to be intimately involved, for years, unless they're also a narcissist and thus also unable to be intimately involved?

I mean, normal people want an actual connection with their partner. If it's not there, they'll lack something and then eventually leave. They won't be cheerfully living a facade for years, only protesting the little things, right?

Compliant co-narcissists are narcissists too. They may not be abusive. They may be quite pleasant and full of life and genuinely charming. But they lack a fundamental something. Their empathy has died after years of abuse. Their ability to emotionally connect with others has withered. They are a shell of a person.

My mother was a shell too. Now I know. I have met other people, other women, other mothers.

Strangely enough, it may have been her step-sister that helped me realize that. My aunt is one of those real people who aren't shells. And there's a world of difference. Although my mother was "nice" and "kind" to others and the light of every gathering and fun to be around... she wasn't real.

He destroyed her. What she might have been if she'd broken free from her own mother's narcissistic abuse.

I'm not angry or assigning blame any more. I'm just sad for these people who've never really been loved unconditionally and never thought they had to learn to actually love.

Only the Blind Can See

It sounds like a paradox, but I'm dead serious. The reason it's so difficult to explain to others what we were missing as children and are still missing now is because it is such a normal, essential thing that those who had it and have it don't even notice it. How can you explain Lack of Love to those whose parents really loved them? How can they understand what it's like never to have received free, safe, unconditional love from those whose duty it was to provide it?

So we talk about the fluff. We talk about their selfish or abusive or lying actions and are told that other parents sometimes do the same. They talk about how our parents raised us, put us through school, bought us stuff. But all this is irrelevant fluff. The issue is Lack of Love. Parental love is something absolutely essential, and yet something invisible, because it's simply taken for granted.

Like eyesight. We don't go around thinking about eyesight all day long, thanking God we have it and feeling empathy towards those who don't. We take it for granted. Only if you're blind, and have known what having eyesight is like, are you likely to See its importance.

When we are told "Well, maybe your parents were unable to really love you, but they put you through school and bought you stuff" it's like telling a person whose parents gouged their eyes out in infancy "Well, your parents blinded you, but they bought you some nice shades, and that white cane they got you sure is neat." 

I was blinded early in my life. And only recently have I begun to realize what having eyesight feels like. And only now do I realize what a difference it makes and how essential it is.

Love, Again

I thought I was defective and incapable of love and felt guilty about being unable to reciprocate my father's excessive love of me. This followed me into all my relationships.

I'd meet a boy and enjoy the positive attention I got from him. I'd be happy that he was impressed with my "personality" and "intelligence". But then, to my horror, he'd say he liked me or loved me. I almost never felt the same way. But I thought I never would, because I was incapable of the emotion. And, again, I felt guilty and obligated. He SAID he loved me, therefore I owed it to him to become his girlfriend. Like I went through all the motions with my narcissistic father, although I never felt I could reciprocate what he SAID he felt towards me. I couldn't trust my feelings and my duty towards those who professed love for me was paramount.

This happened more times than I'd like to admit.

When I was as young as 18, I "swore off" boys, because this pattern kept repeating and I couldn't understand why, but I always seemed to lose myself in relationships with boys I didn't even like to begin with, only to lose them later.

It was then that I met my future husband. I wanted to honor my vow, but I was this time irresistibly drawn to him, for some reason. Thank God.

He's sane. He saw through the fake me from the start and wanted nothing to do with it. But loved the actual me unconditionally.

Love

I never imagined I'd write anything entitled "love" in my life. Yuck.

After all, I was a dark, cynical, cold, unloving person. My father loved me sooo much, everyone knew that, and I was never thankful enough or loved him back enough.

His narcissistic mother once said to me "I love you so much I'd rip my heart out for you" and I just looked at her, shocked, confused, and ever so slightly nauseated. I was sure I didn't respond like I was supposed to because I was, yup, a dark, cynical, cold, unloving person. 

Now, knowing what I know, I'd just tell her "No need. How about playing something I want you to play with me, just once? How about talking to me, for real, without just boasting or criticizing, just once?"

I thought that was "love". And I wanted nothing to do with it.

Then there were my mother and her parents, whom I knew better than to show any affection to. After all, what have they ever DONE for me? That was the question my father used to guilt me out of emotions for people other than him and his family. If I loved others, then I was ungrateful for all that he's DONE for me and didn't appreciate it enough.

Reality was carefully manipulated to prove that only he and his family DESERVED to be loved. For instance, my mother's mother, Nana, took care of me while my parents were at work throughout my childhood, took me for walks, fed me. That had to be minimized. But when MY FATHER'S PARENTS decided to go for a walk with me ONCE, and my Nana had to bring me to the park that was in their neighborhood and then pick me up after they were done, my father DOCUMENTED the event with excessive photographing. Seriously, there are dozens of pictures of this 10-minute event that my father took, proving that his parents were wonderful grandparents.

I felt so guilty expressing love for others that there had to be good "excuses" for that. My mother made me a pair of shorts, and I thanked her and said "I love you" in a coded message, which my father decoded and asked what the big deal was with those shorts, anyway. My Nana once gave me a doll I liked, and with relief and a clear conscience, I thanked her, kissed her, told her I loved her, repeatedly. It wasn't about the doll. I used the doll as an EXCUSE to show love for my poor Nana. 

So my narcissistic father told his narcissistic mother to buy me a doll just like that, only in different color. Sure, I said "Thank you" and kissed my narcissistic grandma politely, like the good girl that I was. But, clearly, it didn't produce the same reaction, and there was apparent disappointment. Because, as I said, it really WASN'T about the doll.

So love is a tough issue for me. Until recently, I just avoided thinking about it. I assumed I didn't love my husband or kids like other people did, because I was defective, and I was depressed and felt fake and just tried to DO my best for them, even if it sometimes seemed like I was playing a part. I prayed to learn how to love.

My prayers were answered, albeit a bit differently.

When I found out about NPD and how people suffering from it generally affect their children, I was unblinded. I realized I actually already DID love my family, in a human, sane, gentle way, I was only blocking the actual emotions from registering, because I didn't trust myself with them.

I realized love isn't a maniacal, sleazy, insane profusion right out of a medieval romance, that I just couldn't feel (neither did they, I realize that now). It's simply a choice to keep your heart and mind open to accepting others as truly others and nurturing them and building them up and helping them develop into who they really are. It's actually EASY.

Much easier than what narcissists do.