Unraveling mysteries

[Pronoia]

Hi!

I found this forum while obsessively googling 'narcissistic personality disorder' and 'adult children of narcissists'. My first post was actually in the NPD forum, I couldn't wait to introduce myself first.

I'm 28, mother of two girls, married to a sane, wonderful man, I'm highly functional and objectively pretty successful in life, and until recently I was sure I come from a happy, stable family.

But my doting father started ignoring me when I got married and moved away, and somehow simultaneously I had bad PPD after the birth of my first child. This got me to analyzing and remembering things, and the way my father behaves towards / talks about our girls was so strange and upsetting that I posted about it on a family forum. I was told by a member to research NPD. I did, and recognized my father completely!

And myself as possessing several traits of co-narcissists. Anxiety, feeling like a failure even when objectively I'm not, thinking I'm cold, blocking my emotions, looking for external validation while simultaneously always rebelling against authorities. I'm working towards liberating myself from this legacy. I'd appreciate advice on how to best accomplish that.

Also, I've been investigating the secret history of our family, talking to family friends, old neighbors, family friends. Not pretty. But many things are much clearer now, and it's a relief.

It's a relief to know that this is an illness, not 'evil.' It's a relief to know why I feel and think some of the things I do. And that I DON'T HAVE TO any more. Because it's not me, it's just the result of being conditioned by people with a mental problem.

 

[Retired]

Welcome to Psychlinks Pronoia!

Thank you for sharing your experience, and hopefully you might find some insights and support .

 

[Pronoia]

Welcome to Psychlinks Pronoia!

Thank you for sharing your experience, and hopefully you might find some insights and support .

Thank you for welcoming me!

Do you have any idea where an adult child of a narcissist might get started? At this point, I'm only interested in changing myself so I allow myself to be much more empathetic, kinder to others, more loving, and less obsessed with achieving so I (or, rather, my father) wouldn't think of myself as a failure. There's very little on the internet that addresses that.

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

Hi there,

*ahem* I apologize in advance for being quite verbose, but I feel I have a lot to contribute to this subject. Anything to help someone who feels they might have a parent with NPD.

I too was digging around and found this site doing research on NPD. I've been working on my own blog, too, trying to gather information. Turns out that my youngest brother was probably treated like he could do no wrong ("golden child"), my middle brother was treated as a "special project" and catered to beyond belief (and he still is treated like a child who can't take care of himself even though he is 38), and I was treated the worst because I was the most like my mother - I was the eldest and only daughter. I had the tightest reigns, was expected to be 'the example' to my younger siblings, I was always punished the worst even when I thought by comparison my behaviour was the lease offensive: the punishment seldom fit the crime, so to speak. I was not allowed to argue, I was expected to do everything I was told. If we kids dared go against my mother, she would yell and scream and throw things, and follow us around an inch from our faces, until we'd either punch a hole in the wall, bash our heads against a wall, or start crying and screaming back at her. I used to get so frustrated I would cut my skin.

I come from a family where my mother has the Narcissistic Personality Disorder and my father is the enabler. Part of it is that my mother has very good manipulation skills (ie: will act one way when the conversation is between myself and my mother, but a completely different way when my father is present)... Just because you have a parent with narcissistic tendencies, you might not have any narcissistic tendencies of your own. I do tend to be a bit hypervigilant about my behaviour and doubt what I should say or do in some situations (I tend to be more passive), but I am slowly building up a bit of confidence. I am a very anxious person, as are my two brothers, and it didn't help being raised in the environment I was raised in because of the constant levels of stress.

I think there was some mental illness on my mom's side of the family and my father's side. My father learned to be very submissive and passive because I think his father beat him physically and treated him the worst of his other 8 siblings (at least that is what my father's mom says). It's my opinion that my dad's father had NPD. My mom's mother was very depressed, or at least that is how I remember her. My mom's mother may have had NPD, because I do remember she was always angry when my grandfather stole attention from her. I am not sure but it's possible that my mother started doing things to get recognition, somehow learned this behaviour as she grew up, thinking that she could not be unconditionally loved and had to earn love. She mentioned that she always felt she was not loved unless she did something to earn it (good grades, being a 'good example' to her siblings, being responsible, etc. On the other hand, she might have been born that way: not really knowing how emotions work and trying to fake it. I always remember that she seemed 'fake' to me. Like when she'd say she loved me, or when she cried, or when she said 'sorry' I am not sure she actually knew what those things actually meant.

It's different for every person, because of course there are different degrees of the personality disorder. For me, I figured out that there's just no way to please my mother at all. I shouldn't bother doing anything else for her, I should just worry about how to please myself. I grew up being so concerned about what to say, what not to say, how to act, how to predict what my mother wanted because everything revolved around her. If you didn't do something she wanted, you were 'against her' and there would be some way she would figure out how to punish you for having your own thoughts and opinions. If anything, I was trained so well NOT to think of myself at all, that I completely lost myself for a while. I even got into a bad relationship with a man who liked to control me and manipulate me, and he was just like my mother: criticizing my weight, how I ate, what I wore, my friends, etc. The danger is becoming isolated with people like this because that's the easiest way for them to control you. You almost need a buddy system: for example I recommend that you when you call your dad that you AND your husband are on the phone together, because people with NPD can say one thing to you and then a while later turn around and say "You're crazy! I never said that." So then you think YOU'RE the crazy one, but trust me, it isn't you. Same with a job I took: I took it because of better pay and benefits than my original job, but again, same problem -- trying to please everyone with impossible standards and expectations; I had to take time off (for, guess what, STRESS) and in the end sued them through our Labor Board for them trying to get away with not giving me my final paycheque.

I realize now that my own mother relishes in stirring up people's emotions, especially her kids, and loves to be the centre of attention. Bad outcomes are never her fault or the result of her behaviour, her intentions are always misunderstood, and she's always got to be in control of every situation and know everything. She feels entitled to everything which could be why she's been audited twice for withholding taxes (she has quite a few properties), she's been sued twice for backpay (because she ran a care home for the elderly and tried to pay employees below minimum wages), she's been sued by The Rentalsman (because she's always cutting corners and was trying to get the cheapest and least educated labour workers to fix problems with her properties); she's dragged my brother financially under the bus because somehow she convinced him to tell Revenue Canada that part of the reason she hadn't reported some income was partially his fault (and that's why he hasn't spoken to her for over 5 years)... She's been put on leave because she administered drug she had no authority to give to a patient. There's more, but it can get pretty boring. Let's just say she's been lightly slapped on the wrist for some borderline criminal and downright unethical behaviour.

Anyway, you get the picture. It may not come to this from where you stand, but I block my parents' phone number now and have plainly stated that I will only accept email communication for now. Some people seem to be fine just limiting time with someone who has NPD (tried that myself, but still didn't help enough). Some people move away (in my case, I was lucky, my parents were the ones who moved away - my mom drove away all her friends in our province so she moved two provinces away to be with people she used to have long distance friendships with... We'll see how long those relationships last!). Some people completely cut themselves off from people with NPD.

It's whatever works for you, and if something doesn't work, you just try something else until you find your comfort zone.

But that's just my opinion on the subject! Try reading The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists: Coping with the One-Way Relationship in Work, Love and Family by Eleanor Payson...