This question came up on another thread, which I don't want to derail:
What is the price for the golden child
What are the cons of being the fav..
I was led to believe I was the favourite. Hell, I probably was the favourite, but that didn't constitute actual, unconditional love.
The conditional/unconditional aspect of it is critical. The love was there for the taking if I conformed. And conform I did; I moulded myself into something I thought he would like. His interests became my interests. His views were my views. If I didn't do as he expected, I was cut loose, then sucked back in when I started conforming again.
Nothing I ever did was good enough. He was greedy for my adoration, so dropped praise sparingly, only letting me feel I was close to his admiration, and he wanted more and more. 98% in an exam? What happened to the 2%? Why am I not going into law or politics? Those are the right professions for me. I was instructed on when I was to have sex (not until marriage, and then willingly whenever my husband requested it). I was not to have children as it would ruin my career. His way was the only, and I obeyed him. I adored him and thought that he might, one day, adore me too.
Where this has left me is confused. I don't know who I am. I know nothing about me, because I've spent all my life either attempting to be what he liked, or reacting and rebelling from that. When I went away to university, I started unravelling fast; it was the first time I was free to make my own decisions, and I was completely incapable of doing so. I'd been told what to do, but never taught how to decide for myself.
My relationships with my siblings suffered (he put us against each other), and it was grim and vicious, and I hate the person I was to them. We've mostly recovered, but my anger at myself goes on and on.
I was not a happy child. Even then I sensed that there was something horribly precarious about my position. I still feel terror of upsetting someone in case I fall from grace and I become a non-person to them too. I'm still constantly scrabbling for the 2%. Because that's all I know how to do - this is the way I understand love; you change and conform, you attack his enemies (my siblings, my mother) and then you get praise.
I know, intellectually, that it doesn't work that way, but the habit was ground into me by the time I was 6 or 7, and it's extremely hard to shake.
The point of this isn't to suggest 'poor old me, it's much worse when you're the favourite.' That would obviously be nonsense. It's simply the other side of the same coin - me and my siblings all had the same toxic father, and this is the way it landed on me.
He dropped me like a stone, eventually, occasionally trying to assert his control, but mostly he doesn't care at all, and is happy not talking to me. There's no point to me, really, if I'm not going to be what he wants. Realistically, he never did care.
Anyhow; just thought I'd share. This is my experience of being the golden child.
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The Golden Child
5 replies
LookingThroughTheFog · 06/02/2014 17:52
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