"But We Took You To Stately Homes!" - Survivors of Dysfunctional Families.

[singingprincess]

There is a word document with all the relevant links which I will try and find, but in the meantime...Post away.

oops double post

Tangerine Haha... sorry for the confusion, I thought you meant Arterial Fibrillation!

Thank you madda. I try to remember I am an adult, capable of being assertive, but somehow whenever I try to talk to her about the situation I feel like a silly whingy inconvenience who is just being stupid.

Interestingly, last week she actually told me that, as a child, I had confidence and was a 'natural leader' but she tried to stamp it out of me

long time lurker on this thread with a quick question...

I had a father who fits the description of someone with NPD to a t. It has had a massive effect on me but I have sought help in the past and this has worked really well for me. I have a very supportive DH and I am generally in a good place mentally. But like a lot of people on here every now and again something will happen and I will feel depression and/or anxiety creeping up on me. I am pretty good at dealing with it but I would like to read some more about NPD as I suffer from a terrible fear that I am going to end up like this. I have had a look on Amazon but nearly all the books are about children of narc mothers. Can someone recommend a good book for me please?

My dad is dead (died whilst having a massive row with one of my DBs - you couldn't make it up!) so I couldn't confront him even if I wanted to :). I had long come to terms with the fact that he was never going to apologise for his behaviour so I coped with his death well. I don't have any regrets that I never got an apology out of him, but I do still worry about turning out like him. If any of you lovely people could point me in the right direction I would appreciate it. One thing that worries me is that some literature about NPD seems to place emphasis on the fact that men with NPD are often sexual abusers as well. My dad was a horror show to be around but he was never sexually inappropriate. Great backhanded compliment isn't it "you're a monster, but at least you never sexually asaulted me". For some reason I feel if I read stuff that says men with NPD generally commit sexual abuse as well, it will make me want to defend my dad, and then that will make me even crosser than I already am.

chatsworthy,

This is a good website about NPD:-

www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/traits.html

You may also want to read "Children of the Self Absorbed" by Nina Brown.

integer It sounds like your mum has done a fantastic job of making you feel like an inconvenience. I always tried techniques that varied from telling myself that I was a 'strong independent woman' while I was arguing talking with my mum, to just agreeing with everything she said, but eventually the thing that worked the best was just pretending that I was confident and then it just naturally followed... but it took ages and ages before I stopped feeling stupid whenever I was around her.

chatsworthy

This book set me on the road to recovery

www.controllingparents.com/ (the website tells you all about it, v.helpful)

You can get it on amazon

I did also go to counselling too which helped immensely

I have never confronted my parents - there is no point, they will twist things and lie and make me feel worse (they are both narcs) I worked things thru with my counsellor and I now have mostly good days.

My mother died recently and I haven't even really felt sad. I think I did all that in my counselling a few years ago. People probably think I'm weird so when they ask how I'm doing I usually lie and tell them what they want to hear " oh you know, good days and bad days"

What really sticks in my craw are the outsiders who are now deifying my mother. She was such the master of disguise nobody would ever have guessed the abuse that was really happening in our family. When they're all sitting there reminiscing i just smile and say nothing. Thankfully I have one sibling who I can talk to and feels the same. The other siblings are in denial but that's up to them, maybe one day they will see the light and stop covering for them, or maybe not.

I've come so far in my recovery, but it's shocking how quickly you can slip back when you forced back into that world again. I could physically feel myself going under. Thank goodness for my wonderful supportive understanding husband who pulls me back into normality again when the blackness starts to take over.

Best wishes to everyone on this thread, be strong

Thanks Atilla and Robot. I have ordered the Nina Brown book and will have a good look at those web sites.

Robot I know what you mean about people deifying your parent. There were over 200 people at my Dad's funeral and I just wanted to stand up and shout "he was a psychotic bastard!", but obviously didn't. I too found it very hard to deal with people who expected me to be in floods all the time, when all I felt was relief that we didn't have to pussy foot round him all the time waiting for him to go off into a screaming ball of fury. Life is definately easier without him around.

I guess what I would like to say to all the people who lurk on these boards is that you are not alone and that it is possible to deal with the effects of being raised in a narc household. I just wish that I could get rid of that horrble feeling I might be turning into my dad everytime I shout at the kids.

Thanks for all your help.

I have issues with mistakes, self esteem and taking the blame for everyone's misfortune (I have a very strong guilt gene) and as it is starting to hold me back at work and in life, relationships I am starting to wonder where this has come from in my childhood.

My main stance with family is that I don't tell them things, only what they need to know and when they need to know it. I tend to hold friends, even good ones at arms length and have distinct discomfort with accepting their help without feeling I must return or pay it back as soon as possible.

I wonder whether this trait, for which I am known in the family quite well, is a coping strategy to avoid baring my soul to those who have little regard for my feelings. I have long thought it was me that was the problem but recently my DH and another family member have indicated I am justified in finding my parents, in particular my mother difficult, and I am beginning to wonder about precisely who was behind a variety of rifts and conflicts in the family.

im to unsure if im in the right place i have just kicked my dad to the kerb after years of crap and countless attacks and he never once stepped in to stop family attacking or apologise for his shit behaviour and now he makes contact after 4yrs so i told him to sod off im now stronger but deeply effected with trust issues and i keep people at arms length until otherwise my mum died in 2008 and since then it as been one attack after another even my kiddies have had earfull

how is everyone this week?

Myself? Still no contact, I am 150 miles away in distance, but I have not answered the constant texts, calls and emails from mother.

it's feeling good, yet I feel like a lost orphan and this evening, I feel spinning, lost, upside down, sick in the stomach, unsure, confused, emotionally bereft, like I'm floating on a raft going nowhere and not knowing how everything is going to go

t's a bizarre thing, as the flashbacks are clearly horrific *my sister getting beaten into a corner of the living room, nightly, if not every other night each week for several about 6 years":the shouting, the noise, the arguments over silly trivial domestic issues, (who didnt' empty the kitchen bin/who didn't clear the table etc etc

i could go on

Yes I still have that FEAR that I'll get in 'trouble' for not contacting her, but I have to protect myself. I have to.

but I'm choosing to LET HER GO (my mother that is) and my enabling father who defended her rages, joined in, supported her and never never defended his children against this crazy woman

They can bloody go and live their own lives without me, they didn't respect me then, they didnt offer a safe, unconditional home then, so why oh why do they expect me to still phone them now, answer their calls etc

I can't do it, I won't do it

Hope everyone is ok this week, one day at a time we will survive the memories and break the cycle for our own DCs

Hi madda, just to send you strength to keep going. They cant do anything to you if you dont let them. You are a grown up now and they no longer have direct power over you. And as you stop trying to get support from them other avenues of support will start to open up that you didnt realise existed - and it will be real support from real relationships.

Feeling lost after going NC stops eventually - at least it did for me. Instead I find I am having insights etc that I dont think I would ahve if I had been in touch with my family - by this I mean my siblings as well

I am coming up to 7 months NC with my parents, and I think it has done me a world of good: I no longer feel anger or grief, just acceptance that they were inadequate parents. I think it has also given me space to achieve emotional detachment: although we are not in contact, I don't care anymore what they think abut me, and I don't believe that there is anything they could say or do that would upset me now. (I would need to be in contact to test that theory, of course...)

A little while ago I was regretting going NC - the drama of it! - since the state of emotional detachment I'm in now would allow interaction with no fuss or blowups. But, OTOH, I perhaps would not have been able to achieve this detachment without first going NC.

So all in all I don't regret going NC, although it has had repercussions on other famiy members and complicated a series of relationships beyond the one I have with my parents, which is the only bit I regret. But even then, these other family members are also adults who can manage their own feelings and decisions.

Call me cocky, but I think that if contact between us were to be renewed, it would be on different terms that would preserve my newfound boundaries. But 1) I don't have a detailed idea of how that would work in practice, and 2) I see no reason to renew contact anyway: although I do not feel any burning anger anymore, I simply don't like these people, and see no reason to invite them back into my life. It's as if they were just awkward acquaintances to me now, ifysim... albeit acquaintances that I have a pesky primal bond with!

Hi Everybody, having just read the last few posts since my previous one and thinking yet again that I ought to have phoned them, it is interesting that other people feel the same way. again I thought it was just me and I was incompetent at communicating. There are plenty of people I like to ring and spend time with. I just get very anxious and start planning what I'm going to say if it is my folks I have to talk to. Surely this isn't right.

Aren't people, especially women, meant to phone their parents when things are tough for them, need to talk, bad day at work. I just don't feel that.

I am not NC I just find picking up the phone a huge hurdle. We've not had any arguments, plenty of complete lack of understanding on their part (well as I see it and I am known for being pretty calm about most things!) and an insistance that we have to do things their way. They don't do flexible and surely anyone knows that families with small children need the option of flexibility.

Firstimer I get what you are saying about other avenues of support as others seem to realise that the golden pedestal my folks have stood on for a long time is a little tarnished.

Hotdamn does emotional detachment mean that you no longer feel guilt and obligation around contact. That is the current feeling I have.

Hi Deep - for a while I spent some time just watching how I acted when in communicaion with my family. Not judging myself (or even them really) just trying in a fairly detached way to watch what was going on in terms of who is setting the agenda? whos taking initiative? what are the expectations? who is offering support? Who is showing interest/asking questions?

Not thinking about why these things are the way they are, but just what exactly is going on here as I always felt it was some lack in me or more recently was told its my poor communication skills that are the cause of all bad things. I found this observing really helpful in spotting patterns in our relationships that I am now starting to try to understand (with counselling).

That's good advice and mirrors what I'm reading in a buddist book about detachment and letting go of your old self. Glad to hear it has some practical purpose. Therefore I think I might try it. I'm always looking for the answer to why especially if things go wrong and it sounds like this is a good way to think differently. Thank you.

A flying visit.
Mother is visiting this weekend. I have allowed this, in part as a favour to my dsis.
I am trying a new tactic. I shall call her on everything. So, when she says what are you doing about blinds or curtains in the new kitchen, I shall tell her I'm making them. She will say I'm crap at sewing, and my reply shall be, 'No mother, I'm not, this is another myth perpetuated by you because you don't like anyone being as good or better than you.'
This should make for an interesting day.
I have had a revelation recently. I actually don't give a shit what she thinks. I still give a shit what she says to my siblings, but out of four of us, there is only one who will believe any of it. I'll manage.

Courage, Dawndonna. You know that every time you pull her up, you will elicit any or all of the typical narc responses to anything that smacks of criticism: denial, rage, casting blame back onto you, or the "poor me" martyr act.

It's coping with those reactions which I found most trying when I decided to pull my narc mother up on her shit. It usually ended up with me just walking out. And staying out for several hours.

I haven't posted here before, but I have read (not all but lots) with interest. My Mum has lots of NPD tendancies, while my Dad facilitates it. I have rarely called her on it due to the fallout. But i do have lots of physical distance, which helps enormously.

Recently, my Gran died (Mum's mum). I had lived with her for a year when DH and I were engaged and hadn't yet got a house (he rented elsewhere in the city). And since then, DH and I have done a lot for her - kept her garden always, and done lots of little jobs as she needed them (changed lightbulbs, fixed screws, put up pictures, got rid of draughts, did shopping....). And every time we called, we had a good stop for tea and chat in the kitchen - she even always had fizzy orange in the fridge for DH all the time as he doesn't drink tea (and no one else was ever allowed to drink it!).

Gran had been in hospital for the last 4 months, after a few visits over the previous year or so. DH hadn't been to see her much there as he has been overseas a lot, but he had visited a couple of times. And I had been in a lot - I was able to get there from work at lunchtimes and used to go at least once a week, and occasionally with DD at weekends. I don't think DM knows this.

The afternoon before she died, DH, DD and I went to her house to do the garden as we knew it would need doing (have keys), and had also bought the plants I had promised the previous week for her new room in the long stay part of the hospital. As I messed up getting into the house (forgot the lower key), I had to ring my aunt and ask who had keys. Got that sorted, and aunt rang back to check all was ok but also tell me that Gran was slipping and family were called in. So we did the garden and went straight to hospital (rather than planned visit next day). Aunt delighted to see us, we got to say goodbye, and after offering to stay with her while DH went home with DD, she took them home and I stayed (she needed her own meds) until my parents arrived.

My Mum was FURIOUS that I was there. Not my place. Despite the constant criticisms she had of her own mum always. So while I was there out of love, she was there out of duty - but I was in the wrong.

We got over that (I am not one to make a scene anymore - no point), but now it seems that Gran had changed her will a couple of years ago when doing other legal business, and named DH and I in it (don't know what yet, and don't care - we already have the painting she had always said we could have - she gave 1 to each of the grandkids). But it seems to have set mum off again. We didn't even know, and we had never done what we did for anything like that - we liked spending time with her, and there weren't a lot of family around for a good few years who could or would.

I am trying to stay out of the line of fire, but it seems like I can't do anything but get back into it. Always. I am still the black sheep of the family (the married one, with a good job, own house and a DD, and who does look after the rest of the family in lots of ways she doesn't even know or acknowledge when she does know).

I don't think I am looking for advice here, but it helps to just let it out somewhere.

And I will continue working to make her upcoming 65th birthday special, because there will be war if it is not marked properly.

Biddy - really sorry for your loss. And sorry your mum is being a cow. Forget about the accusations - you cant win with someone like that. Do respect your loss and give yourself time to grieve rather than trying to please someone who wont be pleased whatever you do. Im not saying dont do something for your mums birthday just saying remember to honour yourself too. Big hug - your relationship with your grandmother sounds lovely - good for you that you were able to be with her for the end and that you looked after her so well and made her happy.

Thank you Hotdamn. Yes, it will elicit all of those little tricks and more. However, it's only for a few hours and the teenage children, along with dh are backing me up, bless them. We have a family action plan. It's going to be the last allowed visit anyway, so we don't care!
Hurrah!
I am shocked by some of the stuff she's said in the past. However dsis and one brother and I have finally, after thirty odd years, got together and compared notes, she can't do anymore damage, so it's safe.

Biddy Went through similar in February with my mother when her mother died at 99. She hated her, but it was all about her.
Ugh!
I hope things improve for you, although I do not understand why you are doing anything for her birthday.

Dawndonna, I am the eldest (of 6), so it is up to me to make sure we recognise the event suitably (especially as she was VERY miffed 4 years ago when Dad's 60th was marked, but not hers the previous year as she hadn't wanted it marked - if we want to make Dad's retirement, presumably mnext year, an event we can mark as kids, we need to clear the path now so that Mum cannot derail it from not being all about her, that we have already celebrated for her reaching the milestone).

But, yes, I do go when I realise that I am the one making sure the family "plays nicely" yet again...

I am the eldest (of 6), so it is up to me to make sure we recognise the event suitably

that's a logical fallacy.

I will continue working to make her upcoming 65th birthday special, because there will be war if it is not marked properly.

...so?

By all means organise the party if you choose to. But you don't have to. And I really would question why you choose to.