You cannot communicate with batshit

[Pingpang]

Following on from a recent thread regarding those who are NC/LC with family members.

Welcome to the good ship Narcymcnarcface! The bar is stocked and there's a seat for everyone. Shuffleboard starts in 20 mins.

I see your Chinese burn and I raise you a pinch on the bingo wings, ya cow

More tea and gin are always welcomed Catsnores! I'm sorry you didn't get the mum or dad you deserved either. Ginormous posts are good, it's cathartic to get stuff out and good to start explaining stuff and getting it clear in your head. I resonate with so much of what you've said and reckon others do too.

My DM is not redeeming herself as a GM as I had hoped and is making me feel crappy. ... No, I think possibly when kids arrive two things happen: first they lose attention and go nuts (see posts above) and second you think "this is another chance, maybe you'll change", which sadly I don't think happens often. You really don't owe her a part in your daughter's little life if it's damaging you both still my lovely.

Sorry you have to meet up with your batshit Pounce. Hope it goes "well" for you and your DP.

This is a script that you have learned, you are a shit person and a shit friend. yes it is isn't it dogdays? Like me being told I couldn't handle babies.

All these things aren't magical amazing skills which others are born with and we weren't - we had that inherent capability too but someone taught us early on that we were different and shit. The older I get the more I realise everyone is faking it.

I smile a lot, make "aww" comments and ask people about themselves endlessly. I don't have a lot to say about my own life but try to stay honest rather than make stuff up these days (unlike early 20s, cringe) and over the years I have made more friends and got a bit (not much!) better at small talk. It all takes practice and confidence (fake it till you make it stuff). Easier said than done though.

I've also had cardboard coasters for a birthday present (seriously, is there a script somewhere?!), though when I was about 25. And a pair of scissors.

The older I get the more I realise everyone is faking it. by this I mean "Faking it until they make it", not lying. They don't know how to do stuff either but approach it with a shrug and a "why not try" attitude.

And I too have the fear of intimacy, I'm a shit friend, I mustn't ever be a burden... Have been single for several years, I think mainly as a consequence and wonder if I will ever be able to feel loved :(

Thanks for the blankets Merd xx

This absolutely describes so much of my recent experience - Paying attention the most exhausting part of parenting with a history of Adverse Childhood Experiences

Cat, no probs, it was very brave of you and as a recent de-lurker myself I now am so experienced posting here I am going to take the ship. It gets easier, all of it does, I don't find things so triggering and now, gulp, I might have something in reserve that I can actually be of help. I feel it is a sign of health that I am now in a place where I can actually laugh. I'm glad you found it helpful, bless you for saying that. Big hug! It's all going to be ok! It really is, we are the lucky ones. We saw through the shit and now are talking about it, how amazing are we? Amazing!

I got told I wasn't responsible enough to have kids, Merd. It was so unjustified, I was so responsible, keenly so. It really affected me to the point where I didn't have any. I had a panic attack after volunteering to babysit my lovely niece who is the easiest chattiest kid and will let you know what she's feeling. I had to go outside for a cigarette, I thought she would see right through me and would hate my guts. I feel I got robbed of the joy of children for a long time. Lucky I work round loads of babies now. If you'd told me 10 years ago I'd be doing that and I loved it I wouldn't have believed you. We can change, we are all changing.

Merd, dog thanks for the welcome. I have brought some pretty good bar snacks aboard too if it's not too early for people- home made cheese straws and hot nuts. Help yourselves. And gins with lime of course. Important we all avoid scurvy.

YY Merd to your words on my DM reaction to my DD. Also DM would hold her saying 'oh you poor little baby' over and over in the way someone normal might say, 'ah you lovely little baby' in a croony way.
Fucking creepy when the penny dropped and I realised she was just visualising my baby as herself as a baby, and DM was projecting her shit all over my child. I honestly wanted to snatch DD away and wash her. I realise that none of us are really 'real' as people for my DM.

That's so familiar what you say about nodding and smiling with friends. I feel self conscious about the whole thing so asking people about themselves helps, but I also have this irresistible urge to show empathy (I wonder why). So I barge in with all my solidarity then they probably feel I am taking over with the interrupting 'me too', 'oh yes I know' thing. I physically have to stop myself doing it. MNing is honestly a bit of practice for me in interaction!

Thanks dog for York positivity. This is definitely starting to feel like a time of change, thank fuck for that. This all really helps.

Wishing you the best pounce and olives

Or even 'your' positivity dog
Not sure if York is especially upbeat or not but here's hoping

Dog days that post made me cry too.

My sister and I discouraged friends from just calling round as if my father was drunk/hungover/sleeping it off the doorbell going would set him off.

But that was used against us

'You have no friends, you must be too weird, nobody calls for you, my friends called round all the time when I was a kid'

Also being duped into thinking they might do better as gps. Not too bad until my dd reached around age 10 then she was suddenly the sg out of the gcs and 'old enough to know better'.

Can I grab some limes for tequila?

I love hot nuts. The hot nuts of my nasty FIL gripped in my fist while I smile into his stupid fucking face.

Did I say that out loud?

Check me out doing emoticons now. I am bastard unstoppable, me.

'I honestly wanted to snatch DD away and wash her. '

I think this is where my OCD comes from wanting to protect dd from their contamination

Aw baconyum, your username makes me smile and I make you cry! No fair!

Bacony. Mi limas, su limas.
Sorry that he was such a shit to you.

fusion that "paying attention" blog post really struck a chord with me. My favourite things to do are to sit on the train listening to music, and long distance walking.It's all about escape, about being out of my own headspace. And when my twins were small, and their needs came second by second and there were times I could come into the house with them and 45 minutes after we got in we hadn't got further than the hall with all the things that needed to be done... when I couldn't get our roofer to understand that it just wasn't possible for me to come and inspect his work, that I couldn't disappear up the attic ladder for more than about 30 seconds before my girls would start crying for me... for the 2 years I looked after them full time, I felt as if my personal space had shrunk to a tiny part of my mind where, in the background of all the physical work and interaction with the girls and stuff, I could sometimes hear my own thoughts rumbling away. I learned to live in that small space. I said to myself 50 times a day - wind your neck in. I meant, whatever you are worrying about, worry about that later. Do the things that need to be done in the order they need to be done, and leave everything else. That was living in the moment for me. It was so strange.

dogdays loved the bingo wings comment. I wish we'd put my mother in her place more often. One small victory was that when my dad was in his early 60s I managed to persuade him to come away hillwalking with me and DH despite my mother telling him 10,000 times he wouldn't be fit enough for it. It became a bit of an institution whereby me, DDad and DH would go up the hills for a few days, stay in nice hotels, drink lots of cider and make liberal use of the local buses when we couldn't be bothered walking. My dad got to let off steam about my mum and we got his company uninhibited by what he might be told off for the next day. It was great. It made me sad for all the lost opportunities for happiness in his life and my childhood - if my mum had just fucked the fuck off when I was a little kid we'd have looked after each other me and my dad - he was physically and emotionally abused as a child too, no question that's why he and my mother got together, he'd not learned to look after himself and she loved having someone she could control. It was a hard lesson to me to realise that my dad was that codependent, he wouldn't have been up for looking after himself, and that's why he never left I think. But if my mother had just been out of the picture. I was a smart kid, I'd have kept us on the straight and narrow. When I left I felt so guilty that I couldn't take him with me, he was the only reason I'm not a total nutjob, he was my model for good relationships (and I've always "got" friendships and relationships with men, not women), he was always asking me to come home more often but he knew why I didn't. When I found out he was dying I felt as if I was going through the emotion for the second time, I felt as if my dad had always been dying, always been tragic. He never got a chance, poor bugger.

Sorry that all went a bit sad there. I'm just going to leave it up there.

Toomuch, thank you for sharing that story there. I'm glad you got to have some pints with your dad and have some great times. It is a sad tale, I think there are some people walking around in their meat vehicles who died a long time ago spiritually. My dad was sort of the same, my stepdad even more. I remember my mother ridiculing my dad because he wanted to grow a tree inside the house. I was all like "Oh wow, let's have a tree in the house!" but we were all encouraged to have a pop at him because he was a nature lover at heart, and it is one of the things that makes me very sad now. I think my dad loved me but he had a really funny way of showing it. My stepdad is only 52, much younger than my mum and he has changed from being a man full of vitality to a pot-bellied compliant doormat. She got jealous if we wanted to see him alone, or take him for a pint. It is really sad. It's ok, it is really sad all of this. The "what ifs".

Toomuch, absolutely. I didn't realise it at all when ds1 was small, I just sort of clung on for survival but it became apparent to me when pg with ds2 that I had to find a way to get some help with it as I found it really hard to contain my temper, I used to feel insane levels of rage which I was trying desperately to contain inside myself.... and occasionally it would come out. I remember a terrible night when ds1 was maybe 18 months old and I was pg and he stayed awake all night and I felt like I was going to crack up... and eventually I just roared in his face and made this really ugly scary face at him and rushed out of the room. It terrified me. I have learned since that lack of sleep is a particular vulnerability for me.
However, mindfulness and self-compassion have given me a lot more space.. and easing up on perfectionism, allowing them to watch the TV more than is healthy at times that I am in that place, but keeping the basic routines static. I also find things like going out help a lot - going on a trip or just getting away from the house or setting them up with something and cleaning the kitchen, sort of like "unfuck your habitat" - 20 mins "on" and 10 minutes "off". Luckily I don't have to put quite as much conscious effort in now, though I am still in a busy time with a 6, 4 and 2 year old... but it's just not quite as 100% full on morning noon and night. I wish I had learned this stuff earlier, before having kids though. I would have enjoyed it all a lot more too... it's been a hard slog.

I think all of you that have kids are really amazing. If you have the self awareness to be writing here then that means you are not like them. You have broken the cycle of abuse. Looking back at the generations in my family, I feel certain that my great grandparents were narcissists, and beyond them who knows. It goes back a couple of hundred years I would imagine, if not more. That is a good long time of unhappy people wreaking their unhappiness on their families and on societies. That is massive damage. You broke that! I grew up in massive poverty with no opportunities, and none of that would have mattered if I had been loved and hugged. All the other kids at primary had nothing too, but I remember being so little that I watched my friend being bathed by her mum in the kitchen sink when I was round there after school, the affectionate way they were chatting, and my little friend being so unselfconscious being wiped down by her mum. I think I must have been about six. I'd never been touched like my mother like that, grabbed yes, pulled out of the way of oncoming vehicles but that's about it. You love your children, you are spilling your souls in order to get some clarity and to change and I admire the hell out of you all.

My counsellor said try to be a human being not a human doing. I realised that the only thing I enjoyed doing at one point last year when I was really bad and considering asking the hospital to take me in out of fear of harming myself, was my fiancé driving me around in the car. I worked out it was because I couldn't get up and do anything, I had to sit there and be passive and just let things happen. My mother was always giving me jobs and chores, all the time, age from about 12, my eldest sister and I ran the house while she sat and whined about her married boyfriends.

I struggle to sit through a film even now because things need doing. But then this weekend I have let myself do truly nothing at all. We must be really careful not to exhaust ourselves but to enjoy.

I would say it's nice to see new fellow shipmates, but not really because of why you're here - but have some , and anyway.

toomuch - that's really sad about your Dad. I get the impression that my Dad was a bit of the SG with his own mother - certainly she seemed to favour his brother and that side in terms of DGC, but then they lived locally and we didn't, so I always put it down to that. She was a vicious bitch to my mum though, over the baby mum lost :( - I didn't like her much.
But I think my own Dad had a bit of a "lucky escape" (not entirely sure he'd see it that way but still!) with Mum dying fairly young (early 60s), leaving him on his own. I feared she would drive him into an early grave, but she went first - and I think it gave him a bit of a reprieve, if I'm honest.

Oooh! Permission to come aboard... the weekend brought out some unexpected oddness.

Not my weirdoes... they are probably fawning over distant cousins and their offspring instead of me, DSis and our immediate families. The White House is safe from my side of the NC party.

But DHs have raised their heads over the parapet, for the 2nd time this year, after 15 years of almost complete NC!

Apparently The Aussie Aunt has asked (again) why DH is never at whatever it is they all arrange as a family. The answer she got was that he is prevented from going because (and I quote) "you know how it is with her "

She has queried this and got Angry Uncle on the case. He has phoned me and asked why I am making it difficult for DH to go to whatever it is they had planned for this weekend. To which I replied that DH had not attended as he had no knowledge of it. Angry Uncle called me a liar, BIL had spoken to DH who has said he would try... at this point DH took my phone off me and said, angrily, that his DB was the liar, he hadn't spoken to him since they all landed on us with Aussie Aunt and had no intention of speaking to him any time soon.

So... we got on with sanding woodwork, walls, painting lengths of lining paper and making some colour decisions. It was fun.

Then his phone rang, his DB spat some nastiness and put the phone down before DH could say much. My phone rang and Angry Uncle shouted at me for trying to split up the Loving Brothers!! I managed to wait him out and said that I didn't quite understand as DBIL had just rung and called his Loving Brother all sorts of names and then hung up. Angry Uncle explained that BIL had rung him in tears, apparently he had been talking to DH when I clearly/loudly ordered him to 'hang up on the fucker'.

DH spoke to angry Uncle again and repeated the conversation with his DB. Then he surprised me...

... he told Angry Uncle the whole truth, unvarnished, plainly and with absolutely no holding back. I have never heard him say much of it out loud: BIL / Poisonous SIL took over £25K from their mum - they asked for a period of time to pay off a house purchase price and then got nasty when she asked for the money according to their contract, which had all been done legally. They spent the money on Carribbean all inclusive holidays. When she committed suicide their first contact with the solicitor dealing with her will was to make sure that she hadn't left anything asking for that money to be paid back! DH knew this as he was Executor...

Angry Uncle was very surprised as, as far as he knew, DH was the one who owed their DM money! DH at this point lost his temper. Now this is very scary and has only been seen once before, when his DB claimed that their dad was not actually dying in hospital but was just playing favourites by having made it to our wedding but missing his - their dad had been rushed into intensive care with what turned out to be pericarditis and thought he was dying, but still managed to get card, present and their half sister tot he wedding in his place!

The upshot was last night we spent a couple of hours with Angry Uncle explaining DHs side of things... for a very private person DH was very articulate, outlined everything, apologised for having allowed the situation to get to where it is now and explained that he finds the whole 'family thing' far too stressful and that he would really appreciate it if Angry Uncle could just accept it for what it is.

We left with promises they no Flying Monkeys would be forthcoming!

I am just so proud of DH. He was very, very precise in what he said, covered everything: money, lies, blackmail attempts and all! He has never spoken those words out loud, not once! Today he is pottering round unscrewing things, filling holes and muttering. He has said he feels better now he has said spoken to Angry Uncle that he wishes he had done it years ago.

So! What next? Will mine turn up and demand A Reckoning? I hope not, DH may give it to them with both barrels

Many thanks for the space to type all of that. I have never spoken about it in RL, mainly because it all sounds so improbable I would be labelled a real Drama Llama and avoided by all sensible people.

Holy crap, Ourblanche, total respect to your DH, that must have been cathartic for him. I reckon AngryUncle may pass on the truth and with luck, you'll be left alone.

We're gonna need a bigger boat.

#70sKid #JawsReference

I hope so. Gide but doubt it.

Poisonous SIL won't put up with BIL being maligned. And there is always the sister (Stoner SIL) who hasn't been heard of in 15 years. She may be stirred to make an appearance.

DHs family have always been screwed up. Maternal grandparents were, by all accounts, odd too. DH and I have played Narc Family Top Trumps for years. I think he wins(?) hands down, but he reserves a special place in hell for my DF

Threads like this help... maybe one day I will be able to let it go, or write down very clearly what all the crap really was about.

Want to post, but feel a bit of a charlatan. My mother died a long time ago, I have had problems with her younger sister, my aunt. Finding this thread so helpful, but painful. to you all. Could I possibly come aboard, won't take up too much room.

As I appear to be closest to the gangplank, I am piping you on right now, Rick

I felt like a fraud when recounting my own childhood. DHs is more obviously wrong, it took me ages to work out that mine was very weird too! So come on in, wiggle your elbows, make yourself a comfy space