Had a totally frustrating conversation with an old friend. We were discussing how our parents (may) have impacted how we turned out. My friend has a Difficult Mother and a Difficult Father.
She kept saying all parents are imperfect and went on to say so-and-so's dad did this...and her mom did such-and-such but, ultimately, it's up to us to get past it and fix ourselves. Agreed.
However, this is her way of saying, "You're whining...we all had Imperfect Parents and let's move on, shall we?"
This is what makes having any sort of conversation about the perils of having a narcissistic parent with someone who's never had one. In the case of my friend, she kept trying to assign my parents lack of skills on their cultural traditions and (sadly woeful) lack of education and sheer ignorance. Sure, that's true to some extent. However, my (adoptive) father had narcissistic personality disorder and my (adoptive) mother was self-absorbed.
While my friend's mother was indeed Difficult and did some real numbers on my friend rendering her an insecure mess, we're talking about a whole other level of mind- boggling nuttiness when we're talking about the truly narcissistic parent.
The difference...and it's a BIG one...is lack of empathy. A shocking lack of empathy for the child. If I had to cite one difference between the Difficult Parent and the Narcissistic Parent it would be the lack of empathy.
For example (I wrote about this at length elsewhere, but I'll recap here), I remember a bizarre conversation with my n-dad after I'd discovered that I wasn't adopted until about a month old. I wanted to know where I was for that month. At the hospital? In a foster home? There was no record of it in my paperwork and the adoption agency said that was confidential information and to ask my adoptive father. So I did.
First, n-dad was surprised that I was a month old when I came to them. He thought I was a newborn. Second, he had no idea where I'd been during that time and said it made no difference to him. I said it was important to me. He said not to worry about it, it made no difference to him or my adoptive mother where I'd hung out for a month as an infant because all that counted was that they'd "got" me. No matter how much I tried to get n-dad to recognize my need to know, he couldn't register it. He could only keep repeating that it didn't matter to him.
At this point, I was clearly distressed. My dad couldn't seem to register that, either. He got angry because I always pestered him with questions about where I came from. When I said I needed to know about my background, he said I didn't because where I came from wasn't in the least bit important to him. The funny thing is my adoptive father had always made a huge, stinking deal about his suspicion that his own father may have not been his biological one. Oh, the irony! Growing up, I had to listen to how traumatizing this uncertainty had been and was expected to sympathize. Yet, I did have biological parents out there somewhere, but that was no big deal.
Total...Lack...of...Empathy.
15 comments:
Hey Nina I totally agree with your post.
N-parents are the worst, particularly for your self-esteem. I just left my home 5 months ago. And they still send me calls saying "You shouldn't treat me this way" when all along they have been bullying and bullying and sapping my energy.
It is honestly the most difficult thing I've had to deal with. Its hard because when your young, you cant fight back because these parents put the "I'll kick you out" ultimatum on ya. Yeah, they have you as a kid and then kick you out, real fair.
Anyway really enjoyed your post.
N-parents are very, very good at pretending to have empathy. They are very good at pretending, but when it really comes down to it, they don't at all. This false sense of empathy is really a superiority complex.
My parents are/were filthy rich. My grandmother, who is 99 and not money savvy, inherited over 4 million dollars from an estate she sold. After taxes, she was left with 2.5 million in the bank, which was to be safeguarded and divided out to several recipients. My parents urged her to let them have control over her finances since her memory is not so good. To make a long story short, they stole and squandered 2.5 million dollars of a dead man's money. I mean, you have to have no empathy to do that!
Even before they inherited the money, they were already very wealthy people. They live in an exclusive neighborhood with ocean-side view. Their yearly salary is over $175,000.
My mother does not work. She has had one job her entire life and has been living off her husband's salary for years. She could not get a job even if she wanted to. She is a full-time volunteer for a school that has low-income students. She always takes these people "under her wing" so to speak and talks at length about what hard lives they have. That is not to detract from those other people's lives, I am sure that they are difficult, but she talks about them in a way that is condescending. Moreover, she throws money at her f-up nieces and nephews whenever they have a mini-financial crisis while her own very healthy children are struggling to pay bills. I am sure that before my cancer diagnosis, I was malnourished. I was considering getting food stamps and public assistance because we were so poor. The one time I asked for a loan, my mother says, "Well, we are just not MADE of money."
They expected us to pull ourselves out of poverty by our bootstraps while they go out to fancy restaurants at least twice a week. They own a corvette, mercedes and a 1940's refurbed Chevy pick up (a collectable car). They are not in the poor house!
It makes me so angry and blows my mind that they just throw money at people they barely know or who are not truly struggling.
-Susie
DevINTJ:
Congratulations on leaving home!
Yeah...some parents can't let the "child" leave home without some sort of drama that makes an already challenging adjustment even more difficult.
So your parents are bullies. I think a cousin falls into this category in terms of how she's treated her daughter and it's really ugly stuff...so I'm sorry to hear that. Yuck. I'll have to read your blog to understand better what this is.
BTW, I HATE parents who use the whole "I'll kick you out threat" as a way to control their children...as I am a parent of older teenagers myself. That's just so....mean. And ineffective. And totally unfair.
SUSIE:
My sympathy. I can only imagine how you feel...I can imagine the maddening frustration because just once, my dad - who wasn't in the least bit rich - gave his car to my cousin after never giving a single thing to me. Your situation is far, far worse!
I'm glad you shared your experience as the concept of a self-absorbed PRETENDING to be empathetic is totally foreign. My parents didn't even bother to pretend. In a way, this is probably easier to deal w/because it's so blatant and obvious to other people. In your situation, there's a lot of conning involved. I read about that kind of narcissist in a book and the whole idea horrified me.
Nina,
After living with parents who pretend to be empathetic, it is really difficult to determine people's motives or if they have ulterior motives at all. It's taken me a very long time to stop becoming a victim in relationships.
Anyway, this is how I understand my situation and my particular type of self-absorbed parents:
They're very keen on being "empathetic" to strangers, but with their own kids and family, not so much. This is because the relationship with strangers or people they don't know well have fewer consequences and are easier to manipulate. It also helps bolster their image (which is absolutely crucial to them) and prevents their insecure self-image from creeping up on them. To all the world, they're helpful, loving people but in private they're selfish, manipulative and hurtful people who simply CAN'T have meaningful relationships.
-Susie
My fathers a fruit cake narcissist and my mother is a ding bat narcissist. I cannot belive these people had a kid , and i called them mom and dad . I went from having reverence for their voice , to after being freed , to being utterly annonyed and seething with contempt !!!!
If I can break free from these dead weight losers , then anyone can. It can be done . Hang in there !
your site is great! feels good to have people to relate to!
my dad had no empathy for sure. he hated me to the core. referred to me in all the variations of pussy and whore. refused to let me sit in the living room or in the dining room because he said i was too dirty for "his" furniture. then he refused to let me use the kitchen or the garbage chute or the washing machine because i was too dirty to deserve it. he even chained locked the yard so i couldn't access the yard and kitchen and left notes on the living dining furniture threatening to kill me the motherfucking cunt if i ever dared to so much as touch his furniture. i lived completely in my bedroom without going to the rest of the house for years (because i was a student and he wasn't giving me pocket money and i couldn't afford to move out because i needed every cent i earned working part-time for food and school fees) while everyone else in the family had family meals, they didn't cook my share. because my dad said not to.
by the way i don't really think i was dirty like he says. i showered once a day like everybody does. i didn't have rampant sex with everybody in the neighbourhood although that is what he insists i did! and if i was collecting trash in my room till i went downstairs that was because he was threatening to kill me if i touched "his" rubbish chute.
just so you know my dad was my closest relative in that house. the others were his new wife and their young kids. and he turned them all against me and left me out of all family excursions and activities. imagine a tiny 5 year old boy swearing at you and calling you a cunt and threatening to kick your ass if you sat on "his" couch. that was how was brothers were. so clearly i'm not close to them.
i used to think that was how children from previous marriages were treated since they were no longer wanted, and i had a lot of issues with self-worth, anorexia and emptiness leading to depression, but then i read about npd and i realised the problem was him and moving away was really the healthiest thing to do.
so as soon as i had enough money after graduation, i moved and severed all ties with all of them (not hard to do) and i think it's done wonders for my life. friends say i look happier and i no longer feel like i'm harbouring this deep dark secret that the happy people i meet won't understand. i have a rubbish chute and a washing machine to use now and my housemates treat me like a person and invite me to have dinner with them in the living room! i no longer worry about getting shocked by pounding on my bedroom door in the middle of my night, being accused and violently reprimanded for something i didn't do (like put poison in their food. come on! i didn't i swear i didn't but if i tell him that then he says i'm a liar. either way its my fault and im a fucking cunt that deserves to burn in hell.)
so anyway i've left that terrible place and i truly recommend it for all children of npd parents :)
Got some experience with these types and within my own family. It shameful, but, I was labelled ADD by my teachers. Mainly, I was just bored. My Church said the world was going to end. This is circa 1987. The world is still here, unfortunately for me, Im a nervous wreck. Instead of my teachers helping me, they acted as if I had a massive behavioral disorder. Id say I was responding to some Emotionally damaged Adults and Teachers.But. That isnt they way it was spun. Persons in the Mental Health Profession demonstrate the characteristics of a sociopath, and demonstrate this behavior on a level which is disturbing. My father has never called or asked about my difficulties. During last summer he had me walk into a drug store after a event of self mutilation..to get pain killers...and acted as if...all is ok, and im being dramatic to be unable to walk properly.You want to see SOCIOPATHS? check out your local Mental Health Provider. They seem to have wormed or defaulted their way into the military, which is telling. They view us ALL as mental defectives and subjects for their experiments. This power play mainly consist of them hurting others to feel good about themselves. It gives them a feeling of power to hurt others. They dont feel GOOD doing GOOD. they have a nice presentation of JESUS or DARWIN...all wrapped up...nicely packaged...a masterful deception. MASTERFUL. See: Psychic Vampires. The have put down in my medical records that i claim to be a vampire myself...which i never have implied i was a vampire...NOPE. Pretty Telling. I do proport to like THE CURE and JOY DIVISION. But I never claimed to drink blood or be UNDEAD. I do admit to being, Mentally Ill,but thats not reason enough to not heed my warning. Im crazy, but not evil. AND THERE IS A DIFFERENCE. Any effort I make to tell my story seems to go nowhere. Its hard. PTSD? persons tired of sociopaths and devils?
I identify with so much here.
My dad was a big shot in the movie industry so he had that kind of money coming in. My mom was a teacher.
About money - I fled home when I was almost 19. I got a job assisting the top stylist in a Rodeo Dr hair salon for $80 a week. Parking for a month was $80 so I was living off $240 a month and my $1k in savings. I had no money for clothes and was threatened to be fired if I didn't dress better. I went to my dad for money. He acted as if I was shoving my arm down his throat and taking the food directly out of his stomach. He was mad at me for weeks. He and the N-C couldn't care less I had a dream job. Never even congratulated me on getting it.
When I was 9 I broke my leg, a very bad break leaving the leg an 1" short. When I was 34 I had the opportunity to have it re broken and stretched FOR FREE as a study subject. All I had to do was support myself for 9 months and pay for transportation to and from the hospital. With my savings and disability I was 3K short. I asked him, then retired, for it. He didn't have it in the bank and all his money was tied up. Now that I have POA - I found out 3k was less than half of what they had coming in a month. Not to mention a boatload of money in various places all within reach. He said, "I don't know what to tell you, cookie."
My N-C of a mother was a reading specialist yet I was in remedial reading and got C-D in English all through school. I had severe performance anxiety and dyslexia.
Yeah I'd say lack of empathy. Those three and the other thousand stories of my wonderful parents wonderful parenting.
BTW, I wished they kicked me out. By the time i was 8 I was begging to live with my grandmother.
Hi. I know my mother is a narcissistic person and much more. She has hated me and now that I'm older its worse. She's always deeming me "dead" to her. Then comes the fake buy your love back bull. I always gave in before but the cycle is draining me. I had to build my self esteem myself, and help with few friends but I was worthless until I became a mother myself. I could never be so mean and cold to my child. My mother would see me sad and just add to it until I was crying now as an adult I took custody of my little brothers teenaged son with lots of problems.. Bt I'm already a single mother of a teenager. She's great. But my brother is displaying the same behavior traits as my mom. He hates his son. He refuses to help me financially even just a little to pay for his son and my mom sees me struggling can't feed the kids and when I tell my brother I'm going to have to take him to court if he doesn't help me he calls our mother and complains to her in turn she makes my life even harder by being mean and degrading me. She let her husband my step father molest me few times, I told her, he admitted it and she made me move or hated me even more at home. I slept in the basement or attic depending on the weather. She pretends to love me so much to her co workers but she is sick. If I named all the things she's done it would take days. I've thought of writing a book. This woman is pure evil. How do people become narcissistic? Is it in your blood or is it how your raised? I want to be sure I raise my daughter with as much compassion & Empathy. It looks good so far but she is very close to my mother. This has also caused issues. When my daughter watched my mother degrade me my daughter started to. She still acts like my mother sometimes but she writes me letters on how much she loves me and how I'm her world. Might just be teenage stuff. Anyways, I read the posts here and it feels so damn good knowing I wasn't the only kid or adult being torn down and apart by a sick parent. I'm sorry for everyone that you grew up with such mental anguish. I can relate.. Try to love yourself because we are all worth being loved.
After reading all these posts, WOW. We have similar narcissistic parent(s)! I only have one n-parent, THANK GOD, but it's eerie how the experiences you had are very similar to mine!
Hello there,
I have very much the same situation you do. I am adopted and both my parents are very Narcissistic down to telling me things didn't happen when they did and having complete denial that I have feelings at all. I left home at 17 and never looked back. Sadly I still have to see them around holidays. I do not have kids myself because I am terrified I will repeat the trauma on them unknowingly. This Narcissistic behaviour is sick and it just destroys children and when they become adults it doesn't get much better. I'm glad to find some one else who experiences the same things I have but i'm not glad that it's happening to others. I can't even mention my adoption or my birth parents around them with out it erupting into a fight about how I am selfish cause they gave me everything and why am I even talking about the women who gave me up. Thank you so much for posting this I don't feel so alone any more.
Sara, I am so sorry. Your story so upset me. Because I am not a narcissist and I do have empathy. This post hit me hard, I have studied at length Narcissism, but to hear about lacking empathy adds a whole new part to it. I can absolutely relate. I never could put my finger on it what was going on with my Nrents, but the lack of empathy jumps out at me now. My whole life I was a bother to the parents, shut up and be seen and not heard. When I would get sick I was a bother, there was no sympathy for me, but only for my entire family other than me. I would hear endlessly about a cousin who had this, or an uncle who was passing away of some illness. Someone always had some worse illness or problem than I. So eventually I stopped bring anything up healthwize to them. I struggled since the age of 16 with undiagnosis of pain in my neck after a fall from a horse. No CT scan or Xray showed anything was wrong. The doctors finally labelled me a hypochondriac because nothing was diagnosed. 19 years after, I finally was diagnosed with a broken Transverse Process at C4. To this day my Nmother does not think I had a broken bone in my neck although I have a 3 inch scar on the back of my neck from having the bone removed during surgery. I think back on my children and all of the fretting I did at the hospital or ER when my kids got hurt. Both of my parents had such disregard for me over the years and this post hits it home. It was a complete lack of empathy for me, but not for others. For others they would dramatize what was happening as so terrible. After many,many years of suffering with them and their negativity towards me I am now No Contact. Why stay with people who have no positive regard for you or what you may be going through in your life? Just because they are your parents does not mean you have to have an relationship with them. I leave them to choose their next victim, and happily to stay away from me since they clearly have never cared about me....
wow! so many people with stories similar to mine. My dad has Schizophrenia and my mother is a n. My dad left when I was a couple months old and my mom raised me. She always made me feel like I was good for nothing. I never really hugged me growing up, never cared about my feelings, always called me names, said I was good for nothing and when I tried to speak up, she would shut me up. At home she was a total bitch but she loved to play victim in front of others. I always thought something was wrong with me, until I was a teenager and started seeing the pattern. I moved out of the house when I was 19 and stayed away after that. I still keep in touch with her but I dont involve her in my personal life, atleast try not to. The worst part is to explain it to others and my in laws as to why Im not close to my mother, or why my parents dont come visit me. They just dont understand what it was like to grow up with my mother.
I wish such ppl get castrated, they dont deserve to have kids and then ruin their lives.
There is also a very disturbing trend that N-parents display which is 'gas-lighting', the art of framing you or falsely labelling you to pamper or raise their own disturbed ego. This is akin to character assassination and is probably the worst type of non-physical abuse one could ever encounter.
I speak from experience, from my own personal development I chose to use this as a motivator rather than a stressor, the defining outcome is dependent on how one chooses to react, one will always have a choice, never forget that, I send love and empathy to all those people affected on this site.
Im now 64 years old. Mom died last year. I discovered only the last few years that she was a narcissist. I cant recall her once ever bathing my brothers and I, not once. My dad bathed us. She didnt treat me like a person with feelings and needs. Sheignored me and even when I was badly injured breaking my front teeth (adult teeth) at age 13 she ignored me while blood was pouring out of my mouth. Shes done so much damage to me. How does one heal from narc behavior when your told your not as good as other people and that you dont matter?
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