Your Day

Posted on May 30, 2012 by peersncareers

It’s graduation time! Congratulations to all the graduates! Graduation is one of those rites of passage. It means you accomplished your goal…and it can be for anything…swim classes, language classes, high school, college, wedding, etc. It is a wonderful time!

Going through this rite of passage is hard with an N in your life. Your Day becomes eaten up by the N and they can somehow suck the joy you feel with a few strategically placed words at the right time.

A post came through on Facebook about graduation a few days ago that reminded me of their subtle evilness:

I just graduated with my BSN (bachelor) and I’m going to start my MS (master) in the fall!

Comments from friends:

‘Congratulations!’

‘Way to go’

‘Congrats!’

‘That’s terrific’

‘Congrats!’

‘strong work…make sure you take a break’

‘I am happy for you’

‘Congratulations!’

‘Woooohoooo!’

I’ll let you guess which comment came from the N friend. It is uncanny how they can some how take a joyful, happy moment and turn it into something else. The days you are supposed to be just happy…the moments when you are in the moment…you don’t think about anything else like the future…you are just happy you accomplished it. The next steps and all that is for tomorrow are not on your mind…today is your day.

I share with you my graduation day with my narcissistic mother.

I remembered the days leading up to my high school graduation ceremony. My mom took me shopping and picked out the dress for me. It wasn’t what I liked but remember thinking…at least I got a new dress. On the morning of the ceremony I was getting ready and putting on my dress and my mom came into my room. She was upset.

I don’t actually remember the details of what she was upset about but I remember her leaving my room and going downstairs. I believe she was upset that I wasn’t wearing pantyhose with the dress (I have eczema on my legs and I think she wanted me to cover it up on a hot day!). I ran downstairs to talk to her and she is standing at the bottom of the stairs. She starts yelling and then I start yelling. And at a certain moment my mom goes into another room. All I remember is sitting at the bottom of the steps crying in my new dress. I sat there crying and upset and feeling awful. I had done something wrong. My dad begged me not to make her more upset. He was pleading with me to not provoke her on a day like this. I just continued to cry.

All of a sudden my mom comes into the room and says we need to leave now. We drove to the ceremony in silence and I was no longer looking forward to this event. I was upset and angry. The ceremony went smoothly and I spoke with my friends, took pictures (not really smiling), etc. All the time feeling awful about the fight with my mom and what I had done to upset her so badly. It was a horrible day that sticks out in my memory.

When it came time to my university graduation I didn’t bother to go or have my parents come to the university. It was like any other day. I was somehow ensuring that the same thing wouldn’t happen by not doing anything enjoyable to celebrate this happy moment in my life. In the end I was preventing a repeat performance by punishing myself.

I looked up the root ‘grad’ today and found out it means progress as well as grade. It sounded nice…progress…I think whatever next graduation I attend…a friend’s, my own children’s…I hope to have made progress…I hope to have graduated from my NM. To all those future graduates of NMs…stay strong, we can do this together.

T Reddy

Can’t you see I’m ignoring you?

Posted on May 24, 2012 by peersncareers

I got two very interesting e-mails recently from the 2 Sophisticated Narcissistic Female Friends in my life. I am trying the fade away approach with both of them…and hoping it leads to permanent no contact. Yup…I’m trying to avoid a conflict with these sophisticated Ns.

Narc #1:

20 February (via Facebook e-mail):

Lydia: Hey, how’s things? We’re just back from our winter holiday in France.

Me: Hi Lydia, We’re good…how r u? Cool…hope the snow was plentiful!

No response after that. Then she sends another one on 27 April:

Lydia: Hows it going? Been far too long…

Me: Hi! We are doing good! How are you guys? How are the kids doing?

It is like she wants to point out that she isn’t responding to my e-mails…BUT in order to get any e-mail from me she has to send me one so she can ignore it. It’s like she wants to say to me ‘See, I’m ignoring you?’…But that is a total paradox! I’m not initiating contact with her…haven’t been for a year now. How messed up is that? If she doesn’t respond I don’t send another e-mail I just let it be. How evil are these Ns? Seriously, they have to send an e-mail so that I respond. So sick and wrong!

Narc # 2 (wife of my boyfriend’s best friend) – a week ago.

Samy: hey, been thinking about you! how are things on your side of the pond?

Me: Hi Samy! It is great to hear from you! We are doing good! Today, summer might have arrived (fingers crossed)…the first warm day…itching to go outside today!

How are you? How are your husband and kids?

Seriously, what is with them. Samy hasn’t responded. I haven’t contacted Samy since the beginning of this year. I decided after seeing her over the holidays that she was most definitely a Sophisticated N.

Has anyone tried the fade out a friend approach? How is it going?

You Deserve Better.

Posted on May 14, 2012 by peersncareers

Here is what was posted recently on the blog Indexed by Jessica Hagy entitled: You Deserve Better.

Can I still love her?

Posted on May 9, 2012 by peersncareers

As Mother’s Day approaches in the USA, Dr. Karyl McBride, Ph.D. wrote an article regarding the Mother-Daughter connection. I found comfort in parts of this article but also found myself questioning aspects of my own connection with my narcissistic mother. Here is the link to the full article on Psychology Today. I highlight parts of the article below along with my thoughts. Whatever you are going through this Mother’s Day, I hope you find your own way. Thank you to the mothers who are breaking the legacy everyday, you are my inspiration.

Mother’s Day is approaching and this time of year discussions about mothers explode, but of course the roaring voices describing maternal narcissism are hushed to the background. We hear the praise and celebrations about good mothering, but simultaneously the complete stillness and silence about inadequate mothering.

One of the things I often think about is how lucky I am not living in the United States during my recovery. Most of my friends are mothers now and I would have to deal with many face to face discussions regarding this holiday. Even with the distance, I get a fair share of the contact digitally but also dealing with my boyfriend, as he asked me last week to look for a gift for his mother (who, in my opinion, is N and has never shown me or anyone any love or warmth). I feel like I am hushed during this time…a silence I put on myself but at the same time feel like it is this invisible mussel from society.

If adult children of narcissistic parents discuss their upbringing, they are usually met with disdain……If a narcissistic parent raised a daughter or son, it means that the parent was not capable of empathy and unconditional love. The issue lies in the disorder of the parent. It does not mean that the daughter or son is not capable of loving or that they don’t love that parent…..But, because the adult child is reacting to the lack of maternal love, they are seen as the one who does not love the parent.

That is the irony we live in. The narcissistic parent does not love us back. My mother does not love me but if I don’t smile and sing her praises I am called often by my friends and family: a spoiled, selfish rotten brat (that is a real quote, btw). And so, as a way to get through it I often have to lie and pretend…and sometimes that makes me more sick than anything my mother every said to me. Living with this irony is an invisible prison that I can only see.

Can you imagine spending a lifetime of loving someone and trying to get their love back, and then being blamed for being the one who doesn’t love? We do call that projection. The narcissistic parent will make it about their kid not loving them.

Yeah. What’s that expression? Been there. Done that. She tells people I am the one that doesn’t call and I don’t care…I don’t care about them, our culture, our family. I am heartless. Sound familiar? Play that broken record.

If you are trying to explain this to others, think of this quote from Victoria Secunda, author of When Madness Comes Home:

“Unless they’ve had firsthand, day to day experience with mental illness, it’s a conversation killer to say that you are a veteran of such devastation. Most people don’t really get it. Why should they? In general, the scant knowledge they do have is, at best, grotesquely distorted, at worst, just plain inaccurate.”

This is an interesting quote. It made me really think. I have, in brief, explained to some of my friends that I don’t have a good relationship with my mother. I have never mentioned the illness outside of this blog and boyfriend until recently. I had told my aunt about NPD a month ago. She was understanding but I could tell by her reactions that it is not something easily understood. And I think that is true. It took me 30 years to identify what was happening, how can someone understand it with a standard definition. All I hope for is that the people I tell trust me enough to know that I am doing a healthy thing for myself and that doing something healthy for yourself is the most important thing. Maybe they don’t even need to know my mother has a mental illness…they just need to trust my decision…they need to trust me.

Because you see the disorder in the parent and you are reacting to it and working your own recovery, do you think that means you don’t love your parent? Or are you simply standing in your truth, accepting your reality, and working on your own mental health?

The by-line to this article is: If mother can’t love, can you still love her? And where I borrowed the title to this post. And I have my answer to this question. No. I know that was my answer before I started my recovery.

I do not love my mother. It feels freeing to be able to write this down. I do not love her. When I think of love and when I have experienced love (of my friends, my boyfriend) it isn’t the same feeling when I think of my mother. For me, love has no conditions, footnotes, asterisks or variations. Love is love.

The article says we are still capable of loving the parent even when love wasn’t returned back. I question this everyday. I think it is capable to love someone and they not love you back. But that is not what my narcissistic mother did. It wasn’t that she is just guilty of not loving me…she is guilty of taking, abusing me everyday of my childhood. That is something very different to me. Their abuse doesn’t stem from a lack of love…their abuse comes from a place of hatred. You have to really hate to abuse someone everyday of their life. You have to really hate to say mean things and manipulate them. You have to really hate to hit and beat them.

How can I love her when she hated me?

Bah, Humbug!

Posted on May 7, 2012 by peersncareers

I feel like Scrooge when it comes to Mother’s Day.

Celebrating my mother is not my thing. Being the scrooge I am at this time of year I looked up what the word, Humbug, means…and from Wikipedia I got this definition:

Humbug is a person or thing that tricks or deceives or talks or behaves in a way that is deceptive, dishonest, false, or insincere, often a hoax or in jest.

And that made me laugh. Yup. That is a narcissistic mother, that’s my mom.

Celebrate her, I will not.

My ghosts are still very much alive. And I fear another visit from them this May.

My ghost of Mother’s Day past shows me a few of the Mother’s Days with her…but there is no need to remind me really. They all happened about the same way. My mother reminding me about a week before the day…’so, are you going to do anything for mother’s day?’ Her snide, nasty voice ringing in my ears. Her constant passive aggressive remarks telling me it is my responsibility to do something for the day. And when it was done…she criticized it…often ending with the remark, ‘is this all you can do after all I do for you?’ This ghost is cruel…making me relive these events.

My ghost of Mother’s Day present shows me that my estrangement from my mother has evoked harsh judgement from some of my friends and family. Reminding me that many in society will judge me today and in the future. And, today, society is not ready to understand that motherhood is not always a celebrated institution. A little secret ACoNs know: not all Mother’s Days are Happy.

My ghost of Mother’s Day future is more kind. The image is blank. I am on a recovery path and I hope that I am breaking the legacy.

This year, the image is not complete…but that is okay. It needs to be left unfinished…I need the room to grow and lead my own path. I need the space to heal. I don’t want the image to appear…it will be created together with my family. A family that feels very different than the family I came from.