Dad’s Text on MD

[Phoebes]

I'm definitely going to check out that book, too. I often feel like the physical abuse aspect gets brushed aside in all of the information evolving out there, with lots to talk about emotional abuse is just as bad as physical abuse. It is absolutely. But it's not two separate things for me. And, the physical abuse came along with the verbal and emotional abuse as well. I would often get physically abused for things I didn't do or mind-boggling accusations. I would be getting verbally attacked while getting physically attacked. Now did this leave big bruises visible so that a police officer could observe that I was physically abused? Not usually. Are usually had red welts that went away within a few hours. This is never mentioned , physical abuse is usually described as having injuries or bruises or broken bones or cigarette burns. It's like saying I was never raped so I really molested. I never had a broken bone so was I really physically abused? Yes, absolutely it's just not something that I've seen much mention of so I'd like to read that book and see what it says.

Also also when I'm hashing the stuff out and watching videos reading books and learning. It is mostly emotional abuse and whether or not to forgive or try again or go no contact with the entire family because of all the gaslighting, etc. But then a lot of these videos and information say "they are not talking about if you were physically abused. " as to say, if you were physically abused, then definitely you should be no contact. No question about it and never speaking to any of these people again. It's all very confusing.

Sorry for the long rambles. It's really interesting. What you share about your grandparents viewpoint. Mine had some similar experiences, although we're not European, but I was often told I had no idea about the real world, and I didn't know what I was talking about and things like that. They definitely had depression era thinking, Were somewhat of hoarders and did not feel like they deserved anything in life. They both had an eighth grade education, although my grandfather was very intelligent and read medical books, had a wealth of knowledge from his ancestors about natural healing, Chinese and native American medicine, and was a natural musician. I didn't hate my grandparents. I just don't know why in so many years my mom could not have figured out how to do anything but be abusive. She always dropped seeds everywhere we went like I was ignorant or had some sort of issue or problem or birth defect. She painted a narrative about me so no one would believe me which seems worse to me than what her parents were. It seems psychopathic. Anyway sorry I'm starting to ramble.

[Kizzie]

You know, I sometimes think that nothing actually sinks in with these people. If they are told something that does not agree with their narrative they are quite capable of simply pretending it isn't so. Even if they have kicked up a fuss initially, somehow the whole thing just fades back into their own little world view. They just stick their fingers in their ears and sing "la la la".

Exactly!  And once we figure that out we don't twist ourselves like pretzels anymore because nothing works, except gray rock or no contact. They (N's) are well and truly broken. 

I don't see them as being born evil per se, rather I see most of them as ending up hurting/manipulating/gaslighting/demeaning/etc.,  others because they suffered so much trauma it caused NPD.  I don't excuse/forgive them, but it helps to understand why they are the way they are. For me it makes it all that much more important that every effort is made to ensure all children are loved and safe and nurtured.  Idealistic I know but at least we can aspire to this.

[Blueberry]

I do want to say something.

I know this post of yours is from a few days ago and even though I've read further in this thread, I haven't picked up on whether you've said something or not. I have been reading this thread of yours plus responses for a few days...

Our cases aren't totally dissimilar I would say. In my experience it can be really hard not to say anything when you get this amount of denial and completely idiotic stuff said to you, but with the benefit of hindsight, I would tend not to say anything to FOO in response. I really understand wanting to but it seems not to get through to them anyway or if it does they don't care, it's like water of a duck's back and/or they use it as ammunition to get back at you later.

Or if you do decide to say something, be very clear in advance about why you want to say it and about what may happen. ime getting hurt again and again and again wasn't very helpful. What did help me was writing Recovery Letters on here, again and again and again. That helped direct the words and emotions and utter craziness at the FOO-in-my-head without making myself vulnerable to real present-day FOO. It took a lot of Recovery Letters but the pain and anger did subside after a few years. The FOO ping-pong I'd done for years was not particularly helpful because I stayed in reactive mode and because I simply could not win in my FOO. That's part of being family Scapegoat though as far as I understand it - you can't win because FOO needs you in that role.

It took me well into NC with my mom to realize he was also suspect. It's confusing because he is a gentle man, one who every thinks is so wonderful, great musician and artist, funny and attractive. So many of my friends over the years, when they meet him, tell me I am soooo lucky to have a dad like that, and I thought so too. I thought he was the good parent.

  (apart from the musician bit)

Apparently as children we need at least one 'good parent'. Two nasty, evil, bad ones is just too much for the child psyche. When I finally saw through this one as an adult in my late 30's/early 40's I suppose, the pain of it caused a massive re-traumatisation, dissociation and Horrendous FOO Event no. 1. I wouldn't wish that on anybody else. Anyway, I don't want to take over your whole thread here.

However you decide or already have decided and acted on, I'm sitting with you and wishing you strength and support.

[Blueberry]

P.S. I once read an opinion on our sister website OutOfTheFog that such FOO mbrs know exactly what they are doing, they just don't care.
Repeating that to myself helped.

Also keeping the Abusive Cycle in my head and the idea of those Flying Monkeys helped. Those terms are explained including a diagram for abusive cycle over on OutOfTheFog. Under Toolbox or similar, not necessarily on the forum.

[Phoebes]

Thanks so much for your response and for taking an interest in this..so far I've actually not responded and it's kind of faded in the background, and I feel like it's been too long.

The reason is whenever I'd think of or plan what to write I get that feeling like I have said things so many times and it falls on deaf ears. Maybe I shouldn't give him the satisfaction that I even gave it a thought.

He also texted me the night before Easter and said he hopes I'm be celebrating "resurrection day" tomorrow. He, and especially his wife, seem to have this thing of trying to police mine and my sisters relationships..he's always been the type to say "make sure and wish so and so happy birthday" and things like that. I've told him I can handle my own relationships thank you, and he keeps doing this stuff. Does he think it's cute? Clever? Functional? He also has made comments of doing things out of "fatherly duty." Does he think it's his duty to tell me how to be?

I didn't respond Easter or MD. I think I still think maybe he needs a reminder to knock it off, and I am going to see him in a couple of weeks. I'm sure there may be opportunity, because my NM will be there running the show at my sisters wedding and I'm sure he will try to act oblivious we have been NC for years.

On a side note, I seem to be accumulating relationships that have just faded off with no real communication from me. I have a hard time when I'm stunned or shocked, like I go into freeze and can't manage it, can't speak. Then time goes by and people think I purposely ghosted them. I think it stems from my mother stonewalling me, twisting things and blaming me, creating this huge victim/martyr and look how bad my daughter is narrative. I have a very hard time confronting people or even having a conversation over my feelings, wants or needs. So if someone is over the top, I tend to just back away, over and out. I don't feel good about that and want to handle things better but I'm not sure how capable. My voice quivers and I go silent like I literally can't speak. So part of wanting to reply is simply standing up for myself.

[NarcKiddo]

This is all so familiar.

My mother is the relationship police. She tells me when she thinks I should contact my sister or visit her. I usually say "um" and "ah" and then do nothing.

Occasionally my sister pushes for a visit or trip away together. I dislike these occasions. Partly because I find her difficult and partly because I am utterly sure she is only doing it because mother has prodded her.

Recently my mother contacted me to say she'd had a long conversation with my sister who was very unhappy with her life and they'd had a real heart to heart. Sister is enmeshed, so this was not a total surprise. Then mother said she thought I should visit my sister to give her some support. My mother did not feel she could visit because there had been an argument between them some months ago. I wish I had thought quickly enough to suggest that if my sister was pouring her heart out to her mother maybe it was because she wanted attention from her mother, not delegated attention from me. Alas, I just made non-committal noises. I did vow to make that point if mother ever raised the subject again, but she did not.

The "fatherly duty" is familiar too, though of course in my case it is motherly duty. That old saw is always being trotted out.

As for your last paragraph - I think there is a difference between standing up for yourself against your father and not being able to handle other relationships so you end up ghosting people. I have ghosted many people in my life for very similar reasons to you. But I don't think the experience of standing up to your father (if you do) will translate to communicating your wants and needs to other people. That is something that needs separate practice. Because if you stand up to your father and he just ignores you, or worse, it may just cement your belief that people will always behave badly to you. It would be a mistake to think others would do that if you communicate your needs to them, because most people do not. Even if there is an initial disagreement, once somebody has gone away to think about what was said, it is quite often the case that they come back and you negotiate and compromise and find a way forward. It feels very scary and unfamiliar when this happens. But people will not all treat you as your father does and you can only experience this by interacting with other people.

[Phoebes]

Thanks for sharing your story, too, narc kiddo. Your name brings to mind how our N step mom calls us "kiddo" when we once per year have a brief interaction with her. She can't wrap her head around her being older not meaning she is the "adult "or "the boss ". I told my dad if he wants a good relationship with me or a relationship at all. He needs to stop talking to me like I'm a child and so does she and they just go right ahead. So I've been very very low contact for quite a while.

Yes, my mom is very enmeshed with myGC sister. That's OK she can have her lol I have a good relationship with my sister or fairly good. I know there's some questionable dynamics there and to her I am at least subconsciously in that scapegoat role. She claims to support me, but really in the end. She somewhat believes my mother's narrative and somewhat believes it herself. Unfortunate.

NM more differentiated between me and my sister. Like making statements like I think this and she thinks that or I would do this and she does that. Yeah, what she thinks I'm thinking was never the case. Of course what my sister does aligns with what my mother thinks and I am the opposite. Gladly. For instance, she said she's closer to her because they have more in common. When my sister eloped for her first marriage and came home and made the announcement, my mother burst into tears, hysterically, crying, and saying that's some thing Phoebe would do, not you! In front of a room full of people. At the time I was just thinking "Yep! And you're the reason why. "But in hindsight that was pretty horrible of her to say. I actually really wanted a good relationship and a good marriage but I was too busy picking narcissistic jerks that felt like home. But anyway, I digress.

I know I have at least done enough healing and had enough distance overtime that when anybody tries to insert themselves in my brain or where they don't belong, telling me what to do or who to have a relationship with it is like extreme nails on the chalkboard and a, whether or not I say something or just back away. I was raised in a very, very high control environment, so I'm sensitive about that in the first place, but at least now I can see it is more their problem. It's easier to intellectualize than to feel though.

[dollyvee]

Hey Phoebes,

I don't think you're rambling and I think this stuff is confusing and we need a place to hash it out. Unfortuantely, for us, that didn't/couldn't come from our families, so we have to find some place to do it so we can make sense of it. I'm just beginning to understand how much there is in the family and I feel you that you couldn't talk to them about it. Mine is the same way, and even the cousins I have who get "it" only get it to a point I think, and aren't in therapy or digging themselves.

I'm sorry you had to go through that kind of "discipline."  I was also a child of the 80s and sad to say, this was was a lot more acceptable. I found myself trying to preface or dance around my m using the wooden spoon the other day with my therapist and I was like, wait a minute, why am I trying to downplay this stuff? Because it wasn't right. I feel like I remember physical punishment just being phased out of schools when I started. Anyways, this kind of discipline was praised in my family.

I hope you're able to come to some sort of peace about the text with your dad. I feel you about just letting it fade. In the past if I would have pressed an issue like this, it would have resulted in my getting very angry at their lack of understanding and then it becomes a drama with nothing actually changing, just me banging my head against a wall. But I wouldn't forget either that he crossed a boundary and wasn't on your side when you needed him. I hope that you can go out there and live your best life without them 

Sending you support,
dolly

[Phoebes]

  thank you, Dolly

[dollyvee]

Phoebes I read your other blurb and wanted to say that comparing myself to others and the idea of what my life "should" be like is something I did a lot. I'm probably half where I am now because I had this idea of what I wanted my life to be like and then things sort of unravelled emotionally along the way, or I've been picking up the pieces and putting them back when they fall off. One thing for me that I've come to realize, and I'm no expert and still going through this, is that that idea of who I think I should be is the way the narcissistic abuse lives on through me. I was never could enough for them (there were four NPDs of varying flavours) and now I'm holding myself to that standard that I can never be good enough for anything else (or this, that -look a certain way for love, not be financially well off etc). It doesn't matter if those things are true or not because their ideas about my life still live on, and I think that maybe I think if I just fix this or that, I will have that love and be good enough. But it doesn't happen like that and it sucks. That questionable thing that I supposedly did wrong isn't going to be fixed because there was nothing wrong in the first place. This was all how they felt about themselves that they put into me and had me carry around because they couldn't deal with it, and I'm just beginning to figure out how to let go of that.

My m also flew into narcissistic rages and I'm probably hypervigilant because of that. People would tell me at work that I seem fearful despite half the things I've done with my life and how out of the box it is, which would probably freak a lot of people out. I think that seeming fearfulness is probably being wired from living with someone like that. I remember my m hitting me once because my eyes were laughing. Maybe they were, but it was probably just the part in me that exposed her as * (I know we're not supposed to swear on here, but it's really apt so remove it if needs be) that she couldn't handle, and there was nothing, is nothing wrong with that part. To me, it boggles the mind to try and untangle the level of self hatred that comes with something like that. I can't act like this because there's consequences, yet this is who I am and there's NOTHING I can do to change that. I told NARM t about this incident with my m recently and her reaction was that the level of self-policing needed because something as small as your eyes laughing is immense. So, everything I do/did became about "not upsetting the norm," whatever norm that is that I'm somehow upsetting. Somehow it's because I deviate from x that y is happening.

Anyways, these are just my family dynamics that I'm exploring and how it's related to me. I just wanted to say that I read what you wrote and I'm sorry that happened to you 

dolly

[Phoebes]

Thank you, Dolly, I'm sorry that has been your experience too. I can really relate to feeling that hyper-vigilant state of self-monitoring that is foreign to most people. Smiling eyes are the best! How messed up these creatures must be. It's mind boggling that it's difficult to unentangle from them..the need for parental love is so strong it's hard to see it's not there. And then it's hard to see when good people do love us.

I took my post down because I felt like it was too much. People don't like that. I had who I considered a close friend about a year ago pretty much dump me because I couldn't seem to "let things go" about my parents and that seemed so incredibly dysfunctional to her. I guess I'm still sad about that and when these memories come up and I entertain them, I feel like I should keep it to myself. (Even on here). PA is very triggering for me, but I also need to remember that yes these things happened, they are real, and THIS is the monster I am dealing with when my entire family is expecting me to get over myself. It's like that Diddy video that just came out. A snippet of behind closed doors came out and now he's sorry "to god" (just what my mom said), not his victim. That struck me.

[dollyvee]

I'm sorry that you feel like you can't say what you need to on here. This should be the one place (at least) where you get to do that. I don't think you need to get over yourself or hide the things that happened to you.

I was just having a conversation with a new friend (how rarely I make those) and she was asking why so many people don't want to talk about this "stuff" (she had told me a little bit about her family etc), and I suggested that it would probably make them question their own lives which they don't want to do. I've been in those situations too and had someone text me a year after I last spoke to her (we spoke rarely anyways), and to not be "mad" at her because she hadn't reached out. She was upset with me for talking about the mess that was going on with my family after my mom had died a week before. This was someone who I was in high school with, and was an old friend (so I thought) so felt like I could talk about it. This was hurtful at the time, but looking back on it, she's someone that got married right away and is still living enmeshed with her dysfunctional (and abusive family). Me talking about mine likely brought up everything she doesn't want to deal with. She just wanted to talk about good things only. I've had a couple like that.

I also sort of learned about trauma bonds and I'm not trying to shame you mentioning it, just something I noticed I was doing where I would look to other people in my life to work through those experiences, but I also can't really depend on people to do that. It's much more difficult I think too when you don't have family to discuss it with, and want to talk to someone outside of therapy because I think we really are looking for someone to witness and understand especially coming from a NPD family. I guess on the flip side it can be a lot for people to handle, so I've sort of learned not to talk about it, or to go slow. Heidi Priebe has a good video on it.

Sending you support Phoebes you're not alone on here,
dolly

[Blueberry]

I took my post down because I felt like it was too much. People don't like that. I had who I considered a close friend about a year ago pretty much dump me because I couldn't seem to "let things go" about my parents and that seemed so incredibly dysfunctional to her. I guess I'm still sad about that and when these memories come up and I entertain them, I feel like I should keep it to myself. (Even on here).

Based on my own past, I can really understand that.

I'm wondering if you would be helped at all in this respect if you wrote this kind of difficult text on  Member Journals? The information about them is on Recovery Journals, stick-ied at the top. See https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=15429.0. Sometimes I start posting about some particular topic on my Recovery Journal or on some other thread like this one. After a while I maybe get deeper into the topic and it feels too risky for me to leave it on the general forum visible for all members and non-members, so I copy the final couple of posts onto my Private Journal and continue there. The "risky" worry is based partly on the remote chance that somebody in FOO might come snooping and recognise me, but mostly it's due to me getting a bit EF-y.

If writing on Member Journals is unlikely to help you, you're welcome to just ignore my suggestion. You don't have to explain and justify yourself. 

[Phoebes]

Dolly- your situation with your friend sounds familiar. It seems she could have easily been a friend who could hear it, but then it's upsetting to find out that's not the case. I've watched some of Heidi's videos..she's very good. I can understand the point about not really sharing about this stuff because, either it can be a big trigger for people, it can be like you said something they can't face in themselves, or even if they do want to listen, I don't think anyone can really get the experience fully. And if it is support we are seeking, it can leave us with a sense of not being understood yet again.

When I learned about trauma bonds I definitely recognized that that is what my mom and I have, probably still, since I'm still processing our relationship 9 years later. It definitely wasn't a loving relationship. More like a Stockholm syndrome situation.

Blueberry- good idea. Thanks for the suggestion. I really wasn't thinking about this forum being public. I at least thought you had to sign up for an account.

I appreciate the support from y'all. 

[Phoebes]

I came back to this thread for an update. My GCs' wedding is tomorrow, and I have not heard from ENd since MD. We had previously talked about getting together Th/Fr (his suggestion), and now its F, and all I hear is he is going to GCs's today. That's totally fine, but it leaves me to wonder if he forgot we had that conversation AND was not interested in getting together, or is he giving me the "silent treatment" which is usually by proxy (such as NSM being pissed I didn't wish HER a happy MD.) did he send me the text about my NM to gaslight me AND to prompt wishing NsM HMD? 😆

Anyway, earlier this week I lost my dog, my heart dog who has been with me through all of this, so it has been a week of profound grief. I still plan to go to the wedding, even though GCs has given me an out several times. Why should I miss? I didn't do anything wrong.

Well, now as expected, an aunt has come out of the woodwork. I am very fond of this aunt and we text occasionally, she lives out of state but we have had some fun visits in the past. She's very kind. And very religious. The minute I had the issue with NM long ago, and I was toiling with whether to contact/being stalked, NM and her spouse drove to see this aunt, which  felt like she was doing damage control. She hadn't been since she was with a previous relationship (with a woman my age), which I am "required" to keep secret from present (male) spouse. Another long story for another time.

After that, I received 2 cards for Christmas from said aunt. One regular, and one a letter about "family and forgiveness". A forgive and forget plea if you will. Well, nothing more has been said or asked, and now, years later, she sent me a text saying she's in town for the wedding, can't wait to see me, and that I can stay in the BR next to hers. At NM's!!! 😂 I swear you can't make this stuff up.

I was proud of myself in not getting very activated, only brief, and very calmly being able to say. I'm looking forward to seeing you at the wedding, my beloved dog passed away this week and I plan to just come home. She responded that she understood, etc.....

It does bother me that she's never asked my story, but it did shock me a little she pulled a "my dad." Lol