Journal of a Dutch Uncle (possible triggers on just about anything)

[Three Roses]

 

[Dutch Uncle]

So, a day later, I feel pretty good about my reply to dad's mail about the funeral of the friend-who-dared-to-question-'mom' . There is a whispering voice in my head who says: "You are just like her! Foul mouthing her behind her back!", but that it's just a whisper says enough. I'm not, really.

I have finally broken the taboo on TherapistMom being always right. For 50 years I have never been allowed to "tell on her". Nobody was. And surely it was my enabling enforcer dad who always stood behind her. It feels good to finally "tell it like it is" *, and especially to be able to just quote her. I'm not making this stuff up. I'm not sure if she told me this on the phone or by mail. I think the latter. Which would be even better, for my own mental health and restoration of my memory. Yet I feel no compulsion to check. I KNOW. And I got my triggers in this case, and the EF's I had yesterday and even today to show for it. Ha!

I'm also reaching a bit deeper level now, a day later.
I liked these friends very much. Staying over with them for a few days was always great. These kind, joyful, caring, open people: an oasis to dwell in. So much different then I was used to. (yeah, that's a cognitive view I have nowadays, but the feeling I had then, as a kid, they match.)
And I did tell my DramaMama then, at the time of the funeral of the husband, I felt so much positivity from them.
And what did DramaMama do as a result of me telling her that? Smear the reputation of these dear people. By bringing up her divorce. Good Grief, it's hard to fathom the depth of the black hole these Cluster B's have. And to stay with the analogy: how they hope so much the gravitational pull will suck you in it as well.
Her 'divorce'... The Drama that keeps on giving... The Drama she demands to get pity for... For ever and ever... For all the Drama she has created in the Broken Family, that one is her crowning achievement. For which she wants to be crowned...

But I digress.
What I need to say here: The funeral/divorce story just shows what her favorite pastime is: pull any support or positive feeling from anybody. How dare I hold these friends (of HERS!) in high regard? How dare I ?. Burn and destroy, is what her first reaction is.
I need to be there for her. "For ME ! You hear?! You need to be here for me in my misery of having divorced your dad! How dare you have fond memories of others on their funeral?! Pity me! On this day of mourning for them!

This is how she destroys any positive role-model I might have.
I might get a positive self-image. Modeling myself on nice people.
Then I wouldn't need to go in therapy, in her office. Then I would be 'lost'. To her.

When I was a kid, one evening (at diner no doubt) my parents told us that when they would die, we would be adopted by these friends. Strange conversation. A bit too adult a conversation. Even my elder siblings must have been in their (late?) teens as well. I cannot have been older than 12. But was probably quite a bit younger.

What a way to destroy my positive memories with these friends, my potential adoptive parents no less, in the way my 'mom' did. 

I should be glad I'm NC with her. An NC she has even acknowledged.
Yet joy will never be part of my NC. Relief, yes. But that's quiet another emotion.
And I mourn.
The quite horrible thought just popped up in my head: "I wish I had been adopted by these friends. Life now might have been so much better than it is." 

Good Grief. Quite literally.

*Tell it like it is- the B-52's

"Tell It Like It T-I-Is"

Doin' it right, day and night
Doin' it right, day and night
Doin' it right, day and night
Yeah, tell it, tell it, tell it like it T-I-is
I gotta feel it
You gotta move it
You gotta move it, move it, move it
To the deep, deep rhythm
Tell it, tell it, tell it like it T-I-is

Seems like things are gettin' so bad
That you can smell it
Yeah, so open those eyes
And get the real picture
It's time to tell it

I wanna talk, baby
I wanna say something
I've got to tell it like it
T-IE-IE-IE-I is

Tell it, tell it, tell it, like it T-I-is
Like it T-I-isTell it, tell it, tell it, like it T-I-is
Like it T-I-is
Tell it, tell it, tell it, like it T-I-is
Like it T-I-is
Tell it, tell it, tell it, like it T-I-is
Like it T-I-is
Whoahh!

Tell it, tell it
I've got to tell it
I want to tell it-whoo!
You got me talkin'
I wanna say something
Got me talkin'
I wanna say somethin'-yeah!

If you're looking for a moving sidewalk
Dreamin' 'bout a monorail to take you away
Well, the day is now,
And her's the biz-
You better get the real picture
Tell it like it T-I-is

I'm spinnin' to the rhythm of the earth
And the ocean
See the situation
Oh what a sight

I wanna talk, baby
I wanna say somethng
I've got to tell it like it is
T-IE-IE-IE-is
Like it T-I-is

Tell it, tell it, tell it, like it T-I-is
Like it T-I-isTell it, tell it, tell it, like it T-I-is
Like it T-I-is
Tell it, tell it, tell it, like it T-I-is
Like it T-I-is
Tell it, tell it, tell it, like it T-I-is
Like it T-I-is
Whoahh!

Ooh, don't upset
The balance of your nature
Make the jump when the coast is clear
Ooh, don't upset
The balance of your nature
Reach the level above your fears

Can you feel the movement
Hear the untamed melody
Tell it like it is and was and
Always should be-yeah!

Like it is and was, and always should be
Is and was, and always should be
Is and was, and always should be
Is and was, and always should be

Tell it, tell it
I've got to tell
I wanna tell it-whoo!
You got me talkin'
I wanna say something'
Got me talkin'
I wanna say somethin'

Tell it Tell it Tell it Tell it
Tell it Tell it Tell it Tell it
Tell it Tell it Tell it Tell it
Tell it Tell it Tell it Tell it
Like it T-I-is
T-I-is!

[Dutch Uncle]

Yesterday I got a mail by my dad. About something other then the mail I had send him. He wanted something from me.
This got me angry. That I had already been triggered by another hoover-mail by DramaSis probably didn't help.

So I replied to him. That what he wanted I could not deliver right now, as this whole funeral and my DramaMama's behavior on the other previous funeral (and aftermath) had upset me once again.
Then I proceed to tell him I don't want any mails anymore about deaths of him and wifey's (former) friends, no obituaries and no post-funeral talk.
'Mom' and 'dad' always attend these events together. I'm pretty sure that for my dad these deaths and funerals have a positive quality insofar he can spend the day with his divorced wife and hold her hand and pretend to the rest of the World what a wonderful couple they still are. I've witnessed this behavior (especially him sucking up to his wife and basically having his focus on her the whole time) and it makes me sick. I always make sure I sit at the other side of the auditorium or church-service (in case I do a attend a (family) funeral). I can't stand to be near them.

I even made a list on the friends I specifically do not want to hear about. The friends I suspect he'll send me mails about, out of a fake concern I must be touched by their deaths as well. As I type this I realize this is also a form of 'enmeshment': they (both my parents) enmesh me with their friends, and have done so since my childhood.
So I've made it very clear (not that it will make a dent in his thick Aspergers skull, presumably) that these 4 or 5 couples I have mentioned are THEIR friends, and that I don't need to be informed for MY sake, as that usually is the message being send to me in these mails: that he is doing me a favor by telling me. While I actually don't care that much for these people, I have no bond with them.
I told him that as far as these friends' children are concerned, the same applies in case of their deaths. I have been friends of sorts with a few of them, with the children they had of my age. But always via my parents. As soon as they moved away or when I left home, I've never seen or spoken with any of them.
I also told him I don't want to hear anything about deaths on my mothers side of the family.
Because I'm sick and tired of these mails and events, now that I know what 'friendship' means to my mother... and what my mother actually does on these funerals. That she fakes her concern and compassion, but in the meantime is a vindictive backstabber.

Then I proceed to tell him that if he wanted to inform me of deaths in HIS friends circle, that might be different. Or that if he wanted to inform me, talk to me about HIS mourning and grief, HIS process, HIS experience with a specific death it would be fine to tell me. Even if it was somebody from 'the list'. But that he had to keep his wife out of it. And I told him (truthfully) that all these times in so many years he has never talked to me at all about HIS grief or mourning. That I have often asked him about it (sometimes a few times even in the weeks after a death) and he has never said a word about it. Specifically not with a dear friend of 60 years (!) he lost a few years ago, and not with the death of his brother.

It does sound hard, and I did find it confronting to write him, but the truth is I don't want to hear about these things if he cannot or will not say a word about what it does to him. It is then a non-event. Perhaps even a pity party, but an awkward one as he doesn't want pity.
His almost totally unemotional way in handling deaths and funerals are actually one of the traits I attribute to his (undiagnosed) Aspergers. He knows he has to go through all the motions, as he sees everybody doing it, but his are 'mechanical'.


I ended the letter with a bit on sis' hoover, and told him this would be the last time I even answer an invitation by sis, so he would know in advance I will not be coming, even if I don't tell sis or anybody else I won't be coming.
This was a reaction to him mailing all dresses he would be coming to her birthdaybruch, which infuriated me(*) and for the first (or perhaps second time) I had a violent rant (in the privacy of my own home  ) against enabling dad.
I think I'm reaching new levels of processing the anger and frustration in my FOO, by now being able to acces the horrible and abusive enabling my father has pulled off my whole life, and him going to funerals with wifey who foul-mouths the bereaved.
(*) Reasonably there is of course nothing wrong with him saying he will attend, and also not for doing so publicly by doing this via a "reply to all". I did the same after all. So, I chalk my reaction up as an EF, triggered by both the hoover itself, my dad's denial of me not wanting to see sis anymore (which has lead to a couple of very unpleasant situations for me) and his general enabling of any and all abusive behavior that has gone on in the FOO since time immemorial.

Again, I feel pretty good, though exhausted. But at least I have told him, in writing, so I can ditch all future funeral mails with a clear conscious. I don't expect him to actually stop sending them (he is as boundary busting as anyone in the FOO, and he lets his boundaries be busted even more frequently) but I've done what I could do, and felt I had too.
I can't afford to get much more of these EF's on DramaMama making funerals about her and being witness of her vitriolic abuse directed at her 'friends'.

edited to add:
I realize I left out (in this recovery journal) an important part of my mail to my dad:
The closing sentence was:
"i want them out of my life, they are out of my life, and I'm not going to pretend  otherwise."
(with "them" referring to DramaSis and DramaMama)

[Three Roses]

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Memories of my dysfunctional family, and what it meant to have a relationship:

In one word: misery.
This is going to be a long rant.

My earliest memory of me having the idea that a 'loving' relationship is (and should be) based on misery is when I was a young boy (primary school) and the (young) brother of a girl of my age unexpectedly died because of a heart-condition (discovered post-mortem). My parents knew this family via church. I remember I thought this was a perfect opportunity to marry this girl. I fell a sort of in love with her (even though I have never met her).

In my FOO there was a never ending stream of misery discussed at the diner table.
All the misery around was being 'imported' and discussed in length.
I will only mention the external misery, but there was plenty 'of our own' of course. Possibly if only because that was the only thing that would draw attention from our parents.
From an early age I have stories of:
- The divorce of a befriended couple of my parents. (That took years)
- A neighbor ( 10 houses down the street) with an obsessive compulsion for cleanliness. This lasted for many years. (eventually also resulting in a divorce)
- My father had a minor surgery and shared a room in hospital with a terminally ill cancer-patient. So when my father returned after a short week, for many months all the horrors of his roommate's ever progressing decline was talk of the table. Of course the wife became a house-friend, and when she started dating a year later or so, all the difficulties of starting a new relationship became talk-of-the-table. This new relationship has ever since been a difficult one. This is the women whom I at some point gave 'marriage counseling' when I was 15 or 16.
- My brother's girlfriend ran away from home, him and everybody else. My brother traveled to her hide-out (which she disclosed after a month or so). Of course for many years to come her parents became house-friends to discuss all the difficulties. My brother had a long and miserable relationship with her. I'm not sure, but I think in the end she broke up with him (again), many years later.
- Another girlfriend of my brother (living a thousand kilometer away) got terminally ill with cancer. Even when she broke off with my brother, TherapistMom kept (or perhaps even increased) contact with her mother. Many years after the death of said girlfriend I had to hear about this mother's struggle with accepting the death of her daughter. My brother had left house by then. Quite possible when he visited, this would be a 'good' diner table subject.
- My mother's difficulty with accepting my sister's homosexuality was a source of misery for many years.
- My mother discussed troubled families she dealt with professionally at length.
- We took in runaways from another job my mom had when no foster-family could be found in time. Their problems with their families where also shared at the diner table.
- The problems of (extended) family parents with their adolescent children where discussed at length. The same for the children of befriended couples.
- All marital problems between befriended couples were discussed, whether they were present or not.
- The husband of our cleaning lady got cancer and died. This was good for may years of misery regarding the illness and grief of his death.
- Another case of a child's death.
- Talk about how the inheritance would be split when my father would die (Mom would get everything. My parents were afraid their children would be so anxious on getting the hands on the money that we would force our mother from the house we were living in). I was a pre-teen.
- Talk about who would adopt us if both our parents would die.
- I had a friend in secondary school (early years) who's father was an alcoholic and who had affairs. That was a golden opportunity for TherapistDramaMama to jump in off course. So I had to listen at the diner table how difficult it all was for my friends mom. That resulted in divorce. Thus more misery. Years later she became terminally ill with cancer (I had long lost contact with the friend when he had to double a school year and I passed), so then that was discussed.
- The child of another church-family had a severe accident that had her wheelchair bound. Good for years of misery-discussions.
- Another divorce of 'friends' (whom I had never heard of before), where the wife said to her husband, the day after their 25-year marriage jubilee party: "25 years was enough. Bye." (How's that for keeping up the pretense?!)
- The difficulties of raising kids as a single mom. (Also a divorced friend)

Good grief.

edited to add:
I just made a post on a new hoover by DramaMama.

There are actually some gory details I feel necessary to add to this post. For my own recovery. Restoring memory and all that.
***possible triggers on a past suicide of somebody and other nasty deaths***
This daughter of this friend who now is on life support in a hospital did kill herself a couple of years ago by self-immolation in her back-yard. This was of course reason for my DramaMama to draw attention to herself by mailing me about it. *? I'm pretty sure I never even met this daughter.
And I must confess that since, and especially since me coming out of the FOG (which was after that particular event) I have had thoughts like: if her mother is anything like mine (which she almost certainly is) I can understand her setting herself ablaze. Mind you, and I want to make this perfectly clear, I have no wish, and never had, to take my own life. But I can relate to this daughter: the ever continuing destruction of self-worth by my (and almost certainly her) DramaMama, is crazy-making and can make people desperate.

So it's a 'good' one to add to the above list: It has never stopped, the misery 'sharing', three decades after I have left 'the house'. "Misery" is the keyword for having a relationship. There simply has never been room, or appreciation, for anything else.

I'm going to add some more to this: My DramaMama and her friends deaths:

A few years ago another friend/disciple of her died. I hadn't met her much either, but I liked her, the one or two times I did meet her. She appeared to me as a 'jolly' women. But I must confess I've seen and met her so few, it might have been just the impression I got. But why wouldn't have my mom have some 'jolly' people around her? The friend-who-dared-to-question-DramaMama" was a 'jolly' women too in my experience.

That friend died of acute Creuzfeld-Jacob (or some-such I remember) and DramaMama had to cancel another holiday of hers when she heard the news.
What I most vividly remember of DramaMama's stories of the whole 'visiting' event is that 'Mom' had showed up at the hospital (where said friend and already been hospitalized for days by then, effectively in a coma or some such and basically delusional because of the Creuzfeld-Jacob induced brain damage) and New-Age-Mom felt that she had been able to "make a mutual connection"  with her. *? And of course this was presented as only DramaMama had been/was able to connect to said friend. Not friend's husband, not her children, but 'special' DramaMama.
This friend was also taken off life support, but oh boy/girl was DramaMama happy she had had the chance to arrive in time to witness she "got through to her". "Very Special, isn't it Dutch?", she told me gleefully.
To be honest, I felt vicarious shame/embarrassment on how the direct family of said friend must have felt: to have such an entitled women around who (no doubt in my experience) will have involved herself in any discussion/deliberation among the family members on what the appropriate action woud be regarding life-support and friends (quality of) life. She had been in contact with her, no?
Well, most probably NO, indeed.
***end triggers***
Point being of the whole 'blanked out text":
The whole dynamic I described in readable text is STILL going on. ~This is not something that just happened in the past and stopped, no. It still continuous up to today.
And it will continue indefinitely. Unless I cut Contact.

[Three Roses]

Ugh! These matters were not the sort one should share with children. Forcing you to deal with adult matters at a too-young age is harmful, at least; I'm sorry you were burdened with all that.

[Dutch Uncle]

While working on my dissociation again, whilst viewing this video on Cognitive Dissonance – How Our Mind Tricks Us Into Staying I'm suddenly reminded on what my English teacher once called me: "credibility gap" (which is a play on my name).
Perhaps I was expressing dissociative behavior even then, and he had sensed it. (without him probably knowing what it was all about).

[Dutch Uncle]

Events of the past days and week have brought me back to my childhood, especially the years I was living alone with my parents. My sis left when I was 12, bro when I was 15.
I think I was the "forgotten Child" after all. When sis left, all attention was still going te her: Years of my mother trying to come to terms with sis' homosexuality, which included a lot of mother-daughter-weekends, and by the time that was sort of done (if it ever was) my bro's GF ran off to a foreign country, he joined her and then that was a major issue in the 'household' (IIRC that happened basically as soon as he had left for college)
Perhaps I didn't notice the attention still going to sis, or had grown so accustomed to it that it appeared to have been 'solved' accepted. Or I had accepted that this is what it was. More like I had been groomed.
Or 'mom' did have to give less attention to sis, as she now had to hoover her other narc supply as well: bro.

Anyway, so both my sis and bro left home (both for college) which resulted in them becoming even more the focal point of attention from my parents...

[Dutch Uncle]

Boy, do I have a lot of recovery-journalling to do. The process is going through some rapids at the moment.

My brother repatriated with his family. He has a very bad marriage (signified by him having affairs, at one time he was starting a second family 'on the side', him working towards divorce etc.) and now is pretending he and wifey 'staying together for the kids'. Which is a bald faced lie. Which I know for a decade now, and I cannot keep up appearances anymore, especially not in the face of his kids.
(I wrote about this in History repeats itself. Another generation being abused.
So for a year now I have refused to visit him now that he is repatriated. Not that he has been too inviting, as I had to learn from mom and dad he WAS repatriating and I never got a change of address from him. Last X-mas I had to contact him on where to send the X-mas greeting card to. That is how close me and my bro are at the moment.

Half a year we had a meeting (just the two of us) where I would tell him why I don't visit. He brought up my NC with DramaMama, and I said to him: One subject today, you may choose: My NC with mom or me not coming to your FOC. He choose the first. Which admittedly was easier for me too. Speaking about my grievances on a third party is easier than airing my grievances about him to his face.

The past week I got triggered, and I did send him a card (and by extension also his FOC as it was not in an envelope) where I said I wouldn't be visiting them and that my brother knew. This was not a good move on my part, I regretted it the day after, but truth to be told: my brother does know I'm not buying his lies and deceit. And he could have known in detail, only also choose the easy way out last time: change the subject of our meeting to my NC with DramaMama.

So I got a pissed very short mail from him that he didn't know and now wanted to know.
I answered pissed to that, told him he already could have known for long if he hadn't changed the subject last time.
To which bro replied I should set a date for a meeting.
A dragged my feet little, but while doing so I realized: "Wait a minute, it always me who does initiate "* is going on" meetings with him (people pleaser syndrome), now HE wants to know, who does HE not pick a date?" and stayed silent. Admittedly, that was also a Freeze response. But one I also settled for.

Today I got a mail from bro: "Really, it takes more that three weeks for you to reply and set a date?" Which is funny, as this brought back memories (and perhaps even EF's) to me trying to organise something for our mother's jubilee a few years back, asked bro and sis if they were in to do something together, where my brother initially didn't reply and I had a back-and-forth e-mail conversation with sis (all CC to bro) that more or less concluded with the proposition: "Lets pick a date, at the latest six weeks from now, and then we have many months to figure out what would be a nice/good thing to organize".
For six weeks still no reply in any shape or form from bro, until he mailed at the very last moment he didn't know if he would be able to pick a date.
I remember well that my visceral reaction was: "How on earth did that take six weeks to write?"
I also remember well that I decided the and there that from that moment on I would allow myself a six-weeks response time to any of his mails about whatever subject. I was done with these games he plays.

So I answered my bro yesterday "That we got of to a good start" (sarcasm) "you suddenly seem to be in a real hurry, and if that's the case YOU could have set a date. You want to know after all, don't you?" which I really do feel is the case too. your crisis is not my emergency is phrase I picked up somewhere on how to deal with these manipulators (and my bro is one, and not only with me) and I have a not hanging on my wall (to stop me from people pleasing) "No more Mister Nice Guy. (only in selected theaters)."

A few hours later I got his reply: "Forget about it." (liberal translation: screw you)

To be honest, I thought he might, and 50-50 I hoped he would. It saves me a lot of hassle.
So I replied back: "That's clear language." (liberal translation: Check, Roger, message received loud and clear. Lets forget about it. Suits me too.)

So that's it: NC with bro. Who is a DramaSis' and DramaMama's enabler anyway, and the relationship I had with him has for a long time now slowly narrowed down to him complaining about his wife and the schemes he was setting up to have it all his way and depart from his wife preferably in a manner where he would loose practically nothing, and she as much as he could possibly make her loose.
Which will stil happen at some point, no doubt, and I cannot watch this 'train-wreck in slowmotion" progress any further.

I guess that's a peace of sorts.
I'm giving myself a  . What a family. 

Update: I got another mail from bro. "Sorry. I was in a foul mood this morning. I'd like to meet. Is date X, time Y location Z OK with you?"

I replied: "yes, that's OK."
I will be this week.

Good. Progress.

Update II: So I met him today. I had been in a state for days now. Well, for a year is probably a more accurate description.
I rehearsed hard, long, often and out loud. So much to say!
Shortly before I went down I made a note with the three reasons why I will not visit him:
(and they actually do come in this order)
First: my relationship with him sucks.
Second: I've been hearing about his horrible marriage for over a decade now, and I can't take it anymore. I'm done. I can't have another three years at least* like that. (* bro interrupted me at that point: "Perhaps even longer." LOL. Talking about affirmation/validation.  )
Thirdly: He is 'pulling the wool over my eyes'/taking me for a fool/gaslighting me (of course I didn't use the term gaslighting) and I'm having none of it.

Basically that's all I said. He sat there sternly, and actually only responded to him 'pulling the wool over my eyes'. By trying to convince me he was not pulling the wool over my eyes by pulling wool over my eyes. Right...

I then asked him if he anything to say to the other things, and he said no. Then proceeded to blame his wife some more. I let it run. It was soon over. Anyway, it only reinforced my resolve to get out of that mess.
"Now I know what I can tell my kids why you won't visit", he said to close the subject. Right! Like he is going to tell them any of this. 
Not that I mind, I knew beforehand he will tell kids nonsense anyway. He has been gaslighting his kids for a decade now, why would he stop now?

So it was all over within 15 minutes.
We did end up staying together for half an hour. I asked about his kids and their school (last year for the eldest: University next year) and other stuff like that, and then had a talk about our old dad and his deteriorating health. That was actually comforting. We probably will be getting along there. As far as our uAspergers dad allows us near.

I feel OK.
So it won't be NC, but LC.

Update III, 6 hours after the fact:
I'm angry. I'm furious. I'm indignated. 
Part of... stop ... ALL of his 'pulling the wool over my eyes"/gaslighting had just one focus: his wife is to blame. Really. I can't even express or try to explain how this 'works', but he has yet again managed to try to convince me (which I dissociative (?) just let pass by) that everything is to blame on wifey.
About a year ago I spoke to a dear friend of me about me not wanting to see bro anymore, which confused her, and to sort of try to tell her just how bad it really was I told her: "My bro finds offense in his wife breathing." And this really is not that far besides the truth. If at all.
I'm not concerned about my sister in law's physical safety at all, but apart from that my bro DOES resent his wife for simple things to the equivalent of her simply breathing.

I'm so glad I got out. But as with DramaMama and DramaSis now the circus of the Flying Monkeys will start with PsychoBro.
I guess the only upside is that DramaMama and DramaSis are out of the picture Flying-Monkey-wise. 

[Dutch Uncle]

I really need to move forward to a new step in my recovery, and in my process of grieving.
I also feel it's time, I'm ready for it.

I've been watching this Vlog (Narcissism Losing a Sibling to Triangulation) a couple of times now and it has made quite an impact. I think I have seen it before, but now I was struck by his insistence to NOT "educate" ones siblings (or by extension the other parent, other family or other 'dear ones' of the Narcissist) especially if one has identified them as narcissist too. But even quite possibly to not "educate" non-narc 'dear ones' who are all victims of the narc's abuse by definition. Even a Golden Child.
In shorthand: to stop JADEing to anybody.

I've spend the last years learning about narcissistic abuse, and other abuse, and identified with plenty. Too much probably. And by that I don't mean I identified with abuse that was not inflicted on me, but that learning about all this abuse has re-traumatized me. To an extend that has also been part of my healing journey, as per my sig:

To pursue the path of healing we need to remember what we have endured. Restoring ones sense of self means restoring memory, recognizing what happened. Without memory there is no healing --- Desmond Tutu

I have had a huge need to JADE to anybody who would listen. And to anybody who would not listen. I managed to keep it very low profile with my FOO (I just named a few actions and specific behaviors to explain/justify my NC, never used the word narcissist or anything close. I kept it to telling my remaining FOO what it did to me, why I disapproved of it, and did also appeal to possible shared experiences. (f.e. when I said the never ending boundary violations where a reason to go NC.)
I never dared to go further than that, which was partly fear of not being believed, but also because I had prior knowledge it wouldn't work anyway. Thanks to my extensive study/research on going NC with family members.

Now that I have gone NC with DramaMama and DramaSis for over 1,5 years now (with the occasional 'slip of the tongue'), my recent 'coming out' to dad why I went NC with DramaMama, and my little bit more recent announcement of LC with PsychoBro to his face, I also feel the need to JADE lessen.
Bro had his umpteenth chance to actually engage in conversation, and passed for the umpteenth time. Granted, all the other chances he has gotten were far less confrontational than this one. So that he didn't bite now is no surprise. But it still doesn't change the fact it has been the umpteenth time. And I want it over and done with. I'm pretty sure he is ASPD anyway.

So I'm basically left with only AspergersDad, and it seems I'm actually making some progress there. I must try to keep a cool head, as an Aspergers will never be able to fill the emotional void, which he assisted in being created in the first place. So why would things be much different from now on. He's been the enabler for sure, Aspergers or not. That's bad enough, and there's no sign in him letting up on that either. The best I can hope for is that the subject of DramaMama a.k.a. his wife "I love very much" (still) will once more disappear in the void of silence, where she has been in the 15 years since she left him. I probably will have to make little effort to make that happen in any case, but I have already decided I will call him on the previous 15 years of silence if he will not stop suggesting to me to 'forgive her, she's your mother after all". That I now have cut contact with her is not a reason to suddenly to end his 15 tears of silence over her.

I'm as sure as I will ever be able to get that TherapistMom is a Histrionic PD with probably all sort of nasty cluster-B comorbidities. My latest reminder of her wishing her former friend her comeuppance on the funeral of her husband has once again solidified by conviction she has the same in store for me, my dad, my sister and my brother in particular. She must gleefully watch how he has messed up his marriage and how his children pay the price. She had predicted he would get in trouble "once he would get a wife" when she instructed me to not resist te torture he inflicted o me in the living room in full sight of anybody present.
That's one masterpiece she has created, and the narc loves to see the reflection of him/herself, her craftiness, her beauty and her omnipotence. Well, she had predicted all this set bro up for this misery 40-odd years ago. She must feel proud she knew that non-interference (neglect) would mean bro's inevitable downfall. And she needed me in her scheme, couldn't have me resist and mess up her plan for him.
She's a patient women: she waited 15 years for her friend to get her payback after all.
The mess with my bro is a gift that keeps on giving, as his marriage is already in shambles for 10 years, in full view to anybody (before that it was more covert). And it will continue to be like this for at least another 3 years. I wouldn't put it passed her if she is the one who keeps delaying the divorce my brother so craves, and actually already has set many steps to achieve, but then backing out when the jump has to be made. Not surprisingly, the longer the divorce is postponed, the messier it gets, and the messier the eventual divorce will be.

But as said, I'm out of that loop. I will not see my Bro's FOO until he gets divorced, basically, which is postponed for at least three years.

So here's to no more research on narcissism, no more gathering of more 'proof', no more sidesteps into "the narc's spouse' and 'siblings of narc parents' etc etc etc.
I know where I'm at. My position is well defined.

From now on it will be ME, ME , ME and MY, MY , MY recovery.
That sounds scary narcissistic, but what the *.
I know it's time to put me first. I will not explain a damned thing anymore.

I'm moving on.

[Three Roses]

It doesn't sound narcissistic at all, to me. It merely sounds like you're shifting your focus from being self-defensive and watchful over your boundaries to being more active in the pursuit of more healing. Well done, you!

[Dutch Uncle]

I realized that my father's is pressuring me into a forced commitment with my 'mom'. (Discover your core commitments)

See also A tool I invented to manage my dissociation. To that last thread I made I want to add here:
One of the many therapeutic destructive psychobabble/spells she said to me over and over again was "Je doet het er maar steeds mee. (Dat is niet goed.)" Which translates roughly as "You always settle for how things are. That's not OK."
Well, there are plenty of moments in life where "settling for it" is fine and/or the only option. As the serenity prayer says:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

I like that better.

In the same vain from the movie "On Golden Pond" (IIRC)
"Life is not about getting what you want,
but about wanting what you get."

And a Dutch song that I really love:
"Had je het al in de smiezen,
het leven draait niet om winnen, maar om verliezen
En wie dat het beste kan
die sterft straks als een gelukkig man
of vrouw
het leven gaat van AUW."

"Had you already figured it out?
Life is not about winning, but about loss.
And he who can lose well,
will die as a happy man
(or woman, life's OUCH!)

[Dutch Uncle]

Having recovered somewhat from the invasion of my privacy by DramaMama (whom I'm tempted to call TerrorMom from now on) I'm today reminded of what my Psychologist said to me when I turned to her for a possible Anxiety Disorder: "Fear is not by definition irrational, Mr. Uncle. There are many instances where fear is very rational." (and thus healthy, I add myself)

My fear of DramaMama entering my house has been proven very adequate, as in: predictive. I knew what was going to happen, and she did not fail to proof without any doubt the her entering my home was to wreak havoc. It's only her chat trick that did me in.
I forgive myself for that. I was just being decent. That subsequently law-enforcement had to be called in is none of my doing. She is to be held accountable for that.

And it proves the Psychologist right too: I do not have an anxiety disorder. My anxiety is very much in order. 

Perhaps I should throw a party in honor of my anxiety. Such a worthwhile trait and tool to stay safe!
It's just a thought. Such happiness is not in me right now. But who knows... some day.

[Dutch Uncle]

Official results of my SCID-II regarding

Dependent Personality Disorder (DPD) is listed in the DSM-IV-TR as a "Cluster C" (anxious or fearful) Personality Disorder. It is defined as:

A pervasive and excessive need to be taken care of that leads to submissive and clinging behavior and fears of separation, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

- Has difficulty making everyday decisions without an excessive amount of advice and reassurance from others
- Needs others to assume responsibility for most major areas of his or her life
- Has difficulty expressing disagreement with others because of fear of loss of support or approval. Note: Do not include realistic fears of retribution.
- Has difficulty initiating projects or doing things on his or her own (because of a lack of self-confidence in judgment or abilities rather than a lack of motivation or energy)
- Goes to excessive lengths to obtain nurturance and support from others, to the point of volunteering to do things that are unpleasant
- Feels uncomfortable or helpless when alone because of exaggerated fears of being unable to care for himself or herself
- Urgently seeks another relationship as a source of care and support when a close relationship ends
- Is unrealistically preoccupied with fears of being left to take care of himself or herself

A formal diagnosis of DPD requires a mental health professional to identify 5 of the above 8 criteria as positive. Some people exhibit all 8. Most exhibit only a few.

I wish I never took up moderation. Volunteering for that at least fits the psychological assessment made. In a sense that's a relief. (relieve? I can't be arsed to look it up) (well, at least that passed the swear-filter inhibited . No guarantee it will give me a pass though! I should not be surprised retribution will still be coming my way. Oh well, I've had plenty of that. And I still live.)

I'm content with this being a personal recovery journal.

[Three Roses]

No retribution, only love to you my friend.