Narcisstic Mother and Psychopath Father...
Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2008 1:15 am
I am lonely in this unloving world. I feel, and the pain is intense when abused and abandoned. Sometimes this pain reaches the centre of my being. However, finding this group is giving me more empowerment than ever before. Now I know I am on the right path to recovery instead of feeling ashamed, sick, and responsible - for dumping my entire family.
My story is long, it is sorted, and ugly. But I am willing to share some of my experiences as a daughter born to a classic narcissist mother and a diagnosed psychopath father because, I think, by sharing we can heal. I know by reading some of your stories I already KNOW I can now conquer these relationships and perhaps BEGIN to finally have an ounce of love and respect for myself. I am ‘getting it,’ that these types of relationships will always haunt me as long as I continue the dance. Without my participation I now understand that this disease I have been carrying around in my heart and making me physically sick and sometimes suicidal - can be healed! My disease is LISTENING TO SICK PEOPLE, ALLOWING SICK PEOPLE TO CONTROL ME, and NEEDING SICK PEOPLE TO LOVE ME.
My ‘awakening’ to the reality of my family dynamics is jaw-dropping after 49 years of emotional torture and torment. I cannot express how much I have truly despised myself – just as my mother trained me since I was a little girl. As a child, teenager, and adult, I needed my mother to wrap me in her arms and tell me how loveable I am. I craved for her to indicate in any small way that I do matter to her and the family. I needed to be able to tell my mother her second husband was molesting me. I needed my mother to NOT put me down to all of the relatives and her friends every time I was guilty of a small childhood infraction (such as hiding my undies behind the furnace for fear I would be in trouble for beginning my period and being confused and fearful about what to do with bloody underwear!). She caught found those briefs behind the furnace not two weeks later! In addition to shaming me in front of my step-father (who was molesting me) and siblings, my mother told anyone who would listen all about my bloody underwear crime of hiding them behind the furnace; IT GOT WORSE! One aunt brought up my indiscretion (in her own disgusted tone of voice) in front of all of my beloved cousins.
I needed my mother to be everything I dreamt a mother should be. Boy was I asking for the moon.
I wanted my mother to be the same type of mother I was to my only son before he was killed in an auto accident at age 25 (Trevor died in 2003). Basic maternal instinct showed me how to take care of my son’s needs. As he was growing up my child ate and slept as babies and children need to do; I protected him from monsters, I nourished his emotional well-being, and I took the time to ensure he knew how valuable he was to me. And, for the record, I WAS the luckiest mom in the world for those short 25 years *tears of bittersweet memories here.*
Unlike my mother, my father freely admitted he was a diagnosed psychopath. He'd been to jail most of his life and had no real relationship with any of his five kids (two families). One day he actually said to me, "I just cannot feel for people the way others seem to be able to." At the end my father only had me to tend to his dying days in bed. And I showed up and did all of the things normal families should do. I did it alone, however, by this time he had cleaned out all of his relationships and ours was hanging on by a thread (maybe I am slow?) I cleaned up his disgusting apartment, brought him treats and ran errands as he lay in Palliative Care.
By this time Dad already knew I was the last one on board, and that if he started to manipulate me I would walk out of his dying hospital room. He still tried. My boyfriend finally phoned him at the hospital and told him to stop manipulating me or I would be walking. Imagine what a horrible daughter I looked like to those nurses when Dad told them I was cold enough to do just that! Dad finally behaved himself (at least to my face – but the hospital staff sure didn’t seem to like me). Anyway, we had a few good weeks before he passed away on December 10th 2007.
I went to my Dad's bedside out of humanity. No one should ever die alone. My Dad stole property from my home, lied to me constantly, and tried to get me hooked on his drugs - but he really never did do anything to me that caused me to feel emotional distress or inner pain. Perhaps it is because my mother (constantly) warned me in her bitter rages that my father was a habitual liar, psychopath, thief, and cheat – and so I never expected anything from him as a father. But I did always keep my guard up around him and walked away whenever I sensed he was trying to use or control me for his own ends.
My mother, on the other hand, believes (without a scrap of Truth I now get) I am my father’s daughter. I have his evil blood. Day after day whilst growing up I was “a child of evil blood” (my dad) and just like him.” Yes, to my mother I was a liar, thief, and cheat (ugly words that resonate through my body to this day)
As the family was growing up my mother manipulated her way into being the centre of attention of all of our significant events...she made a hysterical scene at my wedding seeking out pity, and hospitalization; she made a hysterical scene at my sister’s graduation from university (all about herself); In a rage I didn’t know I could express outwardly I threw my own mother out of my home two days before my son’s funeral because I took exception to her putting down my newly deceased son (I overheard her say said to my daughter in law’s mother, who flew in from Guatemala, that he had the same eyes as his grandfather, and me – only Mom and I knew what she meant - Trevor had evil eyes).
I was surprised she showed up at the funeral after I physically picked her up and put her on the porch without allowing her a word of protest. But she did show up - and ignored me and my husband completely. She also ensured the few old relatives of hers who showed up to Trevor’s memorial would be reminded just what a horrible daughter I had been to her all these years – and how vindictive and cruel I had been to her two days prior! Somehow, some way, this woman is able to make herself come out a victim and make me out to be the worst child born since Hitler – even at my own cherished son’s funeral! For someone who hadn’t even seen my son since he was 11 years old, she sure soaked up a lot of pity that day, poor girl. Oops, I sense I am getting angry...
Back to my story: My disease (whatever label you want to give it) almost killed me: okay, “I” almost murdered myself over this bizarre relationship with my mother, and later younger sister. More than 8 times since the age of 17 I took a stab at ending it all. I felt so unloved and unwanted in this world I really didn’t see anything wrong with dying. It had to be better than what I was experiencing in life - parental rejection. For heaven’s sake if your own parents can’t stand the sight of you (mother’s common words) or can’t be bothered with you (Dad’s apathy and abandonment of myself and my older brother when my mother divorced him) – who on earth ever would love me?
When my last attempt occurred two years ago my husband was told that I would die of suicide one way or the other, and sooner rather than later. I have been driven to the brink with feelings of unworthiness and defeatism, and some of these attempts defy logic as to why I am even here. Yes, I do believe there is a God and I certainly believe in divine intervention. It happened to me more than once.
I am 49 years old and have been held in emotional-hostage by my mother every single one of those years - up until last December (just after I spent time caring for my dying father and arranging his cremation). One day (literally, one day) after I returned home from cremating my Dad (alone) the games began. The emotional abuse was so ugly, so disturbing, I cannot adequately describe the scenario that would make any sense to anyone but me, who lived it. I can say I did finally get out of her dark prison and have not spoken to her since. I didn’t go quietly, however, and my scene was not a pretty sight to be proud of in any sense. I blew, and the crap was all over the walls when I was done.
*sigh*
If it were not for this forum I just might have (dangerously) stirred up my sensitivities by relenting to my mother’s whims again. Last week she tried to weasel her power back in by sending me a birthday card and engaging me in birthday-card conversation about how she wishes she didn’t put the (DASH) in my name (I do not use the dashed name). Without thinking, and perhaps wishful thinking, I told my brother to tell her that if she were willing to go to counselling with me we could try to heal our relationship. At that time (because I did not know of this website nor the true nature of her sickness) I honestly still had a fleeting thought that mother and I could have a relationship.
No, I am not stupid, I am sick with a disease called ‘needing a mother’s love. I forget, she loves her other children just a little bit above zero (but more than me), and therefore why would I think I am so special as to be able to change her? She is unchangeable and unwilling to see her faults in any sense of the imagination. My older brother is a chronic drug addict, my younger brother is a thriving alcoholic who needs four beers to get to work, and my younger sister has the same cold non-affect (emotional response) my mother has.
For some bizarre reason, in spite of the molestation by my step-father, in spite of the ongoing abuse by my mother, in spite of the death of my only beloved son, and in spite of my own divorce after Trevor died; I am alive and performing fairly well – if you ask outsiders. I am a professional, I have a nice condo in a beautiful city, and I have a handful of good long-term friends (none whom would ever consider me a liar, cheat or thief!).
Yet I have no family other than an eight year old granddaughter (I am so blessed to have her!) whom I see every holiday – and keep her all summer long. I am trying to give her the love and protection she needs after losing her Dad, and her mother who abandoned her after Trevor died because she is as much narcissist as my mother – only too lazy to even pretend (Kaitlyn comes from a short-term relationship before Trevor’s marriage).
I digress...
But she is a child. And I cannot and do not expect my granddaughter to fill me up with the love I have been lacking throughout my lifetime.
I fear now that I am attracting men I date who are psychopaths and/or narcissists. I am trying to let a boyfriend go who will not stop contacting me. He now appears to me to be just as manipulative, if not worse (I think he spiked my drink and I found him in my granddaughter’s room the night I was breaking up with him!). He will not stop contacting me. I keep letting him talk. My bad. But it will now stop.
I now have something to focus on in educating myself on these disorders (or whatever they are) so that I can protect myself, and my granddaughter, in the future.
But it is a lonely and frightening world without these sicko’s in it, isn’t it?
Thanks for listening. It has been overwhelming to write all of this out, but healing, and it is renewing my hope for my ability to form emotionally stable relationships. I know I am on a journey, and I know nothing is a coincidence. It just seems to me that when I need help the most, the right kind seems to come along just at the right time. My story is sad, but I am an eternal optimist and my instincts tell me I will thrive in spite of the losses so many of us share. My prayer is we all heal from our adversities, and become even better people than we ever thought we could be. It is our time; we deserve love - we deserve respect - foremost from ourselves. [b]
