happy holidays and love to everyone. i have struggled for several years with crippling chronic pain and just had major surgery (again). despite all this hardship i have to say that i am exstatically happy that it gives me an excuse not to go home for christmas. my family called me today and my mother actually got mad at me for not being better yet! she is the worlds biggest martyr. she goes around telling everyone bullshit about how much she loves me, then slams doors in my face, is physically aggressive with me, is manipulative etc when no one is around. i feel like the reason she is mad at me is because me being sick and her not being here shows how transparent she is and she fears that and so she is taking it out on me. i don't know why i still talk to her or to my father. congratulations to any of you who have managed to cut off contact with these abusive people. i hope one day to be courageous enough to walk away without feeling guilty.
About 6 years ago - before my Nmother passed away - we spent the Holidays at her place in the Southwest.
She and my father had a habit of watching TV until 2am and sleeping until 2pm. My kids were about 3 and woke up and tore into the Christmas gifts. When she finally got out of bed she had a total RAGING meltdown that I didn't force them to WAIT so SHE could watch them open gifts.
I just stared at her. I thought she was kidding. I knew she was unbalanced but to FORCE 3 year old twins to NOT open gifts? right.....
And I am going to negotiate Peace in the Middle East tomorrow too.
Just wanted to say hello and ask a few questions about the community.
Before I say much about myself I'd just like to check if non-members can read what is written here? Had a bad experience a while ago of someone I didn't know was on LJ finding something out about me, so I don't want to post anything personal publically. Is there any way I can make my posts only readable to members of the community?
Thanks, and thank you for approving me as a member.
The Festive Season is one occasion that can cause more pain than happiness for people with Narcissists in their lives. I know that for me, it was a time of mental anguish and re-alignment. Where all my friends were spending time with their Parents and Siblings, I was sitting at home with my own family, unsure of how to celebrate for the first time in possibly 29 years. Spiritual reasons aside, this Season is usually a time for family - my eldest two children have a different Father and spent this year's christmas day with him and his family.. so the apartment was alot quieter. My Husband worked in the evening... it was quieter still. He sleeps from early afternoon till worktime - which gives a window of 4 hours or so in which to spend time together. So in reality, it was just myself and the Smallest one. Since she is just about to turn 3, she has no real understanding of Yule/Honnika/Christmas. I pottered around doing normal every-day tasks.. but noted the deep sadness my own ill-preparation gave me. Rather than using this time as some way to give my own Children a better understanding of Family than I had.. I missed it.
One thing is for sure. It won't happen again next year.
Hello, my name is Devvie, and I'm the daughter of a Narcissist.
My dad's the one with NPD - for most of my life I'd thought he was just unaccountably evil - or that everything was all my fault, or my mom's, or my siblings', depending on how brainwashed I was at the moment. Last spring my boyfriend finally introduced me to the book What If You Had Controlling Parents, which I never would've picked up on my own, cause I'd learned that self-help books were all BS, and there I found a portrait of my childhood that I never thought would exist. And searching on terms from that book all over the 'net led me to NPD, and the more I read of that the more I understood who my father was.
My mom doesn't have NPD at all, or much of anything else for that matter, she's a totally helpless brain-slave for my dad. It's very sad.. I realized recently I don't know her in any meaningful way.. if she has tastes, opinions, hobbies, personal history etc. that differ from my dad's she *never exercises them.* Scary.
But my main problem here is my siblings. I seem to be younger than most of the Adult Children of narcissists etc. I see searching around the 'net.. I'm still at an age when most people are at least somewhat dependent on their parents (senior in college).. but I'm the oldest of my siblings. My two brothers are 17 and 18, *almost* old enough to take care of themselves and be free like I am , if they decide to. But my kid sister is 13, and she'll be stuck with my parents for at least 5 years more if not longer.. after everyone else is gone from the house too.. and she's the one I've always been closest to. I worry about her :-/.
So does anyone here have any ideas how I can rescue her? I mean yeah I'm sure she'll survive just like I did.. but how trampled will her self-image be by the time she gets out? And I figure people here might have ideas and/or good places to start research. Thanks for your help! And I look forward to continuing conversations in this group.
p.s. I guess I didn't make this clear.. My parents officially disowned me, or I them, it wasn't really clear which, last winter/spring (it was a several months' long process). I am currently strugglingly self-sufficient.. but luckily I have friends and their families I can fall back on even though I have none of my own :-)
Thanks for approving my membership. A bit about me.
I've been in therapy for 6 years and on a fairly regular basis they have mentioned the term narcissist about my mother. We never really got into it as I have chronic PTSD, made worse of course by my mother. I also have BPD. It was just last week that my therapist briefly told me about the story of Narcissus and Echo.
So I'm new to a NPD forum but I'm researching it online slowly. It's funny I always thought she had Munchausens by proxy but NPD seems to fit. Problem is she is not well and I will be surprised if she lives much longer so I have decided to forgive her. It was awful and the things she did and said make me cry often. Crying does not make me feel ashamed any more.
I have a very weak sense of self and still have a long way to go in my recovery. I am unable to work due to a number of reasons. One is relationship problems with people and people getting too close to me (physically). I am in recovery from a number of addictions and do not have the urge to use or act out any more. I'm Australian. I'm gay.
sleepy
awake