Six Month Roller Coaster

[TheStruggleIsReal]

Dear Out of the FOG Family,

I've reached the six month milestone of being pretty much NC with my uNPD father & uNPD mother. Maybe I should say very LC. During this season, I've taken the time to gain more clarity into myself, my emotional issues, & the emotional abuse I received from my FOO. I've been attending therapy with my DW and began the journey to restore our marriage to a much more healthy & fulfilling relationship for both of us.

Early on, I've wrote out & shared with my parents how I feel and how my DW & I have been emotionally harmed by them. That way, my feelings would be known, and it would at least give them the opportunity to work through our family issues, should they so desire. Sadly, it does not appear they have any remorse and cannot even acknowledge any role they have played in harming me or our marriage. My mother wrote back, playing victim and unwilling to acknowledge any wrongdoing. My mom has been unmoved by any deep hurts or pain I have expressed to her. It's always accuse, deflect, & defend.

Before I understood the reality of who my parents really are, I figured the pain of missing out on the relationship with us would matter, & that they would want to work through our issues in a healthy dialogue. In classic NPD behavior, nothing of the sort has happened. The past six months have been extremely revealing. How could I have been so blind all these years?

Yet, during this time, my mom has continued to look for excuses to contact me. Your grandparent is in the hospital & misses talking to me. OMG there was some horrific news story in your city...are we ok? What does our grandchild want for Christmas? At the same time, they used my birthday to let me know they would withhold financial support for our kid's education unless I called them. They were willing to harm their grandson and disrupt his school year in order for me to comply and contact them on their terms. Since then, we have broken all financial ties with them. I recognized they were using money as a manipulative tool. While it hurts in the short term, we will be much better off in the long term (despite the fact that I'm probably being written out of the will as we speak!).

The one thing I've struggled with has been our son's relationship with them. Ultimately, we decided to leave it up to him to decide. There's no way to hide the fact that we have gone NC & that I'm having to work more to pay for his school.

For recent holidays & special occasions, my uNPD mom suddenly acts like everything is fine. She had to gall to expect to wish our son 'happy birthday' after not speaking to him for six months & attempting to take away his schooling. I made the mistake of writing back & stating that he made his own mind up & did not wish to speak with them right now. The response from her was complete anger. Now, I remember why I went NC! I have finally taken the step of blocking their numbers, like many here mentioned on a previous post of mine.

I never expected to be on this lonely, difficult journey. I've come to a point of acceptance most days, but I still experience moments of grief and sadness. I keep telling my DW that I feel like an orphan at times. Nonetheless, our marriage is at the best point it has ever been, and I am a much stronger person because of it. Thank you for reading and for all the support you have shown me!

[treesgrowslowly]

Hello Struggle,

Yes, it sounds like you are going through very predictable things that happen after NC. I am glad you are ok and in therapy and seeing that your own family relationships will survive and thrive.

Parental narcissism is a terrible thing to experience. The way that they discard the people who don't conform to their controlling rules is awful.

Glad to hear that the forum has been a help to you. The grief process is easier when we have supports around us, for sure.

Trees

[Srcyu]

I feel your sadness.
To have everything that we always suspected confirmed to us is a shocking revelation. To have our children dragged into it is unforgivable.   You have the double whammy of both parents joining forces in their selfish nastiness against you. Their double-sided approach of apparent concern and the snatching back of school fees is typical and is a controlling tactic meant to confuse you into compliance.

They will not change.

When I began no contact, I didn't count the weeks, months and years. I knew it was for good - no going back, so no need to keep track of time passing.   I think you might still be holding out with a little bit of hope? That's normal. Our brains sometimes need a while to adjust to this most un-natural of situations.



milly

[TheStruggleIsReal]

Hello Struggle,

Yes, it sounds like you are going through very predictable things that happen after NC. I am glad you are ok and in therapy and seeing that your own family relationships will survive and thrive.

Parental narcissism is a terrible thing to experience. The way that they discard the people who don't conform to their controlling rules is awful.

Glad to hear that the forum has been a help to you. The grief process is easier when we have supports around us, for sure.

Trees

Trees,

Thank you for your support & encouragement. You & others here have been a great sounding board & have helped me process the flood of thoughts & emotions that have arisen in me during this time.

I can't believe it took me so long to see the narcissism in my own FOO when I could clearly see it in others. It took me pushing back against the family rules & standing up for my DW & kid for me to finally experience it myself. I feel terrible that I allowed my DW to be exposed to their behavior for so long because I didn't want to see it.

Nonetheless, we have been moving forward in healing ourselves & our marriage over the past six months. While I can't undo the past, I am thankful that we are now fully awakened & intentionally pursuing personal growth & a stronger marriage.

[TheStruggleIsReal]

I feel your sadness.
To have everything that we always suspected confirmed to us is a shocking revelation. To have our children dragged into it is unforgivable.   You have the double whammy of both parents joining forces in their selfish nastiness against you. Their double-sided approach of apparent concern and the snatching back of school fees is typical and is a controlling tactic meant to confuse you into compliance.

They will not change.

When I began no contact, I didn't count the weeks, months and years. I knew it was for good - no going back, so no need to keep track of time passing.   I think you might still be holding out with a little bit of hope? That's normal. Our brains sometimes need a while to adjust to this most un-natural of situations.



milly

Milly,

You are exactly right - I have been holding onto some hope. Up until recently, I truly believed that in going NC, my parents would miss the relationship with us. In my heart, I believed that they would eventually come around & apologize for their role in our issues. I realize that going NC is for my mental health & healing. However, a small part of me hoped it would move my FOO just a little.

However, as I have thoroughly studied NPD & the NPD dysfunctional family, my brain kicked into gear & recognized that there is very little chance they will ever admit any wrongdoing. Their idea of reconciliation is me returning to my scapegoat role in my FOO.

I literally poured my heart out to my uNPDm a couple of times in writing, & she may as well have ripped out my heart & stomped on it. There was not even a semblance of empathy or compassion.

There is no going back to my scapegoat role or playing by the family rules. My eyes are wide open now, and my DW & son's health & happiness are far more important.

There are many times my heart longs for what I will likely never have. My brain knows the reality, but sometimes my heart still grieves for what was & for the relationships that I thought existed prior to coming Out of the FOG.

[treesgrowslowly]

Hello struggleisreal,

I'm so glad this forum has been a help.

Thank you for all you've shared.

I cannot recall who taught this and where I heard it, maybe Gabor Mate or some other trauma based teacher....but they said "as a child you needed someone to parent the situation so you tried your best to be that parent"

In the absence of adults who could lovingly parent ie protect and nurture us, we kids of NPDs "decided" to parent our own parents. We did this by doing whatever made the situation easier.  We tried to parent our parents and we tried to parent ourselves.

I say this because I'm also trying to get out of disbelief that my need for love was rejected. It is shocking isn't it?. Like you said you had hoped going NC would wake them up. But it didn't.

I'm NC with my parents because I tried to parent those two since I was born and it was never going to work. These are disordered narcissists who won't go and get help for their disorder. That is why nothing we did as kids ever changed their NPD traits. How could a child fix their parents mental disorder?

My parents had a baby they didnt know how to take care of. Me. They didn't have a clue how to parent (as a verb,) and never will. Can't even parent themselves either as adults.

Maybe you are seeing similar things in your situation.

Did they parent you or did you, as a child try to parent them - so that you'd then have some parenting. A child's reasoning is flawed. The child's goal is to survive. So I did my best to parent my parents, so that I could survive. So I could get to mid life and be able to message you here today on this site.

And as adults we still found ourselves parenting our parents.

I believe that a lot of healing can emerge after we go NC.

You can heal. That's the beauty to hold on to. You get to heal and they get to live their life with their NPD mental state, and you're not going to allow their disorder into your present life experiences.

NPD is rigid and seems to be a life long condition for most afflicted with it. I remind myself that my parents had their illness / condition before they had me. If having me didn't wake them up out of their NPD illness, not sure what would.

When you and I had our children, we had that normal feeling of wanting to protect this baby and making sure this baby is fed and warm and safe and loved.  I don't think my parents had those feelings.

You kept yourself alive, and now you are able to come into more healing. Healing that is happening as we speak. I'm healing too.

You can have the emotional experiences you yearn for in life. You can.

My going NC bought me a lot of peaceful moments. Moments I yearned for as a child. Moments of emotional safety that my PD parents have nothing to do with.

You're not alone. I feel how orphaned I am too.

And, no one taught me how to grieve. So here we are grieving for so much after going NC  and we have to learn how to grieve.  Today I'm at home just resting. My inner critic is here, telling me not to need grief work, not to need rest.

But I'm here talking back! Saying it's OK to rest, it's OK to write on the forum and share how I feel today. This is part of how we nurture ourselves after going NC.

Maybe just remind yourself that when you poured your heart out to your mom, it was an act of honesty. You brought your need for love to someone who couldn't see you. I did that too. I wrote letters pleading for a parent to see me and love me. You gave your self a voice. I'm in this too. Trying to manage the disbelief that a parent or IL can completely deny us the love we needed from them.

Giving yourself the love you needed from them as a child will get easier. I truly believe that. I watch therapists on YouTube who have been through this themselves and I have to believe that they got through this stuff so we can too.

We both need to thank our younger selves for trying so hard. We need to thank that inner warrior who fought for the parenting we wanted and needed. We need to thank our younger selves for asking for a loving parent who reads our letter and responds in love and with safety.

We didn't get that but we're gonna heal anyways.

Solidarity with you my fellow survivor,

Trees

[Srcyu]

TheStruggleIsReal,
I think the lingering hope is based in disbelief. For me, the next shock was that my siblings sided with Bpdmother. They treated my children differently as a result, so I pulled away from them all.

We are dragging down the falsehoods and exposing the whole charade. They can't possibly accept any responsibility for that, they just can't deal with it. So they blame - us.

You are so right in saying that all they want is for us to accept the scapegoat role again. It can't happen, not now.



milly

[TheStruggleIsReal]

I cannot recall who taught this and where I heard it, maybe Gabor Mate or some other trauma based teacher....but they said "as a child you needed someone to parent the situation so you tried your best to be that parent"

In the absence of adults who could lovingly parent ie protect and nurture us, we kids of NPDs "decided" to parent our own parents. We did this by doing whatever made the situation easier.  We tried to parent our parents and we tried to parent ourselves.

I say this because I'm also trying to get out of disbelief that my need for love was rejected. It is shocking isn't it?. Like you said you had hoped going NC would wake them up. But it didn't.

I'm NC with my parents because I tried to parent those two since I was born and it was never going to work. These are disordered narcissists who won't go and get help for their disorder. That is why nothing we did as kids ever changed their NPD traits. How could a child fix their parents mental disorder?

Trees,

Thank you for sharing more of your story. I'm thankful you choose to be here, helping all of us walk through this difficult journey by being authentic & offering encouragement! Your childhood experiences definitely align with what we've recently been discussing in my therapy sessions - that we had to be the parents when we were supposed to be a child. I'm sorry you had to be the parent to your parents. As I've discovered in my own story, that is an extremely wounding & dysfunctional relationship for a child (and even as an adult still parenting a parent). I can see this dysfunction all throughout the generations of my family tree.

Up until recently, I had always said I had a great childhood. I was fed, clothed, and provided for. I had a lot of fun & memorable experiences as a kid. However, I always dismissed the fact that my parents were emotionally unavailable. I gaslit myself, thinking others had it far worse. After all, I didn't get physically abused, my thinking would go.

Instead, my uNPD mom used me to confide in about her unfulfilling marriage was/is & how awful her life was/is. (I say 'is' because, to this day, she has never changed anything to improve her life. She just sits around & complains to anyone who will listen.) I didn't realize that she was using me as a pseudo husband since my dad was emotionally & physically unavailable most of the time. My parents never exemplified what a loving marriage was supposed to look like, and I was caught in the middle of their unhappiness.

Still to this day, they exist in a fake, unloving marriage. My participation in this unhealthy relational pattern ended many months ago, but I had mostly stopped listening to my mom's rants a couple of years ago because I recognized she didn't want to change.

My dad was also emotionally unavailable to me. I don't ever recall having a heart-to-heart conversation with him. He was always too busy spending time at work, ministering to the community. He has never taken time to engage my heart & truly know me. I don't think he has the capacity to do so, given his mental illness.

All of this to say that I developed a strong independent streak. It was probably my coping mechanism to some degree, but I haven't allowed my past to bring me down. I'm likely stronger because of it. Yet, you're right - there is much healing that is currently going on and that still needs to occur over the coming weeks, months, & years.

I'm thankful we're on this journey toward healing & wholeness. There is true healing in sharing our stories with each other.

[TheStruggleIsReal]

TheStruggleIsReal,
I think the lingering hope is based in disbelief. For me, the next shock was that my siblings sided with Bpdmother. They treated my children differently as a result, so I pulled away from them all.

We are dragging down the falsehoods and exposing the whole charade. They can't possibly accept any responsibility for that, they just can't deal with it. So they blame - us.

You are so right in saying that all they want is for us to accept the scapegoat role again. It can't happen, not now.



milly

Milly,
I completely relate, and I am sorry you have gone through this with your family. My BPD mother has gossiped about us to our entire family. No doubt she has completely turned many against us. I'm addition, my mother turned my BPD sister into a clone of herself and keeps in daily contact with her so they can gossip together & pity each other's miserable lives.

My younger self would have deeply cared what others think & say about us, but I've reached the point in my life where I don't care anymore. Our mental health, healing, and peace are far more important.

[SpunHead13]

O.P.- I think you are so brave for sharing how you feel and being so upfront and forward with your parents! Its a really tough series of realizations to go through, and I have to admit, I'm still going through them. I didn't have the bravery you had and wish I could have been more direct, but after years of being dismissed, yelled at and sometimes hit for for standing up for myself I just ended up more quietly trying to disappear. The most important lesson I'm learning is to listen to those inner feelings that say something is wrong, even if in the moment I don't fully understand them. The longer Ive been NC and spent time learning the more I understand why I was hurting so much. And through that discovery, felt less pain. I hope the same for you!

Thank you subsequent posters for your posts. I get so much out of hearing other people experiences and seeing both the similarities and differences. I haven't been on this forum for a while and forgot how much strength it gave me to come here.