Feeling like things weren't really that bad

[Headfog]

Hello,

I'm wondering whether others on here sometimes also feel like their upbringing wasn't that bad, especially when compared to some of the other childhood experiences shared on this forum. I know that it's probably not very useful or even advisable to compare your own story to that of others, but at times I can't help feeling like I might be making more of a fuss than necessary. I'm curious to hear if others feel like this too as I expect that the feeling of 'making too much of a fuss' is most likely linked to the lack of self-worth carried from childhood into adulthood.

I have been fortunate to not having grown up with physical abuse and the reason I have found my way to this forum is due to emotional manipulation, which I now recognise as having been a feature of growing up with an uNPDMother. I am able to see my her behaviour for what it is now more than ever and it's clear to me that she seems unable to not play head games when we communicate. But on the whole I don't think that the circumstances of my upbringing were actually that terrible. Certainly not on the surface of things. I think that more than anything what I experienced was a lack of healthy emotional attachment. In comparison to overt forms of abuse, this was more subtle and probably unrecognisable from the outside. In a way this adds to the sense of 'it wasn't that bad' and it makes me question why am I complaining when other people have suffered so much due to their parent(s).

In some way though I think I'm still drawn back into the FOG at times and this is when this kinda self-doubt takes root and makes me question as to whether I'm painting a darker picture of my childhood than necessary. Nowadays, rather than revisiting the past, I spend most of my energy on dealing with my own behaviour patterns and how I tend to project my own emotional insecurities onto situations and people I encounter. The only current link to my past is my ongoing (yet limited) contact with my parents and I'm working hard on setting boundaries and protecting myself within the remains of that relationship.

Thanks for reading and I'm interested to hear your views.

[NarcKiddo]

Yes, it's another stick we can use to beat ourselves with!

I was fed, clothed and educated to a high standard. My parents were pillars of the community. Outsiders would say I had a wonderful childhood with lots of opportunities and a family who loved me.

I have a uNPD mother and a father who is likely also uNPD. When I first twigged about my mother I thought my father was just an enabler. But after many, many discussions with my T we are both pretty sure he is a brand of narcissist, too.

I had bucketloads of emotional abuse and some physical from my mother. Total absence of anything other than material provision from my father. My T has pointed out that they basically provided what it was their legal duty to provide. The fact it was materially better than what many have is because that is how they wanted to present the family to the outside world.

It can be hard to do, but I think the focus needs to be on what the treatment has done to you. If you have been damaged then you need help and healing. It's not helpful to anyone to compare levels of trauma, just like it was not helpful when parents back in the day told their children to eat up their food because there are starving children in Africa.

Of course it is also hard when people who have not experienced and do not understand trauma say things like "why can't you just get over it? It's all in the past." I mean, if we could 'just get over it' we surely would have done! So please try not to say that to yourself.

[treesgrowslowly]

Hi,

I think this is a really good question. In my lifetime, the definition of dysfunctional family and abusive family have changed so dramatically, leaving us with more information than ever to wade through, about what happened during our childhood and how to make sense of it, and whose childhoods were the harder ones to recover from.

It is possible that you had / have emotionally immature parents, as described in Lindsay Gibson's book. These parents are not necessarily abusive but they fail to offer enough emotional attachment to their kids, leaving their kids to figure out emotional development on our own. If that is true, than the odds are good that your parents had emotionally immature parents, or they had childhoods where no one paid enough attention to their emotional development, leaving them stunted in certain ways. On the surface they can function and be nice, but when you try to have a deeper relationship with them, you realize that they don't want you to 'go there' and they have boundaries when it comes to 'going deep' with anyone.

Worrying about whether you had it worse than others is a stage a lot of us go through / went through. It is part of making sense of your own childhood.

That advice "don't compare yourself to others" needs context. When we are learning, we are often learning how others did something we are learning how to do. I learned how to understand my childhood, by learning from a lot of people along the way, including people here on this forum. I do think that it can get confusing for us and it takes time to sort out what happened during our own childhood. Some of us got yelled at daily, some didn't. IMHO, our recovery work is about understanding our own inner child and what that kid needed vs. what they got. Being yelled at sucks, and is a more 'obvious' form of abuse but being left alone when we needed emotional support, was not good for us either.

So it isn't bad to compare, if you are working on making sense of your childhood and what you are working on in your own life. It can be a part of your process of knowing yourself better as an adult, and individuating, which Jerry Wise talks a lot about and gives helpful tips on.

I like Jerry Wise a lot. He says a lot of helpful stuff about where did all this anxiety come from? (for the adult child of narc children). My parent also can't have a conversation with me without playing head games, which is a form of invisible emotional abuse. It leaves no physical scar on the skin. It causes anxiety for us. So it is good that you are aware of her ways. Lindsay Gibson talks about brain scramble. It is what we feel after trying to have a basic conversation with an emotionally immature parent or family member.

Another part of the journey Out of the FOG is realizing the emotionally immature or narc parent, didn't have much insight into their own behaviors.

They don't know they are causing us brain scramble, they just do what they do, and steam roll their way through conversations with us if needed, to get their way. After we spend some time grieving for the parent we don't have, our own boundaries with our parents will make more sense to us because now we know that this is an emotionally stunted person who doesn't know how to communicate more effectively. My MIL is an EIP. She has no insight into her own behavior and does what makes 'sense' to her. The other people in her life have to work with this because she's not going to change. Even when she tried to stretch, she always returned to her baseline, which is quite child-like. Dependent on others, and unable to talk through problems or issues with others.

No one would diagnose her as PD - she's "just" immature for her age. But immature is enough to cause problems when you need this person to be more mature than they actually are, because they are your parent. It can feel bad when we can't make relationships with these people work, because they are not full blown abusers who yell and get mean. But since they avoid emotional intimacy with others, they make "close relating" out of reach, and so it is ok to name that and realize oh, this parent is out of reach after a certain point.

As Lindsay Gibson explains so well, the boundaries are to help you to see what you can and can't accomplish with an EIP relative or parent. Emotionally immature people can make us question our own self-worth, which is why I think it is really important to understand them. In ignoring our need for actual emotional intimacy, they can cause us to question ourselves. But the truth is that they lack an understanding of our psychological needs.

Trees

[Headfog]

It can be hard to do, but I think the focus needs to be on what the treatment has done to you. If you have been damaged then you need help and healing. It's not helpful to anyone to compare levels of trauma, just like it was not helpful when parents back in the day told their children to eat up their food because there are starving children in Africa.

Thank you, I completely agree with that. There is little point in dwelling on how my experience may not have been as bad as that of others. You are absolutely correct, once you realise that your childhood has left you with coping mechanisms that are no longer useful in adulthood, it makes much more sense to focus on the healing process.

[Headfog]

It is possible that you had / have emotionally immature parents, as described in Lindsay Gibson's book. These parents are not necessarily abusive but they fail to offer enough emotional attachment to their kids, leaving their kids to figure out emotional development on our own. If that is true, than the odds are good that your parents had emotionally immature parents, or they had childhoods where no one paid enough attention to their emotional development, leaving them stunted in certain ways. On the surface they can function and be nice, but when you try to have a deeper relationship with them, you realize that they don't want you to 'go there' and they have boundaries when it comes to 'going deep' with anyone.

That's a really good point. It reminds me of an online article where the author outlined 5 types of narcisstic parent abuse. One of them is described as "Unintentional Narcissistic Parent Abuse: Extremely child-like parent", which sounds similar to what you are describing. In some respect I feel like viewing my mother as an emotionall immature parent is correct, but that it's also letting her off the hook. She seems too emotionally manupulative for this to be a result of her emotional immaturity only. But in the end it doesn't really matter how I label her personality and whether it's this or that. I think what's most important is to recognise that due to my upbringing, I internalised certain negative beliefs about myself and how these are affecting my interaction with others and the world.

Thanks for mentionig Lindsay Gibson, I had not heard of her and will definitely take a look at her book.
For anyone interested in the article I mentioned, this is the link:
https://eggshelltherapy.com/narcissistic-parent-abuse/

Worrying about whether you had it worse than others is a stage a lot of us go through / went through. It is part of making sense of your own childhood.

 

I like Jerry Wise a lot. He says a lot of helpful stuff about where did all this anxiety come from? (for the adult child of narc children). My parent also can't have a conversation with me without playing head games, which is a form of invisible emotional abuse. It leaves no physical scar on the skin. It causes anxiety for us. So it is good that you are aware of her ways. Lindsay Gibson talks about brain scramble. It is what we feel after trying to have a basic conversation with an emotionally immature parent or family member.

Brain scramble is a very apt term to describe the effect it has on you!

Another part of the journey Out of the FOG is realizing the emotionally immature or narc parent, didn't have much insight into their own behaviors.

They don't know they are causing us brain scramble, they just do what they do, and steam roll their way through conversations with us if needed, to get their way. After we spend some time grieving for the parent we don't have, our own boundaries with our parents will make more sense to us because now we know that this is an emotionally stunted person who doesn't know how to communicate more effectively.

I think it's a good thing to keep their emotional immaturity in mind. In a way it helps remain compassionate and not be totally consumed by resentment and sadness.


Thank you for raising all of these useful points!

[NarcKiddo]

I think it's a good thing to keep their emotional immaturity in mind. In a way it helps remain compassionate and not be totally consumed by resentment and sadness.

I think that is a sensible point, and it resonates, but so did your comment earlier about feeling that you might be letting her off the hook a bit.

I've had all those conflicting thoughts so I just wanted to comment further in case it's of any use to you. I have had times where I actually needed to hold on to resentment and anger. Those times have tended to be when I have teetered towards holding too much compassion for my mother and have thus been in danger of the FOG descending and getting sucked back in. As time has gone by I have developed more trust in myself to hold my boundaries. Being able to rely on myself more has in turn enabled me to hold more compassion for her. Well, maybe not even compassion, actually, as her behaviour is really pretty rotten, and not just to me. I think it is more like an understanding that she is very limited and will never be the mother I would like her to be, coupled with acceptance that if I choose to keep some sort of relationship then I will have to be strong and maintain my boundaries. We will never have a full and healthy relationship. She had an abominable mother. I understand why she is damaged but I do not have to forgive her for everything. It's not a free pass. I don't go round thinking I am entitled to be awful to others because I had a bad mother.

[Headfog]

You're right, anger is a valid feeling and it has a place. It doesn't come from nowhere, it's a natural response to hurtful and unacceptable behaviour. I've been reading a lot of Gabor Mate recently and he makes the point that surpressed anger (just like other surpressed emotions) can often cause physical illness. By not embracing and expressing it in some way, it builds up inside of you, starting to cause damage. I find it a tricky balancing act to navigate anger without being consumed by it - and on the other hand not to dismiss it altogether as a "negative" emotion that I'd rather not have in my life.

To be honest I'm not even that angry at my mother (and father) these days. I went through a lot of anger and resentment quite a while ago. It's more of a sense of disappointment now. Disappointment in both of my them and their reluctance (or maybe inability) to be honest with themselves and reflect on their behaviour.

It's weird how you can feel the pull of the FOG sometimes, even without the presence or interference of your NPD parent. It's deep seated. Anger or disappointment can suddenly subside, and instead doubt and guilt creep in. It can rattle the boundaries I've established, but as long as there is awareness of FOG and how it can hijack or catch you off-guard, it's okay because you understand what it is.

[parsley]

Hi! I'm new here and wanted to tell you I understand. This is something I've been dealing with too - my mother is really emotionally abusive but clearly had a much more traumatic childhood than me. But something my therapist helped me realize is that nothing truly justifies treating someone that badly. I mean, think about it - if you had kids, would you treat them that way? That's helped me a lot.

I hope you can find peace and healing from all that's happened:) I know it's difficult, but realizing this has helped me a lot.