Seeing It from the Other Side, esp during Holidays

[Lookin 2 B Free]

There are many ways you can "lose" a person while they are still alive.  Some I've experienced are watching alcohol or drug addiction take away the one you knew and loved. You still love them, but they kind of aren't there anymore.  While married to a PD I lost the closeness of maybe all my other loved ones because of his bullying, control and alienation.  I was punished for having contact with them, so there wasn't a lot of that, though I never totally let go.  Eventually I let go of him and we could be close again.

I'm watching another family member follow in my old footsteps, and it is painful.  Not only are we "banned" from having very much contact (especially any that isn't monitored by the uNPD), but LO is now doing the 7/24 job of putting out PD fires, trying to placate, trying to keep others from rocking the boat, cleaning up the damage.  They don't want the  alienation, just like I didn't when I was married to a PD  They reach out periodically to let us know they still care.  But, a little like the drug addict, they kind of aren't there anymore; they're lost in the FOG. 

It's a weird kind of loss and grief because you don't know if someday the person who is MIA will leave the FOG and come back.  Maybe ... or possibly never.  It's painful.  I realize I was the source of that pain for years for people who loved me.  I'm so, so glad I left him and came back to my self and my loved ones.  But I also remember how hard that was and how close I was to never leaving the FOG.  I guess some can choose to stay in the marriage while leaving the FOG, though I'm not sure how.  I can see dropping the obligation and guilt, but how do you drop fear when you live with a vengeful bully who has it out for you whenever you don't do things their way?   It seems some can, though.

For anyone who is feeling any kind of grief and loss this holiday season, my heart goes out to you.  I'm grateful we have each other.

[bloomie]

Lookin 2 B Free - what an important post! Thank you for giving us an inside look at the ripple effect being married to someone whose behaviors isolated and separated you from loved ones. I am so thankful you found your way out and back to yourself.

Having lost someone I dearly love through alienation tactics of a powerful, controlling, highly manipulating person, I agree, it is a complicated kind of lingering loss with, for me anyway, the continuing hope that someday they will return to themselves.

[xredshoesx]

@Lookin 2 B Free  this tracks for me

I feel like a lot of the kids I came up with in the system, as well as the kids I was on the streets with, are lost in a similar matrix of addiction, mental illness  or both.  those I am blood with who still choose to engage with the surviving members of my mother's family unit are lost to me like you spoke on in your post.......and it's another layer of the same matrix.  not all grief from loss comes from death......

and I took am glad we have each other esp during the holidays

[Lookin 2 B Free]

Bloomie and Red Shoes, thank you for your sharing.  I'm sorry you're experiencing the same losses.

About that continuing hope ... There's a clear-cut-ness to accepting the pwPD as is and NOT being pulled by hope that they will change.  That wasn't always the case for me, but hope was pretty dead by the time I left my ex and I really see how baked in the disorder is.  I believe there are unusual cases where the pwPD is willing to undergo and work hard at long and very intensive therapy enough to make a difference (from "Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from BPD" I read years ago).  None of the pwPDs I've ever known were close to having that willingness.

But the enabler nons, the frogs caught in the sweltering pot of FOG -- many do break free, so there is that hope.  I guess I could just watch from afar to see if that ever happens, and am sometimes tempted to do that.  Instead, I have always stayed pretty close to the stove,  as much as is possible being somewhat alienated.  When there are minor children caught in it, I like to be close enough to sometimes give an alternate view to the PDland one.  But I pay a price for doing that!

Prayers for both of you for your loved ones, and for all of us on here.

[treesgrowslowly]

Thanks for all these posts here. This time of year can be hard for me as well.

It is sad, how few people in a family get out of their FOG. Most just don't. It leaves us with few if any people to really connect with during this time of year. I can't let that FOG stuff back into my life. I've been NC for a long time now, and I had to let go of the dream - that people would grow up. They won't. Like you said Lookin, we can lose people for various reasons.

I cannot help but wonder to myself, who this holiday time is for at this point, because it doesn't feel like it is for those of us with PD families and parents.

I'm trying to embrace the idea that no matter where we are at today, it is ok. I always thought I'd easily find a way to get through anything - which is in itself a trauma response. Not knowing how to get through the holidays is one more thing that I have to learn how to do. And that's ok. I go back and forth with believing in my ability to do this. So easy to feel like a failure as the adult child of narcissists, right? So easy, as the parentified child, to think that I'm doing "healing" wrong! Ugh. The pressure to feel 'recovered' seems to land on me this time of year. I know people here get that. Hugs to you all.

Trees

[Lookin 2 B Free]

Warm hugs to you, Trees, and anyone else here struggling through the holidays.❤️  This year is a hard one for me.

I did a lot of pretending in those years before I left my PDex.  As much to myself as to anyone else.  I had my own level of denial of reality going, just to try to cope and not collapse in despair.  Had the disorder from the PD not been so relentless and pervasive, I might still be doing it.  It's kind of appalling to think back on how dishonest I could be with myself.  But I'm not going to condemn myself, and I understand why I did it-- it was like a self-administered anesthesia.  I don't have that anymore and sometimes reality can bite.

Hope is harder won nowadays, now that it's not based on falsehood.  But, unlike before, this hope has something very precious to it - real promise.  Because I am on a path of true healing, taking my life back, and learning how to really love myself and the world, even if it's only little steps at a time.  Still, it's a true victory.

[Invisiblewoman]

I feel just the weight of experiencing grief from losing someone you thought you could trust (like an abusive parent) can be a slow and painful grieving process.

Much of the time we were stuck in the abuse, then desperate to fix the relationship, even though they never cooperated.

Leaving behind a history and maladaptive coping mechanisms can take a lot of work.

To make the holidays less hard I often gift my neighbours or be present for a friend. It's just what I do now, to make the holidays less lonely.

[treesgrowslowly]

Hi Invisiblewoman,

Me too! I made a gift for someone who has helped me out this year and gifted it to them. They appreciated it. A far cry from the stuff that goes on in my crazy FOO when this time of year comes around.

Lookin, thanks for the reply. It is a hard time of year.

This time of year is about that sense of belonging and belonging to a family. so I find it incredibly hard at times, to get through December. I think that way more should be said and written and offered to us survivors of PD and narc abuse. Because it really is a process it is not recovery that is easy for most of us.

Most people who have some decent family members (not full blown PDs everywhere) do not have to do this hard digging to work so hard to belong to themselves. They have a place to belong, and for them, this time of year is really 'easy' but they have no idea how the rest of us live. I'm now realizing that when we get to adulthood, after a childhood spent with a PD parent (or 2), we see how other families function. It is a double edged sword. We see that some families function better. The parents can communicate good enough so that their adult kids don't have the misery we do. But we also see that we'll never belong to their family (unless we marry into it). That is their pod.

Those folks are never going to show up for us in any sort of meaningful way during this time of year. They are in their pod, with their tribe, and we are on the outside of it. In my many years I have yet to see someone who wants to truly include others into their family pod. It is a closed off system, and this time of year, they close ranks so they can enjoy their holiday.

Carl Jung the psychologist said life begins at 40, so for those who are around that age, I have felt that around 40 things shift and we can belong to ourselves a little more than we could before. But leaving behind disordered parents so that we can have a life where we belong to ourselves - that is easy to write but it is not easy to accomplish right?

I have yet to meet a therapist who has done that work themselves either. They have had these places where they belonged, and have no idea what is involved in a life where you can't belong to a family because the family is a mess of chaos.

Addiction wrecks havoc on families. I'm so sorry you're seeing that in your family Lookin. It is one of the reasons I have stayed away from many people I am "related" to. It is like they want more FOG instead of less. And it is hard to witness.

Trees

[Lookin 2 B Free]

Sometimes this forum is my "pod."  I won't be having a holiday dinner with you at your table or mine, (though maybe I'll  read or write something here).  But I can share the effects of having grown up with and married pwPDs.  And the aftermath.  And I don't wonder if there is anyone on the other end who's been through it and might understand what I'm talking about.  I'm finding it harder to have that face-to-face these days.  Maybe it's because almost everyone is in busy gearing up mode for the festivities.

I've had quite a few losses this year.  I feel weepy pretty much every day.  But I'm also trying to stay involved with life, responding to those who reach out to me, and also reaching out to them.  Even if it doesn't fill the hole, which it doesn't.  But if I isolate, the feeling that I'm totally on the outside and don't fit anywhere starts to swell.  And it gets harder and harder to come back from.

So .... love to you, my friends.  Hugs across the ethers to anyone needing or wanting one.   
 

[treesgrowslowly]

Hi Lookin,

I am still figuring out the balance between interacting with people who don't get it, and staying home and finding that peace in the solitude instead.

Like you said, it doesn't fill the hole. That is what I have found as well. We really don't have any control over how people show up for us.

But I do believe that there is a way through the losses and grief. Knowing where other people are at, it gives us a chance to decide, do we really want to show up for them in a more substantive way or not? I have started to see that what is hard for me is the desire to have more experiences where both people are showing up for each other and being present. And at this time of year, as you and I know, there's a lot of focus on the holiday and on the staying busy energy that a lot of people rely on (and a lot of that is probably because they are busy running around trying to make narcs happy!).  I find this time of year very 'triggering' when the focus for so many people, goes onto such superficial details.  That is very reminiscent of the way the PDs in my FOO were.

Trees

[Lookin 2 B Free]

For those who grew up celebrating Christmas, it's almost here.  For those of Jewish or other faiths and beliefs who never did, some of you may be having the "outside the mainstream" feeling for that reason, too.  I wish us all some peace of mind!

What you mentioned, Trees, about reciprocity has become very important to me.  Of course there's ebb and flow on both sides so there will be supportive friends who are just very busy right now and this isn't one of the things they've experienced (feeling estranged during holiday times).

There is a balance, as you said, and it's different for each of us.  I do need solitude, but I get more than enough of it since living alone.  The bigger need for me is connection even if  it can't always be with close, trusted friends. So then I try to connect with those around me, acquaintances, strangers, with or without talking.   Not the "fake happy" kind of connection. More realizing that each of us has our own struggles and we all want to feel safe and loved.  And remembering to hold the wish in my heart that every person I see may have just that.  That includes each and every one here.  Love to you. ❤️