Devoid of empathy = toughnut!

[eternallystuck]

Does anyone else have an n parent that waxes lyrical about how tough they are (& how subsequently soft you are?)

I want to roll my eyes back into the 17th century everytime she starts up

My m justifies her lack of empathy, lack of connection & snappy rude ignorance as being a toughnut. Me wanting an m I can speak to and confine in without her using it as ammo is me being 'soft' apparently. I'm soft when I cry after her screeching in my ears too. Not human.  She didn't get on with her m so I just need to get over it. I find it astonishing how easy npd m's find it to discard offspring but then I realise it's cos they don't have the same conscience or empathy - it really is easy for them to shrug their shoulders at the collateral damage they've done and continue their life. They don't suffer, they don't yearn to bond or repair. She often mocks me saying things like 'I'm eternally stuck I keep it REAL haha what a load of ****!' & then proceeds to call me all kinds of names. I have always got that knee jerk response from her anytime I try to discuss how her vile behaviour affects my mental health, which it does. If that is me being obnoxious by stating facts & holding her to account, so be it. Me trying to have open dialogue is me being self righteous & thinking I'm better than her apparently. She's hellbent on denial . Granted I accept she will have had to toughen up with my erratic gm but she doesn't realise she went way too far the other way.  All her enablers see it, you see it in their faces she's intolerable & unpredictable but it's only the black sheep that actually points out the elephant in the room.

I hear these droning toughnut lectures all the time and they always read as some kind of slightly insecure self justifying monologue as to why she's a stubborn dominant person . No matter the topic, she is the expert on it. She will butt in & overthrow you- you are inferior bla bla bla. It's worse when she talks about work Cos it goes on forever. I would love to live stream it on tv for peoples amusement. She currently has an arch enemy at work bc she dared to question her on something. So you hear at least 4 impressions a day of this woman & she's really not letting it die. She can't see that she is aggressive st all

It baffles me how she actually derives pride from being like this because it's healthy or conducive to healthy relationships at all . She never cries, never takes accountability, rarely listens, is defensive, critical, cruel, punishing and uses angry outbursts to overpower people & wear them down. I wouldn't class that as an emotionally strong person- rather someone who has numbed themself, become self absorbed & doesn't allow vulnerability . How does one go through life being so ignorant?

[practical]

Being told you were tough was the seal of approval, while being soft was being deemed less than a worm.

From what I have seen with F, being tough also meant being in control and that is what it was ultimately about. Nothing was going to get the better of him, he was going to toughen out anything and everything.

I wouldn't class that as an emotionally strong person- rather someone who has numbed themself, become self absorbed & doesn't allow vulnerability . How does one go through life being so ignorant?

No, it isn't a sign of emotional strength, for me it is a sign of having shut out everything out of fear, and this is how somebody like F not just could but needed to go through the world. His fear of loosing control was absolute, it is were many of his reactions, ways of interactions stem from in my estimate. If he wasn't tough, wouldn't shut out the feelings, he would have lost control and drowned, disintegrated. You could see that fear in his eyes sometimes, it was really sad.