Realizing 28 years later that I was raised by a Narcissist.

Started by Liebeliebe123, December 03, 2019, 12:18:07 AM

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Liebeliebe123

Hi all,

I wanted to share my story because I feel as though through narration, it helps with accepting the reality of things. 

I've lived most of my life not knowing I was emotionally and physically abused. I've also lived most of my life not knowing my Dad is a narcissist. I'm a clinical social worker, so I feel confident in my ability to assess other's mental health statuses, but not when it comes to the person who raised me, or even my own.

My brothers and I were told growing up that family is above all, blood is thicker than water, whatever happens in our house stays in our house, we don't share things about our family to anyone, no one is as good as our family. This was a view bestowed upon us from my dad. There were some weeks/weekends when I wasn't able to hang out with my friends. There were some weeks when I was only allowed to see my friends my dad allowed me to see (but it was forbidden to hang out with friends two nights in a row and more than for a couple of hours). I wasn't allowed to go to sleepovers. I wasn't allowed to have friends over because "they were too dirty" and my dad "didn't want people being inside of our house". There was one morning I went to school without making my bed, and I later received a voicemail from my dad calling me "a disgusting pig" and for everything he has done for me "why couldn't I remember to make my damn bed". There were times when my dad ignored me for weeks on end until I came to him and apologized for making him upset, or not "giving him the respect a father deserves"(but most of the times, I wasn't even really sure what I had done in the first place). There were times he would choke me because I had an attitude and wasn't "being respectful enough". There were times he would slap me. There were times he'd yell at me so loudly and so close to my face that I would be covered in his spit. My brothers never got treated this way. He would yell at them, but he would rarely use the words he used to describe me. He still hit them, but he never choked them or pinned them down to the ground. That was for me. I was the bad kid.

I thought this was normal. My dad gave us a nice house to live in, I never had to worry about having food on the table, I was able to buy new clothes (with his approval of course), I lived in a safe neighborhood, he made breakfast for me every morning during the school week, he made my school lunch every day, he bought me a car my senior year of high school. My mom went back to medical school when I was 11, so my dad "picked up the role of both father and mother and how lucky I am that he did that for us".  So if he had to spit on me, or take my door off the hinges for a month, or ignore me for days, I figured I deserved it, right? I was just a bad kid. He did all of this for me and I didn't have the decency to be a good enough kid for him. To show him gratitude for all of the sacrifices he made for the family.

Well, here I am 28 years later, and I am just now realizing that this wasn't normal. My dad isn't normal. My dad is sick and I thought it was me who was sick.

I've been in therapy for over a year now, and if it weren't for my therapist, I would have never found this forum and I would have never read your stories and realized that I'm not alone. I'm not alone, when for all of these years, I thought I was different from everyone. That I was less, that I didn't deserve what other people had because I'm inherently a bad person. Let's be honest, I still feel that way sometimes. It shows through my people pleasing tendencies, it shows through my poor choices in romantic partners, it shows through my overachievement and need for perfection at work, and it shows through my inability to sit still, because if I sit still, that's when the shame begins to wash over me. Shame for just existing.

My question for others who may be able to relate to my story is: how do you deal with your trauma responses throughout your daily life? Every time a friend takes a long time to respond to a text message, the anxiety and the shame completely take over "they hate me, I did something wrong, they're avoiding me, they're ignoring me because I messed up, I said the wrong thing". Or recently, I had a man I was dating for a short period of time tell me he wanted to end things between us and pursue something with another woman, and I just went into a spiral. I felt abandoned. I felt unloveable. I felt like I was "the bad kid" again. I felt shameful that I couldn't be good enough for him to want to stick it out with me. I felt like I was back in that house with my dad.

Any thoughts, advice, similar experiences etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Best,
A






notrightinthehead

Welcome! I am so glad you found us and I am sorry you needed to.
As for your question, I don't have an answer but I am experimenting with radical acceptance at the moment. I try to totally accept the feeling, like you describe - a friend takes long to reply and I am overwhelmed by a feeling of abandonment, worthlessness, annihilation - allow it to wash over me while at the same time watching myself with kindness and detachment and eventually being rational about it.  It seems to be working so far.
There will be other  suggestions and I am sure you will find lots of information in the TOOLBOX and on the forum. See you around.
I can't hate my way into loving myself.

Free2Bme

L123
I am sorry for the painful journey that has brought you to this place.  It is better to be living in the truth though, rather that in a place where we cover our pain.  I don't think you are unusual or alone in your experiences or reactions to things that have happened to you.  I think it is possible to learn to navigate our trauma responses. 

My T has explained to me that I have created coping mechanisms to help me endure certain situations.  These are learned responses that are no longer useful to me, but I can easily keep returning to them as a familiar habit if I am not careful.  It is helpful to me to try and separate my thoughts and feelings.  If I can work on changing my tendency to default to these coping mechanisms and replace them with healthier ones, than I can overcome.  It takes time, but I am beginning to see progress.  You are so brave, trust that you will discover new strengths you never knew you had.

Our brains build pathways based on thought process that we repeat over and over.  It is very possible to retrain our brains so that these traumatic events do not have such power over us. 

You are not alone, be patient with yourself as you grow 
Peace & Comfort   :bighug:

gmp

A,

Omg, your post spoke to me sooo much. All of it. Especially this part.... Word for word - same here, my friend...

“That I was less, that I didn't deserve what other people had because I'm inherently a bad person. Let's be honest, I still feel that way sometimes. It shows through my people pleasing tendencies, it shows through my poor choices in romantic partners, it shows through my overachievement and need for perfection at work, and it shows through my inability to sit still, because if I sit still, that's when the shame begins to wash over me. Shame for just existing.”

I’m a woman also with a narcissist father who treated me like the bad kid. (Not to mention the layers of shame that fundamentalist christianity piled on me.)

Anyway, it sounds like you are far down the healing journey just by recognizing all of this. I’d recommend David Richo’s books, and maybe even Eckhardt Tolle. I’ve also got a LOT out of studying Stoicism. Anyway, if you need a penpal in the same boat to chat with, let me know your email address or how to send a private message on this forum, and I’d love to chat. 

Self acceptance and self love are sooo important. Way more important than what anyone else thinks. The older I get (I’m 39), the more clear this becomes to me, although I still haven’t mastered it.

p123

Same with me. As I've got older and Dads got older (and worse) I look back at my childhood with fresh eyes and realise hes always been like this.

My Dads classic symptom is getting others to run around doing things for him. Looking back over the years, I can see all the bad decisions hes made, the people hes driven away, the times hes got people to do things for him.

Like I said, as hes got old, hes got more needy but it was always there.