Actually though, having said I am prepared, that's not really accurate. I feel like I have to BE prepared but I don't know how because in my life with my narcissistic parents, attacks always came unprovoked and out of nowhere. And you cannot prepare for that. You can just flinch and freeze and fawn and hope for the best. You also learn to be very hypervigilant, watching for signs of parent disapproval and anger. And sometimes those are very passive aggressive and and so you miss them. You think that mom or dad is happy when they are not. You don't get that their seemingly kind comments are facetious and sarcastic or not meant for you but someone else.
The amount of criticism and fault finding I heard over trivial things, destroyed my sense not only of confidence but of identity in general. I do not truly remember ever hearing a genuine compliment, that had no strings attatched or sting in the tail, from any of my four narcissistic parent authority figures.
It's funny because I don't have a lot of memory of time spent with my parents. They were always off doing their own thing and I was left my own devices very young. It would not have occurred to me to expect a parent to be there for me, like normal parents are. But then, weirdly as soon as I did something they considered out of line, bam! Suddenly they were right there with all kinds of criticism. I'm not exaggerating. I don't remember what my dad did, where he went or even dinners with either parent. He was just occasionally there. Same with my mom. And when they were, they weren't happy.
I walked on eggshells with both my bio parents even as a very young child. They were soooo easy to upset and annoy. I've tried but I cannot remember what I did to upset them. I just remember having a sick stomach and waiting anxiously to be told how I'd let them down. I recall being 3 years old and being taken to church. Now when I went with my grandparents all was well but when I went with my parents which was not as often as you might think, I would be routinely taken out of church. I realize later that this was an excuse for my dad to get out of it. But he had this way of making me feel like I had been naughty. I would anxiously ask, "was I good in church?" He wouldn't answer. Just acted pissed off.
I remember at 5, after they moved us to Alaska to go be missionaries to the Indians. I'm not kidding, this is how it was presented to me. We had no place to live the entire time we were there and squatted with people. I do not remember my mother ever preparing me a meal and I don't exactly know how we ate. Anyway they were doing something at whatever church we were in somewhere and I alone in a room where clothing was stored for the rummage sale. I was playing in the used clothes. I held up a gold lame top to my chest and said sexy, sexy. I think I was dancing around. I don't know where I would have seen that but anyway just a kid thing.
My dad, who happened to be there, usually he wasn't, looked in and saw me dancing around. He actually scared me because it was so unexpected to see him. I don't know where he sprang from. He yelled viciously for me to quit acting stupid. He said that I was saying disgusting things even though I didn't know what sexy meant. I thought it meant fancy. I felt like he had kicked me in the stomach and I started crying in shame. Every time I think of that now I just feel this self-disgust. It's things like this that have implanted very bad dreams and intrusive thoughts of being somehow trashy.
My dad was always was off on "mission trips" and trying to convert the Manson girls (not kidding). I don't know what he did. He was just gone. My mother was always too busy doing, I don't know what. But it was something more important than caring for me, evidently. Actually as I look back, she never did anything, just waited for everyone (including two elderly disabled native people) to do for her. Not me. Her. I also know there were strange men involved. I was left to wander alone. Sometimes I was left alone when she would go for days at a time. I remember feeling like such a burden. When she decided out of the blue to divorce my dad, she just dumped it on me and then when I started to cry because I thought I would not see my grandparents again, she got angry. She told me I was lucky. I don't know exactly how. So I quit crying because I could see that it made her mad. And that was that.
This sounds so outlandish that I sometimes wonder if I got it wrong. But I got confirmation backhandedly when I shared with my mom, some of my grampa's home movies from Alaska he took when they visited and then converted to VHS. When I asked if she enjoyed them, she spitefully told me that she heard my grandma's voice in the background saying that when they arrived "Jack went one way and Nancy went the other and left us with Marilisa." So when their parents traveled 3K miles to visit, they just took off and left us? 6 y/o me was the one showing them around the city in the places I played ALONE.
I thought it would make her happy. But apparently they held up a mirror and she didn't like what she saw. Narcissistic injury that's called. And this was something she couldn't lie her way out of. So she twisted it to seem like I only shared to hurt her. And then punished me by snottily saying that Grama said they were "stuck" with Marilisa. What she was saying was where the hell are Jack and Nancy and why are they neglecting her and who in this strange unfamiliar place is taking care of Marilisa when we're not here??
That was that, is kind of the story of My Life. I have had to process enormous and chaotic changes with alarming frequency. Since I was given no skills or assistance, I had no idea how to go about coping. I still don't cope very well because I'm more concerned with what's expected of me than how I actually feel about the situations. This is the constant state of confusion. Confused about how to think about or frame changes. And the changes are 99% of the time, dumped on me without warning. Major things that required discussion and input and support, I have just navigated alone.
And then when I got married I had gotten in the habit of letting other people dictate how my life would be. It still fills me with panic to express a contrary opinion or ask to be included. About things that affect me and people that I am responsible for. Thank God I ended up with a husband who didn't weaponize that as much as he could have. I do not say no very well. I don't even know what I think about many things. When you are never given a voice or a choice or taught that you should have a voice and a choice, you don't develop the skills you need.
All of my life, I've heard about everyone else's plans, wants, needs. And I thought it was my job to make that happen. They talk at me like I'm a wall. If I do make a decision on my own, I run it past everyone and her brother. I feel like I have to ask permission for everything. The other night, my husband was up late with a project and I was tired. I asked if it was okay if I went to bed.
Even my loving unselfish husband does this to some extent. Probably because I've taught him to. Anyway, he has been talking about retiring for awhile. And I've been encouraging. And for the first time in my life, I realized that I could decide when to collect my social security as well. It sounds stupid. But despite working all my life, it never occurred to me that I would retire too. I've always been more backdrop than actor in the play of my life.
I have spent the majority of my life shooting from the hip as it were. Hitting the ground running, with no preparation because things were just sprung on me. How can you possibly prepare for chaos? And the crazy shit that my parents put me through you cannot make that up! There is no rule book or guide book. The Bible that was always quoted at me has no insight into how to deal with malignant, self-centered, arrogant, manipulative, bullying, irresponsible, hypocritical, Machiavellian narcissist parents.
Psychology doesn't have answers either. These people are beyond all boundaries of common sense and healthy interaction. Growing up with them, and then when they divorced, with their also narcissistic new folks, every day was a fresh ordeal. So I am left to maybe not make it up as I go along but kind of. Life is endless learning curve in which I don't know what I'm supposed to be learning.
No comments:
Post a Comment