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The Narcissist


Wobbles

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AveMaria

I cut loose because I owed it to myself.

If I am loveable and was just a mere target for others ventings, then so were you.

In the least arrogant way possible, read my posts, as you seem to mirror me.

Am I right in saying there was a strong link with Roman Catholicism? Not knocking it, reason I ask is because there was with me too, and I get the familiar whiff.

What evils have you committed that I havent?

Exactly, none, so like me, you deserve to put yourself first.

Sorry if I got the RC thing wrong.

From your posts, emotional abuse was on the menue, big time for you, if you dont mind me saying.

Therefore, you deserve healing.

I cant justify verbally to my family, my cutting ties, because their defensive barriers are too high and toxic.

I can justify it to myself though.

Self preservation. It is important to distinguish this important human, and very necessary instinct, from selfishness. Selfishness being, hurting or negalecting others for your own purpose.

I canot see anywhere in your posts, which indicate you are selfish, but I can sense a lack of self preservation.

I also liked how you articulated the issues on having an opinoin.

I liked the way you articulated the right/wrong arguments.

These struck a chord with me, although I could not at the time, articulate them.

Its not a case of sob stories. Your emotional needs were not met, period.

Therefore, you do fit in, very much so, and you do deserve healing in the same way, that all other posters on this thread, and I.

I liked the way you wrote that you believed you were oversensitive, and this was a fault. This is incorrect of course. Again, like selfishness, it was our family who deflected their own offensiveness onto us, and dismissed us as being oversensitive.

Sensitiveity is a great gift. It is a creative resource. It is perceptivity.

It is to be cherished and nurtured and turned round to our advantage, so we can use it in a positive way.

Ever changing rules, are a modus operandi of a control freak.

That way, the person they are controlling is always uncertain. Always vigilant for changes, never knows what to expect.

You were not always wrong, they just said you were always wrong, because agreeing with you, would mean they have to open up to the possibility that their own life is not the perfect facade they try to convince themselves. They are masters of self deception.

To maintain this deceit, they are even prepared to hurt others. To stoop to levels of emotinal abuse, and manipulation. Then, they are too spineless to face it.

When you see that it is about their, and not your faults, it all clicks in.

Your not pathetic, worthless, etc, afterall.

It was all about their insecurity all along.

Their lack of coping skills.

Bollocks to anyone who encourages you to stick around to take more shit.

My sibilings were the same, but they were thinking of maintinng their own lies, above the truth, at the expense of my feelings, because they were too scared to face the truth, for the similar fears of mental upheaval reasons I have posted about in above posts.

Contrary to your belief about the 'rant' it flowed out beautifully, and like I said, even articulated things that hadnt crystallized in my own head, such as the right-or-wrong, the no-opinion, etc

I hope this posts goes some way to illustrating to you that you are entitled to do what the sweet fanny adams you want.

You owe nada to them.

My only thing, is like me, you put yourself down, unnecessarily.

Thanks for a great, thought provoking post.

Sorry for the dodgy spelling.

I am strugggling with the keyboard today for some reason. I touch type, see.

x

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Bipolar is referred to as just BP whilst borderline personality disorder is referred to as BPD, but this forum is for all kinds of mental health problems not just bpd.

:hug2: thanx

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I am on this thread but reading, as I feel the need to read to the end and hear others stuff, before I write more.

It also gives my wobbly fingers a rest.

see you soon

thanks all for this thread, and Wobbles for starting it.

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Wobbles

I can relate to the guilt you describe.

Mine may be different, and I think I can only retrospectively articulate it at a distance.

It was pseudo guilt.

I can't think exactly what, but mum used to brainwash me somehow into feeling obliged.

I will elaborate on this when I have had more sleep, so long as I am not feeling sensitive.

You know how it goes.

I will elaborate as soon as I can though.

I felt she brainwashed me into not being able to recognise when I was being bullied.

For instance, she would just walk into my bedroom without knocking.

Another thing is she would burst in my bedroom when I was sleeping while she was getting ready for an early start at work, and turn on the light.

When I tried to challenge what I thought was a bit disrespectful, I got comments like selfish, petty, etc.

My family brainwashed me into believing I was self obsessed and selfish, yet here, where I live, I get the feeling, people around me think I am too unassertive.

I am often being ticked off by friends who think I am not standing up to others who are exoloitative.

I think my friends, here have the most accurate perception.

I dont take their tickings off as criticism, or cruel, as they are true, and the comments are delivered in a respectful way, such as "SW, you ought to be more firm with people, as XXXXXX is clearly taking a lend"

I believed my family manipulated my mind.

What do I owe them? nada.

I used to do alot of housework for my mum, me, a girl who should be out exploring the world.

I had no choice.

They used to victimize me, and then call me a victim.

They tret me like a maid, then called me a slave.

Your post has given me food for thought, though, as I am wondering, only wondering though, whether the close proximity clouded my views, so my priorities were all wrong.

EG, do this for mum, to keep her sweet.

I had to pay close attention to my pronuniciaton of words to my mum, so I couldnt even have a relaxed conversation with her.

I remember feeling I ought to respect her, but Wobbles, honestly, right now, these are only vague notions.

I am tending towards close proximity distorting my views, but am opening my mind to see what else comes up.

Maybe I had another motive to feel 'duty' to them.

Maybe if I dont wipe their arses when they are old, like they did with me as a baby, I will owe them.

I doubt it strongly though.

The way I feel towards my parents, I wouldnt trust myself to be around them, if they were alone and vulnerable, as I am still very disturbed, and may be a violence risk to them, due to my fragile mind.

I am not boasting, as I am soft in this respect.

It is more an admission of my ego fragility, to say, if mum or dad needed looking after, while sick, and I got asked, I seriously think they would be at risk.

The unresolved anger in me says "Mum/Dad, your in bed ill, and vulnereable, and we are alone, the tables are turned"

I like to think I am a bigger person than that, although the neanderthal in me is tempted.

I would not put myself in that position.

They made themselves look abusers of vulnerables, but why should I, I am better.

I owe them sweet FA.

OK they brought me up, they gave me life, but they did not allow me to live it.

My mum must have played some guilt cards, for me to stay so long.

I didnt leave home till 26.

I hadnt the confidence to thrive on my own till then.

Till I could stand no more, and obtained a cheap house, of which I have moved from since.

I do not deny, it is painful to watch our mums let their wounds fester, and splurt out infectious pus, with no apparent regard, to whom that pus infects.

I resent my mum for not having the courage to heal, but at times when it really gets to me, I remind myself that there are things that I havent got the courage to look at and deal with in my own life.

I also think, if I were in her situation, I would have responded exactly the same, as the circumstances surrounding the issue would be the same. Had I have had all of her experiences that go up to make her character, then I would also be operating the same defensive barriers as her.

This helps me put myself in her shoes, but does not mean I am guilty or owe her anything.

Its all about personal responsibility.

For me, self healing is priority, for mum, all I can do, is wish her insight and guidance, and no more.

I think, yes, like you say, we should concentrate on our feelings about the issue, and how it affects us. What does it mean to us etc. When we ask ourselves questions like this, we find answers come to us. May not be straight away, but they do come.

I am concentrating on the same, starting with internal, as there is no external for me, it is on hold, until further developments in the process takes place.

And, it is a process.

I am in no position to advise you on what to do, and you sound like you have a very good handle on things, a great understanding, and a willingness to explore your feelings on the issue.

For what its worth, a suggestion, but can take or leave, maybe do what I am doing, asking myself questions about what it all means to me, and other stuff.

I even wrote a load of pages in a notepad last night, but it felt great, like I had talked to someone.

Seeing that she's not just a bitch, there is reason for her toxicity did wonders for helping me twoards coming to terms with what mum did.

The unlovable, and useless wrong beliefs, do seem to just dissolve on realising there is a reason for their toxicity, dosen't it?

I wish I could find a metaphor to illustrate that, but a dissolution does take place.

A bit like, "Ice is ice, no more, when you pour warm water on it, as it can not be ice, then"

I hope that anaology makes sense to you.

If not, again, I will xplain.

I also wish you more LB moments, and I hope your journey continues and you find peace.

Again, sorry the post is long, wolly, and some real dodgy spellings but your posts are actually helping me in a massive way, as they are opening up various questions in my own mind, such as those stated above.

x

SW, i firstly need to apologise because all this time i've assumed that you were a bloke. I'm sorry.

The brainwashing i can definitely relate to. Mother has been brainwashing me forever to believe that what she's been doing is normal, that it's been me that's 'wrong'. It's me that's selfish, a bully, manipulative and volatile. When in fact it's her and always been her. I remember she used to tell outrages stories about me and my sister. We were at a family reunion one year with people i'd never met, and she told them, while i was standing there, that she had bought us some boxing gloves, and then when we start arguing, she sends me and my sister outside with the gloves and we would punch each other up. A complete lie, and one i called her on in front of everyone. Oh boy did i pay for it later on.

Even now, she tells stories, and i can't tell whether she actually believes the stories herself, is seriously deluded, or she knows she's telling complete furfies. And it always seems to be to discredit me in some way and make me look like a very bad person, and herself out to be a victim of me. I had relatives who used to shout at me because of what mother had told them, when i knew it was bullshit, but couldn't fight against these adults.

She tells lies to her boyfriend to make she looks like the victim, and me the bad guy, and of course he doesn't see or hear my side of things, and he has given me shit in the past because of the crap she's told him.

I understand what you mean about pseudo-guilt. It is misplaced, and unreasonable, false and manipulation. Mother has always used guilt trips to try and get what she wants, and it worked for so many years, that now i'm conditioned to feel guilty about completely inappropriate things, and feel responsible for everyone and everything around me. It's not real guilt, it's enforced guilt from someone who had no control of their own emotions, and no realistic perspective of what emotions were appropriate.

I feel i don't owe my mother anything either, but she has on many many ocassions attempted to make me feel as though i owe her everything and always will because she did me the favour and inconvenience to herself by bringing me into the world, making sacrifices for me, and bringing me up. She offers favours, and gifts now, and i always refuse.

Recently, she has offered to give me the money to pay for my sons airfares back to Aus, but of course there are unreasonable conditions attached such as, my son MUST call her boyfriend grandad or pop, that she can see him whenever she wants, and that i have to talk to her about the fact that i don't want contact wit her. She can't grasp the concept, and reasons why i do not want her boyfriend being called Pop or the like as he is not my father. She has always tried to push her boyfriends on to me, expects me to see them as my fathers replacement, because they have been her husbands replacement, and has never understood why it has been difficult for me. Especially when her boyfriend moved in 6 weeks after dad killed himself and i was expected to play happy families while she sat by and watched him abuse me for not being happy at xmas, forgetting it was only 6 weeks after my father had topped himself. And while he told me that i need to grow up and get over it, when 4 months fter my dad died, my grandfather also died and my grandmother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He had lost his parents afterall, even though he was in his 40's at the time, and he got over it, so should i. She always supported her boyfriends over me, and then used me as an excuse to break up with the boyfriends when she was sick of them, making me responsible for it, and then calling me ungrateful when she'd broken up a relationship because of me. WTF!?!?!

I'm always worried about talking about the things mum did for fear that people will tell me 'Well thats not that bad, what are you whinging about?' yet more invalidation.

What sort of things have you been writing, if you don't mind me asking? I find writing things down, is extremely helpful, and allows me to process things in a healthy, constructive way.

I understand your analogy, and i agree with you, but i feel there is more work to be done for successful dissolution, as i'm still too angry and hurt to feel anything else, and also afraid of what going back to aus is going to bring. But i can't stay here.

I'm really glad you have friends around you who are looking out for you and helping you put things into perspective in regards to how people treat you.

I've also read your last post, and i agree that every family has a particular, specific and unique dynamic. There is always one black sheep, one favourite, one achiever, one loser, one good parent, one bad, and you're suppose to fit into the box that your family has put you in. If you rebel, then you're just adding to the space you occupy within the family, adding fuel to the fire, so to speak. And yes our siblings must go along with this dynamic, because that is their position within it to do so.

I hope you get a good nights sleep tonight.

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I am on this thread but reading, as I feel the need to read to the end and hear others stuff, before I write more.

It also gives my wobbly fingers a rest.

see you soon

thanks all for this thread, and Wobbles for starting it.

yeah v good thread wobblesx

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Wobbles

hahahahhhahhah @ the me as a bloke thing, and no I don't mind at all. :)

Thanks for sharing some really awful experiences.

It sounds like you have had a lot of loss to deal with, surrounded by emotionally immature people, who probably couldn't rather than wouldn't help you.

Maybe no one grasps the deviousness of abusive parents, until they have experienced it themselves.

Even then, the receiver of the abuse, is often so manipulated, they even doubt themselves.

I know I did for a long time.

It sounded like you mums insensitive boyfriend, never really did handle his lossses/bereavements, but told you to grow up and get over it, in anger at himself, for maybe your bereavement brought back pangs of his own bereavement, so he lashed out at you verbally. I'm no bereavement counsellor though.

Anyone who needs to tell lies and spin webs of untruths, is a very lost person indeed.

What's their reality? Do they even know themselves? Why the need to lie.

I remember my Dad lying about loving being with his kids, to my sis in law, and, although he did apend, all his work leave days, driving us all over the uk on days out, many of those days, at least one of us got a good hiding, as he had to vent his anger. I associate days out with hassle now, and grief.

Materially good, but emotionally minus so it rendered the lot worthless.

And no, I didnt dare call him up on it.

This is where adults behave like kids, and what worse, they often use the kids as bait/pawns.

They are over image conscious, superficial vapid people, as to go anything deeper than surface level is searing pain for them.

So much so, they would rather deny it, and deflect it onto their environment.

When I left home, but still lived within shit distance of mum, I still kept them at arms length.

She used to chastise me for not letting myself be helped.

She would roll her eyes in dismissiveness, when I said, I just found family life, too overhelming.

Nothing I said was valid, but I think, deeep down, she knew my protests were valid, and I had hit a sore nerve, which she wasnt prepared to look at, resulting in verbal attacks.

I think once I realised this, another chunk of abusive self beliefs fell away, much in the same way chunks of ice fall of a melting iceberg, the iceberg still unmelted, being a metaphor for our repository of negative beliefs, yet to be realised as negative.

Pseudo guilt, too, once we see the pseudo, down crashes more melting ice from the berg.

I can relate to your refusal of her offerings, as I did the same, except for times, when she forced stuff onto me, and it seemed too much hassle to refuse.

Everything will have an agenda with people like this, unti we know for fact that profound changes have occured.

I would always be wary of any thing, any favour, or any offering my mum put my way, because, I would feel there is an adjenda behind it, her own, even if she is not aware.

She has no right to make your son call her boyfriend 'pop' - that is her, trying to impose her will onto someone else.

When that happens, nothing good comes of it in my book.

It sounds like the control is already starting.

Wouldnt your son resent being made to call someone a name, he hasnt volitionally chosen to do so of his own will?

I made all of our communication in writing, because people like my mum, dont do 'talking to' they only do 'talking at'

Textual communication, gave me the control and power.

Guess what, she hasnt written anything but superficial bollocks, so now the textual communication is cut.

I cannot, of course advise you what to do, but I can see the potential harm in being around her again.

Maybe, I am biased though, as I got to a stage where I had to move away from my parents and to stay was more scary a prospect.

I dont really want to meddle in how your mum felt about losing her husband, but it dosent smell healthy at all.

Her response to it, the time factor, the boyfriends, - maybe some of them give her shit too, in addition to her old stuff.

My Dad was abusive to my mum, and I regret not giving him a piece of my mind.

I let rip in a letter though, and told him I was disgusted by the way he spoke to mum.

I can't say whether they read it, or binned it, or one read it and kept it from the other.

There were several letters, and I confess, I did vent my sleen in them, and attacked them, maybe even abusively. In relation to all the shit they gave me, though, I dont feel too bad, as I also put some very wise words in the last letter.

Maybe read your post again, and instead of coming from the standpoint of 'have to go to oz', maybe ask yourself, 'can i realistically expect to go back to oz and not get shit, given how my mum is behaving now?'

That's just a suggestion, and I dont want to meddle in your life, as it would not be my place to.

I get the same feeling of anticipated responses of 'Well thats not that bad, what are you whinging about?' and yes, it is yet more invalidation.

I also fear that there are others whove had it worse than me in life, but that's just me invalidating myself, mirroring my parents.

We can only feel our own experiences, and heal our own pain, what is catastrophic for one person, is a walk in the park, in comparison, to another, and vice-versa.

As for my writing, I have been getting any fears or negativities down on paper, and then, rewording it into it's positive. I feel the rewording bit is important, as something happens inside to change the current perspective on fear.

For instance, I will write down a resetment beefing at the time, just to get it out of my head, but to leave things at that stage, may I feel, just leave a space for more negativic thoughts to come into mny head.

This is why I reword the paragraph of negativity describing my beef, into its positive, as this is where this dissolving process happens.

I think rewording it into its posistve helps the actual positive outcome come along, because it opens our mind to think of the positive.

An example would be, "I feel pissed off at the stagnant state of my family rift, because shit is still happening" to be changed to "My relationship with my family is in this state, at this time, and I realise, all I can do, is wish them guidance and insight, to dislodge thieir negativity, after which, good shit will happen'

No negative words at all, I think I read somehwere that the subcosncious mind does not recognize 'minus words' like 'not', 'dont', and in a way I can see why, but I cant quite articulate it.

Words like 'is' 'will' 'can' etc can only be recognized by the subcionccioius.

This dosent mean lying to ourselves, its like a word game, but it really does push the subconscious mind onwards in my opinion.

Its important for me to be totally honest with myself, when doing this, if I space out, or get that false feeling in my belly, I know, what is in my mind, is not what's going down on paper.

I can only write in a certain mindframe, too, so I exploit that.

I don't force it, as this is when I am more likely to fool myself, by beleiveing one of my own lies, or negativity seeping through, and not getting addressed, thus affecting my choices in life.

Again, not wanting to meddle, but I would challenge yorself about the belief that you cant stay here.

Maybe, try doing the above thing, I just described about positive words, and see what opens up for you, you never know, possibilites open up to us, when our awareness shines on them, they are there, we are just not seeing them.

This is where my notes help me.

I am stil very emotionally fragile though.

I have alot to work though.

Its that iceberg thing.

I stil have resentments, angers, biternesses, with mum, and could not evenvisage living near her, in my story, as things stand.

I once must have believed it was imposible for me to leave my mum, as I stayed living with her till age 26. But maybe that was just because I perhaps never opened myself up to possiblities, so I never saw them, and therefore, believed they were not there.

I am a hermit, who has lots of acccquaintances, but no real friends. I am ok with this though, and its another processs I am going through.

I am sure I will learn to connect down the road, but like the mum thing, stilll have work to do, before I get there.

I need solutidude at the minute too, and alot of it.

I hope you find this readable.

Whilst I love wrighting, I hate typing, or the handwork, so I realise there is loads of typos, but I hope my words are readable.

x

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