A Narcissist’s Son

Dear My Co-Dependant Mother

Dear Mother,

You know I will always love you.

You were always there for me. You had to do the job of both father and mother. You took me to school, clothed, fed, cooked…everything.

I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you, thrown on the street by father.

I wish that you stood up to him, that you told him that he was wrong. I know that was hard, probably dangerous for you. I saw when he hit you with the shoe, when I was a young boy. I don’t think I told you though. You both made up quite fast and I didn’t want to spoil it for you.

I know that you couldn’t stand up to him directly…none of us could. I wish that maybe you could have told me that he was wrong though. That way, I wouldn’t have believed that I was always wrong. It took me a long time to realise that I am not worth living, its difficult not to believe this when both your parents say you are wrong all the time, but when one disagrees with another there is hope. I wish you could have given me that hope.

But I understand and I will always love you. Please stop worrying. I’ve learnt that people worry a lot because their mind wants to distract them from some-thing else in their lives. I know how difficult it is for you to face up to what happened in our family- its easier not to think about it, I know. I do the same.

I understand that you want to pretend it all never happened. And that you are happy like that. I just want you to know that I am happy where I am now too- Im sorry for trying to make you see so much, I was just trying to help. But I will never forget all you have done for me and the struggles you faced to hold us all together- it may have been a lie, but it kept us going at least…so it was worth it.

Love you always.

 

 

Why I Avoid the Irritating “Entrepreneur”

The above video, “The Entrepreneur Life”- is a brilliant video encompassing the aspects of speaking to an “entrepreneur” which is irritating and frustrating yet it’s difficult to put a finger on exactly why.

Often, the “entrepreneur” in our lives is essentially being spiteful and rude, covered up by this vision they have of themselves in the future, which is usually grandiose and unrealistic but puts that person on a pedestal over every-one who has a job and works for an employer.

Its the whole message behind the “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” book by Robert Kiyosaki again. I read this book when I was a teenager and it is a thought provoking book. I don’t recommend buying it though- It waffles on but basically its major point can be summarised in – to be rich you must own the ladder, not work up it. 

Kiyosaki has a point- I will be never be richer than those who own a company. Yet, I and many of the billions of people who work around the world for an employer, don’t want to or have no desire whatsoever to own the company. Academics throughout the world- physicists, educators, doctors, philosophers, the brains of the future- many of them enjoy working for companies, for the company gives them the security  so that they can focus on their skills.

So, the problem I have with the 21st Century entrepreneur craze is the judgement they  hold for those of us who choose to work for some-one else, assuming we are lazy or have no balls.

The second annoyance I have with entrepreneurs is the need to monetise everything. I write this blog not to monetise, I write for the organisation of my own thoughts, as do many people who own a blog-hence I can put a picture of a cat on this post regardless of its lack of relevance, which I would not be able to do if my aim was for money. I also play the saxophone for no monetary interest. Speak to a “entrepreneur” – “why haven’t you monetised your blog?”- Because I don’t want to. 

The third and not final irritance of the entrepreneur is the need for it to be a “glamorous” entrepreneur. If, for example, I travelled to china and found a dealer of socks to give me a competitive price and then sold it on eBay or in a shop, I would not be considered to be a entrepreneur. Even if I invented the sock to be slightly different than other socks and sold it on Ebay, I probably wouldn’t belong in the club. If however, I desire a tech company, even if I have made no steps to attain a tech company for the last ten years, the mere fact that I desire such a company places me higher in the entrepreneurial glamour status system than others.

To summarise, for all those entrepreneurs out their who have made no money, are still  living off their parents and have been doing so for many years and spend their social life gloating to their friends in full time jobs about how free they feel, my advice to you is that no-one cares. Get yourself a job, a house, a car, a marriage, children and retire like the rest of us- it really isn’t that bad, you would not be a failure and you can actually focus on what interests you.

 

 

 

Dear My Narcissistic Father

Dear Father,

Firstly, I have to thank you…for you made me the man I am today.

But…I refuse to forsake all my positive aspects to you whilst I burden the negative.

For this is what you desire, the way your mind exists encompasses a “black and white” understanding of the world, a world where my qualities are distinguished by the superior belonging to you, whilst the inferior belongs to the lack of you, or rather… me. A world that I believed for so long and one that made me despise myself.

It is the lack of you that made me the man I am today, along with your presence.

I am grateful for the restaurant dinners once in a while, the fact that I did not have a hungry childhood, that I had warmth, shelter…games to play with. I am grateful for your presence, even though it was mainly just physical.

I am grateful that your constant criticism motivated me to get into university and the  self criticism that persisted produced my degree. Here, I struggle, for it is true that without it would I have become “successful”? My success comes from self doubt, a lack of self worth, a preference to suicide if I was not to succeed, my fear so strong that I lived my life believing I was followed by cameras, watching and criticising my every room, till I was perfect. Yet, without you, it is true, maybe I wouldn’t continue to strive for an unattainable moment of success…as for me, I am incapable of believing anything other than I will never be good enough.

I am grateful also, that you were present but distant. That you were never truly reachable. That any attempt to communicate with you led to criticism, anger or months of silence. It was this that fuelled my curiosity into you. I wondered for years who you are, what made you the way you are, how you were bought up…did you have it tough? Was that what it was? I’m not sure if you knew, but the reason why I used to ask you to walk down the street with me was not because I needed your advice. It was that I wanted to understand you. It was my inquisitiveness of you that led to my interest in psychiatry. It was the question of whether you were Aspergers or Narcissistic, the difficulties of a fit in the box diagnostic approach and the question of whether you are mad or bad or both…this was my childhood dilemma.

I still now, look forward to your invitation to dinner. For it is the brief moment that I can pretend that I am loved by you. Please continue to invite me.

Finally, I am sorry that I will always be angry with you. These are wounds from childhood…the ignored, voiceless, inner child. As a result, it becomes too painful to attend my girlfriend’s family events, because I shed a tear if I see a father play with a ball with his son. She will never understand.

Yes, it is likely that I will always remain angry with you but it has lessened over time. I have come to learn that you are who you are because you too are like me. You did not have a father when you grew up. You did not get to play, but you had it worse. You did not have the nice dinners, the money or the games to sit in your room and play with. You were raised without money. In your anger, you swore to yourself that you would raise your children better and you thought that money is love, for you had no experience of money…nor of love.

I understand this now, for I too now ultimately want to raise my children as a father who loves them, to heal what I didn’t get from you. I wonder what my children will grow up being angry at me for…it may be something that I am unaware of too.

I don’t want to be bitter, father. Or live my life in anger. It is not something that you would notice regardless, but it wouldn’t benefit me…or my future. Building the blocks of self worth on a poor foundation is painstakingly long, with relapses not uncommon, but from believing one is nothing, one can only go upwards. The utmost goal is not that of richness or “success” or other vices to stabilise an insecure ego through narcissistic grandiosity, it is instead that of wholeness and integrity.

 

 

 

 

 

Why Our Partner Is So Much Like Our Parent

I really like this video.

It demonstrates well the link between our choice of partner and our understanding of love and affection from our relationship with our parents.

It tells us how we re-inact our past within our current relationships, where we either “seek out the fault of a parent in a partner, or mimic a fault of a parent in a partner”. 

Very relevant for those of us who have been in an unstable relationship….and wonder why we keep attracting abusive, unstable relationships within our lives.

On a more positive note…Happy New Year!

Caring, For His or Her Own Satisfaction

“Like the proverbial husband who works all day to support his crippled wife, yet would probably abandon her were she to regain her health and become a successful career woman. It is much more satisfying to sacrifice oneself for the poor victim than to enable the other to overcome their victim status and perhaps become even more successful than ourselves.”- Slavoj Zizek, Living in the End Times

Wishing a Narcissistic Free Merry Christmas

For many of us, christmas is a difficult time. 

Why?

As much as we deny, try to forget, go no contact or leave it all in the past, the houses around us decorated in christmas lights, with the image of the happy children opening their christmas presents gives us no solace from the constant reminder of what we have not had, or what we desperately seek to forget.

We may be facing christmas alone this year. 

Those of us further on in our journey to recovery may have built our new network, who soothe our christmas to feel somewhat normal, a normality which will be cherished, but still bringing about mixed feelings of anger to what we lacked in our past, with new found hope of what we can continue to have in the future.

I wish not to pretend that a christmas wish from myself or from any-one will make this a happier time. Deception is never welcomed by those of us who have experienced what we have.

But let me say this. That we can celebrate what we do have, which is insight into the madness that we now see in its true form, that we no longer are bound to be a part of in darkness. 

We all remain together, our trauma from our past helps us find one another, to help one another and to be there for each other in a way that we have never experienced.

We seek normality and christmas is a reminder of our abnormality, but it is our abnormality that is what makes us who we are and gives us our identity.

Celebrate your christmas as the symbol of your courage to make the difficult journey away from the comfort of ignorance and delusion to that of sound mind in reality. 

You are stronger than you give yourself credit for. I admire you. 

Merry Christmas 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learning from the Narcissist: Our Unconscious Relationship Choice

I was bought up in a  typical household dynamic where one parent is a Narcissist. 

My Father: The Narcissist, self absorbed, no capacity to empathise, manipulative.

Nothing new there.

What is often forgotten or unspoken of, is the other side to the coin…

My Mother: A dependant, anxious, somatiser. Again, completely self absorbed. Almost always the victim, even when she is the predator.

It was a typical narcissistic/co-dependant relationship.

As a child, I was unable to see the true nature of my mother. For what tends to happen is that when the love and affection that a child needs is spread too thin, the child will look for any morsel of love he can get. This is what sets the ground for the idealisation of the father and devaluation of the mother, or vice versa, which sets the child towards the foundation of developing the narcissistic personality themselves.

What can we learn from this typical dynamic we grow into?

For many years, I wondered why my mother would stay with my abusive father. I could not understand why she wouldn’t walk away, nor why, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary, she would believe that my father treated her well.

From a Kleinian understanding of the “splitting” prevalent within personality disorder, it is necessary to understand what my father detested about himself. 

My father hated the idea of being vulnerable or weak. If he was sick, he would tell no-one- it gave too much evidence to his own mortality, that he was in fact just like everyone else…his ego wouldn’t allow such an appropriate human exchange.

He detested the idea of being poor. Despite he himself coming from a poor  background, he spoke fondly of how he rose himself and his family from such harsh realities…without his guidance and wisdom we would all have nothing, or be nothing.

Finally, he resented stupidity. He was a highly educated man, constantly comparing himself to those with lesser qualifications than himself. A man who could never be wrong, or faulted, due to the letters following his name.

What of such interest then, that the woman he “loves” was less intelligent than him, poorer than him and more weak and vulnerable than him. 

Interestingly, I do believe my father does love my mother. But the reason for why they are together, why they complement each other so well in their narcissistic/codependant relationship, is that he needs her to hold parts of himself he resents. 

He needs her to be poor, so he can feel rich.

He needs her to be weak, so he can feel strong. 

He needs her to be stupid, so he can feel intelligent.

I believe insight is everything- so let me challenge you…

What is it that you need the narcissist in your life for, so that you can feel….? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Angel Fuels Motivation in Victims of Narcissism

red-lips-girl-blonde-face-leash-portrait-rendering-art

 

When I get told off by any-one….I get angry. 

When I get criticised….i get angry

I don’t shout or scream, yell, or hit. I just smile. 

Why do I smile?

Because I’ve never had another outlet. If I did, the narcissist would know and my position would be weakened. 

So I internalise the anger.

I use the anger as fuel. 

Unfortunately, often I use this fuel to disprove the Narcissist. That I am not stupid or ugly or fat. I modify my behaviour to prove to the Narcissist that I am nothing like he thinks I am.

But then he wins. Because he knows it was his criticism that made you change. He believes that it is him that made you better, more like him. He takes over your accomplishment.

This is power dynamics. 

Use your anger, own your fuel.