 She’s cute, sweet and has wrinkles in all the right places. She’s always weeping into her instant decaf, wondering why the shards of her broken family lie in ruins around her. She’s your quintessential granny — with a catch.
She’s also a narcissist... Fiber optics has nothing on Grandma. She’s the original Gossip Information Superhighway. Her narcissism feeds on gossip. The slightest thing she disapproves of, the merest variance from how she does it better (i.e. not recycling tomato paste cans or having a speck of dust anywhere) gives her fodder for her non-existent self-esteem. (But more about that in Parts 2 and 3! Subscribe for instant notification!) Unfortunately, gossiping about her son to her daughter (Scapegoat) and about her daughter to her son (Golden Child) destroyed the family. Oh, there were other dynamics at play, but the tale-carrying played a huge role in the Golden Child suddenly going “No Contact” with the Scapegoat. And that, in itself, is another source of narcissistic supply! How she sobs into her decaf, bewailing her broken family, playing the victim-card to the hilt. Got a narcissistic granny too? Read all about the endless bullshit here! http://blogs.psychcentral.com/narcissism/2016/02/narcissistic-granny-multi-gen-1/
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 Where did ego leave off and care begin? What was narcissism and what was paranoia? It all combined together in a swirling cesspool, holding me hostage, robbing me of life itself.
Mother’s horror at her baby’s brush with death, combined with Dad’s jealousy and seeing a paedophile around every corner. Dad’s constant concern over rape combined with Mother’s reciting Grandma’s cliche, “No good happens after night falls.” Meanwhile, Dad’s paranoia that his daughter would repeat the mistakes of his own lustful youth and his projection of his own teenage horniness onto her, led to a near-hostage situation from 1996-1998 and a raging case of Stockholm Syndrome. And all of it done under the auspices of God. (Poor God!) I could go on, but you catch my drift. Neither parent tried to bring balance to the other’s paranoia. Neither put themselves in their daughter’s shoes. No one considered that, come good or ill, her life was her own to live. Read all about how narcissism leads to handicapping kids through helicopter parenting here! http://blogs.psychcentral.com/narcissism/2016/02/narcissists-helicopter-parents/  Since when did narcissists ever play fair?
You quote their words exactly and they weasel out of them. They misquote and twist your words, then judged you for what you never said, thought, wrote nor meant. But that’s narcissistic clairvoyance for ya’. They know you better than you know you! When you’re dealing with narcissists, there’s the “Official Story” and the “Truth.” And never shall the twain meet. Click here to read all about what I learned from tangling with a religious narcissist!  Those who attack victims always have an agenda. Victimizing someone is bad. But revictimizing a victim by shaming them for being a victim. Wow! That’s low!
Revictimized is defined as when “a survivor who has removed his/herself from an abusive environment is harmed again by perpetrators.” The victimizing started when I was a baby. I didn’t ask to be victimized. I did nothing to cause it. I didn’t even know it was happening. No child of a dysfunctional home does. It’s not their fault.To imply otherwise is to revictimize them. Click here to read the full article on PsychCentral!  When I think back on all the thousands of parental criticisms made "for my good" over thirty years, my blood boils. Hundreds, nay, thousands of 'em. It sta, not because I was bad, but because I was 15 and that's the time narcissistic parents start feeling nervous because their kid is growing up and they might, just might, lose control. I was 14 and shocked by all the criticisms suddenly blind-siding me. They ranged from making me believe I was an (almost) slut to something as vague as, "Shake my hand and commit to 'try harder.'" To this day I wonder how much harder I could try. I already had a 4.0 GPA. And the blind-siding hurt worse than the criticisms themselves. But no one (except my husband, Michael, and God), and I mean no one, is going to criticize me, lecture me nor shame me anymore. It's done. Over! I'm damn near 40 years old and frickin' fine the way I am. In the words of Star Trek's Captain Jean-Luc Picard, "The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!" Or in the words of comedian Eddie Murphy, "It's my [blog] and if you don't like it, get the frick out." Click here to watch that hysterically funny moment! To read the full article on Huffington Post, click here!  Without my OCD stress relief, I knew I'd explode. Dad's rages drove my stress level off the charts. Then he forbade dermatillomania, my only stress relief. It was torturous! And I wasn't the only one in agony...
Like a distressed cockatoo, Mother was pulling out her feathers...I mean, hair. The onset of her trichotillomania, panic attacks, anxiety and agoraphobia coincided with my dermatillomania. But that's another story, for another day. Then came the knock on the bathroom door. The furious demand to “know what you're doing in there.” My parents' horror at the sight of my ravaged complexion. The anger, the rage, the sorrow that their Little Project didn't look perfect anymore. Didn't make 'em proud. Didn't impress the neighbors and relatives. Dad made a solemn vow, “Until you stop picking on your skin, I'll never tell you that you're pretty ever again.” Way to kick a 15-year-old girl when she's down and needs you most, Daddy-O! He kept that vow, even on my wedding day. They couldn't stop me. Oh, I considered stopping. But I knew, just knew, I'd explode inside. Crack. Have some kind of break-down. If I stopped, it wasn't a question of if I'd crack, but when. “Accupicking” was my one and only stress relief. That...and comfort eating... Take from my blog on PsychCentral.com. Click here to read the whole article.  When did it happen? When did life flip upside-down? When did normalcy flee? When was my last day as a normal human being? Ah, common sense, alas, I never knew thee.
Normal is imperative. It provides guidelines for proper behavior. And that’s why narcissists hate normal. It puts a cramp in their style. Boundaries on their body-mind-and-soul domination. Makes normal people look askance at their abusive ways with a raised, disapproving eyebrow. As the uber-narcissistic self-styled “Patriarch of Perfection” from USA Network’s popular show is famous (or should I say infamous) for stating… “There’s no normal in this house.” Narcissism reeks havoc with normalcy, hence the name of my PsychCentral blog: Narcissism Meets Normalcy To read the whole article, click here! http://blogs.psychcentral.com/narcissism/2016/01/hello-narcissism-goodbye-normalcy/
What an absolutely marvelous idea! Odd that it never occurred to me before. Ya' just never know where inspiration will strike! See what happens when you piss off a writer. They do nasty things. Write inconvenient truths.
And on my blog, I cannot be removed. I cannot be blocked. I cannot be deleted. Genius, sir! Pure genius! Where do I begin? Of course, there are two sides to every story. I can only speak from my own experience at Fourth. Which would you like first? The good news, yes? Scholastically, FBCS was excellent. They also maintained discipline and order, seared much Scripture into your memory and taught you right from wrong. Yep. And now, for the bad news. Grab a cuppa, cause we're gonna be here awhile. |
