 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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 Cringe-worthy. Kinda weird. Definitely uncomfortable. But also, flattering. My emotions ran this gamut every Tuesday and Sunday evening, the times Dad demanded I schedule to be spent, alone, with him. Playing music together. Gossiping about his wife/my mother to me. Pawing, I mean, patting me.
On the one hand, I felt flattered (and guilty!) that he seemed to like me better than my mother, his wife of thirty years. We bonded over the pain and frustration her paranoia, her menopausal idiosyncrasies and her über-control caused us. On the other hand, I never felt comfortable around the man. His rages terrified me. His depressions worried me. His teasing wounded me. His hands hurt me. And the way his eyes constantly followed me freaked me out. He never seemed comfortable in his own skin. Never had any friends. Nor many hobbies. But he was my dad. And we were supposed to be “close,” right? Read all about the rottenness called Covert Incest by clicking here! http://blogs.psychcentral.com/narcissism/2016/01/narcissism-covert-incest/ To hear a discussion of the article on the Stop Child Abuse Now radio show, click here!  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/ |