 Last week, I turned thirty-six. I’ve finally decided that I’m so done with the pain, denial, false guilt and sundry miseries resulting from decades of narcissistic abuse. I want to be happy. I want to be free.
Easily said. Less easily done. I’ve been so unhappy for so long that it’s become a way of life. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’ve tried very hard to feel happy and not have “B.O. of the personality.” I’ve perfected the “happy” act. And there have been thousands of truly happy moments, good laughs and self-unaware times of bliss in my life. I have everything to be grateful and happy about. A husband without peer, who I treasure more each day. (Happy 4th Anniversary, Honey!) Wonderful friends who’ve stuck with me through my highest and lowest moments. Two wonderful puppies who wag, lick and love unconditionally. A warm cottage. Reliable transportation. Work I enjoy. Food in the fridge and water from the tap. And at least sixty bottles of nail polish. What more does a girl need? And yet…and yet…every day is a struggle to keep a smile on my face and a bounce in my step. It’s getting jolly old. Click here to read the full article on PsychCentral!
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 Reading old emails exchanged with my captors makes me sick. Nauseated. Loquacious lovey-dovey’s and toe-curling coo’s drip from our email conversations. The contrast between our communication back then is in stark contrast to the barbs and silences now. It’s contradictory. Crazy-making. Stockholm Syndrome overwhelmed me again last night, wracking my frame with guttural sobs. As tears poured down my cheeks, a voice I barely recognized as my own cried, “What did I do that was so bad? What happened to all the love? Why did they do all this shit to me? Did they ever love me at all? Did I ever truly love them? Did they ever have empathy for me?” Click here to find out! Lenora Thompson writes a great blog...she's been there, seen that, and lived to tell the tales. - Facebook friend  “At the name of {narcissism} each one of the children felt something jump…inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.” Ah, forgive me for paraphrasing the great C. S. Lewis from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. But that’s how it is when you first learn about “narcissism,” isn’t it? You either feel liberated…or angry.
That moment came and went for my Family-of-Origin this week when they finally found my website and blogs. Oh, it took them ages to find it. Their uncharacteristic lack of curiosity was most vexing. But they finally found it. Click here to read the whole story!  Helicopter parents seem to have a microscope turned on their child. Wait! Take a second look. That isn't a microscope they're holding. Well, I'll be danged! It's a mirror. They think they're seeing their child, when actually, they're seeing themselves!
My parents were both helicopter parents, and I think I know why. You see, my father is a narcissist. That means he has no self-esteem. He compensates by confusing me with himself. He buoys his non-existent self-esteem by attaining higher and higher levels of excellence as a parent. My successes are his successes. Logically, it follows that my failures are his failures. With zero self-esteem to fall back on, he couldn't tolerate the pain and shame of any failure on my part. Hence the helicoptering. To protect himself more than me. And it nearly ruined my life. Click here for the "reverse engineering" of helicoptering parent to see how it ruins children's lives! http://www.psy-ed.com/wpblog/helicopter-parent/  Dear Parents, I’m sorry you can’t accept me for who I am. You drove me away and now, you’re missing out on a wonderful daughter and son-in-law.
Oh, you wanted a baby in 1980. You just didn’t want me. You wouldn’t have accepted any baby. For you cannot accept yourself. Because no one ever accepted you. Through no fault of your own, you’re both the Scapegoats of your families. It’s a role you were assigned. You didn’t earn it. But why oh why, did you pass it down to me!?! We breathe shame in the air. Absorb it through our pores. Sense the vibe with our intuition. It doesn’t have to be spelled out in-so-many-words. Often narcissists won’t say it directly anyways. If they did, they’d lose their “plausible deniability.” But we’re not stupid. No child of a narcissist is stupid. We got their spoken and unspoken messages loud and clear. That’s how we developed False Guilt. I know the list below will sound crazy…whacked out…insane…weird…inhumane. Well, either directly or indirectly, I got all of these messages from my family. Most of them were spoken. Some were implied. If it happened to me, maybe it happened to you too. Maybe we can heal together. Click here to read the full article! http://blogs.psychcentral.com/narcissism/2016/02/sorrynotsorry/  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!  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.  I’ve got the leakiest tear ducts on the planets. Seems like I’m always sniffling about this or weeping about that. If it’s not adorable videos of babies making my eyes well up, it’s videos of ecstatic dogs welcoming their master home from serving overseas. Any sentimental YouTube video can get me hullabalooing into my hankie in no time. It came as quite a shock to my husband when we married in 2012. Now he thinks I’m both hysterical funny and extremely soft-hearted. There’s only one scenario where my tear ducts dry up. My own pain. I simply cannot cry for myself. Tried it. Made all the right noises. Huffed and puffed. Nothin’. Eyes remained dry as a bone. And it’s a huge problem. Tears aren’t just salty water. Their chemical compositions vary depending on the emotion that stimulated them. Even their structure when seen under a microscope is vastly different depending on the scenario. Personally, I can feel my heart aching behind my eyes. It’s a kind of burning, kind of pressurized sensation behind my eyeballs. Only tears release the pain in both my eyes and my heart. It feels like tears purge the toxic chemicals in the tears, but perhaps I’m just being fanciful. Which brings us back to the original problem. I can’t cry. And too often my original pain becomes translated into the secondary emotion of anger. Click here to read the whole article on PsychCentral!   If I had a dollar for every time I heard, “Lenora, you’re SO emotional,” I’d be a rich woman today. Were you subjected to this denigration too? Does it ring any bells? If Grandsire Triples are ringing in your bell tower, my sympathies. Let’s explore this phenomenon together, shall we?
First, the hard truth. At times all humans are overly emotional. We are human and therefore at times we are indeed too emotional. What can I say? Sh*t happens. But that’s not what this article is about. It’s about situations where we felt valid emotions, strong emotions, appropriate emotions. Situations where other people impatiently shamed us not only for feeling these emotions but also angrily shamed us for daring to express them. The legacy and ramifications of this shame is with us still today. I remember back to a particular scenario. Oh, I must have been about twelve. As usual, Dad and Mom were seated at the kitchen table discussing “she.” Not “Lenora.” Just “she.” They always used “she” to discuss me in the third person. I sat at the end of the table, miserably poking down a tuna sandwich, watching mute and powerless as my fate was impersonally discussed and decided without reference to normalcy nor my emotions. Click here to read the whole article on PsychCentral.com! |
