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Originally Posted by Open Eyes
I found this article and it really rung a lot of bells for me. I think it can be helpful and even validating because if one or even worse both your parents were narcissistic, then the result was emotional neglect and always feeling you had to "please" a certain way to have a sense of value. Also, a narcissist will focus a lot of "public image" and that will send confusing messages in that a child will see the narcissistic parent acting one way in public and yet not the same way in their family unit. A child doesn't have the capacity to understand "the mask" this kind of parent has. As a result, a child may end up in a toxic relationship with a partner that has this same dynamic of maintaining "the mask" and instead of recognizing the red flags, these red flags may even feel safe simply because they are familiar. The other thing that can happen is thinking that a partner should be given in to, be allowed to exhibit childish tantrums and that parenting and fixing and giving in or "enabling" is "normal" in a relationship when the truth is it brings on constant stresses and feelings of "loneliness" where something is missing that one can't always quite articulate.
https://pro.psychcentral.com/recover...are-having-suc
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You nailed it. The thing is I have tried multiple times to talk to them about it and they call me crazy or say that never happened. The cognitive dissonance of that sort of broke my brain. I always knew things were off and always had that fear...but I wore the mask because my dad was such a good liar, so grandiose when he was around. Then when the masks dropped and I realized I was propping his ego and there was nothing behind it. All I have is anger.
I recently rengaged and it has been horrible. He hates when anyone does something that he hasn’t approved of. He has to hijack every conversation and make it about him. If you step out of line, you get a list of things you are doing wrong and need to change. And you will get the exact opposite list the next time.
I recently learned what gaslighting is and I feel like there is a lot of that. Plus guilt for going my own way. Independence is the biggest slight to him. He controls using money, which I’ve avoided since I was a teenager. The one time i took his help was the biggest mistake.
I respected my dad more than any other human in the world. It kills me to even write this.