Changing my responses

seesaw · Mar 22, 2024 at 11:58 AM

Does he actually spend time with the grandkids or do you just bring them over for him to look at? Maybe you could shift to doing outtings on neutral ground? Like go the park or go carting or something, and he can come interact with them through an activity? Rather than allowing opportunity for this discussion?

Open Eyes · Mar 22, 2024 at 02:36 PM

Now that you have taken time to learn about toxic/disordered/narcissistic behavior patterns it can truly get you to see these behaviors exhibited by others in your past.

From what you have shared about your father, he had faced the toxic behavior that comes with alcohol abuse that your mother engaged in. It’s important to remember that your father did the best he could and stuck it out and stayed married. He did not have the information and support that is available now. It sounds like he did not understand the affects the challenge he faced with your mother also had an adverse affect on you and your sibling.

We tend to think our parents should know more than they do and that when they failed to comfort us as we needed that they don’t care. Yet, it’s important to understand that adults don’t have all the answers and like ourselves they were learning as challenges came up and did not have the information we have now.

A person gets to an age where they don’t want to go back over their past. It is often too stressful for mind and body and can also bring up emotions that can damage whatever relationship they have now.

Open Eyes · Mar 22, 2024 at 02:46 PM

Please know that my input is not an attempt to excuse behaviors that can be invalidating. You deserve to have your challenges validated. Instead I am trying to help you think about the responses you get and any criticisms you get as proof of inability in other individuals to provide you with more desirable and understanding and caring responses.

seesaw · Mar 22, 2024 at 06:42 PM

So it sounds like he wants a relationship with his grandkids but not to have to do anything.

I'd stop going to see him and when he asks give him a game schedule and say you're welcome to join us at any of these events.

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ArmorPlate108 · Mar 23, 2024 at 08:45 AM

Obviously I don't know the details of your family, but just wanted to say that many people with substance problems are the victims of other forms of abuse, including narcissistic. If one's never learned good processing/coping mechanisms, the anxiety, cognitive dissonance, guilt, shame, etc is often dealt with through substances. Some narcissists are addicts, but hardly all addicts are narcissists.

And sometimes having an addict on hand benefits the narcissist. Easy target or scapegoat, or someone to prove just how wonderful they are, trying to care for, and help, this unfortunate person.

That's a trip that your family member spoke openly about how the they accept his ways and just do their own thing. That, sadly, really is about all you can do with a narc. But I'll add to that, you do need strong boundaries in place. Boundaries don't set the other person straight, or change the other person directly. Boundaries are a civil way of you finding the edges of yourself, living into and liking who YOU are, and not allowing another person to overstep where they're not invited.

RDMercer · Mar 23, 2024 at 09:57 AM

"Boundaries are a civil way of you finding the edges of yourself"

That's beautiful.

Thank you

RDMercer · Mar 23, 2024 at 10:13 PM

Just saying...

It's the weekend.

My oldest and I made dinner together Friday evening. Youngest went to a friend's for a sleepover.

After dinner, we all went to the neighbors' for dessert and a visit.

Youngest came home after lunch. We did laundry and worked on cars and cleaned all day.

This evening the kids friends and girlfriends came over, and the parents of one of the kids.

We all had pizza, garlic fingers, and shrimp. The big kids hung out in the basement with the stereo just bumping. Then all eight of us hung out and played board games and card games all night.

The kitchen table is still full with kids and adults playing games...

This is so easy and so good.

RDM

RDMercer · Mar 29, 2024 at 01:14 PM

I had something happen at work recently where I verbally shut someone down.

Yesterday I had an hour long meeting with my way up the ladder boss. I was told that this is what has held me back over the years. I have more knowledge, education, ability, technical ability, and a broader skill set than anyone else in my organization, and I have contributed to more projects and initiaves that have remained part of our organization for in excess of ten years in some cases, but once in a while, "happens less than 5% of the time" I "school" someone.

I was told that even though the things I say may be valid, my sudden ability to shut someone down makes it hard to work with me.

I was told, there has never been a complaint about my conduct from a female colleague. I was told my female colleagues speak well of me and feel supported. I have a history of out producing my contemporaries, and a history of supporting new hires, and supporting the organization by ensuring a smooth transition of work flow from me to other staff anytime responsibilities or portfolios have changed, thereby ensuring there is no lost production or backward steps in the organization.

But sometimes I shut people down.

I said I know I have done that. I said I am overflowing with frustration and lost progress in things I have contributed to. That there have been projects I have contributed to, in some cases for years, and the work has been lost..... truly... Digital files that another team member lost, and then lost again. I told my boss, "You don't know how frustrating that is, and how foolish we look on the front line to a client."

Boss said, "I understand that."

I said, "No you don't. It's really bad and extremely frustrating. We lost our way as an organization for several years, and we re-doing years worth of work, again."

Boss said, "See? That is a perfect example of the issue with you. You just corrected me. You schooled me."

I said "Do you have an understanding of what this is like dealing with this on a daily basis?"

Boss: "Well... No.... But you can't make people feel like that. You snap people to attention and school them. Because of that, I can't make you part of a cohesive team anywhere in the organization, so there really isn't a way to advance you."

Wow.

The thing is.... This mirrors my personal life so much.

I'm so tired of being "the angry and difficult" one.

RDMercer

eskielover · Mar 29, 2024 at 02:14 PM

I tend to be like you. If someone is doing something wrong they need to learn it is not ok & I am usually the one to clue them in.

Think your company is a reflection on society.....let the wrong go unschooled because we don't want to hurt their feelings or make them feel wrong even though they are (hurting the company in this case) or hurting others. Lack of accountability stinks

RDMercer · Mar 29, 2024 at 03:57 PM

You know what Eskie?

I figured I'd hear from you.

Thank you

eskielover · Mar 29, 2024 at 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RDMercer

You know what Eskie?

I figured I'd hear from you.

Thank you

Lol.....I just couldn't resist.

I have experienced this so many times in my career & in my marriage. Lol.....11 years after I left he said he hated it cause I was always right but he fought me anyway cause he hated being wrong. We had one college grad who was smart but all the other engineers saw him as lazy. I actually taught him our hardware degugging system & he ended up excelling. Had a section manager who thought he knew it all & screwed up an update to a data link program I wrote because he refused to talk to me about how it was designed. A engineer who was a friend of mine took it over & worked with me to fix it. Attitude is everything. Some are willing to learn from others some just want to be the know it all & mess it up instead of asking

It is hard being better at things & not willing to settle for not even ok in silence.

RDMercer · Mar 29, 2024 at 07:18 PM

Well, I got some validation today.

A friend said

When I look at you I see intelligence, competence, and passion. You think strategically and immediately see the big picture. I've always heard your reputation for shutting people down. You've always been all-in on every hand you're dealt, and surprised others aren't. They're right. You aren't a manager. You're a leader. They've been using you wrong for years.

seesaw · Mar 29, 2024 at 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RDMercer

I had something happen at work recently where I verbally shut someone down.

Yesterday I had an hour long meeting with my way up the ladder boss. I was told that this is what has held me back over the years. I have more knowledge, education, ability, technical ability, and a broader skill set than anyone else in my organization, and I have contributed to more projects and initiaves that have remained part of our organization for in excess of ten years in some cases, but once in a while, "happens less than 5% of the time" I "school" someone.

I was told that even though the things I say may be valid, my sudden ability to shut someone down makes it hard to work with me.

I was told, there has never been a complaint about my conduct from a female colleague. I was told my female colleagues speak well of me and feel supported. I have a history of out producing my contemporaries, and a history of supporting new hires, and supporting the organization by ensuring a smooth transition of work flow from me to other staff anytime responsibilities or portfolios have changed, thereby ensuring there is no lost production or backward steps in the organization.

But sometimes I shut people down.

I said I know I have done that. I said I am overflowing with frustration and lost progress in things I have contributed to. That there have been projects I have contributed to, in some cases for years, and the work has been lost..... truly... Digital files that another team member lost, and then lost again. I told my boss, "You don't know how frustrating that is, and how foolish we look on the front line to a client."

Boss said, "I understand that."

I said, "No you don't. It's really bad and extremely frustrating. We lost our way as an organization for several years, and we re-doing years worth of work, again."

Boss said, "See? That is a perfect example of the issue with you. You just corrected me. You schooled me."

I said "Do you have an understanding of what this is like dealing with this on a daily basis?"

Boss: "Well... No.... But you can't make people feel like that. You snap people to attention and school them. Because of that, I can't make you part of a cohesive team anywhere in the organization, so there really isn't a way to advance you."

Wow.

The thing is.... This mirrors my personal life so much.

I'm so tired of being "the angry and difficult" one.

RDMercer

It's hard to be a truth teller. It's why I'm not longer employable. However, I excel as a consultant/contractor, and my clients love when I give them the truth and take them to task.

When you're good at something and others are just mediocre, it can be hard to get along. Because your "just enough" will always be 20x better than their "just enough", and so you will always feel like you do more.

Sent from my SM-N986U using Tapatalk

Molinit · Apr 02, 2024 at 08:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RDMercer

I had something happen at work recently where I verbally shut someone down.

But sometimes I shut people down.

I said I know I have done that. I said I am overflowing with frustration and lost progress in things I have contributed to. That there have been projects I have contributed to, in some cases for years, and the work has been lost..... truly... Digital files that another team member lost, and then lost again. I told my boss, "You don't know how frustrating that is, and how foolish we look on the front line to a client."

Boss said, "I understand that."

I said, "No you don't. It's really bad and extremely frustrating. We lost our way as an organization for several years, and we re-doing years worth of work, again."

Boss said, "See? That is a perfect example of the issue with you. You just corrected me. You schooled me."

I said "Do you have an understanding of what this is like dealing with this on a daily basis?"

Boss: "Well... No.... But you can't make people feel like that. You snap people to attention and school them. Because of that, I can't make you part of a cohesive team anywhere in the organization, so there really isn't a way to advance you."

Wow.

RDMercer

Not to be critical, but only to offer a data point on this issue.

I have attempted in the past to point out that you seem "stuck" or stagnant in moving out of your marriage and ruminate over events that occurred in the past.

Your responses to me were that I don't understand how fill-in-the-blank it is for you, your wife is a covert narcissist, etc. Then you have lectured me about covert narcissism and loop back to how unless I can understand YOU, I have nothing of importance for you to consider.

After a few tries in getting you unstuck, I no longer offer my observations because it is too difficult. You will always respond with how I cannot possibly understand due to fill-in-the-blank.

Life does not require that people understand you. If you want to work collaboratively and as part of a team and perhaps progress in your career as a result of that, it actually requires that you put your nose to the grindstone and do the work, without blaming others for not understanding YOU.

My experience in observing your posts over the years is that you will only respond favorably to posts enabling your current behavior or taking "your" side on an issue. The responses after you described the work encounter testify to that as well. There are a couple of people who will always explain away any difficulty you have with others by saying the other person is intimidated/narcissistic/alcoholic/unreasonable and you will always gravitate to those responses almost immediately and use them to justify your position.

eskielover · Apr 02, 2024 at 09:11 AM

Quote:

After a few tries in getting you unstuck

Sticking my nose in here....from my own personal experience, NO ONE can get anyone else unstuck. That is a "fixer" mentality. A person has to go through & process what has happened in their own life & figure out how they will move on. Sometimes that takes more time than others & venting in posts here helps that processing more than any of the replies do. That is exactly why, no one actually understands & the responses are not accurate because no one can actually understand what a person is going through or how they are going through it. We are not STUCK.....we are just in the process of processing what happened & how we will handle it.

Quote:

Life does not require that people understand you. If you want to work collaboratively and as part of a team and perhaps progress in your career as a result of that, it actually requires that you put your nose to the grindstone and do the work, without blaming others for not understanding YOU.

From reading his post , this isn't about not doing the work....it is about correcting those doing the work with him so he doesn't end up having to do their work over on top of his. Big difference.

Quote:

There are a couple of people who will always explain away any difficulty you have with others by saying the other person is

There are often people in our lives that do CAUSE the difficulties in our lives (unless we get rid of them from our lives before it gets to that point). If not it is at that point we have to figure out how to deal with them & figure out a new direction in our life. Neither of those things can be done in a blink of an eye & take time to figure out & like correcting the direction of a boat, it takes numerous adapting with the rudder to get out of a messy situation. It doesn't just magically happen with one thought or someone else telling you what to do.

RDMercer · Apr 07, 2024 at 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Molinit

Not to be critical, but only to offer a data point on this issue.

I have attempted in the past to point out that you seem "stuck" or stagnant in moving out of your marriage and ruminate over events that occurred in the past.

Your responses to me were that I don't understand how fill-in-the-blank it is for you, your wife is a covert narcissist, etc. Then you have lectured me about covert narcissism and loop back to how unless I can understand YOU, I have nothing of importance for you to consider.

After a few tries in getting you unstuck, I no longer offer my observations because it is too difficult. You will always respond with how I cannot possibly understand due to fill-in-the-blank.

Life does not require that people understand you. If you want to work collaboratively and as part of a team and perhaps progress in your career as a result of that, it actually requires that you put your nose to the grindstone and do the work, without blaming others for not understanding YOU.

My experience in observing your posts over the years is that you will only respond favorably to posts enabling your current behavior or taking "your" side on an issue. The responses after you described the work encounter testify to that as well. There are a couple of people who will always explain away any difficulty you have with others by saying the other person is intimidated/narcissistic/alcoholic/unreasonable and you will always gravitate to those responses almost immediately and use them to justify your position.

I'm sorry. I don't remember the early comments you reference. Was it last summer when I said I was grieving and needed time to grieve, and people round me didn't get that? And I was facing that my entire marriage may have been a facade? I pushed back at people then.

You're right, I seek validation. I've been invalidated by a lot of people around me for a long time. I've needed support far more than "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" advice.

I've blown it at work in the past year. Work became totally unmanageable, doubling my client load due to cuts with no changes in processes at a time my life was upending. Yup. Blew it, with clients and superiors several times. Now, after fifteen years of building a reputation I'm starting over.

As for teamwork.... Fifteen years of performance evaluations, multiple roles, working in collaboration with different departments and training new hires. There's no lack of nose to the grindstone. But I've been painted into a corner in the past year, and I was past my limits and I blew it.

So now, that's my reputation. Nothing prior matters.

Yes, I ruminate. Thats part of trauma recovery. Yes, I've been profoundly depressed and stuck, and now I've failed at work, which was one place I got satisfaction and respect previously

Trying to find a way to move ahead.

Open Eyes · Mar 30, 2024 at 06:28 AM

These conversations can give you an idea of where you are. However, it’s important to give it thought before deciding to make any changes. Also don’t react with “then I am leaving” as that can push things in a direction that’s not helpful at all. Instead it’s better to make a move when you have a plan so you can cover your expenses of your mortgage etc.

RDMercer · Mar 30, 2024 at 07:35 AM

My actual response was less direct.

It was something like,

Then it's time for me to plan my transition out of here in the next two years. It might be time to look at entrepreneurial opportunities.

Open Eyes · Mar 30, 2024 at 11:11 AM

Why don’t you look into being a consultant? See what is available in the job market.

Open Eyes · Apr 02, 2024 at 10:57 AM

^^^^

Thank you eskie! I was sitting here wanting to respond and your post reflects my own sentiments. I think RD has been making progress. It simply doesn’t happen overnight, you are correct on that.

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Open Eyes Legendary Wise Elder Member Since Mar 2011 Location: Northeast USA Posts: 23,166 (SuperPoster!) 13 21.4k hugs given	Mar 22, 2024 at 02:46 PM #3 Please know that my input is not an attempt to excuse behaviors that can be invalidating. You deserve to have your challenges validated. Instead I am trying to help you think about the responses you get and any criticisms you get as proof of inability in other individuals to provide you with more desirable and understanding and caring responses.
	Reply With Quote

RDMercer Grand Member Member Since May 2013 Posts: 767 10 61 hugs given	Mar 23, 2024 at 09:57 AM #6 "Boundaries are a civil way of you finding the edges of yourself" That's beautiful. Thank you
	Reply With Quote

RDMercer Grand Member Member Since May 2013 Posts: 767 10 61 hugs given	Mar 29, 2024 at 03:57 PM #10 You know what Eskie? I figured I'd hear from you. Thank you
	Reply With Quote

Open Eyes Legendary Wise Elder Member Since Mar 2011 Location: Northeast USA Posts: 23,166 (SuperPoster!) 13 21.4k hugs given	Mar 30, 2024 at 06:28 AM #17 These conversations can give you an idea of where you are. However, it’s important to give it thought before deciding to make any changes. Also don’t react with “then I am leaving” as that can push things in a direction that’s not helpful at all. Instead it’s better to make a move when you have a plan so you can cover your expenses of your mortgage etc.
	Reply With Quote

RDMercer Grand Member Member Since May 2013 Posts: 767 10 61 hugs given	Mar 30, 2024 at 07:35 AM #18 My actual response was less direct. It was something like, Then it's time for me to plan my transition out of here in the next two years. It might be time to look at entrepreneurial opportunities.
	Reply With Quote

Open Eyes Legendary Wise Elder Member Since Mar 2011 Location: Northeast USA Posts: 23,166 (SuperPoster!) 13 21.4k hugs given	Mar 30, 2024 at 11:11 AM #19 Why don’t you look into being a consultant? See what is available in the job market.
	Reply With Quote

Open Eyes Legendary Wise Elder Member Since Mar 2011 Location: Northeast USA Posts: 23,166 (SuperPoster!) 13 21.4k hugs given	Apr 02, 2024 at 10:57 AM #20 ^^^^ Thank you eskie! I was sitting here wanting to respond and your post reflects my own sentiments. I think RD has been making progress. It simply doesn’t happen overnight, you are correct on that.
	Reply With Quote