Joy cometh...

I can’t believe that it’s been 2 months since my mother died and the Three Weird Sisters made life so unbearable for the Ousted.  The healing is slow, but the freedom of being able to move through life without that craziness is helping the process along.  It’s amazing how many of us there are out there – I’m beginning to think that narcissism is a much more prevalent problem than most mental health practitioners believe, probably because they rarely show up in counseling and when they do, they’re such victims that the counselors don’t see it – they work on self-image and assertiveness!   No more assertiveness training for narcissists!!  Please, people!!!  They don’t need any help standing up for themselves – or believing that they’re the center of the universe!

After a lot of crying, crying, and more crying, I’m feeling ready to move on to the next phase of this, whatever that phase is.  Crying felt good for the first time in my life – it felt productive and healing and cleansing and I let myself do it, something I’ve resisted most of my life.  (If one is born to serve, tears are a dreadful inconvenience to those around them.  What?  I have to wait until you finish blubbering??)  I’m sure crying will be a part of the next phase, but hopefully not SO BIG a part of it.   I feel hopeful for the first time in a long time – hopeful that the rest of my life will be free of narcissistic drama, hopeful that my loving siblings and I will continue to get together in safe, stress-free gatherings where we will talk about our lives and our children and our grandchildren, where laughter will be open and easy and not at someone else’s expense.  Oh, my, life without narcissism will be a joy!  (OK, I’m not Pollyana and I know there will be stress and conflict, but without the narcissism angle, it still looks like heaven!) 

The Empress has no clothes!!

I think the most common question asked by ACoN’s is “Why didn’t I see this sooner?”  I’ve read a couple of good answers on blogs and websites:  1)  We were conditioned to react this way to narcissists, 2) As a child, you so wish for a good family that you begin to chronically overlook horrific behavior and 3) You saw what happened when a narcissist was confronted with his/her behavior.

Conditioning:  We were, indeed, conditioned to give the narcissist supply.  Our MNF demanded it, and once the Golden Child (In my case, the WWW) was identified and the process of grooming her had begun, she was petted, pampered, and protected.  In my FOO, the Golden Child looked a lot like my mother had as a young child.  My eldest sister, now the Main Winkie (protector of WWW and her FM’s) was the chosen protector.  This meant that the two sisters between MW and WWW were pretty much ignored.  In fact, we were often dressed alike although there were 2 years between us.  The Golden Child was also the youngest girl for quite a number of years, giving her even more elevated princess status.  She actually received gifts that she wanted for Christmas and birthdays and was not criticized and abused like the rest of us were.  While we cleaned our FOO’s house to absolutely ridiculous standards of cleanliness, the Golden Child was sent to help our grandmother.  The only time I remember our grandfather hugging one of us, it was, of course, the Golden Child.  We were trained early to let her do what she wanted or we’d get into trouble.

Wish for a good family:  When one child is selected as the Golden Child, the stage is set for the non-Golden Children to believe that they are not good enough, that they’ve done something wrong, that they aren’t loved because of faults within themselves – obviously, the parents love the GC, so it can’t be the parents’ fault!  This made the rest of us work even harder for attention and love.  We learned that currying favor with the GC was a way to win our parents’ approval, so whatever she wanted, we supplied and if she reacted to anything with fury, it was always our fault.  We learned early to tiptoe around her, so it’s little wonder that her adult behavior is as horrific as it is. 

What happens when a narcissist is confronted:  This one is easy – they win!!  Narcissists have no ability to reflect accurately on their own behavior; they automatically think that they’re right about everything and any fault lies elsewhere.  Confronting them is an exercise in futility – and will set into motion narcissistic chaos.  Not only are you wrong, but you are obviously demented, a liar (very big in our FOO), and merely bent on hurting the narcissist’s ever-so-tender psyche.  Telephone lines will buzz with gossip, slander, and just plain old lies in an attempt to destroy your reputation and the protector and flying monkey will come out in force – that way, any other confrontations of the narcissist will hopefully be avoided.

It’s actually pretty amazing that narcissists are EVER confronted or called to account for their behavior, especially women narcissists, who tend toward the histrionic and provide all kinds of drama if anyone suggests that their behavior is anything short of exemplary, even noble.  And their favorite line of defense is to accuse the other person of what they themselves have done – ta-da!!!  This reversal is often so absurd as to be in the realm of comedy, but don’t you dare point that out to the narcissist – or to their protectors or minions.  The empress is really quite naked!!! 

Predicting High Drama

Yesterday, I decided that just walking away was probably not enough.  I feel the need to make a declaration, to send a letter to each of the Threee Weird Sisters saying that I no longer want any contact and why.  There is so little honesty in my NFOO because of the fear.  So I wrote it, re-wrote it, and re-wrote it again.  I decided to call those of my siblings who will be in the line of fire but  I could only reach one of them.  We had a long talk.  We've all lived so long in the shadow of narcissism, tiptoeing around first our parents and now our siblings that the very idea of acting in a normal, natural way is foreign to us.  We're master strategizers - if I do this, what might happen?  Who's going to get hurt in the process?  Who's going to get the first call and how will the event be twisted and convoluted to make WWW look like the victim or the hero?  No wonder we're so emotionally exhausted!  Narcissists really do suck the life out of you.  I sent an email to my daughter, who lives near MW - I don't want to hurt her relationship with her cousin and his family - and this is certainly a possibility, since MW's job is to protect WWW and her FM's.   Sigh...  This is why I have to go NC - I really do want this nonsense out of my life.

Now for some good news!

Narcissism is kind of like a scab that you keep picking at until it bleeds – it’s time to take a break to focus on the good in life!!!  As you may have guessed if you’ve read the blog from its beginning a few days ago, my FOO is huge!  So I have 3 narcissists, 2 Winkies, and 3 Loving Siblings – with that math, I still have more loving siblings than most people I know!!!  

LS1 (by birth order) has been wonderfully supportive of my efforts to free myself from the dastardly narcissists in my FOO – she’s in the process of doing the same.  We talk, we cry, we regroup, we think it through again, we tell stories, we cry – and around it goes!  We went to our NM’s deathbed and it became very evident that we were indeed dealing with what we thought we had been dealing with – there were narcissists everywhere! When we went back to her home, we walked on the beach, we talked, we cried, we mulled, we laughed, we shopped, we read – and mostly we supported each other in the pain of realizing that this couldn’t go on, that we had to end it.  LS1 is a nurturing, caring, generous, creative, and honest person who had the bad luck of being singled out as the main scapegoat in a large and ridiculously dysfunctional FOO.  The family myth is that she is a drug addict (Who’s projecting here?) who chose to not be a part of the “family” (hereafter known as the Division).  What nonsense!!!  She’s no more a drug addict than I am – but it makes a good story if your adult child chooses to move to CA, a state that my family associates with a great-grandmother who left her husband and ran off with a jewelry salesman – that entire state is now tainted and one who goes there must necessarily be of bad moral character!!  My NM apparently kept this story going until she died – and that information came from my NM’s sister.  LS1 was the first one ousted from the Division – she was an easy target, being in CA and all.  I won’t go into the whole story here, but it involved people yelling and running down the street, a decrepit guitar, a letter on legal letterhead (WWW is married to a lawyer) threatening a law suit, and the stipulation that LS1 was not welcome at any family gatherings until the guitar was returned – which it was.  The story that I was told about the “incident” had none of those components – I got it direct from the mouth of WWW, so this is not a great surprise.  Unfortunately, I was then under the spell of the WWW and I believed her – oh, how sad that makes me!!!  But LS1 forgave me that and we became friends again.  She has kept her chosen family far away from the Division and has a wonderful, creative, intelligent and generally remarkable child, now a teenager with all sorts of gifts who is on his way to healthy independence.

LS2 (by birth order) went No Contact before it was cool!!!  Early on, he realized that Nparents were toxic to his chosen family, especially his children.  He limited time with Nparents more and more as the years went by and his children have grown up to be independent, strong, fun, creative adults who have started healthy, loving families of their own.  I have to admit that I tried to get LS2 to have more contact with MNF and NM and he was gracious and went with me to visit MNF before he died and he also honored W2’s request that he visit NM before she died.  He is an honorable man who is married to a completely remarkable woman. I wish I had followed his lead earlier and shut out the craziness.  LS2 was ousted from the Division by WWW and her FM’s with the help of MW at the time of MNF’s death.  (That is a mouthful of acronyms – sorry!!)  Apparently, when they were cleaning out MNF’s house after his death, LS2 got tired of being ordered around by WWW and her FM’s and said so.  Well this, as you know, is anathema to narcissists and WWW got on the phone to round up a bigger posse than she already had – she actually called LS1 and me, people she had already ousted, and tried to convince us that LS2 had been violently angry and she was terrified of him!!!  Imagine a witch being afraid of a mere mortal!!  Well, that didn’t work, but apparently she got the FM’s and MW onboard and that was all she really needed.  At NM’s deathbed, LS2 acted with dignity and restraint and made sure that his family was safe in the midst of chaos.  NM spoke to him long after she was supposed to have been beyond speaking, so WWW and her FM’s will try to make him pay for that – it’s only a matter of time, but LS2 has proved that he is able to deflect the incantations effectively!  (Update 6/16/2014- LS2's lovely wife died this year, and all kinds of Ntraits showed up in this sibling- his wife had told me that LS2 is a narcissist, but I was loathe to believe it. )
 

LS3 (by birth order) has somehow always been a target for WWW and her FM’s – she is the youngest and the family dysfunction hadn’t improved, certainly, over the years, but it’s hard to believe that children can be as horrifically brutal as these children were to their youngest sibling.  And nothing has changed – as middle-aged women, they are still brutal, nasty, vicious, cruel, and generally jealous of this wonderful sibling.  Who knows why?  Having been raised by Nparents (I almost said “wolves”), they were certainly not trained to be loving, giving, kind, and generous, but it does seem like their behavior is beyond the pale.  LS3 is a beautiful, gifted, creative woman who is currently an entrepreneur, successfully building a business and a life of her own.  She was in the midst of moving to our home state to help our NM transition into assisted living when the last stroke hit.  Now, you’d think that this would be a welcome relief to WWW who had been the primary caregiver for NM when she was living in a retirement community and who was going back to work temporarily because her successful lawyer spouse was apparently not bringing in enough money to support her in the style to which she has become accustomed (Ok, I can hear the bitterness in that statement, too…).  But NOOOOOOOOO – WWW and her FM’s actually made even this out to be an awful thing that LS3 was doing – how dare she come in and act like she was in charge?  How dare she write emails and help NM SKYPE to keep in contact with her children and make it look like SHE was the one taking care of NM when everyone knew it was really WWW who had given up her life (back of hand to forehead, please) to help her NM??  How dare she, indeed??? LS3 took a lot of flak and just kept on going – our little Energizer Bunny!!!  She saw what NM needed and was prepared to do what it took even if she was maligned in the process-and maligned she was.  MW chimed in with concern that LS3’s move would affect her job, etc. – a rather obvious move to support WWW without appearing to…  Oh, my – and then the deathbed, where blocking LS3 seemed to be the main game.  At one point, it looked like NM was going to live much longer than anticipated – there had been many predictions of “tonight,” “not much longer,” etc., and LS3 and I realized the NM probably needed a bath.  When I said this to MW, who is a nurse, she offered to go get someone to do this.  I didn’t understand why we needed someone else to bathe our NM when there were so many of us there, so MW asked for some supplies so that we could bathe her ourselves.  Well, you would have thought that we were going to show porno movies in the assisted living room.  WWW and her FM’s, who loved NM so much, ran from the room, acting completely disgusted and horrified – had I known this sooner, we could have bathed her every hour!!  LS3 and I bathed her, rubbed lotion into her poor, dry skin, rinsed her mouth, washed her hair and massaged her head.  She seemed to enjoy it (at this point she had no power of speech) and we enjoyed time with NM without WW and her FM’s hovering over us. (LS3 has gone NC with me - she is apparently upset that I'm in regular contact with LS1, with whom she had a disagreement.  It makes me sad, but I'm no longer letting sadness determine my interactions with the NFOO.)

So there you have it- my loving sibs and their families are a joy to me – and I haven’t yet shared with you the love and joy that I feel for my chosen family!!!  That will have to wait for another day – I’ve used up my writing time today and have to get back to my regular life, which is getting progressively more free and less anxiety-ridden as I live without contact with my woefully narcissist siblings.

Update 6/16/2014 - as you can see from the updates, there isn't quite as much joy as I had then thought - at least, not from this source!  I am no longer in contact with either LS2 or LS3 - I'm not officially NC, but I'm not taking the initiative to contact them.

Far from FOO - but not far enough

I don’t live near my FOO – well, my FOO is scattered all over the country and the world, but I left my home state years ago to get away from the nonsense perpetrated by my Nparents and the WWW (I didn’t know about the FM’s at that point, although I suspected that there was involvement of other sibs).  I left with my chosen family to create a new life far from the craziness that was becoming increasing obvious in my generation.  But you just can’t get far enough away from this idiocy.  Holidays and family events just sucked the life out of me.  A strange thing used to happen to me at these gatherings.  I’d start out strong and as the day wore on, I’d find myself getting weaker and weaker, not just emotionally but physically – I knew I had to leave, that I was fading, but I couldn’t make myself get up and go!   I started setting time limits on FOO visits – early on, before children, I had decided that I couldn’t spend the night in my Nparent’s home – it just brought back too much awfulness and the awfulness of the present was quite enough…  Then I set a 5 hour limit, but that became too much, so eventually it had to be set at 3 hours – that was the absolute limit to the amount of time I could spend with my FOO.  My husband’s job (God love him!) was to alert me when the time was getting close because I’d have to really gear up to get out.  My husband’s family lived only a few miles from my Nparents and although the Nparents aren’t big fans of me and my chosen family, they hated to think that we were going to my husband’s family, that his family was being chosen over them, so leaving was a huge effort with a lot of negotiating and pathetic looks from my NM. 

Part of the reason that the visits were so stressful (not that having 3-5 narcissists in the room wasn’t stressful enough) was that my parents didn’t like my children.  In actuality, I don’t think my parents liked ANY children, but my job was to protect mine.  I once walked into the living room to hear my father saying to my 3-year-old son, “You think you’re so smart.  Well you’re not – you’re not so smart.”  I picked up my son and glared at my father, who started telling me that my son thought he was so smart.  I said, “Dad, he’s THREE.  What are you doing?”  It turned out that a family friend’s teenager had taught my son to spell his name backwards and my son was showing his grandfather what he could do, which I thought was hilarious, but apparently MNF felt threatened by a 3-year-old being able to do this.  That was the last time my MNF was ever alone in a room with either of my children.  I can remember my MNF saying the same sorts of thing to me and to my siblings when we were young – what a guy, huh??

Before I knew about narcissism and before I had set HUGE boundaries around my children with my Nparents, my husband and I went on a short cruise.  For 2 days of that time, our children stayed with my Nparents – I know, what was I thinking? So, my son was about 2 and when we got back, I discovered that my NM had taken away his pacifier, deciding that he was too old to have it – so here is a child whose parents are gone, he’s staying with his grandparents, and they take away the thing he uses to comfort himself!  My NM was so proud of herself!  She told me in that stiff-backed, tight-lipped way that she had that she had weaned my son from that disgusting habit.  AACK!!!  Needless to say, our son got his Nooky back and he was sooooo happy! 

After we moved to another state, my husband’s mother came to visit and had a massive stroke.  She lived with us for a while, got much better, and then had a series of strokes that eventually killed her.  When she died, my daughter looked at me sadly and said, “Now we don’t have any grandparents left.”  It broke my heart because my Nparents were still alive.  I tried to console her, saying that she did still have grandparents,  that my parents were still alive, and she gave me the look she always gives me when she thinks I’m talking nonsense.  She was right, of course.

Narcissists need the best of everything

I’ve been reading other blogs about narcissism and I’ve noticed something wonderful – there seems to be an endpoint, a point at which the blogger realizes that this issue has been resolved in his/her life and it’s time to go on to do something else.  I hope, hope, hope, hope that this will happen for me!!! 

One of the topics that comes up over and over again on the blogs is the narcissist’s need to have the newest, latest, best things.  My MNF used the expression “best damn” a lot – he bought the “best damn bread” in one place and the “best damn bratwurst” in another place, he had the “best damn grill” and he sold the “best damn water pumps.”  Needless to say, this has been a goldmine for jokes in the family – my loving brother has done a number of “best damn” tours of the area where we grew up – and we reap the results as we get packages of cheese, bratwurst, hot dogs, etc.

 My NM died recently and the WWW and her FM’s were in great form – crying hysterically while grabbing everything that they wanted.  The Main Winkie had set up a “fair” system – after the WWW and the FM’s had what they wanted, the rest of us could choose what was left over – actually, what was going to be taken to Good Will – it turns out that the WWW and FM’s actually went through the things that we’d chosen from the Good Will pile and got to pick from those again as well!!  It was amazing – NM’s jewelry was distributed in the same way – first, the “sisters” (yes, she actually said that, meaning only the WWW and the FM’s) each got a set of pearls and the rest of us got to pick after they had gone through everything.  But the saddest part was that one of my loving sisters really did want some things to remind her of NM and when she went to choose, everything was either on the lists of the WWW, the FM’s or the Main Winkie or was in the WWW’s basement.  When she asked for anything, it was already gone.  She finally asked for some pictures of our grandparents that weren’t on anyone’s list.  Turns out they were in the WWW’s basement.  The Main Winkie, unwilling to confront the WWW about the pictures, gave up a desk that had been on her list.  Well, the end result, of course, was that the WWW and FM’s lied to other family members and said that the loving sister had forced MW to give up the desk and that loving sister wanted EVERYTHING.   It was so sad, but the end result may be that this loving sister may now see the futility of only being WWW’s narcissistic supply and stop being hurt by this witch and her FM’s.