Surviving Narcissism

Child of Narcissist / Lack of Empathy / Moving On / Recipes / You Might Be a Narcissist If ... — 7 comments
02
Apr 10

Mexican Salad and ‘The Good Witch’

mexican-salad What is worse – having a narcissistic father that fights for custody and makes the kids’ lives miserable on a daily basis, or having a narcissistic father who wants nothing to do with his children, if they won’t do things his way? I think Will and Jenny have it better. While they will certainly be hurt by the fact that their dad can so easily walk away, they won’t have to deal with the day-to-day dismissals of who they are. They won’t have Mark belittling them or using them as extensions of himself.

In Mark’s lengthy email, he had asked me what I proposed as a solution to this problem – like he’d actually entertain any of my suggestions. He hinted at the possibility of resorting to calling lawyers again, and forcing visitation. I speculated that things would go something like this:

He wouldn’t call the attorney because, after himself, and above all else, money is the most important thing to him. Attorneys cost money.
He would not agree to adapt his behavior in an effort to have a better relationship with these two precious people.
I guessed that he would not address any of the kids’ requests. I was pretty convinced that he’d tell them he was trying his best and that he loved them. Then, as per usual, he would not call a couple days and wait for the dust to settle. Then, on about the fifth day of no contact, he’d call, and with his sing/song voice, he’d invite them to do something, pretending like nothing had ever happened.

I did not guess that he would walk away from his kids. I did not let myself believe that he was as low as he apparently is. I did not see that coming, even though I have written about the fact that, if the accommodator stops being the source, the narcissist will completely dismiss her, and search for a new source. And there lies the trap in all this. As schooled as I may think I am in all this narcissism stuff, there is still something (frickin’ Lizard Brain) that makes it hard to comprehend that another individual – someone I thought I knew, and loved – is capable of such things.

__________ Continue reading →

Lack of Empathy / Moving On / The World Revolves Around Me / You Might Be a Narcissist If ... — 4 comments
01
Apr 10

Pretending

cardboard-ipod This is a picture of the cardboard iPod that Jenny made. She brought it skiing today. Her brother got one for Christmas, and she wants to be a ‘cool kid’, too, so she made her own. At lunch, in the lodge, she was playing with her ‘iPod’, and Will said, “Jen, some people are laughing at your iPod.” Jenny defiantly said, “So what!” I hope she’s able to maintain that attitude. Later, she asked if I wanted a pretend iPod. I wanted to say, “Nah. No thanks, honey. I’ve had a pretend boyfriend for almost 3 years. I’m done pretending for awhile.

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Speaking of pretending…

The kids emailed their dad in response to his lengthy email. Will’s email was about the way his feelings are hurt when his dad makes fun of the things he loves; when his dad doesn’t acknowledge Will’s interests; and how Mark’s always too busy with his business to have any time for them. Jenny’s email brought up the fact that Mark says he’s going to try – try to be interested, try to use an adult voice, try to spend time with her – and he doesn’t come through.

I insisted on reading the emails before they hit the ‘send’ button. I wasn’t concerned about grammar and spelling as much as I was concerned about… Continue reading →

You Might Be a Narcissist If ... — 4 comments
01
Apr 10

More Survivor Humor

Mark and I are getting back together.

April Fools!!

Continue reading →

Homekeeping — Comments Off
31
Mar 10

homekeeping 2

talent-stamps I don’t like watching people eat live, slimy, crawling insects. In the old days, I watched the reality TV show, Survivor, with Mark. I haven’t checked out a reality show since. I’m not a snob. I just don’t get the fascination. Actually, I liked the part of Survivor where the contenders talked about their families, and I did like watching the dynamics of the groups at play. With each new season, it seemed to be less about interacting and more about eating creepy crawly things, so I lost interest. That being said, I’ve noticed that this blog strongly resembles reality TV. At least I’m sparing you the bad clothes and the smelly bathroom details.

I started this blog as a way to vent, and then process. Jen, Will and I were developing, and still are developing, some great tools for dealing with narcissism. First, it was about dealing with their dad’s narcissistic behaviors. The blog continues to be about their relationship with their dad, and ultimately my relationship with their dad, since you never really come to the end of a relationship with an ex. /:(

More recently, this blog has also been a significant tool that helps me figure out how to be in a healthy relationship, or least what I need to change about how I have been in relationships.

I have an image of this blog representing a tunnel. It’s a pretty dark tunnel, but it isn’t damp or cold, and we have each other. The kids and I are making it through this tunnel hand-in-hand. More than once-in-awhile, there are portholes in the walls of the tunnel. They shed some light on our path. These portholes are the tools that we’ve gathered – good words and small practices that we do in a day to help us stay positive. The portholes are also all the encouragement from those who comment and those who support us in our daily lives.

There is a faint sound in this tunnel. I think it comes from the end. It sounds like a breeze rustling leaves on trees, and birds fluttering and chirping, and a creek running nearby. It sounds like a great place to be. The three of us want to get there. We are making steady progress. Just ask Donna. She sent me this note a couple days ago. Continue reading →

Child of Narcissist / Lack of Empathy / Moving On / The World Revolves Around Me — Comments Off
30
Mar 10

Homeschooling and Wasbands

Do you remember the classic “Far Side” cartoon by Gary Larson that has the funky woman talking a blue streak to her dog, and it shows what the dog hears? The dog only hears, “blah blah blah blah, Ginger. blah blah blah blah, Ginger.” It’s 2:30 and I can’t sleep. I got up to write and was greeted by a 1500 word email that was written by Mark.

__________

At the risk of further cementing my membership in the loosely knit Association of Homeschooling Weirdos, I have to tell you what I most love about this homeschooling business. There is nothing quite like being there when they first grasp a concept. I get to be there when that light bulb goes off, and they understand what’s in front of them, and they are filled with pride and possibility. It’s like the looks on their faces when they learn to tie their shoes or ride a bike. It’s something I don’t want to miss.

A few weeks ago, I was helping Will with fractions. I love math. I love the fluidity and fuzzy boundaries of dealing with people and relationships. But when I’m in over my head with that relationship crap, I like to turn to something certain, like math. Even Will says he likes math because, “There’s one right answer.” Sometimes it’s nice to know there is ONE right answer. So we were adding different fractions with different denominators and I was explaining that you have to “get the fractions speaking in the same language – in the same denominator.” I have a decent understanding of what their learning styles are, and what approaches work best for helping them learn. But, I was having a bit of a struggle with the fractions. I put my pencil down, walked out into the living room to take a deep breath, and figure out a new approach, and I came back with a new angle. Suddenly the light bulb went off, and he whizzed through the rest of the exercise. It was fun for both of us. We found a common language, and it was a thing of beauty.

NEWS FLASH: There is NO common language with a narcissist. Continue reading →

Child of Narcissist / Random Observations — 6 comments
30
Mar 10

The Guy With The Alex de Grassi Album

I’m tired of reading about how women don’t like the nice guys. I know they are out there. I’d like to like one, I just don’t know how to act around a nice guy.

My imprinting didn’t include any instructions on what to do when a guy is nice.

I was telling someone the other day that I do real well opening up if I’m not worried about whether I’m liked or not. But if I’m in a relationship, and I’m asked personal stuff, I hesitate to reveal much because he might hear something he doesn’t like. And then where would that leave me? There’s too much at stake.

I didn’t say that any of this would make sense.

Continue reading →

Moving On / Quotes — 2 comments
29
Mar 10

Speaking of Definitions

The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

Child of Narcissist / Lack of Empathy / Moving On — 11 comments
29
Mar 10

Lizard Brain Be Damned!

Last week when we were struggling, Pat sent me some timely reminders, which points to the fact that this blog is becoming a communal effort. I hope others are benefiting as much as the three of us.

The first is actually from a link on my site.

…do not expect them (narcissists) to show the slightest interest in you or your life (or even in why you’re bothering with them at all), do not expect them to be able to do anything that you need or want, do not expect them to apologize or make amends or show any consideration for your feelings…

I don’t think I’ve written a single post that demonstrates Mark’s interest in the kids. It’s pretty clear that he expects them to be a source for his narcissism, and so he’ll feign interest to secure that source. But that interest isn’t genuine, and is subject to withdrawal should the kids fail to meet his standards or stop providing the consistent source that he needs. At one point, when I was still trying to facilitate the kids’ relationship with Mark, he reminded me that, “He just doesn’t like to be around people that don’t like him.” None of us is comfortable hanging where we feel we aren’t liked. He just requires a greater deal of liking than the rest of us. He requires that we like him above all other things. And he won’t stick around unless he feels he’s liked more than anything else.

Incidentally, the kids haven’t heard from Mark since the fabulous skiing episode. Apparently they didn’t like him enough after that adventure. And as I write this, they are both putzing around the house singing, “Busy Being Fabulous“, by the Eagles. I don’t make this stuff up. I swear. Continue reading →

Child of Narcissist / Quotes — Comments Off
28
Mar 10

The Wise Father

It is a wise father who knows his own child.

William Shakespeare

Child of Narcissist / Lack of Empathy / Moving On — 11 comments
28
Mar 10

The Mom as Dad

“What’s it like to have a good dad?”

“I don’t know, sweetie.”

“How is it being the mom and the dad?” It sucks.

I can’t throw a football with a decent spiral. I don’t know the first thing about bow hunting. I just don’t understand why burping and farting is always funny. I could learn these things. I could practice and be a mom that throws an amazing spiral, but my plate is full. I want to be a wonderful mom, but dammit, I don’t want to be a wonderful dad. And I can’t be. It’s not the same. I don’t know if a boy even wants to brag about his mom being able to drive a golf ball 275 yards. Not that I can.

The morning after the fabulous ski day with their dad, the kids were working on a fun collaboration where they were filming each other as they told about their dreams. As luck (?) would have it, the night of the skiing incident, Jenny dreamt that John was her dad. He taught her magic tricks and told her exciting stories, and listened as she talked about whatever popped into her head. So Will was filming her as she gave the details of a bizarre adventure that included the three of us and John in some old, resort-like house with lots of hiding places. The house was inhabited by these little gnome people that were made out of clay and they spent their days making wooden furniture. She included enough details to make me think that I ought to phone Tim Burton and Johnny Depp.

In the middle of having her dream talk filmed, she burst into tears. I figured maybe Will had done something to piss her off. (They spend a great deal of time together.) She came to sit on my lap and told me, through big streaming tears, “I just want a good dad.”

So the three of us sat and talked about what a good dad is, and here is their list. Continue reading →

Child of Narcissist / Lack of Empathy / You Might Be a Narcissist If ... — 5 comments
27
Mar 10

Due To Lack of Interest

“Due to lack of interest, tomorrow has been canceled.” My mom had a cartoon, with that caption, pinned to the bulletin board in the kitchen. I was old enough to read, and I’d look at that and I thought it was real. I really thought that if we weren’t interested in anything, the world would end. My mom was interested in her job, and keeping the house together. I was interested in Barbies and having tea parties. My brother was interested in Hot Wheels and shooting gophers. I guess I figured we were doing our parts. But that damn cartoon kept me up a lot of nights. Could tomorrow really be canceled? How do we keep that from happening? Maybe that’s why I’m interested (some might call me nosey) in other people and their lives. I’m hoping that if I’m interested enough, tomorrow won’t be canceled.

After a fabulous day in the sunshine, skiing with two amazing people who picked me to be their mom, I came to a conclusion. We are beyond absolutely fine. We thrive on not having to deal with Mark. In fact, we flourish.

This is where I am, right at this moment:

“Due to lack of interest*, tomorrow** has been canceled.”

* Mark’s lack of interest in Jenny and Will Continue reading →

Child of Narcissist / Lack of Empathy / The World Revolves Around Me — 14 comments
25
Mar 10

Another One Last Try

“Jenny will not go skiing with you tomorrow unless you promise to not talk to her in the baby voice. She asked me to call you and she needs you to promise. Can you do that for her?”

Tuesday afternoon found Mark over for another visit. The weather was nice. They threw the football and played on the swings at the park. They seemed to enjoy each other. Mark and Will came in the house to ask if it would be okay for the kids to go skiing with their dad on Wednesday. I knew I was staring at a potential disaster, but until the kids could tell me that they didn’t want to go, I wasn’t going to stand in the way. My only comment was that Mark would have to ski the gentler runs all day because of Jen’s ability. He said, “Well I haven’t been able to ski with my little girl all year, and I really want to see how she’s doing.” Of course that sounded like he’s been wanting to ski with her, but really the three of us know that he hasn’t skied with her because he prefers the more challenging stuff.

Jenny still remembers the one time we saw him up there this year. He asked if he could ski a run with us because he wanted to see how Jen was progressing. She got very excited. We got off the chair lift, waited for Mark, she made three turns and he yelled, “Good job, Honey. Don’t forget to lead with your toe. I’ll catch ya later.” And he found a cut off that led to a black diamond run. Jen asked me where he went. I was stuck telling her that he chose to go down a different run.

Just this week I read a post on Kelly Diels‘ blog about how you can’t teach people how to treat you. I never have had any luck with that. But when it comes to my kids, I have to do something. And since I can’t tie their dad up, and drag him behind my car down the nearest county road, I thought I’d try teaching him. One more time.

So I made the call, explained that Jen didn’t want to go skiing, but that if he could promise to talk to her like the grown up little girl that she is, she would reconsider. And he said, “Well, she’s my little girl and I love her.” Okay. I know that. I gave him some more time to think about it. He didn’t offer anything, so I said, “Do you think you can put aside the baby voice tomorrow?” He hesitated and said he would try. Continue reading →

Lack of Empathy / The World Revolves Around Me / You Might Be a Narcissist If ... — 11 comments
25
Mar 10

Proof That I’m Not a Narcissist

I’ve been trying to find an emoticon that equals “heavy sigh”. Yesterday was a wicked day for Will and Jenny. After some serious triage; administering Cheetos and fudge bars and a large dose of junk TV; I tucked them in their beds. I will be spending the day focusing on repairing the damage to their egos and reminding them that life is also very funny even when it pisses you off.

However, I must tell you that I do have further proof that I AM NOT a narcissist. I just got out of the shower and accidentally caught a full glimpse of my naked back side. Trust me. I would not do that on purpose. And this flash went through my head, “That must be what my grandpa saw when my grandma got out of the shower.” And immediately I was filled with love, sympathy and compassion for my grandpa. That’s real empathy. A narcissist can’t do that.

I am going to tend to my bruised children now. And I’m going to squeeze in 37 walks up the hill at the park, in an effort to erase that vision of my grandma’s back side. Is it too early for a shot?

Child of Narcissist / Opportunistic / You Might Be a Narcissist If ... — 7 comments
24
Mar 10

The YCMTSU File

YCMTSU stands for You Can’t Make This Shit Up.

I just got off the phone with my dad. To be honest, he called yesterday and I didn’t pick up. I hear you gasping. A couple months ago when I did pick up he was having some financial problems, so I was a little gun-shy yesterday. But because I am a bad Catholic daughter, the guilt got the best of me today and I picked up.

He said he’d tried calling yesterday. I said I was skiing. That was a lie. (Told you I was a bad Catholic.) He said, “I didn’t know you were a skier.” I said, “Dad, I’ve skied with you. You know I’m a skier.” He said, “I don’t have any short term memory anymore.” I said, “Dad, I’ve been skiing for 37 years.”

He called to share a story with me. It seems that yesterday he’d decided to “end it all”. He’s sick of the weather, his car broke down, his renters aren’t paying and he’s done with the whole damn thing. (Please understand that I have heard the “end it all” talk my whole life. First, I heard it from my grandma, then my dad. This talk is attention-getting at it’s worst.) I reminded him that the Catholic Chrch wouldn’t really take too kindly to his committing suicide. He said, “Well, yes. I would go straight to hell.” I said, “What’s the point of being a good Catholic all those years only to end it with suicide and go straight to hell?” He said, “Well…….”

I said, “Geez, Dad, at least you could wait until the end of golf season. You’ve got at least one more good season in ya.” He said, “Yeah, you’re right. I’ve been swinging really well. I’ll rethink this thing in October.”

I said, “So did you call to give me the story of “Ending it all”? He said, “Oh yeah, that’s right. So I was walking to meet my buddies for lunch at Burger King. You know, since my car broke down. And as I was walking across the street I saw a big semi and some trucks heading for me and I thought, ‘I could do this right now.’ So I stopped in the middle of the road. And you know what happened? The truck in the front stopped and the semi stopped and everybody else stopped.” I said, “Well, Dad, I guess God put his big hand down to direct traffic, huh?” He said, “Guess who was driving the first truck that stopped.” I said, “I don’t know, Dad, tell me.” Continue reading →

Homekeeping — 4 comments
24
Mar 10

homekeeping

spring-window Mark took the kids skiing today. A story is brewing. I’ll keep you posted. Literally.

Last night I made grand plans to concentrate on the book today. Kids would be gone the whole day and I’d have uninterrupted time to wrap up some loose ends. I’m hoping to have something to release before we head out on our cruise. I’ve been reading a lot about how, if you’ve been sharing all kinds of stuff on a blog for free, your followers/readers/sisters/tribe will squawk if you expect them to start paying for content. I haven’t done such a great job of following the advice of the ‘experts’ so far. This blazing my own new trail is too damn fun to start following some other proven path. I like to think that I’m being the responsible parent by setting up a counseling fund for Will and Jenny.

But before working on the book, and after checking out my favorite haunts on the web, I was going to go get some groceries before a girlfriend comes for lunch. I canceled with her last week because I was feeling like a bad mom for spending so much time at art shows and not doing “real” school work; because I was still in a funk about John; and because my ankles were swollen. I’m not kidding about the ankles. I just now came out of the bathroom after putting on some mascara and dragging my fingers through my hair. My mom would be proud of me for not leaving the house without mascara. And then I thought, “screw it. I’d rather write on this blog than get groceries.” ‘Course, I’d rather do just about anything than go get groceries.

Yesterday’s blog post was huge for me. I felt like it was taking a risk to write about God/prayer/chrch and all that icky (to me) stuff. I was actually in tears when I hit the ‘Publish’ button. There were huge tears of relief streaming down my cheeks. I know when I’ve written something powerful (powerful for me, and I hope for you) – I get teary during the process. Susan shared a tip with me about how to keep yourself from getting teary. Hold your index finger under your nose. Hold it perpendicular – like you are pointing in the direction of your ear – and apply a little pressure. It works! But I’ve yet to figure out how to type while pressing my finger below my nose. The acronym for finger under nose is f.u.n. Nice.

So while I was just getting ready to go to the store I was thinking about a new category for this blog. I was going to call it “housekeeping” but I can’t come up with any positive feelings when I hear that word. I’ve not kept it a secret that housekeeping is on the bottom of my list. In fact, my mom called the other day, and after I answered she said, “What’s going on? You’re out of breath.” While panting into the phone I said, “Don’t get your hopes up. I have my clothes on. I was dusting furniture. You know, blowing the dust off the tops of the furniture.” Only there was a lot of dust and I was running out of breath. Continue reading →