Posts Tagged: narcissist behavior

Child of Narcissist / Lack of Empathy / Random Observations / Seeing My Path / Tools — 28 Comments
20
Sep 11

Settle Down

studying-women1

She came home from work with a story to share.  She was animated and expressive.  Her emotions were out in full force.  She was starring in her own one-act play about an event from her day.  She couldn’t wait to share it with him.

She’d always loved when he shared his stories.  She knew he would give her his full attention.

She never could talk without moving her hands, and as she got wound up with the telling of the details, she was gesturing and demonstrating and waving and pointing and gasping for breaths.

He looked up from the newspaper and said,”Whoa, girl, settle down!” Continue reading →

Moving On / Parenting / Random Observations / Seeing My Path / Tools — 40 Comments
6
Sep 11

It Takes a Good Leavin’ Alone

stonesWhen he sends the epically long email explaining that he hasn’t introduced the kids to his girlfriend because they don’t show that they care about his life, they never come over anyway, and he really didn’t think it was any of their business…

When they question your choices, make sarcastic comments about your lifestyle and complain about how stressed and over-worked they are…

When you’ve seen that they can make healthy choices without you having to hover, lecture, or demand…

When he’s never shown any interest in what you have to say, yet you think he will this time… Continue reading →

Moving On / Seeing My Path / Tools — 27 Comments
26
Aug 11

Secret Makings of a Happy Ending

The pile of clean folded clothes was a prop.  The pile sat on the counter waiting for its cue.  The cue was the sound of the garage door opening.

__________

She wrote detailed plans for her new future.  She’d live in a house where she could take deep breaths – a house where she didn’t walk on eggshells.

She wouldn’t have to ask permission to faux-paint the bathroom walls.  She’d cook what she liked at whatever time of the day she pleased.

She’d sweep the floor when she felt it needed it. Continue reading →

Moving On / Seeing My Path — 5 Comments
15
Aug 11

Walls, Fences and Structures

fence

An excerpt from Seeing My Path.

…  I remind myself that all the structures in my life have been created by me.

The structures are determined by my relationships and my role in those relationships.  The structures dictate where I go.

I think of the structures as guard rails that keep me on the path I’m traveling.

. . .

The structure prevented me from moving closer to who I was supposed to be.

On this plateau, with the sun warming my face, I can see – far down below – a maze of high walls.  The walls are the structure I thought I needed to guarantee love and acceptance.  They funneled me in the direction of pleasing others, helping others, and putting myself last.

What if I made the decision to raze those walls and create a new structure?

What if I trusted that love would come to me if I allowed myself to follow a path that didn’t put everyone else first?

Could it be that each step in the direction of my true self might bring me more strength and more love?

Then I heard myself having a conversation with… well… myself.

 

*To read more about how my choices and structures led to my marrying a narcissist, how I lost myself, changed course and finally got headed in my right direction check out Seeing My Path – In and Out of a Relationship With a Narcissist.

It’s a good story with a happy ending… so far. ;)

Child of Narcissist / Moving On / Seeing My Path — 13 Comments
11
Aug 11

Seeing My Path

Seeing My Path - In and Out of a Relationship With a Narcissist

We ran out of Fritos.

Now we’re on to a 3-layered, sinfully dark chocolate cake.  The layers are filled with chocolate flavored mascarpone cheese. I’ll cut you a thin slice because it’s so rich.

We’re celebrating the 2nd birthday of the blog and the release of my first e-book!

I know!  I said I was going to write this book.

I did it!

This book is all new content!

There’s nothing quite like setting a goal, realizing a dream and having Will and Jenny by my side telling me how proud they are.

__________

I’m going to eat some more cake, pat myself on the back, and smother my kids a bit.

I’ll be back here to reply to some comments and write another post.  Soon.

In the meantime, thank you all for encouraging me on the book.  Thank you for visiting this site and hanging out with us.  Thank you for your compassion and wise words.

I am blessed to have you touch my life.

Pass the cake!

 

Edit:  5/31/21

The sidebar includes links to free copies of my e-books. Please help yourself.

 

 

Child of Narcissist / Lack of Empathy / Moving On / The World Revolves Around Me / Tools — 16 Comments
8
Aug 11

Surviving Nicely – 2

It feels good typing the title of this post.

I hope you like Fritos.  We’re also serving lemonade because, well, we have all those lemons.  I have to enjoy a little wine on a birthday.  Jenny is throwing confetti.  Will is tech decking in the background.

And there’s gratitude flowing through the room

It’s the 2nd birthday here at survivingnarcissism.com.

I don’t know how it happened.

Yes!  We’ve journeyed through another year on this blog. Continue reading →

Child of Narcissist / Random Observations / Seeing My Path / Tools — 58 Comments
21
Jul 11

I Am The Protector

protectionI wanted to find out what happened to Lisbeth Salander – really, I did.  I made it to page 532, out of 600 pages.  I almost got there.  In the middle of the book, where she’s attacked by the bad guy, I almost quit reading.  I told myself, “Oh come on, you wimp, certainly there will be justice in the end.  Keep reading.”  But at about page 489, I’d walk by my nightstand and I’d swear the book was growling and baring its teeth at me.  I felt the need to cross my arms in front of my chest to protect myself.

I returned the book – unfinished – to my girlfriend.  She’d also loaned me the second in the series.  “I’m sorry,” I muttered, “I can’t do it.  It hurts to read it.”  She knows me.  She just smiled.  I looked at her coffee table and saw another book that looked intriguing, and started to say, “How’s that one?”  She politely stopped me and said, “You won’t like that one, either.”

*sigh*

I wanted to watch Javier Bardem in “Biutiful“.   Last night I tucked the kids in and sat down for a rare treat – a grown-up movie.  I made it through 50 minutes before my stomach started to tighten and I noticed my fists were clenched.  It was raw and edgy and artsy and he was biutiful.  I had to stop watching to protect myself from the anxiety I feel whenever I’m exposed to turmoil.

*sigh* Continue reading →

Child of Narcissist / Control / Lack of Empathy / The World Revolves Around Me / You Might Be a Narcissist If ... — 33 Comments
17
Jul 11

A Day in the Life of a Narcissist

He said he’d be here at 9:oo a.m.

Then he changed his mind.

He didn’t want to do what the kids wanted to do so he said, “I’m not coming at nine.  I don’t want to go where they want to go.”

The kids called and sent texts asking why he didn’t want to go where they wanted to go.

He avoided answering calls and texts.

I went to his house to ask him why he is manipulating the kids in this way.

He refused to answer the door. Continue reading →

Child of Narcissist / Moving On / Random Observations / Seeing My Path — 18 Comments
13
Jul 11

Waiting

waiting-on-the-moonWhen her babies were small, she had an urge to knit tiny striped mittens with pink and green and purple fuzzy yarns.  Now her kids wouldn’t be caught dead wearing handmade mittens.  Friends were having babies who needed their precious hands protected from the harsh winter winds.  She could make mittens for those babies.

She was waiting for her mom to teach her to knit.

He often found himself at a friend’s house on Saturday afternoons, and after swilling a couple beers, someone would suggest playing a pickup game of basketball.  He’d laugh and say, “I’ll sit this one out.  I’m lousy at basketball.”

He was waiting for his dad to teach him how to play basketball.

He’d read all he could find on SEO, blog traffic, building customer loyalty and what the experts had to say about making money on the internet.  He’d finished his most recent course, made some progress and signed up for the next impressive looking webinar that would surely push his project over the edge.  He lacked the confidence to believe that he had the skills and knowledge that would make his project a success. Continue reading →

Child of Narcissist / Lack of Empathy / The World Revolves Around Me / You Might Be a Narcissist If ... — 29 Comments
5
Jul 11

The Narcissist’s Lens

She gets off the phone and sighs and says, “Dad says he’ll go to the park with me for a little bit, but he doesn’t want to stay too long because he gets bored.”

He comes back from riding his bike around the block and says, “How come dad doesn’t ever want to do what we want to do?  If he does finally do what we like, he mopes and pouts and tells us he has to get going.”

He shows up at the house with a new baseball mitt for him, and nothing for her.

He sits on the step and pretends to listen to her talk about her imaginary pony until an adult walks up.  Once he sees the opportunity a new audience provides, he stands, turns to this new person and tells him tales of mountain bike rides and how many hours he logs at the office.  Realizing that he is no longer listening, she looks down and continues drawing her pony.

He tells me that he’d like to call his dad and tell him about how high his ollies are now, but his dad doesn’t listen and act excited.  He’s thinking that maybe his dad says that it’s cool that he loves skateboarding, but he can feel that his dad is pretending to care.

They have both told me that they don’t know why they can’t be themselves around their dad.  They don’t show him their silly sides or their tired sides, or the side-splitting funny sides because they fear he won’t approve.

It’s exhausting having to be perfect all the time.

It’s no fun pretending to be something you aren’t all the time.

“How come he doesn’t want to love who we really are?”

__________

After the last visit, he turned to me and said, “I think they’d want to spend more time with me if they weren’t missing you while they were with me.”

Moving On / Seeing My Path — 64 Comments
26
Jun 11

The Last Straw – An Excerpt from Seeing My Path

the-last-straw…  I reflect on the events that happened right before I decided to leave my marriage. Obviously, as in any marriage that is on the verge of crumbling, there were many issues. Everyone has their own last straw. Mine will not be yours. Your last straw will look completely different from another person’s last straw.

In fact, I’m convinced that we don’t know when that last straw is approaching. We get so busy putting up and shutting up, that we don’t see that the scale has been tipped.

The scale was off balance long ago and we are so busy keeping the peace, scrubbing the floors, making the apologies and hiding the toys, that we don’t notice that nothing more can be added to the scale.

That’s why the last straw is often infinitesimally small. The last straw could be a sideways glance, a pair of dirty socks left on the bedroom floor, or an off-handed comment about the way the chicken was prepared for last night’s dinner.

I didn’t see my last straw coming.

To this day, I marvel at the smallness of the infraction.

But, take many small infractions over years of disappointment and resentment and failed expectations and bars raised too high, and suddenly I met my last straw.

We were sitting at the dinner table with Will and Jenny and my husband’s older kids from his previous marriage. Over messy burgers, fruit salad, Domestic Beers and spilled Kool-Aid we had the disjointed kind of conversation that families have – the kind where you laugh and try to interject something and miss the beat and it just doesn’t matter because after dinner you’ll go outside and eat popsicles and play Bocce Ball.

Somewhere during that conversation, the patriarch – the man of the house, the provider, the role model, the man whose job it is to make us feel loved and welcomed and safe – got up from the table,  mid-bite, and walked upstairs.

(He later told me he was tired of the conversation. He was sick of the boring exchange. We simply no longer interested him.)

His oldest son glanced at me with a look that said, “What did I say that he didn’t like?”  Later, when we cleaned the kitchen together, the oldest told me his father often did that  – left the dinner table – when he and his brother lived with Mark.  I thought he only did that with his new family.

I came up with a feeble excuse about how dad is tired from work, or dad isn’t feeling well.

But that night, his getting up and leaving his family sitting at the table, still eating  their dinners, was my last straw.

After years of seeing the lack of spirit, the inability to make a decision, and the fear of disappointing their father – in these two older children – I realized that by staying in this marriage, I would be letting history repeat itself.

I couldn’t save his oldest kids.

I could try to save mine.

 

Seeing My Path is an ebook that tells the ongoing conversation I’ve been having with myself, and the questions I ask.  It’s a look at how I ended up marrying a narcissist, how I got out of the marriage, and what I’m doing to try to get back on my own path.

Child of Narcissist / Moving On / Seeing My Path / Tools — 11 Comments
23
Jun 11

On Reframing

When he told her he liked her hair longer and that her face looked too full with a shorter cut, she got up the courage to tell him that his comment had hurt her feelings.

He reframed the incident by gently reminding her that she was far to0 sensitive and that he was just trying to help.

 

When he got home from work and commented that she must have had one crazy day since she hadn’t found time to clean the floors, she tried to defend herself.   She explained that she’d been folding clothes, changing diapers, feeding children and preparing dinner and that she hadn’t found the time to get to the floors.

He reframed the conversation and pointed out that dinner would be more enjoyable if the floors were clean. Continue reading →

Child of Narcissist / Lack of Empathy / Moving On / Random Observations / Tools — 26 Comments
15
Jun 11

The Filing Cabinet

filing-basket1She’d had the filing cabinet since college, or maybe even high school. It was a bland almond color and it leaned to the right under the weight of all the files. It was a struggle to open the drawers. When she did, the drawer scraped against the metal sides of the cabinet, opening to reveal a mess of papers, their crumpled corners poking out of worn manila file folders.

There was no real organization to the drawers.

She had categorically filed in the beginning, but the sheer number of papers now prevented an orderly system. The drawers of the two-drawer cabinet could not hold any more folders. She was considering buying a larger cabinet.

Each filed note or paper represented a hurt, a slight, or a rude comment. She hadn’t filed based on intent. There wasn’t a drawer for intended hurts or a second drawer for accidental digs.

On rainy days, when the kids were busy playing, she’d go into her bedroom and slowly open a drawer. For some reason, she couldn’t resist re-visiting the hurtful comments written on the worn pages. Continue reading →

Child of Narcissist / Control / Lack of Empathy / Moving On / Tools / You Might Be a Narcissist If ... — 12 Comments
25
May 11

The Making of a Passive-Aggressive

you-bore-me“Dad’s here!”  Instead of heading to the door to greet him, she ran to her bedroom to change her shirt.  As he walked into the living room, she came walking in from the hallway wearing a hand-me-down t-shirt.  She smiled up at Mark, and said, “Hi, Daddy!”

I don’t think he noticed her shirt.  If he did, he didn’t say anything.  If he did, he certainly wouldn’t have thought it applied to him.

After he left, I asked her why she’d decided to wear that shirt.  She stretched the shirt out in front of her so I could read it better.  She looked up at me and grinned.  She didn’t say anything.  She didn’t need to.

I didn’t discuss the appropriateness or inappropriateness of her choice.

______ Continue reading →

Child of Narcissist / Moving On / Random Observations / You Might Be a Narcissist If ... — 21 Comments
20
May 11

Not Your Typical Birthday Post

presentsAs I sit here sipping coffee, smelling blueberry pancakes and looking at the birthday presents my kids made and wrapped, I can’t help but think I ought to be writing an inspirational post about what it’s like to be turning 49.  Gasp!

I could write about 49 lessons learned in 49 years.  That might be tricky since many of those lessons I didn’t get the first, second, or even third time, so that list could get pretty redundant.

I could write about being grateful that my mom is still here to make me what I want for my birthday dinner.

I could write about the surprise of my dad remembering my birthday, inviting me to lunch and suggesting that Jen and Will come along, too.

Or, I could mention the amazing growth I’ve experienced in the last few years, from learning all I can about narcissism and how that has helped the three of us.

I could write about how blessed the three of us are with old and new friends, wonderful extended family and the folks who read this blog and contribute to our learning and healing.

But while I’m sitting here waiting for Will to serve me a second pancake, smothered in butter and a splash of real maple syrup, I have to say that I’m wondering if there’s anything to this Rapture/End-Of-Our-Days stuff, that is supposed to happen tomorrow.

I can’t get beyond thinking….

 

Holy Shit!  If this Rapture stuff is true, I won’t have to spend the whole next year agonizing about turning 50!

 

Woot!

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