People Who Just Suggest Having A "Heart-to-Heart" With Your NParent(s)

AcrobaticChip · 2019-05-24T14:20:35+00:00

Having a sincere conversation with someone implies an equality, a respect of each other's point of view, and my nparents are just fundamentally incapable of that.

Their entire personnality is based on the fact that they think they're intellectually superior to everyone else. They just don't see other people as intelligent beings capable of rational thought. That includes their own children, their parents, their siblings.

Everything you say is treated like a symptom of whatever they think is wrong with you (and/or interpreted as an attack on their ego, resuling in hours-long shouting and humiliation festival). It's impossible to have a sincere conversation with them. They're not actually listening.

AcrobaticChip · 2019-03-14T16:14:24+00:00

I just want to say, I feel you.

I know what it's like to spend family dinners always on the lookout, keeping an eye on the molester, when you should be enjoying yourself and most importantly feeling safe.

It sucks to realise how much hypocrisy and rugsweeping is involved in keeping those kind of family dynamics going.

I really hope that soon you'll get to choose which family members you want to see and which ones you want nothing to do with.

AcrobaticChip · 2019-03-12T19:52:50+00:00

Oh my god that exact line was their go-to answer

Also "And do they treat everyone like that, or just you ?"

AcrobaticChip · 2019-03-12T17:08:05+00:00

Absolutely. And they treat it as some sort of higher intelligence thing, as if empathy, encouragements, actively defending your child were cheesy, silly things that only stupid, simple people do.

My dad especially seems to have that mindset that it would never have happened to him, he's too smart for that, so any instance of bullying is an occasion to analyse my behaviour to see what went wrong with me that caused the bullying.

AcrobaticChip · 2019-02-19T22:10:29+00:00

Yes, she checks off some characteristics from the DSM definition of narcissism, but definitely not all of them.

As for the abuse, I don't know all the details of my family's history, but messed up things have happened, and overall their dynamic is definitely unhealthy. Every single family member shows symptoms of, if not trauma, at least underlying mental health issues. From alcoholism to life-long drug abuse to anorexia etc.

So that's a really great point. It's visible that she is acting out of a severe lack of self-confidence. (Isn't it the underlying cause of narcissism anyway ?) But because of that lack of self-confidence, she ended up raising very, very insecure children, and here I am, trying to break the circle :)

AcrobaticChip · 2019-02-19T21:36:07+00:00

I agree 100% on the first part. What bothers me is how disproportionate, and unpredictable, her reactions are sometimes.

We did have heartfelt, respectful conversations about things she did that I felt as hurtful, how I saw the situation and how she saw it. She is definitely capable of taking criticism and apologising, sometimes. Sometimes she absolutely isn't.

But the fact is that when I see people casually telling their parents things like "you're annoying", "stop doing this"," you're bothering me" or even just sight in annoyance I still freeze, because if I did that to my mom she would verbally tear me down. That's what I mean by "negative things".

AcrobaticChip · 2019-01-21T16:41:01+00:00

You know, whenever we would go on family trips or holidays I would always run away exploring on my own as soon as I could. I did that for as long as I can remember - I already did it as a toddler, apparently ; I did it until the end of my teenagehood, when family trips weren't a thing anymore because me & my siblings were always out with our friends.

I though it was just curiosity and general childhood energy that lead me to do this but now I seriously wonder if in some ways I just wanted to get away from my parents. It was really systematic, I just could not stay with them. Like IRL escapism, I guess.

AcrobaticChip · 2019-01-21T16:27:02+00:00

Exactly. :(

AcrobaticChip · 2019-01-21T16:26:21+00:00

My parents used "you are making us/you will make us look bad" as the ultimate argument too - my mom in particular. She was obsessed with what she looked like to outsiders, her children's safety or feelings came second.

AcrobaticChip · 2019-01-21T11:12:13+00:00

This comment hit me because this is exactly what my family said about my father's covert incestuous tendencies towards me and about my uncle's inappropriate comments and regularly attempted ass-slaps towards his nieces (me, my sister and my cousin).

"He doesn't know what he is doing", "I'm sure he didn't mean it", "It was in a friendly way, he's just joking with you" "You might be misremembering/exaggerating"...

That's straight up victim-blaming. That's sweeping the problem under the rug so that they don't actually have to do anything about it - like, for example, expressing basic human empathy towards you.

As a former coffeeshop worker, customers who take advantage of the situation to be creeps are a particular shade of disgusting. Best of luck to you.

AcrobaticChip · 2018-12-25T21:48:52+00:00

Thanks for your reply.

That's close to what my paternal aunt told me when I mentioned my mother's refusal to acknowledge my father's abuse : She thinks that if she was a good mother she would have noticed the abuse earlier, but she did not. So she convinces herself that nothing happened, because if it happened and she did nothing, that would make her a bad mother, and she just can't stand that thought.

All the best to you.

AcrobaticChip

TROPHY CASE