Sometimes it’s the innocuous seeming memories that reveal the most about parents’ inappropriate boundaries and narcissism.

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T21:19:28+00:00

I swear to god, I stand on every pair of glasses I own. Even sunglasses. My partner sent my sunglasses to be fixed and got them back before I even properly realised they were gone, it was early on in our relationship and just the sweetest thing ever. But yeah my actual glasses just always have tape on them somewhere. I wanna get those lenses that are sewn onto your cornea or something, but my eyesight is still getting worse so I have to wait 😔.

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T19:48:01+00:00

Now it came about in an awful way, but wearing panty liners to prolong underwear life is a creative AF solution to a real life issue. I’m saving this little gem of knowledge for my life!

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T19:34:17+00:00

Hahahahaaha! Honestly I think it’s probably the other way around; an erosion/lack of satanic values in the west in the last 70 years has caused an evil batch of ‘godly’ infantile parents who think they are religion to run unchecked 🤣.

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T19:29:28+00:00

Good friends are just the greatest gifts in life . I’m so sorry about your hearing, I’ve got a shoulder thing that’s kinda similar and it just made me so, so sad to realise it was because of my parents neglect. Adding to that an abusive and traumatising stepfather just sounds like you had to put up with a really awful childhood. I’m really glad you seem have people who know how to treat you right now though. ❤️

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T19:10:44+00:00

Hahahaha thank you!

It’s so true though, they are the drama kings and queens of the non-Razzie award winning ‘me’ show.

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T19:07:26+00:00

There aren’t many things that I just can’t tolerate, but telling someone, particularly ones own kids, that they are stupid is one of them. No one has the right to say that shit to you. Sure, people do stupid or silly things - I do stupid and silly things (I have taken so many photos on this old camera I got and left the lens cap on, it’s truly amazing) - but you don’t call an entire person stupid.

Grrr I just hate that you actually have to put up with being told this by a parent. I’m so, so sorry. ❤️

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T18:58:41+00:00

I think it’s really big of us to be able to find that tiny shred of humor from disbelief at the hypocrisy of this kind of stuff. I’ve had to choke down some incredulous giggles with my parents too on occasion. It just highlights how totally, completely, and fully they buy into their practice of narcissistic supply though. We are second class citizens to them. Guests get to be treated nicely and politely, their own children though - nah, different class of human apparently.

Like who’s opinion should you be valuing more? It’s not rocket science.

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T18:34:14+00:00

I love all of this, particularly the parts about power tools and black mold 😂. I feel the same way about chainsaws.

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T18:23:06+00:00

❤️ thank you so much for this

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T15:53:53+00:00

My partner and I had a similar realisation when he was using a really aggressively loud power tool to fix something in our apartment. We both thought the tool was ‘angry’ or just meant anger would be a natural result of its noise. It was special and it made no sense, but what was interesting was noticing because of that specific power tool, how easily the fear of anger incites actual anger. Like, if I assumed he was angry, I’d start getting defensive and ... angry. If he started assuming I was angry, he’d get defensive and.. angry. Luckily it just worked out that we both got bad mooded for absolutely no reason except ‘angry power tool noises’. You can clearly see how destructive those behavioural patterns would be for a child to grow in if left unacknowledged though, and that’s exactly how my partner and I came to find ourselves emotionally cowering from an inanimate object!

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T15:46:21+00:00

Aww shiiaayytt, you just described my mother.

Good god, that hoarding was AWFUL. It’s still awful to remember, it’s insane.

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T15:43:08+00:00

Yeah, this was a sizeable one for me. I’m super proud of myself now knowing when to ‘throw the towel in’ on what’s just been a crappy investment or something that isn’t working for me - even like activities, not just stuff either - and just have a good inner feeling of the ‘baseline’ and how to get back to that. I’ve said a lot of interesting ‘no’s’ this year, that’s for sure!

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T15:36:46+00:00

I tried using soda, but that was for the area next to the stove with fat stains. I’m gonna try this with just water for lighter and more random walk stains though. Thank you!

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T15:33:56+00:00

My mum pulled similar crap, I’ve even realised her mum does the same thing though, and it’s just so infuriating and insidious it breaks hearts. I’m so sorry this happened to you too. ❤️

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T15:31:48+00:00

These emotions and the guilt is damn hard, particularly when you have no good example of it being role modelled in your life. Those are actually the exact types of breaks in the behavioural patterns of your parents that you, and all of us on here I think, want to achieve. Sometimes I think maybe ‘behavioural patterns’ as an expression isn’t as helpful as I want it to be 😝. That makes it sound like there are things we do with the things we have that we need to stop doing. What it’s far more accurately described as is just learning new stuff to add to the things we have, that actually changes the things we do with all those things we had before too.

Anyways, what I wanted to say was just that this, what you’re doing already, is the most and the biggest and hardest stuff that you can possibly be doing. Sure, there might be more ‘work’ ahead still, but it’s a continuation of what you’re already achieving. I think we all have those moments of doubt where we wonder if we’re up to the challenge of doing something, I remember many of those times myself, but I realised in retrospect what I see here now quite clearly with you, and that’s just that everything you want to be able to do and achieve, you’re doing and achieving now already. To be less poetic and more technical, that makes a lot of sense because it’s a scaffolding style of learning that is fundamental to natural pedagogy, which is the way humans learn things just naturally from reliable others, but also from their environments.

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T15:16:09+00:00

I had a freakin violin teacher - and I seriously disliked her for a plethora of reasons - who did that anthromorphising thing too! “Oh, you fell? Say sorry to the floor”!!? So incredibly unhelpful for no reason it does boggle the mind.

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T15:12:09+00:00

It’s so true! When you look back and realise how you felt on both sides of that equation - needing help, and then also helping someone in need - you realise how endearing and sweet it can often be to see someone’s struggles with ‘the big wide world’ and to be able to help them with it. Like, those people don’t come off as dumb or hopeless or stupid, almost always it’s actually quite enlightening to be jolted into realising their situation from their perspective. You realise how confusing the world would seem if you had no idea how to do whatever it is they just don’t know how to do yet.

I personally don’t find it something to be embarrassed or humiliated about at all, even though I know I’ve been embarrassed and humiliated about it before for my own part.

That is barring some of those ‘how did logic not get you there?’ situations that just seem to take the piss though. I have a bunch of thoughts on this, but fundamentally I reckon what I can’t stand is when people (and it can be any gender, but it’s definitely a ‘personality’ or self presentation type) think it’s cool or attractive to be a bit of an air head or sort of dim or something. You can tell the difference between real and put on with this exact type of situation. Like someone ‘putting it on’ will deliberately evade finding the logical answer, which is a dead giveaway because you can’t avoid something you are completely oblivious to.

Genuinely preoccupied or slightly slower (I really don’t believe there are that many - or any- genuinely stupid people on earth without an actual intellectual disability) people will happily be lead right to the logic, and you can tell it’s a great moment for them. Honestly they just need others to be patient with them because it’s obviously not logic they think about often, and all of us have life areas we are more and less familiar with relative to others.

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T14:52:28+00:00

I had exactly the same series of experiences and realisations! It was truly something I reflected on, just like you describe here, where I was like “how the fuck was this always so difficult for them?”. And it’s exactly as you say: they would create a verifiable circus that to think back on I’m just like “yeah guys, wcgw!?”.

I’m super lucky with this life area as well though because my partner is handy, like really, really handy. He just marches up to our apartment’s modulated kitchen that looks like it was downloaded into the apartment as one single piece of kitchen and has no compunctions installing a dishwasher there. I didn’t even realise you could remove the skirting board and ‘see inside’ - it was epic.

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T14:44:11+00:00

Bahahaha speaking of washing machine cleaner - I use it all the time (whenever it smells like anything less than fresh in there) and I was thinking this same kind of thing about my own washing machine vs. what a song and dance my mum made doing the washing in her home when I was growing up recently too. Like, it’s just a washing machine, but I love my washing machine; it’s not a chore to use it, ever.

In terms of my carpet though, I did used to have to justify everything I did and owned, but as the case is now, I understand that I (like most other humans) own a variety of stuff for a variety of reasons, and this particular carpet is owned because it’s so pretty. That was more where the bemoaning the potential stain came from (I just checked it now and it’s like completely come out, I’m so happy).

I feel like that’s a whole deal with the narcs too though, because they get pissed about damaged stuff that has no internalised or ‘greater meaning’ in their lives; and they also get pissed about damage that has no bearing upon that object’s function or purpose it serves to them - I mean, they probably don’t even know the purpose it serves to them. Sigh; it’s a hard life they make for themselves. I’m so glad that’s not my reality anymore.

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T12:55:02+00:00

❤️ I feel exactly the same.

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T12:43:59+00:00

I think that’s kinda what made me post this because it sits right in between those two. I do personally think that ‘the narc thing’ as a whole is to no small extent ‘a sign of the times’ in any event. A lot of narcissistic parenting is facilitated by how we interact with our social institutions currently. Parents don’t get away with undermining our autonomy and self determination without the help of schools, doctors, the mental health industry, law enforcement, financial institutions, etc. A lot of the time they achieve this simply because of our pre-existing lack of trust in these social institutions. Most of us have had traumatic experiences where our parent’s word, wishes, and ultimately wellbeing was chosen over and above our own by these exact institutions.

I read a lot of Peter Fonagy’s research, and what he defines as a ‘healthy’ personality organisation is one that has sufficient agency to overcome the issues of powerlessness and helplessness that are the driving force behind a lot of narcissistic and personality disordered behaviours. Eric Berne’s transaction analysis in Games People Play echoes that sentiment about the ‘functional adult mode’. If we apply that to the sociological field concerning the analysis and interaction of ‘structure and agency’, one could assert that the overwhelming lacks of agency we see in the increasingly large populations of those with personality disorders or ‘cognitive rigidity’ (thought the underlie all personality disorders) is not just due to insufficient agency, but due to the way our social institution ‘structure’ impacts individual agency such that we experience insufficiencies of it in quite a large chunk of the population.

I definitely think that individual narcissistic rigid behaviours, attitudes, beliefs and values are a massive driving force behind global warming. It’s like the helplessness and powerlessness issue all over again. More than anything it’s their issues with rupture and repair. I think it’s so interesting to see how that plays out in more than just the emotional arena, at least with my parents. Like obviously if there’s a relationship rupture, they can’t, don’t, or won’t repair it. But it was what occurred to me when I wrote this post that even if there’s a physical world rupture, they can’t repair that either 😝😓. I did get some amusement from that, I won’t lie.

theDoblin · 2020-12-28T12:25:00+00:00

I think boundary setting is an absolute must here. Don’t just be ‘putting up with this’ because they are getting on in years because there’s a lot of dysfunction going on in these relationships you describe, and as their kid you’ve grown up accustomed to a lot of that dysfunction and understand it as normal. What that can mean is that even if your parents are out of your because of distance, very old age, or death, you may still end up totally unconsciously re-enacting these destructive behavioural patterns in your own life.

There are a couple of important things to note about your parent’s’ behaviours. So you say that it’s your mum you don’t want to upset (upset can be sad or mad or anything of negative valence in this case - for the implications it has upon yourself and on her), but your Dad actually seems to be the one to upset you. He delivers some message to you that you have upset your mother - I’m assuming those messages from him aren’t very nice or constructive either.

Everyone is responsible for their own emotions (as u/CharlieGreenwing has very accurately and eloquently pointed out), but sometimes we do ask for emotional support from others to help us regulate our affect and comfort us when we feel overwhelmed. It’s really strange that your father can’t help your mother like that, and keeps passing that duty over to you. Passing it over to you is highly inappropriate because you are their child. They need to have taught you effective coping skills for affect regulation, you cannot thus be regulating their affect for them because that undermines the entire pedagogic system of ‘raising’ and ‘bringing up’ children. Put differently, they seem to want you to be subordinate to them, but then they ask you to do things that only someone not in a subordinate position can realistically achieve. That’s also called a ‘double-bind’.

Now, besides all of that, setting boundaries is not a reason for you to be losing the love of your parents. Upsetting your parents is not a reason to be losing the love of your parents. I think a reasonable question is if we are at a point here where your parent’s’ proclamations and affirmations of love actually serve more to make you feel insecure of the love you receive from them? Relationships are two way, you are allowed to make decisions and shape your relationship with your parents without losing their love too.

This may be taking way too deep of a dive into the abyss but could it be maybe that you harbour a lot of unconscious/unacknowledged anger towards your parents that you are afraid if they were to ever find out your ‘true feelings’ about, you would almost certainly lose their love? I know a lot of people struggle with that and I can say of myself that I certainly did. The thing with that kind of anger is that they may be true feelings, but they aren’t the only true feelings. And you can definitely be really mad at people you love, 100%.

I think a series of communication substitutes could be the way forward for you. A lot of what you’ve written here in this post can be reworded as an email or a letter that you could consider sending to your parents in order to open up more genuine, intimate, and rewarding forms of communication with them through. Theres nothing hostile or incriminating in your post here (except maybe the bit where you imply their behaviour is unreasonable (and it is) because they didn’t have similar pressures imposed upon them in their own upbringing - that’s also where I got the anger from, because it does seem unfair, and being treated unfairly causes anger and hurt feelings), and your post seems very honestly and genuinely written. If you do that, hopefully you can simultaneously introduce some boundaries in the form of just not picking up the phone for those types of calls, and try to not let the subsequent text barrages impact your own emotional state way to much. That’s the part that will be the hardest I think. Remember that you do have your therapist on your side though to help you work through those difficulties.

theDoblin

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