Parenting with a Narcissist

By Reflector

“There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.” ~ Jane Austen

On the “precarious” front this week, my daughter’s mother (MDM) called. She wanted to talk, yet she let on as if she hadn’t been served the divorce papers. It was only later that my lawyer informed me she had received them. I therefore had no clue where the conversation was going. I was puzzled by her unusually receptive tone and her considerate, yet pointed questions. In brief MDM wanted to know if I would reconsider the whole divorce decision and seek counselling with her… etc, etc.

*sigh*

My encounters with MDM require close scrutiny of my motivations. I don’t know which is louder – the external critical parent voice that comes from her, my own or both? As much as I analyze and re-analyze, it’s impossible to come to one hundred percent certainty about another person.

As Austen says, “Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.” However, in spite of human limitations, discernment is necessary and one of the reasons I journal is to be able to explore conflictive issues in a safe environment.

How is it possible for MDM to bear grudges so long (recurrent themes in her letters about how bad my family treated her, etc.,) then, make it appear all is forgotten? How do you approach someone who is combative and tenacious about her sense of her rights one moment, then charming and cuddling then next? When your trust has been eroded by someone’s taking-advantage-track record, how can you be sure what she is saying is true or pretext?

MDM is certain she is right about what she does on DD’s behalf, yet expects me to shoulder the majority of the financial burden. She says there are no jobs for her and that I must accept this reality. How can you measure truth? I want to cut my losses as much as possible when it comes to this legal settlement, yet I also realize it’s important to DD’s emotional wellbeing to maintain the lifestyle she has become accustomed to. The result is I feel divided.

One of the disturbing dynamics of the marriage that I will not forget was the feeling that the more I did for MDM, the less she’d do for herself. It became an embedded pattern and I as the enabler felt uncomfortable with this role, yet did not have the tools to change it.

I’ve also had bouts of heartsickness these days. This is one side effect of having contact with MDM. It reopens the wounds. No matter how ambiguous the marriage had been with the mixture of I-love-you/I-hate-you messages, the move toward divorce isn’t easy.

While separation seems like a suspended interval of time out, divorce feels like death. The person who once played center stage is strangely dead to you, yet alive in your memory or subconscious. As you know our mind plays tricks with memories of deceased people, idealizing them once they are out of sight and you no longer see their flaws up close…

by Reflector

“Most people tend to notice other people’s energy and actions before they notice their own. They become preoccupied with what others are doing or not doing, projecting their ideas about why they are that way. They carry on with criticism or comparisons, while their deeper feelings go unattended.” - Doc Childr and Deborah Rozman

Sometimes I think I’m attending deeper feelings when I’m really focused upon my reactions to others. It’s easy for me to confuse the two things. Yesterday while I was filing for divorce, I was focused upon what my daughter’s mother might do once she receives the document.

Filing a divorce is one of the most anticlimactic events I’ve ever experienced, like amputating an arm or a leg. In the beginning phase of my separation I rode on a wave of anger and indignation that provided fuel. I looked forward to the day when I could break with the past and just move on. However, ending a relationship looks easier from a distance even when the marriage is harmful.

However, the final showdown doesn’t ring victory, since only you experience the scourge of a bad marriage and there’s no one to applaud your determination one way or the other. You plod along as an “unsung hero”. Your head fills with contradictory feelings that you can’t imagine. Even though your ex “partner” is messed up, you still feel compassion for her. It’s not the kind of compassion that says, “let’s get back together”, but it still fits in the category of compassion.

When you file divorce papers you feel empty and you wish you had some company, but you also know that dependency doesn’t make you any less lonely. Sometimes you need to take measures against a destructive relationship and take it to its logical conclusion even when you don’t feel the drive to do it. Yes, it may be easier when you have an external prop like a new love to distract you – at least as a temporary fix.

The obstacles ahead frighten me. My soon-to-be ex still has a way of psychologically making me feel responsible for what goes wrong (I know the problem is mine assigning more importance than she deserves). I fear she will find loop holes, postponing her job hunt or whatever. It’s her way of saying, “Well, if I can’t have my way (married to you), I’ll make life as difficult for you as I can.” It’s similar to the story of the two women who disputed before King Solomon. The mother who rolled onto her newborn (thus crushing him or her) wanted compensation at any cost – even if it meant stealing or cutting another baby in half. Some people feel a sense of entitlement that someone else has to pay the cost…

I think divorce has taken on a symbolic meaning to me beyond the need for closure. It also has taken the added significance of laying down some long overdue boundaries – with the subtext that reads, “I’m assuming my responsibility. How about you? ” It may also mean I’m ready to take on more responsibility – other than financial – willing to take care of my dear daughter in the event that my daughter’s mother has to work longer hours.

Doc Childr and Deborah Rozman in their book, “Overcoming Emotional Chaos” explain how we spend much of our emotional energy carelessly and have never been taught emotional self-care. We don’t even know where to begin or how to start. How true this has been in my life. My way of dealing with prolonged emotionally draining situations has been to sit the valley of indecision, hoping the problem will work itself out (while making the problem only worse and more ingrained). I want to stay in limbo, not wanting to finish what I started. Perhaps this is because I have yet to learn how to mourn the loss of a relationship I never really had, involving a different kind of process than someone who faces a loss where love once thrived.

My therapist once said I needed to mourn my relationship with my soon-to-be ex even though it was painful and destructive. I didn’t understand what relevance there could be mourning for a bad marriage — why would I mourn for someone who never valued me for who I truly was? The therapist explained that there is another kind of loss that has to do with mourning for what could have been, but never unfolded. I learned that day that there is another kind of relational loss.

It’s been years since I escaped.

And it’s been years since I’ve cared about the people he cheated with on me. In fact, I thank God I’m free of them.

But a simple comment I had made in regards to another comment posted on this blog, bringing up the time I had inadvertently come across incontrovertible proof that he was seeing someone he swore he wasn’t (and then duly ignoring that proof and allowing him to berate me for finding it) triggered emotional memories that I did not anticipate.

Because I don’t care about him anymore. And the last thing I’d want is him back in my life. BUT there are strong psychological impressions that are made in extreme emotional duress that leave their marks on you “forever”. I don’t know if that’s absolutely true, because I haven’t lived forever, but I have lived more than a few years since…like over ten years, and yet, I feel, tonight, an emotional pain inside me and something close to that crazed feeling of obsessive attention, a morbid curiosity to learn as much about my competition as I can.

And I HATE it, because it’s all so stupid, and yet, here I sit, aware of these emotions inside of me and wondering about people, wanting to know about those who are worth less than toilet paper stuck to my shoe.

And even though I am years away in time and miles away in distance and levels ahead in growth, on this night, like some kind of falling off the wagon addictive response, I find myself dealing with a change of chemistry in my brain and in my body that makes me feel emotions I now recognize as unhealthy. I feel a little bit crazy tonight.

And so, I take the time to still my mind, to calm my thoughts, to rein that feeling of obsessive compulsion to know where my “enemies” are to protect myself, to not be blindsided by the next sucker punch of a threat that no longer exists for a prize that no longer shines, but has been revealed for the pile of dust it is and always was.

This is a sickness. Narcissistic personality disorder, and just plain low character, meanness, manipulation and deceit even without the disorder is an illness.

And if you’re not careful, you can become infected. And like some viruses that go into hibernation or hide within cells or joints slumbering until something in their environment causes them to resurface again, the wounds inflicted by NPD’s and their co-horts can reappear, taking you by surprise, even knocking you off your feet.

Don’t stay down.

It’s okay. Even if you have to deal with this unwelcomed reminder from time to time, don’t despair. And don’t stay down.

Seek refuge in your inner strength, and take this opportunity to grow even more. For a moment I was confused, disoriented, dismayed. But then I remembered, at one time this experience was normal.

Now, it’s an aberration. That’s good news!

I recognize it is not where I want to be. It’s that awareness that I celebrate tonight. It’s the contrast that I embrace, that shows me how far I’ve come, that makes me appreciate the glorious difference in my own life between where I was before and where I am now.

I hear not only its pain, but it’s message to me that it’s ready to heal.

And I will not deny it.

by tempus_fugit
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The one thing that continues to make life unbearable after you’ve escaped the nightmare of a NPD or BPD relationship is the tricks your own mind plays. We become conditioned by our environment to react in certain ways, and in an abusive relationship our mind is in siege mode. This is what your abuser intended, it makes you easier to control.

You find yourself doubting your own thoughts, double thinking your gut feelings and being so confused your can’t make decisions, you feel sick to the stomach when you know you have to interact with your abuser.

And thanks to Shared Parenting laws, many of us do. It’s taken me three years to become myself again, and the struggle continues. This is how I do it.

NLP: Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Guided meditation and relaxation music. Great for taking you out of yourself and forcing you to stop doing things for others for half an hour. For a while I couldn’t sleep without it. Works on a subconscious level so even if you find it silly and feel cynical about the process as I did, the affirmations still implant positive thoughts about yourself into your subconsconscious, helping stop ‘automatic thoughts’. My fave is Bob Griswold of Effective Learning Systems “Conquering Fears and Anxiety”.

Automatic thoughts: what you get when you see an email in your inbox from your ex, or when you know you’ve got to see them soon. Mine go something like: “Oh no, what does he say I’ve done wrong now? Maybe I did do something wrong, what was it? Maybe I didn’t _____(insert parenting or personal fear here)”, physiological response follows (increased heart rate, sweating, nausea).

Stopping automatic thoughts is key to reducing your anxiety. You can distract yourself until the cows come home, but examining automatic thoughts and combating them with logic and humour work best for me: “What do I care what he says about me? I know he lies to get what he wants and he’s no prize pig in the parenting department. Hell, I’ve been assessed by Child Protection as a good parent, thanks to his meddling. Yeah, I rock. I totally rock! He’s just trying to manipulate me.”

More often than not, once you reread what was said, or calm yourself before you do, you will find that it’s a lot easier to ignore any insults he might say or imply. You might also find that you are projecting your own fears about yourself onto his words.

Projection: Part of the reason we can’t get on with our exes is projection on both sides! Yes, me too! We all tend to judge others by our own experiences. How we would think helps us predict what they might be thinking.

Throw this idea out now! Projecting our fears or problems we have onto others lead us to believe: 1. that others are as capable of good/reasonableness as we are, 2. that others are as capable of evil as we are.

Ugh. Best bet is you can’t read another’s mind, especially a BD person or a ND person, so don’t try. It is a source of automatic thoughts.

Debriefing: Find a person to talk to after a traumatic emotional event. I have one close friend and a counselor for back up. A journal is also a good place for your more crazy thoughts. I wrote one for six months after we broke up and reading it years later, boy was I crazy-town! So angry and confused, still thinking that the relationship could be saved and that I had done something wrong. I destroyed it after one last read. It shows how much progress in coping with him that I have made.

Reading: I am a big fan of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and especially Rational-Emotive Behaviour Therapy. Both you can try without needing a counselor. REBT’s icon is Albert Ellis. I recommend reading “A Guide to Rational Living”. Timeless advice to help you examine your irrational thoughts that trigger anxiety. Another great read is Martin Seligman’s ongoing experiment in happiness “Authentic Happiness” http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx

If you are of a more spiritual or philosophical bent, try Thich Nhat Hahn’s writing’s on anger: “Anger: Wisdom for cooling the flames” http://www.amazon.com/Anger-Cooling-Thich-Nhat-Hanh/dp/1573229377 He also writes about happiness from a Buddhist perspective, but more practical and worldly than most Buddhists.

Remember that, no matter what he says or does to try to control you or destroy you, you are the one with integrity. In the end, you have to expect nothing but the worst from them. The anxiety comes from expecting them to be reasonable, fair and genuinely child focused (compared to twisting the concept to get what they want by making you feel guilty). That’s not gonna happen. It’s hard to accept, but it’s the bottom line for me. Take all threats and promises with several grains of salt!

You’ll survive, you’ve got integrity and honesty, something he’ll never understand or have. You can grow as a person by surviving adversity. He’ll keep repeating the same pattern of relationship disaster and abuse, but we have a chance to recognize and move beyond our problems.