Parenting with a Narcissist

One of the things I have to be careful of is overcompensation. I see what she’s going through with her dad. I know the abuse she faces when she’s with him alone. I feel her pain when she cries to me about his verbal abuse, her rage when he diminishes and belittles her.

I cannot go to the other extreme and weaken her by coddling her because he’s so abusive or be too strict to offset his irresponsibility.

It’s always one thing or the other, one extreme or its opposite. Never a middle road or balance with a narcissist. One moment he will tell me he wants to get to know her, her special unique self and then in the same conversation tell me how it’s necessary to force her to watch or discuss things that clearly upset her because she’s too empathic, which to him means weak.

He has to prepare her for the world, he says.

I need to provide balance. She doesn’t need overcompensation. She needs balance, a firm place under her feet and an open sky over head to stretch her wings.

She knows how rough and unfair life can be. No one knows quicker or sooner than a child of a narcissist. But all it takes is one person to validate you, to hear you, to see you. That can be enough to break the spell.

I will be that one person. In doing so, she will be better able to recognize others who can respect and honor her as they cross her path. And she will not turn a blind eye to them or run, as I did.

I notice that I haven’t been here since February 26th. For my own safety, I have an email account associated with this blog that I do not use for anything else. But I haven’t even checked that account over these past few months, so I never knew of the first time comments that were made and awaiting approval.

This is no excuse, but I have to say…and if you’ve ever been involved with one, I’m sure you would understand…that narcissists are absolutely draining. Life sucking, mind numbing draining. Even when you’re divorced from them…even when you maintain absolutely bare bones minimum contact, because it’s impossible to have no contact.

Sometimes, I feel if I just ignore him, if I just brush him off when he acts his way and pretend everything is all right, then it will be. I don’t want to look at the poison straight in the face. I don’t want to see just how sick this really is…or that my daughter has to spend time with someone like that.

And I want to avoid places like this blog, and I want to just let it all go and be done with it and not go over it again.

But it doesn’t go away, and they don’t stop. They are relentless. Give them a millimeter, and they will take the world.

So I want to apologize to those who have sought some refuge or insight here. I actually have none to give. Just my experiences, just some venting, just some ranting and even some moments of peace. But now that I’ve discovered on this day that there are at least three people who have come by and were moved enough to write, I feel encouraged.

Like I’m not really alone, and I’m not talking in the dark or to myself and that maybe, just maybe, everything will actually be all right.

I have some things to tend to over the weekend, but if I can get internet connection, then I will start to move everything over from the other blog that’s hanging idle in cyber space and start to keep this one current.

I promise, I will not be gone so long this time. I feel less like I’m a lunatic mumbling blindly to herself. I know there are other ears that hear and have similar experiences to share.

Part of the reason I haven’t posted so long is the very reason for this blog. I was just emotionally exhausted from dealing with the narcissistic father of my child, and occupied with trying to make the most of those windows of relative peace. I didn’t want to write about narcissism then!

But I do need to write. I really need it for my sanity.

It’s so depressing to me that even after the divorce, even after all these years, this man can still be an energy drainer on me. And it’s amazing just how many ways he can find to “get” to me. Just normal situations that most people would never see as an opportunity for control or pot shots are just such opportunities for a narcissist bent on getting a reaction out of you.

And even though I’ve gotten much better at giving him no reaction, I still have to deal with the impact within me.

You think he’d be happy now. He’s got a girlfriend. That makes me happy, because he is more occupied now. But he still plays his game.

And our daughter, unfortunately, still pays for it.

Okay, so he’s feeling sorry for himself. I made the mistake of suggesting I get her a couple hours early today so I could give her some educational instruction before taking her to dance class, and he emphatically refused. He wasn’t giving up one hour of his time with her, even though it’s Tuesday, and a school day.

I could hear him puffing up his chest as he said, “I’ve sacrificed a lot of my time with her for you. You’ve had her a lot…”

For me. I’ve had her a lot. Does our child factor anywhere into this?

What kind of a world does a narcissist live in? That he can give her up for his own reasons and resent me for helping him out by taking her and then expect her to sacrifice her education to make up for his lost time is beyond me.

You know, you have to steel yourself when your ex is a narcissist. There’s no other way. You can’t not have contact with him, because of your child. And you can’t reason with him or expect him to be anything than he is.

I had my say with him, but I didn’t lose control and I didn’t get all freaked out within myself about it.

I’m resigned.

Not in a defeatist way, but in a “I got to save my sanity way.”

I think I get the angriest when I assume he’s normal, when I expect him to be normal and then his behavior just blows me away.

But his behavior is normal for a personality disordered individual. This isn’t shocking. It’s to be totally expected. And I get the most upset, when I say, “How can he……?”

Well, the answer is because he’s a narcissist and that’s what narcissists do. Period.

End of discussion. Forget all the logic in the world, all the reasoning, or the why’s and don’t you see’s. It’s irrelevant. Truth doesn’t matter, logic doesn’t matter, reason doesn’t matter and God, responsibility sure as hell doesn’t matter.

Forget about wasting any energy on trying to understand or being incredulous. That’s it. Would you be incredulous that the crocodile eats animals it ambushes or can crack your leg in half with its tail? That’s the nature of the beast.

Maybe if I can be at peace about that, maybe I can get into the practice of letting his remarks roll off my back. He is what he is. I need to focus on what I can do, not what he does, and put my energy into doing what is best for myself and my child under the circumstances I’m dealt.

I don’t want to be a reactionary. I don’t want to jump and dance at the tug of his strings. I want to make him insignificant to me emotionally, which means he doesn’t push my buttons anymore.

I’m tired of being outraged at his behavior. It is an outrage. Narcissism is a disease of the outrageous. Not being able to care for anyone means not being able to care for anyone, including your own child.

He’s going to say what he’s going to say, and there’s nothing I can do that will ever change that.

Thick skin. Thank God, it’s not something I have to put on every single day of my life. If it hurts to have to deal with this contrast of sweet freedom, when I’m not with him, and then having to deal with his stink again, just imagine what it’s like for my daughter. She’s healthy enough to know just how abused she is when she’s with him.

It may sound weird, but that’s a consolation to me. I’m not happy she has to suffer like this, but I’m grateful she doesn’t think it’s normal and she isn’t deluded into thinking this is love…like me when I was as a child.

Oh, hell, like me a few years ago. Better late than never, but better early for my DD.

…because I’m being more myself.” That’s what she told me last night.

That’s really sad, but it’s not to be unexpected. More and more, during each day I have her, she has to express some anxiety, some resentment toward her father and distress at having to be with him.

She says she hates having to be another person when she’s with him.

I hate it, too. But I’m grateful she’s consciously aware of it, and aware that she is healthy enough to where having to wear a different face for him really grates on her.

But he’s just a jerk. I can’t believe he’s…well, I guess I can…but I can’t believe he’s on this “She’s (me) using schooling her (our daughter) as an excuse to keep her away from me” kick again. But he is. DD told me she overheard him saying that to someone on the phone.

He’s said it to me too.

Can you believe that? Not that wanting to see to it that she gets her educational instruction during the weekday would have anything to do at all with her educational benefit. No, it’s my diabolical plot to keep her away from him. I’m infringing upon his entitlement to have her and her reason for living – to keep him company…we’re talking about the inconvenience of a two hour session, folks…oh, and the 15 minute drive to and from.

Now, if he has a poker party to go to, or a poker night at some bar, or a really great social event, or extra work he wants to do to make more money, then that’s okay to give her up, to sacrifice his time with her for. And he has no problem expecting me to have her, which I’m always happy to. BUT to place her in the hands of someone (me) for the benefit of her education? What an injustice!!!

I mean, he has to make up for the time he doesn’t have her, doesn’t he? Her education for his gratification? That’s a fair trade.

You know, I can deal with his nonsense. It’s annoying and irritating as hell, but as long as I can tend to, at least, some of her needs, then that’s just what I have to do. But what really gets me is the growing emotional abuse she has to go through when she’s with him, and the anguish it causes her.

She loves being herself. She loves being with me, because she can be herself. The contrast is tortuous to her.

It’s the way it has to be for now. If so, then I have to help her develop the tools and have access to them. Today she goes in to see her counselor. It’s a start beyond me.