Complex Trauma From Parents

[BloomInWinter]

It's bizarre to me how little self-awareness my dad had. I mean, REALLY? Perform surgery on himself with a sewing kit and it's a SHOCKER to my sisters, stepmom that he'd end up in the hospital with blood poisoning?

...or when diagnosed with severe sleep apnea, responds to his refusal of treatment with 'I just tell myself I'm not going to stop breathing and I don't'...

...and to THINK I spent all these years wondering why I was the one who felt CrAzY?! :rolleyes:

 

[BloomInWinter]

Yeah, getting screamed at by a pi$$-soaked slobbering drunken mess just ain't what it used to be...somehow a lot less scary when they need a walker to get up.

*sigh. Sheesh, this is really bringing back the absurd mems, and I'm LAUGHING. AWESOME! :>

 

[Sethe]

It's bizarre to me how little self-awareness my dad had. I mean, REALLY? Perform surgery on himself with a sewing kit and it's a SHOCKER to my sisters, stepmom that he'd end up in the hospital with blood poisoning?

...or when diagnosed with severe sleep apnea, responds to his refusal of treatment with 'I just tell myself I'm not going to stop breathing and I don't'...

...and to THINK I spent all these years wondering why I was the one who felt CrAzY?! :rolleyes:

Yup. This is familiar to me as well. I think he pulled out one of his own teeth with a pair of pliers, drew his own blood, etc.

Sorry, not trying to compete (hmm), but BOY, does this stuff sound familiar!

It's just weird when the insanity stops (for the most part).

 

[scott_1971_h]

I am 99% confident that I am posting this in the correct section.

For those of you who were abused by parents for long periods of time (years), has your primary abuser 'mellowed' over the years?

My father was my primary abuser (God, I hate saying that) and he no longer (at least around me) displays the violent destructive screaming rages that he had when I was young. He has mellowed out considerably! He has actually become kinder. :eek:

Is this common? My T says yes.The concept is just so oxymoronic. I have trouble understanding him as being both people.

Anyone else have experience with this?

*Anyone*, parent or not, with narcissistic/antisocial PD will *NOT* get better. They will get better... at it. *No* psychologist will treat a full blown AsPD because that will make them get *MUCH* better at it, *MUCH* quicker.
In short, no neither of my wonders are becoming mellow...

Scott

 

[Sethe]

So maybe he's just better at it?

He did try to pick a fight with my mother at Easter, but it seemed lacking something. He still has the paranoia, the 'I'm God's gift to the world' attitude, all of that 'good' stuff- but the violence is missing. Maybe it's being manifested in other ways.

 

[Heather]

I think my family is on the crazy train too.

My mom would would go around throwing things, screaming and yelling. I remember one time I didn't clean the kitchen "right" and she threw the box of spaghetti all over the sink and she was screaming like a lunatic. What a nut case.

Hugs.

 

[mohsen]

I agree with Scott. I know these sob better than they know themselves. They have some f**n attachment problem since the day they were born. And they have some boring, sick repetitive pattern of behavior.don't even think for a millesecond that their personality would ever change, because they have no regret or conscious over what they're doing. In fact, they enjoy it. They may show some kindness in order to make you believe they're not too bad after all. In extreme case people around the abuser may develop stockholm syndrome (as my mother did) in which a minor act of kindness by the abuser positions the abuser as the victim's savior. In these traumatic, life-threatening circumstances, the victim views the slightest act of kindness or the sudden absence of violencem, as a sign of friendship in an otherwise a hostile, terrifying world. The victim clings to it desperately. The abuser slowly seems less threatening - more an instrument of protection and survival than of harm. The victim undergoes what some call an act of self-delusion: To survive psychologically as well as physically, and to lessen the unimaginable stress of the situation, the victim begins to truly believe that the abuser is her friend, that he won't kill her, that they can help each other "get out of this mess. The fact that this person is also the source of the potential harm is buried in the process of self-delusion.
With the abusers, the person doesn't have many choices, he/she either can beat the shit out of them or make a run for it.
It's the heartbreak I get every time I hear another story of abusive relationship. You have to go through all the shit and supposedly you come out victorious and you call yourself a survival. A survival with no true life, stable relationship or mood or personality and you have to deal again with all memories of this f**n,sick experience.It's shit cleaning job.

Sorry, but I'm really sick of the never ending story of the abuser.

 

[scott_1971_h]

So maybe he's just better at it?

He did try to pick a fight with my mother at Easter, but it seemed lacking something. He still has the paranoia, the 'I'm God's gift to the world' attitude, all of that 'good' stuff- but the violence is missing. Maybe it's being manifested in other ways.

They can be incredibly empathetic, that's how they can be so incredibly manipulative. Odds are he sensed that you had had enough and were about to go NC (no contact) with him and then he wouldn't be able to manipulate you any more. Much better keep you close so that he can have his favourite toy. Their only intention is to use you. Odds are you only felt good because he didn't make you feel as bad as he usually does.
Scott

 

[Sethe]

I don't know. This has always been a sore subject for me (I think I'm still in a lot of denial about it because, yes, they can be 'nice' at times).

My T suggested that he may have Borderline Personality Disorder as well as being a Narcissist (NPD). The only times he's 'toyed' with me were when he was in a rage and berating the hell out of everyone (not just me). Outside of those times, he 'appears' to be either just paranoid or looking for narcissistic fuel. He's always been very distant from me emotionally. My mother has been his 'mouthpiece' my entire life.

I swear sometimes I don't know who was more of an abuser.

 

[scott_1971_h]

The simple answer is... people actually do change if they want.

Anthony I think you are being naive. Some people only change their method of manipulation. Both NPD and especially AsPD have a core deficicit. It's an intangible deficit, never on the surface (usually) until the doors are shut and they've got their hostage isolated. Their deficit is conscience. Like, they haven't got one. Other people are there for the use of the N. After that you had better hope you are only dumped, otherwise they can do an incredibly formidable campaign of distortion, cherrypicking history (read outright lying) etc etc ad nauseum as infinitum... Anything to make it look like you victimised them.
They want to change, and usually do. Just not into a nicer person. They change the people and things they use and become more adept at manipulating and using them...
Scott

 

[anthony]

Its not naive, its fact. People can change IF they want too. I am not saying, ALL people can change... again, IF they want too, they can and will. Human behavioural change is quite factually documented. You may isolate this to your situation, but that is not fact, that is your reality. Actual life though, broader spectrum, people can and do change from negative to positive every day, for all sorts of reasons... some simply never change, or get worse.

There are people going from bad to good and good to bad every day... this is just human behaviour 101 encompassed with life itself.

Put a good person in a position of their life or yours, and see which they may choose! The rarest would put the gun to their own head and pull the trigger, the majority would put it to yours, even though they have been a good person their entire life. Reverse this... a majority of bad people will shoot you dead, however; some may choose to shoot themselves, to perform a good act even though they have been a bad person the majority of their life.

Very interesting when you read through behavioural science journals and the results found from such studies.

 

[scott_1971_h]

Does anyone here *NOT* identify with the "Characteristics of Narcissistic Mothers" here:
http://parrishmiller.com/narcissists.html
Some of you will be familiar with it, it's mainly for people who think every mother loves her children :).
My mother (Yeti the Abominable Snowmum) is not 'like' this. She *IS* this.

Scott