Family Members In Denial

[sun seeker]

It was very disturbing and insulting to see she's still talking "love, love, love, love," as I'm struggling to put my life together.

That's when you get to define what love means to you as opposed to her version of it. She says she loves you? Then she has to treat you like she loves you. If she doesn't? It sounds like you are doing well to be estranged.

 

[Dana1010]

They make her feels some kind of way she wants to feel. Does that make any sense?

Yeah, it does actually. I think some narcissists (particularly female ones) work in extremely subtle and insidious ways. She was never overtly grandiose (though she did seem to think she was morally superior to everyone else who only cared about EGO). But I have distinct memories of strange reactions when I'd aspire to something or when I'd achieve something--she'd try to downplay it in some covert way. Like when I got into college, it wasn't, "Congratulations, you did it!" It was, "You'll manage. Plenty of idiots do it."

 

[scout86]

I think some narcissists (particularly female ones) work in extremely subtle and insidious ways.

Maybe that IS a gender thing. My likes to say that my mother was a "passive-aggressive narcissist" and my brother is "just an aggressive one". :confused:

 

[RavenGirl]

. The only way to change they familial dysfunction is to stick around and attempt the dialogue... I do that (so far).

Well, some say stay in touch. I did try that, I kept in touch for over 30yrs. I HAD TO cut ties with my narcissistic abuser in June because he threatened me on Facebook in a post how he was going to abuse me in some of the same ways as he had done when we were children. That was the last straw.
I took a photo of it right before he deleted it all! So when I do talk to our patents I have proof the abuse happened. I then cut all ties with him. He abuses his wife but she chooses to stay. He is sick, sick, sick!!!

 

[Friday]

Lots of good points raised, everyone. I guess the part of my OP that is still nagging at me is this:

why it took separation for them to acknowledge your existence?

As long as I stayed married to my abusive husband? I saw him maybe 4 hours a week, tops. My son would go weeks & months without seeing him.

The moment I divorced him?

All hell broke loose.

My son & were property to him. It wasn't about acknowledging our existence. It was about control & ownership. So he did everything he could to get us back. No interest prior to me leaving turned into extreme interest the moment one of his belongings rebelled against him.

Not that we didn't fight in the marriage. We did. But we were nice little belongings, who happened to just need to be put in their place. Once I left? Insert Abusers Playbook. Apologies, promises, gifts... And then when that didn't work? Threats & attacks. Attacks that ran from actual attacks on us, to attacking our support network... Mudslinging, lies, & stalkery bullshit (making it impossible to live -well- without him, shutting of our utilities, getting me fired, totaling my car, etc.), more lies (poor him, crazy me), etc.

That situation is just one of many why I don't give a damn what motivates abusers. Why I don't care for them to "see" how much they've hurt me (let them f*cking wonder if they've hurt me, not giving the satisfaction of knowing if I can possibly help it!), or try to explain myself to them. It's not like they're good people making mistakes and if they could only understand the pain they're causing they'd stop. Snort. They know exactly what they're doing. Convince them that what they're doing is working? There's no need. They suck. The end.

Good people... Thy can be in denial. They don't want anything bad to have ever happened to you. And if it did? They want you okay, now.
Abusers... They were there. They know exactly what happened. Denying what happened? Just another trick to suck you into making them your focus & your world.

 

[Dana1010]

let them f*cking wonder if they've hurt me, not giving the satisfaction of knowing if I can possibly help it!

Never considered this before. Thanks for that.

 

[Owl2Julie]

@Dana1010, I think what I am about to post is relevant to this topic, but I don't...

Yes. This is common. It is the attitude of an abuser= of all abusers, that when you tell them about your feelings, they will ignore them and act as though you are being utterly crazy- not for just the particular feelings that you have, but for having ANY feelings whatsoever.. And if you confront them on their behavior, they will react to you as though you just shamed them or are starting a fight with them, and walk away in a huff. They commonly will tell you that you are 'picking a fight with them'.

 

[Owl2Julie]

Lots of good points raised, everyone. I guess the part of my OP that is still nagging at me is this:...

I think it doesn't have anything to do with narcissism, but with the walls and defenses that your parent had put in place while she was living with you, to protect herself. These walls came between you. But once you are moved out, she has no need for her own walls to protect herself anymore. Now she is free to remove her own walls, because the fact that you have moved out is a huge wall in place. As a response to her own lack of psychological walls, she is able to reach out to you and to share with you. She feels much freer now. The walls that she had were burdening her. By moving away, you have put up your own wall. Now she doesn't have to do that. But psychological walls require great energy to keep up- so now she feels much freer. You should encourage her to speak to you, write to you, and you should believe her- you should believe however she treats you now, is the way that she would have always treated you all of your life, if she hadn't had to put up her psychological walls while you were living with her. What you are seeing is her real self. Do not deny yourself this real relationship connection. Her walls were not put up to harm you, personally- but were a protective survival mechanism that occurs in families that are dysfunctional. Dysfunctional families are families that have the issue of "fear of intimacy"-which require putting up different types of psychological walls. (Addiction is also often used as one type of 'wall' in dysfunctional families). Once you moved out, the "walls" shifted. This has to do with dysfunctional family systems, and defenses within them.

 

[Dana1010]

I think it doesn't have anything to do with narcissism, but with the walls and defenses that your parent had put in place while she was living with you, to protect herself.

You're hard pressed to persuade me it had nothing to do with narcissism, but some of your observations ring true. There was a huge fear of intimacy in the house, for instance. And sometimes I feel like it was her just wanting an association with someone who was "making it" in the world. It's like when I lived with her in the sh*tty world that she created, I was just a loser. When I moved up and out suddenly I was someone worth having as a connection. She just lacked any sense of accountability to the point where she couldn't accept that my world was like that because of the choices that she made as an adult--I was never a loser, she was the loser. Then she decided she was going to try to ride my coattails out of the sh*tty world that she created for herself.

 

[Owl2Julie]

That sounds painful.