Childhood Weird oblique abuse/deprivations

[Whirlwind]

Please share your experiences with this type of abuse/abusers? Are these people sadists? Narcissists?

I was isolated purposefully from friends and I have never met family outside of my genetic contributors. They exist but we were kept away. Their reasons were mostly practical, no one was allowed to come over as they would see how we lived and they were both addicts so they were wasted 95% of the time. A few feeble interventions did happen but it just made them more paranoid and reclusive. We had to be with them all times outside of school hours until later teens when we weren't so easy to control.

A therapist "diagnosed" them for me, it was helpful. She was a probable DID and he was Narc. They were dead but it was helpful to go through this with my therapist. It answered some questions and filled in some blanks for me.

A person diagnosed with NPD? Can’t switch it off.

My experience says otherwise but let me explain.

It is pervasive in their lives but do not understand how well they can cover it up and seem perfectly rational and normal. I was married to one and he was preliminarily diagnosed as Narc/psychopath, he did not finish with them and kept hopping to the next trying to find a doc to conclude differently so exactly where he fell was indeterminate. 5 docs. FIVE.

He is very accomplished, scary smart and has had "friends" for decades who have not a clue what he is really like. He kept a job for decades and I thought he was very stable when I met him and later married him. He even admitted to me that what he did to me was not purposeful, he would do it to anyone male or female if they are around him long enough. The key is it is pervasive but you have to be very close to him to piece it together. His instincts were amazing, how he could side step trouble brewing and look so innocent. He blows in all incredible then poof he is gone for 6+ months. That is his trick, he stays on the move. From the outside he is a busy professional who likes to travel.

I need to throw this in just to make a point. Story & reason aside he wrote a letter to all of our friends and in black and white admitted he had abused me throughout our marriage and that is why I left him. It was a shock as the world thought we had a magical amazing life.

Not a single person dropped him for admitting this, but a few have never spoken to me again.
Not ONE has asked me what the hell happened.
They all hope we get back together.

......and a few have gone on dates with him, he IS very handsome.

People do not want to know and they can present as "normal" and be very, very disturbed.

Best,

Whirlwind

 

[Dana1010]

Very interesting post, @Whirlwind. Pretty much everything you said rings true to me. However, I just want to point this out.

they can present as "normal" and be very, very disturbed.

I don't think the word "disturbed" fits here. That sort of implies the type of mental illness where someone is actually out of touch objective reality. Psychopaths are cognitively sane. They know what they are doing. In fact, psychopaths are some of the most consistently cool-headed, rational people you'll ever meet, in my experience. They just have practically no emotions (drives, but not emotions), which lead them to do things that look crazy on the outside.

I need to do more research on narcissists. They way they seem to believe their own lies is truly remarkable. However, I don't believe that they really do believe them in the final analysis.

 

[Sweetleaf]

My mother was actually making choices to deliberately keep me from having any friends or getting out of the house.

I think a lot of us with abusive parents experienced similar things. I certainly did.

As to why? That's really a question we can't answer - like, I often get stuck on the "why"s of my childhood trauma, like "why did she do that to me?" and my pdoc just says there's really no way to know why. That goes for isolating you from having a social life, being beaten, etc. The reason behind it for me is, my mom is (and was) unstable, and incapable of fulfilling the role of being a parent. What went through her head, I have no idea. Control is definitely part of it - she tried and tries to control my life so much, and very successfully controls my sister's life.

Maybe your mom is the same way. Wanting control, and being abusive in order to have it.

 

[mumstheword]

Very interesting post, @Whirlwind. Pretty much everything you said rings true to me. However, I just want to point this out.

I don't think the word "disturbed" fits here. That sort of implies the type of mental illness where someone is actually out of touch objective reality. Psychopaths are cognitively sane. They know what they are doing. In fact, psychopaths are some of the most consistently cool-headed, rational people you'll ever meet, in my experience. They just have practically no emotions (drives, but not emotions), which lead them to do things that look crazy on the outside.

I need to do more research on narcissists. They way they seem to believe their own lies is truly remarkable. However, I don't believe that they really do believe them in the final analysis.

I think they can believe them, at least they HAVE to believe them and persist in maintaining their stories. There is a pop psych term; "duper's delight" because narcissists and psychopaths get a rush of pleasure from duping other's and pulling off their lies.

For a narcissist, the ultimate goal it to elavate themselves, which they do by any means possible. They CANNOT admit to any fault of wrongdoing, as this would smudge the perfect, heroic and grandiose image they painstaking craft and insist upon other's playing along with or pay a painful price.

They crave and need recognition and to be seen as "good" "innocent" and "pure" in some way, so all fault is projected outside themselves.

Psychopaths tend to be parasitic and glib, often superficially charming and see feelings as a sign of weakness and they will exploit any compassion shown to them.

Psychopath and narcissist are really part of the same spectrum of malignant behaviours and personality traits. They can be amazingly "charismatic" and this is part of their horrendously dangerous characteristics, the conviction, the convincing and hypnotic talent for lying, that enables them to prey on and exploit the gullible, young, niave and vulnerable.

What is common in both and those that span the spectrum of narcissistic/psychopathic is the selfish disregard for the welfare of others and the high drive to lie, to manipulate and to exploit and disempower other's.

 

[Dreaming88]

I was the third and last child. My mother didn't have anyone. She bought me things all the time. She would give me food to binge on and tell me I'd feel better if I ate it even though if tell her I wanted to kill myself as I was overweight and bullied. She did this is the kindest sweetest of ways. I'd tell her I was suicidal and wanted to overdose on my migraine meds and she would sweetly ask me to clean her medicine cupboard. She was paranoid schizophrenia and would not take and hoard the medication. She was against everyone and would turn me against people also including my sisters. She also groomed me so I was sexually abused by baby sitters and she left me knowing I was being hurt. But she would tell me she loved me that I was a saviour or a child and that she'd never been ill since I was born or hospitalised. She wanted me for herself. I became too ill, paranoid and anxious to leave the house. I left at 17 but still affected to this day. As lovely as she seemed it was a horrific childhood.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Did anyone's parents practice any covert, oblique types of abuse on them? I'm realizing that it wasn't an accident that I didn't have a social life when I was a kid. My mother was actually making choices to deliberately keep me from having any friends or getting out of the house. Does anyone have any idea why she would do that?

It definitely did pervade her life. I think that may be why she wanted to isolate and cut herself and us off. Something about keeping potential thunder-stealers out of her environment.

What I mean is they can go into public and fake normalcy if they have to, at least for a period of time.

And I understand why you want to be careful about this. There is a lot of blather online about this narc I knew, or that narc I knew. In a lot of those cases, people are bitching about some A-hole who didn't have full-blown NPD. Someone who chooses to isolate and live without any friends or social contact, and also make sure their kids don't have any social contact? I would say that is full-blown something. My working theory is NPD, but there seems to have been a sadistic element too.

Please share your experiences with this type of abuse/abusers? Are these people sadists? Narcissists?

They may have just been naive or neglectful. My mother adopted me. Her mother was very proper and she had 4 brothers and sisters- hence they entertained each other. My mother assumed I made friends at school.... but I didn’t... nor did I have sleepovers. This was during integration, my friends I picked were black and not allowed over. We lived in the country and my mother didn’t go out of her way to make sure I socialized w other kids, no birthday parties, no socializing was encouraged,regardless of color. Needless to say, I was in 8th grade before my 1st sleepover, 16 y/o my 1st movie, 17 first bowling trip, and I was in 1 high school play, and she drove me reluctantly. I was cast for the next play, and my mother refused to drive me to and from practice. She didn’t want to drive me.

I was 18 and medically unable to drive a car and she wouldn’t drive me to community college a couple times a week- a good hr away. I asked and she agreed to let me move to my grandmothers where transportation was accessible and I could have a social life.

I called it neglect- if you want to be a parent- you have to be willing to drive your kid to activities, and where medically necessary, to school, provide enriching experiences, or live in a place where transportation is available/accessible. My parents had money- no excuse. I just don’t think my mother thought these things were important.... and she was clueless to what was important in raising kids. As a result, making friends is and has always been hard.

I was isolated purposefully from friends and I have never met family outside of my genetic contributors. They exist but we were kept away. Their reasons were mostly practical, no one was allowed to come over as they would see how we lived and they were both addicts so they were wasted 95% of the time. A few feeble interventions did happen but it just made them more paranoid and reclusive. We had to be with them all times outside of school hours until later teens when we weren't so easy to control.

A therapist "diagnosed" them for me, it was helpful. She was a probable DID and he was Narc. They were dead but it was helpful to go through this with my therapist. It answered some questions and filled in some blanks for me.



My experience says otherwise but let me explain.

It is pervasive in their lives but do not understand how well they can cover it up and seem perfectly rational and normal. I was married to one and he was preliminarily diagnosed as Narc/psychopath, he did not finish with them and kept hopping to the next trying to find a doc to conclude differently so exactly where he fell was indeterminate. 5 docs. FIVE.

He is very accomplished, scary smart and has had "friends" for decades who have not a clue what he is really like. He kept a job for decades and I thought he was very stable when I met him and later married him. He even admitted to me that what he did to me was not purposeful, he would do it to anyone male or female if they are around him long enough. The key is it is pervasive but you have to be very close to him to piece it together. His instincts were amazing, how he could side step trouble brewing and look so innocent. He blows in all incredible then poof he is gone for 6+ months. That is his trick, he stays on the move. From the outside he is a busy professional who likes to travel.

I need to throw this in just to make a point. Story & reason aside he wrote a letter to all of our friends and in black and white admitted he had abused me throughout our marriage and that is why I left him. It was a shock as the world thought we had a magical amazing life.

Not a single person dropped him for admitting this, but a few have never spoken to me again.
Not ONE has asked me what the hell happened.
They all hope we get back together.

......and a few have gone on dates with him, he IS very handsome.

People do not want to know and they can present as "normal" and be very, very disturbed.

Best,

Whirlwind

Yeah, my x husband very charismatic and can spin a yarn that everyone will believe, except me. He was quite different when family wasn’t there... charming when they were.

 

[susannahsays]

I'm not sure I agree with you. Normal people abuse children? Seriously?

Also, it's not just about "neat labels." Those labels have definitions that can fill in missing pieces. Understanding someone's pathology could lead to more clarity about what occurred, what they did to you and why. Clarity is worth something to me.

The banality of evil can be astounding. Ordinary people can be capable of inflicting extraordinary harm. By definition, that means that pathology is not the only route by which someone can become a monster.

That said, I do agree with you that your mother's behavior sounds like it falls outside what could be considered the norm. I don't know that there's necessarily a specific diagnosis that could be used to describe her pathology - there are probably several, and one would not necessarily exclude another. I have heard that many mothers who abuse their children (particularly daughters) don't see them as independent beings, but rather extensions of themselves. The ultimate aim of these mothers appears to be to control their children. Who knows why - perhaps they are just controlling in general, or recognizing a child's separateness feels like abandonment to them. But control does seem to be the central theme.

From what you say here, I'm not sure it sounds like narcissism to me - though there of course may be details you didn't mention that point strongly to narcissism. However, I think if socially isolating you was the primary form of abuse, it is more likely due to something else. For example, she could have had some sort of intensr anxiety or phobia due to agoraphobia or OCD that she was trying to manage by limiting your contact with the outside world. It could also be a manifestation of some sort of attachment issue as I alluded to before where seeing you as separate from herself and with your own autonomy felt intolerable, because that meant you could and would leave her someday.

Also, I do agree that narcissists can put on an act when they need to. They are often described as charming. I actually think that says nothing about their narcissism except that they are very good at getting the things they crave; namely attention and accolades. A narcissist wouldn't be served very well by displaying overt narcissism to people not under their control.

 

[TruthSeeker]

The banality of evil can be astounding. Ordinary people can be capable of inflicting extraordinary harm. By definition, that means that pathology is not the only route by which someone can become a monster.

That said, I do agree with you that your mother's behavior sounds like it falls outside what could be considered the norm. I don't know that there's necessarily a specific diagnosis that could be used to describe her pathology - there are probably several, and one would not necessarily exclude another. I have heard that many mothers who abuse their children (particularly daughters) don't see them as independent beings, but rather extensions of themselves. The ultimate aim of these mothers appears to be to control their children. Who knows why - perhaps they are just controlling in general, or recognizing a child's separateness feels like abandonment to them. But control does seem to be the central theme.

From what you say here, I'm not sure it sounds like narcissism to me - though there of course may be details you didn't mention that point strongly to narcissism. However, I think if socially isolating you was the primary form of abuse, it is more likely due to something else. For example, she could have had some sort of intensr anxiety or phobia due to agoraphobia or OCD that she was trying to manage by limiting your contact with the outside world. It could also be a manifestation of some sort of attachment issue as I alluded to before where seeing you as separate from herself and with your own autonomy felt intolerable, because that meant you could and would leave her someday.

Also, I do agree that narcissists can put on an act when they need to. They are often described as charming. I actually think that says nothing about their narcissism except that they are very good at getting the things they crave; namely attention and accolades. A narcissist wouldn't be served very well by displaying overt narcissism to people not under their control.

Coping skills, how we react to others behavior and parenting are learned skills which are reinforced positively or negatively. Those behaviors are also learned by the children. While all children of strict parents may not be strict themselves, they can do as much damage by ignoring needs and giving the child everything they ask for. Human beings have kids and if their parents were cold then their children will likely have difficulty with emotions. Normal is a big spectrum. And narcissists believe they are right and that’s why you’ll see few in therapy. They need to be the center of attention. They will perpetuate the narcissistic cycle and who ever is the black sheep will be abused slowly and regularly. They need that narcissistic kick from gasligjtingbothers. They are chameleons and abuse in front of loyal codependents or in concert w other narcissists or when the victim is alone.