Some quotes that I found particularly validating:
"....emotionally immature parents expect their children to know and mirror them. They can get highly upset if their children don't act the way they want them to. Their fragile self-esteem rests on things going their way every time."
"When stressed or emotionally aroused, immature people don't experience themselves as being embedded in the ongoing flow of time. They experience moments in time as separate, nonlinear blips, like little lights randomly going on and off, with few linkages in time between one interaction and another. They act inconsistently, as their consciousness hops from one experience to another. This is one reason why they're often indignant when you remind them of their past behavior. For them, the past is gone and has nothing to do with the present. Likewise, if you express caution about something in the future, they're likely to brush you off, since the future isn't here yet."
I especially find the book's information on how children who were brought up in these types of households often fall into the categories of "internalizer" and "externalizer". I can see clearly how in my teen years I was an externalizer and morphed into an internalizer as a young adult. The book speaks about how internalizers end up doing too much emotional work in their relationships because they were trained to do the emotional work of their parents in many cases and felt it was their place to take on all this extra crap.
This book is especially good if you are someone who is self-reflective. If you haven't read this book already, I highly recommend it.
I've about beat my story of going NC to death. But it bears repeating considering the magnitude of the actions of my mothers that she denied in the end. All of her crimes, all of her infidelities, which are legendary if you survey my sister and myself. Just Poof! Didn't Happen! as well as her turning it back on me and telling everyone I was brain damaged by past drug abuse. All this in the face of a stack of newspaper clippings that were too numerous to count. I just laid them on the table and measured them by height to save the time it took to count them. I am telling this under the category of me not mirroring her to herself any longer. If she couldn't stand to acknowledge her actions, I wonder what she thought it was like for us having to live in her bizarro world
ReplyDeleteI really like the blips of light part. My sister told me our mother told her she viewed her life as scenes within a movie. I just know I went into the living room once and she was watching her soap and was no longer in the room. By the look of it she had been sucked into the TV like the girl in Poltergeist. If amazon will deliver I will buy this book.
ReplyDeleteYep, amazon has it!
ReplyDeleteI'm done researching. Nothing I learn will make then change. Not my circus and sure as hell not my monkeys!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds really interesting-thanks! I'll get a copy from Amazon and put it my reading que.Here's where my experience with time and CB Mugger's parted ways: She never, ever forgot a perceived or real slight. Ex: Over a decade after my father divorced her, she was still, word for word ranting about the divorce. It was as if the divorce happened the day before. Two+ decades later I did a quick open and read of one of her snail mail letters and guess what she was ranting about-besides me?! The same exact words, histrionic twisting/rewriting of events around the divorce etc. It was as if I wasn't even present throughout that period. It starred her and and I didn't even rate a "supporting role." Ollie Matthews has a YouTube about CBs living in dog years which is so true.
ReplyDeleteMy Nsis lived in front of the tv from the time she was a very small child not watching cartoons or kid's shows but movies for adults. My father became so concerned he put locks on the tvs to limit her time sitting in front of them. She was completely engaged with what she was watching. She was a weird (and sneaky, nasty) kid in other ways.
Years ago I was reading an article on Cluster B parents and their relationships with their children. Can't remember the name of the Journal or article now, but the conclusion stated these parents were characterized (scored high on measures of) as being very cold, highly rejecting and extremely critical of their children. That was the most dead on succinct description of my CB Mugger I have ever come across.
The description of time was also displayed by mine as well. ex: She damn near killed me in heavy traffic because she was so enraged: Screaming, yelling, hitting me and then suddenly cut across 4 lanes of heavy oncoming traffic (on my/the passenger side) into the parking lot of a restaurant. I can still hear the horns, see the lights of the other cars, screeching tires-it happened so fast. She whips into a parking space and very matter of factly says, "Let's get something to eat." I could barely stand my legs and whole body were shaking so badly. It was as if after she exploded at me (because I refused to lie in Family Court/proxy abuse my father as she demanded) she felt just fine, like she had a bout of gas and it passed. Meanwhile the last thing I wanted was food. I had to order something because she was ramping up to another explosion. Couldn't eat it, though.
So that point fits too. I often feel like this was my life through her emotional whiplash over and over again. And gawd help me if I couldn't read her mind and mirror exactly what she wanted when she wanted.
Anyway, thanks again.
TW
NF relived and embellished every wrong he perceived. He was the person most likely to wrong others. I heard over and over about his 1st ex wife, then NM after their divorce. Then it was the neighbor who probably only had the audacity to tell NF to fuck off for being a jerk. I remember after NF's divorce from NM him telling me that he knew NM tried to poison my little sister. He said this with the twinkle and smirk. Then he moved on to some little nicety that pleased him. Until the end of time, I will have that in the back of my mind, even though I'm pretty sure it's a lie. He sure enjoyed planting that seed and walking away from it. I wish I'd been able to say at the time, YOU ALLOWED THAT? Either way, he just would have changed the subject and it would have gone away.
ReplyDeleteMy NF still talks about a perceived slight from his twin brother in 1952!
ReplyDeleteMine still talked about her mother giving away one of her dresses to a girl down the road from back in the 30's. I am with M-fan. Trying to figure them out is like shooting rubber bands at the stars. If you read my comment on my own blog I am trying to live in the moment and for today cuz making sense out of them is taking a huge piss in the wind.
ReplyDeleteI think I was an internalizer, I always felt I had to take everything on and fix things. I don't think my own sister is a narc but the last time we spoke she expected this of me. It is strange, I was an engulfed daughter but I had to take care of everyone. But the truth is it is hard for me to function as a normal adult. I was given the caretaker role but I was groomed to fail at it. Get yelled at for it. Omg, so much insight just from that one small reading.
ReplyDelete