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Jun. 10th, 2018 04:51 amSo like...
For years and years: "I just find narcissism super fascinating. That's why I near-obsessively like to learn about it. While I like learning about all psychological things, it is narcissism and watching narcissistic people that I can't stop rubbernecking. Because. I just find it fascinating. It's not going to even occur to me to look under the surface of this to ask the simplest of questions about why. It's just really fascinating to me, okay?"
Two days ago, I realized my father's a narcissist.
I'd forgotten so much about how he treated me. The memories weren't exactly repressed; they were simply not something that ever came to my mind. Abuse amnesia is real. And it all got confused in his alcoholism. If he'd only stop drinking everything would be better, I thought my whole life. Except no -- when he's not drinking, he's significantly nastier (to me, formerly to his wives, and to his brother) than when he's drunk. He is, of course, an angel to his friends at all times.
It took years for me to get un-used to his emotional abuse. But I've lived in a much more normal norm for years now. I actually forgot the old "normal." So when my father started up again, I went "wtf is this shit OH RIGHT."
My husband's shielding me a lot now, and my father seems to see my husband as above him on the ladder and therefore often sucks up to him in strange ways. One thing he loves to try to do is commiserate with my husband about how terrible I supposedly am, which doesn't work at all because my husband doesn't even try to argue, he simply says "she's awesome" or something similar in response.
My father treats me like he ever did, of course, and boy have I learned why I can't take a compliment. He implants a sting in every one of them, so what sounds like praise at first or to outsiders is actually as nasty an insult as can be imagined. My husband picked up on that super quickly. I think he's angrier with my father than I am.
I'm currently mostly stunned. So much that was incomprehensible in my life makes perfect sense now. Though I still don't know why it didn't occur to me to wonder why I was obsessed with learning about narcissism before now. Glad I did though.
For years and years: "I just find narcissism super fascinating. That's why I near-obsessively like to learn about it. While I like learning about all psychological things, it is narcissism and watching narcissistic people that I can't stop rubbernecking. Because. I just find it fascinating. It's not going to even occur to me to look under the surface of this to ask the simplest of questions about why. It's just really fascinating to me, okay?"
Two days ago, I realized my father's a narcissist.
I'd forgotten so much about how he treated me. The memories weren't exactly repressed; they were simply not something that ever came to my mind. Abuse amnesia is real. And it all got confused in his alcoholism. If he'd only stop drinking everything would be better, I thought my whole life. Except no -- when he's not drinking, he's significantly nastier (to me, formerly to his wives, and to his brother) than when he's drunk. He is, of course, an angel to his friends at all times.
It took years for me to get un-used to his emotional abuse. But I've lived in a much more normal norm for years now. I actually forgot the old "normal." So when my father started up again, I went "wtf is this shit OH RIGHT."
My husband's shielding me a lot now, and my father seems to see my husband as above him on the ladder and therefore often sucks up to him in strange ways. One thing he loves to try to do is commiserate with my husband about how terrible I supposedly am, which doesn't work at all because my husband doesn't even try to argue, he simply says "she's awesome" or something similar in response.
My father treats me like he ever did, of course, and boy have I learned why I can't take a compliment. He implants a sting in every one of them, so what sounds like praise at first or to outsiders is actually as nasty an insult as can be imagined. My husband picked up on that super quickly. I think he's angrier with my father than I am.
I'm currently mostly stunned. So much that was incomprehensible in my life makes perfect sense now. Though I still don't know why it didn't occur to me to wonder why I was obsessed with learning about narcissism before now. Glad I did though.
