Saturday, March 15, 2014

Aspie in the Narcissist Jungle





This may not be politically correct, but I keep meeting fellow Aspies [Asperger adult people] who grew up in dysfunctional households. Also many seem to be dealing with severely narcissistic parents who are highly neurotypical and who used the Aspie differences to lower the boom.

One thing I remember in the recesses of my memory is years ago, is that many years ago, they laid autism down at the feet of so called REFRIGERATOR mothers.

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 This idea has gone out of vogue for whatever reason, perhaps the parents of Aspies who were nice folks didn't like how that colored them, but what my theory about Asperger is it is multi-faceted disorder, maybe this applies to SOME, while others may be genetic cases or who faced other environmental causes. I have met Aspies with Aspie parents and other autistics, and the families seem close and where members match each other in outlook. Perhaps abuse can be a set up for SOME people who end up Aspie or perhaps there is even the correlation that Aspies are more likely to be abused due to the nature of the disorder if they happened to be born to a disordered parent.

My N mother used to brag that she could leave me alone in my crib for hours to play with light motes and that I would not cry even for hours. Why someone would brag about such a thing? It is odd. I have no memory of that time, but remember being frozen out.  No friend said, "Wasn't it a bad idea to leave your baby alone that long?" Along with this, is along with other embarrassing stories to put me down, both parents who stressed my endless failings, would tell their friends how I "refused" to walk as a child and did not walk until I was nearly two years old.  I have never heard of a child refusing to walk. This "story" would end with them telling their friends they had to give me a "butt whooping" just to get me off my "lazy ass" usually with some insults for the present time about how woefully deficient I was. One time around the age of 15 as they retold this story, I said, "If I had a kid that did not walk at that age, I'd take them to the doctor!"

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I found out as an adult that motor skill problems are severe for Aspies and autistics, and well, even the gym teachers in elementary school sent home endless notes about my motor skill problems or lack of hand-eye coordination. These things impact me today as I have to "think" to do many physical things, and am what many would consider very clumsy.

 Sometimes I get the idea that if I did not have two siblings very close in age, my autism and lonlieness would have been even more intense. My differences in this family were vilified. Aspergers did give me some gifts, while I was not a straight A student more along the 3.5 marker, as a youngster I did very well on school tests and tested with a high IQ. I was not an Aspie that was having incredible outbursts or flushing the toilet multiple times and flooding the bathroom or having tantrums. If anything I was more quiet and withdrawn. My Aspie meltdown were panic attacks that brought on tears but no screaming. My parents who lacked empathy would shove even crying, terrorized me onto roller coasters, sensory issues well, since they didn't have them, they supposedly didn't exist.

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For Aspies the world is a very scary place. Therapists told me I had a high enough IQ to "cloak" and at least attempt to act somewhat normal to function in society but it's hard.  Spin around and see your senses all get tangled up. That's Aspie land for you, a grocery store would put me on the edge of a melt-down. Aspies see the world very differently. This world to the Asperger brain can seem like a very dangerous place. Anxiety among Aspies and women with it can be very high.

For years I had panic attacks, too, which oddly seem to have gotten quite a bit better, but sometimes I think that is just old age and my adrenals wearing out. I wasn't a timid child, but was easily frightened and sometimes I wonder about the life-long effects of never having had anyone comfort me EVER. No one ever took me into their arms as a child and said, "Things will be alright.". I get some comfort from my husband now but often I wonder would my ability to self-soothe be better if I had one of those mothers who patted me on the head, or a parent I could have gone running and crying to, without being told "I'll give you something to cry about!".When I was a teen, I'd see even other young teens hugged by their mother, and my stomach would hurt painfully.

The scary thing about both my mother, and one where she simply had no understanding for me, is I do not think she has the ability to feel fear. The psychologists could have a field day with this one.  Obviously I was around the woman enough to know that she never was afraid even of things normal women are. There was never any tears or gasps or emotions that denoted fear even during dangerous moments. Both parents laughed as a large tornado skipped along the edge of my grandmother's property. Car accidents, dangerous health conditions, my sister's asthma attacks, were all dealt with utmost stoicism and if they could hide something they did.

 She actually supposedly had a heart attack at work necessitating an angioplasty, and worked the day through, saying nothing to no one nor to us kids. I found out from another relative. How does someone do that? Weird things like this added up. I failed to be a stoic like her that never felt fear. Even my father was this same way. They never seemed to feel "danger" or to have any concept of it. My parents lives were more far sheltered then my own, I'm the one who got jumped in the ghetto, saw a man rob people with a sawed off shot-gun while I hit behind a brick wall. I have thought about this total lack of fear and emotion in my parents, and today it kind of scares me. Obviously these two did not understand a highly anxious Aspie. They did not even relate to any feelings of fear, worry or distress. In my mother's case, I really do not think she felt fear at all, while my father, I heard mumblings about phobias for bridges, but definitely she trained him to be the stoic and to present as stone-cold as she was. To be an Aspie around that was a bad deal, a bad precedent is set up when a young Apsie has no role-model on how to cope with fear or emotions related to it.



Some of you have read about how bad my lungs got when I was young. The lungs went before I got fat. When I got these severe asthma attacks, I could not breathe and at times would throw up. One time I got a severe asthma attack the year I was living at home before I went no contact for a few years around the age of 20. Maybe I ate potatoes which I am severely allergic to and didn't know yet. Anyhow I was crying and gasping for breath sitting on the stairs, and my father got angry at me and told me to shut up. My inhaler finally kicked in to allow some functioning.  I drove myself coughing to get a breathing treatment at a clinic closest to my house. Now I think this was dumb, I should have just called myself an ambulance, but this was the type of treatment. As a teen I had asthma attacks too but was told "you can't cope!" and didn't know what they were yet until the vistas of a university health system opened up at the age of 18. How many years did I hear "Nothing's wrong with you!" as my body and health imploded and even the ticking time bomb of untreated PCOS and thyroid disease were already on their way. There was never any comfort or care.

Being an Aspie around Narcs is no fun. Us Aspies love to analyze things and to go "deep" well with narcissists it is the complete opposite. The narcissistic personality is insulted and bothered by your musings. They do not want to hear about your favorite book or your ideas. If you are artistic or delving into the meaning of life they are bored and want you to shut up. In some essential ways, narcissists stay strangers, no one is home and the door is closed, sometimes they may paint a smiley face on the mail-box, but you aren't getting in. Shared ideas bore them. Everything is about appearances. Everything is superficial.

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My mother stayed a stranger basically, even before I went NC, I looked at her list of friends on a social website, and while she has known them 40 years, I barely knew any of them. Shunted away is a limited phrase to explain my life. There were even cousins and others I never had heard of. When people don't talk to you about anything, you don't learn anything about them or anything else. My mother is friends with my sister's friends, and vice versa. My friends she hated and complained about, maybe because they loved and cared about me? I have met people in coffee shops and had them say more to me about their life in 2 hours then my mother ever did. With some of my recent studies, I have learned WITHHOLDING is a form of abuse. When someone does not talk to you and closes you out, kind of a silent treatment that only allows for necessary word, it is emotionally abusive. Years ago in my thirties when I lived in my old small town--60 miles from where she lived, my mother would hold parties she would invited both co-workers and some relatives too, and she would make sure NOT to invite me but I would find out about them. The rejection of my childhood continued into adulthood. Sometimes I ask why did I put up with things so long?

People with Aspergers can be vulnerable, while our talents can grow in a crucible of support, they can be repressed in an atmosphere of hate and disdain. Sadly this fear among the sharks never went away as I entered the work-world and realized there were more narcissists then there ever were Aspies. The landscape wasn't full of fellow studious absent minded professors but more types with knives behind their backs and tight grins on their face that were upset by anyone who didn't fit the norm.  Aspies want to learn and explore while the narcissists want to "get over", and never shall the two meet. Young Aspies are often naïve, and it took me years to realize how some people really operate and that I had to be careful with my trust. I still have betrayals now but then they were never ending.

Aspie in the jungle, that is the Aspergers person in a Narcissistic dominated family. Betrayals are a given. Now with the insight of an adult, I realize how my mother made sure to destroy the relationship with my father. While he was abusive enough, my mother worked to make sure he never stood by my side either, but had me labeled as the cause of all the problems. While faint glimmers of respect for my intelligence would pop up on very rare occasion, she would stamp them down quick into dying embers that faded out. One of my friends has the theory that my father with computer genius was an Aspie too but I am not sure I buy this theory, he was too high functioning, too able to rise up the ranks, too high of status, too functional in the work-world and able to achieve but I'll admit this, he believed each and every one of her lies about me.

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She would lie and tell him what a terrible daughter I had been or exaggerate things I said. He cared most about pleasing and appeasing her. I was way in the back of the room as a priority. Lies would abound. It seemed nothing I said would ever make a difference. Her talent at getting others to close me out and invalidate me was never ending and my Aspergers made it even easier for her. Now imagine this happening to a young Asperger girl, one who is already awkward, unsure of her self, and social cues and "rules". It was hell. This also means my mother always "won" while I lost in the arena of public and family opinion.

She would list my endless sins, and shortcomings and they would nod their heads. It was so bad, that she would even turn entire families of friends of the family against me, her body language denoting that I was despicable and her cross to bear. Is it any wonder that the daughter of our old family friends and next door neighbors happened to name their daughter after my golden child sister instead of me? Or that their son was in love with my sister for a time? Narcissists and some psychopaths can conduct people like orchestras and my mother did.

I would try to get people to notice I was alive, to "see" me outside the cruelties of my mother but it seemed almost impossible. Her definition of me came first to them. In high school I was almost erased a cipher, that meant nothing to no one. In college I ran to art to save me and around this time my parents were angry, "Why did that college change you?".  They were angry that I was trying to find myself and become someone, they wanted me to be the ghost in the corner, the nobody. Rebellious "art" student or not, it was something I had to do to stay alive.

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 Life swears around appearances and namely status for malignant narcissists.  Even if you are miserable,  that pristine car and house come first. They are always to look good and never be defeated. One big rule is to never admit any vulnerability or weakness. Behind the scenes, the screaming and yelling may never end for the idea of perfect. Sharks have to look good, and sharks want status. An Aspie who may have motor difficulties or even problems with staying neat in this scenario is not going to have a great time. For narcissists, children are narcissistic supply, trophies to be taken off the shelf that are supposed to be quiet and with just enough achievements to brag about require too much car-pooling for. Aspies don't think like this, extreme notions of status, and social grand-standing escape us. It would take years for me to even realize how many human "social" games are played. Most of us just want to enjoy our interests and want to live not at the detriment or bringing down of others.

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A child with Aspergers doesn't fit in that mix. They are considered an embarrassment. They are "weird" and "strange." Even if they are smart they are still considered a liability to the narcissistic mother. She will try to hide you away or ignore you. Your lavish fantasies will piss her off instead of being a source of joy or connection. Your talents or savant skills if you manage to acquire one, is just another place for jealousy. Your love of books means you are a "lazy bum with a nose in a book who never helps with the housework". Your stims will earn you a slap or two. Your passions, beliefs and ambitions she will seek to destroy and even in adulthood try to undermine.

 A child with severe autism instead of higher functioning autism, I fear for them at the hands of a mother or father with narcissism. Witnessing websites, I have seen some cases where the narcissistic parent uses the autistic child for narcissistic supply as "super-mom" or in the quest for a "cure". Quests for "cures" for Autism and Aspergers I believe if taken to a certain point outside of helping an autistic or Aspie function better can be damaging.  An Asperger child at the foot of narcissists faces the worse thing that can be done to a young child, they are not loved nor accepted for who they are, and this makes the challenges that much greater.

When I was 5 years old, I happened to overhear my mother talking to a friend, and this conversation would be replicated in different ways as the years passed by. She turned to this friend and said, "She is so strange, I don't understand her." Today the world of my narcissistic parents is strange, the jungle, the place I don't understand, never understood and never fit in.  The place I think of as cold hell on earth. The place I finally left. Finding out about Aspergers in my thirties in my case, actually helped my self esteem, I was given understanding about who I was. Today as an adult, I can judge those I was raised by and what they lacked as they were so busy doing with me for most of my childhood. Gifts came with it, and I have an ability to love and care about other people and in having a heart. I'd much rather be an Aspie then a narcissist on that score alone.

25 comments:

  1. Excellent post! Susanna

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  2. In my experience narcissists tend to intensely dislike anyone who is not their version of "normal." This includes people with Aspergers. Susanna

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  3. Thanks Susanna. I have heard that too about narcs that they do hate anything that is not "normal". It has to do with maintaining the perfect appearance. A child who does not fit the norm then is rejected.

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  4. I don't think NPs have a CLUE what "normal" IS, never mind who their kids ARE. From my earliest memories/experiences, I was *told* by my NM what I thought, what I felt and who I was.
    Reality: NM never had the slightest idea of who I was and never was interested in finding out.
    It took me a few decades to finally realize what ailed and it wasn't me. I NC'd her decades ago, long before computers, the internet, the self-help industry and didn't know anyone who had a "mother" like mine, never mind walked away completely and quietly closed that door-forever. NC and marrying my late DH were the two most life-affirming decisions I've ever made. I've made a ton of blunders throughout my life, but these two decisions I've never regretted.
    And NM never stopped throwing a decades-long tantrum over my decision to terminate the relationship. (What "relationship?!") She "didn't understand WHY" her daughter "did THIS to HER!" She suffered-do you her me?!-SUFFERED!! (insert over-the-top theatrics)-and wrapped herself in the shroud of Perpetual Victimhood which eventually became her Death Shroud.
    All because lil' ol' me, the doll she periodically picked up and played with momentarily, snapped the head or legs off and then threw in a corner, bored or annoyed with the toy, no longer amused her by it's failure to produce the desired mirror in her "Let's Pretend" childish fantasies.

    I shudder to think of how my life would have evolved if not for those two profoundly life-altering decisions.
    TW

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  5. Nope they have no clue what normal is. I think mine got it from the TV and women's magazines and tried to plan it accordingly. We are strangers to them too. Basically invisible. Just there as props and if the prop isn't what they want, you get shoved to the side of the room. Mine tried to mold me too and make me into a cipher and destroy who I was but failed. You are right they never find out who we were, and never were interested in finding out. Mine hated anything that was "special" about me, the woman even found a way to diss my adult stamp collection.

    I am glad you went NC not knowing what it was, or the advice out there and kept it. I have known a few friends with mothers like this, but no one else shared my experiences, the amount of love or even having a personal relationship with a mother, I ached for that. I am glad you had a happy marriage and sorry you lost your husband to death.

    I am not surprised yours played martyr upon leaving. I am sure she played that up for years. Mine is trying to have her revenge erasing me, or well, let's say, she really was/is that sociopathic not to care whatsoever. She never cared about me, not even when I was severely ill.

    I agree with the toy metaphor. I am glad you got out and away and experienced love.

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  6. Talk about a double whammy. You have a person who was born with a preprogrammed and skewed view of the world tossed into a cage with parents that are crazy by anybodies standards. I don't see how a person could make it through.

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  7. Thanks q, yeah it was a double whammy, triple with the later health problems that came.

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  8. Hi Peep - i thought the post you did on Tiffany Sedaris (sp?) was thought-provoking, and went on to read David's story too. I remember watching Amy's Comefy Central show - Strangers With Candy - back in the '90's. Very talented family; they remind me of J.D. Salinger's Glass family - Franny, Zoey, Seymour.

    Julia Roberts' half-sister, Nany Motes, committed suicide in February after falling into a deep depression. After reading a bunch of articles on Nancy and her strained relationship with her famous sister and family, I began to see Nancy as a fellow ACON. My stomach was in knots reading what she had been going through; I felt her pain and saw how in death, just as in life, no one got her. Most comments to articles online are writing Nancy was jealous and bitter at Julia's success; that she was a drug addict and unstable. But Nancy'd life had context and a back story as most ACONS do.

    Nancy Motes used to weigh 300 lbs. She said Julia and her family made her feel badly for piling on the weight. In 2010, she lost over 100 ibs via gastric bypass surgery.

    I believe Nancy Motes was her family's scapegoat, if even on a subconscious level. Their origins were dysfunctional like most people's, especially ACONS. From my research, Namcy seemed like a real person, who was authentic, sensitive, loyal, and the family's truth teller. She mirrored back to the family their dysfunction and hypocracy. Nancy began to fight back in the end, and began tweeting about America's Sweetheart. She was telling the truth as scapegoats are compelled to do. The difference is that Nancy Motes doesn't have a PR firm or an real life Oliva Pope to make ugly problems disappear as Julia can. Nancy never had a chance. She had one family member left, and that was her mother, and she was being kept away or at best, on a short leash.

    I totally get Nancy, and feel her pain of having no voice and feeling completely void of your own power. I think she thought her suicide, along with her long final letter, would have changed the minds of many people - would get them to finally empathize with her pain, an enormous burden she carried for years. Nancy wanted them to see her.

    From everything I've read, she seemed very loyal to Julia and her family. I never heard in all these years, a story come out by Nancy attacking Julia. You can just tell by reading about her that she was an authentic, real person, who in the end, lost her will to live.

    I encourage you and your readers to Google Nancy, and connect the dots. I think her famous family distanced themselves because they couldn't control her. In short, Nancy Motes was the family's mirror, the truth teller, and therefore became a potential threat to the paranoid narcissist. So when her mother, whom Nancy took care of for many years, began suddenly becoming less and less available, she couldn't handle that final family rejection, throwing her in suicidal despair. This happens everyday to family scapegoats/ACONS. It's a silent epedemic. The irony is she was treated in death as she was in life - misunderstood and maligned by the masses.

    If Nancy could have seen her value through the eyes of our loving savior, Jesus Christ, how He is always working every difficult circumstance for our good. That He gives rest to the weary, including ACONS and scapegoats.

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    1. Yes suspect Nancy is/was the Family Scapegoat, is an indication family a herd, of enablers, apathetic, or covert high functioning narcissistic, personality disorders. Now the Family Scapegoat is removed family will dissolve and new Scapegoat will be targeted, usually most vulnerable. Julia Roberts is innately physically beautiful, charming and competent, but does not justify emotional abuse and bullying of her sister. Psychological learned behaviour of Family Scapegoating is huge problem, Jesus was perhaps Gods Scapegoat, not much has changed, when will we unlearn this learned maladaptive dysfunctional bullying behaviour?

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  9. In response to "Anon" 3-17-14:
    "...This happens everyday to family scapegoats/ACONS. It is a silent epidemic."
    Ab-so-tively. Once the "Mirror" becomes the Truth Teller, the Mirror is proactively and reactively "broken." Proactively because from their earliest memories/experiences, Scapegoats are perceived-and de facto treated-as a threat and singled out within the family as the Sherpa of all the "Family Problems." Cause and effect are reversed in a classic CB (Cluster B) Parental Agenda/Maneuver.
    CB "parents" get every.last.thing reversed: As Children, we are *expected* to be the Adults in too many ways to enumerate. Look at Peep's comment in her post re: her "mother's" statement: "She is so strange. I don't understand her." One of your primary responsibilities as a parent is to endeavor to understand your child, not have your child hand you a roadmap to understand their world. This reversal of roles (ex: Parentification) is common in my observation across the AC world. As Adults, we are then treated/viewed as (incompetent) Children: Every decision is criticized, every attempt at Individuation is undermined if not manifestly sabotaged. Reference Peep's comment above, "Why did that college change you?" Growing up, I also felt compelled to jump between two disparate worlds: "NOW be a *child* (because that's what my CB "mother" required at the moment), NOW be an *adult*" (again, her needs superseded any consideration of me as a child, not a mini-adult/"mini-MEEEE!")
    IMO, if Peep had been a neurotypical, endrocrine "normal," she *still* would have been Scapegoated for simply being *who* she was. There's not a CB Family that doesn't engage in these dynamics of Triangulation, FOG, Boundary Transgressions, Scapegoating etc. in their Power and Control Paradigm.
    In this respect, the CB Parent's treatment of their kids is *not* personal-it would not have mattered who we were, what kind of kid we were, the CB Parent consistently engages in Projection and wiping their own shit off on us, the unwitting and powerless "receptacles" of their crazy. They impose their conceptual Identity of who we are on us, which has nothing to do with our true Identity at all-again, they don't have a clue who we are. OTOH, their treatment (abuse, neglect etc.) is INTENSELY personal, targeted and intentional. The CB "parent" is well aware of our vulnerabilities, our naievity, our abject powerlessness and customize their abuse/neglect accordingly. They engage in Soul Murder-I'm using that term in the secular, not the sacred sense of the word. They force us to "bend over for it," to collude in the CB's Paradigm that we are somehow fatally flawed and forced to violate our own morals, values, ethics, our own REALITY. No small transgression there: I'm suggesting it is this kind of damage that leaves the longest Legacy, that is the impetus behind the suicides, the depression/anxiety etc.
    We are born hard-wired to bond with our Primary Caretakers-that's just science. When that bond fails, we immediately look to ourselves-as we always have-to attempt to ameliorate "what ails" as our Default Setting is, "I'm the problem, it's me that's wrong, messed-up" etc. When the Adult commits suicide, the CB can then point to their self-inflicted death as confirmation that "kid" was *always* defective somehow. Essentially, the CB "parent" engages in a form of homicide by proxy, garners (once AGAIN!) all the sympathy, all the attention and good-will rendered to Parents whose children predecease them, all the while wailing they "don't know WHY!" their child would do this-to *THEM.*
    It's sick, twisted and breath-takingly diabolical. That any of us have survived is a testament to the sheer tenacity of our spirits, the same spirit they endeavored assiduously to destroy throughout our lives.
    TW

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  10. Hi Anon, thanks regarding my article about Tiffany Sedaris. I wonder how many people this happens to.

    I agree about them having multiple-talented people in their family. I actually did hear about the Nancy Motes case, and had a friend of mine show me the article and we discussed whether or not she was the scapegoat.

    We even said to each other we thought it had overlaps with the Tiffany case, scapegoat in a narcissistic family with successful types who push the scapegoat aside. Sadly in the court of public opinion the narcissists usually do better. They are already powerful, wealthy and looked up too, so they find what they can shovel on the scapegoats. I find it sad to Nancy had to suffer from being overweight too and obviously she felt rejected by Julia Roberts because she was overweight

    http://calvinblanco.com/julia-roberts-nancy-motes-bully-weight-fat-obese-step-sister/

    I was rejected the same way for being overweight even kept away from my sister's kids. With today's discovery regarding the rare fat disorder lipedema, I still plan to be NC, but there is going to be something put in writing.

    I have lived out how this works. Nancy was in the high 200s from what I can tell maybe 300 at the peak, and you just have to know how she was treated if you have experienced. I would see the smiling pictures of my mother next to the "thin" relatives, my pictures removed from walls and more.

    so yes I see her as the scapegoat too. Definitely.
    continuing....

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  11. I am glad she fought back, are those tweets still online?, it does sound like she was very loyal to people who did not care about her for as long as she could be. I kept wondering why did they keep her mother away from her? Well that is how narcs operate. They will form barriers between other people and will do what they can to do destroy relationships. Maybe even because the mother is ill, they are waiting like sharks for the probate. Hey Julia R may have millions but types like that wouldn't want 2 dollars to go to a scapegoat.

    I get people like this who have the pain of no voice and feeling cast aside, something common to all scapegoats. Sadly many despair and even in the act of suicide think they will finally be heard. The family rejection sets one up for severe depression. I have faced that. My brother cared about me but my mother outside of cousins managed to destroy every relationship and have others view me as "scum", my suffering among the upper middle class probably was nothing compared to the well-heeled multi-millionaires and "famous" types doing it. I think it is a silent epidemic too, the secret pain of millions where many of them do not even know what is wrong.

    I hate seeing how she was treated and maligned in death too. I am actually writing a will or seeking provisions for myself so I am not maligned in death, this includes even refusal of being buried in the family Catholic cemetery. When I read about Tiffany's narc relatives rifling through her papers I thought that never would be me, and had a vision of my narc mother and sister burning my paintings, cartoons and papers. Oh no way!!!!

    And what is this about the family skipping the public funeral, to me that seems to be a big red flag...:/


    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2580310/Julia-Roberts-skipped-public-memorial-hold-private-family-service-tragic-sister-Nancy-Motes.html


    You know I wonder if the gastric bypass and weight loss actually helped lead to Nancy's suicide, such as her thinking that if she became thin that she would be loved and when the love didn't come, she couldn't take it. I know in my head I struggle thinking well if I was thin and rich, my narc family members would love me, but I know they would not due to the nature of the disorder.

    I feel very sad about so many people ending up like this. These narcs do so much damage. I agree about Nancy seeing her value through Jesus Christ. To be frank, it is Jesus Christ my Savior who helped me lead me out to freedom and my prayers to God to show me what was wrong. I am still alive, because of Him. I believe because of the severity of my health problems, physical and emotional pain, I could of very well ended up in Tiffany or Nancy's shoes given the same circumstances. In my case I sought God love but love via friendship, knowing the family outside of a single individual or two would be an empty well. People do not know how much pain is included with that early early family rejection, where your own kinfolk consider you unworthy, abuse you and tell you that you are "nobody", people need to feel like somebody. God sees all this different and many are getting their rewards now on this earth.

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  12. I read somewhere that Julia and team swooped in and took all of Nancy's belongings. They now remain in the family's custody, the same family who cut her off during the last year of her life, most likely the estrangement was going on for much longer than that. How's that for irony? Julia probably wanted Nancy's belongings, stuff like journals, pics, to protect her public image. In fact, I read on Radar that there were videos made by Nancy opening wide the flood gates, but Julia's camp shut it down b/c the family are the sole owners of Nancy's videos, not her fiancé. This is so classic N behavior. They are still silencing her in death as in life. In life, she seemed loyal to her family. It was only in the last few months, when she realized there was no going back to this family, that she ranted on twitter. She was unraveling. In all those years, not a negative word to the press.

    I'm sorry for all that you have gone through with your family too. You didn't deserve it.

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  13. 5HPP, you are providing a fantastic and invaluable service with this blog. I found your blog through another blog by the daughter of an NM, "House of Mirrors." Both your blogs are so enlightening, encouraging, and full of hope for those of us who always felt so alone in life. The posts can also be chilling but I see that as a good thing. It's a wake up call and forces us to stop denying that they really did love us. Fact is, they can't.

    In my 50s I am finally coming to terms with being the HSP (highly sensitive person) / and or high functioning autistic (I was never officially diagnosed but fit EVERY one of the "symptoms" of Aspergers/autism) seemingly born to become the scapegoated daughter of a MN mother, then went on to marry a MN man who proved to be even more evil than my own mother!
    My father was/is a classic Narc sympathizer or Narc co-dependent, with more than a few N traits of his own, although I don't think he was ever a fullblown MN. His current wife is also a MN (obviously he finds this type of woman attractive, go figure!). Both my mother and his current wife scapegoat and vilify me, and have cut me off in their sneaky, gaslighting ways from the rest of the family. I'm ostracized like you, the proverbial black sheep. I will receive no inheritance (I'm an undeserving loser). But no matter, since I'm essentially NC with them anyway, particularly my mother. At the moment, my mother has been using Facebook to try to turn my son into either a narc-supply replacement for me or into one of her flying monkeys (she has an extended family of flying monkeys who are all convinced I'm a horrible, useless human being who doesn't deserve a pot to piss in). Fortunately, for my son, this is not working, because he had a father like that (my ex) and can see through the bullshit and now they know it. My daughter, who lives with me, has been ostracised and vilified by that side of the family as well, although she shows disturbing signs of becoming a narcissist herself -- or maybe just borderline (she's 21).

    I'm absolutely convinced my wicked with of a mother and my ex husband are the "People of the Lie" that M. Scott Peck discusses in his famous book, which I've read about 7 times. I immediately recognized my mother in this book, and later my husband (who I'm no longer married to, thank God). Ironically, it was my narc-sympathizer father who sent me a copy of this book as a gift--and it sure did open my eyes. There really are evil, soulless people in this world and I had the great fortune to be surrounded by them my entire life.
    I would love to go on about the details of my own sad story, but frankly right now I don't have the emotional energy to do that. I feel like I've found a place of kindred souls however. I am deeply interested in starting my own blog here. I have a week vacation coming up, and may start such a project.
    Thank you so much for your blog. It's funny as well as disturbing and inspiring and I'm sure you're helping many others who had the misfortune to be raised by MNs or have other close familial relationships with them.
    You sound like you're doing great and I'm sure you've heard all this before (it sounds like such a cliche I know lol) but you seem to have been made stronger by your experiences. That's not in any way to discount or downplay the horror of such an upbringing. I know all too well what it feels like and it SUCKS.

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    1. Hi Otter, thanks for your compliments regarding my blog. I hope I can have some people know and understand they are not the only ones out there, as narcissism is epidemic. They are incapable of love.

      I read a book on HSP before, there is a lot of overlap with Aspergers. The Aspergers community does have self diagnosed people in it. I had therapists who knew and doctors who later backed it up. For me finding out about Aspergers was definitely a revelation about my entire life. I hope it will do the same for you and lead you to a better place and more self understanding. I think finding out saved me from the incredible self-loathing this world can hand anyone who is different and does not conform.

      I am sorry you ended up with a narc husband, this is very common. I hope things are good in your life now. I believe if there is an Aspie among the children in a narc family they are more likely to be selected as the scapegoat too.
      I am sorry that two narcs are still cutting you off from your family. My NM recently worked on my brother. He listens to some of what I have told him, but the fog is thick and she is working her narc magic with all the intensity she can muster. He is only one left with his family who talks to me but I haven't seen him in years and distant cousins. She worked directly and hard on him to get him to ostracize me too and I believe went HIS way a very rare rare occurence to throw off his plans to come see me, this fall. I am sorry you have faced this same pain, it is not easy at all. I hope you can warn your son of her true nature, maybe you already have. Mine has the multiple flying monkeys who hold her up on a pedestal too who have told me the exact same. Sure your son may see through their tricks given your ex-husband and his father. I hope your daughter can avoid becoming a narcissist too.

      I read People of the Lie when I was only 18 years old. While I do not agree with Peck on everything, he probably has saved lives with that book to explain to young people while their parents hate them and did not want the best for them and sought their destruction. I applied his descriptions of the evil, to both parents by the age of 18 though I did not figure out the narcissism thing. I read the book Toxic Parents too some years later. That is ironic your father sent it, maybe he had some soul left to read it himself and investigate your mother. I agree there really are evil-soulless people in the world. The Bible warns about them. I apply everything said about the seared and wicked to the narcs I escaped in my family. There was no appeal to goodness, no working out anything, just their way, or the highway and their cold darkness. I am sorry you went through the same. If you do a blog please share the link, I can put it on my blog index. :) Thanks for saying I am doing great too. :)
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    2. Thank you so much for replying. I'm sorry I didn't see this before, but better late than never, right? Yes, I do have a blog now, and I also want to thank you for being one of my inspirations. Blogging is so addictive! http://otterlover58.wordpress.com/

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  14. How your mother treated you kind of defines ‘cruelty.’  So sorry.

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    1. Thanks libertarianinmind. I agree. When I think back on this stuff it is very sad. I think about even maybe the lost gifts I may have had.

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  15. Thank you for sharing. This deeply personal, "me too" support helps, I hope you know that. I like your writing so much I'm following you, and invite you to check out my blog also, think you may like it- brand new so I don't have as many posts, give me time. http://michellemasonrocks.blogspot.com/

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    1. Thanks for your blog, I like what I see so far. I have major problems with kidney stones and use to drink cider vinegar when an attack came. Hope you can post more. :)

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  16. Wow, interesting but sad post. I'm sorry you had to endure so much, it's amazing you've survived at all and still capable of love and emotion says a lot about what you are inside. My childhood was no picnic, however I did have a loving mother who gave me a fighting chance. I hope you have found peace as the years have passed and I wish you peace and love as you move forward with your life.

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    1. Thank you anon. I am sorry you had a hard childhood but glad your mother was loving. I hope to have more peace as the years go by. God bless you and peace and love to you.

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  17. You have no idea how much this post has helped me. I had no idea there was anyone out there with a situation,so similar to mine, there are very few people who even begin to understand what went on at home. I too am the aspie daughter of a NC mother. She was an apathetic who fed off of my endless empathy and was ever threatened by my need for things to be logical, have a purpose, be carried put fairly, while she wanted my blind obedience and to control. I was endlessly confused by her growing up, and just turning 18, her toxic behaviour has finally led me to no contact.
    It was like a sigh of relief to read your blog, knowing someone understands the jungle I've been faced with and felt very much alone in.
    Thank you so much for this.

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    1. Sorry you went through the same thing Cortney. Yes they feed off an Aspie's empathy. Mine got much farther on mine then maybe a NT would put up with. Mine wanted blind obedience too. I know that feeling of being constantly confused and never knowing what to expect. I'm glad my article helped. Welcome to the blog too.

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