Among the ACONs
"I heard it put once that what they do to us is like declawing a defenseless cat and throwing it into a cat filled alley."
This sums things up well. I got to the gist of this with the Aspie in the Jungle article. Left unprepared, with no back up, thrown into the hard cold world. Survival was learned but came at a cost of my health and well-being. Even today I have to remind myself that kind people abound and will help me because of my past experiences. I was left clawless because everything I did to stand up for myself was taken away. I would start fighting back but it would take years. I was told always to submit and that I was WRONG all the time and to sublimate my own needs and that I didn't deserve anything. She told me I was WRONG to the very end. I was surrounded by blanks, that demanded everything and gave very little in return.
Most humans depend on kinfolk for protection on planet earth, for me the enemies were within the gate and the house, pit bulls ready to shred kitty-cat me into pieces. Narc mother's get out the claw clippers and go snip, snip, snip. "Your needs are unimportant, "You aren't really sick", "You are in the way". Any standing up for yourself is suppressed.
A deferential personality is formed desiring to people please and keep the Narc Queen happy to throw you a few crumbs or avoid abuse. Your whole position is a puppy bounding around to catch the crumbs that have fallen off the table. The worse thing done to ACONs is they never have the safe place or the family love needed to form self confidence in or those endless subtle social interactions that teach self-protection, self value or self-care. We go out into the world without these tools. Without claws. The key is to recover these things for ourselves. I know mine broke others, they didn't break me and for that I am glad.
This is where we lose the connection with so called normal people. It is inconceivable to them that a parent would go out of their way to sabotage the very existence of their own children. It's hard enough for us to digest this so I can see why outsiders don't get it. But it's not only what they do they have it down to an art form.
ReplyDeleteI agree we lived it and it was hard enough for ourselves to admit it. I remember the years of LC excuse making I did to deny and ignore the fact that she did want to see me suffer and wanted to destroy me. All I have to do is look at normal people's pictures of them with their families to know they lived in a wholly different world. The smiles, the ease, the love, the actual conversations and laughter, foreign world to me.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why I bother to care what outsiders think. I just get tired of telling someone all the ways my mother had left her humanity in the garbage pile and some person lets fly with some cliche and it just grinds my gears. I just want to ask........Do you think I am lying? Having that monster for a mother is not something I am proud of. You think I don't want to chime in with everybody who speaks fondly of their mothers and tells all the tales of band-aided boo boo's and coke floats and, and, and.......But I don't have anything good to say about her. Just maybe that she was never tied to the Kennedy assassination. But outside of that there ain't much there. Maybe instead of reshaming the people who grew a pair and are willing to sound off as a cautionary tale so maybe some others can deal with it before it's too late, they could accept me at my word and realize my hate for my mother is not a publicity stunt. My mother earned every bit of hate I have for her. It's the only honest work she did in her lazy no-working life.
ReplyDeleteI hate all the clichés too. I have a rule that I only talk about this stuff on blog and CLOSE friends, I learned the hard way that if you tell "normal" people such as acquaintances that you had to depart from your mother or other narc family members that they will see you as the problem. One aside to that rule is even with new friends I have to know them for a year or two before I start sharing any of this stuff. Some just can't even conceive of it. They really can't and in my case with one that looks societally acceptable on the outside that can be tough. It seems yours being outwardly exposed as a degenerate even if they didn't convict her probably made things a little different but not any better. You were born to a monster in your case. Maybe I got a few breaks with more controlled sociopaths holding on normal suburbia life on the outward appearances then what you went through, but the abuse was just more a closed door sort of thing. One thing that happens with ACONs too unless the parents are beating the total living crap out of you and putting you in the hospital or having sex with you, the world doesn't want to hear about emotional abuse. Some have the attitude as long as you are fed and not dead, the parental unit has done it's job. You basically lived the male version of the book White Oleander except your mother didn't end up in prison. Why was my own interest in that book so extreme? that girl got a little attention from her mother in the book I never got but she was definitely narc supply.
DeletePeople don't have the context for any of this. Normal families at least have some bonding between them. I understand why your hate is there, the woman basically just about destroyed you and she definitely destroyed others, one even literally as you have told us. I understand where your hate come from.
I am dealing with the spiritual implications of my own struggles with that same emotion. I don't want to hear fuzzy wuzzy "you must forgive", even the Bible dictates that those with seared consciences aren't the ones going to heaven. Maybe the forgiveness will come in that I will be able to move on one day totally with God's help but one year in, my emotions are very strong still. I went through forgiving earlier on only to be hurt. I think of what was done to my life and I can tell you do too.
And remember too, no matter how old we get they're always gonna have the built-in socially acceptable cover of "Parent." Doesn't matter if you're 7 or 70: If your 90 yr. old NP is alive and out of their mind even FURTHER with some form of medically-recognized dementia, the now very obviously and publically crazy parent will STILL have more credibility than YOU.
ReplyDeleteWhich answers the question: Do you REALLY wanna be involved in ANY way with them ESPECIALLY when they're aging?!
Run! RUN NOW!!! Hell, I'd be more than happy to push another AC escapee in a wheel chair-if that's what's necessary to help get 'em out, no problem!
TW
There is an ACON blog out there, where the lady I think is in her late 60s early 70s and I think the NM is still alive. Mulderfan? Hey even if you are old get out. I was on the elder end myself of all this. This is anecdotal but the NMs seem to live very long time, maybe sucking energy off everyone else. Maybe human bodies also do not break down if there is no feelings of fear or other stressors. Maybe they are afraid to die and stay alive longer through sheer will fearing hell. I had that thought that she still considered herself THE PARENT in big capital letters with more status and authority then me, and here I was an aging middle aged woman who is going deaf and with grey hair and I still have to feel like a chastised teenager. One email in 2012 when I disagreed with her on something she went on about respect like I was a little kid and not a grown adult. I often think dealing with a raging SENILE N has to be hell on earth and had the weird thought that mine is supposed to go senile one day. Her sameness in personality and never changing though makes it hard to believe that will happen but anything is possible. I am sure if she lives long enough she will bring plenty of misery along the way. LOL about pushing people out in wheelchair for escape. I feel for any disabled person who may be broke and stuck living with a narc parent, never ending imprisoning childhood I have to make sure to remove her name as a contact off a few doctors, just was thinking about that the other day, typing up loose ends. You are right they are always seen as having more credibility so when the pre-senile narc parent starts cooking up even more lies, well there probably can be some serious damage done before the dementia is formally diagnosed.
DeletePeep, nobody gets a break with a sociopath in the family. The conflict of having to reconcile the little bow peep they portray in public with the werewolf you get behind closed doors is more than any child should have to process. It's no way to live, no matter the magnitude of dysfunction.
ReplyDeleteNope they sure don't. They are the ones who are believed while they tell everyone you are crazy, or a liar, or gaslight. I had high school acquaintances and friends on FB tell me that my parents were such nice people, at least with the friends on there, they did believe me when I told them how abused I was. One was in shock but knew I had no reason to lie. I know you definitely lived with a werewolf too. I had two of them who always put forth a wonderful social picture, so my sad personality was even more rejected by others with people thinking "What's her problem?" I know it is way too much for a child to process. Yours with her acting out had to be very difficult as well.
DeleteI was reading your comment to my comment and as bad as my mother is/was. And no matter that I have it documented out the wazoo in black and white. People still only accept the reality they were first presented with, and the reality that easier to digest. My mother should have a shelf full of oscars performance she gave until the day she died. Most people remember me as the crazy, out of control, vindictive son and her
ReplyDeleteas the long suffering southern belle with a heart of gold. And for these reasons, like you, I pretty well keep it to myself. People don't like their realities challenged.
No they don't. This is why I only tell closest of friends and online support groups and blogs. Both of my parents deserved an Oscar too. That's horrible yours pulled off a great acting job too. Ugh.
DeleteHello, I've been reading your blog and this is the first time I decided to post. I found this very hard to take. All my life I have never been able to defend myself. Nobody saw me as real, only a fake. I agreed with everyone, never allowing myself to think for myself. I was scared and helpless. Trained to be a doormat. My mother was constantly feeding my frail emotions.
ReplyDeleteI know MNs know what they are doing, and what they are doing is a conscious choice. I thought my mother didn't know what she was doing, but I remembered today that some years ago she saw my appt card for a therapist, and was shocked and told me I didn't need that. She knows what she did is wrong, totally wrong, and scared to get caught.
Ok, I know that might seem ok, or sound concerned but I'm a mom of 3 and have 3 grandchildren. I couldn't even imagine doing the things she does. One of the grandchildren is autistic, my mother had called her retarded. Her very own great grandchild who is an amazing little girl. Retarded is not a term we use anymore and for good reason, its been put down. A handicapped child or any child is a person who needs respect, love and their own identity. Something my mother has never understood.
It now feels absolutely deplorable the things my MN mother has done. There is no excuse to leave a child spent a lot of her life with no defenses. To what end, to feel good about getting supply, or their way all the time, etc,
Oh, and I do know of a cure for narcissism I just don't feel it is good to share that right here. You have a very lovely blog.
Thanks for listening, take care.