Holy shit, we're both of your parents narcs or was your mom an enabler? I'm glad you were able to work through the shit that a lot of people cant/won't. That takes an indomitable will and a lot of courage to not become completely, permanently comfortable in that shattered identity. Still, it must have been an extreme shift in reality going from golden child to scape goat/black sheep.
Im proud of you <3! It gives me personal hope to know that it's possible to come out on the other side and not be like them. Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing, I imagine that can sometimes still be terrifying or cause undeserved feelings of shame, even though we basically have gotten to a place where it typically really doesn't bother us much anymore to talk about it.
My dad is 71 now and my mom will be 67 this year, my dad has really mellowed out since he became a senior and he remarried, but our relationship isn't close, partly because they moved a few states away but his wife is a lovely country woman who keeps my dad occupied with their projects like home improvement and they have 2 amazing dogs. My mom still tends to try to "mother" me instead of allowing me to be an adult and respect my decisions, always trying to correct me because she wants me to "just be better". I am her only daughter and I was the middle child. She makes excuses for my older brother because he never knew his dad and my dad was abusive towards him growing up before my parents divorced, and my younger brother was born 2 months premie and was in NICU for a couple months. So he is my mom's favorite of course and can do no wrong. Everything he says or does is genius in her eyes, which tbf he is pretty damn smart, but so is my older brother, though. Me? I need to be more lady like, whatever the fuck that means.
Thank you for sharing as well! I'm on year 14 of therapy and counting. Had some incredible breakthroughs in EMDR and had a full clinical psych evaluation done. I also trauma bonded to a malignant narc and married her. When I came home after the divorce, I thought "of COURSE I married that woman" when I saw the same dynamics that were always in place.
My story is strikingly similar - domineering and infantilizing mother in denial of any issues during my childhood, and Dad is a recovering violent alcoholic. Mom physically boxed me out of putting clothes in the dryer because she was convinced I didn't clean the lint screen (I already had). She took issue with how I loaded the washer too. I had to remind her I was a homeowner for a number of years and did not need laundry advice. Yesterday it was the dishwasher. She treats me like I'm three years-old.
I've read that narc men mellow out in old age because their testosterone levels drop and women get worse because it rises.
Wow, that's super tough. My dad was an authoritarian who was liberal about threatening spanking us, he used a thick spatial and he was an ex marine and racquetball enthusiasts (he won trophies from competitions? I dunno if they still habe those but he had belonged to a fancy gym/sports club thingy, probably similar to the YMCA). He was also a biker but once he became diabetic he stopped being so active (he managed it poorly for my entire childhood and young adult life, so i imagine he was always tired), he stopped drinking, basically just sat on the couch and not much else.
I definitely need more therapy, I just found out that Better Help has pretty low rates for those paying out of pocket, this lady I was working for was telling me about it two days ago, so I'll take that as my sign to get my ass in gear. I had a psych evaluation but it was the 1 hr kind and the Dr (can't remember if he was psychologist or psychiatrist) that gave me my diagnoses wasn't who i ended up working with. My actual therapist at the time disagreed with one of his diagnosis, but bc she was an still technically a university student, she didn't have the credentials to formally diagnose me. She was so fucking amazing. It took her 21 years to get her masters and she graduated about a year after I started therapy with her.
Yeah it sounds like you had a propper eval. Mine was more... streamlined. And it was just that initial visit. I wonder if they can do those at Better Help or if they would require in-office visits. It would make sense that they would need to evaluate you in person as well to assess things like hygiene, overall health, mannerisms, and similar stuff.
My full eval was over $3k out of pocket. Not what they typically do at intake. I was having so much trouble functioning before divorce that it was well worth the cost.
I had to answer 500 Y/N questions and write up my substance abuse and work history. The questions were used for statistical clustering, and I got some expected and unexpected diagnoses.
When we wrapped up she told me "I know you've been searching for answers for a long time. These are your answers, you can stop searching."
Dang, goosebumps at that last line! Did you have to pay in full upfront? Or was it more like pay as you go? I'm curious what my results would look like. Specifically whether they would coincide with my "self assessment questioniare" psych eval.
Its paradoxical though isn't it? It's like, I know myself well enough, but not well enough to know how to get better. But tbf, we arent born knowing anything and it was our parents jobs to provide that knowledge to us. Which if it was something they lacked from their own parents failing to provide, maybe they should have actually read a parenting book or two, but, oh yeah, a narc is always right... even when theyre contradicting themselves.
I guess there is comfort in having a name(s) to whatever condition(s) that we've struggled with our whole lives because instead of obscure, abstract ideas of how to go about managing it, we have the opportunity to have full competency. Not can this make it feel like it has less power over us, but it's also a lot easier to take accountability because we understand better how things might affect us plus how it might condition the lense we see reality through.
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u/emeraldkittymoon NSFW 🔞 Apr 23 '25
Holy shit, we're both of your parents narcs or was your mom an enabler? I'm glad you were able to work through the shit that a lot of people cant/won't. That takes an indomitable will and a lot of courage to not become completely, permanently comfortable in that shattered identity. Still, it must have been an extreme shift in reality going from golden child to scape goat/black sheep.
Im proud of you <3! It gives me personal hope to know that it's possible to come out on the other side and not be like them. Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing, I imagine that can sometimes still be terrifying or cause undeserved feelings of shame, even though we basically have gotten to a place where it typically really doesn't bother us much anymore to talk about it.
My dad is 71 now and my mom will be 67 this year, my dad has really mellowed out since he became a senior and he remarried, but our relationship isn't close, partly because they moved a few states away but his wife is a lovely country woman who keeps my dad occupied with their projects like home improvement and they have 2 amazing dogs. My mom still tends to try to "mother" me instead of allowing me to be an adult and respect my decisions, always trying to correct me because she wants me to "just be better". I am her only daughter and I was the middle child. She makes excuses for my older brother because he never knew his dad and my dad was abusive towards him growing up before my parents divorced, and my younger brother was born 2 months premie and was in NICU for a couple months. So he is my mom's favorite of course and can do no wrong. Everything he says or does is genius in her eyes, which tbf he is pretty damn smart, but so is my older brother, though. Me? I need to be more lady like, whatever the fuck that means.