I have added a new blog to the "Sites I Recommend" list and that is Caliban's Sisters. You may have seen some of CS's insightful comments on some of my posts...if you've enjoyed her comments, you are going to love her blog.
So often we feel very alone and isolated in our assigned roles in our dysfunctional families, but I have to tell you, we have legions of sisters (and brothers) out there whose lives and experiences are eerily similar to our own. Our NMs, even though they don't know each other, often behave like clones of each other, and this means that their children experience not only the same bizarre excuse for mothering that we did, those children grow up with many of the same doubts and fears and questions that we have. We are a vast community, we who were raised at the narcissist's knee. Caliban's Sister explores the experiences, the feelings, the doubts, and gifts us with the fruits of her insights and personal pain. She can also be extremely droll.
Some samples:
"...I think I'll keep her wondering whether or not I'll go, until maybe two
weeks before the [wedding]. My niece [the bride] has told me I can make up my mind at
the last minute, and that's what I'm going to do! A few years ago, my
sister blamed me because she felt stress about me being at her kids'
graduation (that's right--I flew across country to watch her kids
graduate). I thought I was doing something nice; she wrote me
afterward and told me that I "was the source of all the stress in her
life" (she and I have very little contact), and that the stress of it
had made a bunch of her hair fall out. She blamed me for that.
Maybe if I wait long enough to decide about the wedding, she'll go bald...."
"I don't intend to make it easy for my sisters. Their enabling behavior
with my narc mother is inexcusable, and I'm not going to just play
along with their creepy Kabuki theater of silence."
"... the hammering over the head with the idea that you have to love these
people NO MATTER WHAT is a lie that is imposed on us over and over
again. It is drummed into us as children, hammered into us as young
adults; the culture is complicit with its fetishizing of Norman
Rockwell families who sit crammed onto a couch together, sharing popcorn
and watching cable, with joyous smiles plastered on their faces. Every
product is sold as part of the familial "glue" that keeps the structure
intact. Generations of families who are conflict-free, overjoyed to be
together, mindlessly blissed out as they gobble pizza, or mac and
cheese, or drive along in their new minivan."
I urge you to pay a visit...you will be glad you did!
Monday, April 15, 2013
2 comments:
I don't publish rudeness, so please keep your comments respectful, not only to me, but to those who comment as well. We are not all at the same point in our recovery.
Not clear on what constitutes "rudeness"? You can read this blog post for clarification: http://narcissistschild.blogspot.com/2015/07/real-life-exchange-with-narcissist.html#comment-form
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Hi Violet, thanks so much for these kind words. I also hope you will check out Brave New Kitty (link on CS), and Kara's Through the Looking Glass (ditto). Along with CZBZ, Kitty and Kara are women of great gifts of heart, mind, and experience, who are excellent writers and from whom I"ve learned a lot. xx CS
ReplyDeleteThis Kabuki Theater of Silence. Oh, I know it well. As the scapegoat with two golden brothers, life has been distorted. They know they will 'inherit' everything and their (christian??) greed is what propells them on this path. That and fear of the MNM.
ReplyDeleteShe keeps saying (every phone call) "I'm leaving you nothing", in the middle of short and rare phone calls (from me...) and it's as if she wants to wound every time. Of course she does! She's maglignant! Heart is withered away...oh, sorry, narcissists don't have hearts.
Her legacy is one of cruelty,, and it will die with her. I refuse to mourn her. It's like mourning Hitler.
Three years ago I started out on a course of No Contact. I slipped up because whatever I learned at her knee...it wasn't lack of compassion. I tried to give her whatever I could. It was never enough. And it was futile. However, kindness, compassion ISN'T futile...given randomly to others. It's not what we get back, it's just an expression of our worth and ability to be sane and loving.
It's an expression of being fully human.
You are so right that the golden children never really grow up or get what they need. We already know, as the scapegoats we are impoverished....but I didn't think of this of my brothers. The 'gifts' of narcissistic mother keeps giving, even after she dies.
Poverty indeed. But don't suffer in silence. Apply silence only to those that deserve it, because they deserve it. However, hope springs eternal with me...for the injured by narcissism, even those who don't understand the fallout.
Lady Nyo