I don’t want a reconciliation…

It occurred to me, sitting here looking at a blank screen, that I don’t want a reconciliation or an apology or even an acknowledgement of her sins from my mother. I don’t want her to change or to morph into a good mother or ask my pardon…all of which is a good thing because this week, she has been dead 19 years.

But when you realize what you don’t want, it starts to frame and clarify what you do. And I find myself pondering what, if my mother was still alive, would I be wanting from—or for—her at this point in my life.

I turned 70 in March and my mother would have been 88 in June. I am married to a younger man, am semi-retired, and I live overseas, half a world away from the American West Coast were I was born and raised. My life is busy and it is full. Much of my downtime is spent reading, researching, and thinking. At my age, we ponder our mortality and review the lives we have lived, the mistakes we have made, and how we might have chosen differently.

One of the things my mental meanderings keep coming back to are those mistakes. Real life doesn’t have any do-overs and all too often wisdom comes far too late to make any difference. The best we can do in situations like that is to review those mistakes, try to understand what was driving us at the time, and try to determine if a different choice would have made any difference. The big surprise to me is the realization that, for the most part, another choice would have made little difference because changing my choices would not likely have had an effect on the other people in the equation. It is humbling to realize that the bad choices I made in my past were not the defining act in the event because the others involved in the event had their own agendas and my choices were only a small part of what ultimately transpired.

I grounded my daughter for cutting school and she jumped out a second story window and ran away to a friend’s house. Below the window she jumped from is a sticker bush (planted there to deter would-be housebreakers) and when she showed up at her friend’s house she told her friend’s mother that her bruises and scratches were from a beating I had given her—and no mention of cutting school was made. Outraged, the mother took my daughter in and for a few weeks she felt properly self-righteous about it—until she discovered that my daughter had led hers into cutting school for days on end.

Reviewing that scene, I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t grounded my daughter? What if I had given her extra chores? What if I had made her attend Saturday detention for the rest of the school year to make up the days lost? What if I had said nothing except “Go back to school—you have a lot of missed work to make up”? Would any of those change my daughter into a different person? Or would she still be a girl who was willing to jump out of a second story window into a vicious bramble bush, lie about her mother to the mother of a friend, and then show her gratitude for being taken in by corrupting the daughter of her benefactor? No choice I could have made in that circumstance would have changed my daughter, her ethics, or her sense of entitlement. For all these years I have beat myself up about making a bad choice and suddenly it occurs to me that I had much less power than I believed myself to have and there was no choice I could have made that would have made my daughter anything other than who she really was on that day: a girl who so believed she was entitled to do whatever she wanted, regardless of the law or parental edict, she was willing to risk injury, then lie (a lie that had the potential to see me jailed!) to and con the mother of a friend and, on top of it all, induce that friend to defy both the law and her own mother. She was that kind of person, no matter what I chose to do.

Applying this newfound knowledge to other situations, I have discovered that my sense of guilt or responsibility about them is largely misplaced because other autonomous individuals played a part, a part over which I had no influence or control. When my NexH decided to cheat, what kind of reaction would have changed his mind or his behaviour? He had already shown himself to believe it was ok for him to cheat, so much so that he actually put the hotel room on his American Express card, a bill I paid every month. Would having a hissy fit at him rather than pretending I didn’t see that charge on the statement have changed his belief that he was entitled to do this? I had a friend who found out about her husband’s mistress when she was paying the credit card bills and found a charge for a ruby pendant. It was almost Valentine’s Day and she waited—in vain, it turned out—for the diamond and ruby trinket to be handed to her. When confronted, he not only admitted to the mistress and the jewellery, he was very clear that he felt entitled to have both a wife and a mistress and wasn’t going to give either of them up. Nothing she could have said or done would have changed that sense of entitlement and he was genuinely surprised when she moved out of the house and started divorce proceedings.

I have rifled through the vaults of my memory, extracting events here and there, wondering how a different choice on my part would have changed the outcome. In particular I have pulled out memories regarding mistakes I believed I made with my children, poor choices, unthinking decisions, harsh words or punishments and, for the most part, have come to the conclusion that my part in these events wasn’t as big or as decisive or as significant as I initially believed. I was a player in a drama, a drama with other players, each with his or her own agenda and script and we each played our own parts, seeking our own ends, despite being in proximity to and nominally interacting with others. Too many times my words and deeds, which I once believed to be pivotal have, on brutally honest review, been ineffective spouting off, words on the wind that were heeded little or not at all. Their paths were set, their objectives were goads, and I was merely an opposition to be overcome or ignored.

Several years ago I read a sobering article about the influence we have on our children and how, once they reach the age to be relatively independent (once they have started school) how their peers actually have an increasingly greater influence on them than we, the parents and family have. The older they get the more children seek the approval and acceptance of their peers over and above our approval. We have much less power and influence than we think we have.

And so I began thinking about my mother and realized how right that was. Despite her brutal and controlling ways, I was more interested in the approbation of my peers than hers. My boyfriend’s approval meant more than hers. I rejected her tastes, her politics, her beliefs, and much of her values. I was too afraid of her to be outwardly rebellious, but there was nothing she could have said or done that would bring me to share an outlook I found repugnant. Yes, I wanted her approval and love but I didn’t want them at the cost of being untrue to myself, even at that young age. I wanted her to approve of me and who I was, rather than approve of how good I was at pretending to be the person she wanted me to be. I wanted her to love me, the essential person, not the child star or academic powerhouse or teen beauty queen. And so I realized that the direct power and control my mother had over me was fleeting, lasting only as long as I allowed it.

I began to wonder what, then, would I want from my mother if I could see her again. Would I want an apology for the cruelties and indignities she had heaped on me over the years? Would I want contrition, enlightenment such that she knew she was wrong? Would I want her wallowing in guilt for her years of brutality and neglect? Begging forgiveness? Declarations of love and devotion and respect? A heartfelt, tear-stained reconciliation? As I envisioned each of these scenarios I soon came to realize that not one of these were within the realm of possibility, even if she were still alive today. Because, regardless of my wants and needs, she would still remain herself, ploughing forward on her own set of tracks, bound for her own destination, regardless of what I brought to the table.

It was then that I realized what I wanted was not something from her but something for her. I wanted her to drink from the cup prepared by her own hand, to experience that which she created and set in motion. Not the events themselves, mind you—I would not wish those events on anyone, not even her—but the emotions, the feelings, the fears and the despair, the pain and the sense of futility and hopelessness, the narrow focus and gut-wrenching grit needed to climb out of the pit of depression she had cast me into and the dogged determination of therapy, reliving every horrifying moment in detail, complete with the mindless pain of loss after loss after contrived and carefully orchestrated loss.

I would want for her an abundance of empathy, enough to last her for eternity.

What is it you would want?

Just who is looking out for YOU?

Have you ever wondered why you and your feelings always seem to be the lowest priority, why you are always the one who has to give in or give over in order to spare the feelings of someone else? Why others don’t seem to be expected to spare your feelings, but you are expected to spare theirs? I have never seen this addressed before, in any of the articles I have read, in any of the conversations I have had, in any of my many exhausting therapy sessions.

In passing, I have heard people ask “Why am I always the one who has to give way?” but it always comes across as rhetorical, not a real question begging for a real answer. But for those of us who grew up under the thumb of a personality-disordered parent, the question is very real, the dynamic anything but balanced and just.

I once was asked by a therapist, in reference to my narcissistic then-husband, “If you are looking out for him and he is looking out for him…who is looking out for you?” As a person raised and trained by a narcissistic mother, I was groomed to put myself last on anybody’s list or priorities, virtually guaranteeing that my needs would never be addressed…and, not knowing any better for many, many years, this is exactly how I lived. I believed I had to justify every purchase, every need. I didn’t seek medical attention unless I was debilitated by the problem, I didn’t buy new clothes or shoes from quality retailers, but bought from the cheapest stores and even then, felt I had to justify my purchases. Every once in a while I would splash out on something costly…like my sports car…but then I felt like I had to justify my expense by driving it for fifteen years (and thereby saving the cost of buying another car). For the most part, I set myself at the end of the priority list and actually felt grateful for the crumbs that fell from the banquet from which everyone around me was partaking.

A reader made a comment some weeks ago and in it she asked why she was always the one who had to give way to the narcissist or the Golden Child. It struck a chord with me, as I instantly related to the question. And I have a strong sense that this reader and I not are the only people who deal with this…in fact, I have a sense that it is pretty much universal for those of us who have to deal with narcissists.

What is peculiar, however, is not that it is the narcissist who demands this from us, but the other people around us. Well-meaning family members who would never consciously wish to harm or humiliate us, expect us to give in to the narcissist for the sake of family peace, to end a rift, to mollify the indignant and bristling N in their midst. And I have to wonder…why did my grandmother expect me to set aside my animosity after my mother stole my children, told them a pack of hurtful lies about me, and then left me twisting in the wind for eight years, wondering where they were, if they were dead or alive, if they were ok or not? Why didn’t my grandmother seek to restore family harmony by asking my mother to apologize to me and tell the truth to my children? Why was I the one who had to give up a toy to my destructive little brother? Why were my howls of outrage met with a beating and his were met with the demand that I give up whatever it was I was withholding from him, even if the item belonged to me?

But it wasn’t just my NM or my NexH who had this expectation of me. Other people, both inside and outside the family, seemed to have this expectation as well. I kept waiting for it to be my turn to hear, “…don’t be so selfish, it will hurt Violet’s feelings…” but the words never came. Violet’s feelings, it seemed, didn’t need to be spared. Growing up, I knew that I was the one who had to give way…and so did everyone else in the family. I can remember my cousin, a girl my age who I saw only during the summers, threatening me with “I’ll tell Nana,” if I didn’t give her what she wanted. If I told our grandmother about her threat, that would be “tattling,” something my NM had beaten into me as being unacceptable. So there I was, stuck with only three choices: 1) tell Nana and be branded a tattler, 2) refuse to give my cousin what she wanted, in which case she would tell Nana, branding me as selfish (also forbidden), or 3) giving in. I was always, always giving in because that, it seems, was the role assigned to me.

When I was in my early teens my mother arranged a “date” between me and the son of her best friend. They thought it was cute, me dressed in my Sunday best in the backseat with my GC brother and my “date” as the two mothers sat in the front and drove us home from a matinee. The problem was, I already knew this boy and I considered him to be gross. He was at that gangly stage, grown nearly to the size of a man, but not yet able to coordinate those big, ungainly limbs. He was rather crude and didn’t even approach my standards of attractive. For one thing, he had big rubbery lips that always looked wet which I most definitely perceived as gag-worthy. He engulfed my hand in his huge paw, and when I snatched it back, he ignored my wishes and grabbed my hand again. As the mothers tittered in the front seat, he suddenly kissed me, his wet rubbery mouth engulfing my lips and applying considerable suction, which absolutely repelled me. I tried to push him away (I couldn’t make a sound with his mouth covering mine) and instead of letting me go, he then stuck his tongue in my mouth! I found this positively revolting and, when he would not let me pull away and break the kiss, I bit his tongue. Hard. He stopped…and he howled.

Do you think either mother scolded Greg for the intrusion into my sovereign space? Nope…I got nailed for biting him! For being “ungracious”! For upsetting Greg’s mother and hurting Greg’ feelings. What did I think was going to happen, I was asked…I was surrounded by people…his mother, my mother, my kid brother…he wasn’t going to rape me (I didn’t even know what rape was at that time). Apparently I was supposed to acquiesce to his crude, fumbling attempts at wooing, under the watchful eye of our mothers and my brother, and be grateful for his attentions. Nobody…nobody…cared one iota about how I felt.

I look back on my life and it is full this. After my mother told the family a heap of horrible lies about me, lies so bad that they turned their back on me when she stole my children and gave them up to another family member for adoption, when the truth came out and, after eight years I got my kids back, the family still expected me to hold out the olive branch. Did anyone say to her “Georgia, you did a terrible thing to Violet—the least you owe her is an apology”? No…but my grandmother, who was the one who finally broke the silence and told me where my children were…asked me to “bury the hatchet” with my mother for “the sake of family harmony.”

Why is it the victim is always pressed to “forgive” but nobody seems to be pressing the perpetrator to make amends and stop behaving like a predator? Is there some perceived ennobling of a person who has been victimized, making her one who is expected to take the high road and “make nice” with the very people who victimized her? It rather reminds me of the rape culture that has been making the news lately: girls are being taught how to not get raped, but who is taking the boys aside and saying “don’t rape…we’ll punish you severely for it!”? Nobody is telling male freshman college students at orientation to refrain from sexually predatory behaviour and, when they get caught doing it, too often it is brushed off as “boys will be boys” behaviour and a vocal victim, if she’s lucky, just shunted aside. Unlucky ones get further traumatized by being censured for attempting to ruin the future of a "promising young man"…who is castigating the campus rapists for ruining the future of a promising young woman?

I am at a loss to explain a social structure…either in microcosm, like that of a family, or in macrocosm, like the greater society…that demands a victim be careful of the reputation and feelings of her abuser. Whether the expectation is that the victim keep silent about a raping fellow student or an abusing parent, it is wrong. Abusers of every ilk fear the truth and only by speaking that truth do the abused have any chance of ending the abuse, not only for themselves but for others who are current or potential victims.

When someone is being abused, sometimes that person has safety issues…even life-threatening issues…that keeps her silent. But once that person feels safe enough to speak out and name the abuse and name the abuser, why do so many of us feel compelled to shut her up? I once had a letter from a reader who said that her father admonished her to “not provoke” her mother…why did he not tell her mother to stop abusing their child? My step-father, for all that he was a child-molesting sleaze, at least would stop my mother in mid-tirade when she was on a tear with me. Of course he did it for selfish reasons—her screaming at me was drowning out his TV in our tiny one bedroom apartment—but he wasn’t afraid to tell her to “shut up and leave the kid alone.” And he never had the audacity to suggest that I debase myself to her and seek a less fraught relationship. But he did step in, which is more than a lot of people seem to be willing to do.

The perception that the onus is on the victim to “make nice” with her abuser is just senseless. Not only does it fail to support a person who has already been wronged, it sends a message to the abuser that he will not be held accountable…and an abuser who knows no one will hold him to account for his misdeeds is a person with no incentive to stop abusing (if he had the conscience and ethics to stop without an external threat of punishment, he wouldn’t have abused in the first place). Expecting a victim to tread lightly in the face of her abuser is simply adding to the abuse: it passively supports the abuser by not calling the abuser to account.

I never understood people who asked me “what did you do to provoke her?” after my mother beat me black and blue. What transgression can a small child commit that warrants a violent beating? (I am no longer going to minimize what she did and call them “spankings”…I don’t think I was ever spanked in my life because what I got were beatings.) And I further didn’t understand why I was last in line for everything…from new shoes to eye glasses to dental care…I got them only when the situation was urgent, and even then I got verbally abused for needing them, as if I had intentionally contrived to need them. My mother had her own agenda when she stole my children: she had an adored younger brother who was childless and who had not passed the home study for adoption—and she took my children from me and gave them to him with no more thought for my feelings than taking a kitten from its mother and giving it away. And yet, years later and with no apology or acknowledgement of wrong doing from her, I was expected to “bury the hatchet” with her for the sake of “family peace.”

Why didn’t someone ask her to make amends with me for the sake of family peace? Why was I always the one who had to make the sacrifices for the “greater good”? Who was looking out for me and for my feelings? Why did my mother’s feelings matter more than mine…or even those of my children? And why is it, when there is a narcissist in the family, the sensibilities of that narcissist come before anything else? How many times have you heard someone who has absolutely dreadful parents say they feel “guilty” about their lack of contact (or even contemplating going low or no contact)? How many times have you heard these same people recoil at the suggestion that they keeps their kids away, saying something like “Oh, I couldn’t deprive them of their grandchildren…” Or, “that might hurt her feelings” when responding to a suggestion to stop the abuse. Why is it that we are expected to submit to the abuse and they are not expected to stop abusing?

My therapist was really on to something. Who was looking out for me when both my NexH and I were looking out for him? Nobody, that’s who. He neglected and abused me…and so did I. Carefully groomed by a narcissistic mother to put myself last, I was the perfect foil for a narcissistic husband. And when I put myself so far last that I felt almost invisible, I became suicidally depressed…and even that was ok with him, as long as he had clean laundry, food purchased and prepared, and I was available for sex. As long as his needs were met, nothing else mattered.  

Nobody was looking out for me, including me. And I set a poor example for my kids, giving them not only a narcissistic stepfather as a role model, but providing them with a perfect example, in the form of on-going tableaux, of how the other person in a relationship with a narcissist should behave. We demonstrated the crushing of my occasional rebellions, we demonstrated the power of towering rage, and we demonstrated the proper driven-by-fear scrambling to make everything perfect for the narcissist, the anticipation of his every need, the excusing of his selfishness and redoubled efforts to please in order to keep the peace.

And there is the answer…if your goal is peace within the family, then you can’t approach a narcissist for it. The narcissist, the abuser, the perpetrator, is not open to making admissions of guilt and requests for absolution. Rigidly and inflexibly self-serving, the narcissist is not interested in family peace, only in advantaging himself. Approaching a narcissist to attempt to solicit a behaviour that will create peace with one of the narcissist’s victims is a guaranteed way to spark a negative reaction because it implies the narcissist was wrong…and we all know that no narcissist will ever acknowledge that, let alone make a heartfelt apology. No, the person to approach is the victim…appeal to her better instincts, tell her she must be a better person and “take the high road,” to let “bygones be bygones.” And, if the victim has empathy for others, once she is made aware that the well-being of the family hangs in the balance, she will be the one to capitulate, to let go of (or suppress) her feelings of anger and hurt, not only with respect to the initial injury, but with respect to the expectation that she be the one to make nice.

The problem with this is that it encourages the narcissist. It confirms to him that his behaviour and attitude were right all along…and so it encourages even more of it. The victim is put in the position of allowing an internecine conflict to continue or to throw herself into the breach, sacrificing her own emotional well-being in order to preserve “peace” in a dysfunctional family. That she is expected to do so by more than just the narcissist is telling…it demonstrates just how toxic the entire FOO is when it demands sacrifices of the victims rather than banding together to protect the victim from the abusing narcissist.

So what do you do? As always, it depends on the situation: the news is full of stories of dead people—particularly women—who stood up to their abusers and who died at the abuser’s hands. For most of us, though, the situation is not that dire…but it requires us to choose between ourselves…taking care of ourselves…and the people who abuse us and their supporters. And that, after being raised and groomed by narcissistic parent, can be surprisingly difficult to do.

What if she said she was sorry?

It is probably our favourite fantasy: something happens that awakens our narcissistic parents to the reality of their treatment of us, they realize how much they have hurt us, and they feel remorse…and then they apologise.

What if that really happened?

We are all at different stages of recovery from growing up with a narcissistic parent. Some of us are just realizing that our peculiar parent is a narcissist, some of us are well beyond that gut-wrenching discovery and are busy learning how to perceive and react to the world from a place other than that of victim. But some of us get stuck in a particular place, a place borne of denial and futile hope: we somehow believe that if our narcissistic parent would just “wake up” and see how they hurt us and then make amends, all would be right with our worlds.

I am sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but if that is where you are, it is time to pull up those stakes and get unstuck because it ain’t gonna happen. Ever. No matter how long you wait, no matter how paralyzed you are, no matter what you say or do, your narcissistic parent/spouse/sibling/boss…whoever the chief narcissist in your life is…will never, ever accept responsibility, never, ever, feel bad for hurting you, and never, ever, give you a sincere, heartfelt apology. It just ain’t gonna happen.

How can I be so sure? Because if that person does accept responsibility, if s/he feels remorse and then is motivated to issue a true apology and undertake sincere efforts to make amends, that person is not—cannot be—a narcissist. Narcissists have no empathy, no capacity for remorse, and no motivation to humble themselves for the benefit of anyone save themselves. If the person is capable of compassion and empathy for the pain s/he inflicted on you, then that person simply is not a narcissist.

Assuming the narcissist in your life truly is a narcissist, then, you have to start examining your own expectations and why you have become stuck in this fantasy that “If she would just say she was sorry, things would be OK.”

Would they? Maybe in the beginning, while the euphoria lasted but eventually, you’re going to come back to earth and the resentment and questions will begin. “What took you so long?” “If you acknowledge now what you did was wrong, why did you do it in the first place?” “How is it even possible to make amends for decades of emotional abuse?” “What is in this for you?”

Do you expect that apology to be a magic balm that will cure all of your pain, your anxieties, insecurities and maladaptive behaviours and beliefs? What are you going to do when your narcissist apologizes…really, sincerely, apologizes…and after the initial elation wears off, you still feel suspicious, wary, guarded, and hurt by all of the past transgressions? What if your phobias and anxieties don’t melt away, what if your fears and pain stay right where they are? Then what?

Hopefully, enlightenment—and ultimately the realization that you just can’t sit by passively and wait for someone else to make it better because, no matter what your narcissist does or doesn’t do, nobody can make it better but you.

I know this isn’t the message most of us want to hear. We know we have been victimized and we look to the perpetrator to make it right. But can it ever be made right? There are no “do-overs” in real life and neither you nor your narcissist can turn back the clock and do it again. The point you are at today, the dysfunction, the pain, the anxiety—all are a product of what has gone before today. It has shaped you and conditioned you, given you your values and beliefs. No amount of apologies or “doing better” from your abuser can take that back or change what is inside you today. Just as you cannot change another person, nobody else can change you…only you can do that.

Some of us embrace the idea that we have control over our recovery, but I think most of us go through a period of believing that if our abuser(s) would just step up to the plate and acknowledge wrong doing and say they are sorry, everything would magically be all right. And some of us get stuck there, believing that they can go no further until that acknowledgement and apology are forthcoming. But we control what we believe and believing that it is someone else’s job to fix our hurts is not only untrue, it is self-defeating. The longer we cling to the belief that an apology will magically fix us, the longer we insist that it is the therapist’s job to make things better, the longer we will be stuck and miserable in the legacy of the narcissistic parent.

We have to take responsibility. Not for the acts that hurt us, of course, but for our recovery. It may feel wrong…after all, you didn’t create the situation so why should you have to fix it?...but in real life (not our perfect fantasies), we often get stuck cleaning up other people’s messes. To refuse to do it is to accept the mess as part of your life…and if you are choosing to accept it, then you really don’t have any business complaining and feeling ill-used about it. You have made the choice to tolerate the situation and do nothing to change it, and the consequence is that at some point, people you know will start rolling their eyes when you start to talk about it. If you don’t like something in your life, it is your life and therefore your responsibility to change it.

Narcissists abuse and they don’t take responsibility for the hurts they inflict. It is what they do and, just as you must accept that dogs bark and cats meow, you must accept that narcissists hurt people with no sense of guilt, remorse, or responsibility. Even if your narcissist did have a sudden flash of insight and conscience, what can s/he do? Drop a plate on the floor and break it…now say “Oh, I am so sorry!” to the plate. Is it fixed? Of course not…and getting an apology—even a sincere one—from your narcissist won’t fix what is wrong with you, won’t assuage your pain or feeling of emptiness, anymore than your apology to that plate made it whole again.

What I am saying here is that you don’t really need an apology or even an acknowledgement of wrongdoing from your narcissist because receiving one improves nothing. What you really need is to get up and take action: look at your beliefs, challenge and change the ones that are holding you back; change a pattern of behaviour that victimizes you, like calling your mother every day and letting her rant at you; stop thinking you are helpless or that someone else is going to rescue you from your unhappiness—only you can do that, and you can only do that when you take action.

Don’t worry about doing it wrong: as long as you are not hurting yourself or anyone else, you aren’t doing it wrong. The exception to that, of course, is the narcissist and her flying monkeys and other minions. Some narcissists will feel hurt (or enraged) that you are changing the balance of the relationship, that you are no longer playing the role of doormat, whipping post, scapegoat that was assigned to you. They will use anything to push you back into your role and restore the balance of their lives, regardless of the cost to you. Their feelings, their comfort zone is paramount. But the truth is, your feelings are no less important and deserve no less respect than theirs. And if they won’t take care not to hurt you, if they disrespect you as if it is their right, then you are absolved of the admonition to not hurt them. Oh, don’t go to an extreme and bully or physically assault them—of course that is out of bounds. But what is not out of bounds is for you to refuse to allow yourself to be manipulated by their rage or cries of distress. You are under no obligation to subordinate your feelings and well-being to theirs, especially when they have been sacrificing your feelings and well-being in order to make themselves feel good.

Would you feel remorse for smacking a blood sucking insect as it feasted on your flesh? Then don’t feel bad about disengaging from the soul-sucking leech that is your narcissist and put your respect and concern where it belongs: on you. Only by focussing on your own well-being can you escape, and they know this: if they can keep you focussed on them, their feelings and how you are hurting them, you’ll never be able to focus on yourself long enough to escape them. And that is just how they like it.