What is does it mean, to be rude? The Google search function turns up “…offensively impolite or bad-mannered…” but that is rather subjective—who determines when impoliteness or bad manners becomes offensive? Obviously the person who is perceived as being rude doesn’t think he’s being rude at all, while others—whose minds he cannot read—perceive differently. The Cambridge Dictionary1 defines rude as “…not polite; offensive or embarrassing…” Again, subjective: that which I find offensive you might find hilarious.
Years ago there was a standard of
behaviour to which the majority of people agreed constituted basic manners.
Things like saying “please,” “thank you,” and “you’re welcome.” Saying you are
sorry for causing someone else inconvenience or hurt. Children asking to be
excused from the table. Not interrupting others while they are speaking.
Waiting your turn for something. Calling before going to someone’s home.
Respecting the privacy of others. Respecting other people’s wishes with respect
to their own persons and property. Being a “good sport” when losing and
gracious when winning. These and many other small courtesies were handed down
to each succeeding generation as the lubricant that oiled the wheels of
society. Without small, simple courtesies practiced by the majority of us,
regardless of class, society broke down into a chaos of ruthless competition.
The definition of rude was not subjective or ruled by the perception of either
the recipient or perpetrator, the definition of rude was codified—it was
anything that violated the basic code of manners that permeated the society.
Narcissists understand the codes
and narcissistic parents use them to their advantage. In a society that largely
ignores the traditional courtesies, narcissistic parents are in their element:
they can teach their children the kinds of behaviours and responses they want,
call them “manners” or “courtesy” and shape their children the way they see
fit.
When I was growing up we were
taught basic manners first in the family and next in primary (elementary)
school: teachers would require us to say “please” and “thank you,” wait in a
queue or raise our hands for our turn at something, to share with others. Girls
got a more expanded version of it in the higher grades during compulsory Home
Economics courses. We had books and newspaper columns by well-known etiquette
mavens, books that might show up in a young adolescent girl’s birthday or
holiday swag. And we learned from TV shows like Leave it to Beaver in which the young Beav and his adolescent
brother Wally were counselled on manners by their mother, who was backed by
their father. But we also understood that there were different rules for
adults, rules that forbade us to do things until we were “old enough,” among
them smoking, drinking, driving cars and—my eagerly anticipated
favourite—moving away from home.
It was this “rules are different
for grownups” that gave people like my mother their power. They could demand
adherence to the rules of etiquette from children without reciprocating because
their rules were different from ours—“Do as I say, not as I do” was a common
refrain around our house. Of course, I knew adults who were courteous, even to
kids, but I understood this was not required of adults, that courtesy was a
one-way street where children and adults intersected.
Another thing my mother inculcated
into me—and which was largely supported by society in general—was the notion
that children owed respect to adults…all adults…no matter what. So an adult
could berate you loudly and rudely in public and you couldn’t say anything
“disrespectful” in return without risking getting into trouble over it. So if
some grouchy old neighbour threw handfuls of garden manure at you as you walked
by their garden, bellowing at you not to trample their flowers, you were
allowed to say “I didn’t walk through your flower beds,” but if Grouchy
insisted it was you, you were disrespectful to “talk back” and insist on your
innocence—because at this point you were supposed to take it to your parents
and let them handle it. If you had clones of Ward and June Cleaver for parents,
this worked. But if you had the narcissistic Wicked Witch of the West or
Captain Bligh for parents, this didn’t go so well. Instead of being able to go
to your parent for support and defence, you had to keep quiet…and you learned
that people older than you could get away with shit you couldn’t.
Most people grow up understanding
they are supposed to respect their elders and give them deference.
Unfortunately, if your parent was narcissistic, there was an added dimension to
this. At the age of individuation, at the age where normal families begin
loosening the reins of control over their kids, helping them to learn to handle
independence and to start thinking of themselves as adults, narcissistic
parents tighten the screws. Even if they ostensibly give you the freedom to
come and go like your friends do, sign for your driving license, etc., they do
not stop thinking of you as a child. They believe they are doing you a favour
by allowing you to participate with your peers—and they see no value in helping
you to become emotionally independent.
When these children become adults,
their lives and choices are often ruled by those narcissistic parents. The
parents have taken up residence in their heads and those parents remain in
control. I had a friend who, in her 30s, was lamenting her single state. I
offered to introduce her to a couple of guys I knew, engineers who made a good
living and would, in my opinion, make good husbands and providers. She declined
because her parents wouldn’t approve of these guys because they were ethnically
different from her. She, personally, didn’t care but she couldn’t go against
her parents’ biases. Another woman I used to work with had a hard core
controlling mother who demanded that my co-worker pay her rent and utilities.
This left my co-worker, who was a clerical worker like me and a single mother,
scrabbling for pennies at the end of every month. When I asked her why she did
this she said “Because she’s my mother.” I knew nothing of narcissists in those
days but I suggested that she tell her mother she needs to pay her own way and
my co-worker blanched. The very thought of standing up to her mother literally
made her feel faint. She was in her early 40s.
We get taught that inside the
family circle, our parents not only hold the power, they hold it until they
die—sometimes even after they die, depending on their will. We are not supposed
to contradict those parents or even think differently from them. As children that
is naughty and we court punishment; as adults were are deemed disrespectful,
insubordinate and rude. Due to the conditioning of our childhood, we fear being
found wanting by our parents. Even when we know we are too old to be spanked or
grounded, the visceral fear is still there. Depending on the kind of parent we
had, that fear may be mixed with guilt and shame. But any way you slice it,
doing—even thinking—anything that our parents would disapprove of brings us
anxiety and even fear.
So what happens when we grow up and
put enough distance between us and our Ns that we begin to have contrary
thoughts? What happens when you develop the nerve to disagree with your mother
face-to-face and not back down, or find the courage to tell her she’s wrong or
to call her on her bullshit? Well, depending on the type of NM you have, you
can get tears, push-back, or outrage—but in every case your NM is going to
perceive you as both rude and disrespectful. Narcissists rewrite definitions of
words and phrases to be more self-serving. My NexH, for example, when accused
of never compromising, indignantly informed me that he compromised all the
time. When asked for a definition of compromise he came up with this: he gets
what he wants and I get everything that is left. Narcissists not only rewrite
history, they rewrite the damned dictionary.
As children we don’t know any
better and we accept those definitions. So when you are actually individuating
and becoming independent, your NParent redefines it as rebellion. When you tell
you NM that she can’t give your child cookies twenty minutes before dinner, she
calls you disrespectful. When she invades your private space and you ask her to
leave, she sees this as you being rude. And
so do you! Even if you have reached the point where your intellect
recognizes that you are not being rude or disrespectful, you can still feel like you are!
Believe it or not, there is no
rule in the books of etiquette and tomes of manners that says it is rude or
disrespectful to disagree with your parents. There is no prohibition against
upsetting your mother or disagreeing with your father. There are rules against
such things as browbeating others with your point of view, showing up at a
person’s place of work or residence uninvited, and demeaning others both
publicly and privately. There are even polite ways to deal with people who
persist in these behaviours and, simply stated, it is to ignore their presence
as if they are not there. It is called “The Cut” and old fashioned guides to
etiquette delved deeply into the various kinds of cuts and when and how to
employ them. It is an old, tried-and-true, absolutely correct method of dealing
with people who persist in imposing their bad manners on you: you simply do not
engage them in any fashion, up to and including shutting the door in their
faces if they appear at your door uninvited and having them escorted away by
security or the police if they refuse to take the hint and decamp.
Narcissists instil that sense of
being rude or disrespectful in us as children for a reason: it allows them to
control us. When we are little, we are shamed and even punished for a behaviour
our parent identifies as rude or disrespectful. We learn from them what it means and we believe them. We internalize it and
it becomes part of our core beliefs. Once we have it internalized, they no
longer need to threaten or imply punishment because we do it ourselves: we
shrink away from assertive and autonomous behaviours because we now believe such behaviour is rude or
disrespectful. We also believe it is a one-way street, that they can be rude
and disrespectful to us, it is within their purview as our parents, but we
cannot reciprocate because that is unacceptable.
We will remain their emotional
zombies for as long as we permit ourselves to buy into those self-serving
definitions that underpin our inappropriate feelings of guilt and shame and
wrongness. As long as we feel like we are being rude (which we react to by
feeling shame) when we are doing no more than asserting our autonomy, we are
still being controlled by the Ns who conditioned us to accede to their wishes
in all things.
But the truth is, they are the ones who are being rude and
disrespectful, not you! But until you use those feelings of shame, that fear of
retribution, that anxiety that comes over you whenever you think independently,
until you use those clues to lead you to the reality, to the real definitions
of your behaviour, you will continue being controlled by them remotely. You
have to stop in the middle of that attack of shame, and think. Yes, it is difficult. Yes, you may not realize you have to
stop and think until you are in the middle of the attack, it doesn’t matter.
Once you realize you are reacting, make
yourself stop! Put your mind to work. Acknowledge you feel like you are
being rude but are you really? Is asserting yourself rude? No, it is not. Is
having an opinion or belief that differs from your parents rude? No. Is failing
to or refusing to live up to their expectations rude or disrespectful? No. Is
disappointing them bad? No again. None
of those things that they taught you are true. They lied.
They LIED to you. They redefined
all of those things to condition you so they could control you. And as long as
you continue to react as programmed, they are in control, not you, no matter
how far away you live, no matter how long you have been NC.
What you may not yet realize is
that you are the one who has all of the power in the relationship. That’s right—you have all of the power! They have managed to con you into not seeing that
and allowing them to continue controlling you as they did from childhood. But
you can stop that at any time—at any time you choose.
The thing is, it is not going to
be easy. You are going to have to fight yourself, your own feelings, even what
you perceive to be your instincts. They aren’t your instincts, they are
programmed responses that are actually overriding your instincts. It is going
to take work and effort on our part. It is going to take recognizing and
stopping automatic responses and substituting the appropriate responses until
they become habituated. It is going to take recognizing that it is your Ns who
are being rude and disrespectful to you, not the other way around, and then
putting a stop to it. It is not easy…but it is well worth every iota of effort
you put into it.
1 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/rude
