Official Confirmation: I'm Not Crazy

For those in the Adoption Triad who read my blog, apologies. This IS off topic, but I feel I need to get this down in order to understand my relationship with my a-father and, more importantly, help me figure out what to DO to deal with him a way that's healthier for ME.

Here's the thing about having a narcissistic parent: You're never quite sure because at the end of a chat you're so twisted around it seems YOU might be the one who's crazy.

A psychologist confirmed that my father is narcissistic, incapable of anything more than shallow feelings. Yet, yet...is he really, honestly and truly? If a scale for narcissism existed, would he be a five? A ten? Just how bad is he? Could there be something else wrong with him that could account for his strange behavior? After four decades of confusion, frustration and denial, these questions are suddenly important.

Thanks to Elizabeth, fellow adoptee and daughter of a narcissist, I FINALLY have the confirmation I've been looking for. And not only that, I now have insight into some of his perplexing behaviors...and what role I've played...and how I've managed to survive his wrath.

Elizabeth (www.ihateadoption.blogspot.com) suggested the following website: www.narc-attack.blogspot.com from which I linked to "How to Recognize a Narcissist" written by Joanna Ashmun who says she writes from personal experience. Her observations were astounding and shockingly familiar. I hope she doesn't mind being quoted:

It's impossible to overemphasize the importance of narcissists' lack of empathy. It colors everything about them. I have observed very closely some narcissists I've loved, and their inability to pay attention when someone else is talking is so striking that it has often seemed to me that they have neurological problems that affect their cognitive functioning

EXACTLY! BINGO! This describes my father PERFECTLY. In fact, over the years, when medical professionals have met my father for the first time they later asked, when we were alone, if he always behaved that way, disturbed but unsure what to make of it. It's like he talking AT someone but not connecting .

From my personal experience, and from what I've seen in the clinical literature, narcissists don't talk about their inner life -- memories, dreams, reflections -- much at all. They rarely recount dreams. They seem not to make typical memory associations -- i.e., in the way one thing leads to another, "That reminds me of something that happened when I was...of something I read...of something somebody said...." They don't tell how they learned something about themselves or the world. They don't share their thoughts or feelings or dreams. They don't say, "I have an idea and need some help," or "There's something I've always wanted to do...did you ever want to do that?" They do not discuss how they've overcome difficulties they've encountered or continuing problems that they're trying to solve (beyond trying to get someone else to do what they want).

Several times, in an attempt to understand what bothered me about my a-dad's communication style, I transcribed our phone conversations. I showed it to my therapist. She said it was very strange, that he seemed to lack to the ability to think abstractly. These chats took place before he had dementia. When I read the above quote, the lights went off. My father has never made typical memory associations. Every bit of what he says begins with the word "I...." and it is all very concrete and limited to a one yard radius with him as Ground Zero. I like this. I don't like that. I have a doctor's appointment. That woman drives me crazy. I don't like this TV show because there's too much blah, blah, blah and no action...a sort of unfiltered, stream of consciousness that is hard to follow.

A striking thing about narcissists that you'll notice if you know them for a long time is that their ideas of themselves and the world don't change with experience; the ones I've known have been stalled at a vision that came to them by the age of sixteen.

Yep. My a-father is the same man he was when I was a child. It's as if he's frozen in time. He did not have a mid-life crisis, never suffered from existential angst. Saddest of all, he failed to gain any new insights or wisdom that comes with age. My sixteen year old daughter is wiser and much more reflective than her grandfather. It is like she is a different species. Or HE is.

It is also essential that you keep emotional distance from narcissists. They're pretty good at maintaining a conventional persona in superficial associations with people who mean absolutely nothing to them, and they'll flatter the hell out of you if you have something they can use or if, for some reason, they perceive you as an authority figure. That is, as long as they think you don't count or they're afraid of you, they'll treat you well enough that you may mistake it for love.

This is the quote that blew me away. I'd always wondered how my father, who alienated everybody he ever met, managed to have a 36-year marriage and never reject me. I think I finally get it. My a-mother was cold and domineering and no doubt an authority figure. Even my a-mom's friends have said he was afraid of her. He was an only child and his mother probably gave him the kind of attention he needed. That is, until I was old enough to become his narcissistic supply. My a-mother would quickly tire of him and order him to talk to me instead. And while all these years I've listened to him and have been compliant and complicit, I've always kept my emotional distance. I suspect he's never rejected me because he knows I'm all he's got and I'm a damn good problem solver and financial planner. He's manipulative. VERY manipulative.

But, as soon as you try to get close to them, they'll say that you are too demanding -- and, if you ever say "I love you," they'll presume that you belong to them as a possession or an appendage, and treat you very very badly right away.

After my mother died, my Dad dated like crazy. He got Viagra and tried to tell me about his sexual exploits and conquests, which I refused to hear. I had to forcefully remind him that I was his daughter and that his behavior was unfatherlike and inappropriate. He'd date intensely, for a bit, then he'd turn against the woman de'jour. One day lovey dovey, the next he loathed and despised her and had to "get rid of her."

If you should be so uppity as to express a mind and heart of your own, then they will cut you off -- just like that, sometimes trashing you and all your friends on the way out the door

I'd seen him turn against his only counsin, someone he'd grown up with, then a succession of "friends." Something always happened, relatively quickly, that ended with my father saying, "He thought he was hot shit," or "She's always talking about how sick she is, blah, blah, blah. What the hell do I care?" I suspect what happened is that the accused tried to talk about themselves for a change and my father could simply not tolerate this.

Which leads me to....whenever I've tried to test the waters and talk a little about one of my experiences say, like the time I was nervous about going in for a scary medical test, he got hostile and aggressive and demanded to know what would happen to him if I died. I asked wouldn't he be worried about his poor granddaughters and he got angry and said, "Forget them. They've got their father. I've only got you."

After a lifetime of neglect, my a-father has become even more emotionally needy and clingy as he ages with dementia. For the first time, he ends every phone conversation with, "I love you so much," (in the way lovers talk-gross) when he's never said it before. It nauseates me. It really does. It's pathetic and transparent, this final attempt at manipulation. Maybe there is a part of him that finally appreciates me - he says he does (also for the first time), but I suspect it's because he knows I'm the one in charge of his care. Just the other day, I once again tested the waters and tried to talk a bit about myself and he immediately got hostile. No wonder I never dared.