Going Back Home

[mocachapeau]

Hi everyone,

Tomorrow I am taking the family for a week-long trip to visit my parents, which is going to be quite a test for me. I haven't seen them since a trip to their cottage during the summer of 2007 - one rough visit. It was only during the year preceding that trip that I had started exploring my spirituality, for lack of a better term, and I had recently read a book that had quite literally changed my outlook on life.

So when I arrived there I had been living the last two months feeling like a new man, with a new attitude toward others and riding some kind of energy high that was really wonderful. When I got back, my brother-in-law could see from the look on my face, and the slump in my shoulders, that all that energy had been drained, utterly. That was also about six months before I stumbled onto the Work.

It was rough but it was also an eye-opener. I really thought that my new awareness of how I treat people - kindness, honesty and no manipulation - was going to make communication better with my folks. But what I felt when I left was that I had gone in there, stupidly, with my guard down. And what surprised me the most was the realisation that in the past, it must have been automatic for me to go in there with my guard UP.

My mom actually made a clear attempt to get at me by hurting my kids' feelings, something I never, ever would have imagined her capable of doing. She also told me to "shut up" while I was patiently explaining to my son why we weren't allowed to drive the ATV on the main road - right in front of him, of course. She had just finished giving him the old "NO", followed by the ignoring of his question "why not?". I will never forget the look on her face at that moment. It appeared to be a cross between defiance and triumph. It was so scary I just stood there looking at her, like I was seeing her for the first time.

And to this day I think it was all a negative reaction to seeing me treat my kids with the respect and kindness they deserve, and that I rarely got. I figure she interpreted it as a conscious effort on my part to make her feel like a bad parent, completely oblivious of the fact that I was just trying to be a good parent, and that it had nothing to do with her. The bottom line was that it all hurt me, a lot.

Anyway, I figure there can't be any better test to see how far I've come with remembering myself and not allowing negative emotions. Oh yeah, and remembering that she and my dad are narcissists, so nothing should take me off guard because I should know what to expect. Knowledge protects, right?

And I'm actually looking forward to this!?!

 

[Bobo08]

Hi mocachapeau,

It's not clear from your post what your expect to get in terms of feedback. I think your story, while hurtful, is fairly typical of narcissistic parents, something that most of us here have, unfortunately. Since it happened quite a long time ago, I hope that since then, you have uncovered more incidents from your past interactions with them and got more insights into their behavior. That should be of much help to you in your next visit.

I really thought that my new awareness of how I treat people - kindness, honesty and no manipulation - was going to make communication better with my folks.
[...]
And to this day I think it was all a negative reaction to seeing me treat my kids with the respect and kindness they deserve, and that I rarely got.

The above parts in your post bug me a little bit. From my experience, children inherit a lot of narcissistic behaviors from their parents. That is natural since that is all they know during their entire childhood. However, in your post, you present the images of you and your parents as different as day and night. I would be interested in knowing how you think what you saw in your parents relates to yourself, if any. IMO, that knowledge is much more valuable than anything pertaining to your parents only.

 

[truth seeker]

Anyway, I figure there can't be any better test to see how far I've come with remembering myself and not allowing negative emotions. Oh yeah, and remembering that she and my dad are narcissists, so nothing should take me off guard because I should know what to expect. Knowledge protects, right?

In my opinion, it's not just that knowledge protects but rather knowing how to put it into practice. Take care.

 

[mocachapeau]

Hi mocachapeau,

It's not clear from your post what your expect to get in terms of feedback. I think your story, while hurtful, is fairly typical of narcissistic parents, something that most of us here have, unfortunately. Since it happened quite a long time ago, I hope that since then, you have uncovered more incidents from your past interactions with them and got more insights into their behavior. That should be of much help to you in your next visit.

I really thought that my new awareness of how I treat people - kindness, honesty and no manipulation - was going to make communication better with my folks.
[...]
And to this day I think it was all a negative reaction to seeing me treat my kids with the respect and kindness they deserve, and that I rarely got.

The above parts in your post bug me a little bit. From my experience, children inherit a lot of narcissistic behaviors from their parents. That is natural since that is all they know during their entire childhood. However, in your post, you present the images of you and your parents as different as day and night. I would be interested in knowing how you think what you saw in your parents relates to yourself, if any. IMO, that knowledge is much more valuable than anything pertaining to your parents only.

You are absolutely right. I have written a number of things on the subject at various places on the forum, but I wasn't really thinking about how few people would be aware of my story when I wrote this post. Here is a quote from a post that describes it a little better.


Quote by mocachapeau

"I’ve been a member of the forum for well over a year now, but I’ve never really shared much about what I’m dealing with personally or just how The Work has affected my life. Well, now’s the time. I hope this isn’t too long, and I hope even more that it isn’t just noise.

When I was 23 (I’m 39 now) I started seeing a psychologist. I realized (admitted to myself) that there was something very wrong with me. I was a relatively smart guy, a very good athlete and had an uncanny amount of musical ability, but I was wasting all of it, and destroying myself, by abusing alcohol and pot. I was unable to sustain any kind of continued interest or effort in anything.

I spent three years in therapy examining my past, particularly my childhood. Although I didn’t feel like I had solved my problems, I did learn some things. Most importantly, whatever was wrong with me was directly related to my upbringing, mainly due to the fact that my parents’ relationship was not a very healthy one. I also developed some understanding of honest self-examination and communication. But I was never given any kind of diagnosis, clinical term or anything like that. I guess the idea behind keeping that from me was for me to discover it all in therapy, and maybe to protect me from my own defense mechanisms. It wasn’t until I found Laura’s work and the recommended reading list in early 2007 that I learned that I had been raised by two narcissists (The Narcissistic Family). They both had very different needs, but they were both very needy. So I had become aware of some of the symptoms but had never been aware of what they really meant.

During my time in therapy, I met my future wife. The most obvious narcissistic behaviour that I displayed during our early years together was in leaving virtually all the household work to her – cooking, cleaning, washing – everything. I helped out a little here and there but not enough to say it was worth anything. Eventually, that started to wear a little thin, and my wife started to complain about that, and the drinking – and rightly so. I started putting limits and schedules on the drinking, with mediocre results, but I still avoided the rest of the work.

Two and a half years into our relationship we had a son. Unfortunately, this brought out the real narcissist in me. With the growing up of my son came the unconscious, automatic repetition of the same treatment my dad had given our family. Basically I was getting way too angry at both my son and my wife. I was an a-hole. But one day, when my son was about four years old, I became aware of what I was doing. I was yelling at him saying, “Don’t you understand that doing that to someone is really mean – that it hurts their feelings?” In tears he answered simply, “No”. And that’s when it hit me. “Of course he doesn’t understand – he’s just a kid, and he needs to learn these things. I’m doing exactly what I hated the most that my dad did to me – making him feel like s**t for every little normal, kid thing he does.” I apologized and gave him a big hug.

So began a slow, gradual change, one that came about because of self-examination, and through observing similar behaviour to my own, in others. The latter included a certain itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow, polka-dot petty tyrant soccer coach my son had for a number of years. But that’s a story all by itself – I won’t get into it here. And the progress I was making moved forward in leaps and bounds once I read The Narcissistic Family and The Drama of the Gifted Child, last year."

Here is the link to the discussion

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=13634.0

That summer of 2007 was the first time I had seen clearly just how bad I had been toward my wife and kids, even since the realisations I had in 2001, as described above. I had really made some major changes in my behaviour toward my family, and people in general. But that one visit knocked the wind out of my sails very effectively, causing me to slip backward. But discovering the Work has helped me get past a lot of that.

Today I go back there for the first time with two years of accumulated knowledge with the hopes of "putting it into practice", as Truth Seeker said, and coming out of there "alive".

Anyway, I figure there can't be any better test to see how far I've come with remembering myself and not allowing negative emotions. Oh yeah, and remembering that she and my dad are narcissists, so nothing should take me off guard because I should know what to expect. Knowledge protects, right?

In my opinion, it's not just that knowledge protects but rather knowing how to put it into practice. Take care.

I Agree. The active word in my sentence was "should". And I'm going to get a chance to see if I have learned to put it into practice, enough to walk into the lion's den and make it out with my skin intact. I may not get a chance to post for over a week, but I will if I get some time alone with my dad's computer.

See you in a week!

 

[Laura]

Oh boy, we are all gonna be on tenterhooks waiting for the sequel to this one!

 

[mocachapeau]

Oh boy, we are all gonna be on tenterhooks waiting for the sequel to this one!

I'm going to do my best not to BLINK.

 

[mocachapeau]

Hi everyone,

Well I'm back from my trip home, and it was a good one. The circumstances made it a little harder for any nastiness to surface, so I'm not sure if it went well because of any efforts on my part. Nonetheless, it did go well, and I think I learned some things.

The circumstances were such that my dad was scheduled to go in for knee-replacement surgery on the third day of our visit, and he didn't get out of the hospital until after we left. The absence of his controlling presence immediately relieves the tension in the household. The other thing that was different from the last visit was that my wife came with us. Even though she doesn't understand much English, I think my mom is less likely to start lashing out at me in her presence.

Of course, I think the most important factor in the success of the visit was that I didn't “offend” my mom ten seconds after I entered the house, like I did last time. I think I'll have to explain.

When we arrived at their cottage last time, my mom followed me inside leaving the kids outside with my dad, getting me alone at the very first moment possible, literally. Before I could even set the bags down she said, “There's this group of women on the island who have a quilting club and they work on a new quilt every year. Well this weekend they're assembling it and people can go and watch from a sort of gallery overhead. It would be so interesting, so we could go and do that together.” Note the lack of asking.

I told her, very nicely, that I understand that it would be very interesting for someone that was into sewing, but I wasn't really into that kind of thing. And she knew that – I'm her son, after all. At the time I was a hockey, football and soccer fanatic – never missed a Maple Leafs game. So that was all that was said, and I continued on with our arrival completely unaware that my mom was now furious at me.

I soon discovered she had interpreted my lack of interest in watching people sew as my way of letting her know that I thought we had nothing in common, and that I was not interested in spending time with her, at all. All I was thinking was that we could do things that we would BOTH enjoy, like a canoe ride or walking the dog in the woods. And the kids would enjoy that, too. It all went way over my head, and I paid for it in spades for the rest of the week.

So in the days leading up to last week's visit I thought a lot about that incident, and decided to be wary of anything that might lead me into a similar situation. And I knew that it could happen at any time, and come in any form and I would have to be alert.

So, being all ready for the intricately camouflaged trap, you will not believe what happened. Not five minutes in the house, my mom says, and I kid you not, “If your planning on going to visit your sister in [neighbouring town], there's a wonderful flower show on there this week so we could go to that together.”

I nearly started laughing right there on the spot. I was thinking, what, that's it? Have you only got one son-arriving-home-for-visit program to work with? You can do better than that! This is the one scenario that I'm actually totally prepared for!

So I answered, “Sure! That could be fun.” I had decided a long time ago that if this same situation should ever happen to arise again (as long as the suggested activity was something the kids might not find as boring as watching paint dry) that external consideration would be the way to go. But who would have imagined the exact same scenario playing out, in the exact same way. It felt rather programmed to me – like an unconsciously planned test. And besides, the flower show sounded a heck of a lot more interesting than sitting down and watching people sew, and I knew that my wife would enjoy it, too.

So the rest of the visit went off without any conflicts, although I never let my guard down for a second. Of course, as soon as my dad went into the hospital I found myself listening to her complain endlessly about him. How controlling he is, selfish – all the classic traits of a narcissist. But this time I really listened, and learned something.

Having learned about my own narcissism through The Work, and how similar I used to be to my dad toward my own family, I was able to see my mom's situation in a new light. I already knew she had recreated her childhood by replacing her lunatic mom with her narcissistic husband. And also that she has remained in that situation for over forty years, partly because staying there enables her to reap sympathy from everyone she complains to. That is how she learned to survive when she was a kid. Any conversation is all about her and how she is suffering – classic “poor me” manipulation.

But I realised that, regardless, her suffering is as real as my wife's was with me. If my dad has behaved the way I used to, probably worse, for over forty years, how can I judge my mom? Or my dad? It's not about judgment. They're both riddled with fear and anxiety. All I can do is try and be supportive if ever I am asked, listen, but not let myself get sucked into their games. That's pretty much what I tried to do with my mom while I was there, and I came out alive.

 

[aragorn]

I'm so glad for you mocachapeau! Reading your post made me smile; it's amazing how knowledge and The Work can make a difference.

 

[truth seeker]

I was just thinking about how your trip went, mocachapeau. I'm so glad to hear that you were able to put what you learned into practice and come away with some lessons as well!

 

[Nienna]

But I realised that, regardless, her suffering is as real as my wife's was with me. If my dad has behaved the way I used to, probably worse, for over forty years, how can I judge my mom? Or my dad? It's not about judgment. They're both riddled with fear and anxiety. All I can do is try and be supportive if ever I am asked, listen, but not let myself get sucked into their games. That's pretty much what I tried to do with my mom while I was there, and I came out alive.

I think that this is a wonderful example of how you realized that the previous trip you thought all about YOU without any consideration of the fact that maybe your mother, being a mechanical being was just trying to find some time to have together with you.

This time, you used external consideration, continued to self-observe and to not get sucked into any energy-draining scenarios and you put your mother's wants in front of your own so that she could do something with you, whether it was something you liked or not. The fact that you put others first through external consideration really makes a huge difference.

It's good to keep in mind that those of us following the Work are the ones who are supposed to be at least a bit conscious, where those who are not doing the Work are merely reacting mechanically and that we are the ones who should be being externally considerate and aware of what we are doing as much as possible.

Great job, mocachapeau ! I'm glad everything went so well for you.

 

[RGG]

Well that sounds like success to me! It seems like you were very prepared to encounter the usual programs and it worked. Your story is particularly inspiring since my own parents are due to arrive in a couple of weeks. It is very much a love-hate thing with them as they are also the typical narcissistic family. External consideration will be very hard for me especially when my dad has to constantly smoke cigars and drink cognac on my balcony-not even kidding - with my three little ones running around- I guess he'll at least be on the balcony. I think that it will also be a good idea for me to anticipate their various reactions like you did, since it may help make the visit smoother. Thanks for sharing and hopefully your wisdom will pay off for me too!

Rx

 

[Aidylsun B.]

Thank you for sharing your story, mocachapeau. You did learn a lot and so did I.

 

[salleles]

Good work mocachapeau! Nice to read the visit turned out to be a totally different experience.

I guess the closer you are to someone, the more difficult it is to NOT fall back into old habits and programs. So maybe your mother deserves some credits too ;)

 

[mocachapeau]

Well that sounds like success to me! It seems like you were very prepared to encounter the usual programs and it worked. Your story is particularly inspiring since my own parents are due to arrive in a couple of weeks. It is very much a love-hate thing with them as they are also the typical narcissistic family. External consideration will be very hard for me especially when my dad has to constantly smoke cigars and drink cognac on my balcony-not even kidding - with my three little ones running around- I guess he'll at least be on the balcony. I think that it will also be a good idea for me to anticipate their various reactions like you did, since it may help make the visit smoother. Thanks for sharing and hopefully your wisdom will pay off for me too!

Rx

I'm not sure if this makes sense, but I think the most important reactions to anticipate are our own. That way we can stop the bad ones before they happen.

I hope it goes well for you.

It's good to keep in mind that those of us following the Work are the ones who are supposed to be at least a bit conscious, where those who are not doing the Work are merely reacting mechanically and that we are the ones who should be being externally considerate and aware of what we are doing as much as possible.

As you, and several others, have noticed at various times, this is a concept that has been difficult for me to fully understand. This little visit has helped me in that regard because I was able to see the results after putting it into practice in an habitually difficult situation. And your drawing my attention to it has been very helpful.

Thanks...again.