and so this is christmas
My mother, an intense narcissist, was born on christmas day. My father whom I didn’t meet died when I was age two, lung cancer from smoking, and the coal mines.
A family therapist said, just consider yourself an orphan.
So OK that means I grew up in squalor, abandoned without love and affection or education so a narcissist without empathy could sustain her welfare intake by giving me bare bones in food clothing shelter and spending the rest on her cigarettes to self medicate her anxiety.
She was afraid her kids would be taken from her and 10,000 other irrational notions that she would lose her welfare income.
So my purpose in life as a child was to be a supportive adult and her source of (welfare) income. A husband essentially.
She was afraid to leave the house so if I wanted to go to the Stampede or cubs or little league I was on my own with my inherited social anxiety or just told no, we couldn’t afford it. Narcissists isolate others. So I wasn’t really allowed friends. When at age 14 I began to rebel by being social and sexual, I was thrown out in fit of rage. Homeless at age 14.
I was very lonely. I was anxious and hostile and then as I aged I was severely disappointed and cynical with authority figures. I trusted all or nothing, the perfect target for religious cult recruiters.
Life as a child was either no discipline or severe parental emotional abuse and from the competing siblings, physical abuse as well. I love to read and so I won a book of life savers in a reading contest at school. It was stolen the next day by a sibling.
I have an over interest in sex so I suspect something happened there. Narcissist’s control sex and I was taught any interest was bad and dirty. So that’s sexual abuse.
I am interested in the type of eroticism where folks demonstrate affection and interest in others needs and desires. Mostly that is French eroticism. It is something I have experienced rarely in real life because I have been vulnerable to the narcissists girlfriend overvalue followed by the undervalue dump scenario. Or, I dump them when I discover they only take, when fellatio is a chore for someone I’d rather not.
I got mostly partners looking for excitement and when that wore off they left saying I was boring and it was my entire fault.
Irrationally, I believed them and suffered for a lifetime from depression anxiety guilt embarrassment shame and rage, self medicating with cigarettes and pot playing sad songs on my guitar.
When the last long term narcissist dumped me 20 years ago I got a family therapist and learned REBT, an original cognitive therapy. I practice it to stay rational and manage my emotions pretty much daily. I no longer smoke or do drugs or attend religious events. I make high end professional art, write books, talk to strangers and ask for what I want.
At this writing I am 70 recovering from a narcissist induced stroke due to high cortisol levels over sustained periods of time. I spoke to a woman aged 92 yesterday who said she really enjoyed her last 20 years.
Rationally life is full of opportunity it would seem. There is no reason to sell myself short or buy into a narcissists conditioning any longer.
