Tag Archives: narcissist

Father’s day coming in hot

It’s Father’s Day weekend, and it’s coming in hot. Get ready for your social media pages to be flowing with photos of dads. Restaurants will be busy, car shows will be attended, grills will be smoking and fish will be getting caught. Many will spend tomorrow remembering fathers who are no longer here. Graves will be visited, stories will be told and hearts will ache a little, remembering days gone by.

There is nothing like the bond we have with our fathers.

This can be true even for those who don’t talk to their fathers anymore. It could be from setting a boundary with an abusive dad. Or, maybe it wasn’t so much a boundary being drawn but a distance which slowly grew further each year, without either one recognizing what was happening until it was too late. There could have been a big blow-out fight which resulted in hurt feelings, stubbornness and resentment. A controlling partner might be keeping you from him, or him from you. Or maybe he just didn’t know how to be a dad, and wasn’t there from the get-go. You could play the scapegoat role in a narcissistic family. He might have had demons that were just too strong, or died before you could reconcile… or maybe you don’t know why he’s not with you. The possibilities are as endless as the number of this weekend’s cookouts.

How can one feel a bond to a father who isn’t in their lives? Maybe some are holding on to memories of better times, while others might cling tightly to the idea of what a father should be or could have been. For some, the bond to resentment is all that is left of their father-child relationship.

So, to those who are swimming in the complex emotions surrounding this Father’s Day weekend: I see you. I see all of it. I see the tears. I see the heartache. I see the jealousy. I see the shame. But I also see the strength. I see the accomplishment. I see the empowerment. I see the love. I see the lovability.

That’s right. I see the lovability. Because your father’s inability to father is not a reflection of you. Not. One. Bit.

So go ahead and give yourself permission to feel the very normal feelings which occur in response to the very abnormal situation of an absent father. Whether it’s grief, anger, sadness, relief, joy or peace…feel it freely. Let yourself feel the things you need to feel, say the things you need to say and do the things you need to do in order to continue on your path of living your best damn life, despite what may or may not be missing from it.

You’ve got this.

This post was written in response to Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS June 19, 2021 | (lindaghill.com)

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Scapegoat role

I was 44 when I first identified the role I’d been playing my entire life. Or, that I even realized I was playing a role. We all are. You know this, right? The role you are assigned depends on so many variables outside of your control. The country you live in, the schools you attend, the religion you practice, your gender, the television you watch…all contribute to determining what your role is.  Right down to the family you are born in to… it all conditions you to play the role you are assigned. It starts from day one, so you don’t even realize it’s not your decision. It just is.

I think my role was mostly determined by the family I was raised in. And my gender. The role was of a quiet, submissive, obedient “seen and not heard” good girl. It’s a pretty easy role to play. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut for most of my days and I was all set. No questioning anything, no arguing…just keep quiet, don’t make waves and all will be well.  If someone tells you to do something, you do it. Simple. That’s all I knew. Not to brag, but I was pretty damn good at it. I mean, even through abandonment, emotional neglect, abuse…I stuck to that role, dammit! I wasn’t happy, I struggled, and I certainly didn’t feel like a “good girl”…but I played that role. I think the struggle was because all of those things happened to me, and made me realize I was actually a bad girl. Playing the role became even more important. Maybe it would keep people from finding out just how bad I really was.

I became an adult, moved out and continued to struggle. BUT, when you can play the role like I can, no one really sees it. Not even me. I repeated cycles of bad relationships, tolerating bad behavior, never believing in myself, because hey…what else was there? Nothing I had ever known. When my husband eventually found out, he told me I should win the Academy Award. I’m THAT good!!!

At least I was good at something.

Fast forward to age 44: I went to therapy. Hallelujah! I peeled off a few layers and realized I had been typecast in a very bad, bad role. I kept playing the same shitty character in the same shitty movie, over and over and over again. The movie was so shitty, no one ever watched it. It went straight to Blue Ray. The plot was kind of like Cinderella…minus her getting to go to the ball. Can you imagine Cinderella ending with her just staying at home, being bullied and unloved? Who wants to watch a movie with a horrible plot that never ends? Not me. Not any longer, at least. I couldn’t even remember my lines anymore.

Brene Brown says vulnerability is the birthplace of courage.  She didn’t study shame and vulnerability for 20 years for nothing, you know. So, here’s what I did: I dove into the vulnerability swamp, which was full of my shame, of all that “badness”, and I became brave for the very first time in my life. That’s right…I stepped out of that role.

I just…stepped…out.

The thing about stepping out of character in a movie is, the directors get PISSED. It throws off the entire equilibrium of the set. No one knows what to do when the actor ad libs. It becomes awkward and uncomfortable and all the directors want to do is get the actor back in that role so no one can see they aren’t in control of their film. Except it’s not their film. It’s life. And they can’t control my life any more than I can control theirs. And seriously, no one gives a SHIT about this shitty movie…no one is even WATCHING!

I’ll give you one guess as to what happened next. Yep. I got kicked off the set. Was told I’d never work in town again. My new role was an exaggerated version of my childhood role… scapegoat. All of the production problems were now being blamed on me. Even the ones that had nothing to do with me. I guess it’s just easier that way. Kinda stinks, because I loved that crew. It was like the Truman show…been with some of them since day one. Don’t get me wrong, there’s not enough fame or money in the world to get me to play that sad character again. It makes me sad that they won’t let me play a different role, one that’s more suited for me. I don’t need to play a princess that gets to go to the ball and meet her Prince Charming. I’d settle for them just letting me be the authentic me, and loving me anyway.  Not sure they know what that means, though.

(This updated scapegoat role sucks. If you’re not careful, it might drive you crazy. Or literally crack your heart into pieces)

Anyway, life is not a fairy tale. So I’m moving on, trying to manage my own production company. It’s not too complicated. There’s only one actor to manage. And no script. However, the entire world is my audience…

 

This post was written in response to Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Social Consciousness Saturday

 

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Nov. 17/18

 

 

 

 

 

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I’m fine.

“I’m fine”. Wow. Crazy how those two words can mean such different things, depending on where you’re at in life. “Hey, your mom and I are getting divorced, and she’s moving across the country…OK?” “I’m fine”, replied the little 9-year-old girl. Except she wasn’t fine. She wasn’t sure what she was, but it definitely was not “fine”. She just said that because she knew it was the expected answer. She knew better than to say otherwise. She knew her role, without even being instructed, or handed a script. Her role was to be “fine”, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t play that role with perfection. She rarely even had to say the words…as long as she acted fine, that was all that counted. Acting fine kind of comes easy, after a while. Even when things couldn’t be more opposite of “fine”. She acted just fine during that period of time when that hormone fueled teenager effectively ended her childhood. No one had a clue. She acted just fine when she was treated like Cinderella…that is, Cinderella before the ball. You know, when she was the despised step-child and made to do all the work and was unloved, while the golden children lived a life of adoration? Yeah, that Cinderella. She acted just fine when no one blinked an eye at her being that Cinderella step-child. Just fine. Not one person blinked a damn eye.  I suppose she acted that way because it’s all she knew. If it’s just fine to everyone else,  then it must be just fine, right?

She played that role right through high school and into adulthood. Boys and men doing things…it’s just fine, right? I mean, it was just fine when she was a kid, so…

She played it to Golden Globe status as an adult. She was sleep walking by this time. Just sleep walking through life, through that script written out for her. No improv. All script. At this point, it wasn’t even her anymore. Just some typecast actress, playing the same old role, over and over and over, until one day…she woke up. When you wake up while sleep walking, it can be pretty jarring. You most definitely are NOT fine. Everything you thought was real turns out to not be real, and you realize there’s some real shit in your life you pretended didn’t exist. Or you didn’t understand, because you were never taught to think otherwise. She absolutely became not fine. She started to speak about how not fine she really was, and all the people who expected her to play that fine role became nervous. They were playing roles, too…and now they didn’t know how to act. God, NO ONE ever steps out  of character! Who did she think she was??? They tried to force her to say the lines that narcissistic director demanded, but she just didn’t have it in her anymore. She realized she just might love her new role a bit more than she needed that conditional love from her co-stars. She asked if she could just play her new role, and let them continue to play their roles, and still be in the same movie…because she did love them, regardless of the conditions. But those character actors are sticklers for routine, you know? So, they kicked her out of the movie. Just like that. No getting together for coffee, no catching up. No “it’s not you, it’s me”. Just out. She found herself alone, sad… and not fine. Sounds horrible, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not, I swear…

Even though she loved her co-stars more than anything, she really hated the endless movie they were all acting in. Seriously, it was a movie with NO ending. Who would sit through a movie like that? No one. It’s exhausting. Her sadness eased as she realized that them kicking her out of the movie was not a reflection of her, but a reflection of them. It was actually textbook behavior of a co-dependent family. Textbook. She began to feel sad for that 9-year-old girl, and the teenager she became, and learned how to nurture that inner child. She learned how to nurture herself, as an adult. I mean, God…SOMEONE had to do it, right? She learned how to nurture others, in a healthy way. She learned so much, and continues the learning process to this day. Definitely not perfect at any of it, but at least she’s wide awake now, and is following her own script. And though she misses her old co-stars more than anything, she can sleep at night with her decision. She’ll always be waiting, with open arms, for them to wake up and join her. She can do this because she’s been touched with grace for traveling the path of the awakened. She experiences everyday miracles. Who do you know that you can say that about? Not too many, I think. It really is quite magnificent. Healing is quite magnificent. Now, for the first time in her life, she means it when she says, “I’m fine”.

 

This post was written in response to Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Social Consciousness Saturday. Check out her page at the link below. Anyone can join…

 

 

 

 

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS March 3/18

 

 

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