Skip to main content
Forums Home
Illustration of people sitting and standing

New here?

Chat with other people who 'Get it'

with health professionals in the background to make sure everything is safe and supportive.

Register

Have an account?
Login

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Something’s not right

Corny
Senior Contributor

Disinterested in my personhood. I am a function.

I’m trying as best I can to accept I have a mental illness. Some days I can. And some days I can’t. But all-in-all I know that I have come a long way these last 18 months. Some days I even feel lucky. There are other people so much more incapacitated than me. I see myself as one of those people you meet in life who has had a lot of terrible luck, inside a lot of great luck. Blessed and cursed. 

 

But unlike my mental illness, I find my child abuse, neglect and maltreatment so much harder to accept. I know intellectually I am just one of millions and millions and millions of people who have experienced it. I am hardly special there……..but the pain of not being seen by either parent is so deep and so raw, I seem to always come back to the same place inside. The loneliness is just unbearable. I feel like an orphan some days and that I just don't belong. 

 

At times when I was younger I thought that my parents self-absorption was just another part of their mental illness. I get it. I have experienced how insular the mind becomes when you're really unwell. You must shut people out, you are so desperate. I guess it does that for survival.  I know it's hard to be around, it drove me crazy as a little kid to come home from school and my parents were asleep in bed or off the planet entirely. I know I am hard to be around at times when I am unwell.

 

I will never forget the feeling that I felt when I was in hospital and I over heard the nurses telling the guy in the room next to me, that if he didn't want visitors, or to see, or contact his family that, that was totally cool and his own choice. He could have a break from everyone.

 

Oh      my     god.

 

I wept.

 

What do you mean I didn't have to be considerate or fake OK-ness, or force a smile, or participate in banal conversation for anyone. 

 

I felt like a person.

 

Who was entitled to privacy.

 

Entitled to a break. And had the last say over where and for whom my energy, resources and body was expected to labour for others. In fact, I didn't have to labour, all I had to do was finally sink into and acknowledge my own experiences, hurt, trauma and pain, and nothing more was required of me.

 

My father was somewhere on the narcissistic spectrum. I refer to him as a deeply insecure ego maniac. A very defensive ego, who was entitled and angry at everyone. He had two gears. Aggressive and not so aggressive. My eldest sibling often says to me that this is a very generous assessment I give him. She believes there were elements of psychopathy. He literally derived physical pleasure from inflicting pain upon me, withholding physical affection, or brooding in silence to punish us for some unknown thing we had supposedly done. He knew that I was an innately, very affectionate child and could see it from a young age. My siblings and I used to barge down my grandparents bedroom door, we'd practically kick it in for a cuddle and to jump into their big bed with them when we woke up in the morning. My Auntie said we opened our grandfathers heart. This innate self just made crushing us even more pleasurable for my father. 

 

I was reared by a narc-needy, domineering, violent father. Until you have experienced narc-needy over a long period of time…….it’s hard to describe what that does to you. People talk about narcissistic supply, that people like that need victims to survive, but when it’s a parent, it completely constructs your self-worth and identity. I was not worthy of anything. Not even worthy of my time. It was all his to dictate how I spent it, and for what purpose.

 

It’s incredible how people like my father are so adept at finding a spouse. They’re rarely single. But where there are plenty of narcs out there, there are also plenty of people perpetuating their abuse. Feeding them.

 

What it requires is not only someone that loves them, but someone that reveres them. Reveres their suffering and lot in life, and ultimately evangelises them. I used to think that this was all part of Mum’s delusions and insecurities. She just had low self-esteem because of an aloof father and being given the label that a lot of people with schizophrenia do – mad.  She was desperate for love, and her mental health condition warped her judgment.

 

But talking to friends who have similar dynamics between their parents but neither of them has any mental illness whatsoever, all the women are the same. They are all the same. Co-dependent, addicted and insecure doesn’t even sum it up……..I don’t really know what the hell to call it, where that tendency towards excessive reverence for their spouse comes from……

 

I can’t handle it.

 

It is so frigging weird to me. It puts my head in a negative place, triggering all sorts of female betrayal and grooming memories I just can’t handle and puts my dissociation into over-drive.

 

I feel so betrayed by the females in my early life.  But I don't want to give them more energy than I already have. 

 

I don't know how to move on, past it, or accept it......maybe it's not even possible. A decade of constant therapy later and I'm not even close.....

11 REPLIES 11

Re: Disinterested in my personhood. I am a function.

hi @Corny youve alot on your plate! im not sure i can help but wanted to let you know that im hearing you.

maybe @Sans911 @Owlunar @Appleblossom @Faith-and-Hope has some ideas?

Re: Disinterested in my personhood. I am a function.

Hey there @Corny

I know what iti s like to be raised (rather neglected) by narc-needy parental figures. My stepmother this time. The emotional and physical abuse I endured over a long period of time nearly destroyed me, much to her pleasure.

I then was involved with a narc-needy partner in an on again/off again relationship over several years. 

I don't like to bundle all females into the same basket (because I am one and my current partner is one), but I can hear where you are coming from.

 

I do hope that one day, you can find peace within yourself. It isn't fair what happened to you and you didn't deserve it either.

Re: Disinterested in my personhood. I am a function.

@Corny Acceptance is a tricky concept.  I am not sure whether we should accept everything and it can be bandied about as a moral good when it can often be more of a pragmatism.  That is accept it because you cant change it.

Yep I had needy parents but what helped me understand is that my father died young and the quirky memories I had of him indicated that he did his best to love.  My mother did her best too.  It was not enough and we 4 out of 5 children were severely neglected.

But the fact that my father died meant that his stressors were seriously over the top.  He had a heart attack as he was over medicated.

I hope sharing your story and meeting people help ease your struggle.

Take Care

Apple

Re: Disinterested in my personhood. I am a function.

Thanks for hearing me @outlander. I hope that your caring duties aren't too draining at the moment and that your own well-being is travelling along Ok.

 

Corny.  

Re: Disinterested in my personhood. I am a function.

Thanks for your understanding Queenie. I am sorry the same sort of abuse and blatant neglect was inflicted upon you, and I can relate to feeling that the abuser/s almost destroyed you in the process. I think for some of them, that was probably the most pleasurable part. For others, maybe they lacked capacity all together.

 

When you read the literature on trauma, childhood maltreatment and how abuse crosses generations, they all pretty much say the same thing. The medicine and antidote to break the cycle is a loving relationship. If you can form a loving relationship all will be OK, or, at least, the severity of the impact will be lessened to some degree.

 

For the vast majority of people, I agree, yes, close relationships and love can be a healer. But I disagree that, that applies to %100 of people. For some, relationships are the entire problem. My father is a good example. I don't know if this is just a co-incidence but I cannot help but notice that other people I have met in life with similar personality styles, like my Dad, have major issues with the parent of the same sex.

 

My father would rant and rave on and on, and on and on about how much he hated his father. He would go into these quasi-delusional-psychotic like rants where he would scream and blame us for people who had hurt him before we were frigging born!! Before my mother had even met him! We would be made to sit and hear how much his father had betrayed him, how so-and-so had let him down, how whatsy-me-call-it was an A-hole because they hadn't done this or that for him,........ And yet, my father wanted nothing more than to be close to his own Dad and accepted by him. It's like his system was locked in a loop repeating the same initial parental rejection over and over and over again, and making us suffer for it. 

 

It's almost like my Dad would unleash all the rage and fury he felt towards his father out on us. Combined with his 'deeply insecure ego-maniac' tendency, these two elements together made for some explosive times. He had a deep sense of entitlement. That life had wronged him worse than others. And when I think about it, if he ever came across as insecure at times, it actually wasn't authentic insecurity. He was just peeved off that someone was a better X, Y or Z than he was, or better looking, or had more of something that he wanted. It was envy and jealousy masquerading as insecurity.  

 

As for the females........I get what you mean Queenie. I don't like to bundle them all into the same basket either. I try my best to take each person on face value. I'm a lady loving lady myself. Maybe that's why it feels more complicated, because my sexuality is wrapped up inside of the emotion of it all, and the betrayal is harder to move past because it triggers the trust issues. It's not easy being physically attracted to the same sex that ripped out my soul. 

 

Peace

Corny

Re: Disinterested in my personhood. I am a function.

Thanks @Appleblossom. I think you're right. That we shouldn't necessarily have to accept everything. Thanks for your understanding. 

Corny.

Re: Disinterested in my personhood. I am a function.

@Corny  

Its good you felt some sense of positivity about your experience in hospital.  That it allowed you to feel it was fair to have YOUR needs respected.

You are doing your research.  It helped me.

I hope you find more ways to live with yourself or the mental illness and making a decent quality of life.

Re: Disinterested in my personhood. I am a function.

Thank you @Corny I hope things improve for you too. Its hard being a carer and juggling your own mental health. Tag me anytime you need to chat

@Queenie ^^^^

Re: Disinterested in my personhood. I am a function.

dear @Corny 

 

@Queenie @Appleblossom @outlander

Thank you for writing. I have had many years of Psychotherapy. My Mum self diagnosed herself as a Narc, and diagnosed Dad ( they divorced ....he left her as he is Gay) as a pathological narc.

But now we need to keep us calm for the next few days. 

 

the most important thing is that you find information that you can about you. Can Doctors or nurses or Anyone directs you to books or  DSM diagnosis or papers about your diagnosis? now read them and work out :

 

the bits you feel confident about.

Your strengths. 

 

I have a mental ill health diagnosis. But it's easier for me to rave on about my husband's and not focus on mine. I am so proficient on raving on about my husbands diagnosis or  son's I went back to University this year, burnt out, forgot how important my husband's mental wellbeing is and allowed Mum to call all her friends about how worried she is about me because I'm not going to cope doing something that she already has a phd in and is world known for. 

Because I get tired, try and find something that she will love me for and I forget about what matters more to me. 

 

And like you, I am mindful that so many others have it so so much worse than me. 

 

Several years ago, My Psychotherapist actually met my parents, my parents keep up this very weird horrible friendship and Psychotherapist said that she always thought that I was being a little silly on how bad Mum was but when she met her she realised how bad she actually is. 

You are special.

You are worth it. 

You are beautiful. 

Illustration of people sitting and standing

New here?

Chat with other people who 'Get it'

with health professionals in the background to make sure everything is safe and supportive.

Register

Have an account?
Login

For urgent assistance