An Epiphany

I discovered there was such a thing as Narcissistic Personality Disorder some time after my Mothers death. Rather than raw grief when she passed away instead there was a period of adjustment. I was in shock to be honest. I almost didn`t know what to do with myself.

The slow realisation that in some ways I was free from her, in as much as there would be no new drama, took a while to sink in. And then there was the further realisation that even after her death she was still able to cast a shadow over me. With her gone I grew even closer to my Aunt, my Fathers sister and we had long telephone conversations were we both opened up and shared our experiences of her. I learned a lot in that time. It all only served to underline all I knew of her. She passed in April and in September the same year my youngest started school.  She was the youngest child in her class as she was an August birthday so no sooner she turned 4 she was at school 3 weeks later. I can say selfishly I really resented having to give her up as I saw it. After so much loss my children were extremely precious to me and the melancholy soul that I am recognised how fleeting the early years are. I missed her dreadfully and felt quite lost. With both my children now at school I had more time on my hands to reflect and remember so many things about my Mother, little of it was positive. I was restless about it all, there was a sense of anticlimax. Deep inside there had always been a hope that one day I would understand why she was the way she was, maybe a revelation of some sort to make it all fit into place, or a confession, an apology even. I daydreamed that if this happened I would at least know why and perhaps she would then be totally different and we could at last have the Mother/Daughter relationship I had always longed for. But now she was gone and none of those things had occurred. All I was left with were unanswered questions and dashed hopes. I brooded constantly.

And from time to time I searched the web for answers. And one day after typing in many different phrases I searched Evil Mother and Bingo ! A text book description came up. It was an epiphany ! My impression of a Narcissist was simply a very vain individual who was constantly checking their appearance and perhaps talked about themselves too much. Which was a bit like comparing all the regional homemade pasta dishes in Italy with a tin of spaghetti hoops. I remember feeling almost drunk with excitement and validation, what a revelation it was. I sat frantically skimming all the articles whilst grinning like a Cheshire cat and with tears streaming down my face simultaneously.  Yes, yes YES !!! That`s her, that`s exactly her....but how could it be so accurate....it was like every micro second of my life had been recorded secretly and analysed and finally the truth was out. I was almost giddy with delight. And so I spent endless hours reading and rereading, digesting, making notes, remembering and re-remembering, I read until I had a constant headache, I neglected many things, I fell into a unhealthy, obsessive routine and yet I could not stop researching. It was like a drug. I had hoped all my life for some understanding and validation, little had come my way and never from the main players in my life.

Fate and circumstance, the secretive and insidious abusive ways of both my Mother and enabling Father had denied me any validation whatsoever and yet here it was at last. It was always me who was at fault, never him, never ever her. But no longer. Why there was even a name for my Fathers behaviour. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. And then came the unsettling information that it often carries on from Mother to Daughter. That was quite a blow to take. Again I will write about that in another post but will say that after extensive, ongoing self education on the wonderful topic of Narcissism and continual self analysis, I am fairly certain that I have taken the role of codependency. Children who are raised by narcissists usually follow one of the two roads. Life was never the same after my discovery. All my life I had studied the same thing from the same angle in poor lighting but now I had a 360 degree floodlit perspective. I ruminated how very differently I would of handled things if I had had this new knowledge far earlier.

Other than setting firm boundaries and going into grey rock mode the general message from all my reading was that this condition is life long and incurable so No Contact was the only positive action to take. I gave myself credit for taking that decision without knowing it had a actual name and was a recommend action when dealing with a Personality Disordered Narcissist. Personality Disorder, that phrase still has some weight no matter how many times I say it or read it. It is a mental illness. My Mother had a serious mental illness and one which made her damage pretty much everyone who came into contact with her in one way or another. And Dear Little Amanda had spent her life trying to be good enough, trying to forever adjust and adapt to whatever my mentally ill Mother wanted of me in that moment. What an impossible task that was and sadly all I ever knew was that I had to keep trying or else.....The Plasticine dream had been my reality. 

Footnote: In the course of writing this post I have just discovered PNSD-Post Narcissistic Stress Disorder and it seems I tick many boxes. One epiphany has led to another.