Your dad sounds like a classic narcissist, @rockvillemom. I’m sorry. They are truly poisonous. The joke about narcissists is that you can recognize them because everyone around them is in therapy except them.
It took me years to figure out what was going on with my MIL. When DH and I were engaged, he got cancer and was in the hospital for a week for a laparotomy. She didn’t come out to visit, just told me on the phone that she was glad I was there because she “couldn’t really handle sickness.” I thought it was weird, but didn’t make much of it. Decades on, after she has not attended a single graduation (we offered to pay for their plane tickets), her own granddaughter’s funeral, or any family event that wasn’t about her, I know what she is. My FIL is just an enabler and never says a word when she screams at waiters, calls them racist names, and just has meltdowns when she is crossed. The unsettling thing is that he has advanced prostate cancer and is likely to die first. My husband and his sisters are trying to figure out what to do with their mother if this is the case. It is a very difficult situation.
It sounds like you have a lot of wisdom and know what you need to do to keep healthy boundaries. They are never going to be the parents you wish they were, no matter what.
@Massmomm - “They are never going to be the parents you wish they were, no matter what.”. Yes, and that makes me sad. I never had loving supportive parents. I’m sure they think they were perfect. Someone upthread talked about feeling relief when a parent passed away, that’s how I feel. If I had a pencil with a magic eraser and could just quietly erase them from the page…
I see friends posting on fb all the time about memories shared with their parents and how they miss them - and I have no idea what that feels like. So it’s the double whammy of dealing with them as they are and mourning what I never had. I take comfort from the fun, close and loving relationship I have with my sons.
“The joke about narcissists is that you can recognize them because everyone around them is in therapy except them.”
Or gone missing, silent or in hiding…
@Massmomm – I love this: The joke about narcissists is that you can recognize them because everyone around them is in therapy except them.
I often tried to get ex-DH (true narcissist) to go to couple’s therapy or therapy on his own. His response? “I’m not the one with problems!” Right – just me and our oldest child – we need therapy – you don’t.
“The joke about narcissists is that you can recognize them because everyone around them is in therapy except them.”
OMG. S1, S2 and I have all been in therapy. Main topic of discussion? Guess who! And Guess Who is the one who moans about how someone else’s disaster/medical event is going to affect him? Guess Who learned it from his mother, who was the queen of all nastiness and self-centeredness.
“I see friends posting on fb all the time about memories shared with their parents and how they miss them - and I have no idea what that feels like.”
OTOH…
Hopefully your parents aren’t on FB posting about how ungrateful their kids are and how nobody helps at all after all they’ve done being perfect parents. Etc. etc. And then they get likes. And you all have the same name and live in the same town. Ugh. Stay off facebook.
When the supreme narcissist is your parent, they literally have the home court advantage. There is ample opportunity for brainwashing their developing kids into believing that they are the shameful and defective ones, always lacking. There is sometimes a point where narcissism can veer towards sociopathy, whatever its origin may be. I wish this situation were not so common.
This reminded me of an event years ago. We were at my son’s basketball game. The stands were packed. One of the dad’s was being really obnoxious and belligerent, to the refs, the other team, the coaches, etc. His ex-wife was sitting next to one of her friends right in front of me and the friend just held her leg and kept telling her - you are not responsible for his behavior. You have no need to be embarrassed any more than anyone else here. No one holds you accountable for his actions.
She was absolutely right. Bob may have been an a*hole, but no one thought one thing of C because of it.
Same thing with you. No one in the restaurant or in public holds the whole party accountable when one person is acting like that. So set yourself free from feeling responsible for how he behaves in public. The only one who it reflects poorly upon is him.
@gouf78 - I assure you my parents are not on fb, lol. They barely use their ipad - email and news only. If they want to purchase something online - they call me to order with my credit card and then give me a check when I deliver the pacage. I’m their ISP and fedex all in one. Who needs Alexa?
“I see friends posting on fb all the time about memories shared with their parents and how they miss them”
Even with the woes on the Parents Caring thread, I think I thought most here had a decent relationship with their parents, before they became elderly and/or demented. This thread has been eye-opening. Thanks for the honesty.
So I suspect many of your FB friends are just seeing through rose glasses, after the fact. Or putting on the sad face because they think it’s expected.
If there are ever any future packages, maybe you can hire someone to deliver them, some teen or ?.
This thread made me remember a conversation with my parents a few years ago when D was a senior in HS. My parents have lavished time, attention, and money on all their grandkids except my D who they barely acknowledge exists.
Anyway, the convo went like this:
Dad: “What year is your D in?”
Me: “She’s graduating this year”
Dad: “Why didn’t you tell us? We’ve been to all the grandkids’ graduations!”
Me: “Oh great, her graduation isn’t for a few months. We’ll get you invitations.”
Dad: “No, that’s ok. We’re too busy right now.”
Me [Saying to myself]: Yup, that’s why we didn’t bother telling you.
@rockvillemom, I just came across this thread and read the whole thing. I know that many posters have shared their stories, and many have recommended a good therapist. Me too!
When I started taking care of the needs of my dad and stepmother (because there was no one else who would do it), I made the hour-long trip to their house a couple of times a week. Every time I walked in the door, it felt like there was an electric current in the air and I was in danger of death unless I could get away ASAP. I can’t say that I did a great job for them, but it was all I could manage.
Then there was Hurricane Sandy that knocked out the power in their house for almost 2 weeks. My dad had just come home from surgery on his vertebrae a couple of weeks before. They would not leave the house. My dad was cooking on a Coleman stove in their unheated house until finally I offered to take them to my small apartment where I lived with my high-school-junior daughter, two flights up. I found a place for my daughter to stay and got them up the steps. It was the hardest thing I ever did. When their power finally came back on and I got them home and my kid back, I could not relax. So I asked my friends for a therapist and was connected to an amazing woman who combined psychotherapy with somatic techniques, specifically EMDR which is proven to help with trauma.
The therapist told me that I could work out my feelings about my dad any time but it would be much better for me if I could do it before he passed away. And I did–it took a while but eventually I was much less traumatized and I could deal with him without that layer of crazy-making anger and guilt.
I know your situation is different. Lol, what’s that quote from Tolstoy about happy and unhappy families? But I remember feeling the way you are describing. And I am here to tell you that it feels so much better to have resolved so many issues that got in the way of my happiness. Sure it was hard when he died, but I would still be fighting demons four years later if I hadn’t worked things out for myself.
I wish you the very best. You’re a good daughter and they don’t deserve you, but that doesn’t make it any easier, I know.
I really appreciate your thoughts. I don’t know where I stand on therapy, not sure I want to dig up more painful memories, but I won’t rule it out. Having a break from them this week has been great and we’ll see what hapens next.
With a good counselor, you don’t have to dig up old memories, a la the old Freudian image of laying on a couch, dredging up todlerhood. You can focus on the present and recent patterns. It’s wonderful to vent with no judgment. And talk solutions.