If you grew up in a narcissistic household then you have experienced a special type of hell. Whether you had a narcissistic mother or a narcissistic father the results were a highly dysfunctional upbringing. Having a narcissistic parent is the ultimate experience of instability for a child.
You know rejection in its truest sense. If you have siblings the relationships are sure to filled with division and conflict because this is how you were raised. You probably moved alot, changed schools alot, and were never allowed to keep friends for too long. If you were lucky you had some semblance of normalacy and stayed put in one spot.
Regardless of the outward instability you also need to deal with all of the little things that happened inside of the home and between family members. Children being pitted against each other as a means to gain the love of one or both parents. The triangulation of family members as everyone must go to the source for information, the gossiping, the hushed tones, and the insinuations.
You have always been told who you are and now you are trying to find the truth of who you are. Healing is going to require an intense amount of work so here is a place to discuss the topics of growing up in the dysfunctional home of a narcissist.
Family system does not care about you,only its mask, its charade,what YOU do for the image, they even take the side of your enemies, your ex,the boss that fired you, save your self ,you come first
It is an unfortunate situation. I don't even think most people in the family will ever admit that anything is wrong. They would rather point the finger and say "See! Thats the crazy one!". I'm the crazy one in my family. I finally broke away and haven't seen them in almost 4 years now. I seen my brother for the first time a few months ago at a funeral. It was awkward and he said he missed me. His wife didn't even look at us (me husband children) until they left. He said that I don't understand what I've done to "our" family". At the time I assumed he was talking about the family as a whole and made it clear that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with my mom or sister. I still refused to give him my phone number but I took his. I wanted to call but didn't. There was just this blame in the conversation and I knew he would never understand why I had to leave in the first place. That lack of understanding has the potential to harm my own family if he ever gave my contact information to anyone else in our family. While I want to trust him, I just can't. It's true, it will continue on to each generation because that is what happens in narcissistic families.
When I left, it was to protect my children from what I experienced growing up. Now I realize that is not enough and I'm not sure if there is ever going to be a point in my life that I reach where I can say "ok so now I am normal and mentally healthy!". I think I've made peace knowing that I will always be Fucked in the head to a degree. The crazy part is that before I left I didn't realize how messed up I was in the first place. My line of thinking, my logic, my worries, and on and on. Everything about my thinking, I believe, is abnormal. I can't interact with people in a normal way. I'm too open, I'm too honest, and this leaves us open for more of the same. When we get more of the same it breaks us.
I'm watching my children grow up without any family. No cousins or Aunts and Uncles and I go back and forth wondering what is better that or this? I already know that this is better but watching the lack of familial connection is really killing me. I didn't expect this to be so long lol Its probably the holidays but our situations they suck! They Really Realllllly suck!
"Healing is going to require an intense amount of work "......,yes,it's been over 25 years I'v been in recovery.
But how many in the family system avoid the legitimate suffering that comes with awareness. ?
Most I believe ,it just gets passed on to the next generation.