Speaker 1: This podcast should not be used as a substitute for
Speaker 1: medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek
Speaker 1: independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare
Speaker 1: professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
Speaker 1: or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This
Speaker 1: episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering to some people.
Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the
Speaker 1: podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do
Speaker 1: not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, I
Speaker 1: Heart Media, or their employees. I had it in my
Speaker 1: head that we were strong, we could come overcome this.
Speaker 1: We're not weak. I'm not weak, and I just kept
Speaker 1: telling myself that over and over, and I would constantly say,
Speaker 1: no matter how now I have it, somebody else out
Speaker 1: there has a way worse than I has, and that
Speaker 1: kind of helped me overcome the obstacles. Lots of people
Speaker 1: talk about having narcissistic parents, and everyone who has had
Speaker 1: that history obviously has different stories, but there are similar themes.
Speaker 1: The fear, confusion, self blame can result in so many
Speaker 1: difficult experiences that trail a person into adulthood. Most pointedly.
Speaker 1: Many survivors of parental narcissistic abuse are afraid of becoming
Speaker 1: like their toxic parent when they become parents. Sometimes one
Speaker 1: person story of a narcissistic childhood can capture the themes
Speaker 1: that are observed in many people's experiences. The story of
Speaker 1: our guests in this episode is powerful because aspects of
Speaker 1: it will feel so familiar to so many survivors. Her
Speaker 1: story of having endured a manipulative, abusive parent who would
Speaker 1: vacillate between being interesting and engaging to active, invalidating, and
Speaker 1: abusive is the story of how trauma bonds are formed,
Speaker 1: the triangulation, gas lighting, and manipulation that can fill survivors
Speaker 1: with shame and self blame, the many ways that children
Speaker 1: adapt to these situations, and how all of this shapes
Speaker 1: our personalities and how we go through the world in adulthood.
Speaker 1: The volatility and unpredictability of having a narcissistic parent makes
Speaker 1: childhood a place of fear and anxiety. In this episode,
Speaker 1: you will hear about her childhood, what the toxic and
Speaker 1: manipulative patterns look like, how they affected her and a
Speaker 1: sibling differently, and how it affected her relationship with her
Speaker 1: other parent. And in our next episode featuring this guest,
Speaker 1: you will hear her share openly and vulnerably how a
Speaker 1: history like this affected her as a parent. All right,
Speaker 1: dr Aronne, thank you for having me absolutely Well, what
Speaker 1: was your dad like? Because I know that that's a
Speaker 1: lot of what your story is growing up. My other
Speaker 1: was a very charming individual. We always were projected as
Speaker 1: if we were a very well put together family. We
Speaker 1: grew up poverty long right there. However, we always had
Speaker 1: nice shirts, nice you know, shoes, made sure that we
Speaker 1: always presented ourselves with manners. He would glare at us,
Speaker 1: make sure you behave that type of look, you know,
Speaker 1: that mom look that you normally get behave yourself, except
Speaker 1: it would be a lot worse. And we essentially projected
Speaker 1: like we were keeping up with the Joneses. Except that
Speaker 1: wasn't what it was like in the behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: It was very doctor jackal Mr Hyde. Okay, So the
Speaker 1: father then, who made sure you had the clean clothes
Speaker 1: and made sure your behavior was in line and all
Speaker 1: of that. The charming guide. That's the one face of
Speaker 1: your dad, that is the one facet of him, Yes,
Speaker 1: the client facing. What about that other face of your dad?
Speaker 1: Behind clothes stores. It was walking on eggshells constantly. He
Speaker 1: really had to gauge his behavior or his mood rather
Speaker 1: to to really broach any subject. If you wanted to
Speaker 1: ask him any questions, he could sit there and be
Speaker 1: joking with you, and then all of a sudden, you
Speaker 1: say the wrong thing, and it's like a switch goes off,
Speaker 1: and what are you talking about? How dare you? Blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and they just go off on a tirade.
Speaker 1: And his tirades would last anywhere from hours like minimal hours,
Speaker 1: because they would they would start stop, start, stop, start stopping,
Speaker 1: like just to get that last word and just to
Speaker 1: get that point really drilled home, or days they'll bring
Speaker 1: it back up the next day or the day after.
Speaker 1: It wasn't constant, I would from memory, if memory serves
Speaker 1: me right, it probably be about fifty. So you do
Speaker 1: get the happy, go lucky, adventurous. Hey, I love I
Speaker 1: love music, I love education. Let's go learn a little
Speaker 1: bit of history. Let's go drive here, let's go drive there.
Speaker 1: So that part in that aspect I also took on
Speaker 1: as I got older. I enjoyed that very very much so,
Speaker 1: and I enjoyed he drilled home that education was extremely important,
Speaker 1: so whatever you do in life, that is key. So
Speaker 1: that I took. But it was very much a do
Speaker 1: as I say, not as I do persona, and that
Speaker 1: was kind of his rule. And if you got in trouble,
Speaker 1: he would fly off the handle. He would, you know,
Speaker 1: veins popping, red face, screaming at you. And I remember
Speaker 1: this particular one time that he answered the phone and
Speaker 1: it was his buddy and he was going to meet
Speaker 1: him at the karaoke bar, something along those lines, and
Speaker 1: he's like, you don't know what you're talking about. Hello,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I'll be there in the twenty minutes
Speaker 1: or so, hang up the phone, and then continue with
Speaker 1: the same amount of rage, screaming at my brother and
Speaker 1: I that's so interesting. So let's unpack that because from
Speaker 1: the jump, that tells me he had control over the behavior.
Speaker 1: You think so, because to me, I felt like he didn't,
Speaker 1: well think about it, scream, scream, veins popping, yell, yell,
Speaker 1: bad kid, bad kid, bad bad bad, the phone rings.
Speaker 1: If he didn't have control over his behavior, he screaming,
Speaker 1: it was a choice, so he chose to let himself
Speaker 1: go unbridled. Yes, with you. I just I always thought
Speaker 1: that it was just because he called it seeing red,
Speaker 1: like he didn't know what he did when he when
Speaker 1: he saw red. That's what he would say. Oh, no,
Speaker 1: you don't know what you're talking about. I have no
Speaker 1: I have no recollection of that. That's convenience. I guess
Speaker 1: that's part of that gas lighting, right, But you understand
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Yeah, I'm seeing that. You're surprised, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think that that, to me, though, is not unusual.
Speaker 1: A lot of people are told they saw red, they forgot,
Speaker 1: they lost consciousness. Okay, but then you how did you
Speaker 1: all of a sudden now you're seeing, not read when
Speaker 1: you're talking to your buddy that you're going to see later.
Speaker 1: That is a really, really excellent point. I never even
Speaker 1: thought of that. I wonder if that left you wondering
Speaker 1: while he's not yelling at the other guy. So it's
Speaker 1: got to be something about us. Oh, absolutely constantly, and
Speaker 1: he would tell us it was us. It would constantly
Speaker 1: sit there, and you're the reason I divorced mother. You're
Speaker 1: the reason that I lost my temper. It hurts me
Speaker 1: way more than it hurts you. Believe me, you got
Speaker 1: it a lot easier than I had when I was
Speaker 1: growing up. So you've got a lot of really classical
Speaker 1: parental gas lighting in all its forms, and really manipulation
Speaker 1: even above and beyond the gas lighting, in the sense
Speaker 1: that telling a child that they're the reason for his
Speaker 1: momentous and disruptive a decision as a divorce is a
Speaker 1: really really cruel Literally what less than zero is about
Speaker 1: human development? Like this person is has no problem saying
Speaker 1: these absolutely forbidden things. But what I'm wondering that is
Speaker 1: that this very father who was able to blame his
Speaker 1: kids for a divorce tell them that you ain't. This
Speaker 1: is nothing compared to what I went through while being abusive.
Speaker 1: That same person was able to turn it on for
Speaker 1: their friend. I am wondering if when he was with
Speaker 1: his friends he was really well put together. I've actually
Speaker 1: been out. When he's out, he's the life of the party.
Speaker 1: He is the guy track and jokes and and the
Speaker 1: fun guy next door and just man about town. I've
Speaker 1: seen it. I've seen what he's like. So let me
Speaker 1: ask you this. Let's connected back then to this idea
Speaker 1: of your military brat. You're moving all around. You've got
Speaker 1: this rageful father he's the reason you're moving around and
Speaker 1: you go from place to place. It's got to be
Speaker 1: confusing to have this rageful dad and then you don't
Speaker 1: have consistent friends. How did that all play out for you?
Speaker 1: How did you cope with all of that? Well, the
Speaker 1: psychological was actually the worst part. Honestly. I chose to
Speaker 1: project have a similar pattern where I would project everything's fine,
Speaker 1: everything's hunky, dorry, I am this funny, outgoing girl and
Speaker 1: very much an extrovert, Let's go this place, let's go
Speaker 1: that place. But inside I felt very dark, very depressed.
Speaker 1: I guess I didn't really identify as depressed. I identified
Speaker 1: it as just a low self esteem. I don't want
Speaker 1: to minimize that, but it was a low self esteem,
Speaker 1: low self es, sense sense of self worth. And I
Speaker 1: would write a lot. I would write to help me
Speaker 1: get it out, you know, write the pros and cons
Speaker 1: of me. And I only told a few of my friends,
Speaker 1: and I would just kind of gauge their reactions first,
Speaker 1: and you know, kind of similar situations where they would
Speaker 1: do something that I had done to misbehave. They would
Speaker 1: get put in the corner. I would get beat with
Speaker 1: a two by four thrown down the stairs. There's plenty
Speaker 1: of times where I didn't know how to express myself
Speaker 1: in in a healthy, cathartic manner because he didn't teach me,
Speaker 1: and he also didn't exercise those healthy ways of emotional balance,
Speaker 1: I guess is a good way to put that. What
Speaker 1: kinds of things would set him off. One time, I
Speaker 1: was eating stuff out of the fridge and you you
Speaker 1: weren't allowed to unless it was like dinnertime, and I
Speaker 1: had stuck craft singles on. I was reading a book
Speaker 1: and I was eating cheese, and he came through the
Speaker 1: door and I didn't expect him home, so I hurried him,
Speaker 1: shoved it inside the book, and I closed it. I
Speaker 1: think I was about five, and he found it and
Speaker 1: I didn't say anything, so he assumed my brother did it.
Speaker 1: So I had all this guilt. And that's not the
Speaker 1: first time that's something like that has happened where I
Speaker 1: just let him assume that my brother did it. I
Speaker 1: think again, psychologically, it's the screams that you can still remember.
Speaker 1: It's the beatings and expectives and everything else that you
Speaker 1: just still remember. Here, when she was talking about hiding
Speaker 1: the slice of cheese for fear of getting in trouble
Speaker 1: and then blaming it on her little brother is a
Speaker 1: situation that many survivors of narcissistic parents find themselves in,
Speaker 1: shifting blame onto a sibling out of fear or even
Speaker 1: the belief that maybe the sibling may not get it
Speaker 1: as bad, and in this case, her brother was quite young.
Speaker 1: This triangulation and division within a family is one more
Speaker 1: example of the chaos of a narcissistic family system. She
Speaker 1: also shares the horror and pain of listening to her
Speaker 1: brother being punished for it. So these triangulated situations also
Speaker 1: foster further harm to all children in the home who
Speaker 1: either live in fear of the narcissistic parents, rage, or
Speaker 1: witness it happening to siblings, and the harm can be
Speaker 1: magnified when a child feels responsible for the abuse a
Speaker 1: sibling is facing. So it's a lot of guilt as
Speaker 1: I'm growing up, and on top of that, just you
Speaker 1: never knew when he was going to flip out. So
Speaker 1: it was like living with a bucket of live grenades
Speaker 1: with the pins pulled out, and you just didn't know
Speaker 1: when they were going to blow. An incredible metaphor. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: because I'm even feeling the tension as you're telling the
Speaker 1: story of what it would be like for a small
Speaker 1: child to be doing something as innocent as eating a
Speaker 1: piece of cheese and reading a story, and and panicking
Speaker 1: and hiding the cheese. That's not a bad thing to do,
Speaker 1: by the way, you eat a piece of cheese while
Speaker 1: you read a book. Basically your answer, I'm interpreting that
Speaker 1: as everything set him off. You just didn't know anything,
Speaker 1: anything could set him off. Our session will continue after
Speaker 1: this break. What is your earliest memories? Do you feel
Speaker 1: like this was happening your entire life even before? Remember, Okay,
Speaker 1: my brother was a baby, and I actually remember it
Speaker 1: was a two story townhouse, and I remember looking up
Speaker 1: on the second floor and hearing them screaming, my mother,
Speaker 1: my father, and he he broke the door off the hinges,
Speaker 1: and I just remember sharing her screaming. That's the earliest memory.
Speaker 1: That's your earliest memory. It's so hard when that is
Speaker 1: your earliest memory, which there was then so much fear,
Speaker 1: Fear would have been your earliest consistent emotion. Sadly, because
Speaker 1: fear memories, especially repeated fear memories, are so physically held,
Speaker 1: they are typically the first memories or some of the
Speaker 1: clearest early memories that many survivors of parental narcissistic abuse
Speaker 1: will share. Memories of abandonment, fighting parents, accidents, physical abuse,
Speaker 1: and sometimes just an amorphous sadness are often the memories
Speaker 1: that are the earliest ones for survivors of these situations.
Speaker 1: When these are the earliest memories, it's a set up
Speaker 1: for anxiety eight and a loss of safety that can
Speaker 1: shadow survivors for a lifetime. I learned how to hide it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's that big bright smile and yeah, so
Speaker 1: I'm already getting a sense of what your parents marriage
Speaker 1: was like. It sounds like it was certainly smultuous, tumultuous, volatile,
Speaker 1: a mess, and that's what that was sort of the
Speaker 1: template you saw of their relationship, which must have it
Speaker 1: must have been so scary too, seeing that the one
Speaker 1: person who could protect you, your mother, was also under siege.
Speaker 1: She she was very quiet, kept to herself. She didn't
Speaker 1: really I want to say that she did maybe play
Speaker 1: with us a little bit, but for the most part
Speaker 1: she was just constantly buffering between him and us, just
Speaker 1: to make sure that we're kind of keeping the piece.
Speaker 1: So the verbage make sure that oh yeah, we're just
Speaker 1: we're gonna have spaghetti, spaghetti, okay, alright, alright, we're gonna
Speaker 1: do this instead and appeasing. Just she tried to to
Speaker 1: fit out, She tried to make the situation not happen.
Speaker 1: But I don't remember her interacting with us very much.
Speaker 1: And I remember that she specifically said her parents were
Speaker 1: very traditional, so you couldn't get out of it. So
Speaker 1: I guess that's that trapped in a cage feeling where
Speaker 1: you shouldn't get a divorce, you have a religious background,
Speaker 1: they don't believe in it. Again, this is growing up
Speaker 1: in the eighties and the nineties, and it was taboo.
Speaker 1: It was pulling teeth, getting child supports. So she worked
Speaker 1: three jobs. She was never home. She had to do
Speaker 1: what she had to do to keep food on the table,
Speaker 1: roof over our head. She is definitely a fighter, and
Speaker 1: I feel like, growing up, seeing that as an example,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to get married. Yeah, I mean completely understandable.
Speaker 1: It's so funny because when people grow up the way
Speaker 1: you did, witnessing the model of marriage you did, experiencing
Speaker 1: your own form of emotional and sort of physical abuse
Speaker 1: growing up, I almost see it clinically. Often see it
Speaker 1: go in two directions. One group is I'm never getting
Speaker 1: married a way, no, how absolutely not. The second group
Speaker 1: is a tremendous risk of repeating that cycling, almost trying
Speaker 1: to escape that situation. They will very quickly get into
Speaker 1: a relationship. They often won't be discerning because they don't
Speaker 1: know how to be discerning because they don't have any template,
Speaker 1: get into something quickly, and then just open their eyes
Speaker 1: and say here I am. You know, they've literally recreated
Speaker 1: that cycle again, and so I kind of see it
Speaker 1: happening both sorts of ways, and some ways. Not getting
Speaker 1: into relationship is almost the safer path forward for folks
Speaker 1: to come mack alone. But you know, obviously the best
Speaker 1: path forward is that we could work with people to
Speaker 1: help them see that none of this was their fault.
Speaker 1: That's the ideal. I was the ladder of those two
Speaker 1: and I ended up having my first real relationships. You know,
Speaker 1: you have holding hands, yeah, through middle school, and then
Speaker 1: there comes the semi serious as you get older. And
Speaker 1: I did that, I think the first to me your relationships.
Speaker 1: I did that running headlong right into it and not
Speaker 1: seeing the signs because it's so incremental, and you would
Speaker 1: think growing up with it, you would see all those
Speaker 1: red flags, and it's almost like you almost want to
Speaker 1: deny it and ignore it because you know, quote unquote,
Speaker 1: you're in love. Did you think they were red flags? Like,
Speaker 1: did you identify your father's behavior as a red flag
Speaker 1: as you started coming up through adolescence as into dating age?
Speaker 1: Not until I was about eighteen, I would say, when
Speaker 1: I was around sixteen, I started getting an inkling, probably
Speaker 1: because things got a little more violent as I got older,
Speaker 1: and we'd try to set our boundaries or stand our ground,
Speaker 1: and he just wasn't having it. So I think as
Speaker 1: I turned eighteen and I started he had disowned me.
Speaker 1: In his words, he had disowned me because my behavior
Speaker 1: wasn't conducive to what he thought I should be holding
Speaker 1: myself up to. So, going back your you said your
Speaker 1: parents got a divorce because your father left your mother
Speaker 1: when you were twelve. Did he go on into a
Speaker 1: new relationship or did he just immediately? Of course? And
Speaker 1: actually now currently in present day, he's on wife that
Speaker 1: I know of, wife number five. I've disconnected all communications
Speaker 1: with him. He enjoys falling in love that he those
Speaker 1: are his words, he loves falling in love. Correct, It's
Speaker 1: like saying I only want to eat the icing off
Speaker 1: the cupcake. You gotta go on all in and eat
Speaker 1: the stump of the cupcake or you're not committed to
Speaker 1: that cupcake. It can't all be all frosting all the time.
Speaker 1: And that's what analogies, right, So that seems to me
Speaker 1: it's thing though that I love falling in love and
Speaker 1: think about what falling in love is. It's all dopamine,
Speaker 1: it's all reward, and it's all validation. Right. Once that
Speaker 1: part of the relationship is done, Yeah, adoration all that,
Speaker 1: the worship be part. Once that part's done, the falling
Speaker 1: in love part, that's the fun swoopy down on the
Speaker 1: roller coaster. Then you're back in the line with the
Speaker 1: long line. You gotta wait to get back on the
Speaker 1: roller coaster again. And that's when he's stopped being interested.
Speaker 1: So it twelve. When your parents split up, did you
Speaker 1: live with your mom, with your dad or with both?
Speaker 1: Like go back and forth. I went back and forth.
Speaker 1: Initially it was with my mom and then I hit
Speaker 1: my team years, which wasn't graceful rarely, so that is
Speaker 1: the part of growing up where you can't identify, or
Speaker 1: at least if you're not taught properly, you can't identify
Speaker 1: those emotions that you're feeling, and you get all this
Speaker 1: pent up something or other, either anxiety or rage or
Speaker 1: just It got to a point as I grew up
Speaker 1: that I ended up wanting to feel something break like
Speaker 1: I'd get aggressive. Living with my brother, it was like
Speaker 1: love hate relationship. Again, it's probably mirroring and projecting the
Speaker 1: relationship that I saw with my parents. So we'd be
Speaker 1: best friends one day, and then the next day he
Speaker 1: and I would duke get out and just throw him
Speaker 1: a boxing glove and I grab a boxing glove and
Speaker 1: let's go. So it was not healthy, and it's hard
Speaker 1: to to find some outlet to really let that out.
Speaker 1: And then that's the other issue, is that in the
Speaker 1: back of your mind, what's abuse. You know it's not right,
Speaker 1: but you're also afraid to say something. So I did
Speaker 1: have a counselor. At the time we were we didn't
Speaker 1: have enough money for therapy, so I did have a
Speaker 1: counselor at school, and we scratched the service. But I
Speaker 1: was very careful not to let too much information out,
Speaker 1: simply because I didn't. I was afraid of the unknown.
Speaker 1: I mean that's I didn't want to accidentally screw things
Speaker 1: up for my mom. I didn't want to implicate her
Speaker 1: in any capacity. I didn't want her to be complacent
Speaker 1: with the whole situation either. So it's kind of a
Speaker 1: way of protecting. But also my mom and I just
Speaker 1: we were also in a phase where we started budding
Speaker 1: heads really bad. So I would end up at some
Speaker 1: point I was being bullied at school. Was very much
Speaker 1: a what they called brown noser because I was constantly
Speaker 1: raising my hand because I wanted to know I enjoyed psychology,
Speaker 1: I will stay with educational aspect. I was constantly raised
Speaker 1: my hands like what does this mean? What does that mean?
Speaker 1: And so I got made fun of a lot, I
Speaker 1: got bullied a lot. I ended up um just having
Speaker 1: a really rough time in school and at home. And
Speaker 1: then when I got home, I was frustrated. My mom
Speaker 1: was frustrated. She was working three jobs, she's trying, she's
Speaker 1: going to night school, she was trying to keep a
Speaker 1: roof over our heads, and so we just kind of
Speaker 1: went at it. And at one one time she had
Speaker 1: had enough and I hadn't had enough. And then I
Speaker 1: just I switched over to my dad. I'm fifty, I'm
Speaker 1: old enough to decide for myself. I'm done, and I
Speaker 1: called my dad. I said, come get me. And that
Speaker 1: was the part where I remember distinctly saying I had
Speaker 1: a conversation with my dad, and he's not gonna be
Speaker 1: all peaches and roses. You know you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: do chores. You know you're gonna have to do this. Yes,
Speaker 1: just ess I know, and I know it's discipline. I
Speaker 1: know it's disciplined. And I said those words, you know
Speaker 1: this is what's happening. So it's okay. So we switched
Speaker 1: and I went to his house. I remember very distinctly
Speaker 1: his third wife. She stood up for herself, she would
Speaker 1: fight for herself. She had just as much of a
Speaker 1: dominant personality as he did, which was extraordinarily volatile. I
Speaker 1: thought growing up was bad enough. This time in my
Speaker 1: middle school into high school years was extremely tough. When
Speaker 1: I lived with him, they would fight and it got
Speaker 1: to a point. I remember he would be drunk. Alcohol
Speaker 1: usually played an amplification factor for him, and he drank
Speaker 1: every day, but his core personality was there. He wasn't
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, that person and they were streaming
Speaker 1: at each other and he was just completely obliterated and
Speaker 1: had punched the front window and blasts everywhere. There was
Speaker 1: blood everywhere, and I remember coming out of my room
Speaker 1: and they're fighting over the baby at the top of
Speaker 1: the stairs, and I just I literally I've frozen, but
Speaker 1: I stood in the middle because I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: one wrong sway and they're toppling over the stairs. It
Speaker 1: freaked me out so bad. I mean, that is imprinted
Speaker 1: in my mind. And that's honestly trying not to tear
Speaker 1: up here. That's at that point why I remember seeing
Speaker 1: like what all over him and every just it was bad,
Speaker 1: and the cops were called by the neighbors because I
Speaker 1: was terrified. I didn't know if I should or shouldn't.
Speaker 1: You know, as my father, I'm supposed to love him,
Speaker 1: I was supposed to be loyal. But in the same capacity,
Speaker 1: this was literally an emergency. Yeah, yeah, you know what.
Speaker 1: This has got to be the narcissism starter kid. They
Speaker 1: all say that, but he did it would get out
Speaker 1: of it. He keeps finding people to marry him, so
Speaker 1: he's obviously able to convince people of stuff do you
Speaker 1: remember what your emotions were like? There's you know, knowing
Speaker 1: that no one's going to believe me even if I
Speaker 1: did say something adapt overcome. I had it in my
Speaker 1: head that we were strong, we could come overcome this.
Speaker 1: We're not weak. I'm not weak. And I just kept
Speaker 1: telling myself that over and over, and I would constantly say,
Speaker 1: no matter how bad I have it, somebody else out
Speaker 1: there has way worse than I have. And that kind
Speaker 1: of helped me overcome the obstacles. And I was like,
Speaker 1: if life throws me offstacles, I'm just gonna go over
Speaker 1: every single hurdle and I'm gonna pass with flying colors.
Speaker 1: And That's how I'm going to go. Sometimes I get
Speaker 1: down on myself, but then eventually I always try to
Speaker 1: crawl back out of the well, so to speak, and
Speaker 1: just kind of raw myself back up. And that's just
Speaker 1: how I'm wired. I suppose. Yeah, I think it is,
Speaker 1: because I'd be curious to know you said, you have
Speaker 1: not this small, small brother you're talking about, but your
Speaker 1: two and a half year younger brother. My other brother,
Speaker 1: was he able to do that whole bring himself up.
Speaker 1: I've got to be strong kind of thing. Too. We
Speaker 1: could go through the same exact experience and he would
Speaker 1: tell me a totally different perspective. He would shove things
Speaker 1: deep down inside and not say anything for years, and
Speaker 1: I wouldn't know until like he would write me letters
Speaker 1: or you know, say something along those lines like this
Speaker 1: actually bothered me, and he would be truthful with himself. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't label it as abuse. It's just with something
Speaker 1: that we grew up with, you didn't exhibit emotional states otherwise.
Speaker 1: He actually turned to addiction issues. Yes, I would expect
Speaker 1: that to help cope with everything that he was feeling.
Speaker 1: Because he didn't want to talk about it. He didn't
Speaker 1: want to relive it. I'm sure that maybe he feels
Speaker 1: things a little bit more. I say I grew up sensitive,
Speaker 1: but I wore it on my save I I spoke
Speaker 1: about it. I feel like he might have been more
Speaker 1: emotionally sensitive and I never knew, because even to this day,
Speaker 1: there are things that he's still trying to deal with
Speaker 1: and try to peel back and having a hard time.
Speaker 1: His was more physical aggression growing up, but right now
Speaker 1: currently as an adult, he's actually one of the most
Speaker 1: even kill non biased people I've ever met and he'll
Speaker 1: tell you a non biased opinion. So if you have
Speaker 1: a dilemma, if you have a problem. He's very logical,
Speaker 1: he's very rational, and he's just such a like a
Speaker 1: Buddha type energy. That's amazing. He's just very just chill
Speaker 1: and he's like, ye know, thing has happened. You put
Speaker 1: it in the crap happens file. It is what it
Speaker 1: is or which I didn't particularly like, but I'm glad
Speaker 1: that I had somebody to tell me the truth. If
Speaker 1: I have a situation and I explained it to him
Speaker 1: and he says, well, you're in the wrong. Okay, wait
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be on that side. Well, he's able
Speaker 1: to see the outside. We will be right back with
Speaker 1: this conversation. Now, what was it like? Because obviously what
Speaker 1: you are growing up with, the emotional abuse, the physical abuse,
Speaker 1: all of it was not the norm. What would happen
Speaker 1: when you saw other people's lives, maybe you went and
Speaker 1: played with a friend at their home, or visited a
Speaker 1: friend at their home. You saw other people's lives. What
Speaker 1: was that like for you? What I went through I
Speaker 1: thought was normal. When I would see other people experiencing
Speaker 1: that was the other thing that was fun hugs and
Speaker 1: kisses from their family. Yeah, my mom was not a
Speaker 1: touchy feely per sen she still listen. She doesn't do
Speaker 1: the hugs and kisses. My father was the one that
Speaker 1: did that, and it would be right after he beat us,
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, so he would hit us with the
Speaker 1: metal belt of the metal buckle belts or the two
Speaker 1: by fours, and then he turned around and say, now
Speaker 1: give me a hug. And that messed me up for
Speaker 1: a long time. I still to this day, I have
Speaker 1: male friends. I've always had male friends growing up, but
Speaker 1: I still freeze up when somebody gives me a hug
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, what do I do with my hands?
Speaker 1: I don't know. But that type of hugs and kisses
Speaker 1: with their parents, especially with their fathers, I almost felt,
Speaker 1: and I don't typically get jealous, but I almost felt
Speaker 1: a twinge of envy. I give you a lot of
Speaker 1: credit for just having a twinge. I think for other people,
Speaker 1: the envy and the jealousy of seeing those other kinds
Speaker 1: of homes where a hug was not sort of the
Speaker 1: you know, because for you, the hug for them didn't
Speaker 1: come with abuse. For you, a hug was classically conditioned.
Speaker 1: It was paired with a use with abuse. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so we talked about and I know you're so well
Speaker 1: spoken about all of this. We talk about the trauma
Speaker 1: bond and all of that. Right in all my life,
Speaker 1: in all my career, I have never heard that tight
Speaker 1: an example of creating a trauma bond beating someone and
Speaker 1: then going in for the hug. That's it. That's the
Speaker 1: trauma bond right there. That it's the abuse, hug love
Speaker 1: and abuse which you carry on into clearly into adulthood.
Speaker 1: How could you not so just to have that experience,
Speaker 1: and again against the backdrop of the only other expectable
Speaker 1: source of affection your mother, That wasn't her way. And
Speaker 1: I would speculate after the marriage she had to survive
Speaker 1: with your father, I wander very desensitized. I mean she
Speaker 1: your mom would then very much qualify to what we
Speaker 1: would can see an adult narcissistic abuse survivors. Right, that
Speaker 1: kind of down regulation for many people, it's sort of
Speaker 1: not trusting those physical spaces, not trusting those emotional spaces,
Speaker 1: and you know, you do sort of start feeling isolated
Speaker 1: within yourself, even from your own kids. Shut down, shut down, Oh,
Speaker 1: That is an excellent revelation. I didn't think of that
Speaker 1: because she did. She kind of shut herself off from us.
Speaker 1: I just thought it was because she was working constantly,
Speaker 1: she was exhausted constantly, she would yell at you know,
Speaker 1: keep it down, you know, because she was trying to sleep.
Speaker 1: But that's a really good point. Yeah, I mean, her
Speaker 1: nervous system may have been forever on high alert. It
Speaker 1: may have been because she had the added burden of
Speaker 1: being an adult who was attempting to protect kids in
Speaker 1: a situation where she couldn't protect them, and she probably
Speaker 1: knew there was no way to get help, and with
Speaker 1: the traditional family background where she had no recourse, she
Speaker 1: may have thought she couldn't get a divorce. The only
Speaker 1: sort of quote unquote luck she had was that he
Speaker 1: left her, But then she was left with this financial burden,
Speaker 1: not being able to be there with a child that
Speaker 1: in many ways was what your mom was experiencing, and
Speaker 1: your brother and you as well. It's much more in
Speaker 1: line with what we also see in complex post trauma
Speaker 1: c PTSD. More because in narcissistic abuse and complex post
Speaker 1: trauma they're very associated and in some adult survivors when
Speaker 1: it's more severe. We do see that they look more
Speaker 1: likely they have complex post trauma than they do the
Speaker 1: straight narcissistic abuse, which is sometimes a less severe look
Speaker 1: in a person. Their nervous system may not be quite
Speaker 1: as shut down in the same way. And that plays
Speaker 1: into what I experienced as I got older. I learned
Speaker 1: how to shut off my emotions when when things became
Speaker 1: too hairy or somebody displayed too much emotion. So for me,
Speaker 1: I also became desensitized. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Desensitizes
Speaker 1: the perfect word, because for you safety seeking, you did
Speaker 1: it in so many different ways. You did it through smiling,
Speaker 1: you did it through desensitization, but created all these zones
Speaker 1: of fear. Right, this is scary. That's scary, that's scary,
Speaker 1: And like you said, and then even these poignant, painful
Speaker 1: experiences of seeing, for example, a friend getting a hug
Speaker 1: but it didn't require them to get beaten before they
Speaker 1: got that hug. That incredibly painful revelation, and then you
Speaker 1: feel like maybe I need a night in shining armor.
Speaker 1: And then you jump headlong into those relationships that are
Speaker 1: not good for you, that are very similar in cycle,
Speaker 1: and you do kind of the same thing, like, do
Speaker 1: I need to argue, do I need to you create
Speaker 1: this unhealthy relationship or this unhealthy putting them on a pedestal?
Speaker 1: Did you ever blame yourself for your father's behavior? For
Speaker 1: a long time, until I found out my grandfather had
Speaker 1: a conversation he was a strange, so I didn't realize
Speaker 1: systematically we workut off from their side of the family.
Speaker 1: So your father's father, you're talking about your grandfather and
Speaker 1: they he was a strange from his own father. Yes,
Speaker 1: And I found out that he was always like and
Speaker 1: that was like a burden off of my shoulders. I
Speaker 1: wasn't just in Schockle was like, so it's not us,
Speaker 1: but he would throw bricks at my head. I'm the oldest.
Speaker 1: He was also the oldest, so that type of dynamic.
Speaker 1: And my grandfather says, you know, I love my children though,
Speaker 1: do not get me wrong. I love my children, all
Speaker 1: of them. But your father came out and ass, Wow,
Speaker 1: that's fascinating. And I guess that's my question to you,
Speaker 1: is that can you just be born like that or
Speaker 1: is that more of a pattern. You bring up a
Speaker 1: really interesting question here, because given how abusive your father
Speaker 1: was brick throwing, and really physically violent siblings. I don't
Speaker 1: know if your father ever got arrested or got in
Speaker 1: trouble in school as a kid, or if any of
Speaker 1: those things, because the level of extremity of what you're
Speaker 1: describing could be more in line with something we call
Speaker 1: conduct disorder, and conduct disorder is a pattern where kids.
Speaker 1: These are kids who are physically violent against other kids,
Speaker 1: physically violent against their own siblings. They may harm animals,
Speaker 1: they may set fires, they may be truant from school,
Speaker 1: they may shoplift. Those sorts of patterns we'd see prior
Speaker 1: to the age of fifteen when that pattern gets established,
Speaker 1: and then we see once they're eighteen and over that
Speaker 1: they're continuing to engage in behavior where they're menacing people,
Speaker 1: they're not adhering to social norms, they're breaking the law,
Speaker 1: they're not following the rules, they have a parasitic lifestyle.
Speaker 1: That kind of stuff. That's when we start getting into
Speaker 1: what we call anti social personality or what's sometimes called psychopathy.
Speaker 1: So when that childhood behavior is so severe and almost
Speaker 1: violent out of nowhere, like they're little, like they're five
Speaker 1: years old and doing some real harm and acting out
Speaker 1: that sometimes gives people pause because that may be an
Speaker 1: indicator of this long term cycle. It's not clear. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's your dad's whole story. But what
Speaker 1: we do know is that when people go on to
Speaker 1: develop even narcissistic personalities, we do know that there's a
Speaker 1: certain kind of temperament that certain kids can be born with.
Speaker 1: They behaviorally act out a lot. They're very attention seeking,
Speaker 1: they're very competitive, they have to win it at all costs.
Speaker 1: They will overwhelm their peers, that will overwhelm their siblings.
Speaker 1: That temperament, nobody likes those kids. Nobody, So every interaction
Speaker 1: that they have with the world is people saying stop that, no,
Speaker 1: don't do that. Nobody likes those kids, so they're always invalidated.
Speaker 1: That temperament, plus the invalidation can be the seeds for
Speaker 1: that ongoing development of narcissism. So unless there were people
Speaker 1: who really are good at that, then who could really
Speaker 1: support a kid like that? Which the vast majority of
Speaker 1: people cannot. I noticed as I got older and I
Speaker 1: was able to stand up for myself more and speak
Speaker 1: up for myself, that was the hardest part. I realized.
Speaker 1: I almost looked at him now as like a five
Speaker 1: year old with a temper tantrum. Yes forever, yes, exactly
Speaker 1: it is. Here are some takeaways from my conversation with
Speaker 1: today's guest. Many times after people endure a narcissistic childhood,
Speaker 1: or frankly, any narcissistic relationship, they may be told, mom,
Speaker 1: now take responsibility for yourself. You can't keep blaming someone
Speaker 1: else for your struggles. In the rush to make survivors
Speaker 1: take responsibility, it is also essential that they also are
Speaker 1: given a framework for how antagonism and manipulation and invalidation
Speaker 1: from a parent affect us developmentally to learn to connect
Speaker 1: those dots. Then and only then can survivors be expected
Speaker 1: to move to accountability. Asking for accountability without a framework
Speaker 1: more often ends up in self blame for survivors than
Speaker 1: a sense of true personal responsibility. And for my next takeaway,
Speaker 1: triangulation of siblings and family members being turned against each
Speaker 1: other is common in narcissistic families. This can leave siblings
Speaker 1: feeling as though they are betraying each other, or may
Speaker 1: even feel compelled to betray each other in the service
Speaker 1: of the narcissistic parent. It's a terrible legacy of these
Speaker 1: family systems. Children, maybe trying to do anything they can
Speaker 1: to survive these family systems, and may years later still
Speaker 1: experience strong emotions as adults when they recognize that their
Speaker 1: siblings and other family members were harmed, if they were
Speaker 1: ever in a situation of blaming them to protect themselves.
Speaker 1: In my next takeaway, this guest story shows us that
Speaker 1: within one family, siblings can have a range of reactions
Speaker 1: to a toxic parent, and even a range of ways
Speaker 1: they conceptualize what happened to them. She shared that she
Speaker 1: was more emotionally restricted and even obsessive, something that may
Speaker 1: have given her a sense of control in her situation.
Speaker 1: Her brother reacted quite differently. The differences and experiences can
Speaker 1: sometimes leave siblings within the same family system wondering if
Speaker 1: they read or are reading the situation right with the
Speaker 1: difficult parent. A key element of healing from narcissistic abuse,
Speaker 1: whether in a family system or in a relationship, is
Speaker 1: to hold space and acknowledgement for your experience and to
Speaker 1: not gaslight yourself. Children and narcissistic family systems are often
Speaker 1: put in different roles. Some are scapegoats, some are golden children.
Speaker 1: Some get it worse than others, and as a result,
Speaker 1: you may have had different experiences, but that doesn't make
Speaker 1: your experience any less valid or real. Having a complicated
Speaker 1: journey with the other parent, the one who was not
Speaker 1: narcissistic in this case, is to be expected in these situations.
Speaker 1: Only as she grew up is she slowly recognizing that
Speaker 1: some of her mother's patterns may have been a manifestation
Speaker 1: of being in the toxic relationship, the emotional distance, the disengagement.
Speaker 1: But at the time a child may only see that
Speaker 1: they are not being protected, and this can result in
Speaker 1: difficult relationships with that parent as time proceeds. The story
Speaker 1: can play out quite differently for people, and there are
Speaker 1: many ways it can go, but there can sometimes be
Speaker 1: guilt over recognizing that the parent also went through something
Speaker 1: difficult you didn't see at the time. It is not
Speaker 1: a child's responsibility to be a parent to their own parent,
Speaker 1: but this is just one more example of the collateral
Speaker 1: harm that an antagonistic and difficult parent can do to
Speaker 1: a family system. A big thank you to our executive
Speaker 1: producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Valen Jethrow, Ellen Rakaton, and Dr
Speaker 1: Rominey de Vassila, And thank you to our producer Matthew Jones,
Speaker 1: associate producer Mara Dela Rosa and consultant Kelly Ebling. And finally,
Speaker 1: thank you to our editors and sound engineers Devin Donnahe
Speaker 1: and Calvin Bailiff.