Midwinter wrote:How many of you come from dysfunctional families? How many of you has (or has had) either a father or mother that is/was narcissistic?
My parents divorced before I was out of diapers. Dad went off and started a new family. Mom is a narcissist -- Dad may be, too. If not, he's just a self-absorbed ass. I raised myself.
Midwinter wrote:If you both had a dysfunctional childhood and a family member that was narcissistic, what do you think mostly contributed to the way you are now? Is it a mixture of both?
I wonder about this, too. I tend to think it's a mixture. How did my parents get to be the way they are? Is there a genetic component to the dysfunction? I'm not sure how to separate.
I learned at an early age that people can't be trusted. My mother was a jealous and vindictive person. If she knew something mattered to me, she'd find a way to ruin it. So I learned how to hide what matters. I hid it really well, even from myself
She was also manipulative. For the longest time I thought that the phrase "I love you" ended in "but.....". Always strings attached. Even today if someone claims to love me I assume they want something.
The one thing that I can't totally trace back to my upbringing is the feelings of superiority. I can remember feeling special as early as kindergarten. Is it possible I was already eff'ed up by then? I mean, I saw my classmates as drones. And I believed my teacher saw that, too. The classroom rules applied to the drones and not to me, so I didn't have to follow them if I didn't want to. Not sure how I got to be that way.