RaisedByNarcissists: for the children of abusive parents

Crossposted from https://piefed.ca/c/politics/p/554578/how-did-epstein-ensnare-so-many-rich-men-by-knowing-they-were-entitled-and-insecure

The sex offender could exploit these masters of the universe ​because, despite their privilege, ​they still felt short-changed by life, says Guardian columnist Emma Brockes

One of the things that has been frequently puzzled over as the effluent of the Epstein story flows on, is how a college dropout who thought it was cool to do typos managed to persuade the world’s most powerful into his lair. What, precisely, was the nature of his “genius”? Was it blackmail? Was it the social pyramid scheme of using one big name to reel in another? Nothing has come close to explaining it until, with the latest crop of details from the Epstein files, something has become suddenly clear: that it wasn’t the trafficked girls and women who Jeffrey Epstein groomed. The man’s real talent, if we want to call it that, was in the grooming of his cohort of associates.

This isn’t to say, of course, that the men and occasional woman who threw in their lot with a man we must straight-facedly refer to as “the dead paedophile” weren’t culpable. Nonetheless, if you study the huge amount of Epstein-related material, from the New York Times’s deep dive into his finances to the vast cache of correspondence contained in the files, a picture emerges of a man who did the kind of number on his peers that you would more commonly see directed at victims. While multiple survivor testimonies indicate that Epstein regarded the girls and women he trafficked as of such low consequence he didn’t even need to bother to groom them – per Virginia Giuffre’s account, Epstein raped her the first time they met – all of his resources, via a variety of tactics, went into capturing the allegiances of powerful men.

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As a kid, I always hated when my mom brushed my hair, it was always extremely painful, she'd yank chunks of hair out of my scalp, make my ears red and irritated, burn me with the dryer/iron

I used to think she just didn't know how to make it not hurt or was just clumsy, my hair was long and I was little...

But I recently let her do it again for a formal function as an adult, with my partner in the room. (Because I told him she was always rough with it)

And it didn't hurt... she put her hand up to protect my scalp, she didn't yank, or tug too hard, or burn me, or make me almost cry.

Which means she always knew. She could've always been gentle... she just chose to hurt me instead.

When I was a kid I lived with my dad and stepmom and visited my biological mother every two weekends. During the summer I would go to my biological mom’s house for one month. When I was around 12 years old I went to my mom’s house for the one month in the summer. During that time, my stepmom got my dad, my half brother, and her parents, took them to Sears, and had a family portrait done. She then framed those photos and had them displayed in the house.

Imagine looking at the family portrait every single day and you’re not in it. Even with all the three hour lectures that would start at 11pm on a school night and including fun things like hair pulling, slapping, hitting, and a belt, I think the family portrait thing might have fucked me up the most.

I’ve been NC for 10 years now. I’m 46. I didn’t know there was a name for what I went through or that a lot of other people had the same situation until I was in my 30’s.

Hey everyone,

My name is Jennifer and I wanted to share something important with you all today. I am a postdoctoral researcher and trauma survivor. I was raised by narcissists and suffered abuse at their hands for 20+ years. I recently ran away from them and decided to tell my story and raise awareness to help others protect themselves.

Mental abuse and the dangers of narcissism are topics that affect so many lives, and we must raise awareness about them. Remember, manipulation can occur anywhere - in relationships and professional settings, so it is essential to shed light on these issues.

https://www.youtube.com/@egonextdoor

I heard this quote recently and it really resonated with me. I went no contact with my family 3 years ago and I have enough distance now that I've grown around the pain enough to be less destabilized when I miss them. But even though I miss them and struggle to fully understand that feeling sometimes, I know that if I were to ever give them another chance, this quote will live in my head to help guide the conversations and aid my judgement.

This helped me detect that I was changing my boundaries when trying to please someone recently. That tipped me off to recognizing I was people pleasing and they were toxic.

Not sure if this will help anyone else but it definitely resonated with me and helped to keep in the back of my mind as I still struggle to learn to have healthy boundaries.

I think in my case this is a combination of 2 factors: having very self-absorbed parents (I would classify one as non-N and one as N) who really just didn't give a crap about my interests or inner life most of the time, plus one symptom of my being on the spectrum is that one very specific input wire is pulled and I have trouble 'just knowing' whether somebody likes/dislikes me assuming they have any talent at pretending to be friendly and want to hide any dislike. Like I think most people have a built-in that does that for them and mine is unplugged.

Also my parents were very intelligent, and unlike a lot of Ns or N-adjacents, they were nice enough to pretend to give a crap when they were being nice, and like .......... now I can't tell when other adults of sufficient intelligence are doing it these days? and I don't even have a warm/cold sense unless they give clues, and it takes a whole lot of effort to watch for them and doesn't come naturally?

Does this make sense? It sounds like an anxiety/shame complex under a very thin veil but I promise it's not, because I don't ... really react to things in that way?? I realized over the past 5 years or so that I really just cannot temperature check people's like/dislike toward me unless they are very clear about it, like if I start to have questions about somebody I have to sit down and think it out and it still doesn't compute, and since most of the people in my daily life are (good hearted) snarky types who have been thru a lot of trauma, everybody is nice but keeps their cards close to the vest and I can never have any good sense of where I stand. It's always a big question mark. "Just talk about it" doesn't work because these people don't do that, and I suppose neither have I ever outside of a romantic relationship. (edit: and my 3ish closest friendships)

I hate this but in some sense I'm not even trying to complain, this is just how it is, people make films about this culture, it's literally because civilization has only developed this far, I guess I'm just wondering how common it is to have this exact problem after being raised by Ns, orrrr if it's maybe more the autism. K THANKS BYE

A while ago Ns gave me a farewell email i think. I don't read their emails, but the header looked like that and I accidentally read part of the header. I didn't reply.

Since then, they've been spamming me like every other day, and i've replied to none of it.

They filed a missing person report. Popo called me and told me to come down to the station. I went over the police station, showed popo ID to prove i'm not missing. It wasn't too annoying, if nothing else, it's much less annoying to talk to an officer than my Ns.

I've been belittled by an officer previously over not talking with Ns. I just made up some nonsense until the popo was satisfied.

Popo; "Why did they file a missing person report?"

me; "they're racist towards the person i'm dating and it's retaliation"

Cross posting to the rbn community on Lemmy too

clearly state your case once and then leave it at that. If the narcissist doesn’t accept it and persists, walk away

Why are we arguing with someone who’s determined to see you as the cause of everything that’s wrong in their life?

X will reach out due to being concerned. X wastes a lot of time pretending to not be 100% on Nparent's side, then tells me to go back to them for more abuse.

I get drained if I spend too much time with someone negative. With less eye contact, I hold up better it seems.

I was housed recently. Lost my place and my Npartner. Had to move back in with Nparents. Npartner was bad, but Nparents are a whole other level of bad. I was in jail for 1 day. Nparents are comparably bad as the jail. The jail didn't allow me to use my prescription meds and confined me. Npartner was more about the silence treatment and immense passive aggression.

Nparents, I have some freedom of movement, but:

severely limited freedom of movement (I'm 30, have to ask permission, permission which may be arbitrarily withheld, not allowed to use public transport (I can’t drive, disability), have to sneakily use meds, constant insults, fat shaming (my bmi is 20), being told everyone they know hates me, constant threats of being evicted, threatening to call cops on me, pretty limited food despite there being enough food in the house, not allowed to go to food bank, soup kitchen, have previously thrown away my meds, trying to discourage me from having privacy, constant worry about the internet/electronics being monitored, strict speaking requirements when I’m near them, many banned conversation topics, dress code, strong discouragement of contact with friends/extended family, enforced eating etiquette, not allowed to displays symptoms of my disability (when it acts up, I’m required to try to hide it – then they later chastise me by saying ‘see, i told you, you have no symptoms), prohibiting anti-perspirant, required to ‘cleaning’ my armpits multiple times per day with some kind of chemical that burns, threats of being forced to wax my armpits (i’m a male), prohibited from doing calming activities like meditation, requirement to be ‘productive’, constantly told I’m not productive, requirement to agree with them in ‘conversation’ when they are mocking homeless/minorities/disabled people, disallowing me to use accessibility devices, the fact that they freely walk into 'my' room regardless of whether or not i'm changing (was sexually assaulted by them previously), Nbrother has previously approached my friends to try to turn them against me, and more.

Nmom occasionally pretends to be understanding. I spoke to her about living in a homeless shelter and just storing my stuff at her house. Thoroughly chastised.

All of this is 1 week in. I'm definitely going to be evicted from here. Nmom is very unhappy that I receive welfare and has already begun taking action to cause financial dependence on her. Any advice here? I plan to refuse to voluntarily give access to my bank account or my electronics - I plan to change majors passwords every week. She will demand control over my finances, it has happened in the past.

Nparents definitely causes fleas. When I’m out and about it’s much harder to talk to randoms like cashiers. When I speak to someone and they’re not mean to me, I’m surprised the whole time. The whole Nparent experience strongly encourages some kind of mutism.

They'd asked 'why didn't you do that?' I'd explain, then get in even more trouble for explaining. I thought they wanted an answer? Am i suppose to just say nothing?

Me: do you think they're justified, both Nparents, in banning me from communicating with you (FM uncle)?

The reply:

They were still and always will be your parents, and I the doting uncle.. But some, seem threatened by this. I have done no harm to either of your parents. In fact your Mom had resumed communicating with me from March last year, ever since Nana came to live with me.
Perhaps they have offered their reasons to you, for this banning.

My other sisters have adult kids with whom I communicate almost daily.

Seems your parents became unhappy when I did not inform them that you were communicating with me, over element.
Naturally, I wanted to assist you as best as possible by even inviting you to come to brazil. I'm flummoxed really with their attitude.

Now that you back home, I hope that all the necessary steps are taken to get your place back.

Mom is no longer communicating with me, in fact she has attempted to vilify me with the rest of my family, here in brazil... they have no desire to heed her wishes to end our strong relationship

Some analysis; notice how in his whole reply, he sorta addressed my original question, but he doesn't directly and sorta beats around the bush. He throws in a 'They were still and always will be your parents'. This, 'now that you're back home, your [...] safe', couldn't be less true, and they should know that based on my previous complaints.

When I was a little kid my mother (passive agressive bipolar narcissist) opened her heart to me. Keep in mind, I am her first of two children with different fathers and she wasn't married. She told me how she never felt loved by her parents, siblings, or the men in her life. She said she thought by having a baby she would get someone who had no choice but to love her.

When my half-brother and I were 13 and 11, she abandoned us in a trailer on a dirt road. She had found a boyfriend who was also her boss at work. She went home with him at night and rarely came home.

The electricity got turned off because she didn't pay the bill more times than I can count. The refrigerator and shelves were empty most of the time. My brother and I had to go fishing, steal corn from the fields, and collect returnable bottles from the roads to eat. Some days we got nothing.

She would come home for a week or so every few months when she was fighting with her boyfriend. Then she got groceries for us.

Now I am middle aged. I live on the opposite side of the planet and don't talk to her.

My brother lives a few miles from her and barely talks to or visits.

Her boyfriend died years ago.

She thought only of herself when we were young and needed parents and now she is lonely.

Sandy (Ngrandma) declares that the next time her grandchildren come over she's going to reiterate the house rules, point out the two rules plaques she already has up, and put up another ten. The other members cheer her on. Much later, her granddaughter chooses a university she would need to drive to, instead of getting a ride with her mother. Sandy demands to have input into her granddaughter's school choice before she'll hand over the promised money. One of the commenters escalates with a proposed plan of action so long that it spans two screens. The gist of it is that Sandy is correct to take a hard line with her entitled "pissant of a GD," and should give her granddaughter the money only if the girl agrees to get a technical or nursing degree and presents her GPA to Sandy for approval. Sandy should keep the money in her own name, refuse to pay for books and supplies in order to keep her granddaughter frugal, and send funds directly to the school rather than allowing any to pass through her granddaughter's hands. It's an extraordinary demonstration of punitive control over a girl who insists upon choosing her own university. The other members agree that it's an excellent scheme, and Sandy resolves to put it into action.

from http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/estranged-parents-confront-reasons.html

Nfam got together and spent 2+ hrs complaining about me and discussing whether they will evict me late at night. But not to me, to each other. They made sure they were yelling about it through the entire house, so i heard them. For context i'm disabled. Next day they left this note on the fridge:

They may be incapable of knowing. There are no magic words that will penetrate their defenses.

The good news is that you're free. You can stop now. If you need permission, I'll give it to you: You are hereby allowed to stop trying to get through to your wilfully deaf parents.

Please stop.

From https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html

I've been paying attention over the years and have seen a slow escalation of aggression by the Ns. It just dawned on me that if this keeps going up, they might actually kill me, like stab me to death.

have no plan to ever delete these posts and am not suicidal, if it ever comes about that I died from suicide or something, you know who did it! Similarly, if my posts are ever all deleted by this account, you know who did it!

What should I do/say if they press for "what errands"?

For calls, I plan to say counselor or pastor.

I can throw in a "needed to stretch my legs" periodically

My parents are atheism lol. When i'm pestered about why i'm sorta religious, I tell them the most obnoxious statement I've heard from church. Ex, "why are you going there to pray again?" Me; "bc jesus died for our sins, which means that like the muslims, christians should be praying x times per day, bc blah blah" and they get bored and leave me alone immediately lol.

Just wondering. My Nparents liked trump the moment he said 'muslims bad'

GC has, apparently, for the past few yrs, been LC with Nparents. Including LC when with them in person. GC recommended Ndad gets a therapist and he has. Therapist told Ndad that his family sucks from the sounds of it, and he announced to me today that GC seems awfully rude. I've never heard him say anything negative about GC. Overall, this has resulted in me receiving slightly better treatment than pre therapist. Ndad for a few years now has been more open to talking with others about supposed 'private problems'