The Person vs. The Persona

Recently, David Bowie's widow, the exquisite Iman Abdulmajid, described succinctly why their 24-year marriage had been so harmonious: "We both understand the difference between the person and the persona".

This distinction is important. All of us - even those of us who are not a global icon or a supremely famous, talented and successful superstar  - have a 'persona' (our 'public face', literally 'mask' in Latin), which is an integral, essential but SEPARATE aspect of our 'person' (the individual  we really are, what defines us when our guard is down, i.e. our true identity and personality). 

The persona is a shapeshifter and can be deceitful, misleading, vain, outrageous, disingenuous, shrewd and superficial, while the person remains (or should remain) constant: our true self. That true self is in all likelihood quite drab and boring, that is to say quintessentially human, and certainly at least a little insecure, needy and flawed, but nevertheless we need to stay loyal to our true self, even when we are putting on a show of being 'someone else'. The person we pretend to be when we go for a job interview, for example, is quite distinct from the person we pretend to be when we go out for drinks with our colleagues or other acquaintances. And both those 'personas', which tend to comprise a tweaked suggestion of our real selves, are nevertheless quite different from the person we are at home, in front of our close friends, partners, parents, children and other family members.

The narcissist has a persona (usually numerous personas) at the expense of the person. In other words, the narcissist is ONLY the mask/s, and literally nothing else. It's tempting for me to say that the wicked bitch I saw at home was who my mother really is - volatile, vindictive and violent - but I don't think that at all. The real, authentic person she once was, whoever and whatever that is, didn't disappear overnight. In fact I believe she's still in there, somewhere. But the fake, contrived persona that my mother is so desperate to uphold has, in effect, usurped the real person. As a consolation to myself, I tell myself that the person my mother really is, buried underneath all that bluster and pretence, is the kind, loving, attentive, compassionate, tender, affectionate and generous mum I needed and deserved. But I don't really believe that, either.

Personas are bullshit. We all have them, and we all need them, but we must recognise them as bullshit, and extricate ourselves as much as possible from the constrictive shackles of 'image management' and of caring too much about what other people think of us. Sadly for narcissists, personas are all they have. Where there should be a pulsing heart and a vibrant character and a real, naked soul, there is a void. Nobody's home. And nobody's ever coming home. 

The narcissist: an emotionless facsimile

"A narcissist is not a fully functioning human being - they are only an emotionless facsimile."

I've already written a post about NPD and its relation with the nature of evil, and another post examining the question of whether it's rooted in (or inevitably leads to) mental illness, or insanity.

There are two options, the way I see it:

(1) My mother's memories and perceptions are so warped, so detached from (and at odds with) reality, and her delusions are so deeply entrenched that she really, genuinely DOES believe that she never abused any of her daughters at all. In fact, in her mind, her daughters are the ones at fault, and SHE is the victim, the poor suffering devoted mother who 'only did her best' and has been cursed not only with three awful ex-husbands but with three difficult, dishonest, disappointing, unreasonable, mentally unstable daughters, one of whom is dead, one of whom is estranged and one of whom has as little to do with her as possible. This tactic would, to say the least, obviously involve a considerable amount of 'selective amnesia' on my mother's part, because I have MANY crystal-clear and unbearably painful memories of both my younger sister and myself being beaten, belittled, humiliated, screamed at, manipulated, neglected, disrespected and ignored by her. Denying or downplaying these incidences - hundreds of them, not just the odd abusive incident every now and then - does not miraculously make them 'untrue'. But I can understand why she would want to deny them - why she would NEED to deny them. This option means my mother is MENTALLY ILL, possibly INSANE. 

(2) My mother knows that I'm telling the absolute truth when I have confronted her about how she deviously abused me (and my sisters, and my dad, albeit different methods used for all four of us). She knows that every accusation I have levelled against her is irrefutably true - she knows she has been a terrible, abusive, negligent and cruel mother, that she has always deliberately and insidiously exploited her own daughters' weaknesses and prioritised herself above us, and never once so much as acknowledged the relentless awfulness of her behaviour, much less made any sort of heartfelt apology. She knows the full extent of her cruelties and her many shortcomings and toxic exploits, and she knows how terribly these have damaged us, her daughters, the very people she is supposed to love and protect above all others. She KNOWS ALL OF THIS, and that her abhorrent manipulations have compelled me to deny the truth while promoting her precious lies and delusions (to the detriment of my own mental health). And finally, she knows that now, at almost 40 years old, when I have finally found the strength to talk frankly and candidly about the past and the many ways in which she has been DIRECTLY and EXCLUSIVELY to blame for the countless abuses inflicted on me and my sisters, she CHOOSES to pretend to 'not be that person'. She chooses instead to deny it all, and to project it all back onto me, blaming ME for EVERYTHING just because I'm the only one with the balls to stand up to her at long fucking last. This option means my mother is EVIL. 

So, which is it? Is my mother mentally ill, or is she evil? A combination of both? I know there's nothing wrong with her memory (she's demented, not senile), but there's undoubtedly something profoundly wrong with her brain. As I will examine in other posts, there are many different 'types' of narcissism, and sub-types of maternal narcissism specifically. Regardless of whether she is insane, evil or both, my mother is, indisputably, a VICTIMISED NARCISSIST (see my blog post The abuser plays the victim):

Overlooking the typo, I could have written this word for word about my own mother

What about me, then? Am I mentally ill or evil? Well, let's think about that. Although not as sharp as it once was (back in my youth...), there's definitely nothing wrong with my memory, apart from the fact that chronic childhood trauma has perhaps necessitated the repression of my worst experiences, as a defence mechanism. I have no desire to dredge those up, but be assured: if I did, they would incriminate my mother to a horrifying extent. I'm emotionally damaged, and have mild anxiety and various other minor and surmountable psychological issues, but I'm not mentally ill. 

So am I evil? Or how about just a little bit mean? Am I being cruel to the woman who gave me life? Surely, at the very least, I'm being disrespectful? Or stretching the truth? Well now, let's have a good hard think about that, too. How do you deal with someone who systematically and remorselessly trivialises your emotions, preys on your vulnerabilities, chips away at your sanity and manipulates the outside world to make you feel that YOU are the 'bad' one, and to make everyone else believe that you're the bad one? How do you deal with someone like that? Well, you probably cut them out of your life, as quickly and completely as possible, don't you? But what if you live with that person, what if you have NO CHOICE but to live with that person, to grow up under their direct influence, what if your very existence relies on being LOVED and cared for by that person, what if that person gave birth to you and so EVERYONE automatically assumes they have your best interests at heart? 

What then?

I'll tell you what: it's the worst kind of daily mental torture for a child; a slow drip-feed of emotional abuse, confusing mixed messages, invalidation and mind-fucking hell from every direction - not just from the narcissistic mother herself but from every oblivious, willfully ignorant or complicit family member or friend or acquaintance who toes the line, repeats the lie: "your mother loves you and your happiness is important to her" and even "she is a good mother and you are lucky to have her". Even when the victim FINALLY finds the courage to be open and honest about the abuse they suffered (and believe me, it takes more courage than any abuse apologist could possibly find within themselves), these people still repeat that same old bullshit, refusing to accept they've been duped by a monster. She loves you. She wants you to be happy. She did her best. Try to understand what she's been through, all that she's sacrificed for you. Be a good daughter to her, she deserves your love and loyalty. Don't bear a grudge, anger is such a wasteful emotion.

So I'll end this with one final message to my mother's enablers and flying monkeys; all the people who have always unquestioningly believed her heinous, poisonous claims of victimhood and who presume her unimpeachable innocence of all wrongdoing, even after I have bared my heart and soul with desperate and beseeching honesty. If you can stand, without shame or hesitation, in support of a narcissistic abuser by telling their victim that THEY are wrong, that they are cruel for even daring to bring up the past, that they must forgive and forget, that they must make allowances, then YOU are part of the problem and will NEVER be part of the solution. And, quite frankly, you can all go fuck yourselves.

Resources:

https://afternarcissisticabuse.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/a-narcissist-is-not-a-fully-functioning-human-being-they-are-only-an-emotionless-facsimile/

Discipline? Abuse? Where do we draw the line?

Today I read a thought-provoking article called The Viral Popularity of Child Abuse, which looked at the various dysfunctional and dastardly (if increasingly inventive) methods of 'discipline' employed by parents these days, many of which are vaunted on social media as admirable examples of 'progressive parenting'. In every case, 'discipline' is merely the execution of good old-fashioned punishment. The article led to the grim but irrefutable conclusion that: "The world will continue to be a broken place if we continue to break our kids."

I disagree, however, about authoritarianism being at an all-time high - what's happened is that boundaries have become increasingly blurred, and people generally have become desensitised, detached, conceited and cripplingly insecure. (These things are interestingly the basis for NPD, which might go some way to explaining why NPD now seems to be almost an epidemic in modern society.)

So many people, even including those who are not narcissists, are preoccupied with how other people see them, constantly seeking approval and validation from both friends and total strangers when their priority should be raising happy, healthy, confident kids on their own terms. (This in turn can only realistically be achieved if the parent is reasonably happy, healthy and confident.) Parenthood is hard, it's really, really fucking hard, and women in particular turn against each other as mothers rather than raising their children together as a cooperative community (remember the phrase, "it takes a village to raise a child"?), and supporting each other with honesty and compassion and reciprocal respect. 

It's become a point of rivalry; of conflict, tension and snide, arbitrary one-upmanships which boil down to a fearsome, confusing, goalpost-shifting, back-stabbing, shit-eating and entirely pointless 'competition'. And it's ALWAYS the children who suffer, because they are only ever allowed to be defined in terms of how their behaviour (including their mistakes, misfortunes and achievements) reflect on their parent.

My mother's concept of discipline was somewhat skewed, in fact to use the technical term it was fucked, and her punishments were as disproportionate as they were random. I certainly suffered for it. All her daughters suffered immeasurably from her conspicuous lack of even the most rudimentary mothering ability. Her very presence made me feel uncomfortable at best, terrified at worst. 

But discipline is so important, and getting it right is one of the biggest challenges of parenthood. One accepted definition of discipline is: control that is gained by requiring that rules or orders be obeyed and punishing bad behavior. 

And there's that dirty word 'control' again. Nobody wants a child who is 'out of control', but equally, do we really want 'controlled' children? What kind of parent wants a child who lives in fear of them? Answer: the kind of parent who doesn't differentiate between fear and respect.

Rewarding good behaviour (positive reinforcement) is at least as important as punishing bad behaviour, and consistency is key. A major function of discipline is teaching children to take responsibility for their behaviour, and to observe acceptable and appropriate boundaries. Parents who see discipline as a way of wielding power over their children and instilling fear in them will not succeed in creating well-adjusted citizens. According to Glynis Sherwood, "Families that are shame or fear based are not healthy.  Often in these families you will find evidence of abuse, neglect, addiction, betrayal, mental illness and insecurity." (I will refer to this excellent article again in a later post, as it is primarily focused on the narcissistic parent's poisonous tactic of "scapegoating those who want to understand and change negative dynamics" within a toxic family, and as a family scapegoat myself, her words resonate strongly with me.)  

In terms of discipline, as long as a parent maintains the consistent tacit message that they LOVE their child unconditionally, nobody should interfere with how they choose to discipline their child. Every family should be based on a foundation of unconditional love. Unconditional love means NEVER humiliating/shaming, hitting (to intentionally hurt), insulting or demeaning your child, so if a parent does any of those things and calls it discipline, they are indeed 'broken' and need fixing themselves.

Side note: I know plenty of good parents who smack their children and there IS a difference between a single, brief smack to the bottom or leg (as a last resort), and actual physical abuse of a child. My dad smacked me once or twice and it sorted my behaviour out immediately, because he was not a violent man and I knew the smack was not intended to hurt or humiliate me but as a way of signalling: that's quite enough of your shittiness, young lady. My mother actually beat me up; smacks, slaps and even occasional punches, often hard enough to cause bruises, and I never even knew what I'd done to deserve it. (Of course, no child EVER 'deserves' it.) But as this 'Revolutionary Parent' article touches on, as appalling and unforgivable as it is, physical abuse can be the least damaging form of child abuse, even though the effects of it tend to be the most outwardly obvious. Bruises at least fade in time.

References:

http://revolutionaryparent.com/child-abuse-viral/

http://glynissherwood.com/12-steps-to-breaking-free-from-being-the-family-scapegoat/

Should we think of NPD as a mental illness?

I am a member of the facebook support group Adult Children Raised by Narcissist Mothers, which has proved to be another invaluable resource, since having an unloving mother can be such an isolating and invalidating experience. (I have been amazed to find there are THOUSANDS - in fact probably millions - of adults out there desperately trying to piece their lives together after a lifetime of narcissistic abuse from one or sometimes both parents.) A few days ago, I submitted the following post, which received a range of interesting comments and insights, mostly from other women who are 'No Contact' (or 'Low Contact') with their Narcissistic Mother:

Is NPD a mental illness? A 'disability'?

This is a long post but I hope some of you will find it thought-provoking. 

Dr Sam Vaknin is a "self-aware" narcissist who most of you are probably familiar with. He is the author of a book called "Malignant Self-Love" and he has an informative YouTube channel. Sam claims that narcissism is a 'disability', an assertion that I have to admit I scoffed at when I first read it. (How can he have the audacity to claim that he and other narcissists suffer from a 'disability', when they have awareness and volition and they clearly can control how they behave and how they treat other people!)

Recently I read a post on another narcissism survivor support page which categorically stated that NPD is not a mental illness and that we should NEVER think of it as a mental illness - which led to one of the most important, fascinating, thoughtful and divisive threads on the subject of NPD I have yet seen. My own mother, without doubt, has an undiagnosed mental illness (possible borderline schizophrenia and/or bipolar), in addition to her full-blown NPD, which exacerbates (and is exacerbated by) her NPD. As you can imagine, being her daughter has been a shitstorm of unpleasantness. There are numerous overlaps between the cluster B personality disorders, and I think very few narcissists have only NPD. It's often the main source of their problems and disordered thinking and behaviour (and certainly the one that ultimately alienates them the most), but NPD nearly always, and I think inevitably, coexists with at least one additional disorder or mental illness, whether that's addiction, depression, anxiety or any one (or more) of the others recognised by The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

[The question of 'what came first?' is an entirely separate issue and I'll be writing about that in a separate post.]

I think the reluctance to perceive NPD as an illness (which, for some people, is just a synonym for 'disorder') is because the person with NPD isn't the one who suffers. (At least it certainly doesn't seem that way.) WE SUFFER. We have suffered, and we suffer still. Because of those unconscionable, fucked-up, abusive monsters who call themselves our 'mothers' and who demand that we respect and defer to them for the sole reason they gave birth to us, and regardless of what secret hell they put us through behind closed doors.

Most of us tend to associate illness with suffering. Cancer is suffering. Depression is suffering. To have a broken leg, or influenza, or a nervous breakdown, or insomnia, or PTSD, or ANYTHING that causes pain or curtails your enjoyment of life... It's all 'suffering'. We live, we suffer. Some might argue that it is impossible to have a meaningful life at all without suffering.

But NPD? Do narcissists suffer, or do they just live to cause suffering for others? Are the two necessarily mutually exclusive? I don't think so. NPD is predicated on a foundation of burning, seething and unquenchable JEALOUSY and RESENTMENT, with an ever-flowing undercurrent of fearsome, undiluted self-loathing and all-consuming insecurity, shame and confusion. The mask that says it loves/hates you (depending on whatever capricious mood the narcissist is in) is just that - a mask. Only a mask. Underneath the mask, what is there? Nobody knows, least of all the narcissistic mother herself.

Clearly, that's not a normal or healthy way to lead a life. I personally understand that to be suffering, albeit a different way of suffering that we, as normal people, as empaths, can readily relate to.

We are all familiar with physical disabilities, even if we are fortunate enough to not be directly affected by physical disability ourselves, and we all know (some of us only too well) the myriad of mental illnesses, disabilities and disorders. Some people suffer from both mental and physical disabilities  - cerebral palsy and Parkinson's, for example, or the consequences of severe head trauma (e.g. road traffic accident). But by their nature, most mental/psychological illnesses (apart from certain chronic addictions) are not outwardly obvious. Can you imagine what a narcissist would look like if their affliction showed on the outside?

Having given it a lot of thought and reflection, I believe narcissism is the worst emotional impairment - yes, disability, actual handicap - that any human can be afflicted with. This is not to understate or demean in any way the plight and suffering of those millions of people who have the 'obvious' life-limiting mental and/or physical illnesses and disabilities, but crucially those people ARE, generally, entirely capable of connecting with their fellow human beings. (I even enjoyed a loving, if inevitably odd and strained, relationship with my paranoid schizophrenic half-sister - because her heart was most definitely in the right place.) 

I think it is impossible, however, to be a narcissist and lead a meaningful, enjoyable life of love, happiness and pure pleasure.

Just because, as their victims, we naturally find it impossible to 'pity' narcissists, or to empathise with or even begin to understand their reasons for doing what they do, doesn't mean they are not suffering all the time, in ways we cannot even imagine. (Nor would we want to imagine.) 

It is true that NPD is not, officially at least, classified as a mental illness. I maintain it is, however, an emotional illness which is as horrifying and debilitating as any chronic mental illness. And let's not forget that our emotions provide the infrastructure of our mental state, our sanity, along with our cognitions, memories and perceptions.

We will never pity these people, and nor should we. But if we try to understand why they are the way they are, even if we can never forgive or certainly never excuse it, it should help us recover from the decades of remorseless, agonising torment we received from the one woman in our life who is supposed to love, cherish, encourage and protect us. 

The assumption of conscience

"Society assumes that everyone has a conscience and the ability to empathize.... [People with NPD] and their like-minded cousins, sociopaths and psychopaths, speak in the language of crazy-making, of projection, of word salad, of gaslighting and of pathological envy. [They] walk among us every day in their false masks, often unseen and noticed because of how eerily normal they are.... 

...Learning the emotional language of these predators means acknowledging that their cruelty is not only explicit but implicit, deeply ingrained in nuances in their facial expressions, gestures, tones, and most importantly, the contradictory mismatch between their words and actions. Most importantly, their cruelty is deliberate and designed to control and ultimately destroy their victims. Their manipulation is psychological and emotionally devastating – and very dangerous, especially considering the brain circuitry for emotional and physical pain are one and the same...

...These types of abusers are fluent in manipulation, well-versed in sadism, in control and in rage – their deliberate cutting down of you, which can be best described as “death by a thousand cuts,” can be just as slow and insidious as it is swift and vicious. It is akin to psychological and emotional rape – a sordid violation of boundaries and of the trust the victim has given his or her abuser. Narcissistic abusers can attack at any given moment, using their choice weapons of sarcasm, condescending remarks, name-calling, and blame-shifting whenever they perceive you as a threat or whenever they need entertainment in the form of an emotional reaction."  

I have copy/pasted above most of the introduction to Shahida Arabi's excellent article on the Mind's Journal website, The Secret Language of Narcissists, Sociopaths and Psychopaths: How Emotional Predators and Abusers Manipulate Their Victims (link below, under 'Resources'). I usually like to read something, digest it, mull it over, and then write my own take on it - but this article is absolutely on point, starting with the very first sentence. (Do check out Shahida Ariba's 'Self Care Haven', it's a wonderful resource for those recovering from narcissistic abuse, or anyone wishing to find out more about NPD.)

The assumption of conscience is what unites all of us, that is to say, the vast majority of us who are not narcissists, sociopaths or psychopaths. We have a conscience, therefore we vicariously 'feel' the pain (or joy) of our fellow human beings and we instinctively empathise with them to some degree. To us, that is what makes us human; it is the very essence of humanity. (Indeed, even some primates, and other animals, have been observed to display seemingly empathetic behaviour: see, for example, this 'Animals and Emotions' blog post: can animals feel empathy?)

So, it is natural for us to assume that the people we meet - even the people with whom we share no connection or kinship - have this same primordial understanding of what it means, and how it feels, to be human. Self-aware narcissist Dr Sam Vaknin states that "Conscience is predicated on empathy... Without empathy, there can be no love or conscience... the narcissist has neither. To him, people are silhouettes, penumbral projections on the walls of his inflated sense of self, figments of his fantasies. How can one regret anything if one is a solipsist (i.e. recognises only his own reality and no one else's)?"

This Sam Vaknin quote about narcissism and conscience is analysed and expanded upon superbly by Kathy in her 'What Makes Narcissists Tick' blog: Do narcissists have a conscience?

My mother, like most narcissists, fakes empathy with panache. She does appear to have a conscience, and she does appear to have genuine feelings of love for her friends (i.e. she does all the things a good friend is 'supposed to do', and sometimes even goes the extra mile if that friend is a particularly valuable source of supply). Yet when it comes to her daughters, she rarely even bothers even faking it - unless there's an audience, of course. I do not recall a single incident, at least not in my teenage years and adulthood, when she has shown me anything even vaguely resembling compassion or maternal warmth - or even a passing interest in my life and my feelings. 

The only time she has appeared remotely affected by my emotions is when I have been upset or stressed about something - and then she is typically cajoling, disdainful and sometimes even jubilant/smirking; half-demented by schadenfreude. There are many examples of this abhorrent ability to "find pleasure in my pain", but one that sticks in my memory is the first time my husband (when he was still just my 'boyfriend') came back to my mother's home after we'd just spent the evening together somewhere in London. There were other people there, but I don't recall exactly who - possibly my dad and my sister and maybe one or two others. My mother proceeded to have one of her 'episodes' - she would call it 'being kooky and eccentric'. I would describe it in other terms, but I'll relate it here and you can decide. My mother knew that I was really, really serious about my boyfriend. She could see that he and I were very much in love.

And she couldn't stand it. My happiness was torturous for her. She felt compelled to do something to destroy it, or at least to lessen or diminish it - as she has always done whenever my life has seemed too disagreeably fortunate in her eyes.

So she began embarking on one of her 'scenes' - I was of course horribly familiar with her various tried-and-tested methods of absolute mortification, and I knew it was inevitable that she would humiliate me at some point, in some way. It started relatively low-key, kicking off with what she probably likes to call her "cutely inebriated" act, even though she was as sober as the rest of us. So she swayed, sashayed and undulated like an aged go-go dancer through from the kitchen into the lounge, where the rest of were all seated with ever-increasing discomfiture and bemusement, chanting as she clacked castanets above her head. (Yes, really.) I tensed, as I knew what was coming and I also knew I was powerless to do anything about it. I couldn't say, "Mother, you are embarrassing yourself," because that would have encouraged her. It would have meant her plan was working. It might even have made her strip to her underwear and assume the lotus position. So, as was my usual stance in such dire situations, I stayed silent and hoped that this preposterous performance would be over soon.

We were in her house, therefore the tacit understanding was that she had free reign to behave in any way she wanted. In fact, she believed she had free reign to behave in any way she wanted wherever we were, so this 'licence to humiliate' was naturally entirely non-negotiable chez elle.  

In desperation, I glanced at my boyfriend. I expected him to look horrified but he merely observed her in the same way a microbiologist might observe bacteria multiplying in a petri dish. 

Before I even had time to say "Please try to not be inappropriate with my boyfriend, if possible", my mother crouched behind him and, to his consternation (and mine), started giving him a shoulder rub, declaring him to be "very tense" (no shit!), while cutting me loaded sidelong glances. She leaned in close to his ear and whispered, loud enough for me and everyone else in the room to hear, "I don't know why you put up with her..."

When I look back on memories such as this (and this is just one of many hundreds of similarly horrendous and cringeworthy examples, and not even the worst by far), I do wonder what exactly stopped me from just marching out of her house in fury and disgust, and never looking back, just stopping all contact with her there and then? I was 28 years old at the time and by this stage, had long since reached the conclusion that she'd never apologise for anything she did to hurt, upset or humiliate me. In fact, it had become obvious that she actually went out of her way to hurt, upset and humiliate me, and so by drawing attention to the fact she had succeeded to do so was grist for the mill. The question of why I put up with this heinous behaviour for as long as I did is one I don't think I can ever really answer. Maybe it was just "because she's my mother", which is also exactly the reason why she just kept on doing it, and doing it, over and over and over again.

If, as human beings, we find it difficult to comprehend how another human being can lack a conscience (indeed it is the reason we have such a morbid fascination for 'high-profile' psychopaths and serial killers), how can we possibly believe that a parent will have no conscience about abusing and neglecting their own child? That is, surely, beyond the pale.

Indeed it is. And it is also the main reason why the Narcissistic Mother has an invigorated and passionate team of enablers, while her damaged children are routinely disbelieved and dismissed. 


Like many people, I have been watching 'Game of Thrones' with breathless excitement and anticipation. The series is an irresistible, lurid hothouse of rampant narcissism (as well as the requisite gore, violence, gratuitous nudity and sex), but the ultimate Narcissistic Matriarch is, of course, Cersei Lannister. As vindictive and villainous as she is, what I like about the sublimely psychotic character of Cersei is that she does, at least, strive to protect her children. She is absolutely vile - indeed, without conscience - to everyone else, but when it comes to her children, she seems to have the right thought processes in place, however misguidedly or wantonly she bulldozes those thought processes into action. Although she is far from being a perfect or even a 'good' mother (partly due to being certifiably insane), her love for her children appears to be absolute, steadfast and ferocious - as any mother's love should be.

My mother is the opposite. She adores and fawns over anyone she didn't give birth to on the strict understanding that they agree with her... and so long as they remain blind to 'what lurks beneath the mask', indeed completely oblivious to the existence of the mask - whether she's known them for five decades or five minutes. Her attitude DEMANDS that they reciprocate that adoration, because that's the deal, alright? She is and always has been a social butterfly, flitting noncommittally but with vociferous enthusiasm from one distraction to the next, only occasionally settling on something if it satisfies her fearsome desire for admiration. (Her favourite expression, one my sister and I heard daily for YEARS, and always expressed with her characteristic attention-seeking shrillness, is "I'm so busy!")

While she has a good number of stalwart 'friends' who have 'known' her for many years, she always likes to meet new people in new environments, and to have her precious False Self reaffirmed, reevaluated and appreciated with fresh, often fleetingly temporary, sources of supply. She loves being the centre of attention, she loves the feeling of someone hanging on to her every word, and she loves the thrill (however empty) of having her manufactured False Self validated. She requires it constantly, however, and as she is now elderly and has managed to permanently repel anyone who has a natural aversion to bullshit (i.e. MOST PEOPLE WITH A FUNCTIONING BRAIN), I doubt she will continue to get the necessary narcissistic supply - in terms of both quantity and quality - that her withered, fragile, hanging-by-a-thread ego craves. Still, it's Not My Problem. It never was, and it certainly isn't now.

So, while my mother can switch on the 'love' and glassy-eyed rapture for many people, when it comes to her own children, the closest she can get to 'love' is pity. (She pities my sister, her youngest daughter, and this pity is precariously counterbalanced by contempt, so the pity comes from her overblown, supercilious sense of ascendancy, not an inherent source of empathy or even of its inferior cousin, sympathy.) 

Make no mistake: she absolutely despises me. Nothing would make my mother gladder than my death, and I am not stating such an appalling thing for dramatic effect - it is the truth. My death would be sweet rapture for her - all that delicious, undivided attention she will get from everybody! "Yes, I loved my daughter," she will gasp through her crocodile tears as her friends crowd around the poor, supposedly bereaved woman with appropriate utterances of sympathy. "She was my baby. I tried to be a good mother to her, I really did my best. But she rejected me; she hurt me so much. I will never know why, she was just so crazy and cruel and unreasonable, it broke my heart. After all I've been through! She was my baby...." [sobbing and anguished wails, ad nauseam]

I can hear the words and I can see her fake face saying them, and everybody falling unquestioningly for the act, and it makes me want to vomit. Obviously, the main reason my mother will (secretly) celebrate my death is because I will be DEAD, actually dead, not just "dead as far as she's concerned", which is my current status in the diseased recesses of her mind. 

I am not planning on dying young (and God willing I'll live to see my beautiful sons grow into beautiful and successful men), but my mother will outlive me, I think. (That is why I want to make it clear, here and now on record, that I do not WANT her poisonous, hypocritical presence at my funeral, or anywhere near my children EVER; and anyone who dares offer the woman so much as a gram of sympathy in the event of my death might as well piss on my grave.) Narcissists tend to cling to life with a doddering, obstinate, grim determination, proffering their exhausted victims one final wizened and wheezing extended death rattle of a "fuck you" by simply refusing to just bloody give up and die. They get the last word, every time. Well, she's welcome to the last word. I'll give her that gift, in exchange for some fucking peace and self-respect at long last. I'll die happy and appreciated and surrounded by the people I love, which is more than can be said for her.

As you can probably tell, right now my mood doesn't permit me to state that I hope my mother's final years on this strange, freak-filled planet of ours are good and fulfilling ones, or as good and fulfilling as it is possible for a narcissist and schizoid fantasist to achieve. But when I've calmed down, that will be my genuine sentiment and my final thought about my mother - I seriously don't wish her ill at all; quite the opposite. I love her, and that's even in spite of everything she's put me through. I still love her.

To conclude: do not assume that everyone has a conscience. Do not assume that every parent loves their child. Do not assume that because somebody is elderly and frail that they are sweet and benign. Do not assume that a woman cannot be a psychopath (Elizabeth Bathory, Myra Hindley, Susan Smith, Beverley Allitt, Diane Downs, Amanda Knox). Do not assume that somebody who claims to be spiritual, devoted, loving and loyal actually IS spiritual, devoted, loving and loyal. (Indeed, ask yourself, would someone who genuinely IS all those things feel it necessary to labour the point?) Do not automatically believe a woman who dismisses her daughter as a vindictive liar just because "what mother would say such a thing about her own child unless it was true?". 

It's just possible that she has no conscience, and that her 'vindictive liar' of a daughter was the one who was telling the truth all along. 


Resources:

http://themindsjournalposts.tumblr.com/post/141414227989/the-secret-language-of-narcissists-sociopaths-and

http://narc-attack.blogspot.com.au/2008/01/do-narcissists-have-conscience.html

Shahida Arabi's Self-Care Haven

Dying to be validated: the 'silent epidemic' of child trauma

I stole half of this title from an article on the Chronicle of Social Change website (see resources), which looks at "trauma-informed systems and therapeutic approaches in schools" primarily in response to children facing family dysfunction and disruption. These children invariably suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD - more on that in another post) and associated maladaptive behavioural problems. 

In this post, I am going to look at a major trauma that affects children all over the world, the damaging and diverse consequences of which are evident in millions of adults who suffered it themselves as children: neglect. It is the most common and pervasive form of child abuse, and its long-term effects are no less severe than those of physical and sexual abuse.

Prolonged neglect from a primary caregiver leads to the fracturing and eventual dissolution of a child's sense of self-worth and of being acknowledged, accepted, valued, respected and cared for. In short, it is a pernicious and ruinous process of invalidation that, in the most severe cases, can lead to permanent brain atrophy and damage (see images above and below). I looked at emotional abuse in a previous post, and this is always underpinned by neglect. Worldwide, it is estimated that 40 million children under the age of 15 are abused every year - and every single one of those abused children will experience some sort of neglect as an integral part of that abuse. (Source: http://www.internationalcap.org/abuse_statistics.html)

Neglect is a “failure to provide the necessary care, aid or guidance to dependent adults or children by those responsible for their care.” It can be either active (intentional, borne of cruelty or sickness) or passive (due to the ignorance, inattentiveness, drug addiction, limited competence or other unsuitability of the caregiver).

There are many different types of neglect:
1. a failure to provide adequate food, drink, clothing, warmth/shelter, safety, health/medical needs or hygiene
2. ignoring a child (being emotionally absent, dismissive and disinterested)
3. allowing physical or sexual abuse of a child
4. lack of appropriate supervision, i.e. leaving a vulnerable child unattended (although this is a somewhat grey area, depending on age/maturity of the child, the length of time they are left, and the situation/context)
5. exposing a child to danger, unnecessary risk or inappropriate material (e.g. drugs, reckless driving, cigarettes, pornography) 
6. withholding of affection and comfort
7. unattentive to a child's education and play/stimulation/learning needs (sensory deprivation)
8. abandonment
9. encouraging criminality
10. a failure to protect a child from witnessing fights, arguments and violence (e.g. marital conflict)
11. showing flagrant preferential treatment to a sibling (or other child) 


"...the most seriously damaged children... are not just those who are physically abused or neglected. Rather, they include the children who have been psychologically neglected, the victims of mothers who are emotionally unresponsive to their children's needs. Such mothers tend to ignore their children when the youngsters are uncomfortable, hurt or unhappy and fail to share in the children's pleasures. The children, in turn, quickly learn not to look to their mothers for comfort and support." (New York Times, 20th December 1983)

As I outlined in my post "Insanity: the best possible option", my own mother relinquished all responsibility for her firstborn daughter (my half-sister), for reasons I neither fully know nor understand. I am going to assume that she had good reasons for doing so, and that the decision was emotionally devastating for her. (The issue of how devastating it must have been for her child is also explored in my 'Insanity' post.) My mother was fortunate enough to have good, caring parents who raised her daughter in her absence. But even looking at the situation dispassionately, what she did constituted appalling neglect, or at least dereliction of duty. Out of the list 1-10 above, I'd say as a minimum, she was guilty of 2, 6 and 8. 

When it comes to me and my younger sister, I'm more confident in the accusations I can level against my mother. She wasn't entirely neglectful (only the very worst and most sick and disordered parents are): she fed us and clothed us - cheap but nutritious food, and cheap, second-hand clothes, but that was all we could afford. After the divorce, I know for a fact that she did work very hard to keep a roof over our heads. 

But there are little things, which individually sound petty but add up to a whole lot of parental negligence. For example: other than attacking my head a few times with a nit-comb when I was a toddler (I got nits several times at playgroup/kindy), she never, ever combed, brushed or styled my hair with the colourful clips, bobbles and ribbons that adorned the heads of my friends. She encouraged me to wear it short (in fact she insisted on it until I was old enough to defy her), but even so, I had lovely golden hair. One of my memories of the mid-1980s, possibly just before or just after the divorce, was when a friend of my mother visited us at our house. She took one look at my unruly, disheveled mane and exclaimed: "Look at your hair! Heavens, does your mother never brush it?" She was joking, of course - what kind of mother never bothers to brush her daughter's hair?! (Answer: mine.) She was one of my mother's many close friends and firmly of the opinion that my mother was a GOOD PERSON and a GOOD MOTHER. So I obediently stayed silent. 

She asked me to fetch her a hairbrush, which I did, and she sat me on her lap and devoted the next ten minutes to brushing out every last kink, knot and tangle - of which there were many. It hurt a little, but I kind of enjoyed it. When she had finished, she gave the brush back to me and I just remember staring at my hundreds of discarded hair strands woven through the bristles. Then I went upstairs and looked at myself in the mirror, running my fingers through my hair and feeling amazed at how soft and smooth it looked and felt. I can't remember if my mother witnessed this simple act of kindness between her friend and her daughter, but if she did, it had no effect on her. She didn't want me to 'blossom', she didn't want me to feel good about myself, and she took no interest in helping me look or feel beautiful. Not when I was a child, and certainly not when I was a teenager.

At the age of 12, I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Looking at photos of myself from this time (late 1988/early 1989), I cannot believe how ill I looked - almost cadaverous. But it wasn't my mother who suggested I see a doctor after months of looking like this; it was my best friend, who noticed how much water I had been drinking, and how much weight I had lost (not to mention my sickly pallor, and the dark circles under my eyes). Surely my mother noticed all these changes too? If she had done, she said nothing. When I was in hospital trying to learn how to give myself blood glucose tests and inject myself with insulin, I got my first period. I remember excitedly telling my mother about it. Her reaction was lukewarm, but then I suppose I wasn't exactly expecting her to be jubilant. A year or so previously, I had asked her if we could go shopping together as I had convinced myself that I definitely needed a training bra for my tiny budding boobs - and she made my dad go with me. (The poor man! He was mortified, trudging around department stores with his 11-year-old daughter asking the bemused assistants "Where is your lingerie department please? My daughter here needs a bra. Yes. That's right. 30AA.")

Mostly, my mother ignored me, so she is most definitely guilty of number 2. As a human being with emotions and needs, I simply didn't exist to her. I bored and irritated her. Most of the time, I wasn't on her radar at all, and when she did acknowledge me, it was typically with annoyance, hostility or indifference. So even when she didn't make me feel invisible, she made me wish I could disappear. Every now and then, I did receive something that felt like affection - a foot massage, a shoulder rub (she qualified as a massage therapist in the early 1990s), a half-hearted, ambivalent word of praise or encouragement, or sometimes we'd snuggle up (never quite 'cuddling') on the sofa watching television. These little things, precious flashes of familial normalcy which would be completely inconsequential to the daughter of a normal loving mother, kept my hope alive that my mother did love me. Inevitably perhaps, these moments became rarer as I got older, and even the distant memories of those 'warmer' interactions between my mother and me only seem to worsen the pain and confusion. 

Would it have been better if my mother was horrible to me ALL THE TIME? I think it might have been, in a way, because at least then there would be no room for doubt. Sometimes, the doubt was the worst part of it all. Because the doubt gave me hope, and having hope about something that is manifestly hopeless is a sure way to mess up your head.

Did she allow me to be physically or sexually assaulted? Strictly speaking, no - she was the only adult who ever beat me (I think my dad might have smacked me once or twice, but nothing outrageously violent, it wasn't in his nature). If someone had interfered with me or sexually assaulted me, I have no doubt she would have been furious. But that fury would not have come from a sense of wanting to protect me and avenge the pervert but from her proprietorial sense of ownership over me. I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO IS ALLOWED TO TREAT THIS CHILD LIKE SHIT, AND I EARNED THAT RIGHT BY GIVING BIRTH TO HER. 

Before I was a teenager, my sister and I were always supervised by a 'responsible adult' at home, although I use the word 'responsible' in a fairly loose sense. So as far as I can remember, she is not guilty of number 4. She is not guilty of number 5 either, although she never, ever talked to me about sex and was appalled at the mere thought of me being sexually active - thus she tried, with vainglorious, head-in-the-sand intransigence, to ignore the fact I was turning into a desirous and desirable woman during the first half of the 1990s. Other than calling me a 'slut' a couple of times, she didn't acknowledge my sexuality at all. I stopped confiding in her completely, about anything, after 1995. And that was the year I left home to go to university (she didn't accompany me on my first day; she made it very clear that she was relieved to see the back of me). 

She is DEFINITELY guilty of number 6, so much so that even on the rare occasions she has 'hugged' me as an adult, the stiff, perfunctory gesture has sent shudders of horror and revulsion down my spine. How can you accept a hug from someone who beat you up and made your life hell for years and now denies it ever happened? How can you be amenable to any kind of affection, when you know it's just a lie, a front, and that you're simply expected to play along with the pretence?

Number 7 is a tricky one - I do think she was a reasonably good mother while I was very little and most in need of interaction, stimulation and feedback from her, although obviously my memories don't start until around the age of three or four. When I was at primary school, she allowed me to have parties and sleepovers with friends, which I know is an important social privilege denied to many children of narcissistic mothers. I do have a few good memories of this era in fact, although sadly nothing I can specifically remember about my mother... I just know she was there, and that I was often happy and content. Maybe because my dad was also there. That's the thing about childhood memories - they're rarely about specifics. It's usually just a general 'feeling' associated with the nostalgia: happiness, excitement, fear, confusion, guilt, sadness, dread... My later childhood was a mixture of all seven with ever decreasing proportions of the first two as I got older, coupled with ever increasing proportions of the rest. 

After the age of 9, she took little to no interest in my education. I passed the entrance exam for grammar school when I was 12, and she seemed quietly pleased, in the tight-lipped, stoical way she had of making sure I would never believe she might actually be proud of me. She never helped me with my homework, but I never presumed to ask her for help. I was fairly bright and I worked hard at school. This diligence and conscientiousness paid off when I got straight-As in my A-levels at 18, which meant I got into a decent university. The decision about which university to choose was another crucial life decision that my mother took absolutely NO interest in (but neither did my dad, to be fair), so I made it entirely on my own, with only a stack of prospectuses and a UK map for guidance. My mother was on holiday when I got my A-level results. She was on holiday when I gave birth to my first child. She went on holiday a lot. Still does, as far as I know. Her leisure and enjoyment has always been tip-top priority - because of course she's earned it after all those arduous, punishing years raising two daughters she didn't even want. 

She didn't literally abandon me, like she did my half-sister. However, emotionally, she was perpetually absent - she would have abandoned me, if she thought she could have done so without being judged badly for it. I don't know why she failed to bond with me (I will probably never know for sure), but I went through most of my life assuming that the lack of connection was my fault. I was defective. I was to blame. I was so difficult to love! Except I'm not. I'm as far from being perfect as all ordinary people are, but I am basically quite lovable. It took me the best part of 40 years to realise it, but I have all the good qualities that my mother lacks and expends all her energy faking - I have compassion and insight and emotional intelligence, and I am inherently kind, accepting, empathic and genuine. What my mother actually hated was the lack of all those things within herself, and the constant struggle of having to pretend that she didn't lack them. In effect, she 'stole' all my good qualities and projected (or tried to) all her bad qualities onto me. It wasn't a very fair trade. 

It is believed there is a link between parental neglect and criminality in later life (starting with juvenile delinquency and often progressing to serious and violent crimes), but because I lived in fear of my mother exacting her draconian punishments on me for the slightest perceived transgression, I was too terrified to do anything that might risk her wrath - even if I was ever tempted to do something illegal, which I wasn't. (Even so, she raged at me regularly, regardless of my behaviour.) Breaking the law (even the most minor of felonies, such as shoplifting a packet of crisps) was therefore out of the question. I wasn't scared of getting caught by CCTV or the police, I was scared of my mother's explosive reaction. I hankered after her approval. I yearned for it.

It never came.

I did dabble in a little bit of underage drinking, but that's a rite of passage, and it would be a long time before I actually derived any real pleasure from drinking booze and, later on in my mid-twenties, indulging without regret or compunction in a number of other hedonistic pursuits as a form of blissful (yet necessarily short-term) escapism. (Unfortunately, alcohol became a crutch for my sister, who has always had rather too much in common with our dad.)

Number 10: a resounding YES. The insidiously intensifying and often palpable tension between my parents from 1985 onwards was laid bare for my sister and I to witness, horrified, in all its hideous acrimonious glory. From frosty stand-offs, slanging matches and fever pitch arguments to the occasional physical fight (particularly when my older half-sister was staying with us). After my dad moved out, my mother was unable to say a single kind word about him. He was, depending on her mood (which was always a variation of 'very fucking bitter'): hopeless, useless, a liar, a traitor, a crap husband and a crap father; he was sick, alcoholic, suicidal, pathetic, a mess, a mummy's boy, an embarrassment. Meanwhile, we, her daughters, became the biggest regret of her life.

And, finally, number 11: narcissistic mothers divide and conquer. It is one of their most outrageous toxic strategies, and they tend to do this primarily through triangulation, a manipulative means of  communication and interaction that involves pitting one (or more) person against another and stoking up unnecessary tension and conflict, while somehow retaining the illusion of being the "peacekeeper". The narcissist is, in fact, a venomous, nefarious spider weaving an intricate web of lies around her flies, some of which she'll retain to groom or ignore, some of which she'll eat. My mother is the reason I am estranged from my sister, who I adore and with whom I once shared a precious bond. I will NEVER fucking forgive her for that. 

My mother also took great delight in COMPARING me (invariably unfavourably) to others, usually her friends' children. For example, while I studied hard to achieve a very respectable 2:1 honours degree from a top British university, my mother never wasted an opportunity to remind me that her best friend's eldest daughter, who is the same age as me, has a first class degree from Oxford University, and that she is so preternaturally intelligent she could probably have passed the exams in her sleep. Not ONCE has she told me she is proud of me, and instead prefers to speak in glowing terms about other people's offspring. It has ALWAYS been thus. She has never actually come out and told me directly "You are crap, you are inadequate and I am ashamed of you", but her colossal disappointment in me is heavily signposted in everything she does and everything she says.

The destructive cause and effect of the dynamic between my mother and every significant person she has had in her life is so blindingly obvious I struggle to understand how so few can see it, or why they refuse to see it.


In the course of my research for this blog post, I have read many harrowing accounts of the most vile child neglect and abuse, some so bad that I have had to take a few moments to have an impotent, anguished weep over the intolerable cruelty and injustice of the world. The 'headline' child abuse and neglect cases are probably horribly familiar to you - Jeffrey Baldwin, Baby P, Victoria Climbie, Daniel Pelka - these are just a small selection of the cases that made news in the past 20 years, and only because they ultimately resulted in the death of the child. For every (extreme) case we hear about, there are millions of others that we will never know about. Child abuse in all its forms and severities is going on all over the world, every minute of every hour of every day, and it is a 'silent epidemic' of unimaginable depravity and evil that is poisoning the lifeblood of the human race.


Resources:

https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/los-angeles/child-trauma-as-a-silent-epidemic/16869  

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/20/science/emotional-deprivation-seen-as-devastating-form-of-child-abuse.html

http://www.internationalcap.org/abuse_statistics.html

What's the difference between these two brains? (The Telegraph, 28th October 2012)

The National Bureau of Economic Research: Does Child Abuse Cause Criminality? http://www.nber.org/digest/jan07/w12171.html

https://relationshipedia.me/2015/05/13/the-4-most-common-narc-sadistic-triangulation-tactics/  Triangulation can be defined as an indirect form of communication where one person (usually the narcissist) acts as a messenger between two other people. Or it can be a direct form of communication where one person attempts to draw in an accomplice to gang up against a third party to further their agenda. In both cases, the messenger (usually the narcissist, but not always) will fabricate or alter a message, usually incorporating a grain of truth, to advance his/her objective. 


Recommended reading: 

Gerhardt, Sue, Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain

Cori, Jasmin Lee, The Emotionally Absent Mother