But there's always more

While I was crying silently in bed for 3 days my husband was reading and researching and taking care of the kids, the house, everything. I just couldn’t function. I was trying desperately to go back in being in denial as I just didn’t want to confess to myself that I had no mother. I never had.

Then on the third day my husband came to me and from the moment I saw his face I knew I am not going to like what he was about to tell me.

He first assured me that it’s completely normal to grieve, but unfortunately there is more. The part that there is more did not surprise me nor hurt me in any way. There’s always more. It’s never just one thing I learned. Once you manage to open your mind, willingly or not, blows are coming one after another and there is no way to know which one will be the last one.

I stopped crying and made an attempt to brace myself, thinking of what could be. Of course there was more. The question was do I “know” about it or it’s another thing I “know”, but seeing it and accepting it through a different angle – the one most suitable angle to protect myself and fit in in one of mine already non-existing realities.

Whatever it was there was no going back so I nodded. “Shoot, just say it as it is” – almost angry at him for no reason at all as he was and still is the only one that doesn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of my rage. I didn’t want to hear anything else, and by “shoot” in my mind was really like “please shoot me and relieve me of my agony.”

He read me lie a book and thought for a few seconds, which this time really made me angry. “Just say it and get over with! “ I shouted and instantly regret it. “I’m sorry, please don’t hate me, I know I’m hysterical and crazy, but just say it.”

“Ok, but it’s really important for you to know that I don’t hate and I’ll never will,” he paused for a second again trying to find the less harmful words, only there’s no such words, when it comes to such matters. “OK, I know you don’t want to talk about anything right now, but this is the only way” – I could feel the pain in his voice and my tears started rolling down my face again. “It’s not just your mum, it’s your father too.”

I didn’t get it at first. My father? “What about him?” unconsciously preparing myself to defend him.

“He is a narcissist too.”

My mind froze for a second or minute, the concept of time was beyond my understanding. Then memory after memory started pouring in my head, tried to find the denial, that was already gone, the realities, that never existed, but again – there is only one truth.  

This I took even harder. I thought I just went through the most painful thing in my life and there is nothing on earth worse than that, just to realise that I was wrong.

I completely lost the plot then. We started arguing, I said that this is not true and how would you know, there is no way my father is like her. He was actually the complete opposite of everything she does, everything she says, the way she behaves. My father was the only “true” thing in my life according to my mind and now my husband was trying to take that away from me. I erupted like a volcano with rage screaming at him to leave the room.

It took me another 2 days to accept the truth. 

And I did. My mother is the dominant narcissist and my father is the co-dependant one, both using me as a tool against each other. I am still uncovering the real role of my father in our “family theatre”, but from what I’ve learned so far fits the definition. Basically I unconsciously chose the less evil one to invest my emotions in.

Because my mother is not just narcissist, there was no doubt anymore. My mother is THE NARCISIST. If there was a Narcissists Convention she wold be organising it and she would be the guest of honour. I couldn’t even identify which type she falls in as all different type’s descriptions described precisely her actions and behaviour and the red flags are all over her. She can be whatever she wants to be.

She is the perfect flamboyant-extrovert – everyone and everything is entitled to her, it’s her birth right after all. Everyone thinks she is the perfect mother and perfect housewife. And, oh boy, so far I’ve never seen someone outperform her.

Well, at least while I was living in denial and was her well behaved puppet. When this was no longer the case, still not knowing the truth, her performance was a bit “shaky”, if she tried to perform before me at all.

Then she plays perfectly well the Accomplishment-Oriented type – God forbid if you do not meet her expectations. Which, of course, no one knows what they are. Explaining such a trivial thing is beneath her. Somehow, you must know what they are. If you don’t, it’s entirely your fault. So you just aim as high as possible, hopping to reach what is expected of you. If you somehow manage to guess and meet them and even exceed them, it’s only because she helped you. Nothing is yours. You are nobody if she is not right next to you. After all – it’s her accomplishment, you were just the tool that she can show to everybody what a perfect mother she is to guide her child so well and so lovingly.

Now, let’s not pass the psychosomatic type – her aches and pains are ALWAYS worse than yours so don’t even bother trying to complain to her or look for sympathy. You’re barking at the wrong the tree… She wouldn’t even listen to me, usually starting to talk over me, until I got the message and stopped complaining, thinking I must be really weak if I can’t endure this or that.

And lastly, the most horrible type – the secretly mean, covert martyr narcissist type, with endless emotional needs that you will never be able to fulfil. Living with her it’s like knowing that somewhere out there is a sniperrist – the moment you do not follow the script, which by the way you don’t have and have to guess – you’ll be shot dead on the spot. Then you have to clean after yourself. It’s your mess after all.

She plays perfectly all of these, depending on the occasion and never, NEVER, gave me the script. And this was normal for me as I didn’t know any better. I believe my survival instinct kicked in and I developed, without even knowing, bulletproof intuition and became the perfect co-player. Lastly, again, I don’t even know how she did it, but I was literally trained like a dog to know what to do depending on “the look” she gave me. No talking. No gesturers. Just stone cold looks that told me exactly what to do. There were thousands types of looks. And I knew the meaning of every single one.  

Not being able to identify which type she falls in, although it’s said maternal narcissists can follow in a few types, she covered all of them. So I named her type “The chameleon type” – she hides perfectly, she is patient, she can show herself in her brightest colours if needed, she strikes just like them – as slow as they are, you wouldn’t expect it and you would never see it coming. 

So whatever you tell those people it’s not going to hurt them, they won’t believe you as they live in their own twisted reality and they will simply retrieve in one of the them. You will be sucked in again into the painful, empty space where nothing is real, you are not real, because you don’t exist. You never did.

I know because I’ve been there countless times, managing to find my way out just to fall in one of her traps starting all over again. And every time I was there - faceless, insignificant little girl, stupid and fragile, which sole purpose of existing was to be abused - it was getting harder and harder to find my way out and escape but I always did.