I Wish Mom Would Have Told Me...

I only wish my mother would have warned me.  After my own narcissistic abuse, I remember thinking that I wished my mom would have said something to me along these lines when she was telling me about "that big world out there."  She never told me that there were some people that the "typical" type of handling just would not work with!

If only she could have said something like "Honey, I know I have told you that as long as you are kind to others they will be kind to you, and I know I said that each person deserves respect and love and that boys only tease you cause they like you, and people only put you down because they don't know how to get close to you as your friend so they try for attention in other ways, but at some point you might run into people who do not "fit" the typical "human traits" that are familiar and enjoyable to you.  You might meet a woman that has weird fantasies about being admired by the entire world and who thinks you should join her in making that happen. You might run across a boyfriend who views you as nothing more than an "object" to use for sex or to wait on him hand and foot without question or resistance.  Maybe one of your female friends will seem like she adores you one minute but then, at some point when another lady friend comes along, she will begin calling you names, telling you she has no idea why she ever put up with you as her friend, and will decide that this new female will be more "suited" to what she is looking for.  At some point, a human being out there...the nicer you are to them, the crueller they will be toward you.  You will encounter people that have no empathy and will insult and mistreat you and not even care that you are crying or hurt by their words; in fact, the more upset you become, the more entertained they will be.  You will meet folks that use and abuse people and take credit for things that other people have accomplished as if they did all the work... daughter, these people are called NARCISSISTIC and the extreme cases may even have a disorder called Narcissistic Personality Disorder or be Psychopaths. You need to STAY AWAY from these people or GET AWAY once you have accidentally encountered them.  If you can't get out of the situations with them, remember WHO YOU ARE! REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE UNIQUE, INDIVIDUAL AND IMPORTANT regardless of who you are with, what they say about you or who they demand you to become.  You have the right to say no, to make choices to BE YOU!  Never stand for someone taking your individuality from you and never keep secrets that could ultimately destroy you.  You need to always know where you came from, that you are loved, and that nobody has control over you without using force or manipulation, unless you give it to them

These are only SOME of the words I wish mom would have said to me, but why didn't she? Well, first of all, my step-dad had a personality disorder, several of them, but we never even HEARD of such a thing back in those days. We just thought dad was "odd" and we put up with his idiosyncrasies and abuse.  Years later, after dad passed on, we all realized what we had just gone through for years and I think, in our own ways, we determined not to repeat those experiences with our spouses, girl/boyfriends, bosses, and friends. That was a good thing!  Mom didn't tell me because Mom didn't know.  Nobody had heard of NPD in those days and nobody wanted to believe a person could truly be as cold as one of these types are.

And, even though after all of my experiences I was determined not to repeat what I had lived in my childhood, I ended up doing just that! I married a narcissist, was mentored by a female narcissist and a woman with borderline personality disorder and it almost DESTROYED me!  Next post I will talk about how I got free and healed from it all!