The assault continues...

And the assault continues. Yesterday, I found a huge package on my doorstep, FedEx. I assumed it was just the monthly shipment of diapers and wipes, and I left it outside. This morning, however, I flipped it over and glanced at the return address. My father. And this one was addressed to me. I was, frankly, stunned. I mean, what the hell? What the HELL is going on?? Dh has a theory--that he expected me to come running back after a while, all full of apologies, ready to give in and offer to give myself away yet again. And I haven't. It's been over a year, and I haven't budged. I have stuck to my principles and self-worth, and it's driving him crazy....hence the assault, comprised of trying to insult me through gifts to my daughter, ad nauseaum. And now this.

I believe he's right. I don't know what's in that box, and I don't want to touch it. The thought just occurred to me that it might be anything of mine from my childhood that remains in his condo, just to let me know how furious he is with me. I'm going to let DH open that box. If I'm indeed right, fine. If not, I want him to give whatever it is to charity. Our porch storage closet is packed with gifts he has sent to my daughter, just waiting to go to Goodwill. She has enough toys and clothes from people who LOVE her. We are well off, we can afford to buy her toys and books and clothes and we need NOTHING from him. I've waited all my life to get to the point when I can announce that I don't need his money. I DON'T NEED HIS MONEY. EVER. AGAIN.

Fuck you, dad.

And for anyone else who thinks I'm not strong enough to hold out and value my self-worth, fuck you, too.

I have all the protection I need. A husband who would fiercely defend me to the death, emotionally and proudly, and has been military-trained.  And a lover, military-trained, technically proficient, and a Tai Kwan Do black belt. My daughter and I will be JUST fine.  

Another manipulative surprise...

I am fuming. My father is trying to weasel his way back AGAIN. After what he said about my daughter! After disowning my family! A package arrived from him for my daughter yesterday. After he said he wanted nothing to do with her!!!! This is so messed up, I can't believe it. What is this man thinking? That a ten-month old can open a package without her parents knowing about it??? That after what has happened, that her parents would even allow his manipulative gestures to affect her??? And I just love the way he goes about this--he can smugly say to himself that he was just being nice, just giving her a gift. After all, if a person criticizes a gift, who looks bad--the giver or the refuser??? This is the kind of manipulative shit he's pulled all my life, making me doubt my own feelings and being consumed by guilt. After all, I must be the bad one to refuse or be angry about a gift! It's what came beforehand that makes all the difference. It's his words, "it is ----'s loss that her grandfather won't be in her life." This is a pretty typical narcissistic ploy, is it not? Can anyone confirm this for me?

In other areas, this Christmas is turning out not to be what I had hoped. My daughter has been sick for a month with a double ear infection, and somehow I have ended up with one, too. Dh has been sick as well. I've given up on trying to go to work right now because I simply can't cope with all of this at once. Whatever happens with that will happen. I can't do more than I am capable, and I finally hit my limit.


My daughter has decided to self-wean, and in a futile attempt to preserve our bond in case she wants it back soon, I am working very hard. But my body knows and is deciding to take matters into its own hands, so to speak. I am grieving the loss of this, and it hurts to watch her draw closer to her father. Sometimes when I pick her up, she cries and reaches out for him. It just breaks my heart and I run upstairs and cry. I haven't been as available for her as I wish I could be, having been sick all this time--seven infections in ten months. I thought this might be the case, as I knew I was not physically strong enough to handle pregnancy, birth, recovery, and nine months of breastfeeding without some major problems. I wish I were stronger, but it is what it is, right? At least she's here, safe, and getting the most we can possibly give her. We love her more than anything in the world.

Narcissistic Injury

My therapist gave me a simple way to think about all this pressure from my father to "love" his wife: 

NARCISSISTIC INJURY

Apparently, by not taking his "possession" into my heart, I have injured him greatly. And he won't let go of this "injury"...he will stalk me until his dying day to "repair" it. That might be a bit dramatic, as he turned the tables around and proclaimed that he never abused me at all, that I'm making it up, and he won't have anything to do with me or my daughter. So, I don't think he'll be communicating anytime soon, if ever. However, this blog stalking surprised me, and I am sure that will continue. Fine, dad, C., anyone else,  YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH! (as one Navy JAG once said....)

Anyway, I had tried to repair our relationship a few months ago, believing that my daughter should have a maternal grandfather. The first phone call was fine. He sounded older, much more like his father than I'd ever heard before, still depressed, still having the same problems, still wanting to know all about my life, but I could manage that. It was good to hear his voice after so long. What I couldn't handle was the second phone call, when, at the end, he asked when I was going to talk to his wife again.

I was enraged--did he learn nothing in this decade of silence??? Did he never hear a single word I said, ever??? He never had heard me before, when I explained why this "acceptance" issue was so difficult for me (understandably, I think, because my parents had just gotten divorced!!!) and continued to shove this "need" down my throat for years. You know the story now.



I was simply shocked. I had told him I wanted to work on our relationship first, and then I would see if I could have a relationship with his wife. I told him I needed to take it slowly. He seemed like he understood, but he actually didn't HEAR me in the first place. And it felt as though he was patiently asking all the questions about me and feigning interest in my responses, to butter me up, for the REAL issue...when would I talk to his wife. His "relationship" building with me was all about getting me to accept her. To repair his narcissistic injury.

So, in a normal (read "non-dysfunctional" family), this issue wouldn't have been a big deal. But in mine, it was all about control. My father wanted to control an intimate part of me:  my relationships. MY relationships. Dictate who I can love and who I cannot. And punish when I don't have relations with who HE wants. I am a free human; I was born to love, but not to be dictated to about who or how to love. Loving and relationships, compassion and sensitivity are WHO I AM. I needed the space to grow into myself, and my father could never get that. I needed AUTONOMY to decide how to structure my life and who should be in it. It is MY choice who to include in my life and how, not my father's. All this time, I believed my father had the RIGHT to control these things. Now, I am experiencing FREEDOM of CHOICE for the first time.

I chose to not want to engage with this woman yet. Who knows, given time, I might have been able to develop some sort of relationship. But he refused to allow me the opportunity and time to formulate a relationship for myself, and so desperately needs me to repair this "injury" that I pushed him right back out of my life again. And then he decided to make it sound like he was the one who chose to disown me. Wow.

Narcissists suck.

I LOVE this blog post on defining narcissistic injury.  Quite brutal and vivid.

Narcissistic injuries have nothing to do with sadness.  They are always and only about rage.

The narcissist says, "I exist."  A narcissistic injury is you showing him that he does not exist in your life.  Kicking him in the teeth and telling him he is a jerk is not a narcisstic injury-- because he must therefore exist.
Let's say I'm a narcissist, and you send me a 10 page letter explaining why I suck, I'm a jerk, I'm an idiot; you attack my credibility, my intelligence; and you even provide evidence for all of this, college transcripts, records from the Peters Institute, you criticize my penis size, using affidavits from past and future girlfriends-- all of this hurts me, but it is not a narcissistic injury.
A narcissistic injury would be this: I expect you to write such a letter, and you don't bother. 

The reason it's important is because the reaction of the narcissist to either "insult" is different.  In the first example, he will be sad and hurt, but he will yell back, insult you, or cry and beg forgiveness or mercy--he will respond-- maintain the relationship.   He'll say and do outrageous things that he knows will cause you to respond again, to prolong your connections, even if they cause him misery.  He doesn't care that it makes you and him miserable-- he cares only that there is a you and him.

But in the latter case where you ignore him, humiliate him-- an actual narcissisitic injury-- he will want to kill you.