“Yes, but I had it way worse.”
The most debilitating part of therapy for parental, narcissistic abuse is learning your parent might not have loved you. Soul-crushing intel that will bring you to your knees. And before you launch into defense mode explaining away that assertion, let me point out that that’s exactly what a narcissist counts on.
As humans we can’t fathom a parent lacking the genetic predisposition toward loving their child. And if you had a visceral response to what my therapist suggested to me, then congratulations. You’re probably a decent human being. It’s been a few years since I went no-contact with TWIM, but to this day I look at my own children and can’t wrap my mind around doing or saying things to them that she did to me.
The truth is, we don’t realize how many excuses we’re making for a person who chose to love you only when it best suited them. We’re blind to a love that’s conditional only. And when those conditions aren’t met, we’re shamed and blamed and made to believe it’s our fault our abuser didn’t love us. Sprinkle in a large serving of cult bylaws and you have a recipe for total self-esteem obliteration.
Not good enough. Not good enough. Not good enough.
That’s why most survivors (and I use that term loosely, I’m not yet certain I survived it.) struggle with perfectionism, hypervigilance or people-pleasing. We’re constantly striving to be good enough. We’re constantly adapting to our environment to ruffle the fewest feathers and earn the most love.
Be good. Be good. Be good.
I don’t know if TWIM ever loved me. I think back to our time together as she struggled with my father, lived through divorce, loneliness, pain and eventually remarriage. I think back to when I was living on my own, scared, barely keeping my head above water. And all I remember is feeling like everything was my fault.
I could never trust her to choose me.
Her love was performative most of the time. She would only voluntarily hug me in front of company or declare her adoration for me when others could hear. She would tell friends how proud she was of me, but I never heard it direct. She rarely brought herself to say anything complimentary to me, and when she did I always got the sense that it was a real effort for her to do so. Authentic human connection was not in her skill set.
I tried to find that connection before we parted ways. I wrote her a letter detailing the good, the bad and the ugly of what I went through while on my own because I didn’t feel like I could go to her for help. I told her things I was so ashamed of, but I was desperate for empathy. I wanted to hear, “Oh my goodness! I had no idea you went through all of that. I’m so sorry you didn’t feel like you could come to me.” But her only response was, “Well, that was your choice.”
I continued trying to connect with her during another conversation. I wanted to show her I had compassion for her own childhood abuse. Like we were two souls cut from the same traumatic cloth. I tried to demonstrate understanding for some of her choices or even her behavior toward me. When I detailed all the nightmares that I remembered experiencing as a child, once again hoping for any shred of compassion or empathy, she paused and said in a low, angry growl:
“Yes, but I had it way worse.”
As though I had a lot of nerve comparing my life experience to hers. Like she was trauma-competing. I was so stunned by her response, it felt like I ran stomach-first into the corner of a kitchen counter. It took the literal wind right out of me.
How? How can you claim to love someone while pretending their pain doesn’t exist?
Hard to fathom.
The Daughter Diaries: Stories of Toxic Mothering 