Much of my adult life, I’ve been plagued with panic attacks and bouts of paranoia anytime I’ve been faced with unfamiliar or new situations. From simply attending a conference at work to flying on an airplane, I’ve literally been struck with terror, and have had to force myself through feelings of intense discomfort in order to accomplish almost anything. And I’ve tried EVERYTHING to address these issues! I’ve been to therapists, acupuncture, meditation courses, holistic healers, and tried self-hypnosis, energy medicine, EFT, prescription medication, and everything else one can imagine to just “survive” the challenges of being placed in a situation that could have even the slightest possibility of being “unsafe.”
Most of these tools have helped to differing degrees, but the one thing that they have had in common is that they have never eradicated the source of my distress. Throughout my years in therapy, a common conversation I’ve had has always been about these panic attacks and intense fear of public situations and travel. I’m even scared of the telephone! I had become incredibly frustrated over the past several years because even though I had been directly addressing these problems, I couldn’t figure out WHY they existed. Where in the hell did they come from? One thing that was identified is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which makes perfect sense, having been through intense bullying as a child and physical, sexual, and emotional abuse as a young adult at the hands of two boyfriends. However, PTSD is a symptom, not a cause. Why and how did I even get into these abusive situations in the first place?
The identification of narcissistic personality disorder in my family of origin was a watershed moment in my therapy, to say the very least. NPD - in BOTH of my parents (and I’m an only child!) - manifested itself in a textbook manner, illustrated in many of the situations I encountered growing up. Parents with NPD tend to be either completely uninvolved in their childrens’ lives or, on the other end of the spectrum, controlling to the “nth” degree, partly because they see their children as an extension of themselves, rather than separate individuals. My own parents were definitely of the latter variety - the domineering, controlling parents. Fear was one of their favorite methods of control.
How did my family use fear to control me? How have they continued to use fear over the years to keep me under their control? Here are a few illustrative examples:
1. One of the more irrational fears I’ve had as an adult has to do with flying. Sure, it’s a common phobia, but I’m a musician, and I travel around the world to produce shows and play gigs. My poor husband would frequently end up with bruises on his wrist, because I would squeeze it SO hard if we encountered even the slightest bit of turbulence on a flight. I could never figure out exactly where this crazy fear originated, especially because I am a frequent traveller.
Recently, through my therapy and through intense meditation sessions, I’ve been having flashbacks of scenes of my childhood. One of the memories that just popped up for me is of flying for the first time as a little girl when I was only two years old. We used to vacation in Florida every year for at least two to three weeks, and the flight to Tampa or Orlando was a huge deal. My mother would dress me in a fancy outfit, usually with a matching hat and purse. Everything about the flight was regimented, from the way she would plan out my clothing to what games she would bring and when she would bring them out on the flight. My father would never sleep the night before, due to some sort of crazy nerves in regards to travel. He would make us arrive at the airport literally FOUR hours before the flight...and this was in the days prior to 9/11, where there weren’t such intense screening processes as today.
My father would cross his fingers at the beginning and end of every flight. He told me - when I was as young as a toddler - that most accidents on flights occurred at take-off and at landing, so that was when we should both pray to not crash (and die). He also told me that hijackings took place usually at these times as well, so to keep vigilant. During the flight, my mother would take Dramamine, being terrified of heights, and she would frequently “white-knuckle” the armrests, even if the flight was smooth.
Since both my parents are narcissistic, they never stopped to ask themselves whether or not this kind of behavior was appropriate in front of a child. This seems even more outrageous to me today, considering that I was a mere TODDLER when this began! Why would you instill such an irrational fear in a little girl’s mind? As an adult, these “introjections” were perpetually present in my head, enough so that I avoided flying overseas as an adult. I actually turned down work opportunities, controlled by this paranoia and fear instilled in my psyche from the time I was a tiny little innocent girl.
2. No matter how I felt growing up, I had to constantly tell my parents “I love you.” It didn’t matter if we had just had a huge blow-out fight, or if we were in public, or if I was on the phone at a friend’s house as a teenager; each and every conversation had to end with this de rigeur declaration of undying affection.
Why? Again, through my recent self-work, I’ve had some flashbacks of old conversations, especially with my father, when I was a little girl. I remember him telling me that “you just never knew” if you were going to get in a car accident and die on the side of the highway. Anytime you said goodbye to a loved one, it could very possibly be the last time you would ever see them. And what would you want the last thing you heard before you died to be? “I love you.” Of course!
Another thing I remember especially about my father was his behavior over the holidays. Each and every year, at times like Christmas and at Thanksgiving - usually over family dinner with just the three of us - he’d say, “Well, I won’t be around here next year this time, so we’d better make this the best holiday ever.” I was told, by my mother, that my grandfather used to say this as well, so that’s where Dad got it from. She’d laugh it off, and say that he was just joking and being dramatic.
In light of the fact that both of my parents have NPD, I now see what all of these behaviors were really about. They were both intensely paranoid that SOMETHING might happen to them, and needed me - as a LITTLE GIRL - to soothe them and make them feel better. I was just a tool to placate their own irrational fear.
As an adult, these patterns have persisted in how my parents have dealt with me. Just last week, after not hearing from me for about a month, my mother sent me a letter saying that she just couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to speak to her and Dad, and that it makes her feel so badly that I just don’t call to say a simple, “How are you? I love you.” Ugh. It makes my skin positively crawl - literally everything is about her and my father. Classic narcissism.
3. The phrase “God-fearing” certainly applies to my family - not only to my parents, but to my extended family who were all very strict evangelical Christians. Growing up, I was made to go to church each and every Sunday, rain or shine. I also had to participate in Sunday school and confirmation classes and youth group and church choir. Unfortunately for me, the bullying that so frequently happened at school continued at church. One of the worst experiences I had at church as a young girl was being told by my youth pastor that I was going to hell because my parents had only had me “dedicated” at my birth, instead of having been baptized. He declared this in front of the entire confirmation class, who laughed. I was mortified, not to mention terrified.
My parents were not unaware that these kinds of things were going on. No matter what they may claim today - their most frequent excuse is “you never told us!” making all of this MY FAULT yet again - they knew. I have years upon years of diary and journal entries from growing up, documenting these very things. In fact, my journals from my teenage and pre-teen years are filled with crazy, paranoid entries about how I was so scared of the devil, and how I wanted to be “close to Jesus” but I just “couldn’t sense Him anywhere...there must be something wrong with me...I must be damned to hell!”
Fear, fear, fear. Why on earth should an innocent little girl, one who was continually beat up and victimized in school, think that she’s going to hell? Wouldn’t “normal” parents step in, and offer her constant reassurance? Or take her to a different church where she wouldn’t be teased? Or maybe even not force her to go to church if it was such a toxic environment? Instead, my own narcissistic parents were more concerned about the appearance of being a devout and God-fearing family. I remember one time when my father was interviewed in the local newspaper, and he stated that the most three important things were (in order): God, family, and country. Yet at the same time, my parents never really talked about God or Jesus at home; I was just told that I had to go to church. No matter if I was sick. No matter if I was bullied. No matter if I didn’t “feel the presence of God” myself. After all, “what would people in the community think” if we weren’t upstanding members of a local church? (Yes, in case you’re wondering, my parents did indeed speak in these kinds of terms.)
When I first left home, I quit going to church. Later, however, I started working as a church musician even though I hated the thought of attending church. This continued for nearly twenty years, probably in some vain hope that my parents would approve of me, and my job would earn some sort of respect in their eyes. Even though I had many painful experiences dealing with the church (which could fill an entire blog of its own!), and even though I was working in churches that were diametrically opposed to my personal political and social beliefs, my parents continually insisted that I attend...even as an adult! Here I am now, as a woman in my mid-30s, with parents who regularly fear for my soul, even though they never themselves actually discuss spirituality outside of the context of “you just go to church every week” as some sort of strange absolutist regime.
No respect, no empathy, no putting themselves in my shoes after all of the crazy things I’ve seen and endured due to my years employed by the church and attending church as a victimized child. There is not even a tiny bit of recognition of these things by my family. My NPD parents are only concerned with being seen as upstanding, being seen as involved...and creating fear of “what others might think” due to having different opinions. It makes me want to vomit, thinking about religion or spirituality used in this type of context.
In conclusion:
I told my therapist in session just a couple of weeks ago that I think my parents thrived on me being sick, both as a child and as an adult. When he asked “Why?”, I replied, “Because they used my being sick as a way they could make me feel better, when in reality, they were sick and my ‘sickness’ made them feel better.” It’s all just an illustration of how twisted the psychology of a parent with NPD works. It’s even sicker to realize how the fear-method of control makes one irrationally afraid of common scenarios...and fails to teach a child proper methods for dealing with real life.
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