I hate classical music

From the time I was a tiny little girl, I always knew I wanted to be a musician.  My earliest musical memory is from the late 70s, watching Kiss on television; like most children (and it’s easy to see as an adult how that band was marketed largely toward kids), I loved the costumes and the lights and the pyrotechnics!  Fire!  

As a child in the early 80s, cable television was becoming more and more common.  We had cable installed at our house when I was probably about 5 or 6 years old.  My parents were gone frequently, as I’ve discussed in earlier blog entries.  Both were involved with jobs in higher education.  My father, especially, took his gig as a public school superintendent incredibly seriously.  He went to every school event - from the football games to the choir concerts and every possible thing in-between.  My mother also worked long hours, but she was more of the “over-achiever” in the classroom.  At that time, she was teaching kindergarten, and for anyone who thinks that kindergarten teachers just cut up construction paper and make macaroni crafts for their kids has never met MY mother.  Her life positively revolved around the classroom, and even as recently as a year ago (when she finally retired), she would spend ridiculous amounts of money out of her own pocket on materials for the classroom.  There’s a fine line between a teacher who takes her job seriously and works hard and one who goes over the top in terms of her so-called “commitment.”  My mother was of the latter variety, and expected constant recognition for her commitment to excellence and her constant giving 110%.

As a result, I was alone a great deal of the time.  Sure, there were occasions that I had babysitters, and I LIVED for those nights with a teenager in the house.  We’d listen to 45s of Prince and Cyndi Lauper, dancing around the house with an abandon that was certainly never present in the oppressive, proper, and stifled environment my parents tried to cultivate.  When my family was home, the only “approved” kinds of games were imagination games.  Instead of toys for Christmas, I was purchased science kits, microscope sets, a dissection kit complete with dead worms and frogs, Mensa genius quiz books (my mother especially seemed to be obsessed with constantly having me IQ tested; I’m guessing this was in some vain hope that I was a wunderkind of some sort)...most toys I owned were educational in some variety or other.  And while I did have Transformers and He-Man, which I mainly played with the boys down the street, most “kid” like things, such as Atari or later Nintendo games, were absolutely forbidden.

One of the greatest things about my babysitters was getting to watch censored television!  In fact, it was at a day care center that I first saw Kiss on television.  My babysitters knew MTV wasn’t allowed in our household, but often watched videos regardless.  And as a result, I would as well.  When I got a little bit older, by about age 8 or so, my parents began leaving me alone in the house relatively frequently.  At that time, my MTV fascination turned into a full-blown obsession.  This was the heyday of hair metal, and I completely absorbed my young eyes and ears in the world of Priest, the Scorpions, and Dio, and later Bon Jovi, Europe, and Whitesnake.

I was in love with music.  I knew - just knew without any doubt in my little 7 or 8 year old mind - that someday I’d be a musician.  I’d ride onto stage on a big motorcycle, don a skintight leather outfit like Lita Ford, strap on my Les Paul, plug into that Marshall stack, and SHRED.  I would get tattoos, have the biggest hair, and sing to hordes of adoring fans packing arena after arena.  I remember creating my own little mini electric guitars out of empty wrapping paper rolls, and jumping around my room listening to the final track of the A side of Europe’s “The Final Countdown” tape (I think the tune was called “Ninja” or something like that...I just thought it ROCKED, and frankly, I had a love affair with Joey Tempest’s hair!).  I saved up any allowance money I earned or holiday gifts from grandparents to buy tapes of the bands I heard on MTV, but kept the fact that I watched MTV completely secret from my parents, since it was absolutely forbidden.

My parents knew I loved music, and that I was a good little singer as I sang in church choir from the time I was only 2 or 3.  But, they didn’t really get the “rock” thing.  Good girls didn’t play electric guitars, and even though I begged to take lessons like one of my friends who had been purchased a black flying V Gibson by her estranged father, my own parents insisted I take piano lessons.  That was much more fitting for a girl, the daughter of the superintendent.  My grandparents even went a step further with this claim, telling me that all rock musicians burned in hell, and that African witch doctors used rock music to help the devil possess people’s souls.  I should add here that my parents to this day deny that they even had any comprehension that I liked rock music; it’s a classic example of narcissistic parents to not take notice of what is of interest to their children unless it is something that they can use to make themselves more grandiose.  So, when I said that I wanted to play rock music, my parents heard that translated as, “our daughter should study classical music because rich people like that and it’s classy and she can play for all of our friends and colleagues and she’ll look well-rounded and it’ll be a great hobby for her when she becomes a doctor later on, something we can really take credit for and be proud of!!!”

As a result, I took what I could get when it came to music.  I threw myself into classical piano lessons, as it was the only form of music acceptable to my parents.  (It was the only form of music they would even recognize even though I was constantly belting out Whitesnake’s “Still of the Night” at the top of my lungs!)  In any form, music was such an escape from the constant stifling Mensa quiz books, and early taking of the SATs (like in 7th grade, unbelievably).  Oh, to just be able to sit down at the piano and play.  Sure, Mozart was nothing like Iron Maiden, but hey, it was something!  I got to be a pretty decent player, albeit far from a prodigy, and my parents did notice this.  They’d ask me frequently to play for their work friends and relatives, who would invariably talk over anything I performed.  It always embarrassed me, as I’d be told to play, but my parents wouldn’t really have an idea of WHAT I was playing and then would talk over the performance.  I felt like some sort of trained dog, and it was like my piano playing became the “shake your paw” routine.  And to hear my parents talk about my playing, it was like I was the 10 year old version of Van Cliburn or something, even though I was just a slightly better than average performer...I knew this, deep down, and it always made me feel so uncomfortable to hear my parents brag about my piano playing to relatives because I most definitely couldn’t keep up with their incredible claims.

As I grew into a teenager, and college loomed, I made it known that I wanted to study music as my chosen career path.  My parents continued to pay for piano lessons, and I continued to buy tapes of metal and later industrial music on the “down low” since they hated it.  I continued to sneak in MTV, as it was still forbidden to me even as a high school student.  But even though my parents were “supportive” of me playing the piano, it wasn’t something suitable for college study, this “music thing.”  I could only study music if I had something solid to fall back on, like science or pre-med or engineering.  “Just think what you can do for your country,” my father would say, and “you’ll never get a good job.”  At this time (high school), I was composing a great deal and performing my own music, but my mother would say that what I was doing was “weird,” and ask me why I couldn’t “just write a song for Barbra Streisand” to sing.

Ugh.  I went off to college, and started as a double major in music composition and engineering.  I dropped the engineering major within a week.  I hated science.  My dad freaked out and threatened to cut me off if I didn’t get another double major, so I picked Latin.  No better fall-back plan than a dead language, right?  There were some things acceptable about what I was doing, however, mainly because my training was focused on classical music.  My parents would brag to their friends and relatives about all of my accomplishments, frequently over-stating and exaggerating, along with painting this weird image of me as some sort of virtuosic classical player.  But at home, if they had to listen to what I had composed at conservatory, my mother would deride my music, call it “weird” and “dissonant.”  I’d invariably get the Barbra Streisand comment over and over again.  They never really would ASK me about what kinds of music I liked; it was all about them telling me what kind of music I enjoyed to write and play.  Huh?

Then I went to graduate school.  I earned a Ph.D., which my father told me I needed to earn because he never finished his, even though I had a nervous breakdown due to stress from going to school full-time and working full-time for year after year after year.  (As an aside, my parents like to talk about how my college education put them in terrible debt, and will tell anyone who will listen about “how much they sacrificed” for me, when in reality, I worked full-time almost the entire way through school.  They never mention that.)  I continued concentrating on classical music, as a composer.  And I was absolutely jaded and miserable.

After earning my Ph.D., I found a teaching job at a college, mainly covering the basics of classical music.  And again, I was miserable, not to mention constantly pissed off and irritated.  I couldn’t figure out why, as I was teaching music, and that’s what I loved!  On my 30th birthday, getting ready for a work day, I opened my closet, and looking at the racks of Ann Taylor and Banana Republic sensible business casual separates, I suddenly thought:

“This is not my life.”

It’s not.  It’s not ME.  I’ve been backpedaling ever since.  What music did I love?  Where did it all start?  And I started playing in rock and metal bands, and have never been happier.  My parents hated this when they first found out, saying how all my training was going to waste, and that I was just having an early mid-life crisis.  They’d criticize me if I played a gig that didn’t pay well, and would ask all kinds of inappropriate questions about how much money I was making to make me defend my choices.  They’d avoid telling any of my relatives about what I was really doing, instead focusing on weird tidbits of information they’d glean in phone conversations about my job and over-inflating these to make it sound like I was still classy and associating with the wealthy intelligentsia associated with classical music.

The truth is, though: I don’t like classical music.  I’d rather sing Maiden than Mozart any given day.  I realized just recently through my therapy that I dedicated my ENTIRE career life to a path of music that I HATE in order to maintain some level of acceptability in my parents’ eyes.  But even when I tried, my parents still called what I did “weird.”  I remember even learning how to play the organ, becoming a professional church musician, and being told by my mother that my playing was only “adequate.”  Anything I’ve accomplished, they’ve taken credit for, like it’s something THEY did...when in reality, they continually discouraged me from pursuing a career in the arts and still - to this day - they tell me that I would have been better off if I had just become a doctor or a lawyer.  This past week, I realized the reason I pursued classical music as my career was so that I could be a musician in a way that would earn me some sort of recognition by my family, to not feel like my interests were completely invisible.  It’s a heavy thing to realize that what you’ve studied and dedicated your entire life to is a complete and total farce.  No wonder why I felt inadequate and like a “faker” through years of conservatory and academy training.  No wonder why I had a shitty attitude.  I HATED the music I was studying, and I was studying it for someone else...Mom and Dad.  Not me.

Wow.  It felt good to say this.

So now what?  I’ve cut my family out of my life in a “temporary separation” while I focus on my own recovery process.  What do I want to pursue?  What kind of musician do I want to be?  I’m going back to that old image of the gorgeous woman with the big hair in her leather outfit on stage, rocking out to an audience of screaming metalheads.  Sure, maybe I’m a little bit too old to rock the leather, but I can still record and do session work or produce.  To come full circle, getting in touch with that little girl dancing around to 45s, is an organic feeling.  It’s never too late to start over.

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the empty glass

Most people know the image of the half-empty versus half-full glass as a measure of one’s pessimistic or optimistic outlook on life.  In the case of a narcissist, the image of a glass with a hole in the bottom of it is an interesting analogy.  The narcissist is thirsty, so he or she asks someone else to fill up the glass with water.  But since the glass has a hole in the bottom of it, the water drains out before the narcissist can fully quench his or her thirst.  The narcissist asks again and again for more water, only to have the glass filled up, and the thirst to return since the water keeps draining and draining, even after constant replenishing.

Obviously, the metaphor here is that the water represents the attention that people in periphery to the narcissist give to the person in question.  The narcissist is desperately THIRSTY for attention (and needs that attention to feel good like we as humans need water to survive); however, the narcissist is flawed because his or her “glass” is defective (has a hole in the bottom).  I can go a step further with this metaphor, adding that the narcissist - the person holding the glass - is blind, and can’t perceive that the glass is defective.  The narcissist thinks there’s nothing wrong with his or her glass (someone with NPD thinks that he or she couldn’t possibly have any psychological issues) because he or she simply can’t see the hole in the bottom.  The narcissist gets angry when someone says there’s something wrong with the glass, and gets upset when he or she is thirsty...moreover, that narcissist is always dependent on SOMEONE ELSE to fill up the glass.

How’s that for an image?

Both of my parents were like this.  I can remember from my earliest childhood being told upon misbehaving that I wouldn’t do this or that “if I really loved them.”  While my father’s upbringing is an enigma to me (he’s never spoken about it), I know for a fact that my mother never bonded with her own mother, as my grandmother had a severe nervous breakdown when my mother was first born.  My mother intensely personalized everything as a result; her NPD likely stems from this, not that I’m an expert.  As a child, I was often told to do certain things in certain ways to “keep Mom happy” and to “show Mom that you love her.”  I was told to do these things by my father, who was an extreme enabler, and a narcissist himself, obsessed with power, wealth, and status.

If anyone actually knew what was going on in our seemingly perfect household, in our beautiful home that looked like it could have been featured in Better Homes and Gardens, they would have been shocked to know that my parents frequently argued.  The terms of the argument were often “you wouldn’t do this if you really loved me” on the part of my mother, who would fly into crazy rages, and occasionally even end up cuddled into the fetal position in the closet, crying hysterically, having a flashback of old childhood abuse.  My father would simply go off on his own and do whatever the hell he felt like doing, purchasing expensive clothing, cars, and other items to feed his ego.  He’d hide the evidence of all of this in various ways, including having me hide the bills from my mother (which involved not being allowed to go out after school with friends because I’d have to intercept the postman every day before my mom got home).

Nothing was EVER enough for my parents.  I couldn’t please them no matter what I tried - and believe me, I tried.  I was a straight A kid, a kid who never gave teachers any trouble.  I didn’t talk back in school...well, to be honest, I didn’t TALK period.  I went to church as I was told to do each and every Sunday, even though I was incessantly bullied (yes, in church!).  I would obediently buy gifts for my parents for each and every holiday, in as thoughtful of a manner as possible, egged on by my father.  “If you love your mom, just do this for her,” he’d always say to me.  I was taught to always say “I love you” before leaving the house, or before either or them left the house, or before we ended a conversation on the phone, no matter how I was feeling or whether or not we had just been in a fight.  I was told that I should always do this because “you never know if someone’s going to get in a car accident on the way home” and would presumably die on the side of the road.  I was also told that my grandparents never showed Mom that they loved her, so it was “my responsibility” to help make up for this.  My love would miraculously make it all better!  Fear, guilt...all great things to burden onto a child who is only nine or ten years old.

Even though I did everything to “fill the glass” for Mom and Dad, it never seemed to work for long.  In time, I was a “bad kid” again, “mouthing off,” or “acting up.”  Even though I was a straight A student who never got into trouble in school, at home, I’d be spanked frequently (until I was 15 years old and threatened to call Child Protective Services on my father) and I was perpetually grounded and forbidden from watching television and using the telephone.  Even though I went to church every Sunday, I was still convinced that I was going to hell, and that the devil was on his way to get me.  Even though I wore all of the clothes that Mom and Dad bought, I was still made fun of in school for looking like a freak (and believe me, I looked ridiculous...who dresses a seven year old girl in a power suit for picture day?).  Even though I ignored the bullying in school, it only got worse and worse through the years.  My childhood diaries are filled with entries describing how I perpetually had to apologize to my parents, even though I was in extreme emotional pain, and by the time I was a teenager, was suffering from a full-fledged eating disorder.

As an adult, I went through college and graduate school and earned a PhD.  I worked full-time through much of my time in higher education to support myself, but I was still told by my family that I was “spoiled” and that they were “broke” because of funding my education.  I met my wonderful husband twelve years ago, after escaping a series of abusive relationships, but my wedding wasn’t classy enough, and I made the enormous mistake of living in sin with my future husband for a year before we eventually married.  I worked in a church as an organist at the time, but I was told by my father that he couldn’t believe the church would continue to employ me due to my immoral lifestyle.  I got a job as a professor in a community college, where I worked well over 70 hours a week, but when I became unhappy because of an abusive colleague, I was told by my parents that I was lucky to have that job, and that I just needed to learn how to “play the game.”  I pursued gigs in classical music, which my parents sort of knew things about (but were never really trained), but was always told things like “your playing was adequate” and “that sounds weird.”  If a gig didn’t pay that much, why was I wasting my time?  It seemed like something was always wrong with me, no matter what I achieved, no matter what gifts I sent, no matter how many times I called home and listened to my mom go on and on and on without ever even asking how I was doing.

My family came to visit this past year for the holidays.  I cleaned the house.  I bought their favorite foods.  I cooked every day.  I even baked bread from scratch.  I took them to the mall (their favorite activity) even though I didn’t have any money to shop with at the time.  I communicated clearly with them about my husband’s schedule, and his obligations to work-related activities and other professional obligations during that time.  Despite all of this, I was told things like “that show you’re watching is stupid.”  I was told, when my mother had a hysterical fit at the mall after I declined wanting her to buy me a pair of shoes, that I was selfish and that I needed to “learn how to play the game better.”    I was told that my husband was insensitive and selfish for working on his professional obligations and that it was stupid for him to buy food that was his family tradition.  This all transpired after being forced to go to a movie that I didn’t want to see (The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo) that depicted a couple of very brutal rape scene which caused me to have a panic attack/flashback of my own painful experiences.  Yet I was the one who was punished, yet again, with the silent treatment.  Mom and Dad sat sullenly on the couch all throughout Christmas, lamenting the fact that there weren’t enough presents, that it wasn’t like the old days, that I wasn’t letting Mom cook in the way she wanted, that I didn’t like going to church, and so on.  Dad also told me that I needed to keep any conflicts between us as a secret from my husband because these things were “between family only.”  Wow.

All of a sudden, I finally saw that empty glass.  I realized that it was an impossible task to keep trying to fill it up, as both my mother and father have an unquenchable thirst.  I saw that the glass had a hole in it, and that I could spend my entire life trying to fill it with love and understanding, only to have it drain out onto the floor...and that they would always be blind to the fact that this was even happening.

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happy sober birthday to me!

Today is an important day for me: my sober birthday.  As of today, I’ve been “on the wagon” for twelve solid years.  

Twelve years ago tonight I was sitting at a bar with a “friend.”  I was on my third vodka and tonic of the night, and I was already feeling ill.  I was 22 years old at this point, and I had been drinking from the time I was 13 or 14.  From the time I was about 18 or 19 until 22, I drank heavily.  My average day usually consisted of waking up (often in the afternoon), putting a couple of shots of whisky into my coffee, going to school and work with a water bottle full of vodka (or half vodka, half orange juice), and then ending the evening with more drinking, often alone.  I drank generally around a full bottle of hard liquor a day.  By early April of 2000, crazy things started happening with my body chemistry.  The weirdest thing I noticed was the constant vomiting.  I just couldn’t keep anything down anymore.  On top of that, I was incessantly dehydrated, as the only fluids I consistently consumed were either caffeinated (coffee) or alcoholic.  As a result, I suffered from chronic bladder infections.

That night at the bar, despondently looking down at my drink, I suddenly said to my drinking buddy, “I’m never going to drink again.”  I just couldn’t...it was like a switch just flipped!  Needless to say, my friend was pretty damn shocked.  I wasn’t.  It was this crazy moment of clarity where I just KNEW I’d never go back.  And I haven’t yet (knock on wood!).  I suffered through a painful physical withdrawal.  I never went to a 12-step program, or even sought help as I was too embarrassed and paranoid about voicing my problems in a room full of strangers.  Instead, I moved to the opposite side of the country, hoping that a clean start would keep me clean as well.  I’d just forget about it all.  I went to therapy, but mainly for reasons to do with my boyfriend at the time who was rather verbally and psychologically abusive.  I never really dealt with the addiction, but it was always there in the back of my mind as this old wound, never fully healed.  At this point in my life, I’m dealing with the repercussions of my addiction, as I’m trying to be completely and totally open about every aspect of my life.  I’ve learned that wounds can never fully heal if you perpetually keep them covered up in secret; instead, they’ll slowly fester, until you can’t ignore them anymore.  

You may be asking, what does this talk have to do with the narcissistic family, or with being raised by narcissistic parents?  What I’ve discovered recently is that I started drinking as an escape from my family situation when I was young.  My parents worked many, many hours, and were rarely home.  I was an only child; my parents were extremely overprotective and overbearing, and they kept me largely isolated from other people.  I remember what summers were like: I would have to stay at my home all day, doing what my father termed as “playing Cinderella.”  My mother would have a long list of chores each day to accomplish, including such glamorous tasks as bleaching out the grout in bathroom showers with a toothbrush, or clipping the buds off of mums bushes in the backyard.  If the phone rang, I was to answer it like as secretary, “Hello, Jones residence, Jennifer speaking.”  I avoided answering the phone, even for friends, because it was so embarrassing to speak like this.  Occasionally, I would be permitted to attend a camp - but only one that was of an academic variety (I even took a college-level physics course after 8th grade!).  I was allowed to go to cross-country practice, but only because sports were needed for a solid college application.  I couldn’t participate in any other community sports activities (like softball), because they would interrupt Mom and Dad’s vacation time in Florida.

By the time I was 13 or 14, I was extremely sad and depressed.  I had grown up as a misfit in school.  We moved many times, and I was severely bullied as my dad was the superintendent and my parents dressed me in ridiculously over-formal clothing that never fit in with the other kids.  My parents knew about the bullying since I came home crying almost every day, but told me that I wasn’t allowed to attend another school because it would look bad for my father’s job as a school superintendent.  I was also told not to fight back, because that too would reflect badly on Dad.  It was so frustrating!  That coupled with the exorbitant amount of chores (Mom’s standards were insane!) made me simply freak out over the summer months, those long, boring months of total isolation.

I started cutting my arms with kitchen knives at that time, sort of like a game of chicken, to see how much I could hurt myself and whether or not my parents would notice (they didn’t).  Then I started raiding Dad’s liquor cabinet.  I discovered that I could empty a bottle of vodka, and replace it with water, and no one would realize the liquor was gone since vodka looks just like water.  I would mix the vodka with my father’s allergy medications, just to sleep all afternoon.  I only really did this over the summer months during high school (not regularly), and replaced the boozing practice with more and more strange cutting rituals during school months.  My folks only caught me cutting once, and when I cried and begged for help because I couldn’t stop, they told me that they couldn’t take me to a therapist because it would look bad for Dad’s job (yet again).  I learned - as a result - to never show any pain.  Drinking became a real crutch, and I used it to deal with feeling totally inadequate and insecure all throughout my college years and graduate school.  I used it to numb the pain of an intensely abusive relationship with a man.  I used it to forget being raped at age 21.

My parents apparently “had no idea” I was an alcoholic.  In recent history, they would accuse me of blowing things out of proportion.  “You’re just so sensitive, Jen.  Stop exaggerating.  That didn’t really happen.”  I realize today that a great deal of the impetus behind my drinking was not only to numb how sad and isolated I felt as a girl, but it was also to try and get my parents to notice ME.  To them, I was a doll that they could dress up pretty, who would play nice songs on the piano for their colleagues, who would get the good grades in school to make them proud, who would grow up to be a scientist or a doctor or a lawyer, etc.  I never felt like any of these things.  Drinking was antithetical to their strict “moral” codes...and I thought by imbibing that I would gain some sort of notice, some sort of validation of my own existence.

This never has happened.  If you have narcissistic parents like mine, it never will.  Don’t hope for it - you’ll never get an apology.  You’ll never get a sympathetic ear (unless it benefits them in the short term).  Most times, what you went through will never even be acknowledged.  If it even comes up in conversation, you’ll hear how one of them “had it worse” so as a result you have no right to complain about anything.  You’re just oversensitive, and guilty of exaggerating your own experiences. I was so angry for so many years about this - that I could never talk to my family, get help from my family, confide in family, receive any sort of emotional support from my family.  I thought it was some defect in myself that made these things impossible; now I know it’s the other way around.

Sound familiar to any of you?  If so, my advice is to forget about trying to get your family to recognize you.  Get help for yourself, and for no one else.  That’s where I’m at today, twelve years after that final vodka and tonic.  I am my own mother now.

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why blog about NPD?

I have now spent nearly seventeen years in therapy, trying to figure out my “issues,” which ranged from alcoholism (I’m now twelve years sober) to a history of relationships with abusive men (although today I’m happily married to a wonderful man).  These years of therapy have been extremely helpful in many arenas of my life, particularly in managing my panic attacks, post-traumatic stress episodes, and tendencies toward addictive and other self-sabotaging behaviors.  However, while therapy has had many beneficial effects, it never seemed to “fix” me.  I have often felt like a lost cause, as I was simply unable to completely leave behind certain self-destructive tendencies, and also to let go of past traumas.  I formerly was convinced I was unfixable, and after I moved across the country with my husband last summer, I gave up on therapy, figuring I had come as far as I could possibly go.

Following the move, I sunk into an on-again, off-again depression beginning last August.  It was puzzling to me, as the move was a good one for good reasons, and I was able to finally achieve my goal of working as a freelance musician once again, leaving behind a job that made me miserable for years.  The fact that I couldn’t figure out WHY I was depressed made me even MORE depressed, along with increasingly frustrated.  I experienced painful days where I could barely get out of bed, let alone try to meet new people here in town.  I isolated myself in my beautiful home, spending countless hours on the couch listlessly watching the television.  

By the second week of January, my depression spiraled downward to the point of suicide.  One particularly cold and blustery night, I went into a dissociative trance, wandering out of my house in the middle of the night in just a light shirt and a pair of sandals.  I just started walking, aiming to throw myself off of a tall bridge in the middle of our town, when all of a sudden, I heard a voice tell me in my head that “you can’t do this to your husband.”  That voice immediately snapped me out of my trance, and I returned home to a terrified and panicked husband who told me that I needed to get help “or else.”  The next day, I spent hours researching therapists in town, along with our insurance benefits.  And then I made the phone call.  I was back on the couch a few days later.

At first, I felt like I was back on the hamster wheel in my sessions, rehashing old hurts yet again, not making any progress.  As the weeks passed, my new therapist gave me the exercise of journaling, something I hadn’t done since my years in high school.  Writing helped me to start putting the pieces of the puzzle together, and I found that the source of my current depression was somehow related to my family.  I grew up as an only child in a relatively well-to-do family.  My dad was a public school superintendent, and my mom worked in public school administration.  (Funny that I identify both of them first with their jobs!  Yet this is how they always self-identified...the public persona of the job was always so important to both of them, and the “status” of being a “very important person” in town was always of primary importance to my father in particular.)  My parents were both very controlling and strict as I grew up.  As a result, I left home at only 16 years old; I was accepted into a special program at a college across the country for high school juniors.  It was my ticket out of the house.

During college, I predictably rebelled against my strict upbringing.  I partied, experimented with drugs and alcohol, had way too many boyfriends, wore crazy clothes and dyed my hair funny colors, got piercings and tattoos...anything one can imagine, I tried.  By the time I was 22 years old, I was a full-fledged alcoholic in an abusive relationship.  When my health began to rapidly decline due to my excessive drinking, I quit.  I moved across the country again for a clean start, where I met my husband shortly after.

I thought the rest was history.  But it wasn’t.  Things never got easier, especially with my family.  Fast-forward to this past Christmas: my parents came to visit us in our new, spacious, gorgeous home.  I decorated for them, bought their favorite foods, took them to do their favorite activities...and the holiday still was disastrous.  When they left the day after Christmas, I felt like I had survived a war of apocalyptic proportions; I was shell-shocked, drained, and empty.  My suicidal episode followed days later.  It wasn’t until I started journaling that I found this connection - between my family and the depressive state that made me just want to escape in the only way I could possibly imagine...through dying.

A few weeks ago, during a session, my therapist suddenly demanded that I google “narcissistic personality disorder” via the Mayo Clinic website on my smartphone.  Holy crap...this was my dad!  This was my mom!  The bells went off in my head.  I started researching, reading everything I could find on NPD from clinical books to blogs from adult children of narcissists (ACONs).  NPD was the answer.  It was the missing puzzle piece I had been trying so desperately to locate all of these years, the key to explaining much of my behavior, my relationship with my family, and with others.  

So, what is NPD?  My therapist helpfully summarized it as the “three E’s” - lack of empathy, entitlement, and emptiness inside.  People with NPD have little to no empathy for others’ feelings.  They often feel entitled to special treatment, having an over-inflated self image.  Nothing is ever their fault, and everything is ALWAYS about them.  This is because they are empty people deeply inside, often due to some sort of trauma as a child, like neglect at the hands of their own parents.  People who suffer from NPD rarely seek help (because they are perpetually in complete denial that would need any!), and as a result it is considered to be an untreatable disorder in many ways.  This summary accurately pinpointed both of my parents’ behaviors.  In fact, the descriptions of parents with NPD were so dead on that it was almost frightening.

Today, I’m in active recovery as an ACON.  Journaling is part of my therapy, and as a result, I decided to start this blog.  I don’t want or need recognition for this; in fact, all of the names here have been changed.  My goal is to provide a personal account of what it was like to grow up as the child of two people with NPD in order to help other ACONs who have been in the same situation as myself.  If you grew up with a narcissistic parent, you may have been made to feel like YOU are always the one with the problem by that parent...since a narcissist is never at fault for anything.  But let me tell you - you’re not the one with the problem.

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