Monthly Archives: July 2022

When my grandfather passed away more than three years ago, I offered to write his obituary. I'd written two: First came the doting one, the version that I knew local newspapers would publish without issue. And then I wrote the honest one the version of his life that I knew editors would refuse to run, regardless of how much money I offered them.

My grandfather was a good, honest and hardworking man. That much is true. But he was also the victim of a brutish marriage, the details of which still make me shudder and my heart ache. The challenges he experienced didn't stop at a toxic marriage; several of his children emotionally abused him, and in the hours before his scheduled cremation, one of them drove clear across the country to clean out his bank accounts upon learning of his death.

Even though I knew no one would run it, I attempted to post my grandfather's "honest" obituary to several local newspapers. In it, I'd described the narcissistic trauma he'd endured until his death at 84 years old. When editors refused, I shared the obit with several close friends instead.

The mental health issues plaguing my family are intergenerational, and the trauma continues to affect every generation born into it. My family members had historically shamed and punished those who dared to speak out about the dysfunction.

My reasons for wanting to write and share the raw version of my loved one's obituary stemmed from my growing disgust for the secrets that narrated my family tree. Narcissistic abuse is defined by MedCircle as "the emotional, physical, sexual, or financial forms of abuse that a narcissist inflicts on others," including gaslighting, manipulation, emotional blackmail, a lack of empathy and a long list of other traumatizing behaviors. This was our family's dirty little secret, and with conversations about narcissism and narcissistic trauma gaining traction in the media and public imagination, I was tired of my family's generations-long investment in silence and appearances.

The mantel had grown too heavy, and the gig was up. I'd had enough, in more ways than I'd been aware of at the time.

Children born into narcissistic families know how hard it can be to share stories like these. The truth is, the mental health issues plaguing my family are intergenerational, and the trauma continues to affect every generation born into it (I'm currently in therapy trying to wade through the sludge). My family members had historically shamed and punished those who dared to speak out about the dysfunction. Afterall, I was "just" the granddaughter, and stillmaddeninglyconsidered a child. Who was I to have an opinion? Despite being nearly 40 years old, with my own life and desires, I'd been villainized by a key family member for daring to share an unpalatable perspective of my grandfather's death, but most of all, daring to defy my family's expectations for obedient silence.

As a result of ObituaryGate, I found myself having to establish boundaries with this same family member, whom I'll call Adrian. Adrian was unhappy about my decision to air our family's laundry to my trusted inner-circle; I reminded Adrian that she was not the only family member with wants and needs that matteredthat I mattered just as much as she did, that I had a need to share, and that I was no longer a child. I'd reminded Adrian that she was responsible for managing her own feelings, particularly in reference to her lifelong pattern of chronically manipulating other family members into doing what she wanted. I'd told Adrian that I loved her, but would no longer submit myself to her outsized rage and random outbursts (ObituaryGate merely being the latest example to top a lifetime's worth of unchecked anger). My own mental health was on the line.

My request that Adrian receive professional help for her longstanding need to control other adults was met with crickets. More than three years later, Adrian's silence a well-established weapon of war in my family continues.

Thanks to my family's legacy of turning on each other and eating their young, I'd never had a stable model for how to raise emotionally healthy children. And so, I wondered: would having children of my own curse them to repeat the same traumatic cycle that I went through?

During that time, I'd had to make difficult decisions about my own future. Chief among these was whether to start a family. For the first time in my life, I was in a position to do so at least in terms of logistics. My spouse and I were finally living under the same roof after we'd spent the first five years of our relationship separated by three states and two time zones. We had his loving family nearby, a logistical luxury I had not experienced in over ten years. We were financially stable, another characteristic that was relatively new to me.

But, thanks to my family's legacy of turning on each other and eating their young, I'd never had a stable model for how to raise emotionally healthy children. And so, I wondered: would having children of my own curse them to repeat the same traumatic cycle that I went through?

There was no way to know for sure. But in the end, I decided that the probability was just too high both for myself and for any potential offspring. When you come from a dysfunctional family, it's hard to feel like you're capable of breaking that cycle. I couldn't bear the thought of another child being born into the web of narcissistic abuse that I'd spent my entire life trying to extricate from.

The stigma of having grown up this way was also the elephant in the room that helped me make my decision. For those of us from narcissistic families, the thought of the word "family" itself can bring up negative feelings. I do not often talk about growing up because the details of my day-to-day life as a child are nearly impossible to articulate to those who haven't been through something similar.

This is especially true because, on the surface, I had all of my physical needs met as a child. Us children had clothes on our backs, a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs. We did well in school and our parents, to whatever extent possible, encouraged and paid for extracurriculars. Ours was a childhood where there were also good very good times. The toxicity was hard to see.

Those of us who try to explain these disparate experiences that of having one's physical needs met while consistent emotional nourishment and efforts to instill healthy attachment were near nonexistent are typically met with skeptical comments, like "How is that possible when you've obviously turned out fine?"

It turns out that the insidiousness of narcissistic trauma is just really hard to explain.

For that reason, I understand the inclination toward disbelief. We all know, intellectually, that there are a lot of unhealthy families out there. But to encounter someone who says they came up in such a construct requires us to come face to face with inconvenient truths about the world. It demands that we reconsider everything we believe about families and what they're supposed to represent to be to their members. These uncomfortable truths require us to consider that there is much we don't know about what goes on behind the scenes of any family, let alone those with unpalatable backstories. Perhaps these hard truths even force us to come face to face with who we are, and our own contributions to the family unit.

In my case, the narcissistic abuse that defined (and continues to define) my family is intergenerational also a complicated construct to explain. But some of the trauma in my family, for instance, comes from knock-down drag-out fights over issues large and small; financial abuse; emotional manipulation; and above all a breathtaking lack of empathy for others' feelings and experiences. This was the norm for my family's dynamics long before I was born; hence, dysfunction was normalized and passed down by older generations like an heirloom.

In this way, I'd been the unwitting recipient of an unfortunate inheritance. Many of these same family members are still alive, willfully clueless as to the pain that their descendants carry with them to school, to work, to their friends' houses, and to their therapists' offices. The pain is like carrying around another limb it becomes intrinsic to a person. And I didn't want to extend this to another child.

I'd seen firsthand how this flavor of family dysfunctional and resulting pain secures a vice-like grip around each and every family member born into the fold. To my mind, the only way to truly end the cycle is to stop reproducing into it.

Even recognizing the patterns of dysfunction that are so baked in, so entrenched into a family's DNA, is hard and for some, impossible (which is often how such cycles continue). It had taken me more than 30 years to come to grips with my family's sickness. As I'd said, life on the surface was so pristine that there almost wasn't room for other interpretations not even my own.

What really goesbehind the scenes of a narcissistic household? While I can only speak for myself, my own experiences are captured within the professional discourse about what such environments often look like.

A narcissistic household often looks like children being relied upon to anticipate their parents' (or other adults') emotional needs. As journalist Julie Hall, author of "The Narcissist in Your Life: Recognizing the Patterns and Learning to Break Free," writes in an explainer for Psychology Today: "anarcissisticfamily is one in which the needs of the parents are the focus and the children are expected in various ways to meet those needs."

Having lived in this environment, I saw firsthand how this dynamic does not change, even as children grow older and become adults with their own lives to live. As Hall points out, "As in other kinds of dysfunctional families, there is abuse and correspondingdenialof the abuse. There is also secrecy, neglect, unrealistic expectations, an impoverishment ofempathy, disrespect for boundaries, and ongoing conflict."

I've spent the entirety of my adult life contending with the lasting effects of growing up in this sort oftoxic family system. Looking back, I do believe that the ultimate deciding factor against having children was my diagnosis of PTSD. My therapist had noted just how much I continued to struggle as a result of my childhood experiences.

As it happened, I'd just read Kristen Brownell's piece in The Guardianat around the same time as my diagnosis. She wrote about the potential togeneticallypass on addiction genes. The author had refused to have children for this reason. Around this same time, I'd come across researchers who were looking at how trauma might also be passed down throughgenes. While the jury is out and more research needs to be done (scientists admit that the field is moving slowly in this regard), it remains possible that a person'sgenescould have expressionsof their parents', grandparents' and great-grandparents' trauma. Much like scientists are beginning to understand howaddiction has the potential to express itselfgenetically, a2019 studyidentified a clear biological basis for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Sometimes I convince myself that I am equipped to consider motherhood. But the fact remains that I'm terrified of raising and screwing up children due to my lifelong struggles with emotional instability and post-traumaticstress. How could I begin to believe that my own children would somehow be spared the legacy that I've spent my life contending with? For these reasons,I feel that I am playing it safe by opting out of parenthood.

One day as I was writing this piece, I was curious as to what feelings come to mind when most people think of family. So, I did a search for "adjectives for family." Common ones included adoring; affectionate; boisterous; brotherly; close-knit; cohesive; competitive; devoted; bonded; dutiful.

There's nothing wrong with people who can say that they come from families like this. But for many, these descriptors are not reality. The fact is, parents can do serious emotional harm to children. It's a gift that our culture is opening up to this reality, and that there are acclaimed mental health experts likeDr. Ramani Durvasula and Lindsey Gibson dismantling the taboo.

I applaud those parents who have found a way to overcome such legacies with their children. But my own legacy as a cycle-breaker relies on remaining childfree.

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about family and trauma

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I grew up in a narcissistic family. I'm not having kids because I want the cycle to end - Salon

Family matters are always difficult. Where the destinies and desires of at least two people are intertwined, some problem can arise at any time. And when there are three of these people, and one of them is a child, it becomes even more difficult.

In fact, any position is worthy of respect both childfree and those who can not imagine a family without kids. But, unfortunately, life sometimes presents such plot twists when a person faces a choice and this is incredibly hard.

For example, the sister of the author of this post in the AITA Reddit community faced such a problem. The post gained over 7.1K upvotes and almost 3K different comments. The Original Poster wanted to know if she did the right thing in an argument with her sister and this is how everything happened.

More info: Reddit

Image source: Virginia State Parks (not the actual photo)

The OPs sister is 30 years old and she has been married for several years. She and her husband love each other, both have good jobs, live in a nice house and travel a lot. Right before the wedding, both decided that they would be childfree, and did not change this rule. But life, as it often happens, has made its own adjustments

Image source: Pomelo_764

About a year ago, it turned out that the husband has a son. By the way, the man himself had no idea about this either. It turned out that about six years earlier, one of his casual acquaintances had become pregnant, but decided not to tell him about the child. The woman raised her son herself; however, unfortunately, she passed away, and her mother had health problems so she couldnt take custody.

Image source: Pomelo_764

As a result, the boy went to live with his father and his wife. The OP admits that the child is just amazing, and everyone in their family loves him. However, about a month ago, like a bolt from the blue, the OPs sister announced that she was going to file for divorce.

Image source: Pomelo_764

It turned out that a year as a stepmother was a real torment for the woman. She didnt feel ready for this, not for not being able to watch adult shows anytime now, not for helping her stepson with his homework. According to the womans own words, she still loves her husband, but does not want to live like this anymore.

Everyone was shocked the husband, relatives and, of course, the kid. Moreover, the woman, upon leaving, also took her dog, which the boy loved very much. The OP herself admits that she has her own children, so she felt very sorry for the boy. As a result, during one family meeting, the OP could not help but talk to her sister.

Image source: Doug Clow (not the actual photo)

According to the OP, she said that her sister was making a mistake, and she could still try to improve relations in her family. Unfortunately, as she admits, the sister took it as criticism, and has since refused to communicate with her. Relatives basically took the OPs side, and their mother was extremely upset both from the current situation and from the quarrel between her daughters.

We also must say that the vast majority of people in the comments supported the OPs sister, claiming that the woman had no right to interfere in someone elses life at all. If the OPs sister has previously made a decision for herself to remain childfree, then her decision must be respected. Period.

Many commenters noted that the wife made a very difficult decision for herself after all, she, in fact, sacrificed her love for the well-being of the boy. Actually, it is far from certain that he will grow up well next to a person who doesnt want to be a stepmother at all. And that, perhaps, the father will be able to find a woman in the future who will just want to become a good stepmother for his son.

A very ambiguous story, isnt it? Therefore, we would like to know your opinion on this matter. Any comments, as always, would be welcome.

See the rest here:

Woman Divorces Her Husband Because He Suddenly Has A Child, Gets Called The Jerk - Bored Panda