What's in a Name?

I love this quote because the reality of it has hit me very hard in recent days. Even at my age, the child in me still believes it has no rights, that its feelings are wrong and that they are judged harshly for how some things affect them.

I have never told the full story of my childhood because I'm still a child. I still have a living, breathing parent and I have no siblings to validate or to share my lived experience. To have an only child and to create such havoc in an emotional storm for all these decades must surely equate to winning the game. Right? 

News just to hand and a conversation about what it means to be given a name has just set off a series of after shocks that while I know I will recover from are currently causing some enormous mental tidal waves. A name? How can such a small thing create such a huge issue in someone who is not even remotely involved in the decision? How can nobody who knows you so well even pick up on these devastating effects? And why is the fear of the repercussions be adding to this tsunami?

I was given a name. OK, we all were!  Why were you given yours? Was it for love? For respect? For memory? For innovation? Mine was for ownership. Labelling and ownership. That is as simple as it gets.

Decades later I took the most decisive step I could take and I legally deleted it from myself. I didn't realise at the time that it would not stop that feeling inside, but I was taking action to build and repair and it seemed it was enough. I didn't shout it from the rooftops and I didn't tell people. Why? To protect that sticking rotten narcissistic parent who had programmed me that I had no rights. Just like the quote says - I was hiding my feelings out of fear of that wrath.

I hid those wrong feelings from my own family. I thought I was protecting them, but it turns out I was just still feeding that monster. I worked that out this week when the discussion led to me feeling that I had totally lost the battle, the war and that I was still so incredibly vulnerable to that narcissistic power. I had no rights, no validity of my feelings and I was still in the wrong.

I took some steps to address it. I spoke to the people concerned and I gave a very short version of how I arrived at this decision to delete part of my own name. I gave more information than I had before.  I thought I was doing the right thing in owning my feelings and actions.

And I still felt I was in the wrong! My validity was lower than it has been in a long long time and I felt incredibly unimportant. My shadow life was back with vengeance.

I'm now in a state of wondering how much of my story to tell while this person is alive? How much pain will it cause ME if I do?

I know that while a narcissist lives and breathes the victim will always remain the victim. The narcissistic personality disorder is the last functioning organ to die. Well that is my opinion. No doubt medically incorrect, but in my mind on this day at this hour it is what I believe.

The ability of the narcissist to create such a feeling of insecurity, disbelief in your own abilities and even the doubt of other people's love for you has to be experienced to be believed. But then I don't want anyone to experience these things. They are damaging and harmful and painful beyond anything that my lousy attempts at putting words on a screen.

So after such a small thing as a conversation about a happy topic, the relived emotions from bygone days, the regurgitated emotional pain that causes a reflux of anxiety are in full flight. Verbal conversations are gone unless they are about the minutia of daily life. All emotions and head chats are internalised and all eye leakages are done in the privacy of showers and toilets. The emotional echidna has been bought out of hiding after years of slowly becoming malnourished.

Right now I honestly feel that my pet narcissist has won, has gained control and the upper hand once again. I hope this doesn't last long. I hope I can break the cycle finally.

Maybe writing it instead of attempting to speak it may actually help.  We shall see.