A hand shake deal
I watched with horror as the Prime Minister quite literally forced a young woman to shake hands with him. I have no idea what his motive was. Media opportunity? Did he think he was doing the right thing? Was he so out of his comfort zone that his normal behaviours changed?
Only he knows the answer to this.
The questions it raised in my haunted back to childhood days. Those questions of rights, of respect and personal space that people without a narcissistic parent just don't ever seem to need to ask themselves.
So with this in mind I asked someone whose opinion I trust implicitly, and who I know would never lie to me this rather bizarre question:
"What parts of your naked mother do you remember seeing when you were growing up?"
A resounding NONE was the expected and received answer. Another screaming acknowledgement that my own life had not been normal, and that my boundaries were not respected.
So, have the "chuck-up-bucket" on hand while I explore this a little further.
It starts with manicures, and I now hate nails, even my own. I have actually had a form of excoriation or skin pulling for decades due to this. I have in the past pulled pieces of cuticle and skin from around my fingernails. Heaven help me if I ever got a scratch or sore as it would be picked to unbelievable lengths which on more than one occasion required antibiotics due to the infection I had created. It's taken me a long time to work out where this came from. For some mother/daughter relationships "grooming" - hair brushing, manicuring etc can be a very healthy space to be in. One where it signifies caring for one another. However in a narcissistic relationship where one is forced to do these things, the results can be quite serious, as I know only too well.
Pedicures too. If ever there is a smell that can make me physically ill it's feet. Remember the ones I had to work on, and I mean HAD TO, were not pleasantly smelling, clean, attractive ones. They were straight from work shoes, calloused and nasty. The physical act of working on someone else's feet means you are placed in a lower and subservient position out of necessity. OK, so cut to the chase, what effect did that have? Well I attacked my own to such an extent that I had ingrown toenails. Both big toes. I had them until I was in my 40's! I paid probably thousands of dollars in preparations, bandaids and all other systems to cure them because I just couldn't go to a doctor and get them fixed. I hated them, and it was a sign really in hindsight that I wasn't too fond of myself either. Eventually I did and while they're still not going to grace the cover of a magazine any time soon, they are healthy!
Let's move up and hopefully quickly past the gory bits. Suffice to say that it's a time I hate having a photographic memory. The sight is still there. I would need mental Domestos to rid myself of it. The smell is still there. Memories of being forced to sleep in the same bed, and of being used as a human chastity belt so there was no intimacy between the parents are definitely there too. One bizarre memory of having my butt taped with masking tape! No idea why or how, but that memory is there too. None of this appeared remotely normal even at that age. Thankfully the only remnant of these for me is my extreme sense of modesty. I take a different nightdress to sleep at my adult children's houses than what I wear at home just to make sure everything is covered! I shut bathroom and toilet doors when they visit me. I want no sounds, smells or sights to cloud their judgement of me.
OK, that was short & sweet. Next the grooming bits. Black head removal, pimple popping, shaving, tweezering. All those things that a normal person does for themselves in the privacy of their own bathroom. Not with a narcissistic parent. That stuff has to be done for them. It's control. Simple as that.
Then the most debilitating one for me at least. The food-bond. Yes there is such a thing. In some families it might be a booze-bond. For other healthy types it might be coffee or lunches, or exercise. The ones I've tried to foster in my family. Not in my case.
The term "gooshy-cake" will forever be imprinted in my mind. Bizarrely I only today researched the meaning of this word "gooshy" and it actually links well in a weird way -
Gooshy is a very colloquial adjective that indicates that it is the kind of thing that little girls hate, like worms or snakes, that cause horror and disgust. Lots of blood coming out of a wound is "gooshy." Chewing on a cockroach would be "gooshy." Reading these may give you a "gooshy" feeling.
So what does an unhealthy food bond do? It creates a weight issue. The only time you receive praise and acceptance is when eating with this person who also by the way has a weight issue. There was a time when this was recognised by a doctor as I had a very sore knee and they suggested I needed to lose weight. There are age appropriate ways for this to happen. Fat shaming at a local club was not the way to go. No result for me at all. I left home and dropped to a very good weight and healthy shape. Jealousy abounded. Skip along a few years when living nearby again and all those negative feelings were still there and now in what I had claimed as my territory and I gained 40kg in 1 year.
I hid my eating. I knew it was bad, wrong, unhealthy both physically and mentally. But when I ate it took me to my warm and fuzzy spots. There weren't many of them. I felt terrible. I felt unhappy. I didn't recognise the link of course. That took years to do that.
I moved again. I lost weight again. She moved again. I gained all the weight I had lost and more. Eventually hitting close enough to 150kg. How is that mentally or physically healthy?
It took losing my best friend due to weight issues to realise all the connections between the weight and the reason I was eating to even deal with this.
Another long story - but I did have surgery, I did lose 80kg and I have maintained it. I haven't maintained it solely with food & exercise, but with distancing myself from that narcissistic influence.
Now if only I could distance myself from all those sight & smell memories that haunt.
Only he knows the answer to this.
The questions it raised in my haunted back to childhood days. Those questions of rights, of respect and personal space that people without a narcissistic parent just don't ever seem to need to ask themselves.
So with this in mind I asked someone whose opinion I trust implicitly, and who I know would never lie to me this rather bizarre question:
"What parts of your naked mother do you remember seeing when you were growing up?"
A resounding NONE was the expected and received answer. Another screaming acknowledgement that my own life had not been normal, and that my boundaries were not respected.
So, have the "chuck-up-bucket" on hand while I explore this a little further.
It starts with manicures, and I now hate nails, even my own. I have actually had a form of excoriation or skin pulling for decades due to this. I have in the past pulled pieces of cuticle and skin from around my fingernails. Heaven help me if I ever got a scratch or sore as it would be picked to unbelievable lengths which on more than one occasion required antibiotics due to the infection I had created. It's taken me a long time to work out where this came from. For some mother/daughter relationships "grooming" - hair brushing, manicuring etc can be a very healthy space to be in. One where it signifies caring for one another. However in a narcissistic relationship where one is forced to do these things, the results can be quite serious, as I know only too well.
Pedicures too. If ever there is a smell that can make me physically ill it's feet. Remember the ones I had to work on, and I mean HAD TO, were not pleasantly smelling, clean, attractive ones. They were straight from work shoes, calloused and nasty. The physical act of working on someone else's feet means you are placed in a lower and subservient position out of necessity. OK, so cut to the chase, what effect did that have? Well I attacked my own to such an extent that I had ingrown toenails. Both big toes. I had them until I was in my 40's! I paid probably thousands of dollars in preparations, bandaids and all other systems to cure them because I just couldn't go to a doctor and get them fixed. I hated them, and it was a sign really in hindsight that I wasn't too fond of myself either. Eventually I did and while they're still not going to grace the cover of a magazine any time soon, they are healthy!
Let's move up and hopefully quickly past the gory bits. Suffice to say that it's a time I hate having a photographic memory. The sight is still there. I would need mental Domestos to rid myself of it. The smell is still there. Memories of being forced to sleep in the same bed, and of being used as a human chastity belt so there was no intimacy between the parents are definitely there too. One bizarre memory of having my butt taped with masking tape! No idea why or how, but that memory is there too. None of this appeared remotely normal even at that age. Thankfully the only remnant of these for me is my extreme sense of modesty. I take a different nightdress to sleep at my adult children's houses than what I wear at home just to make sure everything is covered! I shut bathroom and toilet doors when they visit me. I want no sounds, smells or sights to cloud their judgement of me.
OK, that was short & sweet. Next the grooming bits. Black head removal, pimple popping, shaving, tweezering. All those things that a normal person does for themselves in the privacy of their own bathroom. Not with a narcissistic parent. That stuff has to be done for them. It's control. Simple as that.
Then the most debilitating one for me at least. The food-bond. Yes there is such a thing. In some families it might be a booze-bond. For other healthy types it might be coffee or lunches, or exercise. The ones I've tried to foster in my family. Not in my case.
The term "gooshy-cake" will forever be imprinted in my mind. Bizarrely I only today researched the meaning of this word "gooshy" and it actually links well in a weird way -
Gooshy is a very colloquial adjective that indicates that it is the kind of thing that little girls hate, like worms or snakes, that cause horror and disgust. Lots of blood coming out of a wound is "gooshy." Chewing on a cockroach would be "gooshy." Reading these may give you a "gooshy" feeling.
So what does an unhealthy food bond do? It creates a weight issue. The only time you receive praise and acceptance is when eating with this person who also by the way has a weight issue. There was a time when this was recognised by a doctor as I had a very sore knee and they suggested I needed to lose weight. There are age appropriate ways for this to happen. Fat shaming at a local club was not the way to go. No result for me at all. I left home and dropped to a very good weight and healthy shape. Jealousy abounded. Skip along a few years when living nearby again and all those negative feelings were still there and now in what I had claimed as my territory and I gained 40kg in 1 year.
I hid my eating. I knew it was bad, wrong, unhealthy both physically and mentally. But when I ate it took me to my warm and fuzzy spots. There weren't many of them. I felt terrible. I felt unhappy. I didn't recognise the link of course. That took years to do that.
I moved again. I lost weight again. She moved again. I gained all the weight I had lost and more. Eventually hitting close enough to 150kg. How is that mentally or physically healthy?
It took losing my best friend due to weight issues to realise all the connections between the weight and the reason I was eating to even deal with this.
Another long story - but I did have surgery, I did lose 80kg and I have maintained it. I haven't maintained it solely with food & exercise, but with distancing myself from that narcissistic influence.
Now if only I could distance myself from all those sight & smell memories that haunt.
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