The Narcissist in Your Head, Part 1

No, I don't mean that you are a narcissist.  But chances are that if you have been abused by a narcissist, an internal loop will keep playing the insults, threats, and insinuations...even for years afterwards.  This is the way it's been for me.  For close to a decade, I reread emails between my sister and me, looking for some logic, some turning point to which I could return and correct our relationship.  I tried to see it the way she said the disconnect happened, that she was well intentioned, that our relationship was important to her.

There were emails in which she wrote, "I am sorry.  I don't know what I did so wrong that you are treating me wrong but let's forget it."  Or the email in which she wrote about how her son would grow up never knowing me and that she regretted that I had only met her husband a couple of times.  Those emails worked to some degree.  I felt guilty: it was as though some one had grabbed me in the guts and were twisting my insides.

What I couldn't understand though was why she insisted she didn't know what she had done wrong.  She had once tried to have our parents put me in a mental institute.  During a period when she kept calling me at work and emailing me vitriolic curses, I asked her to stop because her harassment was causing me to hyperventilate.  The next day, my mother called me, sounding very concerned.  She said that my sister had rang her, saying that I told her I was going to commit suicide and that I needed to be hospitalized to prevent me from harming myself.  Fortunately, my mother believed me when I told her I said no such thing.  As I once wrote in an email to my sister, this is a wrong she did me.

The other part I kept thinking about when I read her email in later years is how she always mentioned her family, her children and her husband -- that I was missing out on being part of her life.  Never once did she ask about my life, about my husband.

So, why did I keep hearing her in my head?  I think it's because it took me a long time to unravel what she was saying.  She always couched her words in terms of our family, of her good intentions.  I am the type to overthink things.  I try to be conscientious, even if I don't always succeed.  She knew her target.

Most likely you are reading this because you also have (or had) a narcissist in your life.  Recognition of the person's illness is the start of letting go of these words.  Once it started to dawn on me what ailed my sister, it was as though my perception of our relationship had shifted, as though I was seeing our past interactions through a different-colored filter.  I understood that my sister never asked about my life, my husband, or anything about me because my value to her was as a spectator to her life.  I saw that my sister decided to deny any wrong-doing on her part because it conflicted with how she viewed herself: perfect.  This idealized sense of herself is more important to her than our relationship.

It is only two months since I started to think my sister was on the far end of the narcissist spectrum.  There are still days when I hear my sister in my head but they are less now.  Many things that have been missing in my life have returned to me: my sense of valuing the present moment; enjoyment in the small things of life such as taking walks, reading novels, cooking; the ability to concentrate; and most important of all, slowly, I am working on my regaining my confidence.  

To Begin

Recently, I realized that I am most likely the younger sister of a woman suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  I've been estranged from my older sister for close to a decade now.  The decision to sever contact with her was not an easy one.  There were times in our lives when we were tight, shared good moments, and laughed together.  I came to a crux in our relationship when my sister insisted that she had the right to dictate who I chose for my boyfriend, a job, and whether I could continue to write creatively or not.  When I replied that I was an autonomous being, she emailed me that I had hurt her feelings by insinuating that she did not allow me a free existence.  She followed up with multiple emails and phone calls, sometimes fourteen emails and phone calls to me at work, each following upon another loudly insisting an immediate response.  This behavior culminated with a threat to stalk me.  She acted upon this threat by showing up at my work place under an assumed name.  

In hindsight, I see how fortunate I was to move to another city.  Yet, my physical distance has not deterred my sister from her behavior.  I do not respond to her emails or phone messages.  She has let me know her displeasure by portraying me on her blog as a cold sister who has estranged her for no good reason.  Herself -- she was the loving sister who did everything for me, without reward or recognition.  Her readers believed her and commented on what an awful sister I must be.  For that, she thanked them.  For years, I felt demoralized and humiliated by what she wrote about me publicly.  It took me a long time to discover the disorder by which my sister has ruled her life.  

This blog is not a revenge blog, although it will most likely have bitter posts.  There will undoubtedly be moments when I will be unable to reflect but will rant and rave with anger.  But I hope that such posts will be interwoven with genuine resources.  Since coming to consider my sister a narcissist, I have spent quite a bit of time looking at other websites, blogs, forums and resources.  In general, most of these resources are dedicated to children of narcissists and those involved in romantic relationships.  If this blog can affirm the experiences of other siblings who have been emotionally or physically abused by their brother or sister, I will have contributed something worthwhile.  

About the user name: I had considered Echo first but it seemed too defeated.  Instead, I chose Athena, a Greek goddess known for so many of the better things in life.  May you too find these better things in life as you journey out of whatever mire and confusion that you might have suffered in the hands of a narcissist.