LJ Idol Prompt Week 4: What does narcissism have to with me?
What does narcissism have to with me?
Everything.
It’s in my DNA, or so I’m afraid. I’m a child from a troubled home, as the popular saying goes, a devoted father but an absent, and borderline neglectful, mother. My father raised me but, the older I’ve gotten, the more involved my mother has made herself in my life. I say this like it’s a bad thing and it is. My mother is toxic, like a mold or a parasite that once it infects you, there is no cure. She leaves chaos and pain in her wake but yet I cling to her like a life-raft.
My Mommy was never ready to be a mom and, truth be told, she never should’ve been a mother and never wanted to be, either. There’s a rumor in my family, it supposedly died with my grandmothers but I was told it at a young age, mores the pity. My mother wanted to have an abortion. Her mother told me this before she died. Had it come from anyone else’s lips, I would’ve instantly accused them of lying. In fact, my father told me this but, until my Granny told me, something didn’t want to believe him.
My father hasn’t lied to me nearly as much as my mother has. She’s always been desperate to be the center of attention and she always has been, thanks to being very grandiose in her thinking and feeling and acting. And, in the pursuit of her self-centeredness, she’s left a wake of tears and broken pieces of my mind and heart.
It’s taken me years to realize that all the things my mother has blamed me for have very little to do with me. It has everything to do with her and all the things she didn’t get to do that she blames me for. It’s all in her mind and my greatest fear is that, because it’s in her mind, it’s in mine. At my worst, I am just like my mother, or so I’ve been told by my father, who should know better than anyone alive since he’s known her the longest. I have the potential to be as violent and as petulant and as self-centered as she is. And that’s what I fear more than any silly mortal fear. Turning into my mother and becoming as narcissistic is such a bigger fear to me than drowning, suffocating, or any kind of freak accident.
And I just realized something, looking back at the topic. What does narcissism have to with me? Apparently, since all I can talk about is myself, it has everything to do with me. But, then again, on some basic level, we’re all narcissistic. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be hair dye, make up, fake nails, plastic surgery. We’re all narcissists. And suddenly, that word isn’t nearly as scary as it used to be. My mother may be a narcissist but not all narcissists are my mother. Now THAT I can live with.
Everything.
It’s in my DNA, or so I’m afraid. I’m a child from a troubled home, as the popular saying goes, a devoted father but an absent, and borderline neglectful, mother. My father raised me but, the older I’ve gotten, the more involved my mother has made herself in my life. I say this like it’s a bad thing and it is. My mother is toxic, like a mold or a parasite that once it infects you, there is no cure. She leaves chaos and pain in her wake but yet I cling to her like a life-raft.
My Mommy was never ready to be a mom and, truth be told, she never should’ve been a mother and never wanted to be, either. There’s a rumor in my family, it supposedly died with my grandmothers but I was told it at a young age, mores the pity. My mother wanted to have an abortion. Her mother told me this before she died. Had it come from anyone else’s lips, I would’ve instantly accused them of lying. In fact, my father told me this but, until my Granny told me, something didn’t want to believe him.
My father hasn’t lied to me nearly as much as my mother has. She’s always been desperate to be the center of attention and she always has been, thanks to being very grandiose in her thinking and feeling and acting. And, in the pursuit of her self-centeredness, she’s left a wake of tears and broken pieces of my mind and heart.
It’s taken me years to realize that all the things my mother has blamed me for have very little to do with me. It has everything to do with her and all the things she didn’t get to do that she blames me for. It’s all in her mind and my greatest fear is that, because it’s in her mind, it’s in mine. At my worst, I am just like my mother, or so I’ve been told by my father, who should know better than anyone alive since he’s known her the longest. I have the potential to be as violent and as petulant and as self-centered as she is. And that’s what I fear more than any silly mortal fear. Turning into my mother and becoming as narcissistic is such a bigger fear to me than drowning, suffocating, or any kind of freak accident.
And I just realized something, looking back at the topic. What does narcissism have to with me? Apparently, since all I can talk about is myself, it has everything to do with me. But, then again, on some basic level, we’re all narcissistic. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be hair dye, make up, fake nails, plastic surgery. We’re all narcissists. And suddenly, that word isn’t nearly as scary as it used to be. My mother may be a narcissist but not all narcissists are my mother. Now THAT I can live with.