Ok, so I’m going to tell you something. Two things, actually. The first isn’t so bad, but the second – oh, that’s something many people would consider provocative. Are you ready? All right, let’s go.
First thing – my covertly narcissistic mother died twenty years ago.
See, that wasn’t so bad.
Second thing – I’m happy that she’s dead.
That’s what some would think provocative. Me, not so much. Not at all, quite frankly. How could I, when I am eternally grateful that she’s dead and gone.
…
Then comes some discussing about these things. Such as; how does the recovery work when the source of abuse is dead and gone? Does it happen any faster? How does one move forward? How long does it take to be “done”? How, how, how, in an everending line of how and why.
And I have very few answers to this. As this blog and the Youtube channel moves along, I’ll tell you as much as I can, but in general – I have no answer for any of these questions. I’ll tell you all about how and what I’ve done, how long it took for me to realize this and that, but still – I have no answers.
As for me being grateful and happy that my mother is dead – well, had she been alive, I have no idea where I’d be today. Probably locked up at a psychic ward behind locked doors with the keys thrown away. With her gone, I didn’t have to go through that.
But I’ll say this; for me personally – it has been somewhat easier to recover with my mom being gone. I wouldn’t say it’s been easier than for those of you who still have your narcissistic parent alive, because there are still the issues with everything my mom taught me that is not easy to rid myself of.
And I’ll get back to this as well. To recover, one needs to have an understanding of what’s wrong. I knew something was wrong with my mother since I was about thirteen years old. When I was about twenty, I began understanding parts of what actually was wrong, but I couldn’t put it in words fully. It took me until last summer (2020) to find the language for it, which in turn made me understand so much more. Finally, everything made sense.
I have gone through so many stages of rage, grief, understanding et etera – over and over, back and forth, and then some rounds more just because I could. I do have a better understanding of it, but I still find it extremely difficult to find anything positive about my mother. I know people who thought she was extremely intelligent (people say that about me as well, and probably about at least one of my siblings), but I never saw that side of her. And even if she was, that’s no excuse for her behaviour.
However – a lesson I learnt, two, in fact, are… First of all; whatever our narcissistic parents are doing, it’s never about us. It’s all about them. It’s their truth they are living, and we have absolutely nothing to do with it. It doesn’t make it easier or funnier, but at least to me, it meant meant that I could.. somehow ignore her. Now, she was already dead since many years when I understood this, but it still helped.
And another thing I learned, which has everything to do with my spiritual work, is that whatever my mother was when she was alive, she is not now that she’s dead. I do ask for help from a lot of spirits, and quite recently (couple of months) I understood that I can actually ask her too, because whatever crap she held onto in life, she left behind when she died.
So, yes. I do take the liberty of saying I am immensely grateful and happy that my mother is dead. I rarely dare to think of what life would be like had she still been alive. For those of you who still have your narcissistic parent – I am sorry. I truly am sorry. I cannot even begin to imagine what it’s like for you.
But there has to be a way to get out of it. To un-learn every destructive pattern they taught us. I have reached the point where I refuse to be the reflection of my parents. I wish things had been different for me, but they weren’t. And on the plus side – as children of narcissistic parents, we have the opportunity to build ourselves from scratch as adults, and aside from the hard work – I think it’s kind of fun.
In a sense, I consider myself lucky. However bad that may sound.
