Dear Sugar,
I could be worse. That’s one of my father’s favorite sayings.
We’d be watching television and see a story about a man beating his children, murdering his family, locking them away: I could be worse. It was as if the mere existence of vileness and depravity could exculpate him of any wrongdoing.
He never hit my mother or me. He didn’t rape me or threaten me. These are the first things that come to mind when we think of child abuse. But while my mother would have left him if he lifted a hand against me, words—painful, horrible words—were allowed, though physical harm was not.
So instead of bruises and scrapes, I suffered from internal pain. My father is a narcissist: controlling, vain, volatile, and charming. If I wasn’t cheerful enough he didn’t want to look at me and I was locked in my room for days; if I made a joke he’d yell and curse at me for being insensitive. My room was my sanctuary, my books my closest friends. I could never be perfect enough, and yet I tried so hard to make him proud, to make him care. He was my dad after all.
I never had anyone to talk to about it. I couldn’t fully trust my friends, and my mother was too busy pacifying my father to realize how much it hurt. My mother and I were the only ones allowed to see that side of him. Counseling was out of the question, and extended family visited seldom.
He disowned me twice. They were over small things, slight disagreements that led him to denounce me as his child. When he decided that everything was fine again, I was expected to accept his change of heart—no apologies (unless they were mine), no further mention of the incident. Each time, I let my mother convince me to give him another chance.
But three months ago he went too far. He betrayed my mother, and in trying to support her, I was subjected to an angry diatribe. I was a fucking bitch for finding out about his infidelity. I had no right to invade his privacy. He, of course, doesn’t remember it. I, however, will never forget.
This time, I disowned him. I moved out (at twenty, I’d been staying at home for the summer). I’ve ceased all contact. And though my mother is more understanding of my position than she once was, she’s still trying to fix that broken relationship. While I know I could live happily without my father, and that I’m stronger than I’ve ever been since he’s been gone from my life, it’s like I can never fully escape him. My mother constantly talks about him, how he’s changed. She wants to know when I’ll be ready to be around him again. It’s hard to explain that I really don’t feel anything anymore.
In spite of my mother’s claims, my father is still trying to control me, still so consumed by his image that he disregards my feelings. He found out that my therapist—an understanding, kind, and sympathetic counselor—was a woman he worked with and insisted I stop seeing her. Yet another attempt to keep me isolated, away from any outside support. Still, my mother is pressuring me (sometimes unconsciously) to make it work. But I no longer trust him, no longer trust my judgment when it comes to my father.
We will never have a good relationship, but is it right for me to sever it completely, Sugar? So many people insist that family is too important, that it is my duty to forgive the man that gave me life. He’s the only father that I have. But is it worth the pain, the self-doubt, and the depression?
Could Be Worse
Dear Could Be Worse,
No, sweet pea, maintaining a relationship with your abusive father is not worth the pain, the self-doubt, and the depression. In cutting off ties with him, you have done the right thing. It’s true that he is the only father you will ever have, but that does not give him the right to abuse you. The standard you should apply in deciding whether or not to have an active relationship with him is the same one you should apply to all the relationships in your life: you will not be mistreated or disrespected or manipulated.
Your father does not currently meet that standard.
I’m sorry your dad is an abusive narcissist. I’m sorry your mother has opted to placate his madness at your expense. Those are two very hard things. Harder still would be a life spent allowing yourself to be abused. I know that liberating yourself from your father’s tyranny isn’t easy or uncomplicated, but it’s the right way. And it’s also the only way that might—just might—someday lead to a healthy relationship between the two of you. By insisting that your father treat you with respect, you are fulfilling your greatest duty, not only as a daughter, but as a human. That you stopped interacting with an abuser as powerful as your father is a testament to your courage and strength. You have my respect.
I haven’t had parents as an adult. My mom died when I was about your age and my father (also an abusive narcissist, as it happens) wasn’t in my life since I was six. I’ve lived so long without my parents and yet I carry them with me every day. They are like two empty bowls I’ve had to repeatedly fill on my own.
I suppose your father will have the same effect on you, darling. In some ways, you’re right: you probably won’t ever “fully escape” your dad. He will be the empty bowl that you’ll have to fill again and again. What will you put inside? Our parents are the primal source. We make our own lives, but our origin stories are theirs. They go back with us to the beginning of time. There is absolutely no way around them. By cutting off ties with your father, you incited a revolution in your life. How now are you going to live?
I said you were strong and brave to stop communicating with your father because you did something many people can never do. You set a boundary. You decided that you will not be mistreated and you acted upon that decision. That choice was born of anger and hurt. The territory beyond it is born of healing and transformation and peace—at least it is if you’d like to have a smashingly beautiful life.
What I mean to say, sweet pea, is that you’ve left your father, but your relationship with him isn’t over. It will take you years to fully come to terms with him (and also with your mother, by the way). There is so much work to do that has to do with forgiveness and anger, with acceptance and letting go, with sorrow and even perhaps a complicated joy. Those things do not move in a direct trajectory. They weave in and out of each other and wind back to smack you in the ass. They will punch you in the face and make you cry and laugh. You say you will never have a good relationship with your dad, but you don’t know. You will change. Maybe he will too. Some facts of your childhood will remain immutable, but others won’t. You may never make sense of your father’s cruelty, but with work and with mindfulness, with understanding and heart, you will make sense of him.
I hope you have the guts to do it.
After my mother died, I wrote a letter to my dad. I hated him by then, but there was a bright crack in my hate that had been made entirely by my mother’s love, into which my father could have slipped if he’d changed. In the letter, I told him my mother had suddenly died and also that I had always hoped that someday we could have a relationship. I said that in order for me to do that, he first had to explain to me why he’d done the things he’d done when we’d been together.
Sometimes I imagine my father opening that letter. It was nearly twenty years ago and though just about everything in my life has changed in those twenty years, my imagining of my father receiving the letter with news of my mother’s death has not. In my mind, he cries softly at the news. He realizes his three children are now orphans and here’s his chance to make things right. Here’s his chance to be our dad. It’s not too late. We need him now.
But he didn’t realize that. Instead, he got drunk and called to say that I was a stupid, lying bitch and that our mother was a whore who tainted our minds and turned my siblings and me against him. I hung up without saying goodbye.
Seventeen years passed.
Then one day the phone rang and there it was: my father’s name on the tiny window pane of my telephone. I was sitting at my desk writing. He’s dead, was my first thought. I believed his third wife was calling to tell me that. I didn’t pick the phone up. I sat and watched it ring. I watched my father’s name disappear and then listened to the message a few minutes later.
It wasn’t my father’s third wife. It was my father. “This is your father,” he said, followed by his first and last name, in case I didn’t know who my father was. He told me his phone number and asked me to call him.
It took me a week to do it. I was done with him. I had filled up the empty bowl of him over and over again. I had walked barefoot across a bunch of crap carrying it in my hands. I hadn’t let anything slosh out. I didn’t love him anymore. I only remembered that I had loved him. So long ago.
I dialed his number. “Hello,” he said—his voice so familiar after all this time.
“This is your daughter,” I said, followed by my first and last name, in case he didn’t know who his daughter was.
“Do you watch Rachel Ray?” he asked.
“Rachel Ray?” I whispered, barely able to speak, my heart racing.
“Rachel Ray, you know. The cookbook writer. She has a talk show.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said.
And on it went, the most flabbergasting conversation I’ve ever had. My father spoke to me as if we spoke every week, as if nothing that had happened had happened, as if my whole childhood did not exist. We chatted about low-fat recipes and poodles; cataracts and the importance of sunscreen. I got off the phone fifteen minutes later, utterly bewildered. He wasn’t delusional or ill or giving into age-induced dementia. He was my father. The man he’d always been. And he was talking to me as if I was his daughter. As if he had a right.
But he didn’t. Shortly afterwards he sent me a chatty note over email. When I replied I said what I’d said in the letter I’d written to him years before—that I would consider having a relationship with him only after we spoke honestly about our shared past. He replied inquiring what it was I “wanted to know.”
I had come so far by then. I had healed. I was whole. I was happy. I had two children and a partner I loved. I wasn’t angry with my father anymore. I didn’t want to hurt him. But I couldn’t pretend to have a relationship with him if he refused to acknowledge our life. I was prepared to listen. I wanted his insight, to know what he thought, and also to see if by some wondrous turn of events, he’d become a different man—one who could at last be my dad.
I wrote the most generous, loving, true, fearless, painful, mature and forgiving letter of my life. Then I pasted it into an email and press send.
My father’s reply came so quickly it seemed impossible that he’d read the whole thing. Here’s what his email said:
You are the same bitch as I ALWAYS knew you to be. You have NOT hurt my feelings, only freed me of responsibility. Do not EVER contact me again. I am SO glad to finally be rid of you!
I didn’t cry. I laced on my running shoes and went out my front door and walked through the neighborhood to a park and up a big hill. I didn’t stop walking until I got all the way to the top and then I sat down on a bench that looked over the city. It was the day before my 39th birthday. I always think of my parents on my birthday, don’t you? And I imagine it in the same way I imagine my father getting the letter I wrote to him after my mother died—it doesn’t change, no matter what happened afterwards. I can conjure my mother and my father so clearly on the day I was born. How truly they must have loved me. How they must have held me in their arms and thought that I was a miracle. They must have felt pure and immaculate and beloved. They must have believed they could be better people than they’d been before. They would be. They knew they would. They had to be. Because now there was me.
So it felt particularly acute to sit on that bench the day before I turned 39 absorbing everything my father had just said. I had that feeling you get—there is no word for this feeling—when you are simultaneously happy and sad and angry and grateful and accepting and appalled and every other possible emotion, all smashed together and amplified.
Why is there no word for this feeling?
Perhaps because the word is healing and we don’t want to believe that. We want to believe healing is purer and more perfect, like a baby on its birthday. Like we’re holding it in our hands. Like we’ll be better people than we’d been before. Like we have to be.
It is on that feeling that I have survived. And it will be your salvation too, my dear. When you reach the place that you recognize entirely that you will thrive not in spite of your losses and sorrows, but because of them. That you would not have chosen the things that happened in your life, but you are grateful for them. That you have the two empty bowls eternally in your hands, but you also have the capacity to fill them.
That’s what I did the day before my thirty-ninth birthday. I filled the empty bowl of my father one last time. I sat for so long on that bench looking at the sky and the land and the trees and the buildings and the streets thinking: my father—my father!—he is finally, finally, finally rid of me.
Yours,
Sugar
49 responses
“…will thrive not in spite of your losses and sorrows, but because of them. Very wise words, Sugar, despite the pain of them.
Wow. I thought I related to the last one, but this one comes so close to home for me. What incredible wisdom about something so otherwise confounding. Thank you, Sugar, for sharing your experience and your brilliant insight.
As always, Sugar, you hit it out of the park. You’re amazing. I’ll remember this one to re-tell.
“could be worse” was smart to get the hell out of there. her mother needs help, but will she ever get it? funny what we’ll put up with, year after year after year.
Just so lovely. Thank you.
This reminds of a quote from one of my favorite books, Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. Siddhartha is talking to his friend about what he learned on his journey through life:
“I learned through my body and soul that it was necessary for me to sin, that I needed lust, that I had to strive for poverty and experience nausea and the depths of despair in order to learn not to resist them, in order to learn to love the world, and no longer compare it with some kind of desired imaginary world, some imaginary vision of perfection, but to leave it as it is, to love it and be glad to belong to it.”
Bad things happen to us that we can’t control. What we can control is what those bad things teach us. Use this experience to bloom. He doesn’t know what a wonderful person he’s about to miss.
Wow, Sugar. In whatever way a human being can reach out to another – even though I am a woman, and younger than you at that – I just wanted to say that you made me want to be a good father to you. Strange, but that was my honest reaction.
Though reconciling the rejection of a parent is something that must be done internally and on one’s own, if it is any comfort at all – I just want to tell “Could Be Worse” that the world is full of compassionate people and our sorrows are what unite us… for sorrow is a symptom of a loving heart. You are loved.
I cannot help falling in love with you every time you write, Sugar.
The day my daughter was born I promised her I would not be better than I was the day before. I was myself, and she was going to have to learn to live with me. But by promising her that, I have freed her from any self-hate that I would have for not being a better person for her. I am who I am. I’m not perfect, but I am a good mother through no fault (or excessive preparation) of my own. I do my best, but the real test is my worst days. How do I present myself on my worst days? That is such a conundrum to me. I try my best to not be mean to her on my bad days, but I can’t really protect her from the bad parts of myself, so instead I give her the tools to deal with me at my worst. She’s nearly 2, and I am quite proud of her.
I apologize for reacting this way to such a beautiful and moving column, but in the first line, Could Be Worse is addressed as “sweat pea.” And a few paragraphs down, “the same affect on you” should be “the same effect on you.”
Those two minor details aside, I loved every word of it. Love to you, Rumpus, and love to CBW.
Sugar, this was a stunning column. It hurt me to read it, even though you’ve emerged from it all as the incandescent juggernaut that is Sugar. And even though you apparently feel that you’ve thrived in this way *because* of these sorrows, rather than in spite of them.
Maybe it’s neither here nor there, especially from a pragmatic standpoint, but for whatever it’s worth: it might not be age-induced dementia, but from what I can tell, your father is indeed delusional and ill. What you’ve described here truly seems to me not just meanness and inadequacy and apathy, but serious mental illness. Sane people do not call their estranged daughters after nearly two decades and immediately introduce the topics of Rachel Ray and poodles and recipes and cataracts. Nor do they profess relief at *finally being rid of* someone who hasn’t been around for 33 years. I don’t know if that makes it any less painful, but I believe the literal truth is that no man in his right mind would say those things to you.
Oh, Sugar! It took me 3 attempts and a glass of wine to get through this column because it hit so close to home. I, in my 50’s, have never had the “courage” to disengage fully from my father. Although I don’t look at it as a lack of courage, for disengaging from him would have meant disengaging from my mother as well, and I could NEVER bring myself to do that. I did manage to move several hundred miles away and to limit my visits to only twice a year. And on many occasions, I cut my trip short, suddenly “remembering” doctor’s appointments, etc., because of my inability to tolerate another minute of his abusive behavior. Now my mother is in failing health and I need to visit her much more often. He has never changed and I no longer expect him to, and this leaves me somewhat at his mercy. Anything I do or say will only adversely effect my mother in the long run, so I breath deeply, agree with everything he says (even when it infuriates me), and remind myself that I am not the drain of resources he believes me to be.
Could Be Worse may have a more delicate problem than you seem to feel. I hope she will not have to give up both of her parents. You were mercifully spared that choice.
I am so sorry about your recent communication with your father. You are a courageous woman. (Brilliant, too.) I am almost jealous that you are now able to completely close that relationship. I’m sure my father longs to be “finally rid of me.” I certainly long to be rid of him!
Stellar column today! I was once told by a wise man, that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. This happened one day when I was when I was barely in my twenties, working my first professional job. I just had received a call from my father’s boss and he quietly told me that my work-obsessed father had gone off the grid. I knew then that he had been drinking once again. FUCK!!!!!
This happened just before I became my father’s guardian and custodian. He soon drank himself stupid and I “had” to become responsible for him. This new legal responsibility was a “gift” to my newly divorced mother so she could keep him in line and potentially inherit his life insurance policy that she had “earned” for putting up with (or more realistically enabling) him for 25 years. I knew they should have divorced years before it happened. I knew he was bad news. I knew it was hopeless. It destroyed me for a while. I did all the things that people told me I shouldn’t. I did drugs, slept with strangers, screwed off at school, anything to abolish my memories of him and the past. I went places that most people don’t dare and dangerously so. My father died from drinking too much and my mom did get the insurance policy. Before any of that happened, I withdrew all contact from him. He made me physically ill. He disgusted me and so did she. What father becomes a “Leaving Las Vegas” style drunk and what mother guilts her child into taking responsibility for him so she can inherit a lot of money from a life insurance policy??!!! I never attended his funeral. People questioned this and gossiped about it. I was done. I was done a long time ago. I was almost done with my mom too. 10 years later, her and I still have our problems. Sometimes, it takes longer to forgive the enabler.
Hey Could Be Worse,
Keep your wits and trust your instincts. It will get better when you weather the storm. When you emerge at the other end, you will have grown into this adult that has a wiseness that doesn’t come to people that never have problems. You will be empathetic and hopefully happy one day. Just don’t hold your father’s nasty presence with you on your journey. Let him go! Remember what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. Good luck, keep positive and find joy in life as much as you can. Something better awaits you!!
Sugar, I did not mean to imply (above) that loosing your mother was in any way merciful, only that you did not have to choose between ditching an abusive father or continuing to visit a mother you loved. You were lucky to have had a strong mother, and I am sure you miss her everyday. xxoo!
wrote this to the friend who sent me this column, but i might as well post here, too:
damn. that resonates hard.
except not completely, because when my mom is bad she’s really bad, but when she’s good, she’s great. that inconsistency, more than anything, is why i’m so fucked up about it. if she were completely an asshole i could cut her off and not feel bad, and if she were completely awesome there wouldn’t be a problem. it’s the back-and-forth, never-know-what-you’ll-get that kills me.
any advice? i’m 21, if that matters.
Holy Shit. Powerful. Thanks.
Sugar,
I love your column. It never fails to stir emotion in me and drive me to think further about not only my life but the impact my life has on others.
I want to go spend time with my children and hug them so much. I wish that I could put you both inside their little bodies and squeeze you as well.
Sugar, how did you do it again? Every time. You write rivetingly with originality and flair. You touch the universal heart. You remind us what it is to be human, and of our limitations…and potential for grace. This column hit hard. Not only am I currently struggling with yet another level and layer of relationship w/a father who fits the profile of this piece, but I am revising an essay springing from that very conflict. Your column gives me clarity, hope — and, most stunningingly, a new insight into what healing can look like, and how, in some instances, it does not look pure at all. And yet, it is still healing. Thank you…Love, RR
indeed hrw, “what does not kill you makes you stronger” that’s nietzsche, and it’s a mantra i use myself, in fact, it’s the title of my writing blog, and seeing that phrase on a daily basis, it constantly reminds me of this wisdom, to hang in there, to persevere
thanks sugar as always for the brilliance and kindness
Sugar, you have done it again. Every column of yours reminds me of the inner strength accessible to all us even (especially?) in the worst of times, and every column also gives me hints about where to find it and how to nurture it. Bless you and thank you.
Perfect.
Oh Sugar, you are able to put all these feelings into words so passionately and articulately! I too have walked through the fire: I had an abusive alcoholic father and a mother who at best is a malignant narcissist. The work it took to free myself from their toxicity was worth it. The many years of body work, therapy, yoga and chanting (all of which I still turn to, sometimes frequently) have helped me get really clear on my own personal truth: my parents did the best they could but it was not good enough. The freedom and joy I feel now (at 51, after about 5 years of no contact with my biological family) is something I have worked hard for, although many people are puzzled and even horrified that I have ended our relationship. I made a conscious choice to end the abuse by cutting them off and once I was able to take that step (not easy, sometimes still painful), my life expanded in ways I never thought possible.
When my father died, I wrote him a sincere, loving and forgiving elegy that began with “It is an ill wind that blows good for no one.” Since my “family” had done their best to prevent me from attending his interment and were clearly not interested in my thoughts or feelings, I typed my lines on a paper that I stuffed in an empty bottle of wine, sealed them with wax and dumped it in the Potomac River after his ashes. My siblings were not even capable of acknowledging that they had received a copy of what I had painfully and carefully written. I guess that’s okay: I wrote it for me anyway, not for them.
That was one of many turning points for me. I am married to a wonderful man now, I have a strong and supportive group of friends (my chosen family) and run a small and thriving business that I am passionate about. Yes, I too know that I thrive because of my sorrows, not in spite of them. I would not be the person I am had I not suffered. I am very happy with myself (at least most of the time) and have learned to love myself (and others) not in spite of my flaws, but because of them.
Thank you.
Both of your stories sound so familiar. I cut ties with my mother 16 years ago. Since then, through therapy, I have found out that she is most likely a narcissist with borderline personality disorder. Fun. It has taken me this long to not have nightmares about her. To not think of her finding me and forcing her way back into my life. I’m sure she gets more mileage with her friends for suffering at the hands of her evil daughter who deserted her. People so often don’t understand. They say, but she’s your mom. I like your rules for being in a relationship. Anyway, thanks for sharing something so personal.
Reading your posting that deal parental relationships have not only helped me to accept, understand and love my parents but also to treasure the gift that is being friends and adults with them. It has been rocky and rough, but gets smoother and sweeter every year. Rules and boundaries have made all the difference in the world.
Your post also help me be a more thoughtful and better parent. I think more about the conscious choices I make every day, the ones that form my son’s basic understanding of how the world is. They’ve helped me to be less selfish and also a little bit more. Rules and boundaries have made all the difference in the world.
This was lovely. I like the idea that if I have an empty bowl in my life, I am responsible for filling it. Thank you for that.
Of the three of us kids, my father only loved one of us — my brother (the middle child). He also always wanted to fight him. He didn’t want to fight my elder brother or me. We didn’t exist. Like you, Sugar, I was fortunate to have a mother who knew how to love and care for me. Thank you for your honesty and your powerfully written testimony.
Thanks Sugar. For going to the beautiful places, but also for writing straight the ugly ones, to the places where you have to take risks and take responsibility, to the places where we are open and vulnerable and get screwed over, sometimes against our better judgment. Thanks for being brave enough to make some sense of those places, for offering us an insight to the place where we might heal, if we are but willing to put on our running shoes, walk to the park, sit down and face the empty bowl, and just stay open. You’re an inspiration.
@liz:
It is possible to note that someone has been abusive, or is currently being abusive, without condemning them entirely. Sometimes that helps. Many people live in a situation like yours — a parent is bipolar and varies between being great and being horrible, or a parent goes on a drinking binge twice a year and yells and screams during that time but is patient and kind the other 363 days. And in some cases, they feel torn because they’ve only ever heard about “good parents” and “bad parents,” never parents who are good sometimes and painfully, bitterly cruel on other occasions.
But you don’t have to think that way; it isn’t a binary switch, good or evil, kind or cruel. It’s honestly okay to stay away from an abusive parent during their abusive phases, and let them into your life when they’re acting responsible.
It helps to have a place you can go — an apartment, a friend’s house, whatever — when the bad times come. And it might help to talk it over with people, depending on your tastes and whether you have good enough friends to be comfortable letting them know this stuff.
I speak as someone whose mother is bipolar. Over the years, as medications improved, she mellowed and I was able to respect her more. Now she simply isn’t narcissistic the way she was before, and we get along just fine. It helps that the non-bipolar side of her is a genuinely kind person; she acknowledges the harm she’s done, and is working to make things better for the whole family. Because she admits to her wrongdoing, we can work past it, and I can be glad of the good times — of meals out, of book discussions, of Thanksgiving dinners and going to the park and zoo together, of camping trips in the mountains and picnics in our living room when it rained.
There’s a site called fugitivus.net which has a lot of useful posts on dealing with abuse and with getting on with life afterwards. The author is far more articulate about these very serious issues than I am. I highly recommend visiting that site.
As usual, kind and wise and brave.
I’m sitting here at work crying. Your story could be mine, Sugar. It *is* mine.
“I’ve lived so long without my parents and yet I carry them with me every day. They are like two empty bowls I’ve had to repeatedly fill on my own.”
These two sentences struck me so profoundly and crystallized what I’ve been feeling the past couple of years. I am 42 and lost both of my parents to cancer: Mom in 2004 at age 67 and Dad in 2008 at age 88. They were not horrible parents, but had their dysfunctions along with their gifts. I basically spent my 30s focusing on helping them leave this world. Since my dad was 17 years older than my mom, none of us had expected 1) for her to go first, 2)for him to have to live without her, and 3) for me and my brother to be the ones caring for Dad in his final days. Since that all-encompassing decade of focus on them I have been stuck — unable to move forward while hearing their voices in my head expecting me to be more quick and proficient in doing so, which paralyzes me further. I haven’t been able to get a clear handle on why I’m struggling, until I read the sentences I quoted above. I’ve been carrying those two bowls (and thus unable to carry anything else) — except that after I’ve expended the energy to fill them up I am so preoccupied with keeping anything from spilling out that I can’t move.
While this angle may stretch your original intent of the illustration, I thank you for helping me visualize and make tangible what I’ve been feeling. Not only can I fill the bowls, but it’s okay for some to slosh out in order for me to be grateful, move forward and thrive. I have hope that healing can happen.
I just wanted to say – GREAT title for a column. But it wouldn’t really hold up as Dear Sugar on the Times-Picayune or whatever.
Sugar, thank you for this piece. I wish you a smashingly beautiful life.
Thanks for this, both Could be Worse and Sugar. I, too, have an abusive narcissist for a father. I haven’t spoken to him in a year and a half. In that time, I’ve been healing, and also writing about it. I’ve wanted to write about it because I feel there is a lot of silence around this issue. A lot people don’t understand. A lot that the children of narcissists have to suffer through alone, in the dark. Reading both this question and this response give me hope that we are shedding some light and inspires me to finish my own work on the subject.
Once again you have calmed my soul with your humanity. Thank you, dear one.
Sugar, your response was so beautiful and inspiring.
Could be Worse and Sugar,
It’s interesting to me that so many people feel that this story hits so close to home. When Could be Worse was telling her story, I honestly felt that she was talking about my father, from my sister’s point of view. Those exact events happened in our lives (literally, exactly the same thing). But, my dad gave me the greatest gift about 4 years ago. He moved to the other side of the globe. I don’t know if I would’ve have had the courage to disown him, and then suddenly, I didn’t have to anymore. It was like a blessing.
That being said, my sister didn’t have that opportunity when she was younger (she’s 16 years older than me). She had to get the courage to disown him on her own, with him living in the same house and then when she moved out, in the same state. You cannot have a relationship with someone who treats you like you’re never going to be good enough. It’s not worth the pain you feel everyday at trying to make them love you. My sister is the bravest individual I know, because she had the courage to say to herself, “You know what? I’m better than this, and I’m better than the way you treat me.” And she never spoke to him again.
Could be Worse, that may just be my point of view, but since I’ve stopped speaking to my father, I’m more outgoing, I’m more friendly, and I value myself more. I feel like a completely different person. I still have my off days, but I am liberated. I believe my sister feels the same way. You are worth more than that.
As an aside, I now have a wonderful stepfather, who is more like a real father than mine ever was. There are no “I love yous” or hugs or anything like that, but he’s there for my siblings and for my mom. He’s dependable, and every Father’s Day, I give a card to him.
I have sent this particular Sugar to several people over the months, but the most poignant person I sent this to was my very own son, who has a Sadistic Narcissist as his Father (and I too was raised by a Sadistic Narcissist/Father, hence picking another subconcsiously to be my (ex)husband and father of my two children. Recently my son had a ‘final encounter’ with his father and I sent this to him. Here is his reply. He is 20 years old….
thank you mom.
this article is strikingly relevant in many ways, if not all.
and i hope that you aren’t hurting too much for my sake. i long ago gave up on any real hope that my father would “come around”. and with that i also gave up on any sense of self worth derived from his acceptance of me. it’s not worth anything in any case.
i have long had a fierce, if somewhat quiet, independent sense of self worth and moral direction that i feel is in large part a result of not having had that sort of guidance from my father my entire life.
and so it is has been a lengthy coming to terms rather than any singular event which marks my departure with him.
this past weekend has simply clearly illustrated many number of points concerning our….relationship; but has not revealed anything new.
i am surprised only by the audacity of my father’s willful retreat into his own frightened, anxious world. it flies in the face of reason; but I suppose this is only another lesson for me: some people simply cannot see the forest through the trees, as cliched as this phrase is.
so please do not feel bad for me. i haven’t lost anything.
as difficult as it is to watch from the shore a burning ship sink slowly into the sea with all hands on deck, i can rest easy in the knowledge that my two feet are planted firmly on land. i’m sure my father realizes on some level that his ship is sinking, but he would rather go down in a blaze than accept any help or abandon it.
i’m now perfectly content to accept this fact without fully understanding the reasons why.
and until this point that was really my only problem with all of this.
i’m a “why” type of guy.
at any rate, I would really rather not dwell on this crockpot of fermented feelings. it’s already wasted too much of all of our time. and everybody has way too much going on anyways. school, work, healthy relationships and more.
i know that this is easier said than done considering the emotional currency already expended going over this over and over and over and over again.
but let’s start now.
thanks again mom.
love, c
Thank you Sugar, for helping my son open up to me and move forward!
I am still crying after reading this article. my daughter sent this to me and she “fills my bowl”. switch the mom and the dad and you have my life. I didn’t know anyone else had a parent like mine. after my maternal grandmother died, I felt like I had lost my real mom, but didn’t know it until later after I had matured. Thank God for Nana for showing me what love really feels like. She died when I was 18 and I thought my world would end. Now I understand why I grieved so hard and so long. When my sister and I drove to the hospital when the nurses wouldn’t give us the update on Nana we figured she had died. We drove like maniacs and when we arrived, my mom, aunt and her husband were on the sidewalk. My sister and I were sobbing and I went to hug my mom and she didn’t hug me back. I stepped back to look at her and she was so angry AT ME. She always had to hate someone and I was usually the one. My husband and his family showed me what love was and when I had my kids, I was so afraid I would end up like my mom. But I realize that because I was even aware of this, I would never behave like her. I broke the hate cycle and have nothing to do with her, or my dad – he told me one time “what can I do, she’s my wife.” Thank you for this and that you, my lovely girl, for showing me this article.
Victoria – Your son is amazing.
I’m so glad I read this today. (It must be so strange to get responses to an idea months after you’ve fully explored it and perhaps moved on.)
I’ve been worrying that I didn’t have enough reason to leave my husband of 13 years, who honestly wasn’t that abusive. One of the main reasons I did was because I was disgusted with myself for trying to explain his selfishness and general absence from the family to our young children.
Could be worse–you may find it comforting to know that the reason I stuck around for 13 years was NOT because I didn’t care about how his actions affected our children or feared being alone. It was partly because I thought I could fix him and partly because I was so afraid that breaking up our family would harm my children. I didn’t make those explanations for his behavior because I wanted to excuse him but because I couldn’t bear for our children to feel hurt by his actions. I kept thinking my excuses would make it hurt them less when he was selfish.
Perhaps it’s not that your mom doesn’t care what he puts you through but that she’s so dedicated to her longing for a happy family–a happy family which includes you and your father loving each other. Maybe she can’t let go of the possibility that she can fix it for you by excusing him. I know it seems bizarre, but it’s so hard to admit that that happy family is dead and lay it to rest so that family members can go on living better lives.
Big hugs and lots of peace to both of you!
beautiful. perfectly put. now, how does one go about filling this empty bowl? and with what shall it be filled?
Three years ago I finally broke contact with my Mother……..and it has been so back and forth since then. I totally miss the fun person she could be on occasion, and I miss the Mom she could be when something serious happened. But what I don’t miss and the main rason I cut contact with is the way she made me feel like I wasn’t good enough for anything. Nothing I did was EVER right. At the ripe old age of 41, I am sad because I thought this would be the best time of my life (since my son is grown and on his own) and I would spend lots of time with her doing stuff we liked to do. Mt Father decided that he had to choose sides and expect the rest of the family to do so as well. I miss not having my parents, but I also feel free.
Thank you for writing some of the best and understanding stuff I have heard in a very long time.
Sugar, I have read this particular letter and response more times than I can count on two hands. In fact, I have it bookmarked. My father is similar to yours—with his narcissistic tendencies hitting an all-time high and downward spiral in later mid-life. His actions and lack of remorse have haunted me and come down like a hurricane in the past 4-5 years…I am just barely able to breathe again. All this to say, thank you—your words spoke and continue to speak into my heart like mad. You have a gift for imparting healing…your column is a gift.
Sugar,
I see your father’s response as having come from the “attack other” pole of the Compass of Shame. Your letter inundated him, flooded him with shame, and he reacted in the same maladaptive way that he always has reacted, unable to integrate the experience of shame, a slave to the avoidance of shame, unable to be whole, unable to be a father to his children, unable to move from the condition of shallow Rachel Ray vapidity and emotional disability that saddles his soul with a sharply limited capacity for relationship.
Cutoff is a condition which exists IN FAMILIES. Often a family tree diagram documenting know cutoffs in multigenerational extended families will prove a source of insight as to how cutoff reproduces itself from one generation to the next. I am no fan of cutoff but sometimes it is the least maladaptive of an array of even less desirable solutions. Some cutoffs are unbridgeable, and some loyalties which bind us to fruitless, irredeemable suffering are better recognized as the source of purposeless pain best managed by permanent distance.
Dear Sugar and Could Be Worse,
A friend referred me to this page as I am struggling with the “same” situation and your words have helped me immeasurably – both in the sharing of what feels a terribly lonely experience AND In your wise advice. I will reread this when I start to spiral down — and learn to fill my bowls as well so such shame/pain spirals lessen. THANK YOU
I think that Sugar missed two crucial things. First, her dad’s behavior probably stemmed from his own painful childhood. Narcissists puff themselves up because they feel so small deep down. Also, his “Rachel” conversation was his attempt to reestablish a relationship with his daughter. She blew it because it was more important to her to have her say and to make her father confess his sins than to try to get to know him. Sounds a little narcissistic to me.
Dear, dear, dear SUGAR,
Three years later, **to the day?!**, I am here again – for the countlessth time — reading this post that a friend referred me to when I was, for the second time in my life, contemplating ceasing to have a relationship with my abusive narcissist father. This post has made me laugh and cry and feel hope and strength and more love and more healthy boundaries, at times when these were desperately needed. Much love to you. May this post continue to reverberate and heal those of us in need.
p.s. um, yikes? about that above comment. Sorry, on behalf of humanity.
Sugar, Thank you for this post! I read this some time ago and really identified. It helps to know that my situation is not unique, and I am not crazy! I am 32 years old and after years of therapy am finally able to love myself, be strong and confident and have a real loving relationship. I had to work through a lot of pain, and I had to cut my father completely out of my life (after being disowned enough times…) so I could move on and feel like a whole person that deserved to be loved and treated with respect.
My brother has not been so fortunate. He was always the favorite – a Son created in the image of his Creator! – and didn’t suffer the extent of emotional or even physical abuse that I did, but enough to grant him insecurity, social anxiety and a lack of self esteem. So he is still close with our father, and I think that’s the problem. He idolizes him, and he is turning into him. I see it in the way he is starting to treat his wife and kids and it tears me apart because I fear the best thing for them is to be away from my own brother – unless there is some way that I can convince him that he needs help and to finally go to a real therapist (and NOT go to our father for therapy! Yes, I’m serious). I love him, I worry about him, and I want him to be happy too. But I’m not sure what to do. Any advice would be sincerely appreciated.
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