The following is a collective case study focused on the effects of narcissistic personality disorder and how it relates to the unfolding relationship between my parents.
Photo by Jasmine Carter on Pexels.com
An Orchestrated Romance
My parents met at a popular hangout eatery in their hometown. As I’ve been told, it was not love at first sight for either of them. Since they were opposite in personality, they only engaged in surface conversation. I recall my maternal grandmother saying that she believed my dad was a great catch for my mother because he had a good work ethic and seemed like he would take good care of my mother. So from my point of view, the plan was put into place to birth a romance. All it would take is some maneuvering on my maternal grandmother’s part, and if anything, she had a knack for creating conditions that fulfilled her personal agenda.
My dad said that he originally had very little interest in my mother. She came from a prominent family who was more financially stable compared to his own family. By my dad’s account, my mother was out of his league, and she already had a few potential suiters who were interested in her. Thus, he decided that pursuing her was not worth the risk of feeling her rejection. What he didn’t know was that someone behind the scenes was crafting a plan to change increase the likelihood that his thoughts would change about pursuing my mother.
When I visualize that time frame, I think of the Cinderella story. My dad said that my mother was always confined to the home with her parents and did not venture out much. So, she rarely dressed up because she was resigned to completing chores around the home. At some point, however, my mother transformed in physical appearance and went from the physical description of homeliness to an awakened vision of loveliness. I believe this transformation had a lot to do with my maternal grandmother’s ideas for my mother’s future. She wanted my mother to be married, but I don’t ever recall my mother saying that marriage was something she wanted at that time.
Interestingly enough, my dad recalled that my mother always had a way of showing up wherever he would be when he was out and about in town even though she lived in a completely different town. At one point, her parents relocated to his hometown, but he assumed that it was because of her father relocating his local business. Whatever the case, my dad always had several opportunities to encounter my mother, and eventually he took notice of her as a potential dating prospect. He was ready to shoot his shot in romance.
The next time my dad saw my mother, he knew that he would ask her for a date. He was in the eatery when my mom, her sister, and some girlfriends walked in and and sat down at a table. My dad said that my mother’s appearance was so drastically different, that he could not stop staring at her. He said that she captivated everyone around because of her remarkable beauty and mystique. In my parents’ case, opposites attracted for sure. It was a mixture of a gregarious and charismatic man falling for a reserved and mysterious woman. After a brief courtship and some dramatic family fanfare which involved my maternal and paternal families coming together and adjusting to this new relationship , my parents married, and within a year, I was born.
Stay tuned for more to come …
My Voice Unchained 