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.
Background Check
My dad was the youngest of two children in a cohabiting relationship between his mother and father. His father could best be described as the “papa was a rolling stone – wherever he laid his hat was his home” kind of man because he had other children across town by other women and apparently went back and forth between each woman. As far as I know, my grandfather never married and lived his life primarily as a hardworking alcoholic. Yet, my father believed that his mother was the only woman his father truly loved because he had only taken pictures with her, and no other woman that he was involved with during that time had this type of artefactual evidence as proof that they were nothing more than “flings”.
My father’s mother came from a tight-knit family of sisters. Where one was seen, the others were sure to be around too. They each seemed to have a connected symbiotic relationship which made it very difficult for my dad and his sister to get away with anything. Despite the closeness of his mother and her sisters, they all feuded among each other to the point that it created division and conflicts within their respective families.
Despite conflicts, my dad’s aunts doted on him and his sister while helping his mother any way they could to shoulder the burden as a single mother. My father would come to rely on his aunts for so much. When his mother died unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm when he was still a toddler, the support of his aunts was necessary in helping him and his sister to navigate life without their mother.
After his mother’s death, my dad described how he felt immediately orphaned even though his father was still alive. His mother represented his entire world, and a replacement mother was just not possible. I assume my dad’s own father believed this to be true as well. As soon as his father became the sole guardian of my dad and his sister, he must have felt that parenthood was too great a responsibility for him. He relinquished his parental duties to his parents, my dad’s grandparents. It would be my dad’s grandparents that would provide him and his sister with stability and love.
Presenting Problems For The Future
Sporadic abandonment from his wayward father and the death of his young mother would have certainly left my dad with feelings of rejection, anxiety, and various insecurities. These emotional issues would further affect his adulthood relationships and how he would interact with others. Although he was provided with what seemed to me to be the greatest possible care from grandparents who loved him tremendously, my dad’s grandparents were older adults who had already experienced their childbearing years. When my great-grandparents became instant parents all over again to my dad and his sister, they were once again thrust back into a time period that had already been completed for them.
Older adults usually have different expectations and different views when it comes to raising children because of the time period in which they were born. In fact, looking back over my childhood, it is apparent how much my great-grandparents influenced my dad’s parental style. My dad’s parental style often presented as controlling and dominant behavior. The problem with a controlling and dominant parental style is that the parent comes off like a dictator with an authoritarian way of handling children. My dad was stern and unflinching when it came to the rules of the house. His law was the only law, and my siblings and me were expected to follow without question.
Based on my dad’s experiences with his grandparents, it’s no wonder that my home life growing up under my dad’s roof was filled with the “it’s my way or the highway” attitude. His view of children was that we were to be seen and not heard, and we were never ever to question his authority because doing so was a sign of disrespect. Disrespect meant punishment. Thus, obedience was the rule and questioning the rule of authority was an intolerable offense. My dad was strict because his grandparents were strict. He was stern because that was the imprint that he was shown by those who cared for him.
Although my dad’s grandparents showed him tremendous love, there was a stiffness to their love. Love felt hard and emotionless in my household. So I could only imagine that this was my dad’s experience too. Even though we were told we were loved, hugs felt infrequent, but when we got hugs from my dad, we would literally smile and beam with joy. We knew that we were loved, but the hardness that often came with that love could sometimes feel hollow (if that makes sense).
Furthermore, opinions outside of my dad’s were not honored and thinking for oneself was out of the question. Like my dad’s grandparents expected of him and his sister, his expectations for me and my siblings were the same. We were expected to be compliant soldiers awaiting commands. However, me and my siblings were born in an era of free love, free expression, and free thought. It’s a pity that these freedoms would pose problems for my dad when he became a parent. He would learn soon enough that his authoritarian way of handling me and my siblings would produce a type of stress he had never encountered before and we would hate to experience.
Stay tuned as for an upcoming post about the background check of my mother …
My Voice Unchained 