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My Dad Unveiled
In my early forties, my dad experienced a transformation. I had some years prior traveled with him on a long trip overseas. During that trip, I saw my dad for the person that he was yet becoming and who he was afraid to be. I saw his vulnerabilities and insecurities in a way that made me feel compassion for him. I realized that he was just a frightened and orphaned young boy trapped within an adult body.
I realized that my dad’s need to control me when I was a child living at my childhood home with him and my mother was based on his own fears. His need to control me had very little to do with me and more to do with him. I realized that he was truly afraid, and I could only gather his fears were born out of abandonment. He was basically orphaned when his mother died when he was four. His father, not too much of the caregiver, left him to the responsibility of his own parents who cared for my dad until he was an adult.
So, I gather that my dad had his own fears that he wanted to protect me from when I was a child. Yet, none of his need to control me and my siblings could make up for the damage and heartache he caused us. There’s so much more to it that I will explain in future blog posts, but the gist of it all is that during the trip I took with my dad overseas, I saw my dad unveiled, and I realized who I was dealing with the entire time. It was in that moment that I knew that he had less control than he had led me to believe. His attempts to control had cost him his family.
Setting My Dad Straight
During the trip overseas, my dad behaved in an ornery state with behind closed doors. Somehow, we were booked sharing the same bathroom with adjoining rooms. It made for a complicated trip in which I had to live within the same quarters in close proximity with a man I had not lived underneath the same roof with since I graduated high school some 20 years earlier. I found myself in a frustrated frame of mind because being around my dad in such a close capacity brought back the memories of how much I despised being in his presence when he began his tirade of dictated orders.
Here we were on a trip together with at least 20 others touring various countries, and he was treating me like a child when I was close to 40 years old at the time. Yes, I am still his child, but I had by far grown into myself at this point and was well-versed in how to present myself as an adult. There was no way that I would be able to tolerate a two-week trip that I had paid all expenses for and listen to my dad devalue me. No! That was not happening especially when I covered the cost of him going on the trip too. He did not have to pay one cent. I had to set my dad on the right path of realizing that he was dealing with a daughter who had grown up and was not going to put up with his controlling behavior.
After putting up with his annoying and controlling behavior for the first three days of the trip, I decided enough was enough. He had complained about basically everything that I did. He did not like the manner in which I did things so differently compared to others. He did not like that I chose to sit apart from the group of other tourists that we were in accompaniment on the trip despite my not being the only one who did so. Despite the fact that he raised me to be my own person and not worry about the thoughts of others did not seem to apply in situations where he was present and viewed by other people. He also did not consider nor understand my introversion which requires that I have time to gather myself away from any large group of people.
Plus, I did not like feeling as if I was not in control of myself on a trip with other adults. I did not like being talked down to while others were present, and I did not like being treated with disdain and as if I did not know how to handle myself even though I organized and paid for the trip for both of us myself. Plain and simple, I was furious. I was ready to explode. I did explode. The final straw came when my dad complained about my behavior during an evening dinner. He did not like that I refused to participate in a roundabout sharing conversation with the tour group and the organizers of the trip. I was exhausted and did not feel like sharing, and it was that simple. I owed no one anything, and no one was obligated to hearing my story. So I let him have it! I unleashed my wrath upon my dad!
I set my dad straight by expressing what I would not tolerate from him on the trip. I let him know that I had expectations and boundaries I wanted to be respected, and if he could not follow through, then he was going to be miserable on at trip that was intended to be enjoyable. In no way did I want to hurt his feelings, but I was going to save mine at all costs. I simply explained that I was an adult, and what I chose to do with my life and in my life was what I was going to do whether he liked it or not. I also expressed how I did not appreciate his devaluing comments towards me. I told him that I found his comments hurtful and demeaning and as a man who is my father, he should be protecting me from such comments from others instead of using these very demeaning comments against me.
I believe it pained my dad when I told him that he never protected me. It also pained him when I told him that he and my mother were the very reason that I sometimes desired to cease to exist. I explained to him that they made my life harder than it had to be just because they were never satisfied with the way I chose to live my life from the time I came into the world. He thought that I was exaggerating until I explained specific details of where his devaluing comments had scarred my heart. He seemed sincerely shocked as if he did not realize that anything that he could have ever said as a parent would remotely hurt me enough to cause my heart to break. In hindsight, he believed that his harshness was for my good and would make me a stronger and better person for it. Yet, he realized that this was so much not the case when I explained to him how his actions had actually bruised me tremendously.
A Release
After sharing with my dad how I felt about his negative behavior towards me during the trip, he was apologetic. The rest of the trip with him was a lot calmer and a lot less filled with his drama and devaluing words. Even though there were circumstances during the trip where I felt that I looked like a person wielding the silent treatment against my dad, I look back on that time and realize that it was necessary for me to hold space and not allow myself to be subjected to anyone’s abuse.
I felt a release, and it felt good. It felt good to speak from my heart after all those years of having to put up with my dad’s narcissistically abusive behavior. It felt great to simply have an adult atmosphere with my dad in which I was talked to and treated as an adult child instead of a juvenile. The rest of the trip – the remaining 11 days – were joyous ones. I felt as if my dad and I were creating a connection that had truly never been. Yet, it would take some time before I would truly realize his change, but change did come for him.
Do Narcissist Change?
Change came for my dad after our overseas trip together. In the beginning of his journey to change, however, I was not too supportive. In fact, I was angry. Despite my having expressed my feelings about his past behavior throughout my childhood and into adulthood, I was angry for weeks after our trip. I avoided him and stopped speaking to him for a time. I partially believed that he would never change simply because I found some of his behavior to still be intrusive. For instance, my dad gave my phone number to one of the people on the trip, and I had no desire to maintain contact with other tourists for my own personal reasons, and he knew this.
There were also little things here and there that I considered to be the meddling part of my dad. There were those times of me calling to talk to him, but he had company. Instead of him just telling me he would talk to me later, he would put me on the phone with whoever his company was at that moment to talk to me whether I knew the person or not. That always annoys me. Yet, at some point, he went through a transformation. Those obvious behaviors that always annoyed me that my dad did lessened greatly over time. His intrusiveness also came to a screeching halt. Something had occurred with my dad that had changed his life. I call it remorse.
Do narcissists change? No. Narcissists do not change. Well, narcissists do change victims to their abuse, but they do not change their behaviors. Narcissists lack the empathy to even notice there is a need for them to change. The only thing that a person can hope for from narcissists within their lives is that these narcissists leave them alone. Otherwise, narcissists continue to wreak their havoc within the lives of those closest to them. So how was it that I knew that my dad has changed despite his narcissistic behaviors that frequently had me on edge and in various states of flux when I was a child, adolescent, and adult? I know because my dad is not a narcissist.
My dad lived within an environment for years with a narcissist via his marriage to one – my mother. Despite his narcissistic behaviors that branded him just as much a hell-raiser as my mother was, my dad exhibited one thing that my mother never has exhibited within her life: remorse. My dad had finally made himself accountable for his own behavior towards my siblings and me. My dad had remorse. My dad was remorseful.
My dad was sorry for all of the years he had wasted not being the best father that he could be to us. He was sorry for all of the ways that he had interjected himself into our lives in an intrusive and controlling way. He was sorry for the narcissistic abuses that he inflicted upon us especially in his use of words to us that often tore us down and placed hollow pits of pain within our hearts. My dad was remorseful, and this is a characteristic that narcissists do not have internally. Narcissists are never remorseful … at least I have never known any narcissists within my life to be.
In Retrospect
In retrospect, I believe that my dad was more the enabler in the relationship that he had with my mother. He turned a blind eye to a lot of the things that she did, but on another note, he exacted his own narcissistic atrocities upon our household too. Just from experience, I realize that enablers can be just as bad as narcissists in bringing pain upon others. Yet, the pain inflicted by enablers can oftentimes be more painful to endure because enablers are trusted to rescue us from the problems with narcissists. Unfortunately, enablers are often on the bandwagon with narcissists in assisting in wreaking havoc upon those that the narcissists also targets.
My dad did a lot of damage within the family without my mother’s help, but he also did little to stop my mother from the strife she caused as well. In many ways, he was blinded by her schemes, but he too, was battling with her narcissistic abuses. There is no excuse for his behavior, however, at least he recognized the damaged he caused and set upon a new path to restore broken relationships. It has not been easy for him, but he continues to press on. In fact, for a time, my siblings refused to acknowledge his apologies and only saw them as lip service … the same lip service my mother usually gives to get her way. Yet, after realizing that my dad’s apologies were mixed with changed ways, restoration continues to be an ongoing process.
I am just thankful that my dad finally sees and understands life with a narcissist from the perspective of his children. I think that my dad’s divorce from my mother was a breath of fresh air for him in many ways. He was able to see clear land through the smoke. He was able to gain clarity and insight into ways that he was robbed of his voice throughout his marriage to my mother. He was also able to gain clarity and insight into the ways that he robbed his children of their voices. I am grateful for those opportunities I had to allow my voice to be unchained with my dad. I am grateful to have stood my ground against his often enabling and narcissistic ways. Yet, I am even more grateful that he sees and understands the damage he causes. I am grateful that he now works to strengthen his relationships with me and my siblings.
In retrospect, I am grateful for my dad’s remorse.
My Voice Unchained 