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The Stormy Weather of Family
As I became a closer friend to Rain, I began to learn more about her. I attempted to try to understand what made her tick and why she behaved the way she did at times. I would soon learn the inner dynamics concerning her family when she invited me to travel with her to visit them.
The worst thing about the trip with Rain was the road trip itself … with Rain. Road trips with a narcissist are complete nightmares. I would not advise ever taking a trip with a narcissist. The trip with Rain is where I saw a range of her narcissistic behaviors. I went through Rain’s cycle of narcissistic abuse several times over on a road trip that she had promised would be fun.
I saw sides to Rain that had already been waiting to be expressed, but this road trip gave expression to her inner rage in some interesting ways. Since she claimed to be treating me to an adventure, she controlled the trip. She drove despite her vehicle not being in the best condition. Although I shared my concerns about this and offered to use my own car, she would not hear of it.
So, I was not surprised at all when her car broke down on the side of the road in the middle of an unknown place to both of us. We were several miles from a nearby town and had to call a roadside assistance service to deliver us. We waited for what seemed like an eternity as I listened to her rant and rage. She actually blamed me for her car breaking down when I told her it was making a strange sound.
According to her, if I had not called out the sound, we might not have broken down on the road. She literally screamed at the top of her lungs for almost an hour while we were stranded on the side of the road. Instead of reacting to her rant, I removed myself by dissociating. I recall feeling incredibly numb. To her, I appeared unfazed which unnerved her even more. That might explained why she screamed for nearly an hour. All I could do was just watch her from the corner of my eye in disbelief.
When the roadside assistance guy finally showed up to rescue us, Rain turned on the charm. She went from being sadistically mad to mildly meek. She never allowed her eyes to look at me or in my direction. When we arrived to the auto mechanic shop, she would not even look at me. Her face was flushed with as if she were ashamed of her behavior. Yet, she never said a word to me. Although she seemed remorseful in her behavior, she never apologized to me.
In fact, Rain never apologized about anything she ever did to me throughout that entire ordeal with the trip (or any other time except for a message she sent me). Yet, the emotion of shame that appeared on her face made me somehow blindly accept that she was sorry for her behavior even though she never uttered words to me that indicated she was actually sorry. (I would only learn later that if a narcissist never says “I’m sorry”, the narcissist is not sorry. Every hurt the narcissist inflicts is meant for the victim’s destruction. Even if the narcissist says “I’m sorry”, there is a motive for them. The narcissist is not truly remorseful for the hurt caused to the victim.)
Nevertheless, the road trip continued on, and bit by bit, the blockage that was between us because of her crazy behavior fell away, and things went back to being “normal” between us. At one point during the road trip, she explained to me that she was by far not a perfect person. I literally took this to be her explanation of why she had lost such emotional control. She did explain that sometimes her anger got the best of her. I also took this as her opening up to me when really it was just her way of excusing away her behavior. I was such a sap … such a sucker!
The closer we got to Rain’s hometown, I saw her literally shrink in my presence. Her entire demeanor changed right before my eyes. It made me think of myself whenever I would visit my family. I sensed deep down that she needed to prepare herself, and I needed to prepare myself too. I recognized this behavior right off because I found that I often felt myself shrinking when I knew I would be entering the presence of my family. These types of experiences made me feel closer to Rain. What a narcissistic trap and a strong trauma bond! Rain never even said a word about this, but I felt connected, nevertheless.
Rain’s parents were lovely people, but I took note of how I felt like a perpetual child in their presence. I saw Rain literally become like a teenager in my presence, and it made me wonder if she was sitting in the age of her greatest hurt. I did not know this either way, but I wondered about her life as I looked around the home of her upbringing and met her other family members. In the beginning, Rain took me around her hometown and gave me a historical lesson on the people in her family. I learned so much more about her that I felt that I could identify with her in so many ways.
I will never forget the interactions and feelings I had that took place when Rain and me were sitting in the back seat of her father’s car as both her parents sat in the front seat. It was strange and made me feel like I was set back in a different time period. Rain’s father drove us around the area and took us out to eat. Afterwards he bought us ice cream. It was weird; I had a weird feeling. During that entire time, I felt like a teenager with the present mind of an adult woman who was not far from being 40 years old! Something about that entire moment stood out to me and made me feel as if I was sitting amongst my own parents. This is the way I always felt around my own parents … as if I had not grown up even while I am an adult.
Although Rain’s parents were nice to me, I felt that there was something very controlled about their expressions and behavior. Her father reminded me of my own dad, and although I liked Rain’s mother, her mother’s behavior reminded me a little of my own mother’s subtle and covert behavior. Although I was not with Rain and her family for even a week, I sensed over that short period of time that Rain had brought me along to deflect whatever was really going on between her and her parents. I felt like I was a buffer. There were words expressed without verbal expression. There was a silence that spoke loudly to me. Perhaps her parents never really could say what they wanted to say to her with me around. Maybe that was Rain’s plan in the beginning. I do not know as I have never Rain’s parents again.
Taken On A Trip To Be Discarded
Rain had talked up this trip so much that I assumed that I would never experience boredom. I was nothing but bored almost the entire time when we were at her home. There was nothing spectacular about her life or her family’s lives. They were all just regular people. I could relate. I am a regular person with nothing spectacular going on as well. I wondered why she played it all up though. When she spoke to me of her family, they were not as grand as she had made them to be, and that was okay, but when she took note that I saw the truth, she began to devalue me.
Rain suddenly went from planning great activities for us to do in her hometown to deciding that she did not want to do anything else with me. Even her parents were surprised by the sudden change of plan. Because I appeared to be bored during a trip where she quickly took away the activities she had planned for me, Rain took offense. So instead of all of the things she planned for me, I found myself sitting in her home watching television and doing much of nothing. Even while at Rain’s home, she began ignoring me. My time spent with her came to a quick end. In fact, my time with her and her family came to a close sooner than either of us had planned at all.
A week’s vacation with her family in her home state became a three day vacation (minus the time spent on the road), and before I knew it, Rain had called another work colleague to hang out with her. This mutual work colleague was also from her home state and had been called by her behind my back to visit with her. According to her, I was too boring for her, and she needed some excitement. Instead of doing the activities she had planned with me, she was going to do those activities with our mutual colleague. I was not only stunned by her behavior and response to me, I was hurt. What had happened?
Both Rain’s parents and I were all shocked to learn that my vacation of seven days was cut down into three days. Although I was saddened by Rain’s sudden discard of me, I was looking forward to some downtime away from her drama. I had to figure out on my own how to get back home from a trip that was planned as an actual road trip adventure for both of us. Instead of remaining the full seven days, she decided that she was going to stay some extra time with her mutual colleague.
Rain also mentioned that she wanted to spend more time with her family. She needed me to understand this, and although I did, I was flabbergasted because it was a total change of plans. I felt that she had gaslighted me all throughout this trip. Nothing planned was ever as it seemed t be because it was not. Everything was merely an illusion. Nevertheless, I booked a flight back home and was driven to the airport by Rain’s dad. Rain did not even have the decency to see me off herself. I was even more baffled that Rain did not even contact me again until we were all back at work.
Rain had discarded me. Lucky for her, the tides turned.
Stay tuned for more …
My Voice Unchained 