As someone with good parents, I get very demoralized hearing about how ungodly awful most peoples’ parents were. It’s so ubiquitous that I almost (almost but not quite) subscribe to the philosophy my friends have where they hold that children should (literally) be raised “by the village” rather than by two parents, which in theory would minimize the effects of one imbalanced mind having full control over the children.
Lately I’ve been reading a lot of books on narcissism and have been picking up on the idea/notion/possibility/viewpoint that narcissism is a spectrum like autism is. In autism, which itself is incredibly common due to the fact that it’s multiple genes/processes/whatever performing multiple parts of a spectrum (think a carpet representing humanity and a shattered cup on the carpet, I use the shards in this visual to represent pieces of the spectrum scattered across humanity, apologies if anyone thinks a shattered cup seems like a negative comparison, I don’t), you have the majority of humanity having some variance in it, which goes to demonstrate there’s no such thing as a neurotypical. As in, if a scouter was invented that instead of scanning your power level scanned your autism level, everyone would have their very own signature number. I would be over 9000. Same with narcissism, if this view is correct, as it would be another shattered glass on the carpet that is humanity, with the shards from both glasses overlapping in their territories (which when you think about it makes the family dynamics in The Good Doctor all the more awkward, it’s one spectrum at odds with another in a show where the main character is a medical savant with autism). And again, not trying to make an awkward comparison, I have friends who openly confess to me they’re deep on the narcissism spectrum, and these people at least are trying their best in life, as well as showing narcissism is a neutral condition that just happens to seem more negative in modern urban situations.
Consider this the sequel to my last such question which had a similar idea to it. What’s the most narcissisty your parents ever come or came, even if you hold them in generally good regards?
Emotionally manipulated me back into multiple abusive situations to act as her shield, and has refused to so much as acknowledge what was going on. Can’t even have a talk about it, it’s just shut down immediately.
Now she doesn’t even know that she has a daughter instead of a son, and never will.
That’s an interesting hypothesis you’ve cultivated. It needs additional testing, however, I’d like to add on the impact of intergenerational trauma and genetic drift, there’s systemic runoff of abuse which impacts future generations within a specific animal group, resulting in evolutionary and social adaptations.
Enough of these adaptations kill a planet or a species, I’m afraid.
My mom was very strict with me as a child, but I don’t think it was narcissistic. She was very focused on my education. I had to do well and get a good job. But it was because she wanted me to have good health insurance as I have had chronic health issues from birth. I have a good job now, my student loans are paid off, and she was right about me needing good health insurance. Our relationship is lovely now. But I’ll probably always remember the time that I skipped a homework assignment and she spit in my face.
Yeah, she definitely crossed the line that time. It was probably the most mad I have ever seen her. I can’t remember if that was also when she slapped me, or if that was something else. But really, those were the worst instances and the other 98% of my childhood was very good. And we really do have a very good relationship today. I don’t think I deserved it, or any child would deserve that. My schooling was just a hotbutton issue for her, and I pushed it really hard that time.
My mother says it’s my fault my brother is gay, because I showed him how to use the Internet. The Internet then didn’t even have websites, and we used telnet talkers, which was literally just people chatting in text format, it even predated ICQ or AOL or anything. It certainly wasn’t a place you’d turn someone gay, not that that’s a thing you can really do. She just hates that he’s gay even though we were brought up to embrace LGBT people long before people were really out.
Right, everyone knows telnet makes you gay.
It’s all detailed in the RFC854 for the telnet protocol by J. Reynolds and J. Postel. (Gay was pronounced with a J back then, like gifs)
That’s why they later invented SSH to uh… secure you from… the… gay packets…?
Source: am network engineer.
Sorry your mom sucks.
Someone I know was hospitalized and their parent seemed more concerned about how it inconvenienced them than the person in the hospital.
