The Narcissist and His Money

For my Favourite Narcissist, money was King of The Trifecta: money, fame and power. Money was the one he could most easily use to manipulate those around him. Starting with his kids. Money and it's cousin, stuff, were the measure of love. When I made the impertinent decision to become Christian, the natural result was for money and stuff to be withheld and, of course, their will to be rewritten.

Money was used to keep me in the narcissist's world. When I decided to get a job the summer after I turned 16, you'd thought I had abandoned them in their hour of deepest need. The truth of the matter was by controlling my purse strings, the narcissist exercised control over me. My narcissist had no problems giving money, and he knew all too well the power it gave him.

Correspondingly, the strings attached to the money were many. Anytime my narcissistic father felt the need to work, I had to work. For him, there was always more work to be done. Sitting, resting, or doing anything but working while he worked was shameful and certain to elicit at least one comment about being lazy. In the unfortunate event that I was watching television, the comments were more ugly and likely to be combined with the television being turned off or the channel changed. Of course, he'd do this just for fun, too.

Money played a big role in guilt, too. The chorus of "after all the things I've done for you..." often involved the spending of money for something. The message was clear: I gave you these things, now you must do fill-in-the-blank.

Another function of money was to enhance my narcissist's image or gained power. If my narcissist could be seen owning or spending money on something good, by people whose respect he sought, then nearly the sky was the limit. Of course, money could be spent for the narcissist's pleasure alone, but there were always opportunities for the narcissist to let it slip that he was at The Very Post Restaurant last Friday, or that he saw World-class Performer at the symphony/opera/theatre.

Even as I became older, money and expensive gifts were the elastic that kept the family together. In a truly odd way, I was paid to be the child my parents wanted me to be. A paid acting job, if you will. (Hey, I wonder how I work that into my resume?) It likely would have worked for years longer, too, had it not been for befriending someone whose family did not operate the same way mine did.

And, speaking of gifts, with the narcissist involved, gift giving occasions were a painful chore. Literally anything he wanted, he had. With gifts, it was never the thought that counted, either. If he didn't like it he simply looked at it, grunted, and set it down. Gift giving occasions are so much more fun now that the pressure is gone to find something interesting, unique, functional, impressive and not ridiculously expensive that he doesn't already have.

In the end, literally, the narcissist's focus on money was likely one of his biggest disappointments. No amount of his money, or prestige, or power could do one thing to cure or comfort him. He'd worked years to make money to get what he wanted, gain power, prestige and a retirement in which to spend them all-- a retirement he never lived to see. King Money, it turned out, was the wrong master to serve.

Ghost Town

"Ghost Town" goes to a daily devotion from Our Daily Bread, part of RBC Ministries (formerly Radio Bible Class). They're not necessarily deep theology, but they are good food for thought akin, shall I say, to a morning snack.

It's likely no surprise that I am uncomfortable with having cut my self-absorbed mother out of my life. It's been three years now and, although I have great misgivings, the amount of relief involved in ditching the stress a relationship with her brings, speaks volumes. There is a certain peace that comes with it.

So, why the misgivings? Perhaps it's that same nagging feeling that I should feel badly about not having her in my life. One thing is for sure. I do not have complete peace about not having any contact with her.

First, I have no illusions that I am God. I'm not. I do believe, however, that His Word show us the character of God and that character is something we are to follow. In the devotional, we see God allowing His people to be scattered as a means of teaching them what the outcome of their behaviour was. It's here I begin to wonder if there's some insight here for me with respect to my mother. Where I get caught is in the reconciliation part. When God's people realized their sin and turned away, He restored their relationship. God desired to restore the relationship.

I have no desire to reconcile with my mother. None. On the deepest level, having her in my life means fear and pain. It means seeing very clearly what I don't have in the way of a mother. That hurts. It underscores just how alone I was as a child. It means steeling myself against what bizarre or nasty thing may happen. No doubt what I'm missing is the confidence that something will or has changed. I have no idea how to determine when, or if, a positive change has come to pass.

Fear Cultivated

There's an image burned in my mind. It's of my n-father lying on the floor, just sort-of staring straight ahead, out into space. My mother had tried to help him to the bathroom and they'd fallen. Beyond my father being much larger than my mother, she also had a bad back. Expecting her to help him get around was, at best, fooling, at worst horribly selfish. Such is the stuff of narcissists.

It was the beginning of the last 24 hours of his life. By that time, the cancer had aggressively spread into his brain. He'd insisted at staying at home and forcing my mother to care for him. He was adamantly against hospice, even though I'd spent quite a bit of time researching facilities to find one that was well-run. But that's the stuff of another entry.

As I stood in my parent's home, looking at my collapsed father, the oddest thing happened: I kept my distance. That sounds terrible, even to me, but it's the truth. It's also entirely inconsistent with who I am.

I'm not an outgoing person, yet I'm a person who willingly goes to hospitals to visit people. It's a God thing. Visiting or just sitting with people who are even seriously ill doesn't bother me. It's something to which I'm naturally drawn. I'm also a person who gladly goes along with people to the hospital to visit sick friends and family, or to wait in the dreaded surgery waiting room. It's not that I enjoy those places, but I am comfortable there. As I said, it's a God thing.

Despite this, I was repulsed by the situation. It's hard for me to fathom, since if I think about it being anyone else, I'm right there next to the person doing what I can to reassure them and help them be more comfortable. But not with him.

I've done some reflecting on this. The nearest I can come is that my father was not like other people. Had he been able to respond or communicate at all, even by only changing facial muscles, his reaction would almost certainly been one of anger. Nothing I could have done would have been right or sufficient or quickly enough. No matter what I did for him, it would have been wrong. He'd been on his way to the bathroom. If he could understand that, then he'd expect me to get him there, never mind I simply didn't have the capabilities to do so. Had he not been able to wait, he'd be angry that no one had gotten him where he needed to go in time -- it would be someone else's fault; the result would have been rage. He was already angry that he was dying and that no one could/would do anything to save him. From the moment he knew for certain that cancer would soon take his life, anger and unhappiness were his defining traits.

For years I've felt guilty about how I reacted. I didn't understand it until I started looking at it in depth. It was fear. My father cultivated fear in his family. It worked quite well to control us. The only way to quell his rages were to give him what he wanted ,or if that wasn't possible, to keep one's distance. My response was the response I'd been taught. When things weren't going dad's way, the safest course of action was to be far away.

Guilt

Guilt and I are Siamese twins, joined at the hip since birth. I feel normal taking the blame for nearly anything. My spouse trips over the coffee table? It's my fault because I could have put it somewhere else. Can't find the television remote? Even though I wasn't the last one to use it, I should make sure it's in plain sight. Child drops a cup of milk? I should have reminded him to be careful. There's always a reason why it's my fault. The worst part of it all is that I do it to myself. I apologize for everything. I feel guilty for everything. It always seems that I could have, and should have, done something to make the situation better. I should have anticipated better.

Anticipation. What a word. It was the best thing to be good at when I was a kid.

Perhaps that's why I fight not to feel guilty when my mother calls and tells me all about getting in a car accident in sparsely populated west Texas. She tells me about being all alone and having no one to help her. She had to walk everywhere she needed to go, even to find the bus station to get a ticket home. I had to struggle to apologize for all her troubles, for saying how I should have been there for her. But the truth is, I do feel guilty that I wasn't there for her. Of course, she didn't call, so I had no way of knowing. I didn't even know she was traveling. And truthfully, as badly as I feel admitting it, I don't want her to call. She travels around and gets herself in strange situations, wandering with odd people. I don't want to be the cavalry, riding in to rescue her from her latest bad decision. I don't want to be responsible for her. That sounds terrible.

Since I was a kid, there has always been some reason that my mother was fragile. Physical problems, stress, there was always something. We had to take care of mother. It was a standard refrain. When I had a bad day at school, she didn't want to hear about it because she'd had a bad day at work. So, I'd listen about her bad day at work and bring home the straight A report cards and all was fine.

When my father knew he was dying, he moved nearer to me. More specifically, he moved my mother nearer to me. It was always clear that I was to take care of her. She had been mine to take care of as a child and now she was still mine to care for. It was something I'd dreaded for years. Once my father was gone, I was it. It was like a sentence to return to childhood all over again.