Dawn Taylor| 31/07/2023

Transcript

Dawn Taylor

I am your host, Dawn Taylor, and today we are talking to the amazing floating head number two. So if you listened to our last episode, we had an anonymous guest talking about what it was like to parent with a narcissist and when they practice parental alienation on them. And today, we have this amazing opportunity to see the other side of it. I'm talking about from the child's perspective. So what was it like dealing with parental alienation but from the child? So this child is no longer a child. I can say that much. I'm going to say she's at least 35. She's laughing at me right now, 35 plus a year or two. But, she approached me to talk about this because it's a very interesting topic. And from the other side of it, right, hearing about this from the other side of it and how it was like to deal with it, but also now as an adult, with an elderly parent, where memories are starting to go and now how do you cope? So, we don't have a typical bio. We don't have any of those things. So I'm just going to say welcome to the show. I am so excited you're here today.

Anonymous Guest

Good morning, Dawn. Thanks for having me.

Dawn Taylor

Oh, I am so excited. This was something when I posted about on my social media that I had done the original interview with the last floating head that, by the way, I love that I call you guys, that, so many people were like, "Oh, my gosh, I need to hear that episode." "Oh. I think that that was me. I think that that's what I'm dealing with. I think I was the child." And so I know that there's people waiting for this episode and just wanting to hear this, and so I just want to thank you so much right off the bat just for even being vulnerable and showing up today.

Anonymous Guest

Hey, I'm here. Let's get on with this. I think I can do it.

Dawn Taylor

I think you can, too. This is also her very first podcast she's ever done. So, there's some nerves, but we're good. So, let's start at the beginning. Which parent was it that was the narcissist in your home?

Anonymous Guest

It was my mom.

Dawn Taylor

And did you know that growing up? Did you know anything about that? It's become a really common word over these last probably five years.

Anonymous Guest

I don't even know if narcissist was even in a dictionary then when this all happened, because my parents divorced when I was about four, three or four, and I'm the youngest of four siblings and I'm seven years younger than the one next to me. So they're ten, nine and seven years older than I am. So, they got divorced and I didn't understand what was going on. All I saw was we had a happy house. It turned into complete turmoil. And then from there, there was a relationship. I had a relationship with my father, but I always remember when he came, it was like Santa Claus coming. It was all his kids lined up at the front door, you know, big shrubbed cheeks and smiling and happy and just can't wait to get out of the house and see him. And then there was mom, who would do something, whether it was the one time he came, he worked on the pipeline, so he worked out of town and we lived in Edmonton. So, one time he comes and he's got his new spouse, wife, woman with him, whatever she was, and rolls up in a brand new trailer with truck and trailer, of course, because it was the end of the season and he was able to buy whatever he needed and he's coming out of a divorce as well. And, Mom had this sheriff there and we were supposed to go camping. Well, apparently there were some money issues. I don't know what was going on, and the sheriff drove up and said, "Hi, dad, we're taking your truck and trailer right now. Thanks very much. You can deal with it with courts." And they took it, and here we had had plans, we were going camping or going away with him and that was it, and then the argument began and of course all four of us kids are now in tears on the front doorstep because the yelling and the screaming, that's happening and there's no summer vacation and that's the end of it and I don't remember what happened after that. I'm sure we ended up going with my dad for our summer vacation. We probably went and stayed at my grandma's for a while with him and whatnot. But, then he had to deal with that argument but the biggest thing that would happen is because he worked on the pipeline, he would come into town, we would see him Easter, Thanksgiving and summer holiday. And usually with the summary, we would go for the full two months. So there was always this bit of excitement. But there was also an anxiety, because the closer we got to an event, the harder it was to deal with, because Mom would start and it would be "Your father's a bad person." She would say things, negative things, and he's with her. So ,then it gave us the impression that she's sending off to go with a bad person and why would she do this? Then one day, I remember asking her at a very young age, "Why do we have to go?" And she said, "Because the judge said so." And that was it. That was the reason. So then as a kid, you have these very mixed feelings where you're in this loving environment, but then you're sent off to the wolves, and then when you get there, the wolves aren't really wolves. They're just people who want to love you and take care of you and have fun with you. And Dad always had an event for us, whether it was skiing or water skiing or whatever he had going on, he always had an event for us kids to do something with him, and it was great. But. then we had to come back, and we could never say to Mom we had a great time because we were with him. And then she would be, "Well, he's just doing that because..." or something like that. And then she would always take away any joy.

Dawn Taylor

She just couldn't let you be happy. Just couldn't let you actually enjoy it. You were super young when they got divorced, but do you remember anything at all about their divorce? What the reason was for it? Was there a lot of fighting? Was it expected? Was it just kind of out of the blue? Anything like that.

Anonymous Guest

I don't recall any of that. The story is that he was pipelining and he was up in northern BC. One of the other friends had called Mom and said, "You better get up here. He's living with another woman." And apparently mom jumped in the car, packed us kids in, drove us up there, and I'm sure she drove all through the night like a mad demon and banged on the door. And, yes, there was, in fact, a woman in the trailer who was living there, and that was it. Whatever happened after that, I don't know. I don't recall and that was that. The divorce happened, and then this happened in a time when divorce wasn't popular like, this was in the '60s. So, for women to divorce, you had failed. You were no good. There was a lot of negative connotations to being divorced, and both of my grandparents had tried to talk my mom out of it. It'd be easier if you just stayed married. It would be better for the kids but my mom was having none of it, so good for her. She was a bit of a pioneer in that. So, she was standing up for what she thought. But, at the same time, though, what she did is she took her anger out on him, but she kept it in the house with us and let it rot. And of course, it's made a lot of mixed emotions over the years amongst all of us. We all have our own little feelings and things about how we feel about Mom.

Dawn Taylor

Totally.

Anonymous Guest

But, it's interesting because I guess we're all sort of the same, but we're all kind of different, I guess, in our own way, depending on how we perceive our experience.

Dawn Taylor It would be very different based on age. Right? Some of your older siblings would have probably seen it more or had the ability to process it different or think about it different or be like, "What? No, that's not that person. What are you talking about?" But for you, you were four. You were a child and at such an impressionable age

Anonymous Guest

Oh, it was sitting there watching, I probably didn't really understand what was happening. But, seeing the other kids, their reactions, their happiness and then the let down, the constant crying, the disappointment and, I honestly don't think it was anything that my dad did, he went to work. He paid his child support. Now, child support, he was on a pipeline in northern BC. He probably had to open a bank account at the local account to take his checks. And then if they were allowed off early on payday to go into town and deposit their check, were they allowed to take cash out? Did you wire transfer back then? Did you?

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. This was not the era of "I'm going to take a photo of a check on my cell phone and e-transfer somebody."

Anonymous Guest

Exactly, right. So, if the money didn't get there in time, I'm sure she has her stories, too, where she was like, "We went without money and I had to take you kids over to your grandparents to get fed because there was no food in the fridge." And there was those stories as well that had happened, but, hey. But whatever it was, it was right? But nothing was ever her fault. Nothing was ever "Oh, okay, we got to wait two weeks or three weeks for that." It was "He was a bad person, and he did everything to hurt us." And sitting back now, I'm like, she was just such a complainer, and she just wanted whatever the reason was for the divorce, she apparently had no part of it, and none of it was her fault. She never did anything wrong. She was raising kids. She was raising the perfect family. She was a good mother. We were good kids. We were always clean, always, clothes were amended and all that kind of stuff. She was a good mother up until that time. But then from that point on, it was manipulation. And I want to say deceit, but I don't know if that's the right word. But just the pain and the anger that she had, she projected all of that onto us kids in her behavior.

Dawn Taylor

So, when did you realize she was a narcissist? That was probably ten years ago. Because I'm the kind of person, if you're good to me, I'm good to you, right? And let's be friends and let's do that. But, when the parent relationship is really, the child-parent relationship is really hard, because the child goes back to the parent for reassurance, for love, for all of those nurturing things that you need to help go on. And as I grew up well, growing up was hell, because there was always the cycle of Dad would phone on Sunday nights. Every Sunday night, he'd phone right around supper time because he knew us kids would be home. The phone was on the in the kitchen, or the phone was on the desk by the table, and that's where you had to sit and talk on the phone. So she heard every word, and she would natter and bitch in the background about whatever it was. "Tell him you need new shoes" and then "You need to send some money for shoes" or whatever it is. And she was always in the background. The two of them would have horrendous fights on the phone. And of course, it was always ended up with hang up and yelling and screaming and, "He's a jerk." and whatever other choice words she used. So we were never allowed to enjoy him and learn who he was because there was always her in the background chirping about it negatively, and it reflected on that. So growing up, there was always that dread for Sunday because you'd get the phone call. And it wasn't that we didn't want to talk to him, it's, we didn't want to deal with her. And she just made it miserable for us to live in the house with her. As soon as my siblings could, they left. They'd all moved out.

Dawn Taylor

You were the very last one.

Anonymous Guest

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor

Probably the worst of it. I think she mellowed out. She started to mellow out a little bit, but definitely, I want to say she had her claws in me. So being the youngest, I wanted a mother. I needed a mother to nurture me and see me through and all of that. But when I would turn to her and ask her things, it would be, "You just sound like your father. Have you been talking to him again?" or I had a cousin who is my dad's sister's child. We were quite close when we were younger, and whenever her and I would get together, we'd come away, and I would be like, "We had so much fun. I didn't want to leave." So, of course, you're like, "I don't want to go, mom. Let's stay." And she'd be like, "We have to go now. It's time." And then we'd get in the car, and you didn't get a backhand, but, holy, you got a tongue lashing. "You embarrassed me. When it's time to go, we have to go. And you're acting I'm not going to take you over here. You're acting just like a brat. Just like she is." and all of that stuff that would come out of it. So, she wasn't just a narcissist from the divorce. She definitely had some manipulation tactics in there as a parent,

Dawn Taylor

Big time.

Anonymous Guest

But she had got remarried, and that didn't go well for us kids. They stayed happily well. They stayed married for many years until he passed away. But when they got married, she did everything for him. And we, as kids felt like she had set us aside. So, all of her efforts went into him, cooking for him, making the meals that he wanted, doing the things that he wanted to do, doing the things for his children who lived with their other mother, with their mother. And then we just felt like we were backseat nuisance children after that. And of course, then my other siblings moved out and then me being left at home, and then the story just goes on, but the continuation of the guilt that we were made to feel because we wanted to have a relationship with our father.

Dawn Taylor

How old were you when your mom got remarried?

Anonymous Guest

Six.

Dawn Taylor

Okay, so it was fairly quick.

Anonymous Guest

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor

I shouldn't say that. It's like, oh, my gosh. It's not like it was the next day, but reasonably fast. With that, something that's so interesting about narcissists is they always choose their favorites, right? And they do. They choose the favorite that is like their person or people, and then everybody else gets pushed aside, and they'll often pit them against each other.

Anonymous Guest

Oh, that's interesting. Amongst us siblings, my sister and I, we would joke that my brother was the favorite, and he's the one that's older than me, the next to me, and he's a lovely, high-caring, high-emotional human being. But she gets to nurture him. She got to nurture him, and he was the kind of person that accepted it. But, he drives her crazy to this day until being an adult, getting to know him and talking about how things are like, my sister and I would laugh and say, "Well, he's the favorite." And in a way, maybe in her eyes, he is, because he needs nurturing and is somebody for her to dote on. But in his eyes, I really think he saw it as, he was singled out. I don't know. He just felt maybe guilty for getting the extra attention.

Dawn Taylor

That is huge and common as an adult is realizing that. And they do. There is an emotional manipulation and a complete favoritism of one child. And that child typically never gets the lashings the same, they don't get the yelling the same. They don't get any of that. And it's very controlled.

Anonymous Guest

Well, that would explain–

Dawn Taylor

--very controlled.

Anonymous Guest

When he got divorced, him and his wife were, they were married, and they decided to split up. Their daughter was probably two or three years old. Wow. My mom got involved, and my sister-in-law put a quick end to that, and she was having no part of it. It was not my mother's divorce. It was none of her business, and she was not to be involved and no phoning her anymore, and that was the end of that. So then my mom turned away from that, and now my sister-in-law is a total biatch and she lost control.

Dawn Taylor

100%. She lost her control.

Anonymous Guest

She lost all of that control. And then my mom was saying things about, "Well, what's going to happen to my granddaughter now?" And all this stuff, and it's like, "Really? You think they're going to raise her poorly? You think they're going to throw her in the street now because they're divorced?" It was just absolutely ridiculous, the things that my mother would say about my sister-in-law. And I didn't see her for quite a few years in between, because when this was happening, I was a teen and doing my own thing, living my own life, but I wasn't involved in it. But, when I did see her later on as an adult, we just laughed. We just laughed. We have a hoot together. When we do get together now with my niece, we chat and chitchat and she's an awesome lady. She raised an amazing girl.

Dawn Taylor

But it's interesting, it's there is such a beautiful connection, if it's safe to say, between the kids, typically, that weren't the favorite, or people from the outside looking in. So, growing up, I always find it interesting too, how it doesn't matter. even though they're divorced, they're remarried, everything's moved on, they still will not let go of that hatred, right? They still need to pitch you against that parent. So growing up, you're forced to see the parent to a degree because of custody and all those things. But let's talk about that relationship with your dad, how that progressed as you got older. Because as a child, it's easy. You see him every summer, you see him every holiday. It's way more simplified. But, as we become teens and as we grow up and as we become adults and all those things and there's not like a set visitation schedule, how did your relationship with your dad go?

Anonymous Guest

It was great. We lived in Edmonton. And when I became of age, dad lived west of town. He lived close to Jasper, so there would be lots of times I would just say "I want to go see Dad this weekend." And Mom would drive me down to the bus depot and I'd ride the bus out to where he was, and I'd hang out with him for the weekend. And he had a business, and of course, he had to work on Saturday. So, I went to work with him and he challenged me. "Can you do this? Can you try this?" And I was this shy, little kid who was quiet and happy reading a book or coloring in my coloring book and Dad threw me out there, and he was like, "Come on. We got to go talk to these people. We have business to do. This is how business was run. You have to learn how to do this." which was totally good for me because I'm being an entrepreneur today. I'm sure I draw on some of that.

Dawn Taylor

Totally.

Anonymous Guest

But we'd be driving around in the truck and didn't matter where we were. We always had something to talk about. And sometimes it turned into apparent information giving section session. Or somewhat a lecture. But he always talked. He always talked. We always talked. Whether it was music, horses, business, skiing. We always had a conversation.

Dawn Taylor

Emotions are good. Emotions are good. These conversations often bring up emotions in people, and it's good. We need to process some feels.

Anonymous Guest

Yeah, there's so much there. There's so much history.

Dawn Taylor

Oh, there is. So how did that continue throughout your life? Like, did your mom continue your entire life to try to pit you against your dad? Or did she ever finally so she never, ever just accepted it?

Anonymous Guest

Never stopped. Even to the point where I was about 15, and my mom and her new husband, they had a business, and of course they were drinking, and they were drinking a lot. All the time. I was at home all nights by myself. I'd go to bed, there'd be nobody at home. Get up for school in the morning, and everybody's still in bed. And I'd go to school and do what I had to do and lived my life on my own as an independent teenager, and in my opinion, they worked, they drank, they got drunk, they went to bed. It's pretty much how it happened. And I don't remember what happened, but something had come up, an event came up. We didn't end up going to it. I was upset, and I got on the bus and I rode out to my dad. Didn't tell anybody I was going there.

Dawn Taylor

Oh, no.

Anonymous Guest

Got there and show up at his office, and he's like, "What are you doing here?" And he's like, "I'm not going back. I'm moving in with you." And that was not good. In the feeling one way I was felt let down because he didn't want me to be there. So, there was part of that, but at the same time, "You're supposed to be living with your mother. You need to be with your mother." And this was him. This was coming from him, and so my brother got involved. Off we went, back to my mom's house, get there, and they're just getting up at the crack of bedtime or noon or whatever. And my dad's wife, actually, she took me away from the conversation. The conversation happened, and I stayed. And things apparently were supposed to get better living with my mom and her husband, but they didn't. And I finished high school. I went to school with my car packed, got my report card when school was done. Walked over to my mom or drove over to where she was at at work, dropped the report card off on her desk and left to move to Edmonton and never looked back.

Dawn Taylor

Wow. You needed out, like so badly needed out.

Anonymous Guest

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor

So how did your relationship continue at that point with your mom?

Anonymous Guest

It, well, funny thing. When I moved to the city, I moved in with my dad, but I was an adult.

Dawn Taylor

I was going to say he probably wanted you to live with him that whole time, but he also knew the wrath of your mom.

Anonymous Guest

Exactly. There was a secondary thing going on there. So, I moved in with him, lived with him for a while, went to school. They had a business at Edmonton. So I worked with them for the summer. Their business. My job ended at the end of summer and it was like, "Well, what are you going to do?" And I'm like, "I don't know. I'm fresh off the hick town, Albert. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

Dawn Taylor

Living in this city.

Anonymous Guest

Living in the city. I don't know anybody. I don't know what to do. So I looked back. I moved back home with my mom.

Dawn Taylor

Oh my goodness.

Anonymous Guest

Yeah, and then thought I lived there. That worked for about six months, I think, and then I met up with a friend that I went to school with and moved back to Edmonton and went back to school and went to college. And, I was like, "Okay, I got to be a big girl and stand on own two feet." But I still had a relationship with my mom, not so much with my dad. It was hard with my dad because his wife at that time, she was interesting during the time that I was living with them. My brother started going through his divorce at the same time, and he ended up actually living there as well. And, he didn't want us there. So some conflict happened. My brother and I both moved out and moved on, but all of that was a tipping point. And I boiled over. I was okay, but emotionally, I couldn't deal with it all. So I had ceased seeing my dad. And so I was, what, 20, 21? Something like that. And I didn't see my dad till line was 35. The reason now I singled him out. But I always looked to my mom for that maternal support, that hug, that emotional support that you needed. And with her always saying, "He's the bad guy." I couldn't deal with the conflict, but I needed the maternal support, so I stay with her. And it took me a long time to realize that I needed him as well.

Dawn Taylor

Totally. Interesting, though, looking back, the manipulation was that strong. Do you know what I mean? My mom often would say horrible things about my dad. She was very negative about my dad, and she wasn't a narcissist, but she forever put him down. And it's interesting right now as adults being like, wow, even when we were old enough to know better, even when, experience-wise, it wasn't proven, that was such a core, fundamental belief as to who he was, right. And I can't imagine ‘=on your side, right, having had that start at the age of four and the overt manipulation of it your entire life, right, at 20, 21, at that age, we are so immature, right? Like, we think we're adults, we think we know everything, and we are so naive and immature, and we see one very tiny perspective of everything, right? Like, one very tiny side of everything. But that was like, the 16, 17 years of hatred towards him probably are what stole those years from you in a way.

Anonymous Guest

It did. It honestly did. But at the same time, me. I had to do something for myself and I went to counseling. I talked to a counselor, and just, you know, what is it? That was the first time that I was able to talk to somebody about my perspective, and they wanted to know what I had to say and what my opinion was. So, that was kind of cool to be able to have that and then my last session with the lady, she was like, Cheryl, you know exactly what you want to do. Trust yourself. Just reassured me that my feelings were valid. And what I was thinking was as a child, you're sitting back and you're going, "Well, this is my mom. My mom says stuff. It should be true. Well, this is my dad. My dad says, it should be true." And my dad was never, he would be like, "Well, that's your mom talking. That's how she talks. We just have to deal with her. But as we got older, he would just call her a crazy biatch because how else do you describe it? But he was never the one to say, "Don't be with her." or he never tried to have us not see her, right? He always, I don't know, knew we had to be there or something. But she was the one who would just constantly talk about him. And it was like I said, the Sunday phone call every week. The month before we were going on summer holidays. Same thing. There was that torment that she would the lead up of us leaving to go on vacation with him. Always.

Dawn Taylor

So as an adult. So you didn't see your dad for a really long time. Still had your mom in your life, except for she's busy with husband and everything else. What was it that finally triggered a relationship? Back with your dad?

Anonymous Guest

It was my grandmother, my mother's mother

Dawn Taylor

Wow.

Anonymous Guest

Yeah, I was down there one day at her house, and we were chatting, and I don't know how it came up, but I found out afterwards that she was talking to my dad on the phone, that she talked to him every month. And probably, I talked to him every month since they got divorced.

Dawn Taylor

Interesting.

Anonymous Guest

But I never knew what they talked about or how often or anything like that. But she just looked at me and she said, you deserve a relationship with your dad.

Dawn Taylor

That's an interesting word, deserve, when it's something that's been thrown in your face your whole life. And I don't know, there's something about the word deserve that just hit me right in the feels there when you said it, right? It's like no, it's not you should have a relationship, or you must have a relationship, or why don't you have a relationship? It's like, "No, you deserve to have a relationship with your dad. This is something that you

deserve." A powerful word.

Anonymous Guest

Why she chose those words, I don't know. But she was a very smart lady.

Dawn Taylor

And she probably knew she knew

your mom.

Anonymous Guest

Oh, absolutely.

Dawn Taylor

She knew your mom.

Anonymous Guest

We live down the street.

Dawn Taylor

Right? She would have seen, like, while she may have not wanted to admit what was all going on, she also would have experienced all of it.

Anonymous Guest

Well, I'm sure there would have been a lot of conversations that happened, because, like, me going to my mom, I'm sure my mom went to hers.

Dawn Taylor

Absolutely.

Anonymous Guest

To have the conversation of "This is how I feel." or "This is what's happened." that type of thing. And my grandma was very involved. Like, she lived down the street from us. She was at the other end of the block, so there was a lot of interaction there. But for grandma to come up and say, "You deserve this." It was a reassurance that it was okay for me to do it.

Dawn Taylor

Yeah, well, that you could have it, and I guess that it was even more powerful because it was your mom's mom. Right? So it was like this connection to your mom, this person that you had wanted and craved this maternal relationship with your entire life, that I don't know if a lot of narcissists can have, right? There's so much of it is about a manipulation that it's not actually a real love, it's not actually a real thing. And I know that was one of the hardest things with my mom, is acknowledging the fact that my mom couldn't ever be who I needed her to be, right? Like, there was no way that my mom would ever be able to actually show up in the way I needed her to or love me in the way I needed her to, or comfort me in the way I needed her to. But to hear that from her mom, right, who is this other maternal figure in your life.

Anonymous Guest

In any family, you have team dad and team mom, right? So you have maternal and the fraternal, and they never seem to get along, and they never seem to come together as one. So it's like team one and team two, and who's going to win the game? So when my grandmother came to me, it was wisdom. It was power in those words.

Dawn Taylor

Absolutely. But also so far out of what should have been said. Do you know what I mean? It needed to have be said. But team one and two don't mix. Get back in team two. You're on the wrong side of this game right now.

Anonymous Guest

Well, and this is it. It shouldn't be like that, right? At one time, they all lived in the same town, so they all knew each other. They all had dinner together, all went to the coffee shop together, and then they moved. But, my mother split everything apart where it had to be her or them, and she emotionally made it that way for me, where if I would have stayed dealing with both of them, if I would have had the vocabulary and the skill set to be able to have a conversation with my dad or my mom and say, "This is what I want, or this is what I need." it would have been different. But I didn't have that, because with my mom growing up, if I ever went to her and said, "Hey, mom, dad phoned." I don't know what to do. Whatever it would just be. And then you'd have the whole 20 years of history of what a rotten person he was. So then right away, my decision was, "Oh, I won't go do that with him. I won't go. I'll just stay here." Because it must be bad if she's saying all of this, and when you always have that influence, why do you ever want to go over there, right? And it was funny because most parents, when they tell you not to do something, you do it. But with this, it was constant. It was there from day one. And it was just beaten into my head that this is the way it was.

Dawn Taylor

So, then you have this conversation with your dad and reignite this relationship. How did your mom take that?

Anonymous Guest

Well, that was, she was, she was very "Oh." and there's, you know, that meme where that one just sits there and just goes, "Oh." and then just stops. I had gotten married, was pregnant, and I invited my mom out for dinner. So her and I went for dinner. She came, picked me up, we went out for dinner, did our thing, and then there was all these little snips the whole time we were having our meal about my father. And then we got back to the house, and I was like, "Okay, I'm in a safe spot. I can do this." I opened the car door. I stood outside the car and just said to her, "I will not let you do to this child what you did to me. This stops now, or you will never see this child." and closed the door and walked away. And I guess that was my warning call to her. It was big. It took her a couple to phone me, but then we also cooled her jets a little bit. She didn't stop, but she did slow down, and she decided not to talk to him. And it got me thinking, maybe somebody just needed to stand up to her all these years and stop this poor behavior that she was doing. Maybe that's all that needed to happen. Dad did. Every time he'd see her, he would not stand down from an argument from her, and nor would she. But, as kids, we were kids. We were the kids. We were the ones that she was somehow protecting. But, she didn't realize how badly I was wounded out of it and how she alienated me, because there's definitely a feeling now when I look at my dad and I feel very differently towards my dad than I do my mom, and my mom is she's starting to have some senior memory issues. Not sure if there's been a diagnosis there or not, but I look at my mom and I see this woman who's turning into this very sweet, kind, daughter-y memory loss kind of person and I look at her and I'm like, I have negative feelings. I am probably more angry with her now than I was as a kid. And my dad, we talk every week, sometimes twice,

Dawn Taylor

Which is very understandable. I think it's very- you guys can't see this, but her puppy just jumped up on her lap. I think. He was like, "I need to just love on my mommy right now because she's feeling some feels." It's interesting now as her actions are changing and her behaviors are changing, right? It's almost like she gets to forget the past and she gets to forget the hurt and she gets to forget everything that went down and all of the anger and all of the pain and all of of things. Yet for her children, many of you are probably just starting to process it and actually be like, "Hey, wait a sec. That wasn't okay. Those weren't okay behaviors when we were kids and that wasn't okay to make us hate our dad like that."

Anonymous Guest

Yeah. And it definitely and, for me, there's going to be no resolve with her. She is never going to say to me, "I was wrong or what I did didn't help you grow. I'm sorry." There's never ever going to be that. And for that, I resent her. But then I sit there and I look at it. I'm like, "Well, I guess karma is biting you. You're losing your memory. And if it's Alzheimer's or whatever, there's your karma."

Dawn Taylor

I shouldn't laugh. Do you think that she even has the emotional intelligence or the ability to? Because especially if she is a narcissist, and if you've done any of the research on narcissism and what emotional capacity they actually have and how they actually like, their brains fundamentally are so different. I remember talking to a client one time, and I was like and I said, "You can't understand why your husband would act this horrible to you, because it's not even a comprehension for you in the back. The darkest parts of your brain can't even comprehend his actions and behaviors on a daily basis, because you don't actually even have those parts in your brain." So when we look at our parents and we look at the things that have gone wrong and what they've done and their actions and all those things, it is a thing. I see it every day in trauma work with clients, is the closure that they wish they could have on a relationship, the stories, all of these things that they wish they could have. But part of it is looking at it and being like, "I don't even know my parent has that." It's like going to your mom's house to cook lasagna and she doesn't have lasagna noodles, and then being really mad, you can't make lasagna, right? And then holding that against her forever. But it's like, "No, she's never actually owned a ground beef, cottage cheese, lasagna noodles, tomato sauce." Right? Do you think that that could be a piece of it and maybe something that's going to have to be a process for you at some point is that, that's not even something that she doesn't actually believe she did anything wrong, so why would she apologize?

Anonymous Guest

Exactly. And in her mind, she didn't do anything wrong. No matter how vindictive her behavior was, she felt she was justified in doing it. She was driven by anger, by jealousy, by rage, all of those things. And her actions were not sound, but she was justified in doing it in her mind. And you can't argue with that because when you feel you're right, you're right, and you can't change anybody's mind. So, the fact that she feels that she was right, that's her story. That's how she sees it. But, the manipulation that she did with us children is now, we're smarter. In this day and age, we're smarter. My daughter has lots of friends who are in blended families. And one parent drops them off, the other parent picks them up. There's conversation that's happy. They exchange positive words, and then they go on their way, and I see this all the time, and I'm mesmerized by it. It's like I've stepped into the Twilight Zone that divorced people can actually have a conversation and,

Dawn Taylor

Oh, not all of them There are some that can. And I wish more did.

Anonymous Guest

But for my mother, she felt she was right but I think she was so vindictive. She wanted to do everything she could to somehow hurt him because he had hurt her. And her vindictiveness and revenge that came out of that went so deep into her soul that she needed to do whatever she could. And it didn't matter what happened around her.

Dawn Taylor

Can you imagine being her husband? Like, total side note, can you imagine a.) Life happened, but from your dad's perspective, being married to her, because if she was that way with anger towards him, was she that way with anger towards anybody who wronged her in her life

Anonymous Guest

And, well, right now, the story starts to evolve because I never sat back and analyzed what had happened, but she had alienated herself from my grandparents. And I wonder why? Because at some point in that time, they probably said, "This is wrong, or you're doing wrong." She alienated herself from them. She didn't take us to their house anymore. If we went to see my dad's parents, my dad took us. She was either not welcomed anymore, or she chose not to go and then throughout time in history, we see these other things that have happened where she was in a political position, and then shortly after her political position ended, she moved out of town. And us kids, we were laughing. Well, we just say she got ran out because she pissed off the wrong people. She got run out of town, or she chose to move because they wouldn't do what she wanted.

Dawn Taylor

She had no control there.

Anonymous Guest

Yeah, and different relationships. So she had a brother, him and his wife, there was a rift. I can't even remember what happened. Not my business. Wasn't my problem. I was at a family funeral a month ago, and my aunt came up to me, and she goes, "Thank you for talking to us." And I was like, "What?" And she goes, "Well, thanks for talking to us. Whenever we get together, you always stop and you always say hi and see how we're doing and whatnot. Thank you. Thank you for talking to us. I'm glad that you still talk to us." And, I just kind of zoned in, and I just looked at her and I said, "Whatever's going on, that's not my fight, and I'm not going to fight that." And she just gave me a big hug and she said, "You're a good girl." and walked away. Right? She had to go talk to other people and left me flabbergasted. This many years after all of this stuff that happened, that it was her, it was my mother who did all this. She did it. I don't know if it was structured, but she thought out her plan of revenge and the fallout in our household, how it hurt us, and she continued to do it, not just with my father, but with other relationships. If she didn't get her way, she would cause strife and havoc and go on with it, and I think I know there was things with my grandmother with different siblings. There was always family dynamics and stuff there that happened, but my grandma was she was not a fighter. She fought. She fought, but she wasn't vindictive, right? And she was supportive, but yeah, the pattern continued. So now as a mature adult with children of my own, I sit back and I just think, how could that have happened? How could a parent do that and not realize what they're doing to their children and.

Dawn Taylor

When their child's a pawn in the game, they don't and I also think there's all these lines out there and these statements out there of like, "Oh, they're resilient, they'll figure it out, they'll be fine." I have seen the other side of it too, where they've actually they convinced themselves to the core of their being that the other person is actually that evil and they are actually that bad and they are actually that horrible, that they've created a story in their head that they are actually doing what's best for their child and they can't see beyond it. I've seen it. I've seen it way too many times in my life where they actually do think that and not in a positive, like, "I'm doing what's best, but no, I'm protecting, I am protecting my child from this horrible person, this awful relationship." I'm not saying that that's what your mom was doing.

Anonymous Guest

But her behavior and her actions was always vengeance on him. It was always vengeance on him and anything to do with him. She was always angry with him and always told everybody about how angry and then how bad he was. So did she plot against him? Absolutely. Did she do things to try and destroy him? Absolutely. But what she didn't realize is that us children were not resilient. We survived. Did we survive it well? No. Because with each one of us kids, we have our own issues, right? And even today, talking about this, I'm emotional. The hurt comes back. Pain. It all comes back. But, I know that it's not me. I know that I didn't cause it. I know when I talk to my daughter about her bad day at school or her running with her friend, I let her talk. I listen to her, and I say, "I don't know how to help you with this but I'm here for you. Let's talk about it." And I take that approach because I have no skills. Those skills because I was taught to be vengeful or wasn't taught but–

Dawn Taylor

That's what you witnessed. Yeah.

Anonymous Guest

My witness a witness being, you striked out against everybody all the time, and that's not me. That's not my personality. When my daughter and I talk, "How do you feel about this? How did that make you feel? What would you like to do next time?" We try and talk through the steps to try and help her prepare. So when conflict does come, she has some emotional shield. She has some verbal things that she can say, and then she can use her head to get herself out of the situation. But when my daughter says to me, "Mom, I don't know why you talk to Grandma. She's just a narcissist, and she goes off on her rant." and then I try and tune her in and just say, "Hey, we got to talk with respect about people." And we've talked about it, and yeah, it's just, it is what it is and you go on with it every day.

Dawn Taylor

Would you have one word of advice for someone else that's listening to this going, "Hey, wait, I think I am the child that was in this situation." Do you have a word of advice for them or something you would like to say to be like, "Hey, this is it." Something to watch for, something to listen for, how to reach out different.

Anonymous Guest

Trust your instincts, what you're feeling when that parent is talking to you and you're getting those feelings, realize what they are, investigate it, get counseling, whatever it is. Go talk to the other parent and say, this is what's happening. Let the other parent know what's going on. And then try and work through it together. If you can. If you can't, then seek help because it just continues, and you need to build your defenses. You need to build your own confidence in the situation so you can go with it and you can sit back and you can look at it one day and go, "Oh, parent is being manipulative to me. I'm just going to end it here. I'm not going to take this emotionally. It's not me." And you can put up your shield to protect yourself, but it also gives you coping skills to deal with it.

Dawn Taylor

It's amazing. I think this is more common than you'd think. And I just want to thank you again as we finish, I just want to thank you again so much for being vulnerable and being open and being willing to talk about this. Even the term narcissism and narcissist hasn't come into play until this last little while. And I mean, it's being grossly overused these days. I will agree with that. But also think that within narcissistic tendencies, right? We all have a piece of us as narcissistic. Part of it's actually really healthy if you look into it, but it's the level that it's at that I don't think there's many people willing to talk about it that has lived it for such an extended period of time. But, there are a lot of kids right now coming out of it. I have clients in their 20s that were the not chosen child of a narcissist

that I'm working with, right, that I can't wait to send her this episode. To be like, "No, you need to like - this isn't going to end. Their behavior towards your other parent is not ever going to end. They're not going to magically be happy one day and healed one day and all these things." And you're going to have to deal with that and figure out how to have those shields, figure out how to have really healthy boundaries to protect yourself.

Anonymous Guest

Exactly. Because it doesn't end if you continue to have a relationship. Even if you don't have a relationship with a narcissistic parent, the emotion that is brought out in you from their behavior is there, and it's going to be there. It's going to be triggered by an episode in the future, whether it's you're walking your dog or petting your cat or you're talking to the neighbor, something's going to trigger that emotion, and it may not be there right now, but it will be there at some point because it always does. It always comes out.

Dawn Taylor

Yeah it totally will. Thank you. Thank you, my little floating head. I wish I was there to give you a hug right now. If anyone has any questions on this episode, they want to reach out. They want some advice on this, or they just even need the contact information of the floating head, reach out to me through my website, TheTaylorWay.ca, and I can ask permission for you because there was a - do we want this to be anonymous? Do we not want this to be anonymous? Where are we at? But, I also know the floating head personally outside of this, and I'm pretty sure if someone wanted to have a conversation about this that she would be more than willing. So my website is TheTaylorWay.ca. You guys should know that I say it every single week, but thank you for hanging out with us today. I hope that something you heard today hit home and even made you realize that someone in your life could use this episode or even that someone in your life is not behaving really well towards their own children. Join us again in two weeks for another amazing topic. Please tell your friends, the more people that feel misunderstood, the better. And check out their show notes located at TheTaylorWay.ca. We're also going to list some resources in there of some books. It may be some of the same ones as last time. If you haven't listened to our last episode, please go check out that one because it talks about the parent on the other side, right? The parent who's co parenting with a narcissist and the parental alienation. And she has some amazing resources on books and things you could read. So we'll link to that. Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you love the show, it would mean the world to me. If you'd leave a rating or review.