Helen has this to say about perfectionism in adults who were parentified and raised by a narcissist. as a child, when we are criticized, it can form a toxic form of perfectionism. "As long as I don't do anything to invoke their ire, I am safe." this perfectionism became my protection, and I worked tirelessly from early ages to maintain that status. as I became a teenager, it became more difficult. I went to great lengths to do what I wanted - smoke, drink, drugs, boys, risky behavior - I once jumped on the back of a stranger's bullet bike at 12:30 am after dancing at the palace all night and let him drive me home - while also curating a careful image that none in my FOO would be able to see through. I had a few cracks, but mostly they were covered over with careful wording and fast thinking on my part.
The pressure of those early misbehaviors to stay perfect ended when I got married, but the image curation still remained, only it became a protection of my FOC. I acted as a door to my family to block any criticism of them, or even hint of criticism. because I knew that criticism would come, I didn't allow mixing to happen. I would then do acts - works - that in my mind added up to "good Becky." as long as I kept doing the things that maintained my image, I felt I could "store up blessings" that later would balance the scale in my favor when I finally fucked up (which I knew I would, and therapy brought those events to fruition) to keep my FOO from rejecting me.
Back to the podcast - when criticism comes to me as as an adult with the context of being a parentified enmeshed person in my FOO, my curation of toxic perfectionism forces me to see their criticism of my behavior as a rejection of my whole self. "if you comment and criticize that I talked to c, it means to me that you don't like ME - you reject me and all the "works" I've done to pad the scale for the time when just such a situation happens.
It's a toxic form of doings that will show that "I am good" and I'm "earning blessings" that will offset the scale later.
It's not bad that I've done the good things I have. My bigger intentions have been good - to create relationships with those I love in my FOO, and I was blessed by those interactions. But I cannot expect total acceptance when I cross others' boundaries. there is a dance that one must do, and total perfectionism cannot be maintained, and should never even have been the goal. But because I had a perfectionistic mother, I also worked to be perfect and I was bound to fail. I set myself up to fail; so did my mom (by both setting herself and me up to fail) and I failed to understand that others in my FOO may have had other reactions and did other works that I am not aware of and are not my business to guess at or blanket apply my logic to theirs.
I cannot ever preemptively do enough for others to outweigh/offset/negate the pain I cause them. There is no storehouse of events for me to draw on in a moment of hurt that I can hold up and say - look, all THIS trumps THAT. There is no math that allows me to claim exemption and avoid looking at the pain others have felt because of me. Which also means that if others hurt me, I don't have to minimize that pain because of what I deem their "scorecard" is stacked against me - everything kind that has been done by them which my inner critic notes as a tickmark so that I feel disempowered to say when something hurts me but I don't have the right to feel hurt, nor to speak the words that say ouch.
What I learn from this - rejection of a behavior isn't rejection of my self. There is no "good person" narrative for me to fall back on if and when others share their experiences with me regarding painful things I do or have done to them.
One of the most damaging phrases is "you could have just XXX." This phrase is an opportunity for miscommunication on both sides of the phrase, both the one saying it and the one receiving it. Circling back to state how a person could have acted puts the already hurting person who did XX into a defensive mode. When S said - you could have just moved on and let it go - I got defensive because I didn't like her reframing how my reaction to the FB post "could" have been. She doesn't know what pain it caused me. I still think she was crossing boundaries by saying anything to me bc the situation didn't involve her at all, but she was the one who policed it. but I do understand that she would protect her family. But she chose her tactic - call out the behavior and provide a solution that would work for HER - which put me on the defensive.
If a person asks for feedback, the phrase can be helpful, but without consent and using this phrase in the confrontation stage of communication will fail, it seems.
My FOO doesn't have a jesus for us all to appeal to. Mom might have been that, but she was the one who trained me to behave how I did, so she's part of the problem while also being viewed as the savior.
When shit hits the fan, as it has over the past 18 months, I found that there is no magical court set up for me in the pattern of the final judgement. I thought the following could be relied on.
- Desires of my heart - which I felt were obvious enough - "I'm a good person who...."
- Works - actions I did in the real world for others - also "I'm a good person who..."
- I "stored" them up, doing everything I could to add as many pluses as possible in the good column of the magical volume entitiled "IS Becky a good person"
- I had a sense of "faith" in the protection that the pluses would void a future minus
- in in the moment of "transgression", the score of the two columns can be tallied, betting on my perception that the pluses weigh more than minuses, and that there are far more pluses in my favor - because CLEARLY XXX mean that I'm good, don't you remember that?
- I count on "grace" to step in, to help me explain the minus
- remind others of the past to further balance the scale toward myself ("haven't I..." "don't I" "What about when...")
- I can claim the pluses outweigh the minuses
- I have a space to exist where I feel blameless, washed in some redemptive power outside myself
- I feel justified to say that the other who was hurt is just being "too sensitive." I can talk about this to others who will help me scapegoat the one who was offended, helping to assure me I don't deserve to be treated thus, to be forced to see my role someone else's pain
I have to accept that my actions will hurt others. I have to accept that I will be hurt by others. I cannot expect my works to circumvent those situations, either by me not feeling worthy to feel hurt over something, nor cancelling the idea that someone else can't be hurt by me. The family dialogue around claiming one person or another is "such a victim" is a family habit of shaming those who point out the disfunction and then we scapegoat that person. The indirect communication, the constant use of subtext to interpret and then attempt to correct offenders and keep family members in line.
My perfectionism tells me that even as I add those pluses to my tally, they won't be enough. I know I'm in debt before I even start, but I want to fall back on them so badly. I so badly want those works to mean I'm lovable. I'm unwilling to admit my pain bc I feel unworthy. but I need to realize that my pluses only mean something to ME. no one else knows my intentions behind the things I do. it won't mean the same when I hold it up later to say, "SEE? Look here and remember. I'm good!" I'm begging them to allow me to have a sense that I'm good, rather than believing it myself, and realizing as much as I can make people happy, I can also hurt. It goes both ways.
I need to stop equating criticism of my behavior to total rejection of me as a person. When I do that, I add insult to injury and make myself out to the be ultimate victim in the situation, rather than realizing that I am human, I mess up, I will hurt others and need to be aware of that. In doing that, I become a barrier to any healing that might happen. Taking responsibility is hard. Speaking up when hurt is hard. but I believe I can learn to do both.
notes/quotes from podcast
adult child - this happened - parent take responsibility/account/ownership. defenses go up. x happened, parent: reaction matters. don't minimize, "xx had it worse"). child of narc - neurotic perfectionism. if i'm not perfect, it means i'm the worse person in the whole wide world, can apply to our parenting. child - I don't like it. we see it as a rejection of whole self instead of the situation, can reject the child. allow room for imperfection - it's acceptable. when they say - I don't like that, it doesn't mean I don't like you. it's not you that they are rejecting. but affect of having a narc parent is we learn the learned behaviors to create safety. getting to a place where self acceptance mistakes as anything other than a mistake. when they see their mistakes as an absolute confirmation of everything they've been told that they are vs being told you are allowed mistakes, you are only human, it's going to happen, but podcasters say - we will say I'm sorry.
reflect on our impact - what impact did I have
compassion for our mistakes vs eating ourselves up for our misdeeds, taking responsibility.
podcaster - my friend is laughing with me about my mistakes. if i was unhealed, I might take it and be shamed or embarrassed
boundary setting could be seen as anger and rejection when those items were used as punishment from earlier relationships. emotional control could be implied when boundaries are set. walls vs boundary
abuses create walls. is there a door? (helen) boundaries are rigidly flexible and walls are inflexible. see my edges then I can see where their edges are and I hold on to me. blurred edges are confusing - fault assigning
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