The story that was never told, an excerpt from a book in progress by Gwendolyn Wehage.
First I must say that I loved dearly my brothers and my parents, but that never helped me in my life with them. I continued to love my parents to the end of their life, but I never sensed love from them. I also must say that I love my brothers and have demonstrated that all my life, but it was never received and never reciprocated. They may say they loved me, but it was not God's love or concern, it was fleshly and only if I measured up to their idea of what they think I should be humanisticly speaking. There has always been a spirit of competition that destroyed any possibility of a relationship.
As a child my parents would fight bitterly, with yelling and hateful words, my mother would come to my room at age 12 or younger and tell me all her troubles with Dad.
Even when I would ask her to stop answering Dad back when he was on a rage, she would get mad and claim she has a right to her say. She would tell me all the bad things about Dad, then Dad would come in and yell that she was lying to me, I would cry and shout, "please stop", but their fight would get worse. I would get in trouble for shouting for them to stop as though I were the disrespectful child. I thought I was going insane and this would cause them to fight even harder, "look what you are doing to your daughter" would be their accusation against each other and the fight would escalate to an unrelenting degree.
I would run to my brothers room for comfort and they would yell at me to get out and shut up. One year I ran away from home because I wanted out of that household so much that I could not stand it anymore. There had not been a fight in awhile then, but because of the anger and hate that dwelt in that environment all the time, I was desperate to get away. I was continually the "Scapegoat" child, blamed for things that I never did and accused of being selfish, when they were clearly the selfish ones. When I would tell on my brother the bully, for his pokes at me, my mother would tell me to stop being so sensitive but would never punish him for picking on me.
My mother regularly demeaned any accomplishments of mine, even sneering at them as though I did something wrong. It was common for my family to mock and demean normal and rational desires of a child, such as what I wanted to be when I grew up. Sadly, this mentality was maintained all the way to my parents death.
In the nursing home I wanted to bring my lap top to show my mother, she had never even seen a home computer before. She said she had no interest in that but a couple of months later she told me that my "golden child" brother wanted to show her his laptop and what fun it was to look at it with him. This sort of thing was common with my parents. If it was me that wanted to share and connect, I was shown clearly that there was no interest.
I spent four days sleeping in a chair in the hospital for Mom because my Dad was worried about her being there alone. When my brother came to visit her, he made a joke about how worthless I was, my mother laughed and they had their private joke against me as usual, only a few months before her death. If I were to tell my brother this he would simply mock me for taking a joke too seriously, dismissing my feelings as stupid, as he always has.
My thoughts after it happened were, "why could he not have blessed me with kind words instead of a mean joke?" There were never any kind words, only mean jokes, this time was no different.
On several occasions I had to threaten to walk out of a visit with my parents because of the vile language that emerged from my father's mouth. His memories consisted of the sexual and monstrous things he accused others of in graphic and miserable detail. I could not listen to them so I would proclaim that if he continued I would have to leave. He always continued anyway, when I would get up to leave then he would stop. I can't remember a time when either of my parents actually listened to anything I said and my brothers followed their example.
I would get in trouble for wanting them to stop fighting, but was the bad one for saying so. My mother gossiped about me as the rebellious one, because I spoke my mind about what was going on, so the extended family latched onto this mentality and to this day they treat me with a great deal of contempt because of the spirit of hate in my mother and father that was passed down to my brothers and then my own children and now possibly my grandchildren. NO one has anything against me that they can name, but maintain their attitude of superiority and the idea that I am worthy of contempt.
I am convinced it will never end til my death or theirs. They would never allow discussion about any of this, the moment I would try to speak they would shut me down with mocking, yelling and demeaning. There was never an opportunity for them to learn what really went on, in short, they loved their hatred of me, perhaps it made them feel superior, something they could never let go of.
I have walked away from all family members because of this hatred and gossip and now they think they can make me feel guilty about it. There is no guilt, only joy and peace at not having to deal with them anymore.
2 Timothy 3:1-5 "3 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, [a]haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these."
Those who are deeply narcissistic love their scapegoats, they love to feel superior and they love their gossip. They are angry at anyone exposing anything about them but are seriously invested in "guessing" what others are doing based on scanty evidence, while passing their ideas on as fact to extended family members.
I had never experienced any level of empathy or kindness with these people. Even my good deeds were mocked and minimized for the purpose of further showing my lack of importance or unloveability. There were at times feigned kindness, when they were in the mood for a short time, but nothing real and lasting.
Sadly when the devil of narcissism is on the prowel, he roams around looking who in the family he can lie to or about, whispers in the ear of those who are not born again, or believers who do not consult the Holy Spirit about anything. They are vulnerable to believing the lies because of their need to be superior to the scapegoat.
Narcissism runs in families because it is brought about through training. The "golden children" are trained how to mock and demean, through lack of training in kindness. When the golden child is a bully and the parent laughs at it, even calling the scapegoat child a big baby for crying over what was done to her, this empowers the golden child to continue in their meanness. Narcissists who are trained in this form of intimidation and mocking never change, they go into their elder years even worse than they were as children. The only reason these past events mean anything anymore is because they never ended, they continue to this very day, no one has ever been sorry and no one has stopped, in fact they have drawn others into the web of lies and hate.
It has been my experience that the elder narcissist finds themselves living in a phony world of "pleasantries" to those they wish to impress while secretly and covertly picking on their target, the scapegoat. They become worse as they get older, because they have been empowered by years of encouragement to remain mean and hateful and call it "just a joke." No one ever confronts them with the exception of the scapegoat.
When I write about my personal experience, the purpose is to demonstrate to others what narcissism looks like fleshed-out. Many believers have endured this form of persecution on the part of narcissistic family members, thinking their whole lives that something is wrong with them, that they are unlovable and undesirable. They are trained to believe they offer nothing and are worth nothing by these devils in sheeps clothing. Sadly many of these people go to church every week, they even know the Bible but follow very little of what is in it.
Matthew 15:7-9 "…7 You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you: 8‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. 9 They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.’”…"
I am here to tell you that the devil knows what he is doing all the time. His biggest target are those who love to follow hard after Christ. If he can make them feel worthless and inept, rejected by all family members, and without a voice, they might be tempted to give up entirely.
It has been my experience to fight against the lies, the meanness and the mocking by continuing to do what I feel led to do no matter what they are saying. This aggravates the narcissist to get worse, they hate that we cannot be manipulated and broken before them . They want us broken, they want us to melt into a puddle on the floor thinking we are useless and stupid, when that does not happen they work to convince others to treat us the same way they do. Those who follow them are called, "flying monkeys", they do the bidding of the narcissists to be accepted by them.
The rule of thumb for dealing with those who work to discount you as a human being is to remove the narcissist and all their flying monkeys from your life.
Praise the Lord that He has allowed for us to remove them, so that we can go on in confidence to obey Christ.
2 Timothy 3:4-5 "…4 traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these!"
If you find yourselves surrounded by narcissists who work to stop you from living your life the way God intended, it is time to remove them. If you are married to one of them, then you must learn how to deal with them so that you do not become like them.
1 Corinthians 15:33 "33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good character.”
Many of these narcissists are in the church today, they have many right words but they lack the love and devotion to Christ and His commands that Spirit filled believers have. Their mantra often is "just love them", as though this allows for all sins and disobediences against God. They remain silent when believers are disobeying God, but rage when they are called to obey God.
John 14:15 "15 If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. "
This is the state of the world we live in, it is increasing all the time. We must be aware of the tactics and never allow those tactics to cause us to sin. That is the goal of the devil, that we would sin under the pressure of the evil others do to us. Since we are creatures who become hurt when attacked and vulnerable to the temptation to give up, we must not allow the devil to cause us to sin by giving up or by responding the way the narcissist responds.
Galatians 4:16-18 "…16 Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? 17 Those people are zealous for you, but not in a good way. Instead, they want to isolate you from us, so that you will be zealous for them. 18 Nevertheless, it is good to be zealous if it serves a noble purpose—at any time, and not only when I am with you.…"
The narcissist desires to cause you to give up on God's principles so that you will become like them. They cannot tolerate anyone who walks according to God's Word, they must work to stop you through intimidation and mocking. If they can get you so down on yourself that you give up, you are more likely to give in and become like them.
DON'T LET THE DEVIL WIN! Expose them and walk away if they refuse to confess their sin and change by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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