Grief, Interrupted.
Trigger Warning: The range of emotions expressed, and my tone may debride areas still healing while grieving the death of an abusive, narcissistic parent. My established readers know my raw, unfiltered honesty, blunt-force levity, and intensity come from a place they trust, but it can be an acquired taste. The following topic is my stream of consciousness, cathartic journey through the stages of grief. And how what could’ve been deep healing for deep wounds were interrupted because some breed of monsters die hard; some pick up where they left off to ambush us at our most vulnerable. While it didn’t kill me, it should put on notice those who left me for dead as to why writers — especially survivors of life-long narcissistic abuse — are far more dangerous than our monsters. We possess the most powerful force in the Universe — love. Love doesn’t always mean soft and squishy. Sometimes, it means having to build a DMZ, but with love because if I’ve learned anything from this particular journey, not everyone loves you the way you love them and when they break you, they can’t — or don’t want to — fix you either. I love everyone I’ve written about. Especially my monsters. Why? Because, without them, I might’ve never learned how to make gold of the ooze to piece back together from broken a pot they’ll never piss in, again.
“No one will ever know the violence it took to become this gentle.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
My father died last July. So too did my relationship with my only brother and the rest of the “family is family for God’s sake” family. As a fugitive (e)Scapegoat for over twenty years, I was ever-mindful of how they’d become indoctrinated through the confirmation bias masterfully crafted by the now-dead Malignant Narcissist patriarch. As such, and according to the bylaws of the Board of Enablers, I was not entitled to grieve him. Certainly not as they would. No skin off my nose to spite their face. It wasn’t that I had no sympathy to offer them. It just seemed to me, this was the most perfect and merciful time for all concerned to decide to let go or be dragged. They’ll never mourn the monster he was, and I’ll never capitulate to their illusions that he wasn’t one.
So, I let go.
What no one else knew, or so I thought, when I learned of his passing was, for months prior, I’d been contemplating what else I could “let go”. I reasoned with myself, if I could let go of the remaining few heirloom rocks I’d been rucking through life related to childhood abuse and neglect, being the family scapegoat, then I could also let go of all the rocks, too. The rocks of anger, shame, trust issues, hypervigilance, or any other counterweight to a life free of them — the life I’d been fighting to enjoy with no ceasefire to enjoy the peacetime.
I had been preparing to “let go” for over a year by the time my father died. The last visit I had with him was a year before he died, and it was devastating. Not only for the events that unfolded, but the condition he was in. Profoundly lonely, malnourished, disheveled, unwashed, combative, vulnerable, and in absolute narcissistic collapse. The aging Malignant Narcissist, especially one with antisocial personality disorder, cannot resist luring their favorite prey for that last morsel. It’s their default. It just is and I’d let down my defenses, regrettably. He was more than a monster to me. He was my father. I never knew who he was, only what he was. Even still, I loved him as he was. I wrote about this in Tell-tale Dragon and will only offer the aforementioned so not to reopen that wound but to let you know some of the backstory. I took it down after he passed as a gesture of compassion for them as they grieve. I may repost it at a later date, but no promises. Just as with Tell-tale Dragon, once I post this, I’ll set it down and move forward. No matter what you read next, please know, I’m not glad he’s dead but I’m glad his suffering is over, and his death meant so was my suffering of him.
I had two critical resources that made letting go possible and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention their exceptional help through a “grief-in-progress” before it was interrupted. Several months prior, I’d reached out to my therapist after twenty-three years well, to prepare for his passing and to develop coping strategies for a situation at home that was disturbing a balance she and I had worked exhaustively to achieve. Months after my last visit with my father the year prior, before reaching out to her, I’d also found complimentary healing through recordings with my hypno-therapist, Glenn Harrold. She was delighted but not at all surprised that by the time I’d called her I’d overcome a lifelong drag with suicidal ideation and other complex issues I was in the process of successfully treating through his guided hypnosis. So, our list was short. Just these two issues, one to put to rest and the other to put on notice. We set about weekly telehealth sessions over the summer months.
The night before my father died, I’d been listening to “Healing Meditation 396hz” seeking a moment in our relationship that hadn’t been marred by cruelty. I was sure there had to be a time when he wasn’t a monster, and I wasn’t afraid of him, perhaps it was hidden somewhere that I’d missed. I was searching for a loving place to let go. One free of his guilt or my contempt.
Where I could love him as he was — a broken human being — unable or unwilling to make gold of the ooze as I had. Not who I’d hoped he was, needed him to be, or as who he’d convinced himself and others. I felt great pity for him that we’d both been broken. That he’d chosen to lash outward to exist, and I’d learned to lash inward to cope, respectively. I’d decided this is where we would close on common ground. So, I settled on loving him unconditionally for the sake of his soul ahead of its forty-day final journey, hoping it might serve as an unlikely appeal for clemency.
I had two warring battles going on simultaneously. One was about to leave forever, and the other had worn out its welcome. I was trying to let go of the former in peace and reconcile the latter as diplomatically as possible. Tragically, the traditionally sacred nature of the grieving process about to take place was interrupted. Hence, the title of this essay.
Perhaps, it was as a result of an expanded consciousness, the crippling concussive mental blows, or a combination of the two? Whatever it was, I was present for all of it while in a state of both consciousness and unconsciousness. Meaning, I was functioning as awake, alert, and oriented while also in trance. I was intensely aware of this and intentionally did not exclude myself from witnessing everything that happened. A front and center seat from a distance so close it has taken me nearly an entire year to describe with any grace so as not to suffer it twice in one lifetime. Many drafts later, I’ve taken from them the parts I believe will best express where I was then and where I am now. Healed. Dangerously, so. It took about a year to learn how to write with a new voice, transcribing it from my old writing voice. I’m not bitter. I just healed hard from going cold in the sun, that’s all.
No one ever really knows the violence it takes to become gentle until they tell of how they won the battle and still lost the war…
Three on a Match
That morning, after being up all night, I laid down for a nap and woke a couple of hours later to the lingering scent of sulfur left over from Independence Day celebration fireworks. I’d picked up that scent twice before: One year earlier when my father extinguished his match that inspired the last scene of my allegory, “Tell-tale Dragon”, and the other while on punishment as a child, also from fireworks. I’ve matured enough to not let the smell of sulfur bother me. This time, though, it was alerting me to something emerging. All three on a single match!
Ire & Brimstone
I stretched, removed my earbuds, and reached for my phone to open a one-line text from my brother, “Dad passed away”. The week before, identical in tone and delivery from the year prior, the text was that he was “…probably not going to make it. Please reach out. I know it’s been bad over the years, but you get it.” Except for the last part because it meant he got it, too. All along. This was the first — and last — acknowledgement of how bad it was I’ve ever received.
I didn’t reply. I wanted to but I didn’t have what he needed from me, anyway. Instead, I decided to let it be what’s left between us in the proverbial and literal wake, as we’d been pitted all along: Golden Child versus (e)Scapegoat of our Malignant Narcissist father. There was nothing I could say or do that I hadn’t already that was going to shield him from the intractable agony of the ties about to sever us. I’d chewed myself free decades ago with only one regret, I wish I understood the dynamics of familial narcissistic abuse and how our parents symbiotically denatured our siblinghood to have been able to save us both, sooner. Both delighted in rehearsing the sibling rival narratives to each of us to ensure that we would be forever adrift and alienated from one another. And, for all their failings to be decent human beings, this is where they were successful. Any attempt on our part to braid the ends of our frayed bond would result in reeducating the other. Whereas my brother was to believe that I was jealous of his success or not to take seriously my siren-like warnings about their malice. I was to believe that he unquestioningly believed I was jealous of him and how dare I depict them as the monsters they were. (It was bad enough with one narcissistic parent but two: one grandiose with antisocial personality disorder and the other covert with Munchausen’s/Munchausen’s by proxy. Both equally malignant, and now aging — dying — in the throes of narcissistic collapse.) And so, we became blood strangers who would occasionally engage in the long distance of being close enough to be out of reach, however fleeting those moments.
Our roles were established from birth, and we played them pitch-perfect, too. I love my brother. Dearly. I love him enough to let him go and hope he never realizes what was done to us because I believe the Golden Child’s fall from the counterfeit grace is harder than the Scapegoat’s. When I first glanced — and that’s all it took — at this curiously violent abyss, I fell into its brilliance and shattered. It took decades, many of them in intensive therapy, to make gold of the ooze just to piece back what I could to resemble what I might’ve been otherwise. Which is not quite crazy, but just mad enough to brew tea for the Hatter. Although very proud of what my brother became, my sorrow lies in knowing he never became who he also might’ve otherwise. Narcissistic parents are identity thieves. They leach from the seas of their children to keep full their shallow ponds merely to admire their own reflections.
It didn’t really matter whether I called to offer my sympathies or attended the funeral because the narcissistic family uses these occasions to exploit and mock you to your face; If you don’t go, they’ll drag you in absentia. Designated Enablers, Flying Monkeys, and Gossip Whores is all that makes up the receiving line at the funeral of a dead narcissist for the (e)Scapegoat.
Their collective ignorance of my situation at home wasn’t entirely their fault. That’s the hallmark of narcissistic family dynamics and precisely how no contact works. It’s a trade-off the (e)Scapegoat makes when cutting off the traditional support system that proves to be anything but supportive. We don’t reach out because we recognize they’ll further complicate or corrupt an already difficult situation to use as grist for the mill.
Barefoot in the Dark
So, I sat on the edge of my bed, while staring down at my bare feet conditioned to hover above the carpet, wondering why I felt at peace. Everything up to this point with my father was violent. Even love. I was expecting the crush of mourning. A torrent of tears. Something. I wasn’t angry or bitter then, and I’m still not. This was peace. It was different, alien to anything I’d ever felt before or since. A gentleness I welcomed like a monsoon where it had never rained before, quenching the desiccations formed by the taunt of narcissistic unlove, forming rivers debriding the necrosis of despair.
But not a single tear fell.
He was dead. And it didn’t kill me, but it confused me as to why I didn’t cry. I’d learned not to cry in his presence, physically or otherwise. It only made it worse for me…and better for him.
The last time I cried for him was fifty years apart from one another.
It was July 1975. The house my father designed and built was surrounded by what remains of excavated boulders: Rocks.
It was July then, too. Oh, the irony!
I was wearing a pair of white shorts and my favorite, a handed-me-down Kelly-green and white polka dot halter top that I barely filled but was starting to, and no shoes. My brother and I were waving small American flags and sparklers, marching and singing “Yankee Doodle Dandy” in a patch of tall grass. Suddenly, without warning, like most anything I did — or didn’t do — I caught his ire. It had nothing to do with being barefoot like he said. Rather, he’d discovered I’d started menstruating. I was nine years old. I didn’t have the kind of mother to turn to to ask what this meant or what to do. I kept it secret and just hoped it didn’t mean I was dying.
I’m not going to get into the biology of that, just bear with me. For the Malignant Narcissistic father, especially daughters, this normal biological function is a threat to them. While it marks the beginning of a rite of passage from girl to woman, it elevates the daughter to a whole new level of torture for them. Mine, in particular, saw it as an opportunity to impose his power over me as painfully as possible.
The punishment he’d concocted over a case of beer was a summer of picking rocks, piling them into a wheelbarrow, pushed to wherever he pointed and dumped. Then, picked up and placed back in the wheelbarrow, pushed to wherever he pointed and dumped. Over and over. Barefoot. While he looked down from the deck, can of beer in hand and his pinky finger out, eyeing my every move and grinning with all of his gnashing teeth. I did cry, once, but stopped because of the threat of giving me “something to really cry about”. My bewildered heart cramped as much as my sore, blossoming belly in their shared pain and confusion. At the end of each day, I was hosed down outside. No one was to speak to me and I was sent to my room after a meal of bread, peanut butter, and milk. Blood, sweat, tears, and barefoot in the dark for fifty years.
No more.
Three times, the scent of sulfur came to me. All of them, in July, about his soul. The first was while picking rocks, the second as he was dying, and the last time, I was putting them — and him — down forever.
Wild, Wild Horses Couldn’t Drag Me Away
A few weeks after my father died and all that followed, my close friend and editor died. Suddenly. With her, she took my alibi. My last known whereabouts as confidant with the orbiting and dueling family dramas — the estranged one and the squatter in my home. She was the only one with the courage to help curb my enthusiasm no matter how many edits it took. We shared a knack for dealing with such matters few appreciate. The ability to lean in without being a burden to the other so to get to the task of whatever we were going through, respectively. Neither of us being much into small talk while also being on the same page. Among many other things, I cherished these qualities about her and miss her terribly. During our last conversation, she became angry with me for the first time for issuing an apology I didn’t owe. Of special note, she never got to see the artwork which I chose for this article. To ease the grief and escape the torment being imposed while grieving her, I finished it as a tribute to her. Even the new novel I’m working on she never knew about because it was the last text I sent which she never received. It read, “New novel idea I’m chomping at the bit to tell you about! An allegory about a horse that never tires. Get it? Chomping at the bit. Morning coffee, tomorrow? Love you, Beautiful!”
I pour a little of my coffee out for her every morning.
Ides, Ears, and Throats
The week before my father died, my husband and I had discovered listening devices in our home.
Unable to determine exactly how long they’d been in place, I relied on how long I’d been complaining of strange coincidences or the mistreatment I was subjected to when my husband and son were at work to which no one believed until the proof was undeniable. They were, however, situated where private conversations were held: living room, kitchen, and my office. Later, to include the front porch.
They’re pretty cheap, these devices, by the way. A lot cheaper, combined, than the device I paid for to discover them. In the end, it was expensive to all involved. Oh! But the return on this investment was and continues to be priceless. I wasn’t crazy after all!
Two and half years earlier, our son had asked to move back home after being injured at work during the cop-hate riots. True to his nature, he was trying to help someone. True to the nature of those riots, one of the good guys got hurt trying to help someone. Although I liked her, initially, there had been concerns that created tension with this girl that I’d set aside in the interest of helping my son. We weren’t crazy about allowing them to live together, but our son was injured and needed to recover, she was unemployed, they would’ve been homeless and their dogs would’ve been put down. Her family made it clear they threw her out, not our son. I also felt great pity for her because when she was good, she was great but when she wasn’t, she was awful. So young and immature, in need of someone willing to provide shelter from an even more unforgiving world seemed the right thing to do. We hoped that our loving home would turn her around. Especially if this is who our son decided to build a life with, we thought it was the least we could do for him. He’s been a wonderful son since birth. Our family unit was small, just us three, but we were loving and close. So, we thought maybe our environment would foster by extension something they could build upon. We opened our hearts and home to her in the hopes it would foster some healing and growth for them both.
Little did we know and how too terribly late we would learn.
- I’ve split this essay into two parts mostly because I promised my established readers I would post it no later than the one-year anniversary, which is today. Also, I write long pieces. I just do. Not all the time, but I offer no apologies either. Short pieces are great! I just don’t write them. I have to keep this promise because they’ve been patient while I took a year to heal. They will understand, and I hope you will too, one cannot hope to heal by reopening one’s wounds repeatedly. Sometimes we just have to tell our tale once and burn it after, so it doesn’t consume our spoils of victory. While they and you read, I’ll wrap up the rest and post it later today. This piece was a lot to purge so I can only imagine it must also be a lot to digest. It’s been quite a year and I just need a minute. Thank you for reading and I hope you’ll return. Comments/Likes are always welcome and appreciated.~MJL
- Here’s the link to Part Two and an excerpt: Grief, Interrupted. Part Two. “But life isn’t hard to manage when… | by M Jane Letty | Jul, 2024 | Medium
- (Gray) Rock, Paper, Scissors
- If you had told me the abyss of peace I was staring into was really a barefooted gift horse, I would never have looked in its mouth.
- But I did.
- Barefoot and trauma-rock-free for the first time in decades, I stepped off the side of my bed and descended the stairs. I was on my way outside to stand barefoot on the grass. Also, for the first time in decades of being unable to mentally and physically tolerate being barefoot, was the last rock I put down. The peace that met me where I was, in a state between waking consciousness and expanded consciousness, compelled me to ground myself to that moment to mark the beginning of a new journey. One that was free of shame, anger, despair, and resentment going forward.
