Most of the time children of narcissists will talk about what they lost by living in their families, trying to process their grief and anger, even just naming the things they didn't know were supposed to be theirs. Comfort when you're in pain, help when you need it, trust in other people - these are so rare as to be unrecognizable when they do appear. When people do treat you right, you think they're trying to trick you. When you feel comfortable, you tense up and look around to see what's coming your way.
But one thing that I've learned to appreciate is my ability to handle emergencies. When something bad happens, I am ready to go, ready to cope, adrenaline pumping and saving whatever day may need to be saved. Need helping moving with no notice? I can find boxes and help you pack. Need a ride three hours away to get home? No problem; I can drive you there. Receive bad news over the phone and not sure if you can get home safely? Here I am, driving behind you, making sure all is well.
I can handle my own emergencies too - moving out of an abusive boyfriend's apartment, writing a paper in the middle of the night, driving seven hours to pick up a desperate friend. All of these things are handled, usually by buying a chunk of junk food, cracking jokes with the darkest of humor, and being supportive, funny, and acting like it's nothing. Just chugging along, getting through it, getting things done.
I was trained for this. My parents were hot and cold, either hilarious, jovial, expansive, possibly slightly drunk, or rigid, cold, angry, yelling, even storming. Also possibly slightly drunk. You never knew which version you would get. Sometimes they weren't on the same page, and one would defend me against the other. THAT was a headtrip, and really disconcerting. Mom would yell at me for something innocuous, Dad would defend me, and then next day they'd switch places. In a month, the other parent would complain about the same trait they'd defended last time!
Regardless, I knew how to handle what was coming down the pike, no matter what it was, when it was, how it was delivered. From a very early age, I was protective of my siblings, and my method was to get everything done as quickly as possible and then hide upstairs in my room. No relaxing unless they were both in the good mood, and even then, stay poised and ready for them to flip. Kitchen's dirty and they're coming up the driveway? Quick! Run to the kitchen and do as much as you can at lightning speed. Realize you forgot to start the laundry? Oh lordy, run to the utility room and see if you can make it look like it's been running for hours; find some clean stuff and stand there folding it like you washed it yourself.
I learned to fake industry. I learned to lie. I learned to get things done. Adrenaline and fear were my friends, and while it didn't work all the time, sometimes it would be enough to get the kitchen straightened and sprint upstairs, hold still and wait for an explosion. If none was forthcoming, I might dodge the anger this time.
I appreciate my ability to handle emergencies. It's helped me in a lot of circumstances. (Of course, most of those circumstances involved my inability to know a good guy from an abusive asshole, due to my upbringing, but that's beside the point. FOR NOW.)
However.
What I don't know is how to relax. I know how to get things done, and in the normal course of events, I need to get things done. I have a stressful and demanding job. I have a homestead, husband, and four cats. I write things now and again. But when I'm alone, and things are in their place, and I've completed the chores and planned the meals and prepped ALL the things ----
I'm lost.
I don't know how to act, how to start doing anything I want to do. WANT to do. Wanting to do something was never really an option. I wanted to be left alone and allowed to read so I could escape my reality. I wanted to have a parent that supported and loved and saw me for who I was. But that was so far out of my experience that I didn't know it was missing. I was gaslighted for so long that I thought my parents were wonderful, only realizing decades later the extent of their abuse.
So I have peace and quiet right now. I have my chores done. And I know there were things that I didn't have time for this week. What were they? Will I do them when I remember? How do I motivate myself without fear and adrenaline and anger? Or will I just eat sugar, play hours of computer games, watch buckets of television and give myself a headache doing the same thing I've done hundreds of times instead.
When I was in my twenties, I moved into an apartment, and months later, I still had boxes of books and other stuff stacked here and there. A guy I was semi-dating spent the night at my place, and in the morning, I woke up before he did, and started cleaning up, setting up shelves (quietly) and stacking my books on the shelves. I did more work in the hour before he woke up than I'd done in the last month of living there by myself. His energy, his presence in the apartment gave me impetus. I wasn't scared of him, but there's something about having someone else around that gives me focus, keeps me from shutting down and hiding, or even just escaping into television or books. I'm no longer alone upstairs in my room, hiding away from the monsters and getting as far away as I can before they yell up the stairs and yank me back into that life. I'm living - not necessarily for that person, but their presence grounds me, keeps me from drifting away into the surreality I used to dwell in just to survive.
In those days, I only knew who I was in the world with other people as guideposts. These days I know who I am when I'm alone; I've come that far. But I still have trouble avoiding the aimless ricochet as I bounce from mindless task to mindless task. I'm still trying to escape a reality that is long dead, running on the hamster wheel in a cage that was broken years ago. There is freedom all around me and yet I'm still hanging out in the cell, not knowing how to stand up and walk away.
