How Can You Go Out In Public Dressed Like That??!!

When you grow up in the household of a narcissist, you grow up as a bonsai tree; you're shaped into whatever your narcissist wants you to be.  Your personality, your reactions, your feelings - they're all dictated under a steady stream of rules.  What the narcissist thinks, feels, believes:  these become your reality, the box you must live inside to keep their approval or at least tolerance.  Any opinion you may have outside of those dictates is dangerous.  As a child, you learn to keep those questions inside.  If your narcissist is violent or scary, you believe that your life hangs in the balance, and you may be right.  

You become a receiver, knowing exactly what they're thinking at any point in time.  You know their moods from the way the car sounds coming up the driveway, and your adrenaline hits in a certain way when the tires sound more crunchy, or the car moves more quickly.  The slightest different in the door opening will send you into controlled panic:  What did I do wrong today?  Is the house completely spotless?  Did I forget to do something they left on their list/they asked me to do this morning/they complained about two months ago and haven't mentioned since?  What Will Be My Crime Today?

You become completely attuned to your narcissist.  You know what they're thinking and feeling; you know how they would react to something, and you know you'd better have that same reaction if you don't want to be yelled at.  

So what happens when you step outside into the wider world?  Here's what happened with me.

My mom was completely focused on how things looked.  This is really common among narcissists; they always require perfection, and they're terrified of people seeing through their disguise to the human imperfection within.  I was told I was ugly so many times that I believed it.  My mom would pick one thing to criticize every day, and after years of contempt barely masked as concern, I believed I was fat.  (I'm pretty sure 5'9" and 150 pounds doesn't qualify.)  I'm lucky I never developed an eating disorder.  But clothes, stomach, shoulders - all were fair game.  Looking back, my mom purposely sabotaged my appearance for years, frying my hair with bad home permanents every six months, yanking on my tender scalp, the chemicals burning my eyes.  She did this all with a self-sacrificial air, since she was helping me, sacrificing her time on the weekend to "make me acceptable."  By my sophomore year in high school, I subconsciously dodged her plans and cut my hair short in a cut of my own design.  For the most part, I've had a version of that cut ever since.

Once I hit college, I wore whatever the hell I wanted.  I pushed back on society's appearance standards.  I didn't believe that I would ever measure up to society's standards if I dressed by their rules - years of conditioning told me I was ugly - so I did what a lot of people do when they're raised in a pressure cooker:  I opted out.  I shaved my legs, but only in stripes.  I wore jean jackets with my favorite song quotes written on them.  One of my favorite outfits was a black tshirt with a crossbones and smiley face, with tiger striped tights, cut off jeans & jean jacket, black fingerless gloves, and two chains around my wrists.  The Far Side cartoon says it best:  

For me, appearance was a river of fire, so I just hopped over and opted out and said nope.  In later years, I'd find really nice vintage dresses, and wear them with Converse high tops.  Caring about appearances was shallow, hypocritical, and all of the other things I didn't want to be.  The thing that scared me the most was becoming like MY MOTHER.  So I walked away from appearance entirely.

Over the years, I've worked on this off and on.  I know I'm not ugly, but that's one of my biggest insecurities.  When I feel bad about anything, my first thought is usually about how gross I look, or fat I've gotten, or how badly I dress.  And then I hate myself for having those thoughts, because those thoughts don't really belong to me.  They're hers, and I hate my default settings - that I allow her programming to override what I really believe in.  I'm not someone who cares about appearances, and that's something that's really important to me.  But if I've developed one of my core values in opposition to someone, is it really my core value?  Or just a reaction to how I was raised?

What a nest of snakes it becomes, and a lot of ways just like an ouroboros.  But these things I rest on:  I'm happy in my life.  I know who I am.  I will always struggle against how I was raised and the things I was taught had value.  And allowing that struggle is the most revolutionary thing I can do.  I'm not a bad person because I struggle with these things.  I'm a good person because I love myself even as I struggle with these things.  I can say, Yes, this is hard.  Yes, this is tough.  Yes, this isn't fair.  And you deserve love even as you struggle.  You deserve your freedom, your life, your family of choice and your kitties.  You deserve to be you, and to be happy.