LIVING IN A NARCISSISTIC NEIGHBOURHOOD!

LOSING MY REAL SELF AMIDST THE FALSE-SELVES AND OVERT NARCISSISTS OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD! POST NO.33/N (A 12 minute read)

It usually takes a while to settle in a new home and find out who your neighbours are, but in this case I became very quickly aware that we had some pretty violent and volatile people as our new neighbours. We were actually living in a NARCISSIST sandwich. Two NARCISSIST males in the apartment directly above us and three NARCISSIST males in the apartment directly below us!

Add those to the NARCISSIST that we had within and is it any wonder that my own REAL-SELF went into hiding. The shouting, arguing and fighting that went on in both apartments in the early hours of the morning was terrible. Our understanding of the Spanish language was growing and so, sad to say, I was more aware of what was being said in these bouts of aggression!

Both situations were similar in that the parent/parents, had been able to live without their adult (in body at least), children. They had all gone off and got married at a very young age. Having impregnated their wives various times, their marriages ended in divorce and being in the financial "dire straits", they all winded up back with the parents!

I FELT for the only woman in this awful scenario, my downstairs neighbour, who had two of her adult sons turn up looking for shelter after their divorces. Neither of them worked a day in all of the sixteen years that we lived there. Hence they were able to sleep all day and be out and about all night. The typical NARCISSIST life-style encompassing all the vices!!

Living above us was a divorced NARCISSIST father who had his NARCISSIST son return in search of shelter. Both of these were also heavy alcohol consumers and the son had many other vices too. The rows and fights from both apartments were terrifying and I truly feared someone being killed in one of these regular outbursts of NARCISSISTIC rage.

The mother from downstairs would come up to my door frequently. She would tap the door so gently and say, "It´s alright! It´s me!" Having heard the noise and disturbance going on in her place, I was never surprised to find her at my door and I would welcome her in every time. She was living in HELL for sure.

She came up to mine to find some respite from these hideous NARCISSIST males that she was trapped with. I learnt about her life and found that her´s was an absolute copy of my mother-in-law´s own life. They had been pushed into the arms of their respective male NARCISSIST´S, they had been taken away from their home area and were never to see any of their own family ever again.

I lamented with her just as I did my mother-in-law and I could see what controlling b*****ds this generation of males were. But that was not new information to me of course! Oh, no! My generation had been made well aware of this by our mother´s. We were being entrained to be INDEPENDENT females who would be able to call their own shots!

Women who would be able to make their own decisions and who would not have to be isolated from their family for the rest of their lives. So sadly though, the women of those generations did not expect anything else but I can well believe that each and every one of them had hoped that the man that she married would be kind to her and that she might be happy sometimes too!

ADOPTING A FULLY SPANISH LIFE-STYLE!

No, I don´t think that I had ever intended to become an adopted Spaniard and I was already struggling with the NARCISSIST partner´s hours. I can see so clearly where I am living now, where there are many British folk, that they are living in Spain but have not ever integrated or adopted Spanish hours or customs.

It is true to say that they are getting the best out of living in Spain but as retired folk, they do not need to be integrated in the Spanish system. For me it was because I had a young child who had to go to a state school, that we were absolutely obliged to adopt these new schedules. I could not fight the time schedules and habits of the Spanish society.

On top of that, I had my sleep disturbed each and every night by the NARCISSIST within and by my neighbouring NARCISSISTS when they finally staggered home in the early hours of the morning. This is where I really FELT that I was losing control over just about anything that seemed to really matter.

I got into the new habit of making a good, healthy, cooked lunch for me and my nephew, which we would sit together at the dining table and share. He would then have a sandwich on arriving home in the afternoon and go out to play with his local friends for a few hours. 

It was pointless me giving him a "normal" time to be back home and expect him to take note. All the other children went home at 8pm, which was when their dinner time was. I would do us both a light supper, he would shower, get pyjamas on and relax until bedtime.

I had to go around the schedule of the neighbourhood children and their families! I really did used to FEEL so aggrieved by this but could see that it would be futile to try and beat this opposition. What I was absolutely adamant about was that I was not going to make my boy wait until the NARCISSIST came home to eat!!

Nor was I going to wait and wait and wait until he came home. It could be that he arrived at 8.30pm but so could it be 9.30pm or 10.30pm and even later than that many times. The time would always depend on who was in the local bar when he got back to town and how much alcohol he had to drink! No way! 

And so, there were two different lives going on within the one home. Two very different schedules which is hardly surprising given that we had two completely different reasons for what we were doing, didn´t we? I would have his food ready for 8.30pm and if he was not on time, it would be heated up later!!

I have hated each and every day of my living with this NARCISSIST male, this hideous time schedule that is the NARCISSIST male´s! He would eat and then go to sleep in front of his television. I would leave him there until I was ready to go to bed and then I would wake him up and "put him to bed!"

As he worked on Saturdays too, I really did not have to spend much time with him in truth. He never tried to converse with me and I had my boy to chat with and play with at home. So really, it was about Saturday evening and all day Sunday. We slept in the same bed and had sexual relations every day but that is really all that we have ever shared; sad to say!

Over the next three years, both the NARCISSIST and my nephew, became completely integrated in this neighbourhood. My nephew knew all the children and their parents and the NARCISSIST knew many of the parents too. They were both known by their names!

I, on the other hand, was either my nephew´s mother or the NARCISSIST´S "blonde foreigner!" I did not have a name and still to this day, only four people have known me by name and only one of those has been told my truth, that being in recent times!

All that said, it was a lively neighbourhood and a cheerful town. There was always something going on for the children and there were many local fiestas too. Sundays and Bank Holidays were beach and picnic days and when the school holidays were on, camping trips out of town were on our list as well. 

MY NEPHEW AND I ALWAYS LOVED ADVENTURING! Photo by Will Truettner on Unsplash.

I was still doing my level best to give my nephew the childhood that I had been given by providing him with as many opportunities to explore as possible. I was well aware that I was always leading the way and if I had not suggested the activity/outing/trip, then we surely would never have done them.

The NARCISSIST was having learning experiences that he had never been afforded but he would always backfire at some point and I know now that it is because he could not bear to see just how quickly and easily my nephew and I adapted to every novelty that became ours. We would throw ourselves fully into whatever and seek to get the maximum enjoyment out of it.

Ah, yes! It would be when we were immersed in fun and happiness that he would backfire. He could not bear to see our happy enjoyment because he could not FEEL in the way that we could. We were and are, such spontaneous people. We RESPOND to all things! We don´t REACT to all things! Therein the major difference between the INFJ type and the NARCISSIST!

BACK HOME FOR THE FIRST TIME IN SEVEN YEARS!

The NARCISSIST and I went for a trip to Amsterdam together whilst my sister came to stay with the boy in the summer of 1999. We had been together as a couple for over four years by that time and yet it was the first time that we had been just the two of us and I know that I missed my nephew so much during that week.

My elder sister´s visits to us continued and she would come in the school holidays and half-terms, usually four times a year but we had a spare bedroom now, which I had wall papered and tidied up. Plus it had a bed too!! So, it seemed as though we were moving forward to me, at least I FELT that we were progressing adequately given the circumstances.

2001 saw us take a trip to Gran Bretaña and at last I was able to face my demons and return to my home village for the first time since my father had passed away. It was a terribly difficult journey for me to make but it had been so necessary to my psychological well being as I described in my post titled: WE HAVE ALL GOT TO FACE OUR DEMONS SOMETIME!

I FELT like it was a different me who returned to Spain after that trip. It was a moment of closure, I think. I knew that there was no going back to the past. My mother was now living with another male partner (a malignant NARCISSIST), my younger sister was now living with her new partner and my elder sister was living as a young, single female in London in her new flat!

There seemed to be no place for my nephew and me in their lives but didn´t we have our own lives now too? Yes, my nephew did. He had just finished primary school and was really looking forward to starting at secondary school in the September. This town was his home now and so, I made it mine too. I accepted that we would now have to call this place home.

The NARCISSIST too had come to accept this town as his home now and yes, I am sure that it FELT great to him to turn his back on his home city each evening to come back to this much smaller town where of course, no one knew his past!

I just kept going from day to day, making sure that my nephew had all that he needed and trying to continue my ethical teaching lessons. The NARCISSIST was not around the home long enough to require much looking after and I had now got back into my exercise sessions too and was now at the lowest body weight that I have ever been as an adult!

I was FEELING physically good and thought that I was looking pretty good too. I was into my mid-thirties now and FELT as though I was coming back to life again after seven long years of mourning my late father. My nephew had done really well at primary school and seemed happy enough but was he?

No, he was a troubled, tortured, little soul and the school had made suggestions that we saw a psychologist. In fact they recommended that my nephew see a psychologist and so, we had another appointment to keep regularly for the next five years. There was no way that I could have held down a regular job during these years, no way!

The first year of secondary school went by without much to complain about, as did the second year. My nephew was member of the local basketball club and did training after school, as well as fixtures at the weekends. He was still mixing with the same children, who were all progressing much as he was. Then towards the end of the third year; all changed.

We had come into the new millennia and I was worrying more and more about my nephew´s education and his future prospects here in Spain. I had brought him here and he had adapted to Spanish life, therefore it was essential that he study well at school and get his school leaver´s graduate at least, if not go on to study further!

The NARCISSIST was so very repetitive in his behaviour patterns, that we learned to live around them, just as we had in my family home. Sadly when you have lived with a NARCISSIST as a child, these behavioural patterns are all too familiar. Hence you know how to move around them. You share as little as possible with the NARCISSIST and when in their prescence, you pussyfoot around them.

The proverbial "Walking on egg shells" existence and if you are permanently "Walking on egg shells" around someone, then highly likely you are dealing with a NARCISSIST. If not, you would have the confidence to behave as you FELT was right for you, not ACT always as you think they want you to ACT!

Thank you all for reading me today and I hope that you will check back again for more. In the next post I will move on with the teenage years of my nephew and the struggles that came with them, as my fortieth birthday came around too and a complete psychological collapse on my part. Take care all of you and be happy if possible.