My Granny

Our family

My Grandfather, my grandmother, my Mum, my Dad and my siblings all lived in the same house when we were kids.

My Grandfather

My Grandfather was probably the first narcissist I encountered and he had a huge influence on my life. His wife, my Granny, was under his control.

My Granny

Her siblings were all energetic, capable, assured and accomplished. Above all however, they remain some of the nicest, most genuine people I’ve ever met. I’m delighted to have some of their DNA in me. My Granny was not like them however.

She was socially awkward and somewhat incompetent. She had no hobbies or interests and didn’t seem to know much about anything. I cannot remember her ever expressing an opinion about anything. In fact, to get her to make a simple choice was hard work. I think she felt like making a decision would inconvenience the person asking too much so she’d never commit. She’d just say something like “Ah don’t go to any trouble” or “whatever is easiest” or “oh I don’t want anything at all”. She would sit for hours just staring into space. She would routinely wipe all the surfaces in the kitchen with a cloth but would make a pretty lousy half assed job of it. Again, she wouldn’t fully commit to the task, probably because she’d need to be ready to pull out of it once the inevitable “will you sit down out of that, what the hell are you doing?” would boom in frustration from my Grandfather. She was robotic about the few things she used to do such as making dinners or making tea/supper. She was defiant in the face of any disruption or changes to the routine, she just couldn’t adapt and would insist on keeping the routine regardless much to the annoyance of all involved, not least my Grandfather who would inevitably verbally shoot her down.

Abuse

She couldn’t do anything right according to him, and she had all the signs of years of verbal abuse, putdowns, and devaluation.

I know for certain he would be a good candidate for the title of “covert narcissist”. To the outside world he was charming. To us, he was volatile and prone to temper tantrums. Walking on eggshells is an understatement. As kids we knew all the rules to avoid setting him off. We knew never to mention certain things. We knew to never express an opinion. We knew to never speak when the news was on.

Contrast

Our house was something of a “pop-in” house. People would just arrive all the time, always welcome, they would just walk straight in, sit down and start chatting away. Chatting to my Grandfather, that is, chatting to my Granny was hard work. Regardless, I have fond memories of this despite recognizing at an early age that my Granny was repressed.

Controlled

She was completely dominated and controlled by him. No, he never hit her, he was never physical with her, he never forced her to do anything against her will. It was the constant putdowns, the unpredictable temper tantrums, the constant criticism. According to him she could do nothing right.

And eventually that became her, it became her reality. She became the things he made her. When he died, I was there when she was told about it. She didn’t blink. She just repeated back the last sentence she heard (which was her version of having a conversation) and proceeded to just sit there staring into space punctuated by intermittently wiping with that cloth. I don’t know if she ever grieved. She was a shell of a person. He destroyed her. He controlled her in subtle ways. I’m not able to do the flavor of controlling any justice because it is so hard to fully pinpoint the specifics of how he used to treat her. It was “death by a thousand cuts”.

She was controlled. That is control. That is what control does. It destroys lives. And it is not always the physical violence that we all know about. It is not always that coercive control that scares us all. This is something different, it’s far more covert and subtle.

Rinse and Repeat

Retrospectively, is it any wonder I ended up with Susan? Happy feelings and memories from my childhood to the backdrop of controlling abuse. Yep, I almost certainly ended up with Susan because of the household I grew up in. History repeats. The whole controller - submissive dynamic was is my normal.