How to Speak to a Narcissistic Abuser

I have been processing the reality of my relationship of my father since it began. I used to see him as a successful CEO of group of record labels, a meditation teacher and a person who was flawed but meant well and was who he claimed to be. To say I looked up to him is an understatement. I worshipped my idea of him. All I wanted was his time and his love. After 40 years of observation I know now for certain he is a covert malignant narcissist who lies every time he speaks and abuses everyone unlucky enough to be involved with him in any capacity. It means I had to adjust the way I viewed, treated and reacted to him. In my case, I had to forcefully invert the power dynamic between us. I had to abandon my role as son and assume the role of rival or hostile enemy. Kill the entire illusion of him and mind's attachment to it or be killed. He doesn't tolerate dissent and simply ignores it. That's fine. His failure to acknowledge and engage reality should be taken as a given by this point. It took nearly 40 years to accept and accept it we must. That means I don't give even a single fuck what he responds with or if he responds at all. I prefer he doesn’t. His words are meaningless distractions from the truth. What must be said, must be said for me, not him. This is my story. I'm the hero. He's the monster. At some point the hero realizes the monster is full of shit and stops listening to him and simply defeats him. The monster doesn't matter. He's a vehicle for the hero’s growth.

More and more I see narcissistic abuse through the lens of oppression. Narcissism is emotional fascism and fascism is political narcissism. It’s the same experience in different context.That makes us, the sufferers, revolutionaries. This means we are at war. There is no moral penalty for slaves rising up against those who have kept them in chains. It is actually the moral thing to do. When someone has invaded your boundaries with impunity and emotional violence for decades, the work to establish boundaries will be very hard and ugly. They will not comply willingly. They feel it is their right to abuse you. You are not a person to them. they don’t acknowledge your feelings or agency. That is the cold truth we must accept with every fiber of our existence. We must completely surrender by going no contact and building ourselves up finally completely free from the system of abuse or we must engage our opponents on our chosen field of battle and take what they have withheld from us by force. I understand the latter is not always possible. That’s ok. I am a 6 foot 4 man. I have the physical capabilities to stand up to my abuser and put him in his place if it comes to that. This is not always possible or wise and there should be no shame or hesitation in how we choose to break our chains and claim freedom. There is no right and wrong for us in this journey. Only success and failure. However, if you can there has been value for me in confronting him. Even in cyberspace. In exposing him. Using my knowledge of him and his mask to make him uncomfortable. Reclaim a bit of my dignity and change the script. I don't care if it's petty. It's necessary. Luckily I'm a history buff who's read quite a bit about psychology, narcissists and asymmetrical warfare. This has actually been kind of fun for me and I'm not sorry about that. I need to learn to stand up for myself and he never taught me like a normal dad so now I am extracting that lesson from him by force.

Last year as I began to truly detach and accept I was overcome with 40 years worth of repressed anger at him. He is a meditation teacher a wanna be yogi. His response to righteous anger is to remain calm and tell his kids to "come back when you aren't angry" which obviously makes the anger exponentially more potent and exponentially more damaging when it is repressed. Imagine that for 40 years while he abuses and neglects everyone around him. He thinks he's better than everyone else and should never have to apologize or explain himself. Sound familiar? I finally began to express my anger towards him. First in old ways. I cut my wrists and sent him a picture. I was still not aware of how that was a cry for help. It's actually very simple and sad. I had to cut myself as a way of showing him how much pain i was in. He had ignored it for so long there was nothing else I could do. If he ignored that obvious and dramatic action, imagine what that shy and confused ten year old got during their 6 hours a week? He has been completely detached and oblivious 100% of the short time he was actually present. His presence has always loomed large while his body has not. It was the end point of a life of being broken so he could save me. Being broken because he didn't. Remaining stuck so I could be his vehicle for a redemption he doesn't believe he needs regardless of the consequences to my own life. I didn't know what it was at the time. He didn't even respond. So I tried new ways and it escalated from me threatening to hurt myself, which he didn't care about, to me threatening to hurt him. Which he did care about. So he called my mom. A women he has abused for decades. Who he has barely spoken to in 40 years and threatened her as a proxy for me. He told her he was going to get a restraining order on me and she believed him. For a year she held it in and it most likely made her sick with worry. When she told me I laughed. Like what? I don't give a fuck about a restraining order. He knew what he was doing. There is a reason he didn’t call me. He knows the truth and he’s scared. The fact is I don't want to see him. I have done nothing to warrant court action even I did. And most importantly getting one would require work on his end and he would have to be accountable for his end of the behavior in question. He would have to participate. He would never do this. Never. I would welcome it. I have nothing to hide and a restraining order doesn't mean shit.

It's a sad statement on who he is as a man, father and human being that he would call her and not his own son who is in immense pain. He's supposed to be a yogi. I'm not exactly Yogananda, but I'm pretty sure compassion is a large part of that. I have been emailing him my thoughts all year. He doesn't respond. I don't know if he reads them. I couldn't care less. Here's what I wrote him, my sister and my mother this morning. Forgive the typos and the hooker part lol. I didn’’t know until we were already halfway home. I was a wild child. I’ve made peace with it. Whatever. He won't respond, but this is how you talk to someone like that. With the truth. Do not adopt his framing. Say what you have to say forcefully and don't hold back. Then let go. The value is in the real and raw emotion being released from your consciousness and directed at its intended target. Anger is normal, repressed anger isn't.

No one has stood up to him like this. The reality is he has no idea what to do and I am in control for once. He could could provide proof I threatened him but that would expose his behavior even more. The thing he most wants to keep secret. I have him checkmated and he knows it so he hides. His spell on me is broken and he can't control me so he has no need for me in his life and discarded his only son. That says quite a bit about who he is and why I have remained stuck for so long. I don't really care what he does to me from here on out. If he never acknowledges me again, I'm totally cool with that. It exposes him for the piece of shit phony he is to anyone who knows us and that's a good start. I told him I would take his grandchildren away from him with the truth when they are old enough and he knows I am a man of my word. They will see him for who he is. They will see me for who I am. I am good with that. I have sent him similar emails about how he treats them. If they are hurt by him he knows what will happen. If they grow up healthy and properly loved I will know that my words and my efforts to bring attention to what he does worked and protected them. If not I will be there to lead them out of the darkness. That is the type of love I have to give. Selfless. My only concern is they don’t suffer like I have. I am willing to sacrifice my relationship with them to protect them if that is what is required of me in my role as their uncle.

One of the biggest problems I’ve had with all of this is that psychological abuse isn’t illegal. Its not something we have litigated or put protections in place for despite recognizing its damage as worse than sexual and physical abuse. What my father fails to realize is, and this may be tragically misguided and a product of too much tv, but I think I’d like trying to put that type of abuse on trial even if it meant risking jail time. It’s gotta start somewhere.

He knows anything he does will be written about. It‘s kind of funny, tbh. He could turn this into a story of redemption and forgiveness at any time but his personality disorder won’t let him. In that refusal his entire existence as a student of yoga, a student of the Bhagavad Gita and a human being who wraps himself in the iconography of compassion is exposed as a lie and an illusion. As long as he knows That I know exactly who he is and who isn’t and that I know what he does and I refuse to play that game under any cor instances, I win. I can move on to healing and protecting others now that I’ve healed and protected myself. I accept that by doing so and making this my life I continue to let him influence me. As long as I control the way that Influence is used I will be fine. He has taught me many unintentional lessons as soon as I knew why to look for. His inheritance was meant to be one of pain and confusion, but I have changed that and made it one of empowerment and clarity. I am at peace for once by waging war on him. By making sense of our past I begin to build my future. There is a cruel symmetry to it all.