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Belongs to: Therapist Reacts to The Grudge by Tool
What if you’ve been hurt and you discover that it was a narcissist? All you want is an authentic apology and some sort of genuine contrition to be able to move on…but you’re never going to get it.
Man, that is a really good question. How can you heal and learn to replace the past where it needs to be in order to embrace your life again… when there is no apology in sight? How to keep on living peacefully when it feels like you would be forced to move on with no real sense of closure and recognition of your pain? It’s really hard to feel like somehow the very person who hurt you might not be able to recognize the pain they created, or that they don’t even care about it. That somehow they might be stuck in their own perception of reality that creates a totally different narratie in their narrative in their mind, making them negate and ignore this raw pain inside of you.
Personally, I’ve been experiencing this with my mother and father. I grew up in a home where there was abuse, which took me a very long time to recognize and name. But when I started doing it and separating myself from them, when I actually confronted them, I faced this brutal reality that they were themselves in complete denial. I was, as a grown adult, talking to them expecting some recognition and understanding of how my life had been because of them… but nothing. Nothing of that flavor came out, which felt like being stabbed in the heart all over again. On the contrary. Their position was full of denial, anger, self-victimization, which made me feel like I would never be able to have a genuine apology, I would never see them making efforts in repairing the damage, therefore I would never be able to heal from all of this. Because they just don’t get it - or refuse to. Somehow, this confrontation was an eye-opener. A really hard pill to swallow, and certainly a growing pain.
It’s hard because you can’t force accountability on someone who seems to be unable to embrace and admit their responsibility. If you do, they are likely to either become upset or to express non genuine apologies just to please you - which either way seems to hurt even more. But at the same time YOU are in this position of feeling it all and understanding the reality of the situation, and you wish so much for the person in front of you to understand this, to see you, to hear what you say for what it really is. In this context, interactions feel like being stuck in two different realities. One where the people in front of you have their own understanding of the situation, which differs completely from what you feel right inside of your heart.
I don’t have any perfect answer to your question, as I believe this is ultimately a very personal journey where each of us might develop our own answers. To me personally, I’ve been trying to reframe my expectations when it comes to how much space and power I’m ready to give others to my own healing. I want justice and recognition, but I can - and feel like I need - to bring it first and foremost from myself and to myself. What this interaction with my parents made me realize, is that I didn’t want to give them the keys of my own healing and closure regarding what happened. That an apology would have helped, but can’t be the decisive element for my next steps in life. They already hurt me and I still carry the consequences of it in the present, and I don’t want for their present behavior to dictate my future - i.e staying stuck in waiting something from them that they would never give me. I’ve been in this process of slowly allowing myself to grieve for the apologies that would never come, so I could start experiencing that life is possible even with such a loss. It is, in itself, a grief to walk through and to not neglect, especially for how painful it is to experience it. It’s really hard, and it makes me carry some deep anger in me and feeling of injustice, but the more time goes on, the mor eit feels right to not wait or hope for them to change, and to solely focus on me.
Sending hugs your way as you navigate all of this, friend. This is a painful path to walk on and a brutal reality to face. Standing right there with you.