Until today, I didn’t really comprehend that my father hated himself.
Now that I realize it, his self-hatred seems obvious. Of course he hated himself. I should have figured that out a long time ago — but I was too busy trying to protect myself from him to notice.
For the last decade, I’ve been studying narcissistic personality disorder, because I was desperate to understand how my father had affected me — and how I could protect myself. Over and over, I’ve read that narcissists hate themselves at their core, but that had never quite made sense to me.
My father didn’t act as though he hated himself. He often said — especially since I cut off contact with him — that he “knew” I hated him. When he first accused me — years ago — of hating him, I tried to correct him, but it was difficult to explain that I didn’t hate him but I also didn’t love him anymore. So I didn’t pursue it.
I heard something on a podcast this week which mentioned how narcissists project their feelings about themselves onto other people. The therapist used hate as an example. She said a narcissist might accuse you of hating him — only because he really hates himself.
We’re neither friends nor enemies, just strangers who share the past
‘This path leads to somewhere I think I can finally say, I’m home’
When love finally dies, it’s like a fever breaks and the pain is gone
Society needs storytellers to help make sense of a changing world
My bad teen poetry suggests I’ve always hungered for missing love