Bruce Blog

my dad likely has NPD

I've been reading "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" by Lindsay Gibson. It's great, it points out the obvious. Which is a good thing. It's been helping me to clarify feelings about my dad that have been brewing for several years.

I've realized my father almost definitely has narcissistic personality disorder, NPD. This post is part of how I came to realize this.

My dad refuses to get a smartphone. There have been many arguments about this, despite the several major inconveniences on multiple occasions he still refuses to carry even a flipphone for emergencies.
After a few years living away from home and being at college I changed my contact name for the house's landline from "Home" to "Dad" because it was always him.

It never felt good to talk to him. So I stopped picking up. I stopped answering his phone calls outright and stopped returning them most of the time. The conversations were always one-sided, and him complaining about trivial things.

The neighbor got a dog that barks a lot, other neighbor moved out thank god that crazy bitch finally left, the weather is bad today I hope you never get arthritis like I do, your brother took PTO but is just moping around the house, your mother started getting up early on the weekends and cleaning and working out idk why she's such a busybody all of a sudden, the garbage bill went up by (few dollars) cause of their deal with the corrupt mayor...

and on and on and on and on. His calls were always about crap like that. And he left no space for his eldest son.

If I didn't answer, he would leave a voicemail that was almost always the same message.

Hey its your dad, just checking in, you must be out doing CoLlEgE tHiNgs, well today (insert latest in a long line of minor things that are really a catastrophe and was the real reason for a call), anyways talk to you later, mbye.

I realized after a few months of straight up not talking to him, that my mood generally improved and I felt less anxious and stressed out. This realization simmered with me for about a year, during which I realized that whenever I did talk to him, I felt terrible after. And my feelings started to shift away from undirected negative stress to anger at him for being an obvious source of said stress.

The moment I realized he is a completely self centered 60 year old toddler only concerned to make himself appear the most important in any situation likely has NPD, was at my engagement party. Aside from him, the party was great, tons of fun, everyone else was very happy and excited for us to get married, and the guests also had a great time. Loved it.

Leading up to the party. Everyone was told very explicitly to not show up at our house before the event. We are prepping and don't want your help, thanks but we got this, we'll see you at 3 pm. Be literally anywhere else other than at our house breathing down our necks as we are panic cleaning and cooking the food.

Earlier in the day my fiancée M put on a moms' brunch where she surprised the moms and her lady friends wearing her wedding dress she had already bought on her own. Adorable, tons of fun.

My dad was there.

At some point during the morning he decided he was also invited to the moms brunch and let himself in. At which point everyone else was like wtf why are you here, uh please leave? He then I guess stood outside smoking and moping around (not totally clear, got this second hand from the debrief the next day) until the brunch was over.

Back at our house we're panic cleaning and cooking the food. It's like 1:15 when there's a knock at the door. I open it, its my dad, and he says

I'm about ready to break down and cry.

Totally normal greeting to your son at his party to celebrate his upcoming marriage. He then proceeds to tell me all about how he has had just the absolute worst day. There was some sort of car trouble on the way down, (but they obviously made it here and early as fuck so it couldn't have been that bad) and then starts telling me about how he's been bored all day and has had nothing to do and this and that and on and on. At some point a kind of buzzing came over me and my hearing got real low and I just started ignoring him. I physically got up and resumed prepping for the party. He never stopped talking, no idea what he said, and he never noticed I had stopped listening. He just sat in our kitchen orating about who knows what, not helping nor offering any help, but actively distracting us from the last minute party setup.

Myself and two others continue prepping the various things right up to when the guests started arriving at 3. With myself, two others, my Dad, and now the presently arriving guests all piling into the kitchen to say hello: its a clusterfuck. A bowl of guacamole I had made (like 8 avocados it was massive lol) got knocked off the counter and spilled all over my feet and the floor. Everyone was like oh shit and it goes dead silent. Dad chimes in with,

Guacamole toes! Uh oh! You know I never liked that stuff, it always runs right through me and one time I ...

I'm almost at boiling point by now. I go to start cleaning up but immediately our gracious friend C read the whole situation and forcibly kicked me out of the kitchen to go and be with our guests. She says,

We got this, go enjoy your party. We will finish this. Go.

*prayer emoji*

I grab a beer and take a few deep breaths and go outside to enjoy the company of our friends and family. It was wonderful, I felt so loved. The juxtaposition between the others greetings and whateverthefuckthatwas1 with Dad was stark. And refreshing. I remember very clearly thinking

ahhhhhhh. this is how it's supposed to go.

And I felt peaceful. I mingled around for awhile. Grabbed another beer and kept mingling.

Later I bumped into my dad again. He says,

You finally starting to calm down? HAHAHAHA

This is the moment where it all clicked. He chose to address whateverthefuckthatwas1 by belittling my busyness and elevated stress in the midst of it. Not an acknowledgement that it was weird, not an acknowledgement of not helping, nor an apology for burdening us. I just stared at him, incredulous. After a second or two I said, "yep" and walked away. I didn't waste any more of my time that day with him. At no point did he congratulate me or my fiancee on our engagement.

The rest of the party was perfect.

In retrospect

After that day, I realized that my dad is not who I always thought he was. This happened in July 2023. Looking back on that day, all of his behavior is way more clearly explained through the lens of NPD.

On this day, other people (not him), were the center of attention, namely myself and my fiancée. This was no good for him. The ego must be fed. The chaos of whateverthefuckthatwas2 can be dissected as

The party was great despite him.

I highly recommend "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" by Lindsay Gibson to anyone that feels that maybe something is a bit off with your parent(s). The best bit so far has been some of the exercises that I call adult-child-of-narcissist-bingo. Check it out here. Needless to say, my dad scored pretty high. There are many other reasons why I've come to believe he has NPD, this story is just the one that made it obvious to me.

Thanks for reading and stay safe,

Bruce

  1. my dad crashing the moms brunch, showing up two hours early to the main event, in near tears, complaining about nonexistent car troubles, baiting for my sympathy, not helping but actively making the party prep more difficult, making the guac mess a bigger spectacle by pivoting to a conversation about his diarrhea↩

  2. honestly I should trademark this. see[^1]↩

#NPD #acon #life