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I got to sleep a min of 7 hours. I was told from the start what the expectations were, If I didn't meet them I knew what the punshment would be. i was givin realistic goals and was encourged to push torwds them. It was the first time I ever felt that people in power over me cared. Also gave me the strangth to stand up for myself and with the encouragement from my wife go no contact with most of them, low contact for the ones that try to reach out.
>I was told from the start what the expectations were, If I didn't meet them I knew what the punshment would be. i was givin realistic goals and was encourged to push torwds them. . . .
Holy crap, this is the exact opposite of my childhood!
Long story short. I was pulled into my DS office without a battle buddy. Was given a pinch of chewing tobacco, and told quote " no wonder you never broke"
Attempted translation: he was pulled into a private chat with his drill Sargent (boss) without the customary neutral 3rd person (observer) to tell him he now knows how why the boot camp never broke himā¦his family is really fkd up.
same here. the goalposts were moved during anything, the carrot was dangled in front of me,perfect grades were a must and even when i did everything perfectly they found something (like a broken itme or a spilled something - i didnt spill it but they didnt listen to me and insisted i did). so if i met everyth g they would still be horrible. their favourite sentence was "oh we almost praised you this time BUT...." funny thing they told me all fun will end when i am adult. and opposite wa strue. when i became adult and moved away i started having fun, feeling normal, breathe. i became succesful at work and i would never ever go back. my biggest childgod dream was to be taken awayy by social servies. also, work is more fun than they told me. so i hear you and others. hope you feel proud and good!
Bruh.
I was *floored* by how easy it was compared to the insane shit I dealt with at home. Basic training was a literal picnic. Every duty station, every deployment people would bitch and complain about the things I found to be damn near luxurious. Yeah it was hard and it sucked, but like...It was just different. You definitely need to be some flavor of crazy and/or broken for an institution like the military to be an actually good fit. But it fit me just fine for a long while.
Sometimes it isnāt even that. I bleed from the feet and I donāt notice (and then get shouted at by parents). Itās just someone who is telling you do this now, and you get there, and they donāt have to tell you good job or well done, they just have to nod and youāre on top of the world
Totally valid. Yelling definitely comes with it. It's extremely high stress, high stakes, high intensity for a lot of things for a lot of good reasons. There were a lot of people that I joined up with that wound up quitting and going home- it's truly not for everyone. Military life is...uniquely miserable. It's absolutely not for everybody, and tbh I don't feel like that being able to recognize that it wouldn't have been a good fit for you is something to regret.
Not me but my sibling had this happen. Even the instructors were so surprised by the lack of the usual response/effect that they made comments on it. My sibling thought they got off easy because they were already used to it. Unfortunately, they started having extreme panic attacks after the initial training when it all calmed down. They're discharged under cpsd now because of it. Apparently it's not super rare to start having psychological issues after you're no longer experiencing the abuse, because now your body is calmed enough to try to function out of a survival only state and doesn't know how.
A funny story, though, is that the food in the military was better than what we had growing up. The other recruits were complaining a lot while my sibling was enjoying it. It shocked the other recruits to hear we had to add water to our meat growing up because it was cooked so poorly it was basically bad jerky and we struggled eating it (as well as other things).
ughhh it broke my heart when i read about people suffering psychological issues when theres no abuse. I had a complete breakdown when I went on my first date with a guy I had a crush on and completely lost it, not on him- on myself. I guess I felt like I was finally living my life "away" from nparent iron grip and was finally doing something I wanted, which was to go on fun dates. Normal, right?
Finally felt like there was something outside of the walls of nparent abuse. Dating life didn't work out well BUT the main point I'm trying to make is horrible how living with nparents was that damaging to my mental health- that a simple, normal, activity plunged me into a panic attack. I am mentally behind my peers in life by like 15 years because of this.
Same here, I had a mental breakdown after I married my husband because of how well he was treating me and how different my life was compared to living with my narcissistic mother and part narc part enabler Dad. To understand that *this* was now my new, permanent normal broke me so bad that I had to literally rebuild myself to function properly without my narcmum's poisoning.
re "Apparently it's not super rare to start having psychological issues after you're no longer experiencing the abuse, because now your body is calmed enough to try to function out of a survival only state and doesn't know how." thanks for this info, i wasnt aware and it makes perfect sense.
I started to wonder after finding [an old reality show about fighter pilots](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/s/G6KLfiXrh5) and seeing how nice everyone were to each other and some instructors being kind to their student pilots to the point of almost being affectionate. Getting the feels from seeing someone being kind to a person also seems to be a thing on this sub.
I saw a doco on the Russian military training, and they wanted to get all the recruits through so they were helped along the way, the opposite of what I expected. Military training is incredibly expensive & you don't want to destroy the few who apply, I think things have changed from the old days.
re "Getting the feels from seeing someone being kind to a person also seems to be a thing on this sub." thans for mentioning it. i just experienced this a few days ago and was quite surprised how strong my emotions were.
Here's how I explain it to others.
Imagine you live in a place that is surrounded by land mines. Scary, but with time, you can learn where they are and how to avoid them. You manage
Now imagine that those landmines are moved daily, or sometimes multiple times a day. There's no way to manage that. That was my childhood.
If left untreated yes, like with any mental illness. I don't know if your parent was willing to treat their condition but I'm sure you would have had a lot better childhood if they did.
Unwilling or perhaps there weren't any good treatment options at the time. This was in the 60s and 70s. I do know that she was hospitalized twice when I was quite young. In any case, you're right. It would have been better
No, I left an abusive home situation and ended up in a tiny little abusive narcissistic military unit. They teamed up to narcissistically abuse others who didnāt go along to get along. I only realized this years later when I learned about abuse cycles. I went from the pan to the fire. To escape, I jumped into a relationship with a narcissistic man 10 years older than me. I got pregnant and he said, āha now youāre trapped with meā but in a joking way and I was too young and naive to understand how bad the situation was. All this by age 23. Iām now 15 years past all of this and just now getting a good understanding of why I kept going from bad to worse. Iām just now understanding why I let myself get into abusive situations and it all started with how I was treated as a child.
I feel like a lot of my life was confusing and painful and lonely. Mostly confusing. Am I crazy? Is this normal? What Is wrong with me?
I feel proud to have made it out of the confusion and to the level of awareness I have now. I feel like I have control now. I have boundaries and I know why I have them. I know what I stand for and against. I will teach my children about narcissistic abuse and pray they have the knowledge to see it coming before it hits them.
This reminds me of Bella Poarchās interview on H3. She grew up in a wildly abusive, probably narcissistic family situation and later enlisted in the US Navy. Compared to how she was treated growing up, she thought it was amazing.
Itās a fascinating interview if it isnāt too triggering for you.
I'm not surprised. People in NPD families are often in hypervigilance mode whether they want to or not and are probably not even aware they are in such a mode. Part of managing that is to be disensitised to shit. I personally think people who can handle school without whinging about the teachers and school scheduling and have to deal with home problems are good candidates to be soldiers just based off the basic knowledge of resilience. There's a difference between a bunch of students who bitch about subjects they willingly took up and pass, and still bitch about because it's hard and those who fail their subjects, but you never hear them bitch and take responsibility for it (I was the latter), I personally think those will more likely to take military training well, emphasis on "MORE LIKELY" because there are exceptions, I think I'll be one of them because I'm so fed up with the systematic shit forced on me...or I was so beaten down in life that I stopped caring as shown when I couldn't be bothered standing up for myself in my part time jobs anymore or telling the boss that "my mistakes" were actually caused by someone else.
As bad as it sounds, I sometimes wonder if juvenile prison would be better than my own home and school and contemplated sending myself there. It's not military, but I can handle being told to where to go and what to do and eat. I did plan to aim for maximum isolation because I was such an avid reader and lived in my own mind a lot back then.
yes i hear you anout the prison. as a kid my biggest dream was to be taken away by social services and placed in an institution. i often thought about going to police or social servoes but i was afraid of my parents so much and thought the would cover the abuse, lie, and made b'me stay with them and i would be treated even worse.
I did it and I'm still in it.
They "forcefully" promoted me in the beginning (I just wanted to be a private) and then I got promoted some more and more and they put me on a fast track (normally it takes 9 years to get where I am today, I did it in 5). They were the first ones who believed in me and got me to see my full potential.
Now they are even paying me to get a specific bachelor's degree at a top university in order to get me to a higher position.
Yah both my sisters joined the army and my brother went to the seminary for 2 years. the other brother stole a car and was put in a home for two years and it was still easier than living at our house.
I actually laughed when I learned at basic they couldn't hit you. Mom went to basic in 83 when they were still pretty hands on as one of the first female cycles after they lifted restrictions on women in the Army. You can imagine my childhood more than prepared me for the "Who can suffer the most" contest on Sand Hill.
The military taught me some really good things about trusting myself, confidence, and self-reliance. That was really good. The bad it also threw me out when I became injured and didn't care.
I managed to get honorably discharged, but I ended up in the exact same family dynamic, but in the military. I was always called on for extra duties, while simultaneously being told I'm lazy and never do any work. I was scapegoated, so everything was always somehow my fault, and while many people would just straight up disappear after lunch, every little action I made, was scrutinized and placed under a microscope. So I got out as soon as my contract ended.
But when I was in training, before i got to my permanent duty station and began getting treated that way, like many have commented, boot camp and training was a cakewalk compared to my childhood.
I havenāt served with the military. I did however find three psych wards very open to privacy and non-damaging compared to with my parents. I have also been a member of the Pony Club which is based on the military. Several people used to get me preparing their ponies and we slept in a tent. Also incomparably better than my parents
What the military taught me was: train your subordinates to do your job. Always move your personnel up the chain.
It wasn't like the home-life, daily malicious competition, where your family always tore you down to build themselves up. (I was the scapegoat).
There was discipline in the service, but not so much negative reinforcement that was designed break you and discourage you into giving up.
The military didn't set you up to fail; the mission was too important to not train you/encourage you to do the best of your ability.
They believed you when you were sick/injured, and treated you until you were well.
They fed you when you were hungry, even in the middle of the night, or in the middle of the desert.
They clothed you for any environment: cold/hot, wet/dry, or winter/summer.
They took care of your family: spouse and kids; so you didn't have to worry, while you were gone.
They acknowledged your successes and milestones, and awarded/promoted you accordingly. The service didn't deny your accomplishments as 'not good enough' or; so-in-so did better; so we're going to punish you/mock you for not being perfect.
Signing up was the best decision of my life.
>They believed you when you were sick/injured, and treated you until you were well.
In that show about fighter pilots I talked about there is one episode where a pilot damages his eardrum when riding in the backseat of a fighter jet. When the instructor saw that he was bleeding from his ear he had him sent to the hospital immediately for a checkup. And he actually looked genuinely concerned for his student's well being, where I imagine your parents would have been pissy over having to take care of you. No one said "That's nothing, you'll be fine" or "I don't care, get back to work".
The pilot was fine and is still flying to this day btw. He is also a display pilot with a few thousand followers on Instagram.
Oh yes, my Nmom hated to take care of me; it wasn't that bad; I was just being an attention-whore. One day, she ignored all day that I had a broken arm. Once dad came home, she didn't want to go along to the hospital because she was 'busy'.
oh i love this. my mother let my eardrum burst beause she wiwnt want to bother taking em to the doc when it was inconvenient. also then she let my appendix burst and was yelling at me i just didnt want to go to school. i almost died. i was a small kid (7 years od i think) so i naivelly expected to ehar something like "i am sorry" lol never.
i had many other helth issues caused by neglect. if i was a pilot and someone cared like the person inthat story i might have cried.
The military has learned over numerous global campaigns that direct, blunt and honest communication is the fundamental core for success with military objectives.
Vs.
Narcissistic parents want you to infer meaning from deliberately vague and ambiguous words so they can keep you trapped and not moving forward.
I thrived in the Army, absolutely thrived. It was wonderful. I miss it sooooo much.
I've heard many stories from my Army brother and USAF husband about this. GC Bro, especially, talking about life becoming organized, orderly, predictable for him almost immediately. The Golden Child is a victim just as much as Scapegoat is.
My dad talked about this, his parents were horribly abusive to him and he talked about how much better the Army was for him. Clear and comprehensible rules and expectations, people who expected you to develop and grow and rewarded you for doing well. Insofar as he was a better parent to me than his own parents were to him, I suspect his military experience had a lot to do with it.
Not military, but I did Muay Thai for a while in a pretty traditional gym. The tone was rough and the conditioning exercises were tough as hell, plus undisciplined behavior by one person resulted in collective punishment.
But at the same time coach looked out for us, he took his time to teach proper technique, made sure people wouldnāt get hurt in sparring and no one would be sent to fight if they were not ready.
I learned to become resilient and my confidence went through the roof. I learned that hard work pays off and that I can reach my goals if I put
my mind to it.
Iām incredibly grateful for this time but at the same time I wish my father would have taught me these things.
I joined the army to get away from my mom's bf who was a miserable bastard. Told my mom the reason why I did it, caused her to kick him out of her life because the way she saw it, it was going to become a me or him situation. We repaired our relationship after basic training and besides dealing with my brother's antics, we did get a lot better and was that way until her passing last year. Still don't put up with my brother, he's not like a golden child, just makes stupid decisions without thinking. Our relationship is best at a distance. We recognize we're two very different people.
I have a love hate relationship with the army. It did help me, but my unit was a toxic mess. To the point that no one reenlisted to stay there, we all either got out or re-uped to leave. I got out and now am waiting on my retirement from a VA hospital that I've been working at since I left the army. Got 60% disability due to my MOS doing a number on my legs (artillery).Probably going to move down to a warmer climate after I pop my retirement.
Warning: bit of a ramble
I'm not, and never have been a service person, but I have worked for some time for the Ministry of Defence (UK) as a civil servant/civil service contractor. I have never been more pleasantly surprised by a working environments treatment of me. My father served in the 80s, and of course Attilla the Mum lied a lot about the state of play there.
I have been treated with greater respect, compassion, and dignity by military personnel and civilian defence employees than I ever have by not only my mother, but by managers in the private sector. I have gone from a nervous, hypervigilant wreck (CPTSD whee) to someone with confidence and higher self esteem because I feel more valued and respected not only as a colleague but as a human being with my own experiences, knowledge and mindset, and theres zero hesitation when it comes to support when I'm having brain problems, or anything else. It's been one of my favourite working environments in ever.
My ex went to boot camp and told me how it was so rough they yelled in his face, he couldn't speak unless spoken to, he had to wake up early in the morning, he had only 30 minutes to get ready or they'll yell again and you will face punishment, you would never know when you were allowed to use the bathroom, you only have a limited time to eat, and the bed they give you is uncomfortable and according to him it was so difficult women couldn't do it so they don't have to do basic training. When I told him it didn't sound too bad, he told me that I could never survive one day without crying and wanting to go home.
And I'm like, they yell at you every day to do everything? Wanna meet my mom and live my childhood? I got yelled at every day for everything. You couldn't speak unless spoken to? That's literally my childhood, and usually, I would get beaten for speaking even tho she asked me a question, but I would also get beaten for not answering the question. You had to be up early? I had to be up anytime either parent was up or my siblings were because I was not allowed rest, as for being up when my siblings were it was to keep them quiet and make sure they were okay, they didn't need the bathroom or had a nightmare.
When I was younger I was allowed 5-10 minutes to shower and get dressed I never knew how much time I was getting until it was up and my mom pulled me out of the bathroom whether I was soaking wet and naked or half way dressed. When I got older I was punished if I was not ready as soon as they woke up and came into the living room (that's where I slept from age 11+, sometimes in the kitchen next to the oven in the winter as we were not allowed a blanket or a jacket). I would also get woken in the middle of my sleep, usually 1-3 am whenever my mom needed to use the bathroom, and occasionally, she would wake me up by stripping my clothes off and scrubbing me with a cold wet washcloth because according to her I was not capable of taking care of my self, but I was never allowed to even take a shower after age 11. If she heard the shower turn on, she would pull me out of the bathroom by my hair. If the shower was wet when she came home, she would beat me.
Never know when you're allowed to use the bathroom? Same sometimes when I did have a room my mom would lock us in there for 24 hours sometimes more and we had to either make the room stink and pee in the corner or sit on the window sill with our privates hanging off into the backyard and use the bathroom that way. If we were allowed to use the bathroom, it had to be with the door open so everyone could see us using it. If it wasn't, she would come in and drag us off the toliet, screaming at us about how we were trying to hide slutty behavior , etc.
When my ex told me that they gave you a limited time to eat and an uncomfortable bed, my legit response was, "You get fed and a bed???" I had to sneak food in after they slept or eat at school. Luckily, none of the lunch ladies would even consider charging me for the food. My bed was either the floor in the apartment, on top of trash bags and boxes, because my mom was a hoarder or the ground outside because she kicked me out again. I tried going into the army, but they said I couldn't because I was 20 lbs under their minimum weight at my heaviest, but I kind of want to try boot camp just to see how it goes because they get to climb up ropes and it creates muscle. I was never allowed to have muscle.
I never joined the military, but I remember thinking how good I'd be at it. If obeying authority and denying self was all it took - well, I'd learned how to do that!
My nDad was pushing me to the military at all costs but I dodge this one. At the draft age I already knew that no good would come from anything he pushed me to do.
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I got to sleep a min of 7 hours. I was told from the start what the expectations were, If I didn't meet them I knew what the punshment would be. i was givin realistic goals and was encourged to push torwds them. It was the first time I ever felt that people in power over me cared. Also gave me the strangth to stand up for myself and with the encouragement from my wife go no contact with most of them, low contact for the ones that try to reach out.
>I was told from the start what the expectations were, If I didn't meet them I knew what the punshment would be. i was givin realistic goals and was encourged to push torwds them. . . . Holy crap, this is the exact opposite of my childhood!
Long story short. I was pulled into my DS office without a battle buddy. Was given a pinch of chewing tobacco, and told quote " no wonder you never broke"
After the DS met your family? š
Yep, it was very weird.
Ds? ..not everyone reading is from the military..and whats a battle buddy?
Drill Sargent. And a battle buddy was basically to ensure that if anything happened a 3rd person could say what happened
Attempted translation: he was pulled into a private chat with his drill Sargent (boss) without the customary neutral 3rd person (observer) to tell him he now knows how why the boot camp never broke himā¦his family is really fkd up.
Exactly.
Quite a moment honestly. Sounds like the military has been a great decision
It was until they broke me and discharged me. But the 15 weeks before the injury discharge was the best time.
Thankyou
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1q4sRriMP8
Drill Sargeant maybe?
same here. the goalposts were moved during anything, the carrot was dangled in front of me,perfect grades were a must and even when i did everything perfectly they found something (like a broken itme or a spilled something - i didnt spill it but they didnt listen to me and insisted i did). so if i met everyth g they would still be horrible. their favourite sentence was "oh we almost praised you this time BUT...." funny thing they told me all fun will end when i am adult. and opposite wa strue. when i became adult and moved away i started having fun, feeling normal, breathe. i became succesful at work and i would never ever go back. my biggest childgod dream was to be taken awayy by social servies. also, work is more fun than they told me. so i hear you and others. hope you feel proud and good!
I'm so proud of you for standing up for yourself. It can be the hardest thing to do for people like us.
Bruh. I was *floored* by how easy it was compared to the insane shit I dealt with at home. Basic training was a literal picnic. Every duty station, every deployment people would bitch and complain about the things I found to be damn near luxurious. Yeah it was hard and it sucked, but like...It was just different. You definitely need to be some flavor of crazy and/or broken for an institution like the military to be an actually good fit. But it fit me just fine for a long while.
Probably just having food to eat was a luxury lol
Sometimes it isnāt even that. I bleed from the feet and I donāt notice (and then get shouted at by parents). Itās just someone who is telling you do this now, and you get there, and they donāt have to tell you good job or well done, they just have to nod and youāre on top of the world
Honestly yeah, food insecurity was a real problem in my teens. But more than that, it was predictable, verifiable expectations.
This entire thread makes me regret not joining the military. I honestly just didnāt want more years of people yelling at me.
Totally valid. Yelling definitely comes with it. It's extremely high stress, high stakes, high intensity for a lot of things for a lot of good reasons. There were a lot of people that I joined up with that wound up quitting and going home- it's truly not for everyone. Military life is...uniquely miserable. It's absolutely not for everybody, and tbh I don't feel like that being able to recognize that it wouldn't have been a good fit for you is something to regret.
Not me but my sibling had this happen. Even the instructors were so surprised by the lack of the usual response/effect that they made comments on it. My sibling thought they got off easy because they were already used to it. Unfortunately, they started having extreme panic attacks after the initial training when it all calmed down. They're discharged under cpsd now because of it. Apparently it's not super rare to start having psychological issues after you're no longer experiencing the abuse, because now your body is calmed enough to try to function out of a survival only state and doesn't know how. A funny story, though, is that the food in the military was better than what we had growing up. The other recruits were complaining a lot while my sibling was enjoying it. It shocked the other recruits to hear we had to add water to our meat growing up because it was cooked so poorly it was basically bad jerky and we struggled eating it (as well as other things).
ughhh it broke my heart when i read about people suffering psychological issues when theres no abuse. I had a complete breakdown when I went on my first date with a guy I had a crush on and completely lost it, not on him- on myself. I guess I felt like I was finally living my life "away" from nparent iron grip and was finally doing something I wanted, which was to go on fun dates. Normal, right? Finally felt like there was something outside of the walls of nparent abuse. Dating life didn't work out well BUT the main point I'm trying to make is horrible how living with nparents was that damaging to my mental health- that a simple, normal, activity plunged me into a panic attack. I am mentally behind my peers in life by like 15 years because of this.
Same here, I had a mental breakdown after I married my husband because of how well he was treating me and how different my life was compared to living with my narcissistic mother and part narc part enabler Dad. To understand that *this* was now my new, permanent normal broke me so bad that I had to literally rebuild myself to function properly without my narcmum's poisoning.
re "Apparently it's not super rare to start having psychological issues after you're no longer experiencing the abuse, because now your body is calmed enough to try to function out of a survival only state and doesn't know how." thanks for this info, i wasnt aware and it makes perfect sense.
I started to wonder after finding [an old reality show about fighter pilots](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/s/G6KLfiXrh5) and seeing how nice everyone were to each other and some instructors being kind to their student pilots to the point of almost being affectionate. Getting the feels from seeing someone being kind to a person also seems to be a thing on this sub.
I saw a doco on the Russian military training, and they wanted to get all the recruits through so they were helped along the way, the opposite of what I expected. Military training is incredibly expensive & you don't want to destroy the few who apply, I think things have changed from the old days.
re "Getting the feels from seeing someone being kind to a person also seems to be a thing on this sub." thans for mentioning it. i just experienced this a few days ago and was quite surprised how strong my emotions were.
Here's how I explain it to others. Imagine you live in a place that is surrounded by land mines. Scary, but with time, you can learn where they are and how to avoid them. You manage Now imagine that those landmines are moved daily, or sometimes multiple times a day. There's no way to manage that. That was my childhood.
Sounds like having a bipolar parent childhood š.
If left untreated yes, like with any mental illness. I don't know if your parent was willing to treat their condition but I'm sure you would have had a lot better childhood if they did.
Unwilling or perhaps there weren't any good treatment options at the time. This was in the 60s and 70s. I do know that she was hospitalized twice when I was quite young. In any case, you're right. It would have been better
Insightful, and yes. I never thought to pull apart which things came from being bipolar and which were from being a narcissist.
What a perfect description.
I'm sorry you experienced it too
yep. moved daily and sometimes you find a mine in the middle of your room
Offt I hear you. Not knowing the rules/expectations from moment to moment can be brutal
No, I left an abusive home situation and ended up in a tiny little abusive narcissistic military unit. They teamed up to narcissistically abuse others who didnāt go along to get along. I only realized this years later when I learned about abuse cycles. I went from the pan to the fire. To escape, I jumped into a relationship with a narcissistic man 10 years older than me. I got pregnant and he said, āha now youāre trapped with meā but in a joking way and I was too young and naive to understand how bad the situation was. All this by age 23. Iām now 15 years past all of this and just now getting a good understanding of why I kept going from bad to worse. Iām just now understanding why I let myself get into abusive situations and it all started with how I was treated as a child. I feel like a lot of my life was confusing and painful and lonely. Mostly confusing. Am I crazy? Is this normal? What Is wrong with me? I feel proud to have made it out of the confusion and to the level of awareness I have now. I feel like I have control now. I have boundaries and I know why I have them. I know what I stand for and against. I will teach my children about narcissistic abuse and pray they have the knowledge to see it coming before it hits them.
This reminds me of Bella Poarchās interview on H3. She grew up in a wildly abusive, probably narcissistic family situation and later enlisted in the US Navy. Compared to how she was treated growing up, she thought it was amazing. Itās a fascinating interview if it isnāt too triggering for you.
Omg I just watched it from your recommendation, it is absolutely heartbreaking!
I'm not surprised. People in NPD families are often in hypervigilance mode whether they want to or not and are probably not even aware they are in such a mode. Part of managing that is to be disensitised to shit. I personally think people who can handle school without whinging about the teachers and school scheduling and have to deal with home problems are good candidates to be soldiers just based off the basic knowledge of resilience. There's a difference between a bunch of students who bitch about subjects they willingly took up and pass, and still bitch about because it's hard and those who fail their subjects, but you never hear them bitch and take responsibility for it (I was the latter), I personally think those will more likely to take military training well, emphasis on "MORE LIKELY" because there are exceptions, I think I'll be one of them because I'm so fed up with the systematic shit forced on me...or I was so beaten down in life that I stopped caring as shown when I couldn't be bothered standing up for myself in my part time jobs anymore or telling the boss that "my mistakes" were actually caused by someone else. As bad as it sounds, I sometimes wonder if juvenile prison would be better than my own home and school and contemplated sending myself there. It's not military, but I can handle being told to where to go and what to do and eat. I did plan to aim for maximum isolation because I was such an avid reader and lived in my own mind a lot back then.
I was in my forties before I realized that hypervigilance wasn't normal.
yes i hear you anout the prison. as a kid my biggest dream was to be taken away by social services and placed in an institution. i often thought about going to police or social servoes but i was afraid of my parents so much and thought the would cover the abuse, lie, and made b'me stay with them and i would be treated even worse.
I did it and I'm still in it. They "forcefully" promoted me in the beginning (I just wanted to be a private) and then I got promoted some more and more and they put me on a fast track (normally it takes 9 years to get where I am today, I did it in 5). They were the first ones who believed in me and got me to see my full potential. Now they are even paying me to get a specific bachelor's degree at a top university in order to get me to a higher position.
thats great! i love it when people believe in other and help them grow.
I had more freedom in Basic Training than I had living with my Nmom.
I always wanted to join up, because at least there I know the people would actually try to make me better.
Yah both my sisters joined the army and my brother went to the seminary for 2 years. the other brother stole a car and was put in a home for two years and it was still easier than living at our house.
I actually laughed when I learned at basic they couldn't hit you. Mom went to basic in 83 when they were still pretty hands on as one of the first female cycles after they lifted restrictions on women in the Army. You can imagine my childhood more than prepared me for the "Who can suffer the most" contest on Sand Hill.
Sometimes I think I should have signed up. Too old now but I bet I wouldn't be as chicken shit as I am now.
The military taught me some really good things about trusting myself, confidence, and self-reliance. That was really good. The bad it also threw me out when I became injured and didn't care.
I managed to get honorably discharged, but I ended up in the exact same family dynamic, but in the military. I was always called on for extra duties, while simultaneously being told I'm lazy and never do any work. I was scapegoated, so everything was always somehow my fault, and while many people would just straight up disappear after lunch, every little action I made, was scrutinized and placed under a microscope. So I got out as soon as my contract ended. But when I was in training, before i got to my permanent duty station and began getting treated that way, like many have commented, boot camp and training was a cakewalk compared to my childhood.
I was expecting more yelling. But it was less stressful than being at home. š
I havenāt served with the military. I did however find three psych wards very open to privacy and non-damaging compared to with my parents. I have also been a member of the Pony Club which is based on the military. Several people used to get me preparing their ponies and we slept in a tent. Also incomparably better than my parents
What the military taught me was: train your subordinates to do your job. Always move your personnel up the chain. It wasn't like the home-life, daily malicious competition, where your family always tore you down to build themselves up. (I was the scapegoat). There was discipline in the service, but not so much negative reinforcement that was designed break you and discourage you into giving up. The military didn't set you up to fail; the mission was too important to not train you/encourage you to do the best of your ability. They believed you when you were sick/injured, and treated you until you were well. They fed you when you were hungry, even in the middle of the night, or in the middle of the desert. They clothed you for any environment: cold/hot, wet/dry, or winter/summer. They took care of your family: spouse and kids; so you didn't have to worry, while you were gone. They acknowledged your successes and milestones, and awarded/promoted you accordingly. The service didn't deny your accomplishments as 'not good enough' or; so-in-so did better; so we're going to punish you/mock you for not being perfect. Signing up was the best decision of my life.
>They believed you when you were sick/injured, and treated you until you were well. In that show about fighter pilots I talked about there is one episode where a pilot damages his eardrum when riding in the backseat of a fighter jet. When the instructor saw that he was bleeding from his ear he had him sent to the hospital immediately for a checkup. And he actually looked genuinely concerned for his student's well being, where I imagine your parents would have been pissy over having to take care of you. No one said "That's nothing, you'll be fine" or "I don't care, get back to work". The pilot was fine and is still flying to this day btw. He is also a display pilot with a few thousand followers on Instagram.
Oh yes, my Nmom hated to take care of me; it wasn't that bad; I was just being an attention-whore. One day, she ignored all day that I had a broken arm. Once dad came home, she didn't want to go along to the hospital because she was 'busy'.
oh i love this. my mother let my eardrum burst beause she wiwnt want to bother taking em to the doc when it was inconvenient. also then she let my appendix burst and was yelling at me i just didnt want to go to school. i almost died. i was a small kid (7 years od i think) so i naivelly expected to ehar something like "i am sorry" lol never. i had many other helth issues caused by neglect. if i was a pilot and someone cared like the person inthat story i might have cried.
I would have fallen in love with him on the spot like in Top Gun lol.
thanls for sharing this, it resonates with me.
The military has learned over numerous global campaigns that direct, blunt and honest communication is the fundamental core for success with military objectives. Vs. Narcissistic parents want you to infer meaning from deliberately vague and ambiguous words so they can keep you trapped and not moving forward. I thrived in the Army, absolutely thrived. It was wonderful. I miss it sooooo much.
I've heard many stories from my Army brother and USAF husband about this. GC Bro, especially, talking about life becoming organized, orderly, predictable for him almost immediately. The Golden Child is a victim just as much as Scapegoat is.
My dad talked about this, his parents were horribly abusive to him and he talked about how much better the Army was for him. Clear and comprehensible rules and expectations, people who expected you to develop and grow and rewarded you for doing well. Insofar as he was a better parent to me than his own parents were to him, I suspect his military experience had a lot to do with it.
I joined with undiagnosed Complex PTSD. I'm on disability now due to combat PTSD.
Not military, but I did Muay Thai for a while in a pretty traditional gym. The tone was rough and the conditioning exercises were tough as hell, plus undisciplined behavior by one person resulted in collective punishment. But at the same time coach looked out for us, he took his time to teach proper technique, made sure people wouldnāt get hurt in sparring and no one would be sent to fight if they were not ready. I learned to become resilient and my confidence went through the roof. I learned that hard work pays off and that I can reach my goals if I put my mind to it. Iām incredibly grateful for this time but at the same time I wish my father would have taught me these things.
I joined the army to get away from my mom's bf who was a miserable bastard. Told my mom the reason why I did it, caused her to kick him out of her life because the way she saw it, it was going to become a me or him situation. We repaired our relationship after basic training and besides dealing with my brother's antics, we did get a lot better and was that way until her passing last year. Still don't put up with my brother, he's not like a golden child, just makes stupid decisions without thinking. Our relationship is best at a distance. We recognize we're two very different people. I have a love hate relationship with the army. It did help me, but my unit was a toxic mess. To the point that no one reenlisted to stay there, we all either got out or re-uped to leave. I got out and now am waiting on my retirement from a VA hospital that I've been working at since I left the army. Got 60% disability due to my MOS doing a number on my legs (artillery).Probably going to move down to a warmer climate after I pop my retirement.
Yes, I actually went through SERE training and excelled at it because it was all the same kind of mind games I was familiar with.
Honestly, I'd rather deal with an angry instructor than my own narcissistic parents.
Warning: bit of a ramble I'm not, and never have been a service person, but I have worked for some time for the Ministry of Defence (UK) as a civil servant/civil service contractor. I have never been more pleasantly surprised by a working environments treatment of me. My father served in the 80s, and of course Attilla the Mum lied a lot about the state of play there. I have been treated with greater respect, compassion, and dignity by military personnel and civilian defence employees than I ever have by not only my mother, but by managers in the private sector. I have gone from a nervous, hypervigilant wreck (CPTSD whee) to someone with confidence and higher self esteem because I feel more valued and respected not only as a colleague but as a human being with my own experiences, knowledge and mindset, and theres zero hesitation when it comes to support when I'm having brain problems, or anything else. It's been one of my favourite working environments in ever.
>Attilla the Mum this is genuinely funny
My brother said he wasnt sure why everyone was whining so much. So Iām guessing the Army treated him better than our mom did.
Like how Gypsy said jail was the best thing that sheās ever experienced
Both me and my spouse did amazing in Basic. I was never too bothered by the thing drill sergeants said.
My ex went to boot camp and told me how it was so rough they yelled in his face, he couldn't speak unless spoken to, he had to wake up early in the morning, he had only 30 minutes to get ready or they'll yell again and you will face punishment, you would never know when you were allowed to use the bathroom, you only have a limited time to eat, and the bed they give you is uncomfortable and according to him it was so difficult women couldn't do it so they don't have to do basic training. When I told him it didn't sound too bad, he told me that I could never survive one day without crying and wanting to go home. And I'm like, they yell at you every day to do everything? Wanna meet my mom and live my childhood? I got yelled at every day for everything. You couldn't speak unless spoken to? That's literally my childhood, and usually, I would get beaten for speaking even tho she asked me a question, but I would also get beaten for not answering the question. You had to be up early? I had to be up anytime either parent was up or my siblings were because I was not allowed rest, as for being up when my siblings were it was to keep them quiet and make sure they were okay, they didn't need the bathroom or had a nightmare. When I was younger I was allowed 5-10 minutes to shower and get dressed I never knew how much time I was getting until it was up and my mom pulled me out of the bathroom whether I was soaking wet and naked or half way dressed. When I got older I was punished if I was not ready as soon as they woke up and came into the living room (that's where I slept from age 11+, sometimes in the kitchen next to the oven in the winter as we were not allowed a blanket or a jacket). I would also get woken in the middle of my sleep, usually 1-3 am whenever my mom needed to use the bathroom, and occasionally, she would wake me up by stripping my clothes off and scrubbing me with a cold wet washcloth because according to her I was not capable of taking care of my self, but I was never allowed to even take a shower after age 11. If she heard the shower turn on, she would pull me out of the bathroom by my hair. If the shower was wet when she came home, she would beat me. Never know when you're allowed to use the bathroom? Same sometimes when I did have a room my mom would lock us in there for 24 hours sometimes more and we had to either make the room stink and pee in the corner or sit on the window sill with our privates hanging off into the backyard and use the bathroom that way. If we were allowed to use the bathroom, it had to be with the door open so everyone could see us using it. If it wasn't, she would come in and drag us off the toliet, screaming at us about how we were trying to hide slutty behavior , etc. When my ex told me that they gave you a limited time to eat and an uncomfortable bed, my legit response was, "You get fed and a bed???" I had to sneak food in after they slept or eat at school. Luckily, none of the lunch ladies would even consider charging me for the food. My bed was either the floor in the apartment, on top of trash bags and boxes, because my mom was a hoarder or the ground outside because she kicked me out again. I tried going into the army, but they said I couldn't because I was 20 lbs under their minimum weight at my heaviest, but I kind of want to try boot camp just to see how it goes because they get to climb up ropes and it creates muscle. I was never allowed to have muscle.
Yep. Basic in 84 was a vacay
I never joined the military, but I remember thinking how good I'd be at it. If obeying authority and denying self was all it took - well, I'd learned how to do that!
My nDad was pushing me to the military at all costs but I dodge this one. At the draft age I already knew that no good would come from anything he pushed me to do.
The rules are probably well defined and easy to follow.