Oh my mum triangulated me and my sister like hell. That’s the worst part of it. A narc doesn’t just rob you of your self esteem, rob you of the experience of having a loving parent… they rob you of bonds with your siblings. Of your trust with other family members. As people, they are truly black holes that make everything around them disintegrate. Dementors if you will.
It makes sense that she’d use a dog to triangulate you. She wants to make you feel like you are lesser than a pet. That’s all it is. To control you through your own shame and feeling of worthlessness.
For my parents, triangulating would look like;
• One sibling would be bought a toy and the other wouldn’t. They’d make a point of it.
• If I spoke about my achievements, they’d immediately start hyping up my sister (and vice versa).
• If I was shopping as a kid with my mum, she’d spend the whole time buying stuff for my sister (and vice versa)
• “why can’t you be more like your sister”
• constantly bitching about my sister to me (and vice versa) growing up. Like petty, teenage girl in high school level stuff. If my sister had a disagreement with my mum, next time we’d be alone my mum would discuss how bad my sister’s temper was etc. this would alternate so the next time my mum had an argument with me, she’d go off and witch about me to my sister. She always made it pretty obvious that was what was happening. If she got into an argument with one, she’d suddenly be best friends with the other. It completely pitted my sister and I against each other; and to my regret I definitely unfairly said things about my sister because it was the only way I knew how to bond with my mum.
• in a similar vein, having a disagreement with my mum would inevitably involve her bringing in my sister (or others) to take her side. Sometimes she’d pretend to be on the phone with my grandma. Have a whole conversation acting like my grandma agreed with her. It wasn’t until I lifted a downstairs headset (landline phone back in the day) and realised there was no one else on the line, it wasn’t until then that I realised she’d been gaslighting me for years via phone calls within earshot.
My sister would be so desperate for my mums approval she would always take my mums side anyway.
• I never felt I could speak directly to my grandparents about things. Somehow my mother facilitated it so that conversations always went through her. Another form of triangulation.
• my mum would ask me to keep secrets, from my grandparents, from my siblings etc. from a young age. I don’t think it serves any real purpose other than to triangulate and create feelings of mistrust/shame and in a way, it created a habit of keeping secrets. Up until they died, I never felt I could tell my grandparents about aspects of my home life. It just wasn’t something I felt I could do. After they died… It dawned on me that I didn’t need to hide my parents’ behaviour from anyone and I started opening up more about it to friends etc.
• my mother wasn’t above weaponising relationships either. I adored my little brother. He was the golden child and was spoiled totally by my mother. He sees her as a wonderful, loving mother. When I disagree with her she threatens to tell him, knowing he’ll take her side in all likelihood.
• my mum was really good at creating a culture of scarcity.. it’s hard to explain.. but it felt like my siblings and I were always having to compete for things like snacks, money, attention.. etc.
Triangulation takes so many forms. I think I’m still reflecting and figuring it out.
But I think when you understand it, can identify what it is… it takes away a lot of its power. Also doing a lot of work on building my self esteem helped me.
My mum flew into a narcissistic rage a year or so ago. The last time I spoke with her at length really. Because I’ve done a lot of therapy/work on myself… I didn’t feel as uncomfortable with the guilt. She was calling me a terrible person for XYZ but, I think that she was weaponising certain things against me. As it dawned on her that her old “tools” weren’t working, I could really sense her spiralling. She got more and more erratic and cruel and vicious and I just… kinda calmly responded. Finally, she got to an area that *did* still affect me. She threatened to “tell” my brother about our argument. What she meant by that was, I’m going to give him a heavily filtered version of events and manipulate him into siding with me.
This hurt because.. I love my brother. And for a split second I was genuinely terrified. But I paused before responding, and realised that… I *have* to be comfortable with my brother (and other people) misunderstanding me sometimes. And I have to trust in his love for me as his sister.
So I simply told her she was free to mention whatever she wanted to with my brother, as her relationship with him was none of my business.
I think she knew I was beyond her reach after that point. In a weird way, I found it a bit amusing. Like this poor woman, so desperate and out of control and pathetic that she has to resort to this? What a loser.
I’m not sure what she said to him in the end. He and I had a sort-of conversation about it. I basically said I respected that he has love and affection for our parents, but my experience of them was very different. We’ve kinda come to an understanding that we don’t get involved in arguments on each others behalf now. Having that respectful conversation with him, has protected us from her triangulation tactics for the most part. Unfortunately with my sister, it’s too late and too much damage has been done.
It’s crappy what your mum is doing RE the dog. But I hope that your self esteem and love for yourself reminds you that, just because your mum wants to pretend you’re not worthy, just because she doesn’t want to see your value - doesn’t mean that it’s not there. Narcissists see the world through a rotten, nasty lens and that’s their problem. I hope you’re able to laugh at how pathetic she is being and that that removes some of the sting.
spot on.
