Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Photo of a Ranty Pants - perfect example of my narcissistic father's rage


 
This is what a narc looks like when he’s about to lose his shit.  Notice my poor sister Leslie, trying to get him to calm down like he’s a fucking 2-year old about to throw his toys.  I don’t know who was taking the picture, but oooh!  I bet they BURNED from that cranky look!  HA. 

This picture is just a piece of a BIG picture of our whole family.  It was taken during my back-yard wedding reception (1st marriage) (to THIS guy) in ugh – July or August of 1998?  (Parade Street house, Anaheim, CA.)  There were 15 people in that picture.  All of my sisters, all of our assorted kids, and the two parental units on either side.

It was hot as a – um, something REALLY HOT, we all wanted to get back to the wine/sodas, and it was taking a while to get ONE shot of all of us looking at the camera and smiling.  This was one of the rejects, oh ho ho.  There were a pile of rejects and one good one – somehow I ended up with all of the copies.  I was going through them and this one totally caught my attention, and made. me. laugh.

I was 36-years old at this time.  I was at the complete other end of the family group.  NOBODY else besides my poor sister is paying any attention to him at all – this wasn’t the way it was back in the day, dammit!  I AM THE ALL POWERFUL ALEX!  You will RUN from me and ask if I’m ok and LET ME RAGE!

Here, I’ll show you the rest of the picture, no faces blurred, cos what do I care:

(That’s me on the far right in stripes next to NM.  Mike is in front of me in white shorts)

You can see we were all trying to get a group shot (and this one wasn’t it) and poor Ranty Pants over there was getting hot and his knees probably hurt, and the photographer (a family friend or a bro-in-law most likely) kept saying ‘one more!’  and NOBODY was paying attention to old Ranty!  Except the one sister who could feel his Ranty Vibe and probably got triggered and a little freaked out.  He’s standing just enough separate from the group to tell you a thing or two about how much fun he’s having I HATE THIS I HATE SG I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE.

This is the face I remember - a temper tantrum is on its way and you had better stand by.  There was always a beating following this look.  Remembering how that look made me feel from back when I was a child really gives me the creeps.  By THIS time, the time of the picture, I had already (a few years before) had it out with him and had been staying away from him.  I never really thought about him much again (ßtotal lie – I DID think about him but in terms of how to avoid him and all that.)  This particular situation was unavoidable (to me, at the time).  But this had been a scary guy.  Make no mistake – this is the face of my misery and the reason I am so CrAzY.  He’s dead too!  Ha.
 
Now this pic:
 

This is the narc I married.  Here I am sitting his LAP and this is making me sick to my stomach, right here while I’m typing this.  I think because I CHOSE HIM and he was yet another narc.  Ugh I hate this picture.  I was so conditioned at this point to being prey that I didn’t even think twice.
What I see here is that I was skinny as hell due to STRESS and fear.  I do NOT look like that now, 15 years, 50 added pounds and serious menopause (oy) will do that to a person.  (also raising a kid MIKE).  But I managed to (eventually) get my poop in a group and traded all that stress for peace and I wouldn’t go back now even if those shorts WERE back in style.
 
UGH this was a disgusting post to write.  Hello, triggers!  How are you?  Long time no SEE! *shudder*



3 comments:

  1. I love the way you write! And Ranty Pants, I'm using that next time I see a Narc acting up. When people start to lose it like this guy I love to just nudge them along and push their buttons till they fall headlong off the cliff. hahahahahahaha

    Q's Sis

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  2. Gladys, The "DH" bears a striking physical resemblance to Ranty Pants in his younger years.
    (OK, my up close vision is fine; 18" and beyond makes the house look clean, so there ARE beni's to incipient old-age blindness.)
    Stick a 'stache and photo-shop a few decades off Ranty Pants and voila! I'm not sayin' it was a "Conspiracy" (I'm old, not senile) but having NPs is the perfect set-up for these kinds of "Relationshits."
    Sooo, we step out of one Cluster (yep, I was gonna say it, but I'll let you say the obvious) "B" right into another.
    Funny (no, NOT "Ha-Ha" funny) how that works.
    TW

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  3. It's really neat to see the family photo - the outfits, the facial expressions, the hair-does, the hands for some reason, the whole context. Thanks for sharing.

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