Today, I folded the laundry above. Things tend to backup when I'm on deadline. Wednesday I start the radio interviews for Smitten, so I wanted to have things caught up by then. There was an all-day marathon of "The O'Neals" on OWN. It's a show about Ryan O'Neal (narcissist) and his messed-up daughter (Tatum) trying to work things out.
I can't bear to watch this show because Ryan tries to tell everyone around him how they should think about him. Everyone must tiptoe around his explosive anger (which rears it's ugly head when you get close to telling him he did anything wrong.) And he abused his children, which is more than, you left the milk out on the counter. He turns the conversation back to Tatum and her issues, the minute she gets close to anything be partly his fault. So Tatum tries to say it kindly and lovingly, but you're still saying to a man who can't take responsibility, "you did this wrong."
But you can't say that on any level and still call him daddy because he won't take any that's all in the past. And who wants to rehash the past? Well, Ryan does if he can point the finger, but if it starts to get close to him, the angry monster appears and throws more blame gasoline on the fire. He will call you a few choice names if your truth varies from his.
I feel for Tatum as her father gets up there in years and she wants to make peace. He is never going to tell her what she needs to hear, so she has to decide to forgive and accept him as a narcissist or cease and desist the relationship. Her father met Farrah Fawcett and basically left two kids at home to raise themselves.
Being a truth-teller, I know what my choice would be. I think. But then it's your dad, so would you accept what little he could give you? An example for Ryan is that he was violent with both Tatum and her mother. He says that's a lie. Which obviously it's not because he socked her when she won the Oscar at 8. I doubt an 8 year-old would forget that. If your father couldn't admit he'd hit you or had any part in the trouble in your life, could you forgive? He gets angry any time she brings up anything he doesn't want to discuss or that remotely points the finger at him. But he really did the best he could because he so doesn't get it, so do you have to let it go for health? Or get away?
My son just called me from the other room to ask me if I could go to the grocery store and get something. I came out of my office to show him that I was here. That's the kind of communication problems I hope we'll always have. But then, if I hit my kids, I'd cop to it. So what do you think? Can you support a false truth to make peace? Would you do it?
For someone who lived such a full life, it sure seems empty with him in the beach house all by his lonesome, fawning over Farrah (who he also mistreated) but of course, he doesn't remember any of that. The end of a narcissist's life is not pretty and I think we've got an excellent example here.
