Hi Elisabeth,

In a normal person (and yes, you are normal!) the feeling of anger is a signal that something is wrong. And believe me, your father is wrong! I have written a couple of posts about my own emotionally absent narcissistic father if you want to go in my forum history here. I have gotten many amazing responses!

What I tell myself is this: “Wow. He missed out on so much.” Reframing the situation in this way has helped.

And also the decision (for me) to be the Good Daughter and visit him on or around his birthday and holidays.

He is such a narcissist I know he loves the attention, but it would never cross his mind (even randomly) to call me. Six visits/phone calls to him a year I can live with.

And guess what? All the other people who feed his narcissism? He doesn’t call them either. And they know it. If they dropped the rope you think he would contact them? Nope!

And lastly, I act as if I am beloved. I literally imagine God as my real father. I have a visualization where an angel hands my dad a letter written in gold saying that I am God’s child now and that dad gets to see me on certain days of the year. And that on other days he needs to get special permission to see me. My dad sputters in narcissistic rage but is too afraid of the angel to act on it.

Remember, we aren’t set aside, we’re set apart.

Blessings,

Inky