After the war-legacy

This is a temporary placement- my Medium account has disappeared since posting this there this morning

After every war, the fighting doesn’t end when the soldiers come home. It moves into the kitchen, the nursery, the silence between people who once loved each other. 

My father came back from World War II decorated by the King, later a naval commander for Canada. To the world, he was a hero. To his family, he was a man trying to live with the noise still in his head. He certainly had what we now call PTSD, though back then it was just “bad temper,” “discipline,” or “ungratefulness.” He hit the older brothers, quite badly assaulting them. He pushed my mum downstairs when pregnant and cut her. 

 No one used the word trauma. They just carried it. He felt ambiguous about her- she was nice- but pretty dumb (but fun at times) and poorly educated- he was quite the scholar with many associates- she was lost and isolated in a foreign country- a woman born in North London- with 4 kids- in French speaking Canada- with no way of knowing what was being said around the family dinner table.

My mother couldn’t carry it. She had been a performer once—a brief spark of talent and kindness, singing for burn unit patients—but when her marriage broke, so did her sense of self. Instead of rebuilding, she folded inward. She sometimes- rarely though- had hoped for reconciliation between branding him a 'selfish bastard' and hating it if we ever inquired about him- branding us 'traitors' if we did- real hard rejection

 Regret and resentment became her companions, and the bottle became her stage-and her inability to care for our emotions properly. Her children were left to raise themselves with their only moral compass coming from showbiz people- in the wreckage of two wounded adults: one broken by war, the other by bitterness.

What happens to a family when love collapses into self-preservation? Each person becomes the center of their own survival story. 

When Pain and PTSD Looks Like Narcissism

We’ve turned 'narcissist' into a moral diagnosis. It’s a word people throw around when someone withdraws, can’t connect, or fails to give us what we want emotionally. But not everyone who seems self-absorbed is self-worshipping. Many are simply fighting ghosts, embedded in their unconcious, cells and neurons—people whose trauma has taught them that closeness is dangerous and vulnerability- often fatal. Do your research. Cptsd is hell- but unique stories behind it all.

A traumatized person and a narcissist can behave in similar ways: emotional distance, defensiveness, flashes of rage, self-focus. The difference lies underneath. The traumatized person’s world is built on fear. The narcissist’s world is built on entitlement. One says, “I can’t trust you, I’ve been hurt.” The other says, “I deserve more than you, and you owe me.” Fine lines- always look at facts not conjecture nor fall for assumptions.

Trauma often mimics narcissism because survival mode narrows empathy. When someone is constantly scanning for threat, they often simply don’t have room to notice other people’s needs. But given safety and time, their empathy returns- especially when non judgemental, unbiased support comes in. A true narcissist doesn’t find their way back. There is no curiosity about others, no capacity for guilt, only calculation and self-maintenance.

Labeling every difficult person a narcissist helps no one (though I came across a properly 'covert narcissist' the other day- fkn monster that was) 

 It isolates the traumatized even more, leaving them ashamed for coping the only way they know how-and every unexpected noise firing off the nervous system. 

 What we need isn’t a sharper insult—it’s discernment. If we can learn to see when pain is masquerading as pride, we give people a chance to heal instead of condemning them for trying to survive.

If you complain about bad services as every dutiful citizen should- nothing changes if you don't- but if you do- you are massively at risk for being framed as a narcissist- 'vexatious' etc. So get your facts together and call out ad-hominem attacks- they are used to hide huge crimes and accountability- and numerous innocent victims suffer massively as a result. My dads efforts in ww2 carry me along daily as does my beautiful son and lovely friends.

Liz Lucy Robillard