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Slider comments on Open Thread, Jun. 29 - Jul. 5, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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In the spirit of asking personally important questions of LessWrong, here goes. Please be gentle with me.
Related:
Discussion post by another user on being raised by narcissists
r/RaisedByNarcissists
My parent always had a number of narcissistic traits, but was never a full-blown narcissist. They (singular) supported me financially and always seemed to legitimately care about how well I was doing academically and professionally. However, they had a habit of lowering my status by verbally critiquing my actions, and sometimes made odd demands of me, such as demanding that I share some of my passwords with them, or demanding that they be present every time I go to the doctor (I'm 25).
Right now, I think that I'm either going to severely limit contact with my parent, or cut contact completely. I think that cutting contact completely is likely to be more pleasant and easier on me, but I'm really not sure about that yet. I've had a few family members tell me that I'm obligated to keep in touch with my parent. Since LW is my in-group, and since I share lots of values with the kind of people who tend to post here, I'd prefer to get advice here, rather than elsewhere. Specifically, I'm not sure if I have a familial obligation to remain in contact with my parent, given that they've only been somewhat emotionally abusive to me; it's probable that they don't even realize/ are incapable of realizing that I find their treatment of me to be hurtful. Do you think that I have any such obligation?
Complicating factor: if maintaining a good relationship with my parent might slightly increase the amount I expect to be able to donate to effective charities at the cost of (in expectation) making me less happy, does this change my obligations?
If it is not a case of malice but incapability of realising what they are doing you might want to be on the lookout for chances to support their social development whereever possible. That is if you are in a interaction that is clearly hurtful to you but they don't seem to see it as hurtful it would be important to make seeing the hurtfulness as easy as possible. However this should be done in a manner that doesn't step on any triggers (ie being attacking/accusing about it won't likely get results). If it is only a "technical" matter that they simply don't understand some key social fact pointing it out should not be a big drama event. Think of pointing out to someone that they missed a minus sign.
It's also easier to offer people alternative, potentially more effective, ways to get what they care about than to demand that they cease activities that get them what they want currently. It might feel silly to even having to talk about some basic things but if there is a need to talk about it then talking about it is likely to do good. The alternative on relying that people should get some social basics right on their own can leave you uncomfortably adapting to malfunction.