Introduction
Every now and then a song comes along that just resonates and speaks to you about your life or situations your in. As if the author had insight into your life. Or maybe it is just that they have seen and experienced similar circumstances to yours and felt strongly enough to put into words with music. Either way, the following is just of those songs for me.
Pride And The Pallor by Bad Religion
Papa had a wife and kids he kept them on a leash
And he bid them all to do his every deed
When he was a kid he was treated just the same
So he hid his feelings from his family
Lost as an island out at sea,
Resistant to the gentle waves of empathy
Papa and his family always on parade
Tearing through the turnstiles, a weekenders charade
But time will tell, as their world crumbles to hell
What they created was a family story no one will tell
It’s a photo album too terrible
But the pride and the pallor
Continue to swell as the matron silently prays
Junior resented the tradition they upheld
And it ate him up inside most every day
Silence was golden and they kept him to his word
So bewildered when he finally ran away
Oh, obligations never cease
Oblivious of the ways to give his soul some peace
Yeah, papa and his family always on parade
Passing through the turnstiles, a weekenders charade
But time will tell, as their world crumbles to hell
What they created was a family story no one will tell
It’s a photo album too terrible
But the pride and the pallor continue
To swell as the matron silently prays
“Get me out of here, someone’s got to save the day.”
The children are reminded to do it for the daddy’s sake
And happiness is ever so far, far away.
Yeah, lost as an island out at sea,
Resistant to the gentle waves of empathy
Papa and his family always on parade
Tearing through the turnstiles, a weekenders charade
It’s just a sick calamity that fatherhood made,
But time will tell, as their world crumbles to hell
What they created was a family story no one will tell
It’s a photo album too terrible
But the pride and the pallor
Continue to swell as the matron silently prays
Songwriters: Brett W. Gurewitz / Greg Graffin
Morality is an interesting subject when it comes to the fully self-absorbed. They understand it but don’t hold themselves to it. They know where other people’s lines are/should be drawn and use that to their advantage to get what they want. Even while not holding themselves to the same values they insist on everyone around them following those rules. After all, if you don’t, they cannot use you to reach their goal, or just obtain what they want at that given moment. By following your moral values you are predictable to them. The will always know your next move and be one step ahead of you.
When the Mirror Breaks is the true and tragic story of my narcissist father Jack Myers, his sociopathic daughter,Tenley Myers and the events surrounding his passing. The story is told from my point of view and is focused mainly on the last two years of his life and the time after his death. I will include past experiences as I believe they would relate to the subjects at hand and supply some useful background to demonstrate their behavior. Because this is still an issue that I am dealing with, this will also serve as documentation of just what happens when someone doesn’t back down to the sociopath.
I have multiple reasons for writing this book. First and foremost it is to help myself and anyone else in the same position as I. I opened this introduction with the lyrics to the Bad Religion song Pride and the Pallor. I have never come across a description that comes so close to describing my experience growing up. It has helped me so much just knowing others “get it”. There are two lines in the song that really resonate with me regarding the nature of the self-absorbed:
“What they created was a family story no one will tell
It’s a photo album too terrible”
This demonstrates the heart of the problem. Nobody will tell the story. Whether it’s because of embarrassment or fear in the past the story has never really been told. For me, it is time to tell that story and bring to light the nature of these conditions and just how much pain and harm are done.
Another verse in this song goes as follows:
“Junior resented the tradition they upheld and it ate him up inside most every day
Silence was golden and they kept him to his word
So bewildered when he finally ran away
Oh, obligations never cease
Oblivious of the ways to give his soul some peace”
This describes my story to a tee. You see, as his son if I wasn’t just like him then there was no way to live with him. We ended up at such odds. In the family I really had no voice. But taken even further, I had to keep quiet for the family’s sake. How else could this horrible emotional abuse go on? Tenley Myers will tell you that daddy was her hero, she will try to paint a picture that everything was just fine, that I was the one with the problems. That mom and I were the issue. But that was the obligation that I was supposed to keep, and I kept this obligation for many years. This is classic gas lighting. Yes, eventually I would move on at a very young age and live hundreds of miles from anyone in my family. There was comfort in non-involvement with the family. Now the last line, I was oblivious to the ways to give my soul some peace. I have had my fair share of ups and downs in life because of my history. But I have now found the way. It is to break that obligation and tell the story. So here we are and that is exactly what I am doing. Keeping it all bottled up and letting them get away with it cannot continue.
If telling my story can give just one other person some perspective on these unique individuals and the relationships they have with each other and those who come in contact with them, then this endeavor is more than worthwhile. I also hope that going through this exercise will provide myself more clarity in what I have gone through and heal the wounds that I carry with me. I am still dealing with this situation as my father just passed away February 22nd 2010 and I have yet to start down the road of legal battles in regards to what Tenley has taken. But her time is running out in that regards and I am sure the process will lead to many more chapters. This true story is still evolving and I will document it along the way as I complete this book.
I am not a trained psychologist, psycho analyst or counselor in any way. I am just a guy who has lived with this very unique situation my entire life. I have developed an understanding not only in the analytical sense but also in how to deal with and live with them on a day to day basis; real life experiences. So for the clinical kind of information I will be relying on the sources that I have acquired over time in dealing with this dynamic and will provide links to those sources whenever possible.
I don’t know where this is going to lead and I don’t know what format this writing will eventually take. For now I will compile the information on this web page where it can be sorted, ordered and put together (hopefully) in a way that makes the picture clear, after all Tenley Myers is very good at distorting the view. I will write about and build upon subjects as they come to me and as I find information, remember and research events. So as your reading this today things may not flow well, words will be misspelled and grammar will be wrong. But that is just where this writing is right now. Consider it a rough draft.
I may add information every day, week or month but between my job and my family I may not have much time to work on it so it may go without attention for extended periods of time. My family disserves all of my attention whenever I can give it to them and their needs will always take precedence over this project.
I fully understand the sensitivity of the information I am providing. I understand that Tenley Myers wouldn’t want any of this information to be out there, even if, as in the quote above, she claims to be an open book. But that information in imperative in showing how people with these mental conditions think and operate. The things they do can sometimes seem so out of control, so unbelievable, that it is important that they be included in their own words, if for nothing else then credibility sake.
Thank you to all the people who have helped me with this situation over the past couple of years. Your feedback has been extremely valuable. I hope something here may give something back to the innocent people who have done nothing more than stumble upon or be born into a relationship with someone with these conditions.