People often see narcissists as those overt, obnoxious and obvious people who will put you down and criticize you to your face. Never helpful, kind or supportive.

And while some narcissists operate like that, my father was a lot more covert and tactical in getting his needs met. It took me 33 years to figure out what was going on, and even now I’m only just scratching the surface. I’m beginning to unravel his tactics and understand why it looked so nice on the surface, but wreaked havoc underneath.

I often wondered why I felt so awkward, subdued and on my toes around my father. Why was I scared, why didn't I trust him, why didn’t I feel safe even though it really did seem that he was a typical loving and supportive father? I thought it was my fault, that I was ungrateful, insecure, that I had trust issues…I even went so far as to accuse myself of setting my father up to fail, just so that I could be mad at him. I felt horribly guilty about it, and outwardly did all that I could to counteract that.  I trusted him and let him in, even when my gut said that I shouldn't. You're supposed to trust your parents, after all. Right?

Recently, I was wondering why I always felt so ill prepared to handle (adult) life, despite my fathers “love and support” and wise lessons. In my adolescent years, these fears led to depression, self harm, eating disorders and suicidal ideation. In retrospect, all a means to hide from the responsibility for a life that I felt ill equipped for. It brought me back to the way my father would go about teaching or helping me.

My father would “teach me things”. Though he rarely would actually teach me what I needed to know. For him, teaching was more of an opportunity to showcase how good he was. I would generally leave the situation feeling more insecure and frustrated than I did before his help. And he would never do this in an overtly mean or derogatory way. Quite the opposite. Which made it very hard for me to put my finger on what (or whom) the problem was.

However excited, nervous or insecure I was, he would always start by offering to teach me what I wanted or needed to know. He would assure me that it was really easy, and he’d be with me every step of the way. Then he would demonstrate. And he would do this so quickly or vaguely that I couldn’t really figure out what he had done. He would then look at me with this weird goofy smile, as if to say, “Tadaaaa, did you see how good I am?”

I would ask him to repeat it, but slower this time. And he would do the exact same thing, maybe a little slower, but skipping steps or making it vague. I was none the wiser. He would then ask me to try it, and if I hesitated, he'd reassure me once again how incredibly easy it was. I just needed to have faith in myself. So I swallowed my insecurity and gave it my best shot…and failed miserably.

My frustration would increase as I’d ask my father to repeat the process again. He would stay nice, but by now he was barely able to hide his own impatience. He would slow it down in a condescending way, and I would feel the tension under his plastered smile. I began to think that it was my fault. Maybe I was just stupid, or too insecure, like he always said. Why else would I need so much extra help?

Usually, this is where I would give up and pretend that I understood. I needed him to know that I wasn’t really that stupid. And I didn’t want him to explode, even though I’d hardly ever seen him do it. There was something about his unnatural calmness and rationality that scared me. It couldn’t be his fault though; he was being so nice and helpful. And if this thing was really as easy as he made it look, I must be an idiot who was making way too big a deal out of it.

Sometimes I’d be feeling gutsy enough to ask him again. That’s when his secret contempt would get the better of him. The more he “helped”, the more frustrated we would both get. He wouldn’t overtly say it, but his glances and sighs were like constant blows to my stomach. On one occasion, he eventually threw his hands in the air and yelled: “Are you kidding me? Are you doing this on purpose? Are you just pretending to be a complete moron?”

After that, he would throw me in the deep end. I would find myself in a situation where I had to do the thing, and I felt like I should know how, but in reality, I didn’t. Whether he was watching or not, I could feel him judging me. The confusing thing was that if nobody else was looking, I felt that he needed me to fail in order to feel better about himself. But if others were watching us, I knew I had to perform. Because in public, he liked to show me off, and failing would make him look bad. Often, he would praise me and show me off in front of others to a point where I felt incredibly uncomfortable, only to ignore or criticize my actions when we got home. Finding that balance was like walking a tightrope.

What I learned from my father, was to never to let anyone to find out that I lacked a certain skill or piece of knowledge. So I’d avoid things, run away, bluff my way out, anything to avoid showing my incompetence or having to ask for help. I became a master in figuring things out for myself, keeping my eyes and ears open at all times to pick up missing information from others without having to ask. If I did something, I had to do it right the first time, and make it look easy. I lived in a constant state of terror, as though I was an imposter amongst all these people who knew what they were doing. I was afraid I’d be found out, ridiculed and cast out.

I adapted myself to observe and learn quickly, thus making me as independent as possible. I didn't want to need anyone. Yet the constant anxiety simultaneously kept me tethered to my father. I was unknowingly under his control. I felt like I needed him, because I couldn’t handle this big scary world without his support to fall back on. I felt helpless, being so ignorant about the ways of the world and yet not being allowed to make mistakes or ask for help. I felt paralyzed, and his 'support' was the medicine that I kept taking, believing that it was helping me while it was actually what was paralyzing me in the first place.

An example that still fresh in my memory. Two years ago, my father convinced me to quit my job, start my own business and work together with him.

Although I never wanted to be a full-time entrepreneur and I had told him this on numerous accounts, he eventually wore down my objections and lured me in. He told me to trust him, he'd done it all before, it was easy as pie and he'd support me all the way. I asked him to help me formulate a business plan, and especially a financial plan. So one evening, I drove an hour out to his house and sat at the table with him, nervous and excited, hoping to get some things planned out. I was freaking out at the idea, because I had no idea how all this worked. We spent about three hours at the table, and I went home with hardly five words on paper. We'd talked, alright. But somehow all my questions were never quite answered. He would start to answer, say something like "Oh, simple, you just do this..." and then digress into a different subject, or a vague word-vomit that I couldn't make any sense of. He told me not to worry, that it wasn't all that complicated and that I had all the info I needed. I was not at all reassured, but I felt like my need for details, plans and information were starting to annoy him. So I figured maybe I was making too big a deal out of it, and I should just trust the process and dive in. Which is exactly what I did.

No sooner had I quit my job, and my father sent me a text message asking me if I had a financial plan yet. I told him no, nothing other than we had put on paper together (which consisted of: how much I wanted to make, and how many clients I needed for that). He suddenly got very stern with me and told me that it was a very important part of business, and I needed to sort all that out as soon as possible. He even suggested I quit my second freelance job (my only source of a little income at the time) so that I’d have more time to work with him. At first I thought he was joking, or testing me. After all, previously he wanted me to let go and just jump. Maybe he wanted to see if I was really as strong, resilient and secure as he wanted me to be. So, I responded almost jokingly, that I'd work it out as I went along. I was sure that this was what he wanted to hear. I was wrong. He responded that he was willing to help, but that he didn't want me to be dependent on him. He said that quitting my job had been my own choice, and that it was my responsibility to do everything within my power to make my business work out. He said that if I didn't work out that plan, I could not come crying to him if everything fell apart.

I was absolutely flabbergasted, as this was the complete opposite from the breeziness he'd shown when we were sitting at the table discussing my future plans. My gut told me that I had made a terrible mistake, and yet I pushed on. Two months later, I'll spare you the details, but everything fell apart. This was the beginning of the end, in terms of our relationship. It took only a few more straws on my back, to make it clear that I needed to get out.

In the end, it took removing him from my life and traveling across the world on my own, to discover that I don't need him as much as I thought I did. It took leaving him behind to discover that he was the one that was sick. I discovered that I have the power, the right and the ability to live my own life, think my own thoughts, feel my feelings, meet my needs and set my own boundaries. It's a long, tiring and scary process, but I’m doing it scared and it's more than worth it.