TLDR: My dad can never, ever admit fault. He cannot stand not being 100% in the right all of the time, about everything. From trivia to his treatment of others. He's admitted he struggles with this. He already loves stoic philosophy, but he sometimes uses his understanding of it to justify his sense of righteousness, which completely misses the point. What might you recommend to him?
Extra details, if you want. Writing this out felt a little healing for me:
My dad was recently pretty frank with me about some feelings he has about himself. I've known these things to be true for quite some time, but hearing him say it all so plainly showed me that he is also aware of them. He has quite the inflated ego, probably rooted in huge insecurity. He said, roughly, "I just can't stand being the 'bad guy'. I really struggle with being told I am wrong about something, or that I did a bad thing." For example. He F's up and makes a mistake. When confronted about that mistake (not harshly, mind you) he will lie, gaslight, and attack your character (in that order) to convince you either the mistake didn't happen, you're missing details that reveal the mistake was in fact not a mistake, or you're just not intelligent enough to understand why he did the grand genius action in the first place. And the whole time, the mistake was just like, drinking too much and saying the wrong thing. All he has to do is apologize for these things, but he just physically can't, because that would be admitting he was wrong.
He is really into stoicism, and loves Marcus Aurelius's takes. But he entirely misses the point of them. In fact, he uses his understanding of stoic philosophy to justify his (sometimes faulty) actions. "That person is too stupid to understand me." "They need to read some Marcus." "You know, nothing matters anyways, so why are you blaming me?"
by organiclawnclippings
3 Comments
Not sure about him, but you should read Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.
Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday
It’s a therapy tool, but The Wisdom of the Enneagram is worth reading cover to cover for humans to understand the different personality types out there, but he’ll recognize himself probably quite uncomfortably in Type 1. Raised in homes of conditional love (as opposed to unconditional- in conditional you only got love if you were “good”), they tend to have strong internalized critics and are perfectionists. They usually lead tormented internal lives until they learn: “It’s okay to be imperfect; you are loved unconditionally”. and “It’s safe to make mistakes and still be a good person”. The book can help start the journey.