I visited the San Diego Zoo for my birthday this year.  While my friend and I were looking on at the Flamingos, something unusual happened.  All of their heads shot up at once.  Their alarm was obvious.  I commented to my friend that their behavior was strange as they began to squawk and pace about in their habitat.

My friend suggested that it might be their feeding time so we meandered up the path a bit and stood on a small bridge over where their food would be delivered.  When my friend answered that the bridge didn’t normally sway, I knew we were in an earthquake.  It was a fairly sizable one, at that, and it lasted for nearly a minute.

The earthquake wasn’t destructive, here in San Diego, but a 7.2 quake is not trivial.  I couldn’t help remembering some of my writings about my narcissistic encounter.  I described it as being at the epicenter of a significant  earthquake. 

As the day continued, I pondered the heightened awareness to danger that the birds possessed.  Their instincts are honed for survival.

If my university psychology text was accurate, the only instinct humans are born with is the fear of falling.  Everything else, we must learn.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we were born with instincts that allowed us to sense the danger of proximity to a Narcissist?

From experience and through analysis after the fact, my awareness about Narcissistic behavior has been elevated.  My main tests are these:

1. Does the person constantly seek to be the center of attention or demand respect they haven’t earned?
2. Do they always need to be right?
3. Do they resort to non-specific accusations when they aren’t getting what they want?
4. Do they use verbal force when their opinions are opposed?
5. Do they excuse  their bad behavior without apologizing or taking responsibility?
6. Do they consistently avoid answering direct questions directly?
7. Does my stomach churn after interacting with them?

My list isn’t scientific, by any means, but if it helps one of my readers to identify something that they may have been missing, I’m glad.  There is little data available about Narcissists because they do not seek to be cured.  Those who have been involved with a Narcissist are the ones who wind up in therapy.

Time may or may not heal all wounds but I honestly can’t describe my present frame of mind any better than this awesome song by Carrie Underwood.

If you’d like to pick up some of her heart-felt and beautiful music at Amazon, check out this link.

Here comes another day, fraught with memories that comprise a most massive disappointment of my life for a thousand reasons and simultaneously for no reason at all.  My mother, who lived a full life, died two years ago on May 26th.  June 3rd marks the anniversary of her funeral, and another siginificant event in my life … the day my Narcissist chose to end our relationship.

 I don’t know what to think about that event.  I’ve garnered many opinions from others, yet I keep my own counsel on the matter.  A part of me wants to empathize with the stress my Narcissistic lover might have been under but another part of me wants to believe the words of those who also knew him then.  As he is a coward and will not speak of the event with me, his point of view remains hidden.

He came forwards as a hero on the day my mother fell into a coma.  He was at the hospital with me, being everything I dreamed a lover would be at such a time.  We spent hours on the phone talking over things as my mother’s condition worsened.  It is impossible to forget the angelic glow of white that surrounded him as he soothed her dying body in the hospital bed.   At face value, he was perfect in that role. 

The day Mom died, as he walked away from my car to go back to what he referred to as work, he claimed he felt free.  The tone of our conversations on the phone, the week after her death, took on a different tone.  He bagan to tell me my calls were intrusive but he never explained why.  The day of Mom’s funeral, when he came through my door nearly an hour late, unshaven and unshowered wearing clothes that looked as if they had been slept in, I felt the storm he brought with him.  I knew I was in danger with him that day but I had no where else to turn.

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Days of festivals and parades are supposed to be fun.  Like my cat, who is disturbed by the noise, I stay in a back part of the house so as to be less affected by Lumberjack Days.
 
As I worked in my office, it occurred to me that there was only one “kind of” happy parade day experience for me here.  It would have been a perfect day had it not been for the upset from the night before with someone who couldn’t remember an agreement he had made with me after blowing off our 4th of July holiday plans that year and scheduling something else in conflict.  Of course, he didn’t inform me of this until all my other friends had plans of their own…   
 
It was always about what he wanted to have and, no matter how much I gave him, it wasn’t ever enough.  This is a Narcissist’s claim to fame, so I later learned.

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In a recent discussion, a friend of mine opined about my Narcissist. I heard myself saying that, if he was such a loser, why did his life appear to be going along so much better than mine. And, since saying that, I’ve heard a similar thought from another soul who reads my blog. They opined that the good guys do finish last. I have to say, this resonated with me. So the question of the day is: What is success?

It’s plain in retrospect my Narcissist is a thoughtless and empty shell whose only concern is his own satisfaction and gain at any cost. Clearly, this has worked for him all his life. Even though it seemed unconventional given his age when we met, he explained that he lived off his parents because he was an artist and inventor. I later learned he established relationships with women in his youth so he could live rent free which made me feel uncomfortable.

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One of my subscribers has been in correspondence with me over the past several days. As I’ve read these notes, I’ve been reminded of how much havoc can be wreaked by a Narcissist. During one of the notes, they described a feeling of having a crushed soul.

For my subscribers, and especially for the subscriber with whom I’ve been exchanging email recently, I am posting a poem entitled Waves  which I wrote at the beginning of the beginning of my roller coastr ride through hell.

There is no easy way to end a relationship when one partner wants it to continue but Narcissists do have a way of crushing your spirit. A Narcissist is incapable of empathy. Only their feelings matter to them and if you try to make them care about yours, you only are giving them weapons to use as they destroy you.

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My Narcissist’s father was the leading story in the local news on Monday.  He won the Nobel for Economics. Congratulations to him! I know this man well. He’s delighted me with many imaginative conversations and we celebrated holidays and birthdays together while I was in a relationship with his Narcissistic son.

Over the years, my partner’s father became like a surrogate father to me.  My Narcissist’s father is a great man who has, gratefully, been acknowledged for his life’s work before dying.  His inherent humility during the telephone interview I listened to and the video I watched was characteristic of the wonderful man I had come to know and love.  His is a gentle soul who has endured so much in his life.  He escaped Nazi persecution and came to our country from Poland with $25 and a will to survive who has forged a path to extraordinary recognition among his peers.

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Tonight’s reflection regards obsession. I learned my Narcissist’s chosen spiritual path was Scientology when I became exasperated with his definition for the word evaluation. Because I felt it would improve our interactions, I was compelled to learn more about Scientology. As I began to study, I found many interesting concepts which I still embrace and apply. For the record, I am not a Scientologist.

It is a well known fact that Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, redefined many common words for his new religion. There is a PDF version of Scientology’s Tech Dictionary that I’ve perused over the past 5 years. In that text, the word obsession is defined as returning motion on something where there has been too much motion thrown at the individual on that subject. Generally, emotion is classified as energy with mass that has motion.

The emotional abuse my Narcissist inflicted on me was very subtle at first. I knew something was wrong but it was impossible to isolate the problem. When I realized how he was affecting me, my first impressions about him kept me from believing he could be so cavalier about the havoc he was wreaking in our relationship. As his negative reviews of me increased in frequency and force, I became obsessed with defending myself. It felt necessary to return that motion which was overwhelming me with doubt about who I was.

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A Narcissist wants their victims to feel insecure in a relationship for this increases their feeling of being powerful.  They will go to any lengths to acquire and keep control, diverting  negative attention from themselves and deflecting it onto those whom they rely upon for Narcissistic supply.  One method of going about this is to create an environment where the victim is constantly questioning their own motives and afraid to point out ways in which their own needs are not being met in the relationship. 

During our last conversation, when I finally was at my wits end and demanded an apology from him, he said he had nothing to apologize for and added a commentary about my need to learn to make others more important than myself.  Translated, this means he was expecting me to continue to place his needs above my own  and forget the abusive things he had done.  Yet, I continue to reflect on his criticism, weighing in my own mind’s eye whether or not there is any credence which ought to be lent to it for this is my way.  Analytically, I know he is capable of using anything he can to not accept responsibility for what he did to me on the day of Mom’s funeral.  I reflect because my heart still wants to believe he isn’t a monster.

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So many people who cared about me shared very negative opinions about my former beau, many describing him as a bum or a loser. After the event of my mother’s funeral, he told me he was afraid of everyone. In an attempt to appreciate his point of view, I sometimes wonder which would be worse … being known as a loser or knowing you are a coward?

The Narcissist becomes a bully when they fear being found out. Normally these people are charming as well as intelligent so a sudden and unexpected cruelty can flummox the strongest being. When a Narcissist is forced to look inside, they become fearful and react. They know the reflection is not becoming. They will always lash out at their accuser. There were times with this man when I had made no accusations nor issued any complaints and I still found myself in the line of fire because he claimed his vast awareness caused him to sense what I was feeling and choosing to not say. He was afraid of being found out. Read More »