Narcissists Suck

More on the Removal of NPD from newest DSM

2010-12-19T17:56:00.001-07:00

Because of the length of the following comment to the last post on this blog I'm presenting it on the front page. The comments field is limited in terms of space so I'm putting it here. I'm also putting it here because it deserves front and center placement as a professional opinion on the subject. It provides some important historical background on the DSM that must be factored into this discussion.

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As a psychiatrist with personal experience with NPDs, I fully concur with Anna's views that this change in the DSM is essentially a non-event for all the reasons she enumerated. Perhaps some additional information about the DSM may be helpful in fully appreciating some of the reasons for its meretriciousness. (To save some of you from consulting a dictionary, "meretricious" is defined as apparently attractive but having in reality no value or integrity. I also use this word not unintentionally for its archaic meaning - of, relating to, or characteristic of a prostitute.)

Some of the individuals who first developed the DSM are well known among psychiatric circles to have severe NPD themselves. The interests of one DSM "innovator" in particular were in statistics and in ways to categorize knowledge generally. At the time in the 1960s, a dedicated system of classification of mental disorders was lacking. Previously these disorders were given codes in a manual called the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) along with all other medical disorders. Seeing an "opportunity," one DSM originator chose to go to medical school and specialize in psychiatry exclusively in order to have the credentials to create a classification system. Medicine and psychiatry were merely means to another end. The womb of the DSM resided in an obsessive individual who possessed a prominent dearth of humanity and who by the same token could have easily chosen to classify machine tools, toads or sea shells. In addition, for the initial DSM there was very little consensus. It is the product of just a few individuals. This was the inauspicious inception of the run-away train we now call the DSM.

Another critical point to remember is that the primary impetus for a classification of mental disorders was for research purposes - not for clinical utility. That is why it is a diagnostic and STATISTICAL manual. The use of medications in psychiatry began in earnest in the 1950s creating a need to do clinical trials. A system was needed to enable researchers to group individuals together diagnostically. One cannot for example do a trial of a drug for schizophrenia without defining the population for which the medication is purported to be effective. Thus the birth of the DSM and its subsequent revisions has been influenced in no small way by changes in the field of psychiatry and in pharmaceutical technology.

The pharmaceutical industry is not the only one that has influenced the evolution of the DSM. Since the 1980s, the health insurance industry has exerted an increasingly formidable influence on the way mental health disorders are viewed. Because it determines the reimbursement of treatment services, it creates demands on the field for the EXPLICIT purpose of decreasing expenditures. This industry has clearly had an impact on how individuals are diagnosed. In stage one, personality disorders were excluded from any reimbursement. The DSM then responded by creating all sorts of other reimbursable categories into which a psychiatrist could "fit" that patient. More recently the insurance companies for reimbursement considerations have created strata of severity of mental illnesses in which, for example, major depression, schizophrenia and full-blown bipolar disorder are reimbursed more fully than other less debilitating "disorders" such as adjustment disorders, anxiety disorders, etc.

Perhaps one day a historian will go back and rigorously track the developments in the DSM against the developments in the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. I am convinced that we will see clear concordance.

And as other industries as well as cultural views continue to pressure and influence how we view behavior, thought and "feelings," the DSM will follow in kind. One example is "Social Anxiety Disorder" as if there is one person who doesn't get anxious speaking in front of a group of people. The list of inane diagnostic classifications is endless.

In order to keep ahead of the game, the DSM revisionists employ two other strategies. The first has always been unspoken and is rarely contested: that all behavior, thought and "feeling" is under the purview of "mental health" and its soldiers, psychotherapists (psychiatrist, psychologists, etc.). Should tomorrow many people start snapping their fingers frequently, the DSMers would have a classification for that in the next revision. The underlying problem here is that there is no definition of "mental illness" or "mental disorder."

A fine example is just this topic: NPD. For years, I frequently have read laying down on my sofa and crossing my legs. Now I have a knee problem, one that the orthopedic surgeon can directly relate to my bad reading habits. With proper changes in behavior and stretching, the knee problem is much improved. So is the case with malignant narcissists. As this blog pointed out several times, "garbage in, garbage out." If one goes through life executing malice and then must distort the truth in order to not be caught, one's thinking will become disordered. That is NOT a mental disorder. It is the ramification of a habit over which one can exert control. The DSM makes no distinction between the ramifications of controllable and self-modifiable bad habits versus the ramifications of a process over which volitional control is impossible (e.g., schizophrenia).

The second DSM strategy is to create categorical buckets so over-inclusive that it is irrefutable. Hence nearly every "diagnosis" contains a "disclaimer" with language such as, "The present symptoms cannot be otherwise better accounted for by [another] diagnosis." Or, another sub-category is created to allow for any exception to the rule. This sub-category is termed "NOS" which stands for "Not Otherwise Specified." Thus if someone complains of depression of a type that does not fit exactly with the sub-types enumerated in the DSM, that depression is deemed, "Not otherwise specified."

Therefore the DSM "takes all comers." It is set up in a way that one cannot even attempt to challenge or refute it because it contains inherent escape clauses which are designed only to make it immune from any criticism. Thus it exists to perpetuate its own existence. It is a simulacrum; i.e., an image without the substance or qualities of the original. Simulacra may contain elements of truth (e.g., the DSM's description of schizophrenia), but due to the lack of definition, coherence, mission and integrity in its core being, its utility is best characterized by where my copy ended up.

One winter, I ran out of firewood...

One postscript. It may appear that the DSM committee is composed of "academics" and not clinicians. The distinction today is not very sharp as nearly all "academics" do clinical work. (I know not a few of them and can vouch for that statement). In my opinion, psychiatrists have thrown their hands up in trying to understand the "personality disordered" for which, not for nothing, they have little chance of obtaining research funding. And although they will never publicly admit it, they don't want to even see those "bad and difficult patients" anyway.

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The above was contributed by H2tat
http://www.blogger.com/profile/07402389084387348536

My Two Cents on NPD Being Removed from the Newest DSM

2010-12-09T12:50:00.003-07:00

It seems there is some expectation that I have an opinion and need to weigh in on the latest news about NPD and four other personality disorders being removed from the upcoming DSM V since a few people have emailed me about this development. I haven't felt compelled to say anything because I've already stated what my position on psychiatry's labels is. In case you haven't read every word of this blog I'll consent to stating my reaction to the above news. It is more of a non-reaction, really.

Okay, to be systematic about this, the New York Times published an article on November 29, 2010 about the deletion of Narcissistic Personality Disorder from the upcoming DSM. You can find the article here. It is titled, "Narcissism No Longer a Psychiatric Disorder."

Let me state categorically that this deletion in no way affects any of the content of this blog. This blog is established on the authority of eyewitnesses as well as the authority of an objective morality not on the authority of the grand poobahs of psychiatry. I have been unimpressed with the so-called science behind the labeling game of this profession and have stated so on this blog. You know as well as I do that a pen stroke in some stuffy conference room doesn't dismiss the reality of those who are malignantly narcissistic. These pointy-headed academics cannot eradicate the colossal damage narcissists inflict in every realm of human interaction with their decision to shift or erase labels.

Here are a couple quotes from my own blog that should clarify for you how little this news affects my view of anything on this subject. In my article titled, "Narcissist or psychopath....both are human predators" I stated:

Speaking of categorization...I think we would all do well to remember the rather arbitrary lines that have been drawn up for us by the psych community. They are allowed the freedom to re-draw the lines as they deem necessary which only tends to prove the non-scientific nature of the categorization.

Rather a succinct statement for such a windy blogger. But there it is. The labels are not scientific. With this in mind, they can f*&% around with the labels all they want. It won't change a damned thing as far as we are concerned. It will change the way these people are given "treatment", but considering how few actually ever end up in a clinical setting I'm not sure it is going to affect much there either. All this newest deletion of NPD and four other labels does is prove my statement above...once again. Labels aren't science. They are names. What the academic egg heads decide to name a thing isn't going to change my view on those people out there who wreak their damage on everyone in their sphere of influence. Period.

In my blog post titled, "Irresponsible Journalism or Psychologists...or Both" I was talking about the psychoanalyzing of Blagojevich (then mayor of Chicago) going on in the media at the time. The quotes are longer to provide some of the context:

First of all, the so-called professionals love to tell us laypeople that we are not qualified to determine whether or not someone we know has NPD by comparing that individual's behaviors with an checklist. What the article from the Sun-Times illustrates to me is how the 'professionals' are the ones who are unqualified. I think it is highly unprofessional for a psychologist to make pronunciations on someone's mental state to the media when that psychologist has never even met the person in question. They should at least try to uphold some of the standards they hold the rest of us to. They tell us we can't diagnose persons whom we've grown up with or married or worked with for years yet, sight unseen, they can make absolute statements about a person's mental health just from reports they've read in the media and a few pictures of a person? Bah.

This is just one very good illustration of why you should ignore anyone, especially the 'professionals', who tells you that you can't tell whether or not someone in your life has NPD. They don't know Jack themselves. No one knows what NPD is more than someone who has suffered from its predations for years. Eggheads in ivory towers only know NPD from textbooks.

Obviously, I've already expressed how little reverence I have for the labeling game of the professionals. This being the case I'm not affected when they again play with their labels. Whatever. While they're masturbating themselves with their power to pronounce someone mentally ill or "normal" I'm content to know what I know. That is because I know what I know from extensive personal experience. I know what I've seen, heard and lived through, so the labels that are in the DSM, or that aren't in the DSM, don't affect my knowledge or shift my past experience in the least.

I used the label of NPD on this blog because of the ease of communication. It was a convenient label for a couple of reasons. First, because it was an objective listing of behaviors to compare someone's actions to in order to know that we're talking about the same animal. Second, the description of the behaviors and attitudes that this label represented has become rather well known to the general public which means that people who are searching for answers on this subject will usually use the label of NPD. So it made sense for me to use the psychological term for ease of communication and in order to reach as many people out there looking for answers as I could. I didn't use the label of NPD on this blog because I recognize the authority of psychiatry to draw the lines or make the labels correctly in every instance. They had it right with the over-arching description of Narcissistic Personality Disorder so I consented on that basis alone to use their label. They had the label right because it was restricted to describing what is observable about this personality type. Observation is the basis of real science. Therefore I wasn't opposed to using a label that was based on the scientific exercise of what can be observed. Because the label of NPD was a comprehensive, over-arching view of this personality type it has become a good tool for the clinicians out there who have to deal with these people in therapy. This reality tends to prove that the label was an effective description of the scope of behaviors seen in narcissists. Again, another vote in favor of the label NPD.

Even though I am dismissive of the "science" of labels I do recognize the great power this profession wields because of their generally accepted power to label. This profession's ability to apply labels to their fellow human beings has a potentially profound effect on lives. It is a power that is too often misused and can devastate lives. When I apply a label to a person I don't have that kind of power. That is because my labels don't have the authority to put someone into an institution without their consent therefore depriving them of their freedom. My labels can't force a person into therapy. My labels can't deny a person a job or put them in prison. My labels can't make money for innumerable doctors or sell pharmaceuticals. My labels are therefore quantifiably different than those that psychiatry makes. The power to name things is a significant thing when you are called a scientist and have the power brokers of society acceding to your right to make those labels.

All this being said, I suspect that this newest development will not be permanent. The article in the New York Times hints at the internal war that has commenced between the clinicians who actually deal with these people and the academics who largely don't. I'll be mildly interested to see who wins the war. I'm hoping that reality wins. Narcissists are not normal because they exist in large numbers. Narcissists are destructive and often dangerous to others. And by dangerous I don't just mean in the mortal sense. They are dangerous to the emotional and mental well-being of others. They destroy lives without necessarily taking lives. This is not normal. Not ever. The DSM manual may be the bible of the psychiatric world, but it isn't ours. Know what you know and let those in their cloistered halls of academe play their little naming games amongst themselves.

Book Review: The Narcissism Epidemic

2010-01-05T11:29:00.005-07:00

I came across an older article by U.S. News & World Report that contains excerpts from the reporter's interview with one of the authors of the book, "The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement" and thought I'd highlight both the article and the book in a post. No, I haven't read the book as I only just found out about it, but I'm going to be buying it because it looks like a stellar treatment of the subject of narcissism from both the excerpts of this article and the reviews I've read.

It appears to me that we have a couple of Ph.Ds actually applying some science to the subject and, therefore, they break away from the usual cliches about narcissism that comes from pop psychology. I agree with all seven points in this article (for the most part) and I adore the answer to #4 (a little narcissism is healthy). I have not explicitly come out against this pat phrase that continually comes out in discussions about narcissism, but I've definitely in no way supported this belief on my blog. I don't and never have believed that "a little narcissism is healthy." Quoting from the article:

You have to ask, "Healthy for whom?" Narcissism is basically never healthy for other people. It tends to work out OK for the narcissist in the short term, but in the long term, they end up messing up their relationships at work and at home, and they end up depressed later in life.

Another way to phrase this is to substitute the word "narcissism" for "selfish". As in, "Selfishness is basically never healthy for other people..." You can decide to deny this but your denial won't ever change my mind. Selfishness always ends up subtracting from the lives of those around you. Now, don't go defining selfishness as the necessary care we must take of our persons. If we don't make sound decisions about how we take care of our health then we're useless to ourselves and everyone else. Stick to the true meaning of words. See here if you don't know the definition of selfishness.

I also want to hug these people for coming out against this blather: "You have to love yourself to love someone else". I have profoundly disagreed with this statement myself for many years now as I've come to see the truth of the matter. That these psychiatrists have actually grasped and unapologetically oppose this idea is surprising to me but thrilling. This idea of needing to love yourself first before you can love someone else is tirelessly chanted in Christian circles because of poor exegesis of Christ's statement to "love one another as you love yourself." What a good student of Scripture realizes is that God's perspective on how we love ourselves is that we do it unconditionally. So this statement is a command to love others as unconditionally as you already love yourself.

The U.S. News article can be found here.

If your mother was a narcissist then you'll understand this...

2009-09-25T10:54:00.005-06:00

An interesting article appeared on the UK Daily Mail a few days ago. Erin Pizzey is stating a solemn truth that must be seriously considered by the world: that women are every bit as capable of cruelty and abuse as men are and that it is time to stop pretending that men have the corner on being abusers. She describes her childhood growing up with two abusive parents and describes her mother's abuse as being much worse:

...it was my mother's more emotional, verbal form of abuse that scarred me most deeply. She indulged in a particular kind of soul murder...

Those of us raised by a malignant narcissist mother certainly can understand what Erin is describing.

I won't be entertaining heated defenses of feminism in the comments section. Keep the comments confined to the point of this article...that women are just as capable of being abusers as men are. And women may very well be more damaging in their form of abuse because they understand the nuances of emotional and verbal slaughter and have more access to their children to carry out their abuses.

Read it and weep:

Why I loathe feminism... and believe it will ultimately destroy the family

Malignant Narcissism: A Brief Overview

2009-09-25T10:00:00.000-06:00

Update: I'm moving this post up so it'll show on the front page. It seems a good idea to have it front and center for those who are new to this blog and/or the subject of malignant narcissism.

What is narcissism? Is it a simple case of being kinda self-involved? Is it just the human condition? This post will focus on the big picture of what this blog is about. Consider it orientation for people who are new to the subject and new to this blog.

This blog is about malignant narcissism which is another name for NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder as its called in the bible of psychiatry, the DSM-IV.) This isn't a blog about people who have a few narcissistic traits because that would mean talking about everyone on the planet. I'm not interested in throwing the whole planet into one box because it would render it a useless classification.

It is understandable that people who are unfamiliar with the terms "malignant narcissism" or "NPD" to not really know how completely different of an animal is being discussed here than the average human being. This blog isn't about assholes or debutantes. It is very possible to be a jerk or to be a self-focused princess and not have the disorder of NPD. If you label anyone who irritates or annoys you as a narcissist then you don't have a grasp of what this character disorder really is.

Every human being is bent to one degree or other toward selfishness. So to define NPD as "being selfish" is not a definition that makes any sense because it would just be statement about the whole human race that wouldn't help anyone identify the problem of human evil. Some people say that all humans struggle against being selfish and so are quick to state that we are all narcissists. Not so fast. The label is important because we are trying to identify a certain sub-set. There is a specific definition here that is important to grasp if you're going to be able to deal with the problems that proceed from calculated and predatory human evil which is at the root of the definition of malignant narcissism.

Let's look at the statement above, "...all humans struggle against being selfish." No, they don't. THAT is what this blog is about. The ones who don't struggle against their selfish urges. It is about those human beings who long ago gave up any struggle against their lusts, their selfish entitlement attitude, their demands, their need to control others. Some, I believe, have never put up a real fight against their own selfish demands. Malignant narcissism usually manifests at a very young age even though it never becomes an official diagnosis until adulthood because this is how the grand poo-bahs of psychology play the game of labeling.

There is a creature that exists in human form that has become distinctly different than those of us who do struggle against selfishness. In a very deliberate and conscious way these people have made a decision to not fight against their selfish impulses. They have embraced them. They have found ways to completely justify them. They are quite proud of their freedom to do anything they want to anyone they want. They may be quietly smug about it or openly boastful; nevertheless, they're proud of their ability to get their way.

They see themselves as set apart from mere humanity. They distance themselves from the human race by setting themselves apart from and above them. They do this by word and by action. They even usurp the very throne of God Himself as they position themselves as god over all they survey. They reserve to themselves the right to define reality to all in their domain. All this results in the train of woe that follows from the human embodiment of evil.

I make no apologies for referring to malignant narcissists as a "creature" or any other dehumanizing term I may use from time to time. I didn't dehumanize them. They do it to themselves. I'm just agreeing with them that they aren't like the rest of us...only, when I say it, I mean it in the most disparaging way unlike the narcissist who pretends himself apart from all the rest of humanity as proof of his superiority.

The outgrowth of the mental state of malignant narcissists as described above are very predictable and legion but it can be boiled down to some consistent traits seen among all who've dedicated themselves to human evil. I have covered these traits at length on this blog. I'll try to revisit some of these predictable behaviors and attitudes of the malignant narcissist in brief.

All malignant narcissists are cases of arrested development.
They are perpetually living in a mindset of a young child. The age when a child is old enough to know the difference between right and wrong but very willing to do wrong if they think they won't get caught. Like a child, they feel entitled to whatever they want. Like a child, they recreate reality to suit their fantasy about themselves and the world around them. Like a child, they want all attention focused on them. But, unlike a child, the narcissist is not subject to being molded and shaped by authority figures or reality. The narcissist is determined (read here, conscious choice) to remain a child whereas most children are driven by a desire to grow up. Children are childish and there is no crime in that. I'm not pathologizing childhood. I'm highlighting that malignant narcissists are pathological children.

This state of being leads to the other realities about malignant narcissists which are all characterized by being pathological excess of whatever we're talking about:

The narcissist has a pathological need for all attention in every context he finds himself in.
It is so pathological that if you get any attention he is obsessed by the need to take it away from you because he imagines that if you get any that it is an unsurvivable diminution of this precious commodity for him.

This is attached to his transcendent sense of entitlement.
If he wants something then, in his mind, it belongs by native right to him. And because he wants every shred of human attention, warmth, regard, consideration, that means you can't have any. This is at the very bedrock of the narcissist's motivations. The need to have it all means he must take what you have. It makes you a target of his malevolent intent. It is the fountainhead of his ill will toward all others.

The malignant narcissist's pathological need to have it all leads to his existence of being pathologically envious.
In other words, the most pernicious, pervasive and all-consuming state of being covetous. This translates to him envying anything you have or are. So, picture a human being utterly possessed of a pathological need for all the attention and all good things which flow from human relationships and you have the framework for understanding the next identifying feature of the Malignant Narcissist Creature...

The malignant narcissist is a predatory animal.

He stalks his prey. He must do so because his malevolent intent is absolute and would frighten away any source of his supply if the target could easily discern his implacable nature and insatiable lusts and his intent to feed. So the narcissist transforms himself. He is an adept at making and wearing masks. He thrives on appearances. He is short on substance. People who are easily taken in by appearances and short on wisdom to discern substance are easy targets.

The malignant narcissist is a chameleon.
This is why so many people have a problem identifying what a narcissist is. To the superficial view malignant narcissists can appear to widely differ from each other. This narcissist here is a sophisticate with excellent worldly tastes, vast charm and a following of admirers. That narcissist over there is an unemployed alcoholic who lives off his wife or parents, abuses animals and his children, and hasn't amounted to more than a pile of shit his whole life. But both of these widely disparate appearances are adaptations to environment, I.Q., accident of birth such as physical beauty, advantages such as education, sex, etc. It is important to understand the chameleon-like adaptations all narcissists are capable of and not be fooled by these adaptations to miss the substance of what they are: a pathological mess of predatory urges that feeds off of the people around them.

How an individual narcissist presents himself or herself can cause huge variations in how a malignant narcissist appears to others, but make no mistake, these basic characteristics will be found in any of them. Both the charming sophisticate narcissist and the alcoholic loser are pursuing their favored forms of "narcissistic supply.", another term for the attention "drug" that every malignant narcissist junkie is pursuing his every waking moment. How they go about it looks very different, but in principle they are after the same thing.

All malignant narcissists are parasitical.
They need people around them from whom they can steal what they need. Their need for people is desperate, yet their desperate need presents a conundrum for them. Their need for people runs counter to their even more desperate need to not appear like they need anything from anyone, especially you! Never forget, they are gods in their own estimation which means that even while they steal, demand or extort what they need from you they will trash you for giving it. The more they need you the more you will be subjected to their loathing. It is paradoxical unless you understand what the hell is really going on. Which is what I'm describing for you now.

Stay focused on the narcissist as parasite. Because the malignant narcissist is a complete failure in the moral realm they must attach to sources of virtue. This is because no lie can exist without the truth. Evil can't exist without some appearance of good. How does the narcissist wear an appearance of virtue? Most commonly he surrounds himself with those who possess real virtue. The close proximity makes it easy for the malignant narcissist to steal virtue for his own image. Does the narcissist need to feel powerful? He may prop himself up or feed on those who have real power if he is lucky enough to sidle up to them, or he will surround himself with people who are weak so he can feel powerful by controlling them.

OR the narcissist can steal virtue and substance from her profession or from belonging to certain clubs or organizations or charities. Service professions are very attractive to malignant narcissists. So is religion. As is Motherhood. An example: the narcissist can get herself close to her prey of choice by her choice of profession. Does she like to seduce young boys? She may decide to become a teacher. She attaches herself parasitically to the profession's high claim of being concerned about the education of young people. Who would suspect she is not a teacher because of the usual reasons? By association everyone assumes a certain amount of goodwill and character due to her choice of job. This is her cover to then commence her predation of her favorite flavor of attention. She has parasitically attached herself to the good name of teacher. She is stealing virtue she doesn't possess so as to better reach her prey.

In every situation the parasitical narcissist is preening himself.
He needs a mirror to accomplish his acts of preening. That mirror is you. He plays to his mirrors. He poses in front of his mirrors to get the desired reflection back. When you show looks of interest, admiration, fear, concern, he is basking in his reflected self. His insubstantial self. A construct of reality he has created out of thin air. But see? He needs YOU to accomplish this. He needs you to hold up the mirror for him. But he isn't looking at you. He is only interested in his own reflection in your face. You don't exist as a person to him. You're a means to his end. The parasite takes what he needs with no thought or benefit going to the host. If you cease giving him what he wants he will move on to a better host. He is completely heedless of his tremendous and all-consuming need of people to accomplish this act of reflection. His preening is an extension of his parasitical lifestyle, yet he is unable to comprehend this.

We are only objects to the narcissist.
He can't comprehend it because he has transmogrified all the rest of us into objects. We have no needs that he must enter into his consideration. He is first and only in everything. He refuses (again, conscious choice) to see your humanity and the basic rights that come along with that humanity. You are nothing more than a tool in his hand, a pawn in his game, an object for his use. When done, he casts you aside as so much used toilet paper. People who believe the narcissist loves them are tragically naive and deceived. The narcissist has vast reservoirs of love, compassion and concern, but not one tiny bit of those things can be diverted from himself. He loves himself so utterly and completely there is no room for anyone else in his affections. The malignant narcissist is absolutely incapable of the true emotion of love for any other human being. Period. If you doubt me you will continue to suffer under the heartless tyranny of these blood-suckers. You can never successfully deal with a narcissist if you believe he loves you in any real way. He NEEDS you. But need is not love. His need is the need that will take and take and take with no concern as to whether his taking is killing you.

Even if you've not been in close contact with a malignant narcissist, with a little imagination you can follow these descriptions to some of their outcomes. All of those outcomes are attended with ill will. Not one motivation of the narcissist is concerned with anyone else's well-being. This is what makes them dangerous and evil. They are unsafe for human interaction. Do they see themselves as dangerous and evil? Very unlikely. Some do. Most don't. Remember that they have justified themselves on every point. The evil they perpetrate is most times seen by them as their righteous cause. They have turned evil into good and black into white. This is easy enough to accomplish for someone who has for a lifetime tinkered with reality as much as those around them have allowed.

As you can hopefully see by now, malignant narcissism isn't about everyday variety selfishness. I'll use the word again here, it is pathological selfishness. It is a selfishness that will destroy anything that gets in its way.

When I decided to start a blog and needed to pick a name for it I chose Narcissists Suck for a reason. It wasn't a flippancy. My nom de plume is that of a vampire slayer. Again, not a flippant choice. The primary meaning of this blog's title is a succinct statement of truth about all narcissists -- they suck the life out of their victims. Plus, I did really like the dual meaning of the title. The other meaning being the more casual statement of, "damn, these people SUCK."

Human evil is not of recent advent. It has been a part of human existence for as long as humans have existed. Some of the evidence of this fact is found in the many legends of evil of which the Vampire bears some startling correlations to what we know about malignant narcissism. Of course, there is no one definition or legend of vampires but there are some persistent themes. I'll list a few for your perusal.

The ability to hypnotize and/or charm their potential victims.
Light destroys them. (Light is analogous to truth.)
They are shape-shifters.
They are predatory. Especially of family and neighbors where they lived before they became "undead."
They can only exist by draining the blood, life-force, of their prey.
Despite their human appearance they aren't really human.
They can infect others with their vampirism.
Great powers of persuasion.
Hard to kill. Even starvation won't kill it though it will render them somewhat insane. (Think here of the narcissist deprived of sources of supply. It won't end up in a converted narcissist; crazy, yes, converted, no. They will survive until they find a fresh victim.)

This isn't an exhaustive list, but it is enough to supply the point that legends of vampirism find their close counterpart in the malignant narcissist. This blog is intended to be the sunlight that destroys these vampiric blood-suckers. Shine the light of truth on who they are and what they do and find them scattering to the dark corners of their lairs. At the very least, the sunlight dispels the hypnotic hold of the vampire on his victims and helps them get free.

Thus concludes my attempt at an overview of malignant narcissism which is the focus of this blog. There are plenty of annoying and petty people out there. That isn't what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about those humans who've embraced evil that stalks its own kind as prey. The most scary aspect of this kind of evil is that is will suck the life blood out of its own young. The children of narcissists are the ones who've seen what evil really is. The narcissist disguises himself when in public view. It is behind closed doors that the fangs come out. Pity the children. Save them if you can.

A Review of "Narcissists Suck" By a Reader

2009-04-11T10:22:00.004-06:00

This is from the comments section written by a reader of this blog. I am posting it on the front page as a "review" of the content of this blog for those who are new here. What can you learn if you dive into the blog's archives? Here is one reader's description of what they've learned. I have taken the liberty of spelling out the abbreviations [in brackets] for the benefit of those not familiar with the vernacular. Otherwise the comment appears in its original form. Thanks, again, Another Anonymous, for taking the time to describe what you've learned here. God bless.

Invaluable things I've learned here:

I found your blog when I was searching for info on dealing with trouble I was having with some people in my life. At the time, I thought I knew pretty much about N's (I had a 'classic' NM [narcissist mother], and N-ex [narcissist ex-spouse], I had already read many books on the topic). The only problem, I thought N's were pretty rare. That was the impression I had gotten.

The big picture really eluded me until I came here. For instance, it NEVER occurred to me that there might be more N's in my FOO [family of origin], despite my difficulty with them, or amongst the people I had thought of as "difficult" friends, past and present. Or, why, as an acon [adult child of a narcissist], I might have had so many "difficult" friends in the first place! Nothing I read in other places gave me quite the understanding about how N's are attracted to "primed" victims, and how they carefully avoid people raised with healthy boundaries. They do not randomly strike. And I had no idea that they often occur in multiples in families, over generations, centered around each generation's designated supply/human sacrifices.

I began to understand how I had been thoroughly and unwittingly trained to act in a way that made me basically the "perfect friend" to the personality disordered. This gave me a new lens through which to view many events and incidents from the past which had long puzzled me and that I had often replayed again and again in mind with no resolution. Now, they made "sense". I always wondered why some friendships I had were so "easy"! Now I knew those were simply the friendships I had with normal people. What seemed to be as "easy" or unusually "low maintenance", was actually JUST NORMAL. THAT IS ALL. Long accustomed to around-the-clock drama from others, I had no idea.

And importantly, how UNCANNILY SIMILAR experiences with N's really were, down to the most bizarre sounding incidents! (bathroom barging N's anyone?) The baffling and powerful N's became demystified. Now I see them as fear-driven caricatures, all with pretty much the same bags of tricks. Same shit, different smell. I am no longer impressed.

Your blog also put into perspective the many "frieNdships" that I had had in the past that I had long felt confused guilt and shame over ending. The more the puzzle pieces fell into place, I realized I had indeed been cutting out N's who had been attracted to me mainly as pre-trained NS [narcissist supply]. Thank you, no more guilt or confusion over having had been able to make healthy decisions about parasitical people in my life.

Another thing that helped tremendously has been being able to make the clear distinction between an "enabler" and a deceived victim. Boy was I sick of books that quietly (or not) suggested there was something wrong with ME (i.e. "co-dependent") simply because I was once brainwashed into going through life experiencing N ABUSE AS NORMAL. Others calling us co-dependant is wrong and insulting. Believe me, the moment I knew what was what - I ESCAPED TOO! I was just one of many people trapped by the lies of N's who simply need nothing more then CLEAR INFORMATION to order make the choice to leave! That is NOT "co-dependent", that is a hostage trapped by lies. Thank you for putting clear no-nonsense info out for the public.

I have appreciated and respected perhaps most of all your unswerving "take no prisoners" stance, as well as your unstinting use of the taboo word "evil", due to the premeditation, strategizing, and post-abuse covering up that N's do. Thank you. Whenever I felt re-swayed by the lure of the N koolaid, and the very natural desire to want it all to be some kind of bad dream I could wake up from, I could get a REAL wake up call here. The kind of wake up I really needed:

Covert MN [malignant narcissist] abuse is NOT a bad dream, it is real. But we CAN "wake up" from it, but only in one way: by seeing it for what it REALLY is, and seeing them for who they really are. Not appealing, not easy, and most certainly not what "they" want. It is the hard road. The bad dream we lived is THEIR world of lies, but we have the option to wake up to OUR OWN TRUTH: the world of truth inside us that can never be destroyed by others, only obscured. It is awakened by outside knowledge.

Thank you Anna, for more then I can write here. For passing on your truth, so we could wake ourselves up out of this nightmare into the world of our own possibility. Knowledge is truly power, and knowledge strips the power from deceivers.

And a thank you to all the amazing commenters! I have never ceased being amazed by the uncanny similarities, it proves the N's are not the unique people they think... It has helped me so much in so many ways.

Good luck to you Anna, and everyone else here too!

Sincerely,

Another Anonymous

Because Life is Short...

2009-04-06T22:12:00.006-06:00

...I'm moving on with the next phase of my life. I'm not going to be posting with any regularity going forward. There is much going on in my life and many new projects that I'm going to be undertaking which means there won't be time for me to continue blogging. I have many interests and plans in the months ahead. The blog will still be here. I haven't ruled out the possibility that I may post now and again on a very infrequent basis, but I need to lay aside the active work on this blog so I can concentrate on other things.

No, I'm not writing a book. There are over 250 posts that comprise this blog. That is my book. There is enough information here to help people navigate the shark-infested waters of narcissism. And it is available for free.

Comments will remain open, but there will be no comments approved between Apr. 19 and 23 because I'll be going out of town and won't have computer access.

Yes, it is possible to heal from the effects of a narcissist on your life. It takes courage, determination, right principles and a thorough house-cleaning which includes getting rid of the vermin. The most important principles which guided my thinking and steered my boat out of those shark-infested waters are available for your perusal. Here. Read, absorb, make necessary changes and then graduate! Work toward the goal of not having to think about the narcissist(s), toward not giving them any more of your life, fill your life with good things and good people and find that you don't need blogs or web sites like this one anymore because the narcissists are so far behind you that you can't even see them in the rear view mirror. That is what I hope for where all of you are concerned.

I'll still be around. My email address will also remain available, and I will answer emails as time and interest permits.

Red Flag: Hostile Reaction to Attention Given Others

2009-03-31T11:57:00.000-06:00

The last on Kathy Krajco's list of eight red flags of narcissism is:

Hostile Reaction to Attention or Credit Given Others

And then, of course, we get to the heart of malignant narcissism, Narcissistic Envy.

You will notice that, invariably, when anyone is given recognition before the group, a narcissist immediately starts showing dislike for, or animosity toward, that person. Immediately he sets out on a campaign of character assassination.

Envy is bitter, an extremely unpleasant emotion. It's normal only when some other party really has robbed us of our due.

A narcissist's unnatural envy is so universal and so strong that he cannot even stand being in a place where someone else gets attention. If he cannot keep that from happening, he will find some way to absent himself from the situation -- if only by turning away from others and staring at a corner of the ceiling. What Makes Narcissists Tick, pg. 84

***********************

I elaborated on the centrality of envy in the narcissist's personality structure in this post. I have observed before that the two driving forces in the narcissist's life are envy and fear. I believe their pathological envy is the fountain from which all their fears arise.

Their pathological envy is also the explanation for why they turn predatory. They don't want what they deserve. They want to steal from you what you deserve. They are professional moochers in the physical and moral realm. Thieves of accomplishment in every sphere. Their envy is what justifies to them all their thieving and murderous ways -- their very real cannabalism. Their sense of entitlement springs from their malignant envy. They believe that their lusts are to be fulfilled by absolute right -- not at their expense, but at yours. Hence, they are invariably parasitical in their existence.

When seeking to understand what moves the narcissist you must remember that primarily it is their envy. Pathological and unrelenting covetousness of what doesn't belong to them defines their existence. This one fact will help you untangle the web to see past the lies, bluster, obfuscation, projection, blame-shifting, and Do-gooder schtick into their true motives. They are constantly on the move to obtain by force or by lies that which is not theirs to take. It may be as subtle and spiritual as your personal integrity or virtue. Anything about you that takes the spotlight off of them or shows them up for being the shallow creatures they are will incite in them the desire to steal from you. Even your happiness is an object of their envy. You will only be allowed happiness if they can make you believe that they gave it to you. Every flavor and variety of attention is their object of insane desire. Any attention you receive is perceived as a diminution of what they believe is theirs. All of it. They are giant, black holes into which is consumed every ray of light. Take all and give nothing back is their motto.

I'll close with this quote from Atlas Shrugged. Supposedly it is bad form to quote from Atlas Shrugged on blogs because Ayn Rand can't say anything that doesn't require reams of pages for context, but I think this quote does stand on its own because of what we understand here about the nature of evil:

The last of my words will be addressed to those heroes who might still be hidden in the world, those who are held prisoner, not by their evasions, but by their virtues and their desperate courage. My brothers in spirit, check on your virtues and on the nature of the enemies you're serving. Your destroyers hold you by means of your endurance, your generosity, your innocence, your love --the endurance that carries their burdens-- the generosity that responds to their cries of despair--the innocence that is unable to conceive of their evil and gives them the benefit of every doubt, refusing to condemn them without understanding and incapable of understanding such motives as theirs...life is the object of their hatred. Leave them to the death they worship...don't exhaust the greatness of your soul on achieving the triumph of the evil of theirs...

...to win requires your total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person...

Red Flag: Extreme Self-Absorption

2009-03-23T10:44:00.001-06:00

When it doesn't perplex you, or annoy the hell out of you, or make you cry, this next red flag provides some of the humor when dealing with narcissists. I'm talking here about the humor that makes you laugh at someone who is being ridiculous and stupid and is blissfully unaware of it.

Extreme self-absorption is another red flag. Unless a narcissist is a "doting" narcissist who keeps a "star" child he's exploiting under a microscope, just ask him about his family. You will be astounded at what he doesn't know about them.

That's the dead giveaway.

To test a person, write a basic character description of each member of his immediate family. Note things like whether this person is religious, excitable, highly motivated -- that's all, just basic stuff that anyone who sees them regularly should know about them. If you ask a narcissist to match each character description with the family member it belongs to, he will gape at you as though you just asked him to show the derivation of E = mc2.

It will astound him that you would expect him to know such things about his wife and children.

Because you know more about cartoon characters than a narcissist knows about the members of his immediate family. For, he can learn nothing about what he willfully, relentlessly, and reflexively pays no attention to.

Narcissists are notorious for being unable to remember people's names or to even recognize their faces outside the usual setting. That's because people all look the same to you when they all look like this.

[drawing of a girl's face blanked out because it is a mirror showing the narcissist flexing and posing in the mirror that should be her face.]

In your encounters with them, you make sure you get 100% of their attention while giving them zero of yours. So, what did they say? Anything? Did they even get a word in edgewise? If they did, you didn't hear it.

A narcissist may, for example, recognize her son in the home but not when she runs into him in the grocery store -- giving him a stupid stare as he approaches, until he clues her in by saying, "Hi, Mom."

Here are some other illustrative examples from narcissists I have known or heard about:

Does not know how to spell his daughter's name.
Never had any idea what kind of grades his kids got.
Does not know his wife or children's birthdays.
Has never visited the major Website his/her child/sibling published.
Does not know how old his children are.
Does not know that his daughter was a National Merit Finalist.
Has no idea how good his kids are at any sport or other activity.
Does not know what perfume his wife wears.
Has never read the book his child wrote.
Never does learn the names of the students in his/her classes.
Cannot get the names of people "with two first names" straight. (viz. Jean Paul, Howard Dean, John Kerry, or even John Edwards.)
Does not know the names of his children's spouses, let alone his grandchildren.
Has never shown up to watch his son play varsity sports.
Does not know what his children majored in at college or what degrees they earned.
Does not know whether his teen-age son/daughter is dating.
Has never met the boy his teen-age daughter has been dating for three years.

One could hardly be less interested in a fly on the wall.

What Makes Narcissists Tick by Kathy Krajco, pgs. 83-84

The running joke in our family, and among some of our family friends, was on my mother's absolute inability to recognize any of us if we passed her when we were on the road. She should have recognized our cars. She most definitely should have recognized our faces. But she was utterly, completely oblivious. Even when we'd honk or wave our arms she'd never see us. It was treated like an endearing quality for years. She claimed to be very focused on the road and didn't have time to be looking around at other cars for familiar faces. She claimed she didn't care what people drove so how could she be expected to recognize their cars? Never mind that she often rode in our cars and that our cars would sit her in driveway where she'd often see them close up or could look out her house windows to observe.

My mental picture of my mother behind the wheel of her car is her sitting very straight, gripping the wheel with both hands almost pulling herself forward a little and staring straight ahead. Oblivious to everything around her. Not just us. Riding in the car was always a little scary because she was completely oblivious to what was going on around her. Near accidents were frequent. Her claims to being focused on her driving were baloney. She was not only oblivious to people she should have recognized when driving around town, she was oblivious to everyone. She was in her own little world while behind the wheel (as well as any other time). This was the main reason my father always kept her in very large cars. In case of accident, she would have a better chance of survival. Yes, she did have frequent driving accidents. Only one of them serious last I knew.

If her obliviousness was confined to her driving then it wouldn't have much or any real significance except, perhaps, she was just a bad driver. But it was just the demonstration of her ever-present self-absorption being displayed while on the road. If I walked into a store where she didn't expect to see me she wouldn't see me unless I walked up to her and started talking. I am the fruit of her own womb and she wouldn't recognize me. What she didn't know about her closest family members was just about everything, yet she claimed to know us better than we knew ourselves. We believed that lie for too long. She created what we were out of thin air and superimposed her false image of us onto us. There was no escaping her false rendering of our characters or accomplishments. She only thought she knew us. But the truth was she was entirely ignorant of who we were or what we've accomplished or what our real interests were.

To those who will come along and try to accuse me or Kathy of making a big deal over a frequent human failing let me point out what should be obvious. Everyone has had moments when we've forgotten a child's age or maybe their birth date. Everyone has an occasional moment of being oblivious. Usually this is because we've become engrossed in some mental activity and not because we're busy thinking about ourselves and getting what we want every livin' moment. This red flag is not talking about that. This is about a pervasive pattern that is far outside the norm of occasional human forgetfulness or being engrossed in some project or activity. Fact is, it isn't about being forgetful with the narcissist. You can't forget what you never bothered to know in the first place. It is the demonstration of the reality that to the narcissist you are an object. Not a person.

Just like anything else with the narcissist, we are talking about something that could be found in a normal human situation but it is at a level of pathology. Far outside, above and beyond what is "normal". That is why this extreme self-absorption is a red flag: because it falls outside normal limits. That word "extreme" is your clue that we're talking about something beyond the average or outside the definition of normal.

I'm sure that the comments will fill up with examples of this red flag behavior. Commence.

Red Flag: Disrespect for Boundaries

2009-03-13T10:40:00.000-06:00

We're up to number six of Kathy Krajco's list of eight red flags of narcissism from her book, What Makes Narcissists Tick, pg. 81:

Tramples Privacy/Boundaries as a Control-Freak

Yet another red flag is a universal disrespect for other people's privacy, boundaries. This is a result of the narcissist viewing people as mere objects there for her sake to serve her needs and desires.

I gave an example in the previous section, in the boyfriend who disrespects your right to decide how to wear your hair. It's your body, not his. You're the one who lives with the consequences of the decision, not him. You aren't his car, something he owns and therefore can paint a different color if he wishes. You own you.

But he is treating your body as HIS property by presuming the rights of its owner over it.

Here's another, more literal, example. Your property line affects him like waving a red flag affects a bull. He must violate it and make what's your territory his territory. So, he parks on your lawn, ties his big mean dog out at the edge of his property to use yours (and menace you with Rover). He reacts to your claim of ownership as though you are stealing from him. Nothing short of a big fence will stop him from making your property his. And then he'll probably ram it with his truck if he thinks you'll be intimidated by that.

In other words, he is incapable of "distinguishing between mine and thine." Again, he is treating your property as his by asserting the rights of its owner over it.

Even your mind is not your own in his eyes.

Which is why a narcissist sticks his nose into everything, for he considers your business his business. He feels it incumbent on him to bestow judgment on every single thing people think, say, do, wear, or even feel. His disapproval (or the threat of it) is a stick this control freak with a God Complex herds people with.

He is possessing you.

Individuals with NPD are likely to attempt to get their needs met in relationships without acknowledging the independent existence of those from which they "expect to feed."

-- Sharon C. Ekleberry, Dual Diagnosis and the Narcissistic Personality Disorder [link now dead]

So, he presumptuously makes other people's choices for them. Often to ridiculous extremes, such as telling people how to wear their hair, what clothes to wear, where to buy things and what brands to buy, what chair to sit in, what end to start on, which route to take, and so on. You can tell he's doing it just to do it, because he makes people change their choice to comply with his wishes. In fact, if the same person is doing what he said to do the last time, the narcissist tells her to do it differently this time.

In short, a narcissist views others as objects on a chessboard, or tools, robots, the executioners of his will. One I know of, a private school principal, demonstrates the desperate compulsion narcissist have to control people. He is said to have nearly driven almost a thousand people to justifiable homicide by blasting over an hour's worth of nonstop orders over a blaring squawk box about what to do in an annual Christmas celebration that everybody had carried off without instructions for decades. Nobody can walk into a room and sit down without this clown telling them to sit somewhere else.

I dealt in some length with this red flag of being controlling a couple of months ago in this post so I won't be reinventing the wheel for this post. Controlling Others Vs. Self-Control.

A Recommended Article

2009-03-12T09:54:00.003-06:00

Personality Disorders: The Controllers, Abusers, Manipulators, and Users in Relationships
By Dr Joseph M Carver, PhD.

I just finished reading this three part article and wanted to recommend it to you all. It is an excellent synopsis of personality disorders followed by descriptions of how each of these PD types behave relationally. The article contains some good practical advice as well. I am impressed by the author's firm grasp of the reality that victims are not to blame for the behavior of the personality disordered. Read it and find validation and balm for your soul.

More Red Flags: History of Past Upheavals & Hated for Mysterious Reasons

2009-02-28T09:20:00.001-07:00

The next two red flags on Kathy Krajco's list of "Eight Red Flags of Narcissism" are brief in description. "History of Past Upheavals" says:

If you know a narcissist's history, you will usually see a track of mysterious upheavals in his life. He suddenly up and moves to a different school or job in a different town every few years. That is, every time the good angels in his Pathological Space start comparing notes, get his number, and become enraged. In one narcissist I know of, these upheavals began with one in the eighth grade. "What Makes Narcissists Tick" pg. 79

In other words, once the narcissist has crapped enough in one place and it begins to stink they have to move on. The pile of excrement near the narcissist has made it clear to others who is doing the crapping. All that dung is what we call 'exposure'. Thus requiring a new scene for the narcissist.

This history of past upheavals can be more subtle than the narcissist having to physically pull up stakes and move to a new place. My own mother demonstrates the subtler version of past upheavals. She has lived in the same city now since 1970. She has lived in the same house in that city for 33 years. Obviously, evidence of past upheavals would not be evident to most people who know her now. Only those who have known her the longest are able to see the history of upheaval in her social circles. As I look back over her life for the last four decades it is very evident that she indeed does defecate all over her Pathological Space requiring her to abandon particular social circles with predictable regularity. This has been repeated over, and over, and over again. Of course, she finds a way to make it look like she dumped them and not vice versa so it always appears on the surface that she was the one wronged in some way requiring her to get rid of those "bad" people. At least, she tells the story that way. This is what Kathy is talking about though. If you are acquainted with someone who keeps telling you about how they had to get rid of this person, that person and the other person where all the blame rests on the other party -- you are witnessing a "history of past upheavals" and it is a sign you are looking at a narcissist. Moving about geographically is only one outward sign of past upheavals. High turnover in social circles and relationships is the subtler sign. I call it subtler because it requires a knowledge of that person's social history for you to follow the trend.

Kathy stated that, "every time the good angels in his Pathological Space start comparing notes, get his number, and become enraged" that it forces the narcissist to fold up his tent and move away. It is possible that the narcissist you know has managed to arrange a Pathological Space where there are no "good angels" to hold him or her to account.

Sometimes the narcissist is able to form a family circle (or any social circle) in which there are no dissenters. Either the dissenters have fled or have been forcefully ousted by the majority rule of the narcissist and his underlings. For an extreme example of this we have Fred Phelps. He has formed a church which is entirely populated with his own family members. Only a couple of his children have escaped Fred's cultish family. But most are still firmly in his clutches, some of which are demonstrating they are lesser narcissists in his kingdom. Fred has managed to form a large enough circle of pathological people (shaped from infancy by his pathology) to ensure that there is never a "critical mass" of good angels that can gather enough power or influence to force him to move on. This scenario of the narcissist gaining a large enough mass of sychophants, enablers, beta narcissists in his Pathological Space means it can camoflage this red flag to onlookers and acquaintances. Beware. In this case look for a cult following. If you find a person with a cult-leader type of effect on the people in his social circle then you can be damned sure you're looking at a narcissist. In a cult-type setting it always looks like the "Cult Leader" is the immovable rock never having to vacate his setting but forcing out those who don't fit in. It is a fake-out form of stability. Remember that families can be cult-like in construct.

The next red flag is, "Hated for Mysterious Reason by People Close to Them":

In fact, another red flag is being hated -- I mean really hated -- for mysterious reasons. And by people that hating is uncharacteristic of. If, say, a person's adult son or daughter doesn't even visit him in the hospital or go to his funeral,* there is a heavy-duty reason for that. Fortunately, it's not our responsibility to judge. But we do need to appreciate the weight of such a startling fact. People do things for reasons. They are not always good reasons or just reasons, but people do things for reasons.

*Good examples: Abraham Lincoln did not go to his father's funeral, and Barbara Bush did not go to her mother's funeral. "What Makes Narcissist Tick", pg. 79

This red flag is well understood by those of us who have been through hell with a narcissist and found ourselves loathing them and forcing no contact for our protection. We would be very unlikely to judge someone else harshly if we found out they had inordinate hatred for a particular person even a parent or sibling. So this red flag is one most of us would readily understand. Unfortunately, most people out there in the world do not have any of this understanding. They are far too quick to judge what they don't know. They are quick to condemn our hatred of a malignant narcissist as being wrong. They are naive to a fault about people who are capable of earning such hatred -- so they condemn us. This red flag should be put on billboards and written with sky-writing: Respect the fact that people do things for reasons therefore don't be willing to judge what you know nothing of.

Remember, Kathy is talking about a mysterious, intense hatred for a particular person in someone whom you know doesn't go around routinely hating people. Narcissists, on the other hand, have a very long "enemies list" so it can't be said it is uncharacteristic of them to hate others. It is their default and normal setting. But when you meet someone who typically gets along well with most people then know for sure that if they hate someone there is a reason for it. It isn't for you to judge whether or not the reason is "good." Frankly, it isn't anyone's damn business.

Forcing Submission

2009-02-20T11:50:00.002-07:00

Every abuser, every narcissist, every psychopath, every rapist, arsonist, every sociopath is after one thing: power. Power over others. This is an outgrowth of the narcissistic need to have all attention focused on them. We already understand that attention is the drug that the narcissist pursues at every moment. This is the core motivation that moves them. There are natural branches that sprout off this trunk and the desire for power over others is one of them. The intoxicating thrill of absolute power is the biggest high they can get from their drug of choice.

The extent to which an individual will pursue their quest for power is determined only by what they feel they can get away with. No small part of this is how much they fear authority or the law. The narcissist mother will not pursue absolute power to the degree that the psychopathic serial killer will. But make no mistake -- both are consumed by the quest for power over others. Unchecked pursuit of power is destructive and merciless as well as escalating. As Proverbs 27:20 says in the Contemporary English Version, "Death and the grave are never satisfied, and neither are we." The grave never protests when someone dies, "We're full up here. We aren't accepting any more death, sorry." Death is always ready to open up her insatiable arms for yet another. So is the lust that drives the malignant narcissist of all brands and stripes. Never satisfied. Never satiated. Never content. Never full.

Kathy Krajco defined what absolute power looks like:

What is absolute power? It's absolute control, possession. Surely you have recognized the lust for it in the bizarre crimes committed by psychopaths. Mike DeBardeleben, a sexual sadist serving a life sentence wrote in his journal that it is "to force her to undergo suffering without her being able to defend herself."

"Without her being able to defend herself" are the key words. It isn't enough to torment the victim: this must be done in a way that keeps her from resisting. That's absolute power, possession...

This is the ultimate in mental cruelty = making the victim bend over for it. Then the sick-o gets to pretend that the victim truly does "want it," has ceased to exist as a person (with a free will) and is but an appendage of his that he thus "proves" his absolute power over.

All narcissists do this in one way of another: they don't merely abuse, they FORCE SUBMISSION TO ABUSE. This makes them God, whose punishing wounds we are to shamefully accept as our fault. We are not to resist: we are to simply hang our heads as deserving of them... "What Makes Narcissists Tick" pgs. 104-105

Notice that what is required for this to work is for the narcissist to completely disarm their victims. No right to self-defense is allowed! This is what they must strip you of first before they can go on to pretend that you are submitting to them of your own free will. Like they deserve such submission and like you've freely given it. Either they will use psychological tactics to get you to feel you have no right to defend yourself, or, as in the case of the serial killer, they will arrange your physical circumstances to make it impossible for you to defend yourself and then break you down mentally.

I made an argument in this post that your most fundamental right as a living being is the right to self-defense. It is this very right which the narcissist will first try to convince you that you don't have. It is the right that the proxies and bystanders will tell you that you don't have. "Turn the other cheek" is the pious phrasing far too many victims of abusers have gotten for advice when they desperately have sought for help with their situation. It is essential that victims of narcissists are re-armed with the knowledge of their right to self-defense if they are ever going to be able to resist and break the narcissist's power over them.

Knowing that a narcissist is driven by their need for power over others, and knowing they are always in search of this headiest drug which is absolute power over others, then you'll also be aware that they must force your submission in order to feel powerful over you. All this leads straight to the fact that a narcissist must deprive you of your right to defend yourself to accomplish this. They will always do this by fraud, lies, and threats. They will bring in their proxies to help them get you to submit to that which no one should ever have to submit to. They want to be able to pretend that your forced submission is a real submission...and this can only be done if they successfully deprive you of your ability to defend yourself. Can you see how incredibly important it is to be fully aware of your right to NOT submit to abuse? I am convinced that no one breaks free of the power of a narcissist over them until they are able to claim for themselves the right to self-defense.

It is important to mention here one very tricky sleight-of-hand that a narcissist does to disarm someone from self-defense. This is accomplished by intentionally mislabeling your defensive behaviors as being "retribution" or "vengeance". They accuse you of hurting them. They pretend to know your motives and lay the accusation that any efforts you make to defend yourself are actually coming from your desire to hurt them. If they can convince you that you are being vengeful, or at least if they can convince you that others see you as being vengeful, then they can shut you down. Force your submission once again. This happens very often when a victim of a narcissist goes into no contact. The pious howling of the narcissist contends that your cutting them off is itself abusive and is therefore coming from a spirit of malice and revenge on your part. Your act of "no contact", which is as mild and non-reproachful of a way of dealing with a serial abuser that there is, becomes conflated to be proof of your cruelty, malice, and vengeance. Don't fall for such insane logic! Don't let someone convince you of having motives you don't have! Don't let the narcissist disarm you that easily!

I used "no contact" as merely one example of self-defense that can be mislabled by the narcissist. Any type of self-defense can be characterized this way by the narcissist and will be. Expect it. Be prepared for it. Don't fall for it.

As I've been writing this I've had a clear memory of my mother quite literally demanding that I "bend over for it." For the first ten years of my life spankings were dished out frequently. For a period of time when I was around five or six the spankings were daily events. My mother was nearly always in a foul temper and the slightest infraction would be severely punished. Here's how it would go.

I would be called into her bedroom. Many times both my sister and I were summoned at the same time. My mother would then, through her teeth, demand we stand at the foot of her bed and bend over for our spanking.

The reflexive reaction of someone anticipating pain on their backside is to protect that backside. The hands would go over our asses. The act of having to willfully bend over the bed was also contrary to the desire to protect oneself. I remember with perfect clarity the terrible stiffness of my posture as I had to work with all my power to force myself to bend over for what was coming. Then, if my little hands were still covering my butt my mother wouldn't spank. She would grit her teeth until I could hear them grind and demand that I put my hands in front of me. I don't know that I can describe the intense difficulty with which this was accomplished on my part. The fear of her rage escalating and punishment becoming even worse is how I convinced myself to comply.

I have no doubt now as I look back on this scene repeated so many times over in my life that my mother could pretend I believed I was deserving of every ounce of her rage and punishment because I would cooperate by bending over and not in any way resisting my punishment. She taught us from our earliest moments that if we ever attempted to run away from her when she came for us that it would be punished with overwhelming force. So, there were no chases around that bed or the house. No, every vestige of resistance was removed before she would commence pounding our asses. I have no memory of her ever spanking me while my hands were still covering my backside. She waited as long as it took to get the total compliance that must have made these sessions such a pleasure for her sadistic torture of her children.

My mother removed all other of my rights to self-defense as well, but the above is the most literal example of her demanding that I "bend over for it." My mother has for most of her life gotten most of her narcissistic thrills from the children in her power which included other people's children that were entrusted to her care. (How well do you know your daycare worker, hmm?)

She worked tirelessly to ensure that I didn't try to defend myself psychologically from her predations as well. All signs of resistance were squelched with ferocity and swiftness. I had to go "underground" in my resistance. It was a profound secret. I had to reach my mid-teens before I mounted an organized mental resistance to her cruelties and torments. All this was accomplished in the privacy of my thoughts. This is really the only place that children can resist the power of a narcissist's control. In their thought life. Never condemn a child for their compliance to an abusive parent. The parent holds absolute control over that child's life. The child is only trying to survive. The most sad thing is that many of these children grow up still convinced they have no right to defend themselves or their own children from the narcissist thus forcing subsequent generations to be blood supply for the vampiric family narcissist(s).

Remember, self-defense is directly related to the right to live. The narcissist makes their "living" by denying you have a right to live your own life. They will work tirelessly to convince you that "resistance if futile; you will be assimilated"...to quote the Borg in Star Trek. You don't have to be assimilated. Even if you are presently in a situation where it appears you have no power...you have your own mind. All self-defense starts there. In your private thoughts. Nurture those thoughts and circumstance will afford you opportunity at some point to escape because you'll be looking for those circumstances and will be ready to seize them the moment they appear.

Red Flag: Vandalizes Others' Images

2009-02-10T09:52:00.003-07:00

Next on Kathy Krajco's list of eight red flags of narcissism is this one which you're all very aware of if you've been dealing with a narcissist, "vandalizes other's images". I'll reproduce the majority of Kathy's commentary on this red flag from her book, "What Makes Narcissists Tick" pages 76-78:

Then there is the other side of the coin, which is an even more menacing sign of bad faith -- what narcissists do to the images of others. Consumed with pathological envy, they make themselves look good the bogus way, by making others look bad.

Overall, individuals high in narcissism displayed amplified responses to social comparison information, experiencing greater positive affect from downward comparisons and greater hostile affect from upward comparisons.

--Bogart, L.M., Benotsh, E.G. and Pavlovic, J.D. (2004), Feeling Superior but Threatened: The Relation of Narcissism to Social Comparison, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 26, Iss.1, pp. 35-44

In other words, malignant narcissists feel that praiseworthy information about you diminishes them, and they feel that denigrating information about you elevates them. Hence, like the raptor, narcissists must tear their betters "down off that pedestal" by maligning them. Therefore "malignant" is a good name for malignant narcissists, because every malignant narcissist's middle name is Malign.

Narcissistic rage, character assassination and projection are some of the overt ways in which the narcissist expresses himself. For example, she may envy a work colleague's beauty, and project her feelings into her colleague by accusing her of being envious.

-- Winning Teams: Can You Recognize a Narcissist? online at http://www.winning-teams.com/recognizenarcissist.html

Whom do narcissists malign? Almost everyone. If you suspect someone of being a narcissist, praise a person who obviously deserves it to him or her and observe their reaction. It shows.

Malignant narcissists speak well of very few others. Only their narcissistic parent (when no longer vulnerable to that parent) and anyone they can aggrandize themselves by association with at others' expense.

For example, if you don't get along with someone, the narcissist will say, "I get along with him fine." He will have nothing but praise for that person. Likewise, if you got bad service at a restaurant, the narcissist will say, "They gave me excellent service." The narcissist praises the other because it reflects badly on you and well on him.

Similarly, the narcissist with a trophy wife goes around praising her beauty. He's aggrandizing himself by association with her. And at the expense of everyone not good enough to win a trophy wife like his. He'll likewise aggrandize himself by association with some important person he knows, praising that person everywhere he goes to name-drop.

But such special cases are the only ones you hear a good word about from a narcissist. In fact, a narcissist will stubbornly refuse to admit any fault in them at all. They are ideal, perfect in his or her eyes.

But the rest of humanity get the opposite. Often, narcissists glibly sneak bad ideas about others into your head. They do this by chipping away at that person's image subtly and relentlessly every time they mention him or her. Often perfuming the bad offering to cover up its smell.

An example is the man who never spoke of his wife except when talking about something else and laughing that, "Yeah, and the wife got pretty shook up about it."

That doesn't sound so bad, does it? But often this was pure fiction. More important, is that the way you'd like to hear yourself spoken of? Is that the way you'd talk about someone you want others to like? What type of picture does that paint of her? Is his talk of her tending to make people think well of her and respect her? Does it endear her to them?

That narcissist would have blown a gasket if anyone had ever described him as easily shook up. Yet for forty years he relentlessly chipped away at his wife's image with little vandalizing remarks like that, never saying anything about her that made you tend to like and admire her. Always characterizing her in a way that diminished her.

In fact, this "shook up" thing is almost cultural, used by many men on women. So, ladies, here's a bazooka: Beat him to the punch in saying it -- tell him not to get "shook up," and watch the stunned look on his face. He suddenly will see offense in that remark.

However subtle the vandalism may be, you never hear a narcissist say anything about anyone that you would like to hear said about you.

Worse, narcissists are gossips. They eagerly listen to and spread slander. They are self-righteous finger-pointers, pulling the same stunt Lucifer did in the old Gnostic myth about Lucifer coming before God everyday and accusing the other angels of being bad. The result was "war in high places" until the good angels, lead by St. Michael the Archangel, cast down Lucifer (now called "Satan," that is, "the slanderer") to the status they deserve.

Narcissists can make it sound like a virtue, but giving others a bad name isn't a good deed. Even if the report is true, it cannot possibly be done in the spirit of goodwill unless it is done in true witness -- that is, responsible witness, on the record, not behind the back. Just because the badmouth perfumes his speech with words like love and Christian and concern and for the sake of our children (always the justification when there is no justification) and sports a halo does not change the spirit in which slander is done...

...If you know that narcissists are inveterate character assassins, it's easy to spot them. A narcissist has a trail of trashed good names and careers in his wake. He will even have told you strange and terrible lies about the people in his own immediate family.

If you know the person he is telling you something strange about, compare the accusation with your own observations. A narcissist will have ignored that person's real faults and smeared one of his or her virtues as a vice! And, if you know the narcissist, you'll find the narcissist himself is guilty of the very thing he's accusing this other person of.

******************************

It is rather disturbing to see how "okay" other people can be when they witness someone's image being vandalized and complacently go along with it. When the victim of the vandalizing protests then the victim is only providing some kind of "proof" of the false characterization of themselves. Shocking, really, to see how much people enjoy seeing other people's efforts and image get vandalized.

My dear ol' Ma was guilty of this little game after I had restricted her contact with me to only the written word in the wake of her disastrous visit to my home Thanksgiving 2002. In the two and a half years that followed this event I was still in contact with people who were in direct contact with my mother (as well as being still in contact by letter with my mother). This was unfortunate for her because I kept finding out what she was saying behind my back which, of course, was quite different than what she was willing to say to me directly.

For the first time in my life I had taken a very strong stand against her. Yes, many times before I had quietly bucked her, but now I wasn't pulling any punches with her. I clearly spelled out my objections to her behavior in my home and demanded accountability. What does she do? While mouthing artistic non-apologies to me she was singing a different song to the people around her. Here it was that the vandalism to my character began and here is how it went.

"Anna is having a hard time right now. I know that I have not been a perfect mother and this has made life very hard for Anna. She is battling with some issues from her childhood. It is so hard to see her struggling with this right now."

Oh, my freaking goodness. My mother at this time was terrified of me because I was showing real strength. She was cowering and simpering while trying to placate me. But behind my back she tries to look like the concerned mother who is watching her daughter's mental health deteriorate. So she smears my virtue (strength of character) with its opposite, weakness. She portrays me to others as being stuck in my "childhood issues" and as acting out against her because of my brokenness. I had finally grown up and was acting from principle where she was concerned and she would tell others that I was retrograding into a helpless child battling old demons. This was not said in a spirit of good will. This was intentional slander.

To say the least, I was infuriated by her perfidy. Especially since she had not even hinted to me any of this angle. It was totally and completely a concoction for her friends to smear me and thereby portray herself as a poor mother who has made a few mistakes and was therefore having to endure the heartbreak of watching a dear child decompensate mentally and emotionally.

All this vandalism was done with the soft tones of a broken-hearted mother. I'm sure her audiences pitied her grief on my behalf. I'm also sure they tried to hearten her with their deprecations of my ungrateful treatment of her.

I'm still disgusted with her for this. So underhanded. So utterly false. And it was a lie. She knew it was a lie. Yet again, in yet another way, she sacrificed one of her children on the altar of her self-worship. The child must die so the mother can live.

The slander and gossip can be done in such a way that it looks like the narcissist is filled with compassion for you. But like Kathy said, "However subtle the vandalism may be, you never hear a narcissist say anything about anyone that you would like to hear said about you."

There is a nasty tendency among all humanity to enjoy hearing nasty crap told about someone else. This gives the narcissists a real edge in life. Too often their hearers credit their slander and gossip with being truthful. If you don't already, rein in your credulity when confronted with some subtle or overt assault on another person's character. Change your knee-jerk response from looking askance at the person being gossiped about to looking askance at the person in front of you saying things that ding another person's character. Unless, like Kathy says, "it is done in true witness -- that is, responsible witness, on the record, not behind the back."

It occurs to me that some may accuse me of doing this very thing to my mother on my blog. I don't show my real name in order to hide the real names of my family, and my mother doesn't know of the existence of this blog. Doesn't that make me into the one who is slandering her behind her back? To that I simply say that I've put it all on the record with my mother. I have the paperwork to prove it. I've said nothing here that I haven't already dealt with her on. I'm on the record with my mother, father and sister. Names are changed here to protect the guilty, not the innocent. There is nothing here on this blog that I would be ashamed to have any of them read. I know it's the truth and so would they.

It is the restraining influence of my husband that has prevented me from sending them links to these pages. A very large part of me would love for them to read every word here. I agree with my husband, though, that it would be better that they found it on their own because otherwise they would accuse me of being unnecessarily unkind by forcing the knowledge that this blog exists onto them. It would support their accusations that I was doing this out of vindictiveness toward them. And since that is in no way true I will not do something to help them support that kind of accusation. I am motivated by compassion not revenge. Compassion for the victims of narcissism...not misplaced compassion for the narcissists nor some petty revenge. There are much better ways to get revenge than this if I was so inclined.

There are other good points Kathy has made in this section that I haven't commented or elaborated on. Ya'll can do that yourselves in the comments section.

No Contact: Because Their Evil is Contagious

2009-02-02T15:10:00.000-07:00

I loosely follow my stats. If I see a bunch of hits coming from one site then I'll follow the link to see what the chatter is. In no less than four different forums in the last month the subject of whether or not the narcissist can be saved has been going on. Whenever this subject comes up rather a lot of heat is generated on both sides. Both sides have very personal reasons for fighting for their view for reasons you can all likely understand. It is usually a Christian who is contending for the view of the narcissist that requires an eternal optimism for their salvation and which usually is the means of justifying, yea, demanding, that people never give up on them. When this subject comes up someone puts up a link to my site as support for the Narcissist Is Doomed to Hell view point.

I think I will, for the sake of future discussions along this line, clarify my position. I think my position is already clear but I'll make it more clear just because the emotionality of this subject seems to disengage some people's logic centers. I speak of those of the Never Give Up, Never Surrender ilk.

Here is what I haven't said. I haven't said that God can't save the narcissist. In fact, I've said the opposite. I have said that God can save the narcissist but with the addendum that He doesn't need YOU to do it! We must have an expiration date on our patience with evil doers.

A year ago I dealt at length with one of the apostle Paul's very clear commands concerning what we should do about those who practice evil in the church family (and by extension, our own families) in the post titled "From Such Turn Away". I don't believe that "love thy neighbor" negates the force of Paul's command. You can't take one text to annul another text and properly exegete the Bible. Context is everything. Too often people make a passage say something it isn't by not putting it into context. Apparent contradictions can be explained when one takes the effort to understand the big picture. I want to present a bigger picture on the Biblical view of what God's people are expected to do about evil in their midst by adding a few more texts into the mix.

Whether one reads the Old Testament or the New Testament it becomes clear rather quickly that God teaches that evil is contagious. There are so many parts of Scripture that teach this it would become very cumbersome to try to list them all. This truth is a given throughout all the Bible and is the very core understanding that is central to every Biblical command to separate from evildoers -- especially and primarily evildoers in the church and home.

It is this core truth which those Christians who insist on eternal patience with evil doers must either ignore willfully or who are just ignorant of all together. I'll say it again: evil is contagious. It is contagious because evil isn't satified to be evil all by itself. It actively works to co-opt you into its evil. And when you join them in their evil they applaud and approve of you (Romans 1:32).

You, the reader of this blog, have likely seen enough of the world and life to have your own observations to call upon to illustrate this truth. You've seen the contagion of evil infect from person to person in your own family. Or the workplace. Or perhaps you've found yourself co-opted for a time into someone else's evil deeds. The understanding that evil is contagious is understood by all good parents. Most parents will guard the associations of their children because they know that bad influences are very likely to lead children and teens into bad behaviors. Evil doers are never satisfied to be alone in their deeds. They want accomplices. To corrupt their peers is essential in order to be able to carry on their evil with a minimum of moral judgment or risk of exposure. Evil doers are not confined by truth or by morality if it stands in the way of getting what they want. So this amplifies the persuasive power of evil. Because it can and does lie to get its way; because it can create a false reality; because it can use the implements of cruelty, bribery, violence and exercise of any and all power it may possess without moral considerations -- all this increases the likelihood that evil doers will create other evil doers.

Having elaborated a bit in the paragraph above about the FACT that evil is like a virus that will infect those who remain in close contact with it I have again underlined the central reason I so energetically urge "no contact" with the malignant narcissist. To avoid picking up their traits, to avoid being used by them as a "cat's paw" to hurt others, to avoid becoming indifferent to evil and therefore more likely to be evil oneself, it is essential to separate yourself from it. For a Christian to urge the opposite is to reveal themselves to be profoundly ignorant of the Bible or, I fear, profoundly over-confident of their ability to not be co-opted by evil. A confidence the Scriptures do not urge us to have!

Another aspect of my urging "no contact" with evil doers is your responsibility to protect the most vulnerable and most innocent ones whom you are in a position to protect. This, too, is the Biblical view as the Bible holds those in positions of authority responsible for the temporal and eternal well-being of those in their care. So, even if you feel overly confident of your imperviousness to yielding to evil doers in your family or church I do not see on what basis you are confident of the unyielding nature of the vulnerable and innocent in your charge. Parents are responsible before God to protect their young from evil, church leaders for their 'flock', kings for their people, etc.

Evil doers in the family are not granted a special exemption by God! Evil doers are in the best position to harm those who are closest to them by reason of familial ties. Family ties are not any justification for evil else we condemn each new generation to endless repetititions of evil doers in the familial circle. The cycle has to be broken at some point or entire families will be destroyed. There are historical examples of this going back as far as recorded history goes. Like begets like. Evil spreads. Entire nations can be eventually consumed by unchecked evil in families.

All this means that Christians who agitate for the idea that we are not true, loving Christians if we don't emulate their own eternal patience with evil are actually only perpetuating evil rather than spreading good as they claim. Eternal patience with evil is equal with being a despiser of the good and the innocent!

Don't be cowed by the unflinching self-righteousness of those who claim to be better than you because they won't give up hope that God will save the narcissist. Recognize the false premise in their reasoning. They reason thus: if you walk away (i.e. give up on) the narcissist you have, at the same time, shown that you don't believe God can save the narcissist. Walking away says no such thing! God is not rendered powerless to save anyone just because you've had to go 'no contact' to end your exposure to their evil! Where in the Bible has God said that every person we will ever come in contact with will be saved by God through us?? It is no where even hinted at such a notion. The arrogance inherent in believing that God can only use YOU to save a particular person is quite odious when you recognize it for what it is. You are not that important. Or powerful. Get over yourself.

Some more texts to consider carefully because they enjoin us to separate from evil doers and trouble-makers.

Romans 16:17-18. Notice that those who are co-opted by the "divisive" ones are called naive. Other versions use the term "simple" or "simpletons". The Bible marks those Christians who can't discern the evil acts of their brothers in Christ to be simpletons. Remember that when one of those simpletons come to you to accuse you of being ignorant! Oh, the irony of it. Also remember that the Christian church is called a family and its structure is modelled on the family. What applies to the church family can be rightly applied to the family you were born into.

1 Corinthians 5:9-13. As in Paul's instruction to Timothy where he says "from such turn away" Paul is very specific about whom we should be shunning in his letter to the Corinthians. He says that if he told God's church to turn away from ALL evil doers then the Christian would have to leave the world. Paul says this is obviously impossible so obviously he wasn't telling Christians to avoid all the evil doers in the world. He was telling them how to deal with those in the church. This is entirely consistent with the view of the contagiousness of evil. That evil which is closest to us is the most dangerous form. Paul was much more concerned about prospering evil doers in the church than in the world at large because evil disguising itself in Christian garb is much more persuasive to other Christians than some stranger outside the circle of the church family. He concludes his admonition with this unequivocal command which is a quote from the Old Testament (Deut. 13:5), "Expel the wicked man from among you." There is no special clemency for evil doers just because they are in the family. The very opposite is true. Paul is clear that we are to judge those closest to us...not those furthest away. Those who call themselves family (church or birth) are the most accountable to us for their behavior!

The law that was handed down in the book of Deuteronomy was to govern the family of Israel. Israel was a family, a denominated church and a nation all rolled into one. We can learn much from God's commands to Israel about both church and family government. We don't see God telling His people to cut extra slack to evil doers in their families or nation. No slack cutting...cut them off is the command! Paul's quoting of this command in the New Testament shows that its instruction is in full force for the Christian.

Please note that Paul puts sexual immorality next to greed. Idolatry is just as evil as slander. A drunk is as evil as the swindler. However you may categorize evil, if you call yourself Christian I hope you won't put yourself above Paul and describe greed or slander as less evil than the other sins listed. The habit of those who've long lived with the evil narcissist have usually come to excuse greater sins than these in them. Don't minimize what the Bible calls evil and exhorts you to separate yourself from!

Psalm 26:4-5, NIV A psalm of David. "I do not sit with deceitful men nor do I consort with hypocrites; I abhor the assembly of evildoers and refuse to sit with the wicked." Which Christian is it who can claim to be better esteemed of God than David? I daresay, none. Will you show your greater righteousness by sitting with the wicked and joining in their assemblies?

Psalm 97:10, NIV "Let those who love the LORD hate evil, for he guards the lives of his faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked." Are you better than the Lord Himself? He hates evil. Do you? Notice the promise of deliverance from the hand of the wicked. What would that be but a promise of 'no contact'. A blessed relief from their persecutions.

Proverbs 2 Click on the link to read its entirety. In it Solomon explains the blessings that proceed from listening to and acquiring wisdom and understanding. "Discretion will protect you,
and understanding will guard you. Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, who leave the straight paths to walk in dark ways, who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways." Wisdom and understanding are presented as the means whereby God can protect you from wicked people. Hello!!??? Can you hear me?? You can be an idiot and make it impossible for God to protect you! You were given a brain and are expected by God to use it. What does this chapter end with but this rather good news, "the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the unfaithful will be torn from it." Again, I ask, who of you is better than God who cuts off the wicked? From my view none of you are better than God Himself. Therefore, I will not listen to you who believe that the "good" Christian will never cut off the malignant narcissist. I can only see you as a coddler of the wicked not a protector of the innocent and the virtuous. Your eternal patience for the evil doer is taken by them to be a license to continue on as they are. Never cutting them off allows the evil doer to feel justified in what they are and in what they do.

It is because God loves people that He instructs them to cut off the wicked. It is not from hatred of the evil person himself. God hates evil because it destroys the evil doer and all those in the evil doer's grasp. The Bible records that God has many times executed the death penalty upon the wicked and many choose to see Him as being too harsh for doing so. Yet they would forget the many crimes of the wicked to accuse God in that way. God has killed evil doers with the express purpose of saving those who are still save-able. He states clearly that He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. (Ezekiel 33:11) The destruction of the wicked is elsewhere called His "strange act" (Isaiah 28:21). Be assured, cutting off the wicked is an act of justice and mercy dispensed by God to preserve those not given over to evil. Don't pretend to be better than God Himself by refusing His instructions to distance yourself from those who won't distance themselves from evil deeds. He expects you to use wisdom. Wisdom is the conduit whereby He is able to shape circumstance to protect you. Wisdom is a function of logical thought. Which means you follow your head and not your fickle little heart when confronted with having to deal with evil. Family ties are not an automatic exemption from all instruction concerning evil. Family is more accountable to us, not less, for their closeness.

I'll say it one more time before closing. Cutting off the evil narcissist is not a commentary on your believing that God can't save that person. Going no contact with the malignant narcissist doesn't mean God has gone no contact with him. Please, don't be a simpleton. God can still reach them even if you never speak another word to them. Because the Biblical instruction to the Christian is unequivocal that we must "Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person", don't expect God's protection if you refuse His clear command on this point. And believe me, there will come a day when the trap springs and there will be no help for you.

"Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you. Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse." Prov. 2:11-12

"A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it." Prov. 22:3

New Tag Line

2009-01-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

I decided this week I have found a new tag line for my blog. It captures the essence of what I'm doing here:

"It is much easier to make good men wise than to make bad men good."

This quote is pulled from Henry Fielding's book, "Tom Jones" first published in 1749. With a little thought I'm sure you can see why this quote fits my blog's effort. I don't advocate here that we spend our time, energy or resources on trying to make narcissists good. There is far too great a weight of evidence that it would be wasted effort on the narcissist. All my effort here is expended on making you, the reader, wise. So I apply my energy to that activity which has much better chance at success: helping good people to become wise people. I would be an abysmal failure if I channeled my efforts at trying to make "bad men good". Narcissists definitely fall into the category of "bad". There are enough apologists out there for the narcissist. My work here is entirely for those who've been caught like mice in the cat's paw.

Another thing I love about this quote is its antiquity. I love any illustration that some truths are timeless. Human nature is a constant like the law of gravity. Which is why history is so instructive for those who are interested in avoiding past follies and disasters.

End announcement of new tag line debut.

Regularly scheduled programming resumes:

My last post focused on people who use control to force people to do what they want. It is a red flag behavior in anyone it shows up in including people who can't be classified as a malignant narcissist. I have an aside along this line of thinking.

It is inevitable that I occasionally annoy, tick off and generally irritate a small percentage of people as they interact here on my blog or in email. This happens when my enduring persistence in telling the truth as I see it interferes with someone's opinions. Not everyone welcomes my honest opinions when it comes to a pet rock they are holding onto for dear life. My contradiction of their pet idea only makes me look like a 'bad guy' to them. This means that a typical scenario sets up with some regularity. I'm going to address it now.

I just want those of you who are offended by my frankness to let you know something about me. Writing to me in the comments that you are no longer going to comment on my blog is not perceived by me as a threat nor a punishment. This blog is not going to deteriorate in quality just because you no longer deign to grace it with your comments. Neither are you going to make me feel like a bad person because you're offended. I'm not going to suddenly throw my arms up and give in just to make sure no one out there thinks less of me.

Apparently, it isn't evident to some that I am impervious to such manipulations via guilt and shame. All you will do is make me think less of you for trying to punish me for simply holding a contrary opinion to your own.

Ah, yes, I can hear the denials that the intent is to punish me, but I would call such denials lies.

Because if you weren't trying to punish me then you'd simply shut up with not another word said. You would not send in ONE LAST COMMENT to make sure I KNOW that your silence is filled with your oppobrium. This method has been used on me frequently enough over the years that it simply makes me roll my eyes. It is not my problem if you are so easy to offend. Especially since I am obviously not trying to offend.

I was an owner of a ladies-only religious group for three years. This is where I was first confronted by this method of attempting to control me and what I say. I am pretty sure it has only been women who have tried this method of control on me. IT WON'T WORK. It has never worked. You're not so important that it'll suddenly start working because you're doing it.

Here's the deal with me. I am not here doing what I do because I need attention or praise. I'm neither elated by your praise nor dejected by your censure. This is not a work of ego. I don't need other people's approval for the opinions I hold, nor do I relinquish my opinions simply because someone doesn't like them. Think about it. I have successfully gone "no contact" with my parents for years now. My sister too. Do you really think that your disapproval of me means anything??

So, if you plan to fire off that last comment telling me you won't be commenting anymore please take in the above. You haven't unsettled me. You haven't changed my mind. I don't feel like I'm "bad" because your knickers are in a twist. I think less of you, not myself, for your petty little attempt to control and/or manipulate and/or punish me. If you wanna dress me down then have the courage to send that message in an email where you can run the risk of having to hear back from me. Putting in a comment you feel pretty sure that I won't put through means you want the last word with out giving me any opportunity to discuss the matter with you privately. This is another indication that you're trying to punish me and not behave like an adult with another adult.

Just so's ya'll know the score. I think I'll be tacking this onto my comment policy for future reference since this scenario pops up like a perennial weed.

Controlling others vs. Self Control

2009-01-20T13:35:00.003-07:00

A universal trait of malignant narcissists and every other version of evil person is their need to control you. Not themselves. You. This trait of the evil is so universal that you must put it in the red flag category.

It is quite possible to not be a malignant narcissist and still find yourself trying to control other people. If you recognize that you can be controlling then it is time to rein yourself in. I would recommend other people to see it as a red flag in your behavior too regardless of the fact that you don't demonstrate yourself to be a malignant narcissist. Trying to control other autonomous human beings is weakness not strength. It always lends itself toward evil outcomes. It is morally wrong.

In contrast with the evil who try to control everyone (and everything) in their sphere is that of the person with self-control. When you observe how someone interacts with you do you see them exerting consistent self-control in their own lives? Or are they mostly focused on controlling their external world including you? Those with genuine self-control do not try to control others.

There are some who make some high profession of having self-control yet who are actually very controlling of others. What gives with that? How can you know if it is a red flag in that person?

I'll make my case by using my own mother as an example. We'll call this, "The Time My Mother Got it Right".

One of my mother's soundtracks which she implanted in my head at a young age, so young that I don't know exactly when I started hearing it, goes like this, "If you find yourself controlling others then you know who is controlling you." This was the opening line for her little sermonette on how it is the devil who is the one controlling you if you are a person who enjoys controlling others as it is his nature to control. Wow. She got that one right. Who better to know "the devil made me do it" than a handmistress of the devil himself! If you don't believe in a being such as the devil then all you have to do is insert the word 'evil' where you see the word 'who' and you get the same result. "If you find yourself controlling others then you know evil is controlling you."

My mother lectured on this subject very often. Not just to her own children but to anyone who happened to be under her control at the time. This leads us into the very first red flag of eight for narcissism listed by Kathy Krajco which I promised I was going to re-post here on my blog. Here we go.

Red Flags of Narcissism

Since narcissists are such expert con artists, how do you spot them? By not judging by appearances. Or reputation.

A specific behavior, such as being haughty, inconsiderate, or ignoring someone, can occur in widely varying contexts. So, it can be done for many reasons, not just narcissistic reasons. Nonetheless, there are few behaviors so unique to persons suffering from NPD that they should serve as red flags.

Here are eight red flags:

puts on a conspicuous display of goodness and kindness

damages the images of most others

has a history of past upheavals

is hated for mysterious reasons by people close to them

exhibits unnatural and perplexing behavior -- backwards reactions to things

is a control freak, trampling privacy/boundaries

is extremely self-absorbed

has a hostile reaction to attention and credit given others

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I interrupt Kathy here to point out that she doesn't claim that this list of red flags is exhaustive. But a short list is quite helpful if you're trying to avoid the malignantly narcissistic people you may run into in your life. She doesn't call them "THE eight red flags". She says, "Here are eight red flags". Yes, there are others. But having this short list in the forefront of your mind will help you weed out 99.9% of narcissists.

Now, Kathy elaborates a bit on the first red flag she has listed and the one I want to call to your attention.

**************************************

Shows Off Goodness and Kindness

I used to give people who made a show of religiousness, kindness, caring, or any other goodness the benefit of the doubt. I am really sorry I didn't listen to my common sense that doing things to be seen doing them is fraud, not just adultery. I don't expect you to take my word for it, but this is what my life has taught me: anyone putting on the goody-two-shoes act a little too thick I get away from, because I know they're just using it as make-up to cover a zit.

In other words, they're dis-simulating their true selves. The aim is to carve out a false image that is the antithesis -- negative -- of their true selves. It's a work of art, not the real thing.

The truly good, kind, and caring do good to do it, not to be seen doing it. And the difference between them and show-offs is obvious. "What Makes Narcissists Tick" page 75

**************************************

Back to my controlling mother preaching against being controlling. Here is what I now see was going on. Preaching against being controlling was the "goodness" she was slathering onto herself to throw off suspicion about her own controlling behaviors especially since she always put this lecture in a religious context. It was part of her profession of being "above all that" by lecturing frequently on the evils of being controlling. It was very effective. She would also very often say to me, "I'm the least controlling person I know." !!! This was usually stated when there was some overt evidence of her being controlling. She reserved the right to redefine reality for everyone so when she'd say this we'd all go along because it was easier than not going along. We'd been taught to deny reality because she had established herself as the only one really able to define it. All children of narcissists understand what I just said. They've lived it.

Another thing going on with my mother was her insistence on having no competition. She was reserving to herself the right to be controlling and didn't want to have to deal with her underlings getting uppity and trying to control her. Which happened anyway. Her youngest daughter became an adept at manipulating and controlling our mother. The power struggle was fierce between them. But if my mother could convince her underlings that being controlling was evil then she'd have a much more free reign to be the one in ascendency. She was trying to control us by convincing us to not use control of others for ourselves. It was not a sermon based on true conviction in her own soul that being controlling of others is wrong. It was a sermon designed to make sure she was the only one putting the screws to people! No competition allowed! Yet another example of how a narcissist tries to control other people by using their consciences.

My mother's understanding of the most basic characteristic of evil -- that of being controlling of others -- was the knowledge she acquired by practice of the same. Also, she knows enough about Bible truth to condemn herself to all to hell. How is she going to plead ignorance before the Almighty when He asks her why she didn't practice what she preached? We are especially condemned when we know to do right and refuse to. "Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." James 4:17 NIV

Again, I want you to look at the contrast of a person who is controlling of others and the person who is self-controlled. The Bible exhortations for self-control are many. Paul listed self-control as one of the evidences of God's spirit working in your life. Peter had something to say on it too, "Knowing God leads to self-control..." 2 Peter 1:5. So, my mother was right. If someone demonstrates a pattern of consistent behavior of being controlling of others it means that a spirit altogether opposite of God's spirit is actuating them.

Christians would do well to remember this because far too often Christians can justify to themselves that controlling others for some higher cause is right and good. Being a Christian gives you no license to control others. You have enough to do in just controlling yourself. If you let yourself become distracted from the internal work of self-control you will, inevitably, try to control others. Just because you see yourself as a Christian in no way diminishes the evil that proceeds from trying to force your way onto others. Even if your intentions are good. Even if you have a Bible injunction to wave in their faces. It is one thing to instruct others in truth and another thing altogether to try to force them into doing what you want or what you think is right. Don't confuse a preacher's good work of "instruction in righteousness" with being controlling. The two are not synonymous. Instruction is a world apart from trying to force the will of another through deception, manipulation, punishment, etc.

It is fair to state that the less self-control a person exerts in their own life the more likely it is that person will try to control their world by controlling YOU. We all yearn for control. It is a natural bent of human nature to try to control our external world. This includes circumstances, people and even material things. This need to control our environment often leads to trying to control others because it is easier than controlling oneself. The hardest thing of all is self-control. Look at the narcissist for proof of that. I have asserted in another blog post that the evil course is the easy course. The path of least resistance is the downward course that our selfish desires take. Self-control is like paddling upstream against our very nature. The narcissist is determined to take the luge run to hell which means you see very little self-control exerted by them. As I've stated in yet another, and more recent, post -- they only exert enough self-control to keep from getting caught in their crimes. Though they can get careless and forget to control themselves when they should in order to keep their evil from being perceived. This limited use of self-control is unworthy of praise or commendation.

Let me point out at this juncture that my mother demonstrates a few compulsive behaviors that resemble OCD. In her case, and I will assert that in ALL cases of narcissism, this is an extension of the desire to control her world. Her external world. It is not an extreme version of self-control. It is an extreme version of trying to control the external world. Don't be fooled by the narcissist's OCD as being some manifestion of rigorous self-control. It is not. My mother actually uses her compulsive behaviors as some kind of proof of her being self-controlled. Like a grand act of self-flaggellation equals the quiet act of self-control. Austerity doesn't necessarily equate to self-control. It is usually a substitute for it. OCD in the narcissist is an outgrowth of their fear and is the attempt to convince themselves they are in control of their world.

You get a two-fer today. Two red flags of narcissism. Number one: Being controlling of others is a central hallmark of the evil and must be considered a red flag even in someone you would not necessarily think is a narcissist. Number two: Slathering on a high profession of goodness is a sign of someone hiding the opposite. In my mother's case the two behaviors coincide in a most interesting manner. She used the one to hide the other to great effect on me (and others) for many, many years. I finally had to stop believing the high profession because it was constantly clashing with her consistent behaviors.

If you can give yourself permission to always believe the actions over the words you will save yourself so much trouble. It is a piece of hard-earned advice that I give on this blog many times over which, if people only took that one piece to heart, would save themselves a world of hurt.

Do They Have Feelings?

2009-01-11T11:30:00.004-07:00

This question was somewhat addressed by me in my post, They DO Have Empathy...Just Not for You. I mentioned that the narcissist has oodles and bunches of compassion (empathy) but only enough for themselves. You don't get any.

The "Do They Have Feelings?" question is answered in the same way: Yes, they do, but only for themselves.

In my experience with narcissists (which includes a larger circle than just my mother and sister for you folks who think I extrapolate off of only those two) the more narcissistic a person is the easier it is to hurt their feelings. They have the tenderest little feelings. Boo, f8&king, hoo. They can be the biggest ass about your feelings, but watch the tears (or rage) start when you accidentally bump into one of theirs!

I feel the need to ask (and answer) this question even though it appears to be the same question as to whether or not the narcissist has empathy. They are essentially the same question, but not everyone realizes that fact. Sometimes phrasing things a little differently can allow the lights to come on for someone who didn't get it on the first pass.

The sensitive, tender little feelings that the narcissist has for themselves is an extension of the empathy they have for themselves. They refuse to feel your pain, but they expect you to feel theirs! I use the word 'refuse' advisedly. It is a willful act on their part to unacknowledge the pain they inflict upon you. They know what they're doing. Their empathy allows them to know how you feel. They simply refuse to feel anything for your sake.

I'm going to cast the net a bit wider than just narcissists here. Anyone who is in a relationship with an abusive person has seen how sensitive the abuser's feelings are. People who stay in abusive relationships seem to be those who can't see the huge disconnect in their own thinking. The disconnect is this wide gulf between the abuser's lack of empathy for you at the time they're abusing you and yet how carefully you have to step around the abuser's feelings at all times! The common refrain among those caught in abusive relationships is "walking on eggshells". The abuser's feelings rein supreme at all times. Everyone else is expected to cowtow to, step around, coddle, soothe, and respect the feelings of the abuser at all times. Yet, when the abuser needs to unload, he or she reserves all rights to decimating and destroying your feelings and self-respect until they feel better. It is a sick, sick dynamic. And it is perpetuated by largely by the victim's non-recognition of the absolute unfairness of this system.

I somehow doubt I can cut through the rationalizations of someone who is currently in this dance with an abusive person since I've so recently failed to with someone I know and care about. The armor-plating around some people's reasoning centers are fairly well-fortified. Maybe I can make a dent though.

I have been using the term "abuser" instead of narcissist because I am personally aware of the fact that some who are intermittently emotionally cruel and abusive to someone close to them may fall short of full malignant narcissism. I want to catch all abusers in my descriptions in this post, not just those who are full-blown narcissists. I have observed through my nearly half-century of life that those who are capable of being cruel and abusive emotionally to someone they ostensibly "love" are the exact same people with very tender regard for their own feelings. They are so easy to offend unintentionally by a look or a word. Keep in mind as you continue reading that I'm talking about those whom we find ourselves time and again unintentionally setting off. That is a red flag. Someone who is easily offended for reasons that are never clear to you at the time.

Have you ever noticed how an emotionally well-balanced person is very easy to be around? When we describe someone as being easy to be around we are describing someone who is not prone to having their feelings easily hurt among other characteristics. People who are very insecure as well as immature are the easiest to offend unintentionally. Of course, that describes all malignant narcissists, but it can also include those who are very narcissistic but are not a full-blown case of NPD.

Let me say it another way. The more self-involved someone is, the more hyper-sensitive their feelings become. Many teens are a good example of the combination of insecurity and immaturity which makes it very easy to step on their feelings before you realize what you've done. Adults who are emotionally arrested at their teens will continue to be very easily offended and will often justify being at least occasionally abusive to those close to them.

Don't confuse my use of the words "hyper-sensitive" to mean what the narcissist means when they accuse you of being hyper-sensitive because your feelings are hurt by their cutting remarks or cruel behaviors. I'm talking about the kind of sensitivity we call "walking on eggshells" which describes how people act when they never know what will set that person off. Which means that offense is taken where a reasonable person would never even think to get offended over such things. Narcissists often pretend to be offended in order to steer the behaviors of those around them to suit their purposes. It is a manipulation tactic to constantly be looking for reasons to be offended as the narcissist does. But, in addition to the intentional offense that narcissists take over what would never be perceived as a slight by a normal person, the narcissist is easy to offend in actuality. Pop their grandiosity bubble, fail to reflect their illusion of themselves back to them as they want you to, remind them of reality in any way they have chosen to ignore, fail in any way to give them what they want even if they haven't told you what they want, and you'll find yourself dealing with the intensely offended narcissist. Most times you've unintentionally done it. That never gets you off the hook.

The brilliant and incisive Kathy Krajco asks the question "Do They Have Feelings?" in her book What Makes Narcissists Tick. And she answers the question:

Yes! Very, very tender feelings!

She proceeds to tell a story about a narcissist husband/father who was demonstrating the most insensitive and uncaring behavior while his wife lay dying in the hospital. All his behaviors were focused on not giving an ounce of attention to his dying wife. His eldest daughter was outraged and angry enough at his behavior to toy with the idea of literally kicking him in the ass as he stood there with his back to both his wife and herself. A look from her mother indicated the mother appreciated that the daughter could see what the father was doing and appreciated the solidarity of feeling with the daughter. It was enough. The mother waved her hand in a way that indicated he wasn't even worthy of their contempt. So the daughter kept her foot to herself, but she opted for another way of giving him some of his own medicine back.

The narcissist had no idea what had gone one behind his back in silence and how close he had come [to getting a foot in his ass]. A minute later he left for another buzz around the hospital. Another daughter arrived, and when he came barging back in loud-mouthing to interrupt their conversation and command all attention, the older daughter kept right on talking as if he were not there. The mother and the other daughter glanced back-and-forth between them several times before they caught on and nearly blew it by laughing at this chance to give the unfeeling brute a dose of his own medicine. They played along, as though intently interested in whatever trivial thing the older daughter was saying just to keep talking through him as if he were not there.

His reaction to this teeny-weeny dose of his own medicine? You should have seen the hurt and devastated look on that poor little kicked puppy-dog's face! He was deeply, deeply wounded by this callous treatment! He acted like a sheepish little boy who could not imagine why or how people could be so cruel to him! He just hung his head and walked back out of the room like someone in utter dejection who wants to go crawl in a hole.

Yes, a narcissist has very, very tender feelings. But only for himself. For anyone -- anyone -- else he is as devoid of human feeling as a brute, cold-blooded, predatory beast. Think of the inhuman, mindless, machinelike look in the eye of a snake slowly, slowly swallowing whole it's live, wriggling-in-agony prey.

That's how much "feeling" your narcissist has for you -- exactly as much as that snake has for it's prey = zero. "What Makes Narcissists Tick" pgs. 286-287

This is cold, hard reality with the malignant narcissist and abusive types some ways along on the narcissitic continuum.

Do you find yourself flagellating yourself when you "hurt" the feelings of someone who regularly abuses you and your feelings? What is up with that??? Why would you waste one more moment telling yourself you're a mean, "bad" person when you see that hurt puppy-dog look in your abuser's eyes? I know people who beat themselves up for simply pointing out REALITY to their abuser only to have REALITY hurt the little abuser's feelings. For instance, "I am going to be really busy today so you won't be seeing much of me on your day off. Don't expect me to have time to sit down and chat with you because I have today scheduled to get ready for Christmas." This statement sent a dear friend of mine into paroxysms of regret because she felt like she was being "mean" and a "bitch" because she knew even before she said it that it would offend the hearer. Even so, the words came out of her mouth matter-of-factly. She saw her matter-of-fact statement of TRUTH as being deliberately hurtful to this person because she went ahead and said it anyway knowing it would 'hurt' his feelings. She was all over herself for being "mean". Just a day or so before this person she was addressing had emotionally abused her for an hour over the most unpredictable and irrational thing until HE felt better. Nothing she said or did could assuage him. He simply had to abuse her until he started feeling better. Yet, she makes this matter-of-fact statement and because REALITY sucked for him...his feelings were 'hurt'. She told me in agonizing tones how horrible she felt immediately after saying it because she could see the 'hurt' in his eyes as he toddled off to his bedroom. She was fearful she said what she did in partial retaliation for what had happened a day or so before. Hyper-conscience at work here.

I am close to this person yet I am fairly sure I could say nothing to convince her that she didn't say something mean. I couldn't seem to convince her of the absolute absurdity of having to be so overly careful of his widdle feelings when he demonstrates over and over and over again that HER feelings don't matter one shit as far as he's concerned. How do I break through? Is there even a point to this blog post that will penetrate such thinking? I have no idea. But I'm trying.

Please, please do not overlook the huge disparity in your relationship between how that person treats your feelings and how you're expected by them to treat theirs.

By no means am I sanctioning being cruel (for cruelty's sake) to them. But denying someone the attention they expect (tacitly demand) is not "mean". Telling them you're going to be forced to deny them attention because of other demands on your time and energy is not mean. Being matter-of-fact about something you know will "offend" them is not mean. If a grown adult can't handle REALITY without getting their feelings all bent out of shape then you're dealing with a very, very selfish and immature person at the very least. And likely you're dealing with a narcissist since you're reading here at my site, "Narcissists Suck".

I'd like to insert at this point that abusers will act like they care about your feelings. This is strategic, intermittent, and shallow. Whenever the rubber hits the road, for all the times the abuser has acted concerned about how you feel, you find yourself once again treated like crap on his or her shoe when you most need a kind word or some concern. They will sometimes, maybe even often, mouth words of caring and concern about you and your feelings, but it never seems to translate into something real when you most need them to give a damn. Remember my maxim: when the words stand in contradiction to the behaviors you must believe the behaviors! What we do (or refuse to do when action is called for) is the measurement of our character and our intentions. Our words don't mean jack if they are not followed through with and supported by our action.

You may be someone with an overly honed conscience. Like my dear friend above. She has a conscience big enough for several people! Abusive types get away with a lot when they have your very sensitive conscience to manipulate. There is such a thing as having an ill-informed and hyper conscience, and it needs to be corrected at times. Hyper consciences usually translate into you allowing yourself to be used and abused time and again because standing up for yourself somehow feels wrong. Putting your foot down feels wrong. Making some clear boundaries feels wrong. All this misplaced guilt stems from wrong-thinking. Our consciences are influenced by our thinking. When we think in wrong lines it will negatively impact our conscience by either damping our conscience down (as narcissistic thinking does) or it can put our consciences into over-drive (neurotic thinking).

Consciences aren't infallible measurements of morality or duty. Conscience must be tested against reason and objective standards to be properly calibrated. It is not reasonable to have to tiptoe around another person's feelings all the time. Neither is it automatically immoral to 'hurt' someone feelings. And just because something 'feels' wrong doesn't automatically mean it is wrong.

If you've been raised by a narcissist the narcissist worked your conscience over pretty good. They miscalibrated your conscience intentionally so it would tell you that you're being "mean" or "bad" simply because you've not given them what they want. (Even just living a long time with a narcissist will likely cause you to miscalibrate your conscience so it aligns with the narcissist's demands.) Rationally, you can think this through. Is it automatically wrong to deny someone wants or wishes? Rationally, you can say "no". Is it automatically wrong if someone's feelings get hurt because of what you've said or done? Again, "no" is the logical answer. If you're going to free yourself from an abusive relationship you're going to have to work on re-calibrating your conscience so it works properly and doesn't keep you enslaved to the abuser's whims. You do this by examining your thinking. By reassessing the premises you base your thinking upon. This calls for some introspection...you know, that quiet activity a narcissist never engages in. Sites like this one attempt to help you in that process of getting your thinking straight. Your conscience will follow.

But today's thought is simply this: the narcissist/abuser has tender feelings that they coddle and caress and expect you to do the same for their poor little feelings. Conversely, they will trample, disregard and spit on your feelings. This is a sign of their basely selfish and corrupt natures and isn't your cue to capitulate. Expect them to be 'hurt' when you state reality. Expect them to look wounded to the core when you don't perform properly your "duty" by them. Remember 'til your dying day that the narcissist and the abuser are filled with the tenderest sympathy for themselves, but can spare none or little for you. This is a grotesque reality you mustn't pretend away. Stop the crazy bus and get off! There is something seriously wrong with a person who has feelings only for their own pain. Period. Every psychopath has feelings for himself. The same psychopath gets a total thrill from hurting your feelings. Even if we're only talking about someone who emotionally abuses you on occasion so they can feel better it is the same principle. Someone who ignores your pain but has all kinds of compassion for their own pain is a sick sonafabitch. Steer clear.

The Reddest Red Flag of Narcissism

2009-01-05T12:40:00.002-07:00

As many of you likely know, Kathy Krajco compiled an excellent list of the "red flags of narcissism" in her book, "What Makes Narcissists Tick". I find myself wanting to reprint her list with the descriptions because they are so valuable for people trying to assess the level of malignancy of the person they're having to deal with. Perhaps I'll do that over time. What I'll do today, though, is highlight what Kathy called the "reddest flag".

Before I get to that. I've been on a true crime jag over the last six weeks (one book tends to lead to another). I started in on reading after the last national election. Not being at all confident in all the hope changiness being promised I'm checking out. I find true crime a much more cheerful topic right now than politics. I've now read several volumes of true crime since the week before Thanksgiving. The latest I read was a story about a man who exhibited every single trait of malignant narcissism while living with a decent woman who just couldn't discern the danger she was in until it was too late. It was hard to see a woman so bereft of knowledge of the workings of a pathological personality that she couldn't believe this man capable of murder until he finally resolved to kill her after their many years together. She needed this list of red flags. Desperately. He demonstrated every single one of them. Over and over again.

Another aside: I want to state something clearly for the record. I got an email from a moron who had just found my blog last week and decided to tell me all he saw was that I was male-bashing while using pseudo-psychological terms (??!) to pathologize people who may just be assholes and not actually evil. It was his understanding that people are "okay" unless and until they break the law (!!!!). I didn't bother to respond to this person because his every assertion demonstrated such idiocy that there was no place for our minds to meet. The silliness of accusing me of male-bashing is utterly unworthy of a personal response. Hello? I write from the perspective of a person who was used and abused by two FEMALE narcissists! My blog makes it clear I don't believe that males have a corner on abusive and narcissistic behavior. For the record: when I refer to a book that happens to tell the story of a male narcissist who becomes a murderer that is not a sign that I think all narcissists are male. Gender terms are used interchangeably here on this blog. I believe that narcissists are likely split about evenly according to sex. I believe that females are much harder to catch at it because they are subtler, sneakier and less likely to be overtly physical with abuse which means they come to the attention of authorities less often. In other words, they get away with their NPD more often. I have a special hatred for females in narcisssit form because of their subtlety and because of what they can do to their children while hiding under the cloak of motherhood. Kapeesh? You only have to do a minimum of perusal on this blog to ascertain my perspective on the subject and comprehension skills of at least high school level.

Eight red flags of narcissism as listed originally by (deceased) Kathy Krajco:

puts on a conspicuous display of goodness and kindness
damages the images of most others
has a history of past upheavals
is hated for mysterious reasons by people close to them
exhibits unnatural and perplexing behavior -- backwards reactions to things
is a control freak, trampling privacy/boundaries
is extremely self-absorbed
has a hostile reaction to attention and credit given others

I am very grateful for Kathy's wise discernment on the dangerousness of a person who demonstrates the reddest red flag: "exhibits unnatural and perplexing behavior -- backwards reactions to things". It isn't just 'odd' or 'off-putting' to see someone exhibiting this red flag. It is a DANGER SIGNAL. It must be taken seriously. To explain it away, to pretend you didn't see what you saw is to keep yourself in a place of DANGER. Have I used the word "danger" enough yet? Okay, here is Kathy's elaboration on this red flag:

The reddest red flag is perverted behavior. Leave out the sexual connotation: I use that word perverted because it means "thoroughly twisted" or "turned backwards." Any act can be perverted. Perverted behavior is the extreme opposite of what is called for. This is behavior that goes against nature, behavior that makes you want to pinch yourself. In other words, it's a surprise, a shock, the last thing you expected.

Like maybe everyone in a classroom was sitting up straight with all eyes riveted upon Teacher and you could have heard a pin drop. Ka-BOOM! He flies into a snarling rage at some kid he won't identify as though that kid just flipped him the bird or something.

Or maybe you've been dating him for six months, and he has been saying from day one that he wanted you to marry him. You finally tell him you love him. Ka-BOOM! He gets mad and tells you that you don't love him. And demands that you wear your hair a different way. If you really love him, you will, you know.

Perplexing.

In my experience, afterwards you are unable to say what the blow-up was even about. That isn't normal. When you have an argument with a normal person, afterwards you can say what it was about.

Though such off-the-wall flights into rage are the most memorable instances of perverted behavior, they aren't the only kind. In fact, other kinds are more telling.

For example, take a situation that has a nearly irresistible pull on the heartstrings. Imagine that some person in the room is suffering great grief and sorrow and breaks down into tears. Seeing that affects normal people like gravity, attracting them to that person to comfort her or him. But what does a narcissist do? The exact opposite. Remember, she must deny attention to that person. So, you'd think anti-gravity was impelling her out the door on the far end of that room as she hurries out jabbering cheerily about everything BUT what is going on.

That's what I mean by "perverted" reactions to things -- weird, backwards reactions to things. Behaviors that make you feel like you just stepped into The Twilight Zone and need to pinch yourself.

It's always a sign that a person is dangerous in some way. Perverted behavior is characteristic of psychopaths and malignant narcissists. Normal people rarely exhibit perverted behavior unless under extreme pressure to do so, and even normal people are dangerous at such times. For, that's when "normal" people all look the other way to allow things like the Holocaust while pretending that they don't know what's going on.

Inappropriate laughter is an example of perverted behavior. I'm not talking about the inappropriate laughter that sometimes comes from a nervous or self-conscious person, or from people under a great weight of fear, pressure or sorrow. That's a release, and we understand it. I'm talking about inappropriate laughter that makes you wonder where it came from.

For instance, when the Challenger (space shuttle) exploded on take-off, we saw it live on television. As with the 9/11 Attack, the networks replayed the spectacular footage every two minutes while shocked America got the news and gathered around television sets. One narcissist I know of was so in need of getting his stunned co-workers' attention off the TV and onto himself that he put on a comedy act, parodying what the victims were saying to each other as the rocket plummeted into the sea. Though his fellow workers were scared to death of becoming the object of one of his persecutions, they were shocked at this chilling display of inhumanity and could manage only nervous laughter at the creep's attention-getting jokes.

That happens only when the victims aren't regarded as human beings. Either because they have been demonized by dehumanizing cariacatures in propaganda or because the laugher is a psychopath or narcissist.

Other examples of perverted behavior are:

reacting with contempt to what should evoke sympathy
reacting with aversion to what should attract
reacting with anger to what should please (such as finding some mysterious offense in an attempt to suck up)
getting angrier in reaction to what should appease (Narcissistic Rage)

In short, whenever you see a backwards reaction to something, believe your eyes and ears. Accept this behavior's perplexity and know what you know -- that there is something seriously wrong with that person. And don't forget about it tomorrow when he's Dr. Jekyll again.

Are you in a relationship with someone who has made you want to pinch yourself to see if you're dreaming? Have you often found yourself confused, afraid, and distressed at this person's inexplicable backwards reactions to things? Please, please see this for the red flag this is and get the hell away from them. Carefully. Don't threaten to leave. Just leave. Plan your escape and run away! Change your name if necessary. Seek a shelter if you know this person is unlikely to let you just leave.

This red flag makes me think back on the times in my young life when my own mother displayed backwards reactions toward me. It sent me into tailspins. I was terribly afraid of her. Rightfully so. She mocked me then and for years afterward (right up until and even continuing after I cut her out of my life) because of my fear of her. Like I was just a cowardly idiot for being afraid of her. I see all too clearly now I had every reason in the world to fear her. When I was 17 and pregnant and decided that running away to elope was my best plan of action I was largely motivated by my horrid fear of her. I actually considered her capable of murder. Between her sometimes backwards reactions toward me as well as her disproportionate anger over trivial things I still believe she was capable of murder. I was smart enough at 17 to not completely dismiss my fears and took steps to protect both myself and my baby. I hope you can have the sense of a 17 year old and do the same.

My story of my elopement is here in case you aren't aware of the history cited in the paragraph above.

A Gift for Ya'll

2009-01-05T12:35:00.001-07:00

Yes, I'm going to give you a gift. It is called LibriVox. I stumbled on this site a couple of months ago and have already derived many, many hours of pleasure from it.

It is a site that is making available to audio all the books in the public domain. It is a volunteer effort. If you enjoy having books read to you via your Mp3 player then run to their catalog and download one! Not all the readers are equally gifted, but it is still a great service. I am especially fond of Karen Savage as a reader. She does Pride and Prejudice and the first three of the Anne of Green Gables books. If you see Karen's name you're in for a great reading! I listened to the entirety of The Count of Monte Cristo (117 chapters and 50 hours of audio). I had a hard time with some of the accents of several of the readers intermittently for the first couple dozen chapters but things smoothed out after that.

I love LibriVox and am spreading the love to you.

LibriVox

Jesse Pomeroy: A Stark Illustration of Lack of Introspection

2008-12-27T11:48:00.007-07:00

I just finished reading the book Fiend by Harold Schechter. It is the true story of the crimes and conviction of America's youngest serial killer, Jesse Pomeroy. He was a full blown narcissistic psychopath lust killer by the tender age of 14. Of course, these terms didn't exist back in 1874. He became known as the "boy fiend" thanks to the tabloid journalism of that era.

What I want to bring to your attention is the striking illustration Pomeroy presents of my last post. The absolute lack of introspection. This lack is highlighted all the more by the nearly incomprehensible length of his confinement in solitary. Forty-one years -- the second longest in U.S. penal history. The severity of his confinement was most pronounced in the first decade when he was confined to a very small, mostly dark cell. Here is a quote from page 263 of the book:

Clinical studies have proven that prisoners subjected to even relatively short periods in solitary confinement commonly begin to show severe psychopathological symptoms, ranging from hallucinations to panic attacks to paranoid delusions. More protracted stints can drive a man to madness.

So the question is: was Jesse Pomeroy already "mad" and therefore had no sanity to lose? Or was he in possession of an "indomitable spirit" as he was credited to having by James R. Wood, a onetime Boston police detective who had played a key role in Jesse's arrest half a century previous to Mr. Wood's statement about Jesse's spirit?

I will back up that half century to Jesse's conviction in 1874. The boy was examined in prison by several psychologists, called back then "alienists". Here is an excerpt from the observations of one of these psychologists named Tyler. He first observed that Jesse was physically and intellectually average.

By contrast, his 'moral sensibility' was strikingly aberrant. Though able to discriminate between right and wrong when presented with various hypothetical cases, Jesse was absolutely 'obtuse' when it came to his own crimes. "He evinces no pity for the boys tortured or for the victims of his homicide," Tyler writes, "and no remorse or sorrow for his acts." Moreover, his wildly "contradictory statements" -- his detailed "account of killing the children and subsequent denial of any agency therein" -- were the sign of a deeply duplicitous nature. Fiend, page 162

Even though it was apparent by examining Jesse, as well as how he conducted his crimes, that Jesse was not insane, his defense team knew all they had was to try to convince a jury that Jesse was indeed insane. The all-male jury couldn't quite go there with the defense and so they convicted Jesse of first degree murder. It was not the place for the jury to recommend a sentence but they attached a note to the verdict requesting Jesse not be executed for his crime due to his young age. Jesse was given a sentence of death as the law required, but the governor of Massachusetts was under a lot of pressure to reduce the sentence. After much wrangling, and the election of a new governor, Jesse's sentence was reduced to life in solitary confinement. Some argued that was more cruel than the death sentence.

Now, more to my point of observation. Jesse spent his entire time in prison working tirelessly and patiently to escape. He was able to fashion tools like chisels, knives, picks, etc. from prying pieces of metal off of various objects or finding innocuous objects in the yard on this rare exercise romps. His mechanical bent of mind enabled him to come up with some ingenious improvisations. His prison records reveal that he was disciplined for escape attempts every year, sometimes several times a year. What becomes evident when reading the account of his prison activities is that his every power of mind was focused on one thing: escaping. When he wasn't trying to dig, scrape or bomb his way out of his cell, or making tools to facilitate escape, he worked diligently on another form of possible escape: the law. He became a quasi-lawyerly prisoner as he consumed hours in reading law books and persecuting the courthouse with his endless stream of requests for documents and demands for attention to his case. One of the benefits he received from his repeated escape attempts was that it kept him in the limelight. He reveled in the attention he received from the press each time he was caught trying to escape. He loved to brag about each attempt as he would describe how he did it.

What becomes very evident is that Jesse not only didn't go insane while confined in solitary for 41 years, he thrived. He was able to avoid any opportunity for introspection even though he only had himself for company for over four decades!! This is a profound illustration of how it is possible to avoid introspection even when sent away from human contact for an interminable length of time. He focused every shred of his mental energy on escape. It is also how he determinedly persisted in his belief that his cause was just. He was unjustly incarcerated and therefore it was his right to try to escape. His constant focus on escape was how he escaped introspection.

It should be noted here as evidence of Jesse actually thriving in solitary was that when his sentence was eventually reduced to just life in prison Jesse refused to leave his solitary cell for three months! He knew he would not have some of the amenities in the general population that he had in his solitary cell like being able to control the heat, having all the room he needed for his rather large personal library, as well as not having to work. All prisoners were required to work, but Jesse had avoided that while in solitary. He was absolutely lazy. He was able to get out of work after being released into 'gen pop' because the jailers didn't want to have to constantly punish him and receive bad press for being crueler to Jesse now than when in his solitary cell.

Obviously, Jesse was a psychopath. A malignant narcissist is likely not a psychopath, but all psychopaths are malignant narcissists so there are behaviors and thought patterns that are identical with both malignant narcissists and psychopaths. The refusal to introspect is one of them. I drew your attention to Diane Downs in my last post because she has managed to avoid introspection for 25 years as testified to by those who have examined her state of mind. Jesse Pomeroy shows us that Diane will not be any the wiser once she gets to forty plus years of incarceration. Neither will the malignant narcissist in your life. You cannot exile them from your life for any length of time with the expectation that they may have possibly come to a place of recognition of what and who they are and what their crimes have been. There is no exhausting their ability to justify themselves and their resolute ability to avoid any inward look at the evil within.

Jesse Pomeroy was an extreme case of isolation. When he got to the other end of his life (he died in prison at age 73 = 59 years in prison total) he was utterly unchanged. He was as narcissistic and mentally immature as he was at age 14. He was intelligent, but forever immature. He consumed all 8,000 plus books in the prison library and read many of them several times. He wasn't a mental deficient. He certainly wasn't insane. He was forever a case of arrested development emotionally as is true of all malignant narcissists. They never grow up past age six emotionally no matter what intellectual accomplishments they may boast of in adulthood.

Don't assume the malignant narcissist in your life is not as extreme as Jesse was in terms of the absolute and profound lack of any introspection. In this regard, Jesse was the norm and not the exception for malignant narcissists. Simply by virtue of the fact that he ended up incarcerated for so long we have been given a clear picture of just how resolute the malignant narcissist really is in their refusal to admit to what they are.

You've exiled the malignant narcissist. Make sure it is until death. There is not enough reason to nurture any hope of their reformation. To do so will only place your well-being at risk yet again. Malignant narcissists should all be put into solitary confinement. The next best thing is you putting them into solitary of sorts i.e. going 'no contact' with them. At this point, there is no salvation for the narcissist that you can bring about. Your only hope lies in your own salvation. Lock up the narcissist and throw away the key. They will be just fine without you. There is no confinement that will permeate the walls they've thrown up around their consciences. No prison sentence you invoke will reach their inner life. You are not hurting the narcissist with 'no contact', you are saving your own sanity and the well-being of yourself and those you love. 'No contact' is not punishment. It is not vengeance. It is confinement. A cage you put the dangerous beast in to limit his ability to cause further harm.

P.S. Any time you buy at Amazon by clicking on any Amazon widget on my site you'll be supporting this blog with your purchases. Even if you don't purchase what is featured in the widget, if you click through the widget Amazon will credit me with a percentage of your purchases. I would, of course, be grateful for any and all who will think to do your shopping at Amazon through my site!

Absence of Introspection

2008-12-19T12:14:00.010-07:00

Maybe you remember Diane Downs, the woman who shot her three children killing one and permanently maiming the other two. I lived in Oregon back when she cold-bloodedly shot her own children execution style and pretended a "bushy-haired stranger" did it. The year was 1983. She has been in prison, minus one successful 10-day prison escape in 1987, for nearly 25 years. She is eligible for parole hearings every two years now which is why she is suddenly in the spotlight again.

Downs has been labeled (quite properly) a narcissistic psychopath. The Oregonian article is interesting and provides a brief history of her crime as well as her current mental state. I will excerpt one paragraph for the purpose of this post:

A recent psychological evaluation of Downs reiterated her narcissistic personality disorder diagnosis: "By year 20 one hopes that the life prisoner has come to a place of deeper self-reflection and introspection regarding their life and incarceration. By this time there should be some struggle in contemplation with existential life issues. Regardless of guilt or innocence, one normally would be asking the how and why questions of life. The thing that is most troubling regarding Ms. Downs is that she appears to have done very little of this."

I have noticed that psychologists who work primarily with criminals have a much better grasp of NPD than psychologists whose practices don't include convicted criminals. It is impossible to understand NPD if you don't have a working knowledge of the criminal mind. The criminal mind and the person with NPD are, in the most fundamental ways, synonymous. Malignant narcissists are criminals through and through if we simply compare the way they think about themselves, their relation to others, and the world. Whether or not they end up in prison depends on the scope and audacity of their crimes. Most remain out of the hands of the law. This paragraph above shows the better-than-average knowledge the evaluators have of NPD by seeing Down's profound lack of introspection and reflection as being a confirmation of the original diagnosis of NPD. I say, well observed!

This is a stark reality with full-blown narcissists. They do not get wiser with age. More cunning and perfidious, yes, but not wiser in the full sense of the word:

Wisdom

The ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight.
Common sense; good judgment

Wisdom cannot be acquired without an ability to engage in deep introspection, i.e. insight.
The reason I'm highlighting the lack of introspection observed in narcissists is because it is essential you are fully aware of this universal quality of malignant narcissists. The temptation for you is to believe that that putting the narcissist in their room (i.e. no contact) for a period of time will result in a reformed narcissist. Or, as in Diane Down's case, in a prison cell for 20 plus years. Not going to happen. Time and introspection are wonderful teachers to those willing to employ them, but you must understand that in the narcissist's calculation there is no gain in it for them. The "what's in it for me" question they pose before every exertion of effort shuts down the process of introspection before it can ever really start because the answer that comes back to them is always "nothing!". The feedback they would receive from introspection will not flatter them, will not support their false reality, will not reinforce their grandiosity, will not gain them an unfair advantage over someone else, etc. So any introspection they may engage in will be abbreviated at best. Not that they have to think it through this methodically. They are instinctually revulsed by introspection as a cat is to being thrown into a tub of water. Just like that cat immediately reacts to its revulsion of the water so the narcissist is instinctively repelled by any exercise in introspection.

I have been in the past shocked at the "profound lack of introspection and reflection" in the narcissists of my acquaintance. Then, wiser, I came to expect this lack and have never been disappointed by them since.

If you are convinced you are dealing with a malignant narcissist then be convinced of this too: they will not get better with time. It is impossible for them to acknowledge the enormity of their crimes because they excuse, rationalize, blame-shift and project all their problems and bad behavior onto you and others. No amount to time being confined to isolation from you and your life will render them capable of suddenly understanding that which they utterly refuse to look at. If you are possessed of a savior complex my exhortations on this point may well be lost on you. Maybe, though, you've grown tired of your endlessly dashed hopes for the reformation of the narcissist. Having been worn down by endless disappointment perhaps you're now more willing to consider and believe my observations over the promises of the reprobate narcissist or the insistence of your more enlighted conscience that all others can be persuaded to a similar keen self-reflection as you yourself are capable of. Don't be that naive. Clearly, it is quite possible for a person to shut down their conscience by a persistent and consistent refusal to even consider the possibility of ones wrong doing. It is this absolute refusal to believe themselves to have done wrong that makes them refuse all opportunity for introspection.

Once you've decided to exile the malignant narcissist from your life do not fall prey to fanciful ideas of his reformation. Time will not render him the wiser for his 'confinement'. Like Diane Downs he or she will persist in their rationalizations and justifications to the bitter, ugly end. The malignant narcissist easily believes the whole world wrong and themselves alone right rather than risk a confrontation with the opposite reality. Hence, introspection = anathema.

Irresponsible Journalism or Psychologists...or Both.

2008-12-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

While Democrats and the news media are all working feverishly to get Gov. Blagojevich branded with the "insanity" label in order to discredit him and inoculate the Obama franchise from taint I fume over something else. The irresponsible reporting from the Chicago Sun-Times on speculation over Blago's possible NPD.

Why would that bother me? I'll 'splain.

First of all, the so-called professionals love to tell us laypeople that we are not qualified to determine whether or not someone we know has NPD by comparing that individual's behaviors with an checklist. What the article from the Sun-Times illustrates to me is how the 'professionals' are the ones who are unqualified. I think it is highly unprofessional for a psychologist to make pronunciations on someone's mental state to the media when that psychologist has never even met the person in question. They should at least try to uphold some of the standards they hold the rest of us to. They tell us we can't diagnose persons whom we've grown up with or married or worked with for years yet, sight unseen, they can make absolute statements about a person's mental health just from reports they've read in the media and a few pictures of a person? Bah. That is my first irritation.

Next. Frankly, I myself had come to strongly suspect that extreme narcissism was motivating Blago. But I based my suspicions on his behaviors. Not his HAIR! The article begins with a little dramatic embellishment by the journalist followed by the quote from a psychologist:

It's a head of hair that a man 20 years his junior would envy -- a chestnut helmet that brazenly mocks Father Time and screams "healthy!"

Gov. Blagojevich's glossy locks -- perfectly sculpted in rain or snow -- may be an indication of a sickness beneath his scalp, said one local psychologist.

"It's all part of managing his image, managing his image of being without a blemish, without a flaw," said Scott Ambers, who has practiced clinical psychology in the city for more than two decades.

Chicago Sun-Times article here.

Okay. There is SO much about Blago's behavior that could indicate possible NPD without going to the most superficial aspect of his person....how he styles his hair!!?? This is completely and totally irresponsible on the part of the psychologist as well as the stupid journalist who seems to be thrilled to report this revelation. Of what value would this blog be if I busily reported on the various ways to spot a narcissist and then started directing your attention to how a person styles their hair, how they dress, whether or not they wear designer clothes and glasses or drive a sports car? I would be a joke. And I contend this psychologist is a joke. The obvious extrapolation from his comment above is we are to suspect NPD in a person if they seem to be overly proud of their hair, if their hair seems to look too good given the wind, rain, or time of day or even the decade of their life. I cannot even begin to express my contempt for this ridiculousness. It will accomplish nothing good for helping people to truly understand what NPD is and how it manifests.

The psychologist (as well as the air-head journalist) have seized on the most insubstantial in order to make their case. This itself reminds me of narcissists. Narcissists are always focused on superficialities. I'm sorry, but focusing on how much hair someone still has and deciding they are overly proud of their hair is as superficial of an analysis as any analysis could get. There is no real sign that Blago is overly proud of his locks. Where was this analysis when John Edwards was on the scene?? We actually had proof of Edwards excessive fondness of his hair...yet this psychologist had nothing to say back then. Fraudulent quack.

I won't go into all the speculation on whether or not Blago is certifiably insane. All of the babblings of the news media only illustrate to me they know nothing of what they speak and their motivations are suspect. The word of the week has been "insane". Yet sprinkled in between pronouncing Blago insane they throw around the word "sociopath" and "narcissist". Anyone who knows anything knows that insanity is not the issue when talking about narcissism or sociopathy. They are not interchangeable labels! The profound ignorance of the talking heads is being blared from every mouthpiece and is driving your friendly blogger to distraction.

This is just one very good illustration of why you should ignore anyone, especially the 'professionals', who tells you that you can't tell whether or not someone in your life has NPD. They don't know Jack themselves. No one knows what NPD is more than someone who has suffered from its predations for years. Eggheads in ivory towers only know NPD from textbooks. I am absolutely convinced that if this psychologist actually had a person with NPD in his office he'd be blissfully unaware of that fact. Yet he'd label some arrogant snob or braggadocious windbag as NPD.

NPD is much more than arrogance or bragging or attention to personal grooming. NPD is, at its core, predatory. While vain, arrogant or boastful people may be annoying it doesn't mean they are predatory. Without that core motivation it just ain't NPD. NPD = malignant narcissism = evil behaviors. Evil as defined by exploitation and abuse of the most vulnerable. You can't tell that from how a guy styles his hair. Even if you're a 'professional'.

They DO Have Empathy...Just Not For You

2008-12-07T12:35:00.001-07:00

If you've done much research on malignant narcissism you've seen it stated that narcissists (and psychopaths) lack empathy. This is only partially true -- not because of what it states but because of what it omits. To say they lack empathy is erroneous because most will take that to mean the narcissist lacks empathy in any capacity. They are capable of empathy, but like everything else having to do with the narcissist their empathy is perverted.

Narcissists have vast reservoirs of compassion (which is an outgrowth of empathy). Here's the problem though. All that compassion is turned inward i.e. used completely selfishly. They save their empathy for themselves. You, on the other hand, are out of luck.

On the geocities webpage where the author Chris brilliantly outlines "Characteristics of Narcissist Mothers" she captures the essential elements of the narcissist's perverted form of empathy. Read it and relate:

Sometimes she seems to have no awareness that other people even have feelings, and yet she is brilliantly sensitive to other people’s emotions. Every child of a narcissist recognizes this contradiction because narcissistic mothers do possess the ability to exercise empathy, and in abundance. Sometimes this ability also leads them to identify emotionally with people who are suffering and to express caring for them. When caring about anothers suffering interferes with something the narcissist wants, though, the caring vanishes. When a narcissistic mother wants validation, when she feels like eliciting some emotional pain, when something she wants hurts someone else, the empathy is turned off as though it never existed.

From the perspective of ability, narcissists are extremely empathetic; indeed they have a gift of telling what other people are feeling and thinking. Their skill at discerning and guiding the emotions of other people is the basis of many characteristically narcissistic interactions. Narcissists are very socially adept which is why no one ever believes their children when they complain of their mothers. They know just how to make everyone think that they’re delightful. Narcissistic mothers are exceptional manipulators, and manipulators must be extremely aware, on a moment-by-moment basis, of the emotions of their targets. If you don’t know what people are feeling, you can’t push their buttons. Their exceptional sensitivity to the feelings of others is also the wellspring of their pleasure in inflicting emotional pain through dramas and no-win scenarios. Narcissistic mothers enjoy inflicting emotional pain and they do it very well because they know just what their target children are feeling. That exquisite sensitivity is the reason they don’t need to batter. They can inflict agony without lifting a finger, so why risk exposure and waste effort with beatings when they can elicit the same emotions with words alone?

What narcissistic mothers lack is concern for the consequences of their actions, a behavior that seems rooted in profound selfishness, rather than in the absence of empathy. Mothers with NPD are certainly capable of feeling for others: they’re always feeling for the people with whom their scapegoat has conflicts. They feel for their fellow narcissists. They feel for people who have validated and praised them. They even feel for their child when it doesn’t cost them anything to do so. They just don’t feel for their child when they’re abusing him. They don’t feel anything that interferes with their absorption in their own wants and needs. Because they scour their environment for validation of their own abusiveness, they defend their fellow abusers, so they don’t have any empathy for the victims of those abusers, as the following story shows:

A four-year-old had come to school with a hand print on her face, which had been inflicted as the result of a slap by her mother’s live-in boyfriend. As a mandated reporter my mother had called the authorities, but she told me that she could understand why the boyfriend had hit the child: she was so annoying. Then she said in a dramatic tone dripping with sympathy “You should have seen the parents. They were so ashamed!” In outrage I said “What difference does that make to the child?” Her mouth dropped open and I realized she not only didn’t care at all about that poor little girl…it would never have occurred to her to care.

-Chris

This story shows the misplaced empathy of the abuser for other abusers. There was no empathy in Chris’s mother for the actual victim. Instead it was reserved for the woman who let her boyfriend batter her child. Chris’s mother identified with the abuser, a mother like herself, afflicted with a child who didn’t meet her needs. Her empathy actually attributed virtues to her fellow abuser and faults to the victim that weren’t merited in reality. Someone who hits a small child hard enough to leave a hand print, then sends them to school, isn’t ashamed, and the personality of a four-year-old is not the fault of the child!

The selfish empathy demonstrated by narcissistic mothers contrasts with the genuine empathy shown by normal people. Sometimes a normal person will give up something they really want for themselves because they come to recognize that it will hurt another person. A narcissistic mother will relentlessly go after something she wants even if it isn’t worth the pain she has to inflict to get it.

There are several statements in the above which put the finger on where the perversion has occurred:

When caring about anothers suffering interferes with something the narcissist wants, though, the caring vanishes.

They even feel for their child when it doesn’t cost them anything to do so. They just don’t feel for their child when they’re abusing him. They don’t feel anything that interferes with their absorption in their own wants and needs.

A narcissistic mother will relentlessly go after something she wants even if it isn’t worth the pain she has to inflict to get it.

The moment empathy would require the narcissist to extend herself for another human being, the instant some self-sacrifice would be called for, the minute the narcissist would have to take a stand against evil to protect the innocent is the very time her empathy stops flowing outward. This is absolute proof that the narcissist uses their ability to empathize only to serve themselves. They use their ability to intuit the emotions and reactions of others in order to manipulate them to their own ends. The only other real use of empathy they employ is to expend it generously upon themselves.

Chris has nailed another important point on whom the narcissist will bequeath her empathy: other abusers. This is a fundamentally selfish bestowal of empathy just as much as giving herself undeserved empathy is because by bestowing her empathy to the abuser what she is really doing is granting absolution and empathy for herself. She recognizes the kindred spirit in the other abuser and by excusing their behavior she excuses her own.

When I was forced to admit by dint of my father's letters to me over the summer and fall of 2005 that his sympathy was all for my mother I labeled him an abuser from that point onward. This is because of the bedrock reality that those who excuse abusers are themselves abusive. No matter the appearance of a mild-mannered nature -- if a person excuses abusers it is because there is some space in their minds which accedes to the notion that in at least some cases abuse can be justified. In the case of my father there was some evidence of aptitude for abuse, but it was rare enough that I could easily forget and thereby resume my opinion of him that he was not abusive. His unmitigated support of my mother, his lack of having ever protected myself or my daughter from my mother's abuses, his absolute demand I be the one to apologize, move on and forgive my mother in the absence of any sincere effort on her part to make things right, his unsubtle reminders of the sins of my youth to try to prove I had no right to hold my mother to any account...all these things proved to me once and for all that he is an abuser himself. Only abusers are willing to grant other abusers the right to abuse! It is at its very root a pass they are giving to themselves. Excusing abuse is abuse in itself. It is a red flag that the person has themselves a propensity for abuse. Granting absolution to abusers is always an extremely selfish thing to do; it ignores the humanity of the person abused and preserves compassion for the one doing the abusing and by doing so gives the person excusing the abuse a pass for the abuse they may decide to dish out themselves. Did you follow that sentence? If so, you get a gold star on your paper today.

In another blog post I wrote early this year I talked about the play on your empathy that disordered characters (including psychopaths) exploit: the pity party. The pity party is an exploitation of your empathy. They could only accomplish this by understanding what empathy is on an emotional level themselves. Please don't make the mistake of thinking that the narcissist is incapable of empathy. The harsh reality is that you will only be the recipient of empathy from the narcissist if they feel it will cost them absolutely nothing to give it to you. Those moments will be rare.

Allow yourself to really think about the selfishly evil use of empathy of the narcissist. They use it to know (and enjoy) exactly how they are making you feel as they use and abuse you. That is what we call sadistic. They use it to manipulate you to their own ends. Or else they will use it to feel for their sorry-assed selves. These uses of their ability to empathize are profoundly selfish and often cruel.

There is no merit whatsoever for the fact that the narcissist is indeed fully in possession of the ability to empathize. In fact it is a solid basis for our condemnation of them. They pervert their ability to empathize and use it to selfishly exploit others to their own ends, to find pleasure in the pain they inflict, as well as to grant themselves pity when they least deserve it. If the narcissist was incapable of empathy we could grant them a pass for having some sort of disability. We must acknowledge the reality that the narcissist is all the more evil because they do possess this ability but choose to use it for their own selfish ends against you. They have managed to completely pervert their ability to empathize.

Narcissists are the embodiment of perversion. This is simply another facet of it. They can take any good thing and completely misuse it which is the definition of perversion I'm using, "Wrong, often corrupt use". A broader sense of the term than just sexual perversion as the word is often applied.

I'll close with a statement I wrote to my sister in April 2006. I hope you all will take the same stance with the narcissists in your lives:

"Your compassion you save for mostly you. I don't need to spend my compassion on someone who is so generous with it on themselves."

Disdain for Reality

2008-11-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

The NPD illusion of superiority is a facet of a generalized disdain for reality. These individuals feel unconstrained by rules, customs, limits, and discipline. Their world is filled with self-fiction in which conflicts are dismissed, failures redeemed, and self-pride is effortlessly maintained. They easily devise plausible reasons to justify self-centered and inconsiderate behavior. Their memories of past relationships are often illusory and changing. If rationalizations and self-deception fail, individuals with NPD are vulnerable to dejection, shame, and a sense of emptiness. Then they have little recourse other than fantasy. They have an uninhibited imagination and engage in self-glorifying fantasies. What is unmanageable through fantasy is repressed and kept from awareness. As they consistently devalue others, they do not question the correctness of their own beliefs; they assume that others are wrong. The characteristic difficulties of individuals with NPD almost all stem from their lack of solid contact with reality. If the false image of self becomes substantive enough, their thinking will become peculiar and deviant. Then their defensive maneuvers become increasingly transparent to others (Millon & Davis, 1996, pp. 405-423). Sharon C. Ekleberry, Dual Diagnosis and the Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

This is a packed paragraph. Read it through several times to absorb it. The sentence that sums it all up well is, "The characteristic difficulties of individuals with NPD almost all stem from their lack of solid contact with reality." Remember that the word reality is interchangeable with the word truth. Notice how in the description above of the narcissist's 'disdain for reality' what follows is a description of all the ways than narcissists avoid the truth. The truth about the world, about themselves, about their past, about you. This professional person managed to find all the ways to describe the narcissist's love affair with lies without ever actually using the word 'lie'. But lies they are, nonetheless.

They are "people of the lie" as Scott M. Peck so aptly describes them. The narcissist fabricates at every juncture to the point that the narcissist himself becomes a lie. They don't just tell lies...they are, at their most basic, a lie in and of themselves.

The narcissist disarms you by causing you to buy into the lie(s). The more you accede to their version of reality (which is lie-based) the less you are able to resist their control, their abuse, their sucking the life blood from you.

If believing their lies is how the narcissist disarms you then, obviously, re-arming means learning what truth is. There are truths that are universal and immutable. Moral truths fall into this category of universal and objective truth. No matter who you are, no matter what country or culture you live in, no matter what sex, creed or religion you belong to there are certain things that are wrong to do to others. Those who deny there is a universal and objective morality are capable of the basest of crimes against humanity. Be they a cruel dictator like Mao Tse Tung or a serial killer like Ted Bundy or a malignant narcissist in your family, church or workplace.

And, yes, I think the malignant narcissist belongs in the same list with Mao and Bundy. They shouldn't be taken off the list simply because they lack the power (Mao) or the motivation (Bundy) to murder in order to slake their lusts. The root of malignant narcissism infects them all so they should all stand in the same Hall of Shame. If the malignant narcissist you know had the lack of accountability that a dictator has or had lost her fear of the law then you know what they would be capable of. Murder and torture would be standard fare for those under their power. I'm not engaging in hyperbole. I'm being a realist. I recognize cause and effect. I acknowledge the little tyrant and murderer that lives in the heart of every malignant narcissist. Only the constraints of their circumstances and their fear of the law have power to restrain them. When you can believe this to be true then you will never want anything to do with them ever again. The malignant narcissist is dangerous. Period.

All malignant narcissists deny there is a moral law that stands outside themselves and judges them. They just pretend away this reality. This means they are free to make up morality as they go which is exactly what they do. This results in a moral code which has all the human resources of kindness, attention, valuation, and regard going towards them and away from you. They turn you into a big, fat Zero. They turn themselves into gods. Because you are nothing you deserve nothing. Because they are god they deserve it all. They work diligently to make you believe the lie that they deserve it all. If they succeed they're in Fat City and you will be lucky to stay out of the asylum or an early grave.

Salvation from the affliction and torment of narcissists depends on whether or not you love truth-- whether you are dedicated to reality even if reality is ugly. The narcissist "loves and practices lies". (See Revelation 22:14-15) His doom is sure. The question is, do you love the truth enough to embrace truth when the truth hurts? That is the true test of anyones love for truth. It is the test the narcissist has failed time and again. Keep in mind that he doesn't hate all truth. He only hates the truths which are inconvenient to him at any particular moment. The test of your character, the test that tries whether or not you really do love truth is when truth threatens to slice through your dreams and fantasies about life, about yourself, about what you've done and who you are. These are the very truths the narcissist is always working to escape from.

The test for love of the truth isn't whether or not you are willing to believe ugly truths about others. That comes easy for all of us. No, the test is whether or not you are willing to face truth when it comes knocking at your door to talk about who you are and what you've done. The more honest you're willing to be with yourself about who you are and what you've done then the more likely you are to believe the truth when it tells you that someone else is good...or bad. Your lens that you look through is less skewed. When you can be honest about who you are then you are much more likely to be honest about who someone else is.

Occasionally people wonder aloud in the comments about themselves...are they, too, a narcissist? The test is above. Do you love the truth even when the truth tells you something other than what you want to hear?? You know the answer to that question. No one here can answer that question for you. You don't need anyone else to answer that question because you know the answer. The degree to which any of us will deny, obscure or push away truth is the degree to which you are narcissistic. Narcissism is a continuum. Where you fall on that line is easily measured by how much you love the truth or, conversely, how much you have "disdain for reality".

"The characteristic difficulties of individuals with NPD almost all stem from their lack of solid contact with reality."

Anna's paraphrase: The very things that make dealing with malignant narcissists so difficult can be traced back to their constant state of living in lies. Their disregard for truth affects everything and everyone around them.

Love for the truth or love of lies. These two concepts sift all of humanity.