house of bonsai: Wonderful new post from "Narcissists Suck"

January 19, 2008

Wonderful new post from "Narcissists Suck"

This is a section from a wonderful recent post on the great blog Narcissists Suck, by Anna Valerious (pictured). It certainly speaks to me!

This situation calls for the full on wounded act. She gets her target alone with just her. Her voice quavers. She takes on the look of complete defeat. Copious tears. Sighing and crying she is angling for her target to agree with her that she has been treated unjustly. She is making a play for the heart. A calculated grab for pity. While explaining how unjust the treatment of her was she looks tiny, pathetic, broken. She pretends to feel badly for the small little thing she did wrong while exaggerating and lying about how the other person reacted and treated her. The target feels their heart being wrenched in their chest with the desire to comfort her even while they logically know that they just saw her being a complete spoiled brat and a bully. The target starts to feel confused by these conflicting realities. The desire to comfort the pitiable creature standing in from of them is overwhelmingly compelling.

You've been invited to the Pity Party. Your host tonight: the conscience-impaired. (In this story, my mother.)

I'm about half way through the book, "The Sociopath Next Door", by Martha Stout, Ph.D.

"How can I tell whom not to trust?" is a question Ms. Stout has often fielded from her patients. She asserts that one of the best clues that you may be dealing with someone who has an impaired or absence conscience is the pity play:

"...the best clue is, of all things, the pity play. The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy...More than admiration--more even than fear--pity from good people is carte blanche. When we pity, we are, at least for the moment, defenseless..."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: I started laughing when I read that - that's a very apt description of what I get from my mother at the moment. God, it helps to see it brought to the point and remember, it's an act. Although it also makes me a little bit sad - that's the only way my mother knows how to be in the world. And I know this kind of thinking leads me to break down and try and help my 'poor little old mum'... Thank you for your blog!; 7:20 PM
Anonymous said...: OMG this is my N to a TEE. She also has the physicaly frail appearance and award-winning acting downpat. Her favorite tactic is to corner people (individually) at family functions and tell her sob stories about how awful her family is -- typically the family she is speaking of gave her a ride to the event. They are unknowing that this little old lady just trashed them behind their backs in the corner. THEY ARE GOOD AT THE PITY parties and SCARY SCARY people.; 10:56 PM

how to navigate this blog

Welcome!

First, please read the "first post, August 2006", further down in this column. It sets the context for everything that follows.

Then, please click on the labels section and go chronologically. Sometimes I'll write about a memory about something which happened a long time ago, so going by the dates the posts were written isn't the best way to read the blog. Occasionally, a given post that is relevant over time will have several labels applied to it (1970s, 1980s, 1990s). But overall: stick with the labels and it will be a lot clearer!

Thank you for being here, and for reading.

Note: some names have been changed to preserve privacy.

first post, August 2006

Recently, it's come to my attention that I have a challenge to meet, a life-altering decision to make: can I continue to have contact with my mother and still hold onto my integrity, my sanity, my serenity?

My mother (who at her best was at one time glamorous, brilliant, interesting, eclectic, and self-absorbed) has morphed over the past years and decades into an unrepentant, myopic, full-blown narcissist. She turns all conversations back to the topic of herself, thinks nothing of the true welfare of others (although she sometimes pretends to do so for short periods when it serves her), and can never take even partial responsibility for any of her actions or inactions. "I am sorry" is a phrase which never falls from her lips...never.

Everyone has bad times and bad luck, but in her eyes, her bad times and bad luck are always worse than anyone else's. She's been "going through a hard time" from the years of my earliest memories, at age 3 or 4, more or less non-stop up through today. Her reaction to others putting up healthy boundaries (in my case, very late in life) is to fly into one of her legendary rages. She also cannot take responsibility for the fact that her actions (and inactions) have been prime contributors to the very negative, sad, isolated place her life has now become.

Her friends, subjected increasingly to her incessant self-focus and self-pity, have been abandoning her in droves, finally tiring of the asymmetric nurturing she requires of all those around her. This trend has put even more pressure on me, in recent years, to be there for her, as one of her last remaining contacts. And now even I am throwing in the towel, going against every ounce of socialization I've received (as her only daughter) from her and from society at large.

Because one of the primary methods of a narcissist is be at the center of attention (whether positive or negative, sometimes it doesn't even matter to them) and to have others see life through their distorted point of view, it seems that children of narcissistic parents can really bear the brunt of this disorder.

It seems that it is only now --- after 40 years of life on this earth, a decade or more of escalating attempts to help her with her never-ending, chronic-by-design problems and issues, several recent severe crises due to my overextending my and my partner's energies to try to help even more --- that I am able to even look at the history, the issues, and for a sane path out of this dark thicket of her pathology. I attribute this growth to increasing self-esteem and resiliency, due in no small part to a wonderful partner and friends, as well as some therapy.

Merely telling my friends "she makes all conversations into brochures about herself" or "she can't apologize" doesn't even begin to illustrate the true depth of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. If I sit down to chat and tell these ridiculous stories over again with various friends, particularly in enough detail to give even a fraction of the full picture, it will take up too much of our potentially much more pleasant time together.

At the same time, I do want those who are close to me to understand what it is that I've experienced, on whatever level they're interested or have time for --- from skimming a post or two to reading more extensively. Much of it will come as a surprise, precisely because of the fact that the sheer oddness and inappropriateness of her behaviour leads me not to bring it up in polite company. It's all too weird, too complicated, and too unsavory to discuss within the context of an average dinner with friends...

Perhaps most importantly, these memories have been living in my head for years, and I've been holding onto them almost like a set of worry beads, a template to keep in mind in case other narcissistic people try to enter my life, so I can run in the other direction. Since, in her absence, I'm finally beginning to trust my judgment a bit more, I think I can safely begin to let these memories go, to let them fade a bit --- to the best extent possible. Writing them out, I'm hoping, will go a good way toward accomplishing that "letting go".

Whether you're an old friend, a treasured colleague, or someone whom I've met and bonded with through the online ACON community, I welcome your comments and cherish your ongoing support and friendship.

house of bonsai

January 19, 2008

Wonderful new post from "Narcissists Suck"

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