We are, each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another.
Luciano de Crescenzo
Posts Tagged: narcissistic behavior
6
Jan 10
You’ll Know Them By Their Biscotti
My aunt sent me an email a few days ago. Seems my brother had been reading my blog, was concerned about a couple posts, didn’t know how to help, and phoned my aunt. I’d been chatting with her more regularly lately, and she put his mind at ease.
Let me back up a little. About two months ago, I was reading something about Narcissism, and felt compelled to send my aunt an email. When thinking of warm, fuzzy memories from childhood, it seems that a lot of them took place at her house. I wanted to thank her.
That opened a door.
My aunt has been following along in my blog, and sometimes contacts me when she thinks I need a shoulder. She and my uncle have recently taken me under their wing.
Fast forward to today… Continue reading →
5
Jan 10
People As Holidays
People are like holidays. Do others see you as Christmas, or more like Tax Day?
Ward Elliot Hour
4
Jan 10
When Narcissists Cave
Peanut is home. Peanut is a Shetland Pony-sized mechanical horse that Santa brought for Jenny two Christmases ago. Santa should have known better than to deliver Peanut to Mark’s house.
You see, Mark has held Peanut hostage for two years. That’s one third of Jenny’s life. Mark actually told Jenny that he was not going to let her take the pony home to our house so as to guarantee regular visits at his house.
One of the greatest joys of parenting is watching your child get so excited over receiving a gift that they have been wanting so badly. That’s one of the few ways you can actually get close to re-living that excitement you felt as a child. It’s your chance to revisit that total elation over getting the gift that you hoped and dreamed for. Imagine watching that joy and elation on your beautiful little girl’s face.
Then imagine telling her that she can’t take her precious pony home.
It’s pretty difficult to remain self-centered once you have kids. You don’t even miss those self-absorbed days. Your focus is first on making sure they survive. Then you are wrapped up in the fun, the adventure, the craziness, the chaos and the bliss of watching these blessings turn into people. Continue reading →
1
Jan 10
Happy New Me
I’ve sort of made resolutions in the past. Mostly because that’s what everyone seems to do. You can’t really focus much energy on your own resolutions when you are so busy accommodating the Narcissists in your life. By the time you finish everything on their list, take care of the kids, clean the cat box and take out the garbage, there’s not a lot of energy left for the typical resolutions like getting more exercise, keeping in touch with friends, or learning Tai Chi.
I got an email from a girlfriend this morning. She was asking why everyone always says, “This will be the year. 2010 will be the year.” Then she said, “The year for what?” Why do they always say that every new year? I told her that I think that’s the tag line for procrastinators. We never seem to accomplish what we set out to do, so we approach each new year with the optimistic hope that we’ll do it this year. That’s not so bad, really. Those new beginnings are what keep us going.
At the risk of sounding Narcissistic, I’ve come up with a few personal mottos for a Happy New Me. I’m going with the word ‘motto’ because ‘resolution’ makes me think of failed attempts, sweaty exhaustion (I’m not speaking of the sweaty kind of exhaustion that usually involves sheets) and a complete lack of brownies. All of that is way too negative. Besides, mottos are suggestions. There’s no pressure to absolutely have to do them everyday. Here’s what I came up with. I’d love to hear your mottos, as long as they have nothing to do with weight loss, shoulds, or having to do more for others.
- Be funnier. Quit taking myself and everyone else so seriously. This is going to sound weird, but I’ve noticed that when the three of us are a little cranky, one of us will start speaking with an accent. I’m not kidding. It’s as if it gets us out of ourselves. We’re pretending to be other people and then we start laughing at each other, and the crabby moment passes. Then Jenny will usually say, “Can we be done with the accents, already?” She’ll say this with a proper English accent, too. Think Julie Andrews in “Mary Poppins”.
- Be kinder to myself. I spend all my energy being nice to everybody else. I need to spend a little of that on me. I’m going to occasionally remind myself that I am a likable, good person, with a kind heart. I deserve treats once in awhile, too. Dark chocolate, good wine, excellent coffee, pedicures and chick flicks are all acceptable pleasures as long as they can be enjoyed without guilt.
- Remember NMP. That stands for Not My Problem. It’s not my problem that Mark has a lousy relationship with his kids. It’s not my problem that my kids don’t want to spend time with him. I will focus on only those things that I can change, or not change, as the case may be.
That feels pretty good, and manageable. Now that I’ve allowed myself to be a little self-centered, I’ll end this post with a quote that my aunt sent. I like it. Continue reading →
30
Dec 09
Stress — It’s All In Your Head
I’ve been making a lot of choices and decisions that will ultimately lead to less stress in our lives. I hope. It’s too soon to tell, but most days it feels like we’re heading in the right direction. And here’s the weird thing about eliminating stressors — it’s stressful. I’m serious. Tonight I was manically walking through the kitchen ticking off this checklist in my head. Dinner – done. Kitchen – done. Laundry – done. Christmas decorations put away – done. (Told you I was a scrooge, didn’t I?) Bills – done. And instead of feeling like I had earned the right to head to the couch with a cup of tea and a magazine, I found myself pacing back and forth and feeling agitated. I was supposed to be busy. There should have been something else on the list. I felt guilty for being done early. I couldn’t justify couch time because certainly there was more that I should be doing.
What is the correct age for deciding that we’ve earned the right to relax? Do I have some kind of character flaw if I give myself permission to sit and read? Do we have to have a certain amount in the bank before we can give ourselves time to relax? We allow ourselves vacations, but how many of us have an even longer to-do list for vacation?
I remember the mom at school that was waiting for the bell to ring so she could shuttle her kids to soccer and piano lessons. She was sitting and reading a novel. We had 15 minutes before the bell was going to ring. I was helping Jenny with homework. Another mom walked by and said hello to the mom with the novel. They both exchanged exhausted “hellos” and apologized for not calling and explained how ridiculously busy they were. All this while the first mom held a novel in her hands. Why couldn’t the first mom say, “Isn’t this great? I’ve 15 whole minutes to enjoy this wonderful book before we run around like maniacs.” But if she were to admit that, then she must not be a very good mom. Because really good moms go all day long, without any breaks, without any time-outs, until they crash at the finish line. And guess what our kids think? They grow up to think that they have to go all day long, too. They grow up to think that they can’t sit and read or play cards or do absolutely nothing.
Mark was here tonight. No wonder I was pacing in the kitchen. I still have these voices in my head that say, “Don’t pour a glass of wine in front of him. Don’t let him see you sit down. Pick up the stuff in the living room. Get dinner on the table soon.” Heck, it’s not even like he was staying for dinner. Just what does it take to get those darned voices out of my head? He was playing Twister with Jenny, and I had to skirt around him to get to the other side. (In case you may be wondering if Mark is coming around and actually engaging with Jenny, you must know that he barely made it through one round.) As I made my way across the room, I really looked at him, and I was hit with a wave (make that a tsunami) of relief. And I thought to myself, “I am going to sit on my butt, watch T.V., read and have a glass of wine, and you can’t stop me. So there.”
Now that would be a great New Year’s Resolution: More Couch Time with Less Guilt. I’ve earned it.
27
Dec 09
The Height of Narcissism
A few days before Christmas, my kids received a letter from Santa Claus. I told you they were special. Actually, for about the last three years, Mark has been penning a letter, printing it in a flowery script, placing it in a manila envelope with a return address of “Office of Santa Claus, North Pole”, and leaving it at our door. The letters always talk about what is currently going on in their lives, like the fact that Will is into golf and Jenny is growing her bangs out. I think Mark is capitalizing on the “Santa watches everything” line, and he’s letting the kids know just what it is that Santa sees. Mark does not keep in mind the fact that kids are very perceptive. And he hasn’t factored in the inevitable conversations and reactions at school, when our kids ask other kids about their letters from Santa. Oops.
The night of the letter delivery, when Mark made his “goodnight” call, he asked to talk to me. When I got on the phone he said, “Hey, did the kids get a letter from Santa?” I said that they had gotten it. And there was a long pause. Mark said, “Well, they didn’t mention anything.” Another pause … Finally I said, “Ah, Mark… If I ask them about the letter right now, they will know that you had something to do with it.” “Oh, yes. Well, I just wanted to know if they got it and if they liked it.”
Will is 11 and he still believes. At least it sure seems like it. Could be that he’s faking it because he’s already discovered that fantasy is better than reality. He did ask a bunch of questions about this year’s letter. “Do all kids get letters? How does Santa have time to write all those letters? If all kids don’t get letters, why do we get ’em?”
The three of us were excited this year because Mark had made plans to be out of town for Christmas. Then, on the night of Christmas Eve, he asked when he could see the kids on Christmas Day. That sent us into a tailspin. Of course, in typical Narcissist fashion, he denied ever having made plans to be out of town. He said that he’d been asking the kids (all along) when they could come over. When I got off the phone, I asked them if their dad had attempted to make plans for Christmas Day. They denied ever having been asked. Then they asked if I was mad at them. Then we tried to re-create phone conversations with Mark. And once again, the three of us realized that we were caught up in his lies and contradictions. We got our bearings, set up a time for the kids to see him, and proceeded to grin and bear it.
On Christmas Day, after opening the gifts that Santa left at Mark’s house, Will gave me a call. He had an urgent question. “Mom? Did you talk to Santa on the phone this year?” I emphatically said, “No! Pal, he’s way too busy to be talking to every body’s parents this time of year.” Then Will says, “Well I was just checking.” Continue reading →
24
Dec 09
Ho Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum
I have got to lighten up. I seem to have misplaced my sense of humor. Perhaps I’ll discover it under the pile of gifts yet to be wrapped. Maybe it’s at the bottom of a mug of eggnog laced with rum. (Yuk. Why do people drink sweetened, pre-scrambled eggs? Just give me the rum.) Yesterday Jenny asked me why my eyes were purple. I said, “I was crying.” She said, “How come you were crying, Mommy?” I scooped her up, twirled her around, and excitedly told her, “Because it’s Christmas, Silly.” Doesn’t everybody cry at Christmas? She has watched me sniffle at Hallmark commercials. I’ll let her think that I’m crying for all the mushy reasons that people might get teary over, at this time of the year.
Ahhh… Christmas with a Narcissist. It’s a beautiful thing. For years, Mark told me that Christmas was his most favorite time of the year. He would actually get misty-eyed over the holidays. Then, as we started a family, he would still get all sappy about Christmas, and how magical it was. But we were never seeing him. His shop gets crazy busy during the Thanksgiving/Christmas season. I wasn’t sure what part of the holidays he enjoyed so much, because he wasn’t able to spend time with his family. Perhaps I just didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to know, in my heart, that the reason he loved Christmas so much was because of the money-making potential of the holidays. I saw the pattern — he would tear up when discussing the day’s proceeds, not how cute his kids were at their Christmas Programs. Actually, he’d fall asleep at their Christmas Programs due to exhaustion from putting in so many long hours trying to wrangle in those few extra dollars.
When I would suggest that he hire an extra person to help him with the load so that he might enjoy his favorite time of the year with our kids while they were young and believed in Santa, he’d scoff at me. He’d pontificate and say, “Well, you have the luxury of staying home, making the house pretty, and making caramels for Christmas because I slave away and put in the long hours to make that possible.” While I agreed that his working as hard as he did made it possible for me to stay home, I also saw that he enjoyed being on stage down at the shop. No matter the level of craziness or exhaustion, he would parade around Ho Ho Ho-ing the customers, cheerfully bagging the product and all the while exclaiming about how great it is to be one of Santa’s Elves. He would insist that the kids and I be down at the shop, so we could marvel at his performance.
Then, on Christmas Eve, he would collapse at 3 p.m. and begrudgingly wake on Christmas morning when the kids wanted to get up early to see what Santa had left. And, Oh! What Santa would leave! Mittens, ski socks, long underwear, toasty warm ski jackets, snow boots, and gloves, too. And another set of thinker long underwear, warmer than the first, and glove liners and ski tickets, and fleece jackets to layer under the other fleece jackets. And hats and neck warmers and liners for the ski socks. We didn’t work as a team on Christmas gift purchasing. I got what I thought the kids would have fun with. He got what he thought they needed. One year I said, “Mark, if we are going skiing anyway, why is a lift ticket a gift?” He would answer that he made it possible for us to go skiing, so that was a gift. I’ve often considered opening some kind of ski retail shop with all the mittens, gloves, ski socks and long underwear that still has not been worn. The other day, Mark asked Will where his heavy-duty long ski mittens were. I knew the mittens that Mark was referring to. He’d given them to Will three years ago. They are still too big for Will. In fact, they are too big for me to wear.
It seems there is a delicately fine line between the crying and the laughing. I think I’ve been on the wrong side of that line lately. I can either cry about the absurdities of the holidays with Narcissists, or I can laugh. They sure do give us a lot of material for laughter. I hope that if you find yourself crying during this Christmas Season, that you are crying for all the right reasons. Continue reading →
23
Dec 09
Narcissist Quotes
You cannot make this stuff up.
Only Survivors know how true these quotes are.
Thank you for sharing!
Annie:
- “I got myself a new pair of running shoes. Here — you can have my old ones.”
- After telling him that I had made an appointment with an Ob/Gyn to discover if I may have fibroids or something more serious, he chimes in with, “Can’t they check your knees while they’re at it?”
21
Dec 09
Turn It Up
Survival has been tough lately. Dang. I’m losing the sense the it ever does get any easier. I’m making the choices that get us closer to where we want to be. But there’s some big one’s left to tackle. I’m running out of reserves. Jenny looked at me the other day and said, “Mom, hook up the iPod. You need a little ‘Toes’.” That’s our new favorite by the Zac Brown Band. She was right. I plugged it in and turned it up. Let’s pack it in and head to a sandy beach.
18
Dec 09
What Is That Smell?
Underneath my laptop I have a magazine insert that advertises perfume. I usually yank them out and give them to Jenny. I kept this one because it reminds me of my long-distance friend. The heat from the laptop warms it a bit. Once in awhile I hit a keystroke and a little whiff of the scent comes at me. It’s almost like he’s standing right behind me. I wish I knew which keystroke was the magic one to warm up the scent.
The randomness is what makes it sweet.
__________
The kids and I are always talking about how something smells. I can remember Will at his third birthday. He was seriously into his sniffing phase. Each present he opened couldn’t be enjoyed until he’d thoroughly smelled it. He’s gotten a little more discreet about how he smells things.
Jenny often decides whether or not she likes someone based on their scent. Continue reading →
14
Dec 09
I’ll Take The Fingernails
“Are you kidding? That’s for me? You guys made that for me? Were you thinking about me when you made that? Can I have it? Can I keep it? Can I hang it in my house? Won’t it look so nice in my house? I can’t believe you guys made that for me! You guys were thinking about me! That’s so cool! That’s really for me, right?”
Would you guess that Mark had been presented with the most exquisite gift ever given? Maybe an original painting? Maybe a handmade quilt? Maybe a one-of-a-kind piece of pottery? Maybe the Hope Diamond? Guess again. The kids gave him a few evergreen branches tied together with a Christmas ribbon. Will says, “Ah, yea, Dad. You can go ahead and hang that on your house.” Then Will turns to look at me with this expression on his face that says, “Get me outta here!”
Those exclamations are the sounds of feigned interest. That is the sound of a person faking enthusiasm for something they think they are supposed to get excited about. That is what it sounds like when you pretend to be interested in something your kids have done. Can you imagine having to pretend to be interested? Can you imagine not thinking that everything they create is some kind of gift, or an indication that they are destined for a life of greatness?
We’ve heard that a lot. Usually those exclamations are followed by short statements that tell the artist how they came up short in their execution. “Jenny! That’s the most amazing drawing of the Loch Ness Monster that I’ve ever seen. But I don’t think he has purple spots.” “Will, I love the story you wrote. But, Buddy, you should really stick with painting.”
Narcissists don’t react to situations the way most people do. Most people try to appropriately match their reaction to the situation. Actually, I don’t think most people have to try to do that. Okay, maybe we have to work at it a bit, when we’re reacting to something coming from someone we don’t know well. But with our family, or people we know well, it shouldn’t be fabricated. It comes naturally for most of us to find the right measure of enthusiasm for any given circumstance. Narcissists don’t have that ability. Maybe it has something to do with their lack of empathy. Perhaps they have to fake all emotions when they are reacting to something that they haven’t created. Continue reading →
