Tag Archives: freaks of nature

So, Aunt Alex was with a narcissistic old flame the other day, making out with him in the back seat of a flames-embellished, spoiler-bedecked Hyundai, when….

Hm. Got your attention there, didn’t I.

And now, let’s leap right to the point here: Life is complex, feelings are complex, and relationships are complex, but when it comes to narcissists, simple is your friend. Bare-bones, reduced-to-the-elements points are your friends. Straight-talk is your friend.

I’ll bet dimes to doughnuts that you’ve bought into the BS of a narcissist before. You’ve done this not because you’re dumb, or weak, but because you’re emotionally generous. You give the benefit of the doubt. You allow for some wiggle-room. But, boy, would the straight talk ever sound different:

Wiggle-room: “I’ll just hear him out and see what he has to say.”
Reality: “I’ll just give him MORE attention and give myself MORE hope, when the truth is I’ll only end up hurt and depressed.”

Wiggle-room: “It’s OK if we spend a little time together. I won’t let things go too far.”
Reality: “Things absolutely will go too far, because he’s a scammer and a liar, but I won’t see it coming until it’s too late.”

Wiggle-room: “I’m a kind person and I believe in people who want to change.”
Reality: “I want him to change, and want to help him change, but he hasn’t yet, is all talk now, and isn’t putting up an ounce of effort other than the blathering about it.”

Wiggle-room: “We were only talking. We missed each other.”
Reality: “We were making out in his car, while his fiancee waited for him to come and pick her and their new baby up at the hospital.”

See how that works?

It’s the narcissist who is damaged goods, and he can plow a path of emotional sewage and destruction without any help from the rest of us. When we give a narcissist so much as a micron of wiggle-room, you can bet your doughnuts he’ll use it to shove through your personal boundaries and wreak further havoc on your life. Second chances, second-guessing, letting his abuses go, forgiving and forgetting — none of these approaches have a role in dealing with a narcissist. It’s like adopting a rabid dog who’s already bitten you and your family members multiple times, because you think he might be OK now. It’s just not a safe, or likely, or worthwhile bet.

Narcissists are liars and phonies who will never change, ever; not soon, not later, not a lot or a little. Cut your losses, and you’ll be glad you listened to your own straight-talk.

Hello, Friends; Aunt Alex is back from the front lines, with stories to tell and observations to share. And the first one is about a well-meaning but not-too-bright-in-the-bulb guy named Jeff.

Jeff isn’t a narcissist. Jeff’s a therapist, and he sees lots of different clients, including people involved in nasty relationships. Here’s what Jeff said, with a straight face: “You can’t be making narcissists out to be pathological. Narcissism is just another trait, on a continuum. Some have less, some have more, but it’s not really a personality disorder.”

It took Aunt Alex quite a bit of time to knock this dolt out and stuff his lifeless body down a storm sewer, but now that it’s done, let me set the record straight:

Continuum, my ass.

In normal, healthy people, some have more or less confidence, arrogance, self-love, self-loathing, lots of things. Some people are more empathic or less empathic. Some are big jerks or barely have a jerky day in their lives. But narcissists are not, I repeat, are not on a continuum of normal traits.

The key here is the empathy. Narcissists don’t have less empathy than the average person, or way less empathy than average. THEY HAVE NO ABILITY TO EMPATHIZE AT ALL. That empathizing part of their brain isn’t shrunken; it’s absent. They can’t even fake it very well, for very long. This isn’t on a continuum of normal, because there’s NOTHING normal about having a barren absence of empathy. It’s like having a continuum of colors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet, and on that continuum the narcissist is North. It doesn’t even make any sense to put him anywhere on a continuum where he has no relationship to the thing being measured and compared.

Jeff was exhibiting an irritating tendency one sometimes sees in the helping professions, and that’s to cut the narcissist a break. To “find health” or “seek out strengths”. To give hope where there is none, and where hope only makes the hurt drag out longer and the devaluation go on and on. This isn’t cool. There are mental health professionals, helpers, coaches who are worth their weight in gold, who know that some people are abusive and broken beyond repair, and know that it’s OK for everyone else to stay away from them. And there are others who really need to shove their concepts about narcissists down in the storm sewer along with Jeff.

We’ve talked about this before, but it’s a huge component of the trouble with getting over these assclowns after a break-up — and that’s how easily he seems to move on. How light his step is after you break up, how easy it is for him to pretend that now, now that you’re not in his life, he is happier than ever and feels energy and radiance in every day. This is all while you feel like you’ve been hit by a logging truck and can barely form coherent sentences, so thorough and intense is your grief and pain. And it feels to you exactly how he wants it to feel to you — like he’s indispensable, unique, fun, healthy, awesome, and Mr. Right, and you’re doomed to a pit of misery, despair and depression without him.

OK, please join Aunt Alex as we take a closer look at this. Two people are together. Let’s call them Jennifer, and Assclown Narcissistic Douchebag Yakface (OK, we can call him “Andy” for short). Jennifer is a vibrant, emotionally generous woman. Andy is a narcissist who has no empathy, no ability to bond, and no burden of thinking of anyone but himself. Jennifer and Andy are going out.

Jennifer bonds. Andy only pretends to. Jennifer becomes emotionally involved. Andy only pretends to. Jennifer loves. Andy, ugh — he’d rather suck on moose mucous flavored fun pops.

Andy, because he’s an A. N. D. Y., breaks it off when he starts to feel he and Jennifer are too close, or she points out he’s not perfect, or he just feels vaguely bored one day and figures it must be the woman’s fault. Jennifer, not understanding what the heck happened, is devastated. Andy is not, because he was never truly invested in the relationship. So he carries on like things are fine.

There’s also something else happening here, and that’s Andy’s desperate need to pretend. Andy isn’t fine after the break-up. Not because he loved Jennifer and she was important to him, but because he’s a disordered trainwreck on the inside, and he’s constantly unsure how things look, what’s happening, whether he’ll get enough attention and adoration that day, and whether anyone at any time will ever actually make him decide anything or expect him to know how to pretend to feel. He’s anxious that he might not get enough worship. That’s a lot for one pathetic idiot to take on each and every day. But he’s going to pretend he’s doing fabulously, because: a) he needs to find a Jennifer replacement FAST and to do that he needs to look good, and b) it would never occur to him NOT to pretend that everything is terrific. Pretending is his life. Pretending is who he is.

My point here is this: Jennifer’s response to the break-up is real. It’s deep, and affects her, and it’s complex and emotionally strong. Andy’s reaction is just another narcissistic song and dance. 100% fake, totally meaningless, and utterly devoid of value. It doesn’t mean anything because it’s not tied to actual feelings, empathy and events. It’s only reflective of his need to bust his narcissist moves. It’s only about his desperation and his shallowness. It’s only about him, right this second, and what he wants, where he is, and what he’s doing right this second. What he can get out of someone this second, and who might be nearby from whom he can get it.

He eventually gets in touch with Jennifer again, because he wants some attention and adoration and remembers she gave it before. Now that they’ve been apart for a while, she’s not “regular” anymore — and “regular” is a very, very noxious concept to the garden-variety narcissist. He also wants to see that she’s been having a hard time without him; this makes him feel special. So, he looks her up, and he pours on the charm to try to get another fix of love from her. And if she’s been listening to Aunt Alex, she’ll do us the sweet, sweet favor of taking him back in without a hitch. Please, Jennifer. Get him away from us. Take one for the team.

OW! Hey, watch it with the rolled-up newspaper! Man, social workers can have surprising upper body strength……..