Sunday Inspiration: Sorrow

Has Sorrow Thy Young Days Shaded

by Thomas Moore

Has sorrow thy young days shaded,

As clouds o'er the morning fleet?

Too fast have those young days faded

That, even in sorrow, were sweet?

Does Time with his cold wing wither

Each feeling that once was dear? --

Then, child of misfortune, come hither,

I'll weep with thee, tear for tear.

Has love to that soul, so tender,

Been like our Lagenian mine,

Where sparkles of golden splendour

All over the surface shine --

But, if in pursuit we go deeper,

Allured by the gleam that shone,

Ah! false as the dream of the sleeper,

Like Love, the bright ore is gone.

Has Hope, like the bird in the story,

That flitted from tree to tree

With the talisman's glittering glory --

Has Hope been that bird to thee?

On branch after branch alighting,

The gem did she still display,

And, when nearest, and most inviting,

Then waft the fair gem away?

If thus the young hours have fleeted,

When sorrow itself look'd bright;

If thus the fair hope hath cheated,

That led thee along so light;

If thus the cold world now wither

Each feeling that once was dear --

Come, child of misfortune, come hither,

I'll weep with thee, tear for tear.

Our family has been dealing with a recent tragedy that is 'too close to home', bringing up a lot of feelings and thoughts we rarely talk about. Our secreted fears are hard to face.

As parents of children with depression, we hope for the best but realize that some of our children will always be vulnerable to suicide caused by depression. Depression that is circumstantial, biological, or in some cases: both. When we partner with a narcissist, our children must resolve their feelings of low self-worth, rejection, abandonment, emotional disconnection, and for some, struggle to eliminate narcissistic defenses protecting a fragile self-worth.

Last week, a 16-year old, talented, intelligent, very loved, young man committed suicide by hanging himself from the family's balcony overlooking our city. He was the stepson of my sister's close friend. He had run away from home, hiding in the mountainside close to his residence. Three helicopters and a search crew attempted to find him and coax him into returning home. After a fruitless search, his parents returned home and found him hanging from a rope tied to their two-story deck. He had evidently planned his suicide. I cannot put their traumatic grief into words, nor my own.

His funeral was yesterday, attended by hundreds of people who knew the family through their work in Alanon and community service. His stepmother was actively involved in her stepson's life, as was his biological father who divorced his first wife because of her substance addictions when their children were young ( I believe this boy was about five years old at the time).

His biological mother attended the funeral services, too. Several people held her up as she staggered inebriated into the chapel---blaming the stepmother and her x-husband for causing this young man's death. The horror of this mother's narcissism, irresponsibility, and projected blame will forever be imprinted in my mind and heart. It wasn't her fault. None of it was her fault. Of course not.

The unavoidable truth is children's lives are damaged when narcissistic parents refuse responsibility for their destructive behavior. Narcissistic parents who are more concerned about Escaping Reality than Facing Reality. Narcissistic parents who have no conscience about leaving emotional messes for their children to clean up. Narcissistic parents whose preoccupation with the self, lack of empathy, cold indifference, and pursuit of self-gratification to the exclusion of their children's welfare, result in a tragic legacy their children are left to bear. The children are the ones who must face parental neglect and emotional abandonment. The children, who are too young to realize parental dysfunction is not the child's fault---that the child did not 'cause' the alcoholism---that the child was never defective nor unworthy of love.

As devoted as stepparents may be in reassuring a child's worth, even compassionate parents are limited in their ability to repair the broken bond between a child and a narcissistic parent. The sadness is that this young man took action to end his life before he was psychologically mature enough to work through the devastation of a mother who did not love him as he deserved to be loved, his right as a child to be protected, to feel safe and secure, to know that 'he' was first and foremost in her life. The realization of this tragedy makes me weep for all the children whose lives are relegated to second-place in the narcissist's eternal quest to put him-or herself primary.

I cannot help but reflect on the changes in our society that defeat parental influence in the home. Despite our efforts modeling healthy and 'meaningful' lifestyles, the outside world is invited into our homes in surreptitious and devastating ways. Our culture has more influence over our children's lives than it ever has, promoting empty values of fame and celebrity, self-serving behaviors of 'me-first', and a hedonistic emptiness of self-gratification at all costs to others.

We cannot ignore the social influence gaining headway over our parenting, even the best of parenting. A social influence that disconnects us from one another and thus, from ourselves. We cannot ignore the impact of a narcissistic parent who is unable to support a child in the way a child needs to be protected and loved. The impact of narcissistic parenting can be lifelong and as some of us regret to admit: life-threatening.

This young man had a personality change a few months ago. He began withdrawing, ignoring activities that were no longer interesting or pleasurable. He began having problems in school and isolating himself. His parents were concerned and began counseling with a psychologist to see if their child might be depressed. Because psychologists are reluctant to diagnose a child with bipolar or put them on medication without a thorough diagnosis, he was not being treated for a potentially genetic condition. The poignant sadness is that bipolar can be treated effectively with medication if it is caught in time, especially before the child has his-or-her first mania.

Everything this young man needed to get his life in order was already in place: supportive parents, a devoted father and stepmother, therapeutic involvement, friends and family and extended relationships, activities and intellectual pursuits in which he excelled (he was a genius with languages); and yet, a potentially biological predisposition coupled with a narcissistic birth mother who continued to create drama and chaos in her children's lives, were too much for this child to overcome.

I am tearful today and also humbled. There is only so much we can do as concerned adults. For, despite our attempts to 'fix' what is obviously broken, our 'fixing' is countered by a narcissistic culture and genetic predispositions over which we have little power or influence.

Children today face an empty proliferation of dissatisfying role models placing fame & fortune above normality, serving self above others. And what can I say about the pain of knowing a blessed child was born with a genetic predisposition that will be a life-long challenge for both the child and those who nurture him-or-her? It is humbling to admit to ourselves that as parents, we are not omnipotent; our desire to ameliorate a child's problems is beyond the scope of our influence; we cannot seclude a child from the harsh realities of life in a narcissistic culture. We do what we can do to support them but in the end, we are helpless to save them from harm caused by others or by themselves.

We hope and we pray and we mourn.

God bless all the parents who care enough to try.

Hugs,

CZBZ

Sunday Inspiration: Gratitude

The Milkmaid by Jan Vermeer. 1658

Quotes by Brother David Steindl-Rast:

"Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy -- because we will always want to have something else or something more."

"As I express my gratitude, I become more deeply aware of it. And the greater my awareness of it, the greater my need to express it. What happens here is a spiraling ascent, a process of growth in ever expanding circles around a steady center."

"Love wholeheartedly, be surprised, give thanks and praise and then you will discover the fullness of your life."

"A Good Day"

with Brother David Steindl-Rast

While listening to this soothing video, my heart was filled with gratitude for spiritual leaders gifting us with comforting words and HOPE that we will come to peace with the terrible things that happen---even to very good people. Terrible things we did not deserve, nor expect, nor earn as a direct result of our behavior. It's devastating to believe in principles of forgiveness, kindness, humility, meekness, and charity and live by those principles---despite the challenge of putting "principles above personalities." Or should I write, "Putting principles above personality disorders."

To add insult to injury, cherished values guiding and shaping our characters are called into question during a requisite self-examination process we call 'healing'. My essential nature as a caretaker was ridiculed, demeaned, and even pathologized in my search for answers as to Why a Good-Enough Woman Attracted Narcissists. Why a generous woman 'settled' for less than she deserved. I even questioned my own sanity (or delusion) to love people who were occasionally unloving---my willingness to remain supportive in the belief that people could become the person they wanted to be. It seems fairly normal for people whose good hearts have been bruised by an unloving narcissist, to demean our principles and values as the CAUSE of narcissistic abuse. No. Values that create healthy relationships are not the cause of an unhealthy relationship. The narcissist takes advantage of people by manipulating their 'sacred values' to serve him-or-herself in the guise that they share the same values as ourselves. Please pay attention to that last sentence: In The Guise (pretense) that they SHARE the same values as ourselves.

Unfortunately, too many of us blame our inherently good values and principles as the cause of abuse, rather than holding the narcissist accountable for trespassing, manipulating, and taking advantage of other people's sacred values with no intent (nor ability) to reciprocate. The issue is not that narcissists are incapable of reciprocating that which they demand from others--it's that they DECEIVE others by pretending to cherish similar values and principles.

I became cynical about my typically grateful nature. A nature that appreciated the smallest of things in life, things people in a culture like ours generally take for granted. Perhaps my gratefulness was the result of a childhood requiring hard work and cooperation to secure a satisfactory lifestyle for our family. Perhaps my naturally grateful attitude is genetic. A streak of optimism definitely runs through my Z-family history; and that optimistic outlook is both remarkable and annoying as helll to people watching us Get Back Up and Smile after being knocked down to our knees.

While we Z's are on our knees however, we are multi-tasking: supplicating God for support and checking for broken bones at the same time. If it ain't broke, there's no excuse for resting on our laurels. I'm sure my grandparents would say, "Be grateful your knees still function CZ. Be grateful you aren't alone 'cuz God is your faithful companion when your mortal companion, the one who thinks he's God, runs away with the gingerbread girl." Well, they'd counsel me with guidance somewhat close to that.

We Z's get back up with grateful hearts that we're still breathing because there's no allowance for giving up simply because life didn't turn out the way we planned it. We learned to be grateful for whatever was on the table, even if we were dining on fresh milk with bits of undigested alfalfa floating on to the surface and the last box of Saltine crackers in Mom's food storage. A grateful heart was modeled for me by religious relatives, protecting me from childish entitlement and consequential spite for not having gotten what I deserved. I am grateful today for those goodly people who never let a meal go by without offering thanks both to God and the person preparing the meal.

"Thank you, dear Lord, for all those who provided this food and prepared it for us. Please bless this food and the hands that prepared it. Amen."

One of the first things I intuitively did when falling to my knees in despair, was force myself to give thanks for ten blessings in my life when first waking up in the morning. The catch to this plan was that I could not repeat the same ten things each day otherwise my gratitude list would become as repetitive and meaningless as a memorized prayer over breakfast. What my 'Self' was inspiring me to do was keep my eyes open to blessings instead of focusing on losses--the things I had worked for, but didn't get. Like loving a spouse who needed extensive support and empathy but did not know how to love people or accept their willingness to help when he was vulnerable. It would be so easy to focus on my 'losses' after decades of compassionate understanding because ultimately, I was discarded by an ungrateful partner who only counted flaws and deprivation---not the blessings in his life. And there were many.

As life throws challenges our direction, even after we have grieved the narcissistic relationship, it is easy to ignore the smallest of gifts we take for granted. Like owning a blanket. Or sleeping in a bed with extra pillows. Having a refrigerator to preserve safe food for our children; or a washer and dryer, a car, or nice neighbors who respect our privacy as we do theirs. There were so many things to be grateful for once my eyes were looking for them, that I still haven't run out of blessings.

The amazing effect of a Ten Things I'm Grateful For list is that it kept me looking for blessings during the day because I held myself accountable for noticing ten new things following morning. This simple idea balanced the obvious and undeniable losses in my life.

I did not lie to myself and say "I am so grateful to lose my HOME, my FAMILY, my HUSBAND, my IDENTITY and my sense of WORTH."

I said, "I AM MAD AS HELLL about losing my HOME, my FAMILY, my HUSBAND and I really hate feeling like I'm REPLACEABLE and WORTHLESS."

Then, I felt those losses all the way to my knees while mourning my despair. Nonetheless, true to my family name, I stood back up and named ten things for which I was grateful the first thing in the morning. Each new day, after enduring another round of sadness forcing me to accept a reality I didn't deserve, I was back on my knees. Once again, the gratitude list lifted my heart and opened my eyes to abundance and deprivation.

Denial is a seductive way to deny our real losses and forestall our grief by filling ourselves with 'positive feelings' and ignoring the negative. Denial is a temporary defense at best for without an honest appraisal and acceptance of our losses, self-inflated optimism will eventually succumb to reality. Reality always wins in the end. Unless you are really, really good at lying to yourself.

Healing the wounded self requires an intentional balance between facing unavoidable losses and counting unwarranted blessings. Eventually we recognize that we have more unearned blessings than unearned losses. As we balance the scales of justice, entitlement loses its narcissistic grip on the ego and unrecognized, unearned, and unmerited blessings free our souls.

Hugs,

CZ

Count Your Blessings

by Johnson Oatman, Jr. 1856-1922

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed,

When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,

Count your many blessings, name them one by one,

And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Refrain

Count your blessings, name them one by one,

Count your blessings, see what God hath done!

Count your blessings, name them one by one,

And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Are you ever burdened with a load of care?

Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?

Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,

And you will keep singing as the days go by.

Refrain

When you look at others with their lands and gold,

Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold;

Count your many blessings. Wealth can never buy

Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.

Refrain

So, amid the conflict whether great or small,

Do not be disheartened, God is over all;

Count your many blessings, angels will attend,

Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

Refrain

Resources

Gratefulness.org: http://www.gratefulness.org/index.htm

cyberhymnal.org: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/c/o/countyou.htm

Connecting the self with the Self

The Harvester by Adolphe William Bouguereau, 1868

Four days ago, I went shopping with my parents. We weren't trekking the aisles of Dillard's or salivating in jewelry stores wishing for two-carat diamonds to prove our status to people who didn't even know us. We weren't lollygagging in Orson Gygi's kitchen store, either. Or should I say, Orson Gygi's culinary arts center stocked with pots and pans costing more than our first farm in Idaho. Not that I don't appreciate culinary arts centers. When this pot roast queen saunters through Gygi's grand entrance, I'm elevated from chief-cook-and-bottle-washer to the superior status of Master Chef. It’s a heady feeling, very different from shopping for spatulas at Wal-Mart.

Had I known about Orson Gygi when my kids were little, their nightly query, "What's for dinner, Mom?" might have been answered with "Pasta." Not macaroni. "Fromage." Not cheese. And instead of starting the meal with peeled carrots dipped in Miracle Whip, we'd have dined on crudités and la sauce miracle. My kids would have filled up on the same meal no matter what we called it, that's true; but at least they'd have felt special instead of typical and ordinary. Not that I'm criticizing people who treat their kids like royalty by turning themselves into short order cooks at the child’s command; though maybe I am criticizing parents who indulge their children’s ‘wants’ and ignore their children’s ‘needs’. My kitchen mantra when my kids complained about liver and onions was: “You eat what I Cook ‘cuz I know more about nutrition than you do. I study books you can’t even read, yet.”

Then I allowed them to make a choice: "Do you want liver and onions with salt? Or do you want liver and onions with salt AND pepper?"

About five years ago, an incident at an upscale but 'homey' restaurant typified what we see today when parents try too hard to please their children. It set my teeth on edge though I couldn’t say ‘why’ at the time. It just bugged. Being an authority figure and not a child's 'servant' is a balancing act for most twenty-first century parents. I never denied my authority as a parent, though I toned it down a bit from the authoritarian parenting style we boomer kids grew up with.

A mother and her three-year-old son were waiting in line ahead of me. The restaurant’s food had already been prepared and arranged in big bowls sitting in a display case---family-style-chic a' la California. There was one bowl of this and another bowl of that and once they ran out of a particular dish, there wasn’t anymore for that day. By the time this mother and her child had placed their orders, all the pasta-and-fromage had been served to prior customers.

“But my son wants pasta!” she complained.

“I’m sorry. We’re out of pasta.”

“Can’t you make some more? Just for him? He wants pasta!”

“I’m sorry. We’re out of pasta.”

"BUT HE WANTS PASTA!"

After which, the woman had a conniption fit that her son, the three-year-old-monarch, would not be able to eat what HE WANTED. And yup, he was earnestly watching his mother treat people like serfs because he, the Center of our Universe, was denied macaroni and cheese. I could not have told you why this incident was so ‘wrong’ at the time because the word narcissism was not on the tip of my tongue---but Spoilt Brat was. And so was “Get Real” in reference to his mother. This incident stuck in my head like Case Study on How To Raise a Boy To Be Entitled, Arrogant, and definitely NOT suitable for marriage.

In light of our Narcissism Epidemic evidenced by little monarchs giving marching orders to insecure parents, I browsed Orson Gygi's stock to see if they sold wee crowns for wee ones to wear while dining at the family's royal table. Too bad! No Crowns! The good news is that Orson Gygi stocks those white hats the 'real chefs' wear while preparing food in top-notch restaurants. Sorry...let me rephrase that: "...white hats the 'real chefs' wear while creating masterpieces in top-notch restaurants."

I resisted buying one of those tall, pleated and bleached mushrooms since I'm partial to hairnets myself. That's what the best cooks wore when we ate in a school lunchroom back in the 1950's and 60's. Maybe this says a lot about my lack of ambition but I never aspired to be the Top chef on a reality show. I aspired to be one of those gloriously chubby lunchroom ladies giving extra scoops of cinnamon roll goop if kids said, "Thank You, and Please." And when the cinnamon roll goop was gone, we accepted the fact that it was gone. The next time cinnamon rolls were on the menu, we lined up as soon as lunch bell rang. (One of my sisters strives to fill the idealized lunchroom ladies' shoes, too. Neither of us has achieved recognition for our culinary mastery, other than the occasional burp at the very 'not-so-royal' dinner table.)

Getting back to my original story:

My Dad needed a new wheat grinder because his old one released too much dust in the air; Mom feared her carpet would turn into a grain field. You see, now that my Dad has retired, he has assumed the role of master bread maker. Mom’s more than willing to share the joy of baking after spending half her life in the kitchen. Sorry, let me rephrase that last sentence: "...after spending half her life in the culinary arts center." My Dad, the typical patriarch, doesn't call himself "chief-cook-and-bottle-washer." He has designated himself: Master Bread Maker. Frankly, we don't care what he calls himself as long as he raises the dough.

Evidently not that many shabby-chic-boulangers are interested in grinding wheat because we eventually resorted to following the Yellow Pages to an Emergency Survival Store located on the perimeters of town. On the overloaded shelves of Armageddon Surplus (This wasn’t Orson Gygi, Toto), we beheld intimidating wheat grinders marketed to people with Popeye biceps, grinders to function with generators, grinders so massive you could open a grain-and-feed store or sell extra flour to Pillsbury Mills. There were rows of plastic buckets filled with varieties of wheat: hard winter red, hard spring red, soft winter red, hard winter white, soft spring white, Montana wheat, Idaho wheat, Durum wheat, and buckets and buckets of rye, corn, rice, barley, oats, buckwheat, millet, kamut, quinoa, peas, mung beans, garbanzos, lentils and popcorn.

I dipped my hand in a bucket of high-protein wheat, allowing the hardened kernels to glide through my fingers, envisioning wheat as "the sands of time falling in an hourglass." (Hummm…I think that last line comes right out of a soap opera.) Immersing my hand in a container of grain was an automatic reaction; it’s something I’ve done countless times, though what happened this time was unexpected.

My heart skipped a beat. I felt a quickening of spirit. An electrical surge re-connected me to a 'mothering' role providing the basics of life that sustained, gratified and gave my life direction, meaning, and purpose. My passion for lovin' folks from the oven was revitalized in an unanticipated nanosecond. I felt a rush of gratitude for my time-honored role as a nurturer.

It’s been a long, dry spell of miserable emptiness since my role was reduced to meaningless servitude---a woman whose daily tasks were diminished as ‘replaceable’ and trivial. Sure, we can purchase bread at the grocery store and sure, it doesn’t crumble when you spread it with jam and sure, store-bought bread is cheap considering the labor required to grind and knead and raise and bake it in the oven. Sure, cooks can be replaced when the king decides he needs another chef. But can “I” be replaced?

When my role as a wife and mother was devalued and discarded, I unfortunately D&D’ed my true Self. The one I'd been working on for fifty years. It’s been miserable mourning the pain of rejection, the shattering of my belief that a woman's work was significant, the assumption that I was irreplaceable, that the Self I knew as "me" was more than the sum of my productivity. In the aftermath of divorce, my passion for all things domestic went into hiding. I resisted the thoughts of nurturing anyone or anything, even myself. My love for cooking, my love for gardening, my willingness to embrace a care-taking role so much bigger than "I", seemed to disappear entirely. I felt Lost. Lonely. Lousy. The three "L's" of helll. Somehow and some way, I survived a seven-year drought, an inevitable famine, a plague of locusts, a boiling temper, and even fire-and brimstone when the sky was so dark it appeared the earth had swallowed the sun. Then the frogs came. Seriously. I’ll tell you that story another time.

I lost an essential connection to my true Self, the self that found purpose and meaning in ordinary duties like packing lunches with peanut butter smeared on crusty bread. I feared my reliably steady old Self would never return; yet she did. She returned from a journey through despair and hopelessness with a renewed appreciation of her role as an everyday woman. With a ‘zing’ and a ‘zap’, the old me made her presence known and yes, some people might think it odd that the catalyst for reuniting a woman's self with her capital "S" Self was a wheat grinder. That's okay. I think it's rather ridiculous myself and definitely not exciting or newsworthy. But that's what happened and it inspired me to write to everyone who fears they will never find themselves again. You will. There won't be a fireworks display and no one will notice, or understand your internal change, or even care. Most likely, or so the ancient wise ones tell us: reconnecting self with Self will happen when you're "chopping wood and carrying water".

Did the narcissistic relationship disconnect you from your true Self?

I believe that the more preoccupied we are with finding the lost Self, the more resistant and persistently entrenched the little self remains. So do something you always found meaningful and don't fret about a lack of desire or temporary disdain. This is a normal response to grief and loss. Then think back to the Self you knew, the person you were before your life was interrupted by the invalidating narcissist. Did you love needlework or carpentry? Did you find meaning in spiritual books, poetry, and thoughtful meditation? Was your passion ignited when baking bread or planning menus or doing whatever work you do and doing it the best that you could? If you were able to lose your self in an activity, no matter how trivial or insignificant it may be, then do that activity. Your passion will be restored and it will not be an act of will, nor predictable, nor scheduled on a Covey Day Planner.

The disconnect of self to Self is healed through our willing submission to a grieving process. We yield to the grind of mourning and the spirit raises herself. Once again, we find extraordinary meaning from ordinary, yet life-sustaining responsibilities. We're renewed with gratitude for the commonplace. You will not lose the Self you feared had disappeared forever. You just might make her acquaintance for the first time.

Daily duties, the very basics of life, are often mundane and boring. So when you meet your old Self on the way to the woodpile, don't expect her to throw confetti. Just accept her kind offer to chop the wood and carry the water with you.

Hugs,

CZBZ

The Hollow Men

Echo and Narcissus by J.W. Waterhouse, 1903

"The key to understanding the narcissism myth is not that he fell in love with himself, but that he failed to recognize himself in his own reflection. In other words, true narcissists are not self-aware.

"A real narcissist is dissociated from his or her true self; he feels haunted by chronic feelings of loneliness, emptiness, and self-loathing and seeks to replace that disconnection with a sense of worth and importance fueled by others.

"Narcissism is also marked by a profound lack of empathy, a fundamental inability to understand and connect with the feelings of others. Taken together, these are the traits psychologists measure in diagnosing what's known as narcissistic personality disorder (NPD)." ~excerpted from The Mirror Effect by Drs. Drew Pinsky and S. Mark Young.

The Hollow Men

by T.S. Eliot

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats' feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.

~T.S. Eliot~

Resources

Drew Pinsky and S. Mark Young, The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism is Seducing America, page 88. 2009

There's a Hole in my Bucketing Heart

Rural Courtship by Daniel Ridgeway Knight

"The wound of loneliness is like the Grand Canyon---a deep incision in the surface of our existence which has become an inexhaustible source of beauty and self-understanding." ~Henri J. M. Nouwen

So we meet this handsome devil in a cowboy hat, one arm hanging casually over the fence post, his right boot shyly tucked behind his left as he stares deeply in our downcast eyes. We feel our bosoms swell because our hearts are bucketing like wild stallions penned against their will before the rodeo buzzer sets ‘em free. We daresn’t even question the rising hope that this guy will fill our emptiness. "Finally, finally!" we say to ourselves. "We have met someone who will end our loneliness." We need never feel the despair of isolation again.

We assume falling in love means never having to say, “I’m Lonely”.

Infatuation masks the pain of emptiness with idealized notions of perfect love. But even the best of relationships will be unable to disguise the inner void forever. Maturation demands growing beyond the childish notion that our emptiness can be filled by a ‘perfect other'; that an 'other' person will complete the incomplete self. The gnawing awareness of aloneness begs our attention at midlife---as if we were being granted one last chance to replace our immortal fantasies with a mortal reality: everyone feels lonely sometimes.

I believe healthy relationships reach deep inside the heart, touching unresolved wounds demanding an airing out, a witnessing, a cleansing. As we allow ourselves to feel our pain, our self-awareness grows and we bear witness to the whole of human suffering. Our sympathy for other people lays fertile ground for the spiritual growth of gratitude, love, connection, and yes, forgiveness. Awareness of aloneness matures an infantile heart by accepting separation as a blessed, yet inevitably painful condition. Those who accept their aloneness become even more grateful for the people who choose to be in their lives. We no longer take relationships for granted.

Empty hearts cannot be filled by another human being, so don't pin a vacancy sign on your bosom. That's an open invitation for a narcissist to move in. Before very long at all, a narcissist will come along and take up every inch of space you're willing to give him. Take note: If a narcissist's big foot is firmly planted on your aorta, don't call that full feeling love.

As a kid growing up in a farming community, I was forced to ride my bike for miles to see my dearest friend. I complained to a busy mother one day, “I’m lonely, Mom. I hate living in the country!” She replied, “So what?”

In other words, “Fix it yourself, daughter. Can't you see I'm busy?”

Acute loneliness encouraged me to bond with three sisters and of course, my stupid little brother who wasn’t interested in talking about girl stuff. Feeling guilty about excluding him, my empathy urged inclusion, resistant though he might be to dressing up Barbie dolls or styling plastic hair. I was compelled to sooth my emptiness by seeking relationship with siblings which soothed their aloneness, too. The truth was (and is): I feel my aloneness like an empty hole situated dead-center in the thick of my chest.

I know how it feels to be alone.

My mother, bless her heart, did not acknowledge my complaints as being anybody's responsibility other than mine. I chewed on my misery long enough for this feeling to become the impetus for getting-outside-my-little-self and connecting to an even-bigger-self: family.

As siblings, we commiserated on the insufferable state of our lives, stuck in the middle of nowhere-Idaho with the closest friend more than one mile away as a crow flies…two or three as a bicycle rolls and wasn't it a dullish bore being lonely all the time? The more we commiserated, the less lonely we became. We bonded on confessions of The Country Girl's despair, each of us taking a solemn oath with one hand over our hearts and the other on Mama's Funk & Wagnall's, that we would NEVER grow up to be like Mom, so help us god stick pins in our eyes or let us die under under the whirling blades of daddy's combine we would never be, look, say or do anything like her.

From my experience as a child who grew up to trust and depend on her sisters, it's reasonable to suggest that being conscious of my separate self provided healthy motivation for building relationships, refining social skills, expanding awareness of self and other. The truth is, everyone feels alone from time to time, though not everyone cops to a private desperation making them miserable; such as those reliable machines of perpetual self-reliance: narcissists. Feelings of aloneness trigger narcissistic fears that they will be rejected or abandoned, that they are unworthy, that they will not survive the anguish of separation. The more narcissists fear rejection and isolation, the more likely they are to reject others and isolate themselves.

In the case of compensatory narcissism, the ego constructs a grandiose facade of self as superior and others as inferior. You will know narcissists are hiding behind their pretenses of self-reliance because they expect other people to make them happy. They expect other people to Fill Their Void for Them. They expect other people to do their work, too. No matter how hard we try to 'connect' to the narcissist, we will always fall short of their expectations. Our attempts to help might even be met with righteous indignation that we, emotional weaklings that we are, would presume the narcissist needed anyone or anything. Our compassion is rejected as not-good-enough and eventually, we are judged to be not-good-enough, too.

From my own experience, I have come to believe that when we know ourselves as “good-enough, smart enough and gosh darn it, people like us”, we won’t be hyper-vigilant to rejection. Sure, we’ll worry about being rejected (who likes it?!), but we won't be overly-anxious. We’ll continuing making friends because we won’t attribute 'meaning' to someone's rejection. If a friend decides s/he don’t like us, well, that’s one less person to worry about feeding at the banquet. Besides, we reserve the right to end friendships with people we don't particularly like, right? Fair's only fair. People end relationships all the time but they don't blame other people for not being "good enough and smart enough" to complete the incomplete narcissist who demands other people fill their inner void with perfect love.

The narcissist expects other people to fill his empty bucket without doing a single thing to plug the hole so he can fetch his own water.

The narcissistic relationship cannot be compared to what we might call 'normal' relationships

You do not end a narcissistic relationship without losing solid ground within yourself, or without enduring the magnification of your fears of abandonment, or concerns about being 'unfit', or unworthy of love. Even if you are holding steady in your self-confidence when the N-relationship is over, the narcissist will throw as many insults your direction as possible, insisting on pressing his thumb on your already bruised ego. To alleviate responsibility for not being able to love others, narcissists are intent to PROVE that 'others' were not lovable. Your self-confidence plummets. This is what happens in the narcissistic relationship, and it is subtle and hard to pin-point. Basically, the narcissistic relationship comes down to this:

YOU are responsible for your aloneness and YOU are responsible for the narcissist’s aloneness, too.

Nowhere in this relational trap is the narcissist considered defective, unlovable, damaged goods OR responsible.

Just you.

It's all you.

I've written two essays describing the Lone Narcissist and Lonely Others which explain each person’s belief about responsibility and how they have attributed meaning to the feeling of aloneness. Both the narcissist and the non-narcissist are talking about their sadness, their fear of rejection and isolation and yet, they are not talking about the same thing.

The problem is that most people are reluctant to do anything to increase the narcissist’s pain. We empathize with their feelings of aloneness instead. We make a serious mistake based on the assumption that how we cope with aloneness is how all human beings cope with aloneness. We know the terror of isolation and rejection and yet, most people face their fears by being responsible for their own emotional well-being. What I believe is that our feelings of aloneness motivate us to Give More of Ourselves to Others.

It is no surprise narcissists do the opposite: They withdraw, giving even less of themselves to others. They blame people for not being good enough, kind enough, or enough-enough to fill their inner void---plug their broken bucket, embody the perfect love releasing narcissists from the prison of their ego-enforced confinement.

My lack of understanding about narcissists' pathological perceptions of aloneness, went more or less like this: “Fix the hole in your bucket, dear husband. Can't you see I'm busy?”

And he expected another person to fix it for him. Which I realized I could not do because nobody could mend the hole in my own bucket other than myself. I had been through the agonizing healing process and falsely assumed that what had worked for me would work for anyone. I believed every person needed the grace of solitude to work through their fears of aloneness.

This is not to say I blame myself for being short on patience, like my mother was with me. In truth, I was ignorant about the narcissist's inability to heal feelings of aloneness by trusting other people, by attaching, by transcending the boundaries of individual separateness, by giving more of himself, not less. My experience of aloneness embraced suffering as insight to the human condition. My aloneness became an invitation to deepen relationships.

I didn’t know, I could not know the impenetrable facade of narcissists' self reliance, masking paralyzing fears of isolation that lead to relying on others to fill their inner void while lying to themselves about dependence. In other words, narcissists cut-off awareness of loneliness to maintain their false image of independence; i.e.: they need no one but themselves. Or so they lie.

Cherish your strength to be intimately aware of your 'aloneness'. Cherish your resilience to seek affiliation. Cherish your isolation as the antecedent to joyful communion. Cherish your responsibility to bind your wounds, to bear other's wounds, to accept your brokenness not as evidence of imperfection, but as testament of your humanity.

Henry and Eliza

"There's a hole in the bucket"

A narcissistic relationship??

With Odetta (Odetta Holmes), Harry Belfonte performed this traditional folk song on May 2, 1960 in Carnegie Hall. This version appeared on his album, "Belafonte Returns to Carnegie Hall".

Hugs,

CZBZ

Lonely Others

Mariana by Sir John Everett Millais, 1851

“Narcissists sense they are separate from others but the reality is that they are separated (disconnected) from their true selves. The True Self being defined as the sustaining core self that was unconditionally loved during infancy and supported during normal maturation. Without healthy attachment to those who valued the developing child, narcissists constructed a False Self, cutting them off from their essential core self. Depending on the degree of pathology, the narcissist may or may not be able to cope with archaic feelings of aloneness that have nothing to do with the present and everything to do with an unresolved past.” ~excerpted from article, The Lone Narcissist

Most people in narcissistic relationships report feeling ‘lonely’. Of course they felt alone. They were. What I am referring to is the loneliness other people feel because they are in a narcissistic relationship that cannot satisfy emotional needs for empathic understanding and intimate connection.

When we complain about feeling lonely, it’s likely not because we are merging the past with the present and falsely accusing narcissists for parental neglect in our childhood. Feeling lonely in the narcissistic relationship is the truth. We are lonely. Narcissists are physically present but they are not emotionally present. We might feel crazy when our feelings are incongruent with our beliefs about the relationship, but it is not crazy to feel lonely when we have been abandoned emotionally.

It IS crazy for narcissists to insist they’re lonely when ‘others’ are emotionally available and present in their lives. Narcissists’ perception of themselves as alone are pathological. Or past-ological. Rearranging reality by projecting the fault of their loneliness onto those who are not ignoring, neglecting, rejecting, or abandoning them, is a distortion of reality. It is a lie. It is an accusation repeated so assuredly that narcissists aren't the only ones who believe it. Others do, too. We question ourselves unmercifully, looking for answers within that are not to be discovered. We have not abandoned the narcissist. They have abandoned their vulnerable selves.

The past and the present

Normal people might confuse pre-existing feelings with the present situation and it doesn’t mean they qualify for a DSM diagnosis. The difference is that people ‘catch themselves in the act’ by containing painful emotions long enough to gain insight into the conditions of childhood leading to an inexplicable sense of loneliness. The past and the present might be temporarily confused when something in the present triggers an emotional memory from the past. The difference is that awareness tells us we’re feeling archaic emotions that do not FIT with present time. We ‘catch’ ourselves feeling angry towards a partner when we accuse them of not meeting our needs and realize our anger is not towards that person, it’s towards our father, or our mother, or whoever it was that neglected us as children.

That’s the curative power of emotional triggers. Triggers demand our attention. We examine ourselves more deeply and separate what is happening now from what was happening then. This is normal. This is the value of containing emotions long enough for the introspection process to restore our SANITY.

In the narcissistic relationship, people are emotionally abandoned, taken for granted, expected to give---not take nor ask, and subordinate (or neglect) their own needs because narcissists’ needs are primary. Our needs are diminished as excessive. Our difficulty articulating a 'sensed’ lack of intimacy (that we can’t adequately express) is excused as being infantile. To narcissists, the fault of your aloneness is NOT they. It’s never their responsibility to meet your emotional needs because they can’t---a fact they can’t admit, even to themselves. So they deny the truth and blame you for being needy and dependent.

Narcissists detest ‘dependency’. They resent being asked to meet people’s needs because their inability to do so threatens narcissistic perceptions of grandiosity & omnipotence. Therefore, narcissists criticize emotional needs as a sign of inadequacy, incompetence, a lack of self-reliance and a desire for too much attention. Narcissists target our self-doubt by accusing us of not giving enough attention to them. (Satisfying the insatiable needs of the lonely narcissist is, by the way, impossible.)

Narcissists divert the attention from their deficiency by targeting our self-doubt. We internalize their accusations and think to ourselves, “Am I too needy?? Maybe I am!”

We apologize for being insecure.

What just happened? We absorbed fault for the narcissist’s neglect and our red-cheeked embarrassment is a signal to the narcissist that he successfully “aimed, fired, and targeted” our shame with a dead-center manipulative accuracy. Now we are feeling selfish for making demands on someone who protests they are only doing the best they can. We are, according to the narcissist, overly focused on ourselves rather than supporting the lonely narcissist who sacrifices his life to make us happy.

The narcissist effectively humiliates us because we trust him to empathize based on our belief that he cares. Never forget though: vulnerability angers narcissists. Our demands for reciprocal nurturing angers narcissists. Our intimacy and trust triggers their narcissistic defenses because they must pretend to themselves and others, that they have no such needs. Narcissists, you see, are mega-self-reliant machines of perpetual needlessness. When we ask for reciprocal compassion, something narcissists lack and therefore cannot give, their inadequacy ‘triggers’ defenses and they react. Aggressively. The intent of their aggressive reaction is to stop YOU from making them feel bad about themselves.

If you have shameful feelings about asking for something you do not feel entitled to ask for (like breathing more than your fair share of oxygen) if you have shameful feelings about being too demanding, or too self-centered, the narcissist’s accusations will exacerbate your fears about wanting too much for yourself. The next time you feel ‘lonely’ you’ll blame yourself for disrespecting the narcissist’s heavy time schedule preventing him from spending time with you. Because you know, or so the narcissist has reassured you, he is coping with his loneliness without complaint or blame.

If you say things like, “I don’t feel emotionally connected or seen by you”, narcissists will defend themselves against what they perceive to be an attack. They will attack even when no threat was intended. Now of course you weren’t attacking them for being deficient but in their omnipotent perceptions, your complaints about feeling ‘alone’ are a personal insult. You have just threatened the narcissist’s self-image as the all-giving provider who responsibly husbands his narcissistic supply. Instead, what you’ll hear from defensive narcissists who see themselves as being attacked by you, is a ‘switch’. A switch that targets YOUR empathy for them:

“WHAT??? You’re lonely? YOU’RE LONELY??” the narcissist says. “Well, that’s par for the course! Did you even notice that I am lonely? I work my fingers to the bone, doing everything around this place and YOU are complaining about loneliness?? What do you WANT? To have your cake and eat it, too?? If you want me to hold your hand all day, then FINE! I’ll do it! We can go bankrupt and let lawn grow twelve inches high and starve to death because God forbid I should leave you alone long enough earn a living! We can die holding hands in our living room if that’ll make you happy! Is that what you want? Well, IS IT?”

The narcissist flips reality by effectively taking the focus off your feelings by claiming he is the loneliest of all God’s creatures under the Tuscan sun. And you, the empathic person who cares about your impact on other people, stop thinking about ‘getting a little’ and start thinking about how YOU can ‘give a lot more’.

You are shamed into believing your needs are excessive and un-important, that you are being selfish and narcissistic for ignoring the narcissist’s superior loneliness.

You have just been humiliated, insulted, demeaned and manipulated. Narcissists are confident that by the time they’ve finished twisting reality around, that you will be even more reluctant to make demands in the future. You are forced to either become self-reliant ( in denial) like the fine example pontificating in your face, or you will be verbally abused and emotionally assaulted by the person who says he loves you so much that he deals with his own loneliness because he wants to be with you.

“Please forgive me”, you mumble. “I’ll be more considerate of your loneliness.”

With a satisfied, smug look on his face, the narcissist accepts your apology.

And leaves.

This time he knows you’ll cheerily wave good-bye, making sure he knows how much you love him so he won’t feel so lonely on his long commute. If you're quick enough, you can hurriedly tuck little love notes in his briefcase before he leaves.

The problem is, narcissists lack deep emotions that resonate with others. If we express our feelings of loneliness, the narcissist diverts the attention away from their deficiency to provide emotional connection and accuses YOU of being deficient; i.e.: too sensitive; too demanding; too self-centered; incompetent. This of course, is poppycock. It’s an example of reality turned backwards because:

1- Narcissists are incapable of meeting other people’s emotional needs. (Narcissists are emotionally deficient and relationally incompetent)

2- Narcissist’s deficiencies must never be exposed or called into question. (Narcissists are hyper-sensitive to criticism; hyper-vigilant to threat)

3- Narcissists believe their needs take precedence. Your needs are irrelevant. (Narcissists are self-centered and selfish)

4- Narcissists fear dependence and increase their aggression in order to silence further demands (Narcissists are bullies)

5- Narcissists use guilt and shame to garner your compliance (Narcissists are manipulative)

6- Narcissists perceive themselves as superior beings who have risen above the emotional fray. Your expression of vulnerability, fear and neediness reinforces their perceptions of your inferiority

7- YOU avoid exposing relationship inadequacies because you’ve been groomed, through insult and humiliation, to internalize the problem as being YOU

8- Your valid loneliness is twisted into invalid insecurity, lowering your self-esteem and increasing your fear of incompetence

Taking Responsibility for our Loneliness: Healthy Self-Reliance

I have one more important point to make about our loneliness in the narcissistic relationship. We can become healthily self-reliant by admitting to our feelings of loneliness and accepting the narcissist’s inability to meet our emotional needs, then taking responsibility for ourselves by investing our time in interesting work, personal skills, talents, interests, and satisfying passions. The time we spend alone is a gift the narcissist never knew he was giving: solitude. Alone time works to our benefit once we stop expecting the narcissist to meet our needs and instead, provide for our needs ourselves.

Self-efficacy and healthy self-reliance increases our self-esteem---something most people need to address if they have spent much time in a narcissistic relationship. Whether or not we had low self-esteem prior to meeting the narcissist, increasing our self-esteem is part of everyone's healing, especially if we decide to stay in the relationship.

Many of us became low-maintenance partners & children who resorted to fending for ourselves because we were unable to rely on others to provide for our emotional needs. Therein lies the strength of our resilience, which will support us through a prolonged healing process.

Value Your Alone Time

Self-reliance is problematic if we are ashamed of asking for help or label ourselves as deficient and needy. Perhaps we’re embarrassed about expecting too much, ashamed of making demands that appear to be selfish. If we were afraid of being dependent on others (something narcissists dread), we will be loath to ask for help even when we admit we need it. The key to restoring self-trust is discernment between those who are threatened by our neediness and those who are not.

Re-learning to ask for help IS being self-reliant.

It’s crucial for people in narcissistic relationships to expand their friendship circle. To join community service groups, sign up for classes, return to school, create hobbies, participate in activities that increase self-confidence and alleviate loneliness. Friendship restores self-esteem because we discover that we do know how to build healthy relationships with those who are not narcissistic. Nobody works harder at a relationship than those who have exhausted themselves loving a narcissist. It is a self-defeating exercise ending in utter futility and despair. No wonder our self-esteem plummets as a direct result of relational failure. No wonder we feel lonely.

Value your alone time and remind yourself it is not a weakness to be ‘needy’ or lonely. Everyone is needy during a crisis. Trauma, rejection and abuse isolate the victim, leading to feelings of aloneness. It is not a failure to need other people or admit you can’t rely solely on your own resources. In fact, self-reliance might be defined as relying on yourself to rely on others!

Healthy self-reliance reduces insecurity as we successfully trust ourselves to provide for our emotional well-being. The more responsibility we take for our emotional well-being, the more secure we become. We must rely on ourselves to be responsible because as adults, we are responsible for our emotional well being. That means understanding what we need to do to take care of ourselves and then meeting those needs with compassion and kindness---the same degree of compassion and kindness we gave to the Lone Narcissist.

Hugs,

CZBZ

The Lone Narcissist

“The basic self-state in NPD is typically that of a sense of emptiness of being alone.

"These patients are usually incapable of learning from others, have an intense stimulus hunger, and feel that life is meaninglessness. They characteristically feel bored when their need for admiration and success is not being gratified.” ~Otto F. Kernberg

This quote by Kernberg caught my attention while reading his essay in the book, Disorders of Narcissism, edited by Elsa Ronningstam. It caught my attention because being rejected or abandoned is something most humans defend against; and yet, we are willing to accept the fact that we are social creatures who need one another to survive. It may be distressing to admit our dependence, but we don’t resort to elaborate lies about self-reliance in order to cope with this uncomfortable truth.

Though fear of abandonment is touted as a powerful albeit unconscious fear, our ‘fear’ motivates development of pro-social skills modifying adaptable personalities to develop moral characters by empathizing with our impact on other people. We find a way to ‘fit in’ to society because isolation is a threat to our survival. (I am not referring to unhealthy pretenses or denying who we are in order avoid abandonment or rejection.) What Kernberg is referring to in his quote is likely not the fear of abandonment. I interpret his words as a reference to narcissists’ perception of aloneness.

Narcissists sense they are separate from others but the reality is that they are separated (disconnected) from their true selves. The True Self being defined as the sustaining core self that was unconditionally loved during infancy and supported during normal maturation. Without healthy attachment to those who valued the developing child, narcissists constructed a False Self, cutting them off from their essential core self. Depending on the degree of pathology, the narcissist may or may not be able to cope with archaic feelings of aloneness that have nothing to do with the present and everything to do with an unresolved past.

Because narcissists have shallow emotions and are incapable of grieving the painful loss of contact with their essential self, their inner sense of aloneness is not a conscious state of being; rather, it is a nagging emptiness leading to distorted perceptions that they are isolated from others, separate, misunderstood, rejected, perhaps even 'defective'. Some psychologists suggest narcissists defend against this inner sense of ‘defectiveness’ with compensatory defenses. Other psychologists suggest narcissists never matured beyond the King Baby grandiose stage and continue to believe they are superior, perfect, a far cry above the howling masses yearning to be free. Free from human nature, like themselves, bien sur.

Being cut off from other people evokes powerful emotions, which narcissists cannot resolve because they cannot endure the containment of these emotions. Therefore, the terrifying perception that one is separate & disconnected, leads to what psychologists call ‘compensation.’ Narcissists compensate for their aloneness/disconnection with ego defenses, such as: omnipotence, grandiosity, idealized fantasies, a perception of self-reliance masking feelings that are intolerable and therefore, irresolvable.

Narcissists create a self-protective illusion that they need no one; that they are superior to inferior others; that they have everything they need to succeed and are excluded from relying on unreliable objects to either contribute to their welfare, or to help them if a narcissist dare stoop so low as to ask for help, that is.

Narcissists believe they are superior and self-reliant: a self-aggrandizing explanation for their sense of aloneness and exclusion. The crazy-making truth is that other people do not exclude narcissists, at least not without doing their best to encourage the narcissist to drop their pretenses and get over their defenses. Narcissists exclude themselves because of the grandiose lies they tell themselves; i.e.: that they do not need anyone but themselves. They certainly don't need those emotional codependents who keep telling them to get off their high-horses and walk on the ground with the rest of us two-legged creatures.

The narcissist’s fantasy of self-reliance compensates for painful feelings of rejection and abandonment, both feelings of which narcissists are unaware. While all human beings suffer loneliness from time-to-time, narcissists compensate for their emotional intolerance of loneliness by viewing themselves as superior beings, thus devaluing the contributions and relevance of interdependence. If other people are less-than and if other people are superfluous and if other people are merely ordinary, then narcissists, in a martyr-like fashion, will steel themselves to bear the burden of their superiority. Because as everyone knows, it hurts to be extraordinary and special. People won’t like ya for being so excellent!

Ah, the cross that must be suffered by those extraordinary and excellent people!

Narcissists lie---to themselves first and foremost. They tell themselves they need no one. This is the grandiose lie silencing inner despair from rising into conscious awareness.

Narcissists need no one. Narcissists can do everything themselves. I am not referring to material needs only.

According to N. Cohen, in On Loneliness and the Ageing Process, “The narcissistic personality appears to believe that he possesses within himself all the necessary sources of goodness, wisdom, understanding, etc. and that what his objects can offer him is of little value.”

Narcissists conclude they are above ‘the fray’ and need never rely on others to sustain them. Narcissists effectively promote themselves above the ordinary state of mortal weaklings who freely admit their need for other people. To me, the preposterous notion that human beings are completely self-reliant, is hopefully categorized somewhere in the DSM-IV. Perhaps in the Axis II, Cluster B category; perhaps as a God Complex.

But wait a minute! Isn’t self-reliance a good thing?

Certainly. As with other values in a society, the narcissist perverts social values because of their pathological self-absorption, lack of remorse and gratitude, inability to tolerate dependence, or value other people’s contributions. Just remind narcissists that they did not create their empires by themselves and you will suffer the wrath of narcissistic rage for having threatened their illusions of self-reliance.

Narcissists’ grandiose pretenses of self-reliance precipitate a devaluation process that diminishes other people’s contributions. Contributions that narcissists do not take notice of, so preoccupied are they with defending against ‘dependence’. Narcissists deny their dependence, even with the smallest of needs. Like devaluing their connection to whoever it was that grew coffee beans on a South American hillside, hired a crew to pick them one-by-one, carried those beans to the market and sold them to a company that roasted, packaged and shipped them to stores where nice people brewed them in exactly the way customers wanted their coffee to be served.

“A triple non-fat grandee with two equal latte and extra room for cream please. And do it exactly the way I want it, or you’ll hear from my lawyers this afternoon! Snap to it! My time is valuable!”

Who made the cups? Who fabricated the holders? Who keeps track of receipts so we can slurp that fine cup of Joe in the morning? Who is setting up the store at three in the morning so Madame Narcissist can purchase her cup of low-fat extra cream latte?

REALITY CHECK: People are dependent on one another, which requires an element of trust (something narcissists are short of) that store managers will stock their backroom with extra beans and jugs of cream and pretty plastic stir sticks. Pretending we are alone and self-sufficient is one of the most grandiose ideas the American culture has ever heralded as an achievable and desirable goal. The only way to pretend we are self-reliant is to ignore, devalue, and deny our true state of inter-dependence. Congratulating ourselves for having done everything on our own is a narcissistic illusion.

Narcissists’ grandiosity means they honestly believe they are superior beings---entitled to be served by the grubbing minions. Because narcissists cannot tolerate conscious awareness of their inner disconnect, they maintain an aloof perception of themselves as unique, thus abrogating themselves from social responsibility. What a childish perception to protect one’s self-esteem and pride by avoiding feelings of dependency and vulnerability! This defensive maneuver reminds me of two-year olds who in their narcissistic oblivion are ignorant to how little they do for themselves. “I don’t need anybody! I can do everything myself!”

Thus, narcissists go about pathologically validating themselves with pompous lies about self-sufficiency, continually reaffirming to themselves that they don’t need anybody. Just themselves. In narcissists' eyes, their self-sufficiency and competence evokes other people's envy and this is why, in the narcissist's distorted perceptions, they feel alone.

Occasionally, narcissists sense the nagging emptiness of their aloneness, an emptiness frequently arising at midlife when becoming 'older and more dependent' haunts most of us. Rather than tolerating their 'original disconnect' long enough to gain insight and heal this narcissistic injury, narcissists reinforce their superior status with self-aggrandizing lies. They sooth themselves with the belief that envious people cannot possibly understand the isolation of the self-reliant. It is their burden to bear.

Narcissists epicize the self-made man of a romanticized yesteryear.

Drawn to loner-type cowboys, freedom fighters, sexy jet airplane pilots on missions to save the planet from certain doom, I was attracted to the self-made man. Which is funny when you think about the kind of girl I am: homebound, feminine, connected to every person, place, and thing I touch, see, taste, hear, and smell. I often joke that even a coffee pot ‘means’ something to me, so grateful am I for the contribution of percolating aromas in the morning. In fact, I am so ‘connected’ to others, that the ability to extricate one's self from familial relationships (and responsibilities, yikes!), appeared to be a Strength.

A loner, a maverick, a self-made man embodied an independence that was impossible for me to fathom. So I admit my admiration for the self-made man's symbolic independence because I didn’t know how to think of myself as separate. I didn't know how to escape living UP to my good family's reputation, nor separate myself from relatives watching like hawks if I veered outside painted lines of a crosswalk, or ignore my children's pleas for homemade cookies when I what I really wanted to do was seclude myself in a room of my own. I was and am connected within an elaborate relational web and grateful for those who loved me enough that I could trust my dependence on others AND bear the responsibility of their dependence on me.

As I thought about Kernberg’s quote at the top of this essay, I recognized my privilege to live a life without deeply entrenched narcissistic defenses. I empathize with narcissists’ inner state of being. It would be insufferable to be disconnected from my true self, the one that was loved into being by a good-enough family. While narcissists deny themselves the joy of being cared for by trustworthy others who recognize vulnerability and compassionately respond, I could not understand the despair of a loneliness so profound as to evoke compensatory lies of self-reliance.

That does not mean this desktop cowgirl will keep the home fires burning while mountain men settle the wild frontier. I need the kind of people in my life who can tolerate the angst of knowing they need me back.

Hugs,

CZBZ

Resources:

Otto F. Kernberg, ‘Pathological Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder’ in the book Disorders of Narcissism edited by Elsa Ronningstam, page 37.

N.A. Cohen, On Loneliness and The Ageing Process. 1982. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=IJP.063.0149A

I'm good enough, I'm smart enough...and people like me!

Stuart Saves His Family, a 1995 comedy film directed by Harold Ramis

"I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!"~Stuart Smalley

What you're telling yourself may be true, Stuart, but people certainly didn't like your movie. This film grossed a pitable $911,310 at the box office when it was released over a decade ago. Sheesh! I had no idea it wasn't a box office smash hit skyrocketing Al Franken's celebrity as a comedian.

I nearly laughed myself happy watching Al Franken's portrayal of Stuart Smalley, a self-help guru who believed he had the answers to his family's problems. Maybe he did. Maybe Stuart could see the 'insanity' and still believed his family was worth rescuing from their inevitable serial crises.

Stuart's antics trying to save a family that didn't want to save themselves was bittersweet. And yea, it was uncomfortably obvious to me that Stuart's behavior reflected my own rescue fantasies: that I, a woman who was "good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people liked me", saw myself as bearing sole responsibility to become the mediating conjunction between dysfunction and function.

I read a couple of reviews this morning after watching the film for the tenth time yesterday and one of the critics said it was a movie that wanted to be quirky but ended up being odd instead. Maybe the critic's odd comment explains why it touched my funny bone and my heart. It was odd. It is odd. But odd as in reality is much funnier than it appears to be to a family in desperate need of redemption. Once you get over the fact that family always falls short of the ideal, Stuart Saves His Family can be a refreshing way to laugh at yourself rather than diagnosing yourself with an assortment of disorders, including narcissistic grandiosity. Empathic people keep trying to save their family because...well, because they love the people in their family and they're willing to work night and day to create safe and loving relationships.

The problem is that it often take years of failed rescue attempts before we accept the fact that ya can't fix other people if they don't wanna fix themselves. Fixing has to be reciprocal with each person taking responsibility for their participation in the familial dysfunction-------whether we instigated, accommodated, or foolishly mated. *wink*

I love this movie and highly recommend it to anyone working a healing program of some kind. It's tender and honest without making a mockery of 12-step groups which not only helped me survive familial craziness, they've also helped millions of people around the globe learn how to save themselves. Being able to laugh at yourself is a prerequisite for healing. A good laugh can strengthen your ability to cope with another tearful and miserable day on planet Reality.

As Roger Ebert, a critic rating this film with a Thumbs Up, wrote: "The movie is also unobtrusively wise about the real nature of the problems in Stuart's family, and doesn't offer easy solutions or a phony happy ending. I not only enjoyed Stuart Smalley, doggone it, I liked him, and that attitude of gratitude ain't just a platitude." ~Roger Ebert

Thank you, Roger. This film gets a two thumbs up rating from me, too.

Hugs,

CZBZ

Resources:

YouTube trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvgMIerTXl4&feature=player_embedded

Mental Rumination: Why'd They Do That?

Maria from Stern by Joseph Wright of Derby. 1781

Mental Rumination: repetitive thinking about a topic

Mental Ruination: repetitive thinking about a topic without resolution

Okay, so I came up with the second definition but anyone who has fallen in love with a narcissist or been raised by a narcissist, will grasp the significance of ‘mental ruination’: endlessly asking ourselves WHY someone did or said something contradicting prior perceptions of who we believed them to be.

Narcissists behave in a contradictory, illogical manner. One day they encourage us to cry on their strong shoulders and the next day they disdain our sappy emotions. Their inconsistency triggers an obsessive search for reasons WHY they behave the way they do. The less we understand about narcissism, the more likely we are to be caught in a miserable loop of obsessive rumination. If we lack information about pathological narcissism, our disbelief results in false explanations that defend our unquestioned assumptions and thus relieve anxiety. This is normal. When people cannot make sense of what appears to be nonsensical, anxiety increases; we sooth our selves with tender lies psychologists call ‘rationalizations’.

People who have been impacted by a narcissist are not the only ones who are confused by inconsistent behavior, though. It’s human nature to rationalize, minimize, and deny contradictory evidence proving someone is not the person we believed him-or-her to be. The more personal our relationship, the more likely we are to extend them the benefit of our doubt because we have pre-determined their character after interfacing with them. We are emotionally attached. We likely don’t even realize we’ve made an assumption about their character and what they are capable or incapable of doing. All we know is that they’ve done enough nice things for us to trust them to be consistently nice. So when someone we’ve established trust with defies that trust with contradictory behavior, we’ll question ‘why’, sometimes creating excuses to justify initial beliefs about them.

You might take a moment to think about a typical news program when a terrible crime had been committed in a suburban neighborhood. Televised news programs love to interview people on the street so viewers can be entertained by their shocked reactions. As the news reporter holds the microphone in front of a traumatized neighbor who had known the ‘suspected criminal’ for years, what does the neighbor say? “The police say they found fifty bodies in my neighbor’s basement, but I’ve known him for years and he’s really a good guy!!!”

The camera returns to the reporter while an imaginative viewer like myself visualizes the neighbor’s brain looping through disbelief wondering ‘why’ his neighbor collected dead bodies in his basement. They’re likely thinking:

“Maybe the skeletons were there when he bought the house.”

“Maybe some horrible person buried those bodies in his basement when he was on vacation. He never locked his windows because he’s just that trusting and naïve so why would he kill people and stack ‘em next to his tool chest?”

“Nah, he couldn’t possibly be guilty. He’s lived next door to me for years and I’m still alive so he must be a good guy. He didn’t kill me and I’m not the nicest person to live next to.”

“The police have made a mistake. Damn those suspicious cops. They only want to solve the case and don’t care whether they’ve arrested the right guy or not!”

When I watch news programs like this and hear someone stammer “He’s really a good guy”, it makes my brain feel like it’s splitting in two and I think to myself, “Hey dude, if your neighbor is a GOOD guy, I sure don’t want to meet a BAD one.” It’s easy for me to speculate on the neighbor’s rationalizations because: I’m a spectator; I don’t live in the serial killer’s neighborhood; My real estate prices won’t be impacted by the news story; I do not love, affiliate with, or have any emotional connection to the serial killer; The serial killer didn’t pick up my newspapers for me when I went on vacation.

Let’s consider the outside possibility that a neighbor next door to our home (yes, that guy who mows his grass and tips the postman at Christmas) is discovered harboring a hundred decapitated bodies in his basement. We’ve known him for years. We’ve seen him go to work, come home, have barbecues, host birthday parties, mend the fence, pick up the trash, wave ‘hello’ in the morning, and bring us fruitcake for the holidays.

Okay, nix the fruitcake. That might be a red flag for sadism.

Dr. Keith Campbell offers a great example of how people get caught in obsessive thinking when inconsistent behaviors force us to question WHY someone behaved contrarily (illogically). Remember: narcissistic relationships are especially prone to obsessive rumination because something is always 'off’; i.e.: a hurtful act, an abusive word, or a selfish deed requiring a logical explanation because the narcissist contradicted his-or-her prior behaviors that were kind, generous and unselfish. If you were in a relationship with a narcissist who reflected acceptance, love and commitment, any sign that he-or-she is not accepting, loving, and committed, will cause your brain to obsess on ‘why’, endlessly seeking an answer to behavior that is inconsistent with your assumptions and beliefs about that person. In his book When You Love a Man Who Loves Himself, W. Keith Campbell explains how our brain cope with inconsistency and why we obsess about illogical behavior.

“Here is an example of a basic memory process that I use in my class.” Dr. Campbell writes. “Start out by imagining a guy named Mike. Mike is a nice guy. Now I am going to list some of Mike’s behaviors:

Mike bought his girlfriend flowers

Mike helps old ladies cross the street

Mike donates money to charity

Mike killed his cat

Mike volunteers to help the homeless

Mike dressed up as Santa Claus at Christmas

“After reading this list, what do you remember? If you are like most people, what you remember is that Mike killed his cat. Why? This doesn’t make sense, because the cat killing doesn’t fit with your image of Mike. As soon as you read that Mike, the nice guy, killed his cat, you start asking why. This is a natural thing to do----Mike’s niceness and cat killing seem inconsistent, and this inconsistency needs to be resolved…whatever the conclusions, the inconsistency in Mike’s behavior makes it hard to forget about.”

“One of these behaviors didn’t make sense and thus will be ruminated on until it does.” ~ W. Keith Campbell

Over dinner, I asked my family to consider the scenario Campbell described and then tell me ‘why’ Mike killed his cat. Perhaps this experiment increases awareness of our implicit assumptions? It was fairly ‘telling’ to hear each person’s unique interpretation as to why Mike killed his cat. Since I had the traumatic experience of one of my boyfriends accidentally driving over our farm cat, my first thought was “Oh, poor Mike! I hope somebody was there to support him in his grief!”

My nephew said, “Maybe the cat kept peeing on the carpet!”

My sister, who grew up on a farm where cats were frequently sacrificed to the great highway gods, replied, “I hate seeing dead animals on the road.”

My daughter said, “Mike is a sociopath who kills cats when he can’t get a date.”

One reason people ruminate obsessively on the narcissist is because narcissists are inconsistent and we want to know ‘why’. Their bad behavior contradicts their good behavior, so we try to make sense of what appears to be nonsensical. Another reason we obsess on narcissist’s behavior is because our assumptions about human behavior are limited. Once we learn about pathological narcissism, obsession about the narcissist tends to cease. We know ‘why’ narcissists do the inconsistent things they do. They’re narcissists. Break the mental ruination loop: expand your psychological knowledge about human behavior---both normal and abnormal. Learn about pathological narcissism. This is how to take exquisite care of your mind and your soul.

Hugs,

CZBZ

Resources

W. Keith Campbell, When You Love a Man Who Loves Himself, pages 154-155

A new category on my blog: Need-To-Knows

A green-neck duck with a seville orange by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin. 1728

I would like to create a category on my blog, geared towards a basic understanding of pathological narcissism. A new link for Need-To-Knows will be located on the right side of my blog and hopefully, some of my articles will capture the basics of a disorder most people have never heard of: malignant narcissism.

If people have heard of 'narcissism', they assume narcissists are vain---self-worshipers spending far too much time in front of a mirror; that anyone in the public eye or a leadership role is a narcissist; and that narcissism is benign self-centeredness---annoying at worst and laughable at best. In fact, it astonishes me how frequently people boast about being narcissists. Some people seem to believe that narcissism means they are self-confident and assertive. That being a narcissist is worthy goal. It's cool!

Narcissism is a psychological disorder that is being minimized by pop-culture and even while the term is becoming more common in daily parlance, it is also becoming 'meaningless.' A Fluff word. A Puff word. A word disguising the significant damage narcissists do to other people.

Here's a short list of how Not Cool narcissists are:

Narcissists have a distorted self-image. Narcissists are incapable of emotional maturation, caring for others in a safe and trustworthy bond of love, and they lack the capacity to cope with life's stresses without blaming others. They do not forgive, do not trust, do not grow old gracefully. There is nothing funny or praiseworthy about being a narcissist. Anyone with personal experience dealing with a narcissist, would be loath to consider 'narcissism' to be nothing more than benign hubris.

Note To The Wise

Unless we understand the detrimental impact narcissistic relationships have on our spiritual and emotional well-being, we'll be like green-necked sitting ducks for those Machiavellian narcissists in camouflage.

The fact is: You cannot change the narcissist or cure him-or-her with your love. You will change. The narcissist won't.

You cannot spot narcissists from afar. You cannot avoid interfacing with narcissists. Though estimates of people with NPD are fairly low, a large per centage of our population has narcissistic traits or patterns. According to Dr. Nina Brown, even two or three narcissistic traits can harm other people and destroy a relationship.

We live in an increasingly narcissistic culture which means each one of us is impacted by social influences. What can we do about that? How can we protect ourselves from narcissists? As a society, how can we stop ourselves from normalizing narcissistic behaviors?

What we can do is learn about pathological narcissism and become familiar with our reactions to people with narcissistic traits and/or a personality disorder.

If you do not want to be a lame duck, the only way to avoid being target practice for duck-hunters, is to educate yourself about pathological narcissism.

Hugs,

CZBZ

Resources:

Brown, Nina. Destructive Narcissistic Patterns.