Sunday's Birthday Bash

I attended a three-person birthday celebration yesterday but we weren't frolicking in the garden with floral wreaths and flying men kissing our foreheads. That would have been nice, especially on a Sunday.

Birthday celebrations around this place are usually not heralded by the visitation of angels. Not that some of us don't figure our lives are worthy of God’s coronation; but because too many cherubs flitting through a garden frightens neighbors. We had to call off God's Army 'cuz we don't want to evicted from our homes. Neighborhoods like ours have standards to maintain, you know. CC&Rs and all that stuff, though a prohibition against angels is not specifically listed as one of the rules for maintaining a Proper Neighborhood.

I decided it was time to announce to my extended family that The Narcissistic Continuum blog was in process. It's taken me a long time getting up the nerve to see all my writing in one place. I expected people to applaud my courage. Welp...not really.

One family member quipped, "Gee, Auntie, when are you going to get over IT?"

I realize my inner battle was only a three second pause but it felt as if twenty minutes passed before recognizable word-sounds emerged from my lips. The conversation in my brain went something like this:

Inner Critic: "Yea, CZ. When ARE you going to get over it, you ol' scorned woman, you! What a mess you are."

Inner Lover: "You're not a mess. Narcissism is a mess. Stick with your truth babe, cuz you are WoN awesome Woman of Worth."

Inner Critic: "Woman of worth? A woman of worth deals with ugliness silently, refusing to share her pain with other people."

Inner Lover: "You aren't speading pain, CZ. You are helping people avoid similar tragedies in their own lives. Keep doing what you know is important."

Inner Critic: "IMPORTANT? Well, who DO you think you ARE, anyway?

Inner Lover: "Shut the hell up."

Inner Critic: "NO! YOU shut the hell up."

Inner Lover: "You suck."

Inner Critic: "I do not! You suck."

When left & right hemispheres started firing insults across the corpus callosum, it was time to speak for myself. To be sure, it's not 'nice' to talk about private struggles in front of the kiddies; but it's also not 'nice' to ignore pathological narcissism. If we don't know what pathological narcissism is, we won't see the problem when it's in front of our eyes.

Alas, and Lo and Behold! The people doth ignoreth the truth-teller. Fact is, some people never GET IT until a crisis interrupts the garden party in their heads.

I replied to the whole group now staring at me like I had Powdery Mildew, "And what if we still believed the earth was flat or that the sun traveled around our planet instead of the reverse, huh? What if people feared walking too close to the edge of the horizon? You guys wouldn’t be eating fruit in the middle of winter if shipmasters feared sailing oceans blue. "

I was on a roll now. “What if Newton hadn't shared his knowledge about gravity with other people? Huh? They’d still be sitting under apple trees getting concussions. That's how important it is to know about Narcissism!”

By this point, I had lost my audience who was more interested in seconds on cheesecake than listening to diatribes by the old aunt doing her best to put Kernberg’s theories into everyday lingo.

So here’s to bloggers who care enough about healthy change to write about the intimacies of daily life. We might indeed, be Over It; but a desire to help others remains. Altruism makes the world go round when those who sail closest to the edge of the horizon live to tell the tale to others.

Hugs,

CZBZ