NPD is like a drug addiction.

Posted on January 10, 2015 by luckyotter

It’s been said that people on hard drugs like cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine can act like narcissists, even if they do not have NPD. That’s because as the addict’s body begins to crave the substance, they will do ANYTHING to get it, because to not get it will cause them unbearable agony. Even if they know it’s better for them to go through withdrawals than continue their addiction, they will still beg, steal, hurt others and even kill to get their fix. Empathy, remorse, and consideration for other’s boundaries and rights flies out the window. The only important thing is getting that drug. It doesn’t matter if the addict is the most compassionate and loving person in the world when they’re clean; when they’re jonesing for a fix to ward off the agony, they become psychopaths.

When a person becomes a narcissist (usually early in childhood due to abuse but sometimes later, even in adulthood), they become an addict too–their drug of choice is narcissistic supply, which feeds their sense of entitlement and specialness. It mirrors and validates the false self they have erected for themselves, a self they need because if it was ever lost or shattered, they would be forced to face their own emptiness.

Maintaining the mask takes enormous effort and causes stress. Narcissists live in constant fear of the mask being revealed as the fake self it really is and they live in mortal terror of the mask being destroyed or harmed (either through loss of supply or perceived insults or threats) because if that happens their protective armor would be damaged or lost. So if they perceive any attack on themselves, no matter how minor, they will react badly. That’s why narcissists are so paranoid and so quick to anger and so easily offended. It’s why they overreact to slights. There’s simply no room for a sense of humor or self-deprecation.

What some narcissists (probably most) may not realize consciously is they really erected this elaborate defense mechanism as a way to protect and hide the scared and hurt child that was lost to themselves through abuse or neglect. Most can only see the emptiness if they “get clean” (lose their sources of narcissistic supply) and like a person suffering from drug withdrawal, if a narcissist loses their “drug” they undergo a narcissistic crisis (something they avoid avoid at all costs) and will suffer as badly as anyone withdrawing from hard drugs.

Narcissists with no insight (probably most of them) can’t recognize the hurt, lost true self hiding in terror behind the protective but always pissed-off-at-the-world mask of NPD. But for those who can, meeting that lost self (if they can see through the empty blackness that hides him or her) is agonizing because of the regret of knowing what they have done to their true self when their minds erected the defensive mask that was ironically meant to protect the true self. Then they suffer unbearable guilt and shame. This is the reason why most people with NPD cannot be cured. Like a drug addict, maintaining a mask to hide the emptiness (which itself hides the hurt child they once were who was never allowed to grow into a person) becomes the most important thing, even if it means they must beg, steal, hurt or even kill someone to obtain their fix of narcissistic supply or defend their protective walls of barriers.

Some insightful narcissists actually don’t want their disorder but they still can’t escape from its clutches because their desire for a fix becomes too strong. These are the most tortured narcissists and the ones most prone to black depressions and other serious mental disorders. They can undergo a psychotic break. Constant war is being waged within them, between the person’s desire to be a real person and react in normal, human ways, and their overpowering desire for narcissistic supply and having to harm others to get it and/or defend themselves from narcissistic injury.

This is why a few insightful narcissists may be nice at first. It could be a mask but it could also be a real effort to try to act more human. But sooner or later, if someone they’ve been nice to insults them (or they perceive an insult due to their own paranoia), their desire to repair the damage they feel was done to their false self (which is important because it’s all they have to hide behind) becomes overpowering and they will turn mean and strike you out of the blue like a rattlesnake. Some might even feel guilt after the fact, but they just can’t stop doing it. It’s an overpowering addiction, like a drug so powerful you can never free yourself from it.

A drug addict will do almost anything to get his drug of choice, even if he wants to be clean. A narcissist will do almost anything to keep his masks intact, even if he wants to be human.

They key to a cure then, would be to find a way to wean a narcissist off his need for a fix of supply and somehow make him willing to to work through the ensuing narcissistic crisis (withdrawals) and confront the emptiness that hides his or her hidden, neglected true self that lives in darkness and silence inside the vacuum.

***
Due to a comment I received on another thread this morning, from now on I am putting a link to my Disclaimer after every post where I write about mental conditions and disorders outside of personal anecdotes, obvious opinion pieces, and journals.
Disclaimer: https://luckyottershaven.com/disclaimer/

Scrambled eggs for brains.

Posted on January 2, 2015 by luckyotter

This is my brain on ~~drugs~~ psychopathic mindfuckery.

I am not going to make this long. Frankly, I’m tired of writing about the saga of my daughter’s recent troubles. And more than a little exhausted. But I owe it to my readers to fill them in on the final chapter of this horrible saga.

My daughter is fine. The other day I posted a request for prayers because I thought (well, I was told by her recent boyfriend who she is no longer with) that she got addicted to meth in jail and was taken off in a van by methheads and heroin addicts and was living in a meth cooker’s house.

All of this turned out to be a colossal and evil lie, told by a man who I was duped into trusting, who my daughter was duped into trusting, a man who gave a very good first impression, seemed like a nice down to earth guy, and lived in a nice house, had a good job, and money.

Due to my daughter’s past escapades with men far beneath her (intellectually challenged basement dwellers who spend all their free time smoking pot and playing video games), I really wanted this relationship to work. So did she.

Oh, there were red flags, alright. Plenty of them. In retrospect I can’t believe I could have been so ignorant or stupid to dismiss them. But when dealing with psychopaths or very malignant narcissists, especially those who are skilled at the charm and putting on a good appearance, we still want to trust them. We want to give them the benefit of the doubt. And because he would have been so perfect for my daughter (had he not been a raging psychopath), I ignored all the red flags.

Here were just some of these red flags that I missed or ignored:
— Moving very fast in a new relationship: Paul was talking about marriage less than one month into their relationship. This is a typical narcissist/psychopathic ploy to trap their prey.
— Wined, dined and gave her gifts until she moved in with him, then that suddenly stopped and he started complaining how much she was costing him.
— When they went to Tampa, Florida prior to her 30 day jail sentence, he refused to let her visit her brother, who lived the next town over (and she hasn’t seen in 8 months). She was very upset about this, but he kept saying he didn’t have the gas money but went to see all his friends and family.
— Extreme jealousy of any of her male friends, ex boyfriends, and even female friends. He wanted her to delete all her Facebook contacts. Because some of her friends *do* have drug problems, and by speaking so “reasonably” to me about this, he was able to convince me that abiding by his wishes would be in her best interests.
— Impatience with her needs or requests. Easily irritated when she wanted something from him, but would also get irritated and annoyed when she didn’t immediately give in to his wishes.
— Leaving the house at odd hours–3 or 4 in the morning and coming back an hour later. My daughter told me he was smoking crack and once she found out about it, he started to become openly abusive toward her, including physically.
— When I was there over Christmas, he acted fine toward me at first, but then began ‘confiding” in me about Molly’s fictional meth addiction and that’s why she was acting so “crazy.” Actually she was acting crazy because she was scared to death of him and no one believed her, not even me. Because she isn’t the most trustworthy person and has had drug problems, and because he did not seem high on anything (crack highs don’t always show), I believed him. I did notice he seemed to have a hair trigger temper though and that concerned me.

Even Molly’s father had problems with him. Of course he’s a psychopath himself, but a much less “charming” one and therefore probably less dangerous than Paul because his illness is more obvious. He has other mental problems too which make people avoid him. Two psychopaths living in the same house are going to wind up hating each other’s guts. Paul’s complaints to me about Michael were probably all true (not washing the dishes, lying on the couch doing nothing all day) because I had experienced all that with him myself. Interesting dynamic there, no?

When Molly left (in a van filled with methheads, according to Paul), he stopped being nice to me and started texting me what a horrible, evil drug addict my daughter was, and that I owed him $200 for Molly breaking his door (he broke the door himself when she tried to leave).

Molly had brought Babycat (who I talked about in an earlier post, “Saying Goodbye to Babycat”) to live with them, and Paul seemed to like the cat fine the few times I was over there, but after Molly left, he texted me that I needed to come get my cat immediately. I told him it would have to be after work, or could he bring the cat to me (since he had a carrier and I didn’t). I didn’t hear back from him and he never answered any of my texts for the rest of the day.

The next day, he finally texted me an address the cat was at–no phone number, no name, just an address. I looked it up online and found out this was an animal shelter. I called the shelter and they said they put the animals to sleep in 2 days. In a panic, I had to arrange to leave work early to go pick Babycat up, but when I called she wasn’t there. I texted Paul and asked where Babycat was. He said he didn’t have time to take her and left her in the woods (AFTER he lied and told me she was already taken to the shelter).

The shelter personnel were kind enough to find her, and within one hour of her “incarceration” at the shelter, Babycat was returned to me–but I had to pay them $85.00 to get her back. Paul was just making me jump through hoops and jeopardizing Babycat’s life because he could. Because he’s a damn psychopath who wants to see others suffer. Of course, it would have been much easier for him to just return her to me, but psychopaths always have to make sure they do things in such a way to make things difficult for everyone, because they get off on it.

Worst of all, he convinced me to hand over $1,600 of my daughter’s settlement from her car accident to HIM–because she was so untrustworthy with money (which she is, but he turned out to be FAR worse). I should have just held onto it. Because neither Molly or I will ever see that money again. He said he didn’t have it when she left, but she remembers him leaving the house shortly after I gave him the envelope of cash, and she thinks he bought crack with it.

He still has the Christmas gifts she received from me at his house as well as all her clothing, because he wouldn’t allow her to take anything with her (he was trying to keep her from leaving). But he tells ME she took everything and there is nothing of hers at his house. He is lying. I told Molly to have the police escort her to his house to retrieve her things. If he hasn’t thrown them away or sold them already.

So I’m supposed to be this big expert on psychopathic malignant narcissists and yet, I was taken in by one again–and believed him over my own daughter!

I should have paid attention to the red flags–because they were all there, waving right in my face the whole time, but my wishful thinking and denial made me ignore them and hurt my daughter and my cat in the process.

My daughter was not staying with a meth cooker–she was staying with the parents of one of her girlfriends. She was picked up in a van by some guys she knew, but all they did was drive her to her friend’s house. She didn’t have any other way to get there.

Molly had a date last night with an old boyfriend of hers–a nice guy who works as an auto mechanic. No, he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he’s honest and doesn’t do drugs or drink, and he’s always been good to my daughter. They stopped by today and Molly cried when she saw Babycat, who ran to her. I apologized for not believing her, and believing a malignant psychopath instead, but she admitted she could understand why I would. She was duped by him too. This guy is good. Not a good person, just a very good psychopath with a Ted Bundy charm.

On Saturday we’re going out to eat and will discuss the possibility of her moving back in with me for awhile–but there are going to be some strict rules this time if she does. The tough love caveat still stands. I thank God she is alright. She said she wants to go to church with me on Sunday. That made my heart sing.

For two days I haven’t written about this, because this whole incredible mindfuck made me so confused and off balance I felt like my brains had been scrambled like a pan full of eggs. When you’re dealing with a daughter who may be a narcissist (or BPD with narc tendencies, at least) AND a malignant psychopath with a lot of charm and intelligence, it’s hard to know what or who to believe. Add in a psychopathic father and you feel like you’re in some demonic house of mirrors. My daughter and I seem to attract the narcs and the paths like shit attracts flies. For the love of God, WHY?

Paul’s triangulation, gaslighting, lies and projections of his own character flaws onto Molly were off the charts. AND I BELIEVED HIM. She is not NEARLY that bad, and I take back everything I said about her being a MALIGNANT narcissist. (I will leave that post though, so people reading the whole insane saga can get an idea of the kind of mindfuckery that was being conducted on me). HE ALMOST SUCCEEDED IN TURNING ME INTO A GODDAMNED FLYING MONKEY AGAINST MY OWN DAUGHTER!

She just texted me, “Mom, I just know 2015 is going to be a much better year for both of us.”
And you know what? I agree.

Moral of this story: NEVER, EVER IGNORE RED FLAGS. If you see them, RUN.

Infected by evil: putting the pieces together

Posted on December 30, 2014 by luckyotter

This is one of the most difficult posts I have ever had to write, but I can’t rest until I do. Because everything is making sense to me now.

In having several long talks with Paul, Molly’s ex, I am ever more convinced than ever my ex-husband Michael was a monster, someone who wasn’t even human. He has told me some incredible things that happened during the short time he lived there in his house. He is convinced as I am that Michael is a monster.

And I am realizing that everything that’s happened lately was preparing me for a mindblowing and chilling realization, and now everything that’s happened is making a lot more sense. God really does work in strange and mysterious ways. I must have been ready for God to be revealing the truth to me the way he is now. Not so much before. I could not have emotionally handled knowing the truth.

In going back in my mind over my marriage and in particular what has happened to my daughter starting about ten years ago, when she was about 12, I realized the timing of things has been uncanny, with a lot of foreshadowing and signs that gave me bits of whatever truths I could handle at the time. Now all the truth is finally being revealed.

My ex is a monster, evil to the core. He is one of the most evil human beings I have ever met, and I hesitate to even call him human. It’s not hatred of him making me say these things; in fact I feel quite sorry for him. It’s just a truth: he is one of the most malignant narcissists and evil psychopaths I have ever known.

I mentioned in an early post how I saw the opaque, black alienlike eyes on him once when he was angry and drunk. What I failed to mention was that I saw those eyes while we were having sex. And they were accompanied by an expression I can only describe as hatred so profound it sent chills throughout my body. I felt violated and pushed him off me, and made some excuse. I was chilled to the bone.

I was never able to have sex with him again after seeing those eyes. I knew what I saw was real. I knew if I had ever sex with him again I could be infected with his evil.

“The Nightmare” by Johann Heinrich, 1783

Around the same time (and I think I talked about this too once), my father talked to him on the phone, and told me later he swore he heard a gutteral, inhuman voice coming from my ex. It only lasted a second, but I totally believe it was not his imagination. There is nothing wrong with my father’s mind. What he heard was real, even though I never heard it myself. But I had seen those eyes. It was all coming from the same place–a core of pure evil and malevolence.

Shortly after this, in about 2005, we divorced. Lack of sexual relations was only one of the reasons. In fact, it wasn’t even the primary reason. I just knew this was someone who hated me and who could not be trusted and was dangerous to our children and to me.

I did not go No Contact with him. I had never heard of No Contact back then. I was very emotionally and mentally weak and beaten down, and only a step away from developing Stockholm Syndrome, which would have fully put me under his thrall and turned me evil too. I was afraid of him because he was so spiteful and I felt powerless against it.

My daughter Molly, just 12 at the time, did not want to live with me. She had always felt closer to her father, who used her as his sounding board and treated her more like a buddy than a parent. Up until this time, she was the perfect child–straight A’s, lots of friends, extracurricular activities, did her homework, helpful around the house, very empathic, loved animals, athletic. Her father always favored her over his son, who was treated as his scapegoat and was much closer to me. Molly was his golden child. I had no idea at the time of the extent of his evil and how it would infect his daughter. I didn’t want Molly to hate me so during the custody hearings, it was agreed Ethan would live with me and Molly would stay with her father, with unlimited visitation on both sides. Essentially we both had joint custody and decided to let the kids live with the parent they chose.

I know now I should have been stronger and fought for her to live with me, as much as she preferred her father. If I had, Molly may have not developed the very serious and dangerous problems she has now. She may not have developed NPD of the malignant variety or addiction to the worst drug on the planet today–methamphetamine. But I was so afraid of her hating me and at the time, I didn’t see the danger of her living with him. He had a new girlfriend who seemed stable and very friendly and seemed to like Molly very much. Oh, there was so much I didn’t know back then.

My son never liked going over to their place. He said the atmosphere there was creepy, the house was old and rundown (it was), and it smelled (they had 8 dogs), and the girlfriend (let’s call her Heather) was very much involved in the occult. He said she had weird symbols everywhere like pentagrams and gargoyle-like figurines. He was telling the truth. Once when I had to go there to pick the kids up, I noticed a wall hanging depicting two demon lovers hanging over their bed.

Around this time, my father sent me M. Scott Peck’s book “People of the Lie,” with a note attached. In the note he explained he never had believed in evil or evil people before, but after having read the book, he recognized my ex, Michael, as a Person of the Lie. He told me to be very careful about allowing Ethan and Molly near him, and to watch out for myself as well.

I read the book with fascination, and definitely recognized Michael as evil, but was not yet ready to internalize these lessons, and was still in denial and very much under Michael’s thrall, so I did nothing about it at the time. I made excuses to myself that maybe he really wasn’t that evil, but in my heart I knew he was.

A seed had been planted though–A seed that would flower and bloom and grow into a mental clarity that has brought me courage–courage to kick him to the curb a year ago, courage to start this blog, courage to face the truth even at its most ugly and disgusting, and a willingness to fight against the scourge of malignant narcissism in my family and in general. I now know, through writing in this journal, exactly how the mechanics of evil have worked in my family. Had I been able to internalize what I had read in that book in 2005, I may have been able to keep Molly from experiencing what was about to happen to her. Make no mistake: codependence and fear are as deadly as narcissism itself.

Heather (my ex’s girlfriend) was addicted to pain pills and (I found out later after it was too late) often took my 12 year old daughter to parties where there were hard drugs and alcohol present. She allowed Molly to try pain pills. Ethan had stopped going there and Molly never told me about this so I had no idea what was really going on. I was probably also in denial. My ex was usually so drunk he couldn’t drive Molly to school. I remember Molly being upset by that–at the time she still loved school and learning. But there were no school buses out there where they lived in Leicester, NC, which is a remote and rural outpost of Asheville. So her attendance and grades suffered, through no fault of her own.

My ex, through Heather, began to dabble heavily into the occult and bought himself sets of Tarot cards and taught himself to do readings. Sometimes they held seances in their home and sometimes Molly participated, though it didn’t really interest her much.

But when I saw Molly she was still the sweet, studious girl I always knew. She seemed a little resentful at being in my company though. There was also something far away about her look, like she was deep in thought about something. I chalked it up to preteen angst and moodiness and didn’t worry about it much.

A few months after Molly turned 12 (I can’t remember the date, but it was sometime in the late summer), something happened that changed Molly’s entire personality. She crossed a line over into evil. I have written articles before about how a good person can become evil: they can be found here and here. Though normally a choice is made where the person crosses a line into evil, sometimes the transformation is not through a conscious choice, as in the example of some war veterans forced to commit atrocities against their will. They return from war having lost their ability to feel empathy and love. In Molly’s case, it was also not a conscious choice, but something done to her by her own father, a dangerous malignant narcissist and psychopath.

All children becoming adolescents go through a rebellious phase, which is a normal part of growing up and separating from one’s parents, but it’s nearly always a gradual process and eventually abates as the child finally becomes independent or moves out of the home. But for Molly it was different. She literally turned into a different person overnight, like Jekyll and Hyde.

On that fateful night in late July or August 2005, Molly was raped by her father. She thinks it may have happened twice that night but she is not sure. She may have blocked out most of it, was drugged beforehand, or she has so much shame that she cannot talk about it.

I never knew about this until this past Christmas night. All I had heard before was that Heather had kicked Michael out of the house that night, because she found Molly and Michael sleeping in the same bed. As bad as Heather was, at least she had the decency to get rid of him.

Molly had to come home with me, but her personality had changed drastically. From that time on, she was in constant trouble at school, did drugs, and was sexually promiscuous. Her grades went from As to Fs. Her behavior got increasingly worse over the years and didn’t improve as she reached her 20s. Today she is a hardcore drug addict and a malignant narcissist herself.

An investigation had been done by social services but was inconclusive because Molly couldn’t remember what had happened or if anything had happened at all. There was no indication of sperm present but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t raped or molested.

The truth came out on Christmas night after she had a few drinks and sometimes that can act as a truth serum.
Molly had begun to cry, sobbing, “I’m a terrible person. I make everyone so unhappy. I cause you and Mommy and my friends so much misery and pain. But I keep doing it. I don’t know how to stop!” Tears flooded her face. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was facing her lost self and emptiness without the masks on. As Sam Vaknin explains, a narcissist without their masks or has lost their narcissistic supply falls to pieces.
Paul and I went over and held her and told her she was not a bad person, just a person with a lot of problems and a bad drug addiction. We told her we loved her and everything would be okay. She kept crying, and then blurted out, “My father made me like this. He made me bad.” She sounded like a tiny girl. She sounded like her lost true self.
“What do you mean?” I asked, terrified to hear the answer.
She wiped her eyes angrily and said, “the night he raped me.”
“He raped you?”
“Remember when Heather found him in bed with me? He wasn’t sleeping. He raped me. I saw his eyes. They were black. He looked like the devil. I couldn’t look away. I was scared but I couldn’t look away. I felt like I was under some kind of spell.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded, my heart pounding like a hammer in my chest. I couldn’t form words. I could barely breathe. Paul told me I looked like I saw a ghost.
Molly continued, “That’s when I went bad. Something happened to me. I don’t want to be like this. I hurt everyone. I lie to everybody. But I can’t change.”
This didn’t last long. Soon she was asleep and the next day, the drama started where she and Paul fought and she went off in a van with her methhead friends.

Last I heard she’s living in a meth cooker’s house. I have no idea where it is. I don’t have a way to contact her. I have had to let her go. I have to, for my own sanity. She can’t live with me anymore. I can’t help her anymore. I am praying constantly for her salvation from the disease of malignant narcissism her own father infected her with when he raped her nearly ten years ago.

And yet, I have faith somehow everything will work out. I think…THINK…I have the courage now to face anything that happens.

I don’t think Molly is 100% evil like her father because she had that moment of clarity on Christmas (I have never seen Michael be anything but evil or under the guise of a mask). She’s had other moments that give me glimpses of the brilliant, empathic, sensitive girl she used to be. I know deep in her soul she is screaming for help. I hope she gets it. I hope she’s one of the very few narcissists who can get better. The fact she’s still young is to her benefit. Getting off drugs will make it easier for her.

She may not have hit her bottom yet. Once she gets as low as she can go (with God’s grace avoiding death), she may be ready to rid herself of the chemicals that obscure what she has become from herself. It’s going to be a hard road for her to face, a hard road for everyone. But I can’t give up hope yet. She is my daughter.

I must be strong.

Posted on December 29, 2014 by luckyotter

Here’s the latest development in this tragic saga.
Now it seems my daughter is using her MN father to attempt to triangulate against me and gaslight me. She has told him lies about both me and Paul, and now they are both trying to convince me I am an unloving, unsympathetic mother just because I won’t take back my unemployable, narcissistic, pathologically lying, drug addicted drama queen of a daughter. He also told me Paul told him I was a bitch and hated me (I know for a fact this is a lie).

I told that lying MN mooching scumbag I was only going by what I observed while in their home, and that our daughter is in serious need of long term psychiatric care and drug rehab, and there is nothing more I can do to help her. I have seen this pattern in her time and again, and I will not under any circumstances have this unstable young woman with no job or any prospects run off my roommate, who has been nothing but reliable, pays her rent on time, and keeps the house clean. I told the psychopath his daughter has nothing but contempt for any rules or advice I would give her anyway and her staying with me would not help her and only cause a world of trouble for me.

He taught her his games well. She is doing exactly what he always did, and now using HIM as a flying monkey, rather than the other way around. Fine, they can both hate my guts. I must stay strong. This blog is keeping me strong. I won’t back down, no matter what, even if it means I need to get a restraining order against her too.

By the way, she sold the $60.00 bag I bought her in exchange for money to buy drugs. I will never buy her another gift. She appreciates nothing. She has respect for no one’s possessions. She stole Paul’s antique rosary beads to sell for drugs. Like all narcissists, she never learns from her mistakes. Ever.

I love my daughter, but I know enough about malignant narcissism now to know what the red flags are and the evil mind games they play. I’m not going to let them make a fool of me.
She always did love her dad best.

I refuse to be the Cowardly Lion anymore.