Incredible poetry from one of my favorite bloggers.
Such a pretty young face,
to hide such a dark heart.
To show no trace
Of her black art.
She weaves the pain
The heartless schemes.
Destroys the name,
And all her dreams.
Who knew such a vicious snake
Could crawl and creep
just for evil’s sake
Disturb the sleep.
Of other souls and beings
Just for a comedy,
To create the beginnings
Of tragedy.
All is lost now.
Nothing is left.
She can but bow,
and be bereft.
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 just received this comment under the currently spiking article (linked in the previous post).
Click to enlarge.
I’ve embellished my reply into an article because this was such a fascinating issue to me.
Becoming Malignant
Malignant narcissists who became that way later in life by making an evil choice (such as making a genuine deal with the devil, becoming involved in the dark arts, or committing a heinous crime against their will, such as in war, may not be entirely seared and the real self can occasionally shine through. But they can’t leave the darkness without an almost supernatural force of will. They may know they’re this way and may even hate it and suffer, but THEY CANNOT LEAVE THE DARKNESS once they’ve made that choice. It’s like they already died and went to hell (I’m not sure I believe in a literal place called Hell, but I think you know what point I’m making here).
The Infection.
Malignant narcissists are incredibly dangerous because they can infect you with their sickness. They can literally rip out your soul and replace it with emptiness and blackness. A formerly good person can also become MN themselves if they associate too long with an MN abuser. There are several stages to this process. It doesn’t happen immediately. It’s very insidious.
Here is the machinery of evil:
1. The Honeymoon: The MN love bombs the intended victim with charm, fake love, gifts, and kindness so they learn to trust them.
2. The MN will pretend to agree with everything the victim says and seem empathic. What’s really happening is the opposite. The victim already trusts the MN and has been partly brainwashed already, so whatever the MN says, the victim agrees with and think it was themselves who thought it
3. The MN changes and his games become cruel and anything but loving. The honeymoon is over. The blatant mindfuck begins.
4. Over time, the spirit of the abused breaks down. They begin to feel like they’re worthless and the insane and abnormal begins to seem normal.
5. The MN abuse becomes worse. They make it impossible for the victim to escape, using various means and separating them from friends and other loved ones, often through turning everyone they both know against the victim through the MN’s lies, gaslighting, and triangulation. The victim becomes isolated and thinks they might be going crazy and start to doubt their own reality. If the victim has figured out the MN has turned everyone into their flying monkeys and started a campaign against them and try to call out the MN, they will be told they are crazy or imagining things. The classic psychological horror movie “Gaslight” shows this process so well that the term “gaslighting” was named after it. At the same time the victim realizes they have become entirely dependent on the MN.
6. This is the make or break moment. The abuse escalates into abject, intolerable cruelty. The victim may begin to fight back (this is the point at which a person can still leave the relationship before their soul is destroyed). If they don’t fight back they will succumb even further and are doomed, because…
7. As a defense mechanism, the victim begins to identify with the MN. This is known as Stockholm Syndrome. It’s the only way they can cope with what their life has become and the pain they are undergoing at the hands of the MN. They begin to collude with the MN.
8. Once they collude with the MN (even if it’s to insure their survival or the survival of others like their children), the transformation is complete. The victim, newly turned MN, can never go back. As they age they will keep getting worse.
9. The MN who infected the victim at this point will probably leave and move on to his or her next victim. There is nothing more he can with the first victim.
I got to Stage 6. Thank God I didn’t get any further along than that. Once I began to identify with my abuser(s), it might have been too late…
I’m getting mega chills writing this. This is scary stuff. But it’s real.
Moments of Clarity
On the other side of the equation, the opposite could happen (the MN turning good), but it’s far less likely than the first scenario, which is all too common. If it does ever happen to an adult, it’s extremely rare.
Even the most malignant narcs have these bizarre moments of clarity. They don’t happen often. It’s kind of spooky because it’s like all of a sudden they have another personality, but it’s fleeting. It’s as if they wake up for a second and even their look changes to a different, more human one. It’s very, very weird. I’ve seen it myself. It’s a moment that could change them if they really wanted help. Usually it passes too quickly unless God steps in. A really good therapist might be able to get through if the narc presented themselves for therapy, which they sometimes do (when they’ve lost all their supply and have sunk into depression).
Still, we can’t delude ourselves into thinking they will get better. The vast majority will not. In fact they grow worse with age.
I’m reminded of a scene in “The Shining” (the book, not the movie), where Jack Torrance (the possessed father) comes out of his trance for a second or two and tells his son Danny, “RUN! Get away from me, I love you!” Then he goes back into his murderous rage. It was incredibly creepy.
I knew it would happen. I just didn’t think it would be this soon.
My daughter will be out of jail in 3 days and isn’t looking forward to moving back in with Paul with her MN father living there, but at the same time she struggles with feeling responsible for whether her father has a place to live or not.
She’s not.
He tells her she is.
He’s full of shit.
He cajoles, he manipulates, he lies. He threatens suicide.
I stopped falling for that suicide crap a year ago. He will never kill himself.
Paul called me and we talked for two hours. He told me everything that’s been going on.
The way Michael lies on the couch all day trolling political websites and sleeping, and stays up all night pacing the house. Like a damn vampire.
The way he puts the dirty dishes in the sink but never rinses them and never puts them in the dishwasher.
The way he’s using some of Molly’s old drug using friends to triangulate against Paul, messaging them on Facebook that he’s too controlling (when he’s the best thing that ever happened to her).
WHO DOES THAT?
He squanders his disability on lottery tickets and never has any money to contribute to household expenses.
He trashed my character and told Paul how crazy I am and what a horrible person I am because I finally had the guts to kick him out.
“That crazy bitch made me homeless,” he whined. It’s an endless refrain, on an infinite time loop.
He sneaks around and listens to Paul’s phone calls to Molly.
Paul is going through (on a lesser scale) what I went through. He knows. I will never need to worry again that I might be thought the crazy one.
Now he wants him gone. Out by January 1. Good.
It was all a game, an elaborate fortress built of smoke and mirrors and lies, to obscure and deflect the truth. Now it’s all come crashing down and Michael has lost all his narcissistic supply. Oh, boo hoo.
Paul is afraid Michael living at the house when Molly returns will destroy his relationship with my daughter. He’s right: he’ll attempt to create a wedge between them with his gaslighting and triangulating and lies. He’s already started by telling him lies about Molly when she’s not even there to defend herself. He does all this because stirring up drama and creating wedges between people is his sick idea of fun.
When he threw me out of the house when Molly was just 11, he told her I left of my own accord because I didn’t love her and her brother. I never knew this until years later. Molly held that against me for years and it messed up her head and she got addicted to drugs to escape and that’s part of the reason she’s in jail. She may be N herself. But that’s what he does. He’s a rapist who rapes people’s minds instead of their bodies. Even his own kids. Because he’s an evil excuse for a human being. An empty rusted out tin can with sharp edges lying on a toxic waste dump.
To Paul, I wanted to say “I told you so” but instead I told him I’d not wanted to get involved and just let the cards fall where they may–but always had a feeling this would happen. I’d hoped he’d have better luck dealing with Michael because they don’t have a long past behind them. They don’t have kids together. Maybe Michael would be different with him. Maybe he’d change! It wasn’t any of my business anyway if he lived with them or not.
Michael hasn’t changed. Of course he hasn’t. Narcissists never change. He’s the poster child for the Needy Malignant Narcissist. He cares about no one and nothing but himself, acts like the world owes him a living but without him giving anything in return. He likes to destroy relationships because he’s bored and miserable and evil and that’s his idea of fun.
No doubt when Michael finds out he has to leave he’ll either fly into a narcissistic rage or cry and whine and threaten suicide. Paul says he’ll give him his first month’s rent back so he can go find a place. Knowing him, he’ll spend it on cigarettes and lottery tickets instead and he’ll have to go back to the Salvation Army, and then try to tell me what a douchebag Paul is.
I might have to renew my restraining order in February–just to make sure he doesn’t try to come back here.
He’s alienated everyone. No one wants him around anymore. And that’s no one’s fault but his own. Of course, in Michael’s disordered mind, he’s blameless and it’s everyone else who’s at fault for his sorry condition.
I was thinking about my mental state a year ago compared to today, and it’s as if I was a completely different person. Barely a person at all. Living like I was on automatic pilot. Going through the motions of life but not living. Marking time until death. I didn’t care; I thought I was dead already.
Now I feel like I’ve grown younger instead of older. I’ve found God. Doors that seemed locked to me forever are starting to open. Things I’d thought I’d lost for years have been found. Things I can’t believe would ever happen are starting to happen.
All because I got rid of the narc.
Now I can go over and see Paul and Molly on Christmas Day and bake my lasagna without having to deal with that sick piece of human waste lurking around and making everyone miserable with his stupid mindfuckery.
If you still live with your narc, beg, borrow or steal the courage if you must, but GET RID OF THEM. Hold your ground. Get angry. Righteous anger is our weapon and is healthy. It can even save your life. Go No Contact. There is no other way. These are dangerous people set out to destroy you and everything good you have. Don’t let them turn you into an empty shell. Don’t let them turn you into one of THEM.
Here’s another addition to my Museum of Narcissists:
This devastating documentary (from 2000) about Melvin Just, a psychopathic sexual abuser who systematically destroyed all his daughters and his 3 stepdaughters (and killed a nurse but was never charged) paints a graphic picture of highly malignant narcissist who seems as thoroughly evil as the devil himself. His wife, dying of lung cancer during the time of filming, appears to be a malignant narcissist herself, not much better than her husband. She may have been under his thrall so long (and was such an enabler) she became evil herself. Psychopathy is contagious.
The pitiful daughters and stepdaughters are shells of what they could have been; they all are addicted to drugs or alcohol and appear to be living in grinding poverty. They all seem like they’ve died inside–their cynical laughter and hard attitudes cover scars so deep they can probably never heal. These are all wasted lives. One of the older daughters, Ann, was highly intelligent and read a lot, including books about famous psychopaths. She made the connection and identified her father as a monster just like the killers she read about. But even though she seems less damaged than her sisters, she suffers from depression and suicidal ideation and has tried to attempt suicide several times.
Melvin Just is one of the most evil people I’ve ever seen. During his interviews he shows absolutely no remorse for his heinous actions and keeps denying any wrongdoing. He also has the opaque, dead, black eyes that very malignant people are known for. It’s hard to look at him even in video without feeling like his evil could somehow infect you.
The way the daughters react to his funeral at the end is both hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time. These are incredibly tortured women.
I just can’t comprehend the psychopathic mind, no matter how hard I try to understand why they think the way they do.
The world sucks enough as it is. There is already too much suffering, hatred, intolerance and misery on this small sad planet, and precious little joy, peace and love.
Why?
Why would anyone want to walk on the side of evil and darkness? Why would anyone want to see bad things happen to others or cause their suffering and misery? Why would anyone take JOY in another’s suffering? Why would anyone think empathy was a sign of weakness? Or remorse an admission of failure?
Why would anyone want to destroy the small, helpless and vulnerable things of this world, the way the psychopathic bounty hunter does in “Raising Arizona”?
I don’t get it. I will never get it.
And why are there SO MANY OF THEM?
WHY?
WARNING: This is a dark and highly disturbing topic for many people. If discussions about evil entities, the demonic or the supernatural bothers you, I suggest not reading this blog post to avoid being triggered.
I’ve discussed the subject of evil and narcissism before, but today a commenter called Truthteller brought up this subject again in the comments section of another blog post (I can’t find his or her blog if they even have one).
A good question.
Truthteller was wondering if disorders like malignant narcissism and/or multiple personality disorder (MPD) have a possible supernatural explanation, such as an evil or alien entity taking up residence inside a person. This commenter suggested that severe abuse during childhood, which can cause both MPD (a splintering of the original personality into two or more subpersonalities) and NPD (dissociative as well because the true self is shut off or obscured by an elaborate system of false personalities or masks) can make the child vulnerable to an outside entity taking up residence within them.
Now before you write me off as a BSC, superstitious, tinfoil hat-wearing, Bible thumping nutcase, let me explain that while I do consider myself a Christian, I am not particularly religious (though I am spiritual) nor have I ever been that superstitious and I’m pretty skeptical about supernatural things. In fact, I think most “supernatural” events probably have a scientific explanation that hasn’t been discovered yet.
For example, imagine a serf living in the year 1100, during the Middle Ages. Now imagine a time traveler from 2014 appears and shows the medieval serf his Smartphone. (Okay, I know time travel isn’t possible right now, if it ever is, but just suspend your disbelief here for a minute).
What would the serf think? Would they understand anything about the technology that went into making that Smartphone? Of course not. They would probably run away screaming that the thing was demonic, a supernatural device from Hell that contained evil spirits. Because that would be the only way they could explain the glowing moving images and words scrolling on a screen. If we see a ghost today, it could actually be a ghost, or it could be a hologram of some sort, a cross-section of a 4 or more-dimensional being, or simply an aggregation of energy concentrated in one place. We really don’t know.
That being said, I also don’t dispute the possibility that there may be evil spirits or even an entity called Satan. No one has proven these entities exist, but no one’s disproven them either. There is at least one respected psychiatrist in the field of NPD and psychopathy (Dr. M. Scott Peck) who believes that certain individuals without empathy or a conscience, who take pleasure in hurting others (today we call them malignant narcissists or psychopaths) are in fact evil.
I absolutely believe there are evil people in the world, but is their evil due to Satan or other malignant entities overtaking their minds at some point (possibly due to a choice they made which I’ll explain later in this post), or is their “evil” simply a manifestation of a badly wired brain dominated by the predatory, reptilian, lower brain instead of the mammalian human brain that has the capacity for love and empathy?
A snake doesn’t care about its fellow snakes or even its offspring. It feels no love. It attacks with no remorse and has no feelings of guilt if its prey dies from its bite. It abandons its young after they’re born to fend for themselves. This is normal behavior for a snake, but a snake isn’t evil because it’s just a reptile, a less evolved creature than we are. If a human acts like a snake though, then that person is evil because we’re supposed to have a brain that has the capacity to feel empathy and love.
MPD vs. NPD.
In the case of the person with MPD, I don’t believe malignant entities have anything to do with their disorder, for several reasons. Although people with MPD appear to be “possessed” by more than one personality, they are really just facets of the same personality. A person with MPD was almost without exception severely abused during early childhood, and to protect the “waking self” from further pain, their original personality shattered into fragments, or subpersonalities of the original.
A good therapist who specializes in MPD can help the patient bring the “personalities” back together, usually by working primarily with the dominant personality, which is usually cooperative and the most mentally healthy of them all. It is also the only one of the personalities that is aware of all the others. One by one, the dominant personality (or sometimes using hypnosis) will “bring out” the other personalities for the therapist to work with. Eventually, through the cooperation of all the personalities, the person can become whole again. While there may be unpleasant or immature personalities, they are not necessarily evil. Another reason I don’t think MPD has anything to do with outside entities is because the person with the disorder wants to get well. They usually seek therapy on their own due to blackouts and other odd things such as doing something and not remembering doing it.
Malignant narcissism and psychopathy is a different story. Although also most likely caused by severe abuse combined with a genetic predisposition, the person is nearly always unaware of their original, true self which has been obscured so deeply by their elaborate layers of masks that it may as well not even exist. It’s very difficult if not impossible to access the true self in a malignant narcissist. It exists but the false self is a lie, and lies are inherently evil. This is why they are the “People of the Lie.”
The genesis of psychopathy.
Why are some people evil and what made them that way? No one really knows. I don’t think in real life there are any “bad seeds” and those we know of are usually fictional characters. Some people probably do possess a gene for the malignant form of narcissism or psychopathy, but even so, with loving parenting that teaches the child right from wrong at an early age, I think most children can still learn to be good people and those lessons will override the genetic predisposition. Perhaps they’ll still be narcissists but of the benign variety instead.
Severely abusing or neglecting a child who already possesses the gene will likely cause that child to become a psychopath or malignant narcissist. At this point in time, there is no known cure once the disorder has become ingrained in the personality. If any treatment is to work, it must be done in early childhood, when the personality is still forming.
Possession and Exorcism.
I don’t think people with these disorders are actually possessed by demons, but if demons or malignant entities exist, these people may be highly influenced by them or walk on the side of darkness. That would explain my MN ex’s fascination with the occult, Satanic symbolism, and his liking for dark music like death metal. Being open to darkness, malignant narcissists and psychopaths are vulnerable to malignant entities taking up residence inside them, and for someone who is already a psychopath, the possession would be total and even exorcism would not work and would probably kill them.
Non-evil people could be possessed too, usually by dabbling in the occult or the like, but for them, the possession is “imperfect,” according to M. Scott Peck. Because the entity isn’t aligned perfectly with the person’s soul, there is still good in the person and when an exorcism is performed, the good can overcome the evil entity (with God’s help). An exorcism performed on an imperfectly possessed, non-evil individual is more likely to be successful than it would be on a psychopath whose possession, if it exists at all, would be total.
M. Scott Peck also believes that exorcism does not have to be done by a priest or minister. It can be successfully performed by a psychiatrist or psychologist who is well trained in the ritual, and at the same time has a strong faith in God.
How a good person can become evil.
I mentioned earlier the concept of choice. I think there are some people who are predisposed genetically to psychopathy and aren’t necessarily evil, but there comes a turning point during which they choose darkness over light. This is usually a decision they make, a “deal with the devil” so to speak. This is the point at which they can cross the line over into evil and once they do so, there is no turning back.
I’ve used this example before, but I’ll use it again because it’s such a good one. In “People of the Lie,” Peck talks about a man who was in all respects a good man, a family man who loved his wife and children. But the man had a terrible problem: he suffered from severe panic attacks when crossing a certain bridge on his way home from work every day. The panic attacks were so debilitating that the man, even though he didn’t believe in the devil, made a deal with the devil anyway. He told the devil that if he could get over the bridge without suffering a panic attack, then he would allow the devil to allow something to happen to his beloved son.
Nothing happened to the man’s son, but the man felt terribly guilty about making such a deal, even though he still didn’t believe the devil existed, so he confessed his sin to Dr. Peck. It was explained to the man that he did the right thing; if he hadn’t felt remorse over making such a deal, even though he didn’t believe in the devil, that he would have crossed the line over into evil.
The same thing happens during war when soldiers are forced to kill innocent people and commit other acts of atrocity that go against their morals. Those who aren’t predisposed to psychopathy and are forced to undertake such evil actions, suffer from PTSD and can even experience a psychotic break. However, there are veterans who, already predisposed to psychopathy, became evil after committing such acts during wartime. They return from war seeming to have lost any empathy or ability to love they once had. Here too, a line was crossed, even if it was not really their own choice. Once that line is crossed the person can never return to goodness because they have, in effect, “sold their soul,” and possibly been possessed by malignant outside entities who make sure they keep walking on the side of darkness.
It’s in their eyes.
I have noticed something odd in the eyes of malignant narcissists. The first time I saw it was when I was about five or six, when my mother flew into a narcissistic rage over something or other, probably my acting “spooky” (withdrawn and lost in my Aspie world) which seemed to enrage her more than anything else. When I looked into her face, I noticed with horror that her eyes were solid black like the eyes of aliens or demons, and her sneer was so full of pure hate that I had nightmares for weeks. I remember having dreams about this demon-mother, and waking up screaming. She’d rush into the room and it was like waking up from one nightmare into another, an inescapable loop of nightmares I couldn’t awaken from, because all I could see even when awake were those solid black eyes and hateful sneer. Even when she was smiling or hugging me. This lasted for several months, but I knew then what she was, and I also knew that she knew I knew. And that made her hate me even more.
I saw the same black eyes once when my MN ex was in one of his narcissistic drunken rages.
Also, I have seen actual people who have very opaque, cold and hard eyes without a hint of humanity or warmth in them. Here is a photo of a person I do not know but her face is one of the most frightening I’ve ever seen and it’s because of those eyes. I have no doubt this woman is as evil as she looks. I sure wouldn’t want to meet her in person!
My father (a low spectrum but weak and benign narcissist who is not insane or deluded) told me about the time he spoke to Michael (who I was still married to at the time) on the phone and noticed his voice sounded different. The way he explained it, it was gutteral and inhuman like a demon’s voice. I never heard this voice myself, but on a visceral, gut level I believed my father was telling me the truth. I was spooked out of my mind.
After the divorce my father sent me a copy of “People of the Lie.” He told me he never believed in the devil or evil people until he read this book and realized it described my ex to a tee. Funny that he didn’t recognize my mother in that book, because she’s even more malignant than my ex. But he’s an enabler when it comes to MN women, and always seems to be in thrall to them. But that book changed my life because after reading it I finally recognized both my ex and my mother for what they actually were, and that was the catalyst that led to No Contact.
A person I know in the narcissistic abuse community says that the soul of a malignant narcissist or psychopath has been seared. I think that’s a very good description of what has happened to them. Can a seared soul be saved? I have no clue…
In conclusion, let me remind you that I’m not a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist or a Bible-thumping fundamentalist nutcase. I have no proof that any of this is valid (unless you count the opaque black eyes I’ve saw in both my mother and ex). But because a supernatural component hasn’t been disproven either, there’s a possibility that much more is involved in psychopathic behavior and malignant narcissism than mere mental illness or a brain dysfunction. Some of this even makes sense on a gut instinct level. In any case, Truthteller raised an interesting issue and I wanted to explore it further even if you think it’s nuttier than a Payday bar.
Please share your thoughts.
This is a fictional account of a hypothetical visit from Satan, the entity who knows more than anyone else what exactly makes psychopaths tick. I found it on the excellent blog Country of Liars. The blogger, like many victims of psychopathic abuse, comes from a family of psychopaths, and here the Devil makes a house call and explains a few things! It’s a good story, and it had me on the edge of my seat!
Gaze into the void…
Psychopaths and malignant narcissists are very good at putting on masks to get others to trust them. They can seem warm and charming when they want to. But sometimes they can be caught when their mask is momentarily down (usually when they’ve been called out–or caught), and it’s here when we see the emptiness and evil inside them.
I’ve described this look before–I’ve seen it on my mother’s face and it gave me nightmares for weeks. I saw it once on my ex’s face when he was drunk and angry. It’s not so much a demonic look (which has a sort of life to it) as a dead, lifeless look that is far worse. It’s a malignant look that makes you want to get away from them fast. Like there’s nothing inside them except an vast and endless black void of nothingness. It’s like standing at the precipice of a black hole, and what can be more terrifying than some nameless void that can suck you into itself–and can even swallow light?
Many people have mentioned the intense stare a psychopathic person will fix you with, even when they are trying to charm you into trusting them. During the “wooing” phase, you may think this intense stare indicates attentiveness and strong interest in you as a person, but actually all they’re interested in is how they can use you and later destroy you. Make no mistake–they are predators out for the kill. If you have met someone who seems to stare at you excessively, or in a predatory way that makes you uneasy, that person is probably a psychopath or malignant narcissist trying to get their hooks into you. RUN LIKE HELL.
I don’t think evil is the opposite of good. I think evil is the opposite of somethingness–evil is pure black nothingness. Here are some examples of the dead, reptilian eyes of known psychopaths and malignant narcissists.
Serial killer Dennis Rader
Convicted murderer Jodi Arias. Her trial footage shows as many fake tears and mask-changes as Scott Peterson’s and none of her “emotions” seem genuine.
Scott Peterson, unfaithful husband who murdered his pregnant wife and unborn child.
Susan Smith, who murdered her two young sons by sinking them in a car she drove into a lake because she wanted to please her lover, who did not want children.
Actress Joan Crawford (“Mommie Dearest”), who was an alcoholic and abusive mother to two of her adoptive children (some reports classify her as having Borderine Personality Disorder with Histrionic and Narcissistic elements, rather than NPD)
In some cases, psychopaths show a distinctive smirk or sneer. Their eyes may twinkle, but it’s a hard, cold, glittering twinkle that is malevolent and creepy. Behind the twinkle, the eyes are still reptilian and dead. You may see this look when they think they’ve pulled one over on you–or perversely, when you’ve pulled one over on them–and they are ready to kill you either literally or figuratively. Here are some examples of this look:
Osama bin Laden, fundamentalist Islamic mastermind who ordered the attacks on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon in 2001.
Mass murderer Charles Manson, who never killed anyone himself but had his cult of followers do his dirty work for him. Some think he’s psychotic and therefore not responsible for his actions, but he’s a psychopath who knew exactly what he was doing and has never shown an ounce of remorse.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, the brains behind the disastrous and dishonest Bush administration and our “preemptive” invasion of Iraq. Cheney and his cronies bailed out or pardoned corporate criminals like Halliburton. How could you trust a man with a face like that?
The Koch Brothers, multibillionaire CEOs who by their words and deeds have shown their disdain and comtempt for the “little people” which includes both the poor and middle class. These jerks have zero empathy and seem very psychopathic.
Former pro football player and actor O.J. Simpson during his famous 1995 murder trial. This insolent expression became his trademark look while he was on trial.
Serial killer Ted Bundy’s infamous look of psychopathic glee. *shudder*
I don’t know this woman, but she is a malignant narcissist who apparently gets her jollies making the people who lived in her building miserable. Someone on another website about narcissists was being attacked by her and called her out. I wouldn’t have included her here, but this is one of the most frightening looking people I’ve ever seen. Her eyes look like those solid black eyes you see in horror movies of demonic people. I have no doubt this woman is as evil as she looks.
Serial killer and alleged Satanist Richard Ramirez.
I’ve also included this Court TV program covering the arrest and trial of murderer Scott Peterson. Notice how he uses tears to manipulate the police and interviewer, but how insincere he seems and the way he arranges his facial features into whatever “mask” he thinks will help his case. There are those who insist he is not guilty (and I had my doubts too) and of course being good looking like Ted Bundy, he had a number of “groupies” who defended him, but he’s an intelligent manipulator and after watching this video, I absolutely believe Scott Peterson killed his wife and unborn son in cold blood.
Those of us in an active relationship with a psychopath usually either don’t see or choose to ignore how purely evil these characters are–and that they are set out to destroy the relationship, the victimized person, and even the children if there are any involved. Many times a victim feels like they can’t leave, especially if they don’t have financial resources (which is often the case when a person is enmeshed with a psychopath, who may have made any funds impossible to access), a supportive family to help them escape, or there are children involved.
Like most women (and men) enmeshed in a marriage or relationship with a psychopath, I waited far too long to leave my abuser. My son, although scapegoated by his father through most of his childhood, escaped relatively unscathed (although he has some anger and self esteem issues), but my daughter is another story. She was deeply damaged by her father’s manipulations and by having to play the role of his junior “flying monkey” and participate in his triangulation and gaslighting games when she was just a child and young teenager, not to mention being introduced to things a youngster should not have to deal with: drugs, alcohol, family violence (and even possible sexual abuse, though this has never been proven). She’s taken on a few of his narcissistic traits (she’s good at manipulation and isn’t always honest), although narcissism is to some extent genetic and her symptoms don’t seem to be too severe. She is also bipolar and suffers from C-PTSD, as I do.
For many years, I didn’t even see that he was an abuser. He wasn’t usually physically violent (except when drinking); his method of abuse was much more subtle–and more diabolical than that. I didn’t know what hit me and like most abused spouses, learned to blame myself and came to believe the discord was MY problem, because I “overreacted to everything” and was “crazy and unstable.” Having to spend time in a mental facility in the late 1990s was “proof” that I was the one with the mental problems–and in fact I did have serious mental problems, but they were brought on by my mind being played like a violin by a very evil man. He was a virtuoso crazymaker.
Other people saw how evil he was and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t see it too. I remember a friend of mine from work came over once with another friend when Michael was home, and while he was pleasant enough to them, neither of these friends ever wanted to come to my home again. When I asked Holly (one of the friends) why not, she said, “I don’t like your husband and neither does Teresa. He gave us the creeps, there’s just something not very nice about him.”
Parents of two of my daughter’s friends had met Michael, and would not allow their children to come to my home because of him. Oh, he was always on his best behavior with adult visitors, but one of the mothers told me, “he seems perfectly polite, but I just don’t feel comfortable around him and don’t want my daughter around him. I’m very sorry.”
I saw the evil in him on one occasion while we were still married–and what I saw scared the shit out of me. It was one night when he was very drunk, we had been fighting all night and ended it by having sex. The sex was rough and angry though, and suddenly I looked up and saw a totally expressionless face. There was no love there, just pure hatred. I could feel the hate emanating from him. But worse than that was his eyes. Normally a steely gray-blue, they had turned solid black, very similar to the solid black eyes demons in horror movies have. I know I wasn’t imagining this–what I was seeing was what he really was but kept hidden. No, not a demon, but something worse–a person with no self, a person who had sold his soul or never had one. There was nothing there, and nothingness is what evil actually is. That’s why malignant narcissists and psychopaths need to wear masks, to cover up what isn’t there.
Michael knew I had seen it, and knew I knew, because he immediately ended the intimacy, pulled on his clothes, and left the house, but not before giving me the most hateful sneer I had ever seen.
My father had talked to him one night during one of our many fights. Now my father has never been a particularly religious man and never believed in Satan or hell, so he didn’t say anything about this to me at the time, but years later, after Michael and I separated, he confessed that night he had heard Michael speaking in a low, gutteral, demonic voice. It scared him so much he decided to read M. Scott Peck’s book,”People of the Lie,” and after he was done he sent me the book. I was riveted by the book and also shocked and scared to death. That was the first time I began to realize that I had been dealing with a malignant narcissist who was dead set on destroying me and my children and almost succeeded.
People outside the relationship–casual friends, mothers of my children’s friends, and my father had all seen immediately what he was, but because I was enmeshed and had young children, I couldn’t see it–or refused to. It gives me chills to this day to think I spent 28 years in the presence of pure evil, but that’s what it was. I’m lucky to be alive today and even luckier that I didn’t completely lose my soul. My children are lucky too, although my poor daughter is the most deeply damaged by him and may never fully recover.
If you are in a relationship and others are wary or uncomfortable around them and can’t explain why, or you see the countenance of pure hatred and evil that I did (and also the solid black eyes), run away as fast as you can. If there are kids, take them with you. You may think you can’t, but even if you don’t have a supportive family or are financially unable to find another place to live, most towns and cities have services and even shelters for abused women and their children. The shelter I stayed at with my kids was very nice, and the counselors were wonderful (I went back though). If you are a man, it may be more difficult to find this kind of help, and you might have to dig a little deeper or even move to another area to find services, but they do exist. Take advantage of the government programs that still exist–food stamps, Medicaid for the kids, in some communities even housing vouchers. Churches and other charitable organizations have limited funds, but may be able to provide some food, help with bills, or other services. Seek counseling–many communities have free or low cost mental health services for abused parents and their children. Don’t worry that you have to move out of that big house you bought together, or that your kids will be without their father (or mother). This is life or death–don’t think about what you’ll be losing because at the end of the day, it won’t be much. Just get the hell out.
Lucky Otters Haven 