Survivor hypervigilance and the danger of false labeling

Posted on October 3, 2014 by luckyotter

Earlier today I wrote that I thought my daughter may have NPD because she had taken my phone when she lost hers, and seemed uncaring that I had no way of contacting her or anyone else. About an hour ago, she returned with my phone, and seemed very apologetic and remorseful.

Granted, my daughter does have some narcissistic traits, but she is also Borderline, and most Borderlines do have some narcissistic behaviors–after all, they’re still in the Cluster B group of personality disorders (Cluster B disorders are those characterized by excessive dramatic behavior and/or lack empathy). But she’s not a Narcissist. She does have a conscience and can show empathy, and she’s also self-critical, something true Narcs are not.

My point here is this. I think we survivors have a problem with lack of trust. Having been hurt too often by those with malevolent character, sometimes even by our own parents, we tend to be hypervigilant and quick to label people as NPD if they show even the slightest self-centered behaviors. Since we all can be self-centered and narcissistic at times, then we can falsely pin the NPD label on almost anyone.

Hypervigilance and paranoia is a huge problem for survivors. We have learned not to trust anyone, or even trust our own instincts (since all too often we seem to be attracted to those who are narcissists). Many if not most of us suffer from C-PTSD (PTSD resulting from having been the victim in an abusive relationship). We are quick to jump to conclusions and overreact to behaviors that trigger us, even if no malevolent intent is involved, and even imagining narcissistic behavior where none actually exists. This can cause misunderstandings and result in an inability to become close to anyone and sometimes even make it impossible for us to allow anyone to be our friend. We don’t believe anyone has our best interests at heart.

Here I am going to attempt to describe some behaviors that really are narcissistic, and also differentiate other disorders that may be mistaken for NPD. This list is not exhaustive; there are many other symptoms of NPD I may have neglected to list, but here are the ones I am most familiar with from my own relationships with narcissists. For convenience, I am using the masculine pronoun, but of course all of these could apply to females as well.

How to Spot a Narcissist.

1. Does he come on strong in the beginning, love-bombing you with gifts and words, giving you his undivided attention, but does he also try to rush the relationship toward commitment? If he does, he wants the “courtship” phase over with quickly, because once he knows you’re his, he can revert to his true narcissistic self and you become his narcissistic supply. A huge red flag is if he talks about past relationships in a way where he paints himself as blameless and the ex as a blackhearted villain.

2. Is his “teasing” sadistic and cruel? Does he keep doing it after you’ve told him to stop, and even after you’re no longer laughing?

3. Does he like to put you down in front of others, and then call you “too sensitive” or “lacking a sense of humor” if you rightfully object?

4. Does he play mind games? These can include any of the following: gaslighting (trying to make you believe you are crazy or are losing your memory by denying actual incidents you have called to his attention); triangulating (creating drama between two other people by telling each person lies about the other one–example: he tells a friend of yours you were saying bad things about them even though you were not, and then tells you your friend said they really don’t like you). This is crazymaking stuff.

5. Does he lie even when there’s no reason to lie? Does he deny any wrongdoing even when the evidence is in his face?

6. If he cannot deny the wrongdoing, does he make excuses as to why it wasn’t wrong? True narcissists can never apologize.

7. Does he have one or more “flying monkeys” (people he has won over to his side in his campaign against you)? If he can get other people to side with him (sometimes other family members) and ALL of them are saying YOU’RE the crazy one, that’s the cruelest form of bullying and gaslighting imaginable. RUN! Narcs are very glib and have a lot of charm, and it’s easy for them to make others believe YOU are the one with the problem, and they are just blameless victims. If they’ve read up on narcissism, they may even say YOU are the narcissist.

8. He has a black and white view of the world. If you’re the least bit critical, he concludes you’re against him. If you’re not 100% in agreement, that’s reason to attack.

9. Is he condescending, sarcastic, talks down to you, or otherwise make you feel belittled and diminished, especially when others are present?

10. Does he bring up your most personal matters in front of others, in an effort to embarrass you?

11. Does he trash you behind your back, and then deny he ever said anything (perhaps “gaslighting”–telling you you are imagining things?)

12. Does he steal from you, and then deny it?

13. Does he make you engage in behaviors that are illegal or go against your morals?

14. Does he seem to never have anything nice to say about anything or anyone? Narcissists are excessively negative, unless they are in the “love bombing” phase (when they’re trying to woo you, or when they feel there’s a threat you may leave and they may be deprived of their “narcissistic supply”)

15. Not all, but many narcissists have co-existing addictions to alcohol, drugs, or gambling. This can be a red flag, but not all Narcs have substance abuse problems (and certainly not all those with addictions are Narcs).

16. Does he act entitled, expecting to be given things and treated in a special way, without doing anything to deserve the special treatment, and never giving anything back in return?

17. Does he lack empathy or become upset or enraged of he believes someone else is getting more (attention, material goods, love, etc.) than he is?

18. Does he seem to be nice to everyone but you? Narcs are chamelions who can change masks at the drop of a hat.

19. Do you ever get the odd feeling there is “nothing there” or even get a sense of evil from the person? I saw this black void in both my mother and my ex husband, and it scared the daylights out of me both times. If you get this sense, or see the solid black eyes, RUN as fast as you can. People who are HSPs or empaths are more likely to “see through” a psychopath this way, and HSPs are also most at danger of becoming their victims, not just because of their vulnerability, but also because the narcissist envies and hates the quality of high sensitivity because of the potential it has to “out” them for what they really are, and that terrifies them.*

20. Does he blame-shift, that is, projecting things that go wrong onto you? For example, if he loses his wallet, he finds a way to blame you for it. If your kid becomes sick, it’s because you were “careless” in allowing them to be exposed to others who were sick.

21. Does he project his own character flaws onto you? For example, telling you (and anyone else he wants on his side) that YOU are selfish and lack empathy? My ex actually did this to me, making ME the narcissist. It’s enough to make you batshit crazy.

22. They overreact and are hypersensitive to insults. The poor things are so easily hurt *bring out the tiny violins* Actually, for them it’s just hurt pride. Insult their pride and they’re likely to fly into a narcissistic rage.

23. They have no respect for boundaries. They’ll rummage through your personal belongings, invade your space, blast their music (and get mad at YOU if you ask them to turn it down), talk loudly when you are trying to sleep, and generally just be in your face all the time.

24. Finally, is your psychopath attracted to “dark” or “evil” things? I noticed my NPD ex-husband liked a lot of things that gave me the heebie jeebies: images of demons, zombies, vampires, slasher movies, and he was also attracted to the occult. His taste in music was also very dark: he listened to a lot of death metal. I’m not judgmental about music and can appreciate all genres (even if it’s not something I would listen to), but much of the music he listened to just gave me bad vibes. Granted, some narcissists are “paragons of virtue” and they can often be found in churches, schools, and unfortunately, government. Our current government and the top echelons of large corporations are filled with narcissists, and this is why the United States is in such sorry shape today. Be that as it may, many people with NPD are attracted to the dark underbelly of things.

There are other behaviors typical of NPDs and psychopaths, but the ones I listed are the ones my psychopaths used most frequently in my victimization. After being subjected to these crazymaking behaviors for so long, it’s not surprising survivors can become hypervigilant and automatically label any triggering behavior from anyone as being psychopathic. We have to be careful not to jump to conclusions.

Look for Patterns.

It helps to look for a pattern–if the behavior happens over and over again, and is combined with other narcissistic behaviors I have listed, that’s a red flag. If it’s an isolated incident, and it isn’t part of a regular pattern, chances are that person is not narcissistic. It’s hard for a survivor of abuse to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, but observation before judging is important to avoid the problem of false labeling and possibly rejecting a person who may actually be good for us.

Other disorders that can mimic Narcissism and Psychopathy.

Antisocial Personality Disorder (sociopathy): This is similar to NPD/psychopathy, except the person with APD is far more likely to engage in criminal behavior (narcissists like to maintain their blameless image, although they may break the law too in more subtle ways), and although they too show no remorse or empathy, their behavior tends to be more impulsive and there is some evidence that people with APD have difficulty telling the difference between right and wrong.

Borderline Personality Disorder: These are people whose personalities have never “come together.” Like the narcissist they can be very charming and attractive at first, but they tend to be emotionally intense and overreact to everything, especially slights. Borderlines are the true “drama queens.” Their relationships are unstable and stormy, and they are high-maintenance and very demanding. Many people with BPD have issues with addiction. They are likely to have narcissistic traits, but unlike someone with NPD, they are capable of empathy and remorse. They act impulsively, think later.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD): Some people with OCD are very controlling and get very upset if their routines or rituals are disrupted. People with severe OCD can seem unempathic and self centered, but they act the way they do because of the overwhelming anxiety that underlies their control freak appearance.

Schizoid Personality Disorder: People with this disorder are not narcissistic or psychopathic, but are asocial and live very much inside their own heads. Their behavior may be odd or eccentric. They seem to lack empathy, but are really just not very aware of what other people may be feeling or how their odd or aloof behavior may upset those close to them.

Aspergers/autism: People on the autism spectrum, like the schizoid personity type, are likely to be asocial and keep to themselves–or when forced to socialize, their behavior can seem awkward. Because they cannot read social cues, they may say or do hurtful or inappropriate things, which can make them seem narcissistic. But if their hurtful behavior is called out to them, most of these people do feel shame and remorse.

* My next article will be about HSPs and why they’re so often targeted and bullied by psychopaths,

Waking up from the nightmare

Posted on September 28, 2014 by luckyotter

So after 28 years of narcissistic abuse I finally felt free. Before, even though there were periods where we hadn’t lived together, I never felt completely free of Michael’s toxic influence. But my daughter Molly and I were quite literally survivors and both of us had psychic wounds that ran deep and would take years to heal, if they could ever be healed at all.

My job (which I still have) doesn’t provide health insurance so I couldn’t afford to pay for a trauma therapist, but I started reading everything I could about NPD and PTSD/C-PTSD (the type of PTSD that’s associated with abuse). Molly still didn’t want to go to therapy but was still getting her meds for Bipolar and she was in a fairly stable relationship and was no longer getting into trouble the way she used to. She was also beginning to understand why I did some of the things I did and acted the way I had, and I learned she too had a lot of anger toward Michael.

But things were not perfect between us either and we did continue to argue from time to time, and when she was angry, she liked to bring up the fact I had given up custody of her to DSS even though at other times she says she understood it was the only thing I could do at the time and it did save her life. So I don’t let those occasional attacks bother me too much. I know it’s manipulation. Sometimes I think she may have NPD herself, but she does have a conscience and empathy so more likely she just has narcissistic traits which are common people with Borderline PD.

So in March I had to go to court and testify against Michael in order to obtain a permanent restraining order (the one that was issued at the magistrate was good for only 1 month). I was working with an organization that helps abused women and their families, and they counseled me on what to say in court. It was ridiculous I had to jump through all these hoops just to obtain a piece of paper to keep a man I wasn’t married to anyway away from me and my property, but it was what it was.

I knew I had a good case and no reason to be worried but I was still terrified of having to face him in court. Michael is very glib and has a lot of charm when he wants something. He can make himself sound like a victim and make the other person sound like the devil himself. He managed to be surviving pretty well in the men’s shelter, although he told Molly when he saw her how much he hated it and wanted to come back. He also made her go buy him things, which she would do. She felt guilty and caught in the middle between the two of us. It wasn’t fair to her.

Ethan came to visit in early March (on his way from Illinois to his new apartment in Florida–he graduated college in January and is is seeking work in film editing or something related). He wanted to make sure Michael was not going to show up. I assured him he wouldn’t. We had a fantastic time, but he said when he tried to call his father, Michael didn’t want to see him. For some reason he thinks Ethan was the one who convince me to kick him out of the house. No matter how much he’s told Ethan had nothing to do with it, he still blames him for brainwashing me. Huh? Talk about blame-shifting.

I had to write everything I wanted to say in court because I knew my mind would go blank when I had to get up at the stand and talk about why the restraining order should be extended. The big day was in mid-March. Several other cases were heard first and I avoided looking behind me because I knew he was there. I could feel his eyes burning holes into my neck. Finally I was called to the stand and presented my case. I didn’t cry (because it’s really hard for me to cry anymore) but I was trembling and my voice was shaking from fear. The judge had to keep asking me to speak up. I studied her expression but it gave nothing away.

Michael was called up after me and gave a ridiculous story about how Molly had hit him first and he gave her a black eye in self defense (which is total BS because he didn’t have one mark on him). He gave some other lame
“reasons” why he needed to move back but since he really didn’t have a good reason, they didn’t fly with the judge. In fact, he was almost laughable and seeing the manipulation from more of a distance now, he seemed so transparent. Although I hated him, I almost felt sorry for him.

I won my case and the restraining order was extended for one year. The counselor from the women’s organization that had been working with me gave me a validating hug. I went home feeling lighter than I had in a long, long time.

Michael wasn’t done with me yet, but since I was no longer supplying his narcissistic goodies, his attempts at revenge were rather lame. He did things like trashing me on Facebook, saying what a horrible wife and mother I was and how he wished he never met me. He threatened suicide over and over again. I was kind of embarrassed for him, but because of it I stopped using Facebook, which I wasn’t using much anymore anyway because my mother and other family members had found me there (even though I had changed my first name a little to throw them off).

I had to adjust to my new life. For several months I just tried to take things easy, not get involved in too many new things. I read a lot of books, mostly about NPD, malignant narcissism and personality disorders in general. I read a lot of other books too, and started researching all these disorders online and reading a lot of blogs and forums.

I started making glass, mirror and ceramic suncatchers on weekends and have tried to sell some of them. Mostly I just make them for pleasure though. They also make great gifts. I have several of them on my porch and I love watching the way they catch the light and send colored prisms everywhere.

But writing has always been the one thing I know I’m best at, yet somehow I couldn’t bring myself to write anything beyond a forum post. It just seemed like too much work, and I was afraid I’d forgotten how. I feared I was no longer as smart as I used to be. I didn’t realize at first these numb and dumb feelings were symptomatic of C-PTSD. I knew if I ever did write again it would be to tell my story, but I had no idea where to begin. It all just seemed overwhelming. I thought about blogging but I was afraid it would be complicated and technical, and I still didn’t know what to write about or where to begin.

I re-read M. Scott Peck’s book “People of the Lie,” which I have reviewed in this blog, and realized Michael was not just narcissistic, but was truly evil. Despite it’s medieval connotations, I believe evil and evil people really do exist, and I was very lucky that I survived and both children survived. While most evil people don’t usually murder (they want to maintain their benign appearance), they are murderous and often drive others to suicide or self-destruction. They lie about everything.

I joined a gym and got back in shape. My job is also physical and that keeps me in shape too. I started liking what I saw in the mirror again. I also started meditating, something I started back in the ’90s and then stopped.

About a month ago I revisited the idea of blogging, inspired by some blogs I had seen by other survivors through my readings. On a whim I decided to start one. There’s been no looking back. At first it was meant to be self-therapy, a sort of online journaling, but now it’s turning into so much more and a few people have even said they feel inspired and it’s helping them too. And that makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I still have a purpose in this world and am not just marking time until I die. I want to think that everything that happened to me happened for a reason and that something good can come out of this.

I still have a long way to go, and as soon as I can I want to start seeing a trauma therapist. In the meantime life isn’t unbearable anymore. It’s getting better.

About a month ago Michael was kicked out of the apartment an organization called OctoberRoad was providing for its mental patients. My daughter allowed him to live in her car. He left the windows open during a rainstorm one night and the car was nearly destroyed. She took the car keys away and she hasn’t heard from Michael since, which is very odd, since he would call her up to 10 times a day to demand things.

She has no idea where he is. We think he may have killed himself. She wouldn’t have been notified because she had his wallet in her car and there’d be no way anyone could identify him.

Michael was having his mail sent to the house, which I did allow. After three previous rejections, Michael’s SSI finally came through — and that includes several years of back payments, so he is getting a check for about $30K.

If he is dead, how ironic that it happened just as he finally had a means to be independent and no longer had anyone he could use and abuse. Maybe that was the only reason he stuck around so long–as long as he could use up and destroy others. With that opportunity taken away, and with no real self to fall back on, there was no longer any reason for him to live. Or maybe he was finally forced to look in the mirror and all he could see was an endless black void, and that was just too much to handle. What he has been reduced to is just a shell of what he used to be, but was there ever really anything there?

I’m jealous of your tears.

Posted on September 22, 2014 by luckyotter

Crying is underrated.

In America (and probably most of the western world), shedding tears is seen as weak, even if you’re a woman. Example: if you’re female and you cry in the office, management will think you can’t handle more responsibility (or even the job you have). Things have improved a bit for men, but the reason for the tears and the way in which they’re shed matters. “Manly” crying means weeping silently, shedding just a few tears and wiping them away quickly–and it should be because (a) your team just won the Super Bowl; (b) your dog just died; or (c) you just won the lottery. It’s okay to sob openly if a close relative or friend dies, but only in with other close friends or relatives. Otherwise (if you’re a guy), you’re expected to keep a poker face even if everyone around you is falling to pieces.

So anyway. I used to be a huge cryer when I was a little kid, because I was “oversensitive.” Later on, I was bullied in school because as an Aspie and a highly sensitive person (and I think most Aspies are also HSP’s though not necessarily the other way around) it was hard for me to hide my emotions the way the other kids could. At home, my narcissistic mother shamed me for my tears, and my father pulled out the old yardstick.

Sometime during high school, I finally toughened up–but there was only one problem. The lacrymal faucet had been turned to “Off” so tightly it got stuck. From that time on, the most I could hope for was a leaky faucet. When I did cry, it was usually from anger or frustration–and didn’t feel that cleansing. When I was sad I just became stony faced and sulked.

I didn’t mind seeing others cry, but I couldn’t do it myself anymore. I was too scared. Things haven’t changed much. The only time I feel like it’s “safe” to cry is vicariously, through other people’s tragedies or tender moments. I can go through an entire box of Kleenex at a sad or touching movie, and I tear up when I read a sad or tragic news story, especially if it involves an animal or a child. But if something happens to me? I get all depressed and quiet, and sometimes rage, but my eyes remain as dry as the Sahara.

Sometimes music can turn on the tears, but if I try to transfer the emotions stimulated by the music to my current situation, whatever it may be, I dry up and can’t do it.

Is it because I still fear ridicule or punishment, even though there’s no logical basis in reality to think that would happen anymore? Is it because I’m afraid if I start crying I might never stop? I really don’t know. Maybe it’s my PTSD. I’ve read people with PTSD become numb emotionally. And that’s where I’m at a lot of the time (though lately it’s getting better).

There’ve been a few isolated instances that always catch me by surprise where I went the whole nine yards–chest heaving with sobs, swollen eyes, snot running down my chin. But I could probably count those times on one hand, two at the most. Usually they happen in an inconvenient place, and by the time I get somewhere private the desire to bawl my eyes out is gone.

But I will tell you that when this has happened, I felt a lot better afterwards. Crying is Klonopin for the soul–it relaxes you and later it’s easier to think more clearly about the situation that brought on the tears.

I know a few people (mostly women) who say they cry every day–and I’m not talking about depressed people. These are people who laugh five times as much as they cry, and they’re usually a joy to be around. And their crying isn’t always brought on by sadness either. Sometimes they just cry because they’re so damned happy.

If you’re one of those people, you’re lucky. .
Me? I’ll probably get cancer and die prematurely from holding all that poison inside.

At least I know how to laugh–but I could use more of that in my life too.

Held hostage: living with the enemy

Posted on September 21, 2014 by luckyotter

Finally, I’m getting around to posting this last part of my story. It will be in two parts, because it’s going to be so long.

After Michael kicked me out of our home in 2003 (which by that time was in foreclosure), I had no job, no place to go, and no friends or family who would take me in. Michael told me I couldn’t take the children with me, and since I had no place to go, it was obvious that for the time being they would have to stay with him.

I had just been released from the psychiatric center for Major Depression and severe PTSD, and I still wasn’t all there. I was medicated too, so that numbed my emotions even more. So I didn’t try to fight his demands, even though I could have. I could have gone to the local chapter of Helpmate, an organization that helps battered women. Even though I wasn’t battered physically (usually, unless he was drunk), the type of abuse I had just suffered was even worse because it was so insidious and soul destroying.

As for the children, I didn’t think there was anything I could do. I had no place to go, and couldn’t them with me to wherever I’d have to stay.

I had 30 days to leave. I wanted to leave right then and there, but my daughter’s 10th birthday was coming up so I wanted to stay around for that. But the next two weeks were torture. Michael and his flying monkey Rachel amped up the volume to full blast on their mind games and gaslighting, and the shitty car I had access to was taken away from me so I couldn’t leave until they wanted me to. Rachel took away my car keys. If I needed something, I had to ask for it. I was a prisoner in my own home. I’m convinced they wanted to keep me around just to torment me.

My daughter’s birthday was miserable. Molly was depressed. Michael and Rachel used her to triangulate against me and my son, who was also treated horribly. I think a part of Molly hated being in this role, but she knew she didn’t have a choice if she didn’t want to become a target herself. It was an awful thing to do to a child.

I left the next day. I had $1,000 in my pocket and the old car. Michael and Rachel didn’t say goodbye. Ethan wept quietly in his room. Molly said goodbye but didn’t hug me. Paul was the nicest. He came over to the car window as I was pulling out of the driveway and whispered “you don’t deserve this.” I don’t know if I was imagining things or not, but I thought he had tears in his eyes. Paul was a nice guy, but was very weak willed and as much under Rachel’s control as I was. The only difference was he wasn’t a target. He had pretty much kept to himself the whole time they lived with us, staying out of the hate campaign but not fighting against it either.

So I drove 11 hours to New Jersey, where an old friend was letting me stay with her for a week. Somewhere in Pennsylvania, I became fatigued and had to find a motel to stay in for the night. In my room, I thought about the gravity of what had just happened. I thought about my children and wondered if I’d ever see them again. I thought about how emotionally damaged they both were by Michael’s mindgames. I thought about Ethan’s love of Twix bars and his silly grin and hair that stood straight up when he got up in the morning. I thought about how sweet Molly could sometimes be and the way she still slept with her threadbare puppy at night. I thought about the way they both ate cereal straight out of the box. And for the first time in many months, I cried.

But I had to keep going, somehow. The next day I met my friend in New Jersey and accompanied her on her pet sitting job. I helped her with the animals. The animals were therapeutic for me, and I felt almost happy when I watched them or stroked their fur. I felt like they understood me and what I was going through. I would have liked to stay with my friend longer, but it wasn’t possible, and after a week I drove back to North Carolina, and crashed with another old friend for about a month. Things didn’t work out too well and the friend resented my having so much “stuff” (I had only brought 4 bags out of the car) and finally told me it was too crowded (it was a one bedroom apartment) and I would have to go.

I was almost out of money. In the nick of time, I found a job in a gas station and moved into the local women’s homeless shelter. The shelter actually wasn’t too bad. It was midsummer and there was no air conditioning (and I had a sore tooth that later had to be pulled but the pain kept me up at night), but the rooms were okay, and I only had to share my room with one other woman, a crackhead in her 60s. We didn’t get along. So I stayed out most of the time, if not working, then just going to the library, walking around the mall, or driving around. A few times I went to church to pray. I didn’t have the money or energy to do anything else. There was no room in the room for any of my stuff, so I kept everything in the car. I had to bring up my change of clothes from the car every night and lay it on the bed for the next day.

During this time I had several conversations with my parents. My mother feigned sympathy but offered no help. She kept asking me “what are you going to do about the children?” or saying things like “A good mother would keep her children with her.” Oh, the hypocrisy was stunning–these words coming from a woman who had given up her own two daughters for a man. She knew I could do nothing and had no place to take them. I think she was deliberately taunting me by bringing it up all the time and making me feel like a horrible mother.

It was my father who finally came through. In spite of his drunkenness and physical punishments of me as a child, I don’t think he was psychopathic. Under all that anger, I think he cared about me and the children. But he was deep down a weak man who always allowed himself to be manipulated by narcissistic women. The first time I had asked for his help, his wife (a narcissist who controls all their funds) said no. She told me I was an adult and had to pull myself up by my bootstraps and shouldn’t be asking them for help. I never felt so unsupported. No one cared!

As a requirement for staying in the shelter, I was seeing a counselor, who asked me if my parents would help me pay for a small place I could take the kids. I told her they would not, but she took it upon herself to call my father anyway. Somehow hearing a professional voice instead of mine convinced him, and his wife grudgingly agreed to help me pay for an apartment on a month to month basis.

So I moved into a cute one bedroom. During this time, the kids had been living with Michael, and because our home had been foreclosed on, they had all moved to a rented house in town. I found out my poor son Ethan was required to do all the work and made to sleep in the basement. He didn’t get one of the bedrooms, though everyone else did (even though the two girls had to share). Ethan was constantly taunted about being gay (even though he was years from coming out). When he fell down on his bike one day, Rachel just stood and laughed at him. This shattered my heart.

The kids moved in with me. Ethan was thrilled, even though he had to sleep in the living room (Molly and I shared the only bedroom). At nearly 14, he was developing a love of computers and spent hours playing with the boxy old desktop I had picked up at Goodwill. We had no Internet (I couldn’t afford it, or cable either) but he had loads of games he would play and he opened up Word to write poetry and song lyrics. He was a quiet and well behaved kid, who also loved to ride his bike and sit outside on the tiny deck, watching nature. He was fascinated by weather, and set up a little homemade weather station outside he had put together with a kit.

Molly was sullen and clearly didn’t like being with me anymore. She thought I was boring. Molly was then and still is addicted to chaos and all too often, the wrong kind of excitement. She can be a drama queen. She may be borderline or God forbid, even narcissistic, but she, like me, has been diagnosed with severe PTSD.

It was 2004 and Molly was 11, turning into a physically beautiful girl, but preteen angst mixed in with hatred for me, fueled by the brainwashing she had received. Our time together was awkward and forced. When I’d tell her to do something, she’d refuse or make a sarcastic remark, usually repeating something Michael and Rachel had said about me. Most of these things were lies. The worst was when she told me Michael and Rachel had told her the reason I left was because “your mother is selfish and doesn’t love you anymore.” I was stunned by this incredible lie. I told Molly it wasn’t true at all, and I loved her very much and she shouldn’t listen to them, but I don’t think she was convinced. To this day, there’s a rift in our relationship due to their gaslighting and triangulation that made her believe I didn’t love her. It’s gotten better and she does realize now she was lied to and manipulated. But the wounds haven’t completely healed and it’s still having repercussions in our relationship and her behavior today. She is also showing disturbing early signs of being narcissistic. But more on that later.

I wasn’t thinking straight and was making terrible choices. I got back together with the man who had gotten Michael and I in trouble for the marijuana 3 years earlier. This was a huge mistake, as he tried to take over and criticized how I was raising my children, who he thought were spoiled. They both couldn’t stand him, and after a few months, I decided I couldn’t either, and gave him the leave ho. He continued to call me for a couple of years after that, but after a while, I just started hanging up on him. Finally he gave up.

In the meantime, Michael was trying to worm his way back into our lives. Rachel and Paul had thrown HIM out of the house, and he started love bombing me and the kids, acting all simpering and apologetic, even saying he was sorry for everything he put me through. He bribed me to let him live in our tiny one bedroom by promising to be a better dad, and cooking dinner every night. He also had a job and offered to help me pay the bills. Mainly because Molly did seem much happier with him around (and I believed his empty promises) I stupidly conceded.

Michael didn’t become abusive this time, but he became loud. He was never a quiet person, but he was smoking pot constantly and when he was high, his voice became loud and he blasted his horrible music. The downstairs neighbors, who were elderly, complained the the landlord several times, and we were finally asked to leave.

Luckily I had a better place to go with the children, and the timing was perfect. The apartment we were living in had been a month to month arrangement, and my father had told me he could no longer afford the rent payments (actually his wife just didn’t want to foot the bill anymore). I didn’t earn enough at my job at the gas station to pay the whole rent, so we had to leave anyway.

I had been working with an organization called Interlace, which works with single mothers and children who have been victims of abuse. They’re a fantastic organization, and they provide free housing on an 18 month basis. The only thing they required was covering the utility bill, being available for weekly home visits and attending monthly group meetings. The group meetings were fun. Dinner was always served, and after the meeting, there was usually some group activity, usually involving arts and crafts, that both mothers and their kids participated in. They also sponsored group picnics and other events.

So we moved into a clean, well kept 3 bedroom/2 bathroom apartment with more storage space than I’d ever had in my life. There were two levels and there was even a tiny room (really an oversized closet) under the stairs that the kids had a lot of fun redecorating into a little private domain complete with large pillows, stuffed animals (both kids still loved their fluffies) and an old black and white TV that actually worked.

There were rules too. The most important one was no overnight visitors, even family members. That didn’t stop Michael from trying to manipulate and sweet talk his way in. He convinced the kids (even Ethan) that we were better together as a real family and they needed a dad. I told him it wasn’t allowed but he promised to be quiet and never answer the phone or the door. I was so broken down and afraid of him I broke the rules and said yes. Every day I was terrified we’d be discovered (we could have been thrown out), but we never were. Fortunately the weekly home visits were scheduled ahead of time, so I always made sure he was out when the counselor came over. No one suspected a thing, and the neighbors didn’t care.

But Michael didn’t stay long. After a few months, he started acting cranky again, and he was out a lot more. I didn’t mind his absence, but Molly did. She was still sullen and snippy and her grades dropped from A’s to mostly C’s and D’s. She acted like she didn’t care about anything.

It turned out he had a girlfriend. She had her own apartment and asked Michael to move in with him. Strangely, I was jealous. Or maybe just resentful because I felt I’d been duped and used. After all the hell he put me through, he actually dared to leave me? But overall, I was relieved–until one day Molly told me she wanted to live with him and not me.

Molly had been spending a lot of time with Michael and his new girlfriend (I’ll call her Heather) and always seemed in a much better mood after she had been with them. She spent less and less time at home, and there came a point where I hardly ever saw her anymore. Michael and Molly both told me Heather was a much happier and more positive person than I was, and they both preferred her company to mine. Later it turned out she was a drug addict; that probably explains the “happiness.”

Molly said if I didn’t allow her to live with them, she would hate me forever. Oh, she was good at manipulating her mom–she had learned from the best. She actually cried and said if I made her stay she’d be so miserable she might kill herself. I didn’t know what to do or say, so I allowed it.

Finally, in early 2006, the divorce came through. I had agreed to joint custody, not wanting to anger Michael and fearing what he might do if I “took his kids away from him.” I also didn’t want Molly to hate me by not allowing at least partial custody. So although technically we both had joint custody, the kids were allowed to choose. Ethan remained with me and occasionally visited Michael and Heather (when they wanted him around, which wasn’t often–he got on their nerves), and Molly of course got to live with them.

If I had any idea of what was actually going on in their home (I was so naive and trusting back then), I would have grabbed my daughter and ran.

Michael was regularly drinking again, and now mixing alcohol with pot AND pain pills. Heather turned out to be a pill addict and also a heavy drinker, and a number of times Molly couldn’t get to school because no one was sober enough to drive her (and there were no buses in the rural area they lived in). There were parties every weekend, where Heather’s friends, a motley crew of crackheads, meth addicts, drunks and assorted addict, came over to the house. Molly was only 12 going on 13. But that didn’t stop Heather from letting my daughter try “just one pill”or have a drink or two.

The police were called on a couple of occasions because of the fighting. Michael and Heather got into violent arguments. Unlike me though, she wasn’t afraid of Michael. She finally reached her limit and one night tossed him out, along with all his belongings. Molly had to come back home with me, but by now she had developed a taste for both drugs and alcohol, thanks to Heather’s “education,” and became worse than ever.

Michael disappeared after that. I had no idea where he was and none of us, not even Molly, heard from him. Molly hated this and missed her father, but I was relieved and secretly hoped he was dead.

At the gas station, I was promoted to assistant manager, and although were were still pretty poor, I could afford a few nice things now and a new car. Our 18 months in the Interlace apartment were up, and just in the nick of time, our Section 8 came through. We moved into a charming Craftsman style two family house. We rented a three bedroom apartment on the ground floor with a front porch and a deck in the back. Section 8 paid half of the rent. And we were finally allowed to have a pet–one dog only, but that was fine. Daisy, our dog who had been a gift for Molly’s 6th birthday, been living with Heather and Rod (and various friends before that), but she was growing older and was a little arthritic, so she came home to live with us. Daisy was so happy to be home.

Molly’s drug problems were beginning to affect her at school, and her behavior at home was becoming frightening. She started wearing long sleeves all the time and when I asked why, she changed the subject. But one night I saw red marks on her wrists and forearms. She was cutting herself. When she was in 8th grade, she was caught at school with several Klonopins (she said she had gotten from her dad), which she was sharing with her friends. She was caught, and suspended for two weeks. It was at the end of the school year, so even though she got her diploma, she wasn’t allowed to attend her own graduation ceremony.

I was slowly becoming fat. I smoked too much. I was stressed and miserable, and other than work, I had no interests except eating, reading crappy novels, and watching court shows and sometimes movies on TV. I was becoming the “slovenly” mother Rachel had accused me of being several years before. I was emotionally numb, yet also prone to to occasional fits of anger that at times became violent. Either nothing affected me, or it affected me too much and I overreacted. Most of the time I felt like I was an autopilot, just going through the motions of life. There was no beauty or joy in my world, and all I could see ahead was a vast emptiness that stretched out until death. But I plodded along like an ailing cow, accepting that this state of affairs was normal. In fact, I was showing symptoms of unresolved PTSD.

My only ray of hope anymore was my dog Daisy, and my son Ethan, who was becoming a sort of guardian angel to me. By default, he was now the man of the house, and became a responsible teenager, getting himself up for school and always at the school bus on time, and always doing his homework. He had always been a B and C student, but he began to apply himself more and started getting A’s and even on the honor roll. When he was home, he was quiet and spent most of his times on the computer playing video games, posting on entertainment and racing forums, and setting up his own car racing forum. He also started making short films with his beloved new digital camera my father had bought for him. From the get go, it was evident he was talented. Soon he transferred from the regular public school to an adjunct school that specialized in computers and technology.

The more mature Ethan became, the worse his sister got. She was addicted to MySpace (we’re up to 2007 now, and that was still the most popular social network of the time) and without my knowledge, met a man online 7 years older than herself. Ben had been in prison for fraud, but passed himself off as a “good guy.” He wasn’t.

I need to take a break and eat something, so I’ll post the next part of this story in a little bit.

Money. Yep, I’m really going there.

Posted on September 20, 2014 by luckyotter

Talking about money is something I hate. It’s because I don’t have any. My years of abuse as a victim of psychopathy was so demoralizing that it nearly destroyed all my self confidence (something I never had much of to begin with). I think being poor is something a lot of people who spent most of their years trapped in the bubble of psychopathy have been forced to deal with–especially if they were the family scapegoat who was always told “you’re a failure” or “you’ll never succeed in anything.” News flash: we got brainwashed.

I have the native intelligence to have become pretty successful, and I did have a few false starts and a promising beginning in publishing many years ago. But I’ve always had trouble sticking with anything or following it through due to my pathetic self image and negativity. When I’ve had opportunities either I (or my psychopaths) sabotaged them.

Being a person with autism doesn’t help. As an Aspie, I lack the social skills necessary to be able to connect and network well with those who could have helped me. Family? Fuggeddabout it! They were never any help at all. I won’t go into anymore detail about that in this post; if you’re interested in my sob story you can click on the link at the top “My Story” and link to my memoirs. You might just want to do that anyway, since you’re interested enough in the topic of NPD and psychopathy to be reading my blog.

So, here’s the good part. Currently I have a crappy job that barely pays more than minimum wage and I’m supporting myself and my daughter. I was pretty much resigned to always being one of the “working poor” especially since I’m over 50. I didn’t have high hopes for the future. I felt like I was just marking time until death.

Almost a year ago I kicked out my psychopathic ex-husband, who I wasn’t even married to since 2005, but allowed him to live with me anyway. Pretty crazy, huh? Being divorced but allowing him to live with me and use me for 7 years after the divorce. Can we say insane?

At first being completely independent (and no longer depended on for narcissistic supply) was pretty scary and slow going. Many times this past year I feared I wouldn’t make it.

I’ve always loved writing but thought I forgot how to write. Actually I just lost the motivation and desire, and that was due to severe depression and C-PTSD from so many years living under the shadow of psychopaths. My depression has been lifting, and one day not even two weeks ago I decided I would start a blog. And here it is.

I’m pretty proud of my blog. But more than just making me feel good about myself, I realized I never forgot how to write. In fact, writing’s an addiction now, and I’m posting so much I’m afraid it might be too much and people will get bored. But evidently they are not, going by the increase in my view and follower counts.

At first I was writing this blog just for me, as self therapy. And it still is that. I still have a LOT of shit to work through. I’m not out of the woods yet.

But now I have a vision beyond just writing for myself. I want to help others, and I want to make a living blogging while I help others. I absolutely love doing this. It’s a passion and I haven’t had a real passion in…forever.

I already got the custom design upgrade (pretty cheap at $30) and am thinking about taking a class in CSS at the community college so I can use those features. I can try to use the tutorials here but find them a little hard to follow.

If this blog ever gets big (I’m not counting on it but you never know!), I’ll probably be wanting to upgrade to WP.org to get my own domain name and maybe allow ads on my blog which would also bring in a small income. I have to learn a lot more about this.

Which brings me to my main point, which is a request of sorts. I was afraid to ask for money because I didn’t set up this blog to make money and it just seems, well, greedy. But here’s the thing. You already know I’m strapped for cash and don’t make much on my day job, and I dearly want to keep my blog going, for myself as well as for others who may be helped by it. But right now, I’m even struggling to pay for Internet access. I could use some help.

So what I am doing is setting up a Paypal account and a link in the green bar in my header if anyone is interested in donating to my blog (the money would ONLY be used to keep the blog going, not for anything else-you have to trust me on this). Of course I don’t want anyone to feel obligated to donate, and I don’t actually expect to get any donations. But anything you could afford would be deeply appreciated. If you can’t afford anything (or don’t want to donate), no worries! Following and reading my blog is fantastic support in itself and is more than appreciated, believe me.

But I’m going to throw it up there anyway and see what happens.

One more thing. I have been meditating a lot recently and there are some great subliminal videos on Youtube to help you do this more effectively and help you relax. People may be skeptical, but something kind of weird happened. While browsing meditation videos last night, I came across this one, which promised after viewing it, you would begin to find new ways to attract money you never had before. I thought of the donation idea today and also decided I want this blog to more than just for myself and also become MY JOB. So I wonder if these new desires are a manifestation of whatever subliminal “messages” were implanted in my brain last night.

Here is the video I watched.

Even if you’re skeptical about it’s money attracting powers, the images of space and the universe are beautiful beyond belief and the music is very relaxing.

Sleeping with the devil: my marriage to a psychopath

Posted on September 17, 2014 by luckyotter

The above e-card pretty much describes my ex to a tee (except maybe the commitment issues)–and for the purposes of this blog, I have named him Michael (not his real name).

Another blogger and survivor of narcissistic abuse described living with a psychopath as analogous to the frog in boiling water–a frog if dropped in a pot of boiling water, will jump out, but if the water is slowly heated with the frog in the pot, the frog won’t notice the increase in temperature until it’s cooked to death. That’s what life with a psychopath is like. The relationship always begins great (though there may be red flags we choose to ignore) and slowly, like the boiling frog, becomes abusive. As the victims, we may even mirror the abuser’s psychopathic behavior, doing things and acting in ways we’d never dream of if we were not in that relationship. Another blogger describes this phenomenon very well here in this blog post about mirroring.

So to get to my story.

For the first year or two after we got engaged, Michael and I seemed like the perfect couple. Michael doted on me, bought me gifts and flowers, constantly told me how much he loved me, and continued being very romantic and attentive even after the wedding. We took a couple of short vacations (because we both worked full time) and had a wonderful, romantic time. The fact Michael acted like a bit of a know it all seemed a minor annoyance–it was just one of those little foibles all married people have to deal with in their spouses.

There were a few red flags though, but at the time they didn’t seem serious so I blew them off. One red flag was the way he was about money. At the time we met until shortly after we married, he made little money, but somehow had a lot of credit cards. He charged all the gifts and dinners to plastic, and then couldn’t pay the bills later, so he’d ask me to loan him the money since at the time I made more than he did. It occurred to me I was essentially buying my own gifts, and that included our wedding rings. Soon we were deep in debt and all the credit cards maxed out. The monthly fees exceeded what we were able to pay each month, so we had to juggle a lot of other bills and use other credit cards to pay the ones we were maxed out on. It was almost impossible to keep up–the credit cards weren’t even usable by this point since all we could pay was the interest. We were able to save nothing.

Another red flag was his meanspirited sense of humor. He loved to play practical jokes on me, and sometimes this meant “playful” physical abuse, and I don’t mean consensual S&M or bondage during sex play. I’ll give an example. One winter night after a snowstorm we were walking home from the local bowling alley (we didn’t have a car and since it was an urban area, we didn’t need one) and suddenly for no reason, Michael pushed me into a snowbank, and when I tried to get up, he was laughing hysterically and did it again. At first I laughed with him, but I really didn’t like it–and then he did it a third and fourth time. Now I was getting mad, and he just kept laughing and telling me I looked cute when I was angry. Then he smushed snow in my face, and continued even after I told him to stop. There wasn’t any anger in this “play,” but I realized later on this was really a form of bullying disguised as “humor.” Although his sadistic sense of humor wasn’t usually physical, Michael thought he was extremely funny and through our entire marriage would deliberately do things he knew would irritate me and didn’t know when to stop. He had absolutely no respect for boundaries. As a person with autism, I hate loud sudden noises, so he’d deliberately make them. Or keep clicking a pen. Or play his music (most of which I disliked) at the highest volume just to annoy me. Telling him to stop was useless–he’d just play it louder or continue whatever he was doing that set me off. I remember once, several years into the marriage, I finally told him he just wasn’t that funny, and he flew into a narcissistic rage and screamed that there was something wrong with me because “everyone else” found him hilarious, and I just had no sense of humor. Oh, the gaslighting was off the charts with him. But it would get worse. Much worse.

Three years after we married, Michael started drinking again. We had met in an AA meeting (something that’s not recommended) and he’d completely abandoned it (I don’t think he was serious to begin with). And he was a mean drunk too; when he drank any pretense of kindness or civility disappeared and he became a raging maniac. At first his drunken rages didn’t include hitting me, but he’d break things and scream and call me every obscene name you can think of. Neighbors had to call the police on two occasions, and both times I told them it was nothing; everything was fine, and they left. After these drunken rages, he’d usually fall into a drunken stupor and sleep it off. In the morning, he always love bombed me, apologizing profusely and begging me to forgive him. I know his “remorse” was a pretense, but at the time I believed his lies. We’d make up and be all lovey dovey again for a few days.

I was doing fairly well as a medical editor and book reviewer in those days, but the company I worked for folded in early 1991. The timing couldn’t have been better because just before the lay off was announced, I had found out I was pregnant. I was thrilled–unlike some survivors who never want to have children of their own, I wanted them badly, and a big reason I did was because I wanted to give a child the love I never had growing up in a narcissistic home. So anyway, the layoff worked for me because Michael by this time had been promoted and was making a very good income (though we certainly weren’t rich), AND the publishing company I had worked for was owned by a much larger firm that was generous and gave me severance pay for an entire year, as well as maternity leave. This perfect storm of events meant that I’d be able to be a stay at home mom and not have to put my child in the hands of strangers while I worked.

The pregnancy went smoothly, and Michael surprised me because once he got used to the idea of a baby coming, he acted very attentive and supportive, even going to lamaze classes with me. Earlier he had said he wasn’t interested in having children any time soon, but the prospect of a baby as a reality seemed to change his attitude.

My son was born in October 1991. Michael was great with him, and he had stopped drinking again. So for a time, maybe for a year, it looked like our marriage might make it and we might be happy together. Michael still liked to play his sadistic jokes and annoy me to amuse himself, but I shrugged it off as something I’d just have to accept as part of who he was.

At first, Michael was a great father to our son. When Ethan was not even a year old, Michael surprised me by suggesting we have another baby. “A girl this time, Ethan needs a little sister,” he said.
I always wondered what he would have done if our second child had been a boy instead of a girl.

Molly was a more difficult baby than Ethan and more prone to illness, and by this time, our financial problems had gotten really dire. Without my job and with my severance pay long gone (I was doing some freelance editing and proofreading but it hardly paid anything) and with two young children to support, we couldn’t make our credit card premiums any more and had saved absolutely nothing. When it came to money, Michael was always extremely irresponsible, always thinking of what he must have RIGHT NOW instead of saving for the future. So we were forced to file bankruptcy which meant no more living on credit, which made Michael cranky. I was very stressed out and with a new baby who seemed to have all kinds of health problems (none severe, but Molly had terrible allergies like I had as a child, mild asthma, and a tendency to get high fevers) and a son who was late talking and made me worry he might have a hearing or speech problem (he didn’t), and a husband who snapped at me and our son constantly, we fought often. We were also in the process of moving from New York to North Carolina, which created its own set of problems.

Michael was dishonest and a thief but managed to get me to collude with him on some of his capers. Before the move, we had been renting the downstairs apartment in the duplex Michael’s mother owned. She lived upstairs and Michael had a key to her apartment. Whenever she’d go out, he’d go upstairs and search for any cash she had laying around. When I questioned him about it, he said she was too oblivious and stupid to even know it would be missing. I should have taken this as a red flag because eventually he’d do the same to me and our kids but instead I cooperated with him. My reasoning was that we were so broke it was okay and besides, it was his mother so it wasn’t really stealing. Oh, he had me so brainwashed. His mother (a narcissist herself) never noticed anything missing but her ugly behavior made the thievery justifiable to us.

Ethan, just two and a half, wasn’t speaking yet and as we moved from one state to another, he began to act very strange (my mother would have called it “spooky” behavior)–parroting “mama” over and over but not saying anything else, his face always pale and sad looking, and his eyes huge and dark. He looked so pitiful it broke my heart. His doctor said he was fine, but I knew something was wrong. Later on, I figured out what it was. In the process of moving, we had to save money by making several trips to North Carolina by U-Haul and car because we couldn’t afford a moving van to do it in one trip. Ethan saw our old house become emptier every week as things disappeared and it hit me like a ton of bricks one day after the move that he was too young to understand why everything was disappearing and he was afraid I might disappear too. In fact, years later, he told me he remembers this and that was exactly the reason why he acted the way he did.

Michael was becoming less and less patient with our son, but he showered attention on our daughter. It was apparent that Ethan was an extremely sensitive child just as I had been, and narcissist psychopaths like Michael couldn’t stand sensitivity. Ethan being male didn’t help either. Michael went from being a seemingly loving father to turning Ethan into his scapegoat. He made fun of him and put him down in front of others, calling him “stupid,” “little shithead” “crybaby” and other degrading names. He broke all Ethan’s beloved toy cars in a drunken rage one day and never apologized. I loved my son and hated seeing him being treated this way. It was exactly the same way my own parents had treated me! So I tried to defend Ethan from Michael’s rage and this led to some of the worst fights we ever had, where Michael tried to shift the blame to me for turning our son into a “wussy” and that he was just acting the way he did to toughen him up.

Michael was drinking again, much more heavily than before, and his temper had become violent, especially when he was drunk. And he didn’t apologize the next day anymore like he used to. His annoying habits escalated to the point he was unbearable to be around and he also started to talk in a very hostile way about everything and anyone, even when sober. This got worse over time. He was so full of hate, but I now know he always was full of hate. The earlier Michael hadn’t really been him at all. It was all an act.

Michael’s eyes now looked very cold, devoid of warmth or humanity. When he was drunk his face terrified me. In my earlier post I talked about my mother’s face as I saw it in one of my nightmares–a demon’s face with those solid black eyes. One night while he was slamming me into a wall I saw the same eyes and the same sneer. He looked positively demonic. I was beaten so badly I was taken to the hospital and then stayed in a battered womens’ shelter for a week along with the kids. I still loved Michael though, and one day picked up with the kids and went home in spite of the counselor’s pleas to get away from him.

The second time it happened I called the police and he went to jail for three months. It was very stressful trying to do everything myself including having to learn how to drive a stick shift, and since there was no money coming in with him in jail and we had no savings, the kids and I sank into poverty. I thought about getting a job, but then I’d have to pay a babysitter out of that, and the jobs in the area that were available weren’t very promising.

One day we got a phone call from Helen’s (Michael’s mother) neighbor, who told us she had fallen down the stairs at her house and broken her hip. She was in her mid 70s and needed someone to look after her. So Michael agreed to move her down with us so we could keep an eye on her, but not without swindling her out of all her money first. Using the charming demeanor I saw so little of anymore, he sweet-talked her into giving him power of attorney over the sale of her house, which wound up bringing in about $160K. Again, I colluded with him on this and didn’t tell him it was wrong what he was doing, even though I always felt deep down it really was. Michael even bragged to my father about how he “outsmarted” Helen, and that was the time my father said he began to realize how evil Michael really was.

So we weren’t poor anymore, but things got a lot worse. In fact, the money became the catalyst that really accelerated things. What was weird before became straight up surreal. Everything fell apart. And I began to lose my mind.

I made suggestions to Michael that we should pay off our house and all our debts, but Michael wouldn’t listen, saying because it was HIS money, I had no say in how it got spent. What he didn’t say was what he was really doing with it. We made a few home improvements, and purchased some medical equipment for his mother whose health was deteriorating and could barely walk anymore. We took a family vacation for two weeks to the beach. For a short time things seemed to get better.

One day I found an envelope on the floor of his closet that must have fallen out of one of his pants pockets. It was a bank statement. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw there was only 8K left–only SIX MONTHS after his shady windfall. I confronted him about this when he got home, and he admitted he’d been playing the stock market. He knew nothing about how the stock market works but he pretended he did. I remembered he’d started talking about stocks and bonds several months earlier, and a couple of times I saw financial web pages on the computer screen. Once when I asked him if he was playing the stock market he swore he wasn’t and assured me I shouldn’t worry. But he lied, and now most of the money was gone. None of our debts were paid and on our current income it looked like we’d lose the house too. He no longer had a job because he had quit when the money came in, assuming he’d get rich investing. He was so deluded and so was I, believing him. He spent the remaining 8K on lottery tickets, pot, and baseball cards. I kid you not.

Michael was back in AA now, but decided he could be in AA and smoke pot. He grew pot in our outbuilding and recruited my 8 year old daughter (who he used as his mini flying monkey and slave) to water the plants when I wasn’t around to do it (and of course I was completely clueless he was using our daughter this way). He continued to berate Ethan and never had anything nice to say to him. Michael had Molly wrapped around his finger (she was his Golden Child), and she was old enough that he began to use her to triangulate against me, and told her what a horrible wife and mother I was, undermining any authority I had. Soon Molly began to turn against me too. When I tried to discipline her, Michael would step in and say I was being mean and unreasonable, and sometimes even blamed me for not loving her enough. Talk about gaslighting!

Michael decided he wanted a dog (we already had one). I objected to this, because of all the work I already had to do, but Michael wouldn’t listen and brought the dog in anyway. He refused to discipline him, or housetrain him, and I was constantly cleaning up dog messes. When I complained he told me I was just an “animal hater” even though that was an absolute lie. My “animal hating” over pets he brought home without discussing with me first was a theme that would be repeated on several other occasions.

Helen was becoming sicker and Michael had another job (one that paid far less than the ones he’d had before); a nurse came in once a day to check up on her vitals but her daily care fell on me. She was a difficult woman and a narcissist herself, but she had Alzheimer’s and her mind was going. She could no longer walk without a walker and also had diabetes. Getting her to eat was frustrating to say the least. I was overwhelmed with my duties and dreamed of escape. But I was never mean to her the way Michael was. She frustrated me but Michael’s hatred and anger was off the charts. In front of the children he’d hit her and call her names, He didn’t care that they saw this; he said it was okay because “she was a horrible bitch.” It occurred to me that the fact he treated his mother like this meant he might someday treat me this way too (in fact he already did) but as always I believed (or wanted to believe) his lies. Eventually she entered a nursing home and Michael rarely went to visit her or let the kids see her. She died in 2002.

Neither of us were faithful anymore. There was no marriage to speak of left. I’m ashamed to talk about this, but I’m leaving nothing out of this story. Anyway, one day when I was drunk and the kids were sleeping over at friends’ houses I had my boyfriend come over. He was a sneaky man and also turned out to be a psychopath (but I won’t get into that here). Somehow he found out about the pot plants in the outbuilding. A few weeks later I broke up with him because I felt guilty about cheating (and because he was as intolerable as Michael). To spite me he told the police about the pot plants. I was home alone when the cops came, and we were both charged with felonies due to the amount of pot found, even though I had never approved of the plants being there in the first place. In court my felony was dropped to a misdemeanor but Michael was stuck with a felony. When he found out it had been my lover who tipped the police, he went ballistic. I understood his anger, but he’s a world class grudge holder and to this day blames me for “giving him a felony” even though it was HIS idea to grow the plants and on many occasions I’d begged him to get rid of them.

In 2003 Michael brought in the flying monkeys. A couple at his job who had a daughter Molly’s age had been evicted and without talking to me first he invited them to move in, which meant Ethan had to move out of his room and sleep in the master bedroom and Michael and I slept on the couch (we had a three bedroom house). It was a huge upheaval and very crowded, but that doesn’t even begin to explain the horror about to ensue.

At first Rachel and Paul seemed very nice (actually Paul was, but he was an enabler and very weak). But soon Rachel took over the house, cleaning it top to bottom and redecorating it to her liking. She disapproved of the way I was raising my children and didn’t like the foods I bought for them (I didn’t feed them junk food, but it wasn’t “organic”). She threw away all the food I had and brought in all organic foods and would not allow her daughter or my children to eat meat or sugar anymore. Soon I found out she was colluding with Michael, who had “converted” to her way of thinking and several times I heard them talking about what a slovenly and careless mother I was. Rachel was hateful to Ethan, as was Michael. They bullied him incessantly. Ethan’s grades slipped and he became depressed and sullen. She called him gay and a sissy. She was alright to Molly, but I could see she was an extremely controlling mother to her own daughter who seemed terrified of her.

I became severely depressed and once I stupidly told Rachel I wanted to kill myself. I hated her, but there was no one else I could talk to and I didn’t dare talk to Paul because I knew I’d be blamed for flirting with him. Rachel smiled at me in a very strange way with a weird gleam in her eyes and said “after what you did to Michael, killing yourself would probably be a very good idea.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She also blamed me for “coming on” to her husband Paul, even though I had barely spoken a word to him. Michael and her both called me a “whore who can’t keep her legs together” RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY CHILDREN. It’s not as if he’d been faithful himself.

I was almost suicidal and beginning to dissociate. Most days I’d sleep all day on the couch and only venture out if I had to. I was sick all the time and barely ate. I started to drink a lot and take pain pills. Rachel and Michael’s gaslighting and triangulating was unbelievably crazymaking and was finally taking its toll on my sanity, and of course they laughed and said I was just paranoid and crazy. I really don’t know how I survived this insanity.

One day I went out I drove at 90 mph not even realizing I was driving that fast, and by some miracle didn’t wreck. I got home and hid in the bedroom closet and stayed there for hours in a kind of catatonic trance. It’s hard to explain now, but I was so profoundly depressed I couldn’t feel anything anymore. I felt dead, like I had no soul. In fact I was living with an emotional vampire who was sucking all the life out of me. I was admitted to the psychiatric ward of the hospital and was there for a month, then continued as an outpatient for another two. They diagnosed me with Major Depression, PTSD, and Borderline personality disorder (this was later changed to Avoidant PD). To this day, Michael complains about “everything I put him through” by becoming ill and requiring hospitalization and that it was all just done to get his attention because I’m such a “drama queen.”

When I came home, Michael sat me down and almost immediately started crying. This surprised me because I hadn’t seen him cry in years. Then he dropped the bomb–Rachel and him decided I was “too sick” to live there anymore and a bad influence on the children, and I had to be out of the house in 30 days. Of course he said he didn’t want to do this but I was just too unstable (and selfish!) to be around children and oh, this broke his heart so much, boohoo. In my weakened mental and emotional state I went along with this and didn’t even bother to argue–even though I also wouldn’t be allowed to take the children. I was offered no financial help but he did say I could take one of the two cars. The crappy one. I left two weeks later. I didn’t want to miss my daughter’s birthday. My father paid for an attorney so I could file for divorce. With nowhere to go and no money, no job, and no friends or family willing to help me out, I was forced to move into a homeless shelter. So that was the end of the marriage. But my story’s not over yet.

I know this has been VERY long. I’ll stop here for tonight. I’m exhausted.

Raised by a narcissist: my story of psychopathic abuse (childhood and adolescence)

Posted on September 14, 2014 by luckyotter

Welp, I’ve been putting this off (and frankly sort of dreading it), but decided to dive right in and start writing my story about how I came to be the kind of person I am and the way I came upon my present circumstances.

Over the past month or so, I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on about malignant narcissism and psychopathy, and realized that rather than me being at fault for my “bad choices,” as both my parents love to remind me (and had convinced me was the truth), I’m not really the one with the personality issue that got me into so much trouble throughout my adult life (not that I don’t have personality flaws because I certainly do–as do we all). I realized I entered adulthood without the tool kit most people are given during childhood and I also realized that this was intentional on their part (especially my mother) and I was never a loved child–in fact, my mother, being the psychopathic narcissist she is, hated me and still does. It’s been really hard to face this fact — no one wants to believe their own mother didn’t love them and it’s all too easy to listen to people who say, “oh, she must have loved you in her own way” but I now know that’s bullshit. Strangely, being able to face this has given me a sense of freedom and lessens some of the guilt I had over not being a “good enough” daughter. Her dislike of me is not my fault!

So let me get started. My conception itself wasn’t under ideal circumstances. I was “wanted,” but for all the wrong reasons. Two years prior to my entry into this world, my father had lost his 3 year old son he’d had with his first wife. He had been hit by a train. The car stalled on the tracks as the train was coming and his mother desperately hustled the baby and 6 year old daughter out of the car to safety first. Billy, strapped into his seat, had to wait for her to come back to get him after removing the first two children, but it was too late and the little boy died immediately.

My father (let’s call him Harry), in his vulnerable, grieving state (I don’t think he is a MN, although he definitely has always colluded with and been attracted to narcissistic women and has some narcissistic tendencies himself–more on that later) was never the same. Almost immediately he took to heavy drinking, and he and his wife grew further apart as he tried to drown his grief in booze. This was the late 1950s and divorce wasn’t acceptable especially when young children were involved, but she could no longer put up with his drinking and filed for divorce.

Before the divorce was granted, my father (who was a Navy academy teacher at the time) met a beautiful redhaired woman named Ginny at a dance at the naval academy in Annapolis. It was love at first sight. Ginny listened to him talk about his lost son, and cried with him and held him as he talked and grieved. She seemed sympathetic in a way his first wife never was (and probably couldn’t have been as she was grieving in her own way). Ginny was married to a minister, and had two young daughters, but that didn’t stop her from seeing my father romantically, and for no reason other than infatuation (her husband treated her and the girls well from what I understand), she divorced him and left her daughters to be raised by their father so that she could marry my father. Remember, this was the late 1950s and a mother leaving her own children just wasn’t done. But she did it without a second thought. Her oldest daughter (age 7 at the time) was greatly damaged by the abandonment, and to this day has issues related to that and has been in therapy her entire adult life (today she’s one of my mother’s flying monkeys but more on that later). The younger daughter (age 2) was too young to remember anything but I’m sure she was damaged too. Their father remarried a lovely woman who loved the two girls as if they were her own. They were raised with two other children and went on to have a normal childhood with parents who loved them and supported them. They got lucky. It was actually a very good thing that my two half sisters got out of having to be raised by Ginny. I was not that lucky.

So Harry and Ginny married, and almost immediately she became pregnant with me. The pregnancy was a wanted one, though why a woman who abandoned her own two children a year before to have another baby with another man is kind of beyond my comprehension (but she’s a narcissist so it’s not too surprising). She smoked during the pregnancy, though at the time, doctors actually recommended pregnant women smoke to keep their weight down, and my mother was always obsessed with her weight. She always brags how she never gained any weight during her pregnancy with me (or her other two children). Miraculously, I was born healthy if a little on the small side.

From the get go, I was a difficult baby, or at least that’s what I’ve been told. I cried all the time, and had health problems–I suffered from horrific ear infections that left me 80% deaf in my left ear. I was allergic to many foods and to just about everything else. By the time I was a toddler it was apparent I was an incredibly sensitive child, one who reacted to everything in a very emotional way. I was high strung, threw a lot of tantrums, and was easily hurt. From reading about other people’s experiences, especially this one by a wonderful survivor whose story is remarkably similar to mine, it seems that very sensitive children (empaths) are often born to and raised by narcissists and psychopaths, and that’s just about the worst parent/child combo possible. Whether they become overly sensitive due to their treatment, or whether the sensitivity is innate and just a cosmic joke that these kind of kids and parents wind up together so often is something I can’t explain, but unfortunately it all too often seems to be the case.

As I grew a little older, I’d go into these sort of trances where I’d tune out the environment and enter my dream world. I had an active imagination and imaginary friends, and this was my form of escape from the tension in my home. When I was about 3-4 I also engaged in banging my head against the wall. I don’t know why I did this, but at the time it felt good to me. Go figure. Today I believe I actually have high functioning autism (Aspergers) even though I’m self diagnosed (confirmed by a psychiatrist later). I seem to fit all the criteria for it, as well as for C-PTSD and Avoidant personality disorder, but more on that later. My mother hated it when I went inside myself, and always used to chide me for acting “spooky” and would tell me to snap out of it. I couldn’t. I didn’t know how. But if I continued to act “spooky” I’d be punished, usually with a beating or slap in the face.

I used to have terrible nightmares. Some were about Ginny, and I remember one where I dreamed she was standing over me, and I realized her eyes were nothing but black holes, like the demonic people you see in movies whose eyes are completely black. And she was wearing that self-satisfied sneer. I woke up screaming, but the nightmare continued in waking life as she rushed into the room demanding why I was screaming and then laughed at me for getting so upset about a “little dream.” But to this day I think what I saw was actually who she was inside. I think she hated me because she knew that I had the ability to see what she really was.

Both my parents were big on corporal punishment and a yardstick was kept in the kitchen hanging next to the refrigerator as a constant reminded to me that punishment was always close at hand. I was never allowed to express my opinions on anything and God forbid, never, EVER show any anger. Showing my emotions was a huge no no, although my mother was allowed to rant, scream and cry whenever she felt like it. My father usually colluded with her on these punishments, and dinner was always eaten at the table in near silence. Occasionally though the attention would be focused on me, usually to make fun of me in some way. Both parents used to laugh about how “literal” I was. When I was 6 and starting first grade, they found it hilarious when they asked me if I was looking forward to school, and I became frustrated because I couldn’t “see the school.” They weren’t laughing with me, but at me. Of course I was taking things literally. I was just 6 and not capable of abstract thinking yet, and it’s also a fact that autistics think literally, especially as children.

My parents never had another child, and my mother began to chafe at her role as housewife/mother. She was bored and would leave for long periods of time to see her friends, shop or just to get away from me and my father, and left me with a lot of babysitters. When she was home, more and more of her criticism of me focused on my weight and appearance. She treated me like a doll she could dress up and she loved to play with my baby fine hair to the point it tangled and hurt, and I would scream in pain and she would get mad and slam the brush down. She was also obsessed with my bowel functions and if I went a day without a BM, she would give me an adult sized enema. This was pretty traumatic. She also used to sit and watch me go to the bathroom to make sure I produced something. Naturally this led to me having even worse constipation as a result to “hold it in.”

As such a sensitive child, I was bullied in school. I didn’t know how to joke back, how to roll with the punches, how to appear invulnerable like the other kids. I always felt different. It was always difficult for me to make friends, though I usually managed to make one or two. Third grade was the worst, as I not only was targeted by a group of bullies who used to follow me home from school and fed on my reaction (I always cried) but was targeted by my psychopathic teacher as well. Mrs. Morse scared the daylights out of me. She was an overweight woman in her 50s whose upper arm always shook like Jello when she wrote on the board. She regularly liked to call me up to the front of the class to answer a question (and she ALWAYS called on me because I was always daydreaming) and when I couldn’t answer the question (which was often the case as I went into freeze mode at these times and couldn’t think straight) she’d demand why I couldn’t until I cried. At this point she’d call out the crying to the entire class, and all of them would have a good laugh at my expense as I stood there wanting to sink through the floor in shame.

Oddly, I was always told how pretty and intelligent I was (especially by my father, who I think really did love me in his flawed way). But the compliments stopped there. Any praise was almost always limited to innate qualities rather than my achievements or things I could do well. I was also was told constantly I was “too sensitive.” (This is another thing psychopaths like to say to keep their marks in their place). I WAS too sensitive, but this was always used against me and used to embarrass me. When company came over, my mother loved to “brag” to her friends and relatives about how sensitive I was and how everything made me cry. I became very self conscious as a result and started to hide my emotions more so it wouldn’t be called out to shame me. Of course she just found other things to use against me and undermine any little self confidence I had.

Ironically, though they hated my sensitivity, both my parents almost seemed to encourage it. They always wanted me to look frail and helpless and as I entered my teens; Ginny in particular became critical if I looked or acted too “tough”– a demeanor I sometimes used as a way to protect myself and hide my vulnerabilities (though it didn’t usually work too well). All teenagers are sarcastic (and most parents don’t really care for it), but when I used sarcasm or humor to protect myself, she’d tell me I was acting “low class.” Oh, and that’s another thing. Ginny was obsessed with social class and always described us as “upper middle class,” never the more humble “middle class,” even though in actuality that’s what we were. She always put on airs as if she was of higher social status than she actually was and to this day, has a very affected and fake way of speaking, not to mention extremely condescending.

Ginny never let me do anything on my own when I was a child. I remember wanting to help her wash the dishes one night after dinner, and she said I wouldn’t be able to do it because I might break something. When I was 11 and wanted to join the swim team at the pool and tennis club we belonged to, she didn’t say no, but pointed out that maybe I shouldn’t because “you don’t like competition–you’re too sensitive and you’ll get bullied.” I joined anyway and had no problems with my sensitivity or bullying even though I usually finished in third place and never first and rarely second.

I was a good student expected to make straight A’s (and was beaten with the yardstick if a failed to make an A) but always had problems with math. I had a low frustration tolerance for it and was lucky if I got a B. This was never acceptable to my parents, but I was doing the best I could.

When I was about 12, Ginny’s focus on my weight became an obsession. She was always a thin and vain woman herself, and expected me to be her mini-me, even far into adolescence. Even though I was far from overweight (in fact I was a little on the thin side) she liked to point out how big my ass was, and used to do this when other people were present, embarrassing me so much I wanted to die. Probably as a form of rebellion, I actually tried to gain weight and developed a love of junk food. Anytime I wanted dessert, or seconds at dinner, she’d remind me how “overweight” I was and that I needed to watch my calories. She even threatened to send me away to weight loss camp. With all this obsession over my non-existent weight issue, it’s a miracle I didn’t develop an eating disorder.

My half sister came to live with us when I was 12 for a short time, and we got along great. Debbie was far more self confident than I was, very outdoorsy and adventurous, and took me around to meet her friends and do things with them. They all seemed to like me. For the first time I felt liked and was developing a little confidence in my social skills, which were never that good (I’m painfully shy even to this day). After a couple of months of this, my parents decided to send Debbie back to her father and stepmother (even though this was her own daughter!) because she was having a “bad influence” on me. I was heartbroken.

My parents divorced when I was 13. My father’s drinking had become much worse, and both parents were having affairs (this was the 1970s). It was around this time my mother decided she was a feminist, and started spending more and more time away from home, and landed a job public relations. After my father moved out, my mother and I moved to New York City to a one bedroom apartment. At first, I hated the city, but I was never asked my opinion about the move, or given any sympathy that I’d be leaving all my old friends behind. My mother’s new PR career became her primary focus (what a perfect job for someone so image-conscious: public relations is ALL about image!) and she always talked about how much more rewarding this was than being a mother. She left me alone overnight often so I learned how to fend for myself and cook my own dinners. I actually didn’t mind this because it meant time away from her (by this time I decided I couldn’t stand her) But this was New York City in the 1970s (the city was rampant with violent crime then) and I was just 14 and 15 years old.

Ginny began to drink a lot and bring her boyfriends home. To leave my bedroom for any reason, I’d have to walk through the living room where more often than not, they were in bed together or even having sex. I never said anything about it but it really bothered me. She had a string of boyfriends, most who she’d recruit as her flying monkeys to join her in her belittlement of me and constant gaslighting.

One night we had a huge argument (I don’t remember what it was about–I was drunk myself but she was so wasted she didn’t even notice) and in a drunken, narcissistic rage she started throwing bags and all my belongings out the door and told me to go live with my dad (who was already living with the woman who would become his third wife) who really didn’t want me around much. I told her he didn’t want me and didn’t have room for me in his apartment and she told me she didn’t care. At that point I grabbed a kitchen knife and started to come at her with it. I wasn’t actually intending to use it, but I was very emotional and wanted to scare her. I guess it worked because she got on the phone and begged Harry to come pick me up, telling him I was “disturbed” and “insane.” So he did, and I spent three months living in his studio apartment where I was pretty much ignored (they were never home).

Within a few months, I was placed in a girls’ residence in Queens, New York, and was bullied by the girls there too. I didn’t seem to fit in anywhere in the world. I felt so alone.

High school was a nightmare. I was attending a Catholic all girls high school, and I was completely out of my element. I was bullied by the popular girls, and even the not so popular ones ganged up against me. I became the school pariah. I had no friends at all. I regularly went to visit the guidance counselor in tears. She seemed the only person in the entire school who took any sympathy on me but soon she disappeared and I was informed she found another job. My grades suffered, and one day my mother received a letter from the school that “perhaps Suzanne would be happier in another school.” My mother went ballistic and raged on about how much the school was costing my father (who she usually berated and trashed) and what an ungrateful little shit I was.

I finished high school at the local public school, with its mostly black and Hispanic student population. I found out I got along well with the blacks in particular, and felt more accepted by them than I had by the snobby white girls in the Catholic school. I made a few friends, mostly black. The school didn’t have high standards, and I’d get A’s just by showing up in class, so I didn’t learn much. In my spare time I’d bury myself in books and writing–this was the adolescent version of my childhood daydreams and “trances”–but got criticized by Betty for “reading too much” and not being social enough.

As I entered my late teens, I became a little boy crazy. My first serious boyfriend at age 18 was a narcissist and an abuser. This set the pattern for what was to come.

The next part of my story will be about my early adulthood years culminating in meeting my narcissitic ex husband.