I love this old fable. The scorpion can be compared to the Narcissist. It will sting you because it’s in his nature.
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It’s always your fault!
Thanks to my friend Nikita for this meme!
Lightning Rod
Interesting thoughts here about Taylor Swift, probably the biggest megastar he music world has ever seen. I have to confess a liking for her music. I’ve always liked her music. Taylor isn’t the best singer but I rather like the wobbly vulnerability of her vocals and no one can write catchier songs. For several years (when she was a “country” artist) she came across as this sweet, innocent victim-type of girl, a girl moms didn’t mind taking their 12 year old daughters to see. But I always suspected something a little off about Taylor–that she wasn’t quite what she seemed. Is Taylor a psychopath or is she just a narcissist? I think a little of both.
Whatever she is, who would have grokked that this virginal girl next door who sings songs about love gone wrong was really a card carrying member of The Dark Triad? But that’s what psychopaths and narcissists are best at: putting on masks.
Taylor Swift
everyone’s favorite fantasy…
When I was a teen, I made some gay friends. We would watch TV together and this one was gay and that one was gay. Celebrities are almost always a repository in which to dump our own “stuff.” But nobody seems to fulfill that role better than Taylor Swift. According to various opinions, she is a really nice, unpretentious gal whose talent made famous, a danger to the morale of the country, a psychopath or a member of (victim of?) the Illuminati.
Taylor Swift, the Psychopath
- Evidence Suggests Taylor Swift Is a Psychopath
- Is Taylor Swift…a Psychopath? In the video on that page, Taylor Swift is quoted saying that in Blank Space, “I was really owning the fact that I’m a psychopath.” OK. I just searched for this interview and found the whole quote was “Half the people got the joke. Half the people…
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Positive Quote ~ August 4th
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If Facebook was real life.
I’m sitting in a group therapy session for people with complex PTSD and other problems caused by childhood trauma, telling the group about the chain of events that led to my becoming the family blacksheep. Tears trickle down my cheeks as I relate how victimized I felt by my family. The two people on either side of me reach out to touch my shoulders. I feel the beginning of connection, of a sense of belonging and community I never had at home, or anyplace at all. I feel safe in this place. I feel like my secrets will never go beyond the confines of this room. Outside, the world may be dangerous and unfriendly, swarming with treacherous and cold-hearted people who wish me ill, but inside these walls, I feel welcomed and loved.
Suddenly the door opens. It’s my niece, who I’ve met exactly three times in my life. I haven’t seen her since she was a little girl. She’s armed with an album of photos of her latest vacation and the big party the extended family threw for her on the birth of her latest child. I wasn’t invited to this party. She walks over to me and starts shoving the the pictures in my face, making me look. I politely shuffle through the stack, then hand them back to her. I feel violated and envious. “Do you like them?” she demands. She won’t leave until I say I do. Apparently satisfied, she leaves.
Then someone I barely know from an old job walks in the room. He tells me his business has really started taking off and he’s raking in so much money he is having a custom vacation home built right on the beach. He shows me pictures of the house-in-progress he and his gorgeous new wife are building. “Oh, yes, and we just found out she’s pregnant–with twins!” he crows. Finally, he leaves. I turn toward the group, ready to apologize for the rude intrusion.
But I never have a chance, because then my daughter’s BFF from her middle school days bursts through the door, crying and cussing because her babydaddy is back on drugs and hasn’t payed child support in over a year. My polite but sympathetic nods constitute a “Like” and satisfied with that, she leaves. My boundaries feel like they’re under siege by this point. I turn back toward the group, but am interrupted again.
Some stranger walks in and shoves a piece of paper at me. I look down at it, It’s a test called “Which Celebrity Pet Do You Look The Most Like?” Annoyed, I crumple it up and toss it on the floor.
A guy I’ve never seen before but who calls me “Friend” invites me to play a game. He starts tossing game cards at me, which contain pictures of things like barrels of apples, litters of piglets, bushels of wheat, and clucking hens.
Stop, please! I want this room to be my sanctuary again. I feel inhibited and self conscious now, because at any moment some random person from my past, a random relative, someone from an old job, or an old classmate might invade the room again, crashing over my boundaries. No place is safe.
I have one more visitor. My mother enters the room, fixes me with a penetrating stare, and tells me she heard everything I said about her in this room before all the interruptions started. I feel like the floor just dropped out from under me, leaving me stranded in mid-air. I stare at my mother. Her eyes are opaque and unreadable, but her small, knowing smirk tells me everything I need to know.
One way to peg a narcissist you probably never heard of.
It may sound ridiculous but I think this is a good way to judge a person’s character without their suspecting anything.
Chatter about movies, books, and other forms of entertainment is a standard ice breaker (and is part of the dreaded “small talk” we introverts hate so much), usually used to make polite conversation with someone you don’t know that well (of course, these things can be discussed more in depth too with closer friends and loved ones). Movies, books, TV, and public figures are safe conversation starters. You can talk to people about these things without seeming to cross anyone’s boundaries or getting too personal.
But such seemingly innocuous conversations can also help you peg whether or not a person is a narcissist or sociopath–without them suspecting a thing. When you meet a new person, ask them the way you would ask anyone about movies they’ve seen and books they’ve read, and then ask them whose side they were on, or which characters they most identified with. Of course, you must be familiar with the movie or the book, including its main characters. Television personalities and other public figures will also do.
Narcissists can feel empathy for other narcissistic characters–characters that are like themselves. I’ve noticed they will often feel empathy for the villain, rather than the hero/heroine. A narcissist woman, for example, will feel simpatico with a villain like Beth Jarrett from Ordinary People, and think her behavior toward her son wasn’t that bad–she may even think he deserved it and find Jarrett’s justifications for abusing him valid. My mother found nothing wrong with her behavior and was puzzled as to why I found it so triggering and upsetting. (Of course I didn’t tell her why).
My mother also couldn’t understand why the the “Queen of Mean” hotelier Leona Helmsley was given such a hard time in the press over her arrogant statement, “We don’t pay taxes, only the little people pay taxes.” She also identified with Sherman McCoy, the narcissistic, selfish, and greedy investment banker in the novel Bonfire of the Vanities, who wound up losing everything due to a chain of events stemming from a hit and run accident which McCoy was involved in. I remember her lamenting almost tearfully about how “his beautiful life was ruined” by the events that played out in the novel. She also couldn’t stand good, sweet Melanie, from Gone With the Wind. I suppose Melanie could come across as a tad simpering and holier-than-thou, but my mother hated her. The heroine of that same movie, Scarlett O’Hara, is more than a little narcissistic (or possibly Histrionic?)–charming, flirtatious, manipulative, entitled, and possessing very little empathy. She didn’t even seem that upset when her own daughter, Bonnie, died after falling off a horse. I never understood why Scarlett has been such a huge role model for generations of women. She really didn’t have too many redeeming qualities when you think about it.
A man (or woman) with NPD or psychopathy might identify or sympathize with any of Ayn Rand’s psychopathic heroes–Howard Roark from The Fountainhead or John Galt from Atlas Shrugged come to mind. Of course, these are popular books, especially among conservatives–but holding these two highly narcissistic men up as worthy of worship might be a red flag. Be wary of such a person.
My ex, a sociopath who has been diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder (but is really a malignant narcissist) always liked villainous characters, especially if they broke the law. He often rooted for the bad guy (or sometimes, girl) and the more ruthless or cruel they were, the more they seemed to enthrall him. He likes Charles Manson. He watched South Park because he thought the sociopathic Eric Cartman was so cool. He also rooted for the alien in Aliens. In addition to that, he likes satanic and demonic imagery, which always disturbed me, even when I was agnostic. We all have a touch of schadenfreude and many normal people (including yours truly) have a fascination with serial killers and other outlaws–according to Jung, that’s because we all have a shadow self that’s drawn to dark things. But there’s a difference between fascination or morbid curiosity and actually liking these things or identifying with or sympathizing with villains, malignant narcissists, and antisocial people.
So if you’re on a date with a new person, have them take you to a movie (or take them to a movie) and see who they seem to identify with or sympathize with the most (or who they seem to dislike the most). It could tell you a lot about that person’s character.
Not ready to run with the big dogs.
I’m not ready to run with the big dogs in the blogging world yet–nowhere near. This puppy still requires a lot from me just to stay alive from day to day. If this blog tried to run with the big dogs now, it would probably get trampled and run home whimpering. Could be I’d even have to dress a few wounds caused by Pup’s overeagerness to join the grownups and alpha dogs.
I assumed my blog had reached a point where I could take a break from it for a few days and Google would do my job for me while I did other things. After all, there are some popular posts on this blog that continue to get a lot of hits months and even a year or more (!) after they were first posted. I thought these self-generating popular posts would keep my viewcount up without me having to maintain it in any way. I also thought because my Alexa rankings are fairly good (top 450,000 global; top 80,000 US) and my view count per day ranges between 1,500 and 2,500 (it can go higher on good days, or when a post goes viral), meant I could be lazy for a few days or a week and just sit and do nothing at all and wait for the hits to come. (I know, I know, Alexa is sort of lame and not the best measure of a blog’s metrics, but I don’t want to pay for Google analytics).
Wrong! After ONE DAY of not posting, my stats are WAY down. It was disheartening to open my blog today and find NO likes, NO new followers, NO comments, and an abysmal view count. I felt like I did the second week of blogging, when I would open my blog and find…nothing. All that hard work I put slaving over a post for hours to make it perfect in every way, only to wind up having an audience of one–myself. Granted, these days some people are reading. I have regular followers who always check for new posts. So things aren’t as bad as when I was a newbie. But it’s still disappointing when the only people visiting your posts are your regulars who always visit anyway.
This can only mean that Lucky Otter’s Haven isn’t quite ready to “work” on its own yet without my help. It’s not The Huffington Post or Amazon or even Cracked.com, and even those sites require regular maintenance and new articles every day. LOH still needs regular maintenance and lots of TLC from me, and it needs a stream of new posts every day (or at least one or two). Out of those new posts, a few catch on and a very few even go viral or remain popular over time. Not all of them do. In fact most of them don’t.
My other blog, Down The Rabbit Hole (I jokingly refer to it as my “second child”), has very low visibility and has not grown much (if at all) since I started it 11 months ago. But that’s because DTRH was never intended to be for anyone but myself and any friends who are actually interested in reading about my therapy sessions and learning what goes on inside all those nested boxes stacked inside my mind like a Russian doll or Chinese puzzle. I have never tried to monetize Rabbit Hole and probably never will. It wouldn’t qualify for monetization anyway–not enough traffic. Rabbit Hole has a much more limited audience and I have no desire to make it “popular” because to do so would ruin the far more intimate, personal, introspective feel of that blog, which some readers actually prefer over this one with all its widgets, ads, filler, jokes, pictures, and fluff posts. So, when I log into DTRH and find I got only 20 views that day and no new Likes or comments, I don’t worry about it. I don’t go out of my way to promote that blog either, being that the posts in it are so personal I really don’t like to share too many of them on social media. It’s really nothing more than a personal journal that I happened to have made public to anyone who wants to read the minutiae of my therapy sessions and my own healing progress.
Lucky Otter’s Haven is different from The Rabbit Hole–it’s a “I’m-a-victim-of-narcissistic-abuse-and-I-have-mental-problems-and-PTSD-resulting-from-that-abuse” kind of blog but it’s also a general purpose blog, with a little something for everyone. Like music, all kinds? Check. Like art and photography? Check. Like politics and social issues and want to hear my unasked for opinion on those? Check. Like movie and book reviews? Check. Like posts describing all my mundane daily activities, like what I ate for breakfast and how long the line at the DMV was? Check. Like inspirational memes? Check. True confessions? Check. A little religion? You’ll find that here too. Want to look at photos of my pets? Check. Care to look at my dilapidated and mismatched furniture and my less than Architectural Digest (or even less than HGTV) quality interior decor in my tragically outdated 1908 half of a farm house which is in dire need of major repairs? Check. Have a penchant to read snarky little essays about everyday things? Check that too. Curious to see videos of my son’s dance routines? Check. Itching for a little controversy? Yes, you’ll find that here too. Haven’t had your daily dose of schadenfreude? This blog is full of rants and whines and even a little shameless self pity that should fit the bill. Want to learn how to be a better blogger and while you’re at it, find out how to recognize and handle online trolls, bullies, psychopaths, and narcissists? Got you covered.
After my narcissism posts, my blogging and writing articles are my second most popular kinds of posts. I don’t think of LOH as a “blogging advice blog,” but I suppose for some, it could serve that purpose if they wanted it to. It’s a versatile blog and I think that’s a good thing. No one has complained about that yet.
LOH didn’t become “general purpose” to get popular; I made it that way because lots of things interest me and there’s always some interesting and random thing going on, if you just are paying attention. I also am opinionated and have opinions about many things, and this is my platform for spewing those opinions to the world. I also get burned out sometimes on writing about narcissism and need a break to focus on things that are less dark and deadly-serious.
But I digress. Those of you who follow this blog know I write about lots of things and from one day to the next, you won’t really know what to expect. I think that’s a good thing and I think it keeps my regulars around. But I realized after today that I can’t afford to get lazy and just let this blog float on its own, because chances are good it sink like a leaden rowboat to the bottom of Internet ocean, where algae, seaweed, barnacles, and general rot will take up residence on its rusting carcass. It’s not famous like the ill fated Titanic (or as big), so no one’s likely in 100 years or so, to dredge it up from its sedimentary place of rest at the bottom of the Cyber-sea to explore its hidden treasures.
It’s only fate would be Just Another Dead Blog.
So maintaining activity on this blog is still something I have to keep working at. I can’t take extended “vacations” unless I’m willing to watch my blog capsize and sink into the Underworld of the Dead Blogs.
Moral: If you’re not a Big Dog yet, you can’t afford to be a lazy blogger.
Babycat, the barking cat is back home.
My daughter is no longer dating her ex-boyfriend and has been staying with me for the past couple of months while she saves to get an apartment of her own. You who have followed this blog for awhile may remember BabyCat, who she took with her when she moved in with her (now) ex. BabyCat stayed with her father (my ex) for awhile, but now she’s back, looking no worse for wear. She knows she’s a looker. She’s not a Maine Coon, but she looks a lot like one.
BabyCat’s the only cat I ever met who “barks” when she wants attention: really, a very scratchy, deep throated “mrow,” said quickly so it comes out sounding almost like a dog bark.
When bloggers just disappear.
One thing about the cyber-world that bugs me is its unstable, temporary nature. You can get really close to someone online and feel like you’ve been best friends for years, but because you don’t really know anything about them (their real name, where they live, what their favorite color is, etc.), if they suddenly take down their blog or just stop posting anything in it, there’s no way to find out what happened to them. Did they die? Are they in jail? Sick? Hard drive attacked by a virus? Abducted by aliens? Just don’t want to blog anymore?
There’s no way to ever find out, and it sucks because you’ve grown to care so much about the soul behind the words, even if you couldn’t recognize them if they were walking down the street. This goes for frequent commenters too, who are very active for awhile and then suddenly vanish. Only in that case, you also wonder if they might have grown bored with your blog or if you said something that pissed them off.
Lucky Otters Haven 