Posts

Showing posts from January, 2007

Targets of opportunity

Time: Thanksgiving 2002 Place: My home Victim: My daughter Description of event: The visit had been going on for several days which is the limit for my Nmother to be able to behave herself. Back in September she had invited herself and my father for Thanksgiving in my home which I agreed to. I thought I had reason to believe that my Nmother was "changed". Our relationship had been going well since I had visited her the previous summer. This was before I knew anything about NPD; obviously, I was still naive. I did have unvoiced reservations about the visit because having my mother in my home for a holiday has never gone well. I look back and see that my big "mistake" of that visit was of treating my mother like a normal human being. I was gracious and generous toward her, but I didn't fawn over or excessively coddle her. (Narcissists are gods in their own minds; you insult them when you treat them like they are normal humans.) There were other factors that

Narcissist or psychopath....both are human predators

Psychopathy is an extremely researched area of psychology, although this diagnosis is not in the DSM IV. Dr. Robert Hare is the recognized expert in this field and has defined the concept. What has this to do with narcissism? Glad you asked. The clinical tool used to diagnose psychopathy, as developed by Hare, is called the PCL-R. Half of the checklist (Factor 1) correlates with narcissistic personality disorder and defines the core personality traits of psychopathy . The Wikipedia entry on the PCL-R is concise and provides a decent introduction to this diagnostic device. What is becoming more well-recognized in professional circles is that all psychopaths are narcissists . We are supposed to believe, though, that not all narcissists are psychopaths. I'm becoming less and less sure of this being true. If psychopathy is only identified as such if a person demonstrates certain behaviors , yes, we can accurately state that not all narcissists are psychopaths. But one of Dr

Recommended website and book

The website I would like to recommend is titled: Cosmicwalk - Help for victims of abusive parents and partners/Child abuse/Wife Abuse . If you are a Christian, or even if you are no longer practicing as a Christian but have a Christian background, this site can be particularly helpful to you. Christians, and those with Christian backgrounds, have extra challenges in overcoming the effects of abuse because of the way many people have distorted God's character, His law, His love. Christians have obstacles in their way when it comes to breaking free from abusers and being able to heal their minds. The author of this website has clearly wrestled with the issues unique to Christians and come out of the side where the light and healing are. Even if you are not dealing with the special challenges of Christians there is much helpful information and perspective here for you too. On a related subject, the book I would like to recommend is for those of you who are dealing with spiritual ab

An Expose

This guy has been in the news off and on over the years: Fred Phelps. Lately he has escalated the bizarreness by picketing funerals of fallen soldiers and veterans hospitals. He is more known for his loud and crass denunciations of gays. He is the founder and leader of the Westboro Church in Topeka, Kansas of which all the members are his family. An investigative journalist took the time to compile a damning expose of Phelps and his cultic church including interviewing the two sons who were finally able to completely break all contact with their perverse family. Reading a blow by blow description of a narcissist in action is rather like watching a train wreck...sickening, but impossible to avert your eyes. If you're up for it, you can check out the Fred Phelps Expose .