How to Spot a Dangerous Man

The Sister This Time On April 20, 2006, I told my sister that I was gone. In my final letter to her I said "...the only sister you get to keep is the sister you don't abuse." *SLAM* The door was shut very firmly in her face. In the course of one letter, I told her eight times that I was out of her life. Since then my husband, daughter and I moved to a whole new state. Neither my parents nor my sister were told we were moving. I have kept the email account of mine that they have. What they still don't know is that the email account is the only way they have to contact me. They have no mailing address or phone numbers. We put in a temporary postal forwarding for six months which means the post office doesn't do address correction. At this point, they don't yet know how out of contact with me they are. The only mutual relatives that know where we live moved with us to our new location...and they are also out of contact with my parents and sister. So,...

It was two days ago, December 23rd. The doorbell rings. It's Mr. Postman dropping off a box. I picked up the box and gasped in horror and amazement at the return address. My father. The box is addressed to my 24 year old daughter. There is a postal forwarding sticker on it. My father doesn't know we've moved to another state so he addressed the box to our previous address. Our mail forwarding is still in effect for a couple more months so his package was routed to our present location and not returned to him. (By the way, we put in a "temporary forwarding" which has some advantages if you're trying to keep your new address from someone. During the forwarding period, the post office will not do address correction . At the end of the forwarding period, the post office will still not do address correction. It is a great way to keep those stacks of catalogs from following you to your new address as well.) My father and I stopped all communication in Oct...

Words have meaning. They are conveyances of logic and the very basis of rational thinking. Without an agreed upon understanding of the definition of words there can be no cohesive society, there can be no framework to hang a civilization upon. Words are designed to communicate . They are to send unambiguious meaning from one person to another. Every social contract is defined by words. Those words must have a precise meaning not subject to individual interpretation for the words to have any force, authority or meaning. Words work best when used to transmit truth, reality, logic. Words are harder to employ to transmit feelings or abstractions. Yes, they can transmit these "hard to nail down" things, but it requires more effort and artistry. Even so, these efforts rely even more heavily on words containing precise definitions. Enter: the narcissist. The narcissist's use of language is a study in perversion. To pervert something is to misuse it. To debase it. T...

A relevant subject if you've ever dealt with a narcissist... At the end of my commentary I'll be providing a link to an interesting article on what is going on in your brain during hypnosis. Scientists have come to recognize and respect that hypnosis is something real. Real in the sense that it is possible to affect how someone may think or act by applying certain techniques. This article explains how hypnosis is about how the brain interprets sensory input...the brain is wired in such a way that it is quite easy for it to suppress outside input and create an alternate reality. A certain percentage of the population is considered "highly suggestible"...a small percentage are impervious to hypnotic technique. Children before the age of 12 are extremely vulnerable to hypnosis because of the immature wiring of the brain. How is this relevant to the topic of narcissism? I am convinced that the narcissist has learned intuitively how to hypnotize people. I am also c...

It can be easy to be sucked back into the N-vortex when they shift their tactics. I have pondered just a bit into why we adult children of narcissists (ACONs) get suckered by our N parent(s) when they suddenly seem to be "nice". I think at least part of the reason is that we are honest-hearted people. I have noticed that honest people don't presume deception in others. Especially in our parents or close relations. More on that in a moment. Here is the scenario I'm picturing as I write this: you've been used and abused by the narcissist for years. You've started to get a clue as to what you are dealing with. You start establishing some boundaries, you start using a backbone, you are putting up with less crap. In the wake of the changes in you , the narcissist will also appear to change. They take on a more submissive posture. They seem to be behaving better. You start to have hope that you've made a difference. You start to believe that the narc...