How to Spot a Dangerous Man

Part one here . A state police patrol car was signaling from behind. To her horror, Lee realized the bus was pulling over to stop right on the Interstate. She had made it several hours away from her aunt's house, but was still within the reach of law. My mother had called Lee's father when she realized Lee had run away. A flurry of phone calls and investigation led to the bus being pulled off of I-5 to retrieve a 14 year old run-away. Lee's father and mother arrived to pick her up shortly after she was taken off the bus. Her mother was quiet, her father was enraged. Lee soon found out she was being accused of more than running away. It didn't take long to find out the hot anger of her father had to do with something else. Lee was accused by my parents of having stolen a stack of postage stamps and around $100 cash from my father's desk. Lee's father being in law enforcement made the accusation of theft all the worse for him. And for Lee. My uncle, Lee...

Exodus 20:12 NIV: "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you." It has recently been brought to my attention through an email exchange with a reader of my blog that there is a need for me to address the unique issues confronting Christians when dealing with a narcissistic parent. It is hard enough to deal with the disapproval of societal expectations when you aren't a Christian . There is a lot of pressure in secular society for adult children to excuse any bad behavior in their parents. There is also a strong disapproval by society for anyone to use the label of "evil" to describe certain behaviors. Pop psychology promotes the idea that abusers are victims too. We are told to look sympathetically at abusive people and find "reasons" for their behaviors. This serves as nothing but a preamble to excusing the behavior. This gives the abuser a pass to continue treating you as they want w...

For previous installments of the indictment of my sister, go here . In a matter of weeks after I moved out with my daughter into my own apartment a crisis unfolded in my cousin's household. I will refer to my female cousin as Lee and my male cousin as Darrin. Darrin was the cousin living with my family when I ran away from home at age 17. He is about five years my junior. I think it is fair to label him sociopathic. (His father, a retired police officer, doesn't argue with this label.) No, my mother's efforts to reform my male cousin didn't work. At all. The older he became the less his parents were able to control his behaviors. Drugs, violence, theft, promiscuous sex, cruelty to animals; if it was bad he was doing it. He had been difficult even as a very young child; the difficulties only increased with age. I am sure that he was one of the reasons his parents marriage was strained. There were other reasons, but I'm sure this was not an insignificant ...

About eighteen months ago I received a phone call from my sister. The evening before she and I had been talking again about my reading on NPD and discussing our mother. My sister had apparently settled on a niggling, disquieting thought...what if I, her sister, was seeing some parallels between NPD and her ? In a voice sounding slightly higher pitched than normal she posed a question: "Ah, S, I was just wondering. Um, with all of your reading on NPD, do you think I might be a narcissist?" ...the sound of her voice trailing upward at the end with a bit of a coy, saccharine tone. Since I wasn't born yesterday I recognized an emotional land mine set for my feet, so I had to think quickly on my feet. I picked the most diplomatic yet honest reply I could find on the spur of the moment. "I think you showed some narcissistic tendencies when you were a teenager." Her reaction was immediate and defensive. Suddenly sounding quite huffy and very irritated she respo...

Part one , two , three , four of the sister saga. I'd like to stipulate for the record that my sister became a thief. This isn't something I have brought to your attention yet because I didn't find out my sister's fingers were sticky until I was in my twenties. Since I'm trying to tell this story in some sort of order this fact hasn't been brought forward. Lemme back up a bit. As I've recounted to you, I moved back in with my parents and sister after leaving my first husband. My sister was fourteen when I first left home. She was now eighteen. Much drama occurred between my sister and mother in the immediate wake of my absence. My mother withdrew into herself and quit being a mother to my sister. Cruel scenes occurred as my mother vented her rage on the only person within reach and still dependent on her. This twisted up my sister pretty good. From the sheltered fair-haired child to an object of unfair rage. It was a jolt. I was the one who too...

Narcissists aspire to perfection. In their sphere of influence they pursue perfection at every moment in every circumstance. Because of this transcendent need to keep up the illusion of perfection, the children of narcissists are taught early on to hide the family's skeletons. The sermon is oft preached that there will be no exposure of the internal workings of the family to those outside the walls of the house. This imperative is enforced ruthlessly using behavior modification techniques which can include derision and mockery right up to physical abuse. There are grave penalties for talking to "outsiders" for the narcissist-ruled family. This is one way that a narcissist's family resembles a cult. Family members are cut off from the outside. Outsiders can, and usually do, include extended family. Children are taught that it is a mortal sin to violate the "no talk" rule. These rules are even more stringent when there is physical and sexual abuse in t...

One of our favorite movies here at my house is " Ever After ". We probably watch it about every six months. We've been having a Drew Barrymore marathon of movies here since Mother's Day which led us back to "Ever After". I am pretty sure my husband and daughter like it even better than I do. The ending is so satisfyingly just. The movie highlights a particular dynamic I've been trying to get across in the narrative on my life with my sister. Even though this movie is a re-telling of the Cinderella story it has parallels to real life...otherwise it would have no appeal. What I'd like to point out, because it is such a great illustration of the power structure of my family, is the step-mother and eldest step-sister. The step-sister is haughty, snotty, sneaky and at times cruel to the Drew Barrymore character, Danielle. What is perfectly illustrated in this movie is how the step-sister derives her power to make her Danielle's life miserable ...

This pic was taken by my husband. My eyes were bleary from having had them dilated earlier that day by the eye doc. Nevertheless, he caught me having fun. More recent pic. Taken on my last birthday (#47). I was talking--hence the near pucker. Heh.

One of the most overt signs that I had been screwed up by growing up with a narcissist parent was the fact I was married and divorced twice by the age of 26. I've already told you how I was 17, pregnant and too scared to tell my parents so I ran away and eloped . I stayed with husband #1 for three and half years. When I left him my second child, a daughter, was nine months old. Not surprisingly, I had married a young man with some very narcissistic traits and a profoundly screwed up family that he was completely enmeshed with. With all the dysfunction around me eventually my family started to look sane by comparison. My parents offered me a place to land if I decided to leave my husband. As I've explained, they were anxious for this marriage to end. I took their proffered help and ended up living with my family again. This time I lived with my parents and sister for almost exactly a year which was how long it took for me to scrape the money together so I could move out...

As I explained at the outset, I have been reluctant to write about my sister on this blog. I knew it would be hard to capture it. It is easy with my N mother because she was in a position of authority and therefore I was the recipient of the full malignancy of her narcissism. With my sister it is subtler. Because she wasn't in a position of authority over me her methods and modes of operation were sneakier. I was rendered emotionally vulnerable because of the dynamics my mother set in motion. I've tried to capture this. Perhaps I've bungled it. As you may or may not have noticed I had someone comment on the last post. Yeah, I admit I was a little testy. Now I'm rendered somewhat immobile. As hesitant as I was to embark on this story, I'm thinking, "Yeah, what's the frickin' point of building the case against my sister here." I am not on a fishing expedition for sympathy on this. From the lack of comments on this blog overall, if I wa...

For part one go here . Part two here . Around the time my sister was five years old I begin to have clearer memories of our interactions. This coincides with the major move our family made from southern California to the wilds of Oregon. The move was a positive one for my sister and I. We were delighted with the change. My mother was depressed and my dad was stressed. Six months after moving to the new state my parents bought a home on three and half wooded acres. My sister was into girly-girl stuff. Playing "house", tea parties, dress up, dolls, Barbies. As I look back I realize that when we played together it was always one of these things we did. Which indicates that we did what my sister wanted to do, not what I wanted to do. My interests were more oriented to the outdoors. I was an avid explorer. I loved our new acreage and was often out climbing fir trees, building forts, hiking and biking. If my sister played outdoors, she was usually playing in the covere...