Soul murderers

I was originally going to call this post "Narcissist, psychopath, sociopath or bastard?" 

I will later explain the differences between the first three types of sick individual, but hope to ultimately show that when it comes to assessing these people, labels and descriptors/diagnoses are relatively unimportant. It's what they are capable of doing that matters.

Let's start with bastards, as they are, by far, the most common and least dangerous type of person. In fact, bastards (sometimes called arseholes, or 'assholes' for any American/Canadian readers) are extremely pleasant people compared to narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths.

While I have not had an intimate personal relationship with a narcissist (something for which I am eternally grateful), avoiding bastards altogether has proved an impossibility. That's because bastards are EVERYWHERE. Every single one of us knows several 'bastards', a lot of us will have worked with or for one, slept with one or even married one, and most of us will be 'friends' with the odd bastard or two. Bastards are generally OK people actually - in small doses, at least. We all have a bit of bastard in us. Bastards can be funny, charming, sincere and charismatic. Underneath, they are as vulnerable and frailly human as we all are, and just want to love and be loved, as we all do. They just need to work on a few issues. (But, again, don't we all?) A bastard might well fuck you up and break your heart, but will feel a little bit bad about it, and might even shed a few genuine tears of regret over their bastardness. The majority of them will just carry on being bastards though, unfortunately.

And then, I suppose, we have the "narseholes", the exceptionally shitty bastards with an extra dollop of abomination....

...While narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths are a whole new league of awfulness. They will fuck you up, break your heart, brutalise your spirit, turn your entire life to shit and then smirk at the sight of your shuddering, sobbing, desolate carcass before sashaying off to their next victim, or their next 'game'. Every time they see that their actions have resulted in the pain of someone else, they experience a frisson of delight.  They will swell with self-satisfaction. These people have something PROFOUNDLY wrong with them, and although there are subtle differences between how their individual sicknesses are manifested, and the techniques they use, the advisory warning is the same for all: AVOID AVOID AVOID. Run a million miles in the opposite direction and never look back.

As I have got older, my 'bullshit radar' has improved immeasurably. I no longer tolerate manipulation of any kind, at any time, from anyone, for any reason. But believe me, for far too long, I allowed myself to be a doormat - I accepted all kinds of shitty behaviour, and in the case of my mother (just because she was my mother), I just kept going back for more. Over and over and over again. I simply didn't believe I deserved any better. I never questioned it.

As you can imagine, this mindset didn't bode well for all the other relationships I had in my life, but in fact I was incredibly fortunate because I had three amazing, loving long-term boyfriends during my teens and twenties (the last of whom ended up becoming my husband). These guys saved my life. Where my mother made me feel ugly, unloveable, pointless and worthless, they showed me that the opposite is true. But things could have been very different. When you have it drummed into you that nobody will ever want you, you project a forlorn desperation that the most unscrupulous, heartless users tend to zone in on. And so the cycle continues. The abuse you receive at home from the people who are supposed to care for you typically sets you up for a lifetime of abject misery.


This is why I believe the worst narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths are SOUL MURDERERS. Make no mistake, murdering someone's soul is no less abhorrent than murdering their physical body. It just takes much, much longer. The process itself is EVIL beyond belief. It defies description. They literally feed on the pain of others, because it acts like a temporary balm; it distracts from the pain inside themselves. Your pain makes them feel good, makes them feel like they can achieve something, even if that 'something' is wholly despicable. So they will keep on doing it, over and over again... They truly are utterly, utterly mad in the purest, most appalling sense of the word. 

Most people who grew up under the iron fist of a narcissistic parent have had their identities and spirits crushed by the experience, and their concept of what 'love' means becomes skewed beyond recognition. Thus they almost inevitably end up becoming entangled with disordered people during their adult lives. (Perhaps the most masochistic part of us thinks we can somehow 'fix' these freaks? Being empathic people, as survivors of narcissistic abuse so often are, surely we are put on this earth to conquer hate with love, banish misunderstanding and rage with compassion, patience and empathy... Except, sadly, life doesn't work like that in reality...)

The dark triad is a group of three personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad 

It is crucial that these poisonous, inhumane people are recognised for what they are - soul murderers - so they can be avoided by the rest of us. Sadly, this is not always possible. Why? Because they are all so good at lying, pretending, faking, and garnering support for their delusions - and that applies to ALL of them, no matter what end of the 'psycho/bastard' spectrum they are on, from the everyday callous, self-centred arsehole, through to the scary-as-hell pathological liar and, right over at the farthest end of the continuum, the amoral pathological monster whose very existence depends upon inflicting pain and misery on others. 

We have already looked at what makes somebody a narcissist and seen that narcissism exists on a scale of gradations, "from healthy narcissism to malignant narcissism, with a lot of grey in between". (See the article The Legacy of a Narcissistic Parent and also What is Narcissism? on Dr Karyl McBride's website.) The traits of a person with NPD go way beyond vanity and self-absorption.

The very detailed 'Order of Truth' blog post "Psychopaths, Sociopaths and Narcissists: Similarities and Differences, and Why they are Dangerous" states that these disordered people are, collectively, "a group of humans who are missing those core values that the rest of us experience, and it is they who are responsible for the major problems in the world we see today". The article goes on to say: "Both narcissism and psychopathy are very closely related in their diagnostic criteria because they are variations of the same group of behavioural disorders. The primary difference between a psychopath and a narcissist is that a psychopath does not care about, or need, other people or their opinions to support the psychopath's distorted view of themselves and the world around them, whereas narcissists do." (my emphasis)

Also, it is widely believed that a psychopath's brain is wired differently, in other words it's in their neurobiology, with a well-documented genetic link. This does seem rather fatalistic and simplistic; after all, it's difficult to readily accept that a child is born a psychopath, and will always be a psychopath, no matter what (and no matter how well they are nurtured and socialised into adulthood). However, there is compelling evidence that sometimes, even taking into account the "strengths and limits of parenting", some children appear to be disturbingly maladjusted, callous, violent and unemotional, in other words, dangerous, to the extent that they are unable to modify their behaviour appropriately, form friendships or establish any functional and meaningful connections with the world or with other people. Adults - teachers, parents, health professionals - prove powerless to guide them constructively. Early signs of psychopathy were evident in the case of notorious American serial killer Ted Bundy, for example, despite a relatively content and stable family life.

The article Psychopaths, Children and Evil examines the interplay of 'nature and nurture' (i.e. genes and environment), and it's worth remembering that only a small percentage of psychopaths will be motivated to kill (likewise very few murderers are assessed to be psychopaths). 

Sociopaths and narcissists are generally believed to "become" that way, although there is controversy over exactly how and why. Further confusion over the distinction between narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths arises when 'psychopathy' and 'sociopathy' are conflated (indeed some psychologists, and certainly most of the general public, believe they are interchangeable, and psychopathy is most strongly correlated with DSM-IV antisocial personality disorder). A basic rule is that ALL psychopaths and sociopaths are narcissists, but only the most malignant narcissists are likely to score above 30 on The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), a simple variation of which can be found at http://vistriai.com/psychopathtest/. (My score was 4, in case you're interested).

Resources: 

http://www.minddisorders.com/knowledge/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist.html#ixzz41TmDSdFt

https://orderoftruth.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/psychopaths-sociopaths-and-narcissists-similarities-and-differences-and-why-they-are-dangerous/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_Checklist#The_two_factors

The campaign to advance psychopathy awareness: https://www.gofundme.com/psychopath

"It's such a shame your mother is so useless"

I want to add a quick post about some of the (well-intentioned, sympathetic) comments I have had from friends over the years, who struggle to understand the situation. The remark that stands out for me is: "It's such a shame your mother is so useless."

I have already stated that it is unreasonable of me to expect anyone to know what it is like to have a narcissistic parent, unless they themselves have one. I will now illustrate what I think a "useless" mother might be like:

Imagine you have recently given birth to your first baby, and your mother offers to stay a couple of nights at your house to "give you a hand/a break". You are unsure because you have never really got on with each other, and your breastfeeding has only just established so you're still feeling 'fragile', but you think: "she's my mother, and my baby's grandmother, I've got to make an effort, so let's see how it goes".

Your mother arrives at your house, fusses over the baby, showers you with gifts, but doesn't help out with the cooking or housework and just makes successive cups of tea and watches daytime television. But she gives many cuddles and plenty of moral support and advice, and in spite of being a rather idle and irritating house guest, she does at least allow you some much-needed rest by taking the baby out for walks and playing the 'proud granny'. You disagree on many topics of conversation and her company often leaves you feeling extremely stressed and drained, but ultimately you feel glad and grateful that she came to stay, even if you do ultimately feel even gladder and more grateful when she leaves.

While I think we can all agree that the mother here in this hypothetical scenario is undoubtedly pretty "useless", she has no malice in her heart. As the truism goes, she really does "mean well".

My mother also offered to "help out" when my first baby was a few weeks old. I accepted the offer. I really, really wish I hadn't. Within hours of her arrival, my milk dried up. ("I don't know why you're bothering with breastfeeding anyway," she smirked, sneering as she watched me trying desperately to get some milk to flow from my sore nipples while my baby cried, "I didn't bother breastfeeding you or your sister, I mean, what's the point?'") The visit went downhill from there. (Miraculously, my milk flowed freely once again as soon as she left.)

My decision to breastfeed was not the only one my mother had an opposing opinion about. Of course it wasn't! Apparently, my choice to vaccinate my child was also 'wrong'. (Let's ignore the fact she vaccinated her own children; my mother's staggeringly audacious hypocrisy is, after all, such a steadfast, leviathan and intrinsic aspect of her character that it often just goes entirely unnoticed.)

Knowing that I had decided to vaccinate my baby (and that I'd done extensive research on this topic, like most new parents), she would nevertheless copy me in on emails she sent to her 'crunchy, hippy, alternative-medicine-endorsing' friends with links to 'evidence' that the MMR vaccine causes autism, for example. The obvious implication being: you're such a terrible mother! You are filling your helpless baby with toxins! (No, the irony wasn't lost on me.)

It turned out, unsurprisingly perhaps, that my mother was dismissive or unsupportive of seemingly every decision I made as a new mum. She even sent me a newspaper clipping when I was four months' pregnant (just after my second scan), about a baby who had died a few days after he was born due to a rare disease that can't be picked up by antenatal scans. Tell me, honestly, can you think of anything more unspeakably cruel? Seriously, I wouldn't expect shit like that from my worst fucking enemy.

So, at a time in my life when I most needed my mother to say "You're doing fine, don't worry," she instead ensured that my mind, at its most emotionally chaotic and vulnerable, was plagued with even more guilt, fear and uncertainty. For that alone, I am not sure I can ever forgive her.

So please do not try to tell me my mother was merely 'useless', and certainly not that she ever 'meant well'. I would have done ANYTHING for a 'useless' mother. A 'useless' mother would have felt like an absolute godsend.

Further reading:

The narcissistic mother's game - "In a way, mother is like a black-hole, empty as eternity. She is also a vacuum (yes, nature abhors a vacuum and mother’s constantly trying to be filled).  But I also pity her—more than that, actually. I feel such sorrow for her suffering, because I believe she must be suffering. And I see glimmers of hope. Sometimes, I sense a pause in her emptiness as if her soul is trying to infiltrate the emptiness. Sometimes I sense genuineness. These moments are precious to me and I try to encourage them now that I am strong enough to not feel the arrows she slings at me."

Narcissistic Mothers get away with their secret cruelties - "Narcissistic mothers are exceedingly critical, at times physically violent and psychologically horrifying with their children."

Daughters of narcissistic mothers

Insanity: the best available option

“I did learn something about insanity while I was down there. People go crazy, not because they are crazy, but because it's the best available option at the time.” 
― Gabrielle Zevin, All These Things I've Done

I wrote my first novel in my early 20s - it was about drug abuse, schizophrenia and the close but complex relationship between two sisters.  My own older half-sister died in 1997, aged just 35 years old, having lived her entire adult life in the torturous grip of paranoid schizophrenia, institutionalised for over a third of it, her daily life since the age of 18 having been an endless chemical mindfuck of barbiturates, anti-psychotics, amphetamine, temazepam and various other medications and drugs, both prescribed and illegal. The unrelenting agony of what she endured during her tragically short and anguished life - which included being raped numerous times and having all three of her children taken away from her - is something I cannot bear to think about. I literally cannot bear to think about it, so I can only guess that my mother's psyche has caved in on itself in an effort to block out the trauma of what her firstborn child went through (and, doubtless, a tsunami of not entirely inappropriate guilt about it). 

My older half-sister - let's call her Elle - was rejected by her birth father (my mother's first husband, who by all accounts really did sound like an absolute bastard), and our mother, aged only 22 at the time Elle was born, was not quite ready for the responsibility of motherhood. (She wasn't ready for it in her 30s or 40s, either but hey, nobody's perfect, right?) 

So my grandparents - my mother's mum and dad - became Elle's legal guardians. THAT is what my grandparents did for my mother; that's how much they adored and doted on my mother. They actually RAISED HER FIRSTBORN CHILD FOR HER - they gave Elle a loving, supportive and comfortable home life and basically acted as surrogate parents, while my mother went and lived her life elsewhere, and managed to find the time to meet and marry her second husband (that one didn't last long, either), and several years after that, her third husband, my dad. I know little else about this period of my mother's life and frankly I don't care much about what she did or didn't do, and what did or didn't happen to her during this time. The fact remains: she abdicated responsibility for her firstborn child. I am sure she had her reasons for doing so, but I simply don't care what those reasons are. She did it, and it was her choice to do it, and that choice had horrendous consequences. The fact she has never faced up to this is one of the main reasons she has transmogrified from someone who was undoubtedly once a kind, reasonable and pleasant woman into a twisted Machiavellian villain who would rather see her daughters suffer (all three of us) than face the pain of The Truth.

Three sisters, circa 1983

Now let me try to explain why I still have so much anger against my mother; why when every time someone who presumes to "know" her leaps with such passionate alacrity to her defence, it stokes a raging fire within me. She abandoned her firstborn child. That, in itself, is possibly just about forgivable, if you can allow for extenuating circumstances that nobody (with the possible exception of my mother) knows about, and that I can only guess. But anyone with the smallest glimmer of normalcy would feel GUILT about that, for the rest of their life. I know I would, but then again, I've made the mistake of applying normal emotions and reactions to my mother for most of my life, when it's clear the rules do not apply to her. Instead, my mother uses her tales of woe - tragic first daughter who went mad and died, husbands who mistreated and/or betrayed her, middle daughter who is a total bitch (i.e. has the balls to tell THE TRUTH) - as a means of gaining sympathy and admiration. ("Goodness, you have endured so much, what a strong and amazing person you are! If only your daughters realised how fortunate they are to have such a courageous, devoted and loving mother...") 

I am dumbfounded by some of the bullshit gushing praise her friends have given her over the years, every single one of them UTTERLY IMPERVIOUS to what lies beneath that piously heroic exterior. And of course, my mother laps it up. She doesn't say "Well actually, y'know, I should accept some of the blame for a lot of the crap that's happened to me." No, of course she doesn't, the unrepentant, incontrovertible, self-satisfied, cold-blooded martyr that she is. Not once has my mother looked back on her life and thought: hey, what's the common denominator here? Is this just a matter of loads of really shit things happening to a really good person, or am I a shit person attracting exactly what I deserve?

When Elle had her children - at 21, 23 and 26 years old - my mother did little to intervene or help, although I am sure she must have experienced a LOT of distress over this, which I would never dare underestimate. Hell, I know the woman IS a human being with a heart, even though I myself have experienced only tiny, fleeting glimpses of her humanness, and even less of her 'heart'.

Yet while her own parents had bent over backwards for her when she was a young, unprepared mum, my mother never once presumed that, as a 'grown up' mother now herself (indeed a mature woman in her 40s by now), maybe it was time for her to stop being selfish, time to finally put her daughter first. She knew those babies would have to be removed from Elle; she knew that poor lost soul was incapable of looking after herself, never mind a child (note: Elle loved her children. She LOVED them, because as crazy as she was, the 'mothering' part of her was absolutely intact.) And our mother knew that every time a baby was taken from her, it worsened Elle's torment. Perhaps our mother felt she had no other choice; what, realistically, could she do? Well, I know one thing with certainty: she COULD have done more, and she SHOULD have done more. If Elle wasn't crazy with schizophrenia and drugs already, she soon became crazy with grief: can you even imagine having all three of your babies taken away from you?

I do believe that sometimes insanity is a 'sanctuary' for abused or damaged people, the ultimate 'buffer' against the agony of real life, of truth. As the blogger at House of Mirrors (see Resources) says, Madness is their [the narcissist's] preferred choice over reality.

Obviously, it's ultimately self-destructive, but that's kind of the point: some of us just want to escape from life, because reality is so intolerable and brutal. What makes my mother's insanity different from my half-sister's insanity is that my mother PROJECTS hers, so that EVERYONE ELSE feels insane unless they concur with her. It's relatively easy to concur with my mother because she appears, superficially, unassailable. Her 'version of the truth', which at its core is mostly comprised of delusions and spurious beliefs and is therefore pretty far removed from reality, is presented with accomplished aplomb as "All You Should Believe In"; it is presented as a compulsion, not a choice. And I believed in it for far too long. My reality was distorted by someone too sick to see it.

But Elle took all her pain out on herself; nobody was punished for it but herself, and she never expected anyone else to believe in her hallucinations and delusions. In her more lucid moments, she knew she was crazy, whereas my mother has no such insight into her disordered mind. And, ultimately, Elle's craziness made her more human. It had the opposite effect on our mother. (See my post Are malignant narcissists evil?, which also quotes from the 'House of Mirrors' blog: "Mental illness is not the cause of malignant narcissism; it’s the result of malignant narcissism…")  [my emphasis]

If anybody needs me to justify my 'No Contact' decision, I respectfully ask that person how much they value their mind; their sense of what is Real, Right and True. I ask them to use their imagination to spend one day in my shoes as a child, living in that tense, frosty house with a sick, psychotic woman consumed by fear, fury and hatred. I ask them to try to have a modicum of respect for what my half-sister went through, and to understand that I am doing this because I finally understand her (at least I understand her much, much better than I understand my mother). I do not choose insanity myself, but I do appreciate why somebody would. I realise it's not really a choice at all, actually; not like the choice to abandon, neglect or abuse your children, for example.  

But sometimes, yes, it really is just the best available option.

"The mind is endless. You put me in a dark solitary cell and to you that's the end; to me it's the beginning. There's a world in there, and I'm free." - Charles Manson


Many songs of the 70s and 80s remind me of Elle - "Heroes" and "Ashes to Ashes" by David Bowie, "Breathe" by Pink Floyd, "Borderline" by Madonna, "Breakfast in America" by Supertramp, but this is the song I remember first hearing with Elle, back in 1984, and the one that always brings back the fondest memories: Nena's 99 Red Balloons

Resources: 

House of Mirrors: Malignant Narcissists are Batshit Crazy

What is "good parenting" anyway? Part Two - Fathers

Actually, this post is not about fathers generally, or what makes a good father. It is specifically about my dad, whose heart was in the right place but whose mind was so often elsewhere and whose soul was murdered, picked apart and pissed on long before his physical body gave up.

My dad might not have been, strictly speaking, a "good father", but he was certainly a good man. Troubled, trampled, blighted, disillusioned, intoxicated at least 50% of the time, and certainly weak and imprisoned by guilt and his own morbid addiction, he was nevertheless an awesomely intelligent and knowledgeable, magnanimous, inspirational, funny and articulate man whose love for me I never doubted, in spite of his many shortcomings and disastrous mistakes.

That's important, to feel loved by a parent.
It sounds obvious, I know, but it's really, really important.

And I loved him. In that disproportionately expansive, childishly idealistic way that daughters so often tend to regard their fathers, I hero-worshipped him. When I was a child, he used to tickle me until I couldn't breathe from laughing, hang me upside-down and twirl me around and call me funny names like "Popski" and "Babeoez". We even invented our own language - an absurd bastardisation of the English language, and private between me, him and my sister - therefore utterly nonsensical to everyone else. He was proud of me. Nobody in the world made me laugh like he could; being in his company was always a joyful, illuminating experience, even though underneath that larger-than-life ebullience he harboured a crippling amount of sorrow and regret.

It's just a shame that, as much as he loved me and my younger sister, he loved two things more: firstly, my mother, whose feelings and demands ALWAYS came first, no matter what (particularly AFTER the divorce), and even if they conflicted with those of his children, which they usually did. He was terrified of her, although he never admitted it, of course. And that terror was compounded by a gnawing, interminable guilt over what he had done, guilt that my mother capitalised on with merciless, vengeful fury, and which overshadowed his life right up until the day he died.

But even more than my mother, he loved alcohol. Which, in turn, hated him and everything else he loved, as tends to be the case with addicts and their addiction of choice.

My dad was not a violent drunk - he internalised all his rage and took most of it out on himself. Obviously, drinking the vast quantities of alcohol he did (as much as four bottles of red wine daily, plus spirits and beer at the weekends), was going to end up being fatal. I knew he was killing himself slowly, but I didn't want to confront that fact - and it was pointless anyway, because he didn't care about his health, and he certainly didn't listen to me when I gave him my 'concerned lectures'. He didn't even see a doctor for at least 25 years. So I stopped giving him concerned lectures, probably around the time I should have really started to lecture him even more. He was a stubborn bastard though. I'm not going to feel guilty about the fact he's dead; I just feel deeply sad, because he didn't deserve the life he had, and he certainly didn't deserve to die in such an undignified, hopeless and horrifying way (literally, all his essential organs simultaneously packed up) just a few months after finally retiring from a job he'd slaved away at for most of his life. I miss him terribly and would do anything for just one more day with him.

So, my dad was an 'enabling alcoholic'. He knew that his psychotic ex-wife was abusing his daughters, but he decided it probably wasn't that bad, and besides, alcoholism (like any drug addiction) renders the sufferer incapable of caring too much about others. It was much less stressful to simply turn a blind eye, and I do not blame him for that. What the hell could he do anyway? Stand up to her?! Impossible!

That isn't a criticism of my dad - I know he would have done so much more, if he hadn't felt so powerless, if he hadn't been so powerless. But this left my sister and I basically rudderless and adrift. As the daughters of a malignant narcissist who made our daily lives a living hell, and a dad entrenched in self-flagellating alcoholism and denial, I think I realised we'd have to quickly learn to 'parent' ourselves. But that had to begin with some self-respect, some self-love. Where were we going to get that from?

"Don't get too close to anyone"

Following on from my previous post about whether or not narcissists are capable of love, here's a memory I have from 2006, which convinces me that my mother's narcissism is nothing more than a terrible, self-sabotaging defence mechanism. (This leads me to believe that narcissists are made, not born that way: their insidious madness is a response to stressors, an "emotional shutting down".)

I had recently celebrated my 30th birthday, and agreed to meet my mother and my dad at a restaurant in West London. My boyfriend (soon to become my husband) came with me. He and I had been together since 2004 and were madly in love. My mother could see this (one would have to be blind to not see it), and she knew that nothing she could do or say would scare my boyfriend away. (Believe me, she'd tried. My palpable happiness at being in love with my soulmate was unbearable for her, and she was furious that she'd been unable to destroy it.)

I got up to go to the toilet, and my mother followed me. While I was washing my hands, my mother turned me around, looked me square in the face and said: "Don't get too close to anyone."

"What do you mean," I said, "what about your partner and your children?"

There was a split-second pause. Her gaze intensified. "Especially them," she said. "Especially them."

Rather bemused, I shrugged, opened the door and went out to rejoin my dad and my boyfriend at the table.

I didn't realise until much later, but as brief as it was, that was the most intimate and revealing conversation I have ever had with my mother.

Is a narcissist capable of love?

My instinct when presented with this question is to respond with a firm and emphatic "no". But, as with everything else when it comes to trying to fully get to grips with the nitty gritty of NPD, it really isn't that simple.

While I know my mother doesn't (cannot?) love me, that doesn't mean she cannot feel love at all, or at least something very much like it. She has many friends, some of whom she has known for at least half her life (and that's a long, long time), and I do not doubt she cares for them deeply. After all, they are all appreciative mirrors of her false self: the dedicated, busy, compassionate and endearingly zany woman who embraces everything good and true in the world. Suffice to say, there were times during my childhood and adolescence when, in company, I would observe (with some awe or possibly thinly-veiled scepticism), this wonderful, vivacious and irresistibly warm and gentle woman who I knew wasn't really my mother 'acting out' for the benefit of her assembled esteemed friends and acquaintances.

I observed the way she postured, spoke, presented herself: everything so jarringly at odds with the unconscionable demon who inflicted me with her draconian 'discipline', disgust and indifference behind closed doors.

And I do not doubt that my mother loved my dad. In fact, I think at one point she probably loved him more than she has ever loved anyone else in the world. Right up to the point his own mental illness got the better of him, and he baled out of what we had always blithely assumed was a 'happy' family unit in a hideous maelstrom of usurious debt, deception, successive betrayals of trust, and chronic alcoholism.

The divorce awakened something primordial and horrifically ruinous in my mother. Perhaps it had been there all along, this grotesque monster, and just needed one massive trauma to bring it to the fore. It is clear to me that this episode was utterly, utterly devastating for her. I have experienced betrayal in my life, for sure, but nothing like this. It must have felt as if the previous 15 years had been a complete lie. My dad did spend the rest of his tragically curtailed life - the proceeding 20 years - in a state of miserable, grinding penance as a result of the marriage breakdown, which was of course seen by EVERYBODY as entirely his fault, but however much his ex-wife was going to mercilessly haul him over the coals for what he did to her, the forgiveness he craved was never going to come. Never.

At the same time, the divorce killed off something inside my mother; something precious and soft and warm that she needed in order to rise to the daunting challenge of being a strong, loving single mother to her two shell-shocked daughters. That sounds kind of paradoxical, doesn't it? Needing something 'precious and soft and warm' in order to be 'strong'? If you're a mother, you'll know what I mean.

In my mind, the divorce was the point at which my mother's feelings toward me soured. (I believe she 'loved' me, in her own detached and dysfunctional way, when I was a baby and an infant. Indeed I do have a cherished few, fond and happy memories of my mother during the first half of the 1980s.) Not only had she been left high and dry with two daughters who she didn't even want ("it was your father who wanted children! Not me!"), but one of those daughters - i.e. me - had the temerity to LOOK LIKE the man who had just betrayed and abandoned her. Having to suffer looking at my face every day and being reminded of the only man she had ever truly loved; a sick shell of a man who she had lost to addiction/mental illness (just like her first daughter), must have been pretty tough. So her reaction was to construct an impermeable defence system: a reinforced steel wall between her and anyone who might possibly have the ability to hurt her again.

Thus, my mother the Malignant Narcissist was born. I would never again see my mother as 'mum'. She made sure all her soft edges were sharpened and serrated into razor-sharp spikes, and I would never hear the words "I love you" or "You're beautiful" or "I'm proud of you" from the woman who gave me life.

Note: there are essentially two 'types' of narcissistic mother - the 'ignoring' one and the 'engulfing' one (many narcissistic mothers are a terrible combination of the two). My mother is an 'ignoring' mother, and the video "The Ignoring Narcissistic Parent" describes exactly what this means, using excerpts from Dr Karyl McBride's excellent book, Will I Ever Be Good Enough? (See resources.)

Also take a look at the Huffington Post article, Can a Narcissist Love Me?

And this article: Narcissistic Love Versus Unconditional Love

And my blog post: Relationships with narcissists: Sisyphean undertakings

Are malignant narcissists evil?

Many people who have had a 'relationship' with a malignant narcissist (MN) believe these characters to be the embodiment of evil. You really need to encounter a MN up close yourself to understand why this appears to be such a fitting description. But I wouldn't wish that soul-destroying experience on anyone. It is so difficult to describe and explain to someone who has never had a 'relationship' with a MN (or, as I have discovered to my endless frustration, to anyone who only knows a MN on a superficial level).

A particularly vivid blog on malignant narcissism is the stupendously furious and cathartic "House of Mirrors".

A stand-out post for me is one entitled 'Malignant Narcissists are Batshit Crazy', which states that:

“According to Eric Fromm and Scott Peck, ‘evil is a severe and specific form of mental illness’. But don’t confuse NPD with mental illness. Mental illness is not the cause of malignant narcissism; it’s the result of malignant narcissism… They engage in a persistent pattern of doing bad (evil) things and then they evade accountability… Never underestimate the narcissist’s creative union with lies…. The MN is at war with reality 24/7…. Madness is their preferred choice over reality. Lunacy is their safe place. They would rather die than admit to themselves who they are…. MNs are psychologically dependent on others to validate their lies ... they have trained their minds to 'unknow' the truth'... The narcissist does not have psychological injury, they have psychological decay. Every minute of every hour of every day that they lie to themselves they become more and more mentally decompensated. They can never regain their sanity because they can't repair something that no longer exists."

I really wish these words didn't resonate so strongly with me, because they are, to say the least, extremely unpalatable. But it's true. Madness really IS the malignant narcissist's preferred choice over reality. This is why trying to reason with one is like playing chess with a particularly verminous pigeon.

Before I go any further, perhaps I should clarify what exactly is meant by 'malignant narcissism'. All of us, even the most meek and mild, delicate, unassuming little wisp, has at least a small smear of narcissism in our characters. 'Healthy narcissism' is OK, in fact it's actually pretty good: it's having a sufficiently sturdy ego to ensure our basic needs are met. It's a survivalist thing. 

Some people are conceited, obnoxious twats with out-of-control egos and insufferable, domineering attitudes - these people have narcissistic traits but they probably don't have NPD.

What underlies narcissism the personality disorder (as opposed to narcissism the character flaw) is, as mentioned previously, a lack (or at least a severe deficit) of empathy. (Unfortunately, most narcissists are pass masters at FAKING empathy, along with many other attractive qualities such as sensitivity and kindness.) Other people exist to be used - to prop up the narcissist's delusion/boost his or her fragile over-inflated ego, or for scapegoating/projection purposes. But only a few people with NPD are malignant narcissists. (THANK GOD.) So, what sets malignant narcissists apart? In short, these people can barely be considered human. They don't only mercilessly go for what they want without a single thought for anyone else, but consciously and deliberately destroy their targets, and get a sick, psychotic thrill out of bearing witness to their downfall. The pain of their victims excites and pleases them. As Kathy at the "What Makes Narcissists Tick" blog says in her excellent post The Difference Between Narcissism and Malignant Narcissism, "he thinks to glorify himself by degrading you. He thinks to gain respect by denying any to you. He thinks to make himself important by treating you like dirt. He improves his reputation by ruining yours... In other words, they are not just mildly sick in the head, they are seriously sick in the head... A malignant narcissist doesn't really have inflated self-esteem. He lives in terror of moments of self-awareness...."

All this does kind of lead us, somewhat inexorably, to the question: are these people evil?

Certainly they engage in breathtakingly evil behaviour. Certainly the things they do, and the way they think, are so alien to normal people that the temptation to describe them as 'evil' is irresistible. And perhaps they are. I prefer, however, to think of them as being the saddest, sickest, loneliest and most unimaginably damaged people in this fucked up world of sad, sick, lonely and damaged people. Their 'evilness' fills the void of their soul. It fills it with nothing of any substance of course, just noxious bilious gas, hence the need to constantly keep up the evilness, to never cease doing the most unspeakably shitty things to the most undeserving people - those people who have all the things the malignant narcissist can never have, i.e. love, hope, self-actualisation, freedom, joy, purpose, spirit, vitality. Without the 'evilness', the smoldering rage and jealousy and bitterness, there'd be nothing at all, just a gaping black space, or worse, much worse: a compulsion to face Reality. 

So, does this at least mean they really are crazy, insane?

Hell yes. You will never meet anyone crazier or more at odds with Reality and The Truth than a malignant narcissist. Never.

Resources:

House of Mirrors: Malignant Narcissists are Batshit Crazy

What is "good parenting" anyway? Part One - Mothers

For most of us, our role as parent is the most pivotal, important and defining of our lives. Since having children, I have never experienced such overwhelming feelings of joy, accomplishment, purpose, pride, love and stunned wonderment. These life-affirming feelings are tempered daily by incapacitating feelings of guilt and self-doubt. But I know I am doing my best. How do I know this? Because I know my children feel deeply loved and secure. They are happy. Their happiness equals my success as a mother.

In "Ten Basic Principles of Good Parenting", Laurence Steinberg maintains that good parenting "helps foster empathy, honesty, self-reliance, self-control, kindness, cooperation, and cheerfulness. It also promotes intellectual curiosity, motivation, and desire to achieve." He furthermore maintains that it helps "protect children from developing anxiety, depression, eating disorders, anti-social behavior, and alcohol and drug abuse."

So far so uncontroversial. (Although as someone who has encountered such a glaring lack of empathy in my own mother, I do find it interesting that the fostering of empathy is mentioned first).

I actually think it could be stated in even simpler terms. When we become parents, we can simply no longer be selfish. As a parent - not even necessarily an especially 'good' one, just an ordinary, 'only just coping' one (like most of us!) - your child takes priority, always. Your needs are relegated - indeed they become almost inconsequential because your child is your all-consuming focus. Any normal parent adores, protects and cherishes their child without reservation or condition. If you cannot even get this most basic obligation right (indeed not so much an obligation as an instinct, a biological imperative), you do not deserve the title of 'parent' at all.

Some pertinent questions are: What is a mother? What is a mum? What does a mother do? What does a mum do? What SHOULD they do? How should they feel? How should they make their children feel? 

A mother is, quite simply, a woman who has a child - regardless of her 'mothering' abilities, that is just what we understand the word to mean. The word ‘mum’, however, has particular connotations – wholly positive, nurturing ones. Connotations I do not, and have never, associated with my own mother. This is a woman who, having quite deliberately established an insidious pattern of secret, subtle, systematic abuse and tyrannical control from when my sister and I were just five and nine years old, never assimilated, understood, learned (or cared to learn) HOW to be a mother, much less a ‘mum’. (Given that she herself had been blessed with a beautiful, lovely and loving mother with whom she shared a close bond, the reason/s for my own mother's appalling shortcomings and destructive failures might forever remain a mystery.)

So what does (and should) a mother do in order to demonstrate her 'mothering abilities' and thus define herself as a 'mum'? All these questions are difficult to answer with clarity and certainty, of course: there is no ‘right’ answer. 

What is perhaps a more black-and-white question is: what doesn’t a mum do? (Or rather, what shouldn't she do?)

And I think I can answer that one with a certain degree of confidence:

A mum does not shamelessly disrespect her daughter by repeatedly violating her boundaries, invading her privacy and betraying her trust. For example, a mum does not read her teenage daughter's diary and then beat her up and call her a slut. 

A mum does not – EVER – put her own needs before those of her child. A mum does not judge, scorn and belittle her child.

A mum does not hit her child regularly, frenziedly, and call the violence “discipline”. (My earliest childhood memory is being slapped repeatedly, and hard, across the back of my legs because I had wet myself, after having asked, several times, for my mother to take me to the toilet. I was barely four years old.) 

A mum does not – EVER – tell her children that she wishes they’d never been born or do or say ANYTHING that might give them that impression. 

However much she might feel justified in doing so, a mum does not disparage and emasculate her children’s father, over and over and over again, in front of those children, challenging them to disagree with her furious diatribes, daring them to take sides.

A mum does not encourage hostility between her children by gossiping to one sibling about the other (triangulation) under the hypocritical pretence of being 'concerned peacekeeper', nor does a mum ensure that the precious sibling bond and solidarity her children once shared becomes irredeemably broken by giving one child a huge sum of money and the other... nothing.

A mum does not EVER use any of the following words to describe her daughter: useless, hopeless, pathetic, repulsive, stupid, lazy, fat, 'a disappointment'... 'a slut'

A mum does not EVER slam her daughters to other people, but particularly not to her daughter's friends and boyfriends.

A mum does not make herself emotionally unavailable and physically absent (or worse, become more spiteful) during the most important or traumatic times of her daughter's life: parental divorce, heartbreak, choosing a university, leaving home, crucial exams, health scares, pregnancies, miscarriages, the breakdown of a long-term relationship, the births of her babies.

A mum does not insult and lie about her daughter to others in order to gain support for her tenuous claims of victimhood.

Finally, and I really wish I didn't have to state this one at all, but a mum does not ever, under any circumstances whatsoever, derive any sort of pleasure or satisfaction from her daughter's misery, pain and misfortunes.

See my blog post: What is "good parenting" anyway? Part Two: Fathers

Recommended reading: 

"Why Love Matters: how affection shapes a baby's brain" by Sue Gerhardt

"How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk" by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlich

Cluster B Personality Disorders

Persons afflicted with personality disorders are commonly found in the mainstream. They do not look strange and their public behaviour falls within acceptable and tolerable parameters. However, they can be dangerous... [they] always create victims. Victims experience physical, mental and emotional losses. Victims experience a reduction in self worth, unnecessary guilt, and emotional trauma... It is through the creation of these victims that the intrinsic needs of the personality disordered person are met. Their actions have purpose and intent. The pain and suffering experienced by the victim is premeditated. It is only through the creation of these feelings that the needs of the disordered person are fulfilled. These disordered persons find no fault with their behaviour, and accept no responsibility for the victim's predicament or feelings.
(Source: Further reading 1)

A personality disorder is an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates from the norm of the individual’s culture. The pattern is seen in two or more of the following areas: cognition; affect; interpersonal functioning; or impulse control. The enduring pattern is inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations...and its onset can be traced back to early adulthood or adolescence. 
(Source: Further reading 2)


In other words, a personality disorder is a "maladaptive way of relating to the world", and has potential to cause harm to self and/or others. According to DSM-5's "hybrid methodology", there are six personality disorder types (originally, it was 10 types, grouped into three 'clusters': A - "odd, eccentric", B - "dramatic, emotional, erratic", and C - "anxious, fearful" - see diagram below).

These six are:

1. Borderline Personality Disorder
2. Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
3. Avoidant Personality Disorder
4. Schizotypal Personality Disorder
5. Antisocial Personality Disorder
6. Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is still often referred to as a "Cluster B" Personality Disorder, along with Antisocial and Borderline Personality Disorders (and another 'Cluster B' type, not included in the above list, is Histrionic Personality Disorder).

These are characterised by problems with impulse control, interpersonal relationships and emotional regulation and/or unpredictable thinking or behaviour. A rather crass (but nevertheless reasonably useful) simplification of the three clusters - 'Mad, Bad and Sad' - is shown below. (To clarify, "schizotypal", considered a "mild, arrested or premorbid form of schizophrenia", is classified as 'A', and "avoidant" and "obsessive compulsive" are classified as 'C'.) Obviously there are different gradations of each disorder; for example, someone may exhibit numerous narcissistic traits but this does not mean that a diagnosis of NPD is necessarily appropriate - narcissism is best considered on a continuum or 'spectrum' (see my post 'Are malignant narcissists evil?')

In very basic terms, the characteristics of the Cluster B disorders are as follows (although they often overlap):

1. A person with antisocial personality disorder (APD) might be referred to as a sociopath or a psychopath, although there is no clinical diagnosis for either sociopathy or psychopathy, and it is important to remember that these are three distinct categorisations. (I will write more about psychopathy and sociopathy in other posts, as technically all psychopaths and sociopaths are narcissists, but only the worst malignant narcissists will pass the so-called 'Psychopath Test'.) People with APD often feel little or no empathy toward other people, no remorse for causing hurt (which they do, constantly) and many possess a "glib, superficial charm" which enables them to ensnare a succession of unsuspecting partners (they also tend to be sexually promiscuous or immoral). They are generally irresponsible, which is often reflected in a destructive propensity to break the law and indulge in a variety of addictions.

2. Borderline Personality Disorder is characterised by impulsive, unstable and erratic emotions and reactions, and people with BPD frequently experience heightened anxiety (including panic attacks), distressing emotional states (including fear, loneliness, intense sadness and desperation), difficulty in establishing relationships, and they may self-harm. (I think it's a little unfair categorising BPD with the so-called 'bad' disorders, because unlike the other three, those with BPD do seem to genuinely suffer from their condition, whereas those with the other Cluster B disorders tend to cause suffering for everyone else.)
For more about the symptoms, prognosis and treatment of BPD, click here.

3. A person with Histrionic Personality Disorder has a low boredom threshold and extremely short attention span, craving constant attention and demanding instant gratification. This disorder is characterised by excessively intense emotions and mood swings, a tendency to over-dramatise, an obsessive need for public approval and praise, and disproportionately high energy levels, which can understandably be a source of great stress, vexation and exhaustion to friends and family.

4. Those with Narcissistic Personality Disorder may have elements of all three other Cluster B disorders. Certainly they have a distinctly undeveloped (or non-existent) conscience, and they 'project' uncomfortable feelings such as remorse, shame or guilt. As the Mayo Clinic website so succinctly explains, NPD "is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of ultraconfidence lies a fragile self-esteem that's vulnerable to the slightest criticism."



Further reading:

1. Dobbert, Duane Understanding Personality Disorders: An Introduction, Rowman & Littlefield, 2010

2. http://psychcentral.com/disorders/

NPD information sources