==Konza Diary==

Narcissism is...YOU!
7:21 p.m. - Sunday, Oct. 29, 2006

Narcissism is…
…YOU!

Merrill Markoe has an essay in the August 2006 issue of Real Simple that struck a deep chord with me. I've been searching the blogosphere for an online version that I can link to, but no dice. It's not on Real Simple's site and no one else has done me the favor of cribbing it so I guess I'm going to have to do this myself. Much as I'd like you to be able to enjoy the article in its entirety, for it may illuminate things in your life that have heretofore gone unexplained, I will simply reprint the parts that pushed my buttons. The theme of the article deals with the author's discovery that the people in her life that she had always had difficulty pleasing were people that ultimately she will never be able to please due to their own selfish character defect, narcissism.

Cliff Notes of article: After years of her mother's gifts of clothing inappropriate to the author, author hits upon the brilliant idea of accompanying mother on the gift shopping trip so that this year's gift is not some item that will end up hanging in the closet, inducing guilt every time it's passed over in the daily what-shall-I-wear perusal of available garments. After mother's all-day display of the usual inappropriate garb, author finally convinces her to purchase the black blazer she really, really needs. At which point mother bitterly mutters, This is the last time I am doing anything like this. I get no pleasure from buying you something I don't happen to like.

WTF? But I do get pleasure from buying you something that you positively hate and will never wear? Which has me flashing on anytime I've been asked what I want for insert occasion here. Asked mind you, not volunteered, I've been asked. Not once have I gotten exactly what I've asked for. It's always some version of what I've asked for with Ms., aka my better half's personal taste imprinted all over it. “...Buying a present for me is not about buying me something I might like but about inflating her own self-esteem and maintaining her feelings of grandiosity.” But God forbid I forget to get her that fucking Winnie the Pooh calendar every year, or renew her subscription to her favorite magazine...

Cliff Notes of article: Author notes that parents and boyfriends seemed to have the same kinds of complaints about her. She was “combative and contrarian” according to one boyfriend who would become furious if she stayed up to watch a late movie by herself instead of going to bed at the same time he did.

Hello! Didn't this same thing happen with my computer usage? So after raising your sister's kids all day, managing the house and taking care of the animals, at the end of the day I'm not entitled to a little me time? No, I still have to cater to you by going to bed at the same fucking time you do? How thoughtless of me!

Cliff Notes of article: Author figures she'd better make a sincere effort to identify and repair her shortcomings so she can stop endangering her relationships with inflammatory behavior such as having her own taste in clothing and picking her own bedtime. So she goes to therapy to learn how to be a better person...

And I threw in AA too. Got very involved in AA. Spent a lot of time beating down my character defects. My therapist and I dissected each and every moment of my life until I was a new and improved me. But I guess the new and improved me still isn't good enough. I'm so different from the person she first met that I have to wonder what the fuck she fell in love with in the first place...

Cliff Notes of article: The upshot of author's therapy is that she is not the problem. The narcissistic people author surrounds herself with are the problem. Narcissists are people who cover up feelings of shame and worthlessness by doing whatever it takes to maintain the false sense that they are very special and therefore not bound by ordinary rules. Narcissists, because they never outgrow a phase of infantile behavioral development, essentially live in a world that is one-person big. When you are with a narcissist, their needs must become your needs. It's not enough for a narcissist to be the center of their own world, they must also be the center of yours. Your job is to serve as admiring audience.

Her nightly recitation of her day, in minute detail, going on for hours and hours while the re-cap of my day comprised all of five minutes before her attention would wander. How things must always be “just so” as she likes it, but anything that I might like “just so” is a total inconvenience and not given a second thought if it's even given a first... And haven't I always maintained that there is one set of standards for Ms., aka my better half and another for the rest of us. A standard so high that we can never do anything but fail.

Cliff Notes of article: Final analysis: The most practical method of coping with narcissists is to change your expectations (like AA says, have NO expectations). Maintain emotional distance. Stop trying to please unpleasable people. That's the sad part. Because the death of expectations also means the death of hope. Gone forever is the dream that, by treating the narcissist with kid gloves, you might transform them into someone more enlightened; leaving you ultimately with two sane options: either agree with everything they say or pick up and go elsewhere.

Recap: Ms., aka my better half is a narcissist. She's a control freak. She's compulsive. She's depressed. There is nothing, I repeat nothing, that I can do about any of these things. These are all issues that she is going to have to tackle inher own therapy if she wishes. In light of the fact that she called her therapy to a halt, I doubt she wishes. My suggestion last January of couples counseling went nowhere. So where does that leave me?

Listening to: newscaster drone

Smelling: air freshener

STILL Reading: william least heat~moon prairyerth

Mood: pissed

last five reads

kim dearth the compassion of dogs
alice randall the wind done gone
joyce maynard at home in the world
linda howard kiss me while i sleep
brad metzler the zero game

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