The modern narcissist and his quest for revenge

This is an excerpt from an article by David Brooks of the New York Times, a link is provided below.

Let us enter, you and I, into the moral universe of the modern narcissist.

The narcissistic person is marked by a grandiose self-image, a constant need for admiration, and a general lack of empathy for others. He is the keeper of a sacred flame, which is the flame he holds to celebrate himself.

His self-love is his most precious possession. It is the holy center of all that is sacred and right. He is hypersensitive about anybody who might splatter or disregard his greatness. If someone treats him slightingly, he perceives that as a deliberate and heinous attack. If someone threatens his reputation, he regards this as an act of blasphemy. He feels justified in punishing the attacker for this moral outrage.

And because he plays by different rules, and because so much is at stake, he can be uninhibited in response. Everyone gets angry when they feel their self-worth is threatened, but for the narcissist, revenge is a holy cause and a moral obligation, demanding overwhelming force.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/opinion/16brooks.html?_r=2

If you have been used or abused by someone who shows no empathy or remorse, you have seen a modern narcissist close up. And if you dared stand up to him, or worse yet, expose him, without a doubt you experienced another classic personality trait - his quest for revenge.

First the person that has convinced you to believe in and trust him, betrays you and every moment, experience, and word  he uttered, for years. He sabotages, manipulates, and psychologically and emotionally abuses you - and then, after your life and your reality have been destroyed, he continues his abuse and attacks  and demeans you. It is the only way that a narcissist can live with himself and continue his life of deception. 

Over time I watched my abuser blame, demean, sabotage and retaliate against people he believed had wronged or slighted him in any way, or that he was jealous of, which included just about everyone at one time or other. It was all completely fabricated in his mind and just his feeling inferior and jealous - of someone else's job, money, success, wife or happiness. He was especially critical of anyone who had children his son's age.

He was a covert abuser and his methods were stealthy and insidious. He took great joy in finding new ways to taunt and frustrate co workers and even members of his own family, and even admitted it  was done for pure entertainment. 

But when it came to work or someone he thought had failed to promote, reward or recognize his superior abilities, he went on a vendetta. He accused who ever it was as hating him and being out to get him. He declared them incompetent and unfair. Fairness was a big one for him, everyone and everything was unfair. 

So what did he do? He found ways to undermine and slight them when ever he could. He very methodically called anyone who might be in contact with or know that person. He dug for any dirt or negative information he could use to bolster his position and he withheld and or manipulated facts. And when I say called, I mean he called. He got on the phone and went down the list of contacts, day after day, instigating what ever he could.

It took a while before I saw these things, the more time we spent together the more disturbing it became. I called him out on this behavior, at first very gently and lovingly as he convinced me he wanted to change and be a different kind of man. But it was all just more of the mania that was his life and there was no changing. And then of course it all unraveled when I saw who he really was and he methodically and maliciously turned on me. 

A True Narcissist "will not apologize for anything"

The man who destroyed my life, to quote in writing, "will not apologize for anything."  He wasted years of my life, lied to me every day, used me every day for any and everything he could and "will not apologize for anything."

He broke every promise, vow, and agreement we had and "will not apologize for anything."

When his lies began to unravel he sadistically manipulated and psychologically tortured me, telling me, while holding me in his arms, to trust him, and "will not apologize for anything."

He duped me out of thousands of dollars, and instead of paying it and being done with it, he pays an attorney to threaten and attack me, and "will not apologize for anything."

He spent years convincing me of his love, persuaded me to end my marriage so that we could be married and build a life together - and in one minute, without a conversation, that is correct, without a single conversation, evidently changed his mind - and "will not apologize for anything."

He spent years convincing me of how miserable his marriage was, how mean and unstable his wife was, how he had been depressed for years and turned into a shell of a man.

He told me every day how I had saved him, in every way a person can be saved.  He cried in my arms, often, tears of sadness and tears of joy. And then he acted as if none of it ever happened, literally became a jekyll/hyde in every terrifying sense, and "will not apologize for anything."

Lest you think it was just one unfortunate mistake, one small misunderstanding - you should know that I was just one in a long line of women that began the first week of his marriage - which he proudly told me and others.

What kind of person refuses to apologize after betraying someone and destroying their life? Refuses to acknowledge the truth? Refuses to be accountable for his actions and agreements?

This is a portrait of a dangerous man, a man who is incapable of empathy - or remorse, a man without character - or conscience. A true narcissist. I never really understood that word or the disorder. There are signs though, all men who abuse women this way are strikingly similar and predictable. But they pull it off because they are masters of disguise and deceit. 

The sad truth is that no matter how smart, or strong, or good, or kind you are, you can still be preyed upon and fooled by damaged individuals, with no true love or caring in their heart.

I hope this look behind the truth will spare even one person from the suffering that my family, friends and I have experienced.

Valentine's Day for a Narcissist

Valentines Day is a busy day for narcissists and serial adulterers. Like all the other holidays, it is a chance for them to secure their much needed narcissistic supply - to "earn points" and groom new victims.  It is in their DNA to to so - to capitalize on the innocence and good will of others.  They could not resist if they tried.  

Ahhh, but therefore - they are predictable and discoverable. If you know what to look for.

The narcissist who defrauded his way into my life is a perfect example. I am sure he was thinking all week end about who he would call on Monday to "just check in" and wish a Happy Valentine's Day. Of course, this would be more than one woman. In fact it would be just about any women he came into regular contact with.

There are the women he visits and talks to in the offices of the businesses he deals with - because they might feed him information and be sympathetic if he ever needs anything. There are the wives and/or girlfriends of acquaintances and business associates.  He had a very intentional proclivity for "developing" relationships with older men.  Not just any men, they had to be wealty or influential in some way, always. These men's wives were always a target for him to, also systematically, try and become their friend. 

And who to visit. 

Continue here.......

It Looks Terrific Until It Doesn't

"Three-day weekends are awesome, right? But sometimes you get back to the office on Tuesday and there’s a voice mail from 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, and you’re like, “Jesus, who does that?"

"What would you do if you heard your phone ringing at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning?  Would you think someone has died?  Would you think a telemarketer has sure picked a terrible time to pitch their horrible product?"

"The fact that she made the call at 7:30 in the morning (who makes calls at 7:30 in the morning?) is similar to some wind ups I've seen to bi-polar manias. I have no way of knowing, but many highly functioning people suffer mania.  It looks terrific until it doesn't."

These are recent quotes in the news about the phone call Ginny Thomas made to Anita Hill.  

Everyone knows it is...........not just rude to call people that early but...........weird; many questioning the psychological stability of such a person.

I have written before about my abuser who regularly complained about and criticized his wife who did this to him all the time, and he said had no problem doing it to anyone.

As usual, what ever he blamed and criticized her for, he did himself.

He was so dishonest and covert about what he did.....but I did catch him sometimes. I came to learn that he had no compunction whatsoever about calling someone at any time, day or night, 7 am, 11pm or 3am.  He was ruthless about the telephone and fixated - always - on his needs and anxieties. Typical behavior of the personality disordered.

And then there was the instance (one of many) with a female colleague of his. She didn't work in his office but was someone in a higher position than him and like all the women who's "favors" he sought, whether personal or professional, he systematically cultivated a "relationship" with her.

One morning this woman called him at 7:00 in the morning.  I was with him all the time, no one ever did this, except his wife he was separated from. It was very unusual, no one he worked with ever did this and, they did not actually work together.

This happened after I discovered his lying and cheating and after him professing to be a changed man. I asked him about the call and of course he put me through the same old routine - of acting stupid, minimizing and denying.

The most important fact is that he lied about and hid every single "relationship" or interaction of any kind with women. It took me a long time to realize that while he made hundreds of phone calls a week when he was with me, they were all to men, and he made all the calls to women when I was not there. It did not matter who they were, what they did or the importance or insignificance of the call.  That is because every woman was a target for him.  

As is the case with most personality disordered, eventually their duplicity reveals itself and eventually I heard him make a few calls to women.

Well, what I heard

Football and A Dream Life

I went to an event in a nearby town and met a lot of people who are big football fans. I even met the big guy himself, the head coach (who was much more easy going in person than on tv.) Of course I was invited to a game, any time I wanted, and also invited to play in a golf outing. 

What irony. The N who abused me loved this team. He would go to games - when someone would offer him free tickets. Once early on, before he moved out, he said the person with tickets offered him a second one and he thought maybe he should take his wife because she was acting very suspicious and thought he might "be up to something" in that town because he went so often (of course she was right for years.) He wanted to make sure that it was okay with me though and afterwards, boy did he complain about how awful it was going with her.

He talked all the time about how he couldn't wait to take me to these games, to have our own tickets, tailgate and invite friends. He would describe it all in detail, the sights, the sounds, the smells, what he ate, who he saw and the jokes they told. And of course, I listened with such care, believing this was all true and going to be my life.

A couple of times he went to a party after a game. He called me afterwards, gushing, about all of it, the people, the house, and the life he dreamed of for us. The house was very nice he said, with a great backyard and pool. I remember him being very sentimental and describing it as being so warm and inviting, a real home, where a real family lived, nothing like his house, he said, where it was all a sham, nothing like the home he grew up in either.

And then he talked about the people that were there. He was in the beginning of his opening up to people stage that I was encouraging him on (although he always pandered heavily to anyone that was successful) and it was having a big effect. He talked about how fantastic it was to sit and talk with the people there who were so nice and so open. We talked about how great it was to be around people who are similar to you, who like the same things, and who think the same way. Especially people who love sports, and who actually played sports, at one time or another. He said it was like time stood still and he felt so alive and inspired.

In his life, he said, it wasn't like this. They didn't have friends like this, they didn't talk about things like this, or believe in things like this. But he desperately wanted to. This was the life he wanted to create. We talked about how incredible it would be when we could have a life where we were surrounded with fun, open minded people, going out and doing things, and dreaming and creating, without any negativity and criticism holding us back. We talked about the kind of house we would have. We can have it all I told him, this wonderful, warm place that people will love coming to, we can even have the pool!

It was his dream. Actually, he said it was more than he had ever dared to dream. Until now, until he met me, and I put him back together, and showed him how to love, and how to dream, and now he couldn't wait to make it all come true.

He will never have a life like this. He will never be friends with people like this. He is a fraud and can not get close to people because they will see right through him. All he can do is what all narcissistic con men do, pick out a few victims to prey upon and fool. He will study and mirror them, he will call them on the phone every day, make jokes, ask them questions, he will learn what they like and are interested in and spend an inordinate amount of time trying to become their best buddy. 

But in the end these relationships will be hollow because he is hollow and these people will move on to real people, and real lives.

Abusive Betrayal of Love

"The narcissist is at all times a deceiver, never straight, clear, or true. He thrives in an illusive world of curves and meanders. He has mastered the ability to delude himself and others.

Emotionally detached and isolated, the narcissist is incapable of truly caring for someone else. This callousness allows him to launch plans that psychologically wound others if he perceives them as a threat.

In his obsession to win at all costs, he is unencumbered by ethics or morality. Hurt feelings, financial ruin, blighted reputations, incipient illnesses, broken relationships, suicides... are the tragic residue of the narcissist's endeavours.

He leaves many lives in disarray and chaos, like bodies strewn on a battle field. He coolly steps over these ravaged corpses to reach his destination. The length of a relationship or its history is never a factor in how he treats the other person."

Abusive Betrayal of Love © Michele Toomey

Nothing does a better job of describing a narcissist than this quote.  The LM (lying manipulator) in my life was the poster boy.  He was at all times a deceiver, about everything but especially about him self. He lied about who he was, what he believed, his past, you name it, from the biggest thing that you would never lie about, to the smallest.

He was never straight, never clear and never true, unless he thought it would get him something. He did his best at all times not to be straight, clear or true so that he could manipulate any situation, or any person, to his benefit whenever it suited him.  It came to a point when the curves and meanders of his lies and deceptions were nothing but a very sad joke.

I have never seen callousness of the degree he possessed in another human being. He was callous towards his parents, his sister, his wife, co workers and every one else.

Emotional detachment was his survival mechanism, supposedly from childhood and living in a loveless, emotionally barren marriage.  He showed very little emotion, his facial features and even his voice were flat and monotone.  He lived in isolation because his whole life was a lie. He said he had no friends and that he and his wife interacted like strangers, so he lived a double life pursuing woman after woman. 

Psychologically wounding was his specialty, a craft, he said, perfected in his home growing up and duplicated in his.

Winning at all costs was the mantra he followed in sports, business and relationships, unapologetically.  He was prepared to do anything to ensure the outcome he wanted with no concept of even thinking about the consequences for anyone else.

Of course, because he is personality disordered, he did an excellent job at hiding his true self from me for a very long time. And worse yet, he used it all, to gain my sympathy and my trust by professing to want to change. 

All along the way he made decision after decision to deceive, manipulate, take from and hurt me, even as I, every day, talked about and strived for a life of honesty and authenticity.  Meaning that every choice he made was conscience and purposeful, with complete and total disregard for me, my life and my family. 

Ethics?  Morality?  No, literally not in his vocabulary.  What he did to me was a malicious, willfull, hostile take over and occupation, by deception, leaving in it's wake complete and utter destruction.  Even in the very end, much could have been saved by the simple act of accountability and telling the truth.  Something the personality disordered will never do; they would rather create hardship and terror, on top af abuse and betrayal, rather than give up their false facade.  

This is not a misunderstanding or mistake.  This is abuse.  It is an abusive betrayal of much more than the trust and love of an innocent person, it is an abusive betrayal of the safety, and the humanity of another human being.

Such is the life of Narcissus - "who's soul was sent to the darkest hell."

mel gibson & the blame game

A psychologist hired by ABC offered his professional opinion on Mel Gibson after listening to the most recent tape recordings.

He just smiled, shook his head and said very matter of fact that  Mel Gibson was exhibiting the behavior of all abusers - blaming, blaming, blaming.

Abusers do not accept any accountability for themselves or their actions.  They don't think they have a problem or need help. They are incapable of looking inside themselves because of the desolation that resides there.  This is psychology 101.

You have no doubt seen the recent television commercials where the adult manipulates and deceives the small children, making the analogy of how various businesses deceive the consumer. Everyone sees the behavior, and everyone knows it is wrong. It is the same with abusers, everyone sees it but them.

Summer time and feeling safe

During the last few years I have spent a significant amount of time away from home in order to avoid the man who abused me and who set out to destroy me for telling the truth, which of course exposed him as the very ill man he is. He felt entitled to steal what ever he wanted from me and destroy my life and to do the same to his wife. For years and years he lied to, manipulated, and used both of us, to say nothing of the countless other women. How dare we think we are entitled to the truth of our own lives!!!  

It is about time for me to hit the road again. I am going to visit someone with the same name as my abuser - if he exists - which I doubt, as there are no databases that contain any such person, but that is a whole other post. And then off to the far North to do more research for my book.

I love summer time, or at least I used to. I wish I could spend it doing the things I used to do, going to the places I used to go, always laughing, always smiling and having fun.  But now there is a lot of pain, and a lot of fear, and I feel safer being gone.

I'll keep posting and look forward to your comments and emails!   Have a great summer!   

poor poor me game

"Does anybody really believe that James cheated because of his dad's abuse? It is a cop-out at best and a flat out lie at worst. It was said in order to gain sympathy from the audience when in reality he deserves no sympathy at all. This whole apology tour is intended to do one thing and that is to make people feel sorry for him."

--http://metrowny.com/blogs/archives/690-Jesse-James-interview-leaves-Michelle-Bombshell-McGee-upset-75b0xw00d.html

An individual who commits serial adultery, doing the same thing with woman after woman, and with multiple women at a time, year after year, after year - has deeply ingrained formulas and routines that he, or she, uses. 

The number one method: making others feel sorry for him.  Take note, it is the primary and universal method of this kind of abuser. 

My abuser was an expert at it. He solicited my sympathies on a daily basis for an endless parade of things. His marriage, his job, his childhood, his lack of friends, fun, money, sex, well - you get the picture.

I saw and heard him use this routine with countless others too; and - he is still using it.  In fact, it is now all he has.

He destroyed my life with lies and deceit, and unbelievably goes around asking others to feel sorry for him, even as he enlists them to carry out his revenge, of course the only people he can find to do this are people he has to pay. This is when you know that you are dealing with a personality disorder.

• Instead of actually changing......
• Instead of taking accountability for their actions......
• Instead of honoring the truth.....
• Instead of acting with integrity toward the people they have damaged.....

They continue doing what they have always done. They play the poor poor me game -- yet again.

They make excuses, cry and complain, point fingers and blame. 

The vast majority of people, who all make mistakes, do not do this.  People with any self respect or integrity, do not do this. 

Never.      

Period. 

out of control egos

by citizenusa 

Jesse has one out of control ego. He thinks because he duped Sandra so effectively, he can tell the media anything (his heart is "broken" and the rest of that crap), and everyone will feel bad for him. Are you kidding me? This guy has as much emotion as a snake.

Duping is the specialty of all serial adulterers. We are not talking about someone making one mistake or going through one tough time. We are talking about a disturbed personality whose lying and manipulating is an ingrained pattern of behavior.

The man who abused me spent his whole life duping other women as well as business associates, family and friends - and he has the same out of control ego. 

He also thinks that he can continue duping his wife, other people and the public, but like all people with a damaged psyche he has no idea how other people see him in the light of day once he has been exposed.

Secrecy is essential for these abusers, they do everything they can to isolate their victims, creating a whole world of us against them.

This blogger is right, these men have no emotion. People who are capable of doing what they did are incapable of intimacy and feel no empathy for anyone, and are simply continuing their long worn out act.