Sometimes, as the AI image shows, insight hits you like a bolt of lightning.

Bill and I slept in today. We both needed to. We’ve both been sick all week, although my sickness has been worse than his has. But Bill is chronically tired, because he doesn’t sleep well as a general rule.

I’ve been sick for nine days now, and it’s definitely cramping my style. I do feel a lot better than I did a few days ago, but I’m left with an annoying productive cough and clogged ears, as well as lingering fatigue. So, last night before bed, I loaded up on meds so I could be sure I’d get some rest. This morning, I finally got up at about 8:30 AM.

Bill and I were talking over breakfast, and he brought up some work he’s doing on his Jungian analysis studies. He took three classes this week, and had a session with his analyst. We got on the subject of narcissism and narcissistic behavior, and how very early childhood experiences can shape someone’s levels of narcissism later in life.

Bill and I have both had a lot of experiences with narcissistic people. Because he’s so empathic, Bill has had more than the usual number of run ins with this type of person. His ex wife is very narcissistic, as was his “war boss”, and our ex landlady. I have a sister who, to me, is very narcissistic.

This week, she sent me a private message. She is the only one of my three sisters who consistently chats with me, although I did hear from another sister earlier this week.

I often cringe when I hear from this sister, because I think she has a rather warped view on some things. There’s usually some drama involved in conversations with her. I don’t think she’s a very introspective person, either.

For many years, she’d get me involved in dramas that I didn’t want to be part of, giving me her warped views on things. I’d get upset about what she told me. But as I got older, I realized that her perceptions were often kind of skewed and sometimes pretty distorted. Sometimes, she told obvious lies, and that continues today.

This week, my sister told me a story about some extended family members. It sounded like her story had some fractured facts and a few distortions within it. Maybe some of what she said was factual, but it sounded like she’d kind of stretched the truth a bit, to present a soap opera like drama to me and maybe stir up some shit.

The holidays are coming, and I noticed that this year, I haven’t received anything about our usual family “shindig” in Natural Bridge, Virginia. I don’t know if anything is going on this year. But, I also noticed that I don’t care. I’m thousands of miles away from home, so I wouldn’t be attending, regardless. And I’ve come to realize that even if I was “back home”, I probably wouldn’t attend the reunion. I don’t feel like I belong there anymore.

One thing I’ve learned about narcissists is that they love to cause stress during the holidays. And while I’m not sure how many narcissists my family has, I do think there are a few folks in our family who have those tendencies. There are also a lot of alcoholics, and alcoholics also tend to behave like narcissists, particularly when they drink.

So here it is, late October, and my sister was relaying this weird story about prior interactions she’d had with extended family members. I wasn’t sure why she was involving me. She told me it was because I understood the dynamics, but she mentioned things that these people had said about me… and I have a feeling she was trying to upset me. And yet, I felt kind of detached. I told her I didn’t care. I’ve probably seen most of those people for the last time, anyway.

As we signed off, she instructed me not to talk to anyone about our discussion. She didn’t want them to come at her. As I thought about it, I thought… “Wow… how fucked up. She started a chat with me, dumped all of this weird family related bullshit on me, and then told me to keep quiet about it. Then, she signed off.” Or else what?

I didn’t make any promises to her, which is why I’m writing about this here. I haven’t seen my family in twelve years. In a way, that’s sad, because I do love my family. But the older I get, the more I’m happy to be away from that stuff, living a healthy life with Bill. With Bill, I can talk about anything.

Interactions like these only drive home the fact that I feel better on my own. I love my sister, and I understand her wanting to try to unpack these ideas she has. But I don’t think they’re entirely rooted in reality, and I don’t need the aggravation. I feel like it’s her way of keeping me stuck in the dysfunction, when I’d really rather not go there.

So… about that flash of insight I had… We were discussing the narcissists we know, and I brought up Donald Trump, and how he never got what he needed when he was very young and vulnerable. His mother was ill when he was born, and she wasn’t the most demonstrative person. He was deprived of the love and affection he needed.

Ditto to the other narcissists I’ve known. They’ve somehow been neglected or abused, especially by the female nurturers in their lives. Not everyone who has been neglected turns out in this way, but if there’s a tendency toward it, I think it can happen.

I have often wondered why my older sister has such a different view of our mother than I do. And this morning, a potential explanation came to me. My sister was born about 20 months after our older sister. My mom was just barely 22 years old when she had her, and she was a young wife of an Air Force officer. My mom is a loving person, but she’s reserved and not very demonstrative. Sometimes, she can be cold.

I realized that maybe my sister needed more from our mother than she got when she was very young. Although I know our mom loves all of us, I also know how she can be, especially when she’s stressed or in a bad mood. She was raised practically as an only child, because her brother was 13 years older than she is. My dad, by contrast, was one of nine– the second eldest. His mother was a lot more hands on than my mom’s mom was.

I looked at that… and then I realized that I am 8, 11, and 13 years younger than my sisters are. And while Mom was pretty hands off with me, I had three older sisters to give me the nurturing that she didn’t. My next older sister was especially attentive. I remember her reading me bedtime stories and singing Lawrence Welk’s “goodnight” song to me. I remember her sometimes protecting me, too. My second older sister never got that.

I also mostly grew up in one place, and had a lot of people in my community who looked after me after my sisters moved out of the house. She, as a bonafide Air Force brat, didn’t get that. She and my other sisters moved a lot, and had to rely on themselves even more than I did. And I did pretty much have to raise myself.

Maybe that’s why we see things so differently. Maybe she’d disagree, but it definitely gave me some food for thought. I get along fine with our mom. It was our dad who fucked me up. She, by contrast, preferred our dad… who, when she was growing up, was often away on Air Force missions. He was also not as alcoholic in those days.

Anyway… that was just something that came to mind. I had never considered that before.

Well, that’s enough ruminating for today. Hope your Saturday is insightful and fun.