A friend of mine shared this today on Facebook…

When I saw this, I was suddenly reminded of a story Bill told me about his ex wife. Bill’s ex is quite narcissistic. She has a way of turning the most trivial and ridiculous issues into huge dramatic events. She would take any mundane situation and turn it into a test of Bill’s love. Inevitably, he would fail, because nothing he did was ever good enough. And sure enough, that’s what she did one day when they stopped at a gas station and she wanted a soda.

Bill went into the gas station and bought his ex wife a plastic bottle of Dr. Pepper. When he handed it to her, she immediately got upset. Why? Because it wasn’t a fountain drink. Ex claimed that if Bill had really loved her and cared about her feelings, he would know that she prefers fountain drinks with ice in them to bottled ones. The rest of the road trip was spoiled by the heavy cloak of resentment that hung over them as they sat in the car, fuming at each other over the wrong soda.

Naturally, this seemingly insignificant event in their marriage turned into a huge row that Bill still occasionally talks about years later. It wasn’t so much about the soda, and the fact that Bill brought her a bottle instead of a fountain drink. It was about her constant need to test him, and to find ways to criticize him for anything and everything. It was her way of trying to stay in charge by turning on her rage machine and forcing Bill to be on the defensive. That kind of behavior, which she frequently indulged, was crazymaking. He never knew what would set her off.

I have experienced the same kind of treatment. It mostly came from my dad, who was not a narcissist, but did suffer from alcoholism. There were times when he could be very reasonable and calm. Then, there were times when he would freak out over something totally innocuous. And it was hard to tell when he would be calm and reasonable, or when he would blow up in my face. It caused a lot of anxiety. And then the anxiety would turn to depression, because there was nothing I could do to anticipate or stop the surprise attacks. All I could try to do was avoid my dad, who was supposed to be a “loved one”.

I think that’s why today, I have such a hard time with people who are verbally abusive. I can’t deal with people who yell at me. That’s a very quick way to get on my no contact list. Verbal abuse is not acceptable. It causes invisible psychic damage that makes it harder to trust. If you’re a decent person, and you don’t enjoy conflicts, you’ll soon find yourself walking on eggshells around this type of person– people who are always looking to be disappointed and critical.

Fortunately, I don’t really think that much about Ex anymore. It’s amazing how liberated I feel from her now, since Bill’s younger daughter started to communicate with him. I now see her as more pathetic than anything else. But I know that she still wreaks havoc toward anyone who is forced to be around her or deal with her. And she is remarkably similar to other narcissistic types we know… like Bill’s wartime boss, who delighted in fucking with people’s heads in Iraq. As if being at war isn’t bad enough!

A person has to be pretty miserable to ruin a road trip over a bottle of Dr. Pepper. Frankly, I love it when Bill brings me snacks. He knows what I like, and even if he brings me something unexpected, I usually end up enjoying it. Because if he brings me a snack, it means he thought of me. That, in and of itself, means he cares. Now, if he brings me something loaded with mushrooms, that would probably hurt my feelings. Bill knows I have a phobia of mushrooms. But Bill would never do that, even if we were fighting. He’s just not an inconsiderate person.

Moving on…

I didn’t actually mean to write about this today. There’s a lot I could rant about. For instance, I saw the below picture on Facebook as I was waking up this morning…

And I could also write about the dipshit white supremacists who plotted to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, supposedly to put her “on trial”. What the fuck? Where do these people come from? And what gives them the idea that they have the right to kidnap elected officials? What did they think the outcome would be?

I think Donald Trump, who is also a narcissist, emboldens these people into thinking that he’s going to let them turn America into their warped vision of what they think it should be. Sad to say, their ideals are steeped in racism, sexism, and classism. On the other hand, if Gretchen Whitmer were a man, I doubt they would have ever tried this. These white supremacist fuckheads think women are inherently weak. I’m just glad they were dumb enough to reveal their plans on social media, so they could be dealt with properly before Governor Whitmer was hurt.

You would think that people could see that our leader, much like Bill’s ex wife, is toxic, crazy, and turns little problems into big ones. This morning, I actually saw a news article about Trump demanding that Hillary Clinton’s emails get made public. Why? I guess it’s because he’s losing big time in the polls and is scrambling to get people to talk about something other than the pandemic. But honestly, in 2020, who cares about Hillary Clinton’s emails? She’s not running for president. It’s a lot of much ado about nothing. Same as the bottle of Dr. Pepper versus a fountain drink.

And good people– good leaders– like Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who enacted policies for public health reasons, end up being targeted by dipshits with guns who think that America should be a place where the women are kept in their places. They’d prefer them to be beautiful, quiet, and docile… and just take the cake, please. It’s positively sickening. But it’s always sickening when abusive jerks get the upper hand.

Anyway… it’s time for breakfast. Bill made me a big snack. 😉