celebrities, condescending twatbags, narcissists

Some people are just greedy scumbags…

This morning, we enjoyed a bit of a “lie in”, since Bill has the day off work. When I woke up, I read some more of my current book, Things I Should Have Said by Jamie Lynn Spears. I can’t say it’s the greatest book I’ve read, but I have learned some new things. According to Jamie Lynn, her dad, Jamie Spears, was quite a controlling, alcoholic nightmare who had a habit of “taking off” when things got too difficult at home. I already had an inkling about Jamie Spears, not because I am a fan of the Spears sisters, but because over the years, it’s been impossible to avoid seeing them in the news.

A year ago, Britney Spears was very publicly fighting to end a thirteen year conservatorship, controlled mostly by her father. She had no control over anything in her life, right down to her ability to reproduce. She was forced to have an intrauterine device, to prevent her from getting pregnant. Although she was deemed unable to manage her career, her money, her romantic relationships, or make her own medical decisions, Britney continued to work. And lots of people in her family profited from what she did– everything from concerts to selling records. Britney Spears has been a very bankable star for years. But her family– especially her father– have basically been using her for her money and fame.

Jamie Lynn Spears has also worked as an actress and singer. She hasn’t been as successful as her sister, the “Princess of Pop” has, but as far as I can tell, she doesn’t seem to suffer from any mental health issues. The one thing she did do that got everyone upset was get pregnant at age sixteen. She writes that she was pressured to have an abortion, and her parents became so intrusive that she threatened to file for emancipation. That plan was eventually called off, when her parents finally relented and allowed her to make her own decisions for herself and her baby. As I read about Jamie Lynn as a teenager– a girl with an actual career on Nickelodeon– I was reminded of Jennette McCurdy’s much better book, I’m Glad My Mom Died. In both of these situations, there were beautiful, talented young people involved, working and making enough money to support greedy parents, who apparently saw them as possessions.

I can’t say that I’m getting the greatest impressions of Jamie Lynn Spears as I read her book. She seems a little full of herself and a bit jealous of her sister. I also think she had a pretty substandard education, based on the quality of writing in her book. But I do have some compassion for the fact that her parents were basically leeches. Especially her dad, whom at this point of the book, she doesn’t seem to have a lot of regard for anymore. I remember a year ago, when Britney was in the news a lot and Jamie Lynn’s book was first released, Britney seemed rightfully pissed off at her whole family, including Jamie Lynn. It made me feel sorry for Britney. She’s been used and abused for too many years. All the while, there was this narrative put out to the public that they were a happy, close-knit, caring family… at least before Britney started having the well-publicized mental health problems that had prompted the conservatorship in the first place.

So I came into my office and sat down on my new office chair, navigated to my blog, and started looking through my posts. Someone had hit an old one that I’d forgotten about, so I decided to read it. Then I noticed the next post. It was a May 2019 post titled “All my kids”. This was a post about Ex’s current husband, a man I refer to as #3. I had found him on Facebook, and noticed some posts from 2012… posts about Ex’s kids, all five of whom he was referring to as “his”. I got angry as I looked at them, especially since Ex did the same thing to Bill, with her eldest son. She encouraged them to bond. She wanted Bill to think of her son with #1 as his son. She got his name changed, though I don’t think she ever did it legally, since it costs money. She somehow got a document made by the State Department that listed Bill as ex stepson’s father, even though he wasn’t. Ex stepson was born in Germany, and Bill came into his life as a father figure when he was a toddler. Bill went along with it, because Ex had told him stories about #1, claiming that he was abusive and “crazy”. Because she was his wife and he thought he loved her, he trusted her. He believed her stories. They were lies. And she did the same thing to Bill when they divorced. She told #3 lies about Bill… and made Bill’s kids call him “Dad”, as if they were possessions who just needed to be reprogrammed to accept a new man as their father.

Now, Ex’s kids aren’t stars. They aren’t famous. But she uses them, in much the same way Jamie and Lynne Spears use their children. She lies to them to keep them under control, and she manipulates people to put out a false narrative. Jamie Spears was trying to convince everyone that Britney Spears needed him to control her life, “for her own good”. But he was just using her.

Lately, younger daughter has been sending us videos, mostly about her cooking projects. She and Bill have been bonding over their love of making food. I think it’s because they’re both compassionate, nurturing types of people. When I see how much she loves her real dad, it makes me angry to think about #3 putting up public pictures of her on Facebook and calling her his daughter. Under one photo, he had captioned that the “name change” would soon be final, as if it’s going to be this great, healing decision. But younger daughter doesn’t even like #3 as a friend, let alone love him as her “dad”. It’s a fucking lie for him to refer to her as his daughter, and it’s out there because Ex was using and manipulating people to promote her hateful, narcissistic agenda. That post is public, probably, because Ex was hoping Bill would see it and be hurt. Fortunately, at the time, I made a point of not looking for information about Ex or the kids. I was very angry with all of them. But now, I’m curious… and as we all know, curiosity killed the cat. 😉

Looking back at that old post, I figured out that #3’s mother was posting comments. The comments she left indicate that she believed it was appropriate for Ex to have Bill’s daughters’ names legally changed. Younger daughter later explained to us that it really bothered Ex that her children’s legal names weren’t the same as her name. She also has to totally discard the fathers of her children… although I see that #3 and #1 are Facebook friends. Her daughters are also friends with #1, but they aren’t friends with Bill. It’s because he won’t buy into Ex’s lies and bullshit.

Younger daughter actively avoids being in contact with Ex now. When she does talk to her, Ex claims that #3 wants to see their “grandchildren”. But they aren’t his grandchildren, because he is not her father. Furthermore, he’s not even interested in her, or her kids. I think he’s only interested in older daughter, because she does all the work in their house and takes care of his son.

Ex still tries to maintain that fake bond, though. She’s tried to get younger daughter to think of #3’s mother as her grandmother. But younger daughter doesn’t even seem to like #3’s mom, mainly because she made disparaging comments about younger daughter’s desire to be a wife and mom. #3’s mom basically said, in a pretty disdainful way, that just being a wife and mother was a waste of her life. I guess this shouldn’t surprise us at all, though, since Ex pushed Bill’s mom out of the girls’ lives and promoted his stepmother as their grandmother. And now, stepmother-in-law has posted things on Facebook referring to younger daughter’s children as hers, even as she seems to forget that the only reason she even knows Bill’s daughters is because of her stepson… a man she seems to believe Ex’s lies about. It’s just so fucked up… so many lies, and so much exploitation. If Ex could, I bet she’d get a conservatorship over her children’s lives, so she could harness their earning power and capacity to work for her… never allowing them to leave her sphere and have their own lives.

Being on the edge of this toxic crap has bothered me for years. I guess reading Jamie Lynn’s book reminds me that there are families that are just as– or even more– fucked up as Ex’s is. I look forward to finishing Jamie Lynn Spears’ book, and reviewing it. There’s definitely a lot to unpack. I don’t find her particularly likable, but I do think she was used and exploited. But Britney definitely got shafted by her family. I’m surprised she trusts anyone. And the more I hear about life behind the social media facade put out there by Ex and #3, the more I think her kids have been shafted, to varying degrees. It’s so sad.

Well… I suppose I should do something less stress inducing. It’s already 1:00 PM, and I haven’t practiced guitar yet. So I think I’ll quit writing this shit, and get on with my day. Have a good one.

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condescending twatbags, family, holidays, mental health, narcissists, psychology, social media, Twitter

Christmas should not be a time for a grand performance…

I wrote a “mushy” post yesterday. It was because I realized how much more I enjoy Christmas than I did when I was younger. Watching my husband put a duvet cover on a weighted blanket he bought for me gave me all kinds of warm, fuzzy feelings. I realized that I don’t care about things. I care about the one person who makes me really happy and loves me for who I am. And Christmas is fun and relaxing for us, because we’re compatible and satisfied with each other. It’s a beautiful thing. Last night, Bill read my post and cried.

I’ve written a lot of posts about Christmases past… ones with my family of origin, and one that directly involved Ex, who is the Grand Poobah of Holiday Misery. Last year, I wrote a post about this topic that I absolutely stand by today. The post was titled “I refuse to let anyone mess up my holidays, and it’s a good policy to have.” It was about realizing that we all get a vote. Christmas is for everyone who wants to celebrate it. It should be a time of peace, love, understanding, good will, and enjoying the good things in life. If you’re Christian, it is, above all, about honoring the birth Jesus Christ, who died for the sins of man.

The religious part of the holiday is not what I want to focus on today, although I know it’s important to many people. What I want to focus on is the stress that inevitably comes from all holidays, but especially THIS one. Christmas is, after all, the biggest holiday of the year. But when it comes down to it, it’s also just a day. It shouldn’t be a day for grand performances, and by that, I don’t mean actual performances involving singing or dancing. I mean people who do things to make a judgmental point, being sanctimonious, or trying to be someone they’re not.

This morning, just before breakfast, I read an AITA (am I the asshole) post on God’s page about a woman whose turn it was to host Christmas. She decided that she wanted her dinner to be “dry”– as in, no booze allowed. When I first saw the title of the post, I immediately had some sympathy for her position. It was, after all, her house. If she doesn’t want to serve alcohol in her house, that’s her prerogative. But then I read the actual post. I note that the Redditors labeled her the “asshole”.

Yup. I agree. She is the asshole.

It sounds like the OP unilaterally decided that there shouldn’t be any boozing in her house. It’s her right to decide that, of course, but her attitude toward her husband’s family is not very kind or charitable. She doesn’t make a polite or respectful request, nor does it sound like she told people a long time in advance about her rule. What would have happened if her sister-in-law hadn’t called to ask about what she should bring? It sounds like that was when she mentioned her “no booze” rule, not when she issued the invitations.

I would have more empathy for the OP’s position if she had stated outright that she preferred the dinner to be booze free, rather than allowing the rule to be spread on the family grapevine. And then, she reveals that she thinks people in her husband’s family are “childish” and need to “grow up”. Those are insulting remarks that aren’t very Christmassy at all.

Her sister-in-law decided to host her own Christmas dinner, which she is well within her rights to do. And the family has decided they would prefer that invitation to the OP’s, who refused to budge on her no booze rule, with no hope of compromise. And she assumes they are going to the sister-in-law’s house because they can’t stay sober for one day, not because she was disrespectful to them.

Sister-in-law even invited the OP and her husband to their house, so there wouldn’t be any booze in the OP’s home. But she’s butthurt about it and refusing to go… and she’s “making” her husband stay home and spend Christmas with her. As if she has the right to dictate where another adult spends their time… I wonder how she would like it if her husband told her she “couldn’t go” somewhere she wanted to go. Some people would call that abusive.

What if the OP had compromised and allowed beer and wine below a certain ABV? Maybe she could have allowed wine only during dinner, or operated a “cash bar” set up, with people paying for libations. The money raised could then be donated to an agreed upon charity, or put in a pot for the next family gathering. Or maybe she could have come up with some other compromise that didn’t involve shame and judgment. That might have cut down on the drunkenness and sloppy behavior, while still allowing adults to have some fun. If she really didn’t want any alcohol in her home, she could have stated it kindly and lovingly, instead of with a judgmental and insulting attitude. Even if drinking alcohol to excess is unhealthy and can lead to obnoxious behavior, offering to host a family dinner and self-righteously lecturing people about their habits on a holiday is very poor form. No wonder alternate plans were made.

And then there’s the “grand performance” intended to put someone in a good or miraculous light.

How sweet.

Against my better judgment, I took a look at Ex’s Twitter page last night. She made several posts directed at Oreo, Betty Crocker, Wilton Cakes, and Spangler Candy. She videoed her supposedly severely autistic son, whom she has said is “non-verbal”, and her youngest daughter. They were decorating cookies and making what appears to be a train made with Oreos, frosting, and candies. She’s presenting her son as “miraculous” somehow, as he reads aloud, reminding everyone again that he’s “non-verbal”. And yet, obviously he ISN’T really non-verbal. Non-verbal would mean he can’t or won’t talk. Obviously he does have the power of speech and uses it. She’s mentioned before times when her son was “trained” to say things (that was her word for it). It serves her when he seems worse off than he actually is, as it gets her sympathy. But she’d rather he not be worse off in reality, because that makes life harder for her… or her daughters, who are evidently the ones who look after him most of the time.

I didn’t watch the whole video, because hearing Ex’s voice was too upsetting for Bill. But she also taught her son a song and dance, which he gamely performed on the video. I was torn between feeling good for him that he was trying so hard and having some fun, and feeling disgust for Ex, because it’s obvious she’s hoping to go viral and, perhaps, score some money from big companies. I don’t think her videos will get that kind of traction, but she plainly has high hopes. It seems to me that maybe it would be better to turn off the camera and focus on her time with her family, rather than trying to pitch her son’s handiwork with sweets to corporations.

@BettyCrocker⁊ Autistic children are amazing, beautiful perfectionists!!! How do you like ***** sugar cookies?

@Oreo⁊ a gift for you from ****!!!

I could see making these kinds of posts for friends and family members, but she only tagged big companies, and it was kind of obvious that she hoped they’d think the display was cute and offer her some kind of sponsorship or endorsement deal. Once again, it looks like she’s making her offspring perform in the hopes of scoring some “easy” (for her) loot. I can see now why a couple of her kids have moved far away from her. Because I have a feeling that this kind of thing is a regular occurrence, especially at Christmas. There’s an image to project to strangers, but very little love for actual family members. I also never see her posting about her husband, who was so much “better” than Bill.

The funny thing is, I’d bet $100 that Bill had a much nicer holiday than they did… And he also got to share messages with his mom and his daughter yesterday. There were no performances or pretenses. It was just everyone being themselves and genuinely wishing each other well. Nobody got drunk or obnoxious or had a meltdown, either. And… everything I bought for Bill is paid for in full. I don’t know if he can say the same thing, but I do know that he can pay for everything if he needs to. Ex can’t say that. In fact, she was recently lamenting about how she had no money for Christmas… but she had lots of money for sweets, which she is now promoting on Twitter. Go figure.

Anyway… it’s not my business. I need to end this post, too. We have a lunch date. Hopefully, steroid mad Arran will stay out of trouble while we’re out… my first time out in a long while. If he stays out of trouble, maybe that will be our Christmas miracle. 😉

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music, narcissists, Twitter

The Greatest Love of All…

I remember the very first time I ever heard the song, “The Greatest Love of All”. It was the early 80s, and I was in middle school. There was a talent show, and a young Black boy sang George Benson’s version of “The Greatest Love of All”, a song that Whitney Houston would make famous just a few years later. I remember the boy who sang was quite talented. I enjoyed the song and its message of hope for the future. I later got into Whitney Houston’s music. I loved her debut album, and used to listen to it all the time. Although I quit being such a fan of hers as I got older, I always respected her immense musical gifts, beauty, and charisma. It’s truly sad that she met her end in 2012 at age 48. It’s even sadder that her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, died in eerily similar circumstances when she was 22 years old, just three years later.

George Benson’s version of a song that Whitney Houston made huge a few years later.
Too bad she didn’t love herself enough to stay away from illegal drugs.

When I got older, I stopped liking “The Greatest Love of All” as much. The lyrics started to sound cloying and cliched, and it became the butt of cheesy jokes about schmaltzy songs. And now that I’m a cynical woman of 50 years, the childless second wife of a man whose first wife spews such lofty platitudes as she mistreats people close to her, I don’t view the song with as much idealism. I probably would do well to go somewhere and realize there’s still a lot of beauty in the world, in spite of everything bad that is happening right now.

A year ago, Bill and I visited Slovenia and Croatia, and I was mesmerized and STUNNED by how astonishingly beautiful both places are, especially at this time of year. Slovenia was particularly gorgeous, with its rugged Julian Alps. This time of year, the trees turn so many different colors, all in concert to create a gorgeous backdrop. When I look at such natural beauty, I’m distracted by some of the awful things that are going on today. From rising cases of COVID-19 to political strife to war, things are quite messed up lately. An idealistic song like “The Greatest Love of All” seems kind of “pollyannaish”… unrealistic and ridiculous, even.

So why am I writing about “The Greatest Love of All” this morning? It’s because of Ex. Lately, she’s been posting about a movement on Twitter called My Peak Challenge. I just looked it up. According to its Twitter page, My Peak Challenge is “a global community rooted in the belief that we can all effect positive change in our lives while helping others.”

On the surface, this sounds like a great idea. And for those who take it seriously and actually walk the walk, it probably is an excellent idea. However, I know that Ex doesn’t walk the walk. She presents herself as someone who is misunderstood and desperately searching for safety and security. But in reality, she presents a false image that hides a person who is capable of unapologetically inflicting great pain and damage to other people. I know this from 20 years of living with her ex husband, who is truly one of the kindest, most decent people I know. I know from talking to people in the family who have been her victims. So, when Ex posts stuff like this:

Just sharing what LIFE is all about… LOVE! You, every person & your Creator deserve unconditional love from YOU! It’s not always easy, especially to love oneself, but do it!!

I smell the heavy aroma of bullshit. And I am reminded of the treacly strains of the song, “The Greatest Love of All”, a song that promises that “the greatest love of all” is learning to love yourself. Maybe if Ex didn’t feel so wounded, she wouldn’t be so hurtful to others. I realize that I’m speculating about how she feels… but I think anyone who publicly refers to herself as a “bastard child”, probably doesn’t have the greatest self esteem. She’s a long way from loving herself. And because of that, she doesn’t really love anyone else, either, in spite of all of the flowery platitudes she puts on social media.

Right now, Ex’s Twitter page is littered with pictures of a certain actor from Scotland. She has fixated on a character he plays as the ideal man. She’s made a lot of comments about his looks and demeanor, even though she’s a married woman. I know, from being married to her ex husband, that she has certain ideas about what a man is supposed to be like, and how he’s supposed to behave, particularly toward her. I also know that she tries to mold her spouses into that person. The trouble is, it’s hard work to try to be someone you’re not. It’s even harder to be convincing in that role. Acting is a craft that has to be developed, even if someone has natural talent. That’s why not everyone can be a successful actor. I also know that even when changes are made, she’s never satisfied with the results, and the changes are very difficult for the other person to maintain, anyway. And she’s so ungrateful and resentful that the other person also becomes resentful. She wants her fantasy to be a reality, and that’s just not possible.

I found this recent comment by Ex rather telling:

will ye please grow your hair long again? I can make ‘hair jewelry’. It’s set w/quartz or white sapphire. I’d love to make one with one of yours, Sophie’s, Cait’s & Charles’ curls, woven together. You represent what @Writer_DG meant & can literally save my marriage.

This doesn’t sound too good to me. Of course, it’s not my business… except that if she and #3 are on the skids, it might mean that she’ll be trying to hit up Bill’s family again for help. Because, as far as I know, #3 is the sole breadwinner at their house… unless, of course, older daughter is working.

When Ex posts this kind of thing:

Breathtaking words @Writer_DG ,truly. A turn of phrase that is what everyone needs to hear. “…your place…” ::swoons:: You have a way of capturing that which the human heart needs in order to feel safe, to feel loved. Such simple phrases that can completely alter a relationship.

I am once again reminded of Annie Wilkes, of Stephen King’s Misery. And I wonder if she has lost intimacy in her marriage and is trying to find it in romantic fiction, television, and films. I know from younger daughter that she pushed her kids to be actors. She might not have realized that encouraging her children to become actors might not work for her, because that would mean they would be developing skills that would help them be convincingly fake. She continues, though…

The curls the curls the curls… I would give anything to touch the curls and get a snippet of one!! :: faints at the thought:;

I’ll admit, the actor Ex is gushing about is handsome. But she has a husband. He’s obviously not enough for her, even though he works hard, and has stuck with her for 20 years… in spite of her sheer craziness and abuse. I don’t know why he stays. It could be because he knows that if he leaves, she will suck him dry, and alienate him from his children. Or it could be because he has nowhere else to go. When Bill got away from her, he had a career to return to, and he was still in his 30s. #3 is middle aged, and doesn’t have a high paying job. He has with Ex a daughter in college, and a son who will probably never be able to live on his own. Ex is looking elsewhere for attention, though:

I’m a #peaker also! I won’t intrude, but please consider messaging me. I could use some Peaker support!!!

If she’s serious about wanting to be a force for good, then more power to her. But I’ve been watching long enough to know that this is just a facade. She’s even trying to build a false history… as Ex is from Texas, but lately, she’s been trying to convince people that she’s from Scotland.

See the ridiculous thinking we have to put up with over here? I want to go back to MY HOMELAND of Origin! As Ben Franklin said…”if you can hold onto it.” With each passing election, democracy dies a little bit more in the nation created by it. Remember what King George said…

There’s more, of course. I could post it all, but I’m not going to, because I think anyone who reads this will get the point. I don’t even disagree with a lot of what Ex posts, at least when she’s posting about politics and how awful the Republican Party has become in the wake of Donald Trump. I just know that in reality, she’s not at all the way she portrays herself. Or, she will say it or write it, but she won’t actually mean it… at least not for her. These things apply to other people, not her.

I think Ex is one reason why I find Meghan Markle so oddly fascinating. I don’t like Meghan Markle much, because what I’ve seen of her reminds me a lot of Ex, and all the fake bullshit she peddles. She says things that sound good, but in reality, it’s all fake, and done simply to promote her image. Actions speak louder than words. Talk is cheap. It’s easy to say and write things that sound good, but if you spend all your time bleating out stuff, you have much less time to actually do anything worthwhile.

In any case, having been married to Bill for 20 years, I can say that if he couldn’t make her feel “safe”, no one can. Bill is truly one of the gentlest, kindest, most loving and considerate people I have ever met. We work well together, and I’m not sure there are that many men out there that are as compatible with me as Bill is. So Ex did me a kindness when she decided to divorce Bill. Maybe I could even say that she did something as a “Peaker”, when she divorced Bill. I’m sure she doesn’t see it that way, though. She’s another one of those people who doesn’t see other perspectives too clearly.

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narcissists, Trump, Twitter

A deep dive into the narcissist’s “false self”…

Good morning, all. I’ve been awake since about 3:00 am. Bill is on another business trip, and I’m alone here with Noyzi and Arran. Arran woke up at 3:00, needing to pee. Prednisolone makes him have to go to the bathroom a lot. Poor guy didn’t even make it to the grass before he was cocking his leg. When we came back inside, he wanted food. Prednisolone also makes him hungry. I gave him a little snack, and we went back to bed. I tried to sleep and got close to falling into slumber, but then he’d wake me up again. At 5:30, he jumped off the bed, and ran downstairs, demanding his breakfast.

I must say that chemo has affected Arran in a mostly positive way. As long as it keeps him going until Bill can be home again, I don’t mind the side effects. Arran obviously feels a lot better, and that’s what matters to me.

So now to delve into today’s topic. I want to write about the so-called “false self”. You know what that is, right? That’s the fake veneer narcissistic people put on in an effort to fool people into not seeing them for who they really are. If you watch any of the best YouTube narcissism channels, you will hear that term brought up a lot– the “false self”. Basically, it refers to a thick layer of bullshit meant to mislead the masses into thinking the narcissist is a decent person.

Donald Trump is pretty good at creating a false self that fools people. Or, at least he used to be. Lately, as he stares down multiple legal challenges, he seems to be more and more deranged and unhinged. But he says a lot of things… makes a lot of promises. For some reason, many people still believe him, even though he lies constantly, and has a long history of not honoring his promises. Like most narcissists, Trump has a certain charm. He says what some people want to hear, and speaks in a way that doesn’t come across as weak or “woke”. Some people respond to that the way Pavlov’s dogs responded to the sound of the bell.

The crazy thing is, Donald Trump has completely fucked up the Republican Party. The sensible Republicans are being punished for his fuckery. People are now voting blue, not because they agree with Democrats, but because Trump is an autocratic psycho who wants to be a dictator. But a lot of people are blinded by his charisma, and they refuse to see what is plainly in front of their own faces. I don’t understand how people think Trump will do anything for them. He has never done anything for anyone but HIMSELF. And all you have to do is see what he does instead of listening to what he says. What he says is 100 percent the false self at work. He’s not a reliable reporter on his own work.

Farron explains why the Republicans are screwed… this man is the poster child for malignant narcissism.

On a much smaller scale, you can easily see rank and file, garden variety narcissists presenting a false self. I see Ex doing it all the time on Twitter. Watch her on social media, and you’ll see her posting all sorts of crap that is surprisingly “woke” and progressive. It’s almost as if she’s a different person than she was twenty years ago, when I first became aware of her existence, or thirty years ago, when she was married to my husband. If I were to assess her based only on her Twitter posts, I might think she was a rising star in the woke brigade. But because I know a lot more about her than what she presents, I know that she’s presenting a false self. I don’t know her reasons for doing this, to be honest. She seems determined to reach out to perfect strangers and celebrities, the vast majority of whom she will never meet in person. But to people who know her offline, she’s completely different. Or, at least she’s different to the people who have an intimate relationship to her.

Below are two very recent tweets by Ex…

Next, she tweets to her favorite author, apparently “crushed” that she didn’t get to meet her in a major US city close to where she lives:

Wait wait wait… Diana was in …? Oh Damn, how am I so far out of the loop! I’m only four hours away and I’d have been there had I known!!!

😭

Diana, do you have a newsletter or something to which I may subscribe????

And here, she claims to “believe the best about people”. But she called up my mother-in-law at Christmas, as Bill was on his way to stay with her, and told her to think twice about letting him in her house, because she claimed Bill was “dangerous”. She told Bill’s stepmother that he’s a violent pervert who hates women. She told Bill’s kids that he had an affair with me, and that he abandoned them for me. None of that is even remotely true. But to read what she puts out to the masses, you’d think she was the most decent person in New England. Watch what she does, though… don’t listen to what she says or believe what she posts. Her words are mostly lies.

Her claim that she believes the best in people is pure bullshit. But her truth doesn’t fit the false self.

And finally, she posted to a doctor who was tweeting about a child who was sexually abused. Ex wrote this, which I think probably is the truth:

Did they make an arrest? This story is my story. I need to know. My assault was reported to my mother by me and she didn’t believe me. He went free and I was beaten for lying. Please tell me that they made an arrest in your case?

I do believe Ex was abused. She isn’t lying about that. But when she discovered that abuse eventually happened in her house, to her own daughters, she didn’t do anything but stop the car and scream at the perpetrator. Then, some time later, when he thought it had blown over somewhat, she brought up the abuse out of the blue, saying she should have left him on the side of the road. She never told Bill what had happened on her watch. She didn’t think of her daughters’ safety. She knew that if she told Bill what happened, he would take steps to protect his daughters. But her need for control and presenting that facade of being “awesome” was more important than being a good mother and getting help for her kids.

I’m not saying that wasn’t a difficult situation for her to deal with. It was. But she’s constantly behaving as if she’s the most functional person alive. And we know she’s far from being functional. To me, it’s fascinating to watch. I don’t understand narcissism. I know it when I see it, but I don’t understand it. All I can think is that narcissists are basically black holes of people. They are never fulfilled or satisfied. And they can’t share or be truly authentic. It must be a really miserable way to live.

I know… she really isn’t a threat to me anymore. I should probably just move on with my life. Except she has made it plain that she doesn’t ever completely let people go. Aside from that, I find her very interesting to observe. She’s a fascinating character, especially if you know the truth. And given that it’s October, it’s only fitting. This is the spookiest month of the year, right?

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narcissists, politicians, royals, Uncategorized, YouTube

Speaking the “Queen’s English”, doesn’t make you a Brit, Ex…

Recently, I read and reviewed UK journalist Tom Bower’s book, Revenge, which is all about Meghan Markle. As I read the book, I also followed H.G. Tudor’s YouTube channel, in which Mr. Tudor read the book to his followers and explained what was happening within the lens of a narcissist. H.G. Tudor claims to be a sociopathic narcissist, and he says that gives him special insight to obvious narcissists. Tudor believes that Markle is a narcissist. Frankly, I agree with him, but I obviously don’t know for absolute certain. It’s just a hunch.

Let’s just say I clearly see the signs of narcissism and facade building, and I am fairly convinced that most of what Meghan Markle does publicly is an act. It would stand to reason that she’s playing a role, since she was most recently pursuing an acting career. She is literally an actress, albeit not a very convincing one, in my opinion. I’ve been around a lot of narcissists in my lifetime, as most of us have. Hell, Donald Trump has subjected the entire world to narcissistic abuse, so it’s safe to say that the vast majority of the world’s population have been exposed to the toxicity that comes from narcissism and narcissistic people. In my view, spotting a narcissist or narcissistic behavior is kind of like spotting pornography. You can’t always define it, but you know it when you see it.

H.G. Tudor explains why he thinks Meghan is a narcissist.

H.G. Tudor is not the only person who thinks Meghan Markle is a narcissist. So does The Body Language Guy, Jesus Enrique Rosas, who has done a bunch of YouTube videos analyzing Meghan Markle’s body language and nonverbal behaviors. If you look around YouTube, you will find many people making videos about Markle and her apparently self-serving behaviors, to include a thinly veiled ambition to someday be the President of the United States or some other high ranking political leader. God help us… I hope the country figures out that obvious narcissists don’t make good leaders. Because besides being abusive and lacking in empathy for others, narcissists are FAKE… and they are constantly putting up a facade that is meant to fool people into thinking they are better people than they are.

Jesus Enrique Rosas talks about the speculation about Meghan’s political aspirations.
Lady Colin Campbell says that she thinks Meghan is a narcissist, too. I’m not the only one, obviously.

So why am I writing about this today? I had actually meant to write about an entirely different topic. I changed my mind when I checked out Ex’s latest tweets, most of which give me a good laugh. Lately, she’s been tweeting incessantly about a certain TV show about Scotland, excitedly claiming she is, herself, a member of a famous Highland family. She has also, more than once, expressed a desire to learn “Scots Gaelic”, as she claims that it’s her “native tongue” (even though she was born to US citizens in Texas). Like Meghan Markle, Ex is very narcissistic, and she isn’t satisfied with who she is. So she goes to great lengths to try to convince people that she is someone she’s not. The harder she tries, the more unconvincing she is.

As far as I know, this obsession with Scotland is a somewhat recent development for Ex. According to Bill, when they were still married, Ex didn’t speak incessantly about being a “Scot”. She was then a fan of romantic historical fiction and fantasy, as she apparently is now, but she wasn’t claiming to be from a renowned Scottish family. Given that she was adopted, it would have been a strange claim to be making. But Ex has since apparently met her birth parents, and has openly disparaged them. So why she would want to claim any ancestral ties to them– people who had an extramarital affair, conceived Ex, and then gave her up for adoption, where she landed with abusive and neglectful parents– I don’t know. Obviously, they weren’t great people, even if there’s any truth to her claim that one or both of them came from a famous Scottish clan from the Highlands. What they did is, in fact, very ordinary behavior that had rather tragic consequences on many levels.

Like Ex, I have heavily Scottish roots, and I am proud of them. I have been to Scotland several times, and I used to live in England, which is where my second highest DNA concentration of ancestry comes from. I’ve also visited Ireland, which is where the third highest concentration comes from in my DNA heritage, though by much less than Scotland and England. I do feel a kinship to the UK, not just because I have the DNA from there, but because I have also spent a lot of time there, have friends from there, and it’s just become a really familiar place for me, just as Germany has.

BUT– I am still an AMERICAN. I don’t claim to be British, in spite of having a huge amount of British DNA. Most of my family came to the United States in the 1600s and eventually made their way to the western side of Virginia. That’s more like my home, even though I have never officially lived in Rockbridge County or its environs. I was born and mostly raised in the Tidewater area of Virginia, and even though I have no family living there, aside from my mother, that is also my home. Not Britain… in spite of my very British heritage, and in spite of the fact that I feel at ease there and obviously look like the natives, especially when I’m in Scotland.

I have lived in Germany now for ten years of my life, but I don’t have a lot of German heritage. I know I have some, because I’ve found obvious Germans in my family tree, and I doubt the Germans I found were actually Brits who were adopted by German families. The DNA tests don’t seem to recognize my German ancestors, even though they recognize the Native American woman who got pregnant by one of my ancestors in the 1600s. I guess this just proves that the DNA tests aren’t necessarily the clearest picture of where a person’s origins are. I’ve been in Germany for a long time, but I’m not German. I’m still American. Living here, learning the language, and appropriating the culture would not make me German, no matter how long my stay is. If I became a German citizen, I guess that would make me more of a German, at least by means of a passport. But really, at least culturally speaking, I’d still be an American.

On some level, I suspect Ex is engaging in some fantasy, building a story that makes her feel better about herself. What I find interesting, and potentially problematic, is that she is presenting her bullshit to the masses on Twitter. There are people who actually know her, and know the realities of who she is. People who know her real story probably laugh at her claims of being descended from a famous Scottish family, as if that somehow makes her special. Nevertheless, Ex still tries to put out this false image– the same thing Meghan Markle does– as if she hopes to convince strangers to accept her for what she’s not.

If you do some digging into Meghan Markle’s life, you quickly realize that her false “Diana-esque” humanitarian facade is not real. She knows how to act like a nice person when people are watching, but based on multiple accounts by credible people, it’s not genuine. Furthermore, Meghan has lied about a lot of things, like, for instance, her assertion that she didn’t know much about Prince Harry before they dated. That is obviously a whopper of a lie, and it has been debunked by people who actually know her. And yet, in spite of people who know her reporting the truth of what they know to others, Meghan has still tried to convince us of the veracity of her obvious lie.

Same thing with Donald Trump. There are many examples of his egregiously bad behavior… but people will still swear up and down that he was sent here by Jesus Christ to save America, and that the media is “persecuting” him. I won’t say that the media can’t be brutal, and certainly there has been “fake news” put out there. But… where there’s smoke, there’s almost always fire. Lots of credible people have spoken and written about what a vile person Trump is, and the proof is becoming more evident every day, especially right now. So, even though Trump knows how to charm people, that charm is superficial. It’s not real. And people who are clued into narcissism obviously clue in to it quickly and don’t accept Trump’s alternative version of “truth”.

Narcissists love to revise history. Listen to H.G. Tudor, and you will hear him talk about how Meghan Markle has done it many times. Meghan has, just like Trump, also used DARVO. Remember when she claimed that Kate made her cry during a dress fitting? I don’t believe Meghan’s story. I have not seen Kate Middleton make a false step yet. Although she’s clearly human, and like all people, she makes mistakes, I have not heard of Kate Middleton bullying anyone. When she smiles, it’s believable. She’s the epitome of charm and grace. If anyone were going to do the impossible and step into Diana’s shoes, it would be her, not Meghan Markle.

I remember hearing that when Princess Diana died, Ex was reportedly devastated. Bill has told me that she idolized Diana, as many people have. People like to emulate those they admire– and take on some of their traits. Obviously Meghan wants to be like Diana, or at least get people to see her as “Diana-esque”. She’s a poor substitute, because she doesn’t have what Diana had… and Diana, by the way, was no perfect saint herself! But, she was clearly much more genuine in terms of her feelings than most Royals are. Ex would probably very much like to be like Diana, just as Meghan obviously wants to be, but that’s impossible. All she can be is herself, which is all any of us can be.

Now… just for those who have managed to wade through the bulk of this post, I’m going to show everyone what has inspired today’s rantings. Before I do that, let me explain that there was a time when Ex was decidedly NOT liberal in her political leanings. But like many, in the age of Trump, she has apparently chosen a different path. I don’t fault her for that at all. In fact, I am delighted that she’s voting blue, because today’s Republican Party is a total shitshow, and every vote is a push for getting rid of this very destructive political trend. However, some of Ex’s “woke” platitudes are very hypocritical, especially given that I know firsthand about the horrific and obvious physical, mental, verbal, and emotional abuse she has delivered to her supposed loved ones and former spouses.

Someone on Twitter posted this:

This is a funny song that Trump adversaries sang at some rally. It uses the word “cunt”, which Americans recognize as an extremely misogynistic, offensive, nasty word that is often hurled at women. Sadly, most people who use the word “cunt” don’t even save it for the end of an argument anymore. Ex… showing everyone that she is, in fact, an American, and not a Brit, posted this response.

Ex… you are quite clearly NOT a Brit. You are an American, and you think like an American. Time to embrace that, and stop trying to be someone you’re not.

As to Ex’s contention that no one has the right to use the word “cunt”, I would say that she’s wrong. That word, like all words, has a use, and sometimes the use is appropriate. There are times when it’s not even offensive to use the word “cunt”. It’s all about context, right? Like, people in Ex’s precious Scotland don’t get upset when Brits say the word “cunt”. Why? Because it doesn’t have the same meaning there that it does in the United States. Same thing with the word “fag”. In the US, “fag” and “faggot” are very offensive slurs that refer to male homosexuals. But in Britain they are, respectively, a cigarette and a type of sausage, or even a bundle of sticks.

If Ex really wants to be “woke”, she might want to consider that the US perspective is not the perspective for everyone else in the world. Like, for instance,– I have seen the Confederate battle flag flown in countries all over Europe. People don’t care much here, because that flag doesn’t have the same meaning to Europeans as it does to Americans, and many people here don’t feel like they should have to avoid offending Americans. Likewise, a Nazi era swastika is offensive to many people, including Americans. Hanging one up here, outside the house, would likely merit a visit from the police. But Nazi symbolism will likely be much more offensive to certain groups– specifically Jewish people and Germans, who have been taught that it’s very taboo– than it is to, say, your garden variety American redneck who is also proud to display a Confederate battle flag.

Those symbols, which obviously mean something to some people, don’t mean the same thing to every person, because not every person has the same perspectives. And people can’t and shouldn’t automatically be expected to follow the perspectives of everyone else. We shouldn’t, for instance, get angry at someone who lives in the bush country of Africa for admiring the Confederate battle flag after seeing it for the first time. They wouldn’t automatically assume the flag is “bad”, because they lack context or a concept of what that flag represents– just like any young child does when seeing or hearing something for the first time. In fact, I would argue that the flag isn’t actually “bad”, in and of itself; it’s actually a neutral thing. It’s the racist and hateful attitudes from the people behind what the flag symbolizes that makes it “bad”. But it’s much easier to ban a flag than it is to confront the people behind what it symbolizes.

I could go on and on about this, as it’s a pet topic of mine. I get annoyed by people who want to aggressively cram their agendas down other people’s throats, as they claim to value freedom of expression and opinion. The left is just as bad as the right when it comes to this, especially when it’s clear that the person who claims his or her opinion is “correct”, hasn’t actually thought much about the issue at all, and is really just parroting what other people have said.

Father Nathan Monk has had a couple of recent contentious Facebook threads about so-called “spelling and grammar police” that has clearly demonstrated that as open minded and tolerant as some left wing folks want to seem to be, they really share some characteristics with some of the most militant right wingers. The behavior is the same, even if the ideology isn’t. But… this is already a long and convoluted post, and I’m thinking about doing a music video. So I’m going to close this post and get on with the day.

Personally, I think Father Nathan Monk, as well as a lot of his followers, are doing what they accuse other people of doing. Any time someone responds to a disagreement with rudeness, anger, and derision, rather than patience, forbearance, and tolerance, they are guilty of the same toxic behavior as what they’re criticizing. And before anyone calls me out, I will admit that I am guilty of this myself, sometimes. Telling that guy I posted about yesterday to “fuck off” wasn’t constructive. But then, I doubt he wanted to hear me out, anyway.

Well… if you’ve managed to get through this and actually read it to the end, I thank you. I continue to write about this topic because it’s fascinating to me, but it also helps me maintain perspective. Anyone who has had direct ties to a narcissist knows that things will get confusing quickly, if you let them call all of the shots. So I write this stuff down to keep my head straight. If anyone else finds it helpful, informative, or interesting, so much the better.

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