Tag Archives: Les Carter

narcissists, royals

“All I got was a rock!”… a look at the narcissistic sense of humor, or lack thereof…

This morning, over buttermilk pancakes, bacon, and coffee, Bill and I had an interesting discussion about narcissists and their “humor”… or lack thereof. Our discussion started because I had been reading a thread about Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on the Recovery from Mormonism messageboard. Yesterday, someone started a thread about shunning, and how Christmas is when a lot of people get excluded from family events. And, in what appeared to me to be a rather one-sided take on the Prince Harry/Meghan Markle situation, the person pointed out that a lot of people are going to be treated badly by their families this holiday season.

Since Harry has a book coming out, and Meghan and Harry have just dropped their Netflix series, a lot of people are buzzing about them. Some people have seen the series and said it was very boring and rehashed. Others have come away with a renewed sense of sympathy for the couple, who are now outside of the British Royal Family, seemingly “shunned”. Someone else started a thread likening their situation to having left a “cult”– referring to British Royal Family as the cult.

Personally, I don’t subscribe to the viewpoint that Meghan Markle has been that badly treated. She probably has suffered due to the press, and she probably has experienced racism. But I don’t think she’s been a complete angel, and the constant complaining about how Harry’s very famous and established family members have treated her is getting pretty tiresome… at least to me. It’s hard to feel sorry for an attractive, healthy couple living in a beautiful mansion in a very expensive and exclusive part of the United States. Because they are rich and famous, they have a platform, and they haven’t hesitated to use and abuse it to their hearts’ content. A lot of the regular folks living in the real world are about tapped out on Harry and Meghan’s sad tale of woe, even if there is some truth to their story.

I’ve mentioned before that Meghan makes my “cluster B chimes” go off. I don’t know her at all, and it’s possible that I’ve completely misread her. However, I have found that my instincts are usually pretty accurate when it comes to spotting behavior that is self-centered and narcissistic. I don’t know enough about Meghan Markle to comment on her sense of humor. I know that she tries hard to present herself as a kind, considerate, loving person, even if there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that she’s not really like that. But honestly, I don’t know… all I know is that I get a lot of familiar vibes that tell me she’s probably not a very funny person… at least not when it comes to humor that isn’t at someone else’s expense. I did notice, for instance, that she Meghan had Mariah Carey on her Archetypes podcast, and Mariah said that Meghan gave off “diva vibes”, Meghan seemed unamused. She didn’t laugh and say, “you’re right, Mariah.” She later clarified the “diva vibes” as something powerful and positive, when that clearly wasn’t what Mariah meant. Mariah owns being a diva. Meghan doesn’t.

As we were talking about Meghan and Harry, we somehow got on the subject of the narcissistic sense of humor, or lack thereof. I’ve found that one of the easiest ways to spot a narcissist is to observe whether or not they can take a joke, and what they find funny. And, I suddenly remembered some of the best examples of the narcissistic sense of humor I’ve seen in my lifetime.

I’ve mentioned before that when Bill went to Iraq, he had the burden of serving with a very narcissistic boss who used to make humiliating jokes at Bill’s expense. During their sixth month stint in Iraq, he’d send me pictures of Bill, literally buried up to his neck in paperwork and make jokes about his work or even his physical stature. I remember at one point, he referred to Bill as a “welterweight”. Later, Bill told me that his boss used to laugh at his “nasty artistic streak” that needed to be “quashed”. When he found out I’d served in the Peace Corps, he had a good laugh, because he saw it as a “wimpy” and “woke” thing to do. I’ll bet he wouldn’t have enjoyed the living conditions I experienced over there. He also implied that another soldier’s wife was stupid because she didn’t catch his “humor”, quipping to Bill “Your wife would have gotten [the joke] right away.” He tried to ingratiate himself to me, telling me that Bill missed me very much. I totally could see that he missed me, on so many levels, mainly because every week he would call me from Baghdad and tell me about how much his boss reminded him of Ex.

A few years later, this very same colonel, who had been slated to pin on as a brigadier general, was very publicly fired for abusing troops. There was a huge expose about it in which his behavior was described in detail. I can no longer find the whole article, since it was published in 2011. But I have found snippets of it, such as the quotes below:

Bill often told me about how his boss enjoyed humiliating people in front of their peers. He thought it was “funny” to embarrass his soldiers, while they were in a war zone. When Bill went to Iraq with this man, it was both of their first times at war. The boss wasn’t running a brigade that time, so Bill got most of the abuse. I was very angry when I heard about it, because it seems to me that being in a war zone is hard enough without some asshole boss getting their kicks out of belittling and humiliating their underlings. But because it was just Bill in this situation, he didn’t feel that he could speak up about it on his own behalf. A couple of his “brothers in arms” spoke up instead. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to stop Bill’s ex boss from leading a brigade in Iraq and abusing them. And, like most malignant narcissists, he had a very embarrassing and public fall. We see the same thing happening to Donald Trump right now… as he pitches his ridiculous NFTs.

Then I remembered Halloween 2021, when I read about the costume Ex’s teenaged son with “severe autism” wore to go trick or treating. Ex is a big fan of children’s movies from the 70s and 80s, as well as child friendly characters. I know she is a great lover of all things Peanuts. In fact, Bill has told me that she reminds him a lot of Lucy Van Pelt, especially when she offers to hold a proverbial football to be kicked.

Well, Ex’s son, who is reportedly non-verbal, wore a Peanuts themed costume in 2021. Ex dressed him up like Charlie Brown. Not as the usual Charlie Brown with the striped shirt, but in the ghost costume Charlie Brown wore. If you’ve seen It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, then you probably know that Charlie Brown famously got rocks for Halloween. And his ghost costume was full of holes.

Looking at the images on Google, I can see that this isn’t a particularly original idea. A lot of people dress up in a Charlie Brown style ghost costume on Halloween. The difference is, they probably chose that costume themselves and understand the snarky humor behind it. Ex’s son, from what I’ve heard, is not quite at that level of thinking. I wrote about this incident last year, and in my post from November 2021, I noted:

Ex dressed her son up like Charlie Brown on Halloween. He carried a sign that said something along the lines of, “All I got was a rock.” Ex wrote that people didn’t seem to get the joke. That’s probably a good thing, when you consider that she was parading her apparently severely autistic son around– a boy who is supposedly “non-verbal” and may never live on his own– as Charlie Brown, the butt of everyone’s jokes who can’t make a simple ghost costume and always gets rocks from his neighbors.

I doubt that Ex’s son came up with the “joke”. I think this was something Ex dreamed up and decided to have a little fun at her son’s expense. And while some people probably didn’t get the context of Charlie Brown wearing a holey ghost costume and getting rocks from his neighbors on Halloween, others probably thought the costume was in extremely poor taste. I continued in last year’s post:

As I mentioned before… I have never met her son. I don’t know what level of functioning he’s attained. She did publicly state that he was capable of uttering a carefully rehearsed line to anyone who asked about his costume– “I had some trouble with the scissors.” She implied that it took some time to teach him that line, which makes me wonder if there are issues with his intellect. But again, I don’t know. I do think it’s kind of strange to publicly declare so much love for a child, but then dress him up as an obvious “loser” for Halloween, laugh at the spectacle of it, and then tweet it publicly. Maybe Ex thinks of it as “harmless fun.” And, to her, it surely is– maybe it also is to strangers who don’t know anything about her or her children. For the boy, I’m not as sure… If he gets the joke and agrees with it, okay. But if he doesn’t get it, and has just been unwittingly made the butt of a joke– scoring laughs for his mother at his own expense– maybe not.

See… this is the kind of “humor” I’m referring to when I reference “narcissistic humor”. It’s belittling, sarcastic, mean-spirited, and rude. Some people find that kind of humor funny. And for some folks who have narcissistic bents, it’s the ONLY kind of humor they find funny or understand. I went into a lot more detail about this situation in last year’s post, but the one other thing I want to reiterate for this one is that what makes the Charlie Brown costume so insidiously offensive is that the slight isn’t obvious. It’s a subtle dig. If she’d been more obvious– say put her son in blackface or some other obviously offensive costume– that would have put a lot of negative attention on her. But with the Charlie Brown ghost costume, she can be mean, but not seem obviously so. It’s not cool to be obviously mean to someone who has severe autism, and other people would call her out for doing that. However, those who aren’t severely affected by autism are fair game for her meanest and most humiliating digs. That’s what she thinks is funny. Last year, I wrote:

The Charlie Brown costume is more subtly humiliating, especially for a boy who may not realize that he’s being made the object of derision by his own mother. Now… if the boy chose the costume himself and has the capacity to understand the implication of wearing it, okay. But I doubt he does or did… I think, once again, Ex used someone else to get her jollies… to make herself feel better for what, apparently, hasn’t turned out to be the fantastic life she envisioned for herself.

Dr. Les Carter made a great video about this subject. If you would like to learn more about narcissistic style humor, I would highly recommend that you watch this video. As almost all of Les Carter’s videos are, it’s very insightful.

Dr. Les Carter talks about narcissistic humor.
Piers Morgan is pretty narcissistic himself, but I enjoyed hearing his guest talk about Meghan’s “Hallmark card” wisdom. I’ve seen the same thing in Ex’s platitudes on Twitter and Instagram. And I’ve seen very little humor.

Well, that about does it for today’s blog post. It’s still extremely cold here in Germany, but at least the sun has come out. Tomorrow, the temperatures are supposed to rise, so maybe that will mean Noyzi’s water bowl won’t be constantly frozen. Our neighbor has invited us over for an hour of Gluhwein this evening. Glad I have some heavy sweaters now!

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ethics, narcissists, social media

The most excellent empress of excessive effrontery and extravagance…

All week, I’ve wondered if or when there will be a jubilant announcement from Ex regarding the latest addition to the family. So far, not a peep has emanated from Ex’s fingers to her keyboard about her new grandson. I find this to be unusual behavior for her. However, there is one thing she has been doing this week that is not unusual or unexpected at all…

A few days ago, I wrote a post about how Ex was, once again, begging for money from celebrities and strangers, ostensibly to pay for a new fence for her son, who has severe autism and apparently needs to be confined when he goes outside. She publicly posted a link on Twitter to a crowdfunding attempt, her second since early spring. In her pitch for funds, she wrote this:

Sounds like a pretty desperate situation, right? I know my heart is breaking.

It seems to me that if a crowdfund is necessary to raise thousands of dollars to erect a secure fence, one might also think that there isn’t room in the budget for extraneous stuff, like autographed books written by actors. And if one who begs for money does feel the need to make a purchase that might seem like an unnecessary extravagance to other people, one might hope they’d want to keep that purchase under their hat, so to speak. I mean, it’s in pretty poor taste to beg for money for a fence, but then gleefully cheer about the prospect of buying something that isn’t essential for living. But Ex isn’t like most people. Basic consideration and rules that might apply to other people, don’t apply to her. I should not have been surprised when I saw this on her Twitter feed…

According to her crowdfunding pitch, Ex’s household subsists on just one stream of income. She claims that she lives “paycheck to paycheck”, and is begging strangers to contribute $6000 for a fence… yet she has about $50 to spend on an autographed book. What should we conclude about this?

Actually, I don’t have to draw any new conclusions. I know that Ex will stoop to incredibly low levels to get her endless wants and needs satisfied at other people’s expense. She is not above shaming people, either, even when they are her own minor children who genuinely need something from her. For example, we have heard about how, when Bill’s younger daughter needed an orthopedic device for a condition affecting her feet, Ex would endlessly complain about how expensive it was. She would make a huge deal about having to spend money on her oldest three children, even though Bill was giving her $2550 a month in child support, and the children could have had full medical coverage through the military. Meanwhile, she also did things like force them to give up things they needed so that she would look kind and generous to other people– strangers, even.

As I was telling Bill about this discovery yesterday, he said he was reminded about something that happened soon after their divorce. Bill had gone to Arizona to see his kids. This was before she launched her extreme parental alienation campaign that would keep them apart for over fifteen years. At the time, Bill lived on about $600 a month, because he was giving Ex $2550 a month, plus paying the mortgage on their house in Arkansas, which she eventually let go into foreclosure after tenants stole the toilet out of it.

Ex had asked Bill about palm pilots, which were all the rage at the time. She said she might get one for her eldest son, a product of her first marriage. Bill happened to own an inexpensive Handspring Visor. He showed it to her, and said it cost about $125. He used it for work purposes.

Ex said, “So you can spend $125 on gadgets, but you can’t send more money for your children?”

I know I shouldn’t have been surprised or outraged. This is very normal behavior for her. Still, when I remember that back in those days, Bill lived alone in a drafty, sparsely furnished apartment… his main source of entertainment was nightly chats with me on Yahoo! Messenger and reading the stories I used to write. His one saving grace was that his job required him to travel a lot, so he would get per diem money. He never used all of the money he was given for food, so he was able to use that for extra things, like a cheap palm pilot. But that wasn’t enough for Ex. She wanted EVERYTHING. And yes, it does outrage me that she has the nerve to demand everything, as she simultaneously claims to be kind, generous, and wonderful… but only to strangers.

It would have been one thing if Ex actually spent the money on the children, but years of experience and observation tell us that she rarely did that. When they had needs, she would shame them. Or she would use them to prop up her own image. In fact, we heard a story about how she once made Bill’s daughters give up one of their beds to a family in their church. She wanted the family–strangers to her– to think of her as a good, generous person. Meanwhile, her daughters were the ones making the actual sacrifice. Because God knows, she wouldn’t be giving up her bed.

The other day, I happened to listen to Dr. Les Carter’s recent video about what happens when a narcissist realizes their target has lost interest. I like most of his videos about narcissism, but this one really resonated with me. I could practically hear the alarm bells going off. I would recommend his channel to anyone dealing with a self-centered, narcissistic, dishonest asshole in their lives. But this video is particularly good.

A great video… very revelatory and insightful.

As for Ex and her shenanigans… I know it’s not my business, and while I would love to call her out directly, I won’t be doing that. There’s no point in doing that, because she won’t stop. All that calling her out might accomplish is to potentially drive her behavior a bit further underground for awhile. Naturally, she would eventually reappear, because she thrives on attention and notoriety. She wants strangers to think highly of her. Those who really know her and can see through her bullshit can go pound sand.

As long as Ex doesn’t approach Bill’s family again, I guess it doesn’t matter if other people fall for her bullshit. Thankfully, at this point, it doesn’t appear that anyone has taken the bait. The crowdfund is still sitting at zero. When her efforts to grift inevitably fail again, she’ll probably engage in another familiar behavior– that of blame shifting. Les Carter talked about that, too…

It’s always someone else’s fault.

I actually find Ex to be a fascinating person. Although I have run into some pretty obnoxious, self-serving, narcissistic individuals in my time, she is one of the most extreme examples. I continue to be stunned by her complete lack of shame and endless gall. It really amazes me. For the longest time, I went to great lengths not to look at what she was doing, because I didn’t want to get angry or have her antics upset me in any way. But now that I do pay attention to her, I’ve genuinely found myself intrigued by her nerve. At the same time, I’m so glad Bill is no longer married to her, and I’m glad at least younger daughter got away from her, and hopefully, she’ll keep her kids away from Ex, too.

I suspect the reason Ex hasn’t boasted about her newest grandson is because she hasn’t yet been told about him. And honestly, I don’t blame younger daughter for that, if that’s the situation.

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disasters, Duggars, modern problems, politics, YouTube

Careful, guy… your “Q” is showing.

It’s quite understandable that a lot of people are still expressing outrage and grief over the most recent school shootings in Uvalde, Texas. I have a lot of friends who are teachers, and every day, they face the reality of school shootings in the United States. I also come from Gloucester, Virginia, a rural, southern, down home kind of town, which means that I’m affiliated with a lot of southern, conservative, White people. Some of them are still my friends, even though I departed the Republican mindset a long time ago. Some are my relatives. And some are friends of friends.

A couple of years ago, a woman with whom I went to high school died. Her death was during the thick of the pandemic, although she did not die because of COVID. The way I understand it, a few years ago, she had been in a car accident that caused significant injuries. Infection somehow set in as she was healing, and it never completely went away. The infection eventually got out of control, and she went septic, which caused her death.

I remember this woman in high school, as we ran in peripheral circles. The last thing I remember of her when I knew her, was when she sang a song called “Love Will Be Our Home” at a talent show. At the time, I wasn’t a singer myself. I remember her telling everyone that she was nervous, just before she sang her song in what I thought was a pretty soprano voice. Years later, I was surprised when I heard of her death. Then I noticed where she was living. Her husband, who also went to our high school, evidently was originally from Lexington, Virginia, which is about ten miles from where my parents grew up. It’s also the town where Bill and I got married in 2002.

My high school classmate and her husband, also apparently a classmate, though I don’t remember him, were making their home in tiny Natural Bridge, Virginia, which was where my dad grew up, and where I still have lots of relatives. I never knew we had this connection. I remember that when my classmate died, there wasn’t enough money for her funeral. I donated a couple hundred bucks to her family’s GoFundMe to help bury her, even though we weren’t really friends. No one ever said “Thanks” or anything, which is no big deal, I guess. I’m sure they were overwhelmed by the sudden and tragic loss, and the fact that they weren’t able to be with her when she died, thanks to COVID precautions.

And what has this got to do with my opening paragraph? Bear with me.

One of my friends from my hometown, now a schoolteacher in North Carolina, is absolutely devastated by the school shootings in Uvalde. Even as someone who isn’t a teacher, and doesn’t have children, I am sickened and horrified by the details coming out about this terrifying event. What makes an 18 year old teenager so consumed with rage, hatred, and contempt for others that he storms into a school and kills innocent children and teachers? The colossal mistakes, made by law enforcement who failed to act decisively, are especially egregious. The more I hear about what went wrong, the angrier I feel for the victims, and the sadder I feel for the people who were left behind. This shit has been going on for over 20 years! When is it going to stop? When are we going to learn from these dreadful events and do something that STOPS angry boys from getting access to weapons and killing innocent people?

My friend, the teacher, posted the photo below.

No kidding!

A couple of her like minded friends added their agreement to the above sentiment. I’ve been saying this myself. How can our government presume to force people to have babies when they don’t want to be pregnant? But then, we do NOTHING to make sure those babies grow up into functioning adults? It makes no sense. And then I saw this beaut of a comment, made by the husband of our classmate, who died a couple of years ago… this guy, living in my father’s hometown, who needed GoFundMe to pay for his wife’s burial. This is the exchange they had:

Careful, guy… your Q is showing.

Wow… First off, what he wrote is kind of hard to decipher. I think what he’s saying is that he thinks having access to weapons keeps people “free”. But how free are you, if you constantly have to worry about your child being blown up by a crazed, angry, 18 year old kid with a semiautomatic rifle? How free are you, if you only feel safe when you’re packing heat, even if you’re at church or shopping for groceries?

He also seems to think that we should just accept that people are going to be violently killed, because “people have been killing people forever”. So, he thinks that we should all be able to arm ourselves, so that when some nut with a gun comes at us, which is, according to him, “the way of the world”, we might have a prayer of killing them before they kill us. Next, he seems to think that the fact that more people are realizing that violent discipline methods, such as “whopping ass” (as he puts it), aren’t very effective and cause children to suffer psychological damage, is actually making people more violent. Because what we really need, when we’re much younger and smaller than the adults in our lives, is someone to knock the hell out of us. That, according to this mental giant, is the way to “instill respect”. Jesus Christ.

I really felt like responding to him. I wanted to say, “Careful, guy… your ‘Q’ is showing…” But I didn’t want to get into an argument on my friend’s page. I also didn’t think it would accomplish anything, other than make a few people laugh. As we have all found out with heartbreaking clarity this week, life is SHORT. It’s a lot shorter for some people, than it is for others of us. And I don’t have time to argue with idiots who can’t or won’t be convinced that their logic is seriously flawed.

I already annoy enough people on Facebook, particularly when I disagree with them or point out logic failures. One lady named Miriam got annoyed with me last night, because I disagreed with her comparison of ultra pious people, like the Duggars, to kids in high school who take harder classes. She wrote that she gets a kick out of seeing religious people get knocked off their high horses. I can see that. It is kind of satisfying when people like Josh Duggar, who presume to try to tell other people how to live, and preach to them about family values and so-called “high Christian lifestyle standards”, turn out to be lying hypocrites.

But I disagreed with the analogy she made– and she specifically stated that this was her analogy. She likened upstanding Christian types, like Josh Duggar, holding themselves out to be above reproach as needing to adhere to higher standards. Like high school students taking AP courses. The work is harder, so smarmy religious people who think their shit doesn’t stink need to “step up”. When they fail, it’s kind of satisfying to see. But do we like to see brave high school students fail when they try something harder? I hope not.

That comparison struck me as nonsensical. Hardworking high school students should be encouraged to take harder classes. They should be commended for challenging themselves, and trying to get a better education, especially if they are blessed with a fine intellect. Yes, the work is more difficult, and the expectations are higher, but there are rewards for that kind of hard work.

Besides, most people I know with keen intellects are not ultra religious or pious; that is the opposite of being logical, right? On the other hand, it doesn’t take a great brain to accept some of the batshit religious dogma peddled by fundie Christians and their ilk. A lot of weak people, looking for a blueprint to Heaven, will swallow all kinds of ridiculous bullshit to achieve what they think will be that end. So to me, comparing ultra pious people to high school students taking harder classes is a poor analogy, and I dared to say so.

Her snippy reply to me was, “It was an analogy, Jenny.”

To which I responded, “Okay, Miriam.” Because I didn’t feel the need to argue with her. I thought her analogy made little sense. Maybe I could have couched my comment in some nice, flabby language to comfort her ego more, but as I just wrote a few paragraphs ago, LIFE IS SHORT. It’s much too short for that mess.

In light of that exchange with Miriam, and knowing how I tend to get carried away with overthinking when I engage in those kinds of discussions, I decided to exercise some self-discipline. I didn’t engage the Q guy from my hometown, who now lives in my dad’s hometown, and is pretty much EXACTLY like the people I know from both places… including people in my own family. I know, by this point, that trying to discuss these things with them is pointless, and will only lead to pain and frustration.

I can understand why a lot of conservative people don’t like liberals. Liberals can be condescending and rude, and some of them lack any understanding for what the “salt of the earth” types live with on a daily basis. Unfortunately, a lot of conservative people, who are also sometimes lacking tact, have poor or absent critical thinking skills. They mostly just think about what affects them. They don’t often consider how thinking about all people can make things better, and safer, for everyone.

Like, for instance, the “Q” guy quoted above, who needed a GoFundMe campaign to pay for his wife’s burial, and didn’t even think to say “Thank you” to those who donated. That guy is probably against welfare. He probably doesn’t like the idea of universal healthcare. He’s probably pro-life, and he’s definitely pro-gun. He sees these ideas as just and moral… we should all be responsible for ourselves. The government needs to stay out of it. Except public safety is certainly within the domain of the government. Especially if the government expects to force women to stay pregnant and birth babies. I wonder if the government is going to force women to take care of themselves while they’re pregnant… or even capable of being pregnant. It makes little sense to me that some people will do ANYTHING to stop women from accessing abortion services, but once that baby is born, they don’t want to do ANYTHING to make sure the baby turns into a beloved child, a happy teenager, and a healthy adult, who is ready to have a career and a family.

Nope… I think a lot of these Q types are interested mostly in controlling women, and making more babies for fundies to indoctrinate into religion and conservatism. It’s disgusting, and it’s quite frankly, deadly. I will end today’s post by encouraging everybody to have a look at the video below, posted by Fundie Fridays.

She pretty much says what I think… and also offers some interesting backstory on Roe v. Wade.

I wanted to also include an excellent video made by Dr. Les Carter of Surviving Narcissism. I watched it yesterday, and I thought it was very insightful. He talked about his frustration as a mental health professional, watching how our system emboldens people like Salvador Ramos. Unfortunately, Dr. Carter made the video private. I guess he got some heated comments, or maybe YouTube flagged it. It’s a shame. I really appreciated his thoughts on this crisis we’re all experiencing. Maybe he’ll repost it at some point. Or maybe not. I’m glad I watched it, though. Since that video isn’t available anymore, here’s one Mr. Atheist did. I think he did a good job with his video about the school shootings.

I wish I knew.

Other than that, I wish you a pleasant and safe Saturday… may God protect you and yours from the likes of gun toting whack jobs and perverts.

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narcissists, YouTube

How to effectively handle the “creators of misery” in the world…

This morning, I was watching Les Carter’s most recent video, and I had a flash of insight. Les Carter, for those who don’t know, is a psychologist in Texas who makes excellent videos about narcissists. And in the video I posted below, he describes narcissists as “creators of misery”. He says upfront that narcissists are not healthy people, and they don’t function on a rational plane. And unfortunately, narcissists “create misery” with maddening efficiency. They don’t seem to care at all about how awful they are. I think the worst thing about narcissists is that their behavior can be contagious. They infect people with their miserable behavior, and that makes people want to react in kind. Pretty soon, non-narcissistic people find themselves being dragged down to the narcissist’s level.

Once again, Les Carter shares wise counsel to those of us who are confronted by “creators of misery”…

Dr. Carter rationally explains why it’s best not to try to get “revenge” on the narcissist. They don’t care about your misery, and if you treat them the way they treat you, they’ll just ratchet up their usual tactics and continue to smear you. The best thing to do is to go “no contact”, or if that’s not possible, “grey rock” them– that is, be totally bland and boring, like a rock. It doesn’t seem fair to have to do that, though. I know that I, for one, don’t have the personality of a “grey rock”. It’s really hard for me to act like one.

Fortunately, the narcissist in my life doesn’t affect me personally. Instead, Ex visits her misery on people Bill and I care about. We are legitimately worried about people in Bill’s family who may fall prey to Ex and her usual grifting tactics. She’s grifting for money, sure, but she’s also looking for supply. It would be bad enough if she was just after money, but she also spreads misery and toxicity when she comes around. She causes pain. So this time, something does need to be done, rather than just ignoring her. But how can we effectively handle the “creator of misery” that is Ex?

I’ve mentioned more than once that my husband is a bit of a “white knight”. He tends to take responsibility for things that aren’t his responsibility. He tries to save people who don’t appreciate or deserve his efforts to save them. When he was married to Ex, he got dragged down to her level, not in terms of behaving like her, but in terms of enabling her toxicity. When she decided she wanted to conduct “ye olde surprise visit”, he went along with it. When she demanded that he allow her to handle the bills and manage the money, he let her do it, even though she created a huge financial hole that took him years to recover from. When she alienated the children and tried to sever his ties with his family of origin, he protested only slightly more. He didn’t avail himself of the law, or document her abuse. He simply sucked it up and drove on, which left her free to continue her misery creating fuckery with other innocent people.

While I can see that stooping to the narcissist’s level is ineffective and pointless, I do think there’s a difference between getting even with someone and holding them accountable when they do harm. Ex has done a LOT of harm over the years, not just to Bill, but to people connected to him. In fact, I have mentioned before that some of the things she does have “ripple effects”. I even wrote a blog post about that– calling it “Ripple eff-Ex” (see what I did there?). I don’t think I reposted the original blog post, but I did write a sequel. Since today is a light chore day, I think I’ll repost the original incarnation of that post. I think it was a pretty juicy one.

Les Carter’s video is the second one I’ve seen this week about how it’s important not to try to “get revenge” on a narcissist. The video directly below was done about a month ago by Jess Stanley, who has a great channel that is based on her experiences dating a narcissist. Jess reminded her viewers that narcissists don’t care about your feelings, and they don’t “learn lessons” when you try to “show them”. Really, all trying to get revenge does is bring you down to their level and give them narcissistic supply/attention. Always remember that attention– good or bad– is what the narcissist needs for survival.

To a narcissist, you are just a list of goods and services. No form of revenge is effective against a narcissist.

Basically, Jess says that in order to hurt a narcissist, you have to just go on with your life. And even that isn’t going to hurt them much, because they can always find someone to replace whatever you brought to them. And she’s right about that… however, I don’t think that should mean not holding them accountable when they do things that are illegal or egregiously outside the boundaries of morality.

I think there’s a big difference between holding someone accountable and exacting revenge. There’s a difference between aggressively fighting against someone or something, trying to “smear” them the way they smeared you, and being assertive and setting boundaries. We think it’s time Ex left Bill’s family alone. She has her own family, as well as her own in-laws. She should focus on them. And while Bill’s older daughter does have a legitimate claim to Bill’s family, she’s only a family member because of Bill.

Of course, just because we have these feelings, that doesn’t mean other people agree with us. And as they are supposedly competent adults, there’s nothing we can do to force Ex to leave them alone, or stop them from talking. The only thing we can control about this situation is how we react to it. So what do we do?

I’m not going to be specific about what our plans are, because I’m not stupid. I know Ex has stalked me online, and she probably still looks in. That’s kind of why I’m unabashedly writing about her now. I hope she reads this and gets super upset and …miserable. But we do have a plan, and what I’ll say about it is that the plan involves making Bill feel better about himself. He does have an action planned, but it’s not meant to hurt Ex or even protect anyone against Ex’s shenanigans. Ultimately, we accept that whatever happens will depend on what the other adults decide to do. We will simply do what we can to avoid the fallout and the guilt associated with her continual attacks.

Like I said… she’s like a bad case of herpes. Just like herpes, she pops up whenever she senses weakness in the immune system. In this case, it’s Bill’s dad’s death, the COVID nightmare, and perhaps feeling isolated and lonely for reasons other than the pandemic. Ex obviously smelled blood and came running.

Elton John has a really good song about this… Given Ex’s love of movies, I think the lyrics are especially appropriate.

“Keep your auditions for somebody who hasn’t got so much to lose…”

Lyrics

I can see by your eyes you must be lying
When you think I don’t have a clue
Baby, you’re crazy
If you think that you can fool me
Because I’ve seen that movie too

The one where the players are acting surprised
Saying love’s just a four letter word
Between forcing smiles, with the knives in their eyes
Well their actions become so absurd

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

It’s a habit I have, I don’t get pushed around
Stop twinkling your star like you do
I’m not the blueprint
For all of your B films
Because I’ve seen that movie too

The one where the players are acting surprised
Saying love’s just a four letter word
Between forcing smiles, with the knives in their eyes
Well their actions become so absurd

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

So keep you auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie too

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Duggars, narcissists, psychology

“You’re not disloyal when you change…”

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you might know that I’m a big fan of Dr. Les Carter’s excellent YouTube channel, Surviving Narcissism. This channel, which he runs with narcissistic abuse survivor, Laura Charanza, is all about healing from narcissistic abuse. I’ve read and reviewed several of Les Carter’s books, and Bill and I have both gained insight from watching his videos. Dr. Carter has a calm, friendly, reassuring demeanor, and while I don’t know if he’s still engaged in private practice in Texas, I do know that he’s helped so many people by being available on YouTube.

All of the recent drama involving the Duggar family has really caused me to reflect on the real damage that narcissistic parents do to their children. While it’s impossible to know when Josh Duggar really started going off the rails, or whether or not his deviant attraction to harming children is something natural or nurtured, what is very clear to me is that Josh and his siblings no doubt suffered abuse from their parents. It’s easy to see that Jim Bob Duggar has narcissistic proclivities. He clearly runs that family like his own mini cult, and there are a lot of conditions set upon the children. The ones who don’t toe Jim Bob’s line are pretty much cast out of the family.

Jim Bob has a public persona that is carefully crafted to fool people. He comes off as “nice”, albeit very much in charge. But behind closed doors, there is no doubt in my mind that he’s got a very different personality. And children who grow up under the control of someone as controlling as Jim Bob clearly is, will definitely struggle as they become adults. The public can see this phenomenon in action as the oldest Duggar children are breaking free of Jim Bob’s mini cult. I noticed that Joy Anna Forsyth appeared to be extremely distraught last week during Josh’s trial. It was as if she was finally learning some truths that she found overwhelming and upsetting. But I think it’s important to understand that she grew up in a family system in which information was tightly controlled and filtered. And now, she’s realizing that she’s been kept in the dark and fed a lot of shit for years.

Dr. Carter explains how narcissists who are parents can hurt their children by sharing their pain in abusive ways.

Yesterday, Dr. Carter visited an interesting topic on his channel. The video, titled “How Narcissists Transfer Their Pain Onto Their Children” really hit home for me as I watched it this morning. All of the familiar tactics narcissistic parents use to desperately maintain control of their children were spelled out in Dr. Carter’s video. Then, he explains, in a comforting and kind way, that adult children have the power to make changes. They can make their own choices, even if it feels like they can’t. They just need to find the courage to do it. It’s not unlike the discovery Dorothy makes in The Wizard of Oz, when she’s told that all she has to do to go home again is click her heels three times. She always had the power. She just had to find the courage to use it.

Of course, making adult choices means living like an adult. And that can be extremely hard to do when you’re an adult child of a narcissist. First off, children who are raised by narcissists are never taught healthy ways to enforce boundaries. They are subjected to abuse, which can encompass everything from verbal rages to physical blows, as well as mind games, threats, and using other people to promote agendas. I would imagine that in a family like the Duggars, there were plenty of mind games played– tactics meant to keep everyone off balance and unsure of their place. Children who grow up with that kind of a family system never learn to trust themselves, and after awhile, they become numb to the abuse, which only sets them up for more of the same treatment.

Secondly, children who are raised by narcissists are taught that if they try to go their own way, they’re “disloyal”. Narcissistic parents are in a lot of pain, and misery loves company. So the narcissistic parent will do all they can to make the children feel like they can’t leave that system. They will try to make their children feel incompetent. If that doesn’t work, they will call into question their children’s love and loyalty. Children raised by narcissists who don’t become narcissistic themselves will feel guilty if they move away from that system. Their parent(s) may accuse them of abandoning them or being disloyal. But one of the first things every child should learn is that they should always be loyal to themselves, first. And if changing is a healthy thing to do, they should be able to do it without being made to feel guilty.

Jim Bob Duggar controls his children– especially the adults– by holding things like money and housing over their heads. In the wake of Josh Duggar’s conviction, we’ve seen several of the children make statements. It’s very telling which of Jim Bob’s adult children are free of his financial constraints. They are the ones who are making it clear that they condemn Josh’s actions. The children who are still depending on Jim Bob have to be publicly loyal to him. They aren’t allowed to criticize their brother or their father. I am sure the most important Commandment to Jim Bob is “Honor thy Father and they Mother”– especially thy father. Katie Joy, of Without a Crystal Ball, covers this topic regarding the Duggars.

Joy Anna is not dependent on Jim Bob anymore.
But Jessa still is…

As many readers also know, my husband was married to a woman whom I very strongly suspect is a narcissist, and she has five children who have been subjected to her abuse. For years, my husband was prevented from speaking to his daughters. One of the daughters broke free from her mother’s grip and moved clear across the country from her. They are still on speaking terms, but it’s pretty obvious that she’s learning the truth about what happened. Likewise, Bill is also learning about what happened during the time he wasn’t in contact.

My husband’s older daughter still chooses to live with her mother. My guess is that she does it because she feels like she must. I think she’s been led to believe that she can’t survive on her own. But she also takes care of her profoundly autistic younger brother, because Ex doesn’t do it. I suspect that she might speak to Bill if circumstances were different. I met her, and she struck me as a very loving person. I think she mainly doesn’t connect with Bill because she knows that Bill is strong enough to survive. He isn’t alone. He’s got me, his mother, and his younger daughter. I think she might also fear facing up to the fact that she and her siblings have been controlled, lied to, and abused by their mother. I know from personal experience that recognizing that someone has abused you can lead to anger and depression. It’s not a nice feeling to realize that you’ve been victimized. I suspect that older daughter might wish to spare herself that pain.

Also, if older daughter was to leave her situation, her brother could suffer the consequences. It would legitimately cause serious problems for him, and for Ex, because older daughter reportedly does all of the work. It’s possible that she can’t live with the potential guilt of forcing her mother to take care of her own son. I think she also legitimately feels for her mother, too, even though she really should be focused on living her own life on her own terms. She’s an adult, though, and that is her choice to make. I just wish she understood that all she has to do is click her heels– pick up the phone– and there are people who would gladly help her get out of her predicament. Bill would be at the front of the line. Again– she should be loyal to herself before all others, because she is the only one who has to live with herself and her decisions.

I highly recommend Dr. Carter’s video to anyone who has known the pain of growing up with a narcissistic parent. Adult children of narcissists have been raised to believe that they aren’t their own people. They have been raised to act as objects– tools to be manipulated and used by their narcissistic parents. Children lack the ability to control what happens to them, but adults can deviate from the paths they are set upon. It just takes courage and some planning, and the knowledge that choosing one’s own path can be painful. I’m sure that Jim Bob’s adult children who aren’t kowtowing to him anymore are denied access to their younger siblings, who are still trapped in the Tinkertoy Mansion. With every passing day, total freedom is closer– because eventually narcissists lose their psychic fiefdoms. Either it crumbles very publicly, as it is for Jim Bob right now, or it ends because the narcissist eventually becomes incapacitated or dies.

No one should have to wait until the death of a narcissist to reclaim control of their lives. I would love to see some of the independent Duggar siblings completely break free and start their own family traditions, perhaps even with each other. There’s nothing to say that they have to tolerate control from their parents– or really, their dad. They’re adults, and those of them who don’t rely on Jim Bob’s money can do whatever they want, within legal boundaries, anyway. It doesn’t make them bad people to live their lives on their own terms, either. It makes them healthy adults.

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