I was raised by a malignant narcissist. He thrived on narcissism and chaos.
A narc creates chaos to get a super-charged narcissistic supply.
What’s better than attention for a narcissist? Desperate, loud, frantic attention.
I saw situations play out like this over and over as a child.
My dad didn’t treat any of his children well.
I am the oldest of 3 girls. I took a lot of shit from my dad. One of his favorite tactics would be to goad me until I responded. And as soon as I responded, you could almost feel the electricity crackling in the air. Because then, he could unload on me.
When I was 10, my father baited me into an argument in the car. I don’t remember what the argument was about, I just know I gave him what he wanted. I argued back.
We were driving to Kmart and taking back roads. My father screamed at me and drove the car at a high rate of speed. My sisters and I were tossed back and forth in the back seat and I remember my mother in the front, tight lipped, and holding on as best she could. I remember her looking at me and pleading without saying a word to not speak.
I waited until we got into the parking lot and I yelled at my father. I screamed that I couldn’t wait until I was 18 so that I could leave and never see him again. He expressed a similar wish.
He created chaos because he needed chaos.
He needed all of us to know that our lives were in his hands.
I didn’t leave at 18.
I fought with my father on a daily basis in my late teens.
Every morning, I would wake up, teeth clenched and stomach in knots, and I would promise myself no matter what, I would not respond. I would not fight with my dad.
But a fight is what he wanted and he always got what he wanted.
At 19, I went to vocational school to learn data processing and rode 45 miles, one way, every morning with my dad. I would drop him off at work and then go
to school. Then, I had to wait until he got off work and ride 45 miles back home with him.
Every morning, and every afternoon were filled his narcissism and chaos.
To this day, I feel that buzz in my brain. I still feel the frustration, hopelessness, and anger. Those emotions have faded, but they’ve never completely gone away.
This is what we in the United States are living in, right now.
- The tariffs with our allies, the on again off again meeting with Kim Jong Un, Melania going missing, it’s all chaos.
- Children being ripped from their families and being shot in their classrooms. All chaos.
- A Kardashian meeting with with the president about prison reform. Pardons given that are being used as messages to his criminal cohorts.
The habitual lies and gaslighting are designed to feed his narcissism through chaos.
He loves this.
There are no depths to which he won’t sink. I promise you.
Although I am never completely sure of anything, I am completely sure that our president will continue to create chaos, regardless of who is hurt.
This is a drug for him. He’s a pathetic, textbook narcissist with the power to create chaos across the globe.
Of course, he will.
And the more chaos he creates, the more he will want.
The darkest days haven’t happened yet.
There’s not a magic ball or anything, but I’ve not been too far off base in my predictions in what will happen. I know this behavior. I grew up with it. Nothing he does surprises me. It’s familiar. Just on a much grander scale. But really, the behavior is no different.
More people will die, directly due to 45 and his administration. More lives will be destroyed. I believe this is inevitable.
We will win.
Humans, I mean. I don’t mean a specific political party or a specific country. I mean humans.
I just hope it happens before I die.
I am sad because I don’t think that will happen. So much damage has been done and I shudder to think how bad it will be before he tumbles.
And he will tumble.
We have no choice but to work toward a better way of living for all people.
I’ve asked this in the past, but now I am begging: Please vote in November.
Every vote counts.
Please vote.
We have to end this as soon as we can. If we can flip the house, we can start working toward cleaning this mess up.
Please vote.
Photo courtesy of Elisa Riva.
What you wrote makes sense. I agree voting is very important on every election. This is a wakeup call to any of us who just vote presidential and do not vote down the ticket. Everyone who is a candidate deserves our attention when it comes time to vote!
Every. Single. Election. Yes!
Yes!!!!
I couldn’t agree more. I can’t imagine living your life like that every single day, but then some of it feels so familiar like an old pair of jeans that don’t fit just right. That chafe every time you put them on, but you can’t get rid of them because it’s a uniform that must be worn.
Very well said, my sister.
I mailed my primary ballot in more than a week ago. I voted for Villaraigosa for governor and De Leon for US senator because Newsom and Feinstein will win, but in our jungle primary the top two, regardless of party, face off in the general, and if Villaraigosa and De Leon take second place there will be no Republican candidate in November for US senator or governor.
(As an aside here, I will never, ever, vote for Newsom now. He has always seemed sort of ambitiously plastic to me, even as liberal as he is, but now he is openly calling for the goddamn Republican to make it to the general so he can have someone easier to run against, instead of… well read the rest)
That will depress Republican turnout and give us a shot at turfing out Devin Nunes, Kevin McCarthy, Dana Rohrabacher, and a few other Republicans who still hold office in this state that Hillary won by nearly 30 points.
That’s my plan as of now.
Anyway, you’re right. In many ways the real shitstorm is just getting started.
But we can win.
We will win, it’s just a matter of how and when.
We get to be a part of the event that will take our country back from the precipice of chaos, and not all of us will make it, but for those who do make it, that’s gonna be a fine piece of history to have our names on.
I still have these optimistic takes on this rolling catastrophe because I have lived through worse, repeatedly.
Now, to figure out how to stop doing that and live through better repeatedly, lather, rinse, repeat, croak…
I still have hope. But I know it’s not going to be easy and I think we have a lot more tragedy in front of us.
Well done, Michelle. Your assessment is spot on, but I am more naive about an optimistic outcome. We see the results of what happens when we ignore the signs and stay buried in our daily lives. I hope this dizzying journey into narcissism and corruption is enough to move people to action. But I am known to give people too much credit at times.
This is a seriously good piece of writing.
I think that people will overcome, but so much damage has been done and so much more will be done.
A few years ago a professor at Vanderbilt University wrote a newspaper op-ed calling for all Muslims in the United States to be registered and tracked because, she claimed, they’re a threat to the nation. Students and professors—some Muslim, some not—gathered in front of the university’s administration building to protest her statements. They asked her to speak with them. She refused and instead went to Facebook where she said the students were “spoiled brats”. That’s an exact quote.
She’s now a former professor, but she recently ran for the position of mayor of Nashville. She came in a very distant second, but the fact that her campaign had any legitimacy at all is, I think, largely because we have a president who’s repeated the same claims she makes, and who shares her hatred not just of Muslims but also LGBTQI people and other minorities. He’s helped legitimize her bigotry.
The fact that she was even running was a good reminder of the importance of voting, but I’m glad you’re offering a reminder here too—it’s something we can’t repeat enough.
Something I didn’t realize until reading this post is that, while I’ve never met that former professor, a lot of people have described her as argumentative, angry when challenged, and creating a lot of unnecessary trouble. She shows a lot of signs of narcissism.
Thank you again for the reminder of the importance of voting. You’re right that we haven’t seen the full extent of it yet but we are seeing just how much damage a narcissist can do when given more power than they deserve or can handle.
I just hope people are paying attention. I’ve been immersed in it, but I know so many people who just are not paying attention and it is maddening to me.
Trump is horrible beyond words and I’m sad your Dad sounds similar. I can’t imagine living with all that sickness. Now we’re stuck living in the diseased mind of Trump. We can’t get away from him, but you’re right, someday we will.
Yes, yes we will.
This is good.
I was thinking about Trump and his emotions the other day while interviewing some really screwed-up clients for work.
He wants to make people feel like he feels. He does things like, well, pardoning a bunch of high profile people that James Comey prosecuted – to piss off Comey and get his fans into a 2-minute hate thing.
And then, when the other side gets mad about it, he and his fans laugh at the fact that they got mad.
It’s some twisted stuff.
Which you expect in politics, but I can’t believe how many people he can pull along with him.
And he’s always testing the waters to see whether he can take it further. So yeah, he’s not at the limits yet…
It’s terrifying.
I don’t even know what I can say anymore. It’s unreal that things have come to this–the other day, he actually called my country a security threat. The fact that we share a border is increasingly terrifying. I honestly don’t know how you stand it. Although I might find out soon enough as Ontario is set to elect it’s own version of Trump in Doug Ford.
Oh, I hope that doesn’t happen in Ontario. And I can’t believe this security threat thing. It’s humiliating and ridiculous.
While I can’t vote there I certainly second your statement to everyone to vote. It’s only by voting that change can happen.
I despair of what Pumpkin Face will do next because of the impact it has on the rest of the world and the impact it will have on my daughter who is living there.
Over here voting is compulsory – and while I don’t like being told what to do, I do think that it makes people think about who they want leading the town / city / state / country.
I’m sorry that you grew up in such an awful environment – I don’t know if I could have coped in the same situation.
Sending big hugs xox
Thank you, sister. So happy to see you. I feel bad because I’d be worried if I lived elsewhere an my child was here. My baby boy is going across the country for a few months and I am terrified because I am afraid of how horrible and volatile everything is here.
OMG Amen to all of this!
Vote!!!
Yes!!!
I thought I would read something insightful about growing up with a narcissistic parent. It was more a slice of life than informative, but veering into talk of the president was a silly digression that detracted from your personal story. I dislike narcissists. Didn’t realize a person’s political views were particularly relevant. Wow.
Thanks for your input. I was speaking more to the president’s specific actions. He displays all the tendencies one would see in a malignant narcissist.
As far as the content of my blog, I write what I feel like writing. I have never claimed to be a source of information.