Enabler narcissism clarification

I apparently claimed all enablers are narcissists too. I'm not sure I truly wanted to, but it came out that way and I kind of stand by it.

All narcissists have a void at the center of their being. For some narcissists the void is filled by being the main person in everyone's world, while for others it's filled by being the most righteous one, the martyr, the obedient one, the one in the stronger narcissist's shade - and not a real person living and breathing and loving. Just defining oneself far less assertively than one's dominant partner, but still living ON one's definition of oneself and what others might think of it INSTEAD of truly living, if you understand what I mean.

And it's still narcissistic (in being black-hole-empty and living-in-the-mirror) although it's not overtly, dominantly, abusively so.

Facing ALL the Black Holes

There's a reason why being donor conceived matters practically in my journey.

Finding out about NPD has opened many healing pathways for me. I have felt angry and relieved and happy and alive since I found out.

But only since I found out I was donor conceived have I allowed myself to feel sad. And to grieve. Because I know I've always somehow known that I couldn't really expect my father to love me. I've always known that. I've always known at some level that he owed me nothing. And I couldn't bring myself to grieve the father he couldn't be because of his personality disorder. All I could feel was the sheer relief of not having to think of him as the perfect father any longer.

But there was still a black hole I was unable to face because I didn't know it was there.

When I allowed myself to believe there was a father out there I'll probably never know, I started grieving. And feeling sad at times.

And being more alive than ever.

And finally really, truly, totally, madly loving my children.

It's the strangest thing. It just happened. It's like something snapped inside me. Like something burst inside me, releasing liquid joy, allowing me to really love my kids.

A voice inside me said: "They're mine. They're deliciously, wonderfully, tangibly mine. They smell mine and taste mine when I kiss them. There's a bodily joy in the fact that they're mine and no one can take that away from me."

This changed everything. Everything. I wasn't a bad mom before. I did stuff right. I felt a tender love for them before.

But the difference is indescribable. I love them like a mother loves her children. Like an animal loves her cubs. This is real and physical and intense.

There was a block there. And the block was a little voice inside my head saying "Parents can't really love children," which I apparently learned from my childhood. This script didn't fully go away once I reinterpreted it as "NARCISSISTIC parents can't really love children." Part of the script always included also "NARCISSISTIC parents can't really love OTHER FATHERS' children." That was the full script I had learned. And only when it all came out was I capable of unlearning it. Because my children are mine.

Does that make any sense at all? I know it sounds crazy. But it's true.

I've never felt more alive or more joyful. I'm actually on good terms with my social father at the moment and pray for him. My heart aches for my real father, whom I'll never meet. And I'm the happiest I've ever been.

They come in pairs

Sigh. Had lunch with my father and his girlfriend.

My father's girlfriend is a narcissist too. A nicer, weaker, more compliant narcissist, but still undeniably one.

Come to think of it, how can anyone be "intimately involved" with a narcissist, who by definition is unable to be intimately involved, for years, unless they're also a narcissist and thus also unable to be intimately involved?

I mean, normal people want an actual connection with their partner. If it's not there, they'll lack something and then eventually leave. They won't be cheerfully living a facade for years, only protesting the little things, right?

Compliant co-narcissists are narcissists too. They may not be abusive. They may be quite pleasant and full of life and genuinely charming. But they lack a fundamental something. Their empathy has died after years of abuse. Their ability to emotionally connect with others has withered. They are a shell of a person.

My mother was a shell too. Now I know. I have met other people, other women, other mothers.

Strangely enough, it may have been her step-sister that helped me realize that. My aunt is one of those real people who aren't shells. And there's a world of difference. Although my mother was "nice" and "kind" to others and the light of every gathering and fun to be around... she wasn't real.

He destroyed her. What she might have been if she'd broken free from her own mother's narcissistic abuse.

I'm not angry or assigning blame any more. I'm just sad for these people who've never really been loved unconditionally and never thought they had to learn to actually love.

Life is a constant battle for them

And they have to top everyone. Otherwise they're not alive. You see, they also mostly grew up in narcissistic households and are used to being either the best or useless. So their every conversation is about establishing whether they're the best or at least better than you.

PWC has an interesting post on how narcissists don't want you to be happy for them, just envious of them. It's true.

But they don't seem to really be able to tell the difference. If you admire their achievements / acquisitions when they brag about them, you could be doing it because you want to flatter your superior or because you're genuinely happy for another human being. The difference is beyond them. For them, you're the weak loser if you just say "How wonderful!" or "Congratulations!"

Because, you see, a stronger narcissist would find fault with the achievement / acquisition and this is a risk they take every time they brag about something. You can sometimes sense the trepidation underneath their superiority: Will I win this one? Will my success be attacked? Will I defend it by attacking the attacker well enough? Will I emerge from this as the winner?

You've got to feel sorry for them. Life is a constant battle for them. Support from others is interpreted as their defeat and these losers are immediately discarded as weaklings whose opinion doesn't matter anyway, since they're obviously inferior ("She says she likes my new car, and it must be because she wants to suck up to me because she admires me, which means she's weaker and unworthy of me"). The stronger narcissists who attack them powerfully enough are hated and feared. And they're in constant battle mode. And they're never at ease. And they're so alone.

Weird mom dreams

Again, amid clear signals for "you're in the land of the subconscious" (I descend a filthy stairscase stained with blood and excrement, and a gignatic half-serpent, half-lizard scurries across it), I enter a hospital and my mother is there. We're both sick and dying and I realize she's actually alive and we both stay alive and get better.

"Why haven't I seen you all these years? Where have you been?" I suddenly remember to ask her. It's been almost ten years since I thought she died.

"I don't know. Your father must have lied to you about me dying so he could get together with his girlfriend without you objecting."

And then, the other wierd mom dream alternative comes up - yes, she's dead. But I realize she didn't die of breast cancer. My father killed her. He wanted to be free of her and he killed her so he could be with his girlfriend.

I guess this is only normal. I'm pretty sure that's why Hamlet was seeing the Ghost - his mother remarried so soon after his father's death. The idea of foul play just somehow symbolically creeps up.

It's haunting. It's not just the first few minutes after I woke up that I was trying to remember what actually took place and what the true reality of the matter is. It still haunts me, days afterwards.

On Being Wanted: Existential Debt and Existential Fear

Children from narcissistic families often grow up feeling their purpose in life was to please their parents.

Having been created with this purpose and having your very existence predicated upon it takes this to a whole new level.

I didn't know I was donor conceived when I was growing up. But when my aunt told me this only six months ago, I wasn't really surprised. It felt like the missing piece of the puzzle.

I'd always been told indirectly, you see, that I had to be especially grateful and happy about having been so very wanted. They got me, after all, after 12 years of marriage, 20 years of dating, when they were 39 and 40 (why I never enquired into this miraculous birth can be explained only by the deep knowledge that I wasn't supposed to). Which meant they were better parents who loved me more than anyone else out there.

And which meant I owed them much more than normal kids owe their parents.

I hated hearing this even when I was younger and didn't know what I know now.

Now I realize the depth of my existential debt. Created after 12 years of marriage. To a profoundly narcissistic social father. As a last resort, at the latest possible moment (fertility treatment is still not readily available to women over 40 in my country). Amid what must have been a great deal of ambivalence. I should be grateful - he let me exist, after all. That's actually how I do feel - only now it's out in the open and clear to me why I've always felt this way and tried so hard to please him and tried even harder not to displease him.

Even now, I keep feeling like if I do anything to anger him, he'll somehow take my very existence away. This is something I hadn't come across on other blogs by adult children of narcissists - this absolute, gripping, existential fear. I knew there was something else, something dark there, but couldn't quite put my finger on it.

I rationalized this fear: he'll try to take my kids away (although he's shown very little interest in them), he'll get me fired (he doesn't even really know where I work), he'll throw my family out of our home (he could legally do that, but he's renting out my apartment for money, so it would make no sense at all for him to do that - but I've spent many a sleepless night obsessing over this danger).

But it boils down to this: he allowed me, grudgingly, to come into existence. He created me and owns me. I'd better not displease him, or he'll undo it.

Narcissism and Having Children

This is a fascinating issue that is so commonly swept under the rug. What is the role of narcissism in the process of people having children? It's a simple enough question. But it's something no one really wants to ponder.

If you believe - like I do - that narcissism is a spectrum thing and that most people have certain relatively sane levels of narcissism that don't impede their functioning as human beings - then you'll concur that most parents out there are somewhat narcissistic, though they don't have Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder prevents people from being able to actually relate to any human being in any real way. It prevents real parenting, period, whether the child is genetically related or not.

Now, sane levels of narcissism we can all relate to, right? I sure can. Thinking that something is cool about the color of your eyes. Or your aptitude for literary creation and interpretation. Or your musical talents. But that those engineers are just not quite as fun as your kind of people - no offense, right? Can we all relate to this? Or am I really very narcissistic for sometimes feeling this way?


Sane narcissism seems to conspire with genetic heritage in order to help kids get the unconditional love they need from their parents. You love who you are and you love your partner so together you get kids who resemble yourself and your partner. You're likely to favor these kids over other humans out there and invest in them. Thus the species survives. It makes sense.


Now, completely non-narcissistic people who truly love all humans in the world non-discriminately and have absolutely NO preferences at all for, say, their musical penchant over someone else's tone-deaf hatred of all music, will likely make quite suitable parents for other people's children - through adoption or unknown gamete donors (though this will not necessarily answer all the issues these children may face in not knowing their genetic parents). These rare godlike perfectly altruistic people will make perfect parents for anyone.


The rest of us imperfect parents have to concede that we we enjoy seeing our traits, penchants, temperaments - and those of our beloved partner, and our ancestors, and his ancestors - in our children. It's really sweet. It's delightful. Can't help it.


It's a form of sane narcissism. The sort of sane narcissism that has quite possibly allowed the human race to survive.

This is the stuff that compels many people to want to have kids.

That makes people go through all sorts of unpleasant infertility treatments before considering donor conception or adoption.


That makes many people who eventually do turn to donor conception or adoption as last resorts have, well, issues. Natural issues. Issues that shouldn't be suppressed. Issues their (")children(") are likely to have, too, because they will likely want to think of their traits / ethnicity / heritage as good, and valuable, and important. These issues cannot be wished away.


And where does that leave the true narcissist, the parent with Narcissistic Personality Disorder? He will never be a true father to any child, biological or not. But a non-biological child he has to pretend he has fathered so he could present himself as fertile will never ever even theoretically be able to please him.

New blog

I started a new blog on being donor conceived. If that part of my story doesn't bore or bother you, feel free to visit.

http://strangeconceptions.blogspot.com/

On Being Donor Conceived

Maybe I should start a new blog on being donor conceived. I might after I know for sure. In that regard, it's frustration after frustration.

The relative who might know something didn't know anything. Not even ever seeing my (")father(") (?) lately makes it hard to collect a DNA sample. And today I thought I was on the verge of a discovery, one way or another, when I found hard proof of blood types for my entire family - only to be told by the Internet that in the case of my parents (A+ and B+) a donor of any blood type would produce plausible offspring. And I'm plausible. As would any donor's child have been. Back to square one.

Here is an interesting article on being fathered by an anonymous donor, all of which I relate to:

"Some evidence indicates some donor-conceived offspring are not necessarily surprised by the revelation that “Dad” was not their biological father. Some could sense a family secret, while others reported feelings of “not fit[ting] in” with their families. The author David Plotz, who was contacted by many donor offspring, writes that those who learn the truth about their DI origins “are rarely surprised; they always felt something wasn’t right.”

Moreover, many donor-conceived people who eventually learned the truth were angry at having been lied to for years about such a fundamental matter of their being. The reason why many DI offspring “felt something wasn’t right” is because many fathers, try as they might, cannot follow the doctor’s orders to “forget about it themselves.” Husbands often find it extremely difficult to treat donor-conceived children as if they were their own biological children, and such repression is likely to place a strain on family relationships. As Plotz writes:

While good studies on DI families don’t seem to exist, anecdotes about them suggest that there is frequently a gap between fathers and their putative children. [Fathers] are drained by having to pretend that children are theirs when they aren’t; it takes a good actor and an extraordinary man to overlook the fact that his wife has picked another man to father his child. It’s no wonder that the paternal bond can be hard to maintain. When a couple adopts a child, both parents share a genetic distance from the kid. But in DI families, the relationships tend to be asymmetric: the genetically connected mothers are close to their kids; the unconnected fathers are distanced."

Put a narcissist in the mix. Good actors, sure. Extraordinary in the sense implied here? No, quite the opposite, really. See why it matters to me? It would explain so much of our family dynamic and paint it in even darker colors. I started this journey still pretty much wearing my rosy-colored glasses (he loved me, but in a narcissistic way; he was proud of my achievements and just wanted to own and control me; he felt abandoned by me; he was a great dad, although he did it all to be worshiped). This is where I am now: he resented me for existing and being me but had to fake it and even overfake it.

To some out there, genes don't matter. For those who chose donor conception and then lied about it, they clearly matter. Why not opt for adoption and tell everyone? Even if it didn't matter to me (and it does, I'm not going to apologize for that: I look in the mirror and see my mother and someone else, NOT my father, and I wonder who it might be and what he's like and what he likes and what his ethnicity is and whether he shares some of the talents I share with neither parent) it matters that it mattered to them.

Sorry. That's just the way I feel.

Edit: So I did apologize. For my feelings. Just realized that. ACoN to the core ;)

It just occurred to me

My father returned into the country in October after being away for 6 months. We had lunch with him and his girlfriend on October 20. Then, on October 21, his girlfriend had some business in our neighborhood and he spent 4 hours in our home waiting for her.

There was a family celebration hosted by my in-laws where we met, and also one organized by my aunt, where we ran into each other.

Other than that, we haven't seen him. At all. Which is bizarre for my culture. And which I only now even noticed because normally I am just happy and grateful not to hear from him or see him.

We really only see him when his girlfriend attends her classes and he waits for her at our place because he's a jealous abuser.

What's fascinating for me is that he actually uses the words "coming to see you" for those occasions, implying affection for us as the reason for his visits, and he actually seems to expect us to buy it. And we actually don't explicitly call him on it. But it's such obvious BS that it seems insulting to us to even say it.

You don't see your "beloved daughter and granddaughters" for 6 months. Then you see them twice in two days, because that's convenient. Then you don't express any desire to see them again for a month. But, as soon as your girlfriend starts her classes again, you'll be wishing to see us three times a week at times inconvenient for us. What gives?

How I really feel

BAM! I had an unexpected revelation of my real feelings for my father yesterday.

I went to a family celebration at my aunt's. He was invited there for lunch, and my chosen family for dinner. I hadn't expected to see him there.

Which is why, when I entered my aunt's house and saw him sitting there, I almost fainted. My heart started racing, I had trouble breathing, and darkness enveloped me. Spontaneously, I frowned in horror and asked him: "What are you doing here?"

After I'd had time to compose myself, I acted like I always do around him: polite, civil, smiling. My feelings were under control too, like they always are when I know in advance I'll be meeting him.

This isn't new, either. I was reminded yesterday of a very similar event form when I was seven or eight and my father unexpectedly showed up on my school trip, when I thought I'd be free of him for two weeks.

Back then, I also gasped for air. The sun seemed to go black. I felt sudden and intense fear. And all I could utter was also, word for word: "What are you doing here?"

What amazes me is how I've been able all my life to suffocate my feelings and put them under control in order to survive and get on with my life despite his continuing presence. I braced myself and controlled my emotions and reactions.

But there are very negative real feelings under there that only truly surface in their natural intensity when I'm relaxed, not expecting to run into him. And then I do.

Last night, I felt stalked. In reality, I don't even think he actually stalked me - apparently, he came to dinner because he actually had a funeral to attend earlier in the day. But I felt stalked. Like there was no safe place for me that he couldn't invade.

Public Pride and Secret Shame

I was his public pride. My existence was proof of his fertility, my achievements were proof of his natural talents, and his public protestations of fatherly devotion were proof of his love for his offspring.

On the other hand, my very existence was a daily reminder for him of his secret shame, his infertility. I must have been like a slap in the face, just by being me, so different from him and his family of origin.

(I've just spent an hour going through his old photos - incidentally, I'm the one keeping them, he's not really interested in anything involving his narcissistic family of origin, all dead now - photos of him as a baby, toddler, young man, of his sister, father, mother, grandparents, great-uncles and others. I look nothing like any of them. As do my children, who noticeably take after myself, my mother's family, and my husband and his ancestors.)

He must have had a deep ambiguity towards me from the very start and I must have internalized it. On the one hand, he overdid the "devoted father" thing. He probably felt it was necessary to keep others from suspecting anything - but most people I know just found it weird and over the top. On the other hand, I've always felt a dark undercurrent of danger emanating from him, telling me not only "you should be as I want you to be" but also "you shouldn't be."

I can't begin to imagine what raising a donor-conceived child does to a narcissist. And to that child. There's a whole chapter on cloning as the most suitable reproduction of mini-mes that narcissistic parents so desire in Clone being: exploring the psychological and social dimensions by Stephen E. Levick. My father was the golden child because he looked more like his mother and was the more "handsome" of the two, according to her. My aunt was scapegoated for looking like her father and thus not being as beautiful as her mother.


Then, on the other hand, if it is indeed true (and I'm almost positive it is), then I sort of feel for him. And somehow feel that, given the situation, he did relatively well. He could have been much worse.


Why did they never tell me? My mother was once going to tell me something "when I turn 18" but then claimed she didn't remember what it was when I asked her about it on my 18th birthday.


Did he want to protect me from knowing I'm not his, poor me? Or protect himself from people knowing about his infertility? Or a mixture of all that?

Matters of biology and whether biology matters

My mother's stepfather was the person closest and dearest to me when I was growing up. He was also the only non-narcissist and non-enabler in my immediate family. So, when sane, normal people are concerned, genes don't generally play a decisive role - these people treat children decently, whether they're related to them or not.

Narcissists, on the other hand, will mistreat any children in their care, whether they're their biological parents or not. So, why does it even matter whether my NF is my biological father or not?

Well, just imagine your run-of-the-mill malignant narcissist in his situation and things begin to make sense. First, our narcissist discovers he is infertile, which is a difficult thing for any man - or woman - to reconcile with, but it is crushing for a narcissist - infertility is one of the most devastating narcissistic injuries conceivable. Add to this injury the insult of his wife's great desire to have a child - if necessary, with another man's sperm. The narcissist grants her this wish, but she is supposed to take the blame for those previous 12 years of infertility. The newly-created child is already proof of his fertility in front of others, but a constant reminder of his lack of manhood (or whatever he might have in his narcissistic mind) to himself.

Can you really claim this situation is not somehow just a bit more complex than the narcissist getting his own child, a potential mini-me?

The malignant narcissist's wife gives birth to a child that looks quite a bit like her and seems to be happy, getting what she wanted and what he might have wanted too, but couldn't have. As a man who has been known to repeatedly do things just to spite others and rain on their parade and ruin it for them, he:

a) becomes the perfect, ideal, most dedicated father ever, bottle-feeding the infant, taking the child out for long walks, helping the mother to such an extent that she barely notices she has a child, for which she and the child are eternally grateful, or

b) out of envy, sabotages the nursing relationship and takes the baby away from the mother to prove that though she may be the biological parent, he can still usurp the child and control her and force her to love him more. The mother consents to this, out of gratitude and guilt, and doesn't complain because, after all, he's spending time with a child not biologically his, and this is so sweet of him. She lets other things go because of this too.

I'd go with b).

What do you think?

I know. I just know.

I had a dream a few nights ago where I was descending steep and dangerous steps to get to the edge of a deep and dangerous river where I could meet a fisherman who'd sell me a fish. Halfway down the steps, wondering whether I'd break my neck or drown, I realized I already had a fish in my hands. And it was a stinky, disgusting fish I didn't know what to do with. Nothing I'd like to prepare for my family or eat. I just looked at it.

The moment I woke up, I understood that this meant I already know my father is not my biological father. I don't need to do a DNA test - risking him discovering I know this and paying money for it - in order to find out. I already know. And I don't really know what to do with it.

My aunt recently remembered another tidbit from a long time ago (she digs stuff up from her memory, just like all of us do, in no particular order, as it all comes back to her): my mother told her, before I was conceived, about their fertility issues.

Apparently, instead of doing it the normal way - males go first, because it's much less invasive - my mother first underwent extensive fertility testing which revealed there was nothing wrong with her before my father agreed to be tested and, whaddya know - the test revealed "half his sperm was dead, and the rest of it was lazy," my mother told my aunt in the strictest confidence.

My mother told me as much when I was 18.

Short of a divine miracle, the only way in which my mother could have conceived in 1981 was via donor sperm.

I look nothing like my father or his sister or parents, and neither do my kids. Not a single little insignificant trait. A short glance at my kids next to their parents or anyone in my husband's family quickly and easily reveals those little familial similarities.

What difference does it make? Not much, really. But there are implications of this on my mind that I'll just have to share.

He's back

It's weird. I have little energy for describing my encounter with him. I found I was acting somewhat narcissistic around him which may or may not have been related to his being more defensive and polite. It's all weird.

His girlfriend was here and she found it appropriate to use us as audience or protection to discuss her issues with him. Bizarre verbal abuse and pathological jealousy stuff. I said in front of him that the only way to counter his irrational behavior might be to stop taking it seriously. He said nothing and grinned in a forced, eery way. I might now be "audience" to him, which is good. He's on his best behavior in front of us.

I find, though, that I have a hard time being in the same room with him. For no particular reason. He's just a presence I feel uncomfortable around. I didn't feel like this before.

When I look at him, there's just one thing I see. Know those cartoons where a starving person sees a roast when looking at anyone or anything? Well, I look at him and I see DNA samples. I see stuff that might help me determine if he is indeed my biological father or not. And not much else.

The error in his strategy

He never conditioned me to feel sorry for him, to feel close to him, to feel anything for him that might be tender. No, he was always strong, tough, needing nothing from anyone. He never even pretended to show me any tenderness or love. He faked it and talked about it to others, but he didn't show me any affection, even fake stuff, not really.

He only conditioned me to fear his wrath.

His narcissistic mother, on the other hand, pretended to love him and his sister to death and conditioned them to cater to her emotionally and to feel guilty about her emotions.

And through much of my childhood and adulthood he tried to manipulate me using her tactics. Which failed. Because, not being properly conditioned, I took him at his word.

For instance, things like "Well, if I embarrass you, although your friends like me, I won't be at your party" were met with my "Great, thanks" instead of "Oh, no, of course you don't embarrass me, please don't be hurt!"

My vacation is over

Daddy dearest is coming back to town. My 6-month break from him is over. I hadn't heard from him in three weeks, most probably because I hadn't complied with his request that I send him ALL the pictures I have of our summer, but he ended the silent treatment to notify me of his return, complain of "no news from me :(" (read: no photos) and... request more photos.

I sent him a few pics of my husband remodeling our apartment (tiles, painting, floors - he did everything himself and I'm very proud of him.)

I find I'm not like the rest of you. I don't dream that my father will be somehow transformed and then we could have a real relationship. I have no desire for a real relationship with him. I don't remember a time after my earliest childhood when I did.

It appears any feelings I could have had for him except fear (and occasionally anger) have been numb for a long time. Years. Decades, even.

He never fostered those feelings, like many NMs do, for instance, inspiring the illusion of a relationship in their children - he only fostered fear.

My only wish in dealing with him is for a time to come when I feel I am stronger, healthier, and not afraid. To feel truly free of him in my head.

I feel him as a sort of opponent, adversary, foil - but one I will always treat civilly and diplomatically, never making a faux pas that might justify any move against us.

Weird

I've been feeling weird and lost. Lots of stuff happening which I don't know what to do with emotionally.

My "boss" (direct superior as of this year, but there are other wonderful people there) has lied about me and to me and caused complications, but things are looking up and working out, apparently.

My father is apparently giving me the silent treatment again for not sending him more photos, which I'm enjoying and happily ignoring.

The narcissistic author I'm translating for has managed to get me to promise to finish his book by early October (he's one of those voice narcissists, darn them). It MIGHT be done by the middle of the month. He owes me money again, so I'm not TOO worried or guilty, but still.

I have serious narcissistic traits in my subconscious. Or so I think. Proof: My M. Phil. mentor is now the head of the gov't uni dept. I recently dropped by and thanked him for his mentorship. It must be because I'm hoping to secure a position there.

Except: I've wanted to thank him for a long time because he truly was and is an amazing, wonderful, supportive mentor. Through my ACON journey I realized I had a serious problem expressing anything that might seem like "sucking up" (because I saw my father's toadying too often) and I felt I wanted to right that wrong. And I don't actually WANT to work there, but he might have thought that this was my hidden agenda. I'm so screwed up.

And my direct superior is a psychopath!

Apparently. I'm slowly discovering a whole network of her seemingly unnecessary lies and attempted manipulations. All directed against me, for some reason. Weird stuff. I'll bore you with the details later.

I had worked with her for two years before and only noticed she wasn't very friendly, but was very ambitious and didn't seem to like our students very much. Now I have the knowledge to notice other stuff, and hopefully deal with some of it too. At least work on not taking it personally and not seeing it as a reflection of my actual work and worth.

My Evil Strategy

That's right. I've devised an Evil Strategy. It's my first ever.

If my father asks why I haven't humored him and sent him the photos he requested although I've already said "no" to him, here's what I'll say:

"Oh! You were serious? It sounded like a joke."

This is not a lie. And it's not a justification. It's showing him how he's coming across. If someone sends you a total of 17 photos as a result of your constant pestering and then says "I don't know what else to send you," it's only logical that your "Send me all you've got" reads as a joke.

I guess I started thinking about Deborah's suggestion that I behave like his own narcissistic mother would, and that caused a paradigm shift in my thinking. Suddenly, the question occurred to me: "Why does it always have to be me on the defensive? Justifying myself? Thinking of ways to prove I'm not being mean? Is it absolutely forbidden to put HIM on the defensive if he deserves it by behaving in a clearly abnormal way? It might actually not be forbidden. Wow."

Am I evil?