Simply Put

Last night a friend sent me a link to a book about manipulative parents. Unfortunately, at the moment this book is only available in French (though I saw on Amazon that an English and Spanish translation might be available this September). The write up that my friend sent, had this phrase:

"these parents tend to make their children feel worthless, show little interest in their successes, and offer them no support when they are going through a difficult period."

That is the definition of my parents, simply put.

link:http://www.editions-homme.com/ficheDroits.aspx?codeprod=395826

Notes on Jane Eyre

While I was away, I took the book "Jane Eyre" with me. Re-reading under the "lens" of what I now know on Narcissism was like reading a different book completely. I cried throughout the first few chapters because the feelings of Jane echoed so much of how I used to feel in my dealings with my FOO. 

"All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud indifference, all his mother's aversion, all the servants' partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, for ever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win any one's favour? Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected. Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and insolent carriage, was universally indulged. Her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault. John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit, and broke the buds off the choicest plants in the conservatory: he called his mother "old girl," too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin, similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still "her own darling." I dared commit no fault: I strove to fulfil every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and from noon to night.

My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was loaded with general opprobrium.

"Unjust!--unjust!" said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into precocious though transitory power: and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression--as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.

What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I could not answer the ceaseless inward question--WHY I thus suffered; now, at the distance of--I will not say how many years, I see it clearly.

I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them. They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of contempt of their judgment. I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child--though equally dependent and friendless--Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less prone to make me the scapegoat of the nursery."

I-You Versus I-It

       For the most part, whenever someone would mention my sister to me, invariably they would say: "She ignores me" and I would respond:"Yep, that's my sister: if she has no use for you...she's not interested".
       I felt there was something intensely de-humanising in treating people this way, as if they were mere pieces of machinery. You always felt sort of lifeless after interacting with someone like that, whereas with other people I felt energised after spending time with them. I remember discussing this with various friends and acquaintances, but I seemed to be the only one who was aware of this "effect". Most of my interlocutors would look at me as if they hadn't the faintest idea of what I was talking about. I had started wondering whether I was "imagining" all this, when I found an explanation in the book ("When You're Falling, Dive" by Mark Matousek) that I was reading at the time. 
       It seems to me that certain books have a way of "finding" me instead of me finding them. At times when I was feeling really stuck and not being able to move forward, I would either be browsing in a book shop and some book would catch my eye, or someone would come along and lend me a book; and in that book there would be something to help me move along in the path. This was one of those books. (It is not an easy book to read. Some of the stories are brutal and Matousek does not shelter the reader from them, but although harrowing, it has a raw honesty that you don't find in many books. He tells you the truth that you don't want to hear: that there is no way around pain but through.)
        In one of the chapters in the book, "The Net of Indra", he interviews Dan Goleman, who discusses some points of his book "Social Intelligence". Dan Goleman explains that "the brain itself is social" and  "One person's inner state affects and drives the other person. We're forming brain-to-brain bridges -a two way traffic system- all the time. We actually catch each other's emotions like a cold". He then goes on to say that "If we're in distressing, toxic relationships with people who are constantly putting us down, this has actual physical consequences. Stress produces cortisol, a chemical that hinders cell health." So there it was: the explanation of why some people would make me feel ill, literally. It is so reassuring to the soul to be validated, and to realise that all those feelings that you had, you weren't imagining them: they were an actual process taking place. That was validation 1, now for nr 2... 
    As the chapter continues, Goleman goes on to describe two types of relationships: "the I-It and the I-YOU (first described by the philosopher Martin Buber). I-it relationships happen when we treat people as objects or functionaries because we want something from them. In I-YOU relationships, there's a human connection. There's feedback, a loop, because who the other person is, and what they have to say, matters."  

Small Talk

             I have a confession to make: I have not set foot in our local supermarket for at least over a year. I've shopped online or in the next town. Why? Because I just cannot bear the thought of having to make small talk with my sister's flying monkeys should I bump into them. And quite likely I would. We live in a very small town. Whereas I have been facing a lot of other situations pretty much head on, this one still beats me. It's turning out to be my Achilles heel.

             Blogger RTB has written a few posts about small talk recently (http://roots2blossom.wordpress.com/tag/small-talk/) that got me thinking as to why we all seem to struggle so much with this issue. After musing on it for a few days, the answer emerged: it's not small talk that is the problem. The problem is to have to keep doing small talk when you are well past the point of being at that stage with that person. It was RTB's realisation that sometimes there is something such as too much information, that made me think that small talk itself was not the problem. Let me explain:
            When you first meet someone (and/or in certain circumstances in public life) small talk is appropriate. But after a certain reasonable time of knowing a person, you should be able to move on to more open discussions. To have to keep doing small talk with people you have known for years isn't natural. It's like playing a board game where you never make it past square one, or like being invited to someone's house for dinner and only being given a starter but never a main meal. From those two scenarios you'd go away bored and hungry, and I think that's what happens at an emotional level when we have those sorts of interactions with people. In a way, it's also like being stuck in "Groundhog Day" (film), with people repeating the same things over and over like a protocol. It also reminds me of the Stepford Wives film. There is a woman I have known for years and both DH and I have noticed how, if we say anything that remotely strays from the "protocol", you can see in her eyes that you've lost her, her brain is starting to "malfunction" and you quickly have to "undo", so she doesn't spontaneously combust ;) Though we always have a laugh about this, I think it's very sad to live your life at that superficial level all the time...
           I was recently on a train trip and I took "The Tenant of Widlfell Hall" by Anne Brontë to read with me. I was blown away reading how the main character -Helen Graham- feels exactly how I feel about small talk:

(In this excerpt Helen is having a conversation with Mr. Markham) 

'Why have they left you alone?' I (Mr. Markham) asked.

'It is I who have left them,' was the smiling rejoinder. 'I was wearied to death with small talk - nothing wears me out like that. I cannot imagine how they can go on as they do.'

I could not help smiling at the serious depth of her wonderment.

'Is it that they think it a duty to be continually talking,' pursued she: 'and so never pause to think, but fill up with aimless trifles and vain repetitions when subjects of real interest fail to present themselves? - or do they really take a pleasure in such discourse?'

'Very likely they do,' said I; 'their shallow minds can hold no great ideas, and their light heads are carried away by trivialities that would not move a better-furnished skull; - and their only alternative to such discourse is to plunge over head and ears into the slough of scandal - which is their chief delight.'

'Not all of them, surely?' cried the lady, astonished at the bitterness of my remark.

'No, certainly; I exonerate my sister from such degraded tastes - and my mother too, if you included her in your animadversions.'

'I meant no animadversions against any one, and certainly intended no disrespectful allusions to your mother. I have known some sensible persons great adepts in that style of conversation when circumstances impelled them to it; but it is a gift I cannot boast the possession of. I kept up my attention on this occasion as long as I could, but when my powers were exhausted I stole away to seek a few minutes' repose in this quiet walk. I hate talking where there is no exchange of ideas or sentiments, and no good given or received.'

I wouldn't have been able to put it better myself...

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

This is the summary of the book on the back cover: "Renée is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building, home to members of the great and the good. Over the years she has maintained her carefully constructed persona as someone reliable but totally uncultivated, in keeping, she feels, with society's expectations of what a concierge should be. But beneath this façade lies the real Renée: passionate about culture and the arts, and more knowledgeable in many ways than her employers with their outwardly successful but emotionally void lives. Down in her lodge, apart from weekly visits by her one friend Manuela, Renée lives resigned to her lonely lot with only her cat for company. Meanwhile, several floors up, twelve-year-old Paloma Josse is determined to avoid the pampered and vacuous future laid out for her, and decides to end her life on her thirteenth birthday. But unknown to them both, the sudden death of one of their privileged neighbours will dramatically alter their lives forever." 

Kitty's recent posts on Poking at Personas reminded me of a passage in the book. At the time when I read it I knew nothing about Narcissism yet but the description struck me so much because it described so well not only what happens when you poke behind someone's mask but how the discovery of what's behind the mask made me feel. I even highlighted the whole passage in fluorescent yellow so that I would be able to find it easily. In the story, Paloma is taken to her mother's shrink and she pokes behind his mask:
"At first I was really pleased with myself. I had managed to make him move. But as the day went on I started to feel more and more depressed. Because what happened when he moved was something not very nice, not very decent. So what if I know there are adults who wear masks that are all sweetness and light but who are very hard and ugly underneath, and so what if I know that all you have to do is see right through them for their masks to fall; when it happens with this sort of violence, it hurts. When he slapped the blotter, what it meant was, 'Fine, you see me as I am, no point carrying this useless farce, it's a done deal, you pathetic little bargain, now get the hell out of here, and fast.' Well, that hurt, yes, it hurt."

I think I need to read this book again. I'm sure I'm going to see a lot of stuff that I missed the first time around.

All Unhappy Families...

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

This is the opening line in the book Anna Karenina. One time when I was googling the quote I found a thread of someone who was asking about the meaning of the quote on yahoo answers. The reply he got was this:

"Happy families understand human nature, not in an abstract way, but in a practical way that allows the fulfilment of its members. Since happy families follow nature and are tuned with those natural needs they're all very much alike. Unhappy families march to the particular flaws of the individuals within it and therefore don't function according to nature or as a family. The unhappiness within each unhappy family is uniquely their own path."

I though this reply was pretty much spot on. However, I do see a common thread in "unhappy" (or dysfunctional) families. How else can I explain that I can relate so much to people who come from different backgrounds and have had a different family experience? How else can I explain that when I read certain books, or watch certain films, I feel like I have known the characters my whole life? That I deeply know and understand them.

Yesterday I watched "Rumble Fish". The first time I saw the film, in my late teens, I was completely drawn to this film in a way that I could not explain. After all, what did a Spanish girl from an average working family have in common with a guy (Rusty James) from Tulsa who was involved in gangs, and had an alcoholic father? But somehow at the time I felt like I knew this character and his brother so much. Watching the film yesterday I saw so much more than I did when I saw it the first time. I saw that the main character, Rusty James, is just desperate to be seen by his father and his brother. That he had been brought up being left entirely to his own devices and, while in his case this was very extreme, since the father is an alcoholic; I also, except for the basics, had  been brought up left to my own devices, with no one to give me guidance or direction of any kind. Brought up as if we were invisible, or at best, as a background prop to someone else's life. This disconnection seems to me to be the most common denominator in dysfunctional families.

There was another idea in the film that I also deeply related to. See what you think of this conversation between Rusty James and his father while they're discussing the older brother:

Father: Every now and then, a person comes along, has a different view of the world than does the usual person. It doesn't make them crazy. I mean... an acute perception, man... that doesn't, that doesn't make you crazy.

Rusty: Could you talk normal?

Father: However sometimes... it can drive you crazy, acute perception.

Rusty: I wish you'd talk normal 'cause I don't understand half the garbage you're saying. You know? You know what I mean?

Father: No, your mother... is not crazy. And neither, contrary to popular belief, is your brother crazy. He's merely miscast in a play. He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river... with the ability to be able to do anything that he wants to do and findin' nothin' that he wants to do. I mean nothing.

"A miscast in a play". That's how I feel in my FOO. As much as I see a lot of me in the struggles of Rusty James, I also see a lot of me in the character of the older brother. In the way he can see past the appearance of the things that surrounds him. 

This acute perception is that made us different from our FOO is also what could have driven us crazy. In my view, this "acute perception" is what causes depression. Depression as in being pressed down by a reality we are unable to change: the realisation that we've been born in the "wrong" family...

This film was based on a book of S.E. Hinton. I wondered what upbringing she'd had, to be able to describe these feelings so well. (You know that only one who has also been there could express them in that way.) And what do you know? There is not a lot of info on her upbringing, but I did find this:

" I still find it hard to comprehend how a girl could write

so insightfully about boys. Obviously girls have their own battles to go through, and they probably seem just as life-and-death, but the understanding she had of the boys’ world is still hard to comprehend.

Maybe it had something to do with her upbringing, which  apparently wasn’t easy. Ms. Hinton is still now a very private person, but she has described her mother as abusive: “when I was writing she’d come into my room, grab my hair and throw me in front of the TV, she’d say, ‘You’re part of this family – now act like it.’”

Whatever it was, she could identify with people who felt they didn’t fit in, and she was able to observe the young boys in her neighbourhood with their gangs, and family problems, and just the terrible struggles of growing up, and she was able to write about it as if she was one of them."

She was able to write as if she was one of them because she WAS one of them: another "motherless" child left to her own devices and being made to act as "part of a family" as a prop in the background. 

The Haman Complex

In the late 90s my brother had a girlfriend whom we'd known since we were kids. Whenever I visited, I'd bring her a gift and I'd take an interest in her. One day my brother mentioned to me that she'd said that both my sister and myself didn't like her. This really puzzled me. I had treated her just like I treat everybody else in the family. It was also perplexing because my sister and I are of such different character and behaviour. The fact that she was tarring us with the same brush made me think that there was more to the story.  However those were "pre-internet" times and if you encountered odd behaviour in someone there was no way to check it out. Self-help books hadn't become so widely available. The only other source to discuss anything like that would have been my parents and older people, but since we had never had those sorts of conversations it never occurred to me to run it by them.
By the time my brother mentioned it, they were no longer going out together, so I just filed the episode somewhere in my brain and carried on with my life.
Then one day I start reading the story of Queen Esther. In the story, Persian king Ahasuerus "appoints Haman as his prime minister. Mordechai, who sits at the palace gates, falls into Haman's disfavor as he refuses to bow down to him. Having found out that Mordechai is Jewish, Haman plans to kill not just Mordechai but all the Jews in the empire" (quote from the wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Esther)

The exact phrase in the story that opened up the pending "file" in my brain about my brother's ex was this:

"When Haman saw that Mordecai neither bowed down nor paid homage to him, Haman was filled with rage."

Aaaahhh, massive lightbulb moment. When she'd said to my brother "your sisters don't like me", what she actually meant was "your sisters don't adore me". (Shame that Narcissists don't come with subtitles, it would make life so much easier for everyone involved). This girl was the youngest in her family and when she was born her older brother and sister were old enough to have been her own parents. So she was used to a level of attention (and adoration) that we couldn't possibly match. (Or one that we would have wanted to match anyway.) Any less than that level of adoration was paramount to not "liking" her.

Haman's personality was a  revelation to me, and I have encountered many "Hamans" since. People who are highly offended because you haven't done whatever it is that they wanted you to do. Which, almost invariably, comes down to bowing down to them.

Looks Like Leo Tolstoy Had Been There Before Me...

I'm reading  "Anna Karenina"  (I shamefully confess that it's the abridged version) and last night I came across a phrase that jumped off the page at me:

"not having expressed the one thing that occupied their thoughts, whatever they said rang false."

and on the next page:

"therefore Constantine (Levin) tried to do what all his life he had tried and never known how to do: he tried to say something different from what he thought; and felt all the time that it sounded false"

That's it, isn't it? Not being able to express the truth about how you feel makes everything else sound false. That is exactly how I feel when I talk with my FOO. Who would have known that Mr. Tolstoy had observed this same problem as far back as 1877. 

Blade Runner

From the time I was a teenager until my late twenties "Blade Runner" was my favourite film. Closely followed by "Rumble Fish". Odd choices for a  teenage girl really. Something about the films drew me to them. I didn't know why. Now I do. "Rumble Fish" is basically a story about a dysfunctional family. "Blade Runner" is about seeing a different reality. Recently someone lent me the DVD for "The Adjustment Bureau". I loved it too. Most of my acquaintances, when giving their opinion on the film (including the person who lent it to me) would say: "I didn't like it. It wasn't what I expected","Why? What were you expecting?" I'd ask. "A political thriller or conspiracy theory film". I found those answers really amusing. So many people I know watch a film with a preconceived idea. I don't. I go with the story and see where it takes me.  In this particular case  I knew that the film was based on a Philip K. Dick story so I already had a sense of what kind of film it would be. I have not read any of his books, though I've always wanted to, and I really don't know much about the writer. Before I went on my holiday, I listened to a BBC podcast about Philip K. Dick's life. Journalist Matthew Parris interviewed actor Michael Sheen ( yes, the guy that played the unbearable snob in "Midnight in Paris"). At one point in the interview, Michael Sheen says: "indicative of Dick’s writing is the moment where the central character begins to discover that maybe the reality that he’s living in and that he’s taking for granted may not be everything that’s going on and that maybe there’s something else going on behind it."

Maybe that's what draws me to all films based on Dick's stories. That central theme of being able to see a reality that nobody else sees.

As I'm listening to the podcast I start wondering if Philip K. Dick was an ACoN. You pick up on different threads once you know about Narcissism. There were a lot of clues in the things they were discussing about Dick's life even if they themselves weren't picking up on them. They spoke about Dick's relationship with his mother. For some reason this made me think of that scene in "Blade Runner" when Mr. Holden is running a VK test to see if Leon is a replicant:

Mr Holden says: "Describe in single words the good things that come into your mind about your mother."

Leon replies: "My mother? Let me tell you about my mother" and shoots Mr. Holden.

Well, if that doesn't reek of ACoNhood I don't know what does.