Narc Peek-A-Boo

Since it is Halloween time, I am going to tell you a scary story.  This is a true story that trumps any story Hollywood could come up with.  It is about my mother.

One evening, when I was still living in my apartment, she was sleeping overnight .  I noticed she had went to bed without taking her medications. I had to get her up out of bed.  Oh boy, why did I even bother, why did I care?  What came next is that I wish I would have left her alone.

The living room was dimly lighted.  I went and got her out of bed, and she came walking down the hallway towards the livingroom, bare boobs, and I got her to sit down.  She didn't say anything.  She had this very strange look on her face.  I got the feeling in my body, that I had better be careful.  It was one of those moments, where I had to play a balancing act.  Give her loads and loads of attention, coo at her, say to her that it was very important to take her meds, but in no way cross the line into making her wrong.  I did what every dutiful daughter does at that time, and just said that it wasn't her fault, but she forgot to take her meds, oops, forgot is the wrong word.  I had to say that she was too busy to take her meds.

Through this whole time she did not say anything.  Not a thing at all.  Just looked over at me quietly, then looked away, with this very mean smile, smirk.  Yes, I think that's what I'll call it the smile smirk.  She enjoyed all this attention from me, my gosh does that make me special?  For to her I was not special enough for her to enjoy my attention.  But see the smirk frown.  Yes, I'll call it a smirk frown, for it is not a smile.

Its scary.  I'm trying to come up with words for it, smirk frown.  I like that, except, its evil, scary.  Ok, evil, scary, smirk, frown.  Now I have to come up with a word that joins up all those words.

But it was terrifying.  So much so, that I didn't even want to look.  But looking is wrong, not looking is wrong, she was not in the mood for me to get it wrong, gotta get it right.

She was being a receiver of all this attention, but the commander too, I must have followed the protocol correctly that night, for she went back to bed after I had dished out her meds.  I remembered that I didn't mention her being naked, or anything like that.

But I remembered the look.  Since the room was so dimly lighted I did not want more lights on. Everything changes when she is giving that look.  How was this the same mommy that made me hot chocolate and took care of me?  But it was, it surely was.

I've seen that look many times in my life.  You have to look away, but be careful, don't get caught looking away.  She was in suspended animation, she would maintain that look for a long time. Except for when company would come to the door, and it would suddenly be tea and crumpets.  I suddenly realized why I loved visitors showing up at the door when I was growing up.

I have this weird memory that I don't know what to make of.  I'm not sure if it was a dream or not, but just one day, a few weeks back, I can remember 3 people staring at me, with "those eyes".  Except the eyes were way more pronounced than ever.  Big and wide, and half their faces.  And it was like they were 'gone" and just doing that and it freaked me out.

Just before that I was at a bible study, where 2 people are narcs.  I can't tell you where on the spectrum they are on, but one is more severe, and the other less so.  Well, maybe.  But I think that they are on the same spot on the narcissistic spectrum, just that one might be more smarter, which is the covert one.  The covert one, all I have to do is take one look at her husband and I can see the whipped little doggy.  She has a "stupid" son, who has pronounced anxiety, and one time I tried to talk to him, he was unaware that I was even standing there.  I have to say, "hi", many times to get his attention.

Anyway, I trailed off.  That vision came to me right after the bible study.  The narcs were being nice and human that night and I was starting to doubt the whole thing about narcissism.  Maybe it was just my imagination......then bam the vision.

We have 2 that work at our food bank as well.  When I go there to work, I used to freak out.  Not so much anymore.  Since I know who the narcs are in my little circle, I was thinking that maybe I'll do a scientific study on them.  First I'm going to be collecting data, that is, information, on who they are and what they did to prove to me that they are narcs.  As I go about my life, I will do this.

Today I brought some food to the food bank from the church.  We were having a meeting, so I tried to make more observations, but I came up blank, they were acting nice.  No observations, other than being nice.  So for now, I have a blank.

When I got back home, and some hours later, I realized something.  The covert shit when on right in front of my eyes, and I missed it.

We are terribly out of money.  We had to stop giving our clients food vouchers for the month, at least for now, until things improve.  In order to inform the clients of this our main director wrote a message and left it on the desk for the clients to read.

So, one of the MN's said that she took sign down, and rewrote it, because it wasn't compassionate enough.  She could make it more compassionate, for so and so wasn't compassionate at all.  So she wrote a more compassionate letter that was a whole page, bolded and taped down on the desk.  I remember reading it, but I don't remember what it said.  It was too mushy, and too unnecessary, and I'm sure now, that the first note that the director wrote was fine.

People are mushy sometimes, and its ok right?  I mean, if it fully authentic of them, and it brings value, but to write a cheesy letter like that was out of the norm for this freaky woman.  And our director was being put down as though she is a cold person, and I know that she is not.  The clients needed the food vouchers, and we are unable to give them, and no amount of cooing is going to make up for that.

They need the funds raised, and we are trying to do that.  I thought I had this good scheme going on, I have my DH and another guy at his job donating 20$ from each of the guys pay, which the company meets the donation amount, as long as they do it through this particular charity.  It doesn't seem like the food bank is getting this money though and I'm having trouble trying to find out what's going on with that.  Its a strange world we live in.

So this experiment is hard.  I prayed to God, what is going on?  I can't pin them down.  And when they are being nice, I'm thinking they are ok, and I think it was God that gave me that vision, to save me.  To help me not to forget, that narcs are going to slip in and out of my conscienceness, I will see them as normal every now and again.  I might even believe for awhile that they are normal, but I am not to forget what they are.

I believe in no contact with narcs.  But I can't escape them entirely.  I'm watching them interact with human people and I've been observing this for awhile now.  It used to make me feel very creepy, and my nerves used to go crazy, but not so much anymore.

That vision has locked in my head, and because of it, I will not doubt the existence of narcs again.  It is, afterall, important to my recovery.  I mean, if it wasn't narcs that caused me so much distress all my life, then I am back to not knowing what caused it.  Then I will have to believe that it was Me who did this to myself.  That vision gave me back my freedom, creepy as it was.

Its when narcs act like humans it confuses me.  But it is still there, the narcissism.  Just like with the "compassionate note".  I mean these things have to work hard at keeping their secret.  But what about the less covert narc?  They don't seem to be keeping secrets at all.

Here's what my view of narcs have become.  Some are very overt.  They go right over the top, then they simmer down and make you a cake.  Then there are the very covert ones, that seem knowledgeable and sweet and they have whipped husbands and sons.  I have never met that woman's daughter but I can venture a guess that she is the golden child.  Her son is the scapegoat, but he might be lost, I can tell by the look in his face.  He is only 35, can he wake up from this?  I don't know what I can do.

I am trying to stay awake and aware of narcs, but its hard.  Its kinda like I enter a dream state and lose it.  It was freaky.  I was starting to doubt the existence of narcs then bam one freaky vision.  I don't have visions.  I don't have a religion like that.  So I don't know.

Its time for me to accept the truth.  There is narcissism.  There are tons of them flooding the world. We might find a few survivors, but watch out there are zombies too.  I'm not talking of the mentally ill people, but the ones who are followers of narcs.  That woman's son might be gone though.

I feel like I want to talk of recovery all the time.  Then I want to talk of narcs.  Because they are out there, and I need to be aware and keep being aware.  If you want, you can walk away from the narcs and zombies, they don`t matter.  There is no value in it.

But anyway, I just reached down to touch my leg, and I remembered the texture of a pair of pants that I used to own.  I don't have them now, not for years.  But that memory is not vague, I used to own those textured pants.  Just like the memory of the freaks is not vague.

You know, I don't know what I'm getting at with all this.  I just am blurting out stuff.  But this is a pretty good Halloween story don't you think?  I am hoping for a big discussion on narc peek-a-boo, I need all the help I can get.