Bisexual boyfriend sexual addiction due to trauma?

My boyfriend was upfront about his bisexuality from the start. He says he is only interested in a relationship with a woman and sex with men is due to his childhood abuse. He was so upfront and seemed to understand himself I was really impressed. He was in therapy for years and said he has not been with men for about 5 years now and doesn't "need" to have sex with men but still finds them attractive etc. All of that is fine with me and we have a great sex life. But that was when things started to unravel... I felt and just a gut feel that sex was a bit compulsive to him. And he pushed for more intense stuff which was fun and I stepped up (yay me) but he kept wanting more intense so we talked about it and he agreed and that we don't have to do everything at once. And then in an accidental slip it came out that he had sex with men a few months before we started dating a year ago. So not 5 yrs but 1 yr. It was pre-"US" and who he had sex with not my concern but lying to me is. He claims he forgot somehow and it was casual 1x sex only with a guy he knew from the "past." We a huge fight and things calmed down but he was acting odd... I can't explain it. I just trusted my gut and went online and found his pictures and him? sexting with men. I broke up with him. He swears it was not him and he had given out his pictures to men.... he says someone is using his pictures. I made him show me the original pictures and he did and I checked the picture info and he took his pics 2 years ago. So "men" is not a 5 year ago thing. He says the pics were years ago, and it doesn't matter 5 or 2 yrs ago.... and that I was in the wrong for checking on him. Fair enough but I would do it again. I'm not a jealous person but something was "off" and I was right. We had an amazing future together and are very compatible and I loved him very much but I can't get over his lies and I find the odds of someone pretending to be him so unlikely. I gave him a chance to come clean with me about the online stuff but he is sticking to the story it wasn't him. Playing devils advocate that is possible but add in with the other misinformation I don't buy it and what are the odds of someone using his pics? He is very physically attractive/handsome so that could be a reason. I thought he was "my one" and he is begging me not to throw us away. I don't want to but I can't get past this. I am the love of his life and swears he has not touched or been interested in another person since we met. I've also since learned that childhood sexual abuse survivors "reenact" their abuse and says this is true but he has control over it and again, emotionally he only connects with women. Looking at the hard facts I see no way to trust him but emotionally I am torn up so I thought fresh eyes here might help me see all of this clearer.

I think he is gay and doesn't want to face that. Perhaps the compulisive aspect of the 'intense' stuff was his attempt to make heterosexuality work for him. That doesn't mean there wasn't trauma. You dodged a bullet.

You guys might learn to love & forget, you yourself might even learn to live with his past & accept it all & just get on with loving all of him including his sins; but you should always listen to your gut first & foremost, when in doubt with matters of the heart.

Hello Marionette: When he said that his sexual attraction to men is due to childhood abuse, it doesn't take away from the fact that he is sexually attracted to men. What I mean by it, is that even if he heals as much as possible from his childhood abuse, it does not mean that he will no longer be sexually attracted to men. Next is the issue of compulsive or impulsive behavior on his part, in regard to sexting with men or meeting men for sex. You say that you were impressed by how well he understands himself.. but this does not mean that his understanding in any way dissolves his compulsive or impulsive behavior. How are you feeling since you posted 9 days ago? Amie

Thank you for asking. It has been rough things have since come clear but I was gravely deceived even if short lived. I didn't do anything to deserver this and was a very good accepting partner to him. I cannot understand his trauma but he is an adult now and made a choice. He has since admitted to lying and there is an issue, some compulsion in play. He swears he did not physically cheat on me and I tend to believe that now. He has returned to therapy which is a positive regardless of us. I have not taken him "back" but agreed to talk to him in the future after he has had some time with his therapist. For now I'm focusing on feeing better and getting back to my life.

You are welcome, Marionette.I know how it feels to be gravely deceived and not deserving it. It is a shame and a tragedy how many people suffer a whole lot while not deserving it. (A line by Clinte Eastwood in the movie Unforgiven comes to mind: "Deserving ain't got nothing to do with it"). You wrote: "He has since admitted to lying"- you mean about him sexting with men while in the relationship with you? If that's the case, at first, when confronted with the sexting, he denied it ("I gave him a chance to come clean with me about the online stuff but he is sticking to the story it wasn't him"), but recently, he admitted that he lied.. did he admit his lie because him sticking to his lie didn't work for him (you remained distant from him) and admitting his lie drew you a bit closer to him? I am asking because the issue, as I see it, is not his sexual orientation or his childhood trauma; it is an issue of Character, of honesty within himself and with you. In the beginning of your original post you wrote that you were impressed with how upfront he was with you.. but what if him being upfront is selective, chosen to fit his needs of the moment..? Amie

Yes, he admitted to sexting and related. Very well written Amie, you're good at this :-) And you nailed it, his confession was his "hail mary." If I hadn't been resolute he would never have told the truth. In his admissions he inadvertently a number of ruses he employed. Purposeful and planned. This was hard but I do feel I dodged a bullet, if this is hard now what would it be like after having years in the relationship? I think he is and will be high risk for cheating and who knows what else. I don't want that in my life. Thank you for your time, I really appreciate it from you and the others.

You are very welcome, Marionette, and thank you for your kind words. I agree with your evaluation of him and I agree that you dodged the bullet. I wish you a full recovery from this experience, and that what you learned from it, you will carry with you for the future. Post again anytime you'd like my- and others'- input. Amie

Great responses, guys - IMO you're all spot-on. I think we have a case of psychopathic fauxlationship for the purposes of Window Dressing and getting to continue his debached, gay lifestyle. And Aime, may I ask (all excitedly) - so you know your character disorder onions, then? Marionette - very wise, intelligent instincts and decision, to dump, well done. Correct, it would NOT have got better - far from it!

Hi Soulmate: thank you for your encouragement! I would love to answer your question but I don't understand it, what does "character disorder onions" mean?

Yes, sorry, I hadn't read about English not being your first language when I typed that. Character Disorders aka Personality Disorders (specifically, the Cluster B group). You said it was an issue of Character, which you initial capitalised, like that. If not, then you clearly do know, instinctually (because you were bang-on - this is an all-too-common campaign of deceit on the part of a Malignant-Covert (possibly Covert-Vulnerable) Narcissist. They can have a sexual preference (at any given point) but, in fact, they're pan or omni-sexual and merely pass themselves off as Bi. (The point, however, is, they're over-entitled users and exploiters.) As for 'knowing your onions', it's an English expression which means, to indepth know your general or specialist subject (usually human-centred, as in, getting to know people is like peeling off the layers of an onion). Hope that made sense? And you're welcome. PS: Bear with me for a day or two and I'll see if I can find some relevant web links, both for yours and Marionette's benefit.

Oh, wait! Here are a couple (I knew I had something in my archives)... By the way, not all experts agree on which characteristics distinguish between a Malignant-Narcissist, a Malignant-Narcissistic Sociopath or M-N Psychopath (the latter two classified in the DSMV, as "AsPD" (Anti-Social/Societal Personality Disorder, the former just NPD) but this I know for a with-substantiations-basis fact as an on-the-spot decider: Malignant Narcissist..Sociopath (predominantly man-made) = Hothead; Impulsive; Shortsighted plotter (e.g. mugger). Psychopath (predominantly natural-born) = Coldhead; Calculating; Long-sighted Plotter (e.g. bank robber). ******************************************************* https://flyingmonkeysdenied.com/2015/11/09/pretending-to-be-straight-why-gay-men-marry-clueless-women/ Love Fraud, Serial Cheating, This Just In Pretending to be straight a Cluster B trait by Plato's Stunt Doubleupdated on Saturday, July 11, 2020 "Pretending to be straight — the real reason most gay men who are still in the closet say they lie to and marry clueless women. It is a front. It is a cover. And for many guys who prefer to pretend in public to be straight, it’s the perfect way to camouflage their true natures... Pretending to be straight and monogamous while actively cheating is one of the cruelest narcissistic abuse tricks one human can play on their significant other. Noting there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with being gay, covert men seeking romantic action on the “down-low” will use time with the guys to hide infidelities of the most grievous nature." ********************** And another: https://lovefraud.com/sociopaths-and-sex-neither-straight-nor-gay/ February 4, 2008// by Donna Andersen// 171 Comments "Many women have written to Lovefraud about husbands who they’ve come to believe are sociopaths. They were astounded to discover that, not only was the husband cheating, but he was having sex with men. Lovefraud reader eyeswideshut writes about this in a recent comment to the post, After he’s gone: looking at the sociopath through open eyes. She asks: Now that I know he is also gay, is sociopathic tendency in married gay men not common as well? When I read the stories of the women in the book (“Straight Wives”), many of the men sound like sociopaths as well. Have you studied this phenomenon? Is it possible that gay men who choose to live the lie of married life are likely also socios? To this, another Lovefraud reader, Leslie, commented: On the third extended date I had with the SP, I turned to him one night, after we’d been together, and said, “Have you been with men?” Something in the way he’d made love made me think he had. He stared at the window and said in a monotone, “I have never made love to a man.” It was the same monotone he used to deny that he was living with a woman when I asked him that a year later. He was. I don’t have hard proof, but I know the guy had had sex with men. Then alohatraveler commented: I have heard from another victim of my sociopath that he was starting to get more “experimental” when she knew him. She knew him after me. He was expressing an interest in having sex with a man, but of course, with a woman present, because he was “not gay.” We both also saw an ad that he posted looking for sex with a transsexual. Then he placed an ad where he wanted a traditional type of woman." “Not a gay bone in my body” Shortly after I met my sociopathic ex-husband, James Montgomery, he proclaimed to me, “There’s not a gay bone in my body.” I had no reason to doubt him. But when I left him after two-and-a-half years, I learned a lot about his sexual activities: He had sex with at least six other women during our relationship. He was heavily into Internet porn. He solicited gay male prostitutes. He tried to arrange threesomes and looked for swinging couples. In short, he wanted sexual thrills. The more different kinds of thrills, the better. I’m lucky I didn’t get a serious disease. Screw anyone Sociopaths are hard-wired for sex. They have an excessive need for stimulation, excitement and sensation. They also have no fear and no inhibitions. From a sexual perspective, that means a voracious appetite and anything goes. Dr. Liane Leedom writes that sociopaths only want two things. One of them is power. The other is sex. So when it comes to sexual orientation, I believe sociopaths are neither straight nor gay. In short, they’ll screw anyone. Lovefraud has heard from gay individuals—men and women—who were involved in gay relationships with sociopaths. I asked several of them if they thought the sociopath was actually gay. They all agreed with my theory and said the sociopath was not gay." *******************************************************

Thank you Soulmate and Amie for the discussion. Soulmate I'll check out your links. For the sake of discussion as this has been very helpful to me. I don't think he is a narcissist. I've known one even diagnosed (yikes). I do think his sexual interest in men is due to his CSA. He does not have emotional connection to men and his CSA/family history is very tragic. But is he manipulative, self centered? Yes and he lies compulsively. The person in this who is a narcissist and actively abusive... his mother. She is a piece of work like unreal. The entire family struggles to deal with her and I have observed family dynamics that are way over the line. Families have their stuff but this scene is pretty wild. I just learned about "mother-son enmeshment/covert incest" all new to me but if something did fit this situation it is that. Very odd relationship love/hate thing and when he seemingly went off the deep end is when she moved back and now lives minutes away. He is running to her in the middle of the night because she wants ice. But she has an ice maker. She calls him multiple times a day now and it was getting worse we talked about it many times. He is a busy guy and is now having to visit her every day and he was so frustrated as she is taking all of his free time and he has a home and a busy job. She tells him her husband of 40 yrs doesn't treat her properly he needs to care for her. Creepy. Her husband is a nice man and everyone says he is a saint to deal with her. Oddly he is very protective of her but allowed his CSA happened for years right under her nose - he doesn't blame her and says it wasn't her fault. I never said anything but I was surprised he wasn't angry at her on some level for not protecting him. He said she can't deal with things, never could. I kept my mouth shut and always listened. But we had a fight before all of this started, our time together was ruined as she was creating drama and interfering with my visit, basically keeping him from being with me as he had to keep going to her house and calming her down or doing some menial task. He admitted she is very jealous of me and I got upset and told him he isn't her husband, she already has one. We had a row and he got very angry at me and defensive of her. I deserved it as it is touchy but he's the first one to say how emotionally manipulative and self centered she is. But that was the first time I said something and asked him to basically tell her no. I feel like that was the trigger for all of this. All of this is just so sad but it is also way to much for me to handle.

Hi Soulmate: Thank you for explaining it to me, I appreciate your patient explanation and the links. And yes, I am very aware of personality disorders: my mother was-is a combo of Paranoid (Cluster A), and Borderline, Histrionic and a touch of Narcissistic (Cluster B). It was not fun growing up (or growing IN, as I'd rather say because it's more accurate) with that combo. When I capitalized the C in Character earlier, I wasn't referring to a character/ personality disorder, but to the issue of character, as in practicing values such as honesty, integrity, and depednability. You mentioned "Malignant-Covert (possibly Covert-Vulnerable) Narcissist"- I looked it up and I am now changing my evaluation of my mother to include not "a touch of" Narcissistic but a whole pound or two of it in the covert form. But enough about my mother. (And yes, I love peeling the layers of an onion, it's my passion, really). Hi Marionette: You are welcome. You shared that he is manipulative, self-centered, that he "lies compulsively" and that he is enmeshed with his mother in a love/hate relationship with a history and ongoing covert incest where she demands his attention multiple times a day and in the middle of the night. She was jealous of you having her son in your life.. as boyfriend, a lover. When you suggested this to him, he got "very angry" at you, "and defensive of her". "He is running to her in the middle of the night because she wants ice. But she has an ice maker"- this sentence stood out for me because she doesn't really want ice/ coldness from him, she wants the opposite: she wants hotness from him, as in wanting him to make her feel wanted, desired.. if not sexually then close to it, or parallel to it. You wrote in your original post: "I felt and just a gut feel that sex was a bit compulsive to him. And he pushed for more intense stuff... he kept wanting more intense"- it is as if he was trying to deliver the hotness his mother demands- to you, as a substitute for her; to satisfy her great emotional demands of him, to successfully make her feel what she demands that he makes her feel. "He says he is only interested in a relationship with a woman and sex with men"- maybe with men he gets to have sex without the demands, sex just for fun. Amie

This situation would be crazy-making to stay in. No one deserves this. (well, almost no one.) It was wrong of him to not be transparent, very, but it still is *not okay* to be a gay man in many situations. While I think he was a jerk for not being honest, (and his relationship with Mommy is off-the-wall) it can't be easy arriving at the realization that one is gay. For reasons that aren't clear, people aren't nearly as infuriated/threatened/offended by two women who love one another. (not that either is anyone else's business.) Rolling eyes at "I've never made love to a man" as if "it was just sex" would be radically different.

Yup, OM. Although, whether he's gay, bi or straight isn't something anyone here has any problem with. It's the fact he lied about when his last sexual encounter was, which puts the OP at risk because anything he caught might not have made itself known within as little as a year...or under), plus the fact he's still sexting as if he's still single and available. He'd told the OP he still found men attractive, he DIDN'T say, so I'll still be actively having phonesex with them (and who knows what else), behind your back if that's alright with you (pff!). I have, and still know, many, utterly lovely gay couples whom conduct themselves and their romantic relationships exactly as would any, upstanding, straight couple whom likewise are in it for-real, for the right reasons, and delighted to put their whole selves into it. The nature of his relationship with his mother is the epitome of Enmeshment. And, yes, I agree, it's a massive 'case of'. OR SO HE ALLEGES...in amongst everything else he alleged (as in, 'I asked the (proven) Liar if he was telling the truth, and he said, Yes' / 'I asked the (proven) Liar if he was lying, and he said, No'), but I'll check with Marionette. "people aren't nearly as infuriated/threatened/offended by two women who love one another." It's - GUESS WHO? - that typically are your sexist, misogynist, homophobic, racist,.... They can't change, which includes, they can't update their attitudes and opinions (and wouldn't want to, anyway, considering those of The Dark Ages' are so convenient to them (puke). I read a new report about it just the other day - INCLUDING (drum-roll) that said malig. Narcs DON'T have a problem with Lesbians and Trans, etc. I'll see if I can find it. PS: "This situation would be crazy-making to stay in. " Yup - regardless of what he is or isn't (quite) - Literally! PPS: "Rolling eyes at "I've never made love to a man" as if "it was just sex" would be radically different." I joined you. Although there were hand gestures as well. The convenience of semantics, eh? ***************** Amie, "my mother was-is a combo of Paranoid (Cluster A), and Borderline, Histrionic and a touch of Narcissistic (Cluster B). It was not fun growing up (or growing IN, as I'd rather say because it's more accurate) with that combo" With the exception of Borderline (over-victimised Victim, curable, well-meant motives but too insecure..fearful to self-control, etc., albeit not exactly a great addition to that whole package) - oh, good God, Amie - poor you! But, well...you're in good company here, and at least you know that 'one' cocktail and its components well ("Combo Man", expert Sandra M Brown calls them in her incredible book (ignore gender - and it mostly means emotionally/fiscally dangerous) - "How to Spot A Dangerous Man BEFORE you get involved") so - stick around! :-) You might find it fascinating and eye-opening, however, to meantime gen-up well on the Covert (Malignant) and Covert-Vulnerable type of malignant narcissist. A lot of people get unwittingly targetted a SECOND time - which in fact, makes a THIRD almost inevitable ('They come in threes...like buses but dirtier, noisier and smellier' (- Me, LOL) - because beforehand, they'd been romantically intricated with an overall Grandiose-Antagonistic, whereby, the next chap is secretly Covert (any type can spot the signs of a victim still injured or just not yet completely recovered), but seems the total opposite (at first)....common trap. So it would be good for you to familise yourself with as many types as for the sake of any present/future posters who can't quite see it themselves (yet),. And additionally because narcissism is on the rise - including because an awful lot of live-in sociopaths are - thanks to victims everwhere now becoming clued-up about Malignant NPDs and finally ending the 'fauxlationship' - finding themselves newly redundant and homeless, meaning, what veteran predator-parasites remained 'someone else's problem', possibly for years, are now waiting in the long grass alongside the Newbies, with their hooks out, ready to snare a new host/"Supply". Those that can't find a new fauxlationship partner/"job/living" are turning to street crime and scamming (where they're EVERYONE'S problem!). Also: "I looked it up and I am now changing my evaluation of my mother to include not "a touch of" Narcissistic but a whole pound or two of it in the covert form" Yes, because 'a touch of' describes Benign (high-maintenance but without malice, or not knowingly-deliberately) or not even high enough to be diagnosable NPD (just apt to be noticeably more selfish than your average normal-healthy, and especially your empathetic individual). PS: 'Amie'. Etes-Vous Francais? ***************** Regarding his mother, though, Marionette/everyone, Interesting. Reading your latest, I just see yet MORE indicators to support my suspicion. But it depends on certain things, for example: Do you know for a FACT that it was to his mother's he was going - and I mean, each and every time? For a FACT - not just, for example, him coming into the room, moaning, That was my mum again, she wants me to go over and X. I know you and he are Over, and good on ya for this: "For now I'm focusing on feeing better and getting back to my life". But it's still important to know what and whether. For future avoidance purposes (see above message to OM) or in case any of your family or friends ever find themselves in similar trouble. You've got a healthy streak of self-discipline in you as makes you determined to do the sensible thing regardless of any pain, but I don't think you appreciate how so many more DO NOT. If you can be that proactively No Nonsense about them, you'd be a valuable ally to any victim in need, indeed.

Hi Soulmate You are very witty and very passionate, my goodness! I wish I could understand all your references/ witticism, but I am challenged (in ANY language) when it comes to figurative language, sarcasm, humor (unless it is stated as simply/ directly as can be)... I am not intelligent in these areas. Thank you for the poor-you in regard to my mother with whom, by the way, I chose to be in NO CONTACT, soon to be 10 years of that. Being born to her and growing in with her was a nightmare and I am still in the process of waking up from that bad dream. No, I am not French although it was my first language, now forgotten. English is my third and the one I am most comfortable. Marionette: I hope you are well. It didn't occur to me that he may have lied to you some or all of the times he said he was going to his mother's.. even though you said that he is a compulsive liar. It didn't occur to me until I read Soulmate suggesting it. Hmm.. naive of me perhaps, not to consider that..

Ten years. Well done. A lot of people in recent decades have come to reluctantly understand and accept that cutting contact with toxic individuals is the only way to save themselves and their sanity (depending on perp severity, closeness and intimacy), so you're by no means alone. In fact, we have plenty of posts by people in your exact (past) position in the archives. It's so sad. But only until you reach the last leg of the (abormal) Recovery Path where you bump into another walker (obviously at the same more-recovered-than-not stage) who'd be perfect as your "adopted" mum/sibling/whatever, and you, equally, as their "adopted" daughter/sibling/whatever. (So yes, you CAN 'choose your family'. I expect the saying was originally manufactured by some toxic Narc somewhere who wanted to emotionally-blackmail as well as frighten their victim out of wanting/daring to leave them, possibly for-good, and risk going it alone. ("There are wolves out there, son/daughter!" / "Yeah, well, they're considerably more domesticated than the ones in here so I'll take my chances, thanks"). Blood is only thicker than water when it's not toxic. It comes, finding your 'replacement' family members (if that's what one wants). Understanding, accepting, grieving and recovering (especially from abnormality and insanity) is a whole process that makes you go at ITS pace.) Re Marionette's ex and your so-called 'naivety' (nah...just less time spent studying, experiencing, witnessing and sampling, is all... Lucky YOU! LOL): She hasn't answered my question yet so it's still just a strong possibility. I just know what they're like and what they do, when, how, with whom, in what order and in which situatons (the fairly limited Narc & Victim(s) screenplays and scripts, as forced into play by said narc). This is not a story I haven't heard before. None of them are. Just the faces and details differ, per each role and stageplay. But even if he she DID hear the entire phone conversations each time, that still doesn't exclude the possibility of his doing another classic from their sick repertoire, which is: When he and his mother are together at hers, where Marionette CAN'T witness it - he nurtures and encourages this over-dependency in his mother, and has done for years, and THAT'S how she's come to, not demand but EXPECT such a high involvement. (After all, there's nothing to stop him from saying No occasionally, and giving her a talk about how things have changed (now he's got a girlfriend), and help her find replacement supplementary help, etc.?). (I can feel the dad is Iffy, btw (- abbreviation for by the way). It's not protectiveness, it's possessiveness...guarding their property, their possession, their Golden Goose and/or Sex Slave or Unwilling Mother (secretly, when no-one's looking) and/or Human Toilet to puke their atrocious moods and rages (toxins) into - again, depends on type and severity. But it would have had to have been his father/her husband who "kittenified" her like that, to begin with whereby she even NEEDS her child, at her age, to step into that husband role (DIY, repairs, etc.). His mother may not be a Narcissist but a too-long victim, frantic with insecurity and desperate to (perhaps?) pin her son down (see next para). More data required. But a man whom genuinely is actually protective over his wife, would not neglect his "doings for her" - it doesn't gel, it clashes. Also, a healthy man would be made to feel ashamed and guilty if he saw his son constantly having to step into his own husbandly place. He'd at least hire a handyman or something. How to kittenify: never show or teach the co-dependent how to do it themselves, oh no. E.g. computer problem......"I haven't got time to explain it tonight, let me just fix it (rat-a-tat-tat), I'll show you next time (NOT)". They WANT their targets/victims wholly dependent on them (so you're terrified of losing them), it's their slimy insurance policy against otherwise-inevitable rejection for their neglect and abusive treatment of you. Or, if they leave loads of things everywhere, half-done or oh-so-nearly-but-not-quite finished (usually), and for ages, their sneaky bridge back to you if ever you DO try to reject them (I'll put my foot down or end it tomorrow, the minute they've finished fixing my X/Y/Z........er..okay, I'll have to wait till tomorrow...er, tomorrow............). This is what's meant by their getting their hooks in, to the point of having you over a barrel. She may even have Anxiety Disorder by now...overly-constantly grabbing at his sleeve like that. And WHY isn't her husband doing his side of the house care? Especially as he must see the state she's in? Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice. More data needed. The more you're disuaded/prevented from attaining independence through learning how to take care of yourself in areas where others can, the more it chips away at your confidence. And confidence is precisely what's needed to successfully learn and attempt new tasks (or end the unhealthy/toxic relationship or dynamic). So we also need to know - is that WHY the need for oh-so-many frequent back-and-forths (tiny bit more helping/fixing...tiny bit more...drag it out, drag it out)? If this is what he's manipulated as a long-term, ongoing situaton - or if NOT all of the calls are genuine - or they ARE, when that doesn't mean he actually turns up each time (or turns up ON time) - he could have long-term trained/manipulated his mother as his perfect scapegoat and alibi for when he has a quick meet-up with some bloke he's met over the web, for an hour or so. He could also feed her subtle tidbits of lies and misinformation about Marionette, regarding how she feels about his mum, in order to stoke his mother's dislike or resentment toward her....and the same to Marionette about how his mother thinks or says this/that/the other. This is so that, hopefully, a war between the women will evolve, meaning, THE PAIR OF THEM are too busy glaring in the direction of each other, instead of looking at HIM and what HE'S up to. "Narcissistic Smokescreen", achieved via "Alienation and Triangulation". The two women can't compare notes and realise he's up to something(s), can they...because ALLEGEDLY "she hates you" and "she hates you back". Or the dislike/resentment existed but he's capitalised on and exacerbated it. Common stuff. Also, motives-wise, if Marionette ever caught him in the act of something truly despicable and was in a position to tell his mother (or father?)...THAT can't happen so - Divide and Conquer before upping your anti-relationship behaviours and/or relaxing and letting his dark side show (his mum wouldn't believe and support her). This comes under "Narcissistic Isolation". One other glaring, textbook symptom, was the "HOW DARE YOU SNOOP (and discover I killed your granny)!". ("Shouldn't have killed my granny and then pelted incriminating clues at me, then"). That's not snooping - that's you FOILING. If that's what it takes for you to see that the situation is now too emotionally threatening and potentially damaging to your psyche NOT to snoop then - well done for being your own best friend and protector-defender as well as for being intelligent enough to understand CHANGE IN CONTEXT as well as RIGHTFUL INTENTION from wrongful, not to mention saving yourself in timely fashion. But they all try that - YOU'RE THE CRIMINAL BECAUSE YOOOOU SNOOPED! They attack you rather than go meek and apologise, to get you off the topic of the 10 times worse thing they did. Comes under Gaslighting (your sane perception and judgement - wrong, my insane perception and judgement or LIES - right). ...although it's not foiling if they WANTED you to discover it and be wounded (and made it easy, after 'acting strange'). Whoops-a-daisy, I said 5 years when I meant 1. Whoops-a-daisy, I forgot to Unfriend them...blah blah blaaah. (Oh, so you're suddenly a mentally retarded amnesiac, are you?... Nah, it's because it was a planned confidence batterer OR because he'd already secretly hit "Devalue" point (usually 8 or so months in - or 2 years with a Sociopath....or never with a malig. Psychopath). It's known as a "Narcissistic Tell" or "Reveal". It's a deliberate leakage and risk-take, to test whether you'll fire him or not if he dooooooeeeees....THIS! Or THIS! With a bit of THIS! added. Where your boundaries lay and how heavily he can push against them or trample one. And this: "We had a row and he got very angry at me and defensive of her. I deserved it as it is touchy but he's the first one to say how emotionally manipulative and self centered she is. " A normal-healthy would say, Please don't talk like that about my mother. SAY, not shout and rant and for ages. This bozo? 'YOU can't denigrate MY human punching-bag - you're not my equal, you're my adoring slave and soon-to-be REPLACEMENT (or primary) punching-bag - get back in your basket, Slave 2, Slave 1 is MINE AND MINE ALONE!'. This is another typical trait. As is, "my mother's an actual angel! She's not. But if he says so, then, the subliminal message becomes a case of this: "Here's how high your bar is set at, that you have to reach, to WIN me off your competitor for my time and affections - my adoring, perfect mother". Other variations as well. And loads more classic identifiers/symptoms. ***************** Marionette, "But that was the first time I said something and asked him to basically tell her no. I feel like that was the trigger for all of this" Yes, it was. It could have been over anything, though. The point was, the window-dressing prop/backroom slave (herself unaware at that point that's what she is being manoeuvred into), i.e. you, dared to assert herself and her own needs, using TRUTH and LOGIC that was obviously inarguable. Kryptonite/Red Rag. The bozo wants to do whatever he wants to do and screw you, you should just be grateful you HAVE him (although you actually don't). ...Aggro or shout you down....completely OTT and nonsensical, mostly....distract you from the original issue with word salad, accusations (as if you're the trouble-maker rather than just the one pointing to the elephant in the room).....make out there IS no problem (except for you).....yawn, yawn.... Or pretend to hold their hands up...wait a bit....then get their revenge when you least expect it or need it ("help me up off this cliff-edge or I'm going to fall!" / "No..you were a b*tch, why should I...you're just testing me, anyway, to see if I'll do it, if I still care...")....same old Same Old cuckoo crap... It's not their fault they're like that, though. Makes it hard not to feel sorry for them. Only, the original child/teen that would once have appreciated your sympathy is gone...dead. Being pitied enrages them (because you don't pity someone who's mega-superior over you). No point, then. If I were you, I wouldn't be agreeing to that future meeting. I'm betting (script) he doesn't even HAVE a therapist. But who knows, when he removes your ability to believe anything he says any more. I do admire you for being so No Nonsense. I mean, that, how you handled it, IS the way to do it (Gold Star). A year is long enough to leave numerous attachment wounds and hook-holes. You must be a fairly senior businesswoman, I'm guessing.

Am I witty and passionate still? Ah, thanks for that. :-) I thought I was quite tired and lethargic-acting. Winter's really bringing me down this year..it's colder and lasting longer than it should (for Spain). Well, that and post-Brexit and Covid aggro and frustrations (still). Plus literally EVERYONE I know in RL has problems after problems that take too long to sort, etc., compared to before. And don't get me started about the worsening cost of living crisis in the UK...we're talking best friends regularly in tears because they can't make ends meet, and having to spend most of their time in bed where it's warmer. Even my No. 1 contractor here...he now is suffering over-stress into Anxiety (that horrid tension and adrenaline feeling when your chest/diaphram is too tight and feels dangerous/threatening). People are NOT happy, that's for sure.

Yes, Soulmate: you are witty and you are passionate! Your 2 recent posts are very meaningful to me, too much to process this Sun evening (here 5:25 pm), will get back to you in the morning.

Thanks, sweet of you to say so. :) Don't worry, you take your time. I'm still busy, trying to locate relevant extracts and links regarding potential non-validity of his other claims. Time is obviously of the essence when he's expecting a reunion meeting is going to happen in the not-so-distant future. If he IS a Narc (new, unrecognisable type), he'll be a virtuoso at reeling her back in no matter what ("Narcissistic Hoovering").

Re his claim of childhood sexual abuse and other typical claims and behaviours during their 'Honeymoon' Period (well, the healthy partner's Honeymoon Period, the Narcs Love-Bombing and Idealize phase): ((COMMENTS IN DOUBLE PARENTHESES ARE MINE)) *************************** https://www.iflscience.com/10-reasons-its-difficult-to-spot-narcissists-and-psychopaths-and-how-they-use-them-to-hide-in-plain-sight-47518 "...3. They can actually show empathy Dark triad people are more or less devoid of empathy. But Neo said there are two types of empathy — cognitive and affective. Affective empathy is when you truly feel something for someone else, whereas cognitive empathy is the ability to recognize the feelings in others. Narcissists and psychopaths often watch a lot of TV and films, so they are able to develop cognitive empathy and mimic the behaviors that are appropriate in those situations. For example, they may know to give you a hug, but there is no feeling behind it — they're just copying what they've learned. "They can seem empathetic even if they lack empathy," Neo said. "But it's their everyday behavior, what kind of contempt leaks out, that matters. If they seem empathetic towards a person, then the next thing you hear might be a strange remark or a weird sick joke, then you know this person doesn't really have empathy." ...6. They tell you how much you mean to them Dark triad people have had a lot of practice hooking people in then discarding them when they are no longer of any use to them, so they know exactly what to say to keep you interested. No matter how many times they abuse and let them down, their partner always wants to see the good in them. Neo said this is down to confirmation bias, and discounting any evidence that doesn't align with our beliefs. In the case of dark triad partners, this belief is that they are actually good people underneath. "They also like to use words like 'I really care about you,' or 'I really support you,' or even 'I love you,'" Neo said. "If someone says these words, you want to believe he supports you. You will take these words, and you will discount all the times he's an a*****e. That's how the brain works, and they know that." 7. It's never all bad No relationship is ever going to be 100% awful. Even the most abusive and turbulent relationships have their good times, which is one of the main reasons people stay with the people who hurt them for so long. Some people get trauma bonded to their partners, which means they are essentially chemically addicted to the intermittent love and affection they get when things are good. They also strive to get the good times back when things are really awful, because they are led to believe all the negatives in the relationship are their own fault. "If it was all bad, it would be easy to dismiss them and walk away," Neo said. "But because there are good times... you see this flicker of humanity in them and you want to harness that." ((AND HERE WE GO!...)) 8. They have sob stories If you meet a narcissist, they will probably let you know how much of a hard life they've had fairly early on. Everyone goes through tough times, but according to Neo, narcissists take it to the extreme. They will probably tell you about their abusive upbringing, their abusive ex-partners, and how their friends are awful to them. But if you listen closely, they are likely to be blaming other people for their own behaviors — that's if the stories are true at all." ((REPEAT: "that's if the stories are true at all!! Because, of course, you can't check with the woman who "hates you", can you. You've been prevented from nurturing that kind of closeness that sensitive subjects (and expecting any sympathy) demand. Therefore, she's going to take HIS side (even if because that's the only side she can take that ISN'T yours, the enemy's. Clever him.)) 9. They go after highly empathetic people Narcissists know their sob stories will work on their victims, because they tend to attract highly empathetic people. Somebody high in empathy is highly in tune with other people's emotions, and will constantly try and help out someone who they think is hurting. Unfortunately, narcissists thrive on this level of care, and use it to destroy their partner. They know they have a partner who will love them selflessly, give them as much attention as they need, and won't be as quick as other people to walk away. "Empathetic people will be very long-suffering if a narcissist says 'I really want to change, I know I'm not perfect.'" said Shannon Thomas, a therapist, in a previous article. "They have these moments where they sort of admit fault, but they never actually follow through or believe it." 10. They gaslight you Manipulative people, who are often dark triad personalities, gaslight their partners into believing in an alternative reality. This is when someone "screws with your sense of reality to manipulate you, causing you to distrust yourself and trust them instead," Neo said. Narcissists, for example, may constantly lie to their victim. It starts off with a subtle untruth here and there, so the victim doesn't realise they're being brainwashed. It's like the "frog in the saucepan" analogy: where the heat is turned up very slowly on the stove, so the frog never realises it's starting to boil to death. After months, or even years, the victim is completely under the abuser's control." ************************************************************************************ ((OR SO THEY HOPE. But sometimes, when you meet them, they're already in a relationship...and know they're about to be dumped and "Primary Supply" OR, secretly, have already just been dumped and need another body to plonk into their ex's side of the bed before it grows cold...they can't live without Supply and a Kicking-Cat/Huma Toilet, it's their Oxygen, part of the result of minds that are kaput and feature seriously under-developed Insula and Pre-frontal Cortex. Basically the bits that make us more civilised human than wild animal. NPDs, as I say, are more animal than human, trying to pretend they're Empaths in order to net one (super-takers need super-givers and mentally hard-working super-understanders & toleraters). When you remember that they're Ferrel animals (literally cavemen/women, still just hairless apes), everything they are and how they behave makes perfect sense.

Sorry, I didn't quite finish my point... Being as how they're in a mad rush to fill that vacancy ("again" - because they can't avoid dropping the ball and revealing themselves (what's behind the mask) FOREVER (full-time acting, pretending to be someone/something you're not, is exhausting), they end up rejected time and time again, obviously) - they don't have the time they'd have when cruising while already IN a fauxlationship to examine and profile their prospective new victim PROPERLY/THOROUGHLY. So in this situation, they can badly misjudge you. OR, they misjudge you because, additionally, that day YOU just so happened to be particularly happy-go-lucky, chilled and laid-back (not looking or acting your normally fiestier self) - so they think you're going to be an confrontations/arguments wallflower...a push-over. And then find out, you're nothing of the sort. Possibly the opposite. OR, having just been "narcissistically injured" through being dumped, ego having badly deflated (and needing a human bicycle pump because they themselves lack one) and, therefore, now having something to prove (to themselves and the world) - they go for an extra big challenge: the obviously strong, sassy woman (/man).

Thank you for the thoughtful discussion! I am learning a lot and have to reread the posts to make sure I am understanding. As for him going to his mother - yes. I have confirmation and even by other family members. She "attacks" his other siblings to and one will only visit her once a year and refuses to have anything to do with her. His other brother expects him to do most of the work as he has a very challenging job but also protects his wife interestingly, he told the mother and entire family his wife will not do any solo visits or care of his mother. She told me privately once her husband "wants to stay married" and basically is protecting her from the Mom. Countless times he has told me that his mom is emotionally manipulative, selifsh, needy and creates drama for attention like her famous fake crying (even the nieces joke about it) etc and as far as saying she is mentally ill but refuses to see someone and is too old now. Once he drove her to a doc appt and the other brother was on a business trip but facetimed into the appt to hear from the doctor, basically the sons rally around her for even minor things and she threw one of her famous fits and told the doctor that no one helps her and her sons have abandoned her and she is alone for weeks at a time and she might as well kill herself. (again she has a husband!) She is extreme and bf was so upset for his brother that time because he was so busy and made the time to be on facetime and he is paying for half of her housing etc. Some times she writes them long letters about how they are failing her and ruining her life now that she has moved back. Again she has a husband! It's insane. And they know it is bad but I think they've been around it for so long they don't realize how sick it all really is. She needs mental health treatment and she has refused. He admitted her moving back was not a good idea and I didn't know this until the end but he spent most of his vacation time visiting her over the years. She would literally demand he be present for a minor holiday and not with his friends etc. He had pushed back the last few years. I can't help but wonder now if this is why they moved back so she could increase her control again? He has flat out said she is mentally ill but too old to fix at this point. The father is her 2nd and with her over 20 yrs and he is very meek and he is just not involved with anything. Odd. When she has an issue I would ask what does her husband think and no one even involves him or asks him. Again, he always told me it was "us" and he would deal with the mom. Maybe he just told me what I wanted to hear because he sure turned on me when I finally spoke up in exasperation during my visit. She interfered every single day over ridiculous issues like wanting a gift card from a store and demanding he come there NOW and take her. We were supposed to go out for dinner he just got home and then he goes over there and she has her melt down and then he has to calm her down for 2 hours. This is her fake routine he tells me about! But again when I finally said something...That's when his toxic mom suddenly became "poor mom who just needs some help" and I turned into the selfish girlfriend and he started sexting men etc. I think it did start then because I saw the account open date and it all seems to fit. After that point he never referred to her actions as anyting but reasonable. He struck me as such a sensitive guy before all of this, like he is really sweet with animals, very caring etc. he was the one with the strict moral code, wanted to marry me, etc. But clearly he has manipulative traits and he lies. No getting around that. Ugh, just such a mess. I do feel great relief no longer having to deal with the family issues or even hear about it. Writing it out it sounds so nuts. Thanks for your insights and discussion!

Soulmate; responding to your comments in (()) It's not their fault they're like that, though. Makes it hard not to feel sorry for them. Only, the original child/teen that would once have appreciated your sympathy is gone...dead. Being pitied enrages them (because you don't pity someone who's mega-superior over you). No point, then. ((he's not this, he lacks self esteem if anything)) If I were you, I wouldn't be agreeing to that future meeting. I'm betting (script) he doesn't even HAVE a therapist. But who knows, when he removes your ability to believe anything he says any more. ((we spoke on the phone already, there will be no meeting in person. I don't want to nor do I see the point. He does have a therapist, I've met her around town and I've seen his payments to her office, misc paperwork. He was very open with me and let me sort some of his finances etc. so I had access to where his money went)) I do admire you for being so No Nonsense. I mean, that, how you handled it, IS the way to do it (Gold Star). A year is long enough to leave numerous attachment wounds and hook-holes. You must be a fairly senior businesswoman, I'm guessing. ((thank you. It was hard and writing here helped me a lot. You guessed right =) you are very insightful)) ((I am no nonsense and have a good job etc. But it surprises me how confusing all of this was, I couldn't see clearly for a bit. I thought maybe he was telling the truth early on! I knew him for awhile, I didn't see his lying coming or the sexting men etc.))

https://medium.com/dark-are-the-secrets-behind-these-walls/dont-fall-for-these-32-tactics-of-a-narcissist-with-examples-42939377f806 "When dealing with a narcissist, you have probably already encountered one or more narcissistic tactics. Some of these tactics are pretty transparent and recognizable, while other tricks are much more challenging to detect. These tactics can cause much damage because they can remain unnoticed for a long time. You may feel something is wrong, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. This is because these tricks are often applied just beneath the surface, at a slightly more profound or energetic level. This may sound vague, but it is essential to know. As long as you do not know of this, you remain vulnerable to this form of manipulation. Many people are initially blind to these tricks because they automatically assume the good in people. But unfortunately, this makes them susceptible to abuse and manipulation. By learning to recognize these tactics, you build a shield, can react more quickly and positively, and take action sooner to protect yourself.... ...22. Half-truths By slightly twisting a story and leaving out important ‘details,’ the narcissist can create a different image of himself or others. He often does this to avoid taking responsibility or to play people against each other. He can take comments out of context and tell them to others to paint a negative picture of the victim. 23. Isolation The victim’s contacts with family and friends slowly break down and weaken. Social activities and communications are repeatedly disapproved of. Friends and family are pitted against each other, so the victim ultimately only has the narcissist left. The narcissist can tell you things about your friends that make you think they are not good people. He will also reveal something about you to your friends. Your circle becomes smaller and smaller until you are left with only the narcissist. 24. Character assassination/slander campaign In character assassination or a slander campaign, the narcissist will blacken your name to your friends. He does this by spreading lies about you. By twisting stories, the narcissist creates an image of himself as a victim and you as the perpetrator. This often uses so-called ‘blind supporters,’ also called ‘flying monkeys.’ 25. Lying Narcissists generally have no problem with lying. On the contrary, they become more adept at it over time. They may lie about big things, such as a double life, to keep them hidden and avoid taking responsibility. ...27. Withholding information Withholding information is a form of lying. In withholding information, no falsehoods are told, but the essential information is intentionally left out. For example, not disclosing towering debts, a child from a previous relationship, or intimate contact with someone else. 28. Wearing a mask At the beginning of the relationship, the narcissist puts on a loving mask and plays the perfect partner. As the relationship becomes more specific, the act is taken off more often. To the outside world, the ideal man/woman is played, but when you’re alone, they change completely. In contact with the outside world, it feels like a puppet show. It can throw you off balance because you don’t know how to act. 30. Triangulation A third person is used here, such as a new colleague or ex. ((or Mother)). By telling you that this person was being flirtatious ((needs them more)), feelings of insecurity and jealousy are created in the victim. This can be very painful for the victim. The message is: you are replaceable. Triangulation provides amusement (for the narcissist) and creates drama. A first reaction may be to try even more challenges to please the narcissist. The narcissist enjoys this and feels popular. ********************************************** And the following, Marionette, is what faces you if you attend that reunion, especially, but (depending on his exact type and severity) may face you even if you don't. It all depends if another, better-manipulable, replacement target 'falls into their lap' in the interim : "31. Hoovering Hoovering means ‘vacuuming.’ Hoovering is used to suck you back into a toxic relationship. It is often used after a silent treatment when you have decided not to seek contact anymore. Hoovering also occurs after the relationship has ended. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, the narcissist contacts you again. As if nothing has happened, the narcissist tries to suck you back into the relationship with all their might. This can be done through compliments, vulnerability, asking for help, and even apologizing." Other tricks include "I've just found out I've got cancer" (when they usually don't). Or "I can't get over you, I feel like ending it all"....anything to get an audience with you for the opportunity to manipulate their foot (and hooks) back through your door. Not saying he will, because you don't know what's occurring on his side in this meantime, but, again, forearmed is forewarned. If you do meet him, ensure it's a very public place or venue so that he can't soften you up and crack your resolve (or tip your memory from negative to the positive - which would soften you up FOR him) with physical affection that even remotely creeps over into sexual seduction. Great Sex was his main hook into you so I would predict he'd want to get you alone - his place or yuors. (No, whacko - Giovanni'ss on the High Street and separate taxis home or no dice!). I know you said the meeting would be "in the future", but, this is the problem with Narcs: IT'S NOT UP TO YOU. You don't have a say. 'Future' is a very lax brief that he can stretch or shrink as HE sees fit. Plus they take huge liberties so he could even turn up on your doorstep next week and try to get away with it by playing dumb ("But you agreed to meet me in the future - this IS the future - here I am!")...unless you named a specific date? ^************************** So anyway, in summary, this boy has displayed the following well-known Narc traits: 1. Completely mis-selling himself by withholding information about what he actually is and would be DOING with his attraction to men, even ALONGSIDE your 'relationship', i.e. not EXCLUSIVE (a very basic relationship condition) unbeknownst to you (because you're in the shop window, they're in the basement back room). This whole package is extreme manipulation and Machievellianism (dark Triad trait, note). "Wearing a mask". 2. Ditto, mis-labelling and presenting himself during his interview as Bisexual. But by saying he could have a relationship ONLY with women, that carries the tacit message that he/the relationship will be Exclusive. Clearly not the case. 3. Lied more than once. (TWICE is enough to forevermore destroy his credibility in your eyes. However, over time, if you don't KNOW what's what - that leaves you susceptible to being convinced of HIS fake version of events and meanings (because by then you'ren also exhausted with all the drama, etc.). 4. Is expecting you to keep yourself available to him despite the proven high likelihood he'll use his mother as his excuse to bail on you, even in the middle of a date (which, under our radar, automatically triggers our primitve fear of pack-abandonment, so repetition does damage under your own radar)...which Pauses - or even starts eroding any existing bonding, and the relationship with it. This shrunken-down version they then just barely maintain "as is", which is because they're too busy working on someone else, either to replace you with or become his bit on the side. (You've got to understand: Coverts are very, very sneaky and devious, and good at making their behaviour SEEM to accord with the full package relationship you were promised. I'll give you a prime RL example: "...but I guess my (narc-spath) husband DID love our son because he'd do the collecting him from school every day". No, he did that to maintain his Great Guy Public Image - while, remember, maltreating your son behind closed doors, in ways that proved he ALSO DIDN'T love your son (- at the same time...Spaths have a split mind...because they're always "Splitting", meaning, "he "loves-ish me AND loves me not"...Being "loved" doesn't give you privileges or special dispensation, like, NOT being scammed by him whenever you're not looking, like anyone else who doesn't have a padlock on their wallet). Response: Oh, shit, you're right. If you have a few BIG Red Flags, you CANNOT try to analyse their behaviour through the lens of "normal bloke, bad mood/tough time, good-hearted really, it'll pass". Because that's what they NEED you to do - to eke out the tenure of their using you as a tool.) 5. Has ALLOWED (or possibly even encouraged?) his mother - to crank herself up to the point where she's JEALOUS of you (the liar alleges)...has FAILED, despite multiple occasions and opportunities to have done so, to have sorted that out/mediated, like amy normal, sensible man would have WANTED AND INSISTED on doing by now (just wanting HARMONY between his two favourite people), BIG FAT NOTE! Remember the recent chart hit that goes, My mamma don't like you an' she likes everyone. A boyfriend WANTS his mum to like and approve of his serious girlfriend! So what's wrong with him, then?...as if I didn't know. You haven't seen his whole innards yet. He'd only just STARTED letting them hang out (to start locating your limits). So it's evident in HER that he has either cultivated or even accommodated a mutual Alienation and Isolation...a barrier to a woman who, despite is a mess re. her own affairs, still could have otherwise lent you support (female solidarity). Even if she is too far gone to be of any use in that way - it still prevents you from having a line of communication to her, through which you otherwise could have eventually mended the rift and then felt free and informed/warned her of her son's - let's face it - CASUALLY AND CAVALIERLY disgusting behaviour towards/in front of a supposedly firm, Steady, kind, understanding and open-minded girlfriend. Now listen up: a normal man who's accused of something and is NOT guilty wouldn't have LET you "end it". He'd have insisted on keeping talking...talked you round with SENSE that ADDED UP in your head - whereupon you've have felt instant relief and seen the true picture fit with all the pieces. He didn't MIND you ending it. He went through the noises, sure. But look at the action - HE DIDN'T FIGHT TO KEEP YOU OR TO 'FORCE' YOU TO LISTEN TO HIS ENTIRE DEFENSE CASE UNTIL YOU *DID* SEE HIS INNOCENCE. So that's a giant Gotcha! He's done (so he thinks) what they all do with this "future meeting"... They place the ex in the warmer-cabinet like a steak & kidney pie in a fish & chip shop - in case the person or people he's been pursuing behind your back and continues to pursue, don't turn into a regular thing (regalar supply). Here's another: if you're Bi, it's assumed you still want the human package of long-term or permanent relationship (and these days, kids). You put your whole self in. And as you're a decent person, your partner might not see any drama on your side except for once in a Blue Moon. Look at the crap HE caused (whoops-dropped on the floor in front of you) - all within post-Honeymoon (from about the 8th month, Marionette?) Whichever...the point is he's done nothing to use his power in defusing or even lessening this "trouble with Smother"....as if he would have you (and us) believe....(drum roll...: ***HE - whom this woman has to KEEP SWEET (or no favours), who'd do anything to keep his attention and assistance, including promising to listen to your side courtesy of him as your mouthpiece, changing her attitude, making an effort to play nicer - HAS ZERO INFLUENCE OR LEVERAGE TO GET HER TO DO SO. Again, if he actually gave a damn, he'd have badly WANTED harmony between the pair of you.*** That's what I see, along with what I DON'T see that should be there. What's been said and done and what SHOULD have been but hasn't. All of that. Fine Tooth Comb. And you already know his denials don't fit with the glaring evidence, so... 6. NOT taking the opportunity to come clean when caught, instead continuing to gaslight and minimise (but only over whatever you COULDN'T PROVE, note!), even though it was too obviously Crunch Time (sacrifice your pride and come clean to save then fix our relationship!)...not a good time to commit yet ANOTHER insulting crime! And that's something very distinctively diffrent from a normal-healthy. (Another drum roll pls..) The latter pour WATER onto a fire they want put out, NOT FAT! It's illogical because it guarantees the opposite of your alleged aim (to even WANT this "relationship", thereby try to KEEP it - duh?). So - TICK! Narc agenda-based behaviour. 7. And - I heavily suspect (because it's what they do) - he DARED start to taint the best bit...the bedroom aspect (this they also commonly do - or start withholding it for spurious reasons). Is that right? ...the bit I'm betting you'd thought (thanks to him early on) was reassuredly, romantically meaningful it was so great..., rather than just flesh-on-flesh. Betting also, that you were his test-dummy...his live blow-up doll... for new moves to try on the men (they do that too). (So it looks like he "goes on top", is "theman", then?) 8. The WAY he makes contact with gay men and METHOD of flirting/seducing suonds UGH....sleazy and tacky as hell and CHEAPENING as hell...treating the whole thing as an exchange/meeting of MEAT, and who gives a shite about the mind...the actual PERSON?! He "can only" have a PRETEND relationship with a woman because that increases his online allure, his "buy-ability"...makes him more exciting - drama promised (all narcs love and need it)... "stolen fruit" from the highest tree...which attracts males (who "go on the bottom" i.e. take the passive, woman's role...the queens) that have something to prove just as much as any other WOMAN/chasee, online with damaged self-esteem: if I can attract someone to want to come to me from all the way over THERE...TWO MILES?, rather than just a few feet away?, that'll PROVE I'm, not JUST gorgeous but ACTUALLY IRRESISTABLE enough to be worth the heartache of leaving his gf for (if I have my way and clearly he's convertible)!". Saying that, he might even be pretending you're his wife (they do that too). He probably pretends he's straight "but possibly-maybe CONFUSED, he doesn't knoooowww, oh dear" (which seemingly straight narcs try on women they want to chased BY (as coverts do), all the time)...a fruit that's a NUT, which is even MORE challenging and flattering to succeed at 'cracking'! What a huge ego boost. Window Dressing. To tempt the punters in. For meaningless but ego-inflating sexual conquest (LIKE a straight player but this boy is likely Omni so gender doesn't actually matter, he just prefers men in bed (because they get down and dirty more than women) while he gets to feel cleverer than you because, look, he got you duped you were in a normal, proper, romantic relationship with him...at first, I mean. His 'ego inflateable' must have a HUGE hole in it, to be leaking so fast it needs conveyorbelt style, "conquest-after-consquest air" mainlined in.) Anyway, tell me where your mind goes "Ping! OMG, yes, it fits - and also fits with this other thing he said/did which I'd forgotten about!", or not (or not quite but maybe).

Hi Soulmate: how strange, I submitted a post less than an hour ago and it's gone. I don't understand...?

Oh, sorry - I had that virtually prepared to send last night so I sent it just now before noticing you'd meantime replied...

I thought I submitted a post, maybe I fild to click the submit..I made a copy of my post, would you like me to submit (or re-submit it)?

I see my latest post addresses most of your latest comments and points. But not all so... Just to reiterate on this particular (possibly) mis-interpreted and -understood item: "he's not this, he lacks self esteem if anything" Someone who lacks self-esteem doesn't act like a confident cruiser-hunter. It's the ones he's pursuing that'll be lacking self-esteem. He lacks an intact "ego inflateable". His has a hole. The air constantly leaks out (hence why they want and push for MORE and MORE and MORE of that thing that injects air into it, always MORE than before...or you to show/prove you love them MORE, and MORE (like, put up with this online photos crap he let you discover).....never satisfied. More, and more shocking/sensational, drama, more thrills, more ego-pumping... I'm convinced he's a Covert-Vulnerable. Their STYLE is to present themselves as a low-confidence, quiet, shy, even, refreshingly normal bloke - and can be better actors than their more severe, 'higher' up the scale. Spath. Aside from what they CHOOSE to show you (of the rot within), for the purposes of testing your boundaries (and later on, as punishments for not toe-ing only their line) - what their up to stays deeply hidden and takes a good while to make itself palpable. Mr Nice, Sweet, Meek & Mild Guy who wouldn't hurt a fly and whom you should feel REALLY SORRY FOR...Because pity disarms you, even if normally you'd want to take your right of being utterly furious with them and wanting to clarify or fortify terms and conditions and agreements. Why, that would make you a COW....you can't kick someone when they're already DOWN?! VERY powerful opponent weakener/scupperer. This way, they continually play the Victim (including saying they were sexually abused (not) as a child). They're the wimps and cowards (same thing)...lovers, not fighters.... You don't expect to have to beware of a poor, wee victim, do you. Aim, Fire, Bullseye. But their actions, once you do start to sniff them, tend to show what an arrogant, over-entitled, COCKY beep-beep he actually is. VERY powerful disarming technique. And the Number 1 Red Flag of a giant malig. narc, yup, sociopath. "The Pity Ploy/Play", it's called: "According to Martha Stout, Ph.D., author of The Sociopath Next Door, the best clue that you are dealing with a sociopath is the pity play. “The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness,” Stout says. “It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy.” The combination of consistently bad or inadequate behavior and frequent pity plays, Stout continues, is the closest thing to a warning you’ll ever get that you are being manipulated by a sociopath." So I hope I AM wrong! Although in another way, I don't. Because the Sociopath-Narc secretly always has other 'kept-warm' prospects or 'mistresses' always set up, they are the ones most likely TO move on, NOT to stalk, because they have other fish to fry - although that fish mustn't fall too short of what degree of goodies/tools YOU supplied or, yes, he will start needling/harrassing/stalking (incl cyber). So it all depends on whether and what quality substitutes are sat warmed on his bench by his put-on charms. All the worst and longest shadowers/surveillers/stalkers I've had on my back or have witnessed on others' backs, were (Malignant) Covert-Vulnerable *Cerebral* Narcs (pumped mind (albeit still twisted), but wasn't a roughtie-toughtie, noisy-boysie, tree-climber, mud-pie maker...the (often geeky) cowards but chess-players. Soooo incredibly sneaky and SLIPPERY. ************ Well DONE that you DON'T want a future meeting, but - see above post re., if he does, you're getting one whether you like it or not. (Yup, turning up on the doorstep unannounced is more commonly one the VC-Cerebrals tricks as well.) But well done for your brave attitude and resoluteness. He might turn up but he won't get in. (Haha, have a bucket of water ready by the door.) I'll pause for a bit as I can see Amie is worried she's been deleted when she hasn't...

"Hi Soulmate: how strange, I submitted a post less than an hour ago and it's gone. I don't understand...?" Me, neither - I'm a techie duh-brain, but it happens to me and others. It's when you've been automatically timed-out from being logged-in without realising it, press Send (now logged-OUT)...so it doesn't "publish". A good idea is to Highlight and Copy your post before pressing Send. Hope that reassures you? Nothing's wrong. I'd know if it was. :)

Back to my response... "He does have a therapist, I've met her around town and I've seen his payments to her office, misc paperwork. He was very open with me and let me sort some of his finances etc. so I had access to where his money went)" What do you mean, met her around town?! He let you sort some of his finances? Again - pardon, WHAT? Can I have details on those two, please, because my radar's going crazy at me right now!

I'm keeping an open mind until said details, but, at this point I no longer agree you dodged a bullet. Nuclear bloody warhead, maybe?! Houston, I suspect we have another HEISENBERG situation, whereby it goes far deeper and darker than the target knows, simply because they haven't got close-up enough yet or been with him/her long enough, or both. You can FEEL the two of you are close, but in fact, if you sit and actually analyse the things that make you feel you've just experienced a bonding moment, they are all bloody superficial (except for sex) and given in a spirit of nothing but keeping themselves in this cushy set-up they've got with you. 'Yours' SEEMS mild enough to you, but only because you spat him out prior to the point where his mental schedule said it were time to get his BIGGER guns out/let his BIGGER arse hang out (which is to FURTHER stretch your boundaries ("more, more, more")) - same with Heisenburg and his (hah!) lady... He didn't think - or understandably didn't want to face then have to extrapolate (especially when lacking specialist knowledge to help him take all said extrapolations to the hilt) - or, certainly not fully, all in one go, on his own (into the dark side, aaargh, nooo!) - that the experience had been that much of a big deal. Until his mind started letting all the previously unnoticed subliminals and nuances, etc., come to his conscious fore with which to join dots (icky ones that made an ickier picture). Have a read if you like... And this was at arms-length in reality (literally, in fact - interweb) while over-intimate(-seeming) at the same time. How to get someone WANTING to cuddle you but making it impossible for them to actually do so. Frustration City, anyone? It all helps his(/her - yawn) (it's mainly men - little boys start out more sensitive than girls, and have it bashed out of them - even normal, nice blokes (the healthier thus stronger ones), but it all helps his campaign to wear you out so you don't have the ENERGY (as well as no longer the confidence) to take him and his latest disgusting, anti-relationship stunt on!... https://www.peoplesproblems.org/showtopic/13160/Am-i-in-the-wrong-here-should-i-apologise#jumptobottom Know this. There's literally nothing shameful about being targetted. Quite the opposite. Mr (pff) Special (or Mrs) want a shimmering star on their arm. There have got to be lots of special qualities of yours - that maybe don't even show in the mirror because it's when you're animate. Talents, skills, your vibe, your air, how you carry yourself......maybe a saint. That way they become (wait for it) MR Saint!....and everyone you - and then they - know, automatically trust them (extrapolation, extrapolation). He must be a bloody nice bloke cos I know Marionette, she's a lady and a star, she wouldn't pick dross. (Nobody picks dross. Dross picks you. Even the female dross...they chase the man, THEY pursue/hunt HIM (do WHAT!))

Here is a copy of the post I submitted earlier, the one that didn't get submitted: Hello again! I spent hours this morning studying the covert subtype of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) for the first time in my life (various sources including what you posted, Soulmate). I must have read about the covert subtype before but because subtypes are not part of the official diagnosis of NPD in the DSM or in the ICD, and because the word "Narc" is used so often in a way that sounded like a name calling, I didn't take it seriously, not until you Soulmate brought it up. Today, I have no doubt that my mother displayed a heavy duty amount of covert/ vulnerable narcissism. This gives me a new- and painful- understanding of her and of me. Thank you, Soulmate, for making this understanding possible for me. Marionette, I would like to develop my thoughts about the man we've been talking about and his mother while I re-read all that you shared, and see what comes up: "He swears it was not him and he had given out his pictures to men"- he lied so to get out of trouble with you. Maybe like a boy standing in the kitchen next to an open cookie jar, a cookie in his hand, exclaiming: I didn't do it! Someone must have opened the jar and put this cookie in my hand! "He says.. that I was in the wrong for checking on him"- if he was a boy caught by a parent with a cookie in his hand, he wouldn't have accused the parent for entering the kitchen. But as an adult, he feels strong enough to turn the blame to you. "I gave him a chance to come clean with me about the online stuff but he is sticking to the story it wasn't him"- lying and sticking by his lie worked for him before, so he thought it will work for him again. 2nd post: "He has since admitted to lying"- sticking by his lie did not work for him in this case, so he goes to Plan B: giving you what you want (his admission), hoping that this will satisfy you and that you will be able to move past this. "He swears he did not physically cheat on me"- that ship has sailed, that is, the correlation between him swearing and telling the truth ("He swears it was not him and he had given out his pictures to men", 1st post) 3rd post: "If I hadn't been resolute he would never have told the truth"- him telling the truth depends not at all on the truth but on what is convenient at the moment/ on what he believes will serve him best. 4th post: "I don't think he is a narcissist. I've known one even diagnosed (yikes).. But is he manipulative, self-centered? Yes and he lies compulsively"- not all narcissists are the same, as I learn today, but they are ALL manipulative and self-centered. And in their quest to manipulate and control, they are not above lying. "The person in this who is a narcissist and actively abusive... He is running to her in the middle of the night... She calls him multiple times a day... she is taking all of his free time... our time together was ruined as she was creating drama and interfering with my visit, basically keeping him from being with me as he had to keep going to her house and calming her down or doing some menial task. He admitted she is very jealous of me", "his CSA happened for years right under her nose"- - you suggested that there may be a connection between his Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) and his attraction to men, so I assume that it was a man who sexually abused him. If she knew about it, I am guessing that she allowed it in return for a favor or favors by the man. I know of a real-life story where a young woman told her mother that when she was a child or a teenager, the handyman (one her mother used for years and was still using) sexually abused her (the daughter). The mother's reaction: I am still going to use him because he charges less than others! Reads like his mother is ALL about herself, so if she allowed her minor-age son to be abused, there must have been something in it for her, some benefit to her. On the other hand, you being involved with her adult son was of no benefit to her. "Oddly he is very protective of her... he doesn't blame her and says it (CSA) wasn't her fault... I was surprised he wasn't angry at her on some level for not protecting him... He got very angry at me and defensive of her"- his mother was not about protecting him. If she was, she would have protected him from herself. On the other hand, he is all about protecting her; primarily, protecting her image in his mind. He needs to see her as a GOOD mother. "I got upset and told him he isn't her husband, she already has one"- from what you described in a later post, she either demasculated the man she married a long time ago, or he was that way when she found him. Enough for now. Amie

Wait up - just realised I misssed one of yours up there, Marionette! Bear with while I tackle it. Will try to be quick but am having to do this in between other stuff...

Sorry abotu that. You might already have mooted some of my points, but I don't always like to read ahead so... "As for him going to his mother - yes. I have confirmation and even by other family members." Which means you DON'T have any verification via an unconnected, uunbiased source, nor someone whom you implicitly trust (in this scenario - yourself, preferably). Family Narcs pick on and beat each other up, but you watch the ranks close when it's non-family. Like Lightening. AGAIN: that person is MY kicking-cat slave, not yours, you're not allowed to touch them, only me! It doesn't occur to their pea-brains WHAT they're showing loyalty towards "like a good little family". Kids of Narcs and some ACONS (google) have been conditioned to (have to) believe that love always has to feature "the bad stuff" alongside. They believe this is what's called "taking the rough with the smooth" (when it DOESN'T refer to, DOESN'T stretch to, their extreme degrees of Heinousness). It means, s/he might snore or might not be great at managing the family money so you'll have to do it). Once older, they keep this childish conclusion (because they still ARE that child, haven't grown up - got derailed)...any reality regarding it, they switch to self-delusion. So they believe it, despite an adult would be able to see it doesn't make any sense. It can't have been love because love means protecting, never wanting to hurt...because it'sn precious, because it gives you joy to see them happy, etc., etc. It's not Love because it's the love of a psychologically disturbed individual who has been trained by stuff that upside-down/back-to-front and lots more. You can't love if you don't have the faculties to (because they got stamped on if innate, or never role-modelled where not, as a child). "She "attacks" his other siblings to and one will only visit her once a year and refuses to have anything to do with her." Important: Go into more detail. Are there siblings that DON'T get attacked, most or all of the time, or whom she goes a lot easier on? Or is it each and every one of them, seemingly indiscriminately One or two favourites? Or are there non-family contemporaries out-of-doors she favours (and usually in front of them). ? And do her actings-out have any basis i.e. have they learned from dad that they can get away with treating her like a chambermaid/staff (because he sanctions it, even passively...doing nothing), e.g. leaving wet towels on the floor and other disrespectful stuff, driving her to distraction? I mean, your ex is Over-Entitled, his actions proved that. Didn't think you SHOULD fire him, "just because", thought he'd ARGUE it. So lied instead and whom and when and "made it someone else(s) - or something else's - fault (as they always do). Tried to fabricate a case instead of doing the right thing (the human and social rules, both...which he believes aren't rules/commands for HIS Highness! (covert Grandiosity)....That's SPOILED baby behaviour, that is. So I'm guessing - attacks all the siblings BUT HIM (Golden Child). Correct? "His other brother expects him to do most of the work as he has a very challenging job but also protects his wife interestingly, he told the mother and entire family his wife will not do any solo visits or care of his mother. She told me privately once her husband "wants to stay married" and basically is protecting her from the Mom." Never mind what this further member of the ranks-closing nest says he thinks. Try this: What a perfect excuse for isolating her from his mum, too! Why - has she got something she could tell?! But need data about who gets bashed, who doesn't. "Countless times he has told me that his mom is emotionally manipulative, selifsh, needy and creates drama for attention like her famous fake crying (even the nieces joke about it) etc and as far as saying she is mentally ill but refuses to see someone and is too old now." Too old, my arse. A normal, loving, healthy family would have got her professional help by now if that were true. Only the abnormal, unhealthy - who have a lot of conduct and behaviour to want to hide from pulic view!...would come out with a crock like, too old. She's alive. That qualifies her. She COULD be Borderline PD, that's what I'm trying to ascertain. But she sounds Histrionic - which can be interpreted as similar to BPD. She could be attacking BACK, only you didn't witness or get told about the prior Incoming, just Outgoing. See - see? We TOLD you she was mental?! So would anyone be, after being Narc-prodded to point of Water Torture and trained to "go rabid" (by making "reaching rabid point" the point where they back off). I don't trust them and what they think. It's not possible to. And WHY AM I not ready to accept she must be NPD when it's no skin off my nose and doesn't somehow automatically discount his being one too, anyway? There'll be something in that, always is. God, though. Look at the "family" you could have ended up married into or as good as married, regardless of whose afflicted with what - ugh! "Once he drove her to a doc appt and the other brother was on a business trip but facetimed into the appt to hear from the doctor, basically the sons rally around her for even minor things and she threw one of her famous fits and told the doctor that no one helps her and her sons have abandoned her and she is alone for weeks at a time and she might as well kill herself. (again she has a husband!) She is extreme and bf was so upset for his brother that time because he was so busy and made the time to be on facetime and he is paying for half of her housing etc. Some times she writes them long letters about how they are failing her and ruining her life now that she has moved back. Again she has a husband!" Right - context and aims/motives established. She thinks they rally round her but in actual fact, this is a common behaviour, meant to CONTROL ...what is said or noticed by the doctor if they don't keep chattering or know when to jump in to distract off of the trail! (Stupid doctor should KNOW that giant Red Flag by now!) "(again she has a husband!)" I'm thinking, no she doesn't. For starters, it would at least be SOMEWHAT less inappropriate (due to the fact elderly couples do go everywhere together) if her HUSBAND had gone with her! Where was he? Didn't need to be there, did he (and wouldn't want to anyway) because he's trained his minions, his Rotweillers, well! She's NarcissISED, so could by now have turned Narcissistic. But Narcs tend NOT to be highly-strung. Except for Overts, but then, that type definitely have kid-favourites and flaunt the fact, even to "outsiders". The arrogant, cocky, self-important, power-loving, master manipulators - Coverts . are almost always in control (of those not 'in the know') so why WOULD they be. Get it? Wolves in Sheeps' Clothing WHEN you really focus on the actions and MISSING, normal, usual actions. Malig. Narcs and Spaths only get high octane whenever you (how dare you!) try to confront their Royal Highness (down, Peasant!) over a truth/crime they don't want to admit to or simply anything they can't be arsed to talk to boring, upstart you about so just "shout you away" (or - Covert - freeze/frustrate you away with their Word Salad). "It's insane. And they know it is bad but I think they've been around it for so long they don't realize how sick it all really is." See above potential ACTUAL situation and consider that, they DO. And they like it that way - HENCE...year-in-year-out no-one lifts a finger to actually - PROPERLY - do a thing about it. "She needs mental health treatment and she has refused." Too open to too many interpretations re the Why. Could be because she knows she's not the ill one. Could be because she is. (See how this stuff can tie your brain and these processing threads in knots? You need all the data and proof it's a "Pervasive Pattern" (drip-drip) or a too-big Tsunami (whoosh). She might even just have NVA/NVS and CPTSD. You know how in the past, wives were dispensed with by their Narc husbands - especially for their money/title - by "proving" them insane and getting them locked away FOREVER in an asylum? Now add: Narcs don't update/change/learn, act as if we're still in the Dark or Middle Ages. Hmmm.... "He admitted her moving back was not a good idea and I didn't know this until the end but he spent most of his vacation time visiting her over the years. She would literally demand he be present for a minor holiday and not with his friends etc. He had pushed back the last few years. I can't help but wonder now if this is why they moved back so she could increase her control again?" What's this moved back bit again? The parents moved areas but then came back again? Yes, but AGAIN, this is how a mother made desperate would behave. And Coverts are maestro at making the victim look TOO CONVINCINGLY like the mad one. "He has flat out said she is mentally ill but too old to fix at this point. The father is her 2nd and with her over 20 yrs and he is very meek and he is just not involved with anything. Odd." Yes, exactly - ISN'T IT! One could suppose that it's because by now he (the ostensibly innocent one) has DISCONNECTED. But here's the Gotcha: he wouldn't HAVE to disconnect if he'd before now got her sorted. See? NON-action. Passive. Passive-Aggressive. As a pervasive pattern. (The Covert). "When she has an issue I would ask what does her husband think and no one even involves him or asks him." Why not? Did they ever? "Again, he always told me it was "us" and he would deal with the mom. Maybe he just told me what I wanted to hear because he sure turned on me when I finally spoke up in exasperation during my visit. She interfered every single day over ridiculous issues like wanting a gift card from a store and demanding he come there NOW and take her. We were supposed to go out for dinner he just got home and then he goes over there and she has her melt down and then he has to calm her down for 2 hours. This is her fake routine he tells me about!" I wonder why she had a meltdown if he HAD arrived as summoned? But we're supposing that he DID turn up. NOT turning up - turning up only randomly - would do ANYONE's head in, especially after years of it. So, yes, I get what you're saying: There's a hole in my maternal bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza....So fix it then, Henry, Dear, Fix it! (cue reams of excuses for the reality - why he can't be arsed...because having a hole in his bucket SERVES him somehow.) It's a basic psych fact that if someone ceases to keep doing something or keeps FAILING to do something - it's because they're getting something out of it. "But again when I finally said something...That's when his toxic mom suddenly became "poor mom who just needs some help"" Yup. He just wants the never-ending problem, not a solution. She's his cover story alright. AND a source of ego-boosting (I can control my mother, ha-ha-ha, that makes me a REAL man! (they can say that AND "be gay")). This - including the doctor scene - surpasses mere Sociopath. It's VERY invisible or well-hidden to those that don't eat their carrots and, when they get the chance to peer UNDER the table - it's dark under there, hard to see. But I know that I should be feeling angry and disgusted at his mother. And I'm not. I'm tending towards feeling incredibly sorry for her. She's surrounded. BY ACTUAL PUPETEERS - whether or NOT her husband trained them or he's "not getting involved" because her sons are Rotweillers....Nazi Guards...and could gang-beat him up (and he DOES learn). Actual pupeteering like that - as is done in front of a doctor (think about it - why, also, does it take TWO sons! Answer: because there's a heirarchy of bullies and long-distance brother is the boss of your bf. But this describes (aw shite) actual Psychopaths! While their mother is kicking up noisy dust, no-one has the attention-span, time, inclination...to look more closely at these boys (and their father) and wonder if they happen to have, say, extra-curricular jobs/careers (office as a cover). Meeeeeh.... No wonder you didn't give him an appeal hearing and just scarpered! This is organised bullying (which, with said heirarchy acceptance by the minion and the person whose role it SHOULD be to accompany her to the doctor's), usually indicates the tip of the organised crime iceberg). "and I turned into the selfish girlfriend" Haha! Thanks for the giggle, I needed that! ",,,and he started sexting men etc. I think it did start then" Trust me, it did. You asserted yourself. Tried to take control of a situation. Crimes of the century. They are OUTRAGED when their slave/lackey/shop-dummy thinks they can boss Mr Big Shot Them around! "because I saw the account open date and it all seems to fit." Everything "SEEMS" with a Covert. So how many years has he been seeing this therapist? (I'll get to the showing you bit tomorrow, running out of time). "After that point he never referred to her actions as anyting but reasonable." Uh-huh. Message: There no longer is something to fix. Or: If I cease telling you that necessary truth, you can't tell me THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT FINALLY!, as, with more passing of time, could trap me in a corner with no more dodges or laughable excuses left (too old...pff!), just me exposed for NOT GIVING A DAMN PLUS LIKING IT/HER THAT WAY. "He struck me as such a sensitive guy before all of this" DEFINITELY Covert, then. "..., like he is really sweet with animals, very caring etc. he was the one with the strict moral code, wanted to marry me, etc. But clearly he has manipulative traits and he lies. No getting around that." Uh-huh. But as the above article says - they have a good side. They get called Jekyll & Hyde. "Ugh, just such a mess. I do feel great relief no longer having to deal with the family issues or even hear about it. Writing it out it sounds so nuts." Mate, you could have MARRIED THEM ALL! They'd have sucked you into The Firm at some point, don't you worry. "Thanks for your insights and discussion!" De nada, and let me finish up (both of you) either in a min or failing that, tomorrow.

Tsk - typo: "It's a basic psych fact that if someone keeps doing something, refuses to cease doing something or keeps FAILING to do something - it's because they're getting something out of it - END OF. "

Oh, and the biggie: Narc mothers tend to be the one in control of everyone in the family (unless the husband is revealed (by himself) to be a bigger bully - Sociopath or Psychopath, at which point she realises she's slowly-but-surely been demoted to "one of the kids/one of the siblings". This includes being the spider at the centre of the web. By playing siblings off against each other all the time,encouraging them to have to compete (who can be just like mum and toe her line the best!) for her attention, become mutual, serious contenders or enemies to one another and cease sharing thoughts and feelings, etc. Mum is then The Fat Controller who tells sibling X that sibling Y thinks/says this about him, to maintain the isolation. THESE BOYS TALK AND TEAM UP. (And those neices sound horrid- sorry, sound as if they've been taught to be horrid....UNEMPATHETIC....Shadenfreude! Laughing at another's suffering (because whatever's wrong, she clearly is suffering, NOT having a good or happy time - right?!). GOTT'EM! But the smoothness, the THOROUGHNESS of this (here's where he learnt it!) PUBLICLY DISPLAYED WINDOW-DRESSING for heinous ENSLAVING of a multiply kicked cat (mother) (and these boys' own wives/gfs - because they're women)...'women are here only to serve willingly - of if unwilling, be tricked into servitude, by men, as and however they see fit (puke-puke, it's that bloody 'Enry The Eighth', back again!). Yeah, I definitely need to think about this. If he is, or only the other brothers are the Psychos while he's merely the Narcissist or riddled with Narc Fleas (hence behaves like the scapegoated lackey that does mum's housework while the others say things to constantly avoid it) (albeit he could be more than that, say, the Field Agent?), then, that poor woman (and the wives) are out-numbered, and for she who's taken that bullying and being completely controlled and dominated FOR YEARS must be DESPAIRING by now. Well, if they are, just play Gray Rock. React to NOTHING he might do. OR...if he phones to try to Hoover you (because he's just lost one and needs a stand-in or perm. replacement), tell him (act your socks off!) you're so relieved he's rung because you've been warned you might have breast cancer and were so worried about not having a partner to look after you if/when you have chemo. YOU WON'T SEE HIM AGAIN FOR DUST! They don't DO Caring-For. They're royalty, they should be the cared-for, waited-on hand-and-foot... Let me have another think under this slightly different light. But this has grabbed me. I KNOW I haven't read a thing that puts me off feeling sorrier and sorrier for her (Smother) as I've gone along. And I know all I keep getting is more and more, now SINISTER, not just Red flags, but ICEBERG TIPS that are overly reminiscent of belonging to the type that sunk the Titanic.

Damn, another typo correction (words disappearing somehow!)... "(or - Covert VULNERABLE - freeze/frustrate you away with their Word Salad)."

If your ex IS a "junior" Psycho or a Narc made Flying Monkey to a nest of much worse, much harder, crueller, sadistic Psycho brothers/siblings and possibly also a passive Covert-Vulnerable ("sigh...what can I doooo") 2nd husband (and understand that your bonafide malignant Psycho is automatically BY DEFAULT a Covert----DEEPLY (know how to hide things properly where NO-ONE can spot them!)....you tend not to know (find out) what hit you - or that anything did but FEELS like it did?...after DECADES of thinking you knew the man you were married to), THEN you won't hear a single peep, ever again, and the "lets meet up later and chat" will have been this: A passifier FOR YOUR benefit...in case YOU (she who now spots and is realising too much about my "Narc gangsta" family with their Narc gangsta lifestyles and behaviours) might be the one to want to try again (even just out of intrigue, now that I know she's at-heart a frustrated Private Investigator) ((LOL, you minx, you)). 'I'll let her fire me and keep her perfectly calm in the meantime by giving her a relaxant of a lie (meet up in a month or so - relief will soon be nigh!) so that she might with any luck, get hit-on and swept off by another guy...just in case she didn't mean to go that far and ends up wanting to retract the firing and get back together. Sod revenge that petty (i.e. getting you back in order to bide his time then dump YOU, to protect his overblown macho pride from being the Dumpee), thinks the Psycho - too much, more important, is at risk ((usually money))....she's small-fry, got loads more "birds" over there, who needs it'. Time will tell - or even just help massively - on that score. Thus far - you're right - it is VERY messy. I think it's because there's more than one tangled ball of wool involved.

Liking animals. Yeah, while YOU were watching. During the Love-Bombing/Impressions Management stage. You're a sentient being too, aren't you ? And THEN some! Aren't you? Particularly in the backroom actions - HE WASN'T VERY NICE TO YOU, WAS HE. (Gottim again) (Damnit)

"You know how in the past, wives were dispensed with by their Narc husbands - especially for their money/title - by "proving" them insane and getting them locked away FOREVER in an asylum? Now add: Narcs don't update/change/learn, act as if we're still in the Dark or Middle Ages. Hmmm...." Did his mother get a really good divorce settlement from Husband 1?

Only just getting tired: Need to qualify and explain: "OR...if he phones to try to Hoover you (because he's just lost one and needs a stand-in or perm. replacement), tell him (act your socks off!) you're so relieved he's rung because you've been warned you might have breast cancer and were so worried about not having a partner to look after you if/when you have chemo. YOU WON'T SEE HIM AGAIN FOR DUST! They don't DO Caring-For. They're royalty, they should be the cared-for, waited-on hand-and-foot..." Narcs do this - pretend they've got cancer. But to hoover you back in. Normal-healthies NORMALLY shouldn't. It's bloody low-down and dirty. But when you're having to take on a monster whose weapons are heinous, and your weapons are just normal....you're dead meat. No, you need heinous weapons too (unleash your normal-person inner animal - which is still a naked ape that can turn psychopath WHEN THE SURVIVAL OF THE SPECIE DEPENDS ON IT - e.g. overcrowded pack plus food scarce, suddenly = the apes kill the babies to reduce pack numbers (babies can't replace killed adults whereas adults can produce a new set of babies...yes, Nature is cruel). It's called Out-Narcing The Narc (google). Basically means, all bets are off and the gloves are off. Also used to be known (because only these types demand it) as, A taste of his own medicine. They don't expect YOU to have teeth and claws (ability to counter-manipulate, even in a potentially exteme situation that demands i), let alone dare use them. They're too emotionally thick to understand Empaths and Supernova Empaths, and how that ACTUALLY is PROOF-POSITIVE they're the strongest human on the planet...think about it: so many muscles they even have some SPARE for keeping their fam and friends propped up as well as themselves!...do it so frequently they get treated like a rock and sat on...by weaklings pretending to be their match but whom then inevitably crumble when for-once YOU need help....etc, etc., "only the strong get depressed" (i.e. don't get helped to AVOID/STOP SHORT of hitting depression point. "It's lonely at the top". So they believe you. And scarper, quick!....sudden Ghosting, anyone?...'ugh - needy slave, ugh, don't need to help even if I wanted to...plenty more where she, this mere woman object thing, came from so I-I-I-Me-Me-Me don't NEED to - sod her/it, I'm off, ugh!). ************ Amie - sorry - have noticed you've re-posted, not ignoring you, will get to you next chance I get. Night y'all!

Good night, Soulmate, please get the rest that you deserve.. You are the bee's knees, if I may say so! Amie

Thank you Soulmate and Amie. Lot's of things to think about. Soulmate, thank you for saying it wasn't my "fault" for picking poorly. That's troubled me, I wonder at signs I may have missed. And you have a point about future hoovering. Amie, I think you are right they need her to be "good" and she emasculates the husband, I've witnessed it. I think her adult children are damaged to various ends but she allowed her children to be abused for years and one already dead. And it is akin to your story, she got something out of it so she looked the other way and she forced appearances by the family, very religious but behind closed doors made them repeat things so it wouldn't come out what was happening. That's why the daughter refuses a relationship with the mother because she blames her for their abuse (by a man) an unlike the brothers she won't "pretend" nothing happened. But as Soulmate said and I've always noticed people do what they want and while it may not be clear if one continues to do something they are getting something out of it. All of it is so complicated but also not really. While sad he had years of therapy and he is an adult now and knows right from wrong. There is no getting around his lies to me, I didn't deserve it and there is no reason to think it wouldn't continue. I inquired and learned I can take my work assignment earlier (the one he and I planned) so I'm moving! I'm excited and it will be good for me, a change of scenery. I've learned a lot and am re-reading.Thank you again for your valuable insights! Very kind and helpful thank you SO MUCH!

I meant to share I found a very interesting expert on Narcissism - Richard Grannon he has many youtube videos I found quite enlightening.

Hello again Marionette: You are very welcome. "she allowed her children to be abused for years... she looked the other way"- there is no greater betrayal than a mother abusing and/ or watching others abuse her children and allowing it. "she forced appearances by the family.. (to) 'pretend' nothing happened"- something did happen: Betrayal (with a capital B) happened. "he had years of therapy and he is an adult now and knows right from wrong. There is no getting around his lies to me, I didn't deserve it and there is no reason to think it wouldn't continue"- his years of therapy did not yet lead him to acknowledge the Betrayal(to acknowledge the magnitude of it). He still pretends that The Betrayal was not as big of a deal as it was. He can therefore, in his own mind, do the same pretending when it comes to lying to you. He didn't yet hold his mother accountable for doing Wrong to him.. so he doesn't yet know on a deep enough level "right from wrong". "I'm moving! I'm excited and it will be good for me, a change of scenery"- congratulations! "I meant to share I found a very interesting expert on Narcissism"- my mother has been a Narcissist of the covert/ vulnerable type all of the years I've known her. She suffered a whole lot of anxiety and distress and depression and disquiet in her mind and heart all these years. I always felt sorry for her, always wanted to help her. I would have done ANYTHING to help her feel better. It was my DREAM to make her happy. The fable of The Scorpion and the Frog comes to mind: a scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across. The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: "I am sorry, but I couldn't resist the urge. It's in my nature." In my life, I was my mother's frog; she was my scorpion. It took me 10 years of no contact with her to finally- and most recently- come out of the murky water and take a first breath of fresh air (reconnecting with myself/ re-associate with the dissociated child that's in me). If I reconnected with the scorpion again, she will sting me once again and this time... there would not be enough time in my life for me to recover once again. In my mother's covert/ vulnerable Narcissistic mind and heart, there is no greater pain in the whole world than her own. She is on an island of pain by herself and everyone else (except in the most extreme cases of visible suffering, such as people starving to death) has it better than her. So, to make it a bit less unfair, she inflicts some of her pain on others just to make life a bit more fair.. so that she is not the only one hurting, an act she has to repeat because the relief from one act of hurting doesn't last long. She cannot be helped because she stings those trying to help her. She can't understand.. incapable of understanding that she is not alone in pain. She feels utterly alone and she treated me- the one who loved her so much, the one who did all I could to help her.. she treated me like an enemy, shaming and guilting me and.. scaring me. And as old as she is now, she will do it again, if I expose myself to her. Amie

Thank you for sharing Amie! We all imprint so profoundly on our parents it is such a deep wound for that sacred bond to be damaged. Going no contact, imagine how much pain you've spared yourself in those years... but that's an act that takes great strength. You are very insightful I appreciate our correspondence. Take good care!

You are welcome Marionette, and thank you for your kind words. Thing is, in regard to sparing myself pain for going no contact, is that abusive parents get into our heads as children, so her mental representative (her voice in my head) kept giving me pain day in and day out. Extricating that mental rep.. that's been very, very difficult and took a long time to get to the point when only a bit earlier today, I started hearing her voice criticizing me/ me walking on eggshells around that voice.. and I disengaged from it easily and quickly. So, No Contact is not an easy fix, it's just the beginning. Post again anytime you feel like talking and take care of yourself!

Damnit - had just finished a lengthy post, forgot to copy and lost it! I'll have to precis it now and continue next window. Marionette, I'm still not convinced your ex's mother is the original or greater problematic element; husband/stepdad is Iffy (not to mention the suspiciously over-involved and controlling siblings) whichever way you look at it. They've ALL of them had JUST TOO LONG to get her sorted so of course she'll have worsened. And he's Covert, I reckon, as opposed to mother's Overtness. With this latest data, however, I'm leaning towards Borderline (big hearts, WANT to mean well, but an insecure mess needing constant reassurance (- latter fits), volatile/moody, tendency to inappropriate outbursts - but even in public (- fits), NOT just behind closed doors, CAN get nasty and/or manipulative when over-frustrated/desperate, BUT CUREABLE (albeit it's a therapeutic long-haul job). Other things fit as well. I mean, what state would YOU end up in if you were dealing with a number of them simultaneously, day-in-day-out? Weak (looking the other way) becomes weaker...unless said blinkering coincided during her grief? After all, Coverts, being weasely cowards, DEFINITELY always hit you when you're down. I need more data and thought and you need more surfing because, as you can see from Amie, with more time and learning, you can end up changing your mind re. what type/severity. HOWEVER, your ex is definitely deeply Covert to point of Double Life (and you got a peek because he wanted it that way - the testing/pushing experiments had begun - yes, due to your self-assertion and putting your foot down (DO something!)). So as you and Amie share that in-common, it's good that you can compare and investigate notes together as well as keep providing more clues. So...You haven't said, but I'm presuming it was the first husband, the children's natural (hah!) father that abused his own kids? Including sexually - or exclusively? PS Amie: quick Engish lesson: it's emasculated - but you got bees' knees right (and cheerzzzzzzzzz very much) (- see what I did there? LOL)

PS: it's not uncommon for a Big Covert Bully to bag himself a "noisy one" so that she'll keep everyone's eyes, ears and minds too busy focusing on her so that he can get on with his nefarious activities deeply behind the scenes. No-one tends to suspect him, assume if she's a baddie, he's the saint (far from it...usually she's worse than ever, thanks to HIM and his mind-messing neglect). Only IF he were truly an ineffectual passifist avoidant would she be in control (no need for those neediness-based, uninhibited histrionics (which smack of Borderline). So we have him. He IS Iffy and no wonder she's worsened over time, including been simply unable to cope with anything else, let alone huge, landing in her in-tray, hence blinkering/going into denial.

Re his mother's past Enabling, and why as Amie correctly states, he has to believe he has ONE, basically GOOD parent (and might go too far in his Denial, to "My mother is an actual angel"), this might help (my double parentheses again): ********************************* I recently saw the documentary about Scientology called ‘Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief’. It was fascinating and horrifying. Several former members were interviewed, some having been in the Scientology movement for over thirty years. One man, Paul Haggis, an Oscar winning film director, was asking himself how he could have stayed so long in Scientology turning a blind eye to the flagrant abuses. He felt deep shame at his acceptance of what should have been completely unacceptable. His eyes were finally opened by the public homophobic stance of the organisation. He has two gay children and they had revealed to him how they had suffered in the Scientology movement. So what makes seemingly normal, intelligent people accept things that are indefensible, even criminal? Jimmy Saville comes to mind. He preyed on the vulnerable for over five decades. His behaviour was a ‘public’ secret, yet he was friends with some very powerful people. Is there anything that links these disparate examples, which might explain how it is so often easier to ignore troubling information than to react appropriately? There are I think more similarities than at first might appear. Daniel Shaw in his book ‘Traumatic Narcissism’ proposes that what cult leaders have in common is that they are narcissists with a need to dominate and control. ((The behavioural descriptives evidence says Mother is NOT the dominator nor controller (bar petty, trivial things) - she's OUT of control and at the mercy (over a barrel) of not just one, but the main, seeming source of "kindness" from someone (your ex) whose role it isn't...not to that degree/frequency. Houston, regardless that they're not related, with ex and stepdad we have a far greater PARENT-CHILD ROLE -REVERSAL than he and his mum.)) ((Good on his sister from having gone Low Contact, though, unless it's down to low empathy, of course.)) ((PS: a family/relatives can operate like a small-scale cult, btw.)) The reality and the needs of the leader/organisation are paramount and punishment for disobedience is severe. Most people enter a cult or group like Scientology because it seems to hold answers to life’s difficult questions. Friends are made, and you feel part of a family. Progress through the hierarchy where more and more is ‘revealed’ is financially very costly. People who reach these ‘higher levels’ are admired and also arguably have more and more to lose. This is where our psychic defences of ‘rationalisation and denial’ come into play. It is painful to see that what one has invested in emotionally and financially is profoundly dysfunctional. We are relational creatures and our natural instinct is to protect what we have loved and idealised. If something is happening that challenges our beliefs or threatens our security one way of coping with it is to ‘explain’ it away or deny it. If you expose failings you might threaten the institution itself. As psychotherapists we all see clients who as children took the blame for their parent’s failures. Moreover if you expose parental failings you might threaten the institution itself. Many children do not reveal their abuse because it would ‘destroy’ the family. So on one hand there is the need to keep an image intact of what you have believed in and on the other is the threat of what happens if you do take action. In the world of Scientology the punishment can be extreme. You are cast out and called a ‘suppressive’ person. No-one in the movement can have contact with you, including your family and former friends. This policy is called ‘disconnection.’ Threats and harassment are the norm. Is it any surprise that it is easier to turn a ‘blind eye’ and make excuses such as the survival of the organisation being more important than any individual? The Catholic Church when protecting its clergy from accusations of sexual abuse used this same excuse. Was a similar dynamic at work with the decades of ‘blindness’ that surrounded Jimmy Saville? Of course there are major differences but I believe that the same defences of ‘rationalisation’ and ‘denial’ come into play. Saville was a celebrity and people have an instinctive admiration for fame and wealth. He was friends with some very powerful people in the establishment. Mrs Thatcher suggested him for a knighthood. He had raised over £40 million for good causes and like the Scientology leadership he protected himself with an extremely litigious legal team. To challenge or expose Saville was never going to be easy. Organisations such as the BBC or hospitals like Stoke Mandeville ‘needed’ Saville to be a decent man. If they exposed him, they also exposed themselves to potential loss of income, heavy legal threats and crippling legal fees. His great niece, Caroline Robinson, told how he had twice molested her with the full knowledge of his sister, her grandmother. You can read it here. She is quoted as saying: ‘if we blabbed on Jimmy, the family would have been left with nothing’. They therefore denied that he was a paedophile to protect themselves. So we turn a blind eye when we think it is ‘easier’, or in our ‘best interests’ to do so ((survival instinct)) and because the consequences of taking action are felt as frightening or unpleasant. It is painful to have your beliefs shaken or your position threatened and none of us are immune from making life simpler for ourselves. But the words of the philosopher Edmund Burke: ‘the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’, are well worth taking note of." ******************** Re this stepfather and the rest of the family: They don't appear to be that decent for starters. And they've definitely done nothing to ease the suffering of that woman, whatever her problem. There's no getting around this. Except for, perhaps, to protect the family cult order? (...highlight, copy, submit, lol...)

"He didn't yet hold his mother accountable for doing Wrong to him.. so he doesn't yet know on a deep enough level "right from wrong"." Maybe he did but just daren't express it and rock the boat, but has since been getting his revenge (drip-drip-drip) by (CLEARLY!) having her over a barrel..."I'll help you, I'll help you not...". You mustn't whatever you do, try to work their behaviour/choices out by viewing them through the Normal-Healthy Neurotypical lens. As "Pretty Woman" said: Big mistake....HUGE.

PS guys: ""he had years of therapy and he is an adult now and knows right from wrong. There is no getting around his lies to me, I didn't deserve it and there is no reason to think it wouldn't continue"- his years of therapy did not yet lead him to acknowledge the Betrayal(to acknowledge the magnitude of it). He still pretends that The Betrayal was not as big of a deal as it was. He can therefore, in his own mind, do the same pretending when it comes to lying to you." They do know right from wrong. They just DON'T CARE. Morally lacking..corrupt and/or false pride (ego) and self-absorption/obsession. If they didn't now right from wrong, for prime but not sole examples - (1) they wouldn't know to HIDE it or save it for behind-closed-doors. (2) Nor would they be capable of putting their falsely impressive (Impressions Management) and lovely foot forward (during Honeymoon/initial Love-Bombing). They can IGNORE just one thing, out of not caring less, doesn't have to be panoramic. They don't think about it because they don't care (Narc "r/ship" motto: He who cares least, wins) (should only ever be TWO winners in an intimate relationship, Power Over has no place). Most malig. Narcs (delude themselves) they LIKE BEING A NARC and think it makes them vastly superior to people who care, feel and feel-for. They think kindness equates to weak (refer to previous post re empathy being a sign of strength and a well-stocked 'store cupboard'). Narcs: Me-Me-Me and sod you (who are you, anyway, you weakling-suckeeer!). They lie, cheat, neglect, abuse, torture (maligs/The Dark Triad are sadistic) because they stupidly think it's EASIER to bully and trick your way through life with other people. It never does pay, in the final analysis; quite the opposite. Gobsmacking Selfishness..Evil, never prevails, never has, never will. You'd think they'd know that. Nope...too stupid/short-sighted and over-focused on the wrong path and things. Can't dare, don't care...except that, "oddly", these are the aged people who suddenly find God in the nick of time (not).

Damn, I forgot the linke to the article about Scientology and Jimmy Saville: https://welldoing.org/article/psychology-turning-blind-eye By therapist Sue Cowen-Jenssen

PPS: Glad you confirmed you're a senior biz woman, Marionette, because it further proves that your VETERAN malignants, especially Sociopaths, tend to be done/bored with what they consider weaklings, and like a challenge: to bring down a fine, however-much fine, powerful, admired specimen (for false status-elevation and trust, as gone into earlier). HOWEVER, if you've been slimed (primed, desensitized..), growing-up, despite you rebelled and resisted being narcissised (rolling over out of desperation for parental/sibling approval), you're amonst other things, more tolerant, conscientious (etc., to compensate for the family deficits) and capable of endurance - thus will last longer they hope, before admitting defeat and spitting them out - and "into" challenges yourself, thanks to work successes (I can fix him, same as I can always fix work projects) (nope! - they're not morally or psychologically-emotionally sane by 'workable people's' standards, this is Psychiatry's field of expertise). My opinion, however (I investigate deeper/longer than most - you've got to if you want to take part in stamping this out) is that when they cross paths, they can tell (ferrel equals operating on more on predator super-senses) you're a strong, capable woman, NORMALLY, but weakened/down on your luck somehow, or still not quite over the Baggage....they grab that golden opportunity and, biding their time at first (before leaking drips of bad behaviour/abuse), take it (you) from there. Does that fit with you at roughly point of meeting in terms of new r/ship basis (going from acquaintance to romance)? And was he charming and magnetic at first, or even just once it started switching to the romantic? Or was he supposed to be your guarantee of never treating you badly due to your having been friends? And Amie, do you think you ever "attracted" - or nearly - any Narc boyfriends during your dating history?...any who in whatever ways (physically and/or mentally) reminded you of your mother?

Things that are still jumping out at me - like this one: "He admitted her moving back was not a good idea and I didn't know this until the end but he spent most of his vacation time visiting her over the years. She would literally demand he be present for a minor holiday and not with his friends etc. He had pushed back the last few years. I can't help but wonder now if this is why they moved back so she could increase her control again? " 1. Admitted. Not offered. Diff/all the diff (see it?). He AGREED (to fob-off and shut you up). 2. The more covert/double-lived - you never do know things until the end...and subsequently..."Narcs are the gift that keep on giving". Either because it's real but was hidden, now discovered by you...or they (Spaths) don't care WHAT you know any more (replacement nearly warmed-up enough to leap to, sod her). 3. Vacation time: did she hold a gun to his head? Doesn't he have his own mind? Seemed to have his own mind, with you, though... FUNNY, THAT! Liar was lying/twisting/spinning. He was getting something out of it. (In reckon power over her as revenge, and he's lying when he says she's an angel or THINKS he is because HE'S been brainwashed!). 4. Demand. Again, so the liar with the public mask, says. I prefer to focus mainly on the actions and judge those all together because they can't lie. I think if he had ever been consistent, turned up every time - and helped properly - she wouldn't be having to (wait for it - re coverts and what they insist you do, i.e. role-reversal) CHASE AFTER HIM SO CONSTANTLY (gottim!). But I concede that maybe he uses this hold to kid himself - using her, or the state he's helped keep her in, as his delusion tool - that it's him she's desperate to see, rather than solely or predominantly that she has a leaky pipe (and he's paused the job, leaving her unable to use that sink) (seen it a thousand times). Maybe he didn't HAVE any friends. You can't if you wear a mask. Maybe just other "petty, Domestic" emotional-financial users-exploiters-criminals ...albeit Coverts, being cowards who abuse from behind the sandbags or Plausible Deniability, tend to use you in a way where they can SAVE and grow RICHER thanks to you and at your expense (literally), i.e. charge you more than half the rent/mortgage, somehow swing it so that you pay more often for the takeaway, put you down as a partner of their biz but keep your dividend payments, that sort of thing). (The Spath on the other hand, has no shame so might pretend to be pennilness...like your business beggar) (don't ever refuse a donation, however - your good deed stands, even if the recipient is sinning by pretending to be one...Karma Kredits and all that, as I call them.) 5. It's not hard to be the one to move away, or make yourself a lot of the time unavailable. Especially if you're a practised liar. Anything pinging?

Another common but very behind-doors tactic: The seemingly quiet one nags and needles the noisy one to-death..."Get him back over here, leaving the sink out-of-order - I'll give HIM out-of-order!" etc. Good Cop-Bad Cop. And the only way to make him stop is to chase her son back.

Amie, "2nd post: "He has since admitted to lying"- sticking by his lie did not work for him in this case, so he goes to Plan B: giving you what you want (his admission), hoping that this will satisfy you and that you will be able to move past this." Correct. It's called Doubling Down (google in the context of Narcs). ""He swears he did not physically cheat on me"- that ship has sailed, that is, the correlation between him swearing and telling the truth ("He swears it was not him and he had given out his pictures to men", 1st post)" Yup. "3rd post: "If I hadn't been resolute he would never have told the truth"- him telling the truth depends not at all on the truth but on what is convenient at the moment/ on what he believes will serve him best."" Always. Well done.

PS: ""He says he is only interested in a relationship with a woman and sex with men"- maybe with men he gets to have sex without the demands, sex just for fun." Yes, because he's never learned to CARE so has never experienced sex in conjunction with a bond and spiritual connection. Sex to Narcs is a tool and scratching an itch (with acting thrown-in during 'Honeymoon' or when they need to butter you back up because you're start to see too much...Honeymoon Heroin time (it literally has the same effe.ct, despite it's manufactured by your own brain in response to all the precise button-pushing).

https://www.iflscience.com/10-reasons-its-difficult-to-spot-narcissists-and-psychopaths-and-how-they-use-them-to-hide-in-plain-sight-47518 Joshua Rawson-Harris / Unsplash "Dark triad personalities — narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy — rely on manipulating other people as their source of power. They thrive off creating chaos for everyone around them, under the illusion of being a caring partner or friend. Narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths are so good at hiding in plain sight, you'll have a hard time identifying them unless you know the signs. There's also a problem with what we expect these people to be. When you mention psychopaths, many people will imagine a murderer, rapist, or Hannibal Lecter type. The reality is a lot less dramatic. Someone doesn't have to have committed a violent crime to be diagnosed as a psychopath, and taking a lot of selfies doesn't make someone a narcissist. They still cause harm to others, but it's more likely to be the emotional and psychological harm that doesn't leave physical scars. That's why they can hop from partner to partner without leaving much of a trace of their destruction. Doctor of psychology and therapist Perpetua Neo spoke with Business Insider about how dark triad people slip through the cracks, and how our misconceptions can help them manipulate others. Here are 10 reasons dark triad people are so difficult to spot: 1. They are not all Jack the Ripper Relatively few psychopaths have a taste for blood. Neo said we tend to believe most psychopaths are in prison, because they are cold-blooded murderers, rapists, or pedophiles, but this simply isn't true for most of them. She said we tend to ask ourselves if someone is a full-blown psychopath, such as Jack the Ripper, which means we ignore the other signs that they are probably on the spectrum. "It's just a way we use to justify it to ourselves that there is a good person inside this person, or maybe I'm just bringing the bad side out of this person," she said. "I think the question should be 'are they good to you and are they good for you?' "Do you really need a person to be Jack the Ripper before you decide to disengage from them?" 2. Their job proves nothing If someone is respected in the community, it is harder to assume their intentions aren't good. But sometimes, dark triad people will go into professions that will mask their true intentions. Neo said this always makes her think of the Catholic church, and when they tried to cover up the abuse of young children. "Because somebody is in a position in a community, we think they're a good person," she said. "Just like if someone's a psychologist or therapist, we think they're a good person. But having gifts doesn't make you a good person. We just conflate all these ideas in our head. Which means for instance, a psychopath may choose to work in a charity, in the third sector, so they can look like they're very giving people. That's how they worm their way in." 3. They can actually show empathy ((- that's a minimising misnomer of a sub-title, don't like that)) Dark triad people are more or less devoid of empathy. But Neo said there are two types of empathy — cognitive and affective. Affective empathy is when you truly feel something for someone else, whereas cognitive empathy is the ability to recognize the feelings in others. Narcissists and psychopaths often watch a lot of TV and films, so they are able to develop cognitive empathy and mimic the behaviors that are appropriate in those situations. For example, they may know to give you a hug, but there is no feeling behind it — they're just copying what they've learned. "They can seem empathetic even if they lack empathy," Neo said. "But it's their everyday behavior, what kind of contempt leaks out, that matters. If they seem empathetic towards a person, then the next thing you hear might be a strange remark or a weird sick joke, then you know this person doesn't really have empathy." ((Better 'sign-off'. After all, you don't and won't get very far trying to ride a bicycle with only one of its two wheels, do you. It's useless. So you don't "have a bicycle". LOL, I know I'm 'being pedantic' but it is crucial to be precise with these bozos.)) 4. They can be excessively charming ((- they're mimicking genuine, Empath charmers...charmers is therefore not a Red Flag by itself; they copy people and add it to their false persona/"personality"))- Dark triad people can turn on the charm in a matter of seconds. You may be having an argument, and they can switch it on and act like a completely different person. Neo said when you meet someone and they are too charming, it could be because they are trying to hook you in with love bombing. It's an effective — and highly manipulative — method of making you feel like you've found your soulmate, and it often starts with the person being highly affectionate, charming, and generous. "If it doesn't feel natural, you get goosebumps, or feel off-kilter, that's a sign," she said. "We know that excessive levels of charm correlate with dark triad traits ((copying genuinely nice charmers - bears repeating to protect the innocent type))... but our bodies and brains are wired to react in a way that gets hooked on to them instead." 5. They do their homework on you Although dark triad people are very good at making you feel like meeting them was fate, this probably isn't true. While they are love bombing you, and telling you how you're "the one," they may have orchestrated the whole relationship. Neo said it's not uncommon for a narcissist to stalk their potential targets. She heard of one narcissistic man who stalked his wife for three years before they met. "It's normal to maybe look someone up on Facebook before you meet them," she said. "But these people... they get sophisticated and they play the long game." It's a common trap narcissists set for their victims, she said. They learn everything they possibly can about you, then instrument a way to meet you. Then they act as if you have so much in common because you must be "soulmates." Marionette, how did you first meet/make contact with this (fake) ex, originally?

"My boyfriend was upfront about his bisexuality from the start." Hah! I'll bet he did offer THAT one.

Soulmate: Fascinating, your posts today (evening, your time). My view/ understanding of my mother and of humanity is changing furthe because of you, which makes you indeed the bee's knees, in my book (got your zzzz joke, haha.. and yes, emasculated, got it). My understanding is changing because I still viewed her as better than she was. Yes, she did know right from wrong, yes, she didn't CARE. She told me once when I was a teenager (referring to her behavior): "do you think I am stupid, you think I don't know that I am wrong? But what are you going to do, you have no choice, you have nowhere to go!" , For the longest time, I didn't understand what she was saying, then I figured it out: she often feared mockery and in her mind, I was mocking her (thinking something like: she is so stupid, she doesn't even know that she is wrong), so she lashed out saying, paraphrased: I am not stupid! I know that I am wrong.. so don't you dare thin that I am stupid! It was not out of guilt or regret that she mentioned being wrong (it was the first and last time she told me that she was wrong), it was out of showing me that she is smart, not stupid. Morally corrupt is correct, that would describe her. Morally corrupt and Narcissistic, covert/ vulnerable type, and lots of Narcissistic Rage episodes that were very loud and overtly aggressive. The covert aggression was in-between those episodes. "And Amie, do you think you ever 'attracted' - or nearly - any Narc boyfriends during your dating history?...any who in whatever ways (physically and/or mentally) reminded you of your mother?"- - there was no dating history, I was too sick to be dating (before my late forties at about the time I had my first quality psychotherapy). I was too sick to know what I was attracted to, or any such thing. What did happen was that let's say I was in the company of a man (hitchhiking comes to mind), there he was, and if he wanted to, he approached me sexually. I objected, full of shame and fear. Like a child who had no choice, I tried to resist but too afraid to resist too much. If the man chose to ignore my resistance, my pleas for him to stop.. then he went through with it and when he was done I was relieved that it was over. It was a Repeat of me facing my mother's Narcissistic rage episodes: there was nothing for me to do but wait for it to be over. She told me during those episodes: "The only thing I like about you is that when I (hit me/ yell at me, humiliate me any which way), you look down to the floor and you say nothing back to me". Amie *I just noticed that you added a few posts that I am yet to read. I will do that later, the above was emotional for me to share.. quite risky, really. I don't think I ever shared it before.

Bit more to add for now, anyway (back soon): "But I concede that maybe he uses this hold to kid himself - using her, or the state he's helped keep her in, as his delusion tool - that it's him she's desperate to see, rather than solely or predominantly that she has a leaky pipe (and he's paused the job, leaving her unable to use that sink) (seen it a thousand times)." I think it's all of the above as a cocktail and that they have a tacit deal going on - hence NEITHER of them will cease that nonsense. Needing a cover of normality/Window-Dressing - and her prepared to pay the toll-fee for his reassuring assistance by being his advocate if ever needed ("No, he'd never do something like THAT, he's a GOOD, LOVELY boy!"), he, finding himself partnerless, had to rely on her. But she's highly-strung - needy - the latter, annoying and tedious to uber-selfish Narcs). But then he "re-met" you. You were intended as her less annoying replacement. He teams-up (does as he's told or else, maybe, maybe not) with "supervising" her, "out in public" where she might blurt and tell, e.g. with her doctor (wake up, man!!!), or because they can't control what the other person asks (BUT CAN IF TWO AGAINST ONE IS THERE - GOTT'EM). Doctors are only human so can be intimidated, even without realising it. Or charmed, of course, mustn't forget that. Both, probably. Message: we could duff you up, only, we like you so we won't...while we like you / Oh, thank-you-thank-you-thank-you, what can I do for you two gentlemen?) Needy includes as supposedly a simple a thing as needing to know the truth about something (I know, believe me, I know..."christ!...I only asked what time you finished work, bloody hell!"). But it's not simple, it's you asking for them to take a card from their House of Cards and rotate it to face out (show all his cards). The entire House would collapse...Narcissistic Collapse (google)...nervous breakdown to us. Every lie and pretense is crucial, no matter how seemingly trivial and petty. Food for thought?

Wait - ping! Is he a builder/contractor by-day? (Haven't caught up yet so forgive if you've since answered: Was he supposed to be your "bit of rough" - as in the seeming refreshing opposite to the last "whomever" who was Covert-Vulnerable-Cerebral?)

"Writing it out it sounds so nuts." Hahahahahahahaha! Wanna swap places with myself, OldMainer, Manalone, Susiedq? (And the mute mods - they still have to read it, poor sods, haha). Cheers for the giggle - thumbs-up.

You have to be STRONG and SENSIBLE...SELF-DISCIPLINED, Kemosabbe, and know to take breaks (like your psychiatrists know to do to protect their "empathy cable" from going as far as 'downloading' the viruses....."Drrrring!...Time's up"). You could do it? (Cough...just saying, no particular reason, LOL)

In case (just in case, because of all the posings) you missed my post- it's fifth up

Amie, "It was my DREAM to make her happy. " You sound exactly like OldMainer (and doubtless everyone here, even if for different etiologies). :) But NOTHING was going to make her happy per se because Covert-Vulnerables are negative people by default ("Stupid idea, won't work, never does, mleugh-mleugh-whinge-whinge" and it's a side-bonus that it drags you and your confidence down, still at that point believing you're asking a normal, healthy person). They're the reason behind the anti-narc survivor saying: I need Radiators in my life, not Drains. However, that's not to say you didn't make her constant misery or irritation that much more COMFORTABLE than if you hadn't been her daughter (pff - mother, more like, said role-reversal). I mean if you hand someone tiny with legs a normal-sized step-stool- no problemo, just be patient (have a nap while you wait, LOL). But what if they have no legs/are in a tiny wheelchair and can only rise by ONE OR TWO steps? May it won't be enough to produce a smile on their face, but it's still an achievement? (PS: This is REALLY why they're "incurable", aside from not wanting to get fixed: unlike the BPD, it would take a NUMBER of decades! However, they can be given meds and copings mechanisms, but we're full-circle to Don't Wanna! Or, if you don't believe that was the case (and fairenoughski if you don't - you were there), then know that everything you wanted to try, and did, was a case of: Right Qualities (yours), WRONG (broken, out-of-order) RECIPIENT! Could have been a lot worse on you had it not been for you. :) ("...that a He...ro liiieeees-in you-oouu-ooooouu!" - Mariah). These experiences aren't BAD (it's NO experience that's bad), they just FEEL incredibly bad. But only at the time, no matter HOW long it takes for the bad feeling so sod-off. It's like having to have major tooth surgery all in one go. You're going to be sore for weeks...months, but you come out with better gnashers and all the good improvements that brings (increased confidence, better feedback and new friendships because you dare smile at people again, trying new things....). For example, if you've coped with a Narc, at close-quarters like that, you can cope with bloody ANYONE on the Normal/NT scale! Maybe you had to be made to sacrifice having a proper mother like most of the other kids because otherwise you wouldn't have been made to limber-up (without realising it), tone and grow your mental muscles......something you'll know benefit from in the unforeseeable future, maybe? Why else would "it up there" want you fast-fowarded, becoming an adult in a kid suit (- fyi, I describe NPDs as (always) the opposite: kids in grown-up suits). Food for philosophical thought? If you hadn't been there, you wouldn't be here (don't mean specifically here in this forum haha - but MAYBE? Who knows? We have to (as I put it) get properly into the box to properly find out, don't we.) ...bit philosophical for a Fridee evenin'=.... (highlight/copy/submit - see, it's not just you, LOL) You just don't know (yet). Oh, if only for a crystal-ball. ;)

I am not focused now (an after lunch red wine to credit for it) but smiling reading your recent post and feeling good about you, here, being in my life. I will reply further Sat morning (it is Friday 12:26 pm here now).

Good morning/ afternoon, Soulmate! I couldn't understand everything you wrote in your last post (I consider you too brilliant for me: the speed in which your ideas appear and crisscross each other renders my less intelligent/ connected brain incapacitated). But I understood enough to make your post very worthwhile for me: "NOTHING was going to make her happy"- it was an IMPOSSIBLE task for me and it would have been an impossible task for anyone in my place. This is an important validation, something I said to myself many times but it is important to hear it from.. well, from brilliant you (I mean it, it's not flattery, it's sincere childlike awe on my part). "Covert-Vulnerables are negative people by default ("Stupid idea, won't work..).. they're 'incurable', aside from not wanting to get fixed"- in practice, my mother's Sad Story was her Weapon. If her story was to change/ be fixed from sad to content or happy, or to a story that at the least made rational sense, she would have given up her only power. Complete powerlessness would have been a death sentence to her. She needed my empathy and attention for no other reason but for this: to have an empathetic, attentive (never disagreeing, never challenging.. never advising, never audible or visible.. a non-entity) audience. She didn't want to exchange ideas, to work on solutions.. didn't want me as a teammate (no matter my age). "everything you wanted to try, and did, was a case of: Right Qualities (yours), WRONG (broken, out-of-order) RECIPIENT!"- -I used to think of my mother as a man, aggressively invading, like a man, sexually. And this is what she did to me: she invaded me on an as-needed basis, tearing my insides. I used to want to make her happy. I didn't know that I was already making her happy by being there to rape and be made a Nothing and a Nobody, just something inconsequential to use. It's funny in a way (and tragic, of course) to think that I used to think that SHE WANTED OR EXPECTED this Raped Nobody (which is what I was to her) to help her. That was my delusion. Truth is she helped herself to me.. all this time. Amie

Sorry I'm late...there's been RL stuff going on at my end, which needed o be tended to still ongoing. I see Marionette hasn't posted, either. I'm wondering if when she said 'Take good care' at the end of her last post to you, it was her, signing-off? Hopefully, not. ****************************************** It's not flattery, per se, no, but a large part of it is relief (this case, at the long-needed validations you're getting). It happens a lot. So I'll turn the dial down a good few notches and then say, GEE, THANKS! Haha. No, seriously, I know how massive that relief feels. I'll try to order my thoughts more in longhand... ""NOTHING was going to make her happy"- it was an IMPOSSIBLE task for me and it would have been an impossible task for anyone in my place. This is an important validation, something I said to myself many times " It's always good to hear someone else say it after they've examined your evidence (and/or where they've seen plenty of identical crime scenes before), because, these dark souls are very good at making you, anywhere from DOUBT yourself and your normally spot-on instincts and insight and talent at 'joining dots' (to 'crack cases'), and all the way to, eventually, doubting your very sanity (depending on their severity etc., etc.). But it's always going to be sad and frustrating (until enough time's passed) because - who do you aim your resentment and sense of injustice at? For example - your mother? Or whichever grandparent corrupted her (if not both)? Or the great grandparent that corrupted the mind of.... and so on and so forth as kept that bad, bad programming being passed down the ancestral line? I think it's the responsibility of governments, actually. Ultimately but primarily and overall. It's only a case of ultimately BECAUSE THEY DON'T EVER BLOODY FIX IT. (..And breathe...) Which is why I want women and men - now they know what it is and how the world just doesn't need it - to CEASE SLEEPING WITH THEM. If Malignant NPDs - the world's trouble- and misery-makers - can't reproduce - AND at the same time, young adults are educated in how NOT to parent - THEN THEY CAN'T CONTINUE TO EXIST - simples! Nobody gets hurt or harmed. They just don't get 'slept with', hahaha. Maybe give them the robot sex-dolls...I mean - would the NPD really even notice the difference? ("Honeymoon Heroin - JUST SAY NO!", hahahah!) But, back to all seriousness, it's better to be sad and have that quieten down, increasingly, with every passing handful of years, than, like Marionette said, to keep having to live with that desperation and desperate frustration. It really can kill you, being kept day-in-day-out in that state - or even just once a month or once every 6 months. It's the repetition....the "Groundhog Day".... It never changes, it never gets better, if anything it gets worse. Your brain just doesn't like it and can start fizzing and popping so you have no choice. You HAVE to cut-off or (if you're VERY unlucky, LOL) creative massive distance. It's the only healthy choice. There's ENOUGH stress contained in our lifetimes without THAT?! Good grief. AND YOU CAN BECOME INFECTED. Even just a bit but still not something you want on you (I'm talking about Narc Fleas that you have to spend years afterwards noticing and plucking out of your habitual-behaviours repertoire....ugh, fleas, ugh...). Or you can call it, residual slime that has yet to slide off with the ensuing, sliding years while seeking out a healthier living and people. "Covert-Vulnerables are negative people by default ("Stupid idea, won't work..).. they're 'incurable', aside from not wanting to get fixed"- in practice, my mother's Sad Story was her Weapon." Yup - the Pity Ploy (or Play). Again, read some Martha Stout online or order her book, The Sociopath Next Door. The Pity Ploy is the Malignant-Covert and Malignant narcissistic-Sociopath's favourite dis-arming tool/weapon. Often, right from first meeting! And because of their hypnotic effect - victims don't even NOTICE and think...'Hang on a minute...This is supposed to be our first date....he's supposed to be trying to IMPRESS me and instead, he's playing me tunes on his violin!... Why would he want me to feel sorry for him and pick him on the basis of that? THIS isn't how Nature intends it?! Something's wrong here...' "If her story was to change/ be fixed from sad to content or happy, or to a story that at the least made rational sense, she would have given up her only power. Complete powerlessness would have been a death sentence to her. " Yup. "She needed my empathy and attention for no other reason but for this: to have an empathetic, attentive (never disagreeing, never challenging.. never advising, never audible or visible.. a non-entity) audience. She didn't want to exchange ideas, to work on solutions.. didn't want me as a teammate (no matter my age)." She wanted HER. (Narcissus...own reflection - convinced he was beautiful so was obsessed with it (maybe he was trying to block out what a horrid brat he'd been reared to be, by focusing exclusively on his (uselessly) beautiful face, to the exclusion of all else... Couldn't experience being loved (let alone love) because of it.... died because of it.) She wanted her self-fabricated self in miniature looking back at her (yes - thinking the same, constantly agreeing...) because her self-fabricated self wanted to believe that she was right (and perfect, blameless by default, etc., etc.) and everyone else in the universe were the insane ones. She wanted a mini version (puppet) of her. But you weren't like her. And that agitated her...prompted her to have to concede that she was NOT the perfect and only sane one, quite the reverse. Which is very (abnormal level of) painful for them. And yet you can't keep feeling sorry for them when they bring everything on themselves...own worst enemies. But that's all they can be. So you weren't like her. Which is precisely why, even today, you're not like her (ta-daaaa!). It's a very good job you WEREN'T like her, isn't it? That makes you - if you ARE an only child - with reference to the NSPCC campaign "Cruelty to children must stop, full-stop' - the Full-Stop in your family line. Once was sick and toxic...now no longer. That's an incredible achievement, too. You should forever be very grateful to you.:) "everything you wanted to try, and did, was a case of: Right Qualities (yours), WRONG (broken, out-of-order) RECIPIENT!"- -I used to think of my mother as a man, aggressively invading, like a man, sexually. And this is what she did to me: she invaded me on an as-needed basis, tearing my insides. " Sociopathic women may as well be men. I'll find you the link regarding the ONE-AND-ONLY differences between the males and females. So I'm not surprised to hear you say that. I'm assuming you're saying she may not have raped you, sexually, but she still did it emotionally and psychogically? Yes. And who has ever expected a rape victim to, effectively, tantamountedly, have afternoon tea with their rapist afterwards, like nothing's happened and nothing's wrong (and if you think so, you're the crazy one)? NO-ONE, that's who! Certainly no-one with any intelligence AND a heart. "I used to want to make her happy. I didn't know that I was already making her happy by being there to rape and be made a Nothing and a Nobody, just something inconsequential to use. It's funny in a way (and tragic, of course) to think that I used to think that SHE WANTED OR EXPECTED this Raped Nobody (which is what I was to her) to help her. That was my delusion. Truth is she helped herself to me.. all this time." No, they have sane days and good moments too, don't forget. And you aren't "a" Nothing & Nobody just because one, solitary person treats you as if THEY think so (which, they don't...the way they on-off hate you is just a horrid symptom of their corrupt wiring). But hang on - are you saying she actually, physically raped you? Where was your father and the rest of your family?

Thank you, Soulmate, I appreciate you writing to me, especially when you have RL stuff going on. I hope things turn out okay. I read only a bit of your post and will read attentively Tues morning when my brain is in better shape. As far as your question: my father left when I was five or six (I have only one memory of him from the time he lived there and it was a scary, violent fight with her). He lived away, visited occasionally but she took all his attention during the visits and I just sat there. Other family members: one aunt was a bigger Narc than my mother (an older sister who terribly abused my mother), and other aunts and uncles busy with their own stuff, living far away. There were neighbors who must have heard my mother scream at me for hours, neighbors who saw her kick me on the street.. no one interfered.

"no one interfered" They didn't have any frame of reference with which to know how to deal with it. Nor the skills. Probably had had run-ins with her already, themselves, and knew they'd be risking their own skins by interfering (spaths in a rage are downright shocking and disturbing; no-one wants to take on a lunatic). And ditto regards daring to report her to Social Services (Spaths will not rest until they've punished or gained revenge on the whistle-blower). They are very skilled at intimidating and blackmailing people into utter paralysis of action. You, on the other hand, were more used to her. So she was probably a lot more scary, more repulsive and foul a person than you knew. PLUS, where any member out of a whole crowd step in - you get a situation called, Diffusion of Responsibility (google). But usually, it's more that people are shocked to the spot while it's happening. Here - try this thread. This lady HADN'T cut her mother out (so all of this had happened). I'll bet she has now, though. The thread also features articles you've yet to see, about what narc-Sociopathic mothers are like and how disgustingly they (mis-)treat you (including such things kicking you in the street ...in front of people (but only ones who, she knew, were too cowed to try to stop her). https://www.peoplesproblems.org/showtopic/13322/Problem-with-mom-sorry-long Night!

(typo: should have read - any member out of a whole crowd could step in)

PS: if you're short on time at first, go straight to reading from this post: SOULMATE (moderator) - Nov 5 2022 at 00:25 Not only does this article describe your mother and all (ALL) that was up with the workings of her crippled mind, but also - the subsequent reader's comment that I included, could have been written by you or future you. There are millions of 'you' out there. This NPD is an epidemic,...pandemic,... same as Covid. The psych version.

Yes, NPD is an epidemic, ex. Trump if he takes over the white house in 2024, or if one of his cult members, mega republicans takes over.. yes, a real thing. Is there anything you or I can do about it..??? A comment about what I wrote earlier, about my aunt, being a worse person than my mother: coming to think about it, I don't have any memory about her (the aunt's) badness, all I have is my mother's stories, and if her stories were true than I am the Evil One.. so, a reset- I can't trust any of the mother's stories, I can't trust ANYTHING she ever told me. About saying you are brilliant and your take on it: that it is about the relief when validated- yes, the affection I feel for you has to do with being validated, and about the hope of further validation, the hope of a further meeting of the minds. I do think you are brilliant nonetheless, wanting you to feel good about it. May be stupid on my part. Like I said, my brain will be in a better shape Tues morning (it is now 7:31 pm, Monday) Amie

Hi Soulmate: "seen plenty of identical crime scenes before.. these dark souls are very good at making you, anywhere from DOUBT yourself.... and all the way to, eventually, doubting your very sanity"- the crime: robbing a child from trust in her thinking; in her ability to tell the difference between what is true and what is untrue; between what (and who) is wrong and what is right. Without this trust and ability, one walks in the dark, stumbling, forever knowing-and-not-knowing, no resting place, never a whole NEW day with a bright blue sky. "who do you aim your resentment and sense of injustice at? For example - your mother? Or whichever grandparent corrupted her (if not both)? Or the great grandparent that corrupted the mind of.... and so on and so forth... down the ancestral line?"- we ALL find ourselves in the mud, the mud we were born into, aka our families' moral corruption (to one extent or another); a moral corruption passed through generations. We carry that mud with us, spreading it around to others. No way to avoid receiving it or spreading it to others until we become aware of it (if we do) and start removing the mud from our own shoes, bit by bit, and then point the mud to others: Don't step into that mud, or Oh, you stepped into it, let me help you step out of it. "I think it's the responsibility of governments"- if only governments were not muddy. "Which is why I want women and men... to CEASE SLEEPING WITH THEM. If Malignant NPDs - the world's trouble- and misery-makers - can't reproduce - AND at the same time, young adults are educated in how NOT to parent - THEN THEY CAN'T CONTINUE TO EXIST - simples! Nobody gets hurt or harmed. They just don't get 'slept with', hahaha. Maybe give them the robot sex-dolls...I mean - would the NPD really even notice the difference?"- - You are HILARIOUS! But yes, they will notice the difference between a robot sex doll and a person: no way to make a robot sex doll feel shame and guilt or doubt her sanity.. no empathy to use and abuse in a robot sex doll. I am all for limiting human reproduction though, especially in these times of escalating climate change, droughts, and extreme weather events with no reasonable hope for improvement... as well as political radicalization. "It's the repetition....the 'Groundhog Day'.... It never changes, it never gets better, if anything it gets worse. Your brain just doesn't like it and can start fizzing and popping"- This IS my experience but my brain is recovering SOME, now that I am not reliving the same day. "AND YOU CAN BECOME INFECTED... I'm talking about Narc Fleas.. Or you can call it, residual slime that has yet to slide off"- the fleas and residual slime.. that's the mud I mentioned above (before I read this part I am quoting here), isn't it? "The Pity Ploy (or Play)... is the... narcissistic-Sociopath's favourite dis-arming tool/weapon"- my mother played this part hard, big time and indeed she disarmed me from ANY empathy for myself while ALL of my empathy was with her. "She wanted HER. (Narcissus...own reflection... )"- yes, she wanted a 2-dimensional reflection, no 3rd dimension allowed, a 3-D that included my Soul (my own feelings, my own thoughts, desires, preferences, choices). "But you weren't like her. And that agitated her"- greatly. "And yet you can't keep feeling sorry for them when they bring everything on themselves...own worst enemies"- my sister recently emailed me, wanting me to feel sorry for my aging mother, "she is an old woman now", she wrote, etc. As if... destroying the rest of my life would somehow make her younger.. or less in pain. But wait, why would I volunteer, at this point, to destroy the rest of my life (to go back to reliving groundhog day) even if it did make her younger... ?! "Even today, you're not like her (ta-daaaa!). It's a very good job you WEREN'T like her, isn't it?..."- yes, it is, and thank you! "I'm assuming you're saying she may not have raped you, sexually, but she still did it emotionally and psychologically?"- well, definitely psychologically, but she also INSISTED on entering the bathroom every time I was to take a shower POST PUBERTY, AS A TEENAGER and "at least" (it was part of her negotiation) wash my hair and back (she said I couldn't do it right). I remember the dread when I had to call her name (after I washed what I was allowed to wash by myself) and her entering the bathroom, using one hand to hide what's up, and the other, what's down. But when she told me to hold something, I had only one hand to hide.. and had to choose which part to hide. All that shame.. didn't register with her...? "And who has ever expected a rape victim to.. have afternoon tea with their rapist afterwards, like nothing's happened and nothing's wrong (and if you think so, you're the crazy one)? NO-ONE, that's who! Certainly no-one with any intelligence AND a heart"- yes, she expected to have afternoon tea with me. Part of me is still incredulous: she had no heart at all, for me.. for anyone??? "they have sane days and good moments too, don't forget...the way they on-off hate you is just a horrid symptom of their corrupt wiring)"- I didn't think about this.. very profound. True.. I will think about this further later. "But hang on - are you saying she actually, physically raped you?"- it sure felt like she physically raped me, it sure did.. oh, I remember now: when I was 20, I was out with this guy and she waited for me, when I returned "home" she said: "are you with him because he has a penis (she used a vulgar word for it), and I don't?"- WHAT DID SHE MEAN, Soulmate.. what the hell did she mean by it??? (I'll read the posts you added later on) Amie

Hello Marionette: I hope you are okay with the conversation here. Anytime you want to return to your thread (and ask that the conversation be about you and your story only, if that applies), please do. I would love to read from you again, and so will Soulmate, from what he expressed. Hello Soulmate: It helps me to process my thoughts and get better when I quote your words and respond and I appreciate your help for as long as you choose to help me, thank you! "They didn't have any frame of reference with which to know how to deal with it. Nor the skills"- nor the COURAGE. "Probably had had run-ins with her already, themselves, and knew they'd be risking their own skins by interfering... no-one wants to take on a lunatic"- when she exploded at others, it really was a lunatic display, very loud, very dramatic. I remember that one time she showed up at elementary school, terrorizing the music teacher, the whole school was watching as my mother screamed at the teacher for a long, long time, hit her or threatened to hit her. I was one of the children watching, I remember. But unlike the other children (and the staff) I had to go "home" with the crazy lady. My father once referred to her (not in her presence" as "crazy", or "lunatic" (translated). No police showed up, no consequences, nothing happened.. I don't remember walking back home that day. (I place quotation marks around the word HOME because the word implies some good, safe quality). "And ditto regards daring to report her to Social Services"- I am lost here: you are referring to the other OP on the other thread? I never reported my mother to social services, there were no such services where and when I was growing (in). Children were their parents' property to do as they please, exceptions were starving one's children and breaking their bones (my mother told me that .. unlike other parents, she is not that stupid as to break my bones and get into trouble for it). "The thread also features articles you've yet to see"- I studied the link provided in the thread you mentioned ( https://thoughtnova.com/25-characteristics-of-a-narcissistic-mother), and I would like to process it here, quoting from and commenting on the article. (I don't expect you, Soulmate.. or any member to read any or all of it and respond, but you are welcome to, if you wish and I will be grateful): "1. Conditional love.. your mother only loves you under circumstances that benefit her, then yes, you have a narcissist for a mother. Such moms get angry, upset, and even vindictive when you can't do what they want"- reading this didn't fit at all with my mother because it includes the word LOVE, and if the proof is in the pudding, so to speak, I was not loved at all, not unconditionally and not conditionally. I have no memory of a feeling of being loved by my mother, not a single memory. Coming to think about it, I have no memory of feeling loved by anyone when I was growing (in). My mother's touch always felt creepy and very distressing. "2. . No Respect For Boundaries A narcissistic mother will not know she has overstepped her boundaries"- true, BIG TIME. To the EXTREME, so much so that in her presence, when she talked endlessly at me, nonstop and otherwise.. it was a terrible existence for me, like a 3-D creature (me) trapped in a 2-D frame. "3. She likes to gaslight you... She can gaslight you by lying about her behavior, criticizing your emotional reactions, and pretending those seriously hurtful things she did to you were 'jokes.'"- yes, absolutely. She said, paraphrased: it's normal to (verbally abuse) a person when one is angry, saying things one doesn't mean; everyone knows it, the problem with you is that you don't know what everyone knows- what's wrong with you being hurt??? And how dare you complain about the best mother in the world, after all I have done for you (detailed). "4. She Always Plays The Victim.. When she is in the wrong and she knows she is responsible, she will try to turn things around by making you feel sorry or sympathetic towards her"- her victimization stories were many and long... (her external locus of control- extreme). She hit me that one time with her arm (slapping my face right-left-right) and she stopped for a moment (my face felt hot and my anger was strong) and she said: "Look what you did to me: my arms are hurting!" "5. She's Unpredictable You can never really predict what you will get with a narcissist. Their emotions are often all over the place"- absolutely true. "6. She's A Pathological Liar... Narcissists lie to ruin relationships and manipulate to make themselves look better"- this is something I never really thought about and when I did, I dismissed the possibility. I believe her stories about her older sister abusing her, I have no doubt that she truly was a victim, as a child and teenager, no doubt. But wait.. it just occurred to me that her claims that I (as a child) victimized her, that I intended to hurt her and went about doing it in elaborate ways (a crazy idea because first, I loved her so much, and second, I wouldn't bring those sessions of abuse upon myself!), weren't those lies.. I diagnosed her, in my mind, as one having Paranoid Personality Disorder, but maybe those were lies and not delusions of persecution. What do you think, Soulmate??? "7. She Has Favorites... she also tends to pick another as the scapegoat"- I have a younger sister but I remember so little of her. I remember so little in general. I am not aware of the mother treating one worse than she treated the other. "8. She's Very Petty... This means she can act in a childish manner, such as getting hurt so badly over the smallest issue"- absolutely true. "9. She Ruins Your Relationships.. They love disrupting relationships between siblings and their significant others because they feed off the drama and the pain"- she pretty much did not allow me to have relationships with cousins, aunts or uncles or peers at school, from a very early age, she told me that I can't trust anyone (other than her...), that they will gossip about me and tell about my secrets. "10. She Never Cares For Your Opinion"- never cares about any 3-D aspect of me: opinions, feelings, desires, dreams.. none of that mattered to her. "11. She Feeds Off Your Pain This is one of the most disturbing characteristics of a narcissistic mother. It is the reason these parents are often called emotional vampires. Many narcissistic mothers are sadistic, which means they can deliberately hurt their kids because they enjoy seeing them in pain. She can bring up painful topics and then pretend that she was messing around. The truth, however, is that she wanted to hurt you because your pain satisfies her twisted desires."- way before I read this description and way before I heard about Narcissism Personality Disorder, when I was a teenager or 20, I don't remember, I had this image (and I may have written a poem about it) of my mother as a VAMPIRE, sucking the blood/ life out of me. It is only recently, decades later, that I realized that she enjoyed abusing me. I didn't know earlier. A memory occurred to me: her saying something insulting to me (having prepared to say it and anticipated the joy) and then, when she saw the hurt on my face, the corners of her mouth went up, in a little smile. "12. She Projects On You"- yes, of course. But did she believe (Soulmate?) that I was trying to hurt her feelings (while she was trying to hurt mine) or was it a lie? "13. She Is Untrustworthy"- yes. "14. Incompetency"- no to this one. She discouraged me from doing housework and physically helping her with tasks and then complained that I don't and how unfortunate she was to have me as a daughter. "15. She Belittles You Although narcissists know how to use praise to win their victim's trust, they can also be very critical"-she praised me for being "very intelligent" (her words), for being "good at school" and for looking down at the floor when she (abused) me. No other praise. "16. Comparisons To Other People Narcissistic mothers like to compare their children to other people's kids"- yes, other parents are fortunate, she said, but she had.. that (me). "17. Insecurity By their very nature... a lack of self-esteem is one of the characteristics of a narcissistic mother"- absolutely. "18. She "Parentifies" You"- not when it came to housework chores or anything physical (I suffered from Learned Helplessness, big time). She parentified me by sort of asking (not really) for my opinion (if it matched hers completely) about her daily problems with other adults, sharing with me things very inappropriate, like other people's sexual practices (from what she heard), as if I was a peer, talking non-stop. "19. She Loves To Terrorize Fear is one of the most effective tools narcissists use to control their victims. So, one of the characteristics of a narcissistic mother is her ability to cause terror. She can punish you severely for the slightest mistakes"- she definitely terrorized me, but it never occurred to me before that she LOVED to do that. I thought she was like an innocent child who was exploding once in a while because of all her pain. "20. She's Very Manipulative"- I don't think that there is a straightforward bone in her body. "21. She Is Overly Defensive ...her tendency to get violent, angry, or irritated whenever she hears something negative about her behavior"- big time angry, "irritated" is too much of a light-weight word. CRITICISM of her, no matter how light, no matter how gentle, was PUNISHED. "22. It's Always About Her Narcissists love attention, and a narcissistic mother is not above being in the spotlight at the expense of her kids"- I remember a school peer (elementary or middle school) visited me at "home" but my mother delightedly talked to her and I was in the corner, an observer. That was the rule, no exceptions. "23. She Is Only Nice To You In Public"- no, not nice but when visiting her sister for holidays, she didn't bother with me, didn't insult me.. just the usual, lower key criticisms. "24. She Competes With You"- for other people's attention/ interactions. She won every time. "25. She Is Very Controlling... She will use guilt when you try to express opinions and desires she does not agree with" she used guilt on a regular basis, her go-to thing to do. Amie

Sorry for the no-show, Amie. Hassles, hassles, hassles and MORE hassles at my end, but I should have ample time on Sunday. I'll tackle some of your points now, though... "Is there anything you or I can do about it..???" Well, ...albeit working independently, I was part of the undergrond movement that brought NPD into the common consciousness (I started using the interweb to educate in 2006) so - YES, THERE IS. I had also decades before that campaigned for service improvements on British Rail (including bringing back their famous Bacon Butty in the buffet) (listen, commuters need all the comforts they can get! LOL) by, every single morning and evening for a year, running from the end of the train to the front, chucking petition sheets and pens at other commuters, then (after my bacon butty, obviously) reversing the run to snatch them all back up again. Then by persuading biz people I knew who travelled in every day on the other main lines to do likewise - we ended up with over 25 thousand in a year, which we presented to the then Transport Minister (Virginia Bottomley). God bless her - a lot of the criteria were addressed. So - YES, THERE IS. It's actually not hard to campaign. The hard bit is having the confidence to TRY. Same for taking someone to court who's however conned you... Most don't. And yet, when they do - it tends to work! I've also managed to get sayings adopted (too 2 years, max.) by national radio DJs - again, not that hard if you have access to enough people adopting and parroting it along with you; in fact, that one is piss-easy (got my first invented word on the telly as a young teen, courtesy of a top TV comedien). And, I mean, look at how every generation of teenagers create their own "lingo" which then, adopted by the general public (parents, mostly) ends up having to be added to the dictionary. For example, "Sick". It used to mean, sick. Now it means great (gaah!). My attitude is, if the people and institutions,charged with making any direly-needed social change aren't doing their duty, then - pointless to sit around complaining, YOU have to get off your bum and DO something. You feel better, taking action, as well, while you're taking it; less like a helpless victim of other people's efforts (or not). So!...I'm thinking: what about us, here, starting a catchy slogan, similar to the UK govt's, anti-Heroin, advertising campaign - "Just say No!" - of the 80s. But this one would say something along the lines of, Just don't sleep with one! (LOL) ("No Shaggy Narcy" LOL LOL). If they can't reproduce (and pass on the NPD disposition/susceptibility to the child) then they won't get to cripple the offspring - tomorrow's adults! Would certainly go a long way to 'breeding them out'. Don't know, though, haven't had time to give it much thought or formulate a proper slogan. ...Alternatively, it could be a case of, All Good Things Wait, a play on 'All good things come to those who wait', but reminding all normal-healthy daters (men and women) of the fact that malignant NPDs CANNOT wait (before sleeping with you). They'll lose patience/get bored and toddle off to find another 'sucker', because they always do (they haven't got time to 'waste'). It's a great way of identifying a Narc beau or (which is hardly any better) someone far too superficial and immature to qualify as fit for an adult relationship (so what are THEY doing on the dating ground, as well?). Ooh, just thought of one: how's about, Don't Replicate Mistakes (haha!...is that too much?). Or - "Let's get NExit done!" (Narc Exit - get it?) What do you think of the idea, Amie? What do you think, OM (if you're still popping in?).

" A comment about what I wrote earlier, about my aunt, being a worse person than my mother: coming to think about it, I don't have any memory about her (the aunt's) badness, all I have is my mother's stories," Oh, do you not? THAT'S interesting, then, isn't it! Don't you think you would - if she had been? "and if her stories were true" Well, you've just called them 'stories' so, clearly you deep-down KNOW they weren't. "than I am the Evil One.." Well, now I KNOW they weren't true. Want to know how I know? "so, a reset- I can't trust any of the mother's stories, I can't trust ANYTHING she ever told me." Correct. "About saying you are brilliant and your take on it: that it is about the relief when validated- yes, the affection I feel for you has to do with being validated, and about the hope of further validation, the hope of a further meeting of the minds. I do think you are brilliant nonetheless, wanting you to feel good about it. May be stupid on my part. Like I said, my brain will be in a better shape Tues morning (it is now 7:31 pm, Monday)" Well, cheers very much. Can't say my 'brilliance' does me any favours, though,¡ (I saw all this societal crap coming, and where it'd come from, for starters...."kkkkkk!"/spit...been calling America "the mother ship" for...again, decades) so forgive me for not sharing your same level of enthusiasm. "It is what it is". :) I was given this set of skills and talents for a reason and they'd probably eat me up from the inside if I didn't use them - or tried to ignore the urge to use them. C'est la vie! and other cliches, LOL. Philosophical saying: On the journey of life, we tend to crawl through only those holes we can fit through. (Here, maybe I lingered, and grew too big to crawl out the other side again? Hahaha...) (Tiredness delirium, don't worry about it ;)).

Forgot to say: "one aunt was a bigger Narc than my mother (an older sister who terribly abused my mother)" The Malignant Narcissist's...Sociopath's definition of you, abusing them: Not letting them abuse YOU, aka standing up for yourself. They feel entitled to abuse. So that means, you're depriving them of a RIGHT, doncha know! (Cuckoo!)

"You are HILARIOUS! But yes, they will notice the difference between a robot sex doll and a person: no way to make a robot sex doll feel shame and guilt or doubt her sanity.. no empathy to use and abuse in a robot sex doll. I am all for limiting human reproduction though, especially in these times of escalating climate change, droughts, and extreme weather events with no reasonable hope for improvement... as well as political radicalization." And you are very satirically witty! ...No way to make a robox doll feel shame, guilt, dount her sanity, etc. NICE ONE! Comes into the same vein as, Narcs are dogs / Aww...What have you got against dogs?

""It's the repetition....the 'Groundhog Day'.... It never changes, it never gets better, if anything it gets worse. Your brain just doesn't like it and can start fizzing and popping"- This IS my experience but my brain is recovering SOME, now that I am not reliving the same day."" And it's going to keep recovering. Your brain is flexible, can build new neural pathways. Theirs is concrete. Hence, the malignants can't learn, even by experience. "AND YOU CAN BECOME INFECTED... I'm talking about Narc Fleas.. Or you can call it, residual slime that has yet to slide off" - the fleas and residual slime.. that's the mud I mentioned above (before I read this part I am quoting here), isn't it? Yep. ""The Pity Ploy (or Play)... is the... narcissistic-Sociopath's favourite dis-arming tool/weapon" - my mother played this part hard, big time and indeed she disarmed me from ANY empathy for myself while ALL of my empathy was with her." Yup, I can imagine. ""She wanted HER. (Narcissus...own reflection... )"" - yes, she wanted a 2-dimensional reflection, no 3rd dimension allowed, a 3-D that included my Soul (my own feelings, my own thoughts, desires, preferences, choices). Yup. ""But you weren't like her. And that agitated her" - greatly. "And yet you can't keep feeling sorry for them when they bring everything on themselves...own worst enemies" - my sister recently emailed me, wanting me to feel sorry for my aging mother," Oh, let me guess - so she herself doesn't have to? Also - what's wrong with the phone? Was that an appropriate medium for the topic? PFF! Doesn't your sister work right? Because she certainly isn't behaving and making the appropriate choices of a normal healthy. E.g. I'd have thought a topic that ostensibly important (to her) would necessitate a grown-up, detailed discussion over a meal-out - wouldn't you? (Cheap idiot.) ""she is an old woman now", she wrote, etc. As if... destroying the rest of my life would somehow make her younger.." HAHAHA! - YES! Also, as if you can't count! In fact, just to be a narc's nightmare, I'd have said, "IS SHE?!.......Why is it, no-one round here ever tells me anything?!". Or I'd have replied with something like, Your mother is NOT old, she's only in her 29s, as well you know! Don't be so incredulious. Anyway, you should taste my spag bol and jam sandwich, it's amazing, and then I'm off for a bike-ride - byeee, thanks for your interest and I'll look you up in a couple of weeks or May, depending on how June goes. We can all do subtly Cuckoo, eh! :p Always-always feel free to poke fun at their expense. It's too easy (they don't know how to react; don't understand improv humour due to lack of empathy; wrong-foots them) and does you power of good! "...or less in pain. But wait, why would I volunteer, at this point, to destroy the rest of my life (to go back to reliving groundhog day) even if it did make her younger... ?!" Hell, if you could do that, you've have bottled and marketed yourself for Trillions by now! "I'm assuming you're saying she may not have raped you, sexually, but she still did it emotionally and psychologically?" - well, definitely psychologically, but she also INSISTED on entering the bathroom every time I was to take a shower POST PUBERTY, AS A TEENAGER and "at least" (it was part of her negotiation) wash my hair and back (she said I couldn't do it right)." How excrutiating! Well, that was still a violation of your inner-sanctum rights and boundaries at such a sensitive, private age, so - pretty much, then. She didn't WANT you to do it right. That takes practise. She wanted you NEVER TO LEAVE HOME. "I remember the dread when I had to call her name (after I washed what I was allowed to wash by myself) and her entering the bathroom, using one hand to hide what's up, and the other, what's down. But when she told me to hold something, I had only one hand to hide.. and had to choose which part to hide. All that shame.. didn't register with her...?" EITHER it didn't even cross her mind (unconcerned about what you thought about it) OR did and this was one of her ways of keeping your confidence down as well as to create a bad association between nakedness and shame and discomfort (unlikely to marry and leave home Google Narcissistic Mother Enmeshment or some such. "And who has ever expected a rape victim to.. have afternoon tea with their rapist afterwards, like nothing's happened and nothing's wrong (and if you think so, you're the crazy one)? NO-ONE, that's who! Certainly no-one with any intelligence AND a heart"" - yes, she expected to have afternoon tea with me. Part of me is still incredulous: she had no heart at all, for me.. for anyone???" Have YOU any heart at all - for anyone - in the agonising minutes right after badly stubbing your big toe? I really dread to think what was done to HER as a child, don't you? ""they have sane days and good moments too, don't forget...the way they on-off hate you is just a horrid symptom of their corrupt wiring)" - I didn't think about this.. very profound. True.. I will think about this further later."" Good, noted. "But hang on - are you saying she actually, physically raped you?" - it sure felt like she physically raped me, it sure did.. oh, I remember now: when I was 20, I was out with this guy and she waited for me, when I returned "home" she said: "are you with him because he has a penis (she used a vulgar word for it), and I don't?"- WHAT DID SHE MEAN, Soulmate.. what the hell did she mean by it???" Yes, they are not only over-controlling but incredibly crass and classless. They behave and talk exactly like their male dinosaur counterparts (chauvenistic, sexist, misogynistic but hate, i.e. have a prolem with, their own gender too). "(I'll read the posts you added later on)" Hey, take your time, no pressure! ************************************ "Hello Marionette: I hope you are okay with the conversation here. Anytime you want to return to your thread (and ask that the conversation be about you and your story only, if that applies), please do. I would love to read from you again, and so will Soulmate, from what he expressed. " Just a little heads-up as you're new here and not au fait yet with protocol: My gender is unknown here; you can refer to me as 'they' and 's/he'. Also, if it appeared that the OP (original poster) hadn't been supplied with prior means for taking that right-to-return fact as read, as posting Moderator, it's down to me to provide that reassurance. No worries, though, you weren't to know. :)

Crikey, it's late - I'll have to do the rest either tomorrow or Sunday now!

PS: "No way to make a robot doll feel shame, guilt, dount her sanity, etc." Or at least, we sodding HOPE NOT, EH! Has anyone else noticed that 'suddenly' we are all, basically, living the dystopian films and horrors from the 80s made real? Narc Predators always-ALWAYS get you when you're down. Including a Narc society getting the Empath society when they're down. Thanks Brexit, thanks Trump, thanks Covid, thanks "Poo-Tin"! What a MESS to have to clean up! What a mess!

I am thrilled to find all your posts here this Fri night as I am back home. I am so grateful to you, Soulmate, will be back and reply more Sat morning.

Hi, no don't reply yet, I haven't finished addressing all your posts/points, which I'll get to either tonight or tomorrow.

Hi Soulmate: I just read and processed all your March 11 posts. Please take your time to post more. I appreciate and am grateful for all that you posted for me so far! I understand- and will respect, of course- your comments about reassuring the OP being the moderator's job, as well as thinking of you not of any particular gender.

LOL! Sounded really funny, the way you put it. Thanks! But you can definitely become a 'resident regular/veteran' poster, certainly once you've got your head around all the Whys and Wherefores re your mother's behaviour and treatment (which won't be long from what I can see). Even just gaining a complete understanding of just that particular (hah!) mother-daughter dynamic would be enough, while you added more knowledge as you then went along, because they pretty much behave the same towards any type of target in any 'relationship' to them, despite the details might differ. (PS: IMO, Narc sibling and boss is the worst, respectively, because there's no getting away from them or, if there is, it takes longer to prepare yourself somewhere to escape TO.) Still, it's nice to know you CAN play hostess like a moderator...I'll file that one for later, heh'heh-heh. "Patience, Grasshopper", in other words (name the 70s/80s American TV series!) I've always-ALWAYS got my eyes out for talent, don't you worry. :) You and OM are both blooming incredibly rapidly, from what I can tell, re NPD. I foresee a certain indispensibility evolving, what with said epidemic. That's if you WANT it, of course - you might not by then? Oh, for a Crystal Ball. (...which reminds me: I heard Mystic Meg died last week, aged 80-something?) Anyhoo, bear with me...back in a tick...

PS: Think of me as a live brain in a jar, LOL. PPS: More seriously - I also forgot to say, for the benefit of non-regulars, that NORMALLY "thread hijacking" as it's called isn't allowed, one has to start one's own, dedicated thread. However, as it seemed pretty obvious that Marionette was gaining from your accompaniament and involvement, and then equally obvious that she'd now left the thread a happy customer, this time I allowed it as a valuable exception. :)

Missed a bit (sorry, didn't have time to read through before I submitted). " it sure felt like she physically raped me, it sure did.. oh, I remember now: when I was 20, I was out with this guy and she waited for me, when I returned "home" she said: "are you with him because he has a penis (she used a vulgar word for it), and I don't?"- WHAT DID SHE MEAN, Soulmate.. what the hell did she mean by it???"" The foul-mouthed Navvy kid in grown-up woman suit deliberately over-sexualised and just all-round tried to dirty the situation. And by framing her question to include the answer, you were then restricted to saying NO and falling into her trap (or a bigger, longer argument) - because OBVIOUSLY you weren't going to say Yes and insult yourself and him, were you. Then there's the ownership of you delusion, thus competition with what shouldn't even have been competitors. But, yes, it's a sick thing to say because it suggests that if she did have a penis, you MIGHT. She wouldn't have been thinking about that implication, however, because it's a CONSEQUENCE, which their pea-brains either have no thought for or don't have room to include in their EGO-led, KNEE-JERK, i.e. effective only in the moment, 'plan'. PLUS the Spath needs thrills, and saying the unsayable is a bit of a thrill. Their motives depend on which (horrid) mood they're in at the time. Obviously, you understand she was trying to convince you that she could meet all of your social needs (yeah, try not to wet yourself as you gaffaw!) so why bother with him/dating. Beyond or in with that - which of what I've listed do YOU think?

"""they have sane days and good moments too, don't forget...the way they on-off hate you is just a horrid symptom of their corrupt wiring)" - I didn't think about this.. very profound. True.. I will think about this further later."" Good, noted." Yes, if they were difficult, over-high-maintenance and nasty every day, leaving them - or when you're a kid, running away - would be easy and the decision, pretty rapid. The Sweet-Mean cycle - and/or those days when the spoiled-baby playground bully is genuinely in a good mood (getting their way - even if with people you can't see) - is what keeps you in the game, forever chasing after the KIND person you're convinced is in there (or when they're your romantic partner - still in there). Ohhhh, that seeming potential. It gets every single victim there is. Even if they're milder than that and genuinely ARE half the time nice, rather than fake nice - nope. There's two of them in there and since they're NOT two pieces of Lego, you have to leave them both. 'I love you, Mum, but I can't live with you or spend much time around you, sorry, because you point-blank refuse to make interactions with you comfortable and normal. You need help. And then we'll see'. Does that statement do it for you?

Hi Soulmate, got it in regard to hijacking threads, so I want to start my own thread today. Before I reply to all of your recent posts, I want to ask in regard to what you wrote in the last few lines, the "I love you, but I can't .. spend much time around you.." Does this statement do it for you?"- - are you recommending that I reconnect with her, spend SOME time with her (just not much)...? P.S. both my sister and her mother live half the world away.

""They didn't have any frame of reference with which to know how to deal with it. Nor the skills"- nor the COURAGE. "Probably had had run-ins with her already, themselves, and knew they'd be risking their own skins by interfering... no-one wants to take on a lunatic" - when she exploded at others, it really was a lunatic display, very loud, very dramatic. I remember that one time she showed up at elementary school, terrorizing the music teacher, the whole school was watching as my mother screamed at the teacher for a long, long time, hit her or threatened to hit her. I was one of the children watching, I remember. But unlike the other children (and the staff) I had to go "home" with the crazy lady. My father once referred to her (not in her presence" as "crazy", or "lunatic" (translated). No police showed up, no consequences, nothing happened.. I don't remember walking back home that day. (I place quotation marks around the word HOME because the word implies some good, safe quality)." What year was this, that a school could or would let her get away with such atrocious behaviour in front of the kids? State school or private? "And ditto regards daring to report her to Social Services" - I am lost here: you are referring to the other OP on the other thread? I never reported my mother to social services, there were no such services where and when I was growing (in). Children were their parents' property to do as they please, exceptions were starving one's children and breaking their bones (my mother told me that .. unlike other parents, she is not that stupid as to break my bones and get into trouble for it)." Yes, you. Really - nothing? (PS: growing-up) Re that last sentance - then she definitely was angry and badly behaving because she was abusive, not abusive because she was (genuinely) angry. She knew what she was doing and when. Or, truer to say, her ill brain and the sick thoughts and feelings it produced knew. Yeah, she definitely fits the bill for full-blown Spath mother, doesn't she - agree thus far? ******************************************************* ""1. Conditional love.. your mother only loves you under circumstances that benefit her, then yes, you have a narcissist for a mother. Such moms get angry, upset, and even vindictive when you can't do what they want" - reading this didn't fit at all with my mother because it includes the word LOVE, and if the proof is in the pudding, so to speak, I was not loved at all, not unconditionally and not conditionally. I have no memory of a feeling of being loved by my mother, not a single memory. Coming to think about it, I have no memory of feeling loved by anyone when I was growing (in). My mother's touch always felt creepy and very distressing." Wow, that's horrid. But Spaths, strangely, CAN 'love'. It's just childish, sick, superficial love (two track minds), more like addiction to feeling clever, important and powerful (cuckoo): just because you're supposed to be their special someone, DOESN'T mean in THEIR mind that you are off-limits when it comes to being used, abused, exploited, conned, stolen from, deprived, denied.... You can SEE she thought it was all "no big deal", right? To them, either they're mild/unaware and it really isn't: YA SHOULDN'T HAVE LEFT YOUR PURSE/LIPSTICK/whatever WHERE I COULD FIND IT THEN, SHOULD YOU - THAT'LL TEACH YOU! - or they're severe, KNOW what treating you like that does (keeps you cowed and dumbed down, easier to control) so do it consciously as well as whenever the mood 'naturally' takes them. Analogy I used for Heisenburg: so you end up with someone who much of the time, deliberately burps in your face but the rest of the time does it involuntarily. (Double the circus.) What's yours is theirs, and what's theirs is theirs too (cuckoo!). Oh, and 'just because they hit you/stole/broke/destroyed, did whatever Inappropriate (key word with NPD-AsPD), doesn't mean they don't love you', doncha know. And this is how a child grows to believe that ALL human relationships feature this nonsense. Thus how they end up romantically involved with one if they're not careful and don't take enough time out to de-slime - preferably completely. Relationship break-up approx. 2-5 years, Narc Fauxlationship 10. Not saying you can't get back to normal behaviour and functionality long before that point, but...that slime...it hides in all the crevices. Anyway, did she ever say something like that? They delude themselves that you're making a fuss about nothing, it's just normal. Well, just because THEY'RE brainwashed into thinking so, doesn't mean we functionals can't untwist that lie and see the truth. NO, IT IS NOT NORMAL - NOWHERE NEAR IT. Not as a Pervasive Pattern like that or if everyone sums them up with "It's just how she is", it's not. Once in a Blue Moon, fine. Accidents happen, tops can blow, given enough external pressure. But not to that tenure and degree. That's what I mean when I say, you're the full-stop. Maybe you're just far more intelligent than her thus couldn't swallow BS "2. . No Respect For Boundaries A narcissistic mother will not know she has overstepped her boundaries" - true, BIG TIME. To the EXTREME, so much so that in her presence, when she talked endlessly at me, nonstop and otherwise.. it was a terrible existence for me, like a 3-D creature (me) trapped in a 2-D frame." Yup. But it's more like, she knows AND doesn't know, both. "3. She likes to gaslight you... She can gaslight you by lying about her behavior, criticizing your emotional reactions, and pretending those seriously hurtful things she did to you were 'jokes.'" - yes, absolutely. She said, paraphrased: it's normal to (verbally abuse) a person when one is angry, saying things one doesn't mean; everyone knows it, the problem with you is that you don't know what everyone knows- what's wrong with you being hurt??? And how dare you complain about the best mother in the world, after all I have done for you (detailed)." BUUURP! - oops, I didn't mean it, but it was your own fault (etc). BUUUURP! - take that, you cheeky b*tch! Your interaction with her must have constantly felt like a non-stop competition/battle. Say it with me: All you've done TO me, you mean? The rest was automatic - or SHOULD have been! - like it is for ALL mothers - plus YOU chose to have me so - WHAT IS YOUR POINT? You haven't got one, have you, as usual. MATRON?...MORE MEDS TO PATIENT NO. 1 IN BED 1, PLEASE! You couldn't say it then but you can say it now. It's still in there, waiting to be let out. Go for it - SCREAM IT 'AT HER' now. Better yet - fancy writing her a letter, here? (if you asterisk your swear-words?). "4. She Always Plays The Victim.. When she is in the wrong and she knows she is responsible, she will try to turn things around by making you feel sorry or sympathetic towards her" - her victimization stories were many and long... (her external locus of control- extreme). She hit me that one time with her arm (slapping my face right-left-right) and she stopped for a moment (my face felt hot and my anger was strong) and she said: "Look what you did to me: my arms are hurting!" 'Look what you made me do'. Yup. Well, in that case, Mother...if I can "make you" do stuff - fancy a lovely day out at Beachy Head? (Lovely for me, I mean.) (Meow) I mean - she LIKED having it both ways, didn't she? (All Narcs do.) Yeah, when it suited her-her-her. "5. She's Unpredictable You can never really predict what you will get with a narcissist. Their emotions are often all over the place"- absolutely true." 'Naturally' moody, deliberately moody....who cares, though, REALLY, if someone stamps deliberately or accidentally onto your toe. Still hurts? Still got to get away from the ever-stomping idiot. Well, you do if you want to keep your feet! (Ooh - how poetically metaphorical of moi for a soir Dimanche.) BTW, if ever I start addressing the perpetrator directly, it means I know enough to know - they're a Malig Narc or worse yet, Spath alright. It's like me 'shoving' you aside, going, LEAVE HIM/HER TO ME! LOL I can't stand the buggers. They're like half (child) clown, half shark. WAY worse to get your head round than half Nice Guy half (seemingly) Pointlessly Nasty. Say it with me again: SMOTHER, YOU ARE SO UGLY-HUGLY-BUGLY,...but what can you do about it?...apparently, nothing. So neither can anyone else because if YOU'RE not trying, putting your own 50% effort in, then how the hell can any empathetic human attempting to help pull you out of that muddy Hellhole going to muster the strength of TWO adults?! Particularly when they suspect your childishly evil plan is in fact to pull them IN. WITH you. Permanently. YOU may wish to live your life a mole in a hole, but I don't. Thank-you - and I'll have my people call your people. You'll like them - they're just like you: INCONSISTENT THUS ENTIRELY UNRELIABLE! Enjoy. (Warranted and deserved, evil little cackle, optional, LOL.) "6. She's A Pathological Liar... Narcissists lie to ruin relationships and manipulate to make themselves look better"- this is something I never really thought about and when I did, I dismissed the possibility. I believe her stories about her older sister abusing her, I have no doubt that she truly was a victim, as a child and teenager, no doubt. But wait.. it just occurred to me that her claims that I (as a child) victimized her, that I intended to hurt her and went about doing it in elaborate ways (a crazy idea because first, I loved her so much, and second, I wouldn't bring those sessions of abuse upon myself!), weren't those lies.. I diagnosed her, in my mind, as one having Paranoid Personality Disorder, but maybe those were lies and not delusions of persecution. What do you think, Soulmate???" The strong sibling(s) refuse to roll over and live their lives according to the parental B*LLOCKS-UPSIDE-DOWN-NONSENSE-FUTILITY! The weak ones would do ANYTHING for a pat on the head (or just not to get hit/treated hostilely). Tdell me aboudt yorr seesterrr, Meessees Bondt.... "7. She Has Favorites... she also tends to pick another as the scapegoat" - I have a younger sister but I remember so little of her. I remember so little in general. I am not aware of the mother treating one worse than she treated the other." Oh! You just have. Haha! Well, going by that (1) "she's just a poor, wickle old lady", COWARDLY...PITY-PLOY,...EMAIL instead of grown-up, sit-down conversation, I'd say she did to some degree, no matter how late in her childhood, roll over - wouldn't you, now I've pointed out that abnormality, that (google) Inappropriate Effect of her inadequate medium and style/method of approach? Or didn't she want to hear your upset reaction? I see...wants to start an issue but doesn't want to actually DEAL with it? Is she older or younger? What are your ages, btw? And your mother's? Make them age-brackets for anonymity's sake (if you are going to stay here long-term, I mean). But you can leave it for later if you like because, we're still on your "mother ship", and get to all the little aliens after. It's up to you entirely, just do what you feel and take each 'sheet' out of your 'emotional in-tray' as they present themselves to you...and then you'll know that's the way they they went in, meaning, logical reversal. "8. She's Very Petty... This means she can act in a childish manner, such as getting hurt so badly over the smallest issue" - absolutely true." Yup. Any adult-level, emotional stimulus / Any excuse to have a go (burp or puke in your face or make you smaller again). I got told about a bitchy comment about me, yesterday. Apparently, because I lie-in every day, that makes me spoiled. Really? Last I heard, it meant Retired! LOL LOL Probably because I'm early-retired (yes, because I deliberately flogged my guts out in record time when younger, duuh?). I was seriously flattered. As well as tickled. I mean, if THAT'S all the person can find to be disparaging over about me, I must be doing pretty effing well? HAHAHAHA! I'd like my wings to be Gold-leafed and waterproof, please, "God" (self-allegedly!). The person who divulged it certainly wasn't expecting me to burst into gaffaws, going by his own facial expression! It's actually (when you're ready/'there') all pretty incredible comedy material, actually. As many a TV comedy series writer knows! Not at the time, though, and you're a kiddie with needs. But that's the thing with NPDs: they seem to "win" in the very short term whereas we ACTUALLY win in the long run AND FOREVER. What a horrible life. And don't even get me STARTED about their deathbed! OMG, can you imagine the ephiphany-sized terror?! Doesn't bear thinking about. Yeah...she IS old, isn't she. I wonder if she'll soon suddenly 'discover' God? "9. She Ruins Your Relationships.. They love disrupting relationships between siblings and their significant others because they feed off the drama and the pain" - she pretty much did not allow me to have relationships with cousins, aunts or uncles or peers at school, from a very early age, she told me that I can't trust anyone (other than her...), that they will gossip about me and tell about my secrets." Well, you didn't believe her, despite couldn't fix the situation, so, no worries there. "10. She Never Cares For Your Opinion"- never cares about any 3-D aspect of me: opinions, feelings, desires, dreams.. none of that mattered to her." Well, maybe here and there, too-fleetingly. "11. She Feeds Off Your Pain This is one of the most disturbing characteristics of a narcissistic mother. It is the reason these parents are often called emotional vampires. Many narcissistic mothers are sadistic, which means they can deliberately hurt their kids because they enjoy seeing them in pain. She can bring up painful topics and then pretend that she was messing around. The truth, however, is that she wanted to hurt you because your pain satisfies her twisted desires."- way before I read this description and way before I heard about Narcissism Personality Disorder, when I was a teenager or 20, I don't remember, I had this image (and I may have written a poem about it) of my mother as a VAMPIRE, sucking the blood/ life out of me. It is only recently, decades later, that I realized that she enjoyed abusing me. I didn't know earlier. A memory occurred to me: her saying something insulting to me (having prepared to say it and anticipated the joy) and then, when she saw the hurt on my face, the corners of her mouth went up, in a little smile. " NPD plus Sadism equals a Malignant Covert...Covert Vulnerable...Sociopath, or Malig. Psychopath. It's what the Dark Triad aka "Narcopaths" are famous for. Cruelty/brutality isn't the word for it. Seen from a safe distance - or as the perp dishing it out - what's the big deal?...you make such a fuss...you're too over-sensitive, blah, blah, blah. But when you're IN a relationship, i.e. YOU are properly attached, and wholly dependent because you're a kid, AND more sensitive because you're wee and fragile - you're naked and vulnerable. So it's tantamount to a wet flip-flop slapped with force onto wet, bare (or burned-raw) skin: agonising. THAT...is the only instance where, and type with whom, "Love Hurts". In a healthy relationship, that hardly ever happens and is usually a mistake/accident. "12. She Projects On You" - yes, of course. But did she believe (Soulmate?) that I was trying to hurt her feelings (while she was trying to hurt mine) or was it a lie?" As above, depending on mood/what was wrong that day: probably however-much did sometimes, and however-much didn't other times. Both. Not realising it's pretty much always BOTH with them can keep your brain tied in knots. Picture it like this: when NOT seething at you - or at the world but taking it out on you - over nothing, she would have tried to love you or had moments where she genuinely did. But she was a projectile burper/vomiter and human punching-bag puncher who'd been brainwashed to accept the lie that getting to treat your kid like that was a normal privilege of motherhood... so any rare, loving moments were never going to feel good even when she was in an okay mood, were they. Your mother's brain, as a child, got broken, Amie. If she were a coffee dispensing machine she'd have an OUT OF ORDER sign on her as well as would be disconnected from the socket and the plug snipped off, just to be sure. Have you ever read Dave Peltzer's, "A Child Called It"? You'd have to tone it down a bit to make an adjustment to the level of neglect and abuse you were put through but the principles were still all the same. Mental patient in the community, acting in the role of a mother, will result in really bad, really back-to-front SOMETHING-not-even-resembling-parenting, and the kid, if they're intelligent enough and inherited good genes, takes over their own parenting (using the healthy clues and examples in their environment, or just by inherently good instincts and common sense). "13. She Is Untrustworthy"- yes. "14. Incompetency"- no to this one. She discouraged me from doing housework and physically helping her with tasks and then complained that I don't and how unfortunate she was to have me as a daughter." Yes, because the Her who felt like that on a Tuesday was a different Her with the opposite feelings (thus attitude) on a Wednesday. To them - reality is the same as how they feel - in the moment. There ARE no fixed rules, they constantly move the goalposts. Monday - answer back - bad - slap! Tuesday - refuse to respond - bad - slap! You can't win. You literally cannot win. Or WORSE, they're more severe on the scale and, again, do that AND do it deliberately. ...One effed-up, human Fruit Machine. Been set unfairly too high to pay out, except rarely, AND has an electrical fault! And the feelings are virtually always negative, paranoid, selfish, vindictive ones (unless she's being treated like a spoiled princess). What PURELY ADULT skills did she have (i.e. that older kids upwards CAN'T do) beyond knowing how to push a hoover back and forth? What about managing finances, being able to plan and save for a summer holiday, paying all bills on time, budgeting well, being able to sit and just discuss any contention with a friend/neighbour like any regular conversation, being able to handle corresponding with beaurocratic officials and govt departments, remembering friends/family/relatives' birthdays and special occasions, being able to host a bbq party, being able to explain the reasons behind the behaviour of any of your schoolfriends after they'd upset you, handling a dignified, adult, romantic relationship with a man, never sending you to school with your lunch or whatever missing, when you had a vomiting bug and woke her in the night, hold down a job and negotiate pay-rises and promotion, remember to put the bins out in time and recycle every week, see to a bleeding wound calmly and authoritatively, organise your after-school clubs and weekend social life, drive a car from A to B without any drama, get that and house repairs done, MOT and oil change on time, never drink and drive, pay parking fines (or not get them in the first place), put on a pleasing Christmas and organise festive visits, choose cool Xmas presents...? You know, normal (divorced) adult mother stuff? "15. She Belittles You Although narcissists know how to use praise to win their victim's trust, they can also be very critical" -she praised me for being "very intelligent" (her words), for being "good at school" and for looking down at the floor when she (abused) me. No other praise. " No. There was plenty TO praise, but, if she'd done that, you'd have grown in confidence. And she couldn't have that. Confident kids make their own, independent lives and fly the nest. Negative self-fulfilling prophesy: by trying to keep you from ever "abandoning" her, she guaranteed you'd need to. That takes, being a very SPECIAL kind of stupid....not being able to see that inevitable consequence. Clearly NO introspection capability, then (- that's a purely adult skill for starters). "16. Comparisons To Other People Narcissistic mothers like to compare their children to other people's kids" - yes, other parents are fortunate, she said, but she had.. that (me)." Ugh. Horrid and nasty isn't the word for that woman-thing. Bullying a kid is bad enough, but - your own? Come on - it's LITERALLY INSANE. Now you know why Jennifer Smith of TrueLoveScam.com calls them things like sadistic nutjobs. "17. Insecurity By their very nature... a lack of self-esteem is one of the characteristics of a narcissistic mother"- absolutely." Yup. See above re not wanting you to ever have the confidence to "leave her". "18. She "Parentifies" You" - not when it came to housework chores or anything physical (I suffered from Learned Helplessness, big time). She parentified me by sort of asking (not really) for my opinion (if it matched hers completely) about her daily problems with other adults, sharing with me things very inappropriate, like other people's sexual practices (from what she heard), as if I was a peer, talking non-stop." Well, a woman like that, even IF she knew better, wouldn't have had any friends or confidantes, I imagine? (Far be it for HER to wonder why.) "19. She Loves To Terrorize Fear is one of the most effective tools narcissists use to control their victims. So, one of the characteristics of a narcissistic mother is her ability to cause terror. She can punish you severely for the slightest mistakes" - she definitely terrorized me, but it never occurred to me before that she LOVED to do that. I thought she was like an innocent child who was exploding once in a while because of all her pain." Jury's out....loved to or needed to ("buuuurp!"). GAINED SATISFACTION from doing it, would be more accurate. Trust me, they're not having a nice time, either, NO MATTER that they try to convince themselves being their way makes them superior beings. Note they don't assert that it makes them HAPPIER BEINGS? Funny, that...Whoops goes another overlooked detail! (typical Spath). Again, it's not their fault their most important brain wiring got mashed/dissolved, nor that their mal-programming results in mild to severe Evil. Mad Or Bad?, goes the debate. Answer: both. Mad (this way) first results in Bad. If they were never taught to like or love even THEMSELVES (except unhealthily, self-destructively) then how are they suddenly supposed to extend that skill to like or love you? This is what you end up with when a particularly weak/fragile/vulnerable sensitive child gets "toughened up" by constant over-rough, painful handling by your thick, petty crim, morally corrupt type of parent(s) AND is raised (abused) by a scummy, petty-criminal neighbourhood. Dog Eat Dog indoors, Dog Eat Dog out. Not so much raised up as DRAGGED AND BOOTED up. And ESPECIALLY if they were sexually abused by a trusted parent/caregiver. That alone can do it. And is why male Spaths have an obsession with (FYI) "using your tradesman's entrance" during sex. First sexual imprint, no doubt. Too impactful. (Hardly surprising so many of them are Paedophiles when you think about it: what kid voilated sexually wants to ever have sex and a (er) romantic r/ship with an adult, even once they're one? It's not Rocket Science, is it. The rest are mainly pervert-bullies who get off on having total, no-effort control so pick on defenseless kids.) "20. She's Very Manipulative" - I don't think that there is a straightforward bone in her body." Spaths are the worst Narc out. Top of the rotten tree. The worst for manipulation, shocking ambushes out of nowhere, constantly lying (even needlessly), at times making you think 'You surely CAN'T be that stupid - can you?', being a constant liability (whoops, got another parking fine from the same place last time)....ugh, don't get me started. Basically, they're really, really heavy and like out-of-control, big-for-their-age, mean-minded toddlers...."JUST TOO MUCH" - know what I mean? Course you do. I'd rather have to deal with a malig psychopath, frankly. You can reason with them, they keep their cool because they ARE cool (as in cold)...strike deals, persuade to see sense or a benefit. Not talking malig psycho ALSO A SERIAL KILLER, of course. But 'normal' narc psychos see having to kill or beat someone as beneath them, their brains are far too clever to need to lower themselves to such BASE AND UNSOPHISTICATED behaviour...they can use manipulation alone (look mum, no hands). If they do kill you, it's because you serious effed them over or foiled their important (nefarious) plans - or threatened to shop them. Most don't even LIKE sex (ew, yucky), despite they'll pretend in order to hook you as 'permanent' window-dressing so as to live their deeply undercover "other life" (usually seriously white-collar criminal). They plan meticulously, FYI. If they end up in prison, it's usually because one of their team turned out to be a Spath who made some stupid hot-headed error as got them all caught. Usually. Ones that even BOTHER with 'relationships', I mean. Usually, the confusion is because you can get a low-functioning psychopath, that is closer in similarity thus harder to tell apart from a Spath. Plus, there are so many commonly occuring co-morbidities confusing the diagnostics further. Anyhoo, I digress... "21. She Is Overly Defensive ...her tendency to get violent, angry, or irritated whenever she hears something negative about her behavior" - big time angry, "irritated" is too much of a light-weight word. CRITICISM of her, no matter how light, no matter how gentle, was PUNISHED." Oh, they are virtually ALWAYS acting like you're the most irritating pest that ever lived - definitely an obvious characteristic...Irritated ON ACID! (A psycho is charming even to his wife and kids (better, longer-lasting actor, no dropping the details ball like your Spath). Jack The Ripper's wife hadn't a clue, thought he was just a normal, loving (but bit stiff) husband.) "22. It's Always About Her Narcissists love attention, and a narcissistic mother is not above being in the spotlight at the expense of her kids" - I remember a school peer (elementary or middle school) visited me at "home" but my mother delightedly talked to her and I was in the corner, an observer. That was the rule, no exceptions. " Basically, that kid in a woman's body was one minute your hell-bent toddler and the next - at best - your jealous, over-competitive sibling. Correct? At what age did you realise - or now, using hindsight - you'd now overtaken her in age/maturity? "23. She Is Only Nice To You In Public" - no, not nice but when visiting her sister for holidays, she didn't bother with me, didn't insult me.. just the usual, lower key criticisms." Ignoring you isn't the same as putting on a front by pretending to be a normal, healthy, loving mother. Then she was a really antagonist, cantankerous, extra-over-entitled, OVER-COCKY & BULSHY, Overt (on the whole)? She really DID feel powerful to point of untouchable, didn't she! Or was she just surrounded by cowards? Were the two of them very competitive? "24. She Competes With You"- for other people's attention/ interactions. She won every time." Oh, the giant-sized, nasty "grown-up" managed to win against an innocent, little kid a fraction of her size, stremgth and confidence? WHOO-PIE-DOO for her, isn't she clever and powerful! PFF. Isn't that so insane and pathetic, both? "25. She Is Very Controlling... She will use guilt when you try to express opinions and desires she does not agree with" she used guilt on a regular basis, her go-to thing to do." 'What's that smell?..............Oh, wait - burning Martyr'. Like that, you mean. Yep. Understand: she was a Benign AND a Malig AND a Sociopath (if that makes sense to you?). So, capable of being petty, hurtful, emotionally stupid....sneaky, conniving, devious - cleverly....and like a 10-tonne bull in a china shop - stupidly, self-destructively, needlessly, avoidably, futilely, nonsensically. The Queen of Hearts from Alice inWonderland, basically, yes?

"so I want to start my own thread today." NO, DON'T DO THAT, PLEASE. We're too far along on here, now; it'll only complicate matters unnecessarily. I said this was an exception.

"- are you recommending that I reconnect with her, spend SOME time with her (just not much)...?" Nope. Just - does that match with what you'd say to her if she were in front of you now?

"P.S. both my sister and her mother live half the world away." What - both in the same country and area?

PS: Narcs. When (over-frequently...permanently) in a bad mood - being nasty to someone else is the only thing that MAKES THEM FEEL *BETTER*. MAKES THEM FEEL BETTER. Try that sick thought on for size... Bad mood...turn and 'slap someone hard in the face'....... "Haaaaaah, that's better, what a relief". I MEAN - WHAT THE BEEPING BEEP?!? We wouldn't sleep FOR A DECADE if we did that!?! (Matron?!....Ma-troooon!!!...Bring the hypodermic, quick!)

Oh, and - yes. Paranoid PD is a pretty common co-morbidity with your malignant triad, the 'closer' you approach Sociopath level. And when you reach Spath - guaranteed. (Plus your lower-functioning psychopath - although I believe that's actually a spath mistaken for a psycho by someone who needs to research and field-test more deeply and thoroughly.) Yup. And Borderline PD is another common, potential comorbidity with the Spath. However, when Borderline, Machievellianism (super-manipulation powers) and Sadism coexists, they usually are said to be "Combo Man/Woman", now equal (except for keeping their cool under fire and intelligent, intricate-to-the-Nth-degree plotting/planning) a malignant narc Psychopath. (Not really...But may as well be when it comes to the size and seriousness of damage they can do.) (The genuine Psycho can be PPD too, but tends not to feature Borderline nor Histrionic. Too unemotional for that nonsense. More smooooth....slick....slooooow-moving....zen-like calm...oozing with quiet confidence...quietly-spoken, doesn't say much, but watchful, OR impressive, mezmirising, charming, flashy, gifted orator, fun, entertaining. But very, very smooth. The Narc ones (sociable), anyway. The Oddball psycho hides himself away, works silently underground and is a different kettle of fish and, I think, should have his own classification. I'd say: Overt Anti-Societal/Establishment but Sociable Psycho -vs- Covert Anti-Societal and Antisocial/Reclusive Psycho, actually... Overt/Covert sums it up, I think. Research on malig. Psychos is lagging behind that on NPD, still (yawn)) so most of what I know has to be based moreover on first- and second-hand experience....yet *I`m* still alive, look? There we go.) REALLY, you only need to know precisely what you're dealing with when it comes to having to formulate a failsafe escape plan, customised to-suit your particular lunatic. Otherwise, you just need to know how they too often, too constantly made you FEEL. Psych fact: people barely ever remember what you said, the last time you saw them. Just how you made them FEEL. But AGAIN - this PPD, likewise, all spews forth from them spontaneously and involuntarily. And the rest of the time, they do it deliberately. Simply because whenever they did it involuntarily, they still got to repeatedly witness that what resulted - i.e. the victim's reaction and response - happened to suit them and their constant, stupid agenda(s). Either that OR...and this is actually a strong possibility and theory of mine...it's like this: EVERY time is involuntary but they big themselves up (as per usual) by trying to take credit for it, claiming in clinical interviews that they "do that" on-purpose ('Yeah, I MEANT to puke in his face - cos he deserved it!'). Because... We KNOW they're pathological liars so, doesn't that make it a case of: 'I asked the Liar if he did it accidentally and he said No / I asked the Liar if he did it deliberately and he said Yes'. I think it does. Right, I believe I'm caught up? :) Roger. Over...

Hi Soulmate: I will not start my own thread at this point, like you requested (I am quite eager to accommodate your requests and rules.. !). Thank you so much for all your posts. I want to take the next couple or few hours to read and process and will reply to you later.

Hello again Soulmate, lots to learn from/ process (your March 11-13 posts, one by one): "albeit working independently, I was part of the underground movement that brought NPD into the common consciousness"- I was amazed that last evening, Sun evening, at a winery in a small town, I was talking to a woman in her late 50s who told me (she brought the topic up) that her mother was "a malignant narcissist". I never heard a person in real-life saying these words before, and I thought to myself at that moment: SOULMATE IS PART OF THIS! "I had also decades before that campaigned for service improvements on British Rail... every single morning and evening for a year, running from the end of the train to the front, chucking petition sheets and pens at other commuters"- this, and your work in bringing NPD into the common consciousness, your HARD WORK and TENACITY made me think that you and I have these two things (being hard-working and tenacious) in common. (1) I am known in my area as "the machine" for doing hard manual labor that others will not do (mostly these days: clearing acres and acres of land from the vicious invasive Himalayan blackberries which are like the malignant narcissists in the human world), (2) For 7 years and 9 months, 7 days a week, hours per day, sometimes 8 hours a day, I was the most active participant (by far) in the forums of another website. No one moderated me and the website owner didn't seem to have any interest in the forums, so I was on my own and that allowed me to use the forums as an online learning opportunity where I determined how I learn. I communicate with thousands of people from every continent (except for Antartica), multiple countries: Sudan, Iraq, Australia, the UK and many more, corresponding with OPs about their life situations, emotional struggles.. with many OPs for many months and years (one from Dec 2015- Feb 2023). It was very meaningful activity for me. All that activity ended last month as a result of me being stalked (my stalker inserted herself into my conversations with OPs, interrupting and critiquing me, in effect, severely moderating me). I couldn't ban the stalker myself, and the website owner didn't.. so I eventually deleted my account. I have a lot to say about all of that but will summarize here by saying that my activity there and your activity here (and elsewhere) made me think that maybe you can help me figure out where I can put my hard work and tenacity next, so to make some kind of a difference for the better in this world, if at all possible. "My attitude is, if the people and institutions, charged with making any direly-needed social change aren't doing their duty, then - pointless to sit around complaining, YOU have to get off your bum and DO something"- my point too. And I want to do something! But What and How.. I don't know. My tech skills by the way are extremely low. "starting a catchy slogan, similar to the UK govt's, anti-Heroin, advertising campaign - 'Just say No!'...a catchy slogan... Just don't sleep with one!... 'breeding them out'... Don't Replicate Mistakes... 'Let's get NExit"- all potentially catchy. Here's another one perhaps (using the government slogan): Just Say No to Narcs! Shortened: NN (No Narcs!) "Can't say my 'brilliance' does me any favours, though... On the journey of life, we tend to crawl through only those holes we can fit through... maybe I lingered, and grew too big to crawl out the other side again"- the image of removing air/ EXCESS from the brilliance comes to mind, so that you can.. constructively shrink can crawl out of the hole...(this is an image and nothing more, didn't think about it). "The Malignant Narcissist's...Sociopath's definition of you, abusing them: Not letting them abuse YOU, aka standing up for yourself. They feel entitled to abuse. So that means, you're depriving them of a RIGHT, doncha know!"- very well said (this is definitely no kind of brilliance-excess! "you are very satirically witty!"- as a usually wit-challenged individual (I mean it, I am not self-effacing here), I am highly appreciative of this exception to the rule. "And it's going to keep recovering. Your brain is flexible, can build new neural pathways"- a Wit Recovery Project (WRP)- yes, I want my wit back, goddammit! "what's wrong with the phone? Was that an appropriate medium for the topic?"- actually, I do prefer her emailing me over the phone because I can choose to not read and email, to postpone reading it, to read it only partly. On the other hand a talk on the phone or in person: I can't unhear the words said. In any case, I want her to never again mention the mother to me, not on email and not using any other medium. "Always-always feel free to poke fun at their expense"- couldn't do it, if I was still communicating with her. Even her image in my mind is still scary. Plus, i wouldn't want to infuriate a narc/ bad person because someone else (someone bumping into them that day) will pay the price. "She wanted you NEVER TO LEAVE HOME"- to break me so that I can't, to keep having a broken thing around. "EITHER it didn't even cross her mind (unconcerned about what you thought about it) OR did and this was one of her ways of keeping your confidence down as well as to create a bad association between nakedness and shame and discomfort (unlikely to marry and leave home Google Narcissistic Mother Enmeshment or some such"- upon first reading I chose the first part, still needing to see her as good/ or as not as bad (as the second option suggests). People are more open to see evil in OTHER PEOPLE's mothers, just not our own.. NOT MY MOTHER.. well, why not, why is my mother supposed to be better than other mothers.. except for than my childlike NEED to see her as better than. "I really dread to think what was done to HER as a child, don't you?"- she told me many times what was done to her, at least parts of it: a violent alcoholic father who abandoned her when her mother died, she ended up in a kind of orphanage and .. more. "they have sane days and good moments too, don't forget"- unlike cartoon characters, or characters depicted in some movies, real-life people are not ALL this or ALL that. How simple it would have been if that was the case. *Because of the length of this post, I'll break it here and continue in the next post. Amie

Continued: "Yes, they are.. incredibly crass and classless"- yes.. incredibly and true. "Narc Predators always-ALWAYS get you when you're down. Including a Narc society getting the, Empath society when they're down. Thanks Brexit, thanks Trump, thanks Covid, thanks "Poo-Tin"! What a MESS to have to clean up! What a mess!"- a huge mess. The people who love Trump, they love him (or admire him) for his AGGRESSION. This is the scary part, that aggression is looked up to as a Value superior to all other values. "it's nice to know you CAN play hostess like a moderator...I'll file that one for later"- I played hostess for seven years.. and nine months on that other website. But I am fine with not playing hostess here. "I've always-ALWAYS got my eyes out for talent" - thank you, Soulmate. I value my participation on the other website because I got to learn about people from the ground up, figuring out the basics for myself- unlike the learning in formal education, as I know it, which is about learning from the top down, meaning learning all the terms, the theories, the categories and diagnoses first, and then fitting a person's individual story into pre-established categories. "OBVIOUSLY you weren't going to say Yes and insult yourself and him, were you.. it's a sick thing to say because it suggests that if she did have a penis, you MIGHT"- I think that you may find this entertaining: that guy I was talking about- whom I married for a very short time in my very early 20s- had erection problems so I TOLD my mother that it was so.. that he couldn't.. you know, AS THE ANSWER TO HER QUESTION. I am not kidding. Of course, she did not keep the information to herself and told him about it over lunch, and very loudly. "She wouldn't have been thinking about that implication, however, because it's a CONSEQUENCE, which their pea-brains either have no thought for... KNEE-JERK, i.e. effective only in the moment, 'plan'.. and saying the unsayable is a bit of a thrill"- so very, VERY well said, if I may say so. A Narc in a Nut shell..! they have sane days and good moments too, don't forget...the way they on-off hate you is just a horrid symptom of their corrupt wiring)" - I didn't think about this.. very profound. True.. I will think about this further later."" Good, noted." "Yes, if they were... nasty every day, leaving them... would be easy and the decision, pretty rapid. The Sweet-Mean cycle - and/or those days when the spoiled-baby playground bully is genuinely in a good mood... is what keeps you in the game, forever chasing after the KIND person you're convinced is in there"- yes.. a forever futile chase. There's two of them in there and since they're NOT two pieces of Lego, you have to leave them both"- yes. * I didn't get to your March 13 posts but I will Tues morning, my time. Thank you, Soulmate!!!!!!!!!! Amie

Hi Soulmate: I said Tues morning, but it'd be Tues evening or Wed morning.

No worries, Amie - you take as long as you need! You're doing great, btw. And just to reassure you: No. We don't stand for bullies or even 'mere' cat-kickers here. This is a safe place. We stand ON them ("Argh, gerroff me! / "Umm......NO"). We're not your regular forum, Amie (haha - understatement), I don't care WHAT drossy site you came from (their loss is our gain) - and ollocks to Political Correctness used as a tool: if someone is being deliberately nasty and mean-minded, or thinking they can do my job in criticising others' posts (albeit, mine's obviously constructive and helpful).....SQUISH (bye-bye). And if ever I'm not around at that exact moment, feel free to email Richard (Green banner - Support - Technical Support (email). *************** Anyhoo...Until I have a decent-enough window for addressing your latest, I just wanted you to hear this, since BPD has been mentioned here in varous places already. It's a recovering BPD talking, and illustrates beautifully my point that they're NOT perpetrators, they're the over-victimised, big-hearteds, but whose brains aren't wired to turn NPD (roll over)...so they have to just keep suffering (if they can't escape) for to long, until - BPD. So they shouldn't be lumped-in with the NPDs and others with malicious malintent. Plus, their potential is FUNCTIONAL, USEABLE, REALISABLE. Hence they're curable, unlike NPDs (case closed). Intention/aim is everything. But check it out (and Marionette if she's still checking), just in case you hear even a smidgen of an echo of your mother, even if only on very rare occasions. I personally don't think so, not from what I've seen/heard so far. But you need to rule it out (or in) so... It's from Quora: https://www.quora.com/ Answered by S. P. 7mo Do people with BPD wish to be cured, or do they like some aspects of their disorder? Before I understood my BPD, for forty years, I wanted to be cured. Why did I love people so deeply? Why was I so impulsive and self destructive? Why the eating disorders? Why the longing for suicide? Why did everyone I love abandon me? Why had I been with more than one man who raped or hit me but seemed like a prince to the public? Why didn’t they love me but they loved everyone else? Why is no one happy for my accomplishments? Why do I never feel enough? WHAT DO I NEED TO DO TO BE ENOUGH? Then I went through a vortex of trauma that shook me awake: I had to understand the person responsible, and doing so made me uncover both his mental health…and my own. And my family’s. And my whole history. Learning about BPD and NPD and ASPD—all which run in my family suddenly made my life make sense. It was never that I wasn’t enough. IT IS THAT LIFE IS DISORIENTING RAISED BY PEOPLE WHO NEVER DEVELOP EMOTIONS PAST TODDLERS WHILE YOURS STEADILY DEVELOP. Life is disorienting raised in the light of the gaslight. Where you are the scapegoat. You have to hold all their shame. To survive it, you internalize it as yours. And become addicted to abuse and lovebombs. It was never, my mom is beating me because she’s an abuser with no empathy or conscience, and she can’t help that. It was my mom is beating me because I am a bad person. And I can’t help that. How to be GOOD?! It drove my entire life. And drove me to narcissist after narcissist until I nearly became them, holding all their wreckage, anger, and shame. My husband cheated on me, and hit me, and did other sordid things, but because I broke down as a basket case and he seemed calm and normal in public and at home, and because I wanted to die and felt mysteriously unloved, and because he raged at the threat of me leaving, I thought I ruined my marriage. I WAS JUST TOO CRAZY TO LOVE. Not so. In fact, my emotions were developed to high school and his were toddler years. My accomplishments made him enraged. My appearance and my intellect threatened his grandiosity. And he hated me and sought to break me. I was easy to abuse. I internalized it. I INTERNALIZED IT BECAUSE I HAD BPD. Now, I think I’m healing through that knowledge. It feels as if my emotions are developing. I can see abuse rationally. I know when people are projecting on me. And I can spot a narcissist like it’s nobody’s business, so I know what I’m interacting with, and I even see when I’m being devalued/abused/targeted by one. (Like at work). I don’t stress and internalize it. I say, oh my boss is doing this because he has the emotion of a toddler. It sucks to have to work for a toddler. But such is the world. Just survive. Like always. Most our politicians and world leaders are suffering npd and/or aspd too, so this is one mad world. But there are many aspects of BPD I don’t want to lose ever: My overactive empathy. I’m grateful to love humans so much and feel emotions deeply. I think we need more people with empathy in the world. It’s helped me very much as a teacher, and I even think it heals some people. (Not narcissists, though they’re addicted to it) My deep understanding of even the darkest people and truths. I know rapists and murderers. And I’ve known them intimately. It’s in my family and then I continually attracted them, even just as friends. I’ve internalized their violent abuses. And because I know them that intimately, I know how they think and I know that they are really abandoned snarling baby wolves. Yes, they’ll kill you, but they are actually confused and defensive baby predators. They need to make their outside world feel like their inside to clear out the despair inside and feel safe. It’s tragic, but I’m glad I understand that about human nature. Never feeling good enough made me pursue intelligence so hard that I developed a deep love of learning. This happens to a lot of us. I had so much pain and shame that I became very creative. I had to put the pain in art. I turned to spirituality when young to survive and have always had visions, dreams, and messages. It’s not psychosis, as it doesn’t interrupt reality, and it’s nearly always true. Call it a deep intuition from abuse or call it something spiritual reaching out when in need, but for me, it’s precious. It is beautiful and it’s survival and faith has given me deep comfort. I truly don’t care if people think that’s crazy. It is a common experience for people with BPD, and my therapist even says she’s astounded at her clients with BPD and their dreams, predictions, and uncanny intuitions. It feels like a secret superpower. Finally, I’m grateful it’s BPD and not the other options for a cluster b kid raised by narcissists. My sister, who I loved more than life, got Npd. And I love histrionics, like my grandfather, but they don’t live in reality and I’d hate to be a jealous person. It’s the best of all options to be the family scapegoat. Which, like all things created by narcissists, seems contradictory but is also true. 🤷‍♀️ When you look up people who had BPD, they’re pretty great! Princess Diana. Sylvia Plath. Amy Winehouse. It’s not a bad roster. *************************************************** Very honest, sincere, straight-from-the-heart woman, huh? Another thing NPDs aren't. Ever. (Truth has its own unique vibration, does it not.) Anyway, do me a favour and don't respond to this until I've responded to yours. Cheers.

Hi Soulmate: I am working on your March 13 posts and am not responding to your recent post, like you asked. I am posting here because you use the word "spatch" and although I googled it, I can't figure out what you mean by it. Can you tell me?

I meant "Spaths"

Hello Soulmate: I liked reading yesterday that you were feeling better, being playful (7-8-9, etc.). I'll respond to your March 13 posts (not to your most recent, like you asked) "What year was this, that a school could or would let her get away with such atrocious behaviour in front of the kids? State school or private?"- it was a state school, a different continent; a NEW country at the time. The area where I lived was made of all new, mostly uneducated and poor immigrants, I don't think there was a thing comparable to social services in existence. Parents owned their children and unless bones were literally broken and blood literally shed or starvation visible, there was no interference by anyone. "She knew what she was doing and when. Or, truer to say, her ill brain.. knew. Yeah, she definitely fits the bill for full-blown Spath mother, doesn't she - agree thus far?"- (I googled "spath" but don't know what you mean by it here.. ?) She knew what she could get away with and what she wouldn't get away with. She was highly emotional but not lost to psychosis: she was aware of what she was doing. She was also dishonest, manipulative and PREDATORY. "Wow, that's horrid. But Spaths, strangely, CAN 'love'. It's just childish, sick, superficial love... just because you're supposed to be their special someone, DOESN'T mean in THEIR mind that you are off-limits when it comes to being used, abused, exploited... all "no big deal"... whenever the mood 'naturally' takes them.... so you end up with someone who much of the time, deliberately burps in your face but the rest of the time does it involuntarily"- all fits perfectly: whenever and wherever her mood took her was indeed "natural" and "normal" in her mind, or so she said. The burping analogy is perfect, it fits so perfectly. When she wasn't angry at me, she talked NON STOP in my direction, it was excruciating. I don't think I mentioned it before but I displayed severe tics (Tourette Syndrome) and tic-ed like crazy while she was talking to me non-stop (no matter what I was doing and HOW MUCH I WAS TIC-ING): that non-stop torture was the involuntary burping.. right? (I had active OCD- endless rituals and Tourettes since I was 5 or 6.. diagnosed in my 20s in the U.S) "What's yours is theirs, and what's theirs is theirs too"- my brain and body was hers, she allows nothing OF MY OWN to happen in between my ears. If I blushed at the wrong time (in her estimation), she demanded to know why and how dared I. "They delude themselves that you're making a fuss about nothing, it's just normal... NO, IT IS NOT NORMAL - NOWHERE NEAR IT. Not as a Pervasive Pattern... Once in a Blue Moon, fine. Accidents happen"- pervasive abusive patterns, aka personality disorders. And yes, in her mind (or so she says)- her behaviors are normal reactions to .. the evil in me. "Yup. But it's more like, she knows AND doesn't know, both"- if she knew I needed space, it was not convenient for her to dwell on that idea, so she dismissed it. "BUUURP! - oops, I didn't mean it, but it was your own fault (etc.). BUUUURP!"- I like it when you burp, Soulmate. I still feel affection for you and it scares me a bit because I expect you to turn against me at any time.. to hurt me where I feel soft. In my mind it's only a matter of time before you criticize me and ban me from the forums. (It just occurred to me that you may think that I am dishonestly manipulating you by having stated what I just did.. my mother religiously assigned me with evil intents. So.. I am returning here to myself- owning that space in between my ears- and I say to you: Soulmate: yes, I feel affection for you, genuinely, for real and I understand that you are the moderator, in charge.. and it will hurt some, if I am banned, but it won't be terrible. So, I am okay). "Say it with me: All you've done TO me, you mean?... It's still in there, waiting to be let out. Go for it - SCREAM IT 'AT HER' now. Better yet - fancy writing her a letter, here?"- I promised myself (the child-within, the good, innocent child that I was/ who's still in me) to never communicate with her again. I am not talking to her: not irl, not in my mind, and not in a letter never to be sent. Even though I was not familiar with the term covert narcissist, I already (through my daily and extensive participation in the other website where I shared a lot about my experience) did a lot of work- cognitively AND EMOTIONALLY in regard to coming to deeply understanding who-is-who: who's the Villain and who is the Victim in the context of my mother- myself. "I mean - she LIKED having it both ways, didn't she? (All Narcs do.)"- yes, she gets to be Wrong (abusive) and Right (abused) at the same time. "if someone stamps deliberately or accidentally onto your toe. Still hurts? Still got to get away from the ever-stomping idiot. Well, you do if you want to keep your feet!"- well said. "Ooh - how poetically metaphorical of moi for a soir Dimanche"- here's the affection I feel for you again- making me smile. "they're a Malig Narc or worse yet, Spath... They're like half (child) clown, half shark"- exactly! The image of the innocent looking boy from the movie Pet Cemetary comes to mind: he was a (good) boy who was run over by a truck, then buried in the pet cemetery and returns home as a monster, kills his mother who can't see him as bad, and then (if I remember correctly), he tried to kill his father, but his father stabbed his dead-monster-son. When he did, the corners of the boy's mouth turned downward in a most innocent- hurt looking child's face , as he said: this isn't fair. That image of the monster-evil boy looking like a good, innocent boy makes me think of the covert narcissist (which is what I believe you mean by Spath?). The image of the monster-boy after he was stabbed impressed me so much at the time- and since- because my mother was like that: she did the killing but then turned victim. "Is she older or younger? What are your ages, btw? And your mother's? Make them age-brackets for anonymity's sake..."- my sister is 6 years younger, my mother 80 or so. I can't talk about my age. I have a need to see myself as a teenager (quite genderless, a bit on the boy side): I dress like one (casual), have my hair in a ponytail, no makeup, keep my weight right under the normal.. wear jeans... so if I look at myself (not in the mirror), my body - dressed- looks like a teenager's. I like that very much.. I just can't fathom that I am not a teenager. I am stuck there. * I was going to reply to the rest but it's too long and I don't want to rush, can't go as slowly as I want to go, at this time. Also, an hour or so ago, I noticed that my sister emailed me and I am stressed about the idea of reading it (didn't yet) Amie

Continued: "we're still on your 'mother ship', and get to all the little aliens after"- can you tell me what you mean by it?. "Any excuse to have a go (burp or puke in your face or make you smaller again)"- perfectly said, I understand burping and puking, you are talking my language. "I'm early-retired (yes, because I deliberately flogged my guts out in record time when younger, duuh?"- you are a professional psychotherapist, aren't you (you wrote recently: "We psychotherapists..")? "The person who divulged it certainly wasn't expecting me to burst into gaffaws, going by his own facial expression!"- I can imagine, haha. I don't want to be in the place of that guy, facing your gaffaws (I don't know what the word means but I don't need to).. haha, again. "But that's the thing with NPDs: they seem to "win" in the very short"- NPD= Win in the very short term. "whereas we ACTUALLY win in the long run AND FOREVER"- not so, seeing the state the world is in. "NPD plus Sadism equals a... Psychopath"- another equation. More later(unless you rather I don't). Amie

No, I do. But I'm waiting to get a proper window at the mo... don't like to rush these things. Still got overly important stuff going on in my RL right now. PS: Forgot to add, earlier: ALSO....if anyone did try to needle you and I and our invisible Mod weren't watching at that precise moment, I'm sure one of our vets - Manalone, Susiedqq and OM, would jump in to defend you. It tends not to happen on here, though, save for rarely, and then they're just trolls pretending to have outrageous amounts of unrealistic, negative drama going on (in which case, I try to jump in before anyone else can), popping in to say hello and have a cup of tea (laced, LOL). Truth is, in my entire time here I haven't had to ban one person once. I would be just getting round to it, obviously, eventually, but, strangely, every single one of them ran off before I got the chance. (insert halo) Don't worry - we're ALL Narc's Greatest Nightmares and Super-Empaths on here. ;) We're actually very classy ("Air, hellair!"). :)

...Banning is for wimps. LOL I don't ever block the uggers in my personal life, either. If you want to know why I don't - ask and ye shall be enlightened!

" meant "Spaths"" Sociopaths. As illustrated up there, I'm the type that starts new words/terms. You've got Narc, you've got Psycho, but everyone sticks to Sociopath so - Spath! Sounds right, for them, as well, I think. But not all Sociopaths are NPD so it's also a way to draw that important distinction. Spreaad it round?! :)

Spaths it is, Soulmate: I like the word! Like I said before, you are the Bee's Knees in so many ways! By the way, I read my sister's email and she wrote that she will not mention it (the.. Spath) to me again, good for her! Be back to you tomorrow. Amie

"I'm early-retired (yes, because I deliberately flogged my guts out in record time when younger, duuh?"- you are a professional psychotherapist, aren't you (you wrote recently: "We psychotherapists..")? No, I didn't. Nor would I on here (for obvious reasons, for those who can extrapolate). But nice try again ( https://www.peoplesproblems.org/showtopic/13401/How-do-i-stay-comfortable-with-death#jumptobottom).