My Sister Meets Her Biological Daughter

All previous posts on my sister are here.

My sister's baby was adopted by a very nice couple who were amenable to an open adoption. They allowed my sister to name the baby. The only contact over the years was a package sent around the birth date of the little girl with several pictures and a short note describing a few of the events and achievements of the child. The package would be sent every year to my parent's home as their address was fixed; Mom would forward it to my sister.

Somewhere between this young girl's fifteenth and sixteenth birthday she was allowed by her adoptive mother to make contact with my sister. I won't go into the particulars of why it happened when it did because it isn't all that relevant to the story of my sister and me. The adoptive mother first contacted my sister and discussed whether or not my sister was open to meeting her biological daughter. Naturally, sister was thrilled with the prospect.

One evening I received a phone call from my sister who immediately demanded an audience with both myself and my daughter. After my daughter picked up the other phone my sister launched into her news...she was on her way home from a visit with her biological daughter. She and her husband had spent the weekend in the town where her daughter lived and had gotten acquainted. She tried to get my daughter all excited over this meeting by telling her how alike she and her cousin were and then listed some dubious similarities that made my daughter and me quietly roll our eyes. She would follow up her rendition of their similarities by then asking my daughter, "Don't you want to meet, K? Aren't you excited about having your cousin in your life?" My sister tried to convince us that we should meet her daughter soon. We remained non-committal. We were also not terribly enthusiastic though we tried to sound happy for her. It was extremely inconsiderate of my sister to assume that now that her bio daughter was back in her life that it naturally followed that we would want to be in her bio daughter's life too. It was presumptuous and utterly inconsiderate for her to push us like that especially upon our very first hearing of this news. And by her pushing for our meeting her bio daughter in this very first conversation after her meeting with said daughter we were immediately set up to disappoint and anger my sister if we answered in any way other than in the affirmative. No delicacy was undertaken. No consideration for a viewpoint other than her own. I look back at her phone call that night and now see how utterly selfish and self-involved she was over this development from the very outset. I have never been able to deprive my sister of something she wanted from me and not end up making her very angry. I was set up from the beginning to have to disappoint and anger my sister. I resent having been put into this dilemma by her insensitive presumptions. There was no consideration for feelings or a viewpoint other than her own. I was to be condemned, ultimately, for having feelings and a viewpoint other than hers. I see no fairness in her way of reckoning. I did not condemn her feelings or viewpoint even though they differed from my own. I received back no such kind allowances. Typical for my relationship with my sister. One way street with all the grace going in her direction from me.

I do not think open adoptions are a good idea. I especially don't think that minor children should be in contact with their biological parents. Then there is the issue of bringing a kid into our f&*%d up family. With my evil mother, my complacent and complicit father, my sister who is consumed with herself, and my sister's extremely strange husband, I had some even more serious reasons to feel very uncomfortable with the idea of this young girl entering my sister's sphere of influence. I asked my sister if she intended to let her biological daughter, K, meet our mother. My sister assured me she would do all she could to make sure K never would meet our mother. I was only somewhat relieved as I know my sister could easily change her mind on that at some future date. Especially if my sister could use her biological daughter as a bargaining chip in her relationship with our mother.

K was a well-adjusted kid from all my sister's accounts for the first 18 months of having contact with her. K was doing well in school academically, excelling in athletics, well-liked by her peers, enjoyed a happy family life getting along with both parents and her siblings. In my opinion, she didn't need the complication of meeting my sister, her bio mother. As stated already, I kept my views to myself. It was apparent to me that my sister would tolerate no dissenting notes. She would often hint at how much she wanted my daughter and me to meet her biological daughter, but she stopped short of pinning me down to specifics or a commitment. I have no power or responsibility for my sister's decisions, therefore I did not feel like I needed to state outright what my differing views were. I figured if she wanted to know she would ask. I would only be forced to spell out some of my opinion on the matter if my sister tried to get me directly involved. So, what I'm saying is that I wasn't being dishonest by not explicitly stating my opinion from the outset. Opinion is not necessarily fact. I wasn't going to force my opinion on someone else. If solicited, I would then feel free to state it. Unlike my sister, I do not try to force people to take my view on things. When I have no power, I do not try to change a circumstance. I knew that my opposing views brought into the open would not change my sister's behavior in her own life. My opposing views would only become relevant when having to make a decision about my life. It was not insignificant to me that my sister waited two full years before directly asking me the question of whether or not I would want to meet her bio daughter. That it took so long was proof to me that she was quite sure I had an opposing viewpoint. She was not going to be able to graciously allow me to have a differing opinion therefore she avoided soliciting it.

For two years, rather than ask me my own thoughts on the matter, she would just regale me with stories about their visits and phone calls. She was always overly excited (by that, I mean it seemed like contrived excitement) and braggadocios about her relationship with her "daughter". I have a long history with my sister where she finds something exciting and works over-time to try to whip me up into an emotional high resembling hers. If she is excited about something then everyone around her needs to feel the same way. I always felt she was trying to manipulate me when she would do this. It never worked to her satisfaction. I would give my honest reaction and leave it at that. Sister is someone who wants to hear your affirmation not just once, but over and over again. For example, she might call me and say how she had an answer to prayer over something. Voila, everything worked out perfectly (i.e. how she wanted it) so it was obviously an answer to prayer. "Isn't that incredible??!!" I might reply with something like, "Yes, it is. I'm very happy for you. You must be so relieved..." That is far short of enough for the likes of my sister. A few minutes later she would say something like, "Aren't you amazed at what God did? Aren't you thrilled?" Poke, poke, prod, prod. She was none too subtle that my response was not nearly enthusiastic enough. She wants effusive confirmation that I see things exactly as she does and am just as thrilled as she is for something that went well for her. It was usually just as subjective as the example above as to the "facts" of the case which required that I take her subjective opinion as my own in order to be just as thrilled as she was about it. It felt manipulative and childish when she would do this kind of thing. For someone who showed so little interest in my own life, why was I supposed to be as thrilled as she was about hers? It was just another manifestation of her extreme self-focus and it wearied me. I would have been embarrassed to conduct myself this way in my relationships. If my telling of an event in my life doesn't excite people then who am I to try to force them to feign excitement they don't feel? Why would a person feel satisfied with a prompted excitement in others? How does one convince themselves it is real when you had to force them into it? Very narcissistic, if you ask me. Only someone who can relate to an artificially constructed reality as if it was real would be satisfied with such a thing. It requires a certain level of narcissism in order to live happily in a false reality. I finally realize that my sister was inelegantly attempting to get me to mirror back to her the reality she wanted with this kind of behavior. She was trying to use my person hood, my face, to reflect back a certain rosy glow over her version of reality. A classic maneuver of a narcissist.

I remember clearly one phone call when my sister was angry, though not at me. She was angry with her biological daughter's adoptive mother. I will refer to the daughter as "K" and the mother as "P". K and P had both been over at my sister's for a weekend visit. P seemed a bit insecure during this visit and showed signs of being uncomfortable with my sister spending alone time with K. My sister, instead of understanding this mother's justifiable reaction, instead was furious at the mother's attempts to not allow K and my sister to spend alone time. By the way, "furious" was the exact word my sister used. My sister later chooses to forget the obvious problems that P had, at least this one time, with having allowed her adopted daughter into my sister's life as you'll see in her second email to me.

My concern was greatly increased the day my sister, in her usual over-excited way, called me to let me know that K was going to come live with her and finish out the last half of the school year where my sister lives. (They live in the same state but are a many hour drive apart.) This was going to happen in January of 2005. I was shocked. Dismayed. Terribly worried. I know that I was unable to hide my complete lack of support for such a decision. I wasn't going to lie and pretend I thought it was a good idea. So I uttered a series of "uh huh"s and "I see"s. Again, my sister didn't ask me directly for reasons for my cool response. I found out later she was quietly simmering in anger over my lack of happiness for her being reunited with her bio daughter going back to that first phone call two years earlier. I was failing her as a sister by not "entering into her joy".

My sister had told me in other conversations about the little problems that had started cropping up between K and her adoptive mother with increasing frequency. (Any coincidence that the problems didn't start until after K had met her bio mom? I don't think so.) My sister was pretending she knew better how to raise her bio child and would criticize the adoptive mother in her conversations with me. It was hard to listen to my sister acting like she knew something about parenting. She has never raised a child. She has certainly never raised a teen. Now, like her mother, she acts like she is some kind of child-rearing expert. I had to chew on my tongue. Now I'm hearing how K wanted a fresh start in a whole new town. Another reason that open adoptions are a bad idea. Adoptive parents are not babysitters. K perceived an escape hatch from her life because she knew she had an open door at her bio mother's home. Instead of having to stay and deal with life and learn the important life lessons that come from working out one's problems, now K would be living with my sister for at least a full six months. It was shortly after K came to live with her that my sister finally posed a direct question to me about whether or not I wanted to meet K.

It was the beginning of the end.

I reproduce now the correspondence that occurred starting with my sister's email. This was sent March 31, 2006.

Hi Anna,

I have been looking for my copy of the letter I wrote to Dad and can't find it in my files. Would you happen to have it? I want to show it to K. What I explain to her about mom and my relationship with her is incomprehensible to her. I think the letter will help. If you have it will you send it to me? Thank you.

I am so glad N [my daughter] liked her gift. Did she have a happy birthday all around? I had forgotten that my lovely niece [referring to my daughter] was able to do the eye thing. that's so cool. I want a picture. By the way, your niece can do it too.

Tonight K was asking me about you and N. She really has a deep desire to meet you both and know you. Tonight she asked me if you two even wanted to meet her. And you know, I didn't know how to answer. Is that something you would even want?

She also wants to meet Mom and Dad. She is curious.

Love you,

D

My sister had attached a picture of her self where she is crossing one eye. It used to make me laugh back when we were kids. It was a little ridiculous for a fat 40 year old woman to be sending a pic of herself looking like that. I was not amused. Notice the little pushy statement, "your niece can do it too". Um, not really my niece considering this child was adopted to another family effectively terminating my relationship to this child. The mention of the familial ability to cross one eye is another way my sister is pushing the whole genetic look-how-related-we-are thing. I am not exaggerating when I say that every conversation where she talked about her bio daughter to me, my sister would over-emphasize what she perceived to be proof of how strong the genetics are that link her daughter to us. It was interesting to me how K didn't inherit any of our family's bad traits. Amazing, really. Also, this child had gotten half her genetics from the father! What had she gotten from him? I saw her pictures for myself and could see how much she looked, physically, like her father. Something my sister never would admit to. In my sister's world, it was like the father never existed. My sister's psychologized view of life had made her look for biological explanations for all human behavior. It also convinced her that genetics are a much bigger factor in human development than it can be proven to be. With her, it boils down to an attitude that "blood is everything". In this way, my sister was taking much of the credit for the good qualities and accomplishments of her daughter. I find her willingness to take credit like this to be outrageous. I do not operate from this perspective. I put much more stock in the ability for humanity to rise above genetics and circumstance through the power of choice. I believe in personal accountability and that good character is no accident. My sister does not. This basic philosophic difference was a substantial one and placed a chasm between us on how we view the world. Sister's bio daughter coming into her life was an event that was destined to underline and highlight the very wide gulf between our philosophic views on family, personal responsibility, psychology, and basic morality.

Here is my response (sent on April 1st) to my sister's direct question:

You directly asked about how I feel about meeting K...so I will give you a direct answer. I have thought long and hard about meeting K over the last many months. I have talked to my family about it. We all want to meet her.....just not yet. None of us feel comfortable meeting her yet. I hope you will not be offended or try to pressure me to feel otherwise. I will try to explain a bit what my thinking and feelings on this are....not as justification, because I don't think I should have to justify myself in this, but out of respect for your feelings and desire to know why I would come to this decision.

K is still very young. I had imagined that if she came into our lives she would be older and out on her own. She would be an autonomous adult, in other words. I will be ready and willing to meet her the day she can get in a car or a plane and come on her own to visit when she's an adult making her own decisions about her life. She will then be able to decide when to come, how long she wants to stay, and if she isn't feeling comfortable, she can leave when she wants. As a dependent minor those decisions are made for her. When she feels confident enough in her own skin to come visit us without you holding her hand, then she will be ready to "get to know" us.

Supposing we meet with her in the near future and the visit goes smashingly well and she likes us. Now what? How does she further develop and maintain a relationship with us? In other words, "get to know" us? It isn't like she would be able to come visit with any frequency....and long distance relationships are hard to maintain by phone. Or how about if she is uncomfortable, bored, or just not clicking with us? She is NOT going to say so to us. She will very unlikely tell you because she is not going to want to disappoint you. You've made it very clear to her that you think a lot of us....what if she doesn't? How is she going to be equipped at her tender young age to deal with that possible dilemma? I don't see how she is going to be able to "get to know" us in any meaningful way at this point in time. I will not feel comfortable with a visit until she is completely a free-will agent. When she has control over the decisions and doesn't have to worry about disappointing you.

The reality is, D, that K has a family. She doesn't need us to be in her life right now in order to make her life complete in some way. I respect adoption very deeply. Adoption, both in our legal jurisprudence and Biblically, is more significant and binding than natural birth and blood relations. I don't feel like she is being deprived of something important to her life and maturation by not meeting her right now. What teenager needs two families with all the complication and obligation that entails? Her mother doesn't need the sense of worry or insecurity that having her minor child all wrapped up in another family could induce. P [the adoptive mother] has had some struggles with just having you in the picture...so I don't think it is far-fetched to think she'd struggle some with K bonding with your extended family. I highly respect and admire P for her loving, generous heart that brought K into her heart and home. She has given K every advantage to make a success of her life. I can't articulate how much I respect and honor that. I don't want to add even a smidgen of anxiety to that dear woman's life. When K is an adult, then pursuing some kind of relationship with us will be much less threatening to P. We don't even know yet how things will ultimately pan out between you and K. So giving this time and letting a meeting occur organically when K is able to do so under her own steam isn't a bad thing. It is prudent and cautious.

My concern, ultimately, is for K and for her adoptive family. Even though I expect you will disagree with my concerns, I know there is nothing you can say that will change the basis for those concerns. So, I hope you will respect my feelings and thinking and not put one more drop of pressure on me to meet with K, or on K to meet us. It will happen when it is supposed to happen without you having to orchestrate it.

I also hope that you will put the most positive construct on this as possible for K. I don't want her to feel like I, and family, don't want to meet her. We do! But under the above described circumstances. You are free to read this email to her so I can, in my own words, explain to her what I'm thinking and feeling about this, if you wish. I don't doubt for one tiny second that K is a delightful, beautiful human being. Everything you have told me about her has made it clear that she is a wonderful girl. She hasn't turned into this sensitive, thoughtful, kind, athletic, smart person because she is related to me...or to you, for that matter. I think she is a living testament to the loving home and good parents that chose her to be their daughter...and most of all, because there is a God in heaven whom K has met because of being raised in a God-fearing home. She is who she is because of her Heavenly Father who has guided events since before her birth and Who has used your many prayers on her behalf to bless her life. She has had everything you had hoped she have. Myself and my family are simply asterisks in her life at this point.....and I'm fine with that. It needs to continue to be that way until she gains the maturity to know her own mind and to pursue what is best for her once she is able to determine that from the perspective of an adult.

Love,
Anna

I had angered my sister. She shot back a reply rather quickly. She, I'm sure, was convinced her anger was not apparent in her answer. I begged to differ.

The Last Straw

As I've attempted to try to convey the overall flavor of my relationship with my sister leading up to the event that caused me to finally break away I have been struggling with something. A woman in the Adult Children of Narcissists group said something that put my struggle into words:

I have taken a lot but this is the final insult. It may be a little thing but this little mistake has pushed me into action. It may be a little thing to everyone else but it is a big thing to me. Not anyone knows what life has been like for me... There is no way I can describe to anyone what I have had to face each and every day of my life, what I've had to put up with, what I've had to cope with. So many times I was almost driven insane with everything that just didn't make any sense to me at all, but now it does. And I'm angry.

Emphasis mine. This woman is describing my experience as well as her own. Perhaps she is describing yours. People on the outside looking in are ill-equipped to lay judgment on your decisions to deal firmly with toxic family members, yet they do it anyway. The event that caused me to finally hold my mother to account wasn't cataclysmic. At least, it wouldn't seem to be if I described it to someone who didn't know my mother or me or the many years of similar offenses. It wouldn't seem all that BIG to an outsider. For me, it was huge. It was the moment that defined all the other moments. It opened my eyes. It clarified the issues. But I knew that I would have a very hard time convincing someone who didn't know the fabric of my life with my mother that her behavior on that particular day was evil. So I have only talked to those family members who know me and my mother very well and two close friends. One of those friends had quite a bit of personal experience with my mother and knew before I did that my mother was an evil, scary bitch. The other friend had a brief encounter with my mother, but it was enough for her to "get" that my mother was seriously screwed up.

I have even more of a problem when trying to describe my life with my sister with people who weren't there. The event that caused me to cut off all contact with her may seem trivial to many. I run the risk of the criticizers out there who are quick to judge what they don't know or really understand. Putting it out there on my blog hasn't been easy for me. I've been willing to share my story hoping it will be helpful to someone else. I also recognize it opens me up for criticism for my decisions or behavior with my sister. I guess, in the end, I've decided I don't care what critics say. No matter how well I tell my story it will fall far short of explaining the day to day realities I've experienced. So don't think you have the whole story just because I get to the end of telling it. I do have the advantage of time and separation and life experience to lend to my telling of this story which I know lends me a fair amount of objectivity. I am not immersed in strong feelings or unresolved issues that would prevent me from looking at how things happened from an adult stand-point. I hope you, the reader, can grant me the view that I have been as objective as possible as I have described my relationship with my sister. I hope the overall tone of my blog is such that you can discern an individual who has put much thought into things and is able to rise outside herself to look at things from another person's perspective and who is not bogged down in a soup of subjectiveness. This blog post is my preamble to telling the last events between my sister and myself. It was a "last straw".

With both my mother and my sister the last straw events that caused me to see with absolute clarity what I was dealing with were not huge in the way that would make front page news. No, that wasn't was made those events significant. What was significant was that the events contained the same fundamental elements of all the ones that came before. Nothing describes those events better than "the last straw". Unfortunately, people who are on the outside looking in will think you have over-reacted. Accusations that you are overly sensitive seem to gain credence because even you yourself can admit that it isn't the bigness of the event that caused you to react.

No, it was the sameness.

So, when I finally get around to describing the last straw event with my sister some of you will understand this principle. You will understand how what she did contained the fundamental dysfunction our relationship always was comprised of. I thought I had perceived change in her character and had been willing to over look the past. But when a person's behavior today is like their behavior yesteryear then you know that everything you over looked is still operational in your relationship. You've over looked a crime in progress. Yes, you are dealing with a career criminal. Both last straw events...the one with my mother and the one with my sister...were revelatory to me because of their sameness with past events.

Those of you who were tipped over into reality by a last straw event please know that it is perfectly okay that you reacted strongly to an event that others would tend to classify as trivial. It doesn't matter what they think. What matters is what you know. The fact that it took you this long to experience a "last straw" moment is a testament to your patience. Justice has been long averted because you've not been willing to seek it. If some event finally convinces you to allow the law of natural consequences to work then good. It needed to happen. The fact that you've put up with the malignant narcissist so long is proof they will never change. A million "do-overs" will not finally result in the malignant narcissist suddenly getting it right.

This all means if there is to be any change it has to start and end with you. You can't change their hearts or their behavior. You can change your behavior and start to implement changes in your circumstances. If your life is to be any different tomorrow than it was yesterday you will have to take control of it.

Those of us who've experienced last straw moments are greatly blessed. Blessed to finally have the moral certitude and resolution to not take their shit anymore. Blessed to finally be able to escape the crooked reality of the narcissist.

"The straw that breaks the camel's back" is the saying. Remember, the term "last straw" itself makes it clear that the event wasn't a big one. A straw is insignificant itself. In the camel's case, that last straw became extremely significant because its tiny weight was added to the tiny weight of millions of other straws. The "last straw" is significant because of its sameness piled on with a million of its kind. Keep that in mind the next time someone tries to trivialize your finally reaching your limit after a "last straw" moment. It isn't the bigness of the event, it is the sameness. We all have our limits.

Stockholm Syndrome and You

Using the four criteria to determine if a person is experiencing Stockholm syndrome, Sara Lambert shows how chronically abused children are demonstrably victims of this syndrome. In "Captivity & The Stockholm Syndrome" the author describes the environment the child lives in who is experiencing ongoing abuse.

I have been convinced for a while now that many adult children of narcissists show signs that they are operating from a Stockholm syndrome perspective. The article is careful to state that:

It is important to emphasize here that nothing about the Stockholm Syndrome suggests the captive does anything wrong or abnormal. The situation is driven entirely by the abusive captor and responsibility for it, and for the captive's responses, lies directly with him.

I completely agree with this statement. This syndrome is a survival technique; it is a quite effective one at that. But in order to live a healthy adult life one has to recognize if their behaviors are still operating from the mindset of a captive so they can break what are now destructive habits and thought processes. What helped you survive as a child in an abusive environment will be largely detrimental if those same adaptive techniques are applied in different context.

One of the criteria of Stockholm syndrome is that the abuser seems to show some kindness occasionally:

This is probably one of the most confusing and damaging aspects to living with an abuser that survivors report. What can a child make of a father who cruelly sexually abuses her at night but, the next morning, makes her favorite breakfast? She is left with a mix-up between cruelty and kindness, love and hate, which her undeveloped brain can not unravel, and so which may be with her far into her adult life.

I want to focus on this particular statement because this is what I most often observe in adult children of narcissists--they are confused and not sure if their parent is an evil abusive narcissist because they can remember times when their abuser was kind. There are happy memories here and there which the individual thinks are indications that their abuser is just a bit misguided at times, or has "anger management" issues, that if brought under control then the wonderful and loving person hiding in their abusive parent would be able to come out.

...which may be with her far into her adult life

Indeed. Does this describe you? How confused are you by happy memories with your abusive parent?

I have stressed in various posts on this blog that an occasional good deed doesn't weigh against a systematic and chronic series of abuses. It is very common for chronically abused individuals to try to put the fault on themselves when their parent continues to display abusive behaviors. Even though the adult has likely escaped from day to day control by their abusive parent, they often act as though they don't have control over their own lives. They often will abdicate their own desires and needs if those desires and needs contradict what they know their abusive parent would want. You have to make a decisive effort in order to break the psychological control your abusive and narcissistic parent instilled in you when you were their captive.

One component of the Stockholm syndrome is the belief that your abuser will kill you if you don't comply. This may throw some of you off if you don't recognize that it is possible to believe your abuser has power to kill you even if they didn't overtly tell you or show you that intent. My own mother did issue a direct death threat to me when I was around six years of age, but I remember having the feeling from a much younger age that my mother was life to me. A child is not insensible to their dependence on their parent(s). They are very aware that they depend on their parents for life itself. A child can be very young (as young as three) and have clear thoughts that if something happened to their parent they themselves would die. So, even without overt death threats, a child is very aware that their life is one that completely depends on the adult(s) in her life to feed her, clothe her and protect her. When a parent shows disapproval by emotional or physical withdrawal a child can feel like life itself is endangered. A child will often comply with any request of a parent who uses this cruel method to get compliance from the child. Parental withdrawal feels like a death threat from the child's perspective.

I hope you will read the linked article and carefully assess whether or not you experienced Stockholm syndrome as a child. If so, then ask yourself how much your behaviors today are still dictated by this dynamic with your abuser.

While it is hugely distressing for a survivor to realize that, as a child, she was so trapped, helpless, and manipulated, on the other hand this realization provides her with the freedom to put that past behind her and understand she now has control over herself and her life, and she does not have to remain hostage to her abuser any more.

That last statement is the intent and purpose of my blog. Whether or not you feel like it is true, you do have the freedom to make new choices. Choices which will free you to assert control over your own life. Freedom to break off from your abuser without any longer having to put their feelings and "needs" ahead of your own.

Life is way too precious and far too short to continue to live in the slavery your parent subjected you to as a child. Now is the time to sever the identification with your abuser which keeps you looking at your world through the abuser's eyes. As long as you continue to operate from the Stockholm syndrome you are prevented from living your life as an autonomous and mature adult. You will find yourself trapped in an infantile state which believes that your good feelings about yourself can only come from the approving glance of your narcissistic parent. Today is a good day to set your feet on the path of autonomy and wave good-bye to emotional dependence
on your abuser. They are not looking out for your best interests. They expect you to look out for theirs. This dynamic will never stop unless you stop participating in it.

There is nothing that justifies what they've done, so stop justifying it and start living.

TIME Article Gets It

I applaud the author of this article, "It's All About Him". He sees the connection between so many of the high profile murderers of our day--their narcissism. The article came out in the wake of the Cho murder spree.

Here are a couple quotes from the article. I recommend reading the full article as it isn't long but is succinctly insightful.

I've lost interest in the cracks, chips, holes and broken places in the lives of men like Cho Seung-Hui, the mass murderer of Virginia Tech. The pain, grievances and self-pity of mass killers are only symptoms of the real explanation. Those who do these things share one common trait. They are raging narcissists.

The flamboyant nature of these crimes is like a neon sign pointing to the truth. Charles Whitman playing God in his Texas clock tower, James Huberty spraying lead in a California restaurant, Harris and Klebold in their theatrical trench coats--they're all stars in the cinema of their self-absorbed minds.

A Private Sadistic Moment with My Mother

Torienne's comments on the private sadism of narcissists brought a particular event to my recall. It didn't happen to me personally. As my mother gets older her ability to hide her malignancy diminishes. This event happened a few years ago.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, my mother began grooming my female cousin "Lee" to take my place as a daughter, of sorts. This began in the late 90's. In 2002 I finally was able to figure out that my cousin was under my mother's tyranny, and I did all in my power to help her extricate herself. Successfully, by the way.

My cousin has two sons. One of the reasons my mother was able to get a handle on my cousin's life was because Lee was having problems as a single mother raising her two boys. My mother, who constantly advertises herself as having all the answers in raising kids, presented herself to my cousin as her last and best hope. My mother ran a bit of a "boot camp" at her home whenever she decided my cousin's boys needed to be tormented into better behavior. After Lee had finally gotten her boys and herself out of my mother's hell, her younger son shared an revealing moment with my mother.

He was in trouble with my mother. For what? Who knows at this point. He can't remember. (Which was often true for me as a kid. I would forget what the hell I had done wrong because of the disproportionate punishment which obliterated one's memory of the original offense. When a kid has done a real wrong and receives proper discipline, then they will not forget what they did wrong. They'll actually learn something from the lesson.) His age, around eleven or twelve. She brought him up to her bedroom for the obligatory lecture and then an ass-whooping . What happened next is what I found extremely interesting because it was a short moment where the mask slipped down to reveal the monster. After she finished pounding on him, she smiled a smug little smile and said in a low voice with special emphasis, "That felt good. It's been a long time since I've gotten to do that." If you say those two sentences with a post-orgasmic kind of breathy voice, you'll get the tone of how she said it.

The sadistic bitch. I had long suspected she loved it when she could pound on the asses of young kids, including mine. Finally, I had proof through the witness of my young cousin.

When told this story, I knew exactly why she let the mask slip in that moment too. She had zero accountability. There was no one who was going to come to her and demand an explanation for her admission to sadism. No one. She'd made sure to crap all over my cousin's youngest son's image. My mother absolutely despised him and therefore made sure that any other adult who might hold her behavior toward this boy to some account knew what she "knew" about his bad character.

After I became aware of my mother's dealings with Lee and her boys it became very obvious why my mother hated Lee's youngest son. My mother was unable to find a way to terrorize him into fear and submission. When this happens it actually scares my mother. She is freaked out when she can't find a way to control someone. She is left to conclude they are "evil" and will systematically label them as such to anyone in their sphere in an attempt to isolate them. She hopes the isolation will bring them around to letting her control them. If that doesn't work, they find themselves ostracized by others and she is protected from anything they may reveal about her. It is a win-win for her.

So this young boy was by this time labeled by my mother as "bad seed". Lee didn't believe this about her son, but she was still under the spell of my mother and was depending on my mother's "expertise" to help her deal with her boys. So her son didn't share this particular moment with his mother at the time it happened because he understandably assumed it wouldn't have done any good; after all, it was his mother who relinquished him to my mother's discipline. The only other adult that could possibly hold my mother to account would have been my father. My father would hold no opinion other than the one his wife told him to have about Lee and her boys. Therefore, my mother knew there was no chance he would intervene. This explains my mother's freeness to openly revel in physical violence against a child to his face.

I can't express the level of satisfaction I get when I think how I was able to have a direct hand in depriving my mother of her whipping boy. That sense of satisfaction is accompanied by a revulsion at her vileness. All the years she tormented small children willingly placed into her care by other mothers. All the years I endured the private torture of her sadistic ways.

I just pray she isn't so evil that hell itself will spit her out.