Jesse Pomeroy: A Stark Illustration of Lack of Introspection

I just finished reading the book Fiend by Harold Schechter. It is the true story of the crimes and conviction of America's youngest serial killer, Jesse Pomeroy. He was a full blown narcissistic psychopath lust killer by the tender age of 14. Of course, these terms didn't exist back in 1874. He became known as the "boy fiend" thanks to the tabloid journalism of that era.

What I want to bring to your attention is the striking illustration Pomeroy presents of my last post. The absolute lack of introspection. This lack is highlighted all the more by the nearly incomprehensible length of his confinement in solitary. Forty-one years -- the second longest in U.S. penal history. The severity of his confinement was most pronounced in the first decade when he was confined to a very small, mostly dark cell. Here is a quote from page 263 of the book:

Clinical studies have proven that prisoners subjected to even relatively short periods in solitary confinement commonly begin to show severe psychopathological symptoms, ranging from hallucinations to panic attacks to paranoid delusions. More protracted stints can drive a man to madness.

So the question is: was Jesse Pomeroy already "mad" and therefore had no sanity to lose? Or was he in possession of an "indomitable spirit" as he was credited to having by James R. Wood, a onetime Boston police detective who had played a key role in Jesse's arrest half a century previous to Mr. Wood's statement about Jesse's spirit?

I will back up that half century to Jesse's conviction in 1874. The boy was examined in prison by several psychologists, called back then "alienists". Here is an excerpt from the observations of one of these psychologists named Tyler. He first observed that Jesse was physically and intellectually average.

By contrast, his 'moral sensibility' was strikingly aberrant. Though able to discriminate between right and wrong when presented with various hypothetical cases, Jesse was absolutely 'obtuse' when it came to his own crimes. "He evinces no pity for the boys tortured or for the victims of his homicide," Tyler writes, "and no remorse or sorrow for his acts." Moreover, his wildly "contradictory statements" -- his detailed "account of killing the children and subsequent denial of any agency therein" -- were the sign of a deeply duplicitous nature. Fiend, page 162

Even though it was apparent by examining Jesse, as well as how he conducted his crimes, that Jesse was not insane, his defense team knew all they had was to try to convince a jury that Jesse was indeed insane. The all-male jury couldn't quite go there with the defense and so they convicted Jesse of first degree murder. It was not the place for the jury to recommend a sentence but they attached a note to the verdict requesting Jesse not be executed for his crime due to his young age. Jesse was given a sentence of death as the law required, but the governor of Massachusetts was under a lot of pressure to reduce the sentence. After much wrangling, and the election of a new governor, Jesse's sentence was reduced to life in solitary confinement. Some argued that was more cruel than the death sentence.

Now, more to my point of observation. Jesse spent his entire time in prison working tirelessly and patiently to escape. He was able to fashion tools like chisels, knives, picks, etc. from prying pieces of metal off of various objects or finding innocuous objects in the yard on this rare exercise romps. His mechanical bent of mind enabled him to come up with some ingenious improvisations. His prison records reveal that he was disciplined for escape attempts every year, sometimes several times a year. What becomes evident when reading the account of his prison activities is that his every power of mind was focused on one thing: escaping. When he wasn't trying to dig, scrape or bomb his way out of his cell, or making tools to facilitate escape, he worked diligently on another form of possible escape: the law. He became a quasi-lawyerly prisoner as he consumed hours in reading law books and persecuting the courthouse with his endless stream of requests for documents and demands for attention to his case. One of the benefits he received from his repeated escape attempts was that it kept him in the limelight. He reveled in the attention he received from the press each time he was caught trying to escape. He loved to brag about each attempt as he would describe how he did it.

What becomes very evident is that Jesse not only didn't go insane while confined in solitary for 41 years, he thrived. He was able to avoid any opportunity for introspection even though he only had himself for company for over four decades!! This is a profound illustration of how it is possible to avoid introspection even when sent away from human contact for an interminable length of time. He focused every shred of his mental energy on escape. It is also how he determinedly persisted in his belief that his cause was just. He was unjustly incarcerated and therefore it was his right to try to escape. His constant focus on escape was how he escaped introspection.

It should be noted here as evidence of Jesse actually thriving in solitary was that when his sentence was eventually reduced to just life in prison Jesse refused to leave his solitary cell for three months! He knew he would not have some of the amenities in the general population that he had in his solitary cell like being able to control the heat, having all the room he needed for his rather large personal library, as well as not having to work. All prisoners were required to work, but Jesse had avoided that while in solitary. He was absolutely lazy. He was able to get out of work after being released into 'gen pop' because the jailers didn't want to have to constantly punish him and receive bad press for being crueler to Jesse now than when in his solitary cell.

Obviously, Jesse was a psychopath. A malignant narcissist is likely not a psychopath, but all psychopaths are malignant narcissists so there are behaviors and thought patterns that are identical with both malignant narcissists and psychopaths. The refusal to introspect is one of them. I drew your attention to Diane Downs in my last post because she has managed to avoid introspection for 25 years as testified to by those who have examined her state of mind. Jesse Pomeroy shows us that Diane will not be any the wiser once she gets to forty plus years of incarceration. Neither will the malignant narcissist in your life. You cannot exile them from your life for any length of time with the expectation that they may have possibly come to a place of recognition of what and who they are and what their crimes have been. There is no exhausting their ability to justify themselves and their resolute ability to avoid any inward look at the evil within.

Jesse Pomeroy was an extreme case of isolation. When he got to the other end of his life (he died in prison at age 73 = 59 years in prison total) he was utterly unchanged. He was as narcissistic and mentally immature as he was at age 14. He was intelligent, but forever immature. He consumed all 8,000 plus books in the prison library and read many of them several times. He wasn't a mental deficient. He certainly wasn't insane. He was forever a case of arrested development emotionally as is true of all malignant narcissists. They never grow up past age six emotionally no matter what intellectual accomplishments they may boast of in adulthood.

Don't assume the malignant narcissist in your life is not as extreme as Jesse was in terms of the absolute and profound lack of any introspection. In this regard, Jesse was the norm and not the exception for malignant narcissists. Simply by virtue of the fact that he ended up incarcerated for so long we have been given a clear picture of just how resolute the malignant narcissist really is in their refusal to admit to what they are.

You've exiled the malignant narcissist. Make sure it is until death. There is not enough reason to nurture any hope of their reformation. To do so will only place your well-being at risk yet again. Malignant narcissists should all be put into solitary confinement. The next best thing is you putting them into solitary of sorts i.e. going 'no contact' with them. At this point, there is no salvation for the narcissist that you can bring about. Your only hope lies in your own salvation. Lock up the narcissist and throw away the key. They will be just fine without you. There is no confinement that will permeate the walls they've thrown up around their consciences. No prison sentence you invoke will reach their inner life. You are not hurting the narcissist with 'no contact', you are saving your own sanity and the well-being of yourself and those you love. 'No contact' is not punishment. It is not vengeance. It is confinement. A cage you put the dangerous beast in to limit his ability to cause further harm.

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Humility or Humiliation?

The story of the life and times of the Earl of Essex continued to roll around in my mind after my last post.

The Earl had made an absolute ass of himself, to say the least. It was finally time to pay up for some of his self-aggrandizing decisions which had compromised the best interests of England. He had followed those decisions with overt and unequivocal treason. He was in a pickle which objectively could not be blamed on anyone but himself. It was time for some good old-fashioned humility. Prior to his treasonous plottings, humility was all the Queen would require of him. The court looked on with some astonishment at Essex's haughtiness in the face of his exposure. Now, convicted of treason, humility was what the Counsel was expecting from him.

"[Essex] asked for mercy for Southampton [a co-conspirator], but said he would not 'fawningly beg' for it for himself, and, looking at the peers, added, 'Although you have condemned me in a court of judgement, yet in the court of your conscience, ye would absolve me, who have intended no harm against the prince.' " The Life of Elizabeth I, pg. 464, emphasis added.

Notice his appeal to his pure intentions. Even though there were other co-conspirators who confessed the plotters were willing to even shed the blood of the Queen to place Essex on the throne, Essex would appeal to the purity of his motives. It was a lie. He was playing the martyr.

"The condemned were generally expected to express humble submission, and Essex's speech was reckoned by many of those present to be unfittingly arrogant for one on the brink of Divine Judgement, and whose guilt was so manifest...

...Many people at court believed that, if Essex begged the Queen for mercy, she would spare his life, but Essex remained true to his word and proudly refrained from making any 'cringing submission'. Despite the efforts of the Dean of Norwich, who had been sent to him by the Council, he would not acknowledge his guilt." Ibid. pg. 465

Ah, yes, a life of arrogance and pride and haughty refusal to ever submit to authority had rendered Essex incapable of humility when it could have possibly saved his life. Which leads me to one of life's axioms...

We either voluntarily humble ourselves or life will humiliate you. Sooner or later. We get to choose. Humility or humiliation.

When we make mistakes, when we hurt someone, when we sin, we face a choice. The decent person will take ownership of what he has done. He will not try to lessen his guilt by spreading the blame or offering up excuses. He volunteers to humble himself. Decent people will not savage the humbled. It appeals to their sense of mercy and compassion. We tend to think more highly of a person who will display some true and appropriate humility.

Narcissists don't get this. They despise the humble, therefore they will not assume humility when the circumstances demand they should. They then rail against the humiliation they must suffer at the hands of ingrates and idiots. In refusing humility they have earned humiliation.

The humble can't be humiliated. They are not invested in protecting an image. They are not craving the adulation of the masses. They are not looking for recognition. They don't strive to lay claim to being the smartest, the most beautiful, the most talented, the supreme pinnacle of mankind. How can you humiliate a truly humble man? Even if you strip him of his reputation, his livelihood, his clothing...he has his integrity. He knows who he really is; he can not be shamed. He can still walk with his shoulders squared and look you steadily in the eye. Humility doesn't mean beaten down. It means taking a proper assessment of oneself and recognizing your limitations. It is being real with yourself and the world. A humble man has dignity. The narcissist thinks humility is humiliation. The two concepts are not the same. We would do well to know the difference.

The narcissist is an accomplished shame deflector. Because of this he is mostly insensible to the humiliation he does eventually earn. We marvel at his imbecility. We wonder what it is like to be so exposed and yet have no ability to behave as if his sins have been laid bare. We call it madness. It is not. It is supreme arrogant pride. The only avenue to avoid the humiliation that finally catches up with him was closed off long, long ago. His absolute refusal to humble himself leaves him open to the ridicule and disgust of the decent. In the end. Someday.

Humility or humiliation. It is a choice we each get to make.

A man's pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.
Proverbs 29:23 KJV

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
Philippians 2:3

Narcissists Don't End Well

Unlike what I hear about a good wine, narcissists do not age well. This is being emphasized again for me as I finish reading Alison Weir's book, "The Life of Elizabeth I".

In the latter years of her reign Elizabeth's tumultuous relationship with the Earl of Essex is laid out detail by detail in Weir's book. Essex was a young cousin of the monarch through Anne Boleyn and the step-son of the Earl of Leicester. For those who know anything about Elizabeth I you know that the Earl of Leicester was very dear to Elizabeth from before she ascended the throne until his death many years later by age and disease. There were ups and downs all throughout her relationship with the Earl of Leicester but his love and loyalty for her was supreme and unfailing despite the many falling outs he experienced with her favor.

Not so the Earl of Essex. Ambitious but lazy, aspiring to military reknown but a failure on the field, good at the courtly language of "love-making" but a decided misogynist, he rose quickly in the queen's favor in his youth due to his familial connection to Elizabeth as well as the recommendation of the Earl of Leicester. It quickly becomes evident that the young Earl of Essex perceives the queen as only the means to his ends while her affection for him was genuine.

Reading this history of Essex you see a profile of a classic malignant narcissist. Weir's very detailed and painstaking research fully exposes the base character of an evil man who, thankfully, ended badly. No, Weir doesn't describe Essex as evil. His deeds alone prove that point.

I railed in my mind against the queen's indulgence of this man as I read the book. Her patience and forgiveness seemed inexhaustible. Essex's character become more and more entrenched and dedicated to his own agenda with every granting of royal favor given him. His life was a study of a force of nature wreaking havoc and destruction in his path. He used slander and insinuations to destroy all those he perceived as his enemies. He stole the valor of others to use as his own. He was petulant and ceaselessly demanding of the queen; frequently forgetting his "place" he would treat her like an equal or even his lesser.

Finally, as the result of his own incessant demands and against the better judgment of the queen, Essex is allowed to go to Ireland to attempt to defeat Tyrone. The largest army of Elizabeth's reign was given him. The end result was a completely botched military expedition. Essex repeatedly defied all commands he was given, refused to confront Tyrone, frittered away a fortune in funds, watched his army desert and die by disease in huge numbers, and finally he deserted his own command.

You then get to see the final descent into madness through this narcissistic injury inflicted by his own abysmal failures and absolute refusal to ever take wise advice from anyone. He becomes magnified in all his character flaws. He becomes paranoid. He starts to lose his grip on reality. Objective witnesses describe him at this time as being "mad". In the swirling, churning maelstrom of his delusions of grandeur he makes one last plot which includes over-throwing the queen. By blood shed if necessary.

The "Essex Rebellion" was not his first hand-shake with treason. As he was finally being forced to actually use his army in Ireland he entered into treasonous treaty with Tyrone. Word had filtered back to the queen of Essex's attempt to save his own image as a military leader by selling out his duty to his country. He was finally exposed to the mind of the queen as the base character he was. Finally, she let herself believe the truth about him. Finally, she decided to deal firmly and without the usual mercy he was accustomed to receiving from her.

Her firm actions against Essex were meant to humble him. She did not have it out to shed his blood. She was not even pursuing getting him for treason. She just wanted to finally force him to own his crap and, for once, display some appropriate contrition and true humility. It was in the wake of a series of her decisions which ran against Essex's financial means of support and her absolute refusal to answer his non-apology letters or to see him in person which finally exposed the fullness of his malignancy.

The Essex Rebellion was born.

What I was gratified to see was how fully exposed he finally was to the mind of the queen. At this time she was near the end of her very lengthy reign. Elizabeth was an extremely merciful ruler. She hated blood shed. She had often throughout her reign refused to sign death warrants when she should have to protect her reign and her country. Mary Queen of Scots being a prime example of that. There were others throughout the years who had fully earned the condemnation of the law and the block. Her hand would tremble and refuse to sign the warrant. They would live. If she was finally forced to sign someone's death warrant it would greatly affect her. First, she would stall for months, even years. She would usually stay in her apartments the day of the execution and sometimes longer because it affected her deeply. She was very sparing with the death penalty all throughout her reign.

It was very different with Essex. This was the first time she was handed the death warrant after the trial and, without her usual equivocation, she with firm hand signed the document. For all her faults, Elizabeth was a woman of principle. Obviously, she had unequivocal evidence to her mind that his man was unredeemable and a constant threat to the health of her realm and her own life. In the many years previous her affection for Essex was real and deep. Her indulgence of him was because of her affection. He chose to see her affection as her weakness. Her discipline of him when he grossly stepped out of line was just her way of helping him maneuver back into her favor. What I am trying to emphasize is that it was a testimony to the rottenness of his character that even the merciful and indulgent queen was eventually forced to cut this malignant narcissist forever out of her life...out of her realm.

The final letters and speeches of the Earl were interesting to read. He would appear to be fully contrite and humbled only in the next sentence, or the next speech, to excuse himself by trying to implicate as many others as he could. Spreading blame he would try to minimize his own blame even while pretending to take all the blame. Such classic N behavior.

It took three blows for the ax to completely sever his head from his body, though Ms. Weir says it was likely the first blow which killed him because he body didn't move after that first blow. Can't tell you how much relief I felt to see a dangerous and malignant narcissist get what he deserved in the end. They don't usually meet such satisfying ends except in the movies.

Essex is yet another illustration that the narcissist doesn't improve with age. The success of their early schemes, the repeated indulgences of those around them, and the persistence of the narcissist's grandiosity delusions results in the hardening off of the character. There is no hope of reform for the aged narcissist.

We form our own characters by the choices we make. The older we are, the more choices we've made. The preponderance of those choices will tip the scale one direction or the other. Either we become more mature, wise and good...or we become a study in the entropy of evil. When the malignant narcissist shows their tender underbelly in an often convincing act of subservience and humility it is only to buy them another day to stab you in the back. The narcissist does not change. When the narcissist suddenly seems to change, to mellow, to back off, you believe the ruse at your own risk. They don't change. They lay in wait.

We can't send our narcissists to the scaffold, but we can cut them off. They are a constant threat to the peace and safety of your realm. If you won't let yourself know that you are in perpetual danger. All that you value and love in this world is in danger. Let yourself know this truth sooner rather than later.

Narcissist Grandparents

I've expressed one of my greatest regrets in a couple places on my blog. I will reiterate it here: my greatest regret in life (and I have some doozies, but this one easily wins first place) is that I allowed my mother access to my daughter when she was young.

The comments on the last post asked for my opinion on how to explain to children why you are cutting the narcissistic grandparent out of their lives. Before I get to that, I want to deal with the moral necessity of protecting one's children from a known danger. What I have marveled at in myself and in others is that we have endured so much pain, both physical and emotional, inflicted by our narcissist parent and, yet, we somehow see our way clear to allow our abuser access to our own young. The disconnect in our thinking is rather breath taking when approached rationally without making mental exceptions for the familial connection.

Here are the facts of life: the malignant narcissist is still a malignant narcissist even after you give birth. The fundamental nature of your malignantly narcissistic parent is the same as it was when you were a child. (If not worse.) Due to no reason other than the fact that you brought a child into the world, your narcissist parent is now a narcissist grandparent. Your bringing new life into the world did not fundamentally change your abusive parent into a loving family member. But adult children of narcissists (ACONs) seem to show a natural affinity for believing in this work of fiction. We have always wanted our parent to be loving to us, and now we want our parent to be a loving grandparent. What we want and what we end up with are two very different things. Where we usually get tripped up is our failure to recognize the adaptability of the narcissist to changing circumstances.

It is highly unlikely that your NPD parent will interact with your children in exactly the same way they did with you. At least, not in your presence. They have adapted their methods to the new situation of you having a family of your own. They know they don't have the same power and control they used to so they usually switch to sneakier methodologies. Which allows you to think that they have changed from what they were when you were growing up. From my personal experience, and from observing the experiences of others, the NPD grandparent will use their grandchildren in the same way they would use an inanimate tool. Without regard for the humanity of your child, that child becomes a tool in the hand of your NPD parent to hurt you. This will always result in moral and/or emotional harm being done to your child as well.

The actual mechanics of how the NPD grandparent will misuse their relationship to their grandchildren will vary. Generally, they will either over-value or under-value the grandchild as a means to get to you. Often, when they over-value, it is the objective of the Ngrandparent to steal the child from you. I mean that in both senses, physically and emotionally. Ngrandparents are known for so much trash-talking against you behind your back to your own child or children that they want to go live with grandma or grandpa, or the Ngrandparents simply inspire rebellion of the child against you. They steal the hearts of the grandchildren. Sometimes, they will battle for physical custody of a grandchild after their slander campaign against you has won them powerful allies. Many times the Ngrandparent has a lot of extra cash to throw around since they are done raising a family. They may successfully exploit the natural selfishness of the child by using cash or toys to lure them. I have read heart-breaking stories of these kinds of situations often enough that I recognize the clear danger any narcissist grandparent represents. They can even steal your children's hearts from you when the children near adulthood with promises of money, houses, cars, college tuition, etc. as bait.

It is imperative to let yourself know that, without profound evidence to the contrary, your narcissist parent is a narcissist still. You must let yourself know for a fact that your Nparent can not be trusted with your most precious responsibility, your children. If you allow contact between your children and your Nparent it must never be out of sight. Never for a moment leave your child alone with this serial abuser. They only need a few moments of alone time to inflict damage. A whisper, an insinuation, a pinch, a look. If you consider yourself a responsible parent you will never, ever leave your child alone with your Nparent. Ever.

So you've made the decision that cutting off contact with your Nparent is a necessity and now you're dealing with questions from your children, or you're anticipating questions. First of all, let us establish another fact. You are the parent. You get to make these decisions without apology or excessive justification. You can assure your child that you are making a wise and loving decision for them as well as yourself. I am not going to script what you should say because you are the only one who knows your children, but you must convey that this isn't up for negotiation. This is not a decision that the child gets to make. Yes, children usually love their grandparents. Children are often quite indiscriminate in their love which is why they need parents to guide them. Not every person is safe to have around and this is a good time to teach that important life lesson. The more matter-of-fact you are, the more matter-of-fact your children will be. When we act hysterical, they will usually reflect our hysteria. If you act anxious, they will act anxious. If you appear unsure, they will push. Model the reaction and attitude you want your children to adopt.

If you have another set of grandparents in the picture then focus on them. It is rare that both sets of grandparents are nasty. Emphasize to your children how much we enjoy being around grandma and grandpa so-and-so (the decent and loving grandparents). Cultivate your children's relationship with the decent, loving grandparents. Teach your children to be grateful for the decent, loving grandparents. Gratitude is a highly effective antidote to loss. Focus them on what they have, not what they don't have. Model that attitude of gratitude.

You will find that the children will eventually stop mentioning the loss of the narcissist grandparent if you are not bringing it up. If you are talking about your Nparent in the hearing of your children then you are inviting them to keep talking about it, too. I can not over-emphasize the need for your explanation to a younger child to be calm, pragmatic, measured and short. Long explanations make you look defensive which will tend to peak the interest of the child and prompt him to push the issue. You can gauge what is appropriate information depending on the age of the child. If the child is older and has experienced or witnessed the Ngrandparent's nastiness in action then you can say more.

Young children are not known for their long attention spans. This works in your favor. With younger children you have the advantage of distraction. It is easy enough to get the child's mind off onto another track. Every parent has done the distraction routine at one time or another. "Mommy, I want to see NastyGram today!" "Honey, we aren't going to see NastyGram today because we get to go to the park and eat ice cream." (Make up fun time on the spot if necessary for this distraction.) "Yay!!" sez the kid and off we go. Subject changed, kid distracted. In time, NastyGram will fade from memory. Any bonding that may have occurred will dissipate in the process of time.

Remember, you are the parent. You're older and therefore more experienced which is the point of being the parent. The child is dependent on your good sense and protective wisdom. You're smarter than your child; use that to your advantage (such as using the distraction method). You are the final authority. This is not a negotiable issue. Kidlet doesn't get to decide on this one because they lack the understanding, wisdom, experience and good sense that, hopefully, you have. So don't look like you're unsure or open to quibble. You'll undermine yourself if you look anything but firm and resolved on it. Use your advantages as parent to smooth the effects of the cut-off. Over time this will all quiet down. Kids tend to accept what is. It will happen more quickly if you follow the above advice.

Most of all, do not operate from a fearful mindset. Don't be afraid of your children's possible, or actual, reactions. Don't be afraid that you are depriving them of something important by cutting off a set of grandparents. You are only "depriving" them of bad things. Reassure yourself with that truth. Family is not everything. Blood is not binding. You are escaping the Mob Family. What should connect us is how we treat each other with love and respect. This is always a good lesson to teach our little ones. If any part of you is unsure of your decision then, for Pete's sake, don't show it. Your resoluteness will go a long way toward reassuring your children that you are acting in everyone's best interest. If your children know that you love them, they are going to feel reassured that this decision is also based in your love for them. They will find an added sense of security to know that you, as their parent, are willing to protect them even at the cost of your relationship with your own parent(s). Rather than being fearful, see the plentiful opportunities in this. You are protecting your children from someone whom you've experienced as being abusive; you are reassuring your children that you are in charge and are watchful for their best interests (creates deep sense of security); you can teach healthy family values which include that family doesn't get a pass for abusive behavior; you can strengthen and reinforce the healthy relationships in your extended family. Kids are less likely to feel like there is a void in their life if you fill it with good things.

Cutting off from your narcissist parent is a good thing. No need to act otherwise. Your children will sense it is a good thing by how you behave. Model how you want them to respond and it is likely they will imitate. Don't be afraid of their questions. Kids are amazingly resilient and well-equipped to handle truth. Parents are supposed to protect their progeny. If your child doesn't agree with how you go about that don't worry. They will often disagree with your decisions for their best interests. Nothing new there. It is your job as parent to make the tough decisions. If you know it is the right decision then proceed with confidence. Showing confidence is a quality of leadership. As a parent you are supposed to be a leader. Lead...and they will likely follow.

I would like to invite readers to use the comment section on this post to describe their experiences with narcissistic grandparents. This will be highly instructive to those who are on the fence. People tend to get stuck at the point where they think they are depriving their children of their grandparents instead of seeing that they are insuring that their own narcissistic parents now have access to abuse the grandchildren. Because the abuse is usually hidden the damage is done before people catch on. I would like to save people from this experience if they are at all willing to listen to the experiences of others.

The Aging Narcissist

You can't hide your true colors as you approach the autumn of your life. ~Author Unknown

Growing old requires grace and courage. Aging is a series of insults that you have to take in stride else you become a distasteful burden to yourself and those around you.

Grace and courage are not attributes the narcissist possesses at any age so the lack of these virtues become all the more apparent as they grow old.

You don't have to live terribly long to observe that age highlights and underlines what you've been all your life. I have met delightful elderly people who are so lovely on the inside it makes their wrinkled faces a pleasure to look upon. I have met the others...those whose wrinkled characters are unfavorably enhanced by their craggy countenances. They become odious inside and out to the observer.

The final act on the stage of life seems to be a pulling back on the curtain of the soul. For some, age seems to have taken them by surprise. The series of choices that brought them to old age were not choices that ever anticipated this part of their life. They are bereft of any qualities that would make them capable of being content at the time of lessening that we call aging. The decrepitude of their character is fully exposed by the decrepitude of their bodies.

Narcissists do not age well. Whether they depended on their beauty or their intellect, they now find themselves unable to summon the charm or sophistication which enabled them to lure in their sources of supply. They are pathetic and lonely. Neither their bodies nor their minds are impressive in any sense. Withered and shrunken, their minds and bodies are now betraying them. They are daily confronted with the huge gap between what they fantasize themselves to be and what the mirror on the wall and the mirror on your face reflects back to them. The "grandiosity gap", the distance between the narcissist's grandiose vision of himself and reality, is now a yawning and unbridgeable chasm. Constantly angry and dysphoric the narcissist is a curmudgeon that most have abandoned.

It isn't your imagination that your narcissist parent is worsened with age. This is the normal and usual progression. What you are witnessing is a three year old trapped in an old man's or old woman's body. The temper tantrum that could pass for cute in a toddler is shockingly and monstrously detestable when performed by the aged. Old age has stripped away the cover that enabled her audience to un-know that an adult was acting like a pre-schooler. No beauty to distract us. No soaring heights of intellect to dazzle and confuse us into compliance. The emperor has no clothes. The sight of the "naked" narcissist almost makes you want to gouge your eyes out. Hideous.

The narcissist has been in a life-long battle to defy death. They pretended for years that death could be avoided by refusing to acknowledge its inevitability. I have been struck by the abject fear the narcissist shows when they are forced to contemplate their own mortality. Why is the narcissist so afraid of death? I think the answer is that they fear obliteration and Judgment Day. I think the extremely deprived conscience of the narcissist is never quite able to dismiss the idea that there may be a Day of Reckoning to meet in the hereafter. They would avoid that Day, not by actually making restitution for wrongs done, but by refusing to die. Some of the most tenacious clingers-on to life are narcissists.

Some elderly narcissists are so evil and nasty that families find that outside agencies will refuse to deal with them thus leaving the family with no options but to care for the wrinkled beast themselves. If you are dealing with an aged narcissist, you have my deepest sympathies. The enraged and elderly narcissist will find no respite until they are in their coffin. Neither will you.

A Terrible Thing to Waste

I've been feeling a bit burnt-out on the subject of narcissism of late. I get tired of thinking about these twisted monsters, but I never fail to check out what Kathy Krajco is saying on the subject since she always has excellent insights to share.

I'd like to direct you to her blog post on how the narcissist permanently damages his/her brain by their believing falsehoods and twisting logic.

I have observed and wondered if narcissist's bring on their own dementia in their twilight years by how they've misused their minds. My musings on this began about half a dozen years ago when I started paying attention to aging narcissists. Kathy has provided a profound argument that is logically cohesive and I think proves that, yes, you can mind-f*** your brain to oblivion.

Words and their importance

Words have meaning. They are conveyances of logic and the very basis of rational thinking. Without an agreed upon understanding of the definition of words there can be no cohesive society, there can be no framework to hang a civilization upon. Words are designed to communicate. They are to send unambiguious meaning from one person to another. Every social contract is defined by words. Those words must have a precise meaning not subject to individual interpretation for the words to have any force, authority or meaning. Words work best when used to transmit truth, reality, logic. Words are harder to employ to transmit feelings or abstractions. Yes, they can transmit these "hard to nail down" things, but it requires more effort and artistry. Even so, these efforts rely even more heavily on words containing precise definitions.

Enter: the narcissist. The narcissist's use of language is a study in perversion. To pervert something is to misuse it. To debase it. To "misconstrue or distort". If language is the medium of clear communication, and it is, then to pervert the use of language is to use it to fend off communication. To obscure. To fend off understanding. To avoid committing to an idea. To throw you off the truth and send you down a blind alley so the con-artist can avoid exposure. To transmit false realities...i.e. lie. The narcissist hates nothing more than to have you hold him to his words. He reserves the right to change meanings of words, to make claims of never saying those words, to twist up your thinking with shifting definitions of words. He uses language to his own ends. He destroys social contracts by not allowing himself to be held to anything he says. He is a language anarchist. He is the antithesis of civilization. He is a danger to every society he finds himself in be it a family, a work place or a nation.

By his misuse of language he perverts his own mind. Over time we see the narcissist losing track of reality. We see him slipping further and further from the moorings of objective truth by his life time of perversion of truth into lies. His thoughts, which are designed to be organized by language, become disorganized and non-cohesive because words long ago lost their meaning to him. The shifting sands of redefining reality by redefining words have greased his palms and left him with no grip on truth. We see the aging narcissist become trapped in his delusions with no ability to find his way back to truth because now his mind can not work properly. His perversion of language eventually perverted his thinking. He is adrift ...cut off from true society by his misuse of his mind and his misuse of the great conveyance of thoughts by the vehicle of language.

Beware of those who misuse language. Pay attention to the words people use and hold them to what they say even if you are holding them to their words in your own mind without confronting them. If they won't "own" the words they choose to use when you proceed on their words as if they meant what they said, then consider that a red flag if a pattern of this behavior develops. Words have meaning. Words are the foundation of our thoughts and the most important medium for a cohesive society. The meaning of "is" isn't shifting and elusive. Know for yourself what words mean and don't allow someone to pervert what they mean in your own mind. This will allow you to live in reality. This will make it hard for anyone to brainwash you into believing a false reality. Words have meaning. Stick to the meaning and you'll get through life with your rationality intact.