Living With Narcissism

Narziß Artist Francois Lemoyne 1728

Do you know a narcissist? Do you live with someone who has narcissistic personality disorder? If the answer is no, consider yourself blessed. If you're not sure what NPD looks like, this is the best resource I've ever read concerning this problem. I'm convinced that this is the underlying toxic stew that drives Mr. Larger Than Life. Of course, the overlying problem these days is his head injury and this makes him nearly impossible to deal with for more than a few moments at a time. Pre-injury behaviors (what we call premorbid behaviors) are often heightened after head injuries-making pre-injury days look like a walk in the park. Put him and Rachel together in the room and an accidental alcohol OD starts to look pretty good. Today was no different. Rachel wanted to watch cartoons, and MLTL wanted to watch sports on TV. There is one TV in this house. Guess who won?

This man wasn't in the door 2 seconds before he began to tell me how to put the 4 day old vegetables and spinach dip he bought into serving dishes. I don't know what possessed him to buy the vegetables 4 days ago, or what made him buy marinated vegetables to serve with a dip. He doesn't really think right. The dips, made of dairy products, were on the warm side, making me think they were out on the counter for hours before he came over. He also brought some kibbee which he'd had the restaurant make in a manner I've never witnessed in my 52 years of eating Arabic food. It was mixed with all kinds of vegetables and stunk to high heaven. I didn't even want to put it on the table. However, he had to be told a dozen times how wonderful it was. It isn't enough that he brought this dicey food, he NEEDS to be told countless times how wonderful it all is. I've never met anyone so insecure.

My husband, trying to clean out our garage and make it a safer household for four cognitively impaired women, put some paint cans in my father in law's garage until he could deal with disposing of them correctly. Since that day, MLTL has griped about them every 15 minutes. They don't belong in his garage, and even though they aren't in his way, he is not about to let them stay there for a minute longer than necessary. Today was no different. On several occasions throughout the afternoon, he mentioned the paint cans. He is incapable of seeing how busy we've been with this move or how we're trying to float these 2 homes right now. He only cares about the space 6 cans are taking up in his 3 car garage. Argh. It's so frustrating trying to please someone who can't be pleased. As of now, I've given up trying.

Years ago, about a year or two after we got married, I made a mild joke about the men in that family being babies. Oh my God, you'd have thought I'd called him an axe murderer. He went on and on for about an hour about this benign little comment. I was chastised up and down for that little slip of the tongue and never repeated my faux pas. It had become clear that MLTL had no sense of humor. None. In the 24 years I've known my husband, I've never once seen or heard his father laugh. It's sad really, but that's the way it is.

Experts suspect NPD has roots in childhood and people with this type of personality disorder may have been abused or neglected. From what I know of his early childhood history, this is true for him, but he doesn't perceive or recognize the abuse. In his perfect world, his deceased parents have been elevated to sainthood. I find it interesting, but only from a distance. If confinement for anything more than a few hours occurs, I find myself overwhelmed. I can only please so many people at one time and Lord knows, there's a limit to how much wine I can consume.

Other than that, dinner was great. Here's hoping you had less eventful holiday meals. Next year, I'm making reservations.

Who Could It Be Now?

The Universe is conspiring against me today.  First, Rachel only had a half day at school.  While I'm busy trying to get things done around here, I'm chasing her around the kitchen in circles.  The phone keeps ringing too, and I'm close to turning the ringer off.  The county wants to send a nurse over here to evaluate my daughter.  Her only openings are Monday through Friday at 4PM.  I can't tell you how many times I told this non-listener that I start work at 4PM and her appointment times are not convenient to my schedule.  I tell her I'm off all day Monday and Tuesday next week, and she tells me she's too busy to come out on those particular days.  I have pleasing fatigue.  I'm tired of trying to make everyone else happy.  Now, since we've known this day has been coming for months, why am I only now hearing from a very important nurse about her very important job and her very inflexible schedule?  I'm trying very hard to roll with the punches here, but why do people think I should be the one to do all the bending?  It's my damned house I'm giving over to the greater good of 4 young women.  Why can't these people try to work with me with just a tad bit more flexibility?

Just as things finally settled down,  and I sat down to knit another row started to get another box packed, I heard a car blasting the horn in the drive-two toots every 15 seconds.  This went on for 4 minutes.  Just as he was pulling away to go find someone else to torture with noise, I snapped a shot of the culprit.  Silver Lincoln.  Could it be? Yes, it's  Mr. Larger Than Life in the wild.  I wonder, and I know that's a waste of time, why he can't come to the door like every other human on the face of the earth.  I will not respond when I'm summoned in this imperious manner.

Last week, he did come to visit and brought 2 stale donuts and some ice cold coffee.  I was told by those in the know, that the coffee and donuts were meant for someone else he tried to visit.  I was his second choice when they weren't at home.  Nobody is fooling me.  I bet they were home and like me, were just refusing to answer the horn.  Let me just say, if there is not suitable fawning over the extremely kind gesture of cold coffee and stale donuts, MLTL's feelings get hurt.  There will be retribution for my failure to acknowledge him having gone out of his way to bring this to me-never mind that I was his second choice, and the real reason he brought it is he can't bear to throw something like this away.  God only knows what he wanted today, but I wasn't going to risk finding out.  

The Crazy Man Always Rings Twice

For days, the news stations have been warning us of an epic snowstorm that will start after midnight on Wednesday morning. Tonight, they altered their forecasts to say there will be a coating to an inch or two of snow, surely not the life altering blizzard they warned about. Even so, I'm sure Mr. Larger Than Life has his knickers in a knot over this one.

Saturday, after a half inch snowfall, he called to tell me our snow blower was at his house and he wanted to know if we needed it. It was 8:05 AM. Well actually, he thought he was talking to my husband, and I just played along. I swear, I have a girlie voice, but that's beside the point. I told him we didn't need the snow blower for such a small amount, and by the time we get out of bed, the snow will melt. He was very insistent, wanting to know what my son was doing. Uh, sleeping. I'm not dumb, I knew exactly what he wanted: someone to clean his drive. He can't come right out and say so though, it must always be masked as something beneficial to us. By the time we got going on Saturday, he'd already cleaned his own drive, and then called everyone he knew to let them know we didn't do it for him. When the boys saw him, they were regaled with stories of how much he was sweating while shoveling. As predicted, the snow melted on its own by late morning, and no shoveling was required at our own house.

As obsessed as this man is about leaves, he's ten times worse when it snows. He gets very upset if there is even one flake left on his drive. He used to call when he was out of town and thought it may have snowed at home. He needed to be sure his drive was cleared. As with leaves, there are special implements to use for different areas of the drive and the chore provider must be ever vigilant to adhere to the rules. There is a certain shovel that will tear up the carpet he applied to the front porch. I know that begs the question of why someone would carpet a 6 x 4 foot area, but that's neither here, nor there. That was very expensive outdoor carpet he installed a thousand years ago. Particular care must be taken. When shoveling is complete, liberal amounts of road salt must be applied, and don't bother arguing when it's too cold for salt to melt anything. You'll not get anywhere. One of these days, I'm going to hook him up with Mr. Farmer. I'm sure they'll get along famously.

Tomorrow, I'll be ready for him. When I go to bed tonight, I'll turn the ringer off on the phone. I'm not getting up early to hear about something that will melt by noon.

Photo: Google Images

Discourse on Leaves

“Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree”

Emily Bronte

As I sat to write this post, my telephone rang. I chose to ignore it. It rang again. I ignored it. My husband always likes to say that the phone is there for his convenience and I tend to agree. Well, what he really says is, "I'll blow that f-ing phone up if it doesn't stop ringing." If I don't want to answer it when it rings, I won't. Today, it kept ringing. At this point, I asked Duke, "who the hell is dead?" He couldn't give me an answer. After this caller's fourth consecutive attempt to get someone to answer the phone, I picked up. It was my father in law, Mr. Larger Than Life. He said, "hello son." I said, "no, this is Rudee." I was laughing to myself that he thought I was his son who has a very masculine voice. I wondered if I sounded manly to him or if he was particularly deaf today. I settled on deaf. I also wondered what he wanted since he wasn't going to give up calling until someone answered. He wanted to know if I needed anything from the market. Nah. He goes to the same Italian market that I do, but he shops from the discounted rotten vegetable cart and I'm not really in the mood for moldy food today. I thanked him anyways. He then proceeded to tell me about last week's head to toe physical, stopping just short of the description of the prostate exam and why his distaste for that proves he could never be gay. I've heard all about that digital rectal exam from my son and then my husband who have both repeated it for humorous reasons for a week. Mr. Larger Than Life did mention his exam was "from top to bottom," and "everything looks just great."

I am not the only person in this house who hides from my father in law. In fact, I'm not the only one in the entire metro Detroit area who hides from him. Some people in my family have gone to the extreme by moving hundreds of miles away in an attempt to hide from him. Remember, this is the man who shows up, uninvited, to many relative's and friend's homes for breakfast. Usually, Sunday breakfast. He does stalk some of his friends on a daily basis. I feel for them but mostly, I feel relief that it isn't my house he comes to everyday. That's because of Duke. For some reason, he hates my beasty boy dog. Dukealicious, impervious to my father in law's distaste for him, has made it his mission to make this man love him. It hasn't worked in 8 years and it's not likely to, but that doesn't stop Duke from sticking his giant nose in Mr. Larger Than Life's ass every chance he gets. When Duke dies, I'm not telling my father in law. I'll have my dog stuffed and placed on the porch to ward off uninvited visitors.

My husband, who has the patience of Job, tends to his father and his father's home on a daily basis. Except when fall comes. He hates fall. Oh I'm sure he likes the weather and the color of the leaves on the trees, but when those leaves start to fall, he begins to hate this season. His father has a personal vendetta in respect to the leaves. It's all he talks about. He knows which leaves are his and which have been deposited by a neighbor's tree. He may even hate the neighbor for allowing it to happen. His problem, as I see it, is that everyone around must be dragged into this leaf drama. He can't keep it to himself and he is incredibly particular in how this annual assault of the leaves must be managed. There is no right way or wrong way to tackle the monumental problem of the leaves. There is only Mr. Larger Than Life's way and it always involves all of the men in the family doing the grunt work while he tells them how to do it. He's like the conductor of an orchestra of rakers. If the leaves aren't gathered just so, there will be screaming and a very public display of temper resulting in humiliations galore and lots of swearing by the orchestra. Every year, I hear the current and past stories of the gathering of leaves. The best one involves my college aged husband hiding under his bed in order to get out of leaf duties. His mother found him because he couldn't hide all of his 6'4" frame under the bed without something cramping up. At the time, he could hear his father bellowing from outdoors to come and help him with the yard work.

Mr. Larger Than Life has squandered a fortune on yard implements including rakes, vacuums and special mowers to tackle the leaf issues. For what he's spent on those tools, he could have hired a lawn service for the entire neighborhood for a lifetime. Instead, he chooses to torture everyone around him with his annual gatherings which consume hours of their days off and cuts into watching weekend sports. For Father's Day this year, the boys bought him a new leaf blower. It wasn't really a gift for him, it was what they wanted in anticipation of what was coming. In short, they bought a gift for themselves. I wonder, how's that working out?

Photo: Google Images

Meet the Neighbors

Several years ago, my husband interviewed for a job that required an in-depth background investigation. This included interviews with our neighbors by very official people with badges. Our neighbors never really told us what was asked or what was said. It must have been OK since he got the job. I’ve been thinking lately that it would have been nice to interview the neighbors when we bought this house 15 years ago. I think perhaps what we now know would have influenced our purchase. If I’d had a crystal ball, there is no way I’d have bought this place.

I wonder how I'd conduct a preliminary neighbor survey. “Say, Mr. Farmer, what are your intentions for that really big lot you grow pumpkins in?” “Do you plan to continue growing pumpkins? No? You plan to sell it to a big dialysis group?” Wow. “Oh, and hey, Mr. Farmer? Why do you have such a big snow blower?” Suffice it to say, I may have thought twice about buying this place. It’s bad enough we were subjected to half rotted pumpkins tossed into our yard as gifts, but we must endure the early morning snow blowing of the yard all winter long too. Besides my neighbor and my brother, do others snowblow their lawns too? Not drives, lawns. The slamming car doors at the dialysis center are the icing on the cake. So's the occasional ambulance speeding very sick patients out of center to the hospital.

We had a lovely old lady (not) who let her son Wife Beater and his downtrodden wife live with her. They lived one house over and across the street, next to my lovely neighbor Jo. A day didn’t pass when one did not hear the words, “f**king b*tch! I’m gonna kill you.” Sounds of hands connecting with flesh and screaming were common. Routinely, their fights spilled outdoors so all the world could witness this despicable exhibition of abuse. Not one to suffer fools lightly, Rudee had the police on speed dial. Once or twice, I think I heard Wife Beater call me names but he never crossed the street. I wish he had, I’d have kicked that bastard’s ass. Well, me and my big ass dog would have. It was a relief when that family moved out, unfortunately, it was short lived.

Soon after they left, an eastern European family moved in and the house acquired a third world like look about it. These people were bizarre. They painted the driveway an odd color and put an oversized gigantic door on the front of the small ranch style house. I couldn’t figure that one out since their doors were open to the elements day and night. They just left them wide open with no screens. Why bother buying one when they had a perfectly good one they didn't use anyways? They had a LOT of birds they kept in cages on the front porch. I often wondered if the birds were what was for dinner. They also had their own share of fights in that house. Once, one of their son’s girlfriends came down the street in her car driving about 40 mph and rear ended the son’s car. She was flying. She was also upset about something since she totaled his car and it wasn’t an accident. When this same son was shot and killed in a nearby community, in drug deal gone bad, they abruptly picked up stakes and moved to Florida. They told another neighbor that the house brought bad luck. Their other son, such a good boy, was on the state’s sex offender list. I hope he went with them. We don’t live in a bad area, really, that particular house is cursed and it would seem, so are we.

So the eastern Europeans moved out and a single mother with 3 kids moved in. For the sake of argument, lets just call her Skank. She earned that name in one week because she routinely dressed like a hoe to do housework. Boobies would be flopping out of her skimpy little bikini-that’s not accurate, her silicone boobs didn’t really flop. It’s more like they popped out of the bikini. She also 'worked' the night shift if you get my meaning. She had a nice figure, but her face? Oy. She had a face even a mother wouldn't kiss and a filthy mouth to match. It wasn't that she was hideous, she just looked so damned mean. I think she dressed the way that she did to draw attention away from that scary face. On the other hand, she could have dressed that way simply because she was nuts. I tried being friendly with Skank because I know what it's like to be a single mom. She wasn't very friendly. Now, I don’t want you to get the impression that I’m picky, because I’m not. I don’t hate everyone that lives in that house, but I hated this one the most. H.A.T.E.D. What in the world could make me hate Skank more than Wife Beater? She hadn’t lived there a month when she took off for the weekend. She was gone 3, maybe 4 days. The bitch left her dog locked in the garage in 90 degree weather with no food and water. The poor dog howled, barked and cried until my husband and neighbor called the police to break down the door and rescue him. Unfortunately, the police gave her a second chance and gave the dog back to the nutcase only to have her do it again. Finally, the police took the dog away from her. That’s why I hated her. The treatment of the dog was a good reflection of how she treated her children-one of whom was disabled and you should all know how I feel about that. Mistreating or neglecting an animal burns my arse.  Neglecting a helpless and disabled child is beyond disturbing.  She neglected that boy of hers-more than she neglected the dog.  Sometimes, she'd just forget to be at home when the bus would come by to drop him off.  How do you forget your child?  Yes, I HATED her.

The straw that broke the camel’s back were the unsupervised parties Skank would let her 14 year old son throw. Oh, she was home alright, dressed like a hoe to entertain her son’s friends and party with them. After one particular party that the police had to break up, Skank’s son and friends egged my son’s used (but brand new to him) car and destroyed the finish. It was his high school graduation gift. We weren’t the ones who’d called the police, my long suffering neighbor who lived next to the Skank did. Jo’d had enough. It seems the Skank didn’t have shades or curtains on the side of the house and routinely paraded around the house nude-in front of her kids. Jo was horrified by this and had to keep her own shades down day and night. Jo is also Polish and scrubs the outside of her house and sidewalk every single day. That seems pretty common in some of our Polish neighborhoods. I think you call that pride of ownership. Skank had none of that. Her property was a mess and her in ground pool flooded Jo's pristine back yard at least once a week. After the egging, we'd had enough of Skank's son's destruction. We pressed charges which cost her $1,000 in fines and almost cost Skank her parental rights-she was well known to child protective services.  Since this wasn't her first dance with authorities, she was truly at risk.  I don't know that she cared.  Those CPS folks don't look too kindly on this type of parenting. For God's sake, she couldn't even care for a dog-let alone those kids. Hopefully, the kids will learn better but with such bad parenting, I sort of doubt it.

Ultimately, Skank and crew moved. The house had been foreclosed and the bank now owned it. A retired Detroit cop eventually bought the house and has paid a small fortune to repair and renovate the place. What Skank, her son and his friends had done to this rental home were criminal. There were swastikas and racial slurs written all over walls and cupboards in this home. Once they’d moved, it was like the whole neighborhood finally exhaled. The new couple that bought the house seem wonderful and work like Jo does on her house. Once again, it's nice to see Jo's shades up during the day and nobody does housework in a bikini.  I hope the new owners had an exorcism or at the least, a blessing done in this house.

If you thought I was done, you’d be wrong. You’ve not yet been properly introduced to my next door neighbors on either side, Skullduggery and Quickhide. More on them later-writing about the Skank has completely tired me out.

Photo Google Images