Thursday, November 12, 2009

Nine More Years...

Got served an eviction notice today from my son's dad. Merry Christmas! Thank God I have my bio-family and church family and will get through this. Still, I am highly impressed by the ex's sophisticated assholery. The kiddo is very upset. I doubt the ex considered how this would affect the little guy. Some toothless dude actually handed it to me at the church this evening, then told me, "Oh, by the way, thanks for Prop 8!" WTF? Please go back to your car and smoke some more crack. (FWIW, I voted no on Prop 8, so begone, ye gummy meth-head!) ;) Anyway, the kiddo is fairly upset, and no, I did not tell him the news in a way that would put his dad down at all, although I have every right to. Nevertheless, as therapists have told me, the kiddo will likely figure out on his own how his damaged dad really is. I'm sad about that. A boy should be able to grow up knowing his dad is a hero, not a dick. I don't fault his dad for having to sell the condo; it's the cowardly way he's gone about it. A real man would call and have a proper conversation about it and help work out an exit plan that all parties could live with. Serving an eviction notice = killing flies with a hammer. Narcissistic wound, anyone?* What a poor excuse for a grownup he is. Nine more years.

narcissistic personality disorder

"A psychiatric diagnosis characterized by an exaggerated sense of self-importance and uniqueness, an abnormal need for attention and admiration, preoccupation with grandiose fantasies concerning the self, and disturbances in interpersonal relationships, usually involving the exploitation of others and a lack of empathy."

If you recognize someone you know or love in the above definition, let me know. I have some good resources on dealing with people like this, and I've had ten years of practice. :-)


* THE NARCISSISTIC WOUND (per Linda Marks)

"The wound to heart and psyche that gets called narcissism occurs when a child's vulnerable and developing core sense of self is not seen and reflected back by the adults around him/her. Each child is born a unique individual with special gifts and personal challenges, multi-layered and both simple and complex. For any one layer to develop, that part of the child needs to be seen, heard, understood and valued. Parents have to be present to be mirrors—to bear witness and reflect back. Healthy parents help young people build a frame of reference for living.

"A child needs a safe context in which to explore and express his/her core sense of self. A child needs adults who are themselves grounded in who they are so they have emotional and psychic space to be receptive to the individual child at any moment, rather than relating to the child from their own unmet needs. Any one adult may be capable of seeing and developing certain aspects of a child, and less equipped to see and develop other ones. In this sense, it does take a village to raise a child, and with the loss of this village and the committed long-term adult relationships the village offers to a child, many levels of the child's developing self will be missed entirely.


"When a parent's own woundedness and unmet needs override their ability to be present to a child or a parent's undeveloped parts of self render them unable to respond to a child's vulnerable and authentic needs, the child's core sense of self can be lost, fragmented or undeveloped. The loss, fragmentation and lack of development of the core sense of self is the root of the narcissistic wound. Raw, broken, undeveloped and lost, we enter a cold cruel world ill-equipped to relate, define fulfillment from the inside out and connect with the spirit of life.

"While our hunter-gatherer and agricultural ancestors and the worlds they lived in have slowly become extinct over many generations, our human bodies are still wired with the cellular expectations of connection that were the birthright and experience of those that came before us. When our primal wiring meets the world we live in today characterized by disconnection at personal, family and social levels, we experience a helplessness and aloneness that is beyond what we are biologically prepared to embrace. By necessity, we must sculpt defenses that allow us to navigate the world asit is, and protect us from what we are afraid of or not equipped to deal with. These defenses create a false self that allows us to survive practically but masks as it protects our wounded hearts and souls.


"We cannot live with a sense of depth because to relate at this level is exhausting unless we are self-secure beings, willing to be vulnerable and chance being exposed to the core. Most people yearn to be known, to be understood. Only by living from the core do we become who we were meant to be."