From Chapter 14 of "Mythomania: A Psychodrama." Basically, it is a real-life description of how bystanders get sucked into the world of drama and evil conceived by a Malignant Narcissist. It is not only a psychological description of this Personality Disorder but also shows how our political system supports and enhances it. I have no use for judges, but if I were king, I would make them take Psychology courses in Little Judges School:
Chapter 14
Neck Deep
I was sitting in my recliner at our Mansion on A Hill in Slinger, Wisconsin one Summer night AC, drinking a Diet Mountain Dew, and reading a Terry Brooks novel when Jacob came down from upstairs with Ben, Savannah, and Jon in tow. Jacob’s girlfriend Juanita followed, carrying their 6-week old son Vincent. Angie pulled up the rear. Jake opened the door leading to the mother-in-law suite, headed down the stairs, and the others followed.
“Where are you going,” I asked.
Angie replied that they were leaving so that I could “be alone.”
“Uh, no. They stay here,” I replied.
“But they’re scared of you. They want to go to Jacob’s.”
I never hurt my children. I never threatened to hurt my children. How did Jacob and Juanita’s apartment suddenly become a sanctuary? And note how Angie projected her own feelings onto the kids.
They didn’t stop so I followed them down the stairs. Jacob opened his car door and ushered my children in. Against my will. It was a kidnapping.
In My Worst Thanksgiving Ever I talk about the surrealistic encounter I had with Alison McCullough from Casa Ben Linder. Here was another. Juanita pulled her cellphone out of her cleavage and pointed her right index finger at the screen. “This is the worst case of abuse I’ve ever seen. I’m calling 9-1-1!” she screamed again and again. Really? I’m trying to prevent a kidnapping and she thinks that’s abuse? Flying upside down, Juanita crashed into flames.
This is where I start feeling like L.B.J.’s pig farmer.
Although I kept my cool during the attempted abduction, I had lost my temper earlier that evening. We had supper at Texas Roadhouse and when I finished, I told Angie that I was going to the Petco across the parking lot to check on a patient of mine who worked there. I also asked her to get the kids ready and wait for me in front of the restaurant. I left and drove to Petco.
Suzie wasn’t working so I got back into our Escalade and waited outside of Texas Roadhouse for my family. After 15 minutes I parked and walked into the restaurant. No family in the foyer; no family at our table. I thought maybe Angie misunderstood my intentions and so I drove back to Petco. Not there, either. Exasperated, I once again headed back to Texas Roadhouse. Lo and behold, there was my family!
I hate waiting. I hated it even more since Angie made me wait while she was making out with Christa exactly four weeks before this incident. Making someone wait is rude, manipulative, controlling, and disrespectful. It is a form of lying since it is a broken promise.
Did I mention I hate waiting?
It is against the law for a man to lose his temper in Wisconsin. The wording may not say it exactly, but the fact is that if a man loses his temper and he scares a woman, she can call the police and have him arrested. He doesn’t have to hurt her physically or threaten to hurt her even. She just has to say she’s “scared” of him. I kid you not. The counties in Wisconsin make HUGE amounts of money from men who “scare” women.
So the kids piled into the back seat of the Escalade and Angie sat in the front. “Where were you guys?” I asked.
“We were waiting for you out front,” came Angie’s reply.
“No, I was waiting for all of you out front. For 15 minutes. I even went inside to see where you were.”
“Right after you left we went outside,” she dissembled. I was already mad from waiting again and couldn’t put up with any more lying.
After a few more minutes of “he said, she said” I blew my top. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t nice, and it wasn’t like me. In my whole adulthood Before Christa, I had lost my temper only a handful of times. And I was 55-years old. But After Christa, I battled an unseen enemy and struck out into the darkness several more times. I did not recognize the forces I was fighting but in retrospect, I felt angry, confused, and hopeless, much like a psychiatrist feels when treating a Person of the Lie:
“Conversely, the sicker the patients - the more dishonest in their behavior and distorted in their thinking - the less able we are to help them with any degree of success. When they are very distorted and dishonest, it seems impossible… We literally feel overwhelmed by the labyrinthine mass of lies and twisted motives and distorted communication into which we will be drawn if we attempt to work with such people in the intimate relationship of psychotherapy. We feel, usually quite accurately, that… we may also be pulled down into it ourselves.”
People of the Lie
I was neck deep in it.
