About Understanding Narcissistic Behavior

Some time ago I was mopping the floors on the main level in my house (the glamorous life of an author!  lol).  As I went towards the bathroom, I remembered something very painful that happened to me in  2009…

As I was mopping my floors one day, my mother called.  I took her call & continued to mop.  My bathroom floor is ceramic tile & there is a big marble threshold strip at the doorway, as is common in many old houses like mine in this area.  As I went to leave the bathroom, my bare foot slipped on the wet tile & crashed into the marble, breaking my pinky toe immediately.  The pain caused me to spew a trail of obscenities that probably would embarrass your average truck driver or mechanic, yet my mother didn’t even notice.  She continued talking as if nothing had happened.  I loudly said to her, “Mom, I have to go. I just broke my toe & it’s killing me.”  “Oh” she said.  “Did you hear me?  I’m in a lot of pain here.. I’ll have to call you back later.”  My mother let out an obviously bored sigh.  That infuriated me, & I said, “Are you listening at all?  I broke my toe & need to go.  I’ll talk to you later.”  At that point she said “Oh ok.. bye!” & we hung up.  I called her back later that day.  She never asked if I was OK or what had happened.

It was either that evening or the following evening, my father called.  He asked how I was doing.  I said laid up with a broken toe, didn’t Mom say anything?  No, she didn’t.  In fact, when he called back again the next day, he said he told her about my toe & she said, “Oh?  When did that happen?”

I have quite a lot of stories along these lines that display my parents’ blatant disregard for me.  Even having studied narcissism in depth since 2011, these stories still blow my mind.  I mean, I understand a lot about the disorder & the utter lack of empathy narcissists have.  Yet, at the same time I can’t fully comprehend how anyone can be so indifferent to the suffering of other people, in particular, their own child.

When I’ve mentioned this inability to fully comprehend narcissistic behaviors on various social media pages or groups, I’ve been attacked several times.  People have told me things like, “They’re evil & you just need to accept that.”  “Stop expecting narcissists to be normal!”  There have been more comments, but honestly I don’t even remember them anymore.

Since I’ve experienced this, I figured some of you who read my work have too, & this should be addressed.

If you can’t “wrap your mind” around the behavior of narcissists, in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with this.  In fact, I take it as a good sign because I think the only people who can fully understand narcissistic behaviors are narcissists.

If someone tells you there is something wrong with you for not grasping the behavior of the narcissist in your life, the best thing you can do is ignore them, because the truth is their nasty response isn’t about you.

Some people are simply very logical & not quite so open minded simply due to how logical they are.  It’s not that they don’t have feelings or are closed minded, but that logic rules their minds a lot.  These people may narcissists in the “evil box” or say who cares why they do what they do.  Well, not everyone is that way.  That doesn’t mean anyone is right or wrong here.  It simply means some folks have different personalities which means they have different ways of coping & understanding things.

There are also those who write about or make videos about narcissism who are pretty burned out on the topic.  If someone asks them a question or makes a comment, these people are very short with their reply, & often even rude.

The truth of the matter is everyone is different.  Some people can heal just fine not understanding the reasons behind the narcissist’s actions.  Others need to understand the reasons, & get frustrated when they can’t fully grasp those reasons.  Neither is wrong.  You do whatever works for you!