What happens when an adult child of an alcoholic dates a narcissist? Read on!

I was in love with a monster. The cold, hard, middle-of-the-night truth is I was in love with a monster. A monster I painted in fairy tale colors, clothed in my dreams. I wrapped him up so tight so I couldn’t see him, couldn’t see his face, or his tail, or the ravenous hunger in his eyes. I daubed him in gold dust and we both admired the way he glinted in the sunshine, his image fractured by the light, difficult to discern. Sometimes he looked like a prince. He wanted to be a prince. I wanted him to be prince. I held the monster lovingly, and tickled his underbelly, and cooed soothing words into his ears. I fed him, helped him grow, made sure he didn’t disappear. Sweetly offering him honey and nectar, candies made of my own desire, Irish coffee, ambrosia, and chicken wings. Monsters like chicken wings. I think it has something to do with being flightless. Of eating appendages that are supposed to lift you from the ground but can no longer do so.

I was in love with a monster.

So what of this monster? This monster who wants to be a prince? “I’m a prince!” the petulant child says, with, of course, a stamp of his foot. And he notices that his fingernails grow thicker each time he says that phrase. “I’m a prince, not a little boy!” he yells stubbornly, and feels a tingling at the base of his spine. He starts to dress himself in purple, but everywhere that color touches his skin coarse black hair starts to grow. “I’m a prince! I’m a prince!” he cries into the mirror, even as his reflection is changing, morphing, unnerving him even more. He runs his hand over two small bumps forming on the crown of his skull. Too ashamed to tell anyone, he desperately starts looking for people who understand that he really is a prince. Looking for the people who will give him jewels, put a crown on his head, let him sit on whatever could pass for a throne. And there are some who see a bit of a prince in him - everyone has a bit of prince in them, after all. But the hint of a tail worries him, and the bumps on his head are growing and hardening. His shame starts to turn him into an imitation, desperately turning tattered purple linens into a costume, making fake jewels out of lint and glue and stolen food dye, creating scepters out of toilet paper rolls. And he has to hide himself more and more, hide his increasingly claw-like hands, cover every inch of his skin growing rough, dark hair. He can’t smile too much because his teeth are lengthening and sharpening themselves into points. And his eyes have become ravenous, searching out anyone who sees a bit of prince in him, ready to suck every last drop of that belief from them. But he doesn’t really believe them anymore. How can they not see the horns behind the tinfoil crown? He’s weary now. “I’m a prince” he echoes hollowly, looking at himself in the mirror. I don’t even know what he sees now. Monster or prince or monster or prince or monster or prince or monster or prince? Whatever happened to the little boy? Did he disappear entirely? Is he in there somewhere?

Enough. Fairy tales aside. I crawl into bed and turn off the light and realize – I was in love with a monster.

Something like renewal - Part deux

Late April and the scent of honeysuckle returns. Reminding me of last April, and the April before, and all 30 of my Aprils on this world. I like to think that all I smelled in the first month of my life was honeysuckles, mingling with the freshness of baby powder and the scent of my family. That perhaps my home was overcrowded with this perfume.

Late April and the scent of honeysuckle returns. Reminding me that it is time to buy flip-flops and start wearing skirts again. Time to eat strawberries and go swimming everyday. Time to enjoy the coolness of the evening, to stand in the sun, to dance again. Time to forget the austere winter. Time to remember who I am.

Late April and the scent of honeysuckle returns. It is time to move the fuck on.

Oy, the realizations.

Our relationship was just one long, extended Meisner exercise for him. Because he feels most like himself when he is acting.

I will never know.

I don't even know if you're tears were real. Was it all an act?

So I am not really taking the highest of the high roads here. But it is all true.

My unemployed actor ex-boyfriends appears to have Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  Awesome.

From Wikipedia:
At least five of the following are necessary for a diagnosis :

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (check)
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love (check)
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by other special people (giant check)
4. requires excessive admiration (check)
5. strong sense of entitlement (check)
6. takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends (check)
7. lacks empathy (check)
8. is often envious or believes others are envious of him or her
9. arrogant affect (check).

From Dr. Irene:
"The narcissist mimics real emotions artfully. He exudes the air of someone really capable of loving or of being hurt, of one passionate and soft, empathic and caring. Most people are misled into believing that he is even more humane than average.

From How to Recognize a Narcissist:
"A striking thing about narcissists that you'll notice if you know them for a long time is that their ideas of themselves and the world don't change with experience; the ones I've known have been stalled at a vision that came to them by the age of sixteen."

From Wikipedia
Narcissistic Personality Disorder "is considered to result from a person’s belief that he or she is flawed in a way that makes the person fundamentally unacceptable to others. This belief is held below the person’s conscious awareness; such a person would typically deny thinking such a thing if questioned. In order to protect themselves against the intolerably painful rejection and isolation they imagine would follow if others recognized their supposedly defective nature, such people make strong attempts to control others’ view of them and behavior towards them.

"Many other behaviors can stem from narcissistic concerns, such as immersion in one’s own affairs to the exclusion of others, an inability to empathize with others’ experience, interpersonal rigidity, an insistence that one’s opinions and values are “right,” and a tendency to be easily offended and take things personally.

"People who are overly narcissistic commonly feel rejected, humiliated and threatened when criticised. To protect themselves from these dangers, they often react with disdain, rage, and/or defiance to any slight, real or imagined. To avoid such situations, some narcissistic people withdraw socially and may feign modesty or humility.

"Though individuals with NPD are often ambitious and capable, the inability to tolerate setbacks, disagreements or criticism, along with lack of empathy, make it difficult for such individuals to work cooperatively with others or to maintain long-term professional achievements. With narcissistic personality disorder, the person's perceived fantastic grandiosity, often coupled with a hypomanic mood, is typically not commensurate with his or her real accomplishments.

"The interpersonal relationships of patients with NPD are typically impaired due to the individual's lack of empathy, disregard for others, exploitativeness, sense of entitlement, and constant need for attention.

"It has been suggested that Narcissistic personality disorder may be related to defences against shame."

And this is not just crazy ex-girlfriend talking. From How to Recognize a Narcissist again:

"Truthful reports about narcissists' private behavior are often treated as symptoms of psychological problems in the person telling the tale -- by naming the problem, you become the person with the problem. And I'm talking about the experience many of us have had with "the helping professions," including doctors, teachers, clergy, counselors, and therapists. This stuff is hard to talk about in the first place because it's weird, shameful, and horrifying, and then insult is added to injury when we're dismissed as overreacting (how many times have we heard "You're just too sensitive"?), deluded or malicious, as inventing stories, exaggerating, imagining things, misinterpreting -- it goes on and on. The fact is that there is next to nothing anyone can do to modify a narcissist's behavior and the only useful advice I ever got (first from my non-narcissistic parent, later repeated by my Jungian analyst) was "Get out and stay out."

Nothing's lamer than posting song lyrics in a blog. But whatever...

I heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift, the baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu----jah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof, you saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne, she cut your hair, and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu----jah

Maybe I have been here before, I know this room; I have walked this floor, I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch, love is not a victory march, it's a cold and its a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu----jah

There was a time you let me know whats really going on below, but now you never show it to me, do you? (and)
Remember when I moved in you; the holy dark was moving too, and every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu----jah

Maybe there's a God above, and all I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
And its not a cry you can hear at night, its not somebody who's seen the light, its a cold and its a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu--jah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu---u---jah

(As usual, it's better with the music. The Rufus Wainright version is here, and the Jeff Buckley version is here)

I'm going to blame the meds. Nah, not really, it was the relationship.

I am so 20 different kinds of fantastic. When did I lose myself?

Suprisingly...

I'm starting to be okay with being thirty. Maybe I will become one of those people who loves growing old. It just took a year of apprehension and a relationship with a fool to get me there.

I want wings.

Do we ever get a chance to really see another person? Their full humanity? Or is all we ever get our own dreams reflected back to us? A vague form dressed in our hopes and expectations and irrational beliefs. Enraptured by the image of them we've created, the stories we tell ourselves. Do we get nothing more than brief glimpses? Not even when you can feel the weight of their body, the line of their skeleton? Not even when you can taste their scent, when you can see the light in their eyes as they look at you? Is all we ever get an occasional flash of luminescence, a temporary moment of understanding? That is over just as soon it begins?

We all flicker on and off, on and off.
We all want permanence in an impermanent world.

I do not want to fall in love with my own dreams.
I want wings. I want wings. I want wings.

More pictures my camera phone took of its own free will.

God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut

"Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why"

Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday. As my friend Chris said, he was one of the good ones.

Granted, many of my actions of late fit into the "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" cliché, but still...

Holy crap! I have been dating a cliché! A real-life, walking and talking cliché - the "Troubled Actor/Director." You know the one. The one who doesn't have a job because he can't handle the reality of the working world. The one who answers all of life's questions with experiences from theatre, quotes from Shakespeare, and thoughts on art. The one who judges people all the time, because he is clearly better than everyone else. The one who woos women with flowery words and songs, winning them over with displays of his art. The one who lets his girlfriend shower him with gifts, musical instruments, a new wardrobe, and food (because, let's face it, he can't feed himself). The one who acts and directs for the sake of ART, not for something as common as the desire for attention. You can't betray the muse, after all. The one who finally gets to direct the play he wants and instantly loses all control of his life (which makes sense, given how much time he spends at his day job..oh, wait, I forgot - he doesn't have a day job). The one who tries to break up with his girlfriend on opening night. The one who sleeps with "his" 21-year old actress at the first opportunity, i.e., the night after the break-up is final (that is, if he hadn't done so already). All the while talking about how much pain he is in. And of course, he doesn't thrive on drama and chaos like some other actors do. Oh no. He's different from them. Special.

How could I not have realized this before? I guess I am just as big of an idiot as he is (well, more like 1/8th of the idiot he is, let's be honest). He really does play the part well. The subtle denial of his similarity to other actors and directors is key. Quietly playing up the sensitive, intellectual, introvert angle works well too. And of course I have a huge soft spot for flowery words.

The more he tries to fight the cliché, the more he becomes it.

I can't believe I spent the last 2+ weeks trying to salvage this relationship. I can't believe I let myself get so caught up in this ridiculous situation that I acted like a crazy ex-girlfriend for several hours yesterday. I can't believe I smoked an entire pack of cigarettes in one day. Ugh.

Happily, I am now somewhat chipper that this all went down before my thirtieth birthday. I can close the chapter on my twenties, those fun-filled years that almost killed me. They did manage to get one last jab in, though, the bastards.

Ah, well. Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, I am free at last.

Newsflash!

Dear Universe,

Thanks for these lovely developments right before my thirtieth birthday. It means so much.

And I hate to be trite while simultaneously supporting gender stereotypes, but...

Men are pigs.

Best,
Wendy

Holy fuck, it's really happening...

I got my first 30th birthday card today. I actually cringed when I saw it. A real, true-life cringe, as if I was reacting to some documentary on genocide in which they were showing piles of children's skulls. But there were no skulls, just a silly card with "Happy 30th!" on the cover. I always thought I would be one of those people who would grow old gracefully, welcoming each new decade calmly, growing wiser and more satisfied with age. But it turns out I'm a brooding, lily-livered (which sounds interesting, but, as we know from the cartons, isn't) pathetic, little whiner.

Also, the cake my mom baked for me? For my 30th birthday? Completely burnt. Prophetic, eh?