Author Topic: In Memory and Appreciation of...  (Read 2958 times)

Certain Hope

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In Memory and Appreciation of...
« on: June 10, 2008, 11:19:18 PM »
I'm very sad to say that Kathy Krajco, whose writing has so often shone the light of truth into the fog of NPD, has passed away.

Her obituary is here   http://obit.schneiderfuneraldirectors.com/obitdisplay.html?id=541468&listing=All

In her memory ~



Narcissism's One-Track Mind

One thing people who haven't known a narcissist for a very long time and intimately don't realize is that narcissists give new meaning to the term "one-track mind." They are always on.

They may keep a lid on it with their boss and/or other people they don't dare treat as they would like, but the proof lies in how they treat the people they can play games with.

They are in game-playing mode 100% of the time. Everything, every interaction with them is viewed and treated by them as some sort of worthiness competition.

The childishness is something one must see to believe, and even then it's unbelievable. I went for decades before I finally had to admit that the narcissists I knew were so petty and childish that their game got all the way down to such silly things as having to have YOU call THEM, no matter what, just to support their delusions that YOU were the "needy" one. Yes (projection), YOU were the one who needed an ear to talk off. They were dying to talk at you about themselves, but it would have killed them to come down off that pedestal and pick up the phone. So, when you finally did call for some reason, you hardly had "hello" out of you your mouth before you were done talking and just listening for the next three hours.

But that's just one example. I could name hundreds of these childish games they play with virtually any everyday human interaction.

They are God, so they can't dispretend that by owing you anything. That would be a come-down from their grandiosity. Nor can they be in the wrong in any matter with you. They are perfect, and you are relative dirt. And EVERY SINGLE THING THAT HAPPENS MUST PROVE THAT.

cont'd. at http://www.zimbio.com/Narcissistic+personality+disorder/articles/82/Narcissism+s+One+Track+Mind
« Last Edit: June 11, 2008, 10:13:19 AM by Certain Hope »

lighter

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Re: An Obituary...
« Reply #1 on: June 10, 2008, 11:44:49 PM »
::observing a moment's silence for Kathy Krajco::

On her comment:

"The childishness is something one must see to believe, and even then it's unbelievable."

Yup yup yup.... and everything else they play games with.

Deception, harm, relentless application of pressure...... not just childishness.

Lighter

Lighter

ann3

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Re: An Obituary...
« Reply #2 on: June 11, 2008, 12:29:23 AM »
Certain Hope,

Thank you for posting this.

So sorry to hear this.

Kathy's web site was fabulous.

She will be missed

ann

changing

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Re: An Obituary...
« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2008, 12:34:17 AM »
My Dear Hope-

Thank you for this thread. I am sorry for the passing of someone who has helped us to understand and articulate the N process- this is true service.

Love,

Changing

Certain Hope

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In Appreciation of Kathy Krajco
« Reply #4 on: June 11, 2008, 08:44:25 AM »
I still cannot believe she's gone.

More than anything else I've ever read, Kathy Krajco's writing helped me to break out of the suffocating stranglehold of the after-effects of dealing with malignant narcissists. She'd clearly had such intimate experience with these predators... and now I'm wondering whether that maybe didn't work toward shortening her precious life. Surely makes me aware that the thing to do is to move through this and get on with it, not get stuck in the mire or tangled up with any
more such webs.

The following is one of the first things I read by Kathy, way back when trying to make sense of the slander campaign initiated by NPD, when the mask began to slip. I was not allowed to take issue, because to do so was to risk stalking and all other manner of emotional torture... and I couldn't understand why.
Well, there is no why... other than the N's constant, continuous obsession with trying to make self seem bigger, better, purer, and more powerful.

Then there is the other side of the coin, which is an even more menacing sign of bad faith — what narcissists do to the images of others. Consumed with pathological envy, they make themselves look good the bogus way, by making others look bad.

Overall, individuals high in narcissism displayed amplified responses to social comparison information, experiencing greater positive affect from downward comparisons and greater hostile affect from upward comparisons.
 
 — Bogart, L.M., Benotsh, E.G. and Pavlovic, J.D. (2004), Feeling Superior but Threatened: The Relation of Narcissism to Social Comparison, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 26, Iss. 1, pp. 35-44. 
 
   

In other words, malignant narcissists feel that praiseworthy information about you diminishes them,
and they feel that denigrating information about you elevates them.
Hence, like the rapist, narcissists must tear their betters "down off that pedestal" by maligning them.
Therefore "malignant" is a good name for malignant narcissists, because every malignant narcissist's middle name is Malign.

 Narcissistic rage, character assassination and projection are some of the overt ways in which the narcissist expresses himself.
For example, she may envy a work colleague's beauty, and project her feelings into her colleague by accusing her of being envious. 
 
 
Whom do narcissists malign? Almost everyone.
If you suspect someone of being a narcissist, praise a person who obviously deserves it to him or her and observe their reaction. It shows.
Malignant narcissists speak well of very few others. Only their narcissistic parent (when no longer vulnerable to that parent) and anyone they can aggrandize themselves by association with at others' expense.


However subtle the vandalism may be, you never hear a narcissist say anything about anyone that you would like to hear said about you.

Worse, narcissists are gossips. They eagerly listen to and spread slander. They are self-righteous finger-pointers, pulling the same stunt Lucifer did in the old Gnostic myth about Lucifer coming before God everyday and accusing other angels of being bad. The result was "war in high places" until the good angels, lead by St. Michael the Archangel, cast down Lucifer (now called "Satan," that is, "the slanderer") to the status they deserve.

Narcissists can make it sound like a virtue, but giving others a bad name isn't a good deed. Even if the report is true, it cannot possibly be done in the spirit of goodwill unless it is done in true witness — that is, responsible witness, on the record, not behind the back. Just because the badmouth perfumes his speech with words like love and Christian and concern and for the sake of our children (always the justification when there is no justification) and sports a halo does not change the spirit in which slander is done.

Shakespeare gives us a marvelous example of sugaring o'er slander with false concern or pity in a speech the usurper King Claudius makes to Hamlet before the whole court:


'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father;
But you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term
To do obsequious sorrow. But to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness. 'Tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool'd;
For what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died to-day,
'This must be so.' We pray you throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father; for let the world take note
You are the most immediate to our throne,
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire;
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.


Such kind and pious words, eh? Yet, how would you like that said to you in front of a hundred people?
 Notice how sweetly and left-handedly Claudius calls Hamlet obsequious, obstinate, impious, stubborn, unmanly, willful, weak, impatient, a simpleton, ignorant, senseless, peevish, a sinner against God and the dead and nature, irrational, impotent, and intent on doing things retrograde to the king's desire.
Talk about "betrayal with a kiss."

The whole court immediately starts treating Hamlet as though he's radioactive. His girlfriend's father and brother immediately order her to dump him. He's a marked man.

And for doing what? For not forgetting the dead king, his father, and cutting short the customary mourning period to celebrate the remarriage of the queen to the usurper. Typical narcissist — can make even a virtuous act sound heinous.

If you know that narcissists are inveterate character assassins, it's easy to spot them.
A narcissist has a trail of trashed good names and careers in his wake.
He will even have told you strange and terrible lies about the people in his own immediate family.

If you know the person he is telling you something strange about, compare the accusation with your own observations. A narcissist will have ignored that person's real faults and smeared one of his or her virtues as a vice!
And, if you know the narcissist, you'll find the narcissist himself is guilty of the very thing he's accusing this other person of.

lighter

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Re: An Obituary...
« Reply #5 on: June 11, 2008, 10:13:39 AM »
I never read this woman's work.... I wish I had.

Thanks to you guys for providing some of the words that touched your lives and helped you unravel the confusion.

CH, when you wrote: 

"when the mask began to slip. I was not allowed to take issue, because to do so was to risk stalking and all other manner of emotional torture... and I couldn't understand why."

It hit me in the stomach like a hammer... that's been my life for the past 2 years, including physical harm and threat.

And what's even more frustrating is..... everyone around you can't understand why, either.

How can we explain what we can't understand?

Lighter



Certain Hope

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Re: In Memory and Appreciation of...
« Reply #6 on: June 11, 2008, 10:22:30 AM »
Oh, Lighter... Kathy's writing just absolutely nailed NPD. It's so sad to me... and for many others, I know... to visit her blog and see that last entry... knowing that there will be no more.

The cardinal sin with NPD is to see her beneath the mask.
Don't dare even suggest that you may have heard something of which N was not aware... she'll despise you.
Did you have lunch with the prime minister today and excitedly try to tell N about it?
How dare you?!?
He'll either fabricate an entire fiction about his weekend visit with the Queen.. or... set about destroying both the prime minister's rep and your own, simply to show that you are both scum.
Does this make sense?  No.
There's no way to explain it... you just need to have been there.

Every single, solitary positive quality within you is just another reason for N to want you erased.
Once he's done idealizing you, you're supposed to disappear.
When you won't go quietly, prepare for Armageddon.

Lighter, I think it's utterly fruitless to try to get others to understand. Unless they've had the experience themselves, they can't. You couldn't either, if you hadn't seen it in living color. That's why most of us are here, right?

Carolyn


lighter

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Re: In Memory and Appreciation of...
« Reply #7 on: June 11, 2008, 11:02:16 AM »
Carolyn, you're right....

I couldn't have believed it either....

had I not seen it with my own two eyes. :shock:

And theres the rub.....

I feel just awful trying to take away the comfort of NOT KNOWING (from others....) while at the same time failing at it bc they simply cannot see.

When women are trying to exit dv situations....

or must explain it.....

it's a terrible story to tell...

and try to get accross to those who haven't experienced it.

And that's why we're here..... you're right.


You're right.

Lighter


changing

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Re: In Memory and Appreciation of...
« Reply #8 on: June 11, 2008, 11:13:16 AM »
Hello Hope and Lighter-

The demonization of those who are facing mortal danger and great hardship due to DV issues is a tragedy. Those in power and others, even other women who may be denying their own DV issues, collude with abusers by labeling and treating victims as "Others". It seems to be especially easy for those who are comfortable and secure to malign DV victims as causing their own misery, and denigrating them as "less than", all the while bemoaning hangnails or other such "tragedies" that they themselves experience as catastrophic, casting themselves as the brave defenders of good order in society. This is evolving, and in time it will be the preening self-centered colluders with DV who will be shamed and disempowered.

Changing

Certain Hope

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Re: In Memory and Appreciation of...
« Reply #9 on: June 11, 2008, 11:42:20 AM »
Leah,

This is a thread I created to honor the late Kathy Krajco and her writings.

It's not about you and your thread.

Please delete your last post with link.

Thank you.

Respectfully,

Carolyn

Leah

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Re: In Memory and Appreciation of...
« Reply #10 on: June 11, 2008, 11:47:19 AM »


Dear Carolyn,

I think you may have misunderstood.

My post was in response to Changing's post, and the overall discussion; of domestic violence - and domestic violence victims - and domestic violence victims being re-victimized.

Which is relevant also to the topic of Narcissism.   AND on the thread is Kathy's wonderful written article on this very subject matter - which is why I added the link.

Love, Leah

(surviving dv victim)
Jun 2006 voiceless seeking

April 2008 - "The Gaslight Effect" How to Spot & Survive by Dr. Robin Stern - freedom of understanding!

The Truth About Abuse VIDEO

Certain Hope

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Re: In Memory and Appreciation of...
« Reply #11 on: June 11, 2008, 11:51:29 AM »
Leah,

My understanding is quite clear on this.

I've asked you respectfully to please remove your post which links to your thread.

And now I'm asking you again...
not to rationalize why you posted it the first time,
but simply to remove that post.

Thank you.

Carolyn

Leah

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Re: In Memory and Appreciation of...
« Reply #12 on: June 11, 2008, 11:55:35 AM »

Dear Carolyn,

I have merely explained that I have signposted to Kathy's Krajco writing on how a victim of narcissism / domestic violence - is maligned and mistreated - horribly

in response to Changing's post.

Home is sometimes where the HURT is -- and not the heart.


However, you appear to misunderstand my intention, and insist upon my removing my post with the thread link, because it is my thread, perhaps?  I don't know, this is most saddening.

I will delete my post for you as requested.

Love, Leah



Edit:  I had already deleted my post!

« Last Edit: June 11, 2008, 12:04:54 PM by LeahsRainbow »
Jun 2006 voiceless seeking

April 2008 - "The Gaslight Effect" How to Spot & Survive by Dr. Robin Stern - freedom of understanding!

The Truth About Abuse VIDEO

Certain Hope

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Re: In Memory and Appreciation of...
« Reply #13 on: June 11, 2008, 11:59:43 AM »
Leah,

I have not even wondered about your intention, which is not my business to judge, nor is it my concern.

I have simply asked you to respect my wishes - that on this thread I created in honor of someone who's helped me immensely,
you would remove your post which links to one of your own threads.

Because you are clearly not interested in showing any respect whatsoever to my simple wish,

I am now telling you that I do not want you to post anymore on a thread which I create.

I'm copying Dr. Grossman on this request of mine so that he's aware.

Thank you.

Respectfully,
Carolyn