Author Topic: In Honor of Kathy Krajco  (Read 7644 times)

Certain Hope

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In Honor of Kathy Krajco
« on: June 11, 2008, 12:10:32 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

Certain Hope

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Re: In Honor of Kathy Krajco
« Reply #1 on: June 11, 2008, 12:22:10 PM »
Kathy Krajco's writings gave me a leg to stand on, when I thought that I'd never walk again.

Because of her, I learned that...

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.

************************************************

Actually, I'm not sure it's ever possible to go quietly.
Come to think of it, my experience has proven otherwise.

If you're fortunate enough to be able to maintain distance between yourself and NPD (i.e., you don't have to live with her/him),
then boundaries are the most important tool you have. But if they won't quit - and often, they won't, I've seen - then No Contact may be the only alternative.

Carolyn

Certain Hope

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Re: In Honor of Kathy Krajco
« Reply #2 on: June 11, 2008, 12:27:21 PM »
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.

Gabben

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Re: In Honor of Kathy Krajco
« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2008, 12:27:55 PM »
Carolyn - you read my mind, I was just going to ask you to start a new thread for Kathy Krajco. Much of her work as touched me.

For today, I'm going to reflect and read some more in memory of her.

My guess is that if Kathy had a wish it would be for at least one N (if not all) to come to the light of all of those who are so easily fooled so that they are no longer being deceived and pawed as objects without their individual knowledge.

Thank you for this thread, Carolyn.

Lise


Certain Hope

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Re: In Honor of Kathy Krajco
« Reply #4 on: June 11, 2008, 12:30:47 PM »
((((((((Lise))))))))  thank you... and welcome home.

It's shocking me how affected I've been by learning of Kathy's death.
Very few writers have ever touched the essence of what the N does to your soul, the way she was able to do.

Love and hugs,
Carolyn

Gabben

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Re: In Honor of Kathy Krajco
« Reply #5 on: June 11, 2008, 01:32:22 PM »


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.



Carolyn,

Kathy's work was the most influential for me in helping me come to terms with Nsaint this past year; it was as if Kathy had read my mind, illuminating the pain, confusion and spin of Nsaints lies and slander which helped me to stop blaming myself. Her work allowed for me to see that I was not the N as the victim usually is left questioning themselves. Oh sure we are human and need love, but the N's define our need for love as wrong...which invalidate our natural instincts.

For so long I thought that *I* was the blame and the problem....Nsaint was the perfect, spotless saint...I was the person always baring my soul and talking about my faults and sin, basically my authenticity is what Nsaint hated about me the most because it is the reverse of what she is and cannot be. My honesty gave her a door into my heart so that she could tweak my struggling to heal self-hatred.

There is so much that Kathy wrote about N's that took the edge off my pain.

May she rest in peace...I'll be praying for her to be in happy heaven.

If OK with you, may I post her article on Attention Seeking?

Lise
« Last Edit: June 11, 2008, 02:09:54 PM by Gabben »

Certain Hope

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Re: In Honor of Kathy Krajco
« Reply #6 on: June 11, 2008, 01:50:50 PM »
Quote
Her work allowed for me to see that I was not the N as the victim usually is left questioning themselves.

What a great summation.  I agree!

What I'm hearing in your description of N-Saint is the lack of reciprocity, all along the way... unable/unwilling to take her eyes off of her own image and put herself into someone else's position, and   - since you are able and willing to critically self-examine - she was more than happy to shove her own rubbish off onto you, as well. Is that right?

Lise, I'd love to read Kathy's article on Attention Seeking.
There's something in me which would just like to hang onto her wisdom and never let it go, you know?
So that's why I wanted to have this thread dedicated to her and her insights.

Love,
Carolyn

Gabben

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Re: In Honor of Kathy Krajco
« Reply #7 on: June 11, 2008, 02:22:39 PM »
The Attention Game by Kathy Krajco


Does any of following ring a bell? If you live with a narcissist it does.

Protocol 
 
   

At all times, everyone must face the king. The foot servant is beneath the king's notice. So, the king never dignifies him with any attention at all, does not even look at or speak to him. Now, this might seem a bit inconvenient, for what good is a servant you can't speak to? But the foot servant's duty was to watch over the king and see to all his needs without the king having to suffer the indignity of having to ask him for anything. So, the most he got from the king was an offhanded grunt or a hand signal while the king was talking to someone else, which was to be interpreted as "Bring me my footstool." To obey the command, the foot servant approaches the king in a groveling manner to indicate that he asks for the favor of being allowed to approach the king and bring him his footstool. The foot servant takes care to avoid notice so that he distracts nobody's attention, even for a moment, from the king. The king is to tolerate the foot servant's vulgar presence no longer than necessary and, without looking at him, "spurns" him (kicks him aside) when the task is done. Then the foot servant shows his gratitude by humbly bowing-and-scraping away. 
 
   

There you have it — a real-world example of relating between someone who deserves all attention and someone who deserves no attention.

The actions of both parties to that "relationship" speak louder than words. I scare-quoted the word relationship because this is an un-relationship. The king is dis-relating to his foot servant.

Nobody bothered to know that the king must have zero integrity if merely looking at another person would degrade him, but the farce in the myth of nobility is beside the point. Nobody noticed that they were treating the king like an infant, either. I mean, only an infant normally gets its needs taken care of without having to ask for anything.

Well, just like the king, I guess: he's such a big baby it would be an insufferable affront to his dignity if he ever had to ask for anything.

What about Please and Thank you? Though he is unworthy to be heard by the king, the foot servant is the one who must say "please" and "thank you," by literally groveling and then bowing-and-scraping away. How perverted can human behavior get?

So perverted that the foot servant was deemed so unworthy of attention that he deserved no acknowledgement of his service, let alone thanks. For, in acknowledging what someone has done for you, or in expressing gratitude for it, you're paying them attention, aren't you? Majestic beings mustn't degrade themselves by doing that. To emphasize this, the custom was for the foot servant to receive anti-gratitude with a gratuitous kick. That is why kings responded to whatever their foot servant did for them by "spurning" them, literally kicking them away. How perverted can human behavior get?

Answer: The foot servant had no right to even resent such treatment. Therefore, he was subjected to the extreme perversity of having to bend over for it (the Sin of Sodom). And with a smile. For, he then had to bow-and-scrape some more in gratitude for the minuscule attention of a kick. Can't get perverser than that.

There are only three places I know of where one person must be the focus of all attention: a theater, a church, and a royal court. The way-up-high-in-the-sky there thing — the so-called "star." Or God. Or the king.


 


Correction: there is one more place where that is the case, any place plagued by a the presence of a malignant narcissist. He or she must be the focus of all attention.

Being entitled to all attention and being entitled to no attention are appraisals of a person's value, or worth. In a society that regards all human beings as created equal, to give all attention to the narcissist is to worth-ship him as a false god, and to give no attention to others is to dehumanize people and treat them like dirt.

Which is exactly why the narcissist plays The Attention Game = to make himself God and all others dirt beneath his feet. This is how he supports his delusions of grandeur. He's just playing Pretend. He's making it so by acting as though it is.

Do you play along?


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And then, of course, we get to the heart of malignant narcissism, Narcissistic Envy.

You will notice that, invariably, when anyone is given recognition before the group, a narcissist immediately starts showing dislike for, or animosity toward, that person. Immediately he sets out on a campaign of character assassination.

Envy is bitter, an extremely unpleasant emotion. It's normal only when some other party really has robbed us of our due.

A narcissist's unnatural envy is so universal and so strong that he cannot even stand being in a place where someone else gets attention. If he cannot keep that from happening, he will find some way to absent himself from the situation — if only by turning away from others and staring at a corner of the ceiling.



 
« Last Edit: June 11, 2008, 02:26:13 PM by Gabben »

Certain Hope

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Re: In Honor of Kathy Krajco
« Reply #8 on: June 11, 2008, 02:31:02 PM »
 :?  Yes, that rings more than one bell.

Thanks, Lise... it's a classic and another example of some of Kathy's purest work.

I've got to tell you...
there's this nagging question which keeps trying to float to the surface of my mind...
whether maybe she held onto this stuff and wrote about it for too long and could it have shortened her life... ?

God help us to put it aside before it ever reaches that point.

Love,
Carolyn

Gabben

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Re: In Honor of Kathy Krajco
« Reply #9 on: June 11, 2008, 02:43:10 PM »
Dear Carolyn,

I hear what you are saying. The creative juices seem to flow when we are carrying around more passion....the anger passion.

The anger and hatred must come out and then be gone if we are to heal and live happily.

When I read her work I am reflecting with care to make sure that I do not allow for myself to start feeding off the bitterness.

The healing from a sociopath or a NPD is very painful and very slow, at times. Forgiveness will be a soothing balm that allows the healing the quicken, however, we still need to talk about the pain, I have noticed that as time has gone on my pain is less and less as my voice about N-Saint is less and less.

I too hope that Kathy did not have a shorter life because of this stuff -- IMO, dying for N's is not a martyrs death.

Certain Hope

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Re: In Honor of Kathy Krajco
« Reply #10 on: June 11, 2008, 04:51:28 PM »
Dear Carolyn,

I hear what you are saying. The creative juices seem to flow when we are carrying around more passion....the anger passion.


Yes, exactly, Lise.... and that sort of passion drives away the passion for life!

It's like darkness and light... can't co-exist.


I'm glad we have a couple of threads now to recognize Kathy's work and to honor her memory, too.
Thanks for joining me in this.

Love,
Carolyn

Certain Hope

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A Vaccine for Narcissism
« Reply #11 on: June 12, 2008, 02:35:16 PM »
...   I then had the misfortune to live next door to a very different style of narcissist. One whose true colors showed to be very seedy indeed when the honeymoon was over and the domestic abuse began. In contrast to the administrator I mentioned above, this guy had a rap sheet a mile long. He tried to move the lot lines with con schemes. He would run over his neighbors' fences and small trees and bushes with his huge, jacked-up pickup truck and leash his dangerous dogs out onto your property to keep you from getting to your garage door. Mean and wild as a junkyard dog, that is, and drunk every day.

To my surprise, he tested his prey too. Immediately after his wife and children suddenly disappeared one day, he decided to replace them. In fact, I was grilling steaks when I overhead him snarl at his dog that he'd "get a new dog too" if doggie didn't behave.

Before my wondering eyes could believe what they were seeing, he was hitting on me. Testing me to see if flattery would make me revise history. I was supposed to be so google-eyed over his sudden attentions that I would forget everything I knew about him and forget what he had done to us! I must say that that was the most breath-taking sample of raw narcissism I have ever seen.

But guess what? He was now a different person, an unassuming and likeable man any woman would like. I was just as surprised at myself as I was him. His magic was truly tempting me. I had to keep a tight grip on reality and keep reminding myself of the past - when Dr. Jekyll here was Mr. Hyde. He was quite thick-headed about it and couldn't take a hint to get lost. I had to let him know with a wink one day that I saw right through him and was entertained by his efforts.

Zoom, gone just like that, and bringing other women home from the bars for testing in the role of his new mamma.

The narcissist S V- nin says the same, though in an abstract way:


I compared Narcissistic Supply to drugs because of the almost involuntary and always-unrestrained nature of the pursuit involved in securing it. ...The narcissist rates people around him according to whether they can provide him with Narcissistic Supply or not. As far as the narcissist is concerned, those who fail this simple test do not exist. They are two-dimensional cartoon figures. Their feelings, needs and fears are of no interest or importance.

Potential Sources of Supply are then subjected to a meticulous examination and probing of the volume and quality of the Narcissistic Supply that they are likely to provide. ...Needless to say that he loses any and all interest in them and in their needs once he decides that they are no longer able to supply him with what he needs: an audience, adoration, witnessing (=memory).



So, that's the crucial determiner of whether you are likely to fall prey to a narcissist or not - do you flunk these tests?

If you do, you will seem to attract narcissists.


A narcissist seeking a lover as prey might test you by going off like firecracker in some off-the-wall reaction to something you do or say.
The test is to see whether this herds your behavior in the direction he wants,
whether you attempt to appease him, whether you forget about it tommorrow (when he acts like it never happened) by acting like it never happened.
In other words, you flunk this test by "forgiving and forgetting."
To a narcissist, that's a green light.

You pass this test by raising your own voice, saying, "What the hell are you mad about?" and "If you won't make sense and be reasonable, I won't waste my breath on you," deciding that if he is such a changeable, unpredictable Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, you aren't going to date him any more.

The street con artist always tests potential marks too.
For example, will you do a stupid thing to please him just because he acts like you'll be a bad person if you don't?
You pass the test by replying, "WHAT? Are you nuts? No!"
You flunk the test by caving in to moral pressure by saying, "OK, I'll go into the bank and draw money out of my account to help you guys catch that evil teller."

In any case this test is always a test to see if the narcissist slams into the brick wall of a backbone. If he does, he flies away like a bee that has just discovered there's no nectar in that flower.

From these examples, you can see that the children of narcissists are more likely than others to flunk some kinds of tests. For example, they have been brainwashed to regard as normal and tolerate blow-ups in people with the nerve to be so rude.
They have been trained to say, "Well, yes he does have a terrible temper but he doesn't carry a grudge."
Note the irony in that: the fact that he's all smiles the next day is a BAD sign, not a good one!



The bottom line is that it isn't so much a matter of backbone as it is a matter of naivite.
We all must face the fact that there are people like this out there.
They look just like the rest of us.
You can't tell who they are by their reputation or status or anything else. Only these red-flag behaviors give the predators among us away.

Never forget that faces are masks and that we never really know what's going on in anyone else's head.

You are easy prey for predators if you are naive, not knowing that you must just ALWAYS choose to have a backbone = ALWAYS pass the test.

No matter WHO that other person is. Yes, even if people will say you're a bad person for it:
good people don't prostitute themselves to the threat of being called a bad person for doing the right and/or sensible thing.

So, just always pass the test. It's a vaccine for a narcissist-free life.

Not to mention a truly virtuous one.

.

Gabben

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Re: In Honor of Kathy Krajco
« Reply #12 on: June 12, 2008, 02:38:57 PM »
Carolyn...................I love you. Your witty!

Certain Hope

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Re: In Honor of Kathy Krajco
« Reply #13 on: June 12, 2008, 02:45:30 PM »
lol... o, well... I love you, too, Lise... and I have my little stray moments of wit... lol... but I did not write this.

It's more of Kathy Krajco... from her article titled "A Vaccine for N"

The whole thing is much longer.  Here's the link, which I forgot to insert:

http://www.zimbio.com/pilot?ZURL=%2FNarcissistic%2Bpersonality%2Bdisorder%2Farticles%2F13%2FHow%2Bto%2BKeep%2BCyberpaths%2BAway&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fnarc-attack.blogspot.com%2F2008%2F02%2Fvaccine-for-narcissism.html

Gabben

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Re: In Honor of Kathy Krajco
« Reply #14 on: June 12, 2008, 02:49:56 PM »
"but I did not write this."

Yes.........but your timing for putting this article up on the board was excellant!