Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Sealynx on November 29, 2009, 10:57:37 AM
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I just left my mother's after spending a few days there for Thanksgiving visiting relatives. She and my aunt are both N's and it is hard to explain to someone who hasn't been there how hard it is to go days without even a slight sharing of emotion. The short attention span (virtually non-existent) for anything that isn't somehow connected to them and the negative comments that rain down in the form of "their (unsolicited) opinion" take a toll, but I always find these visits instructive.
Having learned to back away from most arguments, I have turned my focus during visits to discerning the more subtle patterns, the ones that I believe made up those parts of childhood that I can't remember and were disastrous in terms of developing my decision making ability. One instance that sticks out from this visit was a stop at an adventure sport store with my aunt.
I was looking for a warm kayaking hat and had a few simple criteria. I needed something that would fit snug, cover my ears and have a brim to keep the sun off my face. It also needed to dry quickly and resist wind. The store had one of the largest selections of hats that I'd ever seen so I had every reason to believe I could pick out a hat.
I thought I knew what I wanted until my aunt began her diatribe on how "masculine" all my choices were. She kept picking out little Peruvian knit hats with dangling pomp pomps and was growing increasingly annoyed with my refusal to buy one. I even offered to buy her one to make her go away but she didn't want one...she wanted ME to validate her choice.
I felt my anger began to rise as she continued to degrade everything I looked at. I noticed that as it did, I lost that subtle sense of what I found attractive and could no longer make a decision. Suddenly the sea of hats all looked the same. Even after she admitted that her definition of "masculine" was any hat with a brim, no matter how prissy it might look on a man, I couldn't even choose a color. My ability to know what I wanted had been effectively turned off by my anger. I spent the next few minutes picking out a birthday gift for a kayaking buddy and then left the store.
I know my childhood was filled with these overrides fueled by their need to have my every choice validate them. It is not about believing what my aunt said, it is a feeling of loss of passion for a choice. I am sure that this reaction didn't start at the store. I learned to erase the need to want in order to save myself form the pain of refuting their attacks. It was part of why my childhood felt so bleak and why for so long I let others tell me what to think and feel.
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((((Sealynx))))
I probably learned to erase the need to want because I couldn't have. Even now I have to want something quite badly for me to buy it at the time, instead of walking away and 'seeing if I really want it'. I guess I pretend I don't want anything much.
But I have dreams about lavish, luxury food, where everyone else eats before me and I'm scrabbling around towards the end, desperate to taste the things that look so good. It's always in a work context too, a fancy dinner, where I couldn't enjoy the food anyway (this was reality for me).
A Peruvian knit hat with dangling pomp pomps? Guess who gave me one of these, and it's too small. It's in a suitcase with some of the other totally inappropriate gifts. What I really really want is Sarah Connor's desert weapon stash. And those sunglasses.
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A Peruvian knit hat with dangling pomp pomps? Guess who gave me one of these, and it's too small. It's in a suitcase with some of the other totally inappropriate gifts. What I really really want is Sarah Connor's desert weapon stash. And those sunglasses.
:lol: :lol: :lol: Funny. I always liked Sarah Connor--we need more characters like her . . .
Sealynx, your ability to analyze from an emotional distance is astounding. I don't know if I would be able to be in her company and look at her under the microscope so to speak. But, my experience being used by NM simply as a mirror to validate her is similar to yours. And, I have striven for years to find my own passions.
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Portia, You got one too??
Peruvian hats must have been in the N shopping guide for that year! Do you think there is a secret publication they all read?? I can just imagine kayaking across open water with two soaking wet pom-poms hitting me in the face.
Perhaps we should start a magazine especially for N's, one that praises all their bad choices. We could do fun articles on how to best abuse the waitresses at busy restaurants and what to say to anyone who has the nerve to treat you like anything less than God. There would of course be a special Christmas issue dedicated to all the inappropriate gifts we can think of. My all time favorite was the gun mentioned in "People of the Lie" that was presented to a young boy after being used to kill his brother. We could do a whole page of suicide weapons.
I think you should at least buy yourself some of those cool shades for Xmas. Those look a lot like the welding goggle shades that Amazon sells. Go for it!!
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Hi Butterfly,
I've always been the sort who loves to do research so I guess I turned that talent inwards. I study myself a lot and ask why things happen. I've also been at it for a very long time. If I can understand something as a process of thinking that was taught to me rather than judging myself in a global manner as bad or good (as I used to do) then I have hope to change some of my reactions.
In retrospect if I should have cleared my mind of her badgering and realized that every comment she'd made since we walked into the place was really about her own need to feel feminine and "pick the right" things to find attractive. As annoying as it would have been, I needed to stop and explain my criteria to her and start a technical discussion of the effect of wind and water. Her femininity had become attached to the hat and she was now assuming that I had just judged her by not wanting the hat. She was ready to take anything I said as rejection rather than a simple statement of opinion and my needs. I needed to praise the hat highly but bore her to death with the details of my search. It has been my experience that they see any failure to agree as a put down. If I had said, "That hat is much too pretty to get dirty river water on" she would have backed off. In other words, I needed to treat her like the emotional child she is.
When I was leaving the house I got in a similar and very stupid argument with my mother. She had been trying to make me eat a banana for the last half hour Each time she gave me a different reason why I SHOULD eat her banana. I didn't want it, nor was I in the mood to have it in my vehicle because the smell lingers. I had said, No, No thank you, I'm not hungry and I don't like bananas. I finally said I didn't like ripe bananas. This unfortunately allowed her to transform my refusal into the value judgment and mount a nasty defense. She immediately responded with...You could have just said NO if you didn't want it. I buy good bananas. The whole thing had been about my praising her decision to buy these bananas. I know it sounds stupid but they are just like small children.
When a child brings you some worthless "treasure" it just found, you praise its beauty and say "thank you". I've found N's operate the same way.
Sound familiar??
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Dear Sealynx
That last post was brilliant! You really distilled what an interaction with an N is like! It is always about them in some way. It seems like always need to assert that they have value. Do you think that is what is under it? Ami
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Hi Ami,
Your comment made me think, "Why does a child do this?" It is not to share a fascination with the object because once a child has your attention it will often bring you every available object in the room in order to keep the interaction going. It is creating a kind of social contract with you, but a very simple one. Children luckily grow beyond this stage. N's seem to get stuck there. Just like the child loses interest in the object once it is "delivered", I find that my N's lose interest in things once they no longer carry an N supply. There is no ability to treasure something for sentimental or intrinsic value to the self. My aunt did not want the hat in fact her wardrobe is very predictable.
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Oh God, that gun in POTL Sealynx. Horrific, astounding. Too horrific, I wish everyone would read the other chapter about the parents of the boy who doesn't want to go to boarding school. That conversation he has with them towards the end, and how they turn on him and his profession...so neatly. I don't want to look it up; it's too sick.
I think many gifts given to me are cast-offs, bought for the child herself, then passed on to me. I wonder if I've had anything brand new, unworn, unused? Sometimes instead I got exact replicas of her stuff, because I'm a mini-her I gues. Because we are the same person! To her.
I'm gonna look up those Amazon shades. Thanks.
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Thank you Sealynx, this is insightful and helpful. You are good at it.
KatG
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Hi Sealynx,
Procrustes
Procrustes was a host who adjusted his guests to their bed. Procrustes, whose name means "he who stretches", was arguably the most interesting of Theseus's challenges on the way to becoming a hero. He kept a house by the side of the road where he offered hospitality to passing strangers, who were invited in for a pleasant meal and a night's rest in his very special bed. Procrustes described it as having the unique property that its length exactly matched whomsoever lay down upon it. What Procrustes didn't volunteer was the method by which this "one-size-fits-all" was achieved, namely as soon as the guest lay down Procrustes went to work upon him, stretching him on the rack if he was too short for the bed and chopping off his legs if he was too long. Theseus turned the tables on Procrustes, fatally adjusting him to fit his own bed.
I give you credit and admire your ability to step back and see your aunt's ploy for what it was without becoming Procrustes or Theseus! :)
tt
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Hey Sealynx...
about anger blotting out all ability to choose - the "give up" option - I've recently had a similar experience with a designer/store clerk. Rather than letting me choose what I wanted she designed what she thought I "should" have and (unconsciously) put down every single swatch that attracted me. By the time I left the store, all the fun & excitement about designing this custom piece of furniture had turned into a sneaky thought-pattern of "what I want doesn't matter, ergo.... I don't matter". And yeah... I was pretty irritated - at her "taking over" and at myself for not stopping her early on... for not setting a boundary with an explanation that a.) I am a degreed artist with 20 years of design experience and b.) I've been trained to sew and work with fabrics since I was 6.
When I walked into the store, I only wanted to see and look at all the fabric swatches. I wasn't ready to choose until I saw the selection - the whole big box of crayons - that I COULD choose from. My NM used to do this to me ALL the time and my only options - then - were to be angry and walk away or give up. This sort of triggered that old pattern.
Maybe it's ego on my part... that list of experience & credentials, you know? The designer was my daughter's age... and I really didn't want to hurt her feelings by rejecting her choices, either. But every which way I look at it, I see that I gave up control of what I wanted to do and the responsibility for the impasse is mine. There were a LOT of ways I could've redirected the situation, if I'd been just a bit more present in the moment. But no harm done... and I may go back, if logistics of the move permit.
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Hi Portia,
If I didn't need scripts in my glasses I'd have a pair of those goggles!
Hi TT,
I do have to say that both options for fitting the bed attracted me strongly in my early years of dealing with this N mess.
Hi Kat,
Glad to be of service.
Hi PR,
I think I am so trained in resignation that it has become a physiological response to some situations, not that different from the stomach buzz of fear or the shivering at the thought of cold. Once I find one of these behavior traits (and I've uncovered quite a few) I can at least not feel bad about myself or trapped. Like you my body sent the message, no way out, give up and I took that nose dive into anger and in my case a bit of depression even though I didn't believe her words.
Notice the other thing you assume, that you will hurt her feelings by rejecting her choices. Is that true or was she just brainstorming choices for you? Where did we learn that disagreeing with people hurts them?? Do we assume that disagreeing has to become ugly and hurtful?
What I would do with this event is do some brainstorming of my own. I would mentally explore some alternative ways of dealing with it. If you didn't feel that you were being forced into color choices could you have enjoyed some of her choices and simply labeled them as good but not for you? This would give you a chance to compliment her while stating your objective.
How could you have asked to be left alone with the colors to think? Might you have slipped in your artistic bent (and taken the "ball" out of her court) by saying, "one of my paintings is going to hang above this and I need to compliment it". I need some time to think about these fabrics. I might have backed that up with, "Can I have take home samples of some of the fabrics I think might work?"
I find that when I am confronted with disagreement I immediately assume that the other person will not hear my words or respect my opinion and back off. I have to get past that to enter into any kind of negotiation. My thought process is, "this is wrong and you won't stop doing it because I obviously don't command respect." I find that a host of bad feelings about self can flood into the simplest interaction that doesn't go my way. I try to remain aware of those thoughts and feelings and catch them before they erupt into full scale recreations of previous failures...I don't know about you but my head is very prone to creating dramas.
S
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Hi Butterfly,
I've always been the sort who loves to do research so I guess I turned that talent inwards. I study myself a lot and ask why things happen. I've also been at it for a very long time. If I can understand something as a process of thinking that was taught to me rather than judging myself in a global manner as bad or good (as I used to do) then I have hope to change some of my reactions.
In retrospect if I should have cleared my mind of her badgering and realized that every comment she'd made since we walked into the place was really about her own need to feel feminine and "pick the right" things to find attractive. As annoying as it would have been, I needed to stop and explain my criteria to her and start a technical discussion of the effect of wind and water. Her femininity had become attached to the hat and she was now assuming that I had just judged her by not wanting the hat. She was ready to take anything I said as rejection rather than a simple statement of opinion and my needs. I needed to praise the hat highly but bore her to death with the details of my search. It has been my experience that they see any failure to agree as a put down. If I had said, "That hat is much too pretty to get dirty river water on" she would have backed off. In other words, I needed to treat her like the emotional child she is.
When I was leaving the house I got in a similar and very stupid argument with my mother. She had been trying to make me eat a banana for the last half hour Each time she gave me a different reason why I SHOULD eat her banana. I didn't want it, nor was I in the mood to have it in my vehicle because the smell lingers. I had said, No, No thank you, I'm not hungry and I don't like bananas. I finally said I didn't like ripe bananas. This unfortunately allowed her to transform my refusal into the value judgment and mount a nasty defense. She immediately responded with...You could have just said NO if you didn't want it. I buy good bananas. The whole thing had been about my praising her decision to buy these bananas. I know it sounds stupid but they are just like small children.
When a child brings you some worthless "treasure" it just found, you praise its beauty and say "thank you". I've found N's operate the same way.
Sound familiar??
Oh God, does THAT sound VERY FAMILIAR!!!!!
NDoofus would go on and on and on and on, ad nauseum, about FORCING HER food choices on you AFTER BEING TOLD "NO THANK YOU" for about a half hour or more!!!!! Dense Ditz!!!!!
Bones
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Bones,
To me this kind of subtle crazy making is harder to deal with than overt abuse because no one will side with you over a fight involving a banana. It would seem silly and even mean spirited to most people that you chose to argue with an 86 year old over something so trivial. However the problem lies in the pattern which is repeated throughout the day in many many ways until you are ready to pull your hair out. When I realize that this was my childhood I'm not surprised that I don't remember much of it and always felt depressed and frustrated growing up. How can a child even know it exists when a parent doesn't appear to hear a word it says.
s
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Bones,
To me this kind of subtle crazy making is harder to deal with than overt abuse because no one will side with you over a fight involving a banana. It would seem silly and even mean spirited to most people that you chose to argue with an 86 year old over something so trivial. However the problem lies in the pattern which is repeated throughout the day in many many ways until you are ready to pull your hair out. When I realize that this was my childhood I'm not surprised that I don't remember much of it and always felt depressed and frustrated growing up. How can a child even know it exists when a parent doesn't appear to hear a word it says.
s
It IS crazy-making!
In the situation with NDoofus, I was not her only target so I had allies with me to tell her to BACK OFF!!!!! Her usual response to that was to give us all the "glassy-eyed blank stare". She even went so far as to say, and I quote: "Does 'No' mean 'No'?" :roll: Sheesh!!!!
Bones
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WOw! I had this same experience last week. After the dinner where she told me I needed to eat more and sabotage yet another diet (The size-6 jeans thread), I stopped at Goodwill and picked out a few things. SHe wanted me to try on this pink top with a ruffle down the front. It was pretty cute, but it was far too big. She bellyached for at least 15 minutes abut what cute top THAT one was (although I had bought several of her other choices that did fit--she has really good taste sometimes) and how it was too bad I didn't want that one. I got the feeling the whole conversation was just a way to force me to say. "there, there, it's ok, I really did like the top. you have such wonderful taste in such things."
I love the magazine idea, Sealynx. I can do a special column on how to sabotage your daughters health by messing with all her food choices.
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And another article about how to interfere with the marriages of your children. (I'm thinking in terms of the N that I used to sublet from. She treated her children, and their spouses, as if they were baby factories to fulfill HER demands for MANY grandchildren ON THE SPOT!!!!)
Bones
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Thank zeus we did not grow up to be women whose self-esteem depends on being praised because we "buy good bananas..."
I
buy
good
bananas
therefore
sing
my
name
Good lord.
Hops
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Hops,
Makes you wonder if fruit flies give good N supply.
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We really should do that magazine. Actually an Ezine/support group would be a hoot.
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Sealynx, this thread reminds me of one time several years ago when I was conversing with my siblings about poetry--nothing overly intellectual, just general conversation about the different types of poetry. NM, starring as the child begging for attention, starts her stuff and here is how it goes: (keep in mind, I am well over the age of 40)
NM: Joy, come into the kitchen right now. I want to talk to you.
Joy: Not now, mother dear, we're talking in this room
NM: yes, now
Joy: No
NM: Immediately!
Joy: no
NM: I want to talk to you about poetry in the kitchen, RIGHT NOW!!! I could have become a great poet!! I REALLY COULD HAVE!!
Joy: Yes, but you didn't.
NM: Get into the kitchen right now, you ungrateful brat!!
Joy: No
NM: I can't believe your attitude; don't you caaaaaaaare about my feelings??!!
She's horrifying. This was only one of many similar incidents showcasing her craziness--the child demanding attention, getting louder and louder, until someone says "yes, of course, you are such a wonderful person." Nauseating.
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Butterfly,
People who don't have to live with this madness would probably think our lives were a sitcom! My mother doesn't have it "together" enough to write poetry but she can be very creative in her attention getting schemes.
Last Christmas she bought a small "singing" Christmas tree. It is an ugly little green felt thing about a foot high that has arms sticking out the front. When you touch it, it sings at least two verses of "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" in a muffled but incredibly LOUD "cheap toy" voice. She has it sitting on the breakfast room table where guests tend to congregate and "accidentally" touches it whenever she gets bored with the conversation or needs attention. She then goes "Oops" and laughs hysterically.
I can't tell you how horrified I was to see that it had survived a year in storage to greet me as I walked through the door at Thanksgiving.
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Smear gravy on the bottom of the tree and accidentally give it to the dog...
Mistake it for a potholder and dunk it in the turkey juice while you're hauling out the birdie...
Put it in her bed and pull the covers up until just its l'il arms are poking out...
Snatch it from the table just in time to catch your ginormous sneeze...
Pin it to the back of her coat like a tail where she can't see it because you're helping her put the coat on...
Put it on top of her mailbox with some Superglue and congratulate her on her cute Christmas ideas...
Hang it on the front door...upside down
Steal it and take pictures of it in different places around town...
Hops
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HMMMMM.... (snort! giggle!! LOL!! ROTFLMAO!!) I'll have some of whatever Hops' is having... !
Yes, S... there are always alternatives to handling those situations; and always I tend to think of them later (and sometimes along the same path Hops took with the Christmas tree). That's why I mentioned that what I think I REALLY needed in that situation was just to be in the present moment... otherwise, all I've got is an after-the-fact analysis to try to practice in another situation.
I tend to get more R-brained - and maybe happily zoned out in my own universe - when I start to design things, i.e. - "I" was somewhere else; not present... which is the ONLY place I could've managed the situation from, expressed what I wanted better, and gotten the result I wanted. I've been in the clerk's shoes - working with custom framing clients. I probably would've done exactly the same thing to help someone start to define their "choices", one way or another.
Present moment awareness isn't a panacea - but I'm finding it's got some advantages I was previously unaware of, in the realm of boundaries.
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Good Ideas all Hops! Perhaps I can convince her that she looks just like a Christmas angel she has on the piano, dress her up and put them both out on the lawn.
PR,
That present moment is something we never had, they always stole it with judgments about what we'd just done or should do, so it would make sense that we tend to go into "total recall" or hop ahead to a bleak future scenario when faced with conflict. Being here now can feel really dangerous but as you say has great rewards.
S
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I just left my mother's after spending a few days there for Thanksgiving visiting relatives. She and my aunt are both N's and it is hard to explain to someone who hasn't been there how hard it is to go days without even a slight sharing of emotion. The short attention span (virtually nonexistent) for anything that isn't somehow connected to them and the negative comments that rain down in the form of "their (unsolicited) opinion" take a toll, but I always find these visits instructive.
Having learned to back away from most arguments, I have turned my focus during visits to discerning the more subtle patterns, the ones that I believe made up those parts of childhood that I can't remember and were disastrous in terms of developing my decision making ability. One instance that sticks out from this visit was a stop at an adventure sport store with my aunt.
I was looking for a warm kayaking hat and had a few simple criteria. I needed something that would fit snug, cover my ears and have a brim to keep the sun off my face. It also needed to dry quickly and resist wind. The store had one of the largest selections of hats that I'd ever seen so I had every reason to believe I could pick out a hat.
I thought I knew what I wanted until my aunt began her diatribe on how "masculine" all my choices were. She kept picking out little Peruvian knit hats with dangling pomp pomps and was growing increasingly annoyed with my refusal to buy one. I even offered to buy her one to make her go away but she didn't want one...she wanted ME to validate her choice.
I felt my anger began to rise as she continued to degrade everything I looked at. I noticed that as it did, I lost that subtle sense of what I found attractive and could no longer make a decision. Suddenly the sea of hats all looked the same. Even after she admitted that her definition of "masculine" was any hat with a brim, no matter how prissy it might look on a man, I couldn't even choose a color. My ability to know what I wanted had been effectively turned off by my anger. I spent the next few minutes picking out a birthday gift for a kayaking buddy and then left the store.
I know my childhood was filled with these overrides fueled by their need to have my every choice validate them. It is not about believing what my aunt said, it is a feeling of loss of passion for a choice. I am sure that this reaction didn't start at the store. I learned to erase the need to want in order to save myself form the pain of refuting their attacks. It was part of why my childhood felt so bleak and why for so long I let others tell me what to think and feel.
I'm flabbergasted! Not only with the near exact experience(s) I have had with my Nmom and my Naunt(s) but with your research on the subject. The outcome is mine, how'd you know? This is what my childhood was plagued with. My Nmom's appetite for validation and feeling loved, needed and superior was, and is, insatiable. I will never fill the hole she has in her life no matter how much I validate her. She's like a pac-man gobbling up any accolades and compliments wherever she can find them, it's always about her no matter what.
I had no ability to make decisions in light of her insatiable appetite for validation--it overshadowed my existence and left me in silent ruins. I had no voice whatsoever. My anger and frustration during your hat search left me hatless as well! I've been there and during my Nmom's last visit a few weeks ago, I was virtually in the same hat store as you where they all looked the same.
Sealynx, I'm so glad you said this: The short attention span (virtually non-existent) for anything that isn't somehow connected to them
This must be a classic N trait that I really have not focused on until now. My Nmom has such a short attention span that she gets lost quickly when I talk. She seemed so disconnected when I was growing up. This explains so much. I could be talking at length about a subject she brought up; about how my 2 year old's pediatrician (who I respect as a physician for my daughter) was explaining in elegant detail to me and my husband about the H1N1 vaccine and his research and his working hypothesis on the new issues at hand, etc., that when I would look over at my Nmom, she was staring off and looking all foggy eyed then she interjected, "a child's love of the earth and what it has to offer...my granddaughter's immune system is low so I brought you some medicine for her that was given to me by a well known pediatrician at my church." WHAT?? First, my daughter is the healthiest kid I know and second, WHAT???? There are no words. But see Sealynx, here I lost my ability to talk intelligently in the room. I lost the ability to focus on the subject at hand a doused myself in confusion and anger. I was no longer discussing an important issue's had to start talking to her like the child she is and regroup my thoughts around her bringing some bottle of medicine for my daughter that she didn't even need!!
Then I remembered to use my voice because it involved my baby daughter. I confronted my Nmom about this bottle of medicine for her only granddaughter, this is the dialogue verbatim:
Me: Mom, who is this 'pediatrician' that you received this medicine from?
NM: Oh, he's so good. He brought an entire case of it for people in need...so nice.
Me: We're not in need mom........Mom, who is he?
NM: He recommends it for kids with colds...he's a really good doctor.
Me: What's his name?
NM: He's a doctor.
Me: I need his name to look him up on Google.
NM: [angry] What??? Why are you asking soooo many questions???? Don't question me!!!!
Me: Oh, No, no, don't get me wrong mom, I want to be sure this guy hasn't lost his medical license or something and is disposing of his office stash to complete strangers ....[laugh] how do we know this stuff is even legal, I've never seen it before!
NM: [very angry] I would NEVER let anything happen to my only granddaughter!!! ARE YOU SAYING THAT I WOULD LET SOMETHING HAPPEN TO HER???? [she repeated this question yelling at me 2 more times]
Me: Oh no mom...not at all!! [smile] I'm just cautious as to what I give the baby, you know how it is!!! Look at the bottle- is-it expired??? [It was expired but I kept my calm]
NM: [screaming] THEN THROW IT OUT AND QUIT MAKING SUCH A BIG DEAL OUT OF IT. YOU KEEP GOING ON AND ON AND ON ABOUT IT,[waving her hand in an ocean wave like motion] YOU JUST WON'T LET IT GO!! JUST THROW IT AWAY AND QUIT QUESTIONING IT!!!!!! I'M TIRED OF YOU ASKING ME SO MANY QUESTIONS, JUST LET IT GOOOOO!!! GEEEEZ, YOU HANG ON TO THINGS AND NAG IT TO DEATH!!!!!
I almost killed her at that point I was so angry. She left the room laughing and shaking her head saying "sheeeesh" like she couldn't get over the fact that my behavior was so inappropriate and it had downright exhausted her. It's like my vision gets blurred when this happens and I can't even focus on what my hands are doing and my pulse races. The decision making process gets trumped by N's child like ways.
Sealynx: you are also soooo right about "who would take sides over the argument over a banana." It's mind boggling and I struggle with even explaining it to someone, I almost always sound petty and stupid. The above argument with my Nmom is just as ridiculous and someone who witnessed it would have thought I was the crazy one. I feel like I suffer alone (except here of course) and no one can even fathom what I'm going through with each and every encounter with my NM.
I lost that subtle sense of what I was really saying. I felt unintellegent and my knowledge of things overrated. She succeeded in burrying me in her quest to be noticed and heard.
I gotta go now, my heart is racing....
I'll come back later. Sealynx, thank you, thank you...you're good!
Bear
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Hi Bear,
Decoding their intent and N supply attachments isn't easy. Certainly as children we had no idea what was going on and still try to speak the voice of reason as if now that we are big, we can be heard. That drug issue could have been my mother as well, especially when she started refusing to answer questions about the "doctor". My mother thinks doctors are Gods.
In the case of my mother she always drops the full name of the person along with any credentials so I wouldn't have trouble validating her story, but the core issues seems to be the same. It is an inability to have logic and common sense over-ride the importance of a story about a doctor, who is important and worth knowing . Once she linked herself to the doctor, he had to be perfect. Questioning the drugs dangers or effectiveness would have removed all the N supply of knowing him.
I have seen my mother do many things that were morally or intellectually questionable because she was so consumed by the N supply that she simply lost the ability to make a normal decision. A good example is large bag of Satsumas that one of my aunts brought over for me to take home. I love satsumas and so does my neighbor who watches my house when I'm gone. As I prepared to leave I found that there were only about 5 satsumas left in the bag. Sitting next to it in plain view were three identical bags filled with them. I asked her what she was doing with all my satsumas and she said she was giving them to her BRIDGE CLUB!!!
When told her I wanted them she shrugged and said, okay and walked off. She had been too focused on the attention she would get by giving away my satsumas to realize that she'd taken nearly all of them. They are crazy like that. If I had pressed her for an answer about why she thought she could give my satsumas away I'm sure we would have had an argument!! Thinking about my pleasure or who the food belonged too would have ruined her fantasy of attention from the club. I might as well have asked a hungry shark why he is in a feeding frenzy just because there is a little blood in the water.
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CB,
I think that brings up an interesting question. Do they lack boundaries because they were not properly socialized or do they lack boundaries because whatever is missing from their emotional make up caused them not to comprehend the socialization they were exposed to?
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Sealynx, I'd like to poke my nose in on this one.
I think there are 3 reasons:
1) they have a genetic vulnerability to harden into Ns
2) something in their childhood is Really Wrong and damages them further
3) their socialization is off because of things that happen in their homes, though if they're smart they learn to copy behavior superficially. It (proper socialization) never matures in them, though, since they didn't get it at home, just from copying...
Make any sense to you?
hugs,
Hops
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Sealynx, I'd like to poke my nose in on this one.
I think there are 3 reasons:
1) they have a genetic vulnerability to harden into Ns
2) something in their childhood is Really Wrong and damages them further
3) their socialization is off because of things that happen in their homes, though if they're smart they learn to copy behavior superficially. It (proper socialization) never matures in them, though, since they didn't get it at home, just from copying...
Make any sense to you?
hugs,
Hops
I can't help but think when I read these [good] points, that there may be a fine line between the N' and their children (us). Where did the tracks separate and take them on their journey to being N's and then take us to our journey of the complete opposite? My NM was raised by 2 N parents without knowing it and most of her 7 siblings are N's or have some severe social problems at the least. They were all abused. But so was I. All the points above, Hops, I can say happened to me, in my home, etc., and the genetic predisposition may be a factor. Yes? No?
What is the key factor of becoming an N and could it have been prevented despite the Really Wrong things in the home?
Just curious...sorry to probe so deep :P :P :P
Bear :D
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Hi Bear,
I'm no scientist so I don't know whether this is true, but I've found comfort in thinking about Ns like animals, because I think very often we humans forget that we are also animals.
What I mean is, in a litter of mutt puppies, the genes of their ancestors will come out in a variety of ways. One will be runty, one alpha, some shy, some outgoing, some grow big, some have stick-up ears, some droop...one will have spots, another solid colored coat. In a mixed gene pool, which is what all humans come from (unlike purebred dogs)--there's no end to the variety of gene expression.
A bad-tempered dog can have a litter of puppies in which one or two grow up to be bad-tempered, even though five more are all sweeties. So, I figure, the N gene's like that. No telling who'll get the genes and the various vulnerabilities that make it erupt through the membrane of self to take over.
Absolutely, environment means a lot too. I think, although I definitely have Nspots (Ntraits) that I did not become a full-tilt narcissist because I had a kind, gentle, other-oriented father. Someone in my home was the opposite of an N, and I adored him. And may have been more like him, genetically (I also look more like him than I look like my mother). My brother is like a member of her family, physically...and there are stories of some of her relatives being "disturbed".
So, to me, it's very likely that genes are a much much more powerful influence on personality than one tends to routinely think about. Behavior, human stories, anecdotes, are such richer material for our imaginations. Genes are invisible scientific things, and personally, I barely get the concept. So I spend my N-study time thinking of stories (which are all environment).
But I think the truth is, the gene factor is huge. At least as big as environment.
I don't think a gene can be prevented. But we can change the environment side of the equation by rewriting our own stories going forward. And change our children's from what ours were, or what our parents' were. So I think maybe you can prevent the development of full-blown Ns in most cases.
Remember the stories (assume I have the animal wrong and have oversimplified the science) about when a monkey began to use a new tool in a new way, and the researchers observed that the monkey's offspring, who for some reason were NOT raised by that monkey, grew up having the same never-before-seen skill? There was some mysterious leap in behavior and knowledge generationally...a new evolution. What fascinated me was there was NO logical story or explanation for how it was transmitted.
That suggests to me that the one way to have a better chance of preventing narcissism from blossoming in children is to heal ourselves. They'll benefit, even indirectly. It will be transmitted forward--if not to them, maybe the healing will appear in another child in our vicinity. (Nature's pretty mysterious--what if a child down the street we'd never met somehow learned something because we are healing ourselves?) And if one of our children or grandchildren seems to be expressing the gene, we can push harder to teach character and empathy than we would ordinarily have to in order to encourage those character traits.
It's always healthy to ask for what we want, as long as we can release the outcome.
And if we fail, and a child grows up to be a cold or brutal adult, we should continue healing ourselves anyway. Our new knowledge, our new skills, will still come out down the line somehow. I think new socialization skills (which is what our healing from Ns are) can even leap out of biofamilies and help OTHER children.
Individuals, including our own children, may be lost to narcissism, but we can always keep healing and trust that there's a ripple effect. Every time I show compassion to myself and to others, every time I decide to be strong even when I'm scared, every time I set a calm boundary and hold it, every time I forgive myself with generosity and then forgive another, every time I ask for what I want and release the outcome, every time I extend myself for a stranger.
xo
Hops
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Hi, Hops!
For what it's worth, when I was taking psychology classes, we often had a discussion about Nature versus Nurture. IMHO, I think it's a combination of Nature AND Nurture.
Bones
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Hops Bear and Bones,
I once heard a talk on the topic of "Unexpressed Genes" in identical twins. What they were learning is that life history seems to affect genetically transmitted diseases like arthritis and growth factors. Some identical twins can grow to different heights yet they are genetically identical. That research born of twins is now being used in other areas. I found several articles (too technical to be fun to read) about unexpressed genes being a factor in why some siblings inherit schizophrenia and some don't.
Hops you mentioned:
1) they have a genetic vulnerability to harden into Ns
2) something in their childhood is Really Wrong and damages them further
3) their socialization is off because of things that happen in their homes, though if they're smart they learn to copy behavior superficially. It (proper socialization) never matures in them, though, since they didn't get it at home, just from copying...[/i]
Those ideas are evident in my the homes of both of my parents..
My father's father was just plain mean and could have been a narcissist. His wife died when I was very young but I hear she wasn't very nice, of course it is hard to tell because he was so dismissive of women. Both the girls and boys in the family were treated like slaves. The boys worked the fields and the girls did domestic chores around the house. They were literally bred as laborers.
Here is how they turned out:
Daughter one..Extreme anxiety to the point of stuttering.
Daughter two...Extreme anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorders.
Daughter three...Extreme narcissism. Married well and practiced emotional incest with her children. Their son killed his sister, both parents then himself at age 36.
Son one....Left the family after the death of his first wife. Changed religions and moved away (constructive no to little contact).
Son two...My father. N traits but basically a weak "nice guy". Married my N mother.
Son three....Complete narcissist. Prided himself on cheating his siblings in family business deals. Always sought high profile jobs and married a rich woman.
My mother's family was not parented by Narcissists. My grandfather had a brilliant mechanical mind and once surprised me with a drafting board that fit over a twin bed I had and could be easily stored. He was a perfectionist in his work, but not mean. His wife was very prone to anxiety attacks, never mean. No abuse in this family but almost all the children have had some issues with alcohol (self medication for anxiety perhaps?).
Daughter one...Was the child of my GF's first wife who died shortly after childbirth. He then married her sister so genetics are very similar. Joined the Army and married a pilot. They lived within 10 miles of my grandmother but her family was very secretive (perhaps fear of her siblings?). She was controlling of her kids. They still all live on a plot of land she bought. She was a no nonsense "military type" but not an N.
Daughter two.... My mother. Was the apple of my GF's eye. If anything she was spoiled. She is an N and even in her baby pictures there is a strange "far away" look in her eyes.
Daughter three...Married well and lived a life of luxury. Was a beauty queen in college and also very N. My cousins often comment that my mother's mannerisms and actions make them think they are looking at their own mother (D two)
Daughter Four...She married well and moved quite often (constructive limited contact). Controlling but not N. More personable than D1.
Daughter five...Extremely Narcissistic and controlling. Never married.
Son one... Very nice guy but slighted by his siblings for marrying a woman they felt was beneath him. He was by far the nicest and happiest of the children. A very funny friendly and warm person who loved his wife dearly until she died of cancer. He had an enviable capacity to find and keep good friends.
Son Two... Introverted N trait personality. Think engineer. Not much emotional latitude. Married a woman who is also very technical like him.
Son Three... Quiet, very nice professional man who has married a succession of N women.
Son Four... Never married. Diagnosed by military as N. Outgoing personality.
Is there a relationship between the development of N traits and anxiety disorders?? Is the anxiety genetic or situational? Both parents came from small rural communities where the gene pool was not very large. I know my maternal grandfather and mother were second cousins and members of a close knit ethnic group that may have intermarried for generations.
Some genetic personality types may be more prone to N behaviors. My fun uncle was someone who NEEDED people. His idea of fun was to enjoy an experience with someone. While some of the N's were social, they were more likely to share secondary interests like drinking and dining with peers. My socialite N aunt died almost friendless in her home town after being a prominent person for most of her life. Granted many former friends were dead, but certainly not all of them. Many of my fun uncles friends were dead too but he had apparently made more as the funeral service was filled to capacity.
I also wonder about the controlling non N's. A need to control can exist along side of N behaviors, but also instead of it. Is it an attempt to protect certain parts of the personality? Do various levels of controlling behavior make up one end of the N scale where the person is still somewhat aware and empathetic enough to realize they lack certain abilities and seek to protect them via controlling which "buttons" others are allowed to push?
And then there is the spiritual aspect. Reincarnation has always made great sense to me. I feel that some of these people have a history.
S
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Wow, Sealynx...that's a pile of very close observation.
Good for you for the detachment that made it possible.
And how wonderful that you have a warm and funny uncle.
As to anxiety and N traits...
For decades, I was a vibrating mess of anxiety. Panic attacks. Valium. Therapy. Terrors.
If it's associated with Ntraits, maybe Npeople are hypervigilant lest the attention they feel so dependent on might waver?
For my own sake, I hope it's the case that people may just have anxiety because they are survivors of Ns, as well...
I even wondered at times if some of my sensitivity was because I was born a month early. I used to feel I was "missing a filter" that other people had.
Thank god it's better with age. I am less sensitive now and grateful for it.
Hops
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Hops,
We all have every reason to be anxious! I do wonder however if my grandmothers was more physiological than psychological. I can understand the narcissists in my father's family but the ones in my mothers family, with so many children out of 9 having traits are more difficult to fathom. Sadly my "fun" uncle suffered a stroke and died two three years ago. Interesting that the siblings collectively decided he was the "black sheep"!
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Ahhh, sorry I didn't take in past tense on your uncle.
Of course he was a "black" sheep!
Ns tend to loathe people with warm hearts, open arms, generous natures, and senses of humor.
None of which they are able to imitate very convincingly.
Hops
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Hops, you delve deeply into the chasm of N's history and/or biology. You brought up some points worthy of me looking more into for my own edification. I find this subject fascinating because most T's say that they don't know how many N's are in the world because they never, or rarely, seek treatment for their woes in life, if at all recognized by the N themself. It is mostly the children, friends, coworkers or other family members left in their destructive wake that they wonder "what happened" at some point and then seek help.
So genetically, if I'm a carrier of said N gene then my daughter may carry the gene. Scary to think that I can carry the gene but not exhibit N traits but pass the gene on to my daughter and then she may exhibit the trait, or, maybe it takes two N genes to tango at all--like in cystic fibrosis. This is what science needs to explore.
I'd like to think that parenting carries a heavier weight than he gene here. N is a "disorder" and can be detected pretty early if someone cares enough about the N to listen to them as a child. This is just me thinking outloud and I have no idea about the science or history of how, where and why. I just get to thinking because I'm raising a very young child and fear the worst. I don't want to fail her. I need to show her empathy and unconditional love and how to give it back...where's the manual when you need it???? LOL! :lol: :lol: :lol:
I'll keep reading above and learning from everyone here.
Bear
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Narcissism as a genetic trait
In the decades since the discovery of DNA and the subsequent mapping of the human genome questions have arisen as to whether traits of personality, including narcissism, are partially or fully determined by one’s own genes.
Heritability study with twins
W.
The study subjects were 175 volunteer twin pairs (90 identical, 85 fraternal) drawn from the general population.
Of the 18 personality dimensions, narcissism was found to have the highest heritability (0.64), indicating that the concordance of this trait in the identical twins was mainly due to genetics.
The general conclusions of the study were: (1) agreement with other studies that some personality factors have significantly high heritability coefficients, and (2) there exists a continuum between normal and disordered personality.
Read more: narcissism - Narcissistic Culture, Narcissism as a genetic trait, Medical narcissism, Celebrating Narcissism http://encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com/pages/15652/narcissism.html#ixzz0YZg0L8PK
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All I can say here is WOW! Will the N population grow and become a majority in successive generations, then? Or, will the awareness of society reject Ns, refuse to breed with Ns? THeoretically, they could die out . . . but, if they adapt socially to get their N supply and if some who are not N still carry the gene . . .
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I think one of the problems with them dying out is that at least in American society, celebrity status is worshiped and that essentially ignores the morality of the person if they can produce revenue. So marketable talent of any kind trumps good morals and empathy. How many famous people that young people look up to today are known for their empathy and kindness to others???
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Sealynx, What are satsumas? (Better to expose my ignorance than to not know).
bearwithme, you know what would probably have cooked your mom's goose? When she said JUST THROW IT AWAY, for you to have gone to the trash and tossed it in. Take her sarcasm "straight." I did that with my mom. She started wailing, "I guess I'll just have to be VERY CAREFUL what I say to you from now on" (very sarcastically) and I replied seriously, "Thank you mom, I appreciate that." Totally flabbergasted her.
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Satsumas are nice little oranges that grow down here. They can be as large as a normal orange but most are about half the size and more sweet than tart. They peel easily with just a fingernail for a knife and then can be broken apart into small pieces like a mandarin. They make great snacks.
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Hi... I've been mostly "lurking" on this thread and must say it's intriguing.
Thought I'd share something about the "nurture" side of things... my experience with my mom was pivotal to my "conditioning" to always think of others, take care of others before myself.... and any time I expressed pleasure, pride, or satisfaction with myself for an accomplishment: she tarnished it, discounted it, and/or "took me down a peg"... claiming I "would get a big head" if she allowed me enjoyment of what I was capable of. Sometimes, she even claimed credit for it. Yet everything about her was "right", "perfect", and immensely "special".
Pot calling the kettle black, don't you think? My mom was adept at projecting HER foibles onto me. For me, her ability to project - and the fact that I wasn't allowed normal boundaries as a child - was the mechanism used to accomplish her N-supply (making me miserable was her pleasure - she'd "done her job") and make me emotionally warped. Work on boundaries - and being aware of my own feelings (and not trying to predict other's feelings) is ongoing. Undoing that conditioning is going to take quite a lot more time - and I can't believe how much fun, silly happiness, and just plain emotional warmth I have been missing. I can only take small doses at a time, right now, without the boomerang effect of fear or anxiety kicking in later or simultaneously. I retreat to the old "withdraw" or "shutdown" strategies to maintain that inner emotional equilibrium - my camoflauge & "armor" - that protected me so long.
But just like any other "habit" it can be changed... it's not bult-in to my DNA. Thank God!!!!!!
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Absolutely, you weren't DNA doomed. PR, how could you be the amazing person you are now if that would be all it took? Plus, it's pretty clear you didn't get any sort of N-ish gene anyway.
I hope, in fact, despite my thinking about how strong genetic tendencies may be, that nurture is the bigger piece of dysfunction in most cases. Because that's the most hopeful view, and it may be reality based, too.
We can RE-nurture ourselves. And we are.
The process is beautiful and arduous. One of the amazing things about this board is seeing and sensing so many people having their epiphanies, small and large, all the time...it's like we're all working together on an enormous tapestry.
Some drafty old castle hall but we're all bundled up sitting around a huge quilting frame by the hearth with wolfhounds keeping our feet warm, the knights off on a hunt...some are stitching fast, some working with gold, some doing background work, all the colors together are amazing... When someone cries her tears intensify the color of the yarn. Laughter makes the work go smoother.
Now and then someone goes off for a nap. We've got provisions for a seige, and plenty of mead.
xo
Hops
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Jiust read something very interesting. I download a sample of book called "NutureShock: New Thinking about Chidlren". It is based on research concerning the way children are currently being raised in the US. The idea that children should be praised and rewarded constantly (regardless of effort) is creating a generation of problem kids.
According to research it goes like this... Children who are praised simply for being smart rather than effort refuse challenges (in other words if they don't already know how to do something they won't try it least they not seem "Smart") and later in life are prone to denigrating peers who do not support their fragile egos!
So children who haven't been told they are "superior beings" and have lived with constant criticism are going to be victimized twice when they cross one of these kids. Parents egos are often partially at fault for this behavior because they are unable to separate themselves from their children (sound familiar?) and by constantly praising their kids essentially praise themselves.
We think of abuse as a major cause of N behavior...But can undue praise be an even larger factor? My mother alternated between put down comments and ridiculous words of praise like saying I have "long legs". I could see I didn't but as a former dancer, this was a trait she valued. Why not glue it on to your child?
According to the research we are breeding a class of kids who cannot bear failure and disappointment. Children who are instead praised for their effort and told they must have worked very hard to achieve something and/or can become smarter by using that "muscle" called a brain, are not afraid to try new things generally do better in their later years.
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Sealynx, I concur with everything you wrote! I believe that the problems we are seeing with narcissistic college students can be traced back to the culture of "protecting their fragile little egos" instead of giving them a healthy combination of love and discipline. I believe that we grow best in an environment that produces "optimal frustration" --- if you frustrate a child TOO MUCH, that's bad, but also if you don't provide ENOUGH frustration, that's bad too. It is in the range of "optimal frustration" --- saying no when his/her desires encroach upon the rights or needs of others, but not overdoing it --- that a person learns that other people have needs that are distinct from one's own, and that the social world is one of mutual help and interaction.
If you are interested in parenting styles, Diana Baumrind has produced a lot of research on the various parenting styles and what kind of results they produce.
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Another thought: most Americans tend to think that intelligence is something you're born with. Most people in the various Asian cultures (especially Chinese and Japanese) tend to think of intelligence as something you develop with effort. First-generation Asian-American families stress intelligence as something that can be improved, and therefore they do all kinds of things to develop their kids' intelligence, and these kids are the ones that created the "stereotypical smart Asian kid." As the generations in America increase, Asian-American families tend to gravitate to the status quo.
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Another fine image of the amazons at work, Hops! Weaving, embroidering, and creating a "whole cloth" of vivid color, intricacy, compassion and wonder...
the magic of the universe!
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HP,
One of the studies in the book did a cultural comparison between American and Asian parents.
They gave both groups an extremely hard test and then told their mothers that their child had performed seriously below the norm. The mothers were then let in for a brief visit before the next test and the interaction was recorded on hidden cameras.
Without fail the American parents did NOT discuss the test failure. The talked about mundane things like what was going to be for supper! The Asian parents immediately sat down with their children and went over what had gone wrong with their test. Both groups showed equal physical and verbal affection, but the American parents completely ignored the failure.
Thanks for the link to Diana Baumrind.
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BTW. Teachers are getting the brunt of that "refusal to be challenged". I don't know if I mentioned it but I had a student write to the dean this semester, saying that I basically wasn't doing anything for the money I was being paid.
He or She created a fake Gmail account to send the vicious email and used an assumed name. Apparently the person wasn't smart enough to realize that the dean would look at the class roll and find that there was no one by that name. My crime? Challenging them to read the book in order to pass an online classes. They expected to get a list of exactly what was on the test and which pages to skip!
That kind of letter could have caused serious harm to a young teacher who wasn't well known to the dean. These students have gotten so bad so quickly that we have not developed any means of coping with the attacks. We've never had anyone impersonate a student before. I asked that the matter be turned over to Campus Police who could trace the IP address and haul the student up before the Judicial Committee. I doubt this was done. Making matters worse is the issue of dwindling funds for Higher Ed. We are being forced to compete against each other and treat students like "customers". Education is quickly becoming a lot like shopping with colleges being forced to do "info sales" in order to outbid the competition.
Increasingly the question is not, what do you need to learn to get a degree, it is "what would you like to learn?". College degrees are not as valuable as they used to be and the whole idea of being a person who can think critically is being replaced by the need to flow toward what is emotionally gratifying. Forms of marketing that stream into young brains via the internet and now Iphones (unchallenged) have replaced the need to "think".
What happens to a society that wants all ideas to be simple, emotionally attractive and unchallenging? I think the next ten years will be very interesting.
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BTW. Teachers are getting the brunt of that "refusal to be challenged". I don't know if I mentioned it but I had a student write to the dean this semester, saying that I basically wasn't doing anything for the money I was being paid.
He or She created a fake Gmail account to send the vicious email and used an assumed name. Apparently the person wasn't smart enough to realize that the dean would look at the class roll and find that there was no one by that name. My crime? Challenging them to read the book in order to pass an online classes. They expected to get a list of exactly what was on the test and which pages to skip!
That kind of letter could have caused serious harm to a young teacher who wasn't well known to the dean. These students have gotten so bad so quickly that we have not developed any means of coping with the attacks. We've never had anyone impersonate a student before. I asked that the matter be turned over to Campus Police who could trace the IP address and haul the student up before the Judicial Committee. I doubt this was done. Making matters worse is the issue of dwindling funds for Higher Ed. We are being forced to compete against each other and treat students like "customers". Education is quickly becoming a lot like shopping with colleges being forced to do "info sales" in order to outbid the competition.
Increasingly the question is not, what do you need to learn to get a degree, it is "what would you like to learn?". College degrees are not as valuable as they used to be and the whole idea of being a person who can think critically is being replaced by the need to flow toward what is emotionally gratifying. Forms of marketing that stream into young brains via the internet and now Iphones (unchallenged) have replaced the need to "think".
What happens to a society that wants all ideas to be simple, emotionally attractive and unchallenging? I think the next ten years will be very interesting.
I don't know what's worse...the way colleges/universities "market" themselves or the end results when their graduates are unable to get jobs.
Bones
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Too bad universities aren't figuring out that they are way overpriced, and that they would do better to provide more basic critical thinking skills and use all that money they're using on marketing to lower the cost. I think the way colleges could compete in this market is to stop trying to provide bells and whistles, and provide a good basic education for a much lower cost.
I think this idea might be behind the rise of community colleges. I know there are some "MIckey Mouse" community colleges out there, but if a student is savvy and careful, there are plenty of community or junior colleges that provide a good education for a much lower cost. At the very least, a savvy student can get a much more economical first two years, and save the big bucks for the last two years.
Isn't there a college in the Ozarks where students work at traditional crafts to fund the school and their own educations? We ought to be looking at models like that.
Sealynx, I am sorry you have to go through crap like that. I have taught both community college and at the university level as an adjunct, and although many students at the cc level are pretty unprepared for college work, I still generally prefer them to the university brats I've encountered. Students also need to know that it's not just academics that makes you a success in the real world, it's how well you can navigate the social world. People with horrible "people skills" will only succeed at jobs that require no interaction with others.
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Bones,
I wish we could fix that but the world economy is changing and has been for many years. The housing/banking crisis is being blamed because people can understand it easily and feel its fixable. The real causes of joblessness go deeper.
No one stopped buying Dell computers when they fired their Texas work force and moved their help desk to India. No one stopped Boeing from firing its engineers in Seattle and selling technology paid for by American tax breaks and other incentives to other countries then moving its plants there. All over the country major corporations have been bringing foreign workers into the US and training them to take our jobs away using something called an L1 Visa. We don't buy American. We buy at the cheapest price we can find and don't ask about the conditions provided for the workers who make it.
Other issues also affect our companies. Most American companies are older than the competition. Toyota's job force is relatively young and new compared to GM who is saddled with paying retirement and health benefits for generations of workers. Japan forbids for-profit insurance and does not provide many of the bells and whistles we have here. In spite of that, office visits are free, its infant mortality rate is lower than ours and its people live longer! No health care system is perfect but the resistance in the US to subsidized health care means that our companies have to absorb the cost and pass it on to the consumer, making our products even less competitive on the open market.
Add to this our extremely litigious society that mounts enormous product liability lawsuits and you have an economy that will continue to fall behind as the Asian rim takes over more and more of the technology and (what few) manufacturing jobs we have left. I think we will continue to see the American standard of living decline with fewer jobs that pay really well.
Most of the Companies we supported are no longer even American. Workers used to have the option of moving to foreign countries when their corporation set up shop there. Now these jobs are being exchanged for favors in those countries. Look at the billions we've paid to Halliburton...It moved its offices to the Grand Cayman Islands to avoid US taxes!
Given all of this I still think the best worker is an educated one who can think critically, if for no other reason than to understand the big picture of why his job may be precarious and anticipate where the next job will be found.
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HP,
I work at a community college. Unfortunately, while administrators are still being hired at the 100K+ level, all the cuts are aimed at faculty.
1) All of our raises have been frozen.
2)They have raised both the required numbers of students for a class to make and the upper limits we have to teach. This means I taught the equivalent of two extra classes for free last semester. A work load increase of 33%.
3) The pressure to give good grades and please students is pitting faculty members against each other. Those who insist students cover the material and show superior ability for a superior grade lose students to those who create easy classes and make the students happy.
4) Instructors must please 70% of their students to get a good year end review from their supervisors. Student comments on these reviews have gone from helpful to ridiculous over the last few years. The most common comment is they don't want to use the textbook because they don't want to read.
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Sealynx,
Thank you for a clear and understandable assessment of some of the current economic issues. Brilliant!
We buy at the cheapest price we can find and don't ask about the conditions provided for the workers who make it.
I try to support American owned businesses. I grieve everytime I go to the SUPER STORES and feel coerced for the reasons you mentioned to buy from them. I know on the other end is a poor worker who most likely works for a pittance to supply an out of touch American with what in times past would have been viewed as an inferior product. Not because the worker is incapable of making a better product, but because the business bullies dictate the terms and the worker has to comply.
Not everyone has their head in the sand, but there may be too many who do for the eyes wide open ones to make a difference.
Thanks...
tt
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Sealynx, Yes, the conditions you teach under don't promote academic excellence, do they? And yes, it is ridiculous that administrators continue to give themselves raises while the real producers (faculty) have to do more and more with less and less. And, it sounds like you have the same problems with cc students that I had at the university level! My main problems with students at the cc level were that many of them could not write a decent paper ... I think many of them just "slid by" in high school and didn't even consider that someday they might want more education.
Nonetheless, I preferred the academically unprepared to the "academic stars" that were Ns. Some of these students with horrible attitudes were perfectionists about their school work but were terrible to have to work with. Both fellow students and teachers disliked them. And, they never saw that their attitudes were the source of the problem. This type of student might do OK in the traditional classroom but because they don't have an humble attitude, they will destroy their careers eventually.
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HP,
A friend who works at UGA told me that the main reasons that students used to file Grade Appeals was for failing grades. Now the main appeal she gets is for an A+ rather than an A since they went to the plus minus system. Its really disgusting.
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Wow - having to please 70% of the students who take your class!! It is a wonder that any teacher can please half so many. It's like trying to instill values about education into students without a proper value system in the institution itself to back you up. And an institution with sales as its priority . . .
What about the the movement away from the liberal arts in many universities? Without this intellectual base that many students are opting out of, one would expect a decline in the ability of the modern college graduate to sustain a rational thought process. Yet, even outside academia, it seems that intellectual capability is outranked by charisma and the ability to clinch the deal or snag the client--in other words, logic versus emotion. Nevertheless, without the former, the dealmaking will end for any business.
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Academia is slow to change. We require some general education courses like "Speech and Humanities" studies. We should be making everyone take Mass Communication because they get most of their information from the media and not books or talks.
Yes, 70%. I already have student who tell me some of the things they are learning are "Stupid and worthless". They have no respect for people with more education then they have and are more likely to associate wisdom with someone who has great aps on their Iphone. The inmates are running the asylum.
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Hey Sealynx - my condolences for being in "higher" ed... <sarcasm>.
My experiences started when I finally overcame the bureaucratic hurdles to get accepted/registered - at 28. Then, being ostracized because I did the assignments, enjoyed them, got good grades, and felt more comfortable with the faculty than my immature classmates. In fact, I felt a bit cheated and disappointed at the level of material.
Later, I taught tech subjects FT at the CC level... and then spent 9 years managing online ed software systems & integrations...while training my underpaid/overworked faculty in how to teach with it. I've become well-acquainted with a lot of the issues and yeah, some people even listen to my opinion! :D
Any discussion of ed comes back to the fact that we no longer fail students, nor set absolute criteria for grades - you can always challenge a grade and many students do. Back ups of online courses are frequently called upon to prove that the student didn't do the work required. But in their minds - that shouldn't matter. Why? Because they were passed along when they were younger, they didn't become acquainted with the old-fashioned concept of "learning from your mistakes"... oh no - we couldn't even point out those mistakes. At my husband's CC, 70% of the students are enrolled in remedial courses simply to bring their skills up to the range of college-level work.
A common complaint I've heard from faculty, is that the student strongly believes that it's the instructor's responsibility to magically transfer "knowledge" to them... and that simply attending class is enough to "qualify" them in that knowledge. The result, that I've seen first hand when hiring students... is that they are resentful of being expected to actually DO work and literally don't know how to do many things - and have no interest in how things work, how to make things, how to solve problems. If you just ignore the problem, it will "go away"... because one can't fail.
This translates into an economy of workers who don't know HOW and don't WANT to "make things" - i.e., manufacturing or solve problems - i.e., creative innovation. Thankfully, my soapbox rant is a wide generalization. There are some very notable exceptions and schools are seeing an increase in young people wanting to learn real hands-on skills. It may take another generation or so, but the pendulum will swing back around... away from the "I'm so special... so I'm entitled" mentality.
and don't get me started on the administrations... sigh. They'll be the last to "get it".
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Hi PR,
I wish your words were a generalization but they are dead on with the possible exception of things getting better.
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TT,
Unfortunately you will NEVER hear that assessment come from the mouth of a senator or congressmen, red or blue. We are being told what we want to hear, who to be mad at and that the future will be better.
There is so much more I could say, like many people don't realize the amount of money to be made in "rebuilding a country" once it has been bombed to pieces. We will continue to spend billions rebuilding countries like Iraq, not for the people, but because many of our political figures are heavily invested in the currency of those countries.
It goes like this. Buy Iraq's currency now for a fraction of a cent. Hold it until the country is back on its feet pumping oil. If you bought even a 1000 dollars at a penny each and it goes up even to 10 cents. Do the math, You've just made $10K. Even with taxation taking up to 50% you are still have a tidy sum that no other investment could give you. Believe me the people who have the power to keep the rebuilding effort going are not investing just a $1000. This is one reason why all our billions of dollars go to remake other countries and not into healthcare and education.
S
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Hey Sealynx - my condolences for being in "higher" ed... <sarcasm>.
My experiences started when I finally overcame the bureaucratic hurdles to get accepted/registered - at 28. Then, being ostracized because I did the assignments, enjoyed them, got good grades, and felt more comfortable with the faculty than my immature classmates. In fact, I felt a bit cheated and disappointed at the level of material.
Later, I taught tech subjects FT at the CC level... and then spent 9 years managing online ed software systems & integrations...while training my underpaid/overworked faculty in how to teach with it. I've become well-acquainted with a lot of the issues and yeah, some people even listen to my opinion! :D
Any discussion of ed comes back to the fact that we no longer fail students, nor set absolute criteria for grades - you can always challenge a grade and many students do. Back ups of online courses are frequently called upon to prove that the student didn't do the work required. But in their minds - that shouldn't matter. Why? Because they were passed along when they were younger, they didn't become acquainted with the old-fashioned concept of "learning from your mistakes"... oh no - we couldn't even point out those mistakes. At my husband's CC, 70% of the students are enrolled in remedial courses simply to bring their skills up to the range of college-level work.
A common complaint I've heard from faculty, is that the student strongly believes that it's the instructor's responsibility to magically transfer "knowledge" to them... and that simply attending class is enough to "qualify" them in that knowledge. The result, that I've seen first hand when hiring students... is that they are resentful of being expected to actually DO work and literally don't know how to do many things - and have no interest in how things work, how to make things, how to solve problems. If you just ignore the problem, it will "go away"... because one can't fail.
This translates into an economy of workers who don't know HOW and don't WANT to "make things" - i.e., manufacturing or solve problems - i.e., creative innovation. Thankfully, my soapbox rant is a wide generalization. There are some very notable exceptions and schools are seeing an increase in young people wanting to learn real hands-on skills. It may take another generation or so, but the pendulum will swing back around... away from the "I'm so special... so I'm entitled" mentality.
and don't get me started on the administrations... sigh. They'll be the last to "get it".
This reminds me of a situation I dealt with while I was working in a university office years ago. My then-supervisor hired a student to "help" out but he either didn't show up when he was supposed to, left early to "go party", or made MORE MESSES that the rest of us had to clean up! Whenever I said ANYTHING to my then-supervisor about this student NEEDING TO LEARN RESPONSIBILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY, her frequent response would be: "but....he's only a student...." I asked her WHEN he was supposed to learn how to work and be responsible....the day he graduates from university?!?!?!?!? I NEVER got an answer!
A few years later, when I transferred to another office, on the same campus, guess who I found there? That SAME student doing the SAME NONSENSE!!!!! At first my new boss didn't want to listen to me until it finally starting impacting HIM personally!!!!! (The boss actually chided me because I strenuously objected to this student bringing his marijuana to the office and the weed-minded idiot accidentally sent his stash to the Dean's Office!!!!! I was DONE with this student's MESS!!! :P) The new boss finally agreed to fire him after he pulled No-Call/No-Show's for several days straight running and watched the TTY call I made to his mother and read his mother's REFUSAL to get him OUT OF HIS BED because he was TOO TIRED FROM PARTYING THE NIGHT BEFORE!!!! (This student's mother CONSTANTLY BABIED HIM!!!!) Unfortunately, this student NEVER learned responsibility for himself or others until the day he died after partying too much!!
Bones
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Oh that's good Bones - about sending his stash to the Dean! LOL!!
I guess I woke up "on the crabby side" this morning and Sealynx's comments triggered my old negativity about the state of affairs in academia... but is it still "negativity" (that is, something to be avoided and never, never said out loud officially) if it's true and causing problems? At some point, I think, these kinds of stories need to be heard by administrators... and understood to mean, that their flowery, ostrich-like public image is the very opposite of the "naked emporer" of reality... and that statistically, there's more of this going on (if they're even tracking it) than they are willing to admit - or address.
At the end of my time there, I was pretty convinced that academic bureaucracies have some pretty huge N-spots (and ability to self-delude)... but then, self-interest and self-perpetuation is the main goal of any bureaucracy...
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Oh that's good Bones - about sending his stash to the Dean! LOL!!
I guess I woke up "on the crabby side" this morning and Sealynx's comments triggered my old negativity about the state of affairs in academia... but is it still "negativity" (that is, something to be avoided and never, never said out loud officially) if it's true and causing problems? At some point, I think, these kinds of stories need to be heard by administrators... and understood to mean, that their flowery, ostrich-like public image is the very opposite of the "naked emporer" of reality... and that statistically, there's more of this going on (if they're even tracking it) than they are willing to admit - or address.
At the end of my time there, I was pretty convinced that academic bureaucracies have some pretty huge N-spots (and ability to self-delude)... but then, self-interest and self-perpetuation is the main goal of any bureaucracy...
I agree!
After I left academia, I was so fed up with their self-serving cr*p!
Bones
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The "head in the sand" attitude has a lot to do with politics, especially in this economy. In most public institutions the presidents and board are not made up of educators. Yes, they have degrees, but their job is to play politics with the legislature to get money and then hand down edicts to the deans about what has to be done. That means they are not concerned with faculty issues and effectively limit the ability of the deans to convey student issues to the top. They may say they want faculty input (usually to meet accreditation standards), but you better make sure you say what they want and need to hear. The deans may understand and feel sorry for you, but it is wise never to ask someone to do something they can't do. They have a job to keep too.
So the only place where a response can be mounted is at the faculty level. Complaining is dangerous because the board and president will save money every time a senior faculty member quits or shows they can't "deal with students" and can be replaced by someone just out of school who will probably spend most of their academic life teaching part time. Blaming the student will quickly earn you a workshop on how to better teach the "new student type." In other words, you are always the problem. It is the new "corporate model" that education embraced a few years ago.
When students first started refusing to do college level work, we were instructed to turn education into a game and come up with group activities for them to do instead of reading and responding to lecture. We were forced to undergo "training" and had to completely redo our syllabus to comply. In other words we were told to adjust to them. But as we all know, giving in to N behavior by creating an environment that they like, does not make them better people. I was talking to a colleague today who teaches English. She commented that she is seeing "Honor Students" from high school who can't write a paragraph. Of course they think their poor grades are her fault for expecting too much.
I agree that we are making degrees worthless by allowing this, but the system is set up to blame and replace teachers, not resist N behaviors. We have also given up the idea that some people aren't college material. I had to prove that to get into school. Now we even have something called the ABT, ability to benefit test. It measures not whether you know anything, but if you are ABLE to learn.
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Oh Sealynx, I really DO feel for ya, honey... it's truly an absurdly frustrating place to be if you have any respect at all for teaching, learning, and knowledge.
Wanna know a secret? It was my experience with HEd that actually triggered and brought up all my long-buried past and what I'd suffered through. The more I saw of how things worked and realized the reality of the results, the more trapped & helpless & angry I felt. When I finally "retired" I'd gotten to the point where I'd convinced myself that the whole system - the way it is - is N. I'm still of that opinion, pretty much... at least of the higher ed diploma factories, more concerned about tuition dollars than preparing students to be responsible, contributing members of society who can manage their own life-long learning.
But, again in general, the institutions are only paying lip service to the "corporate model" of education. There is no accountability - no measurement of "success/failure" for all the various initiatives and fashionable education techniques - no ROI on dollars invested. Even the most basic business procedures and "policies" are violated or waived and never consistently enforced on a daily and weekly basis. And no one cared that those "exceptions" created long-term issues or set a precedent for even more exceptions. These institutions aren't "too big to fail" in the business sense, but unfortunately failures disappear into a cloud of denial and their lifespan as entities continues through the false promises (or at least uncertain promises) of personal success for students via time/effort/many tuition dollars invested in that "piece of paper".
After all, the most genuine interest my institution had in students, was as alumni who reflect well on the university - and who actively contribute to endowments. Utterly cynical, aren't I? It will probably take quite a few more years before I can "let that go".
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"When I finally "retired" I'd gotten to the point where I'd convinced myself that the whole system - the way it is - is N. I'm still of that opinion, pretty much... at least of the higher ed diploma factories, more concerned about tuition dollars than preparing students to be responsible, contributing members of society who can manage their own life-long learning."
Higher Ed has always been a magnet for N's because it is the one place you get validation for being "perfect" and not allow anyone to disagree with you.
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Hi Sealynx,
Higher Ed has always been a magnet for N's because it is the one place you get validation for being "perfect" and not allow anyone to disagree with you.
I've never seen this manifested more prominently than the surrounds of the Research Triangle of NC. When introductions are made (of course the introduction is to the 'paper' not the person), it reverbrates like shock waves to whoever (Uh, was that supposed to be whomever? 'Paper' missing!) is in hearing distance and you'd have to be hard of hearing not to 'catch the wave'!
tt
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"
Higher Ed has always been a magnet for N's because it is the one place you get validation for being "perfect" and not allow anyone to disagree with you.
Sounds like Higher Ed = Cult.
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I was just reading this:
http://narc-attack.blogspot.com/2008/02/psychological-neoteny-and-npd.html
Charlton and others who espouse this theory of psychological neoteny attribute it to higher education. And higher, higher education. And higher, higher, higher education viewed as a virtue for never ending. That is why, he says, psychological neoteny is characteristic of the highly educated. He claims that many never achieve mental adulthood. The results include a retention of child-like behaviors like slavishness to fashion/peer pressure as well as sensation seeking and novelty seeking behavior that prefers sensational and novel ideas to the obvious.
The perpetually educated make wide-open-mindedness a virtue. A wide-open mind is boundless wild spaces - not a garden - where anything blowing in the wind can take root and grow. Apparently even the wildest, common sense defying ideas.
Obviously, malignant narcissists have a terminal case of cognitive flexibility, but my point here is a question: Does psychological neoteny partly explain the behavior of academia and the mental healthcare establishment?
Like children, they get mad at people who don't buy what they are selling about NPD and psychopathy. They overreact, getting all upset and worried, worried, worried about what they view as the wrong thinking of others. (They seem to view disagreeing with them as far more evil than anything the narcissist does.) They try to control/suppress this heresy. You can see this on message boards and blogs. As I've said before, many will try to tell you that, though you've lived with a narcissist for 20 years, or though you ARE a narcissist, you know nothing about NPD. Absurd. They are so far gone they will tell you that you aren't "qualified" to say anything about it based on your experiences with narcissists.
Passing over the suppression of information and violence to free speech in that, how childish can people get? That's like covering your little ears and stamping your little foot and screaming bloody murder to silence anyone saying anything you don't want them to. Only spoiled brats must make it sound evil to disagree with them. Psychological neoteny.
What "qualifies" them to know about NPD? Book learning, period.
The clinical literature on NPD is highly theoretical, abstract, and general, with sparse case material, suggesting that clinical writers have little experience with narcissism in the flesh.
Exactly. That ain't science. That's conjecture, speculation - and by people with little experience of narcissism in the flesh. In other words, this so-called "clinical literature" is basically just glorified essays based almost entirely on the reading of other glorified essays.
That kind of information isn't superior to firsthand observation and direct knowledge in everyday experience with narcissists - it's INFERIOR. Its sole value is in the ideas it may come up with - which are nothing until scientifically tested.
Worse, what does pass for "research" and "statistics" is so illegitimate that much of it smells like a deliberate attempt to confuse and deceive. By that I mean that experts just don't make the gross mistakes these so-called authorities make.(See The Credibility of Authority for a little enlightenment on how little credibility this establishment has on NPD.) For example, they seize upon a logical-error ridden essay with its never-tested hypothesis speculating about the mental health of European royals back to the 12th century as worthy of their general acceptance of this untested hypothesis that NPD is genetically inherited. Experts can't honestly be that stupid, and honest experts would have surveyed the children of narcissists to test this hypothesis long ago by now. So, this is just cognitive flexibility like that oil pipeline in Afghanistan - swallow whole ANYTHING to support your cherished myth in the face of real evidence against it. Similarly they seize upon brain differences in psychopaths as if they don't know that that there are two possible explanations for it: the more likely one they betray no awareness of, and the LEAST likely one they all "know." Again, cognitive flexibility to produce bogus "facts" that shore up a cherished myth.
And these: http://patrissimo.livejournal.com/1242821.html
http://www.mypostingcareer.com/forums/index.php?/topic/56-the-stupidity-of-intelligence/