Fascinating story

[CB123]

I read this (long) story in the NY Times this morning and it read like a mystery story.  However, it is true and most of us here will recognize the personality of the main character.  For anyone who is interested, here's the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/magazine/07Nanny.t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=magazine

The author doesn't bring up the issue of narcissism, but we can see it clearly.

CB

[Stormchild]

My goodness, this IS fascinating!

Pull quotes:

Her inability to see herself as in the wrong — a response to a lifetime of being told that she was?

In the dimming late afternoon light, she turned to me and said, “One Christmas you wrote me a note saying that I must have come from a loving family to show such love.”

She took a deep breath and looked me straight in the eye. “Wow, did I put one over on you.”

Her voice was steel. Icy. Scary. She seemed pleased with the pain her words could cause.

I know we stayed longer and talked more, but I have no record of what was said because I all but stopped writing after those words exploded between us. I felt blindsided, deceived, ill.

I knew she had a temper — although I had never heard her raise her voice to a child, I had witnessed her displays of anger at those she felt had wronged her over the years, and I’d heard her describe it herself when telling me how she’d thrown her boyfriend’s clothes out of the apartment during an argument and screamed at his mother over the phone that he didn’t appreciate her. I could imagine that she’d snapped and turned that temper on my boys. Not acceptable, but not a crime.

Unacceptable, though, was her answer when I’d asked about it. “You know, Lisa, kids lie.” Once again she was the victim. Once again she was in the right and the other guy (my kindergartner) was in the wrong. This time it was too close to home, and it was the last conversation we would have for several years. I simply stopped calling her with work.

And the denouement: after the events that led to the trial were described in the courtroom, the defendant asked for a letter requesting leniency. Here is what the author provided, and how the defendant responded to it:

“What Noreen needs,” I wrote, “is structured and intense help in absorbing and learning from her past, so she can begin to heal. She needs abuse-survivor counseling, to unravel the damage done to her by her father. She certainly needs anger-management training, to teach her to take a different path from the brutal road on which she was raised. But to send her to prison will merely add yet another victim to this awful tale.”

I sent the letter directly to Noreen, not to the court. Her lawyer never presented my words to the judge. “After consulting with my legal representatives, the letter cannot be used,” Noreen e-mailed me a few days before the sentencing hearing. “I am more than your next story,” she continued. “I was the person who loved your boys, the person who cleaned your kitchen on a Saturday night so your mother-in-law wouldn’t pass comment on her Sunday-morning arrival.

“I am now at a stage of my life,” she concluded, “when I have had to question many things and many people. After reading your letter ... I have no choice but to ask you not to contact me in the future.”

Just as I have been wondering whether you can trust someone you don’t completely know, perhaps she wondered if the people in her life could care about someone who was not everything she seemed. Perhaps she was certain that my family cared about her only because of the image she showed us and that we would stop caring if she ever told us the whole truth. I like to think she was wrong. But I won’t have a chance to ever know.

These next quotes are not for the squeamish; they describe exactly why Noreen was on trial.

Looking down the bed, Baxter described how Noreen “very roughly, very brutally, drew back her arm a lot more than required to give the injection, so she gave it with a lot of force.” When asked to demonstrate by the prosecutor, Baxter raised her own fist over her shoulder, with her elbow bent so that it pointed straight ahead and her arm was parallel to the floor. Then she brought it down from that height into the imaginary patient beneath her in the bed. It looked as if it would hurt. “As she was withdrawing the needle from the patient, I looked to see what had happened,” Baxter said. “It was a 16-gauge needle, a white needle, NEVER used for giving an injection.

“I asked her if she had meant to give it with that needle,” Baxter said.

“What did Miss Mulholland say to you?” the prosecutor asked.

“She laughed.”

“I walked into the room,” she said. “The curtains had been pulled” around Bed No. 9, Doherty’s bed. “Behind them she was drawing the injection into a syringe using a white needle. She pushed Seamus over onto his left side. She launched the needle at him. It was done very roughly.

“Seamus yelped. He started yelling ‘Help’ again, and Noreen was saying, ‘Shut up.’ There was half a glass of water on the bedside. Noreen threw it in his face and told him to shut up.

“I stepped outside the curtains. I was in shock. I just took some deep breaths. I walked back in. Noreen was standing there. She had the white needle held up in her fist, up like this.” Noone-Norton held up her hand as if grabbing a knife by the handle, blade down, ready to plunge. “She wasn’t expecting to see me this second time. I said, ‘What are you doing?’ She said, ‘Just threatening him.’ ”

Her lawyer’s point was that Noreen was incompetent, that if she used the wrong needle it was ineptitude, not aggression. But to me the horror lay not with the white-topped needle but with her white-hot anger. O’Lideadha described a woman who could lash out and then lie about it rather than admit a mistake. I recognized that woman. I’d seen her before. ... she couldn’t admit fault — even to herself. I was furious with her.

Full circle. The abused becomes the abuser... because she is unable to admit ever to being wrong or less than perfect. Unable to apologize, unable to accept any damage to her 'image'. And apparently she can feel nothing but contempt for anyone. She gloats over having 'put one over on' the woman who hired her and got her into nursing school... and then turns around and asks this same woman to write a letter to the judge requesting leniency for her. And when that letter is honest, and speaks about Noreen as a real, flawed, but human person, and asks for the kind of second chance that might actually help her - rather than whitewashing everything - Noreen rejects it, and the truth it tells, and the woman who tells it.

I know women just like Noreen. I've seen her 'sisters' often and often. The once abused and now abusing... but always, always, the victim.

They are who we can become, if we focus only on what we have suffered and never consider that we may, sometimes, ourselves, cause suffering to others; if we focus only on the wrongs done to us, and never on the good we have received, never on those who have brought goodness to us, never on those we ourselves may have wronged, unintentionally or otherwise.

They are who we WILL become, if we reach the point where we care so much about our 'image', and so little about the truth, that we will tell lies, hurt others, do any damage imaginable to another human being, just to protect the 'image' of ourselves as perfect, victimized, spotless, martyred and pure.

Very sobering article, CB. And very much a cautionary tale.

[isittoolate]

Goodness!

I better Register and Read.

Will do so now
Izzy

[sea storm]

Wow. I read the whole story. Very thorough reporting.
I think it shows how intuition is very important and that "Freezing at the bone" feeling one gets should be relied on for identifying Narcissists. When they are in positions of power watch out.
 I see this in the school system often.  The power an elementary teacher has is such that they can destroy a kid in one day. Narcissists are drawn to these kind of jobs.There are many wonderful teachers but there are many not wonderful teachers. Knowing what I know I would ask my child "how are things going between your teacher and you ?  I would show them a little scale of 1 to 10 with a happy face on one end and a sad face on the other end.  And ask them where they are on that scale. They dont have the vocabulary to explain how they feel but then you would get the drift. The same for baby sitters.

I have also noticed that care providers who have that very cheery, peppy syrupy freindly energy are often taken for people who are really great with children. This is not real and it is not the case. One woman worked with a very emotionally disturbed grade two boy and she was making him worse by the minute. Nevertheless, her cheery attitude impressed nearly everyone. She could have him screaming and needing to be escorted out of the school by three adults. But by god she had a postitive attitude. However, she did not have empathy for the kid. This is what he needed for healing and growth. He did need someone with boundaries but the controlling, manipulative syruppy nanny??? Watch out.
I think we have a long long way to go in the area of understanding children and knowing what they really need.

Sea storm

[Gaining Strength]

CB, I was struck by the differences between what becomes of people who suffer from abuse as children.  She became rageful and venegeful AND denied it.  There was a time in my late teens when I denied my own actions and attitude even to myself.  It behavior is wrong when you hear it given a name but as an agent your are or feel impowered to do anything other than act out your rage and so you deny what you've done.  Only when I began to develop power to change could I admit to myself what I had done. 

Even yesterday when I was struggling to make changes I realized that I was experiencing memories of shameful failures and that the shame was coming back to haunt me.  Only when I made them conscious and forgave myself could I let it go and let go of the unconscious need to punish myself and free myself from repeating them or the fear of repeating them. 

I think Noreen was wrapped up in a selfpunishment behavior that extnded past herself to those who caused her frustration.  I don't believe she was able to own her responsibillity because it was too great for her.  It is very complicated.  But I believe our need for encouragement and development is so vital and if we don't get it as a child then we must get it somewhere.  She couldn't get it and harmed out of her own pain.  That is terribly tragic.  Thanks for sharing this story CB - GS

[sea storm]

The insights into the article and each persons perspective are such a wonderful addition to the great article. It is rare to read about a narcissist and have it all laid out in technicolour.
The soul murder that created the nanny was so effective. She was rendered unable to look inward because she was overwhelmed by her abuse.
And yet some people are horribly abused as children and do not take the path of the abuser. What a great thing that is.
With Narcissists they seem to be so unconscious of how they work. Feelings really are a powerful way to keep on track and keep one's humanity. At some point the N had feelings and then they went underground for good.
I think about the N in my life and how being sent to private school was his end. Never contacted by his mother from ages 7-14 and abused at school. His mother is a diamond hard N and he lives to gain her ever illusive approval. In the mean time he acts out his abuse on vulnerable women. There is a place for compassion for him but stay clear. He turns on anyone who really loves him and all the rage bottled up is rained on an innocent bystander.
There is so much to say about this topic. It feels like we have just touched the surface.
I would like to hear about the stories of survivors here. It is all so baffling and overwhelming.

Sea storm

[CB123]

edit

[axa]

CB

Read the story also.  I think I also was hit with PTSD this time last year when XN started doing the crazy crazy things.  I lost 35lbs, got sick, could not work, was so broken and he just dipped in and out and said HE was having a breakdown. 

As far as You be nice to them and they will be nice to you.  I think this is a lie that I bought into all of my life to my own detriment.  I believe there are good people in the world and there are a hell of a lot of very nasty people.  Referrint to a different thread I think somewhere along the line I learned I love you means I will hurt you.  I went back again and again, differnt bodies..... all Ns.  I am beginning to know that being nice to someone guarantees nothing.  Yes, they may be nice to you but there is also the possibility they will not.  For me its about opening my eyes and seeng the reality. 

I had frozen my intuitioni and am working to reclaim this.  I watched the end of a programme last night about internet dating.  A woman went to meet a guy she had been emailing.  After a day she said "all he wanted to talk about was himself, he was very nice to her but rude to others, he did not listen to her, he wanted the spotlight all the time.  She left him next day and had no more contact.  She saw what was going on and got out.  This is where I want to be, able to read the signs and leave before I sacrifice myself.

Rambling a bit but maybe what I am saying is that I want to know when I am being disrespected and not wait around for the not nice people to torment me.

axa

[Hopalong]

WOW, Axa, that is HUGE. HUGE.

What an insight, about reclaiming your frozen intuition and that is fantastic.

Just being conscious of this as your goal is moving you toward it.

BRAVO!

You're thawing out all over the place.

Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Wow - jac as you highlight Storm's words I suddenly see where I began my turn around was when I finally quit focusing on my own woundedness and began to apply the prayer according to St. Francis.  Something in this thread really get me to see how important it has been in my life to shift my focus from my wound to my healing.  Thank you both - Gaining Strength

[Stormchild]

I have also noticed that care providers who have that very cheery, peppy syrupy freindly energy are often taken for people who are really great with children. This is not real and it is not the case. One woman worked with a very emotionally disturbed grade two boy and she was making him worse by the minute. Nevertheless, her cheery attitude impressed nearly everyone. She could have him screaming and needing to be escorted out of the school by three adults. But by god she had a postitive attitude. However, she did not have empathy for the kid. This is what he needed for healing and growth. He did need someone with boundaries but the controlling, manipulative syruppy nanny??? Watch out.
I think we have a long long way to go in the area of understanding children and knowing what they really need.

That is a very interesting observation, Sea Storm... I have always mistrusted that peppy chirpy syrupy stuff, whether it is being applied to children or to other adults.

I always suspect that it's covering something unpleasant... anyone who is working that hard to project an image is definitely covering something up. Possibly from themselves as much as from everyone else, but still, there's a 'sale' taking place, not an honest exchange between people.

And when you're being 'sold' a person, LOOK OUT.

thanks jac, good to see you!!!!!

GS, thank you too. It's important to pay attention to the wound, we have to disinfect it and apply the right medications to help it heal, but we are not our wounds... we are more than that... and perspective makes all the difference, I think.

Love to all. Huge amounts of work and overtime, not here much, sorry!