Posts
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/09/metro/north-shore-houseboat-becomes-viral-star/
Thursday, July 09, 2026
I have walked through small towns in Oklahoma and Kansas and Ohio, towns “turned a notch or two too tight,” and felt so acutely that lack of incandescence. But there’s a piercing beauty in the loneliness of small American towns, an almost palpable sense of yearning in the air, and sometimes in the hustle and bustle of the big city I miss it desperately. George Bilgere
Wednesday, July 08, 2026
The Daily Mile at Dawn
Today it was outdoors and the water was cold but the sun came out. I loved it.
I believe...that a good writer doesn’t really need to be told anything except to keep at it. Just think of the work you’ve set yourself to do, and do it as well as you can. Once you have really done all you can, then you can show it to people. But I find this is increasingly not the case with the younger people. They do a first draft and want somebody to finish it off for them with good advice. So I just maneuver myself out of this. I say, Keep at it. I grew up recognizing that there was nobody to give me any advice and that you do your best and if it’s not good enough, someday you will come to terms with that.
CHINUA ACHEBE
It’s the birthday of psychiatrist and writer Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, born in Zurich, Switzerland (1926). She went to medical school, where she got married to an American physician, and they moved to the United States. She did her internship and residency in psychiatry. She went to the University of Chicago and worked with terminally ill patients. Instead of pretending they were going to get better, she asked them to talk to her about death. She decided that other people needed to hear what they had to say, so she set up a forum where doctors, nurses, and medical students could come listen to terminally ill patients and ask them questions. Many people in the medical profession disapproved of her work — they thought it was indecent — but most patients were eager to talk. She used these conversations to write On Death and Dying (1969), which became a huge best-seller. In it, she outlined the five stages of grief, specifically when someone is diagnosed with a terminal illness: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Her work also paved the way for hospice care.
Tuesday, July 07, 2026
Yes, post nasal drip can absolutely cause stomach issues.
When excess mucus drains down the back of your throat, it is swallowed and enters your digestive tract. Because the stomach is not designed to process large amounts of phlegm, this drainage can lead to several specific stomach issues.
Common Stomach Symptoms
- Nausea and Vomiting: The swallowed mucus can directly irritate your stomach lining, and constantly swallowing it can trigger your gag reflex.
- Bloating and Gas: When you frequently swallow to clear the mucus from the back of your throat, you often swallow excess air (aerophagia), leading to gas and abdominal bloating.
- Stomach Pain and Indigestion:Excess mucus accumulation can cause an upset stomach and mild abdominal pain.
Mayo Clinic Minute: Should you wait 30 minutes to swim after eating?
It's advice parents have been giving their children for generations.
"When I was growing up, I remember my mother telling me, you know, not to go in the pool until it was 30 to 60 minutes after I had my last meal," says Dr. Michael Boniface, a Mayo Clinic emergency medicine physician.
He says the motherly advice had serious origins but may not be as helpful as once thought.
Dr. Boniface says he remembers the anticipation all kids experience waiting for those 30 to 60 minutes to pass before he could jump back in the water.
"The old feeling was that, after you eat, some of the blood may be diverted to your gut so that you can digest, diverting the bloodstream away from your arms and legs," he says. "And you may get tired or fatigued, and be more likely to drown."
But is this recommendation to wait based on fact or fiction?
"We know now that really there is no scientific basis for that recommendation," Dr. Boniface says. "You may end up with some stomach cramping or a muscle cramp, but this is not a dangerous activity to routinely enjoy."
So, while it may not be the most comfortable thing to go for a swim with a full belly, the world won't end if you ignore your mom's advice – just this once – and don't wait 30 to 60 minutes after you eat to get back in the water.
Be Brave
https://avi-writer.com/blog/2026/07/2026_summer_blog_series_sara_pennypacker/
Be Brave
I have been writing a long time, so I have been asked this a lot. Before this year, I always answered, ‘To be a good writer, be honest and be kind.’ But this year, I’m adding something new. This year, my best advice is: Be honest and be kind, but above all, be brave.
Before I tell you why I’m adding Be Brave, some thoughts on being Kind and Honest as a writer. Books are sometimes referred to as windows and mirrors. This means good books reflect readers and their experiences back to them, while also showing other ways to be, other paths to take. Honesty is like the clarity in the glass. Even if our stories are fantasy, let’s try to tell the truth about being human. The kindness is about the light we shine on our subjects. If we’re going to be honest, we’re going to show that humans have flaws. My advice is to be kind when our characters are less than perfect, and remember that all people fail sometimes and that failures make good stories. Let’s remember that misdeeds don’t matter as much as owning up to them, making amends and changing.
So why am I now encouraging you (and myself) to be braver?
First, I have been thinking a lot about bravery recently. One of the things I respect most about young people is their moral clarity. Kids really want to do something about injustice, but they correctly understand that standing up to injustice sometimes takes courage. I think stories should help. They should model real courage, not the Marvel heroes kind, with muscles and weapons and confidence (although that can be fun sometimes!) but the everyday kind, the kind that is quiet, and cooperative, and sometimes scary, and always rooted in empathy.
Wait, no, you say. My stories are about rocket ships and space aliens and championship soccer games. They’re about moving into a new school, or finding a friend. They don’t take courage to write.
Yes, I know. Your stories will be about those things and thousands of other things. But all of them will also be about having hope, and losing it. About believing in something against the odds. About doing the wrong thing before you figure out the right thing. About messing up, and coming through. About feeling proud and feeling ashamed and feeling confused. My favorite notes from readers say, “Until I read your book, I thought I was the only one who (fill-in-the blank.)” That note tells me I have been honest and kind about something hard. And that’s the essential work of stories: to explore all the tragedy and comedy and mess of being human. It takes real bravery to do that.
The second reason I advise bravery is more dire. If you haven’t yet run into some kind of AI-created writing already, you absolutely will soon. I am really, really worried about entrusting a non-human entity to write a story about what it means to be human. AI will be able to spew endless plots and characters, but it will get humans wrong precisely because it is not human. Its stories will be like bland, blenderized porridge: easy to eat and you’ll know what every swallow tastes like before you eat it. But you’ll never run into that flaming-hot pepper seed, that perfect raspberry, that surprising crystal of salt.
I have a hunch, or at least a hope, that the more AI-created content we’re subjected to, the more we’re going to value what’s missing: the unpredictability and the mess we authors are tempted to hide. I think that means that going forward, story-tellers should take more risks in order to differentiate ourselves from machines. It means when that you write something in a first draft and then you start to rethink it because you’re afraid it might be too weird, or too different, and someone might ridicule it, or might think less of you, well, look again before you cut it. Ask if it might be you being radically honest or radically kind. This will take courage.
Be brave.
Sara Pennypacker’s books have won numerous awards, including a Golden Kite Award and a Christopher’s Medal, many children’s choice state awards, and have appeared on many ‘Best Books’ lists. She was a painter before becoming a writer, and has two absolutely fabulous children who are now grown. She grew up in Massachusetts and splits her time between Cape Cod and California.
Mark Zaslav Ph.D. Committing Narcissism by Proxy Parents who put children on display—are they narcissists?
Committing Narcissism by Proxy
Parents who put children on display—are they narcissists?
Visit any family-oriented restaurant in an upscale neighborhood, and you will probably observe children obviously accustomed to being put on display by smiling, openly doting parents. These children speak loudly and have the attitude of royalty. The parents treat each youthful utterance or action as a profound offering from on high. No effort is made by the parent to restore a sense of modest restraint. As a clinical psychologist interested in the negative effects of narcissistic parenting, this parental exhibitionism seizes my attention. I wonder, “Are these parents narcissists?” and “What will be the outcome for the children?”
The first question seems easier to answer. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), up to 6.2% of the general population may meet the diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Even allowing that many people exhibit various narcissistic traits without meeting full diagnostic criteria, the sheer ubiquity of this style of modern parenting seems at odds with the notion that these (overly) proud parents share a psychological disorder. In short, this phenomenon is far too common for all of these parents to be narcissists, but they certainly appear to treat their children as if narcissistic personae by proxy.
True narcissists are especially sensitive and vulnerable to experiences capable of eliciting a sense of shameful deflation or inadequacy. In some respects, the entire personality structure develops as a means to keep shame at arm’s length. The narcissist spends considerable time in grandiose fantasy states in which he or she imagines being admired, alternating with fleeting, rapid transitions to bitter, angry states in response to perceived unjust criticism or lack of acknowledgment. The narcissistic personality is thus hostage to the need for self-enhancement at the expense of the ability to care for or pay attention to others. In the case of truly narcissistic parents, self-absorption and lack of empathy deprive the child of needed attention and affection. Periodically (e.g., at graduations, family gatherings or public events), the child might briefly be put on display as an object for parental self-enhancement, but the narcissistic parent is unable to tolerate sustained diversion of attention to the child. For the narcissist, attention is a crucial commodity in a zero-sum game.
Of course, contrary to being neglected, the children that I observe are suffused with parental attention. If these (generally married, often from upper socioeconomic classes) parents are not clinically narcissists, this modern style of permissive, exhibitionistic parenting can only be evidence of an emerging social phenomenon. At the larger cultural level, society is developing a new relationship with emotions in general and shame in particular. From the introduction of vague but dramatic figures of speech (“I’m like;” “that’s crazy”) to the currency of boastful but empty on-line posts, social media has hijacked our very ability to carefully analyze our experiences or communicate clearly about them. It is hard to overstate the degree to which continual on-line connection to sources of instant self-referential feedback, with the means to inspire envious attention from others, has warped the collective psyche. Emphasizing the underlining of subjective feeling states and downgrading objective analysis, social media is defining new norms about how we understand or announce our existence. More and more, it seems to be our immediate feelings that define us.
Against this backdrop of conspicuous sentimentality, unconditional love for the child has come to overwhelm any critical awareness of a child’s true impact on other people. It feels “shaming” to notice or focus on a child’s very normal but off-putting traits, such as aggression, hostility, selfishness or entitlement. As traditional moral prohibitions are tossed aside in our enlightened ethos, our very culture has grown defiant of shame. Behaviors or attitudes formerly meeting with disapproval are now seen emerging from the oppressive shadow of arbitrary shunning into the sunlight of understanding. In addition to progress and tolerance, this movement can lead to chaos and confusion. The only remaining “authentic” guiding truth is commitment to heartfelt enthusiasms proudly proclaimed.
In this culture of online announcements and exhibitionistic displays of virtue, children become convenient, socially sanctioned receptacles for the projection of split-off, idealized aspects of the parental self. It is as if shame is an emotion from which children (and by extension, their parents) must be protected. From this viewpoint, children embody authenticity unsullied by regressive societal forces. Even parents who would be loath to boast about themselves now risk becoming cheerleaders for their “perfect” children, unconsciously promoting a child’s display of cringeworthy hubris and entitlement. We seem to have lost the idea that responsible parenting requires reining in these qualities.
There is thus a growing moral prohibition against the necessary limit setting or authoritarian aspects of parenting, now seen as “harsh” or “mean.” The modern parent is increasingly restricted to use of only praise or indulgence for fear of alienating the child or injuring self-esteem. This despite empirical research showing that high self-esteem is actually negatively correlated with success, mature compassion for others or optimal functioning in adulthood (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998).
We may already be seeing the effects of simultaneously permissive, over-identified, parents. In the past several years, college campuses have become home to “safe spaces,” the theme of which seems to be that students need protection, not only (appropriately) from physical threat, but also from exposure even to ideas or their proponents with which they disagree. Interestingly, while these students are reporting higher levels of self-esteem than in prior decades (Twenge & Campbell, 2009), we are simultaneously seeing what has been described as “mental health crisis” among our college students, who report increasing levels of depression, stress, and alienation (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2018). It seems that current parenting practices do not prepare young people to adapt to a real-world replete with disappointment and frustration. The modern parent may unwittingly be promoting vulnerability to anxiety and depression rather than resiliency in the face of adversity.
A parent need not be a narcissist to want the best for their child, to see and encourage the best within him or her, and to defend against undue criticism. These biases are baked into human nature through evolution, biology and shared family histories. As the culture shifts, the challenge for a modern parent is to balance these natural instincts with proper limit setting, acting as an authority figure rather than a friend or approving peer. Children come into the world with what Freud termed “infantile narcissism,” a developmentally primitive understanding of the world as emanating from an expansive sense of the experiencing self as everything. Traditionally, parents helped socialize children by confronting and containing these traits. It remains to be seen what happens as our very culture begins to define children primarily as extensions of idealized parental virtue, perfect as they are, requiring no traditional forms of criticism or correction. I continue to wonder what types of parents these children will turn out to be.
References
Zaslav, M. (August, 2017) How to Recover from a Narcissistic Parent. Psychology Today.
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.
Bushman, B. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Threatened egotism, narcissism, self-esteem, and direct and displaced aggression: Does self-love or self-hate lead to violence? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(1), 219-229.
Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2009). The narcissism epidemic: Living in the age of entitlement. New York: Free Press.
Lukianoff, G. & Haidt, J. (2018). The coddling of the American mind. New York: Penguin Press.
It’s the birthday of artist Marc Chagall, born in Vitebsk, Russia (1887). He was one of nine kids in a family of modest means; his father worked for a salt herring factory, and his mother ran a shop. He wanted to be an artist, and he moved to St. Petersburg, where he failed his first entrance exams but eventually was accepted to art school. It was in Paris, surrounded by other artists, that he really began to develop his style. Though he was homesick and could not speak French, he later said, “My art needed Paris like a tree needs water.” Chagall is known for bright and complex colors, and his fantastical images from Russian-Jewish folklore and his childhood: ghosts, livestock, weddings, fiddlers, scenes of his village, Vitebsk, a couple floating in the sky, and fish.
You might notice intense irritability, tension, or rage when mood is shifting.
Irritability You may feel on edge, easily frustrated, annoyed by small things, or physically restless.
Cherry-Chocolate Loaf
A delicious chocolate-cherry bread. I am very proud of my banana bread recipe, which is why I adapted it into this amazing cherry-chocolate loaf. While cherries really aren't anything like bananas, this really did work out extremely well — this is a perfect option for breakfast, brunch, or dessert.
prep
15 mins
Cook Time:
1 hr
Additional Time:
35 mins
Total Time:
1 hr 50 mins
Servings:
12
Yield:
1 9x4-inch loaf
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- This twist on banana bread features fresh cherries and chocolate chunks for irresistible flavor.
- Home cooks appreciate the easy steps and say even beginners can make this fruit-filled loaf.
- “The yogurt keeps it moist without being heavy and makes the loaf very tender.” —Reviewer GlenndaB
Keep Screen Awake
Ingredients
-
1 teaspoon unsalted butter
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2 cups all-purpose flour
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1 teaspoon kosher salt
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1 teaspoon baking powder
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½ teaspoon baking soda
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½ cup unsalted butter, softened
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1 cup white sugar
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2 large eggs, at room temperature
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¼ cup plain yogurt
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¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
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2 cups pitted cherries
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½ cup dark chocolate chunks
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½ cup chopped walnuts
Optional Icing:
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¼ cup powdered sugar
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3 teaspoons milk, or more as needed
Directions
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Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x4-inch loaf pan with 1 teaspoon butter and reserve.
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Whisk flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together in a bowl.
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Cream 1/2 cup butter and sugar together in another bowl with a spatula or an electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Beat in eggs one at a time with a whisk or an electric mixer, fully blending in the first egg before adding the next. Stir in yogurt and vanilla extract.
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Chop pitted cherries coarsely with a knife, or by pulsing on and off a few times in a food processor. Add to the wet ingredients along with chocolate chunks and chopped walnuts. Stir briefly to combine. Batter may look curdled, but don't worry.
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Pour in the flour mixture and mix with a spatula until all the flour has disappeared. Transfer batter into the prepared loaf pan, making sure to smooth the top evenly and fill in the corners. Tap pan on the counter to release any air pockets.
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Bake in the preheated oven until nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let bread rest in the pan for 15 minutes before removing to a wire rack.
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While bread is resting, combine powdered sugar and milk in a bowl for icing, adding more milk as needed to reach a thin, runny consistency.
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Brush icing over loaf, allowing to drip down the sides. Let cool completely before slicing and serving, about 20 minutes more.
Chef's Notes
You can use thawed, well-drained frozen cherries instead of fresh.
You can use dark chocolate chips instead of chunks if preferred.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/280711/cherry-chocolate-loaf/
Alyce Morgan's Prune Nut Bread
Prune Nut Bread
makes 1 9x5x3 loaf
Ingredients
- 1 cup prunes chopped
- 1 1/2 cups orange juice
- Simmer chopped prunes in orange juice for about five minutes. Let cool slightly.
- 4 tablespoons melted butter cooled or sub canola oil
- 1 egg you might want to use 2 at altitude
- Mix cooled butter/oil and egg and add to orange juice and prunes.
- Set aside.
- 21/2 cups unbleached flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup chopped nuts
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix well all dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and stir just until well-mixed.
- Spoon into greased and floured 9x5x3 loaf pan. Bake about 50 minutes until bread is firm to the touch, is pulling away from the sides of the pan, and a toothpick inserted in the middle of the bread comes out with just a few moist crumbs.
- Let cool in pan 5 minutes. Bang pan on counter or board and turn out onto rack to cool completely before slicing. Keep well-wrapped on counter for 1-2 days or freeze for up to 2 months.
Notes
Can be made into muffins. Pour into greased muffin tins and bake at 400F 15 min. Turn out on to rack to cool.
copyright Alyce Morgan, 2010. All rights reserved. https://moretimeatthetable.com/2011/05/04/happy-mothers-day-prune-quick-bread-reposted/
Stagnation in an alcoholic family stems from survival-based coping mechanisms—like denial and emotional suppression—that create emotional gridlock.
Stagnation in an alcoholic family stems from survival-based coping mechanisms—like denial and emotional suppression—that create emotional gridlock. Because the addicted member’s needs dominate, healthy individual development and open communication stall, leaving family members isolated and repeating rigid, unhealthy roles well into adulthood. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
A primary reason for this lack of growth is the rigid, unwritten rule that rules the entire dynamic: don't talk, don't trust, and don't feel. Because the home environment is characterized by chaos, inconsistency, and unpredictability, children and adults alike adapt by compartmentalizing their emotions. These defense mechanisms, which help a child survive a stressful upbringing, become major roadblocks to personal and relational growth in adulthood. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The phenomenon of "no growth" in these environments typically manifests in the following ways:
- Survival Roles: Children in alcoholic families frequently adopt fixed roles—such as the "Hero" (overachiever), the "Scapegoat" (troublemaker), the "Lost Child" (withdrawn), or the "Mascot" (clown). As adults, they often remain stuck in these limited identities. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
- Codependency and Enabling: Family members frequently become deeply enmeshed in enabling the alcoholic, deriving a false sense of worth by managing the addict's crises. This halts personal development by making the addict's life the center of everyone's existence. [1, 2, 3]
- Emotional Arrest: Because basic developmental needs are frequently ignored in favor of tending to the chaotic environment, individuals often find themselves operating with the emotional maturity of a threatened child when confronted with conflict or stress. [1, 2, 3]
- The Cycle of Denial: Deeply ingrained denial prevents family members from identifying and addressing their own trauma. Growth cannot happen if the root causes of the dysfunction are masked or minimized. [1, 2]
Narcissistic abuse and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder by Shirley Davis
Narcissistic parents cause enormous harm to their children. When grown, these victims of narcissistic abuse face seemingly insurmountable problems, including the formation of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD).
This article shall examine narcissistic abuse, narcissistic personality disorder, and their effect on the children of narcissism.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is one of many diagnosable conditions for those who are narcissists mentioned in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual on Mental Disorders, edition five (DSM-5). The DSM-5 classifies NPD as a personality disorder and is an accurate diagnosis. Up to 6.2% of the general population have narcissistic personality disorder (Miller, Widiger, & Campbell, 2010).
People who have NPD have damaged self-esteem that is easily harmed by even small criticisms. They are continually looking to shore up their weak areas of self-opinion. To accomplish this need for self-preservation, they abuse and use other people, including, unfortunately, their own children.
The following are characteristics are usually found in someone who has narcissistic personality disorder:
- A sense of uniqueness
- Boastful behavior
- Exaggeration of their talents
- Grandiose fantasies
- A sense of superiority
- Self-centered behavior
- Self-referential behavior
- A deep need for attention and admiration
(Ronningstam & Gunderson, 1990)
People living with narcissistic personality disorder are both male and female. These men and women are entirely responsible for their actions regardless of the existence of a diagnosis.
Malignant Narcissists
A malignant narcissist is capable of destroying families, including their own. Malignant narcissism is a mix of narcissistic disorder and antisocial disorder, a rude and harmful combination.
The behavior of a malignant narcissist is dangerous because they use personal information to harm others who love and depend upon them. They know their victim’s likes, dislikes, and weaknesses to manipulate them into fulfilling their needs. There is little to no empathy or acknowledgment on the part of the malignant narcissist that what they are doing is wrong in any way (Glad, 2002).
Malignant narcissists cause others in their lives to “walk on egg-shells” to minimize the frequency of the narcissist’s impulsive, unstable, or aggressive behaviors. Malignant narcissists will lash out and humiliate their children.
Malignant narcissists will often employ several tricks, including gaslighting their families into doing what they want. Gaslighting is a form of abuse where the narcissist undermines their child’s reality by denying facts and their child’s feelings. Targets of someone who gaslights will feel manipulated and turn against their own emotions and who they are as a person (Stern, 2018).
Malignant narcissists commit abuse using verbal and non-verbal cues to force their children to feel inferior, cheap, and used.
Narcissistic Abuse
Narcissistic abuse is defined as abuse, where the parent or parents use emotional abandonment, withholding affection, manipulation, and uncaring against their children to promote themselves. Narcissistic abuse might include silent treatment or include a parent raging, attacking, and lying. It may also involve blaming to shame and build guilt into their offspring to force them to fulfill their own needs (Arabi, 2017).
Victims of narcissistic abuse syndrome have many of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including but not limited to, the following:
- Flashbacks and nightmares. Reliving the trauma from narcissistic abuse.
- Being on-alert 24/7 waiting for the other shoe to drop.
- Easily startled. Loud or unexpected noises make one jump.
- Feeling detached from one’s emotions or body.
- Avoidance behavior. Avoiding situations like large crowds or anything that reminds one of the abuse.
- Avoiding intimate relationships. Not being able to trust others or believing others to be dangerous hampers any form of intimacy.
- Lack of emotional regulation. Having uncontrollable emotions such as chronic sadness or anger.
- An inaccurate perception of the narcissist. Being preoccupied with the relationship between the victim and the narcissist or continuously thinking of revenge.
- An overwhelming sense of guilt or shame. Feeling utterly different from other people and not worthy of life.
Although other symptoms of complex post-traumatic stress disorder are caused by narcissistic abuse, the above list is enough to tell the horrific story of those who fall victim to narcissistic abuse.
Overt Versus Covert Narcissistic Abuse
Overt narcissists are easily identifiable because they are loud, incentive, and arrogant. They are oblivious and disregarding the needs of others and are always looking for a compliment from others. Overt narcissists are easily noticed as their behavior is grandiose, and they fill a room with their presence.
On the other hand, covert is much harder to identify as this type of narcissist appears shy and anxious about what others think of them. However, covert narcissists are dangerous because of how they hide their real identity as one who will abuse their children because they crave admiration and importance.
Both types of narcissists form unhealthy relationships, but covert narcissists can commit crimes against their children, including Narcissism and Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy.
Narcissism by Proxy
Narcissism by proxy occurs when a narcissist uses those around them to express their own feelings of inadequacy and fear. They do this by inciting their emotions in their children by using manipulative behaviors and cause mental harm to those around them (Zaslav, 2018).
Another way of stating the above is to say that narcissists, especially malignant, covert narcissists, use the faults and weaknesses of those around them to control and manipulate them. They do this to hide or relieve their own feelings of weakness.
Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome
Perhaps one of the most insidious and most dangerous of all the behavior a narcissist can exhibit is Munchausen by proxy syndrome. This crime includes the narcissist causing or making up illnesses and injuries in their children. They do this to appear as the victim and hero in other people’s eyes (Vaknin, 2015).
The narcissistic parent appears to be kind, gentle, loving, and above all, self-sacrificing at the expense of their children’s mental health. They seem dedicated to the welfare of their children while lying about their tortured offspring who are desperate to be seen and rescued.
No one knows how many professionals have been duped by this type of malignant narcissist. Still, the number of children who have died as a result must be enormous.
Narcissistic Parents and the Formation of CPTSD
It is not hard to see why children of narcissistic parents often form complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). These kids are subjected to repeated and horrific abuse at the hands of people they should be able to count on for their care.
CPTSD forms as a response to chronic traumatization that lasts for months or years. The traumatization includes physical, sexual, and for our needs in this article, emotional abuse. Unfortunately, narcissistic parents might be part of human trafficking or another ring of abuse and use their children for their financial gain.
Malignant narcissistic parents attempt to destroy the lives of their children, causing them to exhibit all the signs of someone who has CPTSD.
Ending Our Time Together
Narcissism is a treatable disorder but seldom do narcissists admit they have a problem with their behavior, let alone seek help. It is easily seen how narcissistic abuse by parents damages their children and, unless the child finds support as an adult, can ruin their lives.
In the next article, we shall explore the neuroscience behind not only the effects of narcissistic abuse on the brains of children but also what is going on in the brains of the narcissist.
“When you’re different, sometimes you don’t see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn’t.” ~ Jodi Picoult,
“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit” ~ E.E. Cummings
If you or a loved one are living in the despair and isolation that comes with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, please, come to us for help. The CPTSD Foundation offers a wide range of services including:
- Daily Calls
- The Healing Book Club
- Mindfulness, Prayer, and Meditation Circle
- Support Groups
- Our Blog
- The Trauma-Informed Newsletter
- Daily Encouragement Texts
All our services are reasonably priced, and some are even free. So, to gain more insight into how complex post-traumatic stress disorder is altering your life and how you can overcome it, sign-up, we will be glad to help you.
References
Arabi, S., (2017). What it’s like to be a complex trauma survivor of narcissistic abuse. Psychcentral.com. Retrieved from https://blogs.psychcentral.com/recovering-narcissist/2017/10/what-its-like-to-be-a-complex-trauma-survivor-of-narcissistic-abuse/
Glad, B. (2002). Why tyrants go too far: Malignant narcissism and absolute power. Political Psychology, 23(1), 1-2.
Miller, J. D., Widiger, T. A., & Campbell, W. K. (2010). Narcissistic personality disorder and the DSM-V. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 119(4), 640.
Ronningstam, E., & Gunderson, J. G., (1990). Identifying criteria for narcissistic personality disorder. The American Journal of Psychiatry.
Stern, R. (2018). The Gaslight Effect: How to spot and survive the hidden manipulation others use to control your life. Harmony.
Vaknin, S., (2015). The narcissist’s seriously ill child and Munchausen by proxy syndrome. LinkedIn. Retrieved from: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/narcissists-seriously-ill-child-munchausen-proxy-syndrome-sam-vaknin/
Zaslav, M., (2018). Committing Narcissism by Proxy. Psychologytoday.com. Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shame-guilt-and-their-defenses/201812/committing-narcissism-proxy
Whenever the writer writes, it's always three or four or five o'clock in the morning in his head.
Good writing never soothes or comforts. It is no prescription, neither is it diversionary, although it can and should enchant while it explodes in the reader's face. Whenever the writer writes, it's always three or four or five o'clock in the morning in his head. Those horrid hours are the writer's days and nights when he is writing. Joy Williams
George Bilgere
The summer before my grandmother died I would visit her every afternoon in her stuffy apartment in Santa Cruz. We would work on jigsaw puzzles together. I was terrible at jigsaw puzzles. She was so good that she would flip the puzzle pieces face down, so we had to work with hundreds of gray blobs that all looked pretty much the same. Nonetheless, a waterfall or a forest or a farm took form invisibly on the table, and when Grandma put the last piece in its place there was a tiny flash of victory in the room.
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