Inaccurate,

Human beings go through stages of development where for a long time the world revolves around them. There are a lot of years of "self discovery" both physically and mentally. The word "narcissism" is identifying something all human beings have where they learn how to interact both physically and mentally with the world around them to gain ways of getting their needs met and to gradually use the part of their brain that all humans are born with "navigation", the desire to "navigate". Narcissism is something we all need and it helps us all gradually develop our self awareness and our own identity and how we can navigate where we can feel confident in our own identity.

When children are young they are very vulnerable because they have so much to learn about their own bodies and how to think about so many things in this world around them. Children are extremely dependent on their parent/parents when it comes to their sense of safety, warmth, nourishment and receiving comforting soothing touches and warmth from the mother/parent. When a baby wakes up, that baby needs something and they wake up "cold, wet, hungry" and when a baby is hungry their stomach hurts badly, so much so that they cry. The longer that baby has to wait, the louder that baby cries and that's because their tummy really HURTS when they are hungry.

Even if you were to observe primates, all primate babies cry and primate mothers hold them a lot and make sure they get nourishment. A mother feeds and holds that child and in so doing provides that child with nourishment, warmth, and she also provides "oxytocin" that the child absorbs that sends that child a message of being wanted, loved, and protected. Also the mother/parent helps that baby "slowly" see her, hear her voice and begin to gradually learn how to socialize. Both infant sexes need this nurturing as they are very fragile little human beings. Infant/babies feel pain when hungry, and they also feel pain when they experience tummy aches and a lot of babies get gas as they often take in air when they nurse and their little tummies tend to create gases as they begin digesting this nourishment that thier little bodies need to grow and they do grow a lot which is why they sleep a lot as growing uses up a lot of energy.

Some mothers do not realize how important their role is when it comes to nurturing that baby. There are a lot of things a mother needs to learn, and it's important the mother pay attention and understand child development because "WE DO NOT GET REDO'S". I have seen mothers act like their baby is a burden, I have seen them even say to a restless infant, "Ugh, not today, I am busy, I don't feel good, I am not in the mood". No infant or baby has any ability to understand this, yet they can feel it. The only way a baby can communicate is mostly through crying. So most of the time a baby cries because something hurts, tummy, teeth, cold, shivers, sense of needing comforting.

We are all born with "narcissistic needs". We are all dependent on our mother/parent to help us learn how to discover and slowly navigate in the world around us, and we all go through stages of "development" where we slowly gain our own sense of "narcissism". We all need this to survive and thrive.

When that mother expressed to me that day when she told me she did not want her two boys around, that she wanted HER OWN life and how inconvenient her own children were. I thought "wow, how awful". That's not what I ever felt when it came to my own child, instead I thought it was the most amazing thing, the most beautiful thing and I wanted and enjoyed that small little human being.

I remember seeing that young teenager get dropped off by the bus and walk down the road of our small dead end culdesac of these pretty homes all different as each couple got to build these homes to their taste and also based on what they could afford too. I did think the house he lived in was pretty, I liked the color, two toned blue, but really pretty shades of blue, it was a cape cod style home. Yet, it was more important to this mother than that amazing miracle she created that was walking down that street.

I only was able to have one child myself, a little girl and I enjoyed every minute of being her mother. I did want a little boy too. Unfortunately, I had developed endometriosis and while could get pregnant, I could not carry full term and I miscarried. There were times when I saw this young teenager and I thought, "how lucky that woman is to have that amazing young boy". When I learned what happened and it happened not long after she stood there telling me how inconvient it was for her to have to be a mother, I was devasted.

I can still see the ambulance and the police cars with their sirens coming down that small street with all those pretty houses that were all unique. And I began to hear what happened, it was just horrifying to hear. This young teen was struggling in school, and he was getting yelled at and both of his parents were not helping him, he was too inconvient. He came home that day, had put something in the microwave to eat and he thought that when his mother heard it ding that she would come get him. He was in so much need, and did not know HOW to get help that he went down to the basement thinking if he tried to hang himself, his mother would find him and realize how badly he needed help. She did not go look for him when that bell rang and when she did find him, it was too late. It might seem like I am making this all up, yet, I am not because I learned all this from individuals who knew more about this family and their problems.

That small neighborhood turned out really pretty, there were only about 10 houses in that small development, and it was very pretty. Yet, what most did not see about that so called "pretty" neighborhood was what it really meant to live in it. I did not build the biggest house, yet I was so excited to at least be able to build a nice little home for my little family. I was shocked when I had to face how others looked down on me for not being able to build a bigger house like theirs. I tried to meet these other mothers and was so shocked when I stood there listening to them as they picked apart each home and what they did not like and how they needed to think their home "was the best". Every time I tried to be social they tended to ignore me and just needed to talk about their homes and their designer clothes and their cars. I remember looking down and seeing a pretty red wagon called "radio flyer" and I commented on how pretty it was and asked where they got it. These other women all had these reflector sunglasses on so I could not see their eyes, and I have to say it was creepy. And my question about that little wagon was completely ignored. Actually, I was pretty much ignored as well.

In that small neighborhood, there were a few divorces, and there was a house behind mine that was one of the first ones built in that developement. It was a young couple where the mother had twin girls. When her girls were only about 4 this mother committed suicide. There was gossip going around that she was unhappy and planning on leaving her husband and she really did not commit suicide, instead he killed her. And he ended up having a complete breakdown and had to be institutionalized. Her parents ended up having to raise these beautiful twin girls.

I was just a young mother and happy to be a mother, thought it was THE MOST amazing thing to be able to experience. Yet, I came across so many mothers that were not very happy, needed to have bigger houses, nice cars, designer clothes, their children were just "part of this kind of picture" of what needs to come next and the constant statements of "can't wait until they go to school" like these women were in prision. I never saw it that way myself. I really loved being a mother, I loved helping my child explore and find herself, form her own little identity. I loved spending time reading to her, taking her to the beach to walk on the sand bars at low tide and to observe her getting so excited about all the things she was exploring and discovering. How on earth is that a BURDEN? I loved going to the swings on that beach and pushing her in the swings and seeing her laugh and smile with delight, there is nothing more beautiful than that, no home, car or designer anything can compete with that.

You asked me, "what to you get out of it" when I told you what I like to do when I help someone else. It's the feeling I get when I see a child get excited about themselves and how they can learn and do and discover and become themselves and feel "good about it".

When you talked about what you experienced at around age 13, that's a really important stage of life for a child. That is an age where a child is beginning to see a lot of things, it's where that child is looking at themselves in a very different way, they are just beginning to discover their unique sense of self and even their sense of sexuality and vulnerabilities. A parent needs to understand this significant stage of life and sense of growing awareness. It's NEVER a time to ignore a child or encourage some kind of sense of "failure". While a child is slowly learning about their own "narcissisim" and developing that part of themselves gradually throughout their childhood where at any time they can sustain deep narcissistic injuries, often it's around the age of 12 that a child can sustain very deep narcissistic injuries that can affect them the rest of their lives. This is what can begin to change what is considered "normal narcissism" that we all as human beings have, to developing a hurt and disordered sense of narcissism.

I believe both you, Inaccurate and Darkness are indeed very intelligent. However, what I have noticed in both of you is an anger and frustration to find a way to resolve some deep narcissistic injuries. What you both choose to do reveals a lot about the source of these deep injuries.

Your question Inaccurate, "Is this how most people are?". What I can say to you is that most people experience degrees of narcissistic injuries. And most people have some narcissistic traits. It's kinda like thinking about it on a graph that is a kind of line that can have peaks where the individual's personal narcissism can reflect things that are not so much of a big deal, to this is important and something I need to somehow fix. Fix, for most of us is about "doing something, navigating". I need to learn how to do X so I can have X. Truth is, it's part our design in that we tend to look for ways to gain our sense of control over our surivival.

Personally, I never really read about or thought about this label used a lot now "narcissist". There is this ongoing message of how narcissists are evil and bad and dangerous. Actually, there has been an ongoing discussion about possibly changing this label in the diagnostic manual. I think that the reason for this is due to slowly learning how this kind of personality challenge tends to develop.

Given what I have learned about both you, Inaccurate and Darkness, I can see that you both sustained some significant narcissistic injuries. Yet, there is something else I have been struggling with, and it definitely affected me pretty much all my life. My dad recently passed away and there were ways my dad behaved that ended up creating a lot of dysfunction in my own home and family.

When you talk about the pentinent and getting to a void and finding the right hat? I know about that, I really know. I think about my father and the narcissism he had, and how he developed it himself from suffering his own deep narcissistic injuries. My father grew up with an alcoholic father and his father was a nice man with a high IQ, but a mean alcoholic. It must have been really bad, whenever I tried to talk to him about it in the many times I was spending time alone with him, he always had a look that told me "too hard to talk about". I know it was bad though because when my father was about age 12, his mother ran away. It had to have been bad for her to choose to run away and leave both him and his younger sister behind. Truth is, he never got over being abandoned that way. He took that out on my mother and it was NOT healthy for me to experience that growing up.

He would say, "marry a woman that loves you more than you love her, that way you can controll her and she won't leave you". Truth is, my father did not want my mother to have "healthy" self esteem. He did not want her to feel strong enough where she could EVER leave him. I saw him be mean to my mother, he did not hit her, but he did hurt her emotionally. Children do NOT understand that, I know I didn't. It's not healthy for either little girls or little boys to see. My father wasn't all bad, he had a very kind and very intelligent side to him. When I read what both you, Inaccurate and Darkness share, I see that side in both of you as well. You both have read about a lot of things, made it a point to gain knowledge, that's what my dad did too.

When you talk about picking the right hat, I had to do that myself and finding that hat was important, just you as say. When you talk about having to be intelligent enough, that's true too. My mother never really figured that one out, not even when I tried to tell her what kind of hat she had to wear. I don't blame her in that she was too hurt to understand it, that's what happens to most women put in her role by the kind of man my father was.

Mothers play such an important role in how a little human being develops "healthy" narcissism. Both you Inaccurate and Darkness are living examples of that. However, so was my own father as well as that young boy that I saw walking down my small street so many years ago that ended up taking his own life. Ofcourse, there are a lot of variables that need to also be considered. Learning how a human being's mind is wired and how that small human being learns with that kind of wiring. How that wiring that is different can contribute to some deep narcissistic injuries as well. Oh, I sure had to learn a lot about this in that my own amazing child had brain wiring that is called "dyslexia". IQ?, often I think that too is very misunderstood and creates some unnessary narcissistic injuries.

What I CAN say to you Inaccurate, is that you are not going to properly "heal" the injuries you have by finding ways to see if you can prove a weakness in other men that you seem to feel you can do in a very short time. Truth is, you are right in that it often CAN only take a short time to do it and prove it. That isn't going to "fix" your own injury as I have mentioned. Your own injury is NOT your fault either, it doesn't mean you are weak, hurt doesn't equal weak. Yet, it can create a very uncomfortable sense of vulnerablity. Sigh....I found the right hat and that is why my father felt safe enough to sit across from me and weep one day. Men are not suppose to cry in front of others, at least not in my father's generation. You are also right about how someone who is empathic can be hurt badly. I do know that one very intimately. What I experienced surrounding my father's death has been extremely toxic for me, sigh...have so much to grieve with it all.

I am sorry for how both you and Darkness were hurt, neither of you deserved it and it wasn't your fault. However, I know that healing is not accomplished through hurting others and manipulating them or making them feel small so you can feel big or have some kind of sense of control. I watched my father do this and it was not "healthy" for him, his wife, me, my older brother or my older sister. My father was not a bad man, he had special things about him and he was very smart and he had depth to him too. I loved it when I found the right hat to wear around him, he had so many interesting life experiences that he shared with me. I think my own time with him helped heal some things in him too, having a loving presence that left him so very long ago, that he needed to watch him and listen to him and help him feel "safe".