Just when I think I've read everything I can read about Narcissism and that I've finally grasped it, I come upon another blog or book or article that makes me aware of yet another aspect of it - or at least, that makes me aware of how that piece fits into my life with N's. From the time I went away to college, Nmother would send me clippings from the local newspaper giving me information about tragedies - deaths, fires, traffic accidents, etc. It was somewhat discombobulating to open a letter (which had been copied and sent to all sibs living away from home) and see news of the latest catastrophe, which had often happened to people I didn't even know. I'd explain in a return letter that I didn't know that person and in the next letter, she'd add a handwritten footnote about who they were. This always confused me. At first, I thought it was an attempt to keep me in touch with my hometown - but who'd want to go back to so much disaster?? And Nmother had no friends that I know of - she would write to people from her past sometimes, but I never met those people. So why were these stories so important to her? I think it was Schadenfreude- somehow, her life looked better if there was a lot of suffering around her.
She was an inveterate gossip, but she only had her children to gossip with - we heard every bad thing about anyone who'd ever been in her life - or ours. The only person about whom she didn't have anything bad to say was her father - she thought he'd hung the moon, as Southerners say. I remember telling her once about a college friend who'd joined the convent in high school to get away from sexual abuse - and she looked at me and asked, with her lips pursed, "And do you believe her?" It kind of freaked me out. She was such a strange woman...
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