Half Dad, Half Misfit

Another good video about co-parenting with a narcissist. The slide of the "challenges of co-parenting with a narcissist" is spot on.

The whole DoctorRamani YouTube channel is gold, but this particular video was timely, having just received a message that fit the "three part haiku" template:

Case study of a narcissist; a reporter meets Joe on a dating app and then experiences a whirlwhind of exhileration and disappointment. When Stephanie finally realises what is going on, she uses her journalist skills to investigate and using Joe as the case study investigates the world of narcissists. The most striking part for me was the pattern of relationships with a narcissist and the phases it moves through - and yet, there isn't a school for narcissists, they just naturally all find the same pattern. The sad thing is that these people who have the skills to manipulate people end up having such boring underlying lives - they never seem to be able to convert that influence into any kind of traction. 5/5 

  An interesting book about how we think we know if we can trust others, including stories about spies, con artists, terrorists and police. I'm still confused what I was supposed to learn from the section about Brock Turner and alcohol affecting memory and decision making. After listening to this, all I know is that I don't know who to trust any more. 4/5

 Stuck this on last night as a "background noise" movie while I did some tidying in the kitchen and washing up. (The ideal "background noise" movie is one you've seen before that doesn't require close attention to follow the plot and the twists) It was even better than I remembered!

And if you think that that grandparents or mutually respected friends may be able to help, well, you're fucked there, too: Targeted parents sense this trend and either enlist help from their village or merely support the effort individuals make to advise and correct the escalating behaviors and attitudes of alienated children. Alienated children are hypersensitive and hyper-vigilant to the tribal communities developing in a climate where the alienation virus spreads. They view the supportive people in the targeted parent’s village as a threat seeking to “social distance,” while seeing supportive others in the alienating parent’s village as safe with whom to “quarantine.” The targeted parent’s village grows wary and frustrated with the experience of social-distancing and may begin to angrily confront the children. The children—similarly to how they feel and respond to the rejected parent’s confrontations—end up feeling attacked and shamed by these social encounters. They begin to s...

From this article: Parental alienation can be difficult to recognize for anyone not experiencing it first-hand. It’s like a riptide: hidden and forceful. Rejected parents can find themselves struggling against a powerful force as it pulls them further and further from the relationship they once had with their children. They feel the resistance and fight against it. But the more they fight, the more exhausted they become. It seems as if there’s no one to appreciate how difficult it is to stay buoyant in these deceptively calm waters. They search for someone—anyone—to throw them a lifeline. The experience of being targeted by your co-parent is upsetting. But to be rejected and hated by your own child, feeling and watching them slip away, and fearing that you’ll never see them again, is like witnessing that child die a slow death. While they remain physically alive, they become increasingly emotionally dead to you. The radiant love in their eyes turns dark and vacuous and the joyous soun...