Hi, When I was in my twenties I was under the thrall of an older, beautiful, compelling woman who had a loyal and obedient houseful of young adults (three men and one woman) following her like a cult leader. I was drawn in. I wanted to succumb. I had to stay away from her to keep my sanity, it seemed. Ever since then (I'm now 69) I have sought to understand what happened to me. About two years ago I unexpectedly came upon ‘narcissistic personality disorder’ (NPD) and the power it could have over the people in contact with the disordered person. This was the engine that drove that woman. Realizing that NPD is an almost magical power, I set about writing a novel with NPD and the power of thralldom as its theme. I was well into my novel when Donald Trump showed up. He makes the characters in my novel seem like such minor examples of NPD. Oh well, there are tales of kings and equally interesting tales of common folk who have this magical power. Bill
I've also come into contact with personality disordered people. I believe I once dated someone with ASPD (anti social personality disorder). It was extremely unsettling to date someone with no empathy. Before that, I was friends with someone with BPD (borderline personality disorder) and a best friend of mine had a mother that I thought displayed narcissistic traits. However, I think my experience differs from yours in that my relationships were all long distance. I'm sorry to hear about your experience. It does seem like they have a very certain type of destructive and attractive power. I hope that by writing about it, you will be able to further unpack what happened.
Hi yeon, I only understood about NPD a couple of years ago. You are way ahead of me, knowing about these disorders at such a young age. These characters will be appearing now and then throughout your life. If only I had understood what was going on, how different life could have been. Last summer I realised that the guy who sells cordwood to me is a psychopath. We got into some outrageous emails about the quantity I had paid for and the quantity he had delivered. In his last email, he told me lies to myself about what I had done. It was insane. At that point, I took my own advice and ran away. Bill
