Our conflicted feelings

I think we all feel guilty at times about our feelings -- or rather our lack of feeling -- toward the narcissist. Something inside just dies when we confront the spirit in which a narcissist does what he or she does.

That is a confrontation with the pure will to evil. You know -- the big chill. You stand on the edge of the abyss and look down into their soul and see there is no bottom. It's natural, it's human, to back off as if repelled by antigravity and abhor it. In fact, it's immoral not to.

But especially the parents and siblings of a narcissist often feel conflicted, because they sympathize deeply with the hurt little child inside the narcissist. They remember him or her. They witnessed the abuse. Just remembering it creates such a vivid experience that it enrages them all over again, 20, 30, 40 years later.

And they have occassionally caught heartbreaking glimpses of this ghost, this murdered little child inside the narcissist.

Dealing with these conflicted feelings is simply a matter of understanding them. They are natural. It's the situation that is unnatural, bizarre. That's because this hatred of the monster is directed at seemingly the same object as the love and grief for the innocent child inside.

That's just the way it is, and there's nothing we can do about it except keep clear about it and try not to confuse those feelings. The narcissist, by misidentifying, by identifying with his or her false image, has created this bizarre situation with their false and abhorrant persona.