Eventually a Narcissist exposes himself. Abigail's story.

As they entered the door his face changed.  The broad, almost grimacing smile twisted then flattened into a deadpan fish eye stare.  As he stepped inside  he dropped the babies bag in the foyer and trudged forward toward the stairs in silence.    One toddler accidentally toppled over and banged her tiny head on the side of the stair gate.    A fresh peach bruise appeared as she shrieked in fear and pain.  Without even glancing at the child he stepped right over.  He did not look back.   As the baby began to wail and sob she sped to the toddler’s side.  Another child concerned and worried bent beside her mother.

“Does she need ice?  Can I get her a band aid?”

The mother cradled the screaming toddler and kissed the top of her head.  The other children appeared gathering around, quietly sensing the moment was serious one but not for the reasons that a child normally would. 

Tenderly tracing her sister’s tears the oldest sister began to sing,
“mommy loves Rosie,  Isiah loves Rosie,  Rosie loves Rosie.  The babies cries softened as she gazed into her sisters and brothers eyes.  In that moment they were safe, ok and at the same time filled with trepidation.

“Daddy didn’t say are you ok to Rosie.”  The youngest son’s confused and bewildered expression was met with blank stares from his siblings.   No one dared to say a word.  Isiah had committed a taboo crime, broken a family rule.  No one EVER was to speak about this.

Daddy never reacted to a hurt child, not inside the house.  The daddy that the world knew was not the daddy that the family knew.  As he approached the door, stepped out of the public spotlight, the place where he cast his image of “super dad” his mask came off.  With no one to impress, to prove that he was an outstanding person he became the opposite of the image he portrayed.  The man in the house was not really in the house.   He existed, ruled loudly commanding and bellowing out what should happen, name calling, blaming and speaking in a creepy monotonous tone.    Only the youngest children were naïve and innocent to not yet understand that this was a secret.  The family had an unspoken pact.  No person, at any time would ever tell any other person or even discuss amongst themselves the shocking differences in the daddy that the world saw and the daddy that they existed with. 

Being outside of the home was better then being inside to the younger children.  Outside in the world Daddy would smile, speak in a cheerful voice, sometimes hold their hands and always talk a lot.   Outside the home the children shone as beautiful extensions of the father’s veneer, mask, persona of super Dad.  Inside the house the children did not exist and the father was rarely home.  When he was he was lying down in one spot for hours on his devices nonresponsive to the life of the family.  Periodically he would call for his wife or a maid to “put THAT away” if a child interfered with his “work.”  He claimed to be working 24x7.  If anyone questioned it they were told they were unappreciative then ignored.  They could cry, scream, get hurt, bleed, fall off a piece of furniture and Daddy would not look up.  If the noise of the action became too much he would call for someone to “put it away” and Mommy or another staff person would come remove the offending child.

The older children learned not to speak to him.  They already knew that he was the one to initiate conversations and that they would always be about things that made Daddy be super Daddy like activities, sports, parties outside the home that he would bring them to and speak and be like the other Dads.  The oldest child believed that all Dad’s were the same until being at friend’s houses exposed her to the type of father’s who responded when spoken to, who were not “working” in the home 24x7 and who smiled and laughed with the family.  Dad’s that she met at friend’s homes ate meals with the family.  Her dad was not home at meal times and if he was he ate alone in his bedroom while on his devices “working”.  At some point she realized that her friends lived in bigger homes, had luxury cars, vacation homes and more “stuff” so how could it be possible that her Dad worked so much harder then their dads yet she did not have the same things.  

 She learned that father’s worked so hard to take vacations to be with, to eat with, to speak to the family they loved as she saw this happen at the homes of her friends.  She stopped calling the father’s on tv who spoke, interacted with, ate meals, sat in the living room with their family’s “tv dad’s” and realized that something was very wrong with her.  Surely she was a bad person, unworthy of even a response from the man who created her, her father.  She began starving herself.  If she could not control or even attract her father’s attention, get him to indicate to believe to adknowledge her presence, it meant she was defective.  By controlling her food she controlled her weight and her body and that was something that no one could change.  By the time she was twelve the school counselor called her parents and expressed her concerns with the eldest relationship with food.

“It’s her mother’s fault.”  The father changed the conversation about his child’s health into one about what a good parent he is and what a poor role model the mother is.  He did not mention to the school nurse that he had bought the child an application to measure the calories of everything that she ate and at 12 he had refused to allow her to have any food with fat in it and regularly deprived the family members of food altogether insisting that he eat the most and the children split the rest leaving nothing for the mother.  The mother would serve the others while the husband devoured his food then greedily grabbed the food off the plates of the children with his hands.  The children would drop their own silver ware grabbing from one another, hitting and pushing.  He turned mealtime into a battle zone, caused hostility amongst the siblings who otherwise were affectionate and protective toward one another.  Under his direction they became divided and out for themselves, but only when he was present.

It was his goal to divide and conquer.  Cause a problem in their precious budding, sibling bond.   While a healthy parent aimed to build, nurture and strengthen this most basic, God given and beautiful connection, he actively sought to destroy it.   Each person existed as an extension of him and to serve him.   He insisted that one child was annoying and it was “her fault” when the others pushed and harmed her.  He smiled and told her to “don’t be annoying, you deserve it’ when they pushed the small girl down he stairs.    To his horror she did not cave and continued to believe in herself anyway.   Even after he punched her face in, permanently damaging and killing the nerve in a front tooth, she continued to shine on.   The siblings learned to appease him, cater to his demands and to always uphold his persona.  They acted as props in his game of duo persona, Dr. Jeckyl Mr. Hyde and spoke about it to no one.  He had a great gig going until it all crashed down around him due to his deadly impulsivity.   When the day came in which social services did not believe the lies of the children protecting him and medical evidence confirmed that it was he who harmed a child and more than once the gig was up.    Within a years time he would lose all custody rights to the children for many months after violating a restraining order and harming them repeatedly.  During his arrest he would blame other people, tell tales of woe and despite the matter being made public he would deny any role in his arrest.   A large percentage of prisoners complain of being framed and blame others.  By his refusal to do anything other then smear the names of others he isolated himself.  People became afraid of him and his mask was no longer effective.

The problem with a mask, a veneer, a façade is that it always cracks eventually.  As hard as a psychopath works to uphold a façade, eventually, always they expose themselves.  While for a long time he maintained a polished mask made of glib charm and self pity, he was now seen for exactly who he is, white trash.