"The Dark Side of A Curious Mind"
31 January 2025
I was born with one of those narcissistic fantasy minds. The kind where I believed that I was really the abandoned daughter of an amazing mafia family, with like a rock-star mum, film director dad who had been searching for me all my life because of some fantastically outrageous circumstance and twist of fate that had made it impossible for them to have kept me.
That I was only moved to somewhere innocuous temporarily a place so far away from the world I belonged in, so ordinary, different and hiding in poverty - all for my own safety and there would be a day when they called for me. They’d send out the foot soldiers to come and pay off my hard-done-by, hard working, evidently struggling to survive, good-hearted but long suffering (from having me there) pretend relatives; who would throw their arms around the messenger with thanks and gratitude for reclaiming me and as a bonus they’d have enough money to live out the rest of their lives in comfort and peace without me.
No longer having to make ends meet. Living hand to foot with broken hearts and a head full of guilt for their part in not being equip of enthusiastic about playing their part- even temporary as it was- in bringing me up. No more pity looks, or forged feelings of love. No more guilt for just about being able to ‘do the job of someone else’ by ‘taking me on’ in hard times.
IN the harder times for me from my perspective from as young as a child who sits curled over an Argos catalogue book on the carpet in front of the old gas fireplaces. Getting excited as my ‘chosen’ birthday might be coming up. Putting big red pen circles around the number of toys in the book that I was allowed to (told) to choose for my upcoming day. Even as sceptical as I was, given that I never have EVER received anything that was chosen this way for Christmas or birthdays.
I still lived in hope, trust and belief. I’d contemplate the minor details like you can pick 8 toys, “no more, no less; just 8 that’s all we can afford”. The cunningness my carers went to get me to sit still for an hour while they smoked cigarettes and drank cold cups of tea that smelt like turps and tasted like Vodka what I thought Typhoo tea must taste like.
I only found out when I got a little older that I wasn’t imagining the pungent taste, and no other tea would ever taste the same.
Maybe it has something to do with me throwing up when I drink regular supermarket tea now? I prefer coffee as an adult but speaking of tea, I am considering tasting some posh (fancy) tea stuff. I need to get all the paraphernalia for making tea, tea pot, reusable bags, fucking compos looking home grown specialist tea. I fancy Chi-Orange or something.
Back to my reverie into historical narcissism in me. Turns out that during the day, my Nana needed a wee tipple, she wasn’t a secret ‘secret’ drinker - just a respectable gentlewoman. A caring lady, who was also under a lot of pressure, stress and I guess loneliness. If it wasn’t for her doing this, this crafty day-drinking shit, I might still not believe that we are related! We are much to my pleasure and I regret not spending more time with Nana as I became an adult too.
I might never have gotten anything from the Argos book’s toy section. I’m sure I was frugal in my selections too. Knowing that we had very little in life - I had no real concept of money in those days - Nana kept me quite innocent and oblivious to the ‘reality’ of the world (wherever she could.) I was shielded when very young from the harsh truths of survival. Nana thought I had been through enough trouble, she thought I still had something special worth saving, clinging on to, like magic or something so she tried her damned hardest to help me hold on to any illusion.
I felt like part of that illusion was me being loved too. I rarely fell for anything, all it did was encourage me to seek out truth in everything. The makings of a curious mind begins with suspicion and in my case ended with fucking paranoid schizophrenia! I don’t blame any of this stuff on my DNA, fate, other people. I blame it on my drug taking,free will, how I dealt with traumatic presentations and situations, biology, lifestyle and my ‘genius’ natural state! ;)
Which brings me back to being a child- narcissist with a fantastical mind (nothing actually confirmed I’m just musing). I loved everything that I was given. I really did believe that what I received came to be from a place of love. I might not have got what I wanted, but I always had what I needed, and more. Only my toys never arrived in boxes. They just popped straight out of the wrapping paper.
Nana would sit for hours curling foil string things with the edge of baby safety scissors around me. I’d be watching the patience and determination she’d be employing. It also confused me a bit as to what the point of doing it was. She seemed to lose herself in the home-made curled craft foil thing. Turns out all my presents were tied with the same multi-coloured strings, in bows and knots and decorative designs, all that time.
My toys were always good. Sparkling clean with stickers pealed off where necessary. If one headlight sticker was missing from the Barbie car that year, then both would be taken off. I got 52 presents each year. “That’s one present for each week”, Nana used to tell me. The gorgeous thing is this: my Nana was thinking of me every single week to pick me up a little gift, starting January right through to December. I know this, and I realise now, in hindsight, that most of the bigger presents were hand me downs, gifted to me, or charity pre-loved purchases. It’s fine. It’s cool. I owe this kind of upbringing a huge amount of gratitude.
I have learned to appreciate the nothing in something make and take away something from nothing, not wanting everything, has helped set a good foundation for the person I am and admire.
I am built on self-reliance. I am the LEAST superficial materialistic person I know. If I had to pick one good trait of mine. It would be that. Everything I ever had was made so much better because like me; it came broken but was restored with love. I set my sights on looking to attain the highest form of love. As I got older (should have been wiser) but I imagined letters coming in from Solicitors to share with me news of inheritance. As I got into early adulthood and money did become a concept I was aware of, I had this narcissistic fantasy that some long lost really wealthy ‘Auntie’ had popped her clogs and had left her entire mansion in the Maldives on the beach*.
*pfft… Is that even possible a dream? - I know, it’s like saying a Princess Castle in Kentucky! but there you go.
A lot of people have called me a narcissist growing up and even now my OH (‘other half’) has thrown out the word at me. I believe I might have been born that way, could have grown in to one, maybe still am a narcissist? Other people could all be right about me.I might be right about myself. I would instantly shout out my own opinion if I agreed with it. I despise my mind so much at times that I hardly ever trust its authenticity.
I have learned that counterintuitively, self-hatred is one of the leading symptoms of clinical narcissism; only by telling yourself how much you hate yourself, can you receive the shower of praise and / or admiration in response that you feel you truly deserve.
I didn’t consciously construct this fantasy. That doesn’t start until later on in life. As a Schizophrenic I get a lot of shit for doing it but don’t or didn’t we all?
Thank you so much for going through it with me. Please consider checking out my other newsletters, follow or subscribe its ALL free ALWAYS will be. Plenty of love heading your way. Chasey! x
