Pathology

I'm having a night of intense pathology, being confronted with some of the most severe attitudes I possess. Ended up deep in conversation with my friend Angry Mike, who is, in addition to being chronically angry, very adept at understanding certain aspects of human psychology.

And hating, with equal ferocity, some of the same personality types/disorders that I do. We got talking about a well known pathological liar of our mutual acquaintance. It's well know that this man CAN NOT TELL THE TRUTH. Yet people still call him a "friend", and a "good guy".

Talking to Mike, after a week of being confronted with useless bullshit and madness from other quarters, stoked up the fire of hatred toward the mutual ex-friend. Then towards the people we know who don't hate him. I was left with a self-righteous indignation: how can people not know the man is WORTHLESS? Why aren't they able to see the truth of him like I can? (Funny that talking to a guy called "Angry" left me in a state of rage. Usually it doesn't.)

(Calming down I had to ask: How does my ego get so engorged, and inflamed?)

I was left to wonder why this was bothering me so much. I realized it's because my mom's been hospitalized for the second time in a week for mental health issues. Our relationship is such that I'm not worried at all for her; I'm grateful she's in the care of people who can do something for once.

No. My second biggest emotion here is that I resent the fact that it's taken nearly 39 years of my life for her to lose control enough for someone in authority to see what I had to deal with for so long: Manic Episodes, Paranoia, Behavior she couldn't explain. This time she scared people enough to be involuntarily committed TWICE in 7 days.

That resentment is slightly eclipsed by vindication: I wasn't lying all those years, not even exaggerating. All the times my friends said "Your mom is an angel", not understanding that she was only that way when "outsiders" were around...

Following on the heels of the vindication is a slightly more complex form of relief, one that Mike actually put the words to: much of your self image comes from your parents, so if you learned to hate yourself, or in any way dislike yourself because of a parent, and that parent proves to not be sane or stable then that is a whole way of thinking of yourself that can be discarded. The implications of that will be years in presenting themselves...

Since this has begun Lady Voldemort, She Who Must Not Be Named, my ex-wife has been saying to a mutual friend that she would like to go see my mom. And to call me to see how I'm doing. She fails to understand that talking to her would render me unwell. I have asked it to be passed on that I want no calls, and that visiting my mom would probably not be good for her.

Because of these recent interactions I have come to understand an aspect of my character that started as a juvenile attempt at psychological self-defense:
when someone displays clear and irrefutable disregard for others, whether or not from obvious mental illness, making them to regularly disrupt the lives of, if not outright harm others,
AND they
don't see it as a problem,
or see it as a problem with others not themselves,
or see it as abnormal yet refuse to get treatment

then I lose all regard and affection for that person. Any caring I had for them is inaccessible to me, and may just as well be totally gone. In some cases I don't even have basic respect for them.
A number of people fall in this category. 'My ex-wife. Most certainly the Ex-Friend, the pathological liar.
I think this total cutting-off of people comes from an inability to meter my trust, and a terror of having that trust violated again. In all cases I've been burned, and forgiven, and been burned again. No further forgiveness is available. These people are written off.

It may sound harsh to...hmm...humans, but apologies are just words, especially when someone does exactly the same thing for which they apologized, with no self-examination, no attempt to change. Apologies are trite, and meaningless from someone who will hurt you again. In case anyone has any doubts I am not a Buddhist, nor a Christian: Forgiveness MUST be earned, not purchased with a currency totally devoid of value.

These people all possess conditions that make it impossible for them to ever truly understand how they've hurt someone else; these conditions make them believe that whatever reasons they have for doing a thing must be universally sound, and right. They are incapable of viewing themselves from outside. If that changed, if somehow each of them could enumerate the ways they've hurt me or others, in unflinching truth, then I might have something more for them. But that will not happen.

This cutting-off is sometimes viewed as a symptom of one of a few personality disorders, as I am not the only person who does this. Oh well. Any mental disorder that is not neurologically based likely comes from one's environment. What else would mine have taught me?