Thank you for this! It’s given me a lot of insights and Ah Ha! Moments. I used to teach drawing workshops and it always amazed me that when people are drawing you can almost see inside their souls. Their false personalities fall away and their true self is laid bare, although they themselves usually didn’t realize it. When they did realize it, they would exclaim that they’d found a self they’d forgotten. Or like a banker before the 2008 financial crash said with a shocked expression, “You can’t fake this, can you!” He didn’t come back to the class again. I don’t know if that’s a form of “in-see”, but it was quite surprising and very accurate. Even so, I’ve too often become “psychic flypaper” for narcissists. I wonder how we can teach children from an early age to protect themselves from these devils?
Thanks for reading, Kristin! Your observation about drawing is really interesting. It makes me think of Rollo May's The Courage to Create. (Too bad the banker didn't come back.) I think maybe the best protection from narcissists' gaslighting is self-trust. Women especially have had to fight the opposite training (defer to male authority/certainty), but I'm hopeful that's changing...
Profound <3
Thank you for this! It’s given me a lot of insights and Ah Ha! Moments. I used to teach drawing workshops and it always amazed me that when people are drawing you can almost see inside their souls. Their false personalities fall away and their true self is laid bare, although they themselves usually didn’t realize it. When they did realize it, they would exclaim that they’d found a self they’d forgotten. Or like a banker before the 2008 financial crash said with a shocked expression, “You can’t fake this, can you!” He didn’t come back to the class again. I don’t know if that’s a form of “in-see”, but it was quite surprising and very accurate. Even so, I’ve too often become “psychic flypaper” for narcissists. I wonder how we can teach children from an early age to protect themselves from these devils?
Thanks for reading, Kristin! Your observation about drawing is really interesting. It makes me think of Rollo May's The Courage to Create. (Too bad the banker didn't come back.) I think maybe the best protection from narcissists' gaslighting is self-trust. Women especially have had to fight the opposite training (defer to male authority/certainty), but I'm hopeful that's changing...
I think that’s exactly right—the best protection is self-trust. In my family each successive generation of women has gotten better at it.