Mother Night Indeed

 'The experience of sitting there in the dark, hearing the things I had said, didn't shock me. It might be helpful in my defence to sat that I broke into a cold sweat, or some such nonsense. But I had always known what I did. How? Through that simple and widespread boon to mankind - schizophrenia*.'. 

Quoted from page 116 of 'Mother Night' written in 1961 by science fiction writer, satirist and essay writer Kurt Vonnegut Jr (1922-2007). Here is the writers website.

*A long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behaviour, leading to a series of faulty perceptions, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality, and a withdrawal from personal relationships into fantasy and delusion. Overall a sense of mental fragmentation. It may well seem like a rational response when reality seems to be complex to the point of being intangible. 

Of Narcissists And Martyrs, And Their Followers.....

The following is for those
who can't tell a martyr and narcissist,
and who are tempted to become one,
themselves, and they don't know the difference.

A martyr suffers for those other than himself,
often some despised and disunited minority
who find unity in their new, late, loss-leader figurehead.

And he (in every patriarchal society it will be a he)
is pushed into that position by circumstances
that others in authority-also male-create and control.

Whereas when a narcissist feels themselves
to have suffered, then it is imaginary for them,
and they don't know they are being delusional, 
but it becomes a very real persecution for others.

As the narcissist pursues his imaginary phantoms
and seeks to find them through his subordinates
who, under pressure can barely comprehend
who, and what, they are serving, then their escape 
intact from the delusion they serve is hard.
The most thorough escape is via utter failure.

Being failed by a narcissist means being released from their grip
and knowing yourself by the bruises that their grip left
whilst seeing others get caught up in what will fail them.

For those held in the narcissists grasp
hindsight teaches that they would have been less hurt
and more right if their leader had been a martyr
to a better-even if it is yet to be successful-cause, 
than the delusion that the narcissist
who picked them wanted them to serve.   

Testament Of Middle Age

For many years I was told I was an introvert,
but it was more that I was 'in the closet'.
I had to be secretive about a sexuality
that I was taught to feel depressed about.
But the secrecy went further than that......

For the sake of appearances I was also required
to be 'in the closet' about my being depressed.
My family lived in denial about mental health.
They lived life with a determined determinism.

I still get depressed, but less about myself now.
More about what I can't do for the world around me.
In this new depression I can be an extrovert
when I want to be, when I see the opportunity.

I can still be horribly wrong about people.
And tactless too. In so many situations
I remember faces, but not peoples' names.

But somewhere on my way I lost the shame
my family needed to keep me as one of them.

I remain uneasy about being other peoples property.