Quote of the Day

In the end, the constant pursuit of maintaining a presentation that is "larger than life," whether it is talent, beauty, achievement, or some other quality, leaves us empty, unfulfilled, and yearning for something more.  Like the Wizard in his castle, the narcissist eventually becomes a prisoner of his own defenses, disconnected and alone.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 166

Quote of the Day

I sometimes feel it to be an absolute miracle that the entire black population of the United States of America has not long ago succumbed to raging paranoia.  People finally say to you, in an attempt to dismiss the social reality, "But you're so bitter!"  Well, I may or may not be bitter, but if I were, I would have good reasons for it: chief among them that American blindness, or cowardice, which allows us to pretend that life presents no reasons for being bitter.

-- James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro, p. 98

Quote of the Day

The word narcissism in general means "self-worship."  Consequently, unhealthy narcissism is a form of claiming too much for the self, whether we are taking resources from others, or indulging too much pride in our talents or achievements.  Perhaps we have had fortunate circumstances in business, family position, beauty, or other inherent gifts from God or the natural world.  While healthy narcissism does involve our ability to feel proud of special accomplishments and to take pleasure in our abilities, we generally know that heady feeling when we indulge in undue pride, a tendency that leads to self aggrandizement.  The moment we claim more credit for ourselves than we deserve, we participate in the illusion of "special ownership" or "entitlement" and head towards the dead-end of toxic narcissism.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 166

Quote of the Day

Force does not work the way its advocates think in fact it does.  It does not, for example, reveal to the victim the strength of the adversary.  On the contrary, it reveals the weakness, even the panic of the adversary and this revelation invests the victim with patience.

-- James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro, p. 91

Quote of the Day

With a surface presentation that is often captivating, we are drawn to the narcissist.  Initially our feelings of attraction, admiration, or intimidation become the emotional state that holds us spellbound.  Eventually, however, the negative influences of the narcissist erode our trust and confidence inducing a state of emotional paralysis.  And the length of time that we struggle to find our way out of the narcissist's world can vary from days -- to years -- to a whole lifetime.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 165-166

Quote of the Day

When the Israelis pick up guns, or the Poles, or the Irish, or any white man in the world says "give me liberty, or give me death," the entire white world applauds.  When a black man says exactly the same thing, word for word, he is judged a criminal and treated like one and everything possible is done to make an example of this bad nigger, so there won't be any more like him.

-- James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro, p. 81-82

Quote of the Day

At the extreme end of the continuum, we see what happens when the malignant narcissist takes power.  These individuals often begin as the charismatic autocratic leader who can influence masses of people to abuse and violate the rights and/or boundaries of other groups or nations.  As free thinkers in a democratic society, we must learn to recognize and resist unhealthy narcissism in others and ourselves if we are to avoid and prevent the toxic and infectious nature of such movements.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 164

Quote of the Day

It is impossible to accept the premise of the story [featured in the film The Defiant Ones], a premise based on the profound American misunderstanding of the nature of the hatred between black and white.  The root of the black man's hatred is rage, and he does not so much hate white men as simply wants them out of his way, and more than that, out of his children's way.  The root of the white man's hatred is terror, a bottomless and nameless terror, which focuses on this dread figure, an entity which lives only in his mind.

-- James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro, p. 60

Quote of the Day

Boundary setting skills with the narcissist is equal to self-preservation when it comes to your career, and the potential negative impact to your self-esteem.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 163

Quote of the Day

This [Negro] problem, which (white Americans) invented in order to safeguard their purity, has made of them criminals and monsters, and it is destroying them.  And this, not from anything blacks may or may not be doing but because of the role of a guilty and constricted white imagination as assigned to the blacks.

-- James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro, p. 58

Quote of the Day

 The NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) person in the workplace will have a tendency to create havoc among his peers and simultaneously rise to a position of power because he flourishes in a competitive environment.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 162

Quote of the Day

I have always been struck, in America, by an emotional poverty so bottomless, and a terror of human life, of human touch, so deep, that virtually no American appears able to achieve any viable, organic connection between his public stance and his private life.  This failure of the private life has always had the most devastating effect on American public conduct, and on black-white relations.  If Americans were not so terrified of their private selves, they would never have become so dependent on what they call "the Negro problem."

-- James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro, p. 56

Quote of the Day

Toxic narcissism exists in the shadows, often remaining invisible until revealed by the pain it causes others.  If we are to prevent these dangers, we must become more psychologically sophisticated, working through our own narcissist tendencies and proactively drawing the line on abusive tendencies in other individuals, groups, and potential world leaders.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 161

Quote of the Day

When Malcolm [X] talks, or the other Muslim ministers talk, they articulate for all the Negro people who hear them, who listen to them, they articulate their suffering.  The suffering which has been in this country so long denied.  That is Malcolm's great authority over any of his audiences.  He corroborates their reality.  He tells them that they really exist, you know.

-- James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro, p. 39

Quote of the Day

Encounters with the narcissist and the malignant narcissist force us to recognize the lesson that we need to learn most -- that human existence is complex, and we must accept responsibility for this complexity.  We cannot have simplistic answers and solutions to our lives, nor can we complacently rely on old formulas that may have once guided our choices.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 161

Quote of the Day

how is it so easy for you
to be kind to people he asked

milk and honey dripped
from my lips as i answered

cause people have not
been kind to me

-- Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey, p. 11

Quote of the Day

Our own country seems at times to hang dangerously in the balance as the unwieldy size of our government bodies and corporations leave the empowerment of the individual behind.  Caught by an increasing sense of alienation and hopelessness, we could fall prey to the insidious tendency to hand over power to the narcissist leader or group that promises to deliver a shiny new sense of individuality -- a potential imposter of our true ideals.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 160

Quote of the Day

There is a great deal of difference between nonresistance to evil and nonviolent resistance.

-- Martin Luther King Jr.

Quote of the Day

On the codependent side of the coin, many individuals in England and America [following World War I] were similarly blinded by their righteous attachment to their "pacifist" ideologies -- to such a point that they could not recognize the inevitable danger to their own free society.  Like the entrenched codependent with the NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) individual, these groups regularly called for soul searching and an ever-increasing intention to reason with Hitler to prevent conflict.  Caught up in a stubborn denial, the pacifists were unable to recognize the important warning signs of malignant narcissism gathering strength in an entire nation of people.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 160

Quote of the Day

White people are astounded by Birmingham.  Black people aren't.  White people are endlessly demanding to be reassured that Birmingham is really on Mars.  They don't want to believe, still less to act on the belief, that what is happening in Birmingham is happening all over the country.  They don't want to realize that there is not one step, morally or actually, between Birmingham and Los Angeles.

-- James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro, p. 34

Quote of the Day

The following dynamics are universally shared by groups of people developing severe narcissistic tendencies.  These tendencies in turn foster an attitude of righteous justification for the destructive and domineering behaviors towards other groups or nations.

• Child rearing practices that emphasize rigid conformity and unquestioning obedience to the beliefs of the parents.
• Over-emphasis on conformity and an intolerance of diversity in society at large.
• Grandiose ideology -- self-righteousness of one's beliefs as superior over others.
• Tendencies towards paranoia (i.e., censorship of opposing opinions).
• An inability to engage in a rational dialogue that acknowledges the rights of others.
• Over simplistic thinking: all or nothing, black or white thinking.

 -- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 159-160

Quote of the Day

Perhaps one of the more insidious forms of group narcissism occurs among the CEOs and vice-presidents of many modern corporations around the globe.  Hidden behind the boardroom doors, we often learn too late how profit-hunting groups make decisions with impunity that ravage the health or finances of unsuspecting individuals or ruin the precious resources of our planet.  These groups reflect all the dynamics of covert narcissism and have less and less accountability for their actions, a dangerous combination for the well being of everyone.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 159

Quote of the Day

A cultural mindset that leads to child-rearing practices that ignore the thoughts and feelings of the child and emphasize blind obedience are the very conditions that make a group of people vulnerable to fascist movements.  

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 158-159

Quote of the Day

Both Hitler and Bin Laden, however, beg a far more important question.  How do such sick and destructive individuals become legitimized and endorsed by entire nations or masses of people throughout the world?  We can see on the surface that the malignant narcissist in power is an individual who uses his charisma and intelligence to inflate an ideology among a group of people who are vulnerable to blindly follow, no matter how irrational the claims appear to be.  Members of both the Nazi Aryan supremacists and the extreme Muslim fundamentalists foster the delusion that their people are the only "true" people -- believing that everyone else must meet their test of conformity or be destroyed.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 158

Quote of the Day

As with Hitler, it is Bin Laden's envy and desire for revenge that ultimately drove him to topple the World Trade Towers -- the unmistakable symbol of economic superiority in the very heart of America's greatest city.  The ideology of extreme Muslim fundamentalism, like the extreme ideologies of any other fanatical group, simply becomes the convenient framework for the malignant narcissist to express his boundless hatred and desire for revenge.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 158

Quote of the Day

... envy is the primary conscious feeling that drives the NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) individual to compete and surpass those whom he regards as more powerful and/or successful.  The sociopath-narcissist will obsessively focus on those individuals, groups, or nations who represent the pinnacle of power and success, devising and conspiring ways to overthrow them.  Just as Hitler demonstrated with his book, Mein Kampf, Bin Laden also made no secret of his intentions to destroy the United States, progressively vilifying all Americans whom he saw as the source of "Muslim shame."

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 157

Quote of the Day

When we can recognize attitudes and behaviors that reflect unhealthy narcissism, we can become our own gardeners, uprooting these behaviors in ourselves.  Similarly, we can prevent others from encroaching into boundaries where they don't belong and assertively redirect an unhealthy path in another person.  At the very least, we may recognize the potential for violence that so frequently appears to strike us from nowhere and take preventative action.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 155

Quote of the Day

Narcissism is the last train stop before Hell!  In other words, if we don't confront unhealthy degrees of narcissism in ourselves as well as in others, we may fail to catch a destructive tendency before it does significant damage.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 154

Quote of the Day

Unhealthy narcissism often becomes so pathological it seems indistinguishable from evil.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 154

Quote of the Day

Sickness that becomes so twisted it crosses over into "evil" does not fall from the sky like a meteor or materialize in a puff of smoke from other worlds ruled by the devil.  Sickness evolves into evil from innumerable small, subtle, and incremental actions (little lies, if you will), like missing a road sign and then stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that we have gone awry.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 154

Quote of the Day

It must be made clear that the importance of identifying and understanding severe degrees of pathological narcissism is not just for the improved quality of our personal lives.  Our very survival as a society and species is most likely dependent on our recognition of unhealthy narcissism and our ability to confront these issues in others and ourselves.  We must come to terms with the fact that the human psyche is complicated, and we are obligated to develop psychological understanding beyond simplistic notions of right and wrong or good and evil.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 153-154