David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

David McElroy

Social media creates shallow ties at expense of deeper connections

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How many friends do you have? Do you have any idea anymore? Or do you even know what the word “friend” means now?

I ran across a discussion earlier today among funeral directors about how many people typically attend funerals. Although they all knew of some large and showy funerals, most were more familiar with the ones at which few people showed up.

One guy said that 10 to 15 people was typical for him. Another thought it might be closer to 40. But the numbers were shockingly small, except in cases of large, close-knit families with a lot of local relatives.

How many Facebook “friends” do you have? It’s bothered me for years that the folks at the company use that word, because their idea of friends is very different than mine. At one point, I had 5,000 Facebook “friends” — which is the limit for a personal account — and even after aggressively deleting and blocking people for years, I still have about 500.

But how many of those people are really my friends? How many would show up at my funeral?

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Briefly: Psychologist outlines how parents create narcissistic children

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Narcissists tend to turn their children into narcissists — and since a narcissist doesn’t realize he or she is a narcissist, there’s no bad intent. How does this happen? I watched a YouTube video over the weekend from an Australian psychologist who does a nice job of summarizing how it works. None of this is new to me, but I thought it was useful for those who haven’t spent years digging through books and articles about it. The same psychologist has an excellent summary of something which confuses a lot of people about narcissism. You’ve all seen examples of the loud, boisterous and overbearing narcissist, but what about the ones who are more introverted and vulnerable? This type is called a covert narcissist (or a vulnerable narcissist), and this is what my father was. In the first video, I strongly see myself in the ways my father treated me and in the second video, I see what my father was almost successful in making me become.

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Deconstructing my old life’s hard, but I’m learning to be healthier

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I’ve spent most of my life learning to let go of the things I thought were important.

My father almost turned me into a narcissist. Just like him. I didn’t know that, of course. He didn’t know that, either. I didn’t understand he was a narcissist, because I didn’t even know what clinical narcissism was. It never would have occurred to me, because my father — the god-like central figure of my childhood — was my standard for all that was right and normal.

I’ve spent my adult life on a long journey of recovery. It started while I was still in my late 20s when I vaguely realized something was wrong. That led to the realization that I had come from a very dysfunctional family. But I still had so many layers of dysfunction to take apart — and I had so much to learn in order to become an emotionally healthy adult.

Even now, I keep finding more habits to unlearn. I keep realizing that I have beliefs that need to change. But as I take apart the old pieces of ugly dysfunction — brick by brick — I slowly replace them with something better.

I’m slowly becoming an emotionally healthy man.

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