** A fictional short story about Narcissism When I met Alyssa, she was a sweet, vibrant woman who had built up her business in only eighteen months. She lived three houses down from me and would often invite me in for coffee after my morning run. That was…until she met Ethan. I always felt there was something “off” about Ethan, but Alyssa thought he was a prince. He moved in with her shortly after they started dating and I began to see her less and less until the only time I would see her was when she left for work. The last time I saw her, she looked old and broken… an apparition of the woman she’d once been. She’d stopped me during my jog and gave me a worn leather journal and told me that if anything ever happened to her, to give it to the authorities. Then, she hurried back to her house, looking over her shoulder. It occurred to me that she was afraid of someone seeing her speaking to me. In hindsight, I know that person was Ethan. Then it happened. She disappeared. Per her instructions, I notified the authorities and submitted her diary as evidence. They arrested Ethan, who was later released because they couldn’t tie him to any concrete evidence that connected him to her disappearance. During the investigation of their shared residence, remnants of her self-esteem were found on the soles of Ethan’s shoes, her sense of hope was found hacked to pieces in the backyard, her happiness was found in the tire tread of Ethan’s SUV, and her will-to-live was extracted bit-by-bit from the garbage disposal. In the kitchen cupboard, they found her soul, which had been ground into powder to make tea. In spite of all of the circumstantial evidence, it wasn’t enough to convict Ethan. But, they don’t know what I know. A Narcissist can annihilate you without ever laying a hand on you. It was later discovered through expert analysis of her journal entries that it took two years, three months, and ten days for her to disappear. Copyright 2022 Kim Saeed If it feels you’re on the verge of losing your life as you know it, grab your free Beginner’s Healing Roadmap and reclaim your power.
YOU FEEL LIGHT & AIRY The physical body has begun to feel lighter. You are eating lighter, less dense foods. You feel like you are in a daydream or are floating from one event to the next.
YOU EXPERIENCE TIMELESSNESS You begin to see outside of linear time 🧭 and space. You connect with your multi-dimensionality – seeing only one moment. You can jump to any expression, avatar, or experience (many explain this as timeline jumping or parallel reality shifting).
YOU SEE BRIGHT COLORS OR PORTALS How you see has begun to shift. You see things in rainbows 🌈 and very vivid crystal-like colors. Portals may appear in front of you or you begin to see the outline of the energy from the portals.
YOU WILL FEEL LIKE THINGS ARE SPEEDING UP You will be vibrating at a faster pace. You will have intense feelings great joy and love for others, a lightness in your daily life. It’s like you have received a major download in your DNA operating system. The way you process information will begin to speed up and change.👁
YOU TRUST THE UNIVERSE You trust the universe will guide you on your path. You have a knowing that you are right where you are supposed to be and nothing happens by accident. The universe will guide you in each and every moment. We no longer worry with judgements of right or wrong in our decisions, as we know it is all a part of the experience. We release our attachments and begin to align ourself with our destiny 🦋👁
YOU DO NOT BLAME OTHERS You recognize that situations that have happened in your life were not by accident. You chose these experiences to help you heal. You no longer blame others for what happened to you or do you hold the frequency of victimization as you are aware of the cosmic plan you made for yourself. 🥰
YOU HEAR THE DIVINE SONG You begin to hear the frequency in every living thing – even noticing the difference in hum of each individual sovereign being in existence. Sometimes you may hear a flute or drums start playing out of nowhere. You will recognize how everything dances and harmonizes with each other 🎶🎶🎶
THE HEALING PROCESS HAS SEEMED RELENTLESS Your vessel must be the emptiest possible to cross over into the 5th dimension. No lower feelings to weigh you down can be present. Releasing all old baggage and beliefs to make way for the new 5th dimensional consciousness. ❤
INSTANT MANIFESTATION It will not take months or years to manifest. It will only take days or hours! From manifesting healing to manifesting anything else, these things will begin to happen at a rapid speed.⚡
HEIGHTENED ABILITIES You will start to bi-locate, move objects with your mind, push your hand through a wall, levitate, and have telepathic abilities. You will hear and see your guides on the higher realms. You can read the akashic records and know everything instantly.
I’m going after the licenses of the ignorant, incompetent, and unethical forensic psychologists. I don’t think they’re going to like that.
They worked hard for their licenses. They had to complete all the requirements for the doctoral degree, including a dissertation. Then they had to complete two full years of supervised practice before they’re even allowed to sit for the licensing exam. Then they have to pass the licensing exam covering all the psychology knowledge they ever learned. Then they get their license. That’s a lot.
And I’m going to take that all away from them and end their careers in professional psychology. That’s not a nice thing to do to them, to take their license away.
They are participating in the psychological abuse of the child because of their negligent malpractice – they are ignorant, lazy, incompetent, and unethical. As a result, they collude and participate in the psychological abuse of the child and the targeted parent.
I’m not from here. I’m not from this court-involved custody pathology world. Look at my vitae. I’m a trauma psychologist out of child abuse and foster care. I’m here to protect children from child abusers – from the child abusing forensic psychologists who are here exploiting the vulnerabiligy ov targeted parents for financial gain.
They deserve to lose their license to practice for being ignorant, incompetent, unethical, child abusers. We have duty to protect obligations. To participate in the psychological abuse of the child is a huge failure in duty to protect obligations. They are the child abuser.
I don’t think the forensic psychologists are going to like me. That’s okay, I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to protect children and their parents from psychological abuse. I know exactly where I am and I know exactly what I’m doing.
I have developed an assessment protocol for this court-involved attachment pathology, supported by the established scientific and professional knowledge of the discipline (Foundations; Childress, 2015).
The assessment protocol involves two data-documentation instruments – the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting and the Parenting Practices Rating Scale. If more was needed, I would have developed more. Clearly documenting the child’s symptoms and the parenting practices of the targeted-rejected parent is all that’s needed.
This is not the first time I have developed an assessment protocol for a forensic pathology. I served as the Clinical Director for a team of psychologists tasked by the Department of Justice and FEMA with developing a national model for the assessment of juvenile firesetting behavior, a court-involved forensic mental health pathology.
The Executive Director for the team was Dr. Fineman, a forensic psychologist and the world’s leading expert on juvenile firesetting behavior. We had Dr. Patterson on the team as the Organizational Development psychologist to help implement the assessment protocol into the fire agencies. We worked under the aupices of the Orange County Fire Authority through grants from DOJ and FEMA.
I’m not a puffy-vitae psychologist. I’m too busy working to worry about getting stuff on my vitae. But there’s stuff. I’ve worked at high-levels of clinical psychology throughout my life, on major NIMH research projects with the leading experts in their respective fields – Nuechterlein, schizophrenia – Swanson, ADHD – Fineman, juvenile firesetting.
My role on the DOJ/FEMA project was to develop the assessment protocol, I was the clinical psychologist on the team, my responsibility was developing the actual assessment protocol itself. Dr. Fineman was the content expert, Dr. Patterson was implementation. I was responsible for developing the assessment protocol.
Our project produced some paper presentations to professional organizations. I don’t worry about puffing up my vitae, so I kind of lost track of citations and stuff because I was busy doing things to solve things.
I’ve never really applied for jobs. I was recruited out of Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles to join the ADHD in preschooler project of Jim Swanson. I was recruited by the DOJ/FEMA project to develop the assessment protocol for that. I was recruited to be the Clinical Director for a three-university assessemnt and treatment center for children in foster care.
I didn’t apply for any of those positions, they recruited me. People who work with me know what I can do and they tell other people, “You should get Childress for that.” So my vitae is sort of secondary. I’m not a puffy vitae, I’m a working guy.
Of note is that I have worked with top-tier professionals all my life across multiple professional domains. Birds of a feather…
I was in charge of running a project call Cuidar organized by Jim Swanson, a top-tier expert in ADHD. He wanted to look into doing neuro-cogntive remediation of attention networks in the brain using specially developed computer games for preschoolers.
Dr. Swanson is THE leading expert on ADHD in the world, I’d place him at #1. But his team didn’t have Early Childhood Mental Health specialization, and working with children zero-to-five is a highly-highly specialized field. It’s a boundaries of competence issue.
I have Early Childhood Mental Health specialization (i.e., attachment and the neuro-development of the brain in childhod – I know everything there is to know about both – everything). I was brought on board as the lead clinical psychologist running the Cuidar project.
That’s what led to my fourth author position on a multi-author paper produced for this project, published in the journal Clinical Neuroscience Research (Tamm et. al., 2005).
Leanne Tamm, my colleague on the project, wrote the paper itself, so she’s first author, Jim Swanson is second author because it’s his project, Marc Lerner is third as the Medical Director of the UCI Child Development Center, I’m fourth author because I ran the project. The other authors are the various people I supervised in the project.
I ran the project reported in the journal Clinical Neuroscience Research. I had kinda forgotten we had a paper from that. I remember that Leanne was super-excited, but I didn’t much care. I was on to other things – I moved on from that project to become the Clinical Director for a three-university assessment and treatment center for children ages zero-to-five in foster care.
A few years back I was trying to locate research articles from other people that caught my interest. That’s become harder now that I’m no longer a faculty teaching graduate-level courses in psychology,
I’ve taught graduate-level courses in assessment and diagnosis, treatment models, child development, testing and psychometrics, and research design after I left the Clinical Director position and moved into private practice on my (anticipated) way to retirement.
Then I feel down the rabbit hole into here and my life-course took a different direction.
One thing about teaching – to teach a subject you absolutely have to know everything about that subject. That’s the importance of a faculty position on the vitae – what courses did you teach? – the courses taught show the domains of knowledge. If you teach it, you absolutely know it.
I thought I was headed to private practice, guess again. Instead, I came tumbling over here into this world of forensic child custody conflict.
I had worked with Dr. Fineman, a leading forensic psychologist, on the juvenile firesetter project. I’m well-familiar with the world of forensic psychology – just not child custody confllicts until I arrived here, and even when I was previously in forensic psychology world, I remained a clinical psychologist in a forensic pathology world.
When I was looking to locate articles of interest a while back, I signed up with this online group – Academia – that tracks research on things. It tracks me. It locates whenever my name is used in research and sends me an email.
A lot of the time it’s not the same Childress. There’s a Childress in biomedicine it seems. But sometimes it is me.
That’s how I located me in the Tamm et al. article in Clinical Neuroscience Research. Then Academia located my name in the paper presentations to professional organizations generated from my work.
I’m surprised at what it can turn up, I’d kinda forgotten about them. I’m not focused on my vitae, I’ve got things to do, I’m working.
Academia recently sent me the link to two presenations I thought I’d share here on my Public Facebook Page to support my expertise with this court-involved family conflict domain. I’m a real expert in real things.
The abstract from the paper presentation by Childress, Fineman, and Patterson (2006) on the Mental Heath Assessment of Juvenile Firesetting – Topic Psychology and the Law
“Funded through grants from FEMA and the Department of Justice, the Orange County Fire Authority has contracted with an expert team of psychologists with nationally recognized experience in the mental health assessment of juvenile firesetting behavior, to undertake the development of a mental health assessment protocol for juvenile firesetting behavior.”
The abstract from a Cuidar paper presentation by Grimes et. al, (2006) on cultural factors in parenting.
“The Community University Initiative for the Development of Attention and Readiness (CUIDAR-SB) is a community-based pre-intervention education program that teaches parents how to manage preschoolers at risk for emotional and behavioral problems in a non-didactic group model called COPE (Community Parent Education; Cunningham, 1998).”
In the Grimes et al., paper presentation, Dr. Kamptner and I are the faculty mentors on this paper, the others are students we mentored. Dr. Kamptner was the Director of the Institute of Child Development and Family Relations at Cal State University, I was the Clinical Director for their clinic working with children in foster care.
I’m bringing these presenations from my earlier days days with other pathologies to general public attention here on my Facebook page to highlight an important issue – I’m an actual real expert in actual real things.
This is not the first time I have developed an assessemnt protocol for a forensic court involved pathology. I have previously worked on grants from the Deparment of Justice and FEMA to develop an assessment protocol for a forensic court-involved pathology.
I am an expert in parenting. The Cuidar program taught parenting skills across the multiple counties in Southern California.
I led the Cuidar program – Tamm et. al. (2005) Clinical Neurosciene Research. The Cuidar program taught parenting skills using the COPE model of small-group dynamics. I know everything there is to know about all the parnenting models out there.
Behavioral Parent Training Brazleton’s Touchpoints Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP) The Wonder Years (Webster-Stratton) Higher Purpose Parenting
I’ve read all the research on parenting. I was in charge of the university-based program that taught parenting skills to parents across the multiple counties in Southern California.
I am an expert – a real expert supported by my professional vitae – in parenting skills and parenting skills training. I know everything there is to know about parenting and parenting skills training… everything.
I am an expert – a real expert supported by my professioal vitae – in the assessment of court-involved forensic patholology.
I know exactly what I’m doing. I know exactly where I am and exactlty what the pathology is. I’m a trauma psychologist out of child abuse and foster care – this is my pathology. I’m working.
I’m here to protect children from child abusers – the forensic psychologists.
I’m peer-review from clinical psychology. I’m their worst nightmare – and I’m going after their license to practice for participating in the psychological abuse of the child and the parent. I want their license revoked for being a child abuser, because of their ignorance, incompetence, and unethical malpractice.
Standard 2.04 Bases for Scientific and Professional Judgments Standard 2.01 Boundaries of Competence Standard 9.01 Bases for Assessment
Failure to protect the child from child abuse (V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse).
Failure to protect the parent from IPV spousal emotional and psychological abuse using the chidl as the weapon (DSM-5 V995.82 Spouse or Partner Abuse, Psychological).
I don’t think they’ll like that. That’s okay, I’m not here to make friends. I’m working, I’m protecting my kids from child abuse. We have obligations. I know exactly where I am, I know exactly what I’m doing.
Everything – everything – I say is 100% true and correct. The forensic psychology people are participating in the psychological abuse of children because of their ignorance, incompetence, and unethical practice. I’m going after their license to practice, I want it revoked for their negligent malpractice and participation in the psychological abuse of the child and parent.
I’m an actual expert in actual real things – and I’m here for a purpose. I’m peer-review from clinical psychology. I’m their worst nightmare – knowledge applied.
Craig Childress, Psy.D. Clinical Psychologist, CA PSY 18857
I wrote this piece in 2014. After stumbling upon it recently, I realized (with sadness) that not much has changed in over 7 years in regards to narcissistic abuse victims receiving the help they need.
Authors are still writing books claiming that there are ways to “make it work” with a narcissist.
Many therapists are also making these claims though, in my experience, I haven’t encountered a single survivor of narcissistic abuse who has witnessed such change outside of these therapy offices.
Most narcissists will STILL never be diagnosed, much less change their hateful and malicious ways.
Many mental health professionals continue to act like it’s a scandal when people use the word ‘narcissist’, smugly stating that only trained professionals can make such diagnoses, when thousands of them fail to do so themselves, putting abuse victims in harm’s way and ruining the lives of generations.
Even with all the newfangled theories and diatribes about “self-aware” narcissists and those who are self-proclaimed “diagnosed” narcissists, there is little leeway being made in the lives of abuse victims.
Despite all the contemporary “trauma-informed” therapy and approaches, narcissistic abuse victims still struggle immensely in the wake of toxic relationships.
It seems we’ve barely scratched the surface in the 7 years since I wrote this short essay.
Don’t get me wrong, abuse survivors are still liberating themselves and healing, but it’s mostly because of their warrior spirits and noble bravery.
It’s because there’s a small spark inside of them; memories of being happy; snapshots in the corners of their minds about the possibility of a different life – keeping the faith that there MUST be more to life than THIS.
And there is. There will always be.
The trick is that you can’t see clearly unless you remove yourself from the traumatic influences of narcissistic spouses, partners, family members, coworkers, etc.
And this is my prayer, too. That you find the will to choose yourself and a happier life. A healed life. One where you decide you’ll never cater to an abuser’s ways ever again.
…and possibly your biological children. I see so many beautiful souls who believe that by forgiving the narcissist and giving them another chance, they can help the narcissist feel accepted and loved. They believe they can appeal to the narcissist’s hurt inner child and that this might create a breakthrough in the relationship. But instead of miraculous breakthroughs, lives are being destroyed. Families are broken. Loved ones suffer. For these reasons, then, we should resist the call that we show greater sympathy for these abusive individuals, at least to the extent that by doing so we are causing greater and unnecessary harm to ourselves and other members of our family. Why show patience with the narcissist when they are repeatedly inflicting deep wounds upon us and when they are having such harmful effects on our children and their emotional development? While it’s true that most narcissists were wounded as children, we must realize that those children are now gone. In their place are adults with underdeveloped levels of emotional maturity, deficient attachment capabilities, and a complete inability to empathize with others. What’s left in the place of those wounded children are scheming manipulators who don’t give a care about anyone except themselves and their own immediate needs. Our energies are wasted on the narcissist and are better devoted elsewhere—to improving our own lives and giving our children the sort of childhood that will enable them to have healthy relationships and happy lives. The pain that ending a relationship with a narcissistic partner will bring leads people to hope and look for some other way. Articles that hold out promises of narcissists changing and of your improving your relationship with them are stepping in to serve that misguided need. But, the truth is: it’s dangerous to keep a narcissist in one’s life. The ripple effect from doing this is far beyond the scope of what people can generally comprehend while in the midst of abuse.
If you’d like gentle guidance on taking your power back from the narcissist, join me and other wonderful thrivers in my therapist-approved program for narcissistic abuse recovery.
You will learn real-life ways to develop new and empowering habits that heal – AND are backed by psychology and neuroscience.
For full details of this nurturing program, click here:
This is precisely what you DON’T want the back of your bedroom wall to look like. Tell your utility provider that you’d like to replace your smart meter with a non-radiation emitting analog meter. If you live in an apartment building, encourage your neighbors to make the switch, too. #radiation #awareness Photo taken in #neworleans.
Homeowners can ask for an analog meter which dies not emit deadly Radation .
GreatCosmicMothersUnite 