What I Am Not & The Reasons Why

I am not a counselor or therapist.  I am a person with a vision...to see people FREE to be themselves and to let the awesomeness inside be expressed in life giving ways.  I long to see those stuck in narcissistic patterns be free to love and trust and receive.  Is it possible?  I can see the way!  It's not always clear and is sometimes quite mirky and tricky...but I believe it's there.  Being led by the One Who Indwells is a very nice way to make one's way through it all....(though easy it is not!).

I love tackling impossible things because I know they're all possible for the One I love and serve.  

Over the years as I have developed my own understanding looking for answers to what narcissism is, how it comes about, and spreads, and what to DO about it (maybe).  

Seeking practical and real answers rooted in Truth, I stumbled upon some intriguing, often upsetting, and very useful information by experts who are not necessarily widely known to those who are schooled in traditional ideas of narcissism.  I had the pleasure of compiling THEIR information, testing it out in layman situations in my own life, and with others who were willing.   We found some principles work~ at least for some who have not been diagnosed with NPD.

According to one doctor, bible scholar and pastor, there aren't enough therapists in all the world to help the numerous masses who NEED help with this (and other such) issue/s.  According to his statistics, 25% of the population has the skills necessary to be gentle with this sort of weakness (narcissism is a weakness - both from lack of skills as well as being groomed in a whole lot of something NO person should have to grow up dealing with!).  He says in another generation those with the gentle skills will disappear.

My goal is to help connect those of us who were reared in narcissistic family cultures with those who have the skills needed in order to function well both inside and in relationship with others.  It's a huge goal and I am working toward it in my own life and as I work with others.  There's a lot of really damaging information floating around out there which, as I see it, makes things much worse not only for the person struggling with narcissism but also with those few brave souls who are in their inner circles.  I want to shed light in dark places so that freedom can be had!!

Since it's my passion to receive Truth from the One Who Best knows the human psyche, the inner man & family backgrounds, I have spent several years learning about the problem, finding the world (and even the church) seemed to have no answers or real hope, cried out to HIM for mercy and help for our generation and then followed many nudges along the way as He led me from resource to resource.  I have taken what I learned and applied it, with much pain along the way, and believe there IS a way forward in this area.  

I leave you these materials in order to ponder for yourself if, like me, you're called to tackle this issue within your generation, family and culture.

I am convinced the God of Abraham is also willing to share His insight with others and am excited and grateful that He is leading you and will continue as you ROTC: rely on, obey, trust in and Cling to Him in the process.  BLESSINGS to you as you follow Him!!!!

~Kate M.

What Is Needed? The Problem & A Vision

If people are reared without empathy, there are some really awful things they know to be normal.  Sometimes these adored people (adored by God and yet not often by those closest to them) need help to understand a new normal.  

When we try to keep them on the hook (hold them accountable for what they do and say) but we do it before we give them empathy, it doesn't work.  

Why?  I have no idea.  It has something to do with the brain.  And sequences.  

Brain science has revealed SO much in the past decade!  It's amazing to me all the things which are coming to the surface as understanding and AHA! moments occur.  In my case, it happens within my head and heart and innards as I deal with myself, and others, and keep learning and listening and applying and trying.  

What if people start sowing differently?  

What if we can help people begin to believe that there really are safe people out there?  What if they really can develop pathways in their brain to feel right brained shame rather than building systems and relational structures to keep shame away?

I have pondered, wrestled and won.  I am so eager to share with you...though if you have a clinical background you might be very put off by my stuff.  

Remember, I am putting this out there for the Do It Yourself crowd who will not darken the door of a therapist.

As my friend Arthur Burk says, "There has to be a better way!"

More hopefully to come soon.  

KM

~The Castle 

Lake Ann, MI

Disclaimer

I'm a wife at home.  I've been married 20 years.  I helped my husband raise his daughter, who seemed to me to have specific needs, who now has a child of her own. 

I brought six of my own children into the world and educate them at home.  I come partially from a narcissistic family and am pretty sure I married into one that has a lot of systems which require attention to a lot of details which are anathema to me.  

I have no formal training.  I come from a family with enormous history of dysfunction of many sorts up several generations.   

I have researched extensively materials from men and women in various fields both secular and sacred.

My studies have been led by The Psychologist (The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) as I have sought Him first for wisdom, understanding, discernment & knowledge.  

I am not an expert.  

I have taken the principles I learned from authors & men and women who have many letters after their names, pastors, etc in order to work out in my own life what appears to have been the list of symptoms commonly referred to as NPD.

I have never been diagnosed.  My hubby hasn't either.  However, with the belief that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck that it's likely a duck, I read, listened and watched everything I got a nudge to put my hands on (as did he), poured over the info (some of it nauseating and very depressing) and plopped it all at God's feet.

"This is YOUR problem.  It's not pretty.  Where's the good news????"

And then He began to show me.  

"Look here. Now see this bit?  Put it over here with that bit."  

It was as though He was leading me on an adventure to learn some things which so far I don't hear "out there."  

I write and record and think all with the intention of sharing what has worked in my life, in my marriage and with our children.  

Podcast Part 1 Episode 1-7

Narcissism is prevalent in our culture.  Its affects leave masses of good people in very grim places relationally. 

What is it and how did it take over?

After a year of success having worked diligently on my own life & marriage, I take a break from educating my six kids, grab the microphone and begin to share my story. 

Listen now to this free introductory Podcast:

FREE Podcast Length:  10:20

I am happy to bring you the following podcasts for purchase.  

Each individual podcast is available separately.  

Click the Buy Now below to pay online using debit, credit/bank card or PayPal.  Once you purchase the episode, you are free to download it to your own personal devices for your own use by clicking the download button on each Podcast bar.   

To share with family and friends, please use the share button located on each podcast bracket.

The Cultural Myth:  Self Love

$3
Podcast Length: 13:20



I share the beginning: discovering we had a HUGE problem!  

$3
Podcast Length: 12:12



 

$3
Podcast Length: 13:14



 

$3
Podcast Length: 16:48



 

$5
Podcast Length: 30:04




 

$2
Podcast Length: 7:20

Note:  I made an error and misspoke.  Dr WIlder did NOT say people get involved with narcissists BECAUSE of...he worded it differently.  He said those of us who get involved intimately with narcissists also struggle with what narcissists do. 

Thank you so much for listening!!!! 

Confessions

I admit it.  I'm swamped.  With six children under foot 24/7 I am at a loss for time to write blog posts for you about narcissism!

Plus, I have a rough draft of an ebook with nearly 50 pages completed...but I am not able to get TO IT with so much going on in my world.

Did I mention I'm in charge of educating all six of the kiddos?  AND we live in less than 800 square feet.  I have NO space to hide way and write. 

For the sake of caring for myself in order to be decent to them (and the hubby who makes all this possible) I need to keep my sanity.  Writing takes ENORMOUS effort for me and I selfishly refuse to loose sleep in order to get that book written!!!

So, while I might have a gift to communicate via written word, I have very little time to utilize my gift-of-gab right now during this fantastically jammed full season of rearing my kids.

What I can share is a whole lot of podcasts of my journey as I learn principles of narcissism.

I also share a whole lot of materials I researched, dug through, cried over, talked with hubby and close friends about and eventually used to extract concepts and principles which helped ME make a difference not only in my own life but in my marriage and in our children's lives.

With eleven podcasts going I am only JUST beginning to tell the story; there's so much to tell.

As I go, each year I get better at recording and editing and handling all the oodles of behind-the-scenes stuff you won't ever know about which simply MUST happen in order to get audio and written materials published.

Thank you so much for taking time to check out this site. 
Blessings to you on YOUR journey!
Kate M

Determined to Understand - The Beginning

After being prodded after reading a friends' newsletter to consider the idea of narcissism as something beyond what I felt I understood, I first looked online for a baseline of info to build from. 

Mayo Clinic's website left me astonished with ultimately no conclusions as to what causes this awful problem.  I felt like I already knew SO much about it probably, and felt elation as well as feeling competely startled as I consider possibly I  had what others in the professional world did not: four decades of intimate experience with the thing.   Although I wasn't certain,  a dim suspicious was growing that it had been 100% of my life for all of my 43 years...and so I began one of the biggest and most challenging research projects of my life.

The following book was the first official one I found. 

 Page 17:  "If children are grossly mistreated for small errors in behavior, and if they are ignored or sometimes rewarded when they behave perfectly (according to someone else's perception - their parents'), they may develop a basic dynamic of feeling safe when others perceive them as perfect, and feeling very, very threatened when they think others will perceive them as deficient."

As I dug through this book, something began to surface which I did not expect: I began to feel compassion towards this problem.  As I continued, it became plain to me that our culture has entirely ERRONEOUS ideas about the whole thing!  This really was exciting...and so I pressed through my disgust and hopeless despair, feeling like there was some nugget of golden truth I was hunting for.

Page 25: "N's are characterized as lacking empathy.  Actually, it is impossible to really know what normal intensity emotions a N has, because there are simply overwhelmed by the overriding fear of being found imperfect."

The principles (ways things are, because that's how Creator made it) I found in here made me feel completely sick to my stomach, as I faced what looked like an absolutely BLEAK future, surrounded by people who had no capacity for empathy, and who were likely to continue that cycle on and on for generations.

This was fueled by what had jolted me of hearing Dr. Jim Wilder's mention that 75% of our current culture is at toddler level of maturity (which is when regulation of the healthy shame message can be learned), and another generation would be engulfed by narcissistic adults who lack the ability to face healthy shame messages... I felt compelled to continue on in what felt like a Holy Spirit led search.  Gentle Protectors know how to feel healthy embarrassment, and can call it out in community so it can thrive.  According to Dr Wilder, communities where this does not happen will always fall apart (my words not his).   

Having long been reared with my Dad's definition and regular banter about narcissistic people, I began to adjust to what felt like tremendously NEW data...and rather than seeing N as someone who was in love with themselves, what I learned in this book was that it is EXACTLY the opposite.  

While I continued to learn for several years, before the Confirmation came, this book was what pointed me to the possibility that there was HOPE...and being on the scent of something new was motivation to keep digging, in between lots of breaks, time with family, and focusing on raising our children while in the midst of signifiant physical limitations (another story for a different day).

Looking back, I can see how my ENFJ personality is completely wired to learn to understand even when the person in front of me is hurting me so much.  (insert Frank James' video on how each of the 16 handle bullies...the ENFJ is perfect!) 

Meaning from Madness: Understanding the Hidden Patterns That Motivate Abusers: Narcissists, Borderlines, and Sociopaths

Book by Richard Skerritt

"A substantial fraction of the people around us suffer from personality disorders. To cope, they distort both their reality and ours. Their behavior can be baffling and puzzling, and worse, they often abuse those closest to them. The author presents a new and effective way for people to understand and recognize the three of these disorders that often lead to abusive behavior. Describing each using a single dynamic - an underlying motivation - rather than a list of behaviors is an easier way to grasp and deal with these disorders. He then describes the psychological defense mechanisms that stabilize the distorted world created by the disordered, and explains how substance abuse adds fuel to the fire of disordered behavior. he also offers the latest thinking on the prospects for improvement with treatment, and a realistic perspective on the likelihood that the disordered will choose this path."

edited July 29, 2025