Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Recently Hawk and I both encountered the term Altruistic Narcissist. I'd seen it in a new article I'd skimmed this week; she'd seen it in a social media forum she follows about dealing with difficult people. When I saw it I immediately thought, "OMG, that totally describes one of Hawk's relatives who passed away a few years ago." Hawk agreed on that, though her first thought about the term when she saw it was a difficult person she has to work with in a professional context.

I don't remember what article I saw the term in, but the best one I found in doing a search today is this page about Altruistic Narcissists at MentalHealth.com. The simple layperson's definition I'd give is:



Curiously that last phrase in the definition, and is abusive to their family at home, appeared in every source I checked today as a classic marker of the type. And it's also what made the relative I'm thinking of such a frustrating riddle to figure out at the time. If only we'd known this term it would've made sense in two seconds!

This relative was like a woman of two personalities. To her family she was a monster. She'd been emotionally abusive to her kids when they were young, distanced herself from them as they became adults, and treated them as house-slaves when they rallied around her to take care of her in ill health toward the end of her life. Even when they were helping bathe, dress, and eat, she had nothing but nasty things to say to them. Nothing they did was ever good enough. (Personally I would tell a parent who abused me all my life she could die rotting in a gutter for all I care, but not everyone shares my values.)

To friends in the community, though, this woman was a saint. She was active in a support group for people with a specific type of cancer. With these people she shared links to information, personal stories of her struggles and victories, and gave them a shoulder to cry on. They loved her. She was like an angel to them.

It's common for altruistic narcissists, also called charitable narcissists or benevolent narcissists in different texts, to act as givers, martyrs, or heroes... in visibly public situations. They're not motivated by actually helping others, though. They thrive on the positive attention they get for being seen as do-gooders. They enjoy the praise, the admiration, or just their own sense of self satisfaction. They may also use their good deeds as a form of manipulation. "I did this nice thing for you, now you need to do this for me." If they don't get enough praise, or if the value of their actions is questioned, or if the return favor they expect is refused, they'll react angrily. That's a classic narcissist tell.

I did a thing today that brought me more satisfaction than I expected. I cleaned my car. ...Not the whole car, though. It's really dusty. But part of it.

I took our Xterra to the car wash to clean the outside with a pressure hose. Then, back at home, I scraped some stubborn pine tar off the windshield with a razor blade and scrubbed the residue. Inside I wiped dust off the dashboard and vacuumed the floor of the front seats. OMG, the floor mats were dusty. I shook one of them out at least 10 times, and even on the 10th vigorous shake there was still a huge cloud of dust coming out of it.

I did this work not expecting a satisfaction payoff. I did it as matter of obligation. It was a task I felt I had to do.

I mention that because it ties in to a strategy to motivate myself to do things. Instead of thinking of reasons why I have to do something— negative reasons involving words like "should" or "ought to"— I imagine the enjoyment or the positive experience I'll have once it's done. For example, I don't take a shower after exercising because "I stink and thus I ought to clean up" but instead because "I'll feel refreshed and so much more comfortable after a shower."

Cleaning the car, though, was a task for which I hadn't thought of a positive outcome. It's a thing I did out of obligation, a "should". Thus I was pleasantly surprised this evening when I went out for a short trip with the car and noticed how good it looks. Oh, it's not showroom-new or anything like that. But with clean windows, a clean dash, and no more musty-dusty smell inside it no longer felt like the same 13 year old vehicle with over 125,000 miles.

Identifying this nice little satisfaction payoff from cleaning the car will help me next time I feel like the car needs cleaning. Instead of telling it's a duty with negative reasons— "I should clean the car because it's too dirty"— I can motivate myself instead with the positives. "I'll put in some effort to clean the car, and the payoff will be I enjoy driving it more!"

This past weekend was a mostly gloomy one. It was mostly gloomy both in terms of the weather and our spirits. We did get a break in the weather— and a boost to our spirits— Saturday morning when we went hiking at Sierra Vista. But by early afternoon Saturday the weather clouded up and our spirits sank.

We did get in one other, and unusual, activity after the hike on Saturday. We went to the San Jose Flea Market. Well, that's unusual for me. Hawk has been going there a lot lately because she enjoys trolling a few of the gemstone sellers there. For me it's like, "Oh, yay, a 10 acre yard sale. I've always wanted to buy clothes/shoes/power tools/computers/furniture sold out of the back of a van under a tent in a parking lot. 🙄"

After that it was gloomy the rest of the weekend. We took it easy Saturday night and all of Sunday. We played board games in the house, soaked in the hot tub both days, went out for lunch, and mostly just loafed around. Much of the time "taking it easy" is a good thing... but here it's having to accept third choice.

The pounding of winter storms California has been getting the past few months take a toll on us. It's not a physical toll; we remain sheltered from floods and wind damage and stuff like that. It's a psychological toll. Since our favorite activities are outdoors and kind of dependent on decent weather, we feel like there's not much to do.

I wrote about spiraling when the weather was gloomy last winter. Gloomy weather means we don't get out to do the things we enjoy. Not being able to engage in simple, pleasurable activities dampens our spirits. That in turn makes it harder to find the motivation to go out and do normally pleasurably activities. It's a downward spiral. Plus, it's still rainy most of the time anyway.

Another atmospheric river is arriving today. But maybe it'll be clear by next weekend? That'll be our chance to break the spiral... if there's a break in the weather. We'll wait and see.

It's been a challenge staying centered the past several weeks. Since we became aware of the surging Omicron cases while we were vacationing in Hawaii in late December, things have been spiraling down. We didn't bail out of the trip and come home early but we did scale down our activities to stay safer. And we canceled our following trip, to spend New Year's with friends in Chicago. Two January businesses trips were canceled a few days later. On top of not traveling outside our home area for work or leisure we drastically cut back on simple pleasures like eating out. We and our friends are even hesitant about having each other over inside the house, and we're all fully vaxxed.

"Spiraling" is a term a lot of people use to describe how they're doing right now. Spiraling down. When we cancel and forego activities it's not just the resulting inactivity we have to contend with but the sad spirits of not being able to do things we expected. Sad spirits, aka depression, makes it harder to want to do things. And more inactivity or thwarted activity creates more depression. It's a negative feedback loop.

An example of spiraling happened to me two weekends ago. I was bummed about canceled trips and *gestures broadly at everything* the situation in general so I couldn't find the motivation to go out and do even safe things I'd normally do, like hike locally. And because I didn't engage in even simple, pleasurable activities I felt even more bummed. Worse, it's not just ability to enjoy leisure activities that suffers. Motivation at work takes a hit, too. It's a vicious cycle, spiraling down.

One way I try to counteract the downward spiral is looking forward to better times in the future. It's true I cancelled a few trips for December and January, but I can make plans for later. Already I have trips planned in March, April, June, and July. Two are long weekends, two are full weeks; all are exciting. And there will be more to come! I'm "thinking big", I assure myself.

But the reality of the moment is I'm still living small. Those trips are still weeks and months away. Worse, thinking about All The Places I'll Go may well turn into another round of Oh, The Places I Can't Go. There's no guarantee we'll be past the Omicron surge by then— and not into some new, yet-to-be-named surge! Any or all of those trips trips I'm planning right now might need to be canceled. Keeping one's spirits up to avoid the downward spiral is tough.