Super Duper

Below is a list of my Super Powers!  I’m like one of the X-men.  (or Mario in his little raccoon suit.) Fear me.

(All of these skills are easily traceable to living with a narc.  I am going to assume that ALL of you have these – in one way or another.  These are basic survival skills to us.  But they work now in FUNNER ways, and I find that I can’t turn them off anyway.  I have to actively NOT manipulate a conversation, for example.  All of these ‘skills’ are actually instinctive at this point, part of my skin.  They kept/keep me safe)

Psychic abilities:

                I can sense the undercurrent in a room faster than a wolf can smell a rabbit.  I know who is having an affair with whom, I can tell who is about to throw a cantankerous fit.  I can sense who is depressed and who is about to get roaring drunk.  I can do this in a bar or a party.  I can tell who I should avoid on narc spectrum principal, and I can tell who is truly crazy and dangerous (I can tell which homeless people are just depressed and a bit ‘not right’, and which ones are actually psychopaths DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH THESE TYPES – those people are scary crazy and will hurt you, they are hunting).  I can take a quick glance at someone from hair to shoes and tell you quite a bit about them.  I’m like The Mentalist. 

Disappearing:

                I can disappear into a crowd and nobody would ever know I was there.  Like The Shadow.  I can move through life and barely cause a ripple – this is a super handy skill if you happen to see someone you are trying to avoid.  I am (almost) NEVER seen if I don’t want to be seen.  I practically SLITHER through groups just below the ‘notice’ line.  This works at places like Wal-Mart or the grocery store when you just don’t want anyone to talk to you.

Manipulation:

                I can make you say anything I want you to say.  I can wheel a conversation around and around and predict the ending.  I can get what I want, when I want, and how I want it.  This is actually easiest when you are manipulating a narc – because they are just BEGGING for attention, and flattery will get you everywhere with a narc.  I have talked my way out of traffic tickets, into music concerts, into free (second-hand) furniture and clothes, into camp for my son, jobs, car repairs…  I can LIE like nobody's business and not blink or twitch when I do it.  (I use the lying thing sometimes at parties where I don't know anybody, I tell them I'm a circus performer or a chem biologist or a transgender or I don't know what all, It's pretty fun, Jeff hates it) I don’t use the manipulation skill much anymore.  It makes me feel creepy and slimy.  But it was quite handy when I was a broke single mom.

Thinking on my feet:

                There has never been a crisis when I didn’t have an answer almost right away – or actually more like ideas about how to find an answer.  My panic button (after about 5 long agonizing seconds) kicks into my action button and I have an idea BANG.  Who to call, where to look, how to jury-rig it, what excuse to use, where to hide it.  I always find a solution.  The lying portion of the program probably overlaps here too.

Details:

                I notice things nobody ever sees.  Watching a movie is exhausting for me because I notice EVERYTHING – shoes, teacups, books, glances, watches, chandeliers – I see it all.  I do this at parties and malls and grocery stores – that’s why being in social situations is so exhausting for me.  Combine the detail thing with the Mentalist thing and I am running (mentally) wide open like a scream the entire party.  I love this skill and hate it at the same time.  I MUCH prefer to read for entertainment – there is no info other than what is written on the page.  If the author doesn’t mention shoes, I don’t even THINK of shoes.  It’s only visually that I do this.  I remember odd bits of information that come in handy YEARS later, like when I knew my kid had meningitis (turned out to be viral, the non-deadly kind) or basic car repair stuff to keep from getting cheated at a garage or how to fall off a dirt bike (like either the car stuff or the dirt bike stuff would ever come in handy in MY life.  Puh-LEEZE.  But I remember it.)

Memory:

                See above.  Word for word conversations – but this one is easily attributed to narcs.  They lie, so we always remember.  MEMORY is another word for SANITY.  This one doesn’t come in handy like oh, say, remembering where I parked my car or if I packed my hairbrush for travel, but conversations and movie lines, yes.

I wish the above list included being able to FLY.  That would be, as we used to say, rad.