Pastor Narc Don’t Want You Happy!

Here’s a little story about ambient abuse that involves a narc I know, the “pastor” of a small church my wife and I served under for four years.

Wife and I would meet with Pastor Narc prior to each and every Sunday service to visit and discuss the morning’s service.  Pastor Narc would always, every Sunday, without fail, turn the topic of our pre-service meetings to the sick, dying and broke people he knew (mostly relatives), under the auspices of his deep love and concern for these folk.  Pastor Narc would write the names of the sick and dying on a piece of paper for our prayer segment of the church service. 

Pastor N would go into minute and lengthy detail regarding each of these distressed individuals (don’t ask me where or how he obtained this information).

Sounds pious, doesn’t it?

Sounds like a man of God who truly has a heart for the broken among us, right?

I sure thought it did.

Funny thing is I would walk away from these discussions experiencing a deep seated sense of guilt (if not outright depression).  Not compassion.  Guilt.

I would shrug off those intuitions (the fruit of my spirit) and stay in my religious head.  There ARE a lot of hurting people out there alright!  It’s good that we acknowledge that.  It’s good that we pray for them. 

After about two years of this routine, I began to wonder why the fascination Pastor N had with sick, death and pain.  Whenever wife and I broached a topic that involved one of our successes, or a topic about something good happening to us, we would be politely, nicely, but most definitely dismissed (“oh, that’s nice!....now, back to the real issues”) and return to the usual Sunday morning discourse.  My intuition would communicate that something was wrong with this picture, but my religious mind overrode my intuition.  Maybe Pastor N has his priorities straight, and this is something wife and I need to work on.  Then that guilt would creep in, as always.

To make a long story short, we left this church after we had our fill of some egregious spiritual and emotional abuse.  As I pondered what the hell happened during our tenure working for Pastor N, I always wondered what motivated this man to focus so intensely on the sick, dying and miserable.  I concluded he simply had a fascination with death and left it at that.

Let me stop here and tell you that there is a reason why going no contact with crazy, evil people is such a blessing.  Truth begins to dawn on our hearts and minds.  The fog of the narcissistic abuser begins to evaporate before our eyes.

Being away from this situation for well over a year, and after much prayer and study on the matter, it occurred to me what Pastor N was ACTUALLY doing during our pre-service visits.

Pastor N was NOT genuinely concerned for these people, but you could have fooled me.

Pastor N did NOT have a morbid fascination with death and pain, but once again, you could have fooled me.

The truth of the matter is this:  Pastor N was covertly communicating to my wife and I a primal yet extremely powerful message -YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO BE HAPPY.

You know, the “how dare you refuse to eat your peas when you know there are children starving in China” kind of deal.

Or the, “How can you be happy when you know your second cousin Mildred is in the hospital with pneumonia?” dynamic.

Let me emphasize once more - this occurred every single Sunday, without fail, for years. 

There were other tactics employed by Pastor N to communicate the opinion that our happiness violated his sensibilities that were far less subtle.  I chose to illustrate this tactic BECAUSE of its subtlety.

Pastor N was a master, like all narcissists, at devaluing us without us even recognizing it.  An outsider would have been impressed with the compassion of this man.

We are talking about classic covert, ambient abuse.

A word on happiness - happiness is defined as thus:  Enjoying, displaying, or characterized by pleasure, joy or cheerfulness.

If you are the victim of a malignant narcissist, particularly a narc operating under the cover of “parent”, “spouse” or “pastor”, I don’t have to tell you that ANY real pleasure, joy or cheerfulness you possess is anathema to this person.  I dare say the vast majority of you who were raised by these animals learned this false reality at an extremely young age.  Many of you may still labor under the false belief that somehow or other, you don’t deserve to be happy.

I’d like to share with you the preamble of our country’s Declaration of Independence.  I believe it was inspired by God.

We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; ...

Your personal happiness is a sacred and undeniable right.  Granted by the Creator – not your parents, not your spouse, not your pastor, not your children, and not the government – the Creator (He trumps your mother by the way).

God Bless you.