Why Are Some People Narcissistic?

Why Are Some People Narcissistic?
By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee




Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee



'Nar.cis.sis.tic ... having an excessive or erotic interest in oneself and one's physical appearance.'

Almost everyone has some narcissistic traits.  I copied the definition of narcissistic online at http://www.halcyon.com .  The definition goes on to explain more in depth about narcissism ... it's complex.

Do you have a narcissistic trait?  I bet you have one ... or two.  I'm ashamed ... no, not ashamed ... to say I did as a younger woman.

Let me give you a little history of how that came to be ... with me.  No one is the same.  I was a 'good' narcissistic ... meaning I didn't take advantage of others to get what I wanted such as men, material things ... etc.  I didn't let what I thought of myself hurt anyone.  I was just so happy to ... be me.

That doesn't look right. I don't want that to show.  I almost let people see this!  Oh God, I did let people see this!  They'll know I'm not ... perfect!  Woe is me!  I've got to make this look ... perfect!

I turn this way, that way in the mirror.  Oh God, how beautiful I am, I'm so thankful to finally be beautiful!  I can't believe how pretty I've become!

Touching my face, my body ... perfect ... perfect enough for me to feel happiness.  Starving, doing without food ... constantly exercising ... it feels wonderful to be ... beautiful.  After all, isn't that what life's about?  I'm a person ... I'm somebody!  I'm ... beautiful!

I wish there was a 'Delete' button in every aspect of our life so we could delete anything we didn't want in our life.  I don't mean to kill or harm anything ... but, just send it along its way to someone who wants it in their life.

There was a time I used to be narcissistic in my life.  It's true.  I grew up to look like I wished to ... 'beautiful like my mother'.

 
Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee


I loved me, I pure-loved to be photographed, I loved to dress my body.  I knew I looked beautiful in most anything.

It was all about me in my world ... but, I didn't forget to do good things along the way.  I cared, loved people at the same time.

I had a big Heart.  My 'best friend' was jealous of me ... I was blinded to that ... I loved her dearly.  One day my mother pulled me aside to make me aware ...

You can't have a best friend who is real, when ... you are 'beautiful'.  In my world, you couldn't.  They become jealous, resentful ... and want everything you have.  My best friend even tried to take my mother by talking bad about me.  My mother knew.

I dressed my body in the most beautiful clothes.  It's true ... I was like that.  I wasn't 'bad' because I was like this.  I should have been ... no, I shouldn't have been.

(There's a little Gloria Devil sitting on my left shoulder saying I should have been.  The little Gloria Devil is the one who loves to kick ass, pay someone back and not be nice about it ... it's a good thing I try never to listen to her :)

I try to listen to the Gloria Angel on my right shoulder.  When I don't, I'm not happy.  Sometimes ...

Women hated me, men loved me.  The strange thing is ... women didn't have to hate me.  Jealousy made them hate me ... they automatically thought I would 'go after their man'.  They ... automatically ... thought wrong.  But ... you couldn't tell them that.


Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee


You couldn't tell them I wasn't like that.  You couldn't tell them that I grew up where all the women were beautiful ... and wild.  They didn't mind going with another woman's husband, boyfriend.  I saw a lot of grief in my young life ... you couldn't tell them I didn't want to be like that.  Beautiful, yes ... but, not in a bad way.

I made a mistake once ... my 'best'friend and husband lied to me about one of their friends.  They said he wasn't married, the man said he wasn't married.  I dated him ... later found out he was married.

I will never forget the hurt I unintentionally caused that lady.  I told her ... myself.  I knew how it felt, I had experienced such as a young, married girl.  I cried for her ... I was lied to.

I know my 'best' friend loved it.  She liked setting people up to see what happened.  That must have given her immense pleasure.  I didn't cause her grief, I minded my business.  I could have destroyed her marriage, life.  I went my own way.

You couldn't tell every woman ... 'hey, I'm not interested in your life, your husband, boyfriend'.  They already made their minds up on my appearance.  Too pretty, too beautiful ... she's got to be bad.  Well, I can understand that way of thinking.

I came from a family where one did have to worry when they met up with beautiful women in my family.  They weren't always honest, sincere ... faithful.  It's the truth no matter which way you look at it.


Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee

Beautiful women ... men ... dangerous combination.  No matter whose man ... life is like that ... deal with it.  I know you don't like it, neither do I ... life is like that.  Nature ... animals ... summertime ... everything comes alive.  Life is like that.

The beautiful women in my family ... were/are the best friends you didn't want to have.  Sad, but true.  Deceit, always something hidden in ways no one saw. Oh my wonderful, loyal friend ... no one needs a friend like this.  Stick with your enemies ... at least they let you know up front how they really are.

Expressions, touch ... you get my drift. Secrets ... everything's a secret ... more secrets.  Sh-hhh-hh don't tell this, don't tell that.  Blackmail was one of the games played when I was a little girl.  May the best man win ... oh ... no, may the best woman win! It was played just as often as Scrabble, Monopoly was being played in every home.

If one of the women got pissed off ... they would begin to blackmail the other.  I'm going to tell this, that ... if you don't give in to my demands!  They were my role models ... a lot of the children's role models at my Grandma Alma's home where we were thrown to, while the mothers just took off to come back ... months later.

I can 'see' it, I know what to see, look for, listen for ... I know all the tricks.  I don't let anyone know that I do ... I just smile, go on.  I've been there, done that ... seen that, felt the grief from having it done to me.  I don't play games with anyone ... they hurt, destroy.  When I take action, I just simply mean it, once and for all.  I don't play games.

I could have ... caused a lot of grief in a lot of women's lives.  As much as I 'hated' women growing up ... it's a wonder I didn't try to pay 'all women' back for all I suffered growing up ... from a woman's hand.


Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee  (Photo of me in blue is damaged by fire... black spots on face)  ... my beautiful mother in white blouse on left.  Daisy Earlene Strother ...

No one knew that growing up ... I watched, listened, suffered from things 'women did' because of deceit, lies, ugliness ... all stemming from ... beauty.  They made me lie, hide things ... be a part of things as a little girl. I didn't want to be a part of it.

All I wanted to do ... was be a little girl.  I didn't want to be in the ... grown up world.  Pure Hell ... always hell-raising.  At any moment, hell would break loose.  This little girl was always in the middle of it ... no choice.

If the women weren't making my life Hell ... there was always a man's hand ... somewhere ... ready to reach out to help take my innocence away.  Men who were 'somebody' ... in the family, out of the family.  Everyone looked up to these men ... I did too, a little innocent girl who ... had no choice.  No choice, no words to describe why I cried, hurt.

I grew up with a fear when a man's hand reached out to me, until I understood not every man meant 'bad'.  I prefer men over women any day.  They are usually more honest, straightforward ... like me.

Women on the other hand ... I didn't grow up to learn they were all good, wonderful, trusting people. Women ... are different.  There are only a few women I truly respect, love and care about.  That means they are for-real good people ... I can count them on my hand.

I'm amazed by them because they are for-real good people ... unique people.  They've been good to me when they didn't have to ... cared when they didn't have to.  Cared while I never knew.  They are in my Heart always.

I haven't always known such caring from ... women. Some of these women aren't even from this country ... they've touched my very soul, my Heart at the deepest.  I love them.  In my whole life, only my grandmothers were like them, to me.  They've been gone many years.

I began telling you about narcissism ... my narcissism as a young woman.  Maybe this can explain just enough 'why' beauty meant so much to me, then.  I learned at an early age that I wanted to be beautiful ... beauty meant power.  It does in today's time.  Whether you or me ... like it or not ... beauty means power.



Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee ... and Stafford, my Rottie ...


Power to me meant I didn't have to let anyone bully me, run over me, push over me.  I was ... 'beautiful enough' ... people respected me.  When I walked into a room ... I became the focus.  I was beautiful 'enough' to keep people from hurting me.

No matter I was a good person, faithful, not deceitful ... a real person ... when I appeared ... women saw me as a threat.  I look back now ... some of those women would have deserved it ... if I had been.  Too bad I wasn't a wicked female ...

Just maybe ... that's ... why ... the beautiful women in my family caused other women such grief.  Because some of them deserved it. I just didn't have the desire to because ...

I learned to love myself ... my body.  I was kicked around as a child, slapped, beaten, thrown ... because I was my father's child. I knew how pain felt from losing everything as a child, everyone angry wanting to slap, knock me around.


Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee


I always knew that everything good was meant for other kids ... no point in me thinking about it ... when I heard, read something good about kids ... I knew it didn't mean me.  I accepted that as a little girl.  No, it didn't mean me.

I knew something so special to other little girls like a Barbie doll ... wasn't something I would ever have.  Something as special as being in the Girl Scouts wasn't meant for me to be in.  I wasn't good enough.  All the wonderful children's movies at the theater ... no, it wasn't meant for me.  I was nobody.

I was my father's child, that was for sure.  Who in the hell was this man who was called my father ... who caused me such grief as a little girl?  Why was I slapped in the face when a certain expression crossed it?

Anger, screaming words came at me like shooting a pistol non-stop ...  'you look like your damned father'!  The all-powerful slap came next ... I was lucky if I wasn't thrown around, slapped.

One aunt in particular beat me unmerciful ... to the extent of picking up a piece of firewood, beating me until blood ran on my arms, legs.  She hurt me really bad, physically ... mentally.  I had loved her with my very Heart.



Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee


Her long fingernails scratched my face, got caught in my curly hair.  Sweat, anger, fire ... blind, stunned, shocked at being thrown around hitting furniture ... odor of blood like smelling pennies.  Hell breaking loose ... I was a rag doll in her hands.  I wasn't big enough to fight back.

That was once of the worse beatings I ever had ... she tried to blackmail me with a little Timex watch.  She thought as a little girl I would gladly take her damn watch ... never let my mother know what she did to me.  My mother tore into her at a later date ... it was bad.

Why did she do that to me?  She was an angry teenage girl ... I peeped into her wonderful bedroom ... it held a record player ... music!  Wonderful music!  I paid for that.

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee and Skip

I wasn't the only grandchild who was fascinated by her bedroom ... the record player, records!  Music!  I know she screamed at them, I don't think she beat the other children who were my cousins ... they had their mother ... they all lived next door. Their mother would have kicked her ass ... being her older sister, also.

My mother took off and was gone for months ... it was what she did as a young woman.  It left me to the mercy of all those around me ... no protection for a little girl.

So, when I became a beautiful young lady ... would you believe I didn't know it?  I was living in another home of Hell ... my father's home.




Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee ... with my father, whom I never met until the age of  9.  I look at this photo ... he seemed so proud, happy to see me. I never saw that expression before or after this photo.  This photo stands out to me ... how amazing.


His home was a wonderful home, spotless clean (oh, how I loved that!), laughter, joking ... fun. Everybody's feelings were important.  The only thing was ... I wasn't a part of it.  I was resented.  My father was afraid of me ... he couldn't talk to me.

There wasn't any place for me as a child to know calm, peace, quiet.  I never felt good about me.  I hated myself, and several times I did try to die.  Hell from every direction.

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee

When I ran away from my father's home ... I began to realize how pretty I had become.  My father, living in his home ... had numbed me to myself.

I lived in a wonderful home ... I was the only un-wonderful thing there ... I was my beautiful mother's child.  I truly wasn't wanted.  I won't go into all of that.  I give you credit for that wonderful imagination we all have.

Boys whistled at me ... I remember the first time.  I turned to look at who was being whistled at.  I didn't see anyone.  Do you know what I did?  I just looked down, went on doing what I was doing ... I knew they weren't whistling at me.  I was nobody.

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee

My mother made me aware at how beautiful I was.  She was so proud of me!  She let me wear her clothes ... I was amazed when they fit me ... perfectly!  She was so beautiful, small with a perfect figure!

Oh my!  When she made me put on something of hers to show me I could wear them ... that was all it took!  My eyes began opening ... I had wanted to be a fashion designer ... why ... I had my own body to dress now!  I was beautiful!

Can you even imagine a young girl discovering she was what she wished to be ... blind to the fact she was long before she realized it?

Getting back to narcissism ... I was to a degree.  Just enough that in my mind, I didn't have to 'take any s___' from anyone.  People just don't treat beautiful people ... ugly.  They don't.  Think about it.

When I dressed my body, walked and talked with confidence ... I won't even begin to describe how wonderful life was, how special I was treated.  I loved myself ... why I was perfect ... perfect for myself to be happy with.  I finally loved myself, until ...



I eloped to get married.  Fourteen years of marriage ... a young girl isolated in the grown up world ... left alone.  Alone ... while her husband took off to be with other women.

His friends came around to 'see him' ... knowing he was gone.  I became afraid again ... no one was around to protect me ... I was 14 miles either way from any town.  I had grown up in town ... there were night lights, traffic, people.  There was only the deep, pitch-black darkness at nights in the countryside ... strange sounds.

I became most unhappy, angry, afraid.  I wasn't anybody again.  Just some wife sitting home waiting for a husband who couldn't be faithful.  I gained weight ... never realizing it.  No one treated me the same anymore ... the weight hid the beauty I had.  I was still pretty, but ... I didn't know it anymore.

 
Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee


His friends did ... they kept stopping by making me afraid.  They would stare at me, make comments ... I should have taken them up ... but, I wasn't like that.

I couldn't cheat.  I should have done that, too.  I didn't.  I should have paid the women back in my young life, and cheated like Hell ... something in me ... I couldn't do it.  I thought about it.  If I'd been like my family ... I would have been 'bad' to the bone, and some asses ... would have been fixed.  I wasn't like them ... what went wrong ... right?

I'm still at an age that I wonder about being good as possible.  It seems life is very good for bad, dishonest, deceitful people.  They don't lack for anything ... they don't have to worry.  The world is at their fingertips.  They don't have to go without ... they can do bad, and have everything they need.

    Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee


Sometimes, I tell Skip that being bad ... is good.  I really don't mean that when I say such.  It's that we've been through so many things in our older years ... we've always tried to be good people, make up for any mistakes we have made through the years.

We aren't going to change ... being good is being good ... and we can live with that good feeling inside.  That's what making mistakes is all about ... going from them to be the best person you can be.  Learn from your mistakes.

When I came out of that marriage ... I became like a swan ... beauty came back.  I could smile at the world, I was my own person ... everyone loved me again.

Narcissistic ... how other people became that way, I don't know.  I know why I was like that.  I had finally come to love myself, feel like 'somebody'.  We all have 'things' in us from childhood.  That was one of mine.


Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee


I didn't think I was better than anyone ... how could I have been better?  I didn't come from people known as better people.  I didn't think I was more beautiful than anyone ... but, I was beautiful enough for me to like myself, be happy each day to wear beautiful clothes.  It meant the world to finally like, love myself.

I think being narcissistic in my case is/was different ... from the people who 'have it bad' :)  Mine was more innocent in a way to just measure up, compare with the beautiful women in our family.  I did ... no doubt.  I am a ... has-been ... but, the fact is ... I was.  My photos validate it.  I am proud of them.


Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee


I'm thankful the photos survived the house fire.  Now, I leave them in cyberspace for my grandchildren to see for themselves one day.  I probably won't ever see them in this life.  They can be proud their grandmother was at least somebody ... to look at.  :)

 Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee 

This is my take on ... narcissism in my life.  There was a time I was narcissistic.  This is ... why.  Why are other people narcissistic?  Why are you?  What shaped you to be in your life?

  
Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee with All My Children star...


'Nar.cis.sis.tic ... having an excessive or erotic interest in oneself and one's physical appearance.'

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@grannygee with All My Children star

Note by this Author:

All photos/true story are owned, written by me, Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.  I used to be narcissistic ... in a good way.  I was so happy to just be beautiful like the women in my family.  It meant people treated me good, always making over me.  It meant the world to me.