Sadistic Narcissism: The End of Margo's Reign of Sadism (2)
By: Beth McHugh 2010
We have followed the story of Margo and her particular brand of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) for several articles (see links below). We have also looked at how Margo took out her deep sense of insecurity by tormenting her younger sister Leah, who at twelve years her junior was for many years not able to control the situation that she was being subjected to. Today we will examine how Leah finally took the reigns and removed Margo's power once and for all. For details of this final detachment from this reign of terror see Sadistic Narcissism: The End of Margo's Reign of Sadism (1) in link below.
By the time Leah had reached adulthood, she had long left Margo behind in terms of maturity because, as a sufferer of NPD, Margo had an emotional age of a young child even though she was now well into her thirties.
After one particular verbally violent attack by Margo in which Leah remained silent as she could see that in doing so, it actually enraged Margo even more. She was giving Margo no ammunition and Margo couldn't handle that because she was used to having control in this particular relationship. Leah decided she had had enough of her sister's antics and wrote her a letter. In that letter, she was careful to be polite so that Margo could not really show the letter to anyone and claim that it was in any way nasty. This was victory number one for Leah.
She then stated calmly that she did not like the way Margo spoke to her and that as their lives could go on in this fashion for many years, she for one did not wish it to continue in this way. Here Leah was starting to set a firm boundary with her sister.
She next stated that she required Margo to make a choice. Either be civil to Leah or be silent. Neither was a choice that Margo would like, especially as it was being given to her by her little sister. At the end of the letter, Leah wished her well in her life, again another clever ploy to make it difficult for Margo to display the letter to others and gain any sympathy about how dreadful her sister was,
Of course, Leah knew that her sister was not going to be civil after decades of nastiness and so she was pushed into a corner of being silent. But Leah also knew that being outwitted by her sister would cause Margo enormous rage and she warned her mother that she might get a phone call about the matter.
Margo was of course too insecure to contact her sister but instead did exactly as Leah predicted. She rang their mother and took out her rage on her. But the mother had already read the letter and knew that nothing truly unpleasant had been said.
Margo had nowhere to go. Leah had finally gotten her freedom from Margo's sadistic ways and she never contacted her again. The latter is further evidence together with Margo's reluctance to contact Leah directly over the letter, that narcissists are indeed very weak people, despite the image they like to project.
This particular incident also shows that when Margo was faced with the reality of losing her only sibling forever, she made no attempt to try to rectify the situation and actually attempt to have a normal relationship. This is because Margo and people like her cannot truly care for others, and Margo certainly never really loved her sister otherwise she would have been distressed at the possibility of losing her forever. Such is the lack of feelings for others that Margo prefers to have no family as she does not possess the emotional skills to deal with the situation she found herself in. And Leah is happy that she got rid of a sister who was nothing but a millstone around her neck.
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