There are people in this world that are best avoided. Many of us just welcome them in instead. I’ve welcomed so many people, so often, happily telling myself they need my help. I like to help. But see, they aren’t like most of us. They lack empathy, and see others as means to their own ends. They don’t always even know this about themselves – sometimes they just feel empty inside. Trying to help them only ends up with you wondering how you lost so much of yourself without noticing, or minding at all. And in the latest case of this in my life, at least, I’m done.

I have a son who needs to be needed. I know, we all do. But, you know. He is good, and kind, and like his mother, he is easy to play like a fiddle sometimes. A young princess found him a year ago and made him her own.
She is adorable, and incredibly fashionable in that dark, noticeable Hot Topic way. She can make you laugh with her stories, which do seem a bit more extreme than my life experiences, which have been, at times, extreme. She is very likeable.

You have to wait awhile to notice that she never helps, never compliments others, never exhibits empathy for others, never does anything she doesn’t want to do. When the possibility of actual work arises, some horrific malady that is far more extreme than those mere humans have experienced before now will appear by magic and plop her back on the couch in tears, awaiting delivery of pizza or candy to nurture her poor soul.

She can be so dazzling to someone like my son, that even though he knows this stuff – and he knows – he will do whatever she asks. He will get mad at times. But he will eventually do it. He has felt such deep love that he can’t seem to let go of the dream and accept, internally, the reality.

The breakups have happened every few months and lasted a week or so, but this last one was over two months ago, and I hoped that it was over. He had moved on some, was seeing someone else. Until this week, when he wasn’t. And I knew this was happening again, and I stayed up with nightmares one night, the night I was told she was back. I had the strangest dreams, because I was lucid, which almost never happens. The dreams were bizarre and intense, and interesting from a story point of view. So I sent each one to myself as an email, and then I wrote them up, and I put them here: One night of dreams

Books that helped:
In Sheep’s Clothing by Dr. George Simon (plus, the whole site)

Emotional Vampires by Albert J. Bernstein, Ph. D (plus, the whole site maybe)

Also, if you’re someone who wants to fix people, therapy.