The Goofy roller coaster

In group.  Amy is describing her recent visit to Disney with her four-year-old daughter and her narcissistic husband.

“So he wants to ride the Goofy roller coaster with her,” she says, “but she’s scared of it.  Come on, it’ll be fun, he says. Mommy, I don’t want to, she says.  Maybe you shouldn’t force her, I say.  Damn it, she’s my daughter too, he says.  Yes, but she’s scared, I say.  It goes on like this for thirty minutes: he’s yelling, she’s crying, I’m trying to keep them both calm.”

“So what happened?” someone asks.

“I finally suggested he ride the Goofy roller coaster himself. So that’s what he did.”

The group laughs, sadly.

“But it was a turning point for me,” Amy says. “I gave up on the marriage that day.  Now I just focus on what my kid needs and keep him at a distance.”

“I know,” says Barry, whose wife left him a year ago and whose kids chose to stay with him.  “I have that with my ex. She keeps trying to get our kids to see things her way.  She doesn’t care what they think or feel at all.”

“Narcissism,” someone mutters.

“Right.  And the harder she tries, the harder they resist.  It’s gotten so they’re refusing to spend Christmas with her.  I felt bad about it – they’re kids, they need a mother – so for a long time I tried to help.  I’d tell her what they told me about how they were feeling, and suggested she might try listening to them more.  You just want to turn them against me, she’d say.  So I’ve given up now.  She’s on her own.”

“You got off the Goofy roller coaster,” I say.

He smiles. “I guess so.”

“My brother almost died last weekend,” Cathy says suddenly.  “He drank too much and was ambulanced to the ER.  My parents were devastated, but I felt guilty that I didn’t feel worse.  He’s been drinking and drugging my whole life, and for most of that time I worried and worried, and finally I had to either detach or go crazy.  I had no choice.  But I feel guilty.”

“But you got off the roller coaster,” I say.

“Good for you,” Barry says.

The others nod.

“It’s a good metaphor, the Goofy roller coaster,” I say, “for engaging with a narcissist.”

“How so?” Amy asks.

“We engage with narcissists thinking we can somehow persuade them to be less narcissistic.  We argue, beg, plead and coerce, but nothing ever changes.  The ride is always the same.  So in the end all we can do is just what you guys did: give up on the bad marriage, back off from the controlling mom, detach from the self-destructive sibling.”

Moral, if you have a narcissist in your life:

Stay off the Goofy roller coaster if you can.

It will only make you scared, angry or nauseous.

It cannot be steered.