This book I'm reading by H.G. Tudor (Escape: How to Beat the Narcissist) has proven to be rather depressing.
Kids, this isn't the place you want to go to confirm that your Daddy is a narcissist.
I hadn't ruled out the chance the author might be a psychoanalyst guised as a narcissist, but no. While I appreciate the author's directness and lack of fluff between the lines, he really exudes no empathy whatsoever. He completely lacks emotion. He never taunts the reader or comes off as jeering, but he does sometimes flaunt his abusive exploits of other people (specifically, women). It's at least commendable that he doesn't try to schmooze the reader into believing that he's doing all of this in the name of helping people.
If I didn't have any emotional investment the content wouldn't bother me as much but it's pretty difficult information to assimilate. He's callus and narcissists are callus people and there's no pretty way to frame it I guess. If it was just a narcissist just guffawing about his exploits there's no question that I wouldn't have bought his book, but he is helping people. It just takes a certain kind of someone to be able to stomach it. It's a tough read.
I'm 73% of the way through the book now. There's an upcoming section titled "Hope" which was always my #1 biggest hangup when it came to my Dad. Tudor is really going to sock it to me there - the final blow. If this were only about some pathetic loser boyfriend I'd just cry, get over it after a while and find a new one eventually. Dads aren't replaceable though. That I know, because all that time he was absent from my life there was just a big, empty void in my heart.