As you well know, dear reader, "narcissism" is just the "N word" that jaded women use to describe their ex. Or really, just any man that doesn't cater to their feelings. It's a very feminine word.
It's quite the interesting phenomenon the way that words can catch on in the social realm.
Seriously, have you ever met a woman in the last 5 years who doesn't have that word on speed dial in her vocabulary?
It's gotten so popular that now you even see men using it. Sure, they're typically beta males, but still.
I think the word does have meaning. I think the word does have relevance within the field of psychology. But when words take flight from their nest, they tend to evolve into something else.
Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive preoccupation with oneself and one's own needs, often at the expense of others.
As I said in my previous post on the subject, pretty much everyone is a narcissist to some degree. Those who scream "narcissist" the loudest are those who exhibit the highest levels of narcissism.
Digressing.
I recently watched a 3-episode documentary titled A Killer Story:
If you plan on watching it, I wouldn't recommend reading any further.
Unlike Amy Bradley Is Missing, which I thought was a lame attempt at entertainment (Amy obviously jumped off the ship), A Killer Story is actually pretty good.
I don't want to bore you with a review, you could easily just watch the series yourself. But to outline the plot, if you don't want to watch the trailer I posted above, a woman was convicted in the early 00s of killing her ex-husband and his wife.
The story is rather strange, because the killing was pretty much a professional-style execution. The ex-wife was a middle-aged accountant that lived like 600 miles away in a different state (Colorado). There was no evidence she was in the state (Kansas), no DNA at the scene, she didn't own any weapons, etc, etc. All the evidence was basically circumstantial based on her being crazy and making threats.
A couple who were aware of the story believed that she was innocent and devoted their entire lives to proving it. They were the ones who contacted the journalist responsible for making the documentary. They sent him over 3,000 emails before he ever responded to them. They were obsessed, to say the least.
Ten years later she gets a new trial. The trial ends up in a hung jury and a mistrial is declared.
As I stated, there was very little evidence to convict her. It seemed pretty realistic, based on the evidence in the documentary, that a conviction wasn't going to be easy. The previous trial was 7 guilty vs 5 not guilty. The case was 20 years old. There wasn't any new evidence. It was going to be a tough conviction.
Here's where the plot twist comes in, and the point of this paper.
As I said, it would seem like it was going to be a tough conviction. But on the day of the retrial, which was like 20 years after the original conviction, the accused killer (Dana Chandler) fired her attorneys and decided to represent herself.
She obviously thought she was smarter than everyone else in the room, which is one of the so-called traits of narcissism. Since she was acting as her own attorney, she took the stand and was subjected to cross examination. She had never taken the stand in the other two trials, which is common for murder cases (the burden of guilt is upon the state to prove). The DA caught her in lies, and the jury convicted her of murder in less than 3 hours.
It was hard to come away from the show thinking she actually did the murders. She doesn't fit the criteria of a hitman. But maybe she did. Or maybe she hired someone. Who knows? Regardless, she will spend the rest of her life in prison because she made the decision to represent herself, and I'd be willing to bet that she has no regrets about doing it. She turned her back on the jury after they read the verdict. I'm sure she blames them, instead of realizing how ignorant her decision was.
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