All Hail The Spoiled Bully
One narcissistically empowered church I attended played a major part in my learning more in-depth information about narcissistic personality disorder. During this time, the term narcissist was not a term that I heard much at all. So, when I began my learning of this specific personality disorder, I did not equate the secular name for it in the religious arena. Mainly, I learned what would be the spiritual aspects of this disorder, but I learned a lot, nevertheless.
If I had paid more careful attention to the subtly-colored red flags back then, I would have avoided such a close, but one-sided, friendship with a person I will simply refer to as The Spoiled Bully. Although she preferred to being hailed as the princess, and I do mean this in the literal sense, I chose to digress. She was not a princess at all, and if I called her a queen, she would be easily referred to as Queen B with an “itch”. (For the record, I adamantly refused to call her “Princess” or even joke about doing such.)
The Spoiled Bully
I honestly believed that such a person could not be possible especially when said person was touting off her spiritual repertoire as a born again Christian. Biblically, we are supposed to know others by their fruit, but within the church environment, this knowledge of others is supposed to be taken at face value. Some Christian circles want you to pass over the negative behaviors of others without any shred of judgment even though biblically it is actually scriptural to judge others by their fruit.
Yet, I found in this particular narcissistically empowered church that certain people within the church were able to get away with things no matter how badly behaved they were towards others. After getting to know The Spoiled Bully, it was apparent that she was one of those badly behaving people that members of the church were simply to ignore and pass off as her just being who she was because of whatever. The things she got away with always surprised me.
What The Spoiled Bully presented to me at face value was just a mask she wore. Her actual fruit was fake in presentation and ever so rotten to the core. This narcissistic woman literally put the Regina George in Mean Girls … but worse. Outwardly, she presented a charismatic, jovial, and outgoing persona, but inwardly, she was a raging, self-entitled bitch, and this is not even the ugliest thing I could say about her either.
I had probably been at this particular church for a little over a year when I was finally introduced to The Spoiled Bully. The pastor of the church thought “my personality would do a lot to tame and ground” The Spoiled Bully [and those were this pastor’s exact words too]. But the truth is, The Spoiled Bully and me were total opposites. We had absolutely nothing in common via our personalities at all. All we had in common was the fact that we attended the same church and were supposed to be followers of Christ.
Opposites Attract
It was not even a case of opposites attract. I had absolutely no affinity towards The Spoiled Bully at all. In the beginning, I visually saw her for who she was, and I was turned off by her. Nothing about her personality seemed remotely inviting, and my mind seemed to push her just beyond my peripheral view. In the beginning, I wanted nothing to do with her. When I think about it now, I had already been presented with my first red flag, but I later ignored it in favor of being Christian-like and not judging a book by its cover.
Yet, I wanted to be Christian-like in all my ways. Although I was nice and cordial upon my initial introduction to The Spoiled Bully, I was not feeling her at all. It was the same reaction I have always had when I later knew someone after some time who turned out to be a narcissist. In fact, looking back, this inner “knowing” I had has never failed me. Then, I could not readily put my finger on it, but I was not feeling her essence. There was absolutely nothing there with her [but a deep void] even though she presented a jovial smile.
During that initial meeting, I was quickly reminded that it was not truly the first time The Spoiled Bully and me had ever met. In fact, prior to my attending that particular church, I had a few brief encounters with The Spoiled Bully at a handful of interdenominational fellowship meetings for women.
These meetings were centered around prayer, fellowship, testimonials, and evangelism. That fellowship was the open door to my becoming interested in getting to know a few of the women who belonged to the church I eventually attended, but The Spoiled Bully was never a drawing factor.
In fact, during those fellowship meetings, The Spoiled Bully was distant and never said a word to anyone. Even though the other women were friendly greeters, she never seemed to be approachable and carried an air about her that seemed to recoil in disgust at the mere sight of becoming a part of the circle of women in the room.
Yet, I assumed that she was super focused on bringing forth ministry since she was a minister of music and song. There was always talk that ministers of music and song carried an “anointing” to break yokes of bondage and bring healing to others. So, they were often pulled away from crowds of people just as Jesus would do just before he ministered to groups of people.
But The Spoiled Bully was nothing at all like Jesus … not even a little bit. In fact, she reminds me of another narcissistic copy that I would encounter later in life – just as mean and entitled to having it her way. If I did not already know they were not related, I would only assume their connection based on their same narcissistic traits.
Even though no two narcissists are exactly alike, the narcissistic traits they exhibit are always the same. The Spoiled Bully was one of my first in-depth case studies regarding narcissistic personality disorder in a way that I never truly expected to occur in a religious setting, but she was the first of many narcissistic types to come.
Stay tuned for more of experiences with The Spoiled Bully in the next post.
My Voice Unchained 