Alex Gibney – A Documentary Filmmaker Who Tackles Controversial Subjects with Style

I recently discovered a documentary filmmaker from New York named Alex Gibney. I watched four of his films: “Zero Days” (on Showtime), “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” (on HBO), “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks”, and “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room”.

“Zero Days” is about the Stuxnet virus that American and Israeli intelligence agencies planted in Siemens PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) via an infected USB drive. This virus was placed in an Iranian nuclear power plant to destroy the centrifuges that were creating enriched uranium for the purpose of building nuclear bombs. It was placed in 2008 when Bush was still president, and was supposed to be removed on January 11, 2009, nine days before Obama’s inauguration. The Israelis however got greedy, and used their hatred of Iran to spread the virus all over Europe and Asia, where a hacker in Belarus discovered it and reported it on an internet chat room.

Then two Symantec virus code chasers spent months investigating every line of code (they named it Stuxnet), and came to the conclusion that it had to be written by an intelligence agency, foreign or domestic, because of the code’s sophistication. They also discovered that the virus specifically targeted the Siemens PLCs and concluded that an infected USB drive was used under the guise of updating the PLC software to infect the centrifuges.

Centrifuges are very delicate instruments and must be precisely calibrated at all times. The speed and temperature must be carefully maintained. The Iranian nuclear engineers were fired after the centrifuges failed, because the computer did not report any changes in temperature or speed, due to the virus in the PLC, so it was assumed it must have been human error. It wasn’t until 2011 that the Iranians realized that their PLCs had been hacked by American and Israeli intelligence agents. They retaliated by hacking American banks and shutting down their online operations for one day to show the Americans that they too could be hacked.

The most interesting part of the film for me was a blond actress who played an NSA agent. She was crude and arrogant as she explained what happened and how it happened. We find out at the end that Gibney interviewed several CIA and NSA agents off the record and combined their interviews into one person, let’s call her Blondie. She said she was coming forward with classified information because she was sick of the government and the mainstream media lying to the public and wanted to set the record straight. They called the virus “Olympic Games”, not Stuxnet.

Blondie said that the NSA and its sister agency, the U.S. Cyber Command, occupy the same building at Fort Meade, Maryland, but different floors. Half of the people who work there are hard-corps military personnel, who are super gung-ho and think America is the hero of the world and can do no wrong. The other half are childish geeks who have never grown up and never will. They are the computer geniuses who write code all day long and have action figures, stuffed animals, Legos and posters of “Star Wars”, “Star Trek” and other popular science fiction films on their desks and on their cubicle walls. Blondie was so cold and arrogant, it scares me to think that these are the kind of people who are in charge of our so-called national security. It seems to me these people are far more likely to start a war than to end it.

“Going Clear” was about the Church of Scientology and exposed it for the cult that it really is. Gibney interviewed several high-ranking members of the church who left after many years of emotional and in some cases physical abuse. It was hard for them to accept that they had been brainwashed and lied to for so many years.

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (or LRH, as church members call him), was born on March 13^th, 1911 in Tilden, Nebraska. During the 1930s and 1940s, he wrote thousands of short stories and articles for pulp magazines (they were called pulp because of the cheap paper that was used for magazines). They were all science fiction stories about aliens, spaceships and other worlds. Hubbard was so prolific out of economic necessity; back then, writers for pulp magazines were only paid a penny a word, so the more you wrote, the better.

Hubbard’s father was in the Navy as a paymaster (bookkeeper). In 1941, Hubbard joined the Navy as a lieutenant public affairs officer, and had a disastrous naval career. He fired upon a Mexican boat, thinking it was the enemy, and almost started a war with Mexico. He was relieved of his command and forced to resign his commission. He bought several dilapidated ships in the 1960s and 1970s, created a Scientology Sea Org (his own private navy), made himself a commodore, had fancy naval uniforms made for himself and his officers, and forced the “crew” (young, naive eager volunteers) to work 15 hours a day on the ship for no money and horrible living conditions. As one of those volunteers said in the film, “We thought we were saving the world.” No, they were just being used as slave labor.

After the Navy, Hubbard joined Ordo Templi Orientis, a satanic cult that followed the teachings of Aleister Crowley, a notorious Satanist and self-confessed practitioner of “sex magick”. There he met Jack Parsons, who was a friend until Hubbard stole his girlfriend Sara Northrup. He married Sara and had a daughter with her, even though he was still legally married to another woman, his first wife. Sara didn’t even know he was married!

In 1950, he wrote and published “Dianetics”, which became the bible of Scientology. It contained the philosophy and doctrine of Hubbard’s fantasies and beliefs. In 1954, he founded Scientology.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Scientology really took off and formed their first brick and mortar churches. Sales of the book “Dianetics” soared, and L. Ron Hubbard became a household name. New members had to be audited in order to join. The way it worked was simple – you held on to two metallic tubes that are attached to a Hubbard Electrometer that has three settings: Rise, Set or Fall, while being audited by an auditor (a senior member of Scientology). Being audited means you have to reveal everything about yourself to the auditor to get “clear” of all your negative emotions and feelings. It may seem like a harmless form of therapy, except for the fact that the auditors wrote down everything you said and then later transcribed it, created a file for everyone, and used the information to blackmail people who became a threat to the church. A threat to the church was known as a Suppressed Person (SP) and must be harassed or disconnected from (no contact).

As I wrote in my previous essay about SwissIndo, any organization that is based on hierarchy and money is a fraud. Hubbard fought the IRS for many years to get 501(c)3 non-profit tax status. If Scientology was officially recognized as a religion, they would never have to pay taxes. Hubbard died on January 24^th, 1986 in San Luis Obispo, California of a stroke. One year later, his successor and protege, David Miscavige, announced to the annual membership meeting that the IRS had finally given in and granted Scientology their non-profit tax status. What he didn’t tell the membership was the reason the IRS caved – they were blackmailed by many wealthy Scientology members who filed lawsuits against the IRS that would have gone on for years and cost the government billions to settle.

Scientology is not a “religion” for poor people. On the contrary, it is a huge money-making enterprise, like any other business. New members are told that in order to rise in the church, they must take courses that cost thousands of dollars. You must be audited hundreds of times to become “clear”, then you become an Auditor yourself. The highest “rank” in Scientology is OT8. The OT levels are only attained by the wealthiest members.

The upper level members are called Thetans, which means a supreme being. They are told that many invisible alien beings entered their body at birth and must now be cleansed and removed in order for them to be, you guessed it, “clear”. Of course, you will never be fully clear. Scientology is a scam invented by a man who wrote science fiction stories about aliens, had a disastrous military career, but fancied himself a war hero, and was a member of a Satanic cult! This is the kind of man that hundreds of thousands of people worldwide placed their money and faith in. The naivete and gullibility of humans can never be underestimated.

It is well-known among the general public that celebrities have joined Scientology, most notably Tom Cruise and John Travolta. They both refused to be interviewed by Gibney for his film, but they nonetheless appear in the film in public interviews they gave to others, and the high-ranking ex-members had plenty to say about them as well. A former friend of Travolta claimed he didn’t know about the abuse that was going on, for example, that her daughter almost died due to neglect and starvation, and would have if she hadn’t managed to escape with her. The lower ranking members of the church were treated like prisoners and slaves in the Hollywood Scientology Celebrity Center. They were forced to perform menial tasks for no money, had no contact with family or friends, had to sleep on a cold bare floor, and received only table scraps as a punishment. Who knows how many people died of malnutrition and neglect?

Meanwhile, the stars of Scientology got nothing but the best. The billions that the church was raking in went to benefit people like Cruise. The low-ranking slaves built him a house. He got a custom limo, a private jet, a motorcycle, anything he wanted, all purchased from the Scientology coffers. The catch was that he had to publicly promote the joys and benefits of Scientology, a task that Cruise was happy to do.

But the worst story the high-ranking ex-members told about Cruise was what he did to Nazanin Boniadi, a very pretty actress of Iranian origin, in 2004. She was raised in the church, and was groomed to be Cruise’s girlfriend after his relationship with Nicole Kidman and Penelope Cruz ended (and before he met Katie Holmes, although her name was never mentioned in the film).

Shelly Miscavige put all of the actresses in Scientology through an elaborate auditioning process, because they wanted Cruise to have a girlfriend from the church. Kidman and Cruz had objected to Cruise’s involvement with Scientology, and the church was afraid of losing him. Miscavige bought Boniadi expensive designer clothes, changed her hair color, removed her braces, forced her to break up with her longtime boyfriend, and flew her in a private plane to Cruise’s secluded private home that Scientology members built for him. She was not told beforehand that she was hand-picked to be Cruise’s girlfriend. Let’s call this what it is – forced prostitution.

They were only together for a few months when Cruise lost his temper, pounded his fist on the table, and told Boniadi to get out. He thought she had somehow insulted David Miscavige, the leader of Scientology. It was rumored but never proven that Cruise and Miscavige had a sexual relationship, and rumors about Cruise’s bisexuality have been around for many years.

Boniadi got a supporting role on the Showtime drama “Homeland” playing Fara Sherazi, a CIA analyst for two seasons (2013-2014).

Another actor, Jason Beghe, who plays a cop on “Chicago Fire”, “Chicago P.D.”, and “Law and Order” (he is best known for his gravelly voice), was a member of Scientology for ten years before he quit. He did a two-hour interview about his ten years with the church and posted it on YouTube. Two days later, it was deleted and removed for “content violations”. Beghe was interviewed extensively by Gibney for his film and talked about how he and other Suppressive Persons (rebels) were placed in filthy mobile home double-wide trailers nicknamed “the hole” for a year (some people for two years!). They were regularly beaten up by Miscavige and his gang of loyal thugs, had nothing but scraps to eat, and the trailers were infested with ants and other insects. Now ask yourself, why would anyone put up with this shit? Beghe said they put up with it because they were brainwashed and afraid to leave. He is ashamed and embarrassed that it took him so long to see the truth.

Beghe said, “Scientology delivers what it promises under the guise of tearing away falsity, neuroses, psychoses. It creates a brainwashed, robotic version of you. It’s a ‚Matrix‘ of you, so you’re communicating with people all the time using Scientology.”

The film ended with a voiceover saying that today, the church has less than 50,000 members worldwide, and yet has more income than ever before due to purchasing land in many countries, like Mexico, Canada and Germany, and setting up new Scientology centers, like the one in Berlin. They continue to promote Scientology and sell the book “Dianetics” to Germans, Canadians, Mexicans, etc. Now it has become a worldwide scam. LRH would be proud.

In “We Steal Secrets”, Gibney profiled Julian Assange, the Australian creator of Wikileaks, and Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army intelligence specialist who sent him classified information about Army actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. As everyone knows, Manning was sentenced to 30 years in a military prison, and Assange is still hiding out in a small room in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

An interesting point was made regarding protesters all over the world who carry signs saying “Free Bradley Manning, free Julian Assange”. Manning is in prison because he was arrested and found guilty after a military court martial; Assange voluntarily committed himself to political asylum refuge. He could leave anytime, but if he does he will be arrested by the London police, who still keep a 24-hour guard on the embassy. He would then be extradited to Sweden to face rape charges, and possibly extradited to the U.S. afterwards to face charges of treason and espionage. So he continues to hide.

In “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room”, Gibney tells in great detail the story of Enron, once dubbed “The World’s Greatest Company” by the media. Founded in 1985 in Houston, Texas by Ken Lay, Enron grew to become one of the largest energy companies in the world. The company motto was “ask why”.

The film began with the suicide of Cliff Baxter, 43, a former Enron vice chairman. He resigned from Enron in May 2001, and shot himself on January 25^th, 2002, in his car in a Houston suburb. He was supposed to testify before Congress. He left a 5 million dollar life insurance policy for his family.

Baxter sold 577,436 shares of stock for 35.2 million dollars, knowing that the company was about to go under. All of the other company executives did the same thing, including founder, CEO and chairman Lay, president and COO Jeffrey Skilling, and CFO Andy Fastow.

Their unbelievable arrogance, greed and fraud eventually forced Enron to declare bankruptcy on December 2^nd, 2001. After lengthy hearings before Congress in 2002, Skilling was sentenced to 24 years, Fastow got 6 years, and Lay died before sentencing. Arthur Andersen, one of the Big Six accounting firms, was paid a million dollars a week to be Enron’s accounting firm. After Enron declared bankruptcy and before the Congressional hearings began, Andersen shredded tons of documents that would have proven the accounting fraud had been going on for many years. They were forced to go out of business as a result of the Enron scandal, and their reputation never recovered.

What interests me about the Enron story is that this is still going on today. There are still companies all over the world (and especially on Wall Street) who are committing fraud every day just to make money for the executives of the company. Look what happened to WorldCom and Lehman Brothers. As long as money exists, greed and corruption will exist. It is inevitable. Corporations are formed to make money, not to sell products or services. They keep repeating the same mistakes over and over, all in the name of greed and power. I commend Alex Gibney for directing and producing well-made and very informative documentaries on important subjects.

The New Economy: How “On-Demand” Internet Startup Companies Are Trying to Turn All of Us into Minimum Wage Temp Workers

I recently read an article and book review of Steven Hill’s book “Raw Deal: How the “Uber Economy” and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers”. Hill writes about internet startup companies like Uber, Airbnb, Upwork, TaskRabbit, and Lyft. He calls it the “gig economy”, others are calling it the “sharing economy”. I call it greed, desperation, and insanity, and by the end of this essay, you will know why I call it this.

Let us look at each of these companies and see what services they provide. Uber is well-known as a ridesharing service. What is not so well-known is that they recently received a 3 billion dollar investment from the Saudis, there is a huge turnover in drivers because they only get minimum wage and no benefits, and taxi drivers have been organizing huge protests against Uber, for example, a few months ago in France. No, Uber doesn’t publicize any of that. Instead, they only focus on what a wonderful service they provide and how cheap and fast it is for the customer. They don’t care about their drivers, because they know they can always find more.

Last year in California, an Uber driver was assaulted by a drunken passenger. The driver filmed the assault from his dashboard camera (I saw the video on YouTube). Did Uber do anything to help one of their drivers? Hell no. This poor guy had to pay for his own medical care out of his own pocket (Uber does not provide any health insurance for their drivers, only for their full-time employees). To add insult to injury, the drunken man who assaulted him was an executive at Taco Bell. When the video of the assault was released on YouTube, Taco Bell fired him. He then turned around and sued the Uber driver for loss of income! Some nerve.

Airbnb has been taken over by greedy real estate companies looking to make a quick and easy buck from tourists who don’t want to stay in a hotel or hostel. Of course, there are still plenty of people who advertise spare bedrooms in their homes on Airbnb to make some extra money from tourists. This hurts the local economy when less people book hotel or hostel rooms. According to Hill, Uber and Airbnb have 1,000 full-time employees each, and they do not pay taxes or follow local laws. It seems that these internet companies think they are above the law.

Upwork (formerly Elance-oDesk, which sounds like a sponge or a cleaning product to me, good thing they changed the name), is an online company for freelancers. According to their website, they hire web developers, mobile developers, designers and creatives, writers, virtual assistants, customer service agents, sales and marketing “experts”, accountants and consultants. For example, they claim to have 25,000 “top-rated” writers and editors. Uh huh, if you say so. They only seem to have clients in English-speaking countries, like America, the UK, Canada and Australia.

TaskRabbit offers four services on their website – Handyman, Delivery, Moving Help and Cleaning. For example, you could hire one of the TaskRabbit Elite (workers or “Taskers” that have a 98% rating and higher) to clean your bathroom and kitchen. They showed as an example Angela C. for $15/hr. Angela is one of 94,107 Taskers available for this work.

TR was founded in 2008 by Leah Busque, 36, from Boston, who was a software engineer at IBM. The company wasn’t a success and made very little profit until April 2016, when Busque stepped down as CEO and let her former COO, Stacy Brown-Philpot, who came straight out of Google Ventures, take over. Busque is now the Executive Chairman.

Lyft is another ridesharing service like Uber, their direct competitor. According to their website, there are four ways to ride with Lyft: Lyft Line, a shared ride that matches you with others going the same way, so you can split the cost, the price is fixed upfront; Lyft is your personal ride, solo or up to three friends; Lyft Plus is supersized for six people; and Lyft Premier is for high-end business travelers who want to travel in luxury and style. Based in San Francisco, Lyft is only available in America right now, unlike Uber which is worldwide. Maybe Lyft needs to ask the Saudis for a multi-billion dollar investment, then they too can be a worldwide company like Uber.

Now I am going to point out the flaws in these smartphone app companies. In a previous bessay (my word for my blog essays), I wrote a book review of Dave Eggers‘ “The Circle”. The main character Mae works for a Google-like company called the Circle and must have high customer service ratings every day in order to keep her job. I thought when I first read this how ridiculous it is to force people to compete with each other for ratings. Such a high pressure work environment only creates stress, low morale, and never-ending competition.

Let’s use TaskRabbit as a good example of this. If 94,107 Taskers are available for bathroom and kitchen cleaning, and they are all competing with each other for ratings, and if the majority of clients only choose Taskers with high ratings, well, where does that leave the majority of Taskers? That’s right, it leaves them unemployed. The only people who are making money off this are the people at the very top, like Busque and Brown-Philpot, because they have a guaranteed salary and do not have to beg for work or ratings.

Another obvious flaw to me is why do we even need these so-called “services”? Why not just continue to use free and direct websites like Craigslist or Ebay? People advertise their services for free, and are in direct contact with clients. Why do we need a third party middleman like TaskRabbit? It seems completely unnecessary to me.

I believe convenience and laziness have overcome common sense. Everybody has a smartphone with internet and a million apps. Why waste your time reading ads and contacting people when you can just fingertap an app on your phone and voila! Instant gratification.

What kind of an economy are we creating with these app companies? We are creating a work world where people are forced to compete with each other not only for ratings, but for a small number of clients. There will always be more workers available than clients, that is the nature of money and business.

Besides, what is so great about these so-called app jobs? They offer no security, no future, no guaranteed income, and no benefits like healthcare insurance. They are a temporary supplementary income at best, and a minimum wage temp job at worst. People need to wake up and see where this is headed. Do you want to be forced to advertise your services on an app with hundreds of thousands of other people? Do you want to be forced to always have a high rating just so you can continue working? I don’t want to work in a high pressure atmosphere like that, and I don’t understand why anyone else would either. Americans in particular are so desperate for work, they will do anything. Desperation doesn’t lead to anything good. It is insanity to be forced to compete with other people on a daily basis just to earn a living and survive. I don’t want any part of it.

The Traits and Characteristics of Female Narcissistic Psychopaths

Having recently gotten rid of (I have no contact with them anymore) 3 female narcissistic psychopaths in my life (my sister R., my ex-girlfriend B., and an old friend J.), I wanted to write an essay about their traits and characteristics. I am amazed by how many things these three women have in common. It makes me wonder how many other female psychopaths out there also have these traits. I am willing to bet quite a few.

They have no class and no sophistication, but they love to pretend that they do. They are addicted to brand names and expensive labels, because they think the more expensive something is, the better it makes them look. They have no sense of fashion and wear strange colors that don’t match. Their favorite place to eat is McDonald’s (that should tell you right there how fake their sophistication is).

They don’t like to make decisions, they want everything to be easy, which of course it seldom is. For example, reading a menu and choosing a meal is just too complicated for them. I saw this time and time again in restaurants, the female psychopath will choose a picture of a meal.  If there are no pictures, they will choose something they have had before. They are not adventurous people and trying something new scares them. By the way, all of the female psychopaths that I used to know do not cook. They prefer to go out to eat (hence their love of McDonald’s with the bright pictures of fast food that require no thought and no decision-making).

These women all carry around too much stuff that they don’t need. Whenever I asked why are they carrying around all this heavy stuff, they claim they need it, yet you can spend the whole day with them and they won’t even open their bag except to get money out of their wallet. All that other junk they cart around never gets touched. Then they have the nerve to complain that their back and shoulders hurt from carrying all these bags that they don’t even need!

Whenever they tell you a story about someone in their life or someone they know, they don’t use names, only a description of the person, like “my girlfriend” or “my brother”. No one has a name. You have to ask them for the name of a person, because to them, people only exist in terms of their relationship to the psychopath.

Female psychopaths tend to be impractical and inefficient. They are very needy and act like children. You have to do everything for them, even simple things that they could easily do for themselves. For example, my old friend J. claimed to be an LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse), a claim that I doubt, and yet couldn’t do basic first aid for herself (a splinter on her finger and a very small blister on her toe). I had to help her with both. I don’t mind helping people, but you would think that someone who claims to be a nurse could handle something so small and simple on their own.

Like all psychopaths in general, the female narcissistic psychopaths that I used to know have no empathy, no sympathy and no concern for others. You can tell them your problems and get zero reaction. They give you a blank stare and say nothing, then they immediately change the subject and start talking about themselves or something completely unrelated to what you were just saying. They don’t listen and they don’t care.

I had the feeling whenever I was with any of these 3 women that I was having a conversation with myself. Having a conversation with a psychopath really is like talking to yourself, because there is no give and take. They don’t ask any questions, they don’t offer any advice, they don’t offer any sympathy or understanding, and they can’t have an intelligent discussion about anything because they really don’t know anything. They never bother to read or research anything, they only repeat what they heard on TV or overheard someone else say. Do not waste your time or energy asking a psychopath their opinion about anything, especially not news, politics, religion, sports, well, anything at all. They don’t have an opinion on anything because they don’t care about anything but themselves, and in general, they are actually very stupid.

All the years that I have known these women, I never once saw them read anything, no books, no magazines, no newspapers, no articles on the Internet, nothing. Now here’s the funny part – when asked, all 3 of them claimed to only read non-fiction books, no fiction novels. The truth is, they don’t read anything at all. They claim to only read non-fiction because they believe it gives them an air of sophistication, of worldliness, of snobbery and superiority. When you visit their homes, they have bookshelves filled with books they have never read. It’s all for show.

These women also love to pretend to be generous and giving, when the reality is quite different. They only take, they never give. If they give you something, it’s only because they don’t want it or need it. I finally caught on to this trait and started giving them stuff that I didn’t want or need, just to get rid of it. They will happily take whatever you give them, even if it’s useless junk. Remember, they have no class and no sophistication, it’s all fake.

All of these women are huge energy vampires. I spent 2 days with my sister R., it felt like a week. I would spend the whole weekend with my ex-girlfriend B., it took me a whole week to recover. My old friend J. visited me for 3 days, it felt like a month. They suck all of your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energy out of you with their constant demands and neediness. You will find yourself having to plan everything, watching the clock, making reservations, carrying their luggage, and attending to all of their needs. Do they care that you are exhausted while they are peacefully snoring on your couch? Hell no.

Another thing these women love to do is withhold information. You will ask why they didn’t tell you something sooner, they will always act sweet and innocent and claim that of course they told you this already, you must have forgotten. For example, my old friend J. claimed to have told me that she was leaving very late Friday evening, when in reality I thought it was Friday morning. This meant that I had to completely readjust my plans for the whole day just to accommodate her. This is classic psychopathic behavior. They withhold crucial information until the last minute, then act indignant when you complain.

These narcissists are also very fickle. They are constantly changing their mind about everything and contradicting themselves. For example, when I was with J., I suggested we go to a sushi restaurant to have lunch, because I know she likes sushi. Her reaction? No, no, I don’t like sushi anymore, let’s go somewhere else. We were out and about, walking around, and I was racking my brain, trying to think of an alternative (there aren’t many restaurants in my neighborhood), when suddenly she saw the sign for the sushi restaurant and said, hey, let’s go there. I said, I thought you didn’t want sushi? No, no, it’s fine. This is called not knowing what you want or self-contradiction.

Another thing all 3 of these women have in common, which I can personally testify to, having witnessed it many times, is a very hearty appetite. Nothing fazes them when it comes to food. They could be half-dead, you could be half-dead, the world could be ending, it wouldn’t bother them a bit. The pigs will continue to eat slop from their trough or anywhere they can get it no matter what. And no, I am not being harsh when I compare these 3 women to pigs. They have no table manners and they do eat like pigs. It is not a pleasure to eat with them, it’s an embarrassment. They of course don’t notice or care.

They love to complain about their health; in fact, I think it is their favorite topic. But – and this is an important but – their health problems are important, not yours. They can go on for hours about every single health problem they have, it is always a long laundry list. But – the minute you say anything about your health, they will immediately change the subject. I was with my sister R. last October, and injured my left calf getting off the bus at the main train station because I was dragging her very heavy suitcase and my small bag. The skin was scraped off, it was raw and bleeding, it hurt. Do you think my sister cared that I was in pain and injured? Hell no, all she cared about was buying a ticket and catching her train home. She even told me to hurry up, she didn’t want to wait for me. Remember, no concern, no empathy.

Here is one of my favorite traits that they all share – denying the truth about themselves. If you tell them anything that is true about themselves that they don’t like or agree with, which is just about everything, they will immediately defend themselves (even though you are not attacking them) by saying “That’s an accusation, that’s not true.” Sometimes I think there must be a secret handbook out there somewhere that psychopaths memorize so they can defend themselves against the truth, because they all spout the same lines. A perfect example of this trait is a story my now ex-friend J. told me when she was here about being fired as a secretary because her boss and co-workers said she was incompetent, inefficient and (her words) the most unattractive secretary they had ever had. It was all I could do to not laugh at her, because all of that is true. Instead of taking this true criticism to heart and changing, J. told me she went to therapy and spent months complaining to her therapist about how unfairly she was treated. This is also classic narcissist psychopath behavior, to go to a therapist to get support for their self-denial. I didn’t point out to her that every word her ex-employer said is true, because it would have been a waste of time. These people are not capable of learning anything, and they will never change, because they think they are perfect.

These people have zero self-awareness, they don’t know who they are. As Thomas Sheridan, the brilliant Irish writer, who has written two excellent books on psychopaths, has said, they invent personas to fit whatever situation they happen to find themselves in. They can be one thing to one person and a completely different personality to someone else. This is why it is so hard to convince other people that your friend is a psychopath, because they act differently with everyone. Of course, sooner or later the real psychopath will emerge, but by then, it’s too late, the damage has been done.

They do not take responsibility for anything, their problems are always somebody else’s fault. A good example of this is my former friend J. claiming to be disabled and getting a disability pension from the government. I had to laugh to myself about that, because the truth is, J. is no more disabled than I am. She is fat and lazy and has let herself go. Since when has obesity and laziness become the new disabled? Since narcissistic psychopaths decided because they have difficulty walking due to eating too much garbage food and being too lazy to exercise, therefore, they deserve to receive a disability pension for the rest of their useless life. J. sat down at every opportunity, even if I had to stand. She refused to take the stairs, which meant we had to go out of our way to find and take the elevator in every public transportation system we used. I was so happy when she was gone, I could finally walk my normal pace and take the stairs again. Don’t get me wrong, I have a great deal of understanding and empathy for people who are truly disabled. J. is not disabled, she is grossly overweight and lazy. Narcissists love to play the role of victim, and pretending to be disabled when you’re not is a favorite ploy.

Another strange thing I noticed with all three of them is they don’t like music. To them it is just background noise, they don’t know one song from another and don’t care. If they listen to any music at all, it has to be classical or jazz music with no words or lyrics. Words apparently confuse them.

They don’t seem to notice anything, they are very unobservant people. They could come to your house a million times and not notice any of your furnishings. They will say something stupid like, “Oh, I really like your couch/chair/desk/whatever,” and you will say, “But I’ve had that forever, you have seen that a million times already,” and they will just shrug their shoulders and say, “It looks new to me.”

They are constantly buying things that they don’t need or use, like my ex-girlfriend B. buying a GPS navigation device for a job that two weeks later she quit. The box was never opened and she never returned it, it is sitting in her basement storage unit and will probably rot there. They worship money, and yet have no problem wasting it.

They have a very strange sense of humor, if they have any humor at all. They will laugh at things that aren’t the least bit funny, and never seem to notice that they are laughing at you, not with you.

They all love to travel (but not with you). When you ask them about their trip, they can’t describe anything, or they tell you way too much. They either take no photos at all or way too many. Moderation is truly a foreign concept for narcissists; it’s all or nothing.

All three of these lovely women that I no longer know have no patience. You can wait hours for them, but they can’t wait 5 minutes for you.

They love to compare apples to oranges and pretend they are the same thing. If you point out that your pain or problem is worse than theirs, instead of offering sympathy and understanding, they will get annoyed and say, “It’s not a contest.” I was shocked the first time I heard this, but now I know this is how they think. No empathy, no mercy.

Last but not least, another trait that all these horrible women share is the inability to be truly affectionate. I am a very emotional person, I like to hug my family and friends. You try hugging a psychopath, you would be better off hugging a tree. They do not hug you back. You feel like a fool standing there hugging them while they stand there awkwardly waiting for you to let them go. I made the mistake in the beginning by saying we should keep in touch, let’s call or write. Again, these people are not normal human beings. Your feelings mean nothing to them. They will only contact you if they want something from you. If you contact them, they will act annoyed and busy and have no time for you. But if they want something from you, boy, you better make time for them, because they are important and you are not.

In conclusion, I am very glad that all 3 of these women are no longer a part of my life. I don’t miss them, but it is good that I had all of these awful experiences with them, so I will know in the future to recognize the signs and avoid people like them. I will never allow myself to be used and abused like that again.

UPDATE: I need to add two other female narcissistic psychopaths to this essay. They are both leaders of their own hiking groups. I have known both of these women for 7 years and have done many hikes with them. I am currently looking for someone to rent my apartment “as is” and asked both of them via e-mail if they knew anyone who was looking for an apartment. It is mind-blowing that I got exactly the same response from both, or should I say non-response. Instead of replying to my e-mail and saying yes, they know someone, or no, they don’t, which a normal person would do, they both wrote back to tell me (and the whole hiking group) about the next hikes they have planned for later this month. Unbelievable. They completely ignored my e-mail. I felt as though I had imagined sending it, like maybe I dreamt the whole thing. I am not going to support these women or their groups anymore.

To prove that this is not an isolated incident and that I am not being too harsh in saying I don’t want any contact with these women anymore, here are two true stories of what happened when I made the mistake of trusting these two so-called leaders.

The first leader, B., totally ruined a blind date for me a few years ago. I met a woman in a cafe, we were talking and having a nice time (so I thought), when suddenly B. walks in and heads straight for our table. She barely said hello to me and proceeded to talk with my date as though they had known each other for years, which I found out later was the case. Ten minutes later, the woman left, I never saw her again, and B. just sat there, smirking, and told me that I had nothing in common with her friend and was wasting my time. I was embarrassed and humiliated. I left the cafe and didn’t go on any more dates for quite a while after that. I was too depressed to go out after that horrible experience.

What did B. have to gain from humiliating me like that? Nothing, it was all for sport. Narcissists get off on humiliating other people, it makes them feel important.

The second leader, A., loves to pretend that she is kind, big-hearted and generous, when in truth she is selfish and egotistical. A perfect example of this is her annual birthday party in December. She invites everybody in the whole hiking group to come. Here’s the catch: everybody must bring a present for the birthday girl, everybody must bring food, and in return all you get from A. is warm drinks. The beer, soda, water, juice, etc. is not refrigerated or cold, it tastes horrible, the food is lousy, and her rich parents provide the drinks. In other words, she spends no money or effort whatsoever on her own birthday party, yet gets expensive presents and everyone says how generous she is to invite so many people to her party. Oh yeah, a real big giver. After 3 years of this nonsense I finally caught on and stopped going.