Life Inside the Local Facebook Group: “Does Anyone Know This Person?” 

Someone has captured a front porch-camera photo of a mysterious individual walking past their house, pausing briefly near the driveway. The post appears with the familiar tone of mild alarm.

“Does anyone know this person?” The photo usually shows a human figure walking down the sidewalk at 2:14 in the afternoon. The person might be wearing a hoodie. Possibly sunglasses. Maybe carrying a small package.

But the implication is clear. Something suspicious may be happening because I don’t recognize them. The neighborhood must investigate. Within minutes, the comment section begins filling up.

“Where was this?” “What street?” “What time?”

Someone zooms in on the image and begins studying it like a detective examining security footage on a crime show.

“I think that’s someone checking cars.”

Someone else enlarges the image further.

“Looks like he’s holding a package.”

It never occurs to anyone that the mysterious individual might actually have picked up a package at the post office or from an Amazon box that he has a key to.  

But the theories continue.

“Could be someone scouting houses.” “Watch your cars tonight.” “Make sure your doors are locked.”

Now the conversation has shifted from a person walking down the street to the possibility of organized crime in the neighborhood. And all of this because someone passed in front of a porch camera. Often, the reason the person looks slightly mysterious is fairly simple.

They’re wearing a hoodie because it’s on the cool side today, and they’re wearing sunglasses because it’s sunny. They’re carrying a small box because they just came from the post office.

But in the context of a grainy porch-camera screenshot posted on Facebook, ordinary details can quickly take on a very different meaning. And then there is always the comment that appears in almost every thread.

Someone inevitably writes: “Call the police.” I can just hear the conversation: “Yeah, there’s a man walking down the street carrying a package. He’s wearing a black hoodie and sunglasses. Can you send someone?” 

At this point, the situation has officially escalated. A person walked past a house in the middle of the afternoon, wearing a hoodie because it was on the cool side and sunglasses because it was bright outside, and suddenly, the neighborhood is discussing law enforcement involvement.

Another commenter usually steps in with a calmer observation.

“Maybe they were just walking.”

Which, in fact, is what most people do when they are on a sidewalk. Eventually, someone recognizes the mysterious figure.

“That’s my son. I asked if he could pick up a package for me.”

At which point the mystery ends almost as quickly as it began. The suspected criminal turns out to be a perfectly normal human being doing perfectly normal human things.

Life Inside the Local Facebook Group: The Free Couch That Starts a Community Debate

Another classic feature of local Facebook groups is the “free item” post that usually begins with a photo taken in a driveway, garage, or basement. Someone is giving something away. Often it’s a couch. Sometimes it’s a coffee table. Occasionally, it’s a large wooden cabinet that clearly weighs as much as a refrigerator and would require three strong people and a pickup truck to move.

The post itself is simple enough. “Free couch. Must pick up.” There is a photo. That should be the end of it. Someone who needs a couch sees the post, sends a message, and comes to pick it up. But that’s not how it works in Facebook groups. Instead, the comment section slowly turns into a full community discussion.

The first comment almost always appears within minutes. “Is it still available?”

Now, the post was written approximately sixty seconds earlier, so the odds are fairly good that the couch has not yet been carried away by an eager crowd of furniture hunters. But the question must be asked. Soon another person joins the conversation.

“Dimensions?” Which is a reasonable question, although the couch clearly occupies half the living room in the photo and appears to be roughly the size of every other couch on earth.

Another commenter wants more details. “Smoke-free home?” Someone else asks about pets. “Pet-free?”

Which leads to the subtle implication that the couch may have been living its previous life surrounded by a pack of golden retrievers.

Then comes the question that appears in almost every thread about free items that must be picked up.

“Can you deliver?” The person giving away the couch politely explains that delivery is not included in the free offer. This information was actually contained in the original post under the words “must pick up,” but the question is asked anyway.

The conversation continues. Another person asks if the couch comes with the throw pillows shown in the photo. Someone else wonders if the owner might consider holding the couch for a few days, as if they were offering a layaway plan. 

“My cousin might want it, but he needs to borrow a truck from his friend who’s out of town until Thursday.”

Meanwhile, a helpful neighbor suggests that instead of giving the couch away, the owner might want to donate it to a local charity. Another commenter asks if the couch is a sofa bed.

Someone else wants to know whether it will fit through a standard doorway. At this point, the couch has achieved a level of analysis usually reserved for engineering projects.

Eventually, someone finally claims it. “I can pick it up in twenty minutes.”

The owner replies with relief. “Sounds good.”

You might think the story ends there.

But Facebook threads have a way of continuing long after the furniture itself has left the building. Two hours later, another comment appears.

“I could have taken that if it was still available.” Someone else adds: “It’s better to post these first thing in the morning to give everyone a chance.” That is interesting advice for someone who was giving away a perfectly good couch for free. 

By now, the couch is newly settled in someone’s man cave, but the comment section remains active. People continue asking questions.

Someone wants to know where it originally came from. Another person wonders whether the owner has anything else they plan to give away.

For a brief moment, the couch has become a minor celebrity and community event.

Next time, the owner will haul it to the curb and post a “Free” sign on it. 

Life Inside the Local Facebook Group: The Lost Pet That Was Never Lost

Every local Facebook group eventually develops a steady stream of lost pet alerts.

At first glance, these posts seem perfectly reasonable. Someone’s dog or cat has wandered off, and the owner is understandably worried. The community rallies around the search effort. Photos are shared, locations are posted, and people promise to keep an eye out.

But over time, a curious pattern begins to emerge. Many of the “missing” pets were never really missing at all. They were simply doing what animals have been doing since the beginning of time: wandering around the neighborhood. 

The post usually begins with a photo and a message written with an obvious sense of urgency.

“Has anyone seen our cat Muffin? She’s black and white. Last seen near Cedar Street around 4:30.”

Within minutes, the entire community becomes involved.

“I think I saw a cat like that near the school!” “Check behind the grocery store.” “My neighbor’s dog chased a cat earlier!”

People begin scanning their yards and looking under decks as if they’ve joined a volunteer search-and-rescue operation or a treasure hunt. Then, a few hours later, the update appears.

“Muffin has been found! She was under the bed in the basement.” Then, of course, come the inevitable responses.

“So glad to hear.” “Happy it all worked out for your family and Muffin.” 

Which raises an interesting question. How did the cat get under the bed without anyone noticing? But that mystery is quickly overshadowed by the relief that Muffin is safe.

And the cycle begins again a few days later with someone else’s dog, cat, ferret, gerbil, or occasionally even a hen.

Life Inside the Local Facebook Group: The Detective

I joined a few Facebook groups when I moved to Buckhorn because it’s good for business, and I wanted to keep in touch with Buckhorn and the surrounding communities in various ways. Anyway, I’ve noticed a few funny (to me, at least) quirks and comments in these groups, which may be partly due to the small-town experience. Then again, it’s probably part of every community Facebook group, no matter how big the city or town. And so begins a several-part series on this very topic. First off, we have the Facebook Detective.

If you belong to any local Facebook community groups, you’ll eventually notice a particular kind of personality that appears again and again. I call them the Facebook detectives. They are deeply committed to solving mysteries that, in most cases, aren’t really mysteries at all.

These groups usually start with good intentions. Someone creates a community page so neighbors can share useful information – road closures, local events, lost pets (stay tuned for a separate entry on this subject), things like that. And for a while, it works exactly as intended. Then gradually something else begins to happen. Every small event within a thirty-mile radius becomes a breaking news investigation.

Someone posts: “It’s a holiday weekend. Is Foodland open today?” You stare at the question for a moment, wondering whether the person posting it has ever heard of something called a website. Or a phone. Or even the possibility of driving past the store to see if the lights are on.

But no. The question must be taken to the community. Within minutes, the comment section fills with responses.

“I think so.” “They were open yesterday.” “My cousin works there but she’s on vacation this week.” “Try calling or checking their website.” Which, of course, was the one obvious step that somehow never occurred to the person before their post went live.

Another favorite appears whenever a police car drives by with its lights flashing.

“I just saw a police car go down Main Street with its siren on. Does anyone know what’s going on?” This question is asked as though the residents of the Facebook group have immediate access to a live police command center.

You can almost imagine the replies. “Checking the police scanner now.” “My neighbor’s brother’s friend is a cop. I’ll text him.” “Could be anything.” Which is usually the correct answer, though it rarely satisfies the group’s investigative spirit.

Then there are the sky sightings. Someone posts at night: “I just saw a light in the sky moving west. Does anyone know what it was?” Now the theories begin. “Drone.” “Military aircraft.” “Satellite.” “Meteor.” “Starlink.” “Aliens.” Someone inevitably suggests aliens.

The truth is usually far less dramatic. It was probably a plane. Or a satellite. Or a meteor that burned out in a few seconds. But where’s the fun in that?

Another classic involves wildlife. “I was driving down Sideroad 27 and saw a dead bobcat on the side of the road. Does anyone know what happened?” At this point, the logical explanation presents itself immediately. Someone hit it. But again, the Facebook detectives go to work.

“Was it near the old barn?” “I saw a deer running across the road earlier.” “Hope everyone involved is okay.” Which is thoughtful, although the poor bobcat unfortunately did not survive the incident.

What makes these posts so fascinating isn’t the questions themselves. Curiosity is a perfectly normal human instinct. It’s the idea that the entire community must be consulted before the most obvious explanation is considered. A store might simply be open. A police car is responding to a call because, you know, that’s kind of what they do. A bright light in the sky might simply be an airplane. And a bobcat on the road probably encountered a vehicle weighing two tons and traveling at highway speed.

Yet the investigation continues. Dozens of comments appear as neighbors speculate, analyze, and occasionally argue about what might be happening in their otherwise quiet corner of the world.

In a strange way, these posts reveal something slightly comforting about human nature. People want to know what’s going on around them. They want to share information and be in the know. They want to feel connected to the small daily events of their community, even if those events turn out to be less mysterious than they initially appear.

When Nostalgia Sneaks Up on You

Nostalgia is a funny thing because it rarely arrives when you expect it. You don’t wake up in the morning and say, “Today feels like a good day to revisit memories from a long time ago.” Life usually moves too quickly for that. There are emails to answer, errands to run, and the usual day-to-day concerns that keep your mind focused on the present.

But every once in a while, something small flips a switch. The other day it was music – sometimes it seems like half my life is inspired by music. Anyway, I put on some songs from the mid-1970s – the kind that played constantly on AM radio back then. Nothing special. Just background music while doing other things. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, I was thinking about a cottage my parents rented in June of 1969.

It wasn’t a vague memory either. I could picture the place clearly: a large cottage set back from the lake, surrounded by trees, with a dirt road leading in from the main highway. The lake itself was small and quiet – White Lake in Frontenac County, north of Kingston, Ontario. Yes, that’s really is it directly below.

The memory arrived so quickly it almost felt like stepping into another room. One minute I’m listening to music while writing. The next minute, I’m standing on the shoreline of a lake in 1969. And like most nostalgic moments, the memory started pulling other details along with it. The quiet of cottage country. Long summer days outside. The smell of lake water and pine trees.

Then something else happened. Without really thinking about it, I found myself looking up cottage rentals in the area. Not because I’m planning a trip. Not because I’m trying to recreate the experience. That’s just what nostalgia does. It nudges you to see if the places you remember are still there.

In this case, I already knew the answer. Several years ago – I think it was around 2016 – curiosity got the better of me, and I actually drove back to that lake. It didn’t take long to find it.

The dirt road was still there. Even the same transformer along the road stood exactly where I remembered it. The trees, the curve of the shoreline, the quiet feel of the place – none of it had changed very much at all. And the cottage was still there, too. The same large cottage set back from the water. 

I remember walking around looking at it and thinking, almost out loud: “We stayed there in June of 1969.” It was a strange moment. For a few seconds, it felt as though time had folded in on itself. But there was something else that struck me. The lake looked smaller than I remembered. And the little island that once seemed far away now appeared much closer to shore.

That’s another quirk of nostalgia. The places from childhood often shrink when you see them again as an adult. What once felt enormous somehow becomes manageable. Distances shorten. Landmarks move closer together.

The lake and the surroundings hadn’t changed. I had.

Interestingly enough, there are at least two other lakes nearby with the same name, White Lake, which probably confuses visitors who stumble onto maps of the area. There is also a White Lake Provincial Park in the western end of the province, near Lake Superior. 

But the one I remembered was unmistakable. It was the same lake, same dirt road. The same cottage sits quietly back from the shoreline. And now, years later, a few old songs were enough to bring it all back again. 

That’s the strange power of nostalgia. It just walks in unexpectedly, carrying pieces of the past you haven’t thought about in decades.

Zabriskie Point and the Question of How Long to Look

Another entry in my travel series. 

Some places are easy to leave. You stop the car, take some photos, go for a walk to loosen up, and within fifteen minutes, you’re back on the road again, the place already fading into the rearview mirror of the trip while you think, “That was nice; I’m glad I was there.”

Other places are different. They slow you down in a way that’s hard to explain. You arrive expecting to look around for a few minutes, and before you know it, you’ve been standing there for half an hour just quietly taking it in.

That was my experience at Zabriskie Point.

There are plenty of stunning places nearby in Death Valley National Park – sand dunes, salt flats, and desert mountains that seem to stretch endlessly. But Zabriskie Point has a kind of strange, sculpted beauty that almost looks unreal at first glance.

The landscape is a series of soft, folded hills and ridges carved by erosion over thousands of years. The colors shift depending on the angle of the sun – gold, beige, rust, sometimes almost glowing in the late afternoon light. It doesn’t look like the kind of terrain most people imagine when they think of the desert. It looks more like a painting and I’ve heard it described as such. 

The interesting thing is that my original inspiration for going there had nothing to do with geology. It came from music. Years earlier, I had read that “You Got the Silver” by The Rolling Stones was used in the 1970 film Zabriskie Point, and that little bit of trivia had stayed somewhere in the back of my mind.

When I eventually found myself traveling through that part of the country, the name jumped out at me on the map. So I went. And like many of those places in the American Southwest, it turned out to be one of those stops where you linger longer than expected.

There are certain landmarks that create the same kind of reaction.

You arrive at Meteor Crater in Arizona and spend several minutes simply staring at the enormous hole in the earth from different vantage points, trying to grasp the scale of what happened there.

You walk up to the edge of the Grand Canyon, and the first thing that hits you is how quiet it is. Not literal silence – there are usually plenty of visitors around – but the kind of mental pause that happens when your brain is trying to process something too large to easily absorb. You also notice there is no guardrail for the most part, and if you stand too close to the edge, a sudden, sharp gust of wind will send you tumbling down to the bottom of the canyon with no hope of survival.

Or you stand somewhere in the Rocky Mountains and realize that photographs never quite capture what it feels like to actually stand there.

Places like these raise an oddly simple question. How long are you supposed to look at them?

There’s a scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation where the Griswold family finally reaches the Grand Canyon after hours of driving. They step out of the car, look at the canyon for a moment, and then almost immediately turn around and leave. The scene is played for laughs, but there’s actually a bit of truth hiding in that joke. Because when you arrive at a place that vast or beautiful, there’s a brief moment where your brain seems to ask: Okay… now what?

Do you stare at it for five minutes? Ten? An hour? The answer is probably: Long enough. Standing at Zabriskie Point, I realized that there probably isn’t a correct answer. You look long enough to take it in and absorb it. Long enough for the place to register as more than just another stop on a travel itinerary.

For some people, that might be five minutes, and for others it might be forty-five. 

But the places that stay with you are usually the ones where you pause long enough to actually feel where you are. The sense that the landscape has been sitting there for countless years, completely indifferent to how briefly we pass through it.

Looking back on road trips through the Southwest, the places I remember most clearly are the ones where I lingered a little longer than planned. Zabriskie Point was one of them.

Places where the original plan might have been a quick stop, but something about the landscape quietly convinced you to stay a while. Maybe that’s the real measure of a great travel destination.

A Visit to Joshua Tree National Park

Another entry in my travel log series

The first thing that hits you about Joshua Tree National Park in California is the feeling of space. Wide desert landscapes stretch in every direction, broken up by massive piles of boulders that look as if someone dropped them there eons ago. And then there are the trees themselves – the strange, twisting shapes of the Joshua tree reaching upward like something halfway between a cactus and a sculpture.

They don’t look like any tree you’re used to seeing; they look like they belong in the desert.

Driving and hiking through the park feels a bit like entering another world. The roads wind through open desert valleys, and climbers dot the landscape here and there, slowly working their way up the sun-warmed granite. Occasionally, you’ll see another hiker, or hikers, crossing the terrain with backpacks and wide-brimmed hats.

But what stands out most is the quiet. Joshua Tree sits where two deserts meet – the Mojave and the Colorado – and the vastness of the place gives it a kind of stillness that’s hard to find elsewhere. There are moments when you step out of the car and realize there’s almost no sound at all except for the wind moving softly across the desert floor.

And that’s when you start noticing things. The way the light changes across the rocks as the sun moves through the sky. The delicate desert plants that survive in conditions that seem impossibly harsh. The shadows cast by the Joshua trees themselves are long and angular across the sand.

At first glance, the desert might seem empty. But the longer you stay, the more life you begin to see. Road trips often involve a certain rhythm. You drive, stop somewhere briefly, take a few photos, and then move on. But Joshua Tree has a way of slowing that rhythm down. It invites you to linger for a while and walk around. You might climb a few rocks and then sit quietly and just look out across the desert. I wish I had spent two or three days there because there is so much to see, but I had to settle for a full day of hiking and sightseeing. 

You begin to understand why so many artists and musicians have been drawn to this landscape over the years; the stark beauty of the desert that clears the mind. The lack of distractions becomes part of the appeal.

As the sun begins to drop toward the horizon, the colors in the park shift dramatically. The granite rocks take on a warm glow, and the silhouettes of the Joshua trees become even more striking against the desert sky.

Joshua Tree doesn’t demand your attention the way some famous landmarks do. Instead, it waits for you to notice its quiet details like the shapes of the trees, the textures of the rocks, the enormous desert sky stretching overhead.

And once you do notice them, it becomes the kind of place you remember long after the trip is over. Sometimes the most beautiful places in the world are the ones that simply ask you to slow down. Joshua Tree is one of those places.

Life Happens in Chapters

Every once in a while, if you stop long enough to think about it, you realize something interesting about life. It doesn’t unfold in one long, continuous story the way we often imagine when we’re younger. Instead, it happens in chapters.

At the time you’re living them, those chapters rarely announce themselves. There is no opening title card or closing credits. You don’t hear a narrator saying, “And this is where the next part of your life begins.” Most of the time, you are simply moving through ordinary days of working, paying bills, making plans, dealing with small frustrations and small victories, without realizing that one chapter is quietly ending while another one is preparing to begin.

Only later, when you look back, does the structure become obvious. You begin to see the clear divisions.

There was the chapter where you grew up with your family, the house where everything felt permanent, the routines that seemed like they would last forever. Parents, siblings, school, neighborhood friends, the familiar rhythm of holidays and summers. At the time, it feels like the whole world, but eventually that chapter closes in ways you never fully anticipated. People move away, parents grow older, houses get sold, and the place that once felt like the center of your life becomes a memory you revisit occasionally in your mind.

Then there are the work chapters. You take a job that seems like it might define your future. You throw yourself into it. You learn things, meet people, and build routines around it. Years pass. Sometimes the job ends because you decide to move on. Sometimes it ends because the company changes direction, restructures, downsizes, or simply disappears. What once felt stable becomes a closed chapter in the story of your working life.

And if you’ve lived long enough, you probably have several of those. Each job becomes its own period of time, with its own cast of characters, its own pressures, its own small culture that makes sense while you’re inside it. Years later, you might still remember the people, the office, the strange little routines that defined that era of your life.

Relationships create their own chapters, too. There may be a chapter where you built a life with someone who once seemed certain to remain part of your story forever. You share a home, a routine, a future that feels mapped out. And yet life has a way of changing directions. Sometimes relationships end quietly, sometimes painfully, and suddenly a chapter that once seemed permanent is now something you look back on with distance and perspective. That doesn’t mean the chapter was meaningless. Quite the opposite. Some of the most important lessons in life come from chapters that eventually close.

Then there are the geography chapters. You live in one city or town for years and become convinced that it is where your life will unfold indefinitely. You know the streets, the coffee shops, the grocery stores, the places where you walk or drive without thinking. Then something changes, like a job opportunity, a personal decision, a need for a fresh start, and you find yourself packing boxes and beginning again somewhere else.

The new place eventually becomes familiar too. It develops its own rhythms, its own routines, its own set of small memories. But the previous place remains part of the earlier chapter, frozen in time the way things often are when you leave them behind.

What’s interesting is that while we are living inside a chapter, it often feels like the whole book. You assume this is simply how life will be from now on. The job, the city, the relationship, the daily routines – they feel stable enough that you imagine they will stretch forward indefinitely.

But life rarely works that way. Sometimes chapters end slowly, fading out over time as circumstances change. Other times, they end abruptly, with little warning. A job disappears or a relationship ends. A move becomes necessary. Something you once assumed would always be there quietly slips into the past.

And yet new chapters begin, sometimes in ways you couldn’t have predicted. You meet people who become important in ways you didn’t see coming. You move to a place that feels like home, even though it felt unfamiliar at first. You discover work or interests that you hadn’t considered earlier in life. Entire experiences of living open up that would have been impossible to imagine when you were still inside the previous chapter.

Looking back, you start to see how clearly life has been divided. Each one shaped you differently. Each one introduced you to people and experiences that left their mark, even if the chapter eventually ended.

Even the difficult chapters serve a purpose. At the time, they can feel frustrating, confusing, or even painful. But years later, you realize they were transitional periods that moved you toward something else. They were not the whole story. They were simply the pages that connected one stage of life to the next.

And that realization brings a certain calm. Because if life really does unfold in chapters, then the current one – whatever it looks like right now – is not the entire book. It’s simply the section you happen to be living in at the moment. Some chapters last longer than others and are quieter. Some are chaotic or end before you’re ready for them to end. But new chapters keep arriving. And the story keeps moving forward, even when you didn’t expect it to.

The Salton Sea and Slab City

Another entry in my ongoing travel series of places I’ve been.

Travel often takes you to famous places. National parks, historic landmarks, scenic viewpoints, where the beauty of the landscape is obvious the moment you arrive.

And then there are the places that don’t really seem to fit into any category.

My trip to the Salton Sea and nearby Slab City falls firmly into another category. Interesting might be the best word to describe both places.

The Salton Sea itself looks out of place the first time you see it. Sitting in the middle of the California desert, it looks like a massive inland lake that shouldn’t really be there. And in many ways, it wasn’t supposed to exist in the form it does today. The modern sea was created in the early 1900s when flooding from the Colorado River filled a low basin in the desert.

From a distance, it looks peaceful enough with water under the desert sun. But as you get closer, the atmosphere changes.

Shorelines show the effects of decades of environmental challenges. The water level has fluctuated. Some areas appear almost surreal, with abandoned structures and quiet stretches of beach that feel frozen in time. The surrounding desert landscape adds to the sense that you’ve arrived somewhere far removed from the busy world.

And then there’s Slab City.

If the Salton Sea feels unusual, Slab City feels like stepping into an entirely different social experiment.

Located on the site of an old military base, Slab City is an off-grid community where people have created an improvised settlement in the desert. RVs, trailers, handmade structures, and art installations dot the landscape. Some residents stay seasonally, escaping colder climates in winter, while others live there year-round.

The place has earned the nickname “the last free place in America,” and walking through it you can see why. There are no conventional city streets. No zoning regulations or neat rows of houses. There are no laws or rent paid and everyone polices themselves. Instead, the landscape is filled with a patchwork of creativity, survival, and improvisation.

One of the most well-known landmarks nearby is Salvation Mountain, a colorful hillside covered in painted messages and artwork created by a local resident decades ago. Against the backdrop of the desert, it feels both whimsical and strangely inspiring.

Like many places in Arizona and part of California, what struck me most about visiting the Salton Sea and Slab City was the sense of remoteness. You feel far away from the familiar rhythms of cities and suburbs. The desert stretches in every direction, and the people who choose to spend time there seem drawn by that very remoteness.

It’s not a place you visit for polished tourist attractions; it’s a place you visit because you’re curious. You are curious about landscapes that don’t quite fit expectations and about communities that exist outside conventional systems. You feel like you are on the edge of the map.

Travel isn’t always about finding the most beautiful destination. Sometimes it’s about discovering places that make you pause and think, “Well, this is different.” The Salton Sea and Slab City certainly fall into that category.

They may not appear on every traveler’s bucket list, but they offer something many famous destinations don’t: a glimpse of life lived far from the usual rules.

Inside The Mind of a Narcissist

Understanding narcissistic behavior can feel like trying to solve a puzzle that never quite fits together. If you’ve ever dealt with someone who constantly distorts reality, lashes out unexpectedly, or seems incapable of accepting responsibility, you may have wondered what is going on inside their mind.

A narcissist processes the world very differently from the way most people do. What appears to be anger directed at you often isn’t personal in the way we normally think of it. Instead, it may be triggered by something you possess that they feel they lack such as kindness, creativity, life experiences, professional success, financial stability, or even the ability to form healthy relationships.

Any of these can provoke jealousy. In the narcissist’s distorted worldview, they often believe they deserve these things more than you do. And if they cannot have them, part of their thinking becomes: why should you have them either? That belief can justify hostility, resentment, and rage that seem wildly disproportionate to whatever triggered it.

Another confusing dynamic emerges when you try to help them. Most people respond to constructive feedback with at least some level of reflection or appreciation. Narcissists tend to experience even mild criticism as a direct threat to their identity. In their mind, they are already flawless. Any suggestion otherwise – even a small one – feels like an attack on their character.

Instead of gratitude, they may respond with contempt, defensiveness, or open hostility. The very act of pointing out a problem becomes proof, in their eyes, that you are the problem. 

This is why conversations with narcissists often feel exhausting and circular. You try to explain something calmly. They twist the point. You clarify again. They deflect to something unrelated. Suddenly, you’re arguing about ten different things, none of which resolve the original issue. They try to pull you into debates about almost anything because conflict itself becomes a tool for maintaining control and protecting their self-image.

Over time, certain patterns start to repeat themselves when dealing with narcissistic personalities. If you’ve encountered one, some of these behaviors may sound familiar: Conversations somehow always turn back to them; criticism is never accepted, only deflected; past events are rewritten to make them the victim; your achievements are minimized or mocked; boundaries are ignored or treated as personal attacks; you leave interactions feeling exhausted, frustrated, or confused. 

When these patterns appear consistently, you’re not dealing with a simple personality conflict. You’re dealing with a deeply entrenched psychological dynamic. And this leads to one of the most fascinating – and misunderstood – traits of narcissistic personalities.

Underneath the arrogance is often an extreme sensitivity to shame. To outsiders, narcissists can appear confident, dominant, or even untouchable. But many psychologists believe that the grandiose persona is actually a defense mechanism protecting a deeply fragile sense of self. Even minor criticism can trigger overwhelming feelings of inadequacy. Instead of processing those feelings, the narcissist’s mind immediately moves into defense and attack mode.

That’s when you begin to see familiar behaviors: blame shifting, gaslighting, rage, ridicule, relentless psychological abuse, dehumanization, brutalization, and projection.

Anything that allows them to push the shame away and redirect it onto someone else. Understanding this dynamic helps explain why interactions with narcissists can feel so draining. You think you’re having a normal conversation, but they experience the discussion as a threat to their identity.

For a long time, I didn’t fully understand these dynamics myself. Like many people, I assumed that if I stayed calm enough, explained things clearly enough, or showed enough patience, conflicts would eventually resolve themselves. But narcissistic personalities don’t operate by the normal rules of communication.

And sometimes the situation becomes even more complicated when the narcissist isn’t a colleague, a boss, or a casual acquaintance. Sometimes they’re members of your family.

One moment from years ago still stands out because it captured the imbalance in one of the relationships so clearly.

Back in the mid-1990s, I went through a difficult economic period in my life. Instead of support or empathy, one sibling responded with criticism and lectures about responsibility, reliability, religion, and my decisions. I was lamenting some of those decisions aloud, and the response was, “Well, make better ones!” It was harsh, and looking back now, that may have been the moment when the relationship should have changed permanently.

Years later, the roles were reversed. When their marriage fell apart, I was called looking for emotional and financial support on more than one occasion. I didn’t hesitate. I helped without a word of criticism. But I remember thinking quietly to myself: Notice I didn’t do to you what you did to me in 1994. They didn’t.

I didn’t lecture.
I didn’t kick when they were down.
I simply tried to help.

And in that moment, the irony was impossible to ignore.

Over time, moments like that started to add up. I realized the relationship had slowly turned into something that felt less like family and more like a constant obligation—someone who seemed to appear only when they wanted or needed something.

Eventually, I had to confront what had been quietly building for years. Relationships are built on mutual empathy, not one-sided obligation.

I had to acknowledge a difficult truth: empathy that flows only one way isn’t really a relationship.

You could feel the tension almost immediately when you were around either sibling, as well as their desire to dominate. Conversations often carried an undercurrent of hostility, competition, or subtle manipulation. One of them, frankly, fits the description of a malignant narcissist, and perhaps even something closer to sociopathy. Over time, I came to a necessary conclusion: maintaining contact was doing more harm than good. Several years ago, I decided to go no contact with both of them.

Walking away from family relationships carries its own emotional weight. But protecting your mental and emotional well-being requires drawing boundaries that once felt impossible.

In my own case, the results of going no contact have been quietly profound. It has been more than five years since I last had contact with one, and over eight years since I last had contact with another. Life has still thrown its share of challenges my way – as it does for everyone – but two major sources of emotional exhaustion are no longer part of my daily reality. The tension, the arguments that went nowhere, the unexpected rages at even the most simple thing or comment, the subtle manipulation that left you second-guessing yourself… all of that simply stopped. What replaced it wasn’t dramatic happiness or some magical transformation. It was something far more valuable: peace. A quieter mind. The ability to move forward without the emotional drain that once seemed unavoidable. Sometimes the strongest decision you can make is refusing to keep participating in a dynamic that will never change. 

And that brings us to an important truth. Understanding narcissistic behavior doesn’t mean you can fix it. You cannot reason someone out of a mindset they are psychologically committed to protecting. You cannot force someone to accept responsibility if their entire identity is built around avoiding it.

What you can do is recognize the pattern. Sometimes the healthiest response isn’t to keep arguing, explaining, or defending yourself. Sometimes the healthiest response is to recognize that you’re dealing with someone who cannot see the world in any way but their own – and to step away before their chaos becomes your burden.

And the greatest peace doesn’t come from winning the argument. It comes from no longer having to participate in it at all. I’m not sure why these memories have been on my mind again lately. That chapter of my life is long behind me now, though a few scars remain. But if there is one regret, it’s simply this: I wish I had made that decision over twenty years earlier.