This is basically my brother Jeff Muscato . He was a homeowner at 25yo, a single guy with no pets and a 3 bedroom house with a fantastic kitchen and a huge fenced-in backyard that Daddy bought for him - at the same time that I was literally homeless, in the same town, just a few miles away.
Jeff went to this boarding school Grove in Connecticut that was $100,000 per year. Raised by a series of live-in nannies, he started his own business at President and CEO at age 20 with a small gift of $1.7m from Mommy and Daddy (an absurd business idea of a million-dollar DJ nightclub showroom, what every small Midwestern town needs) which went out of business in a small handful of years, losing everything, of course.
(Well, not EVERYTHING... Jeff did treat himself to a $10k+ home theater audio system that he took home went the business went under).
He wears $300 shoes, and carries a $300 fountain pen. He gets his dress shirts and slacks and jackets tailored. He always wears cashmere socks. He thinks he's a lawyer partner or something, the way he dresses. He works at home (3 bedroom house all to himself), remotely, maintaining a retail website.
It's unreal that at the beginning of this year, I was homeless, living in a hotel, by myself, while recovering from back surgery. My family lives here! I have two brothers who are both homeowners. How heartless and cruel and apathetic can they be?! It's just unbelievable how cold they are. They just completely lack compassion.
But at the same time, my brother Jeff presents himself as a progressive. He likes Bernie Sanders. He genders people correctly and never deadnames anyone. He regularly posts anti-capitalism memes. He presents himself as a queer ally.
But at the same time, his trans sister is suffering - my dad refuse to return my prescription opioid pain medications while I was recovering from back surgery to me for 3 weeks, I had to take him to court and have a judge order him to return them to me. I suffered for weeks in a hotel by myself recovering from back surgery. My brother lives in this city. Why wasn't he helping me? Why wasn't I staying with him?
My father Dr Joe Muscato battered me. I escaped to a hotel and then I got my own place. This makes no sense. There is absolutely no reason that I should have my parents and two brothers who b all own homes, living in the same town, well I'm staying in a hotel for 2 months suffering by myself. It just doesn't make sense. These people are my family, why do they hate me so much? Why are they so willing to just sit there while I'm suffering? How can they pretend to be decent people to the world when their own sister is suffering like this?
It's a facade. It's a mask. He is two-faced. It's really sad. My brother has grandiose subtype narcissistic personality disorder, just like my dad. He's not malignant, he just doesn't care about anyone but himself. He's obsessed with appearing upper class, he is obsessed with things like tying his tie perfectly, wearing the correct watch that goes with your suit, making sure his shoes are shined but not too much so it looks like he cares, it's all about appearances. It's all about how other people perceive him in his mind. That's all he cares about. He doesn't care about anyone else. He's incapable of loving anyone, it's really sad actually. He only cares about money and appearing to be rich. I mean this guy was driving a BMW convertible when he was 21 years old. He thinks he's better than other people. He thinks manual labor is beneath him. He also has obsessive compulsive disorder and he's on the spectrum.
I really don't understand why my family hates me so much. I mean I do, this is how narcissistic personality disorder plays out: you have the patriarch figurehead who is the grandiose subtype, the narcissist, and the narcissist assigns roles to family members... The golden child, the scapegoat, the enabler. My older brother Jeff is the golden child in the family. Even though he's done things like stealing from my parents, dropping out of high school, it's like he can do no wrong in my parents' eyes. No matter what he does, as long as he covers for my dad's violence and lies to protect the family image to the public, he can do anything.
My older brother Jeff is a bully. When I was in second grade, my brother would not let me leave my bedroom. He was standing on the other side of the door, and every time I tried to get close, he would slam it shut. I was going to be late for school, but he was trying to bully me. He opened the door so that I could leave, and then as soon as I got close to it he slammed it again. Over and over. Eventually I rushed my way through, he's 3 years older than I am, and he slammed my head in the door. I had to go to the emergency room and get stitches. I still have a scar on the side of my head several inches long where I got cracked in the noggin.
He never even apologized for that. My parents punished him, I think they grounded him for a short time and had a stern talk with him. But like, he sent me to the hospital.
My twin brother Andy also battered me. There was an incident where I was lying on the family room floor watching television, on my stomach. My brother wanted to change the channel, and I wouldn't let him have the remote. He started hitting me, and he hit me so hard that he broke a bone in his forearm.
He had to go to the hospital and get a cast. He had a sling for weeks. We made fun of him at the time, saying that he needed to drink more milk and take calcium supplements because his bones are so weak, since he hit me and his own arm broke.
Looking back, I mean both of my brothers have battered me. My dad battered me as well. I'm the scapegoat of the family, everything is my fault and it's okay to beat me up and taunt me and bully me because that's how they regulate their emotions. People with narcissistic personality disorder are unable to process their shame, so they project all of their bad feelings and guilt onto the scapegoat. In their mind, they are doing the right thing by punishing the bad person. Even if the bad person had nothing to do with it except being assigned this role.
I grew up with a lot of domestic violence and domestic abuse. I'm traumatized by this. I'm in therapy now, I've been in therapy for a few years and it's helping a lot. But my family ruined my life and continues to ruin my life today with all of this abuse of process and malicious litigation. I'm in the process of suing my dad for putting me through all of this. It's not right and I'm so tired of it. I just want to live my life.
With narcissists, all they care about is their reputation, their public image, their obsession with what other people might think of them. That's all they care about: presenting themselves is rich, conspicuous consumption it's called in anthropology.
Narcissists are unable to feel empathy or compassion. They are never generous, they are never kind. If they do something for you, it's transactional and they will keep track of it. You can't just have a conversation with a narcissist, they will turn every topic into a story about themselves or their opinions. Everything turns into a debate. You can't just talk and have a conversation, because they keep trying to one up you or steer things to bragging about themselves.
It's really sad. My whole family is like this. It's kind of interesting, because I was disowned when I was 17 and homeless and living in a park, the life I've lived since then has been with people around me who do not have narcissistic personality disorder, like my family of origin. I think that's why in the end I have turned out not to have narcissistic personality disorder like the rest of my family does. I got away from them while I was still in my formative years, and so I didn't develop the disorder like My two brothers.
My mother Dr Mary Muscato also has narcissistic personality disorder, although she has the covert subtype. She's not violent, she's passive aggressive and judgmental and plays dumb and cannot keep secrets and comments openly on people's bodies, race, weight, right to their face. She knows that she's making people uncomfortable and that's her goal. She's addicted to her phone and can't even hold a conversation without checking it. She often uses it while driving, I have refused to be a passenger while she is driving for years now because she is so dangerous behind the wheel. She's 74. And of course she drives a BMW SUV.
I'm so sad that I had to be raised in this environment of all of this poison. I haven't even gotten to talking about my twin brother Andy. He is genuinely evil. He is a malignant narcissist, he is spiteful and cruel and he's a bully and he's violent and he taunts people and he lies constantly. He fetishizes black women and he's very racist and transphobic. He dead names me and misgenders me routinely, even in writing. He hates trans people and he hates poor people and he is cruel and punishes people for fun. It's entertaining for him when he sees me suffer. He does it on purpose. It makes him giggle with Glee when he knows that he's causing me to suffer or be humiliated. He's a sadist. And of course, he's a police officer.
I'm just trying to live my life. It makes no sense that my parents are multi-millionaires while I was homeless in the same town. They hate me so much. I never did anything to them to deserve this. I was assigned the scapegoat role in the family dynamic when I was born. It had nothing to do with me, this is just how narcissistic family cults work: a scapegoat is assigned, and that person bears all of the hatred and guilt and shame of the rest of the narcissistic family.
