Few people can truly hide who they are. Reading people, however is an art.
Below are several screencaps of a home video. The individual in it is opening Christmas presents as he sits on a couch, while the cameraman is making a joke. Notice the angle of his eyebrows, and the area immediately under the eyes. That Affect is Anguish.
Cut that last picture off below the nose, and you could think he was crying, instead of trying to smile.
When a constant underlying anguish bleeds into unrelated facial expressions, it usually does so because it was experienced so constantly and overwhelmingly as a child that it was conditioned into a constant underlying affect. In most cases, this is secondary to an innate Narcissism, the entitlement of which magnifies every slight and unfortunate circumstance to unbearable proportions. To the innately Narcissistic, what would have been slightly disadvantageous circumstances to a normal person, become unbearable burdens, which profoundly damage their brains, and etch expressions like the above onto their faces.
When I see those eyebrows, and the anguish written across the areas under the eyes, I immediately assume the individual has deep psychological problems, and should be treated with extreme caution. Learning to spot anguish underneath normal facial expressions is probably one of the best steps one can take to protect themselves from the evil among us.
Be sure to notice also, the postural slump of the shoulders, even when seated. These characters are lifelong losers, and they rarely carry the ramrod straight posture of a Marine Drill Instructor. They will look beaten down. Slumped shoulders, hunched backs, and bowed heads are all important giveaways.
These are men who think any transgression against others is justified, because life has kicked them for so long, that everything is unfair. It is very similar to the Liberal’s assumption that hard earned dollars can be taken, because the industriousness which produced them was an unfair advantage. When you are a loser, life is unfair – so your unfairness in the face of unfairness becomes fair.
As the video progresses, the look of anguish finally gives way to the look of utter anguish below, followed by the subsequent expression of contempt and anger. As Affect Psychology maintains, Anger emerges from a perpetuated affect which remains unresolved, and unreleased. Here, the sadness is so constant, that it finally erupts into jealousy and rage, even as the individual strives to control and conceal it.
Shortly after the look of anger and contempt, the individual uttered the reason for the presentation of these affects.
“I don’t think I got all of this!”
The individual being filmed was Vaughn Taylor, an ex-con who had fled a halfway house in Utah. He had fled along with his friend Edward Dellie, also an ex-con on the run from the same halfway house. They had broken into several unoccupied houses in an isolated valley, probably stealing the SA revolver in his shoulder holster along the way, as well as another gun.
This video was shot with a stolen camcorder, in the final house they would break into. There, while the family was out shopping, Vaughn and Dellie relaxed and opened all of the family’s Christmas presents, while videotaping it.
As this went on, Taylor was being repeatedly reminded by each present of how he didn’t get lots of presents like this. This initially made him sad, until finally, as Affect Psychology would predict, the perpetual and unresolved anguish turned into feelings of jealousy, rage, and anger.
When you see characters like this, they often will have rage for their mother. I am not sure why. Maybe bad mothering in the first years of life predisposes towards NPD as it does with APD, and then adds further rage at the bad mothering they endure later. Or maybe moms are easy to blame one’s failures on when you are a loser, since the Narcissist reasons that their mom could have just given them success. I don’t know. I do suspect that such an underlying anti-mom dynamic is what was at play in this character’s head, however. If his mom wasn’t such a bad mother, he could have grown up normal, and had nice Christmases like these people had.
Unfortunately, Narcissists don’t do complex analysis, and tailor their behavioral responses to the unique aspects of new circumstances. They create broad categories of interactions, and shoehorn all of their subsequent human interactions into one of those categories – whether the circumstances fit or not.
If a Narcissist hates his mother, he doesn’t meet other women and view them as different people. They are his mother, and all of his mother’s sins will transfer directly to the new woman for the purposes of their interactions. I once had a Narcissist bitching to me about his wife. He said of her, “My own mother, and she rah, rah, rah…..” He went on and on, without any clue of the slip.
Unfortunately, once a Narcissist is pissed at his mother, he will see her in every woman he crosses paths with. When the family, whose presents Taylor was stealing returned, a young girl, her mom, and her Grandmom entered the house. Taylor and Dellie jumped out, and confronted them. Without provocation, Taylor shot the mother and the grandmother, killing them both immediately. When the girl’s father returned with his other daughter, Taylor told Dellie to shoot the father, but Dellie refused. Taylor shot him, and then kidnapped both young daughters.
The father, shot in the face, doused with gasoline, and set aflame in the now burning house, played dead. As the men left with his daughters, he jumped into the shower to douse the flames, ran from the house wet and unclothed into a freezing Utah Winter, and ran down the road for help. The two ex-cons were caught almost immediately due to his heroism, and the young girls were saved. Both ex-cons were noted by responding officers for being utter cowards once faced with real men who were ready to kill them. Vaughn got the death penalty, while Dellie got life.
It is tough to explain to someone who hasn’t seen it, how perpetual anguish so easily and frequently erupts into a jealousy and rage which cannot be reined in by logic or reason. However, if you see it yourself, you will know the danger behind that facial expression. It is very similar to what motivates modern Liberalism.
Watch eyebrows, and if you see two that are unduly raised in the middle, and sloping down to the outside, set over squinting eyes, look below the eyes, and ask yourself, “If this person’s mouth wasn’t trying to smile, would the area beneath their eyes look sad or pained?”
Above is a guy with the beginning of such sloping eyebrows, but his facial expression is utterly relaxed in comparison to Vaughn’s. He isn’t anguished, and the area under the eyes is relaxed. He is a detective who worked the Vaughn/Dellie case, and his eyebrows may be sloping because he is describing anguishing elements of the crime, but he doesn’t have the look of anguish and pain etched below the eyes which Vaughn does, and the outer edge of his eyebrows aren’t squinting down as if grimacing. He does not look anguished.
For those who want to see real anguish, not associated with mental illness, a good image is here.
If you see that anguished expression etched on someone’s face, be very careful, and understand that any smile may just be a mask concealing much deeper troubles.
The real problem with such individuals is they are not brave – they will not lash out at you to your face, unless you are utterly powerless. They are the modern Liberal. If you have any ability to resist their attack, they will strike out at you behind your back without warning, when you’re not looking. They will try to catch you sleeping.
Don’t let them.
Powerful. Wow.