We left for our mission in the fall of 2013. After 10 days of training, we flew to South America and took up residence in a little high-rise apartment in the city center. We met and worked with wonderful people, who have become close friends, in spite of language, culture, and distance. We traveled by foot, by taxi, by bus, and finally we bought a car, and traveled further. We had amazing experiences. And we ran into narcissists.
The first one was not actually a narcissist, although some of the symptoms are the same across mental, emotional and personality disorders. The third day we were in country we walked the 10 blocks to the office where we would be serving and met the wonderful staff of ladies, which included another volunteer missionary like ourselves, a local woman who was evidently depressed, negative, controlling, incompetent, unable to take direction, and interfering. It became apparent from the moment she arrived a month before we had, that she was a very troubled soul. She had not finished high school, had three illegitimate children, lived with her children's abusive father until his death a few years earlier, and as the only recipient of her late father's pension, was resented by her siblings. She considered herself an expert in marriage relations and was upset when we did not ask her to teach a marriage relations class.
Eventually the other ladies in the office confided that she had delusions of being in love with a young missionary, (she was 55 years old,) had driven people out of the office by lying about the staff, and had been thrown out of one apartment and had to find another place to stay. We visited the president of the mission and suggested she be evaluated by a psychologist, and this was done. She was diagnosed as schizophrenic, which, I have been told, is one of the most difficult and intractable of mental illnesses. The wheels were set in motion to have her removed as a missionary. In the meantime, we were told, we were to make sure she did not feel any pressure for the remaining weeks she would be with us. In other words, we were to babysit her in the now-empty office. When she got very tense, she would start cleaning, so for those weeks our office was extremely clean. The church leaders who recommended her as a missionary knew of her mental problems, but sent her anyway, perhaps thinking she would improve with distance--although serving as a missionary is fairly stressful, especially for those who cannot tolerate a change of circumstances.
When she finally took her two-hour bus ride home, we began to pick up the pieces and build the volunteer office services back to previous levels. The delightful office manager, Rosa, was known and loved far and wide, and with our efforts and the efforts of the faithful office staff, we eventually had many people coming for help with education and jobs. It was very rewarding.
In order to further develop this initiative, a well-paid manager was hired by the church to administer the program over a large geographical area. He moved his family closer to the office and began spending time with us. From the beginning my husband recognized him as another controlling, self-involved person, who although competent in financial matters, was without consideration of any kind for much of anything else, apparently unaware that the faithful staff were not slaves there to make him look good, but long-time volunteers who had worked without pay to accomplish more than he could. He seemed content with driving people away from the office because they were too poor, too humble, and less than he was. He tried to control all our movements, claiming it was instructions from his superior, although his superior disavowed that he had given any such instructions. Eventually we contacted the program headquarters in the U.S. and were told to break with him and continue with our own initiatives. He drove away four of the seven local volunteers. We spent far less time in the office, and tried to mitigate the damage he was doing and the plight of the remaining office volunteers.
Over a year of trying to compensate for the incompetent manager and protect the remaining volunteers became so wearing on my husband, that he developed the symptoms of and was eventually diagnosed with a chronic medical condition. We were told not to have contact with the manager anymore. My husband needed medical attention at home. The office ladies were heartbroken. We wrote up our last report, said our goodbyes to those we had come to know and love, and made the return trip to the United States, where our children took good care of us while we rested, bought a new home, and began to re-establish the life we had left. My husband paid close attention to his chronic condition, which is now under control through diet.
We look back and try to reconcile what happened to us. On the whole we had a wonderful experience, fell in love with the country and its people, and wish they lived closer so we could visit them whenever we wanted. It was an eye-opening adventure, and we loved it all. But one person was able to make everything so difficult, and was so destructive to the program we were trying to build and improve. The negative effect he had on faithful, humble church members was appalling. From what we know of personalities like this, they do not believe they are capable of doing anything wrong, and will not take instruction, even though they are afforded chances to do so. We wonder if his superiors will allow the program Rosa created with such care to be completely ruined while they discover this for themselves.
Post Script, November 2016: We have kept in contact with our friends in South America. Earlier this year, when Rosa retired as a volunteer in order to spend more time teaching her university classes, the other volunteers quit as well, rather than continue under the direction of the hired manager. The hired manager, unable to get anyone else to run the once-thriving center for him, closed it down and set one up closer to his family, where--my husband and I are sure--his kind-hearted and competent wife is probably running things for him.
The first one was not actually a narcissist, although some of the symptoms are the same across mental, emotional and personality disorders. The third day we were in country we walked the 10 blocks to the office where we would be serving and met the wonderful staff of ladies, which included another volunteer missionary like ourselves, a local woman who was evidently depressed, negative, controlling, incompetent, unable to take direction, and interfering. It became apparent from the moment she arrived a month before we had, that she was a very troubled soul. She had not finished high school, had three illegitimate children, lived with her children's abusive father until his death a few years earlier, and as the only recipient of her late father's pension, was resented by her siblings. She considered herself an expert in marriage relations and was upset when we did not ask her to teach a marriage relations class.
Eventually the other ladies in the office confided that she had delusions of being in love with a young missionary, (she was 55 years old,) had driven people out of the office by lying about the staff, and had been thrown out of one apartment and had to find another place to stay. We visited the president of the mission and suggested she be evaluated by a psychologist, and this was done. She was diagnosed as schizophrenic, which, I have been told, is one of the most difficult and intractable of mental illnesses. The wheels were set in motion to have her removed as a missionary. In the meantime, we were told, we were to make sure she did not feel any pressure for the remaining weeks she would be with us. In other words, we were to babysit her in the now-empty office. When she got very tense, she would start cleaning, so for those weeks our office was extremely clean. The church leaders who recommended her as a missionary knew of her mental problems, but sent her anyway, perhaps thinking she would improve with distance--although serving as a missionary is fairly stressful, especially for those who cannot tolerate a change of circumstances.
When she finally took her two-hour bus ride home, we began to pick up the pieces and build the volunteer office services back to previous levels. The delightful office manager, Rosa, was known and loved far and wide, and with our efforts and the efforts of the faithful office staff, we eventually had many people coming for help with education and jobs. It was very rewarding.
In order to further develop this initiative, a well-paid manager was hired by the church to administer the program over a large geographical area. He moved his family closer to the office and began spending time with us. From the beginning my husband recognized him as another controlling, self-involved person, who although competent in financial matters, was without consideration of any kind for much of anything else, apparently unaware that the faithful staff were not slaves there to make him look good, but long-time volunteers who had worked without pay to accomplish more than he could. He seemed content with driving people away from the office because they were too poor, too humble, and less than he was. He tried to control all our movements, claiming it was instructions from his superior, although his superior disavowed that he had given any such instructions. Eventually we contacted the program headquarters in the U.S. and were told to break with him and continue with our own initiatives. He drove away four of the seven local volunteers. We spent far less time in the office, and tried to mitigate the damage he was doing and the plight of the remaining office volunteers.
Over a year of trying to compensate for the incompetent manager and protect the remaining volunteers became so wearing on my husband, that he developed the symptoms of and was eventually diagnosed with a chronic medical condition. We were told not to have contact with the manager anymore. My husband needed medical attention at home. The office ladies were heartbroken. We wrote up our last report, said our goodbyes to those we had come to know and love, and made the return trip to the United States, where our children took good care of us while we rested, bought a new home, and began to re-establish the life we had left. My husband paid close attention to his chronic condition, which is now under control through diet.
We look back and try to reconcile what happened to us. On the whole we had a wonderful experience, fell in love with the country and its people, and wish they lived closer so we could visit them whenever we wanted. It was an eye-opening adventure, and we loved it all. But one person was able to make everything so difficult, and was so destructive to the program we were trying to build and improve. The negative effect he had on faithful, humble church members was appalling. From what we know of personalities like this, they do not believe they are capable of doing anything wrong, and will not take instruction, even though they are afforded chances to do so. We wonder if his superiors will allow the program Rosa created with such care to be completely ruined while they discover this for themselves.
Post Script, November 2016: We have kept in contact with our friends in South America. Earlier this year, when Rosa retired as a volunteer in order to spend more time teaching her university classes, the other volunteers quit as well, rather than continue under the direction of the hired manager. The hired manager, unable to get anyone else to run the once-thriving center for him, closed it down and set one up closer to his family, where--my husband and I are sure--his kind-hearted and competent wife is probably running things for him.
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