Why Is My Life Full of Narcissists?  🔗 **Source:** [Why Is My Life Full of Narcissists?](https://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2026/09/27/why-is-my-life-full-of-narcissists/) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: [narcissism, autism, personal-boundaries, enmeshment, attachment-theory, marriage] > author: Penelope Trunk > source: Penelope Trunk > reference: https://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2026/09/27/why-is-my-life-full-of-narcissists/ > date created: 2026-10-03 20:05 > --- > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > > [!warning] Source and extraction notes. This is an 887-word blog post published 2026-09-27 on > > blog.penelopetrunk.com (the page's own site name is "Penelope Trunk Careers Blog"). Element > > markers ([P0] to [P16]) come from Reader's extraction. Three sentences carry typos in the > > published text and are quoted as written: [P11] "I made sure to always there" (likely "always be > > there"), [P12] "Nino grew up with an only child" (likely "as an only child"), and [P15] "don't > > bounce back divorce" (likely "bounce back from divorce"). The post carries 12 links; this analysis > > fetched each target on 2026-10-03 and compares each link's anchor text against what the target > > actually reports. The source does not state Trunk's pronouns, so this analysis uses the surname > > or they/them; it uses he/him for Arthur Liu and she/her for Alysa Liu because the post and the > > linked coverage do. > # 🏷️ Title: Why is my life full of narcissists? > ## 🧭 Table of contents > - [📝 Summary](#-summary) > - [📖 Main content](#-main-content) > - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) > - [📚 References](#-references) > - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) > - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) > - [✅ Action items](#-action-items) > - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) > - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) > - [❓ Questions](#-questions) > - [🔮 Future research](#-future-research) > - [💡 Implications](#-implications) > - [🧠 Learning styles assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) > - [📊 Accessibility assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) > - [🌍 DEIB assessment](#-deib-assessment) > - [✅ Logical validity](#-logical-validity) > - [🛡️ DARVO analysis](#️-darvo-analysis) > - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) > ## 📝 Summary > - **What happened.** Penelope Trunk publishes an 887-word, 17-element personal essay on blog.penelopetrunk.com on 2026-09-27. It extends Trunk's 2022 post "Your partner isn't a narcissist. He has autism. And so do you." with a new frame: narcissism and autism both come down to poor boundary-setting. It uses figure skater Alysa Liu's father, Arthur Liu, as a public case study and Trunk's own marriage and divorce with Nino as a private one. > - **The claim.** Enmeshment and neglect are one boundary failure, not opposites ([P2]-[P4]). People who grew up without boundaries marry partners who also lack them and can't see it from inside ([P8]-[P10]). What looks like narcissism from outside is two people who want closeness and don't know how to get it ([P12]). Leaving doesn't fix it; you learn boundaries by staying with the person you can't do them with ([P16]). > - **Why it matters.** The post offers a lay reframe that turns "my partner is a narcissist" into "we share a skill gap." That reframe can lower blame. It also arrives with 12 links, 8 of them to studies or study coverage, and in 6 of those 8 cases the anchor text claims more than, or something different from, what the linked source reports (see Logical validity). > - **Key stakeholders.** Readers who suspect a partner or parent is a narcissist; autistic readers, whom the post folds into a narcissism discussion; Alysa Liu and Arthur Liu, named public figures characterized from press coverage; Nino, Trunk's former spouse, described in first person by Trunk only. > - **Risks and tradeoffs.** The post diagnoses a named private-turned-public father ("That's enmeshment. It's also neglect") from two news articles. It treats autism, narcissism, enmeshment, neglect, and anxious attachment as one boundary construct without a measure that links them. Its studies carry scope limits the post doesn't state: college-student couples, French-speaking adults, a philosophy hypothesis paper, a correlational happiness report. > - **Bottom line.** The boundaries frame is coherent and close to Bowen family-systems theory's "differentiation of self," which one of Trunk's own links measures. The evidence chain for the specific claims is weaker than the link density suggests. Read it as a personal essay with citations attached, not as a research summary. > ## 📖 Main content > - **Thesis update ([P0]-[P1]).** Trunk restates the 2022 claim that narcissism is a subset of autism and recasts both as boundary failures: people stand "too close or too far" because they can't see their own position. [P1] separates knowing facts about yourself from knowing where you stand relative to someone else. > - **Enmeshment equals neglect ([P2]-[P4]).** A parent whose own childhood job was pleasing a parent hands that job to the child, either by smothering or by absence. Both look self-centered from outside and devoted from inside, and the parent "always picks the part of the job that's more interesting." > - **Alysa Liu's father ([P5]-[P6]).** From SI and TODAY coverage, Trunk labels Arthur Liu enmeshed and neglectful, assigns the motive "easier for him this way" to his single-father surrogacy, and cites a narcissism study to say his concern is real and fear-driven. > - **The blind spot ([P7]-[P10]).** People raised without boundaries marry partners without them, can't see the red flags outsiders see, and won't find a different partner next time because "you can't value a skill you can't see." Study how your partner resembles you. > - **Trunk and Nino ([P11]-[P12]).** Both neglected as children; Trunk overcorrected toward the kids, Nino felt shut out. Outside, it looked like narcissism; inside, two people who couldn't reach each other. > - **Annoyance, divorce, dinner ([P13]-[P16]).** Annoyance becomes self-knowledge if you stay. Divorce was hard, which Trunk ties to anxious attachment and to "couples with narcissism." Trunk and Nino now eat together most nights, and the post ends: you learn boundaries with the person you can't do them with. > ## 🗒️ Notes > #### ¶ P0–P1 The 2022 thesis, restated as boundaries > - [P0] links "narcissism is a subset of autism" to Trunk's own 2022 post. That post argues "there is nothing that is a trait of narcissism that does not also fall under the umbrella of autism." Self-citation, not external evidence. > - [P1] lists autism's extremes (talking, moving, eating) and maps boundaries to the same two-pole shape. > > [!quote] [P0] > > Since then I realized narcissism and autism are both about being terrible at setting boundaries. > - The self-knowledge versus relational-position distinction in [P1] is the post's sharpest conceptual move. > #### ¶ P2–P4 Enmeshment and neglect are the same > - [P3] gives an intergenerational mechanism: the parent's childhood job was to make their own parent happy, so they hand that job to the child. > > [!quote] [P3] > > Neglect is not the opposite of enmeshment, it’s the same. > - [P4] describes the defensive self-report ("they care so so much and how could you even ask") as a signature of boundary failure. > - The "picks the part of the job that's more interesting" link goes to Sinnott-Armstrong, Soter, and Summers (2024), a philosophy paper proposing that DSM disorders share "failures of attention." It doesn't study parents. > #### ¶ P5–P6 Arthur Liu as the case study > - [P5] labels the father's behavior "enmeshment" and "neglect" from two news articles (Sports Illustrated, TODAY). > - The SI quote is about Liu's return to skating, not her quitting: "You don't deserve to be happy over this decision, kind of. Because you were mad when I quit." The post moves the remark to the moment she quit. > - TODAY reports five children, including triplets, through two surrogates and anonymous egg donors, and that Arthur Liu's mother moved from China for eight years to help raise them. The "easier for him this way" motive is Trunk's inference; neither article states it. > > [!quote] [P6] > > Research on narcissism shows the concern narcissists have for other people is real, and it’s driven by fear. > - The linked st  One of my most popular posts is about how [narcissism is a subset of autism](https://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2022/09/30/your-partner-isnt-a-narcissist-he-has-autism-and-so-do-you/). Since then I realized narcissism and autism are both about being terrible at setting boundaries. Autism is a disorder of extremes. Too much talking or not enough. Running around all day or not moving. Eating everything or eating five foods. Boundaries work the same way: too close or too far, because we can’t see where we’re standing. We would never believe that about ourselves. We’re obsessed with self-knowledge, so we assume we have it. But knowing a lot about yourself is different from knowing where you are in relation to another person. **Enmeshment and neglect are the same thing** An enmeshed parent can’t separate from the kid. The parent’s childhood was about making their own parent happy, so it’s logical to them that the kid’s job is to make them happy, [even while they say *everything I do I do for you*](https://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2019/10/14/worst-parenting-book-of-the-year-esther-wojcickis-homage-to-narcissism/). Neglect is not the opposite of enmeshment, it’s the same. When no one is home, the kid feeds himself, comforts himself, does the parent’s job for the parent. In both enmeshment and neglect the parent doesn’t see where the kid ends and they begin, and from outside that looks like someone who thinks the world revolves around them. Ask the parent and they’ll tell you they care so so much and how could you even ask. Give them an example and they’ll tell you their great explanation. But a parent without boundaries [always picks the part of the job that’s more interesting](https://critica.filosoficas.unam.mx/index.php/critica/article/view/1528). Olympic champ Alysa Liu had to quit figure skating to get her dad to stop running her life. He went to everything, fought with the coaches, and made her skating his skating. When she quit, she said [he didn’t deserve to have an opinion about it](https://www.si.com/onsi/athlete-lifestyle/news/alysa-liu-says-dad-arthur-didnt-deserve-to-be-happy-about-her-skating-decision-olympics). That’s enmeshment. It’s also neglect, because he only cared for the part of her that was interesting to him. He has [five kids by surrogate](https://www.today.com/parents/alysa-liu-parents-dad-arthur-liu-rcna259917) and decided they didn’t need a mother: easier for him this way. He devotes almost all his time to his children. He would never think he’s selfish, and he’d be right that he’s trying hard not to be. [Research on narcissism](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-022-03261-1) shows the concern narcissists have for other people is real, and it’s driven by fear. He’s taking care of his kids to manage himself. What Alysa makes clear is her dad can’t see where he stops and his kids start. **You can see it in everyone but you** A child can’t defend herself from a parent with no boundaries. But an adult can. If you grew up with no boundaries, you marry someone who also has no boundaries. The signs are everywhere when you meet someone. Something as basic as asking for money early in a relationship is a red flag to everyone outside the relationship. The person inside it can’t see those flags. This is the disorder: not just that we see crossed boundaries in other people’s lives but not in our own. But also we don’t believe that we don’t know what we don’t know. So let’s say you leave and find someone different. They won’t be different because you can’t value a skill you can’t see, and the people who have good boundaries expect that from their partner. Also, don’t tell me you married your opposite. Anti-conformists date other anti-conformists, which is [why they all look alike](https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/02/28/136854/the-hipster-effect-why-anti-conformists-always-end-up-looking-the-same/). Everyone marries someone like them. You’re better off [figuring out how your partner is like you](https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/jscp.2014.33.1.25?casa_token=eiKyoiDpmAIAAAAA%3AdaMdDrnC2JR3YaGrP3mTA8AOL875-C4J5INC2cTmMBrYZVxMjo2mkBWdq_NgVGTAaFciW4MBViY) than explaining how they aren’t: that’s how you’ll learn about yourself. Nino and I were both neglected. I felt unloved and lonely, so I made sure to always there for my kids. I quit my job to work from home, homeschooled, chose where we lived based on the kids. I was always veering close to enmeshment. I thought I escaped my parents’ neglect by doing the opposite. But really I brought that inability to see boundaries into my own marriage. Nino grew up with an only child who didn’t do child things – the parents treated him as an adult. So to Nino, a family organized around the children felt like there was nowhere for him. From the outside it looked like narcissism: I worked all the time and he was disinterested in the kids. Inside, we were two people who wanted desperately to feel closeness and love and didn’t know how to get there. **Annoyance is part of love** First you’re infatuated, then you find out what’s annoying about the person, then the annoyingness feels like an emergency you have to fix. If you stay past that, the annoying thing becomes something you understand about the person. And only then does it become [something you understand about yourself, because you picked them](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282482). Divorce was terrible for me and Nino which is maybe explained by people with anxious attachment [don’t bounce back divorce.](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4397145/?utm_source=chatgpt.com) And guess who has anxious attachment? [Couples with narcissism](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188692500217X?via%3Dihub). I read that [sharing meals stabilizes a family](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/04/is-dining-with-others-a-sign-of-happiness-world-happiness-report/) more than money does. I stopped fighting with Nino about money and now we eat together almost every night. I’m not saying dinners are perfect, but they’re closer to perfect than divorce. Because you can’t learn to do boundaries by getting rid of the person you can’t do them with., Why Is My Life Full of Narcissists?, Penelope Trunk, 01m41vfqhrxpxpt7dkztbgj7bp.