The learned helplessness of the narcissistic man

“Can I get your help for a minute?”

This phrase is going to kill me. Or compel me to murder.

At the very least, it has become highly triggering for me. I have a feeling I’m not alone.

A rat got into space underneath my pantry and made a nest. The wood bottom of the pantry had to be sawed open, removed, and the nest cleaned out.

I did this while my male roommate was out of town.

Then I cleaned out the nest, set humane traps to catch and evict the rat, sealed up the holes to under the house which had provided entry, applied odor removers to eliminate the evidence of its stay, and set up sonic deterrents in the cleaned space.

It was pretty cramped and dark down there, so I propped a flashlight against the side wall of the pantry to see what I was doing.

I got eaten alive by rat mites from this exercise, so I sprayed the area to eliminate them, scratched myself raw, and then treated myself with hydrocortisone and suffered while the bites healed.

The only thing remaining was to saw new wood to replace the pantry flooring I had removed. This was going to require more physical strength than I can comfortably muster with Lupus, arthritis, and a herniated disc in my neck.