The Mirror
I have created two sections for Tenley Myers; one being The Mirror and the other being The Sociopath. They are about the same person and you may think in this story that they are the same thing. But The Mirror is different than the sociopath where the sociopath exists completely on her own. The Mirror is the position the Sociopath was put in and how she relates to the narcissist. She never chooses to be the mirror but over time it is the only place she is comfortable.
Because of the relationship between the Narcissist and the Mirror this is the section where I will tell stories and make points as they relate to the two of them together.
Two little narcissists sitting in a tree
Fighting back and forth so gleefully
Talk about themselves forever and on
Destroying every soul that comes along
There is nothing new to this kind of relationship. In fact you can go back to Mythology and find the basis of this sad and reoccurring story. I am talking about Echo and Narcissus.
I Like You I Love You
I often think of Tenley as my father’s little golden nugget. No matter what she did she was this shinny little nugget of gold that shined back at him like a golden mirror. When she was very young he would come home from work and they would lie on the couch together. He would say “I like you, I love you”.
Now this could sound like a normal cute little story of a parent missing his children while I work, I get that, I have three of my own now. But as it was told to me by other relatives that were there when I was born. He would come home from work and walk past me, while I was just home from the hospital and only a week old going directly to her. He ignored me from day one because he already had his little golden nugget. He had already started creating the mirror.
The Fighting between Tenley Myers and Jack Myers
The fighting, they both needed it. It gave them energy. If you found yourself in the room while they were fighting you would ask yourself what exactly it was about. It never seemed to be anything important, never really any good reason for them to be fighting other than the sake of the fight itself. If you really paid attention you could feel how it gave both of them energy. They needed it just to survive. Think of it like the fuel tank in your car. To get to where you’re going you need to fill it up now and then. When it gets low you stop at a gas station.
For them, their life energy comes from fighting and conflict. Because they don’t have any relationships based on the same things everyone else has, mainly love, they are incapable of gaining that energy from the people around them without the fight. You can see it in their eyes, body language, etc.. When they have conflict they get energized. Even if its just yelling and belittling someone in the car in front of them in traffic, and that’s pretty much everyone in front of them, they need the negative output in order to fill their tanks.
Tenley Myers Fiat
Tenley had turned 16 and it was time for her to get a car. Dad had a life insurance policy on her so he cashed that in and bought an ugly ass gold fiat X19. He drew up papers to loan her the money to buy the car off of him. Nice dad, you cash in Tenley’s policy, buy an ugly car, and then force her to make payments back to you when it was her money to begin with. Anyways, he had the papers done and we were standing in the dining room where they were going to sign them. He had a field on there for a witness to sign. I asked if I was going to be the witness and he just started laughing. He said that I was way too young to be a witness so my signature didn’t mean anything. He even went further to explain that what that really meant was that the system didn’t even see me as a person. What? Only a douche bag could come to that conclusion and say it to their son. He wasn’t done there; he thought that was the funniest thing he had ever said. He just kept on repeating it and laughing his ass off about it. I know it seems pretty stupid now but back then it hurt. He didn’t care.
Tenley Myers First Car
Tenley’s Fiat broke down regularly. There is an old joke that FIAT stands for “Fix it Again Tomorrow”. Well our joke was “Fix it again Tenley”. But in actuality she never was the one fixing this car; it was always daddy coming to her rescue. In hindsight I have my own theory about what was going on. Tenley was bitter that dad had picked out and purchased a car to then turn around and make her buy from him. So what he really did was take her out of the process of choosing her first car. She hated this but took the car anyways. During our parents’ divorce Tenley got herself emancipated. So she really wasn’t a part of the divorce anymore because she wasn’t considered a minor child during the process. Dad’s control issues over Tenley were at an all-time high because she was starting to be away more. He was still following her around and trying to control her but that was slipping away. She was also moving out with her boyfriend in Tujunga at the time and that drove dad nuts. I believe by purchasing the worst built most high maintenance cars in history, known for breaking down constantly, he could keep her close and somewhat in control. At the same time Tenley had to punish him for taking control of the car purchase, and other dark deep issues between them, so she would not maintain the car and would in fact hope for it to break down. Then she could call and yell at him, placing blame on him for buying such a crappy car. She could force him to deal with it, pay for it and in the end, they both won. For him, It kept her dependent on him, and for her, she could continue to punish him. This was after all the basis of their relationship all along.
As usually I was put into the middle of their game. For example on one occasion while Tenley was still living in Tujunga with her boyfriend Robert her car had broken down again. So like clockwork she called dad and bitched him out explaining how he better gut up there and fix the piece of shit he had stuck her with. Dad of course had to bring the car all the way back to his mechanic in Venice Beach, a 35 mile trip across LA. Of course, because this was really just a punishment tactic for Tenley she couldn’t just tow the car herself to a local mechanic. Of course because this was a punishment from Tenley she had to refuse to even help get it fixed in any way. Dad had to come pick up the broken car and return a functioning one to her driveway. There was no compromise.
This is where I get dragged into the game. Dad decided that I was going to steer the car while he towed it with a rope using his Toyota Cressida. Ok, at the time I was 15 with no driver’s license or experience driving, NONE. Tenley on the other had been this “independent” adult living away from home and so in control, according to them. But they couldn’t just leave me out of it could they. We got up really early on a Saturday morning and drove up there so we could tow it across the city without much traffic. At the time I was very confused by this entire situation. After all, it wasn’t long ago that they were laughing at me because I was too young to even be a witness in the loan papers for this car. But now, I got to go through the stress of towing it across LA. The entire drive to Tujunga I kept asking dad why Tenley couldn’t steer her own car to the mechanics. All he ever said was “I do not know!” followed by his snort thrusts and twirling of his beard. You could tell going to Tenley and her boyfriend’s house made him anxious and uneasy.
We arrived at their house to get ready to tow the car and one thing that actually made the entire ordeal worthwhile. Tenley’s boyfriend Robert had this 110 LB pit bull named Charlie. Charlie was a sweetheart of a dog who seemed to love everyone. Well, when we got in the back yard to hook up the two cars Charlie saw dad for the first time and started to growl. Dad could tell the dog hated him at first sight and tried to keep the car between him and the dog. They went round and round for a while and the look in dad’s eyes was priceless. I had never seen and would never see again that kind of fear in his eyes but given the situation he had me in and how he had treated me to this point I could find nothing but humor in it as well. Tenley laughed pretty hard also.
Anyways, after Robert got Charlie into the house and dad and Tenley stopped their fighting we pushed the car out to the street and got it tied to the back of the Cressida. After that it was a couple hours of dad pulling me across LA while I steered along beside him. I rear ended him a few times when he slammed his breaks on and I had no time to stop. I could see his anger build in the rearview mirror but what could he say? He put me there and not his precious who owned the car anyways.
Years later while dad was in the hospital dying Tenley was still dwelling on what an asshole he was for using her money to buy that car and sell it to her. She went on and on about it. I had to point out that regardless of how messed up it was in how dad handled it I was jealous of that car. She actually got a deal on a car at 16. I just got laughed at and had to wait until I was 18 to get mine. I had to earn everything I got.
The Long Beach Grand Prix
Yes, you can choose to make it your own experience and let them wollow in their flavor of joy.
I remember this one time dad had invited me down to LA to go to the Long Beach Grand Prix. It was a race he and I used to watch on TV every year and I always wanted to see it in person. Dad was still living in Manhattan Beach the time but his office was already in long beach right in the middle of the course. So the X and I drove down to spend the weekend with him. Of course my sister was still living with him at the time and she had to talk him into taking her truck because it was big enough for all four of us. Like any other car with 4 seats wouldn’t be able to carry us the entire 20 miles there. This argument went on for a while, this is when I usually just find something else to pay attention to and let them work it out between them.
After the long argument and dad finally giving in to Tenley we all climb into her Bronco. As we were driving towards the 405 freeway Tenley’s car started to sputter and die. It would start for a few seconds then die. Tenley started to freak out; she turned beat red and started yelling about how her car was all fucked up. How she couldn’t handle this shit. Each time it would die she would start crying and yelling. Dad was sitting in the front passenger seat next to her. He was doing his usual head bob and sinus thrusts that you would expect from him when he was getting agitated.
All I could think to do was recommend we drop her car off at a shop and take a cab the rest of the way. We could figure it out later what to do with Tenley’s car. After all I remember dad had a mechanic in that neighborhood at one point and there are a lot in that neighborhood. Any recommendations fell on deaf ears as was normal in this situation. When the two of them start down that road there is really nothing any third party can do to slow them down or even get them to see any reason.
By this time Dad is pissed off that his day is now ruined, not because we can’t make it to the races but because it won’t be as planned. In his mind he had the day all planed out. We would get there in time for him so show off the great parking spot we have at his work, he must have mentioned it 30 times in the previous week about how his office building is right in the middle of the track and he could watch from his desk. Then we would walk over and get some food and get to our seats before the race started. But with Tenley you cannot expect things to go as planned. First he lost the argument with Tenley about what car to take, and then due to her car we were not even going to make it before the race started. So to him, he might as well just call it a day.
We spent the next hour nursing Tenley’s car home. It would run for a few minutes then start cutting out. This would make her scream and cry about her car and would make him more and more pissed off. I am pretty sure he always hated that truck. I am also pretty sure that’s what she loved about it. He saw it as impractical and she saw it as a way to get under dads skin. Once we made it home dad did exactly what I would have expected him to do. He marched in, took off his shoes, plopped his ass down on the couch and turned on the TV. I asked him if he still wanted to go and he just looked at me and grunted a “NO, there is no point now!”
It always amazed me that he was willing to let that ruin his entire day. It was all or nothing. So because of an incident of chaos that revolved around my sister he once again was willing to pass up a good time with me, a time where we could just forget about that crap and watch a car race, one that he truly loved. I sometimes wonder what was going through his head at that time. Was it anger, depression, or maybe he just couldn’t handle things not going to plan. Either way I am sure he really did feel like the victim. Victim of what exactly I am not sure but he really was out of whack. I will never understand how anyone could talk for months about what great fun some endeavor would be only to let 45 minutes of stupidity just throw it away and ultimately ruin the rest of your day.
I couldn’t just sit in that house listening to them argue about what to do about her car. I had driven almost 500 miles to go to the races and I decided that I was going whether they were or not. So I called one of my best friends to see if he was interested in going. The X and I ran over and picked him up and we headed over to Long Beach. When we got there it was a zoo, hundreds of thousands of people. We walked over to where we could buy some tickets, because it just wasn’t worth asking dad for his, and found they were more expensive then I cared to pay and something more quiet sounded better now that I was with a friend.
My friend used to be a chef in a couple restaurants in the area so he knew a lot of people in those establishments. We ended up spending the afternoon in a pool hall eating sandwiches and listening to the race cars in the background. So I never did see the race but it was a much better day once I was away from dad and Tenley I must admit.
Now I am not going to say that what Tenley did was on purpose. That she had a plan to make her car break down and ruin another time between dad and I. It just always seems to work out that way. She always seems to be able to create some form of chaos to change the plans all around. In this case I was right to just get out and let them deal with whatever it was they were dealing with. It leads to a very nice day.
The Vue Apartments and Tenley Myers
The final stage is set, for the narcissist anyways.
The View Apartments in San Pedro where Tenley Myers and Jack Myers lived.
The Vue Apartments are an interesting subject in this story. It was the day my father moved into his apartment that things really started to unravel. It was that day that I saw the old Tenley coming out again. It was the day my father was hospitalized for the first time in the US for his congestive heart failure. It was also the day I watched Tenley start a very interesting con.
Before the Vue my dad was living in Long Beach California a block away from his office. With the company now out of business he didn’t have a need to live there anymore and the lease was way too expensive to justify keeping it. He had talked about possibly buying a place. My sister was trying to get him to do that and get herself in as half owner so it would be easy to manage after he was gone.
Dad decided against buying anything when he found a place in San Pedro Ca. I believe he choose that location because it was extremely convenient to Kaiser Hospital where he had been going for many years. In fact it’s the same facility where my doctor was as a child and where mom usually took me when I required emergency room visits as a kid. Tenley was very happy about this location because they allowed dogs of all sizes and she “needed” to move in to take care of dad and this meant she could bring her Husky Fluffy. She always claimed that dad loved Fluffy, he didn’t.
Once Tenley realized that dads medical bills were going to be extremely high and that it was going to eat away all of his savings she started looking at anything she could do to save money. What she did to the Vue was done so easily and played out exactly how she expected it to. She really does know how to run a hustle.
The first time it happened I thought it might have been an issue with the building. But when I showed up down there the next time I saw exactly what was going on. Tenley had these brown paper towels, the style that might come out of a bathroom towel dispenser, the ones that are folded so you pull one at a time, without ripping or cutting. She had them stacked on the back of the toilet. What she was doing was cleaning up Max’s poop off the patio using those towels and then flushing them down the toilet. These towels ended up backing up where the pipes running down from the 16 floors above meet the ones in the basement and go out to the street. When the building management explained that they had been finding brown paper towels in the backup she got this look on her face like she was caught. They wouldn’t have noticed it but knowing her the way I do it was obvious. They went on to say they didn’t think it was her and it was people from up above.
It was described as Black Water. The cleanup crew had to show up in hazmat suits. Dad’s bathroom and bedroom were flooded with the feces of all the neighbors above him. It was about a foot deep. They came in and sealed it off. They had to remove all of the bathroom cabinets, closet and bedroom carpeting and even the tile on the bathroom floor. It’s a good thing dad was in the hospital while this was going on. It’s like it was planned or something, wink wink.
This “inconvenience” to her lead to many months off of rent. Below is one of the Concession Addendums she received because of it:
View Appartments Concession Addendum
A picture of the damage being repaired:
The View Apartments in San Pedro after Tenley Myers flooded it with napkins down the toilet.
Below is an email conversation we had in regards to her harassment of management at The Vue Apartments in San Pedro CA. These emails demonstrate just how much fun Tenley gets out of harassing people. It also shows that wherever she lives this is what she does, after all, she needs the conflict in order to have the energy to make it through the day.
“wait until my “Vue” video comes out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H73w8sz5c_Q&feature=related”
Tenley Myers – 10/20/2009
“oh when i was explaining i would smoke medical marajuana during the busiest time when people are coming to lease and passing by my door he said something or other about calling the cops on me. that’s when i said, “oh cops” “you want cops” why yes, every night when my cop boyfriend comes over for dinner he will park his DEA car with the lights on top in the front of the building turn around. what impression of the VUE does that give? hahaha…..he was HORRIFIED when i said boyfriend is a cop i told him “who do you think i got these LEGAL ideas from”
Tenley Myers – 10/20/2009
True, she really did have a DEA boyfriend. In fact I have emails from him that she forwarded me that state they shouldn’t ever be sent out of the DEA offices. They are meant for internal reading only. I am pretty sure he wouldn’t be willing to do what she states. In fact he hated our father and wouldn’t come hang out in his house. Tenley told me he hated him because of his girlfriend in Costa Rica’s age and his obvious attraction to children.
“i also told the manager i would be going to kinko’s with all the pics i sent to him yesterday and blowing them up poster sized and put them on the side of the Lexus and park it out front. he said he likes Max now. he appologized. i’m having great fun”
Tenley Myers – 10/20/2009
“yeah and i explained that i was getting a medical marajuana prescription and would smoke my meds every saturday and sunday all day with my door cracked open while I howl WITH my dog they want me on the 3rd floor BAD”
Tenley Myers – 10/20/2009
In response to my stating “your enjoying this aren’t you?”
“oh yep. and i didnt even mention the fact i am VERY good friends with the local camera guy at the channel 5 news i may have forwarded you emails from him. he is funny as hell anyway, he told me he would love to park the news van out front and pretend he is doing a news story he would love to come by and walk around holding the camera and pretend to interview me. he did it for me with Brian’s cousins.
it was FUNNY as hell!
(brians’ cousin is the one in the suit. the guy with the mic is the news man and my friend is walking away holding the camera) “
Tenley Myers with film crew harassing neighbors.
Tenley Myers – 10/20/2009
I was wondering what KTLA Channel 5 news management would think about their staff using; company time, company equipment, and opening them up for harassment lawsuits as favors for Tenley would think about this email so I submitted it through their “contact” section on their web page, but more on that later.
The Vue apartments also had different network routers around the building so tenants could have free Wi-Fi when not in their apartments. They were named like; Vue Lobby, Vue Business Center, etc… After backing up the toilets Tenley thought it would be really funny and change the name on dad’s router to “Vue Toilet”. She kept it that way and thought it was the funniest thing ever. She laughed hard every time we talked about it. I have to admit I found it a little funny, but not like she did.
Another point to this story is to demonstrate the true two faced nature of the sociopath. You see, while they are conning you and lying to you they are also charming you. They are being as close to you as they can. A normal con artist would take what they could and move on to the next mark. But for the sociopath, the longer the game can go on and the closer they can get to you, the more enjoyment they can get out of it. It is an entirely new level. If they can make you love them while they are conning you, then they get a lot more out of it than just the few dollars they were after. It goes way deeper than them just being after money. They need to have their cake and eat it to.
The fact that she named her wireless network Vue Toilet is a good example. If asked she would play dumb. Another example from this incident is the building management. While she was working them for free rent she was also working them emotionally and winning them over. In the above email where she talks about “wait until my Vue video comes out” and the below emails where she talks about the manager that lives upstairs. She talks about them behind their backs, makes fun of them, while at the same time she is in their office every day being as charming as possible, to the extent of playing the victim.
Thanksgiving
I still thought I should be cool. Ribbit!
Thanksgiving was my father’s favorite holiday. He said it went back a long time but I also know that it was special for him and Tenley. For more than a decade they spent thanksgiving together, alone. They didn’t cook anything special at home; they went to restaurants that would remain open.
Knowing that this would be his last Thanksgiving I decided to make it a good one. I took the entire family down to San Pedro for it.
Tenley Myers Hero
The thing that struck me as funny is when Tenley told me what made dad her hero. She said it was while we were going through the divorce he kept working. With all the emotional shit going on he showed up to work every day and supported the family. OK, when she said that shit I just let it go. We were in the last year of his life and I really didn’t need the headache of another fight with her. But the fact is, he supported nobody, he never paid a penny of alimony, he never paid a penny of child support, and he basically just kept doing what he always did and went to work. Work was really his wife, because it was his.
Believe me when I tell you I know what I am talking about. I went through a divorce of my own. When I got divorced I had to fight for partial custody of my child and only got the right to see her every other weekend. I had to pay 1/3 of my gross income in alimony and child support while I was going to court regularly to try and get more time with my daughter. I did everything I thought you were supposed to in supporting them.
I never even got as much as a phone call from dad while we went through it. When I left with mom he took that like I was divorcing him. The only time in my life I ever told my dad I loved him was the day we left and mom and I called him from the road. I got no answer and he just hung up on me. He also claimed alimony on his taxes that year, alimony he never paid.
I always wondered as a young child why my father never came to my room to tuck me in bed like he did my sister. I always wondered why I didn’t mean as much to warrant such behavior. I also wondered at times why it took so long, what were they whispering to each other. What could he have to say to her?
The Real Tenley Myers and Jack Elden Myers