One reader sent me this article (link at end). It goes hand in hand with my post on personality disorders. They use even worse labels – idiots.  But I did learn that there is a phrase called Narcissistic Monkeys. These are the people around the narcissist who do their bidding like the flying monkeys did for the Wicked Witch in Wizard of Oz (Hands down scariest creature from any movie in my opinion).

Reading this article confirms what I thought – the main people in the conflict in my cohousing showed these toxic behavior signs.  One kept quiet and never let you know anything about themself and when their behavior was pointed out by others in the community, seemed to not care at all. I took a walk with two of the other people and was shocked how they mocked other people in the community and their real concerns.  One of them does the floodlighting – sharing way too much which actually caused the conflict. I might not have known what was going on if they hadn’t outright told me. They just expected I would consider it normal too and not do anything about it to stop it.  I wouldn’t be a monkey.

The best part of this article is that it says if you are a cooperative person you should attract those types around you. That is the problem with cohousing.  We assume everyone wants to be cooperative.  The whole concept is about interacting and sharing.  Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the toxic behaving people move there too and I know of a few communities that become toxic from their behaviors and that of their monkeys.