The Spider and the Fly

A fascinating interview with Mary Margaret O’Hara, who has rightly been called a national treasure. I think if she walked into any psychiatrist’s office, she would be diagnosed as schizo-affective. She would certainly be considered psychotic. She reminds me of others I have known.

But that is not a helpful way to see it.

Listening to her, it ought to be clear that she is in contact with the spiritual world. It is obvious that she is highly intelligent, as psychotics usually are; her mind is working too quickly. She is seeing things the rest of us cannot see. Her consciousness is shamanic.

While most psychotics are silenced, either drugged or cowed into silence, O’Hara is able to channel her inspiration in her music.

Which is wonderful, and which I recommend, if you have not heard it.

She also radiates the moral purity, the sincerity, the lack of a filter or mask, and the vulnerability I have seen in others with such diagnoses. As well as the constant self-doubt of one who has been systematically abused or profoundly emotionally betrayed in childhood. Which is usually their story.

That is worth observing closely. But something else is worth observing, and is disturbing.

It is disturbing to watch the interaction with Jian Ghomeshi.

We know enough about Ghomeshi to know that, while his conduct may never have been criminal, he is a sexual predator and a narcissist. And he is charming her like a snake hypnotizing his prey. He is feigning understanding her in some special way, and feigning sympathizing with her entirely. She is not used to being able to have a serious conversation with someone. Most people just don’t want to talk about real things; they probably ignore most of what she says.

You can see she is drawn to him.

And he is, I fear, expressing covert malice by choosing to coax her into that particular duet: "Baby, It's Cold Outside," with its hint of less than fully-consensual sex.

It feels like the narcissist asserting his feelings of superiority and demanding dominance. And testing how much he can get away with before she realizes what is going on.

It is an illustration of how the abused remain eternally vulnerable to narcissistic predators. It is terrifying to think of how she might have been hurt if Ghomeshi drew her in.