The Psychology of Dexter - Bella DePaulo [76]
Nevertheless, her inability to meet her father’s primary need affected her deeply. This is evidenced most plainly in her many self-deprecating statements. For instance, Deb has referred to Dexter as “the superior Morgan,” as in “Dex, Lies, and Videotape” (2-6) after she felt brushed aside by Lundy in favor of her brother during the Bay Harbor Butcher investigation. She continued her self-deprecating tirade later in the same episode, referring to herself as “the dipshit who slept with the Ice Truck Killer” and “the resident retard.” Taken together, these statements point clearly to her unresolved issues of being the second-best child in the family. In reaction to this feeling of inadequacy, she has spent most of her life trying to prove Harry wrong. In season four Deb even admitted to becoming a cop in search of Harry’s approval.
PROBLEMS WITH INTIMACY
The children of narcissistic families often have problems forming close or intimate relationships. Bonding is difficult for them because they have learned not to trust. Often this is due to the emotional unavailability of their parents but can also be due to more overt abuse. As a result, they learn to build protective walls around themselves, hiding their emotional needs and wants even from close friends and intimate partners. As noted earlier, this pattern is sometimes broken by periods of reckless vulnerability and self-disclosure initiated in almost desperate attempts to earn affection. As adults, they tend to suffer a string of failed romances and accompanying interpersonal pain.
Most Dexter devotees will agree that Harry was emotionally unavailable to both of his children, even though he certainly put in time with Dexter. This is most plain in Harry’s failure to validate either child’s feelings. As a child, Dexter was angry, a feeling that we know manifested in thoughts and sometimes actions of violence. Though we know that Harry acknowledged these thoughts and taught his son some coping strategies, he did not validate or explore their source, leaving Dexter emotionally isolated. The same can be said for Deb, who had a strong emotional need for love and reciprocal affection, but was rebuffed whenever she attempted to be included in activities with her father. In the end, neither child’s emotional needs were met; Dexter was taught to conceal his true feelings while Deb was taught that hers were not important. The result was that both learned to hide their emotions. As adults in their thirties, neither have close friendships and both struggle romantically. Moreover, both engage in frighteningly injudicious disclosures and acts that create precarious breaks in their otherwise closed-off lives.
Dexter certainly suffers from a barrage of intimacy troubles that can be attributed to his narcissistic family upbringing. Issues of trust were at the forefront of his relationship with Rita. And although Dexter’s secrets leave him more vulnerable than most, his failure to disclose them to her was consistent with a person who learned as a child to be emotionally guarded. At the very start of the series, we learned that Dexter was apprehensive of consummating his relationship with Rita. He feared that she would see that he was “empty inside” and leave him as other women had (“Dexter,” 1-1). The pair was eventually successful in becoming intimate and Rita, to Dexter’s surprise, was not put off. Perhaps even more telling of Dexter’s problems with intimacy is all that he left unsaid to Rita. Not just his Dark Passenger but also his harrowing childhood, family