Revenge Anthology and the Minimum Requirements for a Healthy Human Relationship

“Snapshots of Deception with Sunset,” my newest flash fiction piece, has just been published in Revenge, an anthology of short stories edited by Akshay Sonthalia. This new anthology was published by Poet’s Choice/Free Spirit Publishers based in Mumbai, India. More information about the anthology and how to purchase can be found on Goodreads. 

“Snapshots of Deception with Sunset” explores the themes of adultery, broken trust, and narcissism. The idea for the story came to me as I was watching one of Dr. Ramani Durvasula’svideos on YouTube. Dr. Ramani is a clinical psychologist and the author of two books on narcissism. She is also one of my favorite Youtubers.

When I watch Dr. Durvasula’s videos, I learn about what I did not learn from my parents and from my school and university years in both France and the United States. As the title of one of her books indicates, we need to know “how to stay sane in an era of narcissism, entitlement, and incivility.” To do that, we need to know how to treat ourselves well. 

How do we accomplish that when we did not receive any template for decent treatment? Too often, children of narcissisticparents learn how to navigate the world from their parents.

In schools, there is not enough focus on teaching children and adolescents about boundaries, about what toxic behavior is, and about how to walk away when people are treating you badly. Few people learn that “the minimum requirements for a healthy human relationship are respect, kindness, compassion, mutuality, self-awareness, and growth.”

Fortunately, we live in a time when we have access to free, top-notch information about how to cut the ties that bind us to a toxic past to create the future we were meant to live. I encourage anyone who struggles with toxic relationships to explore resources like Dr. Durvasula’s lectures.