ACON's and Serial Abusive Relationships

Before I get too far, I must say that because I have been in many abusive relationships, I was told by professional and layman alike that I was setting myself up that way because I liked being a victim, or that I liked being abused.  Even though I said I didn't like it, they said I did and just didn't want to admit it.  No one ever sat down to discuss it with me.  No one cared.  I was a masochist?  Really?  I just liked to complain for nothing?

I would like to give a heap of non-appreciation for their laziness and/or self-absorbed existences. Lazy cause they didn't want to explore something that I needed and self-absorbed because they got some kind of sick pleasure for being so sure of themselves at my expense!  They took advantage of a traumatized woman who couldn't help herself and traumatized her further.  It validated their existences I guess. Would it have killed them to actually help me with this?  I guess so.

And no, I'm not being too harsh with them.  I can read a textbook.  Getting information is one thing, taking time to process it is another.  I was hurting, and no one could see that?  I could have died from abusive men, would they have said it was my fault then?  It occurs to me that many people read, but not learn.  Besides, if they didn't know anything, would the sensible thing to do would be to keep their big mouths shut?  Why did they use this as an opportunity to stick the knife in further?

What I wanted to write about today is that I think I found the answer.  It was always there, just no one to help me with it.  I hope this gives hope for women who get into abusive relationships over and over, with no one around to sit down with you over it.  We don't get into abusive relationships to try to find way to cope with life.  I am telling you its because its all we know.  It is kind of tied to Stockholm's Syndrome.  You can google that if you want, but many know what that is.  Sympathy for my abuser?  lol  In the case for serial abusive relationships there is this compelling need to stay alive, even believing non-truths.  Afterall what good is truth if it doesn't keep you alive or even safe?  I just wanted to talk this to the bone, and I never found anyone to do that with.

Ok, so we follow into patterns of old.  ??????  Self-Esteem??????   Self-Confidence??????

A few years ago someone sat down with me over it, so to speak.  I found something that saved my life.  I applied the knowledge but found it hard to do as an ACON (which I didn't know about at the time).  I used the stuff I had read and it ripped me to the core.  I ended up having to try the stuff for an hour at a time, and over and over again, that is how hard it is.  I now know it would have been next to impossible for me to be in a normal relationship, with my upbringing.  I was wired to do and say what was necessary to stay alive.  Not only that, being made that way from my formative years, it was impossible to know anything.  Ok, I can know things, but it still doesn't make any sense to me, I'll still continue to behave in old patterns taught to me in childhood.  I really found acting normal was impossible.  The parasite took a lot of what was necessary to live without her and I couldn't do it.  The parasite takes away yourself.  It wanted me to be a mirror.  I'm very happy to know some ACON's have somehow escaped the abusive relationships trap, and that is wonderful.

There is some stuff you can say is great about my mother, as I went into my awakening believing I had the best mom.  Sometimes she did make sense and gave me some sense of humanity.  But this was the most deadly part of the parasite.  If all she did was bad to me, I probably wouldn't be so carved out.

Now to the rest of the world, I appear crazy.  No one wants me to work for them for long as they tend to misunderstand me and that always gets me into trouble.  I'm not in line with the rest of the world.  But I know that I'm very smart and can sit down at a computer and make sense of something that has been such a huge part of my recovery process.  And I know my intent is good (most times).  I know one thing I like about myself, and that is I like to think for myself.  Mosttimes.  That is, when I'm not second guessing myself or putting up barriers for protection, it is always there, I think for myself.  I think it is this one part of me that caused me the most suffering growing up, the parasite tried to remove it.  So I suffered great pains to even have it, might as well use it.

I like to take the things I read and try to gain a perspective from it.  I always have.  Now, there is no lessons on relationship abuse.  Nothing I can find anyway for someone like me.  Yes, you could have told me that I was in abusive relationships because I didn't know better and tell me why.  Still no knowledge to that. I would have still been behaving the same way.  So call me stupid or unwilling to take advice but someone like me would need more.  For a lot of people this is a pain in the butt, and I get that, that they don't get what a carved out husk is about.  But, please try to realize it is sometimes hard to reach me.  This will require some work.

Take for instance this friend I used to have.  And while I'm at it, I would like to give a big kudos to the mental health department in my area for weeding out this social worker who is a malignant narcissist.  But anyway, while she was in university, I can see it all now.  She seemed to love to throw out these "opinions" she had learned in the books.  I know university is not intended that the student just parrots out knowledge like that.  These are to be pondered and use your own mind.

It's crazy.  We discussed one time how when an abused woman hits back.  She said it was wrong and the police will arrest both the men and the woman in these situations.  Parrot.  I said, "Hold on, I remember in the 90's, when I was getting hit by my ex I was supposed to hit back, that was a conversation I held with my brother back then and everyone seemed to feel like I was a wimp for not fighting back."

My friend parroted something she read out of textbook and said, "Well, you will get arrested then, when you hit back."   Oh my gosh, it was like she didn't even hear me.  And now I know that textbooks make people stupid sometimes.  I didn't say I wanted to hit back, I just wanted to discuss this, it was my favorite topic.  I felt so emotional then and she just up and left because she said I arguing this very valid point with her. I was just trying to open up a discussion, and she had to go on a tirade. Now I know, never argue with a narcissist, there is no point really.

She is afterall at the emotional level of a 3-year-old.  She started to talk about something and I was actually wanting to talk about it further, this topic always interested me.  But she couldn't.  She can't. She has no sense of reason, only that she was having a narcissistic rage episode.  She retreated because she "felt" I was arguing with her about some knowledge she "felt" was her own.

Many years and lots of pain later, and we became grandmothers.  She has this lovely granddaughter who she paid a visit to and got to babysit for a weekend.  About a week after that the little girl seemed to be experience some distress that her parents had to take her in to the doctor.  Then she had to undergo some tests.  My MN friend was indeed upset about these findings, however, it went beyond that into the very weird.  It seemed to be beyond her capabilities to understand that this was not about her.  I can understand her being upset.  I have an autistic granddaughter and this was upsetting, but the realization that we would have to learn and cope came first.  And it wasn't like there was something wrong with her granddaughter, nothing had been proven yet.  Tests were still to be done.

What I can say is that my MN friend was looking for compassion for herself, not about the little girl. I don't know if I am explaining that well.  But somewhere inside this hollow shell that I am felt she was not acting normal, although I lived a lifetime of that stuff being normal.

I don't know if she had done something to her granddaughter that made her distressed during that weekend of babysitting, I don't know.  She might have done something that hurt the little girl and that is why she is upset, the doctor might figure that out.  I know my friend loved children (so she said), almost in a crazy way.  Even to the point of having her schizophrenic daughter bring her children that the daughter was babysitting.

It was a few years ago (before my awakening) I decided to do some research about love and relationships.  I have been in so many abusive relationships, with everyone telling me, "Oh you must like it that way", that it was pissing me right off.  Seriously?  How am I supposed to like it?  I liked to be bashed in the face?  Ok, not to condemn people who do like it, but that wasn't me.  It hurt like hell. And even though I was a carved out husk, I still knew that pain wasn't for me.  So I decided to learn everything I could about it.

But what I knew about human behavior was next to zilch.  I was raised by an engulfing mother, I could never even leave her side, so I never got to learn and grow in life.  Top that off that mother was giving me a convoluted version of what love was.  I had no idea what I was doing in the world.

So I went all over, the internet and counselling sessions.  I was bound and determined to learn about serial abusive relationships, to crack the thing open.  Lots of crap I had to go through.  Just because it said it in a textbook didn't mean I was going to take it to heart.  That I was determined not to do.  But even that was a challenge.  But I always did like to think for myself.  Then I found a website that had so much power to me because the woman who wrote it never went with the norm.  She was trying to do what was best.  I could actually see her good intent in all this.  I read her website, bought the program, and just really started to learn.  Now I know everything about relationships, just ask (just kidding).  But really, I have been able to navigate myself really well through my relationship and my children's relationships and their friends relationships and so on.

She never really wrote about abusive relationships, she talked about it here and there, but that is not her mission.  I had to read her teachings and apply some knowledge and understanding for myself. She goes into anthropology and psychology, she gathers knowledge.  She puts it all together and it all makes sense.  Basically, we as human beings do things for our own reasons and our own well being, never for nothing, there is always a personal reason.  Maybe that's why no one would help me with my problem, they didn't care it didn't apply to them.  Then they take what I say and used it against me to hurt me, because it benefits them.  And all the ACON's like me were too carved out by a parasite and its way too hard.  Now I get this, it's written in our genetics to behave that way. Even myself, by writing this I want to produce something of value, because I lived far too long this way and I need to tell the world for my reasons.  For my own validation.  Mostly, we do things to benefit ourselves to help others and this in turn helps us out too.  Only a narc does otherwise.

I am now distressed to know how I could have handled my life a lot better.  But I didn't know it at the time.  Her programs actually caused me to awaken to the truth about my MN mother.  All I was doing was trying to understand men better and why I was always getting beaten up, but I learned about myself.

Her program is based on authenticity.  Basically, what she teaches is to get out of his head.  Stop trying to please him.  Now, I can't make her whole program and teachings into a single blog posting of mine.  I will only talk about what it did for me and what I had taken from it.

The point is to stop looking for things from him.  Know that I am enough.  What does that mean?  I was never enough, surely MN mother didn't see me as a person, there was nothing to me.  Like I said, I could only take this an hour at a time, it was hard, and it all came with baby steps.  Know that I'm enough.  These are not hard words to understand.  I did have fleeting moments throughout my life when I did fell so good about myself that I could at least try this out.  And when I didn't feel so well, I could remember what feeling well meant. Know that I'm enough. These are not hard words  like self-esteem or self-confidence.

Here is Where I Started

I go lay down on the couch.  If he was in the room, I would come up with excuses about why I had to lie on the couch.  I used to say "I'm laying on the couch, I have a headache, my back hurts.  I had to tell him why I was doing it in order to feel safe.

Now with what I've learned:  I say nothing, I just go lay down on the couch.  If he asks why I'm laying down?  I say I just want to.  Truth is, I may not know why I am laying down on the couch, maybe I do have a headache but I don't just say it for an excuse I would be lying and seeking approval.  Am I looking for his approval to lay on the couch?  Or am I just making that statement to get him off my back?

You see, he might be worried I am sick and want to ask me why I'm lying down, so I just say, "Thanks for your concern, I just need to lay down for awhile."  I might tell him why I'm laying down but that is a whole other realm.  A different motive.  I hope this makes sense.

Now I'm not saying this old behaviour of mine caused the abusive men but I'll tell you one thing. Lately, I've been on a learning curve about ACON's that I have retreated back into some old behaviours.  I have been using excuses for things lately and it's caused a lot of grief in my relationship.  For instance, "I didn't do the dishes, my head hurt."  Ok whatever.  He didn't even ask me about the dishes and I chimed in with why this and why that.  He was just walking into the door and was faced with this annoying crap.  He started to get irritated with me and no way was he the same and I couldn't figure out what was going on.  I was chasing him around trying to explain myself to him.  He would start to walk out the door saying, "You are pissing me off!"

This kind of behaviour might make him mad.  Only because he might feel blamed or he doensn't know how to respond to such behaviour.  It is like co-dependence.  That statement I never understood yet I read a ton about it in the 90's.  Nothing was cluing in for me until I found this wonderful site that blew me away.  Men want freedom and I was taking that away.  Like I said earlier, People do things for their own reasons.

I didn't know what was happening, but what I needed to do was get back into my emotions and work from there.  I knew then that I was looking for approval again.  Stop it.

So I got back to myself.  It doens't matter what I do or say, don't matter at all.  I'll just be enough and just be.  Just understand that he wants me for me, feel that down to my emotions.  One hour at a time. It wasn't any easier when he wasn't around for I had to practice this mindset and just be enough.

This caused my awakening to my engulfing mother.  Because being just me was hard to do.  I wasn't even supposed to exist, or have any kind of identity, mother wanted to root out anything that was me. Feeling for the first time, I realized I was a hollowed out shell.  Can I be enough?  It hurt, I felt it physically in my body.

MN mother loved to see me miserable.  This was one of her last statements to me.  This came to me like a ton of bricks.

And I'll tell you this, if you aren't yourself and realize that you aren't enough and go around looking for approval everywhere. you will attract the most selfish evil men to you.  Simple as that.  How do I know that?   Well, the programs teach you that none of this stuff that you do to improve your relationship works with a psychopath.  A psycho will knock you off the couch and tell you to do the dishes.  Not because he wants the dishes done, but because he wants to control you. The second you are feeling you are enough, you will know that man is narcissistic or evil.  And if you are you you will get your butt the hell out of there.

I knew a woman once who put up with the most deplorable men.  That woman was me.  She would get hurt and she would retreat, disappear, thinking that she was improving the situation for herself, but what she was doing was bringing more of the bad men to her.

I couldn't even argue well.  My arguments were needy and graspy and no good man would stand for that. Normal men has a mission to accomplish, he needs someone who can be herself.  It's not that he doesn't care if I had a headache, he feels blamed for it.  I had to look for excuses for everything and he had to listen to it.  All he wants is to feel safe.  Safe to do all the things he needs to do in life. Because he is a good man, he don't want to pound her into the ground.  A good man wants to be certain that she isn't about playing games.

Now I know this sounds simple and harder to do.  I've made mistakes over and over.  The program teaches you that mistakes are good, mistakes are learning, mistakes need to be made fast.  Perfection is one of the many masks we wear for fear.  Never pleasing, I watch what I say.  Are my words oblivious to what I am feeling inside?  Do I need approval?  Find out why.

This also relates to a lot of other stuff.  It really is authenticity and are my words oblivious to what I'm feeling inside.  Do I feel I want to give excuses for every little thing I do?  Of course not!  But this really was a survival technique I learned in childhood.  Those emotions that are real will take you back to a place to who you are despite what happened during your formative years.

Of course this thing I do to attract the hellish men will repel the good men.  We want to repel these bad guys, let them go.  Just like my behaviour kept MN mother happy.  There were no boundaries so she would inspect and cause me to have fear.

I have heard that self-confidence is essential in relationships.  Just no one ever got into the heart of the issue and I didn't even understand what self-confidence was.  I thought I did all the right things and was confident.  I knew this stuff, and I heard of this stuff before, but she takes things much more intrinsically so that I and everyone else can get it.  But this woman (my angel), decided to write about it and the rest is history.

So, that is what is working for me.  I feel that with me being enough corrects my old patterns.  Why didn't anyone tell me that before?  I can actually take my old patterns and change them into things I would do when I'm enough.  How to feel like you are enough?  This is baby steps and that simple statement works for me.  It clicks in with where I am, for I did have those moments when I did feel enough, but it didn't last.  So I just remember those times.  There are those fleeting moments that come naturally, the trick is to extract from those.  Then its actually remembering those times, then I am enough.

This is the first step.  You can discover ways you have been hiding in not being enough and extract those.  I showed you where I started.  But it is a journey, one that will take awhile.  I hope I explained this well.

I Am Appearing Dangerous

There has been lots of pain lately.  Sometimes I am taking it out on other people.  I talked to a friend yesterday, and although I have been really able to talk to her, something inside me blew up.  I felt like I was demanding her complete understanding in the whole matter and was really not there.  She was talking and I got scared and defenseless as usual and I was running around inside my mind.  I think what appeared to her, what I think she saw, was anger coming from me.

Now I don't doubt that an abused puppy grown up can be dangerous, but I'm not an animal, I'm human and I am prideful in my ability to contain myself.  My friend is a Christian sister, who has had quite a bit of life experience herself, but I was treating her like she don't know anything.  She has experienced a cheating husband for years he cheated on her and she prayed through it and he came to be a Christian too, and now is a good man and they are together.  She has survived a horrible battle with cancer which she has survived and is in the clear.  She has also told me her daughter-in-law's mother shot herself dead after a lifetime of being an aloholic.  She has stepped in to be the mother of this woman, being supportive and loving to her daughter-in-law.

I'm in pain.  There is no one, nadda, that can understand me.  There is the online ACON community of course and God, but not to sound insulting, I would like someone with a little skin on them.  I know ACON's all suffer through this and somehow we have been getting through it.  Slowly, day by day.

I want to call my friend and apologize, but this may come off as hollow.  Maybe my intent is not that I'm sorry, but that I feel foolish and I am looking for her approval.  If I was authentic I would be calling her to tell her that I'm feeling like a fool right now and I need you to make me feel better. Make me feel normal again.  That sucks,  Imagine me calling her and telling her that.  Oh, and if I was really, really authentic I'd be here dipping strawberries into chocolate and pouting my head off.

Did I ever tell you I had an MN friend growing up?  I heard all children are narcissistic, but this one takes the cake.  It would be too long and drawn out to explain why she is MN right now, and I really don't care to anyway, I know what I know.  Anyway, one day we were about 10, something she had done offended me and she accused me of pouting.  I was giving her the silent treatment (appeared to) but authentically I was just feeling my feelings which felt so normal at the time.  Nowadays, just feeling my feelings is hard work, but I am getting there.

I wish that that childhood friend would not have tried to prop me up out of my feelings and let me alone.  It would have been better.

So now I have to cope with untying this knot in my chest, feel what is going on and try to be the human I want to be.  I don't want to be the dangerous grown up puppy, I have so much to give and I'm not giving it, and I'm not trusted by others to give anyway.

I don't feel my husband trusts me that much either because I am dangerous.  I'm sure even if ACON's were to meet me face to face, they'd be scared too.  I put off other people, I've become nasty.  But when I try to tell my husband that my mind is playing tricks on me or I feel bad about something, he sloughs it off.  That is making me angry.  I go to pout again.

I think I need to be that child again, the one who wanted to pout alone, and not try to take things from other people (their approval, or any emotional resources).  Authentically, I want to bite anyone's head off, because I'm blaming everyone for what has happened to me.  In one way or another they have all screwed me over, because they would not have ever stood up for me.  There was never anyone to stand up to the bullies for me not even this precious woman who I call my friend.  If she had her choice she would have walked away from me when someone was hurting me.

I know this sounds horribly confusing, and I hope it brings some kind of value to the community. Even though I have never been able to defend myself, I seem to have taken the other side of the spectrum.

My Perfectly Organized Life, Not

So I was doing very very good.  All organized and doing this and that, visiting people.  Blogging, sharing.  Then it happened just when I least expected.  My stepdaughter came for a weekend visit sometime before Halloween with her two children and destroyed the house.  Ok, please here me out here.  I've always hated stepmoms who bashed their stepchildren all the while holding their own bio kids on a pedestal because they can do no wrong.  I hated that.  Now, I am one of "those".  

The house got messed up and not only that she baked a cake that was supposed to be for a wedding shower that would look like it had blood spattered all over it.  For Halloween.  The red icing "spatters" was spattered all over the walls, floors, you name it.  The rest of the house was destroyed by the two kids.  

My daughter, well, has three children and one of them is severely autistic.   As luck would have it (I say luck because she was never taught this by me), when she has her visits the house is more spotless than when she wasn't here.  My son, not so clean but then again he doesn't make cakes and has no kids.  My youngest daughter, again no kids, but has a habit of dropping things, but a word from me and she helps.

Maybe I shouldn't add that part about my own kids, comparing and I'm not sure why I am so yeah, I'm one of those bad stepmoms.  But I am struggling here now even weeks later.  Her dad helped me clean up the icing and that took a whole day, but the rest of the house he is either blind to or chooses to be blind to.

Everyday I am expecting to clean up the mess but I get "busy".  I do have a social life but I do stay at home full-time.  Before the wrecking crew arrived I managed to keep the house very nice and it wasn't hard to do.  Now I'm waking up every day and I'm overwhelmed of where to start.  That's my problem - getting started.  Where to start, how to start etc..

I have always struggled with this.  I told my husband that if I was this strong I would be in the wilderness of Africa milking snakes for antivenom.  He still thinks I'm normal.  So still I struggle.  

This morning I woke up and decided to just start somewhere.  The dishes.  Just concentrate on that till it was done and don't worry about the next thing.  Next was the laundry, concentrate on that and nothing else.  On and on this went until I got caught up.  The housework is almost done and all I have to do is wash all the floors.  Still a big task but it is a single task.  One thing left to do.  How weird is that.  As long as I don't feel overwhelmed with multiple tasks I'm ok.

I learned something from all this.  If I just focus on the now all will be ok.  So other ACON's go through this?  I like advice and it is appreciated, however, one clue is that I feel blamed and stupid all the time, it is a battle not to feel that way.  Do other ACON's go through this too?  

I like advice when it is present with what I'm going through.  Lots of people give advice and the timing is just off.  Like if a woman just broke up with a guy she gets told by her girlfriends, "Don't worry about it he is an ass anyway."  Do you call that advice?  I don't.  The poor lady is hurting.  I would prefer to tell her, "Oh my, that really sucks."  Just go there and be there with her in her problem.  

Now it would be easy for anyone to tell me that I should just smarten up clean the house or get the daughter to do it.  It's not that easy.  I know, reaching out to someone and being present is hard work. Relationships are hard.  Try being there for your spouse when he is going on and on about his job and not giving him advice.  I've been there.  It sucks but it is what he needs.  

I think, for me, that is what blogging is about.  I'm terrified someone is going to call me a complainer because I feel that is all I do.  So I try and talk about something "positive".  Not bad but its not real and present.  I hurt and that is why I come here.  But I am aware of not repeating old patterns.  So I pick myself up and keep trying.  Hey, the house is near cleaned up and I am telling you and I am telling you of the struggle I had to go through to get there.

The Mirror Affect

Can you make this face?  Big smile open wide and your eyebrows in an angry pose?  Nostrils flared? Ok, I can't.  I've been trying to be mother all my life and it isn't happening.  Such a loving face and I can't do it.  Yes, I'm being sarcastic.

I'll always remember the day of my awakening.  The first thing I read about it was "This person does not have good intentions for you."  I don't remember whose site I was on, maybe Anna Valerious, I'm not going to go look it up.  It hurt too bad.  But before I read that I felt something go off inside me.  I was watching The Conjuring.  This movie was a horror film based in the 1970's about the time of my abuse.  Everything about the movie seemed so familiar.  It was spooky, but when that demonologist said that you can't get rid of it easily, I kinda felt he was talking to me.  But, the whole movie seemed so familiar.

At New Year's this year I was stuck on an airplane that was going no where, then stuck at the airport with my cranky Frenchman.  I felt I had to placate him, and I couldn't.  I couldn't fix this.  This happens sometimes and there is nothing I or anyone else can do.  He is my husband, and he is going to be cranky no matter what.  That's what he does.  I tried so hard to placate him, we got some food, prayed for the time to pass quickly, took him for a walk around.  At the end of it all I was more exhausted than I would have been if I didn't have to feel so responsible for his mood.

He turned and looked at me, "I don't know why your so upset for, everyone has to wait, not just us." Something just went off in my brain.  Could I have been looking at this from a different perspective? He misunderstood me.

I have lived a life of panic.  I'm scared all the time.  I feel I have to diffuse bombs everywhere I go. Therapists can't fix this, and I just couldn't go on anymore.

Scared each day I'm plummeting further and further into this.  I don't know what the bottom is.  I just have to trust this time, that this is good, and where I need to be right now.  No positive thinking right now, just what this is.  And I've still got a while yet to go.

One problem with this though, I have got to start making my own decisions about myself.  There is no other way.  I found this quote useful:

The world will tell you who you are until you tell the world!

It's exciting to find out there is a real me and not just somebody's mirror.  I was going to get lots of my favorite things together and take a picture of them, but that would only be the surface.  Things are not who I really am.  I am only pointing this out today because a narcissist won't care about those things about me and actually seek out a way to sabotage it.  Who am I really?  

Do you have a favorite hockey team or a favorite pair of socks?  Favorite anything?  Who told you they were your favorite?  I have had to ask myself similar questions.  Do I like to draw?  No, not really.  YOu see. lots of people like to dray and I thought I did but I really don't, although I can appreciate others who do.  Have I ever said I like to draw?  I will if you tell me I do.  That's the existence I had.  It's so hard to break out of narcissist training or mirror training, so hard to exist.

I find momentum when I find a piece of myself and run with it.  It's that kind of challenge I've been finding out about myself lately.  Even the not so nice things.  Do I want to change them?  Maybe some day, but for now, I'll stick with what it is first.

It feels like I'm been bombarding other blogs, saying things that don't fit.  I try to stay on topic, that is a good intention, but I sway just a little bit.  It has been tolerated by the blog owners, no one has said anything about it, but maybe someday they will.  Can I take the criticism?  Hello, a new one for me, taking criticism.

Now, I know that pain feels awful.  You don't want to go into that dreaded place of fear. It does feel like you are dying, or you'll never get anywhere but deeper into the pit. That is a trick of the mind. I'm here to say the pit is not so deep that you can't handle it.  You can actually find out what is causing the pain and your body does not allow for you to sink so deep you cannot get out.  That does not happen.  I had a discussion with my oldest daughter who takes anti-depressants and she tells me she needs them because her brain does not make enough serotonin.  I feel the world is addicted to serotonin, and I say that we are not entitled to serotonin all the time.  Life isn't always about being happy.  With serotonin running through our brains all the time we can't ever feel pain?  Is that the cure, to keep us in a state of fake happiness so the malignant narcissist can have their way with us?  I have faith that pain has a beginning and it has an ending, thus it has a purpose.

One thing I have discovered about myself and it is weird  is that I have to look at a picture of someone to know what to say next, isn't that crazy?  Am I the only one who does that?  I have to have a picture or tv show with someone's face in front of me to try to figure out what to say next or something validating what I got to say.  And the minute I see that picture I feel safe and can actually hold a good conversation.  It just doesn't seem natural to me, and I know that isn't part of who I am and has something to do with narcissistic abuse. That is something to explore, and as my journey takes hold, I can hopefully understand it.

What I really hate is the saying "Its not all about you".  What kind of nonsense thing is that to say. That is putting someone down by basically calling them selfish.  I think a narcissist came up with it.   I've even heard Dr. Phil say that.  He's some kind of life coach, who uses such convoluted statements that make no sense in real life.  Do I believe it has a purpose at all?  No, not at all.  That comment is assuming something about someone and we have no right to that, it is completely immoral.  The narcissist doesn't believe that phrase applies to them, they use it to storm right into your head and take over, and it can only be used against a real and decent person.  So be careful with that one.

I think the real telling if someone is a MN is if they make you feel good about doing something that they are doing, but when they stop doing it, then they want you to stop it too.  Or, if they watched a certain show, they want you to watch it.  And don't want you to watch something they don't watch. They hold judgement for that show and don't mind telling you to stop watching it for that reason.   I've seen this in my friends.  Its so weird when you are not with a MN but with a real person who doesn't try to turn you into a mirror. They want someone to talk to, to laugh with, to hang with, not a slave.  So I have to find those parts of me that are real and sincere.

I'm a firm believer that the cure for anxiety and depression is through the anxiety and depression.  I have fear.  I went into that feeling, and I'll tell you its just a mess.  I've been trying to unlock all the secrets about what is going on with me.  And its horrible, but its ok.  I want to live in reality. 

Self-defence

These two boys have plotted together to come live with us.  We only chose one ( the silver stripped one) then went home with him.  A day later it broke our hearts that the kitten cried all night for his brother and an email said the other brother was crying too.  In 48 hours when ended up with the two kitties.  They are Max and Sylvester.  Max is the silver stripped one.

Not only are they kitties, they are polydactyl cats.  That is they have extra claws.  Now how crazy is that?  I am imagining the symbolism here.  ACON's are declawed cats in a world full of mean cats. We went shopping for one regular kitten.  We ended up with two with more claws than a normal cat. There are no coincidences.

Self-defense is vital for a normal life.  I was unable to defend myself even at the age of 3 years old.  I have covered that in an earlier posting.  You can't have any defenses around mother.  You have to be her whipping child.  This is the nature of a scapegoat child.  You are nothing to a MN mother.  Ok, you are a valuable source of supply, as she has no internal resources and needs to shine through you.

I was 17 when my brother announced his engagement.  This is the brother married to the MN wife.  It took time to discover the truth about her, but it came to pass soon after they were married.

So when he announced his engagement, the whole family was there except our father.  Father left years before, only to be kept in touch by that brother.  Things were fine that day.  We had a wonderful dinner done to perfection by mother.  Then we had a neighbour come visit, still everything went well.  Then mother turned on me and just me.  She said she only had this whoring daughter with the red nail polish and sleazy voice.  The neighbour tried to defend me.  Mother looked over at me and said, "Have you ever thought of the way you sound?  You sound just like a prostitute."  I won't try to explain that one.  Let me just say I was not having sex, nor had a boyfriend and had good grades in school and I didn't know what she was talking about.  I liked fancy nails and kept them that way.  I  didn't try to defend myself either.  She kept on me with everyone in the room.  I was ignoring mother and was kind of pretending she was not talking to me.  When she yelled to get my attention, I pretended to listen.

If I would have said something to defend myself, I would have been in deep trouble.  I don't know what kind of trouble, but I wasn't able to face that reality.  And the desire to defend myself was not there.  It was gone a long time ago.  I still find it hard to fight back.  It feels odd.

After awhile, the situation cooled off.  I got to relax a bit.  This was a scapegoating exercise and as usual everyone was throwing me under the bus.  A usual day in the life at our household.  I was used to it.  The neighbour told mother that it is understandable since her youngest son was getting married that she would vent that way.

 A couple of years later it is kinda funny how everyone got on my back over my husband, at that time, who was abusive.  I stayed over at mother's while on one of my escapes from him, and she would stay next to me and listen to my telephone conversations.  She said she had too, I was too stupid to handle my own life.  She said he was hurting me and I wouldn't do anything to stop it.  How stupid could I be?

Now, this makes me so angry.  This part has got to go in my blog.  If I get found out by my FOO they better read this part too.  Sometimes I wish I would get found out.  Heck, I have nothing to hide here. What have I got to hide?  Does an accident victim have to hide from the person who hit them?  To me it is like that.

All my life I thought I was in control, and doing all the damage myself.  That I was screwing things up by myself.  That I create drama, I'm a disaster junkie.  That's what everyone thought.  Now if that were true, at least I know if I did it then I can fix it.  That I was in control.  Oh feel so raw inside.  I always thought I had to be responsible, and fix things and now I know I can't.  And it wasn't my fault.  I was taught this way. I've had a hard life.  Second husband wasn't physically abusive but he was a malignant narcissist who wouldn't work.  He could hold down a job, he had done so for years before and after me.  One time I bought the kids a pool for a couple of hundred bucks,  while I was at work he only let the neighbourhood kids use it.  That my kids didn't deserve it.  He ruined the barbecue on purpose for the same reason too.  He wouldn't help around the house and he would sleep all day.  I put up with that for 20 years.  After 20 years, I tried to throw him out of the house but he wouldn't leave.  I finally had to stay at another woman's shelter again to get away.  When I stayed at the women's shelter my MN friend would come and get me for a visit.  She was a social worker and tried to help me.  She said she didn't feel my husband was abusive and that I was just abusing the system. She contacted my family and tried to get me to go back with him.  She didn't win.

This same friend caused me years of grief.  Years ago, I had a cat and he got very sick with urinary tract disease, so I thought I would have to put him to sleep, I had no money. The vet told me don't worry about the cost, that she will fix the cat all up.  I didn't have to pay for it.  I had no idea of malignant narcissism at the time and trusted everyone, so I told a friend about it.  That friend in no time flat asked me to get the same thing for her, her dog was sick.  She had lots of money, she was a social worker, her husband has a good job.  And she didn't even care that much about her dog.  But as a case of arrested development at the emotional level of a 3 year old, she is what she is.   A great big pile of waste material.  I didn't even ask the vet to help, she offered, because I was broke and single and the kids and I loved the cat, and that was the only reason.    The vet wasn't handing out favors to anyone that asked.  She was aiding a family in a crisis.  When I told my friend I couldn't ask the vet, and even explained why the vet was doing it (which I didn't need to, you don't have to explain these things, just tell them to bugger off) she was upset about it and even said the vet had no right to do this for me, it is unfair to everyone else who has to pay.  You couldn't imagine my feelings at the time, I couldn't ask for things, couldn't even get my own needs met, felt accused and couldn't say no to a narc either, thank you mommie dearest for giving me this horrible upbringing, torturing me throughout my life and making me your scapegoat, you miserable bitch.  I thank you and give you a load of manure to dump on your head!  In case you don't know about veterinarians, its their own company, their personal business, so they can damn well do what they want with it!  MN's think everything belongs to them, you can't have anything that is the way it is!  And by the way, if someone does something nice for you, be careful of who you tell.  Too many narcs out there to exploit you and the person who did something for you.  They don't want you to have something, it all belongs to them.  "No good deed goes unpunished".  I'm sure a narc made up that phrase, but never in reference in what you can do for them.

I don't remember how I handled the situation.  Or if I even did.  I wasn't asking the vet and probably avoided my friend for awhile after that.  Then things calmed down and she went back to her regular "feeding" schedule.

If I had to do it all over again, I would have told my friend a simple no.  I didn't have any power and I don't have to pretend to anyone.  She could have had a fit if she wanted to, but on her own.  I would never allow her to have that sort of fit in front of me.  She would be talking to my butt.

I suppose if a situation arises, I'll do my best to defend myself, but each situation is different.  Just speak my mind.  And I don't have to explain myself to anyone.  I spoke of the root of suffering is attachment.  And needing abuse to be safe.  Well, those fit in here as well.  We shouldn't care about what others think.  I feel scared, scared, scared.

Having or not having claws to defend myself I need to do it anyway.  Of course I will make mistakes, as anybody, but I can't be afraid of that either.   Suppose I won't sound right or get misunderstood. That's ok.  Suppose someone hates my opinions, that's ok too.

I think what I will do is focus most on my intentions.  If I have good intentions who cares what else matters, I'm doing the best that I can.  I know I'm not a person who needs approval of others, that is only what I was taught.  To worry about others feelings above mine.  What a horrible legacy mother has left me.  How do I care about my own feelings more?  It is a journey to step into.  Just do it. Sounds easy, just concern myself with my intentions and that's it.  I can't worry about the mistakes I'll make doing so.  There will be mistakes, and normal people make them too.  Its time for me to get started.  To take that logic and feel it down to my emotions.

I know I can hurt others even with good intentions.  But, I don't know any other way.  It is a risk.  It will take courage.  It's hard because I know logically I'm right but emotionally I'm a wreak and still needing.  There is nothing to be obtained in this world without self defense.

One of the people I admire the most right now is a lady who attends the food bank where I volunteer. She is going to school, has a few kids, and makes the most of her money and uses the resources that are available to her.  She is not picky and will take what she can.  She freezes the fresh vegetables and tries to stretch everything out.  She always has a smile on her face and describes her life plans with excitement.  It sure is encouraging just talking to this great lady.  I'm sure some people look down on her but she will make it big someday as long as she has defenses.  I can only imagine.

I know now defending myself is absolutely necessary.  I get it logically, but emotionally it sucks. Depending on how I feel at the time it is easier to just let it go.  But I can't do that anymore, so reading helps.  Advice helps, and I walk closely with the teachings of other ACON's.  We live in the world of the internet, for now.  There will come a day when we can all expose the real truth of malignant narcissists, and while none of this stuff can ever really be put to rest, the good part is in knowing we did not do this to ourselves.