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.
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