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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.
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.
I so, completely, absolutely get this. The living in fear every single minute - diffusing bombs because IT'S ALL ON YOU to make the situation ok. And I say 'ok' because no matter what, we can't make the situation GOOD. I describe it as putting out fires with my big clown feet and never having a minute to work on preventing those fires in the first place. I spent - well, from the time I moved to Maryland until and including right this minute, learning how to just be ME. How to just feel what I felt, like what I liked. It's been 3, 4 years now. I'm still learning about me.
ReplyDeleteI can't be 'fixed'. I'm broken like a vase - and I put myself back together but I'm still cracked. And I (we) didn't do that. It's all we can do at this point to learn how to live with being broken. Like a dog with 3 legs, I learned how to walk and run again but I still only forever will have 3 legs. I'll never be 'normal'. And sometimes (for me) it's about learning what I DON'T like, before I can even think about what I do like. I couldn't pick out my 3 favorite colors from the rainbow, say, but I can eliminate the ones I don't like one-by-one.
The serotonin thing - i get what you mean - we aren't entitled to be 'happy', sometimes life is just sh*t and we need to just be ok dealing with that - sitting with it.
For me, that chemical, and dopamine as well - my brain doesn't make them either. And without those chemicals, your brain is crippled. I know it's hard to understand what depression is from the outside (not that YOU are outside, just that it can be difficult for anyone not IN it) but it isn't 'sadness'. It's more NOTHING. it's awful - it's so far down a well of nothing that getting out of bed just seems pointless. The anti depressants helped my brain start making those chemicals, and start using them - and then I could climb out of that horrible well one slow step at a time. I'm still not 'happy', lol. And I'm still bat-crap crazy. They don't make you want to dance. But they DO make it so being dead (not killing yourself, just not being alive anymore) doesn't sound like an ok option.
I feel like I'm bat-crap crazy too. I've been like that all my life and now I know why. It's like I have a whole lifetime of learning to do and its too late, the formative years are over.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how to accept my own crazy. I do or say something, then I realize that wasn't right, but the experience is over. And I can't say I can be different the next time because it is an emotional experience. Then that weirdness follows me with the people who know me now to be weird. I've done and said weird things, and then that person who saw it sees me as crazy, I guess I'm prideful and want to be strong is all. But I can't have it.
It's good the meds are helping you, and I understand the dopamine. We've been through the worst human experience in my opinion, this is tough. I've been on meds for most of my life, been in counselling since I've been 18. In fact, when I was 18 the doctor told me to go on a holiday, that I had bad nerves. I'm 48 now and probably would get the same diagnosis. But I fear death so I probably wouldn't hope for death. I would consider meds if I did.
I know what it feels like to not be able to pick out my favorite colors from the rainbow.
This society sucks with all their "be happy" or else crap. I know I will never measure up to those demands and have quit because of the kind of life I've had.
ReplyDeletehttp://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/2014/09/positive-thinking-tyranny-quote.html
These narcs screwed us up in emotional development. I know my extreme anxiety is rooted in never having been nurtured as a child and thusly never learned to self-sooth. [trying now] Extreme depression is rooted in our basic lack of love, there are life long ramifications.
I have tons and tons of material on positive thinking. Yep, been keeping it all, whatever I could, throughout the years and have actually tried it. It hadn't done me any good so I decided to explore where all the feelings were coming from.
ReplyDeleteWhats wonderful about awakening is that now I mostly know why I am the way I am. I can almost pinpoint everything. As time goes by I'm sure all the rest will make sense.
Now that we know it makes it easier somehow. I'm glad you have found ways to cope.