Narcs Abuse Victims, Really?

I am getting very aware that I am so programmed for pain its just horrible.  Its like I have no other existence.  If I just shut myself away, it just feels worse.  I try to volunteer to help others out because this is supposed to be therapeutic.  This level of giving has to take precidence over our own feelings, so I don't know.  I don't want to block any feelings here, so I am hoping that is not the reason they call it therapeutic.

I just woke up this morning and its like the whole thing has hit me with full force yet again.

My little cat caught a mouse.  There it was in the morning before I could have my coffee.  It was on the kitchen floor, laying on the floor, guts poured out and when I went to move it it was stuck to the floor, it took some effort to get it off.  I've seen cats kill mice before and usually the mouse is still intact, but he mutilated the mouse.  My cat is less than a year old, and here he was all excited, and all proud of himself.  His inexperience caused him to leave a mess.

Was it nice the cat caught the mouse?  Yes, of course.  We don't want to live with mice, the field mice are always trying to get into the house, and now the cat prowls the house looking for more mice. Next time he does I hope I'm not alone in the house and hope its not first thing in the morning.

What a blessing but gee, was it ever disgusting.  But we will never have mice in the house as long as we have our kitty.  He is a mouser.

Isn't it strange how something so horrible can actually be good?

I've been having some panic attacks lately.  It comes from nowhere and shoots right through me.  I prayed to God to help me, I don't want pills ever again.  You want to know what happened?  I've been getting visions of MN mother.

Not just visions.  I can see her EYES.  Those eyes that would look at me and not look at me at the same time.  I always see one grey eyelash in there.  The putrid eyes have no soul.

Bad thoughts come pouring in, I'm in pain, but in a short while, I see those eyes, then I'm overloaded with sheer anger.  Instead of pain, fear, despondency, panic, I feel anger.  Anger about mother.  I can see those eyes as clear as day now.  Those eyes used to suck up narcissistic supply faster than a guzzler can suck down a beer.  Putrid and disgusting it is to see those eyes in my mind, they are necessary.

I saw those eyes in my mind's eye and I now know they are soulless.  There is no one in there.

I feel so angry some days, I don't know what to do with it.  Just tonight I found out my oldest daughter is talking to my brother's MN wife on facebook.  I'm thinking, "Come talk to me, you evil bitch, I will be putting all the evil you have done, and it will be ALL BACK ON THE TABLE."  All the shit she did will be unburied  (I buried it, because I was ........choke, compassionate).  That evil bitch will get it now.

When will I get used to this?  There was once this movie or this play, it was called, "The Little Match Girl."

OMG

I think I cried for days when I watched that.  It was such a horrific story.  I could never bear to watch it ever again.

Reality is that I know something now that I didn't before.  Narcissists were never abuse survivors. Call it what you will, a revelation, a move of God, it all placed inside my head, and it dawned on me that this is the way it is.  Its like this.  We were born with the ultimate choice, do what you will. Some people have made that choice to go conscienceless, maybe they were weak so they found it easier.  It was a process and they stuck themselves to the evil side, because it was easier, more fun whatever.

All this happened to me because I went to a dumbass blog that talked about the poor narcs as abuse survivors and had no other way to cope so they put on this mask and they spend the rest of their lives worrying about this mask, poor them.  Ok, I want to puke too.

If you put up an ACON blog, sooner or later I'll happen along, its just the way it is.

No.  That bad adult was the bad kid too, I just know it.  It settled into my heart and it has been there for awhile now.  It is so relieving to know this, but in some ways it feels worse.

It means that there was no reason for my abuse.  If I could believe my mother was railroaded by abuse to be abusive herself, then maybe the abuse had a purpose.

But it didn't!

Now, I don't blame someone who feels that they gotta believe that their parents were abusive because they were abused.  I can't, in a way it makes things easier.  But easier is not reality.  It is a way of escaping fear.  We are afraid to face anger.  Anger is bad right?

Wrong!  In my last posting, I talked of a boy who became a man.  He was always very angry over his FOO, but that wasn't the part that made him lose himself.  He lost himself because he gave in and at some point really believed the stuff his lousy parents were telling him.  He was angry, so therefore he is abusive, but he has never seen the inside of a jail before.  All this anger, and he never took it out on anyone.

Mother was abusive.  She had always been that way.  If she was the little matchgirl in the play she would have torched the town and everyone in it.

I can see her eyes again in my mind.  There is nothing there.  Maybe she didn't plan to destroy me, but either way she wouldn't have cared.  It was that narc supply she was after.  At any cost.

Narcs appear in our lives.  They are not good people.  In the bible, in the second part of the first chapter of Romans, they are talked about, they are explained in great detail.  "They have given way to........".  There is not talk there if they were abuse survivors.  There is no talk anywhere in the bible where abuse causes abuse.  Not to my knowledge anyway.

Narcs and sociopaths are talked about in the bible.  Not with those words, but every detail that you can think that a narc is there it is.  There is no talk about redeeming them.  The seared conscience even God has backed away from.  So how can I hope to gain access to something that God won't?

It is lost on me how they really became this way.  All I'm saying is that they were never forced to be this way.  They probably have come from loving families, but still chose to be horrible.  Or they may have come from abusive families, but still chose it.  Either way, there is no way abuse breeds abuse.

I think more that the bible says that if you abuse your children they will not be able to take care of themselves.  They don't become abusers.

This is the reality that I have to face.  Sure, it may make it easier to believe otherwise that my poor mother didn't mean for this to happen.  Wake up!

Truth is, there is no one home in her eyes.  There lies just the liar, who lied and said she was a good mother.  She never had any good intents.  This wasn't the "good kid at one time".  Never, there was no one ever there.

So what am I saying then, just throw them into the ditch and never look back?  Well, yes we can. That pop can that is already in the ditch served a much greater purpose than mother ever did, give the pop can the funeral it deserves.

DISCLAIMER:  I am speaking from pure emotion tonight, please don't take this for yourself if you don't want to.

A Soul Murder

I want to write today for my cousin who is in a mental institution.  He has lost his voice perhaps forever.   I want to tell his story, for his sake, to the best of my knowledge.  I don't know all of the details, I'm sure more horrible stuff happened outside of my knowledge.   It always does.  I never lived in their house.  I'll tell you everything I can remember, some detailed, some in pieces.  I'll call my cousin Thomas.

I have pondered for days about writing this.  I realize that an ACON had to be strong.  We didn't get here by giving in.  The attempts at soul murder happened to all of us, Thomas just lost the battle is all.

I just find so much value in telling his story.  I got to witness his life.  Not fully, but with everything I had learned from the ACON community, I had so many a-ha moments.  The value is in seeing how other narcissists are besides my mother.  I also have a very distinct clue that narcs are not necessarily abuse survivors.  Maybe not at all abuse survivors.  I have knowledge of three generations in Thomas' family.

Thomas sometimes gets let out of the institution but then he lives on the streets picking up cigarette butts. I used to see him all the time when I was living in the city.  I could never talk to him though. He is never able to talk to anyone, he has lost that ability.  I don't think he even remembers me, I think he is gone.  One time I saw him sitting in a bus shelter talking to himself.  I stood by there for the longest time, hoping he would see me and recognize me.  I'm rather unafraid of him because I remember when he was lucid.  I did keep my distance because I don't know what is going on with him anymore.  I don't know why they just keep letting him out on the streets.  The streets can't be doing anything good for his body and mind.  It is not long before he is back in the institution, which I'm glad for, for at least he is looked after.

I remember when Thomas was very vocal.  Looking back, I feel I can tell a better story of his life than I can of mine, I was not caught up in his direct tornado.  He was a boy then a man who had no skills to ever survive.  So much was expected of him, yet he was fed upon, and it was almost a guarantee he would be left with what he has now.

It wasn't until we were older kids that we started to go to my aunt's house, it was a very depressing place.  Even when we would play with firecrackers, or make up a baseball game, they still made me feel rather melancholy.  They were a very poor family, they went for considerable amounts of times with absolutely no food in the house. No dinner being cooked, nothing.  I still can't figure that one out.  Unemployed for years, the father was my mother's younger brother.  Of course my uncle could never work, his alcoholism basically make him unemployable.  He was not a functional alcoholic as most of the men in my FOO.

And their house was in a constant state of disrepair.  It was freezing in there.  The house wasn't insulated.  It wasn't too messy, there wasn't anything there to mess up the place.  The furniture was old, the television wasn't working well either.

So the feeling of going over there was difficult.  I remember a time when someone had caught them some catfish, and that is all they had to eat for a long time.  When we got home my FOO would talk about it in a very callous way, putting them down for being so poor.  But there was no bad talk about mother's brother.  Lots of times mother would bring them over some chickens or vegetables from the farm, but this would bring disputes from my father so she stopped doing it.

Thomas' father was my mother's brother.  His mother was my father's niece.  So she was my cousin/aunt.  There was a time I went there and there was this game we kids all would play.  It was called Pick Up Sticks.  You drop a bunch of sticks, they land and you took turns to try to pick them up without causing the other sticks to move. It was a rather fun and intense game.

I used to want to play that game all the time.  So did the rest of the kids.  One time I was visiting by myself, just so that I could play that game.  I went into the house thinking I was going to get to play. One of the girls said, "Mother took the sticks and broke them up and threw them away."

I asked, "Why?"

She answered, "She didn't want us to play them anymore."

Thomas said, "She was jealous."  Now I remember that coming from his mouth with this smile, almost a laugh.  Like he was looking down on his mother for being foolish.  I can place his facial expression in my mind now.  As I remember him saying that I remember her walking up the stairs. I'm not sure if she was angry or if she felt like a fool.  For one split second in time I could see this idiot go up the stairs, and it all looked so stupid of her.

She was a fool.  There was no food in the house, and here she was all upset over this game.  Welcome to the disgusting mind of a narcissist.

When Thomas said she was jealous, and thinking back about it now, it was a very, very, confident thing for him to say.  From my own experience from my own freak mother, we never do those things. We keep it quiet, we agree, we get along.  A scapegoat is something we don't want to be.  But try as I might I could never avoid being the scapegoat, for I too, have let the cat out of the bag once in a while.

But for Thomas to say this with such confidence, he was beyond the little scapegoat.  He was actually the vocal one.  But it would come at such a great cost.  I don't know what happened after I left that day, but I'm sure he paid through the nose.

I went over there to play the game, but there was no happy moods in the family that night. Everyone sat around scared to even look at their mother.  There was no reason or justifying it other than what Thomas had said.  No one said anything after that, and she did not even try to tell me what was going on.  Thomas quieted down but looked at me.  He knew the truth.  She was jealous.

I had lots of thoughts running through my head about it.  Like why would she even care if we played with the sticks, the mind tries to justify, but Thomas had the real answer.  I remember it clearly.

Even when we still had the game she would grump and growl over us playing it.  I didn't understand. In a way I felt responsible for the game getting destroyed for I was the one always wanting to play it.

So the girls were quiet and withdrawn, but Thomas was angry and knew the truth.  Thomas didn't feel guilty over anything, the girls did.    Apparently she was not speaking, she was giving everyone the silent treatment.  Even when I got there, she didn't act like I was even there.  When my mother did the silent treatment you would beg for her attention, when Thomas' mother did it, everyone was quiet and giving her space.  Not saying anything, you can just tell by the looks on everyone's faces.  It was like they knew their mother was nuts.  I clung to my mother when she did the silent treatment, and so did the rest of my siblings.  All we wanted was to make things better and for her to talk to us again.

The next time we went over there, everything was fine and she was back to talking.  My mother was with us and we were happy.  When I asked my mother later what was going on, mother told me that she was just crazy.

I don't remember even my own MN mother doing such things as destroying toys.

Here's the thing.  And I don't remember who told me this.  "Those sticks caused so much trouble, they are better off gone."  We could never mention the sticks again around my aunt.  Its like they were bad sticks.  Blame it all on the sticks.

I don't even remember Christmastime with them.  I don't remember them having any toys or much of anything.  At their house the firecrackers went missing, so did the baseball bats and the balls and mitts.  If I tried to bring that up, they just looked at me.

I do remember a time one of the daughters, Ann, got this huge makeup kit as a present one year.  It was massive, there must have been 20 shades of lipgloss, plus eyeshadow, etc.  We were both around 13. Ann kept this makeup kit away from her mother.  She kept it hidden when we were at her house. She would only bring it out when she got to go babysitting.  I went babysitting with her one time, I was dying to try on that makeup.and we were sitting on the step of the house trying on some of the eyeshadow.  Her mother came walking down the street passing by to go home and when she saw the makeup kit, she said it was improper to have that around the young children we were babysitting. Ann put down the eyeshadow brush and looked at her mother, and told me that her mother was going to wreck her makeup kit when she got home.  Not throw it out, but wreck it.  I don't remember anything else of that story.  I never saw the makeup again.

But my mother would have tea and talks with her all the time.  You would have thought they were the best of friends.  Every time we went into town, we would make a stop over there.  Well, almost.

Behind her back, mother would call her crazy.  They got along so well together but stopped talking a few years before my aunt died.  Mother was angry with her.  Mother said, "All she wants to do is pick fights.  She's crazy."

But my mother would never have broken those sticks.  She would have let us continue playing with them forever.  She wouldn't have cared at all about the makeup.  I might have great respect for mother for that but my mother would have complained steadily for us wanting to play games all the time.  And the makeup, well, mother was quite verbal when I wore any makeup at all, even as I got older.  I don't think mother knew anything at all about Ann's big makeup kit. I used to like to read a lot, and mother didn't mind that, but she would rub it in my face, that I would be useless person for all the reading I do.  But she would never physically destroy the books. It was just the constant agitation. The breaking down of the morality.  Mother would just treat me like dirt until I relented with the reading.

There was a time when we were near adults and my cousin Thomas told me that when he was little he was forced to wear a dress to school.  A box of clothes they received from a neighbour had only dresses.  Now, I know that there were three girls in the family.  There would have been a lot of use for those dresses, but Thomas told me that he was forced to wear the dresses too, because some were in his size.

Ok, I know they were poor and all, but I still think that is horrible.  Take the dresses and sew them into pants for heaven's sake.  There was a way to fix this.  Was Thomas so out of clothes that he had to wear the dresses?

Thomas' mother had no consideration.  And she used poverty as a way of tormenting him.  But I used to think that his mother had no way to understand that he would be in torment over wearing a dress. It was just something to wear is all, it covered your body.  It doesn't matter what it was.

But Thomas was angry when he told me he had to wear dresses.  And my feeling was that he was right. Everything about him was normal and not so with the girls.  Thomas spoke up and the girls didn't.

I remember also Thomas would be angry all the time.  He was fine, but apparently, now this was told to me, I never saw it, he used to beat up his mother and his sisters.  Apparently, he got into a huge fistfight during a driving lesson with his driving instructor, so he never got his driver's license.  I was told he was terribly violent, that he would stab you, that he was that crazy.

Thomas has never been in jail.  He has no actual history with violence.  I personally, have never known Thomas to be ever violent.  I have never seen him hurt anyone.  I never asked him about it. All I saw in him was this angry look he would give his parents when they weren't looking.  I thought he just hated them.  Thomas was always lucid and always telling you the reasons why certain bizarre events were occurring.  He never held anything back.  He was always open and easy to talk to.

There was a time he was talking dirty about a girlfriend he had once.  He was in his early twenties, maybe late teens.  It was the only time he was rather gross.  Other than that he never gave me the impression that he was ever disrespectful.  But when he told the story of what he did to his girlfriend, his father was listening, and I think lots of times Thomas did fall for the bad fleas.  He was trying to fit in with his family.

But alone and with me, he always spoke with respect and honor.  And with his rumored violent tendencies even, I know for a fact that Thomas was never in jail in his whole life.  He never had problems with booze or anything.  I remember he is a smoker and he made these cute O's with the cigarette smoke.

In high school, I used to walk to their house at lunchtime.  My school was only a 10 minute walk, and for a whole year I was being bullied by someone at school, who was threatening to beat me up, so I went over there to avoid it.

Thomas was always there.  He was a happy go lucky guy and could make all the pain go away.  He was in his early twenties and trying to figure out what to do with his life.  Despite everything he kept up the positive speeches.

In high school, I always felt horrible.  No friends even.  I wanted to dye my hair black as a way of coping I guess.  It would be a change.  My mother didn't like it.  She didn't freak out like a normal mother would.  Looking back now, I can see she found it quite useful to use it as another avenue of torment.  As usual I didn't see the torment coming, I had trained myself to not feel anything.  But every chance she got she took a stab at insulting me over making stupid decisions.  And how dumb black hair would make me look.  That I would look like a tramp.

Of course mother talked about it at Thomas' house to his mother.  That I was going to go out tramping  He spoke loudly, in front of a bunch of people, that black hair is not going to make me a bad person.  That I could change my mind after and just dye brown back over it.  No big deal.  I know, you can't dye over dyed black hair, but he didn't know that. So our families got a chance to take emotional stabs at him too.   Thomas got quiet.  Oh I hate that happened to him for defending me.

The last time I saw Thomas as normal, he was renting a single room with a hot plate.  He was somewhere in his mid twenties, I think.  He told me, "It's ok, this is just for now.  I will make it great someday soon."  He was looking for a job.  Everyone was against him.   Everyone in the family made fun of him as being stupid.  He was violent, he would come after you with a butcher knife,  he was.....I don't know what to say, he was railroaded to accept his fate as a very bad guy.  The rumors were so bad, you would have thought someone like that would have been in prison in chains.  But actually, everything he tried to do, he was defeated at.  He couldn't ever stand up for himself.

Here's the thing.  His mother was never abused growing up.  I'm sure of it.  Her mother omg was my dad's oldest sister who was the one who helped picked up the pieces of the family of seven children that was left behind after her mother died when my father was only 3.  She cooked, she sewed, she was a quiet type.  I don't think I've ever heard her talk much.  She made a huge quilt for my sister's bed one time.  She made her quilts all from just rags.  Every piece was specially selected to make a beautiful pattern design. I can attest to the fact that quilting requires patience and much time.  I'm a quilter.  Well, I just started this year. I've been quilting all year and I still haven't made anything yet. I'm procrastinating on my quilting now.  There is endless repetitiveness, taking it apart, fixing mistakes. I personally have never seen a narc do anything that remotely comes close to this. Everything they do is lousy, because it is done so fast.  Their temperament would never allow for such skilled work.  So I think this was a lovely woman.  Her husband was sweet and chatty, and today the smell of pipe tobacco sure reminds me a lot of him.  I wish they were my parents.  I don't think Thomas' mother was ever abused.  I just can't see it.

Thomas' mother had two adopted younger brothers.  Those brother's visited the parents until the parents died.  I heard that mostly everything in the will was left to those brothers and their sister got very little.  One time, and this is a one time memory, my mother told me that their sister had caused too much trouble in the family.  She was not liked by her parents.  I don't know what trouble she was talking about.  I guess there is a slight chance that she was scapegoated, but the parents never were rumored or seen by me to be mean.  Even at a young age, I could tell narcissists.  And they were never scary.

Oh and come to think about it Thomas' mother was making quilts too.  However, I have seen her quilts, and the pieces never went together straight, the colors didn't work well, and there was no real pattern.  Just a mess of pieces of fabric basically.  I don't know why she didn't pick up this skill from her own mother.

She had a large collection of her mother's quilts given to her after her mother died. As far as I know they sat in a closet.  A few times she had said she was going to give us a quilt and we were all happy, but then she gave us a quilt that she made herself.  Happy went away, and my mother didn't know what to do with the garbage quilt.  I know, its the thought that counts right?  We should have been grateful.  But, I'm serious, her giving us a quilt that she made was like a bad joke.  She even sewed the pieces together with phentex yarn to make it go faster.  And the yarn never matched the fabric.

As far as Thomas father goes, there is not much to say about him.  He liked his booze, that's for sure. Even going as far as drinking shaving lotion.    As far as I could tell he was always saying something dirty to one of the kids.  Like really dirty.  I don't remember anything exactly now, but it usually referred to something very sexual and dirty.  Even to the young preteens.  I don't know if he was abusive to the kids other than that, I have only mothers word to say that he wasn't.  But, he was her brother afterall.  I could never say the dirty talk was bad to mother.  So the fact that he was a narc too was lost to me.

Mother's brother was revered by her. She couldn't really deny that his drinking brought on the downfall to the family.  But all this was blamed on the wife.  Mother never talked badly about certain siblings, except for 2 sisters that she called crazy.  Those two sisters were apparently mean to their daughters too, in what my aunt had told me in our meeting.

As far as Thomas' sisters goes, one can't hold down a job, forever in poverty.  Apparently she gets misunderstood alot and she picks fights.  One is extremely bipolar, with medications for life, disability pension for life.  She manages to keep a roof over her head and some food at home, but she went off and married some guy that no one knows about and she didn't know it herself, until she gets put back on her meds.  They divorced after 2 weeks.  No this isn't Hollywood.  This is my FOO. Well, the extended part of it.  One moved out of the city to marry rich, and that rich man left her in poverty with two kids.  And that rich man has even denied being the father of those kids, and maybe he's right.

I've thought so many times I want to go visit Thomas at the institution. I would even love to leave him a nice present, perhaps a quilt if I ever complete a project.  I don't know.  But I'm scared to.

When Thomas was happy, he was so bubbly and warm and sincere and real.  A gift to the world. That man is dead.  He is now the result of the fine art of soul murder by the hands of a narcissistic parent/parents.

Trying to Understand It All

I have been trying to research the various personality disorders (namely the Cluster B), and I'm seriously failing.  My mind is all over the place.  Personality disorder research is kind of weird.  And boring.  I'm not getting any enjoyment out of it.  Plus too, I feel like it is a big waste of my time.  I would rather talk about it instead, so here I am.

I think its because I can't relate any of the reading to what I actually see in certain people I want to stay away from.  There are many weird people I have met in my lifetime.  I have no labels for them. I've seen the type of people that would:

• Take your lunch out of the office fridge and tell you that you have to share it with them.
• A babysitter who would go through your clothes and borrow things without asking and saying they will wash them and give them back to you later.  
• After visiting for the weekend will leave you with a house that is such a mess that you will want to move out.
• Call you over to play a game of 'scrabble'.  During the game you must play by the rules that they have invented, call you 'idiot', or bitch or any other unsavory word.  Then they wonder why you don't want to play with them again because they don't feel like they've done anything wrong.
• Ask you to go clothes shopping with them.  But you have to buy with your own money what they tell you to.
• Plan an outing for a day, but stands you up for no reason.
• I have a brother who a couple of years ago ruined our holidays by cancelling our visit at the last minute.  There was no time for us to plan anything else.  Brother did it "just because, oh we just want to do something else."
• Need you to spend time with them, they are always upset, they want your constant attention. You need to drop whatever you are doing, they will insist on it.  Otherwise they tell you you are not a good friend.
• Give you loads and loads of advice on your life, and you better take the advice or else.

Those last two points are like an opposite people.  One wants to give you everything unsolicited, the other just wants everything.  Ha.  Maybe these two should just get together, and leave me alone. 

These are my experiences with weird people.  I've probably seen some more, these are just a start.  I just thought these were weird people, I never thought that I was dealing with personality disorders and that narcissism was just a start.  Cluster B is just crazy.  Bad manners, ill taught, call it what you will.  These are people who do what they want, take from you whatever they want, and don't even care about you.  They know what thoughtfulness and consideration is, they push it to other people.

Oh my gosh, I don't even care.  They know how to act properly and will act properly in front of someone they don't see as prey.  I am sick of this thing.  Besides which, they are not seeking help.

If my reading is to help me understand predators better then I feel I have a good radar for detecting human predators anyway.  I can't label them but I have been managing to pick them out.  But it is hard to detect the predators online, but I am learning that one quite quickly too.

If someone is so obsessed with the term "healthy narcissism" it is a clue for me to stay away.  If they feel like this kind of narcissism is good or that one, they are looking for justification.  It is not like they are introspecting, its just that they know darn well what they are and they are trying to slip in under the radar.  That is my take on it anyway.  They say stuff like, "Blogging is narcissistic."  Um, says you.

Since when have we been so concerned over healthy narcissism being ok?  Is that the focus?

Besides I really don't believe there is such a thing as "healthy narcissism".  Just be normal, ok?  No need to label it.  I want to research how to be normal, to stand up for myself.  I know narcissism is supposed to be on a spectrum, I'm having trouble believing that one too.  I think someday they might scrap that theory.  Its weird.  Its like they are trying to normalize the freaks.  So in order to stand up for yourself you have to have some psychopath tendencies?

Another weird trait of online narcissism- if you don't show up on their blogs for a bit, they go looking for you.  And I've seen this one quite often, and I haven't been a super internet blog guru.  I've read a few blogs.  They would say that so and so hasn't been around for awhile.  I would say to them, "Go talk to them on their blogs then.  They are around."  I'm guessing now that this isn't the point, that the point is they want everyone coming to their blogs for very wacky reasons.  Blogging has become a business and you don't even have to have a product to sell.

So I'm sick of concentrating on these freaks.  I want to talk about the pain that an ACON had to struggle with each and every day of their life.  My whole life didn't make any sense.  There I was stuck all the time and had no one to help.

This is my reality.  The therapists couldn't help me, and I was seeking the help.  Unlike a personality disordered individual.

For me, I do walk around with a big kick me sign.  I have said I am lucky to stay alive.  And I am way more concerned with this kick me sign than I am about narcissism or Cluster B's to tell the truth. I can't get into reading about personality disorders just because I should be.  My youngest daughter apparently has a personality disorder, and I and the rest of us hold her personally responsible, for decisions she makes, for whatever, we don't give way to any of this stuff.  We don't treat her like a special case, she is not ill, not bipolar, she is capable.  They all are.  But my daughter does have empathy though, that part I can't figure out just yet.

When I read the book on Jodi Arias and watched the movie again I became convinced that Travis Alexander died only because he was a child abuse survivor.  I don't know if he was an ACON because his parents were meth addicts, so it is hard to say.  But he died because there was a broken part in him all due to the child abuse.

I know the book says that he was so caught up in the sex with Jodi.  Slashing his car tires, breaking into his house, sending mean emails to his girlfriend. Breaking into his email.  I know the book says that he overlooked all those because he was enjoying her sexual prowess.

Um, no.  Men are not all about sex.  That is something that I know because it was proven to me without a doubt.

I believe that Travis saw all these huge warning signs and he overlooked them.  Does that sound familiar?  Because he was a child abuse survivor.  Short life is the result.

I think ACON's struggle through life, so it now makes no sense to me when someone who says they are an ACON and has to backpeddle through their own justifications of narcissism. Sure I want some "healthy narcissism" too, if that is the case.  Blogging has been said to be narcissistic.  Oh please.  It is not narcissistic to want to speak your mind sitting down in the sitting room, drinking coffee, after decades of being quiet.  It helps me with this reality.  And I get to learn more and to share.  And I don't care if I'm talking on my blog or your blog, to me it is all the same.  We are a community.

So anyway while I was researching personality disorders I found this which took all attention.  I found it over on Peep's blog http://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.ca/.  I lost track of where it is there.  I posted the link, so you can go have a look on the other symptoms, but I posted the part that pertained to me.

http://www.kristinlately.blogspot.ca/2011/12/7-types-of-negative-parental-mirrors.html

The "I Am Powerless" Mirror by the Overly Controlling, Tyrannical Parent
Every day was different.  Some days, I could do what I wanted.  I was funny and witty and responsible.  By the next morning, the house atmosphere had changed.  I was too loud, too selfish, too messy, too picky.  I had to follow strict guidelines for the day.  As an adult, I am overly concerned and biased with facial expressions and tone of voice and word choice.  I analyze all of those things, looking for clues as to what the person is "really thinking" and "really feeling" at that moment.

• "The tyrannical parent has a cruel and inflexible style of parenting.  They are often passing on the same behavior to their children and ventilating the anger they could not express to their own parents" (pg. 48).
• "...will feel weakened from their encounters with their parents" (pg. 49)
• "They will doubt their abilities and may feel unbearable pressure when asked to do something, particularly when an authority figure is doing the asking.  They often feel stupid, inadequate, and incompetent, and these feelings usually discourage them from trying new things or taking risks" (pg. 49).
• "...can cause a splintering of self, causing a child to disown some parts of himself and to inflate others" (pg. 49).
• "They learn to recognize subtle changes in the facial expressions and voice and body language of others as signals of anger, dissociation.  When they sense danger, they attempt to protect themselves by either avoiding or placating the other person" (pg. 50).

This is me in a nutshell.  These are the reasons I can't hold down a job, or that no one can trust me. This is the brokenness that I face.  That author would be a genius if she just left out the second half of the first part.  We had it up to the ying yang of blaming their own abusive childhoods.  

When I was going though therapy, the therapist basically told me this.  But taking out the tyrannical parent part.  As a result, I felt blamed for everything I was going through.  Oh, I felt horrible.  No this is not me.  I'm horrible.  No one is like this, I'm the worst person on the planet.  She would just look at me.  She could not give me anything to take this blame that was on my shoulders. I felt sick.  I felt that I did these things to myself.  

She put me through exposure therapy.  I had to go to stores and various businesses acting stupid.  For instance I had to go to a sewing store and ask the store clerk to show me how to use a pair of scissors. When the clerk was done explaining it, I had to say that I didn't understand can you please explain it again.  And again.  And again.  I had to maintain this for 15 minutes.  Then I had to write down what I felt I saw was on the store clerks face.  Then I would bring that in to my next counselling session and the therapist would help me put a different thought about it into my head.

One thing I learned was that 15 minutes is a very long time.  

This I had to do with auto mechanic shops, paint stores etc.  I had to say that I was going to paint my own house then bring a wrench and ask the store clerk how I was going to paint using a wrench. What is paint?  Can I use crayons instead?

Or go into the mechanic shops and say I'm doing all my own mechanical work now, so what are brakes? Will they work without having to put them on?  Can I just leave them in the garage? Because I do have the brakes, or do I have to have them on to work?  Will they work from the garage.  It doesn't matter does it?  So how do I put on brakes then.  Do they fit just under the brake pedal? Meanwhile I would be wearing some dollar store super long nails, and bright pink lipstick.

Or electrical stores, saying I'm going to do the wiring on my own house.  "So what is that thing in the wall and how do I plug something in?"  Meanwhile wearing the horriblest shade of red lipstick and perhaps even a cat halloween suit, when its not halloween.

I'm serious, this is not a joke.  And I was to act straight, no laughing, taking it all seriously.  Even ask the clerk, "Do you think I'm stupid?  I'm so sorry for being so stupid, are you angry with me?"  And the therapist would help me gauge my reactions over it, and help put a new light on things.

One time a store clerk got snarky at me.  I told the therapist.  She asked, "What's snarky?  What does that word mean to you?  What did his face look like?  Why are you judging it as snarky?"

Thing was, she was trying to correct something that went back through my formative years.  Without that piece, without me knowing where it all came from, all I felt was blamed for it all.  And that part was not fixed.  As a result, it made the whole "exposure therapy" useless.

That's why I have no use for counselling anymore.  To be fair, I do think that therapist knew what was wrong with me and how it started.  But she couldn't tell me.  Because it would be hard to convince me of it.  You have to awaken to these truths, no one can actually tell you.

I like the word "tyrannical".  It reminds me of Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Such a perfect way to describe mother. That author was so dead on.  Except for that one excuse at the first point.  But you take what you can get.

Just that people with personality disorders are not heading to the psyche office to get help.  I did, and the help I got was not helping my treatment.  I felt worse.  Not enough is known about personality disorders to be given these medical descriptions.  Which make no sense and don't fit in with the people I have to deal with regularly.  So I am quite confused.

Brainwashing

"I'll never do dirt to youuuuuuu."

I don't know if this is one time or many times MN mother spouted those words.  But those were her exact words "I'll never do dirt to youuuuuu."  In the sing song voice that I have learned now means that she was lying.

But why?  Why would she say it.

Do you watch the soap opera the Young and the Restless?  They are doing a brainwashing storyline. I checked it out online to see if people are talking about it.  They are finding it too disturbing to watch.

In a nutshell the guy is being brainwashed into believing he married this woman that is holding him captive, meanwhile his ghost father is in the background telling him to "remember".  Basically the ghost father is trying to counteract the brainwashing.

Its good that they are doing this storyline.  It is tormenting to watch, but its so valid really.  Not that particular situation however.  I imagine the guy would not have any memories of actually exchanging vows with this woman and that will be the part where he becomes unbrainwashed.  I don't think it will be easy though.

I looked at my carefully manicured fingernail this morning and I could hear my mother say those very timely words.  I'm trying to put together the actual horror.  Its hard.

Mother was engulfing.   I fall for things too easily. Abusive relationships, seriously TWO????? Didn't I learn anything from the first one?   I'm being authentic and it is helping me through.  This genuineness sometimes is too weird.  Yes, sometimes it is like a blood sport.  Sometimes there is this voice in my head thinking he'll abandon me if I am authentic.  It is working all the time but I have not learned to trust it yet.

I feel like it can go wrong for me at any moment.  I was taught that it will not fail.  It is based in real science this stuff I took, I just have no way of knowing for sure.  I have no personal ability to gauge it accurately.  It has taken me through some very rough stuff though, so why am I still so unsure?

Why did my mother have to tell me that she'll never do dirt to me?  I was very young, that is what I'm sure of.  When I look down on my well manicured nail I can remember it being a teeny tiny hand. That teeny tiny hand was very still.  When it heard mothers words it moved and was moving happily. So what happened before that?  There was peace and contentment (probably false) before that.

I remember the horror when I first entered into the ACON world.  This is what I want to write about.

There I was, freshly read from a relationship expert.  The course I took was long and arduous.  It covered brainwashing believe it or not.  The first step was to get it out of your brain that not all men just want sex.  How do you do that?  Well, think of just one man in your life that doesn't want just sex. That was easy.  For me it was the father-in-law.  A perfect example.  He is a paragon of virtue.

Ok, there it is you have just proven to yourself that not all men just want sex.  If there is one man you can think of that doesn't want just sex, you have cancelled that statement all together.

Well, that course was two weeks long.  And through it we are taught so much.  We had to forget everything we ever learned about love and relationships, even the stuff we perceived as good, all of it had to go.  And you were walked all the way through it in baby steps, in a very easy language.  It was emotional clean up time.  Garbage bags and all.  I think it was three lessons of doing that.  She was unbrainwashing us, I was so scared, but I was at the end of my rope, at the point in my life where I would try anything.

As a result I started to change.  I no longer believe in "picking my battles carefully" when it comes to relationships.  No more "needing to compromise."

This opened up the door for me to practice reality.  To question things.  Life immediately started to change.

Something else also happened in my mind.  This was unplanned for, not really part of the program.

I remembered mother telling me that she loved to see me miserable.  It was the last thing she ever said to me.  I don't remember how I began the research to find out what this statement of mothers meant.  But all I had was that one statement.  I found Anna Valerious.  I read this sentence from her blog,

"This person does not mean you well."  

This is the most powerful statement I ever read.  My mind really went back over time.  The times I deeply loved mother, the times we were planting a garden, the times we did things together, I was actually very terrified of mother.  Then more truths came to light.

I think it is very hard to awaken to the truth of a narcissistic mother.

So much is programmed to "love" her.  You just don't know any better.  All you got is these symptoms in your own body and mind.  "Why am I such a screwup?  I had the best life growing up." Programming, that is all it is.

This constant second guessing of myself is crazy.  Do you know what it feels like when you can't help but second guess yourself because you can't trust yourself?  Mother told you that you can't be trusted for anything?  But this was mother, she had to tell the truth, right?  There is nothing wrong with not trusting yourself.  It means you are a good person, not vain, not high and mighty, not full of yourself.  That it is good to put others first.  Not yourself.  Do you remember having those thoughts?

Do you know what that actually translates into?  It translates into self loathing, people walking all over you, mistreating you, because you don't have it in yourself to defend yourself.  Self defense was stripped away horribly and heinously with no regard for your well being.  But you were taught that evil mother was good.

But it doesn't matter because through all the hateful, mean things she did, she will bake you a cake and you will walk away with your cake believing horrible things about yourself.  Not knowing any better, you will think these things you feel about yourself come from you.  You will forget about the source.  That is the purpose of that cake.

Listening to what she had to say to you all the time.  She could never stand to be away from you, you were just too precious to her?  Meanwhile, you stood directly in the face of insults, blaming, torments from her? This part was important not to remember directly coming from mother.  You would just feel them down to your bones, that you were never good enough, your very existence is dependent on her, you have ruined her life, you were held captive.  You had no choice.  She had made the choice. And so you lived with the pain.

You had no idea she was so evil down to her core.  You constantly looked for things that made her good, even to the point of making them up in your head.  You just had to survive afterall, you were only a child.  There was no justice in her eyes, she would hold little children captive for her wants and needs.  You had to cope with the trouble growing up.  Every spot of pain you could ever feel will make her feel good.  You weren't given peace, you weren't allowed to rest for one moment.  You had to suffer there was no other purpose for you.

Who wants you on their baseball team when all you would do is screw up.  Second guess yourself to the point where other people could drink at the same dirty well of betrayal that mother created.  Other people would abuse you too.                                                                              

Then you are to be blamed for it.  It is your fault.  "Why do you make yourself a target for?"  Ok, I won't make myself a target anymore.

So you find heros.  Heros in inspiratational songs.  I like some of Hedley, he has very inspirational songs.  Or superheros.  I used to like the Power Rangers.  They can morph at anytime to be strong and powerful.  "I could be like that."  You start to believe in hope. Decades pass and you are still believing in hope.  "Hope is eternal."  I sure proved that one.  You start to believe in happy endings. You believe you will have your own happy ending "someday very soon, I can feel it."

Everyone else around you are making it, they are successful.  But I am the screw up and it is my fault.  I waited my whole life for success.  I sacrificed living in the moment and missed the "now and wow" moments I could have had with my children and lived for the day when all my dreams would come true.  I stayed with a malignant narcissistic spouse that eat, shit and sleep all day.  Still I kept telling myself,  "Oh yeah, we will be fine some day soon, I can feel it."  I put on a Hedley song, or I watch The Power Rangers.

You are living in a constant state of crisis that is so hard to see because you are trying so hard to make your life work and that has your constant focus.

When mother comes back into your life after 20 years of ignoring you, you start to get the feeling that your health is unwell, you can't pay your bills, your scared to leave the friggin house.  Things that didn't torment you before.  You have new torments.  She was gone for twenty years because she met a guy that was "good in bed".  Whatever that means.  He didn't want her children around.

She comes back in and the torments started again.  "You can't take care of yourself.  You are stupid." It starts all over again.  Oh, why didn't that guy just keep mother?  She loved the fact that he "made the toes curl up, and my feet left my body when he was having sex with me, ohhh he was so good in bed."

Do you know this before the awakening?  Has the brainwashing closed your ears so much that you can't even hear her?  Of course you do hear her.  You are not stupid, she could never groom you to be actually stupid.  You only felt stupid.  You heard everything and you knew in your heart that what was happening was wrong.   But it becomes invalid in your eyes, you overlook her callous sex talk, her rude outbursts, her mean putdowns.  You have to understand mother.  She is good, she will bake you a cake.

You don't have to be scared of anger.  I can tell you right now, that it is not making me "horrible". My loved ones are not being affected by it.  We are capable of directing the anger where it belongs. Its ok to feel things now.  I don't know how long it is supposed to last, and no one can tell you that. This horror of reality is hard to take in.  You will have no room for trying to understand your abusers. And don't even bother to try to stress yourself out with that.  You are entitled to every feeling across the spectrum.  Any defense for the abuser will be directly throwing you under the bus.  And silence the victim.

You find out you grew up as a captive and constant source of narcissistic supply.

For no good reason, there are no good reasons for what happened to you.

There is no way to explain evil anyway.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is a fraud.  It won't even feel normal to you, make you feel like you are just horrible for being so angry.  Don't ever feel horrible for feeling angry.  Even if it goes on for a very long, long time.  Who cares how long it goes on for.  Those who tell you its unhealthy to hold onto anger?  Will be nullifying and silencing you. You have a voice now, talk, speak up.  Tell me the horror stories, you will not shock anyone here.  I know that because I have not seen anyone here shocked yet.

To hell with someone trying to make you think that the narcissist can't help it.  The truth is they could have tried.  They knew how,  And they never did.  YOU WERE BETRAYED BY THE VERY PERSON YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO TRUST ALL YOUR LIFE. There is no justifying it.

When I first came onboard here everyone was just so darn bang on with what I was feeling.  It became safe to vent too.  Old things from the past started to come to light.  The actual truth was upon me and it has been getting better each and every day, even with the anger.  Truth is good.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

I Just Have to Say It

This is not to blame or shame anyone but something that has been touched, that is very close to heart really, and I just can't seem to let go.  This is only my opinion of course, but I do have so much knowledge from experience, from reading that I need to get it out.

No reputable relationship expert I have ever heard of can ever give you advice on how to live successfully with a narc.  Sigh, there I said it.

And another thing, this has been said somewhere, out in outer space, that sometimes you can. Sometimes you can have a relationship with a narc, you just have to have compassion, a good maternal instinct.  Sounds good right?  Then it is followed with, "But I don't recommend it for most cases."

Here is Joan S reviews of that.  Bullshit.  That is not how the mind works.  You can't claim to give advice then follow it with that kind of disclaimer, that is not how the brain works.  The brain works like trying to make it work with the narcissistic spouse.  In other words, years ago that advice would have given me hope to fix things and I would have ignored the disclaimer.

It would have caused me to invest more years living with a freak, because I would have been given false hope.  Or maybe could have brought my death.

Here is what reputable relationship experts I have read have to tell you about how to make things work with a narcissistic spouse.

Um, yeah nothing.

The Power of Words

Seriously, this is really, really, bothering me.  I went to church on Mother's Day!  Seriously?  What the heck was I thinking of.  And not only that everyone was asked to tell in a couple of words things about their mother.  Most people had good wonderful things to say.  I didn't have to say anything because we had to volunteer for it and I didn't.  To tell the truth, I was terrified that everyone would be asked to.  And the teaching was about mothers too.  It was a difficult time.  Church is bad on mothers day.  All these words.

Words.  That is all it is.  Just words.  Words can either heal you or destroy you, take your pick.  To the hollowed out husk who was born attached to an engulfing sociopath, words are everything.  The hollowed out husk knows how to access a blank space in his or her brain.  For long periods of time. A word here and there makes all the difference.  Some people can give you the wrong words, and the hollowed out husk can't filter that easily.

May 10 is also MN mother's birthday.  I was scared this would give away my identity, but I don't care anymore and that's why I hate it so much.  Of course mother always proclaimed her birthday as being so perfect. The weather was always good the day was always perfect.  And May 10 was the day we were allowed to stop wearing winter coats.  May 9 it might be good weather too, but May 10 was the only day you could stop wearing winter coats.  Such a grandiose pig.  I almost forgot the grandiosity part because she was always such a martyr, but she never allowed anyone to disagree with her either. Try as I might, I can never seem to make sense of her.  Even an argument over the Catholic Church. Well she said there were 2 kinds of Catholics.  The Roman kind and the normal kind.  The Roman kind was much stronger and we were just the simple Catholics.  We had to accept the fact that we were not Roman Catholics, we were only Catholics.  Even a priest who came over to the house once didn't want to argue with her.  He just said, "He didn't know."  A Roman Catholic priest didn't know, pffft, he just didn't want to argue with psycho is all.  Sometimes mother could be the sweetest thing too.  I can never figure her out.

That is my Mother's Day memorial for mother.  I hope it does her justice.

The day before church we were helping the brother in-law moving, he is changing houses.  It was at a point that, when I found a place to sit down on, someone placed a large mirror to move out right beside me on the floor next to the chair I was sitting on.  It was a terrible.  I looked in the mirror and saw my mother's feet with red nail polish on them!  And my toenails were getting a little too long. Mother always had long toenails, and wouldn't let us cut our toenails. She said the shoe had to wear them down, no cutting or else!  It never worked, this shoe wearing down your toenails and we got the idea of cutting our toenails from other sources which we would cut them and deny it to mother.

That view of mother's feet with red nail polish was so shocking, that I can't even tell you, especially the red nail polish on those feet. Mother was as masculine as a woman could get.  I remember being around her these red toenails would be a source of shame for me as she would tease me about being a whore, and now I see her feet with the red nails, it was too weird.

I don't know why I have to look so much like my mother.  And I'm not even masculine.

I have started to notice that all my clothing I have picked up over the last few years since mother was out of my life are flowery, lacy or has some other attachment to the feminine.  I think I only have one pair of jeans left.  If mother were to come back into my life, she would call me the whore of the century!  Maybe not right away but it would come eventually.  Around mother I always had to wear worn out jeans and t-shirts and running shoes.  Whenever I tried to wear something nice I would have to pay through the nose.

One time I did dress up nicely, I did have some nice things for dating and I was dating my now husband then, and we had to go to mother's place.  We were only a few weeks into dating and he started helping me out with mother.  She taunted me and told him straight out that I was just a slob and I never looked like this.  She told him that she had tried to encourage me to dress nicely but I wouldn't listen to her.  She told him that I liked being a slob.  Actually, I liked being a slob around her because it made my life so much easier.

Also, too, I've noticed that I am tending to wear dresses and skirts most the the time, not just for church.  But I'm concerned that this might not be authentic of me, or I'm just rebelling over mothers control.  I think I'm being authentic, I feel better in these clothes, but not only that I do get influenced by my relationship site too.  There it is praised value over the feminine.  In fact, it is encouraged to wear feminine attire.  Not fashion wise, we don't want to conform to fashion, it isn't authentic, but pure flowing femininity.  A fashion plate is just a conformer.  I guess I am being influenced by them, I'm sort of an old hat over there now, and feel responsible for following them.  It is not a controlled thing.  Things have to flow freely. She does put way more emphasis over authenticity to be the feminine part.  That is only if it is authentic.  She had posted a picture of herself with her husband and baby and the dog and she was wearing this long flowing skirt.  It was beautiful.  Not just the skirt but the way she stood, it was sure something I could aspire to.  And it is ok to be influenced by others, just we have to be careful of who's influencing us, and we have to take care of how we influence others.

Not that I believe everything said on there, I have learned my lesson.  This is no ACON site, but she does teach us how to get out of the way of bad people.  She encourages us to make our own choices based on authenticity.  And that authenticity will give you a better filter to filter out other people. But there is no forceful pushing.  You don't have to do anything, just live with the flow of your emotions. In the feminine, all the spectrum of the emotions is to be felt.  First of all, authenticity.

Ah, authenticity.  It was a lifesaver for me.  It opened me up to a world I can now deal with.  It is easier, my life has been better being authentic.  I know I go on and on about it, because to tell the truth, I don't have anything else.  Without it my mind would retreat into the blank space.  I can't seem to figure things out when it comes to life and people.  Without it I would be dead in the water, still hoping for mother to love me.  I think it helped open the passageway to my brain.  And I am starting to remember more about things that happened in the past.  Hmmm, a lifetime of counselling, and all it took was one simple word and its meaning and I was long out of the path of blaming myself for everything that happened.  When I start to blame myself, I have my words.

A lot of people still believe that narcs are not assholes on purpose,  Or that yeah, but they can't help themselves and we should be compassionate about that.  One memory I have of mother, it was the last one, was that she told me that she loved to see me miserable.  She did say that.  Also, now, I remember how she can look the other way while her eyes would bug out trying to take in information.  When I was in high school I had an issue with acne.  This used to hurt me emotionally. Kids would tease, and they are not very nice.  And at home I got no compassion for it.  I remember that everything became a "pimple this and a pimple that", such as a houseplant growing a new leaf on it.  Well, the new leaf was called a pimple, and I remember her staring straight into outer space with eyes wide.  She could still see me out of the corner of her eye, and she would see me tormented.  She was trying to gaslight me that this thing wasn't actually happening.  That she wasn't being evil.  I don't know.  I think that is what she was trying to do.  On purpose.  She knew what she was doing was wrong, that is proof.  So I can't really wrap my brain around that this is not their fault.  That they can help it.  And she used every opportunity to hurt me with the word pimple.  Or that clamato juice would remind her of "pimple juice".  Ok, sorry, that makes me wretch too.  But I just have to say it. That WHORING DISGUSTING PIG does deserve a good mother's day afterall.  lol

So I am concerned over my clothes!  Its no big deal really, its only clothes, and I do my nails up all the time too, just like I did back in high school, but mother made me pay through the nose for it.  I believe that part of me is authentic actually.  I do my own nails.  It might not last as long as a professional manicure, just a few days, but I love doing them, its fun.  And cheap.  Even poverty wasn't a problem, I could still afford to do them, and I still do them the same way.  But years went by when mother was back in my life, I would stop doing my nails.  Even getting out the nail clipper would send her into a psychopathic fit.  

One thing I have to confess to right now is that I have a sugar addiction.  I have to brush my teeth at least 4 times a day.  I think that goes back to a posting I wrote about Brainwashed into Addiction. Well, mother was trying to turn me into a drunk, but she only managed to get me addicted to sugar.  I have called it a sweet tooth, but I know it is much more than that.  Because I just have to have my sweets.

If it is an addiction, then it isn't even authentic.  All addictions are counteracted by feeling the direct emotions attached to it.  The trick is to go without the addiction and feel all the emotions that go with that.  That is it.  It is so simple these things called words.  Don't make it too hard.  One thing I learned is that a hollowed out husk has an advantage in this.  Things that are so hard to others are kind of easy for her because new words are brand new experiences and she has no prejudice in thinking this is way too hard.  Just if she wants to give this up.  But I don't think she is overwhelmed with overthinking.  I don't.  I've heard people say, "Dumbass, don't you know anything?  It's not as easy as you think it is."  Its ok, in this I like the naivety,  its a blessing actually.  So if it isn't the scary movies, its sugar.  I can get my sugar from many sources, one I like is sweet coffee.  We have hot chocolate in the house, which was my first addiction, but nowadays I prefer the sweet coffee.  Because the hot chocolate only makes me want to have the real chocolate.  I can still chomp down on a 5 pound chocolate bunny.  I love opening an Easter bunny.  I feel like it puts me into a trance.  Me and chocolate and a good psychopath movie is my best time.

Is there a feeling attached to the sugar addiction?  Without it, I'm uncomfortable, terribly uncomfortable.  Do I want to go into the feeling of uncomfortable and see where it is at?  I do, but for the time being, I'll admit to it here, and I'll think and pray about it.  I just needed to talk about it first. It think that admitting all my issues puts a light on them.  I used to hide these things, and I feel better now to share them.

I recently bought this skirt:

Its just wow.  It is black and white with a touch of grey.  And flowery!  I can't get enough of it, and I have many blouses I can wear it with.  I couldn't wear it to church this week, I wore it last week to church, I can't wear it out volunteering at the food bank, too much work, it might get damaged.  We have a food bank meeting coming up soon, and I will definitely be wearing it there.  I have quilting class this week, I'll be wearing it there.  Its funny, but it gives me a little more incentive to get me out of the house, just so I can wear it.  When I bought it the store clerk tried to sell me a jean jacket to go with it. I'll never wear it with a jean jacket.  I don't think Ill ever wear a jean jacket again. Speaking of jackets, I have several blazers that have been going into the back of my closet because I'm not wearing them.  I just don't want to.  I think I'll just hang on to them for just a short while longer, before I give them to the free clothing depot in town so someone can make good use of them.

So how do you describe someone, just by the clothes she wears?  Not at all.  There is more to being this high value that I keep talking about.  Its not just with your head up in the air, although that does have a time and place.  With the blame taken off my shoulders, I have definitely been able to hold my head much higher.  Its about giving high value.  I have to bring high value into everyone's life.  How do I do that?  By being authentic.  Authenticity is the gift, it is when you aren't a taker, you are a giver.  You have your emotional needs met from the source that comes from within you, and it shines forth.  Any inauthenticity, you are sure to be low value and a taker.  You can only be a gift to others by being yourself truly, that person is the gift.  It is what God created.

So back to my clothes.  Its not the clothes.  Its just what I prefer to wear and it makes me comfortable to be myself in.  This is not always easy or comfortable.  I'm traditional, so what I wear is reflecting that, and some people don't like that.  It makes them uncomfortable.  It can make life very difficult for you if you are not feeling high value and being yourself.  Saying I'm enough has been working for me very well.  If you live a certain way, then you will have people give you a hard time over it.  You will have to have words to save you.

And I don't mean that masculine women are not authentic or good.  Of course they are!  I've seen so many, and they are actually, yes, a force to be reckoned with, but will never trample over others.  My daughter knows one who is a bricklayer by trade.  She is funny, pleasant and kind.  And she can be just like a man.  My mother was like that too.  And that wasn't the problem.  Mother's trampling over me being me is the problem.

So I was supposed to be like mother.  I believe God made naturally masculine women for a reason. They are a gift to me in a way that no feminine woman is, I see the value in it, I really do.  And I would never dream to put a masculine in a dress and expect it from her to be like that.  For she is not like that.  My mother might have been uncomfortable in her masculinity, and felt inferior, so she retreated into sociopathy to cope.  It is not my fault.  Nor was it my responsibility to be tormented by her.  I look like her and my body parts might look like her body parts.

Someone told me recently that he had strong good women in their family except when it came to his mother.  That was Q1605.  I loved that he told me that, thank you Q.  Words that came back at me when I felt bad.  We were talking of something else at the time, but he had to say those words.  He had to say them so I could draw on them and gain comfort when looking in that mirror.  So my body parts might actually come from a good decent woman from the past.  Or many decent women of the past!

Wonderful.  Mother didn't invent her own flesh and blood.  It comes from God.  Our strong genetics I bet probably did come from a good decent person.  I don't know who they were, but it has got to be true!

Q has had to endure some nasty, mean words directed to him as of late.  It was very undeserving,   I know what they say, "Consider the source."  So no big deal right?  Yes it is a big deal.  And men do have every right to feel whatever they want to feel.  And to be an ACON.  And pass judgement over their past.  And no, they don't need to suck it up.

I usually feel like I'm not good enough.  But this isn't the authenticity, this is the result of torture from a sociopath.  I have to draw on words to be ok.   Always it is words that I need.  And now I have some new words about my body.  These feet could have been the same kind of feet a wonderful ancestor had.  That got up and tended to others needs.  That tended gardens.  That never walked into an unholy place.  That woman did exist, she had too!

We look for resources in life.  Sometimes the pain is too much to bear.  As if someone would leave a mirror by my feet like that.  But I always felt low, and now I had the feet to prove I descended from crap.  But Q gave me a gift of words without even trying.  I look at my feet differently now.

Words can save us or they can keep us locked into the past.  I use words steadily, very important key words.  Only because I can get caught in something if I don't.  I don't have any other way of dealing with the struggles I face.  Even in the regular life I live.

So where do these flowery and frilly clothes come from?  Is it from me or is it from rebellion over mother.  The journey continues.

Another Learning Lesson

I was recently at a birthday party for my grandbaby. She is 3 years old now.  Just picture a circle of 3 year olds sitting down playing duck, duck, goose, if you will.  One of the girls started to cry and get emotional when she got to be the goose.  All crying and teary eyed, and big sobs.  Her feelings were hurt.  Did it make sense that her feelings were hurt?  Of course, it did.  To her it made sense her feelings were hurt.  Anyway they stopped playing the game and the little girl got hugs and kisses from her mom.  The emotions went on for some time.  Would you tell this baby to get over it? Would you even dream of telling this sweet little girl that her feelings didn't matter.  She was only three, maybe the game was a little too confusing, who knows.  There are no words, just feelings.  I get it, I uh, .......I do it too.

I know there are a lot of narc supporters.  I can't seem to let it go.  These people claim to have been abused by them, and have decided to overlook the grief into trying to see the narc for what it could have been.  "This could have been a nice person, but given their life circumstances they needed to retreat into a world of narcissism as a way to survive".  Long drawn out paragraphs, we learn to trust them and start overlooking the bullshit.  I recently went through this trust, and the long paragraphs, and at the end, they basically were nonsense.  I wanted to ask, "Why are you stealing stuff?"  Yeah, I wanted to ask that big question when I was lurking over at another board and the narc sympathizer in question was stealing, and I feel it strongly in my heart that as ACON's the very least we can do is respect another's boundaries.  And respect another's hard work.  And the stuff she was stealing was not even narc sympathy stuff.  So go figure, I was confused.  But it didn't matter that I was confused, all that mattered was the tender feelings of narcissists, not me.

The next time I go and comment on someone's board, I think I'll ask them if they are a narc supporter straight out.  But, maybe I won't get an answer straight out.  Usually, they play a little game, "no I would never be a narc supporter,"  But at the the end of it all, they are definitely a narc supporter. This is so confusing.  Its like that duck, duck, goose game.  It sounds straight forward, but to a three year old it can be confusing.  I know how that little girl feels.  I want to go and cry too.

Some are so new to this and are trying to offer this different perspective.  Overriding the knowledge given to them by the survivors who have had their eyes open for quite some time now.  They had time to ponder this.  Me, with less than a year under my belt, I'm still learning so much.  But I now know, that any support for a narc will put you 6 feet under.  It is a miracle to be alive now.

It is a miracle to be alive now.  Gee, I can't get over that.  It was easy to be a target all my life.  Like an ex had told me, "You make yourself the target, don't blame anyone else."  I was on to Lucky Otter's narc support, and have told her in several comments.  She talked me out of it.  I got confused. I needed the support of the longtime ACON's.  I almost bought into her "support".  I am new, but she was even more newer than me, preaching the way is love the narc.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm not trying to bash anyone here.  I've been hurt, sigh, and gaslighted.  I'm only trying to express those emotions freely.  Seriously, that is all I am doing.  And I'll even acknowledge that it probably isn't even that bloggers intention to cause this gaslighting.  She probably has good intentions, but the shit she is spitting out is dangerous nonetheless.  She needs to learn about boundaries, that's for sure.

And I want to say, Lets all be serious and its ok and even good to bash narcissists.  A narc supporter sounds like they are just nice people.  Too nice.  But they are not being nice.  They will throw you under the bus in a hurry, they are liars.  They don't know the meaning of real love, not the way Jesus taught.

This is not just a simple difference of opinion here.  This is evil in very nice clothes.  Look through the nonsense, see that they are lying and even stealing to get what they want.

The way is love, don't get me wrong.  I was chased here with my present husband by my MN mother. He was, shall we say, not easy to get along with and even harder to understand.  I revel in how far we've come.  It was not that long ago that I told him that I expected marriage.  He was only wanting a cohabitating relationship, in which I would meet my own needs in the relationship that he would not be responsible at all.  He would not even accept God.

I was willing to give him an out.  Look, the circumstances that brought me here, well, I was on survival mode.  All he did was save me from a sociopath.  He did that well.  He would have done that for anyone, a stranger even, and that is basically what I was.  I had nothing to blame him for if he wanted to have out.  He was a hero.  But I have other wants and needs that are separate from this and I didn't want to give that up just because I was trying to escape a malignant narc.

But he didn't want an out.  He was willing to make a relationship with me and that was hard for me to understand.  So I stuck around, did some reading, got some knowledge, and that knowledge put me on the steps of recovery.  Boy, was I messed up.

I pulled myself out of wanting approval for every darn thing!  I told him what I wanted straight out. It was marriage, him to accept God, and that I wasn't setting him up, I was willing to let him have an out.  But at this point I wasn't settling, and if he wanted me these were the terms.  (He was basically a victim to MN mother too).  He didn't like it. He told me no, that its ok for me to hope for such things but in no way would he provide it.  I sat down in the livingroom and he went into the bathroom.  Not five minutes had passed and he came back out of the bathroom, saying "ok".  You see, I told him what I wanted and didn't make the demand from him.  I actually took him out of the equation, so he had no reason to feel defensive.  I would have what I wanted and I believed I was high value enough to expect it.  I told him I wanted everything.  A few minutes later it was a joke he came up with laughing, "Now don't ask for anything else."

We don't need to seek approval.  What's with these blogs looking for attention, money, fame. Pronouncing the ACONness, and even exploiting it.  I never got approved on Lucky Otter's blog for her list.  I guess I wasn't famous enough.  She stole stuff from well known ACON's to make herself look good.  She rode on their coat tails, even though she didn't agree with them, just to be popular. I was horribly confused and gaslighted.

I'm seriously not trying to start a war here.  I've been gaslighted and I'm trying to write it out and put it all into perspective.  This is about me and my recovery afterall.  And I don't mind exposing a liar, I don't.

Seeking approval is a drug you will need over and over again, because it is not long lasting.  I go away and come back on my blog over and over.  I'm busy, I have a life to live, this is only a part of that life.  I choose to live according to the principles I chose.  I choose God and I choose myself.  I choose to never seek approval.  If I do seek approval, I look to what other needs I have that are being unmet, either in my marriage or in myself.

In the presence of a narc my ears start buzzing.  Its pure terror is what it is.  I recently got a dose of that during a confrontation in a parking lot.  It wasn't that bad this time.  The terror sure was bad.  But I had a new perspective and that was this person was a waste of human flesh.  No better than a pile of rubble.  I will bash narcissists forever it seems.  For me it is the healing way.

I guess Lucky Otter says that they choose to be a narcissist in childhood and they can't help it anymore.  I guess so, but I leave it up to God.  If God won't connect to them, then how can I?  That's as simple as I want to look at it.

There are a lot of people supporting the narcs.  And this even the way to help them, they need to be held accountable, not hugged.

I don't get support.  I don't get loved for being abused.  The whole world kisses the ass of the abuser.  Ok, I get a little emotional at times.  I simply had it with people who seek out popularity.  I have never been in that mix.  I will never be in that mix.  I will never be chosen as the popular person good enough to be included in the party.  I fail to even understand how.

Back in the beginning of my relationship, my husband told me that I was always expecting to be treated like a princess.  I said, "Yeah, its true."  I guess he was trying to hurt my feelings, so I was supposed to be tough and say no I didn't want to be treated like a princess.  Then start to act accordingly.  It didn't happen.

He was totally free to explore the world for that tough woman who could take care of herself.  He might have felt obligated to me, but I could stand alone if need too.  I have three children that all had homes and I could have started over by myself after mother went no contact with me.  I had places to go.  I didn't need him so much anymore.  Mother was gone.

He didn't take that opportunity, but instead gave me what I wanted out of life.  With him or without him I would have had it.  Sure, I might have been scared but that is not new to me.  I would have made it.

We have talked about this recently.  It was interesting how he felt so scared of, not me being alone, but him being without me.  He was scared of being without me.  It was beyond love, a sort of connection that neither of us have had before.

He told me that I'm good to him.  That I don't look for my own self, but I really understand him.  Its funny, but there are lots of times I'll cry and I'll do it for hours.  "Just I have strong feelings right now, I don't know how to explain it."  In other words, I live in my own body and I don't try to take over his.  I live with boundaries, and I respect his boundaries.  And I totally expect him to respect my boundaries.  I try to talk the truth, no matter if it hurts, even if it takes me days to do so.  Lots of pain associated with that, I can't even tell you.  I'm hurt and he friggin knows when I'm hurt.  There are no games here.  I don't try to hide my feelings, but I use my words.  I don't try to "man" up and hold things in, they are displayed on the open.

Just a word of caution here, if you wait days to tell him, the pain only gets worse.  It gets harder to tell the truth.

I try to be completely authentic.  For me, that includes red nails and dresses, sometimes not always. Sometimes I'm up to my ears cleaning the kitchen.  Sometimes I'm in pajamas for the day. Sometimes I'm reading a book, sometimes I'm sewing, sometimes I'm watching tv, or writing etc, etc, etc.  There is no way to tell what I'm doing at any point in time.  Sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I'm sad, sometimes I'm angry, or hurt or scared.  I am no longer as one dimensional scared as I always was.

He says he's happy to come home to me.  He's not scared that he'll come home to me bitchin.  If I feel like bitchin then I try to look to my authentic feeling instead and feel that instead of bitchin.  I feel that I'll bitch less when I do that.  I know this might not be a Christian way for me to talk, but I'm stuck, and if God shows me another way, I'll do that instead.

I was the daughter of an engulfing sociopath.  I struggle to find true feelings daily.  Right now I have to pull myself out of it daily.  It is not an easy way to be.  I would much rather not even look after my needs, not because it is easy, but because it is what I'm used to.  I might say that I don't feel like washing my face and combing my hair, but the actual authentic feeling is that I'm simply not used to it.  But on the outside that looks like I'm lazy, so in order not to "look" lazy I do it for approval.  That is not the way to be at all.  Do I want to comb my hair because it is good for me and will make me feel better about myself in the long run?   This is a question I have to ask myself daily.

No I will never be popular.  I can't even relate to it.  For me, looking for approval is akin to not saying what I want to my guy because I'm afraid he will shoot me down.  If he shoots me down then that means I'm garbage to begin with.  C'mon, you know that is not true.  But it is a constant battle.

Sometimes it feels like I say things to him that he is going to hate me for.  "I feel horrible, and upset, that I need this or that, and I don't have it."  Call it what you will, manipulation I suppose.  Call the woman who wants something manipulative?  If I have this or that I might be more happier and more joyful than ever before, and bring more joy into his life as a result.  I have told him that there are things he says to me that I don't like.  Or rather that they hurt me and makes me feel upset.  I never "suck it up".  Ok, I know I'm not explaining this well, lol.

I never try to fake nice.  I did once and it had horrible consequences for us.  He was out helping his ex with something, and I stayed here and "sucked it up".  Then I would have this bitchy attitude when he came home.  Nowadays, he would not even try to help his ex.  But back then I had this horrible MN friend who told me I had to be nice to the ex.  But the ex wanted him back.  So I had to play this game where I had to pretend that it didn't matter to me.  But it did.  I didn't even like his ex.  Not because she was his ex, but because she was a horrible person.

She told him that he never shaves on his days off.  She told him over and over to shave and he wouldn't.  They had serious fights about it.  But, he shaves now and all it took was authenticity on my part.  So he doesn't like to shave on his days off?  I can completely understand that.  Afterall, he wants to take it easy on those days.  Why not?  Is it any of my business that he is trying to relax?

But I remember one day that he did shave and I commented on how happy that made me.  I much preferred it.  From then on he began shaving regularly.  Somedays he doesn't but that's ok, I understand.  Those are the days he's very relaxed.

I want to absolutely talk about my progress in life thus far.  Much of it had to do with my relationship, and how much authenticity has helped me, although I am still not used to it.  I also wanted to say that if you are not being authentic, then you are not living, you are just existing.  If you are seeking approval at every turn then you are just existing to feed a drug.  If you are hugging narcs then that has got to be the biggest bullshit the world has ever seen.

Look, I could never hold down a job.  I couldn't provide for myself.  I couldn't be in a relationship that wasn't abusive.  I was set up to die.  Did I do this to myself?  No friggin way.  So I will never feel sorry for a narc.