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.