Monthly Archives: January 2015

Attracted to danger.

Posted on by

Danger caution tape

I think many survivors of narcissistic abuse find themselves drawn to narcissists–and find their danger appealing. We have to be very careful not to be drawn back into darkness, because that darkness can be very seductive, like a fist wrapped in soft black velvet.

I am an idealist and a romantic by nature. I’m an emotional person, even though I don’t always show it. Though I lack trust, I still want to think the best about all people. While I don’t hate narcs, I have to be careful not to feel too much compassion for them and allow that to make me make unwise and possibly dangerous decisions that could hamper my own healing and cause me to lose focus on what’s important.

Earlier today I woke with this crazy idea. I was going to start a second blog, a blog FOR NARCISSISTS. My argument was that they were human too and because I have learned to have some empathy for their plight, that they deserved a place to share their experiences.

Sometimes I really live with my head in the clouds.

I was brought back down to earth pretty quickly, when a good friend I respect like a sister told me this could be extremely dangerous and that I’d be flirting with darkness should I do such a thing. At best, it would take the focus off my own recovery and the recovery of victims of abuse. This woman is Christian, and much more biblically-oriented than I am, but she was right. If the devil does exist, this could be him trying to draw me back into the same dark place I just escaped. I already know, I need to keep my distance from them, even online, so why would I want to COURT such a thing?

I don’t think all narcissists are evil, except for the malignants and psychopaths, who are too far gone to ever change or want to change. I think their illness is as much a spiritual one as a mental one. Perhaps more so. But it’s not my job or my calling to provide a place for even benign narcissists to have their say. If they want to say something, they are more than welcome to do it right here on this blog, as long as they are pleasant and civil. And they have done so.

But starting a new blog for them would just be stupid. The more I think this over, the more I’m glad my friend stopped me before I actually did this. I’m not always the most practical person and I don’t always have a lot of common sense. I’m an idealist and sometimes act on my unrealistic, romantic fantasies more than I should.

More than likely, the narcissists who need help the most (the malignant psychopaths, who are least likely to seek help) would not even post on the site, or may even try to destroy the site in some way.

I think many women, especially those who have always been attracted to or been in relationships with Ns, find something seductive and appealing in narcissists and have to be very careful not to be drawn in by their charms. I know I’m a sucker for it, and they can present a very mysterious, seductive, bad-but-hurting-boy charm, like the main character in the movie “Rebel Without a Cause.”

We may find ourselves wanting to mother and nurture them and protect them from further hurt. And yes, they do hurt, and maybe nurturing and remothering is exactly what they need, but it must come FROM A PROFESSIONAL who knows what they are doing. It’s not our job to give them that kind of therapeutic support. We don’t know how to do it. We can’t make them feel better.

I love this song by Sarah McLachlan. I’ve posted it before, but I think it describes the attraction many women have to narcissists and psychopaths and why they can be so seductive.

Narcissists are indeed building a mystery, seducing us to becoming their supply. They can never give back what we give to them; all they can do is demand more and more until there is nothing left of us or we become one of them.

Our maternal instincts would be better put to use helping each other, and helping the people we love who can return that love.

So I will not be doing another blog right now. Thank you to everyone who suggested this was a bad idea.

I will say though, my journey since I started this blog has been the greatest, most humbling, and most exciting adventure I’ve ever been on.

A vast wasteland.

Posted on by

Wasteland-03-Digital-Illustration-by-Atelier-Olschinsky
Wasteland 03 by Atelier Olschinsky

I remember when forums were a thing. So much has changed in the past 5-10 years, with the proliferation of social media and the enormous popularity of Big Brother Facebook, which started its unholy takeover of the Internet in 2008. Twitter is getting almost as bad.

Forums still exist, but most of them are dead or dying. The last one I posted on was about a year ago. It was a political/history related forum that had been in existence since 1997. I started posting there in 1999, and was on-again, off-again for the next 13 years. That forum (as far as I know) is still in existence, but when its only moderator left and was never replaced, the site was overtaken by trolls who proceeded to destroy the site by running off its regular members. Last time I was there, it was a shell of what it once was. There were about 3 intelligent people still posting there. I had to leave; it had become mind numbingly boring and too sad to stick around.

Another forum I used to be active on has about a tenth of the activity it once did. All you can hear is the crickets there now.

I see this sort of thing happening all over the web. The Internet is littered with dead and dying forums. They’re a thing of the past, really a relic of the last century, when the Internet was still new and social media was still just someone’s bright idea. They remained popular during the first decade of this century, but seemed to start their decline in about 2007-8, when Facebook made its debut. As content management systems became easier for the average person to use, blogging gained popularity too. Blogs are probably as numerous (if not more numerous) than forums were 8-10 years ago.

I always liked forums because of the way they were organized by topic, but they did have their problems. Blogging is more appealing and much more creative and rewarding for a writer than posting on forums is. You don’t have to worry about going against the status quo because you have an “unpopular opinion.” You don’t have to censor your language (although I try to use decorum). You don’t really have to worry about bullies ganging up on you or trolls invading or hacking into your site. Moderators weren’t always your friend either; sometimes they even sided with the bullies.

The Internet is a mess with the debris of dead forums, but there’s also a wealth of information on them if you look. It’s fascinating to read a decade-old thread about a topic that interests you, and you might find out some things you never would have known otherwise. Reading old forums is like reading the memoir of someone who has passed on. You can learn so much. It’s incredible how fast history moves on the web.

Nooooo! Not another one!

Posted on by

noooo

Sam Vaknin is not alone. Tony Brown is another a self admitted narcissist who has a self-help forum, “Heal NPD: Ask a Narcissist” http://bb.bbboy.net/healnpd

I took a look around the forum out of curiosity. All I can say from what I’ve seen on the site is Mr. Brown seems a little controversial. Apparently he’s claiming NPD can be cured and his site is meant as an antidote to Vaknin’s pessimism and negativity (Vaknin does not seem very well liked on the site). Has Brown been cured? Something doesn’t seem right. I have no idea who Brown is or where he came from. It’s interesting though.

I read some of the entries from members, who are both NPD sufferers (called NPDers) and non-NPD survivors like us. It’s interesting and eye opening reading some of what those on “the other side” have to say about their disorder. I was intrigued by one NPD poster who said that whenever anyone told her they loved her, she felt like she had died.

God, I love the Internet.

The Eternal Minimizer

Posted on by

eternal_minimizer
Click to enlarge.

My own little kingdom.

Posted on by

kingdom

Creating and running your own blog is just like having your own little kingdom.

I’m sorry if that makes me sound like a narc, but it’s the truth.

I bet most bloggers feel the same way. If you’ve lived a life without much control over anything, as many of us ACONs have, it’s so nice to know that with your blog, you have a whole place that’s yours alone, where you can write about whatever you want, post whatever pictures you want, have an unpopular opinion and not be afraid to say so, and you don’t have to put up with mean people and bullies like we have to in the physical world. The bullies and trolls can be silenced with a just a click of a button and their hateful spewage sent to the Trash.

It’s also great finding a community of like-minded people who share their thoughts with you. I don’t see myself as the King or Queen holding court though. I’m just another person, trying to find my way in a world that hasn’t been very kind to me.

In my Kingdom, I am free to be myself. Totally and completely in a way I never could out there in the physical world.

Narcissists and sentimentality

Posted on by

family_portrait
Not my family, just a nice random portrait I found.

Narcissists can put up a good front of being sentimental if they need to. For example, if a narcissistic man is trying to win a new conquest for a source of Narcissistic Supply, he will shower his woman with candy, gifts and flowers (sometimes purchased at her expense, as mine did to me) but as soon as he’s conquered her attentions, any shows of sentimentality come to a screeching halt.

It’s my observation, at least in the narcs I have lived with, that they are angered, annoyed, or bored by nostalgia or genuine sentimentality.

My MN mother was notoriously unsentimental. Besides the matter of ditching her first two daughters to their father when they were two and seven years old (which turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to them), our home was always sterile–not just of dirt (she was a huge clean freak, which many narcissists are) but also of any evidence of sentimentality. For example, family photos were consigned to bedrooms because to display them in public areas was, in her mind, tacky and declasse. Better yet to keep them in albums and safely tucked away in the attic or on the bottom of a never-used bookshelf.

Not long ago, I emailed my mother about obtaining some of the family photos (I have very few) and never heard back from her. I emailed her again about it, and she said she didn’t know where they were, but she might have thrown them away.

THROWN THEM AWAY? Who DOES that?

When my parents divorced, my mother decided our Christmas tree would be decorated with white lights with red bows and silver and red ornaments ONLY. Anything else was too tacky for her. All my childish creations that my father had hung so proudly from our tree went into the trash. Our tree looked as sterile as our apartment, like a tree in the lobby of a bank.

nostalgiasucks

Narcissists have no feelings of nostalgia for past times or good times shared. That’s because they can’t feel love or the warm and fuzzy feelings that other people do. Or it’s too painful for them and they don’t want to feel that pain.

My MN ex husband was like this too. He couldn’t stand it when people got nostalgic and said nostalgia was “creepy.” (Slight correction: he was creepy). That even extended to listening to old music from our teens and early 20s. He told me once he thought nostalgia was stupid. We had a huge fight about that.

He hated “period” movies or TV shows, especially those that focused on decades during his own lifetime (the 60s, 70s and 80s). He made fun of me for liking “The Wonder Years” and ’80s music. He accused me of living in the past.

He never even liked to look at photos of our two children when they were younger. Although he started out as a wonderful dad (he turned out to be anything but), he told me he hates babies and that’s why he didn’t want to look at their baby photos. These are his own CHILDREN! He got annoyed when I wanted to put some of their old baby and school photos around the house in frames. I have no idea why he had such a strong reaction to my doing this. It was weird.

He doesn’t even like to TALK about the kids when they were young. If you try, he just tunes out or acts irritated.

Once when I asked him why he reacted so strangely to sentimentality and nostalgia, he actually gave me an answer that made sense. He told me it was because his life was always so miserable he didn’t want to remember anything. The past reminded him of his own mother (she was malignant too and very abusive)–even his past with me and our children. The good times we had in the beginning of our relationship were dismissed in his mind as bad times and somehow associated with his mother. He just became enraged if you reminded him that there were good times. In his mind, life was just excruciating in general and nothing was worthy of remembering fondly. ALL memories were tainted by the malignancy of his abusive, cold mother, in his mind.

I think he envies those who are able to feel nostalgia and look upon the past fondly, so he feels the need to denigrate and make fun of them for doing so.

Even I can find joys in my past, as dysfunctional, painful and stunted as it was.

I find it extremely sad that he could never do that.

Fivehundredpoundpeep posted a similar article today so I am linking to it here. She has a wonderful blog.

A blast from the past: Janis Ian “Society’s Child”

Posted on by

Janis Ian’s “Society’s Child” is a ballad she wrote at age 13 about a forbidden love between a black boy and a white girl and her family’s disapproval. I was about 8 years old when it hit the airwaves in 1967. I loved it back then and I love it now.

“Society’s Child” was banned from many radio stations due to its controversial (for the time) subject matter of racism. It’s still somewhat controversial though hopefully much less so. I read that Janis got death threats for writing it.

You just don’t hear so much pure raw emotion in popular music anymore, or a song with as much artistry as this one. Janis gets so lost in this performance. I just love to watch her. She didn’t really become famous until her 1975 megahit “At Seventeen.” She was just 16 years old in this haunting performance on the The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour

I think the video production for its time is incredible. It’s hard to believe this video was made 48 years ago. I don’t understand why this hit from 1967 has been forgotten for so long. You just NEVER hear it.
I think it’s a classic.

Narcissism and chakra healing

Posted on by

manipura
Manipura (solar plexus) chakra

Even though I’m Christian, I subscribe to the chakra system of healing or that it can at least be helpful used in conjunction with traditional psychotherapy and medicine. I don’t think belief in chakras or chakra healing goes against Christian teaching. Chakra healing is not a religion, but an alternative method of medicine used in eastern traditions (drawn from Tibetan Buddhism) and popularized in the West fairly recently. I’ve seen evidence for myself that this works and meditation on the chakras can bring you a sense of peace, centeredness and a a feeling of being in harmony with yourself and the world. In my opinion, meditation on these physical energy centers does not involve playing with the occult, as some people have claimed.

Chakras are energy centers located in the body at seven points along the spine from the groin area to the top of the head. They correspond to the endocrine system of the body and each is associated with a different endocrine gland.

The seven chakras are:

1. Root Chakra – Represents our foundation and feeling of being grounded.
Location: Base of spine in tailbone area.
Emotional issues: Survival issues such as financial independence, money, and food.
(color: red)

2. Sacral Chakra – Our connection and ability to accept others and new experiences.
Location: Lower abdomen, about 2 inches below the navel and 2 inches in.
Emotional issues: Sense of abundance, well-being, pleasure, sexuality.
(color: orange)

3. Solar Plexus Chakra – Our ability to be confident and in-control of our lives.
Location: Upper abdomen in the stomach area.
Emotional issues: Self-worth, self-confidence, self-esteem.
(color: yellow)

4. Heart Chakra – Our ability to love.
Location: Center of chest just above heart.
Emotional issues: Love, joy, inner peace.
(color: green)

5. Throat Chakra – Our ability to communicate.
Location: Throat.
Emotional issues: Communication, self-expression of feelings, the truth.
(color: blue)

6. Third Eye Chakra – Our ability to focus on and see the big picture.
Location: Forehead between the eyes. (Also called the Brow Chakra)
Emotional issues: Intuition, imagination, wisdom, ability to think and make decisions.
(color: indigo)

7. Crown Chakra – The highest Chakra represents our ability to be fully connected spiritually.
Location: The very top of the head.
Emotional issues: Inner and outer beauty, our connection to spirituality, pure bliss.
(color: purple)

According to this article, Narcissists have problems with the third chakra (solar plexus, or manipura chakra), which is associated with self esteem and confidence.

Narcissists have an underdeveloped solar plexus chakra. They overcompensate for this by acting like they’re the greatest thing ever. “Inverted” narcissists (codependent people with low self esteem) also have an underdeveloped solar plexus chakra but instead of overcompensating, they act out their feelings of low self worth.

Meditation on the solar plexus chakra to strengthen it could be beneficial for narcissists, and also for their victims, who feel powerless because of the abuse done to them by their narcs.

In my own opinion, I think narcissists also have a malfunctioning or underdeveloped heart chakra (the ability to feel love). So I think meditation on the heart chakra could help them too.

There are many chakra meditations available on Youtube. Here’s a good one to start with. As you meditate on each one, try to focus on the corresponding part of the body listed above.

If you feel you are lacking in one or more of the chakras, there are other videos where you can meditate on just that one.

As for me, I’m “top heavy”–my 6th (third eye) and 7th (crown) chakra seem to be the best developed, and I’m seriously lacking in the first three (root, sacral, and solar plexus), especially the first and the third. This is typical for people who live inside their heads and focus on the life of the mind over practical, survival issues. I have very poor survival instincts. My heart chakra seems to be okay but could certainly use development. My throat chakra has been strengthening through blogging. I communicate best through writing; in speech, not so much.

If you want to read more about the chakras and how they work, Anodea Judith’s Wheels of Life: A User’s Guide to the Chakras, is one of the best resources. It’s easy to read but gives an extremely detailed overview of the chakras and how they interrelate.

Toxic guilt

Posted on by

guilt

I’m sick with 103F fever and can barely eat or move, and I still feel guilty about not going to work today even though there was no way I could have gotten through today. When I called they told me to “feel better, get some rest” but I still always feel so guilty, so unproductive.
I feel like I should go scrub the kitchen or something. I’ve been in bed all day and it’s almost 4 PM. I feel like a slug.

I still feel guilty when I take care of myself. I still feel like if I’m not doing things for other people, I’m not a good person. I know that makes no sense, but it’s how I was trained.
I also start to worry about things when I feel overwhelmed with guilt. That somehow I’ll be punished. This is a toxic sort of guilt that leads to toxic worry.

There’s good guilt (when you have hurt someone and feel sorry later) and bad guilt.
This is definitely unhealthy, bad guilt, residue of being surrounded by narcs my whole life, and it’s very toxic.

I just wrote two short posts (including this one) and that does makes me feel a little better but not enough to ease my sense of being useless.

Payday loan troubles

Posted on by

paydayloantrap

In 2011 I did something stupid. I took out a payday loan for $750 but I have since lost all the paperwork so I have proof of nothing. I was living with my MN ex at the time and he was the one to convince me to take out the payday loan. We were desperate at the time and he had me believing this was a smart thing to do. It wasn’t. Now it’s me stuck holding the bag.

I was never able to pay the loan back and all kinds of interest I didn’t understand was being tacked onto my debit card. I had to cancel the card to keep mysterious charges from continuing to be deducted from my bank account.

Someone called this morning threatening me with a civil suit. She wasn’t very nice about it. I wasn’t sure what to say. Stupidly I admitted it was me when she asked. I’m not good at thinking when I’m under duress, especially when I’m under duress and suffering from The Martian Death Flu.

This operation has been calling and harassing me for years and has even called my place of work (they no longer know where I work since I changed jobs). I know they probably won’t actually do anything but I still worry about it and don’t know what my legal rights are or if I need a lawyer (which I cannot afford). Should I just ignore these calls? Maybe I can settle with them for the $750 after I get my tax return but I have no proof anymore that was the amount I borrowed. I’m not sure what I should do but it’s causing me stress I really don’t need.

Never, ever mess with payday loans, especially the kind you obtain online.