Lucky Otter’s Haven is growing up!

Posted on September 28, 2015 by luckyotter

Graph showing how this blog has grown since October 2014 (September 2014 is not available but was even lower than October). I remember thinking 50 views a day was a big deal (that’s about where “Down The Rabbit Hole” is at right now, but I don’t ever expect that blog to ever have the same draw as LOH, because it has a much narrower focus than this one and a much more limited audience.)

The abnormally high views for May were due to a controversial article that attracted an undue amount of negative attention. Controversial articles do get you seen! (But I hate having haters).

The numbers at the bottom are for September 2015, highlighted in orange on the graph.
Click image to enlarge.

I’ve been reluctant to post the good news about my stats, because it might make me seem too narcissistic, but hell, I’m proud of this, and I want to brag! I think anyone would want to crow a little.

This month, I probably won’t quite reach 40K views, but it will be close enough.
This blog now averages well over 1,000 views a day and is creeping up into the neighborhood of 1200-1300 per day in the past few weeks.

I can actually afford to get a bit lazy sometimes now. I’ve reached the point, after a little over a year of blogging, where I need not even post new stuff every day for LOH to continue to get hits and new viewers. That’s because a few of my articles have become self-perpetuating magnets to this blog. In other words, several articles (some posted quite a long time ago–many of them are listed under “Most Popular Posts” in the sidebar) are now appearing at the top of Google for related search terms, so whenever people use those search terms in Google my articles are the first ones they see. The continued views keep them at the top of Google so they continue to get hits every day.
That’s why using appropriate search terms (tags, categories, and making sure the term is somewhere in your title) is so important. I’m learning all this stuff as I go along.

This is good, because it’s a motivator, and those of you who follow LOH know I haven’t been feeling particularly motivated lately. So this helps!

Now I can set some goals. WP’s November challenge (Nano Poblano or whatever it was called last year) is looming on the horizon and that will motivate me to post every day, the way I have been until recently. It’s my hope that by the end of this year (where did this year GO, anyway???), LOH will be getting 50K or more views per month.

It also is great that the views/viewer ratio is about 2:1. That means that for the 32.4K views I have for September so far, there have only been 16K viewers, which means viewers are looking at more than the one article they found by searching on Google (and other search engines). They are finding reason to stick around and look at other things too.

This kind of made my day. 😀

On having seasonal affective disorder (SAD), dishonesty, and a few other things.

Posted on September 26, 2015 by luckyotter

This is going to be a long post, because I have so much to say.
I haven’t been completely honest about why I haven’t been posting as much (being overworked and tired is only part of it) but I was very confused about all these emotions I’m having and wasn’t sure where to begin, even though I wanted to talk about it. I just felt so overwhelmed and confused I was sure anything I wrote would overwhelm and confuse the hell out of anyone reading it and make no sense. Even now, I’m having trouble knowing where to start and am not sure this is going to make any sense, but I’m going to try, since I have the time.

1. Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Let me start with the most obvious and simplest to explain. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it, but I suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). Last fall, I was so new to blogging and so excited by the novelty of it that my excitement over my new “toy” overrode my usual feelings of depression I get when the days become shorter, colder, and gloomier. I even thought I’d been spontaneously “cured” but it’s back this year. It always starts around late August, when the days are becoming noticeably shorter (and this year, the trees begin to change early too). The fact that it’s still as hot as a pizza oven makes no difference. SAD is triggered by lack of daylight. It really starts to kick in after the autumnal equinox (September 23 this year) when the days begin to become gloomier and grayer and the nights are longer than the days. In this part of the country, there’s always a lot of rain in the fall and overcast days. I know we need the rain, but my brain doesn’t care and the darkness always triggers depression, which causes me to feel sad (SAD is a good acronym for this disorder!) and as gloomy as the gray days, and any motivation I have or energy goes out the window.

The string of upcoming holidays, which seem to mitigate the gloom for normal people (and even make them feel happy), don’t help me one bit. In fact, they make things worse. Halloween isn’t too bad (it doesn’t cost much and isn’t a “family” holiday), but Thanksgiving and Christmas are a different story. As a person with no money and who is not in contact or close to most of my family, the holidays, especially Christmas, are very difficult for me. Besides my children, I have no one to spend Thanksgiving or Christmas with. Christmas is so overcommercialized and you are made to feel somehow defective or different (in a bad way) if you can’t afford to buy a ton of gifts (and don’t get many either), don’t love Christmas music, or can’t get into the “holiday spirit.” I know Christmas is really about the birth of Jesus, not crass commercialism, but unfortunately our society has made it that way, and if you’re a poor person with hardly any family and few close friends, it’s really hard to not get depressed.

I always begin to feel better sometime after Christmas, and usually by early February my mood is improving, despite the cold weather. Again, this has to do with the lengthening days. In fact, every year I look forward to the winter solstice, because it’s then that the days begin to grow longer again. It doesn’t take too long for my body to notice it. And once Christmas is over and done with, I feel relief. Then it’s just a matter with putting up with 2 more months of cold and gloomy, overcast days. And because I live in the South, the winters here are not long. It’s usually warming up by early March or even the end of February, and the first signs of spring can be seen then too. I always notice my energy level and motivation increasing, and my mood becomes more upbeat and positive.

So the lack of motivation caused by my SAD (and blogging no longer being the novelty it was last year at this time) is partly responsible for my not writing every day the way I used to. But that’s only part of it.

2. Coming to terms with being a covert narcissist.

The other part is a lot harder for me to talk about, even though I’ve talked about it before, and nothing bad happened when I did and people didn’t unfollow this blog in droves, the way I had feared. About two months ago, I began to self identify as a covert narcissist (in addition to my having BPD and Avoidant PD). It explained the “Aspergers” I was sure I had up to that point. I don’t want to belabor again how I made this discovery or why (if you’re interested in reading more about that, I wrote several articles about it in early-mid August and started another blog, intended to help people with self-aware covert narcissism and BPD who do not want their disorders), but for some reason, I began to feel a lot of shame associated with the “NPD” label, based on the general attitude toward narcissists, especially those who have been abused by them (and the attitude is understandable).

Although I didn’t want to be dishonest because this blog has always been a place where I can be completely honest and would not have discovered this truth about myself had it not been for writing honestly about my feelings every day, I clammed up just the same. I began to fear people’s judgment of me for being “one of them” (even though I’m mindful and think I do pretty well not acting in narcissistic ways) and feeling like maybe I should downplay the “narc” label. After all, it’s just a label, right? And not even a label given to me by a therapist or mental health professional, but a self-diagnosis which might be wrong anyway. I can’t even bring myself to add “covert narcissism” to my list of disorders. BPD’s bad enough.

But in spite of all that, in my gut I know my self assessment is correct. I’ve become very hesitant to call too much attention to it however, because of my fear of negative judgment (which in itself is a part of both BPD and covert NPD). I know it’s silly, because it was abuse itself that made me this way. In the past few months I’ve hesitated to write articles about abuse, because knowing I have covert narcissism made me feel like a fraud. But I’m not a fraud because I am myself an abuse victim–one so badly damaged I was infected with narcissism myself. That’s why once I got over my rage and hatred toward narcissists (which I worked out through my earlier blog posts) brought on by their abuse, I found myself attempting to understand why they did the things they do. It took several more months of completely honest writing (running naked in public) that pulled the scales from my eyes and made me realize that I myself had the disorder and was trying to understand myself!

It took an email I got this morning from an ACON (who I had confessed about my narcissism to) that said she could understand how I could have been infected and that as long as I was aware and trying to change (which I am doing) that there was nothing wrong with my writing for ACONs and in fact, she had been helped by my articles and would continue to read them. Most people, in fact, have been very supportive and understanding. I was actually shocked by this, given how demonized NPD is.

I know as a blogger who writes primarily as a form of self therapy, that I cannot get any better if I stop being honest. I worry far too much about what others are going to think, or that I will be disliked, or people will judge me harshly. I suppose this is natural, having been judged harshly by my narcissists all my life, so I always assume the worst will happen. It rarely does, but just the same, it makes me clam up and leave things out.

These labels can be so damaging, and make those of us who want to change ourselves afraid to admit the truth. It was bad enough admitting I was BPD, because of the negative stigma associated with that. But admitting you’re “N” is even more scary. Some people think you’re the devil himself. But why should it be that way? It’s just a label. If I’m not acting out or hurting anyone, then it makes no difference to anyone but myself. It’s something I need to deal with. I can’t get any better if I don’t come to terms with that reality and on some level, accept it.
I could be wrong anyway (but I don’t think I am).

I felt so much better when I left nothing out, when I was so candid and brutally honest about the most personal and embarrassing and shameful things imaginable. It was scary but I never once regretted it, and found myself growing and changing, becoming happier and more confident (in a real, not a narcissistic way). I was feeling more empathy for others and becoming less shy. I was finding myself connecting with people in a way I was never able to, and was beginning to feel like I mattered. So why would I stop?

I judge myself and don’t want to “own” this label, but realistically, how could someone have been raised the way I was and NOT develop a Cluster B disorder like BPD or NPD? I was both scapegoat AND golden child, and constantly receiving contradictory, mixed messages (I was perceived as either “better” than others, superior, and expected to live up to some ideal image of a child my parents had for me, or I was told I was worthless and bad because I was unable to live up to that unrealistic ideal). This isn’t something I chose; it was something done to me. Narcissism is contagious.

And that brings me to the third issue behind my depression and lack of motivation…

3. Fear of parental disapproval.

There’s another reason why I’ve been less motivated to write. The way I was raised has everything to do with all my emotional problems and my mood swings, inability to connect with anyone emotionally, or feel like I’m leading a fulfilling, successful life. It even explains why I married a malignant narcissist and spent 27 years with him as a codependent, abused wife (covert narcissists–and BPDs–often pair up with higher spectrum or overt, grandiose narcissists and are almost always codependent).

But lately I’ve been afraid to write about my parents and their emotional abuse of me, even though they were my first (and because my personality was still forming, my most toxic), abusers). I can’t blog honestly if I leave my experiences with them out. But I’ve been afraid to write about them just the same, and that’s because about 6 months ago, I found out my parents had found my blog and were reading it. That might make anyone clam up, but no real names were being used, so I wasn’t guilty of slander or libel. It might even do them good to read about the way they made me feel, even if they didn’t care or tried to project everything back onto me (because I wasn’t lovable enough as a child, or am a “loser” who makes “bad choices” today or whatever it is they’re saying about me). It would certainly do ME good to be honest about what happened. After all, this blog is my self-therapy and with any therapist, you would talk about your childhood and the bad parenting you got, so why wouldn’t I write about it? It’s not as if I’m losing anything by doing so, since (as far as I know) I’ve been disowned anyway. I’ve been the black sheep for years and am NC with my mother anyway.

But I still fear their judgment, for God knows what reason. Why do I write openly about my ex’s abuse and not fear his negative judgement? What makes it so different? What makes that “okay” and writing about my parents “not okay”?

I worry way too much about the negative opinions of others, and that in itself is part of my narcissism. I was bullied as a child and that didn’t help either. I put far too much importance on what other people think. I don’t think I lie excessively, but leaving things out is a kind of lie too. I lie by glossing over things, not talking about important things that affected me and caused my problems, not admitting the way I really feel about something, downplaying both my abuse (due to fear of my parents judging me even though they already do) and my own disorders. When I lie by omission, it’s still a lie, and I’m not doing myself any favors either. In fact, the fear of negative judgment feeds on itself, and I imagine the worst outcomes and that tends to feed my fears even more, making me even less motivated to write.

So what I need to do is not worry about what everyone will think, and go ahead and write what I feel and let the chips falls where they may. If I’m harshly judged by some, so be it. Those are probably not people I would want to have anything to do with anyway.

A small part of my depression is because my car needs major repairs and my job only pays enough to pay the bills so I’m living pretty much from one paycheck to the next (and working a lot more). I’m going to go ahead and ask for donations via Paypal but I’ll do a separate post for that and I hope it doesn’t offend anyone.

So that’s where I’m at. I need to start writing about everything I’m feeling again, starting from today and stop worrying about what a few people think and censoring myself because of them. They don’t matter, but my growth as a person does, as well as those who get something from reading this blog. Censoring myself for fear of negative judgment is one of the things I need to work on getting over. It helps no one, least of all me. Haters are always going to exist, no matter what you blog about. I can’t lose my original focus and why I started blogging in the first place, and lately I’ve been slipping. That needs to stop now.

You may find this article inspiring too, if you blog and are afraid to be completely honest.

The reason why I’ve been posting less often.

Posted on September 25, 2015 by luckyotter

I feel guilty about posting less than I did (because posting every day was something I promised myself I’d do), but the reason is because I’m working a lot harder and for longer hours. My job is commission-based, and I had to take on more work in order to save enough money to either get my car repaired (I have a major engine misfire) or get a new (most likely, used) car. I’m so exhausted when I get home that I have less motivation to write, except on the weekends when I can unwind and relax for more than a couple of hours.

It sucks that just getting by requires so many of us to sacrifice things we love doing and take on more of the drudgery we don’t like. I’m hoping this situation doesn’t last too long but I don’t feel like I have other choices at the moment.

I’m also interviewing potential housemates because my current one is moving out early next month. So that’s taking up a lot of my time too. It’s requiring me to spend a lot of time on the phone, which is something I’ve never been too comfortable with. I’m not a phone person at all.

Blogging for holiday cash.

Posted on September 20, 2015 by luckyotter

Since I started running ads (through WP’s WordAds program) back in January, my monthly earnings have increased from a measly $12.00 in January to about $25.00 a month.

You’re not allowed to cash out until your account reaches $100, which finally happened for me in July. Funds earned for July and August are $49.84. If things stay about the same, I should be able to cash out again just in time for the holiday season, which I always dread because I really can’t afford much in the way of gifts. It’s always the most stressful time of year for me.

$100 should be enough to keep my stress levels down this coming Christmas season. I only have a few people I exchange gifts with anyway, and I should be able to afford a few nice things for them. It’s nice to know I’ll have earned that money by doing something that’s more play than work.

The 16 kinds of bloggers: which one are you?

Posted on September 17, 2015 by luckyotter

There are as many types of bloggers as there are blogs. Here I’m going to describe the 15 different types of bloggers I’ve encountered in the blogosphere. Which one are you?

1. The Self-Therapist.
I began my blogging experience as a member of this category. Having just left a long, abusive relationship, I felt the need to document my journey to recovery after abuse by writing about it. My intuition told me that making my therapeutic journal public for all eyes would ultimately be more beneficial for me than just putting it on WordPad or something. My intuition proved correct and I’ve been able to help others too, just by going public. Now I seem to have moved more in the direction of The General Purpose Blogger (#13). This type of blog has become increasingly common in recent years, probably because of the sagging economy that makes it difficult for many people to be able to access or afford good psychotherapy.

2. The Journalist.
Somewhat related to #1, The Journalist writes about their daily experiences, observations, thoughts, opinions, activities, etc. for the whole world to see. The intention isn’t necessarily self-therapeutic, just a way to express to the world their subjective state or feelings at the time. If well written, these blogs can be brilliant and entertaining slices of life many people can relate to, sometimes rivaling New Yorker essays. But if the writer isn’t careful (or is a terrible writer), such posts could come off as narcissistic or just mind-numbingly boring.

3. The Show-Off.
This may be the most common sort of blog, and they are a dime a dozen. Basically an extension of a Facebook or social media page, Show Offs post blog entries documenting family picnics, children’s school events, Breanne and Jacob’s soccer trophies, the progression of the blogger’s pregnancy, home projects, the Family Trip to Disney World, “what I cooked for dinner for the kids last night using only leftovers,” and other bland minutiae of family life. These would be the infamous “Mommy blogs” that have become so vilified of late. Show Off blogs aren’t just limited to moms though–here you would also find teenagers and young adults posting pictures of their friends making silly faces, documenting their social activities, posting videos of drunken parties, and of course, lots and lots of selfies. Show Off blogs could also include pet lovers posting pictures of Fido sporting his new rubber boots or Fifi in her brand new tutu. In all cases, these sort of blogs are essentially extensions of their social media page. Sometimes these sort of blogs even include a Music Player (always the blogger’s current favorite song) that cannot be turned off when viewing the blog.

4. The Vindicator.
Not that common, but there are a few blogs that exist solely to “get back” at a person or group of persons they feel offended them personally. Blog entries are basically endless rants against the offending person or group. Occasionally, the person or group attacked will attack back, and blog wars can arise. These kind of blogs tend to be short lived, until the blogger’s rage burns out, or the offending party (now the offended) threatens civil action.

5. The Pundit.
Many blogs are basically political soapboxes for people to spew their political beliefs. Nothing more needs to be said. There are also bloggers on larger news sites such as Huffington Post, who have been given their own license to do the same thing.

6. The Preacher.
Related to The Politician (above), The Preacher’s mission is to convert everyone to their belief system, whatever it may be. These blowhards may quote from the Bible or other religious text excessively to back their views. If you don’t do exactly as they say, you are going to burn in Hell. Disagreement in comments is usually not tolerated, and comments are sometimes not even allowed.

7. The Expert.
Usually a professional in their field, such a blogger may be a paid guest blogger for a large website. Such experts could be doctors, psychologists, nurses, teachers, finance and business executives, or experts in any other field.

8. The Practical Muse.
These are the “how-to” bloggers, who focus on their hobbies or interests like cooking, gardening, home decor, beauty and fashion, child-rearing, car maintenance, blogging, etc. Sometimes the focus is more specific: bonsai gardening, dessert cookery, antique car maintenance, fashion for wannabe hip hop stars, raising a child with autism, blogging for fame and fortune, etc.

9. The Creative Writer.
These blogs can be either great or terrible. These are the blogs where you’ll find the angsty adolescent poetry, word-salad like prose, bad (or sometimes great) fiction, fan fiction, etc. This category sometimes bleeds over into #1 (The Self Therapist) or #2 (The Journalist).

10. The Hater.
Blogs like these exist to celebrate hatred toward a person (usually a celebrity or other public figure) or group of people. These blogs can be entertaining (if you agree with the prevailing sentiment) or infuriating (if you do not). Unless you are in a agreement, it’s probably best not to comment on these blogs, because you will be mobbed and acquire a new lower orifice in the process. Hater blogs tend to last only as long as the blogger’s passionate ire lasts, so they tend to burn themselves out (or are sometimes forced to be taken down by offended parties).

11. The Motivational Blogger.
All sweetness and light and positive thinking, 24/7, 365 days a year. Such bloggers focus on inspirational memes, verses, quotes, and sometimes original essays, meant to make you feel inspired or motivated. Unfortunately blogs like these can sometimes have the unintended effect of making you feel like a horrible person or a failure because you’re not that upbeat, happy and successful all the time. Or they can simply be annoying.

12. The Artist.
A showcase for an artist’s creations, showing their paintings, sculpture, photography, jewelry, etc. Sometimes these can also be “Merchant” blogs, if the artwork is for sale.

13. The General Purpose Blogger.
Opinionated Man’s A Good Blog Is Hard to Find (formerly HarsH ReaLiTy) is such a blog. A General Purpose blogger writes about everything. Nothing is off limits. General Purpose blogs tend to become popular due to the fact they attract a large audience who have varying interests. The only problem with blogs of this type is the blogger can be seeming to spread themselves too thin, and the blog seems to lack a focus or sense of cohesiveness and can overwhelm readers with too much information.

This blog seems to be veering in the General Purpose direction too, because I’ve been running out of new things to say about narcissism (and frankly I’m getting a little burned out on the subject too). But it’s always been sort of a general purpose blog anyway, because from the very beginning only about 80% of my articles have been about narcissism or mental health. I’ve always written about other things too. It’s just that lately, “other things” is a larger chunk of the pie.

14. The Popularity Seeker.
These bloggers just want to get as many views and hits as they can. They want to present an image–a sort of online “false self,” if you will. They are trying to be cool and only write about things they think are cool or “cutting edge,” even if those things don’t really interest them. You can always tell a blog that’s trying too hard to be popular, because it will usually bore you to tears. You can just tell the blogger doesn’t really give a shit about what they’re posting, they just want as much traffic as they can get and want to present an image of something they probably aren’t in real life. Bloggers like these are usually narcissists or people with low self esteem using blogging to try to feel better about themselves.

15. The Merchant/Entrepreneur.
A blogger whose posts are essentially cleverly concealed advertisements for items or services they’re selling. Artist blogs (#12) often (but not always) bleed over into this category.

16. The Fan.
Like #10, fan blogs focus on a celebrity or other public figure, only the blogger is a fan instead of a hater. Haters of the blogger’s object of adoration need not comment.

“Why Crazy People Make Better Bloggers”

Posted on September 8, 2015 by luckyotter

I know my blog can get pretty crazy sometimes. I’ve made no bones about my struggles with several mental disorders, my disastrous marriage to a psychopath, my history as an hypersensitive head-banging, hair-chewing child-dartboard, my early-adulthood stint with Scientology, my current poverty, my own narcissistic tendencies, my somewhat offbeat religio-political views, my unpopular opinions, and my tendency to be a socially awkward underachiever, among other delicate, controversial, and sometimes embarrassing things most people wouldn’t tell their second-best friend (or maybe not even their best friend).

I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable posting things about myself that are extremely personal or potentially embarrassing, knowing full well that thousands of strangers all over the world know things about me even my own children don’t know. I call this “running naked in public.” It’s liberating once you get used to it. (Of course it helps that I use an assumed name, not my real one). I feel like being this honest has made this blog more interesting than if I just posted my latest cookie recipe or about how to grow healthier backyard tomatoes. I feel like sometimes my most controversial, crazy, and strange posts become my most popular posts, just because they’re controversial, crazy and strange.

I don’t write those posts to be popular or cool though. I write them because I’m a strange and difficult person with a strange and difficult life. Maybe this blog gets so many views as a kind of online rubbernecking–“Hey, let’s find out what that weird borderline cat lady who thought she was an Aspie but really isn’t and who obsesses about narcissists and psychopaths and is afraid of relationships is doing today” or “Let’s see if that crazy woman who does exhibitionist self-therapy online and treats it like performance art has had any new ‘breakthroughs’ today.”

Or maybe it’s because somehow my brutal honesty about my personal life and recovery and my…well, overall weirdness somehow resonates with people and provides a voice for others who feel the same way as I do but don’t dare say it in public. Sometimes I wonder why people read this blog, but really, it doesn’t matter why if people like reading it, does it?

So I have to post this article I just saw at Forbes.com, because it sums up why weird and crazy blogs like mine tend to do pretty well.

Why Crazy People Make Better Bloggers
By Susannah Breslin, for Forbes

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently …” — Steve Jobs

Crazy people make better bloggers.

Heather Armstrong parlayed postpartum depression and a stint in a mental institution into a cash cow blog.

Penelope Trunk grew her blog to over 750,000 page views last month as someone willing to write about stabbing herself in the head, smashing herself in the head with a lamp, and having a miscarriage during a board meeting while dispensing career advice.

James Altucher shares with his blog readers a history of suicidal ideation, depression, and going broke with a manic frenzy that inspires others to buy his books.

In the Forever Recession, we are all entrepreneurs, and everybody knows the best entrepreneurs are crazy.

1. We’ll say what you won’t.

I started blogging in 2002. Over the years, as a blogger and journalist, I’ve written about developing PTSD, the time I wanted to kill myself, and why I loved writing about the adult movie industry. After I got downsized, anyone who Googled me about a job I had applied for could find these stories online. This probably didn’t help my chances of getting a job. It’s probably part of what led me to conclude I’m unemployable.

But that I had been working and living outside of the box for so long — bending the rules or refusing to admit they existed — is what helped me go from unemployed to self-employed in a matter of months.

I used to be on TV. Being on TV can be stressful. You have no idea what’s going to happen, and there are cameras recording whatever does. After one of my first TV gigs, I was driving home on a Los Angeles freeway. I was vibrating from the stress of what I had done, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Was what I had done good or bad? That’s when I decided it didn’t matter. I decided what did matter was that I was brave. I hold that true to this day. I don’t want to be a coward.

Read the rest of this post here.

Fore more about crazy blogging, please see my article, Crazy Ride.

Important updates about this blog.

Posted on August 22, 2015 by luckyotter

New blog Down The Rabbit Hole

Things are beginning to gel together finally, after not quite knowing what direction this blog was going to take, after my shattering discovery about myself early this month.

I’ve been writing (and of course reading) a lot more about healing/treating NPD and BPD, but I felt strongly that those types of articles were out of place on a blog meant for survivors of narcissistic abuse. In the past, I posted them here, but they were becoming numerous as my own self awareness began to percolate to the surface of my conscious mind.

When I made my devastating self-discovery (which is actually one of the three best things that ever happened to me!), I didn’t feel at all comfortable posting those articles here anymore, and decided a separate blog was necessary, so I created Down The Rabbit Hole, intended to document my own experiences on this next stretch of my journey as well as try to offer support to people with BPD and self-aware NPD who want to be well again. A secondary goal is to help spread awareness of mental illness stigma, especially the Cluster B disorders.

It’s all a lot to process but I’ve decided, for now, to keep this blog the same as it’s always been. Almost everyone has been really supportive, and as a victim of abuse myself, I’m there with you. So I’m going to keep posting articles about how to survive narcissistic abuse, my own personal experiences, how to get away from abusers, recognize narcissistic behaviors, research, etc., as well as posting unrelated material as I see fit (and have always done). So you won’t be seeing too many changes. 🙂

Certain articles will (and have been) posted on both blogs, if they’re relevant to both. That’s why you might see double entries on my Twitter feed.

“Some days I just want to crawl into a hole and make myself very small.”

Posted on August 19, 2015 by luckyotter

This article embarrasses me now, but I think it’s a great example of how narcissistic I can be sometimes, even online. I just thought I ought to call myself out about this whiney, self-pitying, falsely-humble, yet grandiose post that’s like wearing a neon sign flashing the words “I can’t take criticism! Waaaaahhh!” This is covert narcissism and BPD in a nutshell. Narcissistic injury. We’re always so butthurt over everything.

It’s interesting. At the time I wrote it, someone called me on this post being very narcissistic, and that upset and angered me (of course!) I actually couldn’t see anything wrong with this self-indulgent post and thought the person was being a bully. They were, but that doesn’t mean the article wasn’t narcissistic.

Seeing myself this way is like having glasses after years of being almost blind.
But I’m being careful not to beat myself up either. The past can’t be undone, but you can make your own future.

Lucky Otters Haven

DISCLAIMER:
I feel like a disclaimer is needed, though the above photo should be enough of a disclaimer, because it says it all. Someone made a sarcastic remark about how I think I’m a celebrity because of this post, so I let their comment make me set this post to private, because I don’t have a thick skin and am too chicken to come out with a snappy or snarky comeback. I always think other people can get away with doing that, but I won’t be allowed to. It’s because of my past. I was never allowed to speak my mind or have a voice. Now I’ve internalized that and don’t allow myself a voice sometimes. I’m getting better but I’m not out of the woods yet.

In no way do I put myself in the same category as celebrities (who are just people who get wrinkles, have morning breath…

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Blogging 101: you don’t need to pay for SEO

Posted on August 19, 2015 by luckyotter

If you’re like me and want to increase your visibility on the web, you might be tempted to take advantage of those email ads promising instant visibility for a fee: search engine optimization. If you’re not familiar with the term, search engine optimization (SEO) is a service provided by individuals and companies that will put your blog or website and its articles on the top of Google and other search engines. But commercial SEO is expensive and unnecessary. You can optimize your own blog, using some simple tricks, and it costs nothing. All you need is a little patience.

I’ve written other articles about how to write a post people want to read, so here I won’t be focusing so much on how to write interesting and engaging articles, because that’s really another topic. Of course good writing and good looking posts are important, but here I’ll be focusing mainly on how to get the most out of things like social media share buttons, tags, categories, pingbacks/trackbacks, linking, and other tricks that generate maximum traffic to your blog.

1. The title is everything.
Make your titles short and catchy–and maybe a little sassy or controversial too.
This is really part of writing an engaging article but it belongs here because the title is SO important. Titles that are too long and sound like the title of a Ph.D thesis get ignored. It doesn’t matter how interesting or well written your article is. If the title is boring or pretentious, people assume what you have to say is boring or pretentious, and will skip over it. Try to be creative but not so creative your title has nothing to do with the article.

2. Use the Share buttons.
I can’t tell you how important this is. If you’re a WordPress blogger, the share buttons are available through the Dashboard, and include almost all the most popular and well known social media sites. You can also add your own, if the site you want a share button for isn’t available. Even if you can’t stand social media, other people reading your article will use the buttons and do your dirty work for you. I’ve had articles that reached 1K+ shares to Facebook, which would not have been possible without the share buttons. If the buttons aren’t there, chances are no one will bother to share them, even if they enjoyed your article.

3. Use tags and categories.
Be careful with this. I have a bad habit of using too many tags and categories per post. It’s best to choose tags that are relevant to the post, but are no more than one or two words long. Categories are more general and you should use fewer of them than tags. For example, if you wrote an article about why cats shouldn’t be declawed, the categories you would use should be something like: cats, animals, pets, veterinary medicine. The tags could be more specific–unethical veterinary practices, declawing a cat, pets, animals, cats, animal cruelty. It’s okay to repeat your tags and categories, but the tags would be more specific, while the categories are more general. The reason why tags and categories are important is because when someone is doing a Google (or other search engine) search, the tags will refer to your article so it will be listed on the search engine page. Using too few tags means your article may get fewer hits (because people use more than one word or phrase to search for something), but using too many isn’t good either (though I’m not sure what the reason is, and I’m guilty of it).

4. Post every day.
If you’re a serious blogger, you should write at least one article a day. If you only post once a month or once a year, people aren’t going to bother to keep checking your blog for new material (of course, not all bloggers care about visibility and are writing primarily for themselves and that’s okay too, but if you’re that kind of blogger, you have no use for this article anyway).

There will be days you can’t think of anything original or are just too tired to write, so then it’s okay to reblog someone else’s post, post a video you like, a funny or attractive photograph, a joke, a meme, or what have you. But make sure you do post original material often. People will lose interest in a blog that’s nothing but a compendium of other people’s material.

5. Use Twitter #hashtags.
Even if you dislike Twitter (many people do, because of the 140 character limit), if you want to promote your blog, every so often you should choose articles you want to promote or think may generate interest and post it to Twitter with hashtags. If your blog is set up to automatically share to Twitter (as mine is), you can’t add hashtags to the initial share, but later on you can reshare it and manually use hashtags. Hashtags act like tags, and will generate more traffic because when people search for a term using a hashtag, your article will come up in the list if you have tagged it that way. For example, an article about baking chocolate chip cookies could have hashtags like #baking, #cookies, #desserts, #sweets. Unfortunately, hashtags can be one word only, unless you put two or more words together as one, such as #chocolatechipcookie. You should do this only if it’s a term you think people will actually search for. #chocolatechipbananacookies probably won’t work. Keep in mind that due to the 140 character limit on tweets, you can’t use more than 2 or 3 hashtags, so choose them wisely.

Here’s what I do. Every few weeks or so, I pull up my stats page and check which articles are getting the most views and shares (sometimes the most popular ones surprise me!) Since these articles are already getting a lot of hits, I’ll reshare them to Twitter, this time using hashtags, to capitalize on the article’s popularity and generate even more hits. Also, if there’s an article I really like but it seems to be getting ignored, I’ll give it another chance by hashtagging it. Sometimes this works too, and the article suddenly gets noticed even though it didn’t the first time around.

6. Be a necromancer.
Every so often (but not too often!), you can give an old article new life by resharing it. You might want to do this for an article you’re especially proud of or ones that are already getting a lot of hits since those articles are resonating with people anyway. By resharing an article that resonates, your hits will reach the stratosphere.

When you reshare a post to Twitter, you should also reshare to other social media as well. On Facebook, be sure to set it up so anyone can see it, on or off Facebook, not just your friends. At the top of each post, there’s an option for this. The little globe means anyone on or off Facebook can see it.

Set up accounts on other social media too, just to share your articles. I have a Tumblr account I never use other than to share my articles.

Credit: Necromancer / Deviantart

7. Link to other blogs or websites.
Not only will other bloggers like you (and maybe follow you back) if you give them credit or quote them in your posts, linking to their article generates a trackback or a pingback, which appears on their site under the article itself or in the comments section. The curious may click on the pingback, which will take them to your article.

8. Love your haters.
You might hate having haters (I sure do and will probably never be comfortable with it), but having haters also means your blog is getting noticed. Haters generate traffic. A controversial article will get noticed and that means more hits for you, and your haters and detractors might even share it too. My haters have actually unintentionally brought me new followers, so I do appreciate them for that. That doesn’t mean you should write something controversial or incendiary just to get hits (because that’s basically just being a troll), but it does mean you should be able to write about what YOU want, even if it’s an unpopular opinion or idea.

Since I run ads on this blog, I like to tell my haters that I make money off them every time they visit (it’s only pennies, and I don’t do this for the money anyway, but saying that usually shuts them up).

9. Self-generating hits.
If you do all or most of the above things, there probably will come a time when certain of your articles become self-promoting. That allows you to rest on your laurels a little bit (but only a little). An example is my “20 Songs About Narcissism” list, which was split into two articles so I didn’t have to put too many videos in the same article. If you Google “songs about narcissism” these two articles now appear at the top of page one! That wasn’t the case when I posted them. I think they were on page 16 or something. It happened because as those articles’ Google rank began to rise over time (due to my promoting them), their higher placement generated even more traffic, without my having to do anything. Since there are a lot of people apparently Googling songs about narcissism, and my articles are the first thing they see, they continue to get a lot of hits, and I don’t have to do anything at all to promote them!

So that’s basically how SEO works. All you need is patience and the willingness to pimp your blog in the ways I’ve outlined and watch your Google rank rise and the hits start popping like Jiffy Pop.

Of course, if you’re not patient and can’t do without “instant gratification,” you can always pay for SEO too.

Also see 12 Ways for Non-Lazy Bloggers to Get More Hits.

For even more of my articles about writing and blogging (and how to handle trolls and bullies), see “The Art of Blogging” topic in the header.

Processing my trip down the rabbit hole.

Posted on August 8, 2015 by luckyotter

I’m so glad I talked about it. Everyone has been great. There have been no negative comments and hardly any unfollows, which surprised me. I’ve had a few comments like these though:

“You can’t be a narc, you’re too self aware and have too much remorse,”
“You’re a good person, so that can’t be true.”
“It’s just a bad case of ‘fleas'”
“It’s probably really just complex PTSD mixed with BPD”
“It’s probably NVS (narcissistic victim syndrome).”

Denial is understandable; I denied it too. For months. And it could be that all those things are true too. Narcissism is, after all, a result of being a victim. Narcissists are the most damaged of all victims, so damaged they became what was destroying them. And until (and if) I can get an official NPD diagnosis (which I probably wouldn’t get anyway, because I don’t fit the classic DSM criteria for NPD), there’s a possibility that I don’t have NPD at all, covert or not. Narcissists low on the spectrum aren’t necessarily bad people who have lost their humanity, but they are broken people and some want help. BPD symptoms and Avoidant PD symptoms mixed together can also look a lot like covert narcissism, but a few things didn’t fit–like the hidden resentment, envy and grandiosity I thought everyone felt.

In addition, because of the intensity of the emotions and events that led to my discovery and the surreal and almost supernatural coincidences that began to play out immediately after, as well as an enormous feeling of relief and a completely shifted vantage point where I could now see myself as others saw me, I can only believe my disorder is real and not a figment of a deluded imagination.

I feel like the copious tears I was able to shed just prior to and during my epiphany both cleansed me of some of the toxic, angry emotions I was always carrying around (suddenly I feel something closer to actual empathy!) and helped carry me to the next step of this journey, which is healing.

I know the next phase will be even more difficult. I doubt I can do it alone. I started a new blog intended to act as a therapy tool for this second big phase of my journey (and is also intended to help others in similar positions find their way), much as this blog has been a therapy tool for the first.

Because there’s no way I can afford the type of therapist I’d need, I’ve decided to search for a university clinical psychology program that uses BPD/NPD patients as “guinea pigs” to people training to be therapists, especially in reparenting/psychoanalytic (not just behavioral like CBT) techniques.

During my crisis last week I thought the shock of finding out the truth would kill me. But it didn’t and now I think it’s the most pivotal moment in my life. It also proved to me that God not only exists but loves me very much, because this revelation came after weeks of prayer that I thought were falling on deaf ears. I was almost ready to give up my faith because nothing was happening.
I was even losing interest in writing.
And then it happened, when I didn’t expect it. It hurt more than I can describe in words. But so does bearing a child–something wondrous comes after all the pain. God doesn’t always make things easy.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen down the line, but that’s not for me to know yet.
The idea to start a new blog happened after the dust settled so I think that was part of his plan for me.
If I’m right and God has taken the reins of my journey, I have faith he’ll direct me to the right therapist.
I’m both scared to death and excited as hell to meet my real self and for us to become reacquainted.

I think the true self comes out through art and creativity. For some narcissists, the “art” they produce isn’t real art but trash. But if they’re at all able to suspend their false self while creating (and I think some do), their art can be honest and beautiful because it’s coming from a place of truth.
Writing is when my true self is at its strongest. So I’m taking things from there.

I’m not sure which direction this blog is going to take. I’m not sure how to reconcile writing about narcissistic abuse without seeming like a fraud, even though that’s probably stupid because it’s not as if I wasn’t a victim of abuse. I was for my entire life until a year ago. Getting away from my narcs brought me the clarity I needed to get to this point. I don’t even want to think of what I might become if I had never escaped.

If anyone’s afraid I might abandon this blog, I promise I won’t. Just like I wouldn’t abandon a first child after having a second. However, for the time being I may focus a bit more on the new one, because of my need to write about things that would fit better over there right now, as well as mundane things like setting it up, putting some “meat” on it, and getting it established.

I’m not sorry this happened at all. I’m grateful. I feel so much better now, almost happy!