Don’t let the haters and negative, unsupportive people in your life belittle you for blogging.
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Category Archives: essays
A post on my other blog.
There’s a post on my other blog I don’t even dare reblog here. It’s a very personal post. But I want to call attention to it because I feel like it could be helpful to adult children of narcissists who read this blog but not my other one (narcissistic abuse is not that blog’s focus but I just didn’t want to put it here for reasons that will be evident if you read the post).
Here is the link to it.
http://downtherabbitholeblog.org/2016/03/24/a-dream-letter-that-ill-never-receive/
Look who just moved into my garden.
Even though I’m Christian (Catholic), I always liked Buddhism and I have a small collection of Buddhas around my house, kept for decorative purposes. They also remind me to stay mindful. I don’t feel like there’s anything wrong with or that it’s sinful. I appreciate many religions. I have a tiny laughing Buddha made of ivory that seems to keep one particular houseplant healthy (I wrote about that in this post), and today in the mail I received an awesome blue glazed concrete Garden Buddha. He’s about 12 inches tall.
I found the perfect spot for him under a rosebush, and he looks very much at home there keeping company with my St. Francis of Assisi garden figure (St. Francis is my favorite saint because of his love for animals). Unfortunately, he lost his left hand sometime during the winter, when a pane of glass fell out of an upstairs window and shattered on top of him, slicing off his hand. His head had a gash in it too, but I was able to repair it using some mortar. I can’t re-attach the hand. Oh well.
They all look like they’re having a meeting.
Now I just need to get the garden cleaned up and some flowers planted and I’ll be all set!
The very large dragonfly you see in the photos is not real. There are three of them in my garden.
How I decide what to post on my blogs.
Most of you probably know I have two blogs. This is my primary one, and the first one I started. It’s now a year and half old. It’s been through a lot of changes. It started as a blog for journaling my feelings after going No Contact with my NPD/ASPD ex, and although I still post a lot about narcissism and narcissistic abuse, I’ve expanded the scope quite a bit to include my own disorders (Borderline Personality Disorder, Avoidant Personality Disorder, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Complex PTSD) as well as the issues of mental illness stigma and mental illness in general. After mental illness I probably write the most about blogging. But these days I post about pretty much anything that interests me, and that includes reblogged posts of others. On this blog, I post primarily about the following subjects, in roughly this order:
- Narcissism and narcissistic abuse — both informative and experiential
- Borderline Personality Disorder / complex PTSD — informative and experiential
- Personality Disorders in general
- Mental illness and mental health (including the Sunday guest posts)
- Mental illness stigma
- Blogging and writing
- Inspiration/spirituality
- Social and cultural issues
- Photography
- Music
- Humor
- Anecdotal essays and general musings
- Book and movie reviews (related to narcissism and narcissistic abuse)
- Everything else
My other blog, Down The Rabbit Hole, is now 7 months old. The articles on LOH and DTRH overlap quite a bit, and I do a lot of double posting. Down The Rabbit Hole has a much narrower focus (and a much smaller audience), and has now become primarily a blog to document and journal about my journey in therapy, which seems less appropriate on a blog with as wide a focus as LOH (even though I do cross-post to both blogs).
Unlike LOH, on which I generally add new content at least once a day if not more, I may only add new content to DTRH once a week or so, though lately it’s been more often than that. While anyone is welcome to read its content (please follow if you want!), DTRH is more personal and I write it primarily for myself. For that reason it’s written more like a journal or diary. Some articles which are too personal or which I feel are too controversial for this blog get posted on DTRH instead. Like LOH, DTRH has also shifted its focus since I started it, moving from my experience with various types of self-healing following some upsetting self-discoveries to actual psychodynamic therapy.
These are the topics DTRH posts about in roughly this order:
- Experiential and personal essays about my therapy sessions
- Articles about treatments and therapy techniques for Complex PTSD and Cluster B disorders, mainly BPD and NPD
- Subjective observations and essays about BPD and other cluster B disorders
- Mental illness stigma, especially BPD stigma
- New research about BPD, NPD, and personality disorders in general
- Mindfulness and inspiration
- Poetry about the therapy experience/living with BPD
A fellow narc-abuse blogger needs assistance
I just received an email from a friend of mine, a narcissistic abuse survivor who also has a blog about this growing issue . She prefers not to identify herself but has found herself in a serious situation. Her narc parents had their attorney issue her a “Cease and Desist” letter, claiming defamation, even though she has in no way defamed them (narcissists can be very litigious!) She does not have the funds to afford an attorney as she and her husband are barely getting by on what they earn (talk about narc parents having no empathy), so she has decided to have a legal fundraiser where donations would be used to pay for an attorney. Any way you can help will be deeply appreciated.
Here is the link to the fundraiser with more information:
http://www.lenorathompsonwriter.com/legal-fundraiser.html
What???
I just saw this ad in my sidebar. It’s a real ad, not a joke.
Ranters, Virgins, Lurkers & Other Social Media Personalities Infographic…
I am a Dipper and an Informer.
Monday Melody: Year of the Cat (Al Stewart)
There are some songs you just never grow tired of. I clearly remember the first time I heard Al Stewart‘s “Year of the Cat” because I heard it in a dream. There’s only one other song I first heard while I was asleep and became incorporated into my dream (Lifehouse’s “Halfway Gone,” 2009). There’s something magical about hearing a song in a dream that always remains with you and makes the song seem more special somehow. You almost feel like it came from inside you.
“Year of the Cat”‘s vivid imagery recalls outdoor markets in faraway Eastern places and exotic women in colorful silk dresses. In my dream, during the summer of 1977, I saw all this imagery while on some kind of safari and my male companion–a boy who I had a wild crush on–was serenading me with this song.
I woke up right at the end, during the long instrumental and couldn’t get the song out of my head. I had to have that record, so I rushed out to purchase the 45 RPM. For the next month I listened to it more times than I could count.
It’s a great song, with many layers of instrumentation–violins, piano, guitar,and saxophone, giving it a sensual, even sexy feel. The lyrics are pure poetry. You simply don’t hear lines like “she comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
like a watercolor in the rain” these days.
“Year of the Cat” has a timeless sound and doesn’t sound dated, even 40 years after its release. It could have been made yesterday.
Superman metaphor for personal transformation.
Something I was thinking about…
The Mockery of Mimicry
Narcissists are bar none at mimicry. That’s why they can seem so good at so many things, and also why they seem so “understanding” when you’ve fallen under their spell. They have been watching you, cataloging your ideals, values, loves and hates in their minds as if they share them with you. During the love-bombing phase, they seem to be the soulmate you’ve been searching for…and you believe them because they are such good actors.
But there’s a dark, very dark side, to their ability to mimic, when they begin to devalue you….my MN ex was a master at this sort of mimicry, so this post was quite triggering.
I’m reminded of the brilliant song Liar by Henry Rollins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awY1MRlMKMc
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I love to copy. I have to copy. It is all I have known for as long as I can remember. It is my natural setting to mimic those around me. I have to fit in, I have to belong and the most effective way for me to achieve this is to replicate everything that I come into contact with. If I interact with an esteemed academic I will listen to his or her achievements and then pass those off as my own as I peel away their glittering accolades and apply them to myself. Should I spend time with an exceptional sporting individual then their record-breaking endeavours will be purloined for my benefit and sported as my own in furtherance of my own belief in my exceptional ability. Author? Yes I have written books too. Model? Yes I do some modelling from time to time. Chef? You should try…
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Lucky Otters Haven 