Serendipity.

Posted on March 10, 2015 by luckyotter

Serendipity. Kismet. Miracles. Or coincidence?

We’ve all heard that God works in strange and mysterious ways. Here is a beautiful example of how a perfect storm of events can sometimes happen that seems anything but coincidental.

I just received an email from a follower I will call “Ana,” who found this blog when she was looking up a recipe for Merrimints candies and wasn’t looking for anything at all about NPD or Aspergers.

But it turned out that when she found her recipe on this blog, she realized the primary subject matter was exactly what she needed because she is an Aspie dealing with narcissistic abuse.

Here is her lovely email (I hope she doesn’t mind if I repost it here, but I have changed her name).

Somehow this must be kismet. My name is [Ana Rodriguez]. I too am a self diagnosed high functioning aspie who has had a lifetime of bullied existence and parents from hell. I was looking for a recipe and info on the mints and stumbled on this page. I am a member of “it’s all about him.com” and baggage reclaim and read them daily. I am currently just off surviving a npd relationship that has me twisted. My father was the narc-a much beloved town doctor-and drug addict. Crazy doesn’t even cover this-dickensian nightmare, oh god ! My mother was only concerned about him. She was obsessed with him and his moods. We children were nothing but irritants. Neither of them should have had children.

Welcome, Ana and I hope you find some support here. ❤

I don't believe in coincidences. I think everything happens for a reason and God orchestrates these little miracles that happen every day and we see them if we are paying attention. Every day he shows us his presence in small but profound ways.

Winter into Spring

Posted on March 8, 2015 by luckyotter

I love very late winter, because it’s when suddenly nature returns from the dead and gloom of that season. Even though the trees are still pretty bare and it’s still pretty cold, the lengthening and slightly warmer days have cause the buds to begin to open, showing their true (fall) colors before the chlorophyll starts kicking in.

I snapped these photos this morning in my neighborhood, after church. If you look closely, some of the trees have a yellowish tint and others, a reddish one. It really doesn’t look much like winter anymore. Birds were chirping everywhere and I heard children playing outdoors in the distance.

Experiencing this simple moment was the perfect gift just after having attended mass during the third week of Lent. Late winter/spring and the Easter season is all about resurrection and rebirth.

I decided to post the Youtube link to George Winston’s piano music, “Winter into Spring” here. It’s the whole album. Listen to it while sitting outside or appreciating the rapid changes nature is undergoing even if only from your window. No matter how poor, sick or beaten down by life we are, we are all blessed to have these gifts that cost nothing.

The day I went to Hell.

Posted on March 2, 2015 by luckyotter

A old friend from another website I used to frequent and I were having an interesting conversation earlier today on Facebook about my conversion to Catholicism on Easter. My friend converted two years ago (from Episcopalian) so of course he knows much more than I do.

Both of us love philosophical musing and talking about weird, metaphysical subjects so as conversations sometimes will, soon I was asking him if he believed in Hell (he does but doesn’t think it’s a hellfire and brimstone sort of place) and if he believes all narcissists will go there (he thinks they will and there’s no hope for any of them; I don’t think that’s necessarily the case unless they’re psychopathic or malignant).

I asked him what he thought hell was like and he replied that it was worse than a fire and brimstone hell because it would involve the lost soul forever drifting alone in between the galaxies, where there are no stars and no light…utterly alone, and lost for all eternity with no hope of finding their way back to…anything at all.

This suddenly brought back memories of a bad LSD trip I took many years ago, when I was in my 20s. I was never adventurous about taking recreational drugs and pretty much stuck with alcohol and pot, which seemed safe. I must have known on some level I didn’t have the right sort of temperament to react well to a strong psychedelic drug, so I never messed with them except for this one time.

Psychedelic drugs make you extremely suggestible, and heighten whatever mood you’re already in or exaggerate what you’re already worried about. This is why it’s recommended that if you decide to experiment with this class of recreationals, to only do it in a setting you’re comfortable in and have a trusted “trip sitter” who is not under the influence there just in case a freak-out occurs. As a person who was constantly on edge and a nervous wreck anyway (and I also took it with someone I didn’t know well), the outcome wasn’t going to be good (but it sure was interesting).

My trip memories came flooding back (not as a flashback, just a memory) so I described these memories to my Facebook friend today. Personally I think these drugs can be extremely dangerous because I think that, much like messing with the occult, they can open doors better left bolted shut, and reveal truths about the universe we may not be ready to know or ever should know. You can be shown things you can’t begin to understand and that lack of understanding will terrify you. Basically, they constitute a way to eat from a Tree of Knowledge that can really fuck your head up for a long time, even causing a psychotic break, or at the least just cause extreme discomfort for awhile.

At first I thought nothing was going to happen, because the weirdness didn’t kick in for almost half an hour. Then I started to shiver as if I was cold but I wasn’t cold. The shivering was coming from inside me. Everything became metallic. My surroundings developed sharp edges that gleamed like the edges of knives and the sounds around me sounded like metal and glass.

We were outside. I watched a car zoom by and thought it looked and sounded funny–sort of like a cartoon–so I started laughing. I thought it was alive. I started rambling (probably incoherently) about why cars weren’t considered to be living things because they sure acted like living things and even had “systems”–the body covered with a metal skin, the engine (the heart), the transmission and electrical system (the nervous system), the various fluids that lubricated and made it run (blood and other bodily fluids), even a waste elimination system (the exhaust). And they had four “legs” that kept them moving. They could get sick and be “diagnosed.” Their inner workings seemed as complex to me as the inside of the human body. They even had quirks and “personalities.”

This early part of the trip was kind of fun but I was still disturbed by the metallic sound and cartoonish look of everything. The world seemed like it was screaming and shards of metal were slicing into my brain like razor blades. A fly landed on my arm and I screamed because I thought it was some kind of tiny machine that could see inside my soul. The fact that such “engineered insects” and even smaller nanomachines actually exist freaks me out more than a little.

Creepy artificially engineered insect.

Then I had a bizarre thought that came out of nowhere. I “realized” that nothing was real–that everything and everyone I had ever known, everything I ever learned about or experienced, in fact every person and every experience I had ever had since the time I was born–none of it was real. Everything and everyone I knew was merely a creation of my own mind. (I understand some Eastern religious practices actually do believe this).

But if everything I saw and knew and experienced was nothing but a mental construct I created from my own mind, and nothing really existed, then where were my own thoughts coming from?

I was a singularity, a tiny speck of bright white consciousness, floating alone in the black void of deep space, light years away or an eternity away from any known universe. I felt utterly alone and lonely, and wondered why only my consciousness existed. I was overcome with profound sadness.

And then realized this meant I must be God. I was pure consciousness floating bodiless within an eternity of nothingness. I could create my reality out of nothing. If that was the case, I could create a whole new universe. As God, I was the consciousness that brought on the Big Bang. I thought about creating a new universe, one that would make me happy instead of so miserable, afraid and sad. But I was too afraid to create anything at all. What sort of “God” would be so scared and so powerless?

I started to freak out. I remembered my past life, my job, my school, my friends, my family. I wanted to get back but didn’t know how. I had a massive panic attack so intense I thought I would die. Maybe I was already dead. Maybe I had never existed at all…who the hell was I? Where was I?

I was trapped in some weird time loop. Although I (think) I only had these realizations, thoughts and visions once, I had the unsettling feeling I had been through this exact experience many times before, and in fact this experience had been my only reality throughout all eternity. Everything else had been a dream. This was the only reality.

Gradually I began to come back to the world. My friend told me he was worried about me because all I had done was sit on the floor, backed into a corner of his kitchen, moaning and mumbling incoherently. He said my eyes looked like black pools of terror. He tried to give me some coffee but I had pushed him away. I didn’t remember doing that.

It was definitely an interesting experience but one I would never try again.

My Facebook friend and I started talking about the devil and whether he existed. Anyone who would think of themselves as God, even in a deluded drug induced state, was being influenced by Satan, who thought of himself as God or at least that he should have been God. I’m still not sure I believe in Satan, but this argument made a kind of sense. The overall feeling of my LSD experience was one of profound despair, terror, evil and separation from God.

Could this be Hell?

Being “God”–a singularity of consciousness amid an eternity of nothingness–was terrifying. I told my friend I thought perhaps I went to Hell and it was exactly as he had described: a place of nothingness between the galaxies or even outside any known universe, perhaps within a massive black hole, an eternal separation from all that was real, whether bad, good or in between.

I was never so glad to return to the mundane and too often very boring and painful reality of the earthly world I lived in, just one insignificant human among billions of others just like me. I actually appreciated all the little things that angered, upset or annoyed me, at least for a little while.

Looking back on that experience now, I think I actually was in hell. I think that, if Satan does exist, utter aloneness, terror and despair is what he feels (but don’t worry, I’m not Mick Jagger and have no sympathy for the devil). Satan is the Ultimate Narcissist, and still believes he is greater than God, the source of all that is–and he hates God for casting him out of heaven into that eternal black void of nothingness.

Girl Scout Cookies and God…

Posted on February 14, 2015 by luckyotter

Original art from Deviantart.com

It’s times like this my self esteem and progress in healing seems to take a dive into the toilet.
I don’t handle frustration well at all, and it can set me off on my old unhealthy patterns of negative thinking, feeling victimized, and wallowing in self pity.

I am having the tranny rebuilt on my car, and have just enough money from my tax return to have it done. Of course, God always comes through if you ask, and that’s what he did–but I still can’t help feeling sorry for myself because now I have to use my tax return to replace my tranny (and have a car that runs by the end of this week) instead of doing things I would prefer to do, like going to a few concerts or even planning a weekend trip. I know I should be grateful this happened now–when I have the money–instead of later on, when most likely I would not be able to afford it at all.

For the past two days, my roommate hasn’t been feeling well, so she has allowed me to borrow her car to get back and forth to work. Today I needed to get to the bank before they closed to deposit my state return and buy a few groceries. I live about a mile and a half away from the store, and the weather is nice so walking (which I would up doing) isn’t really an issue.

My roommate’s car wouldn’t start and we couldn’t jump start it with my jump start machine either. My daughter has a friend who was picking her up to go to the mall, and it would have been easy enough for her to drop me off at the shopping center so I could do my errands, but she said there wasn’t enough room in the car (there wasn’t).

So I walked, and instead of feeling happy that I could enjoy this beautiful and mild late winter day with the breeze in my face, I felt petulant and victimized instead. When they drove past me and didn’t slow down to ask me if I needed a ride after all, I felt angry and just wanted to give them all the finger. I know it was irrational of me because there were already 5 people in the car along with a baby, but I couldn’t help feeling like the victim again.

Now I’m cranky and depressed and just feel like sleeping away the rest of the day. Is this terribly narcissistic of me? I think it really is. I hate myself for feeling this way, and sometimes it feels like these sort of situations just make dogmeat out of all the progress I’ve made.

I know those of us healing from narcissistic abuse and PTSD have setbacks, but I still can’t help feeling like the way I feel is just wrong and selfish. So there’s guilt on top of everything else.

I knew I needed to blog about this today, as embarrassing as it is to admit how immature and childish I am behaving. I’m sure many of you have felt similarly in these sort of frustrating situations, even when they’re relatively minor, as this one is.

I need to focus on my blessings: my car WILL be fixed (even though it will set me back) and I had an opportunity to take a nice long walk on a pretty day. I also stopped and bought a box of my favorite mint chocolate Girl Scout cookies from some girls outside the supermarket. Think I’ll go indulge now. When all else fails, chocolate is great therapy.

This may be the best therapy at times like this.

Alaina’s epiphany

Posted on February 6, 2015 by luckyotter

Alaina, one of my readers and a frequent commenter on this blog, wrote the incredible story of how she found God’s grace on a dark snowy night in Maine when she had lost all hope and was preparing to die.

My epiphany wasn’t anywhere near as dramatic as Alaina’s–I could see her story as a novel or movie. I’m posting it not because of its drama though (God has a different plan for each of us–he appears in some lives more quietly) but because of how inspirational it is. My jaw was glued to the floor after reading it. I couldn’t help but think of the “Footprints” prayer.

Here is Alaina’s blog (about having PTSD). Please follow her!

On the night of January 14, 1990, I walked exactly 17 miles in a snowstorm down an isolated unplowed road not far from the coast of Maine, where I lived at that time. I know I walked exactly 17 miles because the next day, I followed my footprints in the snow in a car and that’s what the car’s odometer showed.

I had run out of the house to get away from my abusive husband, in terror for both my life and my sanity. I was emotionally very fragile, as a lot of things in my little world were unraveling at that time.

I half-ran, half-walked out of town until I got to the unplowed coastal road, where there was no traffic, no houses, no buildings of any kind, not even any electrical poles for many miles, just trees and more trees and lots of frozen snow and ice everywhere. When I got far enough outside of town to feel sure that no one could hear me, that’s when I began RAGING at God at the top of my lungs. About two and a half years had passed since I had left my job at Pat Robertson’s TV ministry, with my faith utterly destroyed, during that time when Robertson was running for President and the scandals of Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart and other big TV ministers were making headlines. I had stopped believing in God then for all kinds of reasons and – if God DID exist – then I was extremely furious at Him!

I walked for hours through the dark night, with no streetlights or any other lights in sight, just a hazy sliver of moonlight shining through the snow clouds reflecting eerily off the white wilderness that surrounded me. As I walked and raged through the deepening snow, my face, feet, hands, and ears grew numb and my knees began to ache and throb so bad, I felt like I couldn’t take another step. And yet I kept going, having made up my mind to walk until I keeled over and died of exhaustion and hypothermia. That was my crazy plan, to die out there in the frozen wilderness at the ripe old age of 36. But FIRST, before I died, I wanted to tell God, if He really existed, exactly why I was so damn PISSED OFF at him!

So I yelled about all of the evil and horror and pain and disasters in the world. I yelled about children and tiny babies who suffer and die of cancer and other horrible diseases, I yelled about evil wars, I yelled about hurricanes and earthquakes and wild fires and tornadoes that kill and destroy, I yelled about rape and hate and trauma and abuse and mental illness and poverty and hunger and broken hearts and broken families. I yelled about every single thing I could think of to yell about that was wrong in the world, and I yelled about every single thing I could think of that had ever gone wrong in my life. I yelled and I yelled and I yelled at the God I did not believe in, with snow blowing in my frozen face and crunching under my aching feet and knees. I yelled and I yelled and I yelled until I finally yelled myself out. I had yelled about everything I could think of to yell about, there was nothing left inside me, not one damn thing.

At that point, feeling utterly empty and depleted, I kept walking, because there wasn’t anything else to do. And that was when my epiphany happened. It was as if a veil had been drawn back and I was given the temporary ability to see, feel, and sense what was already all around and within me, something too big and overwhelming to discern in ordinary time, with ordinary human senses. I did not see any visions, I did not hear any voices. But I felt: GOD. A huge presence, a great reality, as real and palpable to me as anything I have ever seen or felt or sensed in my entire life, before or since. God was simply THERE, in everything and through everything, part of all of reality, even, somehow, a part of me. And God’s huge, overwhelming presence was overwhelmingly perfect: perfect love, perfect goodness, perfect peace, perfect holiness.

I was not given any answers to any of my questions, not a single one. There were no rebukes or rebuttals for anything I had yelled at Him through all those hours and miles. God just simply WAS, and God was perfectly GOOD, and God absolutely LOVED ME, unconditionally and completely, through and through, in spite of – and maybe because of? – everything that was “wrong” with me.

Not only that, but I got the very strong impression that God was letting me know that He understood, 100%, everything there was to understand about me. He “got” me. He “got” why I was the way I was, He understood why I did the things I did. God knew even those things about me that I did not know about myself, things that I have either forgotten or never known. God knew and understood and He loved me perfectly, faults and all!

Then I heard the sound of an approaching diesel engine. I did not want anyone to see me, because I knew I probably looked like hell – I had been sobbing during a lot of my yelling at God, and I have never been a pretty crier, my face gets all red and puffy and my nose runs. I have literally scared myself just by looking in a mirror after I cry. So, before the headlights of the approaching truck came around the corner, I slipped and slid off the road and hid behind a thick stand of trees.

The truck pulled up right beside me and stopped. Then I heard a male voice call my name.

It was an old Canadian lobster man by the name of Delwyn, a man I had just met and barely knew. He said he had wondered why I wasn’t at the AA meeting in town that night (although I had only recently started going there and wasn’t sure if I would continue). He said that all during the meeting he had a strong, nagging feeling that he needed to go look for me, that I was in trouble. When the meeting ended, as he was driving home, he noticed a lone set of footprints beside the road, heading out of town. So he had followed my footprints. Who would have guessed that my guardian angel would be an old weather-beaten lobster man?

He drove me to my home, and I have never had a drink of alcohol since that night.

However, I continued to be an agnostic-almost-atheist for the next 13 years. I did not come back to being a Christian until 2003!

Alaina wanted me to put in a disclaimer about the possibility what happened to her could have been due to severe PTSD. I’ll just copy her next post.

I don’t know why my epiphany was so dramatic, maybe God took pity on me because of all the unusual amount of trauma I had lived through, who knows? And it’s crazy that I still did not call myself a Christian for the next 13 years, and even today I STILL have some doubts! Because honestly, nothing in my almost 62 years of living on this earth has ever seemed as real to me as this experience, and my second near-death experience that happened a little over 3 years later.

The problem is that I kept wondering if it was just me being crazy and imagining these extremely vivid occurrences, because… well, mental illness does run in my family, plus I had that 2-year post-traumatic breakdown when I was 14 – 16 years old – although, even during that time, I never once lost touch with consensual reality.

Still, it’s a terrible thing to go through so much trauma and to have such terrible PTSD as a result, that you get to a point where God could appear to you in a burning bush and you will be like, “Yeah, right, like I’m going to believe THIS is real. 🙂

But yes, to answer your question, feel free to use this as a post if you want, I am honored. Also, feel free to attach a disclaimer if you want to, about my mental health… However if you do that, you may also want to include the fact that after my last divorce was final in February 2003, I took my settlement money and checked myself into a mental health clinic, where I had to pay my way with cash, as I had lost my health insurance in the divorce. (I could have paid cash for a nice little house with that money, and I even had the house picked out – but I realized that having a nice house to live in, with me being so miserable that I wanted to die, was not going to do me any good, I needed some real HELP.)

Paul Meier, MD, is the founder of the psychiatric clinic that I went to, in Richardson, Texas. Dr. Meier, who I believe has several doctorates to his name and has been a psychiatrist for about 40 years, plus he has authored or co-authored over 80 books, many of which were best sellers, and he has been on the Oprah Show – Dr. Meier himself ordered a full battery of psychological and physical tests for me, and when he gave me the results of all of my tests, he said that I had severe PTSD and general depression and anxiety, and that I may also have something that he called Cyclothemia (However you spell it? It is a mild form of bipolar disorder, which my doctors since then have decided that I do NOT have, they say I only have the PTSD and depression/anxiety). Dr. Meier told me very definitely that, despite my almost two year incarceration in an insane asylum as a teenager, that I am NOT psychotic, I am NOT crazy, in fact he said that I am amazingly normal, considering my life history.

Dr. Meier is the one who told me that having a PTSD reaction to overwhelming extreme trauma is NORMAL, just as it is normal to bleed if you are stabbed.

So, yes… I realize there is always the possibility that the two most profound and vivid experiences of my entire life were somehow a result of something going briefly haywire in my brain. But I have been certified SANE, and I see a therapist regularly who also says I am sane.

Do narcissists have a spiritual purpose we can’t understand?

Posted on January 27, 2015 by luckyotter

This fascinating topic was raised in the comments section under The Man You Love to Hate…or Hate to Love.

The implications raised here are bound to be controversial to some, but I think Joan and CheriSunday may be onto something. In fact, I’ve sometimes wondered myself if narcissists exist for a good reason that only God can understand, but I always thought it sounded too crazy to write about and it was hard to formulate those feelings into words. I’m glad other people have had the same thoughts. It makes me feel less crazy. And it actually makes a type of sense.

CheriSunday says:
January 26, 2015 at 2:46 pm

As you wrote quote “Maybe when one chooses to become a narcissist…..you are drawn into darkness, and once you’ve entered you can’t ever escape.”
My response: I live in a darkness, however I know light shines through my being.
Why feel sorry, we like to suffer, for some , sufferance becomes their friend, that’s how we make peace with the darkness.
CheriSunday

Joan S says:
January 26, 2015 at 8:45 pm

That is very wow. I actually think that aware narcissists like Mr. Vaknin might be a gift. We can’t interpret that gift yet, but will remain till we can.

I like your point though that some like to suffer that it brings comfort. I just can’t believe that darkness can overcome the light though, that is impossible. Maybe if you felt that light long enough it will bring about the deliverance. They just have to want that deliverance. Have to want it. And that is where narcissists are stopped. JMHO of course. I like insightful things.

luckyotter says:
January 26, 2015 at 11:59 pm

Joan,
we don’t know what God’s reasons are or what his plan is. I have thought myself, that narcs may have been put here for a reason that only God knows. Maybe they are here to teach us valuable lessons about human nature and spirituality in general.

In thinking so much about narcissism, because it’s a mental disorder that most likely has a spiritual component, I have been brought much closer to God in the process and have found some semblance of joy and peace for the first time in my life. I have never been happier than I am now. So looking at it this way, narcissists may help us in our own spiritual journey.

I don’t think narcs are demons, I think they’re here for a reason and that reason is a teaching one, even if the lessons we learn from them are painful. Even Satan himself, was created by God and was initially God’s most beloved angel, and his purpose was to test our faith. His original name, Lucifer, means “light bringer.” He became too narcissistic for Heaven because he began to think he was greater than God so he couldn’t stay. (I don’t know whether or not this is a literal story or there is or ever was an entity called “Satan,” but it’s worth bringing it up in the context of this topic).

This doesn’t mean we have to (or should) associate with a known narc. But the ones we haven’t been able to escape from or those who raised us, at the end of the day (when we can finally see the forest for the trees), can make us stronger; their darkness can put our own light into sharp relief.

And in atypical narcissists like Sam, who have contributed so much good to the world (even if his motives were self serving), it could be that he (and those like him, if there are any others) are a special kind of gift, and that his darkness may be a necessary thing, both for himself and for us. We don’t know the reasons, but he may know, and although he suffers, he may have accepted this suffering as part of whatever his own mission on this earth is. He may not need deliverance, or maybe the deliverance will come at a later time or upon his death. We just don’t know. Only God does.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” — Kelly Clarkson

luckyotter says:
January 26, 2015 at 11:43 pm

CheriSunday, first of all, welcome to this blog! 🙂 I love to see new “faces” around here.

If you know light shines through your being, you are not hopeless. Maybe there are some people who need to suffer. We don’t know the reasons. In a way I can relate. I flirted with darkness for many years, out of choice. Fortunately I’m coming to a place of more light but there are still dark days. I accept them for what they are, and realize those dark days may have some enlightening lessons in them. “Without darkness, there can be no light.”

I am curious, though, since you say you choose suffering and you have never posted here before, are you an NPD sufferer or have another disorder, like BPD or depression? Forgive my presumptuousness, but because of the nature of this topic and this blog, I don’t think it’s stepping on your boundaries to ask. I hope you don’t mind.

I also think most narcissists have an inner light that does shine through sometimes, except maybe MNs and psychopaths/sociopaths. There is a lot of light in Sam and that’s why I think he is still able to help people and victims looks up to him even though he is exactly the sort of person we’re trying to get away from. I hope that makes sense.

I can’t even.

Posted on January 12, 2015 by luckyotter

I was about to go to bed but decided to check my email one more time tonight, and read something unbelievable.

A person who had been reading my blog and says they are a narcissist wrote me a long email. To protect their privacy, I will not repost their email.

To paraphrase, she told me she knew she was a narcissist and felt like she didn’t deserve to live anymore. A few months ago she was ready to commit suicide. She confessed to me many of the things she’d done to hurt her husband, her kids, friends and family which I won’t go into detail about here to respect her privacy. She said she wants to change but doesn’t know how to stop. She tries, but it never works for long. She is also an ACON who had a narcissistic mother (and no father because he died when she was a child).

She’s been reading my blog for awhile and has never commented because she said she was too ashamed to even post under a handle on a public website, but she said my posts have given her so much hope that she decided not to kill herself and is starting to see a therapist who specializes in personality disorders. In the parlance of young people today, I can’t even.

I just have no words right now except tears. I’ll have to respond to her email tomorrow.

I can’t even tell you how amazing and incredible and magnificent and encouraging it is when someone tells me my blog has helped them or given them hope. I get choked up every time I hear something like that. But when it comes from a narcissist? That just proves to me there really is a God who loves every one of us.

Even if this person isn’t a narcissist, who cares? Whatever her problem, she feels better.

What an incredible gift. Who cares about spikes in stats or numbers of views, when THIS is what really, really matters.

Free association…thoughts on gratitude, pride and healing.

Posted on January 3, 2015 by luckyotter

My head was exploding with ideas for new posts this morning (creative new ideas are almost out of control! Halleluia!) but since none are long thoughts and all came to me as I was running my morning errands and buying a few groceries (By the way, if you’ve never tried Bolthouse Smoothies, you haven’t lived. Blue Goodness is the best. Naked brand smoothies may be a little cheaper. Of course you can make your own too if you’re not lazy like me).

Free association #1. My daughter’s victory.

I got a text from my daughter saying she pressed charges on Paul last night for assault (he had slammed her into the door, which was why it broke) and theft of property (he did still have everything of hers, including most of the money!) and the sociopath who passed himself off as such a “loving” boyfriend was arrested this morning.

Then the unbelievable (well, maybe not so unbelievable) happened. He called her from jail, crying and apologizing over and over again. I would doubt it’s genuine remorse as he is obviously a skilled psychopath–he’s probably just scared to death of her now and the fact he was called out and actually arrested for his despicable behavior, and he lost. I told her I was proud of her for having so much courage and getting justice.

I am ever so grateful. This proves there is justice in the world and karma WILL come back to haunt the evildoers who have no remorse for their actions. At the end of the day, they will get what they deserve, even if it takes longer than we expected. Sometimes we just need to grow some balls (even if we’re female) and throw away the Cowardly Lion act. With God’s grace and patience, we will be vindicated.

Free association #2: Pride: seductive and deadly.

Proverbs 29:23 – A man’s pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.

Galatians 6:3 – For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.

Proverbs 11:2 – [When] pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly [is] wisdom.

Proverbs 26:12 – Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? [there is] more hope of a fool than of him.

James 4:6 – But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

Proverbs 16:18 – Pride [goeth] before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

I’m treading on dangerous territory now as big changes are beginning to happen since I left my narc and was inspired by God to start a blog. Doors that seemed forever locked are now opening. I feel like I take up more “space” in the world–before, my world seemed very small and claustrophobic. I felt hopelessly stifled, and at the same time I was afraid to venture out into the wider world, which I am doing now, even if right now it’s just the wider world of the Internet.

This is all fine and dandy, but it contains a deadly pitfall: the sin of Pride.

Pride in moderation is fine and healthy, as long as we don’t give all the credit for our joys and achievements to ourselves (because we are not gods–in spite of what sociopathic “prosperity preachers” like Joel Osteen tell us). We need to realize that as humans, we are vessels made by God and our first priority is to give glory to God, in whatever manner or talents He has gifted us with.

Each and every one of us has a special gift or talent we were given and the painful lessons we learned in life may be the key to what our purpose in this life may be and where our true abilities lie.

If we neglect to credit God for imbuing us with his Spirit in the form of creative, empathic, scientific, or any other type of vision, we can become full of pride–and pride is a slippery slope to full blown narcissism. That’s why so many Hollywood celebrities have become so narcissistic–because they failed to realize they are not gods themselves–their success or outstanding talent is a tool that God imbued them with and they are merely vessels. God wants nothing but the best for each and every one of us. He wants all of us to realize the potential he created us with. However, his gifts are to be used to help us best serve Him and others, not to serve ourselves.

I need to continually remind myself of God’s enormous role in the changes I’m beginning to see in my life–as well as this new, unfamiliar, optimistic feeling that I actually have a future and a purpose in this world to help first myself and then pay that forward to others.

Sure, of course, there’s going to be a little narcissistic pride (like always bragging about my stats LOL), because we are human and imperfect. That’s okay as long as I NEVER forget that it’s not all about me. God wants me to use my writing and blogging ability not to become full of myself over what it can do for ME (because that’s the point at which everything falls apart, as these Bible verses tell us), but to use it as a tool to help others fulfill their OWN potential and help them find the person God wanted THEM to be so they can use their own Godgiven gifts…and pay it forward…just like in that old 1970s shampoo commercial that said if you tell your friends, then they’ll tell their friends, and on and on and on….I know we’re not discussing brands of hair products here but the analogy is a good one.

God wants all of us to succeed, in spite of what our abusers and narcs have convinced us is true. They are lying. Because God made you special, he made me special–we are images of Him and how special and loving he is.

If you think God didn’t give you any special gift, you are mistaken. If you think you lost or wasted your gift, you are wrong. I was sure I had frittered away and wasted all my talents and abilities due to prolonged narcissistic abuse. I was sure God hated me and was using me as an example of how NOT to be, how NOT to live, as a pitiful laughing stock to the rest of the world…I really believed this!…but again, I was so, SO wrong.

Just be careful about Pride, because it’s very seductive and deadly and can veer you WAY off course, into narcissistic selfishness and darkness…and will affect all those around you in a negative way, especially yourself.

Free association #3: Could insightful narcissists be healed?

I like to look for the good in people and maybe I’m just hopelessly naive and unrealistically optimistic, but I absolutely refuse to believe (as many people do) that certain narcissists can’t ever recover from their disorder. Perhaps true psychopaths/sociopaths and the most malignant, evil narcissists have crossed a line into darkness and it’s too late for them to change, but I think as long as a narcissist has insight into their own behavior, there is hope for them to heal. I think insight is the first step to healing for someone with this devastating personality disorder.

Right now I can think of several narcissists who have enormous insight into themselves and I think they do have hope of recovery — even if they themselves don’t believe it. There are three I am thinking of in particular: Sam Vaknin; the narcissistic commenter KWWL who recently posted on my blog about their NPD and desire to heal; and my own daughter, who may have NPD (or BPD) but has expressed a true desire to change and stop doing manipulative and bad things. I am sure there are many others, and some of them may be reading this blog right now.

I have a great deal of empathy for narcissists like these, and in that spirit, I want to say a prayer for all narcissists who have been given the divine gift of Insight:

Dear Father,
Please show these troubled people that they have goodness in them, and are the way they are due to how they were treated as children and their terror of removing the masks that serve to protect the hurt child inside, and that they have become so comfortable wearing.

Let that hurt and lonely child out in the fresh air, let that child be nurtured with your love and our prayers, keep that child safe from further hurt, teach that child that doing the right thing can be just as satisfying (and much more so) as doing the wrong thing, and show that child where their true talents are, so they can begin to walk on the side of the sunlight instead of forever attempting to walk the fence that separates the darkness from the light.

Narcissists, even the most insightful, are in grave danger of losing their balance and falling into darkness (as we all are). Father, please keep them safe from themselves, and teach them that at the end of the day, their false pride can destroy them, not to mention those they come in contact with.

Finally, Father, for the narcissists without insight, please bless them with this gift. For those with insight but who don’t want to change, bless them with the desire to change.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional therapist, and do not have an advanced degree (just a BA in Psychology and Art), and have no guarantee anything at all would work for narcs, but in thinking this problem over so much (and doing so much reading by experts in this field–M. Scott Peck, Vaknin, Hare, George K. Simon, various bloggers who believe NPD can be cured, and others), I think an insightful narcissist could be healed through a four-point program–difficult and probably very expensive, but something that possibly could work for some under the right circumstances. (These ideas are not my own–they are an amalgamation of the ideas of others–even the spiritual element of prayer and faith are from the ideas of M. Scott Peck).

How to cure an insightful and willing narcissist.
1. Emotional catharsis (brought on by loss of narcissistic supply and preceding Cold Empathy from the therapist working with them): https://otterlover58.wordpress.com/2014/11/30/could-reparenting-actually-cure-a-narcissist/
2. Dream analysis and training in Lucid Dreaming (because this may be the only time the True Self is accessible).
3. Retraining the conscience through CBT (cognitive behavioral training)
4. Faith and prayer (from others)
Insight and willingness to change must precede all of this, of course.

I am also not suggesting we should enable or give narcissists what they want. We still need to go No Contact with the malignant, psychopathic ones and those who have done damage to us, and sometimes even the ones who just annoy us.

Narcissists, if they are ever to recover, need TOUGH LOVE.

Note to narcissists who may be reading this.
This is not and never will be a narc-free blog (see my Rules in the header). If you are a narcissist and want to talk about it honestly and civilly here, as some have already , I am inviting you to do so. If you want help, even though I can’t help you myself, I may be able to help direct you to some good resources (also see Info and Support in my header). If you don’t want to post on a public blog like this, you are free to email me with your questions or story.

Best day ever

Posted on December 26, 2014 by luckyotter

862 views on Christmas day, FAR surpassing any previous Best Day. It didn’t seem real.

Then I got 2 private emails.

I won’t quote them here out of respect for the privacy of the individuals who wrote them (I did initially, since I wrote this post under the influence of a little too much wine, LOL). Both queries were from people who’d been referred here through Vaknin’s links.

The first one was from a woman who knew about the book I was thinking about writing about Sam. She lives in the same country as him and attends conferences with him. She offered to help me with editing/writing but more impressively she said she could help me be able to get an interview with him without having to fly to Macedonia. I am not sure how she knew about the book I’d been planning to write unless he told her himself (not surprising for a narcissist to brag someone wants to write a book about him, hehe). I had put that idea on the back burner, but since it’s something I still want to do, this offer would be incredibly helpful to me and maybe I can get to it sooner.

The second email was from a woman (Aspie like myself) who said the article that’s getting so much buzz right now made her cry tears of hope because both her sons are on the autism spectrum–the youngest one also Bipolar and showing possible narcissism. The sons’ father is a malignant narcissist and sociopath. She wanted her sons to read portions my blog because she thinks it might be as inspiring to them as it is to her.

I have no words to describe all the emotions I’m feeling right now. I love the idea this blog might be growing legs but even more so that it’s giving other people like me hope. Later my thoughts will be clearer and I’ll be able to reply to both writers of those emails.

Until then, I’ll just share some some photos I took today at Molly and Paul’s house. We had an incredibly good time and the food was amazing. Molly told me they have even been talking about marriage. Time will tell.

Dinner!

The lasagna before baking.

Blue lights on spiral stairs.

God’s presence in my life was like a flashing neon sign today. For the first time ever, I really understood the true meaning of Christmas. It has nothing to do with gifts, money or greed, but has everything to do with asking God what he wants from you and truly listening to the answer. You might have to wait a while but it will come with faith.

All that said, I’m still relieved the holiday season is over for another year. It’s not an easy time for a lot of us who have faced the worst humanity can dish out for most of our lives.

My journey so far: a timeline of recovery

Posted on December 15, 2014 by luckyotter

Here I am going to show you my timeline in recovery from narcissistic abuse because I’m noticing some fascinating patterns and certain things are becoming much more clear from looking at it.

My Recovery Timeline

2006: Following my divorce, my father sent me a copy of M. Scott Peck’s book “People of the Lie.” While I was still deeply enmeshed with my psychopathic ex, and nowhere near recovery, this was the book that planted the seed for what was to start growing years later. I think this was a sign from God that I needed to make some serious changes but I didn’t recognize it at the time. But I was able, for the first time, to recognize the MNs in my life for what they truly were: evil people. Recognition is the first step in recovery, even if it takes a while to get the ball rolling.

February 2014: 8 years later, I finally had the catalyst I needed and the strength of will to get rid of my narc, who had been leeching off me, using me and manipulating me and our kids for 7 years. (I had allowed him to move back in with me in 2007, a huge mistake). This decision arose from Michael becoming violent toward our daughter. I wasn’t aware before that physical violence wasn’t necessary to obtain a restraining order–I could have obtained one at any time since we were no longer legally married. But maybe I wasn’t strong enough yet and it took an act of violence to inspire me to finally take some real action. I put up with a lot of his other shit, but violence was something I simply would not tolerate, even in my weakened state. Yes, it was scary as hell to do this, but I am so glad I did.

February – July 2014: I had to learn how to live alone again and become independent. There was a part of me that felt I actually needed him, even though he “needed” me far more. I wasn’t just afraid of what he might do if I made him leave, I was also afraid of living alone without him, though I can’t really fathom why since all he did was use and abuse me. This was a difficult and lonely time, but I began to feel a little like a person again.

July – September 2014: I began to educate myself about narcissistic personality disorder and the community of survivors of narcissistic abuse, particularly ACONs. The first blog I started to read was Dr. George K. Simon’s excellent blog, Manipulative People. I posted a few times there and “came out” there as an ACON and abuse survivor, but mostly I just read. I also ordered his excellent books, “In Sheeps Clothing” and “Character Disturbance.” (You can find the links for both his blog and the books in the Info and Support tab in the green header above.) I also found other good blogs written by survivors of narcissism and psychopathy, and among these settled on a few favorites, especially Five Hundred Pound Peep’s blog because she was Aspie like me and had a mother who sounded almost exactly like mine. (Her blog is also listed in Info and Support).

September 2014: Inspired mostly by FHPP’s blog (but others too–see Info and Support for a list of other blogs and resources I think stand out), I decided to start my own. The decision came from out of the blue–it wasn’t something I had to think about. Prior to that, I had always been afraid to start a blog–I thought it would be too hard. But on September 10th it was like I got struck by lightning and without even thinking about it I went to WordPress (after first trying Blogspot and finding it required me to use my real name because it’s connected to Google) and immediately started a blog. In retrospect, I think this action was actually inspired in me by God. I was finally strong enough to start my own course of self therapy (and unbenownst to me, help others in the process of helping myself).

September – November 2014: While my blog wasn’t an immediate hit and started off quite slowly, I had several “mentors” along the way, such as OM from Harsh Reality, who helped me make my blog more visible and got me more followers. At first writing seemed like a chore sometimes and I had to discipline myself to write a post a day (and sometimes I skipped a day or two). Sometimes I wrote two. After a while I found that I couldn’t stop writing (and now I write about 3-5 a day!)

My early posts were almost as likely to be about topics besides narcissism (music, religion, funny rants, photos, etc.). It was good practice, but sometimes I think I was trying to distract myself from the real issue I needed to confront. Posting fluff pieces allowed me to avoid that, but still gave me practice writing and blogging every day.

By November I was addicted and rather than blogging seeming like a chore or work, it was becoming a passion. I was a writing maniac! I couldn’t seem to stop writing, and if you look at “Archives,” every month I have more posts than the last. I realized with great relief and joy that I had never lost my writing ability and this is actually my strongest method of communication. I began to build a small following. I had never known how to use the writing gift God gave me and didn’t think I could ever help anyone using it, especially myself. But all that was being proven wrong again and again.

During the same period of time, I began to explore spirituality and religion. Many of my posts are about my spiritual journey from near-agnosticism and even a slight antagonism toward Christianity, but sometime in October, through a sequence of events (the posts are under “My Story” in the green header), I settled on becoming a Catholic. It’s Christianity (though I know some Christians disagree!) but doesn’t go against my deep love and respect for science and other beliefs I hold dear that I cannot let go of. I have never liked the hellfire and brimstone doctrine of fundamentalist Christianity; but Catholicism isn’t wimpy and wishy washy either, like some liberal Protestant churches. I also love the Eucharist and all the ritual (for aesthetic reasons–I know ritual isn’t important in salvation). While I don’t agree with all Catholic doctrine, much to my surprise I found myself agreeing with most of it. I signed up for RCIA classes (Rite of Christian Initiation) at the local Catholic church and have been attending those and weekly Bible studies regularly. I will be accepted into the Catholic church at their Easter mass. I am very excited!

I believe now there was a very good reason for my becoming a Christian and strengthening my belief in Jesus Christ as God and savior when I did. Never before in my life had I been able to understand the concept of the Trinity or the concept of Jesus as a tripartate person of One God, or why he would have sacrificed himself for us on the Cross. Suddenly I found myself understanding these concepts and beginning to internalize them. Yes, I still have doubts and I still have problems with the Bible, and have not had any sudden, earthshattering conversion like Saul/Paul, but from my agnosticism of a couple of months back, I have gradually come to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior, and that prepared me for the next step in my journey, because I was about to enter a very dark and potentially dangerous place for anyone who does not have a strong faith. It could have been my undoing, but is proving to be anything but.

November – December 2014: In mid-November, I watched “I Psychopath” for the second time and became fascinated with its subject, self-proclaimed narcissist Sam Vaknin, whose excellent (if rather scholarly and ponderous) writings about narcissism and narcissistic abuse are exhaustive and highly available to anyone who wants to read them. I wrote an article about my observations about the film, and Sam himself not only commented several times on my post, he shared it on social media so that in a matter of a day or two, I saw a spike in my stats like I’d never seen before. It was unreal.

I wrote a followup a few days later; the same thing happened. I started to read his personal journals and diaries, and found myself deep inside his strange psyche. I wanted to write a biography about him. A narc who was that insightful and (inadvertently) helped so many people was such an oxymoron I had to find out as much as I could about why someone could be like that. But in reading his honest but highly emotional journals and the devastating abuse that led to him developing NPD, I was feeling myself starting to be drawn to a very dark place. I couldn’t explain it, but I began to feel like I was losing focus on my OWN recovery, and the recovery of fellow ACONs and focusing entirely too much attention on one man’s disorder, for which there is no known cure.

So I decided last week to put the book idea on the back burner, until I am stronger and have gone further in my recovery journey. While I’m still reading his writings, it’s for education, not to focus all my attention on a project about someone else that would eclipse my own recovery. I prayed about this and felt that God had gave me the answer: keep this idea in your mind but put it on the back burner until you’re emotionally and spiritually stronger. Delving too deeply into a disordered mind like Vaknin’s at this point in my journey without proper armor could be mentally and spiritually dangerous.

So I moved on, but have found within the past week or so that my blog posts have become much deeper, darker and more focused on the supernatural and “evil” nature of NPD. My posts have also become a lot more personal and confessional. I’m digging deeper into the disorders of those who raised me.

While this might seem like a negative thing, it isn’t. Because looking at narcissism this way is giving me clarity and more incentive than ever to fight against its evil. We can’t fight against something or really deal with it on a deeper level until we understand its true nature (without allowing ourselves to be exposed to it). I am very careful not to engage with real-life narcissists or only engage with them as often as I absolutely must. This way, I am removed from it while at the same time I can study it at close range the way an astronomer can study the stars under a high powered telescope: he is not out there in the stars, but can study them with with objectivity and distance.

In my last post I described a powerful nightmare that stuck with me all day today (I did wind up going to work after all). I won’t analyze it piece by piece, but I think it was both a warning and a revelation: to move forward but tread carefully into the study of malignant narcissism and how it’s infected my family, because to be too hasty and dive too deep too soon in my present still fairly weak spiritual state could be my undoing.

I could be entering dangerous territory where I myself could be taken over by evil (represented at the end of the dream–I believe the robot-like “host” was actually a demon or the devil himself, who controlled everything in that house; and my inability to escape (except through waking) because the car (that represented God and light) that was to take me away had left. I did have the presence of mind to tell the devil to “go fuck himself” but that may have enraged him too. But the fact that through my terror I still had a fighting spirit and was willing to take him proved I have some strength of will now that I never had before. I think this dream was a warning to take things slowly and only with God by my side as my protector and guide.
Because when we are dealing with the subject of malignant narcissism, we are dealing with evil itself. My growing relationship with God is important to help me resist those evils even while exploring them in more depth.

God makes all things happen only when we are ready.

The poem I wrote yesterday was similar to my dream and very much related to it. In it, I was told I “passed the test” which I think means my “primary education” (being raised and abused by MNs and psychopaths most of my life) is now no longer necessary and now I’m ready to begin the next level of self discovery.

Over these past few months I’ve become less depressed and much happier overall. I feel for the first time in my life like God has a clear plan for me, I have a future and everything that led up to this was a test and an education. I feel like I’m being called to eventually help other victims find their way out of the barbed wire jungle of psychopathy and narcissism.

Why making your own timeline is a good idea.

Making a timeline is an exercise you can do too. You can chart out your own timeline of recovery in a similar manner and it will become much clearer how far you’ve come and what patterns have developed. You can also see where you may need to shift your focus if you have become stuck or are finding yourself in a dark place.

Timelines can also give you some idea of the next steps you may need to take. You can learn a lot about yourself and your recovery from doing this. You don’t have to make it public like I’ve done; you can do it with pen and paper and just keep it for your own reference. Seeing any kind of physical representation of your journey to recovery can give you an amazing amount of clarity and focus. Making a recovery timeline can act like a good pair of glasses.

Staying Balanced.

I think lately I’ve been focusing a little too much on the dark side of narcissism (well, it IS dark) but there is a good reason for that right now.

Still, I think everyone (including me) needs an antidote to all this darkness. So my next post after this will be about something positive or practical instead of something dark. It might even be about another subject besides NPD. It might even be a fluff post!

I want this blog to remain interesting to the followers who are reading it for other reasons. Not all my followers are ACONS or victims of other psychopathic relationships. I used to post more about other things but a lot of things have been happening to me from blogging about it and that’s why I seem to post less now about other topics that are more “fun” than narcissism. But we all need a break from it sometimes.