A lifetime of writing (part two).

Posted on November 22, 2015 by luckyotter

In Part One, I wrote about my early adventures as a writer, and promised to have Part Two up in a timely fashion. I got distracted by other things but I didn’t forget, so here’s the story of my relationship with the written word after my mid-20s or so. Since all of this takes place as an adult, I’ve decided to divide Part Two up by decades instead of life-stages.

Late 1980s.

In 1986 (also the same year I got married), I got my first job as a kind of/sort of writer, working for a nonprofit organization in New York City, writing technical entries for their manuals. At first I loved the job, as it involved a lot of research (mostly using microfiche) and actual writing, not merely editing someone else’s work (even though the writing was highly technical and had to be written in their own style). I became quite good at following the required style, and soon was training new employees and even asked to write and develop the new style manual. Not being much of a people person, I never felt that comfortable with training others, but was good enough at it to be promoted a year later to Assistant Editor.
That’s when everything began to fall apart. At the time, everything was becoming automated, and I wasn’t at all comfortable with the new method of “writing” the manuals, in which DOS fields had to be filled in and there was now very little writing involved. It seemed the “editorial” job had become nothing more than a glorified data entry job, with the automated system doing most of the work. My attitude went downhill and in 1990 I finally quit for a medical editor’s job at a large publishing company.

Other than my job, I did no other writing, because during this time I was busy as a newlywed and starting a home. At the time, it was fun and what I wanted to do. My husband hadn’t yet begun to show his true colors or started his emotional abuse of me, although the red flags were certainly there.

1990s.

Read on to find out why this factory worker belongs here.

In late 1990, I started working as a medical editor at the publishing company mentioned above. I also was taking freelance proofreading jobs for the nonprofit company I had previously worked for (I’d remained on good terms with them). My new job proved to be disappointing at first–the “editorial” position I’d taken working for a medical journal that focused on skin disorders was nothing more than a secretarial/receptionist job. I spent most of my time answering phones and typing letters. Any “writing” consisted of writing up phone messages for my higher ups. I felt like I was too “good” for this position, and eventually transferred to another department in the same company that was looking for a production editor.

The production editor’s job was highly technical and involved fitting type into the journal pages in a way that looked good but allowed room for ads and pictures, which meant one of my tasks was to act as a liaison between the art department and the advertising department and I didn’t care for this part too much because it required social skills I didn’t really have. The job also involved a lot of proofreading and basic grammar editing. Since doctors wrote the articles that were submitted (this was for a journal that focused on sexual and reproductive disorders), there was little to no actual writing involved in this job, even though most of the submitting doctors were horrible writers. I couldn’t stand trying to decipher their atrocious writing (and spelling–these doctors would probably all fail a third grade spelling bee), but the job itself was interesting. The managing editor was insane and never satisfied. She loved to berate and call us all names. Imagine my surprise when she gave me a great performance review–she had never said anything nice to me before! She even talked about promoting me, which never really happened but I did get a few more actual writing assignments.

In 1991 I got my own column, which was about AIDS and HIV. Basically I had to research new information about HIV/AIDs and write up short summary articles detailing new findings, and then organize them on the dedicated page along with any ads and graphics. Later on I got a second column, about fertility and infertility. The funniest part of my job was editing a column in which doctors submitted humorous stories to the journal. I remember one in which a man who was a factory worker liked to, er, satisfy himself during his lunch break. While everyone went out to lunch and no one was around, he stayed behind and used the machinery to “take care of business.” One day his appendage got stuck in the machinery but he managed to pull himself free (with a lot of blood and pain) before his coworkers returned. Unfortunately, in order to free himself, he pulled it right off! Frantic, he used a staple gun to re-attach his mangled member, stuffed a lot of paper towels in his pants to control the bleeding, and resumed working as if nothing had happened. Not surprisingly, the man developed a terrible infection and a high fever. He finally had no choice but to tell his doctor what happened. I don’t remember whether the man’s private parts were saved or not, but it had to have been very traumatic. It’s a terrible story but funny too, because of the man’s stupidity. My job was to select the best stories and edit them so they were readable. You can imagine this part of the job could be interesting!

In December 1991, two months after my son was born, I returned from maternity leave to find out the journal was folding! It always had an identity problem and never could seem to be taken seriously as a medical journal but at the same time was too clinical to be a health magazine for laypeople. Everyone knew this was coming, it was just a matter of when. I lucked out in that I had my son before we were laid off and was able to take advantage of both the generous maternity leave and 6 month’s severance pay which allowed me to stay home with my son longer than I would have with just the maternity leave alone. A friend of mine worked in another department that published book reviews (actually, a well known publication) and it turned out they were accepting freelance book reviewers. I got the job which paid very little (about $30 a review) but allowed me to stay connected to the writing/publishing world and was something to put on my resume. The job entailed reading a pre-publication copy of one new book per week and writing a review about it. My “specialty” was new pop psychology and self-help books, and general miscellanea. Most of these books weren’t that good, but having been a psychology major the genre I wrote about was right up my alley. I usually wrote a positive review even if I didn’t like the book, because I was afraid to do otherwise. Almost none of these books sold many copies and most have long been forgotten.

Here’s a sample of the sort of reviews I wrote. This one was for Robert Fulghum’s popular book “Oh Oh.”

The author of the bestselling All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten and It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It has put together another volume of bite-sized inspirational whimsies. Drawn from his experiences as a child, as a preacher, and from everyday life, Fulghum’s eye-opening (although never moralistic or preachy) anecdotes are written in a comfortable and unpretentious style, giving one the homey feeling of sitting on grandpa’s porch on a lazy Sunday afternoon sipping iced tea. Some of the essays are reminiscent of Garrison Keillor, flavored with a bit of Norman Vincent Peale. In any case, it is worth taking the time to appreciate simple pleasures and human kindness in today’s hectic and stress-filled world. Fulghum’s book is one way to get started. (Previewed in Prepub Alert, 5/1/91.)

The one time I decided to write a bad review was for a book I felt had no redeeming qualities and I simply couldn’t think of anything good to say about it. That book was “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus,” which went on to become a massive bestseller and still sells well today! The review was published as I wrote it, with only minor changes made. The author was furious! A public retraction had to be written and I was let go. I almost died when I saw it had become #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. If only my review of that book had been a good one! I’ve never been known for my great timing or choices.

Shortly after this, I moved to North Carolina with my family (my daughter was born in 1993, 7 months before we moved). The rest of the 1990s were spent raising my children, trying to handle my husband’s drinking and escalating abuse (sometimes by becoming emotionally abusive myself), and adjusting to the culture shock of a young woman raised in the New York metro area now living in the rural South. The only writing I did was shopping lists. I no longer had any connection to the New York publishing world but was too consumed by my new life to care.

2000s – 2010s.

In early 2000, I began to get my wordsmith feet wet again. I’d become involved in a history and politics forum (still active to this day but overrun by trolls since their only mod left in 2010) and was extremely active on it for about 3 years. People used to tell me I wrote extremely well and the owners of the forum, also authors of a book about cycles in history, used quotes by some of the more well-known forum participants. I was one of them.

In 2003, I wrote a novel. It was the first time I actually finished writing a novel. But it sucked because I deliberately wrote it in a style I thought was “cool” but wasn’t really my own. In fact, I didn’t really like reading other people’s books written in that style. The novel also had no plot to speak of (thinking of good plots and endings has always been something that eludes me, which is why I do better with non-fiction and short stories). The two main characters were both unlikeable and immature (the man was boring and one-dimensional and the woman was probably Borderline-Histrionic), and there were too many badly written and unbelievable sex scenes in leiu of any real character development. I’d include a passage here to illustrate how bad it was (not a sex scene though), but that would mean I’d have to start digging out my overstuffed closet to find it and I’m definitely not in the mood for that right now, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

At the time I didn’t think the novel was that bad, so I let my mother read it. Big mistake. She basically told me it sucked and that I “shouldn’t think of myself as Prima Ballerina without having ever learned to dance.” Ouch! Typical of my mom, undermining what little confidence I had, but in a way she was right. Every publisher I sent the novel to rejected it. After about ten tries, I packed all 300+ pages into a cardboard box and only looked at it again recently. It sucks as bad now as it did in 2003. How did I ever think this self-indulgent POS written at the height of my distastrous marriage when I was also quite mentally ill was any good? But at least it was something.

I continued to post on various forums in a variety of subjects and became addicted to the Internet. Up until this time I continued to be a voracious reader, but the Internet was perfect for someone as asocial and reclusive as myself and satisfied both my need to write and my social needs. I read fewer books but more badly written garbage online. Other than forum posts though, I wrote nothing until I began to blog in September 2014, a little over a year ago.
The rest of the story is told throughout this blog, so I’ll end this post here.

Part One can be read here.

A lifetime of writing (part one).

Posted on November 14, 2015 by luckyotter

Writing, as opposed to the spoken word, has always been my preferred mode of communication. While it’s true I’ve never published a book or made a real career of it, I have a deep love of words and the rhythms and drama of the English language. Writing is where I feel the most at home in myself, and when I’m at my happiest and feel the most productive. Starting this blog, in spite of some painful incidents arising from it in this past year, has been the best decision I ever made.

This blog began as one for victims of narcissistic abuse and of course, as a ranting platform for myself, but recently I’ve been moving away from that subject for several reasons, the most obvious one being that I simply can’t think of anything new to say about narcissism that hasn’t already been said. There are other reasons too. I haven’t decided what this blog’s new focus should be, or if it should have one at all. But I love to write about writing, so that seems like as good a topic as any, at least for today, so I thought I’d share what my lifelong on-again, off-again love affair with the written word has been like.

Childhood.

English was always my favorite subject in school, and my best one too. Once I learned how to form letters and put them together, I found that I loved written assignments and always did well in them. As a child I also loved to draw and often wrote little illustrated stories at home for fun. Not too long ago I wrote the sad story about the little blank books my father brought me home from a business trip, and how I used to fill them with little stories and pictures (usually drawn in marker because I liked the sharp edges of a marker or pen over crayons and you could fit in more detail). Unfortunately, that ended one day when I found out some of my creations had been stolen. After that I was hesitant to write for myself anymore, and pretty much stopped drawing at all.

But my love of writing didn’t die, and as I grew older, my stories became more detailed and longer. I also liked writing papers for school about topics that interested me and enjoyed everything that went with putting together an awesome looking project–choosing what color construction paper to use for the covers (which I liked to slide into a clear plastic cover with a color-coordinated plastic spine to hold it all together), what to draw on the cover (if anything), how to design the letters spelling out the title, organizing the pages, etc. I almost always made A’s on these projects.

Once I learned to read fluently, I couldn’t get enough books. I remember in third grade, I read voraciously. For some reason, I was particularly enamored of the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books. I also really liked anything by Beverly Cleary. But I’d read just about anything I could get my hands on. At about age 10, I received “Harriet the Spy” as a gift, and she became my hero. I must have read that book about 10 times, and I read Louise Fitzhugh’s other books as well (too bad she didn’t write more books). To me, Harriet was the coolest girl ever, and she loved writing as much as I did. If I couldn’t be one of the popular girls, then I wanted to be Harriet. She was relatable, but so much cooler than I was. For awhile I even carried around a notebook (a black and white cardboard speckled one just like hers) and wrote down random observations about people. I think Harriet is still relevant. I know Fitzhugh’s books are still popular because so many children who are “different” or feel out of place can relate to Harriet. I wish I still had some samples of my early writing, but unfortunately these were lost a long time ago.

Harriet was my idol when I was about 10.

I was often the target of bullies, especially in 3rd-5th grades, and often would escape to the school library for solace. We had a very sympathetic school librarian. I loved everything about libraries, especially the smell of books. It was very comforting to me, and the only place I felt really at home. Books really were my friends. One of my favorite places to go on the weekends was (drum roll, please!) the public library. I think it’s terrible that government funds for public libraries have been cut in the past decade. I think they’re so important. The Internet is great, but nothing beats a library for nurturing your mind.

Adolescence.

During my teen years, writing became a back-burner activity, something I did when there was nothing else to do. I did continue to read voraciously, but was a lot less inspired to create anything of my own. What I did write tended to be what one of my teachers called “thunder and lightning” poetry–typical adolescent angst poetry about darkness, depression, despair, neverending rain, crashing storm-generated waves, and death imagery. I was Goth before there was such a thing (and liked to dress in black or dark clothes too). I also wrote long, angry screeds about my mother, who I’d decided (rightfully) was the shallowest, most un-maternal person on earth.

I also kept a diary. It was thick sky-blue leather hardcovered book with a golden lock and key. Unfortunately I couldn’t fit much in the spaces for entries, because it was a five-year diary so I only had a 5th of a page to write anything, and the lines were tiny (and my handwriting tended toward the large and florid). I finally quit writing in it after about 2 1/2 years. Like most other things from my growing-up years, I have no idea what happened to it.

Term papers became more of a chore, because now I was required to use and cite sources, etc. but once I got motivated, I did enjoy it and always got high grades. Sometimes, though, I’d wait until the night before it was due (after fretting for weeks) and stay up all night working frantically to finish the project. My teachers could never tell the difference, but I certainly don’t recommend waiting until the last minute to start a school project, if for nothing else other than the enormous stress that causes.

Early Adulthood.

College was basically a continuation of high school as far as my engagement with writing was concerned and was limited mostly to term papers and school projects. Of course, the topics I had to write about were more in keeping with my interests (psychology and art). They were also required to be typewritten and I had recently learned how to type and really liked the “professional looking” fonts available on the school’s IBM Selectric and the futuristic looking font-balls you could snap in and out of the machine (I had a typewriter, but it was a basic Royal ribbon typewriter with standard typeface). In those days before the Internet, access to fonts that didn’t look like “typeface” was considered very cool. I also liked the fact I could backspace and actually erase mistakes, instead of having to use White-Out or erasing strips which only covered them and always looked messy. I still have a few of my psychology papers; sometime soon I’ll dig them up and read over them again.

The only project I ever did badly on in college was a verbal assignment on Narcissistic Personality Disorder (oh, the irony!) for my Abnormal Psychology class, but it wasn’t because I hadn’t done my homework or prepared for it; it was because we had to present it in verbal form, in front of the classroom, and I clammed up terribly and my mind went completely blank. I got a D in that assignment, and it took me a very long time to get over that. In written assignments though, I always got A’s or high B’s.

My love affair with electronic typewriters like the Selectric ended when I started my first office job as a receptionist and had to spend entire days typing up invoices and memos. I remember our first word processor and how cool that seemed. I even took classes in Wang, but once again, it wasn’t too long before that seemed humdrum too.

I only completed three years of college because I got engaged and had to work full time, and something had to go. If I had to do it over again, I would have waited to marry and gotten a degree in journalism or gone for a Masters. While married, I didn’t write anything more ambitious than shopping lists. I wouldn’t dabble in creative writing (for myself) again until my early 40s, although I did take jobs as a technical writer, medical editor and part-time book reviewer during my late 20s and thirties.

(To be continued in Part 2.)

Writer’s block.

Posted on October 29, 2015 by luckyotter

I feel like there’s a traffic jam in my brain. Or perhaps, no traffic at all. For some reason I can’t fathom, I can’t work up the motivation to write anything. I feel like my creativity has gone AWOL. I wake up feeling depressed. I go to sleep feeling depressed. It’s a numb, zombie-like depression but underneath that…there’s something coming to the surface. There’s an underlying anxiety and a feeling of impending insanity. I don’t know why. I pray for an answer, some clarity, some ability to process the stuff going on in my head right now, but there don’t seem to be any answers.

I can’t think straight. I had a bad panic attack at work yesterday; it came out of nowhere. I was out of control. I embarrassed myself and was shaken the rest of the day.

I’m using various techniques (prayer, meditation, long hot baths) to calm myself down, but it’s only a temporary fix and I still have no creative ideas for new posts. I forced myself to write this one. I’ve said many times before that writing is at least in part a discipline. You have to make yourself write, even when you don’t want to. Then it gets easier. But I’m ignoring my own advice.

I feel like my small life is growing smaller. I’m isolating myself more. I think about death a lot (not suicide, just the idea of death and it scares me). I keep asking God to intervene and lift my mood but this time he’s sleeping on the job.

I know I have to take responsibility and make myself get out of the house sometimes and make myself write. But when the time comes, I just find it so hard to get motivated. I have problems with the seasons and always get depressed this time of year. But this didn’t happen last year. I wrote like a maniac a year ago and worked through a lot of emotional stuff. I was full of ideas and writing allayed any depression I would have experienced.

I have faith though. I know this is temporary. I know God is there and is sitting back for a reason. He wants me to work through this on my own. I feel like I’m on the edge of an epiphany, something new I need to discover about myself.

I know this post won’t win any Pulitzer prizes and isn’t at all inspiring but at least it’s something. I know I need to just sit down and make myself write SOMETHING every day, even if it sounds uninspired or even stupid. I need to tell my inner critic to STFU. I’m not trying to impress anyone, just get my thoughts on “paper” so I can process them and learn from them. This is only meant to be a journal, after all. Maybe this will even open a discussion about writer’s block and I won’t feel so alone. I’m also going to look into therapy.

Trolls and lack of motivation.

Posted on October 23, 2015 by luckyotter

I thought I had my lack of motivation all figured out, and thought I’d conquered it, but obviously I haven’t, since I’ve been posting a lot less than I used to and it hasn’t gotten any better. I can’t figure out my lack of motivation, because I love writing and blogging has brought me so much insight into myself and my place in the world, and even moments of joy.

I was all set to write up a new post last night (albeit, not a long one). Whenever I start a new blogging session, I always check my comments first. Lately I don’t seem to be getting as many. I have more viewers and hits overall than ever before, but fewer people are commenting. I’m not sure why. I don’t know if this is something to worry about or not. Maybe it’s silly, but I wonder sometimes if people are put off by my frankness and occasionally unpopular opinions. Obviously, they’re reading, and I do know some people appreciate my frankness, so I guess I shouldn’t worry. I know one of my most frequent commenters (who was actually my #1 commenter for awhile) is busy writing a book right now (and also hasn’t been feeling well) and even Opinionated Man doesn’t seem to be getting as many comments these days, so maybe it’s not just me. Maybe it’s just my stupid narcissism making everything all about me and taking everything personally. Maybe it’s just because I’m posting less, duh.

So anyway, last night I was going to write something about covert narcissism and avoidant personality disorder and whether or not they might actually be the same thing. After all, covert narcissism isn’t recognized as a real disorder but AvPD is. I’ll probably still write that article but I do find lately I’ve been veering away from the topic of narcissism and this blog is becoming more of a general interest blog.

I opened up my laptop, and as is my habit, checked my comment folder before starting to write. And the first comment I saw was a very trollish comment which I won’t bother quoting because of how hateful it was. I sent the comment to Trash anyway. The comment wasn’t merely critical (I’ll still approve those and usually respond to them in some way); it was an attack on my character because of an article I posted MONTHS ago. The writer of the comment objected to what she or he felt was my being too soft on narcissists. Bible verses were used to fuel their rage and personal attack on me.

I hate that. I can take criticism if it’s constructive, but can’t stand judgmental people, and I especially can’t stand people who use religion as an excuse to act like assholes. The Bible is wonderful, but so many people these days use it to back up unacceptable behavior, as if this is their holy mission and right. It’s very narcissistic. Churches are filled with narcissists who used scripture as a way to intimidate those they disagree with, so they don’t have to take any responsibility for their cruel and vicious personal attacks. The Internet is full of them too. I can’t say whether or not this person is a narcissist, but their behavior displayed splitting and black and white thinking, and the “us versus them” mindset so prevalent today. Of course, to this person, I’m one of “them.” What they’re doing has a name: religious abuse.

I know I shouldn’t have taken the comment personally. I know that as a blogger who focuses on a sensitive issue, angering people sometimes can’t be avoided. People are sometimes going to disagree with you. You are going to have haters and trolls, especially if your blog becomes widely read, as this one has. It comes with the territory. I know many people read this blog and get a lot out of it, and still get far more positive comments than negative ones, so why I am allowing one stupid negative comment to intimidate me enough to make me not want to post? But that’s exactly what happened: I decided not to post anything at all last night because of that stupid comment. I said to myself, “I’m over this. I don’t want to deal with these haters anymore. I don’t think I should even blog about narcissism anymore.” It’s true that I have been focusing less on narcissism because I feel like I’ve pretty much said everything there is to say about it already. But I allowed this one comment to destroy my motivation to write about anything at all!

I have a message for that commenter should they read this: I don’t care what you have to say. You’re a bully and a jerk. This is MY blog, and if you don’t like it, don’t read it! Go read something you agree with instead. It’s my blog, and I can write about whatever I want and you have no right to dictate to me what I can and can’t say. You may have a valid point in your opinion and the right to express it, but you have no right to personally attack me. I’m going to continue to write honestly about what I feel, not to please you. You do not intimidate me and neither do the Bible verses you spout to make it seem like you’re on a personal mission from God when in fact your behavior is itself very narcissistic. But thank you for giving me an idea for a new article.

I love blogging and don’t want to ever stop. I’m not going to let one judgmental malcontent ruin my motivation or put a damper on what I love to do. It took me too long to get to where I am. I’ve allowed myself to be intimidated by people like that for my whole life, and it’s a big part of why I never achieved much of anything and always doubted myself and eventually gave up anything I ever undertook.

The neverending rain and depression.

Posted on October 3, 2015 by luckyotter

I can’t seem to shake this seasonal funk I’m in. It’s been raining steadily for a week now–gloomy, overcast, steady rain that goes on all day and night, not the intense but shortlived thunderstorms of summer that are somehow energizing.

I don’t like fall in this part of the country. It always rains a lot, and as much as everyone crows about the “fall colors,” I don’t think they’re that special. This isn’t Vermont with its sugar maples that turn brilliant orange and red, or Colorado with its neon yellow Aspens–here the trees just look unhealthy. There’s a few spots of bright color here and there, but the numerous oaks and sycamores just turn from green to brown or a deep purplish red before they go bare for another winter. It’s depressing. Maybe up on the Blue Ridge Parkway the sight is prettier, but I don’t have a running car right now so I can’t go there.

I’ve been stuck inside my house for days, waging war on the camel crickets and the fleas I can’t seem to get rid of. I’m working a lot more. My roommate is moving on Tuesday and I haven’t found a replacement yet. It’s dark when I get up in the morning. It’s getting dark shortly after I come home from work. Yesterday was actually cold and I had to crank up the heat for the first time since April. I’m tired and draggy all the time. I barely have the energy or motivation to cook dinner. I’ve even been avoiding my friends because I just feel like I’m going to drag them down with me.

As far as my writing, the ideas have been coming like an old man’s teeth–few and far between. I’ve been resorting to either reblogging other people’s stuff, posting fluff or pictures, or recycling old articles I wrote, due to the dearth of original ideas. Actually I do have one good idea for a new long article, but I can’t seem to motivate myself to write it. I’d promise I’d write it today, but I don’t trust myself to stick to that promise. I know if I don’t though, I’ll be feeling terrible about it.

Last fall wasn’t any different from this one weather-wise, but I was new to blogging and the excitement and novelty of that kept me motivated and able to beat my SAD symptoms. I did have a lot of worries, as I recall. My daughter was still having drug issues and was facing 30 days in jail (she is doing a lot better a year later–she has matured a lot and become much more responsible). I wasn’t sure I was going to get along with my new roommate. My ex was still abusing me through text messages. But blogging was like a whole new world, it felt like doors were opening everywhere.

Sam Vaknin, the “god of narcissism,” found this blog in November (my least favorite month other than December) by Googling himself (haha!) and actually made some nice comments and shared some of my articles on his sites and social media. That gave my blog the early jumpstart it needed and I was ecstatic. As far as I know, he still comes here to read but he no longer comments or shares anything. That’s okay because this blog is doing well on its own now, without anyone’s help. But the novelty and newness of it is gone. I don’t see any new doors opening. I know I have to open those doors myself (the next step would probably be writing a book) but I just don’t seem to have the energy or motivation.

Last year at this time the ideas were almost coming too fast–it was actually frustrating because I didn’t have enough time to write about everything I wanted to write about. Now it’s all I can do to think of any original ideas at all. As far as writing about narcissism, what more is there to write about it that I haven’t already? I don’t know whether to keep the focus on narcissism, or shift the focus to general mental health, or just turn it into general purpose blog. I’m stuck. Blogging has brought me so much joy; what happened?

I feel like I’ve reached a blockade in my path to recovery. I know that isn’t really true, and it’s just depression making me feel so negative, and it’s just a matter of working through it or waiting it out. I know it will pass; it always does. But I feel like I’m running in place but going nowhere. The weather isn’t helping.

This too shall pass.

I know the only way through this is self discipline. I have to make myself write even when I don’t want to. Once I get started, I get into it and that tends to lift my mood and my imagination begins to work again. I also have to make myself get out, in spite of the gloomy weather and no car. I have the company car to drive; I can at least go up to the store in that. Walks in the light drizzly rain aren’t so bad; it isn’t freezing cold out. I haven’t been to church in several weeks either. It always make me feel good to go, but for some reason I’ve been sleeping in instead. Then I wind up feeling guilty and miserable (not because I’m offending God–I don’t think attending church is necessary to “please God”–but because I know I’m doing myself a disservice by skipping).

So today, instead of sleeping in, as I’ve been doing on weekends lately, I’m going to make myself write, make myself go out for a walk in spite of the dreary weather, maybe even take a short drive. Read a book. Clean the house (it needs it). Do something that will make me feel like one of the living. Sitting around feeling sorry for myself and sleeping half the day away is going to get me nowhere fast. I got away from my abusers, but the way I’ve been treating myself is self abuse! It’s possible to be as toxic to myself as my narcissists were to me. I know I’m not the only person in the world who struggles with this time of year. And spring is only 5 1/2 months away!

Hey, I actually wrote a new article that’s more than two sentences long! I think I feel a little better already.

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.

“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.

An upsetting memory.

Posted on August 30, 2015 by luckyotter

I remembered something today. Little by little my mind is pulling up ancient memories from dark and forgotten corners as I move further along in my recovery. This one almost knocked me over.

For years…YEARS!…I couldn’t write. This past year and a half has been the first time in my life I haven’t in under the thrall of a high spectrum (malignant) narcissist, and it wasn’t until I freed myself from them that my words began to come back.

As a child I wrote all the time. I drew pictures too. I remember my father bringing home these little blank stapled booklets in different colors with lined paper in them. There were about 50 of them, tied up in rubber bands. I used to write little stories and illustrate them. I could spend hours doing this.

I always blame my mother for everything. I act as if my father (who was codependent, and probably either covert N or borderline) had nothing to do with my disorders. I always saw him as a victim too. But he colluded with my mother; both were abusers. I remember one day when I was 7 or 8, I came home from school, and as I did every day, I went to my desk and opened the drawer to start writing my little stories. I noticed some of my finished booklets were gone. Panicking, I looked everywhere for them, and couldn’t find them. They were very personal to me, like diaries. They were for my eyes only (my Avoidant traits had already set in) . I was very upset but couldn’t tell my parents because then they’d be looking for them and they’d KNOW.

I looked all over the house for them, and finally found them in my father’s filing cabinet in a folder with my name on it. I was horrified. He stole my private creations from me! I felt so violated. My boundaries had been viciously invaded. I remember stealing them back and destroying them. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at them anymore. There was too much shame.
It was as if I wanted to annihilate myself…my true self.

After that I seemed to lose interest in drawing, although I continued to write. But my passion for even that was gone. I didn’t say anything to my dad about him stealing those booklets because to do so would be to invite critique and shame. I knew instinctively he liked them (otherwise he wouldn’t have taken them from me), but I didn’t even want to hear anything good about them. The stuff in them was just too personal. I felt like I’d been raped.

I wrote a novel in 2003. No one wanted to publish it. It sucked. I still have it but it’s embarrassing to read because of how bad it is. I know why though; at that time, still under the thrall of my ex, I was trying too hard to be “a writer,” to make an impression, instead of being authentic.

And now…I’ve done a 180 from when I’d hide my little illustrated books and was so horrified when they were discovered: deliberately posting the most personal stuff imaginable for total strangers all over the Internet to see (under an assumed name, of course). It’s like I’m trying to redeem my shame, somehow. It’s very hard to explain.

After being in my abusive marriage, I thought I’d lost all my ability to do anything at all. I’d sit down and try to write something, and….I couldn’t do it. I even thought I’d lost my intelligence. I was marking time until death. I felt stupid, dead. But I didn’t care either…or thought I didn’t care. I couldn’t feel anything at all. All my emotions were gone.

I was wrong, so wrong about all that.

Too depressed.

Posted on August 28, 2015 by luckyotter

Bad day. Hour long fight with my mobile provider. Car barely running. Work sucks. Fall is in the air and the trees are already changing and that doesn’t help.
Too much stress. Too much anger at my parents for making me what I am. Too much pain and regret. Too much grief to handle. I’m not that strong; right now I feel very weak.
I’m much too depressed tonight to write anything longer. I’m sorry. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.