My Alexa ranking.
There are many things that factor into how well your website is doing, including a lot of things I don’t really understand yet. But considering there are almost a billion websites on the Internet (woah, that’s a LOT of websites!), having a ranking of 1.5 million globally and under 500,000 in the United States is pretty damn good.
You can get some general info on how your website is doing (without signing up for anything or paying for anything) here:
http://www.alexa.com/
This is my 10th post today. I don’t think I’ve ever made 10 posts in one day before. Yes, I realize they’re all either pretty short or reblogs, but still! I’m very proud of myself. Maybe I should give Jonas the credit though, since he trapped me inside my house all day today.
In general though, my interest in blogging has returned after a couple of months of feeling like it was becoming a chore. I think bloggers go through the doldrums every so often and you just have to keep on writing and wait for them to pass. I think my Seasonal Affective Disorder had something to do with it too. In the fall, I lose interest in pretty much everything. Once the days start getting longer, my mood improves and my interest in things and my creativity returns.
Photo Credit: No I’m Not OK
Sometimes I feel ungrounded, dissociated. Sometimes I feel like a gust of wind could blow me into nonexistence. I was raised in a harsh, chaotic, abusive environment and was blown from there into a harsh, chaotic, abusive marriage. As a result, I never was able to form strong roots. But to be grounded in life, to be able to bend and not break, adapt but not lose yourself, remain strong even when the cold winter winds blow, you need those roots.
Strong roots may not be with your family of origin, who should have nurtured you so you’d grow them. That may not be possible. But it doesn’t mean you can’t develop them.
I read a post today that inspired me because of the incredible photographs of an old Ficus Macrophylla tree, a beautiful and majestic tree with roots that could probably withstand an earthquake. I mean, just look at those roots! It’s incredible the way nature can adapt to almost any condition. There are trees that live on the cliffs of coastal California that grow vertically because of the strong winds that constantly buffet them. The trees have grown to adapt to their harsh conditions. They have grown stronger because of them.
We can also grow stronger because, not in spite of, the harsh conditions we might have been raised in. We can take inspiration from the trees by grounding ourselves and knowing how strong we really are, and that will prepare us for almost anything life can throw at us.
Take a walk. Look at some trees. Become conscious of your feet on the ground, your connection with the earth. Meditate on these things and try to stay in the present. Don’t worry about the future or the past. Turn off all the noise in your head, even for only a few minutes a day, and just be, like the tree.
I just read an interesting article by Sam Vaknin (author of Malignant Self-Love) describing a condition that afflicts some celebrities and other high-profile people or people who achieved overnight success, called Acquired Situational Narcissism (ASN). It can also occur in codependents of a narcissist (what the ACON community calls “fleas”). ASN can mimic NPD, but tends to diminish over time or if the person’s fortunes change. But a more important difference is that a person with ASN isn’t lacking what he calls “The Three R’s.” These are:
1. Remorse
2. Remediation
3. Restoration
Narcissism is used as a coping strategy but doesn’t necessarily become a life sentence. I’ve done enough editorializing, so here is the article.
The Test of Three R’s
By Sam Vaknin
http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/the-test-of-three-rs
Acquired Situational Narcissism can be induced in adulthood by celebrity, wealth, and fame. But, it may also occur in a variety of other situations. Codependents, aiming to fend off gnawing abandonment anxiety, can resort to and evolve narcissistic and even psychopathic behaviours and traits in order to cater the whims of their “loved” ones; in anomic societies and depraved cultural or religious settings, people with a conformist bend tend to adopt antisocial modes of conduct and personal style so as to “fit in” and belong.
How can we tell whether one’s narcissism is of the ephemeral, derivative variety – or an integral, immutable, and inalienable feature of his or her personality? By applying the test of “Three Rs”: Remorse, Remediation, and Restoration.
To qualify, remorse has to be expressed repeatedly and must be heartfelt. It should entail a modicum of sacrifice, embarrassment, and inconvenience. Regretting one’s misdeeds in public is more convincing than sending a private missive or whispering “sorry” anonymously. Remediation requires making amends and offering reparations, which are commensurate with the offending acts and bear some symbolic relation to them. Thus, financial abuse can be absolved only with the aid of a monetary compensation that corresponds to the damage done and suffered. Finally, restoration involves affording one’s victims the opportunity for closure, if not forgiveness, so that they can move on with their lives.
True narcissists and psychopaths fail the Three Rs test at every turn: their remorse is feigned and ostentatious; they provide little or no recompense; and they never put themselves at the victim’s disposal to allow her to achieve that she needs most: closure.
Read the rest of Sam’s article here.
Related to this, on February 22, writer/producer Nancy Fulton will be interviewing Sam Vaknin about the portrayal of narcissists in media and entertainment. More info can be found here.
A great retro Ramones tune from 1978 for a boring, snowy Friday in 2016.
Winter Storm Jonas (when did they start naming winter storms?) has dumped about 2 feet of snow here in western NC. Most of the southern US and the Mid-Atlantic is getting slammed.
I took some pictures early this morning in this post. Here’s the view at 4 PM. (Click photos to enlarge).
Jonas isn’t done yet. It’s supposed to keep snowing until late tonight or even tomorrow. A few minutes ago I let my 2 cats out in it. Cleo is nowhere to be found and my tuxedo cat, Sheldon, came skulking back in with the hairs down his spine standing on end. 😆 I wish I’d gotten a photo but he never stays still long enough for me to get good photos of him.
I’m praying we don’t lose power. Many people have. I did not prepare for this.
It looks like we have a brand new blog about BPD on WordPress. I know how it feels to be a newbie and how over the moon I was when Opinionated Man helped me out the first week by reblogging an early post, and I’d like to pay it forward (even though my blog is nowhere near as popular as his!) so I think I’ll do it with this blog.
Bella, I hope this helps you get some followers. 🙂 Good luck, blogging is an incredible journey in every way. Keep writing and you’ll be amazed what you’ll find out about yourself.
Bella, also make sure you follow Opinionated Man’s blog Harsh Reality (linked above). He is incredibly helpful to new bloggers and always has posts that invite you to share your posts and stuff. You never know, he might even reblog something of yours and then you can sit back and be amazed at all the activity that will bring you.
I hesitated about posting this here, but I’m going to take the plunge and do it that because I’ve never once regretted “running naked in public.” (I haven’t changed the URL yet because it costs money for me to do that so I have to wait.)
I can relate to this so much. I wake up feeling this way at least once or twice a week, if not more. Life seems so much more overwhelming and undo-able upon waking up. I really have no idea why. Sometimes the anxiety can get so intense my heart starts to race and my brain feels like it’s screaming.
This sort of free-floating morning anxiety is common in depression and might be the reason why depressed people often wake early and can’t get back to sleep. But having these attacks isn’t just limited to depressed people. It could also happen to people who suffer from anxiety disorders or are just under a lot of stress.
I’ve found the best thing to do when this happens is to get up. Trying to fall back to sleep when you’re feeling this sort of mental anguish will NOT work. You will lay there in your bed feeling panicky and wide awake. Once you get up and start going about your daily activities, no matter how daunting they seem, your anxiety level will decrease significantly.
If you wake up every morning feeling anxiety, depression and completely overwhelmed at the thought of scraping through another day, you are not alone.
Once the day gets going after a few hours, you can get into autopilot mode, or somehow tolerate the things you have to do in order to survive. But upon waking up, you feel like one more day of painful suffering existance might be too much.
You feel alone and like there is something horribly wrong with your life. It is so severe upon opening your eyes in the morning that you cannot imagine anyone else would understand.
You are not alone. This is an important situation that gets worse being left in the darkness. Feel free to express your feelings in the comments here….if you are experiencing…or have ever experienced this.
The view from my window at around 7:30 AM:
8:45 AM:
It shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.
Lucky Otters Haven 