Guilt: the great inhibitor.

Posted on February 10, 2015 by luckyotter

When I started this blog, I also made a commitment to 100% honesty about my feelings, no matter what. Doing that was easier than I thought and due to my honesty, I’ve become less fearful of what other people think and my self esteem has improved (though it still has a long way to go to be in the “normal” range).

About a month ago, my parents discovered this blog. My mother, though she’s in her 80’s, is active on social media and has accounts with Facebook and LinkedIn. At first I was horrified, and waited for something terrible to happen.

Nothing did, at least nothing that was evident at first.

I worry less about my father reading this blog, but then again, he’s not an MN and he actually seemed somewhat supportive of what I’m doing. If he objected to my discussing my MN mother in such a negative way, he never let on that he did. My mother, as expected has said nothing. I quietly unfriended her on Facebook because I’m linking my blog posts there now (my profile is set up so only friends can view details), but she can still access this blog directly if she wants to.

And that’s where my problem comes in. Knowing that she is probably reading every word I say is causing me to censor what I post and be about 95% honest instead of 100%. It’s stupid, because she doesn’t approve of me anyway and will say bad things about me to others no matter what. She has for years. So I don’t really understand why I’m so worried about what this 80-something woman might say about this blog to her relatives.

Every time I want to post something, I’m hesitating if it’s about her. Since it would be dishonest of me to post wonderful, great things about her, I’m finding I’m not posting about her much lately at all.

My mother has terrified me my entire life. Even though I’m in my 50s now and I am very low contact with her (I only went No Contact with my ex), I still worry about what she might be thinking or saying about me. It’s so stupid–what difference could it possibly make? I’m not a child and I’ve already been abandoned emotionally by her, so why do I still care so much? I know I’m never going to win her approval even if I should ever become wildly successful (for her, it wouldn’t count as success because it would be ME) and what else can she say about me that she hasn’t already been saying? I don’t use real names so I can’t be sued. And finally, it’s not as if she hasn’t already read everything I’ve said about her under “My Story” already. There’s nothing worse I can say that I haven’t already said.

I know it’s irrational to censor myself for fear of what she’ll think, but I can’t seem to let go of my fear of her. I know she will never love me or approve of me. But I feel like she can still control me and she still scares me. I know much of this has a lot to do with having been programmed to always feel guilty and ashamed, even though ironically, both my parents believe guilt is a bad emotion.

How many of you have had to face this situation? What did you do to cope with it? I really need some help here, because if I can’t be 100% honest about EVERYTHING, that puts a damper on my healing.

Will I ever stop blogging about narcissism?

Posted on February 9, 2015 by luckyotter

So far, I’ve been blogging about narcissism for 5 months, and I haven’t run out of things to say about it. I’m still writing and reading as much as I can about it, because doing so helps me to deal with my past and the MNs who tried to destroy me. I feel like this topic still has many more nooks and crannies for me to explore before I say enough’s enough.

But there will probably come a time when I either feel ready to move on in my life and focus on other things besides a devastating mental disorder, or simply can’t think of anything new to say about it. At that point I will need to make a decision: do I keep this blog going and move the focus from narcissism onto something else, or do I rehash old ideas I haven’t brought up in a while because of the continuing need for our voices to be heard and for our presence to be felt on the web?

Fivehundredpoundpeep wrote a post talking about the disappearance of blogs by ACONs. Many of the most well known blogs by ACONs went inactive years ago. She says that, according to Mother Jones, blogs in general are losing popularity due to social media (especially Facebook) taking over everything. I certainly hope she is wrong about that! Social media mainly sucks, in my humble opinion. I won’t get into my rant about THAT right now. My anti-Facebook listicle came close enough.

Peep speculates that after a while, survivors of narcissistic abuse simply run out of steam or new ideas, and also that as they get stronger, they may not have a need to blog about narcissism anymore. One of the most well-known and beloved narc bloggers, Anna Valerious of Narcissists Suck, hadn’t posted anything since 2012, but reappeared and wrote a post on December 30th explaining that she abandoned her blog because it was time to start focusing on the positive instead of spending so much time exploring such a negative, dark thing as NPD. She had also run out of things to say about it.

That’s why I post about other topics as well as narcissism. I have many followers who aren’t ACONs and don’t care that much about narcissism–they are following this blog for other reasons. My posts are somewhat eclectic; I’m estimating only about 75%-80% of them are related to narcissism. That’s still a lot, but leaves my options open if I decide at some point to shift my focus to another topic.

If I blogged 100% about narcissism, my followers wouldn’t like it if I suddenly decided to start blogging about music or backyard chickening or antique salt and pepper shakers. But because I already post about just about anything that concerns me or interests me, I could switch focus without too much of an upheaval, especially if this becomes a general purpose blog (that has no focus other than being a running commentary on whatever topic is on my mind at the moment).

But for now, my focus is still on narcissism (and to a lesser extent, being Aspie). I feel like it’s a necessary service. We need a voice, and other victims need to know they are not alone, that there is a whole community of us out there on the web, boldly and bravely speaking out and gaining courage and self esteem as we do so.

So while things may eventually change, I think it will still be quite a while before I abandon narcissism as this blog’s primary focus.

Aspies rule the Internet!

Posted on February 8, 2015 by luckyotter

My fellow ACON blogger Fivehundredpoundpeep, posted this the other day.

From the girl with curly hair…
Aspies are knowledge junkies. We can become Internet addicts because the Internet is like crack for us. I study many things for the fun of it. You all see what I write on this blog but this week, I read about True Crimes in my state, Indian nations in America and Outsider Art.

There was never anything truer than this. In my many years of prowling and posting on the Internet, Aspies do seem more numerous than they do IRL. On a forum I used to be active on, Aspies seemed almost proud to say they were Aspie, as if it’s an advantage on the Internet instead of a liability. But guess what. It just may be!

We do tend to become obsessed with one or two topics at a time and focus intensely on them to the point others sometimes think we are weird (the extreme form of this is the idiot savant phenomenon seen in low functioning people with autism). That’s why I blog! Because if I just talked about the stuff I talk about here IRL as much as I do on my blog, people would be backing away slowly and locking their doors and windows against the crazy woman on the loose.

We read a lot and gain a very deep knowledge of what interests us. We read anything we can about our obsessions until we’re sated or the next obsession takes over. We have good memories and retain new information well. These traits can give us some credibility in whatever topic we focus on in our blogs. I think that’s a good thing. Our obsessing over topics and spending so much time researching and reading about the minutiae of that focused interest may seem strange to neurotypicals, but it’s hurting no one, so why is it a problem?

The Internet is the perfect modality for most people with Aspergers. It allows us to have a platform to talk about our obsessions instead of having to engage in shallow conversation or small talk (which I hate and am very bad at). It even allows us to start a conversation about our pet topic and the metaphysical, meaningful aspects of that topic. People can think we are weird or insane, but we don’t have to deal with those judgmental NT’s face to face. There are plenty more people online who actually like what we have to say and listen to us.

We also have time to think about and refine what we want to say. We’re not required to “think on our feet,” something which is very difficult for Aspies. We don’t have to have a witty comeback for a joke or know exactly the right or appropriate thing to say when confronted by something.

Because our problem isn’t really that we lack social skills. I think for most of us, the problem is that we need time to process an interaction, and you can’t do that in real life social situations. Writing is just as valid a form of social interaction as speaking, and it’s a modality most of us are much better at and even find we can excell at.

The Internet can make us feel more confident. It’s the one thing Aspies have going in their favor that we never had prior to the late 1990s. There’s also more general knowledge about Aspergers and it’s now acknowledged even adults can suffer from it. In the past, Aspergers wasn’t even recognized as a high functioning form of autism. We were just the geeks and dorks and socially awkward outcasts and obsessive crazies of the world. When people used to think of autism, they thought of people so impaired and disconnected from the world they had to live in institutions and have all their needs met by caregivers. They didn’t think of socially awkward geeks and obsessives like me.

Now they do, and it’s because the Internet has given us Aspies a place to talk, to meet others like ourselves, to make friends, to vent and rant, and to protest against the prejudices neurotypicals have against us. We are really more a minority group like LGBT than we are “mentally ill.” (Homosexuality used to be considered a mental illness too–it was finally removed from the DSM in 1973).

The Aspie rights movement thinks of Aspieness as a variation rather than a disorder. We’re only “disabled” because our society isn’t set up to be adaptive to our needs. We are forced to adapt to theirs, and it ain’t easy! The Internet gives us a voice.

We have another OM!

Posted on February 3, 2015 by luckyotter

Yes! 😀 There’s another site that offers bloggers the opportunity to pimp their blog, the way Opinionated Man (OM) does.

The Editors Journal has over 100,000 followers. I just pimped my blog there.
https://theeditorsjournal.wordpress.com/2015/02/02/introduce-yourself-to-other-bloggers

The chatterbox and the hermit.

Posted on February 1, 2015 by luckyotter

“Shy and Outgoing” by Cammy Senpai, Deviantart

I’m two different people.

Most of you already know what I’m like online. I made a vow to be completely honest and hold back nothing (within reason) and so I am doing. This has been a wonderful thing for me because it has given me courage (and takes courage!)

But I’ve always been outgoing online. I talk about the things that concern me, my feelings about them, my relationships, my mostly painful and sordid past. I tell you if I’m happy, sad or mad and I tell you why. I actively seek out friendships and post on other people’s blogs (when I can find the time since I’m always on this blog). I’ve become active on social media too, something I never thought I’d be. If anything, I’m probably a little too confessional!
On the web, I’m comfortable being completely myself and do not suffer from the shyness, shame or self-consciousness that plagues me IRL.

In the real world (which I prefer to call the physical world, because online life is every bit as real as any other form of interaction), I’m the opposite of the above. I suffer from both Aspergers (which I was most likely born with) and Avoidant Personality Disorder, brought on by abuse and always feeling off balance because of my MN mother and my enabling, alcoholic father, not to mention being a frequent target for school bullies.

From “What’s In It For Me?” on Zombie Shuffle’s blog.

In the physical world, I’m a very different person than the one you know online. Although I have the same emotions (which I talk about here), I don’t discuss them openly or even at all. I have few friends, am not close with anyone in my family other than my children, and prefer the company of myself, my books, or my pets to that of other people. Lots of noise and large groups of chattering people are very triggering to me, and I find myself tensing up and retreating if possible.

Most people know very little about me. I don’t say much, I rarely initiate conversation, and am very shy. Some people think I am cold and aloof; others think I am just stupid. I’m neither, but my avoidant personality makes me seem unfriendly or insecure. My Aspergers makes me seem awkward which exacerbates my problems relating to people.

I am terrified of intimacy and romantic relationships. After a long, abusive marriage and 7 more years of hell living with him after we divorced, I think I’ve had enough. I don’t trust men enough or trust my own judgment enough to dare take the plunge again into a new relationship. I also feel like my age is a problem, even though I look far younger than I am. I haven’t had sex in 9 years and really, that’s not a problem for me. I like the idea of having a relationship again (who really wants to die alone?), but I don’t know if I could cope with the reality of one. That doesn’t mean it won’t ever happen though. It just scares the living daylights out of me.

I can’t stand talking on the phone and a ringing phone is very triggering for me: I always expect to hear bad news. I know it’s just my hypervigilance, but I can’t help my reaction whenever the phone rings. As far as talking on the phone, it’s just awkward because I can’t pick up nuances in speech (due to my Aspergers) which is made worse by the fact I can’t see their facial expressions or body language. I try to end phone conversations as quickly as possible, which makes people think I’m unfriendly or don’t want to talk to them.

I don’t connect well IRL with most people, although I do get along with most. I’m not hard to get along with, just hard to get to know.

Blogging has enabled me to open up and be the self I want to be. It’s enhanced my self esteem and my creativity. Being courageous enough to post the sort of things I post gives me even more courage. Journaling online to complete strangers has helped me understand a lot of things I never used to understand and it’s even helping me develop more empathy.

But this isn’t the Matrix and I can’t live inside my online world all the time. I do think, however, that my increased self esteem and self awareness will soon translate into my relations with the real world. In fact, I’ve been told I seem more relaxed, happier, and more confident than I used to be, even though my extreme reservedness remains. I smile and laugh more. Most people do seem to like me, even though they can’t get to know me well. They have no idea the shy, mysterious, taciturn woman who tends to clam up in social situations or avoid them altogether actually runs a blog where she talks about the most personal issues it’s possible to talk about.

I’m holding my nose…

Posted on January 28, 2015 by luckyotter

I did the unthinkable.

I started linking my blog posts with my Facebook account.

I did something even more heinous than that.

I started talking to people on Facebook, and there’s a vast community of narcissistic abuse survivors. The beauty of that is I can talk to these survivors in real time. There’s a whole different and wonderful dynamic to communicating in real time that can enrich your entire blogging experience.

I had all but given up on Facebook because it’s just too connected to my IRL life. My family all want to “friend” me so they can check up on me (my account is set to private except for those I’ve friended). My MN ex is there, and that makes me nervous even though he can’t see the details of my account. People I used to work with and go to school with are all there. The whole freaking world is there. It was scary and still is.

But I changed my mind for two reasons:

1. I no longer care who sees my blog. I still use my fake name on this blog and LinkedIn, but I’m known by my real name on Facebook. It doesn’t matter, since my family already found this blog over a month ago and the world hasn’t come to an end.

It kind of makes me giggle when I think about what they must be thinking if they’re actually reading what I’m saying about them (if they’re even interested enough to read my posts, which they might not be). Even though no one’s real name has ever been used in any of my posts, they will recognize themselves. Maybe that’s what they need though. To see themselves through my eyes, and read all about how they are perceived BY me, instead of them always telling me how they perceive me. Karma is a bitch.

2. It increases this blog’s visibility and reach to a part of the narcissistic abuse community that spends most of its time on Facebook. Like it or not, that’s where most people online can be found. Since doing this, my reach has increased quite a bit. OM would be proud. 🙂

But the third reason is one I never expected or intended. I’m making friends with some amazing people I never would have met had I not made the decision to give Facebook one more shot.

I don’t think I sold out. Do you?

Attracted to danger.

Posted on January 24, 2015 by luckyotter

I think many survivors of narcissistic abuse find themselves drawn to narcissists–and find their danger appealing. We have to be very careful not to be drawn back into darkness, because that darkness can be very seductive, like a fist wrapped in soft black velvet.

I am an idealist and a romantic by nature. I’m an emotional person, even though I don’t always show it. Though I lack trust, I still want to think the best about all people. While I don’t hate narcs, I have to be careful not to feel too much compassion for them and allow that to make me make unwise and possibly dangerous decisions that could hamper my own healing and cause me to lose focus on what’s important.

Earlier today I woke with this crazy idea. I was going to start a second blog, a blog FOR NARCISSISTS. My argument was that they were human too and because I have learned to have some empathy for their plight, that they deserved a place to share their experiences.

Sometimes I really live with my head in the clouds.

I was brought back down to earth pretty quickly, when a good friend I respect like a sister told me this could be extremely dangerous and that I’d be flirting with darkness should I do such a thing. At best, it would take the focus off my own recovery and the recovery of victims of abuse. This woman is Christian, and much more biblically-oriented than I am, but she was right. If the devil does exist, this could be him trying to draw me back into the same dark place I just escaped. I already know, I need to keep my distance from them, even online, so why would I want to COURT such a thing?

I don’t think all narcissists are evil, except for the malignants and psychopaths, who are too far gone to ever change or want to change. I think their illness is as much a spiritual one as a mental one. Perhaps more so. But it’s not my job or my calling to provide a place for even benign narcissists to have their say. If they want to say something, they are more than welcome to do it right here on this blog, as long as they are pleasant and civil. And they have done so.

But starting a new blog for them would just be stupid. The more I think this over, the more I’m glad my friend stopped me before I actually did this. I’m not always the most practical person and I don’t always have a lot of common sense. I’m an idealist and sometimes act on my unrealistic, romantic fantasies more than I should.

More than likely, the narcissists who need help the most (the malignant psychopaths, who are least likely to seek help) would not even post on the site, or may even try to destroy the site in some way.

I think many women, especially those who have always been attracted to or been in relationships with Ns, find something seductive and appealing in narcissists and have to be very careful not to be drawn in by their charms. I know I’m a sucker for it, and they can present a very mysterious, seductive, bad-but-hurting-boy charm, like the main character in the movie “Rebel Without a Cause.”

We may find ourselves wanting to mother and nurture them and protect them from further hurt. And yes, they do hurt, and maybe nurturing and remothering is exactly what they need, but it must come FROM A PROFESSIONAL who knows what they are doing. It’s not our job to give them that kind of therapeutic support. We don’t know how to do it. We can’t make them feel better.

I love this song by Sarah McLachlan. I’ve posted it before, but I think it describes the attraction many women have to narcissists and psychopaths and why they can be so seductive.

Narcissists are indeed building a mystery, seducing us to becoming their supply. They can never give back what we give to them; all they can do is demand more and more until there is nothing left of us or we become one of them.

Our maternal instincts would be better put to use helping each other, and helping the people we love who can return that love.

So I will not be doing another blog right now. Thank you to everyone who suggested this was a bad idea.

I will say though, my journey since I started this blog has been the greatest, most humbling, and most exciting adventure I’ve ever been on.

My own little kingdom.

Posted on January 24, 2015 by luckyotter

Creating and running your own blog is just like having your own little kingdom.

I’m sorry if that makes me sound like a narc, but it’s the truth.

I bet most bloggers feel the same way. If you’ve lived a life without much control over anything, as many of us ACONs have, it’s so nice to know that with your blog, you have a whole place that’s yours alone, where you can write about whatever you want, post whatever pictures you want, have an unpopular opinion and not be afraid to say so, and you don’t have to put up with mean people and bullies like we have to in the physical world. The bullies and trolls can be silenced with a just a click of a button and their hateful spewage sent to the Trash.

It’s also great finding a community of like-minded people who share their thoughts with you. I don’t see myself as the King or Queen holding court though. I’m just another person, trying to find my way in a world that hasn’t been very kind to me.

In my Kingdom, I am free to be myself. Totally and completely in a way I never could out there in the physical world.

2 new award nominations!

Posted on January 22, 2015 by luckyotter

I am way too tired and ill tonight to answer the questionnaires and pick blogs to pass these awards along to right now, but I do want to take a moment to thank Not a Member of a Club Sandwich for the Versatile Blogger Award and Back to Whatever for the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award.

Thank you so much, guys! I owe you one. I’ve linked to your blogs at least for now.
Everyone, please follow these two fantastic bloggers.

The rest is just gravy.

Posted on January 20, 2015 by luckyotter

If you are a sufferer of a mental illness or a survivor of malignant narcissists or other mentally ill people and decide to blog about your experience, you have to be very brave.
You have to be 110% honest at all times.
You can’t hold anything back. Ever. No matter what.

The only thing it might be okay to lie about is your real name. Using a pseudonym can make it much easier to be honest about your life, your true feelings, your own opinions.

Self consciousness and reservedness would never work on a blog like mine. It’s my diary and my therapy. Everything I would tell a therapist is here for the public. This is how I’ve chosen to conduct my healing.

To do so requires courage. You must not be afraid to admit when you’re afraid or lonely or vulnerable. Don’t think about the thousands of strangers who will read your words. Don’t let anything intimidate you or make you hesitate to be completely honest at all times.

Speak only your truth.
Speak only from your heart.
The rest is just gravy.