Courtney Love, murderous psychopath?

Posted on May 31, 2015 by luckyotter

DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING ARE THE OPINIONS OF THE AUTHOR. THESE ARE NOT FACTS AND THERE HAS BEEN NO PROOF OF FOUL PLAY.

The two-decade long question of whether or not Kurt Cobain really committed suicide came up between myself and my friend today. It’s been bandied about for years, but it seems no one has ever bothered to take it seriously or re-open the case to further investigate Cobain’s death.

Even though Kurt may have been prone to depressions and shied away from the stardom he achieved as both an early pioneer of the Grunge movement and The Poster Child of Generation X, I never believed he really killed himself. Why would he? He had everything–talent, success as the frontman of Nirvana, a bestselling record, a baby daughter, and a…ahem…new wife who everyone believed was in love with him.

It’s his wife, Courtney Love, we need to take a closer look at here. Most people just take it on faith that Kurt killed himself because his music was dark and depressing and his poetry was dark and depressing, and because he rarely smiled. He had also come from an abusive home and suffered from lifelong depressions and severe stomach problems. Stories of his addiction to heroin abounded in publications like People and Rolling Stone, and on MTV, VH-1, and the nightly news.

But it was also said that he was getting clean when his girlfriend and fellow musician, Courtney Love, became pregnant. He didn’t want to be a drug-addicted new dad. Things looked rosy for awhile. He had several relapses and stints in rehab but heroin isn’t what killed him. If he was depressed, I doubt it was really due to the commercial success of Nirvana’s album Nevermind.

I think Love was gaslighting Cobain, which exacerbated his depression and drug problems. According to Wikipedia,

On March 18, 1994, Love phoned the Seattle police informing them that Cobain was suicidal and had locked himself in a room with a gun. Police arrived and confiscated several guns and a bottle of pills from Cobain, who insisted that he was not suicidal and had locked himself in the room to hide from Love. [italics mine] When questioned by police, Love said that Cobain had never mentioned that he was suicidal and that she had not seen him with a gun.

This is an interesting quote. The first thing that stands out to me is that Cobain felt he needed to hide from Love. Why would he tell police that if it wasn’t true? Sure, he could have been gaslighting her as the crazy one, but something feels off about that to me. Because in this same paragraph we can see that Love is a liar. She tells two different stories to the police: first, that Cobain had locked himself in a room with a gun, and second, denying that she ever said that and insisting Cobain had never said he was suicidal at all! Why would she change her story?

Kurt was found dead in his Seattle home on April 8, 1994, when his daughter, Frances Bean, was less than two years old. He had been shot in the head. Investigations found he had been dead for three days. There was a note, addressed to his childhood friend “Boddah” stating that Cobain wasn’t feeling the excitement of listening to and creating music anymore.

Although there was a note, it seems unlikely to me a suicide would be performed by such means, especially by a man who had easy access to heroin and other drugs and could easily have OD’d and died in a more peaceful manner. Also, why didn’t Love report his death? How could a newly married man with a child not be discovered by his wife for three days? Surely she must have known something.

On the tenth anniversary of Cobain’s death, in 2004, Love and Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain, was published. Its authors believe Kurt’s death could not have been a suicide and argued that the case should be reopened. According to the entry about the book on Wikipedia:

The book is based on 30 hours of revealing audiotaped conversations, exclusively obtained by the authors, between Courtney Love’s private investigator, Tom Grant, and her entertainment attorney, who both dispute the official finding of suicide and believe Cobain was in fact murdered.

The lawyer says on the tapes that she believes the so-called suicide note was “forged or traced.” The authors also interview Cobain’s grandfather, who believes Kurt was the victim of foul play, and Courtney’s father, who also believes he was murdered. In the book, a prominent forensic pathologist examines the known autopsy evidence and claims that the official suicide scenario was “impossible.” She claims that there is compelling and authoritative evidence that Cobain was murdered.

So even Courtney’s own father believes Kurt was murdered! Hank Harrison (Love’s father) couldn’t stand his own daughter (which was documented in the 1998 documentary Kurt and Courtney) and told RadarOnline:

I can’t prove she pulled the trigger, but I can prove her involvement to a high degree of certainty. […]She’s a psychopath, she has a sociopathic personality like I do.

Later, he published his book, Love Kills: The Assassination of Kurt Cobain, which argued that Kurt did not commit suicide but that his own daughter killed him.

According to Wikipedia, Nick Broomfield (the filmmaker who made Kurt and Courtney) decided to investigate Tom Grant’s claim that Cobain was murdered and had his film crew interview people associated with the couple, including Love’s father Hank Harrison, Kurt’s aunt, a former nanny for the couple’s daughter Frances Bean, and several others associated with the couple, including a bandleader named Eldon “El Duce” Hoke, who claimed he had been offered $50,000 by Love to kill her husband.

It’s also telling that Courtney’s overnight rise to fame occurred immediately after her husband’s death. She appeared at the funeral and interviews playing the part of the grieving widow quite well, but how suspicious is it that her band, Hole, released their bestselling album Live Through This FOUR DAYS after Kurt’s death?

Love’s public persona is very narcissistic and she seems to crave attention and adulation even more than most celebrities. She also appears to be emotionally unstable, although in recent years she seems less so. Perhaps her instability was due to drug abuse, but I think that in itself coupled with her unpredictable and prima-donna like behavior points to a personality disordered woman. Based on the way Love acts, I believe her father’s claim that she is sociopathic and that she probably killed her husband.

What would have been Love’s motive though? In my opinion, I think Love was pathologically envious of Kurt’s success, and wanted his fame (which she probably felt he didn’t appreciate) for herself. She hated playing second fiddle. She also knew that the death of a major rock star (at the age of 27 too–Kurt’s entry into the “27 Club” was probably not lost on her) was the best publicity stunt for herself she could pull off. She could play the grieving widowed new mom, garner pity, and ride on the coattails of that to sell her new album.

Tell me Courtney Love isn’t a sociopathic murderer and I’ll tell you Elvis is going to run for President.

Are narcissists “mean people”?

Posted on May 5, 2015 by luckyotter

Most of us know mean people–people who always seem grouchy, grumpy, snappish or who rarely smile. They may be sarcastic, biting or negative. Mean people are easy to dislike, and if we’re well acquainted with the topic of narcissism, it may be tempting to label people we don’t like narcissists.

But they may not be narcissists at all. Grumpy, negative people may just be…grumpy and negative.

They could be depressed (depression often manifests as irascibility or quickness to anger), going through a hard time in their lives, in constant pain, or just having a bad day. Some people are just more anger-prone than others. They could seem cold and unfriendly because of another disorder, such as a schizoid personality, Aspergers, or OCD.

They are not wearing a mask. They are not showing you something they are not. Some people just feel bad all the time and don’t bother to try to put on a nice front to impress you.

Most (though not all) narcissists come across (at first) as the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. They are friendly, welcoming, effusive, and greet you with their most winning smile. They are likeable, outgoing and charming.

Let’s say you work in an office with a woman who is sarcastic and negative all the time. She is quick to criticize and complain. No one really likes her. There’s a man there who is much more pleasant to deal with. He’s always smiling, joking, patting you on the back. Everyone at work likes him.

Quick: who’s the narcissist?

Answer: it’s probably not the grouchy woman. Narcissists work hard to impress you, which means pouring on the charm to get you to trust them. The angry woman isn’t wearing a mask. She is showing how she really feels. She doesn’t care what you think of her because she has stopped caring about much of anything.

You hear through the grapevine what her problem is. Her husband left her and took the kids. He’s dating a woman 20 years younger than she is, and left her with practically no money. She also suffers from constant migraines. She’s too embarrassed to talk about all this in the office, but she feels terrible every day and takes it out on everyone else. No, she isn’t a nice person but she isn’t a narcissist (in fact, her ex-husband is).

It may not be the nice, friendly man either, but if one of them is a narcissist, it’s more likely to be him. If so, he’s far more toxic than the woman, but he doesn’t want you to know this. He’s biding his time, reeling you in with his phoney charm.

So don’t assume someone is a narcissist just because they have an unpleasant personality. You may want to call that person a narcissist because you don’t like them, but sadly, it’s more likely to be a person you like. Be careful who you pin the N label on.

I write so my head won’t explode.

Posted on April 23, 2015 by luckyotter

Alaina, a frequent commenter on this blog, said she almost named her blog “I Write So My Head Won’t Explode” but decided it was too stupid to be a blog name.

I think it’s great. So great I decided to write an article with that name. It’s great because it’s the truth. If I didn’t have this blog and wasn’t able to write every day about the good, the bad, and the ugly, I think I would have gone insane by now.

Writers are by nature people with issues. We have mental problems. That’s why we write. If we didn’t write, we’d be drinking, drugging, sleeping all day or stuffing our faces with junk food, or engaging in any number of other unhealthy and self-destructive activities. I know I did until I started writing.

If you can write, you are blessed. If you enjoy and are good at any creative endeavor (writing, art, acting, singing, dancing, etc.) that can add something useful, entertaining, educational or beautiful to the world and at the same time provide an outlet for your deepest, most painful or confusing emotions, for the love of God, use your God-given gift.

Writing is my safety valve. It’s something I love doing that isn’t going to destroy my mind or my body. But it’s a discipline too. Sometimes I have to force myself to write, even when I don’t want to. I’m always glad I did.

As ACONs and survivors of narcissistic abuse, we also have a calling and a responsibility to educate others about what we have experienced. Nothing happens for no reason. We were given the lives we were given as an education so we could help others. Part of our responsibility as narcissism bloggers is exposing the N’s of the world who have nothing but ill will for other human beings–and we do that through writing.

Since my daughter moved out Tuesday night, I’ve been more depressed than usual. In fact, I haven’t been this depressed in over a year. It’s not so much because she’s not here(though I do miss her), but that she lied to me when she was leaving. I confronted her about the lie yesterday–she told me her grandfather had sent her birthday money in a card, when he actually did not because I called him and asked–and she explained it was a bluff because she thought maybe I had stolen it and was possibly trying to get money out of me (playing on my “guilt” for having “stolen” it).

I felt betrayed and hurt by her lack of trust in me as well as her lying to me in such a mean spirited way. It’s been bothering me since it happened. It made me worry that she may really be a narcissist and not a borderline at all. I started thinking maybe she was diagnosed with BPD so her insurance would pay for her treatment (I don’t think NPD is covered by most insurance companies). I really don’t want my daughter to have NPD. It’s a painful and horrible thing to face–that your own kid who you love more than anything in the universe, may be a narc. I’d rather believe she has BPD. Maybe that’s all it is. I hope.

Yesterday I didn’t even go to work, I was so depressed about all this. I lay in bed sleeping most of the day instead, which is what I do when I’m depressed. Of course that just made me feel even worse. I didn’t want to write, I just wanted to sleep and feel sorry for myself.

But I also felt like pressure was building up in my head and that if I didn’t write, my brain might explode. So I forced myself to write, and I did feel a lot better–I no longer feel stressed to the point that I think I have to wear a head truss to to keep it in one piece.

Depressed.

Posted on April 22, 2015 by luckyotter

My daughter moved out last night with her current boyfriend. This was of course the plan, but I’m really in the dumps today because we fought last night. It ended with me telling her to pack up and get out last night, which she did. For a couple of months she has been sleeping on the couch (my roommate–yes, she’s still here but has been a bit better–has the other bedroom) and just got a job last month. She had paid nothing toward the rent because she was saving to move out. I had told her this was okay.

We are usually best friends but because we also both have diagnosed BPD, things can get heated between us sometimes. There can be drama. I hate drama. There was plenty of it last night though. Two things happened that made us fight.

1. When I was in the shower, she stole $10 from my purse. I wasn’t so much upset because this was all the money I had until Friday (which is bad enough–go ahead and try to make $10 last three days), but because I’d started to believe I could trust her again. (She used to steal from me a lot). I confronted her about it and she admitted she took it but called it “borrowing.” This led to a fight, because what she did was STEAL, not BORROW. I told her she didn’t seem that remorseful and that worried me. Later on she did admit she was wrong and admitted it was stealing, but that didn’t happen until several hours later, after she was gone, and it didn’t help my mood at all.

2. My father called her and asked if she had received a gift card and birthday check (her birthday was last week) because he hadn’t heard anything. She never did receive anything in the mail. Now she believes I took it when I got the mail (apparently the check was made out to me) and cashed it and used the gift card without letting her know. I don’t collect the mail (my roommate does, which makes me wonder if SHE took it). I have never stolen from my daughter and never even entertained the thought, but due to the circumstances I could actually understand why she would think along these lines. I’m also afraid my father will believe her over me, if she tells him she thinks I stole from her. I don’t know why I’m worried about this but I just am.

Even so, I was hurt that she would think I would steal from her. I told her I didn’t want to live with someone who not only stole from me, but would accuse me of stealing from them when I didn’t. I can’t convince her it might have been lost in the mail. She isn’t mad anymore but still believes I stole her money. There is nothing I can do to make her think otherwise.

It’s for the best she’s out. She is 22 and too old to be living with mom. I can’t help feeling a little sad though. I’ll miss her, even though I’ll be seeing her almost every day probably. I’m used to having her around.

I have more space now and can actually use the living room again, but because the fight happened late last night, I was so upset and wound up I didn’t sleep at all. I had to call in sick to work today (which always makes me feel guilty). It’s a pretty day and I may go outside for awhile and work in the garden or just sit on the porch and read. But right now I just want to lie on my bed and sleep the day away. I know that will only make things worse. I just want to cry right now.

ETA: I called my father and he said he never sent her anything (he doesn’t trust her and is sort of No Contact with her, so I thought it was odd he would even be sending her money). So she is lying to me though I can’t fathom why she would do that. I am going to confront her with this information and see what she has to say for herself. She doesn’t have NPD but is good at playing some of the Narc games that she learned from her father. BPD’s can be almost as manipulative sometimes.

This is the post that scared me so much I almost deleted it.

Posted on March 21, 2015 by luckyotter

I have never been so scared to publish a post until this one. I had this set to Private for several days and drove myself crazy trying to decide if I ought to post it. It’s about some of my most vulnerable moments and posting about those is incredibly scary for a person who usually has their guard up. But I longed to post it. Something inside was telling me I needed to and I wouldn’t regret it. I also felt this post was my best written one ever because while writing it I allowed my emotions to flow unimpeded. What to do?

I even wrote a short post asking people if I should post something that made me feel so naked and vulnerable. Ultimately, the decision to make this post public was mine, but the consensus seemed to be that I should.

I read this post over again earlier today from the imaginary perspective of a random reader who just happened on the article and had never seen this blog before. I realized that as this “someone else” it would be something I’d want to read.

So here it is, guys. The post that made me feel like I was going to pass out cold when I pressed “Make Post Public.”

Milk and Open Hearts: Embracing the “Feminine” Emotions

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about vulnerability lately. I’m reaching a point in my healing journey where I can start to allow myself to become more open to my emotions and to sharing the feelings of others. It wasn’t my intention to write another post about crying so soon after my last, but I think my interest is due to something that’s happening inside…

For years I couldn’t cry, but wanted to. I was so numb from all the abuse that I had dissociated myself from my feelings. I felt like I was dead and in hell. Recently I’m finding a lump in my throat or tears starting to well much more frequently–usually because I’ve been touched by something or someone in some way, and it’s usually a pretty simple thing. I realize this is a sign that the long term dissociation within my mind is coming to an end because I’ve gained more courage to embrace my feelings instead of pushing them away or denying their existence.

I remember even during the darkest days of abuse by my psychopaths and narcs, when I walked around like an emotional zombie due to all the abuse I endured, there were rare moments of clarity when truth and beauty shone through the murk of depression and PTSD.

During my pregnancies with both my children (I was pregnant three other times–one abortion which I am writing about next–the child would have been a boy born in 1999–and two miscarriages), my brain’s marination in a continuous bath of pregnancy hormones made me very emotional. Not depressed-emotional–in fact, I was happier than I’d ever been. Things just touched me or made me feel some kind of ineffable euphoria or inexplicable sadness and suddenly there would be tears.

I think the increased emotionality experienced by pregnant and lactating women is the result of nature’s opening our hearts to connect deeply and lovingly with our children from the moment we know we are pregnant. The torrents of female hormones–mostly estrogen and progesterone–help wire our brains to to allow the limbic (emotional) system to run things for awhile. The heightened ability to feel is a gift that helps our species survive because under the right circumstances, emotional openness transforms into unconditional love and empathy.

The hormonal bath continued for some weeks after the births of both my children and I remember getting particularly emotional one dark and cold night as I held my firstborn against milk-swollen breasts, with Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” playing on the stereo. I watched as my son rooted for the nourishment he sought and found it. Latched on tightly, dark pink lips pursed in determination and a primitive and preternatural hunger, my baby son began to nurse. As I felt the milk come down, I was overwhelmed with tenderness and love for this completely helpless creature who so recently had lived inside my body and taken nourishment from my blood, and whose wastes were eliminated with my own, and suddenly my face was awash in tears.

I watched as if through antique swirled-glass windows as my tears soaked my tiny boy’s thistledown-fine hair and ran across a petal-soft pink cheek busily working my milk glands. There was a melancholy underpinning to my overwhelming elation and I allowed myself to feel that sadness too–and realized that melancholy welled up from an awareness of how fragile my tiny son was, how fragile we all are–at any age; and how easily a trusting, childlike soul can be stamped out by hurt, abandonment and abuse. I wanted to protect this child from any harm that might ever come his way. I didn’t realize then my son’s own father would set out to destroy his spirit. Thank God he did not succeed.

At the moment the first drop of salt water touched my baby, opaque dark blue eyes fluttered open and gazed at me, seeming to understand my feelings. Sighing a delicate baby sigh, this tiny human being I had created through my love for a man and sustained and nurtured by my blooming, hormone-soaked body, nestled in closer and suckled harder until swept away in blissful sleep. I marveled at the knowledge this tiny boy would one day be a man, taller and probably physically stronger than me, and that I would play a huge part in his journey to manhood. It scared me to pieces but I felt willing and ready to take on the challenge–because of love, the greatest power we have as humans.

This wondrous connection–this moment of almost painful sweetness–was so honest and magical I almost dared not breathe. The tears poured down. I didn’t wipe the wetness from my face for that would have disrupted the beautiful connection I felt with my child.

It’s during these moments our hearts are open and we allow ourselves to become vulnerable, that we are fully engaged and connected with life and open to the bliss and pain of pure unconditional love. That kind of love is expressed in tears (often combined with laughter or smiles) because there are no words that could ever express the depth of this sublime emotion–an emotion of such beauty, rarity and truth it nearly hurts.

Tears are the mark of our common humanity and connect us with each other. We are pushed into the world crying, and are (hopefully) cried for when we leave it. Crying marks the most important milestones of our lives, whether they are happy or sad. There are always tears at graduations, pregnancy and wedding announcements, falling in and out of love, weddings, births, baptisms, death and funerals. There are tears wherever there is honesty, intimacy and love.

The happiest people in the world are often people who cry a lot. Their hearts are open, so everything and everyone touches them. They’re not afraid to connect and to empathize. Their love sometimes overflows the confines of their physical composure, and so they cry. I used to know a beautiful young woman who said she cried five or more times a day–just because she was so happy all the time. She wasn’t annoying happy. Honest joy never is annoying. She moved through life regally and with dignity and compassion, appreciating everything and loving everything and being touched by everything, and everyone loved her right back because they knew she was an empath. People wanted to be close to her, they wanted to be touched by her, both emotionally and physically. Her large expressive eyes were almost always wet with tears. At first it seemed a little strange, but soon we got so used to seeing her that way it just seemed normal after awhile. And it WAS normal, more normal than anything could ever be.

I was so envious of that girl for her emotional openness. But she showed me a great truth about myself. I could be that girl because that was me. I just needed to find a way to knock down my thick concrete walls of fear. It’s getting easier. I still have a lot of emotional blockage, but I no longer feel like one of the walking dead.

In the Stephen King movie “The Green Mile,” John Coffey is an autistic man who nevertheless is an empath. He’s been unjustly sentenced to Death Row for the murder of two little girls because he was the last one seen with them (and probably due to his being black as well). You sense Coffey never killed those girls and in fact you realize how empathic this man really is. He has no defenses against the world due to his inability to hide his emotions (some autistic people have trouble regulating their emotions), and at the same time this very defenselessness gives him unbelievable strength and goodness. Coffey cried almost constantly, feeling the emotions of everyone around him and freely giving unconditional love where none existed.

A couple of years ago, there was a very popular video that went viral. It featured a 10-month old baby girl apparently crying from empathy as she listened to her mother sing. I’m not usually a fan of “cute baby” videos but watching this baby was fascinating because she cried like an adult would have–and the purity of her emotion was an achingly beautiful thing to see.

We are born withour hearts unguarded. When life begins to hurt too much (and it always does), children eventually learn to guard their hearts or in the worst cases (NPD, ASPD and some other mental disorders), dissociate themselves from their true feelings so thoroughly there is no turning back to the emotionally open state we were born with.

It’s a sad state of affairs that all the tender (“feminine”) emotions such as sadness, deep connection or friendship, love in all its forms, joy of the non-shallow type, feeling touched or moved, gratitude, and empathy– have been so devalued in modern society and are often seen as proof of weakness in a person when in fact they show a person who has the strength and courage to leave their hearts unguarded when it matters the most.

It’s interesting that all these softer emotions indicate goodness and purity of heart. They possess enormous potential to eliminate or reduce darkness and evil because they are emotions of healing, love, and our human connection with the Divine.

In a perfect world where all human beings had open, unguarded hearts, an alien from another planet upon first meeting a typical human would see smiles and laughter graced by tears. If the alien were to question what these signals meant, the answer would be “Love.”
The angels in Heaven would tell you the same.

Nobody knew who I was.

Posted on March 21, 2015 by luckyotter

Woodcut by Käthe Kollwitz, 1867-1945

I used to be a nobody.

Or, as my malignant narcissist mother would have put it, “a nothing.”

Before I started this blog, years of psychological abuse had sealed my lips and closed my eyes to what I could be. I rarely spoke to the people around me, and when I did, I revealed nothing because I was too afraid and was convinced I was a boring person who lived an equally boring life. I never ever revealed anything about my emotional life to people outside my immediate family, and even with them, I was reticent.

I’ve always found it difficult to make friends offline, due to my Aspergers and my avoidant personality, as well as my fear of revealing too much. I still almost never talk about my feelings offline. When I was a child I revealed way too much. I was highly sensitive and vulnerable but didn’t know how to handle it. That kind of openness got me bullied and as a result, I learned it was best to say nothing at all. I didn’t realize my high sensitivity was in reality a wonderful gift.

I shut and locked all my psychological doors. After a while, I couldn’t remember how to unlock them. For me, writing was the key, but I assumed the lock was broken and the key would not work.

For most of my adulthood, although I managed to marry and have a family (with a narcissistic bully who was all wrong for me or for anyone) I had practically no social life outside of that and hardly ever engaged in any interesting activities. I gave up easily. I never completed anything I started due to my dismally low self esteem that told me I was sure to fail. I gave up writing and art and all the things I had loved when I was younger. I feared being boring but boring is exactly what I became. I was just too afraid of everything to be anything else.

I believed my purpose in this life was to be an example to others of how not to be. Hell, even my own mother called me a loser and a failure, and if your own mother has no faith in you, how can you believe in yourself? Mother knows best, right?

Wrong.

I thought about writing a blog, but didn’t because I feared I would have nothing to say that would interest anyone. I also thought it would be too hard and I would give up in frustration, like I had given up on so many other things when they became too difficult. My irrational fear of failure crippled me.

Even if I could think of something to write about, I was afraid people would hate my words and ideas. Ideas? I didn’t think I had any anyway. In my own mind I was the most boring person in the world. I felt like a walking zombie, marking time until death.

I was so wrong. So very wrong. I’m free to reveal the self on this blog that was in hiding for decades and many times was hidden even from myself. I’m finding it’s safe to be open and vulnerable, at least online. And I’m finding there is so much joy to be had if you just open your eyes and your heart and let yourself feel life. It really wasn’t that hard to do, once my psychopathic sperm donor was out of the way.

I never thought I could help anyone, least of all myself. I felt impotent and helpless in the world, someone born to be a victim, a source of narcissistic supply to others, because that was how I was trained. I didn’t realize that I wasn’t really stupid, uncreative and boring. I wasn’t a loser and I only failed because I was too afraid to try anything and would give up easily the few times I did try. I didn’t realize it was my PTSD and depression that turned me into a walking zombie. Mental illness is a powerful dark beast and can engulf and eclipse your true spirit.

My creativity is blossoming. I always had ideas, but now they’ve revealed themselves as I’ve let go of my debilitating fear and self hatred. Sometimes I feel like I have too many ideas and can’t write them down fast enough.

Although my external circumstances haven’t changed very much (outside the narc being gone), I have hope now. I feel like a real person again, an interesting person who can even be a friend to others. I’m even starting to like myself, and think I’m a pretty interesting person. I’m even becoming proud of my high sensitivity I used to be so ashamed of. In its highest form, high sensitivity can reveal empathic ability.

I truly believe that once I got the narc out of my life, that God stepped in and took things over. He has shown me who I really am and what my purpose is in this world, and it’s not to be an example to others of how not to be. A plan for my life is taking shape and every day it amazes me. There’s so much to be amazed by. He is teaching me how to use the gift of writing that I had been wasting for so long on bullshit or not using at all.

Becoming vulnerable again through my writing is a beautiful thing. If you like yourself, you can handle the bullies, but chances are there will be fewer than you think, and most people will admire your willingness to be open and can relate to that. Your voice will be heard by those who are really listening. It can penetrate the darkness in other people’s lives.

Being vulnerable is about being honest. It’s embracing the truth rather than believing the lies.

Becoming vulnerable takes courage. Rather than being a trait of a weak person, it really takes a strong person to be willing to feel life in its kaleidoscope of colors. Before, I only saw in shades of gray.

I used to believe there was nothing left to look forward to. Now I know there is still so much ahead of me.

Nobody knew who I was. I wouldn’t let them in. Now the door is wide open. Come on in.

I had a bad day.

Posted on March 5, 2015 by luckyotter

Shameless self pity alert. If you hate negative posts, don’t read this.

I barely even replied to my comments today, so if I didn’t reply to yours, don’t take it personally. I’ll try to catch up tomorrow. I didn’t even post anything today, and that’s a first in a long time.

You see, I had a terrible day. It should have been a great day. The weather was warm–in the 70s!–and sunny, and yet my day started out horrible and stayed that way. First of all my roommate got mad because I wouldn’t jump start her car (which needs more than just a jump start) even though I was rushing to get out of the house for work this morning. I asked her if she was going anywhere today that she needed the car and she said not really. I told her I would help her when I got home, and she got all pissy. She actually had the gall to ask me to call work and tell them I’d be late just so I could help her jump start her damn car. I didn’t do it. In fact, I told her how entitled she was acting and she went back in the house pouting. Whatever.

This isn’t the first time my roommate has acted entitled and petulant when she didn’t get her way. I’m beginning to think she’s another narc. There’s a lot of red flags. But she helps me with the rent and I trust her on that level and can’t pay my bills all by myself, and that’s the reason she’s here. There haven’t been any real problems except that her entitled attitude is annoying as hell. She was never supposed to be my best friend. But she invades boundaries, is nosy, and demands special treatment. I left the house angry and feeling put upon.

I was already in a bad mood because of that, and then at work I was paired up to work all day with a woman I dislike (and who I’m pretty sure dislikes me). She’s not a narc, but our personalities just don’t go together well. She doesn’t understand my Aspie ways. She is very social and also acts bossy without having any reason to (I get that a lot–people always try to boss me around like I have no brain). I went off on her twice and apologized, but I just don’t care for her at all. She just gets on my damn nerves. Being an Aspie is so hard sometimes.

We had four houses to clean and none of them were easy. Sometimes I wonder why at my age I’m still cleaning fucking houses for a living, when I have a college degree and I can write. Other people get to write for a living and I’m better than some of them so why can’t I make a living doing it? Oh, I know why. It’s my shitty self esteem, which was destroyed by the narcs that have been pulling my strings and reminding me I’m no more than their puppet since the day I was born. I was trained to be narcissistic supply, to have no self esteem and have no mind of my own. I was trained to be prey. I was a good student. It’s hard to untrain yourself, even after the narcs are gone.

Being as Aspie just exacerbates this unfortunate situation. It’s hard–almost impossible–for us to make the social connections neurotypicals are able to make to get ahead in life. And in these days where “networking” is so all-important, it seems to me that WHO you know is more important than WHAT you know. It really sucks.

I hate that management took away my regular partner, who I got along with well. Management never explains anything. They just play us like chess pieces. They do shit like this and never tell us why. I’m over this job and am looking for another. It will be another shitty job of course, but at least will be a change. I hate working with all women. I get along better with guys in working situations. I miss working with men.

I posted nothing today because I came home angry, exhausted and depressed, and crashed on the bed for a nap almost the minute I got home. I never woke up or even had dinner. I just woke up a few minutes ago and ate a piece of cheese. This was the only post I could think about writing. It’s a sucky post but at least it’s something.

I’m just feeling blah, depressed and uninspired. And I have to go back to my shitty job tomorrow. I’m afraid I’ll be paired with this woman again. If I am I am going to management and tell them I cannot work with her and ask why I can’t work with my old partner anymore–or better yet, work alone more often. You make more money that way and I like days when I can work alone and not have to deal with socializing.

There are days, like today, where I feel like I’ve made no improvement at all, and haven’t really changed from the mousy little person I was a year ago. I’m just a mousy little person who writes a blog. I feel like my life will always be like this, that I’ll always be poor, always have a crappy job, always feel inferior to others, and never really be able to have fun or enjoy life. I’m aware a lot of this is just my pessimism and having a negative attitude. I know not every day will be like this. There are always going to be bad days even when things are generally going pretty well. I’m angry I didn’t get to enjoy the beautiful weather today. But there will be plenty more pretty days to enjoy very soon.

God help me. I have to get up for work again in a few hours. I really hope it’s a better day. I always feel guilty when I wallow in negative thinking, the way I’m doing right now. At least I can write about it.

I was so much older then…

Posted on February 17, 2015 by luckyotter

This photo was taken of me in 2012, while I was still living with and being gaslighted to death by my narc. At the time he used my daughter as one of his flying monkeys. They had me convinced I was the self centered narcissist and Michael would always set things up so he looked like the victim. A combination of triangulation, projection and gaslighting turned me into this sad, blah looking person you see here. As you can tell, I wasn’t taking care of myself–I was about 30 pounds heavier and wore just any old rag I could find around the house. I never wore makeup. My expression here looks depressed. I hid in my room with the door locked most of the time against my personal wicked demon and his flying monkeys trying to distort my reality and doubt my own perceptions.

Me during the time I was being mentally and emotionally tormented and suffering from severe PTSD, depression, and debilitating anxiety and paranoid ideation (some of which was based in reality) Although my health hadn’t started to go yet, it would have soon. If I’d stayed in this hellish mindfucking environment, I think I would have eventually become very ill, and maybe even died. I thought about suicide a lot.

Here is me after separating from my narc (April 2014). I look a lot happier!

These next two photos were taken by me about a month ago. Even in the nonsmiling, pensive one, I look a lot better and a lot younger. I think I look much more relaxed too in both the photos.

I’m in good shape now and managed to lose about 30 lbs. so I am a healthy weight now. My hair also looks better and I have no idea why since I haven’t really done anything different with it. It just seems fuller and, well, happier?

A year ago, I didn’t want anyone to take my picture (because I thought I looked so fat and ugly); now I’m actually taking selfies!

Improvement in appearance and a more youthful look overall is a wonderful fringe benefit of separating from your abuser. When you start feeling more attractive you actually look more attractive, and will take much better care of your appearance and your health. I’m just naturally eating healthier foods and indulging in things like alcohol less. I’m also drawn to nicer looking clothes and even accessories, something I didn’t bother with for years.

I still haven’t managed to quit smoking yet. Maybe for Lent.

Righteous anger.

Posted on February 16, 2015 by luckyotter

Anger is a tool for survival.
Anger has a bad reputation. But it isn’t always a bad thing. Anger can help us survive, and although it doesn’t feel good to be angry, it feels a heck of a lot better than feeling helpless, defeated or scared.

Anger is necessary for survival. It’s natural to feel angry when we believe we are being abused or attacked unfairly or our boundaries are being violated. It’s also natural to feel angry when we see a loved one being unfairly treated or abused.

This type of anger is healthy, righteous anger. People who are afraid to show anger at appropriate times, such as when they are being attacked or abused, are people who will always feel helpless and victimized. I felt that way for years, because anger frightened me.

Coming from a family (and a marriage) where anger was the normal dynamic (and was usually directed against me), I learned to fear anger in others–as well as my own anger. Even when I felt rightfully angry and was clearly being unfairly treated, I learned to keep my anger in check and swallow my true emotions. I felt like I had no right to feel my emotions, especially anger.

Anger turned inward becomes depression.
The danger in this is that when we swallow our anger, it doesn’t go away: it turns inward and this manifests as depression and despair. Anger is poison when turned against the self.

Sure, there are lots of people who are too quick to anger, and anger management can help people with a too-short fuse. But for the timid and victimized, allowing yourself a satisfying display of anger when wronged is a healthy thing.

Anger is proactive.
When we are trying to disconnect from an abusive narcissist, anger is absolutely necessary to successfully escape. Anger overrides fear. Ever notice when you’re angry, you’re not afraid anymore? Well, it’s true. If you are trying to disconnect from your narcissist, allow yourself to feel angry. Show that anger. That doesn’t mean you must be abusive yourself or resort to name-calling, but it does give us the impetus to take action. Anger, unlike despair, depression and some types of fear, is a proactive emotion–an emotion that forces us to take a stand, fight back, and get away.

If you are attempting to go No Contact with your narc, feel your anger. Wallow in it. It could save your sanity and maybe your life,as well as those of your children if you have any. It will motivate you to do what you need to do.

Put your empathy on the back burner.
Over time, I’ve developed a level of empathy for narcissists because I realize they have an illness and they do suffer. But when you’re trying to disconnect, it’s better if you can hate them and think of them as monsters or demons. Save any empathy for later on, when you’re stronger and safely away from your abusers. You cannot afford to have empathy for a narcissist when you’re trying to get out of a relationship.

Embrace your righteous anger. It’s healthy and good for you.
But also know when to let it go when it’s no longer needed. It’s a tool, but shouldn’t become a way of life.

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.