Guest Post #8 : Abusers break you–and then HATE you for being broken.

Linda Lee’s wonderful guest post about Complex PTSD is definitely worth another day in the sun.

luckyotter's avatarLucky Otters Haven

My dear friend and active participant on this site, Linda Lee, has written a wonderful and OMG SO TRUE post, which describes a lifetime of abuse, including incarceration in a state mental hospital, and being faced with unethical doctors and caregivers, including one who raped her. She was sent back home to a rejecting family–who had put her there in the first place! Linda Lee has Complex PTSD, a form of PTSD that’s often the result of chronic abuse during childhood, rather than an isolated traumatic incident later on in life. After describing the insane house of mirrors she had been thrusted into that seemed to have no way out, Linda lifts the reader out of the darkness with an uplifting message about Easter and the resurrection.

Linda Lee also has a blog about her Complex PTSD caused by prolonged, severe trauma called Surviving Trauma (formerly Heal My Complex PTSD)

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Is profanity in blog rants okay?

Profanity….yes or no?

luckyotter's avatarLucky Otters Haven

profanity

My friend Gale Molinari at Galesmind.com posted this meme yesterday.

In general, I agree with the above sentiment. We all know people who cuss constantly and after awhile it can become annoying and offensive. People who pepper every sentence with the 7 verboten words not approved by the FCC sound, well, stupid, crude and boring.

However, I also think an occasional, well placed epithet can add impact and emotional urgency under certain circumstances. We’re all grownups here, and it’s not as if we haven’t all heard these words and know what they mean. They have stuck around the English language for so long for a good reason, and while their original references to various private parts, bodily functions or female dogs in heat have been diluted by their myriad other uses in recent times, if they’re not overused, they retain their power to drive your point home.

I don’t think…

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These 7 Traits Make You Vulnerable to Narcissistic Manipulation

This article is a must read for empaths and HSPs, and anyone vulnerable to narcissistic abuse:

These 7 Traits Make You Vulnerable to Narcissistic Manipulation

By Kim Saeed

Comments here have been turned off.  Please leave comments under the original post.

She also has a great site!  Be sure to visit.

https://kimsaeed.com/

Let the little children come to me

I just found this lovely blog.

In a time when migrant children at our southern border are being robbed of their childhood (and even their lives) and children within our own borders are being taught to hate (often in the name of God),  this post’s beautiful and simple message couldn’t be more timely or more important.

Please leave comments on the original post.

Sean Bloom's avatarAbout Creation and the Creator

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Today my daughter and I wandered through the woods. After three days of cold and dreary weather we weren’t going to miss 60 degrees and a sunny sky. So we put on our sneakers and headed off to Latta Plantation Nature Preserve to play in the woods and eat marshmallows!

We started at the nature playground walking on logs, slack rope, crawling through rope tunnels, and trying a climbing wall. All of this made difficult by our very wet and muddy shoes, thanks to the 4-inches of rain we’ve received. I spent an hour hovering around my daughter, ready to catch her at a moments notice. My goal: to protect her from a slip or fall, a skinned knee, or worst of all; the dreaded muddy hands!

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After a time we headed down the trail. Again I was a father-hen, constantly keeping my daughter away from muddy puddles, keeping her…

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Grey-rocking: if you can’t go No Contact.

This article has been picking up in views lately, so I decided to reblog it. Several people have told me they’ve found it helpful. I know this trick has helped me in dicey situations when I can’t go No Contact with a narcissist.

luckyotter's avatarLucky Otters Haven

grey_rock

Lately I’ve been hearing a new term in the narcissistic abuse community: grey rocking.  I don’t know if it’s a new term or not, but I haven’t heard it before.

How to Grey Rock a Narcissist.

It’s always best to go No Contact (or Very Low Contact) with the narcissists in your life, if it’s at all possible.   But sometimes it isn’t.    For example, you may have underage children with your narcissist and shared custody of them.  Or your boss or a coworker may be a narcissist and you’re not willing to leave your job.  Or you may be in a marriage or relationship with one, have no options for leaving right now and are biding your time until you can save enough money to leave.    Or perhaps you’re still living at home with narcissistic parents and don’t have a place to go yet.

In these types…

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My Seasonal Affective Disorder makes me want to hibernate until spring.

It’s baaaaack!  I hate this time of year.

luckyotter's avatarLucky Otters Haven

seasonal_moods
Graph I made showing my mood pattern throughout the year. It’s this way every year.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my SAD.

SAD is triggered by the lack of light and shortening days for those affected with it. During the shorter days the brain produces more melatonin, a naturally occurring hormone that induces sleepiness in certain animals, like bears. It’s the reason why some mammals hibernate until the warmer, longer days of spring. Unfortunately, some humans retain this biological urge to hibernate, but because we must continue to live productive lives, our natural urge to sleep is ignored and seasonal depression is the result.

I seem to suffer from a weird form of SAD. The fall is much more depressing to me than winter. Most people with SAD feel terrible in late fall AND all winter. But for me, I start feeling depressed sometime in mid-August, when the…

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When time stands still: 15th anniversary of 9/11

It’s now two years since I wrote this article. I’m posting it again this year.

luckyotter's avatarLucky Otters Haven

394261 14: A fiery blasts rocks the World Trade Center after being hit by two planes September 11, 2001 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) 394261 14: A fiery blasts rocks the World Trade Center after being hit by two planes September 11, 2001 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Not too long ago, one of my regular readers spoke of seeing a bunch of military tanks practicing for a martial law takeover. In America, I am hearing of an increasing number of incidents like this. I try to avoid the news, but there’s an increasing and unavoidable sense of panic that our nation may be on the brink of a removal of all our freedoms as martial law becomes the norm rather than the exception. It’s very frightening.

But what I really want to talk about is the feeling of unreality and dissociation that accompanies seeing something like what my reader did.  She said when she saw the tanks, she felt as if she was dreaming. It didn’t seem real…

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Grandiose and “vulnerable” narcissists: how do they differ?

This got buried for awhile, but I think it’s one of my best posts about narcissism, so here it is again.

luckyotter's avatarLucky Otters Haven

beggar_king
Both the beggar and the king could be narcissists with a different M.O.

An interesting article in Psychology Today explains the difference between grandiose (invulnerable) narcissists, and “vulnerable” narcissists. Either can be somatic or cerebral, and either can also be malignant or non-malignant.

The two kinds of narcissists can seem very different on the surface:

Grandiose narcissists can seem emotionally cold, convinced of their achievements or success, and rarely if ever talk about their fears or their problems. They can be very quick to judge others though. On the surface they seem strong and tough. You won’t see them show emotions other than rage or pride, and if they are ever sad or fearful, you will never see that side of them. Like all narcissists, they are never happy,but they can “act” happy if they need to. And like all narcissists, they are incapable of love but may be able…

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2 weird dreams I had as a kid.

An oldie but goodie.

luckyotter's avatarLucky Otters Haven

steel_wool 

I was a weird, sketchy kid who had weird dreams. When I was about 5 I had a dream about something called a “clout” that looked like an oversized steel wool pad. It was sitting on the small rug in front of my bed and I was too scared to put my feet on the floor because that clout thing was evil. It just sat there on the rug, in all its black malevolence, not moving, but I knew it was alive and meant to kill me.   I knew if I put my feet on the floor the clout would suck me down into the Hell-portal it must have come from.

When I was around  the same age, one morning I woke up doubled over with laughter.   My dad asked me why I was laughing, and I remember saying, “someone was throwing mud at my door.”  …

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Trump Administration takes the first steps towards implementing theocracy in America

scarygothicchurch

This is terrifying and all too real. Yes, it’s true — the Trump GOP wants to replace democracy with a Christian theocracy.  But only “their” kind of Christianity is acceptable. It’s happening much faster than I would have expected.  Gilead really is happening in America. These dominionist evangelicals are zealots who will stop at absolutely nothing to implement their theocracy.   They will not compromise because they believe God is on their side and they have a “mandate” to force their religious dogma into law.   Nothing is too evil or cruel if it furthers God’s mandate.  The ends always justify the means.

It looks like LGBTQ people and women will be the next victims of this regime.

Empathy and humanity are not only not required, they are considered bad or even evil  because they get in the way of carrying out the mandates they believe God has given them.   That Jeff Sessions, Mike Pence, Erik Prince (Betsy DeVos’ murder-for-hire brother), Jim Jordan, Roy Moore, Franklin Graham, Paula White, Sarah Sanders, and many other sociopaths and sycophants within the Trump regime and its unholy orbit are self proclaimed “anointed apostles” favored by God tells you everything you need to know about this dangerous, totalitarian, and anti-life cult.

fascisminamerica

Their insistence on “religious freedom” doesn’t mean the same thing it did back when our leaders still respected democracy and the rule of law.    Back in the day, it meant the freedom to worship (or not) as you chose.   But Sessions and the far right dominionist evangelicals have redefined it  — “religious freedom” now means both the “freedom” to inflict your religious beliefs on others, the “freedom” to discriminate against the “Other,” and it also gives you, the oppressed victim of theocracy, the “freedom” to not sin (because sinning will eventually become criminalized).

These dominionists must be stopped — somehow — before there is no longer a such thing as “separation of church and state” and we turn into a Christian Saudi Arabia (of course, these “Christians” care nothing about anything Christ actually taught).

The MSM spends no time at all covering this, but it’s a very serious problem that will soon completely alter what it’s like to live in this country — and NOT for the better.

I wish this was fake news.  But it’s not.

Scary times.

We must ALL vote in the midterm elections in November.  Nothing but a straight Democratic ticket will do.   We MUST oust the Republican Congress and Senate to get rid of the one party rule we have right now under Trump.

These Christo-fascists scare me much, much more than the rather disorganized white supremacists and Koch-funded greedy oligarchs.  Of all the different factions of Trump’s GOP, the dominionists frighten me the most and I also think they are the most dangerous.

Of course, they would say that my “resistance” and “negativity” just means I’m being influenced by Satan to be disobedient and I probably have a “jezebel spirit.”    They don’t like people who think for themselves.  They don’t like “uppity women.” They don’t like people who prefer real freedom instead of the fake “freedom” they’re trying to shove down our throats.  They prefer mindless sheep and robotic Stepford-people.

I really don’t care, do u?

Robert A. Vella's avatarThe Secular Jurist

By Robert A. Vella

The very first amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as part of the Bill of Rights ratified in 1791, states that:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This separation of church and state was intended and repeatedly affirmed to ensure two things for the new nation:  1) that the United States government would be formally secular, and 2) that United States citizens could legally practice their various religions freely and without interference from other religions.  In a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802, President Thomas Jefferson wrote:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes…

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