Beauty and The Beast: a metaphor for NPD.

Posted on November 29, 2015 by luckyotter

beauty_beast

A few days ago, I was thinking about the wonderful 1991 Disney animated movie, “Beauty and The Beast.” I was always moved by the Transformation scene at the end when the evil spell on the Beast and his castle is finally lifted after he nearly dies and Belle finally declares her love for him. In my opinion, it’s one of the best moments in animated movie history. That scene has haunted me for a long, long time and the other day, I felt inspired to watch it again, and was as–or even more moved by it–than the first time I saw it. And this time I knew why–the entire story of the Beast in this movie is a metaphor for a man suffering from NPD–who healed from it.

As the movie opens, we are shown a series of stained-glass images telling the story of how the Beast became that way. He wasn’t always a Beast. His real name was Adam and he had been a handsome young prince, but extremely arrogant, entitled, and lacking in empathy (sound familiar?). One cold and snowy night, a beggar woman came to the castle begging for a place to sleep for the night to escape from the bitter cold. In exchange she offered him a single rose. Adam sneered at the rose and refused her a warm bed and coldly sent her on her way, but not before the beggar woman suddenly transformed into a beautiful enchantress, who in her righteous anger at the callous young prince’s heartless actions, put a spell on him, turning him into the physical manifestation of the Beast he had become inside, and at the same time transforming the trappings of his former grandiosity and entitlement (a well-appointed and beautiful castle and loyal servants) into a dark and frightening prison and common household objects. The rose she had left him–which I believe represents Adam’s True Self (and he had sneered at it because it represented the vulnerability he had rejected)–would continue to bloom for a decade. If Adam failed to learn to love another (and earn her love) in that decade, the woman had warned him the rose would die and he would be forever doomed to his fate (unable to heal from his narcissism, he would become malignant). Adam’s only window to the outside world was the magic mirror the woman had left him, but all Adam can see in it is his own hideous reflection.

The Making of a Beast:

No longer receiving any narcissistic supply, Adam falls into depression, despair, and self hatred. He attacks his own image in a painting and refuses to look at himself in the mirror anymore. He is consumed by anger and self-pity until the day a beautiful young woman (Belle) comes by the castle to rescue her father, who The Beast has imprisoned for trespassing.

Belle is the opposite of The Beast in every way. Not only is she physically beautiful, but she is poor, the daughter of the town eccentric who is a laughing stock and considered crazy, even though he is actually a brilliant inventor. Belle is kind and loving and has a high level of empathy. The first thing she does is offer to take her father’s place in the castle’s dungeon if The Beast will only free him.

The Beast takes her up on her offer on the condition she stay there in the castle with him forever. Belle reluctantly agrees, even though she is at the mercy of The Beast’s terrible temper and frequent narcissistic rages. Her father is freed, and Belle dutifully obeys whatever the Beast tells her to do, but because she is an empath, she can see through his frightening facade to the broken young man he really is. Early during her stay, she is wandering around the Castle and comes across the enchanted rose under its glass dome. The Beast catches her and quickly covers the rose (evidence of his vulnerability) and rages, bellowing “Do you realize what you could have DONE?? Get out!” But as the months pass, the Beast begins to look forward to their time together, and slowly learns some manners and social graces. Belle works on humanizing Adam and finds she is slowly falling in love with him, and as he begins to accept her love (mirroring), he reluctantly begins to reveal his true self to her.

Meanwhile, Belle is being pursued by a very arrogant and probably malignantly narcissistic young man from her town named Gaston. Belle can’t stand Gaston, and refuses his proposal of marriage in which she would be nothing but an object and slave to him. Consumed by rage over her rejection of him, one night Gaston and his buddies plan an attack on the The castle to kidnap Belle. In the ensuing battle, The Beast is falls to the ground from a high elevation and is left for dead. A grieving Belle finally proclaims her love for the Beast, just as the last rose petal falls.

The spell is broken and The Beast is transformed back into Adam, the handsome Prince he used to be–only with a difference–he is no longer entitled or arrogant and he is now capable of being able to love, thanks to Belle’s empathic kindness. The castle (which I think represents the quality of Adam’s life) is also transformed to its former glory and the household objects turn back into loyal servants (who can now be his friends too). Note that a narcissist regards other people as mere objects and not human.

The Transformation:

When I talked to some friends about writing an article about this movie being a metaphor for healing from NPD, it was mentioned to me the dangers of making such a comparison. First of all, this is a fairy tale and in real life, things don’t normally work out this way. A woman who falls in love with a narcissistic man is far more likely to be abused and exploited than loved in return–and she almost certainly isn’t going to be able to “fix” the narcissist. Just as problematic is the idea that in order for a narcissistic man to change, he must earn the love of a woman. It was pointed out that this could be construed as sexist.

But because this is a fairy tale, the underlying moral is of course more compelling (and entertaining) if there’s a romance involved. I think of this romance as a metaphor for the relationship between a self-aware and willing narcissistic patient and his or her therapist. Belle’s looks don’t actually matter–her beauty is a metaphor for her pure soul and empathetic nature. She is giving the Beast the reparenting he probably never got from his own family. The Beast’s ugliness is a metaphor for his narcissistic personality, but in this case, it’s not so deeply ingrained in him for it to have become malignant–which is why the enchanted rose is still alive until the spell is broken. The rose represents The Beast’s true self, which is integrated back into the Beast’s psyche during the Transformation.

Letting go of fear.

Posted on November 9, 2015 by luckyotter

Sometimes I have funny thoughts when I’m just lying on my bed half asleep. It’s at those times my subconscious mind sometimes bubbles into consciousness (which makes the half asleep state similar to meditation). Anyway, the thought I had was simple and profound. I was just lying there with random thoughts drifting through my head, and thinking about how “small” my life is, how little I have both materially and emotionally. But it wasn’t self pity, it was just an observation of reality. Suddenly another thought bubbled into awareness: you only get what you put out.

“You only get what you put out.” Suddenly I was wide awake and almost shocked by the simplicity of this message. I thought about how little I put into anything–I have very little interest in most things, don’t join anything, don’t take any action, don’t reach out to people, don’t look for new opportunities (or even recognize them when they are staring me in the face), always make excuses, always allow things to just “happen.” And then I wonder why I feel like life controls me, rather than the other way around. I realized that my life isn’t *horrible* really (many people have it much worse), it’s just extremely unsatisfying and seems empty and devoid of any color or life. That’s because I approach it with very little enthusiasm and don’t want to make the effort to take on more or reach out to other people.

And why is this? It’s because of fear. I’m afraid of..everything. To let go of fear, somehow..and replace that fear with love…that’s the remedy for all my problems.
To become comfortable with myself and allow vulnerability into the equation requires letting go of fear. Recognizing and embracing vulnerability is the most courageous thing any of us trapped by fear and its outer trappings (narcissism, irrational anger, avoidance, all the personality disorders, etc.) will ever have to do. But it’s the only way.

It sounds easy…but it’s not. Letting go of fear is the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do. I’m used to it. I’ve had it all my life. I don’t know how to live without it. It’s a dysfunctional relationship, the one I have with fear, and I’m codependent to it.

An upsetting memory.

Posted on August 30, 2015 by luckyotter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I was wrong, so wrong about all that.

Bring it on!

Posted on August 2, 2015 by luckyotter

This week has been very difficult for me emotionally. It started with an unnamed, free-floating but intense anxiety and panic, to the point I could barely function. A few days ago I plummeted into a black depression that seemed different somehow in quality from my prior zombie-like apathetic depressions. it felt more alive and more proactive in some way. I’m pretty sure I had an idea all along of what was about to happen but it hadn’t quite bubbled into conscious awareness yet. Its rising through the murky swamp of my unconscious caused me to panic and then a kind of grief took over but I still couldn’t name what it was.

Most of you who read this blog regularly know I began this blog almost a year ago as a form of self therapy (because I couldn’t afford a therapist). From the beginning, I committed myself to 100% honesty. Well, I’ve probably fallen short of that goal, as I’ve omitted some important discoveries and other things about myself that I simply didn’t feel comfortable sharing, even under my alias.

Last night–nearly 11 months from the day I started this online journal–I had a huge breakthrough. Prior to this, I tried to sleep but could not. When I did my dreams were upsetting and I had this overwhelming sense of aloneness and separateness. I woke up shaking and close to tears. I gave up trying to sleep and talked to 2 close Facebook friends for awhile. They’ve been a bit worried about me this week because my mood has been so erratic and I’ve done so much crying, which until recently has been unusual for me. I cried all the time as as a child but then dried up sometime during my teens.

Several things have led to my breakthrough: writing a LOT about my feelings and recovery from narcissistic abuse, reading as much about narcissism, BPD and PTSD as I could get my hands on, trying my best to always be honest no matter how painful or embarrassing (but not always succeeding), and finding God and the power of prayer. It’s been an incredible roller coaster ride.

For several weeks prior to last night, I’d been praying for the ability to regain the easy access to my emotions I had as a child, only tempered with the wisdom and restraint of an adult, of course. I kept reading, writing, and trying to elicit emotion through music, movie-watching, and self-reparenting. I knew this required making myself as vulnerable as possible. I took myself to see “Inside Out,” which loosened something inside me but not quite enough. It was like one of those almost-sneezes that never quite comes out and leaves you wanting to punch a wall in frustration. Nothing much happened after that. I was growing impatient.

A week ago, I fell into my panicky, anxious state followed by a “wet” depression (that included tears instead of my usual catatonic apathy). I didn’t even know what I was crying about. I lost my motivation to write (in retrospect, I think this as a form of self protection when I needed it). I was snappish and irritable on the job but would come home and set aside alone time so I could just let everything out without fear of embarrassment or shame. I knew instinctively something important was about to make itself known and that scared me, but I felt a kind of excitement too.

It happened last night at about 3 AM after my Facebook friends and I ended our conversation. I read something that triggered a deep knowledge that hit me like jolt of electricity. For a few terrifying minutes I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath and I might even throw up. I felt hot and cold flashes and started to shake. What I learned was overwhelming and devastating–but I also knew I’d known this for a long time but had repressed it.

Everything suddenly made sense and I felt like I was seeing my situation and all my relationships—hell, over 50 years of my life–with eyes that had been closed since I was very young. I remembered, vaguely, that someone told me something when I was four years old. I couldn’t remember what was said or who said it but I did know whatever it was had been the catalyst when all my problems started that would not abate for over 50 years. One day when I’m ready I’ll remember what actually was said and who said it. I cried harder than I’ve cried since I was about 12. I can’t go into detail right yet about what this discovery was–I’m not ready. I may never be ready. But it’s something that although its discovery is incredibly upsetting to me, it’s also something I needed to have in my conscious awareness before I could really start to do the hard work necessary for real healing.

God answers prayers in his own time. He’s working on me. I have faith he works on all of us if we reach out with a sincere heart and ask for help. Now that I have this information that was revealed to me, the next step is to figure out what to do with it. Right now I just feel shell shocked. I have to be gentle with myself while I work through and try to understand everything that happened. I’m working on finding a therapist to help me sort it out because I think it’s too big for me to handle all by myself anymore. All I can do right now is keep on praying and writing every day and working on myself and being as mindful as I can until I find someone appropriate. I know the work ahead of me is going to be harder now than it has been and that’s okay. It may take a long time and that’s okay too. I feel like I graduated from something last night. I’m ready for the next step. Bring it on!

Somehow I feel lighter today although I’m exhausted and desperately need a good night’s sleep.
I know I can do this thing. But for the love of all that is holy, WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG?

Crazy ride.

Posted on July 7, 2015 by luckyotter

Giving up is conceding that things will never get better, and that is just not true. Ups and downs are a constant in life, and I’ve been belted into that roller coaster a thousand times.
–Aimee Mullins via http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/

To ride or not to ride.

Roll back down the track about 11 months. September 2014. That was the day something in my brain finally connected right and I got the idea to start a blog about narcissistic personality disorder.
I had no idea what I was in for. Not even close.
I didn’t have the foggiest idea what sort of roller coaster ride starting a blog about narcissism would become.
It would become the most life-changing ride of my life.

I had no real plan to start a blog. Occasionally I’d have the fleeting thought like “oh, maybe I should start a blog sometime…” but these thoughts were passing and vague, like puffs of cigarette smoke passing over my head. And they went nowhere. Instead, they dissolved in the sea of my uncertainty and inability to make any sort of decision: “Oh, but no one would read my blog,” I’d remind myself. “I’m so boring and have no interests and so what would I blog about anyway? How boring my life is?” So these passing ideas were just sort of pipe dreams. They had no spine or any substance at all. They dissolved away like smoke and vapor and dreams. So I wasn’t seriously considering blogging until the day I finally did.

In February 2014 I’d kicked out my narcissist ex who was living on my couch and making my life a living hell. For about two months I walked around kind of numb and rudderless. I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going and I was scared but sort of excited too. Mostly I was just trying to find my bearings and stay grounded. It could be frustrating. I just wasn’t used to making decisions or doing things on my own, without the narc’s “help.”

In about April or May I started reading a lot about Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I first reread “People of the Lie,” the only book about malignant narcissism I owned at the time (now I have a whole library of such books). I began to read George K. Simon’s “Manipulative People” blog. That was the very first blog about character-disordered people I ever read. I posted a few times, tentatively, but never got too involved, because soon I found other blogs and started reading and sometimes posting on those too.

One day in September 2014 (the 10th to be exact) I was poking around online and on a whim decided I wanted to start a blog. The idea came out of nowhere. In retrospect I think it was God giving me a nudge because I was ready. But ready for what? I had no idea where such a thing would take me–all I knew was I needed to tell my story and in doing so try to sort through all my confused and bewildering feelings. I attempted to start my blog on Blogger, but it kept wanting me to use my real name because it’s run by Google and connected to it, and using my real name on the type of blog I was going to do was out of the question. I had heard WordPress was hard, but decided to give it a shot.

Ascending the track, eyes ahead, heart in mouth.

WordPress wasn’t hard. The learning curve was about three days, and after that I felt like I knew what I was doing. At first writing was a bit of a chore, and I didn’t write every day. As time went on, and I started to explore narcissism more deeply and do more reading (by this time I had ordered two of Dr. Simon’s books–“In Sheeps Clothing” and “Character Disturbance”), I found my fascination increasing. I was also beginning to change and my confidence was starting to rise out of the toilet. People told me I seemed somehow “different.” For the first time in my life, I felt like I was doing something that made me feel passionate and that could possibly be of use to others too.

Since then, many things have happened in my blogging journey. I’ve learned more about myself and my narcissists than I ever dreamed possible, and I also found faith in God during the process. I believe with all my heart that God gave me the life He did to lead me to where I am now, writing about my experiences as a victim of narcissistic abuse and learning as much as I can, so I can pass along what I know to others who are in similar situations.

On top of the world–but don’t look down.

There have been incredibly heady, exciting times–sudden spikes in popularity, an article going viral for the first time, certain well-known people in the field of narcissism who found and helped promote my blog and its articles, suddenly having so many new friends, getting comments and emails from people who told me my words gave them hope or the courage to leave their narcissist, or even in one case, saved their life. It was surreal the first time I found one of my articles at the top of page 1 of Google, or got reblogged by someone whose blog gets many more hits than my own. As an added bonus, I found out my traffic was sufficient to run some ads, and from that I’ve been able to make some pocket money. Making money never has been and never will be my purpose for doing this, but I’m not going to lie and tell you it isn’t sort of nice to have an additional $20-$30 dollars a month for doing something I love to do. Maybe someday I can parlay this into a career, especially if I write a book (which I plan to start doing fairly soon, when I have some time and think of a topic for a book I’d want to write). It might even be fiction, only using what I know now about myself and the scourge of narcissism as a sort of matrix that holds the skin of the story together.

Hurtling back to earth.

It hasn’t all been a joyride either. There have been painful and disappointing times too–my first hater and troll comments, people accusing me of having dishonest motives or being a narcissist myself (or at least a narc-enabler), the loss of several people I thought were friends along the way (for various reasons), finding unflattering comments about this blog on other blogs, finding out I’d unintentionally hurt a few people I cared about; other friends disappearing into the black hole of cyberspace, writing highly personal articles that scared me to post so much I felt sick before finally taking that deep breath and posting them anyway (and I’ve never regretted doing so), being emotionally triggered by someone else’s sad story or just from digging so deep into my own psyche or past; chronic worrying that maybe I’m too narcissistic; and having periods of self-doubt and depression when I wonder if I’m good enough to be doing this at all or if it even really means anything.

Exhilaration and sadness.

But on the whole, the ride–like a rollercoaster–has been incredibly fun. The downs just mean you’re going up again, and the overall feeling of blogging about narcissism (and related mental health subjects) has been exhilarating, empowering, and the most enjoyable and creative activity I’ve ever undertaken–and best of all, I’ve actually stuck with it. In the past, I would get interested in things, but never stick with them for very long, especially once the going got rough or I realized how much blood, sweat and tears it would require.

But blogging about narcissism, as emotionally triggering and difficult as it can be at times, is a labor of love and the more I do it, the more I want to keep doing it. Unlike every other interest and hobby I’ve had, I haven’t lost interest in it.

Writing about narcissism (and my own disorders) is incredibly emotional, sometimes painful, and a LOT of hard work. There have been times I found myself in tears after writing a particularly emotional article, especially if it involved a painful experience from my own past, and for me being able to release emotion is a great thing because for so long most of my emotions were bottled up.

The Healing Power of Creativity.

Blogging is also very creative. One of the only things I rarely ever doubted about myself was that I had the ability to write. Creative writing was always something I was good at and did for fun. As a 7 and 8 year old, my father brought home these tiny little leatherette-covered notebooks with the covers in bright primary colors. The tiny pages had miniature lines for writing which was good because at that age, I still couldn’t write in a straight line (the slope was always downward: was that foreshadowing what was still to come?) On the cover they had a single word like “Memorandum” in embossed golden letters. They were given to me in stacks of rubber bands. There must have been 50 of them. In those little books I wrote lots of little illustrated stories. I always used colored markers and pencils, never crayons because they left too big a mark on the tiny pages. I don’t know what happened to those little books but I wish I still had them.

Even my parents–who rarely had anything both good and true to say about me (I was both scapegoat and golden child in their marriage)–both admitted I could write really well. I worked in medical journalism when I got out of college and wrote some freelance book reviews and did some proofreading and freelance editing, but after having children and moving to another state, I gave all that up. And when I did write, it was always for someone else or for money, never for the love of doing it.

Also by then I was in my disastrous marriage to a psychopathic malignant narcissist, and all the good and healthy things about myself (which didn’t seem to be many) began to gradually and insidiously slip away. I became a near zombie. I thought I forgot how to write. In 2003 I wrote a novel (a very bad one, it turned out) and I had my mother read it (she was probably the worst person for me to have read it) and she told me it sucked, which it did. I was trying to write like Pat Conroy, an author I was very much into at the time.

I reread it two years ago and cringed while reading it. It was full of florid, purple prose, cliched phrases and cliched, one dimensional (is that a cliche?) characters. The one sex scene was embarrassingly bad (I will not go into detail about that here!) I felt sick after reading this amateurish piece of badly written sentimental trash and it was everything I could do to reread even a page of it. That’s how embarrassed by it I was. It was so bad that a Harlequin romance would seem like Tolstoy in comparison.

In what universe had I ever thought that piece of Pat Conroy wannabe-garbage was good enough to send out to publishers and agents (who all rejected it)–or have my constantly-critical mother read it? The novel is still sitting in a cardboard box in the back of my closet, its pages becoming brittle and yellow with time, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to throw it away. It’s a reminder of a time where I couldn’t write because I was too divorced from my own emotions. A person who is dead can’t write–and I was like a walking dead person, trying to write about emotions I couldn’t access.

So after that I imagined I was a terrible writer after all, and never really had that much ability. Writing this blog has reassured me that my ability to write never went away and in fact it’s improved over the months I’ve been writing this blog. So blogging is increasing my self esteem that way too. I think the abilities God gave us are one of his greatest gifts, and those of us who have a talent in one or more of the arts (performing, literary or visual) are especially blessed, because we have the means to communicate feelings to the world, not just ideas, facts, or thoughts (not that those aren’t valuable too).

I call blogging my self-therapy because that’s what it is. It’s also my creative outlet right now. I can’t get over all the positive changes I see in myself (and that others have noticed too), including an increased ability to be in touch with my true emotions, having a relationship with God after having been agnostic most of my life, a much more positive attitude than I used to have, better health, and retrieved memories and revelations about what my painful and difficult life has really meant (news flash to myself: I was not born to be an example to others of what a “loser” looks like).

I don’t want to get off this ride.

Queen’s University engineering student David Chesney rides the 28- metre-long rollercoaster he made.

All these discoveries are so unbelievably exciting and validating they far surpass the pain I’ve sometimes experienced on this sometimes terrifying ride into the unknown. Sometimes I feel like I’m exploring a new galaxy, and finding wonders every day, both great and small–and horrors too, but the horrors are usually cast by my own shadow and prove in the end to be harmless.

I would never have believed the most amazing journey of my life would take place without my ever having to leave my house.

There’s something about a roller coaster that triggers strong feelings, maybe because most of us associate them with childhood. They’re inherently cinematic; the very shape of a coaster, all hills and valleys and sickening helices, evokes a human emotional response.
–Diablo Cody

via http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes

Addicted to being a Victim

Posted on July 3, 2015 by luckyotter

I can relate to this article by OM so much right now. There are people who wear their victimhood as if it’s a trophy and for that reason can never move on from their past and heal from abuse. I feel sorry for them because they don’t realize they are letting their abusers win. The best revenge is to reject your victimhood, because that’s exactly what your abusers DO NOT want to see. They want you to remain a victim all your life because they know their toxic message to you became internalized and is eating your soul to shreds. You being happy and well will drive them insane.

For the record, I am not anti-victim, having been one myself for most of my life, but it shouldn’t become a way of life either. There’s a time to put it to rest and focus on becoming happy in spite of your past. Tragedy and abuse should never define who you are. The past can be used as common ground to connect with others who have suffered but then we should move on from it by learning from it and helping each other, but you are not your past. You weren’t born to suffer in spite of what your abusers have told you.

If you want to hang onto your victimhood forever, that’s your right of course, but it’s wrong to judge those who reject such a depressing and unhealthy philosophy.

Chronic rage is a trap, not a trophy.

Posted on June 8, 2015 by luckyotter

If we are survivors of narcissistic abuse, we are all at different stages of our recovery. If we are just coming out of a relationship with a narcissist or in the process of going No Contact (which is the best gift we can give ourselves), it’s natural to feel anger and even hatred toward our abusers. Our anger overrides the fear they instilled in us and makes it possible for us to take the actions necessary to disconnect from them.

When I started this blog, I too was extremely angry at my narcissists, particularly my psychopathic ex. As an ACON, I railed on about my parents too, particularly my MN mother. Early posts of mine on this blog have a much more bitter and angry tone than my more recent posts, some of which attempt to understand why my narcissists did what they did to me and about what makes narcissists tick in general. I don’t regret making those early, angry posts, because that’s where I was at emotionally on this recovery journey. I NEEDED to feel that anger and hate. It served a survival purpose. But anger is a survival emotion and is meant to be temporary, not become a psychological and spiritual forever-home.

I am no longer in a situation where I am in close contact with malignant narcissists, and I was finding that holding onto all that rage was turning me bitter. When a person is filled with rage, the body’s cortisone levels rise and blood pressure rises. These are physiological changes that make “fight or flight” possible. But over prolonged periods of time, being in such a physiological state is bad for you and can lead to physical illness.

Besides being unhealthy for the body, holding onto rage way past its expiration date makes it impossible to move forward to a place of real healing. If you feel rage all the time, you simply cannot move forward. It blocks you from opening your heart to all the good things that life can offer. Frankly, I was just becoming bored with it. There had to be something better beyond it–and there is!

I see this unwillingness or inability to let go of chronic rage and hatred in many survivors of narcissistic abuse, especially ACONs who were raised by narcissistic parents. Of course it’s perfectly understandable to feel an almost overwhelming sense of injustice and betrayal when you realize your own parents didn’t love you and in fact probably hated you and set you up to fail in life. It’s understandable to hate the people who were supposed to nurture you and give you the tools you needed to have a happy life but instead attempted to murder your soul. I get it, I really do. I felt that way about my mother for many years.

Some of these chronically angry abuse survivors have embraced a mentality of perpetual victimhood, using their rage as a sort of trophy “proving” how abused they were. They can’t or won’t let go of their rage because it makes them feel vindicated. I remember reading a comment from one angry ACON who said if he/she were to let go of their bitterness and hatred, they would have let their abusers “win.” But this person is wrong. Because paradoxically, remaining stuck in misery, rage and hatred is making it impossible for this person to heal and live a happy life, and isn’t being miserable exactly what their narcs want? Holding onto rage and wallowing in all the ways they victimized us vindicates the narcissist, not the victim. If our rage destroys or kills us (because eventually it can), the narcissists will be throwing a party to celebrate.

I think the best revenge is to live well. If a victim of abuse moves into a place of peace where healing is possible and can learn to become happy and even successful in life and stop using their victimhood as a kind of trophy, their narcissists will HATE that! Nothing enrages an abuser more than seeing their victims become happy and successful (and not bitter or angry). So how does healing ourselves and letting go of our “trophies” of rage and hate let the narcs win? It doesn’t. In fact, WE win and THEY lose.

But if I were to say this to them (and I have), I would be accused of “victim blaming” and even “narc hugging.” They would say my blog is “dangerous” to abuse survivors (and they have!) They would accuse me of having no empathy for their plight and am in fact taking the side of those who abused them! None of that is true. They just don’t get it. They think that because I’m suggesting they move away from their hatred, this means I’m blaming them for their misery and making excuses for the narcissists who abused them. This is a dangerous and tragic misunderstanding because they can’t even see the way they have been turned against themselves by their own narcissists! They can’t allow themselves to ever feel happy or let go of the bitterness that continues to hold them hostage to their narcissists even after they’ve gone No Contact.

Narcissism is the “gift” that keeps on giving if you let it. You can’t be happy if your default setting is rage. All that rage will eventually destroy your body AND your soul. In fact, living in a state of perpetual rage can turn a person narcissistic themselves. It’s a fact–I have seen it happen and it’s a horrible and scary thing to witness.

I read a post on Constant Supply: The Narcissist’s Wife about the very same thing I’m talking about here, and their post is what inspired me to write this article. I’d been wanting to write about this, but due to the nasty pile-on I experienced from several ACON bloggers a few weeks back due to an article I posted suggesting we stop hating on all narcissists (the message of which was taken WAY out of context–in no way did I EVER suggest we condone what narcs do or engage with them in any way), I’ve been reluctant to post any more articles even touching on this touchy matter.

Reading this blogger’s article gave me the courage to express my feelings about this apparently controversial issue. I’m prepared to be attacked again, but at least I know what to expect now and can arm myself accordingly. While the blogger I mentioned in the previous paragraph does talk about “forgiving” her narcissist, I wouldn’t go that far myself. I don’t ‘forgive’ my narcissists for the way they held me back all my life and nearly destroyed me, but I no longer choose to hate them either. My attitude about them is that they simply do. not. exist. They are no longer an important part of my life and I refuse to give them any more space in my brain than they deserve. Don’t forget that narcissists crave attention–ANY attention–and that includes negative as well as positive attention. To act as if the narcs don’t even exist is what they hate and fear more than anything in the universe.

Living well and healing yourself without reacting to our narcissists either negatively or positively is the sweetest revenge possible. The narcs will hate you for it.

We are all at different points of our recovery journey, and those who seem stuck in the “rage” setting (which is normal and necessary early in recovery) and have thereby not been able to move forward to real healing should not pass judgment on those who may be farther along the road and have reached a place where holding onto all that hatred was becoming burdensome and harmful.

I chose to jettison all that negative baggage to make my progress along the rocky road of recovery easier, and I have seen many others do it too, and actually become happy people. I hope and pray eventually ALL abuse survivors can reach a point when they realize holding onto their baggage is self-destructive and is holding them back from true healing–and is keeping them trapped in their own identity as “victims.”

I’m prepared to be disagreed with for posting this, but frankly I don’t care. If you are one of those who choose to hang onto your chronic rage, that’s your choice, and I respect that choice. I have no right to judge you or condemn you for doing so. But I don’t think it’s helpful or healthy. Hopefully, some people who have this problem might be able to take away something positive from this article and be able to extricate themselves from the quicksand of rage and continue to move along the road to recovery.

Please also see my article, Why Unrelenting, Chronic Rage is So Toxic.

Narcissism’s Emotional Fallout

Posted on April 16, 2015 by luckyotter

Here is another great blog I found, and this is a great article. We are all at different stages of processing the narcissistic abuse that was done to us, and this writer points out that we should not take negative comments personally and as people in recovery, we may ourselves act testy or negative at times, even when blogging.

For me, blogging about narcissism is smething that makes me happy–even though the topic is a dark one. I love everything about writing and blogging about narcissism, even the emotional pain and yes, testiness and negativity that tends to arise from time to time. We have lived in an emotional war zone for most of our lives and it wouldn’t be realistic to expect us to be Sunshine Susies all all the time. Sometimes we’re going to be Debbie Downers instead.

Blogging about narcissism is hard, hard work, because at the time we are blogging, we are also doing deep self-therapy and painful emotions can come to the surface and cause us to say and do things we normally wouldn’t. But in spite of all this, I feel like this is my life’s calling and is leading to a future career as a writer. I have never been more deeply involved or emotionally invested in any hobby I ever had…and this is a hobby, but more, so much more. Read on!

In the Net! - Pictures and Stories of Life

I’ve noticed from time to time a tendency on some of the narcissism blogs that I read, for people to get a little testy about the things said about narcissism, narcissists and their victims. I have experienced testy commentary a couple of times and in one case, an outright angry response to a comment that I made – an accusation that I didn’t understand narcissism, that I didn’t know what I was talking about, that I didn’t know what it is like to be a victim.

Initially, I was hurt by the remark. I took it personally.

Reading, writing and thinking about narcissism is an emotional and arduous task. It requires a great deal of work, very difficult work that takes time, effort and sometimes, money.

When I first separated from my ex-narcissist, I went for counselling. I was fortunate on several fronts. First, I had a health care account that allowed…

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Self pity and stress.

Posted on March 28, 2015 by luckyotter

Today wasn’t a good day, except for it being Friday.

1. I woke up with a pounding headache.
2. Traffic jam made me late again.
3. I wasn’t in a good mood and was being hypersensitive to everything. I felt like my coworker was picking on me today even though she probably wasn’t. Some days I just take everything the wrong way.
4. I felt depressed and negative all day, and I’ve noticed after some time of feeling more positive that a negative outlook tends to attract negative things.
5. I was unfavorably comparing myself to others who have things better. That’s a bad character defect (envy) I’m trying to work on.
6. I had another argument with my roommate. I’m convinced she is doing things to annoy me on purpose. I won’t even get into what the argument was about because it was stupid.
6. It was cold and windy and they are predicting snow tonight. I hate cold weather.
7. I was trying to renew my antivirus software and couldn’t open the browser to renew it. I Googled a customer service number for Norton and called the first one that came up, which was a shady company (iYogi–do NOT talk to them!) that supposedly represents Norton. I got a very nasty guy who barely spoke English who I allowed to remote access my computer, and he told me my hard drive was corrupted and then started hard-selling me some bullshit program to clean up my hard drive “that only cost $149.99 and you get all this!” He was almost impossible to get off the phone and started yelling at me and telling me I was being uncooperative because I wasn’t buying his hard sell.

I finally got him off the phone (he kept asking when he could call me) and scrolled on Google until I found a real customer service number and they were able to help me. Of course there wasn’t anything wrong with my hard drive, only a browser hijacker (Astromenda–be careful, it’s very hard to get rid of and it slows your system down and makes pages hard to open) that was blocking my access to certain pages. He told me people have complained to him before about iYogi. If you have Norton and have to call customer service, be sure it’s the actual Norton (Symantec) website’s number.

I don’t know why everything has to be so hard.

That’s it for the negativity for today. Tomorrow’s another day.

Sometimes you have to remind yourself you are still moving forward even if you take a step back sometimes. I don’t have as many bad days as I used to. But I was beating myself up for having a bad day, being negative, oversensitive, hypervigilant, impatient, and envious. I need to stop beating myself up all the time. I’m too hard on myself. I was trained too well.

My journey so far: a timeline of recovery

Posted on December 15, 2014 by luckyotter

Here I am going to show you my timeline in recovery from narcissistic abuse because I’m noticing some fascinating patterns and certain things are becoming much more clear from looking at it.

My Recovery Timeline

2006: Following my divorce, my father sent me a copy of M. Scott Peck’s book “People of the Lie.” While I was still deeply enmeshed with my psychopathic ex, and nowhere near recovery, this was the book that planted the seed for what was to start growing years later. I think this was a sign from God that I needed to make some serious changes but I didn’t recognize it at the time. But I was able, for the first time, to recognize the MNs in my life for what they truly were: evil people. Recognition is the first step in recovery, even if it takes a while to get the ball rolling.

February 2014: 8 years later, I finally had the catalyst I needed and the strength of will to get rid of my narc, who had been leeching off me, using me and manipulating me and our kids for 7 years. (I had allowed him to move back in with me in 2007, a huge mistake). This decision arose from Michael becoming violent toward our daughter. I wasn’t aware before that physical violence wasn’t necessary to obtain a restraining order–I could have obtained one at any time since we were no longer legally married. But maybe I wasn’t strong enough yet and it took an act of violence to inspire me to finally take some real action. I put up with a lot of his other shit, but violence was something I simply would not tolerate, even in my weakened state. Yes, it was scary as hell to do this, but I am so glad I did.

February – July 2014: I had to learn how to live alone again and become independent. There was a part of me that felt I actually needed him, even though he “needed” me far more. I wasn’t just afraid of what he might do if I made him leave, I was also afraid of living alone without him, though I can’t really fathom why since all he did was use and abuse me. This was a difficult and lonely time, but I began to feel a little like a person again.

July – September 2014: I began to educate myself about narcissistic personality disorder and the community of survivors of narcissistic abuse, particularly ACONs. The first blog I started to read was Dr. George K. Simon’s excellent blog, Manipulative People. I posted a few times there and “came out” there as an ACON and abuse survivor, but mostly I just read. I also ordered his excellent books, “In Sheeps Clothing” and “Character Disturbance.” (You can find the links for both his blog and the books in the Info and Support tab in the green header above.) I also found other good blogs written by survivors of narcissism and psychopathy, and among these settled on a few favorites, especially Five Hundred Pound Peep’s blog because she was Aspie like me and had a mother who sounded almost exactly like mine. (Her blog is also listed in Info and Support).

September 2014: Inspired mostly by FHPP’s blog (but others too–see Info and Support for a list of other blogs and resources I think stand out), I decided to start my own. The decision came from out of the blue–it wasn’t something I had to think about. Prior to that, I had always been afraid to start a blog–I thought it would be too hard. But on September 10th it was like I got struck by lightning and without even thinking about it I went to WordPress (after first trying Blogspot and finding it required me to use my real name because it’s connected to Google) and immediately started a blog. In retrospect, I think this action was actually inspired in me by God. I was finally strong enough to start my own course of self therapy (and unbenownst to me, help others in the process of helping myself).

September – November 2014: While my blog wasn’t an immediate hit and started off quite slowly, I had several “mentors” along the way, such as OM from Harsh Reality, who helped me make my blog more visible and got me more followers. At first writing seemed like a chore sometimes and I had to discipline myself to write a post a day (and sometimes I skipped a day or two). Sometimes I wrote two. After a while I found that I couldn’t stop writing (and now I write about 3-5 a day!)

My early posts were almost as likely to be about topics besides narcissism (music, religion, funny rants, photos, etc.). It was good practice, but sometimes I think I was trying to distract myself from the real issue I needed to confront. Posting fluff pieces allowed me to avoid that, but still gave me practice writing and blogging every day.

By November I was addicted and rather than blogging seeming like a chore or work, it was becoming a passion. I was a writing maniac! I couldn’t seem to stop writing, and if you look at “Archives,” every month I have more posts than the last. I realized with great relief and joy that I had never lost my writing ability and this is actually my strongest method of communication. I began to build a small following. I had never known how to use the writing gift God gave me and didn’t think I could ever help anyone using it, especially myself. But all that was being proven wrong again and again.

During the same period of time, I began to explore spirituality and religion. Many of my posts are about my spiritual journey from near-agnosticism and even a slight antagonism toward Christianity, but sometime in October, through a sequence of events (the posts are under “My Story” in the green header), I settled on becoming a Catholic. It’s Christianity (though I know some Christians disagree!) but doesn’t go against my deep love and respect for science and other beliefs I hold dear that I cannot let go of. I have never liked the hellfire and brimstone doctrine of fundamentalist Christianity; but Catholicism isn’t wimpy and wishy washy either, like some liberal Protestant churches. I also love the Eucharist and all the ritual (for aesthetic reasons–I know ritual isn’t important in salvation). While I don’t agree with all Catholic doctrine, much to my surprise I found myself agreeing with most of it. I signed up for RCIA classes (Rite of Christian Initiation) at the local Catholic church and have been attending those and weekly Bible studies regularly. I will be accepted into the Catholic church at their Easter mass. I am very excited!

I believe now there was a very good reason for my becoming a Christian and strengthening my belief in Jesus Christ as God and savior when I did. Never before in my life had I been able to understand the concept of the Trinity or the concept of Jesus as a tripartate person of One God, or why he would have sacrificed himself for us on the Cross. Suddenly I found myself understanding these concepts and beginning to internalize them. Yes, I still have doubts and I still have problems with the Bible, and have not had any sudden, earthshattering conversion like Saul/Paul, but from my agnosticism of a couple of months back, I have gradually come to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior, and that prepared me for the next step in my journey, because I was about to enter a very dark and potentially dangerous place for anyone who does not have a strong faith. It could have been my undoing, but is proving to be anything but.

November – December 2014: In mid-November, I watched “I Psychopath” for the second time and became fascinated with its subject, self-proclaimed narcissist Sam Vaknin, whose excellent (if rather scholarly and ponderous) writings about narcissism and narcissistic abuse are exhaustive and highly available to anyone who wants to read them. I wrote an article about my observations about the film, and Sam himself not only commented several times on my post, he shared it on social media so that in a matter of a day or two, I saw a spike in my stats like I’d never seen before. It was unreal.

I wrote a followup a few days later; the same thing happened. I started to read his personal journals and diaries, and found myself deep inside his strange psyche. I wanted to write a biography about him. A narc who was that insightful and (inadvertently) helped so many people was such an oxymoron I had to find out as much as I could about why someone could be like that. But in reading his honest but highly emotional journals and the devastating abuse that led to him developing NPD, I was feeling myself starting to be drawn to a very dark place. I couldn’t explain it, but I began to feel like I was losing focus on my OWN recovery, and the recovery of fellow ACONs and focusing entirely too much attention on one man’s disorder, for which there is no known cure.

So I decided last week to put the book idea on the back burner, until I am stronger and have gone further in my recovery journey. While I’m still reading his writings, it’s for education, not to focus all my attention on a project about someone else that would eclipse my own recovery. I prayed about this and felt that God had gave me the answer: keep this idea in your mind but put it on the back burner until you’re emotionally and spiritually stronger. Delving too deeply into a disordered mind like Vaknin’s at this point in my journey without proper armor could be mentally and spiritually dangerous.

So I moved on, but have found within the past week or so that my blog posts have become much deeper, darker and more focused on the supernatural and “evil” nature of NPD. My posts have also become a lot more personal and confessional. I’m digging deeper into the disorders of those who raised me.

While this might seem like a negative thing, it isn’t. Because looking at narcissism this way is giving me clarity and more incentive than ever to fight against its evil. We can’t fight against something or really deal with it on a deeper level until we understand its true nature (without allowing ourselves to be exposed to it). I am very careful not to engage with real-life narcissists or only engage with them as often as I absolutely must. This way, I am removed from it while at the same time I can study it at close range the way an astronomer can study the stars under a high powered telescope: he is not out there in the stars, but can study them with with objectivity and distance.

In my last post I described a powerful nightmare that stuck with me all day today (I did wind up going to work after all). I won’t analyze it piece by piece, but I think it was both a warning and a revelation: to move forward but tread carefully into the study of malignant narcissism and how it’s infected my family, because to be too hasty and dive too deep too soon in my present still fairly weak spiritual state could be my undoing.

I could be entering dangerous territory where I myself could be taken over by evil (represented at the end of the dream–I believe the robot-like “host” was actually a demon or the devil himself, who controlled everything in that house; and my inability to escape (except through waking) because the car (that represented God and light) that was to take me away had left. I did have the presence of mind to tell the devil to “go fuck himself” but that may have enraged him too. But the fact that through my terror I still had a fighting spirit and was willing to take him proved I have some strength of will now that I never had before. I think this dream was a warning to take things slowly and only with God by my side as my protector and guide.
Because when we are dealing with the subject of malignant narcissism, we are dealing with evil itself. My growing relationship with God is important to help me resist those evils even while exploring them in more depth.

God makes all things happen only when we are ready.

The poem I wrote yesterday was similar to my dream and very much related to it. In it, I was told I “passed the test” which I think means my “primary education” (being raised and abused by MNs and psychopaths most of my life) is now no longer necessary and now I’m ready to begin the next level of self discovery.

Over these past few months I’ve become less depressed and much happier overall. I feel for the first time in my life like God has a clear plan for me, I have a future and everything that led up to this was a test and an education. I feel like I’m being called to eventually help other victims find their way out of the barbed wire jungle of psychopathy and narcissism.

Why making your own timeline is a good idea.

Making a timeline is an exercise you can do too. You can chart out your own timeline of recovery in a similar manner and it will become much clearer how far you’ve come and what patterns have developed. You can also see where you may need to shift your focus if you have become stuck or are finding yourself in a dark place.

Timelines can also give you some idea of the next steps you may need to take. You can learn a lot about yourself and your recovery from doing this. You don’t have to make it public like I’ve done; you can do it with pen and paper and just keep it for your own reference. Seeing any kind of physical representation of your journey to recovery can give you an amazing amount of clarity and focus. Making a recovery timeline can act like a good pair of glasses.

Staying Balanced.

I think lately I’ve been focusing a little too much on the dark side of narcissism (well, it IS dark) but there is a good reason for that right now.

Still, I think everyone (including me) needs an antidote to all this darkness. So my next post after this will be about something positive or practical instead of something dark. It might even be about another subject besides NPD. It might even be a fluff post!

I want this blog to remain interesting to the followers who are reading it for other reasons. Not all my followers are ACONS or victims of other psychopathic relationships. I used to post more about other things but a lot of things have been happening to me from blogging about it and that’s why I seem to post less now about other topics that are more “fun” than narcissism. But we all need a break from it sometimes.