When a scapegoat dances in the love of God

Posted on August 19, 2016 by luckyotter

This post just begs to be reblogged.

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Losing the false “I’m unlovable” scapegoat baggage

Posted on July 26, 2016 by luckyotter

Katie has done it again! I could relate to every single word in this post. I could have written this myself. There’s no need for me to editorialize any further.

Please leave comments on the original post.

Am I am empath?

Posted on July 24, 2016 by luckyotter

I’m a little scared to post this, but I’m going to anyway. I’ve never regretted posting anything I’ve felt shy about posting.

Until very recently, I always thought people who say they’re empaths sounded a bit grandiose or even a little narcissistic. I never thought I was an empath, but as some of the toxic thinking patterns I was so trapped in begin to fall away (this is a very slow process!), I find that I’m better able to “see” things I couldn’t see since I was a small child. The “things” I see are what lies behind the facade all of us have to some degree or another, a facade which narcissists have become so effective at building that their real selves are all but obliterated (but they’re not really).

I was very emotional as a child and felt everything around me intensely. My sensitivity made me not only prone to being a target for bullies, but also physically vulnerable: I spent a lot of time sick and I had many allergies. I had terrible ear infections that left me nearly deaf in my left ear. The doctors said I was healthy and couldn’t figure out why I was always so sick.

Abused by my narcissistic family and the bullies at school, I gradually learned that it was too dangerous to fully feel my emotions or to connect with people on an emotional, meaningful level. I was made fun of or punished in some way. So I shut myself off from feeling anything but the most banal or self defeating emotions, only those that concerned myself or ensured my survival: fear, anger, jealousy, frustration, boredom, sexual desire, and a pseudo-love known as limerence. Rarely could I feel true sadness, joy, love, contentment, friendship, connection with God or nature, or caring deeply for another. I felt like I couldn’t connect with other people meaningfully but was still always quick to take offense to insults. This manifested in unpleasant ways like “going off” on people or losing control. I often scared people with the intensity of my rages and low frustration tolerance. Fear–a survival emotion–remained dominant. My programming told me I needed that fear to survive, but it sure hasn’t made for a pleasant time of things, and made me afraid to take any risks at all.

Worst of all, my heart became closed. I stopped being able to laugh or cry with abandon or with another person. I loved the idea of getting close to others and having meaningful relationships, but the reality was just too scary and the relationships I did have were either meaningless and shallow or unhealthy and toxic. I learned to isolate myself from others and avoid other people because other people meant pain. I isolated myself not only physically, but by making it difficult for people to be around me. I couldn’t stick with anything. I couldn’t finish anything. I couldn’t achieve anything. I was afraid to fail because failure meant certain rejection. This is what my narcissistic family taught me. This comprises the genesis of my BPD (which I think is finally beginning to fall away).

Five things have led to my ability to begin to let go and to reconnect with the self I lost as a child and young adult, listed in order of their importance to me.

1. My relationship with God
2. Therapy
3. Blogging and writing (self-reflection)
4. Music — it’s incredible how powerful it is!
5. Time spent in nature, including time with animals (they teach us so much)

I won’t describe the means by which these five things are working for me, since I have done that elsewhere and it would turn this post into a book. But what’s beginning to happen is I’m realizing I genuinely care about others. I never thought I did. It wasn’t that I didn’t care before, it was because I was so protective of myself I couldn’t let those feelings of caring be consciously felt. Now when I hear a fellow victim talk about a lifetime of abuse or scapegoating, I feel true empathy for them because I’m more able to allow myself to experience my own pain and process it and that makes it easier to relate to the pain of someone who went through similar trauma. So I can no longer say I’m really empathy challenged. I always had it in me.

Something even more amazing is starting to happen. I’m becoming somehow able to see the lost child in the people I talk to on both my blogs. I may have always had this ability. From the time I was a young child, I could pick up the emotions of others around me. When I picked up my mother’s emotions, she told me to stop “acting spooky.” I think my X-ray vision scared her.

But I couldn’t just throw up a false self and become a narc. I lacked the right temperament. It was always so hard for me to hide the way I felt. So I went into hiding instead–emotionally and sometimes physically–becoming a near hermit. I stopped being able to have any deep relationships, even real life friendships. I stopped being able to feel the higher emotions that bring us joy and deep connection with others. These are symptoms of Avoidant Personality Disorder, which I had/have along with BPD and C-PTSD.

My life became drained of any joy or color. But now, I can see the hurt inner child in others, which is ironic since I still have so much trouble connecting with my own hurt child. This ability to see the real selves in the people who come to my blogs (or post on other blogs) even extends to people with narcissistic personality disorder. When I look at a narc now, I don’t see someone to hate or be terrified of, I see someone who didn’t get enough love and has no idea who they are. I think of my parents and feel so sad that they spent their lives spiritually asleep instead of awakening to the authentic people they could have been. But I don’t think they chose narcisissm–no child ever makes such a choice, at least not consciously.

I believe in No Contact. I don’t think any lay person can fix a narcissist and it’s always best to get away for your survival and sanity. But that doesn’t mean things are hopeless for a narcissist, should they sincerely want to connect with their real emotions. More therapists are needed who have the courage to work with these difficult and often infuriating people. Therapists who can help them realize the potential to love and feel the real emotions they were born with, who can help them break down the strong fortress they have built around themselves to keep everyone out. This must be done by professionals, and it can take a long time and it won’t be an easy road. I think there must also be a spiritual component, an acceptance that there is something–if not God, then some Intelligence or Presence–that is greater than all of us and is always healing and benevolent. I think the stigma is so bad that therapists either won’t treat them or give up when the going gets rough. Yes, some narcissists will leave. But some won’t, if the therapist is empathic and skilled enough and the narcissist wants change bad enough.

Both narcissism and C-PTSD and other problems caused by abuse all have their roots in childhood trauma. Why only focus on healing for the victims? Narcissistic abuse is a terrible thing. But it will continue as long as there are narcissists walking around allowed to get away with turning people into victims. If we can get to the root of the problem and help the narcissists themselves, then narcissistic abuse will end and there will be no more victims either. It’s analogous to alleviating crime in a city by addressing the problem of poverty that led to it. As long as you ignore poverty, crime will continue and there will always be crime victims.

I seem to have an uncanny ability to see the real, lost self behind a narcissist’s facade. This surprises me, because it seems like a quality an empath would have and I never thought I was one–just a run of the mill HSP. But through therapy, prayer, being in the natural world, music, and writing, I feel like my heart has opened and with that, a kind of X-ray vision. I’ve actually had self aware and some diagnosed narcissists come to me (mostly on Down The Rabbit Hole) telling me the blog has helped them and they are learning from it, or admitting they want help. A few have emailed me because they’re too ashamed of their narcissism to post on a public blog. Right now, all I can do is try to offer encouragement and direct them to other resources. I feel empathy for them, just as I feel empathy for the abuse victims on Lucky Otter’s Haven and here too. I wish I could help them more than I can right now.

I think I’m being called to something–working with people with NPD (as well as other trauma victims)–that’s going to take a lot of strength and courage and could even be emotionally and spiritually dangerous if I’m not very careful or don’t know exactly what I’m doing. It’s going to take a lot of training, and right now there are a lot of logistical problems (lack of money or time to go back to school; getting older; not liking confrontation and being socially awkward in general). But I feel like God has a plan and some doors will begin to open. I can work on my awkwardness and fear of confrontation in therapy (and these things are a result of low self esteem, not an “introverted” temperament). Working with people with NPD is something very few people dare venture into. It’s also something a lot of narc-abuse survivors have trouble understanding. A few even think it’s wrong. I don’t believe it is. I’m not ready to do it yet. But I feel like this is the shape my life is taking and the reason why everything happened the way it did. It was the reason for all my suffering.

Born an empath to narcissistic parents, they could not handle my ability to absorb the feelings of those around me and “see through” facades. They worked day and night to disable my gift because they were so afraid of it. But in spite of everything, I still have the gift and I want to use it to help people like my parents, even if my parents rejected the illumination of truth that gift had the power to reveal.

Gifts a scapegoat brings to the world

Posted on July 23, 2016 by luckyotter

I thought Katie was gone, but she came back just when I needed her posts like a starving person needs a nourishing meal.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been depressed and resentful about my scapegoat status in my family and repeated throughout my life (especially in the workplace), sinking into resentment, envy, and self pity. These are bad emotions for me, they are bad for anyone! These emotions poison your soul. In fact, last night I told my wonderful therapist that I didn’t think therapy was working, because I felt like I’ve taken 3 steps back and failing to make any more progress. He reminded me that a lot of negative and self defeating emotions got triggered starting with my father’s death last month. He’s right, of course, but I still wasn’t buying it.

Reading Katie’s latest two posts made me realize that my unhappy upbringing, continued tendency to be the target of abusers, and lifelong, seemingly intractable poverty as an adult didn’t just happen in vain. I feel strongly, like Katie does, that those of us who were scapegoats and have suffered so much must be very spiritually strong for us to have been chosen for such difficult and harsh training–training for something far more wonderful than having the latest SUV or European vacation. If that sounds grandiose, then so be it, but I simply won’t and can’t believe that what happened to us happened for no reason at all.

Sometimes I yell at God.

Posted on June 29, 2016 by luckyotter

I talk to God a lot in my car, driving to and from work. Sometimes I talk to him at other times too, like when I’m in the shower or cleaning a house. Lately I’ve been getting in the habit of talking to him first thing upon awakening, even before my morning coffee. I think this is progress.

I guess you could say what I do is basically prayer, only it seems friendlier to to me think of “prayer” as having a conversation, and that’s what God and I seem to be doing. Even when it seems to be just a one sided conversation, with me doing all the talking (which it usually is), I just know that God is listening. And God does provide answers–maybe not right away, and maybe in ways I don’t expect, but my prayers do get acknowledged.

All relationships have their ups and downs, and my relationship with God is no exception. Sometimes I’m filled with gratitude and have nothing but praise for my Heavenly Therapist; but there are times when I’m mad at him. I mean, really furious-mad–spitting foam out the corners of your mouth enraged. When I get that mad, I yell. I know God can take it. Humans are more fragile; you can’t just go around screaming in their faces. Some people do that, but you might get beaten up for doing it. I know God won’t beat me up if I yell at him, and he won’t send me to hell either.

I used to be afraid to get angry at God. But I’ve come to know God well enough to know he’s not going to judge me for stating my opinions or even blaming him for the things that have made my life so ridiculously difficult. Like any loving father, God loves his children unconditionally, no matter how badly we behave. God knows what’s in our hearts, and yelling at God at least acknowledges I know he’s present and listening. And so, yelling at God becomes a form of prayer.

I screamed at God again this morning in the car. I woke up feeling triggered again by issues that were brought to the surface of my consciousness by my dad’s death almost a month ago (has it actually been that long?) I was feeling sorry for myself, bitter, enraged, sad, guilty, and regretful all at the same time. But the primary emotion I’ve been feeling is anger (which I know is a flimsy cover for the hurt and pain that lies beneath that). I wanted to get it off my chest and needed someone to blame, so I blamed God.

“Why did you let an emotionally fragile person like me be born to callous, hardened narcs?” I screamed at the top of my lungs, making the driver in the next lane stare at me curiously (my windows were rolled down). “It’s not f__king fair!,” I bellowed, not giving a damn that I dropped the F bomb in the presence of the Almighty. He was going to hear it from me!

“You are Almighty,” I continued, “you have all the power. You could have made things different, but YOU CHOSE NOT TO! WHY? You could have let me be born to people who knew how to love me and wouldn’t abandon me and turn against me later. Who would have helped me build healthy self esteem, who would always be there for me no matter what. You could have stopped me from marrying a sociopath narcissist who tried to obliterate me and almost turned my kids against me too! You could have let me develop enough confidence to be successful at something in this world and take a few risks instead of being a little pussy too afraid to come out of my box. But, NOOOOOOO,” I screamed sarcastically like the late John Belushi. “You let me suffer instead! You let everyone keep victimizing me even though YOU COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING ABOUT IT! WHY? WHY? For the love of God (yeah, that’s you–OWN IT!), WHY??? (this said banging my fists on the dashboard after each “WHY?”). Why do you keep letting me struggle to survive, live paycheck to paycheck, even though I work and work and work and work until I feel like I’m going to die? And then get looked down on by my own family for not being as successful as them! Why does everyone else get all the breaks in life and I never do? I don’t have ANY advantages, NONE! I don’t have financial security, own my own home, I don’t have a supportive family, I don’t have a large circle of friends to stand in for family because I lack the confidence to reach out to anyone! I have no self confidence, I have no husband or lover, I’m all ALONE in the world, ALONE! DO YOU HEAR ME? Dammit. I can’t get close to ANYONE! And I’m SICK of it! You let people who do NOTHING throughout their whole lives, who had everything come easy to them, who haven’t suffered more than a chipped fingernail, people who never lift a finger for anyone else, EVER, who ABUSE others, then they get rewarded even more than they already are? WHY? WHY? WHY? HOW IS THAT FAIR? I DEMAND an answer. Dammit, I am MAD. What did I do to deserve this, God? WHAT? Nothing, that’s what! Sometimes I think you hate me! Sometimes I wonder why you let me even be born–it would have been better if I was aborted because the pain would only be for a minute or maybe not at all and not for a whole f__king lifetime! WHY, GOD, WHY? I DEMAND ANSWERS!”

After one of these rants, I’ll feel a bit better–exhausted and a little out of breath, but kind of relieved and relaxed too. Sheepishly, I’ll apologize for my outburst, and ask God to forgive me.

What I imagine then is a bemused smile on God’s face, for he is all forgiving and doesn’t hold grudges. I think he’s glad I turn to him in my moments of need, angry or not. He isn’t going to judge me by my moods or emotions. Ever so gently and quietly, he reminds me that adversity breeds wisdom and God has given me a difficult path because he has something planned for me that requires that particular kind of training–not because he hates my guts and wants me to suffer. Finally, in his patient and gentle way, he’ll remind me of all the things I do have to be grateful for right now, that my life is really much more blessed than it seemed 5 minutes ago when I was ranting like a banshee from hell.

****

Antidote to this post:
Changes

Changes.

Posted on June 26, 2016 by luckyotter

I never used to be able to relate to “positive thinking” statements. They seemed trite and shallow, as if they were made up for other people–people with normal lives, normal families, normal incomes, good jobs, who didn’t suffer from mental illness, who hadn’t been abused by almost everyone they had known, and who had an actual future to look forward to.

Dying slowly.

When I was with my narcopath ex, I really didn’t have a future. Not if I’d stayed with him. I was slowly dying a long, excruciating death–a death by annihilation of my spirit. His abuse was effecting my body, my mind, my emotions, and my soul. Pictures of me taken when I was with him compared to pictures taken of me now show the toll the relationship was taking on me. I looked older 3 years ago than I do now–and my depression showed on my face in every picture, even the smiling ones. I was overweight and miserable. Even my hair looked depressed, dull and without shine. When I was told to “just think positive” I felt nothing but rage and frustration. How could I even hope to have a better life, how could I even hope to ever be happy? A smiley face meme, a “thought for the day,” or “inspirational” coffee mug just wasn’t going to do it for me. And those things can be shallow and trite, but that doesn’t mean that a positive outlook is forever barred from me. It doesn’t mean I can’t still find happiness.

Cynicism and bitterness.

Even if I hadn’t been abused, by nature, I’m a depressive sort of person. As an INFJ, I think deeply about things and feel them even more deeply. I’m a worrywart who tends to see the glass as half empty. I catastrophize and ruminate and obsess and worry about almost everything. I get upset when I hear about wars, murders, shootings, racism, sexism, injustice, unkindness in general, and most of all, the abuse of animals and kids. Or the abuse of anyone for that matter.

I see all the trappings of success–big houses, late model cars, vacations, the latest this or that–and feel depressed because those things will never be mine. I wasn’t invited to be in the Club. I feel victimized and alone in the world. I used to think God hated me. I almost became an atheist–but not quite. I always felt *some* kind of presence, but didn’t think that presence thought very highly of me. I even thought that my purpose for existing was to be an example to others of what not to be. I felt like I was held in contempt and condescending pity by everyone. But what I didn’t know was I was projecting my own sense of self-hatred and hopelessness onto whatever Higher Intelligence was out there and everyone else too. The internal voices instilled in me by my emotional abusive upbringing echoed down the years and contaminated any ability I had to find joy and meaning in life. I became bitter and cynical, and turned up my nose at “happy people,” assuming they had no depth at all–but was it really just because I envied their ability to feel joy?

Slouching toward heaven.

When I finally went No Contact with my ex, things began to change. Not a lot at first, but for the first time ever, I felt some hope and even fleeting glimpses of joy. I started to blog. Writing down my feelings about what happened to me helped me make sense of them. Through blogging, I found a community of others in a similar situation. I no longer felt so alone. Blogging was the best sort of self-therapy I could have hoped for. A talent for writing was the one tool I had that began to help me be able to lift myself out of the mire.

Eventually, this got me to the point of wanting something more–an actual relationship with God. A lifelong agnostic, I began going to church and decided to become Catholic. I started to pray a lot more (I call it “talking to God,” which sounds friendlier). My faith was shaky and fragile (and still is), but I kept plugging away, asking God to give me the ability to trust him and to give me faith. If I couldn’t trust other people, it was especially hard to trust an entity I couldn’t even see. Sometimes I felt like God wasn’t listening and had doubts that he existed at all. But God was always someone I could turn to when no one else seemed to care. I had no choice! Over time, I felt myself beginning to change from within. I began to appreciate the things I had more, instead of feeling resentful and envious of others for having more than I did. I’ve even had a few of those rare transformative moments of gratitude and happiness so profound it brought me to tears.

I am grateful.

I may not have a lot, but I have what I need, and that’s a lot more than many. I don’t live in the best house in the world, but it’s a nice place to live and I like its cuteness and coziness. I don’t drive a late model car, but I have one that’s reliable and gets me where I need to go. I don’t come from a big loving supportive family, but I have two wonderful children who I have a good relationship with. I can’t afford to take real vacations, but I have a car to go on short day trips. I live in a beautiful part of the country, even if I’m jaded and don’t appreciate it as much as I used to. I can sit on my porch and see mountains and trees and flowers and see the night sky. I can hear birds singing outside my window. I don’t have to look outside my window and see a back alley full of broken glass and hear sirens and people fighting all night. I don’t love my job, but it pays for what I need and there are a lot worse things I could be doing. I have two wonderful cats. I have writing ability. My blog is doing well and is not only helping me, but it’s helping others too. I have a wonderful, empathic therapist who almost seemed to drop out of the sky at just the right time. Lately, I’ve been finding myself thinking that my glass is half full instead of half empty. That’s God changing my attitude in a really big way.

It’s not a smooth road. I still get triggered and go back to my old thinking patterns. I stil have days where I feel hopeless and unloved. These attitudes are so ingrained in me that removing them sometimes feels like performing a skeleton transplant. But all I have to do is lean on God and tell him I can’t handle it myself–and things do begin to look better. God is working on me, changing my attitudes, and people have said they’ve noticed a difference in me.

Big changes, bright future.

I have a very strong feeling that God is planning a major change for me in the near future–a change that would give me a whole fresh start and more choices than I’ve had. It looks very likely that in the very near future, probably before winter (my least favorite season–I hate it!) sets in, I will be moving to Florida to join my son. I won’t be living with my son; I will have my own place. He thinks he can get me a job where he works too. I will be living near the beach. I can watch the sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico every night if I want. While I love the North Carolina mountains, they don’t speak to my soul the way the ocean does, not even after 23 years of living here. I grew up in coastal New Jersey and New York and used to hit the beach every weekend in the summer since it was no more than an hour away from where I lived. The ocean is in my blood. Here where I live now, getting to the beach requires planning a vacation or at least a weekend getaway since the closest beach is a five hour drive away. I never have enough funds to do that though. I haven’t seen the ocean since 2008. That’s far too long.

I have no ties to North Carolina. There’s nothing left for me here–no friends, no family, no pressing commitments–so I won’t have any misgivings about packing up and leaving when the time is imminent. I’m trying to get my daughter to come with me, because I think she needs a change too. There’s nothing left for her here either except her dad, but he is a toxic person and her relationship with him is a codependent one. She may not want to leave him though. She feels responsible for him. But when and if she decides enough is enough (and I’m praying she does), the invitation to join me and her brother is always open.

I think that this move will change my life in so many positive ways. No, of course it won’t be perfect, but I will be living near my son again, I will near my beloved ocean again, and I can make a fresh start in a new place, free of all the ghosts of my abusive past I still associate with where I live now, and which continue to haunt me at times. I imagine myself in my little house or apartment, or sitting in front of the ocean, listening to the waves and the gulls, finally writing the book I keep saying I’m going to write. And I’ll thank my Heavenly Father every day for presenting me with such a positive life changing choice. I never felt like I had choices before. Now I think I do.

Why God has waited until now, I don’t really know, but it’s probably because I wasn’t ready. I wouldn’t have appreciated it. Maybe he wanted me to appreciate the things I already have first, before blessing me with new opportunities. Now, when I see positive thinking memes or inspirational quotes, I actually pay attention. Yes, they are trite and can be shallow and annoying when nothing else of substance is being given, but they do seem to have more meaning now. Is that because I feel like God is finally smiling down on me so I can relate to them better, or is it because I’ve changed enough to pay attention?

Little gifts.

God shows up at the strangest times. Earlier today I was at the Laundromat, and as I waited for my wash, I found a small devotional book called “Fear Not Tomorrow, God is Already There,” by Ruth Graham. It was sitting right there on the table, on top of a bunch of advertising circulars. A few years ago I would have left the book there. Today I took it home with me and said a small prayer of thanks. I know God left it there for me on purpose. I’ve realized he is always trying to show you in small ways how much he loves you, but if you’re not paying attention you won’t notice. If you open your heart to God and just talk to him, like you’d talk to your best friend or a loving parent, your heart will begin to change and your faith will grow stronger in tandem with that–and then it’s possible your whole life might take a turn for the better too. It’s so simple–how did it take me so long to see this beautiful truth? I feel in my bones that the last half of my life is going to be when the harvest comes in–a harvest rooted in the pain of my past.

Is there a reason why we suffered so much?

One last thought. There’s an old Buddhist proverb: “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Everyone who ever touched my life has been a teacher to me. Yes, even the narcissists. Maybe especially them. If it weren’t for them, I would not be who I am today. I don’t think I would be as deep or as spiritual or value empathy and kindness as much as I do. I don’t think I would have the same sort of relationship with God. Many of the most spiritual (not necessarily religious–that’s a different animal!) people I know came from abusive backgrounds. They suffered terribly and carried that heavy spiritual load all their lives, then finally turned to God because there was no one else. In pain there comes much wisdom. Maybe God allows some of us to experience more adversity so we learn to lean on him instead of other people–and then when we learn to trust him, he finally blesses us with people who can help us and love us unconditionally. No, we should never have been abused by our narcissists. It definitely wasn’t fair. But out of that kind of adversity we can learn so much about ourselves, about human nature, and even learn to help others who suffer like we did. And that is my greatest wish now–to help others heal.

When your load is too heavy…

Posted on June 22, 2016 by luckyotter

Thanks to Insanitybytes for this idea.

I don’t want to become bitter and full of hate.

Posted on June 13, 2016 by luckyotter

Credit: lynnmosher.com

I’m dealing with a lot of conflicting emotions right now in the wake of my dad’s passing, and rage is probably the dominant emotion I’m trying to process. Not rage at my dad per se, but rage at every narcissist I ever knew starting from the time I was a small child, making my life hell. For those of you who have read my recent posts, you might have noticed the increase in anger I’ve been expressing toward narcissists in general. My posts this week sound a lot like my early posts on this blog, during the first few months after I went NC with my ex.

Rage, anger, and even hatred can be useful, even necessary, when you’re going No Contact. Your survival is at stake. Your anger gives you the courage to escape and overrides any fear that may keep you in thrall to your narcissist. But beyond that, it begins to eat away at your soul and eventually can turn YOU into a narcissist. I’ve seen that happen so many times and it’s tragic. I’ve written about this phenomenon numerous times on this blog so I won’t do so again.

I bring this up because my writing lately seems to reflect a return to a narc-hating mindset. I don’t find hating narcissists helpful, personally. I find it more helpful (for myself anyway) to think of them as a different kind of victim, a type of victim that other victims have trouble understanding because their behavior is so predatory and sometimes incomprehensible. Thinking of them in this way seems to give them less power over me and makes me less afraid.

I don’t want to become an embittered, angry, hate-filled person. I don’t want hatred to take over my battered but still intact soul. I don’t want narc-hatred to turn me into a narcissist. This doesn’t mean I forgive the narcissists in my life for what they have done to me; but I do want to attempt to understand why they do the things they do. I want to understand how and why they became that way. It’s important for me emotionally to do this; being able to understand or at least try to helps me heal.

I know the rage and hate I feel right now is out of character for me, but all my emotions are in turmoil following my father’s passing. I pray that this too will pass and I can return to understanding narcissists without condoning or enabling. I still pray for their deliverance and always will.

Matthew 5:43-48:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? …

Forever an orphan.

Posted on May 29, 2016 by luckyotter

Those of us who were scapegoated and rejected by our own families often feel like orphans in life, forever being buffeted to and fro by the winds of a seemingly heartless world and hanging on to what seems like a brittle tree branch for our lives. We were trained and groomed by our families of origin to continue to be victimized throughout our lives, always treated as though we were less than everyone else, deficient in some way. We were not given the tools other children in our families, or the children of normal, loving families were given to do well in life. We were tossed out “with the wolves” so to speak, and told to “sink or swim.” Unfortunately, too many of us sink–into abject poverty, drug or alcohol addiction, eating disorders, abusive marriages, and mental and physical illness of all types. Everything that others seem to obtain with ease–a wide circle of friends, financial success, material goods like houses, cars or vacations; respect and closeness within their families, a relatively easy climb up the corporate ladder–seems to elude those of us who grew up programmed to believe we were defective.

We may not have literally been orphaned by our parents, but functionally we are no different than orphaned children. Children who lost their parents young to death or abandonment also grow up without any sense of belongingness and no loving, close attachments to anyone. How can you when you are treated like a number at some orphanage (more so in the past or in foreign countries like Romania) or are constantly being sent from one foster home to another, where the foster parents may mean well (but sometimes not) but have too many other charges to take care of to fulfill your need to belong and be loved. Orphans learn not to get too attached to anyone because any attachments they may form are impermanent. Getting close to others hurts too much, so they learn not to get close to anyone, not to trust anyone.

When orphans become adults, they are sent out into the world ill-prepared for adulthood with no emotional or financial help to guide them in their journey. With no one to truly care for them, and no families to turn to in times of need or crisis, they must either sink or swim. Those that swim do so at a cost. They may become successful in life, obtaining the trappings like money or status, but they never really know what love or real self esteem is. They don’t even know who they are. They just know they must survive–at any cost. It’s my belief that orphaned kids who take the swim route become narcissistic–how could they not? Adopting a false self and a fighting mentality is the only way they know to survive in a harsh, uncaring world where they seem to have no place.

Although narcissistic abuse survivors may have been raised in actual families, we were emotionally and spiritually orphaned due to rejection and emotional abuse. We were compared unfavorably with siblings, other family members, or just about anyone else. We were raised to believe we had no rights. We were punished for having opinions. Our boundaries were constantly being violated; we weren’t even allowed to have boundaries. We were called names, belittled, gaslighted, threatened, and stunted and stifled in every imaginable way. Our efforts to be approved of and small victories were belittled or sabotaged. We were refused financial or emotional help where other children or young adults from normal families (or even our own families) would have received it (my family refused to pay for my college education although they could have afforded it). We were trained to believe we were undeserving of success or love. We developed a strong Inner Critic who continued to live on inside us long after we left our families of origin, continuing the abusive message that we are less.

We become adults who are afraid to take any risks, afraid to speak our minds, afraid to stand up for ourselves, afraid to just be. We feel guilty if we do succeed in something and sabotage ourselves just like our own families sabotaged us. If we were bullied by our families of origin, we develop dismally low self-esteem and internalize the message that we deserve nothing and are nothing. We develop a victim mentality that makes sure the bullying and rejection continues throughout our lives. We develop C-PTSD and are handicapped on almost every level for finding our rightful place in the world. We were programmed by our narcissistic families to be targets for other abusers and narcissists, who smell our vulnerability and our lack of emotional defenses. I can’t tell you how many childhood victims of narcissistic abuse were also bullied in school or even as adults in the workplace, were always passed over for promotions or raises, or married narcissistic spouses who continued the abuse, sometimes taking it to new levels of cruelty. I know because I was one of them.

Even if we somehow managed to find some small place in the world, we still feel like we don’t belong. We still feel isolated from the rest of the world, different in a bad way. We feel like we don’t deserve to have anything good. In their desperation, some narc-abuse victims sell their souls and turn to narcissism as a way to cope. They escape the enemy by becoming the enemy. Their attitude is fake it ’til you make it (or just pretend you made it). Their self esteem isn’t real; inside their prison of narcissism they are screaming in agony, but God forbid anyone ever know. They’d destroy you first to avoid being exposed as vulnerable and defenseless as they really feel. They sacrifice their very souls to survive.

For those of us fortunate enough to have escaped narcissism, there is more hope. Although we may appear to have much less than someone who turned to a narcissistic defense, spiritually we have so much more. We haven’t jettisoned our souls to survive. We may have lost everything else–we may have poor physical or mental health, live in poverty, feel isolated from everyone, have difficulty getting close to others, always seem to have less than others–but spiritually we remained intact. Our quest to reclaim our humanity is a hard journey, filled with pain, but the moments of self-discovery and emotional and spiritual growth are so worth it. In the process of healing from narcissistic abuse, I finally found the family I know will always accept me unconditionally: God’s family. There is always a place at His table, where you will never be judged and always accepted for the person you are, instead of the one you can never be. In God’s family you are never an orphan.

Sometimes something as simple as music helps you get there. Here is a song that helped me (and at least one other narcissistic abuse survivor I can think of) in the early days of starting this blog:

Further reading:
Why Family Scapegoats Become Lifelong Victims
We Were The Lucky Ones
(I wrote this over a year ago, and I’ve changed a lot since then, but I think it still fits)
Adult Poverty and Scapegoathood: A Connection?
The Reason We Became Adult Victims: What Can Be Done?
It’s All About Image: The Skewed Values of Narcissistic Families

The #1 thing that makes me question God’s existence.

Posted on May 5, 2016 by luckyotter

TRIGGER WARNING: Photos in this post may be triggering to abuse survivors.

I believe in God. I also believe God answers prayers and God sometimes even performs miracles. I’ve seen it happen in my own life, and in the lives of people close to me.

But tonight I was reading a site about abused children–not children with narcissistic parents who grew up into emotionally damaged, but physically and mentally normal adults, but children who never had a chance at all. Children like 3 year old Jeffrey Baldwin, who was tortured almost from the day he was born, and whose photos show both the emotional and physical destruction of a human being, and ended in a painful, horrible death by starvation at the age of three. Or children like a 4 month old baby girl, whose name escapes me, who was repeatedly raped and tortured by her own father, and died of internal injuries. These are just two examples of children who God seems to have forgotten, but they are far from the only ones.

There’s bruising on Jeffrey’s face, but he could still smile.

AppleMark

Jeffrey Baldwin, second from the right. He could no longer smile; in these later photos he looked this way in almost every picture, before the light went out in his eyes.

Local Input~ UNDATED — JEFFREY BALDWIN — Photo of Jeffrey Baldwin at the time of his death from evidence provided by the coroner. The inquest into the murder of Jeffrey Baldwin, whose grandparents beat and starved him to death began Monday, September 9, 2013. Jeffrey weighed less than 10 kilograms and was emaciated when he died of starvation in November 2002.
CREDIT: CORONER EXHIBIT
(source: From: “McConnach, Robert (MCSCS)” ŠRobert.McConnach@ontario.ca>, Rob McConnach -Coroners Constable , Office of the Chief Coroner, Province of Ontario, 15 Grosvenor St., Toronto, Ontario, M7A 1Y6, Tel. 416-314-4200, Fax 416-314-3935 )/pws

A few days ago, there was a thought provoking and inspiring article called The Surprising Gifts of Suffering on the Dreams of a Better World blog (the post is in two parts), in which my friend speculated on the reasons why God allows people to suffer, some horribly. For emotional abuse victims, her argument that God is attempting to hone us and shape us into something more and draw us closer–knowing our souls are strong enough to withstand the abuse–make a kind of sense. We may not realize we were even abused until 40, 50, or even 60 years of age, but once we realize what happened to us, that’s when we begin to heal. Then we have something to teach the world. Many of us grew close to God because other humans proved to be so untrustworthy. We may never fully overcome the emotional damage, but if we keep an open mind and ask the right questions and learn the right lessons, we can reach out and begin to help others who were in the same situation. God knows we have the ability to turn our pain and suffering into something good and beautiful, which may be the reason we got handed that particular crappy deck of cards. Maybe.

I can even understand, to a point, sick and starving children in third world countries. Although they live in unimaginable poverty and squalor, suffer physically almost from the moment they are born, and in all likelihood will die at an early age, they usually still experience joy, acceptance, and love. Their families suffer along with them, and photos show these children being held and loved by mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, and neighbors, who are all in the same boat. They don’t suffer alone. The healthier among them may still even laugh and play. Not knowing anything about prosperity, they are more able to enjoy the simple, natural pleasures that life offers.

But when I read about a case like little Jeffrey Baldwin, I just shake my head in sad bewilderment. I don’t understand how God could allow something like that to happen. For what reason? Some people may think it’s because God allows free will and Satan has dominion over a fallen world. But as I explained in a post I wrote a few days ago, I don’t believe the devil, if he exists at all, has that much power. Even if he did, why wouldn’t God step in and protect a helpless child who never had a chance, who no one prays for and no one cares about? If God loves us all, why would he allow an innocent life to be completely wasted, with no chance of redemption? Even if their souls go on to heaven, why would he put them here on earth, if their only fate here is to suffer and then die? If yelling at and cursing God is a kind of prayer, as a commenter the other day suggested it really is, then I guess I’m praying when I angrily implore to the heavens, “God, why THE HELL do you allow these things to happen?”