A note I wrote and presented, a year ago today

Tuesday March 12, 2019 7:45 a.m.
I would like to be clear about what made last week WORSE.
It was the # of times you excluded me.
By last Wednesday, I was absolutely slayed.
(When your uncle was here, too: you forced me to be okay with his invitation, then you conducted a family reunion in Santa Cruz without inviting Anna.)
[Anna is no one! She must not be included!]
When I cried, you silently walked past me. Each and every time.

Memento, and regarding self love

[Monday March 11, 2019 8:08 a.m.]

[You can still divert the trajectory of dystopian “Back to the Future 2”.]

[The longer you wait, the less recovery (and return to true) are possible.]

[It’s time to make amends.]

How did you learn to love yourself?
[Answered by Carol Reathel on Quora.com.]

There is a wonderful technique called ‘reparenting’ - this is great if you missed out on unconditional love when you were younger, and that part of you never felt secure and safe in life.

We see the part of ourselves that is unloved as the ‘Inner Child’ and we see the conscious part of us, that is who we refer to as ‘I’ as the parent.

Internally, we begin to engage with a loving dialog towards our younger self. You can give her a name. In time, this part of us comes forward and may respond to you, and you can have a 2 way communication. Sometimes that doesn’t happen. Regardless, imagine you a have a little child to look after, and treat her with all the love and care you would a child.

Talk to her, tell her what you are doing, if you do something well, even as little as making a nice coffee, praise yourself for a job well done. In time, you may notice an uplifting feeling when you self praise.

Enjoy foods that are nourishing for your body and begin to really take care of what you take into your body. Make gradual change if you need to. Ensure you are getting the wide range of vitamins you need, either from your food or supplement with a multivitamin if you need to give yourself a boost.

Take time to have fun with your inner child, do things you love to do. When you feel like adult time, metaphorically tuck your child into bed in your mind for a nap and spend some time doing something you enjoy just for yourself. Whether that is a favourite tv show, hobby, craft, or time in your garden. Make sure each part of your day has at least one activity you do for your own enjoyment.

Get into meditation. This is sitting or lying down for 15 minutes in silence and just let thoughts pass through your mind, and do not follow them, just them appear and go. Look for the space between the thoughts, were there is silence. Some people like to focus on a constant background noise, like the hum of an air conditioner to focus their attention on, this helps minimize thoughts.

Meditating 15 minutes daily is beneficial for you in so many may ways. It releases calming and happy hormones into the system, and increases your resilience in order to manage any stressful situations in a calmer way, or move through the stress more quickly.

You need to do the inner journey towards self forgiveness. No matter what you have done that you judge yourself for, you are a human being and all humans make mistakes. Some of us can be very hard on ourselves, and that gets in the way of loving yourself, so forgive yourself for being human. Balance that with a commitment to yourself to learn from future mistakes, so that you grow as a person and take on new spiritual maturity.

Pamper yourself if you can. If you have a bath, buy some lovely scent and candles and luxuriate in the hot water and allow yourself to breathe in the scents and relax deeply. You are worthy of being pampered, and it is a way of telling yourself you have value and are worth pampering.

Self love also involves recognizing your strengths. Write a list of the things you know you are good at, and add qualities that you have as a person. No time fo modesty here, recognize your unique talents and qualities. Allow that list to be available for adding to, as more answers come to you.

Remove toxicity from your life. Whether this comes in the form of people who always make yourself feel small or depleted when you have been around them, or who openly devalue you. These are toxic people and have no place in the world of a person who values their right for a peaceful life filled with loving and supportive people.

In time, as your self love grows, you may find that any addictions you have might begin to fall away. This is because you used the addictions to replace the empty feeling inside, or to avoid feeling the lack of love for yourself, but as your self love grows, there is less need for the addictions. I quit smoking, drinking and green herb when I reached the place of understanding and really getting self love.

There is a moment when, as an allegory, your puzzle of the world breaks apart and it reforms with a new picture of who you are. A better and brighter version of you, With this re-creation comes understanding about the bigger picture, or insights into your life or some deeper understanding of some aspect of yourself. This is when you know you're well on your way to loving yourself.

Keep going, it can take weeks to really develop self love and it becomes a lifestyle. An effortless life style. It takes 30 to 60 days for the brain to re-wire to new patterns of thinking, so the self loving talk to your inner child will be laying new neural networks in your brain, and the old self disliking ones will fizzle away.

Enjoy walks in nature. Stop to admire nature as often as you can, even if it is a flower or a house plant. Nature is such a special system all on its own and the perfection of its shape and form, even colour gives us a new dimension to look into. It brings us fresh new energies that support self love, because nature is about love.

Did I mention: do things you enjoy just for yourself, also take time to hang out with your inner child watching fun movies and fun books or even games you loves to play when you were younger.

The inner child may have some pain that it trapped in the body because it was too young to know what to do with it when or if an event happened in the past, so she may bring up some emotions for releasing, Allow these to be felt and released. This is perfectly natural, you are not going mad.

You can find other ways to love yourself that i haven’t mentioned. Perhaps make a challenge to yourself to find new ways to honour the wonderful person you are.

One day, you will wake up and feel a sense of empowerment, You will love yourself unconditionally, and the inner child can now be integrated back into who you are because she has caught up on the love, you have parented her well. She will always be a part of you and you can remember her and play whenever the urge takes you.

There is a sort of magical realignment inside and you may even discover your life purpose and life mission. I always imagine that reaching self love is light a lovely big crystal with lots of facets. When we release old trapped emotions we allow a little more of our real self to show, and the more we polish ourself with love, the shinier and sparklier we become. One day we are this beautiful shining crystal, complete with flaws, but perfect and wonderful as a whole.

I hope these ideas are helpful. It is what i did to move into self love. I thought I already did love myself, but wow, experiencing the full unconditional self love is way different. It means that we do not ever let people cross our boundaries unless we give them permission, we never compromise our values and standards and we live authentically from the heart. We can be ourselves and not worry how other perceive us, because the only opinion that matters is ourselves.

This small answer is growing into a book that outlines the science of how these processes work and with the human brain working in conjunction we can turn a self loving person into a super ninja. Follow me if you would like to know when the book is available, and I will send a link to a place where we work on getting book see a bit more for what it will offer. This who long process has changed my life for the better, and me and myself have lot of fun doing things that are fun. tricky and grow us a person. Don’t miss out!

False self, from daily mailing

 "The dysfunction is encoded into our souls as the false self."

Many of us couldn't be ourselves as children. In order to survive, we bought our parent's negative messages, and then as adults, we repeated their dishonest justifications for crazy behavior. We remember our destructive false pride that wouldn't allow us to admit mistakes or feel vulnerable. On some level, we always knew what we were doing, but our false self was in charge and we didn't have the words or thought processes to do things differently or to express true feelings.

What hurts the most is that for those of us who have children, we modeled this dishonest behavior for them. As much as we tried to stop ourselves, we just couldn't see our way through to show them a better side.

In recovery, we now see that our wounds were so deep that it's hard to imagine that we had a hole that big in our soul. Today we can see that our lack of honesty for so long is constant proof of the trauma we suffered as children, and the reason we need to break the cycle. This is where we strip away all the layers of shame that created our false self. We now more readily admit our shortcomings because as adults we can handle any fallout. In doing so, we help keep the family craziness from growing.

On this day I release my false self and have the courage to admit when I am wrong. I do this so that the hurts stop piling up, for both myself and others.

Recovery language (from daily mailing)

"We may be speaking program lingo, but we are not talking about what truly bothers us."

In the beginning, many of us found great comfort in the new language of recovery. It shielded us against the old way of thinking. But some of us found that "talking the talk" without "walking the walk" did not change our actual behavior. We damaged ourselves and those around us by treading lightly. As we learned when we were children, we did not make waves, and the consequences still hurt us deeply. What we needed to see was that we were in a fight for our very lives.

As we recognize our complacence, we begin to free ourselves. We embrace our choices as adults with a firm backbone. We grow up. We do for ourselves what no one else can do: we rescue ourselves. We do this by surrendering our controlling grip and letting other people into our lives who can help us ... whomever we need.

We are not looking for perfection, but progress. We put aside our doubts and walk into the light of a new truth. It may feel painful to be honest and try something new, but not as painful as staying where we are.

6 Listening Tips from Erich Fromm

Listening, Fromm argues, is “is an art like the understanding of poetry” and, like any art, has its own rules and norms. Drawing on his half-century practice as a therapist, Fromm offers six such guidelines for mastering the art of unselfish understanding:

1. The basic rule for practicing this art is the complete concentration of the listener.
2. Nothing of importance must be on his mind, he must be optimally free from anxiety as well as from greed.
3. He must possess a freely-working imagination which is sufficiently concrete to be expressed in words.
4. He must be endowed with a capacity for empathy with another person and strong enough to feel the experience of the other as if it were his own.
5. The condition for such empathy is a crucial facet of the capacity for love. To understand another means to love him — not in the erotic sense but in the sense of reaching out to him and of overcoming the fear of losing oneself.
6. Understanding and loving are inseparable. If they are separate, it is a cerebral process and the door to essential understanding remains closed.

In the remainder of the The Art of Listening, Fromm goes on to detail the techniques, dynamics, and mindsets that make for an optimal listening relationship, in therapy and in life.

Negligence

I've had enough servings of indifference.

What Emotional Neglect Does to a Relationship

(by Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D., [What Would Aristotle Do?] in Psychology Today)

The support system in your relationship is one-sided.

Emotional neglect involves failing to provide emotional support that one should provide, given one's relationship to the other. Thus it is thought that a parent emotionally neglects a child when the parent fails to show the child the level of affection or attention that, as a parent, she should (even when she may be providing for the physical needs of the child such as food, health care, clothing, and shelter).

Emotional neglect is also distinct from emotional abuse. Emotional abuse (as distinct from physical abuse) involves abusive commissions—that is, doing things to another that can be emotionally hurtful or traumatizing (for example, name-calling, manipulating, gaslighting, etc.); whereas emotional neglect involves neglectful omissions, that is, omitting to do things that tend to promote emotional well-being. While there is helpful literature on the harmful repercussions of childhood emotional neglect in adulthood (see, for example, Jonice Webb’s guest blog in Psychology Today), less has been written about emotional neglect in adult relationships. In this blog I will investigate the conditions under which a life partner (married or unmarried) can be said to emotionally neglect the other—that is, the conditions under which one is justified in concluding that the life partner is not providing the emotional support that he or she should.

The determination of emotional neglect is open-textured; like other value judgments, the concept is inherently vague. There are, therefore, borderline cases, which are indeterminable or subject to rational disagreement. Nevertheless, there is logic to the justification of judgments about emotional neglect. Such justification is a function of the purpose of the relationship itself. For example, the purpose of parenting is to provide the conditions of flourishing for one's child. These conditions clearly include emotional support, such as providing affection and understanding as appropriate.

Similarly, the purpose of a marriage or life partnership also involves an emotional support system. The point of the latter relationships is to provide a framework for sharing one's life experiences, both positive and negative, and to receive mutual understanding, intimacy, and caring. True, there are marriages of convenience, which aim at specialized functions (for example, collecting benefits or attaining citizenship). However, these relationships are parasitic off of the primary relationship, which is one based on emotional support. Depending on the parties to the relationship, the level of emotional support and engagement requisite to making the relationship work may vary. For example, two rather unaffectionate partners may require less emotional support than on average. Thus the value judgment about how much emotional support a partner should be providing can be, to a significant extent, contextually relative.

Still, there are clear cases of emotional neglect. A persistent habit or disposition of complete or almost complete lack of physical contact would ordinarily fall below the minimum emotional support of what the life partner should be providing. So too would a consistent pattern of refusing to spend time with one's partner, preferring instead to engage in a solitary activity (for example, playing solitaire).

So, what things should a life partner do in order to provide the emotional support he should be providing? These would be forms of emotional support most people would agree on as reasons for constituting a marriage or life partnership. They would include physical, behavioral, as well as cognitive forms of emotional support. Physical forms include intimate exchanges of affection such as hugging, kissing, touching, and sexual contact. Behavioral forms include actions that show caring or being there for the other, such as spending time with the other, or helping the other out of a difficult situation. Cognitive forms involve such things as having patience, listening, providing feedback on problems of living, and empathizing.

Typically, emotional support involves a combination of physical, behavioral, and cognitive aspects, and the package of support may be greater than the sum of its parts. For example, putting one's arms around the other, gently providing feedback, and canceling an appointment at work to do so is to provide a form of emotional support that is more than its ingredient aspects. It is also true that there are "different strokes for different folks." Thus, for example, we may have different sexual preferences; however, most couples (but not all) would agree that they desire some form of sexual contact.

Further, being emotionally neglectful, considered as a personal attribute or character trait, involves a habit of failing to provide the emotional support that one should, given the purpose of the relationship. Thus, a life partner who occasionally acts in emotionally neglectful ways (for example, refuses to have sex or acts detached and unfriendly after a marital spat) is not necessarily emotionally neglectful, even though he or she may have acted as such on certain occasions. Only when such actions rise to the level of a disposition or habit can one properly be called emotionally neglectful.

Quite clearly, however, even those of us who are not emotionally neglectful can often stand to lessen the occasions on which we are emotionally neglectful. So, is your life partner emotionally neglectful? While answering this question may require discretion, you should now have some guidelines for rationally addressing it:

1. Is the emotional support system in your life partnership relatively one-sided (you provide, or attempt to provide, emotional support for your partner, but not conversely)?

2. Is your partner in a habit of failing to be emotionally supportive?

3. Can you clearly describe the particular way/s your partner is (habitually) failing to be (physically, behaviorally, or cognitively) emotionally supportive?

4. Does your partner’s omission/s, as described, make untenable the emotional support system needed to sustain a functional life partnership (that is, a relationship conducive to sharing one’s life experiences, mutual understanding, intimacy, and caring)?

5. Are your expectations regarding emotional support reasonable — that is, what most people would generally expect from a functional life partnership?

If your response to each of the above five questions is yes, then you have reasonable belief that you are in an emotionally neglectful relationship. This is obviously not a calculus to compute whether your life partner is emotionally neglectful. Given the value-laden and relative nature of the concept, this is not feasible.

Nevertheless, the level of emotional support in a life partnership may fall short of what one should reasonably expect in such a relationship. In such cases, it makes sense to speak of emotional neglect; in such cases, the goal of a life partnership, which is to promote mutual happiness of the partners, may be severely (if not irremediably) compromised.

This post has addressed the identification of emotional neglect, not the complex question of how to address it. For the latter, much depends on the etiology of the emotional neglect. For example, in some cases, a partner may be a workaholic and, as a result, neglect his or her relationship; some may have neural-psychological impairments, such as autistic spectrum disorder, which impedes the ability to express emotions; others may be narcissistic; while others may be preoccupied or obsessed with problems outside the relationship. In some cases, addressing the neglect may best be handled by couples counseling; in others (such as autism), conventional modes of couples counsel may be ineffective.

In any event, the identification of emotional neglect is always the first step in addressing it. This is no small feat because one can spend many years in a dysfunctional, unhappy relationship due to emotional neglect, and not know quite why he or she is so unhappy. Indeed, in abusive relationships, it may be significantly easier to identify the offending behavior because it is typically overt actions.

In contrast, as stated, emotional neglect involves omissions. For example, one’s spouse does not verbally assault, does not harass, and does not engage in other forms of aggressive, emotionally harmful activities. The emotionally neglectful partner, after all, does "nothing wrong"; so it’s harder to identify what is so wrong with the relationship.

Nevertheless, like emotional abuse, emotional neglect can be quite harmful, and can destroy the quality of a relationship. So, being aware that you are in an emotionally neglectful relationship can be an important first step toward addressing this pervasive and insidious cause of profound unhappiness.

Official SOTS Music Video "Iridescent" by Linkin Park

Linkin Park "Powerless"

Elton John "Levon" (lyrics)

Drive By Truckers "Sounds Better In the Song"

Christiane F. tries Heroin

Happy November 1

Happy first day of the month ... and happy upcoming 4 bears day: the day of the dead.
It's enrichening to think about those who came before us - at least on one of the days of a year? It gives a greater depth to our experience, to be able to see one's life as part of something larger, and stretching through much deeper time, like an elastic web with some "give" to it.
A remaining question: can the web of deep time, and incarnate experience, fold back in on itself and possibly contact another part of the web? Woo-woo! ;-)
[Maybe if the web can also act like visco-elastic bubble plastic - ?! Oldsters: Remember the toy Super Elastic Bubble plastic? I carefully saved and hoarded my birthday money, to make sure I could acquire me some of that stuff, in a timely fashion, deep in childhood. Certain things just capture the attention, currency and Ka-Ching of childhood, heh.] ;-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Elastic_Bubble_Plastic

(Yesterday, which is a culturally distinctive day of the year, where I and my peoples are from - I felt nearly like I was on a direct communication pipeline with my grandmother Claudia, for a while, somehow. Anyway - no matter how my illusion or disillusion/delusion was: I imagined some kind and encouraging words that I might have reasonably expected to hear from her - and then it was almost as if she were right next to me, softly speaking those words, with a smile.) ;-)

Bronski Beat "Smalltown Boy" (official video)

A flattering personal supposition

One likes to flatter oneself with the moment-to-moment supposition that one is not blind, deaf, dumb in one or more areas.
This allows one to get through any moment at hand, and to get symbolically on top of the next moment.

The Cure "Catch"

Porcupine Tree "Glass Arm Shattering"

Triumvirat Spartacus "School of Instant Pain"

Heh. [That song is riding my brain, so much, these days.]

I can't seem to stop playing "Don't Fear the Reaper" by BOC on any or many of my devices, this first half work week.
Well, that's that, for now. That's enough, in itself. It will be something else, after a while.

Lucky-to-Have-Such-Problems

[excerpt:] DEAR FESTIVE: Welcome to Lucky-to-Have-Such-Problems Day.
Warm, conscientious people trying to get the details right so others feel loved and respected. I’m just going to sit with this for a bit.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/10/11/carolyn-hax-can-i-tv-cheat-on-my-wife/

Steve Forbert "Settle Down"

!!! (Chk Chk Chk) "Dancing Is The Best ... Antidote"

So funny! Laughing, somewhat vigorously, after stumbling upon this video.

The Smiths "The boy with the thorn in his side" (+ lyrics)

"Don't Fear the Reaper" with More Cowbell (SNL, Christopher Walken et al.)

Blue Oyster Cult "Don't Fear The Reaper" (+ lyrics)

Justice "D.A.N.C.E" with lyrics

Steve Forbert "Wait"

Steve Forbert "Complications"


Steve Forbert - Thinkin'

Something to believe in - how about these 5 words?

I find that I could really use something (good) to believe in.
(Perhaps to transport beyond Self? [I hope with lead weights off symbolic wings?])
So, I distilled this wish into 5 words:
"Tell me more about yourself."
[This same so-called logic, stretched, applies to corporations and to other entities, too - not just to individual animals.] ;-)

Steve Forbert "Tonight I Feel So Far Away From Home"

Tom Waits "Step Right Up"

Swiss Army (die beste Armee vor der Welt)

U2 "White As Snow" (Official-Unofficial)

"White as Snow"
Where I grew up there were no hills at all
The land was flat, the highway straight and wide
My brother and I, we'd drive for hours, like we'd years instead of days
Our faces as pale as the dirty snow

Once I knew there was a love divine
Then came a time I thought it knew me not
Who can forgive forgiveness when forgiveness is not?
Only the land as white as snow

And the water it was icy
As it washed over me
And the moon shined above me

Now this dry ground it bears no fruit at all
Only poppies laugh under a crescent moon

The road refuses strangers
The land, the seeds we sow
Where might we find a land as white as snow?

As boys we would go hunting in the wood
To sleep, the night shun out the stars
Now the wolves are every passing stranger
Every face we cannot know
If only a heart could be as white as snow
If only a heart could be as white as snow

R.E.M. "World Leader Pretend" + lyrics

U2 "The Moment of Surrender" (Official-Unofficial)

 I tied myself with wire
To let the horses run free
Playing with the fire
'Til the fire played with me
The stone was semi-precious
We were barely conscious
Two souls too smart to be
In the realm of certainty
Even on our wedding day
We set ourselves on fire
Oh God, do not deny her
It's not if I believe in love
But if love believes in me
Oh, believe in me
At the moment of surrender
I folded to my knees
I did not notice the passers-by
And they did not notice me
I've been in every black hole
At the altar of the dark star
My body's now a begging bowl
That's begging to get back
Begging to get back to my heart
To the rhythm of my soul
To the rhythm of my unconsciousness
To the rhythm that yearns
To be released from control
I was punching in the numbers
At the ATM machine
I could see in the reflection
A face staring back at me
At the moment of surrender
Of vision over visibility
I did not notice the passers-by
And they did not notice me
I was speeding on the subway
Through the stations of the cross
Every eye looking every other way
Counting down 'til the pain will stop
At the moment of surrender
Of vision of over visibility
I did not notice the passers-by
And they did not notice me
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

["Here is another character, a war veteran. In my head he was part of some Somali adventure that went so wrong. We think about him as someone who has not been able to reintegrate or re-enter earth's atmosphere yet. He hasn't managed to return to himself. I believe insanity is the sane response of sane individuals to insane situations. In 'Moment Of Surrender,' he has dragged his wife into drugs and booze, he can't live with what he has done to her and so he breaks down beside an ATM machine and begs God to deliver them." - Bono, No Line On The Horizon 2009]

How do narcissists feel about the people who love them?

(Answered by Elinor Greenberg on quora.com)

Love and Narcissism

When they are being honest about the “L” word, most of my clients with Narcissistic Personality Disorder express some doubt that they actually are capable of what other people mean by “love.”

As Jeff said during his session: “I don’t think I really know what it means to love someone. There are people that I like being with more than others, there are women who I lust after, and there are people whose acceptance and admiration I crave. But love like in the movies, that’s not something I ever feel.”

So how do they feel about the people who love them?

This is a complicated question. Many of my married Narcissistic clients care about their mates and want the relationship to work. But…their lack of emotional empathy and their lack of object constancy limit the ways that they can experience and express positive feelings.

You might compare these Narcissistic clients to people who lack musical talent, but are trying to sing anyway.

Practicality vs. Love

Many of my Narcissistic clients have substituted practicality for love. Instead of asking themselves “Do I love this person who loves me?”, they ask themselves something much less romantic and more self-serving:

Do I need this person for anything?

• Am I lonely or bored?
• Would I like to have sex with this person?
• What is their status relative to mine?
• Are they a “catch”?
• Can they help me to rise in the hierarchy that I care about?
• Do they admire me?
• Will other people admire me more if I am with them?
• Are they wealthy and generous?
• Is it time to get married and start a family of my own?
• Should I get married so that I have someone to take care of me when I am old?

Hunting the Unicorn

Then there are some people with NPD who refuse to believe that it is their problem that they cannot deeply and consistently love someone who loves them. They convince themselves that if they do not love someone, it is because it is the other person’s fault.

They believe that there is a perfect person out there that they will find it easy to love. Each time they become infatuated with someone new, they idealize this person. Then as they inevitably discover the person’s flaws, they become disillusioned, and devalue, and discard them.

Punchline: If you love a Narcissist, you can save yourself some grief and disappointment by accepting that they are unlikely to be able to love you in the way you have always dreamed of being loved. You need to think a bit more practically and try and see this person accurately.

If they are hunting Unicorns, you are likely to get hurt when they discover you are a real person, not some mythical perfect beast. If they are simply seeing a relationship with you as the practical answer to some life issue, can you accept that? The one thing that you do need to understand is that just because you love them, this does not alter their limited capacity to love you back.

Ed Sheeran "Shape of You" (Official Video)

U2 "The Hands that Built America" lyrics

Oh my love
It's a long way we've come
From the freckled hills
To the steel and glass canyons

From the stony fields
To hanging steel from skies
From digging in our pockets
For a reason not to say goodbye

These are the hands that built America
Ah, ah, ah, America

Last saw your face
In a water colored sky
As sea birds argue a long goodbye

I took your kiss
On the spray of a new lined star
You gotta live in your dreams
Don't make them so hard

And these are the hands that built America
Ah, ah, ah, America

Of all of the promises
Is this one we can keep
Of all…

U2 "Trip through your wires" lyrics

In the distance
She saw me coming 'round
I was calling out
I was calling out

Still shaking
Still in pain
You put me back together again
I was cold and you clothed me honey
I was down and you lifted me honey

Angel
Angel or devil
I was thirsty
And you wet my lips

You, I'm waiting for you
You, you set my desire
I trip through your wires

I was broken, bent out of shape
I was naked in the clothes you made
Lips were dry, throat like rust
You gave me shelter from the heat and the dust
No more water in the well
No more water, water

Angel
Angel or devil
I was thirsty
And you wet my lips

You, I'm waiting for you
You, you …

Can one discern and fix "rot" or "malicious code" in oneself? - asks Anna

Q: Does the narcissist know they are a narcissist?
(Answered by Mary Jane Underwood on quora.com.)

I believe I was a narcissist. I use the word was since I no longer feel the need to; manipulate others into getting what I want, blame others for my downfalls, feel the need to be special & believe the world revolves around me, & I realize that my actions do affect those around me. Four years ago on the other hand, it was the complete opposite & I prioritized my self image & what others thought of me. I managed to fabricate my reality (with a lot of help from social media) by only exhibiting the good parts about me & locking away all my vulnerabilities. There was no way I was going to show anyone who I really was because deep down I wanted to be sought as the opposite of how I felt- broken. When my husband (who was my boyfriend at the time) would shed light on my abusive behavior & explained how I could easily make him feel worthless, I denied any responsibility & faulted him for having low self esteem. This is commonly known as gas lighting. I was never professionally diagnosed with NPD, however these tendencies I described above hindered me from growing meaningful relationships, as I would only truly care for myself & was inconsiderate of the feelings towards others.

Ironically, I always felt there was something off with me & I’m not quite sure if it was due to the fact that my parents conducted this absurd “exorcist ceremony” (they believed I was the devil because I was a 6 year old who cried specifically at 6 AM & 6 PM) & possibly conditioned my 6 year old brain that I was innately evil. There wasn’t a time in high school where I wasn’t constantly trying to self diagnose myself on Google, “why do I keep changing myself and beliefs depending on the person?” “Why do I not like showing people who I really am?” Despite the answers I’d come across, I was reluctant to change & was in denial with all of them.

It wasn’t until I was kicked out by 3 different family members’ homes in a span of 3 months at the age of 19 that I started shifting perspective. Two of those times I was nearly homeless, but I was fortunate that my boyfriend of whom I knew for only two months (who is now my husband) at the time was more than happy to take me in. As I was living with my boyfriend, I kept going back to my family members’ & yearned for their acceptance for almost a year. My social life, school life, & romantic life came to a halt as I was determined to win their affection & ultimately, prove to myself that I was lovable. This was the lowest point in my life as I felt betrayed by the people whom I trusted & loved the most, & there I was trying to please each & every one of them, slowly withering away what little integrity I had left. No matter how much I compromised myself in order to please them & to show them how sorry I was, I was still the black sheep & I ended up feeling drained & more empty inside with each interaction. The anxiety advanced as I constantly ruminated over past interactions & what I should have said or done, & theorizing why my actions were never justified while other family members’ same actions were.

Eventually, I absorbed myself in school to distract myself from the pain (I initially indulged myself in cigarettes & alcohol, but the pain worsened). There was one assignment where I had such a peculiar interest in & devoted all my time into making it perfect. I was always a perfectionist, but this distinct paper felt near & dear to me & held more value that at the time, I didn’t understand. The assignment was about Mental Illnesses & I chose to write about Narcissistic Personality Disorders. My knowledge on NPD was entirely basic, but I was captivated by the topic & genuinely wanted to know more. In hindsight, my body was trying to tell me something that I was in denial to my whole life. As I accumulated pertinent information, I finally began to feel different. Things seemed clearer & I felt like I had my answer. However, I didn’t initially see myself as the perpetrator; I saw myself as the victim. My emotions were on a roller coaster as I felt liberated by the truth & simultaneously shattered by the idea that the love I was receiving by my family all along was conditional. Knowing that this disorder plagued my entire family, I sought to eradicate it by discreetly illuminating them of NPD. I wanted to be heard & I knew that if I presented it outright, I would be ridiculed & shrugged off. Luckily, the assignment required conducting interviews with professionals & peers in order to get a consensus of how knowledgeable society was with the topic. I decided to interview random classmates & every family member in hopes that my abusers would resonate with it & eventually change. Almost all were just as uneducated with NPD as I was. The two that were capable of going in depth with the questions however, seemed to be uncomfortable & I perceived it as progress. Unfortunately, my naivety led me back into their abusive ways & their constant gaslighting, crippled me even more. I isolated & was consumed with anger.

Delirious, I became physically & emotionally abusive to my husband (boyfriend at the time) who not only supported me throughout the turmoil, but provided more love than I ever received by my family. To justify my abuse, I faulted him for not trying hard enough & that we were in a rut due to his lack of ambition & poor decision making skills(we were living with my family at the time). Many of his clothes were torn, watches, & any materials he was attached to I tried to destroy. This continued for almost a year… & without even realizing it, I was the epitome of who I hated. Retrospectively, I hated myself & everything. I hated how my parents physically & emotionally abused me, how my family members made me question my sanity, & how I couldn’t trust or depend on any of them. I constantly played the victim card & in the process I was creating another victim.

The physical abuse ceased to continue after less than a year, but the emotional abuse remained & heightened. Nonetheless, my boyfriend proposed to me. I was reluctant to say yes at first, but not because I didn’t love him but because I was unsure if he deserved me. As cheesy as this may sound, my heart wanted to say yes, but my body & mind knew that I wasn’t ready to give him the love he deserved, especially with everything I did to him. Five months after getting married, my husband experienced migraines & flu-like symptoms, resulting him to call in sick constantly for a month. We were both concerned & while he blamed his 50 hour work week, I had a feeling it was me. “Babe, did you ever feel like this before you met me?” “No, don’t worry too much. It’s just my work schedule,” he would answer. Finally, his primary doctor recommended him to a psychiatrist (we were fortunate that his company paid for our health insurance at the time) & he still felt uneasy & anxious. During his session, he said the psychiatrist primarily focused on the abuse that I inflicted, but felt it was unnecessary because it was more than a year since the last incident & still, he blamed his work schedule for his symptoms (we now recognize that he was experiencing Stockholm syndrome). At that moment, I knew I was a narcissist considering that I treated him like how my family collectively treated me & there he was experiencing the same symptoms I similarly experienced in the past. I was exactly like my family.

I understand why its so commonplace for people to believe that narcissists are reluctant to change & can never acknowledge their shortcomings because I was too far up my own ass to comprehend what kind of monster I really was. There were a lot of humbling experiences, but I do give significant amount of credit to my husband who provided me that unconditional love I never had growing up (seemingly enough, the narcissists in my family lacked that as well) which I believed allowed me to admit that I was a narcissist. The unconditional love, taking responsibility for my own actions, & not playing the victim card has definitely helped me leer away from my narcissistic tendencies. I know I still have a LOT of work to do, but I promised myself I will never hurt anyone like how I used to by inflicting that same pain my family did & to always act with integrity.

*NOTE: This is my own personal experience. Not saying all narcissists can admit they are one, but it is possible. If dealing with a narcissist & hoping for some change, be vigilant. The process of helping a narcissist has left me & my husband more drained than anything .

Why can't narcissists remember anything?

[From quora.com, answered by Todd Skyler, Research regarding how NPD impacts legal issues.]

I think, at times, it may appear that narcissists do not remember anything.

I believe that once a narcissist is triggered, he or she may very well have an emotional memory blackout which is discussed in more detail below.

During the devaluation phase of a Narcissist/NT relationship, a narcissist may be triggered due to his or her perception that someone had made a real or imagined criticism.

If a significant other (SO) had made such an alleged criticism shortly after the SO and the narcissist embarked on a relationship, the narcissist may very well have ignored the slight.

The narcissist is apt to refrain from being hyper sensitive and/or hyper critical while the euphoria buzz of new found love is "coursing through the narcissist's veins."

However, as the euphoria high of new love begins to wane, the narcissist will be hyper-vigilantly looking for evidence of any potential…

••abandonment

••betrayals

••bad intentions afoot

The narcissist may inaccurately perceive an offense has been committed due to an SO's "suspicious behavior."

As the the relationship's new love euphoric buzz diminishes, the narcissist's alarm bells may sound if the SO..,,,

•yawns

•appears tired

•appears aloof

•sighs

•appears sad

•perceives that a lie has been told

•any physical signal that could possibly telegraph “dissatisfaction” with the status quo

I believe that once a narcissist is triggered, he or she will prone to become emotionally dysregulated, and in turn, he or she may very well experience an emotional memory blackout.

The narcissist may have a memory blackout for additional reasons other than emotional dysregulation such as...

•dissociative amnesia

•narrative reconstruction

•revisionist history

•possible selective amnesia

•lack of object constancy

•lack of whole object relations

•pre devaluation enabler

•placement (enabler may have vested interest in the “role maintenance”)

•potential shame from post fight emotional dysregulation commentary

The Narcissist's Warnings about having a Bad Memory could be a Ruse

There is one other potential issue that the SO must keep in mind. If the narcissist continually harps on the fact that he or she has a bad memory that could be a tip off that trickery and deceit may be around the corner.

For example, if the narcissist commits some kind of relationship transgression, and the SO tries to confront the narcissist regarding same, the narcissist will assert he or she is in no position to discuss the matter. The narcissist will be quick to point out that he had previously mentioned that his memory is shot.

What are some steps to avoid raising a narcissist?

[answered by Danielle Hall on quora.com]

1. Never tell your kid they are a burden to you. Example, you kids are like a ball and chain around my leg keeping me from focusing on my happiness, my success, etc.
2. Never tell your kids that they are ungrateful to have all they have, yet neglect them emotionally. Example, narcissistic mother provides food shelter and clothing, but never spends time with her kids, doesn't know their hopes and dreams aspirations, just wants them to turn 18 so they can leave the house.
3. Don't use your kids for emotional support. Don’t vent your problems to them. Example, narcissistic mom thinks her kids should support her by helping her achieve her dreams. They are the cheerleaders in her life, they are there to spur her on.
4. Don't displace anger and frustration on kids. Example, narcissistic mom comes home to find apartment has been broken into and everything stolen. In blind rage she grabs her ten year old by the hair and starts pounding her head against the refrigerator door.
5. Don't shit on your kids dreams. Example, daughter tells narcissistic mother she is thinking if becoming a lawyer. Mother responds, I can't see you as a lawyer.
6. Don't make love and affection conditional. I love you when you succeed and make me proud, but I'm ashamed of you when you fail. This creates a person who is terrified to fail, to be a loser, and the kid may become a narcissist to protect self from insecurities.
7. Don't pour all of your fears and negativity into your kids heads. Example, mother is terrified of living and being stuck in poverty, instills that fear in her child, which later creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. The child had a life long dread of poverty and finds her worst fears come to life in adulthood--joblessness, homelessnes, drug addictions, alcoholism.
8. Don't shame and guilt-trip. Don’t tell kid you are a loser, just like your father. Don’t say why can't you be a good boy, good girl like so-and-so?Why can't you be pretty, smart, hard- working like, so-and-so? You want a kid that never feels like they're good enough, this is the way to do it.
9. Don't break promises to your kids. Example, Narcissistic mom tells kids they will be taken to the beach that day but never comes home. Kids grow up with trust issues, and feel its normal for people to disregard them.
10. Don't gaslight your kids. Mother tells 17 year old daughter she is kicking her out of the house the day she turns 18. Kid drops out of school to take a factory job to support herself. Years later mother shames daughter by asking why she didn't go to college and make something of herself. Daughter reminds her she kicked her out of the house. Mother gaslights: I did no such thing!

If you neglect, shame, project, gaslight, withhold affection, discourage and blame, as listed above, you will get:

A) a child with low self esteem too afraid to even have dreams, who will be unable to love themselves, and be victims of other controlling, manipulative, predatory people later in life. In short, a dog shit covered doormat.

B) a child who is terrified to fail, who is afraid, that if they are poor, fat, ugly they will be judged and scorned. They will cover up all the anxiety and fears they had growing up under a narcissistic parent by creating false armour, because they are terrified to ever feel that out of control again. As an ego defense, they will become over-controlling assholes who are arrogant, entitled, and manipulative. But also they will focus so much on their own pain and needs that they won't have any empathy for anyone else. They won't ever love, because they learned that love was conditional and rejection too painful. They will lash out because they are full of rage at their narcissistic parent, and by extension, the world. They will demean and degrade because other people's success diminishes their own.

And thus another narcissistic asshole has been created to shatter other people's lives.

Thanks, narc mom.

Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry.
Mamma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true.
Mamma's gonna put all of her fears into you.
Mamma's gonna keep you right here under her wing,
She won't let you fly but she might let you sing.
Mamma's gonna keep baby cosy and warm.
Oooh babe

Mother, Pink Floyd.

The forgotten or hidden part about nagging

When someone nags, what's also true is that this person has asked multiple times for resolution in an area - without receiving it.

Scheduled for completion on August 12

Payment will be made.
Thank you for the privilege of serving you and your family.
Thank you for kicking me out* of your family.
*In all things, give thanks.

Auvoirdupois

I have lost weight.
I have travelled down, through 2 (?) clothes sizes,  to ... (?)
I haven't bought any new clothes lately, so I am not sure what size I currently am.
It's interesting to see my smallest clothes swimming on me, now - and I must cinch fabric tight, around my waist - or else.
(Another time this happened, I was nursing a rapidly growing baby, and the weight just seemed to melt off me. At that time, various people volunteered that I could have some of Their excess weight, to carry for them, since I seemed to have less of my own to carry around.)

Stevie Wonder "As" (2008)

Leo Tolstoy on Kindness and the Measure of Love

[copied from brainpickings.org, by Maria Popova]

“Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.”

“Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now,” Jack Kerouac wrote in a beautiful letter to his first wife and lifelong friend. Somehow, despite our sincerest intentions, we repeatedly fall short of this earthly divinity, so readily available yet so easily elusive. And yet in our culture, it has been aptly observed, “we are never as kind as we want to be, but nothing outrages us more than people being unkind to us.” In his stirring Syracuse commencement address, George Saunders confessed with unsentimental ruefulness: “What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.” I doubt any decent person, upon candid reflection, would rank any other species of regret higher. To be human is to leap toward our highest moral potentialities, only to trip over the foibled actualities of our reflexive patterns. To be a good human is to keep leaping anyway. 

In the middle of his fifty-fifth year, Leo Tolstoy (September 9, 1828–November 20, 1910) set out to construct a reliable springboard for these moral leaps by compiling “a wise thought for every day of the year, from the greatest philosophers of all times and all people,” whose wisdom “gives one great inner force, calmness, and happiness” — thinkers and spiritual leaders who have shed light on what is most important in living a rewarding and meaningful life. Such a book, Tolstoy envisioned, would tell a person “about the Good Way of Life.” He spent the next seventeen years on the project.

In 1902, by then seriously ill and facing his own mortality, Tolstoy finally completed the manuscript under the working title A Wise Thought for Every Day. It was published two years later, in Russian, but it took nearly a century for the first English translation, by Peter Sekirin, to appear: A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Selected from the World’s Sacred Texts (public library). For each day of the year, Tolstoy had selected several quotes by great thinkers around a particular theme, then contributed his own thoughts on the subject, with kindness as the pillar of the book’s moral sensibility.

Perhaps prompted by the creaturely severity and the clenching of heart induced by winter’s coldest, darkest days, or perhaps by the renewed resolve for moral betterment with which we face each new year, he writes in the entry for January 7:

The kinder and the more thoughtful a person is, the more kindness he can find in other people.

Kindness enriches our life; with kindness mysterious things become clear, difficult things become easy, and dull things become cheerful.

At the end of the month, in a sentiment Carl Sagan would come to echo in his lovely invitation to meet ignorance with kindness, Tolstoy writes:

You should respond with kindness toward evil done to you, and you will destroy in an evil person that pleasure which he derives from evil.

In the entry for February 3, he revisits the subject:

Kindness is for your soul as health is for your body: you do not notice it when you have it.

After copying out two kindness-related quotations from Jeremy Bentham (“A person becomes happy to the same extent to which he or she gives happiness to other people.”) and John Ruskin (“The will of God for us is to live in happiness and to take an interest in the lives of others.”), Tolstoy adds:

Love is real only when a person can sacrifice himself for another person. Only when a person forgets himself for the sake of another, and lives for another creature, only this kind of love can be called true love, and only in this love do we see the blessing and reward of life. This is the foundation of the world.

Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.

I know how much you care about me, and trust me

You have done me the discourtesy and dishonesty of leaving my jointly-held home inaccessible to me - at a time I could really make use of its fine, first-world comforts.

"Not even the undying love and loyalty of a tender, loving woman could cause him to self-reflect, and losing that love has no impact, either." - seen online

Eric Clapton "Wonderful Tonight" (Official Live Video)

Foto von Heute

Stevie Wonder "As" (2008)

2:47-3:03: I find these spoken words highly relevant to getting though life respectfully, graciously, beautifully - while in fellowship with others - not true?

[I share this clip every year, usually around late July. I can't see any reason why Today shouldn't be that day - eh?]

Midnight Oil "One Country"

Who'd like to change the world, who wants to shoot the curl.
Who gets to work for bread, who wants to get ahead
Who hands out equal rights, who starts and ends that fight
And not rant and rave, or end up a slave
Who can make hard won gains, fall like the summer rain
Now every man must be, what his life can be
So don't call me the tune - I will walk away
Who wants to please everyone, who says it all can be done
Still sit up on that fence, no one I've heard of yet
Don't call me baby, don't talk in maybes
Don't talk like has-beans, sing it like it should be
Who laughs at the nagging doubt, lying on a neon shroud [running around]
Just gotta touch someone, hey, I want to be [someone?]
So don't call me the tune - I will walk away
Don't call me the tune - I will walk away
Don't call me the tune - I will walk away
(One Country) Who wants to sit around, turn it up turn it down
Only a man can be, what his life can be
One vision, one people, one landmass
We are defenseless, we have a lifeline
One ocean, one policy, seabed lies
One passion, one movement, one instant
One difference, one lifetime, one understanding
(One country)
Transgression, redemption, one island blue
Our place (magic?), one firmament
One element, one moment, one fusion
Yes, and: one time.

Emotional Toolbox

I, Anna (for I do have a name, and a real entity), am rereading Elinor Greenberg’s book, “Borderline, Narcissistic and Schizoid Adaptations” and I have arrived at page 61, which suggests the idea of an emotional toolbox.
I have heard of this idea before - that of a helpful toolbox that is there for the person to make use of, to improve their experience of a moment.
I don’t know how much I have integrated and developed this concept, YET, for myself and those who interface with me. (Not much, I have to assume - as I don’t seem to be receiving the benefits from having turned to something useful that works.)
But: I can nevertheless output as is, or reformulate, what I take in from this book - and the useful works of others. To start with. I can grasp onto, derive meaning and value from, integrate and synthesize helpful ideas and approaches, which can help me travel from despair to greater competency.
So: right now, I will type out some perspective-enhancing comments that immediately resonate. Constructing a note card is suggested for the idea of a “real” object going into an actual, physical toolbox that a person can turn to for help - a note card with a helpful idea on it, to look at and hold.
I laughed heartily at the mentions of these two particular possibly helpful note cards: “You are taking this too seriously. This is not a cure for cancer.” and “Stop being so passive. You can complain or leave. This is not Auschwitz.”
d'Oh wow - ha ha ha ha ha! Some of my issues - well captured! I feel somewhat of a greater sense of perspective (mastery of scary situation?) already! Yay yay yay, and oyez oyez! :-) Coolio. I’m not in concentration camp, the outcome of the world is not hinging solely on my good output, and I am actually at least somewhat free to self-activate? What a freeing AND scary cognition, all in one. Heh. Let's see what comes next, in this helpful book that I am hoping can influence and guide some of my next phases of personal growth and recovery.