Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > What Helps?

Calyx recovery

<< < (2/3) > >>

Acappella (delogged):

--- Quote ---My heart is beaming and brimming.
--- End quote ---
Ah, that would be a bit of thrival, eh?  :D

Your post is so full of rich treasures I will be pacing my responses over a long while.


--- Quote ---visual poetry..suspended expanded multidimentionality of a moment
--- End quote ---
unfortunately that description ALSO applies to moments of contortion and emotional decay like the ones the adults around you were suspended in.  I am soooo sorry.   How did you ever keep any sanity/know there were alternatives to those people?   In my childhood I was rejected in many ways, isolated which has brought its own variety of struggle & ALSO I have often considered how hard it would have been to break free had some wackos "accepted" me, had extended use for me.  It takes a village to raise a child and to bury one.   :cry: I imagine you have a wealth of intimate knowledge about "individuation" amidst "belonging".


--- Quote ---Her little girl grew up to become an artist mimicking Joseph's style of making collages in boxes, which I have also been tempted to do. It's a strange and disturbing thing to talk about.
--- End quote ---


Do you feel she got any relief?  Was her mimicking done as if hypnotized or in defiance?  Or?  I am wondering if some form of that and your temptation could be an instinctual move towards something healing - going right to the place you fear most to reclaim your independence?  Sounds to me that if you made a dark piece of art that you could do so without using some inncent human prop and that because of your having a sense of lightness as well you could leave the peice rather than move into it for ever as did that man and your momster.  Perahps that would be a way of facing the fear, reclaiming your own darkside and really feel that it will not consume you this time as it is YOURS to hold and release as you see fit? Perhaps a piece with the life-sized porcelain doll breaking free?  

I am glad you have confronted some of these people.  I know that part of my struggle since graduation to being better able to confront people (long way to go on that one still) is to then accept the distance between us, the rejection or rather the lack of acceptance - this struggle manifests in me also as a sort of naieve disbelief in their not making the and so my not getting a connection, social validation.

I like your eloquent contrasts:
--- Quote --- quivering sensitivity, suffering, shadow of wounded subtext
--- End quote ---
followed by
--- Quote --- soaking in the slow heaven of a song
--- End quote ---
.   and spray candy.   :D The image of a woman in the second half of her century (aka over the 50 hill)  swaying blissfully to sunshine on my shoulders with candy blue lips a dark roots in a drug store isle that is priceless!  
--- Quote ---oooh, you are funny!
--- End quote ---



--- Quote ---acknowledged vulnerability
--- End quote ---
I was inspired to phrase it that way based on the feeling I got looking at the We are S.A.V.E.D. web page.  Maybe I got it literally from there?  


--- Quote ---Hey, how about we start a thread with recovery music, for post detaching from Ns, uplifting songs, enlivening, inspiring music?
--- End quote ---

Sounds great and I have am working to be more focused...avoid distraction too as you noted.  I think that will be a wonderful thread and I am not going to be allocating time for now to creating new threads.    

Ya got the quotes! I still don’t know how to use many of the features for posting and have made many a messy post especially when posting as a guest and I can’t go back therefore and edit after posting.  Good exercise in not being a perfectionist. Took me at least a month to discover the the "Preview" button right next to the "submit" button - it lets you see what your post will look like posted but before you've actually submitted it. No spell check though.  Again, for me...a good exercise in not being a perfectionist.  :D


--- Quote ---I was getting pissed, lonely and then feeling rejected that my posts were looked at but nobody responded. In the online recovery groups I feel like kid in kindergarten again, delicate somehow!
--- End quote ---
There is that vulnerability thing again.  yeah, I find this is a great place to notice my feelings and especially reactions while interacting with others  at a pace slower (yet only slightly less emabarassing sometimes) and therefore easier to pay attention to than in real time.  


--- Quote ---what I think of as healthy mutual trust and intimacy could be called mutually acknowledged vulnerability and mutual healthy support of the other, with mutual good will, while not caretaking
--- End quote ---
That is a distinction I am grappling with.  Caretaking is a GOOD thing and i even believe the catch phrase "co-dependent" has along with the intended disfunction caught in its broadly cast net some vital interdependency.


--- Quote ---My immediate thoughts on that are that the concept of individuation is missing. My theory, based on object relations theory, is that kids have two tasks to accomplish in childhood, to connect and to individuate
--- End quote ---
How ironic that the former might just depend so despirately on the later?

That object relations stuff to which you refer sounds facinating as do the books...putting that on my list.


--- Quote ---
In your estimation of yourself, do you think you have connection issues and do they manifest in your life? How?
--- End quote ---


I will respond to your question but as I have done so much mulling over of that I am going to take some time to try and be concise... and read again what you wrote as you wrote a lot for consideration.  For now I will say that too little connection is what I believe has led me to a perilous sort of dependence.


--- Quote ---when the mothering seems to be CONSTANT and with many, many recovery friends I seem to cause or else be the person who they turn to for constant mothering with almost no positive, practical feedback when it comes to my own needing mothering.
--- End quote ---


I've experienced imbalance in both directions
- some "friendships" seeming to require I be the only one vulnerable enough to express sadness, fear, imperfections etc. (not directly expressed need for nurturing and yet at least a hint, a sign of neediness) and yet the quality of response is sabotaged by my not asking for nurturance and their not being vulnerable enough to admit having any problems nor needing nurturing too - which also means they (neither of us really) are not intimately familiar enough with nurturing to give quality nurturing anyway though they may see themselves as a caretaker.  Perhaps that is a sort of cycle of roles that can't move forward.  STUCKNESS.l  Also, I've heard good parenting described as giving children "roots and wings".  So some nurturing may be imbalanced in one or the other direction.  I have a lot to learn and frankly as a species I feel we have a lot to learn about caring for one another properly.  

Likewise I have had relationships where I am not "allowed" to be vulnerable and weak and needy at all which has in turn compromised my ability to be strong.  OH, the ironies!  It all has to do with scarcity, roles and vulnerability i believe and yet have not manifested my understanding in balanced, turn taking relationships yet.

I believe too that if socially there is too little nurturing going around then even a healthy amount of need expressed by someone can get dumped on the few who respond - so that IT is TOO much for one yet not TOO much to need.  When I spread my need around (share the joy  :lol: ) then no one source is so vital..on the other hand concentrating need and exchange in fewer relationships means the quality, customization of care is greater.  balance, balance, balance.  Ah and I only get one lifetime for all this. YEEESH!

Yes, the guitar is in the room with me.  Its silent strings stiffly MOCKING my fear all the while!   :cry:  :D  :cry:  :D  :D  :D  :shock:

THANK YOU FOR ASKING!

AND :oops: geepers...I thank you for your compliments.    

Now if only I were employed!

Read ya later.
Take care.

eyeswideopen:
This is my first attempt at a chat room, may be a bit technically challenged at first.  

I am very new to the subject of NPD, as to the request of our marriage counselor, I was not to make mention of my spouses disorder to my spouse.  

But, since the counselor is on holiday and my NPD left (with no regard to my feelings, or course) the kids and I for Hawaii,  I thought I would take this time to recoup my energy and  educate myself.  So here I am.  Is there anyway out of this nitemare?

CC:
Nickyskye and Accapella,

I dare not engage in the involved banter betwixt the two of you but had to make amused mention that it is official.... you two have won the prize for the longest posts EVER on this website!!!!!
                  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

Acappella:
Hi CC,

acceptance speech:  Yup.

P.S. you're traveled to the end of this thread but haven't yet fled so do dare to bare banter betwixed and between cause even we know that lean too is keen.  :D

Acappella:
Hi eyeswideopen,

i like your name and that is the first step outta the nightmare isn't it?  

other ones that come to mind are:
-going to therapy (by the way liked your therapists advice).
-taking really good care of yourself - pamper you.
-taking care of your children
-find people who support you
-try not to obsess on the N traited person but rather focus on you.
remeber it isn't your fault that an N trated person resorts to the behavior that they resort to.  They were trained and became experts long before they met you.  
-Likewise, my belief is we partners in such relationships were also trained somehow to accept that behavior, desire it and/or tune it out and are perpetuating our early training by keeping our eyes closed.
-know that while there are shared patterns we each have very unique manifestations and so the way out depends on the particular nature of our own nightmare as much as it depends on nightmare escape tactics in general.  
-don't expect nor hope that the N traited person is going to become capable of protecting you so be sure to protect yourself.  if they change well great AND in the meantime don't pretend they all ready have or bank on them doing so.  possibility doesn't equal probability - i remind myself daily.  

I've heard that some therapists recommend turning and facing what scares us in a  nightmare - apparently when we do the thing/person/action that we are frightened of will morph from its symbolic form, monsters and such, into what we really fear or from a specific "monster" - a husband for example or momster as in Nicky's post into the fear they represent to us.  I haven't had that experience in my nightmares but it has been true in my daymares.  

At http://www.voicelessness.com R. Grossman's articles I find excellent and using the keyword search you can search for his posts too. If you use the keyword search for book or books you'll find a thread about helpful ones.  You can search for authors of posts too such as Elizabeth who is still with an N traited husband, as am I, and Anabelle who has just left her N traited husband.  Elizabeth and Anabelle both have children.  Nicky has been at this a while and has lots of stuff I find relevant in her posts.  

Many, if not all of us, take time to use this site's features (which are the best i've seen on a forum).  Part of voicefullness is asking questions when you need too right? And, if you post someone sometime will answer.  Sometimes this site will log you out and you might not notice it and then your post is posted as Guest and you cannot edit it.  Using the preview button seems to keep me logged in during, as CC noted, the longest posts ever.  The Preview button is useful for trying out the formatting too.  

Ok, well with too many long posts here the world will surly run plum otta the letter N besides i don't want to break my own or Nicky's record for long posts so i'm otta here...did i mention a sense of humor helps?  :D

P.S. do you have a hawaii you can go to? hope you find some warmth and fresh air here.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page