NPD Antisocial PD and love

[Hopalong]

Hi P,
Over here we have Ronald Reagan to thank for closing down almost all the mental hospitals. Of course, not enough resources for community homes were planned, and not enough support for families of the mentally ill so they could cope at home....so began the explosion in the homeless explosion.

Guess they're supposed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Except their bootstraps might be talking to them.

We need plenty of humane, intelligently-run mental hospitals. Over here the prison population is 1/3 mentally ill...and prisons aren't built to treat mental illness. Just saw a documentary on that and it's horrifying, both for the mentally ill and the prison staff who are trying to accomodate them safely.

Personally, I think all nonviolent offenders should be in halfway houses, wearing ankle bracelets, doing productive community service. But we just love our punsihments over here, that satisfying vengeful sentencing...and what happens to them after that is somebody else's problem. It's insane.

Hops

[reallyME]

bean,

I'm not a professional medical practitioner, but in the past, I did see some things that concerned me...when you told people I attacked you, and I hadn't even approached you in quite some time back then.  That was the one thing I saw that hinted of an N'istic behavior, though no, I will not label or diagnose anyone.  I'm learning that the personality labels are for my private knowledge, not to use on people to make them feel bad about themselves.  That's never been my heart, actually, and I've been learning new ways of communicating that validate and honor people rather than shame and destroy them. 

I once said that you remind me of Jodi...well, I've come to a place of loving her even, so I can love you as well.

~Laura

[WRITE]

Back to care in the community – it saves money and takes the burden off hospitals but I see people in my town wandering about, not being ‘cared’ for. A few times I’ve called the police because I’ve seen someone walking unsteadily along the middle of a very busy dual carriageway (where nobody usually walks). It isn’t working perfectly, but then, what does I guess.

Hey. I guess I feel strongly about all this!

does it make your eyes shine and you want to come up with programmes and solutions?!
That's how I feel about alzheimers...


My recent marriage (and soon divorce) to (don't laugh it's just sad) an N psychologist - must we be so damn hamster like!

it's one of life's facts: we choose relationships which are most like the issues we have unresolved with a parent ( maybe both parents...)


Personally, I think all nonviolent offenders should be in halfway houses, wearing ankle bracelets, doing productive community service.

absolutely!
But even in liberal progressive Britian there's a lunacy to sensible solutions: we give addicts money to pay their rent and buy food ( so we aren't patronising them- even though it is clear they then buy alcohol, or drugs and lose their homes or don't eat or feed their kids )
Why should people work for benefits? Let alone work off a debt to society- and anyway local businesses complain if people work for free and take away their right to earn money from that job...

It's become a liberal free-for-all which is only checked by conservative extremism! In searching for the ideal solutions we bypass the practical and realistic. And everyone suffers as a problem goes unchecked and gets worse.

[reallyME]

it's one of life's facts: we choose relationships which are most like the issues we have unresolved with a parent ( maybe both parents...)

WRITE is RIGHT!  This is truth about N'ism and the children affected by it, in a very nice nutshell

[reallyME]

bean,

actually I don't know if I noticed that you were posting in a different handle a while ago.  I tend not to notice those things when I'm busy with school and work and stuff.  If you want, please tell me your new handle so I don't use bean anymore.  I'm kewl with it.  Yes, things are ok now between you and I.

moon, I'm sure in some families, there are children who don't have mental disorders even though the parents do, but from my personal experience with people I've come across, been friends with, etc, it's the exception rather than the rule.  How can a child living in constant abnormality, grow up to be normal, barring a miracle of God and just a very strong inner sense of worth?

~Laura

[Portia]

Hops, I’m a liberal at heart and I can see the problems. My Dad thinks we should bring back the death penalty. I shouldn’t even go in to those conversations these days!

Write
does it make your eyes shine and you want to come up with programmes and solutions?!

Well no, it makes me wish that those who can make a difference would do so differently. About what makes my eyes shine – I’ve been thinking about this an awful lot and the honest answer is, very, very little. Occasionally seeing someone ‘get it’ here for the better is wonderful. I’ve been motivated by anger and survival for so long. I see sadness and hurt and to alleviate that a little would be fulfilling …but. In a different life I might have been an aid worker or a foreign correspondent; I have an idea what motivates those choices. Then again, I am wary of anyone with a ‘cause’, anything extreme. Although I could get pretty extreme about childcare (at the same time thinking we need to have fewer children).

In searching for the ideal solutions we bypass the practical and realistic.

Yes. I was wondering, as I do, about the growing numbers of Eastern European immigrants we’re seeing. I mean it’s becoming obvious in this town, mainly Polish people who seem not to have learned English so – their employment is at the bottom end, probably below the minimum wage (£5.25 an hour I think) and I’m wondering, where are they living? How are they paying council taxes and fuel bills and all the other very expensive things we pay to  live in this country? Is life here what they expected? Today I hear that no, they’re not happy because they’re living 15 to 30 people in a 3-bedroomed house. They’re taking low paid jobs and coming up against negative views from the older established immigrant populations. Ha, people! 

Laura/ RM
How can a child living in constant abnormality, grow up to be normal,

It’s a tall order! But what’s normal? A child needs one person to give them a sense of self, one person to witness any abuse, one person to let the child know that they are lovable and loved. That saves a child from an abnormal family. Sure the child may grow up to be less than ‘normal’ but that doesn’t make the adult child abnormal. It’s not so black and white. A member here grew up with abusive blood parents but she had a caring, witnessing, helping person alongside them, and so seems to me to have grown up normal – more normal than me I think!

[reallyME]

Portia,

I agree with you...a child with 2 dysfunctional parents, needs a person in their life to show them they are loved and valued.  I was referring to a child who NEVER knows that love, never has the person come along...that child, does not grow up to be normal in his/her perceptions, behaviors.  I'm glad you had a person to help you through though.  I am one of those people who comes along and walks through a 12 step codependency program, with the people God puts in my path...so people DO have that chance of living a healthy, normal life.

My definition of normal is well-adjusted with behavior that is appropriate for a given circumstance and having healthy boundaries as well as respecting another's boundaries.

~Laura

[Portia]

Hi Laura

I was referring to a child who NEVER knows that love, never has the person come along...that child, does not grow up to be normal in his/her perceptions, behaviors. 

Agreed. Sorry I misinterp’d.

My definition of normal is well-adjusted with behavior that is appropriate for a given circumstance and having healthy boundaries as well as respecting another's boundaries.

I like your definition. I’m not normal and I think I’m getting used to that idea, rather than worrying about it... 

I'm glad you had a person to help you through though. well not for long (i wasn't talking about me before).

So self-diagnosis, I think I'm avoidant to an extent now and changing those underlying beliefs probably comes down to taking action and practice, facing fears.

[penelope]

hi all,

This is a very interesting discussion.  I was having a very similar conversation with my therapist just last week.  I think I can look at this objectively, despite having two N parents myself.  Here's why:  I really don't feel defensive about this at all. 

The thing is, late last year I finally admitted to myself that I need therapy long-term to get better.  To get better boundaries, to learn to feel feelings, to respond to those feelings appropriately, to learn to parent (and often reparent) myself, to soothe myself when I'm feeling bad rather than relying on others to do it, etc.  I realized that growing up with the parents I have impacts almost every aspect of my emotional life (which often trickles into the physical realm of things - emotions can and do produce my anxiety which has real negative physical symptoms).  This is not to say growing up with the parents I did impacted almost every aspect of my life now in a negative way.  Growing up with two N parents had positives, believe it or not.

Here are the positives:
1.  I'm very sensitive to others.  I can empathize and react to others emotional needs often before anyone else around that person.  I "get it" when people feel bad and I respond to them a lot.

2.  I've learned to trust my own inner voice.  When everything around you at home is tumultuous, you seek out and in my case find a sanctuary of goodness and safety - in my case, school, learning and books always provided a safety net for me.  I had some very supportive caring teachers who taught me the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, despite my parents.  See, I did not buy into their bullcrap stories a lot of the time.  On some level I knew they were "crazy."  What they said didn't jive with the morality I knew existed other places in the world.

The negatives:
1.  I've learned to put the needs of my disordered parents above mine, to the detriment of my own well being.

2.  I haven't learned to deal with conflict in healthy ways.

3.  I have weak boundaries and thus feel frustrated a lot of times when I need to have stronger ones but don't feel able to enact them.

4.  I'm suffering the affects of remembering abusive episodes from my past.  I need to reframe those experiences and emotions into positives.  For example, if I felt I was the rebel in my family when I was a teenager because I stuck up to my parents.  Instead of thinking I was "the bad kid," I can choose to think "I was courageous.  I stood up against the abuse and told them (in my way) it was wrong.  I was looking out for me and my brothers and sisters."

The thing is, we don't grow up in a vacuum - I know I didn't anyway.  There are lots of other influences in our lives..

what do others think that had two N and/or abusive parents?

penelope bean

[reallyME]

Portia and Penelope,

Thank you so much for sharing about yourselves with the group here.  I really admire you both for the progress you have made.

It's so sad to me that neither Jodi nor her parents can seem to understand that she is the way she is, because of the way they raised her and the times they were not there for her or put too much responsibility on her.

Jodi would say that she "never wanted to be a kid, EVER...I always wanted to be an adult and I acted very mature at a young age."  That is sad to me, because she has tried to also raise her own daughter in that way.  Her daughter is a "rebel" to that way of thinking, though, and so she is scorned and mocked by her mother.  It's just all really sad, and I got to experience a taste of what that daughter goes through, while staying with Jodi.  There is no child that can always be "one step ahead" of the parent...there is no way someone can always be "seen and not heard" and still feel valued.  There is no way for a child to measure up to a parent's standards, that has no defined "right or wrong" because every time that child feels it begins to achieve, the parent says "no, that's not what I told you to do" and changes the rules suddenly, so it creates a reality that is confusing and unattainable.

It breaks my heart to know that anyone endured such a life as a child, and I pray someday to make a difference.

~Laura

[WRITE]

I was wondering, as I do, about the growing numbers of Eastern European immigrants we’re seeing. I mean it’s becoming obvious in this town, mainly Polish people who seem not to have learned English so – their employment is at the bottom end, probably below the minimum wage (£5.25 an hour I think) and I’m wondering, where are they living? How are they paying council taxes and fuel bills and all the other very expensive things we pay to  live in this country? Is life here what they expected? Today I hear that no, they’re not happy because they’re living 15 to 30 people in a 3-bedroomed house. They’re taking low paid jobs and coming up against negative views from the older established immigrant populations. Ha, people!

I have written about this before- the fact that people are 'sold' new lives in the UK and often pass through several Convention countries in their bid for political asylum...only to be vulnerable to exploitation once they get there from slum landlords/ rogue employers etc.

In China there is a big education programme to try to prevent people giving away their life savings to people traffickers & to educate people about their vulnerabilities to drugs/prostitution/slavery if they become illegals even in developed countries ( where they assume since such behaviours are illegal they will not be tolerated or will not exist )

I imagine there's nothing like being voiceless as a foreigner with no status, terrified of detection, trying to make your way without being harmed or exploited.

[Hopalong]

Yes.
Compassion for the desperate everywhere.

Africa.............