Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
For Sally
surf14:
Boy survivor: How funny that your family has this issue too!!!! Maybe this might turn out to be univeral amongst N's and a way to spot them cold. :lol: :lol: :lol: Surf
Sally:
This has been such fun reading!! Sometimes when I'm thinking of ways to zing my mother (always just fantasy, but fun) I think of little notes I would like to write to her. Would be fun to write one telling her an interesting study about to begin that links narcissism with an obsession for thank you notes!!
You all, I am doing soooooooo well today!! Just can't believe how well I am doing. But I think it's because I kept looking all of these twenty years for the missing link. I couldn't understand why I kept accepting my exN into my life. Just finally figured the whole situation was hopeless, I was doomed to dance the rest of my life with him in horrible pain.
But learning about the narcissism has completely answered all of the questions that kept haunting me. I've worked so hard to get over this guy that by the time I got to the narcissism issue, there was nothing else left to consider. And, I knew so much about him by then that the minute I looked at the narcissistic characteristics I could see him in bold letters. Like a lightening bolt!!
So, I am doing well, but it has taken my sooooooo long and sooooooo much work to get here. And the support I got from this board during the difficult days was what helped the most. Thanks so much again!!
surf14:
Sounds really good Sally. I'm glad that getting more information has been so freeing. sounds liek there'sno going back now. Aloha Surf
rosencrantz:
I can relate to that, Sally!
IF my father hadn't died, I wouldn't have had to come up against my mother so intimately again. Every day I'd hear how she was managing her life, how she reacted to people, what her priorities were - I'd both be incredulous about what she was doing AND find excuses for her (AND give MYSELF 'Fail' grades - yet what I was doing was 'merely' defining her personality accurately!!). And I nearly drowned in what she was doing to me.
But then when the articles on narcissism arrived in my inbox one day, and when I finally got round to reading them! - there it all was! Or rather, there SHE was!! I can still remember : it was (as the phrase goes) as if time stood still!!! I may even have stopped breathing. My eyes couldn't have got wider!!!!! (I think I remembered to shut my mouth!!) :wink:
Knowing someone as their daughter isn't always the same as knowing someone as an equal adult. And that's something my father's death gave me an opportunity to do.
I haven't always absolutely 100% of the time been glad about the discovery and how it came about - especially as it still meant losing out on a relationship (for me AND my son) with my father, but oh gosh, YES - the pain of not knowing would always have been much bigger than the pain of knowing!!!
The past now makes sense (and so do I!!) and the future must surely open out in a better way as a result. Even if all I can do is make sure my son understands what it's all about.
But I still don't feel 'fit for human scrutiny' yet. I feel very nervous about being amongst other people. I live somewhere where I hadn't made friends before this happened and I've moved into such a different place in my head that I wouldn't know where to begin with old friends I've left behind. And I'm too 'different' (wobbly?) right now to be the person they knew.
The world is suddenly a different place and I don't know where I fit in any more!!!! I found this Board (lifesaver) but where do I reconnect with the outside world??? :shock: And can I trust myself in the outside world anyway - not to get sucked in and spat out again as part of somebody else's dish of the day!! And if it's to be on MY terms only, can there ever be 'friendship' again???! :?
I have such intimacy here with people who are 'strangers'; and then I see familiar faces around me with whom I have nothing in common and no point of reference...
As the saying goes : 'I need to get out more'!!! :wink: But we definitely need an ACON movement here in the UK!!!!!
R
clj_writes:
Dear R,
I have only recently arrived here (both to the forum and acknowledgment of my ACON status) but I must say your posts are filled with wisdom and caring. Based on what I've read, I would gladly be your "real" friend although I guess the ocean precludes that at the moment. ;)
I know that feeling of not wanting to come out of the cave and take your show on the road but you are laying the groundwork for that eventual day. To worry about it now is getting ahead of yourself, I think. When you are "ready", you will know it and there will be as much excitement and anticipation as anxiety. Since most of us spent many years either hiding who we were or oblivious to it, it takes some time to excavate those tender inner selves. I myself feel a great sense of urgency to "get on with it"!
In the mean time, let's all practice the kindness and gentleness with ourselves that we wish to receive from others! :)
P.S. To all-please pardon my previous post on this thread--I didn't see there was a second page of posts (a newbie move!) and thus jumped in at a weird time.
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