Hello all,
To Ami: thanks!! I like your posts as well. I, too, knew exactly what I was dealing with once I visited Vankin's site and then came here. Honestly, with the exception of God's grace, this place, this forum has probably been the single, most healing factor in my walk with my Nfamily. When I came here back in June of 2005, I was so excited to have deciphered the lifelong mystery of why my life was the way it was. When I started to read of other's experiences I knew I was home, so to speak. A fall-out with a board member caused me to retreat and not be so open and vulnerable but I never lost my love for what goes on here. God bless Dr. Grossman for developing this place!!
To G.S.: I hope I can stay around a little longer this time, however, I'm in this breakneck accelerated nursing program that won't relent in it's demands on my time and energy. I expect to graduate in Dec. of this year, but sheesh, it has truly taken it's toll on my family life/personal time/social life. With regard to negativism, G.S. I see it in my mother in subtle, mostly manipulative ways. But I recognize it as pessimism all the same. She doesn't believe in people. She believes that people have to be constantly cajoled into doing what she needs them to do and that it is such a cross for her to bear to have to be such a source of strength and knowledge all the time. She's getting weaker, more dependent, and this makes for a much unhappier N. She feels used and she's constantly complaining about how people take advantage of her. I'm not sure if she's like this with everyone and she does consider me her "doctor/therapist" now that I'm in nursing. Sometimes I feel like Dr. Melfi giving therapeutic communication with a socio/psychopath who just doesn't get it. I don't know who here watched "the Sopranos" but, I could really relate to her when she said that she wanted to stop seeing Tony because providing him therapy was actually doing more harm than good as he would just use their sessions to justify his off-thinking and to process his evil deeds without ever really taking responsibility for the role he played in creating them. Sorry for the tangent, but being one of the only people my mother truly confides in, it can be harrowing to endure her N-logic, based in her own low self-esteem and envy of other's genuine happiness. So I would agree with you there any negativism is probably more an offshoot of their own desire to manipulate you into buying into their "poor me" plight.
The paranoia is also astounding. It could be born in the fact that, in my mother's case, she really has done a considerable number of BAD acts. And it's catching up with her. Cheating, lying, neglecting, bearing false witness have been staples of N-arsenal for years and years. I believe all the souls she's hurt and all the innocents she's damaged as a nurse, business leader, and clergymember are plaguing her somewhere in there and she's quite paranoid of who and/or what will come to exact their vengeance. This could be from any of her own children, whom she Munchausened-by Proxy from birth, to the IRS whom she's slighted and ducked for the past several years. Whatever the case, it's all catching with her and I can sense the paranoia in her. She can't sleep at night. She has to have someone there in the house with her. Her blood pressure sky-rockets and she gets palpitations. Again, these could be manifestations of anxiety or even manipulation as she does have a way of preceding her episodes with consumption of known offenders like McDonald's fries and mega-large sweet teas, but she does this, I believe in a ploy to maintain contact with her children and to keep them from leaving her alone. She's taken to Munchausening, if my create a word, herself.
The Borderline part, is brought on when her children, mind you the youngest of said "children" are 31, attempt to get space from her. She freaks. She starts in with the ER visits and the protracted hypertensive and heart failure episodes and although they are real clinical manifestations, they most certainly are brought on by her own fear of being left alone. She's a Nurse Practitioner for goodness sakes. She knows how to take care of herself. She has one of these wrist watch type blood pressure monitors that she's wears constantly, needless to say, not as reliable as an arm cuff type, but of course when it reads wrong, nobody around there really knows why. She has everyone on full alert that either her blood pressure is going out of control or that her blood sugar is going nuts or that her shortness of breath is becoming more intense. She'll say, "I almost stroked out, last night!" Imagine my own dismay, to be a student nurse who knows how serious these problems are and how quickly something could go horribly wrong and take her life, not able to respond with full vigor, because I'm almost positive she is "crying wolf" or has done something to precipitate her own sickness. Her last MRI showed that she has, to quote the doc, "the brain of a twenty year old," (of course, she managed to squeeze in this braggardry while at the same time complaining that no one is taking her ill health seriously) Brilliant
Spyralle: Thanks for your observations. I'm curious to know if you are still in psyche nursing and if not, why?. Isn't it fascinating work? I do believe that someday, once I've begun to get my "feet wet" in the field, I'm going to gravitate towards that type of nursing. I've been doing my Management Practicum and Senior Synthesis in the Adult Psyche dept of the University hospital and that extra exposure to psych nursing has really had an effect on me. I'm sure my FOO makes me a little more interested in this field, as most of my fellow classmates won't touch it with ten-foot pole. I remembered my peers being petrified of going into our Psych clinicals. I rather enjoyed it and my clinical instructor said I understood the "art" not just the science of Psyche nursing. It's probably because my having a NPD grandma, NPD/Borderline/Munchausen mom, introverted NDad, Bipolar brother, Epileptic brother, and rising Nsister, I had more than enough experience getting through to the crazies. I myself struggle with anxiety and I have developed more than a few tools for combating that. Anyhoo, like axa, Spyralle, I wonder what your psyche-nurse experiences were like and if you would endorse that line of work.
Isitoolate: I so want to expound on the point you made, but I'm such a long winded writer that I don't want to overwhelm. I have a ton of readings on Ns and psychopaths, spurred on by my being convinced that my shy, non-descript father is in fact a psychopath. I've been having these flashbacks to my early childhood when I'd seen things that I've yet to be able to explain. I know that he is what they call an introverted N, but I think even worse than that is that he is hiding some dark, dark secrets. I totally agree with your statement there.
Thanks for the responses guys and until later,
tiffany
