Evolution on the Board

[gratitude28]

I have been thinking about our "places" on the board. We come here, most of us, needing help. For months, at least, a new member, especially one who has just discovered NPD in a close person and doesn't know anything about the disorder, will want to take in everything he/she can and will want to hear about others who are in the same spot. I think this is an information-gathering time. After this stage, the person should want to move on to the What Do I Do To Feel Better stage. At this point, you will start to understand about negative tapes, reactions to things that are actually reactions to the N in your life but displaced, and ways we have hurt ourselves. Now is the time for growth. Once a person has had much growth, he or she would stay on the board to provide help to others and share what he/she has learned. Or the person leaves the board pretty much altogether.
Of course, even those who have had a lot of growth need to go back to stage one sometimes and ask for help.
What do you all think about this... the stages and the growth????
Love, Beth

[isittoolate]

Hi Beth

I agree with stages.

I had already rid my brain of thoughts of any N who had 'destroyed' me and was now working on me and voicelessness

Still am, and I am constantly on the lookout for changes, negative or positive , then work on them from there.

My therapist helps a lot as well
Love
Izzy

[Gaining Strength]

Yes - the stages and the working them over and over at times, moving forward.  helping others work through their stuff often helps me work through mine.  I like what you have written here Beth.  Thanks

[Certain Hope]

Dear Beth,

What a great topic!

My experience has been that - well beyond the initial realization of NPD and that overwhelming sense of desperation, there are aftershocks.
For me, the challenge has been to recognize the longstanding effects of a very N'ish upbringing and how that training primed me for a future marriage to a fullblown NPD.
Underlying all of that is the voicelessness, to which I think I'd have been susceptible even if raised in a very "normal" (whatever that is) home.
So now I'm seeing how my own personality contributed to my inclinations and led me into negative situations, and declaring this the time and the opportuity to focus on healthy ways to mature.
At this point, it's not so much about dissecting and overcoming NPD as it is about learning to relate and communicate with a new voice - one that's able to effectively avoid giving or taking offense. When that voice first hit the open air, it had a poor tone... much like an instrument whch hasn't been used or tuned in ages. So I guess this, for me, is about fine tuning... recognizing emotions & learning how to properly express or dispose of them... all of which, I believe, goes hand in hand with establishing proper internal boundaries. This is a great place to practice a new voice and hopefully share the burdens of those who appreciate that voice.

And besides all that... I can't think of a group of people with whom I'd rather discuss... anything!! 

Love,
Hope

[NoMoreMindGames]

hello there,

i think your stages fit with my experiences, as well as what i've read others describe.  i would, however, hesitate to say "should" in the context of healing....that may make people feel like if they aren't progressing in that way or time frame that there is something wrong with them?

[gratitude28]

Actually, I avoided saying should when it comes to sticking around and helping others. But in the first part, I really believe the person *should* get to the point of wanting to make some changes. Just having the knowledge will not be enough to make a person happy, I don't think. Simply knowing that I was disliked by my N was not enough... at that point, to have some growth, I needed to decide how I would react to that person in order to start feeling better about myself.
Love, Beth

[Certain Hope]

Dear Beth,

Are you feeling bad about yourself for still being here?

I hope not.

We knit ourselves back together and move onward, but sometimes the knots get tied in haste and one or two may come loose or need adjustment... (sorry, I am lousy at metaphors).

Anyhow, I hope you're okay.

Love,
Hope

[Ami]

Dear Beth,
   This is the only place where I can talk about my mother and not get a blank stare"This is the only place where someone who had a mother like mine can talk about recovering from it.
  I don't have to hide. You all know the "death dance" that is a relationship with an NPD.You know the heartbreak and the despair.
  I, simply. don't have to "tell "you. You already know.
 
                                                                      Love    Ami

[gratitude28]

Hi CH,
No, I don't feel bad at all. I am grateful that I can be both an "oldtimer" and a person who needs guidance here... and, like Ami said, I am so grateful to have people who understand.
I guess I am puzzling a bit about why people go forever or stay forever. And is there a point when you break free from it all... if you are healthy... or is that a time you can give to others who are hurting. I think that is what I am turning over in my mind now.
Love, Beth

[Certain Hope]

I understand, Beth... and I've been turning something similar over in my mind, too.

Never intended to be back, really... but to everything there is a season

I'm glad you're here!

Love,
Hope

[Ami]

Dear Beth,
  I think that there will be a natural evolution concerning your(our our) life on the board. I went to a support group for 10 years. Then, I found God and felt like I wanted to go to a church and not a support group. I feel that there is a natural ebb and flow of things in our lives if we listen to that "still small voice"                                Love    Ami

[axa]

Interesting thread.  I am so aware of the swings and roundabouts......... I get focused, make big changes, have fun, and the anger emerges, move on again, make new decisions, have fun, feel ok, sad, frustrated, and the anger emerges.  The constant for me is the anger.  It is still there, my anger, nothing to do with Xn just my anger.  I indulge it, I swill around in it, I hate/love it....... this is big to acknowlege this. but this is what I do.  I do not want to let go of the anger.  It is an integral part of my life.  What is my life without the anger??????????

I am an expert at masking it but it is beneath everything.  I am not sure how to rid myself of it.  I know when I do not feel it it is only an interlude, the anger is constant and lying beneath everything.  I am working on it, I do not know if i will ever rid myself of it.  I disguise it in passivity, I disguise it in kindness.......... it is so part of my core.  I distract from it all the time.  If you guys met me in real live most of you would like me.  You would never guess how angry I am.  I am only finding it out now.  I think I choose Ns so that I can justify my OWN anger.  Oh boy, this is hard for me.

I feel at some level I get such affirmation from my growth and healing, which IS happening but also I am so aware now that the anger has not changed.  And yes I do know that beneath the anger is hurt, real soul hurt.

Feeling it

axa

[Ami]

Dear Axa,
   Something BIG has changed. You are facing it. That is HUGE. You are seeing it with your heart and not just your head.Also, you are admitting it.
  You are doing really well. Axa                                                      Love    Ami

[pennyplant]

I guess I am puzzling a bit about why people go forever or stay forever. And is there a point when you break free from it all... if you are healthy... or is that a time you can give to others who are hurting.

It seems like a pattern here.  But I think everyone's motivations are different.  My healing has entered a different stage which keeps me kind of distant from the board.  Partly it is just the kind of person I am or am becoming.  It seems like often enough I need distance.  I still read here every day.  But I don't spend the kind of time here that I used to.  It used to be hours a day.  It became something of an addiction, which surprised me as I never thought I was the addictive "type".  A couple times I got my feelings hurt here and that kind of broke the addiction.  And led me to pay more attention to my day to day life.  Which was a good thing actually.  It was the next step and all that.

Break free from it?  I haven't broke free of it at all.  "It" is part of who I am, who I became, and probably who I always will be on some level.  And I am not healthy yet.  I am much farther along that path than I ever thought to hope for.  But when I look all around me at the "normal" people, I see how many, many more miles I still have to go.

Giving to others who are hurting--here it seems, just like in my real life, I don't have much in common with many of the board members.  Not enough in common to really offer anything that seems like it would be useful.  Never been divorced, never been to court, never been stalked (on edit:  except by a couple of girls for a few months in 9th grade--which is not quite the same as being stalked by an adult-male-full-blown narcissist), don't go to church, weigh the same as I did in high school, still don't have much in the way of working social skills.  If I recommend a book or something it is bound to be obscure or odd.  Perhaps I feel like this because of my ever simmering depression.  But there are some real differences in my life in comparison to many of you.

It is interesting, sometimes, being a fly on the wall here.  I can work out what bothers me and why it bothers me.  But what am I going to say about it?  Some of this stuff is so specific to me.

I've had some real breakthroughs the last few months.  And going through them has been so draining at times, that I just don't want to rehash it here.  Then, soon enough, the breakthrough becomes just a new fact of my life and I'm almost so close to it that I can't any longer explain it.  Maybe it would have been better to post about it when it was happening but that's not always possible.

Beth, you do ask good, thought-provoking questions!  Have you got your finger on the pulse of this place?  I do think so  .

Pennyplant

on edit:  Upon reading teartracks' post, I'm thinking I should clarify what I mean by "it" in my post.  I'm referring to Narcissism and Voicelessness.  Maybe I misunderstood what Beth meant by breaking free of it.  I thought she meant breaking free of Voicelessness and Narcissism.  Did you mean breaking free of the Board, Beth?

Also, about the helping others part--I think I am still confused about what is me helping others and what is just me doing my same old "overly responsible" bit.  So, I think I still have boundary issues.

[teartracks]

Hi Beth.

Like your thread.

Evolution of the board.

Evolution of the people on the board.

Interesting subject.

Here are some random thoughts about the evolution on the board.

When I came here I was in a pitiful state.

About half way through, I thought I'd get through 'it' and come out the other side with a life similar to what I had before.  Not!  My experience with Nissues seems to fit that of most whose background is similar, i.e., Nmother.  I honestly don't know what stage I'm in right now.  I just know that I am an unfinished work.  I honestly don't know to what extent  the board has helped along the way.  I came here trying to dig my way out of a hole.  I was so desperate, the bookkeeping as to what worked best or least suffered. 

Threads get hijacked, but the board seems very stable.  The people change.  The issues stay pretty much the same. 

Why have I hung around?  For all the reasons y'all have mentioned.  I left for a while, though. 

What are my observations?  Very close to what y'all have described.

I feel a bond with the board that I didn't feel a year ago.  I don't see the board as an it.  I do see it as a very important tool for persons searching for understanding about emotional issues caused by narcissism.   I've come to appreciate the way it works.  To me, it is something of a cyber wonder. 

I think I view the board as a community, similar to the realspace community where I live.  When the world wide web came into being with all  its features, the capacity to add another layer of community became available.  To use a real estate metaphor, we searched around for a community that suited our needs.   Some of us moved in and put down roots.  Some come and go.  Others move away and so on.

I think the people are endlessly interesting. 

tt