Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Gaining Strength on September 20, 2006, 11:10:31 PM
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OK, I don't know where I came up with this. I am somewhat afraid that I got it from you but at the risk of appearing looney I am sharing a segment of a post from an interesting blog on narcissism - www.operationdoubles.com/narc/narcissistaspathologicalliar.htm
Narcissists will say ANYTHING. They tell the wildest lies conceivable. Unless you know a narcissist well, you will never be able to divine a conceivable motive for most of his lies. Narcissists lie gratuitously, about matters great and small. Their lies are an affront to your right to see what you see, hear what you hear, and know what you know. They won't hesitate to say that black is white or that square is round. In other words, their lies don't stop short of gaslighting.
They lie to you about facts they know you know. They lie to you about what you have said and done. Even if you said or did it only one second ago. They lie to you about what they have said and done in your presence. Even if they said or did it only one second ago. They lie about what you have done together. Even if it was only one second ago. In short, they lie like somebody out of his mind or hallucinating.
They resonate between alternate and contradictory versions of an event with blinding speed. They lie so fast and furiously that they metamorphose a lie five or six times in the space of a minute — like somebody on a psychedelic trip. They lie so fast and furiously that they lie absurdly and contradict themselves in the same breath. And if you ask them which of their contradictory statements is the true one, or if you contradict them, they project their craziness off onto you by saying that you need your head examined, that you are making stuff up, that you are crazy.
That's because, unlike normal people, a narcissist does not craft lies he thinks you will believe. His lies are willful delusions that he wants to impose on you (projective identification.) So, he will declare the sky purple, believe it, and expect you to believe it!
Well, not exactly. It only seems that he expects you to believe it. All he really wants is for you to NOT contradict his fantasy in any way. In other words, he wants you to let his lies pass.
Why?
When a normal person lies, he is trying to get you to believe his lie. He knows you are a person, like him, with an inner life, and a mind of your own. But a narcissist does not relate to others humanly. His disordered personality never developed properly. He relates to you as a newborn infant (at the Narcissistic Stage of child development) relates to its mother — as but an object in a world that revolves around him. He learns to operate Mother like we operate robots. We push buttons and levers to control robots. He bawls to push Mother's buttons, making her perform a series of services till she gets to the one he wants and he stops crying. Which is her "Off" button. In other words, Mother is just a tool for him to control. Whether by choice or disability, the narcissist's brain does not work right: it remains forever that infantile. You are not a person to him. He is unaware of your inner life. He doesn't think about what you might think.
In fact, you can crash his brain by asking him what he thinks you think. The question does not even compute, because he does not recognize your autonomy. So, you might as well ask him what a hammer or a robot of his thinks. He just wants the objects around him (which are here for his sake, not their own) to behave as though his fantasies are true. So, when he tells you the sky is purple, he doesn't want you to believe that the sky is purple, he just wants you to behave as though the sky is purple.
This is a perfect description of life with my dieing aunt. Last night I read this to my mother and her youngest sister who has traveled yet again to be by her sister's side as she dies. Even on her death bed she is still lieing, still demanding all the attention and still being nasty. When my mother left her this afternoon, she touched her dieing sister's hand and said, "Goodbye, we love you." (certainly an insincere statement) My aunt, replied, speaking for the first time today. "Don't touch me. that hurts. Go on and go." I digress - When I read this description to the youngest of the three, she cried. It is so moving to read on paper a description of an inhuman being that people have spent their lives trying to reach, trying to placate even trying to love: a person who defies description to anyone and who my grandparents acted as if were normal. To see in black and white that someone else could possible get it - is overwhelmingly moving.
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I am just starting to understand and see the lying. I hesitated before to say that my mother does it, but she does. She will look around and say, "My parents had one of those." and you know they never did. They are such silly lies that we have always let them go. What was the point of calling her on them???? But now she has this "memory" of her youth as being in the Emerald City with Gina Davis from Stuart Little as the Mom and a sick but charming Clark Gable dad. The scary truth? Grandma was uneducated, heavy, sweet but unattractive, had a house FILLED with junk. The grandfather was a nasty diabetic drunk who, at the minimum, beat and neglected his children. A slight difference. A little white lie... to oneself.
Thanks for the topic, GS. ((((((()))))))))
Love, Beth
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That is so bizarre. All this stuff we lived and write about is so bizarre. It makes us different even if there were no psychological scars. It's like living in the middle of a morphing Kafka work. I want out. But I'll never really be out even when I have become whole, I'll still be caught in a kafkaesque warp.
Beth - how funny - we were both starting new posts simultaneously and then responding to each others. I'm easily amused. LOL Gaining Strength
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Too funny... cross posting. ANd I like the kafka imagery. It is very true. Maybe if we are lucky we can move up to the weird Picassos...
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GS,
I want out. But I'll never really be out even when I have become whole, I'll still be caught in a kafkaesque warp.
With all of my heart and strength, I do not want to believe this. Surely we can surround ourselves with truth, choose to ponder those things which are true, right, lovely, and of good report, and build a strong base of reality from the inside out. I refuse to believe that we are forever trapped in the N-Zone. Yes, it makes us different to be aware of the pathology of N, but every bit of awareness that we incorporate into our being opens the door to freedom a bit more. It's up to us whether or not we want to walk through that door,
a new creation with a renewed mind and heart.
Love,
Hope
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I've never known my Ndad to be honest about anything. Every story, every situation, everything he's said has either been a full blown lie or an exaggeration. But what has always bugged me is how he and my Nmom have always forced me to be a part of their lies while I was growing up. Like before we'd see family at a get-together, I'd have to memorize the latest BS - and god help me if I got it wrong. They'd "correct" me in front of others by saying, "She's stupid, she doesn't know what she's talking about."
One of the last few times I saw and spoke with my dad a few months back, it had been over 8 months my mom showed him the door. The first thing he starts on about is how happy he is that he reconnected with his old group of friends on the other side of the country - people he hadn't seen in 35+ years. News to me. He goes on to say that the old gang is still alive and they offered to wire him whatever cash he needed to come and join them in Vancouver. They've got a job and apartment lined up for him, blah, blah, blah. He's really thinking about leaving but isn't sure if we can handle it.
What a pile of crap. Nevermind that my dad forgot that I knew that the guy he supposedly spoke to died about 15 years ago.
So I pipe up, "Dad, you should go. There's nothing really left for you here anyways. These people clearly care about you. It'll be a good, fresh start - besides, you always say you're bored anyways." He was stunned. Of course he wanted me to say, "Oh no no, you can't go. We need you. What if mom wants you to come home?"
At the end of the visit he says, "You know what, I'm not going. I don't think you guys could handle not having me here."
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Certain Hope
I really think that you are right. With all of my heart and strength, I do not want to believe this. I refuse to believe that we are forever trapped in the N-Zone.
I really do agree with you. That line came out of great pain in the moment of posting. It was a cry of agony and expression of my pain and hurt over what we have been through and the cost, the price we pay. But ultimately you are right and to take it one stepforward I truly believe that we have the potential to achieve a knowing, an understanding of ourselves and our world that exceeds that of our average neighbor. The understanding that we achieve by unraveling the insanity of living with narcissistic injury will give us a framework to understand much of the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow man and through that framework we have access to a peace. And you are right that we must hold on to that gift of "truth" that will be or is ours.
Thank you - Gaining Strength
Lily - It's so crazy isn't it. What's ever crazier is that even though we grew up with it we still try to understand the N parent through the same filters that would apply to normal people. That's crazy too and even worse - it makes me crazy. I'm going to stop doing that. - GS
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Hi Yep
I got lied to too a lot ! Recently and for the first time I called him on one .
And said about the lie well we are going to have to let that be a mystery.
The lie was about borrowing an item that was very special to my daughter something that one would not misplace or lose or throw away.
I was told it had been returned to me then two other lies came out so there were several versions.
He was so incensed about me calling him on the lie he came over to my house to "handle it"What a head tripper.
But its OK I am living in honesty with the people I love warts and all .Still I am loved and forgiven for past error .
Also now I am learning from past error and now day by day finding my side of the street getting cleaned up.
I understand why lying was done.Still I do not know the answer to what happened to said very special item that was borrowed and disappeared.
But thats OK with me I did not do the lying it did not hurt me.I do not take it personally any more.
I am experiencing expanded heart and forgiveness for error in all .I have lied in my life and have wished for forgiveness whether or not another wishes for forgiveness
or can even say an error has occurred does not hurt me anymore I am wishing for love for all but we seem to live on planet of free will.
I now know what I am responsible for and wish to make a place for peace in my heart.You know judging others is something one must take care with if it is to understand and free one's self that is one thing but I do wish to be guided by my own sincerity and apply it well.Peace dwells within.
Here we work to help each other and helping to connect individual heartstrings this seems to be what the human experience is all about.we can honor the light and dark side but balance it with the higher self .Then understanding balance with the higher self to become whole again.
Why do we feel that something is missing?
MoonLight
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Dear Moon,
I don't quite understand this: Why do we feel that something is missing?
Are you feeling like something is missing?
Dear GS,
I surely understand the momentary great pain that can make this seem like an endless struggle. I just have to hang onto the truth that it's not endless, that healing is available, and that God is faithful to make all things new again. Sometimes I need plenty of reminders of that fact. I believe that the truth is ours now... we just have to put it on and work it out, so to speak. Big hugs to you.
Hi Lily,
We recently went through a similar scenario with my father-in-law. After 40 years of neglect, he's now decided that he wants to move back to our area to be near my husband. Oh, brother. I really think that all of his talk was just to see our response, but man... there sure was plenty of hot air bein released around here. He's going to go after the VA for more disability money, he's going to tell them he's messed up because of Agent Orange, he's going to do this, he's going to do that, all about money and more money and big plans and all this stuff he's going to buy... but he doesn't have a pot to... well, you know. The lies never end... regardless of whether anyone is interested, impressed, or ever responds... N doesn't mind a bit, just keeps on lying.
(((((Lily))))) Sorry you have to hear any more of the lies.
With love,
Hope
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Hope ,
Just a thought regarding striving for wholeness and understanding our imperfections and letting ourselves be human and receiving God's love .
Stuff like that We do not need to feel anything is missing when we realize how we are beloved by God.
That is why I feel judgment and blaming are such difficult issues to deal with for me.
moon
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its not as awful as being there are being dumped on in the final moments when you are saying goodbye to someone you have loved, who never loved you back.
I just got the call telling me that my aunt is dieing. I am going. I had a conversation with a relative who is in palliative care. Last night she talked about releasing this narcissistic person so she might find some peace. I had already begun to do this with images of my grandparents, my mother and my younger aunt present and praying forces of love release her. I am choosing to do that for my father and brothers as well. I am sure this will change me, and release me from the binds of hatred, resentment and sabotage. - Day is darkest before the light - Gaining Strength
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((((((((((Gaining Strength)))))))))
Joining my prayers to yours.
God bless and keep you in His tender care.
With much love,
Hope
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GS,
Peaceful heart in the present moment...that will see you through.
Sometimes in these vigils it isn't last words said or unsaid, but the gradual way the body lets go, how long and belonging to itself the last passage is...I think it can help us let go and also feel peace. Even when it's been inhabiting a failed personality in life, at the end, there's just the force of life still laboring.
Thoughts with you,
Hops
S &Safe,
The very last vigil is often beyond a time a Nperson has the strength to attack. IMO, sometimes all they have left to teach us in illness or dying is here, this is the body stopping. Is is not. I think some deaths in a way connect us back to real nature. Or what I mean is, connect us to our own flesh.
I hope you will be sovereign, safe and free...and I know your decisions about all that will be Sound.
Hops
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I tried to respond yesterday but everytime I pressed REPLY I got a "cannot connect' page. So here I go again today.
Sovereign + Safe
Maybe i will rethink my plans and try to release and let go of my father.
Im just not there yet. Of course, he isnt dying yet either, he's still around to
e mail me insults and disinherit me!
I have much to say to you and myself in reply but not enough time right now. So here's a start. he's still around to
e mail me insults and disinherit me! My father doesn't e-mail me but I anticipate that he will disinherit me. It is a major issue with me for many complicated reasons. That is what made dealing with my aunt's death something of a prelude to his. But all the more reason to try to release and let go of my father before he dies so the pain will not knock me for a loop. I am convinced that releasing these deeply unkind people in love is essential for me. I understand so very well how cold and formal and unloving my paternal grandparents were and so in my mind I have conversations and prayer like images in which I refuse to take the unreasonable demands, the lack of love, the refusal of support and encouragement, the silent dismissiveness, the sabatage and belittlement, etc., etc. In my mind, I say, "I'm sorry. I will no longer accept that hurt and unkindness from you. It isn't mine and you must release it. You must lt it go in order to be free from your pain. Passing it on does not free you. It entombs you and I won't do that to you or to me any longer." I say something like that and just imagine him bathed in a light of love.
Please understand S+S, I don't do this so much for him as for me but in te end it works for both of us. It is starting to heal the deepest, darkest wounds in my soul. For the past few days I have done this with my maternal grandparents. I loved them but they chose to let my aunt, who died yesterday, run rampant over everyone's life. It wasn't fair to her and it wasn't fair to any of us. But it was the path of least resistance. Though they were kind and loving I have just come to see that there was a selfishness in them that simply didn't want to have to deal with the difficulty that was their second child. So I have been holding them in my mind and talking to them about it, showing them a diferent way and asking them, in love to do things diferently. I know how silly this sounds but I am telling you that it is making a real difference in me. I am actually seeing my being release some of the shame and rejection and condemnation that I have held my entire life.
Just sharing - your friend GS
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GS, I found an amazingly trenchant quote in a cartoon, today, of all places:
Running away is the coward's way to avoid wars; appeasement is the coward's way to enter them.
It sounds as though your family appeased your aunt all her life, and yes, it is selfish. And it never works. It just feeds and coddles the bully, at the expense of everyone else around them.
And re-imagining these crucial issues being addressed with your family isn't silly at all. It's at the very heart of 'visualization therapy' which is one of the most powerful tools there is for healing the past.
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Thank you Stormchild
And re-imagining these crucial issues being addressed with your family isn't silly at all. It's at the very heart of 'visualization therapy' which is one of the most powerful tools there is for healing the past.
I am finding it very helpful and very powerful. Thank you very much for saying this. Your affirmation helps me and encourages me.
At the risk of repeating myself - Voicelessness is the only place in my life that I have experienced support and encouragement and the only place that I have been able to get it at any time of day and any day of the week. This encouragement and affirmation is the sweetest nectar I have ever tasted. I am drunk on it every day.
To read It's at the very heart of 'visualization therapy' which is one of the most powerful tools there is for healing the past
is so reassuring. Thank you - from the bottom of my heart. Your friend - Gaining Strength
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I am drunk on it every day.
I so understand this "falling in love with VESMB" kind of feeling.
I've had seasons of it too.
And I know the approach of winter, in which I usually translate physical cold and dark into psychic cold and dark...I dread much less.
After all I can start the day snuggled up with tea, my SAD light (shining off to the side of my laptop screen as I type), and lovely classical music, and write to my friends, and people who have heard the deepest and most gut-level secrets of my heart, weaknesses, warts, neediness and all.
It is a GREAT comfort and learning place.
GS, it's so nice to hear your hope here.
love,
Hops
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the approach of winter, in which I usually translate physical cold and dark into psychic cold and dark..
Oh the thought of it....
I need to get my antidepressants in hand before the change of time.
This year I'm going to change my feelings of dread (waiting for the othe shoe to drop) that start at the predawn hours into thoughts of joy. That is my hope. I partised it last night as I was getting down a little and again this morning. It is dark and rainy here and I must get dressed and go get my child at my mother's and then off to church. But each and every day has a lonely dread to it. So I am going to change this - I've fallen in love with the affirmations site jacmac sited yesterday. This fall is going to be a significant period of change for me. Thanks for the encouragement Hops. I know I can do it!! Yes I can - GS
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Hi GS,
Just ran across this article and thought I'd tag it on here for the use of future searchers... (rather than begin a new thread).
I hope you've had a good day!
With love,
Hope
Honesty & the Truth Bias
by Sally Caldwell.
The idea that people are who and what they say they are is merely an assumption. It's not only a common assumption, it's a necessary assumption. It's what some have referred to as the truth bias that operates in society -- an implicit assumption that unless we're shown some reason to believe otherwise, we generally believe we're being told the truth. You can think of the truth bias as a societal default position -- the way we'll normally operate unless we get a signal to act differently.
All of us probably know some people who are highly skeptical and cynical about life in general, but I suspect even those folks manage to muster some level of truth bias in their day-to-day activities. If they didn't, they wouldn't get much done. Just imagine what life would be like if we didn't operate with a truth bias, and how society would function without it. The sight of everyone running around fact-checking and verifying everything they were told is a bit incomprehensible. To say that it would be a society of paranoids with all of us at the brink of insanity would be an understatement.
In other words, some measure of truth bias is necessary if our society is to function smoothly and efficiently. It shouldn't surprise us, then, to learn that Romantic Deception is partly fueled by the truth bias of the larger social order. It was apparent in any number of the interviews:
You know it never occurred to me that anybody would lie like that. I can look back on it now and realize there wasn't much he told me that was the truth. But that didn't even occur to me at the time. I'm just not like that. I don't expect people to lie to me. I expect them to tell the truth.
-- Katie, age 19
I felt really stupid. I had no reason to doubt anything he said or did. We'd probably been together for four or five months before I had any hint anything was wrong. Up to that point, I trusted him completely. I didn't have any reason to doubt him, so I didn't.
-- Jerri, age 41
The thing about him was that he told me that honesty was something that was real important to him. He told me he'd been hurt real bad by this woman that lied to him. I believed him. It's as simple as that. He told me he thought it was important to be honest and I figured he was telling the truth. Boy was I fooled.
-- Ellie, age 33
How the hell are you supposed to know? Are you supposed to have this attitude that every guy you will meet is lying? You'd go nuts if you did that.
-- Lydia, age 40
Socialization
As much as the truth bias is imbedded in society, socialization is imbedded in us as individuals. It's the process of socialization that gives us the cultural knowledge we need if we're to function as a member of society. At times we rail against it, but it's with us, in us, and around us from cradle to grave.
As children, we were taught about the importance of honesty and why it's important to tell the truth. If the process works the way it's supposed to, we'll tell the truth because it's the right thing to do. In a word, we will have internalized the value. The value of honesty and truth-telling will become such a part of us that we don't give it a moment's thought.
When values are internalized, they become part of our core belief structure, defining who we are in the most fundamental and important sense. And our internalized values also function as our internal compass -- letting us know when behavior (ours or someone else's) is out of bounds. Unfortunately, our core beliefs have a way of becoming so important to us that it's often very difficult to imagine that we could even find ourselves in the company of someone who didn't hold the same values.
Much like the horror that the neighbors usually express when they learn that the man next door has just been nabbed for being a serial murderer, it's very difficult for well-socialized truth tellers to even contemplate that they could be mixed up with a big-time liar. And that's the whole point about socialization and how it gives rise to deceptive relationships. Ask me who's vulnerable to Romantic Deception, and high on my list will be the woman who was raised right. Show me a woman who believes in honesty and I'll show you a woman who finds it hard to even imagine that she could get mixed up with a big-time liar. Show me a woman who places a premium on honesty in a relationship, and I'll show you a vulnerable target.
This article is excerpted from "Romantic Deception - The six signs he's lying", ©2000, by Sally Caldwell
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Hope -
How interesting. For so long these voices of the interviews echoed my own. Now I'm somewhere between cynical and naive. Now I ask myself in response to a person's self description, "What can I read between the lines of their words?" I don't assume people are lieing but I DO assume that the speaker and I may assign different meanings to the same words. This technique is one safety check to help avoid hearing what I want to hear instead of what is said.
Thanks for the post -
I hope you've had a good day!
I have had a good day. It has been a full day. This morning I met with a team of Christian healers for prayers for release from my issue of shame. It was a fascinating experience. It was good timing as it came before my aunt's funeral this afternoon. My aunt had some kind of strange version of narcissism. She was always unhappy and made large demonstrations of this to get attention and to make everyone around her miserable. The craziness was that she demanded attention and when she had our attention she then screamed and yelled at you. Nothing made her more volatile than for someone to achieve something or to be successful. Such sadness for her and for those she tried to make miserable. I hope there will be healing for her soul and for us by her death. Just trying to make sense and resolution out of the pain created by such darkness - so difficult, so painful but so important.
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((((((((((((((((((((((((GS))))))))))))))))))))))
((((((((((((((((((((Lily)))))))))))))))))))
((((((((((((((((All)))))))))))))))))
This was a heavy thread all around. Thank you for deep insight and difficult shares. GS, I don't know what to add. May you all find some peace.
Love, Beth
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Thank you Miss Beth -
I feel peaceful at the end of this day. Peaceful and hopeful. That is a very good way to feel. so I am grateful - your friend - Gaining Strength
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Hi Hope,
Boy can I relate to that article. Thanks.
GS,
I'm glad it's over...for her, for you, for all those still amazed by their bruises. Have to say you sound so calm and wise right now. I think that's one of the unexpected blessings of our attendance or marking of a death. There's humility and an odd peace about it, I think. Reminds us that we all wear the same kind of sandals, if we're lucky enough to have anything on our feet at all.
Re. welcome to winter: I have noticed a DRASTIC change in my mood since I started again using my SAD light a few days ago. I haven't been this energized in many months. It shocks me every fall. So I wanted to mention it again for anyone who might have wondered. (It can trigger mania, so if you have BPD you'd want to stay away, I think. Or at least ask your doctor.)
Hops
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Hops -
My Dr. recommended that I use such a light. Do you recommend the type of lamp you use? I could really use some energy now. I've been off my low carb diet and I am really paying a price. I need to ramp up again. I get into these cycles. As Ipro get healthier and stronger, I find that more of the repressed darkness comes up and as that happens I become less able to eat well and exercise and so I devolve down into a new low until I muster the strength to start focussing on the health again. And so it goes. This clearly won't be an endless process because I am coming up with the darkest stuff but still the cycles are exhausting.
In my life, I've been hit by narcissistic and borderline traits from too many directions. I am in a lonely place. But not a hopeless place. A place of waiting. For my entire life I tried desparately to understand what had gone so drastically wrong. Now I have that answer and it is very helpful but the answer has not provided the great release that I expected it would. I think it will come and when it does the wait will not seem so long - but for now I feel trapped in "Waiting for Godot" the interminal existential hold.
Well I've gone off on a tangeant as I work through stuff. Sorry about that. So glad to have people to talk to. So thankful for this place. - Gaining Strength
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It really might help you, GS!
Not sure whether I got this one
(edit: whoops, forgot the link: http://alaskanorthernlights.com/
...or the Full Spectrum Solutions one.
But just google "SAD lights" and you'll find ordering info.
(BTW, the "Varilux" reading or task light is not a full-strength SAD light...)
Hope you can get one!
Hops
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Thanks Hops - I need to get on the way with this. - GS