Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: polymath on August 29, 2009, 04:11:55 PM
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Imagine for a moment not having to compete for the attention and adoration of your parents. Imagine not having to share anything ever. Imagine being able to pull the strings like a puppet of the adults charged with your care. Imagine being able to zone out in front of a TV or video game, flipping to any channel, re-starting the game whenever you wanted, without interference, because as long as your doing that, you are not putting any demands other than food, shelter and clothing on the adults.
This folks, is the root of narcissism, of extreme self-focus. When a child is accidentally brought into a word not prepared for his arrival (mostly boys because mothers and daughters share the natural bond of not producing brain altering testosterone). Usually 'not prepared' means a mother and a father who had not discussed raising a family and went through a normal courtship period, but were just in it for the sex and temporary rush of a new relationship. The FOO is then forced to make unnatural decisions, like putting the child at grandparents much of the time. Grandparents are supposed to be a rare treat, like to give the parents an occasional break, not regular parenting.
I'm at fault for the same thing my parents did to me. I got my wife pregnant while running the bars looking for sexual partners (she was vulnerable since her father pays her very little attention and just came out of a failed marriage,)married her out of duty (religious upbringing rearing its head), then continued partying, drinking, having unprotected sex, until lo and behold, there are 4 children running around with a father who is all about himself. A father who's private and public life is completely separate. Who does things when alone he is ashamed of, out of a deep need to bring pleasure to himself before all others. Many of my single, male friends (most of which were oldest sons of marriages with bad fathers and hovering mothers, interesting isn't it) never had children. I should've made that committment. Shame on me.
This my friends is the personal side of N.
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Polymath, you're probably tired of hearing from me, but I gotta say it: If you are truly a narcissist, then you, my friend, are also totally an enigma. I have never heard a true narcissist flagellate themselves the way you do. I'm just having a hard time buying that you fit that label. Truly self-absorbed people just go about in their own fog, never aware that they are hurting anybody else.
I don't doubt you've got problems in your relationships, I am not disrespecting the things you report about your life. I just think that you are disgusted with yourself, and I have never heard of a true narcissist getting disgusted with himself. Narcissists, to be frank, are not NEARLY strong enough inside to let any self-criticism arise from within. You are quite obviously strong enough to criticize yourself.
When I read your last post, I hear that you truly love your kids. You might not be the dad that you wish you were, and yes, you may be truly messing up in some ways, but you really love them or you would not give a moment's worry to what your behaviors are doing to them. I hear also in your last post that you really love your wife. So you didn't know her very well when you got married, and you got married 'cause you "had to." You still love her. You have empathy for what she was missing when you and she got involved with one another.
Most of the time I like labels. I think that labels quite often shrink a problem down to size ... changes a problem from this vague, amorphous thing into something that can be dealt with. In this case, though, I'm wondering if this label is keeping you from the hope that things can be different.
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HOP,
Not tired at all. Today has been a very stressful day for me. I actually had planned last night to make this the day I ended it all but it seems like there is always something else I need to do first (how nuts does that sound). I run around from nothing to nothing avoiding sitting still, just giving sarcastic feedback, trying not to fixate or obsess on any one thing, always stumbling forward.
The problem is with attachement. Everytime we blow up and I move out to my Grandfathers (he hardly is ever there) after about 24 hours of channel surfing I come crawling back because I'm so very lonely. My social skills are that shot.
Anyway, blah blah, there I go again. These online forums are so easy to vomit in, its the real world thats so difficult.
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and I know what you mean about true N. I know some people that blather on about themselves but it just doesnt seem to bother them. However, my blathering is just a way to bring attention to myself, which is true N, isnt it. Isn't N just a deep obsessive NEED for attention and bending the world and the people in it to your way. Please tell me I'm wrong and there is someway to change the subconscious tapes playing in my head.
I have this friend from school Brian, who is the poster child for correct mindset. He is crude and arrogant to most people, but actually just very, very independent. He does not get in others peoples bubbles unless they are being totally ridiculous, and will harshly kick you out of his if you decide to venture in uninvited. He makes a ton of money, has a ton of fun and just doesn't care what the world thinks. His parents are good people. His dad is very easy going and independent, water of a ducks back type.
Anyway, thanks again HOP, your words were accepted.
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All I can say is ... thank goodness you had stuff to do, no matter how odd that may seem to you after the fact. And there's one thing for sure ... when you're feeling suicidal, an internet forum just isn't sufficient. You need people face to face. Please go to your hospital emergency room or some other place where live people can help you be safe.
Women get depressed more OFTEN than men, but when men get depressed, you guys REALLY GET DEPRESSED. It is not something to fool around with.
I'll attempt to quit preaching now. Don't know if I will be able to squelch the urge permanently though.
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Dear Polymath
This may sound dumb but speaking for myself, I would feel a great loss if you ended it.
I don't think you are an N. An N by Vaknin's definition(if I have it right) does not have introspection.I can't see an N coming on this Board and ever interacting as you are Ami
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The thing about men is, we get so depressed because half of us is missing. I think thats what I mean by women having it a little better. A woman has a girl and there you go, she has a real-life 3D model for her behavior. A woman has a boy and if dad (or some other male) isn't around to lead the way, mid-life will slam us to the pavement, when youth, vitality, mental clarity, looks, etc. begin to fade. I have a female cousin my age who always has lived at home with her mom. Her two older brothers moved out, started families and moved on. Their father died when they were young and my aunt did a good job raising them all. My female cousin just stayed put like a hermit, just like her mom, going to work, coming home, sleeping, etc.
That is why the two biggest demographics for suicides are males, 20-24 and males 35-40. The first group is being pushed out into the big bad world and dad wasn't there to set the foundation. Then in the late 30's, those that had enough to get through the first stage can't make it through the second. In my case, my mother married for a couple of years when I was 11. Paul taught me how to fight and stand up to the bullying I was getting. I was lucky enough to be handsome and athletic so I could get the girl. Those got me this far but oh the wall I've hit now.
I don't know how long I have left so I'll say it now. Ladies, be very aware of how mothers around you behave with their boys. You can step in the gap like a man cannot easily do. Show them the statistics, tell the stories, be a witness. Little boys who are sheltered by there mothers because Dad is a deadbeat, and try to do it themselves are causing a ton of the mess. Let your boys act out as boys, do not respond with emotion, hold it in remain calm, set limits and stick to them. Listen to them, do not baby them if there is no man around. Let them try and fail. Let them do themselves, struggling to open that lid. Do not reach for it even when your sure they cant do it. Be tough if there is no man around.
I will be honest here. Men like me objectify women obsessively. We see women as sex objects. We say and do things to get in your pants and that is it. Because we didn't get real two way love from our mothers, we take it out on the women we try to form relationships with as adults. Guys like me can walk into a bar and scan the room in less than a minute, make eye-contact with the ones that are running from bad daughter/father relationships and prey on them successfully most every time. I don't love my wife because I have no idea what that is. I do her bidding so she will give me sex. I compliment and flatter her for the same reason. I hate domestic life, all N males do. Its just that we NEED someone to take care of us. We see our children as extensions. It takes all I can muster not to rage at my oldest boy when he gets mouthy with me. I cannot for the life of me find the middle ground between wallflower and violent abuser. I choose wallflower because I don't want to hurt him.
I think about suicide all the time because if you can imagine, a true N walks through life with his evil twin right in front of his face at all times. We are machine-like in our actions to gain approval. When the veil is lifted after a serious life challenge, we are the emperor with no clothes. Every eye movement, every breath we take is being watched by that evil twin screaming in our ear. It is a living hell and I believe the only hell there really is.
When a man, or woman for that matter decides to take their own life, they are beyond help. That doesnt make one bit of sense to most people but they have turned over every rock, talked to tons of therapists, taken multiple drugs, scanned thousands of websites and nothing makes that critical voice that keeps getting louder and louder stop. Finally the day comes when the restful peace that death brings outweighs the hope that something can make the voice go away. Death brings heaven, hell or nothing. We hope for heaven, we're already in hell, and nothing beats what we have now.
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Dear RS
On the last day of Scott's life, he was sitting on the end of my bed. He had come home from school for a dentists appointment, a cleaning. I thought it was strange that he came home on a Thursday and went back to school rather than schedule it near a weekend. He came back to get his F's gun.
He was sitting on the end of my bed. He felt different. I thought he had come to some new peace but it was the "peace" of killing himself.
I may understand what you mean by your last paragraph.
I hope you don't do it, RS. Ami
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Yep, polymath,
You appear to understand it all, so either you are not a true full-fledged Narcissist, i.e. disordered. or you are making up a life for us to read.
My experience with Ns is that they would never admit any of this to anyone, as they woudn't even see , for themselves, that they are disordered.
Why are you different?
Maybe you are just selfish? egotistical about your looks and athetic build? looking for a playmate on this board? looking for pity as you might kill yourself?
The only thing I have noticed otherwise is that you have no empathy for the other posters on the board! So maybe you are real?
Tell me! I'd like to know!
Would you feel sorry for me f I told you I was beaten by my father and a my commn-law husband and crippled by an N when I said 'No' to sex, or lost my daughter and 3 grandchildren because she married an N who owed me $55,000.00 he could repay?
Or would you blame me? Let's just see if you can talk about someone besides yourself!
Izzy
Edit] To me, suicide is just someone wanting to 'kill' the life they are living, maybe gay, or something else that is, for the most part, unacceptable to their friends and relatives. After that, life is dead and gone with the reality ibeing that the is no more life, but those in denial are thinking they just might not die and begin a new and wonderful life away from judgmental people. JMRO
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Yep, polymath,
You appear to understand it all, so either you are not a true full-fledged Narcissist, i.e. disordered. or you are making up a life for us to read.
My experience with Ns is that they would never admit any of this to anyone, as they woudn't even see , for themselves, that they are disordered.
Why are you different?
Maybe you are just selfish? egotistical about your looks and athetic build? looking for a playmate on this board? looking for pity as you might kill yourself?
The only thing I have noticed otherwise is that you have no empathy for the other posters on the board! So maybe you are real?
Tell me! I'd like to know!
Would you feel sorry for me f I told you I was beaten by my father and a my commn-law husband and crippled by an N when I said 'No' to sex, or lost my daughter and 3 grandchildren because she married an N who owed me $55,000.00 he could repay?
Or would you blame me? Let's just see if you can talk about someone besides yourself!
Izzy
YUCH YUCH YUCH Izzy I don't like that! I think it is very cruel! I think it stinks that you would act that way! Ami
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Ami
You are on a roll, of disapproval, but I didn't ask you. I asked polymath
Izzy
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When people are new on this forum sometimes they can't take the fighting that we who have fought many fights can. He is a big boy but in a lot of pain, too, so I said what I felt, Izzy. Ami
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Izzy,
Wow, the emotions I felt welling up when you challenged me instead of rolling with the flow of my attention seeking. That was very interesting.
First, your spot on. Selfish, egotistical, self-centered is correct. The lack of empathy is also the characteristic. I see empathy from others and it might as well be x-ray vision, I just can't get it in me except for show.
Second, I definitely feel sorry for you. No child should have to go through that. Now, in the interest of honesty, being severely N, I wouldn't be able to really and truly empathize because I just never had that ability put into me. I know, for someone who did get it, it seems impossible and horrific to say, but its true.
Finally, try to imagine having an overwhelming sense of invisibility to others, since you were not 'seen' early. It is why under stress, N's touch themselves, to prove to themselves that they exist. An N's only comfortable place is the mirror. Its not vanity, its fear. We forced into a fantasy world early where the only safe place to go with the windows to our soul was the mirror.
In a nutshell, an N is incapable of feeling someone elses pain and who's gaze needs to stay around the face to read a person. We care so much about what you think of us.
Ami, yes honestly I would say Im at the point where your son was. Right now Im just existing, hoping, praying, searching for some conversion or magic bullet. ALL that matters to me right now is my own life. The big question is, like Job, when youve truly lost it all, does a personal God step in and turn it around, or was it going to be just a couple minutes after you checked out?
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When people are new on this forum sometimes they can't take the fighting that we who have fought many fights can. He is a big boy but in a lot of pain, too, so I said what I felt, Izzy. Ami
Duly noted Ami, so stay out of it!
Izzy
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Hi polymath,
I find that VERY interesting that you felt emotions when being challenged!!!! Now did these emotions put a thumpity-thump-thump in your belly, as though you had been "found out" or that you would't know how to answer, or that you had revealed too much, or...?
OK!! If you can feel sorry for me, then that is empathy, but to what extent? Like OMG I wish I could go see her and help that poor 70-yr.old Grandma with no kids and grandkids, and be her son-for- a- day!
OR
when you hear (read) that, are you thinking about IF your own children went through this in later years when you are gone, would you like to prepare them for such incidents?
When you say "touch yourselves" do you mean sexually or just touch a spot to know you can feel and are alive? As far as the mirror is concerned, I saw the N in my life look into the mirror at himself as he spoke to me, and I just guessed he was looking to see how he looked when he was lying!
No one is going to step in and turn your thoughts around but you. No one can get into your head or anyone else's except you in yours and they in theirs! I believe this all boils down to belief! Magical thinking? I could go over to the kitchen right now and slice my wrists, if I thought God would intervene. He wouldn't say a word to me. I just wouldn't do it because of my belief in my own strength and a will to live until I am really ready to die!
If you can find any empathy at all, for your wife and 4 children, and how they would feel if you blasted your brains all over the nice egg-shell white livingroom wall, then you won't do it, but the most SELFISH act would be to go ahead and kill yourself and leave your wife and children to live with that forever--or just your wife, and she has to keep your shame a secret forever from your children.
polymath, you are salvagable and I 'feel' it, because you are talking about it!
Izzy
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When people are new on this forum sometimes they can't take the fighting that we who have fought many fights can. He is a big boy but in a lot of pain, too, so I said what I felt, Izzy. Ami
Duly noted Ami, so stay out of it!
Izzy
Izzy, If you want me to stay out of stuff that I don't think is right, you will have to get a No Contact with me. Until then, I will give my opinion as respectfully as I can. Ami
PS I really don't like No Contacts and I hope you don't do that!
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Poly,
You are very honest about your feelings about your wife and why you think you are married at this point, and you obviously think it was a huge mistake. Do you know what she thinks of the situation? Has she ever expressed unhappiness with your marriage or a wish for marriage counseling? Does she know that you do things pretty much just for sexual favors with her?
Does she, or anyone, know that you are suicidal? Have you thought about calling a suicide prevention hotline just to talk to someone about how you feel? I agree that you need a long term plan, but can you create a short-term intervention that would give you some face to face interaction and a place to express yourself?
When you come up with a diagnosis of narcissism for yourself, how did you arrive at that conclusion? Did you do your own reading on the internet or did someone diagnose you? If you diagnosed yourself, did you look at the other possible personality disorders? How did you decide that none of those fit and that narcissism does? Have you thought about the possibility of an organic problem such as bipolar? Would you consider being evaluated by a professional to see if there is an organic solution to the way you feel? I just wonder if you have been exhaustive, or allowed someone else to be exhaustive on your behalf, to see what is really going on.
I think you may have arrived at a conclusion to quickly--my computer is being wacko, so I will end here...but would like to see you respond to my questions. CB
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Just my thoughts, CB and you can get a No Contact with me if you wish, but did you ever think a person on the brink of suicide MIGHT not want to be interrogated like that? Ami
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Ami,
It wasnt an interrogation.
My understanding of Polymath is that he appreciates the opportunity to explain where he is coming from. He also has had it up to here with hysterical mother-figures. I could respond to him in a way that expresses my fears and issues, or I can respond in a way that (I hope, if I am understanding him correctly), feels good to him. I have complete confidence in his ability to let me know if I am in left field. I have found his writing to be insightful and direct.
I guess my question for you is why you feel as though you need to protect him from so many people on the board? Polymath is troubled, true, but he is not a little boy. He has communicated with us in a way that belies his feeling that he is inadequate as an adult male. Treating him like a child seems, to me, to be perpetuating the kind of treatment he feels he has received from his mother.
I am confident that Dr. G. is watching this situation carefully and that there is much more going on behind the scenes than we are aware. I dont pretend that I can be the perfect counsellor, I am not trained for that. I am simply giving a troubled person a chance to express himself more fully--the whole point of the voicelessness board.
And no I am not interested in going No Contact. Not my style.
CB
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Its like this guys, when a child is forced to go into the adults world to find recognition, when the adults in the child's world do not have the ability to go into the child's world, for whatever reason, it tells the child they do not matter. If not one adult goes into the child's world, the child feels invisible. And I don't mean feels like emotional feeling but a deep psychological wound that says 'I do not matter to anyone in this world'. That is what an only child with no father or extended family males around and a self-absorbed mother gets stuck with. Most overdoses, alcohol-related deaths, and other deaths that aren't labeled 'suicides' are this. If a child can just have one person who has the ability and desire to enter the child's world, they can make it. Richard Pryor is a great example. The product of prostitute and her pimp, his parents were not at all 'there' for him but his grandmother who ran the whore house took just enough real interest in him to give him that light in his soul. We almost lost him to drugs and that burning incident but he had just enough light to survive that period and thrive.
Those of us who didn't have a single person to do that are doomed to end their life tragically. For those cases, there is no conversation, drug, therapy technique that will take that tape out of their head and replace it with something more sane. I know this all is very hard to believe but is the way it is.
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No offense Ami but CB is exactly right. The maternal "let me take away your pain for you" doesn't work with an N. We see it has weakness and prey on it. Many times I, an thousands of other men have used that behavior against a woman just to get them in bed. It feeds a woman's ego to think she can 'save' a man and an N will use that as a tool against them.
I'm sorry to sound so harsh, its just where I am right now.
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Dear RS
It is TOTALLY OK. I am glad you were honest with me. I felt unsure of what to do so was following my gut but now I will back off.
Ami
PS It was not harsh just honest and that is the MOST important thing for any of us!
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Thanks Ami. You get it.
CB, thats exactly what I'm saying and not its not a problem. I'm losing hope that what was done can be undone. I went through a deep depression at age 19 when a girl I was dating broke up with me. She made the statement "your just kind of there." That statement was right on and it sent me spiraling. I then let my grandmother and mother push me toward a Christian counseling center. Imagine them telling me that I needed counseling but it just had to be religious because only God could save me. While in an inpatient center I saw people with what I thought were much bigger problems so I told them to let me out, I was OK.
Imagine obsessively idealizing every other human on the planet, wishing to be them, seeing the personality they have, the light within them, the balance they have between your OK and I'm OK. That is deep N. As I age and sink in this depression, the energy to just keep my eyes going is fading. My daughter will ask my why I'm staring at her. Its not because Im so sick I want to have sex with her, its that my energy is do depleted, when I get to a persons face I just want to stare and nod and agree, with no energy to put forth to the interaction. That equals withdrawal.
I know I'm not the only one and there is nothing at all new under the son, that little boys have had this done to them since the dawn of recorded history. I just cant find one who made it through. Howard Hughes and Elvis are the most famous examples of what this is all about. They fit my childhood profile perfectly and look what happened to them. They faded away around age 40 because they were half a man with no father figure at all and a mother that held on to them for dear life. A six year old boy in our neighborhood has the same problem. I stepped in last week and taught the poor boy how to ride a bike. He is afraid of his own shadow and talks about himself all the time. I see me perfectly in this boy.
Man I sure can go on and on, huh?
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Hi polymath
That is wonderful that you spotted problems in that little boy, and set out to help him. How did that make you feel? So he isn't voiceless and talks about himself. Is it good talk or is he self-depracating? Are you able to allay some of his fears? or is he not aware yet?... if you feel he is a 'much younger you', can you find words to help him feel worthy?
You express yourself so understandably here, so can you do it in person about preferable thoughts?
Izzy
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Dear Polymath
You really helped me by telling me to back off. I was getting you confused with Scott and was trying to save him by saving you.
I feel much better after what you said! Ami
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Dear CB
I guess we have s/thing in common. No Contact is not my style either. :lol: Ami
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Hi Poly,
Try clinical hypnotherapy? I believe part of what's tormenting you is your belief that you can't do anything about what you think.
You have a chain of obsessive, negative, self-loathing thoughts and you believe they're like rain, you can't stop them from running endlessly through your mind.
I believe that's not true. Actually, I know it is. But I didn't discover that until I was in my 50s.
You could find out about this. It is hope.
No matter how convinced you are of your formula (the specifics of Poly's childhood + this + that = no hope), you are intelligent and imaginative enough to know you could be wrong.
And intelligent enough to persist. If you investigate methods of literally changing your thoughts, and do the practice that is known to work (hopefully with a trained certified hypnotherapist) ... you will change that script.
You won't just save your life. You'll save your mind. And once you begin, you will get a breath of hope. And that keeps you going. And in time, you look back, and you see how disordered you were (in your hopelessness), and you are so very glad that you stayed alive.
I hope you will, Poly.
(If you are addicted to pornography, there is help for that. So many good human beings've had -- and be helped out of -- that addiction and are still good human beings. It's a strange set of forces, and absences, and cultural messages -- and they have overwhelmed many men. Even some women.)
If I guessed wrong about that, forgive me. But I though it was worth saying to you, just in case that's it, I do not devalue you for it. (I loathe the pornography industry but have no loathing for the humans who get stuck in it.)
Hops
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Thanks hops, I'll look into it. I would think if it worked so well many more people would be OK but again, thanks.
About porn, I rarely seek it out. If it is put in front of me I will fixate on it for a few minutes (much longer as a younger man, but less so now).
One positive, I seem to be getting a sense that yes, this body, this life, this person, has value in the eyes of God. My intellectual dilemma is becoming one of, "OK God, if your real, you've got to have something better in store for tormented souls like myself so I'm coming to see you." But yes, I get that as very selfish, as opposed to trying to correct the wrong and stupid beliefs for the benefit of my children. That is the quandary I'm in.
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but the negative ying to that yang is my study of Howard Hughes, the most famous man I've found who shares my background. Yes his father was more in the picture than mine but his dad was consumed with running a billion dollar business while his mother was way too close to Howard, bathing him when he could bath himself for example. I don't have any memories of anything that wierd but the basic template is the same. I'm slipping into that same abyss of movies and television, agorophobia, focus on my own bodily functions, no energy, etc. If a billionaire like Hughes couldn't find away out, whats the chance there is one.
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Hughes' money and lifestyle isolated and trapped him more deeply.
(Like Jackson's.)
Seriously. Money doesn't give mental health.
It reduces stress, for sure.
But on the other side of the coin, the needs of your family are an enormous reason for you to be here.
There are methods. You can find them. Keep fighting.
You've got some spirit.
Hops
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Polymath:
I can't imagine someone with NPD feeling such need to change. Esp for their children, but such is my impression of N's.
I see more of a shame heaped on top of guilt heaped on top of shame heaped on top of depression heaped on top of frustration sequence.
You can see the damage you're doing to your children, and you want to change.
Perhaps you're noting strong N features and attributing them to actual N personality disorder?
There is a difference.
Mo2
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Yeah, that was Tolstoy :)
I guess I tend to harp on labels the medical community attach to things in attempt to communicate better. Most humans mean well and are just trying to make a living and if the system of names and categories works so be it.
I just finished watching The Last Days of Frank & Jesse James with Kristofferson and Johnny Cash (bad acting but great story) and the brother thing really hit me throughout the movie. This probably sounds like typical 'tear in my beer' BS but I feel like if I would've had just one person to develop a personality with, things would be at least manageable. Even a sibling I got along terribly with would've forced my mother and grandmother to split their attention, even if it was MOSTLY towards one or the other. I also would've been forced to compete for resources, learned to fight and makeup, etc. It is just such a huge mistake to have one child. My wife will go to the neighbors and all the kids will play together and all the commotion is just so normal. My crazy self-absorbed mother and I lived in all these little crappy apartments, and my granny lived in this decent neighborhood and at both places, with both women, there was absolutely no interaction with the neighbors. It was just so damn abnormal.
Anyway, blah blah about the past, just an observation. Whatever the label, whatever the diagnosis, its this simple. The lack of one other person to connect with in a meaningful way creates a hole in the child that they spend the rest of their life trying to fill. People that had it just can't imagine what its like to not have it. Damn, reading over that it just sounds so pitiful and whiny, but it really blows. Tonight while loading the dishwasher, with my wife and all the kids running all over, I'm holding back tears thinking about what I may do in the very near future if I don't pull up out of this.
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Hey Poly...
every now and then I ask someone here-- would you print out all your posts and show them to a therapist?
You are SO intelligent and articulate, even in the middle of a great spiritual crisis, you are helping me understand a lot about some others' suffering a lot better.
I wish you would do that...please show them what you've figured out. Or deliver it in an envelope for him/her to read before your next appointment....
Would you?
(You do predit absolutes, and negative ones, a lot. Have you been correct in all your other assumptions about how things in life would turn out? Is it possible that your most negative expectations in your darkest most vulnerable period....could NOT be a correct prediction? Don't answer...just hold the thought...)
Hops
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Hi Poly,
Many of us here have experienced the feeling of being 'stuck', not able to move backward or forward. Using a metaphor, for me it felt like I was stuck in a knothole, half of me flailing on the back side, the other half flailing on the front side. My greatest fear was that I would spend the rest of my life stuck and flailing away at the elements. I lost track of how long I had that stuck feeling. It felt like eons, but in reality, it was a relatively short amount of time. The IMPORTANT thing I want you to hear is this: The feeling of being stuck passed. One day, it was as if someone squirted me with WD-40 and I slipped right through that miserable knothole.
tt
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Thanks for your kind words. Your intention was heartfelt and pure and I appreciate that.
37 years of just me is a long time. 37 years of no brother, sister, father, uncle, aunt, cousin, mother, grandmother, grandfather, or neighbor that 'saw' me. That had the courage and patience to step in and say, 'there is something very wrong here'. I could fill 10 pages with stories of events in my life where no one, I mean no one was there.
This is pretty personal so I apologize if this offends anyone. Remember your first 'personal experience' in your bedroom as a child, by yourself, I do. When I was finished, I couldn't find my underwear in the dark, so I slid my cut-off jeans on, slunk out to the living room and made up something about losing my underwear and needing some new ones. No one picked up on that, or if they did, didn't comment. They just got me some new ones and told me to go back to bed.
That was my whole life. When faced with a situation, or question in search of an answer, or life stressor, like losing my first girlfriend, there not being a single solitary soul 'there' to give me any type of guidance.
But this goes even deeper than that. Imagine if you can, a small boy, say 2 years old, fumbling around his world, trying new things, falling down, frolicking, playing, just being a 2 year old. Now imagine his mother always being right there, focused so intently on the boy, that he can hardly move without her being there to guide him, out of fear that he may hurt himself, or get dirty, or just say or do the 'wrong' thing. It was like that. Whatever I was doing was the wrong thing, no matter how small. It was really, unconciously done out of control, not genuine concern. Of course I can't remember this specifically but I'd bet anything thats the way it was.
Imagine as a 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 year old not having another child in the home to have to fight with over mom's attention, or laugh with about the day's events, or argue with over the bathroom, or scheme with. Imagine not having memories of people even saying your name (Surely it happened, I just don't remember it). That folks, is how dismissive and lonely my childhood was. My best memories of childhood are playing with a grasshopper, digging up sasafrass roots, riding my bike, all alone. They even bought be one of those toys for passing baseball with yourself, you know the ones with the net that throws the ball back to you. How $*#*$ insane is that.
Imagine as a 5 yr old, going to bed with a little bookshelf beside your bed and reading yourself to sleep every night, with not one memory of your mother reading a book to you. Maybe it happened but if you don't remember it, did it happen. I mean, what was she doing in there in the living room. Whatever she was doing, it was out of fear. She was afraid of that small boy in that other room so she just washed her hands and let me raise myself.
Dinner was often mom and my grandparents. I used to stuff my food down just to get through it and away from them. Granny used to tell me slow down and I'd just keep going. I told my mother about that a few weeks ago and asked her why she thought I did that. Her answer was, 'I dunno, I guess you just had somewhere to be.' I was 9 year old for Christ sake, where was I going, to watch more TV? Imagine, not one single meal, even around the TV, with mom and a boyfriend, not one single event, not one, with my mother and her significant other from birth to age 10. Not even a bad one where things started well and went downhill. How damn weird is that?
Imagine as an adult, having to think about your every move. I mean things like getting a bowl out of the cabinet or where does this glass go, while at the same time trying to communicate with other people. Facing a decision between getting bowl first or getting the milk and almost tripping because you hold both thoughts simultaneously and cant decide which direction in the kitchen to take.
I know you guys hear the pain in all that, all the despair but its real. If there was a therapy, or a drug, or a hypnotist that could turn that around, word would have gotten out and they would be filthy rich by now. Some situations don't get fixed and honestly I know this is one of them. I'm just about to the point where WHATEVER is on the other side beats this. Sure my children will be affected, but at least with me gone, the stress will be gone. My daughter this morning, shes 7. Would not get out of bed for school no matter how many times I tried, softly, easily. Then, with 3 minutes left till the bus, she's cussing me for getting her up to late, cussing me for her brother letting the cat in who might eat her hamster she lost 2 weeks ago and magically returned 3 days ago only to get lost again, by her. I just stood there like a deer in the headlights and queitly let it unfold as she slammed the door and called me an idiot. I know there a ton of advice to give for that situation but it all hangs on the ABILITY of the person to implement it.
Anyway, blah blah. All that doesn't mean a damn thing in the grand scheme, just felt like pouring it out.
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Keep Writing! Ami
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Ami, your a treat, can I just come live with you :)
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I thought you were pushing me away. Make up your mind :lol: Ami
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RS wrote:
"Imagine as an adult, having to think about your every move. I mean things like getting a bowl out of the cabinet or where does this glass go, while at the same time trying to communicate with other people. Facing a decision between getting bowl first or getting the milk and almost tripping because you hold both thoughts simultaneously and cant decide which direction in the kitchen to take."
I can DEFINITELY relate to that!!!!!! I'm sure a LOT of that is my Asperger's! (NWomb-Donor couldn't STAND IT that I was not "normal" to suit HER standards of PERFECTION!!! :P)
Bones
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yeah, bones, good ol' garden variety perfectionism and people-pleasing. I tip-toe around the house at night and early morning so obssessively as not to wake anyone up that I wind up kicking a toy or tripping over a blanket and waking up the whole damn house.
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and handling interruptions. How do you guys handle those? I mean, if you think about it, there is thinking and doing. We're all either doing something for ourselves or for others. When you are presented without outside stimulus forcing you to choose between what your doing right now and changing, how do you handle it? I get frustrated, hopefully not to visibly, when my thoughts or actions are interrupted.
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yeah, bones, good ol' garden variety perfectionism and people-pleasing. I tip-toe around the house at night and early morning so obssessively as not to wake anyone up that I wind up kicking a toy or tripping over a blanket and waking up the whole damn house.
Done that too!!!! You're NOT alone!!!! :D
((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((RS Polymath)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Bones
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37 years of just me is a long time. 37 years of no brother, sister, father, uncle, aunt, cousin, mother, grandmother, grandfather, or neighbor that 'saw' me. That had the courage and patience to step in and say, 'there is something very wrong here'. I could fill 10 pages with stories of events in my life where no one, I mean no one was there.
I understand very well, polymor
I was the only child, brown-haired, amidst 3 sisters and 1 brother, red-heads, was told I didn't belong, that I was adopted, & became the family scapegoat I felt very alone and left out , so spent much time alone, and here I am, 70 years old, and still alone, but have been building a good "back and forth" relationship with one sister only. I used to hate family gatherings when everyone put on the good face and all appeared well and I saw them all as hypocrites.
I had a daughter who married an N and he dismissed me from his property when the eldest grandson was 4½, and granddaughter was 2. Her 3 children now are 23 (almost), 20 and 17. The youngest I never knew. Their parents now divorced and the boys live with the N. I lost her in 1991, and now she lost 2 of her children, one in '98 and the other son about 06-'07
I met an N of my own, not knowing a thing about N-ism and moved 2000 miles away, with him, then left him. I am still here and happy to be in NC with all of them, except one younger sister who somehow has learned to understand where I am coming from and we share our perspectives now, on things that happened many years ago.
I still believe it is dysfunctional parenting that creates the disturbances we have in life. I will even admit to my not being a good parent, although I didn't realize it at the time. I was disabled in a car crash when she was 5 and in hospital until she was 6.
Just this year I have been out of commission with a broken leg, having been struck by a car. It is THIS accident and the help I have needed in recovering, "all about me" if you will, and realizing that I have no responsibilities except to myself at this particular time. All my work is being done and paid for by the driver's Insurance Co.
This then showed me, and I have now been told, that 40 years ago, I ought to have had help when I returned home when my daughter was 6. I see that it must have been very hard on her when I was learning again how to be a mother, and how to keep house, shop, work, cook, clean from a wheelchair, and I can almost get back inside my head and think about "I wonder how much of this is affecting her?" but she appeared happy. I had bouts of minor depression because I couldn't do for/with her as I used to, and I think now that I might have overthought this fault to the point whereby as she grew older she could see me as faulty, then her feelings were, in turn, picked up by me. I paid for her 'entertainment', baton, gym, swimming, summer camps, thru to age 16--that couldn't have been wrong, yet...? then summers I suggested the summer job routine to have her earn and manage her own money, yet she was a target for an N.
I have no other answer...... both of us seen as a target for an N, I from a famiily of 5 and she an only child.
Whoever said life was fair? The people I once 'circulated' with here, will be gone, are gone, just emails, since I had to quit my job with a not-for-profit Society for Seniors.
40 years from now I hope it is a Mack Truck that hits me. That ought to do in a 110-year old woman.
Izzy
My best, Think happy thoughts
Edit in] I am coming across as a little "down' today, but my therapist missed our Saturday appointment, and I have been "worrying to death" the fact that no one sees any reason to x-ray my left knee, as I have asked, and that I'm thinking the main therapist has set out exercises to not take into consideration a minor problem with my left ankle. So I'm building up to how I approach my therapist today, who has no say, but how to convince her to approach the head therapist. My femur was broken at the hip, but it still rotates at the knee and I am having to re-learn to rotate that knee inwards....why?
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((((((((((Izzy))))))) Ami