The day after Christmas

So here it is - the year after Nmother died on Christmas Day, Christmas is different, sans NFOO, spent with my daughter and loving siblings, cooking, eating, opening presents, enjoying each other's company, happy to be together and no longings for what could have/should have/might have been.  It was lovely - we got to talk to my son, who I miss dreadfully, but it was great to see him via iPhone.  This is the way Christmas is meant to be, I think - kind of messy, visiting dogs semi-traumatizing resident cats, too many people in the kitchen, waaay too many dishes, people pitching in to chop, mix, find yet another bowl, pour the wine, do the dishes, nag a nephew about his smoking, laugh and talk and share life together.  I was afraid that the sibling who believes that she and Nmother had a good relationship would want to talk about Nmother, but she didn't - I think she knows that other loving sibs have a completely different read on Nmother's mothering style and doesn't want to go there - I'm OK with that!  It's not the past that's important - it's today, now, living our lives openly in front of each other that's important - being real, being ourselves, being open to the world and to each other.  Of course, I'm writing this at 3 in the morning, so I haven't been able to escape all of the NFOO repurcussions - the drowning dream still plays periodically - this one was a bit more traumatic than usual - the room was filling with water and there was a glass ceiling that I was trying to break with a wooden stool - and then I realized that the floor above was also flooded - AACK!  Woke up freaked out, but was able to calm myself rather quickly - made some tea, read for a while, and I'm getting tired again without feeling like I don't want to close my eyes and have that awful dream again...  So there've been a few bumps, but mostly I've really enjoyed this Chrismas and look forward to more holidays that don't evoke past NFOO nonsense, holidays that are set up to bring people together instead of making half of the people feel less than.  Life is good!!!

Residual stuff at Christmas

So here it is, 2:00 am 3 days before Christmas and I'm up and writing a blog post...  Hmmmm...  I think it isn't Christmas that scares most ACoN's - I'm loving the time I'm getting to spend with friends and family - but the memories of Christmas Past! And maybe more than that, the memories of family past that somehow get magnified during this time of year.  My husband and I are staying with our daughter in the mountains of NC - my nephew and his family live nearby (offspring of MW and with the same behavior patterns), as does MW.  I'm not seeing any of them and I'm happy with that decision.  LS3 is in town and we've spent some wonderful time together and will spend more over the next few days - we're going to see A Christmas Carol and we'll be attending a Moravian Christmas Eve service.  She and her SO are coming for dinner tonight, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.  LS1 is coming in tonight with her family.  W2 is coming after Christmas for a few days.  All of this is wonderful and exciting.  So why do memories of and anxiety about the Others keep creeping in? Because I'm enjoying myself with the family who loves me?  Because I still carry guilt about not wanting to be involved with people who at the very least dislike me?  Because I don't want to be on the receiving end of lecturing, scolding, and condescension and it feels "wrong" to do anything about that?  Whatever it is, it has to go AWAY!  This is MY life and I get to make decisions about who I want to spend time with and what behavior I'm willing to tolerate (or not tolerate).  The farther I am from WWW, her FM's, and MW physically and emotionally, the better off  I am.  LS3 is still connected to MW, so I keep reminding her that my life is none of MW's business and that a relationship with me is dependent on her not carrying information to MW.  I think she's good.  W2 is connected to WWW, the Flying Monkeys, and MW and he is engaged to a woman who is pretty histrionic and very invested in the perks that MW offers, so there is no safety there.  When they come, we're going to stay very busy seeing the sites.  I love him, but I can't trust him not to carry information - and I certainly can't trust her.  MW asks a lot of questions "out of concern" - she's not really looking for information to use as weapons, you see - or to pass on to WWW and the Flying Monkeys, her enforcers - she's just all about concern for others....  Yeah.  I believed that for a long time and gave her a "pass" that went waaaaaaay past its due date.  It's taken a long time to realize that MW stepped into the maternal role early - there weren't any adults in the house and someone had to take the job!  But she learned at Nmother's knee - she does the same shaming, blaming, scolding behavior that Nmother did and she apparently can't stop doing it.  She also gaslights - sending WWW and her Flying Monkey to do the dirty work for her, while looking all the time like the person who's trying to keep the family together.    This is my first Christmas since I've declared Independence from the NFOO- I'm happy with the decision to go NC with those who continue to treat me badly - I'm delighted that I have siblings who love me and treat me respectfully - and I'm hoping that this residual anxiety/guilt/worry will disappear as I get healthier and stronger in my new self!!!  There !  Having sorted that out in my head, hopefully I can now get some sleep!!!  Good night!

Reclaiming COLOR!

Someone I know only a little came over for Christmas dinner before we left - she's a sweet, kind woman and I enjoyed getting to know her a little better. I showed her some of the things I've been weaving and she said, "Oh, you have such a wonderful sense of color!" Oh, my - I almost said, "No, you must have me confused with Nmother, WWW, the Flying Monkeys, or MW" but I didn't. I said, "Thank you." I've thought for most of my life that I don't  have a good sense of color and experimenting with color in my weaving has been a little stressful - I'm enjoying the results, but getting started with more daring colors has been slow. Nmother chose a lot of beige until later in her life. MW also dresses in a lot of neutral colors. Beige, in NFOO, seems to be a sign of sophistication.   When I was young, I wanted COLOR! I loved things that were (in Nmother's words) loud and garish. But pretty!!!! By the time I'd graduated high school, I was convinced that I had absolutely no taste, no sense of fashion, and certainly no color sense. So I've spent most of my adult life not wearing "loud and garish" colors, colors I love. Now I'm living in S. America and the indigenous women here get away with color murder!!! They dress sooooooooo beautifully, not minding which colors they put together as long as they're bright, gorgeous colors - and it works for them!!! I think I can make it work for me. I want to have beautiful, bright, luscious colors for my clothes - I've ordered some fabric online and I'm going to have some dresses made when I'm down another size - I've chosen a beautiful soft yellow silk and a tangerine color linen - can't wait to have them made! This is another piece that I'm reclaiming - I love color!!!

Introverts and N's

We're on our way home for Christmas.  We have an overnight stopover in this terrific city, but my spouse is sick and needs to rest, so I'm catching up on blogging.  Read a great article today on being an introvert:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sophia-dembling/nine-signs-that-you-might_b_2251932.html#slide=1849756.  Now, I'm a LOUD introvert - I do like to throw parties, I LOVE having people in for dinner, I enjoy long cups of coffee with close friends, and I'm able to get up and speak in public with fear but without terror.   That said, I also need a lot of quiet time - and I think the author got it right when she said that an introvert's brain is always occupied - not always well occupied, perhaps, but occupied.  I've been known to jump high when someone walks into a room when I'm thinking - I get lost in my head pretty quickly.  For most of my life, I thought I was an extrovert - I wasn't shy, which I confused with introversion.  I think that being an extrovert was expected in my NFOO - we were a crowd unto ourselves and there were no boundaries, so therefore no privacy- tough on an introvert.  So I functioned like an extrovert, but with a LOT of anxiety - I think that may be one of the reasons that my anxiety has abated - now I take time for me, I weave and think without talking to anyone, I make quiet spaces in my life for me.  When the kids were little, I'd get up really early so that I'd have some alone time before the day began.  Now I have all the time I need to be alone, to think.  This, of course, was frowned on in NFOO - my grandmother used to say that I was "book smart" but didn't have common sense - this isn't true at all, but I think she didn't like that I went away into my head a lot.  Trying to escape to a quiet place was really frowned on in my NFOO - it seemed that noise and chaos were the order of the day,probably to keep other things at bay...  Even now, when everyone gets together, it's about laughing hysterically and "having fun" - lots of noise and chaos still.  I don't really know how many of my sibs are introverts - I suspect that most of us who've been ousted are - but I suspect that  at least one of the Flying Monkeys is, too.  But I think it's difficult to be constantly available for supply when you're an introvert - , probably another source of the anxiety that plagues this group. 

I love food!

I started this post a while ago and got distracted... 

All my life, I've had a love/hate relationship with food - Nmother was very thin and was obsessed with looks.  I was a "chubby" toddler and have fought weight forever, usually with Nmother sabotaging my efforts - snide comments, baking lots of goodies, disparaging looks, etc.    I'm no longer fighting - and I'm losing weight.  I'm eating better than I've eaten in my entire life, I eat more food than I've ever eaten,  I'm enjoying food tremendously, and I eat whenever I'm hungry.  What a concept!! And this is the very first time in my life that I've lost weight without becoming frightened - I used to think I'd become afraid because Nmother was thin and Nmother was a "victim" , but of course, Nmother wasn't really a victim at all, although she played the part with vigour.   I think now that it was because Nmother wanted only the WWW to be as thin as she was, to properly reflect her glory.  (MW was also thin, even as a child, but she was "too" thin -  what makes the GC delightful is a flaw if it shows up in another child - how N!)  So with all those horrifically mixed messages about weight, it's little wonder that I've struggled my whole life and mostly lost the battle.  Now I see food as good, healthy, fun - not my enemy, not to be avoided, not to be eaten sparingly, not to be feared, but to be enjoyed!  Like every other relationship in my life, my "relationship" with food was twisted by NFOO.   I'm now eating an anti-inflammatory diet, I'm losing weight, I'm LOVING cooking and eating this food, and I'm pain-free for the first time in my life.  What's not to love?

Good enough

So we're leaving for the States on Wednesday- actually, we're flying to a local city tomorrow and then leaving Wednesday.  This kind of deadline usually creates frenetic activity for me - and this one is, unfortunately, no different!!!   Had friends over for dinner last night, which was a lot of fun, and got the house cleaned for the housesitter (except the refrigerator - AACK!), and finished most of the weaving for Christmas presents - except one.  And this morning, that almost caused a panic attack. I'm doing one very complicated weaving - and without a deadine, this would be fine - but I'm just not going to get it done in time and that'll have to be OK.  I've just begun to really see that this constant focus on doing everything perfectly is also the product of living in the NFOO.  Perfection is demanded of those who've been ousted - no excuses, no grace given if perfection isn't achieved!  I've always thought of this before as an inborn trait - this was the way I was - but it isn't who I was meant to be. Life will go on smoothly without everyone I love receiving a handmade gift!  Life will continue if I use the wrong inflection or have the wrong facial expression when saying something!  I can be tired and cranky and no one's life will be ruined by it!  It's amazing to me how enslaved I've been to doing everything right - what a phenomenal waste of time.  And what a stressful way to live.   I've always watched my words, my actions, my facial expressions when I'm around them - and now that I'm NOT around them, I can relax into my own life - I can be good enough instead of perfect.  Amazingly, as this dawns, I feel myself becoming more me.  I'm spending more time on me, I'm taking care of me, and I'm not allowing others to trample my boundaries. I'm spending time now with people I really WANT to spend time with and it's delightful.  I try not to bemoan the lost time, but to just enjoy the new life I've been given - what a blessing!!!

50-50

Hmmmm...  So I think I need help with this one.  It seems that many of the relationships I have are not 50-50 relationships.  Yes, I know that at any given moment, most relationships are askew, but over time, I think healthy relationships tend toward 50-50 on average.  When I need help, you help; when you need help, I help.  I call to talk to you, you call to talk to me, etc.  Looking over my relationships, you guessed it - I feel more responsible for relationships than many of the people with whom I'm in relationship.  This makes me really sad, and brings up all kinds of worthiness issues and shame issues.  Which means it has to be dealt with.  Let me give some examples: 1.   A close relative promises to call on a certain date - he doesn't call, nor does he email to say that he couldn't.  That was 2 days ago and I still haven't heard anything. (This is a pattern.)    2.  If I want to speak with LS2, I have to call him.  I can't remember the last time that he initiated contact.

I have a feeling that this isn't normal - that if these people really wanted a relationship with me, they would reach out to me and not always wait for me to contact them.  I know that my past behavior has given them some sort of implicit permission to assume that I'm the one who will initiate contact no matter the circumstances, but this has to change.  I think I have to give up being viewed (by myself as well as others) as the one responsible for all relationships!  I think this was part of my familial role - I wasn't worthy of relationships, so if I wanted relationships, I was the one who had to do all the work.  AACK!  Surprisingly, this makes me feel sad, angry, shamed - but not anxious.  Hmmm..  A major piece appears to have fallen off the radar.  I have to begin viewing myself as worthy of having healthy, loving, caring relationships - with both parties being responsible for that relationship. 

There - now, of course, the hard work of acting on it and being willing to "risk" relationships- being willing to risk the anxiety of losing a relationship with someone I love, but who may not have the same feelings towards me.  I think there's always, in the back of my mind, the myth that if you love someone enough, you can somehow "make" them love you back!  (Wonder where I got that idea from!?)  I know intellectually that you cannot make someone love you - but I think my actions have sent the message that I'm so desperate for relationship that I'll do anything - even take on all the responsibility for the relationship - because I love you and I know that if I try hard enough, hang in there long enough, you'll love me back.   So far it's not working.  Time to try something new - like valuing myself enough not to continue to view relationships this way, not to view myself this way. 

The rest of the story - I do have some loving, healthy relationships and they're a joy to me!  It's so wonderful to NOT feel like I have to do all the work, that the other person is as fully committed to the relationship as I am, to feel like I can call on that person for help and not feel that I'll be rejected because my "role" is to the be helper, not the helpee, to know that contacting me is not a chore they perform but that they really want to talk to me and share their lives with me.  These are the relationships I value and delight in.  I've spent waaaaaay too much energy on the other kind of "relationship" which isn't really "relationship" at all - and that ends today. 

Life is mostly good

In a week, I'll be heading home for Christmas - hurrah!!!  It'll be nice to spend time with my daughter and visit with friends - and have no contact with NFOO.  My life is so much calmer without WWW, the Flying Monkeys and the MW.  My sister-in-law forwarded an email from the MW - very saccarine, take-care-of-yourselves on the anniversary of Nmother's death (Not - "I'm going to see this grief counselor" but "You might want to see the grief counselor " - she's above even grief!)  I've asked SIL not to forward any other emails - these missives say so little and mean less, but are full of "wise advice" and mild admonishments - enough!!!!  There's a reason that I'm NC with MW!  And lots of other acronyms!!

I've been weaving a lot - it's so relaxing (except when I work with mohair) and I'm really enjoying it!  Have some Christmas gifts to finish - I'll include some pictures after the holidays.  Every day I learn more about this wonderful art - and get bolder with the yarns!  It's so amazing not to hear the voice in my head that tells me that I'm not artistic, that I don't have a good sense of color, that I have no sense of style.  I'm glad that voice has been silenced!  I'm also working on taking better care of myself - also not strongly encouraged by Nmother.  Tonight, I made a facial mask with some moistened red clay and when it was dry, I washed it off first with water and then with coconut oil - my face feels so good!  The Whole 30 diet is so amazing- my skin feels better generally, my joints and muscles don't ache, I'm losing weight - what could be better?   I get to do a lot of walking here - and I love it!  I'm going to join a gym after the holidays- the walk to the gym alone should be a LOT of exercise - it's way at the top of a huge hill - and while you exercise, you can look out over the city - ah...   

All in all, life is good.  Tomorrow I weave, go out for lunch with a friend, and go to the doctor to get a prescription for my anxiety meds - I was a Girl Scout leader for years and know about being prepared!!!

Christmas peace

There's such a sense of peace about my life now - that doesn't mean that I'm not going to refill my prescription for my anxiety medication, though!!!  It is holiday season and for most of us ACoN's, it's a dangerous time - there's so much pressure to have had a happy family, to have  had happy Christmases, to feel like a part of something like a family.  Why is that?  Too many Hallmark cards?  Too many pictures of smiling children?  Too many sappy movies with ridiculously happy endings?  Most Bible scholars believe that Christ was born in the spring and originally, his birthday wasn't celebrated - and when it was, it was timed to coincide with another holiday - and who doesn't need a wonderful holiday in the midst of winter?  (Well, at least in some parts of the world!)  Christmas was always such a bitter-sweet holiday for me - there was a lot of stress in the NFOO at the holidays - lots of pressure to have the perfect holiday, to bake the best cookies, to choose the best presents, to have the happiest Christmas ever, to wrap the presents most imaginatively, good grief!   Trimming the Christmas tree (once you didn't believve in Santa Claus) was unbeliveably stressful - Nfather "supervised" and if tinsel didn't hang straight enough or if small ornaments were put in the wrong place or if someone looked like they were having too much fun - disaster!  It usually started out well and ended in - disaster.  I remember sitting on the couch after everyone had gone to bed, looking at the Christmas tree and feeling so sad - sad that what was supposed to be a lovely holiday always ended up with people feeling bad about themselves. 

I tried to make Christmas less stressful for my kids, but I was pretty strung out about Christmas when they were little - we did Christmas Eve at the in-laws and Christmas Day with Nparents - and then we'd escape into the North Woods for a week of NO NFOO!  If was so lovely - we'd cross-country ski, sled, skate and generally have a great time - we'd have frozen the Thanksgiving leftovers and that's what we ate - no pressure!  So the "real" Christmas, the relaxing family time, came after the actual holiday.  I do love spending time with my husband and my kids during the holidays - -and now that NFOO is out of the picture, it'll be lovely - I'll get to see most of the sibs I want to see - unfortunately, I won't get to see my son and his girlfriend - and we'll have fun together without Nnonsense.  The way holidays SHOULD  be!

No more pain

My knees have hurt since I was a young child.  I don't remember a time when my knees didn't hurt.  When I'd complain, Nmother would tell me that I was "too young to have sore knees" and that was that. I started doing a gluten-free diet about a year ago and my knees, hips, and hands were much better.  2 months ago. I started an anti-inflamatory diet and I feel amazingingly pain-free!  My hands don't hurt, my hips don't hurt, and I can kneel without pain!  This is sooooooo amazing - I'm loving it!  I'm also losing weight, which I love - but being pain-free is so new to me!  Why in the world wouldn't a parent listen to a child when s/he tells her that a part of her body is sore?  Honestly, whenever I'd sit down, I'd rub my knees - it didn't matter what I was doing - they were just always sore.  Now, I catch myself rubbing them and think, "Why am I doing this?  They don't hurt anymore!"  I just learned to live with the pain and just not think about it - but now that it's gone, I can walk, run, climb stairs, dance without pain!  It's like a miracle every single day!  And yesterday I noticed that I can turn my head without pain - yes, turn my head!!!  Without pain!  Life is good.

Daily Thanks

I'm so thankful that I've had this past year to really process Nmother's death and basically all NFOO relationships.  It's been a ride!  I'm finally trusting my intuition, which was frowned on in the NFOO - if a relationship feels "off", I examine it more closely now instead of just accepting it.  Any relationship.  I'm in the process of strengthening my boundaries  - such a novel idea for someone raised in an NFOO!  This, I can see, is going to take some time and I'm sure I'll make mistakes along the way - but instead of worrying that I'm going to make mistakes, I'm just doing it and my true friends will understand, confront me when I'm out of line, and we'll deal with it.  My, how adult of us!!!  I'm pretty sure that I'm always going to be sensitive to slights - too much psychological abuse and that's what you get...  I'm not quite sure how to work on that - staying out of the abuse is going to help, I'm sure - and I am at the point where I realize that the abuse has nothing to do with me, but with N's erroneous ideas about me and about their own need for power in the relationship.  Still, the intellectual understanding is easy...

I'm also soooooooo thankful that I have so many siblings - a product of my Nparent's narcissism, but a real blessing to me - I'm NC with 4 siblings, but I still have 4 wonderful siblings, for whom I thank God every single day.  It's difficult for some of us to connect - the prickliness caused by years of abuse at the hands of Nparents and Nsibs has taken a toll - but we're working on it slowly, slowly.  One of my sibs especially is really, truly a sister to me - I'd trust her with my life - and my children's lives, a more telling tribute!  We're gone through a lot of this process together and it's been awful and wonderful at the same time, since there's been someone beside me the whole way! 

I'm thankful that much of my lifelong anxiety has disappeared - I have moments of anxiety now, but they're short-lived and rarely require medication..  They're not so intense and I can talk myself through them - they are, of course, usually related to NFOO memories.  I'm thinking about doing some things to help the anxiety and to heal the memories - when we get back from Christmas in the States, I'm thinking about doing neurofeedback for the residual anxiety and EMDR for processing the memories.  Not sure yet, just considering these things.  If anyone has experience with either of these, let me know!

I'm thankful that I finally, finally, finally feel like I'm OK.  Letting go of Nsibs and their constant need to make me feel "less than" has been glorious!  I look back on my life and the decisions I've made and I'm happy with most of it.  I've done all sorts of things that NFOO has disapproved of, but they were choices that fit into my view of life and my beliefs and although I've taken a good bit of abuse for those decisions, for the most part, I'd do it all again.  (But with no NFOO deriding me!) 
(You'd think, reading this, that some of my decisions were illegal or dangerous, but really not!  They just didn't fit into the worldview of the NFOO!) 

I'm thankful that I have good and honest friends - what a blessing!  I've shared my struggles over the past year with only a few trusted people, many of whom have gone through the same struggles and are growing stronger and healthier, too.  These are true "sisters"- even when they don't understand why I'm doing what I'm doing, they're supportive and caring.  These are the people I want in my life- these are the people who know me and still love me even when I get prickly, the people who don't expect perfection on their terms, but are willing to let me be me.  They make me want to be worthy of them!

I'm sooooooo thankful for my chosen family - my children are such amazing people!  I really am constantly amazed by them and the way they live their lives according to their beliefs.  I miss them terribly since I don't get to see them very often in person - I do love SKYPE!  My husband, who's had a difficult year himself, is really trying to accept this "new" person in his life after being married to a different woman for the past 37 years.  It's been a struggle - but we seem to have come through it, if not unscathed, at least whole.  This is a good thing!

And lastly, I'm thankful that I'm getting healthy again - that I'm learning how to take care of myself for the first time in my life.  That I'm losing weight and allowing myself to feel feminine and spending time on myself.  I'm doing the things I really like to do  - cooking, weaving, walking, reading, watching BBC shows, visiting with friends...  Life is good!

So there you have it - late Thanksgiving - but daily thanks giving for all the blessings in my life. 

No, not a friend

I've been watching a British mystery series while I weave- it's one of those shows that you don't have to really watch - you just get to listen to fantastic British accents and sort of follow the plot.  So this morning, one of the characters was asked if the deceased was a friend - and his answer was that no, he wasn't a friend; he was a customer - he just came around when he wanted something.  Isn't that just the best description of N's?  Not a friend (someone who wants what's best for you ), just someone who comes around when they want something!  I love it.  I do like the fact that most of my NFOO is the distant variety - they don't stalk, they just ignore.  It makes NC so easy!  They do want information, so they'll try to get it out of others who may have access - now that MW is out of the picture, that leaves only W2, so I'll have to be ever so careful with him.  I've been noticing, though, that we mostly have contact when he needs to talk out a problem in his life - and then there's silence until another issue comes up.   I really don't mind listening, but I wish we had more of a relationship than just that.  The irony is that he knows that I won't talk to anyone about his life - and yet I hear that he "shares"  information about other sibs with the Weird Ones and MW.   Sad, but reality, and it's reality I'm living in now, not the dream or hope of what might have been, but the reality of what IS.  And the reality in my NFOO is that information about a person is WAY more important (and probably a good deal easier) than a relationship with that person.  I've considered spreading false information about myself, but that seems a bit childish, even though it sounds like a lot of fun!  (Imagine the reaction if I spread a rumor that I'd won the lottery!  One of my sisters plays poker and won some sort of pot and one of the FM's thought that the money should be shared with her - even though she's treated L3 horrifically throughout her life - but we're "family"!)  If I hear "But we're 'sisters' one more time in my life to cajole me into sharing information, I'll scream.  Imagine the rumblings that would cause!!!   Hmmmm....

Take a deep breath

And now comes the business of living without the shackles and with the freedom inherent in not being enmeshed with N's.  It's no wonder I feel like a much younger person - it's when people are young that this freedom should be experienced!  It's an opening up of the world that adolescents and young adults feel when they're in charge of themselves completely for the first time - I was so bound up in fear and anxiety, so convinced that I'd fail, so sure that I wasn't capable that I missed it the first time around!  It's amazing that Nparents can give the message simultaneously that you're 1)incapable of making it on your own and 2) on your own without a net.  Right after my sophomore year in college, I decided to drop out - I couldn't decide what I wanted to do and it just seemed silly to continue without a goal.  A friend convinced me to apply to college abroad and I did and was accepted..  When I told Nmother, she said I could go as long as she didn't have to do anything to make it happen.  And this, believe it or not, I viewed as encouragement!  Yes, I was taught early to expect nothing and then if there was the tiniest bit of positive anything, I saw it as encouragement!  Is it any wonder that my life has been somewhat odd and that I've stayed enmeshed in NFOO for so long?  I feel like a mist has disappeared and that I can see life more clearly.  It's very odd to have such clarity and I'm relishing it - and dreaming about how different life can be now...  Ah.

One of my great fears as a child was that I'd be crazy.  I know, I know, there were all those spiders and monsters and things that go bump in the night, but I feared going crazy.  When I learned about narcissism, I was sure that the reason for the fear was that Nfather looked nuts when he was raging and I didn't want to be like him.  The real reason, of course, was hidden (because that's what NFOO's do) - my maternal great-grandfather (grandfather's father)  had committed suicide and my maternal grandmother (mother's mother) had been confined to a mental institution and received electroshock therapy.  These were things I didn't find out until I was much older because family secrets are just that - secret.  But apparently I had absorbed that fear as a young child and lived with it a long time.  And of course being a scapegoat made manipulating all of that easy - anyone not marching to the correct beat was crazy,  unreliable, unstable.  It really is amazing that I made it out alive... 

And now my life can be different - I have so many choices and decisions to make, but for today, I'm going to have coffee and weave and take a walk - and enjoy life!

I feel almost giddy!!!

I feel almost giddy - this is NOT a word that I have used at any time in the past to describe how I feel!  I feel like I've had to be so IN CONTROL most of my life - don't say the wrong thing, don't say anything with the wrong TONE, don't offend anyone, don't say anything that might hurt someone's feelings (and this was tough in my NFOO!), don't say what you need or want... The list is endless.  And now it's gone!  Obviously, I don't intend to go around offending people, but I don't have to be so endlessly careful, as if my very presence offends - oh, that's right, it DID!  This last piece, losing the NFOO's judge and jury, has burst open the prison's doors, let the sunshine in, and almost any other freedom analogy I can think of!  I really don't know what to do with this feeling - it's mind-blowingly refreshing, like water bubbling up from inside my soul - a fountain of freedom!  I want to dance and sing - and twirl!!!!  I haven't twirled since I was a girl, but today, I could twirl! And shout!  And laugh with all my heart!  All my heart is available now - all my heart... What joy! 

Forward!

It's been a busy couple of days with lots of N-action.  Now to look forward - I have a children's book that I need to edit and see if I can get published - or self-publish it.  It's a fairytale about 2 princesses who have Nparents - I think that a lot of fairytales involve Nparent/s and it's helpful for children to see that they're not alone in their pain, that there are others who are going through the same thing.  One of the things that helped in my childhood was reading - and there were neighbors who didn't seem to hate me the way my family did - Mrs. Leichle, the dear older widow who lived next door and never yelled when we climbed her apple tree and ate the apples - or picked the berries that grew along her driveway - Mr. and Mrs. Hahn, who sat in their driveway on two of those lovely metal bouncy chairs and talked to me and sometimes invited me inside for cookies and milk - and LISTENED to me - and Mrs. Bodden, who always gave me windmill cookies, which I hated, but I always took one because she sat with me on her stoop while I ate it and TALKED to me - and Mrs. Schnitzler, who was so worried when a bee stung me that she took me inside and put cool cloths on it  and offered to call my mother (I declined the offer).  There were loving and caring people in my neighborhood who showed me that not all people were like my Nparents - and if children don't see them in real life, they need to see them in books, so they know that they aren't the problem, that lots of children aren't perfect and are still treated with kindness and encouragement.

I also plan to continue weaving and weaving and weaving - I love the colors and textures of yarn and the lovely way it combines to make such amazing fabrics!  By next fall, I hope to have an ETSY site and sell scarves, placemats, table runners, baby blankets, and shawls.  Every day, I learn something new and wonderful. 

I plan to continue losing weight - I'm loving the new me!  It's so lovely to no longer be caught in the web of not being allowed to be feminine or beautiful or thin!  It's a bit late in the day, but I'm going to give it my best shot!!!  I finally have a girly bedroom - I wasn't ever allowed one as a child and as a married woman, I wanted to create a bedroom that my husband felt comfortable in, too - now, with his sleep disturbance, I have my own room and it's my own to decorate!  It's gorgeous - just what I always wanted!  Lots of color, color, color!!!

I plan to join a gym after the holidays - I walk a lot, but I want to build upper body strength as well = weaving helps, but I'd like to get really STRONG. 

There - that's the plan!  My home state's motto is "Forward!" and that's going to be my motto, too!!!  Enough of the past and all its entrapments, enough of being involved with N's and their nonsense, enough of worrying that I'm not good enough - I'm plenty good enough and if someone doesn't think so, they should just move aside because I'm not stopping to listen to them and their lies. 

\I know that I'll still have sad days, days when I don't feel good enough, days when the lies come seeping back in, but most days, I feel stronger inside.  Most days I don't feel anxious or fearful anymore - Insidious Npower over me is weakening.  It's melting!  It's melting!  (The Oz analogy breaks down about here - if I could click my heels together 3 times and end up back home, I'd give the damn shoes back to the Witch!)   

The calm AFTER the storm

We all know about the calm before the storm - I'm now in the calm after the storm.  It's absolutely no wonder I've struggled so long with losing weight - there was enough cortisol in my system for most of my life to keep that weight hanging on and multiplying.  The constant upheavals, that awful feeling in my stomach when I knew I'd have to see the WWW, her Flying Monkeys and MW, the bickering, the scolding, the disdain if you disagreed with whatever the biologicals had decided was the correct way to think, vote, or act, the constant righteous indignation at almost everything, the lecturing about social action positions, the incessant sniping, the nastygrams if I stepped out of formation, the blaming of the Church for all the problems in NFOO and the world - now that I'm out, I wonder why in the WORLD I stayed in for so long - I know, I know - conditioning!  I opened my email this morning without a single worry about nastygrams.   None of the biologicals know my SKYPE name and I'd have to give them my contact information (which I obviously won't do).  I don't have an actual physical address except my daughter's in the US, and if they do write ( I 've gotten a couple of CRAZY letters from WWW in the past), I'll throw it away unread.  They're blocked on my email - their emails go right to "delete" - and I've blocked them on facebook.  And because I've moved since MW and WWW were here, they wouldn't even be able to find me if they showed up in my city.  They can't access either of my blogs since both are by invitation only, so I am  essentially isolated from anyone that I don't want to be involved with!  Hurrah!!!  Control was a missing component of my life - and now that I have it, I won't easily give it up!  I LOVE having contact with my loving sibs and sharing my life with them - I'm so thankful that I have them in my life and that we're all grownups who don't feel the need to resort to Jr. High tactics at every altercation.  We don't all see eye to eye politically or spiritually, but we can all appreciate and celebrate our differences instead of feeling the need to be part of the "herd." There's just so much to be thankful for, isn't there??

Living without the Adreneline

There's a weird, empty feeling that comes from shutting someone you've known all your life out of your life.  Forever.  Part of it is sadness, sadness that the dream of a real relationship has now been declared dead, sadness that no matter what you do, the other person insists on seeing you as a child, and a rather stupid one at that...  A mean, dishonest, horrible child... (She learned parenting at the feet of our Nmother.)   Part of it is also the N-made feeling that you're really alive only when you're embroiled in the Ndrama, that life without anxiety, drama, mean-spiritedness is boring, dull, empty.  Without a plot twist or two, without a surprise attack from a minion, where's the fun in life?

On the other side of that, on the healthy side, it's lovely to open my email and not get a nastygram from a "family" member.  Whatever will I call them now?  They're not really "family" except in the very worst sense of that word.  Biologicals?  It has possibilities.  My "real" family consists of siblings who love me, who treat me with respect, and who don't feel the need to "put me in my place" every time I disagree with them or step outside of the strict parameters set by the biologicals.  "Shame on you" is my NFOO's mantra - how wonderful to be free of that!  How wonderful to have the freedom to live my life in front of God and the world without constant criticism - ah...

This is going to take a bit of getting used to - the sadness, I know, will pass.  It's based on the death of a dream, and we all experience that from time to time and learn to adjust.  The dream was unrealistic from the get-go and it's time to just let it go.  The woman is 65 and hasn't figured out how to have a non-coercive relationship, a relationship in which she isn't in complete control, so my continuing to attempt to try to have a relationship with her was just plain - dare I say it? - stupid, naive, childlike.  I'm over that now.  I'm spending this year working on having only healthy adult relationships and the biologicals don't fit into that picture on either count.  I do wish them well - I'm surprised that I don't harbor feelings of vengeance, of wishing them ill.  I hope they have long, blessing-filled lives - without me in them!  This, I think, is one of the blessings for which I'm so thankful today - I don't want to live a life of bitterness toward my NFOO - I just no longer want to be included in any way in their histrionics, games, lies, slander, and gossip.  My life must remain hidden from them and only I have the power to make that happen. 

And as for the adreneline rush, I'm pretty sure I'll settle into that not being a part of my life - maybe, just maybe, the need for anxiety meds will disappear completely now - it's rare now that I take anything at all.  And it would be lovely to get adreneline rushes from excitement and fun rather than NFOO nonsense - hurrah!!!!  Might be time for an adventure!!!  It's amazing when life opens up again in front of you, isn't it? 

Scoldy, scoldy

Every contact with MW results in scolding, lecturing, or unasked for advice.  So, you might ask, why do I stay in contact?  This is an excellent question, for which I can think of no answer.  Well, maybe because she's seemed more benign than the WWW and her Flying Moneys...  yes, that's probably it.  However, let's look at the situation - she acts like a parent - and not a very good one.  She needs to be in control of all situations involving ANYONE in the NFOO.  In her eyes, it was just plain WRONG of me to ask my nephew if I could stay at his house while he's gone for the holiday - I should have asked HER - or at least, I should have asked HER if I could ask HIM.  And apparently, although this request happened months ago, he didn't tell her, either.  Hmmmm.  So then he panicked and decided that this was going to look bad to MW and he'd better switch us over to their place post haste.  Unfortuately, I didn't take that well, since staying at MW's place or taking anything from MW results in psychological bondage and I'm resisting any sort of bondage now.  So nephew sends me a nastygram - I've removed him from all social sites and my gmail account - anyone who sends nastygrams gets deleted immediately now. There'll be no more of that in my life.  I did respond with an equal/equal message first,just for practice.  So now MW is sending all sorts of scolding, shaming, lecturing emails.  So why haven't I deleted her?  I've been responding equal/equal, which has been wonderful for me - but I haven't deleted her yet.  I am taking her off my other blog, a blog about what's happening in my life, where I live  I think that's too much information for her to have.  It might be time to shut down communication with her - really, there's not anything that I get from the relationship, if it can even be called that.  It's just a lot of shaming, blaming nastiness with a defensive and mean edge to it.  I think it's time.  Sigh... 

Stop already!

Having ANY contact with MW brings on anxiety - I've just taken some meds and am practicing deep breathing and wondering why in the world I make any attempt at all.  This started out so innocently, but of course became something less than innocent - or more than innocent - whichever way you want to look at it.  This is the basic story (remembering that I cannot tell a short story because you might miss something and I'll be blamed....   AACK!).  I live outside of the US.  My children, whom I love dearly, live in the US.  I plan on spending Christmas with my daughter.  I've invited my loving siblings to attend as well.  It turns out that my son and his girlfriend can't come this year, which makes me sadder than sad, but it's the way it is.  LS's 1  and 3 can come and I'm still waiting to hear from W2.  MW's son lives near my daughter (So does MW because she's spent some time caring for her grandchildren - she, however, spends a good bit of time traveling and wasn't really sure where she was going to be living this year since her son put the children in daycare.), so I asked MW's son and his partner if some of our guests could stay at his house over the holidays.  MW and all of her children will be skiing over the holidays.  The answer was yes - I sent 4 lovely hand woven scarves to my nephew, his partner and their 2 children to thank them for allowing us to use their home over the holiday.  Soooooooo  I get a message today from my nephew indicating that my asking him and not MW has caused hurt feelings and that my guests should stay at MW's house because she would like to "host" us - they're all going to be gone!  And the difficulty lies in the fact that my guests don't WANT to stay at MW's house because she's a control freak and if you accept anything from her, she OWNS you!  So I've written to my nephew and MW, explaining that I'm sorry I hurt MW's feelings, and that my guests will be staying elsewhere.  It's hard for me to believe that something this innocuous could grow into something this stupid.  But then again, why did I think it wouldn't?  Why do I have any contact with them at all?  And these aren't even WWW and her FM's.  I really must give up this incessant hope. 

Practicing courage

It's weird that having contact with the Winkies sets off anxiety now - I think I'm beginning to see that those who stand by and watch while claiming not to see are not benign.  I've been watching a BBC show called "Wish me Luck", which is based on a true story about British spies in occupied France - it's difficult to watch sometimes, but it's amazing how in time of war, it becomes obvious who is courageous and who is not.  And the decision to be courageous must happen in the blink of an eye- there has to be some spark of courage already in place that can flare up when needed.  Just as people practice courage, people also practice cowardice.  To look the other way over and over again becomes as habitual as standing up over and over again.  Rarely, I think, do cowards change to become courageous - or heroes to become cowards.  It's a matter of what you've practiced in your life.  I haven't been as brave as I want to be - I've allowed the bullies to dominate my life, but I've begun to stand up more for myself and will continue to do that!  I haven't allowed others to speak badly about my loving siblings in my presence.  I've protected my children from the ravages of my NFOO.  I need to continue to feed that spark until it burns away all the fear and anxiety. 

Accepting Reality

It's taken a while of NC with the 3 Weird Sisters to give me enough breathing room to see reality.  (Not that the 3 were ever in contact with me regularly - only when they needed a supply fix or when they needed a scapegoat or when they thought I might join one of their posses to oust another sibling.)  But just knowing that I can answer the phone, check my email, and check my regular mail without having to worry about being blindsided has been a true blessing.  The Main Winkie knows that I'm not in contact with any of the 3 and she has said that she will honor this (I don't believe that this promise will last indefinitely, but being on a different continent helps a lot).  I'm very careful what I tell her about my life, since I assume she's already doing some "sharing" of information.  Information in my NFOO is like gold - let the whispering, slandering, lies, and gossip begin!

So - the reality is that in leaving the 3 behind, I may well lose some additional siblings - the Winkies inhabit the borderlands, the places between, but their loyalty is really to the Weird Ones.  Main Winkie sees her job as keeping us all together - it feels a bit like foster children seem to feel about having to be kept together to keep the family "intact."  As if "intact" was ever a word that could have described us.  Now that the Nparents are dead, this seems to have become even more important to MW.  As if somehow there is safety in numbers, security in being "together" - when in reality, that very closeness has allowed the WWW and her Flying Monkeys to access enough information to do some real damage.  Closeness is dangerous to the Ousted.  Closeness is dangerous.   Period.  W2 is treated in the family like a little boy - the diminutive of his name is still used and there's a dismissive tone used when he expresses a view contrary to the view of the 3 and the MW.  The man is in his mid-50's and is in law enforcement, but in NFOO, he's still a very cute child.  He sees his role as one of comforting and caring for the histrionics in the family - which is good, because he's poised to marry one.  I've realized lately that I hear from him only when he has trouble in his life and needs to talk - otherwise, there is silence. 

Eventually, the Weird Ones will demand that sides be chosen - I am already being accused of this, so I imagine that means that they're positioning themselves.  I've said repeatedly that I don't need people to choose sides - we're not, after all, in Jr. High and this isn't in any way, shape, or form a "team."  The border people can have relationships with whomever they choose - but they are to keep ME and MINE out of those relationships.  I already know that I have to be extremely careful about giving the border people information about my life - gold is in such short supply these days!!  I know that the lies, gossip, and slander will continue even without me feeding it, but I still don't want them to have any new information.  At W2's wedding, I imagine that there will be high drama when I don't speak with them or (shocking!) hug them - so that we can all look to the rest of the world like loving siblings...  Ah, well - W2 will comfort WWW and her Flying Monkeys, MW will scold and lecture me and protect the Weird Ones, I will be the evil one, and life will go on as it always has....  Reality can be so ugly.

Overly sensitive?

Brave New Kitty's book review about highly sensitive people (see sidebar)  really got me thinking. I haven't read the book, but I've read a lot online about the concept of highly sensitive people. Am I really all that sensitive? God knows, I've been accused of it most of my life. Somehow I don't think I am, though - I think I've been injured pretty severely by N's who consider me only supply, who don't really know me at all (which isn't completely their fault, since until recently, I haven't really known myself all that well...), and who throw shame and blame at everyone around them so they don't have to look at it themselves. Do I think I feel things more deeply than other people? Not really, and I think that that feeling probably belongs to adolescence and we need to work at outgrowing it if we've taken it into adulthood.

However, do I think that some people come out of the womb sensitive to loud sounds, rough textures, tags on their clothes, bright lights, certain foods, etc.  And I think that those children make an N's life difficult because they're unhappy with those things that they're sensitive to and may make demands (shocking!) that those things be taken care of - that THEY be taken care of, listened to, comforted, soothed, etc.  And THAT, I think, is what gets some of us labeled as overly sensitive early on. Had we had non-N parents, we would have been considered "normal" babies, needing what most babies need - not over-the-top demanding children. 

Also, I was watching 2 little sisters on the bus today - the older one, dressed a bit like her mother, followed the mother around, switching seats when the mother sat in a different place than she had expected her to sit.  The younger one stayed where she was originally, playing with the people in the seat behind her, playing with her doll, watching to make sure the mother was there but not going over to her - she was an independent little spirit and the mother was accepting of that - she kept checking on the little one but didn't insist that she be right at her side until they got off the bus.  Had that mother been a narcissist, that behavior may well have labelled the child as a trouble-maker, a wild child, a disobedient child.  I think we're labelled early on and it has more to do with Nmother's reaction to us that to who we really are - and it stays that way our whole life!

Cowardice in Narcissism

Caliban's Sister wrote a recent blog about cowardice and triangulation (see sidebar) - this brought up so much for me.  I've always said that part of my NFOO's legacy is cowardice.  It's sad, but most of us were so terrified of MNfather and Nmother that we could just barely respond to life. We learned cowardice, and some of us were able to unlearn it.  But I think that cowardice is part and parcel of narcissism.  I remember when I first tested that theory.  My father, even into his old age, was a rager, a violent man.  When my mother left him (at age 79 - long story), my husband and I went to help him with the house - he thought Nmother was going to come back to him, so he wanted to get some stuff done in the house - we knew she wasn't coming back but thought that we could fix the house so that he could stay there for a while longer.  By the time we'd been there for a week or so, it was pretty obvious that he wasn't going to be able to live alone, but that's a story for another day. 

When he would really, really piss me off, I'd take our dog for a long walk - she got lots and lots of long walks, usually to the town cemetery, where she could run and where she discovered RABBITS!  Oh, she loved to chase rabbits!  One day, as I was realizing that another long, long walk was needed, Nfather started on one of his rants.  I was sitting on a bench, putting on my shoes, and as he started walking towards me, shouting and shaking his finger, I started doing what I've done my whole life - looking for the nearest way out.  And then something snapped inside me.  I stood up abruptly and started walking toward him with long strides - and the man actually backed up!  I kept walking and he kept backing up.  I told him to STOP shouting and to behave like a human being.  When he walked into the kitchen, my dog and I walked out the front door and headed to rabbit country.  We were both very, very happy!!

Sensitivity viewed as character flaw

My anxiety's been under control for a while - I rarely take the medication anymore, I'm getting restful sleep, I have  more energy than I've had in a while, I'm losing weight.  So I thought that I could watch a BBC program about spies in France during WW2.  Normally, I don't watch anything really scary - I feel too anxious!  (OK, this is probably taking sensitivity  and empathy waaaaay too far, but that's just the way I am!)  So I've been watching it for a while and although I sometimes have to walk away from it, I can usually go back and finish an episode.  So I was watching it the other night and I had this sudden and overwhelming anxiety -  pounding heart, difficulty catching my breath, sweating... (Definitely not spy material myself)   It was the strangest thing and I couldn't figure out why now, why all of a sudden...  My world is not stress-free although it is becoming N-free, which helps a lot!  I am going to the States for the holidays, but I get to see only the FOO that I love (although not all of them, alas...) and I don't find traveling particularly stressful, even with a disabled husband.  So what is it?  I think it might be that I KNOW the characters more now and am therefore more worried about them - isn't that slightly crazy?  Do other people feel this way?  Am I really "too sensitive"? 

When I was much younger, I remember having a conversation with my brother-in-law, not the most sensitive of men, about a movie he had seen (It was about Vietnam, but I can't remember which movie we were discussing.)  He had seen the movie and, being how he is, therefore thought that EVERYONE should see it.  I told him, foolishly it turns out, that I didn't think I'd be able to watch that kind of movie, that the very thought of it made my stomach hurt, that all of that pain just seemed  too much to watch on a big screen.  He was livid!  That I was such a "coward", that I was "hiding my head in the sand," that I wasn't willing to "look at reality."  It was such a forceful attack that I was really taken aback.  This was about a movie that was about a war that was long over, a war that I had protested.  Looking back at that incident, I'm even more confused - why on earth would you attack someone who just really couldn't bear to watch that much pain in the context of a movie?  And why on earth can this man and his wife, Winkie One, not see the pain that is constantly caused by WWW and her Flying Monkeys, something that he actually COULD do something about?  So I'm the coward for not watching something I have no control over and he's the hero because...  It's no wonder I'm having trouble getting through all this crap..

Another self-help book

This morning, in my email box, there was an email from Amazon about another book dealing with healing from the effects of narcissism - it involved the word "thriving", so I opened it.  As I read through the reviews, I realized that I really don't need to read another book about narcissism - I KNOW how to deal with narcissists!  I don't need lessons in how to speak with them so they can hear me - they CAN'T hear me!  I don't need to learn another technique to keep them from pushing my buttons - no matter what I do, they'll find another button!  I really don't want to read about how changing my behavior (which I have done most of my life) will allow them to feel the love and change their behavior - honestly?  I read a post this morning* (and I'll have to go back and find it because it was brilliant) that talked about how important boundaries are, but also how important it is to remember that narcissists are notorious boundary-invaders.  I'm strengthening my boundaries daily and I'm going to continue to do that, but I really do think that for me, NC is the only way to deal with the 3 Weird Sisters.  In most of my regular life, I deal with N's one-on-one and that's do-able for me now, but the Gang of 3 is a bit much to handle and the enmeshment is so complete that it really is 3 in 1.

 And I also think that the only people who can teach me about how to deal with narcissists are people who are dealing with narcissists in their daily lives, who are in the trenches - not people who look upon it from afar and who offer "fair and balanced" advice about dealing with these poor, injured souls.  Yes, I know that the 3 were also injured by narcissists - I know that their souls were damaged by the ravages of narcissism just as the souls of our Nparents were.  But I really do believe that we all have the ability to make choices in our adult lives - I can distinctly remember making choices to NOT be like my Nparents, to think through what I did in my life so as to NOT hurt my children the way I was hurt.  Did I make mistakes?  Of course I did.  Have I hurt others by my inability to see the real issues in my life?  Of course I have.  Have I been defensive instead of having good boundaries?  Yes.  Even with the choice to not be narcissistic, I have some of those residual behaviors.  But they are residual, not my go-to position.  I no longer want N's in my life - I want to be a free, whole, energetic, reasonably happy person who doesn't have to always be accommodating N's and their weirdness.  Ever. Again. 

* Not My Rock (The Purpose of Boundaries) - see sidebar.

"Off" days

Some days I really struggle with worthiness - most days now I know that I am worthy of love, care, and friendship, but then there are days like Monday, days when I'm not sure that I belong here, not sure that I deserve anything.  And all it takes is for someone I love to treat me badly, to act like I'm somehow invisible to them.  And in addition to dealing with my NFOO, I have a husband who has been passive-aggressive his whole life, which we've sort of worked around, but who is now in the early stages of dementia and can't seem to see me at all some days.  So the P/A makes him not give me what I want/need  and the dementia sends him off into some zone where he can only see himself.   AACK!  And now that I'm seeing how I've been treated my whole life by my NFOO, I see my husband doing the same thing - it's pretty dreadful some days, sorting through what he can and can't control, and keeping NFOO crap separate from the P/A crap and the dementia crap.   Wow- as I write this, I'm wondering how I've managed to keep all of these balls in the air for all these years!  And my life is becoming more restricted as I see the dementia affecting more and more areas of his life - there are days when I don't feel I can leave him alone at all because he's sometimes dangerous to himself - mishandling knives and blades, leaving a burner on and walking out of the kitchen, not looking carefully before crossing a street, etc.  Other days he seems fine and I'm OK leaving for periods of time.  But I have to be watchful all the time - we had decided that he wasn't going to take the bus anymore because getting on and off can be tricky in the city we live in.  After about 2 weeks, I found out he was taking the bus again - he says that he thought that rule was only for "then."  So now I have someone come in one morning a week to take him to do errands  and I'm thinking maybe after Christmas we'll add another morning so that I have times when I can either be alone or go and do what I want to do without worrying about what he might be doing on his own...  So after writing all this, I guess it's not a surprise that I have "off" days, days when I question my worthiness, days when life seems overwhelming, frustrating, and just plain too difficult!  These are the days when I wish I had seen all the narcissistic stuff sooner and dealt with it when I was younger - and then I remember that at least I've seen it now and am dealing with it now and that most of my days are so much better for that! 

St. Nmother

When I was 16, my mother had a baby - now, my mother had a baby on average every 2-3 years, so this wasn't as embarrassing for me as a 16-year-old as it might have been for a teenager who somehow didn't realize that her parents actually had sex.  In my NFOO, older siblings took care of infants and young children more than Nmother did - so, when we were out in the world, one of us was usually holding the baby.  This, of course, led to sales clerks and other people thinking that the baby belonged to the teenager holding it - which sent  Nmother into hysterics! This, of course, would make her the baby's grandmother!  Now, there was a lot of attention to be gained by having ever so many children - people in many rural cultures really did believe that motherhood is akin to sainthood - add to that that my Nparents were Catholic and you have an unending supply of saintliness, no matter that Nmother couldn't seem to muster up a hug for a child who needed one.   She always became righteously indignant at people who believed one of us to be the baby's mother, but she never seemed to figure out that if she actually held the baby, cooed and giggled with it, people might think that the child was actually hers...  Of course, to her, most of her daughters were not "motherhood" material - she, Nmother, was the ultimate Mother, the most feminine of all women, the most sophisticated, the woman with the cleanest house, the tidiest children, the loveliest flower garden.  AACK!!!  In reality, we lived in a very tidy, spotless group home. 

Enjoying life and its absurdities

I've been weaving steadily lately - and loving it!  I'm learning new techniques all the time and now I have BOOKS of ideas - ah...  The last scarf I made I'm going to name "It's a Party!" because honestly, this scarf really LOOKS like a party!!  Banana silk, ribbons, color!!! For now, I'm practicing a lot and making scarves as presents for Christmas, Hannukah, birthdays, etc., but I hope to open an ETSY account in a few months and sell woven items online - it's so good to be doing something I love and to look forward to getting really good at it - and it has nothing to do with service!!!

Last weekend, I went with my husband and a friend to a concert - and it turned out that the concert was the next night - long story...  But we'd met some people that I knew from my weaving group and they were going out to hear some Blues and they invited us to join them.  They went on ahead and we joined them a bit later.  Turns out the Blues had been cancelled as well, but we had a snack and talked and it was fun.  So, we were all going to the concert the next night and decided to meet at a local restaurant beforehand to have dinner.  When we got to the restaurant, two of the weaving women were there and there was a group of women at the table with them.  There were 4 of us, and one of the women sitting at the table got up to get another table to accomodate us, when the woman at the head of the table (henceforth to be called Nwoman) announced in a loud voice that adding another table would make it too difficult to have conversations, and all activity stopped.  Everyone sat down again (except us, of course) and Nwoman waved us off to another table!!!   At one point, 2 of the weaving women came over and said hi to us - I was not particularly receptive, since this was just a very odd scenario...  We enjoyed ourselves, though, and headed off to the concert without them.  At the concert, the weaving women ended up sitting behind us, another long story - at one point, one of the women reached over my shoulder to hand me a card and said, "Here's my information so you can send me those recipes."  (We had talked about this the first night.)  The woman had not even acknowledged my presence at the restaurant and now gave me her card to send her recipes!  The gall!!  Needless to say, the recipes will be sent the day after hell freezes over.  Or maybe the next day.. 

This was some sort of odd test, I think - I was with my husband, my friend, and a friend of my friend, who I had met only once before.  Had I been alone, I would have left, but time was limited and I live in a city where a lot of restaurants don't open before 8 - and the concert was at 7.  So I didn't say anything and we stayed.  The meal was good, the company was excellent, so there you have it.  My response now?  The weaving women will remain weaving acquaintnnces only, and I will never agree to meet them outside of weaving again.  Ever.  We will discuss only weaving and if our paths cross outside of that context, I will wave and say hello - and keep on walking!  I don't think they're necessarily narcissists, poor things, but they're certainly not brave folk and right now, I need brave folk in my life.  And maybe some people with better social skills!!!

It's a Party!



Practice, practice, practice!

My focus lately has been on working on not being noticed by N's as supply - and it's working!  I went to a party last week and not one of them spotted me, apparently, because I wasn't cornered and talked to death, no one told me all the awful things that had happened to them that week, and no one gave me "the look" from across the room.  It was nothing short of delightful!  It's becoming more natural: 1.  Not to smile at people I don't know, 2. Not to make eye contact with people I don't know, 3. Not to lean into conversations with people I don't know, and 3. To get up and leave when numbers 1, 2, and 3 don't work.  No explanation - just leave.  In months past, I would have considered all of this rude - now, I see these rules as survival skills - I have to learn to stop being supply of any sort.  I want my life to be my life, my time to be my time, my energy to be my energy, and I don't have time to waste on N's and their ilk.   I also have to practice for my brother's wedding next fall - WWW and her Flying Monkeys will undoubtedly be there and all of these things have to be second nature to me by then so I'm not sucked into their webs, so I don't backslide into supply behavior.  I am remembering more now (without having to say it to myself all the time) that most stuff in the world is none of my damn business and that most people in the world don't really need to know much about me at all - it's none of THEIR damn business.  My boundaries are getting stronger every day and I'm loving the freedom that gives me.  Who knew that life could be so worry, guilt, and shame-free??  Who knew that boundaries would allow me to be more me??  I can actually spend time during the day doing NOTHING and not feeling guilty about it - or I can weave when I know that that house needs cleaning and not feel guilt or shame - just joy that I have the freedom to do whatever it is I want to do, productive or unproductive - hurrah!!!

Explaining, explaining...

Another "Eureka!" moment - sometimes, when I tell a story or feel the need to explain something, I do go on and on....  I give every detail, I explain until I've told absolutely everything - and this morning, I figured out why! I've been accused of lying since I was young (and I'm sure I did my share of lying when I was young...). Nparents and Nsiblings who are "naive" or who just don't want to look at a situation often accuse others of lying, thereby making it so they don't HAVE to look and are excused from reality and can continue to live in this fairyland/fantasy/myth they've created in their heads, with the WWW and her Flying Monkeys the truth-tellers and the rest of us the liars.  This, despite the fact that Nmother used to tell me that when she asked me certain questions, I could feel free to lie!!!  She said she didn't need that much truth.  So my going on and on is a way to try to get them to see that what I'm saying is, indeed, the truth.  So how has this worked for me so far?  Hmmmmm...  NOT AT ALL!  My MO has to change - there has to be more "need to know" and less "Let me tell you all the details so you believe me."  I have to stop trying to get Nsiblings to believe me - the myth is so strong in our NFOO that all the talking does no good  If W1 and W2 choose the myth over the truth, so be it.  I certainly can't change their minds -W1 is just so "naive", she just wants us all to get along - and in the end, in her eyes I will always be the liar because her job has always been and will always be to protect the WWW and her Flying Monkeys.  W2, for some reason, probably that he was Nfather's target, has decided that his role is to comfort the WWW and her FM's and try to get everyone to get along, without "taking sides" - ie., staying blindly neutral, closing his eyes to what is really happening.  I can live with all this - I just have to shut up and stop trying to justify myself.  The truth of our NFOO has set me free - and if they choose to live in bondage, that is their choice and I must honor that. 

Sickness as weakness

When I was growing up, I had horrific allergies -  Nfather didn't "believe" in allergies (as if it were some sort of faith experience) and poo-pooed the idea that my constant runny nose, hacking cough, sneezing, and throat-clearing were allergies but were instead somehow evidence of bad character instead of a reaction to the world around me.  Later, as an adult, I got myself tested - when the allergist came back into the room, he was looking at the results of the scratch tests and shaking his head.  When I asked what was wrong, he said that he'd never had anyone allergic to the "control" before!  (It turned out it was a grass that grew only on an island  where I had spent a couple of years, so it did make sense that I'd developed an allergy to it...)  So I got treatment and felt better.  A couple of years later, I found out that Nfather's mother had had asthma! 

My NFOO is so odd about illness - people are "blamed" for their illness unless the person with the illness is WWW, her Flying Monkeys, or the Silent Partner - they all have illnesses that are not their fault.  When I was sick as a child (I once had measles and mumps at the same time ), I was put in a room and pretty much left alone so as not to contaminate the other siblings.  There was no comfort, no story reading, no cool cloth on feverish forehead - only complaints that I was taking too much time.

 Even as an adolescent, any illness was treated as an inconvenience to Nmother.  One was supposed to suck it up and go on!  Between my sophomore and junior year of college, I developed abdominal pain and called my eldest sibling, who took me to the hospital.  I couldn't walk upright and when the blood work came back, my sister's eyes widened remarkably - she was a med tech - and she got a panicky look that I'd never seen on her face.  Scarey.  It turned out to be an ovarian cyst that ruptured, but Nmother and Nfather never showed up - I was in the hospital for 2 days 45 minutes from where they lived - and nothing.  Who were these people and where were my REAL parents?  Who doesn't show up when their kid is in the hospital and the doctors aren't sure what's going on? 

Because of all this, there was little communication among siblings about some things that would have been helpful to know about - I have 2 siblings with severe allergies, 1 sibling survived anorexia (although I think she's been in danger a few times), 1 sibling had anorexia, 1 sibling had colon cancer, 1 sibling has Graves disease, 1 sibling had a blood clot burst in a lung, a couple siblings have had menstrual issues and difficult conceiving, 2 sibs have fibromyalgia - and the list goes on!   But most of this is not common knowledge - it's too dangerous to talk about medical issues because if you do, you'll be BLAMED for them. Better to just keep quiet than to become a target.  Ah, the legacy continues!!!

Holidays made me sick

When I was a kid, I was almost always sick on holidays.  Every holiday.  It turns out that I'm allergic to pine trees, so that explains at least part of the illness at Christmas, but I think most of it can be explained by pure stress.  Part of the stress was that Nfather had a movie camera - how I hated that thing!!!  There was no sound, so while he was filming, Nparents would be yelling at us to smile, to look happy!  We were the Cleavers on film with crazy yelling and direction going on behind the scenes. To this day, I can't watch those films - watching them makes me wince and want to cover my eyes.  I can see the pain, not the lie that they wanted to present to the world - not that we had film viewings, mind you!  We rarely had company of any sort, even family.  It wasn't until I was in high school that I even realized that a lot of the people in that small village were related to me. 

I've tried over the years to make holidays less stressful, to not feel that they have to be perfect, that my kids must have GREAT memories of every holiday, that the food has to be wonderful and abundant...  This year, we're going to my daughter's for Christmas and at least 2 of my loving siblings will be there as well as my son and his girlfriend- I'm looking forward to walking in the snow, visitng family and friends, going to yarn shops,and generally relaxing.  Will there be stressors? Of course - Nmother died on Christmas Day last year and I'm sure that will have an impact, although since I'm NC with WWW and her Flying Monkeys, not as great an impact as it might have had.  And I don't need holidays to be perfects anymore - they're to celebrate family (real family) and friends, to celebrate God's blessings, and to have fun in the company of those you love!!!   What a delight!  I'm sooooooo looking forward to Christmas this year!

Reaping the Whirlwind

I've known for a long time that when I start losing weight, I'm elated - and then I'm terrified. I thought it was because my mother was a victim and I was terrified of being a victim, too - but, nooooooooooooooo, It turns out that my Nmother was a partner with MNfather and the unspoken rule was that no one (except the WWW, of course)could look as good as Nmother! No one could be as pretty or as thin as Nmother without reaping the whirlwind. So now the Nmother is gone and I am NC with the WWW and her Flying Monkeys, losing weight is not terrifiying! In fact, it's just downright mind-blowingly wonderful! I look in the mirror every day, not just to check that I'm put together before I head out, but actually to admire myself. It's a new world, one that I not only belong in, but am meant to thrive in!! Food has been a comfort to me my whole life, in part because the Nmother who couldn't love her children loved to bake - and I did take comfort in that! Over and over and over... it'll take a while for me to lose the armor I've been carrying around with me, but I'm ready to face the world as me, the Real Me, not as some poor thing that Nmother created to make sure she was identified as the True Princess!

A fish out of water

I went to a party last night and felt totally and completely out of place.  I did get to visit with some people I haven't seen in a while, I love the hostess, AND I didn't get spotted as supply - hurrah! - but I also felt like a fish out of water.  This morning, I thought that going to a party to meet other introverts is a bit like going to a bar to meet men and then ending up married to an alcoholic and wondering why...  I have to find a way to meet people that doesn't involve large groups of them mingling with a drink in their hands - not that I don't have the occasional beer or glass of wine,mind you.  But this sort of social venue just no longer appeals to me.  I enjoy seeing people one-on-one or in small groups - but that doesn't lead to meeting new folks.  I'm in a Bible study and I go to a shop to weave with other women, but I think I need something more - maybe a book club or a class.  I'm discovering that I love all kinds of arts - I took a black ceramics class and it was great  and I'd like to take a glass making class and maybe a wool dying class... 

I think I'm feeling a bit lost right now because a good friend is heading back to the US for 6 months and I'm going to miss her a lot - we love a lot of the same kinds of things and it's been fun getting to know her and spend time with her.  I tend toward having only 2-3 good friends with whom I can talk about anything, and I live in a place that is somewhat transient, so I find myself having to start over periodically...  It's distressing.  This friend is coming back to live here permanently, so I'm a bit surprised by my strong reaction to her leaving.  Sigh...  I'm going to miss her a lot. 

Community here and there

I love the country I was born in and I love the country in which I'm living currently.  Here, there isn't that strange American sense of being a Lone Ranger, a self-made man/woman, an INDIVIDUAL at all costs.  There really is community here - is it perfect? No.  Is it wonderful to watch people interact? Yes.  Family is paramount here - young adults live with their parents, usually, until they marry - and if they divorce, they move back in!  (Mostly this is the fault of the economy, which makes it almost impossible to live alone here.)  Older people are respected,for the most part - that's lovely.  Kids are treated like kids and not extensions of their parents or little adults - mostly.  People are kind to one another - when we lived near the edge of our city, we had a lovely house and a beautiful yard - and a HUGE electric bill - none of our local friends could understand why our bill was so high - finally, our landlady,who had been paying the bill, explained that she just couldn't cover it anymore, so she lowered the rent and had us pay the bill. Finally, one of our friends thought to check the electric meter - and it was spinning around really fast.  He had me turn off everything in the house - I unplugged the fridge, the stove, the toaster - everything.  The meter was still spinning like crazy - and our upstairs neighbor's wasn't moving at all!  Now, the upstairs neighbor was our landlord's brother.  You can only imagine what might have happened in the States - but the landlord and landlady went and talked to the brother, who apologized.  The landlady and I went over the electric  bills and we agreed on a sum that we shouldn't have paid and she reimbursed us - and she kept the rent lower by way of apology.  They both continued to treat the brother with kindness and love - he wasn't some renegade that they had to cope with - he was a brother who was going through a hard time and hadn't felt that he could talk to his brother about it - and he thought the brother was paying the bill.  He  had no idea that we were paying it. As far as I know, this wasn't a pattern since they were as shocked as we were - but even though they were angry, they talked with him gently, accepted his apology, resolved the issue with us, and continue to love him.  He is, after all, family.

Now, I'm not extrapolating that out to having to accept Nbehavior from NFOO's.  No, I'm not.  But I think that sometimes Americans are TOO all about their rights and their anger and their revenge and not enough about real community, where you accept that people make mistakes periodically and you don't have to demonize them for it.  You can talk to them gently about it, forgive them if they apologize, and go on loving them, knowing that when you act the fool, they'll remember and forgive you as well.  And you certainly don't have to round up a posse and go after them, hunt them down and annihilate them! 

Did I say that I like it here?

Beating a dead horse

It's sad, but I've begun to really hate the word "community".  LS1 claims (and I do believe that it's true) that when N's use the word "community", they mean "those who can do something for me."  And when non-N's use the word, they often mean "those for whom I can do something."  Hmmmm...  I've become less and less trusting of the ACoN online community - there's waaaaaaaay too much bullying, sniping, name-calling, badgering, and general Nbehavior and a disconcerting amount of people pleasing.  I'm back to just blogging, using this method of journaling my progress and not following other blogs except two or three, those of people I feel that I can trust and who want to live their lives peacefully, and who are willing to monitor their comments to keep the bullies out.  The name of my blog is, after all, "No More Flying Monkeys" and that is exactly what I want in my life.  Today, I'm going to go through all the blogs that I follow and get rid of most of them.  I feel like I'm making good progress in understanding the catastrophe that was my life and moving on to healthy, happy living.  If those I love get into a kerfuffle, then I must be involved - but this idiocy I really don't want in my life anymore.  Another healthy decision - hurrah!!! 

Hope and a future

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  (Jeremiah 29:11)

I love this verse - it gives me such hope!  For a lot of my life, I had a good bit of difficulty relating to God as "father" - with an Nfather like mine, certainly understandable.  Nfather (and Nmother)  did NOT have plans to prosper me and did immeasurable harm in my life.  Looking back, I see that although I believed firmly in God, it was difficult for me to trust Him - again, experience had taught me that authority figures of any sort mean only to get their way by bullying and badgering until you finally just give up and give in.  Don't get me wrong -  I did experience God's love and care in myriad ways -  but I never fully trusted that,  I was rarely at peace in that.   But now, there has been some sort of shift in the universe - the freedom that I feel, the peace even in the midst of life difficulties, frees me to feel hope  and to look forward to what lies ahead! 

Did That Really Happen?

One of the things that happens in so many Nfamilies is that after the N has done his/her thing, be that raging, beating on someone, subjecting someone to their sarcastic teasing, etc., they just go on as if nothing happened.  No apology, no obvious feeling of shame, no discussing what happened - it's just "forgotten" - yeah, right. Other family members are scared out of their minds and are now doubly watchful, but the N just pretends that it never happened - and expects you to do the same.  I don't wish to beat a dead horse, but that appears to be what's happening on some of the ACoN blogs -well, the first part happened, too - lots of raging, lots of emotionally beating up on people, lots of sarcastic joking., then writing sweet comments on blogs as if none of their behavior ever happened - or worse, that it was OK to behave that way in ANY setting!! It's all eerily familiar.  I don't know these people so I don't really care if they figure it out, but like all Nbehavior, I intend to stay far away from it.  I'm at the point in my recovery from Nnonsense that I really can't afford to give people the benefit of the doubt right now - if it looks like a narcissist, walks like a narcissist, and talks like a narcissist, I'm gone!!!  I've been suckered too often - giving the benefit of the doubt has gotten me into serious trouble emotionally and I'm not going there again. Maybe never- I hope that at some point I can wait a bit longer before heading for the hills, but for now, I'm saddled up and ready to ride!!! 

The Truth did set me free!!!

Boundaries are such amazing things -  who knew? It's so good to know "my place" in the world - not in a put-yourself-down-and-who-do-you-think-you-are? kind of way, but in a good way - I belong here, I live here, I like it here and I'm going to share my life with people who love me or at least like me a lot!  I'm NC with my Nsiblings and I no longer feel that I have to have anything to do with mean people of any sort, narcissists or not.  This is HUGE for me!  My people pleasing tendencies, ingrained since probably the day after I was born (Nmother was probably too drugged to manage my training any earlier than that!), are disappearing.  I don't care if most of the world likes me or not,  I don't want nasty people to like me or to have anything to do with me, and I'm very happy to spend a lot of time alone - all of these things are relatively new to me.  I really don't care what my Nsiblings are saying about me, I don't care what the nasty bloggers are saying about me - it has nothing to do with me and I'm glad to be NC with the nasty people of the world!  Life would have been sooooooo much easier had I known this sooner, but now that I know, I'm free!!!  The Truth DID make me free - hurrah!!!

There are more WWW's and Flying Monkeys in the World than I'd like to Believe!

The latest ACoN blog kerfuffle has been a real eye-opener for me- it felt exactly like the WWW and her Flying Monkeys - if your feelings get hurt, even in the teeniest way, scream bloody murder, round up a posse and oust someone from the "family" or group!  It's been amazing to watch - and it's made me ever so happy that I've never gone public with this blog - nor will I ever!  I think ACoN blogs really do attract N's - and ACoN's who haven't matured enough in their healing to keep from acting N-like at least part of the time.  There was a lot of fuss about what Charity did, but Charity was a new member of the ACoN blogging community; this last business was the work of someone who's been at this a while.  That should be scary to me, but it's mostly just annoying.  I'm working hard at "getting" this, at figuring out how to be in the world now that I've learned some remarkable things about myself - like that I'm really an introvert who's been trying hard to be an extroert her whole life and that I  have a creative side that now demands attention,  that I'm really happy to be without the adrenaline rush of N histrionics and that I can, indeed, finally just turn away from people who insist on abusing me and treating me like crap.  It's taken about 9 months to give birth to the new me - and I'm loving it!  I can't remember a time in my life when I've felt so much at peace, when I haven't battled anxiety, when I'm busily doing things that I really enjoy doing, and when I feel free to be myself in the world.  Just as I went NC with WWW and her Flying Monkeys, I have no desire to read the blogs of people who are hateful, mean-spirited, name-calling people who behave like mean adolescents - good grief!  I've had enough of that to last me a lifetime!  Again, it's a relief to remove myself from the narcissistic nonsense and get on with my new life!!!

Playing dress up

"She's never been my mother like that.  She likes to pretend she is.  She likes to take on that roll, like a child playing dress up."  (This is a quote from Releasing Jessie:  Who's your Mommy? - see sidebar)

This resonates with me!  This is exactly how my Nmother was - playing dress up describes it so perfectly.  LS1 told me about taking our Nmother shopping when she was in her 80's and going to the dressing room to see if she needed anything, to find my mother twirling in a dress and saying as she looked in the mirror - "Don't I look beautiful?"  Now, I don't think it's unusual for an 80 year old woman to look beautiful in a nice dress, but my sister was struck by the fact that not once in her life had our Nmother told her that she (LS1) looked beautiful.  When I was at a prom in high school, my mother came up to me and told me that someone had said to her, 'When did (Pearl)become such a beauty?"  And my Nmother told me this with amazement on her face and walked away shaking her head! I was by no means a beauty, but it's hard for a 16 year old girl NOT to look good with makeup, her hair up, and in a beautiful dress!  But Nmother really didn't want the attention taken from her - no basking in reflected glory for her!  It was the amazement that got to me - it really did take a good bit of the joy out of the evening for me...  And I wonder why I get scared when I lose weight - taking the spotlight off thin, beautiful Nmother was a dangerous venture. 

Grounded, at home on the earth

For most of my life, I've felt estranged from the world, like I didn't belong, as if I had a very tenuous hold on the earth, as if I had no right to take up space on the planet.  Even as a young child, I remember feeling that way - I had no right to exist.  I think I must have been an odd little kid - I hid in a corner of the attic that could only be accessed through a small opening - I had to duck even as a child and the little room it led to was freezing in the winter and sweltering in the summer - and I was afraid of  small spaces - but I still went there to read by flashlight or just to sit and think about things.   No one every found me there.  I have no idea what that space was for - there was nothing in it - I think it might just have been God's way of providing a hiding place for me.  It was so quiet there and so peaceful.  I used that space through high school. 

In my FOO, there was no personal identity - we were part of a group - basically,  my Nparents ran a very clean, very tidy, very abusive group home.   Although we all received toys at Christmas time, we weren't allowed to keep our toys in our rooms - or even to keep our toys separate from our siblings' toys- after Christmas Day, they were all put in a long wooden box (that carpet came in) in the basement, everyone's jumbled together - we didn't have personal possessions.  Nmother would come into our rooms and dump our dresser drawers in the middle of the floor if they weren't tidy enough - I'm talking underwear folded neatly, socks lined up, sweaters folded the regulation way.  Our letters were read, our diaries were read - there wasn't an iota of privacy in the whole house.  The only door that was allowed to be locked was the bathroom door - and since there was only one full bath with 9 children, the minute you went into the bathroom, someone was pounding on the door.  Thankfully, Nmother didn't want children messing up her house, so we played outside most of the day and, if you could escape the care of younger siblings, there was freedom and privacy to be had in the branches of trees, on the top of the smokehouse by the river, in vacant barns, on long bike rides, even at the cemetary.  But there's something immeasurably sad about not feeling at home at home.  It was housing, but not a home at all.  Between Nfather's narcissistic rages and irrational ramblings and Nmother's need to control all of the world in order to feel safe, with no energy left for her children, it was a decidedly bad group home.  WWW used to tell me that she had heard Nfather and Nmother talking and that I was adopted (a ridiculous  contention, since I look exactly like Nfather), and I used to daydream about the day my real parents would come and rescue me from these awful people who obviously didn't love me because I wasn't really their child.  It was a long wait...

But now I feel at home on the earth - I feel "grounded" and as if I belong here.  This is relatively new and I'm still amazed by it - I have a right to be here - I have the right to exist, to be who I really am, to explore the world and my life and my feelings.  I have the right (and obligation!) to protect myself and those I love - and I have the right to share my life with whomever I choose - and to not share my life with whomever I choose - Life is Good!!!