There be dragons!

I'm finally at a place where I can identify N's quickly  in person.  The predatory look is pretty much a dead giveaway. What they say and the look on their face or their actions don't match up.  As soon as I see it, I can strengthen boundaries and keep them out. Life is good.  Whew.  But online....  If we're only seeing words, if we can't match that with looks/actions, how can we tell who's who?  N's are sooooooo good with words - they're quintessential con men.  (I'm sure there's a gender neutral way of saying that, but I can't think what it might be...)  Some N's, of course, identify themselves even with their mean-spirited, abusive words - but since a lot of ACON's are flea-ridden before they begin to heal, it's sometimes difficult to sort out.   We ACON's can be a prickly lot and learning to set good boundaries takes a lot of practice. 

To admonish someone to be careful online is silly if you can't offer a way to be safe - and since I'm new to open blogging, I have little to offer by way of tips.  I'm really dependent on reading faces and body language - I learned that early. I'm one of those people who have to sit with her back to the wall so I can scan a room, always watching for danger, probably the result of being raised by abusive Nparents.   I've had a closed blog for a long time - not only to avoid Nstalkers, but also to give myself time to practice what I'm learning without some of the abusive commentary I've seen online.  Basic Nnonsense - cyber bullying, junior high stuff.  Really, people?  Name calling as adults? 

For those of us who are intuitive people, who read people primarily using facial expressions, voice tone and body language, the internet is fraught with peril - there be dragons!  And I'm really not sure how to deal with it - obviously, one has to avoid the bullies and they're easy enough to spot - anyone who calls a person who's been writing and helping people for years, who supports and encourages people, and whose writing is absolutely chock-full of research a "narcissistic" without any evidence thereof, is nothing short of a fool.  And we know the best way to deal with N's and fools - or foolish N's - is to completely ignore them.  I know that bloggers get slammed all the time for not publishing/not replying/not feeding the beast, but we KNOW that we have to ignore them in real life - should we treat them differently on the internet?   Why give them more credence because they're behind the curtain rather than right in front of us?  And why can't the rules of blogging take into account that some responders are narcissists and they are decidedly NOT our audience?  I say we should go NC with all internet N's- don't give them air time on our blogs, don't respond in any way - don't invite them in.  Period.

Schadenfreude Harm-Joy

Just when I think I've read everything I can read about Narcissism and that I've finally grasped it, I come upon another blog or book or article  that makes me aware of yet another aspect of it - or at least, that makes me aware of how that piece fits into my life with N's.  From the time I went away to college, Nmother would send me clippings from the local newspaper giving me information about tragedies - deaths, fires, traffic accidents, etc.  It was somewhat discombobulating to open a letter (which had been copied and sent to all sibs living away from home) and see news of the latest catastrophe, which had often happened to people I didn't even know.  I'd explain in a return letter that I didn't know that person and in the next letter, she'd add a handwritten footnote about who they were. This  always confused me.  At first, I thought it was an attempt to keep me in touch with my hometown - but who'd want to go back to so much disaster??  And Nmother had no friends that I know of - she would write to people from her past sometimes, but I never met those people.  So why were these stories so important to her?  I think it was Schadenfreude- somehow, her life looked better if there was a lot of suffering around her. 
She was an inveterate gossip, but she only had her children to gossip with - we heard every bad thing about anyone who'd ever been in her life - or ours. The only person about whom she didn't have anything bad to say was her father - she thought he'd hung the moon, as Southerners say.  I remember telling her once about a college friend who'd joined the convent in high school to get away from sexual abuse - and she looked at me and asked,  with her lips pursed, "And do you believe her?"  It kind of freaked me out.  She was such a strange woman...

Patterns post from Gale Warnings

OK, so broke a bone in my foot 2 1/2 weeks ago and it's given me a chance to do some reading online.  I've been re-reading a good bit of Kathy Krajco's blog "What Makes Narcissists Tick" - the woman was brilliant!  So I came across a link that she gave in one of her posts from a blog entitled "Gale Warning" - it's about behavior patterns and what we need to be looking for - and why we often didn't see it for a long time - great article and now I'm looking forward to reading more of that blog...  It's listed on the sidebar - the article on patterns is from February 17, 2007.  The last post on the blog was June 15, 2011- I hope that means that she's moved on and is living an N-free and wonderful life!!! 

Temptation

There is a terrible longing to have this over with, to "get on with it", to push it down again, to bury the pain once more, to go into my head and not feel the ache anymore.  It's like most grief - it sneaks up on me when I least suspect it and washes over me like a wave, leaving a vague sadness in its wake.  The wave doesn't knock me over anymore and the sadness feels more like an ache than a stabbing pain, so I know that I'm moving in the right direction, but when will it end?  Fifteen years ago, a dear friend died and I remember the horrible grief that I thought would never end - it did, of course, and when I think of my friend now, it's with smiles tinged with sadness.  I still miss her, the kind of back door friend who chats while making yeast rolls for dinner.  I know that grief wanes and I know that I can't speed up the process - and I also know that if I walk through this with courage, I'll come out on the other side stronger and with a chance at joy. 

The Thing with Feathers

Hope is almost a disease with some ACON's.  For years, I hoped that the NFOO would survive intact, that my sibs might be able to understand me and maybe even love me, that my Nparents would sit up and take notice that they had lots of children and grandchildren who needed parents and grandparents who weren't so obsessed with each other that they couldn't actually see anyone else. I hoped that we could all support each other and care for each other without all the sniping and backbiting and fear that's inherent in most NFOO's.  Years and years of hope - and finally, no more.  The thing with feathers died.

I don't mean to imply that all hope is bad - I hope for full, healthy lives for the people I love and care for (and even for my Nsibs), for a world that cares for those who need help, for so much - but no longer for anything from my NFOO.  Somehow the NFOO myths became my responsibility - I was supposed to resurrect dead relationships, I was supposed to reach out, I was supposed to go to family events where I could be abused, I was supposed to act lovingly when I was rejected, etc.  And Nmyths are powerful - they've sucked the life out of me long enough and I'm done with them.  There IS no hope for the NFOO - at least, none that I have to take responsibility for - I no longer have expectations that I can have healthy relationships with most of my sibs.  Not only is that expectation gone, but the desire is finally gone as well.  Why on earth did I think that anything good could come from attempting relationship with people who so obviously don't want a relationship that's based on anything other than the assigned family roles?  Their roles may be working at some level for them, but mine no longer works for me, so Adios!  I'm out of hope and out of this crazy NFOO.

So who's left?  There's LS1, with whom I have a real relationship- I'm calling her Danielle from now on.  (Not her real name, of course.)  There's MW, with whom I'm trying to have an even-even relationship - we'll see how that goes -I'm calling her Greta from now on.  And there's W2, whom I love dearly, but who's in a relationship with someone I don't think I can trust - boundaries being phenomenally porous in the NFOO, I don't think I can share much of my life with him without it being passed on to the Nsibs through his overly sharing fiance.  Alas. (He's going by Richard from now on.) If you've been reading all along, you'll have noticed that I'm 2 more down - and both of these sibs I'd considered LS's!  Wow. (They're now N1 and N2.)  And there was that silly hope again - they seemed open to a relationship, they'd both been burned by the WWW and her monkeys, but a trauma bond wasn't enough...   This learning curve is just way too long...  Dear Lord, I hope I'm near the end of it!!!!

Shame on you!

Shame is just an amazing phenomenon.  A conversation with LS1 tonight brought up the issue of shame in the NFOO.  When I was in high school, I drove to the town bus stop to pick up LS1, who was coming home from college.  Having stayed up the night before to study for exams, and having foolishly taken NoDoze to stay awake, I drove directly into a telephone pole.  I got home and expected that Nfather would explode with rage, but he didn't - he actually said that mistakes happen.  This was so very out of character for my rage-aholic Nfather that I spent the night waiting for the %#% to hit the fan, but it didn't.  A couple of months later, as I was driving the car out of the garage, the overhead door came down on top of the car.  Both the door and the car suffered minor damage.  Nfather acted as if the world was going to come to an end because of this accident, going into full rage mode.  It made no sense to me and I remember mulling this over for a long time.  If I'd known then what I know now it would have made perfect sense.  The first accident had nothing to do with him - I had been sleep-deprived and drove unsafely.  Thankfully, no one was hurt because of my adolescent stupidity. The second "accident" could, however, have been laid at Nfather's feet.  We'd all told him a number of times that the door hadn't been working correctly and that it needed fixing.  Therefore, he reacted with rage out of shame - shame that he hadn't taken care of something that he should have fixed.  That shame had to be dumped on me, since that's what N's do - deflect, deflect, deflect.  And he deflected stupendously!

For those of us who were trained to be supply, to be servers, this was sooooo confusing.  I was conditioned to believe that I had to fix whatever was wrong in the NFOO, but shame-dumping rages can't be fixed by anyone except the N (and then only with years of intensive counseling by someone who truly understands narcissism).  The rages that appeared to come out of nowhere were no one's fault except the N's - there really is nothing in the world that could possibly justify raging at one's family the way Nfather did - it was absolutely terrifying to young children and adolescents. It's no wonder we all walked on eggshells and were willing to take the blame for so much that had nothing to do with us - it's somehow better to do that than to believe that behavior has no obvious cause, that strong feelings can erupt into erratic behavior at any moment, that the world is a dangerously arbitrary place.

I have no memory of Nmother being involved in either of these situations, although she rarely left the house.  I think I need to write this after every memory that I share because I have to get in my very bones that she never stepped in to help me or most of my other sibs.

Giant Step

Well, I've taken the plunge - this is now a public blog.  Caliban's sister encouraged me, and I think that it's time to be out there.  I read through all the blog posts, adding updates when I thought they were necessary.  This is a huge step for me - growing up in a ridiculously dysfunctional family meant that there was a No Talk rule that was strictly enforced.  (I'm sure most of you can relate.)  There was absolutely no privacy at all in the NFOO - letters were read (out-going and in-coming), diaries were considered public property, rooms were searched.  All communication was monitored  - we were Soviet Russia in microcosm.  What an absurd way to live.  Breaking the No Talk rule was a serious offense and was dealt with harshly - gaslighting, rage, beatings, the whole works.  So this is a giant step forward, getting rid of the fear of speaking out, the fear of punishment at the hands of N's - no longer beatings, but character assassination, gossip, lies, and general craziness.  Whew!  One giant step for Pearl!