Danu Morrigan/Tracy Culleton, operator of the website Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers, after banning dozens—if not hundreds—of vulnerable women from her site’s forum without explanation, got wind of the fact that not all of these callously rejected women crawled off into dark little holes to lick their wounds. some of them decided to fight back by publishing their experiences with her on the web, a fact that apparently sent her scrambling to do damage control. Ultimately, she published a rebuttal to the accusations she found on the web, a rebuttal that was laced with subtle and not-so-subtle untruths, and which left no space for disagreement, correction, or comment.
Herewith, the truth about Tracy’s rebuttal to the truths published on the web about her:
(My remarks are in violet, Tracy's quotes from SoaringDove’s blog are in blue)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The last time I checked, Danu Morrigan, (wasn't that a red flag that she wouldn't even disclose her real name?) has at least 13 websites, all coming from a different angle, but with the same motivation. Making money. On her business marketing site she refers to potential customers as *food*, to be trapped, hunted, or farmed
I do have a number of websites, yes, although I'm not sure it's as many as 13. It could be I guess. And yes, all the others are business websites with the aim of making money. It's called capitalism.
What nobody says here is that Danu and Morrigan are both goddesses, Danu being the Celtic mother-goddess. Grandiose, anyone? And, interestingly, Tracy doesn’t address the issue of her failure to use her own name. She does address the insignificant issue of how many websites she has (I could only find ten, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t more out there), but sidesteps the very salient issue of her hiding her real name. She claims on the site that it is to keep her family ignorant of her site and activities (plausible to DoNMs because we don’t want our narcissistic mothers to know what we are doing lest they find a way to spoil it for us) but it was relatively easy to find out and now, at this point in time, it is dead simple: a quick Google search will turn it up. Considering what the name means and considering that since her real name has been public knowledge for at least two years now, one must wonder why she continues to cling to the pseudonym, even to the point of publishing a book using it. Can she, after all the disclosure to date, still privately think of herself as a Celtic mother goddess?
To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised. My research has turned up evidence that she is a self-proclaimed expert on vegetarianism, breast feeding, home schooling, and eco-building, among other things. Very Mother Earthy stuff. As I said earlier…grandiose, anyone?
As for the metaphor of customers as food to be trapped, hunted or farmed - this is a metaphor originating with marketing expert Dan Kennedy, and shows the difference between a sustained ‘farming’ model of agriculture where you keep in touch with existing customers and look after them on the one hand, and a ‘hunting’ model of marketing where you are desperately looking for new customers all the time.
It was a metaphor. I’d never have used it if I’d known it was going to be twisted like this. And I can only say that I do not view the members of my DONM forum as food or prey or anything like that.
Of course it is a metaphor, you silly twit! Do you think we are so stupid as to think you actually farm and hunt customers? It has not been twisted at all. The fact of the matter is that this choice of metaphor is demeaning, degrading and dehumanizing and you don’t seem to even see that!
Relationship marketing, at its simplest, works by:
- Taking names, addresses and e-mail addresses of customers
- Keeping in touch with them - e.g. newsletters (and lots of other ideas too)
- Offering them special offers and discounts
I can help you organise and arrange this relationship marketing. It would be like hiring your own personal farmer to do all the sowing seeds etc - you just enjoy the harvest.”
Think about this for a minute—isn’t this strategy just exactly what she applied to the DoNM website forum? “Planting the seeds” of EFT as a cure-all, “weeding” by eliminating people who she does not think are susceptible to her blandishments, “watering and fertilising” by dropping in once day and selecting a few posts to give personal attention to… She not only farmed us using this technique, she milked our histories and our experiences and our pain for gain, not just on the website, but in her upcoming book as well.
And what difference does it make if she didn’t invent the concept? She used it, never expecting that anyone at the DoNM website would ever find out, ever catch on. She used a different name on the DoNM site and if people Googled her, they would never connect her with her real name, her other activities, or this. In fact, I doubt it ever occurred to her that people might be offended to be referred to as food to be farmed…I doubt she has the empathy.
Again, you'll make up your own minds about that, as you should.
As for not using my real name, I explain on my website about that - I would prefer that my family not find out about this. I wasn't keeping my identity that much of a secret or Kate and others wouldn't know it.
Oh, that’s just hogwash. Two years ago I had to track it down using multiple websites and deductive reasoning, starting with Whois. Today her real name is easy to find because she’s been outed by people like me, but two years or further back, it took a bit of digging. I suspect her reason for not using her real name was to keep the women joining the DoNM site from finding out who she really was so they would not be able to connect her to her other lucrative sites and scams. She had to create a sympathetic persona, someone they could relate to, someone soft and non-threatening they could rely on. And isn’t this exactly how a narcissist operates? Which brings us to Kate’s next point…
I am not a mental health expert, but I would peg Danu and Light as textbook Ns
You'll need to make up your own minds about this too.
Danu's EFT credentials aren't that great either. The last I checked she had the equivalent of several weekend seminars of instruction.
I have done a lot more than that; I have been undergoing continuous training and learning for the past seven years. But it’s true that I did not attend a year-long or two-year long course. Those things don't exist. Just as the first people in any evolving model aren't officially trained or certified by some central body, neither are EFT people.
Again: there is nothing available on the web, even from websites that publish articles that have appeared in peer-reviewed journals, that indicate any independent studies have been done on EFT and confirmed its efficacy. Additionally, at around the time Tracy wrote this apologia, I had done some research on her and among the things I investigated were her educational credentials: she was only a Level II “practitioner,” (basically still a beginner) even though to read her self-promotion you would think she was a master.
I thought about posting this anonymously, but I can't make that work, so let the chips fall where they may. I would be glad to talk with you via email. Let me know if that is something you would be interested in. There is a growing community of women who have all had similar experiences and I'm sure they would be more than welcoming to you if you'd like to process this [the shock of being unexpectedly banned –V] with others who have been there.
It’s true that I have made a lot of enemies doing this. Whether that’s because I’m N and have hurt a lot of innocent people as Kate and Soaring Dove claim, or whether it’s because I’m an ordinary DONM who has banned a lot of trouble-makers, trolls, and Ns in my turn, I leave it to you to decide.
Please notice that it is Tracy who creates the negative paradigm by referring to the women she banned as “enemies” while Kate talks about welcoming women and processing the experience of being banned with sympathetic fellow-sufferers. Tracy creates herself the poor misunderstood, misperceived victim who was just doing things to help…and those of us whom she banned without warning or explanation are “enemies.” Neat little piece of twisting history and reality into a reasonably subtle gaslighting episode, eh?
And now we find even more reasons she finds acceptable for banning people: “troublemakers, trolls and Ns”… This from a woman who claims no education or training in psychology and who is not an expert on narcissism—suddenly she is competent to judge whether someone she has never met is a narcissist or not. And, given her proclivity for redefining words to fit her needs, what she calls a “troublemaker” or a “troll” may, in truth, simply be someone who is persistent in wanting some information she doesn’t want to give out, someone who is trained and is trying to correct some incorrect bit of data published on the site, or even someone who has grown weary of walking on eggshells and speaks her truth, damning the consequences. Remember, earlier Tracy claimed that only by contravening her Terms of Use could you get banned…here the truth finally comes out: all she has to do is label you a troll, troublemaker or narcissist and you are out. You get no appeal, no explanations are allowed, and no warnings or explanations are given. Pretty cruel and one-sided, if you ask me, an archetypal exhibition of all the empathy and compassion you would expect of an N.
Did you notice that Tracy did not even acknowledge Kate’s mention of a “growing community of women” who have experienced the same? Tracy is aware of the group for which I serve as an administrator and rather than acknowledge and bring attention to the fact that there is such a group, she just ignores it. How do I know that she knows? Because, according to private sources (anything you can read on the internet she can read as well and this is one area where I must protect my sources), she now discourages women on the site from using social media or joining outside groups. Do you know that this isolation technique is a red flag for abusive behaviour? An absolutely fundamental tactic of the abuser is to isolate the victim(s) to eliminate outside support and make the victim(s) emotionally dependent on the abuser. This way the abuser becomes essential to the victim’s emotional life and later, when the real abuse starts, the victim has no place to go. Tracy, combines the “farming” techniques noted earlier with classic abuser tactics—isolation, tightly proscribed behavioural ground rules, gaslighting, threats of (and actual) banishment all to control the members of her forum.
I do not wish to escalate this or get involved in the drama or such. I am just answering the accusations. I do not expect anybody to comment in my favour on Soaring Dove's blog - that would just escalate the whole thing.
Mercy me, heaven forbid people go to SoaringDove’s blog and, with their hits, boost its rating on Google. And let’s not even consider the possibility of the comments on that blog post, comments that support it and reveal even more victims. Nope, can’t have that…don’t go, don’t write, just let it die right there so she can get back to the business of binding you to her so she can pick your pockets and feed just a little bit more…
I have spoken my truth now and people can make up their own minds. I have no attachment to what they decide.
And if you believe that, I have some nice real estate on the moon for you, with a terrific view of the Big Blue Marble… Of course she has an attachment. If she didn’t, why bother to write this long paean to herself and her purity of intent and action? Throw a monkey wrench into her forum and lure the members away, like she did to Dr. McBride, and see how much attachment she has to their decisions. But, I didn’t expect much truth from her in the first place. Did you?
Next: Characteristics of Narcissistic Mothers
II don't know am I missing something here. The DONM forum clearly states it's terms of use, and religion is one of those "touchy" topics, for most people on a good day, let alone on a heartbroken daughter of a narcissistic mother's site. It is really upsetting to see other donm's publicly attacking another donm, with a whole bunch of he say she say stuff, this wreaks of a smear campaign against Danu. As donm we all have N fleas, as I know your well aware. Typically one of the N fleas is to make someone the enemy, or a scapegoat, whether it's your friend, child, relative or apparently Danu Morrigan.
ReplyDeleteThere really is very little emotional support for abused women, let alone donm. And for many years there was no forum and no blogs, we had no outlet, at best if you were a recovering alcoholic, you have AA. And yes mam, AA has rules for members also, and AA doesn't use professional therapists for their support meetings however, there is a person who moderates. Does that make sense. just like Danu's forum. There are rules, and we hopefully abide by them. You don't run the forum, they do, and that's just a fact. I don't go to FREE support places and expect them to abide by what I want. I don't go any place and think just because I believe what I said wasn't that "scary" or emotionally upsetting, that other people might not think that. I would think as a forum moderator, it would be highly difficult to constantly make that type of "judgement" call but thank goodness they do and I think one of the direct results of Danu and Light, doing this is a "relatively" safe forum, and donm's who are highly supportive of each other.
I hope they do the best they can do, given that were all daughters of highly dysfunctional families especially narcissistic mothers. This "smear campaign" because to me that's what it reads like, is not positive or conducive to supporting donm. And it is your blog and you can write anything you want to. Just like it's Danu forum and she can do as she pleases also. I know it's really easy for us donm's to be victims, because we were victimized, and unfortunately victim mentality and actions, are a large part of our N flea. A whole lot of people are out there making money being "life coaches"-non certified, raike healers, - non certified, and the list goes on. No one should have to justify to you or anyone else how they make there money. Whether it's a donm forum or not. It's a donation forum, and FREE, FREE okay, FREE. Daughters of Narcissistic forums (danu's) is free. you can't beat that and if she wants to "advertise" her EFT on there that's her business. It's not your forum. Get it.
I would agree with you except for one thing: THEY DO NOT ABIDE BY THEIR OWN RULES.
DeleteMost of the women I have come across who have been banned do not know why they were banned and their attempts to find out -- to get closure -- were completely ignored. IF they broke rules, most of them were not warned and none of them were allowed even an explanation...they just logged on one day and found themselves inexplicably banned. This is the kind of rejection DoNMs suffered their entire lives at the hands of their NMs. It is cold, callous, and without empathy. In at least one case it was the last straw of an already emotionally overburdened woman and drove her to suicidal ideation. It took four months of treatment and medication just to bring her back from the brink and still, she has no idea why she was so summarily rejected.
If you can defend that kind of behaviour, then you may want to take the Narcissistic Traits test yourself because your lack of empathy for the women injured by this pair is absolutely staggering.
Thanks for writing, Tracy and/or Michelle.
Today a friend said she once got an email saying the system had accidentally banned a bunch of accounts.
DeleteWhy on earth would anyone write automated banning software?
Delete accounts? Yes. There is software that will batch delete old, inactive accounts. But banning is done on a case by case basis. Because you have to selectively decide who gets banned. So I don't know why there would be software that has even a remote possibility of auto banning members.
Are you familiar with the phrase "plausible deniability"? That bulldust about the system accidentally banning the accounts is a perfect example of it.
DeleteThis is also a crystal clear example of an N not taking responsibility for her behaviour. My guess is that this lame excuse was handed out when they banned someone who had contact with other members outside the forum, the banned member told a forum member she had been banned, and that member came back to the forum with something like "Why was SadSusie banned?" Rather than admit they ban people from the forum like bikers suck down beer, they had to find a way to explain the banning that would make them look blameless...and "the system did it" was what they came up with, counting on the idea that very few, if any, members knew enough about the web (or programming) to call them on it. And ut has apparently worked, as I've never heard of anyone questioning it until you.
I knew it was bulldust from the beginning: they ban people and the reasons they give for banning are crap. They ban for their own reasons: to keep the membership malleable, compliant, and emotional so they can milk them for material for the next book...
Pigs, all of them
oh and quite frankly I don't feel emotionally safe publishing a comment on your blog after reading all these verbal attacks against another donm forum and it's moderators, what do you think I would think after reading all of that negativity and credibility bashing that your doing. Really there is a bigger picture here.
ReplyDeleteI must give you credit for your underhanded ability to try to poison the well here but as clever as you are, you miss one very important point: this is a blog and not intended to be a support forum. You've also just made it abundantly clear that this 5-part series of entries is all you have read, if you even read it in its entirety.
DeleteOne things DoNMs have that their mothers didn't/don't have is empathy. Part of that empathy extends to warning others of pitfalls to avoid and helping to soothe the hurts if the warning came too late. These entries do that: they warn others to stay away from a place in which dozens, if not hundreds, of their sisters have been inexpliably hurt; it also provides information for those who have already been hurt, to let them know they are not alone, that they are only one of many, and that their pain of rejection is acknowledged here by others who have suffered the same.
You seem to forget--or at least overlook--the fact that these women were rejected and hurt by their own mothers using excuses like "the rules were clear," and other such rationalizations for their emotional cruelties. Anyone who can justify the knowing and intentional infliction of emotional pain on someone who is already suffering is cruel; to do it without explanation is, in my book, nothing short of evil.
This is a blog, not a forum for healing. It is public, not private. People come here to learn because that it what this blog is about: information available elsewhere, fleshed out with my own experiences and thoughts. If you don't like it here, you don't have to visit; if you feel unsafe leaving a public message, don't do it.
And I have as much right to expose the truth of places like Tracy's forum as you have to defend it. Why do you object to a simple truth big revealed--that she bans and rejects emotionally fragile women from a place they feel secure without explanation, and by refusing to explain when asked, demonstrates a stunning lack of empathy for people who are suffering as a result of her actions?
Reply Part 2
ReplyDeleteYes, there is a bigger picture here--it's commonly called a "confidence game." The forum runs on dishonesty--people who were banned YEARS ago show up on the membership list as active members; Michelle, who is a carpenter not a psychologist, posts articles that are untrue then bans a highly qualified psychologist who points out her error--and then not only doesn't correct the error, she adds a rule to the forum to keep the truth out: if a mental health professional joins the site, they must not reveal their status or use their professional training or they will be banned. I was banned for something that became a rule AFTER I was a member and based on a lie, the very lie that the psychologist pointed out and was banned for. There is nothing honest or genuine or above-board about this forum except for the sisters themselves--most of them, anyway.
So, if you are uncomfortable publishing a comment on this blog, I urge you to refrain from doing so. There is a bigger picture here, too, and you have focussed on five articles out of more than ten times that amount, tells me a lot about you and your objective for being here...none of it good. You do exactly what you accuse me of doing: "negativity and credibility bashing" but it's OK for you to bash this whole blog based on five articles that strip the gilt from Tracy's halo, while it's not OK for me to simply warn people away from a site--using true-life examples, in which dozens of us have been hurt. If Tracy was as vaunted a saint as you seem to want to make her, then she would be simmering with compassion and her rants would not be closed to question and discussion by the members (like this one about Accusations, which the members can't even access from inside the site, I am told). When you shut the door to dialogue, you take the superior position and, in effect, lie by omission.
If you a real DoNM and are happy in such an environment, you have my sympathies...and I will be here for you when you get inexplicably kicked out and need a place to tell your story and unload your hurt to a sympathetic audience.
Violet, you said this is a con game? Take a look at this link.
Deletehttp://www.warriorforum.com/copywriting-forum/265453-sales-page-review.html
In at least one case it was the last straw of an already emotionally overburdened woman and drove her to suicidal ideation. It took four months of treatment and medication just to bring her back from the brink and still, she has no idea why she was so summarily rejected.
ReplyDeleteYou just did it again, again, you just smeared another person. Are these facts, where you there when this women took her life. Were you there?????? I would suggest have respect for some facts. FACTS, not heresay. This is your donm programming, to believe things you don't know the facts about. As a previous survivor of a serious suicide attempt, I can tell you it's not the last straw why you attempt suicide. Okay!!!!! If that even applies.
It's horrible that a womens death/suicide is being published to smear a forum. AND NO I AM NOT DANU OR LIGHT. Seriously!?, I don't even speak like them, just pay attention to my writing and her responses. I'm not the one who is giving "Danu" all this power you are, just by publishing a 5 part accusation. It's my believe that what you focus on you give power to, and I would have to say in my own healing and recovering, it's one of the big keys.
Yet again, your judging and criticizing whether someone has empathy based on banned members, the minority and not the majority. You are really veiled here. Here again, no respect for the facts. You have one person or maybe two people who might know Danu or Light personally. Do you live with them?, do you work with them, do you know them personally, because in my big fat opinion that's the only way I really know if someone has empathy according to me. Facts, facts, facts, get with the facts, please. A year ago, I was looking for info on "psycho mothers" and I found narcissitic sites and blogs and forums. IMO, it doesn't matter whether it's a blog, a forum, a psycho, other people are not responsible for how I feel. I am responsible for how I feel, or how I perceive a situation or a person. Whether Danu bans me or not from the site, is neither here nor there. Example, if I'm on the road to recovery, and I am truly interesting in recovering from my abusive and I too have a malignant NM, A forum is not the begin all and end all, of my healing journey. Would I feel hurt if I was banned from DONM forum, absolutely. However, how can I take one thing in my whole life like getting banned from DONM forum and make it a public smear campaign, seriously!!!!
A private PM was sent on the donm forum with the links to 4 sites, and I do believe it was from one of your "friends".
You aren't making any sense. I said--and you quoted--"In at least one case it was the last straw of an already emotionally overburdened woman and drove her to suicidal ideation. It took four months of treatment and medication just to bring her back from the brink and still, she has no idea why she was so summarily rejected."
DeleteAnd then you said "...Are these facts, where you there when this women took her life. Were you there?????? I would suggest have respect for some facts. FACTS, not heresay. "
You might try a little respect for the facts yourself: read what I wrote again--where did I say she died? In fact, I clearly state that she was under treatment for four months and still (clearly implicating that she is still very much aiive) has no idea why she was banned. And, since I am quoting a first-person narrative from another site (the link to it is somewhere in the five-part piece--you can slow down and actually READ what I wrote if you are sufficiently interested in facts to actually check it out), I would have to say my grasp of the facts, at least in this instance, is far firmer than yours.
As far as the DoNM forum member who actually DID commit suicide--that was before my time and it was simply a hush-hush rumour while I was on the site. In this five-part rebuttal I have addressed what KATE said about the situation--Kate was there at the time and Kate was an admin at the time as well, so she was probably privy to more information than YOU have, assuming you are telling the truth about your identity. My comments are based on what Kate, a first hand observer of the administration of the site at the time the event occurred, had to say about it.
So let's be clear here--you have conflated two situations involving two different women into a single situation and then berated me about it. At the very least you owe me an apology; and, to keep from publicly humiliating yourself like this again, you owe it to YOURSELF to slow down, actually READ and digest and make sure you understand what you read BEFORE you go shooting from the lip. You've made a fool of yourself by not taking the time to actually read what I wrote and respond to it intelligently.
And let's be further clear here--ordinarily I do not publish the kind of rude trash you have written here, but I made an exception this time so I could clarify the suicide issue. But you are hereby forewarned: any further communication that is not rational, reasonable and civil will neither be answered nor published. And as I read your next missives, the first sign of the kind of hysteria that is the hallmark of your missives so far, I will stop reading and delete the comment.
If you want to have a dialogue, I am open to that. I am not however, open to abuse, irrationality, or talking you down from a hysterical ledge like the one you've got yourself on right now.
Oh--and one last thing-- you can't really call a collection of unpleasant, unflattering facts a "smear campaign." Tracy wrote a rebuttal to something she read on another person's site but left no room for people to question or supply additional information, so I wrote a rebuttal to her rebuttal. If you go back and actually READ the five-part piece, you will find an abundance of links scattered throughout, linking to sites where other women tell their own stories. You don't have to believe them, of course, but denying truth doesn't change it any.
A psychologist to get on a forum, and not disclose who they are is dishonest, while trying to point out where someone was wrong. Do you see the logic in that?
ReplyDeleteThe DONM forum does not claim to be psychologists, or professional therapists. And Light writing articles, so what???? They are giving out information on DONM, every donm blog gets there donm information from somewhere else, whether is psychological in nature or not. You have it here too, we obviously none of us are so called psychologists, and quite frankly the "healing sciences and arts" do have a tremendous amount of N's in the field, being previously from the medical profession myself. I don't think anyone is a saint. I don't give people halo's. I've read other articles you've written on this blog, that's why I was so disappointed that this 5 part accusation is going on.
If public forums are not for you, they are not for you, whether it's donm or any other forum. Quite frankly all information is up to an "adult" sifting and weaving out for themselves, whether it's Danu or Sam Vaknin. Your trying to make these people responsible for you personal feelings. Do you see the pattern, of "victim identity" here.
Your experience with DONM forum is your experience and some others, I think you are completely "projecting" your malignant mother issues onto Danu and Light.
Did I say Danu was a saint? really come on! A year ago when I was looking for narcissistic info on line, the first person I actually came across was the "self proclaimed narcissist" and I would imagine you know who that is. And then some blogs, okay one of them is one of "your friends", bashing and smearing Danu, then I went to DONM forum, but it took me almost a year, my thoughts were do I want to even be a part of all this, whether it's a blog or forums, there's obviously some nasty stuff going on.
When I went to DONM site's I didn't see any pubic bashing of other donms on the site itself, like I've seen here and a few others.
This is exactly what N's do, when they feel rejected, there so insecure that they go around "bashing" and "smearing" other people, I've been a victim to that with NM my whole life, and I would say you have too, so why would you do that to someone else, this is obivously and N trait or N flea on your part, sorry I'm calling it out. If you feel the forum is not "safe" - not the hundreds of others, yet again another "smear", no respect to facts!!
As I was saying if you and a few others feel the forum is not safe, then publishing that, sure that's your choice and rights, however smearing and bashing them, telling there personal business, exposing there names, gossiping and doing he say she say stuff, posting non-factual, sweetheart that's out there. And distinctly wreaks of an N flea of large proportions, I've got fleas too, take a look in that mirror, just try it. The things your "claiming" Danu has done based on heresay or a "few" personal opinions of your "friends", your actually doing the so called same things, with a five part accusation. Your actually doing it yourself, also, can you see? And I would think this is a part of the healing journey for you, I get that, I hope you move forward from the Danu or Sam Vaknin smear campaign, you are really giving them more power, than it's worth, regardless of whether your opinion differs from mine. Get what I'm saying and it's a deterrent to other donms on the healing journey. In other words stay focused this is not about Danu or Sam. If you would like to personally contact me, please let me know. which I would think probably not. There are some great self help books out there and I would love to give you a list, and also some wonderful passages from the bible also, okay. I do however appreciate your courage to publicly share your story on the internet.
You seem to have missed the part about rules being changed and applied retroactively.
DeleteThe psychologist on the forum had clearly identified herself as such--but she was also a DoNM. She was never given a reason for being banned, but it happened IMMEDIATELY after she wrote a note to Michelle pointing out a significant error in a newly published article. And within ten days of the psychologist being banned, the rule you now see on the ToU was posted.
I was banned in much the same way--mine was a Malignant NM and those people have a cruel streak. They inflict physical pain upon their victims as well as the psychological that all DoNMs are familiar with. Michelle published an article (AFTER I wrote in My Story about my NM being physical) saying if your NM is physical or cruel, she is not an N but something else and you don't belong on the site. The psychologist wrote to correct Michelle, Michelle banned her. I wrote to Tracy on the psychologist's behalf and pleaded her case. Tracy wrote back and said "You have a very good point. I will discuss this with Light and get back to you." She didn't get back to me, she banned me TWO DAYS BEFORE MY FATHER DIED and she knew he was on his deathbed and I was stressed out about it.
As far as their names--Google "WhoIs" and put in the names of the websites. Tracy has already admitted that the other site that revealed her name is correct and if you plug Michelle's site name into WhoIs, you her name, address and even her telephone number. Public information.
I guess were "missing" each other here, this is not about Danu or Sam or other people's opinions, it's about your healing and recovering all that was lost as donm. Empowering ourselves. Quite frankly I just realized. If you think Danu is a Narcissist, your feeding her N supply ("bad attention or good attention") right here and Sam V. If you don't think she's a Narcissist then your attempting to victimize her, whether your aware of that or not.
ReplyDeleteIMO, we will just go around and around here. I don't get your point of view and you don't get mine. So I think it's safe to say we don't agree. Can we agree to disagree, I hope your okay with that.
I apologize for the tardiness of my response--I just found your reply today--for some reason I wasn't notified of this one (or the one below) in my email.
DeleteThis has nothing to do with my healing path nor does it have anything to do with "victimizing" Tracy or Michelle. It has EVERYTHING to do with warning other vulnerable women of something I and dozens of other women have found immensely damaging, that re-opened old wounds, exacerbated existing emotional pain, and drove at least one woman to the brink of suicide.
I find your lack of empathy for the women Tracy and Michelle have hurt puzzling for a DoNM. Do you think all of these women--the vast majority of whom are strangers to each other--are making this all up? Why would they do that? I find them absolutely believable because, aside from the fact that I can find no motive for dozens of strangers to make up the same "lie," IT HAPPENED TO ME. I believe it because I experienced it. YOU may be the kind of person who gets bitten by a vicious dog and doesn't warn others to be careful around it, but I am not.
So, if you can't grasp my motives any other way, consider that I see myself as offering a public service in this 5-part piece. You might also want to ponder why, with more than 50 entries on this blog, you are fixated on these five. Makes me wonder what YOUR motive is for being here. (I also duly note that you have not apologized for your error caused by conflating two separate incidents, and then excoriating me for it. I further note that you continue to attack me--in dulcet tones this time, implying poor little me is trying to make myself feel better by making Tracy look bad, but have not addressed the banning of mental health professionals from the site, the unexpected banning of hurting women, some of them in crisis, or the fact that people are kicked out based on rules that haven't even been made and posted yet.)
I shall not "agree to disagree" because you are protecting and excusing a monster, a woman who preys on the most vulnerable women who come to her forum and who kicks out the ones strong enough to see what she is and actually offer some hope and help to the ones less advanced along the path. I can only hope it is out of blindness and a bad case of fleas, and not for some other, less benign, reason...but whatever it is, I am not going to "make nice."
I don't care if you believe me or not because in your case, my task is accomplished--you KNOW what Tracy and Michelle are even though you refuse to believe it. I can only hope that you do not have to come to acceptance of the truth the same sad way so many others have been forced to.
I wish you all the best on your road to recovery. And if you feel the need to reply I understand and if you don't feel the need to reply I understand.
ReplyDeleteThank you for you wishes. I am well along my healing path, so much so that I could easily abandon my support system and go my own way. But I do not because, just as I needed the "senior" women when I first started, so the "newbies" now need me. It would feel selfish for me to abandon them just when I have reached a place where the vast majority of my interactions are giving support rather than seeking it.I hope you get to that point sooner rather than later.
DeleteHi Violet--
ReplyDeleteI want to thank you for your blog and for the patience you showed the anonymous poster above.
As for the DoNM forum bannings... I wish there was a way to poll all the women who have been banned from the DoNM forum, and to ask them a couple of brief questions about the reason (or lack of reason) for each of their bannings and about the effect the banning had on them. If that information could be gathered in one place, it would be an interesting research project, and possibly even a useful tool for anyone who is contemplating starting an online forum for abuse survivors. Maybe... you could consider doing this here on one of your blog pages...? Just a thought.
I have been a member of 4 other online forums (not related to being a DoNM). Three were/are very fairly moderated, by people who not only seem to have a knack for it, but also know how to delegate that kind of responsibility to other members, who they enlist to help them out. Only one of the forums I was on had a tyrannical moderator, and this eventually led to a lot of arguing, bad feelings, and many people leaving the forum, never to return.
Being a forum moderator is a skill that few people are naturally good at. It's not just about posting a bunch of rules, and then booting anyone who doesn't obey them. It requires tactfulness and patience, and a certain level of emotional clarity and discernment. And also, most importantly, the ability to REALLY LISTEN to what others are saying. Without that, a moderator will be functioning on a knee-jerk level, projecting a lot of their own emotional issues onto the members who happen to push their buttons, and reacting too drastically to a given problem with those members.
From what I have read here and elsewhere, Tracy and Michelle failed many DoNM members with their heavy-handed and tyrannical style of moderation. And they failed quite horribly, to say the least. They are the worst of the worst moderators I have seen online. Not to say that there couldn't be some that are even worse than Tracy and Micelle, but just that if there are, I haven't yet experienced them... and plan not to!
I think it's a good thing to discuss openly what went on at the DoNM forum, and the effects that all the bannings had on the DoNMs who were booted from there. IMO It would be a regressive act to agree to a silencing of the truth about people's negative experiences there. So thank you again for providing a safe place for banned members to do this.
I have combed the web for stories from women who have been banned--I do this periodically--and every month there are more. One woman reported that she had just set up a monthly PayPal donation to the site, logged in to the forum and found herself banned! No reason was given, when she wrote to ask why, she got no response, just like everyone else who wrote for the same reason. She thought things were going so well for her on the forum that she had actually set up a monthly donation, so expecting her to figure out for herself what went wrong is just pointless.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, that particular thing--not just the banning but refusing to give a reason or even respond to queries--is particularly cruel and damaging. It is the kind of inexplicable ostracism that so many of the scapegoat daughters experienced as children, the kind of rejection that strikes a devastating blow to the self-esteem of the women banned. I was banned not for something I did but for what my mother did! She did not fit Michelle's erroneous definition of an NM, therefore *I* "did not belong there." Beccas12 was banned for disagreeing with Michelle and having the authority (via her professional background) to do so credibly: she posted a gently-worded correction on the forum which I saw--by the time I had finished a response to it, her post had disappeared. When she pursued it ("what happened to my post?"), she was banned.
The dishonesty is staggering: I have it on good authority (someone who is still a member of the forum) that I and Beccas12 and a host of other banned women are carried as Active Members! Why is this important? Because Tracy's credibility depends in this number. She has recently written a book (under her pseudonym) called "You're not Crazy--it's your mother!) and to give herself the credentials to make her look sufficiently knowledgeable to write such a book and have it taken seriously, she needs something other than her high school and secretarial school education for credentials. What better than to have a forum for DoNMs with 5000 "active members" that has been running for 3 years? But how many of those members are truly active? How many have been kicked out but continue to inflate the rolls? How many are women with multiple accounts, women who acquired a second(or more)account through using a new user name and IP address(as did veryluckysallycherry) and who must operated under the radar under a false identity and must now walk on egg shells so as not to be cut off from the friendships and support they have developed among the other members?
Tracy's husband builds her websites (she has a slew of them) and he could very easily program her site to deactivate the accounts of women who haven't posted in, say, six months, women who have requested their accounts closed, women who were banned. But she doesn't take that small step towards honesty--she simply counts all 5000 who have ever signed up as "active members" when, according to that friend of mine, the actual active member list numbers about 100.
Couple this with the fact that Tracy has very clearly advocated viewing dehumanizing customers/clients and viewing them as FOOD (http://www.massive-action-marketing.com/Relationship-Marketing-Newsletter-Marketing.html) and take into consideration that she actually pimps her membership for "sponsorship" like they were starving third world children, (http://daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com/donation.html), and you have a picture of the nasty, money-grubbing, devoid-of-compassion creature this woman is. Potential victims NEED to be warned about her so that they at least have a chance to save themselves from her before it is too late.
Good job Sweet Violet!!!!!
DeleteI, too, was banned from the DoNM forum and treatly poorly by Danu and sidekicks.
I would like to warn other current or prospective members to BEWARE of the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers (DoNM) site. Danu is not a kind person and exibits callous, controlling behavior.
PLEASE be careful and fully aware of this, so as not to be blind-sided.
I wish you all the best in your journey of recovery and healing from an upbringing by Nparents.
Thank you, FreeDove and welcome to the blog.
DeleteYou are spot on with regard to "Danu" and I truly wish there was a better, more effective way to warn people about her site, but I am doing the best I can with what I've got here. We can only hope that more people find THIS blog before they find her site and then, if they decide to go to her site, they do it with their eyes wide open.
Thank you for your comment and please feel free to join the blog.
An update to this--Tracy (Danu) has taken down the page in which she pimps out DoNMs like starving thrd world children in order to suck people into donating to her. I suspect she's read this entire rebuttal and then went about "fixing" anything that has been pointed out that works against her or makes her look bad. Also, by removing the page, I can be made to look like a liar.
DeleteWell, either she doesn't know about The Wayback Machine or she thinks I don't, a site that archives countless web pages. If you are lucky, the currently defunct page you are looking for was archived by TWM and can be recovered.
Looks like I am very lucky... here is the web address of an archive of Tracy's damning "third world" page: http://web.archive.org/web/20120919190958/http://daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com/donation.html
I have just been banned from the DONM website for no reason. But I discovered one thing As for some reason the moderators left their private forum open. Danu is Lights puppet and cuddy is just apart of the group. They are la mean group of nasty women, who keep a list of forum members and say nasty things about them when they don't do as they say. Or even worse make fun of them when a member is going through a difficult time even calling them drama queens, naive and simple. Both the DONM site and LIGHTS site need to be closed down, it's criminal what these women are doing to woman who have gone to the site looking for help.
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing...
DeleteThis is not the first time I have heard of this kind of situation, either where they leave their private forum open to members and/or they say unconscionably rude things about the members to each other.
I agree--both sites need to be closed down. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a mechanism for doing that on an international basis. Tracy's site is based in Ireland and a another friend of mine, who happens to be a professor of psychology, said that if Tracy's site was located in the US, she would have the site shut down for practicing medicine without a license...but it's in Ireland so we're hamstrung until some therapist in Ireland decides to complain to the Irish authorities.