Loving the Imperfect

Many years ago I got very self-indulgent and bought myself a sports car. It was glorious, a little green Triumph TR-6 two-seater convertible. I loved loved loved that car! For 15 years I zipped through the highways and byways of Silicon Valley, top down whenever possible, totally loving the way the car drove, the way it felt, the way I felt driving it.

Of course, there was a down side. Being an English car, the electrical system was crap, and England is a lot cooler place than California, so the car tended to run hot. In fact, it averaged at least one trip per month to the mechanic, sometimes more…and some of those trips could be horrendously expensive. But I loved the car and in all the years I owned it, in all the years my pocket haemorrhaged money to keep it on the road, I never begrudged it a penny. It was the most fun I ever had on four wheels and it was worth every cent I spent on it.

Shortly before I finally sold the TR, I bought a registered Arabian mare. She was 12 years old and at some point in her life, she had been very well trained. But somehow she ended up as a brood mare and, after many years in pasture, she was purchased as the mount for a six-year-old child who had little riding skill. Unable to control the horse, the child was thrown and her angry mother put the animal up for sale at an auction where I got her, pedigree, papers and all, for a mere $125, the “meat price.”

Tia was a beautiful bay mare, with a soft, loving temperament…and she was afraid of everything. She had a lovely gait and was easy to ride (if you knew direct reining), but if you took her to the park, you had to avoid the picnic areas because the crowds freaked her out; bicycles on the trail freaked her out; mailboxes along the road freaked her out—and the entrance to the horse trailer really freaked her out. She hated water unless it was in a trough: a narrow, shallow stream, a rivulet of water running across the road, the horse washing station with a garden hose hanging from a pivoting beam—those freaked her out as well. She would stand passively for grooming and shoeing, never walk away from the saddle, never refuse to take the bit, and stood patiently for mounting. It took minimal direction either from my legs or hands to direct her…until something frightened her and which time she would slam it in reverse. I am telling you, that horse could back up the length of a football field! And if she didn’t back up, she bolted…and on any given ride, you could be guaranteed that something was going to scare her.

But I loved her, and I loved riding her. I got a trainer to help me learn how to get her to load up into the trailer without fuss; I learned to anticipate her antics with water and her reverse gear; I learned to bathe her with a sponge and bucket instead of the wash rack. I spent money on good shoes, I learned how to give her the quarterly worming treatment and immunization shots myself, and I drove up to the ranch to comfort her when the infrequent thunderstorm came along and the lighting and noise frightened her. And never did I think of her as a burden, but was proud to own and ride and care for such a beautiful, majestic creature.

My husband and I own a house in South Africa, an old, rambling brick dwelling with a gorgeously landscaped garden, a sparkling blue pool, and a leaky roof—and you would blanch at the list of other things we have had to fix in the last 2.5 years. The previous owner lived here seven years and did no maintenance at all, so we have inherited his deferred maintenance along with all the stuff that normally goes wrong with houses, like leaky pipes, burst hot water heaters, appliances that mysteriously stop working, and plumbing woes. Our first month in the house we spent enough for emergency repairs to cover two month’s worth of house payments and it escalated from there. And every time we think we have everything fixed, something new crops up. Fortunately we have two rental units on the property that provide enough income to make repairs without landing us up in financial hot water, but there is no denying that the house has sucked up a lot of cash resources that we would have rather put elsewhere.

One could easily hate a house that causes you say to yourself, at least weekly, “Oh, no! Now what??” From a broken suction line on the pool pump to water cascading down an inside wall from a roof leak, from a hot water heater pumping water into the attic and ruining ceiling boards to a kitchen stove that won’t get hot enough to boil water to a double oven that can’t maintain temperature, from an air conditioner that won’t cool to a motorized driveway gate that won’t function to leaking showers to five toilets that constantly run, this house has had its share of malfunctions, and not one of them cheap to fix! And yet, I love the house. It is rambling and spacious with big sliding glass doors onto a terrace and beautiful views of the garden from my bedroom and study, it has an airy, gracious sunroom and a sunken TV room that has become my husband’s lair, leaving the formal living room (lounge) a pretty and uncluttered room to entertain guests. It is brilliantly located, only 4 kms from his office and within 5 kms of virtually all of the shopping we need to do on a regular basis, the mature trees shade the house, the lush green garden cools the air and the breezes come through those sliding doors to provide natural ventilation. Yes, it has cost us time and money and aggravation, but I can’t think of a better place to live in this town and the house itself is the nicest I have ever owned.

By now, you should have picked up on the theme, the common thread that runs through all of these vignettes: things do not have to be perfect to be worthy of love. Cars, houses, horses…even people…do not have to be perfect in order to be entitled to, worthy of, love…but for some of us, this is a novel concept.

If you were raised by a narcissist, like I was, you quickly realized that just “being” was not good enough…you had to “do.” And whatever passed for love from your narcissist was given out based on your performance in whatever it was you were supposed to do. Now, before you say “she didn’t give me anything, no matter how I performed…” consider the phrase “whatever passed for love.” For some of us, that meant getting stuff—a doll, a lollipop, a quarter; for others it might have meant getting permission for something, like a trip to the beach or going to a friend’s house or calling Grandma; for others of us, it meant not getting negativity—no lectures, beatings, insults, maybe even getting blessedly ignored for a period of time. Whatever your NM did with/for/to you when she was not perturbed with you, that was what you, as a child, learned to accept as tokens of affection from her—or at least, a sign that you were not in imminent danger. Even if you didn’t get outright approval, the lack of overt disapproval was a sign in itself.

As children, right and wrong come from outside us: we learn it from others around us and we are controlled with external consequences meted out to us by those others. Goof off on a test, we fail; defy our parents, we get punished; steal from the corner store, we get the law involved. As we mature, however, normal people internalize those messages of right and wrong and we punish ourselves with guilt when we do wrong. Unfortunately, normal people who had narcissistic parents internalize the toxic message that we are imperfect, flawed, and unworthy of love unless we do something to earn it…and just as our efforts were never sufficient for the narcissistic parent, once the parent is internalized, our efforts are never good enough, not even for ourselves.

Have you ever loved something that is imperfect? I adore my Yorkies, and they are as imperfect as they come. As I sit here typing, one is barking to get my attention, another one is laying quietly on the rug by my feet…she is the one who poops on the dining room carpet when she is displeased by something. The little boy still pees on the bed, so he can’t be in the bedroom unless he is on my lap, under my direct supervision. But rather than disdain them for their faults, rather than withhold my love or approval from them because of their imperfections, I make adjustments to accommodate their flaws: I have a squirt bottle full of water for the barker when she won’t obey my command to stop; Puddin’ isn’t allowed in the dining room; Boykie can’t go into my bedroom unless he is being carried in arms. Is this more work? Is this more effort? Of course it is…but I love them and they are worth an extra effort to accommodate their little flaws.

And there you have it: I love them just as they are. I make allowances for their flaws rather than withhold my love and approval until and unless they conform to my rigid expectations. Yes, I continue to expect them to improve, but I don’t withhold positive feedback, petting, and loving until they improve because my love for them is not based on their performance: it is based on their being.

How are you doing with loving yourself? Are you waiting until you are perfect and therefore worthy of being loved before you love yourself? Are you withholding positive affirmations, kindness, patience, and love because you aren’t perfect? Who set that standard for perfection you aspire to (or despair of ever reaching)? Did you set it or did you just adopt—internalize—your NM’s expectations and standards? Has your NM set up housekeeping in your head and you continue to dance to her tune, even when you aren’t even speaking to her?

We must have expectations of ourselves. Humans do not thrive when they are directionless, and our expectations give us direction, something to live up to. But there is nothing in the book of life that says you must live up to the expectations of others if you don’t want to. In fact, you have every right—you have a true entitlement—to create your own set of expectations to live up to, and they don’t have to bear even the slightest resemblance to the expectations of your NM or FOO. They only have to work for you. And to work for you, they must be attainable.

And you know what? They don’t have to be cast in concrete, either! You can change those expectations if you want to. If they were too tall for you, or you achieved them already, or they just don’t fit you, you can fine-tune or even completely throw them out and start all over again. But there is one thing they all absolutely must contain: they must not demand perfection of you in anything. Excellence, yes…perfection, no. Perfection is unattainable and to set that as a goal is to set yourself up for failure…and a reason to keep on withholding love from yourself.

You set the stage for how others treat you by how you treat yourself. If you think of yourself as unworthy of love, others will believe you and will think of you the same way. When you love yourself unconditionally, you accept that you are flawed, human, and deserving of love for who you are, not for what you do. People who value you for what you do are not people who love you…at least no more than they love their car, dishwasher, or mobile phone: and to these people, you are just as disposable as these items when you stop functioning the way they want you to.

You don’t need to be perfect to deserve love, yours or anyone else’s. You don’t need to be perfect to deserve appreciation or approval or to feel good about yourself. You are entitled to it, no matter how flawed you may think you are. All you really need is permission—your own.

Isn’t it time you gave it?

Am I a Narcissist, too? All about fleas

Do you ever find yourself asking this question? Do you worry that, because you grew up in a household with one or more narcissist dominating it, you might have “caught it”? Perhaps you have caught yourself displaying some kind of narcissistic traits and you are suddenly brought up short by the fear that you, too, are a narcissist like your mother or father or other family member.

Let me put your mind at ease: the very fact that you are asking that question, the very fact that it concerns you that you might be a narcissist, pretty much proves that you aren’t. The psyche of the narcissist is so constructed that the simple act of self-reflection is highly unlikely, and rather than engaging in self-doubt, the narcissist will simply find ways to rationalize or justify those behaviours that have you worried you might be one of them.

It doesn’t mean you cannot be displaying narcissist-like behaviours, attitudes and traits, however. We learn at the knee of the narcissist, and we learn such fundamentals as right and wrong, good and bad, honesty and deceit…and if we learned them from a narcissist, our take on them may be a little...well…out of the mainstream. These narcissist-like behaviours, attitudes and traits, when displayed by the non-narcissist, are known as “fleas,” (narcissistic-like behaviour traits displayed by a non-narcissist, generally learned behaviours from having been raised by a narcissist and not knowing what is normal for the situation) and you get them from being around and adopting them from the narcissist, just like you get real fleas from laying down with a flea-ridden dog.

Most of us get our fleas from our narcissistic family members as we grow up, but we can also acquire them later on in life as well. Sometimes we acquire them subconsciously but sometimes, when we see certain behaviours or attitudes working for others, we adopt them consciously, wanting to get the same benefit. It is a kind of “follow the leader” or even “follow the herd” principle at work, and can lead to an attitude change in which something previously viewed as wrong eventually becomes seen as a right or entitlement, like stealing office supplies or spreading rumours about or bullying a co-worker. It is good for our egos because it makes us feel accepted, like one of the gang, and if we can set the standard for others to follow, it feels even better to be the trendsetter to whom others look for direction.

If you are a normal human being with a normal conscience, you are eventually going to feel bad about doing things you know are wrong. This puts you on the horns of a dilemma because the human psyche doesn’t like cognitive dissonance…and feeling guilty just doesn’t feel good. You basically end up with two choices: 1) stop doing what is making you feel guilty (which means you will have to give up the benefits you are getting from it) or 2) find a way to stop feeling guilty about it (which means you will have to rationalize and/or justify what you have been doing). Now, the difference between you and a narcissist is simple: the narcissist never feels guilty and never even considers #1—the narcissist automatically invokes #2. You may also invoke that second option, but your reason for doing so will be very different from the narcissist’s: you will be doing it to quiet your conscience; the narcissist doesn’t have a conscience to quiet, she feels truly justified in whatever she does.

I used to know a woman who took the most outrageous chances at work, chances I would never dream of taking because I just knew I would get fired for it. She often came in late to work, took long lunches, left early, even took whole days off on a whim and even though she was only an admin, acted like she was one of the managers. And you know what? Instead of counselling her to work the hours she was getting paid for, she got promoted! Sure enough, one of the other admins tried to follow the first one’s lead and wound up getting disciplined. When she tried to defend herself with “But Tessa has done that for over a year!” she was told “You are not Tessa.” Who told me this story? Tessa, laughing gleefully at the other woman’s predicament, not a shred of responsibility tainting her amusement. She found it hilarious that the other woman was disciplined for following her example, and in true narcissistic fashion, the incident reinforced her self-perception of being special and above the rules.

This happened years ago, before I knew anything about narcissists, but I remember being surprised and appalled at Tessa’s reaction. Putting my self in her shoes, I would have been chagrined at having set an example for my co-workers that resulted in one of them receiving disciplinary action, I would have felt bad about it and that would have motivated me to be more circumspect. The last thing I would have felt was amused at the other woman's plight!

We can pick up fleas anywhere. I have seen things on FaceBook, people saying really hurtful, mean things about LGBT people, about people of colour, about the poor and disadvantaged, about women, and they are absolutely shameless about it. Some of these people are narcissists, but others have picked up fleas from narcissistic politicians, pastors, or other authority figures they either revere or fear. Taken out of that environment and shown how their words and attitudes actually hurt other living, breathing human beings, some of these people will feel shame for what they said and the hurt they caused. Others will not, and they will rationalize and justify what they said, even blame their victims for their hurt (I have actually seen someone say that feeling hurt by the words of a bully is a choice, that you can choose not to be hurt and therefore what the bullies say and do is OK!): these people are most likely narcissists. Some of them not only have no shame or remorse for their unkind words and thoughts, they advocate violence ranging from beatings to rape to death. Those people are probably narcissists, too, but malignant narcissists who may be comorbid with another personality disorder like Antisocial Personality Disorder, which is “characterized by ‘...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.’”

Fleas are things you usually acquire at home, as a young child, by accepting the values of your narcissistic parent and emulating her/him. It is possible, however, to get them from working with someone like Tessa and copying both her entitled behaviour and adopting her self-serving lack of compassion. We can suppress our guilt and our remorse through justification and rationalization, so if you find yourself acting like an N, you may need to sit down and think about how you really, truly feel about something. If you can’t penetrate the rationalizations and justifications, if you can’t see how something you did or said that caused harm to someone else was wrong, then you just might be a narcissist.

The key, then, is whether or not you are capable of feeling remorse. If you have a conscience, if you have empathy or compassion for other people, if you can feel guilt and remorse for actions you have taken that end up somehow harming someone else, then the odds are strongly against you being a narcissist and just as strongly in favour of you having a case of fleas.

And truthfully, if you even ask the question, you most likely just have fleas.

Learning at the Narcissist's Knee...

“If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas, or in Latin, qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent. “He that lieth down with dogs shall rise up with fleas” has been attributed to Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard's Almanack.

“The quote has a large almost universally agreed meaning of ‘You should be cautious of the company you keep. Associating with those of low reputation may not only lower your own but also lead you astray by the faulty assumptions, premises and data of the unscrupulous.’”

I suspect most people, when they think of teaching children, think of formal teaching, like parents schooling their children in table manners or classroom teachers with a lesson plan. But children learn more by observation and mimicking than by what they are formally taught and so you get children whose parents are mortified (or worse, amused) when sweet toddling Susie opens her little rosebud lips and an obscenity pops out. The little ones learn by observation and imitation much more than they learn from what we tell them.

In narcissistic terms, “fleas” are “…narcissistic-like behaviour traits displayed by a non-narcissist, generally learned behaviours from having been raised by a narcissist and not knowing what is normal for the situation.”  And if you live with narcissists, you’re gonna get fleas…

There’s nothing shameful in that—none of us are perfect, our parents are our first teachers and we, as little kids, believed them implicitly. They are our first gods, our first teachers, our first role models. We are programmed by nature to believe in them and in their benevolence because our survival literally depends on it: in our primitive brain, which is concerned with survival issues, we understand that pandering to and learning from our care-givers means our own survival, and so we ape and imitate them from our earliest years, absorbing their beliefs and prejudices and behaviours right along with their form of communication (language), rituals, and habits. And very little of this is consciously, formally taught or learned.

Children also learn from what they don't see. If they do not see compassionate or courteous behaviour from their primary caregivers, if they don’t see honesty and truth-telling from them, if they don’t see sharing and giving the benefit of the doubt, they don’t learn those things themselves. And when they see these things later in life, demonstrated by others, they not only don’t value and adopt them, they may disdain them because they were not part of the core values they absorbed in their homes of origin.

You see, children are naturally narcissistic. It is a survival mechanism built into the infant. Helpless and unable to do even the smallest thing for itself, the infant lives in a world of only two states: needy or needs satisfied. When it is hungry, it will squall and it will keep squalling until it is fed, no matter the circumstances…not even if its noise brings danger upon it and those around it. The infant operates from its primitive brain and is totally preoccupied with its own needs, having no care whatsoever for the needs of those around it. Programmed by nature to survive and to alert its caretakers when it has needs, there is no sense of shame, compassion, empathy, or consideration for the circumstances of anyone except itself.

As children grow, so does their capacity for seeing outside themselves. But by then they absorb the values and beliefs of their home of origin, and they ape their caretakers. It is natural for children to begin to outgrow their embedded self-centredness, but part of the job of the caretaker is to help the child become aware of the feelings of others and teach the child to respect them, to give them value.

Children, however, remain convinced for quite some time that their experiences define the normal world. Things that are different are potentially dangerous, so they often fear and balk at new experiences, particularly those that do not involve their protectors/caretakers. Lots of kids are clingy and apprehensive at the beginning of their school careers, or when changing schools, for example. And they carry with them that notion their world, their experiences, their knowledge is what is right…meaning that, at least initially, things alien to them are wrong—even bad or dangerous.

School is the great equalizer. I remember being in the third or fourth grade and being tormented by a nasty little boy who reminded me of my own equally nasty little brother. My brother was the GC and even by that tender age, I was nurturing a growing hatred for him as he browbeat me verbally like NM and he physically abused me as well—and if I told NM, she “spanked” me for tattling and let GCBro continue on. This other child would punch me in the arm or back and was verbally abusive, calling me names and inciting other kids to do the same, so I was nurturing a growing dislike of him as well.

Remember, children believe that their lives and their feelings are universal…it is part of the natural narcissism they must eventually outgrow. So when he came up to me on the playground and said something rude to me when I was talking to his sister, one of my classmates, I sincerely thought that she would have as much animosity towards her little brother as I had towards mine. Imagine my shock when she told me “Yes, he’s mean a lot, but I love him. He’s my little brother.”

My own upbringing did not include loving someone whom you did not like. It was inconceivable to me, at that time. Hate was the watchword in my household and, like any child, I just assumed that that was how everybody was—you only loved the ones who were really nice to you, and you hated everybody else. That was what my household felt like to me—why would anybody else’s house be any different, why would any other little girl feel differently from me about a brother who tormented her at every opportunity?

The very notion that everybody else feels the same way I do is at the core of the narcissist. They lie and manipulate, connive and misconstrue, all without guilt and remorse, assuming everybody else is exactly the same way. And because they believe everybody else is lying, manipulating, conniving and misconstruing, just like they are doing, they feel justified, which eliminates any reason for guilt. This kind of thinking is actually not atypical for young children (along with vengeful notions of payback), but it is something conscientious parents try to help their children grow out of. Some kids respond to those efforts…and some kids do not.

One of the things that narcissists do is they take things for granted…especially things you are expected to do. I learned to say “please” and “thank you” as formal kinds of politeness and, modelling on my mother’s behaviour, usually said them to strangers or to adults outside my family. My grandfather once watched me polish off a huge piece of lemon meringue pie that my grandmother had made just because it was my favourite pie (we had fruit she could have used for a fruit pie, but made this one because of my affinity for it). When I finished it and started to get down from the table, my grandfather very quietly said to me “It might be nice to thank your Nana for making your favourite pie.” It had never occurred to me: nobody ever thanked me for doing my chores, nobody ever thanked me for making sure my surly little brother got to school on time—in fact, nobody ever thanked me for anything. It simply did not occur to me to thank anyone for doing their “job,” including thanking my grandmother for cooking. It was a single sentence, but it opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me. I ran into the kitchen and hugged my grandmother around the waist and thanked her for the pie and for the dinner, then told her I thought she was the best grandmother in the whole wide world. I don’t think a diamond necklace could have made her smile so broadly!

I still remember that day…brilliantly…and still recall the huge amount of thinking I found myself doing, pondering all the different ways I could apply this newfound insight. Wouldn’t it be great if I could make people beam with happiness, like my grandmother, with just those simple two words, “thank you”?

It inspired me to go to the library and check out books on etiquette and to learn and practice good manners. It inspired me to pay attention to others and their feelings, to say please and thank you for the most mundane acts—if it served me, it deserved thanks. More than half a century later, I still practice it: I thank waiters when they bring the cutlery, I thank shop clerks when they give me my till slip and, even after having her work for me for five years now, I still thank my maid after every shift. Yes, I pay her and for some people that is considered enough, but she saves me from all of the housework, which I hated even before my back issues started and I really do appreciate her work, her cheerful demeanour, her attention to detail, her honestly and reliability. And I thank her every time she goes out the door.

But, as I said earlier, we all have fleas and I am no exception. Deeply ingrained in me, learned from my NM and incorporated into my being from my earliest days, is this failure to notice and acknowledge the efforts of others, the tendency to take things for granted, to expect that some people just know how I feel. And while I know that an appreciation or gratitude, if unspoken, might as well not exist, I have blind spots and I fall into ingratitude, not so much in spirit but in practice. And every once in a while I wake up and see what I am doing (or failing to do) and try to amend my behaviour to fix it.

On Saturday my husband and I were sitting at a red light, getting ready to go into a petrol station. As we sat there I looked at the station’s name and it clicked to me that we were buying petrol here because they had a loyalty-reward program, linked to our bank, that gives us 15% off every fuel purchase if we use that bank’s credit card. Considering that my car is an SUV, that comes to a handsome piece of change! In just few seconds a host of thoughts flooded mind about the many things my husband has done and the many ways he has sought to improve our finances and maximize our income to give us—me—the highest standard of living that I have ever enjoyed in my life. And while I have told him that…my thanks for all of his efforts implied…I suddenly realized that in the nine years we have been married, I have never actually said it to him. All these years and all that effort, and not one word of thanks to the person whose efforts made my comfortable existence possible!

As the light turned from red to green, I put my hand on his thigh and said “I don’t think I have ever told you this, but I want you to know that I am very proud of you and very appreciative of all the hard work you have done to give us the comfortable life style we enjoy. I really do notice and I really do appreciate it…and I am sorry I never said anything before this.”

He pulled the car up to the pumps and turned and looked at me, a bit of surprise on his face, and said, “Why thank you! I really appreciate that!”

I felt shamed that I had allowed him to go all of those years without a word of encouragement or appreciation of all of his efforts. It made me think…and more than that, it made me wonder why I, who never fails to thank the maid for her efforts on my behalf, would let him toil for nine years without ever thanking him. And for the next day or two, I turned it over in my mind until I realized that in the household I grew up in, that was the norm…that nobody rewarded you with thanks, or even a “well done!” when you did what was expected of you. Oh, you got plenty of flak if you failed to do what was expected of you, but no encouragement, no appreciation, no kudos. That rule applied only to members of the household, however…friends, neighbours, even visiting family members were thanked for their assistance—they were even thanked just for showing up at our door!

I thought back, trying to think of just one time that NM thanked me for anything (children tend to absorb traits of the same-sex parent more than the opposite sex parent, by the way) and couldn’t come up with a single instance. Instead, I remembered the Mother’s Day card I made for her when I was about 8, and how I brought her breakfast in bed and the card, which I had laboured over for hours, and how the anticipated praise and thank you never materialized…and how I got castigated, instead, for a spelling error.

And I thought about myself and how like my mother I was being, taking my husband’s hard work and his clever, out-of-the-box thinking that gave me a comfortable lifestyle, for granted, never telling him what I was thinking but just assuming that he somehow knew. And I felt ashamed of myself, wondering how I had let such a thing come to pass…

Those fleas are damned difficult to get rid of!

Journaling: helping you to help yourself

Journaling has always been close to my heart although for the longest time I carried around a lot odd, self-imposed “rules” about it that caused me to approach it cautiously. Could it be that you have been resisting journaling for a similar reason? Below are some of the reasons I resisted journaling; how many of them apply to you?
1. Fear of being found out, of someone finding and reading my journal and then, fear of consequences for what I wrote (like being embarrassed or even punished);

2. Fear of inadequate writing skills—fear that my spelling, punctuation, sentence structure—would be less than professional;

3. The task seemed overwhelming;

4. I believed I had to “begin at the beginning,” to go back to my childhood and write the journal in chronological order;

5. Fear of “wasting time” on a pointless endeavour (because time should not be wasted and any time spent on myself was, by definition, wasted);

6. Fear of being “disloyal” to my family, that being truthful in the journal would somehow betray them;

7. Fear of opening old wounds, triggering myself, opening myself to a greater hurt than I was already feeling;

8. A nameless sense of dread would come over me when I sat down to write.

Can you relate to any of these reasons? Did you notice that the vast majority of them begin with the word “fear”? And if fear keeps you from journaling, then you are allowing fear to be in control of your life.

Some of you may think that journaling is pointless, that it serves no purpose, and that you could better spend your time elsewhere. Fine, I accept that as a valid point of view and, if that is your point of view, what are you doing for yourself in the time that you might otherwise be journaling? Are you seeing a therapist? Getting Reiki? Meditating? Hashing it out with your FOO? Are you aware that journaling can be done in addition to all of the above and can greatly benefit you? Just a few of the benefits of journaling:

1. If events are journalled as they happen, they provide a contemporary record of events. Writing while events are fresh in your mind allows to more accurately recall the actual words spoken and gives you the clearest view of the event, especially later, if you ever have to refer to the entry for validation.

2. Journaling helps us to recall forgotten or suppressed events in our lives that are subconsciously affecting us today. Remembering such events can help us identify the causes of current day fears and behaviours that are rooted in those forgotten events. I have a fear that borders on phobia of putting my face in the water. It affected my ability to swim to the degree that I had to take beginner’s swimming lessons twice when I was 12—my terror of putting my face in the water simply halted my ability to learn anything further, even with nose plugs and a face mask! I still haven’t recalled where that comes from, but I am sure it will open a lot of other closed doors in my mind when I do finally get to it.

3. It can help us identify patterns in our lives, either our own patterns or those of others. A good example is the realization I gained, through journaling, that my NM had been taking away from me things that I cared about for my entire life, that it was a pattern with her that went all the way back to my earliest childhood…and continued right into my adult years. Taken away from me were toys, pets, personal belongings, and even family members, like my father and my children. I had not forgotten most of the events, but it was not until I began journaling that I could see the pattern and from that pattern, I was able to see more patterns: she abandoned me as a 2-year-old and was forced to take me back when I was 4. Over the next 20 years I saw her try to deprive three different women of their children, actually succeeding in one case. I still haven’t figured out exactly what was behind that, but it cannot be mere coincidence, can it?

4. The records we keep in the journal can help us keep events fresh in our minds when we start backsliding and thinking “Oh, it wasn’t that bad…” or “She wasn’t really that mean to me…” It returns us to the here and now of exactly how we felt, exactly what transpired, exactly how the other party/parties behaved. It strips away the fog of softness that time and distance put over our memories and brings us nose-to-nose with realities we are better off remembering clearly, especially when a softening of those memories leaves us vulnerable to the predations and manipulations of others.

5. It can be used to open conversations that we cannot otherwise articulate. This can be particularly useful in dealing with a therapist. My first year in therapy I found it very difficult to say what was hurting me because each time I opened my mouth to say something, this huge choking lump would form in the centre of my throat and nothing would come out. I could chat about inanities, but the stuff I was paying a therapist to help me sort out would just stay stuck behind that huge paralyzing lump. I began printing out what I had written in my journal and bringing it to the therapist and allowing her to get the ball rolling. Within a few weeks I was able to push past the lump in my throat and initiate discussions, although a lot of what I wanted to talk about I could not even write about at that time. It was a useful tool in getting my therapy sessions started, rather than sitting there stifled, with tears streaming down my face, my poor therapist unable to help because she just didn’t know where to start.

6. It can be cathartic to just write down stuff that is bothering us. The simple act of reliving the emotions and pouring them out of you can make you feel better, at least in the moment. And you can get that kind of relief each time you write it down.

7. You may find a practical use as well…in some relationships with a narcissist it becomes necessary to take legal action against the narcissist: a restraining order or divorce or other action. In such cases, a journal that includes entries of the narcissist’s incursions into your peace, his/her abuses, your mental, emotional and even physical state as a result of those incursions, can be powerful evidence in your behalf.

8. It may become useful in explaining to friends or family members how/why you went NC with certain other family members. Sometimes when you try to explain, the incidents you can call to mind at a moment’s notice sound lame…and make you seem petty to the person you are trying to explain to. When they can grasp the sheer volume of emotional assault you have had to deal with, however, as they are more apt to do if you can demonstrate with a journal you have been keeping for a long time, you are more easily able to elicit their understanding. (That doesn’t mean you have to show them your journal, only that you have it to refer to, to help jog your memory.)

So what are the rules of journaling and what do you do about those reasons that keep you from sitting down to write? Well, there is really only one rule: each entry has to be about something that was emotionally significant to you. It can be joyful or sorrowful, it can be about depression or about triumph, it can be about events that happened when you were a toddler or feelings you experienced this morning. The only rule is that the entry has to have some emotional significance to you, even if it is only puzzling over something your NM did when you were 12, or speculation about something your spouse has been up to.

And those fears and roadblocks?

1. Fear of being found out, of someone finding and reading my journal and then, fear of consequences for what I wrote (like being embarrassed or even punished). If this bothers you, then you need to make your journal private. Go to Blogger and set yourself up a simple blog and, as you set it up, set the privacy settings so that it cannot be seen on the internet and then put a password on it. Use a password nobody would guess: for example, if you like horses, a family member might guess your password if you choose “HorseCrazy” for a password. If you are afraid of horses, however, they would never guess it was yours. A journal kept in this format gives you not only privacy (there is no book to find under the mattress, no file hidden in the computer), it offers you safety: if there is a flood or fire or other disaster, your journal is safely stored in Google’s servers, ready and waiting for you when you want it.

2. Fear of inadequate writing skills—fear that my spelling, punctuation, sentence structure—would be less than professional. You are writing this for yourself…nobody else. It doesn’t even have to make sense! All it needs to be good is for you to be honest in what you write. That’s all…honest about events, honest about your feelings, honest about how others have behaved. If you decide at a later date that you want to make some entries public, you can always edit them later for publication. But that may never happen, so just write—let it pour out of your heart and through your fingers and out of you.

3. The task seemed overwhelming. The best way to deal with any overwhelming task is to break it down into smaller tasks. In this case, instead of looking at it as a commitment to write a detailed book about your life, view it as a single essay, of any length you choose, about something emotionally important to you. And the next day, view it the same way again. Just one essay today and don’t think about tomorrow until it becomes today. And then you write just one…

4. I believed I had to “begin at the beginning,” to go back to my childhood and write the journal in chronological order. That was a big one for me and it really had me stuck until finally, one day, I just sat down and wrote about an experience that happened when I was about 12 or 13. While I was writing it, other experiences from my childhood popped into my mind…I jotted down notes and the following day I wrote about that. Each time a new incident popped into my head, I made a note and then later wrote about it. Incidents kept coming to mind until I had written down 46 memories in the random order they came to me. Those are the 46 Memories that started this whole blog.

5. Fear of “wasting time” on a pointless endeavour (because time should not be wasted and any time spent on myself was, by definition, wasted). That is a false belief that somebody else planted in your head. Not only is writing a journal not wasted time, time spent on yourself is well-spent, particularly if it leads to healing on your part. Anything you do to improve the quality of your life is time well-spent. You deserve it. And if this particular fear is one of yours, it affords you the topic for your first journal entry: Why I feel unworthy of healing…

6. Fear of being “disloyal” to my family, that being truthful in the journal would somehow betray them. OK, this was a tough one for me, right up to the moment I remembered that the conspiracy of silence was what so damaged me in the first place. Ask yourself this: do you owe loyalty to those who have no loyalty to you? Of course not. You do not owe loyalty to people who don’t care about you, who exploit you, who hurt and manipulate you to advantage themselves. If you think you do, then your loyalty is misplaced because you owe no more loyalty than is shown to you. (And doing their job, like feeding and clothing you and providing you with medical care as a kid is not a sign of either loyalty or love, it is discharging their duty to you. They have to do it or get arrested for child neglect.)

If you cannot wrap your head around this concept just yet, bear in mind that a) your writing is absolutely private and b) you can delete it when you are done writing. You will get a benefit—catharsis—simply from the act of writing it out, even if you feel you must delete it when you have finished.

7. Fear of opening old wounds, triggering myself, opening myself to a greater hurt than I was already feeling. This was a touchy one for me, because with almost every entry I wrote, I had to put a box of Kleenex next to the computer. I bawled through almost all of them, including the ones that were based more in anger than hurt. If this happens to you, when you are writing, it is a good thing! It means you are reaching those places within you that are hurting, dragging out into the light of day things that have been hurting you since they happened.

If the fear is too strong, let me give you a tip I got from my therapist: sometimes we are too close to the story and it is necessary to distance ourselves a bit in order to embrace it. It is easier to write about “her” than to write about “me,” as writing about me can really stab into the heart. So, use a distancing technique: give new names to all of your family members, including yourself, and write the events as if they happened to someone else. Give your own emotions and perspectives, viewpoints and feelings to the character who is playing you, and give full voice to the feelings. Once I began doing that, it was much easier for me to write and be wholly honest in what I was writing.

You may find yourself having “symptoms,” like crying or trembling hands, a blocked throat, headache or a host of other things. Try to push through those things—don’t suppress them or try to control them, just experience them and keep on writing. Write about them… “as she wrote in her journal her hands shook so badly she could barely type and tears flooded her cheeks. A thick lump formed in her throat as she remembered being silenced by her own mother and not allowed to even speak in her own defence against the lies her sister had told…” Push through it, keep writing: some of the best insights and epiphanies come at times like this.

8. A nameless sense of dread would come over me when I sat down to write. I carry this nameless dread around with me like my cell phone—it goes everywhere I go. Anytime I embark upon something that might not turn out perfectly, anytime I try something that someone might take issue with, anytime I start something new, I suffer from this dread. When trying to write, it manifests as writer’s block: blank mind to match the blank screen. Which is why I keep a list of topics to write about, ideas that pop into my mind while I am writing on some other topic. Right now, my list of topics for this blog has 14 items on it, 14 topics yet to be written about…and by the time I reach the last of those 14, I will have added probably another dozen or more. The only solution to that nameless sense of dread it to simply ignore it and get started anyway…it has a peculiar way of fading out once the writing (or whatever else I am doing) gets going. I think it is a holdover from the days when I was expected to do everything perfectly, even the first time I did it. My NM made no allowances for lack of knowledge or experience and an innocent error was punished no less severely than a careless mistake or even intentional sabotage.

Journaling is an excellent tool to get at what’s bothering you, a safe and private way to de-stress and unload some of the burdens you’ve been carrying around in your psyche for years. It allows you to work at your own pace, stay with an issue or event until you are ready to move on to the next one, move ahead or backwards as you see fit. It is cathartic, it provides you with a record of events and your reasoning behind the actions you took and gives you insights where you never had them before. At the very least, it is a safe, private place to blow off steam when you are stressed and when nobody you know really “gets it.” It is cheap, safe, and easy to embark upon.

Why not try journaling today? The only thing you have to lose is some stress...

The ABC of Boundaries: Keeping the Narcissists at Bay

Exactly what are boundaries? And why are they important?

One of the best explanations of boundaries I have been able to find follows below in violet. And while it is written to address romantic relationships, it applies equally well to all types of relationships, including the one with your narcissistic mother, father, siblings…and other people in your life as well: friends, co-workers, employers, landlords, etc. You can find the whole text here.

In the physical world, boundaries are things that separate one thing from another, like walls that separate the outside of a house from the inside. Though they have no physical substance, psychological boundaries act very much like walls, by separating the private parts of people or relationships separate from the public parts. When an intimate relationship of any sort is occurring there is, in a manner of speaking, a psychological boundary around that relationship. The boundary is not there in any physical sense, of course, but nevertheless, secrets stay within the relationship as though there is a real wall holding them in place. It is trust that holds shared secrets in place and which creates the relationship boundary. If trust is betrayed, the boundary fails, and strangers get to learn the private details of the relationship. 

This is a boundary your NM understands, and understands very well: the boundary that keeps you quiet about what goes on behind closed doors. But like so many other things with your NM, it only goes one way—her way. It doesn’t matter if you are five, fifteen or fifty, she can blab all of the personal details about you that she wants but you are expected to keep mum about any- and everything that has even the slightest potential to hold your NM up in a bad light…or anybody else on her “Golden” list. Your NM finds absolutely nothing amiss in sharing the most intimate, embarrassing events from your life with her friends, your friends, even complete strangers. She will tell about ever transgression you ever committed, real or imagined, every childish misperception, your first period, about taking you shopping for a training bra, how she found out you were sexually active, what she overheard when you and your college boyfriend spent the night together in your old bedroom—anything and everything that she thinks will get and hold the attention of her listeners, no matter how badly it hurts or embarrasses you. In fact, your embarrassment is just a bonus for her…

But her betrayal of your intimate secrets, her abuse and disrespect of you does not, in her mind, break that boundary. Let you apply tit for tat and tell about finding strange men in her bed or a diaphragm in the bathroom when your dad was on a business trip or finding her crotchless panties mixed in with your undies in your drawer or how she conned grandma into disinheriting your uncle so she could get the whole estate, and she will blow a gasket. It is strictly a one-way street.

There are also psychological boundaries around each individual in a relationship. These individual boundaries have to do with self-determination and self-respect. They define each partner's right to keep some part of themselves separate from the relationship (to not let it define them utterly), and also to expect that their partner will treat them with respect. When these individual boundaries are intact and in place, the partners feel respected and cared for and not taken for granted. When they are broken by disrespectful actions (such as when one partner abuses the other, or makes unilateral decisions) they end up feeling abused.

This applies to parent-child relationships as well as adult romantic relationships. When your individual boundaries are not respected, are not even allowed to exist, you feel abused. We all have needs for privacy, autonomy, independence, and as we get older, the greater our need for them grows. We also have sexual boundaries from an early age. When any of those boundaries are routinely disrespected, we may have difficulty developing our own distinct personalities, likes and dislikes…even our own feelings. When a child says “I don’t like Uncle Jack!” the boundary-respectful thing to do is ask that child to tell you why. It may be something innocuous, like Uncle Jack ate the last piece of pie at dinner last night…and it may be something sinister like Uncle Jack has been touching the child inappropriately. Either way, the wrong thing to say is “What a terrible thing to say! You love Uncle Jack! Now stop that noise, you’re embarrassing me and besides, he’s baby sitting while Auntie Myrtle and I go to the movies!”

Boundaries are important because they help to define us, to know where “I” begin and somebody else, like our NMs, ends. “…without boundaries our identities become diffused – controlled by the definitions offered by others…”

Boundary violations of any sort tend to cause relationship problems. When one partner's [or parents’] actions cause another to feel belittled, unimportant or abused, then that other partner [or child] is faced with the task of learning how to defend themselves.

One of the ways an NM will attempt to control you is not only to dictate your tastes (“Of course you like spinach, Effie…now clean your plate or you won’t get dessert…” “You don’t like yellow…it makes you look sallow…”), but to limit those very things that you need most as you grow and mature: privacy, autonomy, and independence. If she hasn’t convinced you by enmeshing with you, by convincing you that your tastes and desires, likes and wants are parallel to hers, she will move on to stronger tactics like curtailing and controlling those things you need most as you mature: she will make outrageous intrusions into your privacy, forbid you autonomy, stringently limit your independence. “The narcissistic mother will violate the normal boundaries of her children, making them feel like extensions of herself. She may give away the property of her child for no reason other than for control.”

Learning how to effectively defend yourself against unwanted intrusions is not as simple as it might first seem. It is, of course, necessary that you learn new ways of interacting with intrusive or abusive people which will cause them to back off and leave you alone. Less obviously, however, you also have to learn how to recognize and become aware that you are being intruded upon in the first place, and you must also decide that you are a worthy person who does not deserve to be invaded or treated badly. Until you master the latter two tasks, knowledge of the former will not do you much good…

Narcissistic parents violate our boundaries in countless ways, many of them subtle, many of them vehemently overt. A subtle violation could be making plans that include you without getting your consent beforehand, then provoking guilt when you decline. “But Aunt Marge is counting on you being there, Lucretia! Surely you can get out of that committee meeting at work…” An overt violation would be making plans that include you without checking with you first and then being punitive if you decline. “You will be there, young lady, or you can count on your birthday check this year being permanently lost in the mail…”

Narcissistic parents often try to control us simply through expectations. You have always done Thanksgiving and Christmas at Mom and Dad’s house, why should your being married and now having in-laws change that? Just bring the new husband along…or send him to his parents for the holiday alone. Narcissists are notoriously inflexible (unless it is their idea or they can see some benefit to themselves) and so your introduction of the idea of sharing the holidays with your new husband’s family may not be well-received. There may have been a sibling who tried to blaze the trail, so you have heard the feedback via such things as the Thanksgiving prayer that includes “…and thank you, Lord, for our loving family…except Mary, of course, who would rather be part of Brad’s family than ours now…”

The boundary violations that are expressed as silent expectations (that have consequences of guilt or wrath if you don’t comply) are perhaps one of the most common forms. They tend to be the most subtle and the most easily overlooked. Your mother calls and she “needs” you to come over right away—her voice sounds urgent but she won’t tell you what she needs you for. You leave a meeting—or a date—or your grocery cart—or your new lover—to rush to her side only to find out that she “needed” you to open a pickle jar, reach something on a high shelf, hang up a picture, or take her to get her nails done. And she is completely clueless as to why you might be annoyed because your compliance is expected, it is her “normal,” and that does not include you feeling inconvenienced or annoyed with her self-centeredness.

Some NMs expect their adult kids to call them every day, sometimes multiple times per day. Or they call their kids every day, often at critically inconvenient moments like while preparing or eating dinner or putting the children in the bath or to bed. Her disruption of your life and routine is inconsequential to her…because nothing in your life, including your kids, should be as important to you as she is. And if you reach the end of your rope and you lose it, telling her to back off, don’t call during dinner, don’t call every night, don’t be such a pest, you either get guilt-tripped or you get lambasted with her opinion of what an ingrate you are that you can’t spend five minutes on the phone with the woman who endured three days of labour pains to bring you into the world and who gave up a promising career to devote her time and energy, funds and youth to raising you.

One clue into recognizing when your boundaries are being assaulted is that she won’t take “no” for an answer…or that you have been cast into either a superior or subordinate position. Your compliance is expected and she either tries to browbeat or guilt you into acquiescence. You are not being treated as an equal with whom she negotiates or, if a negotiated agreement cannot be reached, withdraws gracefully and respectfully.

Once you know your boundaries are being violated, what do you do? It is easy enough to say “you set new boundaries with your NM and then you defend them,” but what, exactly, does that mean?

Let’s say your NM calls you three times a day and once she has you on the phone, she won’t hang up. This disrupts your work, your family life, your social life, and all of your attempts to get her off the phone meet with limited success, at best. If you take an abrupt tactic, like saying, “I gotta go Mom, my boss is headed this way,” and hang up the phone, on her next call she will be hurt that you hung up on her, so now you have to deal with that, as well.

So the first thing you do is you have to set a boundary with Mom…and for a boundary to work, it has to have a consequence (which you must enforce, or there is no point in doing this). For this Mom, you might call her and say “Mom, I need you to call me less often, and no more calls at work. I am going to make myself available to you from 6 pm to 6:15 every evening and you can call me then, but if you call any other time, I won’t pick up the phone.” This, of course, assumes you have Caller ID or some other way of knowing it is her. Then, you stick to it—if she calls at 10 in the morning, you simply do not pick up the phone.

Now, some NMs are crafty little weasels and try to come up with ways to get around your ban. If she figures out you are using Caller ID to monitor her calls, she may borrow a friend’s cell phone or call from an unknown location to get past that. So what do you do then? In the off change that this might be an emergency, the moment you recognize her voice you say (interrupting her, if necessary) “Is someone injured or dead? Why are you calling me at this time of day?” Of course someone in the family is sick or dying, you make the exception…but if they are not, you say… “Mom, I am at work and I can’t talk now. Call me this evening at our regular time,” then hang up on her.

You have to toughen up if you want to do this because she will redouble her efforts to re-take control of your relationship with her. Because by setting and enforcing boundaries, that is what you have done—you have taken control of the relationship: you are setting the ground rules, calling the shots, handing out consequences for violations of the rules. And having control wrested from their hands does not sit well with NMs, whether they are the ignoring or engulfing type, whether they are of the overwhelming bombastic variety or the sweet little old “butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth” kind. They want their relationship with you to be on their terms and by setting boundaries and enforcing them, you take the power away from them and they are guaranteed not to like it.

How your NM responds will be unique to her. Some will be indignant and call you out, others will pretend compliance and try to get around the new rules with feigned emergencies or pretended lack of understanding. Others will retaliate by withholding things they think are important to you while still others will comply superficially, but use the new situation as a source of Nsupply from their friends and family members. Some may even cut all contact with you in retaliation, but put the blame on you for the purpose of getting Nsupply from others. You are going to be the bad guy, make no mistake about it, but it is the only way you can reclaim control of your life, so you are going to have to deal with the censure as it comes.

It is not going to help to confront your NM about her sympathy seeking ways, in fact, it may exacerbate them if she knows it bothers you. The only confrontation is to be firm about the boundaries and if she violates them repeatedly, make the consequences more draconian than before. “If you call me at work one more time, I will not take a call from you for a week,” or whatever means enough to her to give her pause.

A friend of mine who is blessed not only with an NM but with an NMIL as well, constantly fields fantasy stories…truth re-imagined and re-written to make saints out of sinners, or phantasmagoric gossip that my friend knows is grossly exaggerated and sometimes even fabricated. Her two Ns are also Olympic-level complainers about everything and anything, which can be extremely wearing over a period of time. My friend has found it helpful to simply say to the N of the moment “I do not want to discuss Mr. Frisbee’s prostate surgery…or anybody else’s surgery, for that matter…and if you bring it up again, I will go home/turn the car around and take you home/hang up the phone…” She only had to follow through on her threat a few times for her NM and NMIL to get the point: respect her boundaries or there will be a consequence.

And that is the key to successful setting and maintaining boundaries with an N: make a boundary clear, announce the penalty for violation, then exact that penalty without hesitation or remorse. And if that doesn’t work, make the penalty stronger and keep escalating it until it does work.

The kinds of boundaries your NM may violate are legion. Let’s say you limit the amount of sweets your children are allowed to have and you hand them out as rewards for good behaviour, grades, completing chores, etc. And let’s say that when you let your kids spend a day with their grandparents, one set of grandparents respects your views on child rearing (even if she privately disagrees) and the other discounts and disrespects you completely, feeding your kids sugary cereals, giving them candy all day, and sugared soft drinks instead of milk with their meals. When you ask her not to do that, she tells you, “Oh, it’s OK, I’m Grandma and I’m allowed to indulge them!” Or suppose you go to the school to pick your child up and she’s gone, only to be told “Her grandmother picked her up,” and you don’t know which grandmother or why she came for your child. Suppose you have told your mother that your son cannot have violent video games because they affect his behaviour and she buys him the latest blood-and-guts game because “he wanted it and you can’t tell me what to get my grandbabies for Christmas…” All of these are examples of disrespectful behaviour towards you and your autonomy and all of them need boundaries set and enforced. And depending on how recalcitrant your NM is, the consequences you prescribe can be mild to a law-enforcement intervention severe.

I have heard of NMs coming into their adult daughter’s homes and rearranging the furniture, taking items from the home (including jewellery and clothing). I have heard of NMs, upon learning that their daughter is having a party to which they are not invited, showing up anyway, with friends in tow, virtually daring the daughter to shut the door in her face. I have heard of NMs inviting themselves along on vacations, honeymoons and second honeymoons, attempting to dominate wedding planning (even reserving a venue she liked but the bride didn’t). There is no aspect of your life that your NM cannot try to insert herself into, from your love life to your employment to your credit.

Some NMs, the more malignant ones, may go even further. I have heard of stolen identities, check fraud, tax fraud (claiming you as a dependent when you aren’t), credit fraud, trying to gain custody of grandchildren by smearing the reputation of the parent, false accusations of immoral and/or criminal activity. If this is how they react to boundary setting, then you are dealing with a more pathological personality and probably should give some serious consideration to going No Contact.

There is an old saying that “if you want something to change, you have to change something.” Your NM is not going to change how she interacts with you because it is working for her so, if it is not working for you, you are the one who has to change something. Setting boundaries is a really good place to start.

Sources: 

https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/setting-boundaries-appropriately/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_boundaries#Narcissism_and_boundaries

http://www.ehow.co.uk/facts_5538042_effects-narcissistic-mother.html

http://narcissistschild.blogspot.co.za/2012/10/superior-subordinate-equal.html

http://narcissistschild.blogspot.co.za/2012/10/superior-subordinate-equal-pt-2-doing-it.html

http://narcissistschild.blogspot.co.za/2012/11/the-art-of-no-contact-part-1.html

Next: Sanity and Perspective through Journaling