Are You Effing Insane?

People inquire: “Aren’t you afraid people will think you’re angry, impossible, and insane?” And the truth is many people have thought that about me, and for years I was those things from having not learned how to navigate such trouble waters.  My family relied on me reacting poorly to abuse, with insanity, so they could justify being abusive.  Even if I am, does that make it ok to destroy my co-parenting relationship and to alienate my children?  I do not think so.  Now that I do not scream, swear, or threaten in response to being bullied, they are left only with their own behavior to contemplate…if they were capable or willing.  I stopped offering the gift of distraction with my outrageous reactions, years ago.  I learned to say No.  Period. It was the beginning of the end. (more…)

Stonewalling-How it Works

Stonewalling is a tactic commonly used by bullies wanting to control, humiliate, and frustrate a target who attempts to resolve a conflict through reasonable discussion or negotiation. Accusations of mental deficiency, harassment, and even bullying, are other typical methods of asserting dominance, intimidating the target, and discouraging objections to the abuse from both victim and bystanders. To the insightful observer, these behaviors reveal the bully’s true motivations.

I cannot help but marvel at the abundance of information on this matter and the unwillingness of so many to consider the validity and the reality of this abuse.  I will continue sharing and speaking up.  It helps more than it hurts.  Speak up.  Never feel ashamed when someone is abusive to you.  They will be sneaky about it and insistent that it is only your inability to understand or relate to the goodness of them.  Alienation and maintenance and denial of conflict are all part of the wizardry.   Abusers are elevated by the compliance and silence of bystanders.  I believe there are others who need and deserve elevation more–and will even be so grateful as to pay it forward.    Abuse is not justifiable.  Knowingly taking action and speaking words that harm others, particularly children is FOUL.  I can think of no other word–perhaps, criminal.

Relief Is Available–Name It to Tame It

http://www.janeclapp.com/attachment-deficiencies-and-emotional-hunger/

Living with lack of safe and secure attachment means we look for it until we find it. And, when we are particularly hungry due to lack of attachment food, we take what we find on the path. Our survival depends on it. That’s what our evolution has dictated until recent times. Not belonging to a tribe meant we might die.  And now, that’s how it still feels in our bodies.  Sometimes, the emotional hunger subsides when we realize food isn’t coming and we try to numb out sensations of hunger. We numb out all over because emotional hunger is a whole body thing. We need to not fall apart until our next meal arrives or is discovered. We find many ways to distract ourselves from real hunger for food, don’t we? Same goes for emotional hunger. But the numbing only lasts as long as it over powers our need to attach. Some people turn to stronger sources of numbing: food, drugs, work, spending money, gambling, sex, etc etc.

Yet the hunger grows as we get older, crying to be fed or to be healed. One or the other, isn’t it? The holes in us get bigger or smaller. They don’t stay the same. 

If we don’t heal our original attachment deficits, we might off load our emotional hunger onto our kids.

We might think we are loving our kids but we might actually be trying to feed our emotional hunger through the love and attachment we want our kids to have for us. Over involvement, resisting our kids’ individuating, lacking boundaries, thinking attachment means staying overly engaged in our kids lives as they grow into adults can be some signs. We can’t have emotional hunger truly fed by a partner so we will look at the next best thing, our kids. We might think we are loving our kids but we might be actually showing love SO THAT we get fed by them and they fill that empty space in us. Sometimes our kids will pick up on our holes and scramble to make sure we are ok because them being ok depends on us being ok.

Emotional hunger is a whole body, whole organism sensation. It’s painful. Empathic people feel other people’s pain. 

To feel it, we might be swallowed up by it. If we don’t have enough food, all we can think of is food, no?. If we didn’t have the safe and healthy attachment we needed in our childhoods, the emotional nourishment we need to grow our spirits and minds and hearts, it’s like trying to grow healthy bones out of empty calories, out of Fruit Loops or, even worse, saw dust.

We take it from people we know we should stay away from when in so many ways they show us we should turn away. Turning away means sitting with the ache of emotional hunger. We rejoice in those moments we feel full. But they don’t last. Attachment deficits leave holes in us that need repair. They need the spiritual power of grief to heal. They need the sting of pain or even anger to be signalled into repair. The kind of pure pain that isn’t clouded by dramatic endings or beginnings. To repair, the original source of these wounds needs to be felt and held and guided into a new type of wholeness that has nothing to do with getting what we really really wanted. They require giving up on those people we so wish could have or would have or should have but have no ability to repair the damage. We have to grow up now without the people we wished could have ushered us into adulthood as relatively whole, with heart and spirit bellies full of attachment food. 

That original pain is the alchemist. We can learn to come back to life to ourselves when we can see that living with that emotional hunger won’t kill us, won’t eat us up from the inside. Medicating it with temporary fixes never lets it repair. We can’t run from it. It’ll catch up with us eventually. Today, we have even easier ways to run from it like shopping for people in online catalogues coupled with sped up intimacy via constant texting and contact.  

Online dating is like Uber Eats for people living with an attachment deficit.

We can chase away the emotional hunger with a new fix. We never have to sit with it. We can escape with simply turning to our phones for some empty calories anytime we want. Sure, some of us with attachment deficiencies might ‘luck out’ and find ‘the one’ who can lead us to healing. I’m a skeptic though. The fantasy of THE ONE is another temporary cure for emotional hunger.  Even drifting off into the fantasy in our minds can fill those attachment deficits for moments at a time. We dissociate from our pain when we get pulled into the dream world that someone can permanently take away the pain of what we didn’t get.

There is hope.

We aren’t meant to walk this road to wholeness alone. Just like we weren’t able to survive alone from the time we were born, when we needed the emotional nourishment to grow a healthy spirit and heart. We can repair those holes with the help of people who get it. Childhood trauma and attachment experts get it, the ones who know we are more than brains and minds. They can be part of holding us so we no longer look for escape in dissociative behaviours that temporarily take the sting away.

Humans have experienced traumas from the beginning of our history. The difference now is that we have this pervasive idea that we should be able to recover outside a tribe or community.  There was always a healer in a tribe. We need to find our wise healers who know how to bring us into wholeness again. We need the wisdom and care and love that can’t be found in one person alone. We need each other. We can get enough attachment nourishment from people we don’t need to dissociate around, which includes the people from our original tribe that might be fast asleep from their own attachment deficits.

We can learn to replace our emotional hunger with a capacity to choose the quality of our nourishment. We can learn to say no to food that is empty and lacking. At some point, we might be able to sit with the feeling of waking up to our pain, like a leg that was asleep coming back to life. It doesn’t feel good for a while. But, at least we get the use of our leg back.

At least we stop filling ourselves up and never feeling full.  

by Jane Clapp (another hero)

 

Truth Speaking–Amen

Definition of amen  (this is highly relevant)

  1. —used to express solemn ratification (as of an expression of faith) or hearty approval (as of an assertion)

Dear Maggie,

 
I don’t know how many times we can tell you directly and indirectly, that the only problem is you.  You have always been impossible.   When people behave badly to you it is because you need to change….not because they have work to do on themselves.  It is not that they are incapable of being loving.  It is your unworthiness.  Clearly.  None the less, we would allow you to join US for dinner.
 
Meeting Randy and collaborating with someone who knows you to be as difficult as we do has been like a breath of fresh air.  Totally affirming.  As soon as you do as we like- transform yourself into someone who does not cause others to be abusive, and withholding, we will be ready to consider this healthy connection you claim to want.  Until then, there is really nothing we can or are willing to do.
 
It is not that we are unloving— so much as that you are and always have been unlovable.  As soon as you acknowledge this and get to work on it, we will be ready for something better.  If you have discomfort around us, that is your problem.  why must you try to make us concern ourselves.  Don’t you get it, you are responsible for your own bad feelings as well as for ours.  you have no power to change or discuss, only option is to pretend.  Just do it!
 
That you worked through a litigious divorce after a loveless marriage to move here in partnership with Randy is miraculous.  To have forfeited that just by being you and all that you may have said or done in the previous 4 decades is unfortunate.  We claim to not be angry but seize every opportunity to discuss with others your sins…that we are not mad about.
 
In spite of being the mean spirited bully you always have been, we would allow you to sit at our table.  You don’t even have to thank us.  The truth is we want access to your boys and will do anything to have it— but work though OUR mess.  Having Randy has been a nice way to circumvent this.  He is so willing and accommodating.  Even he might forgive you if you would just do as you are told. The boys are old enough to handle the added stress of this triangulation. 
 
Please stop asking to heal the damage.  The divisive email was necessary and we choose to be in charge of the division and expect you to just accept your lot and come when called.
 
 Just take your well-earned licks and chalk it up to sucking and saying unfortunate things over the course of your life.  You owe us.   We will never directly acknowledge or apologize for any word or action of our own. 
 
While we have compromised the quality of our relationships with your boys, we are confident that over time we can win them with cool gifts and parties and compliments..  Rest assured this email will go unanswered as do most or we will respond affirming our rightness and your unworthiness as Frank did 20 years ago and again from Catherine each time you refused an uncomfortable gathering over the last 10 years.  We hate the way you handle your pain AND are unwilling to acknowledge that we have anything to do with the strain you feel in our company. 
 
We like to tell others how you flipped out at our therapy session and had to leave the room.  We don’t tell them why or that you were pregnant and had an eleven month old– and miscarried on that day…just that you are a disaster.  Again, we would let you come back despite the fact we have insured you can never truly be comfortable with those included in the family email your sister graciously composed in order to save the family.    She would do anything for OUR family, including let you come back to it.
 
From,
 
The Collective

I was cleaning out my email and came across this affirming “sentiment” from my female sibling.  Affirming because for nearly 5 decades she undermined and diminished me while engaging in schemes and conversations intended to convey love, concern, and a true desire for peace and unity.  FOO always claiming it is I who misunderstands what is really going on.  That I don’t get it.  My confusion and delusion are the only real issues.  I totally get it!  And yes, that shit is confusing.

AMEN

So, Feeling distraught by the confusion and pain of the claims my sister makes, to want family in conjunction with her oppositional and divisive initiatives, I composed the below email- sharing how it looks from my side and sent it to my FOO from my work email address.  I wanted to let my mother and sister know how I experience them.  Foolishly, I anticipated a response, like OMG, how awful that you think that.  How terrifying and painful.  We must talk.  Sooooo, not what happened.

The pic shows my sister’s singular response of Amen, copied to my mother and me and the only concern expressed, after realizing they had exposed themselves, was “what kind of sicko would write that letter?”  Well, I suppose a deeply wounded soul would write that with hopes of being acknowledged or allowed to share more directly.  Would an equally good question be “What kind of sickO would say AMEN??”  or what sort of mother promotes this between her children?  After they understood that it was to/from me and that undeniable truth–  revealed unapologetically in writing– had been provided, there was no effort to elevate and no way to deny the state of things.  The thought of my children in their presence is nauseating.

Above is the email from me firstinitial.lastname@workemail….  (Since they never respond, I assumed they had me blocked from my personal email)   Remember, I wrote this!  They didn’t recognize the email address and approved of the sentiments to include me in their responses.  One more time my sister shows her teeth and her ass and everyone turns it around, as if that one word in response to that letter is anything but hate.

Oh wait, it gets better.  While there is no judgment or questioning of my sister’s behaviors devastate MY family, it is the widely held belief that she is of maximum service to us as a unit– and that my unwillingness to sit at the table with her or any group of people who behave this way is problematic, withholding, unreasonable, on my part.  Oh  Okaaay.  Who could survive and mange that for nearly 5 decades without being disturbed.  I own that I am deeply disturbed by this disturbing relationship.  To not be disturbed would be sociopathic, IMHO.

If I can capture her other wrathful other email in a pic, I may post at a later date.  She ccd all of her family and my ex-inlaws.  I just don’t see how she gets any credit for kindness or wholesomeness.  Her behavior right now today in the present is hateful.  The only miracle is in my knowing that is a reflection of her, not me.  Recovering from this, while living in close proximity requires a lot of sharing.

 

Our Feelings Can Teach Us

Aaaah Sweet Enlightenment… after having grown up being told people cause other people’s bad behavior…but not their good behavior. My recovery teaches me otherwise and this quote perfectly reflects recent encounters and connections I have had with people whom I was unkind to…before I knew better. ((( Before learning healthy ways of working through difficult feelings and managing myself– rather than wasting my efforts and will to become worthy of non-abuse connection with the people I was counting on.))) (more…)

Jeff Brown Wisdom on Spiritual and Emotional Healing

So many people get judged when they refuse to put their pain away. They get judged for showing it, for speaking it, for insisting on sharing their memories of abuse with those they know. I am not talking about those who overwhelm strangers with their stuff- I am talking about legitimate sharings with those they are connected with in daily life, including those who abused them. All too often, they are fed one repressive message or another: “Don’t look back,” “What’s done is done,” “Don’t be a victim,” “Your feelings are an illusion,” “Be strong.” What is ironic about this is that those who insist on embodying and expressing their feelings are actually the brave ones- unwilling and unable to live a false life. Their stuff is breaking through their defenses because they are tired of carrying the weight of buried truths. They want a healthier and more authentic life. Those who seek to shame their revealing are actually less courageous- turning to repressive mantras in an effort to bypass their own unresolved feelings and memories. If they can shut others down, they can remain shut down themselves. But shut down doesn’t take us anywhere good. If we don’t deal with our stuff, it deals with us. Speak UP!

This excerpt taken directly from Jeff Brown’s Face Book Page.  Jeff Brown-Soul Shaping.  Go there for more life saving, life-changing wisdom.  Thank you, Jeff Brown for Speaking Up!

And always remember, people that need to silence or diminish you, to debate the validity of your experience…those are not your people.  Be a light, speak up.  Sharing is caring–100% the wholesome and trademark behavior of courageous badasses, and too much for others.

Triangulation-How It Works

Triangulation can occur in any relationship, but it is very common in a relationship with a narcissist. It may happen at home, at work, with friends, or within in family of origin. He may pit you against another woman, several other women, his mother, his friends, or any other person he can get to engage in his “victim-playing” who is willing to serve the role he assigns. He may also adopt the role of Persecutor to assign blame or Rescuer to maintain control of his image. In the end, this travel around the triangle is how he dumps shame and finds someone to blame for his misery. If there is always a role to play, there is always a way to escape responsibility by shifting the position on the triangle.

The answer to the exhaustive push and pull of a triangulated dynamic in a relationship with a narcissist is to simply step off the triangle and refuse to play. It’s a game you cannot win.

Control by Triangulation
If all else fails, the abuser recruits friends, colleagues, family members, the authorities, institutions, neighbours, any third party – to do his bidding. He uses them to cajole, coerce, threaten, stalk, offer retreat, tempt, convince, harass, communicate and otherwise manipulate his target. He controls these unaware instruments exactly as he plans to control his ultimate victim. He employs the same mechanisms and devices. And he always dumps, his props, unceremoniously when the job is done.
Another form of control by triangulation is to engineer situations in which abuse is inflicted upon another person. Such carefully crafted scenarios of embarrassment Narcissist's Prayerand humiliation provoke social sanctions (condemnation, opprobrium, social exclusion and shame) against the victim. In this instance, society becomes the instrument of the abuser .By clever seduction, through words and posturing, he entices his pawns to do his dirty work for him. Unaware, they exclude his victim, being persuaded by his rendition of truth, they take up his cause and his right and align themselves against the one he controls.

The malignant narcissist creates perpetual triangles around the one he desires to control. He sees through these eyes, eyes with no empathy, that perpetuates constant, residual torment, for his partner. Claiming that he is being tormented by his victim, he creates rescuers who then torment his victim, thinking they are protecting him from the “bully”. Doing this through his friendships, family members, associates and whoever he can entice; he remotely views his operation, like a director of a movie. In other words, he will frame a picture and put his secondary supply in that frame,the borders always being the shape of a triangle and the picture within, being a distorted truth he propagates. Usually, the claims he makes of his victim are the truth of himself and while hiding behind his victim, he will spin doctor and gaslight until he gets his desired result. Defamation of character and destroying the credibility of the one he victimizes is his goal. He convinces his pawns that his victim is the persecutor and he is the victim. The naked eye cannot see this game of illusions and that is why he engages others into his web. They do for him what he orchestrates in secret.

All I can say is wow.  I copied this entire post from Sea of Glass on FB You can click anywhere on the post to go directly to her site.  Every word is relevant to my current experience with my sister and my ex and I could not say it better.  None of the above words are my own, although they clearly define my experience to a tee.  If you see it happening, do not be a bystander.  This makes people want to die….Seriously devastating.  

Then You Win

To me, winning means I get to discover and choose to be my best me.  I get to strive spiritually every day, to live in ways that are right for my family(loyalty family, not blood relations) and unharmful to others, though perhaps unpopular.  In my family of origin, they do not make the distinction between being unpopular and behaving in ways that are harmful.  They retaliate at anything displeasing/irreverent to them, with action and words that diminish and degrade.

My winning means, I do not fight.  I do not submit.  I just live and speak my truth- accept the unpopularity of my boundaries and choices and the consequences imposed by a FOO, feeling righteously in charge.  Winning means letting people be, without attacking, pretending, playing small or being silent.  Winning means speaking up in ways that are true and necessary for myself and others who may not yet have the courage.  Courage is winning.  I do not win against anyone.  I win against the urge to engage in ways that are unwholesome.

Modeling newly learned recovery principles and authenticity for my boys is WINNING.  Winning has nothing to do with them.  I fight old urges, the ways of my upbringing, and historical reactions to insane behavior that feels to me, like abuse.

I win by not engaging.  I win by letting natural consequences speak for themselves as well as those imposed on me.  Sometimes winning is just not giving AF and other times it is totally giving AF and surrendering to God and not THEM or the damage they knowingly do.

What does winning look and feel like to you?

The Difference Is….

I think the most wholesome thing I do for my children is teaching and allowing them to experience and process their feelings, and to acknowledge that while feelings are not universal truths, they are real and not to be debated.  Trusted others do not debate the validity of your emotions or ask you to defend or deny them.  We have a lot of feelings in our home.  Feelings, playing, honesty, boundaries, and healing are messy.  We do the mess!

So, we have the turmoil and tension from the coupling of my sister and my ex and his sister.  And we acknowledge and discuss the ways that presents hardship for us, as a family.  There is no pretending that the unkindness is acceptable, normal  or imagined.  We do not believe that this tension is healthy or a sign of unworthiness or personal failure.  I am proud(yes, proud) that my recovery allows me to do this for them, with hopes that it may be easier for them to discover the gifts of who they are.  When consumed by fear and shame and uncertainty, it is easy to lose your way.  They may still get lost for 1000 other reasons, but it will not be because they have been required by me to pretend to feel, be, or think as if they are someone other than themselves.  How could I love them if I could not know them?  And how could I know them if I did not allow them to be who they are.  Miracles are happening.  The difference in the type of parent I would have been and the type of parent I am– are nothing short of miraculous.  I am far from perfect, but I am damn good to my sons.

Raising mindful children with the value and freedom to be authentic and to seek and treasure others who share that– is wholesome and badass and makes my heart smile.  Squee!  We are not perfect, we make mistakes and hurt and disappoint each other.  We apologize, amend, and comfort.  We ask, we listen, we laugh, heal, and learn to live–truly together, not just under the same roof.  When we eat together, it is not just people at one table, we are all in.  We are each 100% who we are at the table and in our lives together.  If you cannot do it with family, dear gawd, with whom are you supposed to do it?  We do not just live together or share meals and responsibilities.  We belong together.  We are family.  There is a difference.  I love my recovery and MY family!  And you!

Magda Gee

How Upsetting for Children

Thank God for Restraint…….as I surely had none before program.  While I will no longer jump in the ring, the temptation to react to degrading comments is immense.  The boys’ dad just came with his sister to pick up our children, and I asked if the schedule for our Tuesday dinner visit had been changed.  When he answered yes.  I said “No problem, in the future, can you let me know when you make plans for them on my scheduled time?”.  Verfuckenbatim! PS-this is the second request of this nature in the last 2 weeks.  I will continue asking nicely.  I won’t fight about it and I will not pretend for a moment, that it is acceptable.

And his sister sneered and said in front of our boys “on and on she goes”  …going on about what, requesting pertinent information and respect for our legal agreement, and serenity for myself and my boys?  Yes, L, I do…and I will continue to request it no matter how you object.  So grateful for enough recovery to have only, quietly uttered. while closing the door–“Your behavior  is impressive”  Mostly because I know she beleives she is impressive for reasons of which I remain unaware.   Kindness and benevolence are the most impressive things.  by this measure, I have not been impressed in the way in which may be desire.  The perpetual triangulation is impressive, just not in appositive way. Unrecovered me was tempted to say:  “Please shut up”  “And consider the gift of an unexpressed thought, particularly when unwholesome…ummmmkkkkaaaaay? Loving Aunts people do not impose this conflict on their innocent nephews, where it can be avoided.  Check yourself.” (more…)