november 19th, 2004
past anagrams	menu	utb

7:56pm

scroll down for pretty photos, in case u missed them!

look in past anagrams for links to 4 of my cds to download and TONS of "anamates"(mini movies) i have made!
i will get the links in their "proper" places soon. but for now , look back in the past few anagrams in the past 2 days for a plethora of goodness (YEARS worth)!
thank to btripp for the server space! he rules and makes it possible!

and also a TON of yummy pix the last few days in the past few anagrams!

7:48pm

happiness in my day:
something i wrote to pinkpeppercorns

(she gave me some free yarn, bless her soul)

"i recieved your yarn today and it's so beautiful and it made me so happy that i actually CRIED! i've had such a shitty day, and getting it today was the highlight of my entire existence today. *tears* i've never cried about yarn before!
you are so talented and the things you make have such a beautiful soul to them...it oozes love and grace from each thing...i can't even explain it.
it's like they are alive, they truly ARE living creatures.
i know i sound nutty. i'm overly emotional today.

the silk one with the glass leaves...i don't even have words to describe it's grace (i know i am using the words beauty and grace too much, can't think of better ones at the moment). the thinness of the silk, and so soft with the tinkling glass leaves as that added texture..like wind chines, like a sea creature that was made to live in air.
just...you thought it wasn't very "me"..the silk and leaf one, but it so very much is. i don't even know what to say i am overwhelmed by your generosity and humbled by your art.
and the orange mohair, i am going to clutch it all night and sleep with it like a teddy bear, the scraplets are at the side of my bed beaming at me. if u make more of this, i will definietly buy all of it. it's the perfect colour for what i need. it's just...perfect.
you just...you are so wonderful (yes, too much of the word wonderful, too...i know! i need new words but how do i describe??)

you are the best. thank you do much for bringing joy to me today. you are a true artist and an amazing spirit.

(i'm sorry i can't help gushing) "

7:15pm

and one last email to my dad:

"well ,just food for thought.
just say i am a narcissist, for sake of argument.
how does a person get this disorder?
does it just appear out of nowhere?
no, you get it because you were brought up by a narcissistic parent.
that is how it happens. so if i AM a narcissist, one would have to
wonder HOW i got to be that way? the ONLY logical conclusion, if i am
a narcissist, is that one of my parents is a narcissist.
and , of course, i have narcissist traits , we all do. and having been
the child of one, i have to keep a handle on more than most people so
that it doesn't become a disorder.
if you reflect, mom's parents were also very much narcissists. that is
where she got hers from. this isn't a grenade but a very really
disorder that need to be taken seriously. it's not something i am just
lightly throwing around as a weapon or an insult.
i am saying i have really studied this extensively in order to come to
terms with this confusion, and i think it is essential to understand
narcissism in order to comprend (if it can be comprehended at all) to
what is happening here.

it's also, as i have told you, hard to tell the narcissists from the
person "echoing" the narcissist. even professional psychologists can
be fooled because it is such a mirror.

i will try to find some links about what happens with children of
narcissists,too, so you can better understand that , too. even just to
skim it.

because to dismiss this and not even look at it, is, to me, ignoring
the very core of all of this. even if you don't want to call it "that
word", it is something that is very real and many books have been
written about it. it's not just a grenade or an insult. this is a very
serious thing and i'm not just "parroting" the word because mom has
used it so much throughout her life. mom uses the word a lot because
she projects her own traits onto other people, often times.

thank you for at least skimming what i have to say. i know it's a lot
to take in. and i kow it may even bore you, i don't know. and i'm
sorry you are in the middle.
BUT...at the very least...you will at least learn about narcissism
which can help you greatly in many of your dealings with your parish
members when you help them, because this disorder is so prevalent in
our society, that it's almost invisible, since it's EVERYwhere and we
live in such a narcissistic society.

of course there is healthy narcissism, too.

i know this is confusing. and thank you for barely with me.
it's so frustrating to me that you cannot see the way mom is when she
is with me and so all of this seems so far fetched.

but again, if *I* am the one who has NPD (for sake of argument)...how
did i get it?
that is a very important question for which the answer is just as important.

again, i'm not saying mom is this horrible, unfeeling, rotten person
100% of the time. she can be charming and even loving and giving at
times. she was a really wonderful mom, pretty much, up until recetly,
except for the part where i had to take care of her and be the parent
for her all my life and had to be her constant state of emotional
support, as she would tell me throughout my entire childhood that she
was "a horrible mother who was ugly and fat and stupid" and then cry
and then i would have to be the one to boost her self esteeem, which
of course, never worked, because i could never fill that void for her.
and i'm glad she does things for my brother. and as i said, she really has
done some very kind things for me in my life. i'm not trying to
demonize her.
i'm just trying to point out that there IS a sickness going on here
that DOES need to be addressed.

but i don't NEED confirmation for either you or mom to know what my
experience is and what has been happening to be and how what i have
read in these books fits EXACTLY into what i have been experiencing.
and that i am VERY glad to have found at least SOME context to put
this in.

even if you never agree with me, and even if mom thinks i am the crazy one...
i can deal and it makes me sad, but i don't need you to validate what
i know my own experience is. (i don't say that in a snotty way but as
my way of taking the pressure off of you that i somehow need your
validation on this to survive)

i'm sorry is this email comes across as a it harsh. this is hard for
me to talk about, and i am a little bit defensive, i admit. i'm sorry
for that.
i'm just trying so hard to be understood.

but even if i'm not thoroughly understood, i still know who i am and i
don't need you are mom to validate that anymore, as much as i'd like
it.

i appreciate you listening to me and taking time out to read what i have to say.
it means a lot to me.

and i don't expect you to agree with me or to demonize mom, or to even
pick sides.
and i'm not asking you to go tell her anything of what i have said,
and i'd prefer it if you didn't because i've already been through this
a million times with her before.

i don't want you to be in the middle. and i'm not asking you to
mediate this or fix anything between mom and i.

i'm just giving you information because it seems you want to understand.

thank you for caring about me.
and i'm sorry if i am talking too much about myself.
but you did ask, and so i am telling you.

sorry my answers are so long, i have a hard time being succint, as you know.

i love you so much and i hope you are doing ok.

i'm really bummed out to hear about my brother.
in fact, i just feel...very emotional about it.

this is a hard time for the family right now.
i wish we WERE a normal family, but who has a normal family, right?

still...this is so stressful for all of us, and especially for you who
is in the middle of it all and then having to deal with your
congregation and work on top of everything else, this must be giving
you terrible anxiety.
i hope you are hanging in there.
take a bubblebath and have some of that chocolate liquor i have you.

*sigh*

i love you very much!"

7:14pm

more emails to my dad:

"i know you hate when i use the word "narcissism"
but i don't know why.
maybe it is just that you don't know what it is.
so here is some info on it.
it's hard for me to not be able to use this word around you since it
it a word that encapsulates everything and it is the appropriate word,
i feel.
to not let me to express myself in words i feel are essential for me
to express myself correctly, is difficult. it would be like asking
someone to describe a red rose but not be allowed to use the word
"red".
maybe you just have something against labels or diagnosis. and i know
i am not a doctor, but i have also studied this for years now and
bought 10 books on it and read them all and i kow my own experience
and what i see and what my experience is. and it has been essenetial
and so important to me that i have found this besides it describes
EXACTLY what i am going through and gives me MUCH needed context to
make me feel like i'm not the one who si going cazy. because others
have gone through this, too. if it makes you feel any better, just
take the word "narcissism" out of this...because what is important is
this here is not the WORD but is EXACTLY what i am going through with
mom. this is EXACTLY what she is doing and being like to me and to
others. so, call it what you will, but this is my experience of her: i
know this is long, but please read it. or at least skim it. thank you.

taken from:
http://www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/traits.html

The most telling thing that narcissists do is contradict themselves.
They will do this virtually in the same sentence, without even
stopping to take a breath. It can be trivial (e.g., about what they
want for lunch) or it can be serious (e.g., about whether or not they
love you). When you ask them which one they mean, they'll deny ever
saying the first one, though it may literally have been only seconds
since they said it -- really, how could you think they'd ever have
said that? You need to have your head examined! They will contradict
FACTS. They will lie to you about things that you did together. They
will misquote you to yourself. If you disagree with them, they'll say
you're lying, making stuff up, or are crazy. [At this point, if you're
like me, you sort of panic and want to talk to anyone who will listen
about what is going on: this is a healthy reaction; it's a reality
check ("who's the crazy one here?"); that you're confused by the
narcissist's contrariness, that you turn to another person to help you
keep your bearings, that you know something is seriously wrong and
worry that it might be you are all signs that you are not a
narcissist].

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If you're like me, you get into disputes with narcissists over their
casual dishonesty and cruelty to other people. Trying to reform
narcissists by reasoning with them or by appealing to their better
nature is about as effective as spitting in the ocean. What you see is
what you get: they have no better nature. The fundamental problem here
is that narcissists lack empathy.
Lacking empathy is a profound disturbance to the narcissist's
thinking (cognition) and feeling (affectivity). Even when very
intelligent, narcissists can't reason well. One I've worked with
closely does something I characterize as "analysis by eggbeater." They
don't understand the meaning of what people say and they don't grasp
the meaning of the written word either -- because so much of the
meaning of anything we say depends on context and affect, narcissists
(lacking empathy and thus lacking both context and affect) hear only
the words. (Discussions with narcissists can be really weird and
disconcerting; they seem to think that using some of the same words
means that they are following a line of conversation or reasoning.
Thus, they will go off on tangents and irrelevancies, apparently in
the blithe delusion that they understand what others are talking
about.) And, frankly, they don't hear all the words, either. They can
pay attention only to stuff that has them in it. This is not merely a
bad habit -- it's a cognitive deficiency. Narcissists pay attention
only to themselves and stuff that affects them personally. However,
since they don't know what other people are doing, narcissists can't
judge what will affect them personally and seem never to learn that
when they cause trouble they will get trouble back. They won't take
other people's feelings into consideration and so they overlook the
fact that other people will react with feeling when abused or
exploited and that most people get really pissed off by being lied to
or lied about. ^

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Narcissists lack a mature conscience and seem to be restrained only by
fear of being punished or of damaging their reputations -- though,
again, this can be obscure to casual observation if you don't know
what they think their reputations are, and what they believe others
think of them may be way out of touch with reality. Their moral
intelligence is about at the level of a bright five- or six-year-old;
the only rules they recognize are things that have been specifically
required, permitted, prohibited, or disapproved of by authority
figures they know personally. Anyhow, narcissists can't be counted on
not to do something just because it's wrong, illegal, or will hurt
someone, as long as they think that they can get away with it or that
you can't stop them or punish them (i.e., they don't care what you
think unless they're afraid of you). ^

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Narcissists are envious and competitive in ways that are hard to
understand. For instance, one I knew once became incensed over an
article published in a national magazine -- not for its content
exactly, but because she could have written something just as good.
Maybe she could have -- she hadn't, but that little lapse on her part
was beside the point to her. They are constantly comparing themselves
(and whatever they feel belongs to them, such as their children and
furniture) to other people. Narcissists feel that, unless they are
better than anyone else, they are worse than everybody in the whole
world.

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Narcissists are generally contemptuous of others. This seems to
spring, at base, from their general lack of empathy, and it comes out
as (at best) a dismissive attitude towards other people's feelings,
wishes, needs, concerns, standards, property, work, etc. It is also
connected to their overall negative outlook on life. ^

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Narcissists are (a) extremely sensitive to personal criticism and (b)
extremely critical of other people. They think that they must be seen
as perfect or superior or infallible, next to god-like (if not
actually divine, then sitting on the right hand of God) -- or else
they are worthless. There's no middle ground of ordinary normal
humanity for narcissists. They can't tolerate the least disagreement.
In fact, if you say, "Please don't do that again -- it hurts,"
narcissists will turn around and do it again harder to prove that they
were right the first time; their reasoning seems to be something like
"I am a good person and can do no wrong; therefore, I didn't hurt you
and you are lying about it now..." -- sorry, folks, I get lost after
that. Anyhow, narcissists are habitually cruel in little ways, as well
as big ones, because they're paying attention to their fantasy and not
to you, but the bruises on you are REAL, not in your imagination.
Thus, no matter how gently you suggest that they might do better to
change their ways or get some help, they will react in one of two
equally horrible ways: they will attack or they will withdraw. Be wary
of wandering into this dragon's cave -- narcissists will say ANYTHING,
they will trash anyone in their own self-justification, and then they
will expect the immediate restoration of the status quo. They will
attack you and spew a load of bile, insult, abuse, contempt, threats,
etc., and then -- well, it's kind of like they had indigestion and the
vicious tirade worked like a burp: "There. Now I feel better. Where
were we?" They feel better, so they expect you to feel better, too.
They will say you are nothing, worthless, and turn around immediately
and say that they love you. When you object to this kind of treatment,
they will say, "You just have to accept me the way I am. (God made me
this way, so God loves me even if you are too stupid to understand how
special I am.)" Accepting them as they are (and staying away from them
entirely) is excellent advice. The other "punishment" narcissists mete
out is banishing you from their glorious presence -- this can turn
into a farce, since by this point you are probably praying to be
rescued, "Dear God! How do I get out of this?" The narcissist expects
that you will be devastated by the withdrawal of her/his divine
attention, so that after a while -- a few weeks or months (i.e., the
next time the narcissist needs to use you for something) -- the
narcissist will expect you to have learned your lesson and be eager to
return to the fold. If you have learned your lesson, you won't answer
that call. They can't see that they have a problem; it's always
somebody else who has the problem and needs to change. Therapies work
at all only when the individual wants to change and, though
narcissists hate their real selves, they don't want to change -- they
want the world to change. And they criticize, gripe, and complain
about almost everything and almost everyone almost all the time. There
are usually a favored few whom narcissists regard as absolutely above
reproach, even for egregious misconduct or actual crime, and about
whom they won't brook the slightest criticism. These are people the
narcissists are terrified of, though they'll tell you that what they
feel is love and respect; apparently they don't know the difference
between fear and love. Narcissists just get worse and worse as they
grow older; their parents and other authority figures that they've
feared die off, and there's less and less outside influence to keep
them in check. ^

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Narcissists are naive and vulnerable, pathetic really, no matter how
arrogant and forceful their words or demeanor. They have pretty good
reasons for their paranoia and cynicism, their sneakiness,
evasiveness, prevarications. This is the one I get suckered on. They
are so out of touch with other people and what goes on around them
that they are very susceptible to exploitation. On the other hand,
they're so inattentive, and so disconnected from what other people are
up to, that they don't recognize when someone is taking advantage of
them.

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Narcissists are grandiose. They live in an artificial self invented
from fantasies of absolute or perfect power, genius, beauty, etc.
Normal people's fantasies of themselves, their wishful thinking, take
the form of stories -- these stories often come from movies or TV, or
from things they've read or that were read to them as children. They
involve a plot, heroic activity or great accomplishments or adventure:
normal people see themselves in action, however preposterous or even
impossible that action may be -- they see themselves doing things that
earn them honor, glory, love, riches, fame, and they see these fantasy
selves as personal potentials, however tenuous, something they'd do if
they didn't have to go to school or go to work, if they had the time
and the money.
As Freud said of narcissists, these people act like they're in
love with themselves. And they are in love with an ideal image of
themselves -- or they want you to be in love with their pretend self,
it's hard to tell just what's going on. Like anyone in love, their
attention and energy are drawn to the beloved and away from everyday
practicalities. Narcissists' fantasies are static -- they've fallen in
love with an image in a mirror or, more accurately, in a pool of
water, so that movement causes the image to dissolve into ripples; to
see the adored reflection they must remain perfectly still.
Narcissists' fantasies are tableaux or scenes, stage sets; narcissists
are hung up on a particular picture that they think reflects their
true selves (as opposed to the real self -- warts and all).
Narcissists don't see themselves doing anything except being adored,
and they don't see anyone else doing anything except adoring them.
Moreover, they don't see these images as potentials that they may some
day be able to live out, if they get lucky or everything goes right:
they see these pictures as the real way they want to be seen right
now.
Grandiosity can take various forms -- a narcissistic woman may
believe herself to be the very model of perfect womanhood, the
standard by which all others are measured, and she will try to force
her daughters to be just like her, she will not be able to cope with
daughters who are taller or shorter than she is, fatter or thinner,
who have bigger or smaller feet, breasts, teeth, who have different
favorite colors than hers, etc. Narcissistic men can be infatuated
with their own looks, too, (witness John Cheever, for instance; Almost
Perfect) but are more likely than women to get hung up on their
intelligence or the importance of their work -- doesn't matter what
the work is, if he's doing it, by definition it's more important than
anything you could possibly do. Narcissists I've known also have odd
religious ideas, in particular believing that they are God's special
favorites somehow; God loves them, so they are exempted from ordinary
rules and obligations: God loves them and wants them to be the way
they are, so they can do anything they feel like -- though, note, the
narcissist's God has much harsher rules for everyone else, including
you. [Many readers have questions about narcissism and religion. Here
is an interesting article on the Web: "Narcissism Goes to Church:
Encountering Evangelical Worship" by Monte Wilson. "Modern American
Christianity is filled with the spirit of narcissism. We are in love
with ourselves and evaluate churches, ministers and truth-claims based
upon how they make us feel about ourselves. If the church makes me
feel wanted, it is a good church. If the minister makes me feel good
about myself, he is a terrific guy. If the proffered truth supports my
self-esteem, it is, thereby, verified."] ^

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Narcissists have little sense of humor. They don't get jokes, not even
the funny papers or simple riddles, and they don't make jokes, except
for sarcastic cracks and the lamest puns. This is because, lacking
empathy, they don't get the context and affect of words or actions,
and jokes, humor, comedy depend entirely on context and affect. They
specialize in sarcasm about others and mistake it for wit, but, in my
experience, narcissists are entirely incapable of irony -- thus, I've
been chagrinned more than once to discover that something I'd taken as
an intentional pose or humorous put-on was, in fact, something the
narcissist was totally serious about. Which is to say that they come
mighty close to parody in their pretensions and pretending, so that
they can be very funny without knowing it, but you'd better not let on
that you think so. [Interestingly, this is the only trait on this list
about which there seems to be any controversy. Maybe I've just been
unlucky! I've known narcissists who'll make fun of others, repeat
jokes they've heard others laugh at, and laugh at jokes when others
laugh, but knowing how to make people laugh is not necessarily the
same as having a sense of humor.] ^

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Narcissists have a weird sense of time. It's more or less like they
are not aware that the passage of time changes things, or maybe they
just aren't aware of time's passing at all. Years can pass without
touching narcissists. Narcissists often look, or think they look,
significantly younger than they are; this youthful appearance is a
point of pride to them, and some will emphasize it by either
preserving the styles of their golden youth or following the styles of
people the age they feel they "really" are. That their faces don't
show their chronological age is a good sign that they haven't been
living real lives with real life's wear and tear on the looks of
normal people. The narcissists' years have passed without touching
them. Bear in mind that narcissistic adults have had decades of not
being in synch with the times or with other people, so that by now
they are really out of it. Sometimes it just seems like they have a
highly selective memory -- which, of course, they do, sort of; they
pay attention only to what has their name in it in the first place, so
after 30 or 40 years, you shouldn't be surprised to hear a narcissist
say something like, "Didn't the Beatles have a couple of hit songs
while we were in high school?" or to suddenly discover that the
narcissist doesn't know that M&M's have little m's on them or that
smallpox was eradicated over 20 years ago. They are not being ironic:
they really don't know. They were off in their own little world of
fantastic perfection. On the other hand, as far as I've seen, all that
stuff really is in there, but is accessible only intermittently or
unpredictably. Narcissists ordinarily have spotty memories, with huge
and odd gaps in their recollections; they may say that they don't
remember their childhoods, etc., and apparently most of the time they
don't. But they will have sudden accesses of memory, triggered by God
knows what, when they remember details, everybody's names, what people
were wearing, why the people in that picture from 1950 are standing
the way they are, what the weather was like, etc. -- in other words,
every once in a while, their memories will be normal. But don't count
on it. ^

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Narcissists are totally and inflexibly authoritarian. In other words,
they are suck-ups. They want to be authority figures and, short of
that, they want to be associated with authority figures. In their
hearts, they know they can't think well, have no judgment about what
matters, are not connected with the world they inhabit, so they cling
fanatically to the opinions of people they regard as authority figures
-- such as their parents, teachers, doctors, ministers. Where
relevant, this may include scientists or professors or artists, but
narcissists stick to people they know personally, since they aren't
engaged enough with the world to get their authoritative opinions from
TV, movies, books or dead geniuses/saints/heroes. If they get in
trouble over some or another opinion they've put forth, they'll blame
the source -- "It was okay with Dr. Somebody," "My father taught me
that," etc. If you're still thinking of the narcissist as
odd-but-normal, this shirking of responsibility will seem dishonest
and craven -- well, it is but it's really an admission of weakness:
they really mean it: they said what they said because someone they
admire or fear said it and they're trying to borrow that person's
strength. ^

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Narcissists have strange work habits. Normal people work for a goal or
a product, even if the goal is only a paycheck. Normal people measure
things by how much they have to spend (in time, work, energy) to get
the desired results. Normal people desire idleness from time to time,
usually wanting as much free time as they can get to pursue their own
thoughts and pleasures and interests. Narcissists work for a goal,
too, but it's a different goal: they want power, authority, adulation.
Lacking empathy, and lacking also context and affect, narcissists
don't understand how people achieve glory and high standing; they
think it's all arbitrary, it's all appearances, it's all who you know.
So they try to attach themselves to people who already have what they
want, meanwhile making a great show of working hard. Narcissists can
put in a shocking amount of time to very little effect. This is partly
because they have so little empathy that they don't know why some work
is valued more highly than other work, why some people's opinions
carry more weight than others'. They do know that you're supposed to
work and not be lazy, so they keep themselves occupied. But they are
not invested in the work they do -- whatever they may produce is just
something they have to do to get the admiration and power they crave.
Since this is so, they really don't pay attention to what they're
doing, preferring the easiest thing at every turn, even though they
may be constantly occupied, so that narcissists manage to be
workaholics and extremely lazy at the same time. Narcissists measure
the worth of their work only by how much time they spend on it, not by
what they produce. They want to get an A for Effort. Narcissists lack
empathy, so they don't know what others value or why. Narcissists tend
to value things in quantitative ways and in odd quantities at that --
they'll tell you how many inches of letters they received, but not how
many letters or from how many correspondents; they know the price of
everything and the value of nothing.

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Narcissists feel entitled to whatever they can take. They expect
privileges and indulgences, and they also feel entitled to exploit
other people without any trace of reciprocation. ^

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It's very hard to have a simple, uncomplicated good time with a
narcissist. Except for odd spells of heady euphoria unrelated to
anything you can see, their affective range is mediocre-fake-normal to
hell-on-Earth. They will sometimes lie low and be quiet, actually
passive and dependent -- this is as good as it gets with narcissists.
They are incapable of loving conduct towards anyone or anything, so
they do not have the capacity for simple pleasure, beyond the
satisfaction of bodily needs. There is only one way to please a
narcissist (and it won't please you): that is to indulge their every
whim, cater to their tiniest impulses, bend to their views on every
little thing. There's only one way to get decent treatment from
narcissists: keep your distance. They can be pretty nice, even
charming, flirtatious, and seductive, to strangers, and will flatter
you shamelessly if they want something from you. They can be
positively fawning and solicitous as long as they're afraid of you,
which is not most people's idea of a real fun relationship.
I always have the problem that I get fed up and stay away from
THEM long enough to forget exactly what the trouble was, then they
come around again, and every narcissist I've known actually was quite
lovable about half the time so I try it again. A clue: Run for cover
when they start acting normal, maybe expressing a becoming self-doubt
or even acknowledging some little fault of their own, such as saying
they now realize that they haven't treated you right or that they took
advantage of you before. They're just softening you up for something
really nasty. These people are geniuses of "Come closer so I can slap
you." Except that's not the way they think about it, if they think
about it -- no, they're thinking, "Well, maybe you do really care
about me, and, if you really care about me, then maybe you'll help me
with this," only by "help" they mean do the whole thing, take total
responsibility for it, including protecting and defending them and
cleaning up the mess they've already made of it (which they will
neglect to fill you in on because they haven't really been paying
attention, have they, so how would they know??). They will not have
considered for one second how much of your time it will take, how much
trouble it may get you into in their behalf, that they will owe you
BIG for this -- no, you're just going to do it all out of the goodness
of your heart, which they are delighted to exploit yet again, and your
virtue will be its own reward: it's supposed to just tickle you pink
to be offered this generous opportunity of showing how much you love
them and/or how lucky you are to be the servant of such a luminous
personage. No lie -- they think other people do stuff for the same
reason they do: to show off, to perform for an audience. That's one of
the reasons they make outrageous demands, put you on the spot and
create scenes in public: they're being generous -- they're trying to
share the spotlight with you by giving you the chance to show off how
absolutely stunningly devoted-to-them you are. It means that they love
you; that's why they're hurt and bewildered when you angrily reject
this invitation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Appearances are all there is with narcissists -- and their self-hatred
knows no bounds.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Narcissists don't volunteer the usual personal information about
themselves, so they may seem secretive or perhaps unusually reserved
or very jealous of their privacy. All these things are true, but with
the special narcissistic twist that, first, their real life isn't
interesting to them so it doesn't occur to them that it would be
interesting to anyone else and, second, since they have not yet been
transfigured into the Star of the Universe, they're ashamed of their
real life. They feel that their jobs, their friends and families,
their homes and possessions aren't good enough for them, they deserve
better. ^

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Narcissists not only don't recognize the feelings and autonomy of
others, they don't recognize their own feelings as their own. Their
feelings are sort of like the weather, atmospheric, acts of God. The
narcissistic think that everyone's having the same feeling as they
are. This means that usually their own pain means nothing to them
beyond the physical discomfort -- it has no affective component. When
they do get some painful affect, they think that God is punishing them
-- they think that their trivial errors are worth God's specific
attention to their punishment. If you try to straighten them out, by
telling them that your feelings are different, beware: their idea of
sharing their feelings is to do or say something that makes you feel
the way they're feeling and, as they make a point of not sharing
anything desirable, you can expect something really nasty. The sad
fact seems to be that narcissists feel just as bad about themselves as
they make others feel about them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Narcissists are noted for their negative, pessimistic, cynical, or
gloomy outlook on life. Sarcasm seems to be a narcissistic specialty,
not to mention spite. Lacking love and pleasure, they don't have a
good reason for anything they do and they think everyone else is just
like them, except they're honest and the rest of us are hypocrites.
Nothing real is ever perfect enough to satisfy them, so are they are
constantly complaining and criticizing -- to the point of verbal abuse
and insult.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Narcissists are impulsive. They undo themselves by behavior that seems
oddly stupid for people as intelligent as they are. Somehow, they
don't consider the probable consequences of their actions. It's not
clear to me whether they just expect to get away with doing anything
they feel like at the moment or whether this impulsiveness is
essentially a cognitive shortcoming deriving from the static psychic
state with its distorted perception of time. ^

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Narcissists hate to live alone. Their inner resources are skimpy,
static, and sterile, nothing interesting or attractive going on in
their hearts and minds, so they don't want to be stuck with
themselves. All they have inside is the image of perfection that,
being mere mortals like the rest of us, they will inevitably fall
short of attaining.

3:31pm

i wake to a concerned email from my dad because my mom told him that i had cut myself once. god.
what...is my mom calling my dad EVERYDAY with some new evidence that i am crazy?
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.
SO DRAINING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

my answer:

"i did once, long ago, cut my arm (not wrist), not in any sort of
suicide attempt.
it wasn't deep at all, more like cat scractchs and it all healed in a
few days with no scars.
i thought it would help, because if i've heard of that sort of thing
helping people calm down if they have a lot of anxiety.
and i had so much anxiety i thought i'd, stupidly and overlydramaticly, try it.
anyway, it did nothing for me except make me feel really dumb and i
won't be repeating anything like that ever again.
i'd never done anything like that before and i have no desire to do it again.
lesson learned on how dumb that was.
i can be overly dramatic and "gothic" at times.
but i'm not van gogh about to cut my ear off.

i really wish mom would stop talking to you about me and making things
seem worse than they are. and telling you things that are over and
done with because i feel she is trying to make me look crazy. and
things i tell her in confidence i don't exactly want repeated
sometimes because it's embarrassing to me. extremely.

especially since that was just a one time thing done out of pain and
desperation and stupidity.

i am NOT self harming myself now. i've never done it in the past
(except that once) and will not repeat it in the future. i just had so
much my pain that day and anxiety i didn't know how to release it
properly. now i know that was a dumb thing and it didn't even work,
anyway. it just made every thing worse and so i'm glad that is in my
past. it's embarrassing.

and i wish to god she would just shut up now about me because THIS is
giving me terrible anxiety that she just keeps telling you stuff about
me and trying to make me look crazy. and it's just so hurtful to me
and i wish she'd just stop it.
this isn't the 1st time that i have told her things about me and she
has turned them against me to make me look crazy.
she even tried to say that because of all my anxiety and depression in
the past and because i have been on medication for it in the past,
this makes me psychotic...(as if she, herself, has not been depressed
and anxious and taken medication for it.). she said that to the
therapist when when saw her those few times. i couldn't BELIEVE she
was trying to set me up as psychotic because in the past i had been
depressed and anxious!
it's NORMAL to be depressed and anxious if things are happening in
ones life that are anxious and depressing. to NOT be anxious and
depressed over some of the things i have been through in this life
would NOT a a normal reaction. and taking medication for it,
throughout the years here and there, is not some shameful thing i
should be made to feel defective and crazy about...which she tried to
make me feel that i was.
when we saw that therapy together, and mom kept bringing this up that
i had this "past that had anxiety and depression" and so therefore, i
am "psychotic". that was so hurtful to me that she would,, after all
these years of pretending to understand and be empathetic, use my
anxiety and depression and ammunition against me to make me look nuts.
i'm not NUTS just because i have been depressed amd anxious over
things any SANE person would be depressed and anxious about. and
anxiety and depression over normal things doesn't make a person
"psychotic". that is ridiculous.

in the past few years, whenever i had been a bit anxious ever
something she would flippantly say to me "isn't that just a little bit
psychotic?". then she would tell me later she was "just kidding". haha
very funny.

i realize the cutting thing i did ONCE was a bit on the crazy side.
that is the only "crazy" thing i've ever done. please forgive my
mistake and stupidity.
i know i am can be an "overly dramatic volatile artist", but that
doesn't make me "psychotic". i'm not delusion and hallucinating, i'm
nervous!
i'm not perfect and we ALL do stupid things once in awhile and as long
as we learn from it and never repeat the mistakes, then that is a good
and healthy thing.

and just in case she is also bringing up the time i was withdrawing
from paxil (which is a terrible terrible drug i was on for my anxiety
because of her, and that drug should be illegal) because i've noticed
she also likes to take that completely out of context as further proof
of my psychosis....paxil causes a terrible terrible withdrawal for
which thousands of people are now sueing. and when i was withdrawing
from it i DID feel crazy, that is part of the withdrawal process and
NOT my fault, almost every one goes through it when they withdrawl
from paxil. but she likes to use this as an illustration that i was
losing my mind because i was truly crazy and not because i was
withdrawing from paxil. and that is so not fair.

here are the symptoms of withdrawing from paxil
http://join-the-fun.com/paxil-withdrawal-symptoms.html

for the longest time she thought i was psychotic, also because she
read in my journal about my wihdrawal from paxil. WHY she doesn't read
the ENTIRE thing to put it into context, i don't know. she even
believes EVERYTHING she reads on the net about me. people say mean
things about in some groups, just to be mean.
things like "i am pregnant and feeding the child liquor" (???) and
that i am a druggie (because , pardon me, i was taking prescribed
medication for my anxiety and depression, i guess that makes me a
junkie in some people's eyes?)
she even believed i was "f--cking goats" and god knows what else
because of dumb things people have written about me. she believed this
stuff for YEARS never bothering (like the rest of her family) to ever
ask me directly what these things were about. it's so frustrating!!!
now she says "oh, i never believed those things"...but at the time she
told me that she was so relieved when i told her those things weren't
true (why had she just not ASKED me?? and feeding my child which i do
not have LIQUOR and f--cking goats?? i mean COME ON!)

however, if she just keeps continuing and this brings up questions for
you about my safety then by all means, ask away so that you can put
your heart at ease as to what the truth of the matter is.
because i certainly don't want to you to be scared about me and at
least you have the respect to ask me , i person, what my side of the
story is which is more than i can say for her family.

for instance, john hood, mom's sister sharon's husband.
emailed me the other day "out of the blue"
and told me he was trying to look up things i might have said about my
mom in my lj because sharon asked him to (which i seriously doubt,
because sharon emailed me a few years ago with a horribly vicious
email about how i am a pathetic whore and she hates my site). i think
he was just skulking around my site for "other reasons", but for
whatever reason it creeps me out he is is visiting my site when his
wife hates it. and i asked him if it ever occurred to any of them to
just ASK me, personally, what is going on instead of spying on my and
gossiping up there like a bunch of old ladies at bingo waggling their
fingers at me. i told him i wasn't just some little "online game" he
can play when he gets bored.

of course i heard nothing back from them because none of them have the
guts to contact me directly and get it out in the open and ask the
source and be MATURE about it. it's more fun to gossip and feel
morally superior and once in awhile go to my site and ooo and ahhh and
then pray for me.

it makes me want to just give them all my passwords to my site and let
them all have at it and get it out of their system. because i'd rather
they all waggle their fingers about me over things i've ACTUALLY said
and done instead of all their hurtful gossip and speculation.

you are the only famliy member i have that doesn't talk behind my back
and actually has the maturity, respect, and decency to ask me directly
what is going on with me.

and i thank you for that.

but ya, i'm not psychotic, delusional, suicidal, hallucinating, or any
of these things.

i'm just DEPRESSED and ANXIOUS which is completely understandably
given the circumstances.

and fyi, here is the "lies" i am "spreading" about my mom on the internet.
http://www.anacam.com/mother.html
i gave that URL to 2 of her "friends" the friends she was guilting me
out and pressuring me to "set the record straight" with. her "friends"
she doesn't even care about and who had also had enough of her, with
no input from me , at this point whatsoever. so i set the record
straight. but wasn' telling them anything they didn't already know or
suspect. these aren't "lies". everything i write in there actually
happened.

and i did it because she was blaming me and guilting me out for not
setting the record straight, and also because SHE had convinced many
of them that *I* was crazy. oh yes, she wrote her own tirades against
me in her own journal, too. it's not like she hasn't done the exact
same thing, making people think *I* am the crazy one.

anyway....
if there is anythig else you want to know, let me know.
i'm sick of people speculating and i just want to set the matter
straight, at least for my end of the story.

sorry to be so long winded, but this is complicated and i like to be
complete in my answers."

 

5:31am

mouseovers:

5:04am

i wish i could get to sleep.

 

12:56am