The Fake Agent

                                         [picture source]

Some years ago, after I had my 400lb plus weight gain, I wanted to write a book about fat people and what happened to me. My husband had a book published years ago. This blog is unedited, and written off the top of my head but I thought with an in-house editor, it would be doable. I still have at least 7 chapters of this unpublished book in my files from the mid to late 1990s.

Some of the earliest articles on this blog are snippets from that book manuscript. This happened to me around 12 years ago when I had met this guy who ran a local writing group and ran a book store in a city around 45 minutes away from my old town and had dreams of publishing a book. He told me he worked as a book agent helping people achieve their writing dreams. He had published a few alternative press books himself. I am still work on my comic which has now reached 100 panels--yes I know I am extremely slow with the health struggles but had book dreams for many years. Wouldn't the story be more interesting now with my Lipedema diagnosis and breaking free of my narcissistic family? Anyhow perhaps the zine world will embrace me with open arms as the blog world has.

"Random House is interested in your proposal", he said! I knew he had gotten a deal for another guy. Everyone considered Bob [not his real name] a nice guy and recommended him highly. He was a bearded rather elfin looking man right out of the 1960s but clean cut and owned a bookstore and ran writers classes including an author's seminar at the local library. No one ever suspected he was a con artist until after he died.

"What do you mean you have no records left?", I said to his wife some time after he died. His wife continued the scam stating Bob magically somehow conducted his book agent business free of such essentials as address books and email accounts. Bob had dropped dead of a sudden aneurysm, so allowing time for grief, the shock of his death affecting all of us, I asked his widow, "I need to know the name of the person at Random House, he was doing business with, we were only weeks away from turning in a partial manuscript." Then the excuses began. I was devastated. "I was going to miss out on my big chance because someone was too lazy to write down a name or keep up any records?". I also beat myself up for not getting the name right away but he had given me the exciting news only a week before he died.

Something didn't smell right, after begging the widow who seemed unconcerned and obviously with her own major problems, I decided to follow things down the line and investigate. I knew something was rotten and didn't buy the "no records" story. I decided to talk to his "assistant" a guy that would help him with his writing business and bookstore. Emails and phone calls followed. "Please tell Mary [the widow] I really need that name!" He responded, "Oh, she's got so many papers to go through--we will give it to you when we find it!" Well we waited and waited and waited some more. We had my husband talk to his agent who had given him his small publishing contract about contacting Random House. She replied, "That would be like calling Belgium to ask for one person's name! Impossible!"

Then I got an idea--"Let's contact the one guy that we know Bob got a contract for--he surely must have a contact name since he was at the point of signing a contract!" My husband agreed that is a good idea. So we did, tracking him down, getting a number. It turns out he was taken for a ride too! The pieces of the puzzle came together. This man Randy [not his real name] said, "I was flying high for 15 months excited about my pending contract with Random House"! "I really felt this was my chance, I'm 50 years old, man it was great but then I found out the contract bill showed me it was just a lousy iuniverse contract. It was a vanity publisher not Random House at all!"

He then continued, "Peep, We have figured out, he told around 14 people the same lie and weirdly it was always Random House!!" I responded, "But he made no money off me, I never gave the man one dime! Why string us along for so long? Why lie? Why not just send the proposals in?" Randy responded, "One guy he strung along for 5 years, now you're going to trust your best friend aren't you?

Back then when its happened, I didn't know about narcissism or sociopaths. I was in literal shock. This was some kind of extreme ego trip, superman pie in the sky tales from Bob, just to make himself look good to the world and to sell his writing classes and seminars. It was at the expense of people's hopes and dreams. Just another con artist, a person living a facade life, there's way too many of them today. The rot and deception exposed due to an unexpected death, not exactly the legacy one would want to leave behind, loved and lauded while still alive and then exposed as a liar.

It definitely changed my view of this world a bit.

Seeking Revenge on a Narcissist is Madness

In my case, I know my narcissists are capable of anything. He is right that seeking revenge on a narcissist is total madness. Narcissists live for the battle and are used to winning. They will lie, cheat and steal and do anything to win, and don't play by the same rules. They will manipulate. This is how ACONs can find themselves involuntarily committed to mental hospitals or put in jail or financially destroyed or otherwise destroyed.

Trying to get revenge on a narcissist is playing with fire. It's dancing with the devil and expecting good results when all you will get is burned. God will have to get my justice for me. I know it's hard on this earth to have someone ruin you and in many cases take the whole family away and then just walk away. I know mine probably wants revenge for this blog and yes that does scare me but I'm not going to live my life shaking in my boots. I just want a peaceful happy life. Even if I am struggling with finding peace and happiness it is what I desire. I pray I am left in peace. Even with my struggles, I have more good days now in dealing with my NC decision then I did last year even if I am facing some struggles. There is no doubt I made the right choice even if dealing with the outcome has been difficult.

Playing get back at a narcissist is insanity. There will be no end to the game. Even if a victim "wins" one battle, the narcissists will come back to win the war. We know they can ensure many flying monkeys to join in on the game too to help them out.

There are many infiltrators into the narcissist sub-culture. They don't like people seeking validation and empathy between themselves. I have written I believe the powers that be feel threatened by those who honestly expose narcissists and sociopaths. This is why you are seeing narcissistic FRIENDLY websites.  The new mode is to either lie to ACONs giving them bad information, on how narcissists and sociopaths can be cured or for them to seek revenge, or to make excuses for narcissists. Let's be frank, this narcissistic stuff is about a spiritual war, this is a war between good and evil, and plenty of the wicked, want to steer ACONs wrong.

Fellow ACONs have kept me alive. We give each other strength and hope. I had close friends who faced abuse decades ago even before we could give a name to the problem. We must remain careful of bad advice and those wanting to deceive.

It's a Lonely Place....

We still are considering moving but for now will try and be where we are at. There's no money to move but there needs to be some change long-term.  Defining how to change things sometimes can be a struggle. We have discussions about trying to find new social circles to other ideas. I am stumped for now, but inside feel the grief.

I miss having people to talk to. In my old community I had some. I felt like I could be me. I think of the woman [me] who was brave enough even to have an art show that bordered on an "outsider" art show. Included in it even were some comics. That was me. When I was in my church of the past, I weighed even more but people talked to me. I was invited to dinners, the pastor's wife would talk to me, here I was in a church for a year and befriended someone who lived an hour away. That would be the only person in the church who would talk to me. I remember the times of prayer and being able to share things without cold judgments. I was able to explore scripture and ask questions while the churches here, the pastors all rule with an iron fist and seem to like Kim Jong II of North Korea to allow as little free conversation as possible. This means no bible studies where you talk about your own life, but ones directed with no questions allowed.

Something about this place ebbed my confidence away. I'm not sure what happened. More illness? Our descent into poverty? We had times of poverty in my old town too, but there I was still a person, here I am not. I have felt like I am dying on the vine here. I feel like a nobody here. I never wrote about this but I even threatened to move without my husband circa 2008 because I felt like I was reliving the moves of childhood. I couldn't take this place, the rejection I faced put me in the same place I was with the family. One realizes when people think you have something important to say and when you become invisible. I had enough of the invisibility with my family.

Some say the geographical cure isn't always the answer and I understand, but there seems to be no one to talk to here. I even told my husband I miss having people who I can talk to, even the day to day conversations I used to have even with acquaintances are missed. This place turned me into a silent cipher, was it shame for the poverty in the sea of wealth? Was it more provincial, wealthier people who judged me more harshly and who made me feel like nothing? Was it the lack of independent thinkers? Was it my hearing ebbing away? They seem less connected with each other then my last community too. I don't think it's just me. Somehow I found some community in days past even dealing with the same houseboundness and disabilities. Maybe I got older. Maybe I got sadder from being wrenched away from more people again. With enough losses your heart shuts down. You think, "I just see the back end of everyone anyhow why bother?" 

Maybe narcissism and coldness grew in society too.  Around 5 years ago, I started becoming afraid of people, I knew I was not succeeding socially here whatsoever. My social anxiety has grown to heights it hasn't been in 20 years. I never have been a social butterfly, but people at least used to talk to me. I wasn't seen as just a weirdo and a freak. I could share opinions and feel listened to.  Even being an Aspie, people would listen to me.

Here my self help group is nice to me, well after the project friend and her pet narcissist cleared out, but one thing I have noticed about this area is so many people complain of being lonely here. They feel adrift here. They are sad. I reach out to who I can but others leave too a lot. You can tell even they are clearing out for greener and happier pastures. This is a place where there is no community. We even had a friend leave here before after living here a year saying the people were strange and snobbish and no one talked to him. He even decided to deal with a commute rather then living too alone. He still commutes an hour to work to avoid this place. I would consider living in his town if it wasn't taken over by tourists even more so, and devoid of medical care.

It's weird to live in a place and to know you can sit downtown for hours and if you talk to someone it's probably a tourist, so that doesn't work either. We try. You are friendly, you try to be open, you love taking an interest in people, it goes nowhere. It's strange how in one small town more people will talk to you while in another larger but still technically "small" town, everyone has a million relatives around and the same friends since high school, and they don't want any new ones!

 You sit in the park with your husband nodding and saying hello to the blank-faced. One day we meet someone in the park who is friendly and talking to us, I think "That is nice, someone from here is talking to us!" She is young, but then I realized she is drunk. She asks me if I want sip of her vodka, I am tempted to take her up on her offer. The sober normals just aren't that friendly. What was I thinking?

My husband used to have family here, they all died or moved away. This is where he was born. One cousin who was adopted skulks around the neighborhood gas stations buying drugs. We run into her at random times. Her aunt who died acouple years ago, disinherited her. My husband had no relationship with the aunt who hated his father but once she came to visit us at a local restaurant and the temperature went down by 20 degrees when she entered the room. She got angry at me that I was not a Lutheran and basically told my husband he had no business marrying a non-Lutheran. We never saw her house or her again. She definitely was a narcissist.

The cousin who pops up from time to time is a drug addict. I was so lonely I invited her over to dinner once, thinking "I'll be careful." She didn't show up. Drug addicts aren't dependable. She has nothing to do with us but we run into her from time to time. Hey we have no money so what does she need us for? We drove up to get some gas, and I didn't even recognize her as she sat on the gas station stoop. My husband said hello to her and says "How are you doing?". She shouts. "I'm doing what I want!"

We were at the local art fair, and her golden child wealthy brother who comes back "home" from Texas, shows up and recognizes my husband, they are first cousins and he hasn't seen him in 15 years. He shakes his hand and walks away. This place is weird.

You don't fit in your community where you at least felt like you had a place in another. The "found families" break up far faster then the evil family that rejected you. Even with my doctor having her smiling face wrenched away from me for a new critical man, I probably am going to have to appeal to have replaced felt like a loss. Imagine being housebound, you want a friendly face, not someone who is upset by everything you say. If it's not different on the next visit, I'm calling for a replacement. It disturbed me already he did not want to test a hormonal thing I wanted tested.

Some may ask, "Why don't you go back home then?" I can't. The town died economically. Even doctors left and my medical needs are greater. Sadly people there die young even from the diminished medical care and resultant poverty. I already have outlived two people who died younger then me.  At least 5 people I knew there died. My old church is gone as well as another place I was part of and volunteered with. I sometimes consider it throwing caution to the wind. You have to know that. I want to be talked to again. For that alone, it would be worth it. We came here for survival reasons to begin with.

I listened to my narcissistic mother who told me and my husband we should stay, when he lost his job here. We shouldn't have but what other choice did we had? I didn't know about narcissism when she mocked me for my attachment to "Hooterville", her sarcastic name for my old town. We stayed mostly because of money and my husband having no work in my old town. While he works online, much free-lance employment is local based too.

For years I felt I had an unlived life back in my old town but I gave this place a chance too. I never got over this. I know it makes people upset with me. Remember I am an Aspie we need a continuance of place. My husband even in recent years, has apologized to me. "I should have never ripped you away from there". Maybe I got tired of constant losses and disappointments.

I feel something happening to me I do not like. I miss who I used to be. My confidence is shot. I almost feel catapulted back into high school days. Does that make sense? I don't want to make the effort here because I do not see it paying off. With the project friend, even there, that was someone I cared about who just turned out to be a raving wolf with no real attachments to anyone else and that is going to take me a long time to get over. Maybe people who don't "need" anyone and have had a full dance card their entire lives in one way just don't give a crap.

In my old town, I was still housebound and very sick at that period of life but I felt like I could still talk to people. I felt like in 1999, I had finally found "home", only to be wrenched out by 2007.

While I have my close college and online friends, I don't want to die alone with no local friends and no place of belonging and if I am realizing there are no friends to be had here or even a place to belong, why the hell am I here then? There's no place to grow. I can see even my husband is lonely outside of our own relationship here. It's hard one thing that makes it complicated is we have one of the best apartments here we ever have lived in. They fix things and it's quiet. We need hope and something to aspire to. We have each other but it's scary having no close friends living by you. Sometimes people do need others. The sad thing is it's such a beautiful place, but a damn lonely one.

I want to get my confidence back. I want to feel like I can talk to people again. I'm not sure how to make this happen but I am working on it and thinking about what needs to be done to have it happen. We are afraid of making another mistake. We know one misstep and we could be homeless. Moving when you have bad credit too [we always have kept rent paid on time] is far more risky. Right now the lack of money is making the decision for us, but I am thinking of the future. I will take time deciding what to do but am thinking carefully about these issues.

Fat is Rare in Japan

These barely plump girls are considered fat in Japan. I always wondered why fatness was so rare in Japan? Japanese people have some of the lowest obesity rates in the world. They are a very food rich place with fast food restaurants all over the place. I've seen the professional foodies from the Food Network tour Japan and there's food all over the place and some of it is fried and rich. After all this place is the home of Ramen noodles. Definitely they protect their food from more bad chemicals or are doing something different. They eat fermented foods protecting the gut flora and their farmers aren't feeding the cows endless antibiotics and growth hormones. If you watch enough shows on Japan, they have plenty of food and it's not all dried seaweed and Nori, but there is tempera and plenty of noodles too. Some say the people are more informed and exercising more but I think far more is going on.

Don't Call Them Fat, Call Them Marshmallow Girls

"It's not the system, it's you!"

Stop Financializing The Human Experience

"The narcissism bred by consumerism has nurtured an emotional isolation and immaturity that I call permanent adolescence which leaves many young people without the tools needed to handle criticism, collaboration and the pressures of the workplace.

Personal gratification is the driver of narcissism and consumerism, which are two sides of the same coin. Consumerist marketing glorifies the "projected self" as the "true self," encouraging self-absorption even as it erodes authentic identity, self-esteem and the resilience which enables emotional growth--the essential characteristic of adulthood.

Personal gratification is of a piece with self-absorption, fragile self-esteem and an identity that is overly dependent on consumerist signifiers and the approval of others.

The only way a consumerist economy and the state that depends on it can flourish is to turn every human interaction and emotion into a financial transaction. Just reached a personal goal? Celebrate by going to Disneyland and dropping a packet.

Feeling low? Cheer yourself up by buying a new signifier of self-worth.

Sensing something is terribly wrong with your life? Buy another self-help book that repeats the all-important narrative: It's not the system, it's you.

The problem isn't that the system is deranged, dysfunctional and crippling; no, it's you who are deranged, dysfunctional and crippled. But maybe some costly therapy will help you cope with your bottomless inadequacies.

By holding the system blameless for the fragility of our sense of self and identity, the conventional consumerist narrative fragments any social roles that aren't dependent on financial transactions and consumerist signifiers.

In this financialized hall of mirrors, narcissism replaces identity and the authentic self is rendered incoherent."

This article explains why our society is going more narcissistic. It's on a "love of money is the root of all evil" crack binge, when everything in life is a financial transaction, the conman salesmen rule. Masks are on faces to sell, sell, sell. I even remember seeing an article where they talked about "branding" yourself and found myself very troubled. Don't you know you're just a product? Forget that! 

I don't get performance art

This isn't helping the cause of fat acceptance. It hurts it. I'd be dead trying to eat what she does on this video. That much cake wouldn't even fit in my stomach and the sugar would have me on the floor. Performance art is some of the weirdest art out there. It's all supposed to be political and whatnot when it seems like empty-headed nonsense. In this case, I hope she did go puke when she was done.

Still Real Big