"We Can't Find Any Adoption Records"

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See:

My Adoption Petition Will Be Mailed in Two Days

"We Can't Find Any Adoption Records."

This brought serious tears. I sent out the adoption petition and within 4 days of me mailing it, the court called and told me, "We looked for adoption records going back to 1956, we could not find any adoption records." Now remember the court would not tell me if there were any records or not, so I had to send the petition in to find out ANYTHING. The lady on the phone was nice. She had heard of Lipedema and said, "Maybe it came through the male line?". Well there was no sign of it there. I was greatly disappointed. 

I think it is sad, that the family never would answer my questions. No one would show me one early picture to end my wondering. I've never seen a picture of me prior to the 8 month old or so one.  My empty baby photo album compared to my brother and sister's full ones still stands in stark reminder. By an early age, I would ask, "Where are all my pictures?" and would cry and never get any response. I still think something is fishy, with my family, I believe the court did it's best but know now I will never get the answers I so desired. One friend says I should call "Exploited and Missing Children" to see if some funny business happened, but 46 years later, that is too much time. One therapist theorized, my mother had an affair or even my father could have but I was taken into the family.  Chances are I will never know and I have to accept that. While we may delve into the past to find out what happened, there is only a point you can take things.I can't beat my head on the wall wondering anymore. I hate feeling like she "wins" all the time. Missing out on important medical information is a blow too. Remember my thinking about wanting answers has been for my whole life. I never had the guts to go digging for anything before.

 Part of me is nauseous even thinking I could be biologically related to any of them. No one is diabetic. No one looks like me. My brother is the closest but all these thin people it simply makes no sense. One thing I will say, if she has early baby pictures or birth pictures in her possession or that aunt does who refused them, they are unworthy of me ever speaking to them again for that alone. Her refusing to answer sincere and polite questions upon my Lipedema diagnosis, is one of the worse things she ever did. Please don't tell me to ask any for DNA, the controlled minions never would sign up. I plan to never speak to any of them ever again. At this point I think my best emotional option is to move forward. A happier future rests in letting this stuff go. It was important for me to know and I tried my best but can't let it eat me alive. There is a great loss in not finding a birth family that looks like me and may act like human beings.

The Adoption Saga

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Read this article in context:

Am I Adopted?

Open adoption is the best. Sadly I was not born in an open adoption state. The one I live in now I could just call up the court and get whatever information I want since I am over 18. Sadly this is not where I was born, and I am stuck with a place where a court petition is required to unseal adoption records.

After some weeks, I figured out the right court, and place to call. No one will tell me even if I AM adopted or not and I have to pay 80 bucks, and fill out the forms. I talked to the senior court clerk yesterday who told me, they can't even tell me if my birth certificate is amended and I have to do the paperwork for the petition to unseal adoption records to find out if there are ANY adoption records. If I am not adopted whatsoever, I may be eligible to get a refund. This is what happens when you have a family that does nothing but keep secrets and the mistress of lies and withholding for a "mother".

At least I have a claim to have them opened with medical reasons being the top reason. There are still medical problems such as with my kidneys, the doctors have not figured out. Even with the Lipedema being so severe, I need answers.

It could go either way, I will find out I am not adopted, and will feel utter disgust or I will find out I am adopted and will go seeking more answers. Then there could be the decision of seeking DNA tests, but if you have relatives all owned and controlled by narcissists, that is a very difficult thing to obtain. I suppose you can tell which way I hope things turn out. I hope I am adopted and I can find more answers.  Of course if a parent cheated or something else more insidious happened, then I may hit yet another dead end.

It was always weird to be super-fat in the land of the skinny-minnies. There's a few fat mid-sized level relatives but no one who ever reached my size or state of poor health. In all my research of the severely obese on this blog, the majority always had some sort of family history of severe obesity. However in my family, the majority were extraordinarily thin even for average people. Imagine a fat Aspie in the land of skinny model types.

There is no way I share any DNA with size zero first cousins. I look at a friend I have who is 400lbs, and two sisters are near her weight and two other sisters are in the high 200s and 300s. Her cousins are large too as show in family photos. One can tell she came out of that family genetically. Her face looks like theirs. I always have felt this feeling of not belonging like I was an add on.

I won't forget that my mother even refused to answer when I confronted her with the lipedema diagnosis. You know you are dealing with one sick individual when you ask a basic question about your origins and they say nothing or play turn the tables. Two cousins were shocked to hear about her response. It made no sense.

 One friend is worried I will find out I am her biological daughter and about my emotional reaction. I'm ready for anything but I am praying for answers and the truth.

My Adoption Petition is Being Mailed in Two Days

[picture source, adoption.com]

See "Am I Adopted?"

My adoption petition to unseal records will be mailed in two days. I have the papers notarized and ready. I am sending the court a letter from a health professional with my Lipedema diagnosis and other medical papers. I just want answers. In this case I had to admit to the court I do not know for sure if I am adopted, but highly suspect it due to my health problems. No one in the family has Lipedema or Lymphedema. No one in the entire family is a diabetic either--even some of the more midsized ones. No one has PCOS. All these conditions have genetic components. I am sending the court a paper that has Lipedema marked as autosomal dominant. I am a severe Lipedemic, too, this is not just minor swelling. I need to even figure out if I have Dercums, there is one lipoma on my thinner leg that is hurting from time to time and seems to be growing larger. My petition is based on needing medical information.

I am currently in my forties and married. I now ask the court to allow me access to gain my records, including any identifying information on whether if my certificate was amended, details of any would-be adoption, any relevant medical data, and records of my birth family.

Sadly I was supposedly born in a non-open adoption state. I hope I finally get answers. It took me time to scrape together the fee for the unsealing petition. My husband says I should prepare myself for whatever answers I get. It shows you how pathetic my family is that I have to ask a court if I am adopted. They just lie to me. I know for sure they are hiding something big from me the way they have acted and my husband concurs. I talked to a therapist about this and she said, "Maybe someone had an affair." I know it could go either way. I could not afford a lawyer to help me with this. I had to use templates online and other websites, I may be checking some things today to make sure I got all my ducks in a row. The papers had to be notarized and I had that done.

Random Thoughts on Life, MRIs, Ears, and Adoption

1. Back In Winter Prison, My Life Grinds to a Halt!

Can we fast forward to March? After Thanksgiving, the holidays are torture for those of us with no families or money. Not all of us have expendable income to blow on the whole mess. I checked out of it all years ago.  Christmas is a term that gives me a headache. It's more a solstice holiday, the Bible doesn't say Jesus was born on December 25. No, I'm not a Jehovah Witness but some of us have questioned this holiday. I wonder if some people just say "Forget it!" to lower their stress levels.

 I'm already housebound on November 13 and sadly missed a church dinner yesterday, but breathing comes before fun. Yes it makes me want to bang my head on a wall. How will I make it mentally through the next 5 months? I am not ready to be housebound again so soon. I do need rest though, I am exhausted. Right now I am in bed writing this blog, I do not want to get up. I ate a turkey sandwich on toast and a few blue corn chips for breakfast. I may make some vegetable soup this afternoon. I need to clean. I am begging my husband to do it. Why can't people hibernate when they want to? Imagine if I could go sleep and burn off the fat reserves like a big fat bear.

We had a summer where I got off scott-free, seriously it was the best summer of my life as it simply didn't get hot---Yeah! I only was housebound here and there, but this winter, I know that is not going to happen.  If I had money, I could go visit friends down south. Who invented that awful term, "polar vector"? Remember when the weather was something one didn't have to be afraid of all the time?

I like Thanksgiving, I either go to a friend's house or cook my own turkey and stuffing and do stuff with husband. This is one of my favorite meals and I eat turkey on off-days even.

2. Humans Aren't Shaped Like Pancakes To Fit in MRIs.

My MRI failed, I didn't fit. I am trying to find one that is built like a satellite in my region to see if I will fit and there won't be the lay down and can't breathe issues. Well I just called them, the closest one is 400 miles away. It may be too tight a fit anyhow. I laid flat enough with my lungs compressed feeling like I would die for enough minutes for them to see if I would fit, I didn't. They told me this is the biggest MRI they make. Will the stand up people let me stand side ways at least to get my head done? If there is one that just goes over my head and doesn't have to include my huge butt, then maybe I could accomplish this task.

Lippys with hugely protruding stomachs and giant world record breaking butts are shaped in the worse way for MRIs and laying flat. I am sure the pundits on Fat Logic will think I deserve to go die of cancer or ear tumors-[yes they want that outruled too] because I am so fat, I don't fit in normal MRIs.

3. My Poor Dying Ears: I Cry for You

My new ear doctor nods to the previous Meniere's diagnosis but wants ear tumors ruled out for my growing deafness. So now I need TWO MRIs if I can get them. The kidney doctor told me they would do another ultrasound to see if the kidney lesion is growing. They don't want to intubate me which is extremely dangerous for what could be only be a kidney cyst. My worries about my kidneys and ears are there though.

There is my hearing test from last week above. I am losing more hearing and the audiologist told me I have only 52% word recognition. Socially while I have some friends I can hear, it is sad to meet someone new, realize I can't hear a word they say and know it is never going to work out. There is one guy at my self-help group, I like the fellow but can't understand one word he says. I had an Aspie moment with a neighbor here, who talks to me in our foyer while getting my mail, and I never can hear one word she says even to "pretend" to hear and got too honest and said "I can't hear you!". I am in a book club with her and even have to strain when my hearing aid is in. For an Aspie, where communication is hard enough, this sucks. I am losing a lot and even wonder if I will go senile faster from the world being covered in cotton wool. Yesterday my husband was talking about TV shows or politics and I was only catching one or two words. He says I need to tell him but it would be "What? What? What?" over and over. My life is putting the puzzle pieces together.

4.  BabyBoomer Publishers Please Stop Trying to Brainwash Me. Global Warming is a Scam

I am tired of reading fiction books with political agendas infused into them. I am reading this book called Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver for a library book club--it will be a toss of dice if it is warm enough for me to go.  The book is trying to brainwash me to believe in global warming, I don't.  Great now I get to horrify the book club again with non mainstream opinions.

The book has a wonderful plot full of butterflies, even if the housewife in it doesn't know how good she has it. However the preachy liberal stuff is making me want to vomit. The global warming disciples will tell me that our freezing weather is from global warming, I will roll my eyes. Google the terms Geo-Engineering and Medieval Warming Period. The climate has always "changed" too. How come the other side is never in our fiction? I'm a big believer in conservation and the environment, and have even volunteered in that area, but give me a break with the Agenda 21 garbage as the elites want to control all the world's resources. Those new spiral lightbulbs suck.

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5. Let me find my REAL family of fat deaf Lippy Aspies!

I am working on my adoption stuff more. Got in contact with the right office, got the paperwork to unseal records. Right now I am asking the big question "Was my birth certificate amended?". Getting my records unsealed will cost 80 bucks. I have to appeal to a court in the non-open adoption place I was born which is beyond annoying but at least the office staff I talked to today was friendly. Last month I taught myself how to do geneaology--well it's a start, to help in the adoption search. I hope I find some answers. Some people don't understand this drive to know one's origins. I want to know the truth whatever it is. It is sad, I do not have a mother, I can simply ask, "Are you my real mother?" Pathetic I know, and the rest of the closed-mouthed and secretive family makes me sick. Yes I do dream of finding a real family where the people actually look like me.  Anyhow at least one good thing has come of this, improvement of my research skills.

I couldn't talk to any of you!

The worse thing about my relatives?

I never could talk to any of them. 

One thing about my personality is if you knew me in real life, I love to talk. I am one of those people who is never bored, even if I am housebound and always examining or thinking about something. My husband has told me, my brain fascinates him. I take interest in things.

Last night I went to a genealogy conference at the library which was for beginners. It will help me on my adoption search and probing the family history. One side of the family I barely knew any of them, never met one great aunt or uncle on my father's side. I found it of intellectual interest too because I have a few friends who do genealogy. The whole concept fascinates me. I already have found many things out about my would be family. I found out the name of my father's first girlfriend in a newspaper from the 1950s and the names of other distant relatives. If anything, I am a good researcher. I am also working on researching  the adoption petition.

With the family there was absolutely no intellectual meeting of the minds. There was no one who wanted to "hear" me. Everything was invalidated. One thing that was interesting to me as I grew older in comparison was how my conversations flowed with friends. Heart to heart talks, hours of conversation, and sharing, and fun. There are close friends where we can talk for hours and we enjoy it.

What happened with those I was supposed to be biologically related to? Often I asked if it was my fault for years? This may sound mean, I've posted enough bad things about them to fill up this blog with it partially, but so many of my relatives seemed SLOW. Outside of a few cousins and their children, including one computer genius and the nieces and nephews still busy growing up, my family is an intellectual wasteland. With a few of them and no offense to the developmentally disabled, there seemed to be serious learning problems, where they just didn't read or seek to learn anything new. In this case, it seemed self chosen rather then real disabilities.

I knew some had grown up on the farm with very little intellectual stimulation but others who lived in the big city seemed no different.  I lived in a small town around many rural folks, I could talk to them about gardening to politics unlike the family.  The big city relatives just seemed to want to talk about shopping and gambling. There was no depth to be found there either.

 Now before I try to toot my own horn, obviously they had better life skills then me, with the ability to make money and function but I couldn't get any of them to talk about anything of DEPTH? Do any ACONs here reading relate to this? In every book I have read fiction or non-fiction, most people connect with one relative, they feel they can talk to. Even Jan Brady had Aunt Jenny!

Eyes would cloud over as I talked about art. My politics pissed them off. Religion was a no go zone. History, current events, and music made their eyes glaze over. It seemed everything I said, even things of a neutral nature would piss them off. I wasn't who they wanted me to be and they obviously were not. 

My mother's silence is the one thing that stands out to me. How the woman simply refused to talk to me my entire life. As a child I was left unprepared for life and totally clueless, since I simply wasn't told anything! All those visits to her house as an adult and there would be no discussion. Thankfully her husband was capable of a conversation but my father wasn't. With narcissists, many ACONs will attest to the very fact, that their parents took absolutely no interest in them as people. This silencing does something to a soul that is very insidious. You have no one to share yourself with because they are not interested. 

One thing I am an avid and SERIOUS stamp collector. While I don't have any big money stamps, for me it is enjoyable. I manage it being poor, because I have gotten donated collections and have a connection to estate sales where one can get old stamp albums. If I ever have any real money, I would get even more deeper into this world. It is one I can even lose myself in. I still remember showing my mother, during the one visit in 2009, my stamp album and her looking at it and saying, "What's this for?". She then looked at me, scoffed and said, "What a stupid hobby!". Thankfully I do what I want and like what I like. Obviously at that point talking about stamp collecting was off the table.

And that is one thing, I have pondered since going NC, is how they never took any interest in anything about me. Lest someone says, "Well did you for them?" I tried. I wanted to fix what was broken. I examined myself too for my faults and inability to communicate.  What was I doing to make them angry? I wanted to fix it. I tried to whittle down things about an Aspie that would annoy people. 

I tried to learn about video games I didn't care one iota about to connect with nephews. With my brother, I talked about authors such as James Patterson and Dean Koontz he liked. I would praise my mother on her house decorating or latest purchases. With my grandmother I would try and talk to her too. Aunt Scapegoat, I would talk about her favorite author Stephen King whose books I read all the time years ago.  I really tried. It didn't go anywhere. All seemed to give me the message to JUST SHUT UP!

They seemed to roll their eyes at everything I said even when trying to meet them in the middle. I knew by a young age, that whoever I had become, was someone they barely could tolerate. Even years ago on family visits, I knew no one was taking any interest in what I had to say about anything. I was so absolutely bored as I have written about before.  There were many times, I'd say one thing and the entire family would simply shout me down, one whole against me.

Being no contact this long, I am seeing some disturbing patterns that had escaped my notice. The insidiousness of being scapegoated is that you are silenced and made into a non-entity. Even trying to be heard, was such a fruitless gesture. But as time has gone on in my no contact--I have now hit a year and 4 months with the majority of them, some glaring problems are standing out to me in the communication between me and the family.

What would you think if the only time a brother calls you was to brag about a new purchase? Renting a new big house? Buying a new car? Why is he insistent on bragging to a sister of humble means? What does this mean? The other day his girlfriend private messaged me sending me a picture of their new large two story house they had rented.  I love my apartment but know what this is all about. I've gotten smarter not to play the game. She wrote, "Call Me!". I didn't. I knew it would be more of the same.

What would you think if you realized how much you were lied to by one aunt who just seemed to want to purchase the peace at all costs?

It's weird how so many patterns I was blinded to, are now cropping up. How I am finally getting a clue. Sometimes I think to myself "Oh you took so long!" but I was an Aspie surrounded by very manipulative people. I find it sad now that there is competition like that between siblings. My brother still sees me as someone to compete for the love and attention of my mother instead of a person in my own right. He is glad I have cut my mother off probably because it may mean more money in the will for him. There is no getting to know someone, or closeness or brother/sister intimacy in that mix.

Same for my N sister, she was as silent as my mother, taking no interest in other people and having no connection with them. In many ways I find my sister and mother's lives sad in that there is no real friendships, just people to compete with and see as objects to rise to the mountain top. There was always jealousy from both of them for my close friendships. One thing I heard as I walked about the door, was both complaining about my friends. People they didn't even know but were angry at for simply being friends with me!

Narcissists will set things up like that. By the way, my narcissistic mother's love-bombing of my brother continues as she went on another recent visit, visiting him more times in the last 2 months at his home then she has in 10 years. I do not think this is by accident but to make sure his loyalties remain with her.

I realized with the other family members, how they were AFRAID to talk about anything. Afraid of words being twisted, of others finding out about things? Of appearing too friendly and close to the scapegoat, that Queen Spider rejected? If relationships are that much trouble and turmoil, it's better to walk on in peace.

My mother was the queen of withholding. One thing you will notice what is missing with malignant narcissists.

She never shared one dream with me in her entire life. The kind you fall asleep to have and/or the kind where you look for better things in life.

This applied to so much of the family too. They never talk about goals, aspirations, feelings, God, spiritual matters, or anything deep.  The affect of narcissists on family systems is to silence everyone. Everyone is afraid. Information is to be doled out in teeny little pieces. Secrets are to be kept. No one is going to openly talk or share who they are with anyone. The control of information is the malignant narcissist's main goal. 

I will say this, in many ways, we all did stay strangers. I couldn't talk to any of them. A family should be able to talk to each other right? Well this one didn't. 

Advanced No Contact Thoughts and Ambiguous Loss

Ambiguous Loss

I've been trying to live life thinking less about them, so haven't written about "the family" as much lately. I've had to train my mind in clearing my brain of this stuff 24/7. I have done a better job of it most of the time. Sometimes I still get "days", no where the number of years ago, but you think about the past and why and how things had to turn out the way they did.

With the few cousins, I have to be careful, I feel like they keep secrets from me. They treat me at arms-length, that gets tiring. I have kept the contact very minimal on purpose. It says something to me, that they drive into my state to visit Uncle Narcissist, well one has visited me before and says he might soon again but this is several visits a year for that uncle and family gatherings my mother and sister are not at, that I remained uninvited from.  I know I have to remain cautious. I can't go looking for something that isn't there.

I know yesterday's trigger came from a nice local friend talking about a vacation she was taking with sisters and another person going to family funeral.  These are good people who are just talking about what is happening in their lives, but every ACON especially one NC from the entire family or most of them probably has those "family triggers" wondering how it went so wrong. With the years a lot of the pain has ebbed away but I still get my moments. I don't blame folks but I feel like the area I live in is far more family focused then many. I found one new older friend who seems to lack a family. This may sound weird, but that comes as a relief to me. Someone like that can understand someone like me more. 

On Facebook, I ran into someone posting about ambiguous grief....this is grief for people who are still alive. With narcissists, we grieve the people who should have been there then who really are but many side relationships are lost. I will never see the nieces or nephews again. I lost Aunt Scapegoat years and years before she died. Losing the cousins, may happen. Going no contact means losing people who are living for many ACONS.  There's times I tell strangers if they ask or it comes up, "I have no family" and I don't go into detail. It is easier that way, because in some ways the entire family "died" for me anyhow.  

I have talked to my husband too about the "loss" over the would-be adoption and if there is a bio-family out there, how there was some grief for me over that as well. It is interesting adoption is listed in the slides as well.   I had a mammogram operator ask me if my mother or sister had breast cancer and I gave her the honest answer "I don't know". She gave me a very weird look and I felt off.  She pressed me for an explanation but I wish she had not. Remember if I am related at all to my sister or mother, my sister had cancer that was kept secret from me for more then three years. My brother told me she definitely had cancer. Remember in 2013, I was tested for kidney cancer which was negative, obviously the medical neglect boat rides on when it comes to my mother. I was never told what kind of cancer she had. 

Being on health group websites for severe Lipedemics, it was painful to see people even in worse states of my condition, some even totally wheelchair bound and unable to walk, surrounded by loving family members and everyone I saw had relatives with the condition. I had more then a few thoughts how did they get a family and I didn't? There I have a weird mixture of loss for the family I may have missed out on. I know these relatives aren't talking. Keep in mind, one could have shut me up sending a picture of Queen Spider pregnant at the right time, or a photograph that is younger then the 6-8 month year old baby one I have seen. 

I know some of this stuff has been painful for my husband, we had a conversation where I told him, I know you lacked for in-laws, and needed good ones. The majority of my husband's family is dead, WWII killed them, and his parents died on the young side in their 60s. He has only one living sister left in the entire country. There is one distant cousin in Texas and that's it. The adopted drug-addict cousin has vanished and we have not seen her in the streets here in three years.

 I know for advanced no contact, when you are a few years in to get better you do have to accept the ambiguity and the fact there never will be closure. Trying to get closure we know with narcissists is impossible. Questions will never be answered. There will be no meeting of the minds, just gaslighting and lies. Things will not be fixed, and you have to figure out it's not your fault and not spend years and years tearing yourself apart over decisions OTHER people made.

I found it interesting how the ambiguous loss slides spoke of "being frozen". I had struggled with "being frozen"  and even wrote on one message board, "Why can't I get them out of my brain" some time ago.  In the slides, they talk about the "freezing of the grief process", a reference to mental illness is made, narcissism is chosen but NPD is a "mental illness" is it not? Well technically anyway, they do choose to become what they are. [see slide 10 of 31 at the link] It is an infectious one.

I have been able to come out of more of this stuff. It's taken a lot of thought. I started enjoying life more and had some of my depression massively ease up. I still have troubles in other arenas of life but the clouds did start to lift.  It is important to warn ACONS, you may have "ambiguous loss" for the family that never was and the side relationships that were lost. It is important that some solutions for this are offered. You have to be okay with not figuring it all out. You have to get used to the ambiguity. You have to get used to the idea that some answers may never come in this life. 

Be careful of the "NICE" ones!

This article is regarding my aunt who is my father's sister. This is the aunt whose granddaughter [my cousin] married a multi-millionaire and where I was not invited to the wedding, My mother was. This is one of the many events I discussed as leading up to my going "no contact". This aunt lives around around 1000 miles from me.

 Soon I will write about her very interesting life story which even blows Aunt Scapegoat's story out of the water. Parts of this story include what happened to me too. Her personality and history definitely displays extreme signs of abuse and other hard to define personality disorders. I'll go in more detail later. Let's just say the narcissistic plague of insanity hasn't just cut one swathe across one branch of the family but both.

 She has been far more stable in her old age, but let's just say I do not consider her totally trustworthy and I knew with her, I could be going no contact with in the near future. What happened lately is enough to be a warning to me.

She does have contact with my mother, and well I am realizing this is a danger. I don't think I will ever be able to trust or form a decent family relationship with any relative that is in contact with my mother. Around any relatives,  I feel on guard, and betrayed inside as was written about next week.

They seem to have enough attachment to say hello on FB and with my brother an occasional phone call, but I can tell I am being held at arm's length to keep my mother happy, and I am not happy about this. It hurts and has hurt for years and right now self protection is my first order of business. In return, I have limited my emotional investment with these relationships.

So keep in mind even with my father's sister, I am tentative. My contact with her is only about 5-7 times a year. She did tell me some family history and helped spark my memory on many issues. I talked to her this year an average of once every 6-8 weeks. Her third husband is deceased and she moved up from Florida to live with her daughter who has a good manufacturing job.

Due to the adoption pursuit and wanting to find out what my grandmother on the paternal side looked like in her older age I asked her if she could send me some pictures. The reason for this request is to find out how young am I in the pictures? Are there pictures of me before that 9 month mark? Are there pictures to describe my baby book devoid of pictures unlike my brother's and sisters? I remember crying as a kid because my book had less pictures. Imagine that!

Another reason for the request is I want to see what my paternal grandmother looked like. I have only one picture of her from the 1940s where she is still relatively young. Could she have had lipedema? Years ago I used to be told she was large but then this aunt told me "Oh she didn't leave the 200s weight wise and had normal-thin legs".

I did not just call up and start asking, I sent her pictures of me, cards and had other discussions with her for over 18 months. I always had kept consistent contact. She told me "Sure, I'll send you some." It seemed like it wasn't going to be a big deal. I haven't seen any pictures yet and I've brought it up a few times. I thought her contact with my mother was minimal but it doesn't seem to be as yesterday I decide to call up and ask how is the picture sending going, and she tells me "Oh I talked to your mother, I told her you were asking me for some pictures, and she told me not to send you any!"

She then proceeded to tell me, "I'll still send them and I was looking to add one from ****'s album." [her daughter's]

I will believe it when I see it.

I plan to ask one more time with husband's help but then I will have no choice but to drop it. You can't make other people do what they do not want to do.  Another betrayal. More liars. More doors shut in my face. When I tell you this aunt's story it will blow your mind, but I knew I was taking a long shot.

My wicked mother has interfered with every relationship in the family. This net extends out to all of my father's relatives, including cousins [some of whom I sought to have contact with and was refused], divorced spouses from even ten years ago and every third cousin, great aunt and any other category that possibly shares DNA. I think she still even has contact with my uncle's girlfriend he split up with when he was 26 years of age, before he married another woman. I do not know how a person has the time to stay in contact with this many people or direct them but she definitely found it.

My mother's messages to all my family members regarding me has been...

1. "Ignore her".

2. "You don't need to visit her". "You don't need to invite her."

3. "You don't need to fulfill her requests."

4. "I have pictures, lots of them", you don't need to send them" [this aunt knows I am no contact with my mother]

5. "Don't listen to her, she is a liar."

6. "Don't listen to her, she is crazy."

7.  "She is fat and it's her fault!"

and over and over.

And as I have seen it is still going on.

Kind of puts those phony "We miss you cards" in context doesn't it?

Deep, deep wedges driven in deep.

No chance of being heard, always dismissed, always ignored and always disdained.

Now I knew betrayal was possible and unless my mother knew something, I kept my mouth shut about it even to this aunt. Talk about having to screen every thought to the finest tooth.

 My mother already knows I am on an adoption search in my last NC letter and questioning about my origins. If I am a biological child, she could have simply sent me a young baby picture earlier then the 9 month old one I have seen and gotten me to shut up. Life is weird when you have to find out a great-aunt died on the internet, but that is how life is with a clammed up secretive narcissist.

 I reminded this aunt, that I had told her not to tell my mother I was even in contact with her. She didn't seem to care about this request but made some vague excuse. She has a wicked wavering two sided mind, saying one thing one minute telling me "Yes your mother treated you badly!" and then stating "Your mother loves you!" while I am ignored and otherwise abused.

The control freak narcissist interferes every minute. 

I don't think I will see the pictures. If I do I will be happy and relieved.

I scoured the internet to see if there was a picture of my grandmother who died in 1969 in their local paper. I found her name in articles several times, and a picture of her gravestone but no picture of her. 

At least I was prepared to be disappointed but the sheer scope of my mother's power and control over all my relatives even ones that live thousands of mile away are extreme. I also have realized that I am invisible to them all. They only see me as she does, no matter how nice I am or how I tried to reach out in the past.

If the pictures are not sent, add another NC to the list of over 14 people. If she can't even give me this one small request of pictures of myself when young or a picture of my grandmother, I will be done with her. I will ask politely one more time and if I am told "No", I will tell her I am moving on.

I have realized there is no love, or even attachment with these folks. There is nothing. It is scary. I know as a person I sought to look for it. With this aunt years ago I drew closer to her, or tried, but my mother even there held the power. I will write more later on this issue and tell you her story too.

One question I have for ACONs who read my blog, Have you ever seen this much control over this many family members by a narcissist? I also am realizing that none of them see me outside of her definitions, no matter what I do.

Another question I have is, have any of you hit a wall, where you thought, if I have a relationship with a relative, they need to stand up for me or not have contact with the narcissist?

All my relatives, every one is in contact with my mother. 

I may be no contact with the whole crew the way this is going and not just 85% of them. No pictures sent tells me I am wasting my time with this woman and she has none of my best interests at heart and doesn't want to tell me the truth. I will see if I am pleasantly surprised but for now, my expectations are incredibly limited. 

Update on this one: The Aunt Never Sent the Pictures and More

The Aunt Never Sent The Pictures and More

                                          [picture source]

The Aunt Never Sent the Pictures.

Why should I be surprised?

I am not so bothered by the refusal to send the pictures, but the lie of, "I have the box right here on my lap ready to send out" from weeks ago. She kept putting me off and off.

I have more to write on her later, she affected my childhood quite a bit.

Today she hung up on me after I told her, "I am done."

She won herself having her story told on this blog, anonymously of course.

Fellow scapegoats can understand this destruction of the soul that cuts through the entire family via narcissists. Dismissed, ignored, some do it double-faced like this aunt and Aunt Denial, and others do it more direct.

As I said it could be NC with almost the entire family the way this is going. The me of today can't tolerate their disrespect, lies and wickedness.

What gets me is none of them seem to have any attachment. I have noted that having any attachment, feeling of nostalgia or feelings in general makes you an outliner in their crowd.

I got two more "corporate" birthday cards from Spider and Mini-Me. One said on it, "Whatever Makes You Happy" on the front. She used to say that to me in a sarcastic fashion so I knew what the card meant. The keeping up of appearances counts for everything. She can tell everyone,  "I sent her a card!"

They are just bad people, that's all.

Post script: The cousin called me up yelling at me, for leaving message on the answering machine--"Don't talk to my Mom that way anymore, you need to stay buddies and pals", and wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise and hanging up on me. "You can keep in touch or not." That sounds rather flippant. She sounds like another defender of narcs. Well I am not. I just let her hang up on me and let it go. I said my piece. I never cussed her mother out or even said one insult word, just "Why?" and "I do not like being treated like trash". What kind of "buddy" treats you this way or makes excuses for your abusers?

I do think they are keeping a huge secret from me. It is either the adoption thing or something else. I am treated so oddly. Even my husband has told me he is deeply concerned over the strangeness of the treatment. He says "None of it makes sense" and the way they treat me is absolutely horrible. He says one thing he has noticed is how none of them ever can admit a mistake and they always say they are right no matter what. What you feel and say doesn't even reach them. They treat me like I am absolutely nothing.

I know everyone in any contact with my mother has been poisoned against me. The depths of the poisoning are extreme beyond what I even have discussed on this board. My suspicions I am adopted are even stronger. They are hiding something else if not that from me. I have known something has been hidden for years. I used to tell therapists "Something is wrong, I can't lay my finger on".

She labeled me the throwaway and tossed me over board. She convinced others, that I was not worthy of even the most basic attention, notice, love, or decent treatment. For years I lapped up the crumbs of whatever I could get. I owe nothing to these people anymore. No loyalty, nothing.

I feel in a strange place lately. I find myself thinking "Can I get a new improved life?" "Can I be happy where I wake up smiling?" I have brief glimpses of light on the horizon. Sometimes I smile and think of what things could be. I pray to God for financial security, and to survive and for one day to belong somewhere. My days are more peaceful being NC, but I have to admit, none of this easy, you overthrow the old order. I have left Jim Jones narc land, and the brainwashed cult members are pissed. You take out the trash and see the empty can sitting there and think "Now what?"

Thank God I have my husband and my friends.  So many years in narc darkness, so old now coming out into the light. So many years being told and shown by these people I was nothing. Closed doors, closed minds from hell, where one could scream and shout and nothing new could enter in. The days of cast down eyes, and listening to their self-elevating babble and excuses are over. The prisons they tried to lock me in were so extreme.

I have to be done with them. I'm walking away from MORE of them. My mother took my father's family away too.

Update on this one: I believe chances are very high that this aunt knew family secrets, and most likely knew my grandfather on that side was not my real grandfather.  I believe my mother could have known but my father showed no signs of knowing.  This was why this aunt/half-aunt got upset at me delving into the past. She was still toxic and more loyal to my mother. I found out my grandfather on that side was not my real grandfather via DNA testing on ancestry. She could be my father's half sister, and half aunt to me. That would make the cousins on that side half cousins. She betrayed me multiple times and do not regret going no contact with her or her daughter. 

People

Was thinking more about the conversation with the cousin, he's a mixed bag as a commenter said, but he's harmful to me whether in his case he means to be or not. I think about how I was viewed within the family and always blamed and the more I thought about that, I thought, he believed the others about me. He talked to me like I was the "wrong" and "bad" one, putting me in defense mode. Over-exertion was the name of the game in that conversation.  That's how life always was around those people.

Trying to convince someone is a waste of time too. In in his case, I think he honestly wants some kind of connection with me but it's very loaded. One warning flag for us, when dealing with anyone connected to our families, is if you are having to "work" to be validated or scurrying around to "convince" someone, you are already wasting your time. I know I got exhausted trying to open eyes and ended up with very disappointing results. Aunt Denial is a covert narc who used croccodile tears to smear me to this cousin. When you got 4-5 narcissists tag-teaming on you it's bad business.

I was much happier having no contact with the family or any members in it. I was actually doing far better for the first time in years. I have to remember that. My health is still bad but I had gotten too a new relaxation place not dealing with any of them. People who make you feel like you have to defend yourself are bad business.

They all take me back to a terrible place that is hard to describe where I am "seen" as a bad person. I am always in the wrong. The more I thought about his focus on accusations and me treating Aunt Denial badly when it's her that slammed the door in my face. the more I thought, I opened myself up to more hurt and pain. He may admit a few things but even my brother did, they are part of the same sick system.  To them the sick system is "family", to me, the sick system is a bunch of evil people who did everything possible to ruin my life. They love the narcissists, I do not. 

To be this old and still seen as the "worm" is hard. When you are around people who make your self esteem drop like a rock, it's time to get away.  I don't think keeping any relationships in the "family" will ever be possible. Even after Queen Spider dies, there's too much water under the bridge for me to ever reconnect with any. Once people had their chance to treat you right and then forfeited it, it's over.

In my regular life, I am tired of being judged, and have cut that out of my life. Why take it from those people? Even his words about me being "paranoid" and judging Aunt Denial wrong, who constantly turned away from me, told me who he believed. I could hear the words of my mother in his voice. His response to my would be adoption, since he was told about my genetic disease, is odd too, and I believe the influence of narcissists who told him I am paranoid and a liar. He is thin and extremely healthy and I look nothing like him. This is someone who can hike in the woods for miles.

He ignored things I said about abuse over being closed out for illness. More and more I have understood completely that how they allowed a very disabled woman to be treated was sickening. Their pressure demands for an Aspie to fully conform to their technocrat personality ways was sickening as well.

Sometimes I feel weird trying to tell so many people in the faux family my "side of the story" and not being believed. The ones who even admit I was abused and continue to be, are not safe either, as they still believe the narcissists even if they admit a few "bad behaviors" or maybe the narcissists convinced them inside I deserved to be abused.

I'll wait and see if I get the video for now but I have realized it is very important I maintain full no contact from my entire family for my health and well-being. The ACON spokespeople, Ollie, Luke 17:3 ministries and others who warn that anyone who is in contact with your abusers is harmful to you, are absolutely right.

Having Kids is Too Hard Today: The Child Free Movement

                                                             source

I've gone to read the Brat-free board before. It's not always a pleasant place. Some of these child-free by choice people brag of their ability to go on vacations and do everything their hearts desire but I wonder how many choose to be child-free due to the sheer lack of money. That's one thing if a millennial is never going to be able to afford his own apartment or make money that actually feeds himself, the idea of having children is going to be put on the back shelf. Time magazine makes being child-free look like a choice of wealthy couples who want to lay on the beach, but for many people it is a "choice" coming from economic pressures and poverty.

I was mostly infertile--never had periods unless forced by drugs like birth control or Provera for twenty years. Though oddly when I went on insulin I suddenly started getting periods all the time and the doctors warned me for the first time in twenty years I am fertile, but I am way too sick to get pregnant.  Some of them seemed confused why insulin brought all the periods back. They never told me why. When you are over 45 the chances for a healthy woman to get pregnant are less then 5 percent, but it's something I didn't need looming over my head. Being this old, I am glad I did not pass down being 700lbs and having severe Lipedema/PCOS and other problems to a child. I hit a wall on my adoption search, but my Lipedema had to come from some where. Rare genetic diseases don't pop up out of nowhere. Even in this woman's case, I believe there is definitely going to be one child with a severe weight problem.

Years ago, I was not in any place to have children. Since meeting old classmates, it has boggled my mind how they got their lives so together so quickly having children in most cases in their early 20s. Well they had normal bodies, were allowed to date and did not have insane parents. As I starved and ate ramen noodles and lived out of milk-crates, they were having babies and beginning careers with actual futures. Now they are having grandchildren. I ask myself, "How did they have the money?" I never would have. Most were married and there were secure jobs in the mix even by that age but I went to an upper middle class high school in a traditional mid-sized town. Facebook can suck, they are even planning the 30 year old reunion, but I don't plan to go. I'm definitely the poorest one by far, I weigh 500lbs. There's a classmate in prison for attempted murder so maybe I'm not the absolute lowest on the totem pole but even that one had children and one day will have grandchildren.

The Child-free movement board talk about the "entitled moos" Mothers and obstinate "duhs" or Dads, parenthood seems to be trophy time among many today. Children have become trophies. I saw this among my relatives to the max. Instead of any punks or goths, obedient Eagle scouts and band nerds have predominated in my family. The child-free are sick of the bragging, and the "special rights". I don't blame them. Watching so many people treat children like trophies and like they became something special just because they had sex and bred like millions of others, has gotten especially cloying over these last ten years.

Parenting for some has become about bragging rights. You see this on Facebook where the endless achievements of everyone's children are touted. They are always winning sports awards, getting good grades or doing sell-out plays. I saw one narcissistic ex-wife of a cousin, even post her entire kid's report card. Many of these narcissists deserved drugged out sneering pot-head teens and got kids that look like they came out of a catalog. Children to many are like items on a life resume, get good ones who get good jobs, and good-looking grandchildren:  Instant bragging rights! Life for child-free ACONs like myself can be especially hell on earth as new babies are cooed over and parents congratulated and seen as full adults while you never are.

                                          I can't figure this guy out, is he being sarcastic, for real? Tongue in cheek?

Many child-free people including myself, know what it is like to be told, that you matter less because you did not have children. Some parents directly say this. I was told that I mattered less to my face because I never had breeded, infertility, health problems and others not withstanding.  My brother even admitted I mattered less because I never had children. How was I supposed to pop out babies when I was dying of sepsis and weighed near 700lbs and hadn't had a period since I was 19 years old? Most women with severe PCOS with far better health then me have to dish out tens of thousands of dollars on fertility treatments.  Our too short 9 years of working class stability still would have made having children near impossible as we were buried in medical bills and I couldn't even breath.  Churches back this up too, they bring the already overly congratulated mothers to the front of the room on Mother's day and give them presents. They hold special dinners for them. They tell you "be fruitful and multiply" and that your main worth as a woman is to have children. Non-mothers in this equation don't matter.  The child-free including me are kind of sick of it all. You can see the pain underneath the angry stances on the Child-free boards.

Families themselves have become idolized, the Duggars with their 19 children are a fertility cult held up as examples to emulate. Otherwise what is special about them beyond the ability to breed so much? Not much. All their grown children seem to be following in the parents footsteps. There's a reason that even after the scandals they kept them on TV.

Some of the child-free do seem overly resentful of crying babies and seem to have Republican stances, that anyone who is poor made "bad choices" and should not have children. I have marveled myself though at extremely poor people having gobs of children, knowing the realities of the welfare system. It doesn't pay out that much anymore and how did they take care of them all? It seems being a parent today would be very hard. American society is not set up to take care of children especially ever since men and woman got caught up in the feminist two for one deal. A workaholic society set up for constant competition and endless moving is not setting up a stable crucible for children. The expectations on parents when there is no extended family or "village" to help out are insane.

It seems a lot of people get into parenthood now knowing what it is all about. I had no such illusions. I worked in day care centers, was a teacher, and was even basically an " in loco parentist" being a group home "family teacher" and residential counselor for several years. I knew babies meant hours and hours of no sleep, puking, clean-ups, constant diaper changing and scary illness. Teens [well I had the most crazed versions of them] meant arguments, confrontations, lack of impulse control and other insanity. Motherhood because of the work I did, didn't have this filmy haze over it of Kodak Moments. I knew parenthood took cash and stamina, I simply never had. Even being infertile all those years, I was doubling up on birth control to hedge my bets. I was on a drug that caused severe birth defects too for over 15 years so that made the vigilance even more important.

In the back of mind too, since I was basically raised by a sociopath with the feelings of a rock, I also knew that parenthood would be more problematic for me. My husband says he thinks I would have been a good mother and marvels still at watching me teach some little kids art once which I did at a volunteer gig.  One odd thing about life now is I spent my 20s surrounded literally by children and teens and now I'm one of those old curmudgeons who definitely doesn't understand the "young" world anymore.

Many of the posts on child-free boards, talk about how people find parenthood to be very hard. They talk about how some parents post on the internet that they didn't know what they were getting into. They are in shock and traumatized about how everything is so complicated. I believe some stances about parenting today have made it more difficult. All the helicopter parenting where one must hover over their child ever second, seems exhausting beyond belief. The constant working and lack of time and ability to have a decent home life, makes having children even harder.  The child-free board are right about the  weird worship of "natural child birth" where in reality in the old days many women died of it, and about the hidden physical effects of giving birth. There is a strain of martyrship in "mommyhood" that seems toxic to the max and it's not about taking care of the kids but about showing off. They rant about the bad parents who don't teach children right from wrong, or in respecting others and enable behavior. In a growing narcissistic society, having calm children who are taught to respect others, is growing far more rare.

Some people have children today for the wrong reasons. It seems some have children so they won't be alone and if you get into it, expecting the kid to meet your needs then it is a recipe for disaster. Some say have children so you are not alone and old! Even that isn't always a guarantee since the kids can move away or die before you or even go no contact if you are a rotten parent. I often wondered thought my own narcissistic parents had children because they "were supposed to" but actually did not enjoy children or their demands. We bothered them. They probably would have been happier people child-free. Maybe not. They needed their trophies. Hopefully now with birth control so common, more people who should not have children won't. A lot of the narcissists out there get disappointed because it seems many believe they will have little Mini-Mes. DNA doesn't work that way. Perhaps some of us ACONs who remained child-free missed a bullet, in giving birth to someone who may have matched the rest of the family or had their tendencies. My DNA connection to my own family is dubious, but I had the thought, "What if I had a kid, and it got the personality of my mother?"

So while I am not technically child-free by choice, one can see the themes out there. Many young people are choosing not to have children because this society is not set up properly anymore for the nurturing of children. They are too broke and poor and can barely take care of themselves. Or if rich enough, they are made to work long hours with everything dedicated to the career. They know having children is very hard today. The money, time and stamina are short in supply even for the healthy and able. The relationships and marriages don't last long enough and in the land of throw-away people, things aren't as stable. Our world and society are growing harder, more cold and difficult to survive in. Having children is not as easy at it used to be and the narcissism is making for children to be treated like trophies, badly educated with negative character training where many people who are without children in society simply don't want to deal with them.

I even think of a bible verse when I think of today's child-free movement:

Luke 21:23 But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.

The times have come now where people don't want children. Even as the churches idolize families and judge those without children, this is the reality. The growing narcissism of society has made having children much more difficult as well. So wonder there is even such a thing as the child-free movement. 

Why is She Wasting Her Time and Stamp?

I have thrown away a lot of cards but every now and then I read one. At least I don't get that feeling of fear anymore when I see a card from her. Thankfully that is gone. All the cards are the SAME. They all basically state "I didn't do anything" in various guises. It's like watching a psychological horror flick. Why waste the time and the stamp? Does she think by repeating herself, that I will erase my own memory banks? If she thinks she can play some guilt games, I'm not wasting guilt on people with no feelings.

Her "mask" always counted more then her own "daughter". It is more of the gaslighting, rewriting history, saying it did not happen. She never has given a real apology in her life. You know the proof is in the pudding with our broken relationship.

 She has no feelings. She has no humility. She never would ask, "What is wrong?" or say "How can I fix things?" Nope I get the same denial I have gotten for years and this is exactly what built the problems to be so huge. She treated me like I was nothing for years and continues this in her "cards". She's wasting the stamp. She always put me last way behind everyone else. I was nothing to her. I didn't get a card from the GC sister, I figure they are swapping "scapegoat duty" since the GC sent me an anniversary card I just threw in the trash and didn't even open and she sent me the birthday card.

 I once had the idea in the early days of my NC to tell her the only way I will come back is if she issues an official letter of apology to the entire family and admits her poor treatment of me, sends copies and reconciles my relationships with them. I know it's never would happen in a million years. It would be fake anyhow.  Funny how we get those fantasies. I always had the fantasy of having a mother with an actual conscience and heart. Same for a sister with the same.

The sentence "came into our lives" is odd. Is this a way someone would write about someone actually BORN to them where they were pregnant with them? Yeah I know I hit a dead end with the adoption search but I found the wording strange. You know I tried to read her "withholding" heiroglyphics for years. You can really get to know someone, they stay a stranger when they never tell the truth and do nothing but rewrite history.

I did have a good birthday, went to go eat some Indian food with my husband, and had some friends visit me.

An Accurate Measure of Mental Health ISN'T Lack of Anger

An Accurate Measure of Mental Health ISN'T Lack of Anger

"Feelings are not good or bad in a moral sense. They just are. It is what we do with them that enters the moral sphere. We are accountable for our behaviors. What I have noticed after having lived this long is how often people are ready to instantly condemn you if you feel angry. Anger is one of those emotions considered to be always wrong in many people's estimation. They don't say this outright, but it comes out in how they address you and your anger. You need to get past it. You need to forgive. You need to forget about it. Move on. Etcetera ad nauseum. Never mind that your anger is an appropriate reaction to a gross injustice. Get over it. Why? Because they are uncomfortable with it? How narcissistic of them.

I've talked before about emotions vs. behaviors and how, no matter what our emotions are, we must behave in a moral way. Being angry is not justification for doing wrong by someone else. I am trying to get to something else so I won't go into more detail on this aspect.

What I want to get to is how do you know if you are in a healthy place in your head? How do you know, for yourself, that you are not letting your anger ruin your life? 

You have the psychobabblers and do-gooder Christian types clucking their tongues if you happen to show a flash of anger when talking about the narcissist. They immediately assume that you are not progressed yet to a place of 'healing' if, when talking about the evil narcissist and her evil acts perpetrated on your own life (which likely has ongoing effects on your life and is therefore a crime in progress), you dare display your outrage. People are afraid of our anger. Why? One reason is because they are sloppy thinkers. They think that our anger is the problem when the real problem is the monster who inflicts pain every chance they get. Our anger is an appropriate response to their inappropriate behavior. If the tongue-cluckers insist we should not let ourselves feel an appropriate emotion then they are, in reality, insisting we become like the narcissist--pretending our way through life and denying what we feel. I'm not going there for anyone."

The blogger above is right about anger. Denying our feelings is no path to mental health. I know one thing that she talks about which I struggle with is acceptance. In my mind there is a picture of what my family should have been, and of course my adoption possibilities play into this, where I think why didn't I get one ally or person like me. The other day I told my husband, "None of them were like me, how did I get stuck with this bunch!?" The fantasy of them ever saying "We are sorry" or treating me like a human being must be laid to rest. Anger is a natural emotion in response to abuse. There is nothing "wrong" with righteous anger. It is what you do with it that counts.

She is right the people who tell us we are wrong to feel angry are telling us to become like the narcissists and what the narcissists themselves demanded. Perfect smiles, no rocking the boat and giving positive narcissistic supply. 

Being Housebound Sucks

                                               [picture source]
"Let me out! I just want to see a coffee shop and the library again!"

You feel like winter will never end. You don't get to go out and do things other people do. For me it is a dismantling of my entire life over and over. My church probably thinks I have dropped out. I have not seen but 4 human beings in the last month. Food is tasteless. I am addicted to the Internet. I watch shows and read books where people have actual lives and go live theirs instead of having one.  County jail time at this conjuncture in my life would be nothing compared to the sentences served inside. Involuntary pseudo "house arrest" on a tether made of temperature is the norm for me. When do I get to escape. I can mentally gear up for some months like this for winter and time in summer but when it gets too long the tears begin.

Last night I missed a dinner with friends, social invitations don't come to me as often as other people,
and when you disappoint people over and over, it only adds to the lonely and frustrated feeling. It was a Mensa dinner too and I have wanted to attend one for awhile. I'm not a member but wanted to see what it was like.  The friends came to visit me after their dinner but I wanted to shake my fist at the sky and scream as the temperatures stayed in the teens.  Today my husband is writing on a festival, I wouldn't mind going to and will miss. The cold and heat never let up, our weather has grown worse.

I had two months of illness from Dec-Jan. I do not know why I am not being spared when it is almost March. I need some air.  I need a vacation. I need to see some people.  The four walls of this apartment I pay way too much for are closing in. Paying for my cage and then guilty thinking "Oh don't complain, there are homeless people out there.". You could be freezing your butt off on a park bench.  More guilt thinking there are people stuck in nursing homes and even totally bedbound, it could be worse. Cursing the lungs and the body for the live unlived. Internet addiction grows. Doing the day to day chores from dishes to the walk down the hall feel like a walkway to nothingness.

So many things delayed, paper work for adoption, getting glasses, getting a digital hearing aid, going to counseling because I am like a rat in the cage and the temperature refuses to budge to 30-32, where I could escape. I feel for my husband who is having to do every errand alone including mountains of paperwork. I imagine Mini-Me happily driving around, and the Queen Spider enjoying her warm Florida days eating dinner out and at her community center while life for me narrows. Healing would come quicker with a good life to replace my bad memories.

Maybe I should move to a new climate, but I am tired of moving, tired of starting over, tired of goodbyes. So much has already been ripped away and I do not know how to replace it. The only climate that would work is Seattle and northwestern Washington State, but I don't have money to make the over thousands of mile trip to even see if I like it there. I've never been there. The cost of living means I would be living in a cardboard box on the street too. Heat does the same thing and could trap me as bad as the cold so moving to a more southern climate won't work either though if I was rich and could snow bird it, life would be far easier. Why did I get COPD so young when I never smoked in my life?

Then I was walking in the apartment hall for my exercise and saw two 80 something women going out shopping in 5 degrees. One had several shopping bags. How do they breathe out there? It gave me a strange feeling. How do they not fall out there on the snow and ice? Even with a walker the slightest bit of slush seems to make my feet act like a cartoon character slipping on thin ice.

I talk to doctors about this, they know I am stuck inside all the time, and the mobility and breathing issues. They tell me "Do your best," and "Don't push it" and admit there are reasons that if I tried to go out in 10 degrees, I would be seeing the ER. My circulation and body even shut down beyond the breathing if I get too cold. When I was young, I would push it. Who wants to have no life? Everyone wants one.  I would even throw up and have many bad things happen to me. I've been dealing with housebound issues since 1999.

I do develop my "own little world" and always have something to do, trust me, I do not get bored but while I can mentally prepare myself for a certain period of time when it drags out too long, it gets wearing. I sometimes wish I could just get on a bus and go see something new, without risking homelessness because I spent the money on travel instead of rent. How did my life get so blah? Is it my fault?

I'm just so disappointed. It's March and I've actually been struggling with being stuck inside and more since mid-November. The winters seem to be getting longer and longer. The money shorter and shorter. You just want to have a life like everyone else does. You pray to God asking "Why me?".

I think of things to change this but remain so stuck. Stuck behind a wall of ice. I think of things that I want to do and the body and lack of money that prevent them drives me insane. I try to come up with other options and fall flat.  One dreams of a better life, and visas to be seen not an endless prison sentence.

Why Is My life So Rotten?

I consider changing my name too.

Lucky Otter wrote about possibly changing her name. 

I consider it too. I don't like my real world first name which is like a 1970s cheerleader's name and doesn't seem to represent me well. No one ever called me by my name except a few friends, most called me nicknames instead and IRL I go by two different nicknames. In elementary school none of the kids thought my name fit, so called me a derivative of my family's last name.

 I have the option to change my last name to that of my husband's. I didn't when I got married, I was more liberal then but now kind of regret it. The whole world thinks I live in sin, and I get tired of explaining people that we are really legally married. When you have no children, you can appear too much like boyfriend and girlfriend or live togethers even if you have been married for 16 years.

Socially at church I go by his last name. I have to find out my adoption information before deciding what to do with my name. I may leave it alone and just use the nicknames and names I do anyway, but I have considered it too.

  How to Change Your Name

Narcissistic Family on My 600lb Life?

The times I watch My 600lb life are rare. I don't believe in weight loss surgery. I know too many who have died of it, or had their few "good" years and then regained it all back.  My year puking my guts out in 2013 from kidney problems is one reason, I have no interest. When the digestion goes, life is hell, and I prayed for death a few times that year hunched over puke pails, so no weight loss surgery for me! It seems many of these patients have lymphedema problems that are massively ignored as well.

 This week, I kept watching this show about Erica after channel surfing, more intrigued by the family dynamics rather then the pursuit of the WLS. It probably was a mistake, the show was very triggering for me. I should have shut it off, but figured I'd watch it to the end, and then write about it on here.

Erica did have some faults, ones I didn't like.  I hate how My 600lb Life, makes every supersized person out to be a food addicted person.  I know they are out there, but there's a reason TV never puts low metabolism or medical cases on there. I never had junk food hidden in my bedroom. The way she talked to this nutritionist bugged me but then what good is a nutritionist who comes in your house and throws away all the bad food and replaces it with nothing?

 No one will change my mind that obesity in America is a malnutrition problem via bad food and the expenses of good food. Finding and obtaining good food is harder and harder. Erica's personality is very closed down and very muted. She makes Aspie me look animated, she is so closed down. I wonder if something is wrong with her because her voice is so monotone and she is so shut down, but this will happen to CPTSD people undergoing more severe traumas and those with other mental health issues. That's beyond my knowing, but you can tell she has gone through a lot. She talks about being sexually assaulted by several men at the behest of a betraying "boyfriend" and also about severe abuse from a father who calls her "Godzilla".

Her family was as mean as rattlesnakes. They were cruel people and chances are, several were narcissists.  They hated her, you could tell and she even admitted they never came to visit her, and ignored her more and more. Her weight disgusted them, though a few of them were mildly obese. Erica took things to the extreme in asking her brother to take months off work to go with her to Houston and that was some extreme boundary breaking but her sister and brother were both very nasty people who you could tell were absolutely sick of her. When Erica said to her brother in trying to get him to help, that she would be dead soon, it was manipulative and showed some of her mental health problems. I wanted to yell at the TV,  "he doesn't care about you!".

They saw her as a "nothing" and a "failure" and I believe this worsened her problems. Take the father into account with his calling her "Godzilla" and this being acceptable in a family and the sickening detail the family did not pursue justice on her behalf when it came to a gang-rape and you know Erica was the scapegoat and dealing with some major narcissists and sociopaths. With my family, I was seen the same way. A lot of my going no contact, came about from my discovery of my Lipedema and being vindicated from all these years of ill health and abuse. I tried to seek answers via my adoption search they refused to answer, I knew I no longer stick around people who saw me as nothing. Sure I had my times of wishing I had been able to "get thin" or become rich to "earn their love" but as I healed, I knew I deserved better. Narcissistic families teach scapegoats to suck up the crumbs.


 Even Erica's keeping her sexual assault secret from her father resonated with me. I had two attempted rapes where I successfully fought off my attackers before rape happened, but I kept those secret too including the one when I was 13 and when the young man stalked me at high school. I knew I would not be believed and may even be blamed. Erica's trauma was far worse but the family dynamics are quite similar. Not one relative ever learned about my attempted rapes.

 The father did not appear on the show though some of his abuse was talked about, and Erica's mother had died. Erica had failed weight loss surgery at the age of 16 and I get the feeling it was something she was "forced" into by a family who used her like a trash can. This surgery failed, so I think it's even worse she got another surgery, and what will keep this one from failing too?

 One reason I never wanted weight loss surgery is it does not fix inner metabolic problems. For food addicts it is just a lock box and for people like me it would not work, except for maybe a mild amount of weight in the short term. I sometimes wish a researcher would do studies on abuse as related to cortisol and severe obesity. It would make an interesting study, as probably daily grinding abuse and PTSD set people up for either addiction or inner damage to the pituitary-adrenal-thyroid axis.

 Erica's family was so nasty and her sister and brother full of utter derision, it shocked me they didn't even tone things down for national TV and the sake of appearances. This show brought back memories for me of the endless derision I got from my family. In my case, while I got some help with cars and car repairs in my 30s, mostly to keep husband able to go to his too low paid work, I never asked my family to let me move in after the age of 21, or help with any caretaking or the daily duties of life. I knew they never were there for me. There was one time my mother even yelled at me, "Don't you dare move back to my town, you embarrass me!" I sucked it up and took the bus or went to the social workers or went without. Even at near 700lbs and I don't know how I did it then, but I was young, I was still taking the bus and able to walk. Thankfully my time at that high of a weight was short, but then I've been stuck in the mid to high 400s to 500s for a long time bouncing around always worrying about gaining.

 Erica needed a lot more help from her family and one could see the major resentment and hatred for her. Some may say well they were practicing "tough love" for all her food addiction, but I didn't see that, I saw disgusted narcissistic people who had no forgiveness for a sister who was struggling. Even if Erica could be demanding, and probably the terrible dynamics set that up, the way they treated her stunk. I wish I could write her a letter and say "Go no contact with your family, they are toxic to you". Keep the niece she has some love but even there be careful she is not manipulated. The way her family treated her was very familiar.

 While I never was dependent on my family or asking them to take me to Houston or haul me out of the tub, the gestures, looks, cruel words and rest all resonated with me. It was like watching my own life be rerun. I didn't cry or anything, I sat there in shock. My husband was busy transcribing while I was watching this show, and later I would have to go talk to him about what I saw on the TV. I exclaimed, "Thank God I went no contact, now I can have some dignity!" and he agreed, that going no contact was the best thing I ever did.

Back to Erica, I believe that the special circumstances of being severely obese and an ACON/scapegoat at the same time can be among the worse things a human being can suffer. It is a life I would not wish on my worse enemy. I have known very fat people loved by their families, I know two in town, one is an Aspie man and the other was a lady in the 400lb range who served as my Stephan's Minister some years back. It makes for a whole other mind set to be loved despite your physical failings. I found love in marriage which probably rescued me too and kept me from utter destruction but to have a hateful family and being fat at the same time in this society is a very bad mixture. For those who face physical, sexual and other abuse on top of it, with high ACE scores, researchers have already deemed a life of ruined health and more chances of serious addiction.

 Her sister's meanness towards her points to narcissism, such as the time Erica is happy she has lost 30lbs and the sister responds, "it should have been more". Another instance Erica is in a hotel room after grueling travel and is sitting there, and the sister is angry at her being upset about her bed. For supersized people not having a proper bed can mean falls or being trapped and not being able to get up. Her sister throws her, a bagged dinner and walks out. The lack of empathy showed itself multiple times. Erica's sister even says at one point "Erica is an embarrassment." Society is always so hard on us, and if you match that up with a family who hates you and rejects you and tells you that you are not good enough over your weight for years and years, that is very hard for a person to survive.

 Some close down like Erica, her emotions were so shut down to "survive". I know I had my slumbering and comatose years though I had my "fight back" times and my finally "run like hell" and "I am done with you people for good" time. If she hopes to regain her health, getting away from toxic people is an important part of this. It will be her only hope.

 We Don't Love You Because You are Fat