Don't Go to Empty Wells!

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Don't go to empty wells! Walk away from the wells that are always dry!

When I went No Contact, I ended a friendship from college some months later. No Contact can re-order everything. The treatment you refuse from your familial narcissists, you start refusing from others!

This was not my close two friends from college but a third one, I haven't mentioned here yet.  We had kept contact on and off with over the years. If anyone was more apathetic about being my friend, it was this woman. How was I so blind? It hit me, this was a toxic friendship I had continued due to the family training. The only time I heard from this friend from college is when she wanted medical advice, and her main emotion would be annoyance when I popped up back up. She was always "too busy". This was true in college too and even during the year we were roommates. Now I know in the world people have careers, and children and really are busy, but this was not someone I was bothering all the time. We lived long distance from one another. If you came to someone and every time you tried to get a small measure of time, they seemed bothered, that should be a red flag, but in my ACON fog, this was normal to me. My narcissistic parents had taught me to grovel for every drop of attention to be metered out with resentment.

 Our last interaction, she told me she was "too busy" to respond to a letter that had "too many words". What an odd thing to say to someone. At that point, my decision to be "done", was firm and I told her, "I am done, this friendship is over." Ending friendships is rare for me but in this case, there was no other decision to be made. This friendship had a strange push and pull quality. I would even ask her, "Do you still want to be friends even?" and she would say "Yes", however it took me going no contact to realize what a rotten friend she was, and that I had put up with poor treatment and rejection from her for too many years.

She wanted me around at her whim, and not any other time. One realization I had about her, is she had no friends left. She complained to me some months before I ended the friendship, that she had no friends left. I said to her, "You actually have to send a card or pay attention to your friends, or show or tell them that you care or people will move on."

I was thinking about this topic when writing a comment to another poster, how some of us ACONs are literally set up to beg for the affections of the uninterested. We spent years as children pleading with cold parents to pay attention to us, to listen to us, to recognize we are alive and we take this out into the world! We think begging to be loved is normal.

Well it's not --no matter what the love songs tell us like "Ain't Too Proud to Beg"!

One thing us ACONs need to ask ourselves to heal is "What is love?"

What does it mean to be loved?

I have friends who love me and I love them. I love my husband. This love has kept me in for the long haul despite the very bad money problems that would have crater bombed many other relationships.

What does love feel like? Love means care, thinking of another person, desiring the best for them, wondering how they are, and being concerned for them. Love means growth and goodness. Love is a bright light in a world of darkness. Love is that special spark between you and another person, a connection that crosses all boundaries. Love feels good. Love means being listened to, and being seen! While all people may argue or disagree from time to time, being loved feels good. Love is of God. [1 John 4:8]

Love doesn't hurt. Love doesn't mean constant rejection. Love doesn't mean having a door slammed shut in your face over and over. Love doesn't mean being ignored when severely ill.

One hard thing to face being an ACON who desires recovery is facing the fact they were not loved by people who were supposed to love them. People don't treat people like dirt who they love. Abuse and smear campaigns are not love. When I went no contact from a great multitude of my family with my mother and sister at the top of the list, I had to face facts, I was not loved by them. It was the truth. They despised me. With honesty comes acceptance. I had to admit it.

As a child my mother shoved me away and disinvited me from whatever she could get away with. She did not love me. My father did not love me either.

The world will tell everyone in one of it's myths that all parents love their children. This is simply not true. Aunt Confused, would state over and over to me, "Your mother loves you!" Facing the reality of this can be hard. When you face that wall of "I WAS NOT LOVED". I didn't want to face this. For years as an adult, I pushed my bad suspicions underground and didn't want to deal with it and suppressed the pain. The bad treatment continued and I made too many excuses. I worked HARD for 20 plus years on BAD relationships. All the energy went one way outside of some show-off presents. All the trying to 'work' things out. All the wanting to please. All the wishing they would notice I was alive, or talk things out. I was literally begging in letters which in their narcissistic minds only created more disgust for me.

Yes sadly I begged and begged some more. Everyone wants love. No one wants to be alone. I had this idea of a loving family. I thought I could solve problems in the relationships being clueless and with the scapegoat training thinking I was the problem and not them. As they grew colder, I grew more desperate.

When I became a Christian, I even "forgave" for the childhood abuses wanting a new slate. Thinking if I was a kind enough daughter and nice to my relatives they would love me and want me around, despite personality differences, despite being so overweight. How sad.

For years this kind of thing expanded out to the rest of my life. People pleasing ruled my world. There was too much begging to people who didn't really want me around. The Aspergers, fat rejection and hearing impairment tripled things up on me.  I came across as too needy. There was too much putting up with crap from very toxic people. There was taking way too much abuse while blaming myself the whole time.  There was way too much expended and wasted energy wanting to be liked, loved and cared about.

It takes two to tango and if one party is uninterested, it's not happening. You can't control other people and to do so is unhealthy. Let them be. In my ACON mind, the fantasies of cruel people suddenly turning into loving angels, never seemed to stop. I kept thinking too if I only write the "right" letter, if only I fixed what was "wrong", or said the exact "right" thing that I could change things. Even during my no contact, I had thoughts about writing her a letter, that would "wake her up!". I refused those temptations.  It was not going to happen. This was desperation born of early childhood rejection. A inner loneliness and fear of being cast out forever, that seemed to cut deep into my soul which kept me begging on my knees before these people for far too many years.

I'm finally getting a clue. I sent a nephew a card. He is 16 and now old enough to make decisions about who to talk to or not. I decided this is going to be the last card if I do not hear from him. I provided my email and address. No more begging. I made the offer, and the ball is now in his court. Sadly here the smear campaigns took their toll I am sure.

 I saw going no contact as no more banging my head on the brick walls. I also knew that I never was going to be what they wanted me to be and now I know in my heart they will never be the people I desired for a family. My years of thinking, "I disappointed them" and crying that I was not a good enough daughter or sister or niece, has now transformed into, "They disappointed me". This is more of the tables-turning and me waking up to what happened. It wasn't my fault. I didn't control it and I didn't choose it.

We hurt ourselves when we go to empty wells. We hurt ourselves when we go begging for love or attention that should come naturally and spontaneous. We hurt ourselves trying to expend energy on relationships that have a dead end. Family or not, no one deserves to be treated this way. No longer wasting time trying to draw water up out of a dry well, we allow ourselves space to have people in our lives who truly do love us and want us around. Who open the door instead of close it. ACONs have a lot to work through but being able to realize those loving relationships are out there is part of the healing process. We don't have to beg to be loved. We aren't loved when we have to beg.

You're Crazy!

This one nailed it so hard. Mine did this all the time. She convinced everyone I was crazy. Team this up with some gas-lighting and cunning manipulation and what a mess! Mine actually would ironically shout, "You need to see a counselor!" even though she never has darkened the door of a counselor's office in her entire life. This is the top technique on how they get the flying monkeys and betraying bystanders to turn on you. Mine would of course deny things right in front of your face. She would tell me things had not happened that did. It was constant lies and crazy making. Even now in NC I am even examining things I was told, knowing I cannot believe anything unless I saw it directly for myself!

Starved for Nutrients!

This is a huge part of the obesity epidemic!

No more Crushing Us!

We are being sued by someone who hit our parked car almost two years ago. Yesterday we got served. You know when you feel like throwing up whenever there is an uninvited knock at the door, this is not good. We had and have car insurance so hopefully will be okay, but why did this guy wait? And what kind of person waits til two days before Thanksgiving to serve you papers, almost two years after the fact? I don't blame the server, she was nice.

So add another one to the list wanting money we don't have and add that to the mega tax debt. The whirlpool into the financial abyss seems never ending. Well one advantage of homelessness is no servers at your door.

 I hate money more and more, to me it's become a joke, like the magic green stuff that vanishes into thin air. They seem to want me to be like a magician snapping my fingers for it to show up, how am I supposed to do all of this? The demands are insane. I am surprised we have made it this long. At least I can get medical care but this is one reason America is going down the tubes. Many people are getting crushed. I know the hands out for the cash of the better off then me never end however I still see the people too who have lives and vacations I never could dream of. If I had money though I would not be blowing it on cruises and being stuck in a floating prison tin-can with 4,000 souls--my idea of a nightmare.

 What would life be free of money-burdens. Definitely a lot happier. Time to become a freegan? Move in with someone? I can't stand to be without my own household. Absolutely cannot stand it, even if it would mean less pressure on us both. I am free of my family but no one is lining up for the job and I hate having roommates and would never burden friends this way so our only option is to keep paying these impossible bills. The pot is empty Mr. Lawsuit! Can I join the Hutterites or something? Would they take a near elderly couple with messed up bodies?

 Religious morality supercedes my idea once voiced under duress, that we each go get a sugar-parent, no sugar daddy for me! One can't divorce someone they love even if they are dead broke on either side. Divorce only makes you poorer! Two Aspies [he doesn't admit he is an Aspie] suck at "life skills". Many of the normals have broken the code of actually making a decent living but my body can only do so much. The hours to stay alive are many, it takes me longer to do things people take for granted. Time for me is a rushing river. I'm not someone who "gets bored".

My husband is constantly writing only to lose work via contract employers, that always happens during the holidays. I think he is stumped on how to improve things too. Problem is life coaches cost money. Maybe they should have a special brand of them for the poor to help us get our lives in order. The psychological counselors, will pass out the pills but really can't help you if your main problem is lack of the green stuff. I'm trying to get him to go to career counselors for a new action plan or something. I need to make pin money on etsy or something, but need to figure out how to get more craft supplies. My comic could be sold on there perhaps but is still in progress. Too bad nothing is selling on ebay, it's gotten bad.

 For the poor the holidays are not a shopping spree full of rich food and parties, and presents but when one's income usually drops. I have never gone shopping on a black Friday with the stampeding idiots. Most poor people secretly hate the holidays, they may try to do what they can for their kids but most of us just want the annual greed fests to be OVER. Thanksgiving I am cool with but the rest of it forget it.

We are down to just so much for the last week of November. I bought the turkey three weeks ago, to make sure we would have one, as well as the boxes of stuffing, a can of green beans, and rutabagas but planning a Thanksgiving feast in a week of major food insecurity feels weird. We even ate a charity cabbage I got from the monthly church soup kitchen mixed in two meals of rice noodles and I made 4 meals out of a package of chicken thighs this week. I am so tired of cooking it's not funny but frugality this month has demanded endless from scratch cooking such as the soups made with parsnips. I can cook anything now. I could be a chef if I was in good shape. I wonder if I can make an apple tart with olive oil? Can one make hummus out of dried garbanzo beans and peanut butter? I suppose the internet can tell me.

 My friends help me out all the time, I am very thankful to them. They keep me going. They don't realize how much. Man we are so tired.

We need a break! We are far overdue. I told one friend I am so tired, if everything collapses, maybe I would be relieved. Maybe some take to the streets to escape the bill marathon. I wonder. I want to feel hope again. So many years of struggle JUST TO STAY ALIVE.

I was so upset yesterday, after he got the papers. My husband told me "Calm down, or you are going to stroke out". The last thing we needed was this guy suing us. His own too fast driving caused the accident to begin with. I wasn't there, I was home when it happened. Did he want some cash for shopping or something? He's gone to an empty well!

 See: Materialism, Crushed by Bills and Baby Boomers

Happy Thanksgiving

Saturday Night Live

Even Saturday Night Live knows Obama isn't respecting our government's checks and balances. He seems to be for anyone but the American people.

Remember When There was NO Internet?

Cartoon by Roz Chast.

Yes there was a time before the Internet, I remember those days. It is good the internet did not exist when I was in college and in high school, I would have flunked out! We had a small bulletin board on our computers in college and my hours on that added up. How is the internet changing everyone's life? Maybe we are living life via screens too much. This is where I get those dreams of getting in the time machine but the access to information is so much greater. No more fumbling through phone books, up to the minute weather reports. Now we can find the friends we had when we were 12. I think of the days before the internet and how very different they were.

Charlie Brown Goes on Diet?

This one gave me a laugh. From offthemark.com.

Fall Photo

Improve Your Health: Run From Toxic People

Sometimes one's body will speak before their mind. I think of the Benadryl's I had to take to survive my family for a few hours, so I could breathe and not end up in a fetal position on their couch. One time I made the giant mistake of surviving a serious infection in 2001 going to their house on Thanksgiving and just about passing out at the dinner table. What was I so afraid of? It is hard to explain. I kind of knew my visit in fall of 2012, was going to be my last as I projectiled vomited into my purse on the way home, and had been doubled over in her bathroom praying not to die or let her even know how sick I was. The body speaks it always does, and around them I always felt ill. Going no contact for me seriously was a matter of life and death. Last year I had grown too weak to put on the performances. I still am. This Thanksgiving, I will put in my turkey in the morning with stuffing cut up rutabaga to boil and sigh with relief. No more having to worry about having people mad at me because the temperature has dropped to 20 degrees and I can't breathe. No more sitting closed mouth on couches, afraid to say the wrong thing, no more fearing an IBS attack around the anal retentive who spray clouds of Lysol if you dare to poop in their toilet, no more fearing sudden leg infections that come on within 10 minutes with the red spots springing up suddenly. Just relief.

This Warmed My Heart

Lucky Otter posted some thanks to me. I appreciated this very much. She has a lot of great articles and wonderful insights on her blog. Much of our stories overlap too outside of my weight issues!

Three People Who Deserve My Thanks

I am very happy I was able to inspire someone else to begin a blog. :)

Sister Light, Sister Dark

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This is an article to accompany Sister Fat, Sister Thin

One sees loving sisters on TV all the time. Sadly it is not always like that in the real world.

When I was a child, I loved my sister dearly, we played many games together, shared a bedroom for years full of conversation, and even once I saved her life from a severe asthma attack my parents ignored but my mother would do everything in her power to destroy the relationship.  Well she succeeded. 1986, my sister still loved me, by 1987, it was if a changeling had taken over her. Love turned to hate at the behest of a narcissist!  My sin? Going away to college though now I realized trouble brewed far before that. What happened to the girl I once loved and who was there? It was like an eraser was taken to her very soul. I grieved the same as a woman who has lost a sister to death. That person I once knew is gone.

 A switch was happening in late high school that centered around my Aspergers and growing weight. My sister was embarrassed of me and would pretend not to know me in our high school halls, she knew I was seen as "the nerd". My parents backed her up in this rejection, telling her, that too much closeness with me would socially drag her down. Even though I was a far better student and my parents had me doing her school projects or reusing papers I wrote a few years before, I came way in last. They treated me like a "Nobody".

I remember the extreme differences in our treatment that for some reason worsened immensely by the time I was in high school. My mother would walk into my sister's room every morning to help her get ready, combing her hair,  tidying up her bed, fluffing her pillow for the next night and laying out her clothes and helping her choose what to wear. I remember being around 14 and 15 years old wondering why my sister who was only a year younger got all this attention and I did not. My mother would also make her school lunch, cutting the crusts off the white Italian bread making her favorite garlic bologna sandwiches with lettuce and putting always the same amount of goldfish crackers in a baggy for her.   No one ever made my lunch, I made that on my own. My mother also would pour her bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios--she ate nothing but for breakfast for decades even into adulthood and could even still eat them now for all I know.

Before I went no contact I had to face what my sister really was about, the picture was bad. After I have gone no contact, clarity has made the picture even more frightening.

There were many years I did not want to face who she had become.  The day after Thanksgiving 2012, she sat in my mother's house giving me the same look of disgust and disdain, I had gotten so long from my mother. Going back to that day, looking at her winced up face, staring at me, I thought to myself, "Here is someone who has it all [well on paper], and appreciates none of it. There is no happiness, no light in there."  She had lied to me about her family visiting my mother on Thanksgiving, else I would have gone the day before for Thanksgiving. Her lies and my mothers ensured that I was not there.

I was being punished for the year before's Thanksgiving  [2011] for telling them, they should not have a relative with open and active MRSA [the flesh-eating virus] come to our family Thanksgiving gathering. Just two weeks before he had a surgery to remove a portion of his thigh where the MRSA had ate away at it. I feared losing my leg. This was before I had lymph therapy and my lipedema diagnosis and constant infections came from that.  I warned them because I feared CHILDREN getting it, but I pissed both of them off beyond no belief. Does that make any sense? No, it does not.
This whole episode told me how sick and dysfunctional both of them really were.

I remember my mother even though this other relative had given it to three others, saying, "We can wipe the toilet seat off, with alcohol and make sure to use different silverwear!". She had other ideas like requiring the relative use the second bathroom upstairs instead of the one downstairs. Instead of having the guts to tell this other relative, that not everyone felt safe, and wanted to wait, my mother cancelled the entire event and lied to the other relative, saying she had hurt her knee and was not up to fixing Thanksgiving dinner. My sister was no help, and backed up my mother's lie and asked me, "Why did you open your big fat mouth?"  Both treated me like I was over-reacting and abused me for telling them the truth about what was going on with the relative. They didn't seem to even care about their own young children or grandchildren getting life-threatening MRSA. With the relative in question, I had barely gotten the truth out of him on the phone and he admitted to me at the time he was a carrier. His selfishness was immense, as he called me bawling me out for "messing up Thanksgiving". This was part of my horrific path to no contact.

Can you all believe it? That is how my family operates. I knew I wasn't going to go. Loosing my leg or my life to MRSA was not on my game-plan. Concern for my nieces and nephews, fear of death or being an amputee overcame my fear of my mother. I took a major hit for keeping my sister's children away from it. How stupid can people get?

Fast forward to Thanksgiving 2012, Back then still with the fog in my eyes, trying to desperately get my family to love me, I had gone out the day after, wanting to see my nieces and nephews.  She had flubbed up Thanksgiving lying to me, telling me no one was getting together. This year of course, I will be making my own turkey and will be free of their dramas. Thank God.

Being no contact this long,  I started getting more objective about my sister.

1. I realized she had become my mother. She was a narcissist. She was cold, she was a frozen wasteland of a person. She may even be a sociopath. She seemed to have no feelings or emotions.

2. She had the same coldness my mother displayed and the same extreme lack of empathy. My sister never cried at funerals. Never. Other family members would remark on this and wonder why she never cried. She didn't cry otherwise either. She didn't bother with faking a few emotions like my mother did on extremely rare occasion. One day a few years ago, one of her sons got a rare heart disease that almost killed him. He would survive but I remember how utterly blank she was about it. She didn't seem to care in the same way a mother should care about a child facing life or death.

She showed no fear during extreme asthma attacks, that to my horror, I realized she lacked the ability to feel fear like my mother.

3. My whole sister's life revolved around pleasing my mother. She did not care about pleasing me ever or having me or anyone be happy. I've mentioned this before but the creepiest thing is she DRESSES just like mother. The same clothes. The same lack of make-up. The same unflattering helmet hairdo! However it's worse then that, just like that movie where the evil roommate tries to take over the other's life--in "Single White Female", my sister sought to replicate my mother as closely as she could. Have any other ACONs encountered this with a golden child or is this just an extreme case?

I noticed how her first house, was the same exact design and color of the first house my mother married and moved into. She even tried to have three children [supposedly just like my mother] but ended up with four because the third pregnancy was fraternal twins. She watched the same exact TV shows as my mother including General Hospital for thirty years. She cooked the same food. She bought the same furniture.  She modeled everything exactly except my mother's government job.

4. While my mother kept me from her friends and I barely knew who they were, my sister was brought into my mother's social circles as an adult and vice versa.  Seriously my mother and sister were like a clique unto themselves as I remained an outsider. Trust me, it's weird to see your mother's Facebook, with all her friends, know barely any of them but realize your sister who lives even further away then you do, is friends with many of them.

5. My sister saw her children as trophies. In one letter when we were still in contact, I told her don't honor children only according to their achievements. Everything she wrote on Facebook was "****** became an Eagle Scout, ****** won a school award". She didn't seem to know her children as people seeing them as objects in filling out the "perfect family life". Family photos were odd with everyone lined up like tin soldiers, my sister always to the side with the children grouped together.  Image like to my mother was everything. I worried about the values her children were being taught, hopefully some loving teachers and others filled in a few blanks.

6. My sister has no friends. She had a few activity partners, and was friends with a couple that her husband had a close friendship in from college, but when I used to talk to her, everyone was inferior, everyone had done her wrong, everyone didn't know what they were doing. She seemed to always meet the world's most incompetent people if I was to believe what she told me about them.  I asked her once on the phone, "Sure there are people annoy me, but you don't ever meet someone you like in any group you join or volunteer with?" She ignored old high school and other friends I ended up having more contact with. She just didn't seem to be that attached to anyone. There was no girlfriends coming over or Mother's groups even. She was superior to all!

7.  She was so fixated on pleasing and being what my mother wanted her to be, she became an empty shell. This is the negative side of being a Golden Child. They become the narcissist's total mind slave.. That is exactly what the worse of the bunch become. All the false praise, presents and elevation makes the narcissist a false "god" to them. This "god" is who they desire to please. My sister was never open to any thinking that my mother was adverse to. She followed my mother's church obediently. She shared all her politics to the tee. She shared her same exact views of life and what was important and what was not. She disliked everyone my mother disliked and scapegoated including me and my brother's ex wife. She had no mind of her own. She has no identity of her own. It is frightening and it is scary. She always obeyed my mother no matter what and never ever disagreed with her once that I can remember in 25 plus years. Can you imagine someone like that never disagreeing with another, even MILDLY where even banter is off the table?

8. Spiritually my sister gave me the willies. This worsened with time. As I talked about in the People of the Lie article, being in thrall to a narcissist will make evil grow.  In one last conversation, I got a stomach ache and she kind of "frightened" me and wanted to get away.  She wrote weird stuff like "I do not travel' and then wrote she was going to Florida almost in the same paragraph. During the last two-three times I saw her, She never smiled in my presence. She never laughed.  She spent most time robotically looking at an empty Kindle as her school-aged children escaped to their various gadgets and/or wiping down my mother's tables to perfection, pinky in the air.

Hey I am a disabled person prone to some depression, so understand depressed people but this was worse, it was a like black cloud hovered both in her eyes and in the room.  This occurred during the Thanksgiving 2012, and during one of my last conversations with her. Her letters freaked me out. Here are some of these last letters before I went full no contact. When I look at these letters, it reminds me what I left behind. It keeps my no contact firm.

I realized my sister always, always, always invalidated me just like my mother if not worse. She copied my mother's techniques in dismissing my emotions, for calling me a liar, and ignoring all my feelings and me as a person. She saw me as inferior to her. My mother emphasized our economic differences telling my sister I was a loser for having so little money and not marrying wealthy even though I am far more educated then my sister. The below is a response to my last no contact letter where I confronted both of them with having lipedema and their treatment. Her summation of a three page letter was this little paragraph. Double Click on all the below pictures of text to enlarge.

Her refusal to face the truth, about the lies, the refused visits, the cutting me off from my nieces and nephews and things that are proven is summed up in her "talk to the hand" dismissal..."Many false accusations have been said".

While a few attempted nice but empty things are written with strange syntax just like my mother, she is incapable of EMPATHY, incapable of EMOTION and just as COLD. In this second letter, you dismisses more of the NC letter with, "I am not going to do this-you hate me crap". That is one thing I noticed about her just like my mother she would dismiss everything and anything. This was not someone capable of listening.

About a year before my no contact wanting to "wake her up" I sent her links on narcissistic mothers, I told her our relationship had been severely damaged by our mother. Know from my experience with this, this does not work on golden children or flying monkeys, they are under the spell of the narcissist. This was a waste of time. Don't make my mistake. They simply do not care. Intellectually and emotionally they do not want to know.

One thing about my sister is she served as an enforcer for my mother. Everything to my sister, was about someone getting IN LINE with my mother. This applied to all other people. Anyone in a disagreement with my mother was my sister's automatic enemy. She never looked at their side.  My sister was upset at anyone daring to disagree with my mother. Notice the phrase above, "as a decisions to move forward with US." It is weird she writes many prayers come to me. I suppose she is not really praying to God whatsoever.

No matter how cruel my mother was to another person, my sister would always defend her. My mother remained superior while everyone else was inferior. She writes above, "Why now, mom has nothing to do with this". My mother is perfection squared in my sister's eyes. According to my sister, my mother did not abuse me. She has never done anything wrong. My mother is her true "god" as other human beings including her own sister mean nothing. Remember at this point in time, I am totally walking away.

She has no inkling of loss or even trying to save the relationship with me. She simply does not care like my mother and brings up her OWN problems in response. Her coldness and lack of empathy is shown towards her own daughter with the line "Today ****** is throwing up and not feeling well though she will recover". One can tell she is more annoyed by her daughter then actually feeling concern over her health. One thing you will notice about the letters of narcissists is they are kind of like Hitler's artwork. Ever seen Hitler's finely attuned watercolors which while technically good led to him flunking out of art school? Notice something? They lack SOUL.

I saw that in here several times I was around her. I sometimes fear what will become of her children facing a mother like this. She keeps secrets like my mother, that are brought up as needed. What health problems? I had no idea. She could have everything from cancer to a stubbed toe for all I know. Narcissists and their ilk remain strangers.

And here is a letter that had come earlier which I ignored. Both her and mother hated people simply for being my friends. That alone was a giant red flag to flee for the hills. Why wouldn't I distance myself from a family that slammed doors in my face? Here you see the refusing to take responsibility and more. The bullying comments are more projection. Her line about "I made a decision that was best for *********" was her excuse for cutting me off from my nieces and nephews.

One line I got on a PM after my no contact letter sums this all up.

"You Just Have to Ignore the Little Things"

What does that tell a person?

The worse thing about narcissists is they darken other souls. One can feel very helpless as this occurs, I threw her lifelines that were ignored from an early age.  They infect them. My sister got infected. There was nothing more I could do. A stranger sits there, not a sister.

The Weight Loss Industry is NOT the Lippy's Friend

The diet industrial complex works against those of us with lipedema.  In the Cushings world alone, I faced this refusal to diagnose, investigate or let the mainstream know about the disease. The diet industrial complex not only affects the spreading of knowledge about rare and common disorders, they impact the research and treatment too. Does that explain why people with both Cushings and Lipedema [and add PCOS] to this stewpot as well, wait so long for diagnosis?

The diet industrial complex are not allies but will block the attention, help and medical research we need so much for lipedema. 

Think about why this disease is not nationally known? Sure it is considered rare but why are there only so few experts and in only hard to reach areas? There is one doctor known as an expert and who does done very good research but she lives in an area that is not accessible for most of the country most of all mobility and often economically challenged lipedemics. Truth is blocked about obesity and I would say they do not want people to know about this condition or others that also are a part of obesity because it may cut into their profit margins. No, the diet industry and its related organizations are NOT our friends!!

One thing I noticed in the Cushings world, is there was the few experts in far flung places and little information too. I noticed the pattern that when it came to obesity related diseases, that diagnosis came at great expense, time, trouble and extreme turmoil to many patients in the Cushings world, and sadly this applies to those in the Lipedeme world. How else does that explain my 17 years waiting to get diagnosed shooting up from still functional stage 1 in my teens to today's stage IV with its problems of immobility and extreme weight? If the focus had been on doctors BELIEVING ME and INVESTIGATING things instead of losing weight at all costs, I could have had this disorder arrested at a far earlier stage. This isn't even bringing in all the damage the hormonal diseases brought me. How many young girls are facing this now?

By the way I am trying to suppress my calories, but losing very little weight. Very little. It is always better to go down then up or at least not gain. Some water weight still comes to visit making the jumps and my treatments help with some of that as I struggle to keep it at a base line.

I do not believe any obesity organization that is financed or influenced or run by weight loss surgery doctors, and their supporters is going to be non-biased when it comes to obesity. Sad to say outside the size acceptance world that is most of them. 

 Take a look at the Obesity Action Coalition website, this is a large organization that advocates for obesity.  Notice how they list all the failed methods? "Commercial weight loss"? You mean like Jenny Craig and pals? Adkins? Are any of them admitting they fail yet? Weight loss surgery costs as much as a small house in a rural town. It's a money-maker. Behavior modification? 

Could this have something to do with those on the board and those who help finance this group? Look at the Chairman's Council and count the number of weight loss surgery folks.

Double-click on both pictures to make either picture larger. 

Here's another Obesity group, The Obesity Society,  they seem like they have a wide range of scientists but can you tell, the bariatric surgeons are there too, influencing things:

Weight loss surgery as I have written failed for so many of my friends. Some of whom lost their lives. I do not blame anyone who has taken this spin of the roulette wheel for a happier life, but to be frank as I have written before, they couldn't have chose a more torturous method to get people to lose weight if they tried. The water-boarders pale behind the stomach staplers. 

"Sadists couldn't have come up with a worse solution for fat people. Take it from me the digestive system when it doesn't work right, is not pretty, and even sicker that is among all the false expectations, their trying to turn fat people into thin ones via induced illness just makes me sick. From what I can tell, those who survive the surgery itself, and live, manage one or two years, lose about a third of the weight, and then regain it all back or nearly all of it, 5 years down the road. Of course when these people go back to the doctors to say "my surgery failed", they will be blamed and told they "out-ate" their surgery."

I was on Pub Med some years ago and noticed just about all research was poured into weight loss surgery instead of more intense issues of this disease, metabolism and other issues regarding obesity.  I wrote about this on this blog:

My Letter to Obesity Researchers

"From that article I wrote: "I searched for studies citing "super-obesity" and got 293 hits on Pubmed. Over 200 [I counted 203] are weight loss surgery related! There are some mice studies on metabolism thrown in, sociological studies regarding fast food poor people and children, affect of conditions and medical procedures on the superobese--the ill effectsfrom all the weight loss surgery--the cart these researchers seem to have put all their eggs in are scary enough, but really few studies on how they came to be that way in the first place!

Sorry guys, I see a total bias in that!"

I doubt thing's have gotten much different since then. 

Some exceptions existed but to be frank the profit motives are diverting real research in too many areas. 

I spent 17 years after my huge weight gain in extreme pain and suffering, given false promises of weight loss and this almost cost me my life due to infections. The diet industry almost led to me dying, as it told me to suppress calories to 'save my life' with answers that simply did not work. Lippys need people willing to work outside the diet industry paradigms and it's lies for the betterment of our lives. People willing to think outside the box not constantly steering us to answers that do not work. Too many are suffering following diets that do not work, being blamed for it not working.  Being told it is their fault. Just about every lippy can attest to that. There is also the push for conformity meaning that those with our body types are even more discriminated against. 

It has not escaped my notice that every obesity related condition is treated like this. Why does just about every "official" or mainstream obesity organization have weight loss surgery influences? How are even basic questions going to be asked, if they are standing there with their hand up trying to sell their miserable product? Let's NOT talk about failing lymph systems or toxins, or 40% of the population getting fat but about weight loss surgery and behavior modification. 

I almost lost my life being told to lose weight, and spent 17 years in needless pain due to obesity bias. Lipedema to be treated in the best way, needs set free from the diet industrial complex. We need thinkers who will think outside the box in the best way to help us, to realize the true endocrine and other issues that lie behind lipedema. Also we need new ways of doing things so lippy's can avoid the discrimination that kept them from being diagnosed in the first place. 

My Favorite Song When I was 20

You can see my old "goth" leanings with this one. I also was on the search for love, though that would be a few years in coming.

Scapegoat's Troubles With Family

"You may have lived your entire life wondering why you have so much trouble with your parents, siblings, aunts, cousins, and other relatives. You may be in your forties, fifties and even your sixties by now and are just beginning to understand what the problem has been with your relationships with your family. And the more you find out about the cause the more a heavy, heavy load has been lifted off of your shoulders that you have carried a life time. This is because you have finally discovered that you are and have been the family "scapegoat" and the rest of your sibling or one particular sibling is the "golden child" who can do no wrong in your parents eyes, or more usually your mother's eyes.

And this is because you have a "Narcissistic Mother" who from the day you were born picked you to be the "Scapegoat" for the entire family. You did not realize this of course. All you knew is that you were always the one in trouble, the one who got blamed for everything.

You were the one who was always the last to know about any family business, or who was always slandered and gossiped about, or who was "left out of the loop" from family matters. You were also the one who was blamed when there were any disagreements or fights among family members, when you were entirely innocent, or not even there at all.

You were the one that always made the first move to apologize, or forgive, or make that phone call, when in reality they are the ones who should be apologizing or asking your forgiveness."

Read the full article at http://www.dovechristiancounseling.com/Narcissistic-Mothers.html

The Decline of McDonalds?

The food stopped tasting good over 15 years ago. Most people I knew who ate at McDonalds did so because they were in a hurry or didn't want to put much thought into finding another place to eat. Chipolte's and Panera tastes better and are more exciting. Maybe Americans just got bored of hamburgers, and French fries.

My Favorite Song When I was 12

I listened to this song every day for a year when I was 12 years old. One time I knew the lyrics by heart and wrote them all over my notebook and would sing it to myself.

All of us complained about school, but I think my love for this song rested, with my trouble with my narcissist parents. I loved the line, "We don't need no thought control" and even thought to myself "I refuse all thought control".   Today I don't listen to Pink Floyd so much, but they had some truths sprinkled in their songs. Today's Common Core-"teach by the test" education is not to produce individuals but bricks in the societal wall.

When it came to my parents, I was just "Another brick in the wall" in their eyes. Women who saw children as possessions, lined up as if in a catalogue, little braids, look perfect, don't be too weird, and fit in and you'll be loved as the cog that fits into the wheel of the "perfect family". Some of us escape being just "Another Brick in the Wall".

Obese Woman Acts Strangely in Public

See: Does Fat Mean Being Stared At?

Haley Morris wants to publish a book

The Watchers

She looks very socially awkward, --trust me an Aspie would know. I think that is getting as many of the stares as well as the posing in public.

Aspies and Executive Function

An Aspie describes executive function and her problems with it in this video. I relate to her totally. She is healthy and young and may do better. I hope no one is lost in the morass like me. Sometimes its like sinking in a whirlpool.

Executive functioning is your go to place for GETTING stuff done. It includes Planning, organization, detail work, breaking things down step by step.  People with Aspergers lack it as described in the video above.

Many Aspies have problems with executive function. Executive function is the traffic controller of the brain. The practical actions in getting stuff done! I have serious problems in this area of life. Oddly for me, I am fine with it comes to academic based activities, but for the rest of life it is very severe.

As many know, I have described my life as an Aspie {person with Aspergers} many time on this blog. I can read 10 books a week. I like to write off the top of my head obviously given this blog. I could do great art work once upon a time and even teach a class, however my day to day life skills are very low. As one grows older we face head on our shortcomings. This is not easy to do. I know I am stuck in a rut. I want to get some things accomplished in whatever short time I have left. These things need dealt with to overcome some barriers.

I have been able to achieve some goals with blog writing, some volunteer projects and a few independent art shows of some years ago however lately I feel "stuck".  Life is a struggle in a way I simply cannot even describe. She is right it is a vicious cycle. It amuses me how she finishes her video in the car, running out of time. That is my life.

How does a disabled person who is completely free of responsibilities run out of time? Trust me I manage it. Even now, I made sure I took a shower and put some clothes away before coming on this blog, but in my mind is the unwashed bathroom floor, the unpaid tax bill, and wondering what to cook to lunch. I am no bored disabled person, the clock spins around for me even when housebound. Some people would be shocked by that. One blessing of my different brain, you could put me alone in a room for 2 hours with nothing to do and I could use the time up without a problem.

The dirty rug in my apartment needs replaced, I am thinking I am not in any shape to paint this place and don't have the 200 dollars for them to move my furniture for a new rug.  Without this money and abilities how will I get these things done? It troubles me. Too many of the barriers are financial. Many things do feel more complicated to me. Modern life is affecting me in the way, that the new technology overwhelms me. Details more then often hang me up. I absolutely get lost in them.

 My occupational therapist of last fall, taught me how to avoid becoming a hoarder and succeeded, but discovered some serious sensory problems. It included auditory beyond the deafness and even some visual. She said my focus was almost nil and mentioned ADHD acouple times. I heard about this from a therapist years before too.  She told me, "Your mind is all over the place." and it's true it is. The active mind that gives me intellectual pleasures, is an absolute wreck in the practicalities of day to day life. She taught me some focusing and sensory techniques which helped.

It is sad to be in your mid 40s and still feel so immature like you are not really an adult. Right now I am way behind and the saddest thing is I know it. Give me 20 more years to catch up! Remembering things is one of my hardest challenges. She has that right! Life for me is a confusing whirlpool. In my case I have to make constant lists.

I've read the books to help with this problem and made the lists. I study life skills online. Many of the books focused towards young Aspies make everything about school achievement. School was easy for me. For Aspies, they need to focus on jobs, how to make money and cleaning. I follow formulas--like paying the bills on a hierarchy method, to keep life going as an adult, but none of it comes natural to me. Tasks that are simple to an average person are intense and complicated to me. People think because I am so "smart" this simply couldn't be but it is.  I am the absent minded professor overcome by the practicalities of life. I'd rather go think of art projects and have long discussions then clean.

There's two Aspies in this household.  Someone needs to function and be able to operate in the real world, and when there are two of us together, it is complicated even if you have a strong bond between each other.  Paying our bills here, is like a byzantine operation. Staying afloat takes every ounce of mental and physical energy we have. He says he isn't an Aspie, but I'd lay money on it. He has strong traits at the very least.  His writing talent got him some places he may have not gotten to until newspapers imploded.

He says I am too hard on myself and doing the best I can with someone with such intense medical problems and we have normal life skills, and life is this much of a struggle for everyone and we aren't the only poor people out there but I don't know. He tells me, you are an extraordinarily resourceful person. There were times I solved problems under the gun that seemed unsolvable but one would like life to be more peaceful and clear cut.  One part of this is with the upbringing I had around people who never admitted any shortcomings, maybe normal people feel this scared and overwhelmed too. I'm not sure. I know I'm trying my best, what else can a person do? Executive functioning or lack there of, does influence one's life.

A Movie I have to See

I've loved the Peanuts comic strip since I was a kid.....

Narcissism Is Your Abusers Weapon

Ollie's reference to them as "terminators" and "death stars" nails it for me. Nothing touches them. There is no heart to prick or to "get through to". It took me forever to accept this. He nails it that narcissism is indeed the weapon of choice.

Late Stage Lippys

"Condemned lives" sums it up. When one is shaped this extreme even getting a decent job is very difficult. I sometimes ask myself how many young girls are facing what I did? Even if lipedema is a rare disease especially in the severe stages, there has to be others. There isn't much forgiveness for fat. Even if one is lipedemic and has several endocrine disorders, the world at large still mostly condemns fat people and this condemnation is why so many lipedemics especially severe ones, suffer for years undiagnosed and not helped. The irony of all this? The earlier the help? The more the weight would have been controlled.

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.

                                         [picture source]

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.

Little House on the Prairie: Tour of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Homes

I was excited to find these videos as I always wanted to visit these places. When I was young, I never missed the show Little House on the Prairie with Michael Landon. I had read all of the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. However I went far deeper, and one could consider Laura Ingalls Wilder and her life a hobby of mine. Even when I was just a teen, I read "Let the Hurricane Roar", a previous best seller by her daughter Rose Wilder Lane.  I still have a collection of booklets written and signed by William Anderson, that I bought when I was 14 in the state of South Dakota. Sadly we were not able to visit DeSmet at that time. There is a new biography this year, based on Laura Ingalls Wilder, I want to get called Pioneer Girl.

Losing a Sibling to Triangulation

This definitely has impacted my life. One thing that occurred to me as my mother was busy destroying my relationship with my brother, is that my brother and sister do not talk to each other at all and haven't for years! He told me this recently, how she has never called him in YEARS.  It is horrible to the point that my sister does not even send birthday cards to my brother's kids. I think they know they have an aunt but she has absolutely NOTHING to do with them. She has never visited his house or children EVER outside of a joint family gathering with my mother and it was rare that both of their families in one visit would show up. She has not seen him since 2009.

He is right about what happens to the scapegoat and the machinations of what is done. Before I found the ACON community online, there is no way I would have expected to find others explaining factors of my life. This video NAILS what happened to my relationship with my siblings. Education is power and this is the sort of thing where you can get a big picture.

He is right about the deep control of one's siblings and how the development of no contact will happen with siblings. I am no contact with my narcissist sister. He is right about how you want to share and try to speak to the siblings, "lets talk about this" but the "narcissist has done their job so well it is impossible." He is right about "No matter how hard you try to explain", it goes nowhere.

I tried to explain and get them to talk them. I did seek to directly educate mine about narcissism, using articles, direct conversation about it and more, and I got silence back too. What is scary is my brother admitted she could be a narcissist he wouldn't go as far as a sociopath, but then told me, "but she still loves me and my kids!" They simply did not care. The man who made the video warns us to be mentally prepared for this. It is difficult. He is right, the more you try to explain, the more you stay in the cycle. "it is almost impossible, the narcissist has done their job so well".... I'm done trying to explain or defend myself. I did it til I turned blue in the face.

He is correct that the narcissist focuses on separating siblings for years, so they do not compare stories. I even had a time with my brother where we were comparing stories, but she made sure to nip that in the bud with her lies. This is a good video basically summing up what I have gone through with both siblings. The best line is we have to take our energy back into ourselves and to take care of ourselves and how trying to focus on "winning back the siblings" feeds the narcissists supply. Often the siblings themselves are turned into narcissists. I know my sister definitely is and my brother has strong traits. I know mine knew she could hurt me via my brother to drag me back into the cycle. The acceptance is hard to come to. He is right there is no way to convince the sibling, they are trained and they are still in the narcissistic fog and chained spiritually and mentally. I am glad I saw this today, it helped me quite a bit. I know acceptance and moving on is my path to freedom.

The Obesity Conspiracy: The Volume of Bad Food Growing in Stores

He is right about fat people often being sick people. He warns about things I have on this blog. In my case, I believe they are fattening us up for soft population control AND money and believe there is an obesity conspiracy.

This guy is right about how they are increasing the bad food in the grocery store.  A local store has gotten three complaint emails from me for getting rid of GOOD food and increasing BAD food.  My life is usually not a curmudgeon writing complaint letters but this impacted my life enough to say something.  Buying good food is getting to be a harder and harder enterprise. My time cooking is far more then other people. Chopping stuff is a constant for my meals. Two got responses from the corporate PR types and they put one food item back for me but the third complaint, they told me the sales volume was down too far on my chosen items. Am I going to pay badly for the poor tastes of others?

I avoid Wal-Mart so this is another large shopping center. This is my only choice, outside of two small expensive grocery stores and a Wal-Mart. I may try an Aldi's soon. The veggie stands of course are closed for the season.  One thing I have noticed is that the JUNK FOOD VOLUME has gone way up in the stores. Two weeks ago I went grocery shopping, and in shock, I realized 6 things I usually buy vanished within one week!. These were all healthy items. As I turned around seeing all the frozen garbage I couldn't eat full of MSG and all the chips, cookie and candy, I thought to myself, "Why is this happening?"

Some of the items that disappeared were non-GMO veggies patties, non-GMO tofu--the only brand I'm not allergic to, white -low fat frozen turkey burgers, and a brand of non-GMO cereal.

What was I to think? Do people like to eat all the trash? I suppose so. For some reason my small town community seems to have an allergy to health food.  Remember I am poor, but want some healthy food. I know the cost may have something to do with this, but it made me very sad. The American palate is probably destroyed in a lot of people with the garbage non-food too.

Winter is Coming

Here is one of my latest photos. I wanted to take a picture of the waves and thought the colors turned out interesting.

Doc Martin and Aspergers

This is another favorite British comedy of mine. I always took Doc Martin for an Asperger character. He is one that has less interest in social connections but obviously still desires friends and a wife. Some of the funniest moments is when he doesn't bother with any social cloaking and says "Oh just shut up!" but he is a good character with a good heart. It is a well-written show.

Science Guy Admits There's More To Obesity Epidemic

The study where they split the number of kids in half and gave one group a better diet and more exercise, and one the same diet and less exercise and their weights remained the same was very interesting. He mentions "macro changes' and goes into the lack of sleep, and climate control of our indoor spaces. How much fat did our 19th century ancestors burn off in just keeping warm during winter? He goes into the industrial chemicals and talks about how rats in a study exposed to a benzene ending up fatter even on the same food as other rats. I wonder if acute stress and negatives of modern society are affecting the epigenetics. He brings up gut flora, and that it differs in fat people vs. thin people.  It could be several factors creating the obesity epidemic all together.

Hyacinth Bucket Reminds Me of My Mother

Take Hyacinth Bucket, make her meaner, strip off all any warmth, make her less femininely dressed in jean culottes and white sneakers, and far less inclusive of her poor family members---Hyacinth visits them weekly and you'll have my mother.

The spoiled snobbery, dinners, extreme neat freak attitudes, nervous neighbors--Elizabeth was often me dropping the cups of tea or other drinks, bossing people around, and clipped tone of voice all sum up my mother.  The third video reminds me of weirdness with my mother where if you dared to do a number 2 at her house, even as an adult, as soon as you got up to walk out, she would come screaming with a can of Lysol for daring to do something so human in her house.  However in real life unlike British TV land, Narcissists seem to get people to kowtow to them while when Hyacinth showed up, her neighbors, pastor and others ran for the hills. Most of them were nice normal characters I suppose and there were few co-narcissists. No one ever stood up to her and definitely were afraid of her. She definitely is a fictional narcissist.

"It is has been suggested that the personality of Hyacinth show signs of pathological, i.e., Narcissistic Personality Disorder, with her dedication to improving her social standing^[1]. The pervasive pattern in the pathologically narcissist is; grandiose a sense of self-importance (in fantasy or behavior), shows arrogant and haughty behaviors or attitudes, has a sense of entitlement^[2][3] . Furthermore, they can be controlling, blaming, self-absorbed, intolerant of others’ views, unaware of others' needs and of the effects of their behavior on others, and insistent that others see them as they wish to be seen. In the family they may also demand certain behavior from their children because they see the children as extensions of themselves, and need the children to represent them in the world in ways that meet the parents’ emotional needs.^[4]"

I've seen every episode of Keeping Up Appearances, it's a great comedy and will make you laugh. I relate to Onslow and Daisy and Hyacinth's treatment of them. Most narcissists ostracize poorer family members completely but one can see her negative treatment of them in her social climbing. Hyacinth's henpecked husband Richard, would be seen as a classic milquetoast enabler though in his case he tries to protect others from the worse of Hyacinth's treatment. Sheridan, her son away at college, is an obvious spoiled "golden child".