Mother by Pink Floyd

I don't agree with everything with Pink Floyd, but I remember seeing the movie the Wall when I was young and in college and it gave me the weirdest effect, I broke out crying uncontrollably. The movie deals a lot with war, and societal control and you can see the theme of abusive parents in there too, which they go along with the totalitarian wicked society too don't they? The movie had a profound emotional effect on me. I had this feeling of despondency realizing more of what this world was about and what I faced. After the intial viewing, I would see it multiple times.

Aren't the ones who worship the powers that be part of the evil system? Think about the ones sending their sons to die in endless wars. I don't trust people now who love war, and who have no qualms about sending their sons to die for the bankers. One reason I left the church I did, since they praised the Middle Eastern wars and I realized with my horror even though the pastors two sons had fought and seen horrors in Iraq and Afghanistan, one with his thousand yard stare, they still supported it all. I couldn't conceive of that and was spiritually troubled in the depth of my being.

I may articulate these thoughts more in depth later but I think about how the narcissistic parents relate to our totalitarian society as a whole. The whole "school to prison", or "war industrial" complex, is based on the lack of love and desire for control.  The narcissists and reprobates keep it all humming. The people who see outside "The Wall" are hated by society but there is a reason that album did get so popular. Many people know in their conscience and suspect something is seriously wrong even if they cannot articulate it all.

By the way my parent's government jobs were totally linked to war making. I won't go into detail here but let's just say they weren't happy to have a war protestor for an adult child. Many people do profit from war-making and the system. I remember my parents were upset at my questioning of the system at a very early age.

This song has a strange effect on me and used to make me cry. It does show more the relationship of mother and son but you can see the infantalizing effects and the effort to control the son in the relationship. "Mama's going to make all your nightmares come true".

So Why Do They Ignore Hunger?

Diet Advice That Ignores Hunger

"Questions like these about the relationship between calories, macronutrients and hunger have haunted nutrition and obesity research since the late 1940s. But rarely are they asked. We believe so implicitly in the rationale of eat less, move more, that we (at least those of us who are lean) will implicitly fault the obese for their failures to sustain a calorie-restricted regimen, without ever apparently asking ourselves whether we could sustain it either. I have a colleague who spent his research career studying hunger. Asking people to eat less, he says, is like asking them to breathe less. It sounds reasonable, so long as you don’t expect them to keep it up for long.

Much of the obesity research for the past century has focused on elucidating behavioral techniques that could induce the obese to eat less, tolerate hunger better, and so, by this logic, lose weight. The obesity epidemic suggests that it has failed. 

See: Are Fat People Hungrier?

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.

The 48 Rules for Power or how Narcissists Really Run The World

One commenter wrote on one of these videos, "I hate how society has these dumb rules". Me too! For an Aspie all the above stuff is the thing of nightmares. "Avoid the unhappy and unlucky?" It sounds like evil rules based on "The Secret"! These are NOT God's rules but Satan's guide to success and an easy ride in this world. Notice how many are according to deception?

We are forced to live in a world of lies and punished every minute for not conforming. One telling moment is when the narrator says, "Why? Because the truth sucks!" Yes, in the narcissistic world, the truth is to be avoided at all costs. One thing to notice while watching these is how money greases the skids, the poor college student without money to dress up and schmooze is out of luck!

  Robert Greene (American author) Wikipedia

"The 48 Laws of Power has been referenced in songs by Jay Z, Kanye West, and Drake. Busta Rhymes used The 48 Laws of Power ... [It] is one of the most requested books in American prison libraries." 

 That speaks volumes. Wow.

Did Your Narcissistic Mother Ever "Run Away"?

                                          [picture source]

I was reading raised by narcissists on Reddit and saw someone had posted a like experience, where their NM would run out of the house and leave for hours, supposedly for their "misbehavior".

I hadn't thought about this in years and years, but my mother did this all the time when we were school-aged. She would get angry and pissed off, yelling at my brother or me for something related to housework or some other dispute and tell us she was leaving. She would scream, "I am sick of you kids!" My father usually was not home during these times. She would then go upstairs pack a bag, and get into the car and drive off sometimes for 2 or 3 hours leaving us alone.

We would be crying for hours, and I was scared crapless of my father coming home and finding out we had driven away his wife, and then beating us for it. My brother and sister would be crying and whoever instigated the fight when she left [always me or my brother] would be yelled at by the other two. "Look what you did!"

Talk about forming abandonment issues in your kids. I think of related events how I would not be picked up from school once having to walk 13 miles home from my high school and there is always that nervous pit in my stomach even as an adult waiting for rides from people that I will be forgotten or left. This definitely has to be rooted in childhood.

 Secretly even as my brother and sister cried, there was a few times in my mind where I wished she did not come back. I felt guilty over this but it's true. I didn't want her to come back. I imagined her driving to her freedom and maybe becoming a happier person. Maybe she'd smile once in a while. At the age of ten years old, thoughts like, "Why did my mother ever have children?" came up to my mind. There is part of me that never wanted children, my parents complained about it so much.

She would come back silent and sullen and making dinner. No one would say a word and we'd stay far away from her. I would be thinking, "I wish she had run away for good this time." I was one of those kids who wished my parents WOULD divorce, dealing with tag-teaming narcissists was harder then one at a time. I had years of guilt being told I should love people who did not love me.

Fat Mannequins?

I suppose it's about time to have some beyond the model thin mannequins.

Classism Stinks

As I have written before, I live in an affluent area and sometimes it is very tough. There are people wealthier then me who are nice people and some are friends so this is not an article putting down the rich. There are nice richer people. I would be classist to lump all the rich together.  However there are some un-nice ones and trends in society where to be poor, they treat you like less then a human being. Sometimes I find these things hard to deal with. It gives me flashbacks to treatment from my family obviously.

When I told one friend, that the ex-friend [the local project friend] had refused to eat one thing in my apt for four years, she told me, "That's classism" right there. I told her, "There were times she saw the kitchen perfectly clean instead of a wreck", she told me, "It doesn't matter." It is something that always worried me. I have to admit, I feel more free and less stressed out, since the ending of this friendship. One new point, Never trust anyone who won't eat your food! Seriously, that is a major red flag. I was thinking about this too, My mother never would eat food I made either! She refused all meal invitations. Some of the weirdest things came to my mind much later. I realized my mother never was seen in public with me outside of the visit to the veggie stand since 1994. Some may ask what was important about 1994? Late in 1994 is when my extreme weight gain started.

This is one of the subtle things of class discrimination. People don't eat your food. They consider your house "dirty", because the rug is old even if you have bleached down the kitchen or every dish gets blasted by hot water in a dishwasher. It is a way to play superiority games. We see these played out and not so unsubtle levels.

Have you ever had a frenemy who refuses to eat food in your home?

Have you ever been told, you wear the same thing too many times?

Have you ever been told why don't you get a new carpet or your walls need painted?

Have you ever had someone look down their nose at you?

Have you ever heard gossip getting back to you where people make remarks about how little you own or how you have "nothing"?

You may have faced some classism.

Sadly some of us face classism in our own families too.

One moment of classism I had with my mother is glaring. She asked me "When was the last time you saw a dentist and got your teeth cleaned?" I told her honestly at that time it was 15 years ago. She was outraged and started screaming at me. I said, "Where was I supposed to get the money for it?" and then told her she was clueless about how people who were poorer lived. Today I have a charity dentist and lots of teeth cleaning and dental care but back then I hadn't found the program yet. I lived in a rural town with absolute no dental programs. This was one episode where sheer class blindness and narcissistic obtuseness ruled. She took her own comfort in life for granted.

I found out recently that wedding I was not invited to, that my cousin married someone who has MAJOR connections. He had famous people as friends on his Facebook account in media. I recognized the names of several.  My cousin was connected enough with her very good job right out of college but he is definitely up a few levels. Do you think there is a reason my narcissistic mother made sure I was not invited to this wedding? I sure do. My mother isn't even a blood relative and I am. Aunt Confused's granddaughter married a man with multiple connections and whose father is a multimillionaire stock broker at a famous Stock Exchange and is friends with capitalists with recognizable names to those who read websites like Zero Hedge.

It's weird to see such a discrepancy of wealth in one family, and the narcissists all make sure to cut people off blood related or not. Would my father care that my mother managed to destroy my relationships with his family too? Probably not. I even wrote in my NC letter, that I noticed some of the family seemed to enjoy connections and never wanted for a job or anything while the rest struggled. This cousin who married the wealthy connected man came out of college and instantly had a high level job. I also noticed that ex-wife of a cousin went from bank teller to bank vice president within several years who was friendly with my mother. One thing when I was looking for a teaching job, had a full certificate and experience, my mother's best friend was one of the top administrators for a state department of education. I got no help or job leads. They got many friends jobs at their government agency.

Some may say, "Hey Nepotism sucks, people should make their own way!" And that's true to a point but you realize how the real world works, and that is what all the networking stuff is about isn't it? My mother got her government job through my father even sans college degree. I or my husband never got such intense breaks. Imagine having no college and you make $45,000 a year while being married to a husband that makes much more,  doing easy 9-5 paperwork with full benefits, vacations and time off when you need it and you get to hold the job for 26 years, no lay-offs and full retirement. Is there any wonder my mother doesn't understand my life at all?

Facebook was like a veil-stripping place for me, in some odd ways. I noticed my sister and brother were friends of people my mother was friends with who I never met. Some of these were work friends. My mother was friends with all of my sister's friends and her in-laws. I noticed one cousin who I never met in my life with an odd name that was friends with everyone. How did I get left out? How did they know people I never even met. She really did hide me as an "embarassment" and kept me away from people. I simply was hidden away. I find myself wondering if she even told people she had a second daughter--I am the oldest. The proof for what I experienced was in the pudding. The always being put last, and treated like a nobody and ostracized not only from the family but extended family friends, and others in the community was right before my eyes.

One uncle works high level in one company and even owns a vacation home, while his brother and his kids struggle. Aunt Scapegoat who had plenty of classism to beat her down from all the narcissists, is also his sister and my mother's sister.  This is my factory working lost boy uncle, whose three late 20 something old adult children still live at home working low level minimum wage jobs. Sadly they are scapegoated as well. My brother repeated to me, "Why are they such lazy bums?" Why don't they leave home?" I said to him, "why don't any of the others help them out?"

It makes me sick how the brainwashed of my family all echo my mother. I know one new target of my mother is my brother's girlfriend since suddenly I heard from two about how she wasn't taking care of my brother properly since his heart surgery. I defended her to one person but stayed out of it otherwise. Why do they all listen to my mother so intently? I will never understand.

I had intense classism with my sister. My sister actually lives on an allowance. This means I have more control over my household finances then she does. Would you want to be married to a man doling out a 100 dollars a week to you outside of his 200,000 a year salary or be married and share every dime where the money is considered "ours" and fully mixed together while being poor? I thought allowances for wives went out with the 1800s and the days women could not own property. I would take the latter. I was shocked my sister told me this, but it does not surprise me. She basically is a child in the house, being given dimes from her husband. The few times I saw my sister here nose would literal be in the air and she'd be tsking every minute.

One thing when you are no contact there will be a narcissist housecleaning, sometimes of your entire life, you start down the list with toxic destructive friends and then realize the other bullcrap you have been putting up with in various places.

It sucks when you face extreme classism from your family and then get more from the world. It is a place where oppression intermingles with the personal even more so. I have written about the shame of what was done to me before on this blog. It sucks when one's kinfolk form part of the chattering classes set only to look down on you for life.

When one is severely obese, I believe classism is worsened, because fat is such a class marker in America. To bear both poverty and obesity as my blog illustrates on multiple articles, is a very hard combo. Being fat would be bad enough. I had something recently happen to me where I am unsure how to handle it. Aspie life-skill books don't detail what to do when snobs kick you in the face.

Last week, I was at my stamp club, and this older lady in it, informed me that her and another member were meeting at her house to trade stamps. Most of my stamp club is far wealthier and have vast stamp collections that take up entire rooms. They are wealthy baby boomers and silent generation people with expendable incomes. Their lives have not matched mine.  Several travel to stamp conferences all over the region. This would not be a problem for me but sadly I am being closed out despite my best efforts.

I love stamps and that gets me to show up and I can buy stamps at our meetings but I kept thinking I am seen as an "interloper" and felt I wasn't being "accepted". I thought "Oh maybe I am just shy" but then when the older lady told me her and the other member were meeting privately to exchange stamps, I thought, "Why wasn't I invited?" They closed down the Saturday informal meeting I used to go to and decided to visit each other in their homes instead and left me out. This bothered me and sadly I thought this had to do with my lower economic status. I haven't said anything but maybe I should. It's hard to fathom what to do.

So one gets this feeling of constantly being closed out, when you are poor. I do not think we imagine things but these things happen. The ironic thing is I would buy stamps at the club. Not a huge or giant amount but enough. With the stamp club I would keep going even if I don't have one friend in the group. It's sad I am going for the stamps not the people though.

I used to visit this rock and gem club years in town, and this crowd was even wealthier. I have a small rock collection of geodes and other rocks and minerals, which I like so decided to attend. One day they were gathering together some rocks to put on display. I brought in a very large rock myself. I can't remember the type it is, I used to know but here is the actual rock below so I was contributing to the display as well:

And I was going around and looking at everything and noticed the vice president of the club kept giving me the stink eye. Now at this time I had been attending for about a year and half though I missed some meetings from being housebound. She comes up to me and says in a vicious voice, "Some people just join this club to steal from us!" I took her in the eye and ask her "What are you saying to me, I've been in this group for a year and half, you have my address even, I'm not here to steal anything!" I got so upset, knowing I was around snobbish horrible people I walked out never to return. She chased after me and I would not stop or turn around, I was done.  It would have been dangerous for me to stay as I could have been scapegoated by someone with ill intentions and that very well probably was her. I had one of the other members of the club return my donated rocks to the display and never went back.

There have been other and not so subtle events, such as even my leaving that church recently. While some other issues festered there, classism had something to do with it.

I have seen people who are poorer then me even ostracized. In my old town I had homeless friends. I would be chastised for even talking to these folks. It was crazy like someone not having money meant they were supposed to be tossed away. One told me how doctors and others treated her and it was not very nice. I was very hurt once in my old town when some gossip got back to me about me being poor. It is crazy. Who are these people who sit and measure people like this? I think America is growing into even more of a classist society. It's not just the going without but the meanness and stigma used for oppression.

What scares me is I deal with this much crap, and I am not homeless. I was even semi-stable working class for over 10 years of our marriage when my husband had his newspaper jobs.  I live in basic 600-800 square foot apartments with bathrooms, and a tub and even have a dishwasher in this one. I have lived far far poorer in boarding houses and 1 room apartments, which makes now look like the Candy Days even being on social security and needing to visit food pantries from time to time. It's sick that I had to put up with this crap. And the me of today being NC two years, is done with the nonsense unloaded on on my head. I also have realized someone as disabled as me, did do the best they could with what they had. The snobs can shove it.

I don't like snobs of any sort. They make me ill. I'm done trying to impress anyone so my patience for the snobs of the world which include my mother and many members of my family has grown very very thin. Snobs hurt people. I see the classist discrimination they give to others. They live by pushing people down and competition at all costs. In our growing narcissistic society, classism is growing far worse.

People who are classist against people are committing evil. One thing about those who become snobs, is they care most about conformity. They seem like empty people where everything is about materialism and comparing their shopping habits. Life becomes about showing off one's acquisitions and status and bragging about vacations and children as trophies. I am not sure what do about these local snobs. Walk away from them because I am not here to reform them is the only answer I have while finding the nice people [even ones in different socioeconomic classes then me] who treat people and me like human beings.

Ollie's Latest Videos

Ollie's latest troubles with his narcissists remind me of the time when my mother took my credit card out of the mail when I was around 21 years old and put 1700 dollars on it. I kept wondering where the credit card was that I had applied for, and didn't know until one day I was home sick from work and a package arrived with my name on it and a credit card number below it. I went no contact at that time and wasn't believed by my father and was abused and threatened when I confronted them. When I think back to that time, I really wish I had called the police, and should have too when my father threw paint cans at me.  I wish I never went back.  I was too poor and with bad credit for her to make use of my identity later on. However Ollie's experience should be a warning to all of us though even those of us who have gone no contact.

Ollie broke contact to deal with his narcissists signing a mortgage in his name. His narcissists have created a giant opening forging his name. His hateful sperm donor seems to have committed identity theft. Ollie can now pursue charges against them. He is right you can not reasons with narcs and their enablers, they have no empathy, they have no remorse. The narcissists, golden children and enablers all act in tandem. They will defend everything and anything the narcissists do. I am praying Ollie can get his daughter back and he is running a GoFund me.

Will Anna Leave Josh Duggar? She Should.

I watched the Duggars for some time. It was a train wreck in slow motion. Michelle Duggar's soft spoken fake whispers are just an act.  She is so fake to me.  Both Jim Bob and Michelle are absolute narcissists. The Duggars represent a lot of why I am no longer in the church system. I have no interest in following those who are just useful tools for the power brokers.

Fake Pharisees don't do it for me. The Duggars act as an anti-Christian commercial in society with their extreme legalisms and weird sexual repression garbage that focused on hiding the real perversion behind the scenes. The side hugs garbage and not kissing even while engaged was the invention of dirty minds obsessed with sex and "purity".

There is a patriarchy movement taking over in evangelical and fundamentalist churches, and the Duggars definitely adhere to it. There is an overlap with Quiverful but not all patriarchials are Quiverful. They believe men are to be in charge and women are chattel and only seen as baby-making machines. One reason Jana still lives at home is they believe that women have to be under a father or husband's authority. That is why she is 26 years old living like she is 12. The men do get excused for everything and you see that in Josh where the daughters were not protected from him. The daughters are told they are responsible for men's behavior. They were put last.

 The Duggars are definite Dominionists who bow before right wing politicians. They are lovers of the "new world order".  Dominionism is about Christian political triumphalism that is more of the antichrist and with it comes a love and lust for war and power and riches in this world. The Duggars sought their fame as they became politically involved with the right wing and supported war-mongering globalist politicians. Dominionism is authoritarian where power is worshipped. This is why Jim Bob ran for Senate and why Josh Duggar worked for "The Family" connected Family Research Council. Check out this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Family-Secret-Fundamentalism-American/dp/0060560053

The blind unthinking obedience taught to the Duggar children, leads to more hidden sins. Instead of a moral code being developed from within, the parents with their narcdom and focus on the rules probably lead Josh to go to a place of "What can I get away with?". Josh in other words did not learn right and wrong for himself and had no self direction and learned no self control. Control freaks like the Duggar parents don't allow their children to develop inner moral codes. Some may choose conscience irregardless but it is obvious Josh DID NOT.

The FLSD seemed to breed many mini-sociopaths and this seems to be true of ATI as well. The conscience is gone. Josh's is toast already which worries me for his daughters. Anna is wasting her time. At this point, since he got caught he will say the right words and act contrite, but chances are it will happen again. She has bet on the wrong horse.

 I think it's pathetic and sad she could be doing the "stand by your man" nonsense when he has cheated on her it seems more then once. If she keeps having babies with a man who has absolutely no job prospects, and has no loyalty to her and can give her a STD, she is an idiot.

 You ever notice this about all celebrities and politicians how the women all stand by the men? Even Hillary though that was most likely a sham marriage and "open marriage" at that stuck by Bill Clinton as he womanized his way across America. Funny how feminists never question that. She's an icon of female empowerment? Give me a break.

I think Anna should leave. Even biblically Jesus made the provision that unfaithfulness can be a cause for divorce. I never have been cheated on, but I would not stay if a man ever cheated on me. This is everyone's personal choice but if she stays this will show absolutely no self respect. She needs to protect her children from Josh too given his history.

Why does she want to stay with a cheat and a pedophile who shows extraordinary personality disorders?  She may be afraid financially and because she was raised in the Bill Gothard/ATI cult where women are not allowed an education or ability to take care of themselves she is more at risk. Jana Duggar it seems will live at home forever as her mother's babysitter and maid. It is sad to watch these people never think for themselves but that is what cults do to people. The men are in charge and do whatever they want and get away with what they want. Considering what Josh Duggar did to his sisters, I think the whole family needs investigated and there are probably other pedophiles in the family, Josh learned it from somewhere.

I am praying for Anna, that she gets away from cultic brainwashing narcissists and sociopaths and saves herself and her children. Sadly right now this doesn't look like this is going to happen. She is not to blame, he and his miserable parents are.  Narcissism and sociopathy in Christian and other religious circles is rife. Many put on religion as a "covering" for all sorts of deeds. The spiritual abusers surrounding her will tell her to "blame herself" for Josh's straying and that it is her "duty" to put up with it.

 Even reading Josh's phony apologies where he blathers on about God and Jesus, makes me sick. He doesn't have any relationship with God in my opinion. I think he is a product of his upbringing. His upbringing with it's phony religiosity and extreme sexual and intellectual repression made him into who he is. Sociopathy was formed because of instead of integrating "right" and "wrong" in his own personality and forming his own conscience, his parents with their endless rules and control, taught him to put on appearances, and lie and appear as "good". This is one reason he had no empathy for his sisters and abused them sexually, not holding to any boundaries. They were just objects in his conscience-less mind. He shows major signs of sexual abuse too. This goes beyond the Duggar's holding to Michael Pearl's abusive methods and blanket training.

 Josh joins the long list of sexually perverted TV-evangelists and is the Jimmy Swaggart of his generation.

Pioneer Girl

I'm reading Pioneer Girl now, I checked it out from a local library. It is fascinating because in it Laura Ingalls Wilder details her life events which later were changed more for her later popular books.

ACONS Speak Out

ACONS Speak Out: The Highlights of a Recent Study about Parental Narcissism

I was interested to see that they are writing about some of the findings.

"What is the PPNBI Related to for the ACON?
ACONS who took the parental narcissism scale also completed some scales about themselves. 
Here are some of our findings:

• Higher scores on parental narcissism (PPNBI) were positively associated with ACONs feeling depressed as a teen and also with feeling depressed within the last year.
• Higher scores on parental narcissism (PPNBI) were negatively associated with feelings of well-being as a teen and with feelings of well-being in the last year.
• ACONS with higher scores on the parental narcissism scale were more likely to indicate you don’t trust other people, in general."

How Does Lipedema Affect the Whole Body?

From a Ten Year Old Journal: "Mommy Richest"

[picture source]

I have kept written and comic journals since the 1990s, and sometimes it's interesting to go back and see what the "you" of ten years ago or in my case even 25 years ago wrote. The oldest journal I have goes back to 1990. I do regret throwing out some journals, though but I remember doing so because they were written some of my depressed times in life, and I felt worried about people reading them one day and thinking bad things about me. It was kind of dumb, because I wish I had kept them though I did rip out many pages from them and keep those in a folder. I do go through my old comic journals to pick the "best of" from my comic journals, and this is one way I see how things panned out. It gave me perspective to know even 15 years ago, my troubles with the family were deep rooted and there was no changing what eventually happened where I had to walk away. These problems were not new things. The ongoing meanness and cruelty was long in standing. It shows the state of mine of someone in the VERY LOW CONTACT mode which I was in for 15 years, not realizing the true nature of narcissism. I gasp to think of what I put up with now.

I wrote this around 2005:

***************************************************************

"Mommy Richest"

What to make of this. I'm 37 years old and still can't relax around her except now instead of yelling and crying like when I was young, it's all tight faced politeness. I learned long ago emotions would be used against me as in the meanest court of law. She thinks I am the dumbest and fattest person on the planet as she last week tells me, "I was watching the Today show and there is a new weight loss surgery out." I actually heard about it three years ago long before the FDA approved it. She ignored this comment. She continued, "I'll pay for it, if you get it.". This brought me back to the time she told me, when I was around 22 years old and at most 60-70lbs overweight, "I'll pay you a thousand dollars to become normal, lose weight and the money is yours!" Yes, she said it that way!

My mother doesn't know me and appearances rule her life with mainstream media informing her on what to think wear and be. In an ironic twist of fat, she is wealthy about to marry an even more well off man who buys her fancy rings, she never lets a new jewel past my notice. Last week she got a new sapphire blue ring and waved it in front of my face. "You'll never own one of these!", she said.

She can be generous on occasion but there is a pound of flesh for every dime. It doesn't make up for the years of abuse either. I would rather have some understanding then money and a family that would not just see my apartment as just a place to stop for ten minutes and unload their old furniture they'd otherwise be taking to the dump. Normal people have their families visit them for dinner. Instead even my husband noticed and said, "They don't come for real visits and never have in seven years" [note at that point we had been married since 1998--basically 7 years]. My mother lives across the socio-economic divide incapable of understanding what life is like free of shopping for recreation and even trying to understand. She insultingly exclaimed to me, "Your husband will never amount to anything!" [note at this time in 2005, my husband worked as a small town newspaper assistant editor, and would be laid off in 2006 from this job] 

She doesn't realize how people have to live. It wouldn't be so bad except she doesnt realize its hard to be perfect when you can't afford new furniture or replace something once it has the smallest stain. I literally horrify my mother just being who I am. As a child, she flinched to hear my third grade teacher tell her I was testing at genius levels, she told a friend early on, "My daughter is weird and not like other children." It goes deeper then just my weight though, my mother who is wealthy, popular and neat, and then gave birth to her complete opposite. Doesn't it make sense I always thought I was adopted. I suppose in my sister she was rewarded by God, the perfect daughter. Even my brother and his wife jokingly call her "Mini-Me". Both keep their houses like museums. I am a couple of hundred thousand dollars short and throw a maid in because I never been able to clean that well.

The worse thing is never being able to share any ideas or thoughts, we don't speak the same language whatsoever. She talks to me like I live in a hole and haven't cracked a book in years. I did sever things with her twice even leaving home and cutting her off for several years. I had to save myself and my rotten self esteem which learned learn the world was even meaner then my mother regarding appearances, weight and money. It is not always easy having a relationship with someone you always feel has you under a microscope and constant reminders of how since time immemorial you have failed miserably in life. These things are unspeakable to even mention but all summed up in a moment acouple months ago as I traveled the only one time ever as an adult, to save gas money to see some relatives after a long time, we stopped at this veggie stand in the southern part of my rural county and this lady and her children who were quite poor, and had dirty clothes and unkept hair, since they obviously had been working out in the fields came out to bag the vegetables and get paid. My mother screamed, "Stay in the car, oh they are disgusting!, I don't want them touching us!" I said as she got back in the car, horrified by her hate of these people, "Don't you understand, they are poor, its not like they woke up today thinking let's be poor!"

**********************************************************

I still remember that day. My husband was at work, so I was dealing with all the narcissists alone. I think for me that was the beginning of the end, watching her pure and utter hatred for those people, who were simple hard working farmers getting help from their children that summer. For some reason it remained another central point for the definition of her character to me. I had gone with her to visit my relatives in another state who lived 100 miles south. This was basically my grandmother's house surrounded by the other houses of relatives. I didn't know it at the time but I would never be back. That would be my last time there. It has been ten years. 

On the way down, she drove like a bat out of hell and used a fuzz-buster to elude police while her average car speed hit 90 miles an hour. I felt fortunate to be alive. This was the time in life when I was "still trying". I wanted to have a family. My sister was coming from her state to visit at my grandmother's house and I wanted to see my nieces and nephews. That was the day the whole family ripped my head off for having a political view they disagree. I invited myself down and talked her into driving me. My rural town was on her way down there, but that was the first time I had been in the car with her for any trip since I had been on my own as an adult. She resented my presence and yelled at me the whole down--in my thirties for fidgeting in the car and for being too fat to barely fit in the seat. 

Aunt Confused once told me, "Your mother cares much more about her siblings then her own children". It's true. She had her family while taking mine away. I don't have one to go visit anymore. I never have one. There's times I think about that trip and how insane it was and how hated I truly was. Why it would take me some years to make the decision to go no contact, I knew at that point things were never going to change and I knew how much without a doubt how much the family hated me. That's one reason I never went back down there.

The Fake Agent

                                         [picture source]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It definitely changed my view of this world a bit.

Seeking Revenge on a Narcissist is Madness

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

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

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

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

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

It's a Lonely Place....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fat is Rare in Japan

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

Don't Call Them Fat, Call Them Marshmallow Girls

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

Stop Financializing The Human Experience

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don't get performance art

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

Still Real Big

Today's Angst

I could use some hope in this life instead of just waiting for the next. God doesn't seem to be answering my prayers lately. I am not sure why. While God sends other people endless grandbabies and new opportunities, life for me is going nowhere. I even prayed about moving from here again. Were the ants all over my apartment floor last night a sign to leave? Who knows? Anyhow my life seems devoid of spiritual direction.

My relationship with God is being severely tested. You know things are wrong when you are praying prayers at 4am begging God to send you some hope and justice in this world. Even there, I have to be careful and keep my mouth shut, because the spiritual abusers of the world will glom on to your misery. They will tell you that you are a spiritual mess due to some evils and sin within you and like the narcs will tell you everything is your own fault and that God has refused His blessings because you are a "bad" person.   During one sermon at my old church, that pastor preached that God would bless you if you obeyed Him. What of a Christian this does not happen to?

Then there's some guy who posted on the ostracized article that I should go get revenge and stop being a wimp--I'm paraphrasing but even there I wonder why the narcissists continue to prosper and I sink lower. I'm not into jail cells and going to hell. The church world will pat you on the head and tell you "God is in control" making you feel like everything is your fault even more. So you mean it's God rewarding the narcs while life gets harder and harder for the rest of us? I hope not.

 I was born again 14 years ago and remember the hope and energy of that time. I believe my relationship with God kept me alive years past where I would have not been. I have prayed to God to send some real people around me locally or at least show me where to go. I meet them all the time online but real life seems a social wasteland. Aren't Christians supposed to witness and be a shining light? One wants their life to have some meaning.

It's not a good feeling if you just feel like you are going through the motions and you wonder if you will wake up in hell because you hate humanity.

So much of the Christian world is completely family oriented. If you have no family, they make you feel like you are a bad Christian. I'd move back to my old church if was still open. That was a real church family. Where does a Christian fit in that never had any children and whose entire family hates them?  My niece isn't writing me anymore. Queen Spider killed that relationship successfully. While she had her entire family there for her, her entire life, she took everyone away from me. Why does it seem like she always wins? Why do all obey her without question?  God needs to help me out here. It seems odd, that God couldn't intervene just once to give me some hope. Why would God want me to be spiritually destroyed dealing with all this garbage?

I'm not made of stone. I love all my nieces and nephews but wanted that niece especially in my life. This hurts me of course. I can't tell if I am too easily hurt and need to toughen up or if I am just dealing with cold people who have no feelings. Of course I am so used to be told how I feel is wrong, I'm scared to feel anything. Why are all these people so cold?

I seem to be dealing with some severe grief I cannot fathom. I thought it would lift with time but it doesn't seem to be. This may be territory for the counselors. Maybe I am not grieving only the lost of my family which never existed in the first place but all my other losses in this life. I have fought serious health problems for many years and now I am tired.

Obviously my life did not go very well. I even feel grief over things that happened to my husband. I am worried about him too. I am worried about other friends as well.  I'm not sure why so much of it is welling up. I even had this weird thought that I wish I could go to local grief counseling. I had some friends die a few years ago, but it feels deeper then that. Too many losses? Fear of more? There is a deep sadness I can't even explain, a mixture of deep, deep disappointment and grief. Is my No Contact failing? Did I make my life worse with it? I knew a price of going NC could be losing every family member. How is one supposed to deal with an entire family who hates you and doesn't care if you live or die? What if you are failing to do what makes no contact successful which is living our own life in the best way you can?

At this point, it seems if life had some fairness or justice, it seems just about now would be the time I would win the Lotto, but that is the stuff of dreams that never come true.  Real Life is Disappointment. Real Life is looking forward to stuff that never happens. Adult life sucks. No one tells you it sucks to get old. Is that too dark? Yes inside I am screaming at myself already for being like this and telling myself to "get it together". I worry about writing another angst filled article here. Yes I am depressed and yes I have tried to pull myself out of it. Daily I do just to get out of bed.  I tell myself life could be worse, and I could be homeless or without a husband or any friends but then I just feel more guilty. I try to focus on the small pleasures to keep from going insane, but I'm not sure what to do in general. Even while writing this article my computer did a Mini-Dump. I always feel like everything is going to fall apart.

I am going deaf. It is worsening. I can't hear anyone. I am often confused. I am sending out an application with a fee I could barely afford for a Digital hearing aid. Digital hearing aids are for the wealthy and I will never be able to afford one if I am turned down by this charity. I went to a hearing impairment club in my town, it was full of all these people who could hear far better then me and had the finances to buy digital hearing aids worth tens of thousands of dollars and cochlear implants. Don't I have enough to cope with? Who do you talk about going deaf to as an adult? Why do I always have problems there seems to be no answers for or one has to be wealthy to get answers?

I hate where I live. Its beautiful and has many offerings but the people here scare me. They are too closed-mouth, too upper class, and  too rejecting. Never, never make the mistake I did and move away from an area when you are near middle-aged. Don't do it. You will be buying yourself a lonely old age.  Past a certain age, and especially if you are an Aspie and disabled you will not be able to make any new friends. It's too hard. I have many good friends online and long distant but I still desire to know people locally.  People by their 40s have their social circles already set. I have run out of ideas. We have had many discussions about what to do. Both of us see and recognize the severe isolation. My husband says he is worried most about our survival but I worry about our spirits.

I see no opportunity in meeting anyone new here. I've already done the book club circuit, the art classes, churches, etc. Healthwise my energy is very limited.   I can't seem to get close to anyone here unlike my old community. Permanent acquaintances can be nice, but you remain a stranger to everyone. There are no eccentrics or non-richy rich artists here. Even going downtown to sit on a bench, you just meet tourists who aren't from here. I and my husband sit on park benches and have no friends. It is very sad. There's no one to talk to. We feel constantly judged here and found wanting. I can't seem to get an actual life together here. As an Aspie it never has been easy especially while being disabled.

Anyhow that said, why do they have senior centers for the old to socialize but nothing for the younger disabled? We are lonely too. In some ways we need a place to go more then the old do. The senior centers should allow the permanently disabled to join their ranks. The one here does not.

 Before I got sick last week, I actually ran crying into the bathroom and yelled at my husband, "Remember when they gave us a party at my old church to say goodbye?" "Remember when we had my art show and a goodbye party there too? We had some people actually notice we were alive there!" Most of the time while I'm pouring problems out here, around here I have to hide them, and appear like I have it "together". The classism here is severe. I feel like a "nobody" around here. They never fail to remind me of my invisibility.

Moving here destroyed my life, I have not felt right since we moved here. It was eight years ago. We hoped for a better future only to have it taken away. Yes there is more medical care and better restaurants but it feels dead here for me. Even after I gave it a chance, more disappointment came like with that betraying ex-friend. She may even still read this blog but I know now it is an absolute fact she has no empathy for other people.

I know something has been harmed in me simply by moving too much. I have no roots. I have nowhere that feels like "home". There's no there "there". Even my narcissist parents ripped me away from my communities as a child over and over.  One move was at the age of 7 and then another at the age of 13 to entirely new states. I never had a family who loved me and now I have no place I really belong. Nothing worse could happen to a person. So wonder I have no place of belonging.  I was a throw-away and forgotten about. Being the new person too many times, destroys one's life. Also when you have several friends die, the moorings get thrown over board too. I meet people and they have these close social networks, family who are there for them. I do meet others in my boat online but I never do in the real world. The real world seems to dance where they all know and have each other.

A close college friend and me discuss this all the time. How we were ripped away from friends and others over and over, to the point nothing could be depended on. I told her, the move when I was 13 almost ruined me. The abuse was bad enough that I faced but I always was ripped away from my friends and places and people of refuge. She told me she felt the same way too. I told her, all the moving as an adult was usually done for economic necessity but it wasn't worth it because it never fixed those problems either. Of course in some cases, we had to move or be homeless when work was totally erased. We both agreed we would have been happier in the old days when people moved less. Even here some people left I had gotten to know.

This is going to sound very sad, but one reason we have not moved this time yet, is we have not decided yet where to go. Where can two poor, middle aged, one disabled and the other with severe health problems move to and have some sort of life? We have no money to move. We have no energy to move. Neither one is in shape to pack and move things.

One wants to feel like they belong somewhere. One wants to have friends and a place of meaning. One wants to feel like there is something to look forward to. One wants to be around people who care and just don't throw you away. We are poor and struggle as you all know.  We have to survive which may mean holding on to this apartment. When your credit is toast and you are not employed in the traditional manner in my husband's case, even being able to rent a new place could be impossible.  While we want to survive, I feel trapped. I keep revisiting the time we decided to move here, and realize how it destroyed my life and who I am as a person. Modern life sucks.

I feel distressed over the sufferings of others too. I found out yesterday this depressed woman I knew in my old town died. She was the woman who was suicidal I was trying to reach out to years ago, but her mother didn't seem to want her to have outside friends. Sometimes you look someone up and then in shock discover they are dead. She died at the age of 41. I asked a mutual friend if she knew what happened but she said she did not and that she had lost her mother only a few years earlier. Such things make me feel very sad.

I don't feel like the same person here anymore. Like I have lost who I am. The silence, the being closed out, the having no where to belong has gotten to me. My husband doesn't feel right here either. We take refuge in each other and in our hobbies but something is wrong. There's few people out there who understand people who have no family and who never had children of their own. I was very sick in my old town but I missed who I was there. One friend told me that life no longer exists there, and she is right, but what of now? What do we do now? Is it us? Is it this place? I am not sure.

Something happened to me from all the losses. I don't feel much hope anymore which is semi-embarrassing for a Christian to admit. I am frustrated with the body, with everything.

What happens to a Christian too where life has been full of so much disappointment? Why does God answer some prayers and not others? Why did God allow these things to happen to my life? I'm not sure what to do. Taking a bunch of Prozac to numb it out isn't the answer. Some may say "Stop with the self-pity" but I really am sad. I can't deny these feelings. I wish God would help me too, or send me some relief.

Update 2019: Prayer doesn't work. I feel sad reading this but you can see the earlier seeds of my deconversion already beginning two years before it happened.  I don't believe in God anymore not in the Christian sense but I feel pain for all those who were given the false promises and waste endless time praying like this. All relationships are supposed to be two way streets.

Portlandia Milk Advisory Board

   

This made me laugh because a friend recommended I get some CASHEW milk and I said, "They are making milk out of everything now aren't they?" Well Lactaid Milk has been a miracle for me and I've happily been eaten dairy again. I still like Almond Milk though.

Their Water Smelled Like Rotten Eggs

I had a weird memory the other day, how my grandmother's water smelled like rotten eggs.

Why didn't they ever test the water or do anything about it? Maybe they did, but I knew nothing about it.

She had money to do so especially later in life. On visits, I would bring my own bottled water as soon as I was old enough, but you could smell the unusual smell in the food, and when you took a shower at her house. It was strong and smelled just like eggs gone bad.

My N grandmother, NM, Uncle Narcissist would all act like it was no big deal. I remember my brother crying that he didn't want to drink the nasty tasting and smelling water or maybe it was me. Kool-Aid didn't touch that stuff. As soon as my grandmother turned on the faucet the smell would float through the house. My Uncle Lost Boy and his wife and three adult children [all in their mid-20s] live in that house and I wonder if they have done anything about the water. I remember it stinking from the 1970s to the last day I visited her house in 2005.

Someone posted on this subject on another message board which brought this memory up to me. Did that stinky water lower IQs? Did it bring cancer? Did it mess up their minds even more?

Why Does My Water Smell Like Rotten Eggs?

Goth Lucy

From This Charming Charlie tumblr

"I Can't Pop Popcorn Without a Manual"

Notice how simple everything is to use?

"I can't Pop Popcorn Without a Manual"

"I complained to Carolyn, as usual. “What they hell am I supposed to do, go get a computer education so I can use my microwave popcorn?” And then I thought, “how come all those wonderful science fiction writers didn’t predict this? This was never on Star Trek, they always had food makers that effortlessly made your food to exact specifications, and they tasted good. NO CONAGRA; NO TASTELESS FOOD. No lack of diversity, and complete conformism and boredom of food! Gene Roddenberry, you should turn over in your grave.”

This article speaks truth. Why are they making the most simple things so complicated where they are so overwhelmed with whistle and bells, it is unusable. Remember on the Jetsons how everything was simple?

Here is a list of things I can't figure out to use myself:

Windows 8. I hate it, I have to search for everything even to shut off the computer. If I had time, I would strip Windows 8 off this computer and download Windows 7.

Open Office/Word programs. Anything complicated like making a brochure, forget it.

Cell phones. Why do I have to press on it a certain amount of seconds to get it to turn on? Our main phone usage remains a landline. Yes that is how much I hate cell phones.

DVD player, we own an old used one, but it's such a struggle to figure out what button to push, I don't rent movies anymore. Hooking one up to a TV is a nightmare I left to others.

CPAP machine: I've had panicky moments screwing up the settings so just plug it back in and hope for the best. Thankfully that usually works.

Airconditioner: The landlord put a new one in with the remote control. I can figure out how to turn it on at least but not much more. There's 10 other buttons on the remote that make no sense to me.

Cable remote: Don't ask me how to pick one of those by choice movies. Even for stripped down-cable the bill is too high.

My TV is 20 years old, but the new ones I have seen at other people's houses scare me. I don't want a TV that hooks up to a computer with a million confusing directions.

I don't know how to use smart phones, blue-ray--is that what they are called and many other aspects of modern technology. My car is 12 years old but I am sure they are complicating those too as we speak. One thing I don't like is how nothing has ON and OFF buttons anymore.

Everything new they are making it seems, makes things much more complicated. They have thrown user-friendly in the trash can. Even Yahoo email used to be easy to use until they ruined it. A friend of mine downloaded Windows 10 on her laptop. I said, "Don't do it, your computer is not new enough, it will collapse the computer!" It did. They have sent me their free offers too and I don't want them. The newer the program the more impossible it is to use.

I believe someone could make millions if they came up with very easy technology to use, stripped down to the basics, put what each button does right on it and make it simple.

I'm old enough to remember the days when there was great hope regarding technology. We believed it would make life easier. The only new invention I think that has been somewhat life changing is the Internet. For me it was like taking a library home with me. When the internet bust out in the mid-90s I was in heaven though it would take until the early 2000s to manage having it at home. The phone wires in my bad neighborhood weren't good enough for the phone modems back then. However technology as a whole has seemed disappointing. Outside the internet it really didn't change modern life. If anything the work world is regressing back to the 1890s and social life has worsened. There aren't that many labor saving devices that really made life much easier outside of what was achieved by the 1950s. Day to Day life really didn't change that much outside the life of screens, and being online. The medical world is still very limited with few miracles there. Some of us have asked "Where are our flying cars?"

Narcissistic Abuse: Attack of the True Self

That is what they go after our true self, our soul, conscience and insides given to us by God. They have definitely shut theirs down. Even before I knew about narcissism, I used to tell friends, my mother and father seem to be empty shells, no one seems to be home. This video resonated with me because I was hated and rejected from a very early age, it was not something that came later or with the teen years. They were angry at my creativity and soul. With narcissists, we all have felt that cold feeling. There is no mind to meet. No soul or emotions to communicate with. With my mother, I noticed she had no introspection by the time I was a teen and told people. There is "no one" to reach out for. Sadly this is something narcissists hold in common that coldness where no one seems home. This even overlaps with the "phonies" and "fakes", they are others who have shut down their true selves and have created a false "self" or mask to function in the world.  Your flicker of light is definitely what they desire to snuff out. One thing to be mindful of is, if someone else wants to snuff out your light or creativity, that is someone to steer very clear of. The battle with narcissists is spiritual warfare. No doubt of it.

So Sick of the Fakes

I'm so sick of the fakes I want to throw up. It seems harder and harder to find real and honest people.  One thing about the narcissists is many of them are two-faced wolves in sheep's clothing. They will act nice to your face or send you fake cards that have messages like "We miss you" while never addressing the problems that led you to depart from them in the first place.

 I don't want to sound like that Salinger hero who goes on and on about the phonies, since he was a sociopath himself, but a lot of people out there are fake. It has made society fake. Our society is built on lies, and the snow shoveling has only gotten more frenzied and the piles of cow patties deeper. People don't want the truth or their illusions shattered. This society is getting the narcissist sociopathic politicians it deserves. As an Aspie, the fakeness bothers me more. So much just seems to be so much play-acting. Everyone trying to sell a line. If you are a person that cares about truth, most of the fakes just go silent around you and become even more secretive. Maybe they find their lies too hard to keep straight and track of around a detailed-oriented Aspie.

 Sometimes when a fake is in my midst, I ask later, "How could I have been so blind?". In every case though, I knew something was wrong and felt off. Some go through their lives like actors and actresses, everything about manipulating circumstances to serve their needs. It can be devastating when the veil is ripped off a new fake, such as the fake friend who wasted 4 years of my life. The real people are out there, but we need to be careful of the phonies.