Beyond Scared Straight: Totalitarian Brainwashing for the Police State?

Is Beyond Scared Straight police state break down-brainwashing? Do you notice our society is brainwashing everyone with "might" makes "right" and conforming for obedience sake, not for any higher ideals of a civilized society? Those kids all want to join gangs to be part of something which should tell you how bad things are for them. It's like they want to put everyone through boot camp. For the kids, it's threatening them with lock-ups, bad food and push-ups on the floor.

 "Learn to obey so you don't get locked in a cage and not made into Brutus's girlfriend!" That's not exactly forming an inner moral code. This is a God-less society that is breaking down and they are not asking the young people to aspire to goodness but to conform to avoid the punishment of jail.

This is why Josh Duggar doesn't have one, because his parents basically kept him locked in cage on the moral and emotional level. Now his overbearing parents have had him lock himself into a rehab.  I  imagine myself as a teen standing there, being screamed at by one of the inmates, or guards, and think, well I would just stand there and say nothing. My face would go blank. What would they do? Hit me? Well I got screamed and hit and had my hair pulled.. Maybe they screen all the abused ACONs from that show ahead of time. Most ACONs could just stand there and take it and not cry unlike most of the teens. That's a sad fact not a good one.

 I suspect I would have been escorted out and told I was not suitable for the jail program. What is a screaming guard in my face inches away who can't even legally hit me when most ACONs with physically abusive parents especially have had far worse? Those guards and even most of the inmates would seem like cuddly teddy bears in comparison.

 Some may say, but Five Hundred Pound Peep, you've never been to boot camp or jail, but I worked within places run like them with violent people and sociopaths galore including living in the "war zone" gang filled neighborhoods. I worked with teen inmates including one kid who murdered both parents and came to my art room and drew Satanic symbols all over his art work. The kid was in shock when I recognized the symbols.  [This was during my pre-Christian days when I read books on everything and yes that included esoteric books] They didn't know he had killed his parents yet, and the bodies hadn't been discovered yet but was in for stealing a car. His next stop was adult prison.  Some were in for assault, rape, drug dealing and everything else you can think of. The last art teacher got knocked out. I got the job for being big.

 I saw enough violence at my residential counselor job that was a taste. One thing I learned in the feral streets, is show fear and you are toast. It was like a repeat of my childhood, remain in the background and try not to trigger the wolves surrounding you into a feeding frenzy.  Life for me was odd when violent teens would scream at me at that one job. I had to put on the mask of "professionalism".

I never screamed or ranted or raved at any of my charges. Treating them this way even for all their bad behavior or crimes would have been horrible to me. I had to be firm at times, but one thing I remember thinking is, "They must be led away from darkness, not be given more of it". I saw the streets and bad neighborhoods many of them came from as producing the behavior in the first place. The Satanic kid I had less hope for and the full blown sociopaths, but for the majority that was the way I thought. So watching this show out of curiosity last week, I find myself asking "What do they expect to gain?" It seems the majority of the teens are "scared" into compliance at the end of the show, but will it last? Some seem to have loving parents who care, so that may give them more of a chance.

Will fear of jail keep a kid on the straight and narrow? I don't know....I would rather the desire for goodness went deeper.

I never have been arrested and or taken to jail in my case. I am scared of jail and believe a medically fragile person like me would be dead within days in the local county where they make people sleep on the floor and feed them old bologna sandwiches. I once told my husband if I ever get arrested [like in a wrong place wrong time scenario--I'm law abiding], he has to go to court the next morning and file a petition for medical custody on my behalf if he can't come up with bail. There's too many horror stories where people didn't get needed medicine for weeks, and other things in county jail. Many Americans don't realize what goes on in those fortresses that sit on the edge of their town or how much of a juggernaut the entire legal system is, where it can chew you up alive.

 These kind of shows give us a taste but what makes me want to vomit is some of the "professionals" seem so proud of the brutality and debauchery of their jails and the some of these "Beyond Scared Straight" shows hit a huge low, when some of the "scare em straight" professionals and their inmates who use the threat of prison rape to try to make their charges go straight like the inmate on the video who goes on about how they use Kool-Aid as lipstick in jail or the one that makes the teen comb his chest hair.

Jail can serve as a discouragement for criminal behavior for many people. We don't want to go to jail if we steal, fight, drive drunk or cause mayhem but isn't it better to teach a kid, not to steal, fight, drive drunk because it hurts other people and to hope they develop a conscience?  Have things digressed so far the only motivation to be good is to avoid the cages at a rapid rate, they have built all over this nation? Are these kids so far gone, that they have to taught to be "good" or at least act like it, out of fear? Where's God in this mix?

The show seems to me to be total brain-washing for the police state. They are high on supposed law and order and advance an authoritarian code that submission to authority is the greatest good instead of developing a conscience and being a citizen who wants to give to society.  These won't be kids that grow up to question or change the system or to expect anything better then submission to the gulag or life in a criminal gang. I don't see already abused kids responding well to more abuse and trauma. Some will toe the line out of fear, but it hasn't addressed the inner problems that plagued them to become troubled youth in the first place, the most that will happen is they will learn to operate more in darkness, keeping their mouths shut and getting away with things without being caught.

How does it help a teen to be screamed at by some of the resident inmates, narcissists and sociopaths within the prison system? How does brutalizing people make them less brutal? Is the aim to make them learn to operate within the totalitarian system of "might makes right" by letting people more powerful then them [whether inmate or guard] intimidate them and force them into submission or the appearance of submission? What does it say about our society that these kind of shows even exist?

One disturbing moment is when the tattooed up gang member and inmate says to a young teenage girl, "Be very F***** afraid!". I don't like that mixing up of young women and criminal older men. Will this girl be helped by more trauma? Maybe she is acting out from being raped or abused already. I'm not sure how that is supposed to help her. She's a troubled teen already, unless sociopathy is leading her down a bad path, she's afraid already.

It seemed strange to me, that on the one reality TV series Behind Bars: Rookie Year starring new guards or COs at prisons, they show this one thin young woman working with hardened male inmates. That seems dumb to me like asking for trouble. Anyhow there are endless shots of yelling inmates and guards getting right in the faces of all the "bad" kids. I watched a few of these shows and on almost everyone, they yell at the young juvenile delinquents, "Hit me!", "Take a swing!". On the above video one of the girl's does. I found that stuff stupid, like they were just playing set up the teen. Repercussions are swift for poor Leigh as two jail guards restrain her and then arrest her.

Then they have the weird thing where they give the kids a tray of prison food and make them eat it. That seems kind of exaggerated. I saw a kid unable to eat a simple hot dog watching one of these shows yesterday and the guard tossed the Styrofoam tray on the floor. What was the big deal? Jail food isn't that good but they have the teens acting like they are being poisoned. It's also more control freak time when they are forcing them to eat.

It seems like this show somehow thinks more child abuse is going to help young people who in most cases probably have already been abused. How is being humiliated going to help anyone? When they smear the girl's faces with Kool-Aid, that is disgusting and just abusive. The double message of teaching "Don't bully" while bullying is one of those mixed messages. The one guard in the second video goes, "We care about you." Double-bind messages do not create good mental health.

This show is a bad sign for American society. This is a society that is lacking "natural affection" more and more. One sees spiritual darkness in this show. This definitely is a show that comes out of a narcissistic society. 

Programmed to be Fat?

Why It was Easier to be Skinny in the 1980s

 

Why It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s

A new study finds that people today who eat and exercise the same amount as people 20 years ago are still fatter.

 

So doesn't this mean it is something environmental and not that everyone just decided to go become "lazy" and fat? I am glad they exploring other factors in the obesity epidemic from plastics to growth hormones in meat.

 

 

They Get That Certain Look in Their Eyes

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When I was growing up, I was slapped and told I was too sensitive and needed to harden up. Feelings were to be erased and one was to become a stoic of no emotion and talk about nothing. This was something I was not good at. There was no room for any sensitive artists.

 One thing I have noticed in my family, is the children, and some of them "TURN" when they reach their late teens. I saw it happen with my own sister. I recently saw a picture of my sister's oldest son on a social website, and it scared me. He was trying to look tough while wearing cammo in the woods. I don't know if the giant gun he was holding, was a real one, or an air gun but it was big.

He looks out at the camera and I notice that cold look in the eyes, I have seen in so many in my family. His eyes oddly remind me of my brothers. This is a kid who was very nice, I remember laughing and smiling with him. The last time I saw him was around 2011, so the change was pretty immediate. Maybe I am being too sensitive, and I know teens show off by looking "tough" but his eyes don't look that way. What happened to him? He used to be such a sweet kid. I feel like crying. He is someone else I became a stranger with.

Sometimes I have thought about how I was hated for being sensitive and having feelings. I would cry upon missing people or express worry or be frozen out. It's strange these are feelings that my husband loves, he says things like "Peep cares." They told me for so long I was the "bad" one. I'm tired of seeing people with these kind of eyes. It's like the light goes out in them. It scares me.

Adulting While Poor

 "Money is what God used to be. Good and evil have no meaning any longer except failure and success. Hence the profoundly significant phrase, to make good. The decalogue has been reduced to two commandments. One for the employers--the elect, the money priesthood as it were--"Thou shalt make money"; the other for the employed--the slaves and underlings--"Thou shalt not lose thy job."--Keep the Aspidistra Flying--George Orwell. 

Proverbs 19:7 All the brethren of the poor do hate him: how much more do his friends go far from him? he pursueth them with words, yet they are wanting to him. 



Being poor can suck so much!

One huge negative is the yawning gap of loneliness and the day to day grind of being treated like less then a human or not even human at all. The other day I thought, "Why do all these people talk to me like I am a child?" And I had this weird revelation: you are seen as a child because you have not become a full adult, due to your low socioeconomic status.

I have realized this is one reason I am having such difficulties with some of the upper middle class and beyond people here. Remember I live in an affluent community notorious for snobbery.  Instead of them talking to me like the middle aged almost senior woman I am, they talk to me with this attitude of "correction" that permeates their words. They seek to "correct" me because they believe I have done something "wrong" to end up in this body and low socioeconomic status. They see me as far younger then I really am. This is one way a poor person can end up with too many people seeing you as a project. You are viewed with pity, and a object of woe instead of a human being. You are talked down to like a child. You are told everything you are doing wrong. They are stuck in the mode of trying to FIX you.

We know extreme cruel racists have used words like "Boy" to speak to middle age men. It is a diminishment of who they are. I see this with the poor in general too, this patronization with a demeaning attitude. This treating you like an inferior. In my case it has reached the point where they treat me like I am not even a full adult. This idea you must be corrected. The churches are full of people listening to the likes of David Ramsey who writes articles like this one called "Twenty Things the Rich Do Everyday" and puts forth the attitude that the poor are poor because they are at fault and they are irresponsible. They are little children that must be punished. The list is so insulting, David Ramsey got back-lash for it. He should have.

He wrote this nasty screed in response to his critics:

"This list simply says your choices cause results. You reap what you sow. Is the research perfect? No. It is a small sample, but it does pass the common-sense smell test. Does this research or the reason for posting it have anything to do with third-world countries? No. Anyone with good walking-around sense can see that this is a first-world discussion. Is this list a way of hating the poor? Seriously? Grow up.

There is a direct correlation between your habits, choices and character in Christ and your propensity to build wealth in non-third-world settings. To dispute that or attribute hate to that statement is immature and ignorant. To assume that our ministry hates the poor is ludicrous and is a reflection more on you than on our work or our beliefs."

This guy is a false prophet. He is not a Christian and believes in the prosperity gospel even if not overtly it is there. Supposedly if you are American and are poor, it is because you had poor habits, choices and character. He disgusts me. Sadly many have his opinions. I have felt those oppressions for many years. So have many others. The people complaining about his article were right that his ministry does hate the poor.

One new term I see out there now is called ADULTING. Adulting is a new annoying word. It is not based on chronological age but obviously is for the over 18 and out of the house set. I suppose it could be seen as being RESPONSIBLE.

It seems being an adult costs money. Have any of you heard the word "adulting"? Adulting takes cash many people simply don't have. Does not having money mean you are a failed adult? If you are eating ramen noodles and hot dogs instead of steak and kale at dinner does this mean you have failed at adulting? What do you think of that new term adulting?

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Some oldsters complain about the young people not starting families or "growing up", but if there is no stable job or employment, that's not going to happen. They have cut young people and even Generation X off at the knees. There's no mystery to me while the over 60 people here all have new cars, while you see younger people walking or in rust buckets.

 Somehow that piece of the missing jobs is always missing in their failed millennial articles. 50 after a relative lifetime of success is different then the grinding middle age that can come if you have not felt this success or achieved it. I can't find the article but I read it on Zero Hedge where they talked about how the lifetimes of no decent jobs, would change even the development of adults. That the influence of these economic factors went well beyond the material factors but even into the emotional and the physical.

 Adulting almost seems to be a word of conformity and you see these long lists of what a proper adult should be and this is a world of cocktail parties, full pantries and proper closet organization and jobs that pay real wages. Is this another way to subvert the poor into a new level of oppression, where they are deemed even more irresponsible and not fully adults?  Now they have moved us from the bucket lists to the adulting lists and a new definition of what an adult should be. Never trust a new made up word, because it may be using to advance a concept that is less then wholesome.

I think to a certain level even with these disabilities, I am resourceful. I've done my own legal work. I got free dental care though I made a bad decision over the wisdom teeth under duress. I got some digital hearing aids in a program. I can cook anything and will use the yellow zucchini I got at the mobile food pantry in a bunch of recipes. I have overcome things that would leave some of these people crying. Would David Ramsey consider me poor as a result of bad habits and character and being a bad "Christian"? Honestly I don't care but I care about the people who will be oppressed from others listening to this guy.

I have realized this is one reason I am having such difficulties with some of the upper middle class and beyond people here. Instead of them talking to me like the middle aged almost senior woman I am, they talk to me with this attitude of "correction" that permeates their words. They seek to "correct" me because I have supposedly done something "wrong" to end up in this body and low socioeconomic status. This is one way a poor person can end up with too many people seeing you as a project. You are viewed with pity, and a object of woe instead of a human being. This is one thing they unload upon the poor. You are not viewed as a full adult.

Within my family, my poverty denied me grown-up status within their ranks. I didn't own a suburban home, or a new car, I was seen as living as a permanent college student. I was deemed a lesser and treating accordingly. My needs disgusted and irritated them. My mother told relatives and even me directly on this blog in her crazy comments, that I was a loser and a mooch. The feelings from being treated this way rankled me worse as I aged. When I went no contact two years and three months ago, I knew I did not want to die as their worm even if it meant the streets.  I have to admit this has been painful especially as I have aged. A person wants to feel some dignity. Now that I have gotten away from those toxics, I am realizing I do not want to be looked down on or be treated the same way by anyone else. I have examined the choices I am making in terms of who I choose to spend time with. I do not need anyone in my life who sees themselves as more moral and mature superiors to me for having fuller bank accounts.

With the people who treat me as a child, it has gotten so bad, that at this point, I have told myself, this must be something I have to watch out for. If someone sees themselves as "superior" to me, I don't want to invest in the relationship. Not every rich person is like this, I have friends far wealthier then me but I have to avoid the number who are. I am being hurt. I am being treated like a nobody. Poor people are often patronized. Have you tried this? We are treated like we choose the poverty and drank, drugged or smoked our ways into it. Even us clean-living sorts are seen as deficient in a myriad of ways. What is the word I am thinking of? We are PATRONIZED.

The other day, I and my husband were at a mobile food pantry, and this is a friendly church, and actually the one where our support group is held at, and I have participated in other groups at. I do not belong to the church but it does a lot of community activities some of which are secular in nature and not religious based. We were standing in line to stand up for the mobile food pantry and put our names on the list. The collection of people on walkers and more was pretty high though some of us with spouses let them hold our household's place in line while sitting on the sidelines. They let people in, in small groups, and this guy patrolled the door and it was locked in between groups of people.

It was really hot outside here. For some reason fall seems to not be coming, it is almost unheard of for my state not to have cooler weather by now and none of our trees have changed yet. I joined my husband in line and was standing by his side and getting tired and hot. The door opened and I grabbed the door, and the line had progressed onwards with space for us to stand inside. Being hot and on my walker, I and my husband proceeded to step inside, when the guy patrolling the door came up, yelled "It's not your turn to come in yet, and closed it locked in our faces". My husband was pissed.

Realize that going to food pantries doesn't always put you in the best mood. You hate to be in need and asking people for it. We finally were let in and then went and signed up. Upon leaving, I asked the guy, "What is your problem, we did not break our place in line! Can't you see I am on a walker and that was totally uncalled for!". I know some people would say beggars can't be choosers but it's not that guy who paid for the food being passed out. The mobile food truck is a government program. There are things I'm not going to put up with anymore. Sometimes the wannabe boy scouts and girl scouts of the world make us all miserable. One could tell while the guy volunteered there, he didn't see the poor as like him, he saw them as the "others". Thankfully there are others at this church who this does not apply.

That man slamming the door in my face was treating me like a child. Trying to control my very movements, ironically in the very room where I do volunteer work and participate in my self help group. He saw me as a "lesser" to herd and "correct". I'm not putting up with it anymore. We went and complained to the church volunteer supervisor who did hear us out and went to talk to the man.

It's this kind of treatment I am sick of.

Taxes and Forms

I had to do tax forms the other day that melted my brain. These are tax forms that usually people have lawyers help them with. Of course if you are poor you can't afford a fancy tax lawyer to help you with byzantine tax law. So the job was left to me.

If you know the term "Offer in Compromise", you will know how complex things were getting. I spent 4-5 hours on these tax forms the other day. Of course this includes a million copies. Sometimes it feels like all I do is fill out forms. I can barely understand the forms even though I am college educated and am considered as having a decent IQ. I find myself wondering how do people in general get all these forms done when I find them hard to impossible.

The tax rate for the self-employed when it comes to my husband let me just be honest is hellish, even if you are broke. It does not forgive at all. I suppose the system wants to make you have an employer and not too much freedom. He applies for "good" jobs on occasion but they are like Lotto "long shots" and I fear our broken down looking car with it's cracked windshield and his very poor wardrobe already ruin his chances from the get-go.  The guy who fired him in 2007 throwing us into poverty forever it seems, I hope God forgives me for this, but I hate that guy.  It's that guy's fault our life fell into such a pit, and I do nothing but fill out forms.

Digital Hearing Aids

I got digital hearing aids. I found a program to be able to get them for a low income person and a sponsoring hearing doctor which streamlined the process.  I can hear! To be honest, it is frightening how deaf I walked around for years. There are some complicated emotions coming up for me because I can finally hear what people are saying after ten years.

 I can hear crickets and birds chirping for the first time in 10 years. I can hear what people are saying so I do not have to lip read! I'm not that good at lip reading either. This may change things for me socially as I was becoming completely lost far too often. I had an analogue amplifier hearing aid that I used but speech became unclear to me. I wear the hearing aids all day, and even have them in now to hear the phone if it rings.

Wisdom Teeth Hell

 

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I made a huge mistake about two years ago I am probably going to pay for big. One misstep when you are poor and everything can fall apart. I thought you had to be put out to get wisdom teeth out, and misunderstood. 

This upsets me because I remember mentioning this to people saying my risk of death was high if I was put out and no one addressed the error. I was in this charity dental program that would have paid for the wisdom teeth to come out but because I was puking half the month and in severe pain, I just couldn't take more medical procedures. I was scared too because I threw up without warning and didn't know how teeth sockets were supposed to heal.

 Let me be frank while I did the other major dental work there was serious musing as to whether I would outlive the year or not when I didn't know what was wrong yet.  Grinning and bearing it for an hour to have a cavity drilled on and worked on was different then praying I wouldn't puke for three or four days. I was having dozens of kidney stones where they were coming out of me like gravel and later had to take a special expensive drug to shrink one that got stuck and even was huge. I'm on this drug now so they do not come back. I still feel like I have trauma from the pain of that year. My bowels joined the party so intensely that I thought I had colon cancer.

I asked them if I could wait, and they said, "No". Now I need all these teeth out and one has a hole in it. Nothing is infected yet, but I wonder how I am supposed to pay for this and am scared witless. Well the other day I went to the free clinic to have my teeth out which I always saw as the back up and the dentist tells me there, that the nerve is twisted on one and I could have nerve damage unless it is done right. I am a medical freak of nature so it has to be a higher level oral surgeon. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut about my health problems and scared her off. She told me a oral surgeon takes low income insurance in a town two hours a way. I am not sure if I can arrange this but will try. I don't know if I can even get there. They have me on some insane spend down anyhow. I feel like an idiot for misunderstanding the part about being put out and for neglecting this. Now I am screwed.

To be honest all of this is a result of early medical neglect. I only saw a dentist twice when I was a kid and both times remember a teeth cleaning and wearing this teeth mold with some kind of bubble-gum flavoring on it. I never had my wisdom teeth addressed as a teen which is when most people get them out. For some reason I think my brother and sister have theirs out and I know my brother even wore braces, so guess who got shunted aside? I only saw a dentist once in 25 years when my husband had dental insurance for a very brief time until 2013. Then I went on the waiting list for the special dental program I found online and got a charity dentist. He's filled at least 12 cavities and provided teeth cleaning and treatment I should have had years ago and has taken me on even after the program expired but he doesn't do oral surgery. When we discussed moving out of here, I actually said, "What about my dentist?"

I do feel dumb for misunderstanding but then know I was very overwhelmed at the time with the other medical problems and just trying to stay alive.

Ollie's Latest Videos

Ollie's posted 5 plus new videos. This was one was great, I hope he can get all the help he can with his daughter. I believe ACON videos, blogs and more can protect us. I have "my side" of the story out there. He is right about the "Cold War" metaphors.



Narcissists don't apologize. They never will. Most won't even fake an apology to fool you.



This one sums up the response of narcissists to those making a stand against them. They always say "You're crazy!". I heard that said so many times I lost track. If you call them on anything, a) "It never happened" and b) "You're crazy!" Ollie has several more videos posted, so check those out.

Rare Condition Makes Kids Intensely Hungry

Another Prader-Willi video. I'm glad the doctor gets it.

Getting Used to Rejection

Is Rejection All That Bad?

I've thought about rejection too. There is a battle within myself, where I just want to be me, and don't want to censor my speech so much, but then there is that fear too where you think, "I have to keep my mouth shut or these people will hurt me." One gets weary of walking on eggshells and wishing they could just be themselves and not be hated or rejected. I'm tired too of people talking to me like I am a child or like they have to "correct" me.

So sometimes I think, "Should I just be me, and let the cards fall where they may?" or Should I keep trying to censor and walk on those eggshells for protection? Sometimes I feel like the balancing act is going to kill me and I actually waver between the two places. The artist part of me feels like saying to hell with it all, and letting everything hang out. That is the happier me believe it or not. Some may say that has already been done on this blog but the part of me that wants to be safe, feels like crawling into a hole and talking to no one and living as a hermit.  We can't expect to be everyone's cup of tea but who wants to have a long list of enemies too?

I actually envy the people like my husband who aren't afraid of rejection and don't let the opinions of others sway them. More happiness can lay in that route even if it is a risky one. How do you get to that place of not caring what others think? It's a better mode to be in. Self-censorship for writers and other artists can suck. Our happiest moments are together in the way that we don't have to hide anything from each other. My husband doesn't realize this was one part of his personality that absolutely pleased me. I saw something I wanted freedom in too.

Rejection always hurt me so badly. I spent years where no one loved me at all. One therapist called it emotional deprivation syndrome. I suppose an informal name for those who grew up without any love but didn't become attachment disorder orphanage types. I remember being four years old and thinking "No one loves me!" and what a sad feeling that was. This feeling of course lasted for years. It would haunt me even  far later in my twenties wondering why I didn't have a boyfriend yet, and why did I have to be so alone unlike everyone else? Obviously my mother put a long line of people before me. I just didn't matter. I used to wonder, "Why am I number 56 in a crowd?".

At the same time us ACONs were not taught to be alone. We were rejected but told our acceptance by others meant everything so we didn't even enjoy our solitude but saw it only a cross to bear. In other words we were trained to scurry and beg while having doors slammed in our faces.  Sadly for many of us the lack of a loving mother or parental figure left us without a basic human block of love and comfort which forms a foundation in babyhood. When I was in my 20s, I was afraid to be alone at all. I had been trained to think that the measure of my life was my acceptance and status in life and being defined by other people. As I grew older, I did not mind being alone. The me of today will spend hours alone even willingly, to sit and think. It is sad, that I worked so hard just to have people around me in my life. This of course led to more rejection because people fled from the desperation and neediness.

The me of today doesn't want to work anymore. I'm tired. Relationships only work out in a spontaneous fashion and the forced ones are doomed for absolute failure.  My going no contact was part of this not wanting to work anymore. I knew in my heart the family barely tolerated me and loathed me. They never smiled and all were annoyed when I phoned or called them. It is useless to leave yourself in any one way relationships, this is something every ACON needs to learn since we were trained to be the ever giving one in the one way relationship with our narcissists.

I knew intellectually going out into the world trying to be liked was the easiest way to get your butt kicked. It's true, if you go out with a "Please like me" face and stance, that is the soonest way to get kicked in the teeth. Vulnerability calls out the wolves. This is something many of us overcome but then there are new hurdles. You then meet the people who want to turn you into a project and don't see you as human but just another charity.  Rejection in various guises sometimes never seems to end for the ACON. How do some seem to be loved so naturally why so many of us hungered for it?

Lately I think just take the rejection. It is what it is. You aren't controlling it. Get used to it. I can't be one of those people who conforms. It's not me, it's impossible. Rejection can be a noose around your neck, that tells you that you have to be someone else. That sucks. Why bother? I never have had a situation where I have managed to change someone's mind about me. If you are rejected, it's game over. Walk away. Don't be the puppy begging for a pet, because you are more likely to get a kick.

It's so sad, I spent so many years trying to overcome rejection, but it was wasted energy. It gave my rejecters too much power over me. Why should I give in and go cry and become this boring person they seem to demand me to be? If I woke up and became the daughter my mother wanted, I'd be my sister and nothing would be left of my real soul.  I can't be someone else, it isn't working so what other choice do I have but to be me? To be authentic?

Joan in her article above mentions self referencing. I just started doing this two years ago. Where I ask, "What do I like?" "Who do I like?" "What do I feel?" It's turning the world on the axis. I don't walk around criticizing anyone either. Unless they kicked me in the teeth like the narcissists and project friends talked about on this blog, it's not something I get into. I don't go around trying to use or hurt or control anyone. One thing I noticed about the most real people is they let others be real, they aren't always about criticizing and telling you what to say and do and telling you to conform.

I loved how Joan mentioned Jesus...."There was a fella nailed to a cross that never did anything wrong, so I don't expect much either. 

That one stood out to me. Jesus obviously was "rejected". What did He do wrong? Nothing.  He was sinless. So even if Jesus Christ Himself couldn't please all those people who do I think I am?

Joan is right we need to separate ourselves from the big mouths of our narcissists. I ask myself why did I give all these people a place to judge me like they did? Even the project friend had many troubles of her own and not what one would call a perfect life. So who was she to call me a selfish human being? How selfish can someone be that has managed to be married almost 20 years? Is it fair for someone who has been divorced twice to judge someone concerning their selfishness? Would a man put up with me if I was the most selfish being on earth? The day she said that, I went and told my husband, I know I can be selfish at times because I am so sick, but I had to survive. He told me I was not selfish. My mother judged me for being fat, and screamed at me for gaining and not losing weight. I had a severe rare illness putting hundreds of pounds of fluids and altered fat cells on my body. It wasn't my fault. So what did she know? Nothing.

This is one thing we have to do is break down their rejection. Who are they to reject us? We need to look at them. Are they perfect? Do we have to accept their opinions? No, we do not. Our narcissistic parents made us think our criticizers were our gods, and we were to measure everything by their values and standards. What about our own standards and values? Many who reject me, I do not agree with theirs standards and values towards life. Many seem to only care about superficial things like status and wealth. I am not like them so will they be pleased by me? It is doubtful. 

I am realizing to be happy, and to come out of depression, that there is a common thread on the days I am happier as opposed to the sad and depressed days. I am happier when I can be authentic. I am happier when I can talk about things and not be judged or told what to say or not say.  I am happier when the people pleasing meter is shut off. I am happier when I can explore my Aspie interests and the rest. I am happier when I am not worried about rejection and not worried about people pleasing and not thinking something is "wrong", "bad" etc with me because so many people rejected me. Who were they?

I have realized what an absolute source of happiness my marriage is, because I can be me in it. Sometimes I think even that is rare in this society. When you grow old in a marriage and even hit a rough spot, the love can grow to a certain place when you realize that this is a safe place for you to be you in and him too. Where one sticks together through thick and thin. No rejection but someone who truly loves and cares for you. Doesn't it mean something to have known true love during one's human life?

So there are people in this world who do not reject me. The ones who did and do reject me can hurt us, but Joan is right we can survive it. We both can see beauty. Our narcissists did not. I don't mind being rejected by someone who cannot see beauty.

"Move On", "Let it Go"

Sometimes it won't be a narcissist but a flying monkey or someone fooled by one.

Just once instead of a person saying "Move On" or "Let It Go" I wish they would say to me instead, "How that person treated you was wrong and unacceptable". This is one way too many toxic people are defended. I have to admit my trust for those who tell me to "move on" and who still talk to people who have hurt me so badly, is a bit on the low side. It's not my job to tell people who to talk to and not talk to but it still bothers a person inside.

What is sad is you see too many seemingly "nice" people do this time and time again. All us ACONs hear this within our families. What gets me is I have "moved on" but how much they want to censor my speech. Everyone wants the toxic people comfortable and care little about the comfort of others. It's funny to me how the feelings of these toxics and others are so gingerly protected and everyone wants to be so neutral, they put Switzerland to shame.  It's like I am always suppose to shut up and have no emotions while the toxics can do and say whatever they want and no one calls them on it. It seems the victims always are told "hush, hush, hush" to protect the abusers. It boggles my mind. I process so slowly, I wish I had said, "Why is it more important to you that I move on, then facing the facts about what happened?"

I did say "If they treated me this way, they can you one day. My conscience is clear, I warned you."

Project Friends

September Butterflies and Flowers

Here are some more of my recent pictures. I enjoyed picture taking in the cooler soon to be fall weather. :)

The Man in Black

Most People with Normal Families will Never Get It

One rule an ACON has to learn and pretty fast, is the only people who will get this whole narcissism thing, are other ACONs and those who have gone through what we have. We have to learn to drawn boundaries because this abuse thing is so complicated. More secrets make us sick and having our speech censored sucks but we have to protect ourselves. I have adopted the strategy of implying I simply have no family of origin, as if they all died, instead of getting into the whole sordid tale with newbies who ask questions. Narcissism is bad enough but how do you explain complete sociopathy or that your mother hated you from day one? It's better to keep your mouth shut in some settings.

While every family has faults, normal people cannot conceive of families that operate like this and where people are not loved. People see those who do not have good relationships with their families as toxic. If you are thrown away by your family, many "normal" people will consider it "your fault" and that there must be something "wrong" with you to have something like this happen. They think you drank, drugged and fought your way into rejection. At churches, people always ask about your family and that can be difficult. One day I had an Aspie moment, and just said, "I have no family!" which put me on the weirdo roster immediately. The less you say among the "normal set" the better. Otherwise some may think you are a nutjob.

The outside world just does not understand how these people operate. The ex-friend chided me for being "unforgiving", and seemed to have this idea, that if I went to go talk things out with all the members of my family, that bygones would become bygones. Such an idea is ludicrous. There is no "talking" things out with narcissists or sociopaths. That simply does not happen and you open yourself as being vulnerable, when you do. How many times did we all try to "talk" it out begging them to see the light and for them to acknowledge how they have hurt us? Many of us have spent years doing so with a litany of emails, cards and  more.  Mine writes basically like OJ Simpson in every card to me, "I didn't do it.". This is not someone who is ever going to admit any wrong-doing or question her own assumed superiority. I will be banging my head on the wall forever more to try and "work" out anything with that person.

Counseling is a fore-gone conclusion and can be dangerous with someone high enough on the narcissistic or psychopath spectrum especially if they succeed in bamboozling the counselor or if a counselor with narcissistic tendencies enters the mix. Most narcissists would play "nice" and "fake it" for the sake of the counselors. Sadly as many ACONs attest, most counselors who have had normal families and never been through this type of abuse, do not understand the dynamics. I had some good counselors but then any who did not understand the dynamics of abuse, I simply could not connect with. I felt judged. Anyone who has been with a counselor tricked and manipulated by a narcissist within a family court system or other court-ordered counseling, knows what hell is. It is rare one ever enters a counseling office unless ordered to.

ACONs are shamed by the outside world for not loving their families. For years many of us will be told to love our narcissists and abusers and if we do not, that we are cold horrible people. Love comes natural to normal families where there is true sharing and relationships.  When it comes to people with normal loving families, I've tried to put myself in their heads watching from afar. Their families really are places of love, solace and fond memories for them. What stands out to me is how they are treated like they matter and are important. They are listened to and validated. Even if there are disagreements, it's not winner takes all and revenge tactics between those who are in a debate.

People with loving families don't understand that this doesn't happen for all. Even the basic things of loyalty or visiting someone sick while in the hospital was lost for us ACONS. When someone does not love their parents, they are called out as being a horrible person and told they are "not right in the head". Teachers will shame students who will say "Mommy and Daddy do not love me." instead of getting to the root of the cause and listening to an abused student. What does loving people that abuse you do but create more self-loathing? Many of us are familiar with the guilt imposed for not having these normal loving relationships. "What is wrong with you?" people will ask. Sadly here the victims of abuse can earn more censure and put-downs.

One thing that happens is people are scared  by what happened to us. Even the fact that a little baby can end up with a mother that hates it, freaks people out for good reason. They can't deal with and often they just want to shut it and you out of their minds. The idea of parents plotting to destroy a young adult child is frightening. Their minds close these things out because they are too awful to contemplate. There is a major risk of a person who has not faced horrendous abuse, closing you the ACON out if you disclose too soon. Some will lack the ability to handle your tales of abuse.

Many ACONS who still live in the same town as their abusers, often will face the problem of not being believed. I disclosed to three old classmates, a couple who had their own stories of abuse to share and was told that my parents, appeared as very "nice" people. One old friend and classmate told me that my family seemed "close-knit". The public images the narcissists will weave do work, and they will appear as "nice" people to the outside world. Another old high school friend who used to be friends with my sister, I described to her how I was abused behind the scenes as she was friendly with my parents. Her and her own mother were deeply close. She was around me long enough to know something was wrong even if she could not put her finger on it. One irony with her is my parents once called her their "other daughter". My old school mates, told me that I was very quiet and extremely withdrawn in high school. This pairs with my own memories.

I was fortunate these people all believed me but it was a long time in coming. It also made me realize how absolutely silent I was about all my abuse until I was away at college. I wasn't even telling friends I was abused in high school except the very closest. The fear factor alone kept all that inside. Around the narcissists until I lived long distance, their public face was definitely winning the day.

Today, my close friends find out with time, but there is a long list of "happy acquaintances" where I have said absolutely nothing. When one is middle aged, it is seen as odd to talk about childhood abuse. We are old enough supposedly to have found "ourselves" and gotten our life together. A few outer circle friends, get to hear a watered down version, where I just say there is estrangement. As an Aspie I had to learn the social rules, in what I told people, and that circle grew tighter and tighter. Even sharing that one is no contact with their entire family is risky unless it is a very close friend and even there be careful it is someone with the context to understand.

Another thing people will say to you is "You need to get over your childhood!" and "forgive your parents and relatives." There is no explaining to those people how the abuse continued far beyond childhood even into one's forties or what it is to sit in a room among relatives that mock you with derision. One thought I had is how I was treated like an absolute child until I was 44 years old and went no contact. One horrible thing about being so poor, is this feeling of never obtaining a proper adulthood, it burdens me everyday.

 Maturity melts when one doesn't have the right money to be a "good adult" but that was no excuse for the fact my mother talked to me for eternity like I was five years old. Most relationships in good families mature with age. The older adults, are treating middle aged adults like they are grown up. It was disgusting that here I am with gray hair, and using a walker, and almost ready for the senior center or the PACE program [a day program for the elderly disabled] and being talked to like I was a child by my mother. Sometimes I have this odd thought, that I am the only sibling who actually grew up in my family. My sister and brother are still both scared of my mother even though their degree of financial independence is higher especially in my sister's case and still living according to her edicts.

The rest have been forced into permanent childhood via my mother. I'm broke, and barely able to take care of myself in the financial sense, and on social security but I finally only answer to myself, husband and God. Some scapegoats in narcissstic families are kept in a place of suspended animation and never allowed to mature. Here Aunt Scapegoat is an example. She was always taken care of and never left home ever even living next door to my grandmother in a broken down trailer into her 50s. She never has been "on her own" in any adult capacity. As narcissists and sociopaths break down people sending them into depression, they successfully thwart their growth.

 It is strange, I keep having new memories coming back. One new memory came back to me, it's funny how much I blocked out, and this was before I hit my twenties and stood up for myself, but I remembered moments of laughter in my mother's family when I was visiting my grandmother's house and how often they would make me the center of jokes. Some would say to me, when I burst out into Aspie tears or got angry leaving the room, "We are not laughing at you, we are laughing with you" but I knew the laughter was directed at me.  I was often made the butt of jokes.

Abuse can continue late into adulthood. Some of us end the overt abuse where we stand up against insults or walk out of the room and drive away but it does not end the covert abuse and continuing abuses for decades. There are times now two years into no contact where I wonder why I put up with so much abuse? I have forgiven myself for it but am upset at my silence during her overt sociopathic displays. Why didn't I say anything? I was so afraid to.

I had a weird moment the other day when the oil light came on the car. Our dipstick is not working any longer to show the car's true level of oil since there is a leak, and we put more oil in the car immediately and it was okay. We change it often enough too to keep track of where it is at.  I kept thinking how when I was in contact with my narcissists, how one car slip-up or break-down mean endless abuse. I was relieved thinking now I no longer have to explain myself to those people. Those who want us to "forgive and forget" childhood, don't get the fact most ACONs did, and then got steam-rolled over as adults. To go back to being treated like a worm and like a brat that never grew up, would be to destroy myself completely. I could end stuck on the bus, but now I only have to worry about answering to myself.

Those of us who walk away often are seen as monsters by a world that does not get it.  "How can you walk away from your whole family?" "What is wrong with you?" They don't get in many cases, we were abandoned long ago and that in many cases the narcissists just kept us around enough for the narcissists to keep track of us. I have had to face the facts, my family does not care about me and I will never see any of them again in person even the ones I am low contact with. My few low contact relationships are ebbing away with time. Even on a social website, they are all talking to my mother and ignoring me more and more.  How many times can a person reach out only to get slapped back? There were so many ignored cards and emails. The one niece did write me back but even there I feel the separation of the future as the others turn her against me.

Sometimes it felt like a kick in the gut every time some of the people around here including the ex-friend would talk about their families. I had to learn to rein that in and not let envy ruin relationships. I would rather no one suffer what ACONs have.  They had a cousin, sibling, or other family member around them it seemed at every moment. They were part of each others lives, I was long forgotten about. We can't begrudge people having things we missed out on, but I wish I had been wise enough to realize someone that had such a loving and close family, was not going to have any understanding for me.  Some may try to have empathy for us but they lack the ability to understand. Some of the people who don't get it mean well but because their experiences were so different where they had loving parents, they just are unable to. People who post memes like these, just do not understand our experiences.

Here ACONs need to protect themselves. I learned to be quiet and only share my pain of abuse with a support group, on this blog and with close friends. Even with the friends you choose to share it with, be careful. If they are someone who has never gone through abuse, they may not get what you are talking about. We have to avoid those with narcissistic tendencies, who may use the vulnerablity of exposing past abuse to hurt us. Don't show your blog even to a friend of 4 years  [now ex-friend] who never has been abused. I made a giant social faux paus there. Avoid anyone who tells you that you are "unforgiving" or that you "ruminate" too much, or that you are a horrible person for having nothing to do with your family. Protect yourself too, and realize that in some cases with these issues, the less some people know the better. At the same time though, do not be hard on yourself. We spent enough of our life being shamed by others and being told what to say and think.  Our days of having to explain ourselves to narcissists and others are over. Protect yourself but don't blame yourself. We don't have to be the narcissists whisperers and we aren't responsible for educating every person on the planet, some of whom refuse to learn.


Update 2019: I deconverted --the thoughts pertaining to God here and in the comments are different today. In conservative religious circles, the family rules even more so Also the "other daughter" friend  mentioned above chose the narcs too and betrayed me: 
http://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/2016/05/my-mothers-second-daughter.html

Seb Lester Calligraphy

Calligraphy was a hobby of mine when I was a teen, I used to buy those calligraphy markers when they first came out with them in the 1980s

Putting Down One Group Won't Elevate Another

Check out this article:

Are you Racist?

This article is scary with it's extreme PC stuff. Have you noticed our society wants everyone shoved into their little demographic boxes and if you do not fit anywhere, you don't matter. Am I weird to react to this article saying, "Hey people are people, why does everything have to be about race and color?" and "Why does it seem like they don't want people talking to each other?"

I believe the global elites are using the race thing to do a divide and conquer. Race is a focus and a tool for them to divide and conquer. The 1 percent will cheer as they have blacks, whites and Latinos and other races all fight. I believe they even use immigration as a pressure on countries too. I do not blame immigrants who simply want to survive, but they are denied decent livings in one place so the elites can suppress wages in another. They are used as pawns for wars and for economic purposes.  As they destroy the economy, they would rather people fight among themselves rather then notice the real problems, and how society is becoming more corrupt. I go with the Bible on race:

Acts 17:26 KJV

"And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation."

So what we see is the left doing the new "white bashing" thing focused on "white privilege" where every white person is presented as wealthy and the oppressor and someone that makes 6 figures a year and lives in Mayberry, and the Right does its thing which is play it's blame game which seems to center on blaming poor people especially African Americans who are poor though whites are often included as the source of all the country's problems. They of course put down anyone who is on welfare and act like jobs can be picked off a tree.

 I hate both political sides.

I'm not an Anarchist, but I found this article written by one of some interest. He definitely well defines how states can play the divide and conquer games using race to fulfill their sociopathic goals. He uses hair color as a metaphor for race.

Race: The Divide and Conquer Tool of Tyrants

A second and final thought experiment: imagine for a moment that you are a sociopath, and that you aspire to rule over a people, living off the sweat of their brows as a parasite. Your biggest challenge will be to keep the people’s eyes off of you and on one another when the problems inherent to parasitic relationships begin to arise.

As your taxation ushers in poverty, you can dodge the bullet if the grays believe that the redheads are milking the system. As your regulations bring unemployment, you’re safe if the balds believe the jobs are being taken by the brunettes. When your corporatism causes rioting, you are in the clear if the silvers believe that the mixed-hues are given legal preferential treatment. When you want to go to war and must convince the people to fund it, you would do well to demonize the savage raven-heads on the other side of the world.

Racism is the friend to and the creation of the controlling collectivist—a redundant term, to be sure.

The truth is that there is only one race at issue here, and that is the human race. It is just as inane to classify by melanin as it is to classify by height, age, shoe size, chin shape, or eye color. Such groupings are tools of the State, and as such, are to be soundly rejected.

What does playing "privilege" games do but breed resentment and distance between people? Are people going to befriend their "oppressors?". Why do they seem to want black and white people walking on eggshells among each other?  If I am a white person talking to a person of another race, why not be real instead of following endless PC rules? That is a person who is most likely to turn into a friend. The narcissists and sociopaths that run our society want to divide every group they can and create as much hatred as possible.

Will another group of people find dignity in life when they are always patronized?  I'm so poor that if I came out against anyone more privileged then me, the only friends I would have left would be two homeless friends from my old town.

I would like to ask someone how does bashing white people lift up anyone? And why do all these liberals present white people as all one monolithic group that seems to be all wealthy and right out of the suburbs? Conversely they seem to see black people and other races too all monolithically too. Everyone's a cookie-cutter according to color. Remember philanthropy can be a cover for sadism.

Sure racism is a problem. I saw an inter-racial couple I was friends with almost get jumped in Chicago by some frat boys. I was thrown out of a skating park because I brought in 10 clients who were African American. Just for being with my clients when I was a residential counselor, they and I would hear racial slurs.  I almost got beaten up in a mall when I was with another client to the point security was called in.

The South kept black people out of restaurants, colleges, schools, business establishments, and drinking fountains before the Civil Rights movement. There are still Klu Klux Klan members. However racism can go all ways. I was laughed at when applying for a job and told I wasn't the right color. I was turned away from another job. There are people being knocked out in "knock-out" games for being the wrong color in some places. In the wrong place and wrong time, anyone can be a victim of racism. Wickedness is sadly a thing that affects all of humanity.

My own race is complicated. I am a dark enough white, that I had an African American man come up to me, during a friendly chat when we were both in a park, and ask me if I had Indian blood? I gave him an honest answer, "I don't know.". Others in my German ancestry dominated town have asked me if I am Greek or Italian.  I sometimes even get the subtle feeling that my more dark looks are one reason not to be liked in my family especially among the blonde and blue eyed set within my mother's family.  No one looks like me around here.  I'm lightly olive toned with almost black hair that is rapidly going to grey.

I spent my young life, working and living in predominantly African-American communities, working with troubled youth and in inner city schools. I lived in a "ghetto" area where I was the minority in two different neighborhoods. My best friends when I was young were Vietnamese.

On his #11, I wanted to ask him if he is high? Anyone without cash, of ALL races gets crushed by the justice system. The police state is growing for everyone. This writer lives in his own classist bubble seeing white people as wealthy and able to afford justice. According to him, no white person can do anything right. Even the guy who marched with Martin Luther King still stinks if he is the wrong race. I hate to tell the guy but white and poor means being crushed too. They may have started with the crackdowns in the ghetto, but unless someone is living under rock or under a mountain of cash, they would know one most often buys their justice today.

I have known poor people who were white without bail money who got crushed by the system too. Here they want division too, where he wants to have people of one race think that the other is getting nothing but easy breaks. This keeps people from asking too many questions of a system in general that is growing far more corrupt. I am horrified watching the police brutality grow, with the right wing defending the cops trained to grow more militaristic and the extreme sides of the left wing acting like the system is still just for "some". It's just for those with cash. Divide and conquer. They can do the round-ups and federalize the police force, using racial divides to put up endless smoke-screens.

The guy who wrote the "Are you Racist?" article emphasizes differences between people and patronizes people of other races as well. I believe this kind of stuff is worsening racism in America. It sounds like it was written by a Committee for Mind Color and 1984 "proper speech" rules.  There are aspects of the left that scare the crap out of me. The term "people of color" is patronizing too. Am I a person of color? Everyone is on the spectrum somewhere from lighter to darker. Do they think this stuff will actually fix race relations? Are they nuts? Just read his endless rules, and his message to focus on racism above all else, and you will be afraid to open your mouth in fear of offending someone. That's not going to build a relationship with anybody.

Update on this one: I have changed my mind about some of these thoughts. I had some people explain to me what is really meant by white privilege and came to agree with their concerns. This was a place I had to educate myself more. I do question some who take things to the extreme like Tim Wise, but definitely people of color in our society are facing oppression. Sadly with Trump, the racists came even more out of their closet.

One more liberal friend helped me wake up pointing out, that yes in my case, I was facing discrimination due to my body but I was letting it confuse me about what some were standing against regarding racism. When I explored themes like Dominator society and other aspects of white supremacy, it also brought me into more knowledge on this topic.                                   

In my case, I am technically Caucasian and found out via Ancestry, this darker skin color is from being almost 50 percent Hungarian. [more on that later] I am "darker" where my skin color is as dark as some hispanic people or Native Americans, and I have been asked if I am Native American many times. Perhaps this complicated the issue for me as well.

Even later update: while I came to understand some troubles people of other races may encounter, I was right about this stuff creating more division. I'm tired of reading books that act like there is no such thing as a poor white person. CRT and "Wokeism" is actually making life for all of us worse. Always it boils down to the elites use this crap as they steal trillions from the tills, and the division serves them best. I'm tired of the "woke people" boiling everything down to gender and race too. The "woke" are elitists too that don't give a damn about economic oppression crushing people of all colors and about the growing tyranny from Covid.  

Happy Labor Day!

Pastor Shepherd or Wolf

Churches can be breeding grounds for narcissists. More and more, I have realized the helpful martyrship "church lady" masks can hide many severely damaging narcissists who use one's troubles and turmoils to drive the dagger in deep into someone's back. Don't just be careful of pastors but be careful of them too! The fake church ladies are just as dangerous. There are some who make a hobby of helping the downtrodden too but they just want to your broken down body to stand on.

I had one good pastor who was young and sincere in my small town church but obviously the me of today disagrees with some teachings regarding the church. We had one disagreement where I told him, many Christians are leaving the church system and the Bible seems to point to this fact but he said, every Christian should be in a good New Testament church. I said, "Well many people there isn't one good church in the entire county!" One thing that is worrisome about churches is charisma is what keeps the pews filled. And sadly it is mostly narcissists who have charisma in spades. The nice quiet thoughtful person, probably today gets weeded out in seminary or bible college for not doing an exciting enough sermon.

I visited a lot of churches in my present county and it always bugged me how churches revolved around the pastors. A few churches made a nod towards having a few deacons or elders, but most didn't. The pastor was the main personality keeping the show on the road. Maybe some would argue leadership is needed in every organization but isn't there a problem in the body of Christ where if the pastor leaves, the church folds? Why didn't the relationships among the congregation keep it going?

There are some pastors I ran into where oil oozed out of their skin and they came across as used car salesmen.  They always wore shiny suits and had big white shiny teeth. While I saw it right off, a few of these guys had big churches full of thousands of people. That always weirded me out. One guy was so charismatic, at one church, that was a smaller church, that troubled me. Those people were all eager to please the man. When I stood next to him he seemed to shrink away, I felt like he wasn't happy about this big fat woman showing up to his church. He kept bragging about his "vacation' [cough] mission trip to Jaimaica that he took every year. Can you imagine having a Jamaican trip every year as a job perk? I left that church after only a few visits. The people were nice but the pastor was literally worshipped. He would make sex jokes during bible study and present this cookie cutter suburban world I did not relate to.

The big money guys who have jets, and mansions are some of the obvious deceivers but they have many smaller versions in the "making merchandise of you" set even in small towns.

My Father

My father was a narcissist too.

I once had a conversation with my father.

I told him in my teens that my mother hated me and I knew she had never loved me. He shaked his head, "No, No, Your mother loves you!" as if he had to convince himself. I told him, "She has never hugged me and never has one kind word to say!" I responded, "She does nothing but criticize me." He would assure me she loved me but sadly serving as her enabler, would then start saying "Maybe you should lose weight or clean more then your mother would treat you better." With this, he would team up with her to rip me down. He never defended me. Never ever. I burst into tears knowing I would never be listened to.

The abuse he gave me was bad enough on it's own but his betrayal for her, I will never forget. After all this is the man, that knew I was dying in Chicago, covered in sores, weighing near 700lbs, and left my mother every dime ensuring a forever comfortable existence for her, as I took the bus to food pantries and gasped for air in the ER. Those days of poverty I have never forgotten. There is real terror and fear when you realize there may be nothing to eat, or you need a medicine and can't even dream of the money for it. I am sure those who read this blog today see that edge to me where I fear the streets and life destroying poverty. My father failed in one of the first jobs of a father, which is to protect a daughter. Even if someone is over 18, someone may still need help. He scapegoated me too along with her.

He joined her in my abandonment in Chicago. He was angry at me for failing.  He was angry over the money borrowed for my college. When you hear me say I would not go to college again, I wouldn't. They paid for half, and I paid the other bills and worked in the dorm cafeterias for spending money. The constant crushing to meet the financial juggernaut, destroyed so much of life for me.

He did not want me to become a teacher but wanted me to be a business person or a more elevated position, but I barely got through college financially as it was. When both parents realized I was not going to get a normal teaching job, for some reason they didn't understand my medical problems and refusals when I explained it to them, it's like they wrote me off for good. My growing weight angered them. He was there too, that day they both visited from their trip to the Mall of America, stopping at my two-room ghetto apartment--I had new traps just put in for the mice and thankfully one didn't appear during the visit,

I remember he sat in the van, and he didn't want to come in. Just like they both would almost refuse to come to my wedding a year later,  he acted put-upon. One relative told me they had complained about me marrying and did not want to come and almost refused. He wasn't too disabled to walk in my apartment. He still did flights at stairs at home and there was only 4 steps into my apartment. He sat like a petulant child in the car and then reluctantly came in and sat in our old easy chair by the door. My mother gave me that horrible sneer, forever caught on film, the picture as she met me at the door. In her eyes, is the lifelong enjoyment she had for my misery. The picture is so shocking I wish I could post it here. Sometimes I consider it but I keep this blog anonymous for obvious reasons.

They came in and she brought roast beef sandwiches with cole slaw in white paper bags picked up from some deli on the way. They spent about an hour, on the way home from their shopping trip blast. My mother didn't even sit down the whole time. I remember as they were leaving, she looked me up and down said, "Do you know how big you are getting?" It's disgusting". My father nodded in affirmation. Then she pointed at my worse leg, and said, "You need to do something about that too!". What could I do? I had no medical insurance and was barely getting treatment for asthma and breathing problems via the ER. I was seeing a charity doctor who would prescribe me needed antibiotics, but couldn't afford better care. I had already had multiple hospital visits with one week to three week long stays, for severe leg infections and blood poisoning. The me of today remains in horror, that two parents could see their daughter literally dying, covered in sores through out her whole body having gained hundreds of pounds in a very short period of time and do nothing about it. 

Together my parents were a nightmare. It's like they fed off each other. The evil would be increased a notch when they were together. Us kids would be relived whenever one went away usually my father on a business trip, because the tag teaming of child abuse and ranting and raving about what me and my brother did that day would go down.  Alone my father seemed more placid, and easier to deal with and alone my mother simply ignored us more.

As I have written before, she would manipulate him, throwing him into a froth, complaining about me and my brother. She usually would instigate this complaining about the housework and things not being clean enough. A spot on the bathroom floor, a droplet on the kitchen floor and all hell would break loose. The smallest sins would be magnified a dozen fold. He would smack us saying "Don't talk back to your mother!" My brother got it worse as I shrunk into the wall, getting all the attention for being a boy but that included beatings for not getting good enough grades and for losing a tool or for making an error as my father did his endless yard, house maintenance/decoration, and computer projects.

It's strange. He was so controlled by my mother. Sadly my mother defined me in his eyes as she did with everyone else. I believe she turned him against me totally. It was like he saw me as "nothing". The list of my failings never ended. He called me a loser for being poor and not getting jobs. He mocked both I and my husband at the dinner table, saying we could never afford a trip to Disney World where he bragged spending 7,000 dollars on the trip.

Around the same time my sister decided she hated me after I was into college, things worsened with my father. I had moved back home to do my student teaching which pissed them both off. My health had worsened. Everyday I was treated like I was in the way.  Downstairs in the basement while standing next to the pool table being told to do some cleaning project, he said to me, "Your personality sucks!" "No one likes you! and you have a shitty personality!" This attack remains in my mind because he was attacking the core of my being, basically saying he did not like who I was. These weren't thoughts he came up with his own but definitely instigated by my mother.

The me of today wonders, "Why didn't I fight back?" Is there any wonder on my high school student teaching report that while I got high scores on everything, the lead teacher pointed out a lack of confidence. Why did he hate me so much? That bothers me. I was scared of him and nervous which isn't exactly bringing out one's best side. If someone tells you that, where they even hate your personality, there's no hope for the relationship.

However things are more complicated. My father was different. My brother told me that once he apologized to him for being so abusive. I thought to myself, "Where is my apology?" Here while I have attested to his own narcissism and problems with rage, and abuse, I have seen differences between my mother and father that stood out.

 He at times seemed to have this little good side in him, where he knew something was wrong about his life and it was not going well.  He was a narcissist but seemed to have very brief but fading flashes of insight among the general mode of having none. He would hug us children on occasion. He would try to talk to us, though this was adversely affected by him screaming or hitting at us this the day before. He took us to movies and talked about science fiction and computers with us. Sometimes he would come home from work seminars that talked about life improvement and vowed to change.  He wasn't going to scream at us anymore. He was going to try to be more understanding. It never lasted more then a week, but one could see this spark of thinking life could be different. Was this the spark of conscience my mother worked actively to stamp out? I think so.

My mother always had this way of commandeering people and he was totally. Even recently while being NC, during the pop-up visit, I watched my brother online and then my mother's present husband complain about the failings of his live-in girlfriend. I know where that originated. If my mother doesn't like someone or tells people what to think, she can get everyone on board with her hate campaigns. No one ever defends the person she decides to speak against. Even now it troubles me how these dynamics remain so entrenched.

With my father, I  have been confused my whole life about the small snippets of good and the very very bad. This was the same man who hit me and threw me in the pool to sink and almost drown, while I screamed. He pinched at me and smacked me all the time. He kicked me in the butt. He respected no boundaries and treated me like trash. He would punch me in the arm if I didn't rake the leaves correctly. The neighbors would call the police seeing him cussing in the yard and smacking us kids around and even sometimes just from all the noise.

That's one of the complicated things about being abused. With the sociopath in the house, she hated me and outside of buying me things never deviated from absolute disgust with me. My father at times seemed to take an interest in me.  He would tell me I was smart and talk about his memories. Talk about confusion. However every abuse website talks about this. Even domestic batterers buy flowers for their abused wives and talk nicely to them on occasion, it doesn't excuse the abuse. It doesn't excuse the fact he never stood up to my mother either or did something about the severe emotional and other abuse.

Why did he marry my mother? He seemed to see her as this angel that could do no wrong. She was the leading light in his life and on an absolute pedestal she never deserved. She never hugged any of us or talked to us in any serious conversational way outside of telling us what to clean. I once asked my mother why she never talked to me and never got an answer. I suppose empty shells just have nothing to talk about. She seemed to hate having children outside of her relationship with Mini-Me. One odd dynamic was that Mini-Me and my father had absolutely no relationship, she hated my father. Once she was married and out of the house, she had absolutely nothing to do with him. Even today my sister has nothing to do with my brother. or his children. Relationships weren't just destroyed for me, when life revolves round one person, there's many that go down the tubes.

This doesn't mean he stopped all abuses, but there were times he attempted conversation. He would share some happenings about his childhood such as when his childhood home burned down during the Christmas season when he was just 9 years old or talk about his summer working in Yellowstone Park during college. He absolutely loved Yellowstone Park and this was something I remember sharing joy with him in. So there were those times. My mother never shared anything like this keeping clammed up about her past completely. She never talked to me about anything.

My father had a very high IQ. For some reason I remember being told his IQ was around 140. Sadly even his intellectual interests and abilities were completely different from my own.  There were times I wanted to understand things he understood but was unable to. He didn't understand how my Aspie mind worked. There are things I figured out he never could have done so and the mysteries of math and computers remained a giant fog to me.

He was a computer and math genius who even got a full-ride scholarship at an esteemed Ivy League university. Imagine that, he was angry that his own children were not showing such academic prowess, but in his poor choice of a wife, it's not like we were getting academic stimulation and time to study.  He won awards all through school and was even written up in newspapers for winning academic contests as a child. I believe his narcissism could be rooted in the fact that he never could do no wrong as a child. He was a shining star. I saw in one old newspaper online where his parents had a birthday party so big for him, they wrote about it in the newspaper with Aunt Confused playing the accordion. He was only 7 years old.

He never went without a job, so my later economic troubles were not understood. I flunked math all through school, and barely passed it even having to take the general mathematics exam that required 71 percent to pass ten times so I could get my college degree. One friend has theorized to me that my father was an Aspie, but  I disagreed with her. His skills to make in the world were too high, he never faltered like me socially. He was not like the Aspies of Silicon Valley with great computer skills and social failure. He succeeded socially. He was a well-liked boss at work with a smile on his face and when he died many old employees showed up to his funeral even though he had been disabled some years before.  My mother never would have put up with a socially awkward Aspie who could not make money.  So no, there was none of the same social problems or any of the rest.

One thing I noticed when my mother was not around, there were rare times my father treated me far better even into adulthood. He talked to me different. Today when I analyze this, it happened after he got sick. I am not sure if was because he wanted someone just to talk to him or if it illustrated any real feelings for me. I remember saying to people, "Why does my father get nicer when he is sick?" 

After my first no contact was ended, around 1993-4 right before I moved away to Chicago, I commuted to a job where I had to bypass my parents house and a few times I stopped to visit, when my mother wasn't there, he talked to me almost like a human being. That probably was the closest we ever got. My mother was not there and was at work But then that was the time where it looked like I may still have a career and find a normal life.  He was cooking and teaching himself to draw and exploring alternative medicine to help with his health problems. I discussed all those topics with him. Even then when I think back his accolades and excuses for my mother stayed the same. Did he like me more because I seemed like I was going to do well back then? This was the time I had my art teacher job at a juvenile home and it seemed career and otherwise, I might be okay.

As I got sicker and poorer all that goodwill disappeared. All it took was one job lay-off and even he threw me away and I was written off as a "loser".  I moved to Chicago to get my residential counselor job and to stay off the streets which angered him. But what else could I do? He refused to help, I was facing homelessness and he was from the sink or swim school. My mother filled his mind with bad thoughts about other people including me.

What kind of man allowed a fat Aspie daughter to go work and live in the hard streets of Chicago? He had absolutely no fatherly concerns for my safety. There was no empathy for my troubles even from him. He was part of the picture of my severe medical neglect. There was total selfishness in that he only cared about his own health problems. He wasn't visiting me in the hospital either when I almost died of those deadly leg infections. He was healthy enough after being disabled to travel to Florida and Disneyworld and that notorious Mall of America so while he died at the age of 57 during that time he was healthy enough to have done more.

 Sometimes I ask myself "How could someone influence someone to treat their own daughter so badly?" But he definitely had no qualms in doing so. One thing that bothers me to this day, is asking "Why did he treat his sister so badly? Why did I grow up hearing absolutely no empathy for a woman who was domestically abused?" This gave me a weird view of relationships. It's like I was taught that men were not supposed to protect women at all. My father seemed to have a weird view of women, and would scoff at any female tears saying women only cried to manipulate. There seemed to be a hatefulness for femininity or any "softness". This makes sense he married the hardest coldest woman who never cried. There was no Daddy's Little Girl stuff to my life.  When I see that stuff it's like a punch in the gut, just like the "Mother always loves you" memes on Facebook. It's like I was another male child but one that wasn't quite good enough for basically not being male.

Another conversation stands out to me. I left the Catholic church when I was 18 and joined the Unitarian church. Today of course I am a Christian but back then that is where I was.  I kept my mouth shut about this but my mother found out. When I told my father, he said, "That sounds like something you would do!" When I lived at home, they basically told me stuff like "My house, our rules" and forced me to go Catholic Mass even when I had passed the age of 18.

The conversation that stands out to me, sums up a lot to me. I was sitting in the car with my father with just the two of us and I told him, why and how I had left and told him, "I just do not believe in Catholicism.". He basically went into this spiel telling me how people join religions for cultural and social reasons. "No one really believes it! If you lived in China, you'd be Buddhist, it's for social cohesion. I really do not believe in Catholicism but I go along with it to keep your mother happy." I was very very bothered by this. I said to him, "How can you be a religion and go to Mass every week for a religion you don't even believe in.? 

My father's religion was more science fiction. He even used aloud to me once that God could be an alien being with superior intelligence but he bordered on agnostic beliefs. His personal notebook full of phone numbers had this quote typed out on it on the front page: "Nothing Exists But Atoms and Space, All Else is Opinion Democritis 460-370 BC." I am not sure what he would think of the me of today. He probably would joining in the disgust of someone in the family being a Christian.

To me this is an example of the thought control that a narcissist can hold over another. Everything was about pleasing my mother to that man even to the point of the suppression of his own religious beliefs and thoughts. How could one keep silent about so much? My mother's second husband even ditched his life long Methodism to join the Catholic church at her bidding. In other words, my mother's control of people even supercedes God's in their minds. What of God? I couldn't bring up religious issues with either of them. My father busily told me to keep my mouth shut about any religious questions.

One thing about my personality compared to my father's is he would chide me constantly for being too idealistic. In some ways this was true, I didn't know how the world really worked but his put-downs for being a "flowery hippie". "hippie-dippie" and "flower-child" did not include any real lessons about the world. I was seeing far more of the world working with incarcerated youth, gang members and living in the neighbors I did then any of my parents ever did. There seemed to be part of him very angry that I held to the things of conscience and simply did not conform. He was always angry at me for not submitting to him and to my mother. He told me constantly I was "too weak" and "too sensitive". 

When I read People of the Lie, and read about the couple where one was in thrall to the other. It described my father to me. I wrote about this on the People of the Lie article.

"One thing about my father is while he was a narcissist too, he was in thrall to my mother, same as Hartley the milquetoast weak husband to Sarah in "People of the Lie." Notice how Hartley did Sarah's bidding at every step even as she insulted him emasculated him and called him nothing. He reacted with depression but still never challenged her. My mother and father screamed and yelled at each other without fail, with my mother making constant demands of my father, leaving him no energy for anyone else but in the end whatever she said went. I can't even recall one time where he made a stand against her or didn't submit to her wishes. This is true for my entire family come to think of it. I am the only one who has ever "rebelled".

His "thralldom" to my mother allowed him to be led by the nose into even worse behavior. Peck goes into thralldom of evil in this book and says that Hartley was in thrall to Sarah. Charlene while more of a borderline type sociopath also too expected complete control in any relationship.

 My father would have his rare moments were it seemed he wanted to change to be a better person but it vaporized under her spell. There were times he tried to get close to me, but she would shut it down in an instant. She had a way of goading him on and having him erase all his vestiges of kindness encouraging meaner and colder behavior. To please her, he chose wickedness. He put her on a pedestal treating his own children like objects but he made this choice to submit to evil.

I believe this is true. Even the religious aspects of following his wife's religion he really did not believe in was part of this being in "thrall" and seeking to please.

One close friend met my father acouple years before he died, and has told me, "That is the saddest man, I ever met!". I would agree that something in him did seem very sad and lost.  When he got sick, he seemed to have some regrets. But even far before that he was not a happy person.

When I look back, and my health conditions are far worse then his and came at a young age, even his health problems don't explain his object misery and constant anger. I used to wonder "What brought out all the rage?" Was he repeating child abuse he had suffered? Anyhow he was such an angry person. He would brag about being a perfectionist, well that I believe was part of the problem. Everything had to be perfect and when it was not, he would get very angry at the world, others and himself. Of course my mother worsened this side of his personality, basically three children suffered under the perfectionism yoke.

I cried and cried when he died, but I had grief over the relationship that should have been too. I feel like he was someone else taken away from me by my mother. Sometimes I have considered who people could have been without the wicked influence. I saw the brief moments even admist all the abuse where he wanted more and where he seemed to want love, and to be close to us. However his desire to please my mother, superceded all this. I remember seeing an early letter he wrote her when they were first together and he is so eager to please in wanting to do right by her and fixing up their apartment. Even as a teen reading this letter, I was troubled and just shook my head. I wish he had been able to see me outside of my mother's eyes.