Guest Blogger: Parasitic Narcissists Who Get Their Needs Met At Other People's Expense

Narcissists are Parasites

Understanding the Parasitic Narcissist

One thing I noticed about narcissists myself is how many get their needs met. Their sense of entitlement and shamelessness runs this show too.  I rarely saw one flounder for a dollar or ever in true desperation. A variety of narcissists I know have never faced desperation or going without. Queen Spider, my ex-millionaire friend and several others never have been without. Narcissists don't fear the streets or being left out in the cold. One sign to me of narcissists is always getting their needs met.

Since my no contact has been in place, some of my thoughts about things changed.Your memories and thoughts outside of the battlefield become more clear. My Aunt Scapegoat, seemed to learn from her narcissist family how to survive. She was able to go years without bothering to apply for disability or knocking on any social workers door for help while not working. There was no going to food pantries or soup kitchens in the ghetto for her. She didn't have to pay any rent from 1983 to the end of her life. Somehow she stayed alive without working or pursuing disability for many of those years. Some relatives got her on disability later but she was someone who was able to survive while being completely passive. While she was a scapegoat in her case, she learned some narcissistic tricks along the way as she got the family somehow to "feel sorry" for her and service her needs even as they complained about her addiction to drugs.  I did not share this passivity so was punished especially during my ghetto years. One thing was opposite of me, she had no embarrassment or shame about being poor.

With some narcissists, I have dealt with, they always had their families and others "take care of them". Some have done so to the tune of millions of dollars and great 6 figure jobs while others never have had to worry about taking care of their basic needs.  It was strange to be judged by one person who lived rent-free in one of her family's homes as not cleaning well enough or having good enough clothing, I had rent to pay unlike her. I had some memories return about Aunt Scapegoat that put things more into place for me. Aunt Scapegoat got mad when my mother had helped me with a car around 12 years ago.

Earlier on this blog, I had mentioned that help that came after I was abandoned in the ghetto, probably to keep me in the game. A pound of flesh was extracted for all of it. I have refused two offers of used cars to stay no contact. We were all seated around the table at a family graduation, both my grandmother and her seemed angry that my mother had helped me that rare time, after all I was the scapegoat. Aunt Scapegoat started complaining about her broken down trailer. She was embarrassing me. My mother would buy her a new trailer very soon after leaving her rent free to the end of her life, but I remember joking and saying, "Well you have been rent free for a long time" which silenced her.  I felt bad later because then I didn't know about the lack of running water and she didn't mention that but remembering this conversation brought more things into light for me.  Hmm maybe that's why she ignored all my cards and letters. There was a lot of narcissists and those with fleas all competing for resources, and my mother's family of origin definitely saw poorer me as someone in the way. My Aunt Denial told me, that on her deathbed, my grandmother extracted promises that my mother would take care of Aunt Scapegoat.

There are some narcissists who fail to make money, maybe they don't have as good job skills, or aren't high enough functioning narcissists to manage being a money-making shark. But one thing about them you will notice is why other's would find themselves hunched over a burn barrel to heat their cans of beans or living in the ghetto turning to the social workers to stay alive, narcissists somehow manage to make it no matter what. They know how to get their needs met. In this story, a friend tells her tale of how a narcissist claiming to be homeless, moved in with her, and feigned vulnerability, to get help for over a year. Sadly people who are truly in need get too often pushed out of the way by such people.

Sadly while my friend desired to help a friend she thought really needed help, she was taken advantage of.  I was worried for her and told her to be careful. Sadly toxic people can play on heart strings and make themselves look vulnerable. This trick was played on me from the catfish who feigned sharing severe Lipedema making her totally bed-bound to a narcissistic friend who claimed she suffered from Aspergers and social censure as she rose up the Army's ranks.  That makes me feel bad hearing how this happened. I don't like seeing people with good hearts, used and abused. When narcissists do this kind of stuff, it is part of what advances prejudices against homeless and poor people. They get all the attention, and help, and then walk on looking for their next prey. I have opened my own home with offers to help homeless friends but in my case all were able to find jobs or other places to live. They being real friends probably know I have a hard enough time taking care of myself. My husband is someone who would stand against anyone trying to take advantage.  My husband once told me I can't take care of everyone. My apartment building is a corporate one that is very strict so that changes the game too.

 If I became homeless I probably would avoid asking a friend to move me in. The safety net of a disability check helps.  I have a life rule about being the own adult or married couple of my own household that was borne out of the pain of having to move home after college for a year and all the resultant abuse. With Aspergers, I knew living with people could make me very vulnerable to abuse. I was abused by some roommates in my past. My emergency plan is disabled housing even in a more rural area with openings.  Anyhow my own rent has been kept paid.

Sadly when a narcissist is done feeding, they do the devalue and discard thing as they leave one person they took advantage of to seek new feeding ground. Note in the below this "homeless" narcissist, turned the tables on my friend using projection to shame her, and criticize her and her lifestyle on her way out the door after a year of rent-free living.

Here is my friend's story:

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I received a very nasty email from a narc whom I am calling Milly as a pseudonym that I helped until she moved out to her upscale apartment with the help from her adult children.  This is her way of thanking me for opening my home to her!  Yes, she lived in my apartment rent-free and she did not pay very much with my other bills.  She had access to my cable and internet services without paying for it.  She did not even pay at least half of my bills.

I spent months trying to help her to find an apartment and then over the time I realized I have been watching how narcs’ brain work compared to normal, non-narc people.  Here is an excerpt of an email she sent me last week because I called her asking her to pay back some of my bills.  Because she did not pay at least half of my bills and I had to pay items more often than I normally did, I suffered financial difficulties.  Milly was very inconsiderate and very rude.  She refused to take accountability of how her actions and decisions negatively affected others.  She slashed out at people who tried to hold her accountable. She projected to the max.

“It's Milly and I wanted to let you know that I cannot pay you back anymore money. 

 I am sorry if this is not what you wanted to hear.  I understand that sometimes we overspend but this seems to be a habit of yours on a consistent basis and I can not always be there to bail you out.  I appreciate what you did for me when you opened up your home for me and let me stay until God opened up a door for a place of my own. 

 I think that you need to consider the way you budget or spend your money.  Sometimes we don’t want to do things to better our lives but I decided that I was not going to be a victim of society.  You have a master degree yet you refuse to [give up your career goal and graduate school plan] to obtain  a part time job to me I see something wrong with that picture. 

 As I watched you spend money on expensive vitamins and hand sanitizers every month was a big waste of money in my own opinion. You should be ashamed, but it is your life and you live it however you see fit, but just leave me out of it.  I have to save my money and take care of my own bills and apartment I do not ever want to end up on anyone's couch ever again unless its my own.  God said if you take care of the little He will bless you with much.  

I do not see you taking care of your money the little that you have.  It’s just something to think about next time you start feeling sorry for yourself because you can’t get into a PHD program and get full no-loan financial aid.  It’s just something to think about.  It is not good to burn bridges once a person has crossed them, but if our friendship ends based on this email that I write than so be it. You have burned a lot of bridges since I have known you based on your paranoid personality that everyone is a narcissistic. I need to move on with my life and let people in my life who are not lazy and want to work to get ahead not always having their hand out for something free. I do not intend to invite you to my new place.

  I wish you much success and I hope that you continue to go to your therapy sessions because I think it would help you a lot.   

Milly

Here are the facts.

Milly overspent money for many years.  She does not know how much I have been spending for years, why I was not homeless for years, and why my accounts did not shut down.  Landlords did not evict me.  I never had landlord reporting me to the credit bureau.  When Milly moved in, all of my bills were paid on time and I had surplus of foods and household items in which Milly used until they were gone.  I had to buy laundry soap, toilet paper, dishwashing soap, trash bags, toilet paper, condiments, foods, olive oil, cooking spray, hand soap, shampoo, body wash soap, and to replace some items that were missing or damaged.   Milly told me she did not have the money to purchase her own necessities.

Milly paid some money because I started to complain and told her I wanted her to move out.  Utilities bills were $10 to $25 higher per month and it strained my budget.  I angrily complained about my increasing bills and Milly gave me some money.  Milly did not pay at least $100 per month because she did not have it.  The problem was she overspent her money!  When I called her last week asking for money, I hoped to recoup some money that she did not pay and hope she would consider giving me financial relief by giving me the money. Oh no, Milly refused to give me money. She sent me a nasty email instead!  She refuses to be held accountable or to take responsibility for her decisions and action.   Milly posted a picture of herself  on Facebook flying back home on an expensive coast to coast plane trip for the holidays with a caption saying “Going back home.”

Milly burned many bridges with employers, landlords, and many people who wanted to befriend her.  For example, she sent an email to a supervisor of a staffing agency without regards that he suffered because of her decision.  She demanded payment while leaving the job unfilled and undone. The manager pointed this out to her. She told me she had quit multiple jobs and had legal and other run-ins with employers.

One employer even contacted her back, saying he had gone out on a limb for her, and that she had put his company in danger from her walking out on the job, and leaving clients hanging. He lost business from her actions. She claimed he never paid her.

When Milly moved in with me, she travelled from a neighboring state, where she quit her job after a landlord of a temporary housing program kicked her out. Six days earlier, she left her last apartment because the landlord kicked her out for not paying the rent.  She owed them $3000, which she refused to pay for a year until she realized she could not get an apartment.  Milly claimed that she refused to renew the lease because she did not want to pay high rent.  I found out a week later that she lost her disability income from an insurance corporation that paid her well.  She wanted that high income back so she spent months fighting to get it back.  The insurance firm refused to reconsider their decision to stop paying her.

Milly sounded like she was running away from her problems and her responsibility.  She did not ask her adult children and close long-term friends for help. She turned to me instead.  She had problems with one of her adult children and she alienated too many local people so she does not have close local friends.  She told me many times that she did not want friends and she did not trust people. Milly had several bank accounts and the jobs she lost were professional high-paying jobs at 30 dollars an hour.

A program that helped me when I was homeless 10 years ago refused to help her. Milly told me long tales that sounded fishy, and she came off as irresponsible.  Because she carried 4 very large and heavy suitcases from an Airporter shuttle, I felt sorry for her and I did not have the heart to kick her out. I never expected to be stuck in a year long saga.  She did not have the money and income at that time.

Later I found out while I was helping her to stay off the streets,  she shopped for shoes, new clothes, new products for her business, and upscale items she did not need.  She bought expensive clothes online and in local stores. She bought high-end expensive upscale items on eBay. She went to upscale shopping malls and stores when she got some money. Her judgments about my expenses regarding food and my lifestyle were even more absurd compared to her spending habits. I knew she was previously middle class, but she wanted to keep her upper class spending habits on my dime.

When I was homeless, I only bought what I needed and saved the rest for my move-in cost to a room at the Y housing program. I also worked with the a local homeless program, so their director helped me with the move-in costs, truck delivery, and starter's kits.  Milly's attitudes and a sense of superiority when she was around homeless people turned many people off.  She put conservative judgments on poor people.  I think employees of a program turned Milly down because Milly acted superior when she interacted with homeless women as she thought she was better than they were.  Milly is insensitive to victims of domestic violence and is emotionally abusive.  Employees of programs that serve poor and homeless women are trained to spot out abusers and how to deny them help. These programs screened Milly out leaving her on my hands.

When I was in the local homeless program 10 years earlier, an intake person did a short interview with me and then invited me to join them for a lunch.  After several hours of talking to people there, a counselor referred me to a nice homeless shelter.  I was homeless for nine months.  Milly was homeless for 14 months.  She lived with me for a year. She never told her adult children she was homeless.  She dumped her problems on perfect strangers. Her poor housing history, led her to have turn down after turn down from landlord's doing credit and eviction checks, and during this time, she would drag things out telling me, she had a new apartment set up. She gave me endless false promises and tales about finding apartments. After she exhausted all housing options and dealing with property owners who refused to rent to her, she swallowed her pride and asked her son to cosign a new lease.  She finally told her son she was homeless to get his help. Like all narcissists appearances were the most important to her.

Milly walked out on a job and ran away from her responsibilities.  She found a good contractual position the day she was supposed to get an apartment.  Unfortunately, she quit her job because her knees hurt and she wanted a permanent part-time position. Milly had a lot of job problems along the way. She was not a stable employee and seemed unable to remain employed. She fought with people constantly at work. She claimed she was disabled, but besides the claimed pain in the knees, I never saw evidence of this.

Milly collected unemployment checks and fought with a staffing agency for a big check they refused to pay.  Milly told me that the staffing agency refused to pay her because their client refused to pay them for Milly’s work. Then the kind agency gave Milly another assignment which she worked for until the assignment ended. They offered her an extension which Milly turned down. She was waiting for an approval of the disability income she wanted. Many of her decisions made no sense. I was in shock to watch a homeless woman turning down employment. It made me angry.

If you are a woman, please do yourself a favor not to open your apartment or home to a person you do not know well!  Do not help a woman just because you met her at church. Many narcissists will use religious places as a place to con, knowing they will find kind-hearted people who want to help others.  Milly had many bad habits. It is not easy to live with other people. She spit in the sinks without rinsing them out and  had poor dishwashing skills.  Instead of washing dishes with warm or hot water with soap, she used her towel or napkin and wiped off food.  Every time she washed dishes, dishes were left greasy and dirty. I ended up having to clean up after her. She left a lot of dirt and then told me I was lazy since she did not want to clean after herself. I had messes to deal with and a nag at the same time.

She did not tell the truth about her situations.  She lied to me over and over. She kept her landlord problems secret and why she was not getting any housing. She claimed to find new jobs and new housing, and would string me along, only to tell me that all her deals fell through. She would get angry, and promise me she would be moving out "soon", but nothing ever panned out. I wondered if I would be stuck taking care of her for good. Over the months, I kept on checking on her to see if she was successful finding an apartment.  She was angry with me telling me that she wanted to find a place that God had planned for her, and implied I was not faithful to God’s plans for our lives.

She seemed to play a lot of games. She claimed she was disabled to me.  She claimed she fought with an insurance firm for the disability income that paid her well enough to live on without working.  She had that disability income for a year and then she lost it a month before she moved in with me.  The insurance company took her off a disability income because an employee of the insurance firm saw a YouTube video of Milly who was obviously able to work.  She does not have lung problems nor have a disability that kept her from working without reasonable accommodations from employers.  I began to see her narc way of thinking when she acted as if she was entitled to that disability income while she was still able to work!  I warned her to get an apartment or rent a room at somebody’s house.  She said I was too negative or she wanted God to help her to find an apartment for her.

She did not apply for federal government Social Security disability income.  She did not want to ask her temp agency to give her a job back.  She did not want to work so she lived on her unemployment insurance income and trying to get her business open.  She talked about becoming a millionaire from her home business. She did not work for 3 months and her unemployment insurance ran out.  Then she applied for Social Security income sometime after she ran out of her unemployment insurance.  She lived without money for months and then I got sick. I was about to kick her out until she paid me some money to go towards rent and food.  I actually supported her for months until she got her first check from her current job in three months before she found her apartment.

 After she found her job, she resumed her apartment search:  I learned that because she did not repay her last landlord $3,000, all landlords rejected her applications.  Sometime in early October, a landlord called me for a landlord reference because Milly claimed that I was her last landlord!  When a landlord tried to call me one night, Milly answered the phone and pretended she was me responding to the landlord.  She refused to give me the phone and told me to shush.  Several days later, the landlord asked her more questions and she was angry asking him why he asked too many questions.  He told her that her credit rating is bad.  It was during the first week of October.  She finally asked her adult children for help after she realized she exhausted all options.  One of her children agreed to cosign her lease so she could get an apartment.  She found an apartment without telling me about it until a week before she moved out.  It took her 13 months before she asked her children for help because she did not want her children to know that she was homeless. At the time, I thought they knew and they simply had refused to help her.

When Milly moved out, she treated me like crap. She did not pay me back as promised. She stopped hanging out with me and I could tell our friendship if there ever was one, was over. After her move out, I got the very hurtful email seen above. It shocked me. I had helped this person only to be thrown away like yesterday's trash. I have the feeling Milly is still lying about her situations and I was only one in a long line of people she has taken advantage of.

Milly had thinking patterns that made her homeless. She refused all practical help or actions. She did not want to stay in a shelter, claiming their curfews kept her from church and bible studies. She refused to move home to her hometown where there were more resources and other friends to help. I wanted my apartment, my life and my privacy back. She did not want to work, and fought for a disability income from a corporation. I know many people are truly disabled, and the longer I observed her, I realized she was not one of them. She wanted her disability income to keep going. Part of the reason she lived with me so long was to fight for this disability. She later gave up on this plan and went back to work.

She lectured me while I grew more troubled about being used about thinking positive, and how she wanted her dreams come true, and I needed to give her time to find a perfect apartment as this was God's will. It became apparent to me, her religious lectures were using God and the Bible to abuse others, namely me.

 Milly judged me and my lifestyle but she made crazy decisions. It was shocking for her to write me an email where she attempted to turn the tables putting me down for poor financial decisions.  She did not spend her money wisely and refused to rent a room in a house! She refused to move to a homeless shelter or at least move back home to move in with one of her adult children or her close childhood friends. The “feeling sorry for yourself” statement is a typical narc statement. She wasted months and my time trying to get disability income she wanted back. She kept on quitting jobs and hustling people to get free stuff. She then discarded me after I was no longer of use, and then criticized me harshly when I asked to be paid back. Her judgments about my doctoral programs were not true.

When she told me "It is not good to burn bridges once a person has crossed them, but if our friendship ends based on this email that I write than so be it. You have burned a lot of bridges since I have known you based on your paranoid personality that everyone is a narcissistic."

  She burned the bridges with many people and told me about many people she did not like or discarded. I cut several narcs out of my life and told her I do not want to contact narcs who smeared against me.  She told me that she does not trust people because they get jealous of her for having nice things and money.  She told me many times that she does not want friends and that many people do not like her.

 She spent months trying to get free money, subsidized housing, and rental assistance so she could live a good life without working.  She did not want to work but was forced to get a job in order to find an apartment.  Housing managers rejected her applications for an affordable apartment because her income was too high.  A realtor ignored her email after she paid her deposit to get an apartment in August because the realtor learned from a landlord that they refused to rent to Milly.  I pressured her to get a job because she lived without an income for several months.

Narcissists will often tell people they are "crazy" and need therapy as they walk out the door and do a discard. This is one way they gaslight people. For those who are not narcissists and it shows in your personality and the way you treat others, narcs would tell you to get help.  I have a word of advice.  Never go to a therapist when a narc tells you to get help.  Only go to a therapist when you want and you really feel you need to see a therapist.  Make sure you find a therapist who understands domestic violence, child abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse, and victims of sociopath.  A good therapist would respect your preferences not to take medications.

 Milly lectured me giving me her cold narcissistic philosophies of life. What is odd is she lectured me on "failures" and "not winning in life" as she remained homeless and dependent on my charity.             Milly and I argued many times because she subscribes to narcs’ way of thinking.  The examples of statements she liked were:

1.      Suck it up!

2.      You need to develop thick-skin.

3.      Do you want to be negative all your life?  You need to think positive that everything is going well in your life.

4.      I want to think positive that God will find me the best apartment and I don’t need other people’s help.

5.      I don’t need other people.  I need God and he knows the best for me.  She told me homeless shelters were not God's will for her and were beneath her, even knowing I had spent time in one previously in my life.

6.      God knows the best and I am staying until I find a place he wants for me.  (Regardless of whether case workers, employees of social services organizations, her children, and I suffered)

7.      Everything happens for a reason and God knows best.

I realized now, how she manipulated, lied and used religion, false positive thinking, obligation and guilt to get her way and to take advantage of me. She was not grateful for my help and brought only judgment and censure into my life. I found myself walking on eggshells. I tried to tell her, she could no longer live with me, but she would make another false promise. 

I have words of advice to warn you so you will not find yourself helping a narc.  Please do not take somebody into your apartment or house unless you know that person very well and you know why that person is homeless.  If somebody comes with at least two very large and heavy suitcases and gives you stories that sound fishy, please set a boundary by saying that they could not stay with you more than seven days and they have to find another place.  Report them to your landlord so they could help you to force a narc to leave.  Let the landlord know that you do not intend to take a narc as a roommate and that they were there for a few days.

Make sure you differentiate between typical problems that normal people deal with versus narcissistic patterns of thinking and sense of entitlement of bigger and better things in life.  Normal people usually would ask for help from their supportive family members, relatives, and close trusted friends.  Those who do not have family or friends to help them would look for referrals from a social services agency.  I took the latter route when I was homeless ten years ago and the social services agencies helped me a lot.  However, because Milly’s narcissism was obvious, it was probable that coordinators of programs that helped me chose not to help her.  Milly told me those employees in social services agencies looked at her and gave her dirty looks, as they did not like her.  The program that helped me escape homelessness ten years ago refused to help her knowing something was not right with her.

Milly makes too much to get  subsidized housing or to get into an affordable housing program.  Even if she stayed in a homeless shelter, her income is too high for her to get into a subsidized housing or an affordable housing program.  Her income from the disability insurance program she wanted was still too high for these two programs.  Milly does not want to pay much in rent and it makes her very hard to help.  Many people did not like her attitude.  I was exasperated and irritated with her at times because she made it difficult for caseworkers to help her.  Milly told me those social services programs did not want to help her.

When you help somebody, make sure you are not helping a narcissist. There are many consequences of helping someone toxic, even if you let them stay at your place for a few days.  If you live with a narcopath, he or she could see your habits.  They could see your house, the food you eat, how you sleep, how you get ready in the morning, clean, shower, and take care of your place.  They could see tidbits of your everyday life that they could use against you in the future.  In addition, they could use your stuff and food and cost you a lot more money.  They pay very little back and smear against you if you ask them to pay you in full back.

Another reason not to help narcissists is that they could criticize you harshly and would not thank you for helping them.  They could treat you like crap when they are done with you.  They could desert you.  They would smear against you that you could lose friends and your spouse.  They could make fun of you and put you down.  They could make statement that you need psychological help because you do not think like narcs.  They cause financial distress.

Narcs who make good money do not always make a stable income.  They do not keep their jobs long unless they are forced to keep their jobs.  They believe they are entitled to bigger checks and want to think positive that they would get a big check and that God would help them.  Milly could make good income but did not keep all of her jobs.  She quit several of her jobs before she found her current job.  She has to keep her current jobs in order to keep her upscale apartment.  She complains about not getting the holiday pay and some features of her benefits and perks.  Narcissists really want other people to take care of them.  If you want somebody to love you and treat you well, you will not want to take care of a someone who would discard you later after using you.

Narcissists could tell you that their lives are great.  They could charm you and make your life fun by hanging out with you in fun places.  However, they are not your prospective long-term friends. Narcissists only use people and do not attach to people in the same way, loving or caring about them. They dump you after they are finished with you.  Milly told me that she has no friends and she does not want friends.  Narcissists usually tell people that nobody understands them and they have no friends. While some people may have social problems from disabilities, abuse and other factors, watch out for narcissists who show a history of constant discards. Watch out for narcissists who live chaotic life and will bring chaos to yours.  So, please be careful when you decide to help those in trouble.

Make sure you get an agreement that they would help you out with bills, cleaning, and that they respect your privacy.  If you are raising children or taking care of vulnerable adults, do not help.  Your children and vulnerable people in your family need protection from you; just in case a narc fools you into thinking that he or she is a normal person.  The worse a narcissist could do is falsely call Child Protective Services or Adults Protective Services on you claiming that you have poor hygienic habits, poor housekeeping skills, are too depressed for people you take care of or have psychological problems.

Do not help people if you are married, especially if you are a newlywed.  That is a no brainer!  Narcs could steal a spouse of opposite sex with their charms and backstabbing statement about your health, cleanliness, hygienic habits, mental health, and falsely claim that you are one of those listed.

Do not help people just because they go to your church.  Narcissists go to church and could fool you.  I met Milly at church.  Some pastors teach positive thinking and victim blaming sermons.  Toxic predators love these types of sermons and pay pastors well for sermons and songs that suit them.  Milly is a big fan of platitudes, positive thinking phrase and prosperity gospels.  She cuts people off if they don’t agree with her ways of thinking and I was ready to kick her out for that alone.

Narcissists hate sermons that warn about toxic people and abusers. A pastor held several sermons earlier this year about unsafe people and he encouraged us to cut them out of our lives.  He told us he would be supportive if we chose to go no contact with unsafe people.  There are three types of unsafe people: the abandoner, the critics, and the irresponsible.  Milly is all three types.  Oh yes, narcs called and sent them text messages to pastors.  Pastors told them that if people went no contact with them already, they should let these people go.  Please stay, take care of yourself, protect yourself and your family by not helping a narc.  Hope you have a toxic free holiday season and a great year in 2018.

Fundamentalist Religion and The Rejection of Science in America

Some of us need to fill holes in our science educations. If you have followed the news over the last year or so, you know  scientists came out to protest Trump, and there was a whole protest march in defense of science. At the time I didn't think about things too heavily but as I got deeper into my religious deconversion, I realized how I had been infused with "magical thinking" from fundamentalist religion. It is a period of deprogramming myself and re-examining a lot of issues. My desire for certainty in an uncertain world put me in this danger. Now it is okay to say, "I do not know". In an odd way I understand the world of the Trumpkins where science is seen as something bad and "evil". After all I was just inside that world. I know how the preachers and pastors teach people not to trust their own mind, and even how they present "science" as the enemy.  It can rock a world, to leave religion. Your whole world can be tilted on it's axis.

When your reality is based on the bible instead of science, it can skew things. It skewed me. Later I would study more of the Bible and be sickened by the narcissism I saw it in with the genocides and other dark features, but I had been trained to believe in the Bible literally and that it had ALL the answers for life's problems. There's things I wrote on this blog, I would change now, I don't think the same way about transgendered people and other things my churches taught me. Even if I remained against war and kept other liberal values, I realized they influenced me in some negative ways as well. I apologize to anyone I offended with some of my over the top religious edicts. There was a "man in the mirror" time when I faced myself down and asked what had religion done to me?  Religion can lead people away from compassion. Compassion says 95 percent of people going to hell is insanity. I am glad to be done with that.  In fundamentalist Christianity, science IS the enemy. One's world view is not to be tested via the scientific method but via scripture and the bible. This is a trait of all fundamentalist religions. It does not lead to freedom in one's mind but a prison. This is a prison I am happy to be exiting.

I am working out the science gaps now. Outside of medicine and obesity which I studied to remain alive, I had other holes to fill leaving fundamentalist Christianity. Recently I learned about the 6 epochs of extinction in the book "The Ends of the World".  This book blew my mind. You mean there were 6 epochs of major life development and dinosaurs were only one latter segment?  I found myself exploring Youtube, wanting to see the fossils, this book talked about in video form.



In all my churches even mainstream evangelical ones, I was taught that the world was only 6,000 years old. Some pastors made a nod towards old earth "creationism" but that only expanded the time table a little bit. I used to debate fellow Christians on this saying,  "Well it does say in the Bible that a day can be equal to a 1,000 years for God" but this was the reality I was handed. It was an issue I remained mostly "undecided on" but I watched the Kevin Ham videos my friends handed out. Every pastor I had taught that evolution was evil, and a Satanic teaching. By the way this is not just for the fundamentalists but more evangelical circles teach this now too. There are kids now in fundamentalist homes, taught now that evolution is not true or is evil. My Catholic schools mentioned it existed but did a very quick skim over who Darwin was. I never learned about Epochs, or extinctions. I never even learned there was such a thing as the Reformation until public high school.

One crack in my religious faith came via some Christian friends visiting "The Ark".I have a lot of old church friends on my Facebook. Most of them voted for Trump. They have more money to go on so called wholesome vacations.  They have remained silent upon my protests but I have not been unfriended. Maybe they are hoping I reform and stop "backsliding". Anyhow, several friends made the far away exodus to Kentucky to go view "The Ark".

Oddly as a fundamentalist Christian, I never took the story of Noah's ark literally. I was surprised to find out these people DID. I even knew enough science to tell my husband, that story could not be literal, even if he loaded the boat with 10 percent of the insect life on planet, the damn thing would have sunk.

"Most authorities agree that there are more insect species that have not been described (named by science) than there are insect species that have been previously named. Conservative estimates suggest that this figure is 2 million, but estimates extend to 30 million."

                                       [source]

I didn't expect the place to be like the Smithsonian, but when I saw several pictures of human beings next to dinosaurs like would be cave men drawn like Fred Flintstone and Dino, I almost lost it. They had the statues of Noah and animals in cages for sure, but the dinosaurs in cages through out the place struck me as extremely absurd. Even I remember being taught somewhere in a book, that dinosaurs existed 300 or so million years before humans. The place had the expected statues of Noah with their slate painted portraits and endless cages of regular animals. Those dinosaurs though got on my last nerves. It occurred to me that all my old IFB church members believed this place accurately represented REALITY [well in the past].

I had this following conversation under a picture of a member of one of Noah's family cleaning out a dinosaur cage with two small dinosaurs next to him. My Christian friend had posted a photograph with the same two dinosaur statues above in it:

Christian friend: Before the flood all creatures were vegetarians. Like · Reply · 15 mins
Peep LOL WHY is a dinosaur in there? Like · Reply · 9 mins
Christian friend: Dinosaurs existed before the flood! The climate changes in earth after the flood caused many to go extinct
Peep: That confuses me, I thought they were long gone before then. I do not think man existed on earth the same time as dinosaurs. This is an issue I have not studied though.
 Christian friend: It's interesting stuff.

I am kind of playing dumb, to avoid severe conflict. I am not discussing all my new religious thoughts on my Facebook wall.   I am offended beyond belief by dinosaurs in the ark cages though. LOL! My intelligence is insulted. At least the conspiracy theorists who told me dinosaurs were MADE UP made a better case then the Noah's Ark people.

I realized I had some major holes in my science education which was very limited and only included some episodes of Cosmos, Star Trek movies, and a few Carl Sagan books which Carl Sagan probably kept me from falling for some of the worse nonsense people are selling. Read his book "The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark". I plan to re-read it. We need the warnings of that book now especially today.

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”


― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Carl Sagan sounded a true warning. Things have worsened. America has given up on science and the Sputnik days and half the country seems to be going into darkness and superstition. In the conspiracy world, I met people who believed in nonsense like the Mandela Effect. Google that one if you want to have your mind blown, you will think some people have dropped acid or are very confused due to faulty memories. One thing I noticed in fundamentalist Christianity especially in fringe circles and conspiracy ones, was more people believed in "flat earth". Do a search on Flat Earth on Facebook. It's all over the place. The whole concept is linked to a total distrust of anything scientific and related to NASA.

 

Haven't any of these people had to do an International flight? It's crazy. I never have flown internationally but know many who have, and they fly along a GLOBE. I remember reading the "We never went to the moon" conspiracy theory sites. There I was interested but undecided. I told one guy who claimed he worked for NASA on a deconversion board, these websites all claim rockets don't work in the vacuum of space. This man informed me they put oxidizers on rockets, I looked it up and he was right. Funny how all the conspiracy websites I went to, which claimed that we never made it to the moon, never mentioned that little fact.

 Not every religious person or fundamentalist gets into hard core conspiracy theory, but all that bible prophecy they are taught, even the mainstream people in the pews are given a false view of reality.  I got too deep into conspiracy stuff for my own good. It was more based in questioning the mainstream and trying to figure out what was really going on. However in general in conservative religious circles, science and rationality is put aside for thinking God will solve all your problems and direct every step. We were told things like to make sure to live for eternity instead of this world which God was going to end.  The doom-porn flowed like a river.  It affected me. I can't tell you how many times I was told the Last Days were here or going to be very soon. I had converted to be a Christian right after I had almost died of an infection in 2001, I suppose I was vulnerable and ripe for the picking and desperate and with endless traumas piled up, seeking any answers I could get. If you notice one thing about some religious Trump people is they do have a very dystopian view of the world. While I was in the thick of religion, I got that view of the world too. There is a helpless feeling not one of action and progress, of being told God is just going to blow up this planet and divide the saved from the unsaved in the next 20 years. The world is going to end soon.

  Even my deliverance ministers told me they were moving to a rural backwoods Southern state with all the resultant social ills to ride out the Tribulation. Maybe it's easy to believe in the apocalypse when your own life has become apocalyptic and fallen apart.  They want regression not progression. This is why they can write a tax bill, rewarding billionaires and their followers don't care. At least 1890 feels safer to them all I guess.

 Its hard to explain how extreme religion has taken over small town America. One friend of mine always says the line between conservative and liberal is not one of class or race but urban vs. rural. I wonder about that now.  I lived in one of the most uber conservative small towns in America. That was my town of 11 years ago. They are even known as a bastion of libertarianism and the alt-right. What can I say but the place had an influence on me? I can't name the place for identity reasons but militia members and people who were preppers living off the land were the norm in the place. Homeschooling was more common then going to public school. I liked the friendliness there but I really lived in a bubble. I escape the trauma of big city living almost getting shot by gang members, and run to the woods--well I lived in an apt in town but you know what I mean, and I see this alternative world and it looked better to me at the time. I never was accepted because I didn't have the preresquite family and money or land. It really was a different place.

Here I still live in a small conservative town but they are wealthier and more educated but some of the same religious stuff leads to the same type of beliefs. One of the biggest now especially in evangelical and fundamentalist circles is that science along with the government and many other institutions are not to be trusted. Surely many of our institutions have grown corrupt. Trump has sold the nation off to the highest bidder but Carl Sagan was right, the desperation and distrust have led to a dumbing down.

 I do ask myself why is there such a concentrated effort now to deny science? While other Western nations go more secular and progress this one seems hell bent for more superstition and darkness. It wants to roll things back.  It has grown anti-intellectual too. I have my thoughts too wondering if religion is just used as a control mechanism in society, the priests and strong-men got a lot of use out of it. Sadly I believe there is a real concerted effort overall to convince people to not trust their own five senses and ability to reason, so they can then be convinced of anything. It's definitely expanding beyond religion.

Minimum Wage

This wasn't originally an ACON blog

I've had several ACON allies leave the internet lately. It's kind of hard since this was an online community important to me. My Aspie self never gets used to these kind of changes. That's one aspect of my personality many don't understand. Change always seems to bring loss and never additions. I know normal people "move on" and who am I to judge? It feels lonely though.  My blog still survives, but I have nightmares that I will be the last one still blogging against narcisissm. Maybe the narcissists won and silenced everyone.

This isn't easy to do. Even when I was finishing the zines, some of it had to do with the family, and that was hard, because I was drawing things from a few years ago, I try not to think of the family everyday now. It's too painful. It didn't work out. There was no fixing any of it no matter what I did or didn't do.  When I went no contact, maybe I didn't expect changes of the main narcissists but I didn't realize the price would be the whole family. Some of ACON allies have healed and moved on, that makes sense, but I feel a loss in having several people I once corresponded with, having left these corners of the Internet.

One online blogger and ACON ally disappeared 10-12 months ago, she just vaporized and stopped blogging, I always wonder what happened to her? I even worried she may have died and we had no way to find out. For those of us who have the Internet as our main social life, outside of a marriage, there can be some drawbacks to this. We want in real life friends and people who care about us too in day to day lives. Internet interactions while there can be some deep sharing, and support, they can peter out. It's hard. How do you say you miss people you only talked to online? I have some close online friends where there is phone and other contact, but it's hard, there's always that far away feeling. I told someone regarding the lack of a day to day social life that I hate always being stuck in having to sell myself. I wish I could just be somewhere in life where people knew me, and I knew them and the selling stage was long over. Every time I finally get settled and I think that's only happened once in adult life in my old town, when it comes to any social life, everything is put into constantly put in upheaval. There is sadness to my personality based on far too many losses.

 Writing about narcissists has to get old after awhile. It can get depressing. The narcissists seem to hold the fort no matter what you do. They all "win" in this world.  Everyone chooses them, and no deity lifts a finger to change anything. It beats people down. Even for those of us who find recovery, there's no victory only retreat.

I can understand why some want to stop thinking about it. My own writing on them slowed, because I am not around them. There's no new tales of misery to tell. You don't want to think of the "strangers" long out of your life anymore. The no contact decision can feel like another defeat. You spare yourself pain, suffering and abuse but there's empty space and loneliness to contend with. The hope of a loving family, reconciliation, and even relationship with younger members is gone. Who wants to rip at the scab anymore? There's simply nothing more to be done. At least the early days of fear are over. You have hardened up. The narcissists can rail and even threaten or play nice, you just let the phone ring and ignore it. You're gone, they had their chances long ago.

Sadly the narcissists always seem to win. I am not sure how to break that formula. You imagine strength and empowerment in the early days of no contact, but you have to find your way and own life. I am still trying to figure out what to do with my life or whatever is left of it. I know I have to work on us finding a new direction, or finding some kind of social life. We have to think of our economic survival and what plans we can pull off for better senior years.  My husband and I have continued in our protest work. We attended a new small UU fellowship that was friendly. I felt a little bit of hope about the future for once. I am hoping the winter stays more mild. We need to make some bonds off-line too and I am trying to work on this the best way, we can.

Even my own writing on the narcissists petered off. I worked on the zines and they were a look in the past too, one theme in them is the weight gain and dealing with being overweight. I took so long at the zines, they are more a picture of a couple years ago, then now, but show some of the ACON history and me walking.

This blog, I started as a personal and a blog dealing with fat issues about being 500lbs and trying to figure out what was wrong with me, and later the Lipedema diagnosis came. This blog did help achieve that for me. It became an ACON blog around 2013.  I plan to keep this blog going and just write about politics, life, art and other things that occur to me and do things on a more relaxed basis. There may be still be an ACON article on occasion but it wasn't originally an ACON blog. I do miss my old ACON allies, and am thankful to them for everything they did for me, and hope they have gone on to find happier lives.

I Thought I was Lazy: The Invisible Day to Day Struggle of Autistic Women

I thought I was Lazy: The Invisible Day to Day Struggle of Autistic Women

"My inability to properly plan ahead and complete daily tasks has dwarfed my personal growth and well-being since I moved away from home seven years ago. I live in a constant state of disorder, expressed through missed appointments, forgotten text messages, and errands and assignments that take twice as long than my peers to complete. Even tidying the garbage littered across my apartment feels too overwhelming. My poor organizational and cleaning skills have fractured my relationships, prevented me from thriving in jobs, and in the process, destroyed my self-worth."

"But every time I look at my messy room, I am reminded of this disheartening fact: So long as my friends, family, and therapists recognize me as allistic, my executive differences will always be interpreted as a personal failure."

This one is the story of my life. I am always behind on everything. I don't have a job or kids to take care of either. My medical tasks fill up a lot of the day, even now I am thinking about meds I got to take and getting the energy to wrap my legs. Things really are more complicated for Aspies in this way. I'm never going to be a great cleaner, there's no way.

A Painting Style I Plan to Pursue

I did this painting of a portrait of someone I know. It looks a lot like them, so I crossed out the eyes. LOL I don't want people approaching them and saying, "Hey do you know Fivehundredpoundpeep?" My art teachers told me, they thought the style was successful. I had at least two people say "I paint like Alice Neel" for me that was a major compliment. One teacher, took me aside and told me when I am loosened up, that is when she sees the best work coming out of me, I found that interesting. That is the kind of painting when I have the most fun.

Senate GOP Meeting

"I hate the religious right"

Not A Problem To Be Solved

Long Overdue for the 25th Amendment

I have the theory that there is a remote possibility that Trump is being a "reality actor" for some sort of agenda, I can't figure out. He is acting insane and senile for some reason. But if this is not true, we are far over due for the 25th amendment to be applied. Greedy snake in the grass Republicans are too busy buying off their wealthy donors with their latest tax scam.