In Defense of Tiffany Sedaris: David Sedaris's sister

                                          [picture link]


Sister of famous writer David Sedaris commits suicide.

David Sedaris in response writes an essay about of how awful she is.

Is my theory that Tiffany had been the family scapegoat too far out?

I don't think so.

Read the essay here:


Now We Are Five

This is one of the meanest articles about anyone deceased I have seen.

So this wealthy academic writer whose relatives have money to spare and then some writes about a sister's suicide where they don't help her or provide any other support system, and leave her to die in poverty and squalor in a rented room "on the hard side of Somerville Massachusetts" , while he blathers on about the purchase of a family vacation homes and rentals and decides to put her down even in her death? Where was sister Amy Sedaris [of Strangers with Candy fame?]

One commenter here, brings up an interesting point:

"but I found her penniless death juxtaposed with him buying a beach house on a whim just heartbreaking."

After deciding Sedaris is a full blown narcissist--and yes I know I am not a psychologist,  I google "Sedaris and narcissist" and notice others have come to that conclusion as well:

"His reaction is revealingly narcissistic. Instead of wondering why she killed herself, he dotes on the fact that she 'ripped up the family pictures' and that this was 'melodramatic' (pot meet kettle!). Then he wonders how she could have 'left' such wonderful people (including himself!). No wonder she killed herself...it sounds like a family of people with narcissistic personality disorder." 

Going back to his article that basically trashes his sister: His comparisons to his sister dying with nothing comparing her to a toddler are disgusting.

"Compared with most forty-nine-year-olds, or even most forty-nine-month-olds, Tiffany didn’t have much. She did leave a will, though. In it, she decreed that we, her family, could not have her body or attend her memorial service."

Sadly her final wishes weren't respected either. This is an interesting admission:

"Lisa, Gretchen, and I treated the others like servants and did very well for ourselves."

Of course the obituary was written in a way so the family would not be questioned about the conditions they allowed their sister to die in. That stood out to be too. There is no empathy for her being shunted away for YEARS to a reform school [Elan] which was notorious for abuse. What kind of family sends off a daughter for two years? Maybe she talked "at" them because no one ever was interested in actually listening. Where was the kindness and compassion for her?  He admits he really didn't know her well. Well did he try to get to know her? It's as if she got thrown out of her own family, of course they will say she was the one that left, but then how and why did she leave? He makes her out to be a druggie, but a pot leaf drawn on a school folder in the 1970s means very little. He couldn't come up with more then that? He has an argument with her and doesn't talk to her for eight years?

In narcissistic families, material possessions are the measure of all things.

 “Just awful,” my father whispered. “A person’s life reduced to one lousy box.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Actually, there are two of them.” He corrected himself. “Two lousy boxes.”

The "We are so wonderful" message here is sickening:

"How could anyone purposefully leave us, us, of all people? This is how I thought of it, for though I’ve often lost faith in myself, I’ve never lost it in my family, in my certainty that we are fundamentally better than everyone else."

This statement from the parents also is telling:

"We had other kids . . . You think we could let the world stop on account of any one of you?" 

I went and googled about Tiffany, from what I can tell while she had mental health and other struggles, she seemed like a nice person, she was an artist in the community and had friends.

Her art was beautiful. 

Others remember her.

I don't think so much of David Sedaris. Some may find his hipster-esque narcissism charming. I checked out a few books of his from the library and tried to read them. Something bothered me. The smug attitude? The humor at the expense of others?  But now I know why, I did not continue.

"Funny" and even "charming" people with "no heart" don't appeal to me. His sister deserved a lot more then that. 

Perhaps she summed things up regarding her family in this comment from years ago.

"Tiffany is the family black sheep, the one who was sent to reform school, the one who tells the family, early in the story: "Don't you get it? I don't like you people."

Looks like to me, she had reason NOT to like them.

David Sedaris' Recent Admission about Tiffany

"On his sister Tiffany, who took her own life in 2013

My sister Tiffany was child number five. So she was the youngest girl and the second to the youngest child; there were six kids in the family.

It's interesting. Looking back over her life, my mom never really liked Tiffany very much. Tiffany was too much like my mother, and I remember that as a child almost ... I just thought, Ugh, wouldn't want to be Tiffany. ...

The rest of us should've said, "Mom, you need to do something about this, because that's not OK for you to treat somebody that way." But we never said that. We never called our mother on her behavior towards Tiffany. You think, You're 7, what are you going to do? But I wasn't always 7. I was 20 and I was 30. ... Tiffany had a lot of anger at us and a lot of it was really well-founded. We were adults, we could've said to our mother, "This isn't OK." ...

[Per Tiffany's wishes] nobody [from the family] went to the memorial service. Her ashes went to somebody that she had worked with once, and my sister Lisa called this woman and said, "Could we have just a thimble full to scatter in the ocean behind the beach house?" And the woman said, "No." I understand that. Tiffany didn't want us to have them. The woman was just honoring Tiffany's wishes."

David Sedaris On The Life-Altering And Mundane Pages Of His Old Diaries

I always wondered if he saw some of the Internet controversy about Tiffany, and how she was viewed. I wrote about how I believed Tiffany was a scapegoat some time ago.

In Defense of Tiffany Sedaris


Oddly the story of Tiffany resonates not only with myself removing the problems with drug addiction and time in an abusive boarding school but with that cousin I recently wrote about. Her life reminds me of what Tiffany went through too and she suffered the challenges of drug addiction.

Maybe some of the writings and videos on line got David Sedaris to think about a few things, I hope so.  I am glad he admitted her anger was well-founded, this validation well it's kind of late, but he at least admits that they betrayed her standing by as adults remaining silent as the abuse continued. 

Why do people stay so silent and why is the good will of narcissists always more important? These are questions that are hard to answer. I do hope he has found more understanding in what happened to his sister. I am no contact with my entire family now, and with a few, I heard the words of "regret" and admissions that my mother and others were abusive but no one ever spoke out for me. As their loyalties lied with the narcissists, many of us have no choice but to part ways from our entire family systems.

One cousin even wrote, "She still abuses you" which probably tells me that some mighty smear campaigns have been in the mix, but no one ever has spoken out in my entire life. Most scapegoats go through this, and adults who should know better, stay silent in the face of abuse.

Tiffany had some friends speak out for her after her death and the person they described was so different from how her family viewed her. This definitely would apply to most scapegoats from narcissistic families. Those who love us actually "see" us while the families only see what the narcissists want them to see. Hopefully David Sedaris is getting more insight into his upbringing and it's affects on the siblings including Tiffany.

Someone Who Agrees About Tiffany Sedaris

Someone who Agrees About Tiffany Sedaris

I agree with her opinions about David Sedaris's mother as presented in his writings. I noticed the admiration of his mother too that seemed to be callous as well. Take a listen to the rest, she notices many of the same things I did. She brings up the same article I did, "Now We are Five" and is just as horrified. I took a lot of heat for that article but now I have grown more sure in my views even as I escaped the poisonous dynamics of my own family. She mentions my article and this blog at the 19:00 minute mark. Yes, she is right about how the family dynamics and patterns stand out to ACONS that we see among the Sedaris family.

See: In Defense of Tiffany Sedaris

David Sedaris' Comments About Tiffany in Calyspo

                                                source

When I wrote about Tiffany being the family scapegoat, it was a controversial article. I did write about how David Sedaris made an admission about his sister, that they failed to defend her. I was glad to see this bit of insight.

 He at least admitted their failure to act to stand against their mother's abuse and rejection of Tiffany.

In his book Calypso, which I am reading now for a library book club, in an essay titled "A House Divided", David talks more about Tiffany, and says the family did not know about her mental illnesses and could have had more understanding for her if they had known. I understand why Tiffany did not disclose.

One thing realized in ACON studies is that for scapegoats, the family can be a very different place of being. I had to face facts even myself, that my cousins, brother and sister had positive memories of my narcissists and family life. They were treated far better and had times of connection and happiness. It was hard for me to hear my cousins lovingly use my mother's name, but then they did not have the same person to deal with. They had love and respect even if faked from her after all. Some people via different challenges end up in a far worse position in a family. Tiffany had her struggles with mental illness and others that put her more at risk of being placed in the scapegoating position.

 David Sedaris in his writings speaks of easier conversations with his mother, he definitely was close to her. His father is more distant but is overall respectful and includes David. All children in narcissistic families suffer to a degree but Tiffany definitely did not have the same experiences as her siblings being the scapegoat.

There is another admission in this essay in this most recent book. Could David have seen online what others had to say about his family and the realities of narcissism and how it was obvious that his sister was scapegoated? It is rare for family members within a narcissistic system to wake up, but at times it is possible for the few who are capable of any growth and are not too far along or on the narcissistic spectrum themselves While this often comes too late and decades later, they may question the system and what was done to their sibling who was the scapegoat. While David admits some faults of his parents, he may need to re-examine the depths of what they did to his sister.

Maybe he has come into more understanding now about what has happened to his sister. Maybe he has realized that the family which was a crucible of connection, closeness and happy memories along with some troubled ones for him was anything but for his sister.  This statement does make clear, that he understands, that the treatment by the Sedaris family had something to do with her suicide.

This comment in his essay, makes it seem so.


In this essay, they talk about how Tiffany killed herself, and the method she used. She took pills and used a plastic bag to asphyxiate herself.

"Did Lisa by any chance tell you about Tiffany, I asked.

"The plastic bag, you mean?" Gretchen nodded. "She told me on the phone last week. I try not to think of it but it's pretty much all I can think about. Our own sister ending up that way."

I walked to the window and looked at the sky, which had now gone from bruise-colored to black. "Someone told me," I said, "that in Japan, if you commit suicide by throwing yourself in front of a train, your family gets fined the equivalent of eighty thousand dollars for all the inconvenience you caused."

From behind me, I could hear Gretchen slicing more apples.

"Of course," I continued, "if your family was the whole reason you were killing yourself, I supposed it would be just an added incentive."

I hope his sisters have come into more insight too but sadly it is too late for Tiffany. Lives are damaged and ended by scapegoating. That's the tragedy.

 This article kind of connects to my last article questioning the dominance of the nuclear family. Nuclear families in American culture especially are split between winners and losers where internal cooperation is not developed but competition at all costs even to the point that some family members are crushed. One person who is the scapegoat is often deemed the family loser and reject. One could argue this created Tiffany's mental illness instead of her mental illness being the reason the family rejected her.  That's one thing to think about. How many are made mentally ill from the abuse? Tiffany showed many signs of CPTSD. Scapegoating is soul murder at the crux of it, and some don't win the battle for their physical lives.

Later in the book, while one sees some flashes of insight in David, things get complex, there is reference to troubled consciences, but sadly, the family system reverts to the same message about the scapegoat. How many scapegoats are written off, as "you know how they can be". A would be narcissistic family system can break down a scapegoat, and some do become mentally ill. My conjecture is that many scapegoats are made that way from the process of scapegoating.

Sadly the resultant emotions and problems is just added on to the list for the rejection that got the whole ball rolling. This reminds me on a lesser level when one of my cousins told me once, "your emotions bother people in the family". What is ironic in my situation after I became a Christian years before I later deconverted, I was grey rocking myself to death, being nice, kind, pleasant, "not a bother" and making presents for the family and being quiet and meek on visits, hoping for love and acceptance that would never come. I buffed all the edges of my personality.  I hid negative emotions. That didn't work.

What is sad, when a scapegoat gets the resultant PTSD effects, anxiety disorders, inability to function in the world like Tiffany if the mental abuse becomes severe, that can be used as more of a reason for rejection from the family. You don't fit, you aren't "pleasant" and "engaging" enough. My depression when I was younger while I never had to make the psych ward circuit, putting myself in counseling by age 18, was reason enough for my own family to justify the treatment they gave me. "She's not that easy to be around!". "She has a bad personality". Some of that came back to me. Sadly while Tiffany's mental disorders may have been far more severe, one can see that happened to her too in the family system.

One sister Amy sees a psychic who claims to contact Tiffany and her mother and claims that they are getting along. If this really had happened it seemed more insight would have been passed on from the spirit world then

"She and Mom are finally getting along," Amy continued. "She mainly wanted to let you know that she has no hard feelings. The psychic said Tiffany's been trying to tell you this herself and asked if you've had a lot of problems with your phone lately."

Amy to me shows some conscience here, in that she wants hope from the psychic, that Tiffany would want to forgive them all one day but sadly in my belief, none of these messages were real. Amy wants Tiffany to have "no hard feelings" towards the mother that scapegoated her. Why isn't the mother in this afterlife scenario apologizing?  Amy admits the trouble with Mom to the psychic and easy answers are given that now in the afterlife, that two personalities that didn't get along now do. It is interesting to me, that Tiffany's "hard feelings" are the focus here, instead of atonement on the behalf of the mother.

David then talks more about Tiffany's mental health problems in the same chapter called "Spirit World" about that day he had the door shut on her, during a show.  David admits he never saw or spoke to her again. He mentions her mental health problems referring to a suicide attempt and hospitalization, a rape and an eviction and then says

"She was, I told myself, someone else's problem. I couldn't deal with her anymore.
Well, the rest of the family said, it was Tiffany. Don't be too hard on yourself. We all know how she can be.

Perhaps like the psychic, they were just telling me what I needed to hear to ease my conscience and make me feel that underneath it all I'm no different from anyone else. They've always done that for me, my family. It's what keeps me coming back"

David's conscience is bothered, and that's a good sign, but sadly narcissistic families, will justify the treatment of the scapegoat forever.  The family system can't admit what was done to the scapegoat.  Yes mental illness can be troubling. People who face difficulties are not easy to deal with. It's hard to explain the depths of pain for a scapegoat, who is told in various ways "you are not right" or "we know how you can be". They are blamed sadly for what the family in many cases made them become. For David, his family is a place of solace, and easing of conscience but you see, would be narcissistic families are not good influences on consciences.

One comment by [Ky Ya Ya] on the video on the Vice Interview below sums things up:

"The family narrative is pervasive & powerful. Even when reality intrudes, the narrative holds strong. It's a habit of thought, operationalised in family roles that stigmatise & problematise the "scapegoat". This narrative is modelled, reinforced & rewarded by toxic parents. You get good at what you practice, this includes negative thinking, toxic family narratives, victim-blaming, responsibility avoidance & selfishness. Golden child siblings are literally blind to the abuse, even though they SEE it. They are blind because they are conditioned to think the scapegoat IS the problem, they are also blind to the abuse of the scapegoat, because they don't see it as abuse. My golden child sister has no clue our NM is abusive & manipulative, she thinks she's a "good" person. My GC sister has no clue regarding her own abusive behaviour!! They operate in a moral fog where their evil/wrongdoing is justified, redescribed, minimised & denied."

Reading Between the Lines About David Sedaris' Family

Scapegoating Families: David Sedaris' Vice Interview (Pt. 1 of 5)

Bourgeois Families

"He describes himself and his siblings all pulling away from their family, then insists they are club that he always wanted to be a part of. They weren't and aren't close, and probably don't know each other any better than they knew the one who just killed herself. This is typical for bourgeois white American "families"--there is no there there, and they slowly disengage as soon as the children are over 18, with even the parents leaving each other if they haven't already. Then they act "shocked, just shocked" when one of their utterly alone and detached non-members crashes and burns, as any human being who is alone in this world will do eventually. What a sick society America is."

—Anonymous

I saw this quote on a message board [Data Lounge] a forum for gays, where they were discussing Tiffany Sedaris. I was googling to see if anyone else noticed the same mocking tone of Amy Sedaris's book on poor people and crafts. I wanted to share it because it is something I have thought about. How "family" itself is collapsing in America and not just in the way Republicans rave above but in a more fundamental way that goes beyond gay marriage or premarital sex. I found myself saying to my husband, sometimes Aspie me goes on some weird intellectual ventures where I wondered aloud if family itself was breaking down, due to our information society and mere biological DNA ties [well in some cases we don't have even those] not being enough anymore?

This guy is right about there "being no there there". Even as I stepped out and leave the "Family", I asked myself the question, "How close are they to each other?" And the answer was "Not very". I can see the collapse already beginning where separate lives, distance, and competition has chipped away at the concept of a "Family". When he even mentions bourgeois and white, I covered some of these issues in the article "The Lonely Poverty" where it is poor whites and mostly whites realizing they are alone in this world. Other minorities have a definite different cultural view of family loyalty, closeness and kinship. Perhaps this is a generalization but there is some truth there. He is right about what will then happen to one of their utterly alone and detached members.

The way out for one of those alone members is to realize they never had a family in the first place. I wish Tiffany had been able to find a way out before it was too late. If only she could have found relief and freedom in walking too and realizing she was not to blame.

It's Troll Week on My Blog

I've had to send a lot of comments to the SPAM grave yard this week.

The David Sedaris defenders are the worse, sometimes I wonder if I am getting someone who has a personal stake in the debate, because I don't see why an average celebrity worshiper would care to come here on here and project and call me a "narcissistic lunatic". I am far from the only one online who noticed he treated his sister like a classic scapegoat. Calling me crazy isn't going to change how Tiffany Sedaris was treated.

Then I got the diet-mongers who think they can abuse me and yell at me to "eat less" on here and my body will respond by suddenly losing weight. How many times have I written they can put me in the lab or hospital next week, and watch the metabolic hell-pit I live in? Ah yes all fat people are liars, or something like that.

I had the CICO true believers abuse me for years telling me I was fat due to being an over-eating pig. I started this blog, knowing something else was wrong {Lipedema} and I was RIGHT, and PROVEN RIGHT after four years. 

Strange Charm actually wrote the laughable sentence

"Controlled studies all show weight loss, when people eat less then they burn"

That's why 95 percent of diets fail right? If it was that simple there'd be no fat people. That's a statistic someone's definitely pulled out of their butt.

Why haven't they learned their abuse hasn't made anyone thin yet?

Then there's Mr. "I escaped a Communist country and you Americans are fat and spoiled". I left that comment up, I thought his remarks were so insane. So I am supposed to defend sociopathic politicians and those who want to impoverish America? How does that work?

I find it interesting how obesity which is spreading among the poor in America like gangbusters, is being used a scapegoating mechanism and dehumanization tool world-wide.  Read that psycho's words and know, that fat people are now being scapegoated world-wide. He hates Americans so much, he comes on my blog to defend their impoverishment.

A Narcissistic Family Can Spread the Smoke of Disrespect Until A Scapegoat Walks

I had a commenter post on one of the Tiffany Sedaris posts.

Someone who Agrees About Tiffany Sedaris

Here is what they said to me:

AnonymousNovember 26, 2018 at 10:50 PM
I personally knew and loved Tiffany. Met her when I was 21 in Raleigh, she was living at home and had a fun sarcastic relationship with her brother Paul and her parents. At the time Amy still lived at home and was waiting tables. 
Tiffany was hilarious but she was also very difficult. She would turn on a dime. Love you and feed you, compliment you and bend over backwards for you, and then you were dead to her because she misinterpreted something.
Years later I ended up in Boston and tracked her down. I was excited at the thought of catching up. We hung [sic] out a couple if times and then she called me accusing me of something I still don't quite understand. I was seated next to an old boyfriend of hers at a Christmas party, I didn't know,I didn't know he was her old boyfriend, she had been the one who did the breaking up so I was a little thrown by the accusation. I tried to talk to her, but she never spoke to me again. Year's later when I was in Raleigh I heard she was in town and called her dad Lou. He was very nice and wanted she and I to see one another but she wouldn't consider talking to me.
I loved Tiffany and only wished her well but she lived a life of distrust and clung to past grievances I know her stint at Elan left scars but if you are unwilling to move forward and let go that cant be blamed on her family.
Nobody knows you like family, and yes there's another side of us all that differentiates us from our family but invalidate what they ecperienced. Tiffany had some genuine problems, she would walk into burger king and talk to everyone, not individually but like she was in stage as an entertainer, and the she could just as easily start a fight. 
Maybe you should just consider that Lisa, David, Gretchen ,Amy and Paul all knew Tiffany in a way we never did. They loved her but when she was reckless it affected them, her death has left a mark on them that you clearly don't understand.
Btw, I appreciated David's New Yorker story. I'm from a family of 7, actually I'm one of those family's David refers to as 'every other' house. I grew up down the street. We went to a beach cottage one week a summer and I gave a sister who is a disrupter. She's beautiful and loving but she's exhausting and I think I understand. Maybe you should all try to also understand.


 Here was my response:

Imagine being scapegoated all the time, which includes smear campaigns, trust and spontaneity end at that door. I've had a few people [cousins and others] in the family tell me, "you gave us false accusations" but when I got down to the core of things, there was real disrespect I was reacting against.

Here is where the smoke and fog and mirrors labels the scapegoat as "difficult" where if a person was to bring up a person's ex among a normal person, they could say "Don't go there." and that would be respected, but a scapegoat, they are "paranoid", "over-reacting" and always WRONG no matter what they do or say. Maybe she erred truly and she came too quick to judgment in your case, but understand this is the back story. A scapegoat is always put in the place of having to defend themselves. 

I had to cut everyone off who chose my family and saw me as only they did. Notice here in this article how my cousin calls me "paranoid", that is the whirlwind the scapegoat gets caught in, and honestly the only way to fix it is to walk. 

https://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/2016/10/am-i-paranoid-do-my-feelings-make.html

So did she misinterpret things? Maybe, Maybe not, but the overall abuse and disrespect that forms a scapegoat's existence is horrible. There's a few on the outer ring who may not have malicious intent. I don't think my cousin had malicious intentions, but you see he had been programmed to see me a certain way as paranoid and difficult.

This is one way a scapegoat's life can be destroyed even in subtle ways by the narcissistic smear campaigns. My rule never to live in a town as an adult that any relatives lived in I believe saved me from a lot more grief.  I couldn't trust anyone who was friendly with my mother and family for you see they infused that poison. I wasn't imagining it. I had no other choice.

Some may consider that draconian, but what else could be done? You see for I was WRONG, no matter what I said or did or in any attempts to fix the situation.

The fact you knew the rest of her family and gained a negative picture of her via them does not surprise me. You remind me of my cousin, you aren't a malicious guy or gal, you seemed to have real fond feelings for Tiffany--I believe my cousin had some for me, but the overall picture is there. You were programmed to see her as "the problem", just like what happened to me.

I do not agree with your statement, "No one knows you like family". My family does not know me and I am a stranger to them and vice versa. Did Tiffany have genuine problems? Most likely. I have problems, but those don't arise in a vacuum. It's interesting to me how the problems of others are deemed acceptable in these family systems while for others it is used as an excuse for how they are disrespected.

Her entire family were all entertainers, so she copied that example. It looked like a free-for all from what David writes with everyone competing with who can be SEEN. As for love, since I don't personally know these people, who knows, I had David's words to go on and other pieces of the puzzle, but I don't believe many scapegoats are loved. Love means respect you see, and I can tell that was lacking very much so. My family does not love me and it was something I had to face.

I was considered "exhausting" even being a quiet bookworm Aspie. Some people on first glance consider me dull and boring until they find out I have a mind. I'm no drama queen, I'm a retreater to the background if anything and an extreme introvert. But the scapegoaters labeled me a certain way. Same with Tiffany.

While the world applauds the extroversion of her siblings, her own extroversion is seen as "difficulty". No one that ever knew my family or mother ever saw me in any decent way.

 I dare say the same happened to Tiffany. Even normal human personality traits when one is scapegoated are seen as "bad" and dysfunctional. Even if she had mental illness, I can tell she was seen "at fault". Even in my own anxiety disorders and depression, I was a "bad" person even though they instigated all that to begin with. One giant cost of being a scapegoat is how disrespect becomes the smoke they walk in sometimes for life until they manage to get out. This is why so many of us end up going no contact with the entire family and even all those who knew them.

********************************************
I cleaned out my own life from everyone who disrespected me because of my narcissistic family. This as many of you who are long time readers of this blog knows this included dozens of people including family friends and even two college friends. I live in a far different space now in my head and in my life, because there's no one left whose disrespecting me. I don't put up with people who put me down anymore. It has made my life far happier. There's times on this blog however when I do want to discuss some deep issues from my past. This is one where even my own horror at how badly my own reputation had been damaged from my family was a great part of my own pain years ago. This is one of the worse aspects of being scapegoated. Your name is MALIGNED and there's no fixing it no matter what you try to do. The only decision is to walk. I have warned people don't stay attached to the system thinking you can change things. Save yourself and get out.

Part of the being maligned is being told that "you won't let go" or are distrustful. How could anyone have an open and trusting nature after being abused as a scapegoat? If someone was talking to an ex, wouldn't most people be wary? Maybe a few innocents do get caught up in the walls a scapegoat has to raise to protect themselves, but then the over-all negative views of a scapegoat are poison to begin with.

 The decision that I would rather be alone, then take abuse or disrespect was a decision that changed my life. Some good friendships did survive and I have my husband, but honestly as I have written before it was shocking how far the poison had infused and how long it took me to clean it all out. This is something I think people need to be warned of in this process.

What is scary is how narcissists can program people even on outer rings to see the scapegoat in a negative fashion. This happened to me. Narcissists have a talent for programming people to always see the scapegoat as the problem. Well that's what the definition of the scapegoat, the carrier of all the family dysfunction. Many an ACON blog talks about the harm done within a family to a scapegoat's life but it often goes far further to all the family friends and even to the view of a person within a community. The smoke of disrespect leaves the narcissistic household and literally blows down the street.

This commenter claims to be a family friend of the Sedaris family and if they are being truthful on this, the fact that a family friend sees Tiffany as the "problem" too, does not surprise me. I saw this happen with many others. It is a part of the soul murder that is inconceivable  to others, but also ensures there will be no allies even in a community. I tell other ACONs avoid living in any same towns as your relatives. I believe I was saved a lot of grief by living long distance on that one alone.

I had many others tell me, your mother loves you, your family loves you, etc, but if there is no respect there is no love. That applies to all relationships.

My Mother's Second Daughter

Family Friends

It is Better to Be Alone than Abused: Loneliness in Our Society

This is a tragic story about a lady named Pia Farrenkopf who was discovered 5 years after she died, mummified in the back seat of her car in her garage. No one checked on her. No one realized she was missing. This is the loneliness of nightmares. Sadly as our society breaks apart, and social connections die, these stories become more widespread. Hers is not the first I remember reading about. Pia's story to me is very sad. I wonder if she was an Aspie too though an Aspie in this case who had computer skills allowing her to maintain a middle class lifestyle.

I don't feel as alone now before as I have years earlier.  I do have some good local friends, they call and check on me. Even people I am acquaintances with ask after me around here. My town is friendly. My friends and I have fun times together. My husband is with me everyday. He worries about me and keeps track of me. I have a ton of long distance friends I write to and call. Some of them I am very close to as well. My husband and friends are very important to me.

The isolation of disability though can hit hard. It takes me years to make friends. I am Aspie and unlike a neurotypical it can take me 5 years in a new community to even make a friend or two.  I am not one of those people with 1100 friends on Facebook, or with a party to go to every weekend. There are many times where I do worry that I and my husband are far too isolated though we work to change this. At least half of my social life due to my circumstances is conducted online. My husband only has one living relative, a sister who never has visited us. Also if I won the Lotto tomorrow, forget buying the new house and rest, the first year would be spent visiting friends nationwide. There's at least 12  people I'd go visit in different towns right off with rests in between.

We have moved too much too. While I like my present community and need its medical care, my life has been full of too many goodbyes. As economic nomads, the constant moving for survival just meant roots being constantly ripped up and thrown away.  I wrote about my grief of leaving my old loved small town. More grief was piled on as more and more people including several friends died. Even my old church closed and three-four of my old favorite hangouts burned down. It would take years to even talk about the place without crying anymore.  I told my husband 4 years ago, I will not move anymore and have stuck to this. I cannot bear to live in a place again where "no one knows my name".

When I went no contact, one old long distance friend was kind of against it, though I told her it was my life is at stake, and she came around. One thing she said to me was, "If you keep cutting everyone off, you will end up alone!" She acted like it would be my fault if I ended up alone. This went through my heart like a stake. Why? Because it is something that many people worry about in their heart being alone.  I believe there are many ACONS who cling to rotten abusers because they fear the desolation of "having nobody". For those of us who do part ways from narcissists and in many cases entire toxic narcissistic family systems you do worry about the ramification of your decisions.

My response to her was, "It is better to be alone than abused!"

One of my commenters pointed out this story in the video above to me. She pointed out her theory that Pia was an ACON. I think it is very probable. One thinks about stories about Tiffany Sedaris and other stories where they have no family to check on them. No one is there to care. They go unnoticed and invisible, they are cut out. No one is concerned about what becomes of them. Pia had nine siblings, where were they all? Why did everyone disappear? Where were any friends?

When I was young, I had times of extreme loneliness. In school there were times I did not have one friend in between family moves and other circumstances.  I did not know my husband yet during my first no contact and I had no family. My college friends had all moved home after graduation. When I moved out of my boarding house, into my first apartment on my own which was three rooms on the bottom floor of an old house in a poor neighborhood, I was totally alone.   My work hours were long but when times of unemployment hit, or there was a weekend with no work hours, sometimes it got scary sitting there and knowing I was so alone. I had no where to go, no one to see and no one to talk to. The long distance phone calls cost a lot more back then. Life seemed to pass with just a series of strangers going my way.  I knew no one who lived within 100 miles of me outside of co-workers. In my case, I'd hang out at the library or looking at the art at the local art center. Sure, I volunteered and took classes or went to church but it was just me, myself and I.

This was one very painful aspect of my first no contact. My journals lamented my pain, as I asked, "Why don't I have anyone?" This is the legacy of our abusive narcissistic parents too.  If you are the scapegoat they lead others to reject and ignore you and consider you unimportant. It isolates us to the extreme. I realize entire groups of people turned their backs on me because of my mother including entire families of neighbors and family friends. This went through my narcissistic family like a virus. I just wasn't important enough. As I wrote in one comment, one of my long time friends said, "They just didn't like you!" and sadly it was true. However they never knew me and my mother set that up in her own nefarious way.

The world figures out who doesn't have supportive kinfolk and sees you as prey. They have destroyed your ego and confidence and ability for self care to help you survive in what can be a very cold and hard world. For a socially awkward Aspie, alienation comes with the territory and this quadrupled the social problems. Watching other people who had loving families who "had their backs" and were active part of their lives without disdain and reluctance could be very painful. Other ACONs I am sure have shouted "Why me?". I find myself in awe of those in families where they mean something to the other people.

Fear came with being so alone. There were times I would be in the hospital with severe asthma attacks and no one would be there at all.  Thoughts of dying unmissed and unnoticed and in a pauper's grave went through my head. These are the days I started crying out to God before I became a Christian. Those kind of times change a person. While solitude to me can be a pleasant thing with time to think and do art work, I am scared to death of ever being that alone again. I don't think I could handle it.  The me of today is not physically capable of living alone too, which is a whole other ball of wax.

I never want to live alone in an apartment, disabled and forlorn. So many people in our society who are elderly and disabled, are isolated in this way. It worries me. Why does our society do this? Forgetting the elderly and disabled and shunting them away. Some people don't even have families, I never had children and know what that means while others had children and families, they are ignored after they move away. It is my life's endeavor to reach out to other lonely people. One thing about me is I often do reach out to elderly people and others.

 Our society is one sick place, closing everyone away in little boxes [apartments] to be alone and with no one to talk to. Even if I am concerned about Agenda 21 and other manipulations, cohousing sounds good to me, those wanting to rebuild community between neighbors and people, many have some good intentions I agree with. Who wants a life of just staring at walls with no one to talk to? I know I don't. One reason you may see me screaming against the housebound tsunami, is I know it guarantees more social isolation, it is even a test on the relationships I manage to form.

One thing I think about my narcissistic mother is that she never has been lonely. She never had one period in her life where there was no one there, this is the same for Mini-Me.  They don't even relate to emotions like this. They didn't end up outside the reservation with no one to talk to. She grew up with a close knit family surrounded by at least a hundred relatives. In her case, she takes people for granted, there are so many surrounding her. Could she even feel lonely though? If you are not attached to people you will not miss them. This is something I noticed about my sister too, no feelings of nostalgia or missing people there either. It was scary to see. My sister isn't as popular and lives a more isolated life then my mother but in this case does not care.

Our narcissistic society is having it's social connections breaking down. Others who are not disabled have told me they are just as alone, or they may have people they are friendly with but are not close to. They know something has gone wrong. Others tell me how difficult it has become to meet people. I cry reading the stories like this where someone dies alone and not cared about and unloved. Why didn't a neighbor or even an acquaintance check on her? Some may say, "Maybe she pushed everyone away!" but no one deserves to be that alone. I do believe the family connections are breaking down more and more. People took more time to visit each other. Some families stay intact despite long distance putting the energy and visits in, while others break apart. If there is a narcissist in the midst, they hog all the attention and people and leave none for you.

I still think it is better to be lonely then abused, no matter how hard loneliness can be. You really are still alone if you are keeping company with those who do not respect you or care about you. I know I never had a family, or people there for me. They didn't like me decades ago and the die was cast.  More room can be made in one's life for good people when energy is not being wasted on those who make you feel alone.

How many lonely people are there out there? How many lonely ACONs to eat their cup of soup and sandwich in front of their blaring TV at night with no one to share the hours of their life with? How many were cut off via the smear campaigns? How many elderly and disabled feeling the pain of no one there who really cares about them?  How many lost their families to the wicked machinations of narcissists? No one deserves to die alone like Pia did. No one.

Psalm 27:10 Though my mother and father forsake me then the Lord will take me up. 

Freedom From The Narc Family Cult: How No Contact is Changing Me For the Better

Run little girl Run! {ok this being the Victorian era people didn't smile

for photos so hopefully her Mom was a nice one and not a narcissist}

I'll be no contact outside of sending my no contact letter for exactly one year on June 28th, 2014.
I can't believe I've made it this long. By the way, even after the two line brush off, my NM tried to call me on the last holiday--Easter. I wasn't home thankfully.

For me leaving the family "cult", all narcissist families operate like cults in a certain way in that certain beliefs and rules are insisted upon, has led to me challenging long held beliefs and how I see the world. This has included redefining myself and also redefining my view of the world. This has led to changes in my life.

NO MORE "SUPERIORS VS. INFERIORS" or AKA SCAPEGOATS vs. "Winners"

Some  people are irritated with me by the Tiffany Sedaris article, but even if she was full blown bipolar or other theories I've seen forwarded, don't you see why I saw some things in common? My family aren't millionaires, but upper middle class, I saw the scoffing, the raised eye-brows, from the narcissists, what some liberals call "micro-aggressions" on disgusted faces. So few understand what it is, to be the scapegoat, the one who "didn't make it" in a family where achievement and appearances counts for everything and the pain that this can cause a person. Some may think I am making too many inferences, but to be frank, I read his essay and wrote my view of what it had to say. Nothing more, nothing less. If only Tiffany had been able to be free of these messages. I know they are false messages that have led me almost to the pit of despair. This is why God's Word especially regarding the truth about the poor and how children of God matter beyond material success were like a life-line thrown out to a drowning woman.

Everyone interprets things via their own life experiences. For me, her story is a greater story, in that in too many families now there is little care and comfort for those who may struggle from challenges. Family break-up isn't just coming from divorce or long distance moves but also from changed and colder hearts towards people in general. My mother used to write on a social website, "how proud" she was of one relative and another relative, constantly. I translate these messages as ---We are proud you reflected well on us.---- You know that sort of thing.

                                           [picture source]
                                       
Ever sit at a high school awards ceremony where they crowned the best and the brightest plastic silver painted crowns for the beauty queens and felt that creeping feeling that your looks, athletic ability and 3.5 gpa or even 2.0 one didn't cut the muster and like less of a person? What is sad is the competing never seems to end. Why do we have to prove ourselves so much? Why can't we just be? How many great individuals are being lost in the morass? Status is so much in American society.

Now imagine your family being run like a high school awards ceremony and beauty contest. The narcs paying homage to the beautiful, thin, and successful. I saw an aunt crack up from not achieving what the family thought was worthy. For years I heard how she was a loser and deserved her poverty. I know the same things have been said about me.  Life together competing instead of working together as a team or sharing any true fellowship.

This is one web I am untangling now in my mind and walking away from.. Some aspects of society back up everything they said and did to me. That is the worse thing. Religious faith, gives me honor as a child of God, but how many hits are millions taking to their souls, for being told it's not about who you are but what you achieve and that if you don't win a crown or make enough money that you are a nobody.

 So this is one belief, the "cult" taught me being ground into the dust under my foot. Here I am claiming dignity in myself as a person and realizing I am not worse, or inferior. I am laying claim to who I am.  This is definitely one burden that if I succeed in throwing it over the side of the boat, I will be a far happier person in the long run. Compassion and love will grow in a the crucible of being away from this narcissist training.

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NO MORE FEAR

For years I lived in fear of that woman, lesser so with her Mini-me.  Every time, we would drive up her long black drive-way up to her house, a feeling of nausea would come over me. One was on edge, as if they were walking at 2 am, in the worse neighborhood they could find in a huge city.  I was afraid. Very afraid. I prayed to get through the day.

 ACONs know the dark fear, they instilled in us so directly. As a child, one look, one sharp word, you were scurrying to please the narcissist to avert the punishment or back stabbing that you knew would be inevitable. Even today I know my fear was almost irrational. When I was young, I towered over her and outweighed her.  Keep in mind I am woman who has directly worked with gang-bangers and teen murderers and rapists. I'm not a shrinking violet, but that woman always has scared the crap out of me in the depths of my being. Sometimes I think my upbringing instilled an outer toughness, so the juvenile home and residential counseling place for sociopathic and/or violent girls, thought well that one will survive here, lets hire her even though she is fat with an odd body shape!

But for all that at least surface toughness, inside my body was roiling.  I was afraid of her. I used to ask myself, "What is wrong with you?". She never touched me as an adult. As I got more ill, I realized severe illnesses could be triggered around my mother, where my asthma would become out of control, where the day I had a visit was always the same day giant kidney painful stones came to visit. They came at other times but were guaranteed on those days.  Leg infections would be triggered within minutes in their company. My immune system seemed to collapse whenever I was in the same room with my mother.

Benadryl and copious amounts of a IBS drug used for what it was prescribed for which gave me a slight buzz would be my "helpers" during my visits. My last visit in 2013 at her house, I started projectile vomiting, and actually barfed into a bag in the car to get the hell away. Not wanting to to end up in a hospital 75 miles away from home, I puked continously as my husband drove, while he asked me if he could take me to the ER instead. Head shaking saying "No, No, No", I just wanted to get home to wait out that would be kidney stone passing.  We had the rule that if I got acutely ill, we were to immediately leave. Asthma, too much swelling, breathing troubles, barfing, meant an immediate exit. This was no mother that was going to pet me on the head, or bring me chicken soup or even give me a place to lie down during extended visits. The expectation for someone like myself who sleeps in a hospital bed at night and has needed at home-nursing care several times, is that I always was to go her way. Today I know that was insane in itself.

 Mine is so good at creating fear in others. It still boggles my mind. I'm the only one in the entire extended family who has ever stood up against her on anything. The rest don't even have normal human disagreements or arguments with her and that's a red flag. One strange thing I have noticed for years is how many would tell me behind the scenes how they agreed with me, that something with her [and my sister] was very wrong and that she was not like other people and she was cold and cruel to me. Some even whispered how she had done them wrong or frightened them.  Despite these backdoor conversations, no one ever challenged her, or disagreed with her, EVER, well except for me! The only exception to this was my brother a few times did stand up for me as she insulted my weight with me not present.

 But even as this crushing fear affected me so much of my life as I still worry about our finances, or experiencing worse poverty when I sat back and thought about things, I thought "What can be done to me anymore?". As long as the system has not crashed, America helps out the disabled and gives you housing. I have friends and a church now. Oddly I have smiled multiple times to myself over the last year thinking, "they aren't there to put me down anymore".

No more do I have to sit in a room, a tight smile on my face, waiting to be told that I am inferior or that my life doesn't matter or watch a nasty woman sneer at me. They aren't there to tell me I am wrong or to devalue me. Their opinion no longer matters. I can face whatever life will bring but be free of their cruelties and that inside fear, that used to tighten my stomach.

For years I had anxiety disorders, some are medically related--if you have breathing problems or sugar crashes, you will feel anxiety, but I have regular anxiety too. These often can be co-morbs that go with Aspergers too. My panic attacks and feeling of inside fear, dropped by at least 50% since I got away from the narcissists. My inside fear started going away. One recent therapist told me, I appeared far more confident.

So my fear dropped. And today, I stay away from people who make me afraid.

                                          [picture source]
                                         
DEVELOPING BOUNDARIES AND SELF CARE

Malignant narcs and sociopaths train scapegoats like a puppy getting their newspaper, hey when we are children we do not know any better. We are trained to be subservient to their needs while neglecting our own. The needs of a scapegoat mean nothing to narcs. One negative attribute of this that can be lifelong for ACONs is they do not learn how to take care of themselves. I also have had to fill in multiple gaps on adult living skills, some of which have been worked on as late as this year, when I had occupational therapy.

I was severely medically neglected when I was young. This ranged from neglect of my serious signs of autism as a youngster--not walking until I was nearly 2 years old, stimming, etc to the ignoring of several of my medical issues.  I had serious signs of PCOS while very young by the age of 12/13, where my neck turned so brown my mother would yell at me. A then 100lb weight gain which took me from near normal to midsized, within a period of one year was ignored. Lipedema was coming to join the party along with everything else.

 My asthma was neglected for quite some time and diagnosed on the day, I was 18 and had a university health center at my disposal. Before then when I could not breathe, my parents would just yell at me, "You can't cope". Luckily I just wheezed and coughed and coughed and didn't get to the turning blue point at that time in life.

When I became a adult I did not know how to care for myself. Today in my 40s, I have more ability to care for myself and have learned how in a better fashion. Being around people where I can express needs and put up healthy boundaries, has been a joy. I also realized as I got older and was around NICE people, that life spent among positive, nice, kind people who make allowances for other human beings and treated them with compassion is a far happier life. Even years ago I made changes this way, but these were continued. Leaving toxic relationships left more space for good ones. It also allowed me to learn to form better boundaries.

 It is okay to ask for help, to rest and to seek happiness. It is good to seek positive self-care and take care of one's self. I know as I went no contact, I was able to deal with my health problems in a more positive fashion where my self-care and self-love grew. There was forgiveness for myself in getting sick in the first place.

 This erased some shame and blame that I had carried for far too long. Facing down the great lie, that I was a failure in getting sick, and that everything was my fault, was extraordinarily freeing. This was yet another lie of the Narcs, I was able to confront and set myself free from.

                                          [picture source]

IMPROVED RELATIONSHIPS

There are only a few relatives left in my life, but relationships free of back door back-stabbing sessions by narcissists and triangulation, IMPROVE. With a few people I care about and love, I reached back out and the ones willing to know me outside of the picture presented by the narcissists, I saw definite improvements with. With all parties I have opened up and told them things, they simply did not know. Not being too naive, I have even warned that the narcissists may try and get in between us and said, "Do not believe anything they may say about me." Here getting to know people and having them know me outside of the narcissist control has been a joy.

In my journal, I drew a cartoon of myself breaking the chains...and that is exactly what it was. 

My Husband's Cousin

Sometimes it seems some people die and just disappear. My husband's cousin died. I trust the person who told me she had recently died, and I had heard she was in and out of the hospital. Later I did see a death notice, but no one wrote an obituary anywhere.

My husband's family was estranged from hers even though they lived in the same town, the cousin's mother [my husband's aunt]did not get along with his father. Everyone had emigrated from Germany to the same small town back in the 1950s and 60s before the economic miracle in Germany took hold.

I once said to my husband, "You probably would have ended up better off growing up in Germany then the USA",but he said "Things were still pretty wretched then." His father almost went to Australia, so it is weird how people meet based on certain circumstances lining up. He was born here and has full USA citizenship, otherwise we might have already fled the country. His parents never became citizens but stayed here until they both died around 14 years ago. I can't speak any German anyhow and culturally some aspects of Germany would not be for me. He was only allowed to claim German citizenship up to age 23 and of course was perfectly happy growing up American.

Anyhow he had this cousin,she was around my age. She had a very tragic life. I didn't know her very well. She was a drug addict, and sometimes we would run into her at the beach,and at the gas station. I tried to invite her over a couple times when we first lived here, but she would turn me down. Once we made plans for Thanksgiving and she was a no show. So I knew she probably was too severely addicted to maintain normal social interactions,and well I only knew her very little. People in full blown addiction kind of scare me, but with her, I thought we could at least have some contact.

I suspect highly that she was an ACON scapegoat from the little I do know. I know families will have hard times with drug addicts and drug addicts will burn a lot of bridges but from what she told me, about her life, I got the feeling she felt unloved and abused growing up. I talked to her enough to share some of my experiences though I didn't lay it on too thick because she had enough problems of her own. I remember trying to give her some encouragement to tell her bad childhoods can be overcome,but then who knows if I am the posterchild for that hunched over my walker and with my own angst.

One time we ran into her, and I have some face blindness Aspies get and it's weird how people can look so different to me when they are not all there.  I barely recognized her but my husband said hello, and I was able to hide the fact I had failed to recognize her. Well I had only met her 4 or 5 times around town over 10 years. One time we gave her a ride, seeing her walking down this busy road,and another time talked to her while we were sitting on the beach.

I met my husband's aunt once who was her adoptive mother. In this case, the cousin knew she was adopted. The aunt was in her early 80s. This was around 4-5 years ago. I had not gone no contact yet but was reading a lot about narcissistic personality disorder and family dynamics but was considering all these things. I sought out my husband's aunt. We had lived here 5 years, he had little contact with her, and I said, "Since we live here now, shouldn't we meet?" So we did ONCE.

She walked into the restaurant we were meeting at and had a face of disgust for me. I am not sure if it was for my weight or what. I do remember being severely disappointed. She made me feel scared and on edge. She didn't smile very much.

The first question she walked in the room and asked me was, "Are you Lutheran?" I was honest and told her, "No, but I am a Christian, I have gone to baptist churches in the past." The question flustered me. Telling her I was a Christian did not appease her. She didn't seem too happy with this and like she was really angry. My husband had grown up in a German Lutheran family.  This town is predominantly Lutheran. We went on to converse. One thing I noticed around her, is I felt like she was very cold. She reminded me of my mother, upper middle class, and smug, so I was not upset with no more visits with her after that. Obviously she did not like me much, and didn't care about continued contact with her nephew [my husband]  she never contacted us again.

I know the other son, is a well-off doctor, he seems nice enough. I met him once in passing when he saw my husband at an art fair when he came back "home" from out of state where he lives.  He seems like a nice fellow and spoke of having loving visits with his mother.  I wondered how life really was for his adopted sister?

I know the adoptive sister was disinherited upon the aunt's death. The Aunt died a few years after I met her. I did not go to the funeral, we had no contact at that point.

It's sad to me, when someone gets such a hard life. I do believe many drug addicts and alcoholics come out of abusive families. Not every ACON struggles with substance abuse problems but some do. It really bothered me, that we found out this cousin died three months after the fact.  Her family obviously did not care. Some would judge and say, her drug addiction cost her the family, but I would say in this case I wondered if the family in the first place was part of the underlying trauma that led her to become addicted to drugs.

I think of how that "aunt" treated me, and how she wanted nothing to do with me, for not having the "right status" or "look" and I think about what happened to her. It really hurt at the time. It's like the Tiffany Sedaris story, and Aunt Scapegoat. People do become "throw-aways" in families, it is sad to see.