...I'm moving on with the next phase of my life. I'm not going to be posting with any regularity going forward. There is much going on in my life and many new projects that I'm going to be undertaking which means there won't be time for me to continue blogging. I have many interests and plans in the months ahead. The blog will still be here. I haven't ruled out the possibility that I may post now and again on a very infrequent basis, but I need to lay aside the active work on this blog so I can concentrate on other things.
No, I'm not writing a book. There are over 250 posts that comprise this blog. That is my book. There is enough information here to help people navigate the shark-infested waters of narcissism. And it is available for free.
Comments will remain open, but there will be no comments approved between Apr. 19 and 23 because I'll be going out of town and won't have computer access.
Yes, it is possible to heal from the effects of a narcissist on your life. It takes courage, determination, right principles and a thorough house-cleaning which includes getting rid of the vermin. The most important principles which guided my thinking and steered my boat out of those shark-infested waters are available for your perusal. Here. Read, absorb, make necessary changes and then graduate! Work toward the goal of not having to think about the narcissist(s), toward not giving them any more of your life, fill your life with good things and good people and find that you don't need blogs or web sites like this one anymore because the narcissists are so far behind you that you can't even see them in the rear view mirror. That is what I hope for where all of you are concerned.
I'll still be around. My email address will also remain available, and I will answer emails as time and interest permits.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
67 comments:
Anna,
All the best for you and your family!
Thanks for everything.
-Carrie
Thank you deeply, Anna...for the time and energy you have given towards my healing. I will never forget you...or what you have done.
My God enrich your life....and that of your family also!
See you on the 'flipside'.....!
Gratefully....
krl
I couldn't have gotten this far without your insights and those of others who post here.
Thanks -- enjoy your new and different pursuits.
Dandelion
Thanks and all the best, Anna.
Dearest Anna,
You will ALWAYS be a huge part of me. You are an angel from Heaven.
I wish you & your family every happiness. You have so much to offer the world. How lucky for those you will meet in your new pursuits!
Go & grab the world by the balls!
Love Always,
Katrina
Anna,
First of all, thank you. You unknowlingly threw me a rope at a very low point in my life. Your site helped me to see I was not alone, reminded me that my well being was worth fighting for, and helped me strengthen my NC resolve.
It also helped me to see that it is indeed time to move on. My eyes are open, I've licked my wounds, I've told (ranted) my story.
May this new chapter in your life be filled with the best of everything!
To my fellow posters: you broke my heart, you validated me, you made me see that it's all worth it. We're worth it.
Much love,
Selfish Ingrate
Wonderful news, not because your new thoughts won't be missed, but because this sounds so healthy to me. On to bigger and better things.
I have never taken for granted the kind thoughts of those of you who have read this blog. Thank you for expressing them again. This blog has been a labor of love, and the result of my desire for all to free themselves from the slavery of the narcissists. To have heard from so many of you about your pulling free of the narcissists over the course of my blogging here has been rich and ample reward for my effort. A fulfillment of my hopes.
Selfish Ingrate: If you have reached a point of healing that you can see the need to move on then you've unknowingly made it all worthwhile for me. It is exactly what I hope for for each of you. Learn, grow, heal, and move on.
Jennatrix: Yes, you're right. It is healthy. I have hung in as long as I have with this blogging thing because I was reluctant to disappoint people. But it is now past time for me to engage in more and varied pursuits; to develop more knowledge and talents in other areas. I want to be a well-rounded person which means I need to exercise my mind in other directions. The subject of malignant narcissism, the review of my past experiences with it, are heavy topics. In some respects, I need a lighter course of thinking to balance me out. I'm a very inquisitive person so there are many subjects that interest me. I'm off to explore them.
Katrina: I loved your "grab the world by the balls" comment. Thanks for the advice. I will!
To each an every one of you...thank you for your contributions to this blog by relating your experiences and insights. It is an invaluable part of the content of this blog.
I feel affectionately toward you all and desire all good things for each of you. Thank you again for your good wishes toward me. God bless!
Anna, your blog has been a lifesaver for so many of us!!
Thank you for opening our eyes to these "N"s. They are not just assholes, they are truly evil, and they need to be out of our lives.
It is good to have all this info on them so that we are wise to their ways and to avoid picking up new Ns into our lives.
May God bless you and your family and bless all of your readers.
Best of luck to you on your branching out in your life. Take care!!!
Colleen
I don't know what to say other than that I'm glad I found this blog. It's always been full of great insight.
Have fun!
Thanks Anna. You have no idea (or maybe you do?)..how you've helped. I, too, am ready to graduate. I will still keep you bookmarked on my favorites, but time for me to move on. Thanks for the nudge. Best of luck!!!!
Thanks to all my cyber-friends! You're a great group of smart, honest people!
Lovely Anna,
You are wonderful! A true and sincere blessing for more people than there are stars in the night sky!
Yes, I completely understand and respect your decision to move on and upward. As you have written, your stellar website will still be available for those of us who wish to revisit, and learn, learn, learn!
And it will be an awesome turning point for new survivors to click, read and absorb in a determined effort to liberate their beautiful selves from evil incarnate.
Thank you, thank you...from the deepest depths of my big, fat heart I thank you, Anna.
And thank you so very, very much to Annna's super readers and commentors for sharing your horrible experiences with the diabolical MNs of the world and allowing me the privilege to genuinely care for you during your healing and recovering of your God given right to peace and pure joy.
You, me, we all deserve the best, the most beautiful, the most fulfilling life that is offered and sometimes sought with every ounce of our gorgeous spirits!
Bravo!
Peace, Love and Joy forever for all and God bless you.
:)
Thank you, Anna. After all the reading I did over these last several months, I am reminded of very common sense advice given a long time ago, before I ever heard of malignant narcissism: Surround yourself with people who uplift and encourage you, and stay away from people who bring you down.
Reading blogs like this give the encouragement to move on, find good people to share life with, and that it's okay to leave behind relationships that are malignant. And that's what I thank you for.
Godspeed!
Thank you so much, Anna.
I'm actually alittle teary eyed now,lol! I will miss reading new insights but I completely understand that life is short and even this is an important lesson for me to learn..but mostly i have tears b/c i feel alot of gratitude. I hear my children playing in the next room sounding so happy.they have no idea how close they were to being doomed to being N-supply.They will be spared the mindgames and evil influence of Ngrandparents and Nsil because of your crystal clear guidance I see exactly who they are and how i will protect our family from such dangerous people.
This is such a huge deal b/c from my own backround I have a natural bent to being a people pleaser. talk about being chopped liver in shark water but this had helped me overcome that and I thank you from bottom of my heart!God Bless!
your one cool Lady! Pam
Hello Anna,
I only found your blog recently and I've learned so much from reading. Thanks so much for putting so much time and effort into helping us understand MN. For so long, I never even knew about it and I've learned so much from reading at your insightful posts.
Good luck and I'm so happy for you and that I found this blog. Thank you so much.
All the best.
Bravo Anna!!!
There's no obstacles in my rearview mirror!!!
On to bigger and better thingss!!
Thanx a whole bunch!!
And best wishes to you!!
Loving and living life like never before!!
Sincerely, Jacqueline
You've been AWESOME, thanks so much!!!! This blog has helped me in so many ways ... I am really grateful :)
I am so much smarter, more healthy, and so much more aware of myself and the difference between me and the N's out there. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for sharing your advice, experience and strength.
I would say that your blog gave me the real "low down" on these nasty trouble makers that had so wounded me... and made me realize that NC was completely do-able! After 4 mths of NC .... I feel FANTASTIC!
And I have actually started living my life again! How glad I am to have found your site!
Wishing you much peace & happiness Anna, and also to everyone here. And here's to human decency and guarding the treasured things in each of us so that others can't steal them away, or make us doubt our worth!
Your writings and thoughts have been a life saver ..... thanks
-getting better/smarter
Anna,
A million times over, THANK YOU!!! Bravo to you for knowing when it is time to move on, and making it happen. Over the course of 6 short months, your words of wisdom, truth, objectivity and bravery have helped me to learn, grow, and protect myself from these evil people. I am a changed person and in many ways, I owe it to you and this healing environment that you have created here. This has been a place of refuge for my wounded soul. Fot that I am eternally grateful.
And I know that the wealth of information on these rich posts and insightful comments will stay fresh as I continue to reread them; their words change and take on new meanings as I get stronger and more knowledgable. Just knowing I am not alone and that YOU have broken free and that you own your life gives me hope.
Blessings to you and your family. May your life be enriched with love, knowledge, joy, and peace. May you never cease to search for truth and reality.
All the best to you,
- Breaking Free
This is the only place on the internet (apart from Kathy's blog) where the vital truth about narcissism is spoken with direct and honest integrity mixed with humour and humanity; where the victim of the narcissist is given more compassion than the narcissist themselves; where readers are responding to wisdom and insight with wisdom and insight of their own.
So glad your life is continuing to expand and mature.
God bless you and thankyou for all your work.
Meg/Jordie
Anna, as usual, you lead by example. It's time to move on, to reach for the stars and follow your heart, not be dragged down any longer by the vampires. What a contrast in how to live one's life -between you and the evil narcissist. What a great example you set.
Thank you SO much for all the time you've spent on this blog. My life has been made exponentially better for it, I feel like you were the helping hand, the light in the darkness when most desperately needed. Words can't thank you enough. Bon vivant, fellow traveller!!
Anna,
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the work you have put into helping others deal with the vermin as you called it.
Take care and enjoy!!
BTW I AM writing a book, with all the knowlege I've learned about personality disorders and the trauma they can cause their victims without your page I wouldnt be where I am today!
Anna, thank you so much for all that you have invested in us, our readers.
I feel sad to not continue to have fresh infusions of sanity, but I completely understand that it's time for you to move on.
My one request would be to make sure this blog stays active so that we can review posts and so that new people can receive the same help we have enjoyed.
Sincere blessings to you and your family,
Renewed
Anna,
I know what you mean and share how you feel. I have over 400 entries on narcissism/psychopaths. It does begin to take over and then you think: why?
But amazingly I find some new piece to the puzzle and write on it. Just the other day I read on their tendencies toward learning disabilities, because you know who can or should be able to show them anything!
I wish you well. Thank you for your contributions. I think many of the writers on the web, Kathy Krajco esp. and foremost, have broken new ground and helped innumerable people.
I do hope you pop in and let us know what you're doing....whatever it is, your writing and life became part of ours.
I can't express enough what your experience has taught me.
More than any therapist!
God speed.
HWS
Anna, thanks very much for all the effort you have put into this blog. Best wishes for whatever you do in the future.
Just checking in to add - thank you for this blog, which I've been reading voraciously since I discovered it a few weeks ago. I've learned so much here. :)
God bless you and yours,
~vm
Anna,
Your wisdom that you have shared here is priceless. I love your matter of fact attitude and how you give us the swift kick in the pants to move past these evil people. It is good to understand and learn what we are going through, but you have taught us not to "camp out" there. The N's have stolen so much of our life, why should we give them any more of our precious life? I know whatever project you start, it will be amazing because of your passion and dedication. Thank you again Anna and I pray the blessings you have given us will be given back to you a hundred fold!
God Bless You,
Starting Over
Dear Anna,
I cannot even begin to thank you for your insight and the effort you put into your blog since its inception. I have probably read the entire thing at least three times and each time I read it, I see another nugget of wisdom or facet of my family dynamic that had previously eluded me. You came along at a time in my life when I was desperately searching for answers and your blog just dropped from the etherworld into my lap like pearls from heaven. (Thank God Al Gore invented the internet.) I will miss you but thoroughly understand the need to move on from this, or be trapped in the insanity of its cruel legacy forever. I sincerely wish you all the best in life for both you and your family, and hope to hear your thoughts just one more time on that ambivalent moment when finally your Nm passes on.
Thank you for all the wisdom you have imparted to those of us with Nm's and GC siblings and enabling F's, it has been insightful and invaluable, and the greatest legacy you leave is that one may finally heal from this sick and twisted family system and joyfully and freely move on with the happiness and love of life that is inherent in all of us. You will always be in my thoughts as you have been like the observant outsider I never had, who served to validate my own intuitions and feelings about my family. You will be greatly missed.
Thank you for sharing your life with all of us, the help you have provided to me is beyond words.
Sincerely, KayCee
Thank you so much for all your wisdom and insight that you shared, Anna! Much joy and happiness to you in your new endeavors! :)
-Erin
Kaycee,
You can be assured that I will blog when my NM passes. Assuming I even find out when that happens! Any shenanigans by my sister will also be reported. I recommend subscribing to the blog in a reader so you'll get any new posts delivered straight to your email or Google Reader.
Kaycee, thank you too for letting me know how meaningful the blog has been to you. Hearing of how many times you've read through the whole blog makes my day. There is a lot to think about so multiple read-throughs are exactly what I've hoped people would do.
My thanks go out again to all of you who have expressed freely to me what benefits you've gotten from the content. You all touch my heart and make me feel very happy with the results of my labors. I humbly thank all of you for your gracious thoughts toward me.
Anna - you deserve it, go out and have a great time. You have been a light in the darkness for so many of us. This blog has been so healing for me, I cannot begin to tell you.
I wish you the very best with your new pursuits and I have no doubt you will be wildly successful in all that you do. Love, Aravis
Why is that the truly great, noble, brave, honest, courageous folks are the ones with the most humility? Hmm?
Like KRL calling herself a "dumdum" (furthest from the truth, doll) and all of you super people opening your hearts and sharing your innermost pain, suffering and fears so you may exonerate yourself from a damaging past.
To literally free yourselves from the travesty of evil parents, lovers, siblings, and "friends".
It has been an honor to read and spend quality time here with all of you on the Lovely Anna's site.
All of you are prime examples of the benevolent, the decent, the good and righteous folks who abound across the globe and who have triumphed over evil. Again, and again and again...
My thoughts, my heart and my prayers are with you all as you also move forward and away from the cruel past.
Never forgetting, but armored with vast knowledge to protect yourselves from future predators.
Every day that I have read Anna's blog and proceeding reader's valuable commentary restores my faith in the innate beauty and goodness in each of you.
You all so totally ROCK!!!
With Love,
Kimberley
Love u Anna.
Have a wonderful holiday with your family & stay in touch.
Dear Anna,
You helped propel me so much closer to the place you are now. The freedom is finally tangible.
God Bless,
Someone who stood up for herself :)
Life is too short -- best spend your time doing what you enjoy and leave behind things you no longer need.
You go for it, Girl! With gusto!
- Kathleen
Dear Anna,
Thank you so very much for your help and guidance in understanding this N thing. You have done so much for all of us - it is hard to find words to honor your outstanding efforts. I will miss your blogs, but wish you all the best in your future endeavours.
- Nancy
Anna...
....You just made a healthy, adult male tear up and cry like a baby.
You have no idea how you have helped myself, and no doubt, literally hundreds of others deal with this hideous topic that has plagued our lives.
I discoved *(i.e: stumbled) upon your website about 18 months ago. I have used it nearly every day since as a valuable reference in my dealings with my n/f. Needless to say, your help has literally given me a new lease on life.
Thank you so much...I'm am fully convinced that whatever endeavor you choose to pursue, you will succeed.
The tears are for joy as well....you will be missed as you journey not into the sunset of life, but, the sunrise of life.
Godspeed, Anna!!!!
Invaluable things I've learned here:
I found your blog when I was searching for info on dealing with trouble I was having with some people in my life. At the time, I thought I knew pretty much about N's [I had a 'classic' NM, and N-ex, I had already read many books on the topic]. The only problem, I thought N's were pretty rare. That was the impression I had gotten.
The big picture really eluded me until I came here. For instance, it NEVER occurred to me that there might be more N's in my FOO, despite my difficulty with them, or amongst the people I had thought of as "difficult" friends, past and present. Or, why, as an acon, I might have had so many "difficult" friends in the first place! Nothing I read in other places gave me quite the understanding about how N's are attracted to "primed" victims, and how they carefully avoid people raised with healthy boundaries. They do not randomly strike. And I had no idea that they often occur in multiples in families, over generations, centered around each generation's designated supply/human sacrifices.
I began to understand how I had been thoroughly and unwittingly trained to act in a way that made me basically the "perfect friend" to the personality disordered. This gave me a new lens through which to view many events and incidents from the past which had long puzzled me and that I had often replayed again and again in mind with no resolution. Now, they made "sense". I always wondered why some friendships I had were so "easy"! Now I knew those were simply the friendships I had with normal people. What seemed to be as "easy" or unusually "low maintenance", was actually JUST NORMAL. THAT IS ALL. Long accustomed to around-the-clock drama from others, I had no idea.
And importantly, how UNCANNILY SIMILAR experiences with N's really were, down to the most bizarre sounding incidents! [bathroom barging N's anyone?] The baffling and powerful N's became demystified. Now I see them as fear-driven caricatures, all with pretty much the same bags of tricks. Same shit, different smell. I am no longer impressed.
Your blog also put into perspective the many "frieNdships" that I had had in the past that I had long felt confused guilt and shame over ending. The more the puzzle pieces fell into place, I realized I had indeed been cutting out N's who had been attracted to me mainly as pre-trained NS. Thank you, no more guilt or confusion over having had been able to make healthy decisions about parasitical people in my life.
Another thing that helped tremendously has been being able to make the clear distinction between an "enabler" and a deceived victim. Boy was I sick of books that quietly [or not] suggested there was something wrong with ME [i.e. "co-dependent"] simply because I was once brainwashed into going through life experiencing N ABUSE AS NORMAL. Others calling us co-dependant is wrong and insulting. Believe me, the moment I knew what was what - I ESCAPED TOO! I was just one of many people trapped by the lies of N's who simply need nothing more then CLEAR INFORMATION to order make the choice to leave! That is NOT "co-dependent", that is a hostage trapped by lies. Thank you for putting clear no-nonsense info out for the public.
I have appreciated and respected perhaps most of all your unswerving "take no prisoners" stance, as well as your unstinting use of the taboo word "evil", due to the premeditation, strategizing, and post-abuse covering up that N's do. Thank you. Whenever I felt re-swayed by the lure of the N koolaid, and the very natural desire to want it all to be some kind of bad dream I could wake up from, I could get a REAL wake up call here. The kind of wake up I really needed:
Covert MN abuse is NOT a bad dream, it is real. But we CAN "wake up" from it, but only in one way: by seeing it for what it REALLY is, and seeing them for who they really are. Not appealing, not easy, and most certainly not what "they" want. It is the hard road. The bad dream we lived is THEIR world of lies, but we have the option to wake up to OUR OWN TRUTH: the world of truth inside us that can never be destroyed by others, only obscured. It is awakened by outside knowledge.
Thank you Anna, for more then I can write here. For passing on your truth, so we could wake ourselves up out of this nightmare into the world of our own possibility. Knowledge is truly power, and knowledge strips the power from deceivers.
And a thank you to all the amazing commenters! I have never ceased being amazed by the uncanny similarities, it proves the N's are not the unique people they think... It has helped me so much in so many ways.
Good luck to you Anna, and everyone else here too!
Sincerely,
Another Anonymous
[or, as I sometimes like to think of myself, one of your "devoted band of wackos". Remember that crank who called us commenters that? I guess she didn't think some might actually find it funny...]
Thanks so much for the time and energy you've put into this blog. I've learned a lot from it.
Invaluable things I've learned here:
What a great list or encapsulation of what you've learned from this blog. I love it. It is like a great introduction to a book. I am going to put your comment on the front page of the blog where it can be read by all new-comers so they can, at a glance, see what they can learn by diving into the archives.
Thank you!
#281,
**big hug**
Anna,
Be proud of yourself for moving on. Thank you for everything you've done here. I'm 57 years old and the daughter of a narcissistic mother. Last July, I told myself, "No mas," and I walked away. It wasn't easy to do, but it does get better as time passes.
"Because life is short": enjoy your life, and thank you for what you've done here.
God bless,
Labwriter
Dear Sister Anna,
I'm so happy for you and glad that you're moving on to new things. But I'm a little selfish, too, I guess. I will greatly miss reading your thoughts on a regular basis. But I'm also very thankful that your blog is so big and comprehensive that I can probably find something I missed on a regular basis! So I won't run out of reading material too soon!
There have been so many times when I thought I'd finally run out of things to say about the Ns, but then they always seem to come up with some new abuse or scam that's just itching for a rebuke or rebuttal! To me, it just seems to be endless. Evil can be a bottomless pit, that's for sure. But it is healthy to know when it's time to move on.
How can I ever thank you for all you've done for me? I have learned so much from your insights and been so enriched by your words. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this labor of love which has helped so many of us. When we were sinking in the quicksand, you threw us a lifeline.
I look forward to reading anything you feel like posting in the future. I pray for all God's blessings on you and your family and your new ventures. I wish you much success and happiness in all you do.
Love and peace, Sister Renee
Sister Renee!
Greetings, friend. I am always surprised when I hear you say things like you just did in your comment. Seems like you had a handle on this stuff longer than I have! I have been greatly blessed by your content. You have a unique gift for expressing the realities of MN in the context of a Christian's perspective and untwisting all the perversions of the Ns use of the Bible to their own ends. Your work has been an invaluable help to me. So...we're even, babe. I'm glad you're continuing the never-ending battle of revealing these snakes for what they are. I do indeed intend to write if something strikes me as needing to be said.
I've never much liked repeating myself. It feels that I've covered so many angles of this evil personality disorder that, at this point, I'm only trying to rhyme with what I've already said. Finding creative ways to say the same thing in different ways is kind of tiring for me. So, as they say, leave them wanting more. If and when I have a new or definitive perspective that I think will add to the substance of the topic I won't hesitate to put it out there.
All the best to you, sister. Please stay in touch.
Dearest Anna & Darling friends,
I nearly burst into tears when I first saw this post,having just losta dear friend the day before,
& my N-FOO was getting more evil than ever displayed before-actually planning a court battle against me!
But now, a few days have passed, & I want to share a thought for this Holy Season of Easter.Hopefully any Non-Christian friends here can find a way accept this sentiment in terms of your own beliefs, basically all fitting into the opposite of the Narcissistic abuse we've been recipients of.
My nasty NFOO is gearing up for a court battle attempt to takeover the advanced directives our parents have given 2 of us. We are the only 2 who have selflessly cared for our parents over the years. For the rest of the 13 Nsibs-it comes down to greed, envy, power struggle,mob family mentality, & sheer ignorance. They are a wealthy,arrogant,high social positioned ,two-faced mob. I have tried to be NC w/ them for years, as much as possible, as I care for our parents. So I've tried to be responsible w/ necessary contact. Just not a part of the group in any way. Contact is surface, & only as necessary, as they have been vipers to me, & to the sib w/ POA,who has also worked tirelessly.
There is one other darling sib, who has always been in the wings to encourage us w/ love, support, words of wisdom, & prayer. He also is NC w/ the Nmob.
He called me today on the way home from Mass w/ his wife & children, to share w/ me today's reading & gospel. I wanted to share it w/ you all, today being Holy Thursday.
This DB & his wife have been telling me for the past 2 wks, as the Nmob shit has hit the fan, that the devil does his most aggressive work during the season leading up to the glory of Easter Sunday. For some of us, that being Lent & Holy Week especially. This is once again being proven in my NFOO--just as it was last year, during another medical crisis w/ our parents. I know they are correct. They've been telling me to rise above the devils' work here. Don't get sucked down into it. IMAGINE the devils' pawns coming at me & my DS--thru agressive N's gathered into a mob!
It's taken a lot of prayer!!
Anyway--today's readings are about
how Our Lord washed the feet of His disciples.How He humbled Himself in the lowliest position He could, to show us how to love one another. he didn't care about "glory". Although He was God, who deserves ALL the glory!
He only cared about teaching us how to love each other. (John 13)
Also-in 1 corinthians 11--
"You who receive Communion UNWORTHILY, do so at your own peril."
The disciple Paul, telling Christ's followers that it is our SOULS we must always keep in the state of grace.
N's want our souls. The devil wants our souls. To get our souls away from Christ at this most Holy time of the year, the time we celebrate Our Lord's suffering the supreme sacrifice of love, to PURCHASE our souls' freedom & eternal life, for US--is the devil's greatest victory!
As we all have the very real experience of battle in
the spiritual realm, thru our struggles with the N's in our lives--I knew this is a safe place to express such spirituality.
I wouldn't say these things to just anyone. Only those who would understand. And this has been a very real fact of my life. Last year as well as this year.
So beware, my dear friends, of the evil that lurks just behind the light, especially these
next few days. Keep strong in faith. Solid in the spectacular mystery of God's incomprehensible love for us, as shown us in His Risen Son, Our Lord & Saviour, Jesus Christ. I will prating for each & every one of you on Easter. And dear sweet, generous Anna, most especially for you & your family.
Always,
Katrina
Anna,
What a great place to arrive, the place that you feel that you can go on to the next phase in your life. How happy I am for you and your family. Such great news.
I will, for sure miss my visits to your blog, your living room where we all felt so at home. I can not remember a place where I felt so safe and welcome and understood.
The open and hartbreaking stories and comments were of more help to me than I would ever expect to find anywhere. The experiences we could share with you Anna and all the posters made me understand that it's me that is sane and that my FOO have a HUGE problem that they are making ours. The AHA-experience on your blog was of superlative dimensions, which made my path to recovery for sure a lot shorter.
Your sharing is the most beautiful thing that could have happend to us.
I hope I can follow your direction in a short period of time and can go on with the life that starts to be more and more mine.
Thank you from the bottom of my hart for all your sharp and oh so honest tongue/keyboard/pen. I truly admire you.
Wish you all the best.
Holland
Thanks Anna for all your great contributions to this topic! I was wondering when you would eventually break away as we all must at some point to move on.
For those interested, there's an upcoming book called The Narcissism Epidemic based on studies of today's young people. Here's a web site link to the author's book site:
http://www.narcissismepidemic.com/
Best wishes in your new pursuits Anna!
Congratulations! Summa cum laude!
Anna I wish you all the best on your future endeavors. Your insights will be missed!
I knew about MN's when I found your blog, but I would come here for validation, and for someone who would insist on NO CONTACT with the evil ones. I'm coming up to three years now of no contact, and it has not been easy, but I am determined. As another poster said, you have been supporting me without even knowing it.
I'm very glad you will be keeping this blog up for newcomers, and old-timers alike.
Thanks again for your hard work here, it has meant so much to so many people.
All the best,
Peggy
Many thanks!
I have pretty much stopped reading or learning about N's, and just checked here to see what was up. I totally understand, because I also realized a few months ago that I was "over it" all.
I decided at some point while I was in therapy that being in a state of getting help and recovering was not a goal, but a step. My goal was to live a life that was as full and as untouched by the Ns and the alcoholics in my life as if they never had existed. And I'm here to say I think I have, and that everyone else can have the same goal.
Not to encourage anyone to give up therapy that they actually need, or to judge themselves if they feel it is taking "too long"! But after a while, I realized that as long as I devoted time and energy to recovery groups, therapy, reading about this, etc., they still had some control over me and were still affecting my life. They were still taking from me money and time that could have gone to other things. Take as much help as you need, but don't let yourself be fooled into thinking that you will be dependent on it forever. Give yourself permission to be truly free from it, and happy about it!
Dear Anna,
Thank you so very much for the tremendous good you have done for so many people. You helped me particularly with my leach doctor boyfriend.
Your emails helped me keep my chin up and know that this was real and that I should not forget that I am worth so much more than what he tried to pass me off as.
veronica
Anna,
Your blog has been so much help for me in the past two months as I begun the journey to free myself from my NM. I'm so happy that you are able to move forward to new oppertunities and are able to put the nacissists behind you. You are an inspiration and I hope to someday get to the point you have!
Hi Anna,
Thank you for making no bones about calling N's a lost cause. It wouldn't surprise me if many non-narcissistic ACON's end up as enablers or 'fixers', remaining enmeshed in an unhealthy dynamic because:
a) so many sources (friends, therapists, websites, etc) express what I believe are totally inappropriate feelings of sympathy for the perpetrator(s), thereby hamstringing victims with feelings of guilt and inadequacy. In other words, they encourage people not to seek safety and healing but to be re-victimised anew.
b) it can be so damn painful to lessen ties to their particular Family Monsters, which is what you need to do before you can finally break free. The abuse and mistreatment by the N in their lives feels intensely personal - although in reality it is not - and this can make it hard to let go.
I feel lucky because for some reason it felt more natural for me to drift away gradually from NF's sphere of emotional influence than to remain entangled with him. After I left home 18 years ago, I just found him too painful, self-absorbed and negative to be around. So I gradually became less available: by phone, by email and in person. This lessening of availability included times that would traditionally require you to spend time with your family of origin i.e. Easter and Christmas. With the exception of my brother, who moved interstate several years ago and remains 'low contact', my siblings have chosen another path: to remain at NF's beck and call whenever the latest drama in his life surfaces. And there have been many, many dramas, as I'm sure you can all relate to. :-)
The main point of all the above is that having started detaching emotionally several decades ago, the links that remained between me and NF were few in number and loosely bound.
Then came the latest NF drama, the proverbial straw which broke the camel's back. This involved NF snail-mailing me my recently dead mother's private poems, where she implied how unhappy and lost she felt within her marriage to him. Note the word 'implied', because the true source of her unhappiness (which I believe was her feeling obligated to stay with a man who refused to love and value her for herself) was not stated directly. You could only come to this conclusion by reading between the lines i.e. by attempting to put yourself in the shoes of the person who wrote the poem. NF clearly missed the whole point of her writing but wanted his children to see it and read it nonetheless because he felt it showed 'talent.' Included in his package was a horribly stilted poem he wrote about his courtship of my mother entitled 'Recollections: 1964' - she hardly rated a mention. Upon reading it, my husband described it, rather fittingly, as having 'a bit of a dead pong.' Yet it came with an instruction to me to seek the advice of one of my enabler sisters should some of NF's lines prove 'too abstruse' for my presumably limited understanding. LOL! Who but a narcissist uses such alienating, high-falutin' words? I had to consult a dictionary to work out what he meant and English was my favourite subject in high school. :-)
Anyway, the final items worth noting in NF's package were a few photos of an overblown memorial he had just finished building for my mother. The memorial cost NF tens of thousands of dollars to erect and was completely out of place in the tiny country cemetery it resided in. It dwarfed the simple headstones of her parents and made me cringe just looking at it. Two thoughts crossed my mind as I gazed at it. The first was the realisation that I'd gotten more out of my relationship with my feisty little cat Buster than I ever received from NF or others of his kind. In other words, I firmly believe that animals are much closer to humanity than N's will ever be. The second was that, even in death, my mother had not escaped being used as NF's main source of supply.
This was the point at which I decided I'd had enough of NF's nonsense to last not only for this lifetime but for any future lifetimes we may be lucky enough to experience. So I googled 'elderly narcissists' and found your website. I was primed to let go...
Anna, one of your posts in particular helped me to finally give up hope of ever having any kind of relationship, on any level, with any N (including NF), and to forge ahead with non-contact.
This post was entitled 'It Ain't Personal.'
I'll start by saying that this was one of the most helpful pieces of writing I've ever read. It gave me some much-needed perspective and backbone. It re-framed the way I was looking at my life - and at the N's who had entered it - so that I could finally close the door on them all and go non-contact. It completely depersonalised the situation for me and made me realise that a predator is just that: a predator. They are what they are, regardless of whether they share genetic material with you or not, and the chances of them changing for the better are zero to none.
About a week ago today, very late at night, NF rang my house. I picked up the phone as always but something felt different this time. For once I felt quite calm and unemotional. I stood holding the phone to my ear, saying nothing. There was silence for a few seconds as though both of us were swordsmen waiting to engage for the final thrust and parry.
Then the silence ended: NF moved first. I paused to listen while he said in a grudging, suspicious tone, "Hello? Hello?" At that moment I realised something new. It was as though NF's malignant personality was suddenly stripped bare, revealed by his voice. It had taken sixty years of effort on his part - long years of envy, spite and a sense of sheer unmitigated entitlement towards others - to make the man who was calling me now. And I saw that his efforts had left him with a mark, like the warning stripe on venomous spiders. What was the mark? A hard, cruel edge to his tone that he'd made a part of him for so long that it would never leave him. I knew then that I'd had enough. I knew that whatever he had to say would not be pleasant for me to hear and I felt no obligation any more to listen to him.
So I put the phone down, very quietly, still saying nothing. It rang again about 30 minutes later but I let it ring out into silence.
He didn't leave a message.
Final thought for the day before I go, as someone may find it useful: if you're worried that you might be a narcissist, you probably aren't one. I worried about this for ages - chewing up valuable time, brain space and emotional energy - before I read that N's are pretty much incapable of that kind of awareness or self-reflection. :-)
Happy detaching. Along those lines, here is an article that I found really helpful by Dr Joseph Carter. It deals with emotional memory management in an encouraging, practical way:
http://www.burnsurvivorsttw.org/memory.html
Good luck, health and happiness to you all.
Naomi
Dear Anna,
I tuned in to your blog every now and again. They kept me on track whilst I underwent the frequent deluge attack of self doubt in my mind over the last two years.I walked away from the Ns (Mother primarily) in my life two years ago at great pain, price and consequence to myself on the one hand but on the other side of those negative feelings now are the stirrings of freedom and peace. Two years on and the freedom is within sight. I walk with you now as you fully walk away from the Power that owned you and owned all of us collectively. It is time to hand back the Power to those that must now face and feel the impact of the pain caused by their actions and deeds to others.
With Love to you and all like us, Angeline
Anna,
You've been a shining light and a big help to me. Please post occasionally.
I saw a similar arc with my own blog (which, admittedly is nowhere as universal as yours). As I got the bile out of my system, it became less important to post as often.
HEALING. What a concept.
Be well, and thanks again.
Thank you for your blog. Good luck to you in your endeavors! I am grateful I found this blog. It has helped so much with the N MIL in my life. I no longer expect that yet one more letter from me explaining how she wronged me and how I feel will help.
Its over and I won't hold my breath for her to come to me and do the right thing which is simply to apologize and take responsibility for her actions. That will never happen and I am so much the better for knowing and understanding that.
I have been struggling over the years with the fact that I've broken off contact with my parents over and over and they come back and nothing changes.
My father still could careless about his grandson. He's all about looking the good guy while he obsesses over money. My mother is close friends with the guy who repeatedly beat and raped me because hey, that's what daughters are for. Neither see anything wrong with the violent and neglectful home life that was.
I recently hooked back up with my father and just the mere thought of talking to him on the phone gave me migraines.
When I come to your blog, I don't feel guilty about saying goodbye and standing firm. My selfish parents (who see no reason to change or care) are part of my violently abusive past.
Pausing to thank you... God Bless...
I enetered therapy about two months ago and I have recently discovered what my boyfriend of 16 months truly is. Your blog helped me to apply the concept of N onto his past patterns and behaviors - it's as if I am looking at who he truly is. I was confused - I thought, is he a good guy who has a terrible temper and control issues and loves to 'plot' and 'plan' or is this a bad person with mastery for chicanery - unfortunately he was of the latter persuasion and I have now gotten a plane ticket and will be moving back home approximately 3000 miles and have a sense of peace finally. Thank you for this insight - I can't wait to be free again.
Thank you so much! I'm excited to start a life without poison. I came across these lyrics and thought they applied well:
"I kept falling over
I kept looking backward
I went broke believing
That the simple should be hard"
(Matt Nathanson)
...on the topic of lyrics...it dawned on me recently when I heard the lyrics of "Holding back the Years". I was humming along to it and it kinda fit the situation of growing up with an N mother and enabler father...the lyrics seemed to fit, and when I investigated the lyrics it was about the seriousness of the singer himself with his own family troubles...must have been a reason for all these years I liked that song..and I thought it was about a different subject but now I know what it trully was about...something akin to what we all suffer here at Anna's blog.
I came upon your blog when I was searching for info about nm's. It helps to read and then read again and then re-read again. My mother.......she is described here. Just recently I gently confronted her on a few things, taking the blame at every turn. She wrote me off for that. I am grieving the mother I never had and will never had. I'll never ever please her but I have tried so hard so I'm throwing in the towel now.
Thank you so very much,
Wanda
Smilegirl,
Congratulations on cutting the cord. Goodbye to bad baggage. You have many more reasons to keep smilin' now! It's okay to grieve, but don't spend too much time on it. You've known for a long time that you didn't have the mother you wished you had. Hold your head up and forge into the best part of your life.
I'm supposing that you don't check in here often, but thank God you left your experience, strength and hope for me. I am in that spot right now as a 39 year old man where I'm trying to surrender the hopefulness of my anger toward my N. Mother and replace it with acceptance and resolution. The word "evil" crossed my lips earlier as I was discussing her Christmas antics with my younger sister, and for the first time in my life, I am no more conflicted or shameful over having chosen that adjective than I would be for labeling an autumn day as beautiful. It hurts trying to grieve the loss of something that I'm coming to know never really went away, for it never really existed, except for the characature and "mother" costume once in awhile when the audience called for those.
Thank you for helping me begin to heal through sharing your journey on such an intimate level.
Best,
David
Hi David,
I'm still here...just not blogging. It makes me happy to hear from people like you who are coming to terms with and moving away from the evil people in their lives. Wishing you the very best in the year ahead.
Over the past few days, after two more incidents with my NM and enabling NF, this blog has been a panacea for me. Thank you Anna. You cannot know how much this has VALIDATED what I've felt and what I've experienced. Currently, as I've managed to piss Mommie Dearest off by telling her to come down off the cross of martyrdom for things she never did, she's gone NC with me. And I am glad about it!
I've known all my life that something was WRONG with her - the mind games, the ever-changing social circles, the venom over other people's choices about money and mates, the phone calls that I would get where for hours she would scream at me and tell me how I didn't love her and I was a bad daughter because I wasn't doing what she told me to and how God would punish me - meanwhile, she'd call me every name in the book. The obsession she had and still has with the male members of our family (every year it seems a different nephew becomes the target of her affections and whom she will name in her will whenever I piss her off) and her not having a son. (I am, for good or ill, her only child...) There's so much... so much...
But the straw that broke the camels back for me was a conversation in which she brought up the name of the family member who raped me with glee as he is getting his PhD in a week. I knew then as I had never known that I needed to be done. She pulled the plug first, but again, I've got nothing but joy over it.
I want to say THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. It almost feels inadequate. And to my brothers and sisters in the struggle - get free. Go NC and leave the guilt behind you. You are a PERSON. You deserve to be treated as such. Not an extension of their glory or wrath. Not to be told that your reality doesn't matter. That YOU don't matter. Dig out the shrapnel from these violent relationships and HEAL.
... and know that you are NOT alone.
Peace, positivity and blessings to all.
Hi Anna,
Just wanted to say thanks for the blog. I've just found it and am beginning to go through the articles and comments and already it is beginning to validate my experiences. I am a 38 yo man who has been haunted by my NM and my EF for so long now. My 20's was mostly an unpleasant experience where they did everything they could to make me feel uncomfortable. Finally in my 30's I took off the rose-coloured glasses and took a good look at them and the view was shocking. It was not just their lies, but I also had to tell myself lies in order to conceal what, deep down, I knew to be the truth. But the facts were I just didn't have the energy for all the games anymore. My 20's were taken from and the rest of my life would be too. The clincher came when I tried to imagine a world in which they had just died and felt so relaxed and free, like I'd never felt in my life. And at that moment I knew they wouldn't be a significant part of my life any longer.
Post a Comment