Noël AlvaFor the women who feel like ‘too much’ – you know exactly who you are. You’re the ones who grew up always feeling different – feeling crazy, feeling brash, feeling just a little too passionate and fierce. You’re the ones who’ve spent your whole lives being told to bite your tongue, to sit on…
via For The Women Who Feel Like ‘Too Much’ — Thought Catalog
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,100 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 18 trips to carry that many people.
A few months ago, someone tried to disabuse me of my anger. I’ll just take a moment here to marvel at their audacity…
Okay, marvelling done.
Back to my anger of a few months ago. I was mad fit to split! What made my anger even ‘bigger’ was the fact that I was hurting – Oh, but I was hurting! – Thank goodness for time because it allows us to move forward from bad situations that would otherwise imprison us in an infinite ‘badness’. Can you imagine being stuck in the saddest or baddest or hardest moment of your life for some indefinite duration? I shudder at the thought! If there truly is a hell, then I imagine that would be it!
But I digress… my anger of a few months ago… it was born of a feeling of betrayal, abuse, disrespect, and disregard. I felt all these things and as a result, I felt, besides the accompanying pain, angered.
I tried to fight my anger. To be the ‘bigger person’. To be ‘civil’ and act ‘unaffected’. But when I balanced out the cost of embracing my anger and expressing it, verses stifling it and denying it, I realized it would do me more good to express it. And so I did.
I decided to hold the person responsible for my anger accountable. I decided to confront them with what they had done to trigger that anger. I didn’t expect much in terms of an explanation or an apology, I just wanted to let the person know that they did not get to behave as they did and get away with it.
Of course, the cause of my anger would hear none of it. They instead chose to deflect the issue and quickly enlisted the sympathetic services of a third party. It was this third party that sought to disabuse me of my anger by declaring that I was vindictive for expressing said anger and for demanding accountability.
Shall we take another moment to marvel and reflect on that? … you do not cut me with a sharp blade then ask me not to bleed!
How does expressing my anger -within legally acceptable limits- translate to vengefulness?! How does speaking one’s mind, calling someone out on unacceptable behavior and demanding accountability make one vindictive? So we should just accept all manner of crappy treatment and silently suck it up because it would be vindictive to do otherwise?
Should we feel ashamed of our feelings of anger? Should we feel less of whom we are simply because we feel hurt, or angered, or bothered by something? Should we deny our own anger because someone else denies it or does not understand it or acknowledge it?
Should we let someone disabuse us of our anger by attempting to make us feel guilty about it?
I have learned that most people who deny other’s the freedom of feeling anger, are usually people who do not want to take responsibility, or be held accountable, for the role they have played in causing that anger… I have further learned that it’s that much more harder to freely own and express your anger if you’re a woman.
For reasons unknown to me, it seems women automatically lose 50% authenticity for their anger solely on gender basis. Just how authentic and rational can your anger be if you’re a woman? What with all your overreacting, emotional, and hormonal issues? I’m sorry, is it that time of the month? No wonder you’re so testy!
Anger, like any other emotion, is all part of the human exprience and nobody should try to disabuse the other of their emotions. We may not understand why someone feels the way they do, but that does not mean their feelings are any less real or valid. The least we can do is allow them the experience of their own feelings without trying to diminish or belittle them.
My anger of a few months ago has since dissipated and blown to the four winds. But moving forward, I’ll be owning my feelings, both negative and positive, thank you very much! And I will not be forced to defend them or explain them to anyone who may attempt to deny me the experience of said feelings.
If it’s okay to feel joy and express it, it should be okay to feel anger, too, and to express your feelings in reasonable, none destructive ways. There shouldn’t have to be any shame in it. After all, they say life is about dualities, isn’t it? The Yin and Yang? You can’t have the one without the other and expect to have a whole, now can you?
Let’s be wholesome and allow others the same.
Peace
~ C
A mother, having just lost her child, wept in anguish and tore at her clothes while ranting at Death in anger, demanding that he account for reaping so young and innocent a life. Death, upon hearing the mother’s grief so nakedly expressed, was moved, in spite of himself, to respond.
He rose from his shadowy abode and set forth, arriving at the berieved mother’s door step at the crack of dawn. The griefstricken mother, too overcome by the pain of loss to realize that she had openned her door to Death when she answered the single knock that echoed through the morning stillness, nearly keeled over with joyful hope when the stranger standing on her stoop offered to return her child to her alive and healed… “As long as”, the stranger said, “you can bring me a drink of water from a home that has never been visited by Death.”
~ Borrowed from an African folk tale.
I haven’t blogged for a while. Not because I had nothing to blog about but because I have been dealing with loss. I’m not very good at dealing with loss. Usually I just shut out the world and retreat into myself. I’m told that’s not very effective. I beg to differ. It seems to work for me.
In the last few months, I’ve buried one dear old friend and one very special lady who was like a mom to me. To lose two people who were so close and dear brought home to me a new meaning of loss.
When we’re in the grip of experiencing loss, we tend to focus on what we will miss about what we have lost. We overlook the gift that was granted us of having had the chance to experience whatever it is we have lost. We forget the good times we had, however fleeting, and dwell on the bleak prospect of having to deal with absence due to our loss. We wallow. We grieve. We obssess. We feel regret, anger, helplessness. We wish we could turn back time – take it all back. We may even feel victimized – alone…
I know I have felt all these things. And every time, the question circling in my mind has been: WHY?
Yes, just like that, in capitals – WHY?
Most times, I never get the answers I’m hoping for. And let’s face it, “Why?” isn’t exactly a question that has a satisfactory answer to anyone who’s in pain.
The loss of a loved one is a painful experience on all levels of human emotion, but I think we make it more so by focusing on the actual loss than on the beauty and joy of having known, loved, and shared a part of our lives with the person we have lost. I don’t know, maybe we don’t know how to be any different. Maybe we just can’t help ourselves… or maybe we’re just scared that we might lose more of what we love. So we focus and obssess on the loss, and for a while we forget to be grateful for everything else that we still have going on for us.
Some losses cannot be taken back. There are no do-overs. When it’s done, it’s done. When it’s gone, it’s gone. So we better learn to make the most of what we have, in the time we have, and make beautiful memories we can cherish and look back on. Because everyone of us has experienced, or will experience, a great loss at some point in our lives, and the memories of what we had are all we have left when Loss unexpectedly comes visiting.
Peace.
~ C
This is such an insightful post, I just had to share it. At no point does control translate to love or caring. It’s all about someone wanting to have power over another. Great points on why we let others control us.
One of the hardest things to do, for some of us, is admitting to ourselves that we have made a wrong emotional investment. Even when there are neon signs, blinking away right in front of our eyes to point out the fact, we still find it difficult to call it a wrap, cut our losses and quit while we’re ahead.
Maybe we can’t bear the thought of losing out on “everything” after all the effort and sacrifice we’ve put into the relationship. Maybe we believe if we just hold it together for a few days more, or a few weeks more, or a few months more, or a few years more, the situation will change and improve and we’ll be rewarded with our heart’s desire… We will reap the benefits of our patience and resilience.
So when the narcissist starts on his crippling cycle of value – devalue, attach – detached, hot – cold, we rationalize this erratic behaviour and assign it’s cause to everything but the real reason – the narcissist’s dysfunctional personality – which is beyond our control.
We shy away from the truth that something is seriously off kilter with the other person’s behaviour and reaction, towards us and towards normal daily situations. We convince ourselves that maybe we can influence and control their behaviour and feelings for us by being more pleasing and accommodating.
So, instead of cutting our losses and running for the hills, we embark on a ‘pleasing’ mission. We hold on to the relationship at all costs because we have invested so much time and emotions and effort and finances… We want our reward. We want to reap the returns. We must reap the returns. And we won’t let go until we reap the returns. Any day now, things will get better. Things will start to look up. He/she will come around and realize how loyal and dedicated we are…
And the narcissist looks at us from his lofty mental throne. He looks at us desperately holding on to the pipe dream he sold us, and he gets the mother of all highs from all the narcissistic supply we’re generating for him by continuing to put up with his BS.
It’s sad. Mainly because it just is sad, but also because the cost of holding on to a dysfunctional relationship far outweighs the cost of letting go – and we simply don’t seem to realize it!
Or maybe we don’t want to realize it. Maybe the narcissist has gas lighted us so much that we can’t trust our own reality… Our own truth.
Maybe the truth isn’t the truth unless the narcissist agrees that it is.
Maybe we are waiting for the narcissist to give us permission to process our truth by first validating it for us.
So we’ll just stay aboard this sinking ship that we have invested all sorts of energy and resources on. And we’ll let our gut instinct stand on one side, whistling and tapping it’s foot and looking at the sky, while we hold back from processing our truth because we’re waiting on the narcissist to validate it… No matter how much the waiting hurts us.
We’re waiting for the narcissist to say:
“Sure, I’m a self-serving, emotion draining, mind bending, super-individual, who occasionally moonlights as the perfect man/woman so as to lure unsuspecting and foolish mortals, such as yourself, into my made-up world where I abuse them into submission, with nary a qualm, through manipulation, lies, cruelty and a whole bunch of other devious, but highly effective, techniques. All this for the sole purpose of getting narcissistic supply (because I am a narcissist) and having full control over you. I realize I have treated you quite shabbily and this may have caused you some grief, but it could not be avoided. I have to do it to survive. No hard feelings, okay? “
Do you see that happening – ever?
No? Me neither.
The narcissist will never validate your truth, because your truth invalidates his false self. But just because he fails to cosign to the truth does not make it any less true. Trust your truth. Trust the authenticity of your experience and your instincts, then validate it for yourself.
Do not allow the narcissist to keep you ensnared in his toxic web by continuing to engage him in a quest for validation or accountability. Cut your losses and call it a bad investment – there’s no shame in it… At least there shouldn’t have to be.
Bad investments happen to the best of us. We take our lessons from the experience and we learn to do better next time.
Refuse to handle the narcissist’s lies just as he refuses to handle your truth. You do not need anyone’s approval to embrace your own authenticity.
Let’s be gentle and kind to ourselves.
Peace.
Dealing with a narcissist is a disconcerting, draining and destabilizing experience that can leave one feeling like an empty shell. This is because we put in so much emotional and psychological energy trying to keep up and understand the narcissist. Unfortunately, any energy or effort put into a relationship with a narcissist is more often than not a total waste of time. Here are some ways in which we waste time and energy on account of the narcissist:
5) Attempting to make sense of absurdities
The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”
~ Carroll Lewis
A lot of the things the narcissist says and does, do not add up and are sometimes downright absurd. Communicating with a narcissist has often been compared to talking to a brick wall. In my experience, it felt like I was having a conversation about cabbages and kings with a walrus! How’s that for absurd?
I spend hours, days, weeks, months trying to figure out what the narcissist meant when he said what he said, or why he did what he did. The truth is, we can never make sense of the narcissist’s behaviour and trying to do so is an epic waste of emotional and mental energy because you’ll always draw a blank.
4)Shoulda-woulda-coulda
Many were the times I sat and replayed different scenes from my experience with the narcissist and wished I could have done things differently. I wished I had known what I was getting into, and then I wished I hadn’t gotten into it at all. I still have those moments, but thankfully now they are few and far between.
Beating yourself up and calling yourself 10 kinds of stupid about the way things have turned out will not erase the experience and will only serve to make you feel worse by taking up emotional and mental space negatively. It is not your fault. You did not set out to be abused or disregarded or hurt. So forget the shoulda, woulda, coulda and start learning to forgive yourself.
3) Trying to explain or justify yourself to people who won’t understand
The narcissist will always send his flying monkeys to attack you when you attempt to hold him accountable or stand up for yourself. These are the narcissist’s helpers, his enablers who are ready to do his bidding at the drop of a dime.
Do not engage these people or try to explain, defend or justify yourself. You will not win. Ever. As far as the flying monkeys are concerned, the narcissist can do no wrong. In fact, they may actually see him as the victim and you as the villain. Trying to convince them otherwise will only lead to anger and frustration. Don’t bother with this lot. Just run or shut them out.
2) Agonizing and worrying about things you cannot change
We cannot change the narcissist, or anyone else for that matter, no matter how much we wish we could. It took me some time to internalize this because I so badly wanted for our relationship to work and I thought if I could only make him see how his erratic behaviour was affecting us, then he could change and all would be well.
Waiting for a person to change for us is a recipe for disappointment because we have no control over the person. We cannot change them, we cannot demand, lecture or threaten them into changing if they do not want to. The only thing we have control over is our own selves. So instead of focusing our energies on changing the narcissist, how about we focus them on adjusting our own sails!
1) Sitting by the graveside
It’s okay to mourn and grieve the loss of a relationship. It’s okay to acknowledge the pain and hurt and disappointment. But the end objective should always be to move on to a better place and leave the pain behind us.
Permanent grieving, which I like to call ‘sitting by the graveside’, is a prime way of perpetuating the narcissist’s abuse. When we hold on to our pain, obsessing about our hurtful experience and what the narcissist has put us through, we continue to allow the narcissist to abuse us in absentia. We waste precious emotional energy that could have gone to our own healing and recovery, by being fixated on the narcissist’s abuse of us.
I will be the first person to admit that recovery from abuse is not a walk in the park. It requires commitment and patience and faith and positivity… did I mention commitment? We have to stop focusing our energies on the narcissist and his abusive ways and start focusing on what’s important – our emotional and mental wellbeing.
We cannot change the narcissist, but we can change how we let them affect us.
Peace.
I’ve been waiting out the pain –
Patiently and gently.
Learning to love the unloved pieces of me,
Bringing out old wounds to the surface where the fresh honest air can heal them and set me free of dull, ancient aches.
I’ve been reconnecting with my ignored and lonely inner child,
Learning to reassure her that she is loved by me – her older self – that she is valued and heard and felt… And that she is enough. My love is enough.
I have been seeking out my cracks and trying to trace them to their genesis.
Those I have found, I have learned to seal with conscious self love – the one thing that has been in fluctuating supply for a long time.
Some days have been better than others,
Some days… Not so good.
Yet with each passing day ticked off my calendar,
I get better. Stronger. Braver. Wholer…
It’s been like a painful labour of rebirth,
And I’ve been terrified of it and exhilarated by it all at the same time.
Looking back now, I see the silver lining in the narcissistic cloud,
I see the gift in the beautifully wrapped package of darkness,
I see the hope at the bottom of my Pandora’s box…
Every door we open leads us to a new experience – a new place.
Sometimes we open a wardrobe door that leads to Narnia, where a battle of good over evil is waiting to be waged.
Sometimes we fall down a rabbit hole and open a tiny door into a world of mad hatters and grinning chesire cats and promises of jam to-morrow but never jam to-day.
And sometimes… Well, sometimes we open a door into a uniquely different kind of place.
A place that is exclusively ours,
A place that holds a painful message specially meant for us.
And the pain of this message is a defining kind of pain because it leads to an awakening…
Sometimes we open the door to a new kind of self awareness.
Sometimes we open the door that leads to our true light,
And that, if nothing else, has got to be worth the struggle of wading through the experience of narcissistic murk to emerge on the shores of recovery.
~ C
“Forgetting pain is convenient. Remembering it, agonizing. But recovering the truth is worth the suffering.” ~ Carroll Lewis, Alice in wonderland.
The truth will set you free… But first it will piss you off. I read that somewhere. I thought it made quite a bit of sense, too. Since I discovered about NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) due to my experience with a narcissist, I find myself thinking about truth often. How I process it and how other people process it. But mostly, I wonder about how the narcissist processes it.
Of the many things on the narcissist’s hate list, truth must rate pretty high. Narcissists simply hate to be confronted with the truth of who they really are. Not surprising considering their entire existence is made up of fabrications to suit their made up self image. The narcissist does not value truth, no matter how much he may harp on to the contrary. He has no desire to be set free by your truth, but he will not pass up an opportunity to get pissed off with you… After all, it’s all about the supply. Being oblivious to this little (big?) fact, I made the error of confronting my ex-narcissist with the truth of how his behaviour had been affecting me negatively and causing me distress.
I was hoping to have a healthy adult conversation and reach some kind of resolution on how we could heal our seriously ailing relationship. So, armed with expert information (that I had researched) about all the things he had been doing – the gas lighting, silent treatment, projecting, triangulation, and disrespect – I tried to navigate my way around the eggshells and landmines that characterize trying to talk to the narcissist.
I should have saved my breath.
I have since learned that one of the most effective ways to waste emotional and intellectual energy is by trying to reason with a narcissist. You. Just. Can’t. Win! Confronting a narcissist with the truth of their harmful behaviour and expecting them to hear you out graciously, is akin to sticking your hand into the mouth of a crocodile and expecting it not to snap it’s jaws shut on it.
When you confront a narcissist with the truth of how he has abused you (no matter how gentle or diplomatic you try to be) he doesn’t feel remorse, he feels affronted! How dare you challenge him? How dare you confront him and call him out on his erratic behaviour? How dare you see him for who he is? How dare you figure out his devious plans and, worse, tell him about it? HOW DARE YOU?!
The narcissist cannot, and will not, take personal responsibility for his behaviour. He will hardly apologise for it either. He denies your reality – your truth – choosing instead to create his own truth and reality which exist solely to serve him. He has no genuine concept of empathy or compassion, hence lacks remorse or regret for the way he behaves. What the narcissist denies in himself, he attributes and projects on others. Many are the times you will confront a narcissist over something they have done to you, only to have them throw it right back at you – magnified and embellished.
When I confronted my ex-narcissist, he blatantly told me he did not trust me anymore. That I was like two different sides of the same coin and he didn’t know who I was anymore. That he could not move on from the things I had done and said to him. That he could not reconcile the person I used to be with the person I had become. That I never listened to him and I didn’t make an effort to understand him… When he was through with me, I was slack-jawed in shock and confusion, wondering how the tables had shifted and suddenly I was the villain. Naturally, I got defensive. Trying to convince the narcissist that no, I hadn’t changed, and yes, he could still trust me and no, I wasn’t two sides of any coin, and yes, I did listen to him, and… You get the drift.
My reaction was like manna to the narcissist. He was having a field day feeding off my energy as I drowned in frustration trying to defend myself to him. The issues I had confronted him with were pushed aside, unaddressed and unresolved. I was worse off for confronting him than I had been before! And just to make sure that I learnt the full lesson of making such a foolish and ill adviced move, the narcissist punctuated the matter with a generous helping of the silent treatment.
I learnt my lesson well. Confronting a narcissist is an exercise in futility. They will make you pay dearly for attempting to expose or reveal them for who they are. Nothing good can ever come out of confronting a narcissist. The emotional, mental, and psychological cost is too high. And any satisfaction or victory you might get out of it will only be short lived – a pyrrhic victory, so to speak. One that comes at such a great cost, it might as well be a defeat because the narcissist will always try and make you pay – painfully.
So before you hold out a mirror to them and yell your truth in their face – “This is who you are! Look upon your sins and repent!” – ask yourself, are you willing to pay the price? Are you sure you want to feed the beast? Not every situation requires a confrontation… There are times when the best way to confront a situation is to walk away from it – you live to fight another day. Looking to the narcissist to recover your truth is simply not worth the suffering it causes.
Be kind to yourself.
Peace.
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