Blame Shifting

Busy Working on my YouTube Channel and Life Coaching

I have been busy making some videos today. I uploaded two new videos for the victims of narcissistic abuse, onto my YouTube Channel . 

How to Trust Again After Narcissistic Abuse

Realizing That the Narcissist Manipulated Your Reality

I have also been working on some materials for my Life Coaching business. I made some meditative affirmations audios, which are designed to rewire low self esteem issues, or at least get someone on the path to be able to rewire their own negative thought patterns into kinder, gentler ones.

I have also been working on taking an NLP course, which is very interesting. If you are interested in NLP you can get more information about it HERE, at Planet NLP.  It is used by Life Coaches to help people to make negative memories more manageable and for various other situations. NLP practitioners can help people to get into a certain state of mind for a job interview, or to get out of an undesirable state of mind. There are too many uses for it to mention here. 

Although I have not written anything new for the blog today, I did respond to  of my comments. I read some of your blogs as well.

I have been in contact with four different life coaching clients this week and have been feeling good about getting into that important work. I have always been the kind of person that has to work doing something to help people in order to be happy with work. I prefer to work one on one with people, and so this is a perfect calling for me and I am glad I ended up on this path.

I was going to make some flyers for guitar lessons today, but I am having issues with the printer. I have someone who will help me with that tomorrow, after  I get the oil changed in the car.

It is time for me to get the bunny a snack and then watch an episode of Hannibal before bed. I have to get up tomorrow to get the car into STS before it is too late to get the oil changed and the tires checked.

My brother in law was kind enough to assist me with the money for the oil change, which was very kind of him. He know I have been out of work and cannot afford anything but food and gas, since I am trying to space out my small amount of savings to get through until I am generating an income from my businesses.

It is almost time for all good little insomniacs to try to sleep.Try is the key word here. 

Blessings to all and to all a good night or merry Christmas or happy Easter or something like that 🙂

Annie<3

Is Suicide a Selfish Act ?….People who post opinions on the internet about suicide,… who have no idea what they are talking about

Suicide is a last resort. It is not a selfish act designed to inflict guilt or punishment upon others. It is not a selfish act in the way that I have seen it talked about online many times.

I don’t know how many times I have seen people write things similar to “They were so selfish. Didn’t they think about the effect this would have on their loved ones? How could they just think of themselves and no one else?”

This is about as backwards of a statement as I have even seen about any topic. It completely lacks any understanding of what goes on in the mind of a suicidal person. Clearly the people writing statements such as these have never had a conversation with a suicidal person and obviously have never suffered from severe depression themselves.

It bothers me that the people that are making these statements, as if they are bringing enlightenment to suicidal people. They seem like they are trying to bring  comfort to the survivors of suicide. They have never been the survivor of a suicide and do not know how the loved ones feel.

Should they be making statements about the situation in a judgemental way? Will this make the survivors of their loved one’s suicide feel better?

No, let’s consider the sources of these words that the people so felt they had to post on the internet for all to see. All of the people that I have seen write words like these had nothing to do with suicide or depression. They have never had a loved one commit suicide. They have never taken the time to listen to and comfort a suicidal friend. 

They are detached from suicide and depression all together.

Then why? Why do they feel the need to post their opinions about suicide at all?

It makes them look good. It makes them look sane. It makes them look like they have it all together for their friends to see. 

It is the act of pointing a finger at someone else and thus showing how much better they are than the others. They are so much better than “those people” who are so selfish as to commit suicide and “do that” to their poor loved ones.

These people do not have any sympathy for the loved ones either.

Tell me ….what comfort is it to a loved one to read the following…”I can’t believe that person was so self centered. They never considered the feelings of the family. They did not care what their actions would do to the lives of their family.”

Would that be comforting to you, if your sister had just killed themselves? Would those words make you feel better…vindicated…able to place the blame on you son…who had just hung himself in your home?

NO.

These people are posting these words, as if they know more than the suicide victim, in order to comfort the family. They are not posting them in order to keep other suicidal people from committing suicide.

Tell me..

If you were suicidal, would these words make you not want to commit suicide?….”People who commit suicide are selfish. They should think about their families and what impact their death would have on their family”

Why?

Why would these words not keep you from going through with it? More importantly….why would these words make you feel more certain that suicide was the right decision?

Because while these people are writing “Think about what your death will do to your loved ones”

...the suicidal person is thinking “My loved ones are suffering because of me. My loved ones would be better off without me.”

You see? 

The suicidal person has lost any feelings of worthiness and value. While these people are writing “It is so selfish to take your own life and cause suffering to your loved ones” ….they are also being very arrogant. 

Their arrogance is in the 
Your family will suffer so terribly without you in their lives” 

These people are sure that their own loved ones and family would suffer terribly without the presence of their amazing person in the lives of the family. 

They are essentially talking about themselves and how valuable they are. In saying that “I would never commit suicide. I would not do that to my loved ones”….they are advertising how great they are and how much of a loss the world as we know it, would have, if they were to no longer be in it.

They are using the suffering of some person who was on the evening news, in order to make themselves look good on facebook.

So, I see no compassion, nor wisdom in these posts on facebook by people who have never been any closer to suicide or depression than watching in on the evening news.

They  have no business posting their opinions about how the family must feel….they have no idea. 

They have no business posting comments on facebook about how the suicide victim felt….again they have no idea.

The suicide victim was not thinking of hurting the family. On the contrary, in their mind they were a burden, an inconvenience, a problem, a curse, ,,,not worthy of having been born.

You cannot make comments about how selfish the suicidal victim was, when you have no idea what was going on in their head…for a long….long ..time, before the suicide. 

There are many thoughts that go through the mind of the suicidal person. These thoughts go through their mind , on a regular basis, for a long, long time. Most suicide victims have thought about suicide and tried to talk themselves out of it for months or years.

Imagine having this voice in your head… “Everyone would be better off without you. You are not wanted. You are a burden. You should not have been born”

… this voice playing in your head… for years…..

If you cannot imagine this or relate to this, then you cannot speak for the intentions of the people who commit suicide

You battle against it, but it just keeps talking to you. Eventually people give in to the voice. They believe that the world will not miss them, mourn them,,and in fact will be better without them.

The people that are calling suicide a selfish act have no idea what they are talking about.

They do not know the suffering of feeling like you are worthless, a burden, in the way. They do not know what it is like to carry toxic shame from physical or sexual abuse from their childhood.

They do not know what some people have to carry as a constant burden on their soul. People carry memories about all kind of abuse from their childhoods. They go to therapy to try to get rid of their demons. 

The demons follow them and sometimes therapy is not enough. You cannot speak about how someone feels and that they were selfish, when they ended their lived in order to silence the voices, turn off the movies playing in their heads ,,,of horrors that most people will never ever know.

The judgemental people about suicide, cannot speak for people who have endured horrors that are unspeakable. They do not know what kind of abuse was occurring in the home of the suicide victim. How can you know whether or not the “Poor family” of the victim was abusing them behind closed doors. How do you know?

When you see the report if suicide on the tv, there are so many things about the family that you will never know. Why do these people assume the person’s family would miss them? How do you know?

All families do not love their children or teeangers. All families do not love their adult children. All husbands do not love their wives. Some of them subject their wives to all manner of mental torment and sometimes physical abuse.

You cannot judge someone that you do not know about their suicide. You do not know if it is a loss for their family. Maybe they were escaping their family in the only way they knew how.

Maybe they really felt that their mental illness was a burden on the family and that they were doing their family a favor by making this decision.

Every person is an individual. We all have unique ways of looking at things. Each suicide victim has their own story and voices playing in their heads.

Unless you know what the reality was of the individual person….Unless you know and can relate to the mental torment they had suffered…and for how long they had been suffering…..

Unless you are really aware of of  how the person was treated by their family…what kind of abuse they had endured during their childhood…and what monsters were following them in the shadows of their nightmares…..

then please keep your judgement of individual people , who you do not understand, yourselves, 

please keep general sweeping comments like “all people who commit suicide are selfish” to yourselves and do not post them where suicidal people can see them

People who commit suicide think about it for a long…long …time

They consider themselves a possible suicide victim long before they do anything about it.

They are reading your words….and thinking that they are now selfish to be considering suicide…on top of all the other pain that they are carrying…here is one more thing to carry…

how do we know that this is not “one more thing” too many?

Circle with your Hand Triangle with your foot…Hmmmmm

This is fun and it helps to create new neuronal pathways in the brain.

I did do some research about neuronal pathways tonight. I even wrote most of an entire post. But the cold med I took is kicking my DUPA ( that is what my Polish grandma used to say….the word..nothing about kicking it)

I am tried too cancan no longer focus my eyes.

Enjoy this little video. I did and I forsee having a silly contest with my daughter tomorrow, where each person adds a new move.

sorry for any typos

Wishes for peasant dreams

Annie .

Your Heart Matters Meme

Compassion for Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder

People who suffer from borderline personality disorder usually come from a traumatic and abusive childhood, where there was rejection, abandonment and an overall lack of feeling safe. People with borderline have an ingrained feeling of being worthless and unlovable. 

The idea of intimacy is frightening to people with BPD, because they never had unconditional  love in their early relationships with the adults who were supposed to be caring for them. They have a history of being betrayed at the most vulnerable level.

Why should someone trust a person, when they are sure that they are going to be hurt by making themselves vulnerable?

If you are dealing with a loved one with BPD, it is a good start to let them know that you understand why they would have trouble allowing themselves to be vulnerable.  You understand that they were conditioned by their past trauma, not to open themselves up to trust other people’s intentions.

Babies and children are vulnerable and cannot care for themselves. Parents and caregivers are supposed to create an environment where children feel safe and loved. 

Mental abuse in the form of  “I do not love you when you do that”  or  “I will only  love you when you do what I expect”  is very damaging to the psychological make-up of an impressionable child. 

Borderline personality disorder is usually a reaction to needing to survive in an unfriendly, unpredictable environment. One day certain behaviors were worthy of love and another day the very same behaviors were punished.

 Often the borderline child, was the result of a narcissistic parent. Narcissists change the rules as they feel it suits them. They demand complete obedience of the child and withhold love from their child, when the narcissist feels that the child is a threat of any kind

Narcissists perceive many things as a threat from their children and teenagers including:

1. refusal to obey rules

2. failure to know when the rules have changed, even if the parent has not made the new rules clear

3. The child having opinions that are different from the narcissistic parent

4. Acts of free thinking, independence and autonomy of the child or teenager

5. Interacting with friends that the narcissist has not approved of

6. Pointing out things that are unfair

7. Standing up for themselves against the narcissist

8. Anything that the narcissistic parent did not approve for them to do ahead of time

9. Anything that the narcissist perceives as disrespect

The borderline is usually  brought up in fear of retaliation of the parent. They were also brought up in fear of emotional abandonment, due to the silent treatment and other tactics of the parent.  They may also have been in fear of physical abuse, if the parent was displeased with them.

Unconditional love is difficult for the borderline person to believe and to trust.. They were brought up that love and affection is conditional, based on how “good” they were. 

There is also that feeling of being unworthy. This feeling of unworthiness comes from being made to feel that way, by the actions of the parent. The parent also may have told them that they were worthless, stupid, unlovable and a burden to the parent.

Jerold Kreisman, M.D. is the  author and developer of the S.E.T communications theory. She developed this method of helping borderline patients because the borderline people were not responding to traditional  Talk Therapy. They had trouble feeling that the therapist could be trusted because they have a general feeling that people do not want to help them.

Her theory is outlined in the book  I Hate You – Don’t Leave Me

“Essentially, the S.E.T. communication pattern was developed by Jerold J. Kreisman, MD and Hal Straus for their book I Hate You–Don’t Leave Me.(link is external)

It consists of a three step communications sequence in which the non-BP first offers support to their borderline loved one(“I want you to be happy”); empathy (“I can see how lonely you can get when I go out with my friends”); and the non-BP’s truth; (“At the same time, having friends around gives me great joy, and I need some time with them to feel fully rounded.”) Psychology Today

The SET stands for three steps.

The S stands for SUPPORT.  The E stands for EMPATHY. The T stands for TRUTH.

SUPPORT – The idea of support is to reassure the person that you truly want to be supportive and helpful to them. You can remind them that you think they are worthy of care and compassion.

EMPATHY –  The idea of showing them empathy is to create a feeling of trust. The borderline does not feel heard or understood. You have to let them know that you realize that they have pain. Validate and empathize with them about whatever they are feeling. Perhaps tell them that you can understand how they feel and that you might have the same feelings, if you were in their shoes.

TRUTH – This one is about helping the borderline person to see the difference between reality and things they may be feeling that are from trauma. It is also about helping them to see what their behavior is, if it is inappropriate or hurtful to others and what the consequences might be if they continue to behave this way.

This method is one of compassion and it has been helpful to some people. Everyone will not respond to this method. If they are too rigid and stuck in their black and white thinking , then it may not work. The person must be willing to try to see things in a different way.

The idea is to get them to realize that it is possible that their perceptions are not always accurate, but they are based on past trauma. If they can accept this idea, then this method seems to be a very good one.

I personally like the concept of this method and I think it could be helpful in dealing with other mental illnesses. Anyone that sometimes has trouble telling the difference between reality and perceptions that are coming from past trauma, could be helped by this.

Blessing,

Annie

* please note that some people have borderline personality disorder,  and other people are co-morbid between BPD and NPD (narcissistic personality disorder).   If you are being abused by the person ,  and they have the red flags of narcissism, you may be best to protect yourself and get out of the relationship. At least do some research on abusive personalities, to become more aware of what you are dealing with.

2 Months No Contact with Any Abuse

March 14, my birthday, was the day that my relationship with a narcissistic person ended. May 14 is the two month anniversary of my No Contact with a narcissist. I am very glad I have made the 2 months.

I was very broken at the beginning. It took a lot of proactive work on my part to heal from the abusive relationship. He has made me into a shadow of my former self. He had put all kinds of negative thoughts in my head about myself.

He had made me fear my workplace and all of the people I work with. I became fearful of any interactions with anyone at work. People considered me rude, and they picked up on my high level of anxiety. Being with a narcissist makes you in a hyper adrenalized state all the time.

You end up in a state of severe anxiety all the time. You never know what to expect. You never can do enough to please them. There is always something wrong.

The last few weeks at work have been better. I have started to be myself again and talk to people. I have started to make people laugh at my humor, that I had lost before. Being with a narcissist takes away all of your sense of humor.

If I ever wanted anything my way, I would get threats of suicide. That tactic  always made me do what he wanted. The fear of someone committing suicide because of me, was a powerful tool.

If it was not a suicide threat then I was “triggering him” into PTSD. Anything that did not go exactly his way, anything I pointed out or suggested was “a demand” to him. Any attempts to discuss the relationship was a demand and I was causing his mental breakdown.

Interestingly, he would answer calls on his other phone, while I was on the one, and he was calm and confident with the caller. I always wondered how he could come out of a severe mental breakdown and take a business call like that.

He always said it was acting. He said  was really in the state he told me he was in (post traumatic stress or suicidal) but was able to be rational, logical,  and business like and very friendly to another caller. Then come back to me and be back in mental trauma and unable to discuss anything that I wanted to discuss.

Any refusal to do things he wanted me to do, was also retaliated against, in the form of mental abuse, silent treatment or threat of a break up. I spent hours a night, after getting home from work, helping him with his company business, many time until 3 am. It did not matter if I was tired or had to work the next day.

I ended up giving up on any preferences, any opinions and any ideas. Everything was his way. My days were spent doing things for him and neglecting important things I needed to get done for myself.

Now people are nicer  to me because I am more myself. They do like me…surprise surprise. I had been brainwashed into thinking that everyone was against me and everyone hated me.

I have had nice compliments about my quality of work, my compassion with the residents and that I am fun to be around, in the last couple of weeks.

I am beginning to get back what was taken away from me. My life force is beginning to come back. Being in an abusive relationship is like having every drop of life force sucked out of you.

SO, yay for 2 months of healing. I will continue to work on my videos on YouTube about abuse. They seem to be helping people who see them. The first few weeks after an abusive relationship are very dark. Once you realize that someone has been leveraging your love and kindness against you, it is easy to become depressed…even suicidal.

I spent hours a day reading about narcissistic abuse and watching videos by people who have been through it. I bought the Spartan Life Coach course “Overcoming Narcissistic Abuse.” I would recommend it and I believe it saved my life. I was feeling suicidal and the only thing that kept me here was feeling responsible for my kids.

Everything was very dark. I distrusted everyone.

The course has videos and mild hypnosis tracks to listen to. I listened to them every day. several times. They really helped.

I celebrate my freedom from abuse and my new found knowledge about how to change, in order to not attract toxic personalities.

Blessings,

Annie

Starting to Feel Better Now

Thank you for your care and support. I am feeling better tonight. As many of you know, I was in the ER the night before last. I was having pain that I thought was a urinary tract infection. The doctor ran cultures and blood work. He said that it was the beginning of a relapse of the intestinal infection that I had been hospitalized for a couple of weeks ago.

I have been taking the antibiotics as instructed and hopefully this will work. The hospital probably released me too soon. They want the bed for the next person and the ones with no health insurance get sent out as soon as possible. It is all about the money, as you know.

The day before I was released, there were still quite a bit of white blood cells, when they did the blood work. The next morning the white blood cells had gone down and they released me. It had not been enough time to make a good assessment as to whether the infection had really cleared up.

Also, they had been running 2 kinds of antibiotics through the IV lines for the 3 days I was in the hospital. It was this combination of antibiotics that was working to clear the infection.

When they sent me home, they only gave me a prescription for one of the two antibiotics. I do not know why. I was wondering at the time, but that is what the dr gave me.

The doctor in the ER the other night said that I needed both of the antibiotics to clear this. he did not come right out and say they the hospital doctor made a mistake in sending me home with only one antibiotic. He did not come out and say that they sent me home too soon, upon the white blood cells going down. But I think it was apparent that he disagreed with the decisions that the hospital doctor made.

The ER doctor was very nice. He was much nicer and more communicative than the hospital doctor. He answered all of my questions fully and even let me see on his computer screen the results of all tests. he explained everything to me in a way I could understand it. This is something the hospital doctor was far from doing.

So, he sent me with Levoflaxin. He made the dosage twice the mg that the other doctor had given me. I was sent home from the hospital with 250 mg but this new doctor gave me 500 mg. Could this have been another mistake by the hospital dr? I think that he probably gave me too low of a dosage when I left the hospital.

So, I have the 500 mg of the levoflaxin and he also gave me flagil which is 3 times a day. He said he thought this cocktail should work. He also gave me anti nausea meds because of all the antibiotics, so that I would not feel to sick and stop eating.

Thank you for all of your kind words and thoughts. I cannot afford to go into the hospital again. I already missed a few days. The next paycheck is going to be low. I do not even know how I will make it through the next few weeks.

I appreciate all of your prayers and thoughts,

Annie

Psychological Damage and Retraumatization

People with mental illness often have psychological damage from being subject to abuse during childhood.

Then very often they are retraumatized in adulthood by ending up being the victims of predators, There are narcissistic people that prey people who have C-PTSD from childhood abuse.

Some predators actually will evaluate you during conversations early in the relationship. They find out about your past and what the effects were.

Yes,  when they were seeming to be so sweet and caring, they were pumping you for information, in order to asses how broken you were.

These predators know that broken people are easier to brainwash and drag into their world of control and manipulation. The relationships we have with people like this, retraumatize us and add to the C-PTSD we already had.

You have chosen to click on this post because the title of it struck a nerve with you. Most likely you have been abused in your lifetime. It may have been during your childhood and / or it may have been as an adult. Many people that were abused as children , end up in abusive relationships as adults.

The psychological damage from living in abuse is extensive and can cause depression, severe anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and other mental illnesses. It is also common that people with other mental disorders such as depersonalization disorder, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder , social anxiety and  insomnia have experienced abuse during their lifetimes.

As people with mental illness, we sometimes make choices that are harmful to us that other people would not make.

We are so used to things being abnormal and painful that we tend to not notice the red flags of an abusive relationship until it is too late.

The mental illness causes us to end up in codependent , manipulative, abusive relationships. On the flip side, these relationships that cause severe psychological damage and we end up with mental illness that we may not have already had.

Which one comes first? The mental illness, the psychological damage, the abusive relationships? It is hard for us to tell. If you think back through your past , if you can remember, then you will most likely identify abuse against your mental health. 

Situations of trauma cause PTSD. The people who tend to be the most affected are the ones who have had some kind of mental trauma in their past.

There are cases of severe trauma (like military horrors),  that can cause PTSD , even of the person had a “normal” past. But a lot of the people who endure ptsd that never seems to go away, had some form of abuse prior to that trauma.

It is sometimes difficult to identify abuse from our past.  For some people it is glaringly obvious and for others it has been blocked out by their own brain.

The brain wants to protect itself from further trauma and will black out memories and deny us access to them.

People with psychological damage often have more than one mental disorder. In addition you may carry with you a feeling that you are not good enough to have a healthy relationship.

If you are carrying C-PTSD be careful of predators that may end up retraumatizing you. You do not need to sustain more mental damage.

Do not automatically assume that if someone is asking about your past and being a good listener that they care about you.

There are red flags of abusers that you should be aware of. You can search the tag Red flags of abuse or narcissistic abuse.

Learn the patterns and behaviors of narcissists and other abusers. There are typical patterns and things to look for.

You will identify the red flags if you are aware of them. Things like “love bombing” and “devaluing” are terms you should search, if you are not aware of them.

There is a great youtube site called Self-care Haven. She has videos that you should watch if you do not know the tactics of narcissists and how they draw you in.

“Those People” with Bipolar Disorder ; Stigma and Misconceptions

There is widespread misconception and stigma about bipolar disorder. Many people have the belief that anyone with bipolar disorder is mentally unbalanced, to the point of not being reliable or trustworthy.

People with bipolar disorder often keep their condition to themselves at work and in certain social situations. There is a reasonable risk of people feeling differently about you, once they find out you have bipolar disorder.

In one documentary I watched, many of the people interviewed, confused bipolar with other mental illnesses like schizophrenia and considered people with bipolar to be out of touch with reality.

When people were asked the initial question of what they knew about bipolar disorder, they began to look somewhat uncomfortable in their body language and facial expression. As they described what they thought they knew about bipolar disorder, they had a detached way of talking about it.

They would say things like  “They get happy one minute and then really angry the next, and then happy again. They are completely unpredictable. Anything can cause them to have a sudden angry outburst.”

The thing that I noticed beyond their words, was the way they kind of detached themselves from people with bipolar, by seeming as though  “those bipolar people” are people that they never interact with.

They had the assumption that it would be very apparent to them that the someone was very mentally ill, if they ever were to run into a bipolar person. The people in the interviews thought that bipolar people were very different from everyone else and that they would not just fit in or blend in with everyone else.

I could feel a real sense of detachment and a wanting to be detached from anyone with bipolar disorder, from many of the people in the interview.  It was clear that a lot of people assume that they never interact with any people that have bipolar disorder.

Since the estimated percentage of people with bipolar disorder is between 2 and 3 percent of the population,  it is likely that most people know someone with bipolar disorder, and that they interact with them at some point, during the course of their day to day lives.

I would venture to say that almost no one could pick out the person who has bipolar disorder, if they were to guess based on personalities and behaviors of the people they know.

Bipolar disorder causes suffering to the person that has it, more than to the people around them There is no reason that you would know that your co-worker has bipolar disorder, unless they chose to tell you. The same goes for your classmates, your waitress, your doctor,your pastor and even your family members.

People with bipolar disorder can to be very kind and compassionate to others, and understanding of people who have pain and suffering. One of the best nurses I know has bipolar disorder. She is far more compassionate to the patients than most of the nurses I have worked with.

If there is a very angry, mean person that you know and try to avoid interacting with, that is probably not the person with bipolar disorder in your life.

The unreliable coworker that you are always covering shifts for because they call out, is probably not the person in your life with bipolar either. We are probably the coworker that is saving your ass, when the other person calls out again.