Battle Hardened and Attack Ready

I'm not a big believer in the pursuit of Why, particularly when it comes to the why of the way that Narcissists behave. I used to be. I used to be on an a quest to understand their actions, to comprehend their logic, to break all of the assaults and behaviors and manipulations down into little bite size pieces with explanation, coat them with the sweet sauce of exposition and make them more palatable for me to chew up and swallow.

I spent scads of time on this journey to understand. I wrote checks in an attempt to purchase relevance. I thinked and thought and thunk some more in my efforts to figure it and them out. The only answer I received had more to do with acceptance of their natures than understanding of their motivations; they do what they do cause they do it. But that was a different post.

In my failed Quest to understand the Holy Grail of Why They Do the Evils They Do, though, I did learn a lot. Most of what I learned concerned the How of their actions.

ACoNs are trained from day one to NotSee and to UnSee. We know the truth of most situations, in my experience, as we are generally intuitive, observant and highly attuned to the gestures and actions of those around us. These attributes are often keys to our survival. We know what's really happening, but we are forced by our Nfamily to carry those truths silently within ourselves and to keep mum. We know the truth of the evil deeds, but we are trained to protect the perpetrators from their own actions with lies. Then, in the ironic twist that is inherent to life with Narcs, we are blamed for their evil actions in the first place.

It's the definition of CrazyMaking. How does a child survive this paradox? We learn to UnSee, at least to the best of our abilities. Of course, it makes us sick and causes us great pain, but we become masters of denial.

So, when we try to get better, when we begin to walk a path we hope will bring us to healing, we often are surprised by the outright heinous, forcefully aggressive assaults that the Narcs begin to hit us with. We've been ingesting their lies for so long, making up our own lies to protect ourselves for so long that invariably at some point we began to believe them.

I remember telling myself that surely it couldn't have been as bad as I felt. They probably didn't mean it that way. I was being overly sensitive. I wasn't perfect either, and maybe I was being too hard on them.

No wonder I couldn't be honest enough to see their attacks for the declarations of war that they were; I couldn't even be honest with myself about the facts of the abuse I'd suffered at their hands. I was stripped to the bone emotionally and had no capability to understand my own actions, no less someone else's. Throw Narcissism in the mix and all bets of comprehension were off. It was all I could do to even cope.

In retrospect, though, I can see a clear pattern of escalation from the very first boundary that I drew with the N's to the final storming of the beach that resulted in No Contact.

In the movie Casino, Joe Pesci plays strongman Nicky Santoro, protector to casino veep Ace. His portrayal of the character is terrifying partly, I think, because Joe Pesci's what, five feet tall? Regardless of his small stature, no matter what he looks like or what he seems to be, though, he's a vicious, brutal killer. This is how Ace (Robert DeNiro) describes Nicky.

"You beat Nicky with fists, he comes back with a bat. You beat him with a knife, he comes back with a gun. And you beat him with a gun, you better kill him, because he'll keep comin' back and back until one of you is dead."

Set aside reason, forget about reasonableness. This is how Narc's against the wall of a boundary communicate; with an ever evolving and escalating series of attacks. Civil tools aren't going to get them to back off.

You want them to stop calling you to scream at you? They're going to call you to scream AND they're going to get someone else to call you to scream at you too. You ask them to stay away from your children? They contact those children in every way they can think of, even moreso than they've ever shown any desire to talk to them before. You change your number? They show up at your house. You call the police when they show up at your house? They show up at your work. You ask them to leave? They call your customer service hotline to complain about how you treated them while pretending to be a non-involved customer. You manage to find a way to cut them out of your life completely? They stalk you and find out who your non-involved friends are, make nice with them and try to turn them against you. You lock your doors? They peer through your windows. You move on? They hunt you down.


They do not stop. Ever.


They can go into a cycle of dismissiveness, sure. They'll move on at points, find new victims, stay away for awhile if they can find other sources of Narc Supply. Junkies can usually find a new supplier, you know (but that doesn't mean that they forget their favorite drug.) Mine did, and there have been times when I've been lulled into the deceptive calm; into believing that silence is equivalent to serenity and that maybe they've just given up, gotten over it, moved on. This isn't truth, though.

They are fully capable of changing their game, developing different tactics and strategies, and they're good at it. (This, more than anything else that I know of, speaks volumes about them. If they are capable of changing the way that they come at me to hurt me, then they are absolutely capable of changing the fact that they are hurting me. Simple math then makes it easy to deduce that the capability to change is there; willingness to do so is what's missing on their part.) I've made it hard for them to get to me, and this creates some space because they aren't willing to work that hard, at least not today. They're getting their fix somewhere else, you see, so right now at this very moment, I get a pass.

But I'm not off the hook from their attacks. I'm back-burnered, that's all. Sooner or later, I've no doubt, there will be a trigger (my money's on my oldest DD turning 18 in a couple of years) and then they will be back in force (probably coming at my daughters rather than me; predators always go for what they see as the easiest prey first.) We say in alcoholic recovery that the disease of alcoholism doesn't go away when we stop drinking, it just hangs out behind our backs doing push-ups and getting stronger, waiting for an opening to slither back into an active status. So too, I believe, are the Narcs lurking in the shadows out there, just thinkin' shit up.

I'm not a paranoid conspiracy theorist. I don't sit around detailing or stressing about the ways that they're planning to get me. I just don't ignore the truth anymore.

Almost two years ago, the DD's let me know that NSis and GCYB had been trying to contact the DD's via social networking. This was almost three years since the last time I'd spoken to either NSis or GCYB. We're talking absolute radio silence, not a phone call, a letter, nothing, nada, zilch. The DD's have always had private profiles, but we took the additional steps to systemically block NSis and GCYB (and the minions that I know of) from the DD's profiles. And I started checking NSis and GCYB's profiles once a month from a dummy profile. I didn't really want to know what was going on in their lives, but I know them pretty well. They've rewritten history to the point now that they really believe that I'm the bad guy, the catalyst of their unease and destruction. This works to my advantage in a way, because they're not careful, they stand so firmly on their false moral superiority that they don't particularly watch what they say.

I'd lay dollars to doughnuts that if they did succeed in getting a response from the DD's or making a connection somehow, they'd be crowing their success from the mountaintops. So, once a month, I check and see what kind of shit they're flinging on their cyber walls.

Two years ago just after Thanksgiving, NSis posted a whole bunch of pictures of the "family" as it exists today all dressed up and posed by the Christmas tree. And the title of one of those Norman Rockwell portraits of traditional family bliss: "FUCK YOU VANCI." Of course she used my real name.


After NM's drug induced and mismanaged near death stay at the hospital in April of last year, NSis posted a comment about how "all the family is here with us now." Then she followed it up with a clarification, "Well, all the good family." Then yet another clarification, "I didn't mean any of the extended family in [another state], just Vanci."

So, no. I'm not off the radar. The guns might be pointed in a different direction momentarily, but they didn't lose my coordinates, not by a long shot. So they'll come at me or they won't when they feel like it, and they'll escalate as they see fit. They never took my opinion or feelings into account in the first place, even when I was the glue that held their lives together, their indentured servant who spoke to each and every one of them every day. They're sure as fuck not going to take my boundaries or wishes into account now.

Just like Nicky Santoro, they'll keep coming at me, one way or another.

That's dark, isn't it? Frightening, even.

But guess what?

They can't touch me.

I've done the work to break the cycle, and there isn't a single person on the face of the planet that I care about who doesn't know exactly who the Narcs in my NFOO are, and exactly what they do. There also isn't a single soul I care about who doesn't know exactly who I am, what I've been through and what I stand for. They may have rewritten history in their minds, but I've got the facts, the proof and witnesses galore of what and who they really are, what it really is and who I really am.

I have truth on my side, and I stand ready for anything they can throw.

Come at me, bros.

And we'll just see who ends up in the (metaphorical) hole in the desert.

Love,
Vanci

Calling Out the Monsters

I'm struggling with shadow memories right now.

It's been five years since I made my Stand with the NFOO, and almost as long since I declared NC.  I've had two brief interactions in this time, once when NM was in ICU and once in a follow-up counseling appointment.  I left those interactions reaffirmed in my decision to sever all ties.  Any niggling doubt as to whether or not I would ever reestablish contact under any terms was blasted away by the revelations of ENF and NM's direct abuse of one of my DDs.  NSis and GCYB stand with them, just as they have from the beginning, and I'm not interested in knowing what they know or hearing their side of the story.  They were abused just as I was, they're aware of who and what they stand with.  They're adults and can make their own decisions about the degrees of evil they're willing to live with and absorb and further pass on.  Their silence and guilt by association leaves them in the same category of abusers that NM and ENF are in.  When you throw your lot with thieves, you're complicit.  Period.

I'm fucking done with these people.  Done.  Like wouldn't piss on them to put them out if they were on fire done.  If they call me, I won't answer and won't listen to the voicemail done.  Emails will be deleted unread done.  Letters will be returned unopened done.  If they show up on this blog they'll be deleted done.  If I see them anywhere, I'll walk the other way done.  We're talking a turning of the back without even a fart in their general direction done.  There is no conceivable circumstance that could occur in my life that will change this.  Done.


And I think that this absolute and crystal clear internal knowledge that I will never have a relationship with any of them has begun to open some previously locked (chained, deadbolted, barred and guarded,) door within me.  I've remembered a lot over the last few years, and I've been in the fortunate position to accept these memories and to see them clearly for what they are and to analyze how they've affected me.  This, more than anything, has been a key to my healing.

Clear, concrete memories are tangible.  I can wrap my hands and my heart and my head around them, and I can process them.  Ugly as they are at times, I can haul them out of the shadow world of doubt and insecurity and put them on the kitchen counter in the bright light of day and make them show themselves.  I can chop them up and slice them and dice them and dissect them and see them for what they truly are at their core.  Without that clarity, well, it's like fighting steam.

I have certain tangible memories that have surfaced over the last few years that are, simply put, horrors.  They're not repressed memories so much as things that I just had to put in a box and lock away in some part of my soul until I was ready to see it for what it was.  I always remembered them, but I didn't always have the strength to let them out of the box.  They're the stuff of nightmares, and they've come bubbling up at appropriate times, usually triggered by something that's happened in some other, safer area of my life.  I've done what we all have to do when the monster peeks out of the closet; I've made a decision to face the demon du jour.  The other option, of course, is to flee, but I've found that the fight response is more effective.  And I've become better each time I've battled it.

I can feel something bubbling up now, and I'm trying to be ready for it.  I just hate this part.  Hate it, hate it!
I'm stuck here in this limbo of restlessness; not sleeping very well, fighting off invisible monsters in a semi-conscious state, snapping at things that I'd normally take in stride, feeling sensitive for not a whole hell of a lot of reason, generally just weirding myself out for no obvious reason.

What I've learned in the last few years is two-fold, though.
First, it'll come.  I have to relax, do the day-to-day, keep myself in what we in AA recovery call 'a fit spiritual condition,' and it will come.  The locks will turn, the chains will fall off and the door will open.  The monster can't, won't or doesn't want to stay hidden away in the closet.  It'll peek out eventually, I know.  Although some part of me dreads its appearance, another - stronger - part of me knows that the confrontation will be anti-climactic - memories are only shadow monsters after all - and I will be better, feel better when it's done.
Second, I know that I'm going to be fine, no matter what comes out of that door.  I know because it's happened before and I've been fine, even better for dealing with it.  I know because you've done the same and look how well you are! :)  And I know, most importantly, that I'll be fine because the only possible monsters are memories and I'll only have to deal with what was done to me from behind the safe boundary that they can't ever do these things to me again.


Still, I wish it would just come out and let's kick some gravel, already.  I'm too busy doing things like living my happy and healthy life with people I love to sit on my ass waiting for the nasty to surface.

Patience may very well be a virtue, but I'm not sure it's one of mine!

So I'm doing what I know to do, which is something very, very odd that I think most normal, non-ACoN, non-abused people don't have to do; I'm seeking triggers.  And one that sort of wiggled in tonight came from the strangest place.  Ever seen the movie Kung Fu Panda 2?  (I cringe as I even type it; really?  I watched this movie? This is what I did with my evening?)  There's a scene where the baby panda's mother is essentially about to sacrifice herself to protect her child, and I started tearing up.  Visible/tangible evidence of a mother's protection of her child is a pretty obvious trigger, i.e., something that my farcically pathetic excuse for a madre didn't provide, but really?  An animated movie with kung fu and panda in the title.  Wow.  What's next?  Talking dog movies?  LOL.

Laugh or cry, we'll see what dreamland brings tonight.  Whatever it is, I'm ready.

Love,
Vanci

What Changes?

I've had a couple of people ask me lately the same basic question, though phrased differently and in different contexts from each other.  I'm open about my background and as transparent as I can appropriately be about what I've experienced in my life, how I've overcome abuses I've suffered and how I think/feel/live, so I get a lot of these types of questions.  I have a fairly large capacity for self-inspection, which is certainly not something that I try to hide, and my openness about my emotional journey attracts all sorts of folks who are seeking something in their own lives.  

The question I've been getting is something along the lines of: How do you decide to change?  

How do we get away from abusive people?  Declare boundaries and hold them firm?  Determine what is appropriate treatment and what is abuse?  How do we decide that or when enough is enough and most importantly, how do we know when and that we can take definitive action? 

We talk a lot in these communities about the steps that we take once action is determined to be necessary, and that is of IMMENSE value.  In leaving an abusive family system or relationship(s), we're sailing off blind into uncharted (at least by us so far in life) waters.  Thar be monsters thar, matey.  The experience of others who've been before us or are journeying with us is incredibly important to have.  But, before we rig up the sails and leave port, we've made a decision to do so.  What dictates that timing, I wonder?

It's different for everyone, I'm sure.  I read a lot of our stories that seem to have a jumping off point that's the result of cumulative abuse over years, lifetimes.  We've been fed, as DH puts it, little spoonfuls of shit for long enough to be tired of eating shit.  (Bless that man for his colorful descriptions!)

Often there's no MAJOR ORDEAL that is the final atrocious act that pushes us into action, it's just yet another Everyday Abuse or Narc Attack or Crazymaker Tactic.  Often it's no different from the way that we've been treated daily... forever.  But it's the last time, it's the metaphorical straw across our backs and we snap, we've had enough, we spit the shit out of our mouths, we create a wall or a boundary and this time we stick by it, we fortify our defense and we take a stand.

Sometimes there is a major event that pushes us over the line from passive Scapegoat to Defender of Self (or FOC.)  But, for ACoNs, I can almost guarantee that whatever that big final event is, we've dealt with it or something like it before.  So why do we finally wake up and choose to act or react differently than we always have before? 

The Narcs don't change, the abusers don't change, I honestly believe that they are only as capable of change as they are willing to look within and that they are as a whole, completely unwilling to do so.  So, they keep trying to destroy us in the same what that they always have.
Therefore, it's logical to conclude that WE are what changes.  Something in us changes at the end and we become capable and willing to change the game, even if it means - as it almost always does - turning our entire worlds upside down and dealing with the full-blown rage and power of the Narc and Minion Crazymaking Machine.

It was a long time coming, for me, and I don't remember having an Aha moment where everything suddenly became clear.  It was a process to get to the point of willingness, and the fear of loss I had in stepping out of the NFOO's expectations of me was very real.  They'd always been able to express to me clearly that if I stopped towing the company line, I'd be exiled, ostracized, thrown out, worthless to them.  For most of my life, they had the power to erase me as I believed that without them I wouldn't be worthy of existence.  

But, there was some thin wire of steel that found its way into my heart and mind, and I finally had the strength to make a stand.  I wasn't expecting the World War III that my stand cracked open.  It took me by surprise and I was seriously shell-shocked... but.  Something new happened after that final confrontation.  I continued to stand.  That was a first.  

I don't know, still, why I knew that I could remain standing, take it, move on, grow, learn and be better without them that time.  But, I do know for a fact that the final stand was the first time that I reacted to their assault with further resistance.  I made mistakes, sure, and allowed too much discourse, false conversation and wish I'd known how to shut the door completely and immediately.  But, even with my occasional back-sliding and mis-stepping, I still kept moving forward, away from them and their (increasingly easy to spot and avoid) craziness.  

And I know this, too; the longer I stood, the clearer it became that I was making the best possible choice.  

Now, with the perfect clarity of retrospect, I can see it exactly as it progressed.  I know what I did right and I know what I did wrong and I know that I am better off without them than I ever even could have had the possibility of being with them.  

I still don't remember everything; some abuses still lay dormant in me and occasionally one will bubble up as further proof of my rightness in defending myself and discontinuing my relationship with these awful people who called themselves my family.  But, I remember enough to know that the source of my strength in breaking the cycle came from within me.  I'm the one who changed, and I'm ever so glad that I did. 

Love,

Vanci

Kindness Is Not Weakness

Many moons ago, an acquaintance said to me:
"Vanci, you remind me of the saying, 'Do not mistake my kindness for weakness.'"
I accepted this compliment for what it was and graciously said my thanks.  Then, I moved on with my day.  I've occasionally returned to the phrase over the intervening years and wondered what, exactly, this means.

I am, at my core, very kind.  I always have been; after all this is one of the reasons that I was made the Scapegoat in my NFOO.  By definition, I believe, the Scapegoat has to be kind; we're the most empathetic of the collection of personalities that make up the dysfunctional gene pool.  If we weren't, they wouldn't be able to get what they need from us; a person, even as a child, has to be highly sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of those around her in order to ubiquitously serve the needs of those others.  I was, unfortunately, exquisitely wired to be the kind one.  Sometimes I wonder what joyous miracles this compassion could have created had the Narcs not chosen to take advantage of it, and me.

Alas, as we say sometimes in the recovery community - If you've got one foot in yesterday and one in tomorrow, eventually you're going to end up pissing on today.  So, it was... what it was.

Still, when I finally gathered the strength and the resources to jettison myself from that hellish facade of accommodation that I was raised in (and make no mistake, it was I who did all the accommodating,) I had a hard time being 'nice.'  I'd had my natural tendency to nurture, to be kind, to help others taken advantage of for so long that I couldn't distinguish between being 'nice' and being used.  It took awhile to remember that I can absolutely do things that are 'nice' for other people and that I can absolutely choose to be 'nice' without allowing myself to be used up and walked on.

The dividing line seems to lie in my intentions, and that's where I've begun to make a distinction between 'nice' and 'kind.'  More and more I think that being 'nice' means that I'm defining my action by external measurements.  'Nice' is the stiff-necked proper etiquette and corseted action of one who is trying to please those around her.  'Nice' means that I'm trying in my actions to fit into what I think will be acceptable behavior to others.  'Nice' means that I'm trying to do what YOU think is the right thing for me to do.

'Kind,' conversely, comes from an internal source.  I am kind to those around me who need kindness, and there is no expectation of reciprocation or accolade.  When I see a need and fill a need out of the goodness of my generously large heart, I am exercising kindness.  When I take action based on my inherent knowledge that I am doing the right thing, I am being kind.

I can enjoy being kind to others, because I am a fulfilled woman.  It costs me nothing to be kind, usually, and if it does, then I find that I've fallen into the trap of 'niceness' again; typically this happens when I discover that I've been attempting to be kind to a Taker.  Not all Takers are Narcs, I think, but all Narcs are Takers.  The difference for me, now, is that I can step back and see clearly what is happening.  And I can choose to stop being 'nice' and to replace it with kindness, if I feel I should, or to walk away altogether.

There is something very hard and inflexible at the core of my soul, a massive center of strength that I live in.  Like my natural predisposition toward kindness, I believe that I have always possessed this strength.  The Narcs didn't create it, though I've certainly had that core tested over and over again by their abuses.  And my strength has not failed me, has not wavered.  I've  grown stronger.

Strong enough to be kind without being weak.
So, Narcs and Takers of the world beware: Do not mistake my kindness for weakness.  I am stronger than even I know.

Love,
Vanci