I have learned a lot about myself through my interactions with others. Through things I have said to them. Both positively and negatively. Both have given me gifts of enlightenment.
I have discovered that my heart is capable of greater love than I ever imagined was possible. That I am far kinder than I have ever given myself credit for being. I have seen great beauty within myself, but I have also seen a very ugly side.
I have said some things which have shocked me to the core, and for which I feel regret and shame.
But those things made me stop and look at myself, and take stock. They enabled me to access hidden wounds which needed to be brought into the light to be healed. Sometimes the worst of ourselves gives us an opening into the best of ourselves. Not always, but it is a gamble worth taking. Or not.
The greatest gift a person can give you is to show you their unadulterated self. To speak to you with honesty. To share with you their truths, their thoughts and feelings. This is not easy for a person to do, as sometimes what you say will hurt the other person. Not deliberately, but accidentally. We are often dishonest with others because we fear that expressing our real thoughts and feelings will do more harm than good, and will cause us to be rejected by others.
For the most part humans seek harmony in relationships. We lie not to deceive, but to maintain the status quo.
Which is fine as long as everyone is content with the situation, but sometimes it creates a stasis which stifles movement and self expression.
People get stuck in roles.
At first those roles are appealing, they give us a sense of belonging, and we play along, happy to be of use, relieved to be wanted. But then they start to become cages from which we yearn to break free. We may truly be the person who others think we are, the role may fit us well, but there is more to us than just one facet, one role. We want to be free to express more of ourselves, to grow, change, and evolve, and feel truly a part of the group, the human race, as a whole human rather than just one limb.
But how do we break free.
If we are known for our kindness, how do we express those moments when we do not feel kind.
If people come to us for comfort, how to we let them know when we can’t give that needed comfort because we need comforting instead.
If we are known for our rebelliousness, how can we ever be conformist.
If we are considered wise, how do we reveal our foolishness.
If people think we are angry, how can we be happy.
If we are the group’s asshole, how can we be appreciated for those moments when we are not an asshole.
If we are the crazy one, will anyone notice us when we are sane.
We try to please others in so many complicated ways. We seek approval, and if getting that approval means we have to be an outcast, then we will sacrifice that part of us who belongs to keep others happy, to help others feel that they belong.
My mouth gets me into all sorts of trouble with others. Mostly because I am curious and ask a lot of questions. My most common foot in mouth moment is when I spot an inconsistency between who someone says they are and who they are actually being. I want to know why they are pretending to be who they are not when they could be who they are. I know I shouldn’t ask, people don’t like it when I do, but I truly want to know their answer.
I am particularly overly curious about behaviours which we all do, just because we all do them doesn’t mean we do them for the same reason as others. I know why I do them, I want to know why you do them. I seek to understand more, get more pieces of the puzzle, see the bigger, more whole picture.
I spend a great deal of my time biting my tongue and telling myself to shut up. Curiosity is a real bitch, but I love her.
I also love solving problems. Mostly my own problems. I tend to stay out of other people’s problems, unless they make their problems mine. If someone complains to me about something, I examine them to find the cause, as usually it comes back to something they are doing or not doing, and I point it out.
Most people don’t like to know that they are the cause of their problem, they prefer to place the blame elsewhere. I know from experience that I am almost always the creator of my problems, so I apply this to others. If you’re the cause of your problem, then you are also the solution – if someone else is the cause of your problem and you’re playing no part at all in it, then you’re stuck waiting for a miracle to happen – as in the other person to decide that they are the problem which is unlikely to happen as they may not see themselves as the problem or that there is a problem at all, and if they see a problem they probably shift the blame for it elsewhere.
A friend once asked me why others reject them so often. My answer was that they are so afraid of being rejected that they reject other people first, this makes other people feel unwanted in their life, so they move on to someone who welcomes them with open arms. This friend doesn’t speak to me any more. I guess I should have kept quiet, just listened and said ‘Poor you, other people are such shits’. That would have made them happy, but it would have made me miserable because I don’t believe it.
The other thing I do which unsettles people, is that I shift gears very regularly. Once a person knows one side of my character, I like to introduce them to another side. This often doesn’t go down well because they’ve assigned me a role in their life and I’m being a pain in the ass by not accepting it and doing what they want me to do, being who they’ve decided I am. I’ve tried playing their game, but I don’t have the patience.
I love discovering as much about other people as possible. I want them to shock me, challenge me, express all of themselves to me.
That is partly why I behave the way I do, to encourage others to do the same with me. I want to know everything about you, the light, the dark, the in-between. The beautiful and the ugly, the beautiful ugly and the ugly beautiful. All the various facets and sides of your character.
I don’t have to like all of you to love you.
You don’t have to like all of me to love me. Or do you.
I don’t think so, maybe I’m an idiot of the highest degree of the order of idiots. Even idiots have ranks, and I’ve given myself a high one for ego purposes.
Tell me you love me, tell me you hate me, it is all the same, it reveals you to me, it reveals me to me too, and I love that.
An Upturned Soul 
Great post, and it has me thinking. I’m definitely going to share this on my blog FB wall.
It’s true though: from personal experience, I would like to go back in time and punch myself in the face. How can we be ourselves and tweak ourselves at appropriate times. In my post today, I tackle the same issues in regard to dating at adoring the one you are with for more than one day a year instead of the dreadful Valentines Day. Literature and anecdotes about being yourself while dating or trying to date or even starting conversation.
As I am writing this, the notification glowed in orange and you liked the post. So many thanks for reading (and hopefully enjoying)!
We have to put ourselves on a pedestal. We have to get knocked down. We have to get back up. If we don’t have expectations for ourselves, how can we amount to anything? It’s important to learn from mistakes and grow.
It’s important to be ourselves and foolish, as I like to say.
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Thank you!
I chuckled when I saw the orange glow sychronicity.
Loved your post! Everything about it, the extracts of the book woven into your post were great, and all that which you spoke about and the way you expressed it was well thought out and wonderfully human. You have a brilliant mind and a perceptive heart!
The wonderfully human bit is the part I look for the most when I read because it is delicious.
I tend to stay off pedestals, I’ve tried putting myself on one in the past but my sense of balance is off kilter and I always fall off – which is usually the best part of the experience. And if someone else puts me on one I throw myself off of it, I prefer being in the thick of things, of living, making mistakes (experiential experiments) – trying to learn something from them or just having a laugh at how ridiculous, stupid, klutzy I’ve been.
My role models tend to be people who immerse themselves into the chaos of life and don’t try and tidy it up, but enjoy the disorder of it because in the mess there is a certain perfect order all of its own.
I’ve been with the love of my life for well over a decade, the relationship is creatively messy and fun because of it. One of the most insightful conversations we have had, where we both were thoroughly open and honest, happened after a period of lots of small conflicts – we were both trying to be who we thought the other person was in love with and trying to do love according to the rules of love, and we were getting annoyed at each other for not appreciating the effort we were making – such as doing Valentine’s and Anniversaries. And we both admitted that we really disliked doing Valentine’s and Anniversaries and preferred to spontaneously express our love when the urge hit, fresh, hot, right out of the pan, not when it was supposed to hit according to whoever invented the rules of love, reheated love like a microwaveable ready meal.
The most precious moments and expressions of love for me are the day to day ones where you see how much the other person gets you, loves you, because it shows in small gestures and thoughtfulness. And in those moments when someone trusts you with the parts, thoughts, feelings, dreams, which they keep to themselves most of the time. You know they love you because they’re sharing their secret self and they know you love them because you respect their secret self.
Thank you so much for sharing 😀
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Thank you for replying and for your kind words!
The comment is very well constructed, and I couldn’t agree with you more about relationships. I wish you and your partner the very best for years to come, spontaneity and all! Trust and honesty definitely creates a strong foundation, and a strong relationship.
Thank you again!
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Thank you 😀
My comments and replies are usually a rambling mess of thoughts inspired by others, and you definitely inspired me.
I love Kurt Vonnegut. I read Slaughterhouse Five when I was an angsty teenager and ‘So it goes’ just seemed like pure genius. But it took me a long time to really understand it (or think and feel that I understand it), like with most things with me the penny has to pass through many layers of thick skull before it finally drops.
You’re awesome, thanks for sharing it!
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Dear Ursula,
I feel I have neglected you as everyday I am eager to read your posts, I read them again and again, I am so touched by them and I love your writing and your meditations and yet I couldn’t write anything to let you know how much I appreciate your presence in my life.
I have been thinking about why I couldn’t write and then I discovered it has a lot to do with what you have just analysed as I am able to express myself only if I wish to express my admiration for you, but I felt uneasy to express myself and to be a burden to communicate what I am going through, as it is not exciting at all. But reading your post today I understood I was unfair as I feared not to be the kind of person I would like to be if I did.
It is incredible how your words echo with my experience, how your mum’s experience is close to my mum’s. Yet, you are one step further, I am still very angry and trapped, stuck in my life as I can’t become what I am, but I am tied up to what they told me to be, these words are in your post… Since you have helped me with your words, your understanding and your wise perspective on things, I have improved but my process is not a continuous one and I still withdraw from life as I don’t accept myself, as my parents didn’t. At my old age I shouldn’t but, as you say it so beautifully while portraying your mum as a little girl craving for her dad’s love, it still hurts to know it will never happen in my life and therefore I wonder how I can offer love to a man if there is such a deep void in myself. I spent night torturing myself wondering if the narcissist is not me, I inquired about it with my shrink and friends, and apparently I am not but am terrified only at the thought. I am about to start reading all the books you mentioned such as Lowen and others (but White, that is out of reach!) as I really need to go deeper. I loved reading your conversation with Simone who is a psychologist and all your replies to people blogging, I has been a great support for me and my grief, to find out it happens out there too.
I wonder if I am feeling so discouraged as I have been teaching in a horrible place where I couldn’t work empathically but all was asked was to punish and scold, something which is not a feature of my nature. I wonder if the whole process of my ex friend (the shrink lady) from seduction to discard hurt me without realizing it. The thing is, although we are conscious, it hurts and we are left to face this horrible confusion where we feel the culprits but we have just been under their thumbs, warped ones for sure.
I have been pondering for weeks if I have the right to tell you what I am about to, but your post encouraged me today: therefore I will talk to you about you as though we had really met. I mean, I do consider you a real friend but I am aware there is a part of everyone hidden because of the nature of the cyber space, there are boundaries and I don’t want to trespass them in any case, so please forgive me if I do this, but it’s my way to show you my unadulterated self. In one of your previous post you describe yourself as a good mirror for people and how people didn’t like the fact there was your true self as well, as you said they disliked it nor had the patience to discover and to accept.
You are not a mirror, Ursula, you are a wonderful person, you deserve to be loved and appreciated for what you really are and maybe the fact you have such a strong and well defined personality doesn’t suit those who look for a plain mirror. I felt a certain sadness in your words, or maybe I project, but I feel that even the bloggers here are so grateful to your open and generous attitude and I wouldn’t want you to feel just a mirror.
Please forgive me if I shouldn’t talk like this, but this is part one of the reasons why I couldn’t write as I don’t consider you are a mirror.
Also you wrote somewhere about the saviour’s attitude which got on your nerves, and in that statement I do find myself too, but I think this comes from our innate fear of being invaded.
Thank you for being there for me, meeting you means so much to me and I am so disappointed by myself as I expected to be on the good track to become “normal” but my past experiences are hunting me: I am fighting against them, but I am often prey to the tub states of mind you once mentioned. In a short while is my birthday and I can’t really accept it, I’d love to grab a big rubber, well you know…I have written a couple of poems recently but I realize how stuck I am feeding my soul with my parents’ nourishment. I am so sorry I don’t sound positive and after all your energy you put to help me I am still back at square one.
I really would like you to know I think of you and always prey the universe (my own way, very unreligious) for you to experience beauty and blissful moments.
seashell
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Hi 😀 I was wondering how you were doing!
And thank you so much, your words always inspire me!
I truly mean what I said about wanting to know all of a person, because no man is an island, they are an entire universe! When we share our universes we create a very real and earthy kind of magic. If we only share parts of it, the parts we think others will like, and hide the parts we think others won’t like, how will we learn to see the beauty in what we think is ugly, how will we discover new parts of ourselves and new ways to view the parts we already know.
Relationships flow both ways, if we only share certain parts with others and withhold the rest then they will do the same with us and we all end up feeling trapped by the roles we think that we are supposed to play, and only give what we think we are supposed to provide, what is expected of us… and we miss many treasures and mysteries that way. Or something like that.
I love what you have shared here, and your courage to share it is warm and encouraging and inspiring. You’re very perceptive and sharing your perceptions gives others access to your insights, and gives you access to the joy of sharing, especially the thrilling freedom, self-affirming rush, of saying what you are thinking without holding back, breaking the barrier of censorship created by your (child of narcissists) highly tuned radar for knowing what others want to hear.
And you do not ever need to apologise to me for being yourself and expressing yourself. That’s something I feel very strongly about because I spent most of my life feeling as though I should apologise to everyone for my existence, that I was using up their precious air by being alive, that the oxygen was wasted on me. And I felt the need to cater to what others needed to make up for taking up space on their planet when I wasn’t invited to do so. I still find myself holding my breath for no reason other than old habits die hard. It was exhausting, and I finally snapped out of it… although it does still linger and always will because the wounds we have create who we are, they hurt, but their pain inspires us to grow as we do, and it is all a part of the whole of who we are.
I am very happy you have shared this, so you don’t need to hide wondering if I going to get moody on you about it, keep being yourself and blossoming and discovering how great it is not to live by old rules but to invent new ones and take risks.
Tanti baci e abbracci ♥
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Thank you Ursula. Just to follow the same track:), i know oyu don’t like it, but here i express myself again (and then i will be banned out of your blog!!), but i do worry for you and how you feel as you are a sentivite sponge to everyone’s mood and swing and you put a lot of energy in your replies. I really hope you can survive..I know you love this, but your resilience is like a battle you carry out against N monsters. I told my shrink today how grateful I am to ..you!!!! He doesn’t react in a crisp way, which I appreciate.
Once, twenty years ago, some very good English friends of mine made up a game where i had to be taxed each time i apologize or said thank you- i can tell you it was quite a sensational amount of money at the end of the day!!! We really lived the same things…i do admire your strength though, i am a boneless creature prone to get desperate every minute.You are a rock and a very sensitive person at the same time.
Wishing you a lovely night with your beloved gentleman, you are both lucky to have each other!
ps i was wondering if i can write a line to the psychologist you were having a conversation a while ago on your blog
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Mi fai sorridere 😀 You’re going to have to try much harder to get yourself banned!!! 😉
Yes, you’re right, I am a sponge, but I know I am and have worked out ways of dealing with it. It’s useful too, it makes learning more interactive, and I use it when I reply as I try to tune in to the feeling held within the comment. Some days I’m just off though, which can be awkward or funny. On the blog it’s easy to stay balanced, and everyone is lovely, and I get as much as I give, actually I get more than I give. I have learned a lot from everyone who has been kind enough to take the time to communicate with me and have met some wonderful people (pointing at you) and I’m very grateful for that.
The game your friends had you play is excellent (I love games which are mentally stimulating and raise awareness), even more so because they’re English and in the UK apologising and saying thank you is part of almost every sentence 😀
You have great strength and perseverance and resilience. You know it. And getting desperate is normal and natural, life tends to make everyone feel that way on a regular basis. Desperation is a facet of love for life, we would not feel it if we didn’t care so much, and caring is a good thing even when it feels like the worst thing. I get desperate too, and all sorts of other uncomfortable and agonising feelings, they’re a part of living and being human. Those sort of feelings connect us with others… I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t feel those feelings.
And my beloved gentleman and I thank you for your lovely wishes, and wish you many blessings for a happy evening of love too 🙂
ps – If you want to communicate with another commenter, ‘reply’ – there is a reply option under their comment – to their comment that way the comment will be directed at them and not at me (the blogger). If they’re following the comment thread they should get a notification (at least I think that’s how it works). Or you can @ them – @their name – at the beginning of your comment.
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ho l’ortografia di una gallina ma é il computer, ti giuro!!!!
I am feeling better, although no gentleman in my life, no valentine:). I do try my best but I struggle a lot against my should I or shouldn’t I.It means a lot to me to write to you, to be able to express myself, admitting as a possibility that someone else might read me..always feel ridiculous, as you might have guessed, so self conscious, there is a voice whispering “who do you think you are?” It would already great to be myself!
You are teaching me great things.
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😀 Ma va!
That should I or shouldn’t I conundrum is such a pain!!! I used to have a nightmare trying to decide on anything, one of the reasons I hate shopping is because of it! I’ve found that the best decisions are impulsive ones, as my impulses are more accurate at making decisions of which I enjoy living with the consequences. When my mind logically thinks through a decision, I tend to regret it or talk myself out of ever doing anything.
Being very shy and self-conscious and seeking a way to stop being so painfully shy and self-conscious I learned to pay attention to other people and figure out if what I thought they were thinking about me was what they were actually thinking about me… and I found that for the most part people are thinking about themselves just like I was thinking about myself, and when they do think about me it’s to wonder what I’m thinking about them. So… I eventually realised that – Who do you think you are – is really – Who do you think I am.
People are completely self-obsessed. Me too. It’s normal and natural and a part of being human.
And you can pretty much say whatever you want as long as you apply some consideration for other to it, as in remembering that we’re all human.
You are yourself, you are being yourself, you just haven’t completely realised it yet.
And everything you share on here is beautiful because it is wonderfully, openly human. You’re more stunning, fascinating and inspiring than you know, and that not knowing it is very attractive and lovely.
Et voila! 🙂
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I would love to see the beauty you see in me as you do…far from there, alas. I have just read your last replies on N, and i have to thank you for all you do for people like me, all this knowledge is impossible to find in books. The more I read on N though, the more I am convinced unluckily in INs there are plenty of N traits and features, for instance concerning ideal love;the only thing that changes is that I can’t pretend with anyone (and this is why I always get into trouble) and I am not interested in controlling people at such extent that people can easily think I am prone to be controlled, which dep inside me is not true, and this drives me berserk and I explode. What do you reckon?
Thank you for all your support, these are hard days for me, the bitter aftertaste of what I lived last year comes back, as you say, Ns get under your skin.
On the flipside, i have read somewhere you wrote nothing can get your attention away while you bake pizza!!!!I am pretty much the same, it’s my only Italian genetic legacy!!!!
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Seeing our own beauty is a challenge for everyone because it creates a conflict in our minds between many thoughts and beliefs. So most of us are far from there. This is one of the benefits of relationships because our friends become the keepers of our beauty for us in a certain way, they let us know we’re beautiful to them, thus we can be beautiful and enjoy feeling beautiful without having to deal with the inner conflict which thinking we are beautiful for ourselves creates. This can cause ruptures when a friend has a moment of not seeing us as beautiful. We rely on them and they have let us down because we let them down by not being beautiful to them all the time and the moment spirals into ugliness. So it is better if we see our own beauty for ourselves, then we can enjoy when others see it too without relying on them to think it for us.
There is a very good book which touches upon many of the issues we face within ourselves and in our relationships with other people and society – Compassion and Self-Hate: An Alternative to Despair by Theodore I. Rubin. This book is easy to find and buy 😉
Everyone has N traits. It’s healthy, normal and natural. Having N traits is different from having NPD. Trying to get rid of all traces of N traits from ourselves is an NPD thing to do as it is trying to become a perfect person and creating a perfect persona based on an unrealistic ideal.
We all have ideals, for ourselves, others, and life, which we want to turn into reality – it’s human and it fuels our creativity. Chasing a dream is how humankind evolves. This is largely why those with NPD seem normal to us, because we relate, our N traits relate to theirs… it’s only later as we get to know them that we realise their Narcissism is a disorder and not natural order like ours.
So having an ideal love which you aspire to is normal and natural, and beautiful, it means you know what you love and are inspired by it. The difference with the NPD version of idealism is that it is uncompromising – it’s all or nothing. The ideal exactly as it is has to become a reality or they throw everything and everyone away and start again, searching for their ideal perfectly embodied. Whereas our healthy Narcissism knows that the ideal is there to inspire not necessarily become a reality, it’s a guide of what we would like to have not a strict rule and must have, and we’re flexible and open to change. So if we meet someone who embodies our ideal but not all of it, who is almost perfect but has so much more which we never considered, then our love for them grows us, teaches us, and we know that the same applies to them, we are their ideal love but not all of it, there is more to us, and through the relationship they too will grow and learn, and so love grows, evolves and learns. It is love, speckled with idealism, which flows, changes and grows. NPD love is an ideal which is stagnant, a cage, a prison for all involved.
What you described about the control issue is a part of the natural interaction between all humans. Humans play power games with each other, when these games are healthy (and not NPD) we learn about ourselves and the other person by playing the games. It’s one of the ways we figure out boundaries and get to know what is possible and what is not, what is fair and what is unfair, and so on. It’s a tug-of-war which is fun, a learning game, rather than life or death (which is how those with NPD play it).
I’ve had a similar issue to the one which you describe. I am not interested in controlling the relationships which I have, so I tend to be laid back until someone goes too far and trespasses over a boundary. Then I roar at them to let them know they’ve gone too far. Most people understand that because we all do it. We all can trespass over other people’s boundaries, and it’s up to them to let us know and up to us to accept it and learn from it. Everyone has different boundaries and this is how we figure them out. It also depends on where people live – deep inside of themselves or outside of themselves, or somewhere between the two – and some people have different residences within and outside of themselves for different types of interactions.
My guess is that you live deep inside of yourself and people trespass way over your boundaries because they are trying to find you – and the people most prone to being that bold when it comes to trespassing are those with NPD because they do not recognise other people’s boundaries at all.
I used to live deep inside of myself, and realised I needed to move, or at least have more than one home – a more public one and a private one (connected by an underground tunnel) 🙂
What do you think – I hope some of that makes sense, I’m a bit distrait at the moment 🙂
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Dear Ursula,
Thank you for oyur reassuring interpretation, i find interesting what you say about living deep inside and not exposing myself, which apparently leads people to trespass my boundaries.
I am in panic at the moment as I am reading Alexander Lowen’s book on N and it’s appalling to see how many N traits I have; I am doubting about myself so much and i think that if i discover i am the N, I will not be able to accept it, it’s like being a monster.What he says about rejection and abandonment is true in my life story, my failing management of anger as well, and the fact that I try hard not to ask for help as i would like to be able to sort myself out and be like anybody else. i do not know if it’s a matter of self suggestion but I feel as though i don’t know anymore who I am; if I am a N, this would explain why i am stuck everywhere and my life is unaccomplished.Has it ever happened to you to read something on N and to feel involved as though all this was far too familiar to you? Of course grandiosity and power, control and manipulation patters are not in my type, but all the rest is there. I am terrified at the idea of being such a horrible person and to be stuck in nothingness for the rest of my life. I do need your advice and opinion, don’t worry if you have to speak a difficult truth. And compliments are so difficult to accept, for example when you say i could create a beautiful blog, i do know you are sincere, but most of the time I feel ridiculous and i am ashamed of myself. The fact of not being obnoxious to others is not enough to say i am not a N. Thank you so much for listening and sorry if all this is not nice at all, i don’t even know if I have the right to write here about it. Big hug, seashell xxx
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We are all Narcissistic, and having N traits is healthy, natural and normal. It is a phase of human development. STOP diagnosing yourself with NPD!!! You don’t have NPD.
For a child of Narcissists you’re going to be more aware of your Narcissistic traits than those who did not have parents with NPD. Because you suffered due to the N behaviour of your NPD parents, and you know the bad side of those traits better than you know the good side of them. And there is a very good side of them too.
You have a repulsion to and revulsion of N traits because of the pain caused and the wounding done by your NPD parents. So when you spot even the slightest N behaviour in yourself you are disgusted by it because you only see it as a bad omen that is telling you that you are bad. And you want to be good, so you keep trying to erase the parts of you which you think make you bad, but they won’t go away… because they are a part of you AND they are not bad, they’re misunderstood by you and they hope one day that you will understand them – which is what you are working on right now – Learning to see that the bad N traits which you have are not bad at all, they are good.
Narcissism gives us the ability to love ourselves. That is why we all pass through the Narcissistic phase of development, to learn how to love ourselves, admire ourselves, and be inspired by ourselves. To enjoy being unique individuals. To shout out loud – Look at me I’m alive! It’s self-affirmation. It’s healthy self-love and it makes us happy.
You do NOT have NPD. Your stuck is not the same kind of stuck of someone with NPD. It’s a natural and normal kind of stuck which everyone gets, and you won’t get stuck forever. Stop terrifying yourself, you’re fine, you’ll be fine, it’s okay, you’re gradually moving out of being stuck, baby steps, slowly and steadily. Have patience, be gentle with yourself, be compassionate and caring towards yourself.
And everyone feels ridiculous and ashamed of themselves when they blog (don’t tell the other bloggers who have a personal blog like mine that I said that) because blogging is a very Narcissistic thing to do, but it is a healthy Narcissism which is fun and deeply satisfying. I have learned how to embrace my N traits thanks to blogging and see them in a positive light. Whenever I post a picture of myself, I cringe a bit because it is very N and a ‘selfie’ is considered to be a bad thing these days, but it’s liberating too especially as I stopped taking pics of myself or allowing others to take pics of me when I was in my late teens. It’s like saying – I’m here, deal with it! – and then having a laugh because it’s fun and funny.
Your life is not unaccomplished – you’re alive aren’t you, you’ve survived great sorrow and pain, that is a great accomplishment! Stop judging yourself and start challenging your self-judgments. You’re too harsh and critical with yourself – something all children of Narcissists are because we’re afraid of becoming our parents and hurting people like they hurt us. Other people can take care of themselves, we have to take care of ourselves and be kinder to ourselves.
And if a book is making you feel bad about yourself, throw the book away, it’s not for you! Find a book which makes you feel good about yourself!!! Remember you’re very sensitive and may be picking up on the author’s issues which the author has not resolved and is passing to others through their words in print.
You remind me of myself before I jumped off of a cliff into the abyss which terrified me and landed in an ocean of surprises which changed my world view, and my experience of myself and life.
You’re going to be fine… trust yourself 🙂
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Dear Ursula,
Thank you for your presence and for your replies to the other bloggers which are helping me to understand why it takes so much time to heal from this kind of experience.It takes an incredible amount of energy and stamina, at times I feel like screaming as I still carry in my mind this terrible confusion i have been left with. It is true what you say, we children of Ns are very loyal, it’s like being used to a painful device which becomes part of ourselves.
It’s curious you have posted yesterday your intersting and deep meditation on silence treatment, I have just received by my shrink friend and although i knew her N disorder, I didn’t think i was going to be affected in terms of confusion, not in my feeling but in my emotions as I stand puzzled in the middle of something coming out of nowhere, i can’t find the reason and therefore i am prone to doubt myself. But no, this is her choice to punish me for something I ignore.
At the moment i feel i am too much hurt and I scared of people, all these experiences have left a sort of negative omen in my mind.You mentioned you lived a moment in your life where you felt you were on the verge of falling and then things changed for the best, as a surprise to your expectations. It’s like a long tunnel for me and i can’t see light, especially because I feel responsible for picking Ns in my life (actually i didn’t choose my parents, they say they didn’t deserve me, but certainly i don’t deserve them!).
I agree with what you say on forgiveness, I cherish understanding more. i can’t forgive nor understand my parents but i can understand my former therapist, a whanky and emotional, selfish person but still someone who is in pain for sure;i do agree with another blogger who said he feels sorry for his former girlfriend, i do share that feeling.It’s very sad but it’s true.
In spite of my sore throat i had the tickets in advance for a bunch of concerts which soothed my soul, the music took my hand to explore a landscape of ice and snow.Very touching and moving. There I felt alive. Just a blissful but short and unluckily unshared moment.
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It’s interesting that you mention feeling like screaming and that you have a sore throat. I used to get very painful sore throats and they were always preceded by an intense desire to scream, usually in anger, and then stifling it, stopping myself from saying what I wanted to say, accepting that my side of the story would never be heard so it was pointless to speak. It happened that way so often I decided the two were linked.
The thing to remember about the way that N’s treat other people, is that it is never about us and always about them. So, the silent treatment is not used in the way that non-N’s use it, but we think it is so we think that they are doing it to us because they are punishing us for doing something wrong to them, waiting for us to apologise and so on. They sometimes use it in that way too, because they are studiers of human behaviour and mimic it, but often the reason they go silent is because they have betrayed themselves in some way, said too much, revealed too much, they have said something which they see as being wrong and they cover up by going silent. They aren’t mad at us, they’re mad at themselves. They aren’t punishing us, they’re punishing themselves. But they quite enjoy how their silent treatment affects us because it distracts them from the real cause of it.
I used to think the silent treatment of the N was about them manipulating me, now I think differently. I don’t matter at all in the scenario. It’s not about me and what I’ve done or not done. It is all about them and what they’ve done or not done and how they are dealing or not dealing with what they have done or not done. The silent treatment of the N is the sign of a control freak who lost control of themselves and is now hiding, waiting for it to be safe to come out of hiding and for the mistake they believe that they made to be forgotten.
Feeling responsible for picking the N’s in your life is actually a positive attitude to have, but not if it is done with blame and recrimination, only if it is done to find a solution and resolve a problem.
The way I see it is that I attract and am attracted to N’s because I haven’t embraced my inner N. People used to say to me that I seemed to lack an ego. I thought that was a good thing, but actually it’s not. The N’s in my life have taught me to have a healthy ego, it’s like kryptonite to them.
Everything in life and in ourselves and others comes down to perspective. Want to change, want life to change, want others to change, then try out a different perspective of the same thing and it’ll change without actually changing.
So, when’s your birthday? You mentioned in another comment that it was coming up and I forgot to ask when.
Happy Birthday!
And what are you giving yourself to celebrate such a wonderful occasion? 😀
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Scusami per la fretta che mi fa fare un sacco di errori disseminati qua e là…
Carissima Ursula,
Your reply did touch my heart even more than the previous one.Of course I don’t mind you peeping into my natal chart, on the contrary, I thank you for it as it’s very generous to do it for me.I was born in Genoa at 10.45 am on 5/3/69, feel free to pop in if you like, you are astrological savvy! I understand very little of it, but although I am stubborn and I cling to the philosophical side of my mind, I sense there is truth here and there, all you say it makes sense.
Your attitude towards your mother is more mature than mine as I perceive you’re not accusing her anymore but you have the picture clear in your mind; you saved yourself when you made up your mind about rebelling and finding your own way out there to become what you are, which I didn’t and utterly regret. My commitment to therapy is my last trial, in spite of all that happened, and of how painful it is, to survive to my present life, but it’s as though I buried strong emotions all my life and I am now digging deep finding filth and miasms of rotten experiences I have considered normal for such a long time- which is abnormal. I have been still and mummified in my past for so long, that’s why I crave a change of scenery, but I impose myself to find a job first as I am not very optimistic about moving without having this sorted out in advance.
L’anello che non tiene is represented by my low self -esteem, so part of me bought my parents’ version of reality, those are the manipulators, the first gaslighters of my life and the description you found is well designed on a N model, I am definitely N magnet but as I see no qualities in myself I can’t perceive them approaching me because feeling envious or jealous of somebody like me makes me cringe with laughter, so utterly nonsensical! Strategy and I are just chalk and cheese, in spite of my abstract analysis of psychological pattern, when it comes to action i am very naive and spontaneous, just driven by i don’t know what..
The underworld is an appropriate landscape to my sensation of a sleepwalking life where nothing happens, as though I felt already dead, maybe there is just a part of me which lies dead. Thank you for the link, I read a bit but I need to study a bit before grasping, but she mentioned awonderful piece of music by Ph Glass related to pisces, Opening, which is gorgeous and I am listening to it now, like swimming in deep waters, I love the ostinato. Where did you get your quote from Jung? I’d like to read something by him as I only know Man and his symbols.
I will consider your suggestion to celebrate my birthday and give birth to myself;last year very sadly I thought my shrink was taking me back to life but i was miscontrued, you see how blind I can be. i havevto think about it and i have to be loyal to myself as I tend to invest on others a lot but not on myself.I wish i could come to England for my interview but this is not up to me to decide, I have no power on life and events. I’d love to breathe a familiar air and feel free to be myself with a future in front of me, sitting at a café at Embankment where I can see the Thames streaming. Just a dream.
As far as the blog is concerned, Ursula you are SO BRAVE: people might steal your ideas, use your pictures and you always have interesting things to say, even when you say you haven’t! I have loads of poetry and other stuff but I don’t know what to do with it.The only thing I know is that i should be writing every day to feel alive instead of judging myself and putting myself down.
Ti ringrazio con tutto il cuore per essere presente nella mia vita, sei un grande sostegno per me. Sappi che sei nei miei pensieri.
A friend like you is pure gold.
ps i have just seen Le week-end, a very melancholic but deep and true movie about an old British couple spending a week-end in Paris.
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Non ti preoccupare degli errori, typos are normal on the internet, the important thing is expressing yourself. 😀 Besides you should see the mess I make when I use the keypad on my phone 😉 or when I’m searching for something… I rely on the search engine to figure it out, but sometimes it can’t and the results are hilarious!
My post today was inspired by your remark – Ursula you are SO BRAVE: people might steal your ideas, use your pictures and you always have interesting things to say, even when you say you haven’t! – thank you for the compliment and for thinking I’m brave, I’m just being selfish. I want to get past my tendency to censor myself, keep things quiet, replay old wounds connected to my N parents and block my creativity, and I do that by doing things the way I do them. That’s the therapeutic aspect of my blog and my other internet accounts, and why I started blogging. The only thing original about what I’m doing is that it passes through me and I add my style to it, otherwise all the ideas are already out there in the world. So there is nothing to steal. But lots which is fun to share and since I benefit from others sharing their views, ideas and creativity, I’m just doing what I enjoy being done, passing on the sharing.
If we don’t share, the ideas just fade within us, lonely. Ideas like to mingle and socialise with other ideas, they’re extroverts!
Speaking of sharing… thank you for sharing your birth data (do you want me to remove it from your comment so no one else can see it?). You’re a Gemini rising, so communication is very important to you. It’s a great chart! It does explain a lot about your struggles and the challenges in your life – the most consistent message is that you are wealthy with emotion, and need to embrace the ocean within you and find a way to share it, express it, which moves you, soothes you and fulfills you. Your Sun (ego) is in the process of being healed (transiting Chiron – the wounded healer – is conjunct (next to) your Sun). What you’re doing now will transform you – which is what you already know that’s why you’re so determined and keep going through the pain. Your personal power is now in your hands, you’re learning to see it, understand it and how to wield it. Your words reflect that.
So trust yourself, trust the process, everything is progressing as it should and the long hard journey will reveal the reason for it. I see something beautiful in the near future, an experience within which will ripple out and change the world, it may be a subtlety which will clear away the grisaille.
I saw a documentary last week about Le Week-End. It followed the director, producer and Hanif Kureishi as they promoted the film.
Take care of yourself and be gentle with yourself, when the time is right you will take the leap and see the beauty others see in you 🙂
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What you say makes sense, a lot even. I wasn’t aware I mentioned my craving for screaming and my sore throat and you see it as Indians do as the connect the 5th chakra to expression(artistic or self or both) and this is the only kind of sickness, except for my being a nut pot,where I can be easily and recurrently ill. All of my life I have been told I lack an ego but i considered as a compliment (one of the fewest i could welcome) and actually I shouldn’t have as it is a humble trait linked to our experience, I do agree with you.
My birthday is on the 5th march and I will turn 45;since I was in my 20’s I started having trouble with it and I didn’t want to celebrate it, I have always felt it as a bleak day as i didn’t want to come on earth- to tell you the truth it’s out of metaphor, as it took my mother a 48 hour labour to deliver me, i interpret it as my unwill to live and my shrink (who is a doctor too) told me it was up to her to work it out.To cut a long story short, I perceive my life a bit as an aborted existence as my mother has never been happy of having me. Paradoxically, I wear a precious white stone ring my dad gave her for my birth, at least she was happy for the gift. Lacking real love is becoming clear just now as i have always considered normal and ordinary what i have lived, being put down, called me names, my journal and letter destroyed in a fit of rage (N rage?), gifts (books of course, i was the one who could do anything else but reading, a misfit) of a beloved boyfriend torn up, interfering in my relationships, she succeded in manipulating me to quit that boy that I loved, she sent me to a psychologist and then manipulated her behind my back getting information from her..and now you’ll wonder how I sticked to all this folly, why I didn’t run away. I begged to be accepted and to be loved.It never happened.Finally her prophecy turned out true, by magic, in spite of all my studies I am old, without a job and most of all, alone.Unlovable, as she thought. Birth is a symbolic day linked to the mother and it’s not a happy one for me, especially because she picked me and not my sister to erase me and upset me emotionally, this is a recurrent question for my shrink;my personal response is that she had more satisfaction to abuse me than her. I understand now all I have been going through it’s because of her (my engulfing father was just on the scene without a major role). That’s why I have a British soul: in England since an early age i could be myself and i hated myself less, i guess because of her absence, she was furious that i was happily away without feeling homesick. For me home is a place in my heart and mind and paris is not home.I am trying to move to the UK but things are stuck. In the past five years i thought i could have met love and have a family but now it’s clear it won’t happen.the only way to come out from this horror of family relationship is to love a child as he or she deserves but I won’t be able to do that. I wish I had something to celebrate for my birthday, an accomplishment, a feeling of trust in the future, but i sense i have lost it all.
Love for me is something making you focus outside yourself, I am tired of all this navel gazing, therapy, crying, loneliness.
When I was a toddler, I was a lovely blond little joyful dancing girlie, I don’t know what made my mother hate me so deeply.I am sorry for that little girl who wanted to die when she was six, when she first realized she wasn’t as good as everybody else; I remember nobody listened to me. My shrink always makes me notice I never utter a word when I am hurt, I never tell people, I think I find it useless, in any case nobody will listen and I personally see it as too late when people say they are sorry, the main thing is to avoid hurting people, I rather hurt myself instead. that’s way a silent treatment drives me mad, it’s like being rejected for a crime I haven’t committed, but you are very wise in your view. You know so many deep emotions and experiences of mine and we haven’t even met, I guess you understand it all.
I don’t know how to change things, I don’t think i have a future in front of me and my existence is of no use. Glad to be of use, this is an expression in one of my favourite poems, The love song of A.J.Prufrock by T.S Eliot, i would have liked month ago to paste it here but it’s too long and it’s invasive on your blog; it’s a manifesto for people who daren’t being themselves.I daren’t even making a phone call to a man I like becaused as i am so scared to be rejected and ridiculous, this is my burden.
Thank you for reading me. I hope if someone lives the same experience, reading the sad end of this story can be inspired to say no when they are still young, otherwise they might burn their lives expecting to be loved by a parent who never will.
Thank you for your presence in my life and for your understanding.You are a very precious person.And not only to me.
I really touched my heart that you asked me about it. Thank you.
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One of the things which helps me a lot with working through my issues has been astrology because the natal chart shows that all the facets of yourself are part of a whole. It shows the inner conflicts, and the parts which work together, and it explains many of the dynamics which play out inside, and then ripple outside. It can show why we experience other people the way we do.
I use astrology with psychology. Sometimes the rational mind is useful as it sorts things out, but sometimes it makes more of a mess when it tries to make everything logical. It needs to learn to work with the whole being, as the whole being is not just a mind, but emotions, instinct, senses, and so much more. Sometimes the rational mind has to suspend its need to analyse and categorise and it has to listen to the story the emotions tell without judging those emotions and trying to tidy them up. Emotions have a different system from the mind, they’re a beautiful mess. Psychology tries to tidy up that mess when what it needs to do is to understand it not label it and put it neatly into pigeon holes.
I know you mentioned in an earlier comment that – “I have a weird attitude towards astrology as I rationally object to be conditioned but what I read on my chart terrifies me as it sounds true” – which makes a lot of sense and ties in with your Mercury in Aquarius which likes to remain objective and detached, so I hope you don’t mind but I popped your birth data into astrodienst and checked out your chart – I estimated a birth time so it won’t be exact as I don’t know your rising sign.
You have a Moon/Pluto/Uranus/Jupiter in Virgo conjunction. Moon/Pluto conjunct gives deep intense emotions. And your Moon/Pluto opposes your Sun, so your intense emotional nature can overwhelm your ego/identity/self (Sun). And because Moon/Pluto connects with Uranus/Jupiter, your emotions offer you the opportunity for great self-transformation. Being carried away by the tidal wave of your emotions can feel like you’re drowning and being attacked by flotsam and jetsam, but it can also transport you to a new territory and wash away things which you no longer need.
There is an astrologer who has a blog, and she has Moon/Pluto and writes about it a lot in a very understanding and insightful way – http://www.moonplutoastrology.com/blog/
On her blog I found a mention of Pluto opposing the Sun – “Pluto opposing your Sun will bring Pluto-figures to your life, manipulators, gas lighters, power hungry mobs who believe that you have, that you OWN, what they MUST HAVE.” – her solution for dealing with this dynamic was a bit iffy – “These people are weak but tricky. You have to be stronger and trickier. You have to develop strategy, tactics.” – she sort of had the right idea but I didn’t like where she went with it. But then she is a Cancer Sun and I’m a Capricorn Sun, so we tend to agree and disagree at the same time. Cancerians tend to go for a side-stepping the problem solution, whereas Capricorns prefer to face problems head-on.
I do have a Sun/Pluto connection – and so periodically I have to descend into the Underworld (Hades/Pluto), into darkness and dark emotions, and die to an old way of being so that I can rise up again to the surface world reborn in a new form, still me but a me who has been transformed by the experiences in my life and the people I meet.
The more you get to know your own darkness and the purpose it can serve in your life, the more you understand the darkness of others, especially those who seem to want to destroy you (paraphrasing Jung).
I don’t wonder at all why you did not run away from your mother.
I don’t have siblings so there was never any choice to be made by my N parents as to which child to do what to. I did used to wish that I had siblings as that might have taken some of the focus and pressure off of me, but it might have made it worse considering how they behaved when I had friends stay with me.
I have found that the best way to clear the confusion caused by the abuse of an N, is to realise that the confusion belongs to them, they transferred it to us. Everything they did to us was done to them when they were children, they passed the family legacy on. Alice Miller writes a lot about this in her books. Parents passing on to their children what was done to them by their parents.
With N’s everything they do is about them not about us, we don’t exist except as a representation of something about them. When they choose a target it isn’t because they think that the target is weak, the opposite of that is more true, they see strength. They are attracted to people who have what they want for themselves, and that includes their children.
With N parents, they tend to want their children to be who they wished they had been as children and they try to train their children to become who they wanted to be as an adult – Great Expectations by Dickens is quite a good example of that dynamic – the relationship between Miss Havisham and Estella.
My mother told me that the reason she trained me never to cry as a child was because she was a cry baby (her words) as a child and she hated it and hated how the adults reacted and treated her when she cried as a child. She was very proud of herself for teaching her child not to cry and expected me to be grateful. She also interfered with all my relationships, especially the ones I had with males. She told me that she was afraid that I would fall in love and get deeply hurt and damaged by love. She was trying to protect me from having feelings. And she kept trying to get me to hate men as she blamed men for all the pain in the world – meaning she believed that the men in her life had been the source of all of her pain – and this she believed was why her mother died when she was a child, an event which traumatised her so much she never recovered from it.
She didn’t give a shit about me as an individual, did not recognise that I was a being in my own right allowed to experience the pain of life, I was a representation of her and she was creating and shaping me to be who she wanted to be, an ideal which she aspired to. So in her eyes she was a wonderful and loving and protective mother who was saving her child from life, men, pain and everything by encasing me like a mummy in sarcophagus in a tomb. Most of her anger towards me was when I refused to be who she wanted me to be and stubbornly insisted on experiencing life for myself. She felt I was rejecting her love and was not appreciative of what she was doing for me. Damn right!
I think you need to reclaim your birthday as yours and do something wild, ridiculous and crazy. Give birth to yourself. Become your own child and mother. Like… start a blog 😉 You don’t have to do one like mine where you spill your guts, there a million beautiful and creative ways to blog.
This is one of my fav blogs – http://www.faithistorment.com/
You can share images, poems, ideas, artists, philosophers, and music which move you, and you don’t have to write anything or share yourself in a way which might feel too raw and exposed. It is a creative process which can be very therapeutic, helping you to express yourself in a way which feels gentle and yet also challenges in a comfortable and comforting way. And it can be done as regularly or as irregularly as you want, you are in control and have the power and can set the pace which suits you.
No one is useless… everyone feels that way in this world. It’s a strange pain and paradox of existence. The urge to die and annihilate ourselves is a natural one, it goes hand in hand with the will to live and be noticed. Two sides contrasting. Those with the strongest urge to die, also have the strongest urge to live. When the self-destructive pressure builds it often helps to release it through a symbolic, metaphorical death – write a poem and then burn it and then takes the ashes to a place which represents poetic death to you and scatter them there. Never kill your actual body, it contains a beautiful and unique being who is needed here on Earth, whether you know it or not, the proof is your life, don’t question it. The universe knew exactly what it was doing when it created you, the star stuff which combined to make you wants to experience life through you.
Take care and shine on 🙂
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Thank you for finding inspiring what I wrote!!! I feel honoured and I laughed my head off when i read your post, but still, sorry to contradict you, I wouldn’t be pleased if someone “recycled” my ideas as theirs, the philosophical animal is quite tetchy and allergic to these processes:).By the way, I loooooove Hanif Kureishi and I was very happy when I discovered we both attended King’s College to study Wittgenstein,(so I can boast my ego through the delusion we have shared something!!) that’s where is original questioning comes from; I think he is very insightful and a brilliant sociological observer as he can be involved and detached at the same time when writing, the trash side is still a mystery to me though.
Thank you for looking at my chart again.Actually I love my Mercury in Aquarius, but all the rest is tricky, that Venus in Aries conjunt to Saturn for example and Moon in Virgo;as a birthday present a friend gave me my natal chart read by a professional astrologer who said “most of it is problematic”(very French thing to say) and I don’t need to say it’s not exactly what you want to hear on that day, and especially someone like me who doesn’t really feel madly in love with her image!!! it’s interesting when you mentioned Chiron and I really hope something moves and changes as stillness can be a sort of generalized illness.
Sharing is a key aspect of life but i am stuck as I am so scared to be judged, so basically when I write I do it for myself and i guess you do it too for a start as you are not conditioned by the audience, this a following phase. Again this comes from my parents but it was a very strong imprinting which prevented me from exposing myself, this is linked to the abandonment and rejection issues in narcissistic wounds. Also, i do believe that, in spite of what we might have to say and utter, this is not always for our interlocutor- my parents said too many things they shouldn’t have, and i am very careful as i don’t want to hurt people.
I feel very frail and fragile at the moment more than usual, so I cannot see what you say in my words, but I am aware others can perceive more easily how we are than ourselves. It’s true i live emotional storms but i would like them to be a wealth as you say and not a killing tidal wave against myself.
I love water, waves, depths, blue, immaterial matter of the soul. i grow in my secret garden the dream of seeing my writing printed in a book, i haven’t even got the courage to say to have them published, as it would mean to have a big ego, see how contradictory I am? To see beauty in myself is the hardest bit for me as I doubt myself in my foundations.I really enjoy our conversations!
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Sounds like that astrologer was a bit of a connard. All natal charts are a mix of easy and challenging placements, it’s a symbolic representation of being human. There are always going to be placements which we prefer over others, just as there are parts of ourselves which we prefer over others. What I have found by learning to read my chart is that the parts which I like tend to be supported by the parts which I don’t like, it can be surprising and insightful.
I’ve never been satisfied by the few readings I have had from astrologers, because even though they know their craft, they don’t know me and so it is like asking a stranger to tell you who you are and they base their answers on stereotypes of people who have the same hair or eye colour, the same type of background, the same clothes, or job or whatever. Because I have Virgo rising, with Moon and also Pluto in Virgo, I get stereotyped as being typically Virgo – critical, analytical, neat freak, picky, bitchy, a perfectionist, etc – some of this applies but for the most part this is not how my Virgo energy expresses itself because my Moon in Virgo powers my chart (due to the shape of my chart) and it is influenced strongly by the Pisces/Neptune in my chart. Because I have a Capricorn Sun, I get told that I’m ambitious, a social climber, focused on status and career, and cold, calculating, etc – which is not what I’m like, also due to connections made by the Sun to other parts of my chart. A good astrologer might see that, but only if they have experience of how those connections influence the expression of a placement, and how the houses they are in channel the energy and so on. It’s an intricate system, just like the human being whose chart it is, and transits shape how we express them too, and those transits often tie in with life events which shape which way a trait grows within us.
So who we are might have been very different had we had different parents, and different experiences in childhood. And the paths we have taken in life might have been different had we had other opportunities instead of the ones which we did have. Every aspect of life shapes who we become, our experiences make different parts of us come to the fore or shrink into the background.
When you read astrological interpretations you often see – if the person with this placement has a supportive environment then this energy will express itself this way, but if their environment is hostile this placement may express itself this way. So, a Moon in Virgo person will express that Moon in Virgo differently based on the path which their emotional development took, and other factors, although there may be similarities between all those with Moon in Virgo.
The thing I most enjoy about using astrology the way I do it, trying to read and understand my own chart, is that it is an interactive way to get to know myself, and it’s not really about the astrology at all, it is about the relationship between all the parts of me 🙂
I love our conversations!!! 😀
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Hey! Thanks for your post … I can totally relate …
On the other hand though … most people really are just assholes …
And knowing that that is entirely my own problem just makes it that much harder to deal with …
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Thank you 🙂
I think that when a problem is yours, then so is the solution. So you have some personal power to act if you want it. Whereas when the problem belongs to someone else, figuring out a solution is so much harder because they’re involved in the dynamic and you can end up powerless, which is intensely frustrating.
Admittedly you can’t force other people to be who they are not, just as they can’t force you to be who you are not. This whole ‘trying to change people’, especially when someone pretends they are trying to change someone for someone’s benefit, thing is a pet peeve of mine. Accepting people as they are, assholes or not, tends to ease relationships, make them a little less fraught with complications. Relationships are always going to be complicated, so whatever we can do to not add more complications seems like a good idea.
So if they are of the asshole variety which is a pain in the ass, having to deal with them is a nightmare. Still, sometimes by adjusting our perception we can alter how they affect us. Or if we’re the asshole in someone else’s life, if they change their attitude towards us, maybe it’ll resolve some of how they are affected by us. If we’re only an asshole because we refuse to change for someone else, become who they want and need us to be for them… who is the asshole, I wonder.
I’ve found that those who openly admit to being assholes, tend to be less assholian than those who think they are holier than though 😉
This whole being human thing and having to deal with other human beings is a puzzle with many missing pieces.
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