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The Narcissistic Mind
page: 2share:
a reply to: Bluesma
After coming home from work and reading what I wrote this morning, I was horrified to see it looks like I was making comments and questions to the author of the OP!
They were not to anyone in particular, I was caught up in theoretical questioning of myself. Just to clarify that.
After coming home from work and reading what I wrote this morning, I was horrified to see it looks like I was making comments and questions to the author of the OP!
They were not to anyone in particular, I was caught up in theoretical questioning of myself. Just to clarify that.
a reply to: Aboveway
I'd agree.
(to cinderelly tune as sung by mice)
Pain and Sufferring, pain and sufferring
lawdy dawdy,
pain and suffering
Oh it makes you real reflective
Of the harshness
of lifes invective
I picture the fat one with the raspy voice singing that last part.
Suffering clears the airwaves. People normally, and should, want to fight for their conscious existence. The world is meaningful because life, mind and existence is meaningful.
Honest self reflection is a process of admitting your humanness - your # ups - without chastising yourself for it. Any situation of fault requires a conscious awareness to forgive, either self or other, of what are dissociative thinking process makes inevitable. This is why the compassionate witness part of ourselves is so important. When we tweak are awareness and decide to 'hold' something with compassionate care - as if like a mother for her baby - you can contain the powerful energies of the meanings that frighten you.
We have shame, anxiety, depression and a host of other feelings that we call negative. But fear seems to underlie the bulk of them. Shame feels bad. Ergo, humans fear shame. We avoid feeling it. Why? Because it's power terrifies us with painful physical and emotional feelings. Anxiety, again, has it's own horror to it. Anxiety is a vital part of the fear process. But we humans are the only ones able to 'dissociate' from the object-environment fear and focus solely on the physical sensation of fear: that is, Fear of anxiety, or a fear of fear.
Fear of depression is also a vital element in creating major depressive episodes. The person feels the feeling, remembers it, remembers how it makes them feel, how deep they felt it and how long its affected them. The "knowing" of the experience stimulates a natural FEAR of it. The feeling thus triggers fearfulness and paranoia. Which throws the person into a deeper bodily depression.
Experiences are naturally about "containment". Our minds are containers, and maintaining the proper "flow" of energy is the ultimate purpose of our witnessing faculty. If we speak too fast or feel too hard we allow ourselves to 'hyper-focus' upon something to the exclusion of other important details. Thus, emotion = Exclusion. The more emotion you feel towards a particular subject, the more 'focused' upon it you perceptually become. Its a quantitative shift in energy metabolism. And a qualitative shift in perceiving.
Thus, you NEED to quiet emotion if you want to stay objective with yourself and with others when communicating. But 'quiet' might give the wrong idea - as if I were suggesting that we act like automatons. Rather, there is a subtle "middle point', in which one speaks with passion without losing conscious focus. It is dynamic and dependent on continuous input. If I'm told something that resonates as true - as seen from an open and focused gaze - I'll decrease my 'output' and quietly perceive the validity of a point, in which I again speak with alacrity. This is like a "wave-form", the downs representing moments of reflection and the ups one impassioned defense for the relevant point.
Narcissists can't 'contain'. They are disembodied in the negative sense of seeing me in terms of "object to be manipulated" which his unconscious and conscious mind works to subvert to it's goals: self aggrandizement. The narcissist is a hungry hungry hippo, craving more and more, filling up and never feeling full. And will resent the suggestion that anyone have the right to tell them what to think. Hence, some of the biggest narcissists - Alex Jones, Charlie Sheen, Charlton Heston, Clint Eastwood etc - seem incapable to stop and perceive. They are bloated minds more interested in hearing their own persona in action than 'sensing' the truth that exists in any situation. They can be obscenely loud and aggressive (Jones), mindless womanizers (Sheen), or crass supporters of the right to bear arms. The main point is, they exclude from their perception aspects which challenge their narcissistic - hyper emotional - want to feel powerful.
Why want power so pathologically unless one didn't first experience intense fear and loathing of powerlessness? The narcissist has a historically salient reason for wanting power. They may have been raised in a narcissistic household which 'frightened' the young boy into recognizing the unconscious 'rules' of relating: pursue your own. Act out your feelings. Resist negative self-experience. Block it out. Do this enough times and you 'enter' a situation feeling good without even knowing that there was a process of dissociation at work.
If one exclude the compassionate witness who is able to see a more "systems wide view" of any subject, you're destined to place false blame on yourself and suffer needless pain for something which is an inevitable condition embdedded into the physical organism of the human being. Life means accepting and understanding this and doing your best despite the challenges.
Someone who thinks this way literally relates at an ontologically higher level than those who do not. When you can bear to 'contain' the badness and negativity there is in perceiving in how you can actually be, the way you think, and how you treat others, you are able to make meaningful changes in your mental functioning at the neuromolecular level.
I'd agree.
(to cinderelly tune as sung by mice)
Pain and Sufferring, pain and sufferring
lawdy dawdy,
pain and suffering
Oh it makes you real reflective
Of the harshness
of lifes invective
I picture the fat one with the raspy voice singing that last part.
Suffering clears the airwaves. People normally, and should, want to fight for their conscious existence. The world is meaningful because life, mind and existence is meaningful.
Honest self reflection is a process of admitting your humanness - your # ups - without chastising yourself for it. Any situation of fault requires a conscious awareness to forgive, either self or other, of what are dissociative thinking process makes inevitable. This is why the compassionate witness part of ourselves is so important. When we tweak are awareness and decide to 'hold' something with compassionate care - as if like a mother for her baby - you can contain the powerful energies of the meanings that frighten you.
We have shame, anxiety, depression and a host of other feelings that we call negative. But fear seems to underlie the bulk of them. Shame feels bad. Ergo, humans fear shame. We avoid feeling it. Why? Because it's power terrifies us with painful physical and emotional feelings. Anxiety, again, has it's own horror to it. Anxiety is a vital part of the fear process. But we humans are the only ones able to 'dissociate' from the object-environment fear and focus solely on the physical sensation of fear: that is, Fear of anxiety, or a fear of fear.
Fear of depression is also a vital element in creating major depressive episodes. The person feels the feeling, remembers it, remembers how it makes them feel, how deep they felt it and how long its affected them. The "knowing" of the experience stimulates a natural FEAR of it. The feeling thus triggers fearfulness and paranoia. Which throws the person into a deeper bodily depression.
Experiences are naturally about "containment". Our minds are containers, and maintaining the proper "flow" of energy is the ultimate purpose of our witnessing faculty. If we speak too fast or feel too hard we allow ourselves to 'hyper-focus' upon something to the exclusion of other important details. Thus, emotion = Exclusion. The more emotion you feel towards a particular subject, the more 'focused' upon it you perceptually become. Its a quantitative shift in energy metabolism. And a qualitative shift in perceiving.
Thus, you NEED to quiet emotion if you want to stay objective with yourself and with others when communicating. But 'quiet' might give the wrong idea - as if I were suggesting that we act like automatons. Rather, there is a subtle "middle point', in which one speaks with passion without losing conscious focus. It is dynamic and dependent on continuous input. If I'm told something that resonates as true - as seen from an open and focused gaze - I'll decrease my 'output' and quietly perceive the validity of a point, in which I again speak with alacrity. This is like a "wave-form", the downs representing moments of reflection and the ups one impassioned defense for the relevant point.
Narcissists can't 'contain'. They are disembodied in the negative sense of seeing me in terms of "object to be manipulated" which his unconscious and conscious mind works to subvert to it's goals: self aggrandizement. The narcissist is a hungry hungry hippo, craving more and more, filling up and never feeling full. And will resent the suggestion that anyone have the right to tell them what to think. Hence, some of the biggest narcissists - Alex Jones, Charlie Sheen, Charlton Heston, Clint Eastwood etc - seem incapable to stop and perceive. They are bloated minds more interested in hearing their own persona in action than 'sensing' the truth that exists in any situation. They can be obscenely loud and aggressive (Jones), mindless womanizers (Sheen), or crass supporters of the right to bear arms. The main point is, they exclude from their perception aspects which challenge their narcissistic - hyper emotional - want to feel powerful.
Why want power so pathologically unless one didn't first experience intense fear and loathing of powerlessness? The narcissist has a historically salient reason for wanting power. They may have been raised in a narcissistic household which 'frightened' the young boy into recognizing the unconscious 'rules' of relating: pursue your own. Act out your feelings. Resist negative self-experience. Block it out. Do this enough times and you 'enter' a situation feeling good without even knowing that there was a process of dissociation at work.
If one exclude the compassionate witness who is able to see a more "systems wide view" of any subject, you're destined to place false blame on yourself and suffer needless pain for something which is an inevitable condition embdedded into the physical organism of the human being. Life means accepting and understanding this and doing your best despite the challenges.
Someone who thinks this way literally relates at an ontologically higher level than those who do not. When you can bear to 'contain' the badness and negativity there is in perceiving in how you can actually be, the way you think, and how you treat others, you are able to make meaningful changes in your mental functioning at the neuromolecular level.
a reply to: Bluesma
Simply being exposed to the same culture as others leads most of us towards the same sorts of experiences. If we learn about our experiences, we 'prime' our minds to be 'alerted' when we observe something in others that remind us of what we've observed in ourselves.
So essentially everything I've written about narcissists is partly influenced by relational psychoanalytic theory (which integrates object relations, self theory and interpersonal theory into one overarching dynamic), partly by ecological ideas of how the self develops (which is based on developmental psychoanalysis i.e Ed Tronick, Daniel Stern, Colwyn Trevarthen, Robert Emde) in terms of the variegated and disparate meanings that touch, sound, smell, and affective experiences have on a psyche organized to find 'coherency', that is, a state of "control" where the mind feels itself able to 'use' thoughts (experiences) without finding itself entrapped by negative feelings; and partly by how I've come to live and respond to the traumatic experiences I've had.
Unless you don't already know, my history is complex, my mother was very abused, and so came into motherhood qualifying as someone with "unresolved trauma". I don't know what my early life was like, but my body and the memories I can sense (as somatic sensations, feeling, almost like an actual memory, from the perspective of a perceiving infant body) tell me that I was tense and scared a lot of the time. Just knowing my mother now gives me strong reason to believe that she often projected her anxieties onto me, blaming me for doing something that would have seemed innocuous to anyone else (reaching for her) because she "feels" that my reaching out is an act of 'grabbyness". In people with whats commonly called a "borderline pathology", thinking and reality are made psychically equivalent. The person literally feels like his every interaction says something about themselves. What they think about the world is 'true', because they 'know', in their bodies, the "truth" of their experiences.
People like that tend to have very poor self-awareness, or 'interoception' - they mostly fail at knowing and analyzing themselves in any cognizant way. Without being too general, a similar structure or pathology can have a different organization yet produce the same net-effect. For instance, in my mother, her intellectual side was "shut off" by being controlled by her mother and father; working and giving her money to paying off their mortgage. Following strict rules and suffering the projective aggression of her father when she didn't "respect him" i.e failing to do what he asked, led to episodes of intense physical abuse (belt whipping, tied up in the chair). This sort of conditioning created a logical effect: my mothers mind conformed itself to be attuned to the wishes of other minds. At the same time, her mother and father were playful and hosted members of the extended family. Her father was experienced as funny, charismatic and likeable; others loved him, "crazy Joe" they called him. Being exposed to two, very different versions of her father created a dissociative "split", an "idealization" of her father, loving very deeply the good parts of him and denying, dissociating and resisting awareness of the pain he is causing you.
By the time my mother reached adulthood, she was a mind with many different habits. She met a man who abused her - just like her father did. Prior to meeting my father, my mother was caught in a traumatic feedback loop: she sought men who reminded her of her idealized (overly identified with) father, but who also had a 'dark side', like her father, which her unconscious picked up as an uncrecognized aspect of his behavior.
However, in meeting my father, my mother was able to be in a relationship in which she could be her father. In a strange and twisted way (my parents are still married, 34 years) my mother 'saw' things in my father that reminded her of her dissociated 'weak' state. The relationship, really, from the get-go, was sadomasochistic. My mother hated my father because of his apparent femininity. But my father kept pursuing her. He had "gusto", by which I mean an amazing acumen for dissociating negative self-experiences. My mother, no doubt, probably insulted him - as my dad, as is his way, converts into a non-shameful episode - but he kept going at it. My mother now began experiencing my dad as a "good object". Remember how people sought her father? To be wanted feels good, and so my mother began liking my father because of how my father saw her. Whatever it was that brought my dad closer, he clearly loved her and helped her in many ways. Yet, my mother could never "let go" and forgive what she experienced as weakness. She hated it in herself and so she hated it in others - especially her husband.
In being traumatized by her parents, my mother 'logically' developed into a person who had developed many defenses against knowing herself. The closer she came to the experience of weakness, the more angry she would get. Her mind was unable to 'contain' the logical relationship between context and experience. She would go from a feeling of shame or helplessness, to angry projection, without realizing how the former CAUSED the latter. The 'object', or the thing which occupies her mind as she yells, is the result of the minds "coherency making" function: finding a plausible explanation to justify a feeling without knowing the process of how it happens.
So this was a very violent world to grow up within. It had its good parts, but it was also full of enactments, back and forth, between my fathers unconscious (his father left his mother, who went through a depression; he spent his teenage years doing everything he could to make her happy i.e. to fix her. It is probably not a coincidence that he was attracted to a woman who was beautiful, cute, but also "needed fixing") needs and my mothers unconscious needs. When others are always projecting from their anxieties - the other person, the baby, child, or adult - inevitably "assumes" the "used object" position. This is also another way for pathology to develop.
Having a "conflict-driven mother", who would move from intense kindness, playfulness, and generosity, to anger, irritation, spitefulness and physical abusiveness, and throw in a little depression and anxiety, and you get a kid who "needs" to make his mommy happy; who does everything in his power to maker her happy. I was the prototypical "anxious-ambivalent" kid of the strange-situation paradigm. I could not leave my mother lest I cry and feel helpless. When I was 5, after being so involved in an episode of teenage mutant ninja turtles, I didn't realize my mom was gone. At 5 years old, I couldn't tolerate not having her in my constant presence. I went berserk. I cried myself unconscious.
My ability to say that I can discern narcissism in others derives from seeing that in myself. I see myself in many different ways. Perhaps, in most ways that I can be (of course, there are probably aspects that lie beyond my scope) I sense the relation
I really want to hesitate labelling narcissists, because it seems to have become such a fad - anyone you are mad at is now a narcissist. How can you be sure that your anger that they aren't respecting or treating you as you want them to, isn't a product of your own narcissism?
Simply being exposed to the same culture as others leads most of us towards the same sorts of experiences. If we learn about our experiences, we 'prime' our minds to be 'alerted' when we observe something in others that remind us of what we've observed in ourselves.
So essentially everything I've written about narcissists is partly influenced by relational psychoanalytic theory (which integrates object relations, self theory and interpersonal theory into one overarching dynamic), partly by ecological ideas of how the self develops (which is based on developmental psychoanalysis i.e Ed Tronick, Daniel Stern, Colwyn Trevarthen, Robert Emde) in terms of the variegated and disparate meanings that touch, sound, smell, and affective experiences have on a psyche organized to find 'coherency', that is, a state of "control" where the mind feels itself able to 'use' thoughts (experiences) without finding itself entrapped by negative feelings; and partly by how I've come to live and respond to the traumatic experiences I've had.
Unless you don't already know, my history is complex, my mother was very abused, and so came into motherhood qualifying as someone with "unresolved trauma". I don't know what my early life was like, but my body and the memories I can sense (as somatic sensations, feeling, almost like an actual memory, from the perspective of a perceiving infant body) tell me that I was tense and scared a lot of the time. Just knowing my mother now gives me strong reason to believe that she often projected her anxieties onto me, blaming me for doing something that would have seemed innocuous to anyone else (reaching for her) because she "feels" that my reaching out is an act of 'grabbyness". In people with whats commonly called a "borderline pathology", thinking and reality are made psychically equivalent. The person literally feels like his every interaction says something about themselves. What they think about the world is 'true', because they 'know', in their bodies, the "truth" of their experiences.
People like that tend to have very poor self-awareness, or 'interoception' - they mostly fail at knowing and analyzing themselves in any cognizant way. Without being too general, a similar structure or pathology can have a different organization yet produce the same net-effect. For instance, in my mother, her intellectual side was "shut off" by being controlled by her mother and father; working and giving her money to paying off their mortgage. Following strict rules and suffering the projective aggression of her father when she didn't "respect him" i.e failing to do what he asked, led to episodes of intense physical abuse (belt whipping, tied up in the chair). This sort of conditioning created a logical effect: my mothers mind conformed itself to be attuned to the wishes of other minds. At the same time, her mother and father were playful and hosted members of the extended family. Her father was experienced as funny, charismatic and likeable; others loved him, "crazy Joe" they called him. Being exposed to two, very different versions of her father created a dissociative "split", an "idealization" of her father, loving very deeply the good parts of him and denying, dissociating and resisting awareness of the pain he is causing you.
By the time my mother reached adulthood, she was a mind with many different habits. She met a man who abused her - just like her father did. Prior to meeting my father, my mother was caught in a traumatic feedback loop: she sought men who reminded her of her idealized (overly identified with) father, but who also had a 'dark side', like her father, which her unconscious picked up as an uncrecognized aspect of his behavior.
However, in meeting my father, my mother was able to be in a relationship in which she could be her father. In a strange and twisted way (my parents are still married, 34 years) my mother 'saw' things in my father that reminded her of her dissociated 'weak' state. The relationship, really, from the get-go, was sadomasochistic. My mother hated my father because of his apparent femininity. But my father kept pursuing her. He had "gusto", by which I mean an amazing acumen for dissociating negative self-experiences. My mother, no doubt, probably insulted him - as my dad, as is his way, converts into a non-shameful episode - but he kept going at it. My mother now began experiencing my dad as a "good object". Remember how people sought her father? To be wanted feels good, and so my mother began liking my father because of how my father saw her. Whatever it was that brought my dad closer, he clearly loved her and helped her in many ways. Yet, my mother could never "let go" and forgive what she experienced as weakness. She hated it in herself and so she hated it in others - especially her husband.
In being traumatized by her parents, my mother 'logically' developed into a person who had developed many defenses against knowing herself. The closer she came to the experience of weakness, the more angry she would get. Her mind was unable to 'contain' the logical relationship between context and experience. She would go from a feeling of shame or helplessness, to angry projection, without realizing how the former CAUSED the latter. The 'object', or the thing which occupies her mind as she yells, is the result of the minds "coherency making" function: finding a plausible explanation to justify a feeling without knowing the process of how it happens.
So this was a very violent world to grow up within. It had its good parts, but it was also full of enactments, back and forth, between my fathers unconscious (his father left his mother, who went through a depression; he spent his teenage years doing everything he could to make her happy i.e. to fix her. It is probably not a coincidence that he was attracted to a woman who was beautiful, cute, but also "needed fixing") needs and my mothers unconscious needs. When others are always projecting from their anxieties - the other person, the baby, child, or adult - inevitably "assumes" the "used object" position. This is also another way for pathology to develop.
Having a "conflict-driven mother", who would move from intense kindness, playfulness, and generosity, to anger, irritation, spitefulness and physical abusiveness, and throw in a little depression and anxiety, and you get a kid who "needs" to make his mommy happy; who does everything in his power to maker her happy. I was the prototypical "anxious-ambivalent" kid of the strange-situation paradigm. I could not leave my mother lest I cry and feel helpless. When I was 5, after being so involved in an episode of teenage mutant ninja turtles, I didn't realize my mom was gone. At 5 years old, I couldn't tolerate not having her in my constant presence. I went berserk. I cried myself unconscious.
My ability to say that I can discern narcissism in others derives from seeing that in myself. I see myself in many different ways. Perhaps, in most ways that I can be (of course, there are probably aspects that lie beyond my scope) I sense the relation
*relationships between what I feel in my body, what it 'means', how the present situation is impinging on me. I try to explore all the elements and
angles there are in making sense of the reason for our behaviors.
Because humans aren't that different from animals, we can almost call this way of analysis, psychological, neurobiological, and anthropological, as a type of human "ethology". We know were all narcissists from time to time. But some of us get "stuck" in that mode, and furthermore, getting "stuck" is not in any way objectively apparent. Although a person trained in abstract reasoning and enjoys educating himself can recognize how emotional arousal distorts perceptual experience, most people do not know this; and thus their mind 'searches and finds' and defends with alacrity whatever it is they believe they have 'found'.
In the broadest sense, I feel I am completely human, just like everyone else. Yet, when you are able to study and calm yourself enough, you can develop a type of awareness that is, as it were, from the vantage point of something 'beyond the personal', as just being the bare "facts". This perspective we take is really that of the 'system' which determines these conditions we experience. It's 'extra-personal', in that it acknowledges the emotional needs of being human without getting bogged down in identifying with them. We each need to develop this perspective in ourselves.
In my particular case, I feel my 'advanced' abilities encourages me to state my position, as clearly as I can, without depriving myself the right to express what I've learned about the world, from my unique experience of suffering years of traumatic dissociation while learning, day by day, how to get out of it.
Because humans aren't that different from animals, we can almost call this way of analysis, psychological, neurobiological, and anthropological, as a type of human "ethology". We know were all narcissists from time to time. But some of us get "stuck" in that mode, and furthermore, getting "stuck" is not in any way objectively apparent. Although a person trained in abstract reasoning and enjoys educating himself can recognize how emotional arousal distorts perceptual experience, most people do not know this; and thus their mind 'searches and finds' and defends with alacrity whatever it is they believe they have 'found'.
In the broadest sense, I feel I am completely human, just like everyone else. Yet, when you are able to study and calm yourself enough, you can develop a type of awareness that is, as it were, from the vantage point of something 'beyond the personal', as just being the bare "facts". This perspective we take is really that of the 'system' which determines these conditions we experience. It's 'extra-personal', in that it acknowledges the emotional needs of being human without getting bogged down in identifying with them. We each need to develop this perspective in ourselves.
In my particular case, I feel my 'advanced' abilities encourages me to state my position, as clearly as I can, without depriving myself the right to express what I've learned about the world, from my unique experience of suffering years of traumatic dissociation while learning, day by day, how to get out of it.
a reply to: soulwaxer
If you are going to fight her "tooth and nail", as you said, for custody (and I sure would if I were you) you want to make sure the lawyer isn't narcissistic or sociopathic. Aside from being underhanded backstabbers, they are experts at coming across as normal and qualified when they really don't care about the outcome. If the lawyer appears capable and normal but is is mentally ill, they will be ineffective, even if you were unaware -- they will still drain you emotionally and financially. One reason of several is that they will not truly be for you and on your side.... although they will pretend otherwise. Now that you know the signs, look for the familiar signs before hiring someone who will make things worse.
A narcissistic or sociopathic lawyer just wants your money and your soul. They don't care about their clients.
On another note, not to inspire fear or make you feel badly, but ALL narcissistic/sociopathic co-parents very subtly and covertly turn their child/children against the normal parent, and they are skilled experts doing so, where you look like the mentally ill liar. We want to be consciously aware this is going on.... I've already been there. Good luck.
If you are going to fight her "tooth and nail", as you said, for custody (and I sure would if I were you) you want to make sure the lawyer isn't narcissistic or sociopathic. Aside from being underhanded backstabbers, they are experts at coming across as normal and qualified when they really don't care about the outcome. If the lawyer appears capable and normal but is is mentally ill, they will be ineffective, even if you were unaware -- they will still drain you emotionally and financially. One reason of several is that they will not truly be for you and on your side.... although they will pretend otherwise. Now that you know the signs, look for the familiar signs before hiring someone who will make things worse.
A narcissistic or sociopathic lawyer just wants your money and your soul. They don't care about their clients.
On another note, not to inspire fear or make you feel badly, but ALL narcissistic/sociopathic co-parents very subtly and covertly turn their child/children against the normal parent, and they are skilled experts doing so, where you look like the mentally ill liar. We want to be consciously aware this is going on.... I've already been there. Good luck.
a reply to: Astrocyte
We've discussed our respective pasts before, and there is much we have in common. My mothers relationship was much the same with her parents. Her father was abusive both with his children and his wife- who was very submissive. So she ended up hating these two characters in her head forever- she'd either fall into being the cowed submissive, or the raging abuser, according to the relationship and individuals involved.
Either way, she hated herself for it.
She even did her thesis on Narcissism. It really doesn't fix anything once you become so consciously aware of your hang ups and internal struggles. Not behaviorally. You just become able to recognize it when it happens. But it still happens.
She was so ashamed of the physical abuse she had defurled on me and my siblings she just kept a distance from her children afterwards. (she went back to university, went through lengthy analysis and therapy, when I was nine years old- that marked a big change in everything). My half brother born later was not abused, not even ever spanked once- instead he became a diagnosed overblown narcissistic PD. When you really see what that is, you understand the difference between narcissistic tendencies and the personality disorder. He actually believes that he is exceptional- last time I saw him (between a stint in prison), he was going on and on loudly about he is the savior and leader of the homeless, and with his off the charts IQ he had russian spies paying him to create a black hole to be used as a weapon. He is actually surprised if anyone would have any doubt about his superiority- even though he stinks to high heaven, carries bed bugs, has been wearing the same filthy bad fitting suit he got from a thrift shop ten years ago, sleeps on benches, gobbles up oxy, and steals from anyone that comes near him.
Mom just refused to touch any of us after her "changing point". I mean, could not physically touch us, not with affection, not put a hand on our shoulder. She didn't call or keep in touch. I actually am not sure which is better- negative contact, or no contact at all?
But like I said, for all the ways she was aware and educated on her problem, it just made her self hatred worse.
I used to see her try to commit suicide when I was very little, and formed an idea that I had to stay with her to keep her alive- even if that meant being her punching bag to help her vent, or even just taking on her verbal abuse, so she could be free of her own self accusations.
The kicker in this? I was terribly afraid of leaving her alone, that she might kill herself, and at 23 when my now-husband asked me to go to France with him, I was terrified about what would happen to her. But torn because she wanted me to go- she had always dreamed of living in France, and wanted me to live that out for her.
Ten months later, she died. She basically killed herself, in a very passive aggressive way. I know I am not at fault, consciously and intellectually. Yet that doesn't do jack # for my behaviorisms. I still panic at the thought that my loved might die or leave, if I am not there for them, or not willing to take on their most negative projections they need relief from.
I have no hope for studying psychology or psychoanalysis, except as an interesting hobby. My son seems to have higher hopes, he went back to school and is studying psychology now. But I am jaded. I think that seeing the problems we have with ourself and learning to love ourselves anyway, with those problems, allows us to accept those problems in others and not be bitter or resentful. We are all imperfect beings, we all have our hang ups, and deep and complicated reasons for them.
We've discussed our respective pasts before, and there is much we have in common. My mothers relationship was much the same with her parents. Her father was abusive both with his children and his wife- who was very submissive. So she ended up hating these two characters in her head forever- she'd either fall into being the cowed submissive, or the raging abuser, according to the relationship and individuals involved.
Either way, she hated herself for it.
She even did her thesis on Narcissism. It really doesn't fix anything once you become so consciously aware of your hang ups and internal struggles. Not behaviorally. You just become able to recognize it when it happens. But it still happens.
She was so ashamed of the physical abuse she had defurled on me and my siblings she just kept a distance from her children afterwards. (she went back to university, went through lengthy analysis and therapy, when I was nine years old- that marked a big change in everything). My half brother born later was not abused, not even ever spanked once- instead he became a diagnosed overblown narcissistic PD. When you really see what that is, you understand the difference between narcissistic tendencies and the personality disorder. He actually believes that he is exceptional- last time I saw him (between a stint in prison), he was going on and on loudly about he is the savior and leader of the homeless, and with his off the charts IQ he had russian spies paying him to create a black hole to be used as a weapon. He is actually surprised if anyone would have any doubt about his superiority- even though he stinks to high heaven, carries bed bugs, has been wearing the same filthy bad fitting suit he got from a thrift shop ten years ago, sleeps on benches, gobbles up oxy, and steals from anyone that comes near him.
Mom just refused to touch any of us after her "changing point". I mean, could not physically touch us, not with affection, not put a hand on our shoulder. She didn't call or keep in touch. I actually am not sure which is better- negative contact, or no contact at all?
But like I said, for all the ways she was aware and educated on her problem, it just made her self hatred worse.
I used to see her try to commit suicide when I was very little, and formed an idea that I had to stay with her to keep her alive- even if that meant being her punching bag to help her vent, or even just taking on her verbal abuse, so she could be free of her own self accusations.
The kicker in this? I was terribly afraid of leaving her alone, that she might kill herself, and at 23 when my now-husband asked me to go to France with him, I was terrified about what would happen to her. But torn because she wanted me to go- she had always dreamed of living in France, and wanted me to live that out for her.
Ten months later, she died. She basically killed herself, in a very passive aggressive way. I know I am not at fault, consciously and intellectually. Yet that doesn't do jack # for my behaviorisms. I still panic at the thought that my loved might die or leave, if I am not there for them, or not willing to take on their most negative projections they need relief from.
I have no hope for studying psychology or psychoanalysis, except as an interesting hobby. My son seems to have higher hopes, he went back to school and is studying psychology now. But I am jaded. I think that seeing the problems we have with ourself and learning to love ourselves anyway, with those problems, allows us to accept those problems in others and not be bitter or resentful. We are all imperfect beings, we all have our hang ups, and deep and complicated reasons for them.
a reply to: Bluesma
That's not true. Think of it in terms of systems logic: there's the Input, the stock, and the output. Sources of input are: the interactions we have with others; how we take care of our body's (such as our gut, and the influence a bad diet can have on emotional states); and how we think.
Change the input and you can change the stock. "Stock" here means our state of mind at any moment; you can also think of it as our "ego" (in the psychoanalytic sense). Output is what we feel and how we act.
For some people, although they may be able to talk or write about a subject, it is not sufficient to merely write or talk. From a neurological perspective, writing and talking preferentially engage the left hemisphere. What is needed for deep substantial change - change that becomes incorporated into your "implicit relational knowing", is reflection. You can't pretend reflection. You can't do 'just a little of it'. You either have honest moments of reflection or you don't. Additionally, honest reflection is usually buttressed by the presence of a real or imagined other; real, as in the context of an empathic other, or imagined, if you're like me, as an imaginative connection with the author of the words you're reading.
If your mothers exploration of narcissism did nothing to change her behavior, there's a simple reason for that: it was superficial. It didn't crack the barrier of her ego. The dissociations a narcissistic "shell" tries to keep dissociated were never cracked open. Until the feelings - your history of shame, anxiety, fear - remains unreflected upon, "untouched", you cannot reintegrate at a higher level. You cannot change emotions at their level. To change how you feel requires RISK, requires putting yourself in situations which you've historically avoided. The term for this is "the edge of chaos". It's a systems term for how one system can 'move' or entrain itself into a new attractor state only by first dislodging itself from the old attractor state i.e. you have to induce a manageable - though scary - level of disorganization. To quote Philip Bromberg, effective psychotherapy should be "safe, but not too safe".
Everyday I challenge myself and I have a hell of a time doing it. Sometimes shame happens and I feel bad. But I "nurse" the bad feelings that arise in me by attending to them not in a dissociative, dismissive or fearful way. I attend to it - as to a part of me - which has suffered pain in his life. I show myself love because there is nothing more that can be said. The trauma was outside my control - and really, being creatures of a system - the only response that can be made, which can be effective in helping yourself, is to look upon your experience with love, compassion and tenderness.
The paradox of this approach is that the very capacity to "contain" and perceive oneself with such compassion arises OUT OF the complex relations we form with others. The principle is simple: you cannot love or feel love unless you've been shown love by others. Thus, the love I show to myself in my private moments of containment and reflection is an emergent property of social relations we all subsist within.
That's horrible. But do you feel compassion for him?
The trouble with the human mind is that the more complex, disordered and inconsistent the experiences it has, the more convoluted, split, divided and defensive it becomes. As the body grows, the self grows, and the growing self comes to "know itself" - or more properly, to experience itself, in ways that are light years away from the understanding that is needed to break-apart the self to create a new one.
It sounds like your brother had a hectic and disturbing upbringing. Another aspect which makes personality organization so tricky is the relationship between quantity and quality, or, the degree of emotional arousal and the content of our perception.
I've noticed that people with strong arousal patterns work harder to 'block out' the perception of themselves as weak, vulnerable, or having feelings like shame, anxiety or fear, which their day to day lives keep them from realistically addressing.
Capitalism means competition. And competition means having the means to persuade others. And what is the means? Emotion. Everyone knows what persuasion means, what positive feedback and negative feedback feels like. The unconscious mind ORGANIZES itself around these competencies, pulling away and 'blocking out' negative experiences (such as low affect, shame, feelings of inferiority) and strives for states which bring about "positive feedback".
In a world with such constant intense competition, its not at all surprising that people struggle - nay, are pathologically TERRIFIED - of acknowledging feelings they've come to associate with not existing, that is, of not being "who they know themselves to be". Thus, for certain types of people, you need a responsive, caring and mindful other to help "scaffold" your experience, and so allow you to know things within your self that would otherwise generate self-annihilating shame, anxiety and depression.
That's rough. If it means anything to you, you're willingness to engage in conversation about this is a positive step in the right direction. Having an "open mind" is the first part. Knowing shame - and not being afraid of it - not letting yourself get "tapped" by the irrational feelings, thoughts and narratives it can induce ("I don't want to talk to you, I don't like you", is what you encounter in people who can't bear feeling feelings they NEED to learn to tolerate if they want to change themselves for the better) is the next part.
There's great wisdom in eastern thinking in the idea of the impermanence of feelings and perceptions. We are good, I believe, at root. But we can only honor our goodness by acknowledging the deleterious impact of our badness on others and on ourselves. You need to forgive yourself, your mother, and the long chain of abuse/violence that makes true-self transformation so difficult for us.
She even did her thesis on Narcissism. It really doesn't fix anything once you become so consciously aware of your hang ups and internal struggles. Not behaviorally. You just become able to recognize it when it happens. But it still happens.
That's not true. Think of it in terms of systems logic: there's the Input, the stock, and the output. Sources of input are: the interactions we have with others; how we take care of our body's (such as our gut, and the influence a bad diet can have on emotional states); and how we think.
Change the input and you can change the stock. "Stock" here means our state of mind at any moment; you can also think of it as our "ego" (in the psychoanalytic sense). Output is what we feel and how we act.
For some people, although they may be able to talk or write about a subject, it is not sufficient to merely write or talk. From a neurological perspective, writing and talking preferentially engage the left hemisphere. What is needed for deep substantial change - change that becomes incorporated into your "implicit relational knowing", is reflection. You can't pretend reflection. You can't do 'just a little of it'. You either have honest moments of reflection or you don't. Additionally, honest reflection is usually buttressed by the presence of a real or imagined other; real, as in the context of an empathic other, or imagined, if you're like me, as an imaginative connection with the author of the words you're reading.
If your mothers exploration of narcissism did nothing to change her behavior, there's a simple reason for that: it was superficial. It didn't crack the barrier of her ego. The dissociations a narcissistic "shell" tries to keep dissociated were never cracked open. Until the feelings - your history of shame, anxiety, fear - remains unreflected upon, "untouched", you cannot reintegrate at a higher level. You cannot change emotions at their level. To change how you feel requires RISK, requires putting yourself in situations which you've historically avoided. The term for this is "the edge of chaos". It's a systems term for how one system can 'move' or entrain itself into a new attractor state only by first dislodging itself from the old attractor state i.e. you have to induce a manageable - though scary - level of disorganization. To quote Philip Bromberg, effective psychotherapy should be "safe, but not too safe".
Everyday I challenge myself and I have a hell of a time doing it. Sometimes shame happens and I feel bad. But I "nurse" the bad feelings that arise in me by attending to them not in a dissociative, dismissive or fearful way. I attend to it - as to a part of me - which has suffered pain in his life. I show myself love because there is nothing more that can be said. The trauma was outside my control - and really, being creatures of a system - the only response that can be made, which can be effective in helping yourself, is to look upon your experience with love, compassion and tenderness.
The paradox of this approach is that the very capacity to "contain" and perceive oneself with such compassion arises OUT OF the complex relations we form with others. The principle is simple: you cannot love or feel love unless you've been shown love by others. Thus, the love I show to myself in my private moments of containment and reflection is an emergent property of social relations we all subsist within.
He is actually surprised if anyone would have any doubt about his superiority- even though he stinks to high heaven, carries bed bugs, has been wearing the same filthy bad fitting suit he got from a thrift shop ten years ago, sleeps on benches, gobbles up oxy, and steals from anyone that comes near him.
That's horrible. But do you feel compassion for him?
The trouble with the human mind is that the more complex, disordered and inconsistent the experiences it has, the more convoluted, split, divided and defensive it becomes. As the body grows, the self grows, and the growing self comes to "know itself" - or more properly, to experience itself, in ways that are light years away from the understanding that is needed to break-apart the self to create a new one.
It sounds like your brother had a hectic and disturbing upbringing. Another aspect which makes personality organization so tricky is the relationship between quantity and quality, or, the degree of emotional arousal and the content of our perception.
I've noticed that people with strong arousal patterns work harder to 'block out' the perception of themselves as weak, vulnerable, or having feelings like shame, anxiety or fear, which their day to day lives keep them from realistically addressing.
Capitalism means competition. And competition means having the means to persuade others. And what is the means? Emotion. Everyone knows what persuasion means, what positive feedback and negative feedback feels like. The unconscious mind ORGANIZES itself around these competencies, pulling away and 'blocking out' negative experiences (such as low affect, shame, feelings of inferiority) and strives for states which bring about "positive feedback".
In a world with such constant intense competition, its not at all surprising that people struggle - nay, are pathologically TERRIFIED - of acknowledging feelings they've come to associate with not existing, that is, of not being "who they know themselves to be". Thus, for certain types of people, you need a responsive, caring and mindful other to help "scaffold" your experience, and so allow you to know things within your self that would otherwise generate self-annihilating shame, anxiety and depression.
Mom just refused to touch any of us after her "changing point". I mean, could not physically touch us, not with affection, not put a hand on our shoulder. She didn't call or keep in touch. I actually am not sure which is better- negative contact, or no contact at all?
That's rough. If it means anything to you, you're willingness to engage in conversation about this is a positive step in the right direction. Having an "open mind" is the first part. Knowing shame - and not being afraid of it - not letting yourself get "tapped" by the irrational feelings, thoughts and narratives it can induce ("I don't want to talk to you, I don't like you", is what you encounter in people who can't bear feeling feelings they NEED to learn to tolerate if they want to change themselves for the better) is the next part.
I have no hope for studying psychology or psychoanalysis, except as an interesting hobby. My son seems to have higher hopes, he went back to school and is studying psychology now. But I am jaded. I think that seeing the problems we have with ourself and learning to love ourselves anyway, with those problems, allows us to accept those problems in others and not be bitter or resentful. We are all imperfect beings, we all have our hang ups, and deep and complicated reasons for them.
There's great wisdom in eastern thinking in the idea of the impermanence of feelings and perceptions. We are good, I believe, at root. But we can only honor our goodness by acknowledging the deleterious impact of our badness on others and on ourselves. You need to forgive yourself, your mother, and the long chain of abuse/violence that makes true-self transformation so difficult for us.
originally posted by: Astrocyte
Change the input and you can change the stock. "Stock" here means our state of mind at any moment; you can also think of it as our "ego" (in the psychoanalytic sense). Output is what we feel and how we act.
Well I wish you luck with that, and that you prove me wrong. My mother became very capable of talking about her problems, but new ones emerged. Like projecting the narcissism on others, instead of manifesting it herself. She became the submissive, or reverse narcissist, or (until I learned those terms) I just considered it like co-dependent narcisisst.
She was a psychotherapist and got a phd in clinical psychology. Though she entered into therapy herself before going back to university, of course she continued to be in therapy until the end of her life, as is obligatory in that profession.
The "better" she got, the more a psychosomatic illness grew- asthma - that resisted all treatment and eventually killed her.
She did various sorts of psychotherapy, seeing a psychiatrist towards the end. Staring into the abyss, well, it tends to look back...
That's horrible. But do you feel compassion for him?
Of course I do. It makes me terribly sad. But everyone that tries to help him now ends up having him steal all their money and disappearing. I love him and feel much compassion for him.
It sounds like your brother had a hectic and disturbing upbringing.
Yeah. He had his room so full of toys it was hard to move around in, and he never had any punishments, criticisms, or refusals from anyone. He only got positive affirmation from those around him (including myself, I must admit). Everyone was into the thought at that time that it would be good for him. He got to do anything he wanted and and was always praise no matter what.
I imagine it was then very hard to go out into the world in which sometimes, people say "no", or you don't get what you want when you want it, or people might think you are less than perfect at something, or less than a genius, or unwilling to submit to your commands. That was probably very very chaotic to him (I am serious, not joking) , he probably had no idea
how to deal with that, internal or externally.
That's rough. If it means anything to you, you're willingness to engage in conversation about this is a positive step in the right direction.
Only when I was very little did I have trouble talking about it. When babysitters would drill me about bruises or injuries, because I didn't want her to be in trouble. But once she got into therapy, god, she talked about it all the time, apologizing all the time for her acts, an then going into lengthy explanations (and again, apologies) for her blockage about touching us.
Talk talk and more talk, without any holding back is pretty much the rule of the household of psychologists and psychoanalysts. Nothing is taboo. (which sort of made me not well adapted to some social circumstance because I am no good at being discrete on private subjects either my own or others'.
There's great wisdom in eastern thinking in the idea of the impermanence of feelings and perceptions. We are good, I believe, at root. But we can only honor our goodness by acknowledging the deleterious impact of our badness on others and on ourselves. You need to forgive yourself, your mother, and the long chain of abuse/violence that makes true-self transformation so difficult for us.
That's the thing I am referring to- I forgive, I understand, have compassion and love. Does it change much in my patterns of thought and behavior? Not really. It changes my internal, subjective view of myself and others- the actual events continue to play out. I still become a cowering subservient ego stroker when strangers begin to raise their voice at me, and became emotionally attached to "being there for them", and feeling compassion for their internal struggles. I can look at it ten minutes later and pin point exactly what behaviors I fell into and why. Still happens again.
I just have come to the point that I figure, instead of trying to change, it i more constructive to accept yourself and others as they are, and just get on with life.
But that is me, and you are you, and I wish you all the best!
a reply to: Bluesma
Well, the whole thing sort of requires a "mutual trust". If I believe that'll make it easier for you to believe. Belief, in general, is a nebulous thing, hard to pin down and really make sense of. We can say "belief entails an A part accepting the reality of B", or "the witnessing part" which relates with some mental object.
There is an entire new field of psychotherapy involving some of the biggest names in developmental psychology, clinical psychology, affective neuroscience and dynamical systems theory. It's called "interpersonal neurobiology". The field is technically a series of books published by Norton, but it really includes a general understanding of human development as occurring in an "intersubjective matrix", or "dyadic field", describing the extraordinarily subtle meanings that cue and provoke responses between the relating parties.
It is essentially going to the most subtle level - from the mind, to the brain, to the neuron, to the molecular processes which regulate gene expression - and showing how every interaction from childhood to adulthood is regulated by a system that interacts with our developing self-system. The culture, through the mothers way of being, "imprints" meanings, minute after minute, hour after hour, week after week, until the infant has now become a "carrier" of an organization that has been "scaffolded" by the responses given by the primary caregiver, as well as other salient relationships in time and space.
There is something fundamentally spiritual beneath this movement in psychology, neurosciences, education and psychotherapy: a sense of being a part of something greater than ourselves. Professors from UCLA, NYU, Harvard, Columbia, University of North Carolina, and other leading institutions, are just as human as anyone else. This movement "from within" academia has been slowly building up and breaking down the problems that have accrued from academia, especially in psychiatry, psychology and education, since the beginning of these fields in the 1800s. Minus of course Montessori and Waldorf schools.
I think the fundamental point is: together, we are stronger; a part from one another, we are weak. Love - that which we feel when we suffer - is the only thing that allows us to commit ourselves to our life goals - which essentially becomes identical in spirit with the feeling of love.
I think, for any thinking or feeling person, just knowing that love exists as it does as a collective phenomenon gives us a sense of it's fundamentally social nature: we love because we are social beings. We hate, too, because we our social beings. Shame - is the most pernicious of the social emotions because it can conceal and be covered up by feelings of irritation, anger or rage, emotions which compel the mind to believe their reality: you DO feel what you think you feel; and most of all, this is the TRUTH of what you feel.
These sorts of ruminations are subtle but their common to us. We have perceptions and we feel compelled to enact them with conviction. Our arousal is equal to our conviction; the more arousal we allow ourselves to feel (i.e yelling, feeling anxious in your body, mumbling your words, etc) the less reasonable and thus 'true to ourselves' we are able to be. Thus, train yourself to watch and perceive your interactions with the world, the effects they produce in you, and how you become organized in your reactions.
Also, as I've never tired of pointing out, the brain is plastic. We now know of many different epigenetic mechanisms that regulate gene expression in neurons; one process is called DNA methylation and the other one is Histone Acetylation (and it also has histone methylation). In the former case, a gene which causes hyper-reactivity can be 'regulated' by mindful reflection and containment of the experience of being hyper-reactive. The exact process that begins as "mindful awareness" has no current molecular model. All we know is, when a gene become methylated, the gene becomes inactivated. DNA methylation is a process whereby a methyl group - three hydrogen, one carbon - become attracted to the Cytosine portion of the gene in question. The methyl group attaches itself and thus renders the gene as a whole unable to replicate itself. DNA methylation ALWAYS shuts off genes.
Histone modification is another process which blocks gene expression. Histone is a part of the chromatin that DNA "raps itself" around. The Histone comes in four types, and possess a positive charge. The DNA, conversely, has a negative charge. When a acetyl group comes along, it activates the gene by neutralizing the positive charge of the Histone protein with its own negative charge. Thus, without histone 'blocking' protein transporter-gene contact, genes can readily become 'activated' by whatever is in the cell nucleus.
These processes are the processes which both a) support the states we experience as "ourselves" b)
allow us the freedom to redirect and literally "engineer" a new self. But in order to do this effectively we need to "position" ourselves in the world where we will find the kind of "energies", or personalities, that will 'contain' and provide positive feedback, thus supporting and amplifying a reenforcing feedback effect, which overtime will accumulate into a clearer sense of "you".
This is what you get with undisciplined thinking. You need to think like a systems theorist because that's just how the world is. You can't go too much in one direction or you'll create the opposite effect in the other. This is a "rebalancing feedback" and it happens in all complex systems, in the market, in the body, in nature, in weather, and yes, also in the human mind - which is housed in a physical organ operating just as system like.
So what we experience mentally and emotionally with one another is a dynamic occurring at different levels, within, upon and underneath us. Your mothers mothering techniques, clearly, were absurd. From what you've described (and you described yourself very well, btw) it did a very poor job preparing him for a world where other people just like yourself have their own needs and interests. This is whats sometimes called the "tragedy of the commons". If we all think something selfish, like wanting what I want when I want it, then we'll each make life a living hell for the other. Chaos ensues and society falls apart.
The inevitable conclusion is that life entails a balance between liberty and responsibility. That's why I think it would be a nice idea if we built a statue of Responsibility on the other American coast, to balance out what is currently sorely off kilter.
This seems to contradict this:
This isn't possible. When we aren't "succeeding" in what we want, were probably not attending to the matter in the right way. For example, what you're saying i
Well I wish you luck with that, and that you prove me wrong.
Well, the whole thing sort of requires a "mutual trust". If I believe that'll make it easier for you to believe. Belief, in general, is a nebulous thing, hard to pin down and really make sense of. We can say "belief entails an A part accepting the reality of B", or "the witnessing part" which relates with some mental object.
There is an entire new field of psychotherapy involving some of the biggest names in developmental psychology, clinical psychology, affective neuroscience and dynamical systems theory. It's called "interpersonal neurobiology". The field is technically a series of books published by Norton, but it really includes a general understanding of human development as occurring in an "intersubjective matrix", or "dyadic field", describing the extraordinarily subtle meanings that cue and provoke responses between the relating parties.
It is essentially going to the most subtle level - from the mind, to the brain, to the neuron, to the molecular processes which regulate gene expression - and showing how every interaction from childhood to adulthood is regulated by a system that interacts with our developing self-system. The culture, through the mothers way of being, "imprints" meanings, minute after minute, hour after hour, week after week, until the infant has now become a "carrier" of an organization that has been "scaffolded" by the responses given by the primary caregiver, as well as other salient relationships in time and space.
There is something fundamentally spiritual beneath this movement in psychology, neurosciences, education and psychotherapy: a sense of being a part of something greater than ourselves. Professors from UCLA, NYU, Harvard, Columbia, University of North Carolina, and other leading institutions, are just as human as anyone else. This movement "from within" academia has been slowly building up and breaking down the problems that have accrued from academia, especially in psychiatry, psychology and education, since the beginning of these fields in the 1800s. Minus of course Montessori and Waldorf schools.
I think the fundamental point is: together, we are stronger; a part from one another, we are weak. Love - that which we feel when we suffer - is the only thing that allows us to commit ourselves to our life goals - which essentially becomes identical in spirit with the feeling of love.
I think, for any thinking or feeling person, just knowing that love exists as it does as a collective phenomenon gives us a sense of it's fundamentally social nature: we love because we are social beings. We hate, too, because we our social beings. Shame - is the most pernicious of the social emotions because it can conceal and be covered up by feelings of irritation, anger or rage, emotions which compel the mind to believe their reality: you DO feel what you think you feel; and most of all, this is the TRUTH of what you feel.
These sorts of ruminations are subtle but their common to us. We have perceptions and we feel compelled to enact them with conviction. Our arousal is equal to our conviction; the more arousal we allow ourselves to feel (i.e yelling, feeling anxious in your body, mumbling your words, etc) the less reasonable and thus 'true to ourselves' we are able to be. Thus, train yourself to watch and perceive your interactions with the world, the effects they produce in you, and how you become organized in your reactions.
Also, as I've never tired of pointing out, the brain is plastic. We now know of many different epigenetic mechanisms that regulate gene expression in neurons; one process is called DNA methylation and the other one is Histone Acetylation (and it also has histone methylation). In the former case, a gene which causes hyper-reactivity can be 'regulated' by mindful reflection and containment of the experience of being hyper-reactive. The exact process that begins as "mindful awareness" has no current molecular model. All we know is, when a gene become methylated, the gene becomes inactivated. DNA methylation is a process whereby a methyl group - three hydrogen, one carbon - become attracted to the Cytosine portion of the gene in question. The methyl group attaches itself and thus renders the gene as a whole unable to replicate itself. DNA methylation ALWAYS shuts off genes.
Histone modification is another process which blocks gene expression. Histone is a part of the chromatin that DNA "raps itself" around. The Histone comes in four types, and possess a positive charge. The DNA, conversely, has a negative charge. When a acetyl group comes along, it activates the gene by neutralizing the positive charge of the Histone protein with its own negative charge. Thus, without histone 'blocking' protein transporter-gene contact, genes can readily become 'activated' by whatever is in the cell nucleus.
These processes are the processes which both a) support the states we experience as "ourselves" b)
allow us the freedom to redirect and literally "engineer" a new self. But in order to do this effectively we need to "position" ourselves in the world where we will find the kind of "energies", or personalities, that will 'contain' and provide positive feedback, thus supporting and amplifying a reenforcing feedback effect, which overtime will accumulate into a clearer sense of "you".
Talk talk and more talk, without any holding back is pretty much the rule of the household of psychologists and psychoanalysts. Nothing is taboo. (which sort of made me not well adapted to some social circumstance because I am no good at being discrete on private subjects either my own or others'.
This is what you get with undisciplined thinking. You need to think like a systems theorist because that's just how the world is. You can't go too much in one direction or you'll create the opposite effect in the other. This is a "rebalancing feedback" and it happens in all complex systems, in the market, in the body, in nature, in weather, and yes, also in the human mind - which is housed in a physical organ operating just as system like.
So what we experience mentally and emotionally with one another is a dynamic occurring at different levels, within, upon and underneath us. Your mothers mothering techniques, clearly, were absurd. From what you've described (and you described yourself very well, btw) it did a very poor job preparing him for a world where other people just like yourself have their own needs and interests. This is whats sometimes called the "tragedy of the commons". If we all think something selfish, like wanting what I want when I want it, then we'll each make life a living hell for the other. Chaos ensues and society falls apart.
The inevitable conclusion is that life entails a balance between liberty and responsibility. That's why I think it would be a nice idea if we built a statue of Responsibility on the other American coast, to balance out what is currently sorely off kilter.
Does it change much in my patterns of thought and behavior? Not really.
This seems to contradict this:
It changes my internal, subjective view of myself and others- the actual events continue to play out.
This isn't possible. When we aren't "succeeding" in what we want, were probably not attending to the matter in the right way. For example, what you're saying i
is essentially that the world just is the way it is, it sucks, things aren't as good as you think they are. That sort of seems to be the logical,
unsaid basis of your thinking.
When we do this - or get caught in this sort of feedback - we make the error of subscribing to the perception and 'giving it authority' over ourselves, literally, by our very enactments - our saying it, to ourselves, and in our conversations with others, what we have "understood" about ourselves. This process, if not attended to, can be noxious. What's happening is a type of self-hypnosis, the feeling impels the thinking which solidifies the experience as a 'content' of who you are.
I've gotten caught up in that #ty process too many freaking times. It's horrible, because it can be so believable. At such moments, I try to remind myself of the system-like dynamics of my awareness. I "go down" into the sub-systems within my consciousness - the body - and regulate my breathing, as when breathing becomes more relaxed on the exhale, the heart slows down, the lungs take deeper breaths, and the muscles around the diaphragm and throughout the body relax. By doing this, I generate "feelings" that 'bias' my mental state towards positive thought life-narratives (what is in our current life which would bring us pleasure).
It is also, I think, fundamentally FUN to work with your mind like this because you're actually marshaling teenie tiny molecular processes to "build up" physical complexes that become "me", yet more clear and integrated. It really is an ontologically amazing thing.
YOU, in how you decide to relate with the world, can make the appropriate changes in the appropriate places to create the change you want. Emotions and personality are enormously flexible.
When we do this - or get caught in this sort of feedback - we make the error of subscribing to the perception and 'giving it authority' over ourselves, literally, by our very enactments - our saying it, to ourselves, and in our conversations with others, what we have "understood" about ourselves. This process, if not attended to, can be noxious. What's happening is a type of self-hypnosis, the feeling impels the thinking which solidifies the experience as a 'content' of who you are.
I've gotten caught up in that #ty process too many freaking times. It's horrible, because it can be so believable. At such moments, I try to remind myself of the system-like dynamics of my awareness. I "go down" into the sub-systems within my consciousness - the body - and regulate my breathing, as when breathing becomes more relaxed on the exhale, the heart slows down, the lungs take deeper breaths, and the muscles around the diaphragm and throughout the body relax. By doing this, I generate "feelings" that 'bias' my mental state towards positive thought life-narratives (what is in our current life which would bring us pleasure).
It is also, I think, fundamentally FUN to work with your mind like this because you're actually marshaling teenie tiny molecular processes to "build up" physical complexes that become "me", yet more clear and integrated. It really is an ontologically amazing thing.
YOU, in how you decide to relate with the world, can make the appropriate changes in the appropriate places to create the change you want. Emotions and personality are enormously flexible.
originally posted by: Astrocyte
This isn't possible. When we aren't "succeeding" in what we want, were probably not attending to the matter in the right way. For example, what you're saying i
I'm interested in your theory, here, but have trouble bringing it down into practical terms.
Maybe you can sort of use an example and explain to me how to apply this? Especially since right at this minute I am crying and feeling really lost and confused.
How can I stop trying so hard to please everyone I come into contact with? To not stretch myself too thin, to not get caught in between everyones differing demands and needs?
I will spare you my current complicated story, but I repeatedly find myself torn between trying to make many people happy, trying to be there for them, trying to avoid conflicts, trying to be compassionate, considerate, and responsible. But the problems is that everyone wants different things! What one person tells me to do pisses off another...I'm physically and emotionally falling apart.
I realize that this comes from my issues with trying to be a caretaker, afraid that if I am not there and serviable, someone will commit suicide, or get hurt, or leave, or maybe even simply have a #ty day, and I CARE. I don't want to cause any of that, serious or less serious. Nobody is victimizing me, no more than my mother did. People just make mistakes, they don't see the whole picture, they have their own perspective, issues, needs, and problems too.
I know I am probably bi-polar, or at least borderline- and in the last fifteen years have seen a psychoanalyst, and two different psychologists- I told them exactly this. I spill it all out. And they pat me and say I am fine and tell me to leave.
My life feels like it is falling apart, and it has before, and I am unable to stop it. I am unable to stop caring what happens to the people around me and unable to say no, unable to say "not my problem" or not feel troubled that they are unhappy with who I am or what I do.
The talk of how to find compassion- compassion is easy, love is easy, understanding is easy! It just is; there is no effort to be made there. But how do you turn it off when you just can't give anymore and you actually start to let people down because you haven't any more time or energy, or can't find a way to conciliate the desires of everyone in a way that works for each?
Using your theory, what could help me change?
a reply to: Bluesma
Hey Bluesma,
Personally, my only analysis as to how to move towards bettering your situation is to fully know that to yourself, you are the most important person, and must be (ah, here is where we get the narcissistic mind, but it doesnt have to be evil, just because I say you must focus on yourself, and you must be the prime objective in most or every situation, especially for at least some time, to heal what appears to be a troubling time, which appears to be rooted in your concern for many things which are not yourself).
People must understand this, and if they dont, they are wrong. That your well being is most important. And if they depend on you for their well being, they must always allow and desire you to fully care and consider about yourself at all times most, before expecting you to consider about them.
You and yourself, your well-being, your stability, comfort, and happiness, as mine is to me, must be your ultimate concern. For we see, if you do want to create a lovely house of cards from the pure source of your stable self, which care takes and considers the selves of others, if the pure source of your self is not well and happy and stable, it jeopardizes the whole operation, the ability to do what you think and feel you must or want to do.
And you must know, that you are truly not obligated (though I dont know all the details) to be so infinitely helpful to others.
If any one truly cares about you at all, they must understand that if you are not going through a good time, and need to focus on yourself, then if they do not understand this need, and desire it for you, they do not truly care about you at all, and therefore there is no need or reason as to why you should care about them.
The concept of respect and care, comes in many different forms and stabilities and quantities. Something I have thought about recently; what does it take to respect some one? Well there is an entire spectrum, the simplest form of respect can require no effort, no expenditure of energy, simply it would be the lack of energy that could be deemed non respectful, thus the natural state is respectful, but it could also be donating a billion dollars to charity.
If you are one person, which I suspect you are, as you mention being worn thin by helping others, no sensical mind in the world that has ever existed would expect or believe that you could continue to take more and more people under your wing. I cant keep saying the same thing over and over, but if the people under your wing do care about you, they must understand that you need some time to relax and love your self, the hardest part for you may just be attempting to tell such people. But communication and honesty is valuable in any relationship, and you are too good of a person to suffer unjustly, to be punished for trying to be too good. Take some deep breathes, relax, take some time to be too good to yourself.
Hey Bluesma,
Personally, my only analysis as to how to move towards bettering your situation is to fully know that to yourself, you are the most important person, and must be (ah, here is where we get the narcissistic mind, but it doesnt have to be evil, just because I say you must focus on yourself, and you must be the prime objective in most or every situation, especially for at least some time, to heal what appears to be a troubling time, which appears to be rooted in your concern for many things which are not yourself).
People must understand this, and if they dont, they are wrong. That your well being is most important. And if they depend on you for their well being, they must always allow and desire you to fully care and consider about yourself at all times most, before expecting you to consider about them.
You and yourself, your well-being, your stability, comfort, and happiness, as mine is to me, must be your ultimate concern. For we see, if you do want to create a lovely house of cards from the pure source of your stable self, which care takes and considers the selves of others, if the pure source of your self is not well and happy and stable, it jeopardizes the whole operation, the ability to do what you think and feel you must or want to do.
And you must know, that you are truly not obligated (though I dont know all the details) to be so infinitely helpful to others.
If any one truly cares about you at all, they must understand that if you are not going through a good time, and need to focus on yourself, then if they do not understand this need, and desire it for you, they do not truly care about you at all, and therefore there is no need or reason as to why you should care about them.
The concept of respect and care, comes in many different forms and stabilities and quantities. Something I have thought about recently; what does it take to respect some one? Well there is an entire spectrum, the simplest form of respect can require no effort, no expenditure of energy, simply it would be the lack of energy that could be deemed non respectful, thus the natural state is respectful, but it could also be donating a billion dollars to charity.
If you are one person, which I suspect you are, as you mention being worn thin by helping others, no sensical mind in the world that has ever existed would expect or believe that you could continue to take more and more people under your wing. I cant keep saying the same thing over and over, but if the people under your wing do care about you, they must understand that you need some time to relax and love your self, the hardest part for you may just be attempting to tell such people. But communication and honesty is valuable in any relationship, and you are too good of a person to suffer unjustly, to be punished for trying to be too good. Take some deep breathes, relax, take some time to be too good to yourself.
a reply to: soulwaxer
OMG this gave me chills.
My boyfriend's mother turned out to be a massive covert narc. I had no idea for YEARS she was like this, none and never in a million years would I have expected it!!! She is vile and dangerous.
Her true colors started to show when her son and I became serious and feelings got involved. It's like a switch went off and she became a completely different person to what I had known for many years! It took me a while to see what she was. I have spent almost 3 years reading about narcissism. She has bullied me and her favorite gaslighting, for almost 3 years. The things she has done and said about me should be criminal! She is cunning, manipulative and heartless. That woman doesn't know love only control.
Once i saw how she truly was many things made sense with my bf and his family. I had known them for 7 years before we dated and they all have always lived together, worked together and go out together. I never thought anything of it honestly. I just thought they were all super close. Yea well there is a difference between being close and being manipulated and controlled to think a certain way . Her favorite saying is "we are family and we have to stay together to survive." Makes me want to puke. The look in her eyes when she says it shows how insane she is!
The mind games she plays with her son are disgusting. I want to strangle her! She has been so verbally abusive to him over the years he just takes it! He will stick up for himself to an extent but then she just unleashes a verbal tirade on him to where he actually starts to believe what she says is true. It breaks my heart because I love him and i hate that she is like that to him. He is a good man and doesn't deserve it but anytime he tries to break away or show any independence she starts her crap and I AM ALWAYS the target! It also breaks my heart because I loved her like a second mom at one point. I thought she was the coolest mom ever and I could always talk to her about anything! OH but the moment her son and I fell in love she became a jealous teenager who couldn't get the boy she liked. The control she has over both her kids is so very sad and disturbing. She has told me time and time again that if i want to be with her son I will do what she says or she will make sure I"m not. Oh she has made up some insane things about me and convinced her son it was true and the sick part is she got her daughter in on it too. She too use to be my best friend! I could write a book on my experiences with this nut job.
I don't even know what to do anymore because it just gets worse everytime my bf and I are together and happy. When we are separated we are both mopey and upset. She then claims she wants him happy and if that's with me then fine yet she starts her crap shortly after! I am tired of being her emotional punching bag and I'm tired of her treating the man I love this way. She doesn't love him she wants to control him. My bf told me when all this started that his mom hates the fact she can't control me and I'm not intimidated by here. That is how she gets people to do what she wants. She intimidates or threatens everyone. She is so slick about it too but now I see through her BS and won't play her game. I don't speak to her at all but she is still involved in our relationship. She will make up any lie and tell her son and keep saying it over and over until he finally believes her and then he is torn between me and her and he doesn't know which is true. That is her game. That is what she wants.
I hope one day he sees her for who she truly is. She has destroyed him emotionally when it comes to me and has put it all on me. I have never hurt him in any way. I would never. I love him more than anything in the world, she on the other hand is sick and twisted and seems to get a kick out of hurting me and him! It's her SON! How can she do such things to him and she him so hurt and upset? It boggles my mind and makes me so angry because nobody deserves that treatment.
I feel like the only way he will ever be free is when she is finally 6 feet under!
OMG this gave me chills.
My boyfriend's mother turned out to be a massive covert narc. I had no idea for YEARS she was like this, none and never in a million years would I have expected it!!! She is vile and dangerous.
Her true colors started to show when her son and I became serious and feelings got involved. It's like a switch went off and she became a completely different person to what I had known for many years! It took me a while to see what she was. I have spent almost 3 years reading about narcissism. She has bullied me and her favorite gaslighting, for almost 3 years. The things she has done and said about me should be criminal! She is cunning, manipulative and heartless. That woman doesn't know love only control.
Once i saw how she truly was many things made sense with my bf and his family. I had known them for 7 years before we dated and they all have always lived together, worked together and go out together. I never thought anything of it honestly. I just thought they were all super close. Yea well there is a difference between being close and being manipulated and controlled to think a certain way . Her favorite saying is "we are family and we have to stay together to survive." Makes me want to puke. The look in her eyes when she says it shows how insane she is!
The mind games she plays with her son are disgusting. I want to strangle her! She has been so verbally abusive to him over the years he just takes it! He will stick up for himself to an extent but then she just unleashes a verbal tirade on him to where he actually starts to believe what she says is true. It breaks my heart because I love him and i hate that she is like that to him. He is a good man and doesn't deserve it but anytime he tries to break away or show any independence she starts her crap and I AM ALWAYS the target! It also breaks my heart because I loved her like a second mom at one point. I thought she was the coolest mom ever and I could always talk to her about anything! OH but the moment her son and I fell in love she became a jealous teenager who couldn't get the boy she liked. The control she has over both her kids is so very sad and disturbing. She has told me time and time again that if i want to be with her son I will do what she says or she will make sure I"m not. Oh she has made up some insane things about me and convinced her son it was true and the sick part is she got her daughter in on it too. She too use to be my best friend! I could write a book on my experiences with this nut job.
I don't even know what to do anymore because it just gets worse everytime my bf and I are together and happy. When we are separated we are both mopey and upset. She then claims she wants him happy and if that's with me then fine yet she starts her crap shortly after! I am tired of being her emotional punching bag and I'm tired of her treating the man I love this way. She doesn't love him she wants to control him. My bf told me when all this started that his mom hates the fact she can't control me and I'm not intimidated by here. That is how she gets people to do what she wants. She intimidates or threatens everyone. She is so slick about it too but now I see through her BS and won't play her game. I don't speak to her at all but she is still involved in our relationship. She will make up any lie and tell her son and keep saying it over and over until he finally believes her and then he is torn between me and her and he doesn't know which is true. That is her game. That is what she wants.
I hope one day he sees her for who she truly is. She has destroyed him emotionally when it comes to me and has put it all on me. I have never hurt him in any way. I would never. I love him more than anything in the world, she on the other hand is sick and twisted and seems to get a kick out of hurting me and him! It's her SON! How can she do such things to him and she him so hurt and upset? It boggles my mind and makes me so angry because nobody deserves that treatment.
I feel like the only way he will ever be free is when she is finally 6 feet under!
Well, this is an old thread.... but I appreciate someone bringing it up again, so I could read the dialogue I had had at the time.
Synchronicity is awesome. I've gotten to another one of my burnout phases, where trying to please too many people, do too much, has left me empty and exhausted.
It did me good to reread some of my own advice and recognize old patterns.
Synchronicity is awesome. I've gotten to another one of my burnout phases, where trying to please too many people, do too much, has left me empty and exhausted.
It did me good to reread some of my own advice and recognize old patterns.
Narcissistic Personality Quiz
Interesting read/quiz.
peace
Interesting read/quiz.
peace
edit on 2453Saturday201713 by silo13 because: link fix
originally posted by: Bluesma
Well, this is an old thread.... but I appreciate someone bringing it up again, so I could read the dialogue I had had at the time.
Synchronicity is awesome. I've gotten to another one of my burnout phases, where trying to please too many people, do too much, has left me empty and exhausted.
It did me good to reread some of my own advice and recognize old patterns.
YeaI brought it up because of my situation. I have never really thought about narcissism until my boyfriend's mother started with her games. Everything I looked up brought me to narcissism but covert. I had known her for years and NEVER in a million years expected her to be this way. Once it all clicked a lot of things started making sense to me with her, little things i would not have picked up on and clearly didnt but she went full blown when her son and I became serious and she hasn't stopped. Only now I know what she is doing and I am not playing. It's her son I worry about because he either sees how she is and ignores it because it's too much or he truly doesn't see her actions. She is very good at it and the lying with her. If lying were an olympic sport she would would earn all gold medals. I feel sorry for her because I know she had a rough childhood and many things happen in her life which clearly made her how she is now but it is so unfair how she treats her kids and how she has treated them. So much of their behavior makes sense to me and it is very disturbing a the same time. I honestly don't know what to do with her anymore because she will never stop. My bf needs to wake up and see the truth of the situation or we will always have her drama in our relationship and we don't want or need that. We just want to be happy without anyone getting in the way but that is HIS mom and he needs to do something. I feel that he has been brainwashed and emotionally abused too long that he just can't see it.
All I have done for almost 3 years is read about narcissism. It is so very disturbing especially when they hide it. It is hurtful to see someone you once loved turn out to be someone completely different than you thought they were. She puts on an act like nobody's business that's for sure.
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