It’s that time of year again.  We’re supposed to be festive and joyful.  Our families and friends bring us close and we’re all cheery, right?

I recognize that attitude is everything.  Every day I have a choice about how I respond to stimuli in my environment.  I can choose to meander off into emotional gloom or sunshine .  Aside from the holidays, it is very easy to flush my feelings of disappointment down the drain and recenter my inner peace.

It could be the fact that a friend of mine died suddenly just before Thanksgiving.  She was younger than me.  It could be that her death reminds me of unaccomplished dreams and goals in my life.  It could be that I miss my mother … whose death and funeral memories are all tangled up in the final betrayal that I experienced at the hands of a Narcissist.

Although I take full responsibility for every choice that has brought me to the life that I know today, I continue to stumble over the hurdle labeled acceptance.  Accepting responsibility for one’s part in a drama is very different than accepting the disappointment that resulted from those decisions.

It has been a maniacal couple of months for me. I do apologize for not blogging during that time but, life IS.

Today I would like to share a video with you again.  The song is by a group named Sugarland and the music has touched my life. The underlying message of the lyrics speak to how events and experiences in our lives shape who we become, and how those memories never die.

Enjoy!

As we learn more about Narcissists and NPD, we sometimes come to realize that the most recent experience we are reeling from is not the ONLY experience we’ve had in our lives.  While we can itemize the things to look out for and ways to extricate these emotional vampires from our sphere, it may be equally important to look into our own souls and discover what it is about us that continues to attract these aberrated people.  Allow me to share some observations that I’ve made about my style for your self-consideration as you continue on your own journey back to the lightness that once was your life.

Reviewing some of the search terms that got people to this site, I found this topic.  I believe it to be of general interest but not for the most obvious reasons.

I feel that it is necessary to re-cap a few facts that I’ve learned about Narcissists.  Narcissists are not easy to profile because they do not seek therapy.  Thus, they are a segment of humanity which we are becoming more aware of who cannot be easily identified.  From the comments on this blog, I’m aware that what I’m writing is hitting home, even though most of what I’ve written here is based on my own experiences and observations.

I sure don’t describe this as some of my best work but, while I was working today, this poem flitted into my head so I thought I would share it here:

It put a smile on my face. I hope it does the same for my readers!

Days of festivals and parades are supposed to be fun.  Like my cat, who is disturbed by the noise, I stay in a back part of the house so as to be less affected by Lumberjack Days.
 
As I worked in my office, it occurred to me that there was only one “kind of” happy parade day experience for me here.  It would have been a perfect day had it not been for the upset from the night before with someone who couldn’t remember an agreement he had made with me after blowing off our 4th of July holiday plans that year and scheduling something else in conflict.  Of course, he didn’t inform me of this until all my other friends had plans of their own…   
 
It was always about what he wanted to have and, no matter how much I gave him, it wasn’t ever enough.  This is a Narcissist’s claim to fame, so I later learned.

In a recent discussion, a friend of mine opined about my Narcissist. I heard myself saying that, if he was such a loser, why did his life appear to be going along so much better than mine. And, since saying that, I’ve heard a similar thought from another soul who reads my blog. They opined that the good guys do finish last. I have to say, this resonated with me. So the question of the day is: What is success?

It’s plain in retrospect my Narcissist is a thoughtless and empty shell whose only concern is his own satisfaction and gain at any cost. Clearly, this has worked for him all his life. Even though it seemed unconventional given his age when we met, he explained that he lived off his parents because he was an artist and inventor. I later learned he established relationships with women in his youth so he could live rent free which made me feel uncomfortable.