Yours Truly

I think it's accurate to say that he started making a move to become closer to me when I brought up in group that I didn't have any friends and that I didn't believe in god. I was very level and non-emotional about it, but I did perceive a subtle, yet perceptible wave of pity sweep the room. It was eye-opening but it made me feel like there was something wrong with me. Maybe my decisions aren't "normal" in a societal sense but I am comfortable with them. I just feel like there's something wrong about me feeling comfortable with them, but that's something for therapy.

One day our group therapist asked us to imagine what our spirits would say to us if they were standing outside our bodies. I was thinking, HUH?? Who's the freak here?? Lol! I didn't say that, of course. I did tell her that I have bipolar I disorder and that my mind couldn't afford to explore such distortions.

But my friend (J), never says anything at all about my lack of friends or spirituality at all. He's just there. His presence feels kind of protective and brotherly and it's very nice. I'll miss him so much.

Yours Truly

He had mentioned last Wednesday that since he moved to this area and switched to going to different meetings that it wasn't the same. He said he found himself texting a lot of members from the place where he used to go and that he felt kind of lost.

I am new to this area too, having moved here this past March. D and I lived in the valley for a couple of years, then in the foothills, and now in the Mojave Desert (all with varying climates - and cultures as well). The places aren't even that far apart, not even a hundred miles I don't think.

I was thinking of offering to attend meetings with him from time-to-time or for as long as I can filter what I'm hearing. I will be honest with him about that. I went to them before, way before I found message boards and alternative forms of achieving abstinence. I was hardly able to attend an open meeting without bawling my eyes out. The stories of the speakers were always moving. Something just never clicked. But maybe having another familiar face around would make him feel a little more at home, and maybe a little coffee afterward - decaf for me - and going over some anger stuff would be good for both of us. It would get me out of the house, too.

So that's something for me to chew on, but I won't offer unless I'm certain I can handle it. I remember doing closed meetings and not announcing myself as being an alcoholic and watching all heads at the table swivel in my direction. Then I would launch into this spiel about how I didn't like to label myself, lol. They were kinda cool about it tho.

"My name is (.......) and in all humility I was previously addicted to alcohol."

Lol!

Yours Truly

This book I'm reading by H.G. Tudor (Escape: How to Beat the Narcissist) has proven to be rather depressing.

Kids, this isn't the place you want to go to confirm that your Daddy is a narcissist.

I hadn't ruled out the chance the author might be a psychoanalyst guised as a narcissist, but no. While I appreciate the author's directness and lack of fluff between the lines, he really exudes no empathy whatsoever. He completely lacks emotion. He never taunts the reader or comes off as jeering, but he does sometimes flaunt his abusive exploits of other people (specifically, women). It's at least commendable that he doesn't try to schmooze the reader into believing that he's doing all of this in the name of helping people.

If I didn't have any emotional investment the content wouldn't bother me as much but it's pretty difficult information to assimilate. He's callus and narcissists are callus people and there's no pretty way to frame it I guess. If it was just a narcissist just guffawing about his exploits there's no question that I wouldn't have bought his book, but he is helping people. It just takes a certain kind of someone to be able to stomach it. It's a tough read.

I'm 73% of the way through the book now. There's an upcoming section titled "Hope" which was always my #1 biggest hangup when it came to my Dad. Tudor is really going to sock it to me there - the final blow. If this were only about some pathetic loser boyfriend I'd just cry, get over it after a while and find a new one eventually. Dads aren't replaceable though. That I know, because all that time he was absent from my life there was just a big, empty void in my heart.

Yours Truly

After I finished my post last night about having a void in my heart, I realized that is how people with a deceased parent must feel.

And that got me to wondering if I should just pretend that my Dad is dead. Another member suggested hypnosis to me via PM and that might just be the way to go.

Before I went to bed I found an email from my Dad. I don’t sit on top of my email. It was neutral. Neutral topics, neutral tone. Of course. . . .sly dog. Change of seasons, snow tires, winterizing his bike. Where to go from here? Well, there are no weather notes to compare. I use all-season tires. I know nothing about winterizing motorcycles. What does that leave? Let’s see. Well, he refuses to discuss my stepmom’s condition. Family is out of the question, and he has ostracized all of them anyway. Politics? According to him, over on the West Coast here, we're all just a bunch of liberal pot-smoking commies running around naked in the streets, and he knows I hate politics anyway.

(As an aside, even though D and I are pretty much aligned in our views, my eyes start glazing over when he starts on one of his impassioned speeches. D and my Dad are both very opinionated and have very opposing political views, and that’s one reason that D has never taken the initiative to have a conversation with my Dad. Not to mention that D would crush my Dad in any conversation requiring the slightest morsel of intellect [just as I have done – I’m not half as smart as my rocket scientist boyfriend, but I’m twice as smart as my Dad, lol]).

So what does that leave? I was really serious when I said that I’m smarter than him. I won’t get into the various topics, but he’s really slack. I used to think he was the most brilliant person I ever knew. I was kind of shocked when I reestablished a relationship with him to discover that it was mostly just arrogance disguised as intelligence!

The bottom line is that there is nothing of substance that we can discuss. We don’t have anything in common. He definitely won’t discuss himself. He hides his inner self. That leaves ME. Me and my turf. And the author of the book I just read enlightened me on that one. That narcissists move in shadows. They make it all about you and make you feel like something special. And I know what will come next. Well, my Dad’s not going there. For one thing, I’m drained. The pity party is over.

I’ll respond noncommittally to his email – when I get around to it – keeping a wary eye on fear and hurt.

Yours Truly

When I said I was tired of thinking about my Dad I really meant it, but it was more than that. At the time I didn’t realize it was more than being tired of him or just PMS but I wasn’t paying attention.

I think that was Friday night.

One of the side effects of Topamax is weight loss. When I started taking it in May I microanzalyzed the side effects, lol. From most of what I read, very few people have lost an excessive amount of weight from this medication. This drug has killed my appetite and since June I have lost over 30 lb., which isn't a big deal because I can spare it - that and about another 30. I really have to force myself to eat and have been subsisting mostly on Atkins shakes, bananas, nutrition bars and popcorn. I make sure I get enough nutrients, but I’ve been really low on calories.

So anyway, Friday night I was up late reading and just feeling sluggish. My body was telling me I was hungry but my brain wasn’t (or at least the part not connected to satiety wasn’t). So I went downstairs to make some popcorn as I’d already had everything else. As I was standing in front of the microwave I felt like I was going to vomit and then felt like I was going to faint. Then I felt cold and clammy and thought I was just having a panic attack. So my popcorn finished popping and I just dropped my unopened bag of popcorn onto the floor next to the sofa and collapsed onto it (the sofa, lol). I fell asleep (at least I think I fell asleep) and when I woke up the bag of popcorn was cold and I took it upstairs and continued reading the narcissist's advice and ate my bag of popcorn (D says my side of the bed looks like the floor of a movie theatre with all of my power bar wrappers, empty water bottles, twisted up, empty bags of popcorn, etc. strewn about – I’m such a scrub, lol!). But that just goes to show how neglectful I’ve been of everything lately – even myself.

The next day I was dragging even more and asked D to kindly run out and grab me some food. He brought me back a large fry, a Double Quarter-Pounder with Cheese and a box of Chicken McNuggets (10 pc). How I ate all of that I’ll never know, but I did. The food was crap but the calories did make a huge amount of difference. I think today I’m going to take some magnesium and potassium supplements. When I did ketogenic diets in the past I remember being careful about not allowing electrolytes to get out of whack and I’m pretty sure I haven’t been getting enough of those. Potassium can be tricky but these prepackaged foods only contain like FIVE percent of the daily value. I bought some in bulk a while back and shoved it into empty capsules. That’s the only way to get it in decent amounts. In hindsight, I wish I’d used some when I knew I was low on calories. But, like I said, I wasn’t paying attention. So I’m glad I have some of this stuff around or else I’d be on my way somewhere soon getting stuck with an IV. Fun times.

Yours Truly

I told D I would be out of commission for a few days. He will hopefully be understanding about that. He has expectations of me which is understandable (and fair). We’re on two different energy wavelengths, though. I am very low key and quiet (believe it or not), very much a homebody, and he needs to be on the go-go-go. I have ADD, and sometimes he talks really, really fast. I can’t even nod or shake my head quickly enough to agree or disagree in between his sentences. If I’m focusing on something, I hear sound (muffled sound), but I don’t absorb what’s being said and he gets frustrated. So he’ll be running around in circles and being a motormouth all at the same time and I become inwardly very edgy. I told him he needs one of these things:

A Spinarooni. . . .

. . . .and just get it out of his system.

I love him so much, but I just don’t require the amount of external stimuli that he does. I used to let him drag me to ihop (wearing earplugs), but I just couldn’t hack it anymore. Once in a while we’ll go to a quiet place, and I’m not averse to car trips to quiet outdoor places.

So the original reason for this post was regarding my Dad’s email. I really just want to let him have it. I’m pissed that he thinks he can just mosey back into my life without an apology. That just makes me want to methodically break his psyche down into bite-sized pieces and slam the door forever. BOOM.

The narcissist says that’s just the fuel he wants (I’m onto the narcissist’s next book in the “No Contact” series, by the way; Departure Imminent: Preparing for No Contact to Beat the Narcissist. The narcissist also says that his brethren will do everything he or she can to lure the “victim” back into his/her grasp and that his/her reaction will be the same regardless of the No Contact approach chosen, so what damn difference does it make which one I use? I’m sick of avoiding raising his ire. He deserves it.

BUT – he does have a lot of stressors in his life, and so do I. At least his email will buy me a little time to stretch out weather discussion and get through this book before I can tell him as tactfully as possible that at this point I feel that anything meaningful I have contributed to our ongoing relationship is the maximum allowed by law and that in the event that my stepmom passes I will leave the light on for him. In the meantime, he should go and spend the remainder of my stepmom’s life with her.

I don’t see why that should change now (that line not to be included).

I’m not sure if that is exactly what I will say, but something along those lines.

I decided on this approach because aside from his not apologizing to me (which wouldn’t be genuine anyway), there has been too much other manipulation on his behalf that I have become aware of, particularly triangulation. I will not subject myself to that again. I have also begun to understand that my stepmom has been very heavily manipulated by him; however, this is the life that she has chosen for the past 35 years, and his manipulation of her does not exempt her of her behaviors toward me either as a child or as recently as the past 16 months. She is who she is. Nothing would change by furthering shallow communications with him; he would still be pushing me out of his life by excluding me from meaningful communications either with him or with her. I would still be an outsider.

Yours Truly

In grand lunatic style, allow me to quote myself.

Especially at this time like this!!

Well I know why that would change now. Since she's sick, he can't victimize her anymore and her world can't revolve around his, either. Now he needs new prey.

Isn't there like a narcissist groupie club he can join that kowtow to people like this??

Yours Truly

The narcissist's second book primarily focused on leaving romantic domestic partnerships with narcissists and so it did not apply to me. I chose not to purchase any more of his books and as a last-ditch effort decided to visit the Out of the Fog website for some final insight(s). I picked up some valuable info there that I will refer to in the future.

I sent my Dad an email similar to the one that I described; however, it was a bit more tactful. I decided to cut to the chase and tell him that as our relationship stands, I have put forth my best efforts and that he should spend the rest of any time that my stepmom has remaining with her. I told him that should the unfortunate circumstance arise when she passes, he is free to contact me if he chooses to do so (at which time I will initiate one of the communication methods I read about at Out of the Fog). I think that gets my point across far more effectively than being angry and that my decision to give myself some space will in turn give him something to think about.

I have an appointment with my new therapist late this afternoon where the primary focus will now be on taking better care of myself. It's a brand new day.