BlueSkies1

My gawd.

I just had the thought that the lack of chemistry with a "normie" could be summed up as NOT CONFUSING ENOUGH.

Now I am worried.

Tuffgirl

LOL! But you may also be onto something here...

Learn2Live

Thank you MadeofGlass.

And thank you Earthworm.

But I am sad. And I do feel defeated. And I feel like giving up. Every time I go through this with yet another guy, it is devastating. How many times can a person climb Mt. Everest, almost reaching the top but then falling, breaking all of their bones in the process? Because that's how I feel right now. Like I am laying at the bottom of the mountain after falling from the top, unable to move, want to give up. Tired of this.

gerryP

Learn2live,

Just want to mention that I am a recovering alcoholic 7 years- I am not, never was and never will be a narcissist. NOT ALL alcoholics are Narcissists.

Are YOU currently receiving intensive therapy to aid you in fixing yourself?

ZiggyB

I know how you feel... yesterday I was reading more on this narcissism stuff and realized I was a victim of gaslighting, I didn't even know there was a name for what that was. He would tell me I said or did things I didn't remember doing... looking back I cannot quite reconcile myself with how crazy it was and also a complete waste of time.

Chin up, dear. There is more to life than attaching yourself to some crazy man. Relationships all end, whether it's by separation or death. I bet you will feel better soon, just focus on what it will take to make yourself happy. It's okay to give up on dating for a while, just don't give up on yourself.

Titanic

Many take years to summit. Some even make the summit but can't get back to base camp in time. Thankfully, you're at this base camp.

We may be cold, hurt, tired, low on resources and scarred from the climbs, but at least we have this shelter and each other! And we live to walk again.

Learn2Live

I didn't say all alcoholics are Narcissists. In fact, I said the opposite.
I don't need to be fixed.

Learn2Live

Thank you Titanic. That is a good analogy for where I am right now: Base Camp. Maybe I will make a sign for my front door this weekend

Learn2Live

It does help to put a name to the sick, hurtful behavior, doesn't it? It's a relief.

This is exactly what I needed to hear today ZiggyB.

PohsFriend

No think - you are correct. Self-centeredness and selfishness is common. There are ten or so diagnostic criteria for NPD but there is one that must be present and that is the lack of empathy. It ain't just that they don't understand how others feel, they don't car and are annoyed by it.

Learn2Live

You're right Poh. Whether or not they understand, they don't care how other people feel. And yes, when we tell them our feelings, or TRY to tell them our feelings, they get annoyed, like we're wasting their time.

WishingWell

You know, I attended an Alanon meeting last night and suddenly a thought just flew at me in the middle of it - "lots of narcissism here".

I didn't feel critical of it, just noticed it. We all write an awful lot about ourselves, our feelings, what we want, what we don't want . . . I don't think we can only point to addicts. Just a thought . . .

I also think, bear with me, we keep forgetting that addiction is a form of mental illness. It's not necessarily that they don't care. Their brain is not functioning normally.

Have you ever studied brain imaging? Dr. Daniel Amen has done extensive research on the the brain using scans. The addicts brain clearly shows physical damage. It's not a working brain or a healthy one.

When we point to an alcoholic and say they don't care isn't like pointing to a person in the midst of a clinical depression and say they are narcissist and don't care about us? They lose jobs, they stay in bed, they won't contribute to our lives, they destroy families, they don't take their medication . . . etc. I don't think we do that. We understand that they are in deep trouble and we don't take it personally. Even though that too can wreck havoc on the life of those dealing with it.

Is it that we still reject the clinical definition that this is a disease? And would our rejection of that clinical definition be called a narcissistic one?

I ask this for myself, too!

WishingWell

Do you want a healthy wake-up call?

Go look at this > Brainplace.com - Featuring Brain SPECT Scans | Dr. Daniel Amen & Amen Clinics

The brain on the top right is a scan of a normal, healthy brain. Compare the two.

trublnshangrila

I own his book "Sex on the Brain" which is fascinating in its information about how issues such as depression, emotional trauma and and alcoholism impact healthy brain function. He focuses primarily on love, relationships and sex, but there is also general info based on patient scans. He writes, "Drugs and alcohol ...prematurely age and lower overall function in the brain. Alcohol kills cells in the cerebellum, the back bottom part of the brain that is involved with coordination, learning and orgasmic pleasure."
He continues to say that "using substances for self-medication...damage the parts of the brain involved in forethought, judgment, impulse control, organization and planning..."
Wow.

gerryP

Learn2Live,

If you go back to your post above 2nd paragraph (in reference to Titanic)

"I also believe that all alcoholics and addicts are narcissistic"...

LifeRecovery

[QUOTE=WishingWell;3577876]You know, I attended an Alanon meeting last night and suddenly a thought just flew at me in the middle of it - "lots of narcissism here".

That is interesting because I view it as the only think I have control over, me and my ESH.

It was such a relief to finally have a place that I got to talk about myself, and was given permission to do that. Part of my emotional dependency was stuffing it all inside and putting my focus on someone else (so I did not have to feel).

For me that was one extreme, and for a bit as I was working through things I swung the other direction for a bit (I could only focus on me....for the first time ever in my 30 plus years). I do best when I think of it like a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other...but I know that it will settle in the middle a bit more as time goes on.

I have realized in the last few weeks that it takes TIME to take care of myself....that before I was always expending on someone else. You are probably right it is kind of narcisisstic, but at the same time not taking care of me was not healthy either.

I learned a lot about brain scans from watching HBO series on Addiction. Thanks for the reminder.

WishingWell

WOW is right.

Shown on actual brain scans - it takes approximately 1.5 years to two years for that damaged alcoholic brain to heal. So - in that period relapsing is HIGHLY likely. Until enough time goes by - to heal the physical brain damage - they simply cannot think clearly. Look at those actual holes in the brain.

Here's the other thing - narcissism. I know that I want my world THIS way. I demand my life to be - dot, dot, dot - whatever I demand. I tried for many years to control him. On a lot of levels. He wasn't doing what I would do. How I would do it. Nor was anyone else for that matter - damn it. Really, the entire world of humans made me angry much of the time and baffled.

I tend to look at the world through a spiritual lens and it helps me. It challenges me. What is this experience here to teach me? How can this make me a more evolved human being?

I was the director of the show. I wanted life and everyone in it to play by my rules. Well, you know - that's pretty narcissistic. I stand by this truth, those terrible 4 years when his addiction hit the fan were the best thing that has ever happened to me. Why? It changed me. It is still changing ME. My life is 100xs better than it was. Because I changed and his addiction only held up a vivid mirror to ME. I had to let go. Release everyone, throw out my lists of expectations of people and quite trying to direct the world into my vision. Because I used this to change, he did me a huge favor! If I left him, until I learned, I'd just continue this pattern and create a dismal life. He wasn't the problem really in my life - I was.

Whew - what a relief.

Still not perfect. He just relapsed after years of sobriety. I'm back on the learning curve. But I know if I chose to view this experience as a gift to help me grow - I will grow and it will be a gift.

It's not my job to fix anyone else. My job is to fix and evolve myself. Set them free to be and set me free from the tortuous belief that I'm right - they're wrong and if they'd only do it like me - the world would be fine. (Talk about difficult to live with . . . )

Still learning this one, I handled this relapse like a moron. Alanon was a good reminder!

WishingWell

LifeRecovery, there is much to love about Alanon! Seeing this before me was very helpful for me, I learned something there. Which is the point, right?

I guess what hit me were people talking about stories on how this person and that person had let them down, not lived up to their expectations. How "they" were wrong and "I" am right and "I" just need to love them anyway and accept that "they" aren't perfect.

Well, I'm far from perfect and maybe the other person has a valid point. Maybe their criticism of me - was right. We can't just say always because that person has an addiction problem - they aren't correct on our flaws. We can't discount our own elephant in the room, right?

Learn from this experience. Let it take us to a deeper place. It really can be an enormous gift!

LifeRecovery

Oh this feels different to me then a share at Al-Anon, about me, myself and my ESH. I try not to talk about my qualifier at all in Al-Anon because though he got me through the doors it is really for me.

Thanks for expansion of what you meant.

I agree that my loved one had valid points about me. My problem was I was so busy beating my own self up for the same ones that his input could not make a dent in the already canivourous black whole.

I missed a whole bunch of the thread that I wanted to respond to also.

I do best when I think about my relationship as a lesson I needed to learn to heal my wounds. I needed it to clean out the pus and junk I had collected over the years. I like the philosophy of IMAGO therapy...we choose people to get into intimite relationship with that will help us to heal ourselves.

One of the lessons I needed though was that I don't have to be with that person to continue my healing process. I need to do it for me, myself and I.

Learn2Live

GerryP, there's a big difference between being narcissistic and being a Narcissist. EVERYONE is narcissistic to a degree, some more than others. And all one has to do is spend a few days reading people's posts here to see just how narcissistic alcoholics and addicts are.