Throwing Apples

Now that I have found some clarity on why I am writing, and why I am going no contact, I have found my thinking shifting. I can start to appreciate the good times really just as good times, rather than trying to push everything through the filter of narcissism and evil. I say “I can,” because there was a very real necessity before. I could not see the good times. I could not think about them. I could not be reminded of them. Really, I could not. The good times were the worst. They would trigger me, and cause me to have disturbing thoughts, obsessive dreams, extreme fatigue, sleeping bouts, dizziness. I couldn’t handle them. But now I can. Today, I was out kayaking with some of my kids. I entrusted my nine year old to kayak with my eighteen month old. The wind started to blow him out, and I got concerned, so I coached him to paddle harder, and came up behind him and pushed him with my kayak. “This is like my dad,” I thought, “He would get concerned, and help me out too wh...

- I have noticed that when I blog on days when I work, it is not taxing to myself. But when I blog on days off, I often end up napping for hours. Perhaps the combination of work and introspection is a good balance. - I would like to change the direction of my thoughts to look more into narcissism, evil, and dealing with bad people in the Bible. - I listened to a solder relating his experience of PTSD on the radio. He mentioned the following: -- Driving through traffic was a real challenge, because "there are so many idiots" -- He was always "three stop-lights ahead," looking for hazards, stress points, etc. -- He was always hyper-analyzing everyone in the cars, thinking what they would do -- He knew that he had a problem, but still forced himself to drive busy roads, thinking this would help his PTSD (I tend to think it did not, but only caused him stress) -- ...this account made me think a lot of my experience after Africa, but also my experience of life i...

Why do I write? Why am I going no contact? I write, and I am going no contact. These two are not the same things, though they are related.  I write to understand, and to rebuild my sense of “normal”.  What is a normal childhood?  What is a normal Father? What is a normal Mother? What is a normal view of God?  I need to know. I need to know. What of what I experienced was abuse? I need to know, so that I can not repeat it, and do that I can mourn it and heal from it.  What of what I was told about God is wrong? They say that one’s “God-image” is often based on their father. My father was obsessed with his image. (His “glory”?) He would explode in a rage for seemingly arbitrary things. He sought to control us around like pawns on a chessboard, and would reign down wrath on us if we did not obey. He threatened to disown me if I did not obey. I did not sense any empathy for me in my pain. Is God like this? Striking people dead for touc...

Today, I had a positive memory of my parents.  This triggers me, because it causes me to question: The belief that my entire childhood was pure evil, with no good times at all The belief that my entire childhood was worse than the norm The belief that my entire childhood was dysfunctional The belief that my parents are pure evil, and there is no spark of goodness in them The belief that my parents and my upbringing were so bad that I now need to cut off contact from them …let us just remember that none of these beliefs are true, nor are they statements that I have made. Thankfully, there were good times in my childhood: especially when I was very young, and especially when my parents were also getting something out of the situation My childhood was, sadly, fairly typical of many children. Perhaps it was even better than many of my classmates. Although dysfunctional, there were parts of my upbringing that were fairly healthy. I learned to work hard, for example...

Today I met with a new counsellor. Her services are free, due to our local crisis and addictions services. She sounds to be in her fifties or sixties. I was skeptical at first. She introduced herself as being feminist in training, as not placing much stock in the DSM-5 definitions, such as narcissism and psychopathy, and that she saw most things through the filter of abuses of power.  I let her know that in another context, we could probably have a long discussion about these issues. I was troubled that she did not believe that narcissism was a useful category: but understood what she meant, in saying that a person was more than a label. I determined to give her a solid try, and was glad that we were able to get most of our cards on the table within the first ten minutes of our call. I identified my core issues as: - Raised by narcissists: very religious, very needy, very self-centred - Dad: violent temper, survived by reading his mind. Psychopath, didn’t care ab...

I am seriously contemplate cutting my parents off and never seeing them again for the rest of my life, and never allowing my children to see them. This is a radical step. Of course, parts of me are struggling with this: I am often shaken by doubts and confusing thoughts. Also people I am sharing this journey with have expressed concerns with this step: at least, I should communicate my concerns to my parents, and give them a chance to change, or tell them why I am leaving.   Those are questions I will deal with in a separate post.  But for the time being, I thought it would be helpful to write down for myself some of the things that I have tried. It is important to say first of all that I was raised (“groomed”) to be the family therapist. My birth mother confided in me the unhappy state of her marriage, and my birth father shared with all of us children their financial woes before we were six. They leaned on us, and asked us to fix their life. While my brothers sh...

I just finished a post on, “what I have tried,” with my parents.  In that post, I mentioned that there is likely no other person on earth on whom I have lavished so much focused attention. Not my children…probably not even my wife. That is really messed up. It is a time to end this. Already, I have seen that I am capable of ending threads of the journey. I have had various “tabs” open in my mind. For a while, there were quite a few of them open. Now, the thread of narcissism is mostly resolved. I have closed off the thread of emotional incest (with my mom). I have closed off the threads of psychopathy with my dad.  I need to put some energy into figuring out which tabs are still open, and actively doing whatever work is necessary, and closing them off. Cauterizing the wound. It is just time to stop thinking about them so much. The research can continue. I still want to learn how to think about God in new ways, and retell the Christian story in a way th...