Help for Living with a Narcissist

  I am excited! Recently I was looking for someone online and stumbled onto the website of Kim and Steve Cooper. They are an amazing couple who has faced their own issues with narcissism, healed their marriage, and gone public with it. What courage!
  It began when Kim discovered she was married to someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The therapist told her there was no hope, no cure, and to get out of the marriage. The information was devastating, partly because they had three children, but she didn't believe in her heart that leaving was the right thing to do.
  She began searching for information on NPD, and much of it was discouraging, but in the process she came up with a simple (not to be confused with easy) approach to healing her marriage. Today, years later, their marriage is happy, and Steve works along side her, helping others heal marriages with narcissistic partners. It's an amazing story, showing that there is hope for a large segment of people who had been deemed unhelpable.
  Narcissists aren't evil people, they are wounded people. The trauma usually happens before the age of four, and the recipient begins to believe that people are not safe, closing down emotion and relationships for anything other than superficial exchanges. NPD's can function very well in careers, but in close relationships they can be impossible (not knowing that this is how they function or that they have decided people aren't safe.) They don't trust. Attachment is extremely difficult. They will insist on their way, they delete positive comments, they often escalate arguments into abuse because of young reactive emotions, and they are easily hurt. Also, nothing is ever their fault. They are professional blamers.
  If this is a description of your partner, visit Kim and Steve's website www.narcissismcured.com and check out their resources. This is good stuff. Thanks for your vulnerability, Kim and Steve, and for turning a painful thing into healing for so many.

Perception is everything

1-11-11 is another one of those dates. If you see it as two 11's, it's neat, but if you see it as five 1's it carries that begin again feeling. I have a birthday two weeks after New Years, so I always have that chance to start my year again if I wasn't feeling particularly inspired on the first day of the new year. But isn't every day a chance to start fresh with no mistakes?

If you believe that love is truly the strongest force in the world, and you believe that God loves you no matter what, then every day is a day to live loved. And I believe it is true. It doesn't matter who you are, where you are, what you've done or what has happened to you, God still loves you and wants to be your best friend. AND He is the only connection that is totally safe. That is important because it's critical that we embrace the ugly parts of ourselves we would rather ignore or disown. If we don't, we will end up projecting them on others, and drawing to us the people who bring them up in us. God is the one who can help you untangle your life. Yes, He may lead you to other people for help--no doubt--but He is committed to helping you thrive and become everything you want to be. You are not alone. That is something to celebrate! And a reason to begin again.

1-1-11 Obviously a day for NEW Beginnings

  I wrote 1-1-11 in my journal this morning and said, "How's that for a date! Four ones. What a date for new beginnings!" My very next thought was With God all things are possible!  I realized that confidence in God's love is the ability to forget about how I look, what I'm going to do about... In fact, it is the ability to NOT worry. The more you trust Him the more you can relax. We don't have to be in control because He is. Live loved this year.
  His exact words to me were, "Confidence in My love for you gives you rest. Consciousness of My love brings relief from evil."
  I said, "Say it again."
  He said, "If you revel in my love you will relax."
  "Again!" I said, like a kid.
   "If you trust My love you will live in peace."
  One more time I asked Him to repeat it.
  "Live loved. Hold the awareness of my love in consciousness."
  What is your evil? Shame? Blame? Worry? Lack of confidence? Trust His love and rest in the confidence that you are loved. (How fitting that 1-1-11 falls on the day He created for rest!)

I don't get this

I just wrote a blog but it went to an alternate blog by the same title--also mine, but not here. I realized that the last one also went there! Anybody understand this?

Prescription Drugs can steal your self

"I feel like CRAP!" she said as she sat down. "And I think it's the antidepressants. They make me need meds to sleep and then I'm groggy in the morning. I feel inadequate. I'm afraid to speak up. I feel like a hypochondriac because I'm always trying to find out what's wrong. I'm afraid to let people know where I'm at, afraid I won't be accepted, and I have to do it on my own."
  For 5 years Terri had been feeling physically awful. Every three weeks she went to the doctor, an addictionologist, who would change her meds, but couldn't find anything physically wrong. Finally she was on 11 different medications, she was in pain so she added Darvocet, she was 30 lbs overweight, she had no motivation and was afraid she was getting Alzheimers. The Darvocet would make her feel guilty so she would go off. And then she would feel so bad, she would go back on.
  She was frantic when she came to me. We started working with emotions. We found lies and got them healed. We did Healing the Unconscious Mind on everything she was afraid of, and everything we could think of.
   In three months she was eating better, exercising more, telling the truth, and had returned to her normal weight. She had gone from 11 medications to four. She is off the Prozak which made her feel foggy, and the Darvocet, which scared her but she hadn't thought she could live without. She went to a new doctor who got her on a nonnarcotic for pain and found the cause of it. She feels like a new person.
   Can drugs--even prescribed drugs taken as directed--steal your self? Terri would say a resounding "Yes!"

Intimacy -- a True Learning Curve

   I've been thinking about intimacy lately. I've been watching two friends get married and self-destruct. Actually couple-destruct. I'm hoping that it ends up being self-building. If they had a little more self, they wouldn't be so afraid to be intimate.
   I'm not talking about sex. I don't think sex is the problem. Their honeymoon was "perfect." I'm talking about the relationship (not sex either); the coming together of two beings in safety. Safe enough to abandon themselves to each other. Safe enough to trust themselves to the other. That is the stuff of good sex. That is true intimacy. Without it you've got mechanics that are pretty dependable -- at least for younger men -- but not very satisfying for women, and problematic for older men.
   So why are they struggling now? They've hit the wall, or maybe it's a rite of passage, that every marriage goes through: The power struggle. How much of my wants and needs can I give up to fill your wants and needs and still maintain my identity? How much can I give before you take advantage of me? How much can I insist on my way before you leave? It's tortuous terrain, difficult to navigate even with a strong sense of self--what we call "solid self" in family systems therapy. A self definitely helps.
   The stronger their identity, the more likely couples are to negotiate commitment easily, because the stronger your solid self is, the less painful it is to give. Not to be confused with a "pleaser" who has learned "giving" as a defense mechanism or lifestyle. Giving is their modus operandi --it's what they do--it is their identity. They have an easy time giving, but huge solid-self deficits.  If your identity is strong you can give in to another's need, even want, and not have your world rocked. You adapt.
   Unless, of course what they want you to give goes against your solid self. But hopefully by the time you get married, you know the person's belief system and moral fabric. That's why it takes time to love which is 90% commitment. But once you know someone, really know and have chosen that partner, most of the rest of it is about stuff. And stuff is negotiable. Remember "When Harry met Sally"...
   "You really hate that beautiful wagon-wheel coffee table? I love that! It's my favorite piece of furniture!"
    And even that can go.
   If you find yourself fighting over stuff or space or who has the power, just know that power-grabbing is any enemy of love. If you have to hang onto power or insist on your rights, take a look inside. How comfortable are you with yourself? Can you let go of things for the good of your beloved? Can you give until it hurts? When it begins to hurt, re-evaluate. What is more important--power or love? If you have to have all the power, then your partner is not safe. Safe power is shared power. Love is safety, not power. That is the message from the cross.