The Zeigarnik Effect on Survivors of Narcissists

Watch the above video first, to understand what the Zeigarnik Effect is and think about not having closure with a narcissist as you watch this. Unfinished business. Being discarded. This also speaks to grief and feeling that you were unable to say what you needed to say, or questions you wanted answered at the end of someone’s life. Someone sent me a different video from Facebook this morning and my mind immediately went to narcissism and the hold it has on us when we are let go, like we never existed in their life. Yes, this can also be explained by cognitive dissonance, but I think what keeps us stuck (re-occurring thoughts) is the Zeigarnik Effect.

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Listening: The Magic Wand in a Healthy Relationship or Dialogue

Couple talking on a sofa beside a bookshelf and resting cat
AI generated photo

Usually when you ask a long-term married couple what made their relationship a success, they will say “communication.” This is a familiar tried and tested term they probably heard other people say. It is not really an answer, it is a word that requires an explanation. What does communication mean? And, the magic answer is two people (or more) listening to one another. Whether you are in a conference room, a relationship, talking to friends at happy hour, listening is the key to having good communication. We can talk all day long but if it isn’t registering, if the person isn’t validating and asking clarifying questions, if they are dissociating, if they are looking away from you often and not really turning toward you, if there is defensiveness (or criticism, contempt or stonewalling), they are not listening and therefore you are not communicating. You are talking. So, let’s dig deeper to talk about what this really looks like.

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The End of Woman: By Carrie Gress

Cover art by Ginny Sheller

It has taken me a long time to read this book and this is because I was getting married, putting my birth father (who I don’t have much of a relationship with) into assisted living, dealing with my business and other things that occur on a day to day basis. At the same time, any time I read a woman’s non-fiction book about our history, I find it difficult to take in the gravity of what is being said. Usually, it makes me angry and sick to my stomach and I often have to put the book down. It is hard to sit with what has happened to women in history or even in modern times. This book validated what I have felt all along. It is well written and researched and provided the necessary discussion topics, should I wish to do so or write about here.

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What is a Woman: Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton died on August 25, 2026, and since then, I have been thinking about her personality – how it was formed in a nicer more gentler time (pre-computers) vs. now with people being split based on their opinions. Opinions that have made a sharp and very extreme change since COVID. Dolly helped people feel calm from what I can see. She refused to talk politics – which was one of the three things you should never discuss in company. I have been looking for a copy of her memoir from 1994 – which she wrote and I hope will be republished. I’d rather read her own words. I am not too fascinated with her costumes or her singing, but I think she was a wonderful writer, a great human being and she represents the end of old country. This is what I miss the most about country music – which you can’t find any country radio station willing to play. A time when these men and women had to hawk their wares at town festivals, drive around the country pushing their 45’s to disc jockeys and hoping to get on the stage at the Grand Ole Opry. This was long before TV contests and Youtube. It was a time when these people grew up dirt poor and you could feel it in their music. They were not entitled but appreciative of their Appalachian heritage. Dolly was around for all of them, Patsy, Loretta, Tammi, Roy and Buck, Johnny and June, all the Carter sisters, Hank and George, so many legends with some leaving us much too soon.

Here is her take on being a woman from 1968.

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Getting Married at 64 – Eyes Wide Open

Getting married the second time around – for both of us, we had our eyes wide open. This was more honest, clear, conscious and rewarding.

As a result, there were no young adult expectations, everything was discussed up front and no uncommunicated concerns about moving forward in marriage. Our first marriages lasted about five minutes – so to speak, both were abusive, emotionally and mentally immature and both had no qualms about breaking vows. Oddly, both our ex’s were veterans, though I don’t blame the military for their lack of responsibility – mental health issues were clearly to blame. Paul and I believe in loyalty, fidelity and emotional commitment. We are clear that this marriage is for the rest of our lives and we treat our marriage, as we have our relationship the last three years, as a team. Nothing will change for us, other than we are “legal” now and our love became even deeper as we said our vows. What lessons I have learned about getting married and the process of having a wedding, I will share with you here.

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Finding a Home for Stanley – The Burdens of Dementia

Taken in the late 80’s.

Firstly, I live in Ohio, my birth father lives in Florida. I have no idea when the VA diagnosed him with dementia, I began realizing over the phone something was wrong a year or so ago. I started getting calls from his landlord (who lived with him) last year and we kept in touch. In June, he gave him till the end of July to leave. This was on me as Stan wouldn’t have remembered and they may have had words. I found out a month ago, that luckily, he signed me up as his medical power of attorney. He gave me some paperwork in around 2016 and I assumed it was for after he died. I didn’t really read it or look it over too carefully. Having worked in Children’s Protective Services, (albeit in CA), I assumed it wouldn’t be too hard dealing with the Adult version in FL. Boy, was I wrong. When I say a person has to be out of the house they are renting by July 31st, this does not mean August 4th. But, when you deal with the government, you are on their time. It doesn’t matter what you need or want. I am sure this issue is in every state though, not just Florida. Also, there is more to the story. This is not the man who raised me but a man I have been in touch with a couple of times a year.

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Getting the Most Out of Psychotherapy

Three men in period clothing discussing at a table in a study room
AI’s attempt at creating a photo of Jung, Nietzsche and Gandhi having a discussion.

My best sessions are those in which a client is there to learn, to grow, to explore, to heal. I enjoy someone who comes in ready to go. Who shows up on time (or lets me know they are on their way) because this means they respect the process and my time. I am there to aide you on your journey. I don’t know everything but I do know psychology. I trust my intuition to guide me. I trust your body language or the somatic resonance created in the room that I am witnessing.

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A Woman and the Aging Process: Sex, Love and So Much More

Next month when I marry the man I love, I will be 64 years old. It is both of our second time around but this time it is conscious, eyes wide open, no lies, no abuse, no bs. The sales person in one of the jewelry stores was wanting me to act excited over a ring, she was in her 20’s. I explained that it isn’t like I am shocked or surprised or grateful that this man wants to marry me. I know exactly what I am getting in to. We bought our rings from someone who was kind and unconcerned about my expression. While she was in her 20’s as well, she was grateful for the sale. She wasn’t pushy or annoying, just being herself. I know who I am now and it is the lessons I learned along the way, the aging process that brought me to my older wiser more comfortable self. There are no surprises anymore, just choice.

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Thank you Mr. Dahlman for that Life Changing Moment

You wouldn’t think that writing a paper on religious cults would lead someone to a lifelong spiritual journey. If you didn’t grow up in Ohio or another Mid-west state, in a very isolated and controlled lifestyle, you really wouldn’t make that connection. This is how it happened for me and this is my gratitude to one teacher, for spurring on this moment in a little farm town called Pataskala.

Mr. Marty Dahlman was the P.O.D. teacher (Problems of Democracy) at Watkins Memorial High School. He went on to other things, such as a track coach, vice-principal or principle, I forget which. Once I left Ohio, I didn’t return until 2010, when I began catching up after this long absence at high school reunions. He is now retired from Watkins and writes a blogpost, called Our America – Essays on Politics and American Life.

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Virginia Roberts Giuffre Explains My Book, Posthumously

Yesterday morning, 12/1/25, I published an ebook, seen above through Books2Read. Last night, while reading “Nobody’s Girl,” By Virginia Roberts Giuffre, I was caught off guard by a passage she wrote in her book on pages 113-114. I thought to myself, Wow! I wish I had known she wrote this amazing explanation, as it is better than mine. It explains what I am capturing in this title from a survivors perspective. Or, to put it more bluntly “From the horses mouth.” She loved horses, so I think she would appreciate this.

I want to include the passage here for your own discovery and so that you might consider reading her book – to learn more, as well as reading my book for the emotional support. I will come back here, when I am finished reading Nobody’s Girl as I want to pay tribute to this very well written book. For now:

It probably goes without saying that, given what my father and his friend Forrest had done to me when I was a child, being trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell was painfully triggering. To the extent that I saw the two of them as pseudo-parental figures, their disregard for my welfare as they lent me out for sex made me feel a familiar strain of worthlessness. But at times, that familiarity was weirdly comforting. This is complicated to explain, but that echo of past hurts was somehow bearable to me because I’d felt it-and somehow endured it-so many times before. It was like finding myself once more in a room I’d lived in for years. I hated that room, but I knew its contours-the shape of its windows, the nap of its carpet beneath my feet, the click of the door lock when it was thrown. I knew I could exist in that room because I’d existed there before. At that point, at least, this made me feel less afraid.

This is what I am trying to express in my title “The Uncomfortable Comfortableness with a Narcissist.” The familiarity was/is weirdly comforting and Virginia goes on to add how her visual and audio senses are enlisted by her hatred for this comfortableness. The shape of the windows, the nap of the carpet on her feet, the click of the door lock. She knew how to be in that place, as it was so familiar. Since it was so familiar, she wasn’t even as afraid.

In my book, I am helping you to discover the different parts of our self that are employed as our agency is taken away, while we are being lured into a relationship with the narcissist. Unsuspectingly – at first – yet somehow very comforting, very familiar, very Déjà vu. Once you are in, the uncomfortable knowledge that OMG! I am here again. Now what?

No worries, I am providing you with psycho-education to become more conscious of this process, along with six helpful homework assignments to begin re-discovering your sense of self. When you use these tools, along with a psychotherapist of your choosing, whom you can find to support you on this journey, these are the keys to moving forward in your life. To having a healthy relationship and never going back to the uncomfortable comfortableness ever again.