Surviving the Narcissist

My premier course is now available at Udemy.com and I hope you will take the time to sign up and take the class! I think you will find it will enrich your life by learning more about what the Narcissist is, how it has effected your life and much more. Thank you!

Healthy, Authentic Love: Is this You and Your Partner?

Tonight, I had two mallards (male and female) that appeared on my front lawn while I was grooming the flower beds. The male was very aware of his position in this animal kingdom. He was dutifully watching over his lover as she nested on the grass. They moved their seats when I got up to cart the weed barrel, down to the road, for the garbage men tomorrow. The male moved carefully behind the female, keeping an eye on her that no one would disturb her. As she foraged under my fir trees, he continued to gaze on her and make sure she was taken care of. What a beautiful sight to behold.

Healthy, authentic love is exactly this. Two people taking care of each other, watching over one another, doting on each other. More is written online about unhealthy, abusive, narcissistic love – it would seem, than healthy, loving relationships and with this, it causes negativity to shine over couples. As a result, they are always picking on one another based on what they read. How can we expect couples to succeed if they don’t know what good honest love looks like?

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Down By The Lake

Standing on the dock, looking out at the mossy green basin, she discards her clothes, and jumps in.  Half-way across the lake she looks up, and notices there is no gate in the distance.  Just as she is beginning to gage her sense of timing to get to the other side, a motor sounds off to the right from the lagoon.  Dr. Lion comes toward her or “Guru” as he likes to be called.  She calls him nothing. 

He has respect from his colleagues, for his papers on depression and isolation.  He alludes to having traveled extensively, to lecture about the pressures of society. No one is allowed access to the institution, without his express permission.  Dr. Lion is viewed by his clients with fear and trepidation.  Like a drill sergeant, he demands that they live by his rules.  There is a list next to each bed: 1. Rise at seven, 2. Ten minute showers, 3. Twenty minute breakfast, and it goes on to account for the day with twelve more items.  When it was time for therapy, clients would sit on the metal chairs, in order by appointment; they were alphabetized.  No talking, no listening, the room outside his office must be silent.  Each client is allowed to read the books he has chosen for them.

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The Loss of Self with the Narcissist

How does one lose their sense of self? This is a loaded question. With a child, it begins when you are more focused on your parent than yourself. You realize that their needs are more important than your own. You make decisions that they will like rather than what you want. You compromise your likes and wants and needs to make sure they are happy. It can come from not having boundaries growing up so that there is no space that is your own. One example is not allowing doors to be locked, even in the bathroom. Therefore, when a child is going through puberty any moment a person can walk through the door. This is frightening to hear but yet this has become a life they are accustomed to. You don’t know any different.  Another example is a child who does not even have a room to sleep in and so there is no place to go and read or talk to your friends on the phone. Losing your sense of self can make a person feel like a robot; they are just there doing what they are told. As one person stated, it made them feel invisible from those around them.

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Ego vs. Intuition: How to Succeed in Couples Counseling

In a relationship, the biggest reason for endings is the Ego. Werner Erhard once said “When your right, that’s what you get to be. Right. That is, not necessarily loved, or anything else nice: Just Right.” To succeed in couples counseling, both parties need to be willing to work on their ego, with the knowledge that both are making mistakes.

How are we able to delve deeper into our psyche? Breathe fresh air into our consciousness and let go?

This is the hardest task we must both follow in a relationship. The one thing that will make or break a couple. Can they let go of their need to be right or continue to just fight? Do they love each other and want to grow as a couple? If you want to grow, you both have to be willing to listen and learn. Otherwise, you have nothing.

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The Perfect Host; not a Perfect Movie

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVe62FZMYAE

The Perfect Host stars David Hyde Pierce as Warwick Wilson, in an outstanding performance as a first-class creep. He has gone a long way from Niles on Frasier, our first cerebral goofball to see on television. As a psychotherapist, I always reveled in that show and the intellectually snobbery between he and his brother. In this role as Warwick, he has stepped into a new dimension (perhaps he has done this in another role, but this is my first time to see him in this type of character portrayal) and mesmerized me the entire time. The dissociative identity disorder idea was flabby in the storyline but made sense, nonetheless. He could have been schizophrenic as well, but I think the writer wanted to portray DID instead.

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David Bowie, More Than You Wanted to Know

1983 poster that once hung in my living room

It was shocking to hear that he passed a month ago, as most of his fans had no idea he was dying. As I began to read the obituary in “The Guardian,” mid-way there was a YouTube link for Lazarus which I clicked on to watch.  Listening to the first sentence “Look up here, I’m in heaven,” and the chills began to creep up. What an amazing way to say goodbye at the end of your life. At the same time, I began looking at other articles related to his passing and kept hearing Christopher Sandford’s name as the author of what appears to be Bowie’s only biography, entitled “Loving the Alien.” I put myself in queue through Amazon, for this book which was immediately on backorder after his death.

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Gone Girl – A Plot with a Twist or Non-stereotypical Roles

Last night I watched Gone Girl, which I found quite scary! I didn’t really like the ending but then I realized, if he had killed her that would have been predictable. If she had killed him, this would have been expected. It also would have turned the movie into a horror film and I would not have watched it. The ending was rather odd though and made no sense. Usually, this is what I love about foreign films, non-predictable and full of questions.

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Absent Hearts Missing Pieces: Part II

A victim of domestic violence has a lot of anger inside toward the perpetrator. Before I escaped my ex-husband I attempted suicide because I did not know that I could escape his prison.  I did not know I had choices.  I could walk away, although it wasn’t easy, or I could just sit there and not take any control over my life or my son’s.

There were many times when I thought about attempting suicide and there are many things that I wrote, much of which makes no sense now, during those brief periods of depression.  My writing helped me to think things through.  Consequently I have many journals that I will probably burn some day.

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Parenting: Only Meant for Responsible People

Fathers play a very important role in the lives of their children. They are teaching them a man’s perspective, they create balance by providing the masculine counterpart to the feminine (yin and yang). A father helps a child to be able to manage male relationships in the world. If you have a good and healthy relationship with your father you will have an easier time with men (and vice versa with mother’s). The father is just as important as the mother. This is why it is imperative that the father play a role in the child’s life whether the relationship is continuing or not. It is also the reason why the man and woman need to be more responsible for bringing children into this world in the first place. A child is not a toy but it is the result of unplanned pregnancy.

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