Seeing My Path « Surviving Narcissism

Seeing My Path

Talk Like an Artist

“So then I switched from the soft, muted technique you see here, to a palette knife technique. Do you see how it catches the light? Do you see the depth as the light changes? It’s fun to switch techniques and infuse new energy into the process.”

“I’m getting away from glassing each piece. I’m working on this new canvas that I found. Now I can work on a much larger scale. This canvas is bringing my work to a larger level.”

“I was out taking photos of buffalo for this sculpture and it turns out that it had been twenty years since the last set of bison twins. Those are the babies you see in that piece.”

These are quotes from three different artists. Continue reading →

Moving On / Seeing My Path / Words Got Her Home — 10 Comments
7
Mar 14

To Whom It May Concern

You’ve fortified your boundaries. You carry the cheat sheet in your bag. Your backbone is stronger than it’s been in years. You have a teetering stack of journals that proves the value of writing out your thoughts. Most days you’ve moved so far beyond those old hurts that you can’t even remember the specifics.

And then it happens again.

He says something that cuts to your very core. That one button is pushed – the one that only he can push. The button you thought you’d melted and discarded months ago. How does he find it?

You get off the phone and you shake your head. Maybe you shake your head hard enough to erase the thoughts from your brain.

Continue reading →

Child of Narcissist / Moving On / Postcards From a Thriver / Seeing My Path / Words Got Her Home — Comments Off
22
Jan 14

Fanfare is for Narcissists

Fanfare is for narcissists.

That’s why – without all the folderol – I’m telling you that my books are available for free on Smashwords.com. Visit my page on their site and click through to enter the codes*.

Seeing My Path is a series of conversations I have with myself over a few road trips to a plateau outside the town where I live in Montana. Sometimes humorous and often self-deprecating, the conversations are an assessment of some of the crappy choices I’ve made. The convo progresses to the wake-up call that sends me in a new healthy direction. I’m still heading in that direction today. (Thankfully.)

When you get to smashwords.com, enter the code LU97P for Seeing My Path.

Words Got Her Home is a compilation of quotes and pictures that motivated me to get off the old path and stay on this new one. It’s a quick read that I still refer to on some of my “down” days.

When you get to smashwords.com, enter the code RN36H for Words Got Her Home.

If you’ve enjoyed this blog, I think you’ll enjoy the books.

I’ve been on this path for awhile. I’ve learned a lot about narcissism – enough to help myself and my kids learn to live a thriving life even while still dealing with narcissism.

It’s my goal to help others dealing with narcissism – especially kids.

The codes will be effective until February 22.

Please.

Get the books.

I hope they shed some light and encourage you on your path.

Thank you for being here.

*You can either visit smashwords.com and search for Jesse Blayne, or click on my page.

Lack of Empathy / Seeing My Path / The INFJ and the Narcissist - A Series / You Might Be a Narcissist If ... — 4 Comments
17
Jan 14

The INFJ and the Narcissist – Part 6

She doesn’t know how it feels to marry the right person. She does know how it feels to want to vomit right after saying the words, “I do.”

She knows how it feels to keep herself busy so as not to have time to wrap her brain around the idea that she’d made a mistake – maybe the biggest mistake ever.

She knows how it is to feel claustrophobic sitting in the car next to her husband as they drove to the west coast to hike on their honeymoon. As each mile brought them closer to the Olympic Peninsula, her palms felt clammier. She desperately needed to stop the car. She couldn’t breathe sitting next to him. Was this what it was like to have a panic attack? Continue reading →

Seeing My Path / Stories / The INFJ and the Narcissist - A Series — 10 Comments
20
Dec 13

The INFJ and the Narcissist – Part 5

Often, it isn’t until after you do something that you realize how much you shouldn’t have done that thing. So it was with marrying the narcissist.

In the flurry of preparations the morning of the ceremony, she was approached by well-wishers. The look in their eyes should have told her something. As over-thinking INFJs do, she assumed she needed to do more to make her guests comfortable. Now, as she thinks back on the general mood of the attendees, she realizes those looks showed concern – concern masked by forced smiles.

What should the energy be on that big day? Isn’t it more about the marriage than the wedding? Don’t two people grow together during the marriage? Jitters and cold feet are present at every wedding, aren’t they? The wedding was a formality. The marriage was the true test of their rightness for each other.

Right? Continue reading →

Seeing My Path / Stories / The INFJ and the Narcissist - A Series / You Might Be a Narcissist If ... — 11 Comments
25
Oct 13

The INFJ and the Narcissist – Part 2

Those INFJ traits make for a tenacious individual when it comes to working on relationships. She would never run out of the desire to try. She’d contort herself into whatever shape he needed in order to make this work.

If he wanted an outdoorsy woman, she’d happily put on hiking boots.

If he wanted a woman who only had time for him, she’d quit returning the calls from friends and family.

If he wanted a companion who followed his dreams, she’d tuck her dreams away in a box on a shelf in the closet.

Continue reading →

Seeing My Path / Stories / The INFJ and the Narcissist - A Series / You Might Be a Narcissist If ... — 28 Comments
22
Oct 13

The INFJ and the Narcissist

She was attracted to him from the first moment they met. He was older by a decade. The look in his eyes made her think he’d experienced enough to have learned; and the spark made her want to believe that he wasn’t done learning.

He was drawn to her intense desire to listen, and because she was an INFJ, he couldn’t help but spill his guts. He told her details of his failed marriage, the trials and tribulations of owning a business while raising kids, and stories of adventures in the mountains of the west. She soaked it all up. The more intently she listened, the more he talked. He thrived in her attention.

The more she asked, the more he told. The more she listened, the taller he grew and the broader his shoulders appeared.

After one intense exchange, she briefly worried that if he got to know her better, he might not be interested. She noticed that he seldom asked questions of her life. Would he still be drawn to her once he learned of her dreams and hopes and failures? Continue reading →

Postcards From a Thriver / Random Observations / Seeing My Path — 2 Comments
7
Oct 13

The List of Lessons

She drew a thick black line down the center of a sheet of unlined paper. On the left she wrote the names of people she’s known. Some no longer played an active role in her life, and some impact her life on a daily basis. Some stand in the periphery. Others are knocking at her front door, and some sleep in the rooms at the back of her house.

They all carry clipboards full of notes.

A lot of the names appear on her Christmas card list. It might be the woman she’d had coffee with on a daily basis in college, but now she was hard-pressed to remember the woman’s adult children’s names. It might be the guy she’d lived with in college who made it hard for her to look her grandfather in the eye because of the whole “living in sin” thing.

The left column listed names of individuals – all of whom left a print on her life. Continue reading →

Moving On / Parenting / Random Observations / Seeing My Path — 2 Comments
25
Jun 13

The Journey

“”Honey, the mediation spa that you made out of popsicle sticks didn’t do so well in the storm last night. I love that thing. Would you mind getting the hot glue gun out and putting it back together?”

“I could, but I’ve got other projects going on.”

“Okay. I was thinking the spa was too wonderful to give up on, but if you are cool with it, I am.”

“Mom, it’s about the journey, not the goal.”

That’s when you know they listen.

Child of Narcissist / Seeing My Path — Comments Off
12
Mar 13

On Leaving the High Road

I did it. I left the high road yesterday. I didn’t just step a toe onto the shoulder of the road. No, I hit the gas, cranked the wheel and jumped the borough pit. I raced down the hill away from that high road as fast as I could go.

I was saying that word the whole way down, too. No, I was screaming that word – repeatedly.

At first I felt guilty.

I try to be as evolved/enlightened/mindful as the next person, and some days I fake it pretty well. Yesterday, I didn’t want to fake it. Hell, I wasn’t even going to try.

But I wasn’t going to give in to guilt, either, and be bullied back onto that high road. I was going to take that ride for all it was worth. Continue reading →

Moving On / Seeing My Path / Survivor Support / Tools / Words Got Her Home — 4 Comments
1
Mar 13

Help In The Night

She wanted to switch on the light, but she didn’t dare wake him. On those sleepless nights, if the moon wasn’t too bright, she could see stars through the skylights above their bed. Maybe one day, when she was free to pursue her own interests, she’d learn the constellations – Cassiopeia, Orion and the others. The names made her think of possibility.

Possibility was what she needed to believe in right now.

Was it possible to feel good again?

Was it possible to create a healthier life – better than this life full of fears and disappointments and anger?

She gently turned back the covers and stepped out of bed. She had tiptoed down the stairs enough times in the dark to feel her way down without bumping into anything. Once downstairs, she could turn on a light, slide out the drawer in the office desk, and reach into the back for a small, innocent-looking spiral notepad. The pages were worn. The pad was almost full. She had turned down corners on pages that held the notes that touched her most deeply. Continue reading →

Moving On / Quotes / Random Observations / Seeing My Path — 4 Comments
15
Feb 13

Words Got Her Out

A few more boxes to pack and load into the car and she’d be done.

She thumbed through magazine clippings that had been filed in an office drawer. Some clippings dated back to her college years – that dreamy phase of, “When I grow up and marry, I hope my kitchen has …..”

There were clippings of herb gardens, bathroom paint colors in sage and mint, examples of open shelves instead of upper cabinets for the ideal kitchen, and nursery ideas.

__________

Her girlfriends thought she was crazy for not wanting upper kitchen cabinets. She loved how open shelving prevented her from collecting junk. Continue reading →

Moving On / Random Observations / Seeing My Path — 13 Comments
11
Dec 12

On Default Settings and Choice

Stumbling in the dark, hoping to avoid stepping on the cat on my way to making that first cup of coffee in the morning, I do not have the presence of mind to plan on having a happy day. Once I’ve had those first sips and my eyes start to focus, I am not any closer to consciously thinking, “Today is going to be really happy.”

Will is six-month-old puppy-happy every day, and even he doesn’t get out of bed and announce, “Today I’m going to be really happy.” He just is. That is his default setting.

My setting is more in the range of – get along; don’t rock any boats; hope to get a few things done and feel like I’m a decent person by the end of the day kind of setting.