Category: Post Narcissist Recovery

  • Thanks, anxiety! No, really, I mean it!

    Thanks, anxiety! No, really, I mean it!

    Today, I thanked Anxiety. I asked her if she could step aside, let me deal with it.

    “It” was finding myself having to address that person. You know the one. It’s hard to meet their eyes because of the taste that seeps into your cells. You don’t want to remember their existence, but there he is, there she is, alive and secreting the sour mind-stink that makes your mouth turn down and your anxiety turn up. 

    Sometimes, it’s not so much that person as it is the thing that person represents. Either way, you don’t want to admit them to your world, and you try to look away, to preserve your mental health.

    I suppose I did have a choice. But making the choice to avoid him (we’ll say “him” this time around) carried other choices. Sometimes, when a situation is so far awry that addressing it makes you sick, the only way out is through, even when your anxiety tells you NO. Sometimes, you have to say words, you just have to, and he was the one who had to hear what I had to say. (A lot of had to going on, and it was hard.)

    So, I breathed.

    Lately, it’s happened that a few mindful breaths, now and then, pile up a space of wide, soft air all around me. Anxiety dissipates, and I understand how this meditation thing could work. There really is blue sky above all the clouds, and the clouds are so soft to lie on. They thread and swirl and braid in my easeful fingers.

    For a moment today, I found myself up there in the blue sky. And, he was on the other side of my shiny ring of clouds, so blurred and insubstantial I could hardly see him. Fresh, clean air in my mind, and calm, clear certainty radiating from my gut. Lovely.

    Anxiety wasn’t so sure I could do it.

    She pointed and tensed and crouched, but I could see how small and helpless she was, although ready to fight to the death to protect me. So, I lifted her as gently as I could (claws like a spitting cat), and put her safely outside my shiny ring of clouds.

    Thank you, Anxiety. I know how much you want to protect me, and I appreciate it. You’re always there to make sure I know the danger. You’ve done your job well! Now, I’m ready. I can do this on my own.

    I did. It was good. Thank you Anxiety – I’ll never forget you! 😉

    [Featured image by Neil H]
  • Guilt Dog, You’re Free to Go

    Guilt Dog, You’re Free to Go

    Today, I am thinking about releasing guilt and making boundaries.

    Guilt Needs Some Boundaries Too

    Time to think about boundaries, about making boundaries for the surging misbehaving guilt that leaps and nips at me.

    It would, given the chance, sink its teeth right in and not let go. It would, if I let it, tear my seams and bedraggle my hems.

    I think about the Tibetan Mastiffs I met yesterday. One was much smaller than the other (although still large. Very large.) and he wanted to prove his strength against the world of me and my tote bag.  Nibble. Tug. Nibble. Attention finally caught, I looked down at his enormous jaws.

    “Szzt,” and a snap of my fingers stopped him, surprised. More importantly: a shut door in my mind between his naughtiness and my tote. His people make no effort to restrain him. Instead, they chuckle and tell me how he tore open their friend’s jeans. 

    Indeed.

    Guilt is like a big unruly dog who loves you

    I find myself wondering, again, why it is that people invite big dogs into the family but do not think it necessary to acquaint them with the rules, to teach them where the boundaries are.

    And immediately, I see this giant’s lesson for me, the lesson he held in his drooly teeth when he reached through my debilitated, feeble boundary and nibbled my tote bag.

    I will remember this mastiff monkey-monster, and I will call him Guilt.

    Yes, Guilt, I’m talking to you. No more tugs on the corners of my soft, struggling new peace; no more nibbles along my almost-fraying edges.

    I understand that you have things to tell me, are afraid I haven’t heard the things you tell me. I see your worried eyes following me and your wanting paw upraised. Thank you, but it’s okay. I heard you. It’s time for you to go chase squirrels, Guilt. 

    Go on.

    And shame is the sheep your guilt dog herds!

    You’ve done your job, you’ve herded my scattered shame-sheep and brought them out from all their dark mountain caves and hiding spots. I see them, and I speak their sorry names out loud.

    [Oh, hello, reader. Join me, if you like. Brene Brown is so right. When you speak Shame’s name, it loses its imposter power.]

    So here’s a name for one of my sheep (see the one over there, covering under all her ratty wool?): 

    I was not the good and loving mother you think. I was probably a terrible mother.

    And here’s how I will rename my ratty sheep and fluff her wool:

    I was, however, the best that I could be then, in that place and time, scrabbling for a hold on the greasy sides of the pit he dug for me with his sharp-edged shovel of disparagement and discounting.

    Guilt, you panting, overgrown, teething puppy, you brought us together, my shoddy sheep and I. Now, take them away.

    I’m ready to stop shearing their tiresome, bulky fleece. I’m ready to stop endlessly carding, hopelessly spinning; I’m ready to stop wearing their rough, itchy wool. There’s much better wool on the Sheep of Honour Myself. I’m off to knit a shawl.

    [Featured Image by Lydia Wang from Pixabay]