When Narcissists Fake Being Sick to Manipulate You – Re: Boundaries, etc

When Narcissists Fake Being Sick to Manipulate You – Re: Boundaries, etc

I just blogged about this very topic just yesterday, June 25 (today is June 26) when I saw this video on You Tube today! Talk about coincidental timing!

So this psychologist, Dr. Ramani, made this 11.54 video (I’ll embed it below, you can also watch it on You Tube here) who discusses a letter by a woman married to a guy who uses (fake) illness as an excuse to leave social functions early.

The woman said her husband has a habit of faking sickness to get out of social obligations or to depart them early.

Well, the woman’s kid sister was turning 18, the family was throwing a birthday party / dinner for the young lady, and this married woman had her husband go with her.

The husband said he didn’t want to go, but the wife wouldn’t take No for an answer on this one – the husband never wanted to go to parties, and she seemed to feel like the husband would or could make an exception for this, since it was for her kid sister.

So they go to the party, the husband vomits on purpose while at the party but makes it look as though he’s sick – all so he can leave the party early and force his wife to go with him.

The psychologist who is discussing this story (she’s reading from a letter the woman wrote asking for advice) points out that so many people are quick to tell people like the woman who wrote this letter “to have boundaries,” which the woman tried on her (probably narcissistic) husband, but he didn’t heed her boundaries and instead actually doubled down on his obnoxious behavior.

I’ve seen several of Dr. Ramani’s videos before, she’s quite good, and I like her, but I always cringe a little when I hear mental health professionals who specialize in narcissism (as she does) sort of denigrate the concept of having boundaries, which she sort of does in the video embedded below.

Boundaries Usually Work And Are A Good Thing To Have

I spent 35 or so years (Link): as a severe codependent.

I believe boundaries are very important and can be life-saving and can improve one’s mental health.

Boundaries may not work in all situations or with all people, true enough, but by and large, boundaries DO work with most people and most situations and can save your self esteem, energy, mental health, and possibly your bank account in the long run.

People Using Fake Sickness or Hardship To Con People Out Of Their Money, Attention, or Empathy

People Using Fake Sickness or Hardship To Con People Out Of Their Money, Attention, or Empathy

I came across this headline the other day in my Twitter feed:

(Link): Woman claimed she was bedridden to con more than £620,000 out of council

Excerpts from that article:

June 25, 2022
by S. Johnson

A woman claimed she was bedridden to con more than £620,000 from a council which she then used to pay for luxury holidays to America.

Frances Noble, 66, fooled social workers to commit what is suspected to be one of the largest fraud cases of its type to ever come before the English courts.

Between 2005 and 2018, Noble convinced Hertfordshire County Council she needed intensive round-the-clock home care.
— end —

I’ve seen similar news stories in the past several years – someone will claim to have cancer, or some other kind of hardship, but they are lying about it, and the reason they’re lying is to obtain monetary donations from the public.

Here’s another example (I may edit this post in the future to include more examples):

(Link): Married Mother and Father Fake the Wife’s Kidnapping, Used Donated Funds Meant to Help Find Kidnapped Wife to Pay off Couple’s Personal Credit Card Debt

I’ve written other posts about how I (Link): spent over three decades as a codependent. 

What I learned when I began getting over codependency, what I had my eyes opened to, is that there are people out there, whether legitimate victims or legitimately wounded in life,
or people who “play” at being a victim (some of these individuals may be (Link): Covert Narcissists) who will manipulate you, who will intentionally play on your pity and your heart strings or your guilt or sense of duty,
to get you to donate money to them, or to do things like listen to them complain weekly or monthly with compassion (ie, provide them with (Link): emotional labor), as they reiterate the same complaints repeatedly.

If you believe you may be a codependent, an empath with poor boundaries (which is essentially what a codependent is, but some people do not like the label “codependent”), or if you’re a people pleaser, I’d like for you to really get serious about not allowing your sense of compassion or empathy to sway you or to control every decision in your life.

Please stop automatically caving in and sending people money – because they ask you to, or you find out they’re going through a tough time, or because they look or sound sad.

Please stop feeling as though it’s your obligation or duty to rescue other people or do favors for them.

If you have a hard time saying “no” to people – out of fear of angering them, disappointing them, coming across as “selfish,” and/or from a fear of abandonment (i.e., “this person won’t stay in a relationship with me unless I keep doing favors for her”), please start researching the topic of people pleasing, boundaries, and codependency online if you cannot afford to see a therapist who specializes in the issue.

“Immediately No”: Mental Health Expert Shares Red Flags on Dating Profiles

“Immediately No”: Mental Health Expert Shares Red Flags on Dating Profiles

I don’t agree with all of this person’s red flags, but some of them may be worthwhile to keep in mind.

 (Link): “Immediately no”: Mental health expert shares red flags on dating profiles

Excerpts:

by C. Ferris
June 2, 2022

In a now-viral TikTok video, a mental health expert discussed what would cause her to not match with someone on a dating app.

Karli Kucko, LPC-A shares content about mental health on her TikTok and Instagram accounts @karli.k.counseling. She recently posted a video on her TikTok where it garnered more than 100,000 views. The video, which discussed seeing people making demands on their profile, was the first of several that touched on behaviors that would cause her to “swipe left.”

Viewers found these points helpful, and many shared what they considered to be red flags when they peruse dating apps themselves.

Good Morning America outlined a few tips for a strong dating profile, which include users posting good quality photos, writing “just enough” about themselves and being up-front with their intentions.

Matthew Hussey, a New York Times bestselling author and dating expert, told the outlet that there is a way to be open and honest while remaining positive.

“If you’re going to say you want something serious, frame it in a positive way rather than a negative one,” he said. “You don’t want to come across as bitter or jaded.”

In Kucko’s first video, she said something that would make her “swipe left” is seeing someone making demands on their profile. She noted that statements like “have to have, can’t do, must do,” were some examples of phrases that led to her not matching with someone.

Actor Ezra Miller, Leftist Identity Politics, Pronouns, and the SBC (Southern Baptists) – Priorities Out of Kilter

Actor Ezra Miller, Leftist Identity Politics, Pronouns, and the SBC (Southern Baptists) Actor Ezra Miller, Leftist Identity Politics, Pronouns, and the SBC (Southern Baptists) – Priorities Out of Kilter

This is sheer lunacy.

Movie actor Ezra Miller has been in trouble for grooming under-aged girls (one of them is now 18 years old), if you’re not aware.

If you’d like more background, you can Google the guy’s name, and here are a few links about it:

(Link): Authorities ‘cannot locate or serve’ Ezra Miller after the actor was accused of grooming a teen, report says

(Link): Ezra Miller taunts police, deletes social media accounts

A string of memes mocking police was the last thing The Flash’s star posted before deleting their Instagram account

(Link): A Protection Order Has Been Issued After Ezra Miller Allegedly Groomed A Teen, But Nobody Can Seem To Locate The Actor To Serve Them 

(Link): Actor Ezra Miller accused of ‘cult-like’ behavior, abuse of indigenous teen 

Progressives on Twitter, though, are currently more concerned that people commenting upon these news stories may not be referring to Miller by “preferred pronouns” of “they” or “them,” which are generally used to refer to groups of people, not an individual (aside from maybe situations where the biological sex of a person is not known, and then “they” is sometimes substituted).

Referring to a person as “he” is not “misgendering,” by the way. “Misgendering” involves acknowledging that there is such a thing as a gender binary (male and female) to start with, which most progressive kooks deny in the first place.

Miller is a biological male, so to call Miller a “she” would be a case of “misgendering.”

The pronoun “they” is not a gender term in and of itself, since it can refer to either a male or female but is usually a plural term used to denote a group of people of one or both (mixed) sexes present; the word is not in and of itself a reference to biological sex either way.

If Miller isn’t comfortable with acknowledging via language that he (yes, I said “he”) is biologically a man, that doesn’t change reality. Miller is still a biological man regardless of what one label slaps on to him. It’s pointless to chuck out perfectly good pronouns such as “he” and “him” that society already has in place.

The woke liberals are more concerned that people refer to Miller as “they” or “them” than they are that Miller is grooming under-aged girls.

Evangelical Adoptions: Churches Are AWOL in Helping Parents of Special Needs Kids by Julia Duin – Churches Are Useless (and Not Just Re: Adoptive Families)

Evangelical Adoptions: Churches Are AWOL in Helping Parents of Special Needs Kids by Julia Duin – Churches Are Useless (and Not Just Re: Adoptive Families)

By Julia Duin, who has also written and has been interviewed about how churches have let down single adults over the age of 30, and who wrote a wonderful book called “Quitting Church.”

This article discusses how so many evangelical churches encouraged Christian couples to adopt babies (usually from foreign nations), but once those adopted babies grew up to have all sort of developmental or personality disorders, churches would not help these parents.

This is like so much of American, evangelical, Baptist and Protestant Christianity:
Sell a certain deed, or a type of life style (or whatever it may be – let’s call it “X,” whether it’s adopting a baby, or whatever it is) as being so “godly” and “pure,” but once you live X out, and X either does not work out, or it creates a whole new batch of problems, those same Christians, or ones like them who promote X, refuse to help you.

I went through something similar in regards to adult singlehood. I wrote about that (Link): here.

I followed all the Christian dating advice I was taught as a teen and 20- something, Christian advice that taught me if I wanted to get married I would, if I just followed “biblical” wisdom, and the Christian persons, books, and magazine articles spelled it out for me.

However, when I remained single into my mid-30s, in spite of having followed the Christian teaching I had been given by other Christians when younger, and when I began asking Christians online (on various blogs and discussion forums) who dish out this swill to singles, why I didn’t have the husband I had been promised according to their teaching, interpretations, and worldview, I was yelled at, judged, and criticized by these Christians.

I was told God didn’t owe me anything, etc, and how dare I expect God to “reward” me with a spouse just because I did Z, Q, and R (i.e., just because I had followed Christian teaching and advice on the topic).

Christians will do this to you – they will sell you and market you on doing X, and so you carry out X, but five, ten years later, X did not work out and maybe even left you with a set of problems you need help with, the same Christians that sold you X in the first place are now not willing to help you, and may even insult you when you go to them telling them that X did not work, and you could use their help.

You end up getting punished for taking the very life-style advice, for buying the marketing, these Christians sold you, guilt tripped you, or conned you into taking in the first place. 😤🤬😡😣😫

It’s demonic and perverse, I swear.

It is crazy-making and despicable how Christians set people up in these no-win or stressful or miserable situations, then fault those people when they try the Christian advice, and admit to defeat, stress, and they ask for help.

Christians set people up for failure with their stupid advice, then have the audacity to victim-blame those people (who earnestly took and followed the advice) for failing. 😡😤🤬

After having read through the testimonies of the parents on this page (see below, link with excerpts), it sounds like exhausting, hellish work to raise these adoptive children who turn out to have medical and behavioral problems.

I cannot, in good conscience, condemn any adult who realizes after so many months or years, they don’t have the mental or physical strength to keep parenting such children and so decide to return these children back to the adoption agency.

I appreciate the work Dee of Wartburg Watch has done against abuse, but I recall years ago, she ripped into famous Christian speaker Beth Moore, because Moore returned one of her adoptive children back to his mother.

I wrote about that situation (Link): here, towards the end of the post, under the sub-heading “Beth Moore / Judgementalism.” (You can scroll down that page to find the Beth Moore section, which is buried under a long discussion about YEC.)

It’s very easy to sit in judgment of someone else when or if your life is more or less going okay at the time and the person you’re criticizing has a life that is falling apart, or they’re in the middle of a calamity, or you may have a different temperament or inner strength the person you’re criticizing lacks.

I personally do not think I’d have the fortitude, endurance, or patience to put up with an adoptive kid who acts out constantly, even into their late teens. I’d want a break from that, too.

I have way, way more comments below this long excerpt, so please keep scrolling to read everything; thank you:

(Link): Evangelical adoptions: Churches are AWOL in helping parents of special needs kids

Excerpts:

by Julia Duin
June 2022

For years, evangelical Christians were enthusiastic supporters of adoption by sponsoring conferences, targeting adoption-friendly Sundays and staging adoption fairs in parish halls.

… Parents now say that the churches that encouraged them to adopt in the first place aren’t there for them now.

…Few statistics exist on the number of adoptions gone wrong, other than a 10-year-old study by the US Department of Health and Human Services reporting “adoption disruptions” ranging from 10-25 percent. This little-known statistic points to a meltdown in the industry and a sign that adoption and foster care have become a landmine for many families who believed God had called them to help these children.

No one told them there could be an aftermath. Here are some of their stories.

[I will not be pasting in ALL stories. These are just a few from the page]

Evangelicals adopted at a higher rate than others
“Joy” was a social worker in Tacoma, Washington, who adopted a 9-year-old boy in 2000, hoping for the best. She had 32 years of experience working for the state and a Christian agency where she’d helped more than 600 people adopt foster children.

The divorced mother of two was prepared for challenging behavior, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and developmental delays and PTSD from the child’s six years with mentally ill biological parents.
What stunned her was that by age 15, her son was a registered sex offender. Bad relationships, drug abuse and a child out of wedlock followed. Now 30, he cannot hold down a job.

Dear Prudence: “Help! My Sister Thinks I Should Give Up a Promotion to Continue Being Her Free Babysitter.”

Dear Prudence: “Help! My Sister Thinks I Should Give Up a Promotion to Continue Being Her Free Babysitter.”

I’m a conservative, I am not against motherhood or women wanting to have children.

Having said that, I’ve noticed that some of the most entitled (or rude) a-holes I’ve ever seen online (aside from “anti theist atheists,” men’s rights groups, and trans activists) are mothers.

But not all mothers are awful – my own mother was pretty wonderful, and I’ve been friends with women who have children and who are perfectly wonderful people, too.

There are, though, some mothers who are entitled, un-sympathetic, demanding, a-holes.

I have other examples on my blog of entitled parents (usually mothers) acting like spoiled, demanding, bratty a-holes towards their childless and/or single friends or siblings.

The married with children sister as described in the letter below sounds like a big, honking narcissist – she’s very self absorbed and entitled.

The single, childless sister doesn’t owe her continual, free baby-sitting…

(what is it with so many mothers whining about how tiring motherhood is and expecting all their friends and family – usually the single ones – to drop everything to be free baby sitters?
If you can’t handle the responsibility of having children, you should be sexually abstinent or should’ve used birth control),

… the sister certainly does not deserve or is entitled to free baby sitting services at the expense of her sister’s job promotion!

Please be sure to see the additional comments I made BELOW the following link with excerpts:

(Link): Help! My Sister Thinks I Should Give Up a Promotion to Continue Being Her Free Babysitter.

Excerpts:

It’s not my fault her life is a mess.

Advice By R. Eric Thomas
JUNE 02, 2022

Dear Prudence,

I am happily single, while my sister is married to the biggest man-baby on the planet. He thinks putting a dirty dish in the sink is worthy of a parade and being a good parent is telling my sister the baby is crying before going back to his video game.

Both work full time, but my sister takes care of the kids, the house, and the dogs, and she constantly leans on me to help out (while complaining about her husband refusing to).

I have been watching and raising my young nieces since they were born when my sister can’t.

I love them to pieces—but I have been waiting for them to get old enough so my sister doesn’t have to pay for expensive infant care.

I am tired of being expected to pick them up from school five days a week and to take care of them when my sister works weekends while my brother-in-law goes camping with his friends.

My sister has gone back and forth about getting a divorce for years, and I have tried to be as neutral as I could possibly be, but we have fought about it. She tells me I can’t understand that a marriage is about compromise and companionship—I don’t get an opinion.

Nutso Progressive Transactivists Actually Suggest That Biological Men Urinate Sitting Down and Biological Woman Smell Their Own Waste to Be Supportive of Trans Persons. Just NO.

Nutso Progressive Transactivists Actually Suggest That Biological Men Urinate Sitting Down and Biological Woman Smell Their Own Waste to Be Supportive of Trans Persons. Just NO.

I came across these bits of information as I was scrolling my Twitter time line (you can see the tweets embedded below).

We have biological women getting raped by biological men in women’s prisons now, because these Trans Activist A-holes and their progressive enablers are being pandered to at such a rate, that the safety, health,
and needs of actual girls and women are being undermined to cater to a bunch of narcissistic men who get hard-ons from wearing lip stick and skirts, men who claim to be women – so they are permitted into women’s only spaces now, such as women’s prisons.

Now, we also have asinine, petty, stupid, disgusting, insane progressive advice telling non-trans people to do stupid, gross, insipid things like (for biological men) urinate sitting down, and (for biological woman) to smell their own fecal matter – all as a (weird) form of solidarity with mentally disturbed, and/or narcissistic Trans Weirdos.

Hell to the No. Hell to the No.

Legalization of Homosexual Marriage

I remember a little over ten years ago when the cultural hot potato was the legalization of “gay marriage,” 🏳️‍🌈
I commented on a forum back then that a lot of homosexuals went from, in the 1980s and 1990s, saying they were just asking to be “tolerated” (or for their sexuality or sexual actions to be tolerated) to now (by around 2000 – 2010) they were expecting (and then, later, bitterly demanding) conservatives, Christians, and all non-homosexuals to not only tolerate homosexuality but to also AFFIRM, CELEBRATE, and VALIDATE their sexuality.

Several liberal commentators ripped my head off under that observation at that time and said to me back then, that no, homosexuals weren’t expecting or wanting my validation.

Yes, yes they were. It was plain as day that was part of the agenda. If you withheld your personal stamp of approval over homosexual marriage, then and now, some homosexuals (and their hetero “allies”) would seethe in rage. (Now, you may not get as much rage, but you’ll get a lot of insulting rhetoric.)

We now see the Trans community behaving in the same way – you can see the whole “seething in rage” thing if you don’t give their “identity” and life style choices a stamp of approval. They cannot feel happy or at peace unless the entire culture celebrates and affirms their stance and life choices.

External Validation

If you go through life basing your sense of self esteem, worth, or identity upon external factors (such as other people’s validation or approval), you’re going to end up very disappointed or depressed, because more often than not, any external validation you receive, for whatever situation or life choice, is going to be un-even, unpredictable, unreliable, and fleeting.

Nobody, including me, gets 100%, consistent validation all day, every day from every one they meet, for their life choices, their physical appearance, their identity, or whatever else. That is an un-sustainable goal. You learn to live with that reality and move on in life.

I am not going to play along with this.

I am not going to run around validating and affirming persons, movements, or entire groups I do not agree with, especially when they are demanding that I participate in weird, questionable, or gross things like asking women to smell their own turds, or asking men to urinate sitting down.

(Link):  Encourage women to smell their poop to be more inclusive to Trans women

Excerpts:

Some women have a hole where their penis used to be, and that hole often shares microbiome with the colon—creating a distinct transitioning odor.

by Jamey Braunstein

In solidarity with Trans women, this month you can make a difference by putting your olfactory system to use – while going number #2!

Yes! It’s not a joke. We are sincerely asking all women to please spend more time smelling their poo during bathroom breaks, and to critically examine what many of our gender have to endure as part of the cost of bottom surgery.

Help! I Think I Made a Terrible Mistake When Helping My Elderly Neighbor (The Codependency, People Pleasing Trap)

Help! I Think I Made a Terrible Mistake When Helping My Elderly Neighbor (The Codependency, People Pleasing Trap)

The letter below, and the summaries of other ones I am mentioning here (below the link and excerpt), should be a wake up call to anyone who has a difficult time saying no to people, refusing to turn down their requests, whether out of a sense of guilt or fear.

If you really struggle with turning down people’s requests for favors or for help (even if it’s someone who seems to legitimately be in need of help, such as a solitary, lonely, elderly neighbor with chronic health problems who is in a wheel chair), you may be codependent, a people pleaser, or an empath with very bad boundaries.

(And there are people out there, such as, but not limited to, Covert Narcissists who can spot nice, sweet, giving people like you in a heart beat, and they will waste no time in taking advantage of your kindness to get their needs met.
Even genuinely well- meaning, kind, nice, non-narcissistic people will and can lean on you too much, if they are very needy and you don’t put boundaries up.)

You need to learn that it’s perfectly fine to draw boundaries with people, even elderly neighbors who live alone who have health problems.

It’s okay to be straight forward and tell such neighbors that while you’re fine doing X for them every Z number of weeks, that you don’t want to do it more than that often, and you don’t want to also do Y, Q, and R for them.

The following is a letter someone sent to an advice columnist.

I will be including more comments below this link and excerpt:

Dear Prudence: Help! I Think I Made a Terrible Mistake When Helping My Elderly Neighbor

I had no idea one kindness could turn into this.

Advice by Eric Thomas
June 4, 2022

Dear Prudence,

I moved into a new upstairs apartment five months ago. I made the mistake of helping my wheelchair-bound neighbor, “Stella,” with her groceries during my move.

Stella had her bag break in the parking lot after she got off the bus. I put down my boxes and ran to help with her items and then put them up in her kitchen.

Stella told me about how she was alone in the world and on a fixed income.

I told Stella I would be happy to run to the grocery store for her since I go once a week.

Stella calls me every day now. She has problems with her doctors, her bills, and for anything and everything, she calls me. I have tried to be kind and helpful—but now I need help.

I should have set firm boundaries earlier, but she is a little old lady, and I was lonely in a new city. But I am not her daughter or her granddaughter. I am okay with running to the grocery store or being an emergency contact or coming over for tea and a chat—but not this.

Adult services are useless.

Stella’s life isn’t in danger, and she had enough income to be disqualified from the majority of services.

She isn’t cruel or abusive or mean. She is old, scared, and alone in the world.

But she is suffocating me.

Lia Thomas Is ‘Happy’ To Force Everyone Else To Deal With Transgender Narcissism by Kylee Zempel

Lia Thomas Is ‘Happy’ To Force Everyone Else To Deal With Transgender Narcissism by Kylee Zempel

(Link): Lia Thomas Is ‘Happy’ To Force Everyone Else To Deal With Transgender Narcissism

Excerpts:

BY: KYLEE ZEMPEL
JUNE 01, 2022

Lia Thomas and gender-bending allies say their delusional and norm-shattering behavior is fine because they’re happy, but that’s textbook narcissism, and we’ve enabled it far too long.

Transgender-identifying swimmer Lia Thomas — a man who claims to be a woman and recently dominated his NCAA female competitors — finally broke his silence with an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” and here’s what he wants you to know: “I’m happy.”

… When ABC interviewer Juju Chang asked about his competitive advantage — the question Thomas’s teammates, opponents, and critics can’t get past — Thomas shrugged it off.

… “I also don’t need anybody’s permission to be myself and to do the sport that I love,” Thomas declared, adding later, “Trans people don’t transition for athletics. We transition to be happy and authentic and our true selves.”

The kicker for Thomas, which is obvious to the watching world, is that actually, yes, you do need permission to be yourself and play the sport you love when that self defies the laws of biology and that sport is a collegiate program designed for the very real, immutable category of “women.”

Any other student-athlete knows that if her “authentic self” is obese or jacked up on steroids, for instance, she will not get permission to play a collegiate sport, her sincere love for it notwithstanding. Where does the gender-bending left get the idea that they’re entitled to inclusion without permission?

My Date Had A Toilet Fetish – He Wanted To Lick Me Clean by Anonymous

My Date Had A Toilet Fetish – He Wanted To Lick Me Clean by Anonymous

🧻🚽🪠

This is one of the grossest things I’ve ever read.

Aside from the grossness – the fact that the guy did get overly familiar too fast is a huge red flag.

If you want to avoid weirdos and narcissists as much as possible, take any new relationship slowly (narcissists in particular love to speed things up and pressure you for commitment right away, as do some non-narcissistic abusive and controlling men – they might seriously discuss marriage on a very first date (saying already they can picture the two of you together, married) or propose marriage by the second date, or whatever. Red Flag!)

Getting back to the grossness – this man she didn’t know well tells her he has a “toilet fetish.”

He wanted to use his tongue to clean her private area, including, it seems, the area around her anus , after she used the bathroom.

Aside from just being weird and gross, that’s a good way of getting diseases and becoming ill. If there’s any fecal matter in the area, that is loaded with bacteria, and if you ingest it, it can make you very sick (more info here). 

The following story gets more and more off kilter the more it goes on:

(Link): I thought my date was going to propose – instead he told me he had a toilet fetish

By Anonymous
May 28, 2022

Signing up for online dating was a big deal for me. 

Coming out of an abusive relationship had left me too scared to be intimate with anyone and so I remained single for many years. But, after a decade, I finally felt ready to dip my toe back into the dating pond again.

Setting up a profile on a couple of dating sites, I went on a few boring dates.

There was, however, one guy who seemed different. His messages were almost poetic. He seemed thoughtful, considerate, and gentle.

[She and the guy began contacting each other, and the guy came on too strong too fast]

We didn’t know each other. How on earth could he ‘shine’ for me?!

The next day more texts came, expressing how excited he was to meet me. He knew I was ‘the one!’ I was baffled. 

An Assessment of the Article “Why the Religion of Self-Care is Really Sanctified Selfishness” – Christian Author is Indirectly Promoting Codependency, Which is Harmful

An Assessment of the Article “Why the Religion of Self-Care is Really Sanctified Selfishness” – Christian Author is Indirectly Promoting Codependency, Which is Harmful

A link to this article, from a site and Twitter account called “Truth Over Tribe,” came through my Twitter feed today.

I don’t think I am following these guys; this was a suggestion by Twitter that appeared in my timeline. The “Truth Over Tribe” site says on their site that they are “too liberal for conservatives and too conservative for liberals.”

Okay… I’m somewhat in the same place. I’m a conservative who occasionally disagrees with other conservatives, but I sure don’t agree with many positions of progressives.

After having skimmed over some articles on this site – the site owner and author seems to be a Patrick Miller – he seems to lean left of center.

I can tell he’s left of center from some of the commentary and language he’s used – for one, in the article below, he puts his Intersectional Feminism (a left wing concept) on full display by talking about how “self care” was really started by black people, white women love it, and these days, only white woman can (financially) afford it. (Though I didn’t quote those portions of his article below, but they are over on his site.)

(Does Miller realize that left wing darling BLM (Black Lives Matter) is misleading people financially or that they spend more on transgenderism than on race related issues?)

At any rate, let’s get on to the article on this site that alarmed me, and I will provide a few excerpts, and then I will comment on them to explain why I feel this piece goes horribly wrong:

(Link):  Why the Religion of Self-Care is Really Sanctified Selfishness

Excerpts:

by Patrick Miller

“To be happy, you need to leave toxic people behind.” The preaching Peloton instructor continued, “I’m talking about people who take more than they give. People who don’t care about your dreams. People whose selfishness impedes your ability to do what you want to do.”

 Oh crap. She just described my two-year-old. I guess it’s time to cut him off.

This is the gospel of self-care. The notion that the most important person in my life is me, and anyone who impedes my happiness is an existential threat to my emotional and physical well-being. …

… What’s the Religion of Self Care?

I Appear Successful, But Since Having Kids I Feel I’ve Lost Myself by Annalisa Barbieri (Letter from a Married Mother Who Has Depression, Low Self Esteem)

I Appear Successful, But Since Having Kids I Feel I’ve Lost Myself by Annalisa Barbieri (Letter from a Married Mother Who Has Depression, Low Self Esteem)

Before I get to the link and the letter, I wanted to say…

The article below – via The Guardian – doesn’t make it clear, but the following appears to be an e-mail or a letter from a married mother who has low self esteem, and she’s writing to this paper for advice, guidance, and help.

I’m sorry this lady is not doing well, but I want you to take away from this that being married and being a mother (having children) will not necessarily make you happy, or bring you joy, inner peace, or a healthy sense of identity.

I’m afraid that a lot of conservatives – especially Christians – keep promoting these false notions to women, from the time we are girls, that if we just marry (and/or have children), that being married and a parent will bring us permanent happiness and purpose in life, but clearly, that is not the case.

I am not “anti family” nor “anti motherhood,” but I figured out a long time ago that being a parent or married may not bring you fulfillment in life, and it is that expectation that a lot of “pro family,” “pro motherhood” type of conservatives continue to hold up – it is misleading, false hope and propaganda.

I’ve got other examples on my blog of women who married (or who are mothers), and yet, being married (or being a mother) didn’t bring them happiness, but they were still left feeling overlooked, depressed, or lonely – in some cases, because the man they married doesn’t meet their emotional needs regularly, but spends all his day wrapped up in his hobbies or watching television.

I have blog posts of women who admit that they regret motherhood!

I think if you’re someone who had hoped or expected to marry (or have children) it can be painful  or very disappointing if that did not happen for you, but if you can accept it,
and permit yourself to go through a grieving process and determine to move on in life and determine to enjoy life anyway (in spite of life not turning out how you had hoped), that you can ultimately find joy, happiness, fun, and peace without a spouse and without children.

You can find other avenues of joy, meaning, and happiness in life that don’t involve being married or having children. I made that transition myself years ago, though it took me several years of grappling with unhappiness to get there, but it can be done.

But again, notice, that although the woman letter writer here married and had children, that she is STILL depressed, feels like a failure, feels like a “loser,” and thinks she is not enough.

Being a wife and a mother – contrary to what a lot of excessively pro-family, pro-natalism Christian conservatives bang on about – did not fill that empty void she has, nor increase her self image to a healthy level.

(Link): I appear successful, but since having kids I feel I’ve lost myself

Excerpts:

Squashing your anger down is exhausting. Try using your free time to do what makes you feel good, and see what shifts

May 20, 2022
by Annalisa Barbieri

[This appears to be a question from a writer to an advice columnist named Annalisa Barbieri? – the article doesn’t make it clear]:

[Dear Advice Columnist,]

I have struggled with depression and anxiety since my teens and have had therapy and medication on and off since I was 17 (I am now 37). I’m aware of deep-rooted low self-esteem and shame.

I feel worthless. I never want to draw attention to myself and have a paralysing fear of confrontation.

I have managed to maintain a few close friendships, have worked in the past, and am married with two kids. So I appear “successful” on the surface.