Miserable in a Marriage to a Covert Narcissist – Content by Renee Swanson – Complementarians Push People to Stay in Toxic Marriages Like This One (This Content Can Help Single Adults Too)

Miserable in a Marriage to a Covert Narcissist – Content by Renee Swanson (This Content Can Help Single Adults Too) – Complementarians Push People to Stay in Toxic Marriages Like This One

This post has been edited to add more material

It would be nice if more psychologists, therapists and lay persons wrote articles or blog posts from the vantage of how things affect single adults, but that’s not always the case.

As you know from my blog, I am a never married, middle-aged adult. Yet, I still find some content about marriage helpful in navigating or understanding my relationships with family members and friends.

This lady, Renee Swanson, has a blog, several social media channels, and a podcast about having been married to a Covert (Vulnerable) Narcissist for 21 years – in my opinion, based on what she’s written, her husband is not only a Covert Narcissist but displays elements of what is called Neglectful Narcissism (more on that below).

It looks to me as though some of Swanson’s accounts have not been updated in two or so years, but the content is still quite helpful and illuminating.

I’m going to excerpt a few of her blog posts below.

I want you to note that contrary to what extreme marriage (and parenthood and nuclear family) promoters have to say, that marriage (and parenthood, etc), does not necessarily make a person happy, safe, and secure, as Renee Swanson’s content once again demonstrates.

The person you marry, should you marry, can end up being emotionally, sexually, financially, or physically controlling, negligent, or irresponsible.

There are some personality disorders for which there is no cure, and for which the disorder is largely impervious to therapy.

Which means, should you marry someone with one of those disorders, such as severe pathological narcissism, your partner is never going to change or get better, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, or how much you do for them, love them, or pray for them.

I think that the Christian gender complementarian interpretation of the Bible is incorrect on many topics, but certainly in regards to divorce.

Many complementarian persons, churches, denominations, and pastors believe that the Bible never allows for divorce, including in cases of physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse.

Such anti-divorce, complementarian churches and pastors frequently mistakenly teach people (usually women) who are married to abusers to simply submit more to their spouse, and that will make the mistreatment stop. Such pastors, churches, etc, are entirely ignorant about personality disorders and abuse dynamics.

If these complementarian, anti-divorce clowns spent any time at all looking up information on abuse dynamics or personality disorders, they would learn soon enough that there is nothing another person can do to fix, change, or heal an abusive or toxic person – and the spouse sure won’t be able to do it.

I’ve never married, but I’ve had family members, co-workers, bosses, friends, and acquaintances display presence of disorders or toxic behaviors, and no matter how kind and loving I was to those persons, it didn’t get their abuse of me to stop.

In each case, I either had to limit contact with the toxic person, or cut them out of my life entirely. The same should be true of marriage – you may have to limit contact with your toxic spouse (grey rocking or yellow rocking), or divorce the person.

The following blog post by Renee (the second one featured below, particularly) accurately explains many family and friendship relationships I’ve had over the course of my life.

I used to be extremely Codependent until a few years ago, and during the time I was Codependent, I often attracted Vulnerable Narcissists, or self absorbed, perpetually angry (or depressed) people, who would contact me mainly to complain to me about their problems, where they’d expect me to just listen and give empathy, something I did for many people for many years, and it left me mentally exhausted.

And those who used me as their “Free Therapist” rarely did anything to work on their own problems or their own mental health.

Such persons preferred to take their frustration, disappointment, pain, or anger in life, and phone or text me about it, and make their pain my pain.

It’s as though some of them wanted me to handle or carry their inner pain for them, so they wouldn’t have to face it or carry it themselves. But no person can do that for another person. It’s something we must each do for ourselves.

And the people dumping all their pain or anger in life on me very rarely (or never) allowed me to discuss MY pain or MY frustrations in life with THEM.

When you are a people pleaser, an emotional dependent, a Codependent, or an empath with no boundaries, you will often end up in these unfair friendships (or marriages), where you’re meeting the needs of the perpetually wounded or disordered person, but they generally refuse to meet your needs in return.

(Link):  The Narcissist’s Constant Victim Role

Excerpts:

by Renee Swanson

Covert narcissists are constant victims. Everyone has done them wrong. Everyone has injured their precious ego at some point or another.

The whole world is responsible for their anger, negativity, lack of initiative, lack of motivation, and even their lack of empathy. From the tiniest injury to the grandest, the narcissist continues to be the never-ending victim.

This causes all relationships with the narcissist to be strained and exhausting.

When the narcissist plays the victim so well, it leaves you with two roles in life. You are either the therapist or the enemy. You are either the rescuer or the perpetrator.

The trouble is that healthy people do not want to play these roles with their loved ones.

Your Role as a Therapist

Healthy individuals recognize that they cannot serve as a rescuer to their parent, spouse, adult child, friend, boss, etc. When a person is constantly relying on your approval and validation in order to feel good about themselves, this is not a healthy situation.

You are not helping them or yourself. You are not their therapist and should not serve as such. They need to be working on their own problems on their own, just as you should be with yours.

… Your Role As Enemy

… That peace, however [that you get from constantly apologizing to the Covert Narcissist], will be short-lived. There are not enough apologies in the world to satisfy the victim role of a narcissist.

Their pain comes from within, and yet they constantly look for external reasons and external solutions. Those solutions will NEVER be good enough. To stop being the perpetrator, you have to set your own boundaries and walk away.
— end excerpts —

You’ll note in this next blog post, excerpted below, how being married to this Covert Narcissist of hers, whom she refers to as Steven (not his real name) for 21 years did not bring this lady any joy or peace.

She does say in other podcasts or blog posts, and I think maybe this one, that there were a few moments of happiness with her husband here and there, but ultimately, her spouse would display his sullen, entitled, insensitive nature the majority of the time.

The thing about abusive or toxic people is that they are rarely abusive or toxic 100% of the time.

Abusive or toxic individuals have moments or days where they can be fun, loving, or considerate – so, you end up thinking the relationship is not so bad; it’s intermittent reinforcement (which I believe plays a role in “trauma bonding,” or is the basis of it) – that combined with fear and false hope can keep someone stuck in a terrible relationship for years.

Remember, just because your toxic or abusive person (family member, spouse, friend, whoever it is) occasionally acts nicely towards you, or treats you to a lovely dinner on your birthday, gifts you with a wonderful vacation or a ruby necklace, or whatever nice gesture or gift
– does not excuse or make-up for the rest of the relationship, where they are constantly invalidating you, neglecting you, nit picking you, overtly abusing you, or exploiting you!

Narcissists are known for “Love Bombing” their victims. You will waste years of your life on this person, longing to “bring back” the nice, sweet, kind funny version of them that they first put on display when you were first dating (or befriending) them, but that was a fake persona. It was never genuine.

The person who chronically invalidates or who ignores you now is the “real” them.

You’re never (permanently) getting back to that fake “nice, charming, loving” version of them again, unless they sense you are going to dump them, in which case, they will temporarily put on the “nice guy” (or the “I’m a poor, helpless victim in life, please help me, rescue me”) mask again (called “hoovering“) to “breadcrumb” you. Don’t fall for it.

(Link): How the Covert Narcissist Plays Rejection, Abandonment, and Abuse

Excerpts (you should read her ENTIRE post, not just the portion below):

by Renee Swanson

My marriage lasted almost 21 years. For most of these years, I convinced myself and the world that I had the perfect marriage. We were simply great together.

There was no other option available. The mind is powerful and can do amazing things. I truly believed that it was a match made in heaven and that he was perfect for me.

…Besides we had some really good days in between these outbursts. So I swept it under the rug every time and continued to believe that our marriage was great and wonderful.

Ever so slowly, my eyes started opening. …

Conservative Motherhood Idolaters Once Again Upset Over People Finding Mother’s Day Painful, Re: Companies Allowing People to Opt Out of Mother’s Day Ads Has Them Incensed

Conservative Motherhood Idolaters Once Again Upset Over People Finding Mother’s Day Painful, Re: Companies Allowing People to Opt Out of Mother’s Day Ads Has Them Incensed

Let me get the usual out of the way:
I am a conservative.
I am not feminist.
I am not anti-motherhood. I do not support abortion.
I am not progressive, liberal, nor a Democrat, and I am fed up and sick and tired of seeing Rainbow Flags plastered all over social media by corporations during “Pride Month,”
and I am tired of companies hiring men such as Dylan Mulvaney who say they’re girls to advertise Tampons and Sports Bras.

Having said all that, I do believe that my fellow conservatives have gone down the 180 degree opposite wrong route from anti-motherhood, anti-Nuclear Family positions that neo-Marxist progressives hold to the degree they have turned motherhood (as well as natalism, the nuclear family, parenthood, marriage) into Idols, which goes against the Bible,
and they shame and insult anyone, but especially any woman, over the age of 30 who has never married, can’t marry, doesn’t want to, or doesn’t have kids, doesn’t want to have kids.

Companies presenting the public with the chance to not have to view Mother’s Day ads is not necessarily woke, Marxist, or progressive, and it’s not inherently “anti family” or “anti motherhood.” Stop conflating or confusing those issues, if you’ve been doing so.

Conservative Upset Over Companies Allowing Mother’s Day Marketing Opt Outs

About three or four days ago, I saw a well known Twitter conservative, Jack Posobiec, tweet about how some companies this year began letting others opt out of receiving Mother’s Day ads, and I saw another conservative also tweet out an alarm about this.

I saw another lady tweet about it, and I commented under her tweet. After that some lady (maybe a man?) named “Rae” started sending me rude tweets.

Before I get to those tweets – I will link to a few, maybe embed a few, I wanted to make the following observations.

I am not opposed to Mother’s Day or to Motherhood.

I am not demanding that anyone “cancel” Mother’s Day.

I am not asking or demanding that the general public each NOT honor their own mothers or give their Mom a Mother’s Day card, or take their Mom out for brunch for the day, if they wish.

That companies are allowing people to opt out of Mother’s Day marketing doesn’t bother me in the least.

I don’t see it as an “anti family” attack. To me, it’s not the same thing as a company plastering Rainbows all over their ads.

There are actually some people – including conservatives – who find Mother’s Day a painful holiday to endure, and they’d rather avoid as many Mother’s Day ads as they can; that is their personal choice, and that is okay.

If you’re a conservative who adores Mother’s Day and you choose to keep accepting Mother’s Day ads in YOUR in-box, I am fine with that. I am not telling you to skip the Mother’s Day ads if you enjoy them.

Why Some May Find Mother’s Day Disturbing or Painful

The reason some may want to avoid Mother’s Day advertisements is that they find Mother’s Day painful, because it reminds them that their mother died months or years ago (they’re still in the grieving process), their Mom is or was abusive to them, or, they are infertile, want to have a baby but cannot, due to physical health problems.

None of those reasons for not wanting to see Mother’s Day commercials or advertisements derives from a place of “devaluing” motherhood or hating motherhood – but even if it did, so what?

If you’re a mother, and you demand that others validate YOUR life choice to have children, you are in error.

If you had children to receive attention, pity, or validation from your family, your church, or the culture, you had children for all the wrong reasons.

Pride Month Marketing

Just as companies give people a choice to opt out of Mother’s Day ads, they should also do so concerning Father’s Day ads and LGBTQ and Pride Month ads.

Other conservatives keep bringing up Pride Month ads as a comparison, but I believe it’s an Apples Vs. Oranges situation.

If companies did give the public a choice to opt out of LGBTQ marketing, some of the far left progressives may be offended, but based on the average, conservative or libertarian LGB persons I follow on social media, most of them would be okay with that and would even opt out of the Pride Month ads too.

Where-as some people find Mother’s Day painful because perhaps they are infertile, their Mother is abusive, or their Mom died two years ago and they’re still grieving, I don’t think the same types of emotions are attached to Pride Month.

I don’t think too many gays are going to be completely upset to see Pride Month ads or not see them, or are as apt to become infuriated if a company gives users an opportunity to avoid them. It’s a month long holiday about sexual orientation, which as compared to death of a loved one (a mother), isn’t the same thing, and is no where near the same thing.

I mention that last point because so many motherhood idolizers keep screaming on Twitter about how companies keep cramming “Pride Month” down everyone’s throats.

And yes, they do.

Woke companies are annoying like that, and I too wish they’d stop.

I’m a hetero conservative, but as I am someone who is opposed to progressive transgenderism, I follow a lot of lesbians and homosexuals on twitter, because they are opposed to leftist trans activism, and some of them have said THEY too are sick and tired of “Pride Month” and all the rainbow flags everywhere.

Some of these LGB persons are liberal, conservative, or libertarian.

But woke companies cramming Pride Month marketing down everyone’s throats doesn’t change the fact that some people still find Mother’s Day, or Father’s Day, painful and do not want to see reminders of either one.

Churches and Mother’s Day

On the matter of churches, that is a little bit more tricky for me.

Back when I was a regular, and later, a semi-regular, church attender, I would choose to stay home around Mother’s Day, because sadly, too many churches celebrate Mother’s Day during Sunday morning services, making the audience in the pews a captive audience.

There are people in the pews who find the holiday a painful reminder that they’re infertile, or all their pregnancies have resulted in miscarriage, or their mother is dead, or their mother was abusive. I understand why they may not want to be subjected to Mother’s Day sermons or Mother’s Day ads.

Famous Social Media Rabbi Charged With Raping One of His Several Adopted Sons, Molesting Others, While He Raised Them as a Single Dad

Famous Social Media Rabbi Charged With Raping One of His Several Adopted Sons, Molesting Others, While He Raised Then as a Single Dad

Have to point out that not all single adults are pedophiles or horn dogs. There are married people who rape or molest children, or who commit adultery – I have many examples of such on my blog.

Don’t automatically assume that any and every unmarried man who works around children is diddling the children.

This guy also supposedly faked having health problems in order to sucker people, manipulate them, and get pity from people, and I imagine he faked sickness so nobody would be as apt to suspect he was a child molester.

I’ve written a blog post or two before warning people, especially anyone who is very…

• empathetic,
• caring,
• a people pleaser,
• a codependent,
• someone with
• Emotional dependency, and/or who has
• Dependent personality disorder,

to be aware of the fact that there are child molesters, and people with personality disorders such as sociopathy, NPD (pathological narcissism), and psychopathy, who will not hesitate to exploit your empathy and warm nature to use those positive qualities against you, or to manipulate you into lowering your boundaries or not investigating them too closely.

Also note that contra most conservative propaganda about parenthood, that being a parent did not make this man any less of a pervert, or any more loving, responsible, caring, or ethical.

(Link): Texan who posed as Hasidic Jew and adopted 9 boys charged with sexually abusing kids

(Link): Phony Hasidic TikTok-famous dad charged with molesting adopted sons after boy speaks out

March 7, 2023
by Lee Brown

A phony Hasidic dad who found social-media acclaim for adopting nine boys has been charged with sexually abusing most of them — while out on bond in an earlier child sex case, according to disturbing reports.

Single dad Hayim Nissim Cohen, 38, regularly blogged about his “unique family” in Houston, gaining nearly 200,000 followers on TikTok.

But “behind all that is excessive abuse,” local prosecutor Janna Oswald told a recent court hearing, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Cohen — who claimed to be a Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn despite being born Jeffrey Lujan Vejil in the Lone Star State — was busted last month after one of his sons went on a podcast to anonymously report being raped and abused, the local paper noted.

The terrified 17-year-old boy told BlindSkinnedBeauty that he’d been sexually assaulted since he was 11 — weeks after his adoption — and claimed many of his brothers were also abused.

Divorcee Learns to Enjoy Life Again After 35 Year Marriage Ends by J. Ivey

Divorcee Learns to Enjoy Life Again After 35 Year Marriage Ends by J. Ivey

I could not find a copy of this online, so I cannot link to it. I have a print copy.

Someone did upload a copy to Scribd, but you have to have a subscription or whatever to read past the first few paragraphs

Girlfriend Power

Excerpts:

February / March 2022

It was the first Valentine’s Day after my marriage ended. The last thing I wanted to do was go to a party with a bunch of single ladies

Girlfriend Power by Jennie Ivey

[The author opens the piece by explaining that she and her husband George were divorcing after 35 years of marriage.]

… For the first time in decades, I wasn’t part of a couple. For the first time in my life, I was living alone.

… Why oh why had I said I’d go to my friend Pat’s Valentine’s party? “Celebrate with other singles at a girls’ night in,” the invitation read. “Food! Music! Games! Fun!”

[Initially, she called her friend who was throwing the party to decline. The friend told her the reason for the party started years before, when her husband served her divorce papers on Valentine’s Day, and her father died on Valentine’s Day a few years prior. The friend replied,]

… “instead of moping around because we’re not coupled up, we get together to have a good time.” She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“And one more thing, Jennie – you have to wear pink or red. It’s a Valentine’s party rule!”

[She mentions that her ex husband George was a surgeon, and while he wasn’t the greatest husband, he did okay on Valentine’s – he’d bring her flowers or candy in heart shaped boxes and so on]

Before I left for Pat’s I said a quick prayer. I hadn’t done a whole lot of praying since the breakup of my marriage. Sometimes I felt mad at God. Furious even.

Did he care that I was suddenly single at 60, an age when most couples were looking forward to retirement and spending time with their kids and grandkids together?

My prayer that evening was short and to the point: God, please show me how to be single.

To Forgive Or Not To Forgive Your Abuser – The Unintended Fallout: Possible Emotional Abuse or Exploitation Of Your Codependent Friend or Family Member

To Forgive Or Not To Forgive Your Abuser – The Unintended Fallout: Possible Emotional Abuse or Exploitation Of Your Codependent Friend or Family Member

I was watching a video today by psychologist Dr. Ramani, who I like very much, and I agree with her most of the time.

I even agree with most of her comments in this particular recent video she made that I will be discussing in this post, but it brought to mind one over-looked aspect pertaining to volatile or abusive relationships.

In the video (link to that video here, and I will embed it below, the title is, “Is there virtue in forgiving a narcissist who doesn’t apologize?”), Dr. Ramani expressed that she pretty much disagrees with the concept that people should have to forgive others, or that forgiving others makes a person stronger, etc.

Dr. Ramani rightly points out in that video that continually forgiving pathologically narcissistic persons is a waste of your time, for various reasons I shall not explain here (you can watch her video for explanations). I do agree with her on that.

If someone in your life keeps hurting, abusing, or mistreating you, no matter how many times you’ve forgiven them and given them a second, third, etc, chance,
you need to accept the fact this person is more than likely NEVER going to change and that they merely view your willingness to always forgive him or her as a weakness to repeatedly exploit.
So cut that person from your life, or limit time around them.

It’s not that I disagree with Dr. Ramani’s comments in the video on the face of things, but, I am concerned for Codependents.

On a similar note, in years past, I’ve also read books or seen videos about how people can help their abused friends.

I’ve seen videos by women who divorced their abusive husbands who reel off a list of tips on how you, the friend, can be supportive towards the friend in the abusive marriage.

These videos, books, and online articles, contain lists of things to say or to avoid saying when trying to help someone who is currently in an abusive relationship or someone who was abused in childhood.

Many of these books, videos, and web pages (most by therapists, psychologists or recovered abusive victims) often stress that you, the friend, should just sit and listen to the friend – just validate the friend, do not give advice, judge, or criticize.

I am a recovered Codependent (I wrote a very, very long post about that here).

I am also an Introvert. Introverts naturally make better attentive listeners than Extroverts.

So, as someone who is an Introvert and a one-time Codependent, I was very adept at giving the sort of emotional support a lot of troubled people seek out and find comforting.

For over 35 years, due to the parenting of my mother and the guilt tripping-, sexist-, Codependent- pushing- teachings under “gender complementarianism” of the Southern Baptist church I was brought up in, I had no boundaries, I was not assertive, and it was implied it is my job or responsibility in life to rescue or help other people, whatever format that came in.

All of that was taught to me as I grew up under the false, gender complementarian assumption (and my mother and father bought into some of this thinking too) that God created women to be more caring than men, it would be un-feminine or selfish for a woman to have boundaries, and I was taught that it was women’s “duty” to be care-takers for the hurting.

For me, most often, the support and care-taking my Mom and church taught me to engage in came in the form of “Emotional Labor,” and it made my already bad mental health in years past even worse.

(I was diagnosed at a very young age with clinical depression, I also had anxiety disorders and had low self esteem for many years. I no longer have depression or low self esteem.)

If you are an abuse victim, or if you’ve been bullied at a job, or you were abused in a marriage, or you were sexually or physically abused as a child by a family member (or by a neighbor, or by whomever),
I know it can be helpful, now, as an adult, to sit and talk to an empathetic listener about it, it can feel so good for that listener to sit quietly while you do most of the talking, and for that person to validate you and your experiences.

It can be very healing and feel like a tremendous relief for that listener to refrain from victim blaming you, offering advice or platitudes.

It can help in the healing process for another adult to believe you and just offer non-judgmental emotional support as you relate your trauma and pain to them.

I realize all that.

But have you ever considered that the caring, non-judgmental, empathetic person you keep turning to, whether it’s a friend or a family member, might be highly codependent and your repeated use of that person as your emotional support system may be damaging to THAT PERSON?

Because I was that person, for over 35 years.

I was the sweet, caring, understanding, supportive listener that many people – co-workers on jobs, family, neighbors, friends –
would call, e-mail, snail mail, or text with their problems, because they KNEW I would always listen to them rant (for hours on end, if need be, over months and years), I would NEVER put time limits on their rants, and I would ALWAYS respond in a timely fashion to ranting or sad e-mails or texts.

I spent over 35 years giving a lot of non-qualified, no-strings-attached emotional support to a lot of emotionally wounded or abused people over my life.

Some of these people called or e-mailed me over job stress, health problems, troubled marriages, financial issues, or, they were single and were lonely – they couldn’t get a boyfriend (or girlfriend).

None of these people who called or texted me to complain or sob to me ever once considered how their regular, negative phone calls (or letters or face to face chats) were impacting me. For the ones who considered it, I suppose they didn’t care.

If you choose not to forgive your abuser, that is your choice to make, but…

Be aware that if you choose to not forgive but to also hold on to your hurt and anger, and to choose to ruminate on the abuse,
and should you choose to deal with and vent that anger and hurt by regularly calling your Codependent friend to listen to your rants or sobbing – you are abusing your Codependent friend or family member, which is not acceptable.

In all the years I granted emotional support to hurting people (including but not limited to co-workers who’d stop by my cubicle during work hours to bend my ear for an hour or more about their divorce or health problems), I was never once thanked.

The non-stop support I gave was never acknowledged. And giving that non-stop support was exhausting and taxing for me, as I know it can be for other Codependent persons.

A “thank you” once in awhile from these people who came to me to dump their problems on me would’ve been appreciated. I never got one.

Reciprocation would’ve been appreciated and helpful too, but the people who were abuse survivors, or assorted chronic complainers who used me to vent to, very rarely to never asked about ME and MY struggles in life.

Your Attitude About Aging Could Add 7.5 Years to Your Life

Your Attitude About Aging Could Add 7.5 Years to Your Life

One thing this article seems to be saying is that a problem you have in life is not your problem per se, but how you choose to view your problem – a perspective I’ve begun to appreciate in the last few years.

(Link): Your Attitude About Aging Could Add 7.5 Years to Your Life

April 23, 2022
By Haley Goldberg

When Yale professor Becca Levy began conducting her decades-long research on the psychology of aging, she would routinely ask people to think of five words to describe an older person. In the US, the most common answer was “memory loss.” In China, it was “wisdom.”

As her research would find, the answer to this question had major impact. Your answer could fundamentally change how you age — even adding 7.5 years to your life.

In the new book “Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long & Well You Live,” Levy draws on decades of research and interviews to show how positive age beliefs are key to enjoying our golden years — and maintaining our health.

“In study after study I conducted, I found that older people with more-positive perceptions of aging performed better physically and cognitively than those with more-negative perceptions,” Levy writes. “They were more likely to recover from severe disability, they remembered better, they walked faster, and they even lived longer.”

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.

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.

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?

More Thoughts About ‘The Toilet Function of Friendship’ – Avoid or Minimize Contact with the Rachels and Fletchers of the World

More Thoughts About ‘The Toilet Function of Friendship’ – Avoid or Minimize Contact with the Rachels and Fletchers of the World 

I did a blog post about this about three weeks ago:
((Link): When You’re in Imbalanced, Unfair Relationships – You’re the Free Therapist, The Supportive, Sounding Board Who Listens to Other People’s Non-Stop Complaining, But They Don’t Listen to You – re: The Toilet Function of Friendship).

I had more I wanted to say about this.

This guy’s blog post – Joseph Burgo’s post – about “The Toilet Function of Friendship” that I blogged about previously really hit home with me…

 especially since I am a recovered codependent who, over 35+ years during the time I was codependent (and used to have clinical depression and had low self esteem), kept attracting abusive, mean, nasty, self absorbed, pessimistic, depressed, emotionally needy and psychologically wounded or personality disordered people to me,

…and the comments left by people at the bottom of his post were also very eye opening or informative.

I wanted to discuss a few comments visitors left to his post, above all, a post by someone calling herself “Rachel,” and a comment by “Fletcher.”

I’ll probably save Fletcher’s and Rachel’s comments for last.

I notice a lot of the people who left comments below the post on Burgo’s blog say that they have been on the receiving end of this situation, where they attract negative or hurting friends who cope with life’s stress by “dumping” and venting about their problems to a sympathetic listener.

I too was in that position for many years, and it left me resentful, exhausted, and with nothing to show for it.

I’ve always been a very good, attentive listener.

I’m not the sort of person who attempts to pivot every conversation back on to herself, so… meaning…

If you’re my acquaintance or friend, and you stop by my cubicle during the work day or call me at home to confide in me about some problem you are having, I used to just sit there and let you talk for how ever many hours you wanted to rant and confide.

Even if I was wanting to get off the phone after 20 to 40 minutes, I was reluctant to end the phone call, so I’d sit there while the emotionally needy friend or family member droned on and on and on (or ranted and ranted in anger) about whatever problems they were having.

(I used to never, or very rarely, put time limits on people when they would complain to me, which left me utterly exhausted.

In my codependent years, I felt guilty if I tried to end people’s “complain and gripe” fests prematurely (because I was getting physically tired listening, or they were interrupting my work or whatever the reason), and I was afraid they’d break off friendship with me if I refused to allow them to use me as their “emotional toilet” or “free therapist.”

Only in the last few years, as I reflect upon my past, do I realize HOW UNFAIR this was to me.)

My habit was to just sit and listen thoughtfully, to nod my head in sympathy as you would rattle off your life’s stress to me, whether it was about your lazy, selfish boyfriend, or your ex-husband who wouldn’t pay child support, or your jerk boss making your work life awful – whatever it was.

And when I would finally speak up, after listening to you vent, I would only make empathetic, non-judgmental comments.

Back in my codependent, people pleasing days, I would tell you I was sorry you were under so much stress, and I hoped your situation would improve. I would validate your feelings, validate your situation, so you would feel heard and understood.

I rarely, oh so rarely, would give people who talked to me to complain to me, advice, judgement, criticism, or platitudes.

All of those relationship habits and qualities of mine that I had for many years made me very, very attractive to needy, angry, depressed, narcissistic, pessimistic, or unhappy people.

I now know better.

I think it does take a lot of life experience to get here, to be able to look at my past, to see where my Mom and church were in error to teach me as they did, (with their teachings being largely responsible for turning me into an attractive target for hurting, angry, or emotionally needy people), to see clearly the patterns of behavior.

Most of the people who used me to get their emotional needs met (but who seldom met mine in return) had very deep psychological problems or maladaptive coping skills.

Some had clinical depression (which I also had myself for over 30+ years), some may have been Covert Narcissists, some choose to cope with pain, disappointment, or anger in life by complaining to someone else – and I was often that “someone else.”

Some of these people have deeply entrenched psychological issues, and there is no amount of me listening to them and consoling them that is going to heal them. That concept took me much later in life to figure out, and that point was confirmed in various articles or books I read by psychologists and psychiatrists in the last few years.

These types of people really need to see a psychologist or licensed therapist over a period of weeks or months to work on their inner problems and relational styles that lead them to cope with their frustration or anger in life by constantly “dumping” them verbally on to a trusted friend for months or years.

If you are a people pleaser, an empath, or a codependent (whatever label you use for yourself), you need to accept that you will not get your needs met by ignoring your own and running around meeting other people’s needs, if that is one of your secret motivations for why you help others or act as their “emotional toilet” or “free therapist.”

(Some codependents think it’s not acceptable for them to get their needs met; they got the message from their family or church while they were growing up that it’s supposedly “selfish” for one to get one’s own needs met.

And no, it is not selfish to get one’s own needs met, or to expect people who say they are your friends to sometimes meet your needs in return. It’s part of a normal, healthy childhood or adulthood to get one’s needs met.)

If you’re a people pleaser, a codependent, you will have to be more intentional about when, to whom, under what circumstances, and for how long you will show someone else care, compassion, concern, or give them financial assistance.

Because if you do not learn to get comfortable with putting limits on your time, compassion, finances, and energy, you will be exploited and taken advantage of by many people who never (or rarely) meet your needs in return. All these people over decades will drain you dry and leave you exhausted.

I do think there are some times in life where it’s appropriate to grant people more emotional support than usual and not expect much in return.

But such occasions should be exceptions, such as, if your friend is in the grieving process over the death of a loved one, in such occasions, it may be acceptable to allow them to complain to you for hours over two to four years as they process the loss.

But if you have a friend who more or less contacts you regularly to complain a lot about every issue (and I mean the non-exceptions – just to rant about how they hate their job, their boyfriend is inconsiderate – your more tedious, normal life situations that are not as stressful, as say, a death in the family) – or maybe the same two or three (trivial, mundane) issues repeatedly – you really need to put limits on that person.

Most people who do this venting are only using you to get their emotional needs met, and they will NOT return the same non-judgmental emotional support to you that you granted them for weeks or years.

SAMPLE COMMENTS

From the (Link): Burgo blog post, some comments left by some of his blog visitors:

Tracey

by Tracey
Dec 10, 2020

Wow! What a powerful article and one I, too needed to hear and to equally recognize both sides.

I have ‘friends’ who dump on me that I should un-friend, but I have been loathe to do so for myriad reasons.

Mental Illness Doesn’t Make You Special by Freddie Deboer

Mental Illness Doesn’t Make You Special by Freddie Deboer

Before I get to the link and excerpts to the essay by Deboer, which are below, I wanted to say this:

I had clinical depression for around 35 or more years (I was diagnosed by one psychiatrist, and it was verified by more psychiatrists as I got older and moved from state to state), I still have an anxiety disorder, and I used to have social anxiety disorder, so I know what it’s like to deal with mental health issues. I had to deal with these issues largely all by myself for years.

I also know that most people who’ve never had depression, anxiety, or any other type of emotional or mental health conditions are clueless about it, and they tend to be insensitive about it, or make insensitive comments and suggestions.

But in the last few years, I have seen people – usually people in their teens or 20s, and some of the adult, far left mental health professionals – almost act as though having depression (or whatever mental health condition) makes them unique little snowflakes and deserving of lots of attention and pity.

This attitude and behavior makes me want to barf.

I used to have a friend named Mary (not her real name) who I met online (who I now suspect is borderline – borderline personality disorder), and while I briefly mentioned to her early a time or two in in our friendship that I had depression for years, I never made a big fuss out of it, nor did I tell her for years that I also had suicidal ideation.

(I mentioned having depression to her a time or two after Mary began sharing with me that she had mental health issues.)

It was not something I was proud of.

I spent years researching depression and how to get rid of it. I also read up on tips on how to get rid of anxiety. I did not like having either condition. I did not use either as pity ploys or to get attention from others.

But this suspected BPD friend of mine, Mary – who was a drama queen – often would come on to our forum where we participated to complain about how life was so unfair, and she was going to kill herself.

I took her suicide threats seriously for many years – until around the 6th or 7th year of this. It was then that my intuition was telling me she was using such threats as attention-getters, as pity ploys.

It became a predictable pattern with her: about once every 8 to 9 months, she’d storm on to the forum complaining about how life was so terribly unfair, and how she was going to go kill herself.

So after several years of this, I stopped addressing Mary’s posts where she threatened suicide. Once I stopped doing that, she would come to the forum later, behave sheepishly, and admit she was being a drama queen and just wanted attention.

I do see more and more people in the past few years wearing their mental health problems like some kind of strange badge of honor.

They feel that having a mental health problem makes them “special,” “unique,” and they want attention and sympathy for it – this is never how I approached having anxiety and depression, so I find this very foreign, weird, and off-putting.

Unlike today’s mental health sufferers, I didn’t get a sense of identity or purpose from having depression or anxiety, either, nor did I want to, because that is not a healthy thing to do.

I also didn’t go around frequently, loudly, broadcasting all the time that I had depression and anxiety. When I did discuss it (online), it was under a pseudonym.

I have grown to dislike the word “neuro-divergent” that these people who act like fragile, attention-seeking snowflakes have developed. One can no longer just say that she “has depression” but one now is expected to say that she is “neuro divergent” or “not neuro typical.” It is to barf.

I’ve met people over my life, whether they have clinical depression, a personality disorder – whatever it may be – and some of them absolutely use their mental health problems (which may be accompanied by a personality disorder) to as a way to get attention and compassion from others.

It’s almost as though they don’t really want to be healed, be cured, and move on – no, they take a perverse sense of comfort in having whatever mental health problem, and they may even use it as an excuse about why they supposedly cannot get up and move on in life.

I’ve written posts on this topic before, so I won’t go into detail here, but during the years I had clinical depression and was very codependent (a people pleaser and a good listener),
I kept attracting other clinically depressed (or other types of troubled) people to me, and while I was there for these people, offering them months to years of emotional support, most of them offered me little to none in return. I’ve since learned to detach from such troubled people, which I’ve written of before in other posts.

(Link): Mental Illness Doesn’t Make You Special

Excerpts:

Why do neurodiversity activists claim suffering is beautiful?
BY FREDDIE DEBOER
April 29, 2022

Marianne Eloise wants the world to know that she does not “have a regular brain at all”. That’s her declaration, on the very first page of her new memoir, Obsessive, Intrusive, Magical Thinking.

The book catalogues her experience of a dizzying variety of psychiatric conditions: OCD, anxiety, autism, ADHD, alcohol abuse, seasonal affective disorder, an eating disorder, night terrors, depression.

By her own telling, Eloise has suffered a great deal from these ailments; I believe her, and wish better for her.

But she would prefer we not think of them as ailments at all. And that combination of self-pity and self-aggrandisement is emblematic of our contemporary understanding of mental health.