Papa Coco's Recovery Journal

[dollyvee]

Hi PC,

I'm sorry you're feeling that way right now. If you want to entertain it, I have another theory. We are/were never good enough for our FOO and now, even into our adult selves, we are never good enough for us. There is a voice inside that says, "I should," which I think translates to the me right now isn't good enough. I think perhaps there is a part of you that still holds onto the idea that they were right and I get that, no shame. It's how we learned to survive by thinking that way. We were also never given the tools to communicate our emotions, or have them in the first place, which is why it probably feels easier to handle these things on your own. The kid you was never allowed to have negative feelings and perhaps when they come up now, it's very foreign and you don't know what to do. For me, I think I learned what something felt like when I was "bad" as a very tiny baby and a part of me still equates having those negative emotions to this bad feeling. My t this week explained a cycle and I'm going to have to get her to explain it again because I'm forgetting it, but at the end there was self-criticism, and that in order to deal with these feelings we end up punishing ourselves for something.

I think those people would want you there and, like anywhere, there would be people you get along with and people you don't, but I think what you're speaking about is the trauma replaying in your head. Perhaps it's easier to think too, that they don't want you there than it is to deal with the emotions that come up when you do. I also find that people, and getting close to people, can be overwhelming, and that all of a sudden it's like my sense of self disappears and I don't even know how it happened because I was never allowed to have boundaries, probably even as a tiny baby. So, even though I want to be close to people, I always keep distance.

I also think you've been doing a lot of work to understand how this stuff shows up for you and maybe right now you are meant to be that guy in the house to find your way, or find the right way for you.

It's good to see you back posting and hope you're feeling better,
dolly

[SteveM]

Hi PC,

I still can't figure out the "quote" function so I'm going to just say that the first couple sentences in your post on the 5th I totally relate to. When I'm busy with projects and feel purpose and joy it's the best. Then when projects are done it's me and my thoughts and that's a dangerous place.

I'm truly sorry you were born into the nightmare that you have related to us, it's just unfair. Humans can be so so different and when they treat others the way you were treated it's just effing wrong!!!

I relate to your kayak example, uncanny you mention it. I have been at camp for about a week and am back home now. I had many projects to do there and thoroughly enjoyed completing them. Then I got bored so I decided to do a bit of trimming down by the shore. While doing that I had an inspiration to build a small platform out over the water in a secluded little cove, trees around, out of the sun it's an idyllic spot to sit and meditate or just hang out.

So when asked what I was up to by my wife and kids , I said, "it's a place to launch the kayaks". I don't need anyone's approval to do anything there, it's my camp! For some reason I couldn't just say that building this deck for a secluded place brings me joy in building and joy envisioning a safe secluded place.

So I put a bit of spin on it. The kayaks are next to what i'm building, the truth about me and kayaks is I love to go out but the getting in and out of the boat is a nightmare, i many times flip either in the entry or getting out and I worry what will happen if I flipped out in the lake so it's hard to relax and enjoy the activity, rambling now.

PC thanks for posting and being honest about who you are and how you are in the world, I'm attracted to and admire people that tell their truth, please keep telling us your truth, it's all welcome here.

Thanks for listening!

[Papa Coco]

Dolly, you are so right on with your alternate thoughts. I believe in wiring. The way I understand the human brain is that it is prewired from birth to give us a baseline personality. We are all born on our own unique and finite spot on each of life's spectrums, such as narcissism, Autism, athleticism, mathematics, music, art, etc. Science tells us that 50% of our ability to find happiness is born into us. The other 50% is shaped by circumstance, trauma, and personal choice. Once we've begun our lives under our own wiring, then nurturing and circumstance further define us. Pre-puberty our wiring is fluid and still under construction. Once puberty brings us across the threshold into adulthood, our wiring is mostly set and locked into place. So, the abuse we took as children of narcissists is now our primary wiring diagram as we build our relationships and live with the hand we were dealt. We spend the rest of our lives learning to live with the wiring we ended up with at 14 years of age.

So, I agree with you that since we were never good enough for our peers and parents when our wires were being laid, we now struggle for the rest of our lives to overcome that expectation of failure in everything we do. The wiring takes me to shame. I have to consciously keep myself aware of that. As soon as I relax, the wiring takes over again.

Steve, thanks for the kudos. I've just discovered, over the years, that when I'm open about my inner workings, people appreciate it. It draws me closer to people, and that's truly the only beauty I see on the Earth: People loving each other. Nothing else is really as important. I've spent most of my life hiding my idiosyncrasies from others only to now discover that most of my friends saw through my act and aren't surprised to hear my open stories now. I wasn't as clever as I thought I was. People saw my suffering. I was the only one being fooled by my disguises. When Robin Williams took his own life, friends of mine contacted me to say, "Just because he did it doesn't mean you have to." I was floored at how my friends had spent decades knowing I was suffering while I thought I was hiding it from them so cleverly.

I would love to see that dock you're building. It is such a joy to find a little spot in nature that feels solitary and peaceful. I can't count how many times I have gone to sleep at night by pretending I was alone on a pond's edge listening to the trickle of tiny waves on the rocky shore.

[Papa Coco]

Recovery Journal Entry for Tuesday, July 11, 2023

Last night I reentered the valley of the shadow of death. Today I'm stunned. Confused.

It started with my wife asking me to pay the fee to join one of those people search sites, so we could try to find out where our oldest son might be. I joined BEENVerified. My membership allows me to look up as many as 100 people per month. I figured I'd paid for it so I might as well use it to look up others as well. I wish I hadn't.

I looked up my evil sister. I haven't been in contact with her since 2010. She drove me to my last suicide attempt. I believe she drove our little sister to her suicide. To be honest I was truly hoping to find her obituary. Instead I got the worst news I could have even imagined. Her last known address is less than a half mile from my beach house.

My beach house is a lifelong dream that manifested into reality in 2015 and is still one of my favorite lifelong accomplishments. It's where I go to feel safe from family and church and all the other abusers of my past. My wife and I bought it during a housing market crash. The price was so low we couldn't say no to the deal. I've wanted to live there since I was 11 years old. I remember when I fell in love with the community there. My dad took us camping there a few times when I was a child. The beach is so quiet. The surf roars all the time. People are chill and relaxed there. It's cold and wet, but that just drives people away. It's 90 minutes from the nearest Costco, so people are too isolated to live there.  So it's private and spacious and funky. At 11 years of age I began to live within a fantasy that I had a house there and could escape all the evil of my family and my abusive church, and the city. Every time I felt the abuse of my family, mostly driven by my most evil sister, I hid inside my imagination in my private, safe, funky little beach house.

Being able to live there now, in peace and solitude, is one of the things I am most grateful for whenever I list my gratitudes.

A few hours ago I discovered that the most evil human being I've ever known personally is living just a few blocks away from my safe place has me in a state of dissociated confusion. What the H**L just happened? What  do I do now? The fantasy that I'm safe and hidden there is gone. GONE.

I will NEVER feel safe there again. Everywhere I go I'll be looking at every face to be sure that I don't run into that B***CH in the grocery store or the theater.  I'm baffled as to why she even bought that house. She lives by the rule of grandiosity. She believes she has so much class that she should be living in a penthouse somewhere in Paris or Manhattan. This coastal town is a dump. That's why I love it. Houses are sinking into the sand slowly. Power outages plague the area all winter long. Cars not in the garage rust. Houses rust and rot from the damp, salty air. What would make this horror of a human being buy a house there?

Sadly I looked myself up in the BeenVerified app and discovered that the app gives my beach house address as my address. If she looked me up, as any narcissistic stalker might do, did she decide to buy that house just to intimidate me? It's a 1 bedroom 1 bath house next to an elementary school. Did she use the money she stole from my inheritance to buy it as a rental investment just so she could laugh at how she's still stalking me? Is she living in it? Will I ever feel safe there again?

My wife, and some of my friends who are not Trauma victims, are telling me to just forget about it. Just let her live next door. Don't let her take my dream away from me. That is so easy to say, isn't it?  After all, I'm 63 and I'm smart and kind and well liked. She's 74, mean, hated by everyone, and she's been a heavy smoker and drinker her whole life. People wonder why I don't just blow it all off and not give a darn that she's living in my fantasy.

As a trauma survivor who was rescued from a suicide that she had driven me to, I feel like I'm in a place where my fantasy life of being safe from my family now is crashing into the reality that I don't really need to be afraid of her. I'm in a spiritual conundrum that I do NOT know how to get out of. My wife and my son and his family absolutely love the beach house. It's everyone's favorite hiding place for vacations from the insanity of the city. I don't have the right to sell it. My whole family owns it and I'm the only one who doesn't want to be there anymore. They still want it. And my wife has not retired because she makes the payments on it. I can't tell her that all those years of working when she wanted to retire were for nothing. She deserves for us to keep going with this. She's wanted a house on the beach for as long as I have. In fact, it was HER decision to buy the house in 2015. I can't abandon it. And time will tell whether I'll feel safe there ever again.

How do I handle this? Do I use it as a platform to overcome my fears of an ugly, obese, smoking monster who has no friends? Or do I honor my trauma triggers and just stop going to the beach? I can hire people to mow the lawn. I don't need to go down as often as I do.

I'm spending the morning wondering who I am right now. Am I going to man up and refuse to let satan take my dream house away from me? Or am I a CPTSD survivor who is flying too close to a flame that has almost killed me more than once?

My only plan right now is to do nothing. Let my wife and I have a few weeks of candid conversation about this new development and see where life takes me. It's not my primary residence, so I don't really HAVE to be there. I can stay in the City house if I want to and for as long as I want to. There's little urgency to me being forced to figure out who I am, the big strong man or the traumatized, suicidal boy. If there's a god, what would be the reason for that god to decide to keep me tied to the most horrific satanic monster of my life?  All the experts say to run, not walk, RUN away from any narcissist who has this much power over us. It's the right solution to put distance between us good people and narcissists. But why is my narcissist following me?

Conclusion: I'm confused. I see no solution looming. I have only one power now and that's to stay away from the beach until I figure out what this is really all about.

I hate narcissists. I absolutely HATE THEM.

[Armee]

      

Oh my heart is breaking for you.

You're likely not wrong she did that intentionally. My hope is eventually you will be able to go back and reclaim your home and feeling of safety. But obviously you need time and maybe lots of it for the trauma to settle.

She doesn't control you anymore. I couldn't imagine running into her somewhere. Can you have a friend stalk her house a bit and see if she's even there? Perhaps you are right and it's rental property just to mess with you. She's powerless now. You are strong. And, yet, I know. I let myself be terrified of my 69 year old obese smoker mom riddled with cancer. I get it. I'm not shaming you, but hoping you can take your power and know that if you see her you can spit in her general direction and turn around and leave. She is detestable. You are not. Time has shown the truth here.

Hang in there, please. Hunker down in the city till you feel your true strength. It's there I promise you.

[Papa Coco]

Armee

Thank you. Good words all around. I accept every hug you sent.

This is a case where my fantasy world (my trauma world) is clashing with the real world. I've spent 52 years fantasizing that this beach community was my own private hiding place from the evils of the real world. If fate has writer, that writer is making sure I find my way into the reality that life just sucks and no place is safe from any of it. So I might as well stop fantasizing about being happy and safe by putting distance between myself and evil. I guess I have to find it in my soul to stand up to the bullies and let them live next door.

I say it all the time, and now I'm being forced to live it: If I won't face my dragons, my dragons will eventually turn and face me.

Whether this new information that it's her living up the street is accurate or not, my dragon is facing me today and I've got some decisions to make about who I am and what I'm capable of. Could I face her in the grocery store and then go home to have a great rest of the day at my own BBQ? In the past she could get me so tangled up that I'd be drawn toward ending my own life. I never chose to commit suicide, it always happened TO me as if I was being dragged into it by forces too great to fight off alone. There's where my biggest concern sits. Will she be able to take over control of my head again like she's done thousands of times before?

[NarcKiddo]

Oh, Papa C, this news totally sucks. But just because your dragon is facing you today does not mean you have to slay it today. It's facing you but not charging at you breathing fire. You have not bumped into the evil one unexpectedly and you now have warning. Like you said, you don't have to go there while you are coping with a trauma reaction. You can stay in the city while big Papa C comforts little Papa C and works out how to deal with this information. I am sure that big Papa C is brave and strong and more than capable of keeping little Papa C safe even if it doesn't feel that way right now. Be gentle with yourself. Hugs.

[Armee]

 

I know how strong you are. She doesn't get to win this one. Good wins this time. I like what NarcKiddo said - your dragons have found you but you don't need to slay them today. Just let them know you see them.

The idea of fate having a writer makes me laugh a little. Because I've had those moments where I'm like: of course this. Of COURSE! If my LIFE were a NOVEL! NICE NARRATIVE ARC UNIVERSE!!!! It does keep sending us our dragons.

  Stay safe. We love you.

[Kizzie]

Papa I am so so sorry she has taken away the peace you've felt at your beach house. I absolutely know how much that has shifted your internal sense of safety because I could not live close to my NM or NB. When I did I thought I was going to run into them all the time, that I was obligated to do things for/with them, and I could never relax. I had to leave for the sake of my sanity, my life and we did.  We moved across the country so I would never run into them and I didn't have them taking up real estate in my mind and heart on a daily basis. Even still, years later I can't even go back to see my NM who is terminal because her N behaviour messes with me so much. Like you I absolutely hate NPD, it gifts the world with such insidious abuse.

I'm honestly not saying never go to the beach house again or sell it, but I would suggest that perhaps you may need some time away to let your system calm. You're on high alert at the moment and for good reason. She had some really despicable power over you before (and likely others from the sounds of it), and that is a huge thing to contend with. When/if you can calm, it may be you can make some decisions about what to do/not do more easily, although I know anything to do with an N is never easy. 

We really care about you as you can tell and I hope there will come a time when you can draw on that to help you chase this particular demon back into a dark cave where she belongs.   
 

[Moondance]

 

[Papa Coco]

You guys are all so awesome.  Thanks Dolly, Steve, Armee, NarcKiddo, Kizzie, Moondance, and others for responding to my situation.

I've noticed that there seems to be one thing that is common in every, single person I've interacted with on this forum. We all seem to have been gaslighted and abused by narcissists from our birth on. I assume everyone on this forum knows how awful it is for me to find out one of my two childhood narcissists has moved to my beach cottage neighborhood and my family won't let me sell the house because they aren't as bothered by the narcissist as I am.

If the universe balances itself out, I guess it makes sense that really good people like us are going to be balanced out by really bad people like my nasty "narcisSister".

The 5 Stages of Grief Cannot be Avoided

Consciously I'm not obsessing over this new information, HOWEVER, my body and brain are on their own journey through the 5 stages of accepting an unwanted, unplanned, fundamental life change (also called grief). Last week I was so angry I could barely write. I went through disbelief, (shock), Then moved quickly to anger, and tried bargaining by looking to sell the house and find a new place to hide away. But today I'm steeped deeply in depression. Step 4. Very, very, very deep in depression. While I'm not consciously spending all day festering with this problem, I'm obviously subconsciously very affected by it.

The good news is that after depression will be the final step of acceptance. I can't wait.

[Armee]

 

[sanmagic7]

PC, i'm with you on the narc bit, the gaslighting, deception, manipulation, putdowns, and all the rest.  got no use for them any more, even tho one is my D1 - no contact w/ her for 8 yrs.  she was killing me and i was on that brink w/ you because of her and her father.  for some reason, we got out and we survived.

also, i'd love to be awkwardly kayaking w/ you and armee.  i've never been before so you're assured of some giggles, chuckles, and outright guffaws, but all w/ goodwill attached.  just pure fun at not being perfect.  yep!

keep taking care of you.  sending love and a hug filled w/ 'we gotcha'! 

[dollyvee]

Hi PC,

I just want to say that I hear you and witness what you're going through. I've been told similar things in the past like why does it bother me, why can't I let it go, and I don't think any of those people have felt what it was like to feel like you are in imminent danger of annihilation from someone when you are just a baby, and where you didn't have a sense of self or the skills to defend yourself. I can relate that around situations like this my body seems to go into overdrive hypervigilance and then like a freeze/shutdown because I feel like I have to take these things on, and/or that I'm just left to deal with it. I think at an early age I didn't know how to deal with it, so there was just a shutdown. Maybe this is similar to your depression.

You are an adult now though and you can stand up for yourself/are not in danger from your NS even if it does feel like it. It could be very well that she did it on purpose to get at you and disrupt the nice life that you have built, but she can't take anything from you, and you don't have to give her anything. Nor are you a bad person for not doing so. I am reminded, and sometimes I have to remind myself, that when we are angry it is a sign that our boundaries have been crossed. She has done something to cross your boundaries and you have a right to stand up for yourself and you're not a bad person for doing that either.

I saw a meme the other day with an anime character surrounded by knives with the caption of something along the lines of "when you tell the truth." I feel like that's how it is for children (CHILDREN!!!) to come out and tell the truth against (against because it always seems to be a fight where you will lose) other peoples' self interest. I don't necessarily agree with people being born evil or good, but I do believe they ultimately have a choice how to act and they choose to do what they do, and we were the ones who had to be on the other side. It was a lot to deal with.

Sending you support 
dolly

[SteveM]

Papa,
I am not finding a lot of words today. Know that I'm with you in the five stages standing with you, or in whatever stance you want me to be, dealers choice.

I'll be working on my new dock today, do you want a picture when I'm done?
I hope to have it substantially complete this week.