Turning lots of corners - DaB35 Part 8

[DaB35]

Journal

Been doing a lot of reading (well, Audible-ing) lately, mainly on communication and just being happy and positive in general. Really helping. I'm finding I'm already doing certain things that are cited as good suggestions.

One thing that I have done a bit of reading up on is narcisissm. I have seen the term used on her occasionally, but have never read up on it. I don't believe I am a full on 'narc' but some traits of NGS do suggest it; mainly the infrequent passive aggression. Then it suddenly dawned on me. I think my mum is a bit of a narcissist. She never takes responsibility for anything, and if something goes wrong it's always someone else's fault rather than possibly being just a coincidence or bad luck. She guilts me and my sister when we do things she disapproves of (classic example for her: selling something we used to own ten years ago but we no longer require it and want to make a bit of cash. She is a hoarder). She expects us to be perfect all the time and shows us off (when we were younger, whenever they had a party, I'd be forced to play the piano in front of everyone, which I hated). She is totally dependent on my dad for everything (who is definitely NGS and totally passive) and never takes any advice that my sister and I give regarding her health. She doesn't like us implying she's doing things wrong.

XW's friends were quite narcissistic to a degree too. Inflated egos. Unreliable when we'd try to organise events. Putting her down - she'd always complain "they always make me the butt of the joke." Yet she'd just continue hang out with them as they'd been friends since they were 7 years old. One even threatened to cancel XW's hen do about a fortnight before it happened. Crazy.

XW had some similar traits - shaming others (including me) about mistakes, overly competitive, tantrums, criticising others and rarely seeing positives. Her family generally were very happy to dole out criticisms - "that's not funny", "that's a bit rubbish", "I didn't like that", "she's a bit mental", "they look terrible" - but then when it's directed at them they don't like it - "oh what a shame you think that", "no that's rubbish!", "how dare you say that". They are heavily dependent on confirmation bias too. Rarely look at both sides of an argument or point.

Also realised that sadly I think XW has a somewhat toxic relationship with her sister. Explains the dynamic between them. Her sis was horrible to her when they were kids, ridiculing her in front of her own friends, then as adults she's been very controlling and manipulative, and all the time XW wants to appease her. She moved 200 miles away and for years was trying to convince us to move ten minutes up the road from her, forgetting that there were no jobs where they live. She would spend hours on the internet looking at houses completely out of our budget and show them to us and say "This one's nice" and plan out what each room would be used for. When we looked round the house we eventually bought, her sis had a big issue with the square footage of the house. "Oh, that's too small. You need a bigger one." Then a few hours later, XW worriedly said to me, "Do you think we should buy the bigger house? [Sis] said it has more square feet." I said "No, because it's 30k more, and we both said we liked the layout of this one!" After about 20 minutes of going round and round this point, she then agreed with me.
When she came to stay at the house we bought, she walked into my study and immediately said "This would be a good baby room." XW and I had both said repeatedly for years that we didn't want kids. Yet, during S, XW brought up kids - suddenly it was entirely my 'fault' that we didn't have kids because "I was so against it." I knew that was her sis manipulating her as XW ran away to her house for 3 weeks. Her sis is jealous of XW being an aunty; her life is boring by comparison. She has been controlled by her H's desire to further his career; they've hopped around the country for years as he changes jobs and she's been a housewife, whilst XW set up businesses and developed skills and learned things. He even forbid her from going to XW's hen do for money reasons because they were going on holiday later in the year (yes you read that right).

Perhaps XW still feels like she has to prove something to her sis still, and be 'accepted' somehow. She has always been very susceptible to peer pressure.

I felt sorry for her. Shame that we didn't discuss this in MC. She is a bit of quitter in general: when things get tough, she runs away, destroys things, has a tantrum, gives up. I've seen her do it a lot. I never thought she'd do it with our M though. Funnily enough, when the opportunity to have MC came (I even offered to pay for it), she never took it. The problems between us could have been resolved, I believe. A lot of people who have spoken to both of us over the last year or so agree with me. It essentially boiled down to a combination of communciation, unmatched love languages, and attitudes. I was willing to put the work in; she wasn't.

[Don't worry everyone - 2x4 self hit occuring...now!]

I also read about "avoidant personality" traits. This was definitely me. A fear of being embarrased.
Why I never took risks in life, never tried anything new; I always feared I'd mess up and embarrass myself in front of others.
Why I never spoke out in discussions, for fear of my opinion being rubbished or mocked.
Why I never opened up for fear of being laughed at.
Extreme self-awareness and feeling very sensitive when people would just say, "Oh you're just shy aren't ya?" Constantly feeling inferior, a lesser person. All through my teenage years, college, adult life.
Silly things too; say I would be in a queue in a supermarket and a group of girls were behind me, if they started laughing I instantly thought, "Oh, they're laughing at me, something about the way I look, my clothes, my shoes, what I've bought." 100% that was never the case. But I really thought it was at the time.

Now, I think back to that old me, and realise how far I've come. I went for a walk yesterday and had a conversation with a complete stranger. They were picking berries. We talked for a good 5 minutes. I felt good afterwards.

Gym going very well. Definitely seeing some biceps now! Working on my diet and upping the protein/carbs appropriately - doing intermittent fasting, having all my meals within 12 hours too. That feels amazing. I'm not snacking anymore, feel less tired, sleep better and wake up more alert. I do yoga stretches every other evening before/during exercies too, which helps.

I find I'm making more effort to engage more in conversations with people at work. I'm even cracking a few more jokes and making people laugh more in the office which is a good feeling. I walk around more confidently. I'm also making more effort to keep in touch with people. I'm having a catch up on FaceTime with my old flatmate from college this weekend. Haven't seen him in 2 years.

YouTube channel is going well; I've been sharing my vids on a few Facebook groups related to my topic and getting some nice comments. Someone simply said, "You sir, are awesome." Wow - Never had a complete stranger compliment my creative work like that before! Now at a massive 15 subscribers! I'm happy with that for 2 months' work. Also thinking about crowdfunding or Kickstarter for a new project too. Trying new things is good.

Me v.2 is definitely in operation!