On Narcissism

Narcissism is a real b*tch, there's no way around it.

The original myth tells of Narcissus, a young man who passed a pool of water in the forest one afternoon and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the depths. He fell in love with his reflection and ended up either starving to death or drowning, I can't remember.

The point it, he fell in love with his reflection, not himself, this distinction is important, and suffered the loss of his life for it. As far as I know he didn't even realize he was killing himself.

The modern Narcissist has been defined by medical authorities looking to describe a personality disorder which harms its owner in the same way our friend Narcissus harmed himself. The obsession with one's image, with what one seems to be, with appearances with recognition of one's self, towards one's self is truly disorderly because it causes all kinds of mental and spiritual chaos despite its superficial rigidity.

Narcissist personalities are demanding to the extreme. Of everyone, most of all themselves. No one can live up to their expectations, they merely tolerate themselves and others. At the same time, Narcissist often live through others, find a purpose in helping and supporting another life they deem worthwhile. The latter tends not to be their own, due to aforementioned impossibly high standards.

What do I mean? Well let me give you an example: a Narcissist will kill herself simply to prove to herself that she is not a coward. Simply to measure up to her own standards and expectations. I know this because I have done it. Premeditated cutting myself for reasons I shall explain elsewhere and then when it came time to follow through, and I realized it hurt and that I didn't truly wish to die or suffer but rather only to be rescued, I couldn't stop. It was a matter of personal pride. Even though no one else was there, even though I could have stopped the bleeding and nursed the cuts and hidden what I had done, the thought never even crossed my mind. Instead I only felt an entire gulf of disappointment with myself, my cowardice, my susceptibily to biting off more than I can chew, my humanity. And so I lectured myself inwardly, clenched my jaw, grabbed the blade firmly and made a large long fast gashing motion across my wrist to avoid pain and finally hit that vein and get it over with already. It worked and I lost enough blood to fall unconscious. I risked dying just to prove to myself that I was willing and able, to not be a coward in my own eyes.

This wasn't every time I've hurt myself, but I remember being amazed at myself that particular time. There was satisfaction in it, but also the rude intrusion of reality, my reality, the extent of my obsession with my own character flaws, how strongly I want to almost physically excise them out of myself, nearly killing myself in the process without even realizing it because I'm so busy staring at the details of my reflection.

I wish understanding this would bring about a change in my situation or behavior. However it is simply another observation of myself to add to the image, another reason to despise my weaknesses, thus revolving around myself once again, in every tighter circles, until I spin myself nauseous and suffer from it by my own hand once again.

But then that is the nature of a circle, and that is the nature of life. There is nothing truly new is there? It has all been done before and will be done again, the basic ingredients to what constitutes life can and will never change, otherwise, it would no longer be "life" as we know it, but a different creature entirely.

I do love words and language, there is a sense in them. The definition of life by our language is rational, gives me a reason for the circle. It is such because we have defined it as such and we have defined it as such because it is so. Nice and neat, just the way I like it. Distracts me from the thunderstorm of chaos that rages in my mind. For a while at least, until I stop concentrating, stop controlling, stop focusing on my reflection, and once I stop looking I lose all hold on life and spin out of control, and not in a good way either.

So you see, there is a purpose to the narcissist personality. It keeps us from going crazy ;P

It's going to be another long night chasing ghosts isn't it? God I hope some of them are friendly tonight.....

Katie

Letting Go

Current mood:  calm

I don't think it's about dying anymore... I think it's about letting go of myself and letting go of fear.

Whenever those images or ideas slide into my head, the ones where I let the car spin out of control over a cliff (on the drive to Lausanne) or collide into something solid and send me hurtling out the windshield (driving late in Berlin), they play out in slow motion, like in a film.... all sound goes silent, and I see and feel myself flying, limp, violent but utterly peaceful in the quietness and finality of breaking every bone in my body and just being done. There is an episode of Charmed in which people's bodies die with their dreams of falling off a building and shattering on the ground, it feels like that - like a dream in which you know it's going to hurt, but it doesn't because it's a dream.

I don't want to set myself on fire or drink a liter of liqid plumber. I don't want to die at any cost. But I do want to face my fears and just let go, just once... fly and be limp as a rag hurtling through the air, just like a sail that goes limp when the wind dies down, or a plastic bag blowing across the desert. Just float on the breeze and not be afraid of the pain, not be afraid of the fear, not be afraid of being a coward, not have to care anymore, just once. Please.

So yeah, it's about fear. The fact that I could let go of it for just one moment, I know I could. The consequences would be damaging, but I am so tempted to feel it might be worth it. It's like the ultimate challenge, to face your fear of death, fear of being alone, to just laugh in it's face and let go, to drift and finally FLY, but without control, like sinking into a cloud and being suspended weightlessly by it.

I didn't drive to my clinic interview today, I was too afraid of the consequences, I think it was the right choice. I will go when someone is able to come with me, someone I can lean on a little during the ride and on the way back home, even if it's just for a little while. And then maybe it will be almost like letting go for a bit, as if I were allowed, just for a few moments... sailing on the breeze.

She who flies highest sees farthest after all...... and I'm smiling right now at the daydream of it  :·)

p.293 and the Space-Time-Continuum

Current mood:  impressed

p.293 of my copy of 'The Unnamable' by Samuel Beckett says :

"...The tears stream down my cheeks from my unblinking eyes. What makes me weep so? From time to time. There is nothing saddening here. Perhaps is liquefied brain. Perhaps happiness in any case has clean gone from my memory, assuming it was ever there..."

Liquefied brain.. the analogy kept me lamed by my thoughts for 40 minutes.

Emotions aren..t physically touchable, they are ..feelings.., one cannot see or measure them. And yet, a ..sense of touch.. employs the same word used for the effect of an emotion: ..I..m touched.., implying that feelings are in fact touchable, definable, graspable, and undeniably real. Often feelings are so strong they certainly would merit the description ..physical pain.. would they not? With your stomach cramped you head aching your blood throbbing your thoughts spinning, your ears swooshing, your chest tightening from a breaking soul... is all this not physical? When you lose something or someone you love does loss not hurt? And is such severe pain not physical?

It is beyond sadness. Sadness is relief for such pain, in sadness we can weep and those falling tears can be cleansing. And again, physical tears can be seen, touched, tasted.. they are the physical manifestation of sadness, and still the pain does not count as such physical from a wound. Liquefied brain would change that .. it would merit the shift in memory when we cry, would merit the sense of physical loss, the feeling that part of you is seeping out, drifting away, and you cannot contain it. And in such you would have proof of your emotion, proof of the strength of the thing, proof that it affects not only your core, but your mind as the ruler of all things.

Beckett..s image promises a spotless mind should we so chose to relieve ourselves of loss and sadness and memories. Liquefied brain, the stuff we are, running down our cheeks and into time, into that spatial void, existing forever as a piece of us, but no longer within our souls. Relief and measurable loss. If there were such a thing to measure and remove sadness perhaps we would never have to revisit memories. That is hope for the blemished mind.

Or perhaps our brains fill with memories, with happiness and unhappiness, and being physical and therefore finite, brains must be emptied when they become to full, and therefore we cry. This would remove us from the sense of soul and feeling, and become a chemistry experiment in which some input substances are aggressive or irritant, others soothing and warming, others merely acting as buffers for the rest to swim in.. and every so often a valve must be opened to release some of the pressure and products, and make way for new additions, so that the system doesn..t overflow or explode.

Whichever the answer, my brain seems endless in it..s liquidity and perhaps that is the only truth of the space time continuum and therefore our lives and the existence of our souls: it is endless.

20 Dollars*

Current mood:  hopeful

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill.


In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?"

Hands started going up.


He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.

He proceeded to crumple up the $20 dollar bill.


He then asked, "Who still wants it?"

Still the hands were up in the air.


Well, he replied, "What if I do this?"

And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe.


He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty.

"Now, who still wants it?"

Still the hands went into the air.


"My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson.

No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20.


Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way.

We feel as though we are worthless.

But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value.

Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless and many (even who have not met you) LOVE you.

The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, but by WHO WE ARE.


You are special - Don't EVER forget it."

*thanks to my friend Kamama for this story

Fragility

My best friend Missy C has called me fragile... she says like a ballerina.. which is beautiful. And she loves butterflies so now I feel like one. Which is a beautiful thing to feel.

But then Nickelback's Far Away started playing. And for those of you who know, that's the song ... that's the song I tried to die to. I managed to slip into unconsciousness... blood streaming down the silly little mp3 player. That one and Photographs and Save Me. How predictably sad.

Why? Well because the album means something... speaks to my heart and all that superficial sh*t we say and only sometimes mean. But then everything means something to me. There is no rest from the significance of it all.

I feel far away. I am far away. And I am so fragile the draft from a summer breeze can knock me to the ground. Further even. Past the ground. And that's not so beatiful anymore. Romantic if you're not me.

My mind is escaping into watching myself as I would a leaf in the wind this time of year. I want to stroke it and leave it to be beautiful and colerful and fragile but alive forever. I want to feel like it is life.

I am too fragile and it's breaking my heart into 1000 pieces of flak. Every day. I want it to be an explosion like a star ... millions of glittering starlets shimmering into oblivion. That's how I'd like to go please. That's beautiful fragility.

I wish I were a star in the sky. A pretty one.

And I miss you, all of you. And I don't miss me. I want me to fly away from this body like the leaf and the breeze and the spinning stars.

Satisfaction of Sorrow

Current mood:  nauseated

There is a sort of self-defining satisfaction in spewing sorrow and regurgitating the sense of loss. It justifies the self-righteousness of cynicism and feeds our self-worth. A hunger as rich as spilled ink, starving for acclaim of its blackness. Reincarnating our regrets and pouring them through the filter of our memory, while denying their original truth. Ashamed... skewing... rekindling for approval and yet cowering under the magnitude of hurt.

The psyche knows only the familiar and can re-know only the familiar. Our time amounts to a singular experience, shapeshifting through the years, ultimately the same within the contained system that is our self.

I wonder why circles are so definitive of life. It must mean something, if I could only grasp it. Yet it would not be a circle if it were not rolling, evading, unstoppable and unpredictable, a chameleon forging the signature of a boomerang.

"To sleep perchance to dream." To dream perchance to wish...