Simply Put

Last night a friend sent me a link to a book about manipulative parents. Unfortunately, at the moment this book is only available in French (though I saw on Amazon that an English and Spanish translation might be available this September). The write up that my friend sent, had this phrase:

"these parents tend to make their children feel worthless, show little interest in their successes, and offer them no support when they are going through a difficult period."

That is the definition of my parents, simply put.

link:http://www.editions-homme.com/ficheDroits.aspx?codeprod=395826

The Day You Make Your Peace With The Love In You That Died

Over the weekend I was watching an episode of Bones (tv series) that had this song in the soundtrack. I usually watch tv crime series with the subtitles on so as not to miss any of the details. A little obsessive, I know... but I have found lots of great songs this way, since the lyrics come up in the screen too. When the line "The Day You Make Your Peace With The Love In You That Died" appeared in the screen it stopped me in my tracks. I paused the programme and got on to google to try to find the song. So here it is:

It's a change
that reaches down and suddenly lifts you,
At the end
of a rainy day when you sat alone and cried.
It's a sign
that lets you know there is a life awaiting,
The day
you make your peace with the love in you that died.

When the pain dies down
And the dam becomes a river.
The fire burns out under the rain.
Can you feel it now?
It's gone from you forever.
Fading out under the rain.

Like a train,
That takes its time pulling out of the station.
It's a dream
that comforts you in the middle of the night.
It's a song
that carries you to a better emotion.
And now,
Now you know it's going to be alright.

When the pain dies down,
And the dam becomes a river.
The fire burns out under the rain.
Can you hear me now?
A simple conversation
Fading out under the rain.

The past is there behind you and nothing is forever. Dancing on the river again When the pain dies down, And the dam becomes a river. The fire burns out under the rain Can you feel it now? It's gone from you forever Fading out turning away. When the pain dies down....

Savage Beauty

Yesterday I went to the Alexander McQueen exhibition at the V&A. I have to say that I have never been much of a fan of Alexander McQueen's designs. I had always dismissed him as the "Madonna" of the Fashion World. Someone who wanted to shock as a shortcut to fame. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when I read an article on his life that put his designs into a whole new perspective. According to the Andrew Wilson's biography: "At the age of nine or 10, McQueen started to be sexually abused by a violent man – Terence Anthony Huyler – who was married to his sister Janet. When he later confided in (Isabella) Blow, he said that this man stole his innocence. The young McQueen also watched powerless on several occasions when Janet was beaten or half-strangled by Huyler. Janet, who had no idea that her husband was abusing her little brother, remained close to McQueen all his life, almost like a second mother. Wilson convincingly argues that Janet became “the blueprint” for his clothes, a woman who was “vulnerable but strong”. Sometimes the women on the runway were McQueen himself, other times they were Janet. This, writes Wilson, “was the woman he wanted to protect and empower through his clothes; the patina of armour that he created for her would shield her from danger”. *

Learning about his background changes completely the way you look at his dresses. Suddenly, it all makes perfect sense.

Sadly, Alexander didn't make it. He committed suicide in 2010 aged 40. I'm a year younger than him, and I didn't find out about Narcissism until 2012. Being thrown into the deep end of the fashion world so young, Alexander did not have the luxury of time as I've had. I can't imagine that being in that environment helped either. The ramifications of abuse, whether verbal, physical or emotional, take a devastating toll. The exhibition made no mention of the abuse in his past, and I think it's shame, because it puts all his work into an entirely different context.

* from The Guardian article: Fierce, feathered and fragile: how Alexander McQueen made fashion an art

"To Be or Not to Be?" Is NOT the Question

A few months ago, I came across the famous Hamlet soliloquy. I've always had that ubiquitous mental image of Hamlet holding a skull and asking: "To be or not to be?" but I had never read the whole section (or seen the play for that matter...) I had heard the quotation cited endless times, but without never fully understanding its meaning. At face value, yes, but not the deeper meaning of the question. This time, when I read the soliloquy, something "clicked" inside my brain. I felt its meaning in a way that went down to the essence of my bones. 

After Judy's comment on the previous post, I realise that the question is not whether "To be or not to be?" but rather how to be?
How to exist in the wasteland that appears after you take the "Red Pill"? How to live without letting it take over or define your entire life?

There are no easy answers to these questions, no shortcuts, no one-size-fits-all solutions. Nobody can give us the answers: they are as individual as our circumstances and personalities. We're going to have to find out for ourselves...

Living With The Truth

I've just finished a book called "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss. In it, there is a passage that describes so well how I feel now that I know the truth about my FOO.

"The War ended. Bit by bit, Litvinoff learned what had happened to his sister Miriam, and to his parents and to four of his other siblings (what had become of his oldest brother, Andre, he could only piece together from probabilities). He learned to live with the truth. Not to accept it, but to live with it. It was like living with an elephant. His room was tiny, and every morning he had to squeeze around the truth just to get to the bathroom. To reach the armoire to get a pair of underpants he had to crawl under the truth, praying it wouldn't choose that moment to sit on his face. At night, when he closed his eyes, he felt it looming above him."


Though, unlike Litvinoff, I don't think I have learned yet how to live with this truth. Working on it...

Still Life

Over these last few months I have been doing a lot of decorating/renovating work in the house. One thing that came to the surface, as I got on with this work, is how much I procrastinate when it comes to renovate things and how much resentment and irritation I feel over it. Thinking about it one day, I wondered where this came from, since - realistically speaking- renovating and replacing things that break is an unavoidable part of life. Why was it such an issue for me? When I dug a bit deeper, I realised that this was a learned behaviour, a flea from my FOO.  My parents never took any joy in doing anything in the house. Since they rent, their mentality was that there was no point in "making it nice just to leave it to the landlord", (which would make sense if they'd only been there a couple of years, but have now been living there for nearly 40 years.) As I thought about it further, it struck me how Ns are like a Still Life painting: they don't learn anything new, they don't grow or change, they remain exactly the same as they have always been. When I think of my relationship with them, it's the same. It has remained at the same point that it has always been (not better, not worse) since as far as I can remember, and that it's odd, because when I think of my relationship with my husband it is completely different: we have changed and we have grown together and though we still have things to work on as a couple, we are closer than we were when we started our relationship. And that's how it should have been with my FOO. But it's not, because they're like 'static beings', stuck in a loop of their own creation, where everything is always the same and remains the same. They keep the 'loop' constantly in motion so as to give the impression of 'moving', but the loop is like a merry-go-round: it moves fast, but doesn't go anywhere. 

They want their lives to look like a Still Life painting because that's what they live for: a "perfect" picture of themselves. Except that that only remains the same in the painting, the fruit the painter captured went on to rot eventually. In Spanish, the term for 'Still Life' is 'Dead Nature'. I wouldn't have put it better myself. 



Naturaleza muerta

"Thy truth, then, be thy dower."

        Yesterday afternoon I was watching a documentary about Shakespeare's play "King Lear". It's part of a series called "My Shakespeare", in which well-known actors explore some of his plays. As I started to listen to actor Christopher Plummer relate the story of King Lear, it struck me that I knew nothing about that particular play. Considering my passion for literature, how on earth did I make it to my forties without not even knowing the basic plot? I don't know how it has escaped me for so long... but I digress... 
         In the first scene, Plummer relates, King Lear tells his daughters he is going to divide the kingdom in three parts: "the portion each daughter will get depends on how eloquently they say they love him."

KING LEAR
Tell me, my daughters,—
Since now we will divest us both of rule,
Interest of territory, cares of state,— 
Which of you shall we say doth love us most? 

Plummer continues: "King Lear is hoping to give the best portion to his youngest and favourite daughter, Cordelia. But he has miscalculated the family dynamics." The dialogue that followed blew me away, see if the dynamics look familiar to you too. 

KING LEAR
Goneril,
Our eldest-born, speak first.

GONERIL
Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter; 
Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty; 
Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour; 
As much as child e'er loved, or father found;
A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable; 
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.


CORDELIA  [Aside.] 
What shall Cordelia do? Love, and be silent. 

LEAR
What says our second daughter,
Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall? Speak. 

REGAN 
I am made of that same mettle as my sister, 
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love; 
Only she comes too short, that I profess
Myself an enemy to all other joys, 
Which the most precious square of sense possesses,
And find I am alone felicitate
In your dear Highness' love. 


KING LEAR
Now, our joy, 
Although our last and least, to whose young love 
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy 
Strive to be interess'd; what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.

CORDELIA 
Nothing, my lord.

KING LEAR
Nothing? 

CORDELIA 
Nothing. 

KING LEAR
Nothing will come of nothing, speak again. 

CORDELIA
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth, I love your majesty
According to my duty, nor more nor less. 

KING LEAR 
How, how, Cordelia? mend your speech a little,
Lest it may mar your fortunes.

CORDELIA
Good my lord, 
You have begot me, bred me, loved me: I 
Return those duties back as are right fit, 
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry 
Half my love with him, half my care and duty: 
Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters, 
To love my father all.

KING LEAR 
But goes thy heart with this? 

CORDELIA
 Ay, good my lord. 

KING LEAR 
So young, and so untender? 

CORDELIA
So young, my lord, and true. 

KING LEAR 
Let it be so; thy truth, then, be thy dower!

Cordelia's predicament is the predicament of every ACoN. She stands her ground and refuses to give flattery and adulation, even if it means losing everything, and that is the predicament that we find ourselves in too. When King Lear says: "Let it be so; thy truth, then, be thy dower", I heard it as if King Lear was speaking to me directly and not to Cordelia. I understood the meaning as if it had been said to me too. And then it dawned on me that it has been said to me: it's the "unspoken" dialogue that takes place between Narcissistic parents and their child who refuses to worship them. The words are never uttered, but the message is transmitted, nonetheless, and it hangs loud and clear over the child. It's a form of meta-communication which every ACoN understands perfectly. 

Very well, then, if that's what it takes: "let my truth be my inheritance"