Narcissists practice isolationism

People with fibromyalgia have neurological sensitivities that leave them vulnerable to toxic people and toxic environments.  When exposed to these toxins the result is an increase in stress and a fibromyalgia flare.  One of the most toxic people that anyone can come into contact with is a narcissist.  For someone with fibromyalgia, narcissists are deadly.

Narcissism is a complex disorder that is perplexing to others.  This disorder can appear quite different from one person to the next, but there is one thing they all have in common: a lack of empathy for others.  The lack of empathy for others is the hallmark feature of narcissism, which can be difficult to identify because they are so clever at disguising their narcissism.  A narcissist studies normal human behavior by observing the responses that others have in a variety of situations.  They may appear to have friends, but upon a closer look those friendships are all superficial, and enduring, close friendships are absent.  The narcissist is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

The nuclear family is traditionally the primary support system, but for a person that has narcissistic family members there is no primary support system.  This situation leads to isolation, especially for a person with fibromyalgia that may have few support systems available.  The lack of a primary support system creates stress, which results in fibromyalgia flares and a decline in health status.  If this isolated person attempts to set boundaries on the narcissistic family members' abusive behavior or limits contact with their narcissistic family, these family members in turn purposely isolate the family member even more.  Remaining in this toxic environment with toxic people takes its toll, but the isolation from family takes its toll too.  It's a catch 22 situation.

As long as a person remains in the presence of toxic, dysfunctional people, they will be unable to function on a healthy level themselves.  The person and their fibromyalgia symptoms will be minimized, ignored and demeaned.  This leads to constant turmoil and feelings of inadequacy.  In essence that person must cease to exist to serve the needs of the narcissist -- a person that always has an empty bucket to fill, but the bucket has a big hole in the bottom so the narcissist must continuously feed off others in an attempt to fill that bucket.

There is no quality of life when a narcissist is close enough to cause you harm.  But they can only cause harm if they are in your life -- don't walk; run away as fast as you can.  Your number one priority is YOU.  If  you have fibromyalgia you absolutely cannot afford to have these toxic people close to you.  There are worse things than being alone.  Adopt others into your life and find solace and support within your extended "family".  The best advice I have ever heard is "Pick your family carefully."  Blessings to you and may you find solace and joy and freedom.

Highly sensitive people are especially at risk when encountering a narcissist

People with fibromyalgia are frequently highly sensitive people or empaths.  Being an empath means that you have the ability to actually feel the emotions of others as if they are your own.  When others are celebrating and happy, the result for the empath is exuburance and euphoria; that feels so good.  But when others are grieving, sad, angry or experiencing a "hot" emotion, the result can be difficult for the empath if the empath has no way to protect themselves.  Being sensitive to the environment and energy fields of others requires a special skill set that other people don't have and don't really need.  One of the biggest difficulties in being an empath is that other people don't understand your sensitive and expanded perceptions of the world and the result is feeling isolated from others.

Tyler J. Hebert describes the empath in depth in his article "Empath (The Extra-Sensitive Being)" at http://www.academia.edu/2611976/empath_the_extra_sensitive_being.  Hebert describes the empath as "a person that is hypersensitive to the emotions and energy of other people, as well as animals".  Hebert goes on to say that empaths have a sense of "knowing' and a very strong intuitive sense.  In other words, empaths have an extremely high EQ or emotional quotient.  I find it interesting that the way we have been easily identified is we have fibromyalgia.  Empaths are selfless people that often times put the needs of others before themselves.  Empaths are people that are loved in their social circles, because they relate to other people on a much deeper level than most.  The empath's energy is different and people automatically sense this energy and are drawn to the empath.  The empath's astuteness, which can leave the empath with feelings of isolation, can put the empath at higher risk of suicidal tendencies.  The empath absorbs the emotions of others and if the empath is unaware of this, the empath has the tendency to own those emotions.  That's why I frequently remind myself that what I receive from others is not about me.  Gaining an understanding of your empathic nature is critical in determining which emotions belong to yourself and which emotions belong to someone else.  Without that knowledge the empath may personalize everything around them and become defensive.  In addition, the empath may be labeled as co-dependant due to their sensitivity and identification with others' emotions, especially in relationship to their close partner.

The opposite of being an empath is narcissism.  A personal relationship with a narcissist takes a huge toll on the empath.  The hallmark features of a Narcissistic Personality Disorder is lack of empathy for others, verbal abusiveness, inability to relate to others on a deeper level, manipulative behaviors, controlling behaviors and explosive anger with exaggerated acting out behaviors that are not appropriate for the circumstances.  They frequently are pathological liars and they view other people in absolutes -- either all good or all bad.  Surprisingly, narcissists have a low self-esteem, which results in a need to be adored often.  They are also quite unaware of their own narcissism, which results in blaming their short-comings on others.

 Narcissists have no tolerance for disagreement and they never admit to being wrong.  There are different types of narcissists with numerous subtypes, making the identification of the narcissist difficult.  It can take a decade or more to identify the narcissist and if you are in a close relationship with a narcissist it can take absolute decades since their behavior can be confusing; you can't see the forest for the trees.  Narcissistic behaviors are also difficult to identify since they are masters of the facade.  Narcissists work diligently to mask their true selves, which results in their popularity in superficial circumstances.  When a narcissist is known on a deeper level their popularity fades and they have few if any long term relationships. 

I know the deep toll a narcissist has on an empath first-hand.  My mother, my identical twin sister, my daughter and my former husband are all narcissists.  In order to have relationships with these people I had to lose myself in the process.  I struggled for years to maintain these relationships, but in the end the effort it took and the toll on me was just too much, especially after I became chronically ill with fibromyalgia.  The continuous psychic bombardment required more energy than I could muster and in the end my health has suffered.  It is so critical for the fibromyalgia sufferer to gain an understanding of their gifts so there is an ability to set boundaries on the emotional energies of others that can suck the life out of you.  With every blessing resides a curse or downside.  If you are aware of which emotions belong to you and which ones belong to another you will be able to moderate your response to the heat of those emotions.  Anger has been a difficult emotion for me to moderate since I feel another's anger throughout my entire body.  Anger along with fear are two of the hottest emotions and your guard must be strong enough to avoid their devastating effects.  When interacting with someone I remain intellectually aware of how that person makes me feel so I am better able to moderate my reactions.  This has taken years of practice to develop the ability to keep my guard in place.  I purposely maintain some level of distance as a means of personal protection and when hot emotions begin to swirl around me I seek to give them back to their origin.

In the end, your ability to intellectually understand your gifts (along with their benefits and difficulties) will help you have more control over the environment that can seek to destroy you otherwise.  Blessings to you as you discover the essence that is you and the wonderful gifts that you have!

Engaging with positive auras improves your well-being

My last blog was focused on Highly Sensitive People and the impact  the environment has on these people.  You may be able to identify with some of the characteristics of being highly sensitive and other characteristics probably didn't quite fit for you.  This is because the human brain and the development of personality are so complex and each of us express our genes in a way that is unique to each of us.  I am an identical twin and I have been fascinated with the differences between my sister and me.  While we are so much alike in some ways there are also vast differences between us too.  I have fibromyalgia and my sister does not.  Since my sister and I are genetically identical, what accounts for those differences?  The latest research shows that the differences are expressed in the "tune" each of us has decided to play with our own unique variation of the same song.  Our genes are therefore expressed differently and with the differences in our environment we have developed into very different people.  The Highly Sensitive Person may be histrionic and theatrical . . . that does not describe who I am at all.  I tend to be stoic and practical, and I enjoy sitting back and observing "the action" around me.  I am not overreactive and take the time to process and analyze sensory information to the nth degree.  Sometimes I process and analyze that information too much!  I find that I instinctively seek out places to go that have good karma.  The gentle yoga class I attend has such good karma and the people there are warm and inviting, and they understand the challenges that life has posed for me . . . they share the same daily challenges too.  Inspite of those challenges we all laugh and hug and share those positive energies that highlty sensitive people so readily share.

So let me tell you about my favorite cafe that I am instinctively drawn to.  I have mentioned this cafe in a previous blog post . . . it's called The Z Cafe.  This is a place that has very good karma and I have analyzed and processed the interactions I have there that renew my energy and help me to feel better.  At first I thought it was just about the wonderful latte that is served to me each time I go or the Mikey's Special Oatmeal that I order with fruits, nuts and fluffy steamed milk topping an otherwise drab and tasteless dish.  This energy gift that I receive most times I am there is about the beautiful,

Highly Sensitive People seem to develop fibromyalgia

I have always been interested in new theories and scientific research related to healthcare and human behavior.  It seems that behavioral science is coming closer to unraveling the fibromyalgia mystery.  I am active on a fibromyalgia forum and was interested to see a post that had been made by a psychologist involved in research.  This psychologist is evaluating the effect that childhood experiences have had on the development of fibromyalgia.  The theory being studied is that people with fibromyalgia have had an overprotective or unpredictable childhood that resulted in stress.  One of the interesting factors is this stress was not recognized as a stressor by the child.  In addition, it is thought that the absence of non-performance based acceptance and predictability is enough to cause serious psychological wounds.  Other characteristics that are implicated in fibromyalgia are perfectionism, needing to hold it all together, using your head to make decisions regardless of how you feel, poor self care, always being there for others to help fix their problems and having a Type A personality.  Certainly some interesting research.

The August 2011 issue of Psychology Today had an article titled Sense and Sensitivity.  This article discusses concepts regarding the 20 percent of the population that are highly sensitive people.  The highly sensitive person absorbs the moods and feelings of others around them and is able to sense moods in an entire room and cultural trends too.  The highly sensitive person is "attuned to subtleties of all kinds, they have a complex inner life and need time to process the constant flow of sensory data that is their inheritance."  The highly sensitive person has a nervous system that is set to register stimuli at a very low frequency and then these stimuli are amplified internally.  It is thought that the highly sensitive person is particularly prone to disorders such as chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia.  The highly sensitive person gets their feelings bruised easily and tend to personalize