Kategori: Blog English

Basically, gratitude is a good thing. Being grateful for the little things in life is very important for our well being. It serves us well as long as we are surrounded by nice people, who don’t want to take advantage of our personality.

Growing up in a narcissistic family, it might have been a survival factor for me being grateful. I had to find the positive fragments in life and magnify them to keep my spirit up. Sad to say, I am sure it wouldn’t have helped to stand up for my self and my value in the situation I found myself in every single day. If trying, I would have been diminished even more. So, I kept on being grateful for the little things in life. Things having to do with my accomplishments and the world I saw, separate from my family. It was me, and me alone trying to create a functional life.

Grown up, however, I have kept on meeting life with a gratitude approach, being grateful for everything. This has been going on for many years, I will turn 45 in a month. This is half-time. Looking back, I realize I have settled for a grain of sand, just to allow others to climb mountains at my expense.

Eva Traff, decreasedisorders.com

and the book Narcissism and Psychopathy – A Book About Those Who Never Find True Happiness – and Their Children.  

If a narcissistic person would speak straight out, it would sound something like this:

”Please feel sorry for me so I can get what I want from you.”

This may happen in private relationships, at work… well, anywhere. Watch out!

amazon.com

Narcissism & Psychopathy: A Book About Those Who Never Find True Happiness

Grab the Copy Now: https://curtify.co/KFvYV

I know a woman who approached her thirties without wanting children. Nothing strange with that. But the reason that she didn’t want to ruin her beautiful body seemed astounding. A short period later, we lost contact, and I don’t know if she had any. Some people have children very late in life and only because they are aware of the fact that the biological clock is ticking. They feel that they must; otherwise, there won’t be any. In that case, they may have children because it is something they should have to make their own lives perfect, not because they really want them. It would be best if you had children for the finest purpose and with the strongest will so that you could give the child a good life. The woman I mentioned appears in my memory when I read the following from Sandy Hotchkiss book Why is it always about you? 

“Signs of a mother’s narcissism are evident before the child is born in women who may be excessively preoccupied with their own appearance and comfort during pregnancy, who expects others to cater to them, who are unusually distressed with the changes in their bodies, or who are extremely fearful of labour and delivery. Some may be obsessed with having the perfect pregnancy or becoming a perfect mother. In other cases, a narcissistic mother-to-be may be too absorbed in her own life to seek adequate prenatal care or may engage in practices or activities, such as drugs or alcohol use or other risky behaviour, that endanger the fetus. She may show little interest in preparing for the arrival of the child, or conversely, she may be obsessed with having ‘the best of everything’, regardless of her financial circumstances. She may have excessive expectations in regard to gifts from relatives and friends or be more interested in decorating the nursery or assembling the layette than in actually welcoming a child into her life. The narcissistic mother to be maybe either detached from or overly invested in aspects of her pregnancy, but in either case, she is preoccupied with her own experience rather than focusing on the infant who will soon emerge from her body.” 

The continuation for this child is not expected to be positive. The mother is obsessed with having a perfect child, which she doesn’t need to be ashamed of. She is trying to create another and more beautiful picture of the child. The actual child isn’t worth as much as her “fantasy child,” Her shortcomings as caretaker (when nobody is looking) will lead to abuse of the child, as everything shall suit her and her own needs. If she gets disappointed with her child, her shame and anger are triggered, which will affect the child in a devastating way.

This may trigger narcissism within the child, as the mother is unlikely to meet his or her needs. If her child makes a mistake, she will not reconcile with her child. Her own mistakes and failures will also affect the child, as she herself is not to blame. The shame will be imprinted in the child’s body. Most likely, the child will not grow up to be a prosperous grown-up. There is a risk that the mother’s narcissistic personality disorder passes over to the next generation.

/ Eva Traff

On the morning 10th of July 2011, a seven-year-old boy was murdered. The boy was stabbed seventeen times and his life could not be saved. A man, 53 years old, was arrested for murdering the boy. The man was the boy’s father, who admitted the fact that he had stabbed his boy, but claimed that he didn’t mean to kill him.

The boy was at home with his father and his grandmother. The mother left for work earlier in the morning. The grandmother was tricked to to go outside, she got locked out before the stabbing was carried out and she tried to get help from the neighbours. The boy’s mother had on several occasions reported the father for assaults and threats.

We are many people who are struggling to ensure that these children are not forgotten. I want to be a part of this, I want to remind everyone, these children must stay in our memories, even if it hurts.

Blunted as we are today, we now need to pause. To wake up, we need to try seeing these events from the child’s perspective. To wake up, we need to force ourselves to see dad coming towards us with a knife in his hand. We need to imagine this boy’s fear and pain. If we close our eyes, this will pass us as well, while sitting in the 21st century jet plane – and the world will be the same tomorrow…

https://curtify.co/KFvYV

amazon.com

When we raise a child with anger, neglection or punishments, we will fill him or her with aggression. In one way or another this aggression will come out. The children may aim the aggression towards themselves, or they will aim it towards others. Parents may sometimes consider their children to be ”just children.” They should instead make an effort to warm their children’s hearts and also consider that their children will grow up to be adults. When they are adults the verdict will fall right back on the parents. So, what will characterize your child’s childhood? Will it be memorized as a warm, lovely summer breeze, or as a dark stormy ocean?

I write this because I have met so many broken children, coming from destructive homes, but also homes where parents really are struggling without coping. I myself needed to learn new perspectives when I had my children, since I grew up in a narcissistic home.

In Safe Harbour you will get to know a broken mother, who with the help of wonderful people and from different directions found advice to create the warm, lovely summer breeze.

After reading the book, my dear friend Maria Glansén, expressed; ”From reading this book, I realize that there is nothing special we have to do to help our children with their self-esteem, instead it’s about the way we are, a way of being.”

amazon.com

https://curtify.co/xWjki

On the news, they announce that “romance scams” have increased drastically over the years and that it is recidivists that are the villains. The concept of psychopathy, a word that the listeners should hear once in a while, is conspicuous as it is not clearly apparent. Of course, there are other several diagnoses that might be the explanation for the behaviour, such as narcissism and borderline, but my point here is that people are deceived all over again because they don’t know about the warning signs. They don’t know what it’s about. They lack knowledge concerning how to protect themselves. Maybe psychopathy are still only about serial killers? We need to get rid of that image. People need to know that this is a common scenario when personality-disordered individuals are nearby. We must not think that we just were unlucky to meet a bad man or woman. We must get the chance to at least begin to understand, to be able to act long-term.

There is a woman on the news this day, telling her story:

“He seemed to be a very nice, normal and charming man. He seemed kind, and he was good-looking too (…). When I talk about this afterwards, it feels obvious that something must have been wrong, but when he explained and talked about it, it sounded so genuine.”

The news also reports that the police at the time received a lot of reports every day concerning romance frauds, and the man in question had cheated women of millions. That is exactly what often happens with a personality disordered person in the equation. They seem so fantastic or present themselves as people in need, as victims of unfortunate circumstances, and exploit the partner’s finances. The money in the bank account is spent first, and then it continues with “saving the situation” with loans from different banks.

Only when payment is required, there are no possibilities left to lend more money, and the partner is gone; he or she understands what happened. Or not. Perhaps one just had bad luck meeting a bad person…

Remember: Psychopathic traits do exist in both men and women.

https://curtify.co/KFvYV

When the police officer is standing on the roadside, waving you in, and says ”You were going a bit too fast there, were’t you…” – of course it makes all of us feel uneasy.

Still, the police spending their time along the roads catching speeders, would have been a good thing. Today, they are instead busy keeping the streets safe enough for us daring to let our children out. They spend their days putting out fires.

Truth is, many of these fires started fifteen, twenty or twenty-five years ago. Now, we need to build more prisons, in which we will try to get the fires (the criminals) under control.

I wish the money could be spent on creating good and safe lives for our children instead. That way we can prevent future fires. We need to take care of the children, our own children and other’s children, already from the start. To be able to do that, not only money is needed. It also requires effective legislation, civil courage and bravery.

If we decide to really put the best interests of the child first, instead of using this phrase to pretend we are good at it, then maybe we won’t be in need of building additional prisons or use triple bunk beds in these places in the future.

Adults’ position of power over children, sometimes results in adults’ rights and security being met, instead of the children’s rights and security, and somewhere along the road it starts to heat up.

Find Out More in Eva Traff’s Books.

Book 1: https://curtify.co/KFvYV

Book 2: https://curtify.co/xWjki

In case you are a narcissistic person or have the tendency to become one, here are some tips for you. First of all, learn to take on responsibility for your actions yourself. Do not put the blame for everything that goes wrong on someone else’s shoulders. You and your behaviour is something that you yourself have to work with. However, you can always seek help, such as in the form of counselling. You must let old miseries out, but then it is up to you to take on responsibility and change your behaviour for the better.

I have heard an adult narcissistic person can discover things about himself. I, therefore, know that it is possible for you to discover the problems within yourself. This person was terrified after reading about growing up in a narcissistic family, and he started wondering if he too had become one who:

• Boasts and exaggerates his talents and successes (grandiose)
• Believes to be special or superior to others and requires to be treated with great respect
• Requires a lot of attention, praise and admiration from others
• Puts his/her own needs first and takes advantage of others
• Has difficulties putting him or herself into other people’s situation (no empathy, does not care)
• Is at first perceived as a charismatic and exciting person in his/her social life, but then turns into arrogant and condescending when he/she receives a setback.

(Jenny Klefbom, psychologist)

…and he decided to seek help from a psychologist. This is probably the critical point for the person. What would he do now? Will he strengthen his narcissistic defences, or is there enough will and wisdom in him to go through treatment? After all, the treatment is demanding and will go deep down into his soul. He may feel very bad for a period of time, but maybe he has to walk through the fire to free himself from his thoughts, which could be:

• Why don’t people get it?!
• Why is the world full of worthless idiots?!
• Why don’t they do as I please?!
• I’ll give a shit about her!!!
• I have to talk about this amazing thing I accomplished so that everyone can hear and see it!!
• Why don’t they see it?!
• How can they not care about my efforts?! They are ungrateful!!
• I know I was the best!! Why didn’t I win? Are they against me?!! I’ll show them!!
• I’m gonna have that piece of the cake!!

If it sounds like this inside your head, it will make you do things that will have people distance themselves from you eventually. This can definitely lead to people not liking you for a long time, especially once they discover how you are. You get bitter and tell yourself that they are just a bunch of idiots. Over time, the bitterness will be all over you, and people will flee even faster. When that happens, the confirmation which you are consciously or unconsciously looking for in your surroundings seems to you increasingly distant (I here refer to the end of the book). There is a risk that this will not end well at all. /Eva Traff

amazon.com

https://curtify.co/KFvYV

First of all: Take on responsibility for the following yourself. Do not put it at someone else´s shoulders. You and your behavior is something that you yourself have to work with. However, you can always find help.

There are people who claim that you are suffering. If you do, the rest of us really don’t know, only you know, it doesn’t help you to manipulate the psychologist you go to for counselling. Some psychopathic individuals actually know that they are psychopathic and are being dragged to a psychologist or a therapist by someone who still loves them. I don’t know if you enjoy hurting others, if you feel good about it as some people believes, or if you are mean to them just because you believe that is the only way to get what you want. Threatening, lying even abusing. There are ways to act to be able to keep good things in life. What you may have done this far won’t help you in the long run.

Without you understanding that you are different from many others, you will never get the chance to socialize with people in an acceptable and sustainable way and thereby you won’t be able to keep people around you. Behavior list about you:   

• Considerable superficial charm
• Absence of delusions
• Absence of anxiety
• Unreliability, disregard for obligations, no sense of responsibility
• Untruthfulness and insincerity
• Antisocial behaviour
• Inadequately motivated antisocial behaviour
• Poor judgement and failure to learn from experience
• Pathological egocentricity. Total self-centeredness and an incapacity for real love and attachment
• General poverty of deep and lasting emotions
• Lack of any true insight; inability to see one-self as others do
• Ingratitude for any special considerations, kindness and trust
• Fantastic and objectionable behaviour
• No history of genuine suicide attempts
• An impersonal, trivial and poorly integrated sex life
• Failure to have a life plan and to live in any ordered way (unless it is for destructive purposes or a sham.

This is the picture of you which shows up everywhere you seek the information. As I have learned about people with psychopathic traits, I realize that it is probably completely unnecessary to write this part of the book. A psychopathic person does not want to / can’t accept or understand, if it doesn’t directly benefit the person in question, and what I am writing now is probably not interesting in that manner.

(…)

You may not be interested in a change, it’s your choice. However, if you don’t even try and if you decide to cover your ears up now – set your mind on the fact that nobody will be wanting to stay in your life longer than a period of time. And your children will not be interested in seeing you when they have grown up. Probably not your grandchildren either. The nasty part is that I don’t know if you even care. It is said that you just want your children to use them in one way or another – In a way that benefits you, and that is what you call love…

Read more in:

Narcissism and Psychopathy, A book about those who never find true happiness – and their children.

amazon.com

Grab the Copy Now: https://curtify.co/KFvYV

Many of us are walking through life trying to be as perfect as possible. We believe perfect is important because then maybe, MAYBE, we won’t get mocked, hated, violated, or diminished. But sometimes, not even perfect is enough.

If we spend our time in social surroundings that repeatedly diminish us, we may instead end up with a wish to become invisible. We believe that no one will do us any harm if we are invisible. However, this makes us easy targets, and we will, in time, disappear even to ourselves.

Just believe in yourself! Don’t lose your self-esteem. That is the only antidote that exists to cure these problems.

Read more in:

Different people become happy from different things in life, but one thing is for sure – you will never be happy without self-esteem.

Say goodbye to guilt, anxiety, and resentment.
Find Out Now: https://curtify.co/xWjki