New-blog - Ina Disguise

The Narcissistic Abuse Community

November 5, 2017 No Comments

I have been listening to people talking about narc abuse again today. It strikes me that there is a theme of adults not willing to be adults running through it.

Many of the problems associated with a relationship with a narcissist are really about expectations. Many of the issues raised are about how things should be with a ‘normal’ relationship. There is no such thing as a normal relationship.

Let us go through a few of the problems you are likely to face as a partner of a narcissist.

The idealisation phase:

Love bombing: Personally, as someone who has had a narc around since birth, (sister) I am well used to being the focus of attention from an empty vessel. Even when they are flattering you, it is to establish the importance of their opinion, so it is wise to ignore everything. When I am on the receiving end of gushing, I tend to cut through it very quickly, so that it is impossible to achieve the ‘perfection’ that the narcissist craves with these interactions. Dominance is dominance, whether it is sweet or sour.

Alarm bells ought to ring the minute you hear how awful their exs were – non-narcs grow out of this by the time they are thirty or so, usually earlier. In rare cases the exs actually were awful, but with practice you will learn to tell the difference and find ways of exploring the issue by asking what the nice exs were like. When your narc tells you that they are kind and giving, they are referring to this early phase of the relationship, in which they actually are kind and giving. They aren’t lying to you, they are just trying to forget the bad bits where they did not get what they wanted, which was an unreasonable level of perfection.

The devaluation phase:

If you have established that love bombing has no effect, then devaluing is likely to fall on fallow ground as well. The only other way to get around this is to be better than expectations, and if you look on it this way then your relationship with your narcissist is likely to be more of a personal challenge than a burden.

If they are talking trash about you to other people, it is the typically immature ‘love me’ plea of a teenager, so you find something else to do. Obviously in some situations it is quite extreme – I will not allow my sister anywhere near me following a false police report, for example – but this is just an extreme example of the same behaviour that these people have adopted since puberty, so I am not sure why all these victims are unaware that they have been dealing with a child rather than a person.

Some people are just promiscuous, whether they are narcs or not. Jealousy, whilst perfectly natural, is a choice. You can decide that you are more important than a casual fling, and then make a further decision as to whether fidelity is a priority or not, in which case you are with the wrong person. You are then free to terminate the relationship and move on. It is either that or a lot of tiresome negotiation to see if your partner wants to try and be faithful or not. Speaking as someone who is faithful – other people just aren’t that important to me – I have tried official forgiveness and it is largely futile – so either you don’t mind them spreading it around or you leave. Official forgiveness tends to lead to violence because your narc will not understand that it is a sign of strength rather than weakness.

Discard:

Assuming that by now you have figured out that you are dealing with a selfish, abnormally young and carefree person who is too busy to bother with what you want, you ought to know that this relationship is not permanent. It does not mean that the narc is evil, controlling or a bad person. It just means that you made a poor decision in the first place in tolerating what has been a rather extreme training for the rest of your life.

Finally, a lot of people displaying narcissistic behaviour do not actually have NPD. Being at the wrong end of a narc makes you extremely tough and extremely intolerant of mistakes. If you wish to investigate futher, I recommend reading some books on CPTSD. You will find the answers there. Even if you are a narc, you will benefit from doing this, so I recommend you take this step into filling up that void where the emotional sharing should be. Narcissists tend to be insecure, frightened and lonely as a rule. They focus on other people to avoid themselves. Instead of feeling victimised, try taking an adult role in your own choices.

creativity, motivation

Bad Dream

November 5, 2017 No Comments

It is funny how your bad dreams change over time.

I just had a horrible dream that I was asking for permission to propose to some thin, grey man and ended up in a group hug with him and his mother. It was not fun at all. I didn’t even like him that much.

I woke up thinking how frightening the prospect of old age alone is, and immediately went to check on my mother.

It isn’t as if I have seriously wanted to marry anybody. I have never worried terribly much about it, since the weak feelings of the men in my life were returned with equal lack of interest in most cases.

On the rare occasion when I have had strong feelings for somebody, I have either run away or they have not been interested at all, in which case I have done something else with it. I am not particularly persistent in reality. I like distance, and I do not have much of a problem with my own company as a rule.

When I returned to the computer, a new page had appeared on my timeline in the advertising section.

I am now a member of ‘Banned by David Avocado Wolfe’ which has almost 100 likes in a very short space of time. I imagine that if this person keeps advertising their page, it will run into tens of thousands, since Wolfe is quite trigger happy when it comes to blocking people. One lady that got in touch with me had just paid several hundred pounds for a trip to see him when she was blocked for no apparent reason. I set her up on a date with some polite guy that was messaging me a lot at the time. Apparently she had great legs and was an outstanding lay. She rejected him, but she didn’t feel as bad about being blocked. He is now living with a morbidly obese nurse who pays his mortgage.

The page doesn’t look particularly pleasant, or as if it is likely to have any interesting posts, but I am intrigued that it appeared on my timeline at all, as I have blocked at least nine David Wolfes over the years to avoid the memes. I have even messaged at least two offshoot pages to advise them to block me since it appeared that he had such a hysterical reaction. (I was unaware at the time that it was in fact his wife that blocked me, since I was unaware that he had one in the first place.)

I have also blocked at least 6 hate groups, one of which I found Wolfe posting on. Apparently trolls are more appealing for conversation than I was. I would have thought by now that the mere mention of the name would preclude my being a member of any clubs. Evidently facebook’s algorithms need updating

So that is a rather depressing and extremely early start to the day. I shall do some more work on the game, cats permitting.

Tomorrow I shall have to sit through a meeting in which somebody young enough to be my daughter repeatedly claims that I am a young woman who should let my mother be manhandled by strangers because she prefers dealing with them. I cannot tell you how miserable the last six months has been, with the one exception of my taking the Wolfe by the throat, so to speak, at the event in Birmingham.

I am quite glad I did it, even though the ultimate outcome is likely to remain negative, for whatever his reasons.

Please tell me when things are going to get better?

creativity

First of the Boris Johnson work

November 3, 2017 No Comments

Here ya go. This is the beginning of the outflow of work on the Boris Johnson project, which has been a very long time in development. The book will take somewhat longer, so forgive the odd timings. There is still a lot of artwork still to get off the ground, so it is a relief to get them out of the studio.

Bordello Rhetoric is an extremely heavy box, set on castors, with agate, fabric and glass seed beads; and Call me Al is a carpet for the wall, heavily inspired by Somerset, where I used to live.

Hope you like them!

Ina

creativity, games

Best Adventure Ever update

November 1, 2017 No Comments

I am not quite sure what Sam is supposed to be doing in this one, but I am sure I will find out.

I am usually very neat when it comes to things like this, even when it involves several hundred images.

I think I have covered just about every element of Wolfe’s work in the course of establishing the character. I am not sure whether players will fall madly in love with him straight away, but I am sure that they will want to be him.

It is not easy to strike a balance with Wolfe, you always have to tread a line between comedy and stifled admiration for the level of achievement. So far, we are covering more than two decades of work in a few sentences before commencing the adventures themselves, all of which have to be significantly different.

For fans of the series of free Best…Ever books, yes, Kira is also in the game, however she will probably not be meeting Sam as she is busy telling the other half of the story for people who are interested in improving their health.

Between Kira and Sam, the player will be handed quite an armoury of information with which to go forth and amplify.

The story is not just about health, however. Because of the directly oppositional nature of Wolfe and I, I have incorporated commentary into social interaction, so for players, who I anticipate to be between 15 and 30, there is a lot of material to work through in the course of playing through the many threads.

It is quite mentally exhausting however, I had to think about something else for three days, so I have re-started Mood Machine for a bit of light relief. It is set in Victorian London and is steampunk inspired.

I may also start the Boris book at this point, since I am now gagging to get back to the original book and have upwards of a year’s reading to do even to get a light coverage of background to build upon. The Boris book should take me about four months of work, and I have artwork to finish, some of which will take a month or so for each piece.

So, effectively the very difficult jigsaw puzzle that has been the Wolfe saga is becoming clearer. I do hope that people are willing to put the work into playing it, because I think it is a worthwhile piece of art.

business, motivation

The Horror of Direct Communication

October 30, 2017 No Comments

In my more distant past, I was a Head Chef. I almost ended up working for Gordon Ramsay, that most famous of direct communicators. (I turned him down) At one point after I finished up university, I considered writing a book about the way chefs communicate and why offices are so cripplingly inefficient in comparison.

Science has now established that people who swear, for example, successfully lower their blood pressure, are likely to be more honest and more intelligent in terms of clarity of thought. This idea is pretty key to direct communication.

When people make excuses, such as “I can’t right now,” and you cut across them with “That’s OK I don’t want to either, but this is important” it is an extremely effective weapon in ensuring that you have an opportunity to follow up with getting your message across as quickly and effectively as possible. It is often met with horror, particularly by people who are used to using measured doses of superficially polite oil to avoid confrontation.

Likewise, offices often have gossip cliques, where complaints and queries about other staff members circulate for weeks and weeks at a time, colouring everyone’s view of the unfortunate victim no matter what they do. Extremely competent yet unambitious rivals are eliminated by this conspiracy of incompetence, rather than my or any other chef’s preferred route of simply telling the person what the problem is in order to avoid a repeat.

Hence, the urgency of service is akin to the urgency of war. Retiring chefs – who often retire in their late twenties – often retire into the army as they are well equipped to deal with discipline and extremely direct communication.

Trying to survive an office environment when you are used to an efficient system with a sense of urgency is more difficult. It is bewildering. Why would an oily incompetent be promoted whilst you are left sitting on ground level wondering when the problems will be fixed?

Many years ago, I was involved in such a scenario when I stumbled across such an incompetent, who was mismanaging a data management project for a major utilities company. I had previously worked for a rival company doing much the same work, and it turned out that I was the only person qualified to run the project. Rather than taking advice from me directly, which this individual could not be seen to do, he stole the information and colluded with his assistant to eliminate me. He could not understand why I had even bothered to point it out. His errors were potentially killing staff at an estimated rate of 12 per year. I was offered a bribe, which I turned down. I later heard that further to this they paid consultancy fees to the original company to tell them the same thing I told them.

To the company, this was simply part of their business, so the safety risk was not something they were equipped to even think about. The fact that I knew about it meant that I had to be discredited, and the fact that I was the only person qualified to actually do the job simply did not matter to them. They were not going to listen to me. Ahs a direct communicator I was not likely to understand this and so I became a marked person.

It had never occurred to me what a small corrupt country I came from until I pursued the CEO of this extremely large company to ask why the company worked like this and what was to be done about it? I was hotly pursued to see ‘who I was working for,’ and why I would create trouble for the company. It did not occur to anyone that I had simply identified a problem and reported it with the intention of solving it and had no industrial sabotage in mind at all.

This is very much the problem with many of the companies I had the misfortune to observe when I was still working. You are expected to sit in fear, worrying about paying your mortgage and you are not supposed to point out problems or attempt to solve them unless you have renamed yourself as a consultant and wish to charge a large fee. If you step out of this paradigm you are either mad, dangerous, corrupt or probably all three and are CAUSING THEM PROBLEMS.

I much prefer my abrasive, direct approach. I can honestly say that I am a very clear communicator and people who choose to deal with me have no doubt about my intentions unless they themselves have issues with their honesty. (most of them do, sadly) I suspect that I was born at the wrong time. Had I been working in the 50s, I would have been welcomed as a problem solver. Now, in the age of waste, I am considered stupid because I do not play the game. It has been an expensive problem.

Perhaps you are better to deceive than state your intention. I prefer not to.

creativity

The age of intelligent crumpet.

October 29, 2017 No Comments

Oddly, shortly after I finished the post yesterday, ex number 2 turned up on the doorstep out of the blue.

If I was a superstitious person, I would wonder what was going on?

He was in Braveheart and a few other notable films. I can only assume that he is very lonely, because we usually fall out fairly quickly. Perhaps we have now reached the age where I fall into the category of ‘good nick,’ or newly- ‘thinking man’s crumpet.’ He was a bit disappointed that I still do not drink, and no longer partake in coffee and tea. This makes it well nigh impossible to socialise. (tee hee)

I am going to have to tune into Wolfe at a not too distant point in the future and re-listen to get the tone on the game right. I am kind of dreading this, so I will lay the basic story and information down first and then do it.

For the uninitiated, to a trained ear, Wolfe as a public speaker is like an undiscovered beach covered in shells, rocks and little pearls. After the usual first response, I came to rather like it. Sometimes it does make me more than a little crazy, but I usually come away with several treasures.

Remade the sample video for Best Adventure Ever

Otherwise, I will be releasing Bordello Rhetoric this week. This is the key piece in the Boris Johnson collection, directly drawing from Honey, I made you an icon, although the latter is a little magical. I do not spread my magic lightly, so although Bordello Rhetoric is probably the flashier and more directly accessible piece – and it is certainly very large – I would hazard a guess that Honey, I made you an icon is actually more valuable in terms of artistic madness.

In case anyone is wondering – the Boris period has no implication for Wolfe as my muse. It is a necessary part of the process to create a counterpoint to establish the method of communication. I do realise that my work is very confusing, even for close friends to get a handle on, never mind my poor muse, who must be very confused indeed, particularly as in Wolfe’s case, a bit of leakage into reality is ongoing. How much leakage is really up to him, long term.

I am very much looking forward to having my studio back, so I will be scraping together some money for resin to get some of the rest out very soon indeed. You would not believe the mess working with resin makes. I will be chipping it off the workbenches for months to come.

creativity, motivation

With friends like these…..

October 28, 2017 No Comments

I haven’t posted for a while, as I have been submerged in game-making.

Sadly, Mood Machine died in the transition to a new format and will have to be restarted, but Best Adventure Ever is going extremely well and I have somewhat higher hopes for it than previously.

In the meantime, the Furniture is slightly delayed by lack of funds. The Ina Disguise rebuild has meant that my finances have taken a temporary hit which delays the new objects by a month or three.

Long term, this makes sense, so I am not terribly worried about it, but it is a pain juggling things like this, particularly at this time of year.

I have had a lot of email and comments of late, most of it spam, but I got a particularly interesting message from one of my former friends a week or so ago.

It was in response to my trip to Birmingham to see Wolfe, and detailed my becoming famous and having my former friends killed.

It is nice to know that people who expressed such disbelief in me for so long, and who expressed absolute hatred for Wolfe, have such faith in us, however life doesn’t actually work like that.

For one thing, Wolfe and I are not friends. We could possibly count ourselves as acquaintances now, but I am not sure he would even give me that slot. All that happened was that I made absolutely sure that he understood my perspective, as I was previously sure he did not get the correct message at all, either from me or anyone else.

For another, I have an awful lot of work to do which depended on his 1)understanding what I am playing at and 2) my actually completing the work. We are none too keen on direct communication as a result of DRIVING EACH OTHER COMPLETELY INSANE WITHIN SECONDS. Yes, I am too fond of him and very interested in developing his rhetoric. No, I am not stark raving bonkers and have no intention of becoming so.

So, no, all that we have established is that I am not his enemy and he knows who I am. I have no plans to kill anyone and have no clue where this idea even came from? Why would that even be on my task list?

Whomever you are, and I have TWO suspects in mind, both with similar history:

Yes, you were a bit shitty to me, but it doesn’t have much effect on me because I have a lot of other stuff going on.

Yes, you delayed my getting on with the things I was doing prior to my developing Ina Disguise, (as a result of one of Wolfe’s many gags at my expense) but frankly it was a good thing, because Ina was necessary to protect my work from my family, and the experimental stuff I have done since the Wolfe episode has been a bit whackier and more interesting.

Since I am preparing to hit on the foreign secretary in the next few months, I am unlikely to retain much in the way of privacy at a fairly senior level, so I am not plotting taking out any hits on anyone.

Hope that makes things clearer!

Ina

creativity, games

Exciting work due for release very soon

October 18, 2017 11 Comments

Several pieces in the new collection are nearing completion and Best Adventure Ever is going extremely well so far.

I failed to ask Wolfe about contributing the music, but I am sure I will find some interesting free to use psy-trance for it as the story moves on.

So far it is fairly cutting edge stuff in terms of game making, not in regard to technical prowess, which has been kept to a minimum to avoid problems with multiple formats, but in terms of educational content within gameplay.

If things go as planned, it is an excellent rehearsal for the game to follow, and should stand me in good stead for the future planned projects, which will take me somewhat longer to construct.

I do need about seven days sewing to finish the latest carpet, so it will probably be out after the first of the furniture, and then a new crop of work will be started for early next year.

Will be starting work on the Boris book very soon, which should take us to early summer before I recommence work on the most important book of the lot, at which point I will have to pester Wolfe again in the hope of getting some discussion of future projects that are already underway.

Apart from that, the Ina Disguise rebuild is plodding steadily on.

creativity, motivation

Ina the steamroller

October 14, 2017 3 Comments

Work has now begun in earnest on the games. I had the graphics prepared, but I am now having to rename about a thousand pictures so that the scripts can handle them. I cannot tell you how mind numbing it is even to organise the files when you have them.

I also want to get rid of the preparation work for the Boris Johnson book, so that I can get back to doing my academic reading for the original book.

Why I needed Wolfe’s approval to write the book I do not know, but apparently I did. The previous stabbing pain every time I thought about it has gone, and I am quite keen to get on with it, to the point of resurrecting a positively ancient computer to get the old files so that I do not have to retype the material I have left.

For those regular readers who assume that I have some sinister motives about this, that is not the point of me at all. Please feel free to listen to the following audio:

That is the point of the work I am doing. It is nothing to do with seduction and everything to do with immortality and the divine inspirational spirit.

When I say this, I do not strictly mean that I am ‘moved by the spirit, man.’ I mean that you follow an inspirational path where it leads as long as it benefits you and the other party. Where I refer to the beloved, it simply means the recipient of love, rather than implying any relationship that does not exist. I think I have been very clear everywhere that there is no relationship between Wolfe and I at all, except in my imagination.

What I have to do now, is stop thinking about it, and do the work. Time will tell if it has any outcome at all, but now that I feel free to do it, it is going to get done with as much efficiency as I can manage.

Looking forward to releasing some artwork shortly, which will mark the beginning of the Boris Johnson period.

creativity, motivation

Reflection is over-rated

October 13, 2017 No Comments

Today I had to wait in a lot for various phone calls. I have edited a few stories, which rather alarmed me as I thought I had caught all my spare commas. The cats have been patted, the errands have been run, and I have reflected far too much.

The last few months have been rather eventful. I have lost 60lb, gone to see somebody I was trying to avoid, been through a mammoth battle for my mother’s health, which is still apparently ongoing, and had to suffer the invasion of my home by allegedly well-meaning infiltrators who want to tell me how to live my life. You would never guess that I have a brain at all. I have also had to tell my last remaining offline friend not to return, partially because of the now perpetual drama and interference, which could conceivably kill him with stress, (he was already hospitalised once with the effects, and I was not going to allow this to happen again) and partially because the friendship, whilst good for him, was very bad for me.

Any one of these things would take their toll on a person, never mind all of them, but I have responded reasonably well I think. The trick now is to avoid reflection.

I don’t want to think about the years since my father died. I want to move on, create some great work, write a beautiful book or three, and ensure that my mother has as peaceful a life as possible. Thanks to her unconventional diet, she is stable. The NHS hate this, but apparently they will have to learn to live with it. I dread to think how fast she will die in the event that she has to go anywhere else, however, as even the three days that I was effectively absent from caring for her caused a dip.

My friend from the Gambia is trying to worm his way back in to chatting with me every night. I have no idea what benefit he thinks he will derive from achieving his aim. I assume he thinks that I am rich. It certainly isn’t because he wants to do any work. We have already established this. Why I am to sit and wait for his next crisis and provide I do not know. I have no beanstalk in my garden, and alas no magic beans.

In a week or so I am hoping that I will be able to release the first pieces in the Boris Johnson collection. They are looking rather nice, but there is still a lot of work to do as my studio is rather small for furniture. I have some lining work to do, which I hate, and about seven days of sewing on the carpet for it. In the meantime, I am in a writing mood, so I think I will make a start on the book for the Boris collection. There will also have to be some short stories, and a new series will commence for the release of these.

I am also planning to do some further releases on Amazon. I notice that somebody has pirated some work of mine on there already, so I have to go through their rather cumbersome copyright process. I was ignoring it because whoever-it-is is presumably publicising my books, and I thought I would just let them.

All in all, I don’t think I should waste any more time than I have already wasted on reflection. I don’t particularly envy anyone, and I think things happen for good reasons. You cannot underestimate your own significance, however. I am feeling rather more inclined to be noisier than I used to be, which can only be a good thing given the very large task ahead.

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