Lori Knight. The Whole Shebang

The book that has the same title as my album.
Recently At a fuel stop I noticed a book stand and purely because of the title I purchased RAW.
Written by Damien Linnane I must say I enjoy reading memoirs and this particular memoir did not disappoint.
Great read worth checking out.

Grab yourself a tennis ball kiddies.
Who doesn’t enjoy a challenge 😎

An exercise NBA players use to improve hand-eye coordination 🏀 Dr Louisa Nicola demonstrates a simple exercise: throwing a tennis ball against a wall and catching it with alternating hands. It trains your visual system to react under load and engages the executive functions of the brain. Would you try this?

Complex PTSD

Also written as cPTSD is something I didn’t learn about until more recently.

I wrote yesterday about why I was a prime target and candidate for malignant narcissistic abuse. And reading a hypothetical scenario in the book titled“I’m surrounded by psychopaths” really cemented what I had suspected about Mr Malignant.

Moving forward in time…
After my car smash at Christmas 2019, I spiralled into an emotional train wreck which on the other side of it now I can say it was unfortunate for the innocent people I care about who witnessed a massive breakdown but it was a catalyst that made me seek professional help.

I’ll always remember where I was when I rang mum to tell her what had happened in the aftermath of my breakdown from the car crash and was shocked because I certainly did not expect her to “tell me off” and then have my sibling back her up too. I definitely fu**ed up while living with concussion and severe whiplash I made terrible choices and acted extremely crazy, it was obvious I needed support. I rang mum to own my behaviour and my consequences of such behaviour, I was vulnerable and emotionally lost. However, from that one phone call, as shocking and hurtful as it was, I knew without a doubt I had to ring my psychologist who I had met years earlier during the divorce of my first husband. I had reached a point of being tired of the bu****it, both mine and my family.

During my appointments with my psychologist I began healing and was able to gain validation for feeling unsupported by family and losing my confidence and trust while driving as I was hit waiting at a red light. I had sustained a concussion and I had no idea how to deal with my feelings which caused anxiety and depression from the TBI. It was an extremely confusing experience and my therapist guided my discussion’s towards my family and “patient zero” as I call her now, as it became apparent why my family reacted the way they did.

Accepting the reality of my mother’s nature became a lyric for my song, “Mother” written soon afterwards as I recovered. It’s a song of acceptance and forgiveness.
My life certainly works so much better now because of letting go of my constant battle for inclusion and acceptance.

Long story short……
More recently, a few years ago I was listening to a YouTube video by: Heidi Priebe, titled “Surviving the family scapegoat role” where she recommended the book by Peter Walker.

I had no idea what family scapegoat was. I had heard the expression “golden child” and families commonly have that favourite child, I can assure you I knew it wasn’t me growing up lol, but I didn’t know I was a scapegoated child yet alone know there was such a thing.

OMG the first time I heard Heidi speak about hypothetical scenarios of family behaviour was my final piece of the puzzle. This book by Pete Walker has been so beneficial for me. If you have felt unwanted, unliked or rejected for a lengthy portion of your childhood I highly recommend reading this book. It may just help you understand yourself better.

One day I’ll need to write my list of book recommendations but for now I’ll just say this has many page corners folded and paragraphs underlined. And after reading the book my life works so much better now.

Knowledge is empowering!
Cheers Lori 😎

For my part I was desperate to be included in my own family…. which made me A prime target for a narcissist after
My first marriage had ended!!

My first marriage had ended For All the Reasons That made sense at the time and one of the biggest reasons was the fear that I quietly lived with after my older sister almost died from an unexpected stroke when she was only 38 years old.

I had lived 8 years quietly stressing about what if that happened to me? Would I be taken care of? What life dreams had I achieved?

The separation and divorce was extremely challenging in 2006 but I constantly reminded myself that if …”this was the worst thing I ever go through I’m physically and mentally able and capable to do so without needing anyone else’s help”.
Along with the challenges I also started to discover what I was actually made of.

I discovered what I could achieve by myself, without anyone’s permission on things that I decided to pursue. This new found existence as a single parent allowed me to notice things I had not previously thought about, but I was still wanting the life I’d witnessed growing up around, first from my parents and then older siblings getting married. I still wanted a partner to grow old with and along came that love bombing Mr Malignant.

OMG I had no idea how that five year episode would end up costing me 10 years of my life and more money than I could ever imagine. And all because I wanted to fit in with my family. I wanted to feel included with them and to know I was respected as an equal within my family dynamics. Of course it took the car crash of 2019 for me to learn about my role as the scapegoat and to then let go of my choices I was making because of my need for family inclusion. But that’s a story for another time.

If only I knew that sooner hey? But I think it was necessary and unfortunate for me to live through it all to be where I am now. And I feel totally excepting of that fact.

Definitely older and wiser. Do I know everything now? Of course not.
We only know what we know after we learn it.
I don’t expect anyone to truly understand what narcissism is all about if they haven’t experienced it first hand, especially more so now because the word is thrown about so flippantly that in my opinion, the seriousness of narcissism has been diminished.

Reading Liza’s experience is emotionally similar because when you look back you can see clearly how fu**ed up it was.
I once said “the fish don’t see the fish bowl they’re swimming in”.
And when you talk about the stories to a friend you can hear yourself describing something that is painfully ridiculous, it’s obvious and it’s embarrassing that you continued living in it but at the time you’re just that fish in the fishbowl.

With a lot of deliberate healing I now recognise my triggers and can manage flashbacks in a safe and healthy way.
I highly recommend that people take responsibility for their healing, otherwise your life will remain a fishbowl.

Everyone’s journey will be different but your healing is the ultimate destination. Where you can truly be authentic, happy and autonomous without being a complete ar****le. Don’t let the bad things make you bad, let them make you better.
Cheers Lori 😎