Flying Monkeys and Golden Nuggets

Hello out there. I have been engaged in a tremendous amount of slackery lately. Let’s just say that after Xmas, the New year, the Capitol insurrection, and Biden’s inauguration my entire mood could be encompassed in a Bee Gees song. You know the one that goes, “I started a joke, which started the whole world laughing…” At the end of the song, the whole world is crying and the joke is on the jokester. It seems like the appropriate song for the current climate. It was also sobering to realize that many play the fool, and I’ve even played the fool myself from time to time in this tireless charade. The cure for that (for me) was to slip into some much needed obscurity just to process.

As I write this, second impeachment has started which reminds me of a LOTR meme (Lord of the Rings). It goes, “So we’ve had first impeachment, but have you heard about second impeachment?” I have no intention of writing about second impeachment, just an acknowledgement that it is happening. I do want to thank the powers that be in the Word Press universe that have brought me back to the blogosphere. Those little glimmers of hope that indicate I got a new follower, a new comment, someone liked a post, prior to short intervals of radio silence. It may be a tactic designed by Word Press itself to keep me engaged and if that is the case, well played Word Press, well played.

So here I am regardless of whether I am a sucker fish, or in my most optimistic moments open to the idea that a few of you have been thrown into my path by divine intervention to remind me to keep writing. I love you people. May the universe throw you a happy little nugget as well if you have felt the call to write, even if it appears to be at your own expense. That is the beauty of writing or chasing any dream for that matter. May all our dreams come true and cheers to that! We deserve all of that and more after this rough patch.

In my reclusive, self reflecting phase, I did reach out to an old friend. My old BFF from High School. She introduced me to this app called Marco Polo. So it seems I traded one media trend for another. This one does seem a little more intimate. We have been sharing videos back and forth, and at first it gave me some anxiety, because it’s on the spot, impromptu and improvisational. Like, I can’t record a video and edit it later. I suppose one could rehearse what they wanted to say, but it’s the same sense of anxiety I get when I leave some hot mess message on someone’s voice mail that I can not retract.

Anyway, it’s marketed as this “great way for busy people to stay in touch.” In my mind, it’s a great way for socially reclusive people to get back to others when they feel like it. My kind of app! Anyway, my friend and I’s Marco Polo has morphed into this book club. It’s strange how the universe throws you something when you are in processing mode. In the beginning I was like, “I don’t even know how to process what I am so desperately in need of processing.” I think I was in a state of dumbfounded shock over the season finale of the last year (or as some may say, the treason finale) and their was this TINY thing that was eating at me about the complete disarray of my family relationships that turned out to not be so tiny.

My friend introduced me to a book called, “The Narcissist in Your Life.” It is essentially a book about counteracting the negative repercussions of Narcissistic abuse. It was a real A-ha moment for me. In my mind it was like a flashing Neon sign said, “So this is what has been happening in your life.” Essentially, central to the theme that has been America (in my mind) has been the Narcissist, the enablers, and/or the flying monkeys.

If you are not familiar with the term “flying Monkeys” you may know it once it is broken down for you, and most likely a real life scenario will present itself from memory. This is not Jumanji, but it does provide an accurate depiction of how people can get sucked into something real sinister that can do a lot of damage. Central to the flying Monkeys is the narcissist. In essence flying Monkeys are enablers who participate in narcissistic abuse by proxy. They either knowingly or unknowingly assist in harming selective victims with their sycophantic dramas. Many flying Monkeys have narcissistic tendencies themselves. They are often participators in smear campaigns and are used in triangulation schemes by the narcissist, or worse, genuinely participate in or carry out harmful schemes without the narcissistic even dealing a blow. Sound familiar?

This was especially traumatic for me because this dynamic was central to ripples in a pond that radiated outward from previous incidences of narcissistic abuse that had occurred in my life where some of the players in the previous scenario were also exhibiting behaviors that radiated outward from the smaller ripples of my life to the larger political spectrum and this new social climate that has been this Pandemic. In a nutshell, Narcissists are going to Narcissist. Enablers are going to enable, deniers will deny, cognitive dissonance will still dissonance. I have been taken back by the behavior of some of the people around me, but in essence, I have realized none of it should have come as a surprise. These weren’t isolated behaviors these were patterns. The more I analyzed them, the more this became apparent.

Perhaps I am over sharing as I explain my absence. I just want to say, no matter how everyone else has perceived the shock events over the last few years, in my mind, there was no getting around the healing of it for me without confronting the negative impacts of Narcissism, and how it plays a role in various relationships, family dynamics, and the negative repercussions it can have on society as a whole. A lot of this just may be due to naivety. I’ve thought to myself many times, that maybe perhaps a lot of people have not dealt with crazy before and it shows. How very fortunate for those people.

At this point, I’m convinced that a good thorough reading on narcissism should be required reading for a lot of America. I don’t want to be a pusher of anything on anyone. I’m just going to shamelessly recommend that if you have been as stunned as I have been over recent events that perhaps giving narcissism and the negative repercussions narcissistic abuse has on others a go. I’m not going to say the journey for me has been edifying. It has not been that kind of a journey. I would call it sobering and necessary, and perhaps the liberation that comes from analyzing this will come later. I hope so. I am not there yet.

I will say, that if I have forged any kind of liberated understanding from any of it, it is that even narcissists are the victims of their own narcissism, their families, etc. Of course they can’t know this due to their lack of self awareness or genuine accountability. In that sense I can muster up some degree of empathy for them. Anyway, the path to healing is a journey and not always a destination. I wish you well as you navigate your own way through any labyrinth. I am hopeful.

Sometimes we are at max pressure before someone releases the seal and I feel I am on that cusp now. Crazy that I look to Israel right now, where one third of their population has been vaccinated, and new breakthroughs in Covid treatment are being reported. I’d find this even more endearing if this good fortune extended to Palestinians, which it might. There are reports of vaccine sharing among enemies. This is just one example of where I look for hope that counter hiccups with new variants or what is happening with AstraZeneca. Yes, I’m a vaccine watcher and Covid made its way into my house two weeks ago. Luckily taste and smell were the extent of it. Salt and sweet came back first, smell and the full tasing experience are still elusive. Another reason I fell off the grid. I was caring for others impacted by this.

Like this blog, I am continually granted signs during this pandemic to keep treading water, and not to quit. I’m still in this. We are still in this. Much thanks to any reader, or sign from the Universe that we are part of something we can not give up on, and that hope is still with us. I don’t know what the mechanisms are for handing out hope these days but by all means they are out there and we should take them without question. I wish you all every golden nugget possible that will keep you going in these trying times.

Until Next Post!

Rachelle Whiting