Narcissism has always been a word surrounding my life. From a father who had trouble with addiction and psychological disturbance. To my own battle with sexual dysfunction and the narcissistic bubble a negative habit can create. Some people battle against psychological disturbance, wanting to put in the hard work to heal from traumas life can hurl in our direction. While, on the other end of the spectrum, we find people who take a completely different approach. Those who live in a world of manipulation, where nothing seems to be their fault. Even the simplest of mistakes or misjudgments need to find themselves pinned on someone else. As I grow and heal, there seem to be trends inside my personality, continuing to pop up, and get me into trouble. One of those trends has been having too much acceptance for people who have a story. I’m talking about a story framed with seemingly bad luck and unfortunate circumstances. The thing about being an individual with cerebral palsy has been the ease to which I feel relatable to these kinds of stories. For example, I would have not requested to be disabled upon entry into this world. Instead, I view my disability as something that was just kind of given to me, at birth. There were plenty of blessing to help with the challenges of cerebral palsy, but some of the challenges couldn’t be eased. I would have to fight to the best of my ability.
Many of the challenges of cerebral palsy that can’t be helped occur daily. The hill feels steeper for me to climb, as opposed to someone typically developed. These challenges help me relate, on some level, to people who might feel they have been treated unfairly. Whether the unfair treatment came from a former employer, or a misunderstood business deal gone bad. The explanations of misfortunate events in the life of another, can easily pull at my heartstrings. Sucking me into a world, where I would like to help encourage, to the best of my ability. Trying to find something positive about the individual, who might have stumbled onto challenging times, and show positivity. It might be an ear to listen or a commitment of loyalty, until situations begin to improve. Most people have a talent to be unlocked. Often, I’m only thinking about the person inside who wants to improve their life. Who was met with unfortunate circumstances that appear to be beyond their control. When I connect with a person and begin listening to their story. Too many times, my mind fixates on the idea of the person being authentic. The concept of them telling me the tale exactly how the events transpired and I believe the narration. The trouble can start with believing that tale, believing the story I’m being told is the most accurate story. Without pausing at all to consider the person on the other side, who did these terrible things, might have a different story to tell. But, most often, I never meet the person on the other side of the tale.
There can be trouble with believing without skepticism, the story I am being told. Without the eye of questioning, the narrator has the ability to spin the event in any way they see fit. It becomes a tool in judging the level of naivety in their audience. Which in this case, would be myself. Once the level to which I’m gullible can be judged, the story teller can steer our relationship down any number of paths. As long as they are always reassessing how far my trust in them will travel. It feels like a person trying to strip away my boundaries, little by little. Until they feel like the power has been developed to steer my decision making. To convince me to follow them down any path they might choose for me to travel. The sad aspect of this entire concoction of events, is the manipulation behind executing the plan. The attempt at taking control of an individual’s decision making. Often, they don’t seem to be targeting the control of every decision, just the thinking inside a subject, or two. The process feels like it must start in the simplest of places, the sad story of mistreatment, and grow slowly, once the hook has been placed. For me, it grew into the area of expertise of the person. A subject to which their talent was helpful with my goal of improving the challenges cerebral palsy presents.
The hook was helping me improve the cerebral palsy challenges. Using information gathered throughout a career. Having experience in fields many trainers don’t have a ton of experience with. But, the work in the fields was more of being mentored. Without the degrees that accompany many of the people who work with injury rehabilitation. It was easy to give the relationship a try, when hearing about all the places they have been. As the relationship progressed, my body began feeling better. My passion for helping the disability in my body was being realized. Strength, which had been stripped away from the time spent under the fear of the pandemic, was slowly starting to return. I was encouraged again about the improvements that could be made. My ability to ski seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds. However, there was something else brewing as the months of working in the training environment went onward. I was captivated by the way my body was coming back to life. Even excusing personality flags that seemed to pop up from time to time. There seemed to be a rule against questioning anything we might be doing inside a session. If something were to get tweaked in my body, even in a minor way, someone or something else was at fault. I felt like something I could work around, because it felt like the training was positive.
The excuses were being made by me, for behavior making me uncomfortable. The first insult over outside care for my body was brought about early in our work. Another tool to be blamed for anything that might happen inside a session. That early moment was worked through and the training continued. When another injury took place at the hands of a training session, I kept my mouth shut, not talking about what had occurred. I just went and got adjusted, which made everything work well within a couple days. Our working on training went on without a hick-up and improving my disability challenges continued. When something happened again, I opened my mouth about being helped with a physical symptom. It wasn’t anything I would have considered to be an injury. This time, the attack on my choices came in full force. My questions were inquisitive about what an alternative measure might be, even though I had no intention of changing my cerebral palsy treatment program. I started being adjusted fourteen years ago, when my left shoulder was bothering me to the point, I couldn’t play golf comfortably. Through the years my body has become more level and pain throughout me has been reduced. But, I was being told my treatment was all wrong. It had become a situation of a trainer believing himself to be a doctor. He wanted the treatment plan of a doctor to be explained to him, so he could make a determination of who should be treating my disability, and how they should be helping.
This person believed they had me under complete control. They believed the ability had been gained to discredit a doctor and steer me in another direction. It is one trait of a narcissistic person and one to watch for in people. The attempt to cease control of my ability to make decisions for myself. They have the skill of convincing people to follow their lead. The process they are laying out would have carried me to the best health of my life. The problem would have been ending up alone. Being stripped of any support, both physical or emotional, this person would have disagreed with. I didn’t want to follow the individual down the road of their choices for my health. Being told I was lucky to have them in my life and they were responsible for my physical abilities, started setting off alarms in my mind. But, it took a breaking point for me to understand the gravity of our interactions. The time was around ten months before the professional relationship came to a close. Before I grew tired of providing and listening to excuses for behavior that felt uncomfortable. This was a boundary I have been hard pressed to set in the past, unable to recognize when someone is looking for more and more control. I’m happy with the improvements in relationships I have made and the ability to say no, before I get pulled too far away from my support. Now, I’m left trying to further heal the reasons I find myself in these relationships. With people who seem to have narcissistic traits, wanting to divide me from my support systems.
A Journey With Cerebral Palsy 