Unconfirmed Bachelorette—The Early Days

You might have noticed some odd activity on my blog of late. Notices of new posts written years ago. Password protected posts. Bad links to old posts. This began when recent followers became interested in my archived posts, which date back to the birth of this blog in 2011. I decided to go back and have a look myself.

I cringed. I found some of the posts so embarrassing, in fact, I changed their setting to “private.” Out of sight/site, out of mind.

Today, with the ultimate goal of converting my blog into memoir, I was working on exporting all my posts and related comments to a Word document via BlogBooker. But the application would not pick up the private posts, so I converted them back to public. Apparently WordPress thought some of those posts were new, and sent out a notice to followers. The cringe-worthy posts, no longer buried deep in an archive, are in my face. In your face.

My first reaction was to immediately set to work password protecting the more objectionable posts. My second reaction was to be brave and leave them up, but provide some context.

Context

I began this blog in 2011 while dating a man I refer to as Mack. It was the second blog I started while dating him. The first was titled The Accidental Sugar Mama, which I abandoned due to its self-limiting title. When I began the blog, I knew nothing of tags and categories. I just wrote. Mack, also a writer, was my sole audience. The comments on the early posts, while appearing to come from a variety of readers, were all Mack.

NarcIn the aftermath of the inevitable breakup, which I finally accomplished for good in late 2011, it became clear to me that Mack was an abusive, manipulative narcissist. When I read these posts, I look back at my former self and find it difficult to understand why she couldn’t see through the blatant and evident bullshit. But such is the nature of emotional abuse and manipulation. Given my family history, it’s not surprising I fell prey.

Mack followed my blog for many months after the breakup. Nevertheless, I did my best to not self-censor. At times he would post comments in typical narc-style. I didn’t publish them. Seven months after I ended my relationship with Mack for good and while working on recovery and healing, my oldest brother died. Six months after that, my dad died. Five months after that, my other brother died. I wasn’t writing about Mack any longer, and he stopped following me.

Mack was not my first abuser. Or my first narcissist. But he is my last.

21 comments

  • Keep your senses alert for excessive entitlement and selfishmess and you will find a narcissist hiding there. The good thing about living is we get to learn, the bad thing about living is just the same! You have my complete empathy.

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  • I am sure that I still write cringe worthy posts that I will find years from now and think “Why on Earth did I write about *that*?” Such is writing, I suppose.

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  • I noticed the blog posts from 2011 – and yes, I wondered why they came to be seen in my e-mail-inbox – but I thought that was due to new comments.
    The one post where I had a “strange” moment was of a younger nature. I am not going to say anything about that here (now that it is clear to me you did not want it to be seen) – but now I know if a post of you comes up in my email and not on my reader, I will think of it as private and not read it. Thank you for explaining.

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    • You say “strange,” I say “cringe.” I cannot figure out the inner workings of WordPress at times. I’m going to stop tinkering with old posts and leave well enough alone.

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      • That one I was referring to was not OLD. It was about something that happened recently. I am not going into detail, as you kept that post hidden afterwards, and I feel like I caught a glimpse at a document that was confidential.

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  • Now we have more in common than sobriety, Austin and the legal world. Two of my six brothers also died. I feel for you. Thanks for sharing everything you share.

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      • Oh unfortunately, I’ve had my share of those as well. After the last one, in my early 30s, I spent 4 years in self-imposed celibacy, to try to figure out why I would ever waste so many precious years with someone who was only interested in himself. After eschewing men for that time period, though, I met my husband. Someone completely and totally different. Thank god!

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  • +1 to no strange post notifications.
    My sister in law just divorced a narcissist. 7 years of self-centered crazytown crap. Never content to not be the center of attention, unable to properly empathize with fellow human beings, spent a lot of her money (and plunged the two of them in debt, despite the fact my SIL is fiscally responsible) and so on. He thought he was amazing but no. Wrong. The other thing.

    Too many awful stories to count. If yours was anything like this one — good riddance. It’s difficult for me to believe someone would be nuts enough to impersonate multiple commentators… that is just breathtakingly insane. I’m really glad this is in your past, unconfirmed.

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    • Yes, good riddance. These guys are shameless. And the crazytown leaves you feeling crazy, too. Cyber-crap was his specialty. Thanks, LAF. I’m glad he’s in my past, too. And I’m glad your SIL is free of hers!

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  • That’ll teach you not to try censorship! but seriously, your embarrassments are someone else’s salvation because they can read what you wrote, put 2 and 2 together, and use it to get out of their own abusive relationships sooner rather than later. You are helping people, Ella.

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