UniversallyUs.com is online and ready!! I have exciting news! Universally Us 2.0 has been refreshed. It is growing—and so is the conversation. We’re adding additional content that moves beyond the focus on narcissistic relationships to explore what comes next. How do we heal from the hurt and navigate the uncertainty? Where do we begin […]
In a Narcissistic relationship, do we have to be like them to leave them? This isn’t a trick question. If you even considered it leaving a narcissist…you get it. The narcissist wouldn’t identify something they did as “Narcissistic”. Ever. Their defense mechanisms would kick in to justify their actions as they projected the blame unto […]
When we pass the torch, do we diminish our fire? Does the glow of relevance we fueled as an entrepreneur, employee, spouse, or parent flicker and fade as we relinquish these roles? You bet it does, was my initial response. Aging requires change; from toddlers to puberty to independence and often parenthood, to empty nesters. […]
That people are quick to hurl blame and shame in the guise of accountability is often nonsense and cruel. The Blame “It takes two, you know.” I got that one from a friend when I told her my husband was having another affair and I’d left him. She frosted her remark with, “Well, he always […]
A Single’s primary relationship…just what is that? Google defines ‘single’ as; only one, not one of several, unmarried or not involved in a stable sexual relationship. Yup, that pretty much sums it up, but what does it feel like when you have to own being only one? Reminds me of that damned roller coaster. The […]
We adapt: to the narcissist’s tempers, impatience, even to their contempt, yet for me, the worst thing about living with a narcissist is the emotional void of loving someone not only incapable of loving me back, but capable of such devaluing cruelty…sometimes covertly, other times with the fury of intimidation. Loving them is the worst […]
How can we escape a toxic relationship when we’re clinging for dear life? Why do we stay when logic, actions, reactions and the constant knot in our gut testify that our relationship is not good and not getting better? Doesn’t toxic mean poison? So why do we want to stay? How do we set ourselves […]
I signed up for a four-hour, half-price whale watching excursion this morning with a Meetup group. I want to make fun of myself for getting ready, even though the fog or marine layer, whatever it is, has squatted like a too-fat-to-move toad, but I can’t find light or funny at the moment. A dear friend, […]
Zoltar the Fortune Teller and I locked eyes in the Ruby Cave Visitor’s Center near Chattanooga, Tennessee of all places. Swathed in satin and the scent of mildew, he beckoned me. I had no idea he’d send a message so insanely directed at me and what I was wrestling with. Come on…his fortunes have perforated […]
This has been a strange morning. I stumbled on an email I’d written myself six months before I left my marriage. It was my way of journaling. It showed up in an ‘Unsent’ folder on my iPad email. I knew there was a folder for Drafts I’d not sent yet, but my old iPad didn’t […]