I read this great interpretation of the movie Coraline regarding malignant narcissism. Coraline experience two sets of parents, those in the real world who neglects her, and another in the Other world who tricks Coraline in believing the Other Mother is great and Coraline is lucky to be her daughter. The Other Parents' button eyes symbolize soul-lessness--their inability to see beyond their love of self and their "I am perfect" facade. If Coraline visits (believes in) the Other Parents, they will operate on her so that she too has button eyes. In other words, if she doesn't see her through her mother's facade, she will become narcissistic herself (soul-less and blind to the truth). Being a narcissist is living in a dream world, asleep to our true purpose which is to give and receive genuine love.

Coraline has to stay awake. She can't go into the dream world and visit the Other Parents - she must stay in the reality that she is lonely and neglected. Because she is neglected, the real world contains a well of endless sorrows--the pain that never stops because Coraline knows that her parents have chosen to love themselves, not her. Coraline must lock the door on her Narcissistic Mother (set a major Boundary). She does this by leaving the false world created by the Other Mother. When Coraline leaves the false world, the Narcissistic Mother screams, "I'll die without you," but Coraline keeps going and of course the Narcissistic mother doesn't die.

Coraline saves the ghost children (her siblings or other victims of the narcissist) whose real eyes, Other Mother has "hidden in plain sight" in the wonders she has created to fool Coraline. When siblings piece together the truth behind NM's facade of perfection, they often figure it out together and it seems so obvious in hindsight. It was always right in front of them, but they could not see it for many many years. Coraline leads the siblings to the truth (gives them their real eyes back). The siblings don't have button eyes because they are not necessarily narcissists. They have NO eyes because their souls are captive to the Other Mother.

The cat who guides Coraline between the real and Other worlds is her gut instinct that she finally listens to when it keeps telling her something is wrong. Her instinct enables her to escape into reality.

It was my friend Angela that pointed out that the Other Mother was soul sucking and needy like my own mom. I loved the reviewer's interpretation that the cat was Coraline's instinct for the truth. While my beloved cat, Mokey, was dying from crashing kidneys, mom's complete indifference was what finally kicked me in the pants. The day my cat passed on was the day I decided "No More!" the mom. Whenever I felt myself backsliding into the dutiful daughter role, I remember the last few grace days of my cat and it gave me strength to hold and stand for myself.

Results from my doctor’s appointment is my vitamin D level is ridiculously low. Normal vitamin D level is 30 to 100 and mine is 17. Yup, way too low and I am prescribed a pill/week to get that D back to grade A level. At first I was, “Yes! That’s the magic silver bullet!” But then I remember that this whole mystery was first noticed in June and all summer I was getting plenty burned and tanned in the sun, especially during the time spent in Italy, so no vitamin D deficiency then. At least the doctor’s visit caught the vitamin deficiency; it just doesn’t answer the bigger question why I lost 15 pounds in eight months. Actually maybe the vitamin deficiency is the fallout of the mystery weight loss since vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin which means they are stored in fat.

Checked the Live Strong website and found this:

“One vitamin with a direct link between deficiency and weight gain is vitamin D. The primary purpose of vitamin D is to help the body absorb calcium and maintain strong bones. In a 2011 study published in the "Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism," 237 children with low levels of vitamin D were more likely to be overweight with a high body mass index compared to children with adequate levels of the vitamin. A vitamin D deficiency may disrupt communication from hormones responsible for sending signals to the brain indicating that you feel full. It is thought that low levels of the vitamin could also lead to overeating”

Okay, so my low vitamin D level should have actually caused me to gain weight. The missing link is appetite. I can’t overeat due to low vitamin D levels if there is no appetite. The mystery of the missing appetite continues.

Once upon a time when I was young and naïve, I watched a Dennis Leary movie "The Ref", about a burglar trapped in a house with a bickering married couple Carrie and Lloyd, played by Judy David and Kevin Spacey, and he had to act like a marriage counselor in order to avoid discovery by police. Lloyd's mother, Rose, could barely wait for her son's marriage to completely fall apart so she can have him back to herself. At that age I knew I was supposed to realize something was very wrong with Rose but refused to see it because she was like my own mom, whom I had deluded myself (or was brainwashed) into believing that my mom was supermom. A loving supermom who was so overwhelmed with real and mostly imagined obstacles that she can't help spill her verbal garbage every day, usually in form of belittling, mocking, and repeatedly telling me that I am stupid and fated for permanent failure. Yeah, I realized *now* that a real supermom wouldn't do all that crap. But when you're a child and nobody would stand up for you, what else are you supposed to believe in if not your own mother?

Favorite lines from "The Ref":

Lloyd: "You know what I'm getting you for Christmas next year, mother? A big wooden cross. So every time you feel unappreciated for all your sacrifices, you can climb up there and nail yourself to it."

******
Mother Rose:"...I was all alone. My husband had just died and I had to have surgery!"
Carrie: "PLASTIC surgery"
Mother Rose: "It was necessary!"
Carrie: "It was nothing more than needing to keep your son's attention on you."

******
Dennis Leary: "What's wrong with you?!? I thought mothers were supposed to be.......Your husband ain't dead lady, he's hiding".

*********

Watching my sister raise her children had me realizing that our mom didn't teach us the basics in life. Really the only thing she taught us to be good little listeners to her daily woe-is-me diatribes. In spite of her, my sister and I learned anyway. Bee taught herself to be a pastry chef and is an excellent mother to her little ones, and I don't believe I'm being bias. When I look back I'm kind of proud of the things I had to learn myself and decided to count them as victories:

General life skills:
Personal hygiene
Basic home care & repair
Basic car care
Basic cooking
Thrift/how to save money/budgeting
Networking (in particular for job searches)
Basic social skills

Beyond the basics:
Created a comfortable, relaxing and welcoming home, I'm obsessed with DIY blogs!
Be content with what I have.
Always learning how to live within my means.
Enjoying the simple pleasures in life.
how to eat healthy, exercise and rest properly.
Create paintings in oils and acrylics.
Learning how to enjoy the things I like without feeling guilty.

Call it denial, call it whatever, but I thought via tradition of overeating durng the holidays that I would regain the lost 10-15 months over the last six months. Except you need an appetite to accomplish overeating you jackass! You know, the appetite that's gone missing for at least six months. I know, cry me a river, boo fucking hoo you lost weight that you weren't trying to lose, except it was weight I didn't need to lose and people at work have noticed enough to make comments. We tend to stay out of each other lives at work, privacy is a pretty big deal and when the fellow Feds make comments, it's not a good thing.

The lowest point was mid January where it's gone from simply lacking appetite to now feeling nauseous after couple bites of food. It only happens when I eat, that nauseousness, any other time I'm over the rainbow except that my pants keep trying to run away from me. My once skinny jeans is now the "comfortable" baggy jean where I have to stuff my sweatshirt and sweaters into the waistline. The new skinny jean I brought 3 months ago is a cheap brand because I was convinced I will regain the weight through winter and then I will be back wearing my normal jeans.

I'm going to see another doctor because this can't go on. I'm almost afraid that they're going to say it's in my head.

Tonight the 9/11 Remembrance was held at the Air Force Memorial beneath the star burst trident that looms over us like giant pillars bending under the weight of the sky, as if they were rib bones of Atlas himself. Junior ROTCs handed out the programs and once again I thought how young they are, coming to age in this new era and inheriting the war on terror. The keynote speaker was the fundraising force behind the Pentagon Memorial project. He lost his brother on 9/11 and he devoted the following 5 years to honoring the memories of the lost innocent lives.

I sat next to a man who was present that fateful day and soon found himself 24 hours later in international attention as his organization manages crop duster administration. How quickly information surfaced in those days. I remember learning in matter of few hours what "ground zero" is and what "Al Qaeda" is.

The Remembrance tonight was not of sorrow but remembering the innocent lives lost that day and the thousands and thousands of community coming together at once to comfort, support, and fight back. I kept thinking of the passengers of United 93 who struck back at the terrorists mere minutes after learning of the late of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. They were the first strike against global terrorism and they did it without hesitation, they knew what they have to do. I am still amazed to this day that the plane went down on an empty field away from civilization, it would have easily plowed through a town or city. Instead the empty field and it's lone farmhouse bore witness and took them into her arms, burying them into the warm earth.

The Remembrance lasted less than a hour and night had fallen, the full moon climbing higher into the clear sky. I stayed and chatted with my seat companion for awhile, glad to be among strangers and yet not strangers as we discovered we worked in the same Department. What are the odd. But DC is like that, birds of feathers find their flocks despite numbers and size of the city and rational thinking says the statistic is against such favors, but time and time again we find eachother. In that chaotic and horrific day, survivors and bystanders found eachother and helped one another without question. That is the beauty and strength the emerged that day, laughing at the faces of hatred and extremism. We were never felled by grief and instead fought back, like the passengers of United 93, and showed them, we will never lie down and we will never forget and we will always fight back.