My name is Sugar and I am a member of the Web of Narcissism Forums (WoN forums; www.webofnarcissism.com). This message board is a lovely and nurturing community of individuals who have/are suffering from the effects of a narcissist in their lives. Personally, I am the daughter of a narcissistic mother and still live with her, which is very difficult to deal with, but I am hanging in there.
Before I found WoN, I was a member of the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers forum run by a Danu Morrigan. My username there was veryluckysallycherry. This forum is the main reason for my creation of this blog in the first place. I wish to warn all of you daughters of narcissistic mothers who are seeking a safe haven for healing to AVOID Danu's forum at all costs. I, like many others who have come forward, have been abused and unjustly banned there without any explanation whatsoever. I can say with the utmost confidence that I did NOT even break any rules there. Out of the blue back in August, I received a ban and was never given the decency of a proper reason why I was being punished. Why? Because there was NO REASON.
Let me take you further into the insanity of this dictatorship-like message board by providing you with the exact details and proof I have saved so that I could create this blog. I was banned on August 29, 2010. I was creating a topic on the board when I noticed the site was running slow. I logged out and then back in to be greeted by this message:
"You have been permanently banned from this board.
Reason given for ban: Poster disregarded Site Management's instructions of 5-13-10.
A ban has been issued on your username."I was completely bewildered and upset. I was sure it was a mistake, as just that day a member made a topic apologizing for accidentally breaking a rule on the forum. In this topic, Danu and Light (a mod at DoNM) provide "reassurance" and both talked of how they both "accidentally banned" themselves and members on the forum. Seems pretty odd that people running a forum can "accidentally" ban, no? I used to be an administrator myself on a message board for several years and I have NEVER accidentally banned myself or anyone else. I had to deliberately choose to ban a member and the software on the message board I worked at was the same as DoNM, phpBB. Shoddy professionalism if I have ever seen it. Sounds to me like Danu and Light's posts are a convenient way to publicly make them seem innocent so that they can just go around banning people for no apparent reason. See the proof for yourself:
Light: I accidentally banned a member, too, but she was brave and polite, and was like, "Um, gee, is there a problem with something? I got banned..." And I was like, "Yeah, you bet there's a problem... I'm a freaking idiot!"And Danu's:
You know who you are, brave and kind woman I banned that day -- how grateful I've been for your mercy...
Just remember, it's nothing I haven't done to myself!
Danu: And yes, ladies, Light did ban herselfAfter seeing these posts the very DAY I was banned for no reason (which should have been a warning sign to me, as it's just too coincidental), I created a second account just so I could contact the first staff member I saw online to find out what exactly was going on. Seeing that Light was online, I contacted her explaining the strange no-reason ban and asking what was happening. A few minutes after sending the PM, I noticed it was opened and I received no reply from Light. Yet another odd sign. I checked again hours later - still no reply. Not knowing what was going on, I decided to contact Danu asking what was going on. To no surprise, I did not receive a reply from her either.. I cannot BEGIN to tell you the mileage I got out of that **chortle**. Until the day I banned myself too!
And even The Nerd, who has Admin powers and has total access to the forum, couldn't get access because of course he's on the same IP address as me and that was banned! LOL.
In the meantime, on the second account I created, I was reading through EVERY one of my posts from May 13th made with the veryluckysallycherry account to see if there was anything that could have been taken up as a violation of rules and there was not a single thing that was offensive in my posts. Moreover, I knew that I had never received any instructions from site management on May 13th.
But things get even MORE insane on the day of August 29th, believe it or not. As I was on the forum reading through my posts, I noticed a new topic by Light in the General Discussion forum titled "missred" (the name of a recently registered user at the time - as a side note, if you are reading this missred, I hope you do not mind me using you as an example to expose Danu and Light's corruption. I will not expose any of your personal information). This post clearly belonged in a private staff forum, but somehow ended up in the public general discussion. I find it quite odd though, that THREE staff members participated in the topic and not one seemed to notice that it was in the wrong forum so that their gossiping was viewable to all. Take a look at what Light says about this member:
Light: member's name is missred
This post scared the crap out of me. Would you guys have a look? I put it in the Q for a bit. I don't know what to think. All I know is, to be honest, I don't want her here after reading that. Maybe that's not really fair, but maybe it's something I should listen to carefully. Like I said, I'm not too sure just yet. I think I need time to think about it. Let's chat about this?
It would have been one thing if she'd said she got into trouble as a kid or something, but this felt like a lot more than that, and I'm feeling pretty uncomfortable with her...
I don't know about missred. There's something that isn't sitting right with me about that post. I just get an intuitive fearful feeling.Wow. Just..wow. I remember reading missred's posts and nothing gave me an "intuitive fearful feeling". She just wrote about her experiences with having a NM in the "My Story" section of the forum, which is meant just for that - SHARING YOUR STORY. They removed her story and even picked on this member in this topic for posting asking where her story went and stating that she hoped she had not broken any rules. Apparently, this had made Light suspicious as she also commented that it was "strange" for her to worry about being banned for breaking rules (I apologize, I do not have the direct quote for that). So..now it's strange for a member to question where their topic went when administration removed it and hope that this did not mean she had broken rules? Sounds like a certain staff member is a bit paranoid. Or at least looking for a reason to drop the ban ax on yet another member.
I guess this must be how they tear up all of their members behind the scenes? They must have had a field day with me, since I talked of how my NM is physically abusive at times. It's pretty odd that these women are running a message board and are willing to so easily ban people on "intuition" instead of PROOF of actual wrongdoing. What's even more disgusting is they are persecuting people for talking about their experiences when their half-assed-run forum is supposed to be for HEALING. What's more, I'd like to know how Light can get "intuition" from text on a screen without seeing or hearing a person speaking.
I felt terrible when I saw missred reply apologetically and offering to deactivate her account. After she replied, the topic magically vanished where I assume it was moved to its proper forum.
Do you see how these women irresponsibly run their forum without even having the "decency" to make sure their catty tearing up of members is kept secret? They could care less if they leave emotionally fragile daughters of narcissists feeling blamed and embarrassed. Danu and Light are TAKING THE PLACE of our narcissistic mothers' roles complete with gaslighting and invalidation in a place that is supposed to be meant for HEALING! This is an outrage and just plain nauseating.
Getting back to my experience, when I checked back again later to see if Danu or Light had responded to me, I was greeted with this message upon logging in:
You have been permanently banned from this board.
A ban has been issued on your IP address.
I couldn't believe it. I wrote one last message to Danu demanding an explanation, but as you can probably predict, I never got a reply.
I was and still am incredibly thankful that by doing a google search of bans at Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers forum, I found Soaring Dove's blog. It gave me the validation that I so desperately needed - that I was not alone or had done anything wrong, but rather Danu and her cohorts are a bunch of insensitive, money hungry individuals who use the emotionally fragile psyches of abused daughters to make an easy buck. All you need to do is go to Danu's website to see the money signs staring you right in the face. She is constantly ramming the EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) down people's throats as if it's a cure-all to psychological problems and making her own little DVDs/booklets as if she invented it. She also looks for donations and states that they are used to pay her bills. There is even an Amazon link at the top of her page and it says next to it, "If you make your purchases through this link it will help with the running costs of this site." So many things scream, "GIVE ME MONEY" on her site, it's sickening. Soaring Dove delves into deeper description about this in addition to her own experience with Danu, so see her blog to learn more. This is her latest blog entry about Danu's dirty deeds.
Interestingly enough, my google search showed another ex-member abused at the hands of Danu. Here is the link and I will provide the excerpt:
"I wanted to thank you for accepting me not only to your Facebook page, but again for posting my story to your website. To my dismay, I tried to join that Daughters Of Narcissistic Mothers website which was so pinpoint accurate to my gruesome upbringing and wherein Danu said "everybody" was welcome, but she yanked my posts (which were mild/toned down as opposed to the graphic one I'd posted on your website) and she banned me, claiming I wouldn't be helped "whatsoever" by joining her website, which she said was for everyone. I was shocked, for I was being honest; would it have been better if I had sugar-coated or lied about my existence? [...] I was very polite and honest and cannot fathom why my posts could have been deemed offensive or how on Earth that woman, who doesn't even use her real name, could sit in on judgement (I know it's judgment, but think it looks wrong without that "E" on there) when all I did was ask to read what everybody had posted. I just am so upset to be shunned by yet somebody else whose existence practically mirrored mine."Here you have it, yet another member unjustly banned from Danu's forum. It's real nice to tell someone they can't be helped and ban them, isn't it? Danu and her staff ban people for multiple insane reasons, not just the crazy unclear code of conduct at her forum. The place is nothing more than an online dictatorship. After my veryluckysallycherry account was banned and I viewed it from the second account, it did not appear banned - it looked as though I was still an active member. God only knows how many people are banned and shut out, while the remaining members are lulled by a false sense of comfort. Sure, it just "appears" that a once very active member like myself who was randomly banned just decided to stop posting. There is no "banned" title below their name as is seen at many other message boards. Same goes for topics they feel are "too sensitive" - they make them "disappear" as they do with members. Danu takes people she feels are a threat to her narcissistic ego and discards them like yesterday's trash, all the while maintaing her glorified image as the caring and well-spoken administrator. The biggest joke of all is the "Health Site Award" on the bottom of her page.
I still wonder at times what it was about me that Danu saw as a threat and made her to decide to cut me off without warning. Her excuse for getting rid of Soaring Dove was merely mentioning her religion and the girl whose post I quoted above was banned for posting "too sensitive" information. I never spoke about my faith and I never had posts of mine deleted, so I really have no clue why they prefabricated a non-existent reason to ban me. Perhaps because I never donated money? Who knows, and who really cares. I found a wonderful place at WoN and if Danu had never banned me, I would probably still be posting at that dictatorship.
What I do care about is getting the truth out and spreading it to all daughters of narcissistic mothers, whether you are contemplating joining Danu's forum or are currently a member there. I know it may be hard for you to realize if you are currently posting there, I can speak from experience. What hurt the most when I was banned from that place was that I was torn away from the friendships I had established with the lovely women there without a way to contact them. The fear of losing those friendships and the validation you receive from your friends at that place is definitely enough to blind you to the proof of Danu's insanity - but I urge you to open your eyes to the truth that all of us unjustly banned ex-members offer to you. I, along with anyone else who has come forward, have nothing to gain by speaking about what has happened to us. I'm not trying to get you to join WoN or any other online group. The purpose of this blog is to warn and save you from hurt. Maybe you will be lucky enough to be spared from a ban, but maybe not. As I said, I still can't come up with a reason for my ban, so Danu clearly doesn't ban with rationality guiding her.
Interestingly enough, Danu replied to Soaring Dove's blog recently, which is full of what I see as pretty big indicators of NPD. If you ask me, I think her decision to respond is because she's starting to worry about all the people beginning to come out and speak about her dirty deeds. Honestly, does she really believe treating her members as though they are expendable would result in them staying silent and not complaining about the injustice done to them?
Bottom line is, everyone's dirty deeds eventually come to the surface and I am very glad that I have finally found the time in my busy schedule to write this blog entry. I can only hope that more and more people continue to come forward with their stories to provide even more validation for the abused and insight to those blinded by Danu's glittering generalities. In conclusion, I feel that it is absolutely disgusting to take advantage of and abuse people who are emotionally fragile because they are easy, trusting targets for the first sign of understanding/validation. Danu, you should be ashamed of yourself.
- Sugar
