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Hi Hope.

Just wanted to say that I hope very much that you are feeling a bit better after your illness. These things are so hard to get over when you are already dealing with so much, aren't they?

Take care and hugs,

Libby.

Oh, Hope.

I really understand what you are saying, about feeling lonely and exposed and invaded.

My parents viewed the absence of a lock on the bathroom door as a source of pride. Pride in the fact that we were such a close family,  that there was no embarrassment or shame in all of our nakedness.

When I was in the bath,  mother would often send father to collect a tea towel from the airing cupboard in the bathroom. As I grew older, I tried to hide my nakedness,  never brave enough to say anything,  but father reported this to mother and I was soundly ridiculed for being a prude,  and I have come to realise,  for giving them another example of how I did not want to belong to the family.  I think my father did give me a bit more privacy as time went on (and we moved house, so less excuse in the new place), but the price I paid to maintain my privacy,  was further scapegoating and isolation and emotional abuse. To me, this was an issue of growing up and individuation from them. To them, it was hostile, and, I suppose,  abusive and rejecting, by me.

Little Libby is absolutely with Little Hope on this issue.  It was very wrong, trust was abused and lost and our parents should have known and done better.

Well done, Hope. You have given Little Hope a voice and we support and applaud you for this.

Hugs,

Libby.

You are so right, DR, life is weird.

I certainly didn't grow up in a wealthy family,  and yet,  like you, money was used as a means to emotionally abuse.

As a child, I had an average life in terms of gifts etc, and later on, I had the use of a car,  which was a real bonus. But, I was really made to pay,  emotionally,  for these things. And often,  these gifts weren't what I wanted and needed, for example,  some nice clothes.  They were what it suited my parents to give. And I had to be soooo! grateful.  Needless to say, I was never grateful enough.

As an adult,  I still struggle to allow myself anything.  We live in the UK and often have cold winters.  But I would not heat the house just for me.  I still eat whatever is leftover in the fridge for my lunch, even if it doesn't appeal.

So, maybe it isn't that you feel undeserving of financial security, but more that you just feel undeserving all round, because that is how you have been conditioned to feel. The financial aspect is just part of it. Whatever our situation,  our parents make us feel bad.

You deserve to have financial security, as does everybody.  Don't let that inner voice tell you otherwise.  I don't make myself suffer from the cold now, and am getting better with the food thing. Feeling guilty won't help you or anyone else.

Hope this makes some sense - it has given me quite a bit to think about,  so thank you.

Libby.

Sceal and artemis, I understand exactly what you are talking about.  I have always had a problem with food, but not like a definable eating disorder.  Actually,  I think I am scared of food, because it was used to control me so much by my nm. I find it hard to know if I am hungry or not, I eat something then feel anxious that it was the wrong thing or I feel too full or it will make me ill.  This then feeds into my vomiting phobia. At its most simple level,  it comes down,  I think, to the way if I said I was hungry,  nm would tell me that that wasn't possible because she was not hungry. If I didn't want to eat, I was told I had to because she had cooked it, it was lovely and the whole family were hungry and enjoying it! 

I have improved a lot since being nc with FOO,  but the issue is still very much there and, in fact, it is something that we have just started to address in EMDR therapy.

This is a huge area within trauma, I have read, and our difficulties seem to make perfect sense within the cptsd framework.

I will just ask, if you don't mind, but does anybody have an issue with food smells? I feel as if I really over react to food smells. They can cause flashbacks,  but a food smell I can cope with one day,  can cause such distress another day, that I can't tolerate it and won't eat it.

Thank you so much for talking about this. As ever, we realise that we are not alone in these things and that really helps.

Libby

Thank you all so much for your support and understanding.  By the time the session came along, I actually felt really calm and in control and that is, in no small part, down to all of you.  Thank you so much. You listened to me think through how I felt about the therapist and her requirement that I forgive my parents. You didn't tell me what I should do, which is definitely something I don't deal with well. After all, I have had a lifetime of that from parents,  which I know you understand.  Instead, I was able to work through my feelings. I was able to write a letter (to burn)  to my parents and it felt authentic to me.

In the session, I raised the issue of feeling that she didn't like me because of some thoughts I had revealed.  She turned this around,  and showed me this was the result of a self-limiting belief rooted in childhood adversity.  We then processed this, and it was surprising where it went, as it led to dealing with my fear of being touched and comforted; fear of intimacy and my life long phobia of people vomiting.  We started to deal with all of this, and I am back to feeling very hopeful.

I think you all suggested,  kindly, and in slightly different ways, that I was protecting myself, a bit distrustful of others, that my inner critic was telling me I was unworthy of help.  All were spot on, and you all helped me to work through this "block",  and I feel now that I can trust her. Telling her how intimacy and vomiting had become fused in my mind is something I have never told anyone,  although I think I may have alluded to it on this forum,  because I do feel safe here.

So, all in all, it was a valuable session and I think we are back on track now. I can honestly say that I wouldn't have worked through this without the support and warmth and caring that you have all shown.  I think it was a hurdle that had to be dealt with so that I could move on, and you have all helped me get over it.

I hope that things OK for all of you.

Eyesofblue, I am so pleased to hear that you have this new anxiety clinic lined up. It sounds as if it could be really useful and I am so happy that you are not going to be just left to cope alone. Hopefully,  it will help with all of the emotions that your EMDR has brought to the fore. I will be very interested to hear how it works for you.

Hugs to you all and thank you again. 

We will all speak again very soon, I know, and I look forward to it so much.

Off for a walk in the rain. My dog has been really poorly for the last week but is on the mend now. 

Take care,

Libby.

Hi to everyone.  Hope you are all doing OK.

Thank you for your replies and concern.  As always,  it means so much to me.

My Emdr therapist works for a not-for-profit organisation that has a contract with the NHS to deliver psychological therapies. It is funded by the NHS and she has mentioned that she also works for the NHS directly. So I am guessing that she is as well qualified,  with all the appropriate standards in place. 

I think this is why I have been left doubting myself so much. If she appears to think that I am not sufficiently traumatised,  then I start to question myself.  Other than the gp who persuaded me to look into more therapy,  this is pretty much the reaction I have got from the professionals I have encountered.  Basically,  just a handful of GP's and one counsellor.  I had one course of CBT several years ago, but that didn't focus on the issue of abuse, and that therapist seemed very committed to helping me.

I explained to the GP that I was concerned that I would just feel invalidated again. He was very reassuring and I believe he genuinely wanted to support me to get help for my distress.  Now, exactly what I have feared has happened. When I started the therapy,  I felt it was my last chance to put the hurt of my childhood behind me, so that I could live a fuller life. If it didn't help, I would just accept my lot in life and hide away.

I don't really understand why people are so unwilling to accept my story of abuse. My abuse was physical - my mother had an awful,  violent temper. I was beaten frequently with shoes, mainly, and isolated in my room for a day or two at a time. I admit I was angry.  But then the emotional abuse would kick in, with the silent treatment,  guilt tripping etc, until I had done enough grovelling to be tolerated again.  Never, ever forgot or forgiven. Just stored away for next time. Added to which, there was quite a lot of what people here refer to as covert SA.  It seems enough bad experiences to have left a mark on me, without even going into my mother's behaviour around the birth of my premature twins, when I really needed support.  In my last session, this came up, and the therapist immediately took me back to early childhood memories.  That confused me, but maybe that's because I don't understand the therapy.  Perhaps San or eyesofblue can explain this.

Thank you,  Blueberry,  for reassuring me that being angry doesn't mean I have a PD myself.  I don't think I do, on the whole,  but looking at my current situation and dealings with medical people in the past,  I can't help thinking that this has been their assessment of me. If I tell my story and reveal a bit of myself and how I feel,  I get the impression that they think I am attention seeking and difficult.  I don't think that I am. I rarely bother my GP surgery,  because I feel so invalidated.  Am I imagining this as I am damaged?

I felt hopeful for the therapy,  but seem to have hit the same brick wall as usual.  I am not traumatised enough; am too angry; am not likeable enough.  I just don't know.

I have thought long and hard about forgiving my parents and believe I have managed that.  However,  giving up my anger at them had led me back to depression and lack of motivation.  Is that what the therapist wanted?  Is it a step in the treatment process.  I don't know. But I do know that if I hadn't been angry at my parents,  I would have repeated their behaviour with my own children and damaged them.

I am so utterly confused but hope that tomorrow's session will bring some resolution one way or the other.

Sorry for the long post.  I have been thinking about things so much, that it is good to just get things out there. But if any of you have any thoughts or advice,  I would love to hear from you.

Love to you all from a confused Libby!

I will certainly let you know how things go tomorrow.

I know that feeling,  eyesofblue.  My EMDR therapist was on leave so I didn't have a session last week,  but I have been so, so tired. I have slept a lot and been so lethargic and unmotivated during the day.  Just sat around really.

It's just a thought but could the clock change have played a bit of a part? I am sure it affects me every time. 

It sounds as if you need the sleep to help cope with all of these emotions you are dealing with.  I would say, sleep as much as you like.  You are listening to your body and quite rightly so.

Take care.

Libby.

Welcome, wonderbumble.  Love the name!

Like DR says, most of us here probably relate.  He describes it really well,  I think.

I have been married for 25+years.  My husband is absolutely my saviour.  Without him, I don't believe I would ever have escaped my nm and ef.  It took years after I met him, anyway.  We have been through so much together and survived, and yet,  I still feel so guilty.  I feel like he could have had a much better life without me. In fact,  just yesterday,  I asked him if he ever thought how his life would have been so much easier if he hadn't married me. He said he had never thought that,  but I find that hard to believe!

What I want to say, however,  is the fact that you have these brilliant friendships, a good relationship with your mother and what sounds like a lovely boyfriend,  seems to bode very well for you.  You sound like a very emotionally healthy person,  who understands the issues in her life and will do well.  So don't feel guilty.  You're doing great!

I have never sustained any real life friendships, but the friendship of people here is wonderful.

Take care,

Libby.

Hi juniper shadow.

I just wanted to say hello as it seems like we may have quite a lot in common.  In particular,  I noticed that you say that your abuse was mostly emotional ; that you have had a diagnosis of fybromyalgia; that you are having EMDR and wondering about the validity of memories.  Just the same for me.

I am sorry that you are in such pain at the moment and wish I had something to offer. Unfortunately,  my EMDR has not been going well. I hope very much that you manage to work through this traumatic memory and, if you feel able,  I would be very interested to know how things go for you.

Take care,

Libby.

Thank you all so much for your support. I have so much self-doubt that I just went along whole-heartedly with what she said in the therapy session.  Afterwards, I started to question her take on things. My husband and daughter backed me up. What you have said, echoed their opinions, with a lot more knowledge and experience to back it up. Thank you.

Eyesofblue - your take on it seems so right.  I wanted the therapy to help me deal with my anger so that it doesn't rule my mind. I told the T on my first session with her that I had always felt my mother's treatment of me was wrong and that I had always felt angry with her. And after all, anger is a response to hurt.

San - I think you are right about things going off the rails. She didn't seem sure where to go next and this led to me revealing some thoughts I have. One was about how I dislike being around happy families,  especially those with young children.  I admitted that it is more than envy, it is much more visceral. She asked me "were you not a happy family when your children were young?"  I answered no and explained why as it is all linked to my relationship with my parents.  I also touched on my mother's take-over of my life with regards to intimacy and fertility. Also very relevant to my overall problems.

She didn't respond in any way, as far as I can recall. I think she did some more EMDR,  but she kept talking about me being three years old in the memory,  but I was about nine. I think this could have been my fault because the initial memory was in a park, which led me to remember a later, more upsetting memory,  which happened in the same park.

Her assertion that I cannot be helped unless I give up my anger came up after all this.

I have given it a lot of thought.  I do want to heal desperately.  I am so tired of the hate, which does spill over into a hate of society - a society that reveres parents and the family so much, that we just can't have a voice. But that said, I like most people I interact with,  am very tolerant and empathise with anybody who is suffering.  Recently,  my son was being bullied at work, and I still felt sorry for the bully, because I am sure he had been bullied in the past.  He was disciplined about it, but I told my son to always treat him well as we don't know his history.

I wonder if she decided after all this, that I am more borderline PD than suffering from trauma? I certainly don't think that she sees me as particularly traumatised,  just angry. Perhaps I am, symptoms overlap a lot.

Anyway,  I have decided to go to the next session in a few days time.  I go with no preconceived ideas about how it will go. But having your feedback and having thought and read around the subject may help me deal with whatever comes up.

Thank you again for all of your advice and support.

Hope - your replies to me are never triggering. Just caring and supportive and exactly what I need to hear!

Hugs to everyone.

Libby.

Dear Eyesofblue.

It's so sad to hear about how bad you are feeling at the moment.   I can sympathise with the need for alcohol at times like this. We know it's not good but it's something that helps.  I just can't see that it is right to work on these deep seated issues with you, and then leave you high and dry, so to speak,  without support,  just because you have got to the end of your eight week session. Other conditions wouldn't be dealt with like this.

It's a silly thing to say, but I would gladly transfer the "credit"  for my remaining NHS sessions to you. It's wrong to stop treatment that is of benefit, just because the system says so.

I don't have anything much to offer but just wanted to say that I am thinking of you and supporting you, like you have supported me.

Please take care and keep in touch.

Hugs,

Libby.

Hi to everyone.  I have been keeping up with all of your posts and hoping that you are all OK,  but have felt a bit shell-shocked after my last therapy session a week ago.

Looking back, it seemed different from the start.  The T questioned why I still had some back pain and said it must be physical.  Then she asked me why I am still scoring myself as so anxious.  Finally,  she said that EMDR would not work while I was still so angry with my parents.  Her rationale was that an angry adult could not soothe a hurt and angry inner child.

Consequently, my task was to go away and forgive my parents.

What take do people have on this.

I know I am angry with my parents and am angry at things that remind me of them. My T told me a long story about how she had forgiven her neighbours after a boundary dispute.   Good for her, but it just reminded me of my nm telling me how perfect she is and how imperfect I am.

Since then,  I have read a lot on forgiveness.  I realise I have forgiven a lot of people a lot of things. I am never outwardly angry.  Also, I have forgiven my parents in that I understand why they behaved like they did; I have no desire to exact any revenge on them and wish them no ill will any more. I have let them go because I know I can expect nothing from them and it is kinder for all of us to be no contact. 

Unfortunately, they are still in my head, and if I think of the past,  I can't seem to help being angry.  I hoped that the therapy would help with this step. 

I have questioned whether EMDR is appropriate for narcissistic abuse treatment.  After all, the T seems to deal with very vivid images of abuse. I have some memories of being beaten,  but the damage done to me was far more subtle, far more emotional,  far more of problem with the relationship between my mother and I,  where she believed we were one person,  other than she was good and I was bad.

I just don't know if this forgiveness and letting go of anger is the next step.  I want to do this but it is a real struggle because virtually every thought I ever have is linked directly to my mother. Even the most mundane of things is influenced by her.  It's weird and I want it to stop.  I had hoped this treatment would help but,  at the moment,  I feel like I have been rejected again.

The therapist said there was no right or wrong way to do EMDR but it seems I am doing it wrong. The push-pull, double bind trauma of my relationship with my mother has reared its ugly head again.

I could really do with in-sights, advice, opinions,  anything,  because I am not sure how to move on at the moment.

Thank you for listening,

Hugs,

Libby.

Hello,  walkwithme.

I am really sorry to read about what you are going through.  I can sense your distress.

Your post struck a chord with me in several ways.  I always lived with my parents but nm made her hatred and resentment very clear.  Also like you,  although I have no memory of being sexually abused, I feel something is not right. My best guess for me, is that it was always made very clear to me that my body was not my own. My privacy was invaded,  my body was violated on occasions.  It was more to do with power than sexual gratification,  I think, but has affected me deeply.  I have generally been scared of all intimacy,  have relied heavily on dissociation and sex has become mixed up in my mind with very unpleasant things.

I am not sure that this will help you in any way, but I just wanted to say that you are not alone in wondering about abuse (or not) leading to difficulties around intimacy.  My husband doesn't know the details of my problems around sex, but sort of accepts they are there.  We have a happy marriage without sex now that we are older!

With regards to the gender swapping,  I can only say that cptsd seems to be able to produce any number of types of thinking,  however unusual they may be. I have strange thought patterns that I have never fully shared.  One of mine is linked, I believe,  to lack of control/loss of control. Could your gender swapping thoughts be linked to power and control, with men being viewed as more powerful and in control. You mentioned being scared of your uncle, a man. Then, there is the connection of sex and control and so on. So full circle.

I hope I haven't said too much, but this is something I have been thinking about with regards to the therapy I am doing.  There is so much I want to deal with.

I wish you all the strength you need to start to deal with all of this. With cptsd,  knowledge really is power so find out all you can and I suspect that your thoughts will start to make some sense for you.

Take care,

Libby

Welcome to OOTS, Sarkatharas.

I am very sorry to read about what you have been through with your father.  I relate to much of what you wrote,  in my case it was a controlling, cruel mother and weak, enabling father. 

I went NC five or six years ago.  I was in my forties and it was the first time I had ever stated how I felt about nm. It was actually more that they rejected me and my family,  and I have not really heard from them again. I'm sorry to hear about the love bombing and FM 's - I never experienced that,  so can't really offer advice.

What I can say, however,  is that I believe you are doing the right thing,  because you say that you are a better parent to your children.

This was the key for me, too. My mind was so full of dealing with my mother and all of her mind games etc, that I didn't have much left over for my children.  Although NC was very difficult at first,  I realise now that my relationship with my three children,  but especially my daughter began to improve.  Things had never been bad, but just got so much better.   My children do not miss their grandparents at all - they were fine with them when they were very young,  but as with me, didn't accept them as people in their own right. 

NC is hard but it sounds as if you know it is right for you and your family at this time . It sounds as if you have started the healing process already.

I found that learning everything I could about cptsd, NPD,  NC and so on really helped on this long but worthwhile healing journey.

Wishing you every strength in dealing with all of this.

Libby

Well done, cookido.

In my experience, once you have one of these breakthroughs, others are sure to follow. Keep telling yourself how proud you are. That is such a valuable thing to do. And tell all of us here,  because we are proud of you as well!

Libby.