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Hey, Larry. Glad to see you checking in, and glad to hear things are mostly good. Also glad that you have been able to limit the drinks successfully. That's great. Well done.

I hope that you start sleeping better soon and that the nightmares go away.

I think you are right to feel you have made progress. I can't necessarily point to a thing you said in the past vs a thing you say now like, say, your therapist could. But the very fact that you are prepared to step up here and say that you have is, to me, ample proof that you have - and probably more than you think. It seems to me that it is very hard for us to give ourselves credit without outside validation. The narcs made us fit their mould so we simply had no way, back then, to even have a view of who we were or what we wanted or whether we had succeeded or failed. We had to rely on the narc telling us, or the teacher giving us a gold star, or the employer saying they were pleased with our work. To have your own internal compass, to be able to step up and say "I've made a lot of progress" is huge.

I also think it is huge to be able to accept and acknowledge that things you expected to be problematic actually went fine. Living with a narc who shapes your entire existence means that one tends to go into every situation with some sort of preconceived idea of what it will be like. If something turns out to be nice that the narc said would be horrid, the cognitive dissonance is huge - plus of course there was the need to reassure the narc that it was, indeed, horrid and they were right all along. So being able to experience something for what it actually is, and then to say what it was like, truthfully, is huge.

I hope you find the break helpful and refreshing.
 

Welcome!

Well done for writing your post. I think it's a great post, not that it would have mattered if it wasn't. It certainly does not come across to me as whiny and depressing.

It sounds like you have already taken some steps along the road to healing and I am happy about that. Here's to many more!

I have always found everyone here to be kind, helpful and supportive and I am sure you will, too. I'm glad you found us.

I wish you all the best and look forward to getting to know you more.

I agree with Papa C that normal does not exist. I think it is a useful construct when used as a starting point for various things. Like, what range of blood readings is "normal". Also, what is "normal" for an individual? For instance, I started taking my temperature every day during Covid (no idea why, seemed like a good idea at the time) and have continued. This is actually kind of useful because I have discovered my "normal" body temperature tends on the low side. So a reading towards the high end of "normal" as per Dr Google is actually on the high side for me and means I need to watch that I am not getting sick.

I don't think it is at all a useful construct when working out whether our behaviour or reactions are "normal". Even if someone is behaving in a patently unacceptable way, such as going round attacking people, how does it benefit anyone to say "ooh, that person is clearly not normal", when what they actually should be doing is stopping the person from doing the attacking and finding out a way to help/prevent them doing it again?

I have often said to my T "is this normal?" or "would a normal person think/do this?" and she always pulls me up on it, asking me what is normal and why I think there is some sort of objective "normal"parameter to judge myself against.

It is a tough time when we start realising there is a little child who was so badly treated and we start feeling for that child. I personally also think it is a mark of progress when we acknowledge that.

Wishing you well, Slashy.

Welcome. I am sorry you have need of such a place as this - but since you do I am very glad you found us. I have always found everyone here to be supportive, kind and helpful. I'm sure you will too.

This is all so familiar.

My mother is the relationship police. She tells me when she thinks I should contact my sister or visit her. I usually say "um" and "ah" and then do nothing.

Occasionally my sister pushes for a visit or trip away together. I dislike these occasions. Partly because I find her difficult and partly because I am utterly sure she is only doing it because mother has prodded her.

Recently my mother contacted me to say she'd had a long conversation with my sister who was very unhappy with her life and they'd had a real heart to heart. Sister is enmeshed, so this was not a total surprise. Then mother said she thought I should visit my sister to give her some support. My mother did not feel she could visit because there had been an argument between them some months ago. I wish I had thought quickly enough to suggest that if my sister was pouring her heart out to her mother maybe it was because she wanted attention from her mother, not delegated attention from me. Alas, I just made non-committal noises. I did vow to make that point if mother ever raised the subject again, but she did not.

The "fatherly duty" is familiar too, though of course in my case it is motherly duty. That old saw is always being trotted out.

As for your last paragraph - I think there is a difference between standing up for yourself against your father and not being able to handle other relationships so you end up ghosting people. I have ghosted many people in my life for very similar reasons to you. But I don't think the experience of standing up to your father (if you do) will translate to communicating your wants and needs to other people. That is something that needs separate practice. Because if you stand up to your father and he just ignores you, or worse, it may just cement your belief that people will always behave badly to you. It would be a mistake to think others would do that if you communicate your needs to them, because most people do not. Even if there is an initial disagreement, once somebody has gone away to think about what was said, it is quite often the case that they come back and you negotiate and compromise and find a way forward. It feels very scary and unfamiliar when this happens. But people will not all treat you as your father does and you can only experience this by interacting with other people.

Welcome. I'm really glad to hear you have a good therapist and have some good protective mechanisms in place.

Thank you for the video about the blink technique. I discover that I have been using it for some time, though not knowing it is a recognised technique. Not counting the blinks, as such, but in the face of any truly bizarre statements or behaviour from my mother (my FOO are all narcs but she is the arch-narc) I just sit there like a cabbage and stare at her. This has actually reduced her in-person outbursts, but not the ones over the phone because silence is less effective when the person does not have to actually watch you sitting there with a blank stare.

Welcome. It's great to have you here.

 

Good for you, CactusFlower. You are, indeed, a writer.

Our art teacher is always drumming this into the class, too. We are artists. We may not be professional artists, since we do not sell our work, but we are artists all the same.

Welcome, Pisa.

As Blueberry has said, progress is not linear. When I started pushing back I found it viciously hard. My T had to do a lot of hand-holding as I struggled through simple things like refusing an invitation to a family party that FOO wanted me to attend. (It was not their party and the host was not at all bothered about my absence.) That refusal gave me grief for around three months - partly due to FOO annoyance but mostly due to my fear of FOO annoyance/retribution and fear that I would not be strong enough to hold my position. I was strong enough, but it did take a huge emotional toll. Gradually it becomes easier to hold firm to boundaries. Remember that you have a lifetime of coping mechanisms that once served you well. And which are familiar, and tempting to revert to. I cannot tell you how many times I would waver about my new boundaries, feeling it would just be easier to roll over like I have always done.

It does get better and easier, I promise you. And I think it is worth the effort. But it is a really tough journey. I wish you strength as you tread this path. And please be kind to yourself.

What a wonderful post. So honest, sharing, informative and hopeful.

Thank you very much.

I wish you all the very best, with life, the book and everything.

 

Thanks for joining us and sharing with us and supporting us. I hope you'll drop in again some time - and hope that it is not because you are struggling but just to give us a really positive and good update on your life. Take care.

I once commented to my T that I thought it was a shame it took me so long to see that there was a problem with my FOO and their treatment of me. Not just a shame; I was kind of berating myself a little for being so blind and stupid for so long.

She stopped me berating myself. And I am glad you are not berating yourself, Hope, but recognising that you have never, until now, been in a position to start processing things. That's similar to what my T said to me, and she also said that she believes we do not start processing things until we are ready. Sometimes we have to live under false impressions and blunder along as we always have because our psyche is simply not ready to contemplate anything else. We've created our protective mechanisms for a reason.

I started doing therapy via writing because it felt easier. It gave me time to marshal my thoughts into something coherent rather than trying to respond on the fly. It felt more comfortable to do that. And it helped me to start processing some of the main issues so I do not at all regret starting in writing. I don't think I would ever have moved on to verbal without doing stuff in writing first.

When I started face to face therapy (via Zoom with the same T I had been doing some written therapy with) I was surprised by how much easier, and at the same how much harder, it was than I expected. Easier because my T is very gentle and understanding and will not push me anywhere I am reluctant to go. She will pick up on things I am finding hard, and will revisit them from another direction, but never in a way that is too tough. Harder, because I thought that I had already done the "betrayal" of my FOO in writing. And yet saying it out loud was different. It felt like a "betrayal" all over again, but it also brought it home to me much more. It made their abuse real in a way that me just writing about it did not. Voicing something is surprisingly powerful - even if you have no listener. So maybe, if you think it would be helpful to say things out loud, you could consider just saying them in the privacy of your own home. You could see how you feel after voicing something and then maybe have a better idea of whether voicing it again to somebody would be something that might help you. I have sometimes just read my writing or posts out loud.

Discard if not helpful, but wanted to share the thought with you.