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Thanks you guys, so happy to have found you all! 

Hey tea-the-artist,

I am also in the same boat. I teared up reading your story, because its very familiar. I really know that feeling and it can be really hard sometimes, remembering that you aren't alone, forgotten, bad or wrong. I agree with the idea of thinking of it as all small steps, of becoming that person for yourself, so that you are always loved and safe, in that way.
I like to think of it as finally coming home, to my self.

Hey all, I am new here and I'm struggling with a lot of anxiety and sadness about an issue with my parents. I'm now living on my own, states away from my family, but I grew up with an cNPD stepfather, and an extremely enabling, co-dependant Mother. I've never liked my stepfather, or felt the need to create a relationship- I've always sort of been able to see through his crap, and so was the scapegoat. However, up until recently, my Mom and I have always  been close, talked regularly, ect. But after waking up and really being able to see the dynamics, I've felt horrible hurt, with a lot of sadness, anger, and resentment. Not from the abuse from my Stepdad, for whom I only really feel disgust, but from the fact that I was never protected from his antics by my Mother. I think this is perhaps where my intensely low self esteem comes from, as well as why I have ended up dating dangerous, toxic people as an adult, because Ive never really had/ known about boundaries.

As I work through these feelings of pain and grief, guided by my therapist as well as Pete Walker's books (I have Cptsd) I find I'm really struggling with talking to my Mom. I know cognitively that she would never hurt me on purpose and loves me a lot, perhaps a less boundaried love than what would be ideal, but she has always been there for me and I know she is sensing me pulling away and asserting boundaries and I feel horrible guilt. She wants me to heal and is very supportive of anything I decide for myself. She is aware of how much I was effected by the abuse /her codependancy to it and we have had meaningful talks about it. She has said that if she could go back in time and change it she would. Yet she is still with this man (he relys on her in every way because he is disabled now). Just now she wanted to catch up on the phone and I heard him speaking in the background and immediately began to have a flashback, and politely got off the phone, though I know she had been hoping to talk more, and kept talking to me about her day even after I told her I had to go and that I was sorry. Also a few weeks ago I explained that I wont be able to come home for thanksgiving, but I related it more to being overwhelmed with work at grad school (which is true but not the whole truth). I feel terrible. I want to see her but my emotions overwhelm me whenever I hear her voice. Ive told her I'd forgiven her and its all water under the bridge, mostly because I know she is susceptible to feeling very guilty and I didn't want to cause more of it, but the truth is I am emotionally struggling with it.

I don't know what to do about this, because I know she is a victim of her own programming/abusive childhood, and is sort of slung between us, which I feel so awful about. Historically my Stepdad would sling her between the two of us and she would be in a pickle, side with him, pressured by his aggression, now I feel like I am "rocking the boat" and I don't want her to suffer for it. How do I stand by myself and attempt to build self esteem, without causing my Mother pain? Has anyone else dealt with struggling to forgive an enabling parent? Or with never having felt protected or important enough to protect, while being told you are loved? Struggle with guilt over what to do? I welcome and appreciate any feedback on this, thanks for reading!

Mine is too. Definitely also from the bullying. I am struggling especially hard with that right now as well. It loves to pile on the evidence of how not good enough I am, which can be paralyzing in the extreme.

I think the bulk of the work in the beginning, as Pete Walker points out, is learning to see the inner critic and disable it. I find that allowing myself to get angry at it (or at least stern with it) helps. Even aggressively talking to it, like if you don't say something nice to me right now, then shut the bleep up. Sometimes giving it a face in your mind, like some ridiculous avatar, helps to see it as "not me".

Other times I use reason, but kind of sarcastically-

IC- "You will NEVER be as good or worthy as everyone else!"
Me- "Oh yeah? So your saying EVERYONE is better, ALWAYS?
IC- "Uhhh.... yes?"
Me- "So like, ALL the time then? Really?!?"
IC- "errrr.... "
Me- "yeah dude, shut up."

Hello,

So this is my first post in a forum, ever actually. Which is hilarious really, because it's such a personal topic. I'm really happy that I found this place, it seems like a really positive supportive community. I am relatively new to all of this, and I must admit, a little nervous about sharing but I know it will be good for me to.

To start backwards, I recently got out of a relationship with an emotionally abusive individual, who may or may not also have CPTSD, (if going by Pete Walker's paradigm, was definitely a  version  of the fight/narcissistic variety. I recognize in myself a freeze type). During this breakup, I was beyond heartbroken, and I had a complete nervous breakdown, which lead me down the rabbit whole of discovering CPTSD, Personality Disorders, ect. That being said, I also have had a hard time leaving my apartment for the past few months, and I live in a state of hyper vigilance bordering on complete paralysis sometimes. There were times when it was difficult for me to even go outside and check my mail box.

Its now obvious to me that this was an extremely long, intense, emotional flashback, mixed with new trauma, emotionally mirroring the state I lived in growing up, and had apparently repressed my whole life until now. I thought I had worked through all of this in therapy years ago, but I admit I was the classic "tough cookie" meaning I had a moderately high tolerance for abusive behavior. But yeah, there is seriously an ocean of sadness and hurt that I am now fully aware of. It took this relationship to finally wake me up to what is the truth about myself: I have no sense of how to protect myself, I have no sense of feeling like I even deserve protection,  putting others way above myself, not being in touch with my own intuition, heeding "red flags" in others, worrying about their problems instead of my own, etc. I'm grateful for this new awareness but recently it has felt very overwhelming. Trying to feel self worth and practicing self care feels a bit like trying to lift a car. My inner critic is relentless in showing me how this is all final proof that I will never be good enough to be loved, and am a lost cause. Right now correcting it is, in itself extremely tiring work, and sometimes feels impossible.

I won't go into major details but basically I was raised in a split family, everyone was either codependant or NPD. Neglect and abuse was literally all I knew. If there was love, it was manipulative or fueled by guilt.  I was also bullied/beat up for having glasses and ridiculously early onset grey hair (gee I wonder why) and that has stayed with me. All I remember that was the connecting thread was feeling like no where was safe, there was never anywhere for me to just exist and be okay. I started turning inward as early as about 3, already a skilled disassociator, then later on art and books and music was all I had to find a safe place from the pain I felt. I am feeling it all now, again, feeling the emotional and actual abandonment, but in the body of an adult. My whole view of myself, love, and trust has been warped by these events.

My goal is to start with giving myself that which I never got and learning to feel okay about asking for help when I need it, but I am also really looking forward to connecting with others that may have experienced something similar and can relate at all!