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Thanks hope

I feel welcomed

Thank you Bright Arrow

You have a cool user name

As a kid I was a "problem boy" always getting in trouble in school, risking bieng expelled, getting into fights, doing mischievous things, like breaking things, destroying property. I even was a little bit of a pyromaniac.

I calmed down when they changed me to another school and since I didn't know anyone, my wild ways got me isolated from the group. It was so traumatic that I changed completely and became very tame. And got to the other pole of the spectrum, accepting mistreatment and even bullying from others in order to still be part of the group.

But I wonder. What's the actual process of becoming a black sheep or an "evil" kid that likes to destroy?

As a kid I didn't did this only in school, also in my grandma's house that had a big garden were me and my cousins (lead by me since I was the older) liked to break things, it was mostly debris so it wasn't really a trouble. But sometimes we threw rocks to lamps, as a competition of who would break it. Or set wooden boards on fire. wich was more serious

As an adult you could say it was a way to call for attention, or to express anger, or just a result of being physically abused. But as a kid I don't really thought about it like that. I just loved to break things, it gave me a sense of adventure and made me feel alive, maybe independent. I don't really know. But I loved bonding with my cousin through destruction, to me we were just playing.

So I guess my question is, why does it happen? I mean if you get violence at home, shouldn't you hate violence? If you see that getting into this type of behavior gets you in trouble, which translates into more shaming, more violence, more mistreatment, Why would anyone lean more into it???

Is like thinking: "So you think I'm a bad kid? Then I'll give you the baddest kid you'll seen!"

But why? it's counterintuitive

Hello Kizzie

I agree, with a lot of the things you've said.

I have envied narcissist myself tho. And they seem very smart to me, but in a more classic definition of intelligence, like Chart said in his comment. More of an intellectual (book smart, academic) type of intelligence, and a cunning scammy type of "empathy" and people leading intelligence

Just yesterday I heard a quote from Jodie Foster, I believe. I don't remember it exactly but it went along the lines of not being naive and realizing that a lot of evil people succeed and they don't get the "divine punishment" they deserve sort of speak. But it ended with "I've seen a lot of evil people succeed, but never at peace"

I also agree that there's a lot of sociopaths on power, it seems that we live in a sociopathic society wich kinda awards this types of behavior.

I've been thinking how we should make people in politics and big CEOs take psychopathic tests to prevent them from possitions of power that ultimately end up harming us and the world. Cause the narcissist I've met, they are harmful, but I don't see them as really dangerous. But then I think the difference is that they don't have the power and the reach to be really dangerous as they could

It seems to me that this work we are all doing individually, but also sharing collectively in this forum is more important than we as individual perceive. If we at some point have a critical mass of people we could hopefuly even change society itself

Trigger warning? maybe?

I saw a post the other day that I didn't get to comment, cause I had to go. And now I can't find it.

But between other things, she mentioned how she compared to her NPD ex, and how succesful he is in his career. And I've seen that as a common thing that narcissists are succesful on their careers. But you shouldn't envy them and here is why:

Ok, first of all, I know we all hate narcs in here, and that may make us feel like they're less, and we feel superior moraly. But that can also blind us to see how many good qualitys they have (used selfishly, but they're still amazing)


I think this applies more to covert types, but here we go:


1- Narcissist are very very smart. I don't really know why or how, but in my experience they are. Maybe cause they're strategic. I don't know


2- There's a hard truth we need to accept. MERITOCRACY DOESN'T EXIST. at least not 99% of the time. We are social animals, so being good socially is the most importan thing to succeed in a human society. Great minds like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk (I don't like them, but I'm making a point) They didn't create their empire, they found the right people, put them together, gave them direction and had massive success, because they were socially smart. so...

Narcissists are great at manipulating people and getting the best of them, so that's whey they succeed so easily career wise


3- Narcissist are very aware of what others may think or find interesting, they are always scanning for that. So in a way they can predict what will work in certain environment, so they'll probably make good decisions on their jobs


4-They're chameleonic. They change their tastes, and personalities for whatever they need, and since they're psychopaths they will do whatever they need, and be whoever they need to get the results they want.


But the thing is, they don't have a vision. They just do what they know will work. They don't really take risks. What they do has no soul cause they are slaves of success, slaves of being seen as great. They are not actually free to do what they really want. They don't propose anything new. They are terrified of proposing what they would really like.

If you, a C-PTSD survivor, have fought all your life to even exist, to be treated as a human being. You know what is like to be afraid and go through it.

You might not be as succesful as a narcissist right now, but that narc success is shallow. When you have a truth, a vision, is more important to be truthful and honest than to be easily succesful. When you finally succeed, you'll feel great knowing you didn't conform, and you didn't sell out for cheap approval

You are free from that approval, cause you never had it, and you are here, you survived.

And I know we all crave it, we are humans after all. But we won't get it if we succeed being fake. We have to learn other social skills maybe and have other visions about yourself.

Success = being loved and accepted.   That´s a trap. And you should separate both in order to really be succesful career wise.

the people that really changed the world, had an oppresive amount of resistance and opposition from the regular people, but they didn´t care, they had a vision, they had a higher goal than being socialy approved.

So keep going.

You can be succesful, and also be loved an accepted, one may come first than the other. But they are parallel to eachother.

Thanks Dolly

Glad to be here

Hey Dessert Flower

I come here from another response you did on a post of mine where you left the link to this post

Something that really spiked my attention are your fantasies about a double agent dad. I used to dream about my dad being in shady things, like the mafia or the goverment or things like that. In my dreams I would often find him and ask him "*? aren't you suppossed to be dead?" and then he explains he had to fake his death cause they were after him

My dad was a very secretive man when he was alive, so is normal to assume I would dream things like that. but a lot of years later what surprised me the most, was to realize that when he was in his dying bed a lot of letters from the bank were sent to our house, and my mom learned he was in very big debt, like unpayable debt. But he had ensurance and when he died the debt was paid.

Which made me think that my intuiton wasn't so bad, I mean if he haven't died, maybe he would had to fake his death or scape or something shady.

And also reinforce the idea that he actually wanted to die and was trapped in a dead end, financialy and with our family.

For me it was debastating, my dad was a complex man, he always supported my interest, but could get very violent at times. He had mystery around him. But it was my only ally in the family and when he died I became kind of an orphan inside my own family

I did the mourning several years later, when I was an adult. And some of the thingss that opened it up for me was when I did ayahuasca and he appeared and told me to let him go. It was intense I cried a lot. I still get watery eyes as I write it.

We are all different, I'm not a therapist, I don't know if you should or shouldn't mourn or feel something regarding your father's death. But I was a little older than you, 12, so I had a close relationship with him and it really affected me.

I just wanted to share the secret life fantasy with you. I hope you find an answer too

As I said on another post. Hypnosis is great to untap blocked memories or distant life experiences, maybe it could help you connect with your dad, or the moment he died. But I warn you. It could get very intense, there's probably a reason why you numbed it

Glad I can help

The hypnosis scares me though, I think because it makes me think I will lose control and that's frightening to me because of things that happened. On the other hand, the technique of 'Imaginairy Rescripting' that I'm now into with my therapist, may also have some elements of hypnosis in it and this IR has been very helpful.

Regarding hypnosis, if you have a skilled therapist that can read you is a great help to get into scary emotions. Is basically someone guiding your imagination.

I remember some sessions when he made me a giant to confront certain scary memories, or putting an aura of protective energy around me, like dragon ball or something (I imagined it like that)

Is like getting into a dream with a guide, and when it gets nightmareish, the guide will protect you and empower you

Thank you everyone for your input and kind words.


I'm surprised to see a lot of you had the same family structure with the dead dad an all.


I think I feel bad for her cause I can see how her life was even harder than mine, and she had very a horrible childhood herself. Even if she might be a narcissist, she did better than her own mother.

I think she said sorry, cause over the years, after doing a lot of interpesonal workshops a few times I confronted her about thinks she did on my childhood. She always apologized, but in a very cold way. I don't think she really ment it, or really understood why it was an issue. But she have the general idea of doing something wrong. Or maybe as the possibility of not being NPD she was just numb, like all her life.

I agree with you that is more important to focus on myself, and to see how it feels to be around her. That's the compass, and if it doesn't feel good, then I have my answer

I also agree that cutting ties officially would had been worse and more scandalous for the rest of the family (uncles, cousins, even childhood friend who know her, etc) than just keeping very distant ties as they are

Thank you very much to all of you

 

I'm very confused.

If you had similar experiences I'd love your input.

When I discovered all about NPD it was really clear that my mom was one. My brother the golden boy, me the scapegoat, and my dead dad was co-dependant on her.

The description of Narcissistic family structure, was very similar to my family, and the feelings or thoughts of a scapegoat description, were very similar to mine. So it was simple math.

When I realized, I didn't cut ties, cause we were already distant, but kept relationships at a minimum.

But this year my mom did something very unexpected that really surprised me: she wanted to talk.

I went to her house and she was crying, she told me she was very sorry for everything, for being such a bad mom and she was very worried about me cause she thinks I'm going nowhere in life and she felt guilty about it.

I told her it was ok, she asked why I never tell her anything about my life. I told her because she is so pessimistic that she always brings me down


after that we kept talking a little more.

I still feel uncomfortable around her, and if it was for me I would never see her again, because the damage, even if she is honestly sorry, is already done.

She lives with my brother, and I'm distant to my brother, we were never close, but we don't hate eachother either. I still feel sad about losing the oportunity of having a brother as a friend.

And it got me thinking.

Maybe she is getting softer cause she is older?

The things that make me think she is a narcissist, to list a few:

-The preference for my brother over me, creating the golden boy - scapegoat dynamic
-She never wanted to do things with me as a child
-When my father died, instead of talking about it as a normal person, she sent me for a week to live with my uncle (he's a cool guy tho)
-She always bring me down about my ideas and projects as an artist, she only cared about money
-As a kid she alwasy called me dumb (but to be fair she always calls herself dumb when she mess up)
-When I confronted her about things like treating me a certain way, or never talking to me about my father's dead, she said she didn´t knew, that I seemed like I was doing fine
-She convinced my father who didn't want kids, into having me. My father was from a high class family, and later in life she benefited from it
-She tricked my father into having another baby (my brother) by removing her contraceptive method. when my brother was 3, she told him
-Because of that my family was very polarized, my dad was distant to my brother and close to me, and my mother distant to me and close to my brother
-My dad died of cancer and in deep debt when I was 12. I think he wanted to die. I think he felt betrayed by her and things would never the same between them. He had low self esteem and it was very shy, my mother was her only important relationship in his life
-I'm an actor, she never went te see me on any of my plays, or cared for the things I did


The things that make me doubt

-She has been on antidepresants all my life, I have probably never seen her as she really is
-She was scapegoated in her family as well
-She was sexually abused as a kid
-She tried to kill herself a few times when she was younger
-She is very lonely, doesn't really have friends, spend all her time on bed watching tv or drinking beer
-She is not very emotionaly supportive, but she transfers me money monthly since I started living by my own, even tho I never asked her to. she was good at business (sometimes I feel like she is buying me, to keep contact) At first I'd really considered not taking her money, but then I thought if it serves as compansation for all the abuse, I might as well take it and use it for therapy.

And I wonder, maybe she is just very numbed and emotionally iliterate, but not really a narcissist. Maybe she is narcissist but as she gets old she realize she needs me and she wants to keep contact cause she don't have many people around.

either way I feel sorry for her, it makes me sad, and that's why I keep contact with her, distant, but still contact.
Maybe she is playing me?

What do you think??


 

Hey, Papa Coco.

such a shame you had so many bad experiences. I only had one experience with CBT regarding insomnia, it worked wonders. I guess it's supposed to work for more specific issues like that.

I don't know where are you from, but at least in my country, this toxic shame condition, feels rather new, so I don't know much where to find therapists specialized in this

The EMDR therapist I talked to, didn´t knew what it was either, but when I described it a little bit more he said "oh, so it's like C-PTSD" so that gave me hope.

Let's see who things go

wish you success

I don't know if any of you are into anime, but Naruto, the character, is the ultimate C-PTSD survivor


I know it's fiction, but I think he has a very inspiring story. From a lonely orphan boy that always felt left out and got mistreated by his whole village, to becoming the most beloved autorithy figure.

He gets to the heart of his "enemies" by being vulnerable, being emphatic and speaking his truth.

It's beautiful to see him mature as the story advances, from a mischivious boy that wants to be the leader of the village to be important and feel seen. To becoming a sensible and diplomatic young boy that wants to become the leader to protect his village and find peace in war times.

There's also another character called Gaara, that starts very unhinged as a villain, and has the saddest backstory, the most toxic and abusive family, only someone like Naruto, that has a similar upbringing, could understand him and really change his life

I cried my eyes out watching that part

I really recomend it

Hey Dessert Flower

I feel you

I didn't have feelings for a long part of my life. I couldn't even mourn the death of my father properly. I was numbed and actually very afraid of all the things that were going on inside me. I was like a robot, I knew what to do, how to do it and what I wanted. But I didn't knew why I did the things I did or why I wanted them.

Suddenly feeling things you weren't allowed to feel is a very intense experience, but I think feeling it as raw as it can be is the most direct way of transforming it.


Here are 3 things that really helped me:


1- Reading The Art Of Letting Go by David. R Hawkins.

It gives you some kind of hierarchy between emotions in order of how they vibrate. I don't really know how you can measure an emotion vibrations, but it give you a sort of guide or order to see were you are at.

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY it advices you to process your emotions so you can let them go. How? there's no secret technique. Just feel what you feel. Don't think to much about it, is not important were does it come from or how the emotion is called. Most important is to feel it as bodily sensation and dive deep into it. Let the emotion tells you what to do. It might tell you to cry, it might tell you to clench your fist and hit something or scream, it might tell you to shiver. Let it happen.

Make an habit of feeling your emotiones, 10 minutes a day, 30 minutes, 1 hour. what you think is best. Is kind of a long process, some emotions might last very long and are very tiring. But if you are persistent, you'll see results.
Some day you'll realize you don't feel so intensily about things that would trigger you in the past.


2-Hypnosis

I was into hypnosis for entertainment purposes, hypnotizing my friends and my GF at the time, only to entertain their imaginations and have fun. But I figured I should get hypnotized myself, to understand it from the inside. So I went.

The therapyst asked me a lot of questions, about my family, childhood, etc. The typical questions from a therapyst. And then offered me to get some things from my subconscious mind to my consciousness (since I wasn't trying to heal something in particular)

After that I felt very uneasy and sad. The next day I had a full panic attack

The next session (I booked a new one) he told me that happens sometimes, but it happens mostly during the therapy so he can deal with it when it happens (I was so numb that it took me a full day to really feel it)

And then he told me that by the things we talked in the last session, he thought that I've been depressed from a very early age, so early that I don't even realize that is not normal to always feel the way I feel. It blew my mind. That was the first time I got conscious about it.

Navigating difficult inner emotions with the guidance of an hypno therapist could make it easier in my experience. And it gets deep faster than other therapies



3- Body Emotional Release.

It's kinda similar to letting go, but with some guidance an more people. Also it has more science to back it up

I don't remember the specifics, but science goes like this: Whenever you feel an emotion it releases a lof of chemicals into your body to make you take an action and do something about it. But when you don't do anything, then those chemicals just stay there in your body, your muscles etc. And if you often supress that emotions you start accumulating it, so you carry a lowkey uneasy feeling with you.

I went a few times, they make you do physical movements or hold difficult positions that start triggering certain emotions and they encourage you to express them as truthful as you can. Don't hold anything in. Some people would cry, some would scream, some would shiver, some would hit a very big and hard cushion they had for that purpose. Some would get in a soft surface and make a tantrum kicking and punching the floor.

It's kind of weird and intimidating at the beginning, but after it's over, you feel amazing.

THE MOST USEFUL THING FOR ME that I took from it, was the importance of making sound when you express emotions. You actually activate a lof of muscles when you emit sounds, so it's a more complete form of release.

When I used to process emotions of rage using the letting go method, I clenched my fist, and tighten my legs and whole body. But since I started screaming at the top of my lungs it feels so much better and effective for releasing.

Also when I cried I used to do it very silently but I learned to emit sound if it feels like it when I cry deeply


Regarding the screaming I would advice you 2 things:


1- Don't think of screaming as we normaly do, like a growl or a raspy unhinged voice, If you scream like that you will hurt your throat. Start more just like a normal voice or a singing voice. Like holding an "AAAAAAAA" and adding more strenght to it, pushing from your diaphragm. As you push your emotion into it, it will sound louder. Keep it until you feel the emotion is out

2- To not disturb my neighbors I do it on my car when I'm alone. But my favorite is to do it when I'm at home I have found the best is to bite a pillow and scream into it. Even if you scream as loud as you can, it really diminish the sound. Not even my roomate hears it.

I hope this helps

Hello John

Maybe it's a little late for this reply and I hope you already found a solution. I'm about to start ERMD next week, so it gives me hope to see that you already had some results with it

I can relate. My mother had some postpartum depresion and wasn't there for me. I don't really remember it, but later she was very distant. She never wanted to play with me. She arrived from work and took a nap everyday. But for some reason she always wanted to do things with my little brother. My father was there for me but he died when I was 12. I felt very alone in the family, he was my only ally. My mother never spoke to me about his death. I did my mourning all alone and incomplete, so I got to do it a lot later in life.

Before I even could name what was going on with me and my family I discovered the art of letting go. And it was life changing for me. It's very simple. I just take some time of my day to feel the emotion I'm feeling. Not to thing much about it, as to name it or from were does it come from. Just feel it as a bodily sensation.

It's extremely intense, and it feels horrible at the beginning. Cause is the most direct approach, feel the thing you don't want te feel, feel the feeling you've been avoiding your whole life. It sucks at the beginning but with some time and persistence I felt the intensity of certain emotions diminish, and I don't get trigered as easily

Hope it helps.

Hello

My Name is León.

During the pandemic, as I was locked up and living alone, I watched tons of Youtube videos of different topics (I'm curious about a lot of things) and that let me to videos about Narcissistic disorder. It was a rabbit hole.

First I realized that one of my most damaging relationship, that I couldn't get over even tho I had a lot of other relationships in between, even tho it was very short lived, almost inexistent, even if it happened like 8 years ago at that time, it was actually with a covert narcissist girl. She did all the things they talked about in the videos.

And I realized I wasn't pathetic for still thinking about her, and I wasn't dumb for falling for her. That's what narcissists do, it feels like a drug, a very addictive one. Then I realized that the beautiful parts of that relationship were a lie. It really was like a gift from heavens. I SAW THE TRUTH!!

But then I wondered how couldn't I see it in so much time. So the rabbit hole let me to videos about narcissistic families. And the family dynamics between siblings being rivals and distant, the roles of golden boy and scapegoat, the relationship between a narcissistic mother and a weak character father. It was exactly like my family.

For the first time I didn't feel like I was a bad son for being so distant to my mother, or for not loving her, and it was such a release. It wasn't my fault, my intuition was right all along. I wasn't guilty for feeling that way, it was a natural response

And even if it sounds weird I WAS SO HAPPY TO BE A VICTIM!! IT WASN'T MY FAULT!!

I must admit after that I got a little paranoid about narcissists between the people I knew, close friends and relationships, I realized they didn't have the personality disorder (they weren't psychopaths) but some of them still had a lot of narcissistic traits.

I spoke to some of them that I loved and felt like I was being mistreated, not abused, but I felt like I was treated unkindly or like I was lesser than them. I tried to set boundaries and I lost some of them. It really hurt. and I realized I let people treat me like that cause of my low self esteem and lack of boundaries, but what hurt the most was to think that if I had been healthy and set boundaries from the beginning, maybe we haven't even been friends at all.

after that period I felt lighter. Before this realization I had been doing some emotional release exercise that were really helpful, so I kept doing that. I also took psycho analisis therapy a few years after, but for me it was a waste of time. But in general I felt better

Nowadays I had been feeling a lot of anxiety towards an artistic project I'm already in, I'm getting outside of my comfort zone being confronted to asking for help, working with others, I had some trauma regarding being humilliated in the past cause I didn't sing very well when I was younger.

I don't feel comfortable sharing my project with my circle of friends that are musicians, that shared a band with me when we were kids, and learn music together with me. I have some impostor syndrome going on. I'm still moving forward, but it becomes a burden to do it with such anxiety. And I feel very alone in this project so far. I have met some new people that help me, or give me advice. People that believe in me and support me, but they have their own things going on, so is more a moral support than anything else.

A week ago I stumbled upon youtube videos about toxic shame and felt very identified, then I realized it's all related to being a scapegoat from a narcissistic family. They recomend to see a lot of information about it, and also to find peers and people who had suffered the same. So that's why I'm here.

I would love to find some in person meetings, but I haven't found it on my country yet, I'm from Chile.

In the videos i've seen so far they recomend cognitive behavioral therapy as the best for this kind of trauma, So I asked a psychologist friend that does that, to recomend me some colleagues to treat. But he said that he'd been doing some EMDR lately and he thinks it's way better for trauma than CBT.

I trust him, so on monday I have my first session with a new EMDR therapist that my friend recomended.

And that's my story so far.

Thank you for letting me be part of this forum