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From what I am understanding the FIGHT response does manifest itself as Narcissism.

DEFINED
Fight types avoid real intimacy by unconsciously alienating others with their angry and controlling demands for the unmet childhood need of unconditional love Fight types are unconsciously driven by the belief that power and control can create safety, assuage abandonment and secure love.

ACTIONS
These types learn to respond to their feelings of abandonment with anger and
subsequently use contempt, a toxic amalgam of narcissistic rage and disgust, to intimidate and shame others into mirroring them and into acting as extensions of themselves. The entitled fight type commonly uses others as an audience for his incessant monologizing, and may treat a "captured" freeze or fawn type as a slave or prisoner in a dominance-submission relationship. Especially devolved fight types
may become sociopath,

Pete doesn't have a good opinion of the fight type, from what I can tell.  He doesn't give them a high chance of recovery.  I believe that uBPD late husband was this.  I was certainly a freeze/fawn type kept submissive and controlled by him. 

I also think my brother tends towards this F.  We have a good r/s, but that is mostly b/c I am easy-going (sometimes fawning), and don't challenge him.  I don't think he has fully blown N, but he's way higher up on the spectrum than me.

I read the book, and it was ok.  I am not sure it gave me more info than I already had regarding enmeshment.  I guess this is a topic I've read about and discussed in therapy for years.  A T brought up the term to me about a decade ago. 

The take away from the book is that I need interests and friends.  Yep, I already knew that.  This is very hard for me to do right now, and I have some issues to work thru before I can even attempt that.  I don't leave the house much, I'm isolated, and don't trust people. 

I know that it would be easier to rely on my mom less if I had other support.  I don't know of any support groups.  I live in a poor, rural area.  Actually, my location is part of my reason for being scared to try to make friends.  The majority of people I have met in my area are poor and needy and not afraid to ask for money, rides, etc.  I have had to cut off a few of these sorts of people, and I don't want any more in my life!

Your story is very familiar to me.  I drank heavily for many years.  And then I stopped a few years ago.  I always worried about going back to drinking b/c I didn't know why the cravings left me so abruptly, when I had tried many times to quit in the past with no success.  Pete's book gave me the answer - I had learned to put myself into the freeze (disassociative) state without the alcohol.  I knew I had drank to numb the feelings.  When I realized that I had just learned to numb without the alcohol, I could finally relax in sobriety.

I also suffered for many years because I did not have the language or words to tell the doctor what the problem was.  I just said I was depressed, over and over again, and I think he got tired of hearing it.  When I finally realized that my numbness was much of the problem, I was prescribed wellbutrin, which is an activating drug.  It helps with the numbness, but is no miracle.  I was on Lexapro/Celexa for the better part of 20 years, and I have no idea if it really helped.  I seem to feel worse when I go off of it, but it certainly doesn't turn me into the productive member of society that I want to be.  I am experimenting now with Zoloft per the new psychiatrist I am seeing.  Right now I am in the switching stage from Lexapro to Zoloft, and seem to be in a pretty bad place.  I am waiting it out to see if the Zoloft works after a few weeks.

Once I realized I had CPTSD, I sought out a trauma T.  We are doing EMDR and talk therapy.  I have done some CBT on my own, and it is useful as well.  I don't know anything about relational T besides what you wrote here, I'd be interested in learning more.  I'll google it.

I also have that problem.

The worse problem that I have is that I am always worried that I have posted the wrong thing and that I am going to get in trouble or hurt someone else.  I guess I have this problem in real life as well.  Every once in a while, I'll actually voice an opinion or question someone else.  Or just do anything that gives too much of a glimpse into my real self.  That usually scares me to the point of shutting down and retreating for days (flight).  I don't think I have recently had an instance where I have been yelled at or challenged or ruined a relationship because of that.  It seems to be an ingrained behavior from childhood and my years as a chose where I was taught that it was not safe to ever express what I really thought of something if it was in opposition to my mother or husband.

Maybe over time I will get better at that, but it's going to be slow based on recent examples.

I'm with you, E.O. I'm hoping I can catch myself and say "you're doing it again" now that I know what is.
Tough habit to break. No, never to anyone's face. - just stinkin' thinkin' as Jack Handy used to say.

The other troubling part is that much of my humor is based on making fun of others.  I blame growing up in the age of seinfeld, but I sure use my sarcastic, critical skills to make humor at other's expense.  Usually just people on TV, because I don't get out much, but that's bad enough...

I guess it's depression, which is part of the CPTSD.  When I came OOTF, I realized that for the last 2+ years, I have ignored everything in my life that wasn't screaming for attention.  I don't work, so you'd think my life would be in order.  But it's a mess.  I make the basic effort to keep the house clean enough that I'm not living in squalor, and I usually manage to keep the bills paid before they are late.  Other than that, I just can't get myself motivated enough to care about anything. 

It's particularly bad now, when I am not even interested in doing anything enjoyable.  Usually I at least like to read or watch tv, but there are plenty of days that I spend in bed, or just sort of staring off into space.  I have therapy tomorrow, and I don't want to go.  I don't want to talk, analyze, or work on anything. 

I do have good days, where I work frantically to try to catch up on the things I neglect.  But they aren't often or consistent enough for me to gain any traction.  I'm constantly in catch up mode. 

I think this is also the freeze part of CPTSD. 

Does anyone relate?  Have any advice about getting thru this?  I try to just force myself, but that doesn't work much. 

This is one of my primary issues today.  I dealt with enmeshment with uBPDm as a child, and still have the problem today.

I really struggle with this now that I am OOTF, because I can't blame the enmeshment on uBPDm anymore.  I have trouble NOT telling her things.  It's why medium chill and boundaries are such a scary idea for me.  Especially now, when I am lonely and don't have a boyfriend, I go to her with most of my problems.  And it embarrasses me to admit this.  I know better.  I know that I am just giving her ammunition and perpetuating an unhealthy relationship.  But it's habit and conditioning, I guess.

I will look into The Emotional Incest Syndrome again.  It's on my amazon wishlist, but I was afraid it was more directed towards mother/son or father/daughter relationships.  I wasn't sure how helpful it would be for mother/daughter.  But Finding My Voice, your recommendation lets me know it should help with me.

I've used GABA and it helped some. 

Anyone have any behavioral stuff for the rumination?   I get that a lot and have a really hard time redirecting my thoughts.

Meditation or mindfulness?

I have some apps on the iphone by a guy named Andrew Johnson.  They have titles like "Don't Panic" or "DeStress".  When I am really stuck in rumination, I will listen to them and it can get my mind off of things for a time.  Sometimes they don't work though, if I am particularly amped up from worry.

Journalling?  That helps sometimes as well. 

I think exercise would work, but I'm generally too lazy to try that.

When I was in my 20s, I was pretty full of self-loathing and low self esteem. I grew past that with counseling. In Walker's book, I was enlightened by the "outer critic" statements in the FREEZE description. It's a defense that I never recognized before, and seeing it was an 'aha' moment for me - yet another way to keep people away. I had already realized that I was sometimes too unforgiving and critical and that I need to practice more flexibility and understanding; now I know why I am sometimes too harsh. Hopefully, this knowledge will continue to help to propel me forward to open the door to vulnerability a bit more.

I haven't managed to be as successful in getting rid of my self-loathing yet.  Glad to hear you have - it gives me hope that it is possible.

I totally agree that the outer critic part was an aha moment.  For a fawn/freeze, I can be incredibly critical of people.  Just not to their face.  I have realized since reading Walker just how much I do this.  I don't consider this a positive quality of mine, and I'd like to shrink the outer critic.  I did feel a little better after reading this though, realizing that it is sometimes a protective measure to keep people away.  It's not just that I am a bitter, critical b*tch.

I've read Pete's book.  I just ordered Herman's Trauma and Recovery. 

I am so sorry about your loss, and the fact that you had no help.  And I want to congratulate you for being able to sit thru the pain.  I try to do that, but I am rarely successful.

I think the suicidal thoughts and self harm are both part of CPTSD.  I sure hope so, because I have both of those issues.  My self harm is a bit more roundabout, with substances, food, and just general abuse of my body in whatever maladaptive coping mechanism I have available to me at the time. 

I think that it is really special that you were able to write those songs about your pain.  I hope that writing them was somewhat healing for you.  I envy you, that you have a creative outlet like that.

Pete was the one that got me into T.  I found him the week I came OOTF.  I read his definition of freeze and started wondering if he had been watching me.  It was dead on, 100% accurate as to how I had been living for the better part of 3 years.  Frankly, I was frightened after I read about freeze in his 4 F's article on the website. 

I printed that description out and took it to my T. 

I was fawn and flight when younger.  But the trauma I went thru over the past 6 years just shut me down I think.  I still have issues with freezing.  Even when my dd(7) yells at me, I freeze.  I never realized that I did that until Pete's description.  Sometimes I am more present and don't want to be, and try desperately to go back into the freeze.  As my name suggests, when I came out of freeze I got emotion overload.  I still have that today, 8 months later, and sometimes I like the days when I wake up numb and binge watch netflix all day.

Pete is like a savior to me, I can't even express the gratitude I have towards him.  I emailed him once and he emailed me back.  I will keep that email forever. 

Glenna,
I think you need to stop even thinking about making permanent decisions about what you want to do with your writing for now.

I also had a rough childhood, raised by a single parent uBPDm.  Then, I met and eventually married a severely abusive, alcoholic, paranoid, controlling and probably uBPD man.  He died suddenly, one day 6 years ago.  At the time we were still together, and I wasn't OOTF.  I was blind to the abuse, and grieved him for years.  I still do, truth be told, despite the fact that he was abusive.

I am just now starting to go uncover the feelings that I have over all this.  SIX YEARS later.  So what I am saying is that it's going to take some time to get thru all the emotions.  You are OOTF, and were divorced, so the process shouldn't take you nearly so long!  But I think that a death is always going to bring up emotions that send us into the worst of the CPTSD darkness. 

I am still not so good at managing panic attacks.  I tend to rely on rescue meds for them.  Do you have any meds you can use while things are so present for you?

For the first few months that I was in T, I went twice weekly.  I think it was very helpful for me, and I may do it again.  However, T is expensive enough for me, and doubling down on it is a pretty big financial strain that I'm not sure I can afford right now.

I'm also consulting with a psychiatrist, and trying to get my emotions and level of functioning at a more consistent level.  I am still in the early (day 3 today) of a med change from lexapro to zoloft, so it is too early to tell if this is a productive route to go.

Otherwise, I am in the very early stages of recovery, despite being in T for months now.  I've had some major life changes, and I started out relatively low functioning.  So for me, the things that I am doing outside of T right now focus on trying to force myself to leave the house and get control of the chaos that is running my life.  (Oh, if you could only see the squalor in my house, you'd understand that the place I need to start is right here!).  Before CPTSD brought me to my knees, I was volunteering and had at least a relatively firm grasp on day to day responsibilities. 

I also read A LOT of self help books. 

Wow, this site could not have come at a more perfect time for me.  After spending the last 7 months since I came OOTF exploring my history as an unchosen, I am trying to start thriving, rather than just surviving.  I just re-started EMDR on Monday and the focus is to work on the agaraphobia and worthlessness I feel as a results of my years of being both an unchosen and then a chosen non.  I am officially diagnosed with PTSD by my T, but C-PTSD fits my symptoms better.

I'm also changing my meds, so my head is a bit out of sorts.  The name emotion overload fits me even better during this med transition time.  I am experiencing high high and low lows right now.  I'm not sleeping well.  I hope all this tinkering with my brain is a benefit in the long run, because right now it is just frustrating! 

Thanks for starting this site, I look forward to posting!