dollyvee's recovery journal

[Armee]

I really relate to what you said about the particular form of trauma bonding you experienced and how that plays out for you now. That's how things were and are for me too. Especially feeling like you just have to accept and forgive. 

[Hope67]

just "being in the moment and feeling things" can be too much sometimes but I'm working on it.

Hi Dollyvee,
I relate to this very much - I was reminded by something that Armee said about how the window of tolerance needs to be wider.  Sometimes feeling things is overwhelming, and I guess the protective parts of ourselves are primed to step in and reduce that/prevent us feeling those things. 

Anyway, wanted to send you a hug 
Hope 

[dollyvee]

Thank you for what you wrote M&H - I'm sorry that your parents made you feel like that and I don't think you were to blame at all, but being in that situation does make us feel like we were to blame. As a kid you're left with why can't I make it work? I don't think having a traumatic childhood means you'll never find happiness but it does come with challenges. I do think that processing this stuff and starting to realize it wasn't you, helps you/me act from a more secure place where you are creating that in your life. Happiness is not necessarily coming from another person, though, for me, I think those things still get confused sometimes.

Thank you Armee - I think having to forgive people like that leads to not having great boundaries and not really being able to stand up for yourself. There was no reference for what "bad" behaviour was from other people or that I could say no.

Thank you Hope 

Have been kind of startled by some memories (?)/feelings coming up. Not that it's anything really distinct however. Yesterday, I was trying on clothes to go out, trying a bit with how I looked. I guess wanting to look nice and had a feeling of being in school and other kids trying to tear me down or go after me for trying? I don't really know how to put it.

This morning, I had a feeling of what it was like when I was living with my dad. I would read a lot and I guess I was emotionally isolated. I had friends but I think there was a lot of other stuff going on, like dealing with how I felt about myself in relation to my m and what was going on with that (her blaming me for abandoning her to live with my dad). So, I guess it was like I was in an environment which was better and I could feel better about myself (not that it didn't have it's own things going on with my dad) but I was carrying around this blame from my m. There was no resolution to that stuff just basically I was wrong. Trying to make things better (?) when I went to my m's and have her treat me a certain way which was matched by my sf's treatment and I guess just feeling like I had no power to do anything about it? I guess this is where I started feeling like why would anyone like me? This was also during the preteen years and that's a big developmental time when all this stuff (relationships etc are coming to the surface).

I think it makes sense that it's coming up now and emotions are stirred up with that flirtation, someone I'm attracted to and think I think that behind the scenes they'll never actually like me back. Or when they find out how "messy" I am, that's it. It's strange because I wonder what part of me this is coming from. There's a part that just wants to be friends, chat and see how well we get on but then it's like this other part fast forwards things. I guess I want to get past the part where I don't have to show up for myself because I'm still dealing with the stuff that happened as a preteen?

In last session with t I told her about the open sore and how there's a part that just wants to organize or try to get a handle on the present in terms of what's happening (and maybe whether that's "good" or "bad") instead of just experiencing things (I can see how this is related to what I wrote above and not being able to chat and just be in the moment), and she recommended doing somatic exercises to get me back in the moment and regulate my emotions. I felt frustrated after I explained that, look I don't think this part is going to allow me to do that because feeling those things in the first place is what doesn't feel safe. I guess I'm tired of explaining things to people about what's going on with me and not being heard. I know she's trying to help but I also feel like I know (and am starting to trust myself) about how things work with me. So, it's just a struggle trying to make other people understand. I feel like I've had to do this a lot.

[dollyvee]

I'm reflecting on being on my own for this Christmas and for once, I feel like I really chose it and I'm doing this for me. After last Christmas, I'm happy to have this time. Trying not to feel guilty but so far, I'm not.

Looking at other posts on the forum that deal with isolation which I think brought up some memories of my mom not really contacting me, just on Christmas or my birthday. I guess just experiencing the pain that came along with that, and not in a feeling sorry/ashamed etc way which I think came up in the past, or angry. It just makes sense that I wouldn't I want to reach out to people when the response has usually been that I'm not heard. I guess just FEELING what it was like to go through that.

[dollyvee]

Some feelings came up today and I guess it's an EF but feels much stronger than that. I was journaling and it came out that it feels like I'm willing to give away my power to people who don't necessarily deserve it in order to make them happy. It came out that if I didn't do that then there would be a fight or some kind of really negative behaviour, and I got the impression (memory) of how it was to deal with my mother. It was a fight, chaos, negativity, I was blamed badly. This memory/feeling was very present and I remembered how badly it used to make me feel about myself.

I went out to the gym and I guess this feeling was still "on" me. I feel like my reactions to people were different and I remember how I used to feel like how can I be close to people when I have to deal with "this." I can deal with people and be social, convivial etc (maybe this is the people pleasing response) but this stuff is there under the surface. I think when things get a little more intimate, it's there and that's when the panic comes up. You know, don't let people get too close. I know in the past, I've had the experience of wanting to engage etc and it's like I just go numb. I somehow deaden/dampen all feeling and it "wins." The battles with my mother.

I'm going to try and keep in mind that this really is old stuff and it's not my present reality. I don't remember feeling things in this way since I was that age, so that seems like another layer dug up.

[Papa Coco]

Hey Dolly,

My heart is lined up with yours right now. I agree that this is old stuff. I find you to be a very intelligent, well-read, responsive friend on this forum. I know you have a personality to be proud of. But, speaking from my own experience, your mom did some real damage, and when you find it difficult to stand up for yourself, that is, definitely, without doubt, a residual trauma response.

Fawning is a real thing. In myself, I call it doormatting. I make myself a doormat and give everything away to others to prove I'm not a horrible person. My thoughts go like this: Your happiness means more to me than my own. If I find out I've hurt your feelings, I'll drown in guilt and shame for the rest of my life, so I won't do anything to let you feel bad.  I always say I'd rather be a nail than a hammer. I'd rather be in pain than cause even the slightest discomfort in another. I don't love others AS myself, I love others INSTEAD OF myself. The thanks for that goes to my own mother, who taught me from birth that I was less than everyone else on earth.

It is trauma. It's not the reality of who we are today, but it's the ghosts of who we were as children when our lifelong wiring was still being set up by bad parenting.

The challenge, for me, these days is to not let myself fall into believing that my doormattiness is who I am. It's what I often do, but it's NOT who I AM. If I can always, always remember that it is trauma that makes me give my lunch money away, then at least I'm not feeling like I deserve to be less than others. At least I can blame it on the trauma, and that often helps me recover from bouts of shame much more quickly.

It's okay to feel the shame. In fact, it's good for us to sit with it. Talk to it. Remind it that it's feelings are from the past, but that we know they're real nonetheless. It's okay to grab a carton of icecream and wallow for a few minutes or hours in it, but all the while, reminding ourselves that the emotions are real, but the source is not. So it's okay to feel them, but it's also just an emotional response, not grounded in today's reality. It's memories of a past that's gone and buried now.

Personally, I think you're awesome! Your posts are thought provoking and always helpful, and I don't feel like you're fawning when you recommend reading for me. I feel like you're making valid points and helping to guide me to help myself through my own stuff.

I'm sending you back a great big hug from me!

[dollyvee]

Thank you Papa Coco I think that's a good point, that it's what I do, not who I am.

I feel like there's times when the veil breaks and we're not stuck in something emotionally or intellectually and can begin to process things with a rational mind. It's like you're in the Matrix able to look at the bullets coming your way.

I don't especially feel like I'm a fawn but I don't know, maybe I'm not conscious of it? I did want to give lots of things away to make people happy and t and I have talked about a healthy selfishness and a healthy ruthlessness which I find elusive. Though am starting to understand the concept better and feel like I am standing up for myself. Before it was like I could never be selfish, I would be a bad person, how terrible! There was a concept of "good" in my mind growing up. Selfess was the thing to do (maybe there's some religious undertones). Even as an adult, I shy away from selfish people, and form some sort of judgement in my mind about whether they're good or not. I've come to understand that they/re just being humans I guess but not necessarily something I would do. And this is where it gets a bit fuzzy. It just makes me feel like I don't fit with people.

With the feelings that came up yesterday and being in doormatting as you called it PC, I feel like it's done out of paralysis. Like try as much as I can, I will be overpowered. It's just like something in my brain switches off. I suspect on the other side is just feeling great fear, terror, whatever you call it. It's interesting listening to the lecture on fear again and trying to shift it to a trauma lens. That as babies we grow up to identify with our mother and when she's not present or able to respond to the baby for whatever reason, is it just terror, or how a baby/embryo etc would feel? How would it feel to a baby /embryo to not have the mother present? I can see too, that maybe subconsciously, there is a constant shift to identify with something (someone - this relationship will bring me security etc) but then that terror/pain is always there, and I feel that I need to step back from it because I recognize that they will never be fulfilling, or it's just replaying the same pain/terror that I experienced before when there  was no mother there.

How do you tell your baby self that it was always connected to infinite possibilities and knowing/love?

Moving Beyond Fear: The Ultimate Protection Is Within You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn0g05e8QIs
__________________________________________
I was going through my old journals trying to find that quote on fear and it's really something I need to do more of. I had a quite powerful experience where I was maybe a little bit scared and noted that afterward I was thinking about m and the energy was like after she got angry.

There was also this part which struck me again as I'm looking at relationships right now and these feelings around my m are coming up:

'She also mentions that "the energy you need to create attachment is lost to you because it's in the soul part." Mind blown. So maybe this is why the intense feeling of abandonment(?) comes up, that that part of me hasn't been formed in me, like it hasn't been formed in other generations of my family."'

The energy needed to create attachment (in relationships) is missing because it wasn't formed in the baby me, identifying with my mother didn't happen because my mother couldn't identify with me because her mother couldn't identify with her. So what soul part is in question?

[dollyvee]

I think I'm still processing watching some of Dr. Ramani's videos on narcissism. It feels pretty a ha and validating, like it's opened up some space. On the other hand, I wonder if there's more memories/behaviours coming up?

I watched When the Truth Teller Grows Up and it's the first time I've heard about my experience in that way. It's like that 8 year old me gets to run to a bunch of other kids and say, you decided to leave too? And be understood, to know that other people get that experience and not be punished for it, like I was for decades by my mom. To see that I was right, and I don't have to doubt myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRuWd7cpx5Y&t=3s

I related to her describing how TTs can see things before other people can usually and can be ostrasized for it, and that it can be isolating. That TTs can avoid relationships/attachments because they are messy and it's difficult (my emphasis) after a years and years of being treated like you were wrong. How it's also difficult to share because you feel like other people won't get the experience. One thing I never considered but was an a ha, is when she described young kids as just kind of knowing the defence mechanisms to deal with narcissists, that they know something is off and change their behaviour. I think this is why I shut down as it was my way of grey rocking as a child.


Poss trigger warning...


Dr Ramani talked about narcissists being affected by truth tellers and they can just see it in their eyes. One time my mother slapped me because "my eyes were smiling." I think it could be true that I did start to have a screw you attitude towards my m and sf around that time, but I don't think that's what was happening in this case. She was challenged by me. Years later she did it again when I was a teenager, that she had to pin me to the ground to see (haha to show me) that she was still stronger. I think I said something she didn't like or stood up to her. My gm also did something similar when after I decided to cook fish one night and told them they were overreacting when they said it stunk. I was probably around 19/20 and didn't know about cooking fish. My grandmother lost her temper and ended up slapping me. (I'm having a bit of AITA moment cue guilt and the voice saying "all they did was want to support you")


For my backstory, my mother married my sf, who I now think is a malignant narcissist, when I was 7. Cue insane punishments: writing lines, 'I will not pig out,' for eating food in the fridge that I had actually left for my sf because I was being "nice" it was mine in the first place; having to clean his filthy truck, rake leaves etc for a dollar, basically a humiliating amount (for perspective, when I moved to my dad'd he gave me $5 a week allowance, which was pretty fair, mowing the lawn was another $10 I think. Like reasonable amounts (not too high, not too low) for doing chores); being told I was fat and having to run 5k track 3-4x week; and just general power abuse, putting me down and thinking it was funny, having to get him water all the time (edit: being yelled at to get him water). But I fought back and when he asked for water, I would bring him hot water instead. I think I fought back a lot and I remember my mom telling me it was better not to rock the boat in a marriage, to say anything, to stand up for me. I can't remember if this was after he had pulled out a clump of my hair, or if she told me at that time to not get upset when he did those things because it only antagonizes him (as if it was my fault for dealing with his behaviour).

My mom hnd been partying and doing drugs for years I think before this. She credits my sf with straightening her out. Well that was her belief. She still took painkillers I think, and at Christmas would be passed out drunk shortly after dinner. It truly broke my heart to see her do that to herself.

I knew it wasn't right and when I was 8, I asked my dad if I could go and live with him and I did. My mom never forgave me and said that I abandoned her. Cue decades of punishment. She had my brother shortly after I left, another "accident." She doted on him and was generally cold and horrible to me, which I tried to make up for at length. Cue my grandmother saying that she's family, I have to forgive her, I can't be angry at her etc. I really did try and try to include her in my life and each time, I was disappointed.

After being an emotional mess at my first t's in university, I think it was suggested, or I suggested I don't remember, to bring in my m and talk through things. I told her how I felt etc and she reacted with, not being balls to the wall defensive, but basically you think I'm a bad mother? A more subtle horrified, I would say it was also the same with my gm and when I would express that I was upset or try to talk to her about what she was doing, it became why are you angry at me? Cue a lot of frustration and feeling like I was crazy/trapped for many years all while still trying to have a "normal" life and be "happy" with my family in it, thinking I must be wrong, make up for it,

End poss trigger warning....

I don't think I've ever put it down like that? So, watching that video and feeling like there are other people out there who get it just made me feel very, very validated.

I think I'm probably part truth teller/part scapegoat/part fixer . It's starting to make a bit of sense, my reactions/make up etc/ as I start to understand and name the different types of narcissists in my family. I knew my gm and m were narcissiists. Have been waking up to gf and t also brought up the sf might be one as well.


Some interesting things coming up - I don't feel like I'm very good with grammar right now. I'm realizing how much I had to fight in my family, like it was the default setting to relationships. I was also very touched by watching the last episode of Fleishman is in Trouble where Libby is with her husband at a party or something and it's clear that she hasn't told him all the details of what's been going on with Toby. Just the idea of separateness, that you could have your own world (and I guess that there was trust) and you didn't have to overshare or make things "clear" really stopped me.

Long, maybe non-sensical, post 

[milkandhoney11]

Dolly,
I am so sorry you had to go through all of this (no one deserves to be treated that way) but I hope it's okay to say that I am very, very grateful for the way you have shared your experiences. I have watched both of Dr Ramani's videos now and I have to say that they are a massive revelation.
I still can't understand how someone would treat a child like this (I think that Dr Ramani is absolutely right - these people do know how to behave and they can be kind to others or otherwise they wouldn't be able to handle their jobs) and it just makes me so sad that they think it's okay to hurt an innocent person it that way.
My dad is more of the covert narcissist kind of guy but what you said about punishments most definitely resonated with me and I am so sorry that you were treated like this - all these punishments and the body shaming are just horrendous and I admire your strength when trying to defy your dad.
I was nowhere near as strong as you were and mostly just endured my punishments without a word because I know there would be even more violence if I dared to defend myself in any way. The only few times when I managed to stand up for myself were when my dad gave me the silent treatment and threatened not to talk to me again until I had apologised for whatever I had done wrong in his eyes. But to me these accusations were ridiculous and I refused to apologise for them (not cutting cucumbers fine enough when I had offered voluntarily to help with dinner or criticising one of the racist jokes he used to make) so I just endured his silent treatment for weeks and months. Looking back it seems incomprehensible how a father would choose to actively ignore their own child like that and never speak a single word for months on end, but I refused to apologise even though my mother kept begging me every day.
What I feel very strongly now is the anger at my mum for always siding with my dad over things like that. She clearly enabled his narcissistic behaviour and even encouraged him to keep acting like that and I just can't understand why she never protected me at all. She did stand up to him a couple of times for minor things (like when he broke some of her decorations) but never when he slapped me or hurt me or shouted at me etc. and it hurts that she would stand up to him over minor things like this but never when I was in actual danger.
Looking back I almost feel like this is the worse offense. My dad is just a narcissist and he can't nor won't change. I need to accept that and just find ways to limit contact with him or use the greystoning technique Dr Ramani described. Yet, my mum should have known better and it hurts that she never cared enough about me to protect me.

So far, I always thought that these things were somehow my fault, that there was something wrong with me, but after reading your story and watching Dr Ramani's videos I can finally start seeing that this was not the case. I never did anything wrong and I didn't do anything to deserve this, I was just very unlucky to be born into a dreadful family like this. I will always have to bear the scars this has left on my heart but I won't keep blaming myself for it and I won't keep adding even more scars.

I hope you can find a way to deal with all the things coming up for you. it's challenging to cope with something like this but I guess it is also a great opportunity to heal and I hope you can emerge stronger from this

[Papa Coco]

Dolly

Your grammar was fine. I could hear your message loud and clear in your post. It's a beautiful message, filled with all truth.

Dr. Ramani, and others who talk about narcissism are helpful for me too. Seeing that all narcissists always do these same evil things to good people does validate my experience, and lets me off the hook from feeling like I deserved it. I did not. Neither did you.

I still can't stop recommending the book that really, truly helped me to see through the narcissism in others, and that's The Sociopath Next Door by Dr. Martha Stout.  I swear, that learning the 2 dimensional behaviors of ALL narcissists, has given me x-ray glasses. I can now see and smell a narcissist from a thousand yards. They are so transparent, and they are all exactly alike. Totally predictable and TOTALLY incurable.

I agree that Dr. Ramani's message is the next level of detail and is even more helpful, now that I can see that there are 5 kinds of narcissists. That's worth more studying because it makes so much sense.

I agree with both Dolly and M&H above, that we didn't deserve what was done to us. And the more we learn about narcissism, the less at fault we see we are for having been treated so badly by them. THIS IS ABOUT THEM, not us.

That feels good to day.

[dollyvee]

I felt a bit off after sharing that yesterday. I felt my anxiety was more heightened at the gym, like I dance around expecting a reaction around people? I also noticed that my sleep has been off since that feeling/EF came up with my mom. Have been waking up at 4:30 and last night at 1am where I couldn't go back to sleep around 4am. It's interesting though because I also feel like it's thinking time and I can work some things out. I guess this is why I keep everything locked in the "vault."

I think there are self destructive feelings that come up with these things. I don't know how to describe it - very black? I understand all Elliot Smith songs? I've been wondering recently if the only thing that "saved" me is having a father who committed suicide and a mother who self-destructively took drugs and alcohol. I'm having a vague memory as a teenager, if these feelings came up, or at times thinking, it's not something I could do because look at how I felt that dad left me in that way. I don't know if it was at the same time but I remember having those thoughts, that I have to find a way to do this. I feel like this mood is the aftermath of dealing with my m and sf, like this was how it was to live in my family, how resigned acceptance felt like.

Thank you MilkandHoney - these boards (and the sister site Out of the Fog) helped me realize the narcissism in my family because like you, I was conditioned to doubt myself and their view of the world was right. Of course because I was a kid and needed them for safety, I had to believe that too. I'm glad that you're finding something here. I started seriously looking at narcissism around 7 years ago. It took a bad relationship to finally sink in what my therapist 20 years ago said, that my mom was a narcissist. I'm sorry your dad did that to you, and know what it's like. After I left, as an eight year old, my mother stopped showing me affection. She would hug and be sweet to my baby brother, praise him, but turn her cheek to me, be very cold. This lasted years and it's very damaging to children. I never stopped trying to get her attention and years later when she would say things like, you know I love you, I would think that's it! Ive got the motherly affection/attention that I always wanted. But it was never there. Will I Ever Be Good Enough is a book about the narcissistic mothers and daughter relationship. I don't know if it would be helpful for a narcissistic father but maybe some of the core bits are the same.

Thank you Papa Coco - I will have a look at the book. I feel like that validation is a big part of what has been missing for me. For everyone going through it, it's a sense of you're not crazy, you're not making this up, there is something wrong and it's not you, is huge. It's interesting when she talks about young kids (four and five) seeing the narcissist and knowing something isn't right. Yet, most kids are conditioned by their families to accept it, and when we grow up looking outside the family to see some sort of validation from other people, or is this right, it can be met with gaslighting (oh they just love you etc). So, every little validation helps I think.

I want to add/edit to what I wrote yesterday because there is more, another level I guess, which took years to unpack and having it down I think is good for my own sense of story (?)/understanding.

My m was the more overtly narcissistic one in the family, at least to me. People shook their heads at how she could do the things she did. The more confusing aspects for me were the covert behaviour from my gm and gf. With my mother being as she was and her having custody, my safe place and where I felt cared for was with my gm and gf. Sure my grandfather was difficult but he always showed affection. It's so interesting now, and it's just clicking, that in my gm's psychological reports, she described my gf as being a very jealous person and as if something came over him after they were married. This jealous rage is what happens to narcissists.  I'm also seeing that he used put downs a lot, but these were just "jokes," bringing up funny stories about how ridiculous (funny) my behaviour was at times. I'm just starting to unpack this now and how I didn't recognize that something was wrong with my relationship with my gm until I was in my late teens/getting ready for college. Maybe I knew much earlier, but it was never really conscious. How could it be, she loved me? "Loved."

I was living with my dad for four years until he committed suicide when I was 14. After that, it became where would I live, what would happen to me because I didn't want to live with my stepfather. The day it happened my m showed up and was raving at how I can't believe he would do this etc, it wasn't about comforting me, but that's another thing. I went to live with my gm and sgf, sort of thankful I didn't have to live with my sf, but also feeling like I was a burden. My gm would call me her precious angel etc. I did the things I was supposed to do, got really good grades, went to university on scholarship etc and I was so excited to start my own life. But it wasn't really my life. I was doing everything that I was supposed to to make them happy. The rub is that these are good things to do and I should have had a sense of accomplishment but it was like I couldn't individuate/enjoy it for myself because it wasn't about me. My gm kept bringing up the idea that I could live in the basement and that they wouldn't bother me, I would have my own life etc. It was something that I felt like was really untrue and her love made me angry I think. I got really angry I think at the phone calls etc after I moved out. Looking back I think they were assurance to her and I felt like they were an invasion of my space. Although, I started to see it was "toxic" love, I tried to reason with both her and my mother which only made me angrier that they didn't get it, and I felt like I was going crazy.

It took me a long time to work out why and that the love wasn't really about me. It's hard to describe but I can look back now and pick out examples, like how after my dad died she asked me if  I wanted to keep my bed and I said yes. I was surprised when I got to their house and my bed was gone and instead there was a low bed just like she always wanted. Or when I was putting on my prom dress, she told me oh it looks great - let me tell you how skinny I used to be, I used to have a 24" waist etc etc. I was never allowed to be angry about things, have my own emotions. Talking with her about her behaviour when she would go why are you angry. There was always a health crisis where she was "one step from death" and then she would never do anything to take proper care of herself. However, both my sgf and I were supposed to rush to her rescue when something went wrong with her health. It was exhausting.

I think this stuff made me so angry because I saw it when I was younger and then I had to forget it to appease everyone else because otherwise what would happen to me? I think the threat of security was very real though also outgrown and exaggerated. If I went against my family, what would become of me? All their worst fears that they put into me about the world would come true etc etc. But there was still also the part that was like, screw you. When I left university to go to art school, my gf threatened to cut me out of the will. All behind my back of course - gotta love triangulation. But I did it anyway, worked a terrible, but well paying job, on weekends and payed for it myself. When I got accepted into one of the best grad programs in the world for my field, I went to him as he always said he would help pay, but all of a sudden there were conditions. He didn't really know if he wanted to do it; my gm "had" to convince him etc. Narcissists really do use money to control you. Every time I brought home a report card with straight A's, he would give me money. For a child worried about security with a mother who wouldn't even buy her underwear, feeling like a burden on her gps, this was a sense of "independence." But it wasn't really. It was always, you have to do what your gf wants or he'll cut you off. It's taken me a long time to see and really detach from the narcissism in this relationship because it was my security (like it was my gm's security).

So, it was like that Truth Teller me that saw all that stuff with my m and sf  and had to suck it up into another wave of narcissism, the more covert kind from other family members, which kind of became like a fight against my own reality. Which reality was right? Surely, these people must love me and have my best interests at heart? If I listen to myself and go against them issues with security will happen, the child me won't be safe in this world.  They're saying that they love me, there's nothing that "bad" that happened and I guess the fantasy of the loving family was something I needed to be true. But narcissists are not born but made, and as visible as it was with my mom, when t told me it must have come from somewhere, and even though I knew something was not right with my gm and now gf, it took a long time to sink in.

I thought that the follow up video to The Truth Teller Grows Up was also very supportive and someone's comment that the peace out weighs the pain, is a big one. Like I don't have to engage or feel guilty about it (once you get over the gaslighters) and I can have peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fjjf6fDVJ4

Reflecting that I feel Christmas 2022 alone has been productive. I would like to do a pt III as I can see how these things carry over now in present day but also taxing to write this stuff

[milkandhoney11]

Dolly, I am so sorry to hear all this. I wasn't aware of your dad's suicide and it sounds like a terrible thing to have to deal with as a teenager, especially if you don't really have a place to go where you feel completely welcome. This must have been a very difficult time for you and I can only imagine how much incredible strength it must have taken to get through all of this

There's this one sentence in your post that really hit me hard:

It took me a long time to work out why and that the love wasn't really about me.

God, this resonates so much with me. My parents say fairly often that they love me (especially over text) but something about the way they say it always made me feel very uneasy and uncomfortable and I recognise that it's exactly this. Their love was never really about me and when they say it is meant more as a means to control me and influence me into behaving the way they want rather than showing any kind of acceptance of the real me.
If they loved the real me they would never have acted the way they did, they just love having someone that they can control, someone to boss around and someone that they can use as a sort of "second chance in life". They want me to achieve all the things they never did and they brag about me to their colleagues, but when I'm alone with them they keep criticising every single thing I do. It's hard to believe how different they are in public than at home and I guess that makes the whole thing even more difficult to bear because people won't believe me how terrible they are to me behind closed doors.

I'm so sorry you had to deal with this kind of narcissism, too, it really messes up a person's mind and soul...

[Papa Coco]

Dolly,

I'm glad you're sharing all this. I can resonate with quite a bit of it. I was raised on transactional love too. I was loved only if I behaved how my family expected me to. I've had a good, lucrative life with a lot of  good times. But, like you, I lived THEIR life, and sometimes I really wish I could have been what I wanted to become, rather than what they drove me to become.  I had a great life that felt like it was someone else's.  I'm thankful that it worked out, but...how rich would life feel if we could be who we were born to be, rather than who they told us to be?

And some sociopaths are made. I know addiction always turns a person into a narcissist, but breaking the addiction most often cures them again also. 

But babies who are born narcissistic, or sociopathic, are said to not cry in the nursery when other babies cry. They don't respond at all. Sociopathic children or adults don't yawn when you yawn. No connection. Author and public defender John Henry Browne says that the definition of a Sociopath (and Narcissist) is someone who doesn't know that we're all connected.   He also says that he used to believe narcissists were not born that way, until he met Ted Bundy. Now he believes, as I do, that there are various reasons why some people are sociopaths, and wiring from birth is right up there in the top 1 for me.  I believe they ARE born.

The reason I bring this up, is because, for me, knowing that my evil sister was born that way, makes me 100% not culpable for her nasty behaviors. Knowing she was born that way, makes me less able to be convinced that I need to feel sorry for her sad story of why she became so mean. Nothing my family did caused her to become the only narcissist out of 5 children. She was born that way. I'm off the hook. And nothing we can ever do will ever cure her. So...I can live guilt free, now knowing that my actions did not, in any way, make her be so mean. She was born mean. Period.

I'm only sharing that bit about narcissism being born into us because it really does help me feel absolutely zero responsibility for her meanness. She'd taught me for years that she would be nicer if I was a better person, but nope. SHE WAS BORN MEAN and I am not required to "give her the benefit of the doubt" because of her "sad childhood." WAAH! My childhood was a hundred times worse than hers, and I turned out to be empathetic. (The opposite of narcissistic).

I'm sending more hugs, becuase it sounds like you're really experiencing a lot of memories and ah-ha moments, and I know how taxing that is. Hard to sleep. Hard to do much of anything. It's good for us to experience these moments of growth and awareness, but it can feel anxious while it's happening.

I hope my hugs help a little. This too shall pass. Like my therapist always says, You can't find the next level of emotional potency without feeling a period of some anxiety.

[CrackedIce]

Hey Dolly, thanks for your post.  I haven't spent much time looking into the narcissism stuff that I've seen you and a few others post lately (mostly because I try to avoid thinking about my FOO as much as possible, for better or worse), but I wanted to comment on the "threat of security" - it really resonated with me.  I had recently wrote a letter to my younger self on advice of my therapist and one of the things that came out of that for me was working out why I wasn't able to do anything about the abuse / neglect / etc. - it was the threat of security.  It was 'safer' (in whatever sense) to stay and bear it than it would've been to try to find help... who knows what would've happened if that attempt didn't work out?

Thanks again for sharing.  Have a great new years!

[Hope67]

Hi Dollyvee,
I agree with you about it feeling very taxing to write things - I admire the fact you were able to write about things as you did.  I want to send you a hug of support and care  and I also popped in here today to wish you the best for 2023, and I hope that it will be a year that contains some positive experiences that you'll enjoy.


Hope