Living As All of Me

[Papa Coco]

Hannah,

It is very inspiring to me to see you pushing toward your goals; the hiking trips, the therapy, the healing.

I remember believing, like you did, that I would be "healed" and adjusted by the time I got to this age also, only to be sort of surprised that at retirement age, the CPTSD was still there.

A lot of therapists whose books I read say that Trauma is stuck energy and that it stays stuck until we find a way to address it. It seems like you, like many of us, are finally able to address it.

Again: Your future plans are inspiring for me too. I'm pondering my own future plans now. Where can I put a trip or a challenge in my future...something good to look forward to and prepare for?

Thank you for posting this stuff.

[HannahOne]

PapaCoco, thank you for reading and commenting! I hope you can find ways to create some plans that inspire you!

thank you for sharing your experience with "hope", LOL.... yes. We are still human going through the human developmental life cycles. So at retirement, you found the CPTSD still there.... as I find it "still here" at midlife, surprisingly. At middle age, prior efforts and goals become less motivating, disillusionment hits, we feel restless, we see through the veil in some ways, or want to rediscover or discover for the first time neglected aspects like the lawyer who quits and becomes an artist, or leaving a marriage, or whatever... and how that may intersect with CPTSD.  Somehow the midlife crises has been an opportunity to address it. In your case retirement is another life transition, change in how you spend your days, in meaning-making, and then... the CPTSD is there, to address. So glad we can all address it together on the forum, it makes such a difference to be with others in the storm.

[HannahOne]

Narcissistic Family Dynamics.

Anyone?



What do you guys think about this? I looked through and didn't seem to see a thread on the form specifically about the narcissistic abuse. So putting it here. I'm open to comments here from other members about the questions I ask at the end.

I find myself unable to locate myself in only one role. In my family, I played all the roles at different times. And also different roles for each parent. Sometimes this makes it harder to recover, it's more complex.

I feel I was born as both a scapegoat and a golden child. Scapegoat to my mother who I injured at birth, golden to my father who wanted someone to shape and thus reflect glory onto him.

When sibling was born I became helper for my mother, raising the child. And Scapegoat to my father, horrifically he switched. And my sibling was the golden. Which I wanted, the sibling to be safe. But the results were horrific to me.

He retained me as golden in some areas, there was a split. I was on one hand like a male child in his mind, and set to achieve and take over the world (LOL!!!! sorry dad), and on the other hand a female child only good for degradation, like my mother. I was able to retain enough of the golden with my father to use it to get out, via educational achievement. I'm lucky that way. But the switch was devastating to me.

In the wider family I'm the golden. And I have severe survivor's guilt for the cousins that didn't make it.

But I'm left flummoxed by all these roles. And by the split, both between parents and within one parent.

If anyone has a similar circumstance I'm open to a brief statement of such here in my journal, both what the roles were, what the change in roles was like for you when it happened, and also how its affected your healing to not have one clear role to work through. I don't know if my situation is unusual? Do most people just have one role in the family throughout their growing up?

[NarcKiddo]

I didn't. My F was generally consistent in his disinterest - he left all the child rearing to M.

M was very capricious and we were flung around roles like anything. As I got older I got better at knowing how to play M so I could stay within a more comfortable helper/best friend role.

M remains capricious, but my life is steadier than my sisters so FOO theoretically approves of me more. Doesn't make me golden, exactly. Just less of a nuisance. But my sister, who is usually a problem, is not treated as a classic scapegoat. She is always bailed out, though my M will moan to me about it.

I am not sure of our roles, basically. They are not the classic textbook ones. I even thought my F was the enabler when I first came across all the theory but it turns out he is his own brand of Narc.

I usually tell my therapist my mother treats me and my sister like toys. Sometimes we are favoured and in the front of the toy box and sometimes we are flung in the back of the toy box. Sometimes it is possible to tell what has caused our position. What is clear is that we cannot both be in the back at the same time, though we can both be in the front for a short while. Never long because she is a great fan of 'divide and rule'.

[HannahOne]

NarcKiddo, thank you for sharing your experience. Your username says it all!

I was both devastated and resonated with your description of your M treating you like a toy. I'm so sorry. That is horrific. And it resonates. Yes, we were like objects to them.

I see that in your experience it sounds capricious, like you couldn't often tell what caused the change. Somehow in my FOO the rules were more clear. Thank you for sharing how it was for you.

I also resonated with thinking one parent was an enabler initially. I also at first thought only one parent was a narc. Took more understanding to realize both were.

Thank you again for reading and commenting. I'm sorry for all of us. May you continue to find healing in yourself, outside of these toxic, unfair and limiting roles.

[TheBigBlue]

I grew up in a family system with fixed roles that did not change over time, but with different roles of the parents.

With my NF, I was the scapegoat - experienced as invisible and unlovable. My body was shamed early, my needs minimized, and my attempts at authenticity were quietly extinguished. Touch was largely absent. Safety came through perfection, compliance, and disappearing.

My younger S was my F's golden child. She looked like him and was treated as an extension of him. Over time, she absorbed many of his traits. Her emotional development stalled and she learned externalization rather than regulation. (something I now understand she did not choose).

My M was traumatized herself: born during WWII, lost her M at 5, NF. She was torn between attraction to dominant, narcissistic men (familiarity) and a strong drive toward authenticity. She eventually divorced my F.

Throughout my life, however, my M relied heavily on me to regulate her. For a long time, I believed my M loved me "too much." Only recently have I understood that what I experienced was not excess love, but asymmetric attachment injury - love that required my self-erasure. I became her emotional anchor: parentification, horizontally enmeshment, responsible for her stability and well-being.

So I grew up without protection, without mirroring, without a stable sense of being held, and with far too much silence - but with enormous responsibility as the family peacekeeper. On top of that, there were several unfortunate "big T" events, including a terror attack.

I learned to be competent, quiet, high-functioning, and hyper-responsible. I became a perfectionist and workaholic, surviving through performance - without a self.

Two years ago, medical trauma and another big T overwhelmed these survival strategies. A year ago, I entered CBT initially for what looked like depression. As safety with my T grew, the underlying system finally collapsed - revealing what had been held together by silence, compliance, and overfunctioning for decades.
(Sorry, if this is too long, I can remove it)

[HannahOne]

TBB not too long, thank you for sharing your experience! I am so sorry for what you went through and the trauma you experienced. I'm glad you are on the forum now. We can find healing.

You are able to state it so clearly and succinctly. I am not there yet. It's hard for me to do that.

I relate to the wider family system having been traumatized by historical events. Both my parents' family had trauma. And a very traumatized mother who did not metabolize it, so I had to.

I relate to the self-erasure, the enormous responsibility. So much we carried. How did we do it?! By using CPTSD, by developing CPTSD.

I also relate to starting out being treated with CBT for depression, for me many years ago now. "I'm depressed, I'll do CBT." Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.    How the turn tables.

One thing I'm noticing I'm feeling is a new objectivity. Just from two people sharing, I begin to place myself in a different context. Not so much "weird, strange, alien, crazy HannahOne with a backstory unlike anyone else that no one could ever understand and that I have to overcome immediately" to seeing the situation from a bit of a distance, as a fact that some people experience. Ie, not my fault. Not about me. Not personal to me. Not defining me. An accident of birth, not a character flaw or failure of me. A situation, not my soul.

I also notice even more compassion, for you as I read and then seeping over to myself. I admire TheBigBlue for how they navigated all this.... maybe I can also have some self-respect again. I navigated how I navigated. Maybe I can punish myself a little less. Or not at all. Maybe none of it was even about me at all.

Maybe that's the heart of the problem, nothing of my growing up was about ME. It was all about them. How can I make my life today about ME? Both kids are out today for the day, one at work, one at a friend's. Such a foreign concept, how can my life today be all about me, coming from inside of me?

Thank you for reading and sharing. I appreciate you and your understanding and your journey.