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So, after realizing a little while ago my mom is covert narc and my sister is too, and having a full on emotional flashback that lasted for weeks (maybe even months when I was with the narc BF that triggered this realization), I'm finally feeling grounded. I finally just up and decided that I can't be their victim anymore, that I can't be anyones victim anymore, that I have to stop putting my wellbeing and self-esteem in the hands of other people who don't have my best interests at heart. It's too easy for me to slip into the old trauma patterns to even waste my time around or with anyone abusive. It's too dangerous to my sanity and life to think I can keep these types around and they won't keep playing their mind games. I don't blame myself for being a victim, I didn't know, I couldn't help it, and abuse was never my fault. It's just I've come to see that to get out of the learned helplessness I have to empower myself to take responsibility for my own thoughts, feelings, and actions. My practice is when I get triggered, to try and see that trigger as belonging to me and to work with it. It's not always easy like in an emotional flashback but I feel like the only thing I can hope to control is my reactions, not other peoples behavior. I can control how I say 'no' to people and things that don't feel right for me. I don't owe anyone anything and I have to stop giving myself away to people. They can earn my respect and my gifts and my trust over time. But I have to listen to that inner voice that says no and act on it. Cause at this point I can spot a narcissist or mean person from down the street practically, there is a dark energy to them I'm way too familiar with. It's not that they can't trigger me or something it's about how do I react and then what action do I take to protect myself in the moment and the future.

A few days ago, I realize that although I was triggered and having flashbacks, I'm not actually trapped with my narc mom or with anyone, it's all in my mind, it just feels that way. I've spent a lot of time understanding why I feel this way and processing all my trauma. This mother piece of the puzzle was like a rapid processing and clearing, I just let it all come up and out. Of course there are still triggers there but I've shifted to just realizing that's how she is, how my whole family is, and I don't have to take anymore. Yesterday, I made bold a decision I have been wanting to make for a very long time but felt too paralyzed by fear to undertake until now: I'm taking control of my own life. I'm selling everything I own and moving to a different country for at least the next year, hopefully longer. There is nothing for me here, and I already know it's a place where I feel safe and supported and will live with the person I trust most in the world. It''s a lovely tropical place where I've spent a lot of time before and feel very safe, and I can focus on continuing my recovery and working on cultivating my creativity and making my dreams for my life's work a reality. As soon as I decided this my whole body and mind just felt so good. Doubts can come and go, and I see who put them in my mind and why they don't belong there. I choose to stop engaging and getting stuck in self doubt, it's just I don't have time or energy left to give to the nonsense other people tried to make me believe so they could feel superior to me. I have too much work to do living my dreams and helping others do the same through my own experience. I'm so excited!!! It's a little bit scary parting with all my belongings, I have way to many and I think I've accumulated them to feel comfort and false security. I want real security. No one is coming to save me, I have to save myself. And no one is really stopping me besides myself, so I'm taking charge of that now. 

It's all so clear now. Crystal. I cannot let her control me again. I have to go into my deepest reservoirs of self love and motivation and just focus on my plan to get away from her. I plan to just keep pretending everything is as usual and not let on that I know anything. I have to find employment and just move myself out of this house ASAP so I can get on with my life. I need to go no contact with my whole FOO. The idea of this was just too scary before. I have self doubt to overcome but the will to protect myself and succeed and thrive is strong. I couldn't see it before. I was just so manipulated and sure she was this angelic victim perfect parent doing her best for her children. And that is what the world sees. No one who knows her would ever believe me. No wonder it's still going on. My father is an overt narc to the point it is embarrassing to be anywhere in public with him. No wonder I got triggered by that movie where I felt like I was I an orphan and had a flashback to being a little child fantasizing my real parents would come and save me. And since I outed my dad's sexual abuse (they are divorced) well...Her first reaction was that's something that just happens to us and we get over it" and talked about herself. Then therapist confronted her and she went covert again. Has been doing everything she can to sabotage my success in life though will pretending to both rescue and enable me. She says she couldn't help me from being abused by my father 'cause her lawyer told her we couldn't prove it' when she got divorced. But it was obvious as a child I had major mental illness and she just ignored it. She is ignoring it RIGHT NOW and that is the biggest wake up call. She uses withholding support to keep me under control. I hope to God she doesn't find this website she will flip and I'm still financially entrenched/would be homeless if she does rn. I've already told her I use a forum. Crap. This already happened to me once on here!i checked her computer history earlier and there wasn't anything but I wonder when I put up emotional wall what will happen. This is my plan of action, any input support or advice is super appreciated.

1. Pretend like I have no clue she is a narcissist
2. Continue to have great self care recovering from the recent abuse situations I just got out of less than a month ago
3. Seek out employment immediately
4. Move out as soon as possible
5. Tell her NOTHING about my plan just keep doing what I am currently

Even as I write this I'm doubting myself like, is she really? She is incredibly covert and that CPTSD voice kicks in like oh you're just crazy and paranoid. But I found this article about 'codependent' parents I posted about, that I think is really about narc parents and the evidence is irrefutable. She's so good using guilt and playing the super parent that it blindsides me every time. NOT ANYMORE.

I am trying my best to educate myself on how to avoid these types because I have always just been trusting that people are genuine and they get in all the time. Like, since I was born, over and over. There is only one person in my life that I can actually trust, at least I have her. After recently extracting myself from an actual den of wolves, I'm now realizing I've been SURROUNDED by them and just passed off or back and forth from one to another. I HAVE HAD ENOUGH. I found this super helpful video talking about one of the easiest ways to spot them, it's the FLATTERY. They are flatterers looking for supply. They are not genuine. It's all smoke and mirrors, I feel like I get it now. If someone is supper flattering and not making genuine compliments I need to start seeing this. I don't blame low self esteem for bringing them in because I think that's victim blaming. These people are insidious and know how to manipulate anyone who is not like them, maybe even those who are (I've seen like narcissistic hierarchies before what a mess). What I have noticed is there is this thing where they eventually use the flattery to cover up their crappy and disrespectful behavior. Anyways, I found this video super useful.

https://youtu.be/2ls8algqvwA

I wanted to start a thread where we can list some of the things that are beautiful about ourselves. I was recently working on releasing doubts put in my head by pathological abusers and I realized I need to redevelop myself esteem and also discover or remember what my skills are so I can have empower myself for future success. I also realized that as a small child I was made to feel ashamed of my good qualities and successes, belittled and ridiculed until I felt small enough again for the abuser to control. Well FORGET THAT NOISE. Also, we can include qualities we want to cultivate or have that's good too.

Some of the barriers I encountered included feeling like I'm not allowed to post this because it makes me a narcissist. Maybe we were trained to think that and maybe also so horrified by abuser's embarrassing selfishness and grandiosity that we silenced ourselves with shame that belonged to them. There is a very visceral and emotional fear reaction that I have in my body when I think about taking the steps I need to to succeed and this is one of the ways I've found helpful to overcoming that self doubt loop. If you struggle with this that's ok. Notice which words you get stuck on writing, I've found those seem to be some of my best unacknowledged qualities. And we don't have to always be expressing these qualities, they can just be what we are some of the time or even once or even what we want to be. If something pops up and I get a negative message about it I just notice, write it, and keep going and something magical usually happens. My mind has all kinds of tricks 

[Trigger Warning - Emotional and Sexual Abuse]

Trigger Warning - Emotional and Sexual Abuse

SO, yesterday as I wrote a post I realized how much I am minimizing and repressing what I just went through with the last narc BF I finally got away from a few weeks ago ( ). My freeze response can really paralyze me, and he knew about it and was INTENTIONALLY using it to abuse (torture) me. What a sick disgusting jerk, there really aren't enough curses or words in any human language to describe our trauma. That's something I heard someone say in a video recently. It's not just our that our language center shuts down, language in insufficient. I just want to acknowledge both of those things for those of us who have ever felt silenced, stupid, or unable to express something out loud. I sure have, but I'll try.

So last night after I had seen what my mind was really stuck doing, minimizing what this guy had done, because I'm 'used to it', it was 'nonviolent' rape, and 'I've experienced worse' it just all really hit me. I see how we can be set up for future abuse, to expect less, to have been conditioned to deal with it and dissociate and freeze (for me) and fawn (also me). How if it started before we had access to language or the ability to run away we can keep getting paralyzed again and again (a resource helped me learn this). How we can keep blaming ourselves over and over and over when it happens. How creative my own mind is at doing this. When what really happened is a sick * took advantage of me and purposefully learned about my trauma, pretended to care, then used my own body's maladaptations and triggers to put me through a living * all over again. How this makes him an absolute monster. Not me. I'm not bad. I refuse to keep accepting that nonsense regardless of how much it was drilled in to me as a child and triggered and used against me thereafter. Not anymore. This ends with me.

I laid down to sleep, so exhausted, and barely getting any rest these days from overblown stress response system and being victimized and abused and trapped again, and my poor mindbody starting to unravel and process it all and get triggered again to release it. I've been doing a lot of iRest Yoga Nidra practices and they somatically release trauma and let it out of the body, often through twitches and convulsions. Well, last night they were almost like a slow motion seizure. Violent, intense bursts where my legs would kick or my arms fly or torso convulse. And I just relaxed and let them go, cause it's a release, a blessing. And eventually I realized how that sick * was raping me. And I realized it was the frozen fight response trapped in my body releasing itself, so I started fighting the air and the bed and the pillows and yelling and screaming 'no' and 'help' and just letting out the anger and crying as much as I could.

The narrative...(graphic)

It went from something that was good to feeling like I had been raped. I confronted him, he insincerely apologized, but I was already trauma bonded, I slipped right back into the old pathways as soon as he did this, and he had complete control. I had to take the 'Plan B' pill and it messed up all my hormones since, bringing back chronic pelvic pain that had almost gone away (which is back now). I'm sure all the rape hasn't helped that either and it's left me with pain and discomfort now from chronic yeast infections that are back as well. All of this is statistically related to sexual trauma.  any time we were having sex, whether I 'wanted to' (questioning if I really EVER did I was so brainwashed) or not (when he would touch me and not respond to me pushing him away until I just froze and gave up) he kept doing this. Keeping me in a constant state of fear that he was going to impregnate me. He actually did a couple of times, or I was convinced he did as I being re-triggered about a seriously traumatic miscarriage I had five years ago that feels as if it was the most emotionally painful experience I've had in my whole life (worse than any abuse). He knew about this too so he knew what he was doing to me. And he knew having to take any hormone pills physically destabilizes me as well as seriously mentally destabilizes me (can't take BC ever). He stole my autonomy and power and pleasure and this went on and on for the three or four months I was pretty much living with him. In the beginning I would wake up in the morning dissociated, come out of the freeze response, and escape back to my mom's house for a little while until he would hoover me back again and again. He used withholding of affection all day long to get me to give in to his abuse as I was starving for anything at that point, and get me to blame myself.

I escaped less and less and my health got worse and worse. Until finally, one night at a bar, this guy who knew him came up and made him look like the pathetic piece of trash he is, and his sad disgusting little ego was so wounded, and I just found him so pathetic. The guy wouldn't let it go and was kind of annoying me, after the BF had walked away with a severely wounded narcissistic ego (scary, when is the rage gonna drop?), he made me tell him about my remarkable life and positive qualities and kept saying "so what are you doing with this guy?" and later, repeating, "how's that working out for you?" when I was anywhere near him again. He wouldn't let it go, he even seemed smug. It worked, I was pissed at him because I couldn't come up with any reason I was with my BF anymore. It woke me up out of the denial I had been wrestling with for months. He knew the BF and he wasn't one of his flying monkeys or prey. Maybe he's not even a really a good guy himself and was trying to 'win me' or something, but that night he helped me see I was choosing this on some level, that I had the power, and that my BF was disgusting. All of a sudden I didn't want any affection from my BF anymore, I just lost all the false respect (that kind that's really fear) I had for him. I couldn't pretend anymore, I was already so exhausted of the cognitive dissonance and Stockholm syndrome and abuse. I already have educated myself in the past a lot on narcissistic abuse and healed from so much that those messages were coming through the fog off and on anyways. When we got home he tried to save face, his stupid friends were there doing drugs with him and making fun of that guy. He tried to kiss me and tell me he loved me (LIE) and I just kept recoiling from him. I went to bed and he was in the living room with his friends. He tried to come in and kiss me and he could see he had lost me, that that guy had helped me see who he really is.

And even though I was kinda of frozen and couldn't run away it just made me despise him more. He tried to have sex with me later and I didn't let him somehow. I was still too scared to leave or frozen maybe, and I had been drinking a little bit earlier and didn't want to drive. I just didn't even let him hold me when I slept, which is when he pretends he loves me after not touching me all day. I was so far away from him in my mind he couldn't even abuse me, or I maybe got lucky. I also had this thought form in my mind like, that guy is right, this is not how you treat women (he had scolded BF to his face and somehow seen like everything I was dissatisfied with about his selfishness, it was awesome!) and that there are men who don't do this. BF was also super drunk and high on drugs anyways and passed out pretty hard (he's a drug dealer, scum of the earth kind). The next morning he was out cold, I mean his ego had taken a huge blow and he overdid it for sure and I packed all my things and just left.

When I contacted him a few days later and said what he had done wasn't ok, he tried to gaslight me, tell me I was psychotic and made it up. I wasn't having it and he switched to tactics to "maybe" he was just drunk and "maybe" he just wanted to kiss me. Um WHAT? Which is it *? I went off at that point. I just told him what I really thought of him, the real him, that he's disgusting, he makes money off of taking advantage of other people, he's a hollow person, he isn't even interesting, he has no ambitions except to feed of the pain of others, etc. I stood up for myself, my positive qualities, I had some self esteem. How I have travelled the world and studied art and nutrition and therapies so I can actually help other people with this knowledge and how I have already helped many survivors to this day. I just got my identity back finally. I feel like I ripped him apart for the horrible abusive coward he was. Every time he tried to put me down I turned the truth right back around on him. I felt some guilt after my blow up and I was blocking him and unblocking him a couple times.

He didn't try to get to me come back directly this time though, so I KNOW he was waiting for me to apologize for 'freaking out' on him, as usual. (Mechanism of narc: drive someone to insanity with abuse and then watch them have a breakdown, stay cool, and get them to apologize and come back cause they actually have a conscience). All he said was he 'just couldn't take me freaking out anymore.' All I could think was good, cause there's no way I'm stopping if I'm around your abuse, I can't control being triggered like that. I had two slip ups where I missed him and texted him (withdrawl), but he was asleep (sleeps all day like a vampire and had been controlling my sleep and food intake too) so I came to my senses and would re-block him before he woke up again. Plus one of those was when he was hoovering and pretending to be a 'good guy' and I got him to drop off some of my stuff without even having to open the door or see him. Didn't fall for the good guy act, the hoovering, the gaslighting, any of it, thank the goddess.

And thank that man who had seen me with this guy like a couple dozen times probably and finally said something to help me wake up and empower myself. Whether or not he's someone I can actually trust (cause I don't) I can only think of him as a guardian angel. I'm super freaked out that he is another narcissist in reality so I'm too scared to even take the risk and thank him at this point, but maybe it took another jerk with a huge ego to take down this one and he didn't push my boundaries just smiled back when I saw him a couple of weeks later at a gas station.

Whew I'm tired, I'm going to go take really good care of myself now like the queen I am! Whatever I need I'm going to give it to myself and probably cry a lot as I have been off and on while writing. I practiced staying in my body and feelings while writing this because it's easier to just go numb and had to keep pulling myself in and out of dissociation, compassionately of course. Cause I want to stop doing that, I HAVE TO STOP doing that or this can happen again. I'm committed to not ignoring those little red flags anymore because although I don't blame myself for any of this now, it's when I ignore the warning signs that I start to give away my power and it is just too dangerous for me to do that, I lose myself so quickly with these NPD/BPD manipulative abusive types. It's hard enough not to if you haven't been abused all your life, let alone when you have and they are intentionally using it against you. Whew.

Thank you for being my witness. I appreciate you even reading this and also would love to hear your feedback if you have any. 

UPDATE: I now believe that this article is about narcissistic abuse. That my mom is actually a super covert narc or whatever other Cluster B, and was and is abusive.

Um, having a bit of a revelation here, maybe it will help some of you to see this like it's helping me, and I would love to hear what you feel comfortable sharing if you relate cause this is a totally new concept for me. I've really been struggling about my mom. My dad was sexually and psychologically abusive parent with at best, NPD/Bipolar/schizoaffective, but perhaps actually true BPD, and he tends to get all the attention in my recovery as sole perpetrator (of course, don't they always get all the attention, cue: sarcastic laughter!).

But then I've got this other parent, the one who is 'supporting' me now as I'm disabled by CPTSD and it's other physically manifested disorders, and I've just really struggled with my mom. I have a really really hard time saying she has NPD because I just know her behavior is just not intentional and she actually thinks she is doing what's best for me. But it still feels darn abusive. And then that gets so mixed up in my head. Like her first response to me telling her about my dad's sexual abuse was "That happens to a lot of people and we just get over it." I mean that was flat out abusive, and when I confronted her it was like, well it happened to me as a child once. And she begrudgingly apologized and proceeded to help me get help and support me financially off and on ever since in my recovery. Except that she usually, despite me being disabled, threatens to pull out the rug from underneath me and I live in constant fear of being homeless, even though assured I won't be. She just gets in her mind I'm ok now and I can go live up to her unrealistic expectations. We have worked on this a lot and I think she's stopped, but I can't be sure. It's always there looming.

So I just read this article (posted below) and it BLEW. MY. MIND. Why have none of my therapists EVER mentioned what a codependent parent is? They were also super trauma competent. I always found so many resources about NPD and that kind of abuse, what about codependently entrenched parents? I will list characteristics from this article:

"1. The Codependent Parent has a Victim Mentality
Rather than dealing with the traumas and difficulties of their own life through healthy means . . . the parent latches onto a child and demands compensation . . . can take many forms . . . parent will live vicariously through a child."
This can be overt or covert, like my mom always expecting me to have perfect grades as a child and never admitting it. Or as an adult, expecting me to just magically recover based on her invented timeline and threaten to stop supporting me at random completely convinced she is being an enabling parent and causing my inability to thrive. I always felt like she was 'living' for her children and couldn't criticize it.

"2. The Codependent Parent is Never Wrong
So rather than listening to the child's feelings and problems and learning about the child's personality and way of being in the world, every situation becomes a threat to the parent's authority."
She is always right and cannot, under any circumstances be wrong. And it's completely unconscious, to the point she is actually delusional about basic truths, and if she pretends to concede a point there is amnesia about it in the future. And FORGET an apology, at best I get an insincere one.

"3. The Codependent Parent is Overly Emotional
When they feel that they are losing control of a situation they will resort to crying, screaming, and other acts of intimidation to restore the balance in their favor. When called out . . . accuse the child . . . or feign ignorance."
Like, accuse me of trying to manipulate for calling her out or needing her support or having anger and hurt from her actions...or go straight to intimidation because I'm financially dependent at this point. CHECK. Or silent treatments, especially when I was recently being abused by BF CHECK

"4. The Codependent Parent Never Listens
. . . like "talking to a brick wall" . . . even when presented with irrefutable facts . . . they refute them or move on to a different argument without addressing the point being made."
This one makes me feel particularly insane, not to mention completely abandoned, and I just sink into that abandonment depression and shut down, again. Ugh

5. The Codependent Parent Parrots Words and Phrases
"Whatever concern the child expresses the parent will find a way to turn it around and regurgitate it as their own, thus reversing the defensive and offensive roles . . . "
More crazy making. Needs never heard or validated, but used as ammunition, OUCH.

"6. The Codependent Parent Has Mood Swings
Parent will rapidly shift from one mood to another in order to avoid responsibility and guilt."
Convenient ones, that manipulate. My mom's are super subtle, I hadn't noticed this till I read it. This is obviously starting to wear me out.

"7. The Codependent Parent Must Maintain Control at All Costs
. . . Most codependent parents expect a level of devotion and love from their children that is unhealthy and unnatural, intended to make up for that which they lack . . . role-reversal."
My mom is on the subtle side of this as described in the article. It states this is their true nature under the facade. I always have felt like she has to have total control of everything. I guess it's not that different from narcissistic abuse? This is why I get confused, cause it is and it isn't. It's more unconscious than malicious and they are so deluded they are helping you you can end up believing them!

"8. The Codependent Parent Manipulates-Subtly
The most effective form of manipulation is the kind that you can never be called out for directly . . . silent treatment, passive aggressive comments, denial of wrongdoing and projection . . . often parent are genuinely unaware . . . believe that they are doing what's in their child's best interest . . ."
Amen. It's SO confusing. And also, what keeps me away from the NPD people is that I KNOW that they really KNOW what they are doing and it's intentional and the disgust makes me run from that. But it feels like this is pretty dangerous and unhealthy too.

I'm gonna say this is a LOT to process and a lot of info, especially if you can relate. I would love to hear anything you have to say about all this and your experience, as always. I'm feeling hurt, angry, confused, and relieved all at the same time. And also like renewed proof to myself and motivation for why I have to get out of learned helplessness cycle and get on my own, be able to support myself. I was partially stuck in this last abusive relationship with BF because I wanted to avoid this     

Article link: https://wehavekids.com/family-relationships/8-Signs-You-May-Have-a-Codependent-Parent

Anyone have any tips, advice, or resources they found helpful for understanding/overcoming the freeze response. I'm particularly interested in how do I stop it. It's so debilitating and I've undergone a lot more trauma over the last six months and I found myself freezing up during almost all of it, unable to get away until that whole thing calmed down and I felt like I could sneak out or move even. It's so disempowering. I remember the first time I think I said no or ran out of someone who triggered me and touched me inappropriately and I thought I was going to die of a panic attack it was so intense.

Since I'm triggered I'll just put a trigger warning here just in case...

So this afternoon I went to see a film as an attempt to do something caring for myself. But I picked the wrong one and ended up bawling the whole way through. I didn't want to leave, I need to cry and release emotions right now so badly. I've just this horrible knot in my chest and gut and it only feels like I can breathe and the pain goes away when I'm crying. So I stayed in the film (called "Lion"). It was about a boy in India who gets lost and separated from his mother and siblings, escapes almost being sexually abused or made a child sex slave (I'm a survivor of rape and incest) and then gets adopted by a family in Tanzania, only to remember later his childhood before and search for his family. I thought it would be a feel good movie, sad and then happy.

What ended up happening was me having a flashback, I know what an emotional flashback is but this was a visual one too so at least I had the frame of reference, I guess. What I remembered was being very little and in my room, and fantasizing that I was adopted and my real parents were somewhere else, like I had been kidnapped, and they really loved me and would have protected me. I had the full emotional memory as well of just how lonely I was and exactly how I felt. And I also remembered being paranoid that men and boys were watching me through my windows and going to come and molest me at any time, because that's what I had learned about what men do at that point (maybe five years old). This also made me feel another level of confirmation that these things really did happen to me because there is always that voice in the back of my head that still doesn't want to accept it despite all the therapy. And I just wept and felt how terrible it was to feel like an orphan, or to wish to be an orphan and know that I wasn't loved or protected. And to feel how scared and helpless I was. And I also realized that I have always felt these things, I've never really stopped feeling scared (more accurately, terrified) of the world around me, like I'm always about to be attacked, or stopped feeling totally alone like there is no one I can really trust.

And I realized that when I'm not dissociated, under the influence of substances (be it recreational or prescribed), numbing with eating disorders, rescuing someone else, etc, I have to feel this horrible constant terror of life. That it has taken a huge toll on my health, that feeling like I'm always about to die. That it has led to all kinds of risky behaviors just to feel something good or otherwise feel nothing at all. And that it has out me in harms way over and over again to be re-victimized. And I'm tired of living like this, where every day is a fight to maintain my faith and hope in life and the will to succeed and live and thrive are often so elusive. And I'm so sad that I've had to go through all of this and that it just keeps happening or my body keeps reacting like it still is. How can I even form a sentence? How did I not completely lose my sanity? How do I stop revisiting the same thing over and over and over again? It feels like I have processed these feelings and memories a hundred times by now. When does it end? Or when am I well enough to be able to support myself and keep myself safe?

Here is a link for a yoga practice you can do called iRest, it's more like a guided meditation where you lie down and listen as the founder, Richard Miller guides you through body sensing. I have found this practice incredibly helpful for healing PTSD and he developed the program specifically for woking with traumatized military veterans. There is a lot of research to back up it's success and it's so so helpful with symptoms and an over-activated nervous system. There is a whole program, if you like it, where you can order the book and/or cd and do it on your own pretty easily (the book has all the practice 'scripts' so you can record in your own voice, which is supposed to be even more effective). If it makes you 'twitch' just know that is stored trauma being somatically released from your system and notice it. I find it really helps me let go and my nervous system is so soothed, it has also helped me with accepting/tolerating difficult feelings and emotions as well as reducing chronic pain. I've studied with this guy personally and he is an amazing human. Hope you enjoy!

video:
https://youtu.be/Psl9FKh6qPg

book:
https://www.amazon.com/iRest-Program-Healing-PTSD-Proven-Effective-ebook/dp/B00PMRT32M

website:
https://www.irest.us/projects/irest

Found this really helpful video the other day on trauma bonding, otherwise known as Stockholm Syndrome. I really like the way she lays it out and it feels very supportive.

https://youtu.be/pUKgIXHD278

["Rape is a strategy of actual physical and psychological control of women, traumatizing via the vagina as a way to imprint the consequences of trauma on the female brain . . . Rape, properly understood, is more like an injury to the brain than a violent variation of sex."]

Trigger Warning...not graphic but discusses sexual trauma and female sexuality

"Rape is a strategy of actual physical and psychological control of women, traumatizing via the vagina as a way to imprint the consequences of trauma on the female brain . . . Rape, properly understood, is more like an injury to the brain than a violent variation of sex."
p 93 "Vagina" by Naomi Wolf

Forever it seems I have been searching for the proof, the scientific rationalized proof about what sexual trauma and rape trauma really did to me, and what they really do to women. Then someone gave me a resource, it's a book called "Vagina" by Naomi Wolf and it discusses all of the amazing new research about the vagina brain connection and its implications for the individual and society at large. Trauma is only one part of this book, most of it is dedicated to helping women (and partners) understand how our sexuality really works and how it relates to our self-esteem, creativity, and empowerment.

This year has been a year of sexual awakening for me. I had the first positive sex experience of my life. One where I connected with a sexual partner when I was in a very self empowered and confident state. I immediately broke down and was in fits of sobbing grief as all this trapped pain finally escaped from me, and also fits of rage and anger. He had unlocked all those things from me through being a caring, kind, and competent lover. It was a transcendental awakening experience. My creativity and self confidence sky rocketed. I was writing beautiful poetry, colors were brighter, food tasted better, I could see the interconnectedness of life. In the book, "Vagina," this is the author's ultimate hypothesis, that sexual experiences where a woman can achieve true pleasure in a way that is meaningful to her open our creativity and passion for life. She brings in a lot of scientific evidence that helps support this about neurotransmitters and lots of examples from professionals and researchers. It is absolutely astonishing to read. I would like to just put some quotes up from the book:

"This is why I call dopamine the ultimate feminist chemical. If a woman has optimal levels of dopamine she is difficult to direct against herself. She is hard to drive to self-destruction, to manipulate and control." p 59

"An essential paradox of the female condition is that for women to be really free, we have to understand the ways in which nature designed us to be attached to and dependent upon love, connection, intimacy, and the right kind of Eros in the hands of the right kind of man or woman." p 73

"Just as good sexual experience in the vagina driven drives joy and creativity into the female brain . . .  the traumatized vagina, the abused vagina, the vagina that is part of a neural network that is being neglected by a withholding or sexually selfish mate--literally cannot effectively condition the female brain with the chemicals that constitute the emotions of confidence, courage, connection, and joy." p 87

" . . . if your goal is to break a woman psychologically, it is efficient to do violence to her vagina. You will break her faster and more thoroughly than if you simply beat her--because of the vulnerability of the vagina as a mediator of consciousness. Trauma to the vagina imprints deeply in the female brain, conditioning and influencing the rest of her body and mind." p 93

"Rape tends to be understood and even prosecuted--if there is no weapon involved, and no additional physical assault, no visible bruising or blood--as if it is "just" forced sex, rather than a highly violent act resulting in potentially lasting physical damage. But this new science shows . . . "nonviolent" sex assault . . . can imprint and harm the female body in measurable, long-lasting ways." p 105

There is so much information here and it has given me so much insight into my own sexual trauma and its aftereffects. Very little research about the effect of sexual trauma on women (and also men) has even been done and so much more is needed to treat its outcomes in complex PTSD cases. I ended up weeping after reading and processing the trauma chapter and honestly it was the biggest relief I may have ever had. This book is a gift of understanding for ourselves that I find extremely liberating, even in the wake of dealing with complex PTSD and related chronic illness and impacts on my life.

What's interesting is that what I feel the most relief about, and what I was sobbing for, was in the permission I feel now to allow myself to have the need for sexual satisfaction and the connectivity of relationship with a romantic partner. That I'm not just needy, that I don't have to be satisfied in the mainstream ways men are projected to be sexually satisfied. That I'm wired differently than a man and also than every other woman on earth, unique. That my sexuality and pleasure and satisfaction are fundamental to my joy and creativity in life and that they are my birthright. I now feel that my healing journey is not so much about the specific trauma I survived as the withholding of this right and it's restoration.

So here I go again, the ups and downs of recovery can be exhausting. 2016 was a year full of them. I survived three more malignant narcissists and I'm finding myself triggered and depleted again and in need of some more recovery and understanding and connection. Luckily, it seems like although I get hopeless at times, I can see how each time around it gets a little bit easier to pick myself back up again and I spend a little or a lot less time entrenched in codependent relationships, in other words, I see the signs and escape a lot more quickly than before, even if it keeps happening. At this point, ten years into therapy of all kinds, I can say that my inner critic is much much smaller and has a lot less influence. Even when I regress it seems like it isn't as strong and it doesn't last as long. I'm also seeing the pattern of how I repeat the trauma. Not to blame myself for the abuse but there is a distinct pattern there. I also see how getting stuck as a 'freeze-fawn' hybrid subtype in these relationships I just fall right back into it and dissociate and go into care-taking overdrive like autopilot. And the substance abuse pattern holy-moly. I've pretty much been dating drug dealers to keep a constant supply to deal with the fallout of their abuse (my father, original abuser, was one). It's kind of astounding to see that the same thing, down to the oddest details keeps happening again, despite my ever growing sense of self and awareness.

My biggest concerns and goals right now are 1) how do I keep myself safe when I regress into 'freeze' mode and dissociation pretty much immediately 2) how do I STOP the codependency thing? I really can't handle it anymore and I have to end this cycle and 3) how do I overcome learned helplessness and be stable enough to support myself?

I'm almost 30 and it's hitting me that I'm still really not functioning well with the CPTSD regressions and outbreaks. And regardless of massive efforts towards awareness and education I seem to fall right into abusive and unbalanced relationships over and over again. The level of awareness I have about my trauma, how it affected me, and where I am at now is getting pretty realistic. I mean, I can finally see where I really am at, which isn't great or ideal at all, and tbh how * up I am. It's pretty hard to admit just how much of a poorly adjusted adult trauma has left me as but I guess the up-side is that I have to be able to see it to heal it.  Still sometimes I feel like: and sometimes I get so hopeless I downward spiral.

Right now I'm really realizing how I would rather die than ask for something I need. Right now, for example, I just need to ask my mom for money for gas, and most likely she will say yes, but I feel so much panic about it I just freeze instead and stay in my room. Or, alternately, just do the dishes and make everyone dinner and be perfect again until I'm exhausted, and hope she just offers me money for being a good child. I just want to be invisible, still!

Trigger warning: sexual/emotional abuse

I've recently extricated myself from another abusive relationship. I was sexually abused as a child by my bio father (not to mention the emotional and psychological aspects...and that he is probably truly BPD, no contact for about six years though he 'found' me last year and I just throw away things he sends). This abuse trauma has been repeated in adolescence quite a few times and adulthood over and over again. I have never had a safe or remotely healthy relationship. Despite lots of therapy (inpatient, outpatient, psychologists, psychiatrists, etc) for the past ten years and now extensive knowledge of these types of narcissists, it happened again. I'm pretty sure I just dissociated most of the time because I finally was able to leave him (hopefully for good this time) a couple of weeks ago and have had little to no contact since (just to get my things back). I currently don't have a therapist and am looking for one in a rural area where possibly none are competent in complex trauma. 

I just feel a need to get some of it out, I don't feel like I can't say it out loud, it's just easier to write it. For the past four months or so I've been living at his place in terrible conditions. He's a drug dealer and had been pressuring me to do cocaine and smoke pot and drink with him. Lots of unsafe characters came through and were inappropriate towards me and when telling him how unsafe I felt he would just turn that around and use it to shame me that I might cheat on him. It was a complete psychic hijacking. He got me to trust him early and tell him about trauma and once he had me trapped he used it all as weapons to demoralize me and keep me under control. If I brought up issues with his behavior, he would tell me I was crazy and gaslight me or tell me it never happened. (Trigger warning) These behaviors included grabbing my private parts in public and laughing, withholding affection then forcing himself sexually and ejaculating in me without my approval (rape) and making me take hormone pills that I have bad reactions to for fear of pregnancy, telling me he was doing it for me, telling me I was a complete nightmare and no one could want me, convincing me I was a narcissist, not letting me sleep/disturbing sleep patterns, controlling food intake/starving me, threatening violence, constant little and big put downs and verbal humiliations, using 'I love you' to get away with bad behavior, to eventually the other night when he was holding me down and kissing me and choking me and not stopping when I told him to, then telling me the next day I made it all up and am insane.

I feel like I just dreamed it all. Like I wasn't really there, so I know I was dissociating. I feel al lot better since getting away from him and not being fed substances all the time or told I'm nuts. But I'm also super triggered at realizing all of the above mentioned things happened because I just pushed them out and went somewhere else, or went into denial. I'm scared to leave the house really. I think every truck I hear on the street is him. I've been either numb, very emotional, or hopeless. Something in me is still fighting but I'm so frightened at how easily this happened to me again. I feel like it's my fault, like I should know better after all of the therapy and research and practice and self love. I feel like I will never be able to have a healthy relationship or intimacy and I can't trust my own judgement cause I am attracted to these psychos. Because part of me knew what he was and just went along with it like, "F-it" mentality, I'm so lonely and starved for love and affection. I feel like I'm addicted to abuse. I don't know what to do anymore. Any support or advice that comes to mind is greatly appreciated. I feel like I could write a book about abuse trauma I know so much at this point, but I'm still not safe...

*Triggers*

So, I recently have been badly taken advantage of by two different narcs. One I thought was my friend and the other a sexual partner who is totally malignant. I could go into the details but the first one used me and owes me a bunch of money she will never pay back now that I have cut her off. The second is a scary abuse situation with probably the worst narc I've seen since my father (original trauma). Someone recently brought it to my attention that I need to figure out how to stop giving myself away to these people. That I need to recognize why I do, which is obvious, I was trained to by my father, and if I didn't submit to his abuse the threat was more abuse and/or death, and/or he was going to kill my mother or sister, on and on. Total nightmare. I thought I was at the point where this didn't happen anymore, but I walked right into it all over again and repeated the trauma. I'm super against victim blaming but I feel like at some point I have to figure out what it is I am doing wrong, or what I can do to stop this from happening again. When I realized what was happening I ended contact with these people, but it's too late, my whole life is upside down again.

I feel like in these situations, once I get triggered, I dissociate and just fall back into my old role of give myself away to survive. I'm just so tired of this, and drained, and depleted of resources and even the will to live. I just want it to stop. Does anyone have any advice? I thought I had learned to love and value myself but this suggests otherwise to me. All I can come up with is isolate myself and trust no one...which seems like an awful world to live in. I'm so ashamed this happened again. I'm really down on myself but I don't know what else will motivate me to take my life back.

Hi,

***Possible triggers...not graphic

I've been diagnosed complex PTSD for several years after many misdiagnoses. I'm not currently in treatment and suffice it to say I've had nearly every treatment available and spent the past decade in and out of therapy, residential, and inpatient/outpatient trauma programs and doing loads of research to try and survive this. I was actually told after an EMDR session maybe six months ago that I was cured, but here I am again.

I survived a lifetime of sexual abuse trauma and just general abuse trauma as well, repeating the pattern over and over again. I thought I was done repeating it, but apparently I'm just as naive about people and prone to a freeze response as ever cause it just happened again.

I don't know what to do anymore. I lost my job, again. I've isolated myself and its physically painful to leave the house. I can hardly eat or sleep and I'm extremely depressed and feeling like giving up and am using drugs or alcohol to numb myself. But I remembered this place. Most of me feels like giving up.