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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. 

Starshimmer! You are so creative and sparkly, I find your list super inspiring and I can definitely connect.

Seems like this thread is showing me there are quite of few of us 'witches' or 'mystics' or 'intuitives' or whatever you call yourself/us haha. That makes a lot of sense to me, we are the sensitive ones and I while it's such a gift I feel that it can make us extra sensitive to trauma. Lovely to meet you all like this! I feel like I'm really seeing the beauty in everyone here and it makes my heart smile. We all have so much to offer both ourselves and the world with our unique gifts and sensitivities and it can be so hard to remember when CPTSD takes a hold.

cdnPunkin, I can relate to what you mean. For me it just seems all too easy to slip back into the old self doubt narratives. I would say that I have quite a lot of practices for this and it's practice that makes the difference. One thing I practice that has really worked for me is saying "I love you" to myself with my hand over my heart, like a sort of repetitive meditation kind of. I find the less I want to do it the more I need to do it haha. In the beginning maybe I didn't believe it but it worked anyways. Also, I have posted my list somewhere visible where I see it and read it daily. These things can really take some reinforcement until we can accept them.

To Be Happy-I'm glad that one word sounds more doable.

May you all be well.

Big insights this morning. I'm coming out of one long emotional flashback that was just like a flood of all the cruel things my mother has done. And it's so exhausting but it's essential to acknowledge what the truth. I just kind of felt somewhere inside me this voice say, 'now don't get stuck in this.' The emotional intensity and purge is hard. It's hard to feel like just waking up from the fog of disillusionment my mind created to save myself from this much abandonment and other pain. I just felt like I need to take back the power and control over my life now. To come to be able to manage my own thoughts, feelings, and, thereby choices/actions, in a healthy and appropriate way without just avoiding and repressing again. It's been hard not to go back into avoidance and denial, and at the same time to not get so carried away by amygdala hijacking that I lose my sanity and ability to get out of this helplessness trap.

I asked to universe to get me out of this helplessness trap a few weeks ago, and boy did it answer. I'm super grateful for that and feeling like I can see things so clearly now, and knowing it's because I chose to do this. I chose to stop avoiding the truth and open the wounds and let the light of awareness in so I can get through all this past and present suffering and move forward. The answers aren't easy but they are actually simple. I have to choose to stop giving away my power to people who want to control me. It wasn't so easy to recognize these people, especially when they are parents. And it really is about my self esteem. They did train me to place all my worth and needs in their hands so they could control my life. If I give someone the power of external validation then I lose my ability to provide for my own validation and needs and I engage in this illusion that I am helpless. I'm not saying that abusive people aren't really really good at setting this trap. At flatter-bombing you until you can't see straight. But what they did to me was prey on my starvation for the love, approval, protection, and support of my parents. My parents were and are very sick people who abused the * out of me. But at the end of the day, I can see that it's really they who are the delusional ones. In thinking they are good parents still. Because they always will think this. I decide to see them as weak instead of powerful because all they really did was control me with mind games. Mind games I can end simply by taking back responsibility for my own mind and person. I see my own pattern where I was drawn to these types of people again and again for the flattery they offer. I see how their shallow flattery drew me in and made me feel special, and how I was craving that so much I kept putting my self worth and needs in right in the hands of people who are super sick and disordered and wanted to feel powerful by taking all my needs and only giving them back in little crumbs to keep me starving so they could feel less empty and feed off my gifts, talents, and love like parasites. At it's core abuse is parasitic mind control. I don't have to place my needs in the hands of anyone else anymore, even healthy people, because I'm an adult now and not that little girl who needs her parents to survive. I don't have to be so trusting and polite and just allow creepy people to violate my boundaries. It's not that bad stuff can't happen where I have no control over it still, but I have to do the best I can be autonomous and take care of myself and choose to walk away from these shallow manipulative people and give myself what I need. It takes overcoming the doubts they put in my head, it takes unwinding all the cognitive dissonance, it takes feeling the painful emotions of being taken advantage of again and again by icky people, it takes saying no, it takes standing up for myself when I feel frozen, it takes a lot of courage and self love. But there are also good people out there who haven't taken advantage of me and believed in me when I couldn't do it for myself or didn't even know that I wasn't, it takes a lot to change the patterns of my mind and body and how it reacts to the world around and within it. But I just can't live in the hands of malicious and unhealthy people anymore and it's my right not to. And the only way is taking back responsibility for my life and refusing to give it away anymore.

Thanks, I'll check that out! I'm on a youtube binge off and on and it's so helpful and validating sometimes I think what the heck did anyone do about trauma before the internet? I mean things had to have been even more under wraps. I personally think we are in a revolution against narcissism, about time for one anyhow.  And thanks for the work you do as moderator! That's gotta be rewarding but intense too at times.

Update, yes yes yes he's great! Engage the critical thinking and logic. That's all I've got to hold onto right now about my mom being a covert. I keep slipping like oh she loves me and then I pull myself back with what are the facts? Lists, reminder, re-reading posts and journals, and the trauma is all so linked in my mind then it just rolls on its own.

Yeah I'm so sorry lady, it's never easy to see this stuff. It feels so icky. Sounds like you are taking good care of yourself.

But it is also wonderful you documented your progress and achieved goals! A 'good' therapist or supportive person would tell you that you are amazing and resilient and you can look back at that account you wrote as successful and still use it. Because it was about you, not her. I wish that there was a magical way we could just avoid these types forever. But it seems like this experience probably reflects your own personal growth here. I mean, look how you sensed your boundaries were being violated, and then sought support, and are now making a decision to do what feels right for you. I'm really inspired by that and I'm sure your e-book would wonderful. But ugh she's disgusting, I got the chills too, sorry if I went a little overboard I hope I wasn't insensitive. I really wanted to convey the shock, horror, and compassion I felt about what you went through, especially as so many of us have been taught to second guess ourselves about this kind of nonsense. The wolf in sheep's clothing can be so sneaky until this kind of thing comes out and then it's so confusing. Good job with self care.

Thanks, my head is spinning. It's crazy making and I can't let it undermine my escape. I have to keep moving forward. Of course she's acting as innocent as usual. Still not a single word as to how am I doing after surviving abuse? Nothing. I went back and read some cards she had written me and it's so obvious. Just some * flattery and flowery language that actually means nothing, then the whole "you're such a good girl" for xyz that I secretly want you to do for me, pretend happiness that I'm recovering, then creepy stuff like where she looks obsessive and calls me things like "her support, her best friend" and adds guilt trips to make me miss and worry about my dog (while I am in residential treatment). Now they just look like hoovering laced with triggers and lies, lies, lies. I'm now feeling disgusted by all the flattery abusive people use as a ploy to get you to flatter their empty selves. What the reality is is that she is dependent on me for supply and I can't even look at her anymore so that ain't happening. I'm focusing on independence ASAP because when I'm in this house my body and health just deteriorate so it might as well be physical abuse to add to the emotional. I've been trying to express my anger in healthy ways because the amount that has been repressed is not healthy, but I can't turn in inwards anymore. I feel like my suicidality is gone, like really gone, because of this. I'm exhausted emotionally but that's because I'm just expressing everything I need to finally. I'm getting my ducks in a row and I've never really been this motivated. I mean, the thought of having no family and nowhere to go with people who know me is horrible, but this false home and its false security come much too high a price. Really, at this point, I'm just so fed up with the *. I'm just tired of this, and I don't deserve it, and I've got better * to do with my life, you know?

Trigger Warning

OMG all the trauma is just flooding out and I have no where to go to get away from her at the moment, just like she wants. She hasn't been supportive about the recent abuse cause he primed me to be her captive again, and her little housewife taking care of the house for her while she works. Jesus christ, help me. My whole body wants to scream and run away and I'm trapped. NO WONDER I have such an intense freeze response, this is what my parents did. My dad would outright sexually abuse me and I'm almost certain I even told her and I'm POSITIVE she KNEW, and then I'd have to come to her and she would ignore all my symptoms, feelings, emotions, and make herself look like the good rescuer parent. SO all she says to me now is these oversweet messages about how she's so grateful I am cooking and cleaning up and that's so helpful. And she's already laid such a heavy shame foundation before about me needing her help when I'm disabled, I just do everything. And last night I remembered. How abusive her mom was. How I always feel like I have a horrible nasty mean grandma, and my mom still asserts she is good mom and she loves her mom. Uh...lie. And how she used to have to cook and clean and take care of her siblings. This may or may not be true but she was priming ME to do it. As a kid I had no friends and would do all this and she would give me all the praise she was starving me for for doing what she wanted, serving her needs. I think she's priming me to care for her needs forever. Exploiting my illness and keeping me disabled with her psychological warfare. Well, the other daughter, the one who can do no wrong, lol, the one she trained to be just like her and ignore me and everyone when they are ill or in pain, sure as * ain't gonna do it. And neither am I. I just can't take it. I can't take her sweet syrupy mother of the year act. It's complete crap. It's so gross. I have to get out.

Hey there! Welcome.

A thought came up for me as I've been reading this book aptly called "Vagina" by Naomi Wolf about all the new research on women's sexuality and trauma. Maybe you are not a woman and this doesn't apply to you but I'll just make a leap and assume (sorry if I'm wrong, pls ignore this haha, I'm not always sure on this site cause user names are not necessarily that telling).

There could be a lot of reasons behind this that are covered super in depth in this book and well researched. It could be medical (such as related to nerve damage), it could be psychological-CPTSD related-as sexual shaming can have a traumatic affect on the vagina-brain connection similar to physical abuse, and so can depression and anxiety in general affect it, and also, it could be that your (ahem) partner (ahem) just isn't doing it right for you (not necessarily intentionally). I do think our go-to as survivors of trauma and a society not super concerned with women's pleasure can be to just assume it's us. What she also discusses at length is how women are each uniquely wired to climax, that we all have different needs. And also, the way society projects what and how a woman needs to sexually climax is pretty off base from what most actually need, and most of us haven't been taught about this at all, and this fact is now well documented by and understood with current research. Anyways I hope this is helpful, I'm finding the book extremely helpful. It helped me take a lot of blame off myself and understand myself better. It's very objective and research-based and it makes a heck of a lot of sense. Most of the book is not devoted to sexual trauma, but instead to how women are sexually wired in general and how to find this for yourself. Good luck!

Hey amazingly insightful self-aware survivor!

Your self-expression literally blows me away, so inspiring. I mean that genuinely. I really think that you clearly have the cognitive capacity to overcome this. I really see that in you. I just get the sense that you were always this brilliant and your FOO did not want you to know/were probably quite envious (on the inside of course), and (leap?) maybe tried to make you believe something else? I could just be projecting, one never knows.

I also want to say I can relate to feeling like you just can't tell your therapist something that makes you uncomfortable, when so many of us were taught to bury what makes us uncomfortable, this can be a struggle. Therapy is the place we practice these things. I'm also sorry you're feeling uncomfortable lately, that's ok too, whether you are projecting or just sensing your inner boundaries here, this is an uncomfortable process. I can imagine after six months of deep work like that it could feel pretty vulnerable, and I have found that my openness kind of expands and then contracts, and that sometimes I need to be a little more gentle with myself during these contractions because I am an overachiever and hold myself to unreasonable standards for healing. I mean that's just me. Anywho, I had a thought. What about reframing this as you giving yourself the love your parents didn't? That may be pretty uncomfortable too but I could see what he's getting at. I want to affirm to you that if his exercise doesn't feel right you never have to do it. It can be especially difficult for me personally to challenge people in authoritative positions especially when I am kind of the overachiever type )self protective) in my healing and let's face it, other pursuits. You don't ever have to imagine them being good parents, that sounds a bit much to me too and I feel like you are dead on and so self aware about it retriggering that cognitive distortion you have fought so hard against to process the truth. If I was your therapist, I would welcome this feedback and totally understand where you are coming from. His response could also show you if you can trust him (again, good practice). The first time I did this I had a flat out panic attack but therapy should (hopefully) be a safe place to test our boundaries. It might be really helpful for other clients as well.

OMG Starshimmer

I am so sorry you have to deal with this crazy therapist that is so so NOT OK. I would say run like *! You can, you don't have to stay and put up with it. You do not deserve to ever be blamed or shamed as a victim or survivor. I hate to trigger you or look like I'm jumping to conclusions but she is flat out re-traumatizing you and I really sense from what you said that she actually KNOWS what she is doing. I fully believe everything you said and am in disbelief about her cruelty. What a nightmare! You never have to go back if you don't want to, she gained your trust, learned about your deepest pain, and then used it against you. And she is an abuse sympathizer!!!! Her language is flat out the EXACT reasoning that pathological abusers use to abuse victims. For example, 'a normal person would walk away' ?!??!!? "Classic" psycho reasoning! And not siding with the survivor at all like this is a MAJOR red flag and possible sign of a covert narc disguised as a therapist here. The reason you are not allowed to say abuser is probably because SHE IS ONE. This is a terrible violation of your trust and disrespectful to what you survived. Again, she is disgusting and dreadful, not you. You are a survivor seeking to heal. I'm so sorry she did that and I'm so sorry for what you went through. I support you in your decision to cut her off soon. This is the kind of person who wants to silence us so abuse can keep happening. No. You are so brilliant at catching this and realizing it wasn't ok and listening to your body when it 'about hit the roof.' You are so courageous so seek help and reach out and share your story. This is a horrible reality that happens to other survivors with bad therapists as well. Not ok. Sending you so much support.

Wife # 2
Sorry to hear about your step son that must have been hard to watch. Kind of sounds also like you got triangulated into going along with your husband. I feel like that's how my step dad is.

Trigger Warning

Omg, it's just all coming out now. Now I remember why I'm so scared she will stalk this site. When I was like 13/14 I was 'dating' all these creepy sexual predators online. I had just stopped staying at my Dad's so probably that sexual abuse had ended. And I was meeting them and I got molested. She found out and instead of protecting me she made me feel like I was disgusting. She had spyware on the computer and had seen all the sexual messages and invaded my privacy about it. She shamed me and made me feel like she was being a good parent but she didn't actually protect me. I just kind of stopped because I was so mortified. And she approached it as well with, "oh you're just so mature."

Then I remember her saying when I was talking about how my dad was parasitically feeding off of his new host/spouse, "Aren't you relieved she is taking all his abuse now?" My mother is a psychopath! She for sure knew I was being abused. Proof after proof. Omg I'm so grossed out. And I have to be in the same house as her. When she got home I ran out. And then later just couldn't even make eye contact. She went on about her day and I got a pretty good and secret comment in. She never asked me once how I am. Proof proof proof. And all the while she just seems so sweet and so nice and she's talking about what a sympathetic person she is about a work situation that is exactly her caring about others while she doesn't care about me at all. It is so sickening. I can't give her any more supply and I'm scared what will happen. And what will happen if she finds this. I have nothing and nobody at the moment but I need this forum and support to get through this.

I can see all my repressed anger, rage, resentment, fear, terror, hurt, disappointment, invisibility, invalidation: everything I was forced to bury and make invisible, just boil up in her proximity. I can see how when I had an awakening a couple years ago and was really healing she pulled the financial plug and brought me back home where I got stuck again and was at the time so disabled by physical pain there was nothing I could do. I can see how all these feelings cause illness and pain in my body, that heart wrenching pain where you can't breathe deeply and the anxiety builds, that gut wrenching pain where my IBS goes wild. I'm so glad I found a therapist. I guess there is always a homeless shelter if she finds this? Would probably be better anyways but I would have to leave my dog baby and I really need her and don't feel good about that. I pray she doesn't find this. 

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ALLHAILTHEGLOWCLOUD
Thanks so much for that insightful and supportive response! Wow, you nailed it. Oh she wants me to get a job, she pretends to and when I do succeed it feeds her "look what a great mom I am" ego. I wish I had somewhere to go. I have no one here, they were all really toxic friendships and relationships. My sister is here and she's JUST LIKE my mom. But, I do have a best friend I keep in contact with via phone and she's helping me (unconditional love and support, such a blessing we all deserve). And I am using a self help coaching program for recovery from narcissistic abuse and self empowerment (when I mentioned this to my mom the other night I think I saw panic flash behind her eyes and her response was a very flat 'oh'). I have to take responsibility for myself now regardless of anyone else's behavior, while staying compassionate for what Ive been through. I'm really feeling excited and like I can do this. It's going to feel SO good to be on my own finally and pursue my dreams, eventually. AND I just finally got a new therapist who will see me soon, which I am NOT going to tell her, for once, and that feels super empowering. Good advice on the incognito and logout I'm going to password lock my whole computer now like a phone too. I may even drop a line about another ptsd forum and throw in specifics that match what I have told her. Cause really I'm super smart and now that I've figured her out I'm not even afraid anymore. But you know WHAT? If she finds this, SO BE IT. I'm not going to help her, but, I disappeared from this site once from a stalker sociopath I was dealing with last year and I won't do it again. I will survive and access to this resource is a gift and my right as a survivor. What's she gonna do? Tell everyone I'm nuts? Yeah. You made sure of that lady! Don't care anymore!

I realized that the magic part of this equation happened before the string of recent abuse I just went through (actually four cluster B personality disorders, who were also super abusive, in a ROW) when I put myself back out in the world again after years of chronic illness, pain and raging CPTSD symptoms. Before I did that, I had a spiritual awakening and found unconditional self love just opened right up, it was so beautiful I can't even express it. Like finding faith in life after a life of fear and terror. Then, I struggled to integrate it with all the self doubt and trauma and that was a process. But I developed self love practices to overcome this and most importantly, I don't really need loads of outside validation anymore. On some level I do, as a social being, and it's super helpful when it has good intentions from a good person. But, right now I just see how weak and pathetic she really is, and I'm like, meh, don't need your love or approval no more. And man is that liberation! Cause that's their trap as abusive parents, we naturally look to them for this and they withhold it or mix with abuse and it's messed up. If I hadn't dealt with a very very ill and very very manipulative and abusive BPD/NPD 'friend' last year this trauma about my mom wouldn't have opened up yet, I'd still be in denial. But it's made me see abusive women in a whole new light and how I am particularly vulnerable to their guilt tripping. I don't care what kind of financial support she's given me in this process she is getting zero credit for my recovery. She has tried to subvert my success in super covert and subtle ways and that takes away all the good.

Trigger Warning

What's really true is my mom knew my dad was sexually and psychologically abusing me both before and after she left him and she couldn't be bothered to care. What's true is she would roll her eyes at me whenever I was sick, since I can remember, and used my 'funny tummy' and severe IBS (starting at age 5) s to make me think I was a hypochondriac my whole life as I suffered terribly from the VERY REAL effects of a lot of major illnesses, all statistically linked to the trauma I suffered. Even when I fractured my foot as a child I was being 'dramatic' and made to walk on it and ignored, but boy did she apologize to the DOCTOR. What's true is when I was dealing with no less than 9 chronic illnesses and in heaps of pain every darn day, she kept asking me "when would I be healed?" and "when would I get a job?" and guilt tripping me to try and make me think I was taking advantage of and manipulating HER. SO, what's true is that she preys on and abuses her own ill child. What's true is she neglected me, regardless of the tidbits of power and resources she 'doled' out that were and are basic survival needs. What's true is when confronted about my sexual abuse she tried to just say "oh that's just what happens and we get over it" and tell some story about an isolated incident that may or may not have happened and was nothing like I went through. What's true is that her reaction also PROVES she knew I was being abused. What's true is after I confronted my dad in a card one father's day stating I knew what he did and he threatened to come find me and inflict harm ("not what an innocent man does" said one great psychiatrist) she blamed me for antagonizing him and minimized the danger to my person that this violent gun-toting martial arts master psychopath could inflict, and rolled her eyes at my concern. What's true is she is pathologically envious of my intelligence, beauty, sparkle, talent, popularity, and resources and makes me pay for it by withholding love, support, attention and affection. What's true is any feeling I have ever had has been met with obliviousness, silence, and cues of disgust. What's true is when pressured to be compassionate or caring by licensed professionals she has a totally flat affect and it's always forced because she can never be wrong. What's true is she guilt tripped me into selling off valuable investments I had to pay off student loan debt that she had cosigned on (and pressured me into school so she could look like a good parent and live through my success) that caused me to lose one hundred fifty thousand dollars in penalties and lost income. What's true is she really did this so she could take away money she was always jealous of and mad at my father for getting me and "not making me get it the hard way," (HER WAY) despite me having confided in her he used that money as leverage to rape me as a small child. Doesn't matter, it had helped me to get away from her before and we can't have that happening again (TOO BAD MOM, ITS HAPPENING FOREVER THIS TIME). What's true is she is NOT A GOOD MOTHER at all, but a sick, twisted, abusive, hollow, deeply neglectful and selfish woman who never deserved a daughter like me in the first place. What's true is, I will walk out of this the resilient and strong woman that I am and succeed at my dreams and move on and never. look. back. at this disgusting family. I disowned my father, and my mother and sister are next in line. I'm going to just simply walk away and then eventually disappear from their lives forever with a smile on my face knowing that I'm the one who comes out with the upper hand because I am a kind, caring, generous human being who is going to help thousands of survivors to take back their power someday. Because no one should be treated this badly. EVER. What's true is, I can stop the cycle of abuse and take full responsibility for my own life, regardless of their actions, past present or future. What's true is I'm not afraid anymore. What's true is I love myself and that's healthy and ok. What's true is I validate everything I feel now. What's true is I am a survivor and a thriver and I'm going to set the world of narcissists on fire with my life's work, because it is way past time to end the oppression and victim shaming and nonsense. What's true is my voice is powerful, my story is powerful, and I will bring light to the world. What's true is we all can, no matter how much we were taught to doubt ourselves. What's true is abusers can't, they will always be stuck in their miserable lives, unable to heal, and they made that bed for themselves and we don't have to feel bad about it. What's true is I hand all the responsibility and shame for what they did to me, to us, back to them, which is where it belongs. This ends with me.

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.

No, I think you are right Joyful. I think my mom is a narcissist and super covert. It is really hard for me to accept. That I am completely alone and have to take any steps I can now to get out of this house or how can I heal? She hasn't started in on me yet. I now think the article is misleading and totally off base. I mean what they are doing yes, but maybe this is the covert narcissist who has taken on the VICTIM role because maybe they were less overtly or perhaps physically abusive. SO they LOOK like a codependent. I am so mixed up and confused about her right now. What I have to hold on to, where something isn't right, is when her mask slipped when I told her I had memories of being sexually abused by my father and she told me that is something that happens to us and we just get over it. Then back tracked and became the super mother she pretends to be again, for therapists, etc, but always needs a lot of control in my recovery. And now, the fact that I was just badly abused, kept coming home looking like death off and on, even asked her to take me to psych ward one time and she ignored me and went to bed. I even confronted her about it recently and she didn't even respond. This is how I looked in childhood when I was being abused by my father, when she also did NOTHING to stop it. And when therapists have asked me to confront her, her response is this thing that feels like a justification/flat out lie: oh the lawyer said she didn't have a chance to get any custody cause they couldn't prove he was abusing us (sister too). She. Can. Do. No. Wrong=NARCISSIST. I'm sorry if I confused anyone but your feedback is helping me face the truth. This is so hard. I have to get myself together and leave this house as soon as I am able. I have to. She is hoovering me with financial help. She has this heavy duty guilt trip about how she is my rescuer and a great mom. Funny I've tested her recently really, like part of me knows. It's hard not to get sucked back into denial with the parents. "Omg, omg, omg" is what my mind feels like. When I told her I was upset recently her response was "Thanks for sharing" with a smiley face. What the heck is that? I mean I just have to look at the evidence I posted above and replace "codependent parent" with other parent plays victim and super parent card but is covert narcissist. . . help