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Hi all - I've recently gone NC with ALL family. Every once in a while (like now) I get filled with doubt and think about scootching back to VLC, that I've been unfair and haven't given FOO a chance to explain themselves, that it's all happening too quickly for them, I'm being too hasty. (I mean, all of this snowballed in under 1-2 years). But then I think about what responses I might get if I open that door again. Gaslighting, minimizing, projecting, more emotional abuse piled on.

Hi dreamriver. I'm just going to start off by saying that I think it's very human to question whether we're being "too harsh" about no contact. It's not a pleasant situation to find ourselves in at all and honestly, if any of us felt there was a better option I'm sure we would take it. I think it helps to try to keep the reality of your FOO's abusive mentality and behaviour in check. Unless they self-reflect and demonstrate any positive change then reopening the door will just leave you open to the dysfunction you describe: "Gaslighting, minimizing, projecting, more emotional abuse piled on"...this is what no contact protects you from while you work on healing.

It's like it takes everything in my power to keep the door closed. A close friend of mine said it's like being an alcoholic, it's a cold, hard choice you just have to make everyday, there's no reward or even satisfaction sometimes, you just know you got to do it to stay healthy. There's no closure, the itch never goes away. But that's what I'm wondering about.

Has anyone here felt closure, or they could pinpoint the moment where they knew that NC was needed, potentially for a long time, potentially for good? Like it was the "sign" they were waiting for and it was an overwhelming message. And it just felt....right. And you go back to that moment, again and again, to draw the strength you need to keep NC? Or is there just always doubt, always guilt?

For me, uNF pushed me to the point where I felt I had no choice but to go no contact for my own health and for a shot at a less stressful life. Most of my twenties were spent fawning towards him, ignoring obvious emotional abuse and minimising it all. I began to question how healthy this was though when I realised that the survival techniques I was still using with uNF didn't help me in my relationships with healthy adults. In the workplace my people pleasing and perfectionism just led to burnout and me being taken advantage of, plus the older I got the more I seemed to be actively disrespected for this fawning behaviour. It had once been a valuable survival skill in childhood but just no longer applied. I had no idea of what boundaries were and how to use them but I was fast realising that I really needed to start learning life skills like this if I wanted to "adult" better. I started to read about assertiveness and boundaries and could see how these skills would help me in my work and daily life interactions with generally healthy minded people. My own father blatantly did not want this for me because this was of no benefit to him. I came to the conclusion that if I really wanted to live life it couldn't be one rule for him and another for everyone else.   

The first boundary I ever really put in place with uNF was when I said "No, I'm sorry but it's going to be inconvenient" to looking after his dog while he went away on another holiday. Up to that point I had been saying yes regularly even though it had been becoming increasingly difficult (due to behavioural issues with my own dog), because I was so desperate for approval and to keep the peace. His reaction was silent treatment for about 3 months and oh my word, it opened the floodgates to feeling so much raw emotion and recalling memory after memory of past abuse, which when hitting me all at once felt unbearable. It was like a dam suddenly burst open. My feelings of shame, anxiety and depression hit me full force and that's when I really started to come out of the fog and learn about C-PTSD. 

I sat with it for the 3 months, didn't contact him either, and when I did phone him he was absolutely cold and awful towards me. That's when my first feelings of anger started to appear; an entirely new, unexplored emotion that I had never been allowed to experience as a child/teen and had assumed was a negative thing into adulthood, so had entirely suppressed. I tried VLC for months but every single phone call was pretty much him punishing me for daring to say "no" to him by dominating the calls with passive-aggressiveness and nasty digs. It reached the point where I was feeling anxious a week beforehand and a week after each and every phone call and I started getting horrible abdomen pains from the stress. It was when he gave me another 3 months of silent treatment pretty much a year on from when it last happened that I truly realised how toxic and disinterested in being a father he really was. I mean, he always had been but I'd deluded myself that he could love me if I just stayed in line. As soon as I stepped over his line his mask came off and I saw the reality of who he really was. In addition to narcissism my father also exhibits traits of psychopathy and machiavellanism (the dark triad) and it was almost like he was treating our interactions like a massive game. I hadn't realised just how mentally disturbed and actively emotionally abusive he was until this point. This time I enjoyed the peace from the silent treatment and saw how healing it could be. I started to feel safer, less stressed and felt less physical pain.

When he did resurface I had very little left to give and actively felt like I'd be better off without all this toxicity in my life. My last ditch attempt at a relationship with him was to ask that he respect a new boundary of communicating only via text message or emails; no phones calls. He was using them as a tool to emotionally abuse me and I wasn't willing to put myself through it any longer. Needless to say that went down like a lead balloon. Initially he reluctantly agreed to it, then came 2 more months of silence from him followed by a message saying that he wanted to ring me. When I stood my ground he had a tantrum and at that point I was just so done with it and decided I didn't want him in my life anymore. If there had been any real relationship there I would have tried to salvage it but I finally realised that the reality was that I was his emotional punchbag and that's all he wanted me around for.

Sorry, that was a longer retelling than I'd planned. I guess ultimately there wasn't one event that led to no contact, rather it was constant poor behaviour and boundary violations with little prospect of improvement. When someone is blatantly setting out to disrespect and bully you, how much should you realistically be expected to accept? I think that's what you have to ask yourself. Your FOO has been making the choice to smear you and spread rumours about your husband and from an outsider's perspective I can see entirely why you would distance yourself from them.

My moments have been so intense but even then I still doubt them. Someone with strong, healthy boundaries would find the behavior absolutely unacceptable and get the **** outta there, and I would find it completely reasonable when I put myself in the shoes of an outsider looking in. But even after the PD in my FOO completely smeared me, isolated me from the rest of my family, triangulated them against me and turned them into flying monkeys....and then spread ideas around that my spouse is physically abusive to myself and others (though he definitely isnt, and PD was even willing to attempt to contact his ex to dig up dirt on him, even though PD would find nothing....) all these things that are grossly untrue to still get at me, why do I still feel like I'm being the "unfair" one?

Was there a strong moment if clarity for any of you? Things are so ridiculous and I still feel so foggy ( FOGgy). Will it ever end. Thank you in advance. 

In dysfunctional families I think we're essentially groomed to accept abuse and to keep quiet about it. This gets hardwired from a young age and takes a long time to unravel. Taking responsibility for their abusive behaviour would have been a lifeline when you were a vulnerable child and was a way of survival. I still get foggy from time to time but the more I read about personality disorders and work on improving myself the less responsiblity I feel for the misplaced shame that should never have been on my shoulders in the first place. I wasn't born to be a plaything for my father to use to cope with the shame of his own childhood abuse; it's not my responsiblity. I've found it helps to keep a list of all the abusive behaviour from uNF so that when I'm having an emotional flashback and feeling shame I can read it and gently remind myself of why no contact remains necessary. From what you've written your FOO's behaviour sounds awful and no-one should be smeared and bullied like that. Being family doesn't give them a free pass to abuse you. I know how hard it is to update the tapes in your head though.

Sending you  if they feel safe.

Edit: That turned into a really long post, don't feel obliged to respond because I know the long ones can sometimes be a bit overwhelming!

Hi Boatsetsailrose 

I hope the tapering off is going well for you. I was on Citalopram for 5 years and took my final dose in April (I think? The months are all blurring into one to be honest!) Getting drops so you can take measured doses properly is a really good idea. I was trying to split tablets into about 6 pieces by the end and it got a bit silly. 

I cope with my anxiety and C-PTSD now by doing yoga, meditation, tapping (very new to this but very optimistic about the potential benefits) journalling and self-help in the form of books, videos and online resources. I've also started taking CBD oil, 5-HTP and magnesium supplements. It was so rough for a while as my brain essentially lost its safety net and had to start learning to recalibrate but in the last month or so I feel like there's been a shift towards feeling a bit more ease. There is a definite comedown from the medication which I don't think GPs always fully appreciate. The advice I was given by my GP when I first tried coming off them years ago was to taper off over about 2 weeks, which I just look back on in complete horror because I now understand that this is nowhere near long enough and should be done extremely gradually over a period of months to avoid the horrible withdrawal symptoms (brain zaps, heightened anxiety, dizziness, etc.)

Coming off SSRIs essentially forces you to put in the self-care you need to get by and for me that's not a bad thing as this has always been an area I've struggled with. I'm relying upon and trusting myself more now. I also think it was necessary for me personally in order to be able to fully feel and process the trauma stored in my body. SSRIs were a lifeline for me though when I was completely overwhelmed, lost and didn't have the self-care techniques in place to cope without them. I've come off them with the mindset that I can always start taking them again if I find myself back in the place of being unable to cope, but I'm treating it as a very last resort and allowing the bad to be fully experienced and felt along with the good.

A book which helped me towards the end of tapering off was 'Recovery and Renewal' by Baylissa Frederick. It covered a lot about what you can expect to experience and she gives really good advice about how to manage without them going forwards.   

Hi Persistant. 

Good on you for focusing on yourself and your needs, it sounds like you're on the journey to individuation. It is a truly positive thing and a natural rite of passage that any healthy minded parent would want for their child. Moving away and putting some distance between you sounds like a good step to take. 

Dreamriver, you're right, enabling a PD person doesn't do anyone any favours. Normalising abusive behaviour/pretending it's "not that bad" isn't kind for anyone in the long run, it's just sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the bigger picture. NPD people seem to cope with reality by living out delusions so it stands to reason that the rest of the family continues to go along with it by default. To be fair, I myself went along with it all until it became unbearable, but to now be on the outside looking in it is very frustrating to see these dynamics play out. It does take a lot of resolve and determination to break free from the ingrained mentality.

I'm so with you on the mixed feelings of painful exclusion and pity in relation to the FOO and I find these emotions are constantly changing. Some days I feel so depressed that we can't be closer and I blame myself for it, other days I'm reminded that their relationship with uNF is hollow and any love or affection shown towards them is transaction based, just as it was when I was still in contact. It makes me thankful to be out of that cycle and to no longer have to endure the mentally damaging phone calls and visits, which used to just leave me feeling empty and angry. The hardest thing is them choosing my abuser over me, though I find it helps to remind myself too that circumstances have been very different for me compared to my siblings. For a start, I'm the only female and uNF is misogynistic, plus covert incest has been a very disturbing thing to endure which my brothers have no experience of. Also, I'm the youngest and the only one to have ever been forced to live alone with uNF and to bear the full brunt of his rages. It's naturally left me with an entirely different set of experiences. I feel that I at least try to understand their mentality though, whereas I feel that my truth gets swept under the rug and invalidated. It's probably more about them and their emotional limitations than it is about me, but it still hurts.

Yes, the FOO does get deeply under your skin and as you say, we're conditioned to meet its needs. There was never any room for discussion in my FOO, it was always uNF's way or the highway. After my mum died I think I trauma bonded with uNF far more than I would ever have done if she had lived and there was a lot of enmeshment there in my teens. My niece is now the age I was at when all this was going on and my heart breaks to think of such an innocent, young girl like her going through what I did (thankfully she has a stable home life and is well provided for physically and emotionally). Considering that helps me be more compassionate towards myself and to realise that it's ok to no longer be part of a family system that never provided any genuine, long-lasting nurture. No child stands a chance at coming through mentally unscathed in an environment like that.

I know he would resolve to find opportunities to belittle, humiliate and punish me and try to get the old dynamics going if I ever did attempt contact again.  To explain that to another person is impossible too, because it's unbelievable that someone's own parent would want to do that to them.

You're not alone here! And that's why I'm at this forum myself. People just don't understand. Even my DH, even close friends, even those I know who are still caught in the FOG themselves. But you've got tons of people here who do and who are going through the same thing.

Thank you! I really am so grateful for this forum.  My DH is quite understanding but forgets/doesn't understand the gravity of what I'm dealing with. For instance, we only live about 15 miles away from my home town where uNF still is and I refuse to go there because of all the awful triggers/possibility of seeing uNF. He can understand my desire for distance to a certain extent, but doesn't understand my extreme hypervigilance surrounding it and just how messed up it makes me feel to be so close still. It's so good to have a safe place where people do understand things like this.

I'm still learning to love myself more in the context of FOO dynamics and it's never smooth but that's the greatest challenge we're tasked with   You've made the first step loving yourself going NC, and I can only say it's the first. (By the way, I made the choice to go full NC with my covert uNM TODAY, so we're walking the same path). There will be even more steps and opportunities now that you've made the most difficult first step of all, to not be permeated by the toxic behavior any longer and to get out of the storm and the FOG.

Definitely, and as hard as it is I'm unwavering in thinking that no contact is the right thing to do, regardless of the difficult emotions it brings up. I applaud you on also doing what's right for you in making the choice to go full NC. Distancing yourself from toxic behaviour really does allow for greater clarity and means you can unpick and work through trauma/re-parent yourself healthily without being re-traumatised as often in the here and now. It allows you to be true to your own values and to finally focus on your inner child (and children need a lot of attention; their wellbeing should always come first!)

Thank you so much for hearing me dreamriver, it means so much to talk through stuff like this. I love your bird analogy, it's so true. The older I get the more peace and satisfaction I feel from watching how free birds are, so why not work to become one. 

Thank you so much for your post Blues, it spoke to my heart and what I and so many of us have had to go through when deciding to go NC including what it feels like once you have...    and   

Thank you Kizzie, it's a comfort to know that it resonates. I'm finding that no contact seems to evolve over time and finding peace with the new phase of permanency is the next hurdle. It helps to put it into words. 

Hi dreamriver, thank you so much for your supportive message. I'm so sorry that you're also having a rough time with it right now. I think current events in the world are making something already hard just that much more difficult, since connecting with family is more at the forefront of people's minds, plus it's not so easy to get out and about and distract yourself from it all. Deciding upon what level of contact will work for you is such a difficult thing because it's never black and white and it's impossible for all involved not to experience some level of resentment and hurt.

You're right, it's entirely a no-win situation. I can only have a 'relationship' with F if I go back to becoming the scapegoat, which I'm obviously not prepared to do. The alternative path I'm on feels horrible, but it's still the lesser evil. I know he would resolve to find opportunities to belittle, humiliate and punish me and try to get the old dynamics going if I ever did attempt contact again.  To explain that to another person is impossible too, because it's unbelievable that someone's own parent would want to do that to them. It just feels so unfair. I feel like I need to healthily grieve the loss but while he's in this realm physically I don't know where to start. He only lives 15 miles away! I don't feel like I can let my hypervigilance go as a result.

I also have enablers in the family and that hurts too. Both brothers have distanced themselves from me and though they don't verbally support F, their actions shout that actually, they kinda do. At one point when I was newly into NC they did seem to understand, but after about 6 months it changed. It's like it was seen as a 'win' over F for them to begin with because someone was taking a stand and by default that gave them some validation for what they themselves had been through, but after a few months went by I guess that wore off and they withdrew. It's just the toxic family system in play though, I know that. They bond by mutually complaining about how horrid F is and I know I completely threw the safety net off that by going in another direction. it's pretty much a clique that I no longer have access to.   

Thank you, it feels good to have someone tell me that it's not my fault. I'm far better nowadays at being kind to myself consciously, but subconsciously I blame myself for not being strong or resilient enough to endure the contact anymore. As you say, the effects are ongoing and it's just so odd how trauma can hit you years and years after the worst of what happened is over. I was able to deal with him with far less anxiety and fear when I was living with him and actively going through it all. 

I hope you can find some clarity and a way forward in your own contact situation, it is such a stressful thing to go through from day to day. A hug back to you if you're open to it.

When I first began no contact it was very much with the mindset of using this as a boundary in order to focus on working through my trauma and to not allow myself to be bullied by my father anymore. VLC had completely failed and my mental health was terrible while I was still in contact with uNF. I always said that if I ever got to a point of feeling like I would be better able to cope with communicating with him then I might reconsider extremely low contact with many, many boundaries in place (once I had figured out what these actually were and how they were supposed to work). I had never had a single boundary in place with him and when I tried a couple it was clear that he would never accept them.

3 and a half years later I'm now seeing that I'm most likely going to be keeping no contact permanent for the foreseeable future. Whenever I imagine being in contact with him again I get this massive pit of dread in my stomach and it feels so, so wrong, like I would be throwing myself back to the wolves. I'm just beginning to really understand how much trauma gets stored in the body and learning coping mechanisms for the resulting anxiety. Like many of us might have realised on our journey with C-PTSD so far, I think it's going to be something that I'm going to need to navigate very gently for the rest of my life. I hadn't realised just how much abuse I had experienced and how much damage it had done to my nervous system. I'm only really starting to genuinely slip out of my long-term dissociation and depression and I'm enjoying the experience of individuating and learning who I am and what I want out of life. My own father would try to sabotage this if I allowed him even an inch, because that's what he does.

So I'm now thinking that I may well never speak to him again, or at least not for a very long time, and it's a weird thing; I don't know how I feel about it. Sad I suppose, but also relieved. It's the last thing I would ever have wanted (because who doesn't want a dad?) whilst also being one of the few things I am certain is the healthiest course for me, so there's this weird juxtaposition between the two feelings I find myself having towards the permanency of no contact. I think I'm grieving a bit, I don't know. There are also fleeting thoughts about what I might do if there's ever a carehome or deathbed scenario but I'm just going to have to cross that bridge when I come to it.

I'm just putting this out there to get it off my chest really! As time goes by and I find myself well into my 30s it's something that seems to be coming up for me a lot.

It is progress to finally connect the dots and have some kind of clarity as to why your nervous system reacts to certain triggers the way it does. I'm really happy this has become clearer for you. I think when you can identify the root cause of why you react a certain way then it becomes so much easier to talk to your inner child and self-soothe. It is slow going because it's something that can't be forced and should be navigated gently, but it sounds like you're in a place now where your brain can begin to process the trauma that's been buried for so long.

This looks like so helpful and interesting. I've just signed up, thanks Kizzie. 

Thank you for your kind reply and empathy in this. It's like a club where the language is known only to those who've gone through this battle. The isolating has been installed as the background program, I just continued where my caretakers left off.  While not being raised completely feral or in total isolation because there was formal care, the gist is that I never did manage to attach or formulate that instinct to with humans. I did have a cat and a dog during those formative years but they were used as emotional collateral and served also as pinnacle traumatic experiences in their losses, at the hands of others.

So any kind of human relationship - is like a foreign theme. I don't get it. Don't understand the dynamics and guessing has proven exhausting. With animals it is very natural. I just get it. No trying to figure things out. With people it's always - let me figure them out, see the operation and interface in survival mode. Safety as we know is the key, for some reason the safe people who are also savvy in the realm of trauma have eluded so far. This only could be attributed to not crossing paths, timing. I still believe in possibility and finding the self in all of this.

I think the problem with humans is that there are those out there who will try to take advantage if they perceive you to be 'weak'. The isolation that we tend to default to as a result of C-PTSD is by no means healthy, but I totally get where my subconscious is coming from when it defaults to telling me to stay away from people. We were let down by our parents/caregivers and in many cases probably had our abuse denied and minimised, plus we have potentially been taken advantage of or belittled by bullies (co-workers, bosses, fake friends, etc.) who spot our obvious social discomfort and see an easy target. Then we most likely shame ourselves for all of this (I know I do) and isolate ourselves further, even though none of it is by any means our fault.

I've thought about all this so much over the years because I struggle too. I've come to the conclusion that boundaries are key in learning to trust our adult selves enough to put ourselves out there and to try to have more positive social experiences. We will still come across potentially abusive people, but I think it enables us to better spot toxic behaviour and to know our own self worth enough to create distance between us and those who will take advantage. I agree with dreamriver, the 'Beyond Bitchy' podcast is such a fantastic starting point in learning the basics of boundaries and I really recommend it. When I listen to it it's like having a healthy mother figure sitting me down and getting me up to speed with all the life skills that I should have been taught.  I've also recently discovered a podcast called 'Social Anxiety Solutions' which is also a really positive, compassionate resource. It's provided so much comfort to me just lately and inspired some hope that things could get better. 

I also understand animals far more than I do people. They're straightforward and non-judgemental, so there are fewer C-PTSD triggers. I say 'fewer' because they're not perfect either, my dog is a naturally anxious creature and when she is on edge and barking at every single noise it very much triggers me! I can at least relate to her on that level though and understand that she's just fearful and needs to be soothed. It's a kind of mutual compassion and we can accept each other for what we are.

No, you probably won't, and probably would just feel uncomfortable, moving towards becoming a wildly social being, but just by accepting yourself you've acknowledged that it's hard, yes; but you also feel that somehow you can find a more peaceful self-respecting path towards the process of at least diminishing your overwhelm to a state of knowing and finding some better way than what happened in the past.

So true, I think there's a lot of peace to be found in learning to care for ourselves regardless of where we're at in our lives and to try to take things at a gentle pace. It's so easy to fall into the trap of shaming yourself when you feel such a big disconnect from society at large.

Much peace to you Edenjoy1, you're really not alone in these feelings. 

Thanks Kizzie, navigating this stuff and feeling alone in it all gets really overwhelming! It's lovely to be reminded that we all have each other. 

Honestly? I cope with it badly and it's getting worse. I've had some days in the last few months where my brain just flat out says "No - can't do this anymore".  I do work in an office though which is 100% not the right fit for me. Having a phone shrilling every two minutes, sitting in one place for so long and feeling like I'm sitting in a goldfish bowl is just not good for my mental health at all. My boss is really brash and prone to mood swings too, plus I've had a couple of co-workers covertly mock me in the past for my anxiety and C-PTSD symptoms. I hate it frankly. Such a toxic environment.

Where I live is very rural and there are few opportunities unfortunately other than jobs within hospitality, care or admin. I never did train in anything specific (never had enough of a sense of self to know what I wanted to do) but then I'm not massively career focused, at least when it comes to working for other people. I've had an online business for a few years now as a part time thing and would love to upscale it and devote myself to it full time, but when feeling so mentally unwell it's really difficult. The uncertainty of not having a fixed income triggers me too. I think ultimately I will just have to jump in and go for it though as dedicating any more years to a line of work I detest is even less appealing.

  Thank you all for hearing me. 

Yes, this is me too!  I was remembering a horrible afternoon around 4 years ago where my father's abusive side re-emerged with a vengeance.  It was horrible and honestly was probably the start of me really realizing what went on when I was a kid.  My mom approached me later and was trying to justify what my dad did and I said, "I deserve it."  Seriously??!!  I had done nothing to warrant his behavior.  And yet I felt like it was my fault.  I look back on that day and feel so sick about it.  No wonder I grew up so wounded.

That is an extreme example but I know I do this at work and in my personal life.  I have a friend that I feel like I've done all the work to maintain contact during the pandemic.  I finally decided to stop trying for a while.  I'm definitely in the stage of noticing this about myself and trying to figure out how to manage it better.

I relate to that, it is shocking when you start to realise just how wrong it was to put up with all the abuse and just how unfair it was to be blamed for things that should have been the responsibility of an adult. My own father also got back in touch with his abusive side after a few years of relative calm (which had been at the expense of me maintaining the role of golden child via excessive fawning). The first time I dared say "no" to one of his demands it was like a switch was flicked and the true side of him that I hadn't seen since my early twenties re-emerged. I had deluded myself for many years that he was "an okay person really" and that time had lessened his dark side but no, it was gutting to realise that the loving father was a mask and that this person only existed if I remained compliant. Absolutely awful, and rather than abating after several months his behaviour only continued to get worse from thereon.

A child is unable to comprehend or accept that a parent doesn't have their best interests at heart because they need the guidance and care of an adult for survival, so it's only natural that this coping mechanism is ingrained in us and very difficult to shake. In my case my reptilian brain reacts to perceived threat very quickly by defaulting to a shame response and it takes the logical part of my brain a bit longer to catch up and say, "Come on now, YOU are the one being mistreated here."

Friend stuff when it comes to boundaries is particularly difficult because they're not necessarily being a bad person, drifting apart just feels a bit "meh...well that sucks" rather than dangerous, so sticking up for my own self worth when there's not really that much on the line feels extreme. The only real boundary I've ever put in place with a person has been no contact with my father and it took so many years to reach that point. It feels hard applying this protective barrier to a situation where the person isn't actively being abusive and I think because of that it causes me a lot of uncertainty over how real and valid my feelings are.

Hi Blues_cruise
I agree that this is about feelings of shame that you cannot face yet.
I have similar behaviours, and am trying to manage my shame with a therapist

Yeah, shame is so overwhelming and automatic. I'm glad you've got a therapist helping you along with it. 

Same problem Blues     What helped me is to run things by my H who is better at  recognizing when someone is shifting blame, behaving like a jerk, being abusive.  He has no problem is calling them out & not losing sleep over it. He does not let people shame him because he knows he is a good person. Like many survivors of relational trauma I wasn't so sure.

I started running people's behaviour by him that was troubling to me and hearing what he had to say and trying to see things through his eyes.  I found his perspective starting to connect with what my gut was telling me, that the person was behaving badly and I did not need to spend my time placating, listening, being accommodating, taking any responsibility ....  I could just walk away and not  internalize other people's behav.

Part of the shift involved really looking at whether I am a 'bad' person who should feel shame. I can honestly say now I am a 'good' person who is kind, respectful, considerate, etc., unlike many of the abusive people I have encountered. 

I've found members here to be the same in terms of kindness, compassion, empathy, respect, etc -  despite or maybe because we suffered abuse/neglect. 

All this is to say, maybe it's time to throw away that lens of shame so many of us developed because of the trauma we endured and look at who you truly are.   

Hi Kizzie.  Yeah, running things by someone you know to be assertive but fair can be really useful.  I have been trying to do this lately, even if it's just looking online to see if anyone else has struggled with a scenario I'm not confident with. Often on places such as Reddit you can find past threads where people have asked for advice with uncomfortable situations and it can be really helpful and a comfort to see what guidance people offer. My H is also very assertive so can be a good reference point on what's acceptable and what's not. I'm always amazed at how blunt he's able to be with people and how much they respect him for it!

I think my subconsience holds on to its old belief system that I need to try to be perfect to survive. I'm trying to be gentle with and reparent myself in that respect, I've held on to this unproductive and unhealthy way of thinking about myself since I was a toddler, so it's only natural that there's resistance there I guess. 

Hi blues, I've had similar experiences and I'm sure it's deep rooted in shame and guilt for me. I don't necessarily expect this out of others but it feels like I am intricately tied to the Butterfly Effect (paraphrasing but can a flap of a butterfly's wing contribute to a tornado in Texas?).

I feel an extreme sense of ownership and responsibility for others and my actions. For example, I am a project manager. When projects go wrong either due to the failings of someone on the team or just the natural flow of things I take it hard. I feel like I'm the root cause of the failure. If only I knew enough information at the time to prevent John Smith from doing x or if only I knew this key piece of information I could have prevented the problem. I find myself obsessing over the problem. Trying to find how I could have  influenced the outcome.

My previously life in the Navy was a breeding ground for this type of mentality. Ownership is drilled into you. You are responsible for the success or failings of your direct reports. That's why at least in the US Navy you will see Captains frequently getting relieved of command. Their ship could have collided with another ship while they were sleeping but since they are overall responsible for everyone on the ship it is their fault.

For me this translated to me being intimately tied to my sailors and their success. When they failed I failed. There were times sailors of mine would get DUIs. I somehow felt responsible. One of my colleagues was suicidal. Even after the Navy I felt responsible for ensuring his mental health was in check.

I guess what I am saying is I am sure it is directly tied to cPTSD. It's been in me for as long as I can remember. It's getting better now that I'm doing therapy and as Kizzie suggested I need to throw things by my spouse to get a gauge.

Shame and guilt is a big factor, I agree. For my entire life my self-esteem has been based on what I can do for other people and bending myself backwards to accommodate what they want. There's always this overwhelming sense that something bad will happen if I don't try to keep other people content. I think I struggle to find the balance between trying to not hold other people up to these unrealistic standards while also not allowing them to take me for granted. This is where I really feel the loss of having never had what felt like a safe enough environment as a child to make mistakes and figure all this out. Being anything other than quiet and staying out of the way would trigger immediate rage.

From what you've shared I can really see how military life would compound misplaced feelings of responsibility, wow. I'm glad that therapy is helping you work through it. 

I was recently listening to a podcast on the topic of taking too much responsibility for the actions of other people and it really hit home for me. I do this all the time and when someone mistreats me or does something offensive I end up obsessing over what has happened and scrutinising the memory for any inkling that I did something wrong and proof that it was my fault. I do this with memories of interactions with my father, even though I know he was abusive and that in reality I wasn't a terrible person who deserved it and that I couldn't have possibly controlled his poor choices. More recently I've been finding myself taking too much responsibility too for a friendship which has fizzled out, even though I logically know that the friend has also chosen not to make much further effort and that it's not entirely my doing. It's one of those scenarios where you just grow apart and need different things from social interactions and is probably understandable on both sides, except I'm uncomfortable letting go of people even when we're not compatible and I default to blaming myself! I think deep down I believe that I'm not worthy of friends and should feel lucky that anyone wants to know me, so I'm chastising myself for not making more of an effort even though what I'm logically doing in this particular situation is putting an emotional boundary in place.

I'm thinking this is all probably rooted in shame and an ingrained, hypervigilant fawn response which used to help protect me but is now rather outdated. It's so frustrating to constantly have that nagging in my head and feels like I'm constantly at war with myself! Does anyone else have this happen on a regular basis? For me it's daily/constant and it's so exhausting to constantly be trying to call myself out. I'm improving in that I can at least attempt to identify what the reality of a given situation is, however it's so hard to actually believe it at my core.

Thank you for your lovely reply, dreamriver.  I'm sorry for only just coming back and acknowledging this! You've brought up some really profound points which have made me think.

Yeah, the realisation of the lack of a genuine relationship with my father does really hurt. I'd always known his behaviour wasn't right but I'd always assumed (as you do as a child/adult child) that he wanted what was best for me deep down. I've been looking into and reading more about narcissists, or more specifically sociopaths, recently and it's so shocking how different their perceptions are. What I've really taken away from reading some personal accounts written by self-proclaimed sociopaths is that they are genuinely puzzled by the concept of empathy and just don't see the value in it. Many can pretend and demonstrate cognitive empathy, but emotionally they don't feel it. Oddly it's been a comfort to realise that shaming myself for distancing myself from my abusive dad is counter-productive, since in all likelihood he is just playing with my emotions. I've been framing his behaviour with emotion which just allows myself to be manipulated by him. The more respect and self-care I show myself the more I see how important it probably is not to engage with him whatsoever, because he will do anything in his power for me not to become an assertive, confident person. For a parent to actively want to stop their adult child from being comfortable in their own skin and successful is just toxic. I only realise just how awful and unfair he has acted towards me all my life when I step back and pretend to be someone else observing the situation. In my own shoes my default reaction is to try to explain it away, minimise it and look for any way whatsoever that it could be me that's the real problem (which I guess is like abandoning myself...or being stuck in the bargaining stage of grief?) It's too much, regardless. 

It's a paradoxical world; you can be incredibly nice and supportive of someone and that may enable poison and abuse. And yet being "cruel to be kind" (to yourself) or being cold, distant, and apathetic can be an act of love and kindness towards yourself and others, but also towards those who abuse you... because really, no one does the abuser any favors if you allow them to keep abusing. If they have no more people to abuse, maybe that will get them to hit rock bottom all that much more quickly, and maybe change finally. (Probably not but it's the only option.) And maybe that's the only act of love they can leave us with at this point.

Yes, exactly! You put that into words beautifully. When I moved out of his house at the age of 21 and he continued to be vile to me, I actively made the decision to fawn in order to cope with it and to create the delusion that everything was ok. This meant I turned a blind eye on the occasions where he gave me an intentionally shoddy gift with a passive-aggressive message in my birthday card, or when he turned up at my workplace in a rage after arguing with his partner and decided to humiliate me in front of my co-workers, or when he left horrible messages on my answering machine when I was unavailable to pick up the phone...and on and on it went. It was 100% the wrong way to deal with it and I just encouraged him further, but I so wanted to believe that I was loved deep down and thought throught my 20s that if I was 'good' then the abuse would eventually stop and that he would see the light. This is exactly how my enabling mother had coped with being abused by him, so I was essentially copying her unhealthy coping mechanism. It was only in my late 20s that I realised that healthy people don'trespect you (and often disrespect you less) for being a doormat and that this mentality just couldn't work anymore in adulthood.

A couple weeks ago my eM almost busted my boundaries that I set a year ago, and which initially caused her to distance herself from me because she wasn't getting what she wanted at the snap of her fingers. (I am seriously wondering if she is actually covert NPD). I couldn't believe she was planning on breaking them (she changed plans last minute and then didn't) but I was super amused all the while because I've made boundaries in such a way that if she tried to break them, she'd have a fairly unpleasant time. I think there was some part of her that knew she was trying to break them and she bubbled up with a ton of stories and excuses to make me feel guilty or empathetic towards her. I didn't respond.

Not responding is the best way in that scenario, good for you for protecting your boundaries.  I think getting a negative reaction is usually the end goal when it comes to someone violating your boundaries and when you don't feed them that emotion they have little choice but to back off. I love that your reaction was to be amused rather than super frustrated, sounds like she was clearly trying to push your buttons and getting nowhere. 

I think the feeling of control is all my father really has to be honest, which he has entirely brought upon himself. You can't repeatedly be cruel to people and expect them to tolerate it indefinitely. I've been taking responsibility for his mental health issues and deep-rooted shame for far too long and if he wants to feel better then he needs to own it all. I've decided to ask my husband to check any future birthday cards or other communication from now on and if there is ever a "sorry" or an expressed wish to change and do better then my door is (extremely tentatively) open a crack, but I'm not going to trigger and punish myself by reading anything from him from now on. I've been making the mistake of looking at myself as the cause of his issues, when in reality his mental health problems go back decades before I was even born. It's far too big for me to deal with on top of my own issues. He's got plenty of family still around him who can help him out if he ever needs anything practically or mentally, so I'm going to work on thought stopping and trying not to shame myself for things that aren't my fault or responsibility.

It sounds like you're feeling better Blues Cruise I'm glad. I'm waiting for the time when I start beating myself up again, too, and writing down my realizations, mantras, and healthy thought patterns in the meantime. So helpful. Keep on fighting the good fight! 

That's brilliant, I do this too.  My husband bought me a lovely notebook last year and I've been filling it with positive quotations and affirmations. Thank you, all the best to you too. 

t's still in that early phase where they haven't "noticed" yet (which is just more proof of the "narc cloud" hovering over all of them, I feel), it's only been a few months, but today I got all stuck in my head about what I'd tell a LC sibling when they finally decide to confront me on it, if ever. What I'd say, what I'd confront them about myself, how I could possibly pass the guilt and shame I feel in isolation back on to them so I don't feel like it's on my shoulders so much, because it's so unfair; but most of all, the itching feeling like I owed an explanation.

I always find it baffling how some people with personality disorders just straight up don't recognise that a family member isn't full contact with them any longer. In my experience, if you're still serving them from time to time and stoking their ego enough then they don't really acknowledge a problem. I was quite low contact with my father for years with him only contacting me when he wanted a favour doing, which was all fine until he took offence at the one occasion when I wasn't able to meet his demands. The idea that we ever had a loving, genuine relationship and that he misses me is actually laughable. I think if family isn't even noticing low contact then the shame for the situation truly isn't yours to bear, as they're clearly not seeing you or taking any accountability for their role in the circumstances. 

Where I always get to when I'm caught in these spirals also is that I know FOO well enough to know they don't spiral over these things in the same way - except my enabler sis maybe, but she has the toxic support of my other FOO members to keep her feeling validated that she's in the right if she has doubts (which, of course, is why she's enabling and fawning, to feel safe in the dynamic, like she always has). Meanwhile, I dont have that.

Then it makes me realize that there isn't a capacity for empathy on their side of things like there is on mine. If they truly cared, they'd be spinning their wheels in the same way figuring out how to get through that they care for me genuinely. Only, they don't, obviously! They would have done that by now if I was a priority.

Yeah definitely, the lack of empathy on NF's part is something I always forget when I'm triggered into shame. I often project my feelings of sadness and guilt on to him, all the while forgetting that he's coccooned in his usual dynamic and has expressed no wish to address reality. He's validated by enabling people around him who choose to maintain the status quo so there's no incentive for him to attempt change.

PD people (and their flying monkeys) are like flame, if you toss them any emotion at all it just feeds them like dry tinder. I think I'm learning this. I was just watching a show and there was an awesome line: "What do they say about arguing with i***ts? They pull you down to their level, and then they beat you with experience." (Sorry to quote an insulting term! I don't think PDs are i***ts, but I think the concept applies to dealing with PD folk too, sorry if it comes of too harsh.)

But you're on a different level. Medium chill is a concept I really like: the only way to deal with fire is to be like ice. Preserve yourself. Even showing that you care gives the opportunity for the fire, and thus more abuse, to spread. Every emotion is a tool against you. So why outwardly show that you do care by writing them? Why expose yourself?

The only reason: the pangs of guilt, shame, and sadness over being scapegoated are painful, and you want an outlet for them. But the thing is that they're a sign of your humanity; that you do care about them deeply. But that's an emotion you have the beautiful privilege and power to keep completely to yourself and know what it means. When they have access to it though, it gets warped and turned into something ugly (and turned against you, for that matter), so preserve it for yourself and don't give them anything.

We don't owe anyone (especially a fellow peer adult - great point, Jazzy!) an explanation about what we must do to feel deserving of self-confidence and peace of mind.

Oh absolutely, I think NF's personality disorder thrives on the chaos and he gets a high from feeling a sense of power. I first really recognised this after the first communication boundary I tried putting in place, after which he came to my home out of the blue and showed no emotion whatsoever. He seemed to have a really odd energy about him though, as if he was enjoying (and even excited by) my obvious discomfort over him being there. He was whispering about me to his now wife in full earshot with no respect for my feelings and went as far as to aggressively poke me in the ribs, which I'm just shocked by now when I recall it. It's something he always used to do when I was a little girl if I ever dared show any defiance and is actually very painful, more so than you might think. When living in relative peace it's so easy to forget what the reality of his demeanour actually is.

Medium chill is really valuable when contacting any person who has demonstrated time and time again that they have no respect for your feelings. I've been reading up on Myers Briggs personality types recently and although there's some controversy over how accurate it is, it is an interesting insight into how some personalities are dominated by feeling whereas others might be dominated by thinking, plus how that changes our perceptions of and reactions to events. I'm very much a feeler and I think because I'm naturally sensitive it is very easy for someone such as my father to exploit this for his own amusement.

The thing with NPD is that it's often referred to an illness and we possibly assign some leniency to the affected person as a result (against my better judgement, I've read many articles which show a lot of sympathy for them), because most people with illnesses more than anything want to get better. Narcissists rarely do this. My father has disordered, unhealthy patterns of thinking which no doubt stems from his own abusive childhood, however he can also think logically when it comes to choosing which social mask to wear on any given day and is very skilled at hiding any evidence of his abuse towards others. The latter demonstrates to me that he knows his behaviour is unacceptable but chooses to go ahead and treat people badly anyway because he knows he can so easily manipulate people's emotions and get away with it. Is failure to take accountability really a result of narcissistic illness, or is it just the sign of a very unpleasant person who doesn't care? We can't make this call and personally I find that my viewpoint varies depending on how I'm feeling in myself. Currently I'm feeling calm and well-rested and can clearly see that he should be taking accountability rather than being let off the hook, so it's probably a good time to get these more reality-driven thoughts down on paper, if only for my own benefit to reflect back on when I start beating myself up again.