Where to even start

[whentherearenine]

Hello everyone,

I found Out of the Storm because someone on a different site sent it to me. I think they felt I could really benefit from having a community and learning a little more about how things I have gone through might have impacted me, and from what I've been reading I think that's probably true. Right now, I am in my mid-20s, I just graduated from college, and am currently attending Grad School. I also recently started a new job which is heavily dependent on cultivating relationships with the people you work with and communication. This is where I struggle the most. I find it incredibly difficult to trust people and to emotionally connect with them because I am hyperviligant about the fact that they probably do not actually want to be around me or I annoy them. I am also a workaholic and perfectionist to the point where it is pretty debilitating. I am, however, starting therapy (for the third time) tomorrow, so here's to hoping that goes well. Anyway, here is my condensed story.

Okay, where to even begin...I grew up in an environment where emotional neglect was the norm. My father was always working, and my mother was just totally uninterested in taking care of me and my siblings, I have a twin sister and a younger brother. Still to this day, I don't remember the last time I hugged my parents or felt comforted by them, we don't say we love each other, and we don't interact with each other unless necessary.

When I was around 10, my mother decided she wanted to open a dance studio. This was great and me and my sister were heavily involved in dance. However, this would end up being a nightmare. My mother has never been diagnosed as a Narcissist but I am fairly certain she is one. For as far back as I can remember the entire world has revolved around her, She has never apologized for a single thing she has ever done, and even when we were children, made me and my siblings apologize to her. When I was a teenager, I had some pretty severe mental health issues and on my first session with my therapist, she monopolized the time while I sat in the waiting room alone. After she opened her dance studio, it ended up being relatively successful at one point and as my sister and I became teenagers, we were given more responsibility. All of my friends were from this dance studio as I barely attended school. However, this would all end at the end of my senior year of high school. I never applied to college and did pretty terribly in school because I had always been told that I was going to take over this dance studio. But, for the last two to three years, my mother had been neglecting the studio. It eventually came out that she was not paying staff and had embezzled money from all the dancers and their parents. When all of this came out, she had a "meltdown" and was hospitalized for a week, leaving me and my sister and father to pick up the pieces.

To make a long story short, I lost every single friend I had in the span of a week, I lost my future career and my parents stole all of my high school graduation money to help pay for the legal bills they had wracked up. To this day, I have never been apologized to and every time I was upset about it, I was told I was overdramatic, and my mother would offer me prescription medication she was buying off a friend to help me "calm down" (this started happening when I was around 14). Fast-forward to a few months ago, my sister and I decided to Google my mother's name and discover that she was actually convicted of a criminal charge and had been on probation until two years ago. We were never told, and to this day, my mother claims she is the victim.

So, yeah I guess that is kind of the condensed version as to why I am here. I am hoping to learn more about this and learn how to better cope as I unfortunately still live with my parents due to college debt.

[Not Alone]

  Welcome. Thank you for sharing part of your story. I have found the people on the forum to be caring and helpful. Glad you are here.

[dollyvee]

Hi when,

Welcome to the forum. A lot of us on here, including myself, have had issues with narcissistic parents. It's a tangled web to unweave and hope you find the support you need on this forum.

dolly

[Armee]

Welcome to the forum, whentherearenine.

My heart goes out to you. Until recently I had to spend a lot of time with my mom to take care of her (Borderline PD and lots of other stuff). Even though I didn't live with her, even going close to her house or being near her for a few minutes was too much and left me shaking and dissociated and dysfunctional.  I can't imagine how hard it is to live with your parents right now.

It'll be hard to fully heal until you can be in your own space but some support here and through therapy and then other things you do for yourself can make it more tolerable. Seeing the truth of who your mom is can help, too, so even though it sounds like a painful discovery to uncover these truths, I do hope it helps alleviate some of the suffering and any self blame you might carry from messages given you by your mom and dad.

[Kizzie]

Welcome to OOTS     I hope you find safety and support in talking here about all you have gone and are still going thru.  It can make a difference talking with others who have experienced similar trauma, getting it out but also hearing how others have dealt or are dealing with everything. 

There are lots of resources here about relational trauma and Complex PTSD, but I also wanted to mention our sister site.  You may already know about it but it's called Out of the Fog and it's for those of us dealing with someone who has a personality disorder (https://www.outofthefog.net/forum/index.php). They have some great tools for dealing with N's which may be useful given you are living at home currently. 

Not chasing you away as we here are to deal with the Complex PTSD the trauma left us with, OOTF is just another site to learn about the type of abuse we endured, in your case N abuse and neglect.