Down and Out

[narcfree2016]

I have been on and off Welfare for a little over a year.  I am having trouble staying employed, due to severe C-PTSD and social anxiety.  I am barely scraping by.  Aside from my financial difficulties, which are severe, I don't have any friends left.  (The friends I had were all covert narcissists, like my NM, so I am still better off, I think.)

I went NC with my NM and family of origin about three months ago, and have been dealing with the grief, which is unbearable.

I can't afford CBT (or any therapist) for that matter.

Has anyone here survived narcissistic abuse without money or relationships?  Is it even possible?  I have been meditating for about two hours a day (one hour in the morning in one at night).  It's really just helping me to survive.

I have been considering stripping. (Not a joke.)

[Boatsetsailrose]

Hi narc free
Going nc with foo is very hard - I remember it and grieved deeply - it did get easier though and if I could go back  and give myself kind talk it would be to say 'it is sad and you can grieve - it is normal
Sorry to hear re financial problems is there work that you could do that would be less triggering ?
I know for me work is a big trigger and I do take anti dep to cope ( not that I am advocating that )
I don't have many friends and have a fairly solitary life but I know that slowly I can get well and be more functional and integrate
I'm learning that relationships are important but healthy ones and I still find them difficult to find - but I have progressed as I don't have the very unbalanced ones anymore -
It seems v important to have someone to relate to and this can come in the form of a group - have you tried looking for a support group in your area - there is a 12 step group acoa ( adult children ) see on line if there is a meeting in your area - and it's free
Or coda is another one
I too meditate every day and it helps me
I've just come out of a bad patch and so I know what it's like when everything seems unmanageable - finding one thing to provide hope / progress seems to be he starting point -

[narcfree2016]

Thank you so much for your support. 

I did manage to obtain some work, just in the nick of time.  It is not less triggering (I feel like the contemporary workplace is rife with personality-disordered individuals), but it will enable me to not go broke, at least for the time being (every little bit helps).  There is of course no guarantee they will pay me on time, but what can you do?

It is hard to do it alone.  I was scapegoated in my support group (unfortunately) by an extremely clever covert narcissist.  Fortunately my own mother is a narc of this type, so I literally picked up on it after only one meeting - and opted not to go back, as I was being triggered constantly.  I feel like that guy from the "the Sixth sense", except that I don't see dead people, just malignant covert "nice" narcs.  The major issue with my particular CODA meeting was that the moderator was not a recovered Codependent.  Apparently this is something that happens fairly often.  I actually found the perfect CBT therapist, but it is just too expensive for the time being.

I recently watched the new movie "Miracles from Heaven", and while I feel very ambivalent about organized religion at this point, I liked the point that Jennifer Garner made, a great quote from Einstein (a fellow INTJ) which was something to the effect of we could treat nothing as if it's a miracle or everything as if it were a miracle.  So I guess at least for me, at this point, the only thing that is keeping me going is the belief that if I give my absolute best consistently and long enough that I might get the occasional miracle.

Certainly I have had a few.  There is no purely logical reason why I should still be standing at this point.  And if there was no God, then I would just be alone.  So I choose to believe in God, 'cause other than myself, I really don't have anyone else I can count on.  I feel like it's working OK for me, and it's certainly better than the alternative.

Keep on truckin'.  May the force be with you. 

[Boatsetsailrose]

Yes my spiritual life is the fundamental truth and foundation of my life --
When good bits come to me in life - when hard times hit I hold on and keep battling against the wind --
It helps me greatly to think others are in the same thing and all over the world people struggle to varying degrees --
Human existence at its finest is wonderful xx