Miscellaneous ramblings of NarcKiddo

[Chart]

It seems there is some sort of yearning for a loving mother even though as far as I can tell every single part of me loathes and fears my actual mother and wants nothing to do with her.

It's the contrast between the primal attachment need which is universal and unconditional, and what you ended up actually getting...

I explicitly reject nearly EVERYTHING my mother is interested in. I don't even feel bad about it anymore. I KNOW... if mom's into it, it's toxic... or dumb. Might sound infantile, but 57 years of reinforced direct experience doesn't lie.

I think keeping distance and barriers is totally healthy. And Safety is compromised when toxic people access our "safe geographic zones". Plain as a pikestaff!
 

[sanmagic7]

NK, i've had that yearning most all my life for my father to let me know he's proud of me.  something unfulfilled, it feels like to me, something unsatisfied at a primal level.  dang.  we needed all these things, and got few if any.  sucks.  love and hugs

[TheBigBlue]

Ditto!
 

[Hope67]

Hi NarcKiddo,
I really related to you saying that you experienced 'rage attacks when cooking was involved' (relating to your experiences when young and your M was cooking).  It reminded me of my own M, and her 'rages' about having to cook.  When I read that you had been called a traitor just for staying with your F, instead of following your M, and that you were just six years old - that made me feel angry towards your M for her calousness and for her egocentricity.

I also relate to what you said about how your M infiltrates your spaces and doesn't give you much space to have them for yourself - I feel like I'm on Little NK's side - cheering her along that she is right to feel maligned by those things.  Wow, when you labelled your M as a 'great mould fungus' - that made me laugh, but only in terms of how crazy it is that someone can impact so much on our lives and on parts of ourselves - to feel like there's a fungal infection - I wish there was some anti-fungal treatment that could be magically sprayed around all areas, so that her spores could be erased from impacting any further. 

Please disregard anything that feels 'over the top' in my words - I am literally just writing as I was thinking, and didn't really think through what I've written.

Sending you a big hug  and another one for Little NK 

[NarcKiddo]

Thank you, everyone. Hope67 - nothing you wrote was over the top. It all felt spontaneously caring and empathic. It would for sure be nice if I could get hold of an anti-M spray!

 

[Desert Flower]

 

[NarcKiddo]

I feel like a fool. My F has been in hospital and my M has been doing the usual pretence of a bad leg so he cannot come home too soon. I visited yesterday - a planned visit. He'd been moved overnight to an utterly awful ward complete with violent man requiring security to be called while I was there. So I could well understand his desire to be out of there.

F had called M early that morning to say he wanted out and would spend a few days recovering in a private hospital. M liked that idea because it means he would not be home too soon and tried to make arrangements. However the private hospital was not able to have him. So she rang me and I suggested a care home would be suitable and they certainly do convalescent stays. I was due to visit later that morning and before I set off she had found a place that could take him and arranged for us to view it after my visit. My job was to tell him the new plan and make sure he was OK about the cost. Which was high but they can afford it. Plus he is weak and frail after emergency abdominal surgery and it objectively really would be better for him to be in a short term care facility.

When I got there he was fine about the cost. Fine about other details I thought he might stick on. We had quite a long discussion about how he needed to play the situation with the hospital so they would not throw him out before the care home was ready for him. He was fixated on getting out of there but accepted there would be some administrative tasks before he could be admitted to the care home. He and I spoke with the nurses to tell them the plan. They were all on board, happy to wait until the care home did the assessment and then they would send him there in an ambulance once he was fit to leave hospital.

M and I viewed the care home. It was nice. M & F discussed the finances over the phone and agree practicalities of funding. Care home had to assess he was in a condition they can look after him. Which is fair enough - they can't just take our word for it. He was all fine with this.

An hour later I am on my way home and get a message to say he is getting dressed. So clearly he has had the final OK to leave from the hospital and I think the care home must have done their assessment with the hospital staff over the phone. Which is quite normal. Only I then hear the home cannot take him that day as it is past their cut off point. He is apparently going to stay in some hospital facility overnight and then go home in the morning. And then move on to the care home. Which made no sense. Next thing I hear he has arrived home, claiming the hospital had put him in a taxi and sent him away.

Looking back I realise that he never had the slightest intention of doing anything other than going home at the first possible opportunity. All the talk about respite care was a device to set M on a mission that would cloud her judgement until it was too late. Plus make him look as if he was being mindful of her supposed bad leg and when the whole thing fell through he could not be blamed for that.

On one level I don't care about the outcome. It's their problem. I dislike the ridiculous charade of going round to look at the care home and talk to staff etc, but it was diverting and better than sitting at home with M being talked at which is what I originally thought the day would be. Especially since M is annoyed at me about a couple of minor issues but she had to drop the annoyance because she needed my help.

However, I resent being wound up like a child's toy and set off on a wild goose chase by my F, though I can see why he did it. I resent and regret wasting staff time at the care home. I guess nobody likes being played. Up to now I have felt sorry for his vulnerability when in hospital and under the tender care of my M. I feel he has now squandered that. I have not the slightest interest in going out of my way to be helpful in the future.

[TheBigBlue]

That sounds deeply frustrating and incredibly exhausting - being pulled into a lot of effort and responsibility, only to realize afterward that you were being maneuvered all along. It makes complete sense that you're left with resentment rather than relief.

My T often asks me, "What is actually mine to carry here?" - especially when old family roles pull us into fixing, mediating, or managing things that were never truly ours to hold. Reading your post, it really stands out how much responsibility you were expected to shoulder, and how little regard there was for the cost to you.

But I really appreciate how clearly you can see it now, and how you're letting the boundary land instead of turning it into self-blame. Choosing not to keep stepping in after this doesn't mean you don't care; it means you're finally honoring what isn't yours to carry; it's a sane response to being repeatedly put in an impossible role. 

[sanmagic7]

i agree w/ what TBB says, NK.  so many games w/ this hospital stay have been played at your expense.  we all have our limits, and it sounds like you've found yours, and for that i applaud you .  setting boundaries w/ families may be some of the toughest work we do.  i know that from experience, have stayed too long out of familial loyalty, but in the end, i'm glad of my decisions, and i do hope you're glad about yours.  love and hugs dear NK

[HannahOne]

Reading your post felt like riding the merrygoround that was my FOO. Gosh, they just take us in circles, and no direct communication can be had!! YOU are not a fool, NarcKiddo. That's just what it feels like to be around people who play these kinds of games. We feel resentful, we regret. That's  the feelings of anyone in the presence of this kind of foolery that they do.

You did what you could do, and you can be proud of that, and, in the end, they are impossible to help. That's their failure, not yours. I hope you are able to get some rest, feel grounded in your own self, and return to your regularly scheduled programming, whatever is good, right and true in your world that you can focus on for your own benefit, for your own happiness.

[Chart]

NK, this makes me wonder where Empathy comes from. There is the possibility to think of others, but knowing when to put yourself first. And, whatever path we take, we communicate and exchange, anticipating (if only a little) what the impact on others might be... Why do so many foo seem absolutely oblivious to something I believe is a fundamental aspect of being human? I'm very sorry for your runaround... seems like just one more thing to anticipate in the future. I think we hesitate less and less to stop playing the games so often organized in a disingenuous guise of innocence. (that was a weird sentence :-)
 

[TheBigBlue]

Chart - the Schore video you posted a few weeks ago, together with your question here, made me think deeply about empathy.
In the video, Prof. Schore mentioned that empathy is largely a right-hemisphere function, and that he was preparing to speak to a large group of lawyers about how trauma affects empathy.

My immediate reaction was almost offended:
"Wait - if anything, I have too much empathy."
If someone starts telling a story - especially one involving animalit- I often stop them and say, "If anyone gets hurt or dies, I don't want to hear it."
For them, it's a two-minute anecdote.
For me, it can be a lifetime of pain that I feel in my body.

So I paused Schore's video and asked myself a question:
Do people with CPTSD have less empathy - or more?

Here's how I now understand it.
Complex Relational Trauma, Empathy, and Why CPTSD Survivers Can Feel "Too Much"

1. Trauma does not reduce the capacity for empathy.
In fact, many CPTSD survivors show heightened empathic sensitivity.

But what trauma does impair is something more subtle - but crucial:
The ability to feel others' emotions without losing oneself.

2. Empathy needs a stable self to rest on
In healthy development:
a child develops a cohesive sense of self through safe, consistent co-regulation. Empathy then emerges on top of that self. You can feel with others - and return to yourself.

In CPTSD, especially developmental trauma:
inner safety was never reliably established; the "self" remains fragile or underdeveloped. Empathy develops anyway - but it has nowhere stable to land. So instead of empathy sitting on top of the self ... empathy can end up replacing the self.

What that looks like in real life:
- you don't just observe another's pain, but you become flooded by it
- you lose track of your own needs
- your nervous system reacts as if the pain were your own
=> This isn't kindness gone wrong.
It's a trauma adaptation.

What looks like "too much empathy" is often a combination of:
threat detection ("I must feel what others feel - to anticipate danger, prevent harm, or preserve connection") AND
hyper-attunement without regulation.

3. Right-brain dominance without right-brain safety
Neuroscience helps explain this:
- empathy, emotional resonance, and nonverbal communication are largely right-hemisphere functions;
- trauma, especially early trauma, leads to right-brain dominance
- but without secure attachment, that right brain develops without safety

=> So you get:
- intense emotional resonance
- exquisite sensitivity
- fast detection of distress
- but without the ability to modulate, contain, or step back.

That's why stories hurt. That's why we get pulled into the runarounds of our FOO's. Not because we are weak - but because our nervous systems never learned boundaries for empathy.

4. For completeness: CPTSD does not look the same in everyone
Survivors can also oscillate between two poles:
A. Trauma-based hyper-empathy:
- intense
- involuntary
- exhausting
- boundary-less
=> It feels like: "I feel what you feel because I had to - not because I choose to."

B. Empathy shutdown / dissociation:
- emotional numbing
- withdrawal
- reduced resonance

5. Why this matters in daily life
This helps explain why:
- other people's obliviousness feels shocking or cruel
- we're exhausted by "small" stories others shrug off
- we struggle to know when to put ourselves first
- we feel deeply - but often feel unseen in return

6. Something I found online that made me cry (unknown source)
"When a person grows up feeling unseen, they learn to love by overgiving.
They pour into everyone else, hoping that one day, someone will finally pour back into them.
They become the caretaker, the fixer - the one who shows up even when no one shows up for them.
And the hardest part?
Deep down, they're not trying to be strong.
They're just waiting for someone to do for them what they've spent their whole life doing for everyone else."

So, Chart, maybe the 'obliviousness' comes from a collision:
The parents who traumatized us came from different maladaptive directions
— some narcissistic/extractive
— some boundary-collapsing (horizontal enmeshment) and need-driven
— some avoidant or dissociative

Those patterns then crash into a child's survival adaptations
— hyper-attunement and awareness
— fawning
— unregulated co-empathy
— self-erasure

And what emerges is exactly what hurts so deeply: the feeling that something fundamentally human - reciprocal empathy - is missing.

Maybe the work isn't to harden ourselves against people who seem oblivious, but to build enough inner safety that empathy no longer requires us to disappear.
Not less empathy - but regulated empathy.🙂

How? I don't have this fully figured out yet, but it likely involves:
- building a cohesive inner self
- learning that empathy can be chosen, not automatic
- discovering that you can feel with someone without losing yourself.

[NK, apologies for rambling so long in your journal; I can move this out if you prefer  ]