N Mom

[Kizzie]

Lovely to hear you say this Dolly as not even ten years ago I would try to speak about my abuse and the fog would roll in and I could not make sense of anything I'd been through nor the behaviours of family with NPD.  It felt like I'd open my mouth and rambling and squawking would come out. 

It wasn't until I went to Out of the Fog and learned the language so I could talk about it that recovery really kicked in.  N behav makes us feel crazy until we can spot the behaviour, name it and then tame it by being able to see it really is the N who has the problem and learning how not to get caught up in it.  It took a while but well worth the effort. 

[dollyvee]

Yes, I understand. Rn I'm feeling really thankful about the developments in trauma and CPTSD that have been made these last few years. It's been such a struggle (for me it seems) to even get the abuse/CPTSD recognized. It's great that you have that resource of language now and it has given you understanding and strength.

I was thinking this morning about my first therapist at university almost 20 years ago when I went in for "insomnia." I would be just an emotional mess about my mom and family and how I had to just contain it all because no one really got "it." I had a journey of self healing in mind and I wanted to live my life though, so I pressed on. My next therapist a few years later classed my mom as NPD and wanted to label me as Borderline/Histrionic (in part) because of the emotionality. It never seemed right though, and I felt like I was getting "blamed" with a PD but there was something else going on.

So, fast forward and even four/five years ago when I learned about CPTSD and it clicked but when someone classed my narc family's behaviour as abuse, it still didn't sink in that that's what it was. I had a really hard time saying that and it's probably in the last year that I've started to recognize it for what it is/was. There was other abuse but somehow the internalisation of NPD behaviour runs so deep and is so messy.

Reading about ppl's experiences here and on OOTF today is so helpful in seeing other ppl articulate that behaviour and their experiences with NPD. When they are writing, I recognize my own family's dysfunction in it in a way that is harder when I just reflect on my own experiences.

It really is a fog isn't it 

[Kizzie]

It took me decades to find out I have CPTSD and then another few years to truly believe I was subjected to ongoing relational trauma as a result of my FOO's covert NPD. I came to see it as "death by a thousand cuts" - ongoing micro-agressions that eat away at one's spirit.

A lot of us who experience covert NPD almost feel like it would have been 'better' to have been physically abused because then at least we'd know for sure we'd been abused.  Crazy but that's how N abuse rolls for a lot of us.  The power of covert and to some extent overt NPD is that N's are so slick and convincing, look at how Trump sucked in literally millions of  people and IMO he's been pretty overt. 

Anyway, all this is to say I'm glad you're seeing it as abuse now, it makes recovery possible and that's why we're all here.