Blood Spatter

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Break the bread

Roughly

With both fists

Digging in

Crumbs

Falling over your feet

Then spit the wine

straight out

of your mouth full of lies

Harshly enough that droplets

Slide down your hair

Like blood spatter

At a

crime scene

Red

Staining

Your teeth

After all

Isn’t that what

this relationship

Has really meant to you?

Or did you allegedly

Love me?

Consume the last

Bits of crumbs

Lick them from your

Exposed toes

Go ahead

You might as well

Those are the last

Remnants of what we had

There will be no more

Feasting for your hunger

You will always

Let the need drive you

And so you sink

As I expected

Slithering back into

The dark hole

That becomes you

 

 

If it Walks like a Duck….

Watching the tv series “Grimm” tonight, reminded me that we all have a frame of reality that we were taught long ago.

As children we were conditioned to perceive things in a certain way.  We were taught by our families, our culture, our friends, and our particular religion, to accept certain realities and to reject others.

Any reality which we were conditioned to reject, was programmed into our subconscious as basically invisible.

We were conditioned to create certain associations about types of people. The brain can sum up a stranger in a manner of seconds based on the way they are dressed, their body language, and the way they speak.

This subconscious categorizing of people can protect you from danger and guide you towards the right person to ask for help. But not all of the things we were taught were correct.

Some lessons were taught to us by misguided, though well meaning, family members,  friends and teachers. People tend to hold onto whatever they were taught growing up. Therefore they pass the same biases and inaccuracies down to the next generation.

Each generation then tried to assess and rearrange their own thoughts and beliefs to fit their own situations, but there is often a lot of bleeding over of false beliefs from one generation to the next.

While grouping certain types of people into “safe” and “unsafe” categories can serve us to a great degree, it can also lead us right into danger.  It can also  lead  us away from people that would benefit our lives if we got to know them.

Your intuition is always your best and first line of defense. It also can suggest to you to go in a certain direction, even when you’ve been conditioned not to.

But typically we are taught to ignore our intuition…our gut feelings…and lean towards whatever biases we were brought up with.

Depending on what kind of parents you had growing up, you might have been given a feeling of independence and  confidence in your own judgement. But that’s not always the case.

You may have had parents that were controlling and manipulative. They may have intentionally crushed down your confidence, as well as your faith  in your intuition. They may have programmed you to believe that their opinions were somehow superior to your own senses.

You may have even been intentionally mislead about how to assess the people that you meet, as far as who to trust and who to run from.

Whether it was intentional or not, the things you learned as a child were taken in by your brain and processed at the age level that they were given to you.  Then those beliefs were reinforced,  or even contradicted to confuse you, at various ages growing up.

No matter what,  the things you learned about your world as a child, must be re-evaluated as an adult.

We cannot rely on what we were taught as children.

We cannot rely on what parents with a hidden agenda, or even good – intentioned parents conditioned us to believe.

We most certainly cannot rely on our own interpretation as a child, on those same things that were taught to us.

As adults, we must identify what beliefs are being held in our subconscious. Then we need to evaluate the truth of those beliefs. We also need to decide which of those beliefs are serving us well, and which ones might actually be harming us.

Our brain will find simple ways of making judgements because it’s faster and takes up less energy and time. If we don’t consciously think about things, we will go right to the associations that were conditioned into us as children.

No one ever told us to re-check these associations as adults. The people that wanted certain beliefs and biases programmed into you will probably  not come forward and tell you to re-evaluate them for yourselves now.

The end result is a tendency to change the facts right in front of you, in order to make them fit your beliefs.

The better option is to look at the facts realistically,  and then to re – evaluate your beliefs to fit the facts.

When you alter the facts, reframe the facts, disregard what you see to be true, or generalize things to fit what you were taught, you are in danger of more brainwashing,  and mind control.

You are in danger of letting that “perfect stranger” right into your house, because you were taught to categorize them as safe, when they may be exactly to opposite. Even if your gut is telling you to keep away, your subconscious belief system is pushing  you to make quick associations.

You can miss opportunities that might be really good for your future, because you were taught to be suspicious of certain things, or you were told time and time again that “someone like you” can’t achieve certain things.

Maybe you were taught that “someone like you” can’t attract certain kinds of people. Maybe you were covertly conditioned that certain types of friends or jobs are out of your reach.

Possibly,  someone was trying to protect you from disappointment, because they were infused with the same beliefs …. that they could not have certain things, or attract certain kinds of people who are “better” than they are.

Or maybe someone conditioned you to deny yourself opportunities because they actually had some hidden agenda for keeping you sheltered from knowing what you can actually do in your life. Maybe they wanted to keep your self esteem low, so they could wield a certain degree of control over you.

It could be that a teacher you had was the one that taught you to “stay in your place” to the degree that you are still holding a subconscious belief that you actually have a “place” or a status that you were born to stay in.

As adults, we need to re-teach ourselves. We need to re – train our brains to see what we see, and to believe things based on what we discover to be true.

As creative beings, we have the right to our passion and our personal inspiration.

You have a right to your dreams, your visions and to realize any talents that you think you might have.

Also remember that your intuition is there to serve you. If someone or something doesn’t feel right, then it probably isn’t.

If something feels like its calling you, then don’t give up and run the other way just because someone once told you that those kinds of dreams are for some other kind of person.

Protect yourself and prioritize your needs and desires, rather than always strive to fit within whatever box you were told was yours to fit into.

Let yourself let go of  whatever mental chains were placed on you at a young age.

Love others who deserve your love. Help others when you can, but not to the point where you are being used and exploited.

If it’s walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.

Wounded Healers

Emotions should be treated with kindness and a gentle spirit. When an emotions feels like it is too overwhelming you can console that feeling and care for it. 

Think of your emotions and feelings as children who need to be taken care of and nurtured. If you abandon your feelings they will only grow more. You have to walk with them and hold their hand. 

Emotional wounds

When you feel sadness, grief or anger there is always a reason for it. Sometimes the reason is obvious and other times the emotion is coming from an old emotional wound. 

Emotions are always trying to tell you something. They are trying to protect you from something. 

It can feel like we cannot handle feeling the emotions and so we try to bury and repress them. But this is a way of abandoning ourselves. 

Abandonment

You have already been abandoned by other people in your life. You have been rejected by people and hurt by people. Your emotions are telling you that you need to be cared for.

Self Love

Self love is a powerful thing. It is not selfish , even though you may have been taught that way. Often the people that discourage us from caring about our own feelings, do so for their own agenda. 

In another words, they try to get you to forget about your needs and feelings, because they are protecting their own needs and feelings. This is kind of hypocritical …isn’t it?

Emotional fractures.

Refusal to listen to your emotions will cause you to break down and become fractured. Emotional wounds are often fractures parts of you that were hurt and abandoned at an early age. 

These fractured child parts are trying to get your attention. They want to know that you have not abandoned them. Your inner child needs to know that it has not been abandoned by you too.

Nurture your pain.  

When emotional pain comes up please nurture it as you would a sick child. Care for your feelings and console those wounded parts of yourself. Ask them what they need and have not been getting.

You can find ways to heal the emotions if you listen to them first. It is not selfish to care about your own feelings and the needs of your emotional body. Your emotional health is connected to all of you.

Separation from the emotional body

In order to give of yourself, you have to have something left to give. When we neglect emotional wounds, part of ourselves becomes separated from the whole. 

You need to be whole and your emotions need to be integrated with all of you. Your spiritual health and emotional health are connected. Your physical health is also connected to your emotions. 

Inner Child 

Listen to your inner child and all of your emotions and feelings. Nothing comes up for no reason. There is always a reason if you are feeling something. 

You have much to offer the world. You are a unique person with very special gifts to offer and to explore. 

Acceptance of self

 

Everything about you will flow better when you nurture your feelings. Do not abandon yourselves by stuffing down your emotions. Allow your feelings to be accepted without judgement. 

You can survive the feelings as you experience them as a caretaker. You may fear that you will be overwhelmed by your emotions but you cannot push them away from you. 

Old emotional wounds

 

When you nurture and care for your feelings, the pain will release from you. You may find that the root causes are from long ago and the wounds have been re-opened by some person or situation. 

If this happens then the old emotional wounds were never healed from the past. They are coming up in order to ask you to care for them. 

 

 

Carrying shame with us is possible the single most devastating, caustic thing that can happen. We must find our way out of shame, because it will destroy is by crushing our self esteem and keeping us incapacitated, by self doubt and a feeling if unworthiness.

Shame is an emotion and it is a state of mental trauma. Any type of severe trauma can cause us to carry shame. In turn “shame” itself can cause mental trauma. Most often, a mental state of “shame” was brought on by others who intentionally manipulated and traumatized us into feeling unworthy and shameful.

Shame, according to Wikipedia

Shame is a negative, painful, social emotion that can be seen as resulting “…from comparison of the self’s action with the self’s standards…”.^[1] but which may equally stem from comparison of the self’s state of being with the ideal social context’s standard.  Wikipedia

So, shame is made up of…

1. a person’s personal feeling about who they “should be”

and

2. the person’s feeling about “who they are”

3. When the perception of “who you are” does not meet your standards of “who you should be” then the result is feeling shameful, for not having the ability to be the person that you “should be.”

Who should you be? Where do our concepts of our “perfect selves” come from? Are the reasonable? Do these ideals of who we “should be” come from our own minds? Or were they projected onto us by others?

Also, where does our perception of “who we are” come from? Are we really seeing our true selves?  Are we seeing ourselves through our own eyes ? Or are we seeing ourselves in an untrue way, through the eyes of society? Are we seeing ourselves the way other people say they see us?

Are we perceiving ourselves through the eyes of society and the stigma and misconceptions of society?

Are we still seeing ourselves from the eyes of our abuser? Are we really worthless and stupid?  Are we doomed to never do any better in life than we are doing? Or are we confusing our true potential with the twisted ideas that some abuser fed to us?

The problem with people who have experienced abuse, is that they were manipulated at the deepest levels of their brains.  People who were abused as children were made to feel worthless from a very young age. The natural developmental stages of self conception and identity were damaged.

People that in domestic abuse, were emotionally and mentally damaged. The abuser uses mind manipulation to make the person feel useless and stupid. The narcissists forces a fictitious reality on their victim and this reality changes.

The abuser changes the reality, constantly on order to manipulate the victim. If the victim buys something that the abuser wants at the store, the abuser may hide it. Then they will call the victim stupid for forgetting to buy the item at the store.

This reality manipulation over time, has the effect of confusing the victim about their own sense of reality. After the victim leaves the domestic abuse situation, they still have a feeling of shame and worthlessness. It takes time before the person will be able to see the proper perspective about who they are.

If we have been abused, we do not have the same sense of ease in feeling “normal.” We feel different that other people and often do not feel like we “fit in.” That sense of shame that we experienced during abuse, still looms over us.

Nineteenth century scientist Charles Darwin, in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, described shame affect as consisting of blushing, confusion of mind, downward cast eyes, slack posture, and lowered head… Wikipedia

This quote by Darwin is interesting to me, in that he describes the physical and mental appearance of shame. He describes the physical manifestation of shame to be “downcast eyes, lowered head”..

When I was living in an abusive relationship, I got comments a few times from people, that I looked down when a man entered the room. I was not aware that I did this at the time.

Actually it was one of my hospice patients that first pointed it out to me. She noticed that when a male aide came into the room to assist me, I lowered my head and looked down. I would not make eye contact with him.

As soon as the man left the room, my female patient said to me “Never! Never, look down when you meet a man! You are just as good as them. You are taking in a submissive posture with men and you should not.”

I was very surprised that I had done this and not even been aware of it. After that incident, I tried to be mindful of my body language with men and women, at least just to be aware of what message I was sending. Also to be aware of how I felt about men.

It is amazing that a woman on her death bed was so mindful and caring about me, that she noticed this and “scolded” me about it. It hurt her to see me be submissive to men like that. She was seeing into the future and how that submissiveness was going to harm me.

This lady knew nothing about the fact that I was living in an abusive relationship. It was purely an outside perspective.

Clearly, at that time, I felt afraid of men and my way of protecting myself was to take on the “submissive” posture. I also had a feeling if needing to protect my face from being hit. The downward position of my head, made me feel safer.

Psychiatrist Judith Lewis Herman had theories about shame as it related to childhood abuse. Her studies were about how a person from childhood abuse sees themselves through the eyes of their abusers.

toxic shame is induced, inside children, by all forms of child abuse. Incest and other forms of child sexual abuse can cause particularly severe toxic shame. Toxic shame often induces what is known as complex trauma in children who cannot cope with toxic shaming as it occurs and who dissociate the shame until it is possible to cope with.^{[18] Judith Lewis Herman}

Abusers tell their victims to feel shame. They shame them by verbally abusing them, mentally torturing them, sexually violating them and / or otherwise physically harming them. There is no physical abuse without mental abuse.

There is no sexual abuse without mental abuse. The damage to a person, goes into their identity, their self esteem and their ability to view themselves in a “normal” way.

What I mean by “normal” is to be able to view yourself on a scale of reality based levels. What you are worth to yourself, and other people should be based on the person that you are. When a victim views themselves through the eyes of the abusers, they will always have a feeling of secret shame.

It is hard to break the brain patterns that were inflicted upon you by your abusers. You are worthy! You are important! You matter! Those are the true things that you need to know and believe!

Your abuser did not want you to know that you were a worthy and special person. They may not even have wanted to know that themselves, because it was easier for them to abuse you if they thought of you as “inhuman” rather than a real person.

You are a real person. you are just as valuable and worthy of love as anyone.

Over time we can heal from these wounds. The PTSD (post traumatic stress) will never go away entirely. The past history of abuse will never go away. It is something we have to live with for the rest of our lives.

Instead of trying to crush it down, push the memories into the deepest recesses of our minds, we need to be ourselves and connect with others who will understand. We need to support and validate each other.

Together we can heal to a point where we can function better. Together we can create a community of support and love, that will uplift each and every one of us. Together we can turn our trauma around and use what we have learned to help others.

 

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Dealing with a Toxic Parent

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Dealing with a toxic parent is frustrating and it can interfere with your personal life. 

Setting boundaries with them can feel impossible. You don’t know whether to go low contact or no contact with them. The feelings driving you are coming from your subconscious belief system that has been conditioned into you by the parent, and society. 

You may feel like you are taking the more noble path by continuing to cater to them, but you are being driven by habits that have been repeated since your childhood. Thought behaviors and conditioned emotions drive your choices. 

You can override your conditioned patterns, but you have to identify what false beliefs you are holding first. 

For more information and help, visit the gentlekindnesscoaching web site, and follow me on the facebook page.

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Abuse, Isolation and Re-traumatization

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Domestic abuse shatters your self esteem because you are treated in such an inhuman way.  No…worse than that…you are treated worse than an animal.

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Domestic violence and mental / emotional abuse take away your dignity and leave you feeling heavily weighted with shame. It is hard for people who have not been through abuse to understand the shame, and it is hard to explain to them.

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The events which occur behind closed doors, in an abusive house, are dofficult to tell people about. If you try to tell them and they do not believe you, this can be very painful and re-traumatizing.

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Because you cannot tolerate any more pain, you will likely give up after being re-traumatized a few times by people you thought would believe you.

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Some of the events are hard for people to believe, particularly if they knew your abuser, and the abuser treated them completely differently than they treated you. Not only that, the abuser also treated you differently in front of other people, than they did when you were alone with them.

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You will be accused of lying, misconstruing events, having a bad memory, misunderstanding the abuser’s intentions and of being mentally unbalanced. People do not believe that you interpret, perceive or remember events and situations accurately.

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The reason this is particularly painful, is that the abuser also accused you of the very same things, many times. They said they did not really “bump” into you that hard, you bruise easily, and that they have been very patient with your over-sensitivity.

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They told you that you have a tendency to forget things, to misinterpret things and even to be abusive to them and not think you were being abusive.

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Your reality was has been so twisted around that it took a great effort to regain your faith in your own perception of reality. Even now, you may have the habit of questioning what you see and heat. But your gut tells you when something is wrong about how someone is treating you.

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Sometimes the pain of being re-traumatized, minimized, disbelieved, and humiliated all over again can make you self-isolate. You may have cut off contact with people, or you just do not talk to people about anything personal.

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There is a natural human need to connect with others. Feeling alone and isolated can extend the abuse. If you are still living with abuse, then you may be very isolated from other people.

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Sometimes hearing your very own story, from someone else who is telling their story, can be surprising, because you feel like you are the only one. The abuser quite intentionally caused you to feel that you were very different from other people.

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They intentionally isolated you, for a few reasons. They did not want you to have outside support or objective opinions. They wanted to be able to have full access to your brain, allowing keys to no one.

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As you are beginning to read about the patterns, methods, and intentional techniques of the abuser, you will be surprised how they are all the same. That being said….these methods are extremely effective and soul raping.

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The feeling of isolation, both during and after abuse can cause extreme depression and it can cause anxiety disorders. You can feel mentally and emotionally isolated in a room full of people.

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As you continue on your journey towards healing, you will find your authentic self. You will slowly grow more balanced over time and be able to re-build your self confidence.

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You are special and unique. The abuser targeted you because you were compassionate and understanding. These qualities are still a part of you and they make you an important and special person.

 

Coaching for Narcissistic Abuse Facebook page

The gentlekindness coaching facebook page is beginning to get more follows. This past week has been better because I ran a” Boost Post” ad for the page. I am not quite sure yet if it will turn out to be something I will pay for again, but so far it seems to be drawing new followers. 

Stop by the page and take a look HERE

 

Are You the Scapegoat in Your Family?

image from Pinterest – link here

If you are the scapegoat in your family, then you are the one that gets the most blame for things. They consider you the “difficult”  family member…usually you are the one who will not get with the program. 

Narcissists like to create their own narrative of the family, including assigning roles to each family member, and creating a cover story of how the family interactions are normal. Someone has to be blamed in this kind of family. 

It is a given that the narcissist gets special treatment in the family, and the family members are trained to go along with this. Everyone knows there are consequences and punishments for not complying with what the narcissist wants. 

The narcissist never takes any blame for things, and they might have made portrayed you as mentally disturbed, or defiant to outsiders of the family. The narcissist, of course, was the good parent who did their best to help you, in spite of your problems. 

 

Usually this person is targeted by the abuser because of their resistance to pretending that the household is normal.

If you were the truth teller…the revealer… in the family then you pointed out when boundaries were being crossed and when the other people were being mistreated. You were the one that probably defended siblings who were being abused. You may have tried to draw the abuse towards yourself in order to protect younger siblings from getting the brunt of it.

Very often the main abusive parent has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, although there are other personality disorders which cause people to abuse their children, like Malignant Borderline Personality Disorder. 

The narcissistic parent us the focal point of the family because they demand that their needs and desires are primary. The needs of the scapegoat are ignored. They are labeled as the troublemaker in the family. Things they say are often  used against them.

Fault for most every problem in the family ends of being dumped onto the scapegoat. The narcissist projects their own faults and personality disorder into the scapegoat. 

The scapegoat is the one that can see that something is wrong with the narcissistic parent ans their behavior. The narcissist wants everyone in the family to pretend that everything is normal and their abusive behaviors are not abusive. The scapegoat angers the narcissist by being able to see through the false reality they create.

If you were the scapegoat child then your accomplishments were ignored or minimized. You were compared to other family members and the narcissistic parent would see to it that your accomplishments were seen as less than the other children’s and their own. 

Family decisions may have been made without you in family meeting that you were intentionally not invited to. Yet you were still expected to go along with the decisions that narcissist made without expressing any dislike or negative feelings about anything.

You were emotionally punished for any resistance to what the narcissist wanted to do, even if it was harmful to you or others in the family. 

As an adult the narcissist probably gossips about you and talks about you behind your back. They twist around the reality of things you say and do, in order to give a false image to others about you. You are called selfish behind your back anytime you tell the narcissist “no” or try to set  healthy boundaries for the preservation of your mental health.

Your mental health is not only considered unimportant,  but it is attacked intentionally by the narcissistic parent in order to undermine you.

They use techniques like gaslighting and triangulating to break you down. You end up looking like the one who is at fault in the relationship because the narcissist lies to the other family members about you.

Even though the abusive parent is the unstable one, you are often made out to be the one that is mentally disordered.

Your behaviors are taken out of context and re-framed by the narcissist to appear illogical, irrational or selfish. By the time to are able to tell your side of the story to anyone, it is too late because the narcissist got to them first and has been spreading a smear campaign against you.

At times you may be shunned by the narcissist or by the entire family, because the narcissist tells them that they should not speak to you.

However when someone is needed to step in during an emergency you are often the first one they will call and expect to drop everything to help. You are expected to be the problem solver and the one to offer assistance, even after you were made to feel inadequate in the past.

Responsibility is not equally allotted or equally shared.

The scapegoat is always expected to do more than anyone else without complaining, and they are expected to do the work that no one else wants to do.

There is never any thank you or credit given to the scapegoat for doing things for the family. In fact there will be a big deal made over a little thing that the golden child did for the narcissist, while your contribution and efforts are minimized or forgotten…until the next time they need something from you.

Scapegoating is a reflection on the person refusing to take responsibility or be held accountable, not the person being blamed. The scapegoat also provides a buffer against reality to support the family denial. The scapegoat carries the lion’s share of the blame, shame, anger and rejection so narcissistic mother can maintain her patterns of dysfunction while continuing to appear normal. 

The scapegoat is punished by several methods. Shaming, ignoring, minimizing accomplishments, undermining, abused, rejected, singled out for blame.

scapegoatsofanarcissisticmother.blogspot.com

The narcissistic parent will tell people that they have done many things for you and that they gave tried to be supportive of you. They will tell others that they have been a good parent for you and that you do not appreciate their efforts. They will sometimes go so far as to claim that you are abusive to them and play the victim themselves.

The golden child is the sibling that is put on a pedestal by the parent and expected to make the narcissist look good.

The parent claims the credit for the accomplishments of the golden child. The golden child will remain in the favor of the narcissist as long as they succeed and accomplish the things that the narcissist approves of. 

The rules for the golden child and the scapegoat are never the same.

The scapegoat will be punished for things that the golden child is not punished for. The golden child will be praised for things that are ignored or undermined when the scapegoat accomplishes them or tries to accomplish them. 

The narcissistic parent will undermine the scapegoat and at the same time say to them “I am doing this for your own good” They disguise their cruel, undermining, manipulative tactics as loving guidance. 

There are many tactics that the narcissistic parent will use to undermine the scapegoat. The family often becomes blind to the tactics of the narcissist against the scapegoat. They do not see that the scapegoat is being attacked and undermined.

Some adults choose to break off contact with the narcissistic parent for their own mental preservation. Others are shunned by the narcissist and sometimes the entire family.

If you choose to continue interaction with a narcissistic parent, you have to learn how to maintain boundaries and not allow anyone in the family to violate them. Most likely this will anger the family members who are not used to you maintaining the same boundaries that they expect you to respect for them.

They feel entitled to be treated with respect and to be able to set boundaries about their time, their emotions, their relationships, etc. But they do not often respect your right to set the same exact boundaries for yourself.

You are not seen by the narcissist as a real person that has the right to your own thoughts, feelings, ideas or a right to personal boundaries.

You should prioritize your mental health and your life and make any decisions about interacting with your family members based on what is best for you.

If they have never been happy with anything you have  done by now, then what are the chances that continuing to try to please them will gain their appreciation and approval?

Usually this person is targeted by the abuser because of their resistance to pretending that the household is normal.

If you were the truth teller in the family then you pointed out when boundaries were being crossed and when the other people were being mistreated.You were the one that probably defended siblings who were being abused. You may have tried to draw the abuse towards yourself in order to protect younger siblings from getting the brunt of it.

Very often the main abusive parent has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, although there are other personality disorders which cause people to abuse their children, like malignant borderline personality disorder. 

The narcissistic parent us the focal point of the family because they demand that their needs and desires are primary. The needs of the scapegoat are ignored. They are labeled as the troublemaker in the family. Things they say are often  used against them.

Fault for most every problem in the family ends of being dumped onto the scapegoat. The narcissist projects their own faults and personality disorder into the scapegoat. 

The scapegoat is the one that can see that something is wrong with the narcissistic parent ans their behavior. The narcissist wants everyone in the family to pretend that everything is normal and their abusive behaviors are not abusive. The scapegoat angers the narcissist by being able to see through the false reality they create.

If you were the scapegoat child then your accomplishments were ignored or minimized. You were compared to other family members and the narcissistic parent would see to it that your accomplishments were seen as less than the other children’s and their own. 

Family decisions may have been made without you in family meeting that you were intentionally not invited to. Yet you were still expected to go along with the decisions that narcissist made without expressing any dislike or negative feelings about anything.

You were emotionally punished for any resistance to what the narcissist wanted to do, even if it was harmful to you or others in the family. 

As an adult the narcissist probably gossips about you and talks about you behind your back. They twist around the reality of things you say and do, in order to give a false image to others about you. You are called selfish behind your back anytime you tell the narcissist “no” or try to set  healthy boundaries for the preservation of your mental health.

Your mental health is not only considered unimportant,  but it is attacked intentionally by the narcissistic parent in order to undermine you.

They use techniques like gaslighting and triangulating to break you down. You end up looking like the one who is at fault in the relationship because the narcissist lies to the other family members about you.

Even though the abusive parent is the unstable one, you are often made out to be the one that is mentally disordered.

Your behaviors are taken out of context and re-framed by the narcissist to appear illogical, irrational or selfish. By the time to are able to tell your side of the story to anyone, it is too late because the narcissist got to them first and has been spreading a smear campaign against you.

At times you may be shunned by the narcissist or by the entire family, because the narcissist tells them that they should not speak to you.

However when someone is needed to step in during an emergency you are often the first one they will call and expect to drop everything to help. You are expected to be the problem solver and the one to offer assistance, even after you were made to feel inadequate in the past.

Responsibility is not equally allotted or equally shared.

The scapegoat is always expected to do more than anyone else without complaining, and they are expected to do the work that no one else wants to do.

There is never any thank you or credit given to the scapegoat for doing things for the family. In fact there will be a big deal made over a little thing that the golden child did for the narcissist, while your contribution and efforts are minimized or forgotten…until the next time they need something from you.

Scapegoating is a reflection on the person refusing to take responsibility or be held accountable, not the person being blamed. The scapegoat also provides a buffer against reality to support the family denial. The scapegoat carries the lion’s share of the blame, shame, anger and rejection so narcissistic mother can maintain her patterns of dysfunction while continuing to appear normal. 

The scapegoat is punished by several methods. Shaming, ignoring, minimizing accomplishments, undermining, abused, rejected, singled out for blame.

scapegoatsofanarcissisticmother.blogspot.com

The narcissistic parent will tell people that they have done many things for you and that they gave tried to be supportive of you. They will tell others that they have been a good parent for you and that you do not appreciate their efforts. They will sometimes go so far as to claim that you are abusive to them and play the victim themselves.

The golden child is the sibling that is put on a pedestal by the parent and expected to make the narcissist look good.

The parent claims the credit for the accomplishments of the golden child. The golden child will remain in the favor of the narcissist as long as they succeed and accomplish the things that the narcissist approves of. 

The rules for the golden child and the scapegoat are never the same.

The scapegoat will be punished for things that the golden child is not punished for. The golden child will be praised for things that are ignored or undermined when the scapegoat accomplishes them or tries to accomplish them. 

The narcissistic parent will undermine the scapegoat and at the same time say to them “I am doing this for your own good” They disguise their cruel, undermining, manipulative tactics as loving guidance. 

There are many tactics that the narcissistic parent will use to undermine the scapegoat. The family often becomes blind to the tactics of the narcissist against the scapegoat. They do not see that the scapegoat is being attacked and undermined.

Some adults choose to break off contact with the narcissistic parent for their own mental preservation. Others are shunned by the narcissist and sometimes the entire family.

If you choose to continue interaction with a narcissistic parent, you have to learn how to maintain boundaries and not allow anyone in the family to violate them. Most likely this will anger the family members who are not used to you maintaining the same boundaries that they expect you to respect for them.

They feel entitled to be treated with respect and to be able to set boundaries about their time, their emotions, their relationships, etc. But they do not often respect your right to set the same exact boundaries for yourself.

You are not seen by the narcissist as a real person that has the right to your own thoughts, feelings, ideas or a right to personal boundaries.

You should prioritize your mental health and your life and make any decisions about interacting with your family members based on what is best for you.

If they have never been happy with anything you have  done by now, then what are the chances that continuing to try to please them will gain their appreciation and approval?

You have the right to live your life and follow your dreams. Our blood relatives are the people that we were given as family, but you can choose other people to consider your family. You should be surrounded by people who support you. 

Empath and Red Squiggles

The words “empath” and “empathy” come up with red squiggles on my laptop. I believe that “empath” also comes up wrong on my cell phone.

What is wrong with the world?… when words like “hateful” …”prejudice”…”malicious” …and  “psychopath” come up just fine, because there is a need to use those words all the time.  But “empath” and “empathy” are not important enough for them to add to the common word list? 

Are Flashbacks Just Memories?

If you have PTSD you are aware of how frightening, and mentally upsetting that flashbacks can be. They can occur when there is a trigger than reminds you about the original trauma. 

I have heard from more than one person lately that their therapists are minimizing their experience with flashbacks. Therapists are not all trained in basic neurology, although in my opinion they should be. Understanding how the brain processes memories, and what happens to that process during a traumatic event, is important to the understanding of .

This is a response I left for another blogger who had this experience with a therapist. I have had clients of mine say very similar things about their therapist not understanding about flashbacks. Sometimes people are told that flashbacks are “just memories” and that it is not that bad.

Many mental health professional are compassionate. Some psychiatrists and therapists are also educated in neurology, but there are some that do not understand about flashbacks and what happens in the brain to cause flashbacks.

I have heard stories from my clients about  being traumatized in therapy. Survivors of narcissistic abuse need someone to validate their reality. There are therapists than end up re-traumatizing their clients by invalidating their reality when it comes to flashbacks and also the effect of gaslighting and mental abuse on the victim.

Most importantly, compassion for the client is necessary. You cannot treat someone and help them, if you are going to invalidate their experiences and their reality. Meeting someone where they are …mentally and emotionally…is showing your humanity. 

If you ever feel worse leaving a therapy appointment than when you went in, then something is wrong. If you feel invalidated, minimized, or criticized for things you feel and say, then you need to ask for another therapist.

They are being paid to help you heal and be whole again. So if you feel that your therapist is not a good match for you and your trauma, then it is okay to search for another therapist that understands PTSD, C-PTSD , surviving abuse, or the type of trauma that caused your post traumatic stress.

It is very important that you can express your thoughts and feelings. If you experienced abuse as an adult, or emotional / mental abuse growing up, then you have had years of not being believed and not having your reality validated. 

Here is my message to all of the clients I have helped with this issue. 

Flashbacks are most certainly different than memories. She was minimizing your pain and invalidating your reality. I do not know if she is just ignorant about the neurology of flashbacks or if she was intentionally minimizing you.

At least 10 percent of therapists and mental health professionals are pathological narcissists, because they like to be in that position of power of people’s heads and also it makes them seem believable when they call their partner mentally ill when they claim abuse. You need to be aware of this, and be proactive to protect your own mental health. 

Flashbacks are memories that have not been integrated properly by the brain. During trauma, the brain and body are flooded with high levels of adrenaline and cortisol. High levels of cortisol, especially when it is on an on-going basis, interfere with the hippocampus part of the brain. This is the part that is in charge of filing memories into the correct place.

When the cortisol interferes with the hippocampus, the memories of trauma are not filed into the past, like they should be, They are not processed as memories filed into the long term memory. So those memories are left lingering in the brain, without being put into the right box.

So the traumatic experience, and sensory images and feelings from that trauma, are non-integrated…they are fractured parts of you . This is why when something triggers the memory….like an object, a place, a smell, a sound, etc…the brain brings back the memory of the trauma as if it is really happening to you…in the present….rather than the past.

The adrenaline and the cortisol kick in , just like in the original trauma, and you feel like you are there in the trauma again. The brain cannot tell the difference between the event being in the past or in the present, because it was not able to file the memory into the right place in the brain, ‘

I think therapists should have to have some basic neurology education. Then they would at least understand that flashbacks are not just memories….I am sorry she acted this way to you. It is re-traumatizing when therapists do this to their clients.

Sending you healing and compassion.
Annie ❤