Narcissistic Abuse is Real and It Will Make Anyone Question Their Own Sanity - Spoiler (You’re Not Crazy) #Trump #GOP #Maga #Cult #NarcissisticAbuse #TraumaBond #Trauma #Victim #Abuse #Gaslighting youtu.be/1LoaByu5l4U?...

America is a cult & we have to...

So, my narc ex with whom I co-parent figured out today that I consider them a #narcissist. It was an oopsie on my part (they stumbled across a book I'm reading on narcissism).

They asked me about it. If I'm reading it because of them. I replied that I'm reading it to make sense of my family history and past experiences. To help me grow as a person. No lies but also not the whole truth.

Let's see what happens next. I expect nothing good. I am however surprisingly calm. What can they do? Make me trust them even less? Lol.

Breaking the #traumaBond that binds you to your abuser is hard work. You literally go through the stages of grief, as part of breaking it requires you to let go of the shared delusion that your abuser is a "good person".

This means that you lose the person you thought they were. All while potentially still interacting with them. All while potentially still being subjected to their manipulations.

This is why people recommend going no contact. Healing from abuse requires you to re-center yourself in your reality, in your perception. And that results in your abuser having less control. Spoiler: they don't want that.

Talking with a #narcissist about your emotions is a pointless endeavor. Worse: it's dangerous as they'll use this information against you later.

They are not interested in finding a solution that helps all involved parties to emotionally regulate. They are interested in the solution that helps them alone emotionally regulate. Bonus points if they guilt trip you into finding that solution.

Let me be clear: if someone makes you feel guilty about your behavior while refusing to cooperate on finding a solution that works for everyone, that's manipulation. That's emotional abuse.

Someone who truly cares about you would want to resolve the issue in a way that works for both them *and* you.

You do not need permission, validation, acceptance of other people to be and love who you are.

The person closest to you is *yourself*. "Love your neighbour" is great and all but it's worthless unless you love thyself. Love yourself. Just the way you are *right now*. With all your messes, weirdness, and unresolved pain and trauma. You are worthy of love.

Healthy relationships will lift you up. They will encourage you to be who you really are. They will empower you. They won't tear you down and make you doubt yourself and your worth. People who do that don't love you. Not really. Even if they tell you differently.

Rise strong and reach for your stars. You are important. You matter. I see you.

I've survived over 10 years of #narcissisticAbuse in my marriage. I've been only beginning to reclaim my reality after having lived in their reality in which I was defective, overly emotional, needy, and largely good for nothing.

Life has been overall good to me recently. I'm in a wonderful new relationship. I'm building a support network with people who genuinely care about me and my well-being. I'm learning to be more kind to myself. It's hard work but it's worth it.

Despite all of that what remains is this intangible sense of sadness. A persistent low-key melancholy. I used to be a person who genuinely believed that everyone was trying to do their best in their own unique way. That we all were in the same boat that is life and nobody, regardless of their lived experience, was trying to rock it just for their own enjoyment.

(1/2)

You wanna pay back the #narcissist in your life? The biggest punishment for a narcissist is being ignored. Do not pay them attention of any kind. Don't let their reality impact yours or only as minimally as possible.

In the world of a narcissist only their reality matters. Your reality is by definition wrong and nothing you do can change that. Their actions are by definition just and good. But what if they do something that's clearly cruel and harmful?

Remember the narcissistic prayer? That. They change their reality so that their actions are now again just and good. And if that means that they have to throw you under the bus they'll not hesitate to do so. They will literally construct false realities in which you are the most vile human being to have ever walked the earth, all in a (largely unconscious!) effort to turn them into a victim who didn't have another choice but to harm you deeply.

Don't let their reality become your reality. Ignore them.

Having to maintain my relationship to the #narcissist that abused me is becoming the biggest challenge of my life. No contact is not an option as we have kids.

I'm processing the emotional abuse I experienced. I'm grieving the woman that never was her. It's a lot of very raw and very intense emotions.

And I'm doing all of that while I need to regularly interact with my abuser. It's a gigantic mind fuck.

I'm reclaiming a lot of my agency by #yellowRocking extensively. Killing her with kindness. Ignoring her emotional baits that are meant to trigger a fight I'd lose anyway. I'm getting #revenge by being my best fucking self. Let the kids see that unconditional kindness is possible while enforcing boundaries.

But I'm not gonna lie. It takes my everything. Being kind to my abuser when everything in me screams for justice is a challenge like no other. #RadicalAcceptance is most definitely non-optional.

I might not win the battles but I will win the war.

Processing #narcissisticAbuse requires you to upheave your entire world. It requires you to recontextualize the entire relationship you had with the person who abused you. It requires looking at things again and realizing that this situation was in fact abusive. That making you feel confusion, hurt, sadness, and especially fear, were not a mistake but the intention.

You need to do all that while grieving the loss of the person you thought you loved. They were never real. And I really mean never. They were a fabrication created by a predator that exploited your psychological weaknesses to devour you like a lion.

This will sound crass to some of you. Many will think I'm exaggerating. But those of you who survived narcissistic abuse know: what I wrote doesn't even come close to capturing the horror of realizing that the person you loved never loved you back but instead only sought to dominate and exploit you as a source of narcissistic supply.

How does one recognize whether or not what one experienced was narcissistic abuse?

It's not like one can ask the hypothetical abuser. They will deny it. Is learning about the patterns of narcissistic abuse and subsequently recognizing how they show up in one's lived experience the best one can do?

I find that a very unsatisfactory conclusion but it does seem like the best one can do. I probably lived in a relationship with at least narcissistic abuse patterns. And the unsolvable ambiguity of it all bothers me.

What happens when the predator becomes the prey? The shadows have begun to shift. The unraveling has only just begun. Ready for the next chapter? The courtroom becomes a battlefield, and the shadows choose their next victim.

#theunravelingseries #psychologicalhorror #psychologicalthriller #psychologicalabuse #narcissisticinjury #narcissisticabuse #thriller #horror #Writing

https://medium.com/@theunravelingseries/shadows-in-motion-the-breaking-point-91cb6c333729

"Shadows Devour" dives into the destructive forces of narcissistic rage, exploring how these insidious demons latch onto their hosts and victims alike. Through a devastating lens, this tale reveals that the shadows are everywhere—preying on the vulnerable, devouring light, and perpetuating cycles of pain.

Will their hunger ever be sated?

#psychologicalhorror #psychologicalthriller #theunraveling #writer #narcissisticabuse #narcissist #psychologicalabuse #thriller

https://medium.com/@aidyspoetry/shadows-devour-the-cost-of-survival-4c873bbef82c

I highly recommend this book to anyone who feels like they carry a lot of #trauma from their childhood.

For me, it's even getting at many of the nuances that I thought were totally unique to my fckdup parents.

https://bookwyrm.social/book/91464/s/adult-children-of-emotionally-immature-parents

#MentalHealth #cptsd #narcissisticabuse #depression #anxiety #ptsd #psychology @bookstodon #bookstodon

#JulietLandau is doing another online event for her film #APlaceAmongTheDead on June 29th!!

You'd watch the film at home (it's streaming a bunch of places! Tubi has it up for free!), then a Q&A, then a Zoom meeting with Juliet and Dev and a bunch of really amazing people.

Here's a trailer! If you're interested in the event, let me know, and I'll get you more info.

#Vampires #VampireMovie #Buffy #NarcissisticAbuse

https://youtu.be/JB-otHvtjPI?si=mWlGVhv-lUkqNc5z

Jackson Avery on Grey’s Anatomy has mannerisms, speech patterns, smug above-it-all-ness, and issues with boundaries just like my abuser. They didn’t write him as bad as my abuser was, but sometimes he’s just like him.

There’s a scene in S16E17 with his new girlfriend Vic where he tries to run her around in the circle maze just like my abuser did, and she has none of it. She stops him right there and then leaves the room. Good for her. I wish I’d’ve been so intolerant of that bullshit, but I ran around in his little maze just like he wanted me to. And I lost my mind in there.