Hi Magnoliagal,
You could be describing my childhood.
I wasn't the perfect father to my kids, but now we are all very close. Helping them to heal was very painful for me as I had to face up to a lot of uncomfortable truths, but, having experienced narcissistic parenting myself, I was up for...
Why is this so ****ing difficult!!! I'm terrified because I 'know' no-one will respond, and I'll feel utterly crushed.
And now the internal Parent is kicking off, "You're making too much of a fuss - you're only doing it to get attention! You're such a baby."
I 'know' I'm going to write all...
That's the internalised Parent voice (unconscious) talking; don't give it power by agreeing with it from your conscious mind.
Oppose the negative unconscious Parent voice by developing a positive conscious grown-up voice - get into the habit of telling your inner Child that:
- you love her...
I guess that makes you the scapegoat of your family; the one on the outside?
When I started to realise that I was abused, my first reaction was to get very, very angry with the adults that were around at the time and said and did nothing. I once had an aunt tell me how badly I was treated as a...
The old "If I was strong enough" rationale. I can so hear my parents saying that! Accept yourself for who you are right here and right now. Sure, you want to make changes. But the first step is acceptance. And to do that you need to challenge your internal critical parent.
That's how it started for me. I was having implicit flashbacks (no explicit memory) and night terrors, and not acknowledging that they were happening.
I recognise those. It's like you know you do NOT want it to happen, and yet the need to let it take over is stronger; like you get something...
I am so very sorry that I missed that you had posted.
Funnily enough, I did some work on this today. I discovered that I had been hanging on to the hope that I would be able to repair the relationship with my sister. Reality check! That ain't gonna happen. So what I did was an NLP...
Welcome to the forum.
Mindfulness: Tai Chi, Yoga, meditation, Zen, walking and observing without analysing or thinking, counting backwards with each breath with eyes closed
Good on you!
Don't beat yourself up. Don't give the parent voices in your head the power to abuse you any more.
I get that. Sometimes I think I'm so worthless it's an effort to breathe.
No you didn't. By sharing this you are taking up space in our heads, and you are welcome. Posting on...
What, if anything, did you get out of the relationship (apart from heartache)?
And did she?
What is it about this relationship that reminds you of your relationship with your mother?
Please do not get mad at yourself for not seeing it. Something similar happened in your childhood, and this...
Thank you BigBear.
Joke: What's the difference between a Narcissist and a spermatazoon?
Answer: There isn't one really, they both have about one in three billion chance of becoming a human being.
My parents gifted me a lifetime of loneliness, emotional pain and now chronic illness. It took me almost the whole of my life and hundreds of hours of therapy to get to where I am now: at peace with myself and enjoying the moment. I wish you healing and growth.
Here's a thought that took me a h*ll of a long time to get my head around and apply to my own relationship - IT'S NOT YOUR SOLE RESPONSIBILITY TO MAKE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WORK.
A relationship is 50:50. You can't have a meaningful relationship with a brick wall. You both have to put the effort...
I'm a psychotherapist and I specialise in infant PTSD. There is a common misconception that infants can't get PTSD because the part of the brain that manages explicit memories, the Hippocampus, is not present at birth.
However, that is not the whole story. We actually have two types of...
If a parent is engulfing, we get confused about our boundaries and who should be in control. As adults we get into rescuing people - we help them whether want us to help or not, and/or we feel the need to be in control of (or be controlled by) people whether they like it or not.
Does that...
There's no need to apologise for existing here. You are welcome.
There's so much more to life than surviving.
Yes biggie. Yes very biggie.
Congratulations. Well done.
But, if you're like me, as soon as you get to care about someone, you start to feel the need to push them away... It's...