Trauma recovery is the yellow brick road AWAY from home

 

Hello my friends, today in my childhood trauma recovery from narcissistic parent abuse, I'm creating metaphors for the suffering that I'm trying to get out of me. All my life I've walked a yellow brick road that was supposed to lead to Kansas and safety but lead only to danger and pain.  

Along the way, I've experienced flying monkeys (blind guides) and Wicked Witches of Narcissism. I've been burned by toxic shaming fumes from her cauldron of abuse, neglect, invalidation, parentification, endangerment and abandonment. The Good Witch that was supposed to give me ruby slippers, only tripped me up, by DARVO and refusal to see my trauma. 

I've been lead astray by the Wizard of Gaslighting and trauma bonding. I've been blinded and blindsided in the dangerous woods of Betrayal Blindness. I've been trapped in the quicksand of parent enmeshment. I've had little rotten apples of self-doubt, toxic shaming and narcissistic abuse lobbed at me by the menacing trees of family chaos and scapegoating. 

I've been deceived by four narcissistic parents who posed as helpful companions but who led me into, not away from pitfalls of parentification. Everything that is supposed to be good, safe, sweet and light was flip-flopped to bad, fraught, sour and dark. So now, even the brightest days are haunted by ominous clouds of FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). It doesn't matter that none of this actually exists now. It lives in the reality of my memory. My then is now my now. 

Where I go from here is not a one-size, once and for all, answer. It's a daily rescue swim out of the rip tide. Some days the water is choppier and harder to navigate. Sometimes I just tread water. Sometimes I drown a little. I don't think to call out for help because not only was the life ring pulled away, my head was pushed under water. So I try to keep my head low so as not to attract attention. It is a double bind. 

I see threatening portents in the most innocuous of things. Everything seems to trigger trauma responses because fawning and people pleasing was the only thing I knew. It was as integral as cellular respiration. Childhood trauma responses WERE my life ring. Sort of. They were also the things that dragged me under and handicapped me. 

One thing that helps is asking AI to create metaphorical images to "show me" myself. You can see a gallery of them in past posts. Sorry I've nothing more helpful to say today. One day at a time.