Why it's impossible to just "rise above" malignant narcissist behavior (and other stupid nonsense advice)

Hey friends. Mar here with more on how I'm attempting to heal from decades of narcissistic abuse by two selfish parents and their abusive partners. Today I'm going to debunk some of the stupid nonsense advice people get about dealing with narcissists. One of the worst is "not to take it personally" and "rise above." This is not only incredibly insensitive, it's impossible. 

First of all, you need to know that anyone who says stuff like that, clearly has never lived with a self-centered malignant narcissist or they wouldn't make these comments. I won't say it's even well-meaning advice. It's just meant to make themselves feel better and is actually narcissistic itself. In some cases the person is passive-aggressively shaming you the victim, gaslighting and and affirming the narc in their abuse of you. 

Let's start with the infamous "don't take it personally." It sounds good in theory. And it can be helpful if the person really wants you too feel better and isn't just defending the narc. In that case it's just it's the old "you're too sensitive" BS which is one of many tactics malignant narcs use to gaslight, shame, invalidate and manipulate. Because what it implies that you can stop the narc hurting you just by clicking your heels together and pretending it isn't what it is, a targeted attack.  

Advice like this also dismisses that very real problem, that the narc isn't accidentally being hurtful, they are going out of their way to. They want you to personalize it. They are targeting you and they want you to know it. If you do rise above (what that means) they will double down on the attack. So stupid advice to pretend they aren't doesn't protect you, it makes it worse. 

The best advice I can give, from decades of narc abuse is to either call it out when it happens and then cut contact with them or just cut or limit contact and know it is about you. But it isn't your fault or problem. This is not an argument or a two-way street. What you shouldn't do is to believe that it is something you provoked. The narc attacks you because he has chosen you as the target. And you've been if anything too nice and patient. 

One super creepy way I was endangered, abandoned and exploited by parental narcissistic abuse

(warning: another very disturbing post) Hi friends. Couldn't sleep last night. CPTSD from parental narcissistic abuse will do that to you. And while I was praying/writing a novel in my head/trying not to ruminate, a memory of childhood trauma came shouting through. It exemplifies one tiny, but super creepy, way I was endangered, abandoned and exploited by a narcissistic parent. I say tiny only because in my life, it was small beer compared to the full buffet of abuse by four selfish, self-absorbed parents. 

I've taken to listing the types of abuse I have experienced. Physical, mental, emotional, sexual, financial, religious and narcissistic abuse, plus neglect, endangerment, abandonment, shaming, exploitation, manipulation, scapegoating and gaslighting. This example shows the lengths my mom went to, to prove to me that she didn't give a fat rat's ass about me or my feelings, and would even use my pain for narcissistic supply. 

My parents divorced when I was 6. We lived in Alaska where they had gone to "be missionaries to the Indians." (Yes I hear all that's wrong with that. It was how it was presented to 5 y/o me.) That never  happened. The local Tlingit tribe didn't need missioning to and actually took care of my unemployed, homeless parents. They weren't sent by any church. It was just their delusional fantasy. 

My dad left on a series of "mission trips" which were just wandering around without his family. My mom had her own delusions of grandeur which she'd dream up while leaving me on my own. She started cheating on my dad in a series of affairs that began there and continued when we moved back (sans my still-wandering dad) to Michigan. 

Now before it get to this particular story, you need to know a few things about my mom. She loves attention. She has exploited me regularly to get it. She also fancies herself a pillar of the church, a good Christian woman, moral example and also a preacher in her own right. She regularly preaches about moral living and feels justified in calling out anyone or anything she deems immoral, sinful etc. She is completely in denial and hypocritical about her incredibly immoral (by her own standards) behavior. 

One of the most egregious is that she is very off about sex and has been since I was about 6 or 7 when she began forcing me to hear the "facts of life." I would cover my ears but she persisted. She gave me a blow by blow description of "A Clockwork Orange." She would make out with her boyfriends in front of me. She used crude street language and let her boyfriends talk this way to me. As a result I'm kind of broken sexually and filled with shame that I've had to work for decades to overcome. Thank God for my miracle-working husband. 

At the time (early 1970s) virtually no one I knew was divorced, let alone dating. Let alone having affairs. Let alone with married men. Let alone living with boyfriends (that happened later, but it relates). Regardless of faith or lack thereof, it was almost unheard of. Adult friends have confirmed this. My friends all thought it was weird and I was weird by association. 

I felt so icky about all her sex talk. She said it was to protect me.  I believed her but still felt icky. She said she just didn't want anything bad to happen to me. Mind you, she also let me play alone in a park a few blocks away when I was 5, where a known pedophile hung out. She told me,  just don't go in the bathroom.  And as you'll see, not only did she not protect me, she endangered, abandoned and exploited me for herself. 

So on with my story. We moved a lot. And next door to the house in which this happened lived a single dad with four sons. I think the mother had passed away. Anyway, two of the kids were really nasty. One time, one of them poured a bottle of salad dressing over my head in the street while everyone sat and laughed. For some reason I developed a small crush on him. Which further shows how my parents had abandoned all protection of me. Isn't that what girls do? Fall for abusers? 

Anyway, then his brother did something to me that would haunt me all my life. I was 10, I think. On Halloween, he sent a note to me, telling me all kinds of sick, dirty things he'd like to do to me, sexually. I think his brothers had a hand in this too. I seem to recall them laughing about it later. I remember reading it and just coming unglued. I got sick to my stomach and was screaming and crying. And really afraid. He basically told me he'd rape me if given the chance. My mom just dismissed it like she did every other weird and creepy thing that happened. She told me to go trick-or-treating and just ignore it. 

So that was bad enough. Knowing that some fat stupid ugly bully was out there waiting to get her daughter didn't phase her. If it was my daughter, I'd have called the police, gone over and ripped them all a new ones and gotten me counseling. And maybe slashed their tires. But not my mom. She actually used this to her advantage. 

A few months later, she started dating the dad (?!?!) He was a lot older than her which was another part of my mom's creepy MO. Looking for a sugar daddy. Blech. And let me just segue here to say that I understood none of this as a kid. I believed all my mom's bullshit gaslighting. I was just your average  funny-looking but sweet, slightly naive tween who liked to read Scholastic books. It's only now that I'm 60 that I'm realizing how crude, lewd and morally bankrupt she really was. Back then, I thought I was dirty and trashy. Now I see that I wasn't. I was treated dirty and subjected to trashy behavior. It's actually kind of amazing how I navigated it all while still remained relatively innocent. 

So anyway, their bunch had moved and she'd drag me over to their house so she could be with her new boyfriend. Then one weekend she announced that the two of them were planning to go away and leave me with his four sons.  No adults. Not even any other girls present. Just me and the creeps. The kid who had told us exactly what he planned to do if left alone with me. All of us tweens and teens camping out on the floor. I can't honestly remember if he did anything, but I lay awake all night long in fear.  And it didn't really matter because my mind was so raped by him and my mother's allowing it. The word pimping leaps to mind. 

She didn't just allow this or turn a blind eye. She had to go out of her way to create this situation. She had fucking options. She could have asked my grandparents or my dad to watch me. He was back in town. But oh wait, then she'd have to admit what she was up to. Or actually no she wouldn't. She'd have just lied like she always did. I suppose she was worried I'd say something. 

I didn't even bother telling my mom what happened. Why would I? She'd already proved I was on my own when it came to being safe. Then she had to audacity to trauma dump on me about how the old dad had "molested" her. Well what did you expect?? You went away for a hookup. If he even did which I doubt. It was just an excuse to put more ick in my mind. And to activate me pity. And to deflect attention away from my truly traumatic experience which she landed me in. 

That experience wasn't the first endangerment involving men in my life and certainly not the last. It was just one of many situations she not only didn't protect me from but pushed me into. Between her, my dad and their partners, they taught me that this was what I was supposed to do, let people fuck with my head, hurt my body, break my spirit and damage my soul. 

How I am using CPTSD triggers and emotional flashback triggers to get healthier

 Hello friends. This is part two of  my post on CPTSD triggers and how to use them in recovery. Today I'm looking at  how to use emotional flashbacks and childhood trauma triggers. I defined a trauma trigger as anything, anyone, any place, any event that activates an emotional flashback (a sensation of being back in the original experience with associated feelings). In childhood trauma, these emotional flashbacks take us to negative, dangerous and hurtful experiences with unpleasant feelings and thoughts. I flashback to abuse, neglect, dysregulation, exploitation, manipulation, parentification, coercion, scapegoating, abandonment, endangerment and gaslighting from two narcissistic parents and their equally abusive spouses (my "stepparents".)

Triggers take me back to those initial experiences. I feel the fear, anxiety, confusion and panic that original experiences of abuse, neglect and especially parentification, endangerment and abandonment, caused. And each time adds another layer as the older I get the more of these emotional flashbacks I accumulate. 

They activate muscle memory and autonomic responses and coping mechanisms (fight, flight, freeze and fawn, mostly fawn). I'd even add fake and fix. I go into an unnatural brittle "fake cheerful" mode that my husband and I have dubbed perma-grin. I scramble to please and placate. I start doing  weird dysregulated things. It's my repertoire of defense and coping mechanisms that I've built up from decades of use. 

And because the thing that triggers the emotional flashbacks seems or is unrelated, it makes no sense to anyone with me, why the heck  I'm melting down like a little kid. It's because in that flashback, I am a child or teen. And my inner kid is going into coping mechanisms I did in childhood. 

But as weird as they are, coping mechanisms served a purpose, just as triggers do. Triggers are red flags that something isn't safe. Or resembles something unsafe. Or just requires some closer scrutiny, to see if it isn't. I used the example of being triggered by my son's violin lessons because the people at the church they were held at had treated me so poorly. All that required was paying attention to the panic attack feelings, doing the math and getting him out of that situation. He hated the violin lessons anyway, which probably should have been another wake up call. 

The feelings of dysregulation, panic attack, associated with triggered emotional flashback are helpful too. They generate a sense of urgency to get the heck out of danger. To pull my hand away from the fire instead of keeping it there and letting it burn me as I'd been taught to do. They help me understand that coping mechanisms were all I had as a kid. But now I can create a toolbox with healthier options than flying, fighting and especially freezing, fawning, fixing and faking. 

Physical symptoms of CPTSD from narcissistic abuse are getting worse

 Hello my friends. All these posts about my experiences with childhood abuse, neglect, parental abandonment, endangerment, exploitation, toxic shaming, scapegoating and gaslighting about it all, are painful to write. Today's post is especially uncomfortable because it is so very sad and scary. It makes me physically ill to think about. But the toxins have to be lanced or I will never find peace. 

What spurred this was that Saturday, I had an out of nowhere physical shutdown. It just came on  me in the middle of a musical festival I'd been looking so forward to attending. All of a sudden I got dizzy, shaky and felt like I was going to faint. My chest hurt and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I felt terrible for my husband who was enjoying himself but I had to get out of there immediately. I almost didn't make it to the car without collapsing. It felt like the sidewalk was sucking me in. 

And this may sound really weird, but it felt a lot like it did when I was "roofied." A few years ago, I was slipped Rohypnol at an event. I can't prove it but I had all the symptoms. My husband was there, thank God. I don't know how it happened but I have my suspicions about this guy sitting at our table. Whether it was meant for me or not, I don't care. It was terrible. Husband says he's never seen me anything like that. 

I had been dancing, got very dizzy all of a sudden and stumbled back to the table. It was so embarrassing, but by the time I got there, I was incoherent. I remember almost none of it. I know that my husband carried me home and  my son helped get me to the couch because they told me. I woke up from the soundest sleep I've had in decades, totally confused. My cat was sleeping  near me and he only did that when I was sick. 

This experience Saturday felt a lot like that only it came on slowly. I had ordered some food but was unable to eat it. We had a beer each but I'd only had a few sips. It was very hot and dry and I'd forgotten my allergy medication. I have also been dealing with several autoimmune problems (arthritis and psoriasis). I'm sure some dehydration and allergy symptoms were involved. But that was not the whole story, I'm convinced. 

Psychologists and Youtubers Dr. Ramani and Patrick Teahan have talked about the physical effects from childhood trauma. And what they describe is, to a T, what I felt: confusion, disorientation, shortness of breath, collapse, dizziness, fainting. 

I've had fainting episodes during pregnancy. I know what it feels like when they come on. This was different. I've had panic attacks which are similar. This was worse. I've had migraines which are more painful (and also symptoms of childhood trauma). There was no pain with this except in my chest. It felt like what I think an early stage heart attack in women might feel like. It was terrifying. 

I'd been feeling it coming on for several hours but ignored the warning signs. Because that's what I do. When I feel sick, I feel ashamed. I believe I'm showing off like my dad said. I feel like I'm ruining other people's fun. I think others think I'm faking. Or malingering. Which isn't fair but I can't help it. It's knee-jerk. Because that's how parents and their spouses treated me. They had little compassion, zero empathy and much blame for me. 

I believe, worst of all, that I always bring everything on myself.  That my pain or needs are an inconvenience or annoyance. That I'm getting in someone's way. That their problems, no matter how trivial are more important than mine. That by being sick or in need, I'm preventing them from getting what they need. It's always my fault. Because I was taught all that. 

When I was sick as a child, it was ignored. Or I was told to quit being lazy. Or showing off. All through my life, any illness was weaponized against me or to leverage sympathy for my from parents. I spent so  much time sick and alone that it would never occur to me to ask for help from adults. That is just being "needy" or "selfish." My job was to give, not receive. 

I well remember, beginning around age, 6, that sick feeling in my stomach, knowing they expected me to do so many confusing, adult things perfectly well and not having a clue how to. Of knowing I had to serve, serve, serve and not having enough resources, let alone maturity, to do it all. Of being 14, feeling exhausted, burned out, asleep on my feet, yet knowing I had to keep going. Of feeling so responsible for others and having no idea what to do. Of just trying and trying, failing and failing to please. Of feeling so wretchedly guilty about it all. 

It comes flooding over me in wave upon wave of shame and guilt. It comes back to haunt  me nightly, in dreams and nightmares. Even writing this now, I feel guilty. I should be out working or helping or fixing or serving. Not wasting time on self-indulgent self-pity. (My dad's words, in my head).

But yet I write. Because maybe someone somewhere out there needs to hear this. Maybe I need to hear this. Because as I think of it, perhaps God allowed what happened on Sat, to show me how pervasive and devastating are the effects of parental abuse and neglect and the ensuring CPTSD. To see how very sick and dangerous is child endangerment, abandonment, exploitation and toxic shaming. To see how hurt and frightened, is little me. 

I think too that He is warning me that it was and is really bad and I need help dealing with it. I think He's showing me that because I have been so roundly dismissed, ignored, shamed and gaslit that I'm doing now doing these things to myself. I'm ignoring and powering thru what I should be paying close attention to. 

I believe He is saying  that I am NOT too sensitive as my dad said. That I'm not showing off. That I'm not being "disloyal." Or a bad family member. Or disobedient. I'm not the problem. I have problems because of the was I have been treated. I'm not exaggerating, I'm minimizing. I'm not too sensitive, I'm not sensitized enough to my needs and feelings. 

It still feels weird. It probably always will. But as AA says, fake it till ya make it. 

. 

Healing CPTSD by recognizing triggers, part one

 (Caution: post contains reference to suicide). Hi friends. I've been on a journey to heal CPTSD from toxic shaming, abuse, neglect, abandonment, endangerment, scapegoating, parentification, exploitation and gaslighting by four narcissistic parents. Today I'm beginning a series exploring triggers, what they are, how understanding them helps recovery, but also what they are not. 

What are triggers? They are anything that generates a negative response or feelings, panic attack or emotional flashback, a partially subconscious memory of  something unpleasant that happened. I have dysregulated (came apart emotionally) with certain triggers. 

What triggers aren't. They're not responses to what's happening right now. When I had a panic attack over receiving a sweater for Christmas, it wasn't that gift I was reacting to. That triggered the memory of my dad screaming at 12 y/o me in front of the entire family when I asked permission to go try on my new sweater. 

Trigger also aren't common responses to immediate provocation. If someone insults me, retorting, responding angrily, telling them off, are logical responses. They may not be the healthiest, but they make sense. 

And that's what triggers don't do is make sense, at least at first glance. They seem to come out of the blue. Often,  what triggers the response seems totally unrelated to the original thing. That's why it can be so difficult to identify and source a trigger. It usually looks like you're over-reacting. The response is too big for the situation. And it's because it's so extreme that identifies it as a trigger. 

Because triggers don't lie. There is always have a connection. They are not irrational. And the triggered responses, originating deep my muscle memory, are there to protect me. They remember past trauma and injuries around situations and people, that I have forgotten or pushed down. 

One of my triggers was taking my son to violin lessons. I was always a little uncomfortable. But one day, I had a full-blown (in my head) panic attack. I felt suicidal. If it wasn't for my little daughter in the car, I can't say what I would have done in that moment. 

Which might all sound completely insane, Unless, you know the back story. Fortunately, I have a loving, understanding husband whom I was able to talk to about this and who took it seriously. He helped me see that it wasn't just the violin lessons but the church at which they were held. 

He reminded me that "Hon, those people have been awful to you!" The minister, his wife and members of the congregation were incredibly judgmental and had passive-aggressively shamed me. I had also  recently lost several babies to stillborn and several had lorded over me, their large families and ability to reproduce like rabbits. There was even some insinuation that I caused my babies to die because of sin in my life. Mainly the fact that I was a Catholic and they were not. 

(I'd actually only remembered the last part in writing this. This is how deeply buried triggers can be). 

So that was difficult enough. But it also reminded me of all the toxic shaming and religious persecution from my parents. It reminded me how my brother had harassed me for being Catholic, claiming he wanted to save me from hell. It recalled all the hypocrisy I'd lived in--parents doing very immoral things and proclaiming themselves good Christians. Parents humiliating, scapegoating, attacking, abusing, exploiting, endangering, abandoning and gaslighting me. All under the guise of doing God's will. 

Tomorrow I'll post more about what it feels like when I'm triggered. 

My weird, constant, CPTSD nightmares

Hi friends. Today's post is about the weird, disturbing CPTSD nightmares I have on a nightly basis. And when I say weird, I ain't just whistling Dixie. I  have so many dreams that I have dream memories. There not recurrent in that they change and piggyback off each other. I've had dreams involving all areas of the town I live in. I have more dream memories than actual memories, at least of childhood. Sometimes I can't separate dream from reality. More than once I've had regular dreams about something I thought had actually happened. But when I looked back, it only happened it my dream. 

 They are nightmares in that they are upsetting, scary, disturbing. I'm always in unfamiliar situations, burdened with loads of work I can never get done and caring for many children I don't know. There are endless expectations from others who do not help. I'm doing it all but I have no idea what exactly I'm supposed to do, how to do it, where to get the supplies to do it why I have to. There are always dirty bathrooms I have to clean. Toilets that turn out to be chairs, urine and feces everywhere. 

I'm always late, or I've missed something. I don't get schoolwork done. I am in a play and I don't know my lines. I've let people down. Children go missing and get injured or worse. Children are always in danger and I don't know how to protect them. My dream plunks me down in situations and I don't know what I'm supposed to do, who I'm responsible for. And people are always upset with or angry at me. They are accusing and questioning.

It loops endlessly. I'm never relaxed, off duty or enjoying myself. I'm waiting on others with no help. I'm scared, worried, exhausted and stressed. My home is broken down and filthy, with gaping holes and bugs and vermin. There are familiar elements but mostly odd or different. In short, my dreams are never good. 

 In last night's dream, I was with my oldest daughter Molly who was both and adult and a teen (her age went back and forth). I was in an unfamiliar church bathroom and found, on the bottom shelf of a changing table or toy shelf, a baby. She was abandoned. There were people around but no one claimed her. I called to my daughter who was outside. She was an adult but then a teen of 12. I asked her to ask some people if they had any formula to feed the baby. My phone wouldn't work so I could call someone. 

Now I also have many dreams in which I am still breastfeeding. I dream that I nurse my grandkids but secretly so my kids won't find out. I know this sounds super creepy. But I don't think it's really about my grandkids but the two stillborn babies I lost. I'm forever trying to reach them so I  can care them. It's quite heartbreaking, really. 

Anyway, while looking for formula, I said to my husband who was suddenly randomly in my dream, that today was the first day my milk had dried up. We were sad. When I woke, I had to bring myself up to present and recall that this happened decades ago. 

But then the dream jumped back to my daughter (a teen now in dream) and I (she is pregnant in real life, which might have had something to do with the dream). We couldn't find any formula. In my dream I was feeling bad about giving formula because I always nursed and somehow I felt I should with this baby, as if she were my own. The baby was okay but I knew she had to be getting hungry. 

Then the dream cut to my daughter now holding the baby, who still hasn't eaten ( I dream a lot that my babies are hungry because I haven't nursed them). Near us was a woman I recognize as "Jan" an older teen who was in a  singing group I was in (in real life). We younger kids were in hero-worship awe of her and her agemates and were kind of led to be. They were set up as examples of  holiness that we should follow. 

Jan (an adult but weirdly, younger than me, now) is lining people up with their babies to be in a pageant of some kind. She pulls Molly over, telling her what to do, where to stand, etc. She is being a little too nice and chummy and trying to elbow me away. I said, "no, this isn't our baby. We found her here. We don't know her and can't find her parents. I'm trying to do that. Have you seen them and do you know this baby?"

Jan ignores my question and screams at me to leave my daughter alone and butt out. It's none of my business. My daughter is looking confused like she should do this to keep the woman happy. I try to take the baby and the woman shoves me out of the way and tells me to stop being such a control freak. Everyone seems to just accept this as okay.  I say "Look, this child has been abandoned or lost by her parents! She has not eaten!" The woman says "she doesn't look hungry. She'll be fine!" I say "okay but if anything goes wrong and Molly needs help, I'm coming to get them, pageant or not" Woman says "no you're not!" 

In the dream I felt ashamed of myself and in the way. I was starting to believe that I actually was keeping Molly from something. Even though I knew we needed to help this child and so did my daughter, I felt like I was letting someone down by not going along with it. And I was still terribly worried. I felt torn between doing what's right and what was expected. I started by knowing what I should do but letting someone else gaslight me into ignoring that. The dream ends with me saying "you clearly know nothing about abandoned kids. I DO!" 

This is the first time I've dreamed this dream but it's very much pattern to my other dreams. I experience a lot of questioning. And what do I conclude from it? Well, I should have stood my ground and gotten my daughter and the baby out of there. The fact that I kowtowed against my better judgement (and often do in my dreams) tells me that I've often let bullies push me around. Especially people who were wrongly set in authority over me or as examples of "good Christians." It tells me that maybe I have even perpetuated unhealthy tolerance of bullies in my kids. 

Healing CPTSD and toxic shame by sourcing the disconnect

 Hello my friends. This blog has become about my recovery CPTSD caused by parental abuse, neglect, endangerment, abandonment, exploitation, manipulation, toxic shaming, scapegoating, parentification and gaslighting about it all by four very narcissistic parents. Today I'm looking at healing from CPTSD by sourcing the disconnect. And I'm doing that by paying close attention to uncomfortable feelings,  clues that I'm spiraling or may be about to.  

And this might be one of the trickiest things I've ever done. Why? Because I don't know how because I was taught to ignore bad feelings and red flags. My boundaries were so smashed by steamroller adults that they no longer existed. In fact, I don't think I really ever developed boundaries. I never knew where others  stopped and I began. Because "I" didn't really exist. I was a human doing and giving, source of constant narcissistic supply for the adults in my life.  

Marilisa was not a human being with needs, wants, goals, opinions and feelings of her own. She existed to be a supply, servant, surrogate spouse and/or parent, scapegoat and support (prop) for others. Needs were ignored and dismissed. Feelings were mocked and sometimes exploited. To have needs and wants was selfish. To have opinions or ideas outside parental ones were unspeakable acts of insurrection, instead of  just normal kid stuff. 

I was literally indoctrinated that self-care was disobedient to God, especially if it went contrary to whatever they wanted me to do at the time. For example: most of my  life I did not have a bedroom or bed. I was put in their kids' and babies' rooms of whichever parent I was living with. What was my room was  given to random people such as my uncle and his girlfriend, once. The parents were way across the house or several floors away. As far from the baby/children as possible. I still don't sleep more than a few hours at a time because I've been getting up at night with kids since I was 10. 

The one time I objected to that (well, not really objected but just not as delighted as my dad thought I should be), I was beaten in front of everyone. Another time, my mom's boyfriend exploded on me because the baby I was caring for, woke him up. He says I shook the baby Now I see he was lying to protect himself. I didn't then. And it so traumatized me that I thought I never should have children.

I also see now that that is not only abuse and neglect but endangerment, exploitation, parentification and gaslighting. But then those were just more ways I'd let people down. Those are just a few examples. And they've all congealed into a septic sewage dump of toxic shame in my brain. But for all the ick, they are silent until something stirs them  up. 

Then I start feeling fearful and anxious. I start looking over my shoulder, expecting some form of punishment. I start over-reacting. But since it's not down to anything that actually happened, but rather old memories, I can't see where it began. In fact, I don't even identify that I'm feeling this way because I always feel and have felt this way, just to lesser or greater degrees. I only realize it when I'm in full-blown dysregulation or panic attack. And I'm too fucking old to keep experiencing this. I'm sick of it. 

So I'm starting to pay much closer attention when the nagging anxiety. I'm starting to notice the ripples in the pond before a major hurricane occurs. I still can't sort out where they come from. Likely that swamp of toxic shame is deeper and dirtier than I thought. But I go with whatever I've  got to work with. 

Today, I sourced it to fear over not giving my kids a coupon I'd earned before it expired. Which I know is crazy. So it must be something deeper. I also had one of my famous bizarre nightmares last night. I found an abandoned baby in a church bathroom. My oldest daughter and I were looking formula to feed the baby. Then a woman put my daughter and the baby in a "beautiful baby" contest. I said no. We haven't even fed her or found her parents. But the woman snapped at me to stay out of it, mind my business and let my daughter be. She said the baby would be fine. I backed down but said that if my daughter needed me, I was crashing the contest and coming to help her. The dream ended when I said "you obviously know nothing about at-risk babies. She  hasn't even been fed!"

I'll blog on that more. I think this panic attack came from a constant sense of failure. That I'd somehow let my family down by failing to share the coupon. It hasn't even expired yet! But these are the things I dream about, missing deadlines, losing children, letting them get hurt, failing to do things, not picking kids up on  time, dropping the ball. Things I now recall happened to me on a regular basis.