Hello my friends. Dr. Ramani asked us today where we are in our childhood trauma from narcissistic abuse path. And I'd have to say that I'm at my lowest point. I'm in the throes, the deep end the darkest part. Because I'm also at a place of no-holds-barred radical acceptance (also radical awareness and acknowledgment which have to come before acceptance). But one good thing about being at the bottom: there's nowhere to go but up.
What I do I mean by lowest point?
I'm in both a deep valley but also in an exposed arid space, like a bug on a tabletop. There is no shred of hope for the these relationship with my parents or siblings. Two are deceased with no one effort made to extend love, only taking from me to the end. Every bridge was burned, not by me. Every door slammed. Now it's not so much that I've gone no contact as that I've left the door slammed shut and and not held it open only to get my hand slammed too.
Stark realities I can't unsee
Once the trauma bonding was broken and the betrayal blindness wore off, I'm now seeing things as they were and are. I'm seeing the cruel, arrogant, remorseless, Machiavellian narcissist behind the parent masks. I recognize all they put me through with with blazing sharp white-hot clarity, like you do on a summer day in the middle of the dessert.
- false "family" illusions
- gaslighting
- future faking
- narcissistic lies
- enmeshment
- FOG
- DARVO
- DIMMER (Dismissiveness, Invalidation, Minimization, Manipulation, Exploitative and Entitlement, and Rage)
- All my E's for them (excusing, exonerating, exempting from consequence, enabling, extending help)
- All their D's (diminishment, discarding, devaluing, depravity, debauchery, deplorable behavior, denials)
Recovery takes all my energy
All this awareness and radical acceptance doesn't come cheap. It's exhausting and all my resources are depleted. Just like they always were, only then, I was just hanging on to survive. I thought it was normal for kids to have autoimmune diseases from parent chaos. I thought everyone had constant trauma nightmares. Turns out they don't. Now, while I know it's not normal, I still have all the work of processing it. I have nothing left even to have fun because trauma dogs me everywhere. But a good thing about that is that it also leaves me no energy to keep giving, hoping, caring about hopeless situations.
Why I can't just "let it go."
I would love nothing more than to just forget it and put it behind me. Trouble is, it won't let me go. It hounds me and follows me everywhere. When I go on vacation, childhood trauma packs itself in my suitcase. Even if I find a way to detach from it, even if I'm having a wonderful time, it's always there waiting to attack me when I'm vulnerable, like through dreams in sleep. And in sleep deprivation. Sometimes I can't get to sleep and when I can, I bounce in and out of dreams like a surfer. There's no rest for childhood trauma survivor.
No, they didn't mean well.
You hear this from enablers if you happen to mention it. That's why you don't tell anyone because most people make it worse. No, my parents didn't mean well. They were not mistreated as kids, like they did to me because they'd have trauma dumped that on me, if so. They knew what they were doing and saying. You don't accidentally mock, humiliate, rage at for no reason, make your kid witness your deviant adultery first hand. You don't leave her behind to fend alone on the daily, by accident. You don't neglect her care to have your whims. You don't lie and gaslight about everything by mistake. You don't make up fictional accounts of stuff that happened, inadvertently. That takes some extra special effort.
The abuse was intentional, purpose-built and bulletproof
All four of my narcissistic enmeshed parents used a combination of weapons to destabilize me. They didn't agree on anything except to make me their scapegoat. They created fraught spaces, with two sets of ever-changing double standards, cognitive dissonance and ultimately a dissociation and brain damage in me. It was purposeful, I see now. And that evil juju that they hexed me with survives the grave and lives in me. This is the only way I can frame it. And that is just one hard part.
What I'd tell someone else, but struggle to tell me
Of course I believe you. Of course your exhausted, who wouldn't be? Of course just brushing your teeth takes Herculean effort. You're busy rewiring your brain! You're prostrate with grief over things you thought were real that weren't. Over being betrayed by all the people who were supposed to take care of you. Be easy with yourself. Lay around after you finish one of these therapy sessions. You've done a hard day's work. Eat what tastes good and eat enough. Maybe not a lot of sweets, chips or alcohol because they have a nasty reverse effect. If you don't want to go downtown, well, you can say so. Or you can give it a try and say if you're too tired. You can trust that people love you. But trust is another thing they destroyed. And another thing that take so much energy to rebuild.
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