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I gotta stop meditating, it kicked my butt last night. I had stuff about my childhood home where my parents got divorced come up, where my Dad slapped me and gave me a black eye when I was like 5 or something for not doing my homework, and my Mom went full Alcoholic Anonymous/socialization, and basically ditched me, and I had to fend for myself mostly after that... I felt so abandoned by her. It's caused severe confusion, mentally and emotionally, and I woke up feeling helpless, and it's lasted all day, which I never feel like, because of my good attitude.

I'm going to read the FOO thing on here about how to deal with it, I called a crisis line and he suggested journaling about it. I'm thinking about recoding the memory with different imagery, or pretending to assert myself to them, or parent myself through it, and try to give myself what I needed then, which was to be loved and not abandoned. I'm struggling a lot today, I never feel this depressed and helpless. Feel kind of paniced.

Journaling is a great idea (some members here do that), and I'm glad that you reached out to a help line rather than suffering in isolation. You can also text HELLO to 741741 (in the USA) for text message based support. The number was vetted by staff here years ago.

Do you read novels? I found that Pat Conroy's books helped me starting in high school. He's most famous for the movies based on his books The Great Santini (his father was likely NPD and his mother BPD), and The Prince of Tides. The movies glossed over the more dark parts of the novels. Beach Music was my favorite novel of his. Writing was his self-therapy.

Hi NE—I am sorry you had such a painful day. Sometimes all we can do is get through the day, knowing the storm will pass. How are you doing today?

Also appreciate those book recommendations, Turkish. Going to look into those.

Hey Turkish,

Yeah, I definitely journal about it and punch pillows about it and it comes up in my body meditations now. I have tons of angry and anxious energy, it would be good to channel it into my own creative writing, as it's one of my greatest talents. I wish I knew what to write to be honest. My first idea was to write something about sexual health, since I think a lot of this trauma that people go through is based initially on stuff like that, and it's a somewhat fun topic that might keep me more sane, because god knows I need that. But yeah, maybe writing about my story, in a more human way, humanizing my own story would be great. Maybe I over think things too much, wait, we all know I do that! Ha! Both my greatest strength and weakness. But yeah, maybe writing something would help. Also, I'll check out those two books, thanks for those and the hotline Turkish, I really wish I had more passive energy to read with, I want to quite a bit, but it's hard to find the motivation. I feel like I am being tugged in two directions constantly.

But yeah, that day was terrible, the next day I upgraded from helplessness to hopelessness, and then I analyzed my childhood and life and realized my Mom was probably some weird combination of hardcore codependent and Borderline (or NPD). She sounded so reasonable and was a good listener, but then if I look at her behavior, it was so manipulative, and also she was so much of a Nazi and sabotaged me so much and was motivated by her own addictions and shame. And she, not my Dad was the one responsible for causing me to be the scapegoat, and my sister to be the golden child. It's actually all super hard to process, since my Mom is also my greatest inspiration, and I got many of her good traits, like good sense of humor, sense of duty/responsibility, love of video games, and what I thought was being a good listener, but my Mom, I dunno, I now think she used her listening to manipulate situations more than anything, she kept her emotions closer to her vest.

The guy on the hotline was great, might ask for that guy again, he had some nice suggestions and a good thing to say about how sometimes when you hit those feelings from your childhood you have to rebreak a wound so it heals back better. When I was a kid, I had to have my arm rebroken for that reason. Plus he gave me some validating words. Even a little bit helps!

Hey Cranmango,

Oh, I dunno, lots of anger today, probably pushed a bit too hard, can't sleep so showed up here.

Sorry you are having a bad day NarcsEverywhere.  I am so glad you reached out and got support from the hotline guy and also here.   Journaling is helpful ( I do it a lot to work through emotions).   Recently, I have been using the “thought model”  to evaluate my thoughts and feelings and then figure out what actions I need to take to work through my thoughts and feelings and take actions to get the results I want.  The premise of the “thought model”  is that your thoughts produce your feelings, your feelings generate your actions, and your actions cause your results. If you google it, others explain it better than I do. 

Sometimes surfacing thoughts and feelings from the past can be very painful and overwhelming, so we need to pace ourselves and practice self compassion.  I  do Kristen Neff self compassion meditations, when I am feeling particularly emotional.  Working through your past with a therapist could also be very helpful, in accepting your circumstances and self and charting a positive path forward.

Hoping today is a better day.

Hey Mommydoc, yeah I am really good at thinking productively, but I feel at a certain point you must just accept it. Like if my friends Mother for instance betrays me by using the wisdom I gave her to win a popularity contest, pander to me, using the heartfelt poems (about her sons suicide) I gave her to bread crumb me into chasing after her and using an important letter my friend wrote to his Dad, and withholding the memorial video to bread crumb me, and refuse to contact me, and abandon me and fooling me to love her deeply as a friend, along with scapegoating my friend and his Father, and using the stuff I told her, all to evade responsibility. That’s such a betrayal of the highest order, it’s hard to think positively out of that one.

These deeply personal or life ruining betrayals are the hardest to come to terms with. I journal, but there is so much that it often comes out as a hot mess. Once in a while I can make progress on it, but I agree self compassion is warranted. Maybe I’ll check out the meditation.

But yeah, I do need to slow walk some of this and work it out with a counselor, this isn’t easy.

Today has felt productive, changed my healthcare provider since they have been gaslighting me,  manipulating me, and giving me the runaround, to protect their careers, even thought I only complained once there. I guess google reviews even had a woman doctor say she was appalled by how they have no accountability there and want you just to roll over, and that she was ashamed of her own profession. Services in rural areas really tend to be terrible.  I plan on taking names and making heads roll, since I know I deserved to be treated with dignity and respect, no matter my issues, and maybe for a little satisfaction, and some righteousness. Thanks for the well wishes.

Edit. By the way, I tried that compassion meditation MommyDoc, it was okay, actually wasn't what I needed at the time, but I guess it allowed me to accept the helpless feeling, so I know I won't die from it. And I did stumble onto two TED talks because of it, one from Kristen Neff, that reminded me about how I used to be kind to myself as I'd help my other dog, and we'd both muddle through it more, as I'd have mercy on us both. So I'm glad for that reminder. Plus, I ended up finding another TED talk that reminded me to get crap out of my head onto paper, which can help me think more clearly. So I might do that more. So overall it helped me.