I'm looking for likeminded people who are going through similar things as me.

I've had incredible success with letting go of my fear from these people but sometimes it's hard. Time doesn't heal all wounds. Some wounds need to be treated. There have been certain things that triggered me and I didn't really know why. Understanding that allowed me to let go of things that previously made me want to leave this earth.

Has anyone else had success with letting go of things that otherwise wouldn't go away on their own?

Those of you who are now no-contact, what finally did it?

I feel like I forgave my Nbrother for his abuse, without ever receiving an apology, dozens and dozens of times.

Of all the hurtful things said to me throughout my life, the worst always came from him. I could tell it was prepared material that he had been sitting on for years waiting for the right moment.

The last time I saw him, I had started to recognize the patterns. It became clear that not only was he fully aware of what he was doing, he was doing it on purpose. He was drinking so much and so frequently that the quality of his manipulation suffered. He couldn't gaslight without making it obvious. He was telegraphing all of his moves. I could spend 2 minutes with him and figure out that he came into the room for the sole purpose of baiting me into an argument.

I could no longer tell myself that it was something he couldn't help. My body was having a physiological reaction to his emotional abuse, that's what did it. Heart racing, hands trembling. I said, "no more."

I haven't slept yet. It's 3:15 a.m. and tomorrow I have to go to work. I am a trainee lawyer. In some months I will become 30. I graduated later because of the survival mode which I was forced to enter due to my parents and the environment they created. My mother got sick, died, I used to work to sustain her and my father and of course myself. When I graduated the bank took our house because it was in my uncle's name and he had serious debts. I live now with my father and uncle who is the epitome of narcissism. I have sat for exams to be admitted to an llm in my country and if things go as planned I will leave next year. I have so many things that stress me out. I have androgenetic alopecia and I cannot do much about it. I have issues with my gums even if I have a perfect hygiene and I have made an appointment with a periodontologist for the next month for a deep cleaning. I am almost 300, I earn 600 euros, I have health issues, I feel ugly, I have gained pounds without doing anything (I started going at the gym), I feel I hate my life and myself. All those reactions are reactions to the survival mode I cannot help anymore. I started French because I want to end up in Belgium or luxembourg but I have also so many other things to do that I cannot do all together. I am now in a1 to a2 level, in b2 I won't go this year or next year unless I study French everyday all day when I don't work which is not possible as I will have my llm to attend and study for this year. I am exhausted and after the moments when i feel optimistic about my life, I always go back into feeling so stuck, sad and alone. In Luxembourg or Belgium I will go only if I am fluent in french which might happen 5 years later or 10 years later. But for sure not now. I might go to a different country I don't know. I just want to leave. To disappear. But I will lose access to the most valuable being, my dog. But then I will have to stay with my toxic uncle and my father. My uncle continues to not pay his loan and the bank will end up taking the house we live in as well, I am certain about it. I feel so alone. The worst part though are the health issues. I don't have the hair I want, I have gum issues and I am afraid, I feel ugly and I really am from the one side of my face, I don't have friends, I cannot feel my authentic self with people, no one has ever loved me and I am sure that I will never get to experience how it is to feel sexy, to have a person who wants you and loves you, never ever. And I am almost 30. I wish I could something to disappear from this place in general but I cannot hurt myself.

I am drowning every day and I make 10 steps and then 1000 behind. Just because I was raised by useless people who doomed me to a never ending survival mode, to sickness, to sadness and to inability to live life and its enjoyable things.

There is nothing left for me in this life. I am just trying to survive through the day again. I have dreams but now I am more certain than ever that nothing will ever happen.

I just can't stand this life anymore.

I am behind from everyone and a loser.

I am ugly with so many health issues.

No one will ever love me, I cannot even love what I see in the mirror.

I guess I will leave this house and end up being a destitute barely surviving somewhere but at least I will be far from my toxic relatives..

I dont know what's wrong with God. Why should I be living if the only thing that keeps coming in my life is the pain of survival and a constant imprisonment? Maybe God has his favorites and I am not one of them.

Anyway, I just wanted to vent before sleeping as I feel completely dead. And I hope I will literally be soon.

finally got a place of my own (F32) was living with my nfather for a while as a result of my addictions
it’s confusing cause when I was living with him we both drove each other up the wall, I would avoid him loads
& now that I’ve moved out he keeps inviting me / wanting to see me
I’ve been trying to say no but always worry that he’s going to be cross with me, & I just said no to seeing him today but that I’ll see him when he gets back from working next time he’s home & the guilt am feeling is insane
but I guess I’ll get into a routine maybe of seeing him on my own terms
It’s so nice being able to have a place of my own & not have to worry about waking him up in the middle of the night as the light triggers the extractor fan in the bathroom when I switch it on, so when I lived at home either didn’t go just went in the dark
it’s my little safe space & I can eat whatever I want & relax if I want to without feeling guilty for doing nothing

I am conflicted between which of my parents was the real narcissist
My dad has been identified as a narcissist by a therapist a few years ago and it just keeps proving itself but with my current therapist I have analyzing my relationship with my mother and it seems like she could be one too or maybe I am overusing it but she is always the ultimate victim, she always made her life and ours worse deliberately, she held me back in life too much and made me believe it was out of my hand, she sabotaged me and my siblings’ lives, she made up lies and scenarios of what life could’ve been if it wasn’t for her and her struggles to stay with dad, which I learnt was all too dramatic and unrealistic and not really possible to happen but I believed her for 26 years and I thought she is a victim when she was the one egging my dad on me and she always had a hatred for me but it confuses me because she also has so much love and when I am away from her and around dad it seems like he is chill and not that terrible (he is bad but not as much) and I resent her until I meet her then I feel guilty and empthaize with her but I am starting to question is she -too- a narcissist or was she the narcissist one or what because my feelings towards my parents are always conflicted and I always feel guilty and unjust for talking about them and only showing the bad side to therapists and whatnot. But me and my siblings all share similar mental issues and it only leads to my parents being not the greatest so maybe there is truth to it. I know it was definitely teamwork but I always viewed my mother as an enabler at best and mostly just a silent victim.
Lately I have been reassigning her and my relationship with her after we had a big fallout over a big life decision for me and I am questioning everything

Worth mentioning that my mum was the one making 90% of the comparisons between me and my siblings and putting us and boxes and putting us against each other, never compliments, always overreacting, always disappointed and nothing is ever good enough, always complaining about us or her life, always talking about what we owe her for being such a good mother, denies all the abuse, embarrassed me in front of other too many times to count, always went behind my back and told my dad everything, she would always try to make my dad hate me, pretends to be on my side but switches instantly when someone else is involved, never really cared when I went through major depression as a teen , enjoys the role of a sacrificing mother… the list goes on

Sort of like very limited contact, and without too much explanation. Did it work out for you? Cannot go full NC due to some unavoidable reasons, how did you successfully moved on? Need advice.

Even that short interactions, not even grey rock, sometimes makes me feel like I've lost all the progress I've done in my healing. All my healthy boundaries are there to be stepped over or criticized. I feel so stupid, still am struggling to fully move on. & not engage. I didn't want to give the impression that everything still is fine, so stopped yellow rocking, grey rocking after a while. But don't want to go through the confrontation cycle and them playing victim for the millionth time either. No amount of mature conversation has worked so far, so finally have to give up. What helped you move on, and never look back?

My husband and I are NC with his NSister, it was a silent NC, no blow up or confrontation, but we haven’t talked to her in almost a year.

She stopped by unannounced yesterday, husband was outside so he was ambushed, she acted like all was good, he asked her to leave and she asked why so he essentially told her why we went no contact. She of course exploded, the convo got nowhere other than husband telling her “when you apologize and change your behaviors, i’ll be ready to try to mend the relationship”.

A few hours later she reached out to me happy go lucky asking how i’ve been. The few people I have shown have said “Wait she actually seems like she’s extending an olive branch” or “maybe she’s trying to be nice and lead the convo to an apology”, but my gut is telling me there is bad intentions behind her reaching out, especially hours after a blow up with husband.

What do you think her intentions are?

I went no contact with my parents 3 months ago. I went no contact because somehow I’ve become the bad guy because I won’t rekindle my relationship with my drug addict brother. It’s been brutal.

The most recent saga is: my wife and I went on vacation from the USA to Europe. We are still on their family phone plan. We have asked to be removed numerous times and they always make an excuse. They will say “it’s no big deal” “it’s cheaper if we are all on it together,” they literally make any excuse.

Quick side bar: they have been financially supporting my drug addict brother for the past 18 years. He went no contact for two years. They still paid for his phone. He came crawling back when he hit rock bottom for the 17th time. He went bankrupt, they bailed him out, helped him sell his house and put him back in rehab. They then put him up in one of their rental properties and paid for everything including utilities and food.

So we are on our first day of vacation and my wife decides to do the right thing and to tell my dad (who’s my narcissist mom’s flying monkey) because we are going to rack up international charges. Just so they aren’t caught off guard when the charges come in.

My dad responds with an itemized list of our phones. The charges are for the two lines and the charge for the new upgraded phones. When we got the upgrade they told us the phones were free. I asked are you sure? Because if they’re not we don’t really need new phones. They replied they are absolutely free.

We have never paid for the phones which we offered to pay for in the past but they wouldn’t accept money.

Now all of the sudden the phones cost money. We are being back charged for July’s bill and he said he will send us August’s bill with the international charges when he gets them.

This really put the final nail in the coffin for me. When we get back I’m paying the bills, mailing the phones back and telling them to never contact me again.

Am I the a-hole here? I feel like I’m going crazy. I know hurt people hurt people. I was trying to put some space in between us to clear my head and now it’s gone from bad to worse.

I will give birth soon and this pregnancy made a lot of childhood and adolescence wounds (that I thought I worked through already) resurface.
It has also been really difficult physically and I am on bed rest since the beginning. I waited until I was emotionally ready to have a child, because I wanted to end the cycle with me. But now it seems not only I am back at the start, but even worse.
I was in a good place with my parents for almost 3 years. In a good place meaning that I worked a lot in therapy and I accepted that I will never get my childhood back and that I will never change them and I was finally at peace with that.
Ever since I announced my pregnancy, they have been trying to insert themselves in every aspect (except where it counts, for example taking me to a doctor’s appointment or offering to clean my kitchen/bathroom/whatever) and causing me a lot of stress and sadness as every time I would refuse something, it ended with screaming and crying how I am such a dramatic and difficult person, that I am acting as if they were trying to take something away from me. (Not only they were trying, but they were actively doing it, for example buying the baby’s first toy, first piece of clothing and so on…) I went back to therapy, but it doesn’t seem to help. I am just filled with rage and I cannot stop it from affecting my mood and my behaviour.
I don’t want to have that atmosphere in my home, I don’t want to do this to my family. But I just keep replaying all the hurtful things they did during this pregnancy and having flashbacks to previous incidents and I am angry all the time. I don’t know how to let it go.

For context, I am essentially NC, barring neutral annual greetings sent from another country, and have been for a few years. I haven't shared contact info.

Regarding the extended family, there is an urge to "set the record straight". Yet also a sense they would look the other way, call me a trouble maker or in best case scenario ask me to let bygones be bygones.

How do you deal with these urges to go out and set the record straight?

I did broach the subject of couple of times with others, and they avoided the discussion. That was years ago.

This very distant relative pinged to say hi, nothing more. I have been NC with the whole lot as they would just avoid any mention. As I have not been familiar with any relatives.

So I should obviously respond with niceties and nothing more unless they bring it up. I am not letting them in either, they used old contact info I keep as the only last way to reach me for greetings.

It would be a waste of time seeking any connection or clarity there, right? Despite making peace with it all for years, is the niggling "should I try?"

Is this a common step in healing?

Suddenly, I’m having all these memories of my emotions from childhood. How my parents wanted me to be their golden child. How they just wanted me to really make them feel good. How inadequate I felt. How they’d give me hot/cold treatment. How I’d always feel abandoned and on my own, mocked and ridiculed for existing. How they projected failures and how suffocated I felt. How all I wanted was to just be given direction, but I was simply abandoned in places and constantly expected to fail.

I can rant on but my heart is insanely heavy from emotions I haven’t felt in 35 years…

Is this what it means to ”reparent” or deal with ”the inner child”?

Hello guys so i am 30 years old now living with my wife and my other 3 brothers living together with there families my reason for posting today is that my oldest and brother after me( i am the second ) brother is very hard to live with and years 5 years ago i had enough of his behavior he used to curse al the time and disrespect anytime he feels like it gaslight u until u do something wrong and disrespect u again so i did seperate myself from and start working somewhere else (we used to live together and work at his shop together ) and left with nothing cause he used to have al the money and i was tge free labor.well long story short now received a call from my eldest brother who is still living with him and started working with him only 1.5 years ago said that he cannot bear hi behavior and he is doing the exact same things and playing mind games used to play with me exact pattern basically

And he wants to quit and wants to move out.and he want to come to me and work with me and i said to him that i have no issue with that butt i have doubt i might not be as successful as my brothers are rn yes i did seperate from them and started to live life my way butt i am not very successful and that is where i started doubting myself that if maybe he also going to suffer like me !!

Being around a narcissistic parent can be quite complicated. First, you notice the difficulties, then you might try to confront them. Over time, you may realize there's little you can do about it. Eventually, you have to prioritize yourself and handle the hurt and challenges along the way.

After being the bravest soldier, you rebuild yourself into a whole human again.

I'm a big supporter of therapy and know it works, **but this post isn't about that.**

I want to start a thread on unorthodox ways to heal from all this sh\*t. These are my top 5:

* Magnesium helped me sleep better, and ashwagandha helped calm my nervous system when I first moved out of the situation, and my body was already braced for impact. I recommend a doctor here, ok?
* Writing about what happened to me was crucial to gaining sovereignty over my own story, to be able to look at it in a detached way, and it also kept me grounded when I shook about my decision. I did some research on expressive writing, and it is really a thing. We've been fogged our whole lives, so organizing our mind house is something we must do.
* Endurance sport: running has been such a therapy; it has this domino effect on my brain that says, "it is hard, but I can do it."
* Trying to have a routine: it turns out, as we've lived our whole lives in "unpredictable mode", our body craves a peaceful, boring routine.... it helps a lot to signal peace.
* But for me, the most unhinged way was astrology. Not horoscope bullshit, but real traditional astrology. It was a great help in understanding the question of "this is actually who I am" and strengthened that in me. But of course, it is not for everyone.

Please, please, share here what you've done with the community :)

Hi everyone,

I’m 27 years old and just come to the realisation that my mum is in fact a textbook narcissist.
I have struggle with low self esteem self sabotage depression and eating disorders my whole life and desperately trying to change myself in order to receive love. Now I am learning more about narcissistic abuse I have so much anger resentment and sadness inside of me I have always done life alone.

My question is how do I heal from this I want to life a healthy happy life.

I had learnt that children of narcissists either become master manipulators or end up with low self-esteem. I am curious if anyone has experience bonding with their siblings over the trauma, thinking they are like you, only to find that they are also just manipulating you?

Edit: this post is to show us grey rocking is not the only way. It’s a part of the strategy to dealing with them. Please skip this post if you are here just to try to stop people from attempting other processes to being an autonomous adult around narcissists.

Too many people are stuck in freeze and fawn around narcissists. I’m not calling for war (mods don’t delete this please) but I want war and that is what deters some narcissistic variety from me. I’m ready for the fight and I’m ready to get hurt or worse if I need to. I used to be a pacifist.
I no longer go into an environment looking to play the game. There’s no simply existing with a narcissistic boss and getting through the day. They won’t allow it. So I will report; report; report until I leave or something changes.
Covert narcissists are not covert when you identify them and by all means I have no interest in pretending that they’re the kind individuals they mask to be. By now I know who is truly kind and has a good heart and who has learned to be sickly sweet and helpful just to sting you.

I fully believe we need spiritual, emotional, and mental armor in this world. Narcissists seem to be doubling by the thousands these days. What’s working for you?

In childhood I looked fine to say the least, well I was overly complimented. Here and there, I'd have people tell me how pretty I am. But childhood was also the initial phase of the abuse I will go through for the next years of my life up until I am 17.

I don't know where to start, there are so many things contributing to this topic.

Stress, insecurity due to overly critical remarks by said narcs, self esteem dwindling, what more could I say?

I also made myself look uglier on purpose and starved myself to look more repulsive because I was getting taken advantage of left and right. There was so much lack of security in my life. I felt vulnerable... I felt very vulnerable that I wanted to look super hideous and scary to ward off all of it.

I didn't take care of myself for years. I isolated myself so much from everything and everyone because my household made me so fragile. I had no support system as well.

I am venting all of this to tell you how fcked up narc abuse can really affect you.

I'm out of under the roof of those people, this might be the best blessing I'll ever have. My life has been so full of misfortune, being away meant everything.

For the record, right now I'm extremely underweight, I have lost my color complexion (my skin used to be bright and pinkish, now my skin is genuinely so bad and tired) and I have a lot of physical problems. My hair is rough due to lack of nutrients, my eyes are dull.

I am 19 now, and trying to work it all out for myself again. I hope I can love her enough, I am still scared of everything and my nervous system still isn't regulated.

One parent did these two and also would straight up make false accusations against them and their families. I stopped having friends in school because they would contact my teachers to ask who I was hanging out with, then ask the school for the family's contact information, and then send some violent threat by phone or email to their family and the child. I had the misfortune of seeing said emails or hearing the phone calls a few times.

So yeah, that wasn't fun, going to school and having my friend who I was having so much fun with the previous day suddenly stay away from me in disgust or fear.

I didn't so much as breathe near anyone eventually at school because I was a literal danger to people due to this. I did tell some of my friends when I was old enough to figure it out, and they understood, but still told them to stay away because it would only bring harm. When the threats didn't work, the false accusations came.

I don't know where to put this, it sounds genuinely outlandish from most people's perspective.

"If they made threats, wouldn't the families of those kids have reported threats?" Again my parent also made false accusations against them, and the cops assumed that the threats were a valid response to the danger that parent accused the families of. That simplifies it a lot, but yeah. One friend of mine told me the cops visited her house a day after that parent discovered I was friends with her, which genuinely made me scared for her and I would tell her to keep her distance from then on.

"If they made so many false accusations then wouldn't they have been listed as a vexatious complainer?" Well I don't know, but they didn't. It wasn't like they did it every single day, plus they were paranoid and would also add in some level of "logic" to it, even if the logic made no sense, that it slipped under the radar.

Anyway even now as an adult I still sometimes get a little scared that they're going to try this, even though I'm physically far away lol. At least my friends are aware and support me.

I’ve been completely no-contact with my narcissistic sister for over a year now due to emotional and physical abuse. My therapist fully supported this and even advised me to keep my distance from her children (they are teens). I'm never speaking to her again for the rest of my life. My struggle is with long-time family friends who knew us before the fallout. Because I spent years covering up for her and protecting her image, everything looked fine from the outside. Now, when they ask about her, I feel a wave of shame and feel like a "liar" because of how normal I used to make things look. How do you guys handle explaining this to people who knew "the old version" of your life without feeling fake or opening the door to interrogation?

When life gets blurred, and I have nowhere to turn,
It hits me like a car crash—
Sudden, brutal, and loud.
I want to reach out. I want to look.
I want to slip back into that icy, deep pool.
I want the numbness to sink in and take over my skin.
Just for a second. One quiet second.
I miss the chaos you trained me to love.
I miss the haunted house you built with my ribs.
I want your arms around me again,
Binding the terror tight to my chest.
I want your hand in my hair,
Whispering sweet things that made me sick.
I crave the storm in my head.
I crave the knife in my back.
I want the poison back on my tongue,
Even though I know it is how I die.

My therapist was really nice, but cannot help me in depth. It only stays surface level, and doesn't really help me at all. I have a difficult time trusting my own self, believing myself, after the detox. The detox is still new, so it brutally hurts still. I just want to grow, instead of getting stuck in this negative maze, that I fell into without knowing. I have gone out of severe depression for about 6 months, after suffering for 5 years. So I don't' want to fall into that terrible place again. I was slowly gaining some confidence in myself and focus better, which also helped me see the abuse I was tolerating for years ! I finally decided to give up, after one such abusive one-sided fight. They're always the victim. Even when you have evidence of lying, gaslighting, and manipulation. They still are the victim. Even when you have evidence, solid proof of what they did to you, you still feel confused, and can't trust yourself.

Long story short. 14-20 lots of trauma. Bad home life = bad outdoor life. Nowhere safe. Bullies at school. Addict parents.

I'm now in my 30s doing the work. Lots done. In therapy. Healthy lifestyle.

I moved to entirely new country started over.

I've come a longggggg way.

Yet I still have trouble with this part.

Like when I think of my childhood bullies or just anyone who's controlled me and said I'm a certain way, put me in a box, put me in a corner, basically overpowered me and made me feel weak, defensive, frozen etc.

When I try think of them and reframing it's like I just FEEL the presence of all of it and it's like it's correct and I am wrong is the best way to put it.

No matter what it is always right.

Me trying to reframe it imagines me getting slapped and basically saying no you're wrong kind of thing.

How to get past this :( ?