Why did I stay so long? Why didn’t I see it until now? How could I have done this to myself and my children? These are the questions I hear from abuse survivors ALL. THE. TIME. They blame themselves for being abused. They take responsibility for the behaviour of their abuser. They carry soul crushing [...]
Tag: psychological abuse
Self Gaslighting
Self Gaslighting Buckle up, this is going to be rough….trigger warning for emotional abuse and narcissistic abuse. Possibly also triggers around minimising and micro aggressions to self. Okay, there’s the triggers out the way. If I’ve left anything out please let me know and I’ll add them in. This is something I want you to [...]
Mental illness isn’t an excuse to abuse.
There is a permanent struggle with clients over whether the behaviours narcissists exhibit are in intentional. There’s a deeper struggle around the fact that narcissism is listed in the DSM, which officially makes it a mental illness. Society is shifting towards an understanding and awareness of mental health issues and conditions. There’s a growing acceptance [...]
DNA doesn’t equal a right to abuse.
You do not have to tolerate abuse or toxicity from anyone. ESPECIALLY those you share DNA with. In fact. I would offer that rather than being more ready to ‘forgive’ someone from your blood family, perhaps they should have to work harder to earn your presence and trust. Because it is within the bonds of [...]
The complementary moral defence.
The Complementary Moral Defence Those that know, know that the narcissist believes they are the epitome of perfection. That when someone has a problem with the narcissist’s behaviour, it is THEIR problem, not that of the narcissist. It can be the most frustrating thing about interacting with a narcissist, they never accept responsibility, they devalue, [...]
Love Bombing
Hello! It's a quiet Friday this week, which is welcome after the load I carried last week, so I'm taking it easy and catching up on bits and pieces, and ignoring other bits and pieces....it's quite nice 😉 I've been wanting to write about this for a while now, so here is a blog on [...]
Narcissistic parents and the complementary moral defence.
I love the words in this image, because we repeat what we know even if that means ending up in abusive situations. The biggest problem with this is that when there is parental narcissistic abuse, sometimes those who have suffered don’t realise until they’re a LOT older and have already experienced abusive relationships. Narcissistic parents [...]
Narcissistic Parentification
So, here I am, the last in the instalments about parentification. Today’s offering is on Narcissistic Parentification. Grab a drink, a snack, and get comfy, because not only could this be long, but I suspect for some of you this might be painful, and I really want to ask you to keep yourselves safe in [...]
Instrumental Parentification
One of the things that I hear repeatedly in therapy is the parentification of children from a young age, particularly children of narcissists. It’s something that parents need to be very careful not to do to children, so as to avoid the impact of that behaviour, which I’ll explain later. So, I guess the first [...]
Toxic Masculinity
Okay, I’m going to try and venture into this topic. It’s contentious. I truly believe it’s a thing, and I also believe that it’s as damaging to men as it is women. What is toxic masculinity? You all gave such interesting answers; answers that gave me food for thought, and also helped me understand how [...]
