Author Topic: N.  (Read 621 times)

Hopalong

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Re: N.
« Reply #15 on: February 10, 2026, 10:00:04 PM »
Meh,
I don't believe there is a "right" or "wrong" time to process your path to mental freedom. I spent YEARS (living with Nmom) analysing, reading, breaking it down, spotting and recognizing the behaviors, figuring out sloooooowly what behaviors and damage it all left in me.....

There were times I was absolutely thrilled about getting a new insight into Nism. Every single small thing I learned about it felt like the window to my mind had opened another inch and more oxygen was breezing in. There were times I felt so drained by it that I was paralysed into that work-home-survive thing you've experienced so much of.

It's easy to say at 75, but time does heal. It doesn't perfect, but it does heal. My mother, at 98, finally left the planet. And eventually, left me too. And in time, I found out more about her, and unavoidable compassion and forgiveness occurred.

That said, I seldom think of her in my liberated life now, and I don't wake up thinking about narcissism. Endlessly grateful for a name for it, I'm just living and writing, and facing up to my own mess now. Not liking it, but not ashamed.

I think you're beginning to weigh and value and defend your OWN TIME.

hugs
Hops
"That'll do, pig, that'll do."

lighter

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Re: N.
« Reply #16 on: February 11, 2026, 08:56:34 AM »
What you're describing, Meh.....feels adjacent to my "nose on pebble" lesson in therapy.

When one's nose is ON the pebble/problem/trauma/person,/people who created the trauma...

the pebble is HUGE .....
it's all we see.

Once we learn to create some distance......emotional distance.... the crude up and view the entire field....
we begin to see the other pebbles.
We see grass and flowers.....
we see trees and eventually sky and stars and moon and sea. Amazing.

Learning to meditate/breathe/rest our limbic systems.....
creates a split second of choice, IME.

Choice to NOT tumble down old, familiar rabbit holes of reactivity....of lightening fast brain pathways.

It builds a split second to SEE choice, and sometimes select it, IME.....to build on new choices.  Build them strong.

Your father and mother are pebbles, and you're learning how to create enough distance to see other things.....
this is HUGE, Meh!!! IME, of course.

In your experience, it may feel like something else.  I look forward to hearing about it.