Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > What Helps?

Children of Narcissistics

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lightofheart:
Hi Erika,
Thanks for sharing some of your story. imho, even a little detachment can be a lifesaver. I wanted to echo what you said about Cheri Huber: The Depression Book (Depression as an Opportunity for Spiritual Growth) is excellent as well.

Re. the thread topic, I believe who our parents are can have as much to do with the adults we don't become as those we do. I'd be just as reluctant to generalize about the children of narcissists as anyone else.

Peace,
LoH

lightofheart:
Hi back, Moon,
You're very welcome. That's such a great book; it really helped me, I hope you enjoy it. Makes me happy just to know it's still in stock out and you didn't have to order it, and even happier just to picture you holding your very own copy.

Here's good vibes to you and your tum for tomorrow, Moon...there, did you catch them?

best of everything and smiles to you,
LoH

                                         

Hopalong:
Hi Erika,

Thanks very much for explaining "introjection"--ugh. Somebody's else's voice injected into one, it sounds like!

Hope to hear more from you.

Hops

Hopalong:
Oh Moon.
How terribly painful.

But I'm glad you're angry. Maybe it's liberating.
Maybe it will free you to truly accept the uselessness of hoping for something he does not have in him.

You deserved real love from your father.
I'm so sorry he wasn't capable of giving it.

You do NOT deserve to be hurt. Not one second more.

(((Moon)))

Hops

Portia:
Erika, thank you for your posts and about this:

Many of us who were targeted by that kind of abuse have a weird gift called "Empathy"...the problem with that kind of abuse, is that it can actually numb you out, so you cannot even know what your own emotions  are..(you have absorbed so much from your own family, you don't know what is yours anymore)

I wondered if anyone had their own words (or otherwise) to describe for me the difference between empathy, projection and ‘counter-transference’ (?) as they are experienced in the ‘receiver’ so to speak. In other words how can I tell when I’m feeling empathy for another or when I’m feeling one of the other two things. Sometimes I get these feelings very strongly and I get a bad stomach pain which lasts from anything from a few minutes to a couple of hours. I’ve had stomach pains in response to emotional confusion since I was a kid, under 10 I guess. I remember my mother taking me to the doctor about it. It was a small, dark surgery and (as with kids at the time) she spoke on my behalf (funny how kids didn’t used to speak in that kind of situation?). I remember the doctor telling her that I needed a diet of glucose and sugar solution. He was looking at me at the time. Then he looked at her and said it might be the stirrings of menstruation (I knew what this was). Anyway when we got back home my stepdad asked what the doc has said and she told him about the glucose and water, he said “she can’t live on that” (thanks stepdad) and she answered “I think that doctor is a very good psychologist”. I won’t forget that. Collusion, lying, adults ganging up against the child, like the child is some wild, bad animal that has to be controlled. I knew what a psychologist was. I knew I was being conned. Anyway I still get stomach aches when I’m upset through a confusion of emotions, not perhaps knowing what is mine and not mine.

(((Moon))) I guess detachment happens when we’re ready for it – when is that? I don’t know. But I reckon there’s no need to work on it. Can’t help being hurt or angry, because you feel and that’s okay? It’s not wrong to have any feelings. It's good to reflect on feelings after the event I guess and work out what caused them.

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