Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > What Helps?

Trapped in the Mirror - Adult Children of Ns and Their Struggle for Self

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penelope:
by Elan Golomb

I have just started reading this book and thought I'd share any thoughts/experience/reflections it invokes in me here.  If anyone else has read it, or would like to read it too, maybe you would care to share your insights here as well.

bean

penelope:
Well I am almost to the end of this book and not sure how I'm feeling about it.

I guess in the examples, I glimpsed a small part of myself...if anything, I'm taking away that life is precious, even for the daughter of Ns, and there is so much I want to do yet.  Maybe obsessing about them, or others who trigger me to be reminded of them and their legacy to me is all just robbing me of the gifts in front of me.

I took a long bath today after working a bit on my projects...so I was glad to have spent a bit of time on myself today, although I've worried about work and the troubling people there more than I cared to, as well.

I'm a little sad reading this book.  I think while the author has tried to be positive, she's a bit depressing.  maybe that is good for the daughter of an N, though, as we tend to be realists, maybe?  The reality is, being raised by Ns is depressing.

had a little cry about it, but perhaps there is more I've learned and internalized, but am just not able to verbalize right now.

bean

Hopalong:
Awww ((((((((((((((((Bean))))))))))))))))))).

Bubbles to you, hon.
You DO deserve to just sit in your bubbles and be happy anyway.
Even for the children of Ns, nature does not forbid happiness.

When a little window within cracks open, we let it. It's not intense or dramatic. It's not ecstasy.
We can just go from...I will mourn what never was forever, to.......feeling, when we can, just happy.

love to you,
Hops

gratitude28:
(((((((((((((((((((bean)))))))))))))))

Before I knew about NPD, I thought the problems in my family came from alcoholism, so I got the book Adult Children of Alcoholics...

Well, it had to do a little with my life (some of my dad's behavior, a lot of my grandmother's behavior), but it didn't affect me much. However, my husband had a very mean and selfish alcoholic father and he can hardly bear to read the book. He has read some, but said it is too distressing.

I would bet the book saddedned you because it IS sad...It's hard to look... even when you KNOW...

Lots of love pbean.

Love, Beth

axa:
I have not read this book but have been thinking and working on my addiction to the N.  And yes, I do think it is an addiction.  I want to be seen by the blind and heard by the deaf.  It is such a waste of energy and my life.  I plead, beg, explain, bargain anything in the hope of being visible.  I have done a lot of work on myself over the years due to my emotional damage by N parents.  I feel that in some ways I took on their traits.  I want it my way, yes I am willing to compromise but ultimately I want the relationship the way I see fit.  I have difficulty accepting the difference of another. 

I am not saying it is all my fault but I continue to look to the N to fill the hole in me.  In my adult head I know no one else can do it but still I look and hope.  POLLYANNA.....my middle name!!!!!!

By loving the N I somehow seem to believe that in "curing" him I can "cure" myself.  I know this is not true and yet again and again i look in the same place for what is not there.

I had an interesting therapy session yesterday where I struggled with my projections onto him.  My fear that if I left him he would be so alone in the world.  In reality this is not true.  he is very good at looking after himself.  There is some huge connection with my abandonment of him being tied with my abandonment of the needy part of myself.  And I am soooooooooooo needy emotionally.  There is a voice in my head now saying but I just want everything to be okay.  I want to laugh with him, amuse  him, take care of him as if somehow this will be my salvation.  The adult in me knows that my salvation must come from myself and yet I am so hooked into the pattern.

I would welcome comment.

axa

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