Starsky

Hi Wesley, sounds like a really good subject for a call-in show. Have you listened to any of the podcasts on ambition? And, btw, narcissists don't want you to thrive. They like you to stay small and stick around - for them.

You're welcome. I forgot to mention Dr. Gabor Mate, his work is extremely insightful. Stef has already done an interview with him and Mate has a lots of videos out on youtube. Well worth seeing!

Hi wings, I recommend Susan Forward, John Bradshaw and Pete Walker (his book about Complex PTSD is fantastic).

He's got the money, she's got the looks. I cannot imagine a constellation like that to be the basis of a strong and loving marriage. What if the first rush of sexual attraction wears off due to, well, everyday life? Will they stay together because they have kids? What is the foundation of this relationship? I am the child of such a superficial bond. My mother looked like Barbie when she met my father who looked like Ken. He was about to start his training in the States to become a fighter pilot. Since only wives were allowed to come along, they decided to get married within 3 days. How well can you get to know a person within 3 days? My parent's marriage lived on looks and prestige and my sister and I were born 4 years later because that's what couples do, have kids. None of the two took a real interest in us. Barbie's looks started to decay in her very early thirties and Ken escaped the daily routine by working extra hard and staying away as often as possible. My mother's only advantage were her looks. Until this day I can't think of any positive traits she had. None, whatsoever. My father in return soon displayed his life strategy: rejecting the consequences of his actions and fighting tooth and nail to not be bothered by them - even on his current death bed. Basically they set a monument to themselves and my sister and I were part of that monument, along with the house and the dog. Being a mere prop in this sick game we turned out like you can imagine - living a life of unimportance and non-existence. I have an ACE score of 5

Great video with great insight! I found the interview with Howard Stern very interesting. 'I could get my father's attention if I could get inside that box'. Now I know why I always aim at being perceived as intelligent and funny. It's to impress my father whose attention I always got by being just that. Sad to realize just who is still running my life...

I'm very sorry for what you had to go through as a child and thus as an adult. Nobody deserves to be treated like that, especially not a child. I can strongly relate to your post. Sounds like your parents used you as their contrast agent. You're the one who's selfish, lazy, thoughtless, rude, uncaring, etc., of course always with a bad intent. They applied those attributes to you in order to feel better about themselves. From what I read in your post, those exact attributes apply to them. It took me decades to fully comprehend and see through this kind of strategy often used by my mother. She projected all her malicious bullshit onto me and then attacked me for it. To her it was all about power and if she had to use her kids for that, so be it. We were an easy target for her and then labelled cowards. How mindfucked is that? Nonetheless I believed her crap for years. How could I not? Luckily she died when I was 12 but until recently, deep down, I still believed that her perception of me (very similar to yours) was accurate. The breakthrough moment for me was when I called her all the names and insults she gave me as a child. That rung true. It was like all the puzzle pieces fell into place. Or as Stef once put it, I handed the bags of shit with her name on them back to where they belong - to her. I found your father's comment about your fast typing really enraging. You left your assigned role of the hopeless loser and that obviously threatened your father's poor self esteem, so he decided to ruin the compliment your mother gave you. What an arsehole. How can you not believe you're a bad person when you've been told so repeatedly for years and years? How your (legitimate) anger was treated in your family is outright disgusting. Oh, what a delight it must have been for your sick parents when they saw you raging over a game of Monopoly! Instead of empathically guiding you in how to handle frustration, they decided to ridicule you. That reminds me of an incident in my childhood. My dog was given away since my mother had to stay in hospital permanently, leaving no one to look after the dog during daytime. I was told that at the dinner table and immediately broke into tears and screamed with sadness and anger. My cancer-ridden mother was so delighted to see her children cry and rage, she burst into such a heartily laugh that made all the fillings in her upper jaw visible. Go figure that out. There she stood, one foot in the grave, and she made her children feel worse than herself. I came to the conclusion that everything my mother said about me was an outright lie. I self-attacked for so many years to the point where I wanted to die. I was forced to adopt my mother's self-hatred and was made to believe it were my own. I don't think you're an arsehole or a bad person. You might want to return those labels back to where they came from. As somebody else already suggested, calling in to the show can be a good idea as well as considering therapy. All the best for your journey to self knowledge.

As a child I never had the impression that my mother was trying to protect me from cutting myself on a piece of broken glass. That wasn't the issue. The issue was more around me creating extra work for her, having to buy new glasses, mopping up sticky lemonade, cleaning a carpet etc. If I'd additionally cut myself then that would have been even more of a hassle for her and she'd have said that it served me right for not being careful. I knocked over a cup at a friend's house and I was quite surprised that her mum actually asked me if I hurt myself before she calmly cleaned up. Unimaginable in my home! Stuff was always more important than children. I still witness this today. Most kids flinch when breaking stuff around my home and actually ask me if I'm angry with them. Of course I'm not and I think it's important to show them the other option of reacting in a non-violent and compassionate way. That's how they hopefully treat their future kids.

My first suspicion was that the child is anticipating a punishment or rather an attack for breaking a glass. That's what happened to me growing up.

Ha Ha! I've done that and the outcome was interesting. I too was called retarded and accused of 'knowing what they meant'. Of course I did but I refused to self-attack and took the wind out of their sails.

I don't mean to hijack your thread, Joel but somebody else on the forum very recently posted a you tube link and I've been listening to that guy the whole day. I'll post 2 links below that struck me just the way your work did, Joel. I now have the validation that my mother did all that shit ON PURPOSE.

Thank you, Joel. You put into words what is true and what I was never allowed to say. You wrote about my mother's abuse and precisely how I perceived it. I very clearly felt her vicious hatred and her insatiable hunger for power over me. I knew it all along - my mother did not love me, she wanted me gone, dead. And nobody believed me. NOBODY. In her fits of rage she showed her true colors, always behind closed doors of course. I was struck by the point you made of how these bullies are being honest when rampaging through their victim's lives. I always sensed that but now it's all the more clearer than ever. The dog analogy is dead-on. To increase and maintain the power disparity my mother desperately needed to have the illusion of self-worth, she simultaneously applied emotional abuse. She installed a self-controlling and self-loathing chip in my brain. I felt like a conditioned dog most of the time, only that our real dog was treated far better. Thank you so much for the effort you put into your work and I can't wait to read more.

I used to watch quite a lot of horror movies up to my mid twenties. I was never really into gore movies but rather stuff like Braveheart, American Werewolf and The Exorcist, all of them being quite violent and disturbing. While they used to make me laugh for being somewhat absurd and grotesk, I now refuse to watch them. Also, I could never watch crap like faces of death. That's all real, no actors, no fake blood, no make-up artists. I cannot comprehend how people can watch such horrifying scenes. Reminds me of those disgusting Romans cheering on a gladiator match. I don't think it's the fake blood/bones/brain in horror movies that put me off, it's rather the suspense that usually accompanies those stories that really stresses me out. I know it all too well. It reminds me so much of my childhood, having to expect the unexpected and impending doom out of the blue. My system is on red alert while watching and I just won't have that anymore. What also scared the shit out me was 'I Am Legend' or 'Cast Away'. In both cases the protagonist is all alone and depends solely on himself. No one there to help or comfort. Ah yes, I know that theme to an extreme from before I could talk.

Thanks for your replies. You're right. I guess I put far too much pressure on myself and I realize that I cannot will motivation and inspiration into existence. I decided to stop attacking myself for not being ambitious and enthusiastic. That would be repeating my childhood trauma.

The topic might sound weird yet this is the question I currently face and have been for almost 40 years. A bit of background: I grew up with a fellow victim (twin sister), a sadistic and deranged mother and an indifferent father (he changed when my mother died at age 40 and became a single dad raising us). In school I noticed that arts and crafts was an easy and enjoyable task and I always came up with terrific results. What I found to be an effortless and fantastic occupation was recognized as a great talent by all my arts teachers. That led me to studying interior design. My mother showed no interest in my abilities but rather pointed out that it's far more important to be good at subjects like maths, German and science since those are the areas where good money could be earned. She simply proclaimed 'you don't need that stuff' like all other preferences, passions, interests and desires I had. That witch made it clear that she considered her children to be worthless, embarrassing and a nuisance and my father happily chimed in with her. He made a 180 degree turn in his parenting once my mother was in hospital permanently. I, as an 11-year-old, assumed my mother not only terrorized her children but also her husband. Sadly, by then, I already had a damaged identity, if I ever even developed one... Fast forward to 2001 where I graduated. There I stood holding in my hands a diploma and I had no idea what to do with it. I was scared shitless of job interviews, constantly thinking I wasn't prepared enough to start an employment, lacked motivation and creativity. For the first time nobody told me what to do. Nobody assigned me a task. Instead I started working in dead-end jobs which required low skill sets like waiter jobs, helping out in my boyfriend's business or even as a test driver. All of those jobs were badly paid and I always got them through people who already worked there, so I never had to apply for a job. Beggars can't be choosy I thought. I quit my last shit-job almost a year ago to become a self-employed designer along with my partner who has been doing just that successfully for over 20 years. I know that this is a bold decision regarding my history of low level jobs, but I just couldn't stand the thought of wasting away my life as an underachiever. So in january I started catching up on the required software and helped out in my partner's business. Again, I was assigned tasks. As soon as I finished them I did nothing in the realm of design and creativity. I had no motivation what so ever. I just don't know what I want to design or create even though I am thrilled when I see good art or design. A blank page scares the hell out of me. There seems to be a block when it comes to deciding what to do with my life. I'm also interested in psychology but when I imagine having a degree there, I blank out too. I seem to be waiting for permission yet intellectually I know I don't need to. At best I can say 'I don't know what I want to do but I know what I don't want to do'. I feel hollowed out and a failure. Have any of you had similar experiences? I'd gladly appreciate any input.

Thank you Bipedal Primate and Kevin. Again you provided excellent posts and a lot to think about and I am very grateful for the effort you put into it. I've done quite a bit of parts work, getting to know many of them (I met around 30) and they filled almost 200 pages so far. Yet I noticed that I tend to slip back into autopilot mode, dissociating and watching my life like an uninvolved bystander and completely disconnecting from myself. In those situations I merely react like I'm supposed to react and it's exhausting. This, of course, was pounded into me in my childhood, making me very convenient to my parents and other arseholes. No wonder I got an A+ for the analysis of the Logical Song by Supertramp in 11th grade... Yes, yes and yes. I'm struggling with this a lot, especially in the work field. I'm a self-employed interior designer and operating from my false self totally messes up my creativity. Somewhere I've read that your inner child is directly connected to your creativity. During my parts work I noticed that communicating with my inner child is a real challenge. My inner child is still really anxious, still thinking that she's not allowed to exist or merely permitted to mime as a ghost. As a child I was beaten into believing that whatever I contributed was childish(!), stupid, silly, embarrassing, worthless or megalomaniacal. So I became whoever the fuck any authority wanted me to be. Thus I was cut off from myself and constantly scanning the environment. And that is so exhausting... However, the effortless feeling of being in the true self is familiar to me. It's rare but it's always a bliss. I feel an inner light shining brighter than a thousand suns and whatever problem bumps into me, I know I can handle it. I guess I'm going to do more parts work now.

Thank you so much Kevin. That really clarified things for me. I never associated connection with the true/false self. After you explained it, it really made sense. I guess I sometimes called that feeling or state being in the 'here and now'. Thanks again!

I listened to the podcast 'The Fiat Currency of the False Self' where Stef talks about true connection with others and with yourself. And it scares me deeply that I might have no idea what connection is and whether or not I have felt connected to someone or to me before. I have talked about this topic with my sister and she too, having the same shitty parents, couldn't come up with a real answer. What does it feel like? What kind of thoughts go through your mind? What does it feel like in your body? How can you tell when you're connected? Am I alone in this? It feels like I'm not connected to myself and that makes me feel dead inside. And I just realized that very often I know the opposite of something but rarely the thing itself. What do you think? I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts on this.

I'm so sorry that your mom abused you. She sounds like a verbal Nazi. Being vomited into is a very familiar feeling to me and it is terribly painful and shaming. How did your mom usually cut you down and what was her justification for it? I had to emotionally disconnect from myself too. Trusting my own feelings of terror and injustice might have gotten me killed as a child. I was only there to fulfill my mother's needs which left me with the question of "who am I?" What helped me to connect to my child self was looking at photos from back then thinking, "how dare you hurt those sweet children, you disgusting insidious bitch!"

I tried to move on with my life without picking up the child from the abandoned station. It just couldn't work. She cried louder and louder because she was terrified. I was abandoning her just like my parents abandoned me. It was like leaving my inner child behind in the mess of arrested development. What she desperately needed was someone who truly noticed her needs and sorrow. That is easier said than done and it took me years. When I was young I correctly sensed that my mother didn't give a shit about me. Yet everyone around me, including my dad, told me the exact opposite like "she didn't mean it" or "she's just stressed" or "don't take it so seriously" or even "she's beating you so you don't become an arsehole". I was made to believe that it was all my fault and that I just had to suck it up. Two therapists even told me that. I had no allies except for my twin sister who suffered the exact same abuse as me. The thought that somehow somewhere my mother did love me (I just didn't get it yet) completely defanged my anger and separated me more and more from my inner child who knew the truth all along. About 4 weeks ago I read a blog by a daughter of a malignant narcissistic mother. What she described spot-on was my loveless, hostile childhood. I finally had the confirmation that my mother did not love me, no matter what everyone around me said. I was disgusted and outranged, a feeling I never had before. Only then I was able to call my mother an outright liar. Everything she said about me was a complete and utter lie. What a relief! I could finally dismiss her from my life. Only then I was able to have deep deep empathy for my inner child and my current self. I tried so so hard to be the person she wanted me to be so that I was worthy of her love. It never worked and it never will. And my observing ego suddenly saw the whole picture: I was wasting my life on a rotting corpse that was already a rotting corpse when it was still roaming this earth. I always had trouble connecting with my inner child because I was made to believe, especially by my father, that my mother loved me. She had a good intent, she meant well... HELL NO! I was able to connect with my inner child because I finally gave her a voice. I know it is a long and hard journey but the reward is beyond words. I couldn't have made it without this fantastic community here for which I want to express my deepest gratitude. THANK YOU! Maybe the milestones I described help you connect to your child and lets you advance to the forbidden territory of truth.

I am dealing with a huge amount of anxiety too. I'm currently at a turning point in my life. After staying in a low level job for almost 9 years I decided to end my mother's "curse". She was an immature sadistic witch and I suffered horrific verbal and physical abuse. She did not want me to exist and I, as a child, had to comply. And even though she died almost 30 years ago, she is still in my head abusing me when ever I make a step towards becoming independent and self-sufficient. A few days ago I had what I consider a breakthrough. I was watching TV and suddenly I had the following question run through my head: If I stop existing, mum, will you then finally love me? As if I were watching myself from the outside I realized that I had been trying to stop existing all my life. I felt deep empathy for my past and current self. My quest for motherly love was absurd. It can't work. It never could have. As a child it probably saved me from being killed but now it's more than useless. And my next thought was that I can finally give up this self-destructive behavior. My mother never loved me, she never will and she never wanted to. It always felt like waiting at a train station. I saw trains arriving and leaving, filled with people who were on their lives' way and I was still sitting there waiting for something or someone to pick me up. I didn't even know what I was waiting for and I felt so angry and sad at the same time. So I quit my comfortable yet ridiculously low paid job and I am currently working on becoming a freelancer in the field I graduated in. And it is scaring me shitless. I have to basically start from scratch and I am 40 years old. It is horribly scary and whenever I am overwhelmed by the fear of ending up as a tramp under a bridge (symbol of abandonment) I have to reassure my inner child that she will not die from "growing up", becoming assertive, having an opinion, having needs and having a right to make mistakes. I know that I still have a lot of work ahead of me and I will certainly be drawn to sinking back into the wheel chair of my former passive life. But I can now remind myself that nobody is coming to pick me up from that isolated train station. Life is now and even though it took me decades to really understand this, I regret wasting so many pointless years trying to obtain a validation from my narcissistic parents. I didn't know what would happen next but I got on the train. The more I work on my new destination, the better I sleep, the less panicky I become and the less bodily symptoms I have. Fuck, I only have one life and I want to enjoy and embrace every part of it and not just be an apathetic bystander. I already posted this link somewhere else but this was my lifeboat in the rough sea during the pursuit of self-knowledge: http://www.pete-walker.com/13StepsManageFlashbacks.htm I wish you the best of luck and success in unplugging from the matrix. I know I'm late at the age of 40 but every other option feels like suicide, just like the life my mother designed for me.

Hey Quadrewple, I'm very sorry for the true nightmare you had to go through. I'm currently going through a phase in my life that is letting me have a lot of flashbacks too. I discovered a site that helps me calm down when I suddenly switch to being a little helpless girl again trying to survive a sadistic evil mother: http://pete-walker.com It's a good read and I found the 13 Steps Flashback Management really helpful.