u/Justdroppingby2024

I was raised by a narcissist family. Was the scapegoat. Went no contact recently. And the more I heal, the more I realize how f*cked some of these moments are, some even hit me in the gut in a way in which they didn’t as they were happening.

Wondering if anyone would be down to share the moments they were told were “smaller” in importance they now realize were big red flags too.

When I was in high school I won this very big scholarship and they actually featured me in a television commercial because the scholarship folks were in kahoots with tv station and they knew that I wanted to be in communications when I went to college. Maybe I got a congratulations once but my family did not celebrate me at all. I’m realizing I would get text or phone calls constantly from friends who randomly saw me TV that day but I never got one from relatives.

And then there’s another memory of all of my golden child sister and me going to my aunts place for Christmas. And there was an extra Christmas gift under the tree that I presume now was originally for my sister. But my aunt maybe because she felt guilty that she got my sister an extra gift and not me “raffled” the gift between the two of us. I won the raffle. When I opened the gift and was super excited, she out of nowhere said “oh oh Steve Harvey Miss universe” and reenacted the Miss universe pageant where Steve Harvey called on the wrong person, and she gave the gift to my sister. I didn’t say much at the time, I was a teen and had already been trained to just accept this behavior from the family. My sister also reveled in these moments, and I’m no contact with her too.

Back then those moments were just reminders of the bs and so normalized I never examined them, I was used to just journaling and being sad that that was “my reality”, but now they truly make my stomach turn.

Marking these under milestones & progress because I love that now I’m reclaiming my anger from the moments when I couldn’t.

I’m Dominican from a small town where folks are connected but also “family values” run deep. I live in NYC now but was raised over there and most of my relatives still live there.

I’ve gone no contact with my family because I needed to draw a gap and create physical distance between my narcissist sister and narcissist mother and me. My father is an abuser and I cut contact with him too.

Tonight a cousin who I haven’t spoken to in about 8 years wrote to me inviting me to her wedding. I felt that this reaching out was exemplary of the family
Dynamic where there’s no real connections and everything is for show: last year I had already heard rumors she was going to invite me to be her maid of
Honor even though we haven’t been friends since we’re kids. And haven’t spoken in so long. I heard the rumors as I was still in touch with relatives then but am not anymore. Saying no to her was a no brainer as she isn’t someone worth putting up with my mom and sister for. And in fact no one is, everyone from my past is basically a flying monkey so I’ve had to cut off everyone and have very few friends and my partner. I guess I can be grateful for that.

Anyway I’m tired but I’m sharing because my cousin reaching out sent me on an emotional loop. And I’m just tired of feeling sorry for myself when the truth is I’m proud of my decision. I just wish I didn’t feel I had to lose everyone, though tbh it’s just been more of a shock that no one was redeemable and an abusive dysfunctional dynamic could be spread so far. It makes me feel like I’m crazy for making this choice though I know I’m right to have strong boundaries that keep me safe. And overall I’m just embarassed I think by not having a family like everyone else seems to. And by not having friends since high school, for example. Like damn maybe I’m the problem. But I guess if I am, I have to start being okay with that too.

I come from an emotionally abusive family and have gone no contact with most of them. I have friends and people to meet up with once in a while but I’m struggling hanging out with them because I have changed, I think I bonded with a lot of them because they were going through similar traumas that I have overcomed and they haven’t yet.

Since I was a kid I’d spend a lot of time alone, teetering on child abuse since I was left home alone most afternoons after school for hours since I was 9.

I’m trying to expand my circle now but it’s hard, at 35, in nyc, I feel everyone is locked into their friendships. And then people can be overstimulating. So I don’t even know.

Basically I guess my question is, tips on how to be alone without ruminating on the past, and also how to make more friends especially when ppl can be overstimulating. I think I want companionship almost in friendship.

I know I’m difficult with the overstimulating part so the solution really is just finding things to enjoy alone. Disrupting the ruminating.

Edit to add maybe I just need to hear from others that they spend a lot of alone time too and that’s ok

Hi all,

Content note: mention of sexual harassment

I’ve been really struggling with letting my no contact decision settle in my body. It’s caused me stress, tinnitus to increase, and restlessness/loss of sleep. And So much of it I recognize now as I continue on a healing journey involved talk therapy and somatic healing, has to do with never having the abuse acknowledged and even the way I ultimately went no contact had to be almost like I tricked my parents and relatives. And I find that so messed up and really unsettling and disturbing and what makes this process particularly difficult is often people don’t give those of us who cut off parents specifically the same grace as they do victims of abuse by others. When I review the process of going NC for me, it’s actually been very similar to experiences of escaping sexual harassers, which is so disturbing and yet it was the only way as a narcissist will not respect your decision to go NC, at times it’s actually a trigger for them that makes them harass u even more.

And please note I know it’s not the same, but I’m speaking of similarities in what it can often take to “leave” or “escape”.

I slowly cut off contact with the entire family and went low contact first with hard rock responses before eventually saying “I’m changing my number but u can text me here still and I’ll respond on weekends” then fading away. I’m a combination of the scapegoat/abandoned child of the family so I’m sure I am now just spoken of as the cold difficult one and they’re getting supply in that way. But they don’t know where I live, where I work, and even my extended family is cut off now.

And I’m realizing this process of becoming liberated is very similar to escaping a violent domestic abuser or sexual harasser, one where you might have to change your name and number and move away. I once actually already had to do that because of a man who married into the family and began sexually harassing me online. I was young and his online subtle threats + lack of police support since apparently I couldn’t file a restraining order and could only solve it in family court, which I knew is what he wanted (attention). I simply never responded, changed my number and moved away to be left only to deal with the mental health repercussions of it all. (Note: this incident also allowed me to recognize how abusive my nmother and nsister were because of their lack of support “it’s just part of being a woman, deal with it” and sister even laughing at me).

Reflecting on both of these experiences and finding the similarities has been eerie. But it has helped it settle in my body somehow, I guess it’s giving me deep validation in a society that often views “no contact” as us being petty or unforgiving.

Now I’m also just dealing with the anger and grief of having to experience all of that growing up, I’m 35f, and much of the abuse happened even after moving out and on my own since age 17.

Sharing all this in case the comparison helps, though I know they’re not exactly the same but certainly do have some places where they can be similar.

Also, has anyone found ways of processing the grief of it all? Grieving our younger self’s?

Hi all,

I’m 35f

I’ve been dealing with abusive narcissist mother and sister my entire life though I only became aware it was narcissism a few years ago like post pandemic through online videos + psychedelics + therapy and psychiatric support + somatic healing.

I went no contact with my mom a while back and ended up breaking it (which I’m so upset at myself about tbh) because of a combination of flying monkeys, new age spirituality which I got really into for some time, and just overall the ways our bodies betray us when conditioned by abuse.

But I did so with a caveat: we only talk once on Sunday. And normally we just text a “happy sunday” meme and that’s it. Sometimes she asks how I’m doing and I respond coldly.

Recently she got sick and will be having surgery and my family broke all my boundaries by telling me I had to talk to her outside of Sunday so I did. But somehow that pushed me over the edge. So I lied to them that I changed my number, and am keeping this one on computer just for texts once in a while. So now the Sunday texts ended too.

By lying that I was moving far away (I’m only a city away) which was a huge thing with therapy support as it meant no longer caring what they think, and now lying about changing my number, I’ve managed to get into a low contact and almost no contact situation with them without setting off the alarms that come from setting strict boundaries. They think I’m broke, inconsistent, weird, a loner, and more and more they occupy less space in my mind. I honestly dgaf about them except on days like today when the world reminds those of us with shitty moms that we have shitty moms.

The hardest part recently was realizing an entire family close and extended will paint me as this weirdo with no phone who moved far away, so I’ve had to stop caring about literally all of them, cousins included. Weirdly tho because of the toxic family dynamic and abandonment issues, none of us ever really got close to anyone. I’m also in a beautiful relationship and as my life grows with thinking of marriage, I am mourning knowing my parents or relatives won’t be there, but I have a thriving loving social circle who will be.

Of course they’ll likely come around again but at that point who knows how they’ll find me. If they call the police, as I’ve seen folks do here, I’m ready to accept it and get a lawyer. My life has turned around so much in so many different ways. I also have an uncle who cut connections with family as reference, u reached out to him and tho growing up he was described as this horrible person who abandoned my grandma, from his pov he was right and his kids always seem so kind so I knew I wasn’t getting the full story. To me knowing he did it, made it feel possible.

One thing I do still struggle with is my own compassion, if narcissism is a mental disease, should I not have compassion and forgive? This is where the Sunday texting reasoning came from. Then I realized 1. My own wellbeing matters most for myself. 2. Thinking of it as an addiction or substance abuse helps as unfortunately many families have to cut contact with relatives struggling with addiction because they cannot be trusted with themselves. Framing it that way has helped as it’s compassionate and acknowledges that it can be hard. I guess I’m not trying to lose my own humanity throughout this whole process.

Lastly. Another struggle now is also my mental health, I can’t stop ruminating or over planning for if they break my boundaries again. It really deregulates me and makes me feel like a hostage.

Has anyone else grey rocked their way into very low or almost no contact?

Tldr: grey rocking works tho I know it’ll only work for so long

Edit: added my age + tldr