u/No_Swan407

I have this new co-worker. We're friendly and tend to chat and rant about work on breaks/lunch. I'm 30, single and objectively good looking. She's a bit older, married, and has three kids. Today we were having lunch together and I took out my meds before eating. I'm basically messed up mentally and physically but I'm working on it. Anyway, the meds are for IBS (irritable bowl syndrome) which is caused by chronic stress and a not very healthy lifestyle in my case. She recognized the meds and what they're for and then she asked "why would YOU of all people have stress?!"

It was in such a dismissive way I was actually speechless. I don't even remember what I answered. The conversation moved on.

A similar incident happened when I was in college. I got close to a classmate and he was telling me about his problems with his father, the bad neighbourhood he lived in, the gang that was after him... He was pretty depressed and my awkward ass tried to comfort him somehow and said "we all have problems" and he says "what problems could you possibly have?"

I've thought of that interaction for YEARS and now here it is again.

What could I have said? Explaining is pointless as we all know. It's too complicated and ugly and different. If anything, I guess that if my exterior looks solid then at least I got one thing going for me, right? At least I've managed to come across as a normal human being to some people.

So yeah, that happened today. I'm also coming down with a cold so I'm kinda miserable and would love a hug.

I used to shop all the time, especially in thrift shops. Clothes, shoes, plushies, books, toys for my niece... If you thrift, you know what it's like. It's a treasure hunt, trying to find unique objects, it relieves stress, jt's fun... I realized I was spending too much money on things I wasn't even using like clothes and that I needed to stop and actually did!

I don't feel like my wardrobe is missing an item, new arrival days come and go and don't feel the urge to go out and check it out, I don't look at online shopping pages. I even walk by the usual shops I always went to without even going in!

I've been struggling a lot with overthinking and intrusive thoughts recently. It was worse right after waking up and going to sleep. I'd wake up at ungodly hours full of dread and dark thoughts and immediately grab my phone to doomscroll in an attempt to distract myself. I'd also do this right before falling asleep at night to tire myself out and I'd always need something playing so I can fall asleep.

But these last few days things are better. Good things happened and I think crying it out helped too. My mental state is better throughout the day. I don't feel the need to doomscroll as much. I feel more awake and balanced if that makes sense.

I got good news about work, I'm doing small repairs I've been putting off, I'm planning a small creative project, I did all my laundry this morning, I'm eating better and I joined a group of people who are going to the beach tomorrow so I hope that goes well.

The worst part about growing up in a narcissistic family, especially when you're the youngest AND scapegoat, is that literally the only thing I want is a loving family. I don't have a single member of my family left.

I'm so lonely. The narcissists and enablers formed one camp and the sisters who went low or no contact formed another.

I can't be with the narcissists because of all the damage nor can I be with the others because the betrayal is a different kind of damage.

I'm 30 years old and I feel the exact same way I did as a child when I isolated myself from everyone to protect myself from the chaos.

Why did ever think that things would change?

I'm seriously considering this and would love to know your stories.

I'm seriously considering this but would love to know your stories.

We met at work a couple years ago but we're now working in different areas. We bonded over our traumas, work drama and common interests. We're both going through some huge stuff at the moment with our toxic families and we've been supporting each other.

I'd been complaining to her about my issues at my new job (narcissistic boss, toxic coworkers...) for weeks. She knows I'm struggling with this and yet she starts talking about an acquaintance of ours who done me wrong in the past and how they're thriving at their new job, how their boss is great.... Etc. And I kinda lost it and lashed out.

I said that she already knows my current situation at home and at work and also that I didn't get along with this old coworker so why was she telling me this. I said that I felt it was unnecessary and that she was like rubbing it in, you know? Kicking me while I was already down and broken. She said that she didn't mean anything by it, and she was just trying to show me that other workplaces could be better.

I now it's wrong to have ill wishes towards and be envious of someone who hurt me. I get that. And she probably didn't mean it like that but I expected her to be more considerate, you know? I struggle socially in so many ways but even I know that when your friend is going through hell, you don't go telling them that a person who hurt them in the past is living their best life. You just don't!

You commiserate, you hear them out, you encourage them, you try to make them laugh, you send fucking memes... And if you can't, if you're busy, if it's too much then you keep your distance. YOU DO NOT RUB IT IN.

In the end I apologized and she apologized as well. We left it at that.

Last week I had a huge fight with my superiors about how I missed too many work days without notice after my father died. It was my fault and yet I lashed out at them. They responded in kind and it was plain ugly.

Today I have to attend a meeting with them. Not about me specifically but I have to show up. I'm dreading it.

I'm a teacher and summer break is officially on july 9th and yet there's still this administrative bullshit to do. It's been week since that fight and I still stress about it and how I'll have to work there next year as well.

Please let me know if you're interested.

Would love to meet people from the same country and culture.

Hello, my father died this week after a long struggle with illness. My mother is the narcissist and he was an enabler with some narcissistic and toxic traits. I had a very complicated relationship with him that was maybe worse than the one mother. My siblings are either narcissists or enablers and things got very ugly between us and I went no contact/low contact with the entire family. Another detail is that I'm a 30 yo woman, the youngest and the scapegoat and I also have complex ptsd.

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I'm currently in my healing journey and I think I've already done a part of my grieving while he was alive but I wanna do this right so I can process it properly. Another thing is that my narcissistic mother is trying to get close to me so I need to figure out how to handle that as well.

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I would love to hear your own experiences with this and maybe get some specific sources on this subject like videos and books. I usually watch Dr. Ramani's and Tim Fletcher's videos and I'm slowly going through Pete Walker's book on complex ptsd.

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Currently at a funeral. I'm fine. Coffee and water make sense to me but I'm genuinely curious as to why we have to serve couscous, meat and also cookies (!!!) with the coffee... Who decided that our funerals should be like this? Wouldn't it make more sense to keep it light? For people to walk in, pay their respects, stay for a few minutes to talk and have coffee and then just leave? Hell, they should be bringing US food to ease our load not expect to be fed a feast.

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I just truly don't understand it. It's a time for grieving, for calm, for unity, for prayer not cooking a damn feast and the mess that comes with it.

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For context, my toxic dysfunctional family fell apart and there's a lot of resentment going around between all of us. I don't how else to describe it without going into detail, the ones who experienced narcissistic family abuse and cptsd will know.

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Anyway, my father's condition was getting pretty bad and everyone was fighting about what to do. They eventually called for help and he was taken in an ambulance around 5:30 am.

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My first thought was that one of the paramedics was very attractive and my second was that I could probably shower now since the house is nearly empty then go to work all fresh. There were more thoughts on laundry, what to wear today... Etc.

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I'm not surprised by my reaction and I don't think I'm repressing anything. Just wanted to tell someone cause it's 6 am here.

Can't move out yet but I feel like things are about to change in the coming months so I'm trying to be patient and hold on.

I'm a 30 yo highschool teacher. I'm the scapegoat in a narcissistic family. I started working in a new school this year. Things were fine in the beginning. Home life was already shit and I was barely hanging on as it is. Around january I had health issues and took a month off work.

When I went back something shifted. The bonds that I thought I had created were cut, I had no true contact with coworkers. Something felt off with same subject teachers, like something bad had happened when I was gone but no one was telling me about it. I felt isolated, pushed to the side, rejected... I eventually burnt out and stopped caring. Around the end of march and april my workload lessened a lot as third year students weren't showing up so I'd just go home.

I'll admit, I slacked a lot, especially with paperwork which is something I LOATHE doing. I also stopped following some directions from head-teacher who's basically my immediate boss. She's a real piece of work. Not sure if she's a narcissist tbh but she's definitely arrogant, vindictive, envious and not communicative. For all I know she might have some personal struggles of her own because she's definitely not okay and I think she's obsessed with work as a coping mechanism.

On the last week of active teaching, our subject inspector showed up for a surprise inspection. The timing is unheard of but I honestly didn't think much of it at first. The inspector is a bitch anyway and we already had bad history. Fantastic right?

I found out at 10 am that she was there by pure chance. No one had told me she was there of course. I was already on my way out as my students had escaped so I just walked out of the school because I didn't even want to see her (total flight reaction). Thankfully, I called a good friend and she advised I should go back and have the inspector see me. Since my students were gone I was spared an actual inspection. She could only check my paperwork (which wasn't up to date of course). My friend reasoned that the excuse was already there and I should just face her and put up with it. I went back and waited to be called for a meeting.

At 11 am, head teacher walks into the teachers' lounge and is shocked to see me there. She must've congratulated herself when she thought I had left. Her, me and another teacher awkwardly went to see her highness (the other same subject teachers weren't there). Her highness was equally shocked to see me there. The fact I had shown up threw them off lmao. Her highness kept asking me why I wasn't there at 10 and why I'd left, trying to get me to slip and admit I left knowing she was there, that I snuck away. It fell flat since I was there in the flesh. She still asked me to leave though to which I said "thank you and I have a good day" and hurried out. She could write me up for the paperwork but probably nothing else since I showed up.

Today I went to my old school for some paperwork and spoke to a coworker I was close with who informed me that word was out that my headteacher was the one who formally asked the inspector to come inspect me who was being and I quote "a new young hot shot teacher who wasn't following orders...". This coworker said news of this affair have spread (nothing short of humiliating) and she told me to watch myself next year cause this headteacher is trying to bring me down.

So this is what cptsd did to me. I isolate myself from my coworkers, I refuse to make the first move (which is also why I'm single), I'm incapable of faking affection and kiss ass, I have problems with authority figures, I'm bad at communication , I'm impulsive and hot-headed, I slack at my job even though it's the only thing I got going for me, I'm very slow at reading people's true intentions... The list goes on.

Things could've gone pretty badly for me had I not gone back. What if my friend didn't give me that advice? What if she hadn't picked up for whatever reason? What if I had walked too far or got on a bus and it was too late to go back?

Why couldn't I anticipate the danger of leaving on my own? Why did I run instead of just facing her at 10? The students were gone anyway so I had my excuse so why did I run? Why can't I think and make the right decisions on my own? Why are these social situations so difficult to get around? How come other people handle themselves better?

Tl;dr: cptsd fucked me so badly I'm having issues at work on top of my personal life.

First time watcher, I'm at S2E7 so please no spoilers past this point I beg you.

I know I shouldn't be here but I can't help but talk about this! I have personal experience with narcissistic abuse in my own family and the way it's portrayed in the show is so realistic!

Smurf is the narcissistic mother. Pope is her Golden Child, she knows she can use him to do her dirty work and manipulates him with his past with Catherine and he hates her for it but is still stuck. She knows he's unpredictable but still relies on him.

She uses the adoption thing with Baz, the surfing thing with Daren, drugs with Craig... They're all Fuel to her. She thinks she can still control and use them after all these years but they're finally waking up.

Daren especially sees it all so clearly and literally just told Craig that Smurf loved it when they fought as children.

Now she's trying to use Jake and Nicky, the LostChildren..

I wonder how it was for Julia... Was she perhaps the ScapeGoat? Maybe Smurf treated her differently because she was the only girl? Julia eventually cut contact but she still suffered from the abuse and resorted to drugs...

It's truly so well written I keep thinking of my own family and how it all went down over the years...

We're a large dysfunctional family. I'm the youngest and scapegoat. Mother is a narc, father has narc traits and is a huge enabler. 2 brothers are narcs, 2 sisters are narcs, 2 sisters are enablers. For years my mother triangulated all of us and enabled her two narc sons, basic gender favoritism. The family fell apart. I've sort of cut contact with all of them but I can't move out yet.

My father is bedridden and dying.

Two enabler sisters are married with kids: one is a doctor married to a narc doctor and hardly visits anymore. I think she had enough and went no contact. The other has several kids and visits sometimes to help with chores, cooking and to worship my mother.

Two narc unmarried sisters basically moved out: One works out of state and comes home rarely, the other moved out recently.

So now it's just my parents, my narc brothers ( one is a bum who does basic chores, the other is a doctor who's getting married soon and sometimes buys them takeout) and me. I'm basically living there as a stranger. I pay for utilities, cook and clean only for myself and just avoid them all. My brothers finally turned on her. She slaves after them, cooks for them, does their laundry, constantly praising them and fusses over them. And in return she tries to get them to do stuff for her but they refuse. She really thought she could manipulate them forever but they're not budging.

She's stuck caring for her dying husband almost entirely on her own, they don't let her leave the house unless it's for a very short while, they refuse to fix stuff around the house or let her get a handyman. Recently she craved fruit but bum brother refused to buy it saying it wasn't necessary. The doctor son refused to share his marriage plans with her.

She's basically stuck with two useless sons that she spent a lifetime coddling only for them to basically abandon her in her old age and I'm relishing it.

She tries to take it out on me but I don't let her. I keep my distance from all of them to not give them any excuse to get violent with me. I wonder what will happen next.