Healthy boundaries are essential in recovery from codependency. They both build and reflect self-esteem. Learning to have healthy boundaries is an essential aspect of individuating and becoming an individual and autonomous person. Boundaries are learned in childhood. Some dysfunctional families are enmeshed and your individuality and boundaries are ignored or openly disrespected in words or […]
Read MoreIndividuation: From Codependent Chameleon to Selfhood
When we first met, I told my husband I was very “adaptable.” I didn’t realize the price of being a chameleon until I started recovery and my journey of individuation. By then I was dead inside. I’d spent years adapting to abuse and belittling that I’d absorbed. I was detached from my feelings and needs, […]
Read MoreParental Alienation: What Is It and How Do You Cope?
After close to three decades and without any planning, I chose to escape a narcissistically abusive marriage. Wow! I wished I would have read Tracy A. Malone’s book, “Divorcing Your Narcissist: You Can’t Make This Shit Up!” because then I would have learned from her extensive research and experience about the “covert tricks they pull” […]
Read MoreWhat A Narcissist Says vs. What They Actually Mean
Know how to tell if a narcissist is lying? Their mouth is open. I’m definitely going crazy, I whispered to the stranger in the bathroom mirror. I used to be so levelheaded. I used to think logically. I used to feel like I was on top of things. And yet, as each year passed in […]
Read MoreSons of Narcissistic Fathers: The Pain and Shame of Never Measuring Up
Even in this day and age of generational shifts in parenting and shared parental responsibilities, the father is still viewed by many as a collateral caregiver whose primary function is to mete out discipline and pay the bills. However, the father is so much more than just an authority figure and a material provider. In fact, the […]
Read MoreWhat You MUST Know When Divorcing a Narcissist … by Suzanna Quintana
It is often said, “If you think being married to a narcissist was bad, wait until you divorce one.” Who said that? Me. Yours truly. Because unfortunately, I know. What is also unfortunate is I learned this the hard way. If divorcing a narcissist were a class, I failed it with a big fat F. […]
Read MoreThe Subtle Abuser
Abominable, morally depraved abusers are easy to spot and always remembered. People such as Leona Helmsley (The Queen of Mean), Starlet Joan Crawford (Mommie Dearest), knighted BBC notable Jimmy Seville, brutal Haitian dictator ‘Papa Doc,’ sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein, and Tele-evangelist Jim Bakker, whose empire fell from Grace due to sex scandals, addiction, fraud and theft of ministry funds, are but […]
Read MoreThe Grey Rock Method!
The Grey Rock Method! by Zoe Parsons When you can’t go no contact, you need to do what is called “detached contact” or “grey rock.” This is where you stay emotionally distant from the narcissist. By using this method, it helps you to not be continually triggered and by not engaging with them, you are […]
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The Narcissistically Disordered Family
The Narcissistically Disordered Family A Glimpse At The Grooming And Abusing That Occurs Within The Home by Rev. Sheri Heller, LCSW In a memoir piece I wrote about my disturbing relationship with my narcissistically disordered father I elaborated on how his neglect, sadistic mockery, objectification and abandonment nearly destroyed me. The proverbial silver lining of having […]
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