I provide empowerment, empathy & support.
I specialise in dealing with dysfunctional relationships, particularly narcissistic abuse & encouraging self-compassion.
Happy Monday everyone! I hope your week started well 🙂
Today’s video, which unfortunately took me ages to edit due to many interruptions & distractions, is about pathological lying. Although I talk about other types of lying, I particularly wanted to highlight the importance of pathological lying because it is the most destructive form of lying there is. Compulsive lying is also similar, although not as spiteful.
Individuals which are high on the narcissistic spectrum (NPD’d, Malignant narcissists, Psychopaths, ASPD’d) are very skilled pathological liars.
Please like,share & subscribe to my youtube channel if you find this video helpful!
I came across this wonderful website & blog known as ‘Beauty after bruises’, which is a voluntary website that provides invaluable support for those with CPTSD and/or Dissociation.
The links I am adding here are very useful for those of you who really struggle with sleeping and generally dread the night time. Please check them out if you think they might help you and feel free to re-blog this post so it also reaches others.
Gratitude is a very important tool that most of us don’t use as often as we could.
To be grateful for all that we have in our life can bring a certain sense of contentment and peace.
Studies have been done, which show that gratitude improves both mental and physical health. Gratitude can reduce feelings of hopelessness and can greatly improve our relationships with others.
Doing a daily gratitude list just before bed, has been found to not only improve sleep quality but can also help with reducing depressive symptoms in people who are suffering.
”Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow” – Melody Beattie
The key to really benefiting from the practice of gratitude, is to write 5 or more things that you are grateful for on each day.The more specific the things you write about, the more beneficial the effects.
One example for this may be ”My friend suprised me with a ‘Thank you’ card today” or ”I enjoyed playing with my cousin’s puppies”.
Another way of practicing gratitude, is to have a little jar and pop daily gratitude notes in it..At the end of the month or after a particularly bad day, it can be useful to return to your gratitude jar and read all the little gratitude notes you put in it.
Do you practice gratitude and if yes, is there something specific you do?
In today’s video, I talk about another type of child abuse known as parentification.
Parentification isn’t always through the known fault of a parent, as sometimes in single parent families or in families with a special needs child, the parent struggles to keep the needs of the child fulfilled appropriately. Sometimes, the parent may be also suffering from a severe disability such as a chronic condition or severe mental health difficulties, and it is only natural that the child may at times become a carer to the parent. This is especially true, if there isn’t an additional parent or family member around to support the child.
Unfortunately, in a family where 1 or both parents suffer with narcissistic personality disorder, this type of abuse is even more prevalent in both a physical and emotional way.
My video describes this in more detail:
If you have experienced parentification, then feel free to share your experience.
If you find this youtube video and blog post useful, then please like, share & subscribe.
Please support my youtube channel on my patreon page. There are exclusive patrononly videos on there, which are available specifically to those of you who contribute & become patrons.
You might have heard of the term infantilization but you may not realise how incredibly abusive it is when a parent does this to their child.
It is only natural for a growing child to start developing independent thoughts, actions and opinions. For a narcissistic parent this can be very threatening, as they want to continue controlling their child and use them for narcissistic supply.
Check out my video for an explanation of what infantilization is.
Some examples of infantilization are as follows:
A parent stops a teenager from socialising with friends or doesn’t allow them any privacy in their bedroom. The parent may still treat them as if they are a young child whereas a teenager needs growing independence and privacy.
A parent buys their child age-inappropriate clothing and/or arranges age-inappropriate activities.
A parent might not allow the child to speak for themselves, when they are asked a question directly by somebody else.
A parent might discourage the child from pursuing new interests as they don’t want the child to become more skilled at new things than they are.
If a parent isn’t able to have healthy relationships, they may try to influence the child against their choice of partner. They can’t allow their child to leave the family nest. The parent wants to continue their enmeshed relationship for as long as possible.
The effects of infantilization are as follows:
The adult child ends up having chronically low self-esteem
The adult child has difficulties academically
The adult child may find getting a job difficult
The adult child learns helplessness and enabling
The adult child may self-harm
The adult child may have poor social skills
The adult child may self-sabotage
The adult child may become avoidant
If you can relate to any of what I have written or said in the video, then please re-blog so it reaches more people.
Knowledge is power and with knowledge comes healing. To also further promote healing on a larger scale, I have recently signed up to patreon to further support my creations of videos, pdfs & hopefully in the near future, e-books.
Patreon is a platform that enables creators to reach new goals by having their followers & supporters fund their work.
If you find my videos & blog posts helpful, then please check out my patreon page.
It would mean the world to me to be able to reach more people and help them on their journey of recovery.
Childhood trauma produces physiological effects upon the developing brain that have an adverse effect upon the individual’s stress response system.
Childhood trauma is likely to increase a person’s vulnerability to falling victim to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).
FACTS ABOUT CFS.
The symptoms of CFS are as follows :
– persistent fatigue/exhaustion which affects everyday life and is not rectified by sleep or rest
– in the UK, the condition is thought to affect approximately a quarter of a million people
– the condition is more prevalent in females than in males
– it normally affects people between about the ages of 20 – 45 years; however, it can begin during childhood – if so, it normally begins between the ages of 13 and 15 years
CFS can be split into 3 different levels of severity :
– MILD : the person can probably care for him/herself, but may require days off in order to rest
– MODERATE : at this level the individual may well experience reduced mobility, disturbed sleep, as well as a need to sleep in the afternoon
– SEVERE : at this level the person will have significantly decreased mobility, possible impairments to his/her ability to concentrate as well as greatly reduced ability to perform many everyday tasks
Individuals with CFS who were tested in various studies, had higher overall trauma scores than those without CFS.
Exposure to trauma increases the risk of CFS between three and eight times, depending on the type. Emotional neglect and sexual abuse during childhood were most strongly associated with CFS.
It generally appears that CFS is part of a spectrum of disorders that are associated with childhood adversity.
Do you suffer with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
As someone who lives with CPTSD, I would say that I suffer from it moderately.
As many of you already know, my journey to qualifying as a Life Coach, was based on my own recovery from my narcissistically abusive parents.
For those of you who don’t follow my more personal blog, I wanted to just give you a little insight into my own struggles.
In the last few days, I have been struggling with contact again from my father, after 1 year and a half of not speaking.
I sent him a letter, so he could stop harrassing me by phone.
I never exclusively told him I wanted no contact, but after a very traumatic time following his attempted suicide, (as a way of stopping his wife from leaving him) he gave me the silent treatment for a year, so I just went along with it.
I was not willing to respond to him and was already in a grieving process, even though there was no closure of any sort.
When he finally decided to start hoovering me back in with his phonecalls and sudden caring, I continued to ignore his calls. This communication from him went on for 8 months. I finally got fed up with the constant calls that I decided to send him a letter to end our relationship. I briefly explained my reasons and gave him the chance to reply.
I received his reply and it hit me really hard! More than I expected it to.
I realised that I still had a tiny glimmer of hope that he might change his behaviour and this was a huge setback for me. I also realised how incredibly strong the trauma bonding is between us, even more so than with my mother.
As a means of coping with my recent distress and the final letter to him, which I am in the process of writing at the moment, I created the below video!
It outlines what I have been going through and what many other survivors of abuse face all the time.
Please feel free to share it, if you think it may help others.
Just visit my Youtube page and embed it into your page.
Generalised Anxiety Disorder is a long-term condition that causes you to feel anxious about a wide range of situations and issues, rather than one specific event.
People with GAD feel anxious most of the time and often struggle to remember the last time they felt truly relaxed. They are constantly affected by worried thinking, which can affect their daily routines, their work, their appetite and their sleep.
GAD can cause both psychological (mental) and physical symptoms. These vary from person to person, but can include:
Dizziness & or heart palpitations
Excessive worrying and obsessing
Difficulty handling uncertainty
Muscle tension
Trembling or twitching
Headaches
Being easily startled
Dry mouth
Cold or hot sweats
Nausea
Trouble concentrating
Trouble sleeping
Anxiety which can at times lead to panic attacks
GAD can commonly also co-occur with other mental health disorders such as social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, (C)PTSD or depression.
GAD can be caused by genetics, by childhood trauma or loss or by an imbalance of serotonin and noradrenaline in the brain.
If you are affected by GAD, then please feel free to share your experience.
I am offering free initial consultations to anyone who is affected and is in need of support.
This is a topic I previously covered on my personal blog last year but it is important to highlight again, especially in the current climate.
Most extremely powerful & wealthy people in this world, are usually void of empathy. Politicians, country leaders, business tycoons etc..
Narcissists and especially overt & malignant narcissists, lack empathy, lack self insight and aren’t able to form healthy & reciprocal relationships.
In this video, I talk about the importance of money in a narcissist’s world.
I talk about financial abuse and how narcissists may use this sort of abuse.
Having had first hand experience with a narcissistic & very controlling father, I have witnessed the obsession of a narcissist with his money & how he uses it in his life, to harm those close to him.
If you have experienced financial abuse or known someone who has used money in a harmful way, then please feel free to share this in the comments below.
I came across this wonderful website & blog known as ‘Beauty after bruises’, which is a voluntary website that provides invaluable support for those with CPTSD and/or Dissociation.
couragecoaching.net 