Narcissistic abuse

Creating safety – Living with CPTSD

When you grew up in a home with dysfunction, chaos and unpredictable emotional outbursts, your mind and body is constantly thrown into a state of emotional dysregulation. Home didn’t feel safe, so you also didn’t feel safe. When unpredictable and unfair demands were placed on you as a child, this will have caused long term problems with hyper vigilance, low self-worth, shame, anxiety and depression. CPTSD will be the end result of growing up with emotionally immature and/or toxic parents.

As an adult, you will struggle with certain very basic every day things. Normal changes that are very much a part of life, may feel huge for someone with CPTSD. A sudden change in plans, a packed train, an illness or a delayed flight can all create immense anxiety in someone with a history of trauma.

When you live with CPTSD, over-preparing and knowing the details of things in advance, can ease your anxiety and help you feel more comfortable.

Creating safety as much as possible, helps trauma survivors feel better.

Creating regular routines and predictable outcomes can also be very helpful.

It is of course impossible to control everything in your environment, but being prepared can very much help.

When things don’t go as planned, having a back-up plan can create a safety net. Having certain objects with you that provide comfort, can also be extremely helpful.

What is your experience with this? I would love to know in the comments below!

Love Athina

The grief of not having a healthy family

When we grow up with dysfunctional parents, we have no comparison to what is supposed to be healthy. We just know what we know and we take these experiences with us into adulthood. We are moulded by these experiences and we carry the trauma with us when we try to function in relationships with others.

There may have been instances when we were teenagers, where we spent time in our friends’ family homes and we caught a glimpse of what ‘healthy’ looked like. Maybe there was a level of calmness that we didn’t see in our own family. Maybe there was mutual respect, support and validation of our friends’ emotions. Maybe our friends’ parents asked us lots of questions and showed genuine interest in us when our own parents never did. Maybe we felt ‘safe’ in our friends’ family home. Maybe this helped us survive our own childhood or maybe we genuinely never had this experience and were completely alone in our suffering.

Whatever your experience, know that you are not alone anymore. There are so many resources online to help you put the pieces of the puzzle together and help you understand why you may struggle so much in your current relationships. It is not your fault you are struggling and repeating the same dysfunctional patterns of behaviour you witnessed growing up.

Change can only happen when you commit to figuring out what needs to shift and what steps you need to take to heal and recover from your dysfunctional upbringing.

The video below, may help with this journey!

Much love, Athina

Why you mustn’t apologise to a narcissist

In narcissistic relationships, the narcissist is an expert at shifting the blame onto others. For this reason alone, you shouldn’t apologise to a narcissist.

In most cases, you are usually not at fault. They’ve been shifting the blame onto you, and they want to make you believe that YOU are doing what THEY’RE doing.

By apologising to them for something you DIDN’T DO, you’re giving into their delusion, and giving them more power to falsely accuse you.

Watch the video to find out more.

Love Athina

Weaponised incompetence

Weaponized incompetence is a form of passive-aggressive behavior where an individual deliberately performs tasks poorly or pretends to be incapable of completing certain tasks. This manipulation tactic is often used to avoid responsibility, forcing others to take over. It doesn’t always come from a bad place because it can stem from a lack of confidence or self-esteem. They may genuinely believe that they’re unable to perform a certain action or task.

When it comes to narcissists however, the intent is much more malicious. It is much more calculated and intentional.

Feel free to watch my YouTube video below to find out more about it.

For one to one coaching, please email me at courageisallyouneed@gmail.com

Love Athina

The spotlight effect – A result of narcissistic parenting

If you hate being the center of attention and constantly worry about what people are saying about you, then you may have what is known as the spotlight effect, a term coined by social psychologists.

The spotlight effect is a cognitive bias and it refers to the tendency to overestimate how much other people notice about us.

If you have social anxiety, then you most likely also struggle with the spotlight effect.

The spotlight effect can be detrimental to living your life fully, as it holds you back from allowing yourself to be ‘seen’ by others.

Watch the video to find out more and please feel free to share your experiences in the comments.

For one to one coaching, please feel free to email me at: courageisallyouneed@gmail.com

Love Athina

Self Sabotage-A result of childhood narcissistic abuse

Self-sabotage isn’t something we are necessarily aware of yet it can create havoc in our lives and it can stop us from reaching our full potential.

When we have grown up in an environment where there was constant chaos and drama and where our parents shamed us and criticised the majority of the time, it will feel more familiar to us to continue this dynamic in adulthood. We may lead equally chaotic lives with dysfunctional relationships and poor choices.

If we were constantly given the message that we weren’t smart enough, strong enough, attractive enough and in more general terms good enough, then this becomes our internalised voice and it pops up every time we try and take a step forward in our careers, relationships and day to day life.

Even if this internalised voice is negative and not true, it has been our mind’s companion for as far back as we remember. We took on this identity and it is harder to change it when it is all we have known.

If you can relate to this topic, then please watch the video to find out more.

I offer one to one coaching to those of you who struggle with this, so please feel free to get in touch by emailing me at: courageisallyouneed@gmail.com

Love Athina

The ignoring narcissistic mother

There are many different types of narcissistic mothers and some show a combination of behaviours. You may notice one mother who is overbearing and controlling and another who is extremely self-centred and ignoring towards her child. Some mothers can actually flip between overbearing and ignoring.

In this video, I explore the narcissistic mother who ignores her children. Being ignored by a mother feels very painful to the child. These ignoring behaviours create deep emotional gaps in a child’s life that can go undetected for years.

Watch the video to find out more and feel free to check out more of my content on my Youtube channel.

Love Athina

Narcissistic mother & passive/enabling father

Growing up with a narcissistic mother is very painful and isolating. If you are lucky enough to at least have an empathetic father, that alone can help you feel a little less alone. What happens however when your father is really loving and caring towards you but unfortunately fails at the part where he has to protect you from your mother’s abuse? When he isn’t strong enough to stand up to his wife’s demands, he also lets you down and enables your mother’s abuse.

It is especially tough when he tells you in private that he knows your mum is a difficult person but still doesn’t protect you from her hurtful actions. This still leaves you feeling hopeless as you don’t truly have your father on your side.

If this is you, then watch my most recent video below.

Love Athina

Echoism – A result of narcissistic abuse

Have you heard of echoism? Echoism isn’t commonly talked about but is very real and a lot of individuals who have suffered narcissistic abuse in childhood actually live with it.

Echoism is very common with individuals who live with Avoidant Personality Disorder or who have many avoidant traits. Echoists find it extremely uncomfortable being the centre of attention.

Watch the video to find out more.

Love Athina

Heart & Art Therapy

In this post, I would very much like to bring your attention to a talented Art Psychotherapist’s website. Christina Moschaki is a wonderful art therapist based in Greece and has a gentle, empathetic and validating approach towards her clients and their experiences. She provides individual Art Therapy, group Art Therapy and online Art Therapy for those of you not residing in Greece.

Her website is very insightful and you can explore a lot more about her wonderful art therapy work by clicking on this link: https://heartandarttherapy.com/en/

I benefited greatly from attending Christina’s group Art Therapy sessions, during a stressful transitional period of my life last year. Although a little apprehensive at first, I very quickly felt a sense of belonging, acceptance and nurturing through creating art, through role-playing and through dance. Christina and I also had 2 individual Art Therapy sessions, which helped me immensely. I am very grateful for her therapeutic skill in facilitating these sessions, as I felt a sense of relief from a very painful part of my trauma.

Since my training in coaching and also through helping many of my clients navigate life after narcissistic abuse, I have also decided to train as an Art Psychotherapist. Art has always been a healing and hugely important part of my life from a young age.