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!
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.
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.
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.
This is my 2nd attempt to write this blog post, after the last one was unfortunately lost. 😦
I hope you all had a good Christmas weekend and managed to relax and enjoy time with your loved ones. For those of you who find Christmas tough due to past trauma or dysfunctional relationships, you have just survived yet another Christmas, so give yourself a pat on the back and treat yourself to something you enjoy. The New Year is nearly here and with it comes new hope and a renewed sense of direction. 🙂
The following youtube video is 1 day late, due to the fact that I allowed myself a little time to relax over the last 3 days. I caught up on some much needed sleep and I started studying for my German exam (which is fast approaching).
In my own recovery back in 2008, I was introduced to the concept of letting go of relationships that no longer served me. I was introduced to the concept of emotionally detaching from a toxic person. Although at first this was extremely hard to do, with practice and with time, I slowly started making changes for the better. I started learning to put my self-care first and to set boundaries. I started noticing the repetitive patterns that were present in my relationships and I started questioning the reasons as to why I couldn’t choose healthier relationships. In my case, the narcissistically abusive background I come from, is what influenced my choice of abusive or unavailable partners, friends & even colleagues.
This video is for those of you who are just starting out in your recovery from dysfunctional relationships, so I really hope it helps ♥
When a relationship starts off with subtle signs of possessiveness or teasing that undermines the partner, this may then escalate to full blown domestic violence.
When one partner is trying to control the other partner in ways that are sometimes confusing and feel uncomfortable, then this may then escalate to complete and utter isolation from family and friends.
Sometimes the signs in abusive relationships are so subtle, that it is difficult to tell if someone is going to end up being abusive or not. Abuse can only be emotional and mental in some relationships. It doesn’t necessarily have to be physical and sexual. In other cases, it can be a combination of mental, physical, sexual & financial abuse.
The video I did today is important for those of you who know someone you suspect may be in an abusive relationship.If you suspect that it is actually your partner that is abusive, then please get in touch and I can put you in contact with the appropriate charities and organisations that can help you.
This post today is only a quick one. I thought I would share this week’s Youtube video which will also be shared on my Child Within blog, so it reaches more people. It is a Q & A video on narcissism and in this case, one of my viewers wanted to know whether narcissists are paranoid.
This is something I have had first hand experience with and I know how detrimental it can be to those that surround the narcissist. My father’s paranoia was incredibly magnetic and my husband and I, as well as his friends and colleagues, all got sucked into his overly paranoid outlook just before and after his suicide attempt.
If you have had to deal with narcissistic family or partners who were overly paranoid, please feel free to share your experience.
Today I am starting off my series of Q & A videos, where my viewers and subscribers are able to get their questions answered by me, in a video each week. Please feel free to ask me questions on the following topics:
Complex PTSD
Narcissistic abuse
Dysfunctional relatioships
Negative thinking
Dealing with emotional flashbacks
Anxiety
Depression
Trauma Bonding
Toxic shame
Codependency
I also am happy to answer questions on how to :
Better manage your time
Practice self-compassion
Develop resilience
Stop self-defeating thinking patterns
Better manage your workload
Build confidence
Set boundaries
Deal with toxic people
Here is the first video on a question asked by one of my viewers:
Please note: **I will always keep the identity of my viewers confidential**
Just a quick post about something that matters as equally as physical health.
We all live with mental health and mental illness can touch all of us at least once in our lifetime.So how openly do we talk about it and how easily do we feel uncomfortable mentioning our struggles to a co-worker, family member or friend?
I have encountered so many of the below unhelpful phrases from ignorant individuals, so for this reason, I will keep spreading awareness of the importance of validating someone’s struggles with their mental health.
couragecoaching.net 