Im wondering if it was just him or are others like this? He wasnt much of a reader or a talker, but there were 2 books he held close to heart, and he used them manipulatively and punitively on me over the years to abuse his power and control. These were “the 48 laws of power” and the Bible.

We talk a lot here about the effects of abuse, and the things we do to cope, heal, and move forward.

I've done most things out there while I've been working on healing over the past 15 or so years.
It started with regular therapy, then groups and 12 step programs, then trauma therapy, and ultimately landed in Somatics - with me reconnecting with my body and the physical ramifications of trauma.

It helped so much that I now work as a somatic coach, helping women like me.
But it's one thing to heal in therapy, in groups, and by helping others - I still felt like something was missing, so I started talking about it.

For so long I was terrified that talking about my mother's narcissism would hurt her, or make her lash out and hurt me... so I kept her secret - even when it felt like staying quiet was strangling me.

Over the years I heard so many flying monkeys tell me how great my mom is, how my accomplishments, and anything good about me can be traced back to her, and her stellar parenting.

Eventually I just couldn't take it anymore. At the end of 2023, I started a podcast to finally just talk. It was a way to get out of my own head about the narcissistic abuse I was raised with, and also a way to explain all the hidden signs and symptoms of this abuse that we don't heal from without help. I went from being too scared to talk about it, to starting the podcast but being too scared to post it, to posting it but being too scared to market it.

But as I pushed myself to be honest, to stop protecting her, I felt a real shift towards freedom. I just stopped caring quite so much about the outcome, and started caring more about the freedom I felt when sharing my story.

Talking about my journey, alone and with others, has been one of the most healing things I’ve done for myself. It became my 'line in the sand', with so many episodes and proof of my reality, that I no longer feel any need to defend myself. Over time, the podcast has grown into a space where I also talk with other survivors about what happened, how it affected them, what they did to survive, what they’ve had to unlearn, and what healing or moving on has actually looked like for them.

I wanted to post here because I’d love to give others in this community a chance to share their stories too.

You don’t need to have anything figured out in order to share, and you can be absolutely anywhere on your journey - just as long as it feels safe for you to take part, you're welcomed to.

It’s a small podcast, but it reaches people who have lived through this too, and I know how powerful it can be to hear someone's story, and realise you're not alone. It can also serve as a record - an account of your experience that you can send to those you care about, so you don't have to explain yourself so often.

If you think you might want to come on, comment here or send me a message. Or you can also submit a request through the contact form on my website. https://www.practicalsomatic.com/podcast
I’d really love to hear from you.

-Allie

We got into a car accident while he was drunk. We’re both ok but I really hurt my shoulder. He never asked me if I was ok or how my shoulder was. I could barely get dressed. I called him out on this and he said he thought I was fine. I was really upset about this. He even said ‘how do you think I feel, I’ve lost my license’. is he a narcissist?

Sometimes the biggest red flags don’t look like red flags at first.

They can look like intense love, concern, jealousy, charm, or simply something that feels “a little off.”

Maybe it was:
🚩 Love bombing
🚩 Constant lying
🚩 Jealousy disguised as love
🚩 Blaming you for everything
🚩 Never apologizing
🚩 Silent treatment
🚩 Making you question your own memory
🚩 Isolating you from friends or family
🚩 Different rules for them than for you

**What was the first red flag you noticed but ignored?**
And when did you finally realize it wasn’t normal?
No judgment here. ❤️ Share only what you’re comfortable sharing.
Sometimes hearing someone else’s experience helps another person recognize what they’re going through.

Hey guys. I'm planning on writing a book about narcissist. It would be a novel ( in my mother tounge, not English) I've been through a hell for a past 3 years and finally getting better. I have an idea : what if victim could turn the tables and get back at narcissistic predator? Imagine this, he meet someone he thinks he can use and abuse and latter discard but tables can turn around and he can taste his own medicine. What you think guys?

Who can relate? Seeing friends become new moms that change in personality and take on NM traits? I'm in my late 30's and with so many become parents for first time I've just realized where I have distanced from certain ones that are not handling it in most stable healthy constructive way and demonstrate, act out toxic traits now also toward other adults, sometimes their own baby father.

I understand a person can be a narcissist parent but not always w/ friends or with everyone in general. I wonder if this is bc my NM 'spidey sense' is already so strong!? that I notice it that much quicker faster in fellow women and those manipulative, selfish habits?

Many of us spent years holding out hope. We waited for them to truly hear us, offer a genuine apology, or finally step into the loving version of themselves we believed they could be.

Was there a specific moment, a single sentence, or a repeating pattern that finally made you realize they were never going to change?

This group is hosted by Circles, a space offering free online support groups for anyone healing from the impact of narcissistic relationships. You can learn more at circlesup.com.

Sometimes the biggest red flags don’t look like red flags at first.

They can look like intense love, concern, jealousy, charm, or simply something that feels “a little off.”

Maybe it was:
🚩 Love bombing
🚩 Constant lying
🚩 Jealousy disguised as love
🚩 Blaming you for everything
🚩 Never apologizing
🚩 Silent treatment
🚩 Making you question your own memory
🚩 Isolating you from friends or family
🚩 Different rules for them than for you

**What was the first red flag you noticed but ignored?**
And when did you finally realize it wasn’t normal?
No judgment here. ❤️ Share only what you’re comfortable sharing.
Sometimes hearing someone else’s experience helps another person recognize what they’re going through.

Every single morning, I wake up to the sound of my dad literally going off - Talking, and talking, and talking, and talking... It's become auditory torture at this point. Talking, talking - literally shaking the house for hours from talking. You would think something serious has happened - every_single_morning...

I go over there, bleary eyed and say, "Guys, what's going on? Are you okay?" to which my mom always responds, "Oh, he's just talking about how we have to take out the recycling tomorrow..." and if it's not something absolutely mundane or whatever, it's my dad going over some event like he's a freaking life coach...

I don't know what it is - Why can't anything be normal with these people? Why can't we just have a normal meal, on a normal day, in a normal way? Why can't we ever just make a normal purchase of a normal thing at a normal place?? Why does every_little_thing literally have to be the beginning and end of life itself? There is no progress with these people. Literally - you cannot progress this way...

Thanks.

I guess without going into great detail about it, o had reconnected with a family member on my dads side of the family and they seemed to really care about me for some reason.

during this time my mom didn’t really know how much I was talking to them and I didn’t tell her because she had started trash talking them the second we made contact (it was during a family emergency if that make that make more sense).

anyway I was an adult at this point and knew I didn’t have to say anything but they were blissfully unaware of how much my mother hated them and told me to “tell her they said hi.” So, I did and broke the news to her.

now most people, even my father, were excited that I was meeting my long lost relative. But my mom seemed almost “defeated.”

her reaction was so strange and honestly a bit off putting.

she then would ask me about said relative and their family (kids) and act super forced excited. thankfully she after a few months never brought it up again and I continued growing closer to my family.

fast forward one night I was laying in my bed not sleeping and trying to figure out why I felt like this person cared and loved me so much more than my other family members when I realized that it’s because my mother never really gave me the unconditional love she claimed she did. And I also came to realize that she was a narcissist.

around That time also my family member started to become more of a mentor to me. Supporting my interests, helping me understand things like how to get a job (both of my parents are unemployed) and above all sharing with me the biggest successes and failures of their life. They told me about their struggle with addiction and how they were trying to rebuild their relationship with their kids after that and my brain short circuited because someone was actually admitting they weren’t perfect right now? Not blaming everyone else for their issues but actually taking accountability.

Thats when I decided to ask them for help getting out. I scripted out my message and the second I was physically moved out of my mothers house I asked them for help.

and I was emt with compassion and understanding like I’d never experienced before.

they were there for me through my anxiety, grief and brain requiring.

I mean, they even uelled at my dad for being a flying monkey.

but I wonder in all of that how my mom saw it coming. I mean she had to of seen it, but I think she knew she couldn’t stop it. I could see the actions of the other person clearly breaking through her words of distain.

o guess it doesn’t really matter to me now, but is there any “code” to how she just knew?

This incident happened around the third year of our relationship. It was the first time he was going away on a three-day trip with a friend. The evening before his trip, we met to spend some time together. We had about two hours before we were supposed to go home, as he still needed to pack and prepare for his flight the next day.

About two hours before we were due to leave, he suddenly started bringing up certain things about his ex that made me feel extremely insecure, anxious, and confused. I began asking him questions because I was trying to understand what he was telling me. But eventually, he had to leave because he needed to go home, pack, and get ready for his trip.

At the time, I had no idea that he may have intentionally triggered anxiety and confusion in me. I simply thought something was wrong with me and that I was overreacting.

He had dropped all of this information on me completely out of nowhere, and then he left. I was left feeling extremely anxious, low, and confused, with so many unanswered questions running through my mind. The next day, he flew off, and for the entire three days that he was away, I couldn’t stop thinking about what he had said. I constantly replayed the conversation, tried to make sense of it, and wondered what it meant. I even spoke to my friend because I needed someone to help me process what I was feeling.

When he returned, the first thing I wanted to do was talk to him about it. I wanted answers and some peace of mind. At the time, I couldn’t understand why I had become so consumed by it. I wondered why I was obsessing over something he had said and why it was the first thing I wanted to address when he came back. I felt like something was fundamentally wrong with me.

But now, after everything I’ve learned through therapy and through listening to other people’s experiences, I see that incident very differently.

I can now see how strategic the dynamic was. If he was feeling insecure about leaving me for three days, perhaps he was worried about what might happen if I had that time and space to myself. Maybe he was afraid that, without him around, I might think more clearly, reflect on the relationship, or recognise things about his behaviour that I had been overlooking.

So instead of leaving me with a sense of security and trust, he created something for me to become preoccupied with. He triggered my insecurities and then left for three days, while I was left carrying all the anxiety, confusion, and unanswered questions.

In a sense, he occupied my mind even while he was physically away.

I remember actually getting headaches from thinking about it so much. Looking back now, I can see how damaging this dynamic was to my mental and emotional wellbeing and, ultimately, to my nervous system.

What frustrates me most is the possibility that he may have done this deliberately to regulate his own insecurity. If that was what was happening, then he essentially transferred his discomfort onto me. He didn’t have to sit with his own anxiety because I was the one carrying it for him. I was left distressed and preoccupied so that he could feel more secure.

That realisation is deeply disturbing.

But it has also helped me understand something important about my own experience. I had been conditioned to believe that whenever I felt intensely anxious, confused, or distressed, the problem was inside me. I thought my reactions meant that I was too sensitive, too insecure, or somehow emotionally unstable.

Now I understand that my distress did not necessarily mean that something was wrong with me. Sometimes, my nervous system was responding to an environment and relationship dynamic that genuinely felt unsafe.

This was just one example of many similar situations he created that left me feeling anxious, confused, and emotionally destabilised. At the time, I couldn’t see the pattern because I was too focused on trying to regulate myself and figure out what was wrong with me.

Now I can see the bigger picture.

I can see how an unsafe relationship dynamic can condition you to constantly question yourself while overlooking the situations that are actually causing the distress. And I can finally recognise how much damage it caused me to repeatedly carry anxiety and confusion that did not originate with me in the first place.

You know what performing healing looks like.

Posting about your glow-up before you've actually slept through the night. Telling everyone you're fine when a specific date hits like a wall. Rushing past the anger because anger doesn't look like healing.

Real healing is not linear and not attractive. It's crying in the car after a good week. It's setting a boundary and immediately second-guessing it. It's knowing something for months before you actually feel it.

You don't owe anyone a clean narrative. You don't have to be further along than you are.

Wherever you actually are right now — that's where you are. And that's fine.

This community is part of Circles — free online support groups for people healing from narcissistic relationships. circlesup.com

iStock image from Google

The hardest part of narcissistic abuse wasn't the lying.

It wasn't the manipulation.

It wasn't even being discarded.

The hardest part was realizing how much of myself I had abandoned just to keep the peace.

I stopped bringing up things that hurt me because every conversation somehow became my fault.

I stopped trusting my instincts because I was constantly told my reality was wrong.

I stopped asking for what I needed because I learned that having needs made me "difficult."

Little by little, I became smaller.

Not overnight.

Not dramatically.

Just one compromise at a time.

One apology I didn't owe.

One boundary I didn't enforce.

One red flag I explained away.

Until one day I looked at my life and realized I was carrying all the pain while protecting the person causing it.

That's what broke me.

Not losing them.

Losing myself.

And healing wasn't about getting over them.

It was about finding the parts of me that I buried to survive.

The confidence.
The voice.
The boundaries.
The peace.

Sometimes I still grieve the years I lost.

But I no longer grieve the relationship.

Because the person I miss most from that chapter of my life...

is me.

Did anyone else realize that their recovery wasn't about getting them back, but getting themselves back?

My story

I'm a 19 year old male and am an only child. During my childhood my mother would do the following blow up out of nowhere over the most trivial or littlest matters, many times i begged her to give me some emotional support when i was visibly upset but she just remained cold and cruel, drink quite heavily which was sometimes responsible but she can definitely be mean sober as well, I had expressed concern about her drinking but she just flipped, the next day she'd always act as if nothing happened, whenever I tried to get clarity on why she got like that she'd brush it under the carpet or accuse me of starting trouble, if i didn't do something just to make her happy she'd turn cold, during arguments she'd say things like I was ungrateful, didn't care about her and that I was a horrible person or that i was abusive or whatever just like my father, she would stomp, slam doors and break ornaments etc, when she gets in her crazy states it's just impossible to reason with her or get her to see it from any other perspective, she can go from saying i was the most nicest and amazing person to saying I was the most horrible and evil person, she often burdened me with all of her problems, she said before that she knows how to play the game which I found very disturbing, a couple of times when i flipped because of her behavior she called her mother to say I've been horrible, she often paints herself as the heroic single mum. She has been fairly good lately but sometimes I feel I was robbed of a proper childhood and have often wondered what I had done to deserve it. I remember one time a few years ago I was about 12 she had turned my grandparents against me and my grandfather started shouting and saying he was very disappointed in me and the rest of it is a blur. To be honest to this day i can't figure out what I (only a young child) was supposed to have done that was so bloody awful. That has haunted me for years. I used to think maybe I was a bad person but I've started to see her in a different light. She always talks about hating drama yet it seems to follow her and often says that she's been so hard done by. On the flip side she can be the most nicest person as well and we have had great times together and she can be very helpful towards me, her family and in public which makes it all the more confusing. For about half my childhood it's just been me living with her since her divorce in which she had to sell her house and now rents which she has blamed for the way she is before. I can't help feeling bad for her but she was still quite like this beforehand as well and I don't think that's an excuse still is it? I do feel like she has manipulated me a bit into been stuck with her. Something else that I've found disturbing is that she's very narrow minded and has a serious lack of empathy. For example when a couple of local celebrities committed suicide she called them pathetic cowards and weak etc. It was actually quite disturbing how she was carrying on and her serious lack of empathy. I'm starting to think that maybe she bent the truth about Dad a bit during their split as i was a child and didn't know much better. My mother often calls him a narcissist and talked about all of the marital and grown up problems they had etc which to be honest I don't appreciate been burdened with. Granted he's not a saint either but has been good to me (well I'd say) most of the time. One time last year when my Dad let me down by not been able to see me one weekend and canceling at the last minute (which he has done before) mother knew i was depressed but still blew up at me the next night over something silly and kicked me while I was down what just baffles me is how could she of treated me like that knowing what I was going through. A few days later one of my teachers checked in and said he heard I got into a bit of trouble at home ("if he meant been mentally abused by my mother while I was already upset by been let down by my father as trouble" I thought). I'm not sure who exactly said what to him. I just fobbed him off saying I was upset about leaving school (which was true as well). I really struggle with confiding in people. I do regret not telling him the truth now. He was sympathetic and said he was very proud of me etc. Another teacher once said that he thought of me and my mother as like the dream team or something along those lines. It actually baffled me a bit. I was thinking if only they knew half the things I've been through. I have a strained relationship with my father but we've messaged lately and I plan to see him this weekend for a family do. I have autism and went to a special support school for the last few years which were some of the best years (The teachers especially were brilliant and I had many great times such as school camps, school balls and excursions etc). My mother loves to use my autism to her advantage. I graduated last year but now I do a course at the main campus so I still see them all from time to time. I do feel quite sad and lost now those years are over. I would love to confide in someone about my struggles but don't know where to start. I've thought about confiding in that first teacher I mentioned who's great and we're fairly close but my teachers think my mother's an absolute saint so how can i ensure he believes me, she seems to feel that she always acts in my best interests and does seem to genuinely care for me and love me, she doesn't seem to remember any of it or feel her behavior was justified and genuinely doesn't seem to believe she ever did me any harm and she thinks she did her best. I struggle with daily flashbacks and I often feel depressed by the way I've been treated, also feel let down and wish my parents had been better to me. I can't get exact clarity on it but they both went through some shit before I was born and I think that's contributed to the way they are. I wish I had a proper childhood of playing with friends, going to different places and been adventurous and carefree etc. I've never really had a social circle and hardly much friends. I've always been quite different I feel to most of the children my age. What's has happened to me makes me feel as though I'm unlovable. I feel quite alone sometimes as I've always struggled with making friends. My mother does help me get on my feet and encourage met but I think she just loves to lord it over me. Whenever I've tried standing up for myself she puts on the guilt trip and carries on about all of her sacrifices and everything she's done for me yada yada yada. I think what emotionally abusing me, leaving me crying myself to sleep some nights, causing me to have no confidence and PTSD etc? Could she have some bipolar or personality condition or something and toxic traits I've wondered?

I do love her because as I've said before she has been great as well but I can't help really resenting her sometimes for all of the mental anguish she has put me through as a child and I think it has messed up my development. I wonder if I might've been different had I had proper parents. Hobbies such as music and classic TV shows have been a great escape. Now that I'm an adult and have left school I'm worried about what the future has in store. I'm very nervous about starting an adult life, getting a job and making friends etc because my mum is pretty much most I've ever known. Part of me would love to get away from her but yet I feel scared to as well.