Tag: counseling

How to Heal from Narcissistic Abuse Using Your Inner Knowing and The Middle Lane

Robin Donnelly

I get a lot of questions via the inbox feature on my book page on FB related to healing from narcissistic abuse. Some are thinking of getting on the road to recovery and wonder where to start. Others were on the road but, out of fear, manipulation, or guilt, by the abuser, pulled to the side, and some even circled back for more of the same. Some are further down the road than others. And some have exited right and are going in another direction all together because they are done with the initial stages of learning.

Make no mistake about it— they are only out the other side of that layer of healing. We all come back to each issue time and again for further understanding and healing until that issue no longer repeats, no longer gives us an arousal jag, and we no longer have any response whatsoever to that event. You know what they call that? Wisdom. And it’s glorious!

After a lifetime of abuse and actively working on healing, and only having a name for what was happening to me in just the past seven years ‘narcissistic abuse;’ with therapy and copious amounts of reading, I can tell you, we will always be in the process of healing something—so the more you take your foot off the gas pedal, the more you stall your own progress. We need to shift gears; upshift (out of our head) as we heal up and out of one trauma, and downshift, as we need to slow down (into our bodies) and further investigate other traumas. It’s a mind/body connection healing.

You already know that narcissistic abuse is on a spectrum. On one end are victims and the other end are perpetrators. And what nobody who teaches about this will ever tell you, all of us have narcissistic traits from time to time. If you haven’t yet realized that you yourself have had some not-so healthy tendencies as you learn about this spectrum, you’re not far enough along yet. You’re still in the finger-pointing stage.

Healthy narcissism is how we get our needs met. It’s how we don’t die as children. But, no one who learns about this is completely innocent of not causing harm to another person. Reactionary abuse. It’s a thing. Learn about it. Forgive yourself. Make amends and move on.

It’s when bad behavior becomes a pattern and causes other people pain and trauma that we slide into the danger zone of unhealthy narcissism and the psychopathy that lies near the end. Two far either way is not healthy. If we’re not careful, this spectrum becomes a circle that like a two-headed snake can bite us in the ass. To avoid this, try to learn about yourself daily. Learn about your triggers and your limitations and stay in the middle lane called, “Survivors and Thrivers.” My favorite motto in life is: “Do No Harm, But Take No Shit.” Something I’ve lived my life by.

Processing our lives at the deepest level is not for wimps. I started my journey as a young runaway on a much more superficial level than where I am today. I learned early to tune into my inner knowing. To observe. To sit and listen and just know. As we get older, learn more, and have more time, we go deeper. If you’re in your twenties and thirties now, you’re busy working, some of you are creating your own families. You’ll come around to the choices you’re making now, much later in life. Try to make good decisions. Because if you don’t, they will be more in your mind in your fifties and sixties, than what you had for dinner yesterday. And please understand, if we’re using our life as a learning tool to learn better and do better, we are never done growing and learning as a person.

I’m always willing to stop and reach back to help and encourage those who are where I used be because I’ve had my own teachers that have helped me, BUT, (and here’s where it gets difficult) no one but YOU can do your work for you. This may sound harsh, but we can’t do it in learned helplessness and excuses that the world seems to be so in love with now. There is no excuse. You have to read, seek help, integrate the learning you do and incorporate it into your life. You’re on the internet already, do research. Read books. Be a seeker. Find your problem and then find the solution. Can’t afford books? Go to the library and check out books. Everything starts with a choice and a decision to end this crazy-making cycle of abuse we have called our life. I made the decision young, you may be making it now. It doesn’t matter as long as you make it.

It starts with accepting what is, like it or not. Don’t like that step? I don’t either. Like you, I know it should be at the end of something, not the beginning, right? Not in this case. We have to accept people where they are. And sometimes we need to leave them there.

So cry, vent, throw yourself a big pity party, rage on paper about how unfair this stupid fucking life is, take up kick boxing, take a nap, a bath, go to bed early, then get up and try again tomorrow. Wake up knowing you showed up for yourself. You did some deep work. You processed. Be proud about that. It’s not easy.

Understand that no matter what anybody has done or said to you, that you have value and worth as you are. We do not have to be perfect to have value. Then learn boundaries even if the only one you know is: a hard line in the sand. Then, you have to get out of your head, stop making excuses, and get into your body and listen to it. Trusting your intuition is of the utmost importance here.

When you feel physically sick around someone because they treat you like shit, I don’t care who it is— your aging parent, your own adult child, your boss, neighbor, etc… you need to limit contact, go no contact, quit your job, move, etc. Just be willing to prepare for and do the next right step for you. AND know that sometimes we also have to feel things deeply and not make a move right now. We can’t always make big changes just because we feel hurt and offended. Don’t get into the lane of extreme everything and immediate gratification too easily. Don’t quit your job because your boss is a douche canoe if you’re a single parent. Be smart about things. Learn to be an AND person.

Know that respect is a two-way street and forgiveness is not necessary to move on, have a good life, or be a good person. Although forgiveness is the one F-word I don’t use, I tend to do enough work surrounding the hurtful issue that forgiveness no longer feels necessary because there’s nothing to forgive.

Forget your diagnoses. Let go of their labels. And categories (and subcategories) that humans do with absolutely everything. Toxic is toxic. Focus on you, and your healing. And yes, you can do that even if you can’t make a bold move right now.

Don’t hope they call, or apologize, don’t fantasize about telling your boss to go screw himself, it will keep your wheels stuck in the mud. Change you. Taking all the blame creates a victim. Not taking any blame creates a narcissist. Stay in your lane. Take whatever blame is yours and shove the rest back into your perpetrators lap and be done with it. They don’t have to know what you’re doing. Get out of your head and stop ruminating. Stop believing your feelings as facts. They are not. Stop with all-or-nothing thinking and catastrophizing. Just stop.

When we say that we can’t stop this abuse because this person is so significant in our lives, or we don’t know where to start, we are saying that we are not significant enough to fight for, or smart enough to figure it out. Not true. You’re stronger and smarter than you know. Acquire some strong, healthy coping skills, and use them even when you find it to feel foreign and uncomfortable. Follow your heart, but take your head with you. Instead of drinking away your problems Friday after work, take a bath, and go to bed early. Sure, it may feel weird at first, until you fall in love with loving yourself and realize you’re the one you’ve waited for all this time!

And get into therapy. Seriously. There’s no excuse not to. I’ve been in therapy throughout my lifetime; from a teen at a runaway shelter, to a single-mother on welfare and food stamps, to a single-mother working as a nurse, to now; a menopausal woman in her mid fifties. Therapy is more assessable now, than ever before. There’s no excuse that should keep you from getting help. There is no shame in needing guidance on what to do next, getting some feedback, or needing a sounding board. Therapists will arm you with the language, coping skills, and validation you need to continue on your journey of healing. And, if you’re still going to say you can’t do therapy because of whatever reason, get a notebook and a pen. The best therapy you can do is to talk it out in the page. I have tons of filled up notebooks! Your intuition knows the answers you need. We are our own best counselor if we just stop with excuses.

When we’re focused on what people think or we’re worried if they judge us for leaving, staying, standing up, or getting therapy, we’re taking our eyes off the road and distracting ourselves with shit that does not matter. People don’t know your life. Let them think what they think. Not everybody needs a response and we don’t have to have an opinion about everything. You will get your energy back when you’re no longer in fight or flight mode and responding to every barking dog along the road.

Focus on yourself. Not what they did. It’s okay to tell your story, it’s okay to out the abuser, but then decide to get over it and use that situation to make yourself better. Flip the script. Learn from it. Why do you think this specific thing is happening? Your intuition knows the answer!

Know this: People who abuse are making a choice to do so. Just like we make the choice not to abuse. Contrary to popular belief, this is not something caused in childhood, and to continue to perpetuate that falsehood is to keep many survivors in danger and in projected empathy that can get them killed, create dis-ease, or cause them to harm themselves. This is a choice.

Also, contrary to popular belief, narcissists do not love themselves. Sounds sad, and this sounds uncaring and crass, but it’s not your problem. No self-respecting person would treat another person the way they do. They have their own work to do and are trying to offload pain and using you as a whipping post. They also need to find other ways to cope. Untie yourself from that post and walk away. What they do and how they act has nothing to do with you. Wish them well and go about living your life.

I know it looks like some are better at healing from this than others. Not true. Some are just further along in learning about this cycle and have integrated what they’ve learned and we are reporting back what’s up ahead. My education in this has been super expensive, not just financially, but it’s taken a toll on my health, my marriage, my looks, my weight, my family, my connection to spirit and community, and my sense of inner peace.

I beg you to stand up when it’s safe to do so and when it won’t cause you further distress or harm. This cycle of abuse that is so prevalent in families and society can kill us unless and until we learn to advocate for ourselves say, “NO MORE!”

If you are reading this, and you’re struggling; wondering how in the world you get off this twisting, winding, bumpy dirt road, with no overhead lighting, know that if you just keep going, a little at a time, you’ll snatch your power back. You just have to make the choice to do so. I know you can do it.

Sit with your notebook and pen, and ask, “What’s the next best step I can take?” Our inner guidance system knows the answer.

Pull off the road
Take a deep breath
Compose yourself
Put your blinker on
Press the gas pedal down
And steer your car back into the middle lane.
Keep your eyes on the road, two hands on the wheel, and keep going. You’ve got this. 💪🏻💥🥊🚀

If you’d like to connect on my book page for Steel Town Girl, go here.

If you’d like to read my first memoir Steel Town Girl about my childhood with two narcissistic parents, you can buy it here

I’m currently writing my second memoir, which for now, still remains unnamed.

Coming up for Air: When Self-Help Becomes Self-Abuse

Robin Donnelly

Reading self-help and attending counseling for a lifetime can start to feel like abuse-of-self after awhile. With each new book I crack, my body asks, “When are we going to be okay the way we are? Why are we never enough? Why is it that we have to change?”

I thank god for the privilege I’ve had to self-help books and counseling throughout my lifetime, even when I was poor and on welfare.

But, excessive reading and searching for something outside our own inner knowing only reinforces our less-than opinions that others have liberally applied to us, and not always in childhood.

So, I chose to read for pleasure. On a pool day.

Self-help and growth as a human is wonderful, but it should also involve play and coming up for air from time to time. Constantly rolling in the deep, and diving deeper and deeper with little rest doesn’t make us stronger, faster. It can weaken us and take us under, drowning us.

Some myths about a water drowning:

*Drowning people yell for help.
*Drowning people wave and thrash about wildly like in the movies.
*A drowning person is capable to assist in their rescue.
*Drowning takes a while.

These are also fitting signs for other types of drowning.

— Drowning in trauma we rarely talk about.
— Drowning in self-doubt, we’re embarrassed to bring attention to.
— Drowning in grief that society expects us to “get over already.”
— Drowning in fatigue from a lifetime of trying.

Trying is good. But, excessive trying can make us weaker, sicker, and can take us down faster. ILL health is the result.

So, on days your body is asking you, “When are we going to be enough?”

Say, “Today, sweetheart, today.”

Float. Find pleasure. Play.

It’s all part of the process of becoming.

Maybe even do a handstand?

Die Trying: Say No to Learned Helplessness

Robin Donnelly

My parents didn’t teach or model these behaviors to me, but I was able to go on and teach my own kids self-trust, self-love, and self-acceptance because I learned how to source them for myself.

This meme is written to encourage parents to teach and model these behaviors to their children and that’s great. We need parents to parent the kids they choose have. But, for adults who weren’t taught these things from their own parents, this can sound as if they aren’t able to do these things for themselves. And sadly, if they have kids at home they may just think, “I wasn’t taught this, so I can’t teach it.”

Yes you can. By remembering what you wanted and needed as a child.

Don’t let memes like this keep you in learned helplessness and excuses. Therapy, reading, writing, thinking, and feeling are your friends for life for all things healing when you find yourself under the rubble of a fractured life. Everything we need to surpass our own raising is right there within us. It’s a choice.

I was a young mom and learned to parent myself while parenting my son. I read parenting books as we grew up together to find out what we both needed. And I still made mistakes.

I allowed my son to stay home from school too many days in a row for mental health days because I wanted to cuddle him and missed him while I worked. I also spanked him, yelled like a lunatic, and cried. A lot. I spoiled, gave in, held firm, led by example, failed and fell on the floor in a heap of exhausted flesh. I laughed and played, lectured and raved and showed up completely imperfectly, 150%.

So, decades later, when my relationship with my adult son fell apart, I was confused and devastated. My therapist said that mothering him was where I found my own secure attachment, and I was lost without it.

I’m mothering just myself these days. Unlearning what needs to go, owning what I did I right, admitting my wrongs, and relearning a new way of being in an ever-changing world. It’s a big job again. Most days I’m confused and exhausted, because the world is the biggest narcissist of all. The closer to kicking a goalie you get, the more they move the posts. But, I’m still here: trying my best.

What I’ve learned by writing memoir is that what we do today in the parenting department will be considered wrong two generations later by parenting experts and sometimes even our children. And regardless of the advice we follow, or don’t, sometimes relationships get strained and we need to take a break once children become adults. But, none if this is an out for not doing the job today. Right now. Right in front of you.

So, do your best and be ready to throw yourself under the bus about your own parenting mistakes because I can assure you, you’re making some doozies. You’ll read about mine in my second memoir.

You’re also doing a remarkable job. I commend you for showing up for your kids when no one showed up for you.

Perfection doesn’t exist. Just doing the best we can, showing up, connecting and thinking; “What did I need at this age?” is just about the best anyone can expect.

Growing up is a hard job — and if we’re doing it right, we do it all our lives. Be engaged enough and aware that all of life is for learning about ourselves and caring for others. Don’t give away too much of your power on the healing path. Try not to be too serious, but seriously show up.

We can go on to learn to trust, love and accept ourselves as we are, through parenting our own children— without permission, teaching, and modeling of these behaviors from our own.

When we use our awareness of life as a teaching tool, our feelings to guide us, and our brains to think for more than just this moment, we’ll have given our whole hearts to our roles as parents.

I wrote this little poem today in my morning pages:

Life is about patterns

Until it’s not

And what breaks patterns

Is thought

Remembering then

Showing up now

Living in the middle

is the only how.

Say no to #learnedhelplessness #dietrying

Learn to Discern What You’re Listening to about Narcissistic Abuse on YouTube.

Robin Donnelly

I wish videos on narcissistic abuse didn’t go straight to NPD when discussing narcissism. Because there are healthy levels of narcissism with a little “n” that we all have in order to forge ahead and make our own paths in life. Healthy narcissism is how we get our needs met. It’s how we get out of bed and try again. It’s how we rise above. It’s how we speak up and out against injustices and stand up to be counted. It’s how we are able to put ourselves in others shoes and put our own needs on hold for another.

This kind of narcissism is full of compassion for others, takes ownership of self, takes responsibility for one’s own actions, self-partners, fulfills self from within, is authentic and genuine, isn’t afraid to look imperfect, and has empathy for self and others.

As someone who has two narcissistic parents, and is married to a man with a narcissistic mother, narcissism that comes in the form of capital “N” Narcissism, as in the personality disorder NPD—we can tell you it is completely unhealthy and void of anything that resembles empathy. They present with an inability to ever be wrong about anything, can never have faults, be responsible for their actions, don’t take ownership of self, don’t even try to understand others feelings, can’t ever look imperfect, can’t show any vulnerability whatsoever, apologize, or have remorse and empathy for others.

The video I watched today went on to talk about how “sad” it is for victims. And while it is, I also wish videos that discussed NPD didn’t pigeonhole victims of it as somehow doomed to never prosper or succeed in life. Nothing could be further from the truth! I’ve been living this life, all my life — and I’ve never thought for a second I was sad or doomed.

Telling people this or even hinting to it, is just another type of conditioning and grooming going on in the narcissistic “expert” community that wants to educate people about it, yet have us heavily relying on their products, classes, books and more to heal from it.

It’s like dumbing us down while building us up to need them. It feels opportunistic and it feels wrong to me. I don’t begrudge anyone from making a living, but I do take offense to showing pity and pandering to a group of people looking for healing, while simultaneously keeping them stuck and sick and reliant upon their content to heal by using degrading words that push people back into the pigeonholes they are trying to escape.

Don’t believe anything that pushes you back in life! And don’t listen to people who use negative language to describe your life. Only grow forward and make your own path in life with your small “n” narcissism in tow.

We are not victims, nor are we sad. We are victorious and more powerful than they want us to believe.

#nowyouknow #notsad #notavictim #justsayin

Before you Label Someone Toxic… Check in With Your Heart.

Robin Donnelly
purple liquid poison on brown wooden surface
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I read an article by Dr. Perry of MakeItUltra Psychology about How to Have Boundaries with a Toxic Person, and although I agree with his tips when it comes to healing from the trauma pathological narcissists leave in their wake, I don’t necessarily agree they should be incorporated immediately with anyone that we deem “negative,” which is basically anyone speaking out about the bad behaviors of others lately. Reading the comments under that post proved interesting.

One reader said, “I refuse to interact with negative people! As an empath, they literally make me sick!” — Ugh! People like this make me sick. And good luck living in your bubble.

Then, there was the person that said they “ignored them and went mute.” — Yeah. That’s called “gray rock” and is a survival tactic used by those healing from abuse when they have to interact with their abusers and ‘no contact’ is not an option for their healing. Used outside of this context, these people appear to be self-absorbed and rude, aka: as an asshole. Great look by the way.

And, my favorite comment — was the manager — who chimed in saying that the employees she managed were toxic because they complained to her, therefore, drawing her into the negativity and draining her. — Uh, that’s called your job, so people are going to naturally come to you with problems, you know… because you’re the manager… yikes, really?

I just finished listening to Dr. Christiane Northrup’s new book on Audible, called Dodging Energy Vampires, and although I know energy drainers are copious; I’ve dealt with my fair share of them, and we do indeed have to check them at the door after a while — I see an emerging trend happening where people are becoming far too superior to anyone in need of talking things through. And the trend I see is it’s typically the abusers who’ve done the wrong, and then want to prohibit the victim from talking about it thereby calling them “toxic” when the conversation points to them taking accountability for their actions. They are flipping the script and calling this “having boundaries.” —No, you’re a bully that abuses and then gaslights your victim. Let’s not get it twisted. —

Boundaries are for victims to protect themselves from more harm. Not for abusers to be able to abuse more. 

There are two people in a relationship: When one person in that relationship is no longer allowed to have a reaction to shitty behavior, and nothing you do, say, think or feel, after being abused is allowed— in the name of the other person “having boundaries” — you are in fact dealing with a narcissistic bully. When that person tells you whatever the hell it is they want to tell you, no matter how hurtful, and then pulls the, “you’re negative,” “it’s not about you,” or “it’s not personal” card, when you want to talk about it, what they are really saying is that they want free reign to abuse you, yet fog their intentions by calling them boundaries.

The subtitle of Dodging Energy Vampires is, “Evading Relationships that Drain You and Restoring Your Health and Power.” Evading relationships? O.k? But at what point? Apparently, “the second one deems someone is negative,” is the answer. If my son calls and asks me how I’m doing, and I say I have a headache — according to him and his millennial generation, that is negative and now — I’m always sick. So, that has become a reason for not coming home for eight Christmases. Li.ter.al. The message is: I have to be fun, and easy to be with at every second, never mention anything about myself, and when he asks me anything, lie. No thanks. Don’t come home then.

And, really… what relationship doesn’t drain us after a while? Solution: I’ll just evade you. Nice. Restoring our health and power is not about being armored up sitting high upon a throne in our untouchable superiority. Evading and shutting people down is a rigid, angry behavior and is abuse in an of itself when done to someone you’ve just abused. This behavior of cutting people off at the knees and evading others in pain is what Jeff Brown calls trauma-bypassing and is a learned patriarchal behavior.

This is only some of what Jeff Brown author of Grounded Spirituality writes about trauma bypassing:

“Be Here Now”! We can’t. We have too much trauma in the way. “The Power of Now”! Sounds good, but first, we have to deal with the “Power of Then.” Worst things, first. It’s easy enough to talk about being in the “now.” But what we are we even talking about? Now through the mind? Through the heart? Through the body? What does it even mean to be fully present? Most of the people teaching nowness are head-tripping, meditation addicted spiritual bypassers. What do they really know about presence? The truth is that we are all trauma survivors, and that includes every spiritual teacher I have ever known. Almost every one of them has confused self-avoidance with enlightenment, blaming the mind for all that ails them while conveniently sidestepping their wounded hearts. Bottom line- we can’t be in the present, because our emotional and physical body are tied up in trauma knots. Some, many, perhaps all threads of our consciousness are still back there, locked into the originating wounds. If we want to truly BE HERE NOW, we have to be there, then. We have to untie the knots and heal the core wounds. Then, and only “then”, will we know the true power of NOW.” — Jeff Brown

I’m all for boundaries against toxic people, but before labeling someone toxic, don’t forget people are human and looking for connection. Part of being a friend is listening and holding space for people. We’ve forgotten this. Giving people the benefit of the doubt first, with some compassion and empathy may work wonders on someone feeling heard. If someone is toxic, maybe we haven’t heard them out? If that’s your take on someone immediately, maybe you’re projecting? We live in a very literal society anymore. It would be nice if people had some sort of tolerance level before cutting people off, lest they become the toxic person themselves.

I’m not saying that we must become a welcome mat for people to wipe their feet on, or that we should tolerate people chewing our ears while we should be working, or that we need to be tolerating bad behavior year after year and calling that a relationship… let’s not be so literal and disclaimer-y to the nth degree, k? But, let’s use some common sense. We pretty much know in our heart of hearts the difference between someone venting, and someone toxic, am I right? When someone wants to mend a relationship by talking about the past so it doesn’t repeat itself, and that of someone smearing shit everywhere toxic. I certainly understand the difference. Venting is a once in a while thing, and toxic is all the time. Discussion about pain is altogether different and should be a back and forth, honest dialogue between two people who reciprocate listening, asking questions, while having respect for one another. 

Life is hard. Be kind. Come back later and let someone know you care before you decide someone should be written off as “toxic.” Think of that word, “toxic.” It means waste, very bad, unpleasant, harmful. Not something I’m willing to do on a whim. And, I’m not saying that we have to keep taking it and taking it to prove our love to people either. This is a balance thing. You can be soft and kind and still have boundaries like a mofo.

Thankfully, when I was dying on the vine, I was able to put myself into counseling when I didn’t have a shoulder to lean on or an ear to talk to about my pain. It made all the difference in the world to help me stay another day. Think! Some people may not have that resource. And why are they trusting YOU with their story!?

We want world peace, but we don’t want to talk. We want to break generational curses and patterns but we want to evade doing the work. That’s not how any of this even works.

Be an ear. A shoulder. Have a heart. Have boundaries, but don’t forget your own humanness for toxicity. Don’t be so quick to write people off. Take breaks, but go visit your heart and check in with what you really know. It knows the truth. Anything else is toxic.