A lot of us do. Journaling is a great way to work through our problems, express emotions, and get our thoughts OUT and onto paper. It’s a terrific way to affirm, pay attention to, and really “hear” ourselves. If you’ve ever journaled and felt the sense of clarity or peace that comes from collecting your thoughts and expressing them in writing, maybe it’s time to try “expressive writing.”
Expressive writing is a bit different from just writing thoughts and activities in a journal. It is used as a way to deal with old or new traumatic events or memories. When using expressive writing, it is necessary to reflect on a specific challenge, traumatic experience, or memory in order to discover new meaning in the event.
Benefits of expressive writing
According to researcher Dr. James Pennebaker, a psychology professor at the University of Austin, Texas, people who use expressive writing to journal have improved mental and physical health.
Dr. Pennebaker pioneered a study of expressive writing as a coping mechanism for trauma. His, and hundreds of other studies have verified the benefits achieved by people suffering from PTSD, cancer, depression, and various other mental and physical ailments. This journaling technique was found to strengthen the immune system, reduce pain and inflammation, lower infection rate from colds or flu, and decrease depression symptoms. It can also improve memory, sleep quantity and quality, and attitude. It’s clear that there are many benefits associated with expressive writing!
How it works
Using expressive writing allows the writer to recognize a painful or traumatic experience and describe it as a problem to be solved. Doing this allows the writer to identify a particular problem and organize their thoughts and feelings, using written language to create the narrative. This process helps break the rumination cycle, which, in my experience, helps decrease or eliminate cognitive dissonance. Research shows that labeling our emotions actually calms the limbic system and the fight or flight response. (Look up “name it and tame it.”) The prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of executive functions, regains control, and a deeper meaning and understanding can be created around the memory or traumatic event. This leads the writer to feel a new sense of control and personal power regarding the traumatic event. The more we do this this type of journaling, the easier it gets.
When people become more comfortable thinking about and remembering a traumatic event, they are more able to share their feelings with others. Expressive writing may indirectly lead writers to seek emotional support, thereby accelerating the healing process.
As demonstrated in a 2006 study published in the Journal of Psychological Science, expressive writing can also improve relationships. The study found that when one partner wrote about their relationship in detail, both partners began using more positive language when texting each other. The relationship also lasted longer.
Don’t like to write?
If you don’t like journaling, you can still use expressive writing. Recording your thoughts has been shown to work just as well.
To use the technique, write without judgment, self-editing, or correcting spelling or grammatical mistakes. Just write it as you think or feel it. Write for 15 to 20 minutes for at least three consecutive days. Deep dive into your thoughts and feelings and write about them in detail when you do this.
I’m a big fan of journaling using expressive writing. I wrote the “Lemon Moms Companion Workbook” to supply the necessary prompts, questions and challenges to help you use expressive writing as one of your healing tools.
Conscious awareness: Be aware and make conscious choices before acting. Self-awareness releases us from making impulsive and potentially damaging decisions. Practice mindfulness.
How to write the highest vibrating, most powerful affirmations to manifest love, positivity, peace, self-confidence, motivation, success, and other wonderful things
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf developed strong coping skills and healing strategies for herself. She happily shares those with others who want to learn and grow.
Her Lemon Moms series and other books and articles are a combination of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight from her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She’s worked in numerous fields, including domestic violence and abuse, and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. On The Toolbox, she writes about recovery strategies from hurtful people and painful, dysfunctional, or toxic relationships. She has authored four transformational books about healing and moving forward from narcissistic Victim Syndrome.
Whether You’re Golden, Invisible, or a Scapegoat, it’s All About Control
The word “abuse” is full of shame. Using that word regarding childhood experiences might feel like a massive exaggeration of what happened and a handy but sad excuse for unresolved issues. When we use the word “abuse,” it feels like attention and sympathy-seeking. It feels like “poor me; I’m a helpless victim.”
We may intentionally minimize our painful childhood experiences because we don’t want to think of our mothers as “abusers” or ourselves as unwitting targets. Having those kinds of thoughts can cause us to feel more ashamed, and that affects our core identity. Those of us who’ve experienced traumatic childhood events at the hands of our mothers may feel a sense of disgust or humiliation in addition to shame, and we see ourselves in a negative light when we compare ourselves with others.
The Three, Interchangeable Roles
There’s a particularly dysfunctional family dynamic in which one of the children becomes “idealized,” the clear parental favorite, known as the “Golden Child,” and the other children take turns being devalued and blamed. They’re known as “Invisible Children” and the “Scapegoats” (Streep 2017). A narcissist-mom controls these roles.
The roles of the Golden Child, Invisible Child, and Scapegoat are flexible. Any role can be assigned to any child at any time, depending on the mother’s mood. It’s a “crazy-making” situation because the mom has the unchallenged power to change the entire family dynamic quickly and unpredictably. For those of us in this position, it catches us unaware and unprepared.
The Golden Child:The Golden Child’s role is to bring positive attention to the mother and the family. They are the favorite, and as such, may have a special status and receive more attention and praise. They’re the ones that get bragged about. They make the narcissistic mom look great as a mother. Even so, she will always take some credit for their accomplishments. When they walk into the room, mom’s focus is on them. Golden Children may grow up to be adults who are compulsive overachievers or perfectionists who feel a loss of identity and have low self-esteem.
“Forms of idealizing include praise, attention, and bragging. Types of devaluing include criticizing, blaming, shaming, lying about, lying to, intentionally frightening, projecting, and gaslighting.”
The Invisible Child (aka Lost Child): The Invisible Child “stays under the radar,” follows the rules unquestioningly, is quiet, and is easy-going. Invisible Children are often taken for granted, and their needs are neglected because they never complain or ask for anything. Invisible Children may internalize a sense of having no impact on others, or that their input does not matter. They may grow up to feel insignificant and inconsequential because their sense of identity has not fully developed (Stines, 2018).
The Scapegoat: The Scapegoat’s role is to bear the blame for all of the family’s problems. They are the butt of jokes and get less of everything than the other siblings. They are seen as the problem child. Scapegoats often grow up to become the ones who speak up and challenge the dysfunction. They’re the ones telling the truth about what’s going on in the family and will act out the frustration, anger, and feelings of the entire family (Cole 2019).
When we suddenly and unexpectedly become the Scapegoat, it leaves us wondering what the heck just happened. Was it something I said (or didn’t mention or was supposed to mention)? Was it something I did (or didn’t do or did but not correctly)? If not me, then who or what was it? Was it another family member? A friend? Her boss? The traffic? Did something happen at work? Was it the weather? Maybe it was a coworker. Or her supervisor. Perhaps it was the cat? Or something she got (or didn’t get) in the mail?
When I found myself in the Scapegoat position, I could literally spend hours trying to figure out why. I wanted and needed to fix it, or at least to understand what had so hugely affected my position within the family. I wanted to attempt to control it and not let it happen again.
A sudden change in family positions is upsetting. These random role reversals affect our sense of observation, decision-making, and self-trust because we never know if the explanation we’re giving ourselves is accurate. And we’re continuously guessing our current standing within the family. And if we’re the Golden Child, we’re also appeasing and pleasing our mom because we don’t want to lose that privilege.
“Narcissistic mothers revel in generating competition between their children and emotionally distancing them from one another.”
Living with a narcissistic mother has been described as “living in a war zone.” Those of us who’ve lived under those circumstances were usually on high alert, in fight-or-flight survival mode, because we had no idea when the next attack or role reversal would happen. It meant we were continuously producing stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, so it was a common occurrence to feel confused or experience scattered thinking, and have difficulty making decisions, or remembering. Eventually, we became emotionally and physically exhausted.
There are other subtle ways that narcissistic mothers attempt to control or manipulate their children:
Belittling, criticizing, and name-calling
Patronizing and being condescending
Publicly or privately embarrassing their children
Threatening their children in some way
Ordering their children to do things, taking away their choices
Controlling money or access to it
Monitoring and controlling whereabouts
Exhibiting scary, emotional outbursts
Acting on jealousy
Using manipulative or guilt-inducing ploys
Isolating children from friends, family members, or social connections
Being indifferent to her children’s needs
Denying or trivializing feelings
Any combination of these behaviors can result in lowering or destroying a child’s self-esteem and cause them to feel unnecessary fear and shame (McBride 2018).
Why It Happens
Because narcissistic mothers are so controlling, they need to have reasons that explain undesirable happenings, and they insist on having a person to hold accountable. This phenomenon is known as scapegoating.
When a narcissistic mom protects her ego from her own unlikeable qualities, she “projects” them onto the Scapegoat child. There is a risk of neglect, maltreatment, abuse, blame, shame, or even physical violence to these children as a result. She’ll play a game of “whose fault is it? I know it’s not mine” (Brenner et al. 2018). The scapegoating practice happens in dysfunctional families, with the role of the scapegoat being either temporary or permanent. The scapegoat is the “fall guy,” the person who gets blamed for offenses and injustices that happen to anyone in the family. Family members, except for the narcissistic mom, often take turns playing the scapegoat role, and at any given time, the mom determines who the scapegoat is.
Tactics like scapegoating are all attempts of the mother to maintain control. When a narcissistic mom feels like she’s losing control over her kids, she will often lash out in vengeful ways, subtly or with direct hostility. Narcissistic mothers are highly reactive to any threat or challenge to their power. They have a sense of entitlement, ownership, and possession of their kids.
More Manipulative Tactics
There is a multitude of ways that a narcissistic mother can emotionally injure her children. I believe these behaviors are the result of other, often unrelated issues, such as:
She’s not articulate or doesn’t have a strong vocabulary, so she’s not able to accurately express or describe what she’s thinking or feeling.
She doesn’t know how to identify her emotions.
She hasn’t had an emotionally healthy upbringing, or she hasn’t witnessed emotionally healthy relationships.
She’s emotionally immature and can’t regulate her emotions.
She hasn’t personally experienced or learned strong parenting skills.
Narcissistic mothers manipulate and control their children in a variety of ways:
Withholding affection, affirmation, validation, attention, encouragement, praise, and other self-esteem building behaviors
Exhibiting intense and scary displays of emotion and drama (“narcissistic rages”)
Verbally abusing them with insults, criticism, and name-calling
Threatening violence (may or may not be carried out)
Maintaining a victim mentality
Rejection
Lying
Giving the “silent treatment” as a form of punishment
Exercising a “selective memory”
Gaslighting to control perceptions and memories
I’m personally familiar with all of these tactics. Gaslighting is the one that harmed me the most. It’s an extremely emotionally and mentally destructive form of manipulation.
Even though most of the above-listed behaviors are not physically hurtful, each one can activate the pain centers in the human brain. Research in the field of neuroscience shows us that even perceived rejection activates the area of the brain where pain is felt (Eisenberger et al. 2004). The point is that verbal abuse, threats, rejection, and other forms of emotional mistreatment do hurt us.
“Stirring the Pot” (Triangulation)
A narcissistic mother revels in generating competition between her children and emotionally distancing them from one another. These moms enjoy creating distrust, doubt, insecurity, competition, and resentment between siblings. As I’ve mentioned, this is called triangulation. It’s also a manipulative tactic, used to control information or interactions between individuals.
A therapist once suggested that triangulation was a form of entertainment for my mom. She liked creating drama. She’d stir up trouble, then sit back and enjoy the show. For example, my mom would say one thing to me, putting a specific person in a negative light, and then she’d provide a slightly different version, with me as the “bad guy,” to the other person. When we sensed that something negative was happening between us, but not of our own doing, the other person and I began communicating directly with each other. We compared the different versions of my mother’s stories and soon came to realize that we were being manipulated seemingly for my mother’s amusement. I informed my mother that we were aware of what she was doing. Of course, she flipped the scenario, instantly becoming the innocent victim, but the triangulation stopped pretty much immediately.
More on Triangulation later.
Tools for healing:
Conscious awareness: Be aware and make conscious choices before acting. Self-awareness releases us from making impulsive and potentially damaging decisions.
How to write the highest vibrating, most powerful affirmations to manifest love, positivity, peace, self-confidence, motivation, success, and other wonderful things
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf developed strong coping skills and healing strategies for herself. She happily shares those with others who want to learn and grow.
Her Lemon Moms series and other books and articles are a combination of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight from her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She’s worked in numerous fields, including domestic violence and abuse, and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. On The Toolbox, she writes about recovery strategies from hurtful people and painful, dysfunctional, or toxic relationships. She has authored four transformational books about healing and moving forward from narcissistic Victim Syndrome.
When I was a domestic violence counselor, we used the term “cycle of abuse” to describe the patterns of behavior that led up to and included an abusive event. As counselors, we taught women who were involved in abusive relationships to recognize these patterns and to identify which stage they were currently in. By doing this, they could create a preemptive strategy to avoid or cope with an upcoming abusive incident.
Dr. Lenore Walker proposed the “Cycle of Abuse” in 1979. After interviewing 1,500 female domestic violence survivors, she found that they all shared a similar abusive scenario and that there was a recognizable pattern to how the abusive events happened. She developed this “cycle of abuse” based on this scenario.
The Four Elements of Abuse
Four elements were present in various forms for each of the female abuse survivors:
Tension Building
Abusive Incident
Remorse
Honeymoon
The Honeymoon Period proceeds directly into Tension Building, and the cycle repeats itself, uninterrupted. Every cycle shares the same four phases, but each cycle’s details differ from the previous ones. From one abuse cycle to the next, each of the four stages, as well as the cycle itself, can last different amounts of time or include behaviors that are unique from those of the last time.
The following diagram is based on Walker’s Cycle of Abuse.
(Walker, L.E.,1979)
The first phase is the “Tension Building” period. In it, the target senses growing strain in the relationship, and becomes anxious, highly alert, and guarded. There is an unshakeable feeling that there will be an abusive incident soon. Hence, the target attempts to control the environment to keep the abuser happy and calm.
In phase two, the abusive incident occurs. The abuse may be physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, verbal, or financial. Examples include name-calling, gaslighting, threats, intimidation, angry outbursts, arguing, blaming, and withholding love, affection, and attention.
The third phase is the “Remorse” period. In this phase, the abuser apologizes, makes excuses, and promises that the abuse will never happen again. The target is showered with love, affection, and attention, and sometimes offered gifts and tokens of affection as indicators of sorrow.
The “Honeymoon” is the fourth phase. There is a period of calm in the relationship while the abuser attempts to make the target feel loved, safe, and secure. The Honeymoon will continue for an undetermined amount of time, the length of which may change with every cycle.
This entire cycle will continuously repeat, often over years, until it is intentionally interrupted by one of the two participants. One way of interrupting the cycle is for the target to leave the relationship.
When a narcissist is involved in the cycle of abuse, it plays out differently. The “Remorse” phase is notpresent in the narcissistic abuse cycle because narcissists are unwilling to accept responsibility and would instead place the blame on their target.
Remember, narcissists need to feel superior and “right” in every situation. This, combined with their lack of empathy, means that they don’t experience feelings of remorse. Remorsefulness requires empathy, sympathy, and taking responsibility for our actions (Hammond 2018). So, the narcissistic cycle of abuse differs significantly from Walker’s cycle of abuse in this phase.
The Narcissistic Cycle of Abuse
Here is what the cycle of abuse looks like when a narcissist is the offender. This diagram is based on Christine Hammond’s “Narcissistic Cycle of Abuse.”
(Hammond, C. 2018)
How the Phases Are Different
In phase one, a Narcissistic Injury occurs. The abuser feels rejected, threatened, jealous, abandoned, disrespected, or any feeling that challenges their superiority. The target feels anxious and tries to appease and please the narcissist, much like in phase one of Walker’s Cycle of Abuse.
As in Walker’s Cycle of Abuse, phase two is also an Abusive Incident, which could be physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, verbal, or financial. Examples include name-calling, gaslighting, threats, intimidation, angry outbursts, arguing, blaming, withholding love, affection, and attention.
Phase three is completely different in the Narcissistic Cycle of Abuse. When the cycle involves a narcissist, the roles in the Remorse stage are reversed. Now the narcissist will play the part of the abused/victim, and the target will apologize and appease. What eventually happens in the fourth phase is that narcissistic behaviors become stronger, and the abuse cycle repeats until someone intentionally breaks the cycle. To break it, the target needs to change their behavior by not accepting the role reversal. In other words, the target will no longer take the blame or accept the role of the abuser.
More Subtleties of Narcissistic Abuse: Golden, Invisible and Scapegoat Children
As I’ve mentioned in the book “Lemon Moms,” there’s a particularly dysfunctional family dynamic in which one of the children of a narcissistic parent becomes the “idealized” parental favorite, known as the “Golden Child.” The other children will take turns being devalued and blamed, known as the “Invisible Child” and the “Scapegoat. The dysfunctional parent controls these roles.
The roles of the Golden Child, Invisible Child, and Scapegoat are flexible; any role can be assigned to any child at any time, depending on the parent’s mood. It’s a “crazy-making” situation because the toxic parent has the unchallenged power to change the entire family dynamic unpredictably. The children are caught unaware and unprepared.
The Golden Child: The Golden Child’s role is to bring positive attention to the the toxic or narcissistic parent and the family. The Golden Child is the favorite, and as such, may have a special status and receive more attention and praise. They’re the ones that get bragged about. They make the dysfunctional parent look good. Even so, the parent will always take some credit for their children’s accomplishments.
The Invisible Child (aka Lost Child): The role of the Invisible Child is to “stay under the radar,” to follow the rules unquestioningly, be quiet, and easy-going. Invisible Children are often taken for granted, and their needs are neglected because they never complain or ask for anything. Invisible Children may internalize a sense of having no impact on others.
The Scapegoat: The Scapegoat’s role is to bear the blame for all of the family’s problems. They are the butt of jokes and get less of everything than the other siblings. They are seen as the problem child. Scapegoats often grow up to become the ones who speak up and challenge the dysfunction.
A sudden change in family positions is upsetting. These random role reversals affect our sense of observation, decision-making, and self-trust because we never know if the explanation we’re giving ourselves is accurate. And we’re continuously guessing our current standing within the family.
Those of us who’ve lived under those circumstances were usually on high alert, in fight-or-flight survival mode, because we had no idea when the next attack or role reversal would happen. It meant we were continuously producing stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, so it was a common occurrence to feel confused or experience scattered thinking.
Living under these circumstances can result in destroying a child’s self-esteem and cause them to feel unnecessary fear and shame.
Self-care: We can only choose to focus on and be responsible for ourselves, our own thoughts, actions, and behavior. We can take responsibility for getting our needs met, instead of waiting for someone to change or meet our needs for us. We are in control of ourselves and no one is responsible for us but us. We can change ourselves with patience, persistence, and practice.
Conscious awareness: Be aware and make conscious choices before acting. Self-awareness releases us from making impulsive and potentially damaging decisions. Practice mindfulness.
Learn about letting go of what you can’t control, by using loving-detachment
More Resources You May Like:
I AM: A Guided Journey to Your Authentic Self
A Workbook and Journal
How to write the highest vibrating, most powerful affirmations to manifest love, positivity, peace, self-confidence, motivation, success, and other wonderful things
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf developed strong coping skills and healing strategies for herself. She happily shares those with others who want to learn and grow.
Her Lemon Moms series and other books and articles are a combination of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight from her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She’s worked in numerous fields, including domestic violence and abuse, and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. On The Toolbox, she writes about recovery strategies from hurtful people and painful, dysfunctional, or toxic relationships. She has authored four transformational books about healing and moving forward from narcissistic Victim Syndrome.
Are you feeling angry after recognizing someone’s toxicity, dysfunction or narcissism and how it might have hurt or negatively affected you?
Do you find your angry feelings so overwhelming that you’re not exactly sure what you’re angry about? Maybe it feels like you’re angry all the time, at just about everyone.
It can be frustrating to feel such a powerful emotion and not understand why it’s so strong, or not be able to control it. It can make you feel bad about yourself and contribute to low self-esteem.
Additionally, anger can create issues between you and others; creating problems in your relationships, or draining away your productivity and energy. So, let’s talk about why you might be feeling so angry after recognizing how someone’s toxicity has negatively impacted you.
When you feel angry if a particular event happens or when you recall a certain memory, it’s because your brain hasn’t fully processed the situation before reacting. These are the knee-jerk reactions known as “triggers.” To identify our particular triggers, we need to examine our angry feelings in deeper detail.
What’s going on here?
When we stop and take a closer look, anger can provide us with important information. When you understand what is triggering your anger, you can heal those triggers. When your triggers are healed, you’ll be able to feel angry without over-reacting. You’ll be able to feel angry and still be in control of what you say and do. Learning to control anger and its triggers are a step in learning “emotional regulation,” something that you may not have gotten a chance to do as a child.
Anger is actually a secondary emotion. When you get angry, it feels like it’s the first and only emotion you feel, but that’s not what’s really happening. What actually happens is that you feel something else first, before the anger, and THAT emotion is what triggers the anger. In all likelihood, you have a memory or experience an event, and your mind interprets it so quickly that you don’t even notice it, but you feel something. That “something” triggers the anger.
“Emotions” are feelings that have thoughts connected to them. Understanding this, you will see the importance of your interpretation of that first fleeting feeling (and trigger) that ignites the anger. It’s that first thought, that interpretation which gives meaning to the event or memory and sparks the anger.
For those of us healing from the effects of someone’s probable or diagnosed narcissism, or chronic toxicity, our anger is most likely associated with painful past experiences. If you haven’t dealt with those traumatic experiences, your anger will be triggered more easily. You may feel angry much of the time.
Feeling anger is also a way of protecting ourselves. Have you ever thought of that? Sometimes we use anger to keep others at a distance so we don’t get hurt again. This can become an internal conflict: we don’t want to feel angry, but we don’t want to be hurt again either.
In my childhood family of origin, the rules were that it was OK for my mother to openly display anger at whomever she chose, for any reason, but I was not allowed to express anger without risking punishment. If we grew up with a mother who was intolerant of anyone’s anger but her own, then as adults we have some specific challenges that need to be dealt with. If we were not allowed to express all of our emotions, including anger, because they were judged or punished, we may have learned that anger is bad, frightening, useless, unfair, should be avoided, denied, or held inside.
When you grow up believing these things about anger and enter adulthood holding these beliefs, you’ll likely behave in ways that demonstrate that you believe your anger is useless or irrelevant (victimhood), or you may not know how to express anger in a healthy manner. You may even feel guilty for having angry feelings. Guilt on top of anger. Great!
These are aspects of “Childhood Emotional Neglect,” which occurs when parents don’t notice, respond to, or validate their child’s feelings, including anger.
Essentially, if we’ve been emotionally neglected, we’ll have no coping mechanisms for dealing with anger, and we may become passive-aggressive. (This means that we’ll act out our anger by doing things that don’t look like they’re done in anger but are the result of feeling angry. Passive aggression includes behaviors like: making intentional “mistakes,” procrastinating something that’s important to someone else, disguising criticism as compliments, feeling resentful, sabotaging, ignoring, slamming and banging objects, and saying “nothing’s wrong” when your behavior or body language clearly says there is.
Let’s unpack it
Our reactions are what’s important, not the memory or event itself. A memory or an event doesn’t really have any meaning until we give it one. Think about that.
We give the memory or event a meaning with our interpretation of it. We interpret memories and events so that we know how to think about and deal with them. And while you’re interpreting, you’re also making judgments (whether you’re conscious of it or not) about whether that memory or event is “good,” “bad,” or “neutral.” That decision is based on how you’re emotionally feeling at the time. Here’s an example I use in the book “Lemon Moms”:
Can the weather cause you to feel an emotion? If you’re inside today, cozy and warm, with nothing planned, and it begins to storm, do you feel any emotion about it? What emotion would you feel? Would others feel the same way about it as you do? Why or why not? If you’re getting married today, and it begins to rain, you’ll probably experience some feelings about it that might be different than how you’d usually feel about rain. You might be disappointed, angry, or sad. What else might you feel? Is the rain causing those feelings, or is your interpretation of it causing your feelings? Do you see the difference?
If you’re a farmer, anticipating the end of a long, detrimental drought, you’d probably be ecstatically happy about the rain. It would mean that you wouldn’t lose your crops, and you’d have some income to pay your bills, replenish your supplies, and pay your employees.
In each example, the meaning, or “interpretation” given to “rain” is very different, and the resulting emotions will align with that meaning.
If I ask ten people about how they feel about it the next time it rains, I’d get ten different answers. That’s important to remember. Our reactions are all about our interpretation and the judgment we give to the initial feeling.
So, why is that?
Our interpretations and judgments have to do with our expectationsand our emotional state.
As we know, emotions are not data; they’re not factual. Emotions are driven by chemicals in our bodies, called hormones. They are also affected by other variables such as our environment, physical health, age, worldview, self-talk, sleep quality and quantity, stress levels, food choices, beliefs, memories, thoughts, and much more. All of these, and more, can and do affect our emotional state.
If you have a particular memory, or an event, that causes you to feel angry, you need to unpack that angry reaction step-by-step and look at all of the pieces involved. Right before the anger, what do you feel? Maybe you feel belittled? Humiliated? Shamed? Unimportant? Ignored? Not mattering to someone? Slighted? Insulted? Mocked? Dismissed? There’s a pretty good chance that you feel one of those, or something closely related.
Those primary feelings triggered the anger, NOT the memory or the event. NOT what the person said or didn’t say, did, or didn’t do. Yep, you heard that right. The first fleeting, almost imperceptible feeling that you felt (insulted, dismissed, unimportant, etc.) came from your interpretation and judgment of the memory or event, and is what triggered your anger.
Let’s say someone just did or said something, and you felt that they were saying (or thinking) that you’re not important, that you don’t matter, that you should be ashamed, that you’re stupid, etc. and you immediately felt angry. But upon closer inspection, you see that they didn’t actually SAY it. That was your interpretation of what they said. The meaning of what was said is coming from you! Can you see that? Your interpretation may be correct or incorrect. The person has not actually said that you’re not important, that you don’t matter, that you should be ashamed, that you’re stupid, etc. It just feels to you, through your interpretation, like that’s what they said or implied. Do you see how your interpretation can drastically affect what happens next?
This interpreting happens quickly and you’re probably not aware of it when it happens. That’s because it happens unconsciously. But after today, if you start to apply conscious awareness, you will become more and more aware of it.
You’ll see that the meaning and judgment cause you to feel some primary emotion; shame, feeling unimportant, dismissed, disrespected, mocked, etc. That primary emotion triggers your anger. Once you’re aware of this process, you can stop right there and question whether your interpretation is accurate or not.
Why are you giving the memory or event that particular interpretation? Why not a different one? Look deeper to see what else is happening that could be impacting your perception and judgment.
Primary emotions that may trigger anger:
1. Loss of control/powerlessness/feeling like a victim
If feelings of victim-hood or loss of control are the primary emotion, you’ll be triggered to feel anger because you want to regain control over what’s happening, or what’s perceived to be happening. (Remember, a lot of this is your own interpretation.) These feelings, in particular, could cause you to overreact or lash out at others who triggered them. That’s because loss of control, victimization, and fear are closely related. If you notice that you’re over-reacting or lashing out, take a look to see if you’re feeling powerless, victimized, or afraid.
2. Fear
As I mentioned, feeling afraid and feeling a loss of control are related. That’s because the amygdala (a structure in our brains that encodes and stores memories) saves memories, not as stories, but as chunks and fragments of sensory input. So, your memories are saved as bits of sounds, sights, smells, touches, and tastes. For those who have C-PTSD, any of these fragments that are also connected to fear can trigger anger. There is a strong need to regain control of the situation.
Our minds use fear as a method to keep us safe. Even though fear is uncomfortable, it is a natural response, not a sign of weakness. When a memory causes you to re-experience feelings of fear, it would be OK to remind yourself that you’re in a safe place and that you’re experiencing a memory. It’s safe to examine this disturbing feeling a little deeper. When you begin to get a clearer picture of what’s really going on behind the scenes in your brain, you’ll start to uncover the actual trigger. Once you find the trigger, you can begin to understand it better, which will start you moving forward.
3. Frustration
I’ve mentioned that frustration can trigger anger, so let’s take a deeper dive into that.
Frustration is the emotional response to having to deal with conditions that are outside of an individual’s realm of control. Being blocked from a desired outcome, or being challenged by a difficult task, are examples of events that can cause frustration. When someone feels frustrated, and it’s combined with fear, they may become aggressive. Often, when we feel frustrated, there is also a sense of powerlessness. That’s because you’re in a situation where you want to do something and you can’t. You feel like you have no available choices, or you don’t know what those choices are.
Focusing on a solution, rather than on the problem, is a helpful thing to do. If you’re feeling frustrated about something, here are some questions to ask yourself that could change your perspective, and uncover a solution-
What is it that I’m trying to achieve?
Am I feeling blocked in the way I’m going about getting it?
What are some other ways I can get it? Think of at least two.
What steps can I take right now?
Do I need to start working on accepting that I can’t change this situation?
Do I need to change my goal, rather than give it up?
Am I allowing fear to control my responses? How can I change that?
4. Feeling tired or overwhelmed
Feeling worn-out or exhausted impacts our ability to cope with challenging situations. When we’re tired, our minds can’t work at full capacity, and we may find ourselves misperceiving, misunderstanding, or making poor decisions. When we need rest, our patience and emotional resilience are low. You may feel like you’re at your limit for what you can handle, and that’s also connected to feeling frustrated. When you’re at your limit, feeling like you have no more ability to cope can feel scary and may cause you to feel afraid. Being pushed over that limit can trigger anger.
Are you beginning to see how fear keeps coming up in these scenarios? Fear is connected to many of these triggers.
When you’re feeling overwhelmed, stop, and see if you can dig out the cause. Are you tired? Under more stress than usual? Are you in pain? Have you experienced a loss? Have your responsibilities increased? Have you lost a support system? Had a financial loss? What else has changed in your life recently?
Break the cause of your overwhelm into smaller chunks and see where it becomes unmanageable. Do you need to ask for help with this unmanageable piece?
What are some healthy ways that you can start to respond to feeling overwhelmed? (Hint: take a nap, go to bed early, eat something if you’re hungry, call someone, move your body; go for a walk, do something physical, talk to someone, read.)
5. Grief
Grief is an overwhelming emotion, and it’s one of the hardest to deal with. Part of our dawning awareness that our mother’s undiagnosed narcissism has negatively effected us, is noticing a strong feeling of loss. Feelings of loss can be confusing and painful, and often when going through the process of Narcissism Awareness Grief, we feel that sense of loss. We don’t mourn for what we had. We mourn for what we didn’t have; we mourn for what could have been.
We mourn the loving, caring mother we never had, and the innocent, unburdened childhood we never got to experience. We mourn our lost sense of self. We mourn the love and acceptance we never got to experience as daughters, especially if we’re an invisible or scapegoat child. We grieve our lost sense of security because we were gaslighted. We mourn all the lost time, the time spent believing lies and engaging in people-pleasing. We mourn the loss of a soul-connection to our mothers. It’s natural to feel angry when there’s such a huge amount of loss.
When you’re angry, and you’re not sure why, ask yourself if grief could be the cause. Does the current situation remind you of something you’ve lost, could have had, or desired? For example, when you see your mother engaging with the Golden Child, do you feel angry? When you see a mother out in public, laughing, playing with, and enjoying her child, do you feel angry? Ask yourself if what you’re experiencing is unresolved grief. If your anger is indeed grief-related, that’s an indication that you need to start working through the grief. Learn about the stages of grief and Narcissism Awareness Grief in particular. Get into a support group or find a therapist. Please don’t let being stuck in grief rob you of a happier future.
6. Codependent coping
When we don’t feel good about ourselves, if we have low self-esteem or low self-confidence, we look for validation and approval from others. If we don’t know how to validate and affirm ourselves, we look to others to fulfill those needs. When we’re codependent, we may go to incredible lengths to please others, to get that validation, affirmation, and some semblance of self-worth. When we have a weak sense of worth, our anger jumps out in defense. When someone doesn’t acknowledge or appreciate what we’ve done for them (even if they didn’t ask for our help), we feel hurt and resentful, and those can trigger anger.
Codependency ends when we start feeling “good enough” and can approve and validate ourselves. Validation is incredibly important. Once you’re able to validate yourself, you ‘ll be less likely to seek out others to do it for you. You won’t need to step in and do things for others when they haven’t asked you to. You’ll begin to know yourself more deeply than you did when you were focused on care-taking someone else.
Ask yourself, why do you need this person’s approval? Why is it so important to you? What will their approval change about you? What will happen if you don’t get it? If you don’t get it, would that change anything, really? What beliefs about yourself would it change? Is their approval the only thing that will cause this change? What can you do to start feeling better about yourself regardless of how they respond to you? What else might improve your self-esteem? What might increase your self-confidence? When will you start doing those?
7. Betrayal hurt
When we go through Narcissism Awareness Grief, we often feel betrayed. Betrayal hurts our hearts and can affect how we think, how we feel, and what we believe. At least temporarily.
It’s hard to understand how and why our mother could hurt us so deeply. These underlying hurt feelings, along with those of disappointment and betrayal, can all trigger anger. Acknowledge these feelings of pain, betrayal, and disappointment. Work on accepting that if your mother is a narcissist, she truly cannot behave any differently, without making a conscious change. Without a desire or motivation to change, she will not change. The changes must come from you.
8. Weak boundaries
If we have weak boundaries or don’t enforce the boundaries we have, the more likely we are to react in anger when they’re challenged or violated.
You are worthy of love and respect simply because you exist. If you’re in a situation where you’re treated unlovingly or disrespectfully, that may cause you to feel angry or resentful. You may not understand why you feel that way. You feel that way because that person is not validating you. Being validated is a basic human need. If someone’s invalidation triggers your anger, you may want to look into self-empowerment and ways of developing a stronger sense of self-worth. When you value yourself, and can validate yourself, it’s less likely that another’s lack of validation will trigger you.
By taking the time to understand where your anger comes from, you’ll learn a lot about yourself and begin to heal those triggers. You’ll begin feeling a new sense of peace and calm. When someone or something triggers you, you’ll understand what’s happening and be able to deal with it. Sometimes all it takes is awareness of what’s happening “behind the scenes” in your brain. With a little practice, you’ll begin responding to your triggers in a different, healthier way. You’ll begin seeing your anger as a tool that you control, rather than as an emotion that controls you.
Any time you feel angry, whether it’s slightly ticked-off, annoyed, or full-blown furious, get in the habit of asking yourself, “Why am I angry right now? What was the primary emotion I felt?” “What interpretation have I given it?” “Why am I giving it that interpretation instead of some other?” It’ll bring you a step closer to learning how to regulate your emotions, and that’s something many of us didn’t get to learn, if we grew up in an emotionally neglectful home.
Tools for healing:
Conscious awareness: Be aware and make conscious choices before acting. Self-awareness releases us from making impulsive and potentially damaging decisions. Practice mindfulness.
Self-care: We can only choose to focus on and be responsible for ourselves, our own thoughts, actions, and behavior. We can take responsibility for getting our needs met, instead of waiting for someone to change or meet our needs for us. We are in control of ourselves and no one is responsible for us but us. We can change ourselves with patience, persistence, and practice.
Learn about codependency and maladaptive coping skills
How to write the highest vibrating, most powerful affirmations to manifest love, positivity, peace, self-confidence, motivation, success, and other wonderful things
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf developed strong coping skills and healing strategies for herself. She happily shares those with others who want to learn and grow.
Her Lemon Moms series and other books and articles are a combination of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight from her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She’s worked in numerous fields, including domestic violence and abuse, and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. On The Toolbox, she writes about recovery strategies from hurtful people and painful, dysfunctional, or toxic relationships. She has authored four transformational books about healing and moving forward from narcissistic Victim Syndrome.
“Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you- all of the expectations, all of the beliefs – and becoming who you are.” -Rachel Naomi Remen
Today’s topic is all about codependency….what it is and whether or not it can be healed. Hint: Yes, it can!
Codependent relationships often form as the result of trauma bonding between individuals who live in a cycle of abuse or mistreatment. It’s a method of coping with a stressful or unhealthy, traumatic, or abusive environment. Codependency develops as a self-protective response to supporting or “enabling” someone’s addiction, mental illness, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement. It results from taking responsibility, blame, or making excuses for another person’s harmful or hurtful behavior.
Codependency is an emotional and behavioral illness that affects a person’s ability to have healthy, mutually satisfying relationships. Codependents are called “people-pleasers.” They willingly play by the “rules” of others and lose their identity in the process. As a result, they rely on others for their sense of identity, approval, or validation. This is called “seeking external validation.” People-pleasers need to be needed. To others, they appear to be busybodies, involved in other people’s business, or with things that shouldn’t concern them. They may also appear as unselfish; as someone who can be counted on, or who never says “no.”
When we’re children who don’t have mentally healthy role models and caregivers, we don’t learn or develop healthy coping skills to equip ourselves in adulthood. We may also learn codependent behavior from watching or imitating other codependents in our family. And future generations may learn codependent behaviors from us if the cycle isn’t broken.
Why is codependency something to be healed?
Codependency is a form of self-abandonment. Instead of focusing on our lives, goals, issues, and our “stuff,” we focus on others and look for validation and approval from them. Other’s needs come first, and ours come last. Living like this can cause codependent individuals to become depressed or anxious or experience panic disorders. And because we abandon ourselves, we may doubt ourselves, have low self-esteem, low energy, feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, powerlessness, defeat, and low self-worth. When we have low self-worth, it’s natural to feel that we’re not worthy or good enough to ask for what we want or need. Instead, we might learn to get our needs met by manipulating people or consequences. We may discover that we feel worthy or good enough when we accept responsibilities that aren’t ours. As we mature, in order for us to feel emotionally or physically safe, it can feel natural and necessary for us to control as much of our environment as possible.
When we spend more time emotionally taking care of or focusing on others than ourselves, trying to control their behavior, how they perceive us, or the consequences of their choices, we have become codependent. When we take responsibility, blame, or make excuses for their harmful or hurtful behavior, we have become codependent. When we rely on others for our sense of identity, approval, or validation, we have become codependent. If we are focused on someone’s life, goals, issues, and “stuff,” instead of our own, we have become codependent. If their needs come first, and ours come last, we have become codependent.
If you are an “action taker” and a “do-er,” you might be a codependent.
The stages of becoming codependent
Codependency exists on a continuum, from mild to severe. There are three stages in the development of codependency: the loss of self, the need to appease someone important to us, and the need to control the consequences of the other’s behavior. Let’s talk about each of those.
Loss of self: This early stage of codependency looks like we’re paying an increasing amount of attention to someone else. We may monitor their moods, become hypervigilant, and feel a strong desire to please them. In this phase, we deny or rationalize their problem behaviors and fabricate explanations that maintain our sense of safety. We may endure gaslighting because our focus is on keeping them calm and minimizing verbal or physical attacks, or some other problematic behavior. We are as invisible as possible. We learn that we don’t matter.
Need to appease: This stage takes increased effort as we continue denying or minimizing the more painful aspects of a relationship. We likely feel anxious, guilty, and ashamed, but we purposefully hide these feelings from ourselves and others, along with our relationship problems. We may withdraw from other relationships and activities we enjoy. Our self-esteem decreases, and we continue to compromise ourselves to maintain a semblance of stability or predictability. Our focus is on taking someone’s “emotional temperature.” We learn to adjust our behavior and expectations according to what we sense is happening with them. We may feel angry, disappointed, unloved, or unimportant when we’re in this phase of codependency. We may begin using other maladaptive coping behaviors, including eating, bingeing, self-harming, stealing, engaging in risky sexual activity, or abusing substances.
Need to control consequences: In late-stage codependency, emotional and behavioral symptoms start affecting us. We may experience health issues like stomachaches, nightmares, headaches, muscle pain, tension, and TMJ. Self-esteem and self-care are almost nonexistent at this point, replaced by feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, anger, resentment, and overall unhappiness. We may begin to feel more symptoms of C-PTSD if we live with repetitive traumatic events.
When we’re in healthy relationships, we don’t feel obligated to help others avoid their naturally occurring consequences. Instead, both parties understand that outcomes should be experienced by the person who’s responsible for causing them.
Adult children
When we develop codependent coping skills as children, we will more than likely take them with us into adulthood, if we haven’t learned healthy ways of coping. If we became codependent as children, we were probably caretakers for other adults or siblings. We were likely required to mature quickly and take responsibilities that were not age-appropriate. When it felt unsafe for us to be around our caretaker, we learned to tiptoe around the instability. We learned to “put up and shut up.” We monitored moods and responded accordingly, we noticed behavioral patterns, and we became very good at predicting behavior. We learned how to take the initiative in making someone else’s life easier or better so we could feel a sense of stability and safety. We became accustomed to doing things for them and others that they could do for themselves. Controlling our environment became equivalent to feeling safe.
Letting go of and no longer controlling the outcomes and consequences of someone else’s actions are some of the first steps in healing codependency.
As codependent adults, we spend time thinking about how to please and caretake others while our own social, professional, and personal responsibilities get neglected. We continue focusing on others despite the problems it creates. Because we still desire love, connection, and affection, we will continue compromising ourselves, emotionally caretaking and chasing after love and affection, while settling for crumbs and feeling unloved, unseen, and not good enough. These behaviors eventually affect our ability to have healthy, mutually satisfying adult relationships. Because we feel confused, distrustful, hesitant, disoriented, and emotionally exhausted, we often find ourselves searching for answers and explanations as to why we feel this way.
We may also seek out individuals who fit with our codependent personality. Codependency lends itself nicely to all kinds of unhealthy relationships. It wouldn’t be unusual to find ourselves in relationships involving alcoholism, substance abuse, verbal or physical abuse, and mental illness, including narcissism. Those who have experienced childhood trauma or abuse may eventually find themselves in abusive, toxic, or less-than-satisfying adult relationships. It makes sense: this toxic person’s behavior and way of relating to us seem familiar, and we already know our role and what’s expected of us within the relationship.
As codependents, we try forcing ourselves painfully into a mold that we will never fit into. And we repeatedly try to become someone else’s idea of who we should be. Not knowing details about yourself that you know about others in your life, like favorite foods, music, authors, etc. are the result of an other-directed, other-focused life.
Codependents enjoy offering suggestions and advice even though they haven’t been asked for them. If we’re codependent, we feel responsible for people and issues that aren’t our responsibility. If we don’t attempt to help, fix, or control, we often feel guilty or ashamed. It feels wrong or selfish when we don’t jump in, take charge, or assist others who seem to be struggling. It feels wrong not to help even when they haven’t asked for our help. We feel that somehow it’s our job to take action, take over, and fix. We often feel the need to make excuses for others’ mistreatment of us or their poor behavior in general. We explain and justify to ourselves why it’s OK for them to do so. We often take the blame or minimize and deny the pain they cause. We codependents are famously known for our discomfort with saying, “no.”
If we’re codependent, we most likely don’t have boundaries. We’ll justify, argue, defend, and overexplain because we want to be seen, affirmed, validated, and understood. We’ll continuously seek affirmation outside of ourselves to feel “good enough” or like we matter. Others often describe us as needy, “clingy,” or insecure.
How to know if you’re codependent
Are you codependent?
Have you taken actions that prevent someone from feeling or experiencing the consequences of their choices?
Have you tried to control the outcome of a particular situation or event?
Have you taken responsibility for someone’s actions or poor choices?
When you take responsibility (or accept blame or make excuses) for someone’s harmful or hurtful behavior, it “enables” them to keep doing it. (a) You’ve taken all the responsibility away from them and placed it on yourself, and (b) there are no negative consequences from which they can learn.
Do you do things for others that they could do for themselves?
Although it often feels right to take care of others, we’re often left feeling taken advantage of or resentful. So, if you feel resentful about something you did or are doing for someone, it might be that you’re using codependent behavior.
Have I/do I try to manage or control someone or their choices?
Have I taken on responsibilities that aren’t mine?
Have I ever been called “controlling” or a “control freak?”
Do I take care of others by cleaning up their messes, both figuratively and otherwise?
Codependency includes behaviors like the ones listed below. How many of these do you notice in yourself?
Being preoccupied or concerned with the needs of others
Placing a low priority on your own needs
Being attracted to needy or emotionally unavailable people
Believing that you have to be in a romantic relationship before you your life feels meaningful
Trying to control another’s behavior
Feeling incapable of ending a harmful or toxic relationship
Trying to please everyone even though you know you’ll feel resentful
Not taking time for yourself, or ignoring your self-care
Fearing for another’s safety but being willing to risk your safety
Shielding someone from the consequences of their actions
Taking responsibility for how another person feels
Taking responsibility for what another person does
Trying to fix someone’s problem when they haven’t asked you to
Helping because it makes you feel better
Feeling like your life is full of unwanted drama
Healing codependency
Healing requires acknowledging your pain without letting it define you. Our wounds have left scars that will always be with us. But when we start healing and moving forward, the scars fade over time, hurting less, becoming less obvious, and we can truly heal and move forward. Healthy coping mechanisms help us to make sense of confusing or threatening life experiences and to respond appropriately in wholesome ways. When we use healthy coping skills, we’re able to “reframe” unpleasant events in a way that is healthier for us and feels better too. Reframing is also a step in the healing process.
When we’re free of codependent thinking and coping, we will understand and accept that we’re separate and complete beings. We have a strong sense of self, and our boundaries are squarely in place. We feel comfortable continuing to set new boundaries that keep us healthy, happy, and safe. We don’t feel any need to justify, explain, or make sense of another person’s behavior, to ourselves or anyone else. We understand that others’ choices and actions are their responsibility, not ours. People are entitled to have thoughts and feelings about you that are incorrect. It’s not your job to correct their thinking. They will see you the way they see you. If you argue with them, defend yourself or get emotional, you will become drained, while they are being recharged.
Once you have healthy boundaries in place, you will experience a shift in your emotions. You may start to notice that your sense of safety, security, and control, no longer needs to come from people-pleasing and manipulating outcomes. Instead, they’ll come from your boundaries.
Living as a codependent means that we’re not going to get our needs met, yet asking for anything on our own behalf feels wrong, imposing, excessive, or selfish. We’re afraid of dissatisfying others. If we disappoint anyone, it often leads to feeling guilt and shame, yet we continually look for someone to please. We make excuses for their poor behavior or mistreatment of us, minimizing the pain they cause. Holding on to this mindset and behavior pattern will attract dysfunctional people to us.
It helps to take a pretty deep and fearless dive into what’s actually going on with our thoughts and behavior. When I was ready, I began looking at how I chose to spend my time, noticing who benefited from it and who did not. I started to see it when I took care of others’ needs and ignored or denied my own. I asked myself why I made the choices I did. Little by little, I learned to live in awareness, with intention. (Not always, but more and more often!) My negative self-talk once enforced my belief that everyone’s needs were more important than my own. I started changing my self-talk, and I questioned, then changed, those limiting beliefs.
Setting boundaries, saying “no,” and letting others learn their life lessons “the hard way” became a few of my goals. I started to see my role in creating trauma bonds, and I learned how to break those bonds. It was a slow, deliberate, and sometimes painful process.
Some of the other steps I took to break free of codependent coping were: living in the moment, focusing on one day at a time, building a network of emotionally healthy people, letting go of ones who weren’t, and prioritizing self-care. As I learned to become aware of my codependent thinking and behaving, I was better able to let go of my desire to control outcomes, no matter how good my intentions were. I got comfortable watching friends and loved ones deal with the consequences of their poor choices. I had to sit still and stay uninvolved when they made poor decisions, even if it hurt them or cost them money or relationships. I learned to let them feel the freedom and the dignity of making their own choices and dealing and learning from the outcomes. I learned to stop fixing and rescuing. I learned how to positively detach, set boundaries, and focus on self-care.
Tools for healing:
Conscious awareness: Be aware and make conscious choices before acting. Self-awareness releases us from making impulsive and potentially damaging decisions.
Self-care: We can only choose to focus on and be responsible for ourselves, our own thoughts, actions, and behavior. The good news is that we can change ourselves with patience, persistence, and practice. We can take responsibility for getting our needs met, instead of waiting for someone to change or meet our needs for us. We are in control of ourselves and no one is responsible for us but us.
Learn about letting go of what you can’t control, by using loving-detachment
How to write the highest vibrating, most powerful affirmations to manifest love, positivity, peace, self-confidence, motivation, success, and other wonderful things
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf developed strong coping skills and healing strategies for herself. She happily shares those with others who want to learn and grow.
Her Lemon Moms series and other books and articles are a combination of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight from her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She’s worked in numerous fields, including domestic violence and abuse, and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. On The Toolbox, she writes about recovery strategies from hurtful people and painful, dysfunctional, or toxic relationships. She has authored four transformational books about healing and moving forward from narcissistic Victim Syndrome.
Growing up in a narcissist home means that we’ve probably felt the resulting and ongoing confusion. We humans can’t continually live in a state of confusion. Not knowing what to believe, what to expect, and not able to trust our feelings, judgment, or senses is overwhelming and harmful. Our natural state of “being” requires that our thoughts and interactions make sense to us because we need stability and security to be emotionally healthy and balanced. When we feel doubtful of our reality, or are so fearful of making a decision, that we’re emotionally paralyzed, it may be the result of cognitive dissonance.
What is cognitive dissonance?
Cognitive dissonance is a type of mental stress that results from struggling to correct that “surreal-feeling” gap between what we know to be real, because we’ve experienced it with our senses, and what we are told to believe is real. It is the crazy-making component of gaslighting and the biggest cause of C-PTSD.
When you’re emotionally in the middle of dealing with continual conflicting beliefs, memories, thoughts, ideas, or values, you’re experiencing the confusion and mental discomfort known as cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance indicates a state of existing in a set of continually opposing or conflicting viewpoints, beliefs, or behaviors. It’s the result of manipulation, specifically of gaslighting. To restore their emotional balance, the afflicted person must change or remove the inconsistencies or conflicts. This is done on an ongoing basis.
Although it doesn’t sound like it, cognitive dissonance can be healthy. For example, guilt is a positive and healthy form of cognitive dissonance. Guilt allows us to see the discrepancy between “this is who I say I am, but this is what I did.” We feel guilty when “who we are” and “what we did” are not aligned. This misalignment causes us to feel empathy for the person we wronged. For example, if I believe I’m a gentle, kind, and loving person, and I make a cruel remark to someone, my perception of “who I am” no longer matches “what I did.” A gentle, kind, and loving person would not say mean things. I would be motivated by feelings of guilt to apologize to the person I hurt. The cognitive dissonance provided by our guilt drives us to atone for our actions.
Cognitive dissonance has a dark side, and it’s harmful.
When we’re gaslighted regularly, our level of cognitive dissonance grows, and the crazier and more out-of-touch we feel. We’re unsure of what’s real and what’s not, what’s true and what’s not, what to believe or not, and we don’t know whether to believe our senses or only to accept what we’re told.
We all tell ourselves stories. It’s how we make sense of ourselves and the world. Our egos translate our experiences so they make sense, but doing this when we’re in a state of cognitive dissonance can keep us stuck. To get unstuck, we might choose to accept the best explanation that we can come up with, regardless if it’s accurate.
For example, think about the possible explanations for a situation that a six-year-old might create, versus a twenty-year-old, or a thirty-five-year-old. Youth and immaturity work against us when we’re gaslighted as kids. We’re not experienced or knowledgeable enough to imagine plausible and realistic explanations. At ten, if my best friend doesn’t reach out, I might think it’s because she doesn’t like me anymore. But at thirty, if I haven’t heard from my friend, I might think it’s because she’s preoccupied, tired, not feeling well, etc. I can choose any number of explanations, and they’ll align with my current self-concept. Now, if I formed the belief in childhood that I’m unlovable, and I carried that belief with me into adulthood, my interpretation of other’s behavior will reflect that belief. If I have strong self-esteem, then my interpretation will reflect that. We interpret our reality using these emotional “filters.” It’s important to remember this because our filters can and do change. Our perceptions and interpretations also continually change and develop as we mature physically, intellectually, socially, spiritually, and emotionally.
Remember that “beliefs” are thoughts that have emotions attached to them. Eliminating inaccurate beliefs is a primary key to healing. Pick a childhood belief. What thoughts and feelings are still connected to it? For example: “I’m not smart.” List feelings, thoughts, and actions that come from that belief and write about them at length. Is the belief still relevant today? Why or why not? Explain. Learn about therapeutic approaches like Tapping, Neurolinguistic Programming, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to eliminate faulty beliefs and create healthy new ones. Invest time to investigate other methods for changing beliefs. We acquired our beliefs as children. We get to replace them with ones that serve us, as adults.
Cognitive dissonance is one of the most challenging aspects of healing. Because of gaslighting, we’ve learned to disregard or mistrust our perceptions, judgment, and memory. We may have learned to trust and accept our mother’s interpretation of the world and events and we may now rely on her interpretations, judgment, and perceptions instead of our own.
When you were gaslighted by your mother as a child, you probably received unexpected or inappropriate responses from her. Your response to her gaslighting may have been determined to be incorrect, unreasonable, or shameful. You may have wondered why your mother gave you strange looks that caused you to question your actions and words. Now, as an adult, you may be fearful for your mental health, you’re concerned that you may be losing your mind. You accept that you’re the illogical one, or that you’re mentally ill. You’re confused by things she says and does, but your observations can’t be validated because you’re often the only witness or the only one who finds her behavior strange.
Gaslighting often leads to depression, anxiety, helplessness, hopelessness, or exhaustion. If it’s severe, you may feel like your sense of self is “fuzzy” and “reality” feels dreamlike. You probably can’t think clearly and have trouble with problem-solving and making decisions. This is cognitive dissonance.
I’d often get confused, stressed, and frustrated when my mother denied doing or saying something I’d witnessed. I’d ask, “You’re saying that I didn’t see what I know I just saw?” And she’d reply in an exasperated or dismayed tone of voice, “You dreamt it,” “You imagined it,” or “So-and-so did that, not me.” It shouldn’t surprise you that I grew up to continue that tradition. I excelled at self-gaslighting. When you convince yourself that you didn’t just hear what you know you heard or that you didn’t just see what you know you saw….you are self-gaslighting. We do it to protect ourselves from further trauma.
Self-gaslighting
Self-gaslighting also contributes to cognitive dissonance. When we tell ourselves that someone’s actions or behavior was our fault, we’re self-gaslighting. We may convince ourselves that we somehow provoked their hurtful behavior, or we take responsibility for the things they did to hurt us. When we self-gaslight, we not only accept blame, we intentionally place it on ourselves. We lie to ourselves and then spend precious emotional energy, convincing ourselves that we’re not. It’s exhausting. Throughout your healing process, remind yourself not to do that anymore. Be honest with yourself now. Stand up for yourself and become your own advocate. If you won’t, then who will? Tell yourself the truth and stop accepting gaslighting from anybody, including yourself, period. Practice mindfulness to become aware that you’re doing it and stop every time.
Humans have a natural need for their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to co-exist peacefully with each other. This is known as “cognitive consistency.” Living in a state of cognitive consistency means that we feel stable, relaxed, and secure. For example, if I believe I’m an honest person, and I act accordingly, it means I’ll tell the truth even when it’s uncomfortable or it gets me into trouble. Doing so means I’ll maintain my integrity and my cognitive consistency.
For those of us who’ve experienced gaslighting as children, it likely caused harmful cognitive dissonance and reduced us to confused, uncertain, dependent shadows of our true selves. It robbed us of our ability to think logically, make decisions easily, use sound judgment, and recall accurately. Instead, we doubt ourselves, always second-guessing our thoughts, emotions, and decisions. I believe that gaslighting is the most treacherous form of manipulation because it undermines our sense of self and stability.
How cognitive dissonance is resolved
Most of us consciously or unconsciously resolve cognitive dissonance by doing one of these three things:
Change our thoughts: Choosing this option means you change your thoughts and beliefs to match those of your narcissistic mom. For example, you accept your mother’s perspective that you lack common sense, rather than continue believing that you have sound judgment. Now you agree with your mother, which eliminates the emotional conflict and cognitive dissonance.
Change our actions: With this approach, you change your behavior, so it matches your beliefs about yourself. Using the above example, you find ways to demonstrate that you actually have sound judgment and common sense. Your actions now match your mindset, eliminating the emotional conflict and cognitive dissonance.
Justify our perceptions: You really do lack common sense and sound judgment, and you rationalize this by minimizing their value and significance. In essence, you trivialize your lack of common sense and sound judgment to eliminate the emotional conflict and cognitive dissonance.
Resolving cognitive dissonance isn’t always done on a conscious level, although we may be aware that we have choices to make. At some point, we’ll use one of the three methods to keep our sanity intact.
Eliminating cognitive dissonance isn’t a “one and done” thing. Typically, and speaking from my own experience, we play around with the three possibilities for resolution, trying them on, seeing how they fit and feel. Eventually, we settle on one that suits us best, that causes us the least mental and emotional stress.
Because my mother liked to overwrite my perceptions and memories with her own, I heard a lot of, “I never said that,” “You imagined it,” “You dreamt it,” or “It wasn’t me.” I was in a continual state of self-doubt and confusion from her insistence that I perceived and remembered events inaccurately. My ability to make decisions and to trust my own senses was severely negatively impacted. I eventually came to believe that the discrepancies between my own observations and those of my mother were flaws in my memory and perception. I became obsessed with explaining the disparities between what I observed and what I was told I observed. I remained in a state of cognitive dissonance throughout my childhood. If you can relate, I urge you to start your healing journey now and recover from the resulting cognitive dissonance.
Tools for healing:
Conscious awareness: Be aware and make conscious choices before acting. Self-awareness releases us from making impulsive and potentially damaging decisions.
Self-care: We can only choose to focus on and be responsible for ourselves, our own thoughts, actions, and behavior. The good news is that we can change ourselves with patience, persistence, and practice. We can take responsibility for getting our needs met, instead of waiting for someone to change or meet our needs for us. We are in control of ourselves and no one is responsible for us but us.
More Resources You May Like:
I AM: A Guided Journey to Your Authentic Self
A Workbook and Journal
How to write the highest vibrating, most powerful affirmations to manifest love, positivity, peace, self-confidence, motivation, success, and other wonderful things
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf developed strong coping skills and healing strategies for herself. She happily shares those with others who want to learn and grow.
Her Lemon Moms series and other books and articles are a combination of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight from her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She’s worked in numerous fields, including domestic violence and abuse, and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. On The Toolbox, she writes about recovery strategies from hurtful people and painful, dysfunctional, or toxic relationships. She has authored four transformational books about healing and moving forward from narcissistic Victim Syndrome.
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