Yearly Archives: 2026

Read more about the article Gaslighting, Blame-Shifting, and the Absence of Repair
Denial. Deflection. Blame reversal. A recognizable pattern where responsibility somehow keeps finding its way back to you.
Blame-Shifting, Gaslighting, Triangulation & Smear Campaigns

Gaslighting, Blame-Shifting, and the Absence of Repair

A person can know something experientially long before they can articulate it. They might know, for example, “After X is upset with me, I end up confused. I initiate communication thinking I had a legitimate concern, and somehow I leave apologizing and wondering whether I caused everything.” They don’t necessarily have words or concepts to process what happened. Once someone learns concepts like blame-shifting, triangulation, invalidation, double standards, DARVO, conditional approval, or refusal of repair, those concepts can provide handles for examining…

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August 13, 2026
Read more about the article When Accountability Goes Only One Way
I can own my part. I cannot own yours too.
Family Scapegoating & Golden Child Dynamics

When Accountability Goes Only One Way

For more than 40 years, I didn't really know how to exist inside a relationship unless I was the broken one, bowing in reliance to anyone gracious enough to let me hang around, no matter the quality of treatment. Could you stay with me? Could you help me? What have I done to be so lucky to have someone strong and knowing and right like you? Barf. Fangirl, fawning, degrading shit. I knew how to engage only that way. What…

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August 12, 2026
Read more about the article Making Sense of Life Through Patterns
"Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know." — Pema Chödrön
Trauma, Recovery & Nervous System Patterns

Making Sense of Life Through Patterns

With all of the therapy, writing, reading, reflection, and somatic work, a lot is coming up for me. Memories. Patterns. Correlations that I had not previously made. I am finding that this process is much less like the discovery of something new and much more like noticing something that has been there all along. I would describe it as so much stuff from the past lying in a tangled heap on a closet floor, too overwhelming to tackle or ignore.…

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August 5, 2026
Read more about the article Image Versus Reality
Sometimes the most powerful thing in the room is not the truth. It is the assumption.
Family Scapegoating & Golden Child Dynamics

Image Versus Reality

There is a scene in Boardwalk Empire in which a priest is standing in a river performing a baptism. He is wearing white robes. He is smiling. He occupies a position of moral authority. He presents as a good man offering salvation. The priest is holding the man beneath the water, while keeping a calmly arranged placid smile on his face, his confidence in plausible deniability. Here is a man cloaked in goodness, purity, and authority, protected by the very role that…

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August 5, 2026