Narcissist's Prayer

Hit and Run and CPTSD

One Monday morning in January, after the boys finally returned to school, I headed to the gym under blue skies and sunny mid-50s, with almost no traffic. Suddenly, a BMW SUV sideswiped me at the roundabout and kept going. I was in disbelief. Living in a state of sleep deprivation and constant overstimulation, and having been regularly gaslit in my family and marriage, my first thought was that I had imagined it. Did that really just happen?

I followed the BMW into a medical center parking lot and blocked her in. When the woman exited her car and tried to ignore me, I called out, “Excuse me.” She responded, clearly inconvenienced, “Can I help you?” I said, “Yes, you hit my car at the roundabout.” She replied, “I did not hit you and I have an appointment to get to,” and continued walking. OMG, it felt all too familiar. OMG.  So familiar. 

Unrecovered me wants to go ape shit.  Scream.  Tell her about herself.  She is cool dismissive, nice car.  So important, poised, and clearly believes in her rightness.    

I walk to the front of her car, pointing I say, “see that…that matches the marks on my car where you hit me.”  She flippantly hands me a tattered paper and says, write down your number and I will call you.”  Oh, Ok.  Lacking confidence that this woman who hit me and ran and then LIED about what she did is going handle this.  I call Favorite to ask IF I should call police.

I’m now crying because that’s how my neurology processes stress and intense feelings, even the positive ones. In true narcissistic fashion, the BMW driver looks at me disdainfully and asks, “Why are you crying?” as if my emotional response is evidence of my instability. She’s not asking out of concern, nor is she deserving of an explanation. Still, I tell her that chasing her down after hitting my car is upsetting. She then heads to her appointment and I call the police.

Now my Monday energy (and hope) is spent.  I weep in my car for the half hour it takes for an officer to arrive, not because I am sad.  She returns after her appt.  The same woman who insisted she did not hit me,  now tells the police I hit her.  In detail.  C-PTSD insists that she might be right, what do I know, I am crazy, remember things wrong, cannot be counted on to truly know what happens.  The officer surveys our cars before driving the area in which SHE HIT ME and returns to write her a ticket for failure to yield…and not for hit and run.  

The crazy part is that she showed no concern—not for a second. She wasn’t afraid of a ticket; she remained composed, self-righteous, and unapologetic. A hit-and-run is a criminal offense, yet because I was crying—clearly a problematic person—perhaps that would be the only focus.


I was flattened for days, processing the energy and emotions from the experience. In the time between her leaving for her appointment and receiving the ticket, I panicked: I feared I would get the ticket, be financially responsible, get into trouble, and that I was somehow crazy and also imagined it. Living with CPTSD means I react to current situations with the same intensity as past traumas, when I felt unsafe and powerless. Although I am now safe and have tools to cope, my nervous system doesn’t always recognize that.

How I sleep knowing I do not cuase other people's behavior. Homer Simpson

Categorically and Inherently Wrong

The concept of being categorically and inherently wrong is new to me. I see how labeling an individual or group this way can lead others to feel justified in acting unwholesomely against them. Under this label, a person becomes unacceptable—disposable, their humanity dismissed and deemed unworthy of consideration.

Something which is inherently wrong is wrong in its very nature. Categorical means absolute, without any exceptions. Inherently wrong and categorically wrong are very close. To designate a person or animal or thing in either of these ways would make it more palatable to disegard, marginalize, diminish, neglect, extinguish, erase.

I’m learning to let go of the belief that I need to atone for who I am and my inherent flaws. This realization has permanently separated me from those who relied on my compliance. While the pain from my family of origin and my marriage may never fully fade, the absence of shame brings new energy and hope. However, to create something greater requires more energy—like getting more than three hours of sleep, which is challenging for me.

I now appreciate waking each day with the dignity of being myself, free from the shame that stems from those who sought to dismantle me with the messsaging of: “Stop feeling that way,” “Correct that(or else),” or “You are unwelcome/unwanted.” I worry for my sons, as their father and my family invite them to distance themselves from me, and join the Royal WE. This toxic legacy is distressing.

When one of my sons behaves as if he matters more than others, I used to overreact and tell him he was like them. Now, I simply acknowledge, “That’s some legacy shit.” It’s not perfect, but it’s better. He often tries to position himself as inherently right, but I question how we can function as a healthy family with that mindset. My commitment to disrupting these harmful cycles is strong.

These cycles tolerate victimization and diminish individuals, fostering the belief that some matter more than others.

I’ve come to realize that the root of abuse is simple: abusers abuse. People behave the way they do because they choose to. Mature individuals don’t justify harmful actions. I do not believe that anyone is categorically wrong or right. We all have the capacity to improve and atone for our actions, but not for who we are.

Believing in absolute rightness and wrongness is a dangerous mindset. It allows some to evade accountability while others are made to feel guilty for the damage inflicted upon them. I see this dynamic affecting each of my sons differently.

Bob Goff Love Does

Bad Economy

Having been raised in an system in which love (access to connection and protection) could be earned, lost, and withheld, I did not fare well. It is my belief that wholesome love can be neither earned nor lost. I think I would desecribe my formative experience as one of emotional poverty. I recently learned the phrase emotional inheritance which drives me even harder to break the cycle (the cycles of believing that some people matter more than others) and to intentionally leave a more healed and healing legacy.

Although CPTSD still triggers intense reactions to perceived threats, which brings me significant shame and harm, I am grateful for the support and wisdom I have in recovery. This guidance helps me learn healthy, loving, and grounded ways to engage in relationships, especially in motherhood, community, and friendship. While I can’t guarantee that my boys will embrace recovery principles, I can ensure they are exposed to them.

I’ve been reflecting on how much easier it is for people to label one member of a group as crazy, delusional, or oversensitive—terms often used to describe victims of gaslighting and narcissistic abuse—than to acknowledge that another member has actually behaved in harmful or abusive ways, especially if the abuser is discreet and hasn’t directly targeted them.

So, yeh, Hustle culture and gaslighting. Oh, and cycle breaking. These are on my mind, again and still.

Also –yay to 2024 and a new and expansive relationship! I cherish each dating experience. Every encounter teaches me something valuable about myself, regardless of how brief or lengthy our time together may be.

You better watch out, better not cry, better not pout

Better Not Cry- Better Not Pout

From my earliest days, my high sensitivity to sensory and emotional impact (and therefore differing needs) were identified as trouble-making, a betrayal, a burden, a lack of gratitude, shameful, punishable.  I see now how I presented as the ideal scapegoat, the youngest, the most sensitive, the least able to abide by the optic.  My Grandmother and Uncle frequently warning me how I should smile more and I would be prettier, why must I LOOK so miserable?  These impositions were not born out of a concern for my peace, comfort, joy, mental health.  Rather, requirements to appear happy were to fulfill the needs of others and to insure my belonging.  My inability to do that—to serve in that way, caused the most amount of trouble for me. Our family lore will present this differently and that is OK.  I share only my own experience here.  

I dont super love Christmas music but, like trauma, song lyrics stick with you – and that inside knowing and memory just kicks in— and you sing along without even meaning to.  This morning, for the first time, I noted these lyrics (which we sing without too much thought)–how relevant they are to my struggle and recovery.  “Better not pout, better not cry.”

I now recognize my pain and discomfort from not only being deeply sensitive and, not knowing how to cope or manage the sustained overwhelm, compounded by panick over the price to be paid for failing to effectively mask– to pass for a comfortable, satisfied, secure child—reflective of a healthy home and loving environment.  At a very unconscious level, I recognized and stressed that if I did not lighten tf up, I would pay the high and humiliating price of observable banishment, alienation, and shitty and few gifts.

My discomfort was not the problem but the symptom of unwellness in our family system.  It is intensely painful to recall how my sister would gain traction off of me by seeing to it that I had something to fret-  A belittling comment or cruel threat which only I could hear.  She literally thrived in my despair- and insured for herself in this way that she may shine by comparison.  She enjoyed privately setting me on fire and then also heroically show up as a first responder to point out and tend to the fire.

Today is in fact beautiful(and deeeply painful still) because I spend it with my best friend of fifty years am welcome to be exactly who and how I am. I am tormented though— as I recall not only “family” Christmases past, but also recent ones in which my sister and my sons’ father dedicated effort to arrangements which would alienate my sons from me.  I can not imagine what they had hoped to come of their scheme- how they thought it would play out and with zero regard for the continued cost my sons get to pay– the fall out of their unholy alliance, and elsiting my sons in acts of betrayal to their mother.  What did they think that would do for or teach my sons? 

Who even does that-  Woman survives high conflict marriage and divorce.  Big Sister meets ex-husband post divorce.  And promptly aligns with him to collectively diminish and erase her sister.  There is no other way to spin that.  Seriously. I wished I could forget and just smile so Santa could at last validate me with the gifts and the glory, reserved for the happy and smiling.  Fuck that santa, though.

Holding On– But also letting go

I suspect that I am the only one in my entire lineage (and also the lineage of the person I married and divorced)— able and willing to self reflect and to ask myself, repeatedly:  What could I have done differently for a better outcome?  This may be typical for scapegoats and cycle breakers, and those who have been taken down by narcissists. I get that I am the common variable in each of those systems, and also, it is well documented that trauma survivors seek out people with whom they can relive the familiar dynamic.  Just as loved, nurtured, protected people choose more more of the same for themselves.

To the best of my understanding, my crime was in my failure to kiss the ring and agree to matter less than those who were able and comfortable to do harmful and destabilizing things to those who dissent.

So, what if I am intense, weird, dramatic, desperate, irritating, disappointing, challenging, too sensitive, demanding, needy, crazy, and an overall garbage human?  Which I am not.  Do I matter less?  Is it then ok to systematically work to disable, banish, erase me?  

Ok,  I am definitely some of those things, but could I turn an otherwise kind benevolent and transparent person to do evil and shady shit? I just dont beleive I am that powerful?   My refusal to pretend and to be diminished….is not a crime.  What have I actively done or chosen which qualified me for the highest levels of betrayal? Anguished. I long to know the exact misrepresentations which have been offered as justification for doing the dirtiest and most devastating things.  

Holidays are difficult for survivors. They have alllllways been hard for me. Scary. Painful. I guess the good news is–My pain is historcial and my present circumstance is in fact pretty great, yet I am not able to relax and enjoy. Cuz depression and C-PTSD. How wonderful it would be if letting go of pain was a one and done event, rather than one day at a time. Trauma recovery is like addicition and eating disorder recovery, we get to do it one day at a time —forevvvvvvver.

As always, I will note that I was terrified and unhinged with no coping skills for the first 40 years of my life and I defintley made many hurtful and horrifying choices. I have been owning and amending my broken ass thinking and behavior and would like to boast that I have not done a super fucked up thing TO anyone for 15 years…and I am proud of that. As evidenced by my consistent herculean efforts to resist the urge to retalliate. I do NOT consider sharing what I have lived through to be a form of retaliation.

Goals, Ambition, Mental Health

I’ve been thinking lately about life in survival mode, how it prevented me from setting and working toward/achieving goals. And turns out: Goal achievement plays a large part in mental health and wellness. So, that adds right tf up. The only thing I’ve ever intentionally and consistently worked at and became skillful at, may be my more elevated response to (people) things which have been harmful.

With recovery principles, I no longer allow moods or feelings to justify hurtful choices or reactions, not by me and not by others. I am so fkn proud of my understanding that the intention or reason behind a behavior does not mitigate its negative impact. This shift, so far from what I had been trained to believe about accountability, connection, and goodness, is freaking miraculous.

So basically, my self esteem is at its highest, after someone has hurt me and I have exercised recovery principles over reactive defense or retaliation. And, while it is rewarding, it, in no way, elevates the overall quality of life or hope for a future in which I feel more inspired than exhausted.

As I observe continued (justified) acts of terror by inidviduals and groups, I feel wrecked by what seems an aboslute impossiblity for a shared vision and plan for peace, with any faction dedicated to “their own rightness, winning, and claiming that to which they feel entitled”. There is a heaviness in my soul, over the growing practice of tactical labelling / designating a person or group of people, so as to demonize/dehumanize and license abuse/marginaliztion, and eradication. I know it starts at home, but when and where does it end?

Why must Earth life be so difficult?!?

How Do I Handle This?

The one thing I have most needed to know how to handle, is myself.  I am finally learning to do this– with love and compassion.  Only in recovery, have I been encouraged and taught to navigate and cope with difficult feelings and people.  With the fixed mindset that I was responsible for all bad behavior and words spoken to, about, or near me, I was always on the verge of, or mid- panic/mental breakdown.  I could be counted on to behave like a complete lunatic when faced with stress:  dishonesty, an unkind word, betrayal, dismissal, and most any situation which caused me to feel threatened, ashamed and powerless.  With my volatile vibe and explosive responses, nearly anyone could get away with treating me poorly or unfairly, since my insanity insured  a stealing of the spotlight, taking a person promptly off the hook for foul play.  My unfortunate reactions made it not only possible, but likely and easy for people to righteously demean me. ?? When I stopped reacting, those ☠️relationships, which relied on my sick engagement, ceased.  Old habits and relationships die ⚰️hard.  I let them die—so I can live.

As I write this, as when I do most things, I hear voices of those who neeeeed for me to BE wrong and sick in order that they feel right, good, and well.  As if their only source of traction relies on a contrast to ME.  Those voices are all:  “Oh yeh, poor Magda, as if she is/was some sort of angel snowflake, sooo precious.”  Anyone who genuinely knows me, also knows that I absolutely do not intend to convey a life of absolute innocence.   I neither deny nor make excuses for the less than stellar ways which I have been.  As a result of feeling intensely emotionally charged 24/7, negatively charged, I said and did unreasonable, unkind, and dishonest things.  Fuck, it is all I knew.  I had witnessed neither mercy nor grace (the spiritual kind, not a poised and carefully curated appearance).  When we know better, we do better.  I am learning, a work in progress. (more…)

The Pain We Do Not Heal(re-post from 2018)

Recovery has been a wildly unpopular choice—quite agitating to those threatened by the idea that there is something wrong—other than only my existence.  My healing has been labelled a lie, a show, an attack, a war, a story to get attention. I hear this frequently from others in recovery-“Recovery is a deal-breaker and a relationship ender for those with a need for us to stay sick, sad, broken, afraid, and ashamed.” Those are deals worth breaking. The relationships will either heal along with us or they will die natural (but painful) deaths. Are you ready to feel and heal? Nothing like the gift of desperation—the lightning bolt moment in which it becomes unbearably clear that IT cannnot continue. For me, becoming a mother and experiencing the full gravity of two little ones learning about love and family by observing and experiencing US, as we were-that was my invitation to heal. I will not carry on the lies and legacies of dynamics which rely on shaming, shunning, and contracting to cull the herd.  I will not pass that on.

I believe in a better story for my children.  I choose to learn and do better.

“Pain travels through family lines until someone is ready to heal it in themselves.  By going through the agony of healing, you no longer pass the poison chalice onto the generations that follow.  It is incredibly important and sacred work”

It stops here. I realize that I regularly share about my loveless family and marriage experiences. But today, I recognize how they are Godless more than loveless. I think that making this distinction could alleviate some of the pain. The brand of love and family which I was raised on and then went on to marry, conflicts with all of my basic needs and core truths. Requirements to be revered(as one might a god or ruler), in control, and at the center, made no allowances for personal differences & preferences,healthy curiosity, open communication, intimate/safe/healthy and sustainable connection.  It was killing to my soul and spirit.

Has anyone ever attempted to be your god, not as a source of protection, hope, and comfort—but as THE ONE in charge of punishment and rewards based on how you please them and accommodate their moods and preferences?  —entirely self propelled by pride, ego, agenda. ☠️ Spiritual Recovery teaches me all of the ways in which I need a God-centered life more than I need “that”. It is the choice, I have been left to make. Repeatedly. Get on board or pay the price— after you fuck off. I have not been allowed to fuck off in peace. I have tried. There is no peace with people like this. Capitulation or Reprisal. That manner of engagement is not for me nor my children. We will not abide. Love is the boss of us. We are less afraid of the disapproving and wrathful than we are of losing ourselves. Here is a fun saying I heard recently—“God is god and I am not”  (and neither are you!!) (more…)

If you can’t convince them, confuse them(re-post)

In between wrapping gifts and singing along to Country Christmas, I am taken down by the grief of my sister and my mother, the reality of how they smash and grab– seizing what they want, as they like.  I received the email below, following my direct request to postpone one Sunday dinner– until WE resolve some tensions. 

(more…)