Really straightforward youtube videos on toxic family systems and how to recover

[treesgrowslowly]

I have been really enjoying watching some of the videos from Patrick Teahan and so wanted to pass his name along to others. His focus is on the narcissistic family system, and how to recover from it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLite6Vwuno

This video looks at the values in the toxic family vs. the values we hold ourselves, as survivors. Would love to know if anyone else has been learning from Patrick Teahan lately too?

Trees

[NarcKiddo]

I just looked at the video you linked. I have not come across him before. But thank you SO much. I really like the way he presents himself and the subject, and I found the video helpful. It happens to tie in well with some stuff I was discussing with my therapist yesterday which was a tough session for me and I got very upset. Two points he made which I particularly liked were:

We often tend to know ourselves at first as a traumatised person, but that is what was done to us. That is not who we are.

When we identify what we don't like about our abusers we can find ourselves concentrating so much on not being like them until that in itself becomes dysfunctional. This second point is what I struggle with a lot. My therapist is constantly having to remind me that I am not my mother.

I'm going to look at more of his stuff.

[treesgrowslowly]

Hi NarcKiddo,

SO glad you found his video helpful. I've found so many of his shorts on social media helpful.

I have not watched many of the longer videos but suspect they are helpful as well.

Regarding the worry that we are / will become our mothers. I remember that this fear was strong for me, the 2nd and 3rd year after I went NC. For me at that time there were things going on in my life and that fear that I was like my abuser parent, was high. I talked to others who had NPD parents and they shared that they had the same fears.

As you recover you'll see yourself clearly more and more often. I now feel grounded in the fact that I am not a PD like my mother is. I see my behaviours as mine, and even when I feel selfish, I know that it is not narcissistic personality disorder, it is just me being human.

There are some tricky times during that process. Realizing you have some trait that they have too (like they can't sing and you also can't sing - something small like that can trigger us sometimes). That's not a great example but you get my drift hopefully. They like this colour and you also like that same colour. People without NPD parental trauma may not see how that can be concerning.

I have some interests that I set aside early in my recovery work because she has those same interests. Eventually I did find that the interest started to just feel like mine. Now a days I forget that some of my interests are the same as hers. But for a while it was really hard to enjoy things without having those fears come up. I hear you.

Trees