Finally joined the forum

[CravingSafetyPeaceFreedom]

Hey!  Another survivor from a forum I've been a member of for many years (not related to this stuff) woke me up to PDs and the Out of the FOG website maybe 5 years ago or so, but I never joined the forums.  I read the website do's and don'ts and devoured things, and it really helped finally associate the abuse I've experienced since I was a baby until and through my adulthood from both of my parents as well as some other people in my life.  I studied a bit of psychology in undergrad and fell in love with it, so I already had had an introduction to the DSM, but for some reason it never hit me that my mom and dad had traits consistent with the disorder.  All the circular conversations, JADE/DEEP, fawning, freezing -- I've been falling into the same traps for decades and learning some of the basics has helped wake up my mind and likely protected me from some situations.

The abuse is ongoing to this day as my parents get older, and a family member has re-entered the picture, and he's violently abusive, just like my dad.

I've opened up and dumped so much on my main forum, but I think the forum is inactive and dead, because months/years go by and I never get a single reply to my questions.  I almost feel like many people don't have the personal experience of being on the receiving end of NPD and BPD abuse, and they have NO IDEA.  And because narcissists are experts at wearing a mask and presenting a false self-image to others, it's so easy for flying monkeys and enablers to have no clue just how horrific people can be.

There's the knowledge aspect in our healing journey (learning the terminology and understanding how no contact/low contact, grey/yellow rock, etc. work and seeing the signs and red flags), and there's the emotional healing.  I'm still a beginner.

Someone suggested I join Reddit because there are massive communities of survivors, but I don't like the Reddit format compared to a traditional forum, and the lack of privacy scares me because it would be dangerous for abusers/stalkers to find posts, associate them with me, and then do damage in real life (including physical violence and vengeance and smear campaigns).  This forum only has <10K members, so my worry is that months or years will go by with silence, but I'm at least trying it out here just because I'm pretty scared and desperate right now.

I tend to be VERY verbose and like documenting abuse so I don't have to memorize everything.  I dread typing for hours but I really need to surround myself with a group of survivors who believe that I'm telling the truth and also don't gaslight me or invalidate me or isolate me.

I want to get through some scary situations right now where this uNPD (ASPD?) half-sibling is back in my life after decades of vanishing, and my elderly dad (uNPD?) is terminally sick, and he has become very close to my dad and taken over as executor of the will.  I can't really escape this situation, but I want to be safe and I want to be understood.

Mom (divorced and remarried) is bedridden and has free health care and future fakes about getting better, but her BPD+NPD traits have not changed -- some have gotten worse with her physical condition.  The only saving grace in adulthood is my mother is no longer capable of physical violence, but she is worse on the psych/emotional abuse front, so I've learned to go low contact.

I'll expand in a thread in the main forums.  Just wanted to introduce myself and say hello to you guys.  You are loved and I believe your stories.  I'm here for advice and healing and to surround myself with people who are kind and know what I'm going through so that I can get through this.  My dream is no contact (especially with the half-sibling), but the isolation and smear campaign and vengeance are strong, and the capacity for physical violence terrifies me, because I don't want to get hurt or die.  I haven't even LIVED my adult life yet despite being an adult.

Anyway, have a nice day.  I'll try my best to type details and examples and questions in a thread in the main forum.  When I'm in a better and safer position, I'd love to be able to give back to others here who are struggling so it's not just take-take-take.  I want to read others' situations and help them as best I can, but right now I'm not doing so well and don't feel safe and don't feel believed.

Ciao.

[CravingSafetyPeaceFreedom]

Creating a new post since I can't find the Edit or Quick Edit button anymore, but maybe I'm just blind.  Here's what I wanted to add to my original post:

Edited to Add:  I'm reading through all the Member Guidelines, abbreviations/acronyms, rules, etc. just so I don't accidentally break any rules or anything.  I've also read the guidelines on acute emergency situations and want to clarify I'm not in that situation at all, as I don't want to have any posts deleted or anything.

------

Questions:

1.  Does this forum setting have like a 1 hour time limit to edit posts?  For long posts or whatever, I tend to go back and fix typos or add clarity hours or days later.  Or if I overshare information in a post that might accidentally make it easier to find out who/where I am, I'll go back and edit that out a day or week later.  I'm concerned if there's a time limit on post edits that I'll no longer be able to edit posts to make them easier to understand or add more detail, etc.  I suppose I'm just so used to not having a time limit, so if there is, I'll need to think about whether I should proceed here, because I don't want to burden mods/admins with annoying requests and like doing my own editing and clean-up, even long after the fact.

2.  I can't find the Profile setting to disable other members being able to e-mail me.  I'm okay with dms but don't want direct e-mail.  Just wanted to make sure it's disabled is all.

3.  [Privacy]:  The forums are visible to people who aren't logged in members.  Is there a robots.txt file (or some other measure) that disables Google, Bing, and other search engines from indexing these forums?  Just asking for stalker prevention reasons, since if the forums are indexed, it can make people less safe no matter how private they try to be.

4.  Is there a way to set our own time zone?

Thank you so much for your time, and I'm happy to be here.

[xredshoesx]

welcome to the group @CravingSafetyPeaceFreedom

as a child of a similar dynamic I can completely understand how the reintroduction of a sibling who exhibits similar behaviors as your parents can be so triggering- esp when you are dealing with end of life/aging parents as well.

as both my parents age i'm hands off with it between no contact with my bio mother and very limited contact with my father....  I'm kind of an onlooker in what is going on with him and my stepmom because it's not my place- even though I am the 'oldest' and will follow the lead of my sisters if that makes sense bc they are closer to the situation having their whole lives with him vs me only knowing my dad as an adult - I don't want to be like your sibling basically-  legally in my state i'm also NOT OBLIGATED as well so that gave me some breathing room as both my parents are close to 80 now.  from what you described it may not be a bad idea to seek out legal advice with that half sibling.


as to your forum questions- i'm the volunteer accountant here and can tag in the tech team but I can answer the basic questions

1- you can't edit your posts after an hour.

2.  I can ask the tech volunteer about the email but there's a lil more about it in this board info post
https://www.outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=48572.0

3.  this is a public forum.  this is why we ask members to use non-identifiable user names and to not post identifying details (names, snips of conversations/texts, cities, dates)

4. i'll have to ask the tech guru volunteer on the time zone too

again- welcome to the group.  when you are ready to share more there are several areas that may be of targeted support for you
Dealing with PD Parents

Dealing with PD Elderly Family Members

[CravingSafetyPeaceFreedom]

Thanks for the warm welcome!

as a child of a similar dynamic I can completely understand how the reintroduction of a sibling who exhibits similar behaviors as your parents can be so triggering- esp when you are dealing with end of life/aging parents as well.

The similarity isn't what triggers me at all; it's the scary behavior itself.  So even if my parents weren't PD'd, this person's behavior would still confuse and be very hurtful.  What really hurts is the 2-on-1 and 3-on-1 or 4-on-1 or 5-on-1.  It's all textbook gaslighting and textbook family scapegoating behavior to me, and it makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills.  But since I found this website (not the forums) 5 or so years ago, I started my healing and knowledge journey then, at least from my mom, dad, and SF.  And recognized them in a now ex-gf.  I think just having basic knowledge to recognize patterns and how gaslighting manifests and getting deep into things like narcissism and borderline traits really helps make me more grounded in my reality.

I have all text messages saved.  Those alone (with multiple family members) prove my case.  (Not that I would need to prove it to survivors here.  And my friends elsewhere who are also survivors.  We all understand and believe each other.)  I also may (or may not) have also legally (but secretly) recorded some phone conversations.  I haven't done face-to-face conversations because it just feels weird to feel like I need to carry a police-style bodycam on me, but I've been told from other survivors that I'm not alone!  Re-writing history, gaslighting, it goes very, very deep.

as both my parents age i'm hands off with it between no contact with my bio mother and very limited contact with my father....  I'm kind of an onlooker in what is going on with him and my stepmom because it's not my place- even though I am the 'oldest' and will follow the lead of my sisters if that makes sense bc they are closer to the situation having their whole lives with him vs me only knowing my dad as an adult - I don't want to be like your sibling basically-  legally in my state i'm also NOT OBLIGATED as well so that gave me some breathing room as both my parents are close to 80 now.  from what you described it may not be a bad idea to seek out legal advice with that half sibling.

It gives me so much peace of mind knowing I'm not the only one who feels the need to implement low contact or no contact just for health and healing and to be able to safely live our lives.  I know it sounds stupid to say this, but I can't tell you how good it is just to read that others have similar experiences.  I'm so, so, so isolated.  And even reaching out for help from friends (which I'm told is healthy!) being met with silence just hurts like hell, as if they're silently saying that it's all in my head or I'm exaggerating things or I'm the one being dramatic.  I assume most people have years or decades of experience being abused so sharing stories in other forums should be met with "Oh me too!  Here's what I did and what I learned.  You're not alone!"  Instead, just silence or dismissal.  I feel like people in my home forum don't care when somebody is isolated and reaching out for understanding and friendship.  I know this forum is small, but I hope that at least others here are in similar shoes (I know this site and forum covers all PDs so not everyone will be a survivor of the same challenges, but I have a gut feeling that survivors of NPD and BPD abuse are not in short supply here.)

I'll take some time soon and start a thread topic in the appropriate forum and not here.  Just saying a big thank you for welcoming me.

1- you can't edit your posts after an hour.

Okay, thanks for confirming.  I think I'm a creature of habit and so used to being in forums where there's no time limit.  I'm so paranoid of the PD family members finding my posts and causing some real damage that I gotta think if I'm willing to post a few threads here with this restriction or find somewhere else.  Am I neurotic enough that typos will bother me days later?  Lol.  I guess I've been stalked/harassed before so I learned to be super private online.  I'll try to keep my stories private-ish and generic I guess.  And I like editing just for clarity I guess, but that's a me problem/habit.  Maybe perfectionism or maybe just a fear of being misunderstood.

Was there a problem that led to this rule by the way?

Thanks for the other answers too!  And yeah, I guess my question about "robots.txt" or whatever was if we block Google/Bing from sniffing out this entire forum, it'll protect the members just a tiny bit from stalking.

Oh, and I read the donation topic.  I'm a tech enthusiast so wondering if there's a way to both reduce server hosting costs as well as increase funding (are ads in the forums already ruled out?  That might be $20-50 a month or more...)

[xredshoesx]

the only monetization we've done is with the Amazon store. 

edit rule promotes continuity of discussion threads.

i'll share this with the team tho- take care of yourself today.  for many here, mother's day isn't a celebration like it COULD be

[CravingSafetyPeaceFreedom]

Hi, checking in again.  Has there been any progress?

1.  Is this forum spidered by search engines?  I don't want my abusers to be able to find me.  I want to find a good support community and safe place, and privacy is mandatory to me.
2.  Can we set our own time zones please so post timestamps are correct?
3.  Ability to edit our own posts.  I tend to share TMI sometimes, or things aren't clear and I want to edit for clarity, or I want to edit things out that hurt my privacy and someone can use to find me and hurt me, so even though I spend 1-4 hours typing and editing sometimes before I create a post, mistakes still get through, so I need the ability to be able to edit my post even hours, days, or weeks/months later.  It's such a need for me and was wondering if that can be changed, since every other forum I'm in has that kind of freedom.  I usually edit my long posts 20-30 times since there's tons of errors or things I want to redact.

Thank you!  I'm posting large, detailed posts in my "home" forum that has about 900,000 members, but months or years go by and nobody replies.  It's draining, and it makes me think I did or said something wrong reaching out for help from my best friends.  I also asked them if they knew of online or in-person support groups for survivors of NPD and BPD abuse, and nobody replied.  I found this forum, but without the ability to edit my posts, there's no point in reaching out for the help I desperately need.

I'm surrounded by 4 close family members who are mentally unstable (for decades...in a PD way), and I've learned that I CANNOT confide in one abusive family member about the abuse of another family member, because they'll either lie, gaslight, dismiss, rage at me, or scapegoat me, and it'll just further drive home twisting reality, which isn't what I need.  It's just weird to me that I can't discuss the nuances of things like gaslighting, projection, DARVO, JADE, DEEP with abusive family members who just say that I'm the problem or it's all in my head.

Anyway, thanks for your help.  Just bumping my thread to see if it's safe to post here now and I can edit my posts even days/weeks after the fact, that this place isn't indexed by search engines, and can change my time zone.

I'm not sure where else I can go online that is free and private.  That rules out Reddit (not private), so maybe other forums exist if this one won't work or is dead.

[xredshoesx]

this is a public forum staffed by volunteers- content posted is searchable

time zones are determined by the server

posts can not be edited after like an hour of the initial post

Please be careful of your details.  we allow members a maximum of three edits for confidentiality.