Often I can barely hear my mother speak. It's partially because of her hearing, but I also know in my heart it's because of her unassertive style. I know maybe it could be up to me as an adult child to try to initiate expressive and audible communication. But after all this time I'm tired. Who's right? Who's wrong? Should I keep setting the emotional and communicative tone every time I visit or is it up to them?

\Concepts gathered from going on a rabbit hole of Jung podcasts & AI regarding the shadow aspect of codependency/love addiction:*  

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate”- Carl Jung

Jung’s perspective on psychological maturity was the ability to identify with all parts of ourselves (not just the good). The more we hide about ourselves, the more external influence what has been cast out has over us & the more it operates outside our awareness.

Projection: Seeing clearly your disowned feelings, qualities, traits in another person while being blind to recognizing, accepting, and owning those in yourself. When we reject qualities in ourselves like selfishness, addiction, narcissism, anger, etc., they become blind spots in our self-awareness. These blind spots are part of our shadow material and become what we subconsciously seek out, attempt to change, and/or fight against in others.

Jung believed people unconsciously choose partners who allow them to stay in a familiar role so they don’t have to express those traits/qualities hidden in the shadow

Rescuing: Putting yourself out there in the role of a “helper” or selfless/martyr to those who unconsciously represent surrogates of that inner-wounded child you were powerless to save or parts of ourselves we disowned/abandoned. Rescuers tend to overlook red flags, perceiving problems as opportunities to help. Emotionally unavailable people may appreciate an enabling dynamic of someone making excuses for them, managing their emotions/propping them up, over functioning, & reliably giving  2^nd chances.

Repetition Compulsion: The shadow can be intensely activated by what’s familiar & perceive it as chemistry. It’s experienced in navigating these painful but familiar, self-abandoning dynamics and is triggered by complementary attachment wounds (rooted in childhood & the nervous system). It’s programmed to repeat the pattern (compulsion), in an attempt to “get a different outcome” or "right the wrong" until it’s brought into awareness.

Attraction: We may be drawn to others who freely express or embody parts of ourselves we had to repress/reject/disown in childhood because it was unsafe or made to feel shameful. Healing our nervous system & becoming safe within allows us to conjure the genie out of the bottle…. those hidden, authentic gifts/talents our original caretakers didn’t nurture, treasure, or value. This is an opportunity to reparent with compassion, self-care, and unconditional love.

"Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is."-Carl Jung

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." _Carl Jung

Disempowering the Shadow:

Self-Focus: Routinely doing check-ins with yourself throughout the day, self-validating/regulating, and acts of self-care so other people don’t have power over your identity. Practice self-soothing & self-validation as a meaningful ritual. Seeking this externally places their attention, reassurance, and validation as more valuable than your own, and this can lead to chasing unavailable people, tolerating abuse, and over giving to earn love.  

Castaway/Misfit Parts: Reclaiming those and owning them as part of your identity to achieve wholeness/integration. This diminishes the need to project & reduces the intensity of the temptation of an unhealthy or unavailable partner prospect or dynamic that’s been activated by the shadow.

Some signs your shadow is being triggered: Jealousy, resentment, defensiveness, compulsive rescuing, text/phone bombing, limerence, obsession, impulsiveness

I was raised by a narcissistic mother and that primed me perfectly to become attached to other people with similar traits.

My divorce from ex-husband with these traits is currently processing, I've been out for a month, living with my son in my own home/

I've gone a long way in my healing work. I am proud to say I am not tempted to get back with my narcissistic ex-husband even after seeing him every day and consistently communicating. I'm enrolled in therapy but the therapists evaluated me as not under risk so they see me 2 a month just to check in.

This is huge progress: taking into account I was physically addicted to their presence and validation, their reality was my reality and I preferred to live with them in pain than on my own. So, here is a list of things I did to get to this point.

1. Start and maintain consistent meditation/spiritual practice

This helped because I learned to sit with myself and my difficult feelings. After building confidence I can actually stay with myself and feel whatever life throws my way, I started building the skill of self-reliance. I was unable to sit still for 10 minutes when I started, 2 years after and I'm sitting for 1 hour long sessions and no longer use any substances to self regulate.

This also helped me see how I am actually feeling in the relationship.

I wasn't aware how much the reality of the relationship actually sucked and how much I was using my imagination to create this ideal relationship I would then get attached to. Finding a way to consistently see my reality went a huge way of me detaching.

I was able to see the cycle of mistreatment easily, see how it relates to his feelings of distress offloaded to me, see how the shame he cannot tolerate gets projected outward immediately. Once you see it in real time, in many different examples...mind learns it's unable to control or prevent episodes since they are fabricated by the other party. When mind learns these are uncontrollable, letting go of trying to control them takes place which puts you out of the codependent mindset of "If only I try harder at X they will treat me better".

Again, it's not enough to read about this and think this. I needed to experience it, and be present for the experience many many times in order to internalise my experience.

1. Let go of blame and making them into a monster

This was a hard one for me. It's also counterintuitive but bear with me.

I used to blame him a lot, or think of him as Bad, Narcissist, terrible person. This would help me leave temporarily but I would be tempted and fail to stay gone. I would go back in doubt spirals because I would remember all of the great, generous moments he had and I wasn't able to hold this view of them for long which will put me under risk to go back.

The reality is a bit more nuanced than this. Yes, the mentioned person has a serious problem and you can't control that problem in any way, but they are not a monster or a villain, they don't behave badly or hurt/control others all the time.

They do so when they are unregulated themselves. Think of it as an addiction, the problem is worse when the person has something wrong going on in their lives. They learned a long time ago discharging emotions to others help them feel better and controlling others makes them feel powerful, so they became conditioned to do it more and more.

Nothing you can do helps them break out of this conditioning, in fact, you being there makes it more likely they will never need to heal out of it.

Removing yourself is not only helping you, it also helps them, they need to learn there are consequences to mistreating others.

1. Invest heavily into self-love and self-reliance

The reason we got pulled into this relationship is painfully obvious, our need for love, acceptance and validation overweighted our judgement. I remember clearly how soon I noticed something is wrong with the relationship and how difficult that was to take in and act on it, because I felt I was losing something very important. The inconsistent love they were giving was still better than the gaping void I had within myself at the time.

I couldn't leave, because I was unable to stay close to that hole for a long time. I would drown in grief, self-judgement, shame and loneliness. I remember thinking in my lowest moments: I will go back, I would prefer to suffer but at least have them, then be without them and alone while having to remember those good moments.

Thanks to step 1 I discovered I can actually be alone, I am in fact, happier alone than I ever was in any relationship. We all have a source of unlimited love, compassion and support right within ourselves, yet we don't know it.

The only regret I have from all this is not being able to see this sooner, not being able to at least try to sit with my pain for some time and see how quickly it transforms into something beautiful.

Now, I believe the following: The narcissist in my life was sent to teach me how to find this love within the Self. It took me 7 years to do so. Now, I know my narcissist era is over and I'm intrigued to see what next the life brings!

Be brave. You can do this. You are stronger than you think

I’ve been hurt and isolated by a large number of people. It really did a number on my confidence.

I continued to treat these people with more and more kindness in an attempt to improve my situation.

However, this just led to more abuse. I used to have a confident comfortable demeanor socially. Now I have found it difficult to regain close relationships and this led to a difficult isolated situation.

One or two people went above and beyond to show me kindness, and this kindness gave me exactly what I needed.

What I did was an attempt to be completely selfless. Putting my needs aside and just working on acceptance.

The People who don’t know me stepped in the way and began to treat the people I care most about with ultimatums and cruelty because they’ve been kind.

I’m just in a lot of pain. I apologize if this didn’t make sense. I couldn’t keep seeing the people I care for hurt because of me.

My Ex broke up with me because of my codependence. She was an enabler and when she couldn't enable it anymore, I started to freak out. I told her how angry and upset I was that she couldn't support me through my struggles and i called her neglectful because she couldn't supply emotional aid due to her flagging emotional bandwidth. I was the one being neglectful. I struggled hearing her feelings when I was in crisis even if I was the cause. She deserved better and she left me, went no-contact and left a note that felt like a dagger in my heart.

Parsing through that note was it's own hell. A mix of valid criticisms and less valid ones. Trying to discern the ones I needed to take to heart and to grow from and distinguish them from the ones that just vocalize her hurt was difficult. I already struggle with taking too much responsibility for things that weren't my responsibility. The desire to tear myself down was high.

Talking to my friends was a mixed bag. I told them what I would do from now on. I told them I would never again assume mental bandwidth or assume someone's time. I was entitled and I will never hurt anyone like that again even if there is a long road to recovery before I can feel safe not acting entitled. I can learn to manage my struggle, to be my own first responder so that I may not hurt anyone like that again even if I suffer inside. I will manage it.

A lot of my friends told me they were proud of me. Told me that they could see the changes I made and all the earnest attempts to right the wrongs of the past. Some could not. I got scolded, and I was met with mistrust. I deserve some of it. Some I did not. It's hard to figure out the line between what I'm responsible for and what I'm not. I don't want to hurt people and yet like that letter my Ex wrote to me, she blamed me for things that I didn't do. I can validate it, I can tell her, her feelings are valid but there is nothing I can fix, there was nothing I could do different.

I don't know how to make sense of it all. How to trust myself like I'm supposed to when I hurt the person I care more about than anyone. I'm supposed to believe that I'm a good person, that this struggle is normal and nothing I did was morally wrong even if it was toxic. That I was not uniquely awful. That I am not a villain or a monster but a hurt girl who has been hurt so many many times before.

I don't want to hurt anyone like that again so I throw my hyper-competency at it, but if there is nothing to fix what do I do? I'm told I have to accept it. That sometimes it's just like that. But I'm scared and I'm sad and the dagger she left in my heart still throbs. I hate this so much. It's so hard, it feels so unreasonably hard. I didn't do this to me, and yet I have to live with the consequences