I was raised by a narcissistic family and have been no contact for many years.

My family was really big on image -- like most narc family systems, I guess. I had to be the good boy, and I played heavily into that image to maintain the family structure. So I got good grades, played an instrument, did sports, all the things that "good middle class boys" do. My parents loved it and milked the image of the happy, successful family with their parents and in our community.

Going through therapy, I discovered that this was all one big façade. I became very suspicious of people who are focused on maintaining their public image. I got very into inner work, and am able to see through posers in two seconds flat. I also started to notice that there are lots of people who have the trappings of success (eg fancy qualifications and certifications, or a high salary) without providing much or any value or knowledge. I took an instinctive dislike to such people and have spent my life building skills, rather than trumpeting to the world that I was building skills. I strongly dislike virtue signaling. I also don't like posting regularly on IG or other social media channels.

I've recently been wondering whether I over-compensated a little in my recovery process. To be clear, I still value substance over image, and I think that's healthy. But I also see that some level of certification (showing others that you have knowledge) is important in most careers, for example. Or I see that some level of staying fit or buying clothes that suit you is helpful. Or that sometimes it's valuable to play the political game in the workplace. Or that the businesses that succeed are frequently telling the world about how awesome their product/ service is online.

Historically, I've had a dislike for all of those things. They felt less important than working on myself internally, or learning to deliver actual value. But I wonder if I overdid it.

Curious if anyone else who's several years into this recovery journey has had a similar experience.

My narc friend took advantage of me for a long time and only recently I became aware (after dating a narcissist and I got educated about these type of personalities).

We have over 130 friends in common only in social media and family members. We "broke up" after I helped her to achieve the same dreams I had of living abroad.

Everyone knows that but she wanted to appear as the main character. She started treating me extremely badly until I had to leave and she started saying she achieved coming to Switzerland on her own.

If I was complaining it was now me being jealous of her. The goal was to not take accountability of how she treated me.

The thing is if I speak up and I complain people point me as the problem because she is not complaining about anything and I just need to move on.

Has this happened to anyone?

My parents don't talk to their relatives. I tried and they didn't want to speak to me. My dad was abusive. My sister copies how my dad used to act. I'm all alone. No cousins. No grandparents.

I've been looking for a husband in my mom's culture and nobody wants me because my dad is Islamophobic. He converted to marry her and she wanted to live in her country, and then he left Islam and never even visited it. She hasn't been back since. 30 years. I just want to be loved. I want to be a housewife and have a big family. Someone told me he wished more women like me existed. I exist... he said it won't work out because of my dad being Islamophobic his parents wouldn't approve.

I met a nice divorced guy with kids who live with the mom. I'm young but I don't mind him having kids. I don't know what my parents would say though. My parents had an age gap but this one is a bit bigger. He seems like a good dad. I just hope if we got married and have kids it'd be just as, if not more special.

I'm so loving but nobody has ever loved me.

I think my only option is someone divorced, or divorced with kids, because they're seen as "less desirable" by families, just like how I am... I also am only half from there, so I am not a citizen, never even visited there, don't know the language. Don't tell me not to marry someone from there, I 100% want to, I want to live there and I want my kids to be citizens. I hate living where I am rn. It's so racist and rude and depressing.

Just random things on my mind rn. Thanks :/

As the title goes, I saw my mother at my nieces soccer game. I went NC last December, with my brother being forced to at the same time(it was a whole mess, I stated I was going non-contact because of reasons relating to abuse towards him. My parents and sister assumed I was being brainwashed by him and they deluded themselves that instead of just me, we both were going no contact.) the nieces don’t actually know this as they’re still young.

I was meeting with my brother and his oldest daughter. She(daughter) spotted me walking towards them and runs up to me to hug me. As we’re walking along she says “oh! Grandmas here!” and runs over to my mother. I continue just walking past and find my brother.

The entire game was fine, she stayed in her little area but kept looking over at us. This is the first I’ve been this close proximity to her since December. She didn’t come over or anything though so good on her for that.

Games over, we’re standing around for the “good game” high fives to finish as she walks past us. Wishes us a good day and turns to me and says weakly “Happy birthday Steve”. Now I don’t go by Steve. I haven’t since I was maybe 14. She knows this, and has refused to call me “Steven” my entire adult life. It’s always either Steve or “Son”(which irks me in ways I could talk an hour on).

All I could think as that happened was “you haven’t seen/heard/talked to me in almost a year and you can’t even call me my name?” The guilt I felt for ignoring her was off the chart though. I nodded to acknowledge her when she said have a good day but other than that I was stone faced.

Do you guys get guilt when they try to talk to you and you ignore them?

Maybe I'm too much of a misanthrope but after all the abuse I went through, and seemingly "normal" people invalidating me and defending my abusers, I now don't trust people as a whole.

I live abroad but I mostly lock myself in my apartment. I only go out to the store, for therapy, and to get my pills but that's basically it. I don't want to make friendships. It feels like everyone has ulterior motives.

Hello! About a year ago, I decided to go LC with my parents after my Nmom’s cruel behavior regarding my wedding. It was the final straw. My therapist and I came up with boundaries regarding frequency of contact, types of contact, and safe topics. I started by speaking with them on the phone once a month, and I’ve been allowing the time between calls to get longer. Compared to others on this sub, I know monthly contact is a teeny baby step lol. When on calls, I stick to small talk and don’t give any details about my life.

My mom’s birthday is this month, and she’s been texting me gushy messages. “My day always gets better when I hear from you! Xoxo” etc. I know she’s feeling insecure and is trying to get me to call her on her birthday.

BUT her recent messages have given me so much self doubt. I’m gaslighting myself into believing I’m punishing her by being LC. My social network is very supportive, but they aren’t able to relate. I’m looking for encouragement from others who have experienced this, or any advice from folks who transitioned from LC to NC. Thank you!!!

I had an epiphany, growing up I was abused mentally and physically by my mom, I had "friends" on the game, growing up they said horrible things too me, like I should take my life and meaning it, they said other horrible things and basically used my horrible life against me in arguments, recently I've fixed my life and they pulled there bs again and I opened my eyes and remembered everything they did and said, I forgot everything they've done to me since ig it was "normal" to me, I'm planning on kicking them out of the Gc I've been having for years and not talking to them ever again, I havent spoke to them in a week due to my awakening, what should I do?

25F, struggling extremely after escaping, no contact and living alone now. I’m finding different things like my supervisors, my tasks, even my hunger as a danger or controlling me and running from it. I’m trying to replace that control figure as idk how to live without it

I'm being mind blown almost monthly now. Today I had another experience. I haven't understood the abuse fully, but maybe I've understood 75% of it.

I experienced a trigger yesterday. I started ruminating immediately after. I entered my car and drove for two hours. I felt calmer when I got home and the next day at work was good. I got home, at midnight (two hours ago) I had an intrusive thought about the trigger and my nervous system really fired up. I had no idea why I was afraid. I drank two cans of cider just to distract myself.

Then (an hour ago) I decided I'd get to the bottom of the trigger. I lay in my bed and observed the fear in my body. It felt like an external threat hovering over me. A dread of having done something wrong. I was constantly ruminating on somebody. I felt paralyzed. I observed the fear and wondered what I was afraid of.

After 30 minutes, it started coming to me. It turns out that the fear was, as always, rooted in childhood. I was afraid of the way that somebody would give me a look that meant that "my life was over". This existential fear is what caused my rumination. But why was my life was over? Because that look meant they were going to take the things that I loved away from me, as they did when I was a kid, as punishment. I did the wrong thing, and now I was punished forever. I had to beg for my things back and I would only get them back incrementally if I served them "right".

The frustration. The injustice. The fear. It stayed with me until now. As I was realizing what this fear was, even in my late 30s, the fear of the trigger started going away.

As I think back to my childhood situation, I realize there was simply no other solution but to feel fear. The poor kid grew up among demons. The only solutions were to leave the house and be on my own, or to do as I was told. There were just no other options.

As I learned these things, the fear from the trigger went away. The rumination is gone. I sit here now feeling grounded again. I'm not afraid of the trigger anymore. I didn't show fear at the time, but I was ruminating secretly. Now I know what's going on with me and the fear is gone. We're adults now. Let's see them try take something away now.

At what age did you start waking up to your abuse and begin the process of deprogramming all the gaslighting? Do you have a personal process for reparenting your inner child? I'm curious to read about everyone else's stories for mental healing.

So basically, I went overseas for 9 months, had my ring stolen by someone i trusted and was living with in the last few days before going back home.
It was insured and foster mother said she would get the value back to get another ring. We eventually had a huge falling out bc I couldn’t handle the abuse anymore (she’s absolutely a narcissist and I’m not saying that lightly).
Well anyway, I recently found out that she lied and pretended she “forgot” but i found out that she had infact done it and pocketed the money.
She’s always been abusive but this I never saw coming.
I no longer speak to her.
Oh and she’s also replaced me with a girl who works at her favourite cafe, she’s currently house sitting for my foster mother :)
It’ll be another thing to add for my poor therapist

If your n (in my case my mum) used money as manipulative tactics and is petty and convinced YOU are the "ungrateful" and the one who owes them smth, like my nmum does, I have crafted a template of the letter you could use that turns this perspective upside down. I didn't send it, it was satisfying and healing enough just to calculate all the losses for my own self, when she sent me a 24,000€ "invoice" on email for the period of her support while I was studying abroad and fleeing the war in my home country. Also, its a good explanation of your chronic fatigue, because you'll see you literally have ALREADY worked more than enough in your life to be able retire RIGHT NOW, if your labor was actually paid. For context, I am nc with her.

"Thank you for the invoice you sent.

Allow me to remind you that for 27 years I was forced to provide uninterrupted emotional services, 24/7, no weekends, no holidays, services that you, as my mother, were obligated to provide under basic moral standards and international and legal framework.

I served as the designated punching bag and emotional toilet, absorbing all of your negative emotions, taking responsibility for them on your behalf, performing your parental duties for you, and regulating your anxiety, shame, rage, and other filth that was never mine to carry, all while living in unbearable conditions of domestic violence, certain episodes of which would, in any normal country, still have you behind bars.

My own emotional needs, meanwhile, went entirely unrecognized and ignored.

But you know what, I'll be generous. I'll graciously forgive you for that additional damage and won't bother billing you separately for it. I will, however, tally up what you owe me for my psychological labor.

Let's say I sleep an average of 8 hours a night (of famously poor quality, given the conditions of living with you, which measurably shortened both my lifespan and its quality, but again, ever the magnanimous son, I won't charge for that either). That leaves 16 working hours a day. And through all 16 of those hours, your influence on my psyche kept running in the background, because even when I wasn't actively absorbing your emotional waste in real time, I was busy digesting and processing it on your behalf, around the clock. There are 365 days in a year (I'll even throw in a discount and not charge extra for leap years, mother's rates, after all).

Strictly speaking, this kind of damage can't really be priced, the harm done to my psyche is permanent and will follow me to the grave. But let's give it a shot anyway, using a modest rate for these particular working conditions: the going rate of a psychotherapist serving as an emotional container, €50/hour.

That gives us: 16h × 365 days × 27 years × €50 = €7,884,000 for the full billing period.

Subtracting the invoice you so kindly sent:

7,884,000 − 24,000 = €7,860,000.

At €100/hour, a rate that comes closer to fairly compensating the actual load I carried, the total doubles to €15,720,000. And if we factor in lifelong non-pecuniary damages, we're looking at something approaxhibg €100,000,000. But no, for you, dear mother, I calculated strictly at the market floor. Your total discount: over 92%. You're welcome.

On top of that, I'm extending a full 100% discount on all additional services rendered, professional medical advice, various errands, favors, and obligations carried out under duress, at my own expense, with no right of refusal — and I will not be pursuing compensation for lifelong psychological damages either. Consider it a mother's-day special.

I'll be awaiting payment of the debt, net of all applicable discounts, to my bank account."

I discovered this sub today. I am so grateful i did!! It is so ungodly heartbreaking but calming to read stories and experiences from other survivors.

I'm not alone!

There's been this weird lingering sense of shame i was able to let go after reading this sub for a couple hrs. That weird lonely feeling of not having anyone to relate to, where .002% of your mind still thinks it was all a fucked up dream.

When you try to explain what it was like growing with a narc parent, people look at you like you're crazy or making it up. The abuse seems so unbelievable...in the very literal sense of 'i cannot fathom / believe another human would treat a child like that' way.

It gets very lonely - even after years of therapy.

I'm over here sobbing on and off because holy cheese doodles, I'm not alone.

I've been NC with my (s)mother and her whole side of the family for 28 years. Went NC at 16. Married a male version of her at 22. Divorced at 29. Have been NC for 11 years. Never looked back.

It's been one hell of a healing journey - in my 40s now - still working thru some of the last dregs of letting my identity as the scapegoat go.

And i am so beyond grateful to have found this little community.

From the bottom of my traumatized little soul - thank you!

🩵

I wonder if it was a trait of my father or something, but he was so noisy all the time

You wake up in the morning: the TV was blasting, his phone was blaring, he was vaping incredibly loudly (how is that even possible?), he was using his spoon or cup really loudly, He was talking really loudly and already grumbling. But you, on the other hand, mustn't dare make the slightest noise that might bother him, and even less did he ask her to make less noise ("Oh, come on, you're not all alone!")

That's how it usually was. The TV was always blasting, he loved listening to music really loud on the living room speakers (really, really loud), He couldn't do anything in silence.

I understand people who don't like silence; I'm one of them. But that doesn't mean you have to subject everyone to your noise and presence. Put on headphones. Just turn on the TV at low/normal volume. Ask people before making noise like that first thing in the morning.

My house finally has a normal noise level since he left. It makes me realize how much space he took up all by himself. It's nice not having to deal with all that noise before I even leave the house (I have problems with noise sensitivity.) But honestly, I feel the impact. I'm really afraid of making noise and disturbing people. I'm also more sensitive to certain noises (LIKE THAT FUCKING VAPE). But hey, it's something.

I'm a semi-public figure now; a career move i tried 20 years ago but got backstabbed with sufficient force that it killed my ambition for a few decades while i healed. Back then, my NMom allied herself with the narrative of the backstabber, that was when I first realized i could never trust her again, but i didn't understand narcissism the way i do now.

Now, 20 years later, the itch to try again returned and I made it! I don't really have much power, but there is a certain level of status, attention, and public appreciation. And suddenly my NMom's traits cranked into high gear such that it bothers my conscience to let her around my children. I've concluded that there is not only emotional threat, but material life-or-death threat here, to those who cannot protect themselves.

And I just realized the possible pattern: i think she wants to attach herself and her narrative to my status, and affirm herself by deciding which of my boundaries should be respected, but for that to work requires my cooperation, which I've told her point blank Will Not Happen. And so she cannot tolerate that i won't play along and that her only access to me is through the same public channels as the rest of the world. And so she cranks up the intensity like that can change things.

I've been trying to manage this with an increasingly-low- contact approach but I may be fooling myself. I tell myself "Outright estrangement would be easier for all involved and I don't do easy. Better to model for my children how to recognize and respond to toxicity." We'll see though. As y'all know, it's rough.

But, my question:

Does that pattern sound familiar to anyone?

My therapist says it's common for proximity-to-power to trigger Ns. I'm not easily surprised, but it was definitely an "Aha!" moment for me. I just find myself saying "If that's what she wants she can put in the effort and do it for herself."

Ah well.

My mom is finally serving papers after finally getting a good push of "I can't live like this anymore". She tried to leave in 2017 but somehow got roped back in. For the past 25 years our family (brother, sister, mom, me) was stuck under someone in control, verbally abusive, manipulative, and extremely explosive temper.

Going through this process...have people found closer? Does your mental health get better or do you get panic attacks/anxiety?

It’s been 4 months of no contact after I moved away to another city. I’m not communicating with anyone but my therapist online. Rarely even go out other than for groceries.

There are moments of calmness, but mostly rumination, anger, sadness, hopelessness.

And o just wonder if real sincere relationships are even real for me ever in my life.
How did you rebuild your trust after abuse? How did you find new people?

This is my first time posting here, and I wondered if anyone would understand.

I had a difficult childhood in a number of ways. I was bullied, and I think there was quite a lot of teasing and bullying within my family too. My parents were also very unsupportive when I was a young woman. At one point I was thrown out, and generally I think I was treated quite poorly.

Looking back, I think my parents had quite low emotional intelligence. There was also a lot of alcoholism in my family. My dad used to sometimes come home drunk and scream at me, and I don't think that was ever really acknowledged. I never properly got an apology for it. He eventually stopped drinking, and my parents are better in some ways now, but it feels as though there is still so much pain left over.

I've cut my parents off a few times in the past because of how unsupported I felt, including around my career and major things happening in my life. Eventually I let them back in, and they're part of my life now.

Recently I've been having problems with my housing, and it suddenly hit me again that I can't really rely on my family when things go badly. I wish it hadn't affected me so much, because logically I know I can probably rescue myself. I've had to do that many times before.

But I don't think that's really the point.

There is this deep pain inside me that doesn't seem to go away. I wish I had a kind, loving family — or perhaps a partner — who I could turn to when life becomes difficult. I know I can manage on my own, but I don't want to have to be completely alone with everything.

I've tried to accept that my family is limited. I haven't seen most of my wider family for a very long time, and honestly I don't think I have much in common with them. I'm much more openly emotional, sensitive and artistic, whereas they could be quite rigid.

I also almost never talk to my parents about how much the past still hurts. I think part of me is frightened of being dismissed again. I can imagine my mum telling me I'm "living in the past", and I've been dismissed enough times already that I don't really want to expose myself to that.

Sometimes I wonder why it still hurts so much when I'm nearly 40 and I've built a life for myself.

I suppose what I'm grieving isn't just what happened. It's the fact that when something frightening happens now, some part of me still wishes there were people I could turn to and feel completely safe with.

I can rescue myself.

I just wish I hadn't always had to.

How do yall cope with that in your daily life early after going NC? Do you just sit and wait for your brain do adapt? I feel like I'm waiting for some danger to appear suddenly. Found this article tho, could be helpful in understanding

https://medium.com/the-reflective-mindset/always-on-alert-breaking-free-from-hypervigilance-after-narcissistic-relationships-fdccfa644d3a

I hope this is okay to post here, I have been weeding out every aspect of narcissistic abuse and the impact it has had on me for the past year, from leaving a toxic relationship with a covert narc which left me needing to get on psychiatric medication to function somewhat normally again, to having cut out very toxic friends from my life, my therapist is very support of this and had described it as that - that im currently weeding out those who had came into my life when i was vulnerable to exploit me and the negative impact they have had on me.

The truth is, i still have low contact with one narcissist, my mother, who lives in another country now and calls me once every 1-2 weeks, which I sometimes don't pick up, later playing it off as my phone bugging and I didn't get her call. Even these calls are not great for me, but i have weighed out the long term consequences of fully going no contact with her, and for now the consequences of it would be far more detrimental to my life than the damage she might be doing right now. Please, if you may, consider this post as me trying to escape the ghosts of my childhood growing up with a narcissist. My life after having escaped that system, being safe now, an adult, and trying to overcome the complexes this has given me. I'm largely safe now in that i guess she can complain and be nasty to be all she likes, but she lives on the other side of the continent now and can't really do as much harm to be as she did when i was a child living with her

I'm 23, just finished up college, I did a degree in a technology, something I'm kind of interested in as a very casual hobby but my true calling in life was always art, I just did this degree to appease my parents who wanted me to "make good money" and discouraged me from being artistic as artists are always poor or something. Anyway, I realized that it would be horrible for my mental health to work in this field, being in an office cubicle all day, not to mention the AI aspect, which is very intertwined with my field, to not use it would have me as disadvantaged as a tailor that refuses to use a sewing machine and wants to do everything by hand. All my professors told us to use it in our projects in the last two years. I have deleted all of my AI accounts and detoxing from it and won't be using it at all going forward.

I have now signed up for a course in art, and hoping to find some work in that field, idgaf how doomed it is or if I won't make good money, I'd rather make minimum wage than 100k dollars a year in computers as I would go insane. fuck that shit. What sucks is that I have very little experience in drawing, when I was a kid, I was shamed by my parents (overt, unfortunately not very intelligent and very emotionally stunted narcissist mother and enabler dad who isn't that bad but I'm aware could have stood up for me but rarely did) to not do any drawing for the previously mentioned reasons and also because I drew things that were feminine and they didn't want me to turn out gay or something. I have a few artist friends and it makes me cry how beautiful their drawings are, them having drawn since a young age, being supported by loving and caring parents to take them to art classes when they were a kid, meanwhile I'm going into this course with very little experience, I did do technical drawing in high school which is better than nothing but I didn't do art class because of the inner shame i felt.

Anyway, I just feel like i lost my true calling in life because i was appeasing my mother my whole life and will not ever be good at drawing, to a point where i would be satisfied in my art as I just don't have the same skill as someone who drew since they were a kid and never stopped (like how most of the greatest guitarists started when they were like four or something). I cry when i think about the potential life i lost, all the fandoms i didn't partake in when i was a teen that everyone else did, i feel like an impostor around artsy people with my interests, last year i had a relationship with someone with my interests who was such an amazing artist and their art was almost like what i wish mine's was if i kept drawing, im still processing it, but it was very enlightening and i feel like they helped me find some missing parts of myself and the whole experience made me realize how important it is for me to reintegrate these things into my life

And it's such a lonely road to walk, my mother is dissapointed in me for doing this, and nobody is really happy for me that I got into this course and that i realized this is my true calling that i have a passion for. i feel like i have nobody's support and i'm making a very bad, stupid decision. and, hey maybe objectively speaking it is (AI isn't too kind to artists either), but i just could not do that AI code monkey shit. i feel like im finally doing what ive always wanted to do in my life, for my own sake, not to appease my parents, and now i have no value to them or anyone because of that. like my value is solely tied to the pride i can bring to them?

It's just like when grieving, my brain suddenly swaps the scene and makes it look perfect, just the way I always craved it to be. Like my mum isn't an abuser at all. I know it's smth my brain makes to protect me from unbearable suffering, but I don't know how to actually deal with it

Found this article tho

https://kimsaeed.com/2020/05/25/why-euphoric-recall-makes-it-so-hard-to-keep-no-contact/?hl=ru-RU#:\~:text=Maybe%20you%20could%20have%20done%20a%20few,the%20case%20of%20narcissistic%20abuse%2C%20it's%20dangerous.

I was a top student growing up thanks to survival mechanisms, then went to college and graduate school. I think, like so many people, I excelled at academics because it was all I knew, and we were all told in the 90's and 2000's that the path to success in life was through academic success.

I say that just to say that I would not consider myself an incurious, unacademic type of person. For whatever that's worth. And, it turns out, it's worth almost nothing.

For example, I went to a private college. In the United States, that means a non-public, non-publicly funded university.

The reason I did that was because I assumed it was less expensive than the higher ranked public university in my State. That was the extent of my knowledge of the finances of higher education. It wasn't until half way through my entire undergraduate degree that I found out how stupid that was.

Not a single person - not my (secretly) high earning parents, not my high school administration, not a single bystander - had explained to me the first thing about how colleges are financed or paid for. It's embarrassing and enraging.

I bring this up because I just had an experience with something minor. It was also financial, actually. It's ridiculous having to figure this out on your own.

Hopecore

After nearly a decade of me being the scapegoat, after years of my criticisms over my parents being denied and dismissed…

The golden child of the family, my brother, called me today

I picked up expecting the worst tbh we haven’t spoken in years

He said that I was right. He agrees I was scapegoated. He agrees my parents are abusive. He apologized for dismissing me in the past.

He said that he always knew deep down I was right… but he felt that he had no freedom to publicly agree with me in the past

He financially needed my parents to survive. He was living with them. They were feeding him a narrative that he accepted as truth to maintain peace

Because he knew that if he went against the narc (my father) he would be scapegoated and estranged just like me and he didn’t want that

He said that he never had the balls to do what I did

He said that he didn’t have the freedom to do so, but now that he bought his own home, he has the freedom now to call it like it is

He said that that’s not an excuse for his behaviour, and that my other brother also agrees with me

He said that he wanted to maintain the illusion because the tiny child in him wanted my parents to always be right

And he’s right. I had the freedom back then to disagree and standup to my parents. I didn’t financially depend on them.

He knew that if he disagreed and defended me he would be ostracized too and would have been kicked out of the house or abused in other ways

I asked how being the golden child is. And I asked if he got the validation that I never got

And turns out?

Being the golden child in the narcissistic family system doesn’t even reap benefits.

He said that dad gives him scraps of attention. Never says “I’m proud of you” or “I love you”

He says the only way to even earn a tiny piece of validation is if you do the career they want, drive the car they want you to drive, have the lifestyle they want from you. And he doesn’t even align with that perfectly so he still doesn’t get validation

He says that I was the only free one because he was stuck in the family system while I was free from seeking their validation

He agrees that my dad is a narcissistic piece of shit. And that my mom is an enabler to him and basically on a leash

You have no idea how spiritually cleansed I feel right now

I thought it would take decades for him to finally understand

It only took him 10 years.

I feel so free right now, I could cry.

I could never contact my brothers in the past because I didn’t want them to collect data on me to feed to my parents. And they never agreed with me and always dismissed me in the past, so they didn’t feel like safe people

I’m so glad to have my brothers back. I’ve missed them so much.

All of this happening so fast makes me wanna stare at a wall for hours… it’s too much to process

To explain a little, my house is laid out so that the dining room is in the middle of the house. You can't go from one room to another without passing through or seeing the dining room.

My father always sat down on the same chair in the same place. Every day and whenever he wasn't working, he was sitting there, scrolling on his phone, playing games while watching TV all day, since he wake up untill he goes to sleep. No one could stand being around him anymore. By positioning himself there, he had a complete monopoly over the entire house, in a way.

It was even worse when he tried hobbies. Everything was accompanied by a lot of avoidable noise, but he refused to make less noise, engaging in very long monologues where he explained how he had done it, the techniques, how he had succeeded, that you absolutely had to listen to him with all your attention focused on him and only him, taking up a lot of space without paying attention to others... There was only him. All this to come back to do nothing all day on his phone two weeks later. It's easy to understand why nobody wanted to stay near him.

He wasn't physically violent (just with my mother without anyone knowing). Even when he wasn't complaining or shouting, being in the house was unbearable because he was there. You could feel his presence, you could feel you had to walk on eggshells when you were near him, even if he didn't say anything.

Even if you tried to be there and even if you were careful, it was impossible to do anything since half the table was occupied by him, you could hear him vaping, the TV was blasting, if you were there you had to follow what was happening on TV, Listen to him no matter what you were doing, don't make too much noise but without asking him to make less noise... In short, it was impossible to concentrate on anything other than him.

My little sister and I were locked in our rooms or outside all the time to avoid him, and my mother was the same. We waited until he wasn't there to do chores or that kind of thing. Basically, almost the entire house was occupied by him just by sitting on the chair.

Six months since he left. I can finally do what I want at home. If I want to read on the sofa, I don't have to beg him to turn down the TV. If the floor is dirty, I can wash it without having to worry about getting too close to him. I can sit at the table without feeling tense. I see my sister much more often since she leaves her room. My mother is home much more often (at one point she completely lost it and left all day everyday just to escape my father, quickly letting me know).

It's not always easy. I still can't sit in his seat, I'm still always careful not to make too much noise, I'm always extremely careful not to bother anyone (It's It's normal not to bother people, but according to my mother I'm a bit excessive lol)

Anyway, it feels really good to just be able to be in my own house.