Why can’t I get away from my memories? Written on our mind and in our bodies these bundle of cells lurk waiting to be reactivated when a smell, sight, sound, touch or taste hit that hot button and fire off a flashback. The evidence is piling up from research and personal experience. I didn’t remember…
On Facebook friends posted an article about how complaining rewires your brain. http://truththeory.com/2016/07/11/how-complaining-rewires-your-brain-for-negativity-and-how-to-break-the-habit/ “Spending today complaining about yesterday won’t make tomorrow any better.” ~Unknown The article makes several good points about complaining being a habit, also explains ways to break gripe talk. So why the title? One of the biggies on the abuser’s must do…
One of the blogs I follow is Emerging from Broken by Darlene Ouimet. She posted her experience on confronting her abuser/mother. http://emergingfrombroken.com/to-confront-or-not-to-confront-that-is-the-question/ Darlene points out several of the issues when confronting. Not wanting to hurt their feelings. Concern that she would be just like them. Lack of self care. I also talked to my counselor…
Today many articles are written about the Fight or flight response to stress. Over the years they added a third reaction to stress, freeze. I call it ‘deer in the head lights’ reaction. Rather than fight or flight, freezing is my reaction trying to assess before moving in any direction. Here is an article that…
This technique in keeping a victim confused and down is sometimes called ‘bringing out the flying monkeys.’ (Wizard of OZ reference… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SESI19h4wDo ) When an abuser can’t put you down themselves, they enlist others to do their bidding. Or if they can’t win an argument they will bring in a third party person to ‘gang up’…
I came across an interesting article that lists that different ways that toxic people use to manipulate and confuse their victims. The article is interesting, however the picture at the top may be triggering for some people. http://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2016/06/20-diversion-tactics-highly-manipulative-narcissists-sociopaths-and-psychopaths-use-to-silence-you/ I am familiar with many of these and on the receiving end of quite a few. Counseling,…
My counselor taught me how to rebel. I needed to rebel against the label of ‘over active imagination,’ ‘unforgiving,’ ‘unreasonable,’ and other negative descriptions that justified my parents treating me like a 3rd class citizen in my home growing up. This disconnect between what the outside world saw and what I experienced. My mother tells…
Growing up a child does not get to choose what is taught. A child can be taught black is white and hate is right and cruelty is funny. Yes, I experienced some of these. So when a child hits teen years usually enough other people are in their life for them to doubt, question or…
This one is tricky. Hard to pin down since emotions are so volatile and changing with a thought. How secure you are within yourself makes it harder for someone to abuse you emotionally. This link is one of those annoying ones that you have to click after every paragraph but the signs are important to…
June is declared by someone to be PTSD awareness month. For those living with it, we are aware 24/7, if you unfamiliar with this number combination it means, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. No time off for good behavior. I sometimes get fairly smug thinking it is gone from my life…
PTSD - Accepting, Coping, Thriving 