PMYABP AKA Narcissistic parenting

Explains sports and stage parents:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/health/health-narcissistic-parenting-children-impact/index.html

Narcissistic parenting: When you compete through your child

By Kelly Wallace, CNN

CNN)The dad stood as close to the goalpost as he could get, coaching his 9-year-old daughter from the sidelines of her recreational soccer league game.

His daughter had two coaches, but that didn't matter. He was determined to coach her separately.

"Move faster. Hands up. Get ready."

"Come on. Stay alert. Get down low."

He would not stop.

And then you can probably guess what happened next.

A girl on the opposing team kicked a ball right past her. Goal! The tears started to come down fast, and all I wanted to say to the dad of the goalie was, "Just. Leave. Her. Alone."

ld achieve in sports, music, academics, you name it, competing with others via their children.

It can take the form of both high praise and sharp criticism.

And in the most extreme cases, there's actually a name for it: narcissistic parenting, according to Joseph Burgo, who devotes an entire chapter to this behavior in his new book "The Narcissist You Know: Defending Yourself Against Extreme Narcissists in an All-About-Me Age."

"The winner-loser dynamic is at the heart of extreme narcissism, and the narcissistic parent is somebody who plays that game through their children," said Burgo, a marriage and family therapist and clinical psychologist who has been practicing for more than 30 years.

"They are the ones who are driven to create children who are winners, and not only are they winners, but they're better than other people's kids, and they will, in conversation, bring things up. They will bring up accomplishments, which schools their kids got accepted to, how much money they're earning, in order to make you feel bad -- your kid is less than them."


rest at link

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“There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.”

My former FSO did this. His 9 year old son plays baseball and this jerk would scream to him to ignore his coach and listen to him because what the coach was saying was different from what he was saying. Poor kid was in tears. The worst part is the guy is now his coach for real and all the parents hate him. Several have even pulled their kids from the team.

I am grateful that my parents only shoved me into such things because free / relatively cheap babby sitting.

I know this because they had little interest in what I did in these activities.

Most dropped by the wayside as I / we got older - including interest in religion - which included the Jewish Faith as well as the Christian Faith - but, hmmmm - once we kids got older and did not need 'day care' ~ or 'Youth Summer Programs ~ "

But Jesus is Just Alright, Mommy! What about Jesus?
Answer: You can start dinner when you get home from school!

Once I was able to get myself around my mom quit accompanying me to just about anything. Mom could be a real bitch at times, and as far as I'm concerned, was a total phony about my going to college for music. Wasn't exactly my idea, but I really had no real leaning for anything. Where the narc comes in? I think she just wanted to be able to swish her fanny around and brag that SHE had a daughter who went to KAWWWLEDGE.
Granted, it was beneficial in rounding me out in education, but she couldn't be arsed to go to any of the chorus recitals I was in. In the 6 years I went to college (yeah, took me a while, i wasn't in a hurry) she maybe went to a grand total of 3. Once I was able to drive myself after dark, legally, she also quit coming. We had at least 2 recitals per year.
Damned narc. My daughter went to KAWWWLEDGE.
Maybe why i never achieved much. She can't brag on anything.

two cents ¢¢

CERTIFIED HOSEHEAD!!!

people (especially women) do not give ONE DAMN about what they inflict on children and I defy anyone to prove me wrong

Dysfunctional relationships almost always have a child. The more dysfunctional, the more children.

The selfish wants of adults outweigh the needs of the child.

Some mistakes cannot be fixed, but some mistakes can be 'fixed'.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. Leo J. Burke

Adoption agencies have strict criteria (usually). Breeders, whose combined IQ's would barely hit triple digits, have none.

My parents, mother especially, were very narcissistic. They thought our family was better than everyone else's. They used to say we were of a higher class than just about everyone else in the city we lived in. They didn't care much for us having friends unless we could get something from them, or really having much outside of them. And of course they'd brag on how better their kids were than anyone else's.

It took me many years to realize that with narcissistic parents, the kids don't exist so they can be raised to go out into the world, they exist solely to meet the needs of the parents and can't have much of a life outside of them.

Part of the reason I come here is because I'm a daughter of a narcissistic mother and find this place to be excellent therapy... I'll just leave these here:

Traits Of Narcissistic Mothers

I remember learning about narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), reading this article and having a proper scales-falling-from-eyes moment- it describes my mother to a tee. A classic article, this- and while it focuses on mothers the content relates to fathers too, this behaviour just seems much more common in mothers of daughters for some reason.

My own mother put me down constantly and one of her favourite insults, which haunts me to this day, was "There's something wrong with you". Of course, she had been trying to give me a complex and destroy my self esteem- and it worked, and that's why I had been struggling to succeed in life. I stopped trying to get counsellors to find out what was "wrong" with me when I learned about NPD, and finding a counsellor who knew about it was what put me on the road to recovery- or as the counsellor put it, "what was "wrong" with you was her!"

Out Of The Fog

Just a great resource for getting your head around NPD and other disorders. "FOG" refers to the "Fear, Obligation, Guilt" method which emotional abusers use to control their victims- something a lot of parents do when guilt-tripping their children and trying to make them feel like they owe them something.

And finally, on a more light-hearted note:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ParentalFavoritism
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheUnfavourite
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WellDoneSonGuy

There are plenty more examples from TV Tropes, all of which are covered by this:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TruthInTelevision

Yes, narcissistic parents, parental favouritism etc are all so common that plenty of fiction writers have been through them and lived to quite literally tell the tale through their work.

I hope these links are useful- and while you're at it, search TV Tropes for "babies" if you want to see more of this brutal honesty about breeders:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BabiesMakeEverythingBetter

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screaming sausage
Part of the reason I come here is because I'm a daughter of a narcissistic mother and find this place to be excellent therapy... I'll just leave these here:

Traits Of Narcissistic Mothers

I remember learning about narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), reading this article and having a proper scales-falling-from-eyes moment- it describes my mother to a tee. A classic article, this- and while it focuses on mothers the content relates to fathers too, this behaviour just seems much more common in mothers of daughters for some reason.

My own mother put me down constantly and one of her favourite insults, which haunts me to this day, was "There's something wrong with you". Of course, she had been trying to give me a complex and destroy my self esteem- and it worked, and that's why I had been struggling to succeed in life. I stopped trying to get counsellors to find out what was "wrong" with me when I learned about NPD, and finding a counsellor who knew about it was what put me on the road to recovery- or as the counsellor put it, "what was "wrong" with you was her!"

Out Of The Fog

Just a great resource for getting your head around NPD and other disorders. "FOG" refers to the "Fear, Obligation, Guilt" method which emotional abusers use to control their victims- something a lot of parents do when guilt-tripping their children and trying to make them feel like they owe them something.

And finally, on a more light-hearted note:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ParentalFavoritism
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheUnfavourite
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WellDoneSonGuy

There are plenty more examples from TV Tropes, all of which are covered by this:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TruthInTelevision

Yes, narcissistic parents, parental favouritism etc are all so common that plenty of fiction writers have been through them and lived to quite literally tell the tale through their work.

I hope these links are useful- and while you're at it, search TV Tropes for "babies" if you want to see more of this brutal honesty about breeders:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BabiesMakeEverythingBetter

I'm the son of narcissistic parents, but the list on that page describes my mother pretty accurately. She did many of these things. I was one of the scapegoats in my family.

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JohnDrake
[I'm the son of narcissistic parents, but the list on that page describes my mother pretty accurately. She did many of these things. I was one of the scapegoats in my family.

Oh yes, the article was written by the author of this book, hence the focus on mother-daughter relationships, but that list applies to all narcissistic parents. For some reason this kind of abuse seems much more common among mothers with daughters, it would be interesting to find out why.

I'm pretty sure my paternal grandfather had NPD and I know he was a complete bully towards my father. He was cruel in many subtle, deniable ways- for example, he had never approved of my parents' marriage and was constantly trying to humiliate my mother and let her know she wasn't welcome as a member of the family, and doing little things to try and drive them apart. Even as an adult he was utterly terrified of him- and while they did stop speaking once- he still came crawling back to him in the end, thanks to lashings of the ol' Fear, Obligation and Guilt.

Out Of The Fog's articles put the percentage of NPD sufferers in the general population at an estimate of 1% but I suspect it's much higher as many victims don't realise they're being abused by one, and NPD is the personality disorder which people are least likely to seek help for as one of the symptoms is the sufferer believing they're perfect and everyone else is defective. In any case I have at least two friends with narcissistic parents- one a man whose older brother is the Golden Boy, another who has a Golden Child sister and a Scapegoat sister and while she's "the lucky one" who was never singled out herself she has been witness to endless drama between her two sisters and her parents. In addition I'm a Scapegoat with a Golden Child sister and my father was a Scapegoat only child... and the prevalence of these relationships in fiction also suggests this family set-up is depressingly common... but hey, PMYABP!

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screaming sausage

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JohnDrake
[I'm the son of narcissistic parents, but the list on that page describes my mother pretty accurately. She did many of these things. I was one of the scapegoats in my family.

Oh yes, the article was written by the author of this book, hence the focus on mother-daughter relationships, but that list applies to all narcissistic parents. For some reason this kind of abuse seems much more common among mothers with daughters, it would be interesting to find out why.

I'm pretty sure my paternal grandfather had NPD and I know he was a complete bully towards my father. He was cruel in many subtle, deniable ways- for example, he had never approved of my parents' marriage and was constantly trying to humiliate my mother and let her know she wasn't welcome as a member of the family, and doing little things to try and drive them apart. Even as an adult he was utterly terrified of him- and while they did stop speaking once- he still came crawling back to him in the end, thanks to lashings of the ol' Fear, Obligation and Guilt.

Out Of The Fog's articles put the percentage of NPD sufferers in the general population at an estimate of 1% but I suspect it's much higher as many victims don't realise they're being abused by one, and NPD is the personality disorder which people are least likely to seek help for as one of the symptoms is the sufferer believing they're perfect and everyone else is defective. In any case I have at least two friends with narcissistic parents- one a man whose older brother is the Golden Boy, another who has a Golden Child sister and a Scapegoat sister and while she's "the lucky one" who was never singled out herself she has been witness to endless drama between her two sisters and her parents. In addition I'm a Scapegoat with a Golden Child sister and my father was a Scapegoat only child... and the prevalence of these relationships in fiction also suggests this family set-up is depressingly common... but hey, PMYABP!

I was a scapegoat child with both a golden child sister and golden child brother. I have another brother who was also treated like a scapegoat, but not as badly as I was. He managed to move up to near golden child status eventually, something I always hoped I'd do but never did. I always wondered what I'd have to do to get golden child status, but never could figure it out, and never did. Regardless of the things my sister and brother did, even my parents complained about their behavior, they did nothing to curtail it and allowed them to mistreat and lashed out at me if I stood up for myself.

When my brothers moved out of the house and it was just me and my sister, I was often given the message, either subtle or direct, that girls are better than boys. It was their way of saying I'd always be no good because I'm a boy and deserved to be treated like a second class citizen.

I don't know how my parents were raised so I can't comment on that, only how they raised their own kids. With all narcissists, kids are great until they start developing their own individual identities, personalities, opinions, and want to have a life outside of the family. That's where it went wrong with me, I wanted something more than the dysfunctional mess I grew up in.

It doesn't help that breeders are told it's normal to have a "favorite" child.

I'm not sure my mother was cut out for being a parent, and she probably wanted to stop after one kid, but that wasn't cool back then, so I came along. I looked weird too, not like either parent -at least not at first. I was very dark and I suppose there were some whispers about that, but later got the right coloring. Still, kind of a weirdo. :drool. At least I was left alone.

I think my moo (whom I am caring for at the moment. she is not as bad as she was years ago) simply had me as some sort of bragging right. I know i would never get the truth from her.
As for whether or not she was ever married, I have two different stories, the latter one she told me (that she never bothered to be married) is true.

Granted, birth control in her days was virtually non existent, if she really did not want kids she should have kept her pants on. Living without sex will NOT kill anyone. Frustrate, yes.

Of course she picked an unreliable drunk who had at least a failure or two under his belt. (the other day she said about that 'someone had to earn a living'. Yep, kiddy warehouse because she was too selfish to let me be adopted out. Mainly because she wanted to appear the noble moo raising a child by herself. She did work all the time, that I give her, but I think she took a lot of her anger and shit out on me because she had been saddled with me.

I probably will go to hell for it but occasionally I do bait her. I get a little of my own back. And, as always, she can not take the same sort of treatment she dished out on me. Fancy that.

two cents ¢¢

CERTIFIED HOSEHEAD!!!

people (especially women) do not give ONE DAMN about what they inflict on children and I defy anyone to prove me wrong

Dysfunctional relationships almost always have a child. The more dysfunctional, the more children.

The selfish wants of adults outweigh the needs of the child.

Some mistakes cannot be fixed, but some mistakes can be 'fixed'.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. Leo J. Burke

Adoption agencies have strict criteria (usually). Breeders, whose combined IQ's would barely hit triple digits, have none.

Yep, I can check off almost all of those Traits of Narcissistic Mothers. It makes me think of one time I first had a semi-revelation that there really was something wrong with her. She had blown something small up into gargantuan proportions, as she was wont to do, so I split and stayed with my older brother for about a week. You'd think she would have appreciated the chance to decompress herself, as well, but nooooo. Escalation was always the name of the game.

On one of the occasions she called to berate me, she was in the middle of telling me what a POS I was and what a 'user" I was and my brother would figure that out soon enough and blahdee blah blah and the light came on 'You're just describing yourself, lunatic. You do everything and you are everyhting you're accusing me of doing and being.'

I really should have left at that point, and that was even before all the melodrama that went on when I was in college (but living at home), working full-time, and dating my now-husband. But that's a clusterfuck story for another day.

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JohnDrake

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screaming sausage

Out Of The Fog

Just a great resource for getting your head around NPD and other disorders. "FOG" refers to the "Fear, Obligation, Guilt" method which emotional abusers use to control their victims- something a lot of parents do when guilt-tripping their children and trying to make them feel like they owe them something.

Thanks for posting Out of the Fog. I've been looking through the 100 traits of a personality disordered individual and have seen many of them in my parents, mother especially. One that caught my attention was Chaos Manufacture. That is something I'd never heard of, but I saw it a lot in my mother. She'd deliberately create difficult situations and then start playing the martyr and blaming everyone else for it.

My childhood was just plain crazy once I started growing up and developing my own identity, personality, opinions, beliefs, etc.

My moo was a narcissistic mother as well. She always reminded me of how much better other people were than me, and always downplayed any success I had in life. If I bought something I really liked and was happy with it, she would put it down in some strange way. She never wanted me to have anything nice.

Compliments from my mother were rare. When I grew into a pretty teen, suddenly I was a whore who hung out with a john and other whores. I couldn't just be a pretty young girl who attracted some attention from boys and was out having coffee with my friends in coffee shops.

Whenever I did something of value, or accomplished something, she would always ask me if she should do somersaults for it. It was her way of saying "Big fucking deal. I'm not going to do somersaults because you accomplished something."

Nothing was ever good enough. She is in a home now with dementia, and I have forgiven her for the past, but I cannot forget her cruelty. That is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Like I need to say that my mother is a narcissist too. Seems like more women are narcissists compared to men too, as I've noticed people talk more about NPD Moos than NPD Duhs. I honestly almost wish I had a sibling just so my mother could divide her bullshit between me and someone else so I wouldn't have to bear the full brunt of her insanity. While I never had a sibling, my mother just loved to praise and coddle my smart classmates, probably because she wished they were her daughters rather than me.

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JohnDrake
It took me many years to realize that with narcissistic parents, the kids don't exist so they can be raised to go out into the world, they exist solely to meet the needs of the parents and can't have much of a life outside of them.

Yup all around. My mother was never interested in raising someone who would become an independent, responsible adult - she just wanted to mold me to fit her plan that she had laid out for my life from the start. She didn't let me go anywhere (because I might have sex and do drugs), wouldn't let me do any sort of extra-curricular activities, tried to stifle my love of art for a long time (then decided I had to study it because someone told her I'd get rich doing it), wouldn't let me have a job in high school or college, never taught me things like how to cook, balance a checkbook, never had The Talk^TM, nothing. I had to learn things all on my own.

I mean shit, she used to say to me, "Make sure ya tell everyone that you're goin' to school fer yer mother!" Blatant proof that all she wanted to do was live vicariously through me. Fuck what I wanted to do with my own life - that didn't matter. All that mattered was what she wanted me to do. She didn't like that she never got her own way in her own life, so she's gotta keep me on a leash in an attempt to have some kind of second chance. Lately, she's been breathing down my ass about how I "have to" apply for a job to teach local brats to use computers. I don't have a choice in the matter. I fully intend to look for work, but I don't want to fucking teach, especially not grade schoolers.

And that Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers site is the one I got thrown out of for "not being a good fit." Support site, my ass.

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mumofsixbirds
My moo was a narcissistic mother as well. She always reminded me of how much better other people were than me, and always downplayed any success I had in life.

Mine did that too, but mostly in grade school. I always got to hear things like, "I bet Katie got an A on (test)! But not Cambion! She's got her head up her ass because she's too busy thinkin' about Pokey-mans!" Or, simply, "Why are you so stupid?!" if I didn't understand something or answered a homework question "wrong" or got a lousy exam grade. All the other kids were better and smarter than me and I was the idiot. Shame on me, I was supposed to be a straight-A student and better than the rest of the world so she could brag about my trivial grade school accomplishments.

But boy oh boy, she couldn't wait to tell me how wonderful and smart I was (thanks to her tireless efforts screaming at me almost every single night) if I made high honors. Just normal honors and I got asked why I didn't make high honors, and how she bets that Katie the Genius made high honors. She just could not accept that I wasn't the best or the smartest.

I see every single one of those narcissistic traits in my mother. I think my grandma was also fucked in the head and screwed my mother up royally. Mom was the scapegoat/black sheep out of her siblings, which I think might have been because Grandma and Grandpa "had to" get married because of her (as in my mother was born less than two weeks after her parents were married).

Short answer, my mother is someone who should have never, ever bred. She's too controlling and unstable to be in charge of an animal, much less a child.

Another daughter of a narc here.
I copped on that something was very wrong with my mother a few months ago.
I had my suspicions about narcissism (her mother was a kerazy narc) and sure enough...the more I learned the more my life started to make so much sense.

Mine scapegoated me..... and my younger brother, who has caused them far more trouble was golden child.
I was quiet, introverted and top of my class. Teachers sang my praises.
I was an overachiever...constantly trying to win my parents approval.
I ended up running myself into the ground...because nothing I did was ever enough to feed their ego.
I have huge anxiety issues and doubt myself all the time.
I've been blamed for everything for so long that it makes me doubt myself over the smallest things.
I don't trust my own judgement due to their constant lying and gaslighting me.
I'm still working through a lot of anger towards them at the moment.

Someday I really hope I can put them behind me and move on from all of this.
It is so, so common for children of narcs to not want kyds themselves.

I have the same background.
I always felt unloved and not "good enough".

@ danity: How old are you?
I am 34, the anger is mostly gone.

"It is so, so common for children of narcs to not want kyds themselves."
-> do you have any source for this or is it rather an observation?
I am just curious.

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Cambion

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JohnDrake
It took me many years to realize that with narcissistic parents, the kids don't exist so they can be raised to go out into the world, they exist solely to meet the needs of the parents and can't have much of a life outside of them.

Yup all around. My mother was never interested in raising someone who would become an independent, responsible adult - she just wanted to mold me to fit her plan that she had laid out for my life from the start. She didn't let me go anywhere (because I might have sex and do drugs), wouldn't let me do any sort of extra-curricular activities, tried to stifle my love of art for a long time (then decided I had to study it because someone told her I'd get rich doing it), wouldn't let me have a job in high school or college, never taught me things like how to cook, balance a checkbook, never had The Talk^TM, nothing. I had to learn things all on my own.

Mine tried to shut down my interest in electronics, and pretty much succeeded. We ended up in a war of my lack of balance because she wanted me to constantly drop what I was doing when my sister wanted to go swimming. Whenever I tried to work, I'd have to drop what I was doing to go swimming and it go totally ridiculous. I did get my project built, but it was an uphill battle all the way, and not due to lack of skill. After that summer, I pretty much gave up on things and didn't really try anything else after that.

Even before their swimming kick, we also weren't allowed out because my parents though the neighborhood kids were all hoodlums and kids being unsupervised only get into trouble. I can also remember spending entire summer vacations from school(3 months or so) not even setting foot outside the house for these reasons. Sometimes I wonder if that's why I'm not very social and don't always like being around people.

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mrs. chinaski
I have the same background.
I always felt unloved and not "good enough".

@ danity: How old are you?
I am 34, the anger is mostly gone.

"It is so, so common for children of narcs to not want kyds themselves."
-> do you have any source for this or is it rather an observation?
I am just curious.

Hiya! I'm 31 and only really copped on at the end of april this year.
I'm giving myself time to process everything, but I also don't want it to fester, y'know?

It's more that I've noticed narcissism comes up VERY regularly with CF folk.
It would often be that a very domineering parent would point blank refuse to respect their son or daughter's choice not to have children and DEMAND that they have them.
Narcs don't see you as an individual, just as something they can control.

They also do something called "parentification" which is dumping their adult responsibilities on their kid's shoulders at a young age because they're too damn entitled and lazy to do anything themselves.

If you have a parent dump responsibilities on you early in life (I did) -it makes sense that you will want your adult life to be as free as it can be. Hope that makes sense!
I see a LOT of CF people over on r/raisedbynarcissists and it's a topic that comes up very often over there.

@ danity: Thank you for your reply. It all makes perfect sense to me.

I needed a lot of time to figure out what happened. I thought I was the bad one.
I had 0 self-confidence which also lead to other problems in my life.

I can say, when the parents are gone the narc golden children tend to fall apart. Even if they seem to have a lot going for them, they are empty shells when they no longer have the false praise of the parents who created the monster. They can find flying monkeys, co-dependents and various narc sources but it's never like what they got from the parents who supported them unconditionally.

My golden sib is scrambling to find validation for her evil thought processes and behavior, finding scraps of gold dust here and there but also some criticism and resistance from others, no one to fall on for instant and guaranteed praise. The thing is they don't learn anything from this, so they are dangerous at this point. I think many of those family murder suicides are due to golden narcs being rejected or even just questioned by everyone for the first time. The rest of us are used to rejection, growth through mistakes and having to lose sometimes. They don't take that.

Non narcissist children of narcs, scapegoats, are probably better off than the goldens, in the end.

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mrs. chinaski
@ danity: Thank you for your reply. It all makes perfect sense to me.

I needed a lot of time to figure out what happened. I thought I was the bad one.
I had 0 self-confidence which also lead to other problems in my life.

You're welcome!
I hear you on the confidence issues.
I'm just teaching myself every day that I am not the problem.
It certainly takes a while but hopefully in time I'll get to a better place.

Glad you're doing better these days!

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mumofsixbirds
My moo was a narcissistic mother as well. She always reminded me of how much better other people were than me, and always downplayed any success I had in life. If I bought something I really liked and was happy with it, she would put it down in some strange way. She never wanted me to have anything nice.

Compliments from my mother were rare. When I grew into a pretty teen, suddenly I was a whore who hung out with a john and other whores. I couldn't just be a pretty young girl who attracted some attention from boys and was out having coffee with my friends in coffee shops.

Whenever I did something of value, or accomplished something, she would always ask me if she should do somersaults for it. It was her way of saying "Big fucking deal. I'm not going to do somersaults because you accomplished something."

Nothing was ever good enough. She is in a home now with dementia, and I have forgiven her for the past, but I cannot forget her cruelty. That is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Again with the psychological projection! Wow! I cannot say you have my sympathy because I have a mostly wonderful mother but you certainly have my empathy.

It is nothing short of verbal abuse to call one's daughter a "whore".

Always remember that we see in others that which we dislike the most about ourselves. What she did to you wasn't about you.

You have more resolve than I do. I am of the belief that, just because they're related by blood, family doesn't automatically get a second chance.

I have not severed ties with anyone I know, and hopefully won't have to do so, but if I felt it was best for my sanity, I would, hard as it may be.

@ danity: "I'm just teaching myself every day that I am not the problem."
-> when you remain consistent on that, you WILL get better.
Don't let them get to you. If necessary, stop talking to them.

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mrs. chinaski
@ danity: "I'm just teaching myself every day that I am not the problem."
-> when you remain consistent on that, you WILL get better.
Don't let them get to you. If necessary, stop talking to them.

Thanks! Good to hear.

Onwards and upwards.