CPTSD | ACON| Codependent| Complex Trauma| Child Abuse| TRAITS | Recovery

Here is a resource for finding your Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome (NAS) traits, And the recovery model on how to help yourself get over them. 

The 34 traits I found in an "Echo" recovery group and the recovery part comes from a book "The Narcissistic Family".  

Note: There is also a great list of symptoms in the new book "Complex Trauma: From Surviving to Thriving" by Pete Walker, which I'd like to add in, but this is a long enough post already.  I just wanted to mention it as a reference for more recovery on the topic.

34 Traits of an adult child of a narcissistic parent (and subsequent spouse/boss/friends, etc.)

1.      Isolation became they became keepers of the family secret of abuse or neglect which lead to isolation even between siblings (and possibly continued into adulthood believing in the “don't ask don’t tell” motto)

2.      Unacknowledged anger or inappropriately expresses anger

3.      Feels like a hollow or invisible person

4.      Feels inadequate and defective

5.      Suffers from periodic anxiety and depression and has no clue how he/she got that way

6.      Tension and fears abandonment

7.      Distrust others and well as themselves to met his/her own needs

8.      Have communication issues such as: expresses his /her feelings indirectly or obliquely or uses a third party to communicate

9.      Lack of entitlement to have or express own feelings, needs, opinions (if different than parents), or even to say “no”

10.     Programmed to not say “no” leads to unclear or weak boundaries even into adulthood

11.     Expected to “read minds” and train to anticipate needs even before they have been expressed by parents … in adulthood he/she then wants and tries to “help” without being first asked …gives unsolicited advice

12.     Become “people pleasure”

13.     Become “all or nothing” thinkers … see world in “black or white” terms sometimes leads to view others as either “for me or against me” rather than accepting that other can agree on some issues and disagree on others

14.     Unable to deal with any kind of criticism overt or implied “They take a rejection of anything they do, think, say, or feel as a rejection of themselves.”

15.     Unwilling to accept that even if they recover and become healthy they are still unable to change outcome of a toxic relationship

16.     Become over controlling because programmed to believe that others’ choices and behaviors are his/her responsibility and within his/her control or respondsablity.

17.     Become overly protective of others (see reason above)

18.     Yet may not control his/her own behaviors or choices (this wasn’t programmed to be his/her “right”)

19.     Feel uncomfortable and insecure when perceived disapproval from others

20.     Become perfectionist as a means to avoid rejection or punishment

21.     Become over achiever as a means to gain acceptance

22.     Unable to defer gratification to reach long term goals

23.     Need “quick fixes”

24.     Distrust of others and “system “to work to his/her benefit

25.     Low self esteem distorts vision of reality ... they see everyone else as more capable, attractive….more everything

26.     Unrealistic expectations of themselves and others

27.     Gives into emotional blackmailers who manipulate by use of:  fear, false obligation, and unearned guilt

28.     Rescuer

29.     Care taker to an extreme … consistently placing everyone’s needs above his/her own

30.     Use repression and denial as defend mechanism

31.     Can become obsessive

32.     “Poor communicators “

33.     Overly compared with other children and thought that you could not “win” need attention from parents unless someone else “lost” and always felt you came up short and couldn’t met expectations of parents

34.     In the latter stages of progression, Echo’s condition deteriorates he/she may:

•       feel lethargic

•       severely depressed

•       become withdrawn and totally isolated

•       experience a complete loss of daily routine and structure

•       abuse or neglect children and other responsibilities

•       feel hopeless

•       thinks about suicide

•       becomes violent

•       becomes seriously emotionally, mentally, or physically ill

•       experiences eating disorder (over or under eats)

•       becomes addicted to alcohol, gambling, shopping, or drugs

~~~

Ok, so that's the "PROBLEM", what's the "SOLUTION"?  

Recovery of course. What does Recovery look like for this problem?

Recovery: Six Stages of Recovery

(From the book "The Narcissistic Family" and how they relate to the 12 step recovery program), a post taken from the 'Echo' support group.

1.      Revisiting the past (step 1)

2.      Mourning the loss of the fantasy (step 2 and 3)

3.      Recognition (step 4 and 5)

4.      Evaluation (step 6 -10)

5.      Responsibility for change (step 9 -11)

6.      Sharing one’s own experiences and using encouragement and praise to those that want recovery (my own addition to the list) (step 12)

Revisiting the past (step 1)

This stage has to do with the person coming to realize that his childhood or toxic relationship was not an ideal one and coming to recognize the reality of his situation. Further-more, the person comes to realize the continuing attempts to “get it right” (to create or recreate the ideal family or relationship) are a waste of time, because it cannot and will not happen; he, as an adult, still lacks the power to change the FOO and/or other toxic relationship.

Mourning the loss of the fantasy (steps 2 and 3)

This stage is the most painful and liberating one. It is painful of course, because “dreams die most painful deaths”. It is liberating though, because then the person is free to use the energies and personal resources that he/she once spent trying to do the impossible, to now do things that he/she can.

Concentrating energy on that fantasy is destructive for several reasons:

It presupposes that the person is somehow wrong, or defective; if he could just do it better, be different, find the key, then he could get his needs met. In short, it blames the victim.

It keeps the person involved with the FOO system or toxic relationship, which may preclude creating or adequately maintaining his own family or relationships of choice. It is a waste of time.

It keeps the person fixed on a goal that he can never achieve; getting his needs met by his/her parent system. It is a set-up for failure.

It sets up a situation where opportunities for good interaction with the parent system-if they ever occur- will probably be missed, because the underlying unrealistic expectations and resultant anger will make any kind of relaxed interaction impossible. It creates a pattern of missed opportunities.

Recognition (steps 4 and 5)

This stage is one of acceptance, involving recognizing the effects of being raised in a Nhousehold or engaged in a toxic relationship that are evidenced in the person’s life now. It involves being able to identify specific personality traits or character flaws that can be traced back to the dysfunctional upbringing or selection process of toxic relationship. One becomes aware of “why” he/she “is” the way that he/she is.

It is important though, that the person NOT be blamed for having developed these traits. These traits did serve the person well and were effective at the time they were needed, but these protective techniques have out-lived their usefulness and need to be discarded, and replaced with constructive methods.  

Another important point to be made is that the Npersonality or toxic relationship has NOT changed even though the “echo” personality has learned healthier behavior himself/herself. And that a healthy intimate relationship will always be impossible as along as there is Npersonality or toxic relationship involved. (Because it takes two healthy people to make one healthy relationship) At best, only a relationship of tolerance (one sided relationship) is possible.

Evaluation (steps 6-10)

Evaluation involves the person assessing his/her current situation and deciding which among his/her personality traits he/she wants to keep and which are no longer are functional or helpful. He/she decides which he/she wants to change.

Responsibility for change (steps 9-11)

The last stage is the one in which the person does the work to change any of the now out-dated character flaws or personality traits he/she does have.

Once one is shown that he/she no longer is bound by these defective means of relating, than the person is able to forgive more easily. Forgiving is about letting go of feelings of resentment, rage, vindictiveness and the desire for revenge or control.

Share one’s own experiences and use encouragement and praise to those who want recovery. (step 12)

I added this item to the Stage of Recovery list because it has been my own experience that I cannot keep what I don’t give away. There is just something about listening to other’s share their story and me sharing mine that continues the healing process.

Maybe it is because it forms that environment where we can go and feel safe, develop trust, feel: accepted, affirmed, understood and supported. I don’t know all the reasons why it works. I do know that when I am willing to listen, to encourage and to praise, I am able to remain more peaceful, more serene inside myself. I am able to find happiness that I did not previously have. I do know that unless I can find happiness within myself I cannot find it anywhere else.

~~~

So we got the "Problem" and the "Solution", now, what are the "TOOLS"?

 There are many coping skills to learn, practice and master. There are some powerful healing tools to learn as well. In my opinion, if one can't afford EMDR therapy, then EFT Tapping is a great (free) alternative.

Five or so years ago I would have said to get my book and work through your codependency issues with tapping like I did.  and that's still a good place to start, there are plenty of YouTube videos on tapping.

But I've since found something better, easier, faster, deeper and without having to learn a lot or do the tapping part.  I took my recovery healing a quantum step further  with NLP. It's not so easy to learn like tapping is, and you have to learn it without the need to understand it to be able to use. It seems complicated but it's very simple and easy once you get the gist of it.

The gist of it is self-healing by way of learning how to communicate and negotiate with yourself by going within and working with the various "inner parts" that are acting up, integrate those parts so they are both on the same team working FOR you instead of opposing each other.

For EFT Tapping I recommend my book "Emotional Freedom Techniques for Codependency Recovery" where there are over 100 traits to Tap on a well a 500 codependent statements and an additional 500 recovery statements to Tap on. "Codependency and Complex Trauma and narcissistic abuse syndrome" are labels that could be used interchangeably.  Just getting through some of that stuff will help break up the problem patterns and bring emotional relief and freedom to start making better choices. So by all means try Tapping.

But you can also skip Tapping and go straight to NLP. I recommend my "Inner Peace Process" which I've made blog posts and videos on to thoroughly explain how it works so you can use it on yourself. I don't know why exactly, but the NLP that I do has deeper and longer lasting effects than all the years I spent Tapping on issues. The IPP is a deceivingly simple process that doesn't seem like much on paper but has profound effects when doing the actual process.

Don't get me wrong, all that Tapping really helped, in fact I often say it 'saved my life', but there was more work to be done with deep-seated patterns and BELIEFS that I could not change just by tapping on them. I did see major changes in beliefs and behavior when I used NLP on them that I didn't see with Tapping alone.

So now what I'll do is some videos using the Inner Peace Process on some of these NAS or ACON traits so that you can follow along at home and start healing your issues too.

Here is a link to my Inner Peace Process Training and Videos Page

The Inner Peace Process is very easy to learn, from either my videos or my posts explaining the steps.  One doesn't need to master NLP in order to use it and reap the benefits.

This is my way of giving back and helping those who are confused and still suffering from NAS/ACON issues. It breaks my heart to be in so many narc groups and hear everyone's pain and struggles. and I want to message them and say , "Here is what helped me recovery", but I don't want to be "spammy" so I decided to create a blog to refer people to who are interested and want to get to work on their recovery.

It's a journey no doubt, but it gets better, there is hope and empowerment in the process that is priceless!

In fact, I'm a strong supporter of having BOTH healing tools and a recovery program to really move through the stages of healing and into an empowered life that you had no idea you'd ever had. You can check out my other blog https://recoverytapping.blogspot.com for more stuff on recovery including my depression coloring workbook, recovery action plans and my 6 step guide to dating after abuse and 10 years worth of musings and tips about Recovery and Tapping.

I wanted to create a brand new blog where all I focused on was Complex Trauma issues and NLP* processes to heal them. (*Neurol-Linguistic Programming, but it might as well be called "inner-communication and integration", that would explain it better and not sound so complicated - and misleading because we are not using 'language' and we are not 'programming', we're going within and communicating with our inner parts and integrating them which results in the ability to move forward without the inner conflicts or limiting beliefs holding you back.) So don't get too hung up on the words of what a process is labeled.

It's more important to focus on the fact that there is life after complex trauma and there is life after processing and recovery.  There is wellness to be increased, there are many lessons along the way and sure things come up from time to time, life happens, but what's different is that you have the tools and recovery for that now.

You can truly live a life that seems different from your earlier, or current life where you were just surviving and always triggered and pressured.  It's called coming into your own authentic self, led by your inner wise mind and true interests and dreams which you have for a reason. You devote yourself to yourself and it pays off. My IPP process teaches you how to heal yourself.

We did not get this far to then hide out the rest of our lives hoping no more trauma every happens again, afraid to reach out because we've been burned so much before/because we keep making the same relationship mistakes as before. There is life after all of that where those just aren't issues anymore.

By working on your recovery, a daily routine of wellness that includes support and creativity and movement and loving self more, one day you wake up to the fact that you have no more toxic people in your life, or you're no longer isolated and lonely or you have made progress and accomplished goals or that you are healthier, etc.  After months of healing techniques you wake up to forgetting your triggers and smiling comes naturally and easier.

Recovery and wellness are the gifts that keep on giving. You will see the results and the effects of taking care of yourself.  You are the one you've always been waiting for and you no longer resent it but cherish it that you are 100% responsible for your choices and actions every day. You finally feel "OK", you finally feel "good enough", you finally feel (somewhat) "over it", you finally feel challenged but not overwhelmed, supported but independent, able to love but with wisdom this time.

I have a very strong urge to give what I've learned to help others. Today, I've learned to follow my inner voice and urges, I know they're there for a reason.

See the LINK below for my IPP Training Videos I made just for this purpose.

Please feel free to share to anyone you think this might help. No strings attached. Nothing for sale.

Love and Hugs,

Jeanette

<<FREE TRAINING VIDEOS for The INNER PEACE PROCESS on this page.>>