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So Christmas is always a really lonely and painful time for me...so I wanted to try and do something positive to lift my spirits a bit. As I look back over the past year, all I've been focused on is healing and richard grannons videos and courses have been a major major part of my life. As a way to say thankyou and spread some positivity I thought maybe we could all list a few ways Richard has helped change our lives (hopefully he reads this)!
For me the biggest impacts have been...
Most importantly...definitely number 1:
NORMALISING MY EXPERIENCE!!
The explanation of family dynamics has been amazing. To go from thinking there's something deeply and severely wrong with me, to jump online and find out that hundreds of thousands of people worldwide have experienced the exact same upbringing as myself...To have Richard explain scapegoats and emotional neglect etc and point me in the direction of Pete walker and John Bradshaw has been the biggest game changer in my life. I'm slowly accepting myself more. Being called 'weird' or 'different' by other people used to be the biggest trigger for me, now (with a little work) I can shrug it off and still get on with my day. And as for attracting abusive men...I've gone from thinking 'why don't they like me' to 'okay....why do I like them. Why am I attracted to these people. Who do they represent from childhood'.
2:
The stop running from pain/and learn to feel your feelings videos:
I no longer try and protect my family of origin in therapy. I try and see things realistically. I do still try and deflect the conversation when I feel like I'm about to cry, but I can now see it for what it is....a block to healing. Having Richard describe the therapy 'ping pong' really knocked me into line. My therapists would get frustrated, and I would get nowhere all because I didn't want to shed a tear in front of them. At $180 a session, I can't afford to do that anymore.
3. Critical thinking:
I just loved this video so much.
4. The fake morality video...
I felt like I'd been given rights I had never ever had before. The right to not have to put up with bad treatment despite what someone has been through. It made me see that being 'loyal' isn't always healthy, it can cross over into enabling. It made me see that me making excuses for others was actually me engaging in gaslighting. If a friend said to me 'that guy isn't treating you right' I would say 'oh no he's not like this when it's just us...he's a really good person blah blah blah' well that was just me twisting reality so I didn't have to face up to the fact that I would have to end a relationship and be lonely. I don't know if it's actually considered gaslighting, but it kinda seems like the same thing to me.
5. Everything I've ever been through is explained in detail in the one place:
Before i knew what npd was, I was desperately trying to find answers. My problems seemed all over the place, I had books on social anxiety, books on binge eating, books on how to increase confidence, books on cbt for depression. When I typed 'emotional abuse' into YouTube one day I literally watched the SLC channel for HOURS and I was absolutely floored that everything ive experienced had a word and a definition. Gas lighting, projecting, love bombing, scapegoating, hoovering, people pleasing, co dependents. I was sitting there thinking 'oh my god, this is my life'. I was devastated to learn what cptsd was and wished I could go back to thinking depression and social anxiety were my only problems. It's taken me 2 years to accept that it's not the end of the world, and that I actually had not been alive until this point. I was the walking dead. I'm still no where near living a life I'm happy with and haven't even had the courage to go complete no contact with my narc yet, but I am very happy with the shifts I've experienced so far and as painful as it's been I am looking forward to cleaning up some more mess next year.
Anyway, there are sooooo many other positive ways the videos have helped.
If you read this Richard I want to take the opportunity to wish you a happy Christmas and New Years, you should be so proud of all you have achieved and the way you are helping people. I wish you all the happiness and success in 2017!! thankyou so much from the bottom of my heart...you've literally saved my life.
For me the biggest impacts have been...
Most importantly...definitely number 1:
NORMALISING MY EXPERIENCE!!
The explanation of family dynamics has been amazing. To go from thinking there's something deeply and severely wrong with me, to jump online and find out that hundreds of thousands of people worldwide have experienced the exact same upbringing as myself...To have Richard explain scapegoats and emotional neglect etc and point me in the direction of Pete walker and John Bradshaw has been the biggest game changer in my life. I'm slowly accepting myself more. Being called 'weird' or 'different' by other people used to be the biggest trigger for me, now (with a little work) I can shrug it off and still get on with my day. And as for attracting abusive men...I've gone from thinking 'why don't they like me' to 'okay....why do I like them. Why am I attracted to these people. Who do they represent from childhood'.
2:
The stop running from pain/and learn to feel your feelings videos:
I no longer try and protect my family of origin in therapy. I try and see things realistically. I do still try and deflect the conversation when I feel like I'm about to cry, but I can now see it for what it is....a block to healing. Having Richard describe the therapy 'ping pong' really knocked me into line. My therapists would get frustrated, and I would get nowhere all because I didn't want to shed a tear in front of them. At $180 a session, I can't afford to do that anymore.
3. Critical thinking:
I just loved this video so much.
4. The fake morality video...
I felt like I'd been given rights I had never ever had before. The right to not have to put up with bad treatment despite what someone has been through. It made me see that being 'loyal' isn't always healthy, it can cross over into enabling. It made me see that me making excuses for others was actually me engaging in gaslighting. If a friend said to me 'that guy isn't treating you right' I would say 'oh no he's not like this when it's just us...he's a really good person blah blah blah' well that was just me twisting reality so I didn't have to face up to the fact that I would have to end a relationship and be lonely. I don't know if it's actually considered gaslighting, but it kinda seems like the same thing to me.
5. Everything I've ever been through is explained in detail in the one place:
Before i knew what npd was, I was desperately trying to find answers. My problems seemed all over the place, I had books on social anxiety, books on binge eating, books on how to increase confidence, books on cbt for depression. When I typed 'emotional abuse' into YouTube one day I literally watched the SLC channel for HOURS and I was absolutely floored that everything ive experienced had a word and a definition. Gas lighting, projecting, love bombing, scapegoating, hoovering, people pleasing, co dependents. I was sitting there thinking 'oh my god, this is my life'. I was devastated to learn what cptsd was and wished I could go back to thinking depression and social anxiety were my only problems. It's taken me 2 years to accept that it's not the end of the world, and that I actually had not been alive until this point. I was the walking dead. I'm still no where near living a life I'm happy with and haven't even had the courage to go complete no contact with my narc yet, but I am very happy with the shifts I've experienced so far and as painful as it's been I am looking forward to cleaning up some more mess next year.
Anyway, there are sooooo many other positive ways the videos have helped.
If you read this Richard I want to take the opportunity to wish you a happy Christmas and New Years, you should be so proud of all you have achieved and the way you are helping people. I wish you all the happiness and success in 2017!! thankyou so much from the bottom of my heart...you've literally saved my life.
