The scaffolding that supports both therapists and their clients must extend throughout a career

Providing trauma-informed and trauma-focused care is not a static skillset. It requires ongoing learning, humility, and reflective practice. While clinical supervision is a mandated component for licensure, the professional and ethical responsibility to seek guidance does not end once a therapist becomes licensed. The scaffolding that supports both therapists and their clients must extend throughout a career.

One of the most effective ways to strengthen that scaffolding is through clinical consultation. Far more than an optional professional activity, consultation is an essential element of sustained growth, ethical decision-making, and high-quality client care. It offers therapists a reliable place for connection, safety, and reflection—while also modeling the very principles we aim to provide in therapy.

Supervision vs. Consultation: Distinct and Complementary

Many clients (and even some therapists) wonder: if supervision is required during training, why does consultation matter afterward?

Clinical Supervision – Required
In Virginia, as in most states, residents in counseling, marriage and family therapy, or other therapeutic degrees must complete a structured supervisory process before they may practice independently. During clinical supervision, a Virginia Board–Approved Supervisor (a licensed therapist with at least two years of post-licensure clinical experience and specialized training in supervision) helps residents integrate theory into practice, document hours, and develop the competencies that safeguard clients and set the foundation for a long career.

Clinical Supervision has a formal written contract with defined goals, required documentation, regular evaluation, and Board reporting. It supports the resident’s skill development, ethical practice, and confidence as a therapist-in-training, to safeguard the public, cultivate professional competence, and prepare them for independent practice. Clinical Supervisors take on this role to support newer therapists in building their experience in providing trauma therapy, guided by ethical judgment, clinical skills, and a strong professional identity.

Clinical Consultation – Optional and Vital 

Clinical consultation is for already-licensed therapists who want to deepen their skills, process complex cases, or learn new modalities. Not mandated by licensing boards, it is a voluntary, collegial process for licensed clinicians seeking advanced growth.

Clinical consultation is a growth-focused approach. It’s a collaborative space. Therapists bring questions, ethical dilemmas, and clinical puzzles to a supportive, nonjudgmental setting. Consultation ensures therapists are not practicing in isolation but instead have a community for connection.

Whether you’re pursuing advanced training (such as EMDR certification, which requires consultation hours for certification) or simply seeking peer feedback on complex cases, consultation is a space for learning and curiosity without the evaluative component of supervision.

A Trauma-Informed Approach

Consultation, like therapy itself, is most effective when grounded in trauma-informed principles. These principles ensure that the space for clinicians mirrors the environment we strive to create for our clients:

• Safety – Creating a welcoming, respectful space where sensitive clinical material can be shared.
• Trustworthiness & Transparency – Maintaining clear communication and a consistent structure to foster professional trust.
• Choice – Honoring the autonomy of each therapist in identifying consultation needs and applying feedback.
• Collaboration – Engaging in mutual problem-solving and shared decision-making.
• Empowerment – Highlighting strengths and validating the clinician’s expertise to build confidence.

When consultation is trauma-informed, therapists are reminded that they, too, deserve care, reflection, and support. This recognition sustains resilience and models the very principles that help clients heal.

Why Ongoing Consultation Matters for All Clinicians

Research shows therapists who engage in consultation report higher professional satisfaction and more effective client outcomes. Beyond data, consultation provides a lived experience of connection and growth that directly benefits both therapists and their clients.

Clinical consultation offers benefits that ripple out to every client:

• Professional Growth – Therapists refine existing skills, integrate new research, and their practice into specialized areas such as EMDR, parts work, or Trauma Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST).
• Ethical Clarity – A structured space for navigating boundaries, confidentiality concerns, and complex clinical decisions.
• Relational Support – A safeguard against professional isolation and burnout through connection and shared wisdom.
• Bias Awareness – Opportunities to identify and address blind spots, cultural assumptions, and systemic factors that can impact equitable care.
• Creative and Collaborative Problem-Solving – Brainstorm treatment approaches in a judgment-free environment.

For therapists working with trauma, ongoing consultation is especially critical, and the work is never finished. Each client brings new challenges and unique histories that require us to think flexibly and compassionately. Even the most skilled practitioners benefit from consultation—deliberate, reflective professional support—to sustain ethical, effective, and compassionate care. As clinicians engage with clients’ deepest wounds, consultation becomes not a luxury but a foundational safeguard for both therapist and client.

The “Oxygen Mask” Idea

We often remind clients about self-care. The same is true for therapists. The emotional demands of the profession are real, and without adequate support, even the most skilled clinicians risk exhaustion or compassion fatigue.

Clinical consultation serves as the “oxygen mask” for the clinician—critical scaffolding that supports those entrusted with the healing of others. Just as passengers must put on their own mask before helping others, therapists must prioritize their own grounding and support in order to provide safe and effective care. Consultation offers that lifeline: a chance to breathe, reflect, and return to the therapy room with renewed clarity and compassion.

What This Means for Clients

For clients, the idea that your therapist participates in ongoing consultation may be reassuring. It means your therapist is not working in isolation but is actively engaging in continued education, reflective practice, and ethical dialogue with peers. It also means your therapist values humility—the recognition that no single practitioner has all the answers, and that collaboration leads to better care.

When your therapist seeks consultation, they are investing in you. They are ensuring that your care is grounded in the most thoughtful, current, and responsive practices available.

How Can I Help?

At Brickel and Associates, we are deeply committed to this standard of care. I offer:

• Virginia Board–Approved Supervision for residents in counseling and marriage & family therapy seeking Virginia licensure.
• EMDRIA-Approved Consultation for clinicians seeking EMDR certification or simply wanting to strengthen trauma-informed practice.
• Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST) Consultation provided by a Certified TIST Therapist and Senior Facilitator, for clinicians seeking expansion of their skills to work with complex trauma survivors
• Individual and Group Clinical Consultation is designed to foster collaboration, curiosity, and professional renewal for clinicians at all stages of their careers.

Therapists cannot pour from an empty cup. Consultation is the scaffolding that supports the clinicians who, in turn, hold their clients. Whether you’re on the road to licensure or decades into your career, you deserve a safe, skilled, and trauma-informed place to connect and grow.

Clinical consultation is more than professional enrichment—it is a cornerstone of ethical, effective therapy. For therapists, it offers community, reflection, and growth. For clients, it translates into safer, more attuned, and more effective care.

Just as therapy itself is a relationship built on trust, consultation is the behind-the-scenes scaffolding that sustains therapists so they can, in turn, hold their clients with presence and compassion.

Therapists cannot—and should not—do this work alone. Consultation is not just about professional development; it is about protecting the sacred space of therapy itself.

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Robyn Brickel

Robyn is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with 20+ years of experience providing psychotherapy, as well as the founder and clinical director of a private practice, Brickel and Associates, LLC in Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia. She and her team bring a strengths-based, trauma-informed, systems approach to the treatment of individuals (adolescents and adults), couples and families. She specializes in trauma (including attachment trauma) and the use of dissociative mechanisms; such as: self-harm, eating disorders and addictions. She also approaches treatment of perinatal mental health from a trauma-informed lens.

Robyn also guides clients and clinicians who wish to better understand the impact of trauma on mental health and relationships. She has a wide range of post graduate trauma and addictions education and is trained in numerous relational models of practice, including Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT), the Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT), and Imago therapy. She is a trained Sensorimotor Psychotherapist and is a Certified EMDRIA therapist and Approved Consultant. Utilizing all of these tools, along with mindfulness and ego state work to provide the best care to her clients. She prides herself in always learning and expanding her knowledge on a daily basis about the intricacies of treating complex trauma and trauma’s impact on perinatal distress.

She frequently shares insights, resources and links to mental health news on Facebook and Twitter as well as in her blog at BrickelandAssociates.com

To contact Robyn directly:

Robyn@RobynBrickel.com

www.BrickelandAssociates.com

brickelandassociates.com/

These stories can feel emotionally true.

They can also destroy relationships, rewrite personal history, and lock clients into an identity that doesn’t fully belong to them.

How It Starts

You walk into therapy dysregulated. Confused. Perhaps emotionally overwhelmed with no corresponding memory. You say, “I don’t remember much from childhood.”
Your therapist nods and offers:

• “Your body remembers.”

• “Gaps usually mean something happened.”

• “People forget abuse all the time.”

It doesn’t sound aggressive. But it isn’t neutral, either.

And for someone vulnerable – emotionally suggestible, desperate to make sense of their pain – it doesn’t take long before the brain starts shaping a story that feels right.

Even if it isn’t true.

The Brain Doesn’t Record. It Rebuilds.

Let’s keep the science simple:

• Under stress, the brain doesn’t store clean data.

• Every time you recall a memory, you rewrite it.

• Strong suggestion – especially from a perceived authority – can alter what gets remembered.

This is textbook neuroscience. False memory formation is well-documented. None of this is fringe theory.

So if your therapist was the first one to plant the seed that “someone must’ve hurt you,” and a vivid narrative grew from there, you’re not broken. But you might be carrying someone else’s idea of your truth.

Red Flags in the Room

Therapists may not mean to do harm. But intention isn’t the point. The patterns are what matter:

• Certainty outweighs curiosity

• Dreams and somatic sensations are treated as factual evidence

• Emotion is mistaken for proof

• Memory gaps are assumed to mean repressed trauma

• Timelines remain fuzzy, but blame is locked in

• Sessions become narrative-driven rather than regulation-focused

Good therapy helps you slow down and tolerate ambiguity. Bad therapy assigns roles and waits for you to play your part.

The Real-World Cost

When trauma therapy creates rather than reveals a narrative, fallout spreads fast.

Clients may cut off family members based on memories that aren’t fully accurate, or were misfiled entirely. The estrangement feels righteous at first. But if clarity comes years later, shame can stop repair before it starts.

The survivor may feel disloyal to their own healing process. Or too humiliated to reach out. Meanwhile, the therapist who unintentionally fueled the distortion is long gone.

You don’t need to abandon your healing to re-examine the lens you were given. Both things can be true.

What Ethical Trauma Work Actually Looks Like

Real trauma-informed therapy should:

• Focus on nervous system regulation first

• Introduce memory science before narrative work

• Encourage thoughtful pacing, not urgency

• Use language that leaves space for uncertainty

• Avoid leading questions or narrative suggestion

• Validate feelings without cementing unverified claims

• Make room for memory and metaphor without confusing the two

If a therapist never explained how memory actually works, but helped you build an emotionally compelling story anyway, that’s a clinical ethics issue, not a personal failing.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve begun to question a trauma story that formed in therapy, it doesn’t mean your pain was fake. It means your brain did what brains do—it looked for meaning, it trusted a guide, and it filled in gaps. That’s normal.

Now, if you’re strong enough to ask harder questions about what’s real and what was suggested, you’re not regressing. You’re growing.

Trauma recovery isn’t about sticking to a script. It’s about getting honest… even when that honesty breaks the version of the story you were taught to cling to.

You don’t owe anyone a rewrite. But you do owe yourself clarity. And if something doesn’t sit right anymore, it’s okay to say so out loud.

Sources:

• Loftus, Elizabeth F. “Creating False Memories.” Scientific American.

• McNally, Richard. Remembering Trauma.

• Brewin, C. R. “Memory Processes in PTSD.” International Review of Psychiatry.

• Schacter, Daniel L. The Seven Sins of Memory.

• Yapko, Michael D. Suggestions of Abuse.

• American Psychological Association. Recovered Memory Ethics Guidelines.

• PubMed Database: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Dr. Mozelle Martin

Dr. Mozelle Martin is a retired trauma therapist and former Clinical Director of a trauma center, with extensive experience in forensic psychology, criminology, and applied ethics. A survivor of childhood and young adulthood trauma, Dr. Martin has dedicated decades to understanding the psychological and ethical complexities of trauma, crime, and accountability. Her career began as a volunteer in a women’s domestic violence shelter, then as a SA hospital advocate, later becoming a Crisis Therapist working alongside law enforcement on the streets of Phoenix. She went on to earn an AS in Psychology, a BS in Forensic Psychology, an MA in Criminology, and a PhD in Applied Ethics, ultimately working extensively in forensic mental health—providing psychological assessments, intervention, and rehabilitative support with inmates and in the community. A published author and lifelong student of life, she continues to explore the relationship and crossovers of forensic science, mental health, and ethical accountability in both historical and modern contexts.

www.InkProfiler.com

One such theory, originating from the Drama triangle, provides a framework from which to view interactions with others and the typical human reactions that are intrinsically linked.

The theory was designed by Karpman (1968) and describes human interaction via a trio of destructive interpersonal relationship patterns or characters: Persecutor (villain), Rescuer (hero), and Victim (damsel in distress).

I’m visualizing Rapunzel (victim) being rescued by the prince (hero), who is about to be slayed by the giant dragon (villain).  I’m sure there wasn’t a dragon in this story, and I don’t think dinosaurs were around then. It could have been a rabid dog, and in fairness, Rapunzel could as easily use her Smartphone and order a dragon slayer from Amazon, saving the prince from an inconvenience.  But we would have lost our hero!

The three key characters in the story can be applied in almost any situation. Take your mind back to a conflict, where you felt surrounded and overwhelmed. It could have been a family argument, or a work disagreement, or an argument about a parking space. All these scenarios can trigger destructive behaviors which are seemingly automatic, according to the theory, each one pushing the other participants into a default character.

What if I told you that awareness is the key to your escape from the drama triangle!  The theory is that if we work towards stepping out of the drama, we can find peace. If peace were a shape, it would be a huge love heart, and there would be no sharp edges!  The human interactions we encounter don’t always fall into this triangle of drama, but the importance is to recognize potential.

I recently had a total breakdown in the relationship with two of my siblings and for the first time (in my life, I think) I remained silent. My default (trauma) response was to step straight into villain, shouting, berating, and weaponizing my words. Don’t get me wrong, there were many times that this was warranted, and I had to stand up to be heard. However, in doing so, I sacrificed my peace. 

Have you heard of the phrase, “choose your battles”?

After four years of therapy, I learned which battles to let go of, ending a cold war with my inner child. My siblings continued battling, but as I stepped away, the triangle started to collapse, losing its sharp, brutal appearance. I watched as my sisters switched from victim (blaming me) to villain (attacking me) as letters came, reporting me to social services, to solicitors, followed by texts, first to me, then, when I remained silent, to my husband, then son, then sister-in-law.

The rule of a triangle is that all the angles combined need to add up to 180. I broke that rule. Equilateral fallout and isosceles chaos over!  The triangle eventually crumbled, but I admit, the debris that came after caused wounds, some still raw, others slowly healing. But I am proud, I reacted with intention, I slowed down my innate responses.

I spent years oblivious to my absence of impulse control. I was labelled fiery, angry, hot-headed, and fierce, but I want to take you back, as my therapist has done so many times, to my inner child. Imagine her, five years old, suddenly ripped from her home life, mother and family, taken away for eight months, then to be returned to a household of strange men, alcohol, parties, and violence.  That little girl will also show you her fear when placed in an orphanage, locked in her bedroom at night, sharing a bath with the other children, and being scolded for wetting the bed. Can you feel her anger at the world? Can you resonate with the injustice she experienced, the failure of adults and authorities to keep her safe?

That girl was not fierce; she was a warrior; she is not angry. She has anger. Towards the world. And she has the right to feel that way. I now validate her. She was never short-tempered. She was frightened that if she didn’t fight for safety, comfort, and attention, she would be neglected. So, she learned to battle her way through life. This was her survival.

At the age of almost fifty, desperate attempts had been made to force me back into the version of me that allows others to sidetrack their own accountability.  If I am the villain in their story, they are the hero. But I’ve closed the last page of that book and taken my story back. My journey was not theirs to judge, to label, to critique.  I am slowly understanding that I don’t need to fight to be heard or battle to have my needs met. I can do those things myself.  

You may find, as is the case with me, that when you start to heal and grow and forgive yourself of behaviors that no longer serve you, not everyone is ready. Others who are stuck in the drama triangle can only exist if you continue to play their villain. Bravery, accountability, acceptance, and growth are words too big to fit into the triangle.  

One of the saddest parts of healing is that you can’t take everyone with you. If, for years, you have been the villain in someone else’s story, how can they be the hero without you? If for years you have been the victim, unable to keep yourself safe, maintain safe boundaries, and suddenly you have built a fortress, they can’t be a rescuer without you.  So, you see, growth and healing can isolate you from those you have known all your life. This was the case for me.

But imagine the cold, hard soil after a cruel winter. All life seems to have frozen and died, but just as you start to tire of the bitter winter, a bud springs. Tiny at first, and then rising, like a timid hand, reaching to receive a kiss from the sun.  Before you know it, that bud is surrounded by fresh new flowers, all reaching together, petals opening to receive the spring of hope.

I hope this article has resonated and has provoked thought for more reading about the theory of the drama triangle. If you or anyone you know is suffering from mental health issues, or has a crisis requiring support, please ring your NHS GP, or local services, or ring NHS111 to find the number for your local crisis team. 

graceewilkinson.com

Grace Wilkinson, RGN, DN, NMP, Msc (Hons) Advanced Clinical Practice

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Grace Wilkinson

Mental Health Isn’t a Trend. It’s a Field.

Let’s start with the basics. Real trauma, clinical trauma, impacts the structure and function of the brain. PTSD is linked to changes in the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex. It affects memory, emotional regulation, and impulse control. It’s not just a bad day at work or a breakup (Bremner, 1999). The same goes for narcissistic personality disorder. Real NPD is a rare, deeply ingrained pattern of behavior tied to dysfunctional self-perception, lack of empathy, and manipulative tendencies. It’s not just someone who posts too many selfies or talks over you at dinner (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Calling every bad date a narcissist or every ex-partner a sociopath isn’t just exaggeration. It’s a misrepresentation. And over time, it chips away at the credibility of those trying to describe real psychological harm.

A Few Clarifications. For Sanity’s Sake.

• Disagreeing with someone doesn’t mean they’re toxic. It means you’re two humans with different perspectives.
• Not liking someone doesn’t mean they’re mentally ill. Maybe you’re just incompatible.
• Not every uncomfortable conversation is someone trying to gaslight you.
• Believing something you find offensive doesn’t make a person diagnosable.

Words like narcissist, gaslighting, and trauma are clinical tools. They’re used in forensic evaluations, psychiatric assessments, trauma interventions, and court reports. If you toss them around flippantly, you turn them into noise.

Real Survivors Are Getting Lost in That Noise

Those who feel they could benefit from therapy decide they can heal themselves by listening to an influencer. People cold-turkey their medications because some anti-psychology YouTuber told them SSRIs are a government mind-control plot or that bipolar is just a frequency mismatch. Never mind that quitting psychiatric medication without medical supervision can trigger withdrawal syndromes, rebound symptoms, or, depending on the medication, life-threatening cardiac events. Sudden discontinuation of drugs like benzodiazepines or certain antidepressants has been linked to seizures, arrhythmia, and in rare cases, serotonin syndrome or death (Fava et al., 2015).

But hey, someone on YouTube said you just need to ground yourself with crystals.

I’m definitely not knocking spiritual practices. I’m all for deep breathing, energy work, compassion, kindness, walks in nature, therapy pets, whatever keeps you tethered to life when nothing else does. But time and place matter. When someone is in active psychiatric distress, they don’t need a sound bath. They need a treatment plan.

We can value holistic approaches and still acknowledge that mental illness sometimes requires more than sage and affirmations. What’s dangerous is when nuance disappears and it becomes a binary. Psychiatry “bad”, vibe healing “good.” That kind of thinking isn’t just wrong. It’s reckless.

And it’s not just vulnerable users falling into these traps. Even licensed therapists are having to spend entire sessions untangling the psychological wreckage left behind by online misinformation. They’re walking clients back from black-and-white thinking about narcissism, correcting misconceptions about what trauma even is, and reintroducing the difference between discomfort and disorder.

When a TikTok diagnosis feels more trustworthy than a clinical evaluation, something’s broken. And it’s not the patient. It’s the pipeline. The whole mental health conversation has been hijacked by clicks and charisma instead of qualifications and care. That wasted time isn’t harmless. It delays real healing. It waters down clinical triage. And it reinforces stigma. Ironically, the very thing these online advocates claim to be fighting.

The Goldwater Rule Exists for a Reason

Here’s something that seems to have vanished from the digital psyche. Ethics. Mental health professionals are prohibited from diagnosing people they haven’t assessed directly. That includes celebrities. That includes your ex. And that includes viral clips. Yet here we are. Social media threads are diagnosing politicians with antisocial traits. Instagram captions using CPTSD to explain being ghosted. Reddit advice columns throwing around “covert narcissist” like it’s a horoscope. Let’s be blunt. If you’re not qualified to diagnose in person, you’re not qualified to diagnose online. Your trauma doesn’t give you a license. Your heartbreak doesn’t give you credentials.

Words Are Tools. Don’t Use Them Like Weapons.

This is not about being politically correct. It is about being clinically correct. If we want people to take trauma seriously, we need to protect the vocabulary that gives it shape.

• When you call someone a narcissist just because they hurt your feelings, you’re erasing the woman who spent ten years living under covert emotional abuse.
• When you say you’re being gaslit because someone remembers an event differently, you’re sidelining the man whose reality was systematically rewritten by an abuser.
• When you label a breakup trauma, you’re standing on the shoulders of people whose trauma has rewired their nervous system.

And no, saying language evolves doesn’t give you a free pass to rewrite diagnoses to suit your mood. This isn’t slang. This is science.

The Fallout Isn’t Theoretical

Here’s what happens when diagnostic terms become casual insults.

• PTSD gets mocked. Misuse turns it into a punchline.
• Survivors lose credibility. Legal claims become harder to support.
• Clinicians lose time. Every distorted self-diagnosis adds another layer to peel back before treatment can begin.
• Social trust erodes. People stop listening when everything feels like an exaggeration.
• Misconceptions about PTSD can affect treatment-seeking and amplify stigma among patients, clinicians, and the public (Marshall et al., 2001).

Bottom Line: Accuracy Isn’t Optional

If you (really) care about mental health, then language matters. Accuracy matters. Ethics matter.

You don’t need a license to be compassionate. But if you’re going to use clinical words, then respect what they actually mean. Because every time you misuse those words, you’re not just being wrong. You’re making it harder for someone else to be taken seriously when they need help most.

Real trauma survivors don’t need your TikTok validation. They need room to heal in peace. With truth. With integrity. And with words that still mean what they’re supposed to mean.

References

• American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing; 2013.

• Bremner JD. Does stress damage the brain? Biol Psychiatry. 1999 Apr 15;45(8):797-805. doi:10.1016/S0006-3223(98)00189-8

• Marshall RD, Olfson M, Hellman F, Blanco C, Guardino M, Struening EL. Comorbidity, Impairment, and Suicidality in Subthreshold PTSD. Am J Psychiatry. 2001;158(9):1467–1473. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.158.9.1467

• Shade M, Kwon M, Cowan K, Bowe B. TikTok Therapy: Mental Health Information and Misinformation in Short-Form Videos. JMIR Ment Health. 2023 Feb 3;10:e43837. doi:10.2196/43837

  Photo by Total Shape on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Dr. Mozelle Martin

Dr. Mozelle Martin is a retired trauma therapist and former Clinical Director of a trauma center, with extensive experience in forensic psychology, criminology, and applied ethics. A survivor of childhood and young adulthood trauma, Dr. Martin has dedicated decades to understanding the psychological and ethical complexities of trauma, crime, and accountability. Her career began as a volunteer in a women’s domestic violence shelter, then as a SA hospital advocate, later becoming a Crisis Therapist working alongside law enforcement on the streets of Phoenix. She went on to earn an AS in Psychology, a BS in Forensic Psychology, an MA in Criminology, and a PhD in Applied Ethics, ultimately working extensively in forensic mental health—providing psychological assessments, intervention, and rehabilitative support with inmates and in the community. A published author and lifelong student of life, she continues to explore the relationship and crossovers of forensic science, mental health, and ethical accountability in both historical and modern contexts.

www.InkProfiler.com

Mushrooms are notorious for only being distinguishable as poisonous by the elite. It’s how they collectively protect themselves. If our individual and collective personalities continue to proliferate in such a disordered way, we would be wise to proactively develop a counter strategy. We must develop a new approach when compassion and flexible thinking are exploited. In no uncertain terms, when it is safe to do so, some of us need to hold the line in small ways—in this case, calling a horse a horse.

The lifeblood of language is only possible through relinquishing power: when a word leaves one’s mouth and reaches another’s ear. “Grey-rocking” and “no-contact” advice have their time and place; for me, they echoed the agency-stripping accommodations I’ve been forced to swallow too often. I couldn’t do it; I was filled to the brim. My body is metabolizing intense bouts of word salad: when someone says words in sequences that follow syntactic rules but rapid-fired so you can’t stop to notice they have no meaning. Word salad is strategic, a mechanism of misdirection. Direct language is an antidote to narcissism, a non-black-and-white intersubjectivity that never guarantees dominance or falsely proselytizes “truth” but is 100% honest. Exacting direct language is, at least, a surefire way to get a read on the person you are dealing with in flesh and blood at any given moment: Can they tolerate an external consensus that places restrictions on them? Can they accommodate others even if there’s nothing in it for them? Or do they balk at the request for adjustments? Is “no” enough?

I have read enough articles about triggers as superpowers for a lifetime, about sensitivity being like a carbon monoxide detector, and about how our bodies are trying to tell us something. I keep waiting for this steady collective strength to appear in all its terrifying glory, like the unveiling of a game-changing map. They say pain and fear are messengers; we are wise to listen, but I am no longer interested in protecting myself alone.

I’m not asking for compassionate or PC alternatives to official NPD naming, but ones that are precise and on the record. (After NPD abuse, my knee-jerk defense is to rename it “black-hole broken-cup disorder” or “soul-raping joker-faced syndrome.”) I am asking for suggestions on language that will distinguish the everyday usage of narcissism from when you realize too late that you’re deeply entangled with someone who doesn’t have the capacity to hold back harm. For when you require intervention more urgently than the time it takes to rewire every one of your childhood trauma responses.

Here is my call to this community of resilient deep thinkers: what do you wish was said instead? What language did you develop that you wish you had from the beginning to describe this bizarre exploitation style? Or are words offered by elders along the way that someone in the white-hot thick of it might not remember available? How do you explain this behavior to your children or prepare them for this dynamic in the world? During your recovery, did you feel a pit in your stomach as the word narcissist was casually thrown around? At the same time, maybe you calculated the personal-danger/societal-progress ratio of hearing the word aloud in public spaces. Hopefully, it wasn’t just in pop culture but in poli-sci theory, legislature, medical settings, schoolrooms, and good company with people learning to reflect on the first person and the collective impact.

Any suggestions on what else we might name it for those who find themselves in chat rooms at 3 AM, pouring over “dark triad”/cluster-B literature, drained, on the brink, watching their brains attempt to make sense of bizarre nonsense… clinging to lifelines of writings that use phrases like psychological murder and mental rape, praying that the accurate usage of this extreme language won’t be judged as “dramatic” by people from which they are asking for help and harbor? Suggestions for what to call it when this energy follows you (maybe because you’re now able to see what was always there) … but don’t know what to call it and can’t call it by its name… but can’t tolerate it anymore, either? We get to decide. Language is arbitrary, and form follows function.

Suggestions for alternative names to NPD are welcome in the comments below from experiences as affirmed by the victim of a fun house “love” that engaged in recon to target your weakest spots. “Love” that left you wondering how to compost your murdered self without accurate language. Relationships that whipped you in the same place twice when you attempted to describe them accurately.

Nuances in NPD diagnoses would benefit from reference manuals recognizing variants like covert, grandiose, or malignant, but a new paradigm could also be modeled off a five-alarm or def-com system. Could a renaming honor that little zombified ant? Or, maybe, in the tradition of Greek mythology, instead of Narcissus, Orpheus—master instrumentalist and enchanter? Orpheus lived out a tragic story: he loved, or at least he tried. He went to the depths of hell to rescue his beloved Euripides and succeeded because he was intelligent, charming, and determined. But it didn’t occur to him to ensure that Euripides was also in the light before looking back to unravel it all. From then on, he was a broken man. He was later cannibalized alive by the women to whom he could no longer connect while attempting to rest and grieve his losses.

I look forward to doing what the intersection of my life’s greatest griefs has brazened me with the capacity to do: metabolize how it is both about me and not about me with an understanding of consequences, object permanence, and shreds of compassion even after my most outlandish moments. (I am returning to myself.) I am curious about what language was harmful, helpful, or an absurd replication during your recovery from NPD abuse or what language you prioritize for the next generations. The more survivors I speak to, the more I realize that it irrevocably alters the way one sees. I aim to use my strange afterlife to call upon institutions (like mental health diagnostic manuals) to call horses by the name we gave them: to call pop stars and assholes “narcissists”; and call NPD something more nuanced amidst this evolution.

Bonni Benton

Bonni Benton is a multimedia artist and student. She has a BA in Theatre from Hunter College (CUNY) and will hold an MA in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from UNM at the end of this year. She put her roots back down in her home state of New Mexico in 2020, where she and her two rabbits currently live in a tiny house in the mountains.

I want to preface the following with a distinction between “a narc” and abusively narcissistic patterned behavior because this is so much bigger than any one individual. People who suffer from NPD (as opposed to narcissistic jerks) are so deeply traumatized and will take it as a reflection on them… but it isn’t. I’m not wishing to incite violence, but the idealism of “becoming the change I hope to see” doesn’t hold water when what I hope to see has been reverse-victim-ordered.

NPD has a high correlation with misogyny, racism, xenophobic discrimination, and all the other ailments of the world we are regularly told can’t be fixed. When the man to whom I was trauma-bonded (but didn’t yet comprehend had NPD) projected by screaming at me until he was sweating and his eyes were black that I had a personality disorder, I was naively trying to care for him and his sprained ego, ahem, I mean, ankle… and reacting to being snapped at that I “could stand to get him a cold drink”. He later made me apologize for suggesting this happened. At that point, I was hooked by a web of stealthy lies that reflected everything I had ever hoped for and belittled through the grooming of incremental boundary-testing, so my broken spirit acquiesced. My pupils were probably large and black, too, from fear.

A year and a half into our relationship, after much talk about his “very observant, quick-learning, self-aware and progressive path,” he grinned while he tested me with “suddenly realizing” who my closest friend was (he was attempting to suggest a threesome) and the sudden information about his possession of U.S. Confederate memorabilia. My gaslit bleeding heart tried to respect this complicated ambush of cultural heritage and sexual pseudo-liberation and told him, “Just don’t be hateful to people” and “yeah, I don’t need you two to be close”. In retrospect, it was the same grin that he had while I frantically searched for items I’m fairly certain he intentionally hid from me and, to this day, still has in his possession.

I would have said anything at that point so he would stop trapping me. Looking back, this fueled the entrapment. Then again, once the funhouse music and coercive rage started, there was nothing I could do. There was no appeal to logic or facts, no appeal to empathy. Even abrupt no-contact would have had severe consequences for my life, but I was also naively trying to get back to the great love that was first sold to me. Once the funhouse music started, I would apologize for things he did so he wouldn’t scream at me then he would scream at me for apologizing too much, mocking my lack of self-respect. He kept coming back because I had something he wanted, something to which he felt entitled, but it was pure sabotage.

Based on what I now know about my ex’s reputation (that was strategically hidden from me) and how furiously he screamed that I had “ruined everything” the first time I confronted him, I believe I was recruited to prove to everyone that he could keep an LTR. This was why he was on such deceitfully good behavior in the beginning. Today, the recovery advice relating to brainwashing and cult leaders has been most relevant. And since I proclaim honesty, there is a part of me that realized halfway through our relationship that I was deep undercover. Every day still, talking myself through the ambiguous grief of being in love with a man who never existed takes up most of my calories.

During my attempts to get anyone in a position of authority to hold my ex accountable for his psychological violence, half the officials told me, “I’m so sorry that happened to you, that’s incredibly abusive, but unfortunately that’s not how the law works.” The other half said, “I’m so sorry that happened to you, and that’s not how the law usually works… but I see what you’re saying. Where are you in the process? I’ll tell you what I know.” I followed their advice as far as I could.

I was then repeatedly told not to say the word narcissist in a courtroom because it’s style of abuse is notoriously difficult to prosecute, and the precedent varies from state to state for its connection to the intentional infliction of extreme emotional distress. In my highly triggered state, this struck me as a chicken-and-egg dilemma, so I took a page out of his playbook. I proceeded to fight my way into courtrooms and get the word on any record as often as possible, even if it had to be mine. Today I still can’t, in good conscience, say that I disagree with myself. But I admit it was a messy process amidst an insufficient status quo.

Nowadays, I reassure myself about my worst reactions by noticing that this is not a pattern in any other of my relationships. I understand that it’s my responsibility to work through the shakes that making even simple decisions gives me after having my sense of self gutted by being regularly screamed at for being a “stupid, useless little girl that shouldn’t trust my body or judgment”. I wake up every day with a restraining order on my name because the reactive abuse was effective and remind myself in the mirror that I didn’t ‘lose it’; it was taken. Keep your chin up, kid. I tried to take the shame and secrecy out of what was already happening since there was no higher road.

But I still stand in front of judges who’ve heard decimated versions of the saga (but ask zero contextualizing questions) and simply accept the consequences. I go to therapy twice a week, plus domestic violence support groups plus EMDR for the laundry list of intrusive thoughts from the distorted intimacy. I’m resilient and adaptive, and I see leaps and bounds of the hallmarks of health since denying the continuation of this treatment. Every morning, I remember the most bad-ass advice I’ve been given so far: that my best revenge is to prosper.

More importantly, in these therapies, I accept my part, realizing that fawning is manipulative even when rooted in fear, and yes (go figure) I didn’t get enough unconditional love as a child. I was tenuously glued back together when my abuser met me, and he smelled it on me. Since he scapegoated my past for everything, it kept me reluctant to admit that all of these are true. I think it is a good sign that I am even considering my part and how to prevent it in the future. I’m proud to take what’s mine, but I am not strong enough to take it all, nor do I deserve to. I’m not willing to “get on with my life.” I’m actively discontinuing this tradition of complicity.

Suppose our best guess about the root of NPD is stunting around the developmental stage of object permanence (peek-a-boo age). In that case, I defer to all the mothers who contain their toddlers’ outbursts on playgrounds: letting kids live out Godzilla fantasies without repercussion isn’t healthy. It isn’t healthy (or loving) to let a toddler feel entitled to that behavior. It gets murky when the toddler is in an adult body with a credit card and voting rights. By the time they’ve grown into an adult body, it’s far too late.

We need to teach kids this discretion as early as possible before sending them back out onto playgrounds (and workplaces, and sacred contracts of intimacy) where sadistic Godzillas will repeatedly bludgeon them. It is a slippery slope to collectively tell others that it’s now their responsibility to metabolize violence far beyond interpretive doubts. I can live with my sandcastles being swallowed by the tide or stomped on by bullies; I can’t tolerate being assaulted behind the swings and then denied the language to accurately describe what happened.

The perks of constant interconnected global conveniences and entertainment come with a responsibility to exercise this hard-earned discretion, part logic and part intuition. If violence is cyclical, we need to find a way to support the wrenches in the wheel who have first-hand knowledge of how enough has become enough and connect them to developing little minds. We need to intervene because narcissistic traits are running rampant like bullies on playgrounds, except now they exact policy through the offices they hold or through their 200 million Instagram followers that enact their word like Gospel. And with so many networks, most behavior has gone covert.

It will be one of the wildest rides you will ever go on to call out narcissistic behavior, be it individual or institutional. Do so judiciously and take care of yourself during the backlash. Men in uniform will choke on their best attempts at trauma-informed language, gate-keeping your recourse. They may tell you the threats you made against coveted models of cars are more valid than what you endured with your body and psyche. Strangers (who know half the cherry-picked version of what happened) will scream at you in the street. People you’ve known since birth will tell you that “good girls don’t talk about that kind of thing.” Connecting your story to the bigger story will get you shamed (and forget to mention how it can be both). You’ll somehow be simultaneously selfish and at fault for giving too much. You’ll be “over-reactive” when it’s convenient and told your trauma is nothing special if you start making sense. They are shades of the same playbook.

However, it will be a rock-hard reclamation of self and reality. People will vet themselves, and flying monkeys will drop like flies when they know they can’t play you like a violin anymore. Some may say that fighting fire with fire makes the world burn, but we are already burning, and self-defense has long been distinguished from preemptive strike. Sauter it with precision.

Participation in this style of resistance calls for deep discretion. In recovery groups, I spoke with mothers who couldn’t fight back because they had kids they were protecting from their exes. I also interviewed someone who told me they wished they had fought back seventeen years earlier in their marriage to get their abuser to back off. (This account single-handedly helped me start sleeping better amidst the consequences of my body’s reasonable reactions to my ex’s gaslighting and reactive abuse.) If you need to get to safety before you use this hard-earned knowledge to fight a dark societal trend, let that get you up in the morning. Let that guide you to a centered safety one day at a time. We need you. We all need what your body now knows.

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Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Bonni Benton

Bonni Benton is a multimedia artist and student. She has a BA in Theatre from Hunter College (CUNY) and will hold an MA in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from UNM at the end of this year. She put her roots back down in her home state of New Mexico in 2020, where she and her two rabbits currently live in a tiny house in the mountains.

In an oversaturated language, I ran out of words to describe the extent of the damage. Psychological murder and mental rape seemed more appropriate, but using spiritual, metaphysical descriptors in a secular world is challenging. You’re treated like you don’t know the strength of your words; you’re covertly tagged as hysterical. And yes, I am sensitive to that treatment, however inadvertent. It’s reasonable that any survivor of narc abuse would be. My ex’s treatment would have broken anybody, and I’m no longer available for conversations about how I could’ve handled it better.

Analogies have proven helpful: descriptions of the dark spider web I was living in are most proportionately responded to when I describe my narc as “less Taylor Swift, more Ted Bundy.” It illuminates his superficial charm and the unease and chaos that follows. Yes, people can be that improvisationally manipulative, down to their precognitive skeletons, reflexively transactional, even in their best attempts at loving and being loved. The conversations in recovery groups and with practitioners who don’t balk when I use words like sociopathy and violence (even though my ex never hit me) are markedly safer and more productive.

Back to mushrooms: they each have their taxonomy institutionally sanctioned as distinct from all the other mushrooms’ excellent works. Yule log mushrooms will not understand the coercion experienced by a zombified ant. They won’t relate to the alchemy that Cryptococcus neoforman wield. The zombie ant fungus spore babies did nothing wrong, but the ants need convalescence after their heads split if we expect them to return with their stories from the other side and rejoin the work force.

Even after having the mechanisms of NPD shoved down my throat for the last time, it broke my heart that people with NPD are institutionally abandoned, that their suffering is forfeited, and abuse acquiesced to. In contrast, because I had already shouldered violent amounts of blame-shifting, it further broke my psychologically assaulted brain to be told there was nothing I could do but metabolize it. Professionals told me they were baffled; that my ex (and formative family members) would never see it; and sorry, good luck. Stay hydrated.

Meanwhile, institutions collectively take on these patterned behaviors. It drives us to near extinction. As a student of global power dynamics, this parallel keeps me from accepting the radical acceptance stage. If one “can’t get well in the environment that made you sick,” how am I supposed to get well in a world where collective narcissism is running rampantly unchecked? It’s scary to let go of hopes for accountability; where does that leave my god- and grandchildren? (And the philosopher’s quintessential quandary: Why do we do anything without hope for change?) Radical acceptance is a powerful tool for protecting oneself in a damaging world. But the world is becoming one big rug, under which room runs out for things to be swept.

I’m not the only one at this trend’s mercy: I see it in the desperate relief of people in survivor groups. Self-accountability is essential in healing, but it’s too much to ask those already humiliated and repeatedly mortally wounded to bear the exclusive brunt of rectification while their brains (bodies) are functioning at an all-time low. Narcissists, being narcissists, will exploit this, and so on. It’s a societal extension of scapegoating that keeps suicide rates disproportionately high in narc abuse survivors. We are watching this socio-epidemiological snowball in real time. It turns voting polls into circuses. It lines Taylor Swift’s bank accounts with fur: fans crying at concerts, relieved that someone sees it… or is she embodying it? The whodunit is juicy.

Thoughtful choice of words is not diplomacy at cocktail parties; it’s our lifeblood. In a world quickly becoming a compassion vacuum, I was enduring a strange formula of social endemics like rapists and cults that were officially weaponized as only my burden, and recovering from severe abuse under the guise of love. I barely endured the aftermath of unremittingly brutal spiritual assaults (in part) because we’ve made too much wiggle room. During my attempts to not turn against myself this time, I have engaged with group after group of disoriented victims who gather. They hope to re-learn how to validate what was first dismissed by their formative caregivers, secondly, dismissed by their abuser(s), and thirdly, dismissed by society at large, yet is somehow officially only their responsibility. We are being told to run and hide from the air we breathe.

In interviews with narc abuse survivors, especially those entrenched in legal battles, one piece of advice repeatedly pops up: write everything down. Keep a log. Date it. Keep a journal of intuitions you don’t know where to place yet. Keep two paper copies. Fight dirty and record conversations, with or without consent. Even if it’s not legally admissible in court, it will ground you in the fact that you’re not going crazy. Ever notice how some folks get when they’re about to be inexorably caught red-handed? It’ll tell you everything you need to know about a person. We need to accurately get this behavior on the record. Ink is magical in this way.

Narcissism isn’t the word that should be attached to NPD abuse anymore. That’s not what happened. I needed that word to be stronger. I needed to be able to walk into a doctor’s office under Medicare and say, “A narcissist has attacked me,” and not have them look at me like I had been listening to too many true-crime podcasts. Fewer and fewer of us have access to gurus, homeopathists and publicly appointed attorneys that will understand this wavelength. I want those at highest risk for narc abuse who are emerging from having their childhood traumas subjugated to recognizance, coerced, lied to, puppeteered, tricked, then subtly raped, hollowed out, fed upon, then their faces rubbed in it like a bad dog to be able to walk into a medical office and say, “I have my suspicions that I am in relation with a sociopath.” They walk among us and don’t look like they belong in Taylor Swift’s music videos. I am beyond my attempted gestures of inclusive understanding being met with taunts of how history belongs to the victor.

Anything said will be bastardized if you lack the muscle to understand the need for gray spaces, grace for others, and reasonable interpretation. Not having the bandwidth for others who have explicitly expressed the need for support in enduring society’s cracks is not the same as cheekily weaponizing a disregard for transgressions of known boundaries. It’s why some people can’t stand that it’s not PC to say certain words anymore. They are sans the muscle that sees that they’re “allowed” to say these words, but there are harmful repercussions to vulnerable populations that have been begging people to stop for decades; it’s reactive abuse. It’s the basis of NIMBYism: that ideals are good in theory until someone must make a sacrifice that doesn’t directly benefit them. Accountability is being DARVO’ed in our collective ethics. “Consent” is being reduced to an annoying digital box we check to get to a main page. A new strategy is needed.

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Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Bonni Benton

Bonni Benton is a multimedia artist and student. She has a BA in Theatre from Hunter College (CUNY) and will hold an MA in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from UNM at the end of this year. She put her roots back down in her home state of New Mexico in 2020, where she and her two rabbits currently live in a tiny house in the mountains.

The natural world is rife with much richer analogies than our “higher” cultured structures. We have been strategically separated from the knowledge that mushrooms are awesome. They are resilient, adaptive, adept at divvying up decomposition, and taxonomically distinguished amongst the many types. Consider three examples: 1.) Mushrooms that grow on New England Yule logs (morels, oysters, lion’s mane) are iconic, delicious, and indispensable to the ecosystem. 2.) Cryptococcus neoformans fungi are doing a different alchemical work: metabolizing radiation thirty-eight years after the man-made nuclear catastrophe in Chernobyl. 3.) Deep in tropical forests, a spore called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis (zombie-ant fungus) infects ants’ brains to alter their behavior. The fungus drives an ant to the top of a hill, where there is sunlight that the fungus can’t otherwise reach. It then releases spores for reproduction via the ant’s exploded head. (Plus thousands of examples of fungi soldiers in between!) Yet even in the natural world, parasite populations sometimes get out of balance.

Trauma is everywhere; the more humans there are on the planet, the more trauma there will be. A vast majority of us are living in a triggered state, and only some of us admit it. We also foster minds that can navigate the nuances necessitated by spectrums, strengthening our non-black-and-white thinking in an exponentially complex world. We are tending to those historically kept out of conversations or that need triage because of an immutable past. Institutional sanction may “seem like a trivial issue to some,” but although I didn’t have a say in the need for triage, my privileged access to narc abuse research was undeniable. I accessed it via sanctioned definitions plus survivor’s accounts.

Defending the farthest ends of imposed destruction is essential. In the mid-20^th century, the philosopher Jacques Derrida watched his non-binary deconstructionism weaponized by Holocaust deniers. It was a quick adaptation, one which he himself waded in. Comparisons aren’t logical in trauma-informed arenas; we cannot let it turn into an Olympic sport. First-person accounts are invaluable; they are tools against didactics. If “power over” is the enemy, let it burn. We will benefit from listening to those who have been to the far side: they embody a cipher, attuned to the most damaging collective dynamics.

I would never claim to know the trauma of someone chained in a basement for a decade. To an analogous but empirically lesser degree, it was maddening to hear people say they were “triggered” by things for which they have distaste or “gaslit” by someone who disagreed with them once. During the last chapter and harrowing afterlife of my NPD narcissist, my evenings resembled an Apocalypse Now hotel stay. The mechanisms found when local labor is coerced into performing its own resource extraction are not far off from what drives domestic violence, but it is not the same as the discomfort caused by calling someone out on their bullshit. All of these can be covert, blatant, or have spectacle. It is up to us to navigate the shades in between.

You can’t gaslight someone once or accidentally; it is a method, a grooming process. It is based on a pattern, and keeping a log of this pattern before throwing the word around would serve us all well. Trauma bonding isn’t what occurs when two people become friends by sharing accounts of their trauma, however true and deserving of recognition (think: Stockholm’s Syndrome). You don’t have PTSD from stressful experiences; you have PTS. Love-bombing isn’t over-zealous, misguided courtship, though the pattern of suspicion by its recipients is illuminating. The idealization phase isn’t a “honeymoon period” (think objectification). And the lyrical, colloquial usage of the word narcissist doesn’t do justice to the factions of survivors clamoring to get well in an environment made of this stuff.

It was a year into my recovery from acute NPD abuse before I found therapeutic environments where I could use the word sociopath, which was the accurate word. A year to find spaces where clinicians heard me say: “I’m not sick, I’m injured.” There is growing research that NPD abuse causes literal brain damage, cognitive severance based on coercive depersonalization, inflammation, increased cortisol and adrenaline, and a weakened immune system. Anecdotally, every hellish microsecond of my burning nervous system concurs. Without this patient narrative, my doctors were mistreating me for an inaccurate condition.

By then, I was regularly calling suicide hotlines because my support system was exhausted or my abuser had triangulated them. I cut ties with the rest because of their unnuanced judgments. My tolerance was at an all-time low, and I was realizing similar traits in the people with whom I surrounded myself: they were used to me allowing this behavior, too.

For a while, knowing narcissism is prevalent and underreported, I tried to stay with people’s best commiserative offerings. I believe in this practice of respectful witness but, exhausted from fighting for validation (mine and precedence), my stripped psyche has retreated. I will return. These days, I hold a policy that I won’t discuss “narcissism” with anyone who hasn’t done basic research into the condition.

 I spent a year navigating significant neurological and physical dysfunctions like sequential reasoning, short-term memory, debilitating fatigue, loss of coordination, vision impairment, constant pain and inflammation, sleep disruption, and seizures. My community insisted that eating well, stretching, and forgiveness meditations would help me feel better. I am absolutely not knocking the first two; recovering from narc abuse has taken more physical stamina than I knew I had. But because of the underestimation from all outward appearances, being asked to take better care of myself at that early stage was like asking someone to perform their own appendectomy. I was then criticized for not doing it quietly enough.

I still defend against forced premature forgiveness, though. Insistence on it is dismissive and minimizing. I’m grateful to now be in companies that don’t see it as a prerequisite for my recovery and acknowledge that it may never be possible. I don’t yet talk to many people from “the before times” because the level of sociopathic abuse I experienced is not well-represented by the public’s definition of narcissism. Few aspects of my life that are unscathed by it, about which I can chit-chat. I appreciated the sentiment to take better care of myself and extended grace to their confusion. But thinking positively was not going to cut it. So, I fought my way through.

Recovery coaches recommend not defending yourself to conserve energy. Paradoxically, however, I couldn’t get the treatment I needed without defending the gravity of the situation. I spent taxing amounts of energy defending myself against “breakups are hard” rhetoric. (Several times, my abuser manipulated my closest friends into relaying this message to me. Hearing his echo through them was spooky, but it taught me much about them. I was then ostracized for this accurate paranoia.)  I’m not saying the outlandish reactions that followed were justified (I was as surprised as anybody by them) or that the lack of narc abuse awareness caused them, but it made me significantly lonelier, angrier, and gaslit by proxy. I spent a year putting out some fires and stoking others — because my dangerously empathetic heart sees how this isn’t just about me or my ex — before getting to the actual work. The delay was (partly) due to a lack of shared vocabulary.

Part 3 will be published on Wednesday, 9/25/24

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Bonni Benton

Bonni Benton is a multimedia artist and student. She has a BA in Theatre from Hunter College (CUNY) and will hold an MA in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from UNM at the end of this year. She put her roots back down in her home state of New Mexico in 2020, where she and her two rabbits currently live in a tiny house in the mountains.

In 1980, the DSM-III first added narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) to its diagnostic manual. It incorporated the trait of passive aggression, which applies primarily to covert/vulnerable NPD. We don’t diagnose passive aggression anymore because most people are, to some degree, passive-aggressive. The term has desaturated. Today, the DSM-5 has yet to distinguish between malignant and grandiose pathological narcissism, while practicing behavioral therapists do.

In 2015, the WHO issued guidelines on best practices for naming infectious diseases. Dr. Keiji Fukuda, Assistant Director-General for Health Security at WHO, highlighted the importance of accurate, culturally attuned language around public health: “This may seem like a trivial issue to some, but disease names really do matter to the people who are directly affected…(It) can have serious consequences for people’s lives and livelihoods.”

In 2022, pop mistress Taylor Swift qualified narcissist with the word covert in her mega-hit “Anti-Hero.” In 2023, gaslighting was Merriam-Webster’s “Word of the Year”. (The top contenders were oligarch, omicron, raid (as in police maneuver), LGBTQIA+, and queen’s consort.) TikTok regularly debates #NarcTok: over 2 billion accounts have engaged with the social media tag to date. This increased awareness is a double-edged sword: language is an instrument for our natural human desire to relate, but it is also volatile and amorphous. Collectively, we have established the vernacular of the narcissistic playbook but have growing pains around the necessary discretion about the degree of severity.

Narcissistic traits to the point of NPD are rare, officially occurring in 1-3% of the population. That’s equivalent to a median of 1.75% of every breakup song you’ve ever heard being caused by a qualifiable spiritual rapist. Paradoxically, however, the disorder is underreported because, at its core, it is an inability to recognize fault or seek treatment. While healing from all nine diagnostic qualifiers during later lied-about private moments, I found myself more qualified than my abuser to name it.

Ordinarily, this is problematic: intersubjectivities should be honored, and advocates have long fought for patient’s rights to validation. But this wasn’t ordinary life: it was dragged-through-hell-backwards-by-a-sociopath land. NPD differs in this bizarre “logic” even from other cluster-B disorders, though comorbidity can exist. It’s natural to have blind spots to one’s patterns, but narcissists/narcissistic collectives occupy a sinister corner because they are the dead-last person/group qualified to recognize their faults or be trusted to hold themselves accountable. Narcissus was doomed to only love his reflection, but the scariest thing about NPD is that there is no center of self to reflect upon, thus the constant need for external supply. While we foster safe spaces in society, it is important to outline when somebody has a diminished capacity to do so.

The following entries are aspects of my reflection as I (like everyone) move through a dangerous world in my overlapping roles. My formative years were spent under a regime of religious and regional patriarchy. Relatedly, but rarely stated in black and white: I was repeatedly raped as a child. My caregivers didn’t have the language to ask me why I was so sullen and numb, so of course, I didn’t either, and I was heavily medicated. I survived, adapted, and grew up. I was then repeatedly sexually assaulted as an adult.

Today, I am actively in recovery from domestic violence by somebody who claimed to love me. I have ample evidence of his vicious narcissistic abuse, but nowhere to put it. After he discarded his broken toy, I went rogue in retaliation. I was fueled by our collective lack of awareness about and institutional replication of the situation’s severity and received a slew of contradictory messages from a recovery culture that encouraged me to return to my intuition. I took full responsibility for it. Today, as a post-graduate researcher, I’m knee-deep in our messy global history and the philosophies on whether our current collective state needs to be so dire.

I have collided with the rising prevalence of this patterned behavior from deflective black holes. I have borne repeated witness to humans asking to be gods without knowing how. I am not in the business of prescriptive false prophecy, but contrary to my less-than-perfect record disqualifying me from this conversation, it has been the main consideration through every breath of my life.

When I was breaking down from my profoundly projective boyfriend’s reactive abuse (plus getting a handle on “the playbook” and calling his bluff), he convinced me that I had a personality disorder, and I deep-dove into research on the condition’s dynamics to keep from bursting into a million pieces. The relief from hearing others put language to the strange, inverted mechanisms that my ex used to break my mind, body, and heart was indescribable.

As I emerge from the typical narc abuse rabbit hole, these questions keep me up at night: What happens if two people gaslight each other? What happens if two institutions gaslight each other? How do you differentiate between demanding accountability and a projection? And why exactly is DARVO so effective? I appreciate reminders that profound losses of self come in different forms. It would be ridiculous for me to suggest my relationship with a narc was a thousand times more traumatic than your break-up. But I do not hesitate to say it was a thousand times more bizarre and convoluted than anybody gave it due. My recovery was from a distinct experience, the exact function for which we invented language.

Many therapists won’t work with NPD folks because therapy is futile without reflection. I hope to learn more from those who are willing. I must admit to derailing my recovery when I discovered some narcs do know that they’re narcs. Many of these channels are under suspicion of convincing satire. Contemporary therapeutic efforts primarily aim to help survivors re-personalize since NPD is difficult to treat (read: how to get a qualified narc to recognize their condition in the first place). NPD treatment is one of the universe’s perfect knotted paradoxes protected by bleeding hearts, flying monkeys, and narcissistic institutions.

In keeping with the prioritization of recovery and prevention, I intend to formally petition the American Psychiatric Association (who will publish the DMS-6) and the World Health Organization (who will publish the ICD-12) to consider these shifting dynamics. My call here is two-fold: to support each other in disclosing non-consensual sadistic patterned behavior when it is safe to do so and (relatedly) to create a language describing the extent of narcissistic abuse that occurs at the hands of people with NPD. It should be distinguishable from the increasingly acceptable narcissistic behavior. I would love to hear suggestions on an alternative to present to the institutions that be. Further down the road, I hope to incorporate these reflections in developing early education awareness programs.

While we work to get NPD individuals to admit a need for healing alongside us and prepare children for a world entrenched in narcissism, my proposal for an alternative to the official name of narcissistic personality disorder aims to extract the pop psychology usage of narcissism, giving another tool to those on fire from its unique style of fallout. If the official name is changed, narcissists will remain narcissists in the colloquial sense, and we should continue to engage with that rising implication. There is no reason to throw out the baby of this common usage with the bathwater during this learning curve. No cancel culture: we should be “allowed” to say the word… but we need to know what it is that we’re saying.

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

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Bonni Benton

Bonni Benton is a multimedia artist and student. She has a BA in Theatre from Hunter College (CUNY) and will hold an MA in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from UNM at the end of this year. She put her roots back down in her home state of New Mexico in 2020, where she and her two rabbits currently live in a tiny house in the mountains.

John-Paul Ford Rojas recently wrote in The Daily Mail: “Britain is suffering its longest sick note epidemic for 25 years as 2.7MILLION people claim they are too ill to work and holding back the country’s economic growth in the process” Please read: “People claim they are too ill to work” Meaning: “They are lying and work-shy.” “Holding the economy back:” Meaning:” The current disastrous state of the economy is the fault of all those liars and work-shy individuals.” All following the popular theories. Take Mel Stride, for instance, who declared: “Mental health culture has gone too far.” And “Normal anxiety life is being labelled as an illness.”

For 13 years, under a Conservative government. People suffering from mental illnesses have been subjected to increasing abuse and mistreatment in the forms of Work Capability Assessments, the creation of Universal Credit, with a long process to get first payments, penalising individuals for minor errors, placing them into distressing living and emotional conditions; some losing their lives waiting for support and care, others dying by suicide, pushed to their limits.

UN warns UK government ‘demonises’ disabled people with ‘onerous’ benefits system: “Rosemary Kayess, the chair of UNCRPD, said: “We see a reform agenda that is framed in a political narrative that demonises disabled people, including proposals to cut disability benefits to reward working people by cutting taxes, which tells disabled people they are undeserving citizens.” Later, She adds: “Reforms within social welfare benefits are premised on a notion that disabled people are undeserving and skiving off and defrauding the system. This has resulted in hate speech and hostility towards disabled people.” Indeed, hate speech and hostility towards disabled people have never been higher.

The constant dehumanization of disabled people has been brought a few times now to the UN, but no concrete actions have been put in place for change. As the General election approached, it was clear the Labour and Conservative parties were planning further attacks on their most vulnerable citizens – anyone who was sick, living in poverty, and unemployed. Liz Kendall, Labour’s Shadow Work Secretary, declared on the 4th of March 2024: ” Under the Labour party, if you can work, there will be no options of a life on benefits.” The Standard read as follows: “Labour has promised tougher measures on handing out benefits payments as it sets out plans to reduce the number of young people out of work, education or training.”  If their promise is to support young people to get easier access to work or apprenticeships, that is great, but “Labour has promised tougher measures on handling out benefits” feels like more unnecessary punishment and pressure instead of making sure these young vulnerable adults have a safe and supportive system in place while they work things out and heal. There are plans for DWP to have access to benefits claimant’s bank accounts just to make sure they aren’t lying and committing fraud.

The standards of living in the UK have seriously plummeted, with “The Cost of Living Crisis” and ever-increasing food, bills, mortgage/ rent, etc. Even those who work can’t afford a decent lifestyle. Working doesn’t pay enough anymore. Getting into University puts young adults in debt for most of their lives and no longer guarantees a good job/ life. There is a constant fear of becoming homeless and of losing everything, which all creates stress, anxiety, depression and trauma for parents and their children. Stressed and unhappy parents make stressed and unhappy children. People are struggling to survive: how can they be fully present for their children? These situations create Attachment Trauma. Small and big kids are not getting what they need more than anything: loving, caring and available parents. These little ones will grow up with difficulties such as ADHD, depression, anxiety., and more. They will be labelled as difficult, attention-seeking, and childish.

Adult survivors of child abuse (whether mental, emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse.) have already been through hell, trying to manage a life of total despair. If some get out of the abusive parental home/ or care setting in one piece, they will have more difficulties than others in building their adult life. Some will fit well into society – workaholism and being forever busy are also trauma responses, which are celebrated, but still, these individuals are left alone to carry their pain. Society doesn’t mind nor care if you are struggling as long as you can play the rat race game, even to the detriment of your health and happiness.

For those whose trauma manifests as depression, anxiety and lethargy, having great difficulties even going out in the world, feeling frozen in fear and in sadness, with no one to turn to, and for those dealing with inflammatory illnesses, with chronic pain as well as mental illness, who really can’t “actively participate in the economy”, they are doomed to suffer even more. They are dealing with having to beg for the emotional and financial support they need and deserve. They are more likely to be dismissed by GPs or so-called mental health experts. They are constantly bullied in the news, in the papers and in politicians’ speeches. They are hunted down and pushed to death by DWP – IT IS BULLYING AND PERSECUTION.

Suicide rate rise in England “very concerning, says charity.” Nic Paton wrote, on  8 Apr 2024, for Occupational Health Plus. “In all, 5,579 suicides were registered in England in 2023. In response, the mental health charity Mind has called the figures “very concerning”. Jen Walters, Mind executive director of social change, said: “Even one suicide is one too many. The causes of suicide are many, complex, and vary from one person to another.” She added: “What we do know is we are still feeling the seismic effects from the pandemic, and the cost-of-living crisis is continuing to have a devastating impact on society. We must do much more to reverse this.”

 You can read about my own experience of suffering from mental illness as a result of severe child abuse, which was labelled as BPD, and how it has affected my work life on the page – About Sylvie. Suffice to say the messages we are receiving through the media – social, newspapers and News – as well as from politicians: “You are lazy. You are not wanted here. Everything is your fault, and you deserve your “lifestyle”. You are useless to us. You are just pretending to be ill, so you don’t have to work.” resonates strongly with the words I grew up hearing, from my biggest bully: my own mother. It is triggering, cruel and abusive.

Take gentle care of yourselves – it isn’t easy to live in such a cruel society.

Sylvie

You can read:

 – The Office of National Statistics’ latest release, Suicides in England and Wales Statistical bulletins

– On Winter Turns into Spring: The impact our environment has on our mental health.

– I tell my story in The Blossoming Lotus

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Sylvie Rouhani

Writer – Blogger – Poet – Mental Health and Child Abuse Activist

Deputy Editor and Journalist for Taxpayers Against Poverty

Author of The Blossoming Lotus”

https://www.austinmacauley.com/book/blossoming-lotus

New Website: Breaking The Cycles

https://breakingthecycles.co.uk/

breakingthecycles.co.uk