"Knowledge is not skill. Knowledge plus ten thousand times is skill. I knew exactly what to say to my narcissistic mother. I just could never say it. For twenty years I studied every technique in the book. Gray rocking (becoming emotionally neutral and unreactive). Broken record (calmly repeating the same boundary). Don't JADE (Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain). I could explain these strategies to a stranger at a coffee shop with complete clarity."
"But when my mom was sitting across from me at dinner, pushing every button she knew I had, all of it vanished. Every single time. My body would take over. My chest would tighten, my palms would sweat, and within seconds I was either frozen or firing back with the exact emotional reaction she was looking for. Then I'd hate myself on the drive home, replaying what I should have said instead."
"This went on for two decades. Both of my parents fit every pattern of narcissistic abuse I've ever read about. My dad wasn't around much, so it was mostly my mom from my teenage years onward. We went through multiple rounds of no contact. The longest stretch was three years after too much toxic stuff happened between her and my wife. I thought distance would fix things. It didn't."
"Cutting her off completely didn't feel like the answer either. I'd come back, things would be fine for a while, and then the cycle would start again. A family dinner. A phone call. A comment designed to get under my skin. And I'd react. Every time. The frustrating part was that I understood what was happening. I'd watched hundreds of videos from psychologists who specialize in narcissistic abuse. I'd read the books, joined the forums, and nodded along to every post that described my exact situation."
Knowledge does not automatically translate into skill. A person studied many techniques for dealing with narcissistic abuse, including emotional neutrality, repeating boundaries, and avoiding justification or explanation. The person could describe these strategies clearly to others, but they failed to apply them during direct interactions with a narcissistic mother. Physical stress responses took over, leading to freezing or reacting with the same emotions the mother sought. This pattern continued for decades, including multiple periods of no contact that did not permanently stop the cycle. Even after time apart, contact would resume and trigger reactions again. The person understood the dynamics intellectually but could not execute the strategies in real time when confronted face-to-face.
Read at Tiny Buddha
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]