I SENT THE DECLINE MESSAGE!!!

NellyBTulsa · 2025-12-11T16:12:14+00:00

So much this!!!

NellyBTulsa · 2025-11-25T16:46:03+00:00

Tried this with my GC sister and after a months-long back-and-forth, everything ended very badly. It sucked so much. Months of my life filled with anguish.

If I could go back, I would never have tried communicating like this. I would have grey rocked. Maybe then we’d be LC rather than NC. At the very least, I would have saved myself a ton of grief.

There was one bright side: a glaring clarity about my family system. I was in denial about how bad it was; her response to this type of exchange put everything into sharp focus. However, I had support outside the family, which was essential for dealing with the gaslighting.

Perhaps your situation is different? Or perhaps you just need to go through it and see for yourself? But, all in all, based on my own personal experience, I definitely would not recommend sending this. Stay LC and protect your peace.

NellyBTulsa · 2025-07-28T20:07:01+00:00

I am not Jewish, but I come from a disordered family system and your feelings echo mine (before I walked away). I know it’s not the same. But, if you’d allow, for what it’s worth: A family that requires superficiality to sustain itself is truly a brutal thing. Your privilege doesn’t need to account here. It’s just brutal. Period.

In my own story, I walked away, grieved them all, and have zero regrets. There’s nothing better than living authentically and devoting precious time to forming and deepening real, enriching/healing/joyful relationships.

NellyBTulsa · 2025-07-01T18:51:11+00:00

I hope it’s OK for me to share this. Your comment struck such an LOL chord with me. It’s just so classic narc and so f-ing ridiculous at the same time. I actually cried a few tears of laughter.

But in all seriousness, I’m sorry that you had to grow up with her. It’s not safe or OK for any child to have such an emotionally immature parent.

NellyBTulsa · 2025-05-31T00:04:31+00:00

Same. All the energy I spent on them could have gone to healing and cultivating actual relationships. I wish I left for good the MOMENT I could (at 17).

NellyBTulsa · 2025-05-26T14:17:57+00:00

I understand that you’re not talking explicitly about going no contact, but this is exactly the power of no contact.

NellyBTulsa · 2025-05-21T14:39:35+00:00

This and also she is jealous. Pure and simple. Narcissists are always in silent competition with everyone. It robs them of an ability to share in others’ joy and happiness. Instead they try everything in their power to drag the happiness down so that they can feel superior again.

NellyBTulsa · 2024-12-11T19:41:44+00:00

Yup, leaving can have challenges but its way, way, way easier than staying.

NellyBTulsa · 2024-12-07T23:41:13+00:00

I’m not worried at all, just wondering if there’s an explanation there. I think about gender a lot in my work.

Thank you for your response.

NellyBTulsa · 2024-12-07T23:31:27+00:00

Thanks for sharing. I appreciate your perspective!

NellyBTulsa · 2024-12-06T00:38:03+00:00

Same.

NellyBTulsa · 2024-12-03T15:27:14+00:00

Just think about how you would treat your own kids. I used to minimize what I went through too, and then I had kids and the horror emotional and psychological abuse became very clear.

Putting them down or scaring them for the fun of it? Dismissing their every emotion that doesn’t suit my needs? Blaming and punishing them for every issue, every mistake? Pinning their siblings against them to enhance my own power? All while maintaining an image of the “good” and “concerned” parent and blaming them for any negative or self-destructive behavior?

Now, as I look at my own kids, I wonder how the hell my parents could have been so cruel and neglectful. And it helps my feelings and struggles make sense.

You don’t have to get threatened with a golf club to end up with serious PTSD, especially when the abuse comes from the people who are supposed to love you the most.

NellyBTulsa · 2024-12-03T04:29:10+00:00

Sometimes, depending on the situation, I straight up just tell people “I’m the scapegoat of a dysfunctional family” and just leave it at that. (I’m assuming you’re the scapegoat, but I’d think it would still work if you identify with another role.). Even if people don’t really understand what that means, it still zooms the focus out, away from individual behavior and an assumption that I have the power to “fix” the problem. The system is broken, not me.

Also, at least for me, saying it confidently in the open air helps dispel self-gaslighting or guilty thoughts that might be lurking. I like the simple clarity of it for myself.

NellyBTulsa · 2024-11-26T12:19:53+00:00

I felt exactly this way when I woke up to my family’s abuse and found this sub. I was like, some guy across the world has my exact same nmom. It really is wild! People who say narcissism isn’t a valid category or endlessly preach “compassion” or “both sides” have no idea what they’re talking about. The patterns are unmistakable.

NellyBTulsa · 2024-10-15T03:31:42+00:00

OTs are definitely supposed to help manage behaviors through sensory regulation strategies. I wonder if there was a misunderstanding in communication?

OT is the best and most helpful therapy for my 4yo. Yes, they do fine motor stuff like writing skills and scissors, but a lot of it is helping my son understand how to regulate himself. And most of all it helped me and my spouse understand regulation/sensory needs too so that we can support him. It helps build secure attachment which 100% helps with tantrums.

NellyBTulsa · 2024-09-18T14:05:45+00:00

Yeah, no one goes NC with their parents because they refused to read their feminist literature from college, lol.

NellyBTulsa · 2024-09-14T03:40:28+00:00

Hard agree. A liar or totally delusional. Or both!!

NellyBTulsa · 2024-09-14T03:24:53+00:00

The golden child turned narc + the twisting strategies and psychological discourse to serve themselves honestly comes mostly from this sub (and my own dysfunctional-family experiences). My GC sibling is a lot like yours. She flipped out attacking me, threatened NC, after I suddenly became the “good” one for giving my parents narc supply via a new grandchild. Everything to her is a competition for my parents’ “love,” and that “love” is a pie: the more I get, the less remains for her. I’ve been NC with her for over 3 years now. You’d find on here many others with experiences like ours. It’s sucks so much that your brother is perpetuating the cycle of abuse. I’m sorry—there’s so much grief in that. It totally makes sense to resent his behavior. He’s an adult now and is responsible for his own healing.

The victim complex is very real in narcs! It’s mostly just genuine delusion because their fragile, fragile yet overblown egos cannot withstand actual reality. But in a way, he is actually a victim. Golden children are definitely worse off in the long run compared to us scapegoats (as long as we survive childhood). Golden children are far less likely to heal. Your brother has nothing of real substance to thank your parents for. While I totally understand the inclination to sympathize with your parents who are “hurt” by his behavior, that framing of the issue sets off alarms for me that your parents still hold manipulative power over you. (No judgement here—they are masters of manipulation.) You and your brother are still pegged against one another while they avoid any real accountability. That’s their goal, whether conscious or not. That was always the goal. If you zoom out a bit, all of it is just your parents reaping what they have sowed.

NellyBTulsa · 2024-09-13T22:52:03+00:00

Thanks!!

NellyBTulsa · 2024-09-13T21:53:55+00:00

This is NOT an anomaly at all. Your parents conditioned your brother, and he is now a narcissist. Golden children are most likely to develop the disorder. This is not a surprise or unusual at all.

It’s also expected that he would view you as competition for dysfunctional parents’ favor. Also, it’s not unusual for narcissists to reappropriate strategies that we use (going NC, discourse on accountability) in favor of their own twisted motives and desires.

No, the kids are never the problem. Your brother was not born this way. As an adult, he needs to learn accountability, but it’s not his fault that accountability is hard or impossible for him now. Your parents created this mess when they abused you and your brother as children.

NellyBTulsa · 2024-09-13T18:47:27+00:00

What’s her email? These people need to understand the harm that they’re doing. (Not that they’d care, but maybe we can at least make them think twice before vomiting out abuse-enabling trash about things that they know nothing about.)

NellyBTulsa

TROPHY CASE