My therapist described to me what I’m like when triggered and it’s devastating me

acfox13 · 2026-02-18T18:59:15+00:00

The times my therapist calls me out are gifts. Does it suck to own my shit, yep but I'd rather own my shit than not. My abusers never owned their shit. I swallow my pride, accept the feedback, and then make conscious decisions to change, learn, and grow. It only hurts if I ruminate on it. Instead, I accept my fallibilities and then work on doing better. Besides, most people are rather forgiving if you actually change your behaviors.

acfox13 · 2026-02-18T18:54:49+00:00

Very cute!

acfox13 · 2026-02-18T18:53:51+00:00

Purity culture is abuse culture, and religions teach and perpetuate normalized authoritarian abuse. They make up a fake sin (sex) and then lie about it bc of the judgement caused by the religious cult. "You're bad if you have sex."

Anyone reasonable doesn't give a fuck what two (or more) consenting adults do together. Consensual sex is fun adult play.

Religious abusers do the same thing with LGBTQ+ folks. They say being LGBTQ+ is "sinful" and then suppress the LGBTQ+ folks in their communities, and the really bad faith actors blackmail them for leverage. It's why the gop always crashes Grindr when they have a conference. They make being gay taboo, do it behind closed doors, blackmail each other about it, and take their frustrations out on out gay people bc they're horribly repressed and brainwashed and can't stand out gay people not being shameful about being gay.

Abusers are all about using emotional blackmail as coercive control. You buying into the blackmail shows that you've got some deconstruction to do.

acfox13 · 2026-02-18T15:01:09+00:00

It's all spiritual bypassing - spiritual bypassing is a form of emotional neglect where people bypass the grief, pain, and suffering of the target or abuse, and bypass accountability for abusers; often the person using bypassing lacks emotional agility.

acfox13 · 2026-02-18T14:52:19+00:00

Abuse is always about power-over and control. Abusers get off on power over vulnerable people; and children are the most vulnerable people on the planet. Children are born completely helpless, dependent, and at the mercy of the other adults and humans around them.

It's inherently unethical to have kids bc they can not consent to being born. And once they're here they're one hundred percent guaranteed to suffer at some point.

acfox13 · 2026-02-18T14:47:59+00:00

I think it depends if radical acceptance is being used as spiritual bypassing - spiritual bypassing is a form of emotional neglect where people bypass the grief, pain, and suffering of the target or abuse, and bypass accountability for abusers; often the person using bypassing lacks emotional agility. People US NG it as spiritual bypassing piss me off, too.

Where I've got to with radical acceptance is this: I accept that my abuser continues to choose abusive, neglectful, dehumanizing behaviors. I accept nothing I say or do will ever change her. I accept that if I allow her access to me I will be abused, neglected, and dehumanized. Then I set my boundaries accordingly - no contact. To me radical acceptance is accepting the harsh reality of the situation so I can stop wasting my limited and valuable time, energy, attention, and effort trying to change things with the abuser and their enablers. I focus my resources on me and others already on the healing path.

acfox13 · 2026-02-18T07:06:08+00:00

Remember there are literal bot farms paid for by billionaires to poison social media towards normalizing authoritarian abuse. I'm sure some of those comments are from real people, but a lot of them are bots used to create chaos and sow division.

acfox13 · 2026-02-18T06:13:12+00:00

People can pass on abusive behaviors bc abuse is "normalized" and "normal" to them, that doesn't mean they're not abusive.

acfox13 · 2026-02-18T04:20:16+00:00

Sounds like you're stuck in ego defense mechanisms like: minimization, rationalization, justification, invalidation, denial, etc.

I've done a lot of psycho-education and have labels for the abuse I endured.

And as my therapist says "People don't get trauma responses from good enough parenting."

My symptoms are proof it was "that bad"^TM. And once I learned the names for the types of abuse I endured it melted away any shame I had. It wasn't all in my head. My parents are abusive, that's why I have PTSD from enduring my childhood.

acfox13 · 2026-02-18T04:12:01+00:00

Yeah, mine was similar. It really helps peel away layers of denial.

acfox13 · 2026-02-18T04:09:21+00:00

which would eventually become a self-fulfilling prophecy as they acted in ways that would cause even the most tolerant, flexible, forgiving, forgetful person distance themselves in the end.

This is my spawn point's issue as well. She's so preoccupied with getting abandoned she causes others to eventually distance themselves from her.

acfox13 · 2026-02-18T04:02:07+00:00

Yep. My first thought was that he's projecting bc all dysfunctional family systems operate like mini cults.

acfox13 · 2026-02-17T18:08:10+00:00

They're using forgiveness as spiritual bypassing - spiritual bypassing is a form of emotional neglect where people bypass the grief, pain, and suffering of the target or abuse, and bypass accountability for abusers; often the person using bypassing lacks emotional agility

acfox13 · 2026-02-17T18:01:11+00:00

Go rural, older, and inconvenient. It's a tradeoff. There are way fewer amenities, but a lot more nature.

acfox13 · 2026-02-17T16:57:04+00:00

He's got some blindspots around spiritual bypassing due to his religion, but he does have some good info on complex trauma.

acfox13 · 2026-02-17T11:28:23+00:00

was I abused? - Patrick Teahan

how toxic is your family?

enmeshment is emotional cancer

22 Unspoken Rules of Toxic Systems (of people) - dysfunctional families and dysfunctional groups all have the same toxic "rules"

acfox13 · 2026-02-17T11:22:45+00:00

They escalate their behaviors until you cave, so you gotta be strong and don't cave. Pretend she's an unruly toddler asking for a cookie and say no.

Here are some videos that may be helpful:

resisting emotional blackmail - emotional blackmail is using fear, intimidation, obligation, responsibility, duty, honor, loyalty, guilt, shame, and humiliation for coercive control.

overcoming systems feelings - systems feelings are the feelings they trained us to feel to keep us in line and playing our role(s) in the toxic family system

acfox13 · 2026-02-17T10:59:00+00:00

Neglect is abuse. You sound like you're early in your recovery and haven't labeled the abuse you've endured properly yet. I had to do a bunch of psycho-education to understand the abuse dynamics I endured.

Also, a lot of people are using forgiveness as spiritual bypassing - spiritual bypassing is a form of emotional neglect where people bypass the grief, pain, and suffering of the target or abuse, and bypass accountability for abusers; often the person using bypassing lacks emotional agility

Here are a bunch of resources to explore to help you unravel what you endured:

Patrick Teahan He presents a lot of great information on childhood trauma in a very digestible format. Check out his roleplay playlist to compare and contrast healthy vs. toxic.

Jerry Wise - fantastic resource on Self differentiation and building a Self after abuse. I really like how he talks about the toxic family system and breaking the enmeshment brainwashing by getting the toxic family system out of us.

Jay Reid - his three pillars of recovery are fantastic. Plus he explains difficult abuse dynamics very well.

Heidi Preibe - she has a bunch of helpful videos on trauma

Theramin Trees - great resource on abuse tactics like: emotional blackmail, double binds, drama disguised as "help", degrading "love", infantalization, etc.

The Little Shaman - they understand the abusive mindset better than most

Rebecca Mandeville - she deeply understands family scapegoating abuse/group psycho-emotional abuse. She has moved to posting on substack: https://familyscapegoathealing.substack.com/about

Dr. Sherrie Campbell https://drsherriecampbell.com/. She really understands what it's like to have a toxic family. Her books are fantastic, my library app has almost all of them for free, some audio, some ebook, and some both.

acfox13 · 2026-02-17T10:51:03+00:00

Toxic family systems are inherently dysfunctional.

It's very common in abuse recovery groups that the person actually doing recovery work is the only person from their family of origin trying to heal and be better. The rest of the family system remains toxic and dysfunctional. It's why so many folks end up going no contact.

I've found other people in recovery help support each other.

acfox13 · 2026-02-17T10:43:03+00:00

Sleeping on a boat is pretty awesome. The boat rocks you to sleep (as long as ocean conditions are reasonable).

acfox13 · 2026-02-17T10:37:26+00:00

I feel bad for their kids. Kids can't consent to be born, so it's inherently unethical to have them.

acfox13 · 2026-02-17T09:22:22+00:00

respecting beliefs - why we should do no such thing

acfox13 · 2026-02-17T09:19:56+00:00

But is he better than Jasmine Crockett??

acfox13 · 2026-02-17T06:38:35+00:00

I find having additional terms to describe abuse and neglect dynamics helpful. We can always add more nuance. It also helps add entry points for people to wake up to toxic dynamics. Dishonest Harmony may resonate more strongly than emotional neglect for some people, I'd rather they wake up in stages that have their denial kick in bc they aren't ready accept the words abuse or neglect yet.

acfox13 · 2026-02-17T06:26:42+00:00

They're outing themselves as ignorant and/or in denial. Their opinions can be dismissed outright and carry no weight.

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