breathe.

The sad thing about abuse is it's all about training an individual to believe that without their abuser they're nothing. Abuse teaches the victim that they'll fail without the abusers hand guiding them through every situation. Although I was extremely depressed, always anxious and the most miserable I had been in my life, here are the reasons I stayed with my parents for as long as I did: The world is a bad place My parents lived by the mantra that everyone that isn't our family is out to get you. This, compounded by the fact that my mother would say one thing, but mean another, meant I felt I could never understand people. I couldn't protect myself in a situation and this of course made me even more scared of people. It got a point that even our extended family was conniving and not to be trusted. Isolation is a common and effect tactic in abusive relationships. I am the worst person that has ever lived My mother would take the smallest thing and turn ...

I've set a goal. It's not a big goal or particularly difficult, but I have a habit of quitting what I try to start so I thought if I wrote it all down I would push through. If you haven't read the previous parts of this series follow these links:  Day one !  Day two !  Day Three!   Day Four!   Day Fix! I listen to a lot of positivity and self-motivational videos, talks and podcasts, but this video hit hard to home. I like to believe everyone is on a journey and I'm at this point in mine where I believe, like truly believe, I deserve happiness and success. I deserve to work hard at something and actually complete it. I deserve to not abandon a project once it starts going well because I'm afraid of success or don't feel I'm worthy of success. So I made a commitment sitting on the floor of my office meditation/prayer room: I would listen to this video every day for 6 more days. I wanted to see if it would penetrate my consciousness and if th...

I've set a goal. It's not a big goal or particularly difficult, but I have a habit of quitting what I try to start so I thought if I wrote it all down I would push through. If you haven't read the previous parts of this series follow these links:  Day one !  Day two !  Day Three!   Day Four! I listen to a lot of positivity and self-motivational videos, talks and podcasts, but this video hit hard to home. I like to believe everyone is on a journey and I'm at this point in mine where I believe, like truly believe, I deserve happiness and success. I deserve to work hard at something and actually complete it. I deserve to not abandon a project once it starts going well because I'm afraid of success or don't feel I'm worthy of success. So I made a commitment sitting on the floor of my office meditation/prayer room: I would listen to this video every day for 6 more days. I wanted to see if it would penetrate my consciousness and if the messages ...

I've set a goal. It's not a big goal or particularly difficult, but I have a habit of quitting what I try to start so I thought if I wrote it all down I would push through. If you haven't read the previous parts of this series follow these links:  Day one !  Day two ! Day Three! I listen to a lot of positivity and self-motivational videos, talks and podcasts, but this video hit hard to home. I like to believe everyone is on a journey and I'm at this point in mine where I believe, like truly believe, I deserve happiness and success. I deserve to work hard at something and actually complete it. I deserve to not abandon a project once it starts going well because I'm afraid of success or don't feel I'm worthy of success. So I made a commitment sitting on the floor of my office meditation/prayer room: I would listen to this video every day for 6 more days. I wanted to see if it would penetrate my consciousness and if the messages would ingrain ...

I've set a goal. It's not a big goal or particularly difficult, but I have a habit of quitting what I try to start so I thought if I wrote it all down I would push through. If you haven't read the previous parts of this series follow these links: Day one ! Day two ! I listen to a lot of positivity and self-motivational videos, talks and podcasts, but this video hit hard to home. I like to believe everyone is on a journey and I'm at this point in mine where I believe, like truly believe, I deserve happiness and success. I deserve to work hard at something and actually complete it. I deserve to not abandon a project once it starts going well because I'm afraid of success or don't feel I'm worthy of success. So I made a commitment sitting on the floor of my office meditation/prayer room: I would listen to this video every day for 6 more days. I wanted to see if it would penetrate my consciousness and if the messages would ingrain themselves i...

I've set a goal. It's not a big goal or particularly difficult, but I have a habit of quitting what I try to start so I thought if I wrote it all down I would push through. If you haven't read Day One of this series click here ! I listen to a lot of positivity and self-motivational videos, talks and podcasts, but this video hit hard to home. I like to believe everyone is on a journey and I'm at this point in mine where I believe, like truly believe, I deserve happiness and success. I deserve to work hard at something and actually complete it. I deserve to not abandon a project once it starts going well because I'm afraid of success or don't feel I'm worthy of success. So I made a commitment sitting on the floor of my office meditation/prayer room: I would listen to this video every day for 6 more days. I wanted to see if it would penetrate my consciousness and if the messages would ingrain themselves in my mind. I'll post my updates and...

I've set a goal. It's not a big goal or particularly difficult, but I have a habit of quitting what I try to start so I thought if I wrote it all down I would push through. I listen to a lot of positivity and self-motivational videos, talks and podcasts, but this video hit hard to home. I like to believe everyone is on a journey and I'm at this point in mine where I believe, like truly believe, I deserve happiness and success. I deserve to work hard at something and actually complete it. I deserve to not abandon a project once it starts going well because I'm afraid of success or don't feel I'm worthy of success. So I made a commitment sitting on the floor of my office meditation/prayer room: I would listen to this video every day for 6 more days. I wanted to see if it would penetrate my consciousness and if the messages would ingrain themselves in my mind. I'll post my updates and may even do a vlog about my experience and how this impacts my...

At home we were the worst children that had ever graced the earth. If you combined every serial killer in some sort of machine and produced their offspring (let’s just pretend that’s how babies are made) that was us. Everything we did was to upset my parents. Went straight to the bathroom after school to...you know go to the bathroom? Well you're an ungrateful child that just wants to avoid us and that's so hurtful since we pay for the school you just came home from and maybe you don't deserve to go to such a nice school. Wanted to spend a weekend with your friends instead of being ignored by your mother at home? Well you're never home and don't care about us at all. You only care about your friends and they're going to leave you one day unlike us who are family and will love you forever. How dare you be so ungrateful and cruel. You get the idea and if you’re reading this blog I’m sure you’ve also had your mind boggled by this logic. Outs...

My first experience with a psychologist was pretty bad. I was in a dark place after my safety net of high school disappeared when I graduated. I decided that to build myself back up I needed to start focusing on myself and my mental health. ‘Self care’ wasn’t a thing in those days, or maybe it was and I just hadn’t heard about it yet, so a psychologist was the obvious step to battle my anxiety. In Australia you can get a mental health plan from a doctor. They give you a basic diagnosis and you take this along with you to your psychologist.  With this mental health plan some of your psychologists appoints are paid for by the government. This is what I did. The doctor was the first big hurdle. She looked more traumatised by my story than I was from experiencing it. She apologised to me for my childhood multiple times and all my fears were realised - I was a freak. In my mind I believed this woman, who was only a few years older than me, must have come from this beautiful fam...

How did I go no contact with my narcissistic parents? I had somewhat of a breakdown once my beloved Abuela passed away. She was like a mother to me and sometimes during a depressive episode I feel she was the only person that truly loved me. Once I had come to terms with my grief (I don't think we are ever truly over the death of a loved one, but we’re able to go through life acknowledging the pain rather than living in it) I started to rebuild my life. What did I want for this new phase? Who did I want by my side? My then-boyfriend now-husband and I had moved in together and as our love grew I realised that this is more of what I needed. Love without strings, love without conditions, love without fear. I was introduced to the concept of going No Contact through the subreddit r/raisedbynarcissists . Going No Contact, to me, is deciding that if you wouldn't keep a friend that treated you like this in your life then why would you keep your parents? If ...

So you're probably wondering how I went from a ball of anxiety to optimism and sunshine. Well it's a bit of an underwhelming story. I was working for a company that, try as it might, was trying to change the company culture. They hired a company culture alignment specialist (Phil Alison: https://www.corporate-edge.com.au/staff/phil-allison/) and for three hours he spoke and we listened. He explained that a company was only strong if each individual staff member was working towards the same goal, regardless of their departmental goals. He spoke about how one disgruntled member of staff, a red dot as he called it, could bring down a company. This was all pretty cool stuff in terms of my work mindset. My department, as was most in the company, was pretty disillusioned. We ran on auto pilot and it didn't matter if things were done well, just as long as they were done. He then moved onto personal development, a field I had never really ventured into. The thing...

I'm a survivor, not a victim. I'm not weaker because of my abuse. It doesn’t make me weird, strange or frankly even unique. It's made me stronger and this is something I struggled with for a long time. I felt like my childhood made me lesser of a person than everyone else. I blamed it for everything. My social anxiety - abuse. My depression – sucky childhood. My poor social support system – bad parenting. My relationship to my extended family – angry parents. My financial situation – sadness. Victim. Victim. Victim. Poor Sussan. A change of mindset can work wonders on changing the world around you. You become in control of the situation. You control your story and let’s face it – when your parents are abusive control is something you’ve barely felt before. Once I started seeing myself as a survivor and less (I still slip into victim mode here and there) I felt a sense of empowerment. I may not have had the beautiful family life that you see on te...