u/maya_love5

There's a difference between being emotionally dysregulated and being a person whose emotions were consistently treated as inconvenient, excessive, or manipulative.

One is something to work on. The other is something that happened to you.

The people who told you that you were too much — were they also the ones who benefited from you making yourself smaller?

Walking on eggshells. Rehearsing conversations before having them. Apologizing before you even knew what you'd done wrong. Checking their mood the second they walked in the door.

At the time it felt like 'being a good partner.' Now it has a different name.

Therapists call these adaptations — responses your nervous system developed to survive an unpredictable environment. They made sense then. They cost you now.

What's yours? Naming it is part of releasing it.

(This community is a safe space — share as much or as little as feels right)

I kept waiting for that one conversation.

The one where they’d explain, take accountability, or at least acknowledge the damage.

It never happened.

And I realized, closure doesn’t come from someone who benefits from your confusion.

They moved on fast.
Like… really fast.

Big compliments, expensive dates, talking about a future after just a few weeks.

And for a second, I questioned everything.
Was I the problem? Why didn’t we have that?

But then I remembered…
I’ve seen this before.

It’s not depth, it’s intensity. And those aren’t the same thing.

I stopped finishing my sentences.

At first, it was just interruptions. Then I learned to just… not continue.

Eventually, I didn’t even notice I was doing it anymore.

That’s when it clicked, I wasn’t being heard because I had slowly stopped speaking.

At first, I was angry. I wanted to prove something. I wanted them to see what they lost.

But slowly, that faded.

Now I catch myself getting excited over random things.
Sunlight, flowers, the weekend.

It sounds small, but it feels huge.

Because for a long time, I wasn’t even present enough to enjoy those things.

I didn’t fall in love with who they were. I fell in love with who I thought they could be.
I saw the broken parts and thought, “If I just love them right, they’ll heal.”
I really believed we’d get there someday. That all the confusion and hurt would eventually make sense.

But loving someone isn’t supposed to feel like a long-term project you’re fixing alone.
At some point, I realized I was the only one trying to build something real.

I didn’t fall in love with who they were. I fell in love with who I thought they could be.
I saw the broken parts and thought, “If I just love them right, they’ll heal.”
I really believed we’d get there someday. That all the confusion and hurt would eventually make sense.

But loving someone isn’t supposed to feel like a long-term project you’re fixing alone.
At some point, I realized I was the only one trying to build something real.

That's not weakness. That's what happens when someone methodically conditions you to prioritize their stability over your own wellbeing.

The capacity you showed — to stay, to try, to hope — that same capacity is exactly what makes healing possible.

You were never the problem.

I hear this question come up constantly in sessions with survivors. Not "when did you know they were a narcissist" — that realization usually comes much later. But the moment something inside you quietly registered: this is costing me more than it's giving me.

For some it's a specific scene. For others it's waking up one morning and not recognizing the person in the mirror. For others it's a small moment — a comment, a look, a silence — that landed differently than everything before it.

If you're comfortable sharing: what was that moment for you?

(Every story shared here helps someone else recognize theirs.)

This is your space.

Whether you're in the thick of it, just getting out, or months into rebuilding — check in below. No pressure to be "doing great." Progress isn't always visible, and healing isn't linear.

What's one thing you're working through this week? 💙

(This thread posts every week — your updates here matter)

What are the small things that made your day today?
Mine was realizing I didn’t feel anxious when my phone lit up. There was a time when every notification felt like it could ruin my day, like I had to brace myself for criticism, guilt, or silence used as punishment.

Today, it was just… a notification. Nothing more.

That shift didn’t happen overnight. It came from slowly understanding what I went through and hearing others share similar patterns in Circlesup. It made me feel less “crazy” and more aware.

Small moments like this remind me that I’m not in that environment anymore, even if healing still feels messy.

What are the small things that made your day today?
For me, it was choosing not to explain myself for the hundredth time. That used to be my pattern, over-explaining just to be understood by someone who already decided not to understand me. Today, I paused, sat with the discomfort, and let it pass without chasing validation.

It sounds small, but if you’ve been in a narcissistic dynamic, you know how big that actually is. Reclaiming even a tiny piece of your energy feels like getting a part of yourself back.

I’ve been unpacking a lot of this through conversations on Circlesup, hearing real stories from people who get it made me realize these “small things” are actually milestones.

Looking back, there’s always that one moment.

The one where something felt off, but you brushed it aside. Maybe you told yourself they were just stressed. Maybe you thought you were overthinking.

That one moment usually wasn’t just a moment. It was a pattern starting.

What was yours?

What is it about Nparents that they don't teach?

Is it b/c, whether they are a mother or father, they attempt to keep their children dependent on them, even into adulthood?

At the same time, the Nparent brags about "how great" these same children are. In adulthood these former children know very little.

Why?

Everyone says time heals, but time alone didn’t do much for me.

What really helped was understanding what actually happened, hearing other people’s experiences, and realizing I wasn’t alone in it.

That shift changed everything.

What genuinely helped you move forward?

It wasn’t always the big fights.
Sometimes it was the eye rolls, the dismissive tone, the way something important to you got brushed off while you were expected to show up fully for them.

Those small moments don’t feel like much at first, but they stack quietly. And one day you realize you’re not reacting to just one thing, you’re carrying the weight of all of it.

For me, it was being interrupted mid-sentence. It sounds small, but over time it made me feel like my voice didn’t matter at all.

What was something small that ended up meaning a lot more than it should have?

Spaces like Circlesup can really help you unpack those patterns and remind you that what you felt was valid.