lovemelab

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***TRIGGER WARNING: Many of these stories contain trauma and could be triggering to the reader.***⁣
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I grew up in a cult-like Christian family, the daughter of an ordained minister and a gospel singing, former beauty queen who narcissistically abused me. I was put on display as a s*x symbol and called a w***e from a very young age.⁣
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I have struggled with shame, chronic illness and pain, Complex PTSD, a feeling of helplessness, and choosing unhealthy relationships.⁣
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Psychotherapy, pain psychology, meditation, yoga, writing, inner child work, and choosing healthy people to be in relationship with have helped me heal the most. ⁣
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I am happiest now helping others become self empowered through learning to love themselves.⁣
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There is nothing wrong with you and you are loved just the way you are.⁣
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Thank you for bravely sharing your story! Please join me in showing our support in the comments below! 💪🏻❤️⁣
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If you’d like to share your story please click link in bio for entry form. ⁣
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Join Tabitha and David Hayward (Naked Pastor) for a discussion on the pitfalls of the New Age Manifestation and Self Help movements' teachings on becoming a success in life. Listen as they explore the ideas around what these mindsets make us think and feel about ourselves and our place in the world and what we can do to keep our dreams alive in a society that values the appearance of success over quality of life.

David Hayward is an Artist living in Canada who has prints of his cartoons and paintings available for sale on his website nakedpastor.com as well as the books he's written on various topics surrounding personal deconstruction of Evangelical Christian Religion.

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Mel Robbins: “A mindset doesn’t change the s**tty situation you’re in. A positive mindset changes YOU! Which changes your ability to deal with the situation that you’re in.” ⁣
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How?⁣
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How does a mindset change you?⁣
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Shocker: it doesn’t. ⁣
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A mindset is for one purpose only: getting to a place where you can really feel what was going on with you when the situation felt s**tty to you. ⁣
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Never kid yourself that you will be able to short circuit the work of really feeling, getting curious, investigating your triggers and be “changed” for the better. Avoidance is never the answer. ⁣
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There is a difference between optimism and a positive mindset. Optimism sees the possibility of a way out or through a challenging moment. A positive mindset is labeling something “good” that our brains see as “bad” but may just be a neutral situation to begin with that has triggered an old trauma wound that needs tending. So we start to avoid the feelings that are coming up during those moments, invalidating ourselves, but subconsciously keeping a record of every time we feel injured in this process so that everything starts to feel like a slight or an insult or a slap in the face. ⁣
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This leads to you never being able to hold space for other people’s emotions, especially the unhappy or neutral ones and can leave you disconnected from the very human connection your soul may crave. You may not even know how lonely you are because you’re so busy putting a positive spin on your own life that you’re missing life altogether. ⁣
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A mindset is simply that. Setting your mind to think in a specified way. Instead of accepting what is in order to be present for life. ⁣
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Being triggered is not a negativity mindset issue. Overreacting to triggers is not a faulty mindset issue. It is a physiological issue caused by trauma or wounding issue that takes acceptance, safe witnessing and self love to heal. ⁣
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The cult of self help will point the finger at you and say you are the problem for your problems when in fact you’re not the problem and there may be no problem; Only a way through until you’re able to see it from the other side of what is.

**t

IMO, of course.

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Like a spider to a fly.⁣
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Did you know that some spider webs attract insects by changing shape when the positive electric charge of certain insects is nearby, making it easier for the insect to get trapped in the web? ⁣
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What an applicable analogy to the way a false teacher will change their message to attract and trap their prey. ⁣
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A cult leader’s ultimate goal is not to spread their beautiful message to a hurting world, it’s to attract enough individuals into their inner circle to feed their own ego. And how do they do that? They do so by being attractive. By creating enough buzz and enough interest and offering just enough help to the hurting that they seem trustworthy. And when you feel like you trust them you may feel like you need them and when you need them you may feel you cannot survive without them and when you feel you cannot survive without them, you give your life to them. ⁣
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They create a world around them where they are admired by many and you feel special to be of the chosen few. When they tell you they are important you believe them, because they have the evidence of a following. And because they have the evidence you willingly agree to give up your autonomy. If you struggle against some of the parameters you’ve agreed to in order to be part of the group, you only become more entangled in the web of deception, manipulation and coercion and it becomes nearly impossible to escape. You are reminded that you willingly agreed to it, making you more confused about your own autonomy. ⁣
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What a lot of people fail to realize is that cult leaders are not presenting themselves as cult leaders and don’t actually believe they are cult leaders and will go to great lengths to try and prove to you they are not cult leaders by pulling back the veil on their inner workings — because they are delusional. ⁣
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There is a psychopathy to cult leaders. They believe their own PR and they cannot believe others would not believe it also. They believe they are right and anyone who questions or opposes them are wrong & deserve to be cast out or devalued. ⁣
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Cult leaders are children with high levels of narcissism in adult bodies. ⁣
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I watched The Deep End over the weekend. I couldn’t stop watching. The outfit Teal Swan operates, edited footage or no, eerily resembles that of the household & small following of society misfits that my mother led. There were scenes where my heart was racing as I felt plunged back into scenes where my mother would bring “the family” together & interrogate, put on the spot, accuse, browbeat and humiliate with the help of her minions. The looks on Teal’s “team’s” faces is a look I’ve felt on my own face & seen on the faces of the others in my own family unit. I shudder to think of the causes I took up & the “trials” I was part of in the living room of not only our home, but of others, when a case my mother had against one of my friends or her friends was brought against them. I watched as they’d be pushed into a corner & stunned into staring silence as their eyes seemed to be searching their brains for answers. I’ve been in their place as well. My mother, the all-knowing, all wise, all-discerning authority on the hearts & minds of those in her presence would stare us down, glaring, with nostrils flared, forehead taut, lips pursed, waiting to pounce as soon as any of us gave a wrong answer. “You think I’m controlling, don’t you?” my mother would say, shaking with rage. “You think I’m the one to be afraid of, don’t you?!?” Admitting to the truth meant we were inviting our own humiliation & torment. So, when we could not, “the others” would do it for us. Accusing us of being full of rage, anger, jealousy, the devil. We were told we were on our way to hell for our unfortunate attitudes & beliefs. That if we did not repent, wipe those looks off our faces & fall in line with the requirements of being in my mother’s good graces & inner circle we had hell to pay. The audience & peanut gallery of my mother’s realm was there to parrot, please & point fingers away from her & at her intended target to turn around her own rage, jealousy, paranoia & controlling temperament on us & say we were the ones who had those attributes, not her. NOT HER. ⁣
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It is fortunate, then, that my mother was so against the use of the internet that she never started her own YouTube channel.

What self help & self healing posts on social media look like to me: children pushing mounds of sand on the beach toward each other, insisting that their mound of sand is better now that they’ve touched it & rearranged it with their grubby peanut butter & jelly hands.⁣
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How much of what we consume on social media is regurgitated philosophy by people working with the same material as we are? People calling themselves experts because they can. I’m guilty of falling into the lie of self help that what I have to offer the world needs to be marketed & packaged & sold to the highest bidder for my life to have purpose & meaning. ⁣
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It doesn’t. ⁣
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And I shouldn’t. ⁣
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That message is just another lie that gets peddled to make people start scrambling for “more” when they are already enough. ⁣
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I think people who struggle with self worth after trauma are very interested in fixing themselves & then proving they are worthy by helping to fix others. We long to be told that we are the problem & that we are the only ones who can fix the problem, & that if we don’t we’re still a worthless piece of s**t. ⁣
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I read a lot of word salad. I think I’ve been guilty of it; The regurgitation of ideas & concepts that are supposed to help psyche us all out & help us believe we’re worthy of being noteworthy, a badass, a success, a heroine of our own story, an over comer, a liberator, and the list goes on and on… ⁣
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But just being in the moment, noticing when I’m triggered, being compassionate toward myself allows me to be present and compassionate with those right in front of me, beside me. It helps me keep boundaries for myself that allow me to manage my own responsibilities & let others handle their own responsibilities. I don’t need or want to be any one’s savior. That place is reserved for the only one who can actually save, meaning to rescue out of the situation entirely, not tell you how to run the rat race better, faster, bigger, and with more pizzaz. ⁣
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I’ve been disillusioned that I was distracted by another cult-like religion disguised as self help and I’m coming out of the fog this last year. Leaving me to pass on the adage of “take what you can use and leave the rest.”

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I state it a lot on the podcast. Healing isn’t linear and it’s never really done. Writing my memoirs has been cathartic at times. Triggering at other times. And I’m discovering all the ways learned helplessness and my C-PTSD manifests in my body. ⁣
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Part of healing is just being aware of what’s happening. Noticing. Connecting the dots. Understanding and accepting what is. ⁣
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Another bout of fatigue hit me yesterday as my writing kept veering into territory about my family life before I became the black sheep/scapegoat. I was getting frustrated that my prose kept going there, but I figured my mind had something to work through. Then I curled up in a ball and went to sleep for an hour. It was the third day of writing in a row that happened. So I decided to Google it. ⁣
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I learned that it can be the way learned helplessness manifests itself when the nervous system is overwhelmed with emotion or stress. ⁣
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What do I do? Drink three shots of espresso and push through? Stay awake? Run sprints in the backyard?⁣
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The articles I read said there was no conclusive answer as to what to do, but it’s possible that just letting yourself sleep can be a reset. ⁣
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Sleep is what solidifies memory in our brains. One school of thought was that going to sleep in “safety” when the urge to sleep comes on can actually help create new neural pathways of safety. ⁣
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I felt better after I slept for a bit and then had a good cry, expressed some anger to a partner who cared, and accepted that I was having uncomfortable, unpleasant feelings. Then I swung in a hammock in the sunshine with my dog for a half hour, came back in, feeling inspired & started writing with ease & vigor. ⁣
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This is why leaning into what we’re feeling emotionally & physically is so important. When pushing through can push down the toxic mess we want to keep suppressed can create disease, resentment, discontentment & perpetuate fear & anxiety, accepting what we’re feeling and what our body is telling us, giving it air time & room to move through can move us to a place of healing, acceptance, love & peace. ⁣
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Perhaps, letting ourselves feel weak is strength. ⁣
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That’s all.
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I just…

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Tweet: “The hardest part of being raised by someone with AH’s disorders is waking up to realize that you spent a lifetime believing their reality over what you actually experienced. I not only feel bad for the child I also think social services should step in. ”⁣
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There is nothing more damaging to a child than a parent reflecting back them their own projections of shame & distorted reality. ⁣
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As someone raised by a mother with the same personality traits as Amber Heard, I can attest to the fact that it takes years, decades, to disentangle your own identity from that of the delusional indoctrination of someone who is mentally Ill and who acted abusively toward you. ⁣
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Children who are raised by mentally Ill and personality disordered individuals who do not take responsibility to get the help they need suffer from all kinds of complex PTSD symptoms, dissociative disorders, anxiety, panic, and chronic pain and illness, making the effects of the abuse last someone’s entire life. ⁣
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Not only are the rage attacks, physical assaults, verbal insults, mind games & gaslighting scary & traumatizing in the moment, but the survival techniques that get imbedded into your personality become the very things that prevent healthy, nurturing relationships from occurring & make you physically sick & mentally ill. ⁣
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It is difficult to know where your survivor personality ends and you begin. It is difficult to know when I became accountable for the person I am because of the abuse I survived and whether I got out of it in time to live a “normal” life. ⁣
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I escaped my dysfunctional, abusive family dynamic at age 33. I’ve been no contact for 7 years. I’ve worked tirelessly for over a decade to understand, make sense of, and heal what still feels confusing, painful and utterly senseless to me and I still fall back into old patterns of being and uncover untapped emotions, triggers and pain that seems never-ending on a regular basis. ⁣
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I wonder all the time what my life, personality, family relationships and my health would be like today if just one person had stepped in when they noticed something was wrong and been a catalyst for change.

Anyone?
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I called someone out in a comment section for comparing the lack of support they receive from friends for trying to be a boss babe to Jesus being rejected and nearly pushed off a cliff in his own hometown. ⁣
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Someone responded that they were just glad they could relate to Jesus and that they were a “worthless sinner” without him.⁣
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“You’re worthless?” I responded. ⁣
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No response. ⁣
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My mother loved to say what a horrible, wretched sunnee she was, but never named the sins she committed against me. I, of course, felt compelled from a very young age to tell her that she was not horrible and wretched and that she was the best mom in the world. This seemed to appease her for short periods of time until the next rage-attack would happen and, once again, I would comfort her for terrorizing me. ⁣
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In one church I attended, a pastor ran a prostitution ring in a foreign country unbeknownst to his parishioners, an elder seduced a young girl under age 13 and his son molested elderly, defenseless, bedridden women in a nursing home. The church harbored these men — all of whom would regularly say and sing of what wretches they were.⁣
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That was in one church. I attended many churches where scandal and abuse just like this were kept under wraps — and my parents were a large part of keeping it concealed, even counseling the victims to stay with their abusers. ⁣
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I was always told the church were the chosen ones of God and how terrible the world (out there) was. But when I left the church, I felt safer and more capable of protecting myself than I ever had in the church. Even if something bad were to happen to me, I knew I could report to the authorities and not be bullied and manipulated into staying quiet in order to show grace and mercy to a predator against my better judgment. ⁣
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Perhaps if people believed they were worthy, they would act worthy of trust, love and respect, instead of stealing or demanding it by hook or crook. ⁣
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I don’t believe Jesus would want people walking around feeling unworthy and then harming others and then using his name to gaslight other people into accepting abuse. But I can’t speak for him, so you can decide for yourself. ⁣
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Being a licensed psychotherapist/psychiatrist/doctor or a pastor doesn’t make you mentally healthy, wise & good. You’re probably more likely to struggle with high levels of narcissism & you’re in a prime position to try & ‘play god’ with peoples’ minds & lives w/ authority. Just sayin’
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I’ve personally known & received “care” from supposedly qualified individuals I wouldn’t trust with my enemy’s dog. ⁣
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I’ve seen self-professed gurus, experts & coaches do immeasurable harm to people who came to them for guidance and help. ⁣
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Not everyone who offers help is doing harm, but those offering help are human & fallible, just like you. They are in a position to cause immense harm when people trust their expertise over their own understanding of what’s good for them. The path to finding a good-enough healer lies in your ability to advocate for yourself & not violate your own standards & boundaries. ⁣
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Education, licensure, certification, authority, experience, ordination and self-proclaimed expertise don’t make anyone a trustworthy healer. It simply means they know how to wield the tools of their trade effectively. For good or not for good. ⁣
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It doesn’t make logical sense 🤷🏻‍♀️
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Don’t get me wrong. I believe amazing things can happen when you branch out to become your authentic self. It allows for more opportunity for serendipitous things to happen that you can say “yes” to. ⁣
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But it’s utterly deceptive to tell people they need to believe more, be grateful enough, choose joy over feeling real emotions, and not accept the reality that you’re not special because you received something good. ⁣
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You’re special because you exist. ⁣
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No matter what you have or have accomplished. ⁣
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The fact is: we can’t create something from “nothing” or believe it into existence. ⁣
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We’re finite humans who cannot create things into existence that never existed. ⁣
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We all have to work with what we have or find a way to get what we need to make things happen. ⁣
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When we leave out what really happened on our road to “success” or “achievement” we are doing a disservice to those we say we’re trying to help. ⁣
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Many people who have achieved something had help along the way or found ways of getting what they wanted. They didn’t manifest it. And it wasn’t a miracle if they took every action necessary to make it happen. ⁣
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They’re not special because they got what they wanted. ⁣
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I wouldn’t be able to live the life I do without my partner. I just wouldn’t. ⁣
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I live with chronic pain and can physically do the bare minimum of taking care of me and mine most days. ⁣
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That doesn’t mean I have less value than someone who can do more in a day. It just is what it is. ⁣
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We all have lives that are made up of a set of complex circumstances that contribute to our ability to enjoy life and accomplish what we would like to accomplish. ⁣
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Just because it looks like someone is building something of nothing, doesn’t mean they are. ⁣
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Yes, hard work is good. But not at the cost or loss of your mental or physical health. ⁣
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Yes, having new/expensive things, traveling the world in style & having lots of money is great, but is that all there is to life and what you value most? ⁣
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Or is having enough & being able to BE in this moment with yourself & those you love of value to you? ⁣
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Not all that glitters is gold. ⁣
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The light within you is priceless.

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Awakenings, typically, aren’t mainstream, mass events.⁣
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They are individual and grassroots movements that question the mainstream narrative. ⁣
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Marie had me on her show to talk about healthy relationships with a dysregulated nervous system after narcissistic abuse. ⁣
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Copy and paste the following in your browser to watch:⁣
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https://youtu.be/BxIH2qbv-Vk ⁣
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Healthy human bonds are necessary for survival. ⁣
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But so many of us have unhealthy bonding habits we formed before we could even speak. ⁣
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I believe healing happens within healthy relationships. ⁣
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Knowing how to choose relationships and build healthy ones can be difficult when we’ve never experienced it. ⁣
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This video will give you some ideas about how to create a healthy relationship, with yourself and others. ⁣
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Happy Valentines Day ⁣

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I was raised to believe I was born in sin & automatically on my way to hell just for being born. ⁣
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I was taught that my pain & suffering was to make us more like Christ which meant utter obedience to the authorities (my parents, government, the church) regardless of how I felt about it or it affected me. ⁣
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I was groomed to “take up my cross” (embrace pain & suffering) “deny myself” & follow blindly so that I might truly see & be free. (Does this make sense to anyone else?)⁣
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I was taught that my suffering/pain was discipline and that God “disciplines” those he loves so that I equated suffering with love. ⁣
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I was spanked & told it was because I was loved & it was for my own good, so I equated human goodness & love with being hit (and I mean beaten). ⁣
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I’ve had people say to me that my soul chose the suffering I endured in a narcissistically abusive family & that had I not gone through it I would joy have learned the lessons I needed to…⁣
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No wonder we have a culture that tells us to slap a smile on our faces in the face of what’s really going on and despite how we may feel about it. ⁣
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How dare we be upset over mistreatment, abuse and neglect? We asked for it after all, didn’t we? ⁣
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Have we made the likeness of god in our own image by indoctrinating civilization with ideas that directly contradict what we know to be absolutely true:⁣
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Humans need good enough nurturing, care, mirroring and love in order to thrive.⁣
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I know more people who have walked away from religion who care about being & showing love than those still steeped in religion. ⁣
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I know more people outside of religion who help others heal than those who are religious and tour total healing in the afterlife. ⁣
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I know more people outside of the church who have change their lives for the better than those in the church who say we are incapable of change without their version of Jesus. ⁣
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I know more Christ-like people who are outside of the Christian church than I ever have inside the church. ⁣
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And by Christ-like I mean: empathic healers who do not condemn others, but love them. ⁣
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Toxic positivity is self condemnation & an unfair, unrealistic standard to hold others to.

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“I think it’s funny that “celebs” find it necessary to protect us commoners from “misinformation” being spread on podcast platforms. It’s infantilizing & just plain silly. We can think for ourselves, thanks very much 🙄”⁣
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I feel that this “choose joy” message is distinctly targeted at women, by women to make it more palatable & simultaneously shaming. ⁣
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“If you’re not happy, you’re not doing it right, so I, as a woman, am going to show you how it’s done — because Tony Robbins told me too.”⁣
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Okay, maybe Tony Robbins didn’t directly tell her to. But I think he would from the way I’ve witnessed him treat women. ⁣
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Women complaining or pointing out inconsistencies, injustices or pain is just, “ewww” in the self help, religious, spiritual, MLM sectors. ⁣
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If a woman is crying or feeling angry, she’s supposed to stay in bed and deal with it alone, away from community so she can come back to the public eye strong, serene, peacekeeping and HAPPY. ⁣
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It’s really no different than the creepy older man who followed me around at a wedding a few months ago and kept telling me to smile. My whole life, men have been telling me to smile. My mother told me to “wipe THAT LOOK off my face,” and my father wanted me to be friendly and cordial to everyone because no one likes a “sour puss”. ⁣
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I was born a happy-go-lucky, laughing, smiling kid. But I’m human with the entire spectrum of emotion & I’m an autonomous being with my own experience of reality. I didn’t realize that any hint of true sadness, anger or doubt was triggering to the patriarchy & my caregivers & that it wasn’t that I was doing anything wrong, it was that I reflected back to them the depths they were unwilling to go & those parts of me had to be obliterated. So I tried to obliterate it at least hide those parts of me that seemed to cause the people around me to recoil in horror or lash out in rage. ⁣
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I grew up to be a woman who believed I needed to have no complaints, hide my uncomfortable feelings & experiences and always be “on” to give god & my parents & my husband a “good reputation”. My parents taught me that god had the same ego they did & that his & their images were solely dependent upon my good works & my testimony of the goodness I received in life. And it all had to be good. ⁣
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This is why people like me “should” themselves to death & constantly struggle with liking, even loving themselves. cont. in comments

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Here’s why we don’t choose joy when we’re feeling an emotion other than joy:⁣
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Our feelings are indicators of how we perceive & process our reality in a given moment and turning away from our present reality is self-denial that leads to an un-lived life. ⁣
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What I mean by this is: while our feelings are temporary, transient, and fickle, they, in fact, have purpose. They are meant to be felt. ⁣
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When our feelings and emotions are not felt, they fester. ⁣
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Yes, my reality may be colored by the “lie on a loop” that runs through my head — BUT, noticing how I feel as that lie masquerades as my reality is where practicing inner self healing, self-awareness, radical acceptance, non-attachment, and personal growth can do their most effective and life-changing work. ⁣
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If I am choosing joy when I feel sad I’m building a false personality that is only getting stronger every time I call it to the table. It will be even harder to get her to leave once I grow more comfortable with relying on her and she makes herself at home. ⁣
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This personality is a mask & this is the mask of the narcissist. The one that they wholly turned themselves over to in order to avoid the pain of fear of feeling weak, less than, inadequate, and “bad”. ⁣
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Bypassing & denying one’s self on a continuous basis leads to an inability to grasp what is real. ⁣
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This is why religion, boss babe culture, self help culture and any other culture that calls you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps while suppressing and denying your own experience and emotions is cult-like and dangerous, leading people into a trap of self denial for the good & benefit of those profiting off of individuals’ inability to stand in their own humanity with full self-acceptance & self-love & live life on their own terms. ⁣
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I’m writing this as a migraine subsides right now. ⁣
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I don’t like hiding my down & weak moments just to prove to anyone that I have and am healing from narcissistic abuse. ⁣
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Both can exist together. Healing & trauma that lives in the body are not mutually exclusive. ⁣
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I don’t have a snake oil to sell you for healing from abuse. ⁣
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But I can tell you I know bypassing emotions is toxic behavior. ⁣