whenever I strive to do anything I think I want to do, bad things happen. Is this tied to TMS?

This might be slightly more new agey than TMS, but...

If I limit myself from doing anything substantial, stuff is pretty ok. When I find something I really like and go for it, bad things happen. Why?

I wonder if this has to do with my narcissistic mom? I've realized recently that I felt like I was under her control for my entire life (do whatever you want as long it's what I want).

Like for example, I am excited to move into a new house. I move in, AND THEN I GET A BUNCH OF SHITTY ROOMMATES THAT GIVE ME C-PTSD. Whenever I am myself, bad things happen.

 

In my humble opinion: you have an enormous and poweful child inside you, in your subconscious. So, you, as adult, are fighting against that inner/residual child, a perfect hater/blaster of responsabilities, engagements, efforts, obligations, goals.... When our protective brain detects inside us that devastating "civil war" (me against me!) generates pain in order to distract us from that absurd and dangerous battle. So, we ignore the existence of our inner/residual (narcisistic, egotist, primitive, wild) child and, even more, ignore the existence of the warfare.
M-

 

Yeah. You make some good points.

But I want to know how come I am attracting these things into my life. When I move into a cool new house, what did I miss where many of the people who move in after me are unhealthy narcissists? Might my mistake have been picking a landlord who doesn't know how to find good tenants?

 

Maybe you can figure out how to accept that a bad thing happened, observe the situation without any personal attachment to it, try to figure out how not let the bad neighbors get to you, and look for a better arrangement? Expecting the world to be perfect and getting upset when it is not may be a sign of excessive perfectionism.

 

Hey, I came to this post because I found your post about your Narcissistic mother. I also have one and am working out how far away I need to be from her to stop my constant stress response. I currently have it 24/7. I am sorry you had to go through that too.

Yes, I think this is due to your upbringing for 2 reasons:

1, Is your "Shitty-people Detector" functioning? Mine wasn't for a long time. I would find myself in poor relationships, putting up with rubbish landlords etc. because I didn't "see" the signs of abusive people. Why would I if my mother had trained me to "see" her as abusive? Educate yourself on signs of toxic people so you know how to spot them.

2, Unconscious self-sabotage is a big thing. If you had the same sort of push-pull parenting I did, where you never ever got a "good thing" without a "bad thing" happening, you may be unconsciously recreating this scenario. I am a classic psycho-somatiser. The week before I was supposed to start university, I got seriously ill. After the publication of my first book, I got vertigo. Two weeks ago, I got a short story accepted for publication, and after the initial excitement, I was violently sick. :/

I am seeing an ISDTP therapist who helped me see this pattern. You may need to do some therapeutic work to overcome this.

 

Yes.

What is ISDTP?

Yes. A good thing can't happen without a bad thing. I didn't even realize I thought this way until you said it.

I just started therapy.

 

This is ISDTP: https://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Intensive_Short_Term_Dynamic_Psychotherapy (Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy)

Unconscious self-sabotage (good thing, then bad thing) can be caused by many things depending on how you were "programmed". Maybe it was not safe to succeed at home. Maybe your mother guilted you or made you feel bad even if you did well at things. Maybe you were made to feel undeserving of good things happening.

I don't know what it is for you. Your therapist should hopefully be able to help you identify what's happening.

 

Thanks. Moreover, I sometimes thing I cannot have a good thing without a poor thing happening. For example, say I want to do something and there is an easy way to do it and a hard way to do it. I will make myself do it the hard way to like earn the easy way to do it, following this I can do it the easy way. I cannot ever think of any time in my past when this was the case, although I'm sure it is a learned behavior somehow (just like my codependency is a learned behavior). For example, my parents (narcissist mom) used to buy me things all the time when I was a kid. I thought I was a really happy kid. I had a lot of toys. I only remember good things from my childhood. It wasn't until much later I learned my mom was a narcissist. BUT somehow during those times, there must have been an unspoken you must manage your mom's moods vibe. Possibly.

In hindsight, I remember a lot of my most content times as a kid were in our (big, furnished with toys) finished basement, away from my mom. Probably because I felt ease. Even now, it is difficult for me to be around my mom for long periods of time, because she's so controlling about everything. It's much worse now, but I'm certain it was there when I was developing, too. It's easy to breathe when she's not around. That sounds terrible, however there's an immediate decrease in stress when she's away. So I'm not entirely sure how I got to this "everything has to balance out" type of thing, good things can't happen without bad.

 

Yeah, I relate. I also do things the hard way or struggle along on my own when asking for help would be easier. My mother always shamed me when I needed help, which is where I got that from. Nothing good ever just came easy and without complications. My mother was strict and overcontrolling. My sister and I would spend 2 weeks negotiating with each other who would ask her for some simple tiny rule change, such as a non-humiliating bedtime.

I "normalised" my childhood. I loved my mother but knew I was afraid of her. I just didn't know that it wasn't normal to have that sort of fear of your mum. I only found out she was a covert narcissist when I was nearly 40! I definitely had to "manage" her mood. I was the peacemaker, then scapegoat, then peacemaker again. I rebelled in my teens and 20s. Now I feel like I'm a little child again and walking on eggshells just not to upset her.

Yes, I know the decrease in stress. When I'm abroad, it's like I'm free again. She was seriously ill a couple of years ago and when I thought she might die, I felt kinda relieved because I'm still having to manage the relationship due to not being able to go no-contact. It's SO stressful. I hope to get to a place where I just see her as an irrelevance, a nuisance like a squeaky door rather than someone I am afraid of.

 

Something else I desired to comment on that you posted -- it's not (necessarily) that my shitty person detector is broken, it's more like these people just come into my life. I was one of the first people to move into a house, and then after me, the shitty narcissists moved in. I didn't talk to them ahead of time.

Before that, I met some people and they were super awesome. They asked me to live with them (I had just gone to a new city). I did. For a month or two it was awesome. Then they started getting super lazy and gross, never cleaning, loud music regularly, shitty friends coming over, etc. It was a couple who was living together. I guess you could say they had their masks on when I first met them but it didn't feel that way. They just seemed normal, not overly nice.

Then at the other place, one of the shitty people got kicked out and another shitty person moved in.

I definitely have boundary problems I am working on, however.

 

How do I get beyond this "every good thing has to have a bad thing?"

Honestly, it feels like you're in harmony with the universe. Like if you just take take take, there has to be something that will happen to you. Like you're existing in a process of checks and balances... if you do too much good for yourself, bad things happen.

But of course, my entire life has been doing things for other people... and how's that working for me?

I can't figure this out in my brain.

 

You'll have to find out how this is happening through therapy. All sorts of things contribute: trapped emotions, faulty/limiting beliefs, poor boundaries, simply not understanding the extent of traumas you've endured and how they have really affected you.

It has been very interesting to look back at my life and realise that all my early romantic relationships were with narcissists. As I healed various things, I ended up attracting healthier people. It's called "trauma re-enactment" or "repetition compulsion".

If you have a good therapist, you can work this out.