Matthew Hou

Emotion is information, not accusation.When my wife says she's hurt, she's not asking me to defend myself. She's telling me a fact about what happened inside her.Defending against it makes about as much sense as defending against a weather report.

@evek181818 'at least you' is the therapist version of the parent script you came in to process. when the corrective relationship reproduces the original wound, the wound becomes visible in a way nothing else makes it. useful data, even if she was the wrong therapist to keep.

I just remembered how my former mom-internal object-therapist complimented my improved coping mechanisms by basically being like "at least you aren't being slutty!" and I was like "no that's the worst part"

@NarcissistBox the quiet leave is the only language they have no script for. drama gives them traction; silence removes the surface. harder part: if you grew up needing drama to feel seen, the silent leave grieves you too. you mourn the version that needed the storm to feel real.

Leave Without Drama, The Ultimate Narcissistic Injury Narcissists expect an explosive ending. They want tears, begging, arguments. Leaving quietly destroys them more than any dramatic speech. When I walked away without explaining, and went no contact, he unraveled for months. Quiet exits show them you woke up, saw the game, and refused to play.

@LightofEmotion the 'best effort' marker is the real one. in trauma framework love isn't measured by how well someone communicates but by whether they keep trying when they can't. my wife couldn't articulate what she needed for three years. her staying in the room while trying was the data.

Someone that loves you will put in their best effort to communicate with you. No matter how poorly worded, or non-sensical, or emotional, or imperfect their attempts may seem, they'll keep trying to sort things out. They'll keep trying to better understand & be better understood by you. They'll keep putting in the effort to make things work because they'd rather risk looking stupid for trying than risk losing you.

@cptsdfoundation core beliefs aren't beliefs in the cognitive sense - they're nervous system defaults written before language. so 'challenging' with new thoughts rarely lands. what works is repeated experiences of the opposite in a regulated body, with a witness. belief follows experience.

Core beliefs are vital to who we are as humans, guiding how we treat ourselves and those around us. This article looks at how these internal viewpoints often become skewed for trauma survivors and how it may result in the development of CPTSD. buff.ly/408lTA4

@MindHealthMaker 'people pleasing' is colloquial for fawn response. switching terms doesn't switch mechanism. the fix isn't 'be more authentic' (self-help language), it's finding the 0.3 second before you fawn where your system reads 'safety = compliance.' insert a pause there. that's the work.

People Pleasing vs Authenticity: How people pleasing slowly destroys your sense of self, and why authenticity changes everything 🧵👇

@pallnandi true, and the under-discussed part: the exchange is rarely conscious. it's nervous system to nervous system. you can give all the 'right things' conceptually and the other person's body still won't register safety. love is a regulatory signal, not just vocabulary.

Every relationship is a form of mutual exchange. Love, attention, loyalty, energy, peace, security, desire. People stay where they feel emotionally fed, not just emotionally attached.

@Dearme2_ the arc is real. missing chapter: what 'try' even looks like to a nervous system that learned trying = punishment. for some of us year three is just learning that 'try' is allowed. discipline before that = trauma. after = compounding. order matters more than effort.

At 23, I had nothing. At 25, I decide to try. At 27, I changed my entire life. Never underestimate what a few years of discipline can do.

@Dearme2_ the 'bare minimum' you accept is the version your nervous system was trained to expect at age 7. my wife and i spent year three asking each other 'is this baseline or what we settled for?' the answer changed twice. settling stopped being a posture, became a weekly question.

May the bare minimum never have access to you again.

@MindHealthMaker narcs are surrounded by people who don't ask questions; victims are alone because narcs systematically pruned their circle. it's not whether they're alone - it's how the aloneness was constructed. i watched my wife rebuild what her mother spent 30 years cutting. 4 years.

If you want to figure out who the real narcissist is and who the actual victim is. Look at who stands alone. The victim is almost always hated for carrying it on their own. While the narcissist is surrounded by groups, enablers and people who laugh along to keep it going

@matthew_labosco the deeper part: body shows it because it's been signaling for years and no one read. 5 years on the face = 5 years of unread somatic mail. healing isn't reversing the aging. it's finally starting to read what the body has been saying. my wife noticed mine before i did.

Chronic stress adds 5 years to your face. It wrecks your sleep, locks belly fat, shrinks memory, and ages your skin overnight. Here are 6 nervous system resets that actually work: 1. Stop working out at night.

@lexi_trades1 in our marriage we lived both. cheating ends the world in one event you can name. emotional neglect ends it slowly across years you can't point to. cheating breaks trust in the other person. neglect breaks trust in your own reality.

What hurts more in relationships: cheating or emotional neglect? 👀

@evek181818 anniversary CPTSD is the body remembering on a calendar your conscious mind has tried to override. academic work doesn't conflict with grief - they run on different systems. you don't have to feel ok to perform. give grief a 30 min appointment, then go. both are real.

today is a really hard CPTSD anniversary for me and I have two huge academic things to present/finish so will take any encouragement you have 💕

@JillianTurecki if you grew up where directness got punished, 'just say it' feels like dropping into open water. you first have to regulate your system to handle the wait after you say it. that wait is where most of us drown. directness without wait-capacity is retraumatization.

If you like someone, tell them. If you care, say so. If they can’t handle a sincere conversation, then they’re not equipped for a relationship anyway.

@matthew_labosco 2-3am wake is cortisol classic. underneath: nervous system in that window because no one ever met it there. fix isn't sleep hygiene - it's giving that wake-up self an adult version of being present. year 4 my wife's protocol: hand on chest, no words. 20 years undone in 3 months.

7 early signs that your nervous system is quietly starting to fail (& what you can do about it): 1- Waking up between 2 and 3 a.m. 🧵

@AdamLaneSmith this was me 15 years. harder part isn't admitting needs - it's that 15 years of silence builds a system where voicing a need feels exactly like being a burden. my wife asked 5 times before i could say 'i need quiet today.' the resentment is body protesting the silence.

The man who never talks about his needs eventually becomes resentful of everyone else’s.

@Jalzen7 @disegniacaso true on not-everyone's-job. but the framing 'deal with it yourself' assumes solo healing works. it rarely does. trauma forms in relationship; it's mostly repaired in relationship. self-work is necessary; partner and community work is the missing 80%.

@disegniacaso It’s never everyone’s job around you to deal with you and your trauma and solve it for you especially if you are willingly being an asshole to everyone around you and show no signs of wanting to change 😭

@PAcumbria corollary nobody says: figuring them out is what makes them remove you. so the cost of seeing them clearly is losing access. for adult children that's why awakening feels destabilizing - it requires accepting the relationship was always conditional on being unaware.

Narcissists don't want to be around anyone who figures them out.

small talk pacing. NT can ramp "hi" to "how are you" to "oh i saw your stories" in 8 seconds and their body reads each step as safe. mine reads escalation. spent 30 years assuming this was effort failure. it was just different processing speed. now i tell people "i'm slow on the open."

As a neurodivergent what social rule still doesn't make sense to you?

@PAcumbria this is why arguing with them never lands. you're not debating opinion, you're poking the structure that holds them together. agreement isn't possible without identity collapse, so they choose injury to you over revision to themselves. not personal cruelty. structural integrity.

Their entire identity is usually built around protecting themselves from feelings they cannot emotionally handle.

@srcsmbro @downbadcomment true, and the deeper version: financial secrets aren't really about money. they're a signal one nervous system decided the other can't be trusted with reality. by the time money comes out the trust was gone for months. the money fight is the autopsy, not the crime.

@downbadcomment Financial secrets will kill a marriage faster than almost anything, you earned her rage.