The Thriving ACoN -

ADULT CHILDREN OF NARCISSISTS

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Adult Children of Narcissists - Boundaries - cPTSD - cPTSD Healing - Emotional Abuse - Gen X - Generational Trauma - Hypervigilance - Intimacy - Narcissistic Abuse Recovery - Recovery - Survivor - Trauma

When Life Is Just… Being Life

January 15, 2026 - By Andrew Pumpelly

I didn’t post last Thursday.I didn’t post Tuesday, either. And for the first time since I started this blog, that absence felt noticeable. Not dramatic.Not catastrophic.Just… different. For months now, I’ve been writing on a steady rhythm — Tuesdays and Thursdays, like clockwork. That consistency mattered to me. It was…

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Adverse Childhood Experiences - cPTSD - Emotional Abuse - Hypervigilance - Narcissistic Parent - Recovery - Survivor - Trauma - Triggers

Preparedness, or Paranoia?

January 6, 2026 - By Andrew Pumpelly

There’s a moment from when I was about fifteen years old that I didn’t talk about for decades. During the chaos surrounding my mother and step-father’s divorce, my mother once threatened to put my sister and me into the car and drive us all off a bridge. That wasn’t the…

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Adult Children of Narcissists - Adverse Childhood Experiences - Boundaries - cPTSD - cPTSD Healing - Gen X - Gratitude - Narcissistic Abuse Recovery - Recovery - Survivor - Trauma

What I’m Carrying Into the New Year (And What I’m Finally Setting Down)

January 1, 2026 - By Andrew Pumpelly

I’m not making resolutions this year. Not because I don’t believe in growth.Not because I’ve “given up.”But because resolutions assume the problem is insufficient effort. And that’s not what this past year taught me. 2025 wasn’t a year of self-improvement.It was a year of self-extraction. From lies.From roles that were…

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Adverse Childhood Experiences - Boundaries - cPTSD - Emotional Abuse - Financial Abuse - Financial Stability - Gen X - Generational Trauma - Hypervigilance - Narcissistic Parent - No Contact - Recovery - Survivor - Trauma

The Walter White Threshold: Why Reinvention Hits So Hard After 50

December 30, 2025 - By Andrew Pumpelly

I’ve been joking lately that hitting 50 made me feel a little like Walter White — just without the urge to build a meth empire. But the more I sit with that comparison, the more I realize it’s actually… not a joke at all. There’s something real — something psychological,…

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Adult Children of Narcissists - Adverse Childhood Experiences - Boundaries - cPTSD - cPTSD Healing - Emotional Abuse - Financial Abuse - Gen X - Generational Trauma - Gratitude - Holiday Triggers - Holidays - Hypervigilance - Narcissistic Abuse Recovery - Narcissistic Parent - No Contact - Recovery - Survivor - Trauma

A No Contact Christmas: What the Holidays Feel Like After Cutting Ties With a Narcissistic Parent

December 25, 2025 - By Andrew Pumpelly

For most of my life, Christmas came with a low-grade dread I didn’t have language for. On the surface, it looked like a normal holiday — lights, food, family photos. Underneath, my nervous system knew better. Holidays weren’t about joy or connection. They were tests. Performances. Emotional obstacle courses where…

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Adverse Childhood Experiences - cPTSD - Emotional Abuse - Generational Trauma - Hypervigilance - Recovery - Substance Abuse - Survivor - Trauma

Why My Emotions Got Stronger After Naming My cPTSD

December 23, 2025 - By Andrew Pumpelly

For most of my life, I thought addiction was the problem. The shame.The struggle.The guilt.The constant attempts to “fix myself.”The belief that if I could just stop that, everything else would finally fall into place. But the truth — the truth I didn’t discover until the Mom-pocalypse resulted in the…

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Adverse Childhood Experiences - Boundaries - cPTSD - Emotional Abuse - Narcissistic Parent - No Contact - Recovery - Spirituality - Substance Abuse - Survivor - Trauma

Faith & Trauma — Part 4: Why I Chose No Contact — And Why I Still Pray for Her

December 21, 2025 - By Andrew Pumpelly

There’s a version of the No Contact story that gets told a lot. It’s the anger version. And don’t get me wrong — I absolutely have every right to be angry. What was done to me was despicable.The lies.The manipulation.The threats.The decades of deception.The refusal to tell the truth even…

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Adverse Childhood Experiences - Boundaries - cPTSD - Emotional Abuse - Financial Abuse - Hypervigilance - Narcissistic Parent - No Contact - Recovery - Survivor - Trauma - Triggers

Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back: The Part of Healing No One Warns You About

December 18, 2025 - By Andrew Pumpelly

Been rereading Pete Walker’s Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, and one line hit me harder than it ever has before: he says cPTSD healing often looks like three steps forward, two steps back — and that grieving a lifetime of trauma commonly takes 2–3 years. I don’t know who…

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Adverse Childhood Experiences - Boundaries - cPTSD - Emotional Abuse - Generational Trauma - Narcissistic Parent - Recovery - Survivor - Trauma

When the Pain Overflows — Collateral Damage

December 16, 2025 - By Andrew Pumpelly

There’s a part of my story I don’t talk about often — not because I’m hiding it, but because I needed enough distance from the chaos to see it clearly. When the truth about my mother began unraveling —the DNA revelation, the hoarding, the manipulation, the collapse of my identity,…

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Adverse Childhood Experiences - Boundaries - cPTSD - Emotional Abuse - Financial Abuse - Financial Stability - Gratitude - Hypervigilance - Narcissistic Parent - No Contact - Recovery - Spirituality - Substance Abuse - Survivor - Trauma - Triggers

Faith & Trauma — Part 3: When Faith Stops Being a Performance

December 14, 2025 - By Andrew Pumpelly

I was raised in an extremely conservative expression of Christianity — the Church of Christ. I’m not here to bash that tradition. There are good people there.Sincere people.Faithful people. But inside my family system, church didn’t feel like refuge. It felt like performance. Who I Thought I Was Performing For…

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