Financial Abuse

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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 - 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 - 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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  Adverse Childhood Experiences - Boundaries - cPTSD - Emotional Abuse - Financial Abuse - Gen X - Hypervigilance - Invalidation - Narcissistic Parent - No Contact - Recovery - Spirituality - Substance Abuse - Survivor - Trauma

  No Contact Isn’t a Trend — Some of Us Bled Into It

  December 9, 2025 - By Andrew Pumpelly

  On the internet lately, No Contact gets discussed like a hashtag.A concept.A brand of liberation.A generational identity marker. And listen — I’m genuinely grateful for that shift. I truly am.Language saves lives.Early awareness changes trajectories. But it’s important to say this clearly: No Contact didn’t begin with Millennials or Gen…

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

  No Contact: What It Is — and What It Is Not

  December 6, 2025 - By Andrew Pumpelly

  “No Contact” is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the trauma-recovery world. Some people think it’s: Others romanticize it as: Neither of those views is accurate. No Contact is neither a weapon nor a miracle cure. It is a boundary of last resort — and sometimes, it is the…

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  cPTSD - Financial Abuse - Narcissistic Parent - Recovery - Survivor - Trauma

  Unsustainable: The Truth Was Going to Surface Anyway

  December 4, 2025 - By Andrew Pumpelly

  Lately I’ve had a quiet realization:Even without the DNA test… that family system was still going to collapse. It was structurally unsustainable. Too many secrets.Too much financial chaos.Too much emotional extraction.Too many rewritten stories.Too many rotating providers.Too many crises used as currency. That kind of system can’t stabilize. It doesn’t…

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  Boundaries - Financial Abuse - Narcissistic Parent - Recovery - Survivor - Trauma

  When Survival Becomes a System: Understanding Financial Abuse & Dependency Cycles

  December 2, 2025 - By Andrew Pumpelly

  Financial abuse doesn’t always look like someone stealing from you. Sometimes it looks like: This is called a dependency cycle — and it often hides in families for decades without being named. What a Dependency Cycle Actually Is A dependency cycle forms when someone: Over time, this becomes identity. Not:“I’m…

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  cPTSD - Financial Abuse - Narcissistic Parent - Recovery - Survivor - Trauma

  Just Wow: The Checkbook in the Wall

  November 29, 2025 - By Andrew Pumpelly

  Sometimes healing doesn’t arrive as peace.Sometimes it arrives as a discovery that knocks the wind out of you. This was one of those moments. While my son and I were clearing out my mother’s hoarded Missouri house — digging through decades of accumulated chaos — we started finding things tucked…