Mindy Fox, LMFT (2025)

22/07/2025

When you’re in love with a narcissist, you can be cast into the scapegoat role. As the scapegoat, you are blamed for your partner’s own mistakes and frustrations. Narcissists need to cast those closest to them into specific roles that fulfill their own selfish needs. A role is not who you innately are, it is who the narcissist needs you to be.

If you feel like no matter what you do, you’re always the one who gets blamed for what goes wrong, you are in the scapegoat role. You don’t know what hit you, since one minute, things are fine, and the next, it’s somehow your fault that something didn’t go as planned.

The scapegoat becomes the bearer of responsibility for a narcissist’s behavior or problems. In a narcissistic family system, it is common for one person to be scapegoated, creating lifelong trauma for the scapegoat.

This person is often the one closest to the narcissist like their partner, or one of their children. Scapegoats are traumatized and lose trust in others, develop low self-esteem and experience toxic shame.

Narcissists Need A Scapegoat

Narcissists have a lot of negative emotions that they cannot deal with. They are unable to self-regulate these difficult emotions, so they project them onto and berate the scapegoat. In other words, emotions that they don’t want are put onto another person, usually the scapegoat.

Read more on my website:
https://mindyfoxtherapy.com/what-is-the-scapegoat-role-when-youre-in-love-with-a-narcissist-what-it-means-for-your-future/

12/07/2025

Relationships can cause PTSD Post Traumatic Stress. Emotional abuse in the form of verbal attacks, including gas lighting and blame shifting, over a period of time can cause PTSD from relationship.

What can be done to heal when you are aware that you have a traumatic background and you see that it’s affecting your relationship? Even seemingly ordinary interactions in relationships can trigger, or remind you, of an old trauma, and cause you to be re-traumatized. You may have begun to notice that you don’t make good choices for who to get involved with, and/or you avoid relationships all together.

The first and probably most obvious criteria for developing PTSD is witnessing or experiencing directly threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, emotional abuse, or actual or threatened sexual violence. Domestic violence can lead directly to PTSD from abusive relationship.

PTSD occurs when you are exposed to a serious threat, such as verbal or physical attack, and your nervous system becomes hyper-aroused and then overwhelmed. If you cannot fight back or get away, that intense energy becomes stuck in your nervous system. This can result in symptoms such a fear, panic attacks, sleeplessness, shame, and feeling stressed out.

You are trying to figure out why you feel so intensely, so you often look to your partner as the reason. ‘If only I had a partner who would understand me, I wouldn’t feel so alone’ or ‘If only he/she would pay more attention to me, I wouldn’t get so angry’. Whatever the complaint, you think that the only thing affecting you is the person right in front of you. When your partner triggers trauma, what can you do?

The situation may actually be reminding you of some unresolved trauma from your past. This is how relationships can cause PTSD. The brain collects many memories that contain details of abusive experiences. These experiences trigger feelings that include horror, terror, and pain and are part of the memory.

Any slightly similar experience in our present will trigger the emotional memory of the abuse, and suddenly you are reliving the traumatic event. That is what it means to be re-traumatized and PTSD from abusive relationship.

Read more on my website:
https://mindyfoxtherapy.com/relationships-cause-ptsd-relationship-anxiety-emdr-post-traumatic-stress-disorder/

30/06/2025

When your Mom is a narcissist, you probably find yourself feeling guilty, emotionally drained, angry, unseen, unheard and confused after spending time with her. As an adult child who grows up with a narcissistic mother, you are not alone. When your mom is a narcissist, this can have a lasting effect on all your adult relationships.

In my Los Angeles therapy practice, I work closely with individuals navigating the aftermath of narcissistic abuse. If you are trying to understand and heal from the pain of having a narcissistic mom there is help and healing. If you’re struggling, know this: what you’re feeling is valid.

Let’s unpack what it means when your mom is a narcissist, how it can impact your emotional well-being, and, most importantly, what you can do about it.

When your Mom is a narcissist, she will use shame as a way to control her children. Kids will then internalize shame as a deep feeling of worthlessness which you carry with you into adulthood.

A narcissistic mother sees her kid as an extension of herself, not as a unique person with their own needs and desires. These moms need you to be perfect in order to maintain their own inflated view of themselves. This means that your mom will not accept any failures and despise mediocrity. They need you to meet their needs, and you are shamed for having any feelings or needs of your own.
Read More on my Website:
https://mindyfoxtherapy.com/when-your-mom-is-a-narcissist-how-to-cope-and-heal/

30/06/2025

When someone calls you an enabler, it means you unintentionally support destructive habits, behaviors or choices. Being called an enabler can be embarrassing, even humiliating, and scary too. When someone calls you an enabler, this can be hard to face.

Enablers are often very empathetic and caring, coming from a place of love and protection. You might not be aware that you are enabling the people you care about.

Enabling helps others avoid responsibility for their own actions. This results in preventing the person from dealing with the consequences of their behavior. This keeps people from growing, learning, developing and maturing. Instead, enabling makes it easier for others to continue unhealthy behavior and stay immature.

If you are an enabler, you tend to avoid conflict and are afraid to set boundaries. You might think that it will get worse if you don’t take care of another person. For example, giving them money if they are using drugs or alcohol and can’t hold a job. Or making excuses for someone’s bad behavior. This back fires and just rewards and perpetuates bad choices.

If you are being called an enabler, you might carry a lot of guilt, thinking that you must be responsible for others. This can lead to fawning behavior, anxiety and a pattern of avoiding conflict. This worsens the problem.

Enabling can be difficult to stop. Working with a therapist can offer the expertise and support you need to start to make changes. You might feel guilty for abandoning them when they need you the most. Perhaps you are even afraid that if you stop fixing things, they will be homeless or go to jail.

Read More on my Website:
https://mindyfoxtherapy.com/what-does-it-mean-when-someone-calls-you-an-enabler/

30/06/2025

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17/06/2025

Love bombing is a type of manipulation where someone showers you with elaborate gifts, positive attention and praise way too soon in a relationship, before they even know you well enough. This is just an attempt to manipulate you into quickly falling in love with them and committing to a relationship before you really know each other.

To manipulate you, they go back and forth between showing affection and saying or doing cruel things. This is highly toxic and plays into your insecurities and fears about being worthless.

Withdrawing love is highly manipulative. You might react to this by trying to win back their affection. Instead of suppressing your own needs in order to take care of them, observe how they are acting. Stay aware of being manipulated by them and trust your intuition. Slow down and listen to yourself.

These over-the-top declarations of love might feel amazing at first, especially if you have been alone for awhile. It can be hard to find someone who wants the same level of commitment as you do, and love bombing can make you feel like you finally found someone wonderful.
Read more on my website:
https://mindyfoxtherapy.com/how-to-avoid-the-temptation-to-fall-for-love-bombing/

17/06/2025

When someone calls you a codependent, you might not fully understand what they mean. At first, it is natural to feel angry, ashamed or embarrassed at being told this. Later, you might start to get curious about codependency.

A codependent is someone who takes care of others at the expense of themselves. In a relationship, the codependent will consistently give much more that the other person. This creates an imbalance which can be so extreme that you stop pursuing your own interests, goals, friendships and family. You completely focus on meeting the other person’s needs, to the exclusion of your own needs and feelings.

The codependent typically has a poor concept of self and poor boundaries. As the ‘giver’ codependent, you need to be needed and even feel worthless unless you are needed. You can become overly concerned about what the other person is doing, thinking, and feeling.

You want to fix or rescue them from their problems because if you don’t, you’re afraid something bad will happen. As a result, there are no natural consequences for their behavior. You are over-functioning for their under-functioning. The other person is allowed to continue to be irresponsible, since there are no consequences for their actions.

Your relationship is consistently one-sided; one person is hardworking and responsible and the other is allowed to be irresponsible. You may enable and make excuses for the other person’s poor choices. When someone calls you a codependent, they may have their own experiences with the same things.
https://mindyfoxtherapy.com/what-does-it-mean-when-someone-calls-you-a-codependent/

25/05/2025

To stop fawning over a narcissist, first realize it is a survival response where you deny your needs, over apologize and can’t say no. You’ve probably heard of the other survival trauma responses, fight, flight and freeze. Fawn is a lesser known response where you people please and placate in an effort to reduce criticism and abuse and avoid conflict.

Fawning is often called the please and appease response. It is a response you learn when you are faced with prolonged trauma or stress. You desperately try to achieve safety and control in an unsafe environment, where you have very little control, by giving up all of your own needs, rights, preferences and boundaries. You think if you can appease them, the abuse will lessen or stop.

Unfortunately, once you learn to fawn, it will often generalize to all of your relationships. You might automatically give up your own needs and wants, without even realizing it. To stop fawning over a narcissist, you have to learn new skills.

You might be perfectionistic or have unrealistic expectations of yourself. Maybe you take on too much responsibility, blaming yourself for things that aren’t all your fault. You might be giving yourself a hard time and putting yourself down.

When you are used to fawning, you can hold yourself to unreasonable standards, expecting more than is possible. You can’t always control the outcome. People have to make their own choices and deal with the consequences. Read more on my website:
https://mindyfoxtherapy.com/how-to-stop-fawning-over-a-narcissist/

13/05/2025

Being raised by emotionally immature parents affect your adult relationships. Emotional immaturity is conditioned and passed from one generation to the next. Adult children face relationship struggles because of the lack of validation, empathy and support they had growing up.

Emotionally immature parents affect your adult relationships, identity, self-esteem and emotional well-being. These dynamics, learned in childhood, persist and are so ingrained that they are difficult to identify and change. Therapy can help you figure this out.

Even as an adult, the wounds from childhood don’t go away. Your need for love and connection naturally continue in adulthood, bringing with it the scars from emotionally immature parenting.

Parents are often emotionally immature because they weren’t parented well, either. Trauma, abuse, and neglect in their own childhood affect their ability to be parents, themselves.

Parents may have mental illness, addictions or be narcissistic. These all negatively affect your ability to parent with love, patience, care and kindness.
Read more on my website:
https://mindyfoxtherapy.com/how-emotionally-immature-parents-effect-your-adult-relationships/

06/05/2025

Disappointment is when you feel scared, sad and/or frustrated that something didn’t live up to your expectations. Disappointment, it’s not what you thought, it’s actually an opportunity to grow and change. It offers you the chance to make necessary and important changes in order to achieve your goals.

Disappointment is a normal part of life. It’s one of the ways you learn about life and yourself. Dealing with disappointment can lead to depression and apathy, or it can help you consider other pathways that are better suited to you.

If you don’t care about anything, it’s hard to ever be disappointed. Even though disappointment is hard to deal with, it teaches you how to recognize your emotions and be in touch with your inner self.
Read more on my website blog:
https://mindyfoxtherapy.com/disappointment-its-not-what-you-thought/

06/05/2025

Narcissists use shame as a way to manipulate you and keep you from moving on. They know how powerful the feeling of shame is, so they use that to control you. Therapy can help keep you on track and stay focused.

If your partner has narcissistic tendencies, they might not want you to leave, so they shame you as a way to manipulate you into staying with them.

Shame involves self-reproach and even a sense of personal failure. You feel shame when you feel humiliated by having perceived yourself as a dishonorable or immoral person. It is often an overly harsh evaluation of yourself. Your own mean, inner critic might tell you that you are a bad person. You feel worthless, and like you have no value.

You can see how narcissists use shame, which can keep you feeling like if you move on, no one else would want anything to do with you and you will just be alone. Therapy during this time is crucial for keeping you on track for a better life.

Shame keeps you from being spontaneous, and convinces you to hide your true self from others. As a result, you lose your identity. You don’t share your thoughts and feelings because you feel too ashamed of yourself.

When shame is chronic, you start feeling that you are fundamentally flawed. Narcissists use shame as a weapon to control you.
Read more on my website blog:
https://mindyfoxtherapy.com/how-narcissists-use-shame-to-keep-you-from-moving-on/

29/04/2025

How Long Does EMDR Therapy Take To Work?
If you are interested in EMDR therapy, you will probably want to know more about the process and how long does EMDR take to work. How long will take before you start seeing results? EMDR is a very good treatment for trauma, anxiety and depression recovery. The majority of people start to see results in three to five sessions.

EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy, will help you process unresolved, earlier experiences which still effect you in your present life. Difficult, or traumatic, experiences can arise from as far back as your childhood or from something scary that happened a month ago. These memories can pop up, unbidden, and really make you feel stressed out, overwhelmed, irritable and tense.

Read the rest of this article on my website:
https://mindyfoxtherapy.com/how-long-does-emdr-take-to-work-insights-from-a-trauma-recovery-therapist/

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Mindy Fox, LMFT

22/07/2025

12/07/2025

30/06/2025

30/06/2025

30/06/2025

17/06/2025

17/06/2025

25/05/2025

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29/04/2025

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