A note outside the main framework
Why I couldn’t just walk away—and what I had to face instead.
When I first came across content about narcissism, it saved my life.
It gave language to an experience I couldn’t explain.
It named the invisible harm. It validated my pain.
It helped me survive a relationship that almost made me lose myself in the dark.
It helped me understand the deep toxic system I grew up in—and why I allowed so much.
But even then, something in me didn’t settle.
Because no matter how much I learned about narcissism—I couldn’t give up on my mom. Or my brother. Or my sister. Or my father.
Or the many people around me who—the more I healed, the more aggressively they fought against it.
I couldn’t reduce them to a label.
Even with all the pain they caused me, I knew there was more beneath it.
I’ve seen the kindness inside them.
The curiosity. The spark. The humor.
I’ve seen it go quiet—not disappear.
And if I’m being fully honest—
I’ve also acted like a narcissist in my younger years.
Not by diagnosis.
But in behavior. In energy. In survival.
I’ve stormed through life with intensity and fire, hurting people who cared about me—not because I wanted to cause pain, but because I was drowning in my own.
I didn’t know how to slow down.
I didn’t know how to stay when I felt misunderstood.
I was just trying to outrun the grief I carried from childhood.
That’s why I built this.
Because I needed to understand all of it— not just what others had done to me, but what I had done, too.
Hate was part of that healing.
It rose like fire inside me—and for the first time, I let it be there without shame.
Because hate exists for a reason.
It shows up when something deeply wrong is happening—when a boundary is crossed
when your sense of self is being erased.
For a long time, I was afraid that feeling hate would make me just like them.
But when I let it move through me instead of turning it inward, I found something else beneath it:
Grief.
Clarity.
And the will to protect myself.
Most of us don’t know what to do with hate.
We’re afraid of it.
So we project it.
That’s why so much content online turns into blame, outrage, and division.
We end up talking about “evil people” and “monsters,” as if there’s a clean line on how pain is passed through.
But that’s not how it works.
Over the past 6 months—away from everyone who caused me deep harm, and while building The Emotional Blueprint from scratch—I’ve looked closely at my own behavior, and at how people I once loved—kind, sensitive children I once knew—have become cold, manipulative adults.
I’ve seen how emotional neglect, control, and shame twist the nervous system.
I’ve seen how masks form.
How survival hardens.
How love gets replaced by power.
I don’t believe all the people we call “narcissists” are villains.
Yes—they do awful things.
Yes—we must name the harm they cause.
Yes—they need to be held accountable.
And yes—real recovery for their victims is only possible with deep knowledge and truth.
And yes—pathological narcissists exist (I have no doubt about it)—people whose behavior is so extreme, so remorseless, that it crosses into real danger for those around them.
But here’s the harder truth:
Most “narcissists” are people whose emotional systems have collapsed.
They’ve shut down empathy to survive.
They’ve learned that the world rewards control.
And when manipulation, lying, and emotional domination go unchecked—they double down.
Some have functional differences in the brain.
Some have inherited trauma that shaped everything.
Some are just emotionally frozen.
But even then—
Narcissists do feel.
They feel pain.
They feel shame.
They feel excitement, jealousy, even longing.
But they can only feel their own feelings.
They can’t metabolize yours.
Because that would mean facing the damage they’ve done—and for someone who built their entire identity around a false self, that kind of truth feels like death.
Their emotional world is a closed loop.
Everything feels like a threat.
And the only safety they know is control.
Here’s what I believe:
We need to understand how our emotional system works.
We need to see how trauma and survival shape behavior—ours and others’.
We need to take accountability—without shame, without denial, and without war.
That’s how we break the cycle.
Not by excusing harm.
Not by spiritual bypassing.
But by walking all the way through it.
If we can begin to heal through understanding—through real ownership of what we’ve done and what we’ve survived—we won’t need to become warriors fueled by hate.
We can step out of the war that’s been passed down for generations.
And finally begin something new.
With love & care,
Anna Paretas
Glasgow, 17 of June 2025
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TEG-Blue™ is a place for people who care-about dignity, about repair, about building something better. It’s a map, an invitation, and a growing toolbox, as an evolving commons—supporting emotional clarity, systemic healing, and collective wisdom. Here, healing doesn’t require perfection—just honesty, responsibility, and support.