Who I Am Today: A Recovery Progress Report

I’m a 38-year-old recovering narcissist documenting what it looks like to rebuild a human being from scratch.

That’s probably the most honest introduction I can give you. Not “consciousness engineer” or “systems thinker” or any of the other sophisticated labels I’ve tried on. Just: someone who spent decades being emotionally unconscious and is now learning how to exist without causing damage.

Why the Scaffolding Exists

If you’ve read my writing, you’ve probably noticed the systematic approach to everything—frameworks for empathy, analytics for tracking patterns, step-by-step guides for basic human functions. This isn’t because I think I’m smart. It’s because I’m building prosthetics for parts of my emotional system that never developed properly.

Normal people don’t need instructions for compassion. I do. Normal people can trust their instincts about relationships. I can’t—mine are still calibrated for manipulation and boundary violations. So I build external systems to do what healthy people do internally.

The scaffolding serves three purposes:

1. Containment - So I don’t slip back into old patterns
2. Navigation - Because I literally don’t know how emotionally healthy people operate
3. Evidence - Because my brain still lies to me about reality

What This Writing Actually Is

This blog isn’t wisdom-sharing. It’s survival documentation.

I write to process experiences I don’t understand, to track patterns I’m trying to change, and to build tools for problems I’m still learning to identify. The systematic analysis isn’t intellectual performance—it’s external processing for someone whose internal processing feels broken.

When I write about emotional regulation or conscious parenting, I’m not teaching. I’m learning out loud. When I create frameworks for empathy, I’m not offering solutions—I’m building training wheels for myself.

The fact that some of this ends up being useful to other people is accidental. The primary function is helping me make sense of experiences that would otherwise overwhelm my still-developing emotional capacity.

The Misunderstandings

People often misread this process. My stepson thinks I’m performing intelligence. Even I sometimes slip into a teacherly tone that suggests I have answers rather than just better questions.

But here’s what’s actually happening: I’m a 38-year-old doing emotional adolescence while trying to be a father, hold down a salaried position, start a new business, and maintain relationships. The detailed analysis and systematic approaches exist because without them, I can’t navigate basic human situations.

It’s like someone building elaborate GPS systems because they get lost walking to the mailbox, and everyone thinking they’re showing off their navigation expertise. The systems exist because I feel stupid, not because I feel smart.

What Recovery Looks Like

Recovery from narcissism and codependency doesn’t look like sudden enlightenment. It looks like needing instructions for things that should be intuitive, building external accountability because you can’t trust your impulses, and documenting everything because your memory is unreliable when emotions are involved. It means creating rigid structures because flexibility still feels dangerous, and processing publicly because private processing feels like hiding.

I’m not proud of needing this much scaffolding. I’m just grateful it works.

My main frameworks are centered around activating ‘grounding’ in my day-to-day life. Small things like my compass chain, rituals, very neurotic stuff. But it works for me, just like this writing.

The Creative Core

Underneath all the systematic self-improvement work, there’s always been guitar, writing, and drawing. These aren’t recovery tools—they’re just… me making things. They’ve existed long before the consciousness work and will probably exist long after.

The recovery documentation gets more attention because it’s more dramatic, but the creative work is where my actual self lives. It’s also where I feel most normal—just someone making art, not someone rebuilding their personality from spare parts.

Why I Keep Writing

I continue documenting this process for a few reasons:

1. It helps me process experiences I don’t yet understand
2. It creates accountability for the changes I’m trying to make
3. It might be useful to other people doing similar work
4. It’s honest about what recovery actually looks like instead of the polished narratives usually available

This isn’t inspiration porn or wisdom literature. It’s field notes from someone learning to be human at an embarrassingly late age.

Where I Am Now

Today, I can recognize manipulation before I use it. I can set boundaries without feeling guilty. I can be wrong without defending my ego. I can ask for feedback without taking it as an attack.

I’m still lost most of the time. I still need frameworks for basic emotional situations. I still process things systematically because intuitive processing feels unreliable.

But I’m no longer dangerous to be around. That feels like progress.

What This Blog Actually Is

This is recovery documentation disguised as personal development content. It’s one person’s attempt to build tools for consciousness work while figuring out how consciousness actually works.

If you find it useful, take what works and ignore the rest. If you find it insufferable, you’re probably right—I’m still learning how to exist without being exhausting.

The goal isn’t to become someone admirable. The goal is to become someone safe. For my daughter, for the people who choose to be in my life, and for myself.

Everything else is just documentation of that process.

If you’re doing similar recovery work, I’m curious about your experience. What scaffolding have you built that you thought was weakness but turned out to be wisdom? What does learning to be human look like for you?