We adapt:
to the narcissist’s tempers, impatience, even to their contempt, yet for me, the worst thing about living with a narcissist is the emotional void of loving someone not only incapable of loving me back, but capable of such devaluing cruelty…sometimes covertly, other times with the fury of intimidation. Loving them is the worst part…why what they say and do hurts.
Why aren’t we enough?
When the narcissist encounters any sense of guilt about lying or betraying you, they blame you for driving them to do those things. You don’t understand what’s happening or why…it’s tough. We don’t get why we aren’t enough. Don’t realize we never could or would be enough for them. No one will. So we cover for them, hide our shame, bear their blame and we endure…until our emotional bank account goes into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sinks our tiny boat…the only thing that kept us afloat for so long.
We’re drowning…
Our actions then are still rarely to strike out in retribution at the narcissist, but are salvage attempts to keep our heads above water. We’re exhausted and battered by this time. We tread water until we get the ground of understanding what we’ve been dealing with under our feet. By the time we realize we need to get away, we have to learn how to swim for shore, stand up for ourselves and walk, all over again.
Good News 🙂
The good news is that whatever our age (I was 65 after 47 years of marriage) it isn’t too late. I’m over 4 years out now and have the opportunity to thrive and do. I’m no longer depleted by surviving the negative energy, the attacks and abandonment. My life is no longer a battle of dysfunction to survive narcissistic assaults.
Instead, it begins with the aroma of fresh coffee, the adventure of a new day full of possibility. I smile as I write this, because I am grateful I ran out of emotional currency and had to salvage my tiny boat..turned it into a sturdy vessel, I’m happy to say.
I’d love to tell you how courageous I was, but have a hunch it was more desperate determination that drove me to catch my breath and keep going. Whatever it was…it was worth every mile I swam, every rock that scraped me before I let the tides of change wash me closer to the shore. It’s empowering as hell to finally stand up, throw your head back, look into the sun and be free.
My best wishes to any and all of you still mired in the dysfunction or on your way to rebuilding your life. You’re worth it.
Alex Delon
@alexndelon (Twitter) http://WEDARETOBEFREE.COM
Wish it was only a relationship that was the issue. Only after discovering a lifelong illness that members of my extended family not only ignored, but denied, and attributed to other issues, have I found myself deep in a situation, if I had not been habituated to thinking that this crap was love.
Illness prevented me from seeing despite lifelong efforts to be awake and healthy. Only to end up in a city with dynamics exactly like FOO and in the sites of a nation-wide organized crime ring. This stuff is pervasive and growing in ways we can only begin to fathom. Blaming it on victims and finding ways to further marginalize those that the Healthcare profession turns their backs on smacks of something else entirely. Wonder if the full implementation of AI and the loss of jobs by 70% of the workforce has something to do with this trend …. Something is not right, and it’s not just localized or one issue. Learned about threads in my own country and community that appear to be linked with our own personal experience and the web we ended up in.