From MY Book: From Charm to Harm and Everything else in Between with a Narcissist.

 

Let’s talk about the road to recovery!

 

THIS was a manufactured love that was meant to completely con you. Your concepts of love that you held near and dear to your heart were mirrored back onto you and your reality was manipulated. You were in love or WHAT YOU BELIEVD WAS LOVE. Love is the strongest human emotion and bond in the world, and you felt it with all of your heart and soul which is not anything out of the ordinary, unique, or wrong because it happens every day. BUT what was unique in your situation is that it was a love that psychologically damaged you and your whole belief system as well as your self-worth has been thrown out the window! Your spirit must heal from the loss of love however traditional or non-traditional (abusive) it is/was. Regardless of the abuse your love was still very real to YOU and you are not going to just overcome that emotional bond right away even with a desperate and abusive love from a Narcissist. Grieve it but always with a sense of the reality that this love was administered by a personality disordered and abusive person.

 

Here’s where the difference comes into the equation. The Narcissist manipulated and controlled you into a state of desperation for their approval or the desire for affirmation and reciprocal love (conditioning) – but they offered it so freely in the beginning stages of this relationship. You worked so much harder for this relationship to become viable and real? You put so much of your time, energy, thoughts, and perseverance into this. And the end result – you were devalued every step of the way AND then discarded. This Narcissist was cruel and made you beg for the smallest validation from them. They forced you into believing that change HAD to start with you OR ELSE. This WAS the most painful experience of your life. Nothing traditional about this!

 

When they were ‘loving bombing’ you they showered you with their amazing charm, attention, gifts, and compliments. They only pretended to be the love that you dreamt of or exactly morphing into that dream that was personal to you. They were preparing you for the psychological and emotion erosion or ABUSE. Nothing traditional about this!

 

After the amazing ‘love bombing’ the relationship was always in contention with them, and YOU were always the cause of everything wrong. You always sensed from their words and actions that you might be replaced at any time, AND in reality they were ALWAYS working on replacing you. This disorientated and distorted your mind, SO this Narcissist basically hijacked your every thought, every minute of the day. But think about those thoughts – were they EVER positive, affirming or nourishing? No they were disorienting and negative to keep you off balancing and questioning your worth and reality. A Narcissist creates this unpredictable lifestyle with lies, games, gas-lighting, manipulation, betrayal and every other tool they use to abuse their target/victims. Nothing traditional about this!

 

This was a VERY unhealthy lifestyle and not anything near a viable relationship. It is oppression, desperation, and sadistic. Your strong sentiments toward solving all the mystery around them as well as proving yourself over and over again constantly played with and tricked your mind into believing that there was something so powerful about them that kept you hanging on for life and stuck in the horrible maze of their abuse. It is always a high adrenalin rush with them so when they create their chaos and/or discard you your world seems to fall completely apart. It is pure panic, devastation, and traumatizing! Nothing traditional about this!

 

Narcissists always destroy the integrity of their last target/victim. They are claiming that you are the abuser or mentally ill AND the victim is the one left broken and traumatized from all of the abuse. Narcissists will always enlist their entourage or minions to carry out their message that YOU have hurt them in every way possible. Meanwhile the Narcissist has sailed off in the sunset with the new and perfect ‘love of their life.” With a normal relationship both parties usually have a mutual respect and don’t harbor the hate that a Narcissist does when parting ways. NOR do they play games like a high school kid trying to inflict jealousy or intentionally being cruel. Nothing traditional about this!

 

They accuse you of doing EXACTLY what they have done to you – NARCISSISTIC PROJECTION at its best. But if they were a real target/victim of this abuse they would not be unaffected by it NOR moving right on to a new ‘love.’ The true target/victim exhibits the trauma from this abuse and has to spend many years recovering. Narcissists only use their stories about us to seduce and lure in new ‘supply’ with their ‘woe-be-me’ or pity me approach. So be assured that Narcissists do not spend a single second recovering from the ‘love’ they proclaimed, or the “abuse” they inflected onto you! They were loved unconditionally, cared for, respected, given compassion, and nurtured by you/us (target/victim) so what in all of that would they grieve? They are sadistic and cruel to act out in the manner that they do to good and loving people. It is horrendous to ABUSE people, but how delusional and cruel to add another layer to the abuse by accusing the very person they abused (us) of abusing them (the Narcissist.) Nothing traditional about this!

 

This is what defines the non-traditional breakup with these creatures. It is not a straightforward recovery, but instead one that requires a strong dose of education as well as a strong arm to pull the target/victim out of darkness and despair with therapy, support and all the help that is available. You are NOT just grieving a relationship you are grieving the destruction from abuse! No/minimal contact! Greg ❤