So the truth or the crash course (with a little personal introspection) into understanding what happened with our emotional imprisonment with a Narcissist and how to move forward to recovery.

Posted by ANA - After Narcissistic Abuse

From my Book: Greg Zaffuto – Author – From Charm to Harm and Everything Else in Between with a Narcissist

The narcissist attacks or infects their targets/victims by infiltrating their healthy mind or psyche and also penetrating their defenses through a vast array of manipulation techniques (the con bond) – brain-washing us every step of the way to BELIEVE in them so they can in turn manage us down and control us to ‘get’ supply. They are seriously like a virus that establishes itself within its victims. Their words and manipulative actions echo through our psyche and mind, slowly but surely disabling every aspect of our reality, disabling us with the sole intent to control and extort us. It doesn’t matter what the relationship is with them because they do this to ALL people that interact with them at every level.

Recovery is a process that demands that we separate ourselves from the Narcissist that is inside of us as the result of living or being with that Narcissist. The Narcissist has crippled you (us) and assigned us a role as they do to every target/victim. We HAD to develop coping mechanisms with him/her. EVERY day we were forced (controlled) to “walk on eggshells” and develop our own false self to support their every need. It is nothing even comparable to BEING a Narcissist it is just defining what we become and that is NS or Narcissistic supply. It is a direct result of the elaborate arsenal of tools that the Narcissist uses and the result of the trauma and abuse inflicted upon you (us) by the Narcissist.

Thus, great efforts are required to abandon a Narcissist and physical separation is only the first step. Next psychological separation is also required and that is the catch 22 in our recovery. Establishing a new reality that puts all of our old beliefs about this relationship to rest forever. We can abandon a Narcissist physically but our psyche is slow to abandon the Narcissist. The abuse is lurking there rendering its existence at every level of our reality. It is twisting and distorting our every thought as we reach out to find closure as it was for the many years we were with them. The Narcissist’s words and actions live within us as an inner, remorseless voice, lacking any compassion and empathy for our real being. The narcissist is there in spirit long after he/she has vanished physically. This is the last bow of the narcissist, their final curtain call, the proxy abuse that has to be purged out of us.

Now I have clarity about this abuse as well as the Narcissist that abused me. It is like being on a merry-go-round, but one that you can’t get off of and it just goes faster and faster until you are left there alone, frozen and spinning around with no sense of anything but the senseless motion you are in. I DO NOT understand why I endured as long as I did with this Narcissist except that I WAS managed down and a captive person under the influence or extreme emotional and psychological abuse that put me there. Was I a willing participant that wanted to be abused – NO! Was I slowly manipulated into a position to believe that this creature loved me – YES! Was I the recipient of subtle and demeaning brain-washing – YES! Am I normal person than loves and has empathy – YES! Am I co-dependent – NO! Did I become dependent – YES! Did I willfully accept this role to become disabled and dependent on a Narcissist – NO! Did I believe in the false love – YES! BUT again, did I connect any or all of this OR put it together when I was in the thick fog of this cycle of abuse. NO, because I was confused, dazed and fighting for answers I didn’t have nor could I get to them because of my distorted emotions and trying to believe – that and I NEVER had experience with this abuse to draw on. It was my own justifications that blinded me from so much of the truth.

The devaluation was relentless and a new layer was added daily so I couldn’t even start to dig myself out from the many other layers or realize this was psychological abuse. I was in over my head and by myself with a distorted reality and stories that were just too incredulous and beyond belief. I could only survive the best way I could and my life was controlled by this revolving circle of inner messages that we are left with to decipher but it was too overwhelming to do alone. What did I have as my reality – a disordered and not fully functioning human being – A NARCISSIST?
Just like the analogy of that fast ride on the merry-go-round, my only salvation was to jump off at all costs and get my feet back on the ground and my bearings back again. This was not a simple process because this Narcissist made sure to set the groundwork to make those nearest and dearest to me believe that I was a bad person and derelict. This was an insurmountable situation that I had to venture into without any course of action to resolve any of it quickly. I stumbled through it and had to let go of many things that were important to my life and become a survivor. Day by day I acquired the truth as well as knowledge to move forward. I didn’t look at any of the losses at first, I realized that my survival was based on becoming healthy first and then to rebuild from there. I had to step out of the fog and take each and every day as part of my freedom that provided me clarity to heal and move on little by little until I survived this war that was waged against my life. They just don’t walk into our lives to take supply and then discard us, they have to destroy us to make themselves feel better or superior in the process and to bury the evidence to avoid exposure.

I did survive when I accepted that all of this was ABUSE and nothing even near what I believed was real love. That was a very difficult hurdle for me, not just emotionally but for a vast array or reasons that came into question that concerned me personally as well as understanding that what I loved was a monster. I have purged everything out of me and found my way back again. This Narcissist is an envious, destructive, and perverted little person that won’t ever love another person because their hate for life and people is so close to the surface that it naturally erupts as rage. They have no control to contain themselves because they abide by no rules, laws or MORALITY so they battle with their OWN false self within their many lies, manipulation and an out-of-control lifestyle that destroys every day of their life, so they only create another day with a new mask that will slip off like all of the others they wore. Greg