While you were in relationship with the Narcissist, you were consumed by trying to protect, survive and salvage the partnership that started out characteristically thrilling. Your energy reserves burned up from the ensuing abuse, confusion and dizzying whiplash of highs and lows. To compensate from a guy steeped in this drama, I tapped down my reactions. I felt like a smiling bobble head, with one eye on the lookout for the other shoe to drop.
I savored any morsel of affirmation he threw my way while starving from the broken promise of a normal relationship. I became dangerously numb to it, for a while.
Along this journey of decline, my efforts to appease, while trying to maintain a semblance of dignity, took a big bite out of my dignity and self-worth.
Once removed from the relationship, you can assess the damage. The rearview mirror reflects a distorted bloat of neurotic obsession: you/me obsessed over how to please them while they obsessed over the flipside — how pleasing them was never enough. This one-legged race was painful to endure and just as difficult to recall.
Downtrodden and defeated, the aftermath bodes questions about our own sanity. The aftermath doesn’t come with a neat report full of insights. Instead, random flashbacks smack you when you are most vulnerable. OMG moments of regret and cringe-worthy memories leave a gaping hole in ones self-esteem.
When you realize the flaw was in being misinformed and undereducated about the abuse and mind-bending ways of the narc, you can begin the process of forgiveness.
That word though — forgiveness — is fraught with myth. So you hang onto resentment like a lifeline, believing that if you were to forgive the person, it would be a permission slip for them or someone else like them, to enter your life again.
No, to forgive is to grant yourself grace for the innocence you had.
Forgive your lack of knowledge and education about a personality disorder full of smoke, mirrors, manipulation and trickery. Lay down the arrows of hatred pointed at yourself for all you became while under the influence of their crazymaking ways.
Give yourself some slack. Embrace the child in you that hurts from the pain of extending love to a broken branch of the human race. They come in all sizes, shapes, colors and ages. Get to know the dynamic. Build a fort of education around this experience. One day you will learn to trust yourself and the universe again. In the meantime love yourself like you mean it.
As always I am here for you.
Diane Dennis is a RN, certified life coach, holds a certification in training and development, domestic violence advocacy, author, columnist and writer. She has a Youtube channel teaching healing modalities for adult children of narcissists. Get my free guide on Self-Help Rituls for Living Your Best Life here! Email at dianedenimc@gmail.com
