How You Ended Up With a Narcissist…

And their Psychological, Emotional and Sometimes Physical Abuse

When you find yourself with a family or partner that is hot and cold, flies off the handle over one tiny thing that you did or said that upset them without you intending or realizing it, your life becomes comparable to a scary bouncy house you can’t escape from.  Sometimes all may be great when the bounce is just right, but mostly it is unstable, unpredictable and chaotic if you get launched too high, are out of control, and crash into things never being sure of how the next round will go.  I have written in journals from childhood into adulthood filling pages with highs and lows, pain and confusion, frustration and fear- never having the elusive feeling of safety, security or stability with no nuclear family or stable homelife.  Nearly every moment of my life has been in survivor mode with me ready to take on whatever is next.  

What I was not prepared for, was having a child with a man who treated me like I was less than a whore to him with zero empathy, compassion, loyalty, faithfulness, support or love.  It was as if I was no more than a clothing item that he liked when he felt like bringing it out of the closet, but would quickly get sick of and throw into the back closet floor when his mood changed (which was like every hour)- except I am a living breathing woman with a voice, feelings and needs, not a shirt. Shirts don’t talk back, I do, and Narcissists don’t like that since it their way or the highway.

The damage a narcissistic relationship can do is fierce. It isn’t like a bad relationship where a guy just cheats on you and you find out he is a womanizing jerk who can’t settle down.  Those guys typically reveal themselves early on and generally their behavior is not personal against you, they are just players.  The narcissist abuse is personal. It is about hurting you and drawing on your worse insecurities and traumas. It is about control and dominance. It is about breaking you down as a woman then laughing in your face as you cry or get mad, followed by calling you “jealous, insecure or toxic” for having a normal reaction to your partner doing something awful (like going out with another woman and not coming home).  It is about them learning all about you including your childhood traumas, your weaknesses, your fears and what bothers you, then using these things to later hurt you, put you down, judge you or mock you.  It is someone that gets an ego boost from the power they have over your attachment to them. It is someone that wants to keep you on the back burner even after a breakup just in case they decide to circle back around your way. 

You are a toy and they are a child (emotionally) that wants to play with you, but an angry child that playing with their toy will not think twice about throwing, smashing or ripping the toy’s head off.

You fall for the articulate seemingly sweet person. You love the intellectual conversations. You enjoy and connect with their witty humor. You get sucked in with love bombing and what seems to be sincere interest in you.  You are attracted to the gentleman like behavior and manners. You feel close to them hearing their childhood and family stories, and appreciate their vulnerability sharing these experiences with you. You think this person is the person you have been looking for your whole life and finally you found your best friend.  Little do you know they were just mirroring you and sharing just enough for you to let your guard down and think it was something real.

You fall for the mask and their ability to turn on the charm to get what they want, something they seemed to learn as children.  And if you want love badly enough and missed it from your childhood, they are everything you are seeking- the connection and closeness of another human that you can trust and understands you (or so you think).  Sadly, none of it is real.

Once you find yourself with one it is like removing a limb to get them out of your heart and life.  If you are like me with deep childhood wounds with abandonment issues, you are an easier target for these emotional vampires that thrive off the loving, giving, empathetic nature of souls looking for the family life and love they never got as children.   With the father of my child, he was family to me because I have no nuclear family.  He kept his divorced parents as his main family and number 1 (aside from himself), while I made him my number 1 and my family. It was unbalanced and set up in his favor and his way from the start. 

His parents, both narcissists, ate this up despite having their own partners because they were happy to take up his devotion, time, energy, be his decision maker and control his entire life as an adult man while never holding him accountable for his actions, constantly indulging him and refusing to let him grow up into an independent self-sufficient adult.  If there was anything to be discussed or decided, it never happened between him and I- it was him and his parents as if I didn’t even matter. Boy were they happy to step in and assert their two cents, never once seeming to show the maturity and common sense to say-“ this is something you talk about with your partner, not me, you are an adult”, then letting him be an adult and face his own issues with his partner the way God and nature intended.  I can only imagine how they would feel if their partners’ parents were involved in their every move and trying to take control over their lives. They truly seem to lack any sense of boundaries and awareness of their controlling enmeshed behavior (and the resulting damage of infantilizing your adult child).

With my partner behaving like a child running off to mommy and daddy, I had to have my privacy violated, my rights as an adult violated, and sanctity of my relationship violated day in and day out.  Then they would gang up against me as if there was this committee I had to rail against just to have something decided like if we should have a joint bank account, what kind of budget we should have, or the organic baby formula I wanted not being okay because heaven forbid we spend money on our son vs. a new watch for my ex, and on and on- it was like I was in the Truman show with cameras on me with every move being scrutinized and analyzed with a panel of judges. I was gossiped about and trashed behind my back with my ex spinning false tales, forever the victim of his terrible partner (me), who did everything for the home, him, our child, while also working full time and longer hours than he did.

I was raising a kid like I was a single parent while sharing a home with someone who tore me down at every chance he got.  I was laughed at when I cried. I was punished for being sick because it inconvenienced him. I was not allowed to have needs or desires. I was rejected sexually and received no love or affection. I was violated financially. I was tormented psychologically. I was traumatized spiritually and emotionally.  It was complete, total and utter hell. I was trapped with him because of our son, trapped in a state I was trying to move from when I met him and trapped with an evil man who ran to his parents for every little decision, to sleep over when he wanted to get away or go MIA on me (later a cover for his cheating).

Regardless of the psychological and emotional torture I experienced, for a period of time getting away felt impossible to me. It was like the feeling of a child having to say to a parent, you can’t be in my life anymore and then being alone.  People who don’t experience severe childhood experiences can’t understand this and look at it like- “well, just break up with the psycho ahole and find someone else with millions of people in the world”. They do not get the trauma bond that has developed with the hot and cold behaviors mimicking your childhood and the averse physical reaction that comes from what they do.  They don’t know you get so sick to your stomach you can’t eat for days, that you are so distressed you can’t sleep night after night, that you are so hurt that your brain can’t focus or function at work or on everyday tasks…. You know you need to get away and stop, but you are not sure how to crawl out of this hell hole. 

The narcissist triggers your subconscious pain that you want to fix with them, but logically you know you can’t.  The narcissist knowing (in some cases) you have no nuclear family or support system to speak of, knows that what they are doing is deeply hurting you by treating you as if you were no more than a piece of garbage for them to throw away.  They know how to hurt you because they know your weakness and your bad experiences. You tell them you hate being ignored, next thing you know, you are ignored. You say all I need is a quick text if you are going to be late, next thing you know their cell is off and they don’t come home as planned for 3 hrs. They know you want to leave, but have no where to go, so they do all they can to make your life hell just because they can.

Here Are Words That Come to Mind When Describing Narcissists and Traits to Help You Spot One-

• Moody
• Unstable
• Critical
• Complaining
• Lazy
• Liar
• Cheating
• Infantile
• Empathy lacking
• Two Faced
• Fake
• Con Artist
• Manipulative
• Cunning
• Word Spinner
• Controlling
• Weak
• Taunting
• Tormenting
• Mocking
• Mimicking
• Judgmental
• Unsettled
• Miserable
• Needy
• False sense of superiority
• Reckless
• Rebellious
• Hot and Cold
• Temperamental
• Disorganized
• OCD
• Charming
• Obsessed with their Appearance
• And more…
  

If you find yourself in this situation, I urge you stop whatever fighting it is you are doing right now. Stop. Put all of your energy and emotion into what you can do to change your life.  Realize why are connected to them and that it is not love because love does not equal pain.  Realize you having in fallen into a trap and now you need to escape.  Take the love, care, strength and support you are giving to them, and give it to yourself.  No one can do this for you, but today you will tell yourself enough is enough and I deserve better. Make your life better- it is too short to be spend it with a narcissistic, pathetic, soul sucking, unstable toddler.