“Just get over it”

“Just move on and let it go”

“He’s just not that into you”

“Just go find someone else, there are plenty of fish in the sea!”

All the things we get told as we obsessively attempt to sort out the implosion of our relationship with an abusive narcissist.

“Where did I go wrong? WTF just happened? Why is he saying this stuff to me, but yesterday was proclaiming how much he loved me? How could he love me and treat me like an old appliance he is tossing out?” …are some of the tumultuous thoughts racing through our brains.

Others don’t get the discard or break up with a narcissist is anything but “just a break up”, or a rejection from someone that wasn’t into you.

Here is how I explain it:

The narcissist is like being with two different people and you don’t know which one is real. The funny, witty, sweet, smart, charming, affectionate person, or the critical, angry, sullen, moody, unhappy, devious, disappearing, judgmental, cold, condescending, arrogant person. It means this person pursued you heavily even if you weren’t sure about them, or quite ready for a relationship. It means this person showed up as your best friend, was all about you, gassing you up, and you are led to believe you are building something solid and real.

THEN, just as you get comfortable and get attached, the script flips and they suddenly act like you mean nothing to them. You are met with coldness, dismissiveness, and subtle passive aggressive jabs pointing out all your “flaws”. You are led to think and wonder what you did wrong and begin spending more time focused on them and fixing things…although you aren’t sure what to fix or what is wrong because every time you ask, there is a new complaint or demand. However, when you meet it, a new one is always around the corner with a forever changing goal post.

Confusing as trying to find your way through a vast canyon

As you try to wrap your head around what you did to push them away and fight to get back to where you were, you are met with all the things “wrong” with you. You begin to doubt yourself like never before making you feel off balance.

You think it’s time to break up, but then the person you met resurfaces. They apologize for their behavior with reasons explaining it all such as: “I don’t have the best coping skills and shut down sometimes.” “This happened to me as a kid…” “I am under a lot of pressure at work and…” “I was sick and I snapped.” “My best friend needed….” “I just didn’t get enough sleep and am really rundown.” “It’s not you, it’s me. I understand if you are angry and hope we can move forward together.” They disappear with justifiable excuses like “my boss needs me to work late”, “I need to workout more”, ” I am not feeling well”, “I’m overwhelmed with work”, so you can’t argue or get upset, but you know your needs and feelings don’t seem matter to them.

You are left in a confused state not sure it it’s you or them, making you more vulnerable to their emotional states, criticism, blame and compliments. If you do say something, you are attacked and left questioning yourself as you defend yourself to the narcissist. If you say nothing, resentment begins to build . You feel the need to try harder, which exhausts you. The narcissist uses your empathy as a tool to mess with your head and heart. You are being led to feel sorry for them and blame yourself, while your standards begin to drop lower and lower.

Then again they will shower you with attention and affection, keep asking you out or to stay together, and you begin to think it was all just a temporary stressful period in their life. This is psychological warfare.

The narcissist doesn’t show up as an abusive, violent, critical, toxic abuser. If they did, most of us would never get involved! You don’t assume someone is a con artist, liar and abuser capable of behaving with no empathy or conscience. They wear a mask (not literally) and play a role matching your desires to win you over. They KNOW what to say as they have practiced on hundreds of people. They may make you feel safe, secure, understood, supported, encouraged, understood, as if they are strong and someone you can count on.

Their hot and cold behavior is highly addictive to the brain, and we aim to get back the “hot” times- i.e. the amazing person we first met. For those with high empathy, we want to believe in the best in others, to support them, understand their pain and not give up on a person. We know what pain is and therefore want to help those in pain. It takes time to realize pain doesn’t justify abusing someone over and over, using someone, conning someone, cheating on someone, tearing someone’s self esteem down and not giving a rat’s ass about their feelings, needs or future.

A regular break up is just that- two people going in different directions and realizing they aren’t on the same path or the right fit. A breakup doesn’t drag you down into the depths of insanity making you question your sense of reality, self and faith in humanity.

Unless you have lived through an abusive narcissist relationship, you won’t get why telling a person to “just forget about them” doesn’t make sense.