fantasy escape

I don't know what to do with wanting to escape so badly that I find myself disturbed by fantasies of my ex's death. Dreams where he dies. And stops his games. And stops hurting me. Dreams where I feel relief at the end of all this ridiculousness.

In my dream, I have peace. I fly to a tower and of course, have Orange Pekoe tea. As in OP. Which I find comical because I've been called "OP" in that addictive game of minecraft which in server speak means "over powerful" or something like that.

In my dream there are no tethers. No hooks. No chains. I'm free.

Just my wingless self that somehow magically flies above the ground with a robed dude and his six year old son.

And then I wake up. And my hex won't stop abusing me.

And I wish that I were still sleeping in a world where my ex has never existed. Or sometimes I fantasize about some sort of wrath of divine action on the part of the Almighty--striking him dead in some sort of dramatic fashion for all the world to finally see. For the jig to be up.

Except that I'm not sure that there is an Almighty. Nor am I so sure kharma exists.

And so I turn on myself. Hate myself for having such thoughts, such dreams, such fantasies. Because, honestly, I don't know what to do with such thoughts. Am I a monster? I don't really know. Am I deluding myself into somehow sainting myself and making my ex the evil demon character in a medieval fantasy novel? I don't really know.

Am I not being honest with myself? Am I not allowing space? Am I somehow crowding? I don't really know. Because, how else could my life have arrived at this locale? How else could I become so consumed with thinking of the day when I get out of this prison. Which maybe happens when he magically dies by lightening strike.

Truth of the matter is, the days without the death fantasies are far worse. On those days, I don't dream of his death. I only dream of my own. Cause at least then, all of this would end.

Flooded Kindness

I'm not sure why I'm so sensitive to certain things. In particular, lately, my eyes have turned into water faucets. As in, lately, I cry a lot. I suppose that is not surprising. And to be expected. What's strange about it is what turns the water faucet on. I often find myself crying at kindness. Or real compassion. Or empathy.

Yesterday, was overwhelming. One of those days when I felt so raw and precarious and exhausted and worn down to the nub, like a pile of pick-up sticks. One of those days where I had to pull a Kimmy Schmidt and break time into ten second increments--arguing with myself that I could, in fact, manage ten seconds, then ten more, and ten more, over and over. The I'm-going-to-have-a-breakdown-right-here edge stood beside me all day.

I went to the gym to cope. The majority of my energy was diverted from Back & Bi to the landscape of my head in self talk. Just don't burst into tears, here. They won't understand. 

The whole time the tears threatened and I tried to imagine that I was just sweating a lot out of my eyes.

It seemed like the bros were staring more than usual. Do they see my tears?

And then one of the regulars, whose name I don't even know, went out of his way to ask me if I needed to work in and use the chin-up bar. He was just being kind. But, it felt like it violently struck some sort of resonance nearly dropping my bridge into the water. I choked out a yes, then practically ran across the gym to escape observation and to grab my usual 25 lb dumbbell step-stool, as anything less is too tipsy. Its just sweat! I wanted to scream. A lot of sweat is just dripping down my face. 

When I left the gym, a bro stood an extra five to hold the door for me. Uh. Kindness. Another choked word. Thanks. My eyes added more water to the already puddled parking lot. At least, there was nobody around to see. I cried all the way home. Reminding myself that I'd never see the people in the car next to me at the stop light and it really doesn't matter if they see me balling.

At the grocery store, a man motioned for me to go ahead of him in line, as I just had a piece of poster board for one of my little people. Again. Hot tears fought so hard to escape my eyes, they burned.

Kind words in an email involving everyday details from an office manager in Canada. Again, tears.

A season two Christmas episode of Glee. In the story line, Coach secretly buys, Artie, a pair of legs. The unseen act of compassion and kindness. I crumpled into an uncontrollable hot mess on the sofa and my little she dog licked my salty tears.

Somehow, I know this all has something to do with recovering from the narcissist, but I can't for the life of me, sort it out, yet.    

the Liar's Web

A book I’m reading states that the root of almost all human evil begins and ends in the lie.  Lying is one thing. But lying to ourselves, quite another. This is the line drawn in the sand and in my opinion, one of the pieces that distinguishes the malignant, covert, narcissist from the more "benign" narcissist. The malignant, covert narcissist swallows his own delusions. His narcissism is hidden from himself, which effectively (especially over time) hides it from others. Otherwise, how could he convince others? You see, the lies of the malignant effectively, more and more, wall the MC narcissist off from self-awareness, insulating him from outside (and inside) influence.

I don't need this other person's opinion--clearly, it doesn't have merit or is inferior to mine.

I suspect this is one of the biggest obstacles to overcome. Indeed, for the malignant narcissist this self lying obstacle is insurmountable.

I suppose the true story of the MC Narc is a story about the murder of Self Awareness. Slaughtered. Hacked up and strewn all over some creepy, cornfield in mid-western America--never to be seen again.

There is no coming back from such a place--apologies to John Walsh. It is the crime that will never be solved.

You see, the Master of deceit becomes a Master by practicing deception on himself, first and foremost. And this is why you cannot appeal to anything or anyone to change him. This is why he will never change.

He has placed himself beyond the reach of influence.

I suppose this is worth remembering. After all, the personal pain of being deceived--being lied to--being duped for so many years stabs down deep. How could I go along with his deception for so long?

The truth of the matter is, I was his confirmation ticket that helped make the story more believable. I made the lies true by being that something outside him that his delusions could bounce off and rebound back onto him--helping him further his own delusions. My own delusions of the world, couldn't accept the circumstances of his childhood--dead mothers, and bodies in rivers, and massive conspiracy theories. I needed for the fairy tale ending to actually exist. For things to work out in the end and the story to be one of good overcoming bad. I didn't want the Americanized, Stanley Kubrick ending of A Clockwork Orange, I wanted the original Anthony Burgess ending where the dystopia ends with a little hope.

A therapist I worked with told me that I need to seal off my porous ego boundaries, as he referred to my being-too-easily-influenced-by-my-MC-Narcs lies. Perhaps, therapist was right in that I must shut out my MC Narc's lies in order to move forward.

But, at the same time, carefully. I must allow some pores on my ego boundaries, particularly as regards safe, healthy people. I need to be open to some people calling me on my own shit. Otherwise, how shall I ever maintain some sort of checks and balances system on my own self delusions? How shall I ever keep myself from becoming just like him--walled off forever from the influence of others, self awareness strewn around some creepy cornfield? Truth of the matter is that he is not likely to ever get out of his own web. He is not likely to ever see the falsehood in the truth he tells.

Caught in his own liar's web, he is.

just walk

If pilgrimage has taught me anything it is this... some days are just about walking. You just keep walking. You just keep putting one foot in front of the other in some sort of ritual.

Some days that is all you can do. And that is ok.

Revenge

How to Exact Revenge on The Narcissist, or something to that effect was the name of a VLOG I recently stumbled upon on YouTube. I watched some of the video. To watch some is better than none, I thought, since most of me outright disagrees with the philosophy of taking revenge upon the narcissist.

But, I have always been the sort of person who tries to listen to other people’s ideas in pursuit of growth. And I find that I most often need some sort of stop-gap on low self-awareness when I vehemently disagree with someone’s ideas. So I had a listen.

And not being one for commenting on YouTube, I’ll respond here.  

While my own experience has demonstrated that healing from narcissistic abuse involves liberal amounts of "space allowing" for difficult emotions, including the desire for revenge, I think a distinction needs to be made between allowing space and allowing too much space. I believe that the pursuit of revenge creates too much space, lending itself toward a particular sort of imbalance, ultimately stunting the healing process in one’s self--forget the narcissist as reference point altogether.

By itself, the emotion of revenge is nothing more than intense anger coupled with a strong desire for justice. Typically, the desire for revenge surfaces when we perceive that we have been the recipient of intolerable injustice.  

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with that.

But, in order to pursue said revenge strategy, we often have to go much further. We often have to foster, even conjure a deliberate imbalance in ourselves—in our own emotional alchemy, often by cutting off other emotions that might get in the way of executing said strategy such as kindness, empathy, and compassion. I suspect the reason behind this fostering is due to the fact that intense strategies like revenge demand Herculean amounts of energy to drive them to completion. Therefore, the energy we might have for other emotions gets requisitioned to our ORS--Omnipotent Revenge Strategy. Our potential energy that we damn up behind Hoover in order to exact our revenge strategy ends up finding its own way. It's worth remembering that once water is released below the damn, it has no agenda--as mere kinetic energy it just flows onto whomever and whatever is caught in its path. Such massive flowing energy might just land on us as we fall casualty to our revenge's course--just as un-damned water knows only to flow into empty space.

Furthermore, ironically enough, with revenge we often have a misguided notion that we are "taking back control." In all actuality, we are surrendering control as we knot and tether and tie ourselves back up to the narcissist. We reattach ourselves by making our well-being dependent upon his painful experience just as it was before! We want him to hurt, to suffer, only now we think seeing him wounded will somehow help us heal. This is akin to suffering a gunshot wound and thinking that shooting the perpetrator rather than going to the hospital will make the wound stop hemorrhaging. In so doing we push our healing locus of control outside ourselves and give it back to the narcissist who gladly takes it once again from us. We make our healing journey about him, which is furthering his narcissistic supply line. Why the hell would we want to feed that beast again? 

Put simply, this is not the path to healing our wound. In fact, this is likely the path to turning our wound gangrenous.  

narcissism

Here is a helpful definition of narcissism that I came across recently.

"The uncanny game of hide and seek in the obscurity of the soul, in which it, the single human soul, evades itself, avoids itself, and hides from itself."

--Buber

dark comedy

Apparently, a point in the narcissistic grand scheme of things occurs when the script begins to resemble dark comedy. The play--anything but predictable. Somehow, the dark comedy morphs into preposterous. As in, who would do that? No one. Except one living on the narcissistic planet.

Do not underestimate such a tool. It is powerful in being unbelievable.

When you go to describe the happenings to someone, no one will believe you.

Even when you minimize as you tell the story, even when you downplay the circumstances, you sound as though you must be the sort of person whom exaggerates things. Obviously.

Recently, my ex failed in manipulating money out of someone. He contacted me to request that I help him convince and fight against some of the people on my side of our disagreements. Yes, you read that right. My ex actually wanted me to argue on his behalf to this friend of mine to help him and give him (my ex) money. This "helping" him would ultimately thwart my own interests.

In the span of a short phone conversation, he adroitly took the stage to play the financial victim of my friend's sudden betrayal--this friend was going to give me money--and now they have turned on him, abandoning him and everything is loss, loss, loss.

Same conversation. He threatened me, if I didn't do this manipulative "favor" for him.

I do not make this shit up. No one could.

So I cope by reminding myself that this will make good material for my book. Question is, will it be fiction or non-fiction? If I endeavor to write a fictional account of  this, readers will think me poor writer for making such preposterous plot lines up. If I write a nonfictional account of this, readers will think me exaggerator par-excellence and my credibility will fly out the window. And so, I suppose it will have to be a dark comedy for the stage.

when two become one

In some sort of facebook-worthy, publishable manner, he was going to oh-so-generously give me two hundred dollars for covering childcare of the kids--our kids--the kids that he fathered--for two weeks while he vacations somewhere in the Rockies, likely with his new GF. But, wait. He decided that I am only covering five of his actual days of kid time and two hundred, would be way too much moula and so decided to give me one hundred, instead.

Oh my. I would actually hate to be the recipient of some sort of ridiculously-over-the-top generosity of two hundred dollars. I mean, my God, what would I do with all that cash?

Step aside, Ivana Trump. Here I come.

I might start bragging about bleeding him dry of TWO HUNDRED greenbacks in TWO WEEKS!

I mean, seriously. Look at my manipulative success. All the cash he's given me in the past year, could amount to a small fortune. And they say the narcissist has no empathy. Clearly, they didn't meet my philanthropic philosopher Ex!!

Oh, wait, can zero technically be defined as a small fortune?

I'm almost certain that, philosophically, it can be.

I'm almost certain, that this is precisely what he tells his friends.

And, I'm certain that he has labeled himself as the most-generous-divorcing male on the planet, par excellence, because, he's got to have you thinking that he is the best at everything, including divorce.

things hoped for

Some days, I hope beyond all hope that I am actually all that He says I am.

I hope that I am the evil bitch He thinks me to be.

I hope that I am actually some sort of vigilante out to destroy him, victimize him, and end all things rosy and pretty in life for him.

Cause that would mean that I am the problem. That would mean that one day three little people—my three little elves—wouldn’t actually have to wake up to the reality that He does not actually care a rat’s ass about them.

They would never have to have their little hearts ripped out in knowing these painful things about him.

And as much as I crave validation. I think I could be ok with just being the problem. I could be ok with just being the fucked up mother who failed them.

And that would be the end of it. I could spare them all of this, by being the bitchy, bitch who never dealt with her stuff. As in mom, needs therapy. Mom needs to work out her shit. Mom needs help. And all of this narcissism shit could just go away. 

Fucked up things you hope for...

Writing Exercise: Five Core Values

This comes from the book: Ensouling Language by Stephen Harrod Buhner.

Directions: Choose 5 deeply meaningful words, ones that approximate the center of who you are and evoke emotive content for you. Write them down. Any words will do--as long as they are meaningful to you.

Example. Earth, Stone, Green, Leaves, Plants.

Or another. Love, Happiness, Child, Wandering, Hope.

Here was my list: Soul, Compassion, Creativity, Healing, Intuition.

Do this part of the exercise now without reading the rest of the directions...

...........................................................................................................................................................


Next. "Write five poems, each of which uses all five of the words. You can use as many other words as you want, nevertheless each poem must contain all five of the words you have chosen. Take as much time as you need..."

When done, read the poems in sequence. You might be amazed by what comes out. Here are all five of mine in order...

One
the soul of healing
grabs intuition
and holds on
birthing compassion
creativity's apex.

Two
intuition speaks from soul
breathing with compassion
creating a healing force
magical enough
that few believe its existence.

Three
the real trick in life
is ferreting out compassion
from soul
when poured empty
and used up.
creativity wanders in
searching for healing intuition
that has sporified
in order to survive.

Four
living the soul's creativity
heals the parts of
intuition, wounded by those
that sacrifice
compassion on pain's altar.

Five
healing
pilgrimage of creativity
to soul's center.
seeking out
bits that keep us human.
splinters
most wanting of compassion.
the inward glance
pains.
but, in the stumbling dark
intuition
holds our hand.

the Gym

Eyes on the floor, headphones on the ears, I hide out in the open, protected by my walls of being focused, aloof. They know not of lies and narcissists and webs and gaslighting. They touch not the holes in walls or pocketbooks or hearts. They feel not the anguished face of my child. They see not the ugliness of it all.

They know me only by my routine and my outward appearances of being strong. They see my training rituals aimed at remaining in the camp of the sane. They see how my invisibility cloak pulls me skyward, over the bar and back again, masking my inner weaknesses.

Here, in this space, I am capable, maybe even strong.

only You

I am haunted by the twenty year old pictures. I’m smiling of all things. The sun setting behind makes artwork of the sky. Climbing harnesses say we topped out after three pitches at Table Rock. Oh, how times were different.

I ache in looking.

These pictures somehow tear my chest from my heart. I do not know how to hold the two emotions together in one space. Love. Confusion. Pure giving altruistic love, for you, the narcissist. And yet, your love was absent. Faked, perhaps. 

I do not know what to do with that, now. 

Was it always absent? Always faked, or did it somehow morph into this absenteeism--this wretchedness? 

How can my love, not have changed or influenced you, even ever so slightly? How can it be that you find it so easy to hate me? How can it not be difficult to hate? How can you not care, at all, after so much time of me trying to give to you?

No, I wasn’t perfect.

Nobody ever is.

But surely, the something—the all of myself that I gave, must have meant something? Surely it must have changed something, maybe just one thing for you? Surely, you must be ever so slightly different, for having known me for so many years?

But no, I was invisible. I didn’t exist. I guess that would mean, I didn’t influence you, at all. Cause it was always just you. Only you. 

Exhaustion

Dealing, breathing, living in proximity to a narcissist is tiring. Exhaustion sets in when leaving the extensive web. Today, I ground and bless myself with these words by John O'Donohue. May they bless you, as well, dear reader...

For One Who is Exhausted

When the Rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued before has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.
You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw along the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

-John O'Donohue

Red Pills and Spells

Several days ago, it occurred to me that things are not always as they seem. Well, No shit, Sherlock! You might say. Hear me out, nonetheless.

My perspective as of late has focused on getting out, unlocking, escaping—extricating myself from the spider’s web of my narcissist’s spun entanglements of falsities dominating the landscape of the old, red barn of my life. I've felt trapped. I've seen myself as being imprisoned, abused, and victimized. And while those things are true, they are more or less my experience of the past. Yes, the narcissist continues to wound, but as the GI Joe tagline advises, knowing is half the battle, or perhaps with the narcissist, knowing is the battle.

I suspect, ironically enough, this might be one of the most valuable lessons the narcissist can teach. The inherent value in seeing and knowing the fullness of reality--whilst balancing one's own perspective alongside the perspective of others.

His blindness teaches me of my own blindness. I so oft forget that my own experience is only partial reality--only one perspective. And whilst important aspects for me to see and acknowledge in order to escape the web, the enlightening parts and pieces can become my new entrapment, my new entanglement, if I so allow or become too identified with my own particular perspective. I can shape a new reality around indulging my own victimhood.

This might be the ultimate lesson I take away from the narcissist. 

Trapped by his own delusions, caught by his own lies, he thinks his own perspective, enough. He cannot see that the Fun House is mirrored. He cannot access the infinite in himself or others. His rigid holding of his own perspective bars and locks him in. Other perspectives, other people's experiences are invisible to him.

Recently, my ex informed me that he might have to move into an apartment of all things. Perish the thought. As he went on and on as to how terrible this will be for him, and how he will have to find a place, and how he will have to downsize, and how rough this will be on him, I was struck by his complete inability to see my experience for the past year--of living in a tiny apartment--of moving out under the gun without adequate savings without much time to find something. In hearing his antics go on and on about his plight, the invisibility of my own experience sparkled and glistened while bouncing off the Fun House mirror. Hyperbolic. Comical.

And so I remind myself to see. His blindness inspires me to relentlessly look at my own blindness. I vow to keep looking into the light of the fire, though my eyes burn, though I see pain. 

It occurred to me this week that things are not always as they seem, even inside my own head, inside my own perspective. I think I’ve been looking at this whole thing through the limited perspective of my own warped Fun House mirror. As much as I don't care to admit it, I have focused on the shadows on the cave wall cast by the glow of the fire.

In awakening and seeing a fuller perspective, I afford myself the gift of vision but vision has to keep opening to itself. It must continually take in more and adapt. It must pilgrim down different thought paths. How we think about where we are determines so much of what happens to us, in fact often determines where we are.

Why am I still staring at the wall of Plato's Cave?

I am no longer invisibly tethered. I am awake. I swallowed the Red Pill.

And so, I begin to learn a new way of being in the world, a new way of thinking. “The old barriers no longer confine me, the old wounds no longer name me, and the old fears no longer claim me.” (John O’Donohue). I choose transformation—shape-shifting—metamorphosis—growth and expansion of soul. I choose to journey onward and remodel the entirety of myself. I choose to slip out of this old skin and become who I am meant to be.

The web—the matrix no longer has to hold its spell over me. I took the red pill, dammit. And while there is certainly power in coming to this realization, perhaps even greater power lies in realizing that the matrix, itself, is often of one's own making. So, more red pill, please. 

Beauty from Wounded Space, One Day

Sometimes, oh-so-unrealistically, I think that I could handle the narcissist and all his shit, if it weren't for the havoc he disseminates like some sort of metastasizing cancer to my entire world. Especially, now, I need support. I need friends. And there he is dropping poison into the waters of my friendships. He means to destroy me. Punish me. Teach me, a lesson. And of course, there is always abuse by proxy. Getting my own friends to pressure me to do whatever-the-hell-it-is-that-he-wants-me to do--for whatever ridiculous purpose he might dream up--so that he can ultimately, control me.

Lately, the dark pessimist in me measures time in terms of which friends, I lost at which point in time. As in, oh August--that's when I realized the estrangement betwixt Michelle and I. Oh, September. That's when he got to my friend, Jenn.  

Somehow, right now, I don't seem to have the energy to counter the narcissistic propaganda they all seem to choke down like cough syrup.

I know I'll bounce back, eventually--just now I need time to devote energy elsewhere.

Nonetheless, it is a shame. I could use the support of my friends now, especially. But, I know eventually, the true ones will come back around. The truth will come out. And it is important for me to let go of my feelings of betrayal by them. They don't know better. They are manipulated--the exact same place I was for 20 years or so. How can I expect them to see through stuff any sooner? I certainly, didn't.

And so, I do my best, to let go. Forgive. Not take it, personally. They don't get it, really. 

Instead, I cling to hope in the words of John O'Donohue about said friends. I cling to the idea of beauty emerging from the wounded space, one day.

For Lost Friends

As twilight makes a rainbow robe
From the concealed colors of day
In order for time to stay alive
Within the dark weight of night,
May we lose no one we love
From the shelter of our hearts.

When we love another heart
And allow it to love us,
We journey deep below time
Into that eternal weave
Where nothing unravels.

May we have the grace to see
Despite the hurt of rupture,
The searing of anger,
And the empty disappointment,
That whoever we have loved,
Such love can never quench.

Though a door may have closed,
Closed between us,
May we be able to view
Our lost friends with eyes
Wise with calming grace;
Forgive them the damage
We were left to inherit;

Free ourselves from the chains
Of forlorn resentment;
Bring warmth again to
Where the heart has frozen
In order that beyond the walls
Of our cherished hurt
And chosen distance
We may be able to
Celebrate the gifts they brought,
Learn and grow from the pain,
And prosper into difference,
Wishing them the peace
Where spirit can summon
Beauty from wounded space.

-John O'Donohue

Shell

I keep telling myself that he has to actually live with himself. And really—that is massive burden enough. Don't crack the egg. When I back away and reflect upon what that means, I’m relieved to finally be extricating myself—painful though it be—and I see the curse and Herculean strength it might take to gaze at who you’ve become if you're a narcissist and it sure ain’t pretty.

But the narcissist avoids this at all costs--even the cost of one’s significant other, one’s soul, one’s own offspring.

On some levels, narcissism is quite complicated. On other levels, narcissism is quite simple.

Take the almighty Atlas-like projected image of power, strength, and control holding up the world—in all actuality--just a crumpled over Nymph, chained to the reflected image in a lake, held by the hypnotically beholding power of the mirror, unable to wander away from the source confirming his existence—eternally dependent upon the manipulated, reflections of others. Ironically, as much mirror staring occurs—it is a staring without seeing—a staring at the spinning-armed Giant one needs to slay without the feel of the wind startling one into the reality of the shape of a Windmill. The empty staring never yields the gift of insight into one’s self.

For he will not see his true self—he cannot even see bits of his own horcruxed soul—all scattered around like Voldemort, initially in order to survive, to stay alive.

As strange as it sounds, his hatred of me isn’t really about me, per se, but rather an intolerable, displaced, self-hatred. His weakness—that he cannot handle any small bit of challenge to the delusional, projected, fragile view of self—that the following masses must worship and reconfirm over and over and over. All hail the king.

I am merely the small, peasant child on the side of the road, crying out as the Emperor passes, He has no clothes on.  I am the Christine who pulls back the Phantom’s mask. And in leaving I am refusing to continue to exist as the side-kick knight errant who eventually takes up Quixote’s delusions in his stead.

It really is quite simple and ironic.

He exquisitely hurts when I call him on his fake, new clothes. And yet, the narcissistic injury I induce itself is one rare opportunity for healing the deeply seated narcissistic wound that tethers him to the lake. A rare chance to wake up, after all these years.

And thus he hates.

He hates the truth about himself that he cannot face—that he cannot control—that he cannot manipulate—that for the most part, he cannot even see.

And thus the ultimate manipulator, ironically enough, lacks the smallest, most human ability—self autonomy to control himself without controlling others. He has to manipulate others, in order to manipulate himself. For his true self is too far off and too unknown to manage without the insulation and coating of the admiration of others. His true self that he walled off from, pushed outward, has shriveled up and died behind his own protective wall and most likely doesn’t exist anymore. Instead, the ornate eggshell stands in with the center blown out—ridiculously fragile, void of anything other than the decorated outside, mere hardened, glitzy, expensive Faberge for all to admire until it cracks.  

Hold on

The temptation is to ditch your compassion altogether. Become jaded—cynical—anything but empathic. Cause that is the tit the narcissist sucked on for so many years.

In my case, he played my compassion like a fiddle—the haunting Fiddler-On-the-Roof type character—as in always in the backdrop, sometimes subtle, sometimes overt—but always there. His own life story—so sad, so profusely unjust. And the fact that He stood so tall in the face of all the injustice for so many years, rendered my compassion a no-brainer. The long ago farce that caught his father figure in a nasty spider’s web—entangled in such ridiculousness that my heart wanted to do any and everything to bust him out of the slammer for such ridiculousness—I couldn’t believe that the system could be so unjust.

Perhaps, it wasn’t all that unjust.

Perhaps, things went down, as they damn well should have.

The night we told our kids that we were getting divorced, I saw the truth of what happened so many years ago. The eyes can communicate so much. Some things are obvious. Some things hit you hard. And it was there staring me in the face—the hatred. The I-would-kill-you look. I have never seen that look before and hope to never see it again. But in an instant I knew a lot. I knew truth that told me that self-preservation was in my own best interest. I knew danger. And it was there in one look staring through me as if I wasn't really there. 

There was no empathy or kindness looking out of those eyes. It was almost as if the absence of emotion was the only thing present. A vacant sort of look except for the presence of dark, pure, uncontained hatred and rage that had percolated up from somewhere deep. The rage was almost palpable, making the hair on my arms stand at attention.

It was an instant where I intuitively saw with my other eye as the past, present, and future met each other. 

The past where this happened before. Those empty eyes had been present before staring out of a different body. In that inherited look, things crystallized for me.  

I could see one future where harm greeted me as it had her and ushered me behind the veil. I could see another where I lost everything, surrendered it all as the bargaining chip for my own life--for the chance to keep breathing.

Yes.

I want to keep breathing. That is the one I choose.

And so my intuition began speaking. Back away from this. Get out. Survive. It doesn’t matter if you lose the house. It doesn’t really matter if you lose everything. Just survive. Start over. You've got this. Hold on.

And hold onto your compassion—it is your strength, really. Hold on. You'll be tempted not to but hold on.

And so I shall. I shall.