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.