Entangled

The specialists would say I'm supposed to be over this--him--by now. Supposed to have moved on. Supposed to have gone and gotten myself a whole new revamped life sans abusive ex.

But every time I try to go and get myself another life I look at the black and white photos on the wall staring back at me. The big, brown eyed baby that used to say woo-ah, woo-ah, woo-ah, when he first learned to walk with the Winnie-the-Pooh walker looking out at me. And I remember the three babies I pushed out of my own body created with the evil one I'm supposed to now erase from my mind. And once again I feel torn apart. I feel torn in two. 

I am haunted by the beautiful pictures in my mind of these lovely person beings. 

How do I share the beautiful memories in my mind with a monster?

No, I never see him anymore. No, I never speak to him anymore. No, I go out of my way to be far from him--to keep him out in every way imaginable. But he is there in the memories. What the hell do I do with the memories entangled with him? What the hell do I do with the most significant pieces of my life buried in the same tomb with him?

 

on Lost Caged Friends

I've only heard snippets about them--the couple that I used to know--tiny snapshots of their lives now, percolated through overheard fireside conversations with the ex, filtered through the eyes and ears of my Littles. I've never seen them. Haven't heard anything from them since things went south with the Narc. Apparently, they've been sufficiently entombed inside his lies. The camping rendezvous where they met my Littles and the Narc atop a mountain triggered bits of the old pain seeping in again. 

Now, don't get me wrong. They are gone. The N divorce truth serum revealed the absence of integrity and character in them. But, as always, somehow, I don't want to believe these things about them. I thought they were different. Of all the old friends, I would not have pegged them as the ones that would never question the stories they've been told. They seemed to be different. But, the narc truth serum applied to friendships is just that--the best damn truth litmus test on the market. You may hate the results, even want to challenge them umpteen bazillion times but accuracy levels are off the charts and while sometimes Time has a way of deteriorating the results, the truth is ultimately there if one is willing to face it.

And so I am facing it. I grieve once again, the loss of friendship, made more acute by the accompanying pain of wanting to reach out to those that once were familiar--those that once seemed to see me--the real me. I grieve the pain of intensely wanting to share the truth of my experience in what happened while a marriage imploded in upon the collapsed soul-less shell of a man. The haunting images of the past of what might have been--of sitting round a campfire, atop Dallas Divide, sipping a glass of wine, sharing conversation and laughter, reminiscing about the old stories of yesteryear.   

 

Each time I have to let go in these kinds of ways, I get a little more of the sense that I am backing away from a prison that bars them in, as much as it bars me out. 

On Narc Relationship Pandemic Parallels... Isolation

I’ve been here before. And this is what I learned. No, it wasn’t a pandemic last time I was here. Instead, it was my experience escaping the toxic relationship in question, the subject matter of this blog. But many of the relevant details are similar enough. Perhaps, the Narc lessons have some usefulness. Perhaps, drawing from the Narc past, we might glean tips of navigation through current circumstances. 

First of all, there's the isolation thing. Many of us the world over are currently being encouraged to isolate, to physically distance. For the past few months, we’ve been encouraged or ordered to stay home, to shelter in place, to limit our human interactions. Thus the isolation. Feeling cut off. In the dark. Alone. As though we’ve awoken on some alien planet in 2020.

Certainly, the reasons for why we are currently isolating are complex. We are aiming to do something for the greater good on many levels by slowing the speed of new cases enough to keep our healthcare systems within capacity in terms of the number of cases. But to stop our thinking at that point is to ignore the nuances of the situation. Isolation is not an especially neutral enterprise. The tactic of isolation often favors those in power--the rich, those in control, those at the top. Isolation can be a powerful means to obtain the upper hand in many situations. It is often one of the first tactics in the coercion game. Physical isolation. Case in point, Jeffrey Epstein and his toxic, isolated island of abuse.

I suspect a question worth asking in this pandemic is who benefits from our collective isolation? Who asymmetrically gains more power from all the physical distancing going on? And who loses power in all the physical distancing?

But physical isolation is not the only kind of isolation. My experience suggests that to be isolated in the mind can be utterly horrific. When you reach the conclusion--even if the wrong one--that you are entirely alone in the world--that there is no one to reach out to--that there is no one who will listen, the pain cuts deep. It can quickly drive you with an almost religious fervor toward wanting to escape the pain so intensely, that taking yourself out of the equation starts to look like a good option. 

I recall this level of despair when my ex managed to cut me off from my own family. About the same time, I experienced being cut off from various friends. Previous social gatherings that had been regular events suddenly became off-limits. I was shut out, uninvited from places that had once welcomed me. Oh so stupidly, I believed him when he told me that people didn’t want me around, that I would make the event uncomfortable, that people would prefer my absence to my presence. These lies fed the downward spiral of my already obliterated self esteem. These lies also added to the sense of feeling trapped in warped funhouse, overwhelmed. I couldn’t see his lies as tactics to further isolate and thus control me.

This leads me to a second set of questions worth asking in this pandemic. Whom has control of which reality gets supplied? Which powers dominate the message? By what venue does said supplied reality get to us? How does the reality further our sense of isolation?

In my past, if I would have recognized the point of isolation--that it is often to control the supplied particular reality, perhaps I would have been suspicious of he whom wanted me to ingest a decidedly gloomy perspective of my experiences.

Isolation can also trigger you itself, especially when coupled with gaslighting--getting you into a flashback, into a state of panic, into an easily manipulatable state, in despair, and not capable of making rational decisions. This is why it is such an effective tactic of control.

Which leads me to a third set of questions we ought ask in this pandemic. In what ways are we being gaslit? How are we being manipulated? What information can our own emotional responses tell us about what is happening in this pandemic? Are there other perspectives we are missing? If so what are they?

On the Pain of Hope

Today, a few hours before our date that we were supposed to have tonight he told me he thought we should back off a bit. As in I should probably never expect to hear anything else from him, ever again. No, he didn't say it quite like that. But the hope bubble of a potential relationship is popped.

He put it quite kindly. He was exceedingly gentle. He said it quite mildly. And this I know.... he has a good heart--this is absolute. He's not evil. He's not vile, like my ex. He's a genuine, kind person. He's totally one of the good-guy types.  I can only hope he finds someone else equal to the grandeur of his soul. The soul that he has no idea how different it is from the standard. 

Because he's living in some kind of organic bubble where there are tons of cool, authentic people living on the planet--people you might bump into at any moment. Because they are everywhere.

Really. I hope that.

Because nothing in him is evil. He was so honest. And I was too. And I know from my own experience it takes courage to be that honest. And he doesn't yet seem to know how rare that level of honesty is. Clueless. In my experience, you don't throw that away. Even if it is potentially moving away to another state. Because you don't find it often enough to throw it away on the altar of potential moves. You grab on and hold on. No matter what...

But instead we both get to drift in the pain.

what to Do with Regret

Regret might be the worst emotion to encounter in the getting-out-and-healing process. When you stare down the years--nearly two entire decades in the prime of life--it can cut deep along the soul lines. The years seemingly wasted that wash over the deadened bits like the tide, dragging your rag doll soul out to drown.

I did nearly drown in regret. Sometimes I'm not sure how I didn't.

But the sick feeling of wanting to rewind time, going back to give your younger self a few keynotes about how things actually are and will be. The after of how it strikes you when time slips through your fingers and life sneaks past.

Regret is birthed in the polarity of your disparate emotions. Regret is birthed in the incomprehensibility of the worst thing and the best thing in your life somehow ending up fucking each other and have a child that is your life. Strange bedfellows.
 
Somehow he is quite literally the worst thing that ever happened to me. And, somehow he is quite literally the best thing that ever happened to me.

Both of these things are somehow simultaneously true for me and so the question remains, what the hell do you do with that?

the Revolution

There are things I'm grateful for and then there are things that I basically cannot express enough of my gratitude for. These things extend so far beyond my ability to be grateful for them--that I almost don't know how to describe them. Things that literally revolutionized everything. Lately, I've been mulling over those things. Which relevant pieces essentially revolutionized everything? That is the question I have been pondering, as of late.

First, there was a listener. A revolutionary priest. A grizzly, bearded, long-haired tatted, F-bomb dropping priest.  Prolly goes without saying but not your typical rigid-religiosity-instilling-personhood-bashing-priest. No. A listener--and that's relevant. A priest with (in fact) something on par with turning-water-into-wine miraculous listening skills where I could bump into myself somewhere on the bookshelves near the magic-eight-ball Jesus in his office.

I remember the startled feeling of not being interrupted. I remember the long pauses. Half the time, I would interrupt myself. Only then would he speak.

I hadn't had that experience in seventeen years. Always talked over. Always repeating myself because the narcissist never actually heard anything I said, except way back in the beginning when it was something akin to ammunition to later use against me way down the road. But I didn't know that then.

So a bad-ass listener. Key.

That and the screaming dreams was how I started to wake up in my own life. 

That was how I started to arm myself for the hellish battle of escaping the Matrix that I didn't know that I was about to undertake.

For something like a solid year he--the Priest--listened while I unloaded--verbal diarrhea for hours every single week. It seemed endless once the Dam broke and uncontrollably the water ran. Sometimes the literal waters ran. Sometimes I gut wrenchingly sobbed for most (all) of the appointment. I had no idea that I needed a place to park my sorrow. Hell, I didn't even know that there was so much unattended sorrow underneath. I had so effectively walled myself off from it that I didn't even know it was there. And certainly, didn't know it was mine.

I think he did know it was mine. He had a sixth sense about those sorts of things. Shaman-esque.

He would do what priests ought to do, but most don't or won't, and just hold space. That is something that should be taught in Priest 101. He could endlessly hold space like nobody's business. And finally then I could breathe. It was one of the only places in my life I could actually breathe freely. But I didn't even know that--that I needed a place to breathe--cause I wasn't really breathing elsewhere.

I started to notice that. I started to notice that I was breathing mostly in his office. I also started to notice that I was not breathing when I was around my ex the narcissist. I started to toss and turn a little bit in my narc induced sleep.

And so that was how the revolution started.

There were others who joined the cause. Others who listened. Others who pointed things out. Others who oh-so-directly spoke into my life. Others who helped imagine a way out.

But his bad-ass listening skills are like none other. The root of the revolution. The revolution would not have ever existed without them.

A string of therapists were certainly helpful. Important. But if I can point to only one person--one significant person that made the revolutionary difference--the person that single-handedly triggered the rebellion--it was this one human who listened like I was the only person left on the planet to be listened to, like there wasn't anyone else, like judging other people about weird things they think or do didn't even exist. And that in a nutshell is how and why I escaped.   

Healing Decisions

This week I quarantined a decision I had to make--separated off from it--put it in isolation far from any bit of residual, entangled, bitterness or anger--not because I needed to in order to survive as I have needed to in the past, but because I wanted to for the sake of the real authentic me that I am aiming to become more and more. I quarantined said decision in order to isolate the amazing healer part of me that does beautiful compassionate things in the world. That healer needed to be in isolation from the damaged, sad, sometimes spiteful parts of me that are still learning how to be in the world again, post narcopalypse. It was the right thing to do.

All the same it was a mighty struggle to do the right thing that healer part instinctively could do without even thinking or batting an eye.

I'm certain all the therapists and narc abuse recovery experts would likely tell me to draw a boundary line in the sand. They'd encourage me to hold my ground, to not give valuable information to the narc. I'm sure some might deem my actions a fawn response of cPTSD variety in some manner and therefore a trapped-in-trauma-and-thus-unhealed or "stuck" response.

But that was not the space from whence the decision originated. The decision was born of the rich ground near the heart of healing--the soul space. A sacred, powerful space, it flows as the source from whence any healing runs--something that gets tapped or touched upon when real healing shit happens. Compassion, unfettered kindness, empathy, and mercy linger there. It's not a space controlled by said healer, its more a space visited by healer types, entrusted to healers to protect or to act as guides to. It's not a space anyone ought fuck with, generally speaking, as I'm not sure the kharmic righting of such would be good for the fucker. Almost like if you curse that soul space the curse ricochets back upon you.

And so I made a decision to mercifully give helpful, information to my ex. The as of yet still wounded parts of me wanted to hold back said information, clenched in spite.

But this time I chose to authentically give--not out of some sort of fawn response, not out of obligation, not out of guilt, not out of fear--I chose to give because I am a healer and that is who I am. And that is the most powerful, authentic source of everything good in me and who I want to become more fully, and so I walk further towards my own becoming. And that choice is oddly enough, furthering my own healing.

Coercion

What is the relevant difference between covert, psychological coercion and communication? At what point does one merge into the other in relationships?

What of the land of small demands and preferences? The seemingly benign I-like-your-hair-this-way-and-not-that-way type preferences? Somehow the alarms in the body get sounded, anxiety floods in out of nowhere. An emotional avalanche triggered, you might vaguely remember this feeling that threads into never feeling good enough and why can't I just be me?

Then upon listening to the words of somebody out there in the world as regards 3 clues of toxic relationships you are reminded of the following:

Clue 1 of toxic situation = regular confusion in the form of a consistent pattern that something is not quite right. Asking the question of yourself, why am I so confused as to what is going on? Why am I constantly unsure of what is going on?

Clue 2 regular investigation in asking the question, is this right? Is this toxic? Hypervigilence to the details--the texts, the DMs, the messages, and constant analysis and mulling over the microdetails. Seeking a 2nd and 3rd and 4th opinion from people in your life that you trust because ultimately you're confused.

Clue 3 covert coercion which might boil down to some subtleties early on. But when the message communicated when you attempt to be yourself is that being you is not acceptable and that is why he needs space, why then you must consider the potential reality--that the real authentic, quirky you, is not welcome in this relationship. And a relationship that is not good for both people is good for neither.

Not Good Enough

From whence does this feeling of not being enough come? On whose wings does it ride?

They never intended to communicate that I wasn't good enough.

But it was there embedded in the hell, fire, and brimstone flannel-graph stories. I wasn't good enough for God. The Divine was sending me to the Lakes O'Fire upon my death, unless somehow, I got the prayer right and Jesus hopped into my evil heart. I don't remember how many times I heard this message before the age of five.

They never intended to communicate that I wasn't good enough.

I suspect the brainwashing had already begun long before I could say any words. They were proud that before the ripe old age of two, I could recite my first Bible verse from memory. There was a camp and a canoe on a lake in the Midwest where you could go if you recited the whole book of ABC verses. "A" for "All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned each and everyone our own way."

But, they never intended to communicate that I wasn't good enough. 

And then there was a sport that caught my heart at the ripe old age of 12--only one of the most difficult of sports. Far too late a start to get to the upper echelons. So I took it up. In spite of my athleticism and decent level of talent I quickly determined that I was not Olympic bound, in spite of this being some sort of instigating factor to drive me into the sport. All the same, my secret hopes and dreams they paraded before the house guests as entertainment, "She wants to go to the Olympics," they'd chuckle whilst compelling me to round off back handspring in the yard. My words of pleading to not divulge my secret dreams could never quite reach them. "We're so proud of you," they'd argue. And so began the schooling in how my "no" wasn't good enough to stop adults in all their infinite parenting wisdom if the purpose of boundary obliteration could be somehow construed as "well meaning."

But, they never intended to communicate that I wasn't good enough.

And then the day came when I thought I might find some sort of community amongst spiritual people in a church, of sorts. Knowing my recovery from fundee world, I chose a place that I didn't find too Jesus-ee. I may have even mentioned to them that I was stepping toward the Divine again, finding a connection to a church. But of course, the place chosen wasn't exactly the right sort of good enough for them. It wasn't Jesus-ee enough for their narrow fundamentalist world view. Something was wrong with the doctrine--too much ritual--too dead as they judged it--too much deviation from the horrific, flannel-graph stories that deadened my soul. And so when they'd visit, they decided that they couldn't contaminate themselves with attendance to my sort of Spiritual Gathering. My father would instead comb google, looking for multiple services at varying locations to try, rather than accompany his less-than-daughter to her spiritual community which clearly wasn't enough to feed his giant soul.

But, they never intended to communicate that I wasn't good enough.

And then there was a day when divorcing a narcissist stepped onto my to-do list. My ex was fucking one of his 21-year-old college students. And so my father in all his wisdom decided to try to "fix matters" by getting on a plane to counsel and advise about matters of the heart--matters of my heart. My ex had the gall to introduce the oh-so-fuckable-red-lipsticked-well-oiled-foreign student to my father. My opinion of the appropriateness of the situation, of my dad coming to advise about my relationship, and my insight into what was falling down around me didn't matter. I was after all female and emotional and not logical in my arguments defending my position as to why I should divorce. All the same, I sat my dad down independently, tried my best to explained as rationally as I could what was happening, and why I thought it wise to get out--how it was abusive and confusing and taking its toll on me. But my own words weren't rational, or logical enough for my own decision, in my own relationship, "to justify" leaving a cheating, emotionally abusing spouse. I was sinning--divorcing--clearly not trying hard enough. 

And so while they never intended to communicate that I wasn't good enough, the message somehow came through brilliantly clear.  Now I struggle to walk the line between connection to them, while working to delete this brainwashing from my head. I have the gall to wonder why when I finally meet the guy that I'd like to get to know--why I somehow feel not good enough.    

Who am I Ramblings?

With family in town this week, I'm stuck in a remembering mode of sorts. Returning to the past as mind adventure--but only in a good sort of way. I must admit that there have been years--not yet distant enough--when the returning has been the most painful, most hellish experience I've ever had. And I must remind you, in case you forgot, that I've given birth naturally before...Birthed a 10.8 lb baby sans any drugs or anesthetic, whatsoever. And the remembering and grief was indeed three thousand times worse.

But.

Somewhere, along the hellish way my real self snuck up on me. 

Six years ago I opened up a browser to find the truth in a delusion I was living. My Other turned out to not be who I thought he was. But that story has been written again and again in countless novels and poems. The real story and real delusion was that I turned out to not be who I thought I was. Narcissist be damned. The story has shaped up to not really be about him, at all--at least that is how I'm writing it. 

And just who am I?

Not entirely sure. But. These bits I know...

Resilient. Authentic. Real, in a Velveteen Rabbit sort of way. Weathered by life's experiences, yet strangely young in spite of or maybe because of these experiences.

Honest, to a fault, perhaps.

Highly intuitive. Learning not to buy into the world's and my ex Narc's rendition that this means something is wrong with me.

And then there's the compassion piece that I'm not sure about. Is it who I am? Not sure. It's not that I lack compassion. Far from it, I seem to have an excess of it. But it doesn't feel mine. Reason being, I don't have any control over it. Rather, it is just there hovering around me like a cloud, cloaking me in softness.

"My compassion" appears as if from somewhere else--much more than it should be allowed based on the horrific narc shit I've lived through. The compassion is the part I don't really understand. You'd think it would have been banished somewhere along the way. The narcissist certainly tried to drive it underground by pillaging it. Multiple therapists told me to abandon it as it often makes me vulnerable. Which is why its persistence puzzles me. And why I don't think its really mine, at all. It hovers around me like a cloak from somewhere else. When I'm exhausted and empty and completely lacking in every way it appears more prominently from wherever for someone else who needs it, like magic. Usually feels like some sort of river of energy flowing through me. Something I can neither stop nor start--something I just watch flow at the exact point where somebody needs massive amounts of it.

And so that settles nothing, really.

And just who am I? Not sure--but learning. And becoming more kind to myself.

I guess I'm still becoming as I watch my real self sneak back up on me.

the Authentic Grief

Apparently, he is getting married again. And as much as I knew this day would eventually present itself, I really didn't expect this particular stew pot of emotions. Grief. Sadness. Disappointment. Jealousy. 

My old friend grief has parked on the davenport again. The flavor tastes different this time around. Waves merging into one another, I float on a raft in the middle of the water. Last time, the open ocean washed over my raft-less form, pushing water into my lungs. Last time, I was certain I would drown. Last time, I cried myself to sleep for a solid year. This time the water from the ocean is spraying me, but I am floating more than not.

This time it's strangely different.

I can't exactly put my finger on it but this time it is as if I'm grieving on humanity's behalf. Not really my own grief.

I'm sad at the loss--but it isn't a loss of the past, rather a loss of the future. I'm sad about what never was. I'm sad about what might have been. I'm sad with a strange acceptance and without hope.

It likely sounds dark. But his story is so sad. He was dealt a bad hand--a tragic hand in life. I see that. I feel empathy on that front. Not so much empathy that I would ever have contact with him again, but still empathy is there at the tragedy. And all the same he had so much potential. Gifts. Strong intellect. Wit. Brilliant mind. Artistic capabilities. Creative leanings.

And as in the Parable of the Talents told by Jesus, the potential authenticity was buried, submerged under the water of unexpressed grief that he never got near enough to work with.

Last night, I cried for the tragedy of it all. I cried for the sad story that doesn't have a happy ending. I cried for the lost authentic self that he might have been if he ever would have approached his highest calling in life to just become. I grieved that person he might have been. I grieved his incredible lost potential. I grieved what I now think might be the real tragedy of it all. And that is the fact that no one--nobody--not me--nor anyone else will ever know the real authentic him. In 20 difficult years, I might be the person who got the closest to knowing something we might call the real authentic him.Which was nothing of the real him, I might add--only shallow and empty longing for the real, lacking anything even remotely resembling emotional intimacy.

And in 20 more years, she--the new fiancee--is not likely to get past the narcissistic walls keeping him from what used to be the authentic self's potential.

That core self certainly had potential years ago. But after being buried for so long the core self eventually atrophies and dies, or so suggests my epic dream.

I've come to see that my gift in life and at times, curse, is in seeing potential.

And so today I sit with my old friend, grief, speaking of what no one else will.

In my grief, I vow to learn from this his fatal flaw of not stepping into his own authentic self. I vow to keep becoming more me even if that means I end up walking this path of life, alone.   

Nobody Gives

There is no word, no emotion, to describe the feeling you get when it all ends up somewhere you didn't actually choose and you wake up in the green space wandering at night. Suddenly, awake in that field. No idea of how you got there.

And this is the case in your case load that speaks to you. The person whom is most dissociated. It all feels so familiar.

And nobody gives a shit.