And back and forth I go....
Had to converse with the ex today.
Oh-so-surprisingly, he pulled out all the stops. I mean, not surprising, at all....Bullying. Insults. Misrepresentations of the truth. Exaggerations. Denial of reality.
He was ANGRY that I said "No." No, I won't bend to your will for the umpteenth time. He couldn't be reasonable, a human being. He couldn't see anything other than his own delusion of the truth. And his own story.
None of the above was surprising.
What was surprising was me. I said, No. Boldly. Surely. Strongly.
Even in the space of the threats of his getting the law to assault me, I felt calm. I felt like I was addressing a two-year-old with a plastic sword. I'm sorry. But, No, I won't, Junior.
Perhaps, I didn't say No enough all along when we were together. He is most certainly not accustomed to it. He most generally flips his shit and becomes some sort of two-year-old child when you say, No.
But somewhat miraculously, this didn't phase me much. Distance is charming that way. You get perspective when you finally get away!
And so today, I relish being out of his orbit. I relish saying, No. I relish not explaining myself because I don't have to. He doesn't have the right to demand explanation of me. I am an autonomous human being. And the longer I am out of his orbit far away from him, the stronger I grow!
And so today, I relish this little bit of freedom. Resilience. Empowerment.
And while it is still possible I may have felt a little sorry for him, I choose this lovely space of away, out of orbit, free. I might have felt sorry for the fact that this is where he shall remain the rest of his sad life. Stuck. Walled off from growth. His own narcissistic gravity keeping him from leaving his own delusional shit. He doesn't get to transform and become! He doesn't get to fly away with another to some nostalgic, dreamy, tower to have Orange Pekoe tea while floating. He has to tolerate his same old fragile, manipulative self. And that is burden enough.
So for now, I relish the fact that it is my time of year. My Spring. My season. The Equinox. My birthday month. The time when I feel most right. The time when the planets align for me. The time not to mess with me.... cause dammit, I'm healing!!!
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Friday, March 16, 2018
You Know You're Not Healing from Narc Abuse When
You Know You're Not Healing from Narc Abuse When....
You are definitely stuck in some sort of time warp that repeats itself every few days or weeks.
You Know You're Not Healing from Narc Abuse When...
You revert to childish, junior high behaviors.
You Know You're Not Healing from Narc Abuse When...
You dwell continually on all the ways the planet, your kids, everyone would be better off without you. You know should fight this but today it just seems so much more true.
You Know You're Not Healing from Narc Abuse When...
You feel like you are stuck in the same place as a year ago, except all the head clearing from a long hike has gone far, far away.
You Know You're Not Healing from Narc Abuse When...
You don't feel like you ever left the web and there is still no way out.
You are definitely stuck in some sort of time warp that repeats itself every few days or weeks.
You Know You're Not Healing from Narc Abuse When...
You revert to childish, junior high behaviors.
You Know You're Not Healing from Narc Abuse When...
You dwell continually on all the ways the planet, your kids, everyone would be better off without you. You know should fight this but today it just seems so much more true.
You Know You're Not Healing from Narc Abuse When...
You feel like you are stuck in the same place as a year ago, except all the head clearing from a long hike has gone far, far away.
You Know You're Not Healing from Narc Abuse When...
You don't feel like you ever left the web and there is still no way out.
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Cycles
There is a cycle I predictably engage in every time my little people visit.
First, there is the anticipation of magical moments of connection with a trifecta of teenagers. The excitement of catching up, hanging out and just being together.
Then there is the merger with reality, when they show up, want to veg out, lounge around the house, sleep til noon, and play Minecraft all day. My own circadian rhythm gets thrown off as I stay up to bond, then sleep in with them. And expectations drift downward a bit--ok truth be told--they drop into the toilet.
And then there is the knowing how much shit they have to endure in living under the iron fist that is my ex, how they are not respected as autonomous human beings, how he steamrolls over their free will, teaching by example the art of manipulation. I feel that I must balance this yuck in the other direction by teaching by opposing example the art of respect for humanity. And so I need to invest in their kindness banks, filling them up with home cooked meals, less work around the flat, and more chill time as their dad is harsh on those fronts. But it is more than that. I often feel like I need to somehow not merely be a good parent, but make up for the asshole parent by being an exceptional parent to make up for the badness that is to have an NPD parent. And that is a huge problem. I'm only human as it turns out. I'm flawed like anyone else. All of this is iced with a disgusting frosting of guilt in moving away from them in the first place....
Which is reinforced by the fact that my ex constantly blames me for moving away behind my back. He oh-so-wonderfully helped create the hostile context whereby moving away seemed the only option. And now he uses it as weapon against me, as in, "Well, she did move away and go abandon her own children..." He makes sure that everything wrong in their lives has nothing to do with him, nor his narcissism, but rather their evil mother abandoning them. Which is how his own life went.
His own evil mother did the same and abandoned him in death. And he's never dealt with that emotionally--only intellectually--murdered by his own NPD father. But all the same, it probably comes back to the same feeling. He's angry at her getting herself killed by a narc. And so he became a narc in order to not deal.
Which brings me back to why I sit in the stewpot of my own jumbled, disparate, ridiculous emotions. I try to label them, understand them, watch the cycle of them.
After my littles leave, the crash is predictable, as is the impinging guilt that will move in close like a boa constrictor. I'll suck in air for the oxygen deprivation now.
First, there is the anticipation of magical moments of connection with a trifecta of teenagers. The excitement of catching up, hanging out and just being together.
Then there is the merger with reality, when they show up, want to veg out, lounge around the house, sleep til noon, and play Minecraft all day. My own circadian rhythm gets thrown off as I stay up to bond, then sleep in with them. And expectations drift downward a bit--ok truth be told--they drop into the toilet.
And then there is the knowing how much shit they have to endure in living under the iron fist that is my ex, how they are not respected as autonomous human beings, how he steamrolls over their free will, teaching by example the art of manipulation. I feel that I must balance this yuck in the other direction by teaching by opposing example the art of respect for humanity. And so I need to invest in their kindness banks, filling them up with home cooked meals, less work around the flat, and more chill time as their dad is harsh on those fronts. But it is more than that. I often feel like I need to somehow not merely be a good parent, but make up for the asshole parent by being an exceptional parent to make up for the badness that is to have an NPD parent. And that is a huge problem. I'm only human as it turns out. I'm flawed like anyone else. All of this is iced with a disgusting frosting of guilt in moving away from them in the first place....
Which is reinforced by the fact that my ex constantly blames me for moving away behind my back. He oh-so-wonderfully helped create the hostile context whereby moving away seemed the only option. And now he uses it as weapon against me, as in, "Well, she did move away and go abandon her own children..." He makes sure that everything wrong in their lives has nothing to do with him, nor his narcissism, but rather their evil mother abandoning them. Which is how his own life went.
His own evil mother did the same and abandoned him in death. And he's never dealt with that emotionally--only intellectually--murdered by his own NPD father. But all the same, it probably comes back to the same feeling. He's angry at her getting herself killed by a narc. And so he became a narc in order to not deal.
Which brings me back to why I sit in the stewpot of my own jumbled, disparate, ridiculous emotions. I try to label them, understand them, watch the cycle of them.
After my littles leave, the crash is predictable, as is the impinging guilt that will move in close like a boa constrictor. I'll suck in air for the oxygen deprivation now.
Monday, March 12, 2018
You Know you're Healing from Narc Abuse When
You know you're healing from narc abuse when...
You no longer define yourself as a victim, but rather someone strong, someone who has worked through some shit, someone who has been around the block, someone who has unexpectedly learned of the dark, underbelly of humanity.
You know you're healing from narc abuse when....
You no longer have to tell the harrowing, hellish story of trauma and escape from the spider's web. Instead, you sometimes decide to just understate things like you once did. Only this time it isn't minimizing, its outright deciding whom you want to tell on your own terms. Not that you want to mislead people, rather you just don't have time for their experience to catch up to your own. And the need to be validated by someone else on the planet who can't get it unless they've lived it has been left at sea.
You know you're healing from narc abuse when...
You no longer have to obsess about learning about narcissism, sure you have days when you explore shit, facets of the beast, but mostly the narcissist and his flying monkeys and his fairy-tale planet have all begun to bore you. You've found the bits and pieces you needed to find, you've practiced some skills, you've left his orbit. Now you let your own center of gravity beckon you through space, discovering where your own journey might take you.
You know you're healing from narc abuse when...
You know you're healing from narc abuse when...
You remember that there are good people in the world and you relish one day finding your own special someone who might also think you one of the good people in the world.
You no longer define yourself as a victim, but rather someone strong, someone who has worked through some shit, someone who has been around the block, someone who has unexpectedly learned of the dark, underbelly of humanity.
You no longer have to tell the harrowing, hellish story of trauma and escape from the spider's web. Instead, you sometimes decide to just understate things like you once did. Only this time it isn't minimizing, its outright deciding whom you want to tell on your own terms. Not that you want to mislead people, rather you just don't have time for their experience to catch up to your own. And the need to be validated by someone else on the planet who can't get it unless they've lived it has been left at sea.
You know you're healing from narc abuse when...
You no longer have to obsess about learning about narcissism, sure you have days when you explore shit, facets of the beast, but mostly the narcissist and his flying monkeys and his fairy-tale planet have all begun to bore you. You've found the bits and pieces you needed to find, you've practiced some skills, you've left his orbit. Now you let your own center of gravity beckon you through space, discovering where your own journey might take you.
You know you're healing from narc abuse when...
You find endless humor in his two-year-old like antics, his ridiculous exaggerations, his philosophical, pedantic over-the-top-ness that seems to permeate everything in his life. And as you remember him demanding you read the stacks of his amazing professor reviews you chuckle, happy that you deleted that job from your task list in walking away. And leaving the state, perhaps that was even better in flipping the script.
You know you're healing from narc abuse when...
You remember that there are good people in the world and you relish one day finding your own special someone who might also think you one of the good people in the world.
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
lost in the Dark
"There is perhaps a moment in every life that something dark comes along. If we are not careful to recognize its life-damaging potential before it grips us, it can hold us for the rest of our lives. We can become addicted to that wound and use it forever as an identity card. We can turn that wound into sorrow and forsaken-ness, a prison of crippled identity." (John O'Donohue)
There is a tension presented here. On the one hand one has to fully feel and truly experience what happens when the darkness comes along, in order to heal. On the other hand we can linger in the dark without striking a match, without searching for a way out, without doing what we can to gain traction and heal.
And this is my daily battle. I struggle to do anything, everything to help myself out and heal and yet I know I must do the work. I've just never quite gotten the right tension with how much you do and how much you allow to happen and trust the path. In times past, when I've been in rhythm in life, my path seemed to find me of its own accord. I merely allowed it to happen.
But in this healing, I feel as though I'm spinning my wheels, going nowhere. I've made decisions in the face of the advising and my own gut speaking regarding said big choices. And somehow, even still, traction in healing and moving out of the dark seems to evade me.
I made the difficult choice to move away from my ex and my kids. And the colleague I had come to rely on as something akin to family and friend betrayed me a few weeks shy of my moving. In the face of my trusted advisers recommending I move all the same, I followed through with the trajectory. I left everything and everyone I've known for nigh on ten years. I hit the control, alt, delete button and started over.
And once again I stare at the bleak landscape of my life.
I know this nothingness is opportunity to reinvent myself, reinvent my life. The blank slate. I keep telling myself to conjure creativity and imagination. I keep kindling hope that some day things will be better. I keep putting one foot in front of the other in spite of my own impulse to just quit. Not, today, anyway. Tomorrow. You can always quit tomorrow. But I worry my identity has become crippled by the narcissist's wounding. I worry somehow I have lost my own story. I don't want him to be my story. I want to sing a song to the soul that can survive all even when it feels lost, wandering in the endless darkness and hope it finds its way.
But, instead, I just continue to feel lost.
There is a tension presented here. On the one hand one has to fully feel and truly experience what happens when the darkness comes along, in order to heal. On the other hand we can linger in the dark without striking a match, without searching for a way out, without doing what we can to gain traction and heal.
And this is my daily battle. I struggle to do anything, everything to help myself out and heal and yet I know I must do the work. I've just never quite gotten the right tension with how much you do and how much you allow to happen and trust the path. In times past, when I've been in rhythm in life, my path seemed to find me of its own accord. I merely allowed it to happen.
But in this healing, I feel as though I'm spinning my wheels, going nowhere. I've made decisions in the face of the advising and my own gut speaking regarding said big choices. And somehow, even still, traction in healing and moving out of the dark seems to evade me.
I made the difficult choice to move away from my ex and my kids. And the colleague I had come to rely on as something akin to family and friend betrayed me a few weeks shy of my moving. In the face of my trusted advisers recommending I move all the same, I followed through with the trajectory. I left everything and everyone I've known for nigh on ten years. I hit the control, alt, delete button and started over.
And once again I stare at the bleak landscape of my life.
I know this nothingness is opportunity to reinvent myself, reinvent my life. The blank slate. I keep telling myself to conjure creativity and imagination. I keep kindling hope that some day things will be better. I keep putting one foot in front of the other in spite of my own impulse to just quit. Not, today, anyway. Tomorrow. You can always quit tomorrow. But I worry my identity has become crippled by the narcissist's wounding. I worry somehow I have lost my own story. I don't want him to be my story. I want to sing a song to the soul that can survive all even when it feels lost, wandering in the endless darkness and hope it finds its way.
But, instead, I just continue to feel lost.
Monday, February 12, 2018
When and And
I abhor the existence in this world of contradictions. I just wish someone, could get it.
But that is far too much to ask, I'm pretty damn sure.
When you move out of state because somehow you can't move on in your life otherwise.
And yet, in your new locale you feel paralyzed because you're stuck in the old place you always longed to escape because little people are there.
When you leave because you don't feel safe--your dreams of someone strangling you in your sleep, keep you from sleeping.
And yet, everyone asks you why and how you think your kids might be safe there. And you really don't feel like explaining for the umpteenth time how image is everything to him and because of this you are banking on him not harming them.
When you feel nothing but judgment in making the horrific decision to leave, to abandon your own children in another state, with him, when that was the one thing you swore he'd never beat out of you. You'd die first.
And guilt eats you for dinner every night when you go on living, even though it feels like the only choice you could have made, but all the same you think daily of dying.
When you're pretty sure they think you to be the Narcissist.
And you're just so exhausted from all the years of dealing that you don't have the energy to argue or fight back and so you just accept it and hope some people eventually see the truth that is too exhausting to fight for.
But that is far too much to ask, I'm pretty damn sure.
When you move out of state because somehow you can't move on in your life otherwise.
And yet, in your new locale you feel paralyzed because you're stuck in the old place you always longed to escape because little people are there.
When you leave because you don't feel safe--your dreams of someone strangling you in your sleep, keep you from sleeping.
And yet, everyone asks you why and how you think your kids might be safe there. And you really don't feel like explaining for the umpteenth time how image is everything to him and because of this you are banking on him not harming them.
When you feel nothing but judgment in making the horrific decision to leave, to abandon your own children in another state, with him, when that was the one thing you swore he'd never beat out of you. You'd die first.
And guilt eats you for dinner every night when you go on living, even though it feels like the only choice you could have made, but all the same you think daily of dying.
When you're pretty sure they think you to be the Narcissist.
And you're just so exhausted from all the years of dealing that you don't have the energy to argue or fight back and so you just accept it and hope some people eventually see the truth that is too exhausting to fight for.
Sunday, January 14, 2018
A#*hole Things Narcs Say to their Own Children
Sure, I will cover all your expenses for your lovely sport, my dear, just figure out how to get yourself back and forth to practice thrice a week.... Being 13 years old doesn't matter. You can figure it out. There is always Uber.
Sure baby, you can have the new Guinea Pig, just figure out who will watch her when you are at your mom's house... cause I might want to go camping with my girlfriend.
Oh damn, you're performing on the Trumpet in front of crowd of 5500 that thinks you're genius at 10? OMG. I'm so you're doting Dad. I'll be there.
Oh wait, you made a "B?" You failed me. You're not my child. We only make "A"s.
Oh, you're a sensitive boy? I'm sorry, I don't do that.
Sure baby, you can have the new Guinea Pig, just figure out who will watch her when you are at your mom's house... cause I might want to go camping with my girlfriend.
Oh damn, you're performing on the Trumpet in front of crowd of 5500 that thinks you're genius at 10? OMG. I'm so you're doting Dad. I'll be there.
Oh wait, you made a "B?" You failed me. You're not my child. We only make "A"s.
Oh, you're a sensitive boy? I'm sorry, I don't do that.
Sunday, January 7, 2018
Leaving
Somehow my postage stamp sized flat feels empty after the Littles that are no longer littles leave and go back to my ex. The air weighs more. My abdomen becomes a den of squirming baby snakes. I want to climb out of my skin and float away. Instead there are things to do.
Lately life seems to be a freshly skinny dipped body ripe for swarming sand flies.
Lately life seems to be a freshly skinny dipped body ripe for swarming sand flies.
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Things I Remind Myself of When I Start to Waver
One. I swallowed the Red pill. This hell of being awake is still better than the hell of being in the delusional narc matrix.
Two. Even if I'm alone the rest of my damn life, true aloneness is still better than false togetherness which is really just hidden aloneness.
Three. The hidden, narcopalypses that will emerge along the path like trip wires and bouncing betties, start to form patterns. Take for example this Christmas. Predictably, when I have my kids and am engaged in being present to them, my ex will do something to sabotage the time. This is absolutely predictable. There will be a letter or email or phone call or text designed to wound me in some way. Since I've gone "minimal contact" it will be embedded in a communication that has the guise of being kid related. I therefore already have a plan. No opening of anything, no matter how "urgent" until my time with my kids is over.
Four. Focus on the progress. The rattling and emotional abuse used to throw me off for months at a time. Lost in the fog, I couldn't find my path or my way. Now, I'm thrown off for a few hours or a day and then back on track. Decreasing your being rattled time is progress.
Five. I swallowed the Red pill. I chose the Red pill. While it would be much more difficult to choose the Red pill if prior to swallowing I had the horrific knowledge from these past four years of this hellish Odyssey, even still, I would choose again to wake up and get the fuck out.
Two. Even if I'm alone the rest of my damn life, true aloneness is still better than false togetherness which is really just hidden aloneness.
Three. The hidden, narcopalypses that will emerge along the path like trip wires and bouncing betties, start to form patterns. Take for example this Christmas. Predictably, when I have my kids and am engaged in being present to them, my ex will do something to sabotage the time. This is absolutely predictable. There will be a letter or email or phone call or text designed to wound me in some way. Since I've gone "minimal contact" it will be embedded in a communication that has the guise of being kid related. I therefore already have a plan. No opening of anything, no matter how "urgent" until my time with my kids is over.
Four. Focus on the progress. The rattling and emotional abuse used to throw me off for months at a time. Lost in the fog, I couldn't find my path or my way. Now, I'm thrown off for a few hours or a day and then back on track. Decreasing your being rattled time is progress.
Five. I swallowed the Red pill. I chose the Red pill. While it would be much more difficult to choose the Red pill if prior to swallowing I had the horrific knowledge from these past four years of this hellish Odyssey, even still, I would choose again to wake up and get the fuck out.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
A Blessing for those Entrapped in Narcissistic Abuse
May you move with an ease that defies the web you find yourself in,
As you awaken in someone else's life and find your sticky spider feet again.
May the light of healing always find you,
As you trudge forward through the dark night of the soul.
May the love of the Ancestors, the history of the beautiful smatterings of humanity surround you and encompass you as you walk through another planet that utterly confuses you.
May the goodness of the Universe infuse your soul, binding it to all things compassionate, all things empathic, all things good, such that you taste kindness in the air around you.
May you sweat this same loving kindness that the Divine breathes on you always
such that you do not feel the flames of the hatred from one whom has no place for love.
Above all, may you find your way out of the deep, dark pain purported by an absent soulless being that has given itself up to the destruction embedded in the lie.
As you awaken in someone else's life and find your sticky spider feet again.
May the light of healing always find you,
As you trudge forward through the dark night of the soul.
May the love of the Ancestors, the history of the beautiful smatterings of humanity surround you and encompass you as you walk through another planet that utterly confuses you.
May the goodness of the Universe infuse your soul, binding it to all things compassionate, all things empathic, all things good, such that you taste kindness in the air around you.
May you sweat this same loving kindness that the Divine breathes on you always
such that you do not feel the flames of the hatred from one whom has no place for love.
Above all, may you find your way out of the deep, dark pain purported by an absent soulless being that has given itself up to the destruction embedded in the lie.
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
On Imagination
An awakened imagination enables you to inherit the riches of yourself--heart and soul. It enables you to find some of the outlines of the shape of your destiny. And it certainly is the only force of the heart that will enable you to carve from the dark slabs of fate some beautiful sculptures of possibility and healing and reconciliation.
--John O'Donohue
--John O'Donohue
Friday, November 10, 2017
Dear Woman I Never Knew
I don't know what to say to you except perhaps well, you got out. Sure you had to die to do so, but on some level I have come to see your passing as a kind of mercy, a severe one, but a mercy nonetheless. I've supposedly gotten out but alas it doesn't end. Your son, the one I was tethered to all those years, well it just doesn't matter that I moved away to escape, he continues to entangle me. And this, this is the sticking point. I've certainly thought about death, more as a means to escape than anything else. I don't necessarily want to die, its just I'm so tired of the endlessness of the emotional and psychological abuse. Hope as it turns out seems to be a terrible thing. For in spite of all the terrible things he has done to me over and over again, my brain stubbornly refuses to comprehend that someone like him can exist entirely without any compassion or empathy. He grows worse by the day. And in spite of me losing almost everything, he wants to suck more life out of me like a dementor. Why? He has already won a million fold over and over. He now has my children full time. Even still he wants to take more. He bullies. He stabs. He wishes me harm. All that to say, your murderer (your ex) whom fathered this thing that I was tethered to for so long, in so fathering spawned another alien just as his father spawned him. I wish I could say that your tragic death changed him--that he was able to rise above it and break the cycle of narcissist creating more narcissicism. But, I have no such news to write you. I fear for my children. I am hoping and praying that in spite of my not being able to be in proximity to them that they will somehow see through all these narcissistic enchantments and mirrors. I am hoping that I have somehow burdened them with overpowering tools that help them separate wheat from chaff, truth from lie. I pray that the narcissistic propaganda does not penetrate their spirits and souls. I pray that they hold onto compassion, empathy, hope, and kindness toward humanity and that they begin to recognize that there are things in proximity to them that are more alien than human. I'm so sorry that I failed you. When I first met him, I only wanted our relationship to be a source of healing from all of this shit for him. It still grieves me that he ultimately chose this path. They say that the narcissist cannot ever recover. But, alas I am cursed with microscopic hope that somehow this new mother figure in his life will somehow trigger healing in spite of the damning odds. And regardless of what happens with your son, I am hoping that the pattern ends with him.
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