It rings so true, I have failed, failed... to not recognise the aftermath of narcissist presences in my life over the years. I too have come to believe that after many years of abuse I too becasme narcissistic. COldand dead in way, but I had ameber...And yet I lacked a loving relationship that respected bounderaies and who were mostly poor listenerers, who devalued all that I tried to to achieve and found it hard to congartulate me while still being perceived as very strong, upstanding, and 'healthy' normal and fiunctioning relationships. Family mostly but then lovers too. I gave sex way to easily and longed to replace my N dad with an N man and longed to repeeat the cycles of my NARC family. I am Welsh heriatge and the Welsh have a 'small town' ethos that Villiage woman like my mother came form hard lifes where survival was key. So these woman used to give birth tow 8 or 10 babies.. my grandmother was in labour for two weeks, my grandmother carrried her 12pound baby round in labour for two weeks wearing nothing but a overcoat and big coal minders wife's boots. She was tough old bird. My mother had a toughness about her, she had to be tough to stay in control of the unstable household.. but she there and she had a warmth in her for her us.. that I am glad she had as that was enough to keep that warmth in me- a light that it looks for more light... but I confused that looking with sex and ultimately got sexual abuse and dysfunction and then landed up in myriad of relationships with NARC men, disgauarding the few nice guys for reasons that I do not understand and yet somehow I se the pattern forming of looking to replace one NARC with another, some violant, some verbally abusive and one major tenuos one,
& THE 7 YEAR ITCH...

A NARC, that forgave me for an infedelity that really I see now he pushed me away because his ifedilaty started first with out my real knowing.. and he sometimes liked to argue and debate, but nit as much with me becasue he didnthtink I had what it took... he found my level of conversation low grade... and sometimes he likes ot prove he was righ to mist people around him... and actually for the most part he was very clever and I liked his world view. But he was very poor when I met him and kater he made a fortune with his father and conquered the insurance market. So he was 'right' for a large part of the time to me and I didnt mind. Looking back I think he constructed a character, he became flawless, kind of even, non-resitant, too laid back now I think, should have been alarm bells ringing really.. I did what he liked me to do, in bed too. I wasn't too clingy and I played house. It was perfect like a dream for years. Then one day he looked me, dead-pan, no emotion, no facial gestures, just lights off... in my eye's and told me I had to leave, it was over and he kicked me out and I began to fall from grace like a ton of bricks... I know now I had PTSS. I was so numb. He looked at me that way and said that we had outgrown each other and was his voice was cold and dead. Who was thus perosn, I had never seen before ever... It was deeply shocking.. The history is very entwined and would make a book about how he has escape from a NARC-pyschopath man who lived in London who took advantage of his naivety and abused him and attacked him bith mentally and physcally... and it began as a business deal... He was over indugled as a child, told he was perfect and was given every presitguos award at shcool as a child. He got totally tricked by this eveil guy and then he brought all that anger back on me.. who knows maybe he was anrgy anyway, he though the was pretty special, he used to sit and watch others like they were specimens and I thought it was learned and cool. It was rude and arragont of course....
But he tortured me after we split up by 'calling' me in and out of his life whenever and how ever he wanted too.. and I did sexual things with him that I really didn't like and it made me feel sick after . HE insisted we stay friends and he bought me dinner once a week, while I cried like baby with him most of th time.. And he revelled in the powerof it. Two woman at his feet practically fighting over him. He though that was how it should be. He cared for neiter one of us and then he dumped us both after '7 years' each and married a Korean model straight away who was the 'kind of skinny' that he loved... he loved skinny little girls with no body hair anywhere.. ahhh... I can see it now..... sO i turned my self inside out and It got worse and worse until I was a v-thin, sick, unwell person. The END!!!

I nealry died thru drugs and then I got better after a very long time with 'limited' contact and still I believe he 'called' me 'psychically'... I know this might sound crazy to some but I honestly believe I have these dreams about him and they were so vivid that (I USED TOO) immeidatly (NOT NOW) and call him or text him. ONCE I had to write an imaginary letter as a 'chord attachment cutting' excercise becasue I couldn't let the 'dream' go. He was perfect, he had proved that, I remembered the perfect happy wonderful life, we never argued, he listened to me speak for hours and housr, withour interupting, putting me down, he always wanted to have' talk and share time' and he wanted to hear my music as I did his. I helped at his office, I washed his clothes and cleaned the house, he never told me that what I did was inadaquate. He flattered me very little and paid compliments when necessary and he only bought me gifts at xmas that I was not aloud to ask for, they had to be surprises... There were lots of very set rules and yet I still ;ook back and recall those days as the 'ideal' relationship

DEATH DRIVE..!

SO then after that I craved a new NARC, clever witty, intelligent, articulate,.. and I got one, made ther last one into a pussy cat.. MY husband the NARC is bigger than the boots have ever given him room for, I have become a new kind of PTSS..

I found out how someone could really crush you after the facade. I dont know these guys can really go to town. In my experience these men have the propensity to leave you in in a whirlwind that you dont understand or even have the power to make sense of or change rigth away, It takes time and you dream of stuff that will make you crazy.

Recognising the harm that these people do and taking them out of the lime 'light of there character' is an art itself..... But Its like this. they kinda use that method you use in acting when you 'hot-chair' a character and then work out all the stuff you are goin to use to present the qualities you think the 'audience' would like to hear about you chosen character to be. Its just like that!

Think of the NARC as a actor in his own play that your are tired of playing a roll init... You want a real person.. NARCS.. they present themselves as a 'product' or a 'system'. You 'buy' into it and then they set up your peramaters, they give you your lines and then you offfer to read them.... Then you have to be the part that fits into that system and you have to also want to fit into it. Your micro-cosm of a pre-existing-life is now neatly functioning within the macro-cosm of his life.. When it begins to fail because ultimately this symbiosis is not healthy or sustainable.... But for a while if you fit into it and do not revolt then it can feel like a complete dream, until the peramaters are reduced and reduced until you are suffocating, confused and bereft of a 'sense of your own being'. My current husband couldn't even give me the dream for long enough for the shambles he built to not just crumble around our ears pretty quickly... Telling me off for not straighenting the towels in the bathroom or for leaving a coffee cup somehwere or severely chastising me in one way or another for the 'state' of the house, day in , day out etc etc.. ( I had a small baby too that was ditressed and cried a lot, that needed constant nursing, and my boobs were falling off, it was very hard at times!!!! I was scared and frightend and then and now on a new kind of 'hyper-alert' all the time. I gained 40 pounds and held on tight to my child..

but yet I can still be haunted by memories or dreams or anything really of the facade. I want the facade. Its beckoning me. I want more abuse??? REALLY? NO I dont, so I heave myself back togther, part by part. If I can find all the parts and be strong knowing that I have been living a facade all of my life. Every connection has been with someone who is a NARC, or who is being affecetd by a NARC, or who is not a true NARC but that is affected by my life and the NARCS in it. I lived in the thinking that you need to be NARC in some fashion, to get ahead. I tired to be NARCY, by dressing sexually provocatively or trying to do stuff for men that I didn't really want to do. Or trying to be cool and making a fool of myself time and time again, because really I was an awkward uncomfortable girl trying to get in with the 'cool' crowds for attnetion and connection, getting nothing and even less than nothing in the end. BUT I know now that you most certainly do not have to be anything for anyone..No way, No longer the first class idiot - chameleon . I think if you dont open your eye's and SEE.. FEEL the damage and the cycles and let peace and love grow in your heart in 'YOUR RELATIONSHIP' with 'YOURSELF'.. then you basically got nothing. The relationship you form with your self is the only one you can have to bring about the real happiness and change you are 'looking' for. Iw as looking of rlove and accpetance etc, but I was a child then and I didnt have the guidnace to know that I could rasie the 'love' I needed in my own life. I could have maybe rescpected myself better if I had known that a bit better...

Its key that all of us here to break the cycles what ever they are and look like, scratch our way out of the ditch if not already out... and reach out for hope and peace in a place that is about you and your healing and not about anymore of anybody elses pain.

AND YOU CANT HELP YOUR NARCS!!? there Finger are on there own Self desruct button for a reason...

We are empaathic woman who can nuture and give but we also have to learn to ask for the same in retrun from our relationships with others. No more living the past of dysfunction and destructive love. If thats the only kind of love available then I am happy to stick to finding the light and lighting it bright in my self...

Thanks B. You are a life save in very real terms...

Remember all that if anyone gets tempted to undo the 'NC' with your NARC, that the facade is NOT.. I REPEAT.. NOT REAL!!!!

:-D
:-D
V

This is the problem I realized I was having and still do sometimes. I think I love him, but it's the fantasy guy because I feared feeling that deep loneliness.This was good for me to read today. Thanks.

"This type of imaginary love is a real problem for many adult children of narcissists (ACONs). It can be incredibly difficult to admit to yourself that you don’t love your narcissist parent or that they don’t love you. It seems to go against nature to make that admission. I see many ACONs insisting to themselves that they love their N mom or N dad despite the decades of ill treatment they’ve received from her or him. The ACON isn’t ready to give up the idea of having a loving parent, so the ACON must pretend they love this abusive parent in order to justify staying connected. They are willing to pretend that their mommy or daddy really loves them “deep down” though they don’t recognize they are having to imagine the love they “see” coming from their parent."

This paragraph jumped out for me, my mother died when I was 22, she did have strong N traits but during illness and her decline to death she had showed remorse and regret for her behaviours. I am 44 now and it has taken me all these years to finally face up to who my mother really was. I now understand why I have been in so many abusive relationships too - trying to re-work the fantasy that I did not allow to die all those years ago with my mother. Her abusers remorse during her final year of life while I nursed her actually did me a disservice.

I am a great believer in healing childhood/adolescent wounds and understanding the reality of who our parents were/are in order to move forward into healthy relationships NOW!

Thank for posting this Barbara.

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"The deeper that sadness carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." ~ Kahlil Gibran

http://www.storyofmylife.com/KLARITY4

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The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. - Gloria Steinem