The Hoover I kinda missed

Hi All

Its been a while since I posted, but I read every day and gain enormous solace, support, guidance (and humour) from this site.
So here is my moment to share.

It came - the hoover.

I nearly missed it.

I never answer my personal mobile phone unless I know the person calling, and because I deleted everything to do with exn after joining this forum late last year and felt pretty certain I wouldn't hear from him again, didn't think I had anything to worry about. I blocked him on facebook and email and left it at that.

I had a missed call a couple of days ago from a number I didn't recognise but had some vague familiarity about it. Ive been away from work for a few days, and when I got back, dug out my old work diary from last year. Sure enough, its his number.

I was kinda scared about how I was going to feel, was I going to get all manic, crazy making, spin out, upset, meltdown etc etc.

But then what I felt was...........nothing.

No spin, no what ifs, no trying to mind read or waste any precious energy wondering why.

Text book narc trying to fish. - Yawn. Finally

Then I felt a surge of anger.

Not the type where you get angry at yourself and want to self harm with alcohol, drugs, or smoking (which I gave up earlier this year - yay!), or stuffing my mouth full of chocolate or getting down on myself or all the other destructive things I used to do to cope with bad feelings.

I felt the kind of self righteous, directed anger towards the narc which felt pure and white and cleansing. Not anger that connects me to this two dimensional thing that I thought was human, but a clear and very real sense of pure release to the intended target, energy transferred away from me and dissolved into the ether. Whoosh - like a gust of wind.

Its a kinda sad indictment on the whole narc bulldust that you can spend a long time in la la land with cognitive dissonance, future faking, white knight fantasies, broken soul and fractured heart and still want to believe that there is hope that maybe he has learnt his lesson, maybe he realises what he lost blah blah blah. This is the bloody hard work you need to wade through.

For me, even though I read through pages and pages of his sleazy emails to various women over a period of time when we were supposedly 'engaged', double crossing,lying, projecting, and basically being a First Class A'hole, and even though I kicked him out in September last year, I was the one who initiated contact with him in the November during a period of nostalgia to try and arrange to meet up.

No mind that I ended up in hospital with heart problems, or that I allowed him to live in my home and opened him up to my life and friends and hopes and dreams. Never mind that he was a nasty, abusive, mind-fucking dragon clothed in the smooth european tall dark handsome package.

No, I was completely hypnotised into believing that wishful thinking delusion that maybe it was probably all my fault. I'd been too demanding, hadn't tried hard enough, not been in tune, sensitive to his needs, too independent, too tall, short, fat, blond, brunette, vegetarian, agnostic, musical whatever whatever whatever we blame ourselves with for not being 'enough'.

And then the ultimate insult of having your very being in the world denied. Your sense of self, hope, trust and reality completely annihilated. Why did this happen? Surely this proves I am profoundly faulty.

It wasn't until I found this site and read the posts and links for hours and hours and hours until my eyes were square - and really understood what had happened to me that I could start to join the dots. This takes time to absorb.
It wasn't until I was able to get over the crippling physical and somatic complaints I was beset with, as well as chronic anxiety and distress, and then yet another layer of lies became clearer to me.

Each nasty, painful realisation or situations between us, disparaging comments, silent treatment, body language, souls mates rubbish, red flags, popping into my head at all sorts of random points throughout this process, made me sick enough to vomit.

Ive been working really hard and getting some really good professional support with understanding trauma symptoms, triggers and how to manage them and the strong feelings that they can produce. I am still a long way from whole, although I do have moments of pure bliss in my life, where I know that I can trust that things will get better.

But without this site and the sage advice of those brave women and men who have shared their experiences, there is no way I would have got this far. It is hard to describe this wonderful sense of expansion I now have in my heart and soul, that I am going to be ok. I can see reality now.

The roots of this pain are issues I am continuing to deal with, but that reptile no longer has rent-free space in my head. I am stronger than I ever knew I could be, and I am bloody proud of myself.

There will be no ruminating or analysing. I came home tonight, took my dogs for a walk in the cool winter air, cooked some dinner, did some horticulture assignments, and I feel at peace!

Things are definitely getting better and I am going to sleep well tonight.

Blessings to you all, and much gratitude.