Narcissist Recovery Blog

It is easy to forget the many blessings we have, which is why Thanksgiving is such an important time to cherish all we have to be grateful for in life. The present truly is a gift to be cherished. An attitude of gratitude can change your life.

When I stop in the moment and ask myself if I'm ok, I realize I'm not starving, I'm not oppressed and I'm not a prisoner of war somewhere. I'm in a safe place and have much to be grateful for in life.

We have to stop allowing ourselves to slip away from the present moment. Did you know that ALL of our anxiety comes from worrying about the future or regretting the past?

This little saying helps me re-focus when I find myself struggling to stay in the moment:

Yesterday is History
Tomorrow, a Mystery
Today is a Gift

PD's are known for black and white thinking.

Some of them like to come across as easy going, a great friend, and person. The truth of the matter is that PD's are quite rigid in their thinking and their actions. They know exactly what they DO or DO NOT want from you. You are either IN or OUT and this can "appear" to change like the wind. This is why it feels so intense to the receiver. When you are IN it is all encompassing and when you are out it feels like you have been hit by a cold front. The contrast can be startling the first time you experience this.

“That which is to give light
Must endure burning.”
---Viktor Frankel

One day you wake up and you’re a skeleton.
You want to paste back on the substance that was you but you can’t find it in the ashes.
You reach in and pull out dust.
This is when you begin to understand that this is somehow the truth you were meant to find as a little girl who just wanted to be loved. This experience, this dance with the devil that scaled you down to the bones happened because it needed to. All of the things that brought you to the dance floor in the first place must be examined, turned over, and illuminated. You so want to find the light. You’ve been lost in the dark for so long...

This is when the little voice whispers, wimpers, mumbles, rumbles.
This is when you rise...

A PD's behavior often comes across as a series of contraditions and it is often difficult to sort it all out.

A PD is a personality disorder, it is not a choice, and is ingrained into the personality and has become part of the makeup of the person.

We especially as women, are trained to be caregivers, problem solvers, and have big hearts and souls which basically believe that with enough LOVE anything is possible. Just watch a few love stories or Disney movies and everything, no matter how bad, most always has a happy ending and love pervails. Love got Heidi's grandfather off the mountain. Love helped the little girl to walk again. Love cures alcholism, sexual orientation, and changes the bad into good in the movies which we watched when we were kids.

This is an excellent article from "Psychology Today" that helps us understand how the narcissist perpetuates his own worst fear - being alone - by the way he responds to the people in his life who care about him the most.

"Blaming and excessively criticizing others to shore up an extraordinarily vulnerable ego--and reacting antagonistically in the face of anything regarded as critical of themselves--they keep others at a distance that renders any true intimacy impossible. The way they "set things up" in relationships, particularly intimate relationships, makes their self-created dilemma unsolvable."