Narcissist Recovery Blog

I've been doing a lot of research lately for purposes of the new website and recovery book. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), there are 10 Personality Disorders. Mental health professionals group these personality disorders into one of three clusters based on similar characteristics.

Guess what they all have in common with one another? All Personality Disordered Invdividuals (PDIs) are:

MANIPULATIVE
CONTROLLING
SELFISH

They seek out relationships in order to use people to meet their own needs. Nothing more, but certainly nothing less.

When getting over a narcissist, I believe we must go through a process of obsessing about our experience and over-analyzing it before we can move on.

Our minds must make sense of the chaos and trauma we experienced (i.e. emotional abuse)at the hands of the person we love.

Each of us needs to find an outlet in which to give creative expression and form to what we experienced. To give it some structure and organization so that we can file it away and put it to rest once and for all. For me, this outlet was my book and my music CD.

Once we are able to process the experience, the obsessive thoughts should lessen, but ONLY if we allow ourselves to FEEL.

Fierflie makes an excellent point:

This article does a great job of describing some of us to a tee. I definitely consider myself an Empath. This article helps explain not only why we are drawn to narcissists, but why we are magnets to them as well.

"Real empaths feel too much. Real narcissists don’t seem to feel anything, or at least not in regard to others’ feelings. Showing your vulnerable side to a narcissist in an attempt to explain how his or her behavior might be hurtful will just invite more abuse."

Catching-up on the board, I noticed a discussion about what the Bible says about Narcissism. While I am not a religious person, I am very spiritual. In response to this recent post, I thought I should point out that the Bible refers to Narcissism as Unrighteous Dominion - The Abuse of Power. Here's a copy and paste from my book on this very topic:

This temptation to exercise unrighteous dominion exists in any situation where one is in a position of power or influence. It can occur at school, work, church, your community and in homes and families. A man who practices unrighteous dominion in his home single-handedly destroys the self-esteem of his wife and children. He may not even realize he is abusing his power, but simply knows no other way to behave.

I'm so grateful we found one another and I strongly believe God led us to one another as well. I am not a religious person, but I am very spiritual and I belive in a higher power, a higher energy that makes the sun come up every day. It's our job to tap into that energy that exists within ourselves. We all posess the energy to make the sun come up in our lives every day. Tapping into that energy inside us is something we will help each other do by working the steps and supporting one another.