Stuck in the Loop

I`ve been checking out Elizabeth Kübler-Ross`s "Five Stages of Grief" in the last few days. For anyone unfamiliar with her work, it describes the process of somebody confronted with a terminal illness in terms of five "Stages of Grief": Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.

E.K.R. points out that these five stages of the process are equally applicable to somebody faced with any other trauma, for example, loss of employment or the ending of a relationship.

She also notes that everyone`s "passage of grief" is different; some people may not go through all these stages, or go through them in a different order while others may become "stuck" in one of them (for example, depression). Moreover, someone who moves on to a new stage before having fully completed the previous one may then return to the previous stage or even "cycle" for some time between the two (for example, we may return to Anger or even Denial when Bargaining does not work).

When we consider the Five Stages of Grief (or their extended version: Shock, Denial, Immobilisation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance),we see that some of the stages - for example, denial or anger - are a way of fighting the inevitable, and are thus active. Others, such as depression or acceptance, are a way of resigning oneself to the inevitable, and are thus passive. And between the active and the passive phases of this emotional roller-coaster ride, we have phases of inertia, numbness, emotional or even physical paralysis. The ride itself, this terrible cycle between revolt and resignation, between fight and flight, between heartbroken unbelief and blind fury, is so exhausting we can do little else. Yet ultimately, in a "normal" process of grieving, this "rocking" gradually becomes less and less violent, until it eventually comes to a standstill

However, I think survivors from a relationship with a narc. are particularly susceptible towards becoming "stuck in the loop" because of the narcissist`s tendency towards "splitting". Splitting basically means seeing everything as black or white, with no grey shades. For example, the narcissist idealizes us, then devalues us. He wants to marry us, then he never wants to see us again. We are the best thing that ever happened to him, or the worst, he loves us or he hates us, we are good or bad, Madonna or whore, his soulmate or his scourge, all-important or totally irrelevant, he worships us one minute and spits on us the next.

I don`t know if anyone else was able to put up with this and still maintain a reasonably stable state of equilibrium. I certainly wasn`t. When my narc. screamed he hated me, I screamed I hated him right back. And when he came around again and wanted to be nice, I melted in his arms and told him how much I loved him. Little by little, I took on his imbalance. Over the course of two years, he CONDITIONED me to cycle. He conditioned me to cycle so effectively that I continued to cycle even when he wasn`t there. And I went on cycling even after I left him, like one of those kids toys weighted at the bottom, which go on rocking back and forth, back and forth when you push them once.

Hoovering is his way of continuing to condition us to cycle, his way of keeping the toy rocking. With hoovering he keeps in place the imbalance he began with D&D. He is still the one in control as long as he is rocking the toy. Even if he does not hoover, and we are secretly wishing he would, or believing that we are somehow inferior to those who ARE hoovered - he is rocking the toy. If he doesn`t hoover, and we are afraid he might start, if we`re getting strange calls or texts or feeling spied on or controlled by third parties - he is rocking the toy. And as long as we are rocking, we are stuck in the loop. We cannot come to Being, because we are still Reacting.

What is more, we continue to react even if the stimulus is no longer there, because that is what the narc. has conditioned us to do. Like Pavlovs dogs, we salivate when the bell rings, even though there`s no food in sight, because living with the narc`s imbalance has rewired, reprogrammed even our reflexes. Stuck in the loop of anger and pain, or the numbness between, we cannot come to Acceptance, and subsequently cannot grieve.

NC gives us a "safe zone" in which to work out these crazy cycles until the rocking stops by itself, as it inevitably will when we cease allowing the narc. to rock us. And it gives us a peaceful haven, a kind of asylum for us to unsnarl the narcs` rewiring and reprogramming at our own pace. NC gets us out of the loop and brings us to acceptance. Acceptance for us means "It.Is.Over". Not "what if...?". Not "maybe...." or "if only". Not "Was he" or "Why did he" or "Maybe I should have" either, though asking these questions is a critical step on the path of undoing the narc`s conditioning. Acceptance is, "It.Is.Over". Then, and only then, can we really begin to grieve.

Sorry this was long, hope it is useful and Love to my sister narc.-survivors wherever they may be!

Tigerlily