Day 20. Freewriting. I messed up. I had a few conversations before doing my freewriting. I dunno what compelled me to side-step. So the below is still relevant to share for the larger goal of exposing [my] mental wellness, but it is not pure. It’s NOT my first waking thoughts. I’ll share my current thoughts anyway…
I’m not a licensed physician or therapist. I’d most likely fail with technical terms but I’d knock it out of the park with experience. The below is by no means a DO THIS AND LIVE HAPPY. No. I’m sharing my personal experience. My views. My reasonings and my mindset… Everyone is different. I think it’s sad that I feel the need to frame my words before unleashing. This is my blog after all. Anyways…
My abusers could have any number of things wrong with them. I try not to label with anything other than HUMAN but for healing purposes, labelling is kind of necessary to know what to do. Generally speaking, I chose to focus on mental wellness and put the responsibility on the individual. Everyone is responsible for their own wellness. Everyone is able (though sometimes not willing) to take ownership of their actions. If they are not happy with the person they are, then change. Nothing is stopping anyone from improving themselves. Talking about abuse is difficult. It’s embarrassing. It’s painful. It’s not easy to consciously make myself vulnerable when I’m still in the process to heal from something that was so… exposing. I’ll try my best to keep it clear but my mind is racing a mile a minute. I’m thinking about how to talk about this without outting my abusers. I’m trying to be sensitive to my own journey. I’m trying to figure out exactly how any of my words will end up coming back to me (remember mentally unwell people can twist just about anything). This is why anyone worth speaking to would just say the best way to deal with narcissists is to NOT deal with narcissists. (No Contact is a thing because it’s saved lives).
Seeking help – being a recipient (I HATE hate HATE the word victim), I never want to acknowledge that I have danced with the devil. Nothing positive has EVER come from talking about it. Narcissism is a special type of evil. Society (general terms) waters down the term by calling people who take selfies ‘narcissists’. Not helpful. The therapists I’ve dealt with gave advice that would pretty much get me killed, physically – most probably and spiritually – 100%. Not helpful. Turning to family or a trusted friend, usually results in ‘You are just being sensitive’. Not helpful. Narcissism is basically death by 1000 papercuts. It’s easier to find coping mechanisms to deal than it is to try to explain what is happening. For the less aware, it’s so debilitating that it’s absurd. My early years of abuse, it would take me a month to recover from a single episode (fight). Over the years, I’ve been able to reduce my rebound to 3 days. For spot the narc (dating purposes), used to take me 3 weeks, now I’m able to figure it out in 2 conversations. I’m pretty good at identifying the grooming process.
I have so much experience with narcissism that I can fill a book (that’s kind of the purpose of my alignment book) but anyways, below are some reasons why I haven’t talked about my abuse… until recently. Examples that have backfired:
- 2004 – Calling the police for domestic violence, I was arrested and had court-appointed community service. I learned coping mechanisms were more productive than calling the police. Malignant Narcissist.
- 2009 – Standing up to an abuser and calling them out on a threat. The abuse escalated from verbal to a loaded gun in my face in about 3 minutes. I learned the heavy consequences of dealing with temperamental people. Malignant Narcissist.
- 2013 – Dating. I was open about limitations. The guy wanted to prove me wrong (I bruised his ego). I allowed it and paid a heavy price. (read his apology letter here). I learned to trust my intuition and only trust their actions. Malignant Narcissist.
- 2017 – Dating. Sharing my story, gave him a freaking roadmap for deception. I’ll save specifics for another post but this was my first and hopefully last Covert Narcissist.
Making friends – When I’m in the reprogramming stage of healing, I’m not 100% sure of who is sincere and who is playing around. Sarcasm is not appreciated because it actually reinforces the abuse. Narcissism attacks what I perceive to be truth (gaslighting will literally make you feel like crazypants). So if I know the sky is blue. The narc will tell me it’s green. Then an independent sarcastic person will also say it’s green and now I’m questioning reality. Maybe the sky is actually green. Going deeper, if my abuser says something like “Who did you Fu@k to get that job?” and then a sarcastic person says “You’re hot, I’m sure you can get any job you want!” is not well received. Another example, if my abuser says “The world would be better without you, go kill yourself” and then a sarcastic person says “Just die already” is not well received. As far as I’m concerned sarcasm is rude. I wish people were more aware of the importance of language. Direct Messages are dangerous because this is perfect for grooming. I created a new social media, specifically for my writing. I ended up with over 100 followers within a few weeks. In an effort to build the community of supportive writers, I’ve been sending out ‘thank you for following me messages’. Usually, that encourages engagement for my work. On a rare occasion, I get someone asking directly “Who hurt you”. This is asked as grooming. (It’s never appropriate to ask who hurt you, it’s insensitive and rude). They want to know how to approach me and test the waters on preconditioned abuse. Basically, they already think I’m lacking love, but depending on how I answer they will continue the grooming process accordingly. Older guys love finding someone with daddy issues. Similar aged guys will look for recently broken-up or family issues. Basically, these are the bottom of the barrel guys looking for an easy target. So showing a tiny bit of attention tends to go further for preconditioned women as opposed to non-preconditioned women. (This is one of the reasons why I would delete comments that even hinted that I was going through troubles. Narcs can sniff that stuff out real quick and I already have a target on my back so why help them?). Don’t take the bait and trust the energy. If it’s cloudy, walk away. If I want to play, I set a boundary and see how they react. [friendships and relationships]. If it’s a straight apology then they can stay in my space. If it’s an apology with excuse/justification/’well you offended me’ then delete and walk away. No time for petty. And mentally well people are NOT petty. Worth pointing out that abused people generally just give out love, pure love. Depending on where they are in their healing journey, there is a softer approach. They know what it feels like so they breathe before interacting with others. No questions, just love. If I want to talk, I talk. If I don’t, then just send love. Easy. Lots of love.
Mental healing (Re-wiring / re-programming) – if someone breaks their leg, you see the injury and can track the healing. If someone has a broken heart, you see the tears and can kind of track the healing. If someone has messed up my perception of reality… this is an invisible wound that is kind of difficult to express, understand, and track progress. I lived with a covert narcissist for 2 months before I realised what he was. That’s 2 months of programming. Again, narcissist abuse is death by 1000 cuts. Since he wasn’t physical, it was difficult to pinpoint. Professionally, is a different game. My guard is always up and my heart is not involved so it’s easy to figure out and stay the course. It’s when my heart is involved that it’s dicey. My intimate (heart/emotional) experience with narcissists has been verbal and physical abuse so this mental fuckery was unexpected and really threw me for a loop. I didn’t realise that I was being pulled into a storm. My fault for lack of awareness (I’m taking responsibility, he’s the mentally unwell person, but I cannot control him, I can only fix myself). Lesson learned.
I have to run to breakfast so shutting down this freewriting session. I guess abuse is my easy topic. 1400+ words in an hour. Strong flow…
#WhyIwrite #MentalWellness #NarcAbuse #Narcissist #Abuse #Grooming #Gaslighting #Sarcasm #Healing #JourneyToPeace