Great Post!
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Great blog for those who’ve been in a relationship with a narcissist… and really even if you haven’t been in a relationship with a narcissist, society (especially society in media) can be narcissistic or experienced that way, and these tips, ideas and ‘mind hacks’ are useful in life in general.
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Awareness is key… the key to ourselves and our well being.
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The most important relationship in your life is the one which you have with yourself.
Nurture that relationship… nurture yourself!
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Thank you for sharing!.
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Brilliant blog, from a talented blogger and beautiful soul!
One of the hardest things about narcissistic abuse and going no contact, is getting to that point in time where we cross the line from WANTING the narcissist to love us & being devastated by the feelings that they don’t, along with everything that means to us and ACCEPTING that they are entirely and forever incapable of it.
Whether or not we loved ourselves before we met a narcissist, is irrelevant. The fact is, we were sold on the idea that a narcissist did love us in a grandiose narc fashion, then they went about the business of abusing us. In that abuse, they also relentlessly verbally berated us, insidiously blamed us over and over again, sending us the message that somehow the abuse was our fault and that we were not worthy of anything more.
By the time we wise up and decide to put them behind us, the…
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An Upturned Soul 
Thank you so much for your insights on recovering from narcissistic abuse. The ‘ABSENT FATHER AND THE DEVOURING MOTHER’ post totally explained my FOO (family of origin). My father was alcoholic, and may have been NPD as well, at least strongly in that direction, and my mother codependent, inverted narc tendencies.
Have you ever heard of the term limerence? If not, it is worth reading about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence
An ordeal I have had with someone for many years, made me realize that I was suffering from limerence. Long story short, from the support groups I have been involved with, this condition seems to typically happen when someone from a dysfunctional FOO falls in love with someone that is NPD or has narcissistic tendencies. Typically there is chemistry (narc and limerent person both on same ‘wavelength’) and there is physical/sexual attraction. Most cases the person is at a low in their life, and then comes the prince/princess all flirty.
Its like you become a willing & constant supply of fresh meat and blood to a devouring shark, which you cant see since you have them on a pedestal, and typically want to fix them (this aspect is what really made me fall for them), since you think they will fix you once you ‘have’ them. Its a validation dance. In all fairness, the person who you are limerent for, typically is a projection of a primary care giver. Its the same as someone being attracted to a person’s vibe just like their abusive parent. Anyone who has suffered through the insanity of limerence, or similar, it can be life changing (in that the pain and insanity it creates forces you to look inward and get help). For me it was so bad that I literally could not talk, breathe and would get panic attacks around this person. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence#Physical_effects The effects are (were) completely involuntary. Very embarrassing in a professional work environment. Subsequently I found out that this was due to PTSD being bought up from my childhood. Some have even suggested that limerence is a defense mechanism 🙂
Having been able to understand that the person I was dealing with was a narc (a strong candid for NPD maybe) and that I have been playing the victim and being a bit inverted narc myself has helped me come to terms with my FOO issues and heal more.
Anyways, thank you again.
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Thank you 🙂
That’s very interesting, I’ve never heard the term ‘Limerence’. I love learning new things!
I have read up on ‘love’, studies of it both psychological, philosophical, etc. I found the work of Thomas Moore, particularly his book on ‘Soul Mates’ very insightful. Relationships are always a complex blending of so many things from both sides, and there is always more than just you and the other person in the interaction, always more than just two people in the relationship. Their family and your family are always a part of it even if the actual family members are not physical a part of it – they are there within you.
We are often unknowingly attracted to the same dynamic we had in our childhood, with our parents, the first people with who we had a relationship, because that is where we learned to relate, that is where we learned about ‘love’ and other people, and the part we play for them and the part they play for us.
Through relationships we work through our ‘issues’, we discover ourselves, and the other person is doing the same as us, so… complications ensue.
The most important relationship we have in our lives, is the one we have with ourselves, because that influences all our other relationships… one of the ways we learn to have a relationship with ourselves is by having relationships with others. Being human is a complex mess. Being with other humans makes being human even more messy and complex.
It’s wonderful to hear that you are figuring your story out, isn’t it an amazing feeling to have the confusion clear and to understand, to have an AHA! moment, even if it is sometimes very uncomfortable.
PTSD can be subtle, insidious, and we may not realise we have it because we may associate it with only those who have suffered something horrific, like a war and the experiences of war, and we don’t always realise what ‘something horrific’ may be for us, what wars we’ve experienced in our own life because they are not ‘obvious’ wars… especially if we grew up with ‘something horrific’, a family at war, and have come to view it as ‘normal’.
Thank you very much for sharing, you’ve given me a lot of food for nourishing thought!
Best wishes ❤
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yes indeed. Have read that when you undergo ‘falling in love’ the body is chemically acting in the same way as when you formed maternal/paternal bonding when you were a baby/young child, except geared towards finding a sexual reproductive partner. Freud was on to something.
Its deep because falling in love really hits you to the core. And discovering that people that have been able to lead me on, avoidant and emotionally unavailable have triggered this in me, has really made me look into how I became this way. Its like something in me seeked this out, like if I could just get reciprocation/attention, win this person over, I will be ok. So it is really not about the person, but the projection you put on them.
The attraction/chemistry is a state of escapism like a drug (and being ‘in love’ is the drug). It becomes limerence when the ‘games’ start, the narcissistic tendencies come out in both parties. The LO (limerent object, the person you are attracted to), is typically a narcissistic person who gets their validation & supply from the attention, and the knowing that they are adored and on a pedestal. Likewise, myself I am manipulating and bending over backwards to ‘get’ this person, and it becomes, like I mentioned, a validation dance of 2 dysfunctional people, lol. Limerence in many ways is related to love addiction and other addictions, where the drug is in the chase/games/reciprocation, since both parties are too insecure or dysfunctional to deal with addressing the ‘vibe’/awkwardness between them. In my case when I had concrete reciprocation (after building up the nerve to finally get a lunch date), my limerence faded, and I realized that I didnt really want to be involved with this person! But of course it came back again, until I finally got into recovery after much pain and drama. It is humbling to see how much I was manipulated, yet I also manipulated too.
My view & experience is that addictions arise from inadequate childhood bonding. My former substance abuse and limerence came from that ‘hole’ inside where as long as I was seeking gratification from external things, that I would never be happy, since it will never be enough. That hole was due to the feeling that I had to earn love, not getting the validation that I needed as a young child, along with trauma that occurs inside an alcoholic household. My parents, did the best they could, since they were passing down to me, what was done to them. I don’t blame them, yet understanding where my destructive tendencies come from has empowered me and allowed me to discharge anger and rage (in a healthy way) that I had to keep stuffed inside growing up. This has also allowed me to put up better boundaries with family members, since those thinking patterns dormant in my head can get triggered again if I am not careful.
Before I go, wanted to also share this passage from ‘The Afterlife of Billy Fingers’ (http://vividlife.me/ultimate/45356/the-world-is-your-oyster/):
‘Soon, Billy’s voice came through the wind:
The world is your oyster
The world is your oyster
And in the oyster shell you will find
Many pearls
Pearls of Wisdom
When I say, “the world is your oyster,” it sounds pretty good, right? Like all these gorgeous pearls will just be coming your way and you’ll be living on so-called easy street. But the saga of the oyster and the pearl is more complicated than it first appears. The pearl only happens when sand gets inside an oyster and irritates it.
The world is my oyster? Full of irritation? What kind of blessing is that?
I know. You’d like to just la-di-da through life, easy does it, instead of being stuck with a sandy oyster (laughs). If I give you Billy’s prescription for making pearls, would you like that?
Yes, I know, the irritation doesn’t feel good, but without it there would be no pearl. Don’t focus too much on the irritation. Try to relax about the sand. If you deal with the sand creatively, you’ll have a gorgeous treasure.’
All the best, and thank you again for your writings! 🙂
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
I can’t speak for anyone else, however… ha!… I’m fairly certain most people know how a pearl is made. We just tend not to consider how an oyster views a pearl, versus how humans view it, and metaphors… have a life of their own.
We find the stories, songs, philosophies, which reflect our own and then go with them, see where they lead for us…
Have you ever read ‘The Pearl’ by John Steinbeck… now that is a way to look at a pearl which is deeply disturbing… or very inspirational, depending on how you look at it.
Life is very much about perception… 🙂
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I will go and read it but if the abusers were one’s parents, it is hard initially because they need the child around to abuse so they feel better about themselves. When the child runs and keeps going they have a hole. The good news is the abusers find other people to abuse, like nurses, domestic helpers and other paid people. It is hard to leave parental abusers because they spend years programming their children to accept their crap. Your site and others like it aid in the child (who at this stage is an adult) in packing their bag and running, running, running.
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I agree that the situation is more complex and harder to sort out when the abusers are also the child’s parents. That has been one of my greatest frustrations in my own story. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone, an outsider of the family, say to me – but your parents love you… And my parents used that one to keep me trapped. They still use that one. Love becomes synonymous with abuse – which is why we accept the levels of abuse which we do before we say ‘I’ve had enough of this crap!’.
The training and programming children of abusers receive is insidious. I’ve managed to reprogram and retrain myself, basically by throwing everything I was lead to believe out and having to start from scratch, but I still come across places where it’s there working its way subtly through my system, jamming up my logic and keeping me hostage. My blog has helped me a lot to find the areas where I’m still stuck in an old program.
I like the writing on After Narcissistic Abuse because, although it is mainly aimed at people who have come from ‘healthy’ families who later in life found themselves in an abusive relationship, its focus is on empowering the abused, showing that we are not helpless or powerless even if we think, feel and believe that we are. It speaks to us about what we can do for ourselves to help ourselves and give ourselves personal power.
Of course not everything is going to work, we need to assess whether something can be applied to our personal situation, we need to understand our own dynamic. But some things are universal and one of those is to focus our attention on taking care of ourselves because no one else can do that. And until we do that we will more than likely keep repeating our old ways whether we want to or not. Or at least that’s what I’ve witnessed with myself.
There is nothing we can do about our abusers, they are the way they are and are not going to change because they think we’re the problem, whereas we know that they are the problem. We can’t fix them, we can’t fix the relationship with them, but we can heal ourselves and we have many options on how we do it. The more options for healing we give to ourselves, the more we show ourselves what real love is all about.
Thank you for sharing 🙂
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Thank you for your response to my comment. It is very hard as a 68 year old to go through yet another break-up with this man. Very embarrassing. I am trying to hold onto the integretity I have left. It is hard when I want so badly to lash out…send him every one of your blogs that fit him to a “T”. I have resisted. There is a book that helped me a few years ago….”The Gentle Art of Blessing” by Pierre Pradervand. In the most convoluted way it helped me reconcile with him after an eight year seperation(he married the woman he cheated on me with) and I used the blessing to forgive him and let go of the past…..things were great until I found out he was continuing his pattern and was engaging in yet another inappropriate “email” relationship and had been for many months. Of course I was devastated but forgave him and yet again gave him the benefit of the doubt. I hang onto Pradervand’s writings on “integrity”. I have fallen short many times fate being “shut-off” and “shut-out” by this man. I so want to have him out of my mind and soul. He was in my face, “24/7” for the past 15 years. I am a cute, smart, vibrant , spiritual woman…..how do I ever “let go” and get him out of me??????
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Forget about the ’embarrassment’, and forgive yourself for not being ‘perfect’. Remember you’re human, perfection is a human illusion, and cut yourself lots of slack for that. When dealing with the aftershocks of a relationship with a narcissist, the gentler you are with yourself, the better you’ll feel about it… and that is a huge influence in letting go and moving on.
Sometimes we hang onto people, relationships, not because of them but because of ourselves. We seek to forgive and forget… them, when what we really need to do is forgive ourselves for forgetting ourselves. For putting them first, their needs and wants, over ourselves… and we’re mad at them for what we did to ourselves for their benefit, and they don’t appreciate our sacrifice… well, neither do we.
You did what you did, made the choices you made, did the best that you could, tried to do better than that… give yourself credit for that, don’t be embarrassed by it. Your integrity has not suffered, it is exactly as it has always been – whole, integral to who you are and your learning curve of life and being.
You have not ‘fallen short’ – and I’d personally ditch any teachings which teach that as I’d consider that approach to be narcissistic – you’ve simply been you, been human, made what you now consider to be mistakes… which weren’t always perceived that way, in fact they were perceived as ‘fixes’ to previously perceived mistakes.
It’s all about perception… what we see, how we judge ourselves and others… be compassionate with yourself, and that will ripple out from you to others.
Your ex is who he is, you are who you are, you tried to connect, it worked for a while, then it didn’t work, then it worked again, you learned from that connection, the disconnection, the reconnection, and now you are learning from the disconnection again but a different type of again.
Once we love someone, they are always a part of us… maybe we never really saw them as anything other than a part of us, an extension of us, because through relationships we learn to relate to ourselves. Loving others is about loving ourselves… it’s all intertwined.
Don’t worry about wanting to ‘lash out’. That is normal when we are in pain. It is normal human behaviour. It has a lot to show us, teach us about life, ourselves, others… that need to ‘lash out’ shows you where you are hurting, pay attention to the pain, it will guide you to your healing of the pain.
Letting go… isn’t about ‘letting go’… as in getting rid of something or someone, it’s about accepting, acceptance – to accept what we can’t change and to see what that shows us about us through someone else.
Be careful that in ‘letting go’ of others… what you’re really trying to do is get rid of something which you don’t like about yourself. It’s a fine line… acceptance allows us to embrace who we are, as is. When we accept who we are, who others are becomes less traumatic to us, we see that they are very human like us, living life one day at a time, trying to figure it all out…
Best wishes!
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Thank you so much…… Accept, accepting, acceptance….those are the words I will reflect on today.
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❤
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Thank you so much for all of your blogs….the shared blog from CZ re: The Appropriation of “No Contact” was just what I needed today as I approach the “90” days since I was discarded by the Narcissist”…..after a 15 year off and on relationship, me taking him back!!???, lord help me!! I am at 68 years old, finally “knowing” him…..all the while, questioning if I am the one who is wrong about him!!! He did a total mind-fuck on me!!! He is the “textbook” narcissist….professional journalist and all!! Your blogs and shared blogs are helping me cope more than you could know!! Thank you!! Keep writing!!
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Thank you 🙂
It is a very difficult experience to be on the receiving end of a mind-fuck by a narcissist, it all seems so real until it doesn’t, and even then the confusion between what is real and what isn’t, who is who, what is what, can be hard to sort through and figure out. However once you start seeing a narcissist as a narcissist, gather information, research, and use what you find to understand your story, your experience, then things begin to make more sense, the illogical world they sucked you into begins to release its hold on you.
Take care of yourself, be gentle with yourself.
Best wishes!
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🙂
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This blog is EXACTLY how I feel. It’s a wonderful validation I haven’t found elsewhere. Thank you for sharing.
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There are some good posts on that blog.
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This sounded rude. I’m sorry. Lack of sleep. I’ve truly enjoyed reading you blogs, and suggestions.
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