Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Surviving a Narcissist

Aleathia says:




Life has been on a virtual rollercoaster for the last four years with the last 7 months being an endless loop de loop before arriving safely on the home track. In the previous few weeks I came upon one of the biggest discoveries of my life. A friend of mine posted an internet article called “Breaking Up With a Narcissist”. I trust the intuitions of this friend who is empathetic and compassionate in a world hell bent on stripping those qualities from people at an alarming rate. She posts a lot of articles and I am not sure exactly why I chose to read this particular one, but I am glad I did.

The article went on to describe what it feels like in the aftermath of breaking up with a person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and as I read the list of things an individual would do and feel I started to cry. There in black and white was the description of my life since April when my boyfriend cheated on me and left.  Women get cheated on all the time and this doesn’t make a man a narcissist, but when I investigated the disorder more and looked at the science and not just personal accounts and opinions, I knew that I had spent the last 6 years participating in the biggest lie of my life.

In the article “The Three Phases of A Narcissistic Relationship Cycle” by Savannah Grey, she lays out the classic cycle of how the relationship with a narcissist will go. I have read dozens of similar articles, by survivors of these relationships and by people with psychology backgrounds, and the cycle doesn’t change. The three phases are: over-evaluation, devaluation, and discard.



The over-evaluation stage:

“A Narcissist is very careful when choosing a target. Typically, they will choose a victim based on their status. They must be attractive, popular, rich or extremely gifted in some area. The greater the status, the higher the value the Narcissist places on the Supply derived.

Once a target has been chosen, it’s almost like the Narcissist gets tunnel vision. They are hyper-vigilant in their pursuit and will project the perfect image that their victim wants them to be. They are excessively caring, loving and attentive at this stage. They shower their targets with attention, compliments and literally sweep them off their feet.

They place their target on a pedestal, idolize and worship them. Their target is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Here the Narcissist is ecstatic, full of hopes and dreams. They will talk and think about them constantly, they are euphoric. This is as close as a Narcissist will ever get to feeling love. This kind of idolization is what others would call infatuation.

The victim is likely so caught up in all the attention and is usually thinking at this point, that they have found their soul-mate. Their pursuer is exactly what they want in a partner (because the Narcissist is mirroring what they have learned appeals to their target) and they can’t believe how lucky they are and that this catch is still single.”



When I met my ex I really did feel like I had met my soulmate and I had never felt that way in my life before. He was charming, intelligent, funny, thoughtful, and attentive. We lived more than 3,000 miles apart when we met. We talked on the phone for 5-8 hours at a time. There was a frenzied chemistry and just like that he left everything he had established in his life and moved out to New York to be with me. Now, I have always been second best on most men’s list and I have spent a life living with a damaged sense of self-esteem. I grew up in a multi-faceted abusive household. In essence, I am a narcissist dream. I bit the line and was reeled in. I felt special for the first time in my life and I blinded myself from the second phase holding onto the idea he created.



The devaluation stage:

“In this second phase, the mask comes off and the Narcissist starts to reveal their true colours.
The shift could be gradual or almost seemingly overnight. Suddenly the attention they so lavishly gave you is gone and replaced by indifference and silence. The target is left baffled and confused and wondering what they did wrong to cause such an abrupt turnaround.

Narcissists become bored easily and what usually starts happening in their heads at this stage, is that the void begins to emerge again. The high they were feeding off of is waning and they begin to question your worthiness, that perhaps you weren’t so special after all, because if you were then the void wouldn’t still be there. They become moody and agitated easily, blaming you for even the slightest transgression. They start to disappear more frequently and they give you the silent treatment in an attempt to create distance. As the Narcissist withdraws, the target starts to cling and your demands for his attention and your need to understand what’s happening, grate on his nerves. The harder you cling the more the Narcissist pulls away. They start to blame and criticize the target for everything, treating them like an emotional punching bag.

At this point the target is an emotional wreck. The Narcissist has left without any explanation and they can’t figure out how one minute they were put on a pedestal and now it’s like they doesn’t even exist. The Narcissist is a projector and they are projecting their emotional turmoil onto you. They feed off of other people’s misery (as long as it’s caused by them) just as much as they feeds off of your admiration, either way it makes no difference to them.

It is this person, this cruel, indifferent, unfeeling, sadist that is the behind the mask. Most targets desperately try to find the one they fell in love with. What they don’t realize is that that person never existed. They were a facade an act put on by the Narcissist to secure their Supply. The Narcissist will take no responsibility for their actions, because they simply don’t care how they’ve treated you or how you are feeling. The Narcissist isn’t one to throw away a potential piece of supply though. They will keep up this I love you, I love you not charade going for as long as it suits them or as long as you allow it. They will breeze in and out of your life as if nothing ever happened, completely oblivious and indifferent to your suffering.”



They say hindsight is 20/20 and if you survive a relationship like this with your wits then you can begin to dissect the things that happened to you. After my parents died, I had very little emotions or attention to give anyone. I had fallen into a depression like no other which I compensated by dedicating time to drinking and feeling sorry for myself. During this time, my ex did not know what to do. He had little to offer in the area of comfort and much of this came from my few friends at work. At this stage of the relationship I didn’t have enough strength to realize that I had been isolated from most of my friends and family. Even in this state of depression, I gave what little I had to him instead of trying to heal myself. Again, I abandoned the unconditional love of my child to make sure this man was happy. I’m not going to beat myself up over it. It happened and all I can do is change to get better.

Looking back I can see where the turning point happened in this relationship and where he started to bail. A year ago he had been promoted in his job which gave him a distinctive amount of attention from that side of his life. He spent more time at work, talked only about work, and was gone more than he was home. He took up playing video games instead of being creative. He spent lots of money. I felt lonely...lonelier than ever. So I went back to school. I figured that since he wasn’t going to be home or paying any attention to me that I might as well study. School lifted me up out of my depression and by the time I felt like I was nearly human and ready to participate in the world, he cheated on me and moved into the third phase.



The discard phase:

“It is almost baffling to watch the ease at which a Narcissist can pull away from his partners. Many targets are left asking themselves, “Did he ever love me? Did I mean anything to him?” The simple answer is no. No one means anything to him. Women are only a means to an end – to obtain the much needed Narcissistic Supply. Once your usefulness has run its course, you will be discarded abruptly and cruelly, without warning.

Trying to get over a relationship with a Narcissist is extremely difficult. Once it is over the target is usually an emotional wreck, whose self-esteem has been annihilated by the persistent demeaning behavior, insults and cruelty of the Narcissist. Depending on when they were able to break free, the target maybe a shadow of their former self, with a lot of work ahead of them to rebuild their shattered self-image.”



This was the shattering part. He left on a Tuesday for a business trip with a note on the board stating how he couldn’t wait to spend time with me on Friday. By the weekend, he was silent, distant, and wouldn’t come near me. A week later he told me he cheated on me and even shed some tears in the kitchen, but then went on to tell me all about his woman and her life. He continued to do this for weeks until he moved out as if I was just some person he knew that would interested in his new adventure. That was the most damaging part for me.

I spent the last 6 months in recovery of this devastating end. I have had to work hard to rebuild friendships I had neglected and repair severed family ties. I have submerged myself in getting back into shape and rediscovering who I am and who I want to become. These are the keys to not being in abusive relationships. As painful as it can be, you have to sit down with yourself and ask the hard questions. You have to get to the root of the problem to see why you allow this treatment and why it is appealing to abusers.

I feel like I have a long way to go, but knowing that he never really loved me is at the same time painful but freeing. There wasn’t anything I could have done and had I not been in a depression which caused him to seek attention elsewhere, then I might still be stuck in that relationship and maybe, I would have never gotten out or realized what was happening. I write this not to point fingers or hurt my ex, but I want other caring, compassionate women with self-esteem issues to recognize what is happening and be able to be informed enough to get out.

Aleathia Drehmer