Victims of Narcissistic Abuse

Monday, 25 March 2013

Ever say "no" to your narcissist..?

Money..

It may not seem like it's the most important thing in life to you, but to your narcissistic abuser it certainly is!
For money equals power..

Regardless of who has the highest income in the relationship, it will be the victim whose cash gets used for all of the joint costs. And these relationships are far more troublesome when there are limited funds available for the narcissist to "play with"..
Where there are high salaries, or family money maybe, the issues may not seem relevant for some time..

But one thing is certain, a victim of narcissist abuse is guaranteed a lifetime of empty or broken promises, and to experience one disappointment after another..

Now, if we keep in mind that during a relationship with a narcissistic abuser, the Victim likely believes the narcissist is their soul-mate, loves them like no-one else ever could, and that the narcissist does in fact love and need them, even more than life itself..

So the victim's interpretation of the empty promises and financial dealings with their narcissist will likely be quite distorted. That is, even if these facts are pointed out to them by loved ones or even professionals, the victim (still not believing themselves to be a victim) is unlikely at that stage to recognise they are being let down..

The narcissist will only be content whilst the victim remains compliant, especially with their cash..!

Being in relationship with an narcissistic abuser is like riding an organic roller-coaster!
The narcissist can be very very attentive and loving towards their victim one minute, then behave like a sadistic tyrant the next..
And as the cash-flow dries up, so does the loving..
What can be dangerous for the victim is when they are the one in control of the cash-flow within the relationship. This gives the victim a power that the narcissist cannot tolerate, and they will find increasingly imaginative ways to make their victim suffer for it..!

Any former victims reading this will likely recall how loving their narcissist was when they wanted something from them, and how nasty they turned if their demands were ever refused..?

Whilst I was in that situation I learned quite quickly that to leave "us" without any available cash for the narcissist to spend would always lead to bad-tempered animosity and a very poor living environment..
I had stopped buying basic items for myself such as: clothes, make-up, and accessories, out of what I now understand was a fear of not having ready cash available..

So basically -

I never saw the narcissists income, despite all the bragging about how much it was on occasion..
The narcissist always had some other debt or bill to pay when the household bills were due..
I never received any of the gifts I'd been promised for my birthday or Christmas, despite me buying plenty for the narcissist..
I paid for all daily living expenses including the narcissists cigarettes and meals out, whilst the only thing the narcissist paid for was our first meal out, and when attempting to dissuade me from ending it, just before I finally did do..
The narcissist took my property, money from my purse, my pain medication, and even tried to take money from my bank account..
Items of my clothing disappeared one-by-one, my jewellery went piece-by-piece, and pretty much everything I'd owned with any material value was appropriated by the narcissist - before I finally left...

Friday, 22 March 2013

But YOU said you'd love me forever...!!!

Oh shite here we go again!
I'm looking at you and I do recall saying those words..

But now all I want from you is for you to disappear off the face of the earth..
I can't tell you that of course, the consequences would be terrible..!

So I smile and say back, "I do love you, but..."
And I've lost another battle..

In turmoil I watch you sleep, all the while pondering your words..

So I must be fickle..?
It must be ME who's incapable of lasting love..?
That means I WANTED all that you've done to me..?
But you DO need me..
I DID tell you that I'd never let you down..
And you've let me know you'll harm yourself if I leave you....

Oh yes, how could I forget saying to you that I'd love you forever..!!!

But wait a God damn minute..

The person I'm looking at is NOT the person I swore my undying love for..!!!

YOU are NOT that person, although you may look and sound like that person, your words are cruel and vile, and I fell in love with a kind and gentle person..

I DID NOT FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU..!

I fell in love with the character you created to lure me in..

And lets face it, if Han Solo had showered me with love and attention and told me he'd love me forever, then I'm sure I'd have sworn my undying love for him too..!!!

But at least I'd have already KNOWN that he wasn't real, that he was nothing more than a character in a film, and NOT A REAL PERSON..!!!

So NO. I did not say that I would love you forever, and I have been gullible for believing that I had!

I can promise you that I would have loved the person that I did fall in love with forever, had that person existed forever..

So this is goodbye to you, the person I never chose, and certainly never wanted, You and all of your pleading and emotional blackmail can do what you like, because I DON'T CARE!!!

And no, I DO NOT LOVE YOU!

Woo-Hoo...!!!
No more hearing those awful words again "but you said you love me..!"
And no more giving a crap when the suicide threats pour in..!

As I walk away I make you a promise, to notify the police immediately if you contact me and indicate you are a danger to yourself...

But nothing else..!

But I'm not a Victim..?!

Many people who are in an abusive relationship will not realise for some time, possibly even for as long as they live, that their "beloved" is an abuser, and that they have been their victim..

Usually, by the time a person begins to question the dynamics of their relationship, their perception of reality will have been sufficiently warped that they already see themselves as being at least as guilty as the abuser..

The narcissist, when meeting a new target, will "mirror" their target in every way, so the unsuspecting victim will feel like they have met someone whom they can connect with in every way..
The new couple will appear to have the same belief systems, likes, dislikes, lifestyle choices, skills and talents, and even the same issues/past traumas etc..
The predator can wait as long as it takes for the victim-to-be to submit to their advances, and their facade will never falter during this stage: they will always seem like the most perfect catch the victim-to-be could ever dream of..

But this is all an act..
The narcissist is simply not capable of feeling what they claim to feel for their unsuspecting victim-to-be. Their goal is to lure their prey into their trap, and to gain as much background information on them as they can..
You see, they need total devotion from their partners, they have an insatiable need for attention (and for a slave, a door-mat, a punch-bag, a bottom-less wallet/purse..).
So in order to gain total control, and an ever increasing upper-hand in all the mind tricks they will play on their victim, the narcissist creates a deeply intense and closely dependent relationship between the two of them..
They appear to bare their souls, tell their victim they feel like they've known them their whole life, that they are their soul-mate, meant to be together forever, and that they could tell them anything..
And in response to this charade, and you'd be surprised at how difficult it is to see through it when the narcissist is quite literally being everything the victim has ever longed for in a partner, the victim reveals their innermost being to their abuser..
So without realising that they are being prompted, they tell of their hopes and dreams, their fears, their past traumas, their family and friendship history, and all about their past loves..

It is quite shocking to think that a person can leave themselves so vulnerable by off-loading this amount of highly personal information to anyone, let alone someone they usually know very little about..
And it is this soul-bearing that can keep a victim trapped, and even blind to the truth, and in an abusive relationship for so long..

And it isn't merely the power that it's given the narcissist over them, by having such deep inner-knowledge of a completely unsuspecting victim, but the fact that the victim themselves is aware that they trusted this person implicitly, and willingly shared so much of themselves with the narcissist..
Even long after the mind games and life-destroying tactics of the abuser have taken effect, the victim seems to always look back to the initial stages of their "relationship" with longing..
The victim truly believes that they had met their soul-mate, their one-and-only, their one-true-love, the love-of-their-life, or whatever it was they longed for..
And any time that the victim begins to question the relationship, or the narcissistic abuser, and threaten to end the relationship, then that wonderful wonderful person whom they met will magically reappear.. (but only for as long as it takes for the victim to give-up their thoughts of leaving, and re-submit to the narcissist..!)
And so the cycle begins again, but the narcissist will undoubtedly find some devious way to punish the victim for daring to try to leave him/her..

So the key to figuring out why a victim may struggle to see themselves as being a victim, is due to the incredible fraud they had fallen victim to in the beginning..!

I personally found this to be the most compelling obstacle, the fact that I truly believed there was this wonderful man who lurked deep inside the monster I kept having to deal with..
I saw that wonderful man less and less, until he only returned at the times I was in the process of ending the relationship..
It took some convincing for me to finally accept that he had never existed. That the man I'd met was a fraud, a fabrication, and that the narcissistic abuser would never, and could never, ever be that man..

I was lucky...
I'd had access to the internet on my phone so utilised a resource I never thought I would ever do, I contacted the abusers ex-wife..
(When I met him he'd told me of how badly he had been treated by his ex's, they were all "bitches" as he'd put it, and he was such an angel..)
Early on in the relationship, and after a lot of trouble from his ex's, his ex wife had sent me a message on Facebook simply stating:
"When the day comes that you feel like you're going crazy, concerned for your own mental health, and fear that no-one will believe you, then get in touch and I'll set you straight!"

So when that was how I felt, that I was going crazy, that no-one would believe me as he portrayed such a false image to everyone, I contacted her..

Her response was:

"Get away and stay away..! Break ALL contact now.!"

"Move away! NEVER let him know where you are, Go for help to any agency you can, and Never show him you are afraid of him!"

She empathised and showed me proof that he had instigated all of the trouble between us.
He had always followed a pattern: would stop harassing her and his other ex-partners whilst he was being showered with attention by his "new love", but always contacting each of them to tell them how happy he was without them, and how much better his new love was than each of them etc..
They each sighed in relief when he would meet a new woman, hope and pray she would put up with him for a long time as it gave them respite, for as soon as he stopped receiving enough of his new loves adoration, he resumed harassing each of them..
I was cautious of course so insisted on seeing proof of everything I was being told. And as I did I became totally bewildered at how I could not have seen what was right before my eyes all along..

But that is the nature of this beast - the incredible deception...

So, given this insight, I spent days on end researching my own symptoms online. I would input a range of scenarios that had occurred, things I had done or said, things he had done or said, but I kept being directed to websites saying the exact same thing - Narcissistic Abuse..

This all alarmed me as I applied this to myself, took blame for all that had occurred and thought that I was a narcissistic abuser! So it was with the intention of seeking help for myself, as even if the narcissist had done all of these tings in his past, I must still be bad as I felt so similar to him, and believed that the "real" him was the persona who had wooed me in the beginning..
So when when I attended the multi-agency resource centre and was met with the same reaction as from his ex's, and the same alarming advice as from across the web, something clicked with me..
The local Women's Aid group and the local Police all seemed to "know" exactly how the relationship had progressed, exactly how he would react to my seeing them etc, and exactly what I was going through at that time. In honesty, I still doubted it all after returning home, and again even after visiting women's aid offices the following day.!
But the police officer's genuine concern for my safety finally convinced me..

So for me there was now no doubt, the whole world, except for the narcissist of course, was right about what I had become involved in, and I knew I had to get away..!

I suppose it might have been very different if that police officer hadn't had experience with similar cases -
He had recognised something in me, and what hit home most was that he seemed to be expecting a very long and nasty battle to commence. He didn't seem to believe I would actually be strong enough to end the relationship, or to withstand the abuse that would follow. That was why he placed a "marker" on my home address and mobile phone number, so that any call to my home or from my number would be picked up by their system and have an emergency response team with me in minutes.
It was that level of concern, his presentation of factual evidence that it's when a victim tries to get away that life-threatening violence occurs, and his preparation for a long battle, which was just about enough to bring me to my senses..

But even having said and considered all that, I still, at that time, could not imagine my life without this narcissist in it..!
I had no future plans, no idea how I would live, or cope even with not being part of the narcissists life, regardless of how awful he had made me feel, and how much I knew he was destroying the person I was..
My thoughts still focused on what I must have done to attract a narcissistic abuser, still allowed my mind to wander back to thoughts of self-blame, and seriously unhealthy what-if's etc..!!!

All of the research and professional guidance says that recovering from narcissistic abuse can take the rest of a persons life, and that many of the scars may never heal. This can be hard to imagine, even as a person is running from their narcissist, as they will likely have very little knowledge of the reality in which they have been living..

Yet in time a person will begin to recall who he or she is, to know what their own beliefs are, what their own fears and hopes are etc, and begin to sever the diseased parts of them that were infected by the narcissist.

But whilst a person is still living their LIE..
Whilst a person is still an Unsuspecting VICTIM..,
and/or still a Willing VICTIM of a narcissistic abuser..

There can be no concept in their mind for them of either -
The desperate need for Change..
nor their Need for Recovery..

Thanks for reading, be happy and stay well.. :-)

Monday, 18 March 2013

RE: the 3 Quanta Freedom Healing videos...

Hi,

I believe that this therapy (see related posts) developed by Melanie Tonia Evans, which begins during the second half of her third video, may be beneficial for healing from many other kinds of abuse, in addition to Narcissistic abuse..

She does describe herself as a "psychic energetic healer", but I find that to be irrelevant..

Her long-term healing sessions may not available free of charge, but I'm happy to advertise her healing here, as the video's she has created are plenty to get anyone started on the road to true and full recovery..

Please watch all three fully, and engage in the healing exercise with Melanie..