“It’s Like a Cancer”

Two things have happened today:

First, I  shared this blog with a colleague/friend of mine and after she read my posts, she came to my office and told me I was telling the story of her 13 year marriage.  She was married to a horrible narcissist who was ‘textbook’ in terms of everything he did to her.  She couldn’t believe how our stories were so much alike, and like me, she hadn’t heard of narcissitic abuse being a ‘real’ thing…along with Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome.  That’s actually what I was going to write about today…but now I need to express something else.

So, secondly, here’s what I’m struggling with.  Like I said in my last post, I broke no contact and texted Sarge all afternoon today.  I started being sucked back in so damn fast it was scary.  For the last couple of weeks, I’d started feeling good about myself and another friend of mine had said my eyes were losing their haunted look.  Today, it was back.  Just texting him and letting him back into my mind (and heart) was horrible.  I’ve been crying, questioning, and feeling physically sick because I was getting caught back up into the web.  I literally apologized for HIS behavior, and started taking the blame for why we weren’t together anymore.  I asked him to come back.  I told him I would work on things.  I told him I could do better for him.

Then, my best friend and I took my pup to a dog park and walking around, talking to him, and getting away from my phone helped immensely.  I just NOW blocked Sarge on my phone, and no contact is back in place as of this moment.

Why is no contact so hard and so necessary for victims of narcissistic abuse?  Because these people are master manipulators who will only say what you want to hear and will, as my friends at school say, mind-f&%k you until you have no idea who you are anymore and what’s happening to you.  My friend said it’s like a cancer in you…it’s eating you up, and the thought of cutting it out scares the hell out of you.  But that’s the only way to heal.  If you don’t get rid of it, you’ll die from it.  My spirit already feels dead…and that tells me I need to get this cancer out.

So, IT STOPS NOW.  Dammit…I’m too smart to let this happen again.  I’m too strong not to follow through.  I don’t need this man in my life, despite what my heart is saying and my brainwashed mine is repeating.  I fell in love with an abuser.  He used me.  He hurt me.  He broke me.  He manipulated me.  He cheated on me.  He with-held affection and love from me at times when I needed it the most.  He hurt my relationships with my mom and son.  NO MORE.  When I look at that list, I realize what a toxic hold he has over me, and I need to be the one to make sure that hold lessens and lessens until it’s no more.

One of my favorite movies is “Regarding Henry” with Harrison Ford and Annette Benning.  Henry, a successful lawyer,  is shot early in the film (sorry for the spoiler) and he has to relearn everything he knows.  At one point, his secretary is pouring him coffee and he’s just sitting there.  Finally, she says, “Henry, when you’ve had enough, just say ‘when’.”  So, near the end of the film, Henry is upset with the fraudulent behavior of his law firm and decides to leave it for good.  On his way out, his secretary asks him what’s going on and Henry says, “I’m just saying ‘when’.”

So Sarge, it’s finally time.  And I’m thinking this time will be the last time.  “WHEN”.

This is what I know:  maintaining no contact is so much harder than people who’ve never experienced this type of abuse can imagine.  We’ve been manipulated to the point where we feel our only worth comes from this person.  Until we cut this person out of our life, we’ll never have ourselves back.  But that cutting hurts.  Bad.

Professor K