The Lessons I learned--

From being in a relationship with a Narcissist

I started to entitle this—What my Narcissist Ex taught me, but then, I realized not only is that fair to myself, but it is simply untrue. It’s like what I have read about trauma:

“Trauma didn’t make me strong.”

“Trauma didn’t ‘teach’ me anything.”

Rather, it was the lessons I gathered from it, it was that I rose from the fucking ashes and learned to pick myself up again, to move on. All that I became is what I did with it.

As my friend has told me—if you were a homeless drug addict, given your story, people would like—that makes sense.

I am taking the shit and spinning it into gold—

And it is the same when I garner lessons from a four year relationship with a narcissist.

Now, truly, a disclaimer:

I want to resist pathologizing—I am not a mental health expert. However, in desperate pursuit of understanding, I’ve read a lot about NPD (narcissist personality disorder) and those who display narcissistic tendencies.

And this is why I categorize my ex as a narcissist:

My ex —true to narcisists/those with narcissist personality disorder—had such a grandiose sense of self.

This manifested in several ways:

1— believing himself highly intelligent

2—believing himself especially attractive/obsessed with appearance—looking in the mirror, in photos or videos of himself.

3—He also believe he was destined for wealth

4—Finally, he believed himself especially loved by God—all of those markers of narcissism.

In fact, all of them are different categories or types of narcissist—I’m not sure what this makes him—

A narcissist to the fourth degree?

But—

The point is that the true title ought to be:

What a catastrophic break up and cataclysmic betrayal from a narcissist taught me—

First though, it deeply hurt me—I was crushed—the betrayal, the lies, the lack of accountability, the attempts to evade and deflect and project, the accusations that for some reason I was to blame for his cheating and lies—. I was re-traumatized. My cortisol shot into over-drive again. I didn’t sleep. I cried so hard I felt that I would hyper-ventilate. The world appears surreal and dreamlike—reminding me of how I felt after my brother shot himself.

In the months sense, while healing, most troubling—I allowed it to cast doubt on myself that I could be with someone like that. I clearly did not know his character and what he was capable of…

Now, I am highly empathetic, sensitive and intuitive. This experience has thrown me in that I don’t believe/had not thought myself a bad judge of character. So, I have had to come to grips with how I ignored the red flags, even when they became siren alarms, that I still put them on the back burner.

I have pieced together memories and pieces of the puzzle where I interpreted situations casting a more positive light on him, giving him the benefit of the doubt, where I know see—read another way, this served him in this way, this benefited him because of that…

In shorts, I re-pieced, remembered, and sat back in awe, appalled and horrified. But ultimately, I have had to forgive myself.

I have had to rebuild my own sense of self worth and self esteem, which he eroded and I was compliant, allowing him to do so.

The ways in which I have risen—which tends to be my pattern—are through extensive resources/reading.

I have learned a great deal more about narcissists and their internal monologues and it’s scary AF:

It is hard to understand how such people exist—selfish, ego-driven, with malicious intent.

As his ex wife said about him, “I didn’t know people could act like that.”

To some, my grapplings will seem naive. I am sure it does. Why have I not grown suspect to the ids taking over the world? How awful people truly are?

Certainly I know that they exist.

To which I say this: People are good at hiding their proverbial skeletons.

Also, people learn social etiquette well, even if that means that they simply ‘perform’ the appropriate acts. If you know social cues, you mirror back what someone wants to hear, they shower you with devotion, love and attention, and you grasp on to those good moments when all the shit starts to unravel—

All the shit being—a second suicide in the family, the death of a mother, two miscarriages and a global pandemic.

But to be with someone for so long, with many happy and fond memories, after intentional love bonding and trauma bonding, and then you live together, have relationships with their family with hardly any of your own—you work to make it work.

I did. I worked very hard.

One friend said, I think when you are in any long term relationship, you develop this coping mechanism where you block out the bad memories any time you’re in a relationship as you try to make a life and home work, together.

That is true.

Another, my best friend told me—”my biggest problem with him, Danielle, is that he is not nice and every few months he gives you a look at how he sees the world.”

No truer words have ever been spoken.

As I work to understand the narcissists’ mindsets, with the more I read—

I have learned that they live in a paranoid state, where everyone is out to get them with worst case scenarios. This is why even my buying presents for his family were met with suspicions as to what my motives were.

I have also read that their accusations are often confessions—which greatly explains the projection and deflection. How are you accusing me of drama and being pathetic when you have a girlfriend on the side and the situation has imploded—your own doing?

Finally, they mirror back the energy and drive from other people, their pursuits. They intentionally pursue those who are intelligent, attractive, successful, motivated, and who will make them look good—better than they are.

They aim high. To mask their own mediocrity.

Because despite their professed or performative grandiosity, they are in fact deeply shame-filled individuals who are insecure and fearful of their own “averageness.” So they live in delusions. And tear down the pursuits when their insecurity flares or egos are threatened.

I say all of this not to stroke my own ego and put down my ex, because, on the contrary—truly—

What an awful place to reside. What a terrible mindset to live in—delusions, insecurity, attacking others who you love—those closest to you because tearing others down feeds a deficit within themselves…

To live in such a state of paranoia—that the world is out to get them—to not believe in any good intentions of others—to think about what you could gain from them…

It is no wonder my best friend called him a parasite.

Still—

That sounds like hell. To have that character and be in the mind of a person like that.

What I take away from this, however, is—

I am thankful that I am not suspicious and so self-motivated. I may not have a six figure salary, a family of my own, many assets or a 401k, but—

I am grateful. I am content. I am at peace. I am solvent. I am happy with my life.

And I still believe in peoples’ goodness. I still believe that while most people are hurting, that there are nuggets of genuine care and altruism in people.

I have found some. I know them. And I have encircled myself in these loving, kind, giving people.

They have helped restore me.

But the biggest thing this whole catastrophic mess has taught me—

Is that I am entirely capable by myself. I revel in my single status.

I cultivate and relish in the peace that being and living alone now brings me.

Because I have seen the other side—the turbulent home lives and unstable relationships that characterize those with NPD and other mood disorders.

I take care of myself and I love and honor myself.

Perhaps I was scared of being alone. Perhaps I started to think myself not worth it, not so valuable, through trauma and haze and survival.

But now—

Now, I realize that if someone like him—so self-focused—can think himself worthy of the whole world and even all the good that God has to offer…while being so destructive and hurtful to others, if that is true—

Then someone else, someone like me—

who genuinely desires the best for others, looks for the goodness people and works to do my small acts service in making the world better—with my writing and for my students in teaching and with my friends that I love and mother and nurture—

I am worthy and I am deserving.

It is perhaps unfortunate that it took all of this to create this phoenix rising from the ashes…such a hard lesson learned.

But, but—

It seems to be part of my life’s journey and mission to take major losses and catastrophes and peel back the layers of trauma and loss, grief and destruction, to take from it the center.

Like a beautiful artichoke heart, if you keep working, peeling back useless layer, there are lessons to be gained.

There is often at least something good is to gained from the labor of removing all the sharp leaves. And inedible silk-y parts at the center.

It is not about him. What he did speaks multitudes of his character.

What I have done with the lessons, not allowing it to poison me, to forgive him, to even feel a sense of pity for him—

That speaks of my character.

This is why…this is how I have learned to hold my head high…even higher than before.