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What are we grieving? The many stages of comprehension. #Narcissist

I stayed in my marriage with a narcissist for 26 years.  I did everything I could to fix our marriage to the point of almost ruining my life and our children.  My Older children suffered so much with this man.  I just recently found out about Narcissist and Gaslighting and through therapy found out this is what I had been living in.  Now the guilt of how I put up with it all these years, how did I not know this was happening.  I feel guilty that I did not get out when my older children were little.  They tell me they wished I had left him then.  But I was committed to my marriage (To death do us part, For better or worse).  I seen everything repeating with our youngest son, who is now 9, and knew I needed help and so did he.  Through therapy I have managed to separate from him and let the healing begin.  Now seeing the manipulation and mind games he plays with our youngest son is so hard.   He has made him feel sorry for him as though he is the victim.  This is so hard for a 9 year old to process.  Since I don't share my feelings or talk negative about his father all he hears is how much his Dad loves me and how I kicked him out (notice the wording "kicked"another manipulative word, and how I don't love him and I will probably remarry BUT he will not because he is still in love with me.  (Very manipulative)
I am now saving to pay for the divorce to have this chapter close in my life and I can move on and show our youngest Son that there is a life out there that is not so negative and break the cycle.  Yes, my 9 year old is very good at manipulation he has learned from the best (his Dad) now I have to teach him how to use it in a good way instead of a negative way.

I came across this today and it was very helpful so I would like to share it as well:

What are we grieving? The many stages of comprehension.

It all begins with the nightmare of going from being in love (idealized) to being hated (devalued and discarded.) Then discovering the web of deceit and lies at so many levels. Next coming to terms with understanding that you were only an object or Narcissistic Supply and somehow that has to make REAL sense to you. You begin to understand that everything you shared in your past, the memories, dreams and plans were corrupted by the Narcissist’s disordered agenda AND this relationship/love was only real to you! Then you realize what was real to this Narcissist was an agenda to extort what they could through this manufactured love AND THEY USED YOU. You hear a term called gas-lighting which basically describes someone (your Narcissist) trying to make you believe you were mentally disordered or INSANE!

You realize that you don’t have the ability to create real closure. You are not able to let go with love but instead you HAVE to let go with an ‘understanding’ that the person you loved is severely damaged and dangerous and you have to somehow accept and live with this. Your belief system is completely shattered. You hear your Narcissist boasting about having sex with a new person, or perhaps married, or they gone on with their life so quickly, and they are BRAGGING about it to intentionally hurt you and now that feels like a NEW stab to your heart. You start to get nostalgic for what could have been and you only lose touch with the reality that they are disordered and you start questioning yourself AGAIN. You wonder what it is that YOU did wrong. It is a vicious back and forth cycle that only leaves you so confused and frozen in time. All of these thoughts and more become a part of detaching from this monster BUT unfortunately the coefficient that you loved them is in the mix as well and you are vulnerable and broken! The Narcissist is woven into your memories and your life in very conflicting ways and it is just too confounding!

You would have to take a course in psychology that deals with personality disorders to completely internalize that they are a Narcissist and disordered to understand the rationale behind this abuse. You probably have never even heard of A Narcissist or associated them with psychological abuse AND that you were with one. On the other hand you still have many mixed messages from this Narcissist saying that YOU are the disordered one here and to blame for everything, so you ARE questioning your own mental capacity trying to establish where the real problem lies. IS IT YOU OR IS IT YOUR EX? It is like being on a roller coaster ride through hell and you have to figure all of this out on your own. You have to somehow put this all together in a short period of time going from loving this person to now accepting that they ARE the predator and you were prey. It is just an insurmountable feat to pull this together in your mind especially when you are so vulnerable and worn down by what you start to realize that you were a target/victim of emotional and psychological abuse.

Narcissists can be your mother/father, brother/sister, wife/husband, boyfriend/girlfriend, the mother/father of your biological children, a friend, or boss, and more than likely you have spent MANY years with them as well. You may be financially or legally connected to them. You need so much time and an education to process this. You start crawling your way out of this and then you realize that this Narcissist has BRANDED YOU as the abuser, defective, mentally ill, as well as destroyed your integrity by using familiarity against you. They are out there SMEARING your good name to everyone that is important to you. You are really starting to see this monster behind the mask and you LOVED this creature? This is more like psychological rape and you are left there alone to pull yourself together and find some sort of help, but where do you start and what fires do you put out first. It is no longer a matter of the denial, it is reality and you have to face this and try to function in your day to day world as if you are the healthy individual you once were. You end up stumbling and picking yourself up over and over again! It seems like there is no end to this and then anxiety and depression set in.

When you start out on the journey to recovery you are faced with some very difficult objectives and that is picking up all the pieces of your shattered life and trying to put them all back together again. It would be akin to trying to put your house together after a hurricane totally destroyed it. Everything that WAS your life and memories are now shattered and strewn over a 100 mile radius. You try to sift through the rubble and damage to save what you can but it is almost impossible to dig into AND through all the piles of debris to find anything familiar or savable. Your whole world is so distorted from the damage that this hurricane caused and you can only see the resulting damage from this disaster and now you have to put this all back together to achieve a cohesive normal ‘YOU’ again and basically do it all by yourself! You basically feel fearful from all of the uncertainty that lies before you.

You start the process of recovery in disbelief, fear, and shock! The shock in essence numbs you temporarily from going completely insane by giving you the ability to separate yourself from the totality of this disaster or some breathing room – it is nature’s sedative. Once the dust settles though you start to see the whole picture standing before you and now reality sets in. As you are setting out on this journey your emotions are going to be overwhelming as you try to understand all of this and they get in the way and confuse you. You are trying to sort through pure chaos and you are going to respond to it with tremendous ambivalence, anger, hatred, vengefulness, and MANY other negative feelings. Along with this you will be doing some deep soul searching trying to put perspective on so many opposing thoughts that don’t correlate with the love you believed in AND it creates a huge void and a great sense of being so lost and alone in all of this.

Your reactions are actually quite normal and this is just you being a human with confusion, emotions, and empathy striving to find that cohesiveness. You are dealing with two CONFLICTING realities – you were in love and believed it was real for so long, but the reality is that there never was this other person because it was a manufactured love and hideous con job because this person was severely disordered. You MUST experience all of these feelings and crazy emotions to move forward to understanding the REAL ‘whys’ as they concern all of this. Even as confusing as all of this is it is a necessary process to actualize and organize what you can! This is how you move forward and that is a learning process that includes the truth that has disabled you in the first place.

You MUST learn everything you can about this disorder and the psychopathy of a pathological Narcissist. You are not dealing with a so called normal breakup where two people move forward with closure. You are having to leave this relationship and whatever love you believed in with ONY an understanding of something very unfamiliar to you (a Narcissist/psychological abuse.) This will all come together when you start to see the patterns emerge and get that ‘ah ha’ moment. This is where you connect the dots and where you begin to bridge your situation to being abused by a Malignant Narcissist! There is nothing normal with abuse nor do you have much experience from your past to compare this to unless you were a victim of this abuse before. You are dealing with hardcore psychopathy here and a personality disorder. This is exactly why you have such a hard time wrapping your head around all of this! This is real and you need a helping hand to put a perspective on all of this.

You will return to the past to recall, remember and review many details. This is not you obsessing but instead a viable part of the process that is very necessary for recovery and healing. This is all new material and you are starting from square one to internalize what this abuse is and connecting it to what you thought existed but did not exist (the love, relationship, memories, dreams, goals, etc.) So you must actualize what really existed and replace those emotional connections with the stark reality of the truth. You must now emotionally detach yourself from the disordered Narcissist that you loved and grasp the reality of this massive deception that eroded your being and world. It is hard to separate from the emotions and accept the reality of the situation, BUT you have to tell yourself that you loved a monster. You didn’t know they were a monster, because they are predators that manipulate their prey into the abuse. BUT every time you start remembering the love you believed in, you must now turn those thoughts around and say that you were psychologically raped by a monster and predator. You can’t be kind with your thoughts and give them the benefit of the doubt because there are NO doubts that Narcissists are destructive abusers to everyone. ANY benefit of the doubt that you allow the Narcissist only keeps you connected to the abuse and not allow the closure you so desperately need to move forward! You were a target/victim of ABUSE!

You must constantly tell yourself and reinforce that this was not a normal or real person that COULD love you. You have to accept that it was a huge lie and most importantly that it had nothing to do with you because the Narcissist managed you down to believe that you are to blame and the disordered one! You HAVE to accept that it did happen to you and there is no rhyme nor reason to it because Narcissists are character disordered and in a class of their own. They are dangerous to human beings and destructive and you are so FORTUNATE to be FREE of them. You are a testament to this very fact because you have experienced their psychological abuse and have been severely damaged by a relationship with them. You have to completely switch off from thoughts that pull you into believing they will change or you can fix them – YOU CAN’T!

Now you have to actualize that there is so much goodness in you and seriously that is what this Narcissist wanted to own and destroy and that is why they targeted you. You ARE a good person and probably an AMAZING person so don’t ever lose touch with this because the Narcissist told you differently. They are disordered and negative and they live with this premise to make everyone else around them unstable by managing them down. THIS is what psychopaths do to their targets, manage them down to nothingness to control them.

You have to create a discipline to stop looking at the ‘what ifs’ or ‘could I have done this or that’ or that somehow you caused this abhorrent treatment. You have to stop yourself from trying to obtain information about what they are doing through social media, OR trying to make any type of contact with them. You seriously have to just stop thinking about them as being anything real to you and concentrate on YOU. Tell yourself that this is DONE! Yes there are situations that you must stay in contact with them, but again you must separate the emotions and break the chain that binds you to their psychopathy and keep it to the business at hand. Ask yourself what it is you would want back (as in fixing the relationship?) Do you want to enter back into the abuse to experience more dehumanization, lies, betrayal and extortion? No of course not! Lock into this message and put your happiness first!

Now as far as connecting to the reasons WHY you were the target of this disordered Narcissist - in a nutshell it is because they are predators after prey pure and simple. With this type of encounter with horrendous abuse we definitely have a strong desire to re-evaluate our life and behavior. Again this is normal and can be progressive in your recovery because it is your desire and ability to grow, transcend and move forward. The encounter will provide a spark to grow and evaluate your inner self to correct anything that kept you tied to the abuse and you will correct all of that with introspection and boundaries – but that will happen once you traveled through the truth that this was abuse and you are no longer vulnerable and caught up in the distorted emotions and confusion. Acceptance will move you forward, anything else will pull you right back into the confusion as well as more abuse and you will only have to start at square one AGAIN!

Try not to be your own therapist and psychoanalyze yourself because we are not trained to do this. Seek out a QUALIFIED therapist to do this instead. Also the world is still out there and as much as you don’t want to get back to that world you HAVE to or you will be frozen in the confusion and fear! Find people who will emotionally support you and do not make you doubt yourself. Those people who try to tell you or imply that you are somehow at fault are going to make you only start blaming yourself again. They are seriously not the people you want to help you through this. AGAIN you are dealing with a character disordered Narcissist and they are an anomaly and aberration and NORMAL rules do not apply to them nor normal theories. You need to pull out the big guns to end this battle. Friends and loved ones are not qualified to do this. They can love and support you but they can’t fix this. You need to seek out other targets and survivors that understand.

Lastly the question or arguments of what a Narcissist is. Are they evil or disordered and sick? My thoughts are they are possibly both but it doesn’t matter. What really matters is that you recognize the pattern of this abuse so whether you believed you were abused by a demon or a personality disorder you were abused and you must free yourself of them forever. You must accept this and stop trying to figure any of this out beyond accepting the truth about their actions that describe who/what they are and diverting all of your attention to your recovery and growth! They are not going to change, rescue you or do anything but abuse you more!

Many people have asked me to describe my abuse and how I seemed to recover quickly. I have only recently realized that my recovery seemed to be quicker than most because of the many stories I have heard from other targets/victims, but I never had a real scale to measure my recovery with or by. It is different for every person and there are many different variables involved. I believe that my success had to do with educating myself AND writing daily. Every single day I directed my energy into understanding this abuse more and more and then offering what I had learned to other targets/victims so they would also understand through my experiences. I used my voice as a tool to ask questions and get the right answers. I voiced the truth and saw so many similarities AND I found closure through stating/sharing the truth!

These creatures all have so many similar patterns that describe how they exploit us. Recognizing those patterns is what got me out. THAT and reassuring myself EVERY day through facts and the truth that I was prey to a predator and then erasing this Narcissist from my life completely. There were so many unfamiliar terms, definitions and words that described this abuse and something I would have never even considered to be a reality as far as it concerned my life before abuse. But many years later I know these terms, definitions, and words very well and know this abuse is very real. I also learned that only a survivor can talk the talk and bring a raw sense of reality to this abuse to help other targets/victims understand and move forward.

With my abuse I was dealing with a hideous and delusional MONSTER that attempted to destroy me BUT DIDN’T! My eyes were opened after the fact when this Narcissist was so intent on destroying my integrity as well. A stranger (new supply) also got involved with the crazy making and game playing. I am sure many understand what that can be like. Narcissists always manipulate other people into their hateful battle to silence us. Their life is so full of envy, hate, and destruction. They have their co-conspirators and minions that for whatever reason join in on the abuse and the Narcissist again projects this hate into them to join in on their battle. They are extensions of the Narcissist’s lies and nothing more. They have no real power over you or your recovery unless you allow it. Their words are destructive but the people that side with a Narcissist live under the same rock that the Narcissist does so people see through them as well.

A stranger that didn’t know me in the smallest way believed a pathological liar and a Malignant Narcissist and acted out against me by posting delusional stories and lies on a social site, BUT yet professed to be such a religious person. What type of religion dictates judging and harming innocent people without FACT to back it up, and what would the reason be? They also had no respect as it concerned a tragedy I was experiencing and looked at it as a weakness and a way to get at me even more when I was down. Normal people do not do anything even near this and that is just the plain truth. The co-conspirator was weak and as damaged and dysfunctional as my Narcissist. THIS is what describes the chaos and the manipulation that a Narcissist exerts over people to act out in what can only be described as envy and hate. They drag people into the battle to avoid the exposure that they are abusive and they fight dirty. There is no reward for minions or the new supply because they will be psychologically abused by the Narcissist as well! Karma is real and the negative energy they created will surround them tenfold!

The attacks from my Narcissist are archived on this very page and other healing sites. It was ridiculous to see these two slime balls in action and how they hid behind religion and lies to make me out to be the abuser and mentally ill and WHY? This is not me bashing these two, but it defines the reality as far as what they are. When you release from this abuse you see the person(s) that abused you for the repulsive and perverted individuals that they are. I am free from this abuse because I totally acknowledge the reality. I do not hate them, I just know the real truth about them and so do many other people and that is where it ended with me! I am free from this Narcissist and the abuse. Life is good and I have grown in ways I could never have imagined possible. This is closure and I achieved it by going through the process by empowering myself with education and the truth, it will happen with you as well.

Recovery requires a strong commitment that completely separates your connection with the Narcissist. Nobody can live in OR survive in a toxic environment, sort through the chaos, and be controlled. Success is achieved ONLY by doing this and concentrating on your recovery. No/minimal contact! heart emoticon heart emoticon Greg

#TransformationTuesday

Good Morning! 

It is a beautiful chilly Tuesday here in South Georgia.  Hoping your day is off to a great start.

Change begins with you! Everyday we choose to live or exist, what are you doing? Do something different today from your normal routine, take a chance, spend some time doing something for you! It is okay. Have an awesome #Tuesday and #LiveOutLoud.

#TransformationTuesday 

A. Maceo Smith New Tech High School - Uptown Funk Dance

#MakeADifference #Monday

Good Monday Morning

Hope you had an amazing weekend with lots of fond memories.  Did you step out of your comfort zone?  Did you try anything new?  Things change when we decide to step out and grow.  Each one of us were born with a gift.  Sometimes we hide in comfort and never find out what our true gift is or we are afraid to share it.  I believe we should teach our children that they have a gift and start nurturing it at a young age so they don't wait a whole life time to find it.  Just think your gift is so amazing and how it can help others when we utilize it.  #Stepup and #Live #Life to its fullest.  No regrets, no should have, I wished I did ....... Just do...... #LiveOutLoud.  #LiveWithAPurpose #EnjoyLife.

After Narcissistic Abuse - There is Light, Life & Love

I seen this today and felt I should share - long but worth the read

Find on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/After-Narcissistic-Abuse-There-is-Light-Life-Love/114835348601442?fref=nf

Recovering from this abuse – tweaking the traditional stages and bumping them up to account for the psychological terrorism.

I wanted to write about this because the recovery from emotional/psychological abuse requires more than just going through the five stages of grief in the traditional way. I have seen many takes on this subject, so I wanted to put my own spin on the topic. The traditional stages of grief are: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Yes you will follow these stages, but your situation (being a victim of abuse) puts you in a NON-traditional situation as it concerns the ‘normal’ rationale and how you apply it to the total recovery as well as the stages of grieving.

Where do you begin and how do you modify and approach these five stages of grief? Well let’s start with the reality of your situation. You fell in love with a complete lie, or the IMAGE of a person that was an ILLUSION that meant to manipulate you into BELIEVING that your relationship was real to only extort your love and life. That concept will never be completely understood by a target/victim of this abuse. You unknowingly lived and loved this huge lie, you believed in them completely and spent a great deal of time and energy supporting, nurturing and developing this relationship. So to start off you are not grieving a relationship that is traditional by any means – you are more or less grieving an abusive love! Not only are you dealing with a lie, but with a creature that has extorted your life and love and you BELIEVED in this person that completely destroyed you and probably took your integrity along for the ride.

Now the truth is standing directly in front of you and you have to SOMEHOW process this without any experience to do so. You try to approach it like a normal relationship, BUT there is nothing near normal about it. You have to grieve the love you BELIEVED was real, as well as grieve the abuse. The two don’t go hand in hand. You can’t realistically separate the two facts, but it feels impossible to work with the two conflicting facts.

All of this abuse has left you vulnerable, traumatized and disabled. Today you stand at the bottom of a dark void looking for the smallest ray of light, but you are blinded by so many layers of confusion that it feels impossible to do anything but remain there and wait for something or someone to help you or even save you. You can’t apply a traditional grieving process to any of this because you have been managed down from the abuse, you are traumatized and a shell of the person you once were. You are not moving on with a clear perspective and mutual understanding that the relationship failed, you are moving on from an abusive situation.

Unfortunately everybody else around you is in this same darkness about this abuse. Even the people nearest and dearest to you can only console you from their point of view that doesn’t have the smallest connection to understanding the abuse. They don’t even know that you have fallen so deeply into this void. If you would have actually fallen into a hole the first thing you would do is use your voice and cry out for help! This is what you must actualize as the first step to move forward – your voice is integral in getting a message out to the world that you need help so you CAN connect to the very people that have experience to help you UNDERSTAND this!

The very next thing that you have to actualize at some point is that there is absolutely nothing that can do to try to make this love real again by returning to it for any reason. You can’t fix the Narcissist that did this to you, relate to them in any manner, and or be in any contact with them anymore. Their words (and actions of course) are what abused you in the first place so they have no sympathy as it concerns your situation because they purposely put you there. YES this is excruciatingly painful to accept and nearly impossible to believe BUT you have to put yourself in the reality that this person (the Narcissist) is dangerous.

You only have to look back through your experiences with this person to realize that no normal person would do what this Narcissist did to you, nor is there an acceptable reason for what they did, and they aren’t going to change today or any other day for that matter, OR ever help you through this. On the other hand they will trick you more, lie more, abuse you more and COMPLETELY destroy you if given the opportunity, ESPECIALLY as vulnerable as you are right now. You must accept that you are dealing with a highly disordered individual that knows all too well that they have to bury their abuse to avoid exposure just like any other criminal. If you can actualize this then you can concentrate your energies on YOU and not the Narcissist and what you thought was love or basically putting perspective on the situation!

What are the five traditional stages of grief and how we must tweak them to include this abuse?

DENIAL - Let’s start with looking at DENIAL! You have been in this stage throughout the entire relationship. Yes you had suspicions, intuition, as well as your Narcissist lying more and more to cover up the truth. You already approached this many times with many excuses to avoid facing the truth about them and now what more would it take to prove than what you have already experienced? Denial was/is just an everyday occurrence in your reality AND also a pattern that was detrimental to the reality of the situation. Well more truth will come out and it will be very debilitating as it concerns your emotions.

This Narcissist is going to be rubbing your face into their new and amazing lifestyle. They are going to brand YOU as the disordered one and even say that YOU abused them and they had to run for their life. They aren’t feeling any pain from the relationship ending because they didn’t love you. They aren’t going to feel the effects of the abuse because THEY abused you and you LOVED them. You didn’t abuse them so they are off and running and extorting someone new and better (well in their distorted eyes!) They are more of a foe then friend and your abuser! They left you with absolutely NO CLOSURE and meant to do so! This is just the real truth that many targets/victims stumble through because the denial keeps them believing in the huge con that they are. Without no/minimal contact the Narcissist will keep you locked up in their abuse until you finally say no and get out of the abusive dance with them COMPLETELY!

Along with the denial is the feeling of isolation. You are in this by yourself because the Narcissist has triangulated every which way he/she could and isolated you from many of your friends and even your family. They have backstabbed you in ways you can’t imagine and probably are not aware of either. This Narcissist has spent their time controlling you and they have extorted so much of your love and life. It is time that you will have to put a perspective on this and walk out into the world with open eyes and ears, and face this reality. Unfortunately there will be the people that side with the Narcissist but they are not worth your time. You are not the bad person here and real people will acknowledge your truth over anything the Narcissist has done to damage your image. Your vulnerability will make you feel untrusting to most everyone around you, but you need people to help you through this, AND there are people out there than CAN and WILL help you. The denial that exists will cement you to this Narcissist if you are still buying into this relationship being anything but abuse – that is the truth you have to actualize.

ANGER - GRRRR – you are ANGRY and you have a right to feel angry about what has happened to you. You have been totally dehumanized, lied too, extorted, betrayed, manipulated, tricked, conned and your basic rights taken away from you. You are not mad at the fact the relationship has ended but instead your very welfare has been put in harm’s way from someone that seems more like a monster now. They intentionally did this to you! You feel angry that you have been lied to and cheated from the basic rights we all have and DESERVE. You think about revenge, you may even feel a deep disdain or HATRED for this Narcissist. You feel angry for what has been done to you, you feel angry because you feel foolish, you feel angry for all the time you lost, YOU ARE ANGRY THAT YOU BELIEVED IN THIS PERSON AND TRUSTED YOUR LOVE IN THEIR HANDS and they desecrated it! They had no respect for you as a human being and didn’t care about any of the harm they administered. YOU DESERVE TO BE ANGRY!

In essence the anger is good in its own way. It helps you to externalize or project your negative thoughts outward and at the perpetrator (the Narcissist) and bringing you to a higher plane of thought as it concerns the REAL truth about the relationship – you get it! You are directing anger away from yourself and putting it where it belongs – ON YOUR ABUSER! It is a healthy stage but it is not your ‘save all’ instead a step to raise your thoughts to a higher plain or putting them out there and away from accepting the ‘blame’ and locking yourself up in this thought process. BUT it can also be a defense mechanism that externally serves a purpose but internally you have to accept the truth and move on from the anger. It can only soothe you for so long!

Bargaining – the tough stage to understand and embrace. When we hit this stage reality seems to stare us in the face that we lost so much of ourselves to what can only be described as a monster. All of a sudden that pain starts rushing in all around us because we feel like we have a debt to pay to get healthy – one we never wanted to incur or deserved. Our anger shielded us and gave us that rush of adrenalin and some validation BUT reality is here now and we have to negotiate through this.

So where do we go? Again we negotiate with our mind or thoughts and try to establish some form of sensible reality. One that allows the truth, but more than often it can also allow too much room for the type of bargaining that pulls you into the head of your abuser again to understand and justify over and over again and you have to turn this off. They are out there AND flaunting themselves on you, perhaps there is a new ‘love of their life,’ and more than likely they are getting these messages through to you and into your mind. You start reflecting all of these feelings right back into yourself and asking yourself if perhaps they really did change or is there something YOU can do to change all of this once again. That illusion that you loved them and vice versa is still sitting there in your heart and mind so you are starting to justify this with the pain guiding you to places you don’t want or need to be. The Narcissist is out of the picture and no matter how much you want them or the illusion to be real, it isn’t and that is a huge pill to swallow. What happens next?

Depression – The sadness is overwhelming and even all consuming. The isolation and sadness distracts you in many ways allowing your heart to rule your head and those images of the Narcissist are cycling through your mind, BUT you also see the reality of the huge loss. You have spent time educating yourself and are beginning to actualize the truth of this abuse but the depression and hurt make you basically withdraw into yourself AND your thoughts. Nobody can just erase all of this and you see a long road ahead of you. You just want the pain to go away. This is traumatizing and you are experiencing the physical effects as well. You might have disturbed sleep patterns, difficulties with eating regularly, aches and pains, you always feel exhausted, and your mind just won’t shut itself off so you can have a little peace. You will likely withdraw yourself from the life you led before, and have difficulty with trusting others.

Basically the reality has set in and you begin to feel depressed. You are no longer in denial, because you can see what has happened to you. The defense mechanisms and adrenalin are no longer there and you are surrounded by the silence that the truth seems to shroud you with a different darkness. There are no rescuers there with you, or hugs, or a friendly voice to say it will be OK – it feels like you against the world. It will require every ounce of energy you have to pull yourself back up and your thoughts play a major role and essentially keeping you down!

Acceptance – finally you are in the last stage of grieving. Really there is no definitive order to these stages and you can end up repeating a stage. When you have reached this stage (acceptance) you totally understand what has happened to you. There is a new meaning to the ‘WHY.” You are no longer searching for answers, and you are no longer deluded or confused, as you were before. You are no longer angry at yourself OR your abuser. You KNOW that there is no point in bargaining, because the person that you believed in is a HUGE lie and very disordered. There is no thought of ever going back to them or even associating with them, or even THINKING about them. You are moving out of the depression, vulnerability and isolation. It is now your time to start setting boundaries and looking inward.

Healing has to involve a deep look inside of ourselves to mend what may be broken as well as looking at some of our wounds that may have already been there that kept us in the dance with this Narcissist. This is a personal journey for all of us. Now is the time to start looking inward because you are getting back to ‘healthy’ and you have clarity over the situation to move beyond it. While you might not agree with what has happened to you, you accept it, and you let go completely. Your Narcissist (abuser) is no longer any part of you. You may have to repeat the steps many times in many ways, BUT when you have reached acceptance, you are finally healed from the abuse.

LASTLY, the important thing here is to stop blaming yourself. Stop wishing the recovery would go faster. Stop thinking that the narcissist is somehow the winner here if you are still hurting. This journey is about you and not the Narcissist. The Narcissist is not happy, they are doing the same thing they did to you to a new target and you must let any thoughts around this go. Many have tried to make contact with the new supply without success and it only pulled them back into the obsessive thoughts about the Narcissist and the abuse. You don’t need that. I had many people tell me that my Narcissist had issues (even the Narcissist’s family,) but somehow I ignored the red flags and didn’t see the truth until I experienced it and THEN I got it. I wish I could save a target/victim from the abuse but unfortunately the Narcissist has them trapped just like they did to us.

Yes, it was a manufactured love that was meant to completely con you. Your concepts of love that you held near and dear to your heart were mirrored back onto you and your reality was manipulated. You were in love or WHAT YOU BELIEVED WAS LOVE. Love is the strongest human emotion and bond in the world, and you felt it with all of your heart and soul which is not anything out of the ordinary or unique because it happens every day. BUT it was unique because it was a love that psychologically damaged you. Your whole belief system has been thrown out the window! Your spirit must heal from the loss of love however traditional or non-traditional (abusive) it is/was. Regardless of the abuse your love was still very real to YOU!

Here’s where the difference comes into the equation. The Narcissist manipulated and controlled you into a state of desperation for their approval or the desire for affirmation and reciprocal love. You worked so much harder for this relationship to become viable and real? You put so much of your time, energy, thoughts, and perseverance into this. And the end result - you were devalued every step of the way. This Narcissist was cruel and made you beg for the smallest validation from them. They forced you into believing that change HAD to start with you OR ELSE. This WAS the most painful experience of your life. Nothing traditional about this!

When they were ‘loving bombing’ you they showered you with their amazing charm, attention, gifts, and compliments. They only pretended to be the love that you dreamt of or exactly morphing into that dream that was personal to you. They were preparing you for the psychological and emotion erosion or ABUSE. Nothing traditional about this!

After the amazing ‘love bombing’ the relationship was always in contention with them, and YOU were always the cause of everything wrong. You always sensed from their words and actions that you might be replaced at any time, AND in reality they were ALWAYS working on replacing you. This disorientated and distorted your mind, SO this Narcissist basically hijacked your every thought, every minute of the day. But think about those thoughts – were they EVER positive, affirming or nourishing? No they were disorienting and negative to keep you off balancing and questioning your worth and reality. A Narcissist creates this unpredictable lifestyle with lies, games, gas-lighting, manipulation, betrayal and every other tool they use to abuse their target/victims. Nothing traditional about this!

This was a VERY unhealthy lifestyle and not anything near a viable relationship. It is oppression and desperation. Your strong sentiments toward solving all the mystery around them as well as proving yourself over and over again constantly played with and tricked your mind into believing that there was something so powerful about them that kept you hanging on for life and stuck in the horrible maze of their abuse. It is always a high adrenalin rush with them so when they create their chaos and/or discard you your world seems to fall completely apart. It is pure panic and devastation. Nothing traditional about this!

Narcissists always destroy the integrity of their last target/victim. They are claiming that you are the abuser or mentally ill, but the victim is the one left broken and traumatized from all of the abuse. Narcissists will always enlist their entourage or minions to carry out their message that YOU have hurt them in every way possible. Meanwhile the Narcissist has sailed off in the sunset with the new and perfect ‘love of their life.” With a normal relationship both parties usually have a mutual respect and don’t harbor the hate that a Narcissist does when parting ways. NOR do they play games like a high school kid trying to inflict jealousy or intentionally being cruel. Nothing traditional about this!

They accuse you of doing EXACTLY what they have done to you – NARCISSISTIC PROJECTION at its best. But if they were a real target/victim of this abuse they would not be unaffected by it NOR moving right on to a new ‘love.’ The true target/victim exhibits the trauma from this abuse and has to spend many years recovering. Narcissists only use their stories about us to seduce and lure in new ‘supply’ with their ‘woe-be-me’ or pity me approach. So be assured that Narcissists do not spend a single second recovering from the ‘love’ they proclaimed, or the “abuse” they inflected onto you! They were loved unconditionally, cared for, respected, given compassion, and nurtured by you/us (target/victim) so what in all of that would they grieve? They are sadistic and cruel to act out in the manner that they do to good and loving people. It is horrendous to ABUSE people, but how delusional and cruel to add another layer to the abuse by accusing the very person they abused (us) of abusing them (the Narcissist.) Nothing traditional about this!

This is what defines the non-traditional breakup with these creatures. It is not a straightforward recovery, but instead one that requires a strong dose of education as well as a strong arm to pull the target/victim out of darkness and despair with therapy, support and all the help that is available. You are NOT just grieving a relationship you are grieving the destruction from abuse! No/minimal contact!  Greg heart emoticongr

Thursday Thoughts.....

Learn to step out of your comfort zone and do things on your own. There is a whole world out there just waiting for you.  We miss out on living when we are waiting on others to participate in life with us.  I enjoyed a great night out with myself last night.  I went and enjoyed watching karaoke, ate some wings and played Keno! Everyday I am challenging myself to step out of my comfort zone and live!   

#Walking #Wednesday

A beautiful Wednesday here in South Georgia.  Had to grab my walking shoes and out the door I went.  Walked off stress, frustration and cleared my mind.   It felt so good to be outside in the fresh air with the light breeze blowing.  Enjoyed listening to some good music.  Then I had a friend join me.  

Today is a precious gift that we get to enjoy.  We know our weaknesses and our strengths, we will have challenges and difficulties but even during these times we are also to know what true joy is and keep it close.  Learning not to put our happiness in things or people.  Finding true happiness is loving who we are and enjoying our own company.  Being at peace with yourself.  

Have a super Wednesday and take time out for YOU because YOU are worth it.

  

9 Steps To Stop Dreaming and Start Doing

PRODUCTIVITY BY MARGAUX DAUGHTRY

Having a dream and being a dreamer are two different mindsets. Dreamers are drifters just floating through life with no real plans. One who has a dream, is a doer on the path towards achieving their goal.

Once you decide to remove your head from the clouds, tackle the obstacles that face you, and organize a plan of attack, you become a doer. If you are ready to put in the work, here are 9 steps to stop dreaming and start doing.

1. Accept responsibility for your own actions

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” -Arthur Ashe

It is the most unattractive thing to hear someone constantly wine and complain about their life. Especially when they blame the world for their problems. The whole universe is probably against you, does not care about you, and will deceive you. This does not make any actions, or lack there of, on your behalf their fault. Say this statement out loud, “I am in control of my behavior and choose how to react to circumstances.” Say it everyday. Nothing is more true than that statement.

You can, and need, to start actively controlling your thoughts and emotions. Learn to control your rage when you are angry. When a negative thought slips in, push it right back out. This takes practice because we have been programmed by our environment to behave and think in certain ways. Fight to change your negativity, or you will remain a bitter and miserable person. Use your aggression in a positive way by working out, or put it into your work.

2. Give and receive love and forgiveness

“Learn how to fill your day with POSITIVITY. Think of how your ideas CAN work, not how it won’t work.” -Steve Harvey

Once you harness your inner power of controlling your thoughts and emotions, it is time to start focusing on positivity. The best way to start is by accepting others and forgiving the people who have caused you pain. Giving love and forgiveness really isn’t about giving at all. It is about you healing by letting go of negative relationships. If these people really love and care about you, they will fight for you. If you walk away and never hear from them again, you know they never cared, so why should you? Your grudges make you focus on people who do not deserve your time or attention. Anger leaves you feeling irrational, depressed, deceived, sad, regretful, and lonely. Learning to truly forgive those who hurt you will lift a thousand pounds of burden off your shoulders. You will free your mind and be able to start working on your dream.

3. Accept yourself

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

Now that you are focusing on living a positive life, it is time to look in the mirror and love what you see. Physically and mentally. No one is perfect. It is time to accept that you will never be what society expects you to be. Follow your intuitions. Do not let someone else dictate your life. That only leads to a boring, predictable, miserable, and mediocre life. Do what makes you happy instead of just dreaming about it. Love yourself flaws and all.

4. Choose who you surround yourself with wisely

“We met for a reason, either you’re a blessing or a lesson.” -LoveQuotesPlus.com

This journey will end many relationships in your life. The people who are not supportive, who are negative, and who use you, need to go! At first you may feel lonely and insecure. If you focus on you instead of them, these feelings will go away. It is time to move on. It is time to let go. The ones who truly care about you, respect you, and accept you for who you really are will stay. They will support you throughout your journey. These relationships will become more valuable to you than ever before. If you have given your all to a relationship, and they do not give back, stop chasing after them the next time they leave. You will thank yourself in the long run.

5. Learn to ignore the negativity from others

“I don’t know what the key to success is, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone.” -Bill Cosby

Now that you are starting on your journey, you will have people who will try their best to pull you down. That’s why the steps above are necessary to complete before starting. If you have prepared yourself for the haters, you will be able to rise above. It is easier to criticize others than work on yourself. Knowing this gives you peace about where you are in life and where they are. You are obviously ahead, even if it doesn’t look like it to others. Keep moving on and let them talk.

6. Carefully layout your plans

“Failure is not the opposite of success, inaction is.” -Rois Liano

Freeing your mind from your emotional baggage gives you room to focus on your dreams. Now that you have a clear picture, it is time to take action. To be a doer, you need a game plan. Write your end goal at the top of a sheet of paper. Below, write out the steps you plan to take to get there in an organized, realistic fashion. Say your goal is to become a nurse.  Your first step should probably be volunteering at your local hospital to see if you would really enjoy it. Next maybe list the schools you are interested in applying to. The third step could be to gather your necessary paperwork to apply to colleges. See what I am doing here? The sum of all the little tasks you do equals your goal. Lay it out in daily, weekly, monthly tasks that will get you closer to your dream.

7. Do SOMETHING, ANYTHING

“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” -Henry David Thoreau

Many people will get to step 6 and stop. Your plan does not come to fruition magically. You have to now take action to get yourself there. So start researching, traveling, volunteering, writing, calling, interviewing, working out, or whatever opportunity you can find to get you moving forward. You may have to take on many different hats to get you there. Start where you can, do whatever you can, this is where the physical work begins.

8. Embrace failures and detours along the way

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” -Thomas Edison

We all have epic failures in life. It is time to stop viewing these failures as an end all. Failure is an inevitable part of success. Ask any highly successful person if they’ve ever failed, and they will tell you they have 100 times. Failure only means to try a different way. Start viewing failures as a positive experience. How can we learn without failing? Failures result from trying. People who avoid failures at all costs are content with a mediocre life. We are not these people. We want true happiness and inner peace. I remember going to work in a past career and absolutely dreading it. I now think about work and feel peaceful and happy. It’s still hard work, it’s just work that I am passionate about.

As you begin the journey of pursuing your dream, it may change a little, or a lot, along the way. Your passion is already programmed inside you. Uncover your God-given gift through this process and keep moving forward no matter what may come.

9. Network and use resources to your advantage

“Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.” -Chris Grosser

You will realize, eventually, that you need others to help you get to your goal. Whether it is in absorbing information and experience from them, or getting recognized for your talent. Look online for good informative websites, look for classes or lectures where you can learn and connect with others. Drop the pride and shamelessly promote yourself with your work and/or knowledge. Whatever you can find, whoever will help, take it seriously. Opening one door can lead to many more opportunities.

Start at step one. Do not pass go and do not collect $200. If you commit to these 9 steps to stop dreaming and start doing, you are facing your fears head on and taking a leap of faith. Congratulations, your life will now truly begin. Please note this will be hard and sometimes not fun. Stay focused, but don’t forget to take time to clear your mind and relax along the way. I hope you now feel inspired to step out of your comfort zone, and risk being happy.

“Dreams are like floating down a lazy river. The path to success is like riding a roller coaster. Find the courage to get on the roller coaster, and stay on the ride until you puke.” -Margaux Daughtry