Feeling blah, making another secret entry.
Things aren't going well today, and my brain is being unkind. So I wrote a post for a Facebook group I'm in for people recovering from a narcissist's abuse. I figured I'd copy it here so I can refer to it later.
---
One thing I've had to deal with is the continued realization of just how badly she treated me and how deeply it has affected me. I spent years defending her until I reread my journals at the time and realized, wow, without context this reads like downright abuse. Only then did I start realizing that I had been making excuses for her actions, justifying things, "Well you don't know her like I did," and all that. Accepting what I'd experienced was the beginning of my recovery journey.
Things keep occurring that prompt me to examine past events all over again from as best an outside perspective as I can manage. Small misunderstandings that were quite clearly the result of her saying one thing beforehand and another thing afterward. Behaviors and actions with the purpose of distancing me from my friends and filling the void with her. Responding to my need to talk about things that weren't working by trying to convince me that being critical of her was an attack against her, that I was willfully hurting her by daring to ask that she stop treating me a certain way.
One event that I had forgotten until rereading my journal entries was a weekend that she told me a bunch of our friends were getting together to hang out, but they didn't want to invite me so they weren't telling me. But she was opting to spend that time with me rather than them. Oh, and don't let on to them that I know about it, she wasn't supposed to tell me. And I ate it up. And writing about it now, trying to convey this story, how could anyone believe what she told me? But I did, and I was thankful to her, just as she intended.
I realize now, I still harbor this feeling that everyone I knew back then secretly hates me. My mind latches onto any little thing and creates reasons why I definitely should not reach out and try to communicate with them, to try to clear things up, because I'm just a bother and they've been trying to get rid of me forever. I end up caught in this long limbo of being unable to ask for clarification and inventing worst-case scenarios where I am universally unloved.
Thank you for reading. I do have people I can talk with about all this, and I know what they will say, that it's built on antagonistic, manipulative lies that I shouldn't allow to influence me. But I'm not always as strong as I'd like to be, and dumping all this in front of kindred strangers can be cathartic.
---
The group is... interesting. I've been part of it a few years now, though I generally don't contribute unless an open question is asked. A few trends I've noticed in the group are as follows.
* A lot of members are still being directly antagonized by their exes to this day and will share the chat logs.
* A lot of members seem just to have suffered an unhappy breakup and declare their ex to be a narc in order to belong.
* Those members also share their chat irrelevant logs.
* There is very little gatekeeping, resulting in the above. But there is some. The vast majority of the group is comprised of women, and men in the group are occasionally looked upon with suspicion. But more often than that are the reminders that these abuses are afflicted upon all genders.
* There have been a lot of posts that read like narcs are a kind of movement, or that they have a playbook and share strategies, or that a majority of them understand that they are one in the first place. It's hard to imagine someone who believes themselves incapable of doing wrong to get up in the morning and say "Time to maliciously manipulate people for my personal gain or amusement!" but there it is. Schrödinger's Narc, perhaps.
* There have been a lot of things shared that are "checklists" of narc behavior, "how to tell" posts. These lists often contradict one another, and occasionally themselves. Many of them are valuable red flags, whether they apply to narcs or not. Some include "tells" that abuse victims exhibit, posted unironically.
* It's often suggested that cheating on one's partner is the most prevalent narc trait. Normative monogamy has a very strong undercurrent, and I fear that anyone voicing support for fellow poly people would be raked over the coals. (There are parts of my personal experiences that I could never discuss there, not that I would want to try.)
Honestly, I don't find the group terribly helpful to me since, before today, I've never felt a desire to share something and seek support. At its best, the group functions that way. People post their experiences, others comment their support, on to the next. There's no good in challenging someone there, but there's plenty of good in being able to tell someone that they're seen, that they're not alone, that things get better. I occasionally find introspective memes worth saving.
Now it's a matter of waiting until the post is approved. The longer it takes, the more I doubt I really want to see strangers' responses to it. And there's a possibility that I hadn't considered, that it languishes, never approved. I'd probably have another panic attack if that happened. Sigh.
---
The reasons this past event keeps coming to mind are twofold. First, friends from that time who have unfriended me on Facebook without explanation. One is someone with whom I felt a particular closeness. They unfriended me a few years ago, and I noticed within a few days that I was no longer seeing their posts. I messaged and apologized if I'd done or said something wrong and I sent another friend request. Never got a response, but after two years they friended me again, though I was clearly only seeing the General Audience posts and none of the deep discussion ones in which I used to take part. And since then, they've unfriended me again, still without a word. I sent another message saying I hope they're doing well through all this and that I miss them, but the continued lack of response has my brain inventing all manner of terrible reasons I'm being ignored. Also recently, the discovery of another friend who had commented on a years-old post that came up in memories and since unfriended me. But... she's still friends with my wife, so it wasn't a simple "purge the people I don't really talk to." I have no idea and I'm afraid to ask, and my brain won't shut up about it.
Second, in stark contrast, the person who supposedly hosted that gathering of people to which I wasn't invited all those years ago has been active in the Animal Crossing group. And legitimately kind to me. Which prompted me to realize, wait, why was I led to believe she didn't like me? Who told me she didn't want me to her thing, that she didn't me taking part in the college gaming convention, that she was bad-mouthing me when I wasn't around? Was that all Seven's doing? Wait, no, really, was it?
In how many other ways am I continuing to hurt myself because I'm still tending to seeds that she planted?
---
One thing I've had to deal with is the continued realization of just how badly she treated me and how deeply it has affected me. I spent years defending her until I reread my journals at the time and realized, wow, without context this reads like downright abuse. Only then did I start realizing that I had been making excuses for her actions, justifying things, "Well you don't know her like I did," and all that. Accepting what I'd experienced was the beginning of my recovery journey.
Things keep occurring that prompt me to examine past events all over again from as best an outside perspective as I can manage. Small misunderstandings that were quite clearly the result of her saying one thing beforehand and another thing afterward. Behaviors and actions with the purpose of distancing me from my friends and filling the void with her. Responding to my need to talk about things that weren't working by trying to convince me that being critical of her was an attack against her, that I was willfully hurting her by daring to ask that she stop treating me a certain way.
One event that I had forgotten until rereading my journal entries was a weekend that she told me a bunch of our friends were getting together to hang out, but they didn't want to invite me so they weren't telling me. But she was opting to spend that time with me rather than them. Oh, and don't let on to them that I know about it, she wasn't supposed to tell me. And I ate it up. And writing about it now, trying to convey this story, how could anyone believe what she told me? But I did, and I was thankful to her, just as she intended.
I realize now, I still harbor this feeling that everyone I knew back then secretly hates me. My mind latches onto any little thing and creates reasons why I definitely should not reach out and try to communicate with them, to try to clear things up, because I'm just a bother and they've been trying to get rid of me forever. I end up caught in this long limbo of being unable to ask for clarification and inventing worst-case scenarios where I am universally unloved.
Thank you for reading. I do have people I can talk with about all this, and I know what they will say, that it's built on antagonistic, manipulative lies that I shouldn't allow to influence me. But I'm not always as strong as I'd like to be, and dumping all this in front of kindred strangers can be cathartic.
---
The group is... interesting. I've been part of it a few years now, though I generally don't contribute unless an open question is asked. A few trends I've noticed in the group are as follows.
* A lot of members are still being directly antagonized by their exes to this day and will share the chat logs.
* A lot of members seem just to have suffered an unhappy breakup and declare their ex to be a narc in order to belong.
* Those members also share their chat irrelevant logs.
* There is very little gatekeeping, resulting in the above. But there is some. The vast majority of the group is comprised of women, and men in the group are occasionally looked upon with suspicion. But more often than that are the reminders that these abuses are afflicted upon all genders.
* There have been a lot of posts that read like narcs are a kind of movement, or that they have a playbook and share strategies, or that a majority of them understand that they are one in the first place. It's hard to imagine someone who believes themselves incapable of doing wrong to get up in the morning and say "Time to maliciously manipulate people for my personal gain or amusement!" but there it is. Schrödinger's Narc, perhaps.
* There have been a lot of things shared that are "checklists" of narc behavior, "how to tell" posts. These lists often contradict one another, and occasionally themselves. Many of them are valuable red flags, whether they apply to narcs or not. Some include "tells" that abuse victims exhibit, posted unironically.
* It's often suggested that cheating on one's partner is the most prevalent narc trait. Normative monogamy has a very strong undercurrent, and I fear that anyone voicing support for fellow poly people would be raked over the coals. (There are parts of my personal experiences that I could never discuss there, not that I would want to try.)
Honestly, I don't find the group terribly helpful to me since, before today, I've never felt a desire to share something and seek support. At its best, the group functions that way. People post their experiences, others comment their support, on to the next. There's no good in challenging someone there, but there's plenty of good in being able to tell someone that they're seen, that they're not alone, that things get better. I occasionally find introspective memes worth saving.
Now it's a matter of waiting until the post is approved. The longer it takes, the more I doubt I really want to see strangers' responses to it. And there's a possibility that I hadn't considered, that it languishes, never approved. I'd probably have another panic attack if that happened. Sigh.
---
The reasons this past event keeps coming to mind are twofold. First, friends from that time who have unfriended me on Facebook without explanation. One is someone with whom I felt a particular closeness. They unfriended me a few years ago, and I noticed within a few days that I was no longer seeing their posts. I messaged and apologized if I'd done or said something wrong and I sent another friend request. Never got a response, but after two years they friended me again, though I was clearly only seeing the General Audience posts and none of the deep discussion ones in which I used to take part. And since then, they've unfriended me again, still without a word. I sent another message saying I hope they're doing well through all this and that I miss them, but the continued lack of response has my brain inventing all manner of terrible reasons I'm being ignored. Also recently, the discovery of another friend who had commented on a years-old post that came up in memories and since unfriended me. But... she's still friends with my wife, so it wasn't a simple "purge the people I don't really talk to." I have no idea and I'm afraid to ask, and my brain won't shut up about it.
Second, in stark contrast, the person who supposedly hosted that gathering of people to which I wasn't invited all those years ago has been active in the Animal Crossing group. And legitimately kind to me. Which prompted me to realize, wait, why was I led to believe she didn't like me? Who told me she didn't want me to her thing, that she didn't me taking part in the college gaming convention, that she was bad-mouthing me when I wasn't around? Was that all Seven's doing? Wait, no, really, was it?
In how many other ways am I continuing to hurt myself because I'm still tending to seeds that she planted?