Narcissistic

I think most of us are so eager to get rid of the symptoms -whatever they may be, from headaches to emotional aches – that understandably we forfeit spending the time to understand the problem.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out from my previous posts that I struggled in the past few years. I attributed most of my confusion to two main events in my life: Divorce and the loss of my business in Manhattan back in 2010. It helps to say that the business wasn’t a failure, in fact it was a thriving business with an incredible positive cash flow. The market value of my space went sky high once my lease ended.

It is normal for divorcees to go through emotional turmoils, pains and re adjusting. It is also normal to grief a loss of a great business and be confused for while.

Nevertheless, it dawned on me this past year, that I was stuck in a mild depression and to make matters worst, I developed for the first time allergies to pollen, dust and many other little things such as change of temperatures.

The allergy triggered in me a deep desire to understand the cause of it, so I started to google it and to research possible causes as well as to journal my feelings and emotions.

Interestingly enough I found enough evidence to link allergies to a weakened immune system. Further researched showed that depression can debilitate the body and weaken adrenal glans and or even thyroid glans.

I went for a check up and I started to take supplements. My chiropractor suggested I take a supplement to support my thyroid and literally overnight I felt 100% better.

Once on the road to understand my allergies it was easier to face my depression. I use the analogy of cleaning a house. Once you take the first step to clean one room, you gather enough energy to do the entire house. On that note, I started to notice when I would feel afraid or anxious. Who or what situations would trigger certain emotions.

I finally had the courage to admit to myself that happiness hasn’t been part of my vocabulary for quite some time.

Unbeknownst to me I was in a victimization default setting. ( I made up those terms…smiles). I felt like a victim and I behaved like a victim. I hated victims. I hated to feel like one but how or why did I feel like that? How did I get there and most importantly how to get out of there.

Thanks to my courage and ability to journal my emotions accepting what was for what it was; and definitely thanks to God whom I speak daily. I was led to two different sites of victims of Narcissistic personality disorder in which overnight A light was shed on my life simply by reading other people’s testimony.

The bible has a beautiful verse that says: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free”. I sure was set free.

I was demonstrating symptoms of victims of abuse by a Narcissistic person.

What I perceived as normal marital problems in which included disagreements, emotional neglect, guilty inducing arguments, manipulative ways, outburst of anger, cheating and much more, was in fact an emotional and psychological abuse that left me not only with a broken heart but with an array of emotions that I finally could put a name to it.

Post traumatic stress known as PTSD is usually associated to soldiers coming from war zones, however there is enough studies indicating that victims of abuse are likely to suffer from PTSD because they endure just as much trauma as soldiers in war zones.

In essence I was married to a man that has a personality disorder called NPD

https://outofthefog.net/Disorders/NPD.html

and one of their main tactics is to intimidate, use gaslighting technique, anger, false accusation, invalidation as a way to control or get what they want.

How does an intelligent woman like me become entrapped in such a “crazy” relationship? That’s another story but abuse almost always starts subtle. The abuser for the most part are always very charming, intelligent, convincing, able to recognize and use other people’s weaknesses for their own advantage.

I think the most important thing for me to share is that we need to start calling disrespect or invalidation of our emotions abuse. The longer we stay in an abusive relationship the weaker and more confused we get. We started to believe that we deserve the abuse and our ability to think or see it for what it is diminish day by day.

We need to learn our own value and that’s not an easy process. In my case, I relied heavily on God, prayer, research and on my own desire to be free of anxiety, fear and mild depression. I didn’t  want to take a pill to feel better. Although the allergies was what brought me to point of enough is enough.

I am on the road to recovery in all levels. My allergies got a lot better, I have more hope and more joy than ever, I opened a small coffee shop in a urban area, I found an extremely supportive therapist and I finally got the courage to write about it.

It is a process and as any wounded bird it will take time to learn to trust and to fly again.

It is not easy to openly say “hey I was abused, intimated, disrespected, lied, manipulated on a consistently basis by a narcissist”. It is not easy to admit it, it feels odd and almost scary but staying quiet will not benefit a soul.

#lowselfesteem #divorce #narcissisticpersonalitydisorder #depression #allergies #abusiverelationships #guilty #journal #victimofnarcissist #lessonsoflife #PTSD #faith #abusive #motivation #shame #NPD #milddepression #God #Jesus #Anger