Narcissistic Abuse / Ptsd Is Killing Me

[narcissists]

So I'm new here and in abject despair. Currently undergoing EMDR, talking therapy and on heavy SSRI anti depressant after what happened. Want feedback on how I might expect to improve as I'm currently not working and might lose everything unless I can beat this.

Basically, I had two successive relationships that left me broken as a human. In my field I am quite successful.
First was a relationship of 5 years with a woman 10 years older than me, who I considered my life partner and loved deeply. She was also my business partner in the division of the firm I work for. After getting me to a stage of complete mind control where I was dependent on her for decisions as basic as what to eat, she discarded me repeatedly and I tried to kill myself. She got me to invest in a business and then stole it from me. Also got me involved in a bunch of shady career-advancing schemes that nearly destroyed my career. Through much therapy I See she is sick in the head and probably a diagnosable psychopath - just used me for career as her personal slave. However, this nearly killed me. And she's forever in my business and sniping / hoovering. I am utterly terrified of her.
Then I entered a relationship with another beautiful young lady who all my friends warned me about - I gave her a lot of money and tried to help her career, she pushed for more and more commitment and would routinely degrade me for not doing enough. I felt totally inadequate. "If you do not give me money I will ask other man" (both these women were Russian...). After being threatened with being kicked out my apartment (for the second time) I snapped and went insane and threw her out. I am not proud of that, but I just couldn't take it anymore. Then I went to a mental hospital for 6 weeks to try and understand what the f*ck had happened to me...
Seems both women wanted me only (or mainly) for money and career. Left me with no self esteem at all.
I know they are monsters (the first one significantly more so) but the feelings of panic and self blame are debilitating. I feel like I did not do enough - I should have given more money, helped career more, been stronger, not let it get to me. My body feels like I ruined my own life by eventually telling both of them to f*ck off and leave me alone and stop blaming me for things I haven't done ("you don't buy me enough presents" was the admonishment from the second young lady who I entirely financially supported and flew all around the world - thanks dear...)
So my brain knows now what's happened, and the childhood trauma that they were able to manipulate to control me, but "fight or flight" is at an all time high even under EMDR.
Help!!!!!!
I want my life and my sanity and my self esteem back!!!
I feel like their validation is the only thing that can make me better, and that's the one thing I will never get... thank god I didn't marry them as they'd then have truly ruined me but my heart was open and full of love and they just f*cked me with their ruthless ambition and unwavering selfishness...

 

[GrayOwl]

You sound like you have found some very professional predators.
The level of harm they were able to inflict indicates you set very high goals for yourself and are willing to endure some serious pain.
I have found that I have some very deep seated "needs" that I felt I needed to find someone to fulfill, in either personal or career relationships. And I have entered into relationships with horrid narcissistic monsters. Key word: "I".
They are always out there. Lurking. Looking for their next prey.
Until you learn who you are and what you want from life, you will have a hard time not repeating history.

This is a process - not an aspirin. There is no magic pill that will teach you or cure you.

The lessons are painful. Learn to endure them, grow and learn through them, and you will find the path to healthy relationships, coping mechanisms, a career, lifestyle.
It can really suck. It can hurt more than anything in earth. But introspection and learning about me was the only way I could move beyond what was hurting me and keeping me back.
Once I learned that, the predators became less of a threat and today are usually little more than an annoyance; plying their nasty trade outside my window. But this has been a lifetime of personal inventory and effort that continues today and will forever.
But I like my life today.
There is certainly hope. Please, it doesn't happen overnight.
I suggest you take a moment for something simple you enjoy - a bowl of ice cream....or a movie....and then ease back into it.

 

[GrayOwl]

And yes.
I do think there should be a fiery pit from hell that we could each take turns slowly lowering bullies and narcissists into.

Till that's legal I'll keep working on avoidance therapy.

;) G'day.

 

[Friday]

This is a process - not an aspirin

One of the best lines, ever.

 

[Revampjacob]

You sound like you have found some very professional predators.
The level of harm they were able to inf...

Why do I feel like it's my fault???

 

[GrayOwl]

The following is simply my opinion.

Though you may not intend to attract narc's you may have characteristics that attract them.
It's kind of like learning that you're disposed to a particular type of gene that leads to cancer or heart disease.
You didn't want it, but somehow you developed it, or were just born with it.
Narcissists and bullies seem to have an instinct for finding vulnerable people like this and visiting maximum damage upon them for as long as they are able.
You certainly didn't ask for it and you certainly don't deserve any of it.
And it may not be your fault at all - in any way!!!
But these are generally predatory type people and they "need" to feed on the susceptibility they find in others.
You may do things that "invite" their interest.
So......it really is not your fault.
But......you may need to do some hard work to change your wiring so you don't keep finding yourself in these positions.

People with heart or cancer conditions have to be aware and make changes. So might we if we do things that make us vulnerable or attractive to bullies.

Am very interested in other people's opinions as I have long struggled to balance this in my life and relationships.

 

[Revampjacob]

I just want to die. I feel like I failed her. She was so beautiful and so what the insane demands she made. I should have been better and stronger. It's my fault.

 

[anonymous]

Not everyone of course but some people in some cultures see things differently. I do know a few Russian women (professionally) who see relationships like this. And others that don't of course. One says almost every time I see her: "they are not buying me enough presents. They are forcing me to have more boyfriends so I can get more presents". She is usually having two affairs at any one time although she is married.

People who only think about themselves are skilled at making others feel responsible for anything that doesn't go their way. The thing you need to look at is why you complied with it and why you didn't have enough boundaries to protect yourself. To see it as them not you. Are you seeing a therapist? Have a look at assertiveness, co dependency, caretaking etc. It can take one by surprise when you don't realise others can have such different values in life.

 

[Revampjacob]

Yes - I know. I know what exactly led to this. I have a problem from childhood that I do not recognise abuse as my father was a narcissistic psychopath. So when these women were abusing me, I simply didn't see it as abusive. It was my definition of love. The more controlling, the more they loved me.
I am becoming at peace with the first one's psycopathy as she really deserves to burn in hell - so many identifiable instances of hugely profiting from my demise (when all I did was love her, a nearly impossible task...).
The second one however I am totally grief stricken by. I just can't believe she picked over my corpse like a vulture when I was in a weakened state and used me like she did. And of course took ZERO responsibility for anything, never said sorry, and never validated (save when I did things she wanted).
My heart hurts and I can't sleep and my therapist (I see one per day currently!) says it's PTSD from the "learned" response that when someone is a shit to me that I must have done something to inspire it...
It's coming up to Christmas now and even though I have a better life than her (she has no money or career until she finds the next man to provide it, which she has probably already done) I feel pining for her. But if she came back I would instantly smell a rat and there'd be a request for a plane ticket / money within hours just like the last times.

 

[GrayOwl]

Yes - I know. I know what exactly led to this. I have a problem from childhood that I do not recogn...

Knowledge and acceptance are powerful tools.
They don't always assuage the pain, but they can lead one on the path to a rewarding and healthier life.
"It is always darkest just before the dawn."
I've worked hard and hurt deeply, as many of us all have here, but in retrospect, the lessons and experiences I have been through have not been without meaning and what I have endured has led me to be a stronger and wiser person today.
"When one door closes, another opens."
I hate trite little quotes, don't you? But my spiritual condition and happiness today are largely dependent upon my ability to follow through on the emotional and spiritual lessons that I have learned, despite however much my heartstrings and "needs" pull me astray. Experience has been a cruel taskmaster at times. Hopefully you can impart some of the collective wisdom found herein on this website and save yourself unnecessary painful emotional journeys. Most of the times those women get just what they deserve anyway, sadly. Let someone else and mother nature take care of that. You concentrate on yourself. Leave them alone. They are a danger to you.
I think you know how these people (women) operate, and there are many more of them out there.
I pray that you will find a quality lifestyle and someone of worth will enter your life so that your painful memories can fade. Don't underestimate the hurt and damage, though. I would recommend therapy and counselling and a strong program of self awareness and vigilance.
I never thought it possible that the hurt could become as distant as it has in my life. I still return to it and have to deal with it today, but it is fading and so many quality things have replaced the pain, bad choices, and crappy people that were a part of my life. Life is in a good direction for me today. Lots of issues still, but the winds have changed, and for that, I have had to work hard.
Wishing you the best.

 

[Revampjacob]

The thing that I can't understand is why, now my cognition has been "fixed" and I understand truly this whole atrocious narrative, is why the physical symptoms remain and the obsessions / compulsions to find out what the second woman is doing with her life post-discard (I know about the first).
It feels like there's some deep pain that I don't fully understand.
Please give me your insight as this is physically unbearable. My body is practically shutting down from all the adrenaline going through it.

 

[Powder]

Because on some level you are obsessed? You want to find someone who is in their heart the same as your father and this time, get it right and be victorious, which is going to magically take away the pain of a lifetime of not having your need to be seen for your true self and wanted for that, and appreciated, valued, and loved by those who you admired and wanted to love you.

I think I can in some ways relate, in that, in the past, I also felt caught in a tractor beam of narcissists when I wasn't avoiding them well enough. Not to this level because I must have realized how without a soul they are, and not been able to relate.

You feel it's your "fault" because you have not begun to see how deeply being raised by a Narc has conditioned you to become enough in your emotional non-functioning and inability to introspect to need someone else to control you or tell you what you are feeling or needing or wanting.

I have been there, and in times of stress, am regressing to this.

As challenging as it is, the main thing is to grow a tolerance for emotional and physical pain to the extent without asking us, which you are doing, to very easily ask yourself "What is this pain's message?" and knowing, not guessing, the answers.

Please try this now, while this pain is fresh.

When you burn your hand, it's easy to source the pain's cause and remedy. Not so with emotional and relational pain.

You need to tolerate the pain enough to sit with it and have a conversation with it and find out what it reminds you of (when you felt it before) and what inside, not who outside, controls it or helps it go away.

All the controls and all the answers rest on the inside of you, but you have always been around people saying the opposite to keep you from learning emotional self-regulation and self-soothing.

I'm so sorry, and can so relate to this.

I play a game with myself in which Winning is not based on my $, looks, or what anyone else can know or think about me. Instead, winning is being happy inside all by myself when I'm alone, like all my needs and wants are met by my own acceptance and pleasure of being me.

I don't always win, and some days, I think very ungracious thoughts about myself, but I've learned to work with that inner critic and find what the problem is.

You are worth this, those people are wrong about you. You got this.