Sufferer Surviving My C-ptsd ''alone''

[EveHarrington]

Yes, narcissists can indeed care/appear to care. To suggest otherwise is black/white view of narcissism. It's not an all/nothing disorder. It's a spectrum disorder. One need not be fully uncaring in order to have NPD.

Welcome OP.

 

[Moon]

Hi everyone
In these days of loneliness your words of welcome and replies give me a warm feeling inside. You don't even know me but still take the time to write. It means more to me than I can express.

Mood swings are frequent at the moment, I've learned to be strong, to be in survival mode all the time. That works. But after really giving myself into treatment, when an emotion hits, it hits so hard and everything seems to trigger me. The more I realize what I lost, how many years I lost, the more desperate I feel. Thought I came to terms with some things, but now wondering if I was deluding myself, pretending to be 'fine' while time slipped away.

I feel being condemned to my life at the moment, nowhere to go, no one to talk to. Hating myself for my life and hating myself for feeling sorry for myself. The sleepless nights are the worst, crying, heart's racing, shaking, one negative thought leads to another and I'm turning from a moderate to chain smoker.

My partner, we've been together for almost a decade now.. seems to have the time of his life. When we speak, he occasionally tells me he loves me and misses me, but its hard to see that in his behavior. I'm constantly aware that this may be my anxiety speaking to me, I've been abandoned and cheated on in many ways, so many times before. The weird thing is, it triggers and hurts so much more than any of the violent trauma's..

He controls our finances and I have stopped working in our business on his request. I do follow the events and know its not going well.
Despite everything, while being there, he goes to parties, drives rented luxury cars, speaks of buying new clothes and all the fun and nights out he has. Making new friends, coming home deep in the night and sleeping in till midday. At this moment, at home, I barely have resources to do my groceries.

I genuinely felt taking a holiday was deserved, but in all honesty, I am starting to feel abandoned. It becomes harder and harder to express happiness for him when he tells me all stories of fun he has there. If he tells me what he does at all. I know.. he is and should not be responsible for my happiness. And my emotional me feels like a terrible person when I'm not happy for him. My rational me screams out about his selfishness in the back of my head.

With my therapist I agreed to pause the EMDR treatment for now but will focus on support sessions for now. Just making the best of each session as much as I can. We also spoke about the spectrum of Narcissism. We both agree, my partner definitely displays a lot of narcissistic traits, possible PTSD as well.. but he didn't have enough sessions yet to have a more defined diagnosis. But he does have a session too this week (on his own request) and my therapist will suggest more focus on couples therapy as well.


Sorry for my long rant, I'm wondering if its still appropriate for an introduction?
and of course thank you for reading

 

[aut555]

My spouse was a passive-aggressive narc. Those are tough to deal with. My narc in the end showed no caring feelings. I had to drive myself to ER. He couldn't be bothered. That was the first sign something was truly screwed up. Often times bipolar or narc have horrible spending habits. He has been somewhat always out of control. He started taking airplane trips instead of paying off credit cards. I get nervous because he pays support but if he falls apart, who knows if l will get my support. I am negotiating a iron tight settlement now because l don't trust his akole. Plus he completely ripped me off of all my personal possessions. He is a medical professional who has taken a oath to follow the highest moral standards, what a joke.

 

[Werewoman]

It's your thread, Moon, so rant away! Lol!

Seriously tho, I'm new to this forum but it's not the only one. On sites like this, I think a ranting introduction gets to the heart of the matter as to why you came here in the first place. We may have the same condition, but we are all at different places in our recovery.

When I joined the site I was having a really bad day, and even though those really bad days are fewer than what they once were, they can still stop me in my tracks.

I think sometimes the people around us get overwhelmed. I know I do, so I try to understand when my partner pulls away from me, but it's too powerful a trigger, and we always end up angry and resentful towards each other. I think it just goes with the territory of living with ptsd.

 

[Anarchy]

Hi Moon, Welcome to the forum!

Sorry that you are having a rough time right now. You have come to a good place, people here really do get it.

I don't know enough about your partner to do anything more than repeat what you've already said, the diagnosis is preliminary.

As a behaviour, almost anyone can behave narcissistically from time to time. It is only when it is the defining trait of who they are...
that it is a personality disorder (and there won't be many people here who'll believe that actual Narc personality disorder is rare! IME it's pretty common)

Even then, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're all bad people

They don't have a strong sense of who they are, and like the myth of narcissus, they constantly and desperately want to see what they'd like to be, reflected in other people's reactions to them; whether that reflection is fear or gratitude, or admiration of success, or whatever else that they want to see reflected.

With c-ptsd, we've often got low self-esteem and poor interpersonal boundaries, so narcissistic people often find it easy to manipulate us into feeding them the sort of reactions that they're looking for

We can also often find out that we are unconsciously attracted to narcissistic people, for a whole range of reasons. I ve only just realised that I get that.

It looks like your therapy and healing journey has taken a turn that you were not expecting

That doesn't make that change bad, it's just different, and it certainly comes across as something that you need to address at some point in time.

Now could be that time.

Welcome aboard
@

 

[Moon]

Wrote this yesterday but couldn't get myself to post it.

I have the same as you @Werewoman I always try to understand why he pulls away, that being such a huge trigger on itself already. Its such a delicate balance between giving space and and asking for something you need from someone, like support, time, showing care. Especially when it happens both ways.


Thank you for your welcome words @Anarchy
I agree fully with what you say about attraction, unconscious or not. At the same time I do believe as well that people with Narcissistic traits choose people who are more receptive to them, insecure, weaker if you will. This may or may not be not fully conscious as well. The laws of attraction are hard to describe rationally.. unless you're a poet maybe

And yes, everyone has some Narcissist in him or her more or less, and that should even be healthy up to a certain extent.
I wish.. I tried.. to explain and justify his behavior like this for a long time. I still have hope that something else is going on, because if he truly has this disorder, it will change so much I believed to be true about our past, present and future.


@aut555 I'm so sorry for what you must have been through during your marriage. I can relate to many things you wrote. My partner has displayed the same behavior in his worst periods. And of course the gas lighting to justify every word or (lack) of action. Some of the things he did were borderline abusive.

It is difficult for me to even write this, it took me over a year of therapy to be able to acknowledge this, for myself. I am a deeply loyal person towards the people I love. Can say in an unhealthy way, my love, loyalty and dedication has almost no boundaries. I never knew any different.

If I can ask, has your (ex)husband ever shown genuine emotions or actions to you? Did he ever during your marriage show you empathy, emotional support, made a selfless sacrifice, spoke about insecurities about himself? My partner did, even though, over the years the good periods became less and less frequent, and the bad ones gradually became worse and longer.


I came to the realization that we may be living in a codependent relationship. Whatever he will be diagnosed with, I have hope we can heal and take this path together, while painfully aware that it does take two to make that happen.

I do blame myself for feeding him over the years with my unconditional love and support, where at some points I needed to stand up for myself, and him (!) and stood my ground. I know of his traumatizing childhood and even thinking of what he went through, it literally breaks my heart. I did not want him to feel as intensely bad and insecure about himself as I did. And yes I was naive to think (not consciously) that all my love, support and time would heal us both after all.

It will be a very long path to overcome my guilt and self blame, towards taking responsibility for myself in a healthy way. Intellectually I have always know this, but my emotions always overrule it. I have no clue how to apply this in real life. In the same way as it has been a long path towards the realization that I not only have been abused, I have allowed myself to be abused, over and over again.

Found this quote somewhere on the internet and somehow it does give me strength.

“ People treat you the way you teach them to treat you,
as you’ve put yourself in a certain role in a relationship,
and then when you’ve had enough, you’re stuck in this role.

You don’t want to do damage, but all you’re doing is damage.
The truth gets to the underlying problem. If you don’t express the truth,
the issue or situation will never be resolved. ”

 

[aut555]

Wrote this yesterday but couldn't get myself to post it.

I have the same as you @Werewoman[/...

That was pretty serious, and a very heartfelt post by you. I believe a true narc has no empathy. You are literally a object in his world to manipulate as he sees. Your things belong to him also. I can't be with him because his whole world is about control. He has bipolar, something that is consistent with hoarding, another one of his issues and his mom has it. So there is a whole range of issues that l choose not to babysit anymore. He turned extremely abusive in the end. Just worried that you may not know they get worse with age. So glad you are at this forum sharing your journey and finding your way through all your feelings. I have dealt with the fact l contributed to his feedings. Lol. He became more involved with his clients, something typical of this type of bipolar/narc who is a psy. MD. There was way less interaction between us. So his feelings for me is just a pure hatred.

 

[Moon]

Someone with such disorders having psychology training and knowledge, oh my that must have been so hard on you.. I can only try to imagine..
I genuinely got the shivers thinking of it.

I've seen flashes of hatred in him.. but the worst has been his silence. His dismissal, absence, lack of care and for days, sometimes weeks he ignored my existence at all. Having been isolated for most of my childhood and adult life, this is one of the heaviest emotional triggers for me that I have been reliving over and over again.

Hoarding.. that triggered me in a weird way.
He has a passion for girls. We wants, needs, to get to know them, help them, be their mentor, amuse them, have fun etc. He had 'emotional affairs' before. He doesn't see those as affairs himself, he see's it as friendships. But during those 'friendships', that were hidden from me, he had little to no attention for me.

He explained, tried to convince me, that he does not want more with them, that he loves me, they are just friends, but I felt heartbroken every time he met someone 'new' who temporarily became the center of his attention. I felt something was very wrong even though he claimed it was all in my head. They shared personal thoughts, feelings, pictures and a lot of flirting was going on. I only found out about details afterwards. At one point, I collapsed and had a total emotional breakdown. He said to me that he didn't realize how much it affected me. He deeply apologized, stopped it for years and claimed he grew out of it. I forgave him.

But now being away for 1.5 months already, he is making new female friends again. In 6 weeks I believe he added around 20 girls to his Facebook. All young, fun and very attractive. He spends most of his nights out surrounded by his new female friends. I am deeply jealous and insecure about this, even though he (again) claims they are 'just friends'. They may very well are, but because of what happened before, I am so anxious my heart will be shattered again.

Today he finally had a meeting with our psychologist again, the first one in a month or so, and that is a relief. He always seems to 'soften' after his talks, and a bit more more open and considerate.
Tomorrow I will have a meeting myself and I hope we can start having meetings together soon. One way or the other, the issues we face will have to be resolved before I can even think of starting to work on my older trauma's. I need to take it day by day..

 

[aut555]

Thanks, you are the first person to really understand how rotten it really was. Silence is also a control technique, as long as you are aware of that. So you know l am going to ask why you tolerate the other woman. That is wrong on his part and he may never change. Are you prepared for that? Can you have male friends? Is this a relationship of convenience at this point for you, because you are in Europe? I am asking some hard truths and l sympathize with you. It took me three years to get the courage to leave due to my age. But l decided being broke was better then being with him.

 

[Angela Corgan]

If your husband really has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, he could very well be 'concerned' about your issues, sometimes even be helpful, but the reasons will probably because he wants to be SEEN to be caring, became he is keeping you on a string until he decides to strike. Go back in time ask yourself when he has been in tears have you ever had a fleetng feeling there might be something going on underneath? Is there a pattern to when he is suddenly 'supportive. My 'father' has a very strong narcissistic streak (I cannot prove he has NPD), he appears to his friends to be a supportive, long suffering father. Believe me he isn't...Really soul search if your partner is like this he will seem respectable, plausable with loads of sob stories.

 

[aut555]

He never showed any concern, he has never cried, it was my abusive childhood that made me process his attention as he was committed to us and "normal". Because at that point twisted was normal to me. I now know better. If the person is emotionally disfunctional , then that relationship better be on your terms. @Moon is there some reason you tolerate his dalliances with other woman? Do you feel you have no rights in this relationship? Is this really healthy for you? Hope you are doing ok.

 

[Moon]

Hey.. I'm so sorry for my silence but it has been a roller-coaster and I could not get myself to do or write anything.

He broke off the relationship with me during a short visit to our home, and moved back to his home country.
Because he needed space, he had enough, he wanted to be alone. As I love him, I let him go to do what he needed, as painful as it was. We talked and cried together.. andI even brought him to the airport.
Communication between is afterwards via skype went so much better, nicer, more kind, that we even agreed for me to come visit him there for 4 days - in the past week.

What happened after.. it felt like he killed my soul.
I can't describe it in any other way than listing what he said to me in a hour after hour rant against me.. Ina foreign country and strange city I could not get out of. Most of the context is burred out for me. I want from trigger into dissociation into hysteria ( when he came to mentioning my ex )

My life is awesome without you.

I wish I never met you,
I wish you would die,
I wish you would not exist,
I am wasting my life with you, xx said I'm wasting my life with you,

I'm not a narcissist, I've been with other girls, I can feel loved.
My friends say that I'm crazy for not making out with xxx random hot teen chick.

Your mother only wanted a normal child,
Even your child hates you,

You make me into a narcissist,

You're the most boring person I ever met!
You're just dumb as f*ck,
You're brainless,
You're not a person,
You're nothing,
You're hopeless,
You put no effort at all,
You do nothing,
You ruined my life,
You suck the life out of me,
You're spoiled,
You don't deserve to be treated with respect,
You affect all people around you negatively,
You never listen to me,
You always interrupt me,
You never talk,
You can't have a conversation,
You're childish,
You're irresponsible,
You're useless,
You are the saddest person I have ever met,
You are the most selfish person I ever met,
You always make it about yourself,
You never agree with me,
You always piss me off,
You see things as they are,
You don't deserve my kindness,
You made your ex beat you (I think..),
You are only traumatizing yourself.

I like to be around real persons.

Why are you always so negative,
Why do you always pick out the negative things.

Why are you being so emotional, I'm only being open?
Grow the f*ck up,

Don't be such a pussy,
You make me say these things.

I choose to be a narcissist.

It's a shame, we fit eachother really well somehow, but I realized,
I only Want to love you. Oh well..

People will always end up leaving you.
My friends say I should just cut you off.
You ruin my small hope we can be together again (every time again)

You are nothing to me.

You're an emotional narcissist.
I will never ever talk to you again.

ending with...
Shall we spend our last evening together in a nice way?


I only survived these days because of my psychologist talking to me via text, keeping a line open to reality, and the knowledge that I soon could go home to my son
Without Him.

I came home today and am still completely in shock