MOVING ON FROM NARCISSISTIC ABUSE!

FIRST TIMES FOR ANYTHING WILL ALWAYS MAKE AN IMPACT, BUT THE FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PAIN, LEAVES DEEP SCARRING WITHIN! POST NO.8/N (A 16 minute read)

Hi again readers, how true that is and it had been my focused objective to try and salvage as much as I could of the time so sorely misused. I had that which no child sufferer of NARCISSITIC ABUSE ever had. A solid, determined, devoted and supportive parent. MY DAD!!!

Catching up on the school work was one thing but the friendships had all been completely shattered and attending school had become a very daunting occupation. I was assigned a therapist who actually dismissed me after two sessions but as all at school thought that I was completely off my rocker, no one thought to check back with the therapist!

As such, I continued to go for these therapy sessions for the remainder of the school course!!! No, my parents did not know and the school as I said, did not think to check back with them either. Add to that my regular trips to the hospital which finally came to a point of reduction, once a week instead of twice, to once a fortnight, to once a month, as I could now continue healing that awful physical wound at home!

Between these two excuses and the school´s complete failure to check up on my movements, actually meant that I was still out of school for at least half of the week´s classes. But I was spending most of that time in the municipal library working on the tasks in hand. So, I did use the time profitably. In fact I found it so much easier to work without the strain of my peers and their comments!

LIFE AFTER THE BREAK-UP WITH A NARCISSIST MALE

I had come very close to being removed from home and placed in a care centre. I knew that I did not want that. In one of my two sessions in the mental health centre, I was put into a group therapy session which maybe I will talk on another time. My therapist made a smart move there. Being in a group of 16 young girls and boys, all of them from care instituitions, well, no, I did not belong in that realm.

No, I could not let my father down! I was not thinking of myself at that time, only that my beloved father just did not deserve the pain and anguish that he was suffering by my actions. I made a very concerted effort to repair the damage caused to my family. My father was brilliant and my elder sister was also a tower of support.

On one of my mornings at school, a girl from the year below me, made a beeline for me. I knew her as she was a very good hockey player and had joined the school hockey team which I HAD been part of and no longer was! Another of the losses as a result of this sad relationship with a male NARCISSIST.

"Was I sure that I did not want to go back to this male?" she asked me. I was quite stunned actually that she had had the sensitivity to ask. I told her that "NO, NO and NO, I did not want anything to do with him ever again." I told her that he was a nasty, violent person and that she did not want to get involved with him either.

I as yet, had not crossed paths with him since the break-away! But I was nervous and shaky most of the day. He would know that I was at school and could possibly come to persecute me. Maybe that was why it was so much easier to stay off school and work in the city library. I FELT safer there! He couldn´t find me there! 

ANXIETY, JUST ONE OF THE MANY EMOTIONS CREATED BY A NARCISSIST MALE! Photo by Nik on Unsplash.

THE CHAIN OF ABUSE CONTINUES

Sadly, this sweet young girl fell for his charms and started a relationship with him. It was just ten days later that she once again made a beeline for me and I could see the bruising around her face and mouth. The tears poured forth as they are doing now, I put my arms around her and cuddled her tightly. She was a year younger than me. Like I had been prepared for that level of violence and she was similarly totally unprepared.

She did thank me because she recognized that I did not say those things because of jealousy, oh, no! I tried to prevent a lovely girl having to know what I now did. Her father had called in the police and got on his case but he had probably just got a fine and been told to keep away. She had got out quickly and lighter than I but she also had a devoted father who stepped up as her true saviour.

Some months later, out on the town by myself, I crossed paths with my former group of female friends from school and guess what, they were sitting with my NARCISSIST. I could not believe it. They had completely shunned him and me because of my connection with him. Yet now, here they all were, FAWNING over him.

He saw me and beckoned me over. I went and said hello to the girls. Straight away he began to try and apologize and tell me how much he missed me but NO, I was not going to fall for his S**T again. So I left and went elsewhere that evening.

A few weeks later I found that one of my former group of friends was now going out with him! I could barely credit that. She was the quiet, shy type but very pretty. He had picked the most vulnerable one of the group. This was another of his tactics to injure me just as the hockey girl, who I had spoken favourably of to him.

They had been chosen deliberately to get to me. Well, the hockey girl I did suffer for, but for her misfortune, not that he was with another girl, no way. But with this former friend of mine who had blanked me out since I met him??????? To HELL with you ALL! It was not many days before she too came in to school with the tell tale signs of physical NARCISSISTIC abuse!

Of course, I did not take any pleasure in seeing that. I had told them how awful he was when I had recognized the fact myself. But our damage had been done and our friendship completely broken apart, so those last two terms of secondary school were particularly lonely ones for me personally.

ANOTHER PRINCE CHARMING IN DISGUISE???

I cannot go through all of these hideous males without mentioning the one that I misjudged totally and in fact, it was only as I was writing about him in my second book ON THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT Paperback that I saw him for what he really was. A male victim of a NARCISSIST female partner. I had judged him as the NARCISSIST and not gone for a full-blown relationship with him.

My Dad must have been horrified at seeing the tatoos that this one had all over him. I WAS!!! But he was SO, SO, SO, VERY CHARMING. Oh, how I fell for that guy! I am not going to ever share how we met on paper but I will say to his credit, that he has been the most wonderful and exciting sexual partner that I have ever known!

He was married to his abuser. At just 18 years of age, he was married. It did not occur to me to ask that question of an 18 year old. I found out when she nearly ripped my head off and never will I forget her voice yelling out at me, "YOU´VE BEEN F***ING MY ´USBAND!"

"Pardon me!" I said in an oh, so, polite voice. I had never so much as seen her face before. "Who was her HUSBAND?" I enquired. To which she just leapt on me and started biting, scratching, punching and kicking me. Fortunately for me, this Prince Charming was close to hand and he got hold of her by her long, blonde, crimped hair, which he twisted round his hand and said, "Get down you bitch, she is ten times the person you will ever be!"

Well, you see, I did not know at that point in my life, that there existed the female NARCISSIST, even though I was living with a trio of them. That is precisely why a person maybe does not recognize NARCISSISM and NARCISSISTIC ABUSE. It has been their bread and butter at home always.

But he was showing me many of the hallmarks of the NARCISSIST that I had recently freed myself from. He was getting in trouble with the police and building a criminal record. He had tatoos all over himself and it was not long before he added my name to his collection. "NO!" I said to him, "That is really not necessary. Please do not do that!"

The first NARCISSIST had had my name tatooed on his arm and I had also pleaded with him not to do so. He though, was also insisting that I tatooed his name on my arm. "NO WAY!" And I managed to stay firm on that one. As I saw in my group therapy session, this was common practice amongst these troubled children and all the girls in the groups had male names etched in permanent ink on their arms to accompany the multiple scars left from attempts to slash wrists.

I just knew that I did not want to be involved in a life that was not mine. Our relationship therefore, was a "When we cross paths" one and it worked sublimely well. He divorced the wife, disappeared for a while into prison and I went off to college, having actually got the choice of places at the three technical colleges that we had in the area!

HEALING THE SCARS LEFT BY NARCISSISTIC ABUSE AND MOVING ON

When I turned up for my first day at college, it seemed so normal and so natural. Yet, I could see how close I had come to leaving school with absolutely no options going forward. Exactly what the NARCISSIST ex had done himself and was attempting to create the same situation of vulnerability and desperation that he was in for me!

I had chosen the only one of the three colleges that was not close enough to travel to and from each day. Once more, my mother was railing at my father and him wasting his money on me. He agreed, like I, that it would do me good to be in a completely new environment with no reminders of the past, where I could really concentrate on my formation as a young adult.

It was a great decision; it was. There was not one face that I knew and that was its blessing. It was a completely new start and I threw myself into it fully; I did. I quickly made some friends, I got on well with the girls in my lodgings too. Student life FELT good again. NO, of course we were far too young still to be making working decisions!

There was still much more growing to do and grow we all did. Each in our own individual way and each with our own individual style. That was one of the things that FELT so liberating going on to college. I had been in school uniform for five years solid, me and every other secondary school pupil. Wearing other clothes only happened at weekends and nights out.

Now we could wear just what we FELT like wearing. It FELT great being a care free adolescent. The pain of the last two school years was left behind and I left all of those contacts behind too. There was no boyfriend in particular. No, I was not on for any emotional attachments at that time. I had built a fabulous relationship with a fantastic girl who was in my group and we were having FUN, FUN and yet more FUN!

Much I could say of her and our comings and goings and she was such a great friend. I shared with her my troubles of the past and found that whilst she had not been violently beaten, she had had a narrow escape from a nasty type and we were thoroughly enjoying our young, free and single female status again.

Laughter and fun became the mainstay of every day and evening. On Friday afternoon we would all collect our cases and get on our respective coaches back to our home towns. My Dad would be waiting in the city for my arrival and I loved those 20 minutes in the car with him, filling him in on my week and catching up with him and his week.

I was recovering, not only was I recovering but I was now beginning to bud. Those first scars left from my NARCISSISTIC ABUSE were no longer giving me any cause for upset and the festering crater that had been left in my arm, had finally healed and I had my first layer of skin grow across the surface. It would be another ten years before that physical wound finally scarred firmly.

The details are patchy, Prince Charming was being released and asked if I could collect his flat keys from a friend and meet him at the flat. Well, what a stunt me and my buddy pulled off to get me out of college and back to my home city in time for the said reunion. He was irrestible and I will say it again for you, the sexual reciprocity with a male is their powerful draw!

HEADED IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS, BUT STAYING ON COURSE!

He had the idea that now he was divorced and recovering himself and freed up to boot, that maybe we could now, now that I was over 16 years old, start living together. Unbelievably so but true none the less, the coach that brought me home from college actually drove past where he lived. I could literally get dropped off 50 metres from his.

And that is what I would do. I would get off and spend the Friday night with him. The Saturday morning, another if you can believe it, lucky shot for me, was that one of the hairdressers that worked in my local hair salon, where I also had a Saturday job, passed through this way too. So, I could get a lift back to my village with her and do my Saturday shift.

I would then go home and spend the weekend with my family. To be up at 5am on the Monday morning to be picked up at 5.45am by taxi to get the coach off to college. The initial shine of novelty had worn off and in effect we realized that we were somewhat crippled by archaic systems. I had made my decision to contact my home city college and see if I could get a place there to do my second year.

Actually I was really missing being at home. I had needed that time and space but oh, how I missed my Dad, my home, my bedroom, our garden, my Mum´s cooking. It had been good to have some independence but I knew that I was in no hurry at all to leave home. And I also missed my fantastic, lively home city!

I had been granted a place at my home city college and was overjoyed, although I did FEEL that I was abandoning my dear friend but I had to make the best decision for myself and it was the right decision, oh, yes, it was! Meantime, the summer holidays were ours to enjoy and I spent most of them with Prince Charming.

Sadly, his past was now crowding him and overtaking him. The consequences of past actions now coming back to be accounted for. I loved him dearly, I still do. He was not NARCISSIST but he had learned NARCISSISM from a female NARCISSIST. He had been led completely away from his natural path and it seemed now as if he would never be able to return to it.

I just knew that I did not NEED to be having so much contact with the police! I told him straight. "I love you but I don´t want your lifestyle, understand me please!" And he did, he let me go with no violence at all but I continued to "See him when I saw him," for the next six years.

RECONCILIATION WITH THE PAST!

I turned up for my first day at my new college and FELT rather lonely as of course, many were now in the second year of their courses and friendships were well established. I knew that I wanted to come here, this was my home city that had always been so full of good things for me. I did not want to become alienated from it and all from the FEAR of crossing paths with that hideous NARCISSIST of my past!

I FELT a tap on my shoulder and a voice said, "What the F**K are you doing here?" I turned and saw my friend and colleague from my first year. I FELT as though I had just been lifted up into the air. "Why didn´t you tell me that you were coming too?" I cried in delight. "You didn´t really think that I was going to be able to stick that crew without you, did you?" was her reply.

I wrote about this in my first book ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN Paperback Fun was assured for our second year and now back on our own, old stomping ground but with a whole new mottley crew. And yes, it was quite a year. I crossed paths with the NARCISSIST ex and was surprised that he started to talk as if nothing bad had ever happened. How he would love to start seeing me again.

"NO; You had your chance. You had many chances to prove your affection for me. You are out of my life for good. To HELL with you!" And yes, I will admit that my stomach was churning, my head was reeling but it seemed as if he was not even the same person that I had met a year and a half before. I saw him as ugly, uncouth, a nothing. HE showed me the tatoo with my name. "I won´t ever remove that!" he said.

"It is nothing to do with me! GOODBYE!"

In the Autumn I met the guy who has been my only productive sentimental partner throughout all of my nearly 58 years now. And I FELL deeply in love with him. He got on great with my Dad, my Dad really liked him and I was to spend the next two and a half years learning of reciprocal love and relationships. Though those paying close attention will remember that I continued to have sexual interludes with Prince Charming for the next six years.

So, I guess you can see what that actually means. They were a beautiful experience those two and a half years. It was with great sadness that we separated by mutual agreement as we were clearly wanting to go down very different paths and having put so much aside for a complete waster, this male did not want me to put aside my dreams just as he did not want to put aside his.

This was my first real adult sentimental relationship and I will always treasure that time spent with him. The differences between a good, healthy, sentimental relationship and a sick, twisted, NARCISSISTIC relationship are many but if I were to pick the most noticeable, it is the prescence of HAPPINESS and the FEELINGS of BLISSFUL DELIGHT in the company of that one person, as opposed to FEAR, ANXIETY, PANIC, APPREHENSION and all FEELINGS of a negative nature.

Thanking you for reading with me today. I do have a follow tab in the right-hand panel should you wish to come on board this INFJ female´s Trains of Thought and it would make my day to hear your thoughts and views. In the next post I will begin to recount my second encounter with a demonic NARCISSIST male, so please look back for that.