REVENGE

Revenge is a consequence of resentments and overthinking..
both are symptoms of abuse..
If you don't like the pain, I guarantee you won't like the revenge hangover (which can show up years later, long after our head clears)
Overthinking is a "condition" of thoughts repeating over and over again with no stimulation or creativity to find new options and opportunities for new thoughts..
The same part of the brain that obsesses without resolution, is the same part of the brain used for creativity,, it can't do both at the same time... 
SOOOO, start doing creative things,, even puzzles can help take your mind off an obsession,, 
maybe find a fun coloring book, grab some crayons and a friend and color for awhile each day to break up the obsession.. 

It takes work and commitment to change our mind....
,,,,,, and resentment is a consequence of unresolved anger and sitting in our pain and stress for too long..
When faced with revenge thoughts, take a breath and remember that you are more important than the pain of another person.. and it's time to forgive yourself for your betrayal by believing lies.. Yes, they lied.. move on.. direct your focus on what you have right now, after the loss..
Find gratitude for who you are; a love-able person with the ability to grow and change..
(who happens to be very angry, and that's ok because it's only temporary)

Why I love EMDR

New studies are reveling that during trauma, we can be so confused by it all that we use our right brain more, the side for memory, dreams, etc because our analytical left brain just can't make sense of it..
We end up storing the memory with wrong interpretations (like we're not good enough and that's why we're having the trauma happen to us) in our right brain..
This also skews with the fight/flight/freeze of our amygdala which interprets anything that resembles the original trauma, as if it's dangerous.. So a certain shaped room can trigger our amygdala's freak response instead of allowing our left brain to interpret things correctly,,, thus, things like PTSD and anxiety disorders..
This is my favorite, just watch the balloon on a large screen..

EMDR works both sides of the brain, which jiggles loose our old files/memories back into the left brain again, to be processed.. and resolved..
This vid has a person doing the EMDR....

That's also why we need support and people to talk things out with when working with this..

it's not hoovering,, he's taking you hostage... He's testing you to see how much crap he can say to you before you scream "Shut up"...
You can always just turn away and get busy doing other things, it's not rude, you didn't ask to join his fan club,,, or start exchanging the child in public where the ex can't take up your time the same way...
He knows,(narcs always know) that the shallow blah blah blah is a trigger for people trying to get away from them...
He's had practice and he's really good at pretending that he;s being friendly when instead, he's holding you hostage with the "commercial" of himself..

warning

Everyone will warn us of what they'll treat us like in the first 20 minutes of a conversation... It takes practice hearing it but everyone does it...
With a narc, their warnings always seem like a joke cuz their comments will be so extreme:::
"ha ha ha, I'm looking for 3 queens not 1 princess" referring to something you say about monogamy..
"ha ha ha, all my ex's are bitches (or bastards)" see a red flag?

or they'll hide their warnings in what sounds like love talk::
"I don't want to share you with anyone." warning that they will triangulate and compete with everyone you have feelings for or attachments to..
"You're gonna break my heart" this is an angry narc who is already telling you that they are ready for a fight..
See what I mean???
BUT, covert narcs warn in their conspicuous silence on some subjects or they're "perfect" sharing little info about themselves at all,, again conspicuous silence...
And just because we've studied all the red flags and warnings about a narcissist, which all end up looking like a roadmap to understanding a narc,, remember that while their behaviors fit a syndrome or cycle,, in truth they are totally unpredictable especially if you are their target... (just my 2 cents)

Oversharing

Oversharing is a lack of boundaries,,
It tests the listener..
It's a type of mental exhibitionism of emotional insecurities..
Do you get mad at folks for not understanding you? that can be one of the consequences of oversharing..
Oversharing doesn't help people understand us better, it trains people not to ask us questions..
We talk about the narc's red flags?,, well oversharing is a red flag of a codependent...
The only way I know of to stop oversharing is to just learn to say what you mean instead of second guessing what we think someone else wants to hear.. Practice in front of the mirror; just say NO over and over... Break the old rules that said you don't know your own mind and just say "NO".

DEALING WITH THE RESENTMENTS

I think the hardest part of detoxifying from the abuse is when we need to look at the rage and resentments we end up creating in ourselves because of the abuse.... Anger during this time is totally normal and healthy,, but rage is dead ended anger,, anger that never got resolution so it built to rage and resentment..
It ends up being a very heavy weight to carry around.. it turns into things like jealousy and revenge...
As far as I know, the only way to get rid of that awful feeling is to do a big look at ourselves and learn how to name our participation..
The narc lied and lied and lied,, and at first, it hurt our vulnerability, we became shameful that we got lead into a trap of deception which complicates our ability to see ourselves without judgement..
When we can name our gullibility to the lies and deal with the (natural) anger that happens when being tricked, we learn to let go and move on from being enmeshed with an abuser..
You are love-able and you have a right to happiness and love without pain..
Repeat after me:  

"I am love-able and have a right to love and happiness."

I'm Me and I'm OK

Trust and vulnerability can turn to the feeling of stupid and gullibility if we continue to believe we'll get anything from a narc other than manipulation..
I hated when I'd realize that what looked like compassion from him, always turned out to be a trick to get close again, just to get more supply from my confusion when his true agenda became known to me..
Deciding not to believe a liar is key to moving on..
We're all figuring out how the heck we kept falling for the same crap.. 
We're not alone.. 
Share your story with people who understand what healing from narc abuse is about.
It's important to learn (again) that our story is believable and that other people share in the journey of healing and working on being happy again.

Repeat this often throughout the day, everyday from now on:  
I AM love-able and loving
I have a right and responsibility to love  
(without pain)

WORD SALAD

Why does a narc push our buttons?
................ because they installed them..

Word salad is the narc starting a conversation on one subject, jumping around to different subjects and then out of the blue, going back to the first subject 20 minutes later but not saying it clear enough for you to make the connection.
Word salad is also when the narc says one thing and 10 minutes later they claim they never said it.. 
or they tell you that you misunderstood them,, 
or they say they didn't mean it "that way",, 
or they just totally change the subject so often, you have absolutely no idea what they're talking about anymore,, 
or they just drop out of the conversation and you're left wondering what happened,, 
or they start starring off into nothing while you're talking but act like they've been listening if you ask if they're with you in the conversation anymore,, 
or
It can also include them claiming you said something when you know full well that you never said it..

Word salad is a narc's brainwashing technique to get their target into the practice of second guessing the narc and themselves.
It's a win in the narc's mind and it's their proof that they have control over the conversation and another person.. 
 
The main symptom you'll go through if you're being gaslight-ed with word salad is confusion..
The trick to seeing it clearly is to start a diary of when you're getting confused by the narc's words and/or behavior and within a week, you will be fully awake and totally aware of every time the narc tried to gaslight you with word salad from then on.. 

I never doubted myself again after just a couple of entries..

Friendship with a narc?

Narcs love to be friends with the ex that they abused,, it continues the abuse on a different level cuz they don't have good boundaries in friendships either but it's a whole new game to play for them.

What it's like to be a narcissist

Imagine not having empathy and trying to figure out what's going on with someone who's in valid anger.. if you can't empathize, it just looks like they're attacking you.. 
Or try to imagine seeing someone who's hurt but you have no idea what that means for them cuz you don't have empathy for them; it looks like they are blaming you because perception is limited by lack of empathy.
They start early in life in this cycle of self-loathing cuz as much as they blame everyone and everything else when they get older, they start in the place where everything is attacking them and reinforcing over and over that they aren't ok... 
Their projection is a defense protection learned as a child, but with no empathy, they never get to grow out of it by having insights cuz they don't have empathy..
As babies, our brains are growing and one of the first things to develop, is our sense of self.. it's when a baby recognizes themselves in the mirror.. 
The next to develop is our sense of others and if, at that time, there is abuse happening, instead of the brain developing in both areas, it over develops that "sense of self" part (they're always in defense mode because of the abuse),, and the part of the brain for seeing others (empathy) doesn't develop at all or very little..  
That's why it's a personality disorder instead of a mental illness..

Hoovering

Narcissists dance on our boundaries and they keep testing until we stop them.. 
Hoovering brings us back into their victimization game every time..
Narcissists get their best supply from exploiting and victimizing their targets..

Does his new squeeze have it better than you did?

The abuse of a narc escalates (with or without us) and since we now know; the more unhappy we got, the happier they seemed; it's easy to assume that there aren't rainbows shooting out of the narc's ass for their new squeeze.

Never compare your insides to anyone elses outside   .. --Anonymous

DETOXIFYING

When living with a narc, everything gets turned upside down and backwards,, and whether we like it or not, detoxifying includes the slow and painful shift back to ourselves and that gets scary cuz our bodies end up in a battle between the old rules of the narc, which came with overt and covert threats of our destruction if we break those rules,, 
There is freedom in finding our own rules and boundaries..
 
Our subconscious is powerful and if it still sits in perceived threats, which is PTSD, it's a battle and feels like drowning and swimming at the same time..
Exercises that help: anything that helps us connect with our physical bodies again,, and calming exercises when we get anxious,, and continuing to share our story so we feel understood and accepted again..
The turmoil of detoxifying will pass and you'll be able to get on with being a better and better you..

Compliance is not consent.

Compliance is not consent..  
Coercion is brainwashing.. their covert and overt threats create a climate of fear for us to live in..  
I encourage you to give him back his responsibilities and guilt.. 
He exploited your vulnerabilities and kicked your legs out from under you..
I believe in me being responsible for my own gullibility but he's responsible for lying over and over until all my own truth got too confusing to make sense anymore..
Stress actually changes our brains.. 
Have you heard the frog's story?
If you throw a frog into a pot of hot water, it will immediately jump out again... 
But if you put the frog in cool water, they'll swim around happily...
Turn up the heat and that frog won't know when it's time to jump out and will stay in that pot until it boils.. 

That's what happens to us.. and on top of all that, we end up feeling shameful as if we we're suppose to know when that right time to jump was..
Our difference from the frog, is that when we felt the heat and said something, we got love bombed back into the relationship and thinking that the water was cool again, cuz the person who claimed to love us assured us things were ok.. (taking advantage of our vulnerability)..
You are love-able and loving and have a right and to love and happiness without pain.

Priorities

Right now, what's most important to your babies is you looking them in the eye,, eyeball to eyeball and you let them know they have your unconditional love and support and that you see them and in their beauty..
"Worry is my way of letting God know that I don't trust Him" --Anonymous

Change

It's in our request for change that they find our vulnerability to exploit..

Why we can't change them

Something that helps me, is remembering that narcs think in third person, so they create scripts to navigate through life.
For each situation in life that they run into, they have several different scripts that they pull from to communicate,, they are ritual interactions with no empathy or spontaneity..
 
We get into trouble with the narc when our spontaneity collides with their scripts..
 
Why can't we change them?
Because; 1) we can never figure out their scripts,, 2) cuz their scripts are more important to them than any picture we can paint of change,, 3) they live in the past (scripts are from the past) and 4) we have absolutely no concept of what that's like for them, so right off the bat, we're telling them that who they perceive themselves to be, is wrong and who wants to hear that?

Do they really follow their own lies?

They have a well constructed fantasy world where they have specific scripts for different situations that they run into.. if the subject is cheating, they just insert who-ever's name is relavant in the conversation,,,,, if the subject is about a promise they're not keeping, they have several scripts they go to and just switch out what-ever you're angry at at the time..  
It's all a game for them and we don't know the rules until we can figure them out,, and then the narc doesn't want to play anymore..

WAITING

WAITING
It's what you do when you're with a narc..

Deciding to believe

Suggestion:
Decide to believe that he's with someone else,, and Decide to believe that he will never be available for you except for the crumbs..
Decide to believe that anyone else he's with is getting a big crumb right now too because he'll do to her what he's done to you,, all he has are crumbs.. ouch.. damn that's a lonely way to live but they don't know how to live any other way,, their lack of empathy limits their ability to share love,, they can't do it,, ,, ,,they can share intense energy but I'll never mistake that energy for love again cuz love is abundant and all they have are crumbs..

Oops, I did it again..

OK, you found out that being gullible to a liar is painful... 
I ask my Higher Power for the strength to stop believing a liar. 
He's proven he's a liar  
........how come I keep believing him? 
It took me years to figure out how to get out from under being a "good person" and finally just flat out stopped listening to him,,,,,,,,,, all of a sudden the world got a lot more fair.. Thanks for sharing your pain and frustration.. 
I encourage you to stop believing the liar.. 
Once we stop relying on the narc to be honest and responsible, things shift for us,, then we can see our choices with better clarity.

Old Slogans

• I am really a very persuasive person, I can convince myself of anything..
• The talents you have are God's gift to you; what you do with those talents is your gift to God..
• I don't have to get emotional about my feelings..
• A closed mouth gathers no foot..
• Look for the similarities in people, not the differences..
• Your best thinking got you here..
• Humility is that which reduces you to your proper size without degrading you..
• Advice is least heeded when most needed..
• Never compare your insides with someone else's outside..
• If you suffer from low self-esteem, do estimable things..
• Self-centeredness is a casualty of spiritual growth..
• Find humility before it finds you..
• Expectations are premeditated resentments..
• My old outlook used to be "look out"..
• Whoever seeks revenge should build two coffins..
• The most important part of enlightenment is to "lighten up"..
• It's ok to look back in the past, just don't stare at it..
• We never obsess about anything good..
• I don't have to attend every argument that I'm invited to..
• Comparisons are caustic..
• Hate binds you to the thing you hate the most..
• Anyone can hate, it costs to love..
• Spirituality isn't leaving point A to get to point B,,
  it's leaving point A..
• The difference between trust and faith,, The guy at the circus going across the high wire in a wheelbarrow has faith he will get across,, Trust is getting in the wheelbarrow..
• When the horse dies, dismount..

The Trap of Victim Blaming

This is a comment to someone claiming that all victims have low self worth..
d'oh,, you talk about the conditioning that happens under the manipulation of a well practiced expert controller and the reality that no one wants to be abused, and then blame the victim who's resiliency against the abuse is better/stronger than an average person's.. Personally, I think the measurements for self-worth are screwy.. and it's assumed that because modern mental health professionals demand victims be stupid people,, and few treatments for victimization allow for intelligence in the person seeking help.. We live in a world where, when people like Ross Rosenberg (a self-proclaimed co-dependent) step forward and blame the victim on top of the helpful stuff they say, the therapy community jumps up and joins in instead of digging deeper to see that self-worth has nothing to do with the hostage situation that so many abusers create.. That the treatment itself becomes secondary victimization..
And add in things like tonic immobility if any type of battery has happened and instead of recognizing that self worth has nothing to do with the trauma that the brain just went through, therapy ignores the trauma and says "Oh, it's because the victim has low self-worth.".... Baloney..

And don't forget, the more a victim rejects the idea of low self worth, the more they are labeled with some pill fixen malady..

Smear Campaign by Acting

Smear campaign by acting..
"D" would be talkative, cheerful and fun as long as I wasn't in the room, but as soon as I'd enter the party, he'd drop into silence and just stare at his folded hands on his lap..
I would feel the rejection so deeply,, but not make sense of what was happening cuz no one else would see it the way I did..
I tried to leave so many times,, I've moved on a thousand times..
What he did was subtle, most folks didn't even make a conscious connection because he wasn't that important to them,, but it always effected me and he knew it..
I was asked once, why I would let my friends meet him if he was so manipulative, but in truth, I didn't recognize what was happening when it was happening,, and once the damage was done,, I could never figure out how to fix that part of our friendships because no matter what they thought of me,, I always looked like I was complaining about an angel.. (to them).. I'm so freaking happy to be processing all that manipulation and pain I've been carrying around,,, he sucks,, boo hiss on assholes..

Dreams vs Cravings

Abuse demands that we obsess over the abuser and his/her behavior.. Personally, I believe that the amount of craving or obsession we still have for the abuser during and after a breakup, is a measure of how much loss we really feel..
When I take the time to list out what, exactly it is that I miss,, it's the dreams and potential futures and the beginnings of something greater to come.. and all measurable by that craving of wanting "it" back.. 

physical vs mental

Physical abuse never comes without mental abuse too.. and then if the batterer figures out not to be physical, there are studies that suggest that they'll step up the mental abuse to make up for not being in physical control of the target..

LETTING GO of ATTACK DOGS WHO SMILE

I believe it's important NOT to tell a narc or flying monkey or trained attack dogs what I'm doing.. for me; to practice grey rocking and to not try to control them or what's happening ,, lol  ,, as if they respected my boundaries before (hahahaha ouch), ,, ,, it never worked before no matter how honest and sincere I was, ,, ,, no matter how I explained my boundaries during pain and anger.

I now know that it's impossible to teach [your] abuser about empathy..
And it's simple protection to just withdraw..
It won't add to their game and it's not part of their rules of abuse..
For me, it's hard work to not share stuff.. It takes a lot of practice to just keep my lips closed,, lol.. I've been duped into trusting the wrong people and staying private is my first step to changing things back to a happy me...

Detoxifying from narc abuse

Yep, you're detoxifying and your body isn't used to the calm..
The toxic crap is leaving and it ends up feeling like a big black hole 
and that's the scary part for me.. 
But it's also an opportunity to fill that now empty hole with joy and happiness instead,, add some color.. 
You can decide when you want to do that, if you do that and how full you want that empty place filled up again.. 
You get to choose what you're doing to be better and better.. and you get to pick when that happens.. 
You're not alone and this is the subject of your life right now so I encourage you to read what others have also written, get an education.. 
In otherwords, you're exactly where you need to be.. this too shall pass..

Questions I ask myself..

Does he lie?
Does he act as if I'm an embarrassment to him when I need his support the most?
Has he been mad at me for more than 3 days without an explanation?
Has he cut communication for more than 3 days without an explanation?
Do I find it hard to find answers?
Am I in a constant state of confusion about what he says and does?
And for me since I'm a recovering addict,, do I obsess about him, making him an object of my desire?
Am I spending more than 3 days trying to fix a relationship that relies on me to carry the burden of communication?
Do I find myself defending things I never had to defend before?

Climate of FEAR

"They" don't have to touch us to create what's called a "climate of fear".. It can be done by subtle demeaning and dismissive comments at strategic times.. It can be done through their comments of aggression that always come with plausible deniability..
It comes from always being confused and intimidated and it's my observation that the stronger the target is, the harder it is for us to recognize until it's too late because we think we can handle anything, which is exactly what a narc loves=some challenge..
"D" was so good at doing dishonest things behind my back, that when friends commented on something, I'd have no idea what they were talking about because "D"s abuse included the slow and strategic targeting of my friends so they'd complain but I'd never see what they were saying because it didn't match what I was seeing and hearing from him, so I was left caught between people I loved and ended up staying with him cuz I didn't have the resources or understanding of what was happening.. all part of the climate of fear for me..
The more educated we are about the different behaviors that they do, the more we can see that fear is created through many different avenues.. And few people understand the detoxification process that we have to go through to get the narc out of our systems..

Cheaters are liars

All cheaters (emotional and/or physical) are all liars..
When we are in a relationship with a liar (cheating is only one part of the lies), it's a hostage situation because we are jailed by our own beliefs of honesty and vulnerability..
As we betray our own instincts, believing the liar, we loose our vulnerability and we become gullible.. 
And that's when a narcissist knows that we are playing a game we have no idea what the rules are,, and that they have the upperhand in a game we didn't want to play in the first place..
That's also when we're filled with confusion and a sense of intense betrayal by someone who claims they love us more than anything they've ever felt before... 
Rule #1; all cheaters are LIARS.. 
Rule #2; refer to rule number one, we can't pick and choose what's the truth with a liar.
 
booo hissssss

silent treatment...... grrrrrrrrr, I hated the silent treatment...

I had no idea what a true silent treatment was until being with "D".... He would literally shut everything down ,, go totally blank, look right through me,, ignore me.. 
Communication shut down to me verbalizing suggestions, requests and inclusion small talk (as in "I made food, do you want some?") and him rudely, intentionally intensely ignoring me,, and I'm not talking about just a couple hours,, I'm saying this would go on for weeks until I'd be packing my bags,, screw you, I have a right to honesty.. .. .. .. .. 
and then he'd start the "pity me" crap,, "I'm stupid and my dad tried to drown me" crap.. and he'd act like he was spilling his guts with the shame of it all crap,, and I believed his crap...  I believed what he showed me, that he felt pain,, and then I'd remember, Hey wait, this was about me needing to leave because I just spent 3 weeks in hell with a cold hearted leach... how'd this turn into therapy for you??????
One time I needed to talk about a home bill and I handed him the bill and instead of looking at it, he just dropped his hand to his side and let the bill fall to the floor and he just went blank.. 
I always knew it wasn't me,,, but I thought he was having a brain seizure or something... NOPE, it was just the silent treatment...

sarcasm

isn't it nice that they let us be responsible for everything?,, we are truly lucky people,, we even get to be responsible for their cruelty instead of them growing up and being kind.

TINY STALKING

I'm hearin from you that you're getting creeped out by him.. I am too,, The word is "stalking",,, respectful people put mail in the mail, with a stamp, they don't stalk ,, Please don't underestimate what he's doing.. because you also say his excuse for stalking was because of your kids,, It's a really tiny stalking experience but he got what he wanted ... and If he's like the guy who did tiny stalking to me, he will escalate..
Tiny stalking is like a white lie, people accept it, they know it's creepy but gosh, movies show it as a romantic thing,, the cute guy tiny stalks the potential girlfriend and falls all over himself, ,,
Be careful of tiny stalking, it always grows.

Second Guessing

When they have certain patterns in their scripts, it's sometimes easier to second guess the narc, but I think it's a mistake to think we can anticipate much more than moods in certain situations (example,he always got melancholy when pretty women were around, silent treatment if I mentioned it, etc),, Both my mom and ex are narcs and something that used to frustrate the crap outta me was that they'd catch on to changes that I'd make so fast and they'd switch directions in a second..
When I recognized that a narc literally spends their whole life practicing scripts and manipulations on every relationship they pass through, I just quit trying to second guess what he was gonna do, went gray rock and after a couple mistakes, things got better instead of worse for the first time in years..
BTW, "second guessing" is one of the symptoms of narc abuse,, if you're always having to second guess what's coming next, it's abusive..

Change

It's not our emotions that get us into trouble, it's our behaviors when we have these emotions,,
You're not a robot, acknowledge your anger, write about it, talk about it,, Let yourself know that you are ok and that things will change again, so don't give up before the miracle happens.. It's in our anger that we find our motivation to move out of what's hurting us..
Pain is the recognition something is wrong and anger gives us the energy needed to change..

gAMES

I never wanted to play the game in the first place so to recognize that any reaction that I'd do is still playing his game, helped me to drop any emotional attachment I had to winning with the narc..
Once I no longer had to get him to accept what I was saying (me winning), I no longer felt a need to attach to anything he said.. He's a narc and all narcs lie,, I'll never get a narc to stop lying, true story..

TRUST

Trust isn't about whether or not the other person is trust worthy,, trust is an attitude of being able to handle anything that comes our way.. Trust is an inner understanding that people are flawed and the acceptance that it's ok and the resiliency to bounce back after a complication.. Trust isn't about whether someone else is honest or not, it's about whether we have the courage to face those problems when they arise.. Trust is the opposite of a thin skin.

First Rule To No Contact

First rule to going no contact,,,,,, don't tell them what you're doing so that they do it first.. it's a mortifying lesson but it will get easier with practice..
I'm sorry that you're going through his crap again,, it's painful and frustrating..
I encourage you to prepare yourself for the best possible scenario and worst scenario.. Can you imagine what the best conclusion would be for you and his behaviors? (or lack of him so no behaviors to think about) and then imagine and preparing for the worst thing that could happen and his behaviors.. It's an old trick my therapist taught me decades ago and I still use it and it helps me to think clearer about my situation..

Cheating Stuff

I read that writing a diary about the behaviors that really baffle us, helps keep things clear.. I only had to keep the diary a week before making the huge connection that my confusion was a real response to a messy situation.. and I learned to just believe my guts..
My guts are sooooo much more honest than a liar....
Remember, once a cheater, well,, what am I saying "once?" cheaters just don't stop, they get better and better at covering up their trail... and if he's got any sadistic tendencies, our tears become their drug of choice....
I support you,, you are loveable.. You have a right and responsibility to happiness and love (without pain)

Group Stuff

I tend to put the narc in a non-personal place because nothing they do is actually a personal attack, it's a defensive move they believe will protect them from pain and abandonment.. It's skewed thinking from a disordered brain and it doesn't matter who's in front of them, they'll always do the same scripts,, and therefor, it's never a personal situation even if it feels that way.. and to me, that's the hardest thing for folks to recognize because being wrapped up in a narc's game feels personal..
I personally think it's important for people to find their own way through their own crap.. I do believe that a large number of people in this group will stay with the narcissist and they have a million reasons to stay, all valid.. (how do we support them?)
I think a support group is here to share our stories and to teach us to listen to others.. So many of us talk about finally finding a place where others understand us, but I think as a support group, we miss supporting everyone because so many of us come in and are sooo thrilled to finally have a place where we can trash the crap we've suffered through, we forget to listen..
I think it's key to listen to folks, not demand that they join our bash game in revenge..
my 2 cents..

The Dilemma

Ouch

Residue (a blog in which I can find no author, will change here if that changes)

A great example of what it's like to resolve the issue of leaving the narc, cuz you can't..  https://narcsite.wordpress.com/2016/04/23/residue/

Drug of Choice.. Tears

They test and test our tears,
until they know where that boundary in us is,, and then once they know where our limit is, they start installing buttons in us so they can get their drug of choice in public as well as private.
We become their puppets, so to speak..
We get trained to cry on demand,, by their pokes and our own hurt feelings.
Yuck,,
whatta nasty image,,
healing from narc abuse is nasty but not as nasty as suffering through it when it's happening,, and we wonder why we're all confused...

hmmmmmmmm

this is just a blurb put to a meme, we don't know who said it and it says the info is from a friend who runs a therapy group for battery intervention.. but it sure rang true for me.. "D" held Mr Hyde in hiding for a couple years before dropping his mask....

childhood with a narc mom

my narc mom took over my girl scout troupe (loving mom huh?) and then separated and singled me out from my friends, and continued the berating and belittling she'd do to me at home.. I spent two years sitting away from everyone, never being able to participate unless another adult showed up, then she was my best friend..
I begged to quit which doubled her abuse.. It created a bully hierarchy in girls that I'd been friends with for years and she taught them how to hurt me by excluding me and talking disrespectfully like she did to me.. She had her own trained little flying monkeys and over the last couple years, looking up old school chums on the computer (big mistake for me) they comment on what a great mom I had and totally forget the torture she put me through every week..

love?

if you're angry at them for over 3 days, you don't love them..
Things change with anger and our chemistry starts reacting with angry peptides (I'm no scientist) and once those become a normal body chemistry, the love peptides aren't made anymore so, chemically, after 3 days of anger, your body doesn't love them anymore.. (I read that)

Sex?

ding ding ding ding.. this is also an insight as to why sex gets bad once they knock your feet out from under you and you don't get up as fast as you used to.. Living with a narc leads to you being systematically demeaned all the time, to erode what makes you superior supply to them.. Life with a narc is all about short term gratification rather than working on long term goals with struggle and success.. Their future faking is a string along or bait to turn you into inferior supple,, and once that happens, sex goes bad.. and yet they seem to be enjoying themselves more.. creepy hindsight,, yuck..

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Welcome to the roller coaster narc recovery ride..
It's normal to go up and down with a break-up in a relationship with a "normal" person, but the ride after the abuse of a narc can be extreme,,, and totally normal.. Being with someone who's been targeting your best qualities is traumatic and a narc's goal is to install as many buttons to push and play with as they can before the victim recognizes the abuse and gets away..
The more abuse that you endured, the higher and lower the dips and hills.......... it's all good, it's your body detoxifying,,, it just doesn't always feel good and can be downright nauseating..
We're not alone, we're all here figuring this out

triangulation.

triangulation.. this was one of the cruelest of his crap games cuz he didn't understand that I don't naturally triangulate with another woman, they're my sisters not my enemies or competition..
.. I'm very comfortable in letting go of someone who wants to be with someone else and I'm comfortable with other people being attracted to my partner..
What hurt the most, was the reality that he just didn't get it,, and the crap that other women would put me through until I'd tell them, "Hey, he's yours, I've been trying to break up with him since he picked up a stranger" .. It shut them up..
The nastiest thing I did before just gray rocking it, was to tell a woman: "Excuse me but I think your hormones are running down your leg" and she actually looked.. and then left..
People just don't understand that just because someone dumps pheromones on you, that doesn't give you the right to screw with their wife..

STAY OR GO

• We can have a million reasons to stay, it's finding that one reason that's so overpowering that we change and decide to leave that we're in search of..

•  At some point it's up to you to decide what's best for you..
  
•  A wise man told me: "Kay, you're out in the middle of the rapids in a boat without a paddle, going with the flow of things and then being surprised when the boat rocks..
  
• Maybe if you wrote all the reasons for staying vs all the reasons for leaving, it will help you learn that lesson and find that answer that you're looking for..
  
•  It's up to you and I'll support you..
  

Co-dependency

I am encouraging you to find out more about co-dependency because when someone believes that they can change another person by being a certain way, they are describing a client / doctor relationship or an addictive/ co-dependent relationship..
If you are with someone with NPD, you've already been picked for what your specific supply gives them..
To believe someone else needs to change is a mistake..
NPD is NOT an illness, it's a brain disorder..
Unless we also have the disorder, we can't identify with what NPD feels like so we can't tell someone with NPD how to live their life..
Living with a narcissist skews our thinking, part of their manipulation is to get us to believe that an investment in them will eventually benefit us and while we see a future shared with a loving partner, they're advertising themselves for some "future fake"..
They are not a piece of property..
Part of their disorder is their inability to see reality because they live in a fantasy world, devoid of empathy, full of obligation and created with meticulous effort through out their life, practiced on everyone who loved them.. What you met was someone portraying a solid person..
If he has NPD, feeling sorry for them and giving the excuse that they feel "bad" somehow,, is a mistake because playing the victim is their favorite game/role ,, it allows them to be irresponsible, heck, she/he's got someone else to be responsible for them..
The fact that they continually need us to tell them where the boundaries are, is proof that the manipulation works..
IF you are living with someone with NPD and you believe that they can change,, you are co-dependent.. and in for a long, exhausting and futile ride with a god/devil..

Yep

  The first thing a narcissist does in a relationship, is to convince the new target that they really really love them,, I mean, they really really go out of their way to show how much love they have,, gosh it's an overflowing river of love,, remember that?
Still believe him instead of your heart?   My guess is that you still believe that first brainwashing you went through, like I did, like anyone who's figuring out the abuse.
  They exploit our caring and know from experience, that once we think they truly love us,, we become totally loyal to them.. they know this, we don't.. and from there, we enter a relationship being built on the lies of the narcissist..
   Personally, once I decided I couldn't believe anything he said, I also recognized that I couldn't believe that he loved me or that he'd hurt himself if I left.. and guess what? it is true that they can't live without a partner, it's just not necessarily US..

I am not a jealous person

I am not a jealous person, it's something that someone has to scam me on for me to feel angry about but by the second decade with him, he'd finally figured out how to install the jealousy button in me.. Jealousy is a combination of love (you love someone therefore they become family)
and pain (that someone broke a promise about your family safety)
and anger (that someone treated you with disrespect and rejection) and he finally figured out how to do all three things to me at the same time so I had no time to process it and it became traumatic for me and once that happened, he could push that button and that's called living in a "climate of fear"..

   When we give our heart away, why do we get surprised when it hurts?   
The term "give our heart away" means that unless we have someone giving us their heart in return, we're left empty and hollow and that's painful,, and when we're such lovely and loving people, we need to have that exchange or we slowly but surely diminish ourselves...
It's excruciating work to recognize that we betray ourselves when we demand someone else make us happy..

REVENGE

At 29 (I'm 64 now) I figured out revenge and that lesson is just part of me, I don't do revenge, don't think about it, and I've been so grateful that no one got hurt when I did..
I had the guy who'd lied to me (had wife, different home I didn't know about, etc, and then was physically abusing me) pinned between the bumpers of my car and his,,
I saw the terror in him, I felt the revenge flood over me in that moment,,
and I felt powerful and evil and I'd never felt evil before and I don't even believe in evil, and it was thrilling,, I stared at him, all lit up in my headlights, I glared at him, willing him to feel my rage at what he'd done to me.. Take that you evil bas-turd..
I watched him panic, his eyes wild with fear OF ME,,
All that pain on his face, because OF ME..

and then I really saw the terror in his eyes, I saw the deep pain of being attacked and I saw his pain and abandonment and I saw the child he truly was,,,,,
He was perfectly pinned because the cars both had extending thingies sticking out of their bumpers, so his legs were trapped but he wasn't getting hurt, whew, my angel was watching out for me.. (screw him)...
and my empathy took over, something I KNEW (a deep insight and understanding) that he had none of, and I saw our differences and I saw that I was not him, I was not violent and I did not want revenge but all I wanted was love and he just wasn't capable of giving that but I was still angry at him for not being who I wanted him to be.. I wanted him to love me, that's all, I was just hurting because of my own fantasy about him....
and I was drained of every bit of revenge that I had built up from my whole life time,, because revenge isn't about the person I'm angry at right now, it's an accumulation of every wrong ever done to me....