Where Fire Has Been

October 12, 2012

 

Where fire has been there is now only smoke. It curls off the end of my cigarette as I stare into the night, wondering what is real.

Everything is quiet, but I am filled with a sense of tension, as if the world is about to come crashing down around me.

 

 

 

The smoke obscures the truth, creating an illusion of peace with its beauty. In reality, the smoke is thick and hot and it burns my throat with each inhale. It casts a misty shroud over my soul.

 

Nothing seems real. It feels as if I have been transported to a parallel world where everything is duller, quieter, heavier. I move as if in a void. No matter which way I turn, everything looks identical, gray.

 

 

 

Where fire has been there are now burning embers. As the smoke lifts, I begin to feel the heat still burning angrily underneath the wreckage of my heart.

This burning is painful and unceasing. This is not the burning of passion and glory, but rather one of hurt and hate. Its purpose is to destroy, not to illuminate.

 

 

 

The pathetic remnants of hope stretch upward, like the charred stumps of trees reaching for the sky.

 

Their existence only aggravates my fury. I want to burn you out of my mind, out of my soul.

 

 

 

Where fire has been, I wish for fire to blaze again. I fan the smoking embers that remain, hoping that something will catch flame and rise back into that blinding inferno.

There is only one issue: there is nothing left to ignite. Everything that was alive has been incinerated.

 

 

 

Those little dried up pieces of my heart that were so quick to leap up in flame have now been exhausted. My heart feels like an empty husk. Surely there is still something left deep down inside that the fire couldn’t burn, but try as I may, there is no way to reach it with a spark.

I’m not one to pray, but I find myself calling out to a God I don’t believe in, begging for help, for relief from this agony, for release from you. In the same breath, I am begging for you to return.

 

 

 

Where fire has been there is now only ash. The tears of the heavens quench the parched ground leaving everything damp and gray. The torrential downpour seems unceasing as I gasp for breath, choking on sorrow.

Breathing is a luxury that you take for granted until your lungs can’t find air. It is hard to move under water, hard to hear. Everything is suspended and cold…so cold. I wonder if I will ever be able to move again, to feel warmth.

 

 

 

I realize I’m drowning as water begins to pour into my lungs. I can’t even scream. Those remnants of hope? They are gone, washed away by the flood of tears. My lungs begin to burn with a desperate need for air.

How can I still be longing for you when I am so close to death? Shouldn’t my mind be focused on survival? My vision begins to go dark as the oxygen in my blood is depleted. What is this power you hold over me?

 

 

 

Where fire has been, life finally begins to sprout anew.

Rising from the ashes like a phoenix, tendrils of new growth brazenly forge a path amongst the destruction. Somehow life finds nourishment in the ash.

 

 

 

The scars of the fire are still visible beneath the green, where they will remain for some time yet, but there is at last a promise of healing, of hope.

I am still unable to forget about you, but the searing pain has been reduced to a dull ache. I have only just caught my breath, but if you asked me to, I would gladly walk through fire again.

 

 

 

 

***

     Towards the end of the summer, I had become so unwell that I knew I wouldn’t be able to face returning to work for the fall season.  I decided to quit my job and return to school so I could have my emotional breakdown and only jeopardize my grades, rather than my professional life.  I knew I needed the ability to randomly call out sick, to let my emotions get in the way of my professionalism, and to fail.  I also knew that the only thing that would help me rebuild my self esteem and find any sort of meaning in life was to create.  Losing M had created a vacuum in my soul.  I felt like a black hole that happiness could not touch without being obliterated. 

     This book was the result of a project in my photography class.  The professor had given everyone the prompt “Where fire has been” and asked us to create a series of images that worked as a narrative addressing the prompt.  I immediately knew the assignment was perfect for acting as a catharsis for my devastation.  I felt like my fire had been put out.  After losing what I believed was the one thing in life that I valued more than anything (finding my soul mate), my daily grind became a soul-killing routine.  M had become my fire.  I had loved him more deeply and intensely than anyone before him.  I believed I had found the meaning of my life through my spiritual connection with him. 

      By mid September, M had reentered my life, and by October we had begun sleeping with one another again.  I was in the middle of this project when he came back on the scene.  When I first told him about it, he sounded fairly upset.  I desperately wanted to show him the finished project, but I was worried what effect the image of me standing with a flaming arrow pointed at his portrait would have.  I described the violent image to him, emphasizing that it in no way was meant to symbolize me actually killing him, it was just a physical representation of the anger I felt toward him. 

     I was finally able to show him the finished book in December after it had been returned to me by my professor.  He looked thrilled.  His joy did not appear to be tempered with the negative emotions I was expecting.  He viewed the image of me wielding a weapon at his likeness with a smile on his face.  I was relieved, yet confused.  Of course I wanted to be praised for my art, but what about responding to those words I had written?

     I had gotten what I had been longing for all those months.  M was back in my life and praising my art.  I finally felt like maybe I could live up to his artistry and genius.  That night, he told me he realized how important what we had together was.  He took me into his bed and told me I was the only woman he had ever wanted to have babies with.  I was hearing all the things I wanted to hear, but something felt off.  I just couldn’t buy any of it after how he had disappeared the last time.

     I tried to bury my reservations with memories of all the beautiful things that had happened that evening.  We had gone grocery shopping together.  It felt so domestic and wonderful even though we had only bought a frozen pizza.  He had laughed heartily at something I had showed him on the internet.  I had never heard him laugh like that before.  It was exhilarating to know that he shared my sense of humor.  He gave me a CD of his music from earlier in his career.  It had the first song of his that I had fallen in love with 3 years prior.  I listened to the album on repeat in my car for days.  The juvenile love songs seemed appropriate for this new turn of events.

     Looking back, I fear all of this was an act designed to lure me back in as he prepared to dump A.  I had finally bent so far over backwards for him that he thought I might be able to fill the role of his primary relationship.  I, however, had thought that battle was long won and I was the lone victor.  When I finally decided to unblock M on facebook later that week (ironically because I was beginning to trust him and not feel jealous of his lady friends anymore), I was shocked to see he was still friends with A on there.  Suspicious, I asked a mutual friend of ours if I could look at his facebook page on her computer.  I saw photo after photo of him with A up to a week prior to that date.  I was shocked. 

     I of course confronted him.  Knowing he was caught, he admitted they had been seeing each other but “I see her less than you.”  He told me that there were others, that there would always be others, that he couldn’t do monogamy.  I asked him if she knew about me.  His biggest mistake was telling me “no.”  I debated for a week and then I decided to contact her.  But that is a post for another day.

The Hoover Maneuver

July 25, 2012

M,

     I found it ironic to find your letter in my inbox this morning as I have been composing a similar letter in my head for the past week. It goes something like this:

     Five months ago, I was more secure in myself than I’ve ever been in my life. I was in no way shape or form looking for a relationship or even feeling as if I wanted one. I went out to your show, excited to get there just in time for your opening song and stood there shooting the breeze with Alex as we listened to your music. After your set, when you approached me I was sure you would walk straight past to mingle with your friends but you came right up to me. I was shocked and glad that you sought me out. As the night wore on, I was ecstatic that you were interested enough to continue conversing with me and that we had much in common. When you texted me that night I was amazed that you were interested enough to even do that.

     When we started hanging out, I had no idea how recently your break-up had happened and at first you completely downplayed its significance. I had the impression that you had fully dealt with it and had moved on. You spoke of it as if it were in the distant past. It was not until much later that I saw your sadness.

     When we were together, I thought I could see you beginning to fall in love with me. The way you looked at me, the way you spoke to me, the way you touched me…I thought I saw how you felt. One day I asked if you ever saw yourself being my boyfriend. It was not an offer or a request. I was just trying to make sense of what we were to each other. You could say we were friends, but that did not account for the hours of passionate love-making. You could say we were lovers, but that did not account for the hours of intense soul-searching conversation. I wanted to understand what you were looking for with me…what I was to you…what you needed from me, but you were never really able to say what it was.

     As I saw you becoming sadder with every passing day, I continued to reach out to you. I thought being with me would make you feel better…make you happy. I wanted to be there for you in the worst way when I saw your pain. That night we went out to dinner, it was so hard to see you so closed off. You gave me a lame excuse for your discomfort. I tried to buy it. M, the night you came over to my house last, you told me the real story of that night and it broke my heart. I had no idea that you were in that sort of pain. I’m miserable at the thought of having contributed to it. It was only on that last night that I truly began to understand the magnitude of what you have been going through by being with me at all. It made me look back on the progression of events and really begin to see things from your side. I know you tried to tell me before that night, but I didn’t really get it until then. I am so sorry.

     After that dinner I felt you pulling away…perhaps even a bit before. I was confused as to why you suddenly didn’t have any time for me. You were always busy but that had not stood in your way in the past. For awhile I believed you and kept trying to reach out, thinking that the issue was merely bad timing. Eventually, I started to fear you were avoiding me. I finally reached out to you on facebook because I couldn’t get you to come over for a face-to-face conversation. I reached out to you because I had spent 4 hours sobbing non-stop over the whole thing and I felt I couldn’t go on that way any longer. I have been crying for over a month now. For the last two weeks my mornings go something like this: I wake up and cry for something between a half hour and two hours and I try to make breakfast. Thinking about making breakfast makes me cry and feel nauseous, so it takes me five attempts or more to get through the ordeal. I force feed myself for an hour against tides of immense sickness. Every 4-6 hours I break down and cry some more. For the past 5 months, you have been my first thought every morning and my last thought at night. I think of you during every idle moment of the day. These used to be the points of joy throughout my day and they have become points of torturous pain. This past weekend was the first time I’ve been able to eat and get through the day without crying. That ended last night. I spent the night with someone else and it felt so hollow and empty and I couldn’t help but think of you and how different it felt to be with you.

     I have only cried this way over two people in the past…my college boyfriend who I dated for four months when he graduated and moved to Texas to go to grad school and wouldn’t let me move with him. We were in the height of our love when he left and I still think of him often, ten years after the fact. The other is my ex-fiance.

     So why am I crying so much? I have this friend, his name is M, and he is the most amazing person I have ever met. I fell in love with his music a few years ago, and then I got to know him as a person. I think he is a brilliant musician, a great writer, a hilarious and insightful person, a beautiful soul and a kindred spirit. I’ve never connected with anyone on so many levels as I did with him. He knows what I’m thinking before I say it, he knows how to touch me and seduce me, texts me throughout the day just to say hello, and makes me feel beautiful. When he no longer wanted to be a part of my life, I felt a gigantic hole that I never had known was there as no one had ever filled it so completely before. I don’t think he is replaceable. I’m sure the pain will lessen in time, as it always does, but I feel as if there will be a dull ache for some time to come.

     Never think I was using you just because I needed some generic boyfriend. I wanted you in my life because of what and who you are. You gave me the desire to trust someone completely with my heart again…something I was unsure I would be able to do until I met you. I know we still don’t know each other very well on many levels, but I was looking forward to learning more about you every time we visited. I believe you are the type of person I would love more in a year than when we were in the initial stages of “in-loveness” for lack of a better word.

     I don’t know what I did that made you think so poorly of me, but I never intended to manipulate you or force you into something you didn’t want. I didn’t know what you wanted. I don’t think you did either. For better or for worse, I love you and miss you like hell.

-D

 

***

     After the last text I had received from M, “It feels wrong to go so long,” I heard nothing from him for days.  I began making up stories in my head about how he finally had realized the error of his ways.  “A” had obviously come on too strong and now he was missing what he had with me.  I spent the next week composing a letter to him in my head, but I was too afraid to send it.  I was afraid I would push him even further away.  About a week after that text, a message appeared in my Facebook inbox.  M was finally taking the time to explain himself to me.  I received the message while at work, and I sped to the bathroom to read it on my phone, while crying my eyes out.  I immediately left early so I could respond with the missive I had been developing in my head all week.  I knew I would not be able to refocus my attention on work related duties.  I was sure that this was the sign that he regretted his decision to leave me.

     The letter M wrote to me was in essence a letter explaining how I had pushed him away with my behavior.  Some choice excerpts from his letter are as follows:

          “I won't try to pretend that I haven't been avoiding you, although not always consciously. Part of this has been because I became distrusting of you and a little intimidated when I finally became aware of just how skillful you were in the arts of manipulation.”

     This line is funny, because at this point, he is one month into a new relationship with another woman, and let us not forget that he was in a relationship with his ex girlfriend when he began his courtship of me.  Yet I am the manipulative one…yes.

          “This weird new fear of you, coupled with a growing feeling in my gut at the time that you were basically only worried about your own agenda and expectations, ignoring anything anyone said that might speak to the contrary, fed into my unease at even communicating with you at any great length.”

     This line is also fun, because yet again, it is describing his actions to a T.  I believe that writing this letter to me while sleeping with another woman falls entirely under the category “only worried about [his] own agenda.”

          “Simply put, I just wasn't ready to start thinking of myself in a new boyfriend role, because I was still grieving over my last relationship. The thought of being in a new one made me uncomfortable and a bit overwhelmed.”

     Again, hilarious because he is already in a new relationship (within one week of ending things with me).

          “I guess the feeling I was left with was that of being alone, or feeling anonymous, when I heard you talk about me like I was your boyfriend. It sounded like you were talking about someone else, or you could be talking about anyone else.”

     Funny, because it seems this is how he treats women, as replaceable objects that he uses to make himself feel better with no regard to their needs or well-being.

          “Please know, that I'm chronicling my neurosis here for you so that you understand me and us; I am not blaming you or accusing you of things.”

     Interesting, because it sounds to me as if that is ALL that is going on here: blame and accusations.

     I want to make it clear, that my commentary on this is all hindsight.  At the time, I believed that M got in over his head with the new girl, saw the error of his ways, and was trying to make amends with me once he realized I would be patient and loving with him while he healed from his last relationship.  I wouldn’t pressure him into being my boyfriend, I would be ok with his mood swings, I would love him unconditionally.  I wrote that letter to him and sent it to him via Facebook with the intent of proving to him that he could trust me.  As he slowly began reentering my life, mostly through texts, I thought we were working through these fears and learning to trust one another.  This was around the time when I had decided M was truly my soul mate.  Why else would I be in so much pain over the loss of him?  I could NOT get over him no matter what. 

     From a more omnipotent perspective, something far more sinister was occurring.  As a result of M falling off the face of the Earth, I had learned two things: do not pressure him and do not ask questions.  His letter made clear that MY bad behavior had pushed him away.  I was too demanding of him, wanting him to spend time with me and treat me with respect, and I was manipulative, asking too many questions and wanting to know too much about him.  At this point I was trained to ask nothing of M, graciously accepting only what he would offer me.  Otherwise, he would disappear again.  Yet, even when he was disappearing, he still kept in contact enough to keep me invested.  He would not just tell me he wasn’t interested and give me peace.  Every time I told him I wouldn’t contact him any longer, he’d immediately want to talk about it, reeling me right back in.  I thought it was a sign of his love for me.  Now I see it as the power game it truly was.

     I now see this letter from M as the blueprint for what allowed me to accept so much emotionally abusive behavior from him in the future.  It was a contract outlining his expectations of me, and reminding me of what would happen should I not fulfill those expectations, i.e. disappear again.  I learned to keep my misgivings to myself, lest he label me as clingy or jealous. 

     At one point, I got brave enough to ask him about A.  He confirmed my suspicions: she had tried to pressure him into a relationship but he wasn’t ready.  She wouldn’t listen.  She was kind of a bitch.  It was over.

     Again, this was all lies.  They were 3 months into a relationship when M finally agreed to see me in person and told me that things with her were over.  At this point I had quit my job and enrolled in school to finish my Bachelor’s Degree in photography.  I was dragging myself to classes and crying through lectures.  We were studying war photographers and photographers that documented domestic abuse.  I felt raw.  I had been working on a photo book for class detailing the experience of losing a “soul mate”.  It was a pain I could not have imagined prior to going through it.  When M agreed to reenter my life, my health started to turn around.  I began regaining the weight I had lost.  (The above photo shows me at the height of my weight loss.  The contrast has been adjusted to show just how sunken in and dark my eyes and cheeks were at this time.)  I could feel hope again, although it was a hesitant hope at best.  I was still afraid he’d disappear again.  Some time down the road, he told me he had agreed to see me in person again in order to break things off.  He claims to have been seduced by me into reinstating a physical relationship.  The main flaw in this claim is that things had already been broken off.  There was no need to further meet in person if that were the goal.  He merely had to stop contacting me.  I sincerely believe that his only purpose in reintroducing me into his life was to reel me back in sexually so that he could continue a relationship with me on the side when his girlfriend, A was out of town for work or when he needed supplemental attention to feed his Narcissistic drives.

     Like a vacuum, he had sucked me back into his chaotic world.

The Final Discard

April 29, 2012

Dear M,

     Tomorrow is a big day for you and I can see how your life is about to change drastically.  More than anything I hope to accompany you on this next leg of your journey.  I can see how much your life is currently in upheaval and I can’t wait to see what it resembles once you seize it and make it truly your own. 

***

     Judging by the length of this letter, I can see that this is when my faith became truly shaken.  No longer could I write pages, pouring out my love in words.  M. was quickly receding from my life.  He kept telling me how stressed out he was with a major career shift on the horizon, but would push me away every time I tried to offer support.  I continued extending invitations to him to be a part of my life, he continued to decline them.  At the very end, I invited him out to a dance party at a local bar.  He arrived with his married, female friend.  He spent the entire night at the back of the bar conversing with her and ignoring me.  I invited him to come home with me but he declined, stating that he didn’t want to go home with anyone.  As proof, he offered the example of how he turned down his married friend THAT VERY NIGHT who also wanted him to come home with her.  At the time, everything about that statement bothered me, but only recently have understood the details of why.  At the time I only interpreted it as his married friend being a bad wife, and making an inappropriate comment.  She is my physical opposite in every way, so I felt in no way could he have even have been tempted by the idea.  Knowing what I know now, I see a couple possible scenarios, neither one better than the other:

     1) Perhaps she said it, and on any other day he would have but was feeling crappy so declined on this particular night.  (Which would also imply that this has happened before.)

     2) Perhaps he made the whole thing up to make me jealous. 

     The only possible reason he could have had for telling me (regardless of its accuracy) was to make me jealous, which strangely wasn’t my reaction, being as I thought he’d never even entertain the thought of sleeping with that woman.  But now I understand that physical attraction has nothing to do with a Narcissist’s game.  It’s all about who he can manipulate and trick.  He wants people that will follow and worship him to the ends of the Earth, and from what I understand, this particular friend fits the bill.  She puts up with and seems to encourage his shitty behavior, and I see her as his wing girl for all of his triangulation games with every new girl he comes in contact with.  Not only that, but it has come to my recent attention that she is actually his ex girlfriend.  Who brings their ex girlfriend on a date?!?! 

     This was the last letter I wrote before the grand finale of our “relationship”.  M. pretty much avoided me through May and June, and at the very end of June, the night before I left town to go to my cousin’s wedding, he came over to my house to break it off.  He told me that we obviously want different things and that he can’t be what I need, etc. etc.  He emphasized how he just got out of a relationship and that I was obviously trying to coerce him into another one.  He spoke about my “manipulations” where I use alcohol as a truth serum to get him to talk about his past.  He criticized my jealousy, my neediness.  He abruptly ended the conversation, telling me we would continue it another time.

     I went on my trip, devastated.  Within one week, he had a photo on Facebook, of himself, taken by a new girl.  He is looking at her with such open and loving eyes.  He looks as if he adores her.  It is the same look he has been using on me for the past four months.  The photo was posted in the morning and his hair looks mussed as if he has been sleeping.  It seems obvious that they had spent the night together.  My heart ripped in two.  I stopped eating.  I ended up spending a good portion of the wedding locked in a bathroom stall crying my eyes out.

     A few days later, another photo.  Now they are clothes shopping together at a thrift store (wtf, he wears the same black t-shirt every day of his life).  Again, she is the photographer and he is the subject.  Looking back, I can see the gaudy yellow jacket he is wearing is indicative of the funky style of A. (his new conquest).  The caption reads “yes and yes” meaning yes to the man and yes to the jacket.  I felt sick to my stomach.  He didn’t even need to say a word to make me sick and jealous, she was doing all the work for him…and she had no idea.

     I knew she had no idea about me.  The entire time M. and I were together, there were no pictures, no Facebook communication, nothing at all public.  Since M. was not willing to acknowledge me as a girlfriend, it seemed like it would push him even further away for me to be taking those types of liberties.  My more vindictive side laughed at A’s public enthusiasm about spending time with M.  It seemed obvious to me that she would for sure try to coerce him into a relationship if she was already publicly claiming him via Facebook photos.  I figured it would be only a matter of time before M. realized his mistake and realized how special what he had with me was.  I had essentially spent four months with him as his lover and had only asked if he ever saw himself being my boyfriend.  I never once demanded that we make things official. 

     I was trying to let it go.  He didn’t want me.  He had rejected me.  I needed to move on.  I came home from vacation and went into a deep depression.  I still couldn’t eat.  I spent most of my days in bed.  Occasionally I sent him texts letting him know how bad I was feeling.  He responded by telling me I needed to let go.  I tried to go no contact, but he and I couldn’t seem to go past 5 days without contacting each other. 

     When I was finally on the verge of passing that 5 day mark of no communication, I received the text “It feels wrong to go so long.”  I responded, but I received no message in return.

Crash and Burn

April 24, 2012

     M,

     So the honeymoon is over it seems, and now reality is setting in.  No longer can we tempt each other to stay up all night making love, disregarding all Earthly responsibilities.  Your aura seems less vibrant, dimmed by sleep-deprivation and mental pressure.  I am also in a phase where I find myself needing to recharge.

     I feel as if you are retreating into your headspace, which I understand and respect, though I fear you are pulling away from me.  I want so much to help you through this transitional period, lending an ear or a shoulder as needed.  I hope that my sharing of this book with you has not triggered unpleasant thoughts nor the distance I am sensing between us.  I want to give you the space you need to grow as a person while offering all the love and support you are willing to receive.

     I wish for your soul to be at peace.

***

     We had finally gone on a real date.  We went out for sushi and a movie and I made a joke about how now I wouldn’t feel like he was just using me for sex.  That statement apparently offended him (due to it being too close to home, in hindsight) and he told me how much my words bothered him.  I apologized profusely for giving offense.  He looked as if he was in massive physical discomfort all through dinner.  I kept asking what was wrong, but he had no answer.  After the fact, I heard many different stories as to what was really going on that night: he didn’t actually like sushi (but apparently had to pretend to like it because I did…more mirroring), he was uncomfortable going out to dinner with someone that wasn’t his ex-girlfriend, etc.  In reality, I believe this was the day his ex-girlfriend actually broke up with him.  M. had told me that she informed him that she was dating our mutual friend, and he seemed a little bothered by it, but I didn’t think much of it since he had told me they had already been broken up for five months.  M. had received the phone call from her in my driveway before coming up to my apartment.  After the movie, he went straight home.  He did not even come inside.  I was crushed.

     We had gone to see the Hunger Games.  A few weeks prior, I had taken him out to the archery field to teach him how to shoot.  We thought it would be fun to do that before going to see the movie.  We had started a game of Cricket (like the darts game, but with a bow and arrow) but did not finish it.  For weeks, M. would make mention about needing to finish up that game, but was never available to.  It seemed like another way to keep me hooked, dangling the idea of a pleasant afternoon together in front of me, just out of reach.  In a similar way, he always told me that he wanted me to take him to the gym and train him.  Now it seems like it was a way to flatter me and mirror me at the same time.  The few times I have talked to him since, M. makes sure to tell me about his membership at the YMCA and how he has been making a point to work out.  I think he knows how much I was hoping he meant it when he said he would come work out with me, and continues to use it as a tool of manipulation to this day.  He even told me what a great cook I was, after the one time I made him a meal, and told me how much he looked forward to us preparing meals together in my little kitchen, but he never again came over to eat.  I think I only saw him eat 4 times in the course of the 9 months we spent together.  I was aware I was being compartmentalized from the rest of his life, but I believed it was a way for him to safely heal from his last break up and learn to trust again.  I never suspected that it was a way to keep all his lovers away from his “real life.”  He had claimed that he told his mother about learning archery with me.  I felt so gratified that he had mentioned me to his family.  I thought it was proof of him letting me further in.

     Up until the point where this letter was written, M. and I had been conducting a rather rigorous love affair.  He was working a late shift at a diner as a second job, and often didn’t get off work until 10PM or so.  He’d come over to my apartment and we’d make love all night, barely catching an hour or two of sleep before waking up early to go to our day jobs.  Before meeting M, I had begun a new exercise regimen involving rather intense weightlifting, and I was feeling supercharged in a way I never had before.  With all the endorphins from the exercise and the oxytocin from all the sex flooding my brain, I felt little need for sleep and stopped experiencing hangovers from drinking.  I felt like Superwoman. 

     Within two months of meeting M, I was beginning to feel drained of my power.  I was sleep deprived, strung out, and full of doubt.  He appeared to be feeling similarly.  He was cold and distant.  He’d answer my phone calls and texts just to tell me he was unavailable.  I believed I had done something wrong to push him away.  He stopped wanting to come over after work, giving me excuses about how busy he was with life.  He accused me of using alcohol on him like a truth serum, asking him questions about his past relationships when we were sharing a bottle of wine.  He began calling me manipulative, essentially projecting his own shitty behavior onto me.  If anyone was being manipulated here, it was surely the one that was being lied to about every little thing, not the one orchestrating a double life.  He was going on many trips without ever inviting me.  He took a past lover of his (who is a married mother of two) to the Salvador Dali museum so they could take LSD and wander around the museum all day.  He went to Bonarroo and told me he had to go by himself because he had always gone with his ex-girlfriend and he needed to get over that.  Sometimes we would go see some local bands’ shows together, but upon our arrival, he would socialize with everyone in the room except me. 

     My self esteem began to crash.  I was exhausted and now I was being rejected by someone I had believed to be falling in love with me.  He had always looked into my eyes in a way which I thought was unmistakable.  You can’t fake the look of being in love with someone, can you?  I wrote this letter ten days after having that addiction induced dream where M. took up every available space in my brain.  It seemed the minute I was totally hooked, M. started to disappear.  Still, I hung on.  I held onto all those promises of working out together, of dinners together.  He was telling me that everything was a result of him mourning the loss of his last relationship.  With these words “I want to give you the space you need to grow as a person while offering all the love and support you are willing to receive” I had set up the dynamic that was to allow me to put up with so much of his future abuse.  I believed I was a martyr, sacrificing my needs to allow him room to grieve and heal.  In reality, I was a sucker, letting this parasitic man use me as an ego booster whenever his “real” girlfriends were not giving him enough attention.

       As of April 24th, he had begun to devalue me, but he would not completely discard me until near the end of June. 

Narcissistic Abuse

April 15, 2012

M,

     Last night I finally slept.  It was the sleep of the mortally exhausted.  Usually after consuming half a bottle of wine, my sleep is like death, deep and unencumbered by visions.  Last night’s sleep was vigorous.  Hundreds of scenes and faces were flashing past my subconscious as I slumbered.  I can’t recall any of these snippets, but what I do remember is you, pervading my every thought.  I awoke filled with a sense of you.  I’m not even sure if I, myself was present in any of my dreams last night.  You hijacked my mind.

     When I’m awake I can at least exert enough control over my thoughts to get things done when needed, but as soon as my mind has a moment of idleness it turns back to you.  You are constantly running through the back of my mind, ready to jump into the forefront at a moment’s notice.  I suppose that it should be no surprise that in slumber you would so easily permeate my thoughts when I am defenseless against my subconscious.  Nonetheless, after fighting my way back into the waking world, I was struck with how deeply you had impressed yourself into my dreams.

***

     This, my friends, is exactly what addiction feels like.  Narcissists have a bizarre effect on their victim’s brains.  They dangle whatever it is you want most in life right in front of your nose like a carrot tied to a stick, but every time you start buying into this dream that they are promising, they yank the carrot away, leaving the victim desperate for more.  When the victim finally starts to think the Narcissist has truly lost interest in them and starts to move on, the Narcissist rushes back in dangling that carrot closer than ever.  Over time, the victim becomes obsessed with getting that carrot.  Every slight or bit of evidence that the Narcissist is mentally checking out makes the victim replay every conversation trying to figure out what they have done wrong to push him away.  Eventually every waking moment is spent dwelling on analyzing the Narcissist’s behavior, wondering when he will come back around with his characteristic adoration and promises. 

    Every time the Narcissist pulls away, an intense physical and emotional withdrawal is felt, comparable to that of a drug addiction.  This is how M. began controlling me.  He would get me hooked with ego-stroking and passionate love making, and then just disappear whenever I made a false step, such as asking him if he ever thought of becoming my boyfriend.  I quickly learned that to keep him around, I was going to have to drastically lower my expectations.  I couldn’t ask him honest, pointed questions, I couldn’t ask for a relationship, I couldn’t ask him questions about his past, nor about the other women in his life.  I slowly stopped asking.  Essentially, I handed over all the power to him, because every time I made a move, I realized it was the wrong one and I would be punished with emotional distance.  I let him lead, only daring to ask him to spend time with me once every couple weeks.  He would refuse to make plans in advance due to his busy lifestyle, so again, I learned not to ask.  All I could do was pitch suggestions that we hang out and hope he wasn’t busy at that moment and could carve out an hour or two for me. 

     I had always believed that emotional abuse looked like my parents’ fights: calling one another names, yelling, breaking things, making threats.  Today, I have a very different understanding of what emotional abuse looks like.  I have no other words to describe using someone’s emotions as a punishment/reward system designed to exert control over them.

From Soul Mate to Psychopath

April 14, 2012

M,

     It has now been a month since we first made love.  Far from abating, my feelings toward you have multiplied in intensity.  It seems as if I am genetically wired to be with you.  Everything feels so right.  I trust you to the depths of my soul.  I feel as if we fell from the same star onto this planet and have only just been reunited.  Suddenly the world makes sense.  We are not kindred spirits, we are of the same spirit.

     Everything you say and do resonates so deeply within me that it’s unnerving.  You are so psychically in tune with me that it often feels as if you know what I need more than I do.  I’ve never been one to let the man lead the way in bed, but I am ecstatic to let you take control.  You thrill me.  Your every touch awakens in me a passion I have never dreamed of.  When we make love I often want to cry with joy and fear at the amount of power you hold over me.  I am completely at your mercy.  Never have I been in this deep.

***

     Again I have to laugh as I read over the words I wrote at the very beginning of my “relationship” with M.  I was freaked out by the intensity he was creating, yet I conclude that it’s because we are kindred spirits, not because he is personality disordered.  I write of fear and how ecstatic I am to let him control me. 

     Going into this, I had no idea what sociopaths, psychopaths, and narcissists are.  In the last year, I have exhaustively studied Cluster B personality disorders, and I am beginning to have a fairly good understanding of how they work.  I have come to believe that M. is a covert narcissist, and he admitted to it when I questioned him.  Clinical narcissism does not work at all in the way I believed it to.  I had always thought that narcissistic people adored themselves and believed they can do no wrong.  According to my studies, the exact opposite is true.  Narcissists, in reality, hate themselves so much that they will constantly do favors, flatter, and brown nose their way into the good graces of everyone around them.  Their entire M. O. is to look as good as possible in the eyes of others.  They are not able to find worth by seeing it in themselves, so they look to others to validate and worship them so they feel approved of by their peers.  So while it seems like they are being a good friend, they are really manipulating you to believe they are great person because of all the things they do for you and say to you.  This is how they are able to manipulate a large group of acquaintances and keep up a facade of a nice guy.

     With lovers, this becomes even creepier as narcissists really want some high level worship from their closest partners.  To really hook a lover in, a narcissist will develop an entire custom personality suited to securing unending worship from her.  Whatever it is she desires most, he will become.  In my case, M. knew that I regularly checked my horoscopes, believed in spiritual connections, synchronicity, and the like so he flattered my scorpio traits and would make up stories where he had seen me out in traffic YEARS ago and that he just had this knowledge that we would someday be together.  He knew I liked to make jokes so he would always tell me how funny I was (even though he was never laughing when he said it).  He flattered my body and my looks as well as my brains, my job and my independence.  These were all things that I was hesitatingly proud of.  I was working out a lot, had a career in my field, and was living alone for the first time in my life.  I was proud of myself, yet I also judged these things harshly.  I thought I still wasn’t very physically strong, my job was sort of silly and not using much of my talent, and I had been single for almost 3 years (hence why I was living alone).  He seemed to sense my insecurities and especially flatter these traits. 

     Simultaneously with this, he was laying the ground work for excusing all of his future bad behavior.  He made sure to tell me he was polyamorous by nature but always insisted that I was the only woman he was with (keep in mind that he was still officially with his ex girlfriend at this point).  He used his lack of being over his ex as an excuse for every bit of bad behavior for the 9 month duration of our “relationship.”  Even when I found out that he had another NEW girl who he was calling his girlfriend, after almost a year of telling me he “couldn’t possibly be in a relationship at that moment due to mourning his previous relationship”, he still fell back on the “my ex girlfriend hurt me so much” excuse.  First, he claimed he couldn’t be in a relationship because his ex hurt him, and NOW suddenly he was IN a relationship with another woman and lying about it, because his ex hurt him.  I mean, even if his ex was the bitch he made her out to be (I’m sure she probably isn’t) that hardly excuses the rest of this nonsense.  The sad thing is that I bought into it for so long. 

     I had just begun feeling healed after being dumped by my ex fiancé when I met M.  It had taken the better part of two years to get over.  He claimed to be coming out of an equally intense relationship, so I naturally tried to be kind and loving while he processed the pain.  I knew I was in a place of strength and security so I took it upon myself to not demand too much of M. knowing he was in such a vulnerable place.  When I discovered that all of this story line was just a farce created to manipulate me, I was furious.  All the listening and sympathy I gave to him was just another way to control me. 

     Sometimes, I wonder why I’m still so furious after 11 months.  But really, imagine you wake up tomorrow and find out that your husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend doesn’t actually have anything in common with you, and that they only want you around for your ability to worship them and make them feel good about themselves, having otherwise no concern for you.  You discover that everything you love about them is actually a lie, finely crafted to rope you into their bullshit reality.  Furthermore, they have another relationship with another person and an entirely different personality custom designed for him/her.  And that’s only the relationship you were able to find out about.  If they have lied to you this much, who knows what else they are hiding.  But here’s the thing, YOUR love is REAL.  You are completely and utterly in love with someone that has never existed.  You are left with this disordered man that is doing everything in his power to make you feel crazy so he can keep you under control but you still lust after that illusion that he created.  It’s a bizarre thing to see your soul mate and the devil incarnate reside together in the same shell of a body.

A Child Masquerading as an Enlightened Adult

April 4, 2012

Dear M,

     It has now been a week and a half since I came back from Springfest.  It seems like it has been ages.  The first time you came over, I avoided looking into your eyes most of the night.  We made love in the dark and I regretted not being able to see your face.

     I started to make a point of looking into your eyes while we conversed.  I began to lose myself in them. 

     I have been in love plenty of times before, but never quite like this.  Our souls harmonize every single time we touch.  When we make love, I can’t tell where my body stops and yours begins.  Our breathing aligns and it feels as if we are sharing a body in a euphoric dance.  I left the light on in the hall last night so I could look into your eyes as our bodies melted into each other.  I was overwhelmed as I realized exactly how hard I have fallen for you.  I desperately hope you feel the same way about me. 

     I can’t tell if they way you act towards me is just your generally open and friendly personality or if it reflects your feelings for me.  I often get the sense that it is not just me that felt the entire world shift when we met.  This has been the best month of my life.  I have been sound of mind, body, and spirit with unparalleled amounts of vigor and confidence.  Becoming your lover at this moment in time has given me the biggest rush of vitality I have ever felt.  You have such beautiful energy about you.  I want to bathe in your light.  You unleash a passion in me that I thought was long dead.  You reflect the good in me.  You complete me.

***

     Lo, another reference to reflections!  This letter succinctly describes the feeling of falling in love with a Narcissist.  It was intense, passionate, and unlike anything I have ever experienced before.  It negated the validity of all of my previous love affairs because THIS was the soul mate I had been waiting for.  Suddenly it was perfectly fine that my fiancé dumped me years ago and I had been single ever since, because THIS was who I was meant to be with.  I felt I had put in my time learning to love myself and this was my karmic reward for achieving self actualization. 

     For me, M. represented all the things I longed to be.  I thought he was very spiritual and self-aware.  He claimed to be anti-judgment and jealousy, things that I struggle with.  He was a musician, albeit not performing very often. 

     Over time, I began to see cracks in this facade.  I discovered that his spirituality, rather than being a belief system of beauty and appreciation of all life, was more of a bastardization of occult thinking.  He believed he could achieve spiritual and psychological enlightenment through the recreational use of drugs, creating altars to Dionysus, making voodoo dolls which he masturbated on, using his partners for sex magick rituals, and participating in an occult church that believes that doing whatever you want with seemingly no regard to consequence is the supreme meaning of life (and of course orgies are somehow involved in their dogma). 

     I found his self awareness to be limited to pity plays that were designed to negate my ability to call him out on any of his behavior, because all of his silent treatments, flakiness, never making time for me, never spending the night after having sex with me, etc. was all written off as a result of his ex treating him poorly.  He was still “grieving” and it sometimes caused him to act out, and of course he was sorry that it was negatively affecting me but he was not able to do anything about it because he was in so much emotional pain.

     His judgment free and anti-jealousy stance was a laugh, because after a month or two of idealizing his newest victim, he changes the game to “pointing out all the reasons why she is inadequate and why he must leave.”  As for jealousy, he is as jealous as it comes.  The only jealousy he DOESN’T have room for in his life, is the jealousy of all the girls he is using in his triangulation games.  Why are they jealous of each other?  Because he is setting them up in such a way to play them against one another…constantly.

     Basically, what I was seeing was a child’s attempt at seeming spiritually awakened and in touch with his fellow humans.  I saw his feeble attempts and projected my own understanding of spirituality and human compassion onto him.  This is why I saw him “reflect the good in me.”  All I was seeing was a reflection of myself in him, based on his use of a few keywords.  Whenever I heard him talk at any length on these subjects, his monstrous and childish misinterpretations became apparent. 

     Unfortunately, I have come to believe that our sexual connection operated in a similar way.  I think he knew what I wanted in the bedroom and did his best to replicate it.  I bought into this fake spiritual connection and opened my body and soul to him in a way I had never before with any previous partner.  I trusted him completely.  When I discovered he was carrying on this same masquerade with multiple women, it hurt me in such a way that I can only describe as emotional rape.  I would have never let my defenses down that far with him had he been honest and straightforward about his intentions and actions. 

     I can not claim that he cheated on me in the traditional sense since we were never in a committed relationship, but his manufacturing of a psychological and sexual persona that was custom designed to reel me in as deeply as possible while creating different personas for all of the other girls he was trying to manipulate was an emotional treason far surpassing some casual sex on the side. 

Letters from Springfest #3

March 24, 2012

***

    It’s now 4PM on Sunday afternoon.  My camp site is all packed up.  It’s a glorious day, perfect for going to the river.  Sadly, everyone is heading out.  Last night I took a nap until 4:30AM.  When I awoke, the campsite was desolate, but I could hear the sound of C.’s fiddle.  I followed it over to the jam tent and made some new friends who wanted to share a liter and a half of Jameson.  By 5:30, the power had gone out due to a bus on fire or something equivalently weird.  Naturally, everyone chose to climb aboard a golf cart and drive the crazy train down to the drum circle.  The circle was in such a remote field I never would have stumbled upon it alone.  The vibe there was crazed and jubilant.  I could see so many more stars in the sky than usual.  I watched the sun rise and somehow made it back to my tent. 

     Today I relaxed in a hammock down by the amphitheater, enjoying the cool breeze. 

     I can’t wait to see you.  I wish you were here.

***

     It has been almost a year since I discovered the truth about M.  I still go through phases where I am reeling in pain or I just shut down completely.  He keeps finding new ways to put himself in front of my eyes.  The latest is that he’s playing with his band at an art show that my best friend regularly participates in.  He has taken to attending the music festivals I regularly attend (though it was hard to ever convince him to go to them with me when we were still hanging out).  I’ve asked him repeatedly to stay out of my space but he feels this request is unreasonable and that he should be able to do what he wants, regardless of how it effects me emotionally.  It boggles my mind that I went three years as his acquaintance and only saw him out publicly twice, but now that I wish to avoid him, I see him twice a month.  I have not changed my social activities in any way so obviously he has changed his.  I wonder if this is yet another manifestation of his mirroring as he took one of my favorite social activities and is now participating in it with his new lady friend.  It also strikes me as a bit of triangulation between me and this other girl as well.  Not only is he hanging out with her publicly in front of me, but he is doing it in a social setting that I oftentimes tried to get him to participate in, but he would almost always turn me down. 

     It becomes bizarre as I see him pull the same stunts that he used to pull on me when we went out socially together.  They show up together and then he will just wander off for an hour at a time to chat up other women (one time it was me he ignored her for…here I was thinking he actually wanted to patch things up, but really he was just trying to create drama and jealousy since she could see us conversing from across the bar).  One time I even happened to catch him sitting inside the bar all alone, staring at the wall while she was out in the courtyard where all the music was happening.  I couldn’t help but wonder if he was just hiding out so she would wonder what he was up to and get jealous. 

     It kills me to think that after spending the last four years cultivating connections and friendships through the local music scene that I’d have to abandon all of that to avoid running into M. but I don’t see any viable work around at the moment.  I feel that this constant fear of running into him does not give me the space I need to heal and move on.  I feel re-traumatized every time I see the name of his band pop up on my Facebook news feed.  Again, the only reason I see it pop up is because of my ties to the local music scene.  I want to know what shows are going on around town so I get updates.  I could truly go no contact and shut off my Facebook profile and discontinue attending music events, but this would effectively downsize my social interactions to three people outside of school and work. 

     One of the more interesting aspects of the fallout from this huge betrayal is how paranoid my thinking has become.  Once I discovered that M. had the ability to be in a secret long term relationship with another woman while professing his desire to have babies with me, anything seemed possible.  One part of me thinks I must be crazy to think that he only speaks to me now to make other women jealous but he went out of his way to tell me how his “friend” was so upset about him talking to me for an hour that they actually left the bar.  He told me this as proof of his dedication to healing our friendship and making things right, but in all honesty, he spent much of that hour talking to other people while I sat at the table with them, crying.  It ends up being just one layer of bullshit on top of another.  How could my thinking NOT become paranoid?

     It’s so weird to revisit these old letters that were written in those first few weeks of falling in love.  I believed I had finally met the sweet, gentle, open-minded, adventurous, loving, empathetic, expressive, beautiful, elven, musically inclined, long-haired hippy man of my dreams.  It never once occurred to me that he could be lying to my face from the get-go, and I certainly never believed he would be capable of living a double life or desire to live that way.  I have never so completely misread a person before in my life.  The great catch 22 of narcissistic betrayal is that my trust in my instincts was completely shattered as a result of learning the truth, yet it is my instincts I need to trust in order to make a clean break and not allow this cruel person back into my life.  Every time I open myself back up to doubt and start to listen to his pathetic excuses for his behavior I feel myself getting sucked right back in to his dysfunctional world.  The reality is, there is NO EXCUSE for treating another human being with absolute disregard for their personhood, to use them as a pawn in a game of triangulation and mind-fuckery, and as a way of sexually acting out against a girlfriend that they claim to resent, all while reassuring the victim that they are with them because of their “special connection.” 

Letters from Springfest #2

March 24, 2012

***

Now it is 3AM on Saturday morning. 

I recently returned from a Tornado Rider show.

*** 

      Scratch that.  Apparently, after my consciousness-bending experience of being completely and utterly lost in the dark in a swarm of sleeping hippies in the woods, my mind was suddenly too exhausted to come up with five sentences to jot down.

     At the moment, it is 11:30 AM on Saturday.  I made a pot of oatmeal with fresh blueberries for breakfast which I paired with a banana.  I even waited in line for the bathroom this morning so I could at least wash my face.  It was a pretty responsible morning as far as hippy camp goes.  I ate my breakfast in the rain, proud of my success at eating well and self-reliantly.  I feel as if I can hold my own in this world.  I see the families here with their young children and I’m thinking to myself I CAN DO THIS.  So often these days I find myself contemplating the meaning of my life.  Not the meaning of life in general, but in the very specific and personal sense.  Why do I do what I do and what is my ultimate goal?  What is it that I truly want from my meager span of time here on Earth?

     I think I want this.  I want my job to enable me to take time off so I can go gallivanting in the woods, communing with nature and with myself, challenging all the social morals that are rampant in this country.  I want to make random new friends who are just as jazzed to be alive as I am.  Because we are all here together.  Everyone here is so REAL!  Almost all of the pretension from the outside world seems to have been left at the entrance gate.  I feel myself attuning to the vibe of the place as I slowly allow my defenses to fade away.

    I keep losing track of my thoughts as the rain pattering against my tent leads to daydreams about making love to you in this sacred place.  On a drizzly afternoon, it’s easy to see you lying here next to me, smiling into each other’s eyes, sharing this world.

     I can see how this could be the meaning of my life.  I would have a sense of community, something I struggle with out in the real world.  This makes me excited about someday starting a family.  Having a child doesn’t mean you have to give up everything.  You would think that this isn’t the best place for kids, but with so many adults sharing the watch, the kids would be hard pressed to find too much trouble.

     I’m not sure of how much of a hopeless romantic you are, but I suspect you have a hint of it.  When I envision this life with you, the image becomes crystal clear.  If you could have been here with me this weekend, my body would be overloaded.  Mixing my love of this place with the thrill of a new love just beginning is an overwhelming thought.  You would fit so perfectly here.  A weekend like that would cement a bond so firmly it may never fade.  It gladdens me when I realize that you wanted to share all of this with me.  I long to share all of it with you someday.

     You truly came out of nowhere and completely swept me off my feet.  At a time when I was feeling so numb, you reawoke my senses, giving me cause to believe in rapturous love again.  I hope you feel even an inkling of this. 

     I hate to get so far ahead of myself but we have such an intense connection that it is difficult to not get swept up in things.  I have always been attracted to you but I was unprepared for the psychological connection.  Your mind thrills me!  Our physical postures fall into unison.  In just the two days we have spent together, I have fallen completely for you.  I’m in a campsite full of beautiful people but they all pale in comparison to you.

     I keep wondering if this is real.  My first instinct is to trust you completely.  I want you to be as excited about meeting me as you seem to be.  I hope this isn’t a short-lived phase.  I can only pray that I have made as big an impression on you as you have on me.

***

     Oh my.  Where to begin?  In this letter, I basically point out ALL OF THE WARNING SIGNS and promptly disregard them.  Mind you, I wrote this letter after hanging out with this guy TWICE.  There were many moments in our early conversations where I got the feeling that he had somehow found my Livejournal online and read it in its entirety.  So many things he said to me sounded so familiar, I swear I had written them.  My Livejournal however, had been long abandoned and to my knowledge, is not connected to my name in any way.  Therefore, I dismissed this thought as paranoia and slowly settled into the thought that this guy was actually just my perfect match.  Unfortunately, if someone who is seemingly perfect turns out not to be, the truth of how they accomplished that deception is a terrifying thing to discover.  It’s interesting to me that I express so much doubt at the end of this letter.  It’s as if I knew in the back of my mind that it was all too good to be true.  Even still, I wrote that my first instinct was complete trust.  I’m generally a very instinctual and intuitive person and rarely has this led me astray.  My run in with a narcissist was the first time my bullshit meter completely failed me.

     The most simple and easily accessible tool of deception is the basic lie.  At this point in the game (TWO DATES IN), quite a few lies had already occurred.  The first lie was that he was a high school English teacher.  The reality was that he was a substitute teacher that had a long-term (6 week) sub position in a high school English class.  This lie was uncovered very soon after its original telling, and I dismissed it as “close enough” to the truth to be acceptable.  A far more insidious lie was that he had been single for three months.  In reality, he was still in an open relationship when we met.  It did not formally end until he and I had been dating for about a month and a half, when his girlfriend decided to leave him to be in a monogamous relationship with another man.  This lie I did not discover until nine months later when I finally got the balls to ask his ex girlfriend for the information directly.  When I was upset by her response, she tried to reassure me with “But we were in an open relationship.”  This just pissed me off more since everyone was in the loop except for me.  I knew I was not in a monogamous relationship with M. but the one thing I always asked for was openness and honesty.  The idea of having an “open relationship” where the point is to lie to all of your partners to make it seem like you are being exclusive with them seems like a hypocritical mess to me.

     I guess the point here is, had I seen that first lie about his job for what it was: A LIE, than perhaps I would not have been surprised at all the other lies that followed.  As it were, I swallowed that first one whole and kept myself blind to the obvious for many months after.

     So here I am at a hippy music festival, daydreaming about starting a family with this guy, while he is back at home, still in a relationship with this other girl.  He had told me before I left on this trip that he would love to come with me but he was unable to on such short notice.  Interestingly enough, he made plans to go to Bonnaroo shortly after, which is a similar, yet much larger, music festival and did not bother to even invite me.  He claimed that he had only been there with his ex girlfriend and that it would be too emotionally hard to have a different girl go with him.  Upon his return, he told me that while he was on copious amounts of LSD, ecstasy and goodness knows what else, that he began to meditate on the meaning of love and came to the conclusion that he did not actually love me.  I wonder if this realization came before or after he woke up in a port-o-potty and spent half the day thinking that he finally had done so many drugs that he caused irreparable brain damage to himself (his words, not mine).  The words he wrote to me on the subject were:

“I reflected a lot on my past relationship and had some forgotten memories triggered by having been there the year before

it was obvious to me when looking back that she had fallen out of love for me at least a year ago based on how she treated me, and our personal dynamic

I tried to look the other way, or I interpreted in ways that weren't accurate

but at the end of it all, a year later I thought, Wow, I wish she would have had the courage or knowledge to cut it off with me then when she realized the fire had gone out

it would have been so much easier for me then

I feel now that I have to build my self esteem from scratch

After that trip I couldn't help but start taking other people's emotions more seriously and I feel I've gained some new insight about love

I don't think I have the same romantic feelings for you that you have for me

And I don't want to go any farther in hurting you”

 

     Curiously enough, his way of remedying this situation was to start dating a new girl WITHIN ONE WEEK, and then slowly begin the process of reeling me back in so that in 3 months time he was in a relationship with her and sleeping with me on the side.  Neither she nor I knew about the other.  It was a funny interpretation of going “any farther in hurting you.”  Now this was the SECOND time he had put me in the role of “the other woman” without my knowledge. 

     In summary, I found myself with a man that was projecting this image of peace, love and harmony, freedom of expression, understanding, openness, and all of the things that I value, while in reality he is living a clandestine life of deception, two-facedness, hypocrisy, and complete and utter disregard for those people in his life that he claims to care about the most.  And somehow, I had no suspicion.

Letters from Springfest #1

                                                        March 23, 2012

Dear M,

     I figure that you, of all people on this Earth, would understand the experience I’m having right now.

     I wish with my entire being that you were here having these experiences with me.

     Everywhere I go, I find myself daydreaming about what it would be like to have you here.  I imagine looking over at you and smiling and realizing how abundantly full my life feels with you in it.  I imagine you smiling back as you also realize what a perfect moment in time this is.  My soul resonates beautifully with yours.

     I wish you were here so the joy reflecting off your face would be mirrored in mine as we both revel in the joy of life…of experience.

     I swam in the river today.  I imagined you there and how you would look with the sun reflecting off your hair…how warm your body would feel after the chill of the river.

     I imagined holding your hand, walking down the paths.  I imagined your arm around me as we listen to a moving piece of music. 

     Yesterday, I got lost at night.  I couldn’t find my campsite.  Everyone had gone to bed and I went for one last bathroom run but when I tried to head back to camp, I had mis-remembered the location of our site by ten degrees.  I searched and searched and after an hour of trampling through other people’s campsites with a super bright flashlight, I happened upon C. participating in a jam tent with an adorable Reese Witherspoon look-a-like (who happened to be wearing overall shorts) with a powerful blues/funk style voice.  This was at 4AM.  By the time C. had wrapped up and showed me the way home it was 6AM.  I had been crying with frustration over being so lost but I ended up having a beautiful night.  So it goes at Springfest.

*     *     *

      So the most “exciting” thing that I have learned about while studying narcissism is something called mirroring.  Essentially, the narcissist will study their victim and learn about what makes them tick.  They will find out about their hobbies, their passions, and dreams and use that as a mechanism for achieving closeness.  They do this by incorporating parts of your personality into theirs, becoming chameleon-like as they take on new personas for every new victim. 

     Looking back on this letter, it’s amusing to me that I used this very term to describe the imagined look of joy on both of our faces.  I have come to realize that this is exactly what was happening from day one.  He knew what emotions to feign based on my facial expressions.  M. used to look at me with such love and devotion expressed on his face; I could never understand why he could never say the words “I love you.”  It seemed clear from his expression that he was feeling nothing less than love for me.  Now I understand that he was merely copying the look on my own face, hence why his words would never match up.

     When I met M, he was presenting himself to me as a deeply spiritual person, well-acquainted with things like Reiki and philosophy.  He came across as the most loving, accepting, open-minded and non-judgmental person I had ever met.  As I was interested in Mediaeval Fairs, he would often bring up Game of Thrones, telling me how much I’d love it.  He would even recommend the books, though he had not actually read them.  He knew how much I loved the Lord of the Rings and acted as if it tickled him when I told him he looked elven.  He made sure to have his copy of The Hobbit lying on the kitchen table when I came over.  He said he was re-reading it before we went to go see the film together.  The movie outing, of course, was never to be.  He even once went on an archery expedition with me and acted as if he thoroughly enjoyed it, but declined every further invitation to the range.  I could go on and on about all the things he did to make me feel close to him, but really, none of the things I’ve listed thus far sound troublesome.  In fact, I was aware of some of these things in the moment they were happening.  He acknowledged outright that he had not read the Game of Thrones series. 

     The trouble only became apparent to me ten months after we met, in the middle of making love.  He said to me that I was the only woman he had ever wanted to have babies with.  I immediately recognized this as my own thought, and in fact my own words.  He had finally claimed ownership of something that was so uniquely mine, that I could not for one second believe them to be his thoughts.  This was the moment when reality as I knew it began to come crashing down.  Why on Earth would this man claim such a preposterous thing? 

     It was this moment that ultimately led to my discovery of words like “sociopath” and “narcissist.”  I had googled something like “when someone uses your words as their own.”  Mirroring is the ultimate weapon in the Narcissist’s tool belt.  By mirroring the victim, they can gain the victim’s trust much more quickly than they could by actually getting to know them in an authentic way. 

     I believed I had met my soul mate.  That was the only explanation I had for the way our thoughts and bodies fell into such synchronicity with each other.  When I discovered that this feeling was a hoax meant to gain my trust and trick me into lowering my defenses, I could only describe the experience as emotional rape.  So much for souls that resonate beautifully with one another.

Lost at Sea

     When dealing with a narcissist, it’s as if you are standing on the deck of a lurching boat.  The ground itself becomes unstable as you constantly try to reorient yourself to an ever-shifting horizon. 

      I met M. almost two years ago.  I instantly knew that there was something special about him.  Almost immediately after we started dating, I began composing letters to him in a journal, hoping to chronicle what I believed would become the most life-changing relationship of my life.  In a sense, (albeit, not the sense I was anticipating) I was absolutely correct.  Being involved with a narcissist has easily been the most traumatic and life-altering event in my 32 years on this planet. 

     As I continued writing, my letters to M. became confused, sad, panicked, and then angry and hateful as I began to understand the clinical definition of narcissism and see him for what he truly is, rather than by the distorted reflection of myself he was pretending to be. 

    My intent here is to reproduce the letters in their original form, and follow them with a present day deconstruction of them based on my current understanding of events and the nature of this personality disorder in an attempt to regain my footing on solid ground.