September 14, 2013
M,Tonight is your show at the record store. I am tempted to show up even though I know my presence would be unwelcome. None of my reasons for wanting to attend are pure or good. I only want to spread chaos and hurt. I hope my presence would be a distraction to you as I introduced your multitude of lovers to one another. I wish you could witness your web of lies crumbling to your feet as you stand trapped, tethered to your guitar cord.Maybe then you’d have more empathy for me as your private life impacted your work, rendering you impotent onstage for all to see. I hope at the very least you have felt jumpy, expecting me to show up. I imagine you saw my passive-aggressive tactic for what it is and called my bluff. I wish you weren’t as insightful as you are. I still pretend you are the man I fell in love with: open, honest and compassionate. I’m still mystified at how you could possibly not be those things.I had made plans to be creative and powerful tonight so I wouldn’t have to sit here crying over you while you go out and live your rock star illusion, but they unfortunately fell through, leaving me here to yet again mourn the fact that I never got the chance to attend one of your shows as your lover. I envy the opportunity that A had to do precisely this. I am still so very angry at you for everything.Here we are, nine months later. I could have had your baby by now. What a very different, fucked up world that would have been.
***
You can’t out-manipulate a Narcissist. I learned this the hard way. M could always see through my attempts to make him jealous or upset as payback for the turmoil he was putting me through. It’s maddening. During the first few months of no contact, it was insanely difficult to keep myself from showing up to his publically announced performances in an attempt to return the favor of completely destroying my sanity. I had to do quite a bit of reality checking to remind myself that no matter what I attempted, I would be viewed as the crazy one as he would be able to keep a calm demeanor while I was already driven to the brink.On the Psychopath Free forum, I have seen quite a few members inquire as to whether the book 50 Shades of Grey would be too triggering for a recent Narcissistic abuse survivor to read. I knew there were some problematic scenes that involved physical abuse/S&M style scenes that could be triggering to people that endured being physically controlled by their partners, but as that was not part of my particular trauma I figured I might be able to get away with reading it for a cheap thrill. Unfortunately, one of the long term side effects of being in this emotionally abusive situation has been a near non-existent libido for years. I thought perhaps that Mr. 50 Shades might be able to help me recover some of my former Scorpio mojo. As expected, I got drawn into the book, but for reasons I had not anticipated. E.L. James has cast the ultimate Narcissist as her leading man. From using sex as a weapon of control to continuing to socialize with and speak of his former lovers as a form of triangulation with his current partner, Christian Grey covers every aspect of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The female lead knows she wants more than this man is emotionally capable of offering, but he manages down her expectations until ultimately she allows him to beat her in accordance with his preferred S&M lifestyle. She wants a boyfriend and he wants a fuck, yet she tries to convince herself throughout the entire story that what he is offering will be enough to meet her emotional needs. Surprise, it is not and she spends the majority of the time that she is not having sex with him in tears. This entire storyline is hauntingly familiar to me.The chilling accuracy with which James presents her protagonist’s emotional reactions to this man’s manipulations, pity plays, triangulations, and the way James shows how he meticulously grooms her to begin accepting physical abuse as a necessary part of their relationship leads me to wonder if James herself has been seduced by such a man. Having experienced a very similar seduction, I recognized each step that led me to the dangerous conclusion that this abusive man, M, was my soul mate, and that I should do whatever it took to keep him. Every time I stepped out of line, asked too many questions, demanded too much, he would shut down emotionally and cut me off physically. He used sex as a weapon for controlling me. When I was good, I got laid. When I was bad, I wouldn’t hear from him for days. I heard pity stories about how his fucked up childhood caused him to be the way he was, yet he would never disclose details about it. He invited me to go out with him to meet an ex girlfriend, assuring me that there was nothing there between them anymore, and proceeded to ignore me the entire evening while listening intently to her, even as I was being harassed by drunken men. He made sure to compliment me excessively every time I wore something sexy to the point where I would always wear sexy panties and makeup every time I went to see him. Nowadays, I have swung far to the opposite side, never wearing makeup or sexy clothes, not even shaving my legs. It gives me a slight jolt of disgust when I think of trying to make myself look attractive to men now that I see how subtly he had manipulated me into something I am not. As a part of my recovery, I make it a point to do mainly things that I want to do, and I try to make sure I am not changing who or what I am to win the favor of a sexual partner. After losing myself so completely to another person, I am trying to keep myself entirely intact from now on.Like Grey, M, uses his status to lure in new victims. As a “rock star” he can pick up a new girl at every performance if he turns on the charm. He’s astute at finding lonely, perpetually single women and giving them compliments until they feel like absolute sex goddesses. As I read the book, I notice how James uses certain promises from Grey to keep her protagonist from running for the hills. He assures her that he will be monogamous and that he will strive to give her the “more” that she requires. In my case, some of the more included being introduced to M’s family, and being able to attend one of his performances as his lover. These are things that were always denied to me, but I found out at the end that he had granted these very things to A. While M gave the illusion of being monogamous, he was always trying to introduce the idea of an open relationship since he claimed that one woman alone would never be enough to satisfy him. For a time, he had me truly mulling over whether or not I could live with that arrangement. Every so often, I would convince myself that I could. I always imagined I would be the primary relationship since we had such strong chemistry, but he was trying to groom A to be the primary relationship in his harem, and I was just a side dish. I had no idea he could manufacture such strong chemistry with anyone he seduced. Towards the end, I realized how much of myself I was sacrificing to stay with him. I had to give up monogamy, love, compassion, compromise, and my dreams of motherhood just to have amazing sex with this man once every other week. Looking back I know it wasn’t worth it.At the end of the book, the protagonist also realizes it’s not worth it to sell her future to a man incapable of loving her. I want to shake the author’s hand for showing the inevitable, soul crushing break up that must ultimately come. However, the existence of two sequels assures me that this is not the end. Of course he must seduce her back; the narcissistic cycle can not be completed if the victim is not hoovered back into the emotionally abusive landscape with promises of change and assurances that she is the most special of all his victims. I think I may read the other two books in hope that the ultimate lesson learned is not that we as women can somehow fix and heal these irreparably damaged and abusive men, by pouring every little bit of our souls into them, while they eat away at our lives, giving us nothing more than an elusive fuck in return.
