“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot”
- Got another pushup during our morning meeting:
Specific Observations: Kassie shows a lot of spunk and spirit which makes her inspirational. Attitude/values demonstrated: She’s dependable, uplifting, kind and motivational. -Tues: ICEV Nutrition class from 8am to 10:30am.
- Senior coordinator meeting with classification, then updated the ladies in my dorm the next day during the meeting.
- Wed: Last day and final exam for my Lifetime Fitness and Wellness certification course. We were their pilot class.
- CBB class 1pm
- Studied Literary Analysis for three days on Edovo so I can produce better quality book reports. -Helped my coach with her workout routine.
- Worked on a book report for Prison Professors.
- Took notes from a few Women of Impact podcasts and especially valued the ones with Dr. Rumani. I focused on episodes that covered narcissistic abuse, boundaries, and similar. I’m including my written notes below, which I found empowering, insightful, and a relief to learn:
Early Ways to Tell:
Phase 1: You try standing your ground. They’ll make everything your fault. Devalue phase. Little manipulation and gaslighting. You’re still interacting with them.
Phase 2: You’re confused. Seeking help/therapy can do a lot in therapy when in phase 2. Better to catch it early than later in phase 3.
Phase 3: Depression. Try to only last in phase one when you get the love bombing and then leave. But it’s a slow process with the narcissist and by phase two, friends and family already love them. They’re charismatic. If family and friends catch onto the narcissist, they will try to put a wedge between you and your family/friends to create distance. If you’re a friend of someone going through this, do not just say their friend is a narcissist.
They’ll defend them.
Emotions We Go Through:
Published book: It’s Not You, Really.
1)Self blame. *(This section hits home perfectly for my background)* Insecure attachment styles created in childhood. If a parent isn’t there for the child in the way they need, all they know is their parent is let down (conditional love conditions). Even shaming their needs. Child only has one choice: to blame themselves. If they blame the parent, they’re screwed, because they NEED them. Survival needs. Parent remains pristine in the child’s view, the child remains safe, the child internalizes “I need to be better to be safe” <–Put that now in a 30 year old, and they struggle
with perfection, trying to be all things to all people. Narcissistic people always shift blame so they can maintain this perfect sense of themselves.”If I could be better, I would be loveable” – The theme of my thoughts from early childhood through grade school, high school, and into adulthood.
How to overcome: Learn to communicate your needs. It is a sign of progress. I’m much better at this than I used to be.
Because of the experience we’ve had: Express need=lose love. Express need=anger comes. Express need=be shamed. After many times, that’s the only thing that comes with expressing a need. Narcissistic abuse survivors try to do everything by themselves to the point of exhaustion. Doing less doesn’t come naturally (tell me about it). And often expressing need is met with screaming, which is unpleasant.
2) Shame. Both feel for different reasons. For the narc, it’s the shame of being found out they’re not perfect. To not be powerful. They project it onto everyone. The abused feels shame not being able to express their needs, not having the courage to leave, etc. Public emotion. Makes you want to hide. They use confusion because they are confused and they think something is chronically wrong with them, that plays into gaslighting. They use a sense of despair.
They Make You Feel Small
- Compare you to someone else (My mother did this constantly since I was very young and it never ended even in adulthood)
- Belittling. They try to bring you down (control). (This is why I’ve struggled so much with self loathing, which is what eventually brought me to incarceration and my crime). -Passive aggressiveness.
- Competition. Dismissive. Sneering. Contemptuous.
- Happens over and over.
- Hurtful. because they’re insecure because of their own shame.
- As a survivor, the voice never goes away, Dr. Ramani says.
Ways to Overcome the Abuse:
- You need at least one safe place (person). You plug into great support. Alternate sources of information! (I suppose I’ve naturally done this after parting ways with my abuser, finding a stronger support system including lifelong or long-time friends, ministers, church mentors, etc). -You can recognize that everything that comes out of the narcissist’s mouth is a joke. Do what you’re passionate about.
- Never ever share good news with them.
- Have at least three good people you share with before the narc, if you have to share.
- Same with negative news. If you do, they’ll abuse you. Ex: You’re sick, have cancer, etc. They’ll have shame about knowing they should help or care for you. As if they don’t help, they’re a bad person, so they’ll abuse you instead. They exaggerate everything-have to be in the know. -Instead of good or bad news, tell them the indifferent stuff.
- Turn to your support FIRST.
- Read the room. They have bad and good days, but remember there’s no winning at this. Even a compliment can be skewed.
- Be aware of how YOU are today.
- Have little things prepared to talk about.
- Don’t ever ask them “why” because you’re asking their motivations and they don’t always know this, so they become hostile. and lash out. They don’t like being questioned/held accountable. -Know there’s no going backk to the way it was. Ever. They were trying to win you over. Their games were working. Once you see the light, it’s hard to go back. You can only go back if you do everything they want. But is that what you want? YOU change b/c now you know. -Don’t call them out on their behavior.
TBC
