Burn all the witches

I am in an abusive relationship.

My daughter Emma is being damaged.

I’m going through a divorce (and it’s killing me).

I have learned about (what we seem to be calling) narcissism.

I understand that I know enough about narcissism to understand that I have only scratched the surface.

I understand that bad things are happening but I now understand that I am not alone. I thought I was alone for years.

Like me, you may be having a very hard time. Go easy on yourself. In my experience this stuff is really really hard.

Absolutes are an absolute no

Relying on absolutes such as “she always” and “she never” is simply wrong. There is continual variation. “She sometimes does A” and “sometimes she does B” are accurate statements. Anything else is not. I found that I was denied the satisfaction of saying things like, “she never read a bedtime story to Emma” because there were those few times that she actually did. The reality is, there’s an awful lot of bad in her but there is some good in her too. As hard as it is to say that, the only path through this is to accept that. Now it’s so much clearer and easier to talk about.

Being controlled

I am being controlled. I am not in charge of my life. I am living in misery.

Two years ago I would not have said that. I wouldn’t have believed it. I’m way smarter than that surely. I have my wits about me. I have a decent career. I didn’t feel controlled. Control is for hoes and pimps or for alcoholic husbands and battered wives. Right?

There is a serious weirdness to narcissism. I found acceptance to be a very difficult destination. For me, there were many barriers to arriving at a point where the control and manipulations became clear to me. They simply are a thing. My ass is 100% controlled during every single solitary interaction (dam! “lots of interactions”). Control is not what I thought it was. Control is this and this.

Why does she persist?

I’ve come to understand that my wife Susan does what she does not for a single reason but for a multitude of reasons spanning from habit to malicious intent and anything in between. Reaching acceptance on the “why” was really difficult for me. There isn’t a single answer, it’s case by case and it varies.

Evil?

My wife is a truly horrible person but she is not evil. It certainly feels like she is evil. The pain is real. She is also not from a different evolutionary strand. She’s not the half alive skeletal remains of some raging bitch from beyond hell. Thinking that is a vent, it’s a release, but in my experience, it’s totally unhelpful. It’s not helpful because it’s inaccurate and impedes true understanding.

Burn all the witches

I find it a bit like a fear of the unknown. As my understanding of it all grew, I found that my anger towards her lessened and my ability to endure her hateful attacks became easier. I found peace in this. My anger subsided (a little). My fear of it is less. There is comfort in knowing that we’re not in the midst of a new global pandemic of narcissist witch zombies. My fear of the narcissists is far less now.

Psychologist versus software developer

As a software developer, I’m not qualified to talk about the psychology of it but I do have a keen interest and find it fascinating. For me, the key to understanding it came from being able to identify and label the utter bullshit Susan carried on with every day. I like to think of narcissism as a bucket of these bullshit behaviors and patterns. Understanding the individual items in the bucket allowed me to understand narcissism. Now, as she speaks, cries, sulks, blames, denies, and tortures me, I can rubber-stamp it all with the corresponding label. Recognizing the individual items has also allowed me to understand why she does what she does. Now I enjoy the power and control that brings. Now I enjoy learning the psychology behind it all.

Mental illness

There are YouTubers out there who talk about narcissism like it’s from a different planet. It’s a mental illness, and real people are affected by it. My wife Susan, her pain and suffering is real, believe me. So is mine. The key to understanding it is to recognize this. It’s a pretty freaking bad illness to be fair, it’s off the scale and it has been hell on earth for me the victim of it.

One example that I hear YouTubers getting wrong quite a bit: “Love bombing”. They can make it sound like a really malicious evil trap. Well, that’s not necessarily the case. The person can genuinely feel infatuation as a result of the mental illness (splitting, black-and-white-thinking, need for external validation, low empathy contaminated by projections). The very definition of a mental illness is that a persons perspective on the world is skewed.

Mental Illness Free pass?

There was a time on my journey that I would have been angry at such a statement. Giving Susan’s relentless hateful attacks a free “mental illness” pass. Giving the harm she was doing to Emma a free “mental illness” pass. Then listening to her crying, pity-play, sympathy-seeking, ego-masturbation, phone-calls to all her friends accusing me of being so hateful to her… I would have screamed “Mental illness my ass, she’s a god dam f**ing lying bitch”. My pain was real, my pain was intense, my despair was real, my anguish was real, my hopelessness was real. My own mental illness as a result was real. Her behavior is cruel, it feels evil but it is not explained by monsters and zombies, it’s explained through the lens of mental illness. But make no mistake, it is a horse-power, chronic, life-destroying, utterly chaotic and destructive mental illness.

I’m over it. I don’t feel the need to burn the witches anymore because I understand what it is and I understand what it is not. An open mind is essential. It will ease the journey.

None of it makes sense, until it eventually does.

See you on the other side!