Narcissistic emotional abuse
Familiar feelings die hard. And I only realised how much fear and hope had settled into my system when I was about to return to a familiar setting.
My mother is a nasty piece of work – she suffers from a Narcissistic Personality Disorder and it is has been very damaging having had her in my life. I thought I was over her. And cool with the situation. But then, the fear hit me when I was supposed to see her again.
I hadn’t seen her for about 3 years. That was at the funeral of my brother, I observed her from a distance. I felt safe there as I felt confident I could avoid her. I knew where to sit, where to hide and how to keep a safe distance.
This time I was visiting her in her own home. I wanted to meet my father, who was seriously ill. But it inevitable meant, I had to see her. And those familiar feeling popped up again.
Fear and hope, they only die very slowly.
Fear for rejection, hope for acceptance. Fear for a put-down, hope for a compliment (maybe this time she will notice). Hope she hears me, fears she will twist my words again. Hope for a sliver of love, fear for being hated.
After all those years, the old and hard-wired system popped up.
Narcissistic emotional abuse
When I realised the week before the visit that the churning in my stomach and the tightness in my chest was all due to fear – the feeling, I managed to move out of the emotions, back into my head where I gave myself a (loving) lecture.
A lecture about how it didn’t make sense to have hope. How I had given up hope after decades of disappointments, how I knew that I would never get what I really wanted (my mother’s love) and how I had made peace with it.
My thought process saved me and brought me to the here and now. I was able to let go of the old patterns and just knew that my needs would never be met.
I was able to be with her in the same space without an emotional attachment, keeping the distance and observing her games and bitchiness.
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