I recently took a phone call from a very distressed person
who said to me, “Please you have to help me, I am destroying all of my relationships,
as I am a Narcissist”. I asked them how they knew this and they replied because
my partner has read your blog and told me that is who I am.
The person was distraught and I booked them in to see
me. On the day of the appointment, they
arrived and turned up and told me their story. After only 60 seconds of them
talking it was obvious to me that they were not nor ever had been a Narcissist.
I actually knew they were not a Narcissist from the moment I opened the door
and they came in, as in all my years in clinical health and therapy work I have
never seen a Narcissist who willingly came to therapy to change themselves.
This is actually the
main reason why I tell people who have been abused that the best it will ever
get with a Narcissist is for you to heal and move away from them, you will
never ever change a Narcissist.
After 1 session we went over the concerns which my client
had expressed and although there had been some self-esteem issues which had affected
their relationship, they were definitely not a Narcissist. They came back for a few more sessions of self-development
and by the time they were ready to stop seeing me, it had become obvious to
them that they were not in any way at all Narcissistic, but the person they had
been in the relationship with most certainly was.
After the third session, my client had found themselves again,
gained their confidence, sense of self and were looking for their purpose in
life. They also ended the relationship when they started to see the abuse which
they were suffering and had not realised.
It was within the last session that I reminded them again
and reinforced that they were not a Narcissist, despite what they had been told
by the person abusing them. I did this for a very good reason. You see
convincing someone else they are a Narcissist is amongst the cruellest and
worst trick in the Narcissists playbook. They are actually making someone else
believe that they are the problem due to them being a Narcissist and keeping
the heat off of themselves. Think about it for a minute, it is like extreme
Gaslighting. Not only are they getting away with doing whatever they like to
you and convincing you it is your fault. They are adding the extra mental
cruelty that you have something wrong with you and it is down to your personality.
It sounds impossible to believe, doesn’t it? But it happens and it happened to me. I was
told that I had something wrong with me and I was even told the reasons for it!
I was convinced by someone of an extreme Narcissistic nature that all of the
vile things which they had done to me and other people were actually my
fault!!
You might actually wonder how someone can do this and how
they get away with it, to be honest, it is really easy. When you are caught up
in a relationship with a Narcissist and are trapped in the middle of their
distorted realities and lies and you are pounded daily with them, you really
start to believe it. I was convinced
that I was really bad and had caused everything to go wrong. No matter what I
did or said, I was told that “That makes it worse”. There was no end to the cycle of abuse I was
caught up in. But it was clever, subtle abuse and so cleverly laid down over
a long period of time that you just don’t see it.
I was lucky and I was able to break the cycle and see the
reality of the person for who they really were. But what if you can’t, what if you do not get
that chance? Well if you suspect that this is happening to you, the first thing
that you need to do is to start to see your life in greater context than the
relationship you are in. Now the very best way to do this is to obtain a greater
perspective from other people and the best way to do this is to speak to other
people about you. If you go and seek out those real trusted friends and ask
them what they think of you and tell them to give it to you straight, you will
start to take your first step towards reality. This was my first great step forward
as when I told other people about my experiences and what I had been
conditioned to believe about myself, no one said that it sounded like me. Believe
me, I went and spoke to a lot of people, friends, family work mentors and even
other therapists. It was only when I saw myself and my relationship through the
eyes of others that I started to wake up to what was going on. I asked them to
be honest as well, I wanted a real warts and all profile of me and I got it. The
problem is that we are afraid to do this, fear is a great driving factor and
Narcissists will know this and use our fears against us. Yes people were
willing to tell me of the good things about me, but I needed to hear the other
parts, thankfully there was nothing scary there and I certainly was not the
evil person I had been lead to believe that I was.
Sometimes we have to look into that great abyss that is
ourselves to see who is smiling back at us. When we are brave enough to find
our true self, we start to find all of the answers in life. This also forces
you into the reality of who you are and not the pale deformed and disfigured personality
which you have been led to believe you are by those who seek to get away with
abusing you.
On the last session, I could not believe the transformation
of my client, they did not even look the same as the person who had visited me
several weeks earlier. They had grown in every way and in such a small space of
time. They did this by looking at who they were, realising they needed to
change and also by knowing that they could easily make positive changes and
improvements to who they were. These are not the traits or thoughts of a
Narcissist, nor ever will be.
For further help if you are suffering from abuse
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For further help if you are suffering from abuse
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