Your heartache is your cocoon, your healing transforms you into a beautiful butterfly.
Healing from heartache especially when it’s from a form of toxicity or as a result of narcissistic abuse, is truly a transformational journey that takes courage, strength, and plenty of self-compassion.
Every step you take towards your healing, and every time you choose love over anger and resentment is a step closer to the beautiful person that you are slowly becoming.
When you’re in the midst of heartache, there’s almost nothing that anyone can say to you to make the pain go away. You can’t sleep, you can’t eat, you don't want to go anywhere, you can’t even function; sometimes all you can do is just sit there and stare.
I know how this feels…
I myself was caught in the web of a very clever and a very cunning covert narcissist. I didn’t even realise it at the time, in fact I didn’t realise it until much later on after my relationship had ended when I was studying my NLP. I was in a study group having a discussion when all of a sudden, a number of things were pointed out to me and the dots suddenly all joined up and everything became so incredibly and abundantly clear.
How could I have not noticed?
In the early days of my relationship with this person, many people saw the red flags and tried to warn me but I wouldn’t listen.
This person was such a master manipulator, it didn’t seem possible that the warnings I was being given by so many could be real or even true.
This person seemed to me that they were the most loving, caring, sweetest, and gentle person I had ever met.
But looking back and as time went on, the lack of accountability, the manipulation, the deflecting, the projection of their own behaviours and attitudes, the blaming, the false accusations, the disrespect, and the very clever way they managed to twist everything in a way that discredited my character to others, began to show more and more.
Nothing was ever their fault.
Part of a narcissists plan is that by the time you have had enough and you are triggered to the point where you actually react; they become so defensive and so savage that they use those very moments, that very reaction, to turn everything around on you and to convince everyone else that you are the villain and they are the victim.
They are not only master manipulators; they are also master story tellers.
Narcissists won’t ever tell the side of the story that makes them look bad, they will only ever tell a very one sided version of events and manipulate everyone else as well.
They very slowly day by day release the poison that creates so much toxicity and noise in your own head that you start to believe their projected accusations and you start to question your own values, and your own self-worth.
Then, once they've caused as much damage as they can; they walk away leaving behind the mess and chaos that they created without taking any accountability, and without showing any empathy or remorse.
It’s heartless, it’s cold, and it’s inhumane.
I loved this person more that I had ever loved anyone in my entire life; and in the end it cost me everything. It cost me my career, it cost me my health, it had strained the relationship with people that I loved, and it started to become very clear that I was being taken advantage of. Even during the time that I was trying to heal from some of the chaos they had bought into my life, they even took away my right to heal in private which only made matters worse.
Narcissistic abuse can make you question your worth, it can destroy heart, and it can make you fearful to ever love or to ever trust someone ever again.
But remember; you haven’t actually lost anything, they on the other hand have just lost someone so loving, so caring, so committed, so genuine, and someone that would have done absolutely anything for them.
You deserve and you are worthy of real love, real commitment, real respect, and real happiness.
As you heal, you'll discover the incredible power of forgiveness; not for your abuser, but for yourself.
Forgiving doesn't mean forgetting, negating, or desensitising what has happened, but it does free you from the anger and resentment that ultimately is like holding on to a burning hot coal that’s just been pulled from the fire, it only ends up hurting you.
Please know that what has happened to you doesn’t make you any less of a person.
I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather get to know the person that’s been through the storm, the person that fell to their lowest but managed to pulled themselves out of the depths to become the most amazing and most interesting person I’ve ever met, now that’s a story worth telling…
~ Mark