hopeful4

So I have had three visits to a counselor through my work EAP. Yesterday was the last one. I will not continue with him due to the cost, and he knew that, so we made the most of our sessions, which were quite helpful. I will be seeking free counseling and have that appointment coming up.

I had specifically not called my X a narcissist or said anything about any cluster B mental issue b/c that was not why I was going. That being said, he told me yesterday that it's quite obvious that my X is a narcissist. It did amaze me he could see that so clearly so quickly.

Anyways, what he said really made sense to me. In dealing with a narcissist, no matter how hard you prepare, you know they are going to throw very cold water on you every single time. So no matter if you know it's coming up, no matter if you wear a raincoat, no matter what happens, after they do it, you are left standing there soaking wet and cold. So your option is to start stepping back or to keep getting soaked. You may not be able to get completely out of the way, but eventually you can move back enough that you are a little less wet each time.

We also talked about techniques and self talk to not let another person's actions control your own reactions. That you have to talk yourself through and recognize them as separate issues, not your entire live.

Wow. All of this resonated with me so much because that's what I have been doing. When my X or his wife act terrible to me, I let that take over my life and I let it control my entire week, month, however long it takes. I am standing there soaking wet.

I guess I am just rambling. I am so shocked that someone was able to help me see things so clearly in a three week time span. Maybe my mind is just open to it more so because I have decided that this will be a better year, that I will deal with things issue by issue, and take the control back.

Bring it on 2017!!!!

FireSprite

I was just thinking about your DDs this morning!

Great update - I'm SO happy you were able to go, even just short-term. (((((hugs))))

hopeful4

Thank you for thinking of us. It's been a rough week or so, the girls and I are all sick, especially my youngest DD. However, this counselor has really helped me see things a little differently about all of this.

Now just hoping we are all well soon!

Have a super day!

DoubleDragons

That analogy is so good, Hopeful. I was told by a counselor that my parents are likely narcissists. They throw their water on you and while you are trying to make sense of it all, they are just enjoying watching you be cold, bewildered, shivering and taking on all of their negative energy.

maia1234

I remember going to one of my first counseling sessions probably 20 years ago and having him tell me axh was narcissistic. I had heard the word before, but never knew what it meant. He pulled out the dictionary and I read the definition. He asked me if that was my husband, and of course I said yes.

Ugh!!! So many years of my life wasted on this man. We are all so blessed to be apart from them. Hugs my friend, it is time for all of us to heal.

LexieCat

Glad the counseling is helping so much! It's useful to realize that many alcoholics, even when they aren't diagnosable with the specific personality disorder known as NPD (narcissistic personality disorder), still often display many similar characteristics while they are still drinking alcoholically. For those people, getting sober--and especially working a good recovery program--can turn them back into normal, decent human beings. True narcissists are pretty much untreatable, from what I understand. As you said, just gotta get out of their way.

heartcore

It is a strong gift that your counsellor supported you like that. Therapists are very tentative typically about saying such a thing aloud regarding someone they haven't worked with personally.

The question is - what do you do with that external confirmation of your experience?

For me, when I came to terms with the fact that my ex was more than an alcoholic, likely also a narcissist, it granted me a powerful freedom. See, alcoholism is recoverable, but narcissism (at least in this moment in history) is not. The innate nature of narcissism means that there is no potential for insight, there is no appropriate medication or behavioral therapy, the problem cannot even be visited by the one inside it. So, I was free to go. Because there was nothing to wait hopefully for...

& though that was sad, it was also a profound relief.

And it meant my hopefulness wasn't wrong, just misplaced. I got to keep all of myself in that leaving.

Can't squeeze blood out of a turnip (& why would you try??!?)

dandylion

Wellll, heartcore....about the turnip thing.....
I know a few people who would squeeze out the turnip juice (or put it I n a juicer), and then add a few drops of red food coloring.....
Those same people will lead the horse to water and put salt in their oats.....

Seriously....what a strong thought---if all those who hold on hope, year after year could only have some way to know that there was nothing there to wait for......
My first husband--the father of my three kids--although he looked so good to the outside world, had many narcissistic characteristics. At that time, I thought that narcissist was a yellow Easter flower. Hadn't heard of the word.
What I did know is that m an made my life a living misery that just got worse. so, I divorced him.
Well, what do you know---all these years later, I hear, that he has not changed one iota...
I am sooo glad that, even in my ignorance of personality disorders, I wanted, so much, to be free to be happy and my sense of self-preservation kicked in....

TobeC

Bear in mind that narcissism cannot be diagnosed by anyone other than a trained professional such as a psychologist or psychiatrist. Any counselor throwing that label around is way outside of his/her realm. These days throwing the word narcissism around has become as common as simply calling someone a psycho. Are they really a psycho in the most terrifying sense of the label? More often than not, you're just dealing with a selfish, crappy person and not a clinically diagnosed narcissist who couldn't show empathy towards another individual if a gun was held to their head. Most people can show little traits of narcissism much like codependency where there is a broad spectrum of symptoms too.

dandylion

TobeC.....notice that I was careful to say "narcissistic characteristics"...not narcissistic personality disorder.....

It is hard to ever find someone diagnosed as narcissistic personality disorder on paper, by a professional. In general, they are almost impossible to get I nto a therapeutic setting....for varuous reasons...not the least of which is that they are exquisitely sensitive to even the slightest criticism.
They almost have to be forced into an evaluation by the courts or some other strong leverage....

TobeC

Yep. I agree. My point mainly is that it has become a term like psycho these days. Codependent is another one. Hell, everyone displays codependency symptoms as a lot of them are almost universal. In my therapy which is mindfulness based I had to let go of self-blame to begin to love myself again and just be in the moment as me with a tool box full of tools to deal with the many curveballs life tosses at me.

dandylion

TobyC....I know....some common terms do get overused.....especially once they become a household word....

Centered3

ACoA here and I post on the other side too.

YUP. This is a great analogy. The humility, shame, abandonment of it all just sucks but it's helpful to read the analogy of the cold water. Make sense of it? Never. Can't. My therapist looked like he was about to jump up and celebrate when I finally figured that out. Another one once said to me, "don't expect rational behavior out of irrational people".

I love the idea to step away to avoid having cold water being dumped on. I will use this visual next time I deal with my family.

And the next time someone--a friend, coworker, neighbor, bad therapist who should have her license pulled, complete stranger--makes me feel guilty for not seeing my family on the holidays, or not going to a family function, I will remember this: And might I add.... they make it your fault that they had to dump ice cold water on you. And blame you for the stress it took out of them of having to dump the water on you, too.

Centered3

I had to laugh at this, because my sister--a raging undiagnosed narcissisit--once told me she went to see a therapist because she was extremely stressed out and anxious about going back to school to change careers. She told me that the therapist basically said to her "You don't have any problem with your confidence" and somehow refused to continue the actual session. Good for the therapist seeing what she was dealing with a mile away. I remember, too, my sister calling me in daily panics before her first exam. It was crazy. I guess she needed her drug of choice of being told how smart she was and that she'd get the highest grade in the class or something. She didn't just get a 100%. She got bonus questions right too. I'm sure she told the therapist that.

My sister allowed the therapist's comments to build up her already very bloated opinion of herself. But I know exactly what went down. My sister likely spent the first few minutes telling the therapist exactly how smart she is, how she's always the smartest person in the room, her profession, her grades, what college she went to, and that her siblings are the stupid ones, etc and probably was just reeking of narcissism!

But yeah I can't say she is a narcissist because that word does get thrown around a lot. But I am sure that therapist was diagnosing her pretty fast in her head!!

She's addicted to her very high opinion of herself and loves putting others down. I really hope someday somewhere someone tells her the way it is.

I feel really bad for the people who work under her. She's bragged to me about some pretty you-can-hear-a-pin-drop-type-things she's said to coworkers during meetings to bring up her narcissistic self. She's also a jeckyl and hyde. One minute she could be sugary sweet and it seems genuine, and the next second she could be the most wicked, evil, cruel, arrogant person you'd ever meet in your life.

And I've witnessed her facial expression that GLOATS when she knows she's making someone else uncomfortable.

It's pure evil to get a power trip over watching someone else squirm and suffer.

Spacegoat

That's exactly it, I've been saying the same. They go out of their way to systematically rob/cheat/injure you…

...Then actually blame you for the inconvenience and the fact you may be unhappy about it...

I know this too well, as its a pattern that's been repeated over and over throughout my life (with increasing intensity)

lizatola

I can relate. I remember wondering if my ex was just an alcoholic or if he suffered from some personality disorder. Honestly, today I really don't care, but because he is my son's father I will always care....even if it's just a little bit. Especially about how it affected me and my son while living in the middle of the insanity of it all.

Hugs to you for having the fortitude to try counseling and to seek help to get the answers you need. I have found that I continue to learn and grow and find more things about myself to enjoy or, well, to not enjoy, as I move past my life with active alcoholism. It's not easy by any means. You are such a great example of strength for your girls. HUGS!

Centered3

Spacegoat,

I'm sorry to hear that. :-(

I hope everyone out there can "learn from my mistake" and avoid the he&& I went through-- do not waste decades trying to understand why they do this or how you can act differently so they don't act that way. It's not your fault. They are sick. (But I can still love sick people on my own terms and no longer hate them....it just took an extremely long time to get to this place.)

And know that if you try to explain it to normal people, they will not understand. I have finally found an answer that works perfectly now, vs babbling like crazy trying to explain how sick my family is, because the more I try to explain, the worse it gets and the more anxious I'd get.

It goes like this:

When a friend is being pushy, and I get "Centered, why don't you see your family over the holidays?"
"They're abusive." (Stated very factually with no emotion but not aggressively, so they get I'm not getting into it, I'm not looking for pity, and I not wanting to discuss any further. I added all that not because I think the readers out there needed to hear that, but because *I* needed to figure that out--something that is probably obvious to others but wasn't to me).
End of story.
I then ask them something about themselves.
Works like a charm.

Going very very low contact or no contact helped for me, but I know not everyone can do that. And I only recommend that if you get a therapist's ok with that. It makes everything worse at first because you're disturbing the apple cart, but in the end it was the healthiest thing for me to do. My therapist wanted me to go NC but I decided to go VVLC. It was harder but l don't regret it, and my current therapist asked why. I think the fear was that if I went VVLC they could have easily pulled me back in. So I had to work harder at not being pulled back in and stand my VVLC rules. I slipped many times when they pushed my buttons over email or the phone--not even necessarily in person--but I don't regret it.

Do not EVER take this guilt s%$t:
"But they're your [parents], [siblings], [other relative], they love you!"

I had to work on distancing myself from the mind-f&8k, getting myself healthy, and only then was I able to reestablish contact on my terms. Yes I finally see now that even in their sick behavior, they do love me and always have, but it's taken an extremely long time and that doesn't mean I have to put up with their sick, cruel antics. They still are raging narcissists who view me as an extension of themselves, and I won't put up with that. I set healthy boundaries and I do it in a way that they are not "insulted" by them because they don't realize I'm setting them.

Ugh it sucks writing about this s*%$, but I truly hope it helps others.

Centered3

Exactly. If they pulled a muscle while dumping the large heavy bucket of ice water on you, they'd rage at you for making them pull a muscle.

hearthealth

OMG so true!

Centered3

^I second this.