The Aftermath

I have spent months being a student within the subject of Covert Narcissism and manipulation. I am confident I can spot a Narcissist/manipulator from a distance. I know the subtleties of someone devaluing and disrespecting me. I'm aware of gaslighting and blame-shifting. All valuable things to know. But why did I have this experience? What was its true purpose? Was it to gain awareness of toxic behaviors? Am I to add more guideposts/boundaries to my list, "do not date manipulative people?"

I had my list of guideposts/boundaries when I entered the relationship. I developed them from the experiences I took forth from previous ones. They were conscious thought-out rules that I thought would help guide me into a better experience. But I overrode most of them many times. I did this because the unhealthy core beliefs I had for myself took over and stopped me dead in my tracks. I did not know how to pause, be present, and recognize I needed to work against these conditioned beliefs. I had to become comfortable with being uncomfortable while I treaded in the unfamiliar territory of asking for and getting my needs met within relationships.

What I did instead, metaphorically speaking, was hand my partner a list of my needs and put my trust in him that he would honor and respect them. I stepped outside myself and chose to trust someone else instead of trusting me. I was simply submitting a request on how to be treated, not affirming how I should be treated. I abandoned my needs so that he wouldn't abandon me. When he chose not to honor them, I allowed my partner to insert his value of me on my already fractured self-worth. A fundamental core belief I wasn't prepared to look at or understood within myself at the time.

My intuition, my authentic self, showed up in the relationship from the beginning; it was solid and loud. So many times, it felt like it was right in my face screaming at me. Just like it has been in past relationships. I knew something wasn't right intellectually, just like in the past, but I chose to ignore both of them; I was neglecting my true self again. I did not honor myself by taking action on my behalf—the type of action that facilitates and requires change toward my needs and wants. Actions that represent the value I would hope, I carried for myself.

When faced with a situation like a boundary violation, unmet needs, or devaluing comments, I froze and became numb; my body reacted to it as a threat, which it was, I would go into the fight or flight response. I was duplicating the same reaction as I did within my childhood traumas. It was the correct response to protect myself as a child, a young mind that wasn't equipped to decipher real threats or have the intellect to handle the experiences. But as an adult, my response held me back and kept me stuck from making proactive decisions in my life and relationships. I hadn't developed the tools or awareness I needed to keep me present to make sound judgments in certain areas of my life.

From a young age, I adapted or falsified my core beliefs by developed coping strategies so that I wouldn't feel those threats. I would do this by shutting down emotionally; forgoing my needs and desires in relationships. I would become the accommodator, the rescuer. I would work hard in the relationship by giving my time, energy, love, and compassion. If they felt complete, worthy, and loved, I would feel the same. They would provide for me as I was providing for them. However, this theory never worked in the long run. But what did work in the interim was my familiarity with the pattern I had repeated over and over. Strangely enough, this pattern made me feel safe.

Unconsciously, I picked men that would reinforce my core belief of unworthiness; my needs didn't matter, the familiar place. Core beliefs are stored in the amygdala, hippocampus, referred to as the emotional brain. The amygdala is responsible for behavioral and emotional reactions to stressful situations (fight or flight response). The hippocampus is responsible for encoding, storing, and retrieving memories of events that define our personal experiences. These memories are loaded with emotional significance; they shape our core beliefs about ourselves, the world, and others. When we consider right or wrong, our subjective perspective, the past, can influence the outcome in present situations.

Since these core beliefs (hippocampus) remain rigid or stuck throughout new experiences, we become indifferent to change. We don't know how to make a change; we can become hijacked (amygdala) by the emotional brain of the past. These core beliefs are developed early on, and if you had traumatic events or your caregiver did not meet your emotional needs (which is traumatic), this will define one's view of oneself. The subtleties of neglect can be as simple as a parent repeatedly disregarding how you feel or tell you how you should feel. So as adults, we carry inflexible core beliefs that filter information in a biased and irrational manner. But we can change all of this!

I thought I had good self-esteem, the esteem I have worked hard on throughout my personal growth journey. I feel it is intact. I thought self-esteem equaled self-worth? So I couldn't understand why I had such a high tolerance for neglect. In my past relationship with a Covert Narcissist, I was, for the most part, mentally preoccupied with survival, living in a low-grade fight or flight response due to my unmet needs and all his avoidant behaviors. And yes, I began living in a "Trauma Bond" and was dealing with “Cognitive Dissonance.” However, I knew I deserved better; my intuition and intellect were operating well on my behalf, if I allowed myself to followed through, of course. But my instinctual response to my unmet needs and wants was keeping me stuck regarding making changes.

When I was in one of the last discards in the relationship, I looked for answers about me, us, and why we were not working. I discovered this book called "Attached." (The book can be found in the "Tool Kit" section of the website) After reading this book, it was clear I carried the attachment style "anxious." People who are often preoccupied with their relationship and hypersensitive to the needs of others. Hence, I wasn't focused on my requirements and needs; I was focused on theirs. I also looked to my partner to validate and show me what my value was. In the attachment theory, "anxious types" attract "avoidant types" I did this every time. Great insight, but I ignored the fundamental root of why am I, the "anxious" type in all my relationships? The answers sat in my childhood traumas.

Moving forward with my new insight from the book, I took a step back from my relationship. First, I implemented some boundaries pertaining mainly to myself. Meaning it wouldn't require putting my partner out; he wouldn't have to do anything. This kept me out of the mental battlefield and allowed me some time to get acquainted with setting personal boundaries.

I was becoming aware that my needs were being neglected in the relationship. But my conscious thoughts couldn't seem to override my deep subconscious voice telling me not to ask. Hence, the childhood experiences that kept me perpetually attached to old feelings, my needs weren't met then, so why would they be met now? And if my partner chooses not to meet them if I asked, I knew I would feel neglect all over again.

Over time, the first insertion of taking care of my needs gave me some strength. So I took a brave step forward and openly expressed my needs more often, and with expectations. These needs would require my partner to be part of or present for. Needs for true intimacy, having me be part of our life decisions, his time and attention, making me a priority, and equality in our relationship. Instead, my partner chose to push them aside, disrespected them; they carried no weight in the eyes of my partner. But what that represented was that I pushed myself aside, disrespected my needs, and equally held no regard for them. I was unknowingly abusing myself. I was repeating my childhood trauma, not feeling worthy or lovable. And I choose a Narcissist to remind myself of those feelings.

Since I am no longer in the relationship, I revisited the question about self-esteem and self-worth? So I asked my mother about her thoughts on self-worth; this is what she sent me, a snip of a passage from Tara Brach: "The belief that we are deficient and unworthy makes it difficult to trust we are truly loved." "If only we have done better, if we were somehow different, things would have gone right." The words "deficient and if I was somehow different" relate to how I felt growing up.

When I was three years of age, my mother was only twenty-six years old; she began raising three kids under the age of seven on her own. At this time, we moved across the country and had to live with a relative, who's home was filled with physical, emotional abuse, and dysfunction. Something we never experienced prior. My world became unsafe; my mother was now raising us in a state of fight or flight, a form of survival, and we all felt and lived it. As well as, my father reneged his financial and emotional responsibilities. Losing my father's attention at such a young age added another layer of unworthiness in the eyes of a man—all of this added insurmountable pressure on my mother, my primary caregiver.

From that point forward, most of my childhood was filled with traumatic experiences one after another; my needs were not being met, and I was put into situations my young mind was not equipped to handle. I shut down emotionally at a very young age and was now living in a state of anxiety and fear. In my eyes, I was deficient, unworthy, unseen, and unheard; why else would I not be valuable? These traumatic experiences defined how I would react, accept, see myself, and see the world.

When we are young children, we all go through four vital developmental stages. Our emotional development and emotional health rely on our ability to complete these fundamental steps in early childhood. If the efforts have been fractured due to parental or caregiver neglect, your mind and body will continue to attempt to satisfy any unmet emotional needs. Unconsciously, your mind and the body understand that you missed a step in your psychological and emotional development. Therefore, you will keep coming back to that point until you meet it, even deep into adulthood.

Because of this, our impressionable minds remain in a state of hypervigilance and a state of fear. We learn survival strategies to cope, which often get misconstrued as our personalities. They can show up through emotional reactions and responses, aggression, rigidness, co-dependency or detachment, anxious behavior, avoidant behavior, addictive tendencies, and so forth.

Also, living in fear and anxiety tarnishes our ability to trust others and especially ourselves. Hence, why I did not trust my intuitions and trust myself in my relationships. I missed vital steps in my emotional development. The essential stage that instills, worthiness, nurturing, and safety. Through these unfortunate childhood traumas, I also lost the freedom to truly experience who I was becoming. Or essentially, develop who I would become because of all the anxiety that was my everyday existence. This added to the inability to trust who I was and what I wanted and needed.

Each time I stepped into a relationship, the unconscious mind tried to complete the childhood stages I missed, the need for love, nurturing, and safety. But, simultaneously, my stored core beliefs kept me in this perpetual unconscious feeling I had for myself; I was deficient, unlovable, and I wasn't good enough. This duality created my inability to pick secure partners. First, I wouldn't know how to recognize one because I had no experiences to draw from in early childhood. Secondly, I didn't think I deserve to have it. So the outcome became picking uncommitted partners that would reinforce I wasn't worthy and the inability to respond appropriately when my needs and feelings weren't being met; the need to expect change or leave.

How can I change all this? One way to remedy this pattern of thought is to go back to the trauma and bring it forth by rerouting the thoughts and feelings to the brain's frontal cortex lobe. This part of the brain holds reasoning and the ability to make decisions based on the reality of a situation. In simple terms, we rewrite childhood trauma through the lens of the capable adult I am today. This method is called "Life Span Integration." Instead of reacting to an old belief, I can process the reality of the situation by being present, which gives me the clarity and intellect to make sound decisions. I started to work with this method during the last couple of years of the relationship regarding my abandonment fears. After so many discards, I knew it was time to do my work around how I responded and why I was responding in the way in which I was.  

If I hadn't done the "LI" (Life Span Integration) work, this final discard would have had me on the floor, again. It also gave me the clarity to see the relationship for what it actually was, dysfunctional and emotionally abusive. The process of "LI" is like peeling layers of childhood trauma away without doing talk therapy, which has given me the ability to see what was underneath - the core belief of unworthiness of love. 

The purpose of this relationship wasn't about building more coping strategies or inserting different boundaries; it was about understanding and accepting I carried the unworthiness of love into all of my relationships. This feeling of unworthiness wasn't new to me. Yes, deeper into my relationship, this belief naturally reduced because of all the inner work I had done. But the feelings of unworthiness and how I responded to it showed up and disrupted my ability to stand up for myself in a concrete way.

I believe the divine had to give me the worst-case scenario for me to wake up. I feel, being with someone who portrayed love towards me and devaluated me intermittently is what gave me this awareness I have now. Even though my partner's love wasn't genuine, I believed it was, and sometimes his displays of love and appreciation for me were over the top. I had seven years of this. And I truly loved him. So because of that, I began to build up my reservoir of receiving and accepting love. When he devalued me or did not meet my needs, I would fall into shame, and of course, unworthiness.  

Because I now had the experience of "LI," I was becoming aware. The intensity of the two paradigms allowed me to feel and see love and unworthiness side by side. Naturally, I would prefer love; receiving love was now becoming familiar. So, I started to fight harder for love and my needs, which created the feelings, I deserve. The two paradigms also gave me the clarity to understand that I was dealing with a Covert Narcissist. 

I have no more “Cognitive Dissonance,” brain fog, or the effects of a "Trauma Bond" from being in a relationship with a CN. But what I now have, is an understanding of the root of my willingness to tolerate bad behavior and neglect. I unconsciously felt I didn't deserve better and did not know how to respond to the wreckage. I was stuck in the comfort of familiarity.

Moving forward, all my attention is on me, where it belongs! For the first time in my life, at the age of fifty-seven, I am beginning is see my own importance, my own value at a deeper level. I don't need another human being or man to tell me my worth. I also see my capacity to love and the abilities and attributes I bring into intimate relationships. They are worth something, and I won't be giving them out in hopes I receive them in return.

I have begun "LI," and we are working on ungluing and rewriting my core beliefs. Overriding the habitual mindset will take time and practice, but it is a quest I need to take. I feel confident I will have the ability to maintain a secure relationship when I find myself in one. The question I have for myself now is, how do I navigate and cipher through all the avoidant partners that are in abundance in the dating pool at this age? Finding and recognizing a secure partner is a task itself, so the need to adopt the skills to do this will be critical.

The Aftermath:

12 minute read