Dating a narcissist is never a good idea, especially if you’re treated as a rebound relationship, but this is how you woke me up from my existential crisis.
So, how did you get here? I’ve been asking myself that with a great deal of shame woven into the investigation. I also now understand why people have a midlife crisis at 40. This is because you began to see your youth fading away and all the moments, out of desperation, were wasted on trivial things.
At least, that’s what my 40th year on this earth has been like.
Related: How Narcissists Operate Without Conscience
I’ve spent most of my life oscillating between wanting to die and trying to find reasons to be here. So, over a decade, I spent about $300,000 of inheritance money on research. I used some of it to get my master’s degree, some to travel, some to pay for living expenses, and some as recovery money.
My regret? I didn’t buy a house at 28 or create some form of stability in my life.
Instead, I ran from the pain. I kept “busy” moving from one place to another. The luggage code that was haunting me was a storage unit of worthless items that I kept “just in case” and was collecting annual payments of $1,000.
It is humbling to live in escapism from life while at the same time trying to truly live it.
It’s embarrassing to think of all the men I let sleep with me because I was “on this adventure” and equated adventure with prosperity. For three years in a row, I dated three different men who were all narcissists.
One of them was addicted to “doing ayahuasca” and was no longer sober for the process. Next was the complete scam where he was telling several women he was looking for a wife when he was really looking for a getaway and was also on the verge of bankruptcy. The latter…well, his brand of narcissism was the conduit to his “come to Jesus” moment.
One pattern I repeated with each of these people was that I tried to make them become something they were not. From the jump, each of them was a “no” for me, but they offered me the chance to “adventure” — and adventure was the only way I knew how to keep myself alive.
It was like a defibrillator for my broken heart and it worked most of the time.
But, this last time, I completely exhausted myself trying to build something with someone lying to me about the whole situation in a “let’s see where this goes” kind of way.
The truth is I was just a rebound girl between his on and off relationship. As with most rebound relationships, it ended badly.
I insisted he was a narcissist. He responded by saying I was “psycho”. Then he came back with his light switch girlfriend.
I kept calling him because something wasn’t completed. I felt like I left a part of me behind and kept going back to get it. She felt like she won. Then the stone was rolled away and I realized that I had never fought for his presence in my life. I was fighting to exist.
You see, when his girlfriend came back into the picture to claim him, she said to me, “I just want you to go away.”
You struck a chord. But at the time I understood it to mean: “Leave us alone so we can be together again.”
It wasn’t until I got into a fight with her over following me on Instagram after I provoked her into doing so by messaging the guy (I take it) that I realized where my upset was coming from.
I was supposed to cease to exist and cease to be relevant. I was just a throw away girl. I created a throw-away life. I have spent all the inheritance money. I’ve dated boys who were thrown away. I’ve lived in abandoned houses. My career was a complete “neglect.”
Mind you, I can see all of this with hindsight.
Related: THIS is Why Narcissists Refuse to be Accountable
But the moment I lost it was when I finally “got” it. I told this girl who was now partnered with the last man, “I hope you marry him and that he destroys your mind, because you cannot regulate your emotions.” You’re blind AF! “You are [selfish]… You are weak and he is narcissistic.”
It was really bad.
In fact, I had to call my friend up as a referee and she said, “That was really bad. Why did you send that?!”
I sent it because I’m fighting to exist and they just annihilated me.
But it’s not about them. This is me alone. It’s that I want a partner. I feel like a fraudulent therapist because I’m not completely healed. He makes me feel like I made a mistake and that I’m an idiot.
Then I asked the question, “How did I get here?” Often followed by “Why am I here?”
The answer to that is often: “It doesn’t matter because no one listens and no one cares.”
I feel like we’re all stuck in our own blindness and our own list of things we want to manifest.
I can’t even begin to describe how vulnerable it feels to not have a husband by my side living with me. So, I criticized. I’ve been angry about the death of light for a long time – before I even knew about these two clowns.
And you know, now, having a 9 to 5 job “like all the idiots” sounds pretty good. Having a reliable car that can get me where I want to go – is great too. I have bills to pay and money to take care of, where can I sign up?
I’m paying a heavy price for not investing in more than just “adventure.” It cost me my well-being, stability and peace. The lesson here is to pin those elusive habits to the cross and pray for resurrection.
