Trauma and Narcissism

Each time a relationship hurt like hell, but there was no obvious abuse or mental health issue going on, I was dealing with a narcissist.

These were distressing and confusing times, but from there I learned very valuable lessons :

No matter what, if it hurts it’s not love
Narcissists are unable to feel warmth, empathy or love, even if they (sometimes loudly) claim the contrary. What they feel is a bottomless pit of needs.
Relationships with narcissists revolve entirely around them and their needs, to the exclusion of ours
It’s not possible to satisfy a narcissist or improve a relationship with one, whatever the level of energy and love we put in
However if we turn around and work on ourselves it is possible to understand how our past trauma sets us up to be involved with these unpleasant people, and why we cannot see them as they are.
So that once healed we are able to effortlessly avoid them altogether

29 November 2023 0

Book review: You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For, from Richard Schwartz

Your Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For is one of these books : explaining we fall in love with people because we want them to fix what is broken in us. And that it does not work.

There are other books like this. I find them all very annoying.

I mean, sure, it’s true. At least for us trauma survivors.

Still, who wants to realize we are repeating an old drama over and over again ? Who wants to leave this all consuming attraction, this mesmerizing chemistry, our belief this relationship will make us happy, at ease with ourselves, that we have found the one magical person ?

We really don’t want to. We can embellish or deny facts, ignore what other are telling us, pretend this is not the same old usual relationship with another person, fervently believe this is true love, close our eyes, close our ears, and turn our back on the reality of the relationship.

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21 November 2023 1

Understanding our fawning trauma response

Without being able to really articulate it, I understood very young I was fawning.

I did it the small way, being a people pleaser: putting my needs last, to the point of not really being aware of them. Being an absolute pro in responding to the needs of others. Sometimes, they did not even have to ask: I anticipated what they wanted.

In my family of origin, I did fawn in bigger ways when faced with actual danger. In this context, fawning means that confronted with a violent person, we resort to appeasing and trying to please, rather than, say, fight or flight.

I hated fawning. I hated myself for doing it. I felt so much shame around fawning. For me it meant I somehow consented to what happened: I did not oppose it enough. I played nice.

I felt I should have been fearless and fight hard, or flee fast. I should not have use the freeze response, much less fawning. Of course, I do understand now there was nothing else I could do as a small kid in an abusive family.

Still, I hated my vulnerability.

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28 September 2023 0

Am I crazy ?

I have wondered a few times in my life if I was crazy. Looking back, it’s surprising I did not ask myself this question a lot more.

I felt crazy within relationships : stakes were high, and relationships were great to project my inner drama.

And when it happened, watch out. I could not understand my behavior, my emotions, my thoughts, my choices, my desires. They were very, very far from my usual strong common sense.

Falling head over heels in love with someone I barely knew was bizarre. Getting stuck for months in a painful obsession over someone who did not care was senseless. Falling out of love from one day to the next, from lovestruck to utterly non interested, was outright frightening. So was crying after making love with the man I loved.

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21 September 2023 1

Spotting Narcissism Red Flags

Spotting narcissism red flags is what we do in hindsight.

We look back on a relationship once we know it’s over, and we say : “Oh, here and here were the red flags; I actually could have seen this person was not good for me early on”.

This logic does two things for us:

it gives us a sense of control, as in: “Next time I’m going to get it right and see the problem before it’s too late”
and it also allows us to wallow in shame, as in: “How could I not see it? I’m so stupid”, which can be a familiar and oddly comfortable pattern for some of us – Well it definitively was for me.

Both points are a defense against anxiety, but are ultimately not useful. They are not self loving either, or even accurate.

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12 April 2023 0

Understanding your favorite narcissist

Dealing with narcissists is baffling. At least until we understand how their mind works.

We won’t get this understanding from them: they have no clue. But once someone knowledgeable shares how they are inside, their behavior makes sense. In a bizarre and creepy way, but still.

Let’s start with an illustration from Dr Craig Malkin, a clinical psychologist specialized in treating narcissism :

“Given the choice between a loving partner and a trophy partner, a narcissist will chose a trophy partner”.

So sadly true. But let’s look at this statement more closely.

Narcissists are not interested in love

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5 April 2023 1

Feeling dead inside

I was 17 when I realized I was feeling dead inside. I know I had already felt like this as a child. I did not have the words to describe it, but the experience was there already. Unfortunately, it followed me into my young adult years.

If you ever felt dead inside, you know how dark this place can be. It’s the fabric of depression. It prevents us from enjoying whatever is good in our lives; it can destroy our relationships, our successes and our health. It can leave us unable to feel love and caring, unable to mourn a loss – and ending up wondering if indeed we are able to love at all. It can prevent us from reaching our goals, even if we have the necessary energy, intelligence and skills. It can even prevent us from wanting anything at all.

We are going through the motions, disconnected from other people, life, and ourselves, and we are wondering what is wrong with us and if that’s all there is.

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6 March 2023 1

Why do I always fall for the wrong guy ?

“Why do I always fall for the wrong guy?” I must admit it’s a question I asked myself a few times. And when listening to a very interesting podcast with Dr Frank Anderson on Trauma and Internal Family System, the answer came in a reaI “aha” moment.

To be honest, I already knew the answer – or rather, let’s take the grandiosity out of this – my answer. But this very smart psychiatrist and psychotherapist summed it up with a few elegant sentences : “Most adult romantic attractions are really us trying to heal an early attachment wound. Instead of seeking this healing from another person, what we need to do is seek the relationship, get triggered an activated, and then do our work.”

This is brilliant.

Let’s have a look at these few sentences.

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15 February 2023 0

How can I change ?

Is change possible for me? How much change can I realistically expect ? How can I change, particularly if lack of time or money is limiting what I have access to ? Can I do it on my own, or do I need professional help ? Is there hope for me ?

These are the questions I grappled with at the beginning of my recovery. I believe most of us do – wether we call it recovery from an addiction, from anxiety, from depression, from a traumatic past, from complex post traumatic disorder, or sexual violence (sometimes an unfortunate combination of all of the above).

In hindsight, I did change a lot, and I’m still changing. Some traits I believed were innate, like introversion, disappeared. Some traits, like assertiveness, emerged from the depths, together with this previously unknown feeling, anger. My self esteem shot up. Thanks to my new found self esteem and anger, relatively solid boundaries appeared.

Explaining how I changed, though, is a tough challenge. And some problematic aspects did not move at all. Why? I don’t know.

So I recruited help, as usual, this time in the form of a podcast : Why don’t we get better ? by Forrest & Rick Hanson. This podcast seems to be a very promising source of insights and reflexion by the way, so I subscribed. It may well be a nice addition to my very short list of useful podcasts. I’ll keep you posted.

But back to our topic of change: as a very experienced therapist and author, Rick Hanson’s thoughts are much richer and more structured than mine. However, I was glad to see I agree with a lot of what both father and son (isn’t that sweet ?) say here.

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25 January 2023 1

Useful anger

In a nutshell, we can learn to use our anger as a starting point to change patterns rather than blame people.
Harriet Lerner, The dance of anger

27 November 2022 0