I think my challenges in really feeling my emotions are due to blockages of energy within my body. I discovered this simply by focusing on how my body felt in my therapy sessions or when I feel an emotion bubbling to consciousness. There’s a definite tightness in three parts of my body, which actually correspond to three of the chakras. If the emotion is strong, there can be a dull pain, as if the pain of the emotion is trying to get out and can’t. I can never fully let go, because of my fear that if I do, I might completely lose control. I’m learning that ironically, I have less control by holding negative emotions inside because when I do that, they continue to act as a slow-acting poison long after their job is done, instead of passing out of me like the release they’re supposed to be and freeing my soul to be able to experience more positivity in my life and more able to access my creative spark.
I think I’ve grown to trust my therapist enough that I’ve begun to let go just a little.
There are three places where my emotions are blocked:
The middle of my abdomen. This corresponds to the third, or solar plexus, chakra, which represents competence and power. I’ve always felt so powerless and incompetent.
My chest. This corresponds to the fifth, or heart chakra. This is where the higher emotions such as agape love, empathy, all kinds of (nonsexual) connectedness, and gratitude reside. It’s always been so hard for me to really connect with others, due to fear and lack of trust.
The middle of my throat. This corresponds to the 6th, or throat, chakra, which represents the ability to communicate with others. I’ve always been a shy person afraid to speak up, even if it’s for my own rights as a human being. Blogging has helped, but it’s not nearly enough.
I think by focusing in on bodily sensations and becoming mindful of your feelings, you can zero in on which ones you need to work on and focus on relaxing and breathing deeply into the blocked areas to be able to feel it fully enough so you can purge it.
Tissue paper origami wings
pressed down flat on the table
now unrecognizable sharp edges that cut and slice
No longer beautiful
no longer delicate
a paper thing bound for the trash
made ugly by the rage of its creator
because it didn’t come out perfect
It insulted her pride
and filled her with shame
You came along and saw beauty there
in its flattened ruins
I see you holding it gently in your hands
I see the sadness in your eyes
at what this once was and could have been
Your clumsy but tender fingers prodding its innards
working to bring it back to beauty
Wrinkles are its scars
You are so careful not to tear the aging paper
as you work the jumbled angles back to life
It will never be perfect
even so much as the day it was made
but its unfolding is a testament to your compassion
made beautiful by those who see its value
and breathe life into it
and save it from incineration.
I know the labels don’t really matter, but I’ve been wanting to know for months. I also wanted to know if I’m really a covert narcissist. I got my diagnosis on Friday.
Trust..
Before I talk about that, I just want to say that I know I picked he right therapist and it’s because of the way he showed me his empathy and got me to trust him.
Modeling empathy.
We originally had our appointment for Thursday but he forgot. It turned out it was a mixup in his calendar due to the confusion over Thanksgiving week. The first thing he did when I showed up and he realized his mistake was to apologize. He said he would make it up to me. I felt a niggling of rejection (how did he forget??? How could he possibly make it up? I had important thing to tell him!)
I worried that maybe he didn’t really like me and was trying to get rid of me.
He must have known this because I think he saw the look on my face (that I was trying to hide with laughter and “no problem” reassurances) but he knew that was an act, I think.
“Why don’t you swing by tomorrow?” he said. This guy saw how I felt, and empathically addressed the situation and in so doing, removed my worries that he might be trying to get rid of me. I told him that I was glad he remedied things so quickly because, I admitted, if he hadn’t done that I would have continued to feel rejected.
His quick remedy showed he had a lot of empathy and was concerned how I felt. That made me trust him. I also realized he was modeling empathy for me, something I never got from my parents and very few other people growing up.
The Diagnosis.
He knows I have a BPD, PTSD and AvPD diagnosis, but from the very first session I told him I think I’m also a covert narcissist. I explained what that was in case he didn’t know (since it’s not recognized officially). This session, which was my third, I finally worked up the courage to ask what he’d diagnosed me with.
“Well, I don’t really believe in the medical model,” he said. “Also, the Axes have been removed from the DSM-V.” This was news to me.
He was staring at me. “What?” I said.
“Do you want me to give you a diagnosis?”
I stared back and looked away, licking my lips nervously and giggled a little.
“What’s going on?”
“Uhmmm, nothing.”
“Why is it important to you to have a diagnosis?”
“It isn’t, really…” But it was, and I didn’t know why or how to explain it. “I’m just curious, I guess.”
“I won’t give you a diagnosis but you do appear to have symptoms of PTSD and some borderline traits….”
His sentence hung in the air.
“and…?” I asked, waiting.
“Well, you wanted to know, so I’ll tell you. I don’t think you have NPD, but you do have narcissistic traits and are probably on the spectrum.” That’s about where I thought I was. I was relieved I didn’t have NPD.
But it was like I went down the rabbit hole all over again, feeling dissociated and lightheaded but only for a minute. This time I had my emotional water wings on and floated back into reality. I was so overcome with relief that my eyes watered.
I think it was the relief of having some kind of closure. I’ve been so confused for so long. Well, I guess I’m sort of in limbo between narcdom and non-narcdom, which doesn’t clear things up a whole lot more than they were before, but somehow now the confusion makes more sense.
A few days ago, I was thinking about the wonderful 1991 Disney animated movie, “Beauty and The Beast.” I was always moved by the Transformation scene at the end when the evil spell on the Beast and his castle is finally lifted after he nearly dies and Belle finally declares her love for him. In my opinion, it’s one of the best moments in animated movie history. That scene has haunted me for a long, long time and the other day, I felt inspired to watch it again, and was as–or even more moved by it–than the first time I saw it. And this time I knew why–the entire story of the Beast in this movie is a metaphor for a man suffering from NPD–who healed from it.
As the movie opens, we are shown a series of stained-glass images telling the story of how the Beast became that way. He wasn’t always a Beast. His real name was Adam and he had been a handsome young prince, but extremely arrogant, entitled, and lacking in empathy (sound familiar?). One cold and snowy night, a beggar woman came to the castle begging for a place to sleep for the night to escape from the bitter cold. In exchange she offered him a single rose. Adam sneered at the rose and refused her a warm bed and coldly sent her on her way, but not before the beggar woman suddenly transformed into a beautiful enchantress, who in her righteous anger at the callous young prince’s heartless actions, put a spell on him, turning him into the physical manifestation of the Beast he had become inside, and at the same time transforming the trappings of his former grandiosity and entitlement (a well-appointed and beautiful castle and loyal servants) into a dark and frightening prison and common household objects. The rose she had left him–which I believe represents Adam’s True Self (and he had sneered at it because it represented the vulnerability he had rejected)–would continue to bloom for a decade. If Adam failed to learn to love another (and earn her love) in that decade, the woman had warned him the rose would die and he would be forever doomed to his fate (unable to heal from his narcissism, he would become malignant). Adam’s only window to the outside world was the magic mirror the woman had left him, but all Adam can see in it is his own hideous reflection.
The Making of a Beast:
No longer receiving any narcissistic supply, Adam falls into depression, despair, and self hatred. He attacks his own image in a painting and refuses to look at himself in the mirror anymore. He is consumed by anger and self-pity until the day a beautiful young woman (Belle) comes by the castle to rescue her father, who The Beast has imprisoned for trespassing.
Belle is the opposite of The Beast in every way. Not only is she physically beautiful, but she is poor, the daughter of the town eccentric who is a laughing stock and considered crazy, even though he is actually a brilliant inventor. Belle is kind and loving and has a high level of empathy. The first thing she does is offer to take her father’s place in the castle’s dungeon if The Beast will only free him.
The Beast takes her up on her offer on the condition she stay there in the castle with him forever. Belle reluctantly agrees, even though she is at the mercy of The Beast’s terrible temper and frequent narcissistic rages. Her father is freed, and Belle dutifully obeys whatever the Beast tells her to do, but because she is an empath, she can see through his frightening facade to the broken young man he really is. Early during her stay, she is wandering around the Castle and comes across the enchanted rose under its glass dome. The Beast catches her and quickly covers the rose (evidence of his vulnerability) and rages, bellowing “Do you realize what you could have DONE?? Get out!” But as the months pass, the Beast begins to look forward to their time together, and slowly learns some manners and social graces. Belle works on humanizing Adam and finds she is slowly falling in love with him, and as he begins to accept her love (mirroring), he reluctantly begins to reveal his true self to her.
Meanwhile, Belle is being pursued by a very arrogant and probably malignantly narcissistic young man from her town named Gaston. Belle can’t stand Gaston, and refuses his proposal of marriage in which she would be nothing but an object and slave to him. Consumed by rage over her rejection of him, one night Gaston and his buddies plan an attack on the The castle to kidnap Belle. In the ensuing battle, The Beast is falls to the ground from a high elevation and is left for dead. A grieving Belle finally proclaims her love for the Beast, just as the last rose petal falls.
The spell is broken and The Beast is transformed back into Adam, the handsome Prince he used to be–only with a difference–he is no longer entitled or arrogant and he is now capable of being able to love, thanks to Belle’s empathic kindness. The castle (which I think represents the quality of Adam’s life) is also transformed to its former glory and the household objects turn back into loyal servants (who can now be his friends too). Note that a narcissist regards other people as mere objects and not human.
The Transformation:
When I talked to some friends about writing an article about this movie being a metaphor for healing from NPD, it was mentioned to me the dangers of making such a comparison. First of all, this is a fairy tale and in real life, things don’t normally work out this way. A woman who falls in love with a narcissistic man is far more likely to be abused and exploited than loved in return–and she almost certainly isn’t going to be able to “fix” the narcissist. Just as problematic is the idea that in order for a narcissistic man to change, he must earn the love of a woman. It was pointed out that this could be construed as sexist.
But because this is a fairy tale, the underlying moral is of course more compelling (and entertaining) if there’s a romance involved. I think of this romance as a metaphor for the relationship between a self-aware and willing narcissistic patient and his or her therapist. Belle’s looks don’t actually matter–her beauty is a metaphor for her pure soul and empathetic nature. She is giving the Beast the reparenting he probably never got from his own family. The Beast’s ugliness is a metaphor for his narcissistic personality, but in this case, it’s not so deeply ingrained in him for it to have become malignant–which is why the enchanted rose is still alive until the spell is broken. The rose represents The Beast’s true self, which is integrated back into the Beast’s psyche during the Transformation.
Example of the type of visuals you might see in the beginning of a DMT trip.
Disclaimer: I do not recommend or condone taking illegal drugs, nor do I recommend tampering with occult or new age practices such as attempting to open the Third Eye (which really does exist as far as I’m concerned) since I do think it could potentially open doors for evil spirits to gain access to your soul. Still, the intensely psychedelic chemical known as DMT (dimethyltryptamine), which is produced naturally by the human pineal gland (and is present in almost all plants and animals), has fascinating implications for treating or curing personality disorders, including NPD. So read on, even if (like me) you never want to mess with it.
I’m an obsessive kind of person who gets intensely interested in certain topics and reads as much as I can about them while my intense interest lasts (another reason I thought I was an Aspie for so long).
Over the past week or so, I’ve been reading up a lot about DMT (dimethyltryptamine), a naturally produced hallucinogen that has several unique properties: (1) it’s naturally produced in the human brain (by the pineal gland, which corresponds to the “third eye”) during birth, death (and accounts for NDE’s), and while we dream; (2) it occurs in almost all living things, including ourselves, and therefore is widely available although it’s hard to extract and synthesize and is also the most illegal drug there is (except in places where it is sanctioned for shamanic use, such as Peru, where it’s drank in ayahuasca tea); (3) In almost all “trip reports” of DMT users report “coming back” feeling completely humbled and with a renewed appreciation for life and our connection with the universe and with others; and (4) the trip lasts only about 10 minutes! It’s also been known to cure drug addiction (!) and alcoholism. DMT itself is non addictive, as are all psychedelics.
DMT is the most intense psychedelic known.
The DMT molecule.
Unlike most other psychedelics, you do not lose your sense of judgment and rationality during the experience. Although you’re completely out of touch with reality (as we know it) and you won’t remember you’ve taken a drug at all, your cognitive functioning remains intact so you are able to learn from the experience–if you can remember it.
Is DMT really a drug at all? I’m not so sure after reading what I have on Erowid.org and watching a number of videos and reading articles and trip reports. I think it’s a chemical that causes you to become aware of other dimensions and realities, and the “hallucinations” are actually quite real–ways of seeing the universe with the Third Eye (the pineal gland) rather than the physical eyes.
I’ve always been fascinated by trip reports for some reason, even though the only drug I’ve ever taken regularly (besides alcohol) is weed.
I’m not encouraging anyone to take illegal drugs, and personally, while one part of me longs for this experience, I doubt I could handle it. I just know I’d be one of those people who’d totally freak out. From everything I’ve read, the trip is INCREDIBLY intense–much more so than with any other hallucinogen. Even with LSD (which I really disliked the one time I took it) you still have some tenuous grip on reality and some ability to ground yourself/control the trip. You don’t forget the fact that you are tripping, and can usually remind yourself of that to avoid a really bad trip.
But with DMT (which is usually smoked) you are completely out of control and find yourself so out of touch with 3-dimensional reality you don’t even remember you have taken a drug, and believe things have always been this way and always will be, and what you’re seeing is your new reality. You can’t remember who you are, where you are, what your name is, or even what you are. Yet your cognitive abilities remain intact!
Delicate DMT crystals.
What a DMT trip is like.
From my readings, it seems the entire experience goes something like this for almost everyone who’s tried it.
1. you smoke about 2-3 hits which is enough to get the full effect; 3 if you want to “break through” (which I’ll explain in a minute). Usually you can’t smoke more because the trip comes on so rapidly and by the time you’d be ready for a 4th hit you are in hyperspace and have no idea what you just did or where you came from or who you are.
2. almost immediately you start seeing intricate, colorful, geometric patterns, fractals, grids, and other psychedelia constantly moving and shifting into new configurations. Some of the visuals you see are impossible in 3 dimensional reality because they are showing you other dimensions. Sometimes you can get a similar effect during hypnagogic hallucinations that happen just as you fall asleep. But we rarely remember those and they’re fleeting. Apparently (though it’s not proven), DMT is released by the brain when we dream, and we only remember the dreams that are most like reality (usually, the ones that happen toward the morning) but actually most of the dreams we have earlier in the night or in deep REM sleep are very similar to a DMT trip. Also, like a dream, it’s very difficult to remember the trip after “coming to”–it fades or dissolves very similar to a dream. DMT is also released during near death experiences (NDE’s).
3. Early in the trip, if you have smoked enough, you pass through a kind of membrane that is similar to a lotus flower. Once you “break through” you will be in a place where impossible things happen and time and space don’t exist the same way they do in the physical world. Time either stops, or the person feels like they spend years or even eons in this place. Most people report a feeling of familiarity, as if they have been there many times before (maybe remembering their own birth or time spent in dreams?) Objects have more than three dimensions and almost everyone reports a feeling of meeting other entities who communicate with them. They could be demons, angels, or aliens, or sometimes are disembodied entities who don’t actually speak at all, but the user feels like someone or something is communicating with them. Sometimes these entities offer gifts–objects so incredibly intricate and beautiful they defy the imagination and can’t possibly exist in our own 3 dimensions. Profound insights are revealed. You are warned to not allow your astonishment (and you will be astonished) to keep you from paying attention to what you are being shown. At some point the user is told their time is limited and they begin to slowly feel reality come back.
There is no way to ground yourself in any way during these experiences; you must completely give into it and in fact you have no other choice. If you go into such a trip with any trepidation, the experience could be the most terrifying thing that ever happened to you.
But even when the experience is terrifying, most people say later they’re glad they experienced it, because they were able to take away some realization of unbelievable profundity and say theywere humbled by the experience and see life and their relationships in a completely new way after returning. People have been cured of PTSD, drug addictions, and other psychological disorders by using DMT only one time. Some people are also able to recall long-forgotten childhood memories during the trip.
The stories I’ve read are so similar in nature (although each person receives a different insight or message or communicates with different entities) that I think the trip is to an actual place, not just something created by the mind. Shamans in South America and Mexico have been using it for ages and many people come to these shamanic healing sessions and leave a changed person.
During the intense trip, there is often a cleansing of both body and soul. Participants have reported severe nausea and vomiting (which could be due to slight poisoning) followed by diarrhea, but there is also emotional cleansing and catharsis with participants screaming and crying as they shed their egos and forget who or what they are. Sometimes spontaneous orgasm is even reported. Almost all these participants, although they appear to have suffered severely during the trip, feel great the next day, as if they’ve been reborn. Some say they are forever changed for the better, and the one experience they had doesn’t lead to a desire to do it again, because there’s simply no need to anymore.
To get a small idea of what a DMT trip is like, here’s an excellent simulation that includes commentary by Terence McKenna.
As one commenter who’s tried DMT under the video pointed out, this simulation is accurate but only about .000000001% what the real experience is like! I don’t think I want to try it! 😮
Implications for healing NPD and other personality disorders.
Since DMT has been effective on people with PTSD and other physical and psychological disorders and addictions to drugs and alchohol, I wonder if it could be effective on someone with NPD, even deeply ingrained or malignant NPD. NPD is itself a type of addiction and in many respects it does resemble addiction to a drug, the drug being narcissistic supply.
On DMT a person experiences complete ego death, to the point they don’t even know if they exist or what they are or where they come from. But even with a bad experience, the user (if they don’t go psychotic) is changed for the better. People who were overly concerned with acquisition or materialism or money before their experience come back with different priorities, and more caring for themselves and others. They realize there is much more to the universe than themselves or their image, or the material things they can attain. They realize how insignificant they are and yet at the same time how much power they have (but power in a truly confident sense, not a narcissistic one). They feel more connected to the spiritual. Some atheists have suddenly come to believe in God. People emerging from the DMT trip are able to see beauty and goodness in the world and in others for the first time since early childhood, and sometimes memories of early childhood are aroused and purged during the trip. Some people report they suddenly can feel empathy and caring for others they never felt before.
South American shaman offering cup of ayahuasca.
For anyone interested in the implications of the beneficial uses for DMT, I highly recommend reading the FAQ and trip reports for DMT over at Erowid.org. There is a book called “DMT: The Spirit Molecule” by Dr. Richard Strassman. A man called Terence McKenna also has many interesting Youtube videos where he describes his own trips and the properties of DMT. He doesn’t seem any the worse for wear.
Why is it illegal?
DMT is a Class 1 drug in the United States (and most other countries), which means it’s highly illegal and carries severe charges for possession, distribution, or synthesis. There’s a reason why this drug is illegal even though it occurs naturally in all of us–it’s intense and otherworldly beyond anyone’s wildest imagination and probably would cure many disorders instantaneously (well, within the 10-15 minutes the trip takes) and the pharmaceutical companies would lose money on their synthetic antidepressants and sedative drugs that don’t cure but simply maintain a person so they can function. If made legal, unconventional therapists or practitioners of alternative medicine might use it on a patient during a session and the drug companies would go out of business! (So would traditional therapists, for that matter.)
Again, I’m not recommending that anyone do illegal drugs or take something so intense as DMT. It’s very hard to obtain in smokable form or extract yourself anyway. But I think the implications here are fascinating and possibly earth-shattering for people with NPD and other personality disorders.
The dark side of DMT.
There are several drawbacks to using DMT (besides the severe nausea and vomiting some people report). People with NPD and a few other personality disorders (such as Schizoid or Obsessive Compulsive PD) might have a more unpleasant trip than the non-disordered, due to how closed off from themselves and unwilling to “let go” they are. But in the end, that unpleasantness could actually be a good thing. Long term psychodynamic therapy for people with NPD is extremely unpleasant too. There’s no way around it–the cure is going to be unpleasant, whether it’s in the form of 10 years of therapy, or a ten minute DMT trip.
DMT/ayahuasca aren’t drugs that should EVER be used for recreational purposes, if at all. They aren’t fun drugs so you and your buddies can “get high.” They may have healing, religious, or shamanic purposes if used responsibly, and preferably under supervision or at least with a responsible trip sitter. They have had some success not only with people with certain physical and mental illnesses such as PTSD, but with the terminally ill to help them come to terms with impending death and what the experience of dying will be like. Terminally ill patients given DMT usually become less afraid of death and dying. DMT is a serious drug meant only for sacred or teaching purposes and should never be used for recreation.
They can also open you up to evil or malicious entities who take advantage of the psychic door that’s opened during a trip. There are ways you can protect yourself. Here’s a very good article about the darker side of using DMT/ayahuasca (and other psychedelics) and how to avoid encountering dark spirits who might want to take something from you.
I read on one Christian website about a born again Christian who claims he was actually saved during a DMT trip, and still uses it occasionally to communicate directly with Jesus/God, but only with his sober pastor present, who apparently condones his use. I can’t say what my own faith’s stance is on using psychedelic substances for enlightenment, but as far as I know, it’s not condemned anywhere in the Bible. Of course, Adam and Eve’s “Tree of Knowledge” could well have been a psychedelic plant and their ingestion led to the Fall…so who knows? Deliberately ingesting psychedelic drugs could also be considered a form of sorcery, so if you have religious misgivings about it, you should probably stay away, even if only to avoid a bad trip caused by your fear of having one! Suggestibility while on any psychedelic substance is high, so if you believe you will run into demons or evil entities, then that’s what you’ll probably see.
DMT won’t kill you, but there’s always the small possibility of developing PTSD or even psychotic conditions due to suffering a particularly intense bad trip. There is no sure way to say for sure you won’t be a casualty. I can’t stress enough how potent this drug is.
A dream journal as an alternative.
One way around having to obtain or take DMT could be to keep a dream diary and begin to record and pay attention to your dreams and what they are telling you. Wake yourself up earlier in the night, when the dreams are of the more intense, DMT-type variety that are probably blocked off by the conscious mind to protect yourself. It’s been speculated the reason both DMT trips and dreams are so easily forgotten when we wake up or “come to” is because both stir up repressed memories and buried information in the unconscious mind that would freak the person out if they became conscious of it, or cause a severe depression. A person with NPD is especially cut off from their unconscious mind and repressed memories.
At some point I’ll be writing a longer post about dreams and how keeping a dream journal and recording dreams can help people with personality disorders and PTSD.
I think this article applies to anyone trying to heal from any personality disorder, PTSD, or the fallout of narcissistic abuse, so I’m posting it here too.
My moods have been as unstable as the ocean before an approaching hurricane. One day euphoric, the next in the depths of rage and despair. My few good moods lately are so easily shattered.
Then I see my own narcissism and have trouble sorting it out from the normal “negative” emotions we all have for survival. What’s worth being upset about? What is just selfishness and entitlement?
I observe and watch myself. Since my revelation, the wall of cognitive blindness that kept me unable to see my narcissism melted away and what is revealed is the underlying envy, rage, entitlement and grandiosity. This layer was always the most painful to me (and hardest for others to deal with, because the false grandiosity (which can be pleasant, even if deluded) came marinated in a poisonous concoction of envy and rage. So the grandiosity and entitlement is toxic to everyone. It’s like snake poison.
Becoming humble isn’t becoming weak or masochistic. It doesn’t mean you allow people to flagellate you or abuse you. It means knowing you have limits, acknowledging you are only human and not a superman or woman. It means accepting the truth about yourself, even when it hurts. It means seeing what’s real. The scales falling from our eyes may be painful, but in the end this pain will set you free.
I’ve been emotionally unstable for three weeks now. Of course those could be BPD traits coming to the surface too. But I know a lot of it is all the spiritual poison of long term narcissism rising to the surface of my consciousness so they can be purged.
I can feel these black poisons in my body and mind, dragging me down and making me feel sick. I’ve cried more this week than I cried in the past 10 years. It’s cleansing, satisfying crying. It feels good. I feel more centered and relaxed and more at peace when I’m done. The truth becomes clearer. If you really want to get better, tears are the vehicle that carries the sickness from the body. If you have a stomach virus and couldn’t vomit you could die. The same thing goes for spiritual and emotional sickness like NPD or BPD.
I also write bad purple prose poetry where I vomit everything out. I haven’t done that since I was in my teens writing angsty, angry poetry in my school notebooks. It doesn’t matter that the poems are awful. They’re helping me purge myself of the spiritual poison of decades of abuse. It’s part of getting better. Like the crying, writing these poems brings me relief and more clarity. So do writing out my thoughts and feelings, no matter how “ugly” they may be.
The actual nitty gritty of healing from NPD is going to be so painful. I can see how painful and scary it will be. I’ve seen the entrance to the tunnel and it’s dark and vast and depressing, but I’m going in there to rescue my real self, my child self trapped there who never got to grow up or to know who she was. I care about that little girl now. I used to hate her, I wanted to divorce myself from her. She embarrassed me and shamed me. Now I need her help because she has empathy and sensitivity and enormous strength of character and I need those things more than I need a million dollars or a lover. She is my beacon of light. I know she is me but we’re so disconnected; there is so much baggage between us.
Even becoming self aware is painful. Strange, unfamiliar emotions come to the surface of awareness but at first they make no sense. You feel dissociated, apart from yourself, looking inside. But then it starts to make a lot of sense and you can’t believe you never saw it before. Looking inward from the outside is like you’ve been transported to a psychedelic upside down land. You don’t know what’s the true self and what’s the false one. You feel your different selves battling it out, and it makes you confused and disoriented. It also gives me headaches.
This is the stage I’m at right now. I can finally see my behaviors as others saw them, and sometimes stop myself before I act out. I’m getting better but I still slip up a lot. My emotions seem to be rising from both the “good me” and the “bad me” and they fight for center stage. It’s like a collage in relief and you’re not sure which is the background and which is the foreground. You can’t always tell yet which self is the true one and which one is the liar, and you’re begging a higher power or somebody, anybody, to show you what is true.
If the narcissistic mind in the process of healing were the whole universe, this inner conflict would be a battle between good and evil of Biblical proportions. Most of us aren’t evil, we are deeply conflicted and make bad choices.
But only you can know what are the right choices, and what is true–and that takes patience. You have to accept it’s going to take time to be able to internalize what’s right and good and what connects you with others. You can’t give up, no matter what.
I need clarity. I need help sorting out all these conflicting, confusing emotions that churn inside me and make me sick. This cathartic emotional puking–relieved with episodes of expansiveness, optimism, limerence-like euphoria and even moments of real empathy–is removing these toxins from me and I think in time, the episodes of joy and optimism will become more frequent and more stable and replace the episodes of vomiting.
I’m beginning to see the direction God planned for me. Since making this shattering discovery about myself, everything is becoming clearer. Ideas are finally gelling together from my chaos of conflicting ideas and insights. And these ideas aren’t popular and they’re not what I thought they would be; they’re what’s needed. But before I can make these ideas a a reality, I need to face the pain and purge it and remember it’s all part of healing. I need to go in that void and slay the dragons–ether that or reconcile with them.
I’m up for the challenge…I think.
I just wish that in going through this process I didn’t have to engage with the mundane world of work and paying bills. I wish I could isolate myself somewhere on a remote beach, just listen to the waves and feel the hot sun and the coolness of the sea…go inside my beach cabin and play music and write things that elicit my real feelings…and not have to deal with other people for months or even a year or two. Just spend all that time working on myself instead of having to keep up the lie just to survive in the world. When my self imposed exile is over, I’d return to modern life a changed person.
This was a comment in another post but I wanted it to be a blog post because I think it’s a good nutshell explanation of what covert NPD actually FEELS like, filtered through self-awareness:
I feel like…”everyone’s better than me and has more and I deserve to die because I’m a worthless POS”…but underneath THAT is this “how DARE they have more, I’m more SPECIAL and that’s why I don’t feel like bothering with you and people are stupid for rewarding you for not being all that,” (but this defensiveness stems from my fear of them getting too close and seeing nothing but a black void under that).
And under all THAT–inside the VOID I can’t let anyone see–is the true self I’m seeing more and more of, as she shows herself more. She’s creative and sensitive and cares about people–a LOT. That void isn’t empty at all, but I have to go in there and face the darkness…
Does that make sense?
We have TWO masks, not just one.
So it can’t be Aspergers. Aspies don’t have all that RAGE..and self hatred…and fake hidden grandiosity and bitterness…
I still have a long way to go but I’m feeling pretty good about it all. I hope that’s not being grandiose. I’m actually happier than I’ve ever been right now because I lost something really toxic during that bizarre journey of a week ago…I still get emotional (in a good way) thinking about it…
I’m so glad I talked about it. Everyone has been great. There have been no negative comments and hardly any unfollows, which surprised me. I’ve had a few comments like these though:
“You can’t be a narc, you’re too self aware and have too much remorse,”
“You’re a good person, so that can’t be true.”
“It’s just a bad case of ‘fleas'”
“It’s probably really just complex PTSD mixed with BPD”
“It’s probably NVS (narcissistic victim syndrome).”
Denial is understandable; I denied it too. For months. And it could be that all those things are true too. Narcissism is, after all, a result of being a victim. Narcissists are the most damaged of all victims, so damaged they became what was destroying them. And until (and if) I can get an official NPD diagnosis (which I probably wouldn’t get anyway, because I don’t fit the classic DSM criteria for NPD), there’s a possibility that I don’t have NPD at all, covert or not. Narcissists low on the spectrum aren’t necessarily bad people who have lost their humanity, but they are broken people and some want help. BPD symptoms and Avoidant PD symptoms mixed together can also look a lot like covert narcissism, but a few things didn’t fit–like the hidden resentment, envy and grandiosity I thought everyone felt.
In addition, because of the intensity of the emotions and events that led to my discovery and the surreal and almost supernatural coincidences that began to play out immediately after, as well as an enormous feeling of relief and a completely shifted vantage point where I could now see myself as others saw me, I can only believe my disorder is real and not a figment of a deluded imagination.
I feel like the copious tears I was able to shed just prior to and during my epiphany both cleansed me of some of the toxic, angry emotions I was always carrying around (suddenly I feel something closer to actual empathy!) and helped carry me to the next step of this journey, which is healing.
I know the next phase will be even more difficult. I doubt I can do it alone. I started a new blog intended to act as a therapy tool for this second big phase of my journey (and is also intended to help others in similar positions find their way), much as this blog has been a therapy tool for the first.
Because there’s no way I can afford the type of therapist I’d need, I’ve decided to search for a university clinical psychology program that uses BPD/NPD patients as “guinea pigs” to people training to be therapists, especially in reparenting/psychoanalytic (not just behavioral like CBT) techniques.
During my crisis last week I thought the shock of finding out the truth would kill me. But it didn’t and now I think it’s the most pivotal moment in my life. It also proved to me that God not only exists but loves me very much, because this revelation came after weeks of prayer that I thought were falling on deaf ears. I was almost ready to give up my faith because nothing was happening.
I was even losing interest in writing.
And then it happened, when I didn’t expect it. It hurt more than I can describe in words. But so does bearing a child–something wondrous comes after all the pain. God doesn’t always make things easy.
I’m not sure what’s going to happen down the line, but that’s not for me to know yet.
The idea to start a new blog happened after the dust settled so I think that was part of his plan for me.
If I’m right and God has taken the reins of my journey, I have faith he’ll direct me to the right therapist.
I’m both scared to death and excited as hell to meet my real self and for us to become reacquainted.
I think the true self comes out through art and creativity. For some narcissists, the “art” they produce isn’t real art but trash. But if they’re at all able to suspend their false self while creating (and I think some do), their art can be honest and beautiful because it’s coming from a place of truth.
Writing is when my true self is at its strongest. So I’m taking things from there.
I’m not sure which direction this blog is going to take. I’m not sure how to reconcile writing about narcissistic abuse without seeming like a fraud, even though that’s probably stupid because it’s not as if I wasn’t a victim of abuse. I was for my entire life until a year ago. Getting away from my narcs brought me the clarity I needed to get to this point. I don’t even want to think of what I might become if I had never escaped.
If anyone’s afraid I might abandon this blog, I promise I won’t. Just like I wouldn’t abandon a first child after having a second. However, for the time being I may focus a bit more on the new one, because of my need to write about things that would fit better over there right now, as well as mundane things like setting it up, putting some “meat” on it, and getting it established.
I’m not sorry this happened at all. I’m grateful. I feel so much better now, almost happy!
Lucky Otters Haven 