Living with his Ghost

Like everyone else who, after the initial shock of D&D and learning about NPD, sought some means of coming to terms with it, I plunged myself into a heavy, self-imposed study of all things narcissistic. Doing so has helped to fill the void left by his absence and has alleviated, somewhat, the deep confusion and distress as to why I was tossed away so casually.

Even so, I find myself daily longing for the man I believed to be my soulmate. I realize that this cog/dis is also a normal phenomenon among narcissists' victims, but I struggle, all the same, to divorce myself from his psychic, invisible "presence."

He and I shared everything of our lives for so long -- we were the first and last to whom the other turned in the discussion of our problems, in the sharing of our news, to revel in whatever happiness or sadness marked our days. I find that I cannot give up this friendship with my invisible mate -- he still lives and dwells in my mind as my abiding partner, counselor, and friend.

Even in the months of his long, agonizing emotional departure, after he largely stopped communicating with me but my hope for reconciliation remained desperately alive, I still spoke with him every day in my heart.

He lived overseas, so there was no physical way of my seeking him out; instead he dwelt with me as a ghost -- not with me in flesh but still present, I believed, in spirit.

I rationalized his cruel indifference to me as the product of his familial stress and waited patiently in my heart for that trying time to pass. He remained my invisible companion wherever I went. I could not take an evening walk without remarking to him, "Look at that glorious sunset," as though he were there, standing just beside me, holding onto my hand, smiling back at me, the light reflected in his eyes.

In shops, on the street, observing people and things, I conversed with him about our tastes and laughed with him about our impressions of the world. And, every night, as I had long been conditioned to do from the moment he departed back to his own country, I went to sleep in his arms, for he had instructed me thus, assuring me that he was and would always be within and around me. Always.

Perhaps because ours was a long-distance relationship, I learned to live in the fantasy of him even more than I would have done had he been physically present in my life. Perhaps that way of "living with him" for so long has made the concept of his absence too difficult to grasp in any concrete sense. For I still walk with him, hand in hand, everywhere I roam; I continue to seek his counsel; I laugh and cry with him over days' events; I recommend books and films that I think he'll enjoy; I fall asleep in his arms every night.

I do not know how to say farewell to his ghost.