My Wish

There are so many newbies on here right now and reading the posts has kicked up a lot of emotion in me - most of it sadness. I recognize my former self in so many of these posts - the confusion, the panic, the desperation, the pain, the bewilderment, the OMG WTF. All of it. And it makes me sad that there are so many suffering. And it makes me even sadder that there is so little help out there and so little understanding of PDs and so little help out there to get away from one.

You see, by the time I landed here - 6 1/2 years into a disastrous, nightmare of a relationship with a card carrying Narc - I had been trying to get out for years and simply couldn't do it. I had no idea what I was dealing with until I found this site. I had only heard of NPD and personality disorders a few months before I landed here. I didn't know that some people are simply broken beyond repair and can't be fixed and don't want to and that those people are large in number, not some tiny aberration like I thought. I had no clue that personality disorders are rampant. I didn't know what a Narc was before I landed here. And I was IN therapy and I had no clue. Had been for years. Many of them. And my therapist never told me that my ExN had NPD, though she knew it and she knew him. When I finally figured t out on my own and went to her with what I thought was this crazy theory she was just like "yes, of course. He's got Narcissistic Personality Disorder with Borderline traits". Ummmm ... needle scratch. WHAT?!?!?! She knew this?!?! And didn't tell me?!?!? Yep. She sure did. She also watched me struggle mightily to get out for YEARS before I was actually able to. It makes me really sad and not a little angry that I was asking for help and didn't get what I needed from my therapist.

By the time I landed here, I had made 3 other really solid attempts at NC. For 3 months, 6 weeks and 4 months, respectively. I knew I needed to stay out but I had no idea how to do it. Each time he hovered and I went back almost right away. It's pathetic how little it took to lure me back. But in those days I had no idea what NC was or why it was necessary or anything about blocking or hoovering, I didn't know I was dealing with a PD and that the rules were very different than for dealing with another breakup. I had also missed the memo that NO ONE can fix another person. It's not possible to fix someone. Period. Not by loving them enough or helping them or whatever. Can't be done. Anyway, I finally landed here, quite by accident in March 2013 and talk about a lightbulb. It was one freakin lightbulb after another and suddenly it ALL made sense and 3 weeks later, I finally left the Narc for good. That doesn't mean it was easy. It wasn't. I did a one on one with Goldie right away and joined her 6 week support group. After that support group, I joined her more advanced 12 week support group. I did many one on ones with Goldie. I still do. I had a LOT of stuff I needed to work through and I needed a LOT of help and once I finally found the RIGHT kind of help, there was no way I wasn't going to grab onto it with both hands. I've gotten more help, better help, more targeted help in one year with Goldie than I had in NINE years in "traditional" therapy. If I hadn't found this site, you guys and Goldie, I very likely would still be knee deep in it and desperately searching for a way out.

My point to all of the rambling is that it's hard to find help out there. But the help you need in RIGHT HERE. Right in front of you so, please, please take it. Listen to what the mods tell you. They're right. They get it. They KNOW. Goldie, Hunter, Spinning, Journey, Used all get it. They ALL know what they're talking about. And so do many of our members. I'm not going to name names because I'll accidentally leave someone out but you know who they are. They're the ones who have walked through fire and have come out the other side and it shows in their posts. Are some tough? Yep. Abuse is very, serious business and coddling and enabling help no one.

My wish for a lll of you is that you have the willingness to open your minds and listen to what you're told here, no matter how hard it is to hear and how much you don't want to listen to it. My wish for you is clarity. The truth is HERE, The way out is right HERE, right in front of you for the taking. You just have to reach out and grab it. My wish for you is strength. To do what you need to do. For yourself. For your children, if you have any. My wish for you is courage. The courage to change. Changing life long patterns of behavior is not easy, I seriously want to cry when I think about all I didn't know before I got here and how much earlier I might have gotten out if only I had landed here sooner. But most of all, my wish for you is love. Self love. That's it's all about. Self love. When we love ourselves, we don't allow abuse. It's really that simple.