Update - Losing a Loved One vs. Losing a Narc

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#1 Jun 8 - 8PM
NarcJunkie
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Update - Losing a Loved One vs. Losing a Narc

Hi all,

it's been almost 2 months since I last posted here asking you to pray for my mom. I was far away from home when I got the phone call and rushed back to Europe only knowing that she had been found unconscious and put in an artificial coma.
As it turns out she had had a massive stroke and passed away the day after I arrived at her side. The doctors said she had waited for me, it seems a common thing with dying people, even when they're in a coma like my mom.
So the past weeks have been very intense and sad and tiring for me... but the love of my friends and family carried me through the worst of it and even though I am mourning I am also just so grateful to have had her in my life and to have been able to be by her side when she passed.
I have since spent most of my time reconnecting with old friends, relatives and many other people I hadn't had contact with in years. Things like these give you a profound reality check and I feel truly blessed for all the good people in my life.
3 days after mom died I turned 39.... only a week earlier I had been depressed about getting older and not having found a good man since Narc. In fact, during our last phone call, mom had to comfort me and cheer me up, but she did well and we ended our talk in good spirits and with love. But when she died, all these stupid worries just dropped away. I couldn't have cared less anymore about my age or being single or my next job. All that mattered that day and in the days that followed was... LOVE. The love mom and I had for each other. The love of my friends and family that caught and carried me. I would like to remind those of us who have forgotten how blessed we are to have love in our lives. To be capable of loving. To have hearts that are wide open and can reach out and connect with other people. We are rich, we truly are. We possess the one thing that counts in life... we carry it inside of us.

End of April also marked 6 months of NC for me and I hadn't been thinking much about Narcboy lately. He was completely forgotten in the weeks following my mom's death.
But then I travelled back to the city where Narc and I had worked together for 2 years, where we had become friends, where I had fallen in love, had been discarded and had spent 8 months in hell.
I met a few friends and colleagues in a bar and of COURSE, for NO reason one of them mentions Narc and OW and how they are still together after more than a year and living in L.A. and missing Europe blablabla.
It hit me like a sledgehammer. Up until that moment I hadn't known or cared whether they were still together, but suddenly It felt like a time machine transported me back to 2011 and I was back in hell. For 2 days I couldn't get a grip. I thought: what the heck is WRONG with me that I am grieving over this IDIOT again when my MOM just died???

Here are my thoughts on that:
Losing my mom was different than losing the Narc. My mom never betrayed me, never stopped loving me, never exchanged me for another daughter. She gave me all she had to give. She always loved me. And in a way she is still there for me. I can honor her memory and my love for her. I can cherish the time we spent together. There is still LOVE between us. This situation does not mess with my heart and mind and I do not like it... but... I can accept it.

Not so with the Narc. He was the first man I ever truly loved (I am sad to admit). And losing him tore me apart inside, I could not make peace with it....because I still loved him, but I couldn't honor this love anymore. Every single memory of him was suddenly poison and caused me pain. I suffered through hell because I could not accept what he did to me and that he chose to be with OW instead of me. In fact, maybe it's not even that I couldn't but that I wouldn't accept it. I refused it. Everything inside of me screamed NO!!!! I was at war with reality 24/7.

After that comment from the colleague I realized I still wasn't fully healed, and it took me a couple of days and a good therapy session to find a way to talk my brain out of it. To make peace with the situation that he is still with her, apparently happy.
I remembered how I said to him shortly before the D&D: "I don't want you to be with me just because you feel you owe me. You don't owe me anything. You are free."
I remembered that I did let him go. I allowed him to do whatever the hell he thought he had to do.
So I said to myself: "I allow him to be with her." I ALLOW it.
That simple little line seemed to work for me. It somehow transported me out of the victim mode and reminded me of the beautiful and loving person that I am and how I set him free out of love. It made me focus on myself and feel strong and loving again.
It really feels like a definite progress on my way to recovery because up until now I had forgotten a lot of what had happened, but obviously still not accepted or forgiven any of it.
I am still practising this now whenever a bad thought comes up (got triggered big time today by a friend carelessly posting a link that led straight to OWs new workshop that she developped with Narc) and I feel more peaceful the more I practise it.
I know everybody has to find their own way out of their pain, but I just wanted to share.
This Narc experience that we are all going through, it truly is one of life's toughest lessons, because it is so incredibly hard to accept it and make peace with it.

Love and strength to all of you! :)
NJ

Jun 13 - 7AM
Janie53
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NarcJunkie

Jun 13 - 1PM (Reply to #10)
NarcJunkie
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Thank you, Janie

Jun 12 - 3PM
NarcJunkie
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Thanks everyone for their comments

Jun 11 - 11AM
Reason2Believe
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NJ, you are so right

Jun 11 - 6AM
Walkingonsunshine
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I remember a study that I

Jun 9 - 7AM
Sickofhim
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Every single memory of him

Jun 11 - 9AM (Reply to #5)
NarcJunkie
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Yes, it IS brutal...

Jun 9 - 12AM
shock and awe.some (not verified)
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Dear NJ

Jun 8 - 11PM
abreva
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Thank you.

Jun 8 - 8PM
SundaySmile
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Hug