Emotional Abuse
There was areas in this book that caused me to cry for several days.
But, the clarity, new perspective and validation changed the way I looked at my marriage regarding what it was and what it was not!
This book will give you tools to make you stronger and less fearful of those who dish out narcissistic behavior. Moreover, it will guide you to forgive any abuse you have suffered. For those who see their lives in the ‘mirror’ of these pages, it will open your eyes and give you hope and strength. I highly recommend this book."
--Paul Meier, M.D., founder, Meier Clinics
Narcissists can make you feel crazy, exhausted, and guilty. Les Carter offers a thoughtful, well-written guide for dealing with the heartache and confusion of managing a relationship with a narcissist. He has done so with kindness, hope, and clarity. I highly recommend this book for anyone who has feared there is no hope for peculiarly difficult people."
--Dan B. Allender, president, Mars Hill Graduate School, and author, The Wounded Heart and To Be Told
Do you have to live or work with someone so highly self-absorbed that your wishes and needs are completely ignored or dismissed? Do you feel constantly criticized and never able to do anything right? Have you been exploited or manipulated many times? If so, you are probably dealing with a narcissist, a personality type that is toxic, frustrating, and seemingly oblivious to pleas for change or consideration.
Enough About You, Let's Talk About Me will help you break free of the destructive influence of narcissistic people and learn to understand, confront, and handle this toxic behavior's many troubling manifestations.
Devotional Gemstone
I didn't recognize the impact while I was married. I labeled the situation as him being emotionally unavailable for long periods of time versus now identifying that he was emotionally abusive and unsafe.
No matter what feelings I tried to express the mindset of the other person was left field. For example: when someone steals something from their place of employment or makes their own metro parking pass to get out of their parking dilemnas, it's wrong, right? Hours, weeks and days were spent discussing logical merits behind my position of why these thoughts were distorted, harmful to our family, and illegal. Each time he would make the focus on his creativity and problem solving skills for money. What?!?
I'm pretty sure my famous one liner to my Father in Heaven stemmed from these conversations, "Seriously, Lord?" My ex was a master at gaslighting me and getting me to doubt my own sanity in these conversations.
Instead of their being any kind of humble heart change or emotional acceptance, I was asked, "Why are you making a big deal out of this? People do it all the time. You are just overly critical. Why are we still talking about this?"
Resolve? Resolve wasn't coming and these statements reversed the focus right back onto me. When I looked around at my world those days, I either fell in line with this kind of day to day thinking to appease the situation or suffer painfully long silence and withdrawals.
Often, I ended up suffering through that withdrawal and lengthy silent treatments. Especially, when it came to really big issues such as breaking the law or subjecting our family to toxic situations. During these silent treatments which led to emotional bankruptcy there was a complete lack of empathy for mine and the children's worth. Spouses and children have needs in a family dynamic on any given day. Did he not see us standing there when he came through the door? Does he not see his two year old son following him around begging for his attention. I was an adult and the silence was painful, but watching my children endure his silent treatments just because he was angry at me was gut-wrenching to watch.
I tried to withstand the silence. Sometimes, it was easier than others to stand firm. I cultivated the saying, "If I'm going to be alone, then I want to just be ALONE!" And, that kept me pushing forward being a mother and parent to our children even if he didn't show up until 9pm when they were already fast asleep. I'd appease and agree to not argue the merits any further just as long as he gave them a just a little bit of attention. If there was anything that emotionally broke my back was watching my children be starved of affection from their own father. I know now that he knew exactly what weak buttons to push through my children.
Until, one day he would turn on the charm so that he could feel better about our awkward silent circumstances. He was finally apologizing for his poor choices and showing affection again. I could reconcile this ugly place of empass, if he was willing to accept responsibility, and no longer try to persuade me to compromise my own moral integrity in regards to stealing, cheating or lying.
I now realize that it's the silence followed by lethal charm that kept me repeating the same insanity over and over again. The charming apology didn't come without a price since it was usually followed by a request for something big. It felt so good to be back in good graces that when he said, "Let's buy a car," (with no money to spare in our budget for such), I'd quickly cave since the silence was too excruciating to bear to go back to so soon. Little did I know that standing firm on my convictions for stealing, cheating and lying was going to cost me a monthly payment.
But, these kinds of things kept happening regardless of car payments or the debt we collected for feeding his ego. It had to be something I was doing, or at least that's what I would allow him to convince me of. The most lethal comments that sent me into the dread of emotional abyss, were things like, "What does it say about you that you can't accept me?" or "I thought you called yourself a Christian and you were forgiving, you're a hypocrite for not forgiving me."
We later divorced after a few years and a bunch more of similar situations gradually getting worse. Abandoning his family for three weeks straight with no calls to know he was even alive somehow was my fault because I didn't trust him enough or was too needy. A woman sending me audio of him and her discussing their unborn child was also somehow him stuck being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I tributed the rap song, "It wasn't me," after him, as if the lyric writer did a personal interview on my ex right before production.
I am often told there is a book in my future since there is too many bazzaar situations, just like above, to even list here on this site. After a while, others actually start to look at you as if you are the one with two heads when you share the bazaar details of yet again, another enigma style situation. My Sissy tells me, since she has to remind me often of events that I've supressed, "you just can't make this kind of stuff up."
During that time when my ex husband went missing in some genie bottle, my Pastor stopped by and handed me a book to read. Throughout my journey, I've tripped over, and even had them literally land right in my lap, amazing life changing books worthy of pulling an all nighter for the possibility of achieving some level of peace.