Some of you are unaware of just how amazing you really are. The way you make people laugh, lift others up, or spread some extra love. You do this even though you are struggling too, and I think it makes you such a beautiful human being
Unknown
Now, looking back, I remember him as a loving, kind, and generous individual who truly possessed the ability to win heart over.
My heart was filled with sadness after a shattering failed relationship, and I was utterly devoid of self-esteem and hope. But upon meeting him, I felt immediately drawn towards hime, disregarding the fact that it had only been a short time since my previous relationship.
And for the past 12 years of marriage, I've suffered alongside my narcissistic husband. Disregarding the pain, I learned to cope with his personality, shifting my reality from a mentally toxic environment to one where I feel valued for my efforts.
He could read me as if he was peering inside me, knowing what I was thinking, what I liked, and how hard he was trying to please me. I could see him as the knight in shining armor who had come to save me. He finally asked me to marry him, in the meantime, he was rolling out love and tenderness like I had never experienced before. I began to envision my life with him and the happiness I would experience, and thought wow, I actually got the happiness I had always desired, I am the luckiest girl too, I found my knight in shining armor. I was preoccupied by wedding planning, even though all the planning was up to me. I told myself he loved me dearly, that is why he wanted me to choose everything for myself because it was my paradise where I would live with my knight in shining armor. But, it was not long before my moment of perceived happiness was interrupted by yet again, his behavior turned to a different person in a very short time. He always made me feel inadequate, guilty and unworthy. I often felt like I was always trying to appease him, and trying to prove myself to him
But every twist and turn to try and engender love from him fell flat. He even was able to make me feel I had repulsed his love, and that I was not putting in the effort to be deserving of his love. He attempted to make me feel a sense of inferiority and in doing so, raised my anxiety for being left by him, and I thought he would walk away from me without a second thought. To assuage my anxiety about him leaving me, I did everything he wanted. He pushed away my friends, relatives, and anyone I had trusted. I did what he wanted in attempts to please him while this only made things worse and gave him more control. Any time I would try to take a stand his behavior would shift. One moment he would representation me with kindness, calm and love sweetly until I would back down from my decision. Or he would take the opposite response and turn the opposite and just not engage with me giving me the silent treatment. This made me tense until I thought I was going to explode. I anxiously waited for a reaction from him while I forgot about my original standing, and became fully invested in his behavior as I flipped from an Actor to a reactor.
I lived my days torn found between his unpredictable behaviors during our marriage. Often I woke up in the morning and considered how today I would be treated, maybe I would be had generosity bestowed on me, or caution, calmness, nervousness, which was often harshness. I didn't need to think too hard about who, or how, I would be defined on any given day. I even had days of love from him, but also days of hatred, anger, and contempt. And this was the existence of me- for seven years. I wrecked my own self-confidence and emboldened his need for me after abandoning my friends and the people I trusted for his approval. It was a simple conclusion for me to land on; he was my only provider of love, care, and security, but in reality, I was not receiving these feelings from him. Because he never gave me love, care, or security; and our interactions necessitated me figuring out how to keep trying to obtain these feelings through more submission, sacrifice and taking on greater responsibility because I wanted to feel special
He happened to be my only income, of course, and that just existed to facilitate and consolidate further dependency, distrust, as well as contempt and belittlement and humiliation. I felt as if I were a drowning man reaching for an imaginary shore.I was completely alone, without friends, without skills, without any experience, self-confidence, or money with three children. Although leaving him was a decision borne of absolute hopelessness, I was broke, homeless, and completely oblivious to anything other than myself. After inwardly battling my suspicion that this life of contempt and despair was going to be my fate, I conceded to the reality of my life at the time and I settled down with my beliefs, trusting that this life of utter pits of despair would simply be my fate. At my respective barriers, fate finally acted on my behalf and changed my fate when I least expected it, like someone taking odious circumstances and purposefully converting them into something entirely different. Sometimes calamities and crises become the end of our suffering, and simultaneously the beginning of our new life. Survival, despite its challenges, is good; it is a beginning. Then, he lost all his money, declared bankruptcy, we settled into a simple damn apartment in a modest neighborhood in the suburbs on the other end of town.
He directed his anger, frustration, and disappointments, about life and as a husband, toward me, and his uncertainty and control increased. With this added financial and mental stress and added responsibility, there was no other option but to get a job. Even though I didn’t have any skills or work experience, I began to look for job vacancies. I got a position at a self-help center. Leaving this eternal prison consumed all my thoughts, and I also had an overwhelming fear about going to work, but I was so excited to get out. My passion and enthusiasm about the job were obvious to the rest of the staff as I started to work. I loved listening in on the trainers. I had as part of my job, offered the center manager two shifts, the first shift were paid and the second shift I would be paid in attending courses and learning some skills. With the courses I started to see small changes take place in my personality. I also noticed a small change taking place in my interaction with my husband and the bizarre way in which he reacted to my changed behaviour. I started to think about changing my life and changing this narcissist. I wanted to beat him, show him and me that I was a people of value, I wanted him to regret how he treated me.
I searched, I learned and I trained and ultimately I found myself and my goal changed. My goal was to turn my toxic relationship into a positive one and live with this narcissist in love and happiness.
How do I convert a toxic relationship to a successful one?
A narcissistic personality is a sick personality. My first identification was to change the narcissist. By doing the research, I found how to change my whole being and future. The key to beating a narcissist is self-confidence because narcissists will automatically gravitate to weaker personalities to control. A narcissist cannot overpower a strong personality only to succumb to it.
The Foundations of Self-Confidence Financial Self-Sufficiency Financial self-sufficiency is one of the biggest contributors to diminished self-confidence, because it fosters constant reliance and need for financial support from the other, therefore increasing servitude, control, and the other person's ability to demean you, thereby creating more insecurity. Making Decisions .You have to train yourself to make decisions. Start by making small decisions, and stick to them, it will help to build your self-confidence. Establishing Boundaries. You have to establish some boundaries to have in your relationship with the narcissist. Don't allow him to demean you, devalue you, or insult you, in any manner, whether directly to you or in front of yourself, or anyone else.
• You have to learn to take a stand, to enforce that stance, and stick to it. This will instill fear of enforcing a firm stance on you that would threaten his standing with you, as well as, fear of your anger
Don't be concerned with the opinions others have of you. Don't allow someone to have authority over you. When you listen to the opinions of others and then believe the opinions of others you are allowing others to control you, to subjugate you, and to diminish your self-confidence. One of the things narcissists like to do is to present harsh opinions and repeat those opinions until that person accepts them and believes those opinions. Take for example a narcissist constantly telling their wife, "Your opinion is unwarranted." "You don't really know how to act on your own." "You cannot live without me." This individual repeats those phrasings over and over again whenever possible and in whatever circumstance. When you are repeating these phrasings while believing these phrasings you find yourself programming your subconscious mind to actually believe your opinion is unwarranted, that you don't really know how to act, and you really cannot live without him; therefore, when you allow someone to dominate your opinion you become submissive, you diminish your self-confidence. When a person is attempting to overcome a lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem they will seek out anything external to give them validation to feel worth.
Love Yourself and Take Care of Yourself
The only authority a narcissist has over you is because you do not love yourself. They feed off of this lack of self-love and try to control and dominate you. Self-Love Exercise Make a list of any qualities that make you unique – anything unique and beautiful about you. Write down ten qualities on a piece of paper. Then repeat, all ten qualities, ten times a day for three different times a day and before bed. You will train your mind to remember your good qualities by repeating them and that will lead to your mind remembering more good qualities about you that you did not realize you have. Your self-love will increase over time as you continue with this practice, repeating your good qualities and reminding yourself and your mind how special you are.
Learn Something New Every time
you learn something new, whatever it might be you will boost your self-confidence, enhance your personality, and feel happy and empowered.
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