Healing
Every so often I get a comment here or an email in which someone tells me that this site has comforted as well as informed them. That it helped them deal with the chief effect of narcissistic abuse -- thinking badly of themselves and blaming themselves = thinking there's something wrong with THEM -- that it thus helped them regain their self respect.
What is that, if not HEALING? Notice that it has nothing to do with forgiving the narcissist. Instead, it has everything to do with morally getting back to your feet from your knees.
It is seeing that YOU are not the flawed one. That you have just been brainwashed by a mentally disordered person into thinking you are. That it was your GOOD personal qualities he or she exploited to hurt you with. It is seeing that your reactions to narcissistic abuse are normal. That your feelings aren't sins. And yes, it's also wising up and facing facts. But mainly it's about repairing your damaged relationship with YOURSELF.
I want to make sure everyone who has told me they have been helped to regain their self esteem knows how much I appreciate that.
Also I want you all to know that helping others thus heal helps ME heal. Yes! That has been an unexepected dividend of this Website.
In fact, I dare say that nothing is better for the victims of narcissists than comforting other victims, than reaching down as someone who's been there and helping that person back to their feet. By showing that abused man, woman, or child that they matter, that their abuse matters, that it isn't nothing, and that they aren't nothing. That they should get up off their knees and stand up straight because they deserve respect.
I'll go further: I think healing, like love, is something you have to give away to get . . . that healing has nothing to do with forgiving the offender and that it has everything to do with helping others heal.
That's just a tip. So, when you can comfort some other victim of abuse by listening, understanding, sharing and explaining some things, DO. Comfort. You'll be glad you did. It pays back in spades.
11:34 AM permanent link
12 comments
12 Comments:
You are a very compassionate person and your writing is very helpful to many.
Hi,
I have been reading through your NPD site. Good stuff.
Some members of my family are caught up in a religious group headed by a person with NPD.
Finally, I am beginning to realize where all the group teachings/behaviours stem from. Very interesting.
Thankyou.
Your writings have helped me enormously in my healing journey. My "best friend" for 4 years is a serious N, and I foolishly went along with all her craziness. She claimed to be bipolar, which she also may be. Thanks to you, I have explanations for so many behaviors that made no sense. I come here for reality checks, to prevent myself from backsliding into feeling sympathy for her tales of abuse. Now I know that most are pure fiction, used to manipulate the few people who will still speak to her. Her "truth" is ephemeral, her lies constant. Thank you for writing, please continue, your help is priceless.
First of all thank you for putting such a fine site together. Second, thanks for including the female gender in your different accounts. I have so much that I could write about. The hurt that the NPD reigns onto other is beyond all understanding. I'm so afraid that I will carry these emotional scars forever.
I have been involved in a six year relationship with a former professor which has taken me to the edges of my person. No one could have told me that I would have been taken in and affected to the depths that I have been for so long...your website postings have been comforting, informative and non-judgmental-just what this old gal needed to begin my journey of healing-
Absolutely brilliant site.You do not, exaggerate...even about having a feeling of being in the prescence of evil.I have degrees in Literature and Psychology plus had been a teacher, for many years and am not easily, fazed.After ten years with an extremely seductive man with NPD,I was wrecked.I recognised his disorder but thought that I could cope.My advice to anyone in a relationship is-GET OUT of the relationship now! He is now with someone else, who thinks that she can cope..and she ,is beginning to look ill,exhausted etc.People can, in time, get over, the loss of a romance.It is much more difficult to rebuild oneself,from virtually zero!
Kathy - BRILLIANT... as always!
Right on!
I found a great deal of healing-conducive validation here at your site. I can't repay the favor to you, at least it doesn't appear that I can, so I'll pay it to someone in need of comfort or in need of direction to this site. How 'bout that?
:)
Thanks!
Kathy
I have also found healing from your website and I thank you for it. I like what you said about getting on with your life and repairing the relationship to your self. I have done alot of work around that, read alot of books, and spent a few years in therapy to deal with a NPD mother and a diagnosed NPD brother. It is comforting to know that forgiving them is not necessary in order to get on w/my life. It is just hard to move on some days because I still experience so much anger. Other days I have more acceptance. I know that it is a process. I no longer have contact.
I have also found healing from your website and I thank you for it. I like what you said about getting on with your life and repairing the relationship to your self. I have done alot of work around that, read alot of books, and spent a few years in therapy to deal with a NPD mother and a diagnosed NPD brother. It is comforting to know that forgiving them is not necessary in order to get on w/my life. It is just hard to move on some days because I still experience so much anger. Other days I have more acceptance. I know that it is a process. I no longer have contact.
All the therapy, self examination, journal writing, and experiences I've had all these years does not measure up to the COMMON SENSE explanations this website holds. Maybe I wasn't self sufficient ENOUGH before this, to accept the reality of the intent to hurt, and the harm intentionally done by two narc parents to their children. I'll never forget telling my therapist about the blackness, evilness and intent to hurt that I KNEW was in my Dad towards me. I told her I knew I was the only one who knew him. She was doing her best, I know, but she tried to soften my depiction of what I knew to be truth, maybe because she couldnt beleive it herself or she honestly was trying to help me cope becasue she knew I wasnt ready to KNOW it yet. But I see now from what you write, that I was dead on, and the sooner a child of a narc accepts this, the better the adult child can deal effectively with the narc parent now.
I don't know how I made it out of there alive, and intact. Life has been a struggle, to be sure, but at least this site's words have given validation to what I KNEW to be truth. I can't thank you and all contributors here, enough. I feel I now have human brothers and sisters out there who see the real crazies out there, they KNOW what it's like to deal with these monsters and I'm not the only one.
More thanks than words can convey..
You are all more than welcome.
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