When he finally left, he called me a narcissist. At the time, I found that highly entertaining as our ENTIRE life had to be all about him or he would lose his mind, and everyone said he was a narcissist.
When I came out of that relationship, I was so broken that I didn't even know I was broken. I felt so completely happy that he was gone, the house was so peaceful without his stomping around and asking to "talk to me outside" and the incessant rants. I enjoyed the peace until I inadvertently invited more chaos. My poor choices led me to self-discovery.
I started to learn about narcissism, and I started to wonder if he was right when he called me a narcissist. I thought that I was protecting myself from him, but maybe I was a selfish asshole and somehow couldn't see it. The more I learned about narcissistic abuse, the more I understood what was wrong with him, and me. He fit the description perfectly, but in many ways so did I. I have taken on a lot of the traits because I've been the counterpart to at least one, usually more, for most of my life. Bad habits.
As I started to unravel the mess I had become, I discovered something very important. The mirror. In the twelve years that I was married to him, he was yelling at himself in the mirror, but he thought he was yelling at me. Being completely shocked and freaked out by the things he accused me of constantly gave way to wondering if he was somehow right. He had tricked me into thinking that I was him.
I'm actually not the monster, I was just the monster's mirror. I still have to work on some terrible habits that I picked up over the years, but I'm happy to know that there is hope for me and my kids. They say that breaking a mirror brings seven years of bad luck, and it's been about that long since I shattered the mirror, so obviously things are about to get beautiful.
When I came out of that relationship, I was so broken that I didn't even know I was broken. I felt so completely happy that he was gone, the house was so peaceful without his stomping around and asking to "talk to me outside" and the incessant rants. I enjoyed the peace until I inadvertently invited more chaos. My poor choices led me to self-discovery.
I started to learn about narcissism, and I started to wonder if he was right when he called me a narcissist. I thought that I was protecting myself from him, but maybe I was a selfish asshole and somehow couldn't see it. The more I learned about narcissistic abuse, the more I understood what was wrong with him, and me. He fit the description perfectly, but in many ways so did I. I have taken on a lot of the traits because I've been the counterpart to at least one, usually more, for most of my life. Bad habits.
As I started to unravel the mess I had become, I discovered something very important. The mirror. In the twelve years that I was married to him, he was yelling at himself in the mirror, but he thought he was yelling at me. Being completely shocked and freaked out by the things he accused me of constantly gave way to wondering if he was somehow right. He had tricked me into thinking that I was him. I'm actually not the monster, I was just the monster's mirror. I still have to work on some terrible habits that I picked up over the years, but I'm happy to know that there is hope for me and my kids. They say that breaking a mirror brings seven years of bad luck, and it's been about that long since I shattered the mirror, so obviously things are about to get beautiful.
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