Narsissistic personality disorder

[therealme]

I'm English, living overseas. I'm married for 17 yrs and most of that has been pretty awful. I recently 'came clean' about my abusive relationship with dh on a parenting site where I live and I have had my eyes opened for the first time that maybe it's not all my fault anymore. I have blamed myself for everything that has 'gone wrong' in my marriage - although I have genuinly messsed up on more than one occasion.

I received a lot of support from people but didn't believe I was worthy of it. Then somebody suggested I google Narsissistic Personality Disorder and that is the moment my whole world changed. For the very fist time I began to see that maybe it wasn't ME that might have all the problems. I saw my 'perfect' dh described in black and white and the words 'personality disorder' were attached to his behaviours. To say the ground shifted from under me would be an understatement.

So now I find myself at a turning point in my life. I know I have to end my marriage. It's emotionally, verbally and mentally abusive. I now recognise that I am a shell of the person that I once was, have had the life blood drained out of me, but still have enough of a spark in me to want to fight for some peace of life at 42! I have 3 children whom I love and adore - but who also love their Daddy. I'm living financially independently from my dh who refused to support me financially after ds 2 was born 6 yrs ago. I want him out of the house and out of my life!

I've made my mind up, but I am still so weak when it comes to taking action. I have spent so long living in a confused and guilt-ridden state, does that make sense?
Is there anybody out there who has experience of living with a narsissistic partner? How do you make the break? How do you ever find the strength to stand up to them in order that you might have some quality of life left for yourself? Please advise.....

Ninks - not very er...poetic is it?

MO, I wasn't sure if I should have posted that here and have lost your email address so asked MN to remove it.

Sorry if it was inappropriate, but it's interesting that he starts off all threatening saying that people have been attacking him personally then switches to talking about himself in the third person in the second bit. It's quite grandiose isn't it?

I talk - oh shit - I mean he
talks
about his awesomeness

Bow down before it
You are fuckmonkeys
and I am a tossface
Wait. I mean he is.
Errr ...

Do you know, I could quite get the hang of this poetry lark after all.

Anyway therealme I'm really sorry for hijacking your thread at such a very sensitive time but I can only hope you get some amusement from my poetical flights of fancy. In the face of such adversity sometimes all we can do is take comfort in laughter and the knowledge that this too shall pass.

trib - it's not him wot wrote it but another one of his "fans"
Your poem is still bloody funny tho

I must have a look and post some more of his unintentionally hilarious-- guff poetry.

Oh MO I am so very sorry to hear that . It's very brave of you to say so.

You are not alone

Well done to us all who have suffered at their hands, I say, for still being here to help others through (though it's arguable that the 'poetry' is actually helping therealme )

They masturbate so much because they are in love with the image of themselves..when they make love they are fantasizing about what it must be like for a woman/man to have sex with them in all their adonis-type glory.

Mine had a tiny willy and the sperm came out of the wrong end because of a birth defect called hypospadia

Ok Test time: how many others had 'defects' like this? Physical defects they were afraid/ashamed/embarrassed about? This is a serious question. In the brief moment of illumination before fucking off my exHN said the operation on his willy when he was a baby was his 'narcissistic injury.'

Of course because they arte pathological liars it's best really not to listen to an effing word they say and just cross the road. But...do any other among us have exNs with physical 'defects?'

Am sure there is some good research material on this thread for someone who wishes to make a bit more sense of NPD...

Realme, hope you don't mind people pitching in with our own memories/anecdotes/horror stories on your thread...we are all gaining something from it. Well I am anyway.

We are chatting in between listening out for you and trying to be some use. Holler if you need less wittering on.

There was a twat with NPD from Japan
Whose limericks never would scan
When told this was so,
He replied 'Yes I know,
But I always try to get as many words into the last line to impress anyone who will listen and give me N supply and a hard-on to boot, as ever I possibly can.'

Oh bravo, UA, bravo

MmeO - still a tossface.

UA I want to compose a poem to your ex's malformed penis but if I do I shall not post it. It would be like 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' only 'Ode on a Piece of Turd'.

Go ahead. Use asterisks if you are worried about it being before the watershed. I am eating a delicious cold roast potato and waiting in excited anticipation for the turd ode

Actually UA before I begin work on the opus magnus magnusson, do check out the original for meaning.

realme, I really won't pollute your thread with my "reworking"!

FFS it was only an old cracked vase - but opium does that to you.

Of course Keats was a fuck-up too so it's entirely appropriate that the penis poem is modelled on one of his most drug-induced bits of nonsense...

waiting...

UA Especially for you. I don't think it's very good but if anyone criticises it I will call them a fuckmonkey and get a troll to say how awesome I am.

Message withdrawn

I just linked in again and got such a laugh reading your er, 'poetry'!
I wish I could dig up some of h's, sorry, ex h (must remember that) poetic attempts. Unfortunately I didn't commit them to memory for some reason..

The more you talk about your mad ex N's, the more I see a description of my ex. After so many years of self doubt I kept dismissing what I was reading, thinking of course that I was the one with the problem.

You are all able to look back at living with these abusive men and find humour, in what was probably far from funny at the time.
I don't feel like laughing much right now about the last 17 years, but if you can all do it, then there is hope for me too one day.

Thanks for all being so un-N like and bloody normal!

Message withdrawn

How can I put this, therealme, the longer and further away from this N, the better for your psyche to heal. Like any toxin really...
You will recover and celebrate finding yourself again. When you feel it begin to happen, it's like winning the lottery.

I will remember your advice Squiggly, in too much of a daze right now to even think about next week. My life has completely changed in the space of 2 and half months. 15th June was when I posted the true details about my life on the site in Ireland. OMG it feels like a hurricane hit me since then!
No matter how much self doubt I had or have though, one thing's for sure, life wasn't much fun for me, so it can only get better now that I'm not constantly waiting for the next punishment for f*cking up!
If I fck up now, so what? I fck up, I repair it, I get over it. At least I won't have to keep defending myself about it in 10 years time!
Actually I'm quite interested in what kind of a person I will be in a few years time when I have relaxed a little and started to consider what it is I want from my life.

Fabulous poetry from Tribpot and MadameO's ExN, bloody hilarious.

I don't know about deformed willies but poetry seems to be the comon denominator in N's.

Perhaps a dissertation topic for English students?

RealMe you are really riding the roller coaster at the moment, I hope you have a more peaceful week now the DC's are back in school and that you get some time for yourself.

"Why oh why
did I bother
with that esso garage
when Morrisons was closer
I am a tossface. "

HAHAAAA

My H doesnT have the poetry thing going on. I just assumed this was because hes totally empty inside. Maybe hes not a N. I really canT tell.

I mean there is nothing spiritual about my H. Everything he says is copied from somewhere or someone else. He could never ever write a poem. Once, when he said "I like eating dinner while its still light outside". I thought, "Oh, finally. A glimpse into his authentic self. An opinion"
Last week I had dinner with the in-laws and they all spouted that same line . It was like a stock-phrase they all use to pretend they`re human or something.

Remember N exists on that boring old spectrum. Just because he didn't do fake, self-obsessed poetry should not confound you into wondering whether or not he is/was.

There is plenty of other 'evidence' - the spouting of his family lines is classic; children do this not grown men - and you sound like you understand the disorder thoroughly, so you KNOW what you have experienced and seen in him.

I know exactly what it's like to wonder though, and sometimes to wobble and think maybe I have got it all wrong and my xh was just a total shit - no disorder at all.

But really, normal loving humans simply don't behave as ours did. Not that level of perfidy.

N overlaps with sociopathy and anti-social PD and schizoid and god only knows what else. And if that radio programme I linked to is anything to go by, PDs are more common than we think.

Just know that they are impossible, hateful and head-buggering people, disordered or not, but more than likely very disordered.

Did that make sense?

You must be bloody strong to remain married to him. How do you do it?

UnlikelyAmazon, somedays I wonder that. Were we just incompatible?, did I blow it all out of all proportion??

But no, only this morning I posted this link for somebody on RC here and I read it myself and yes, 2 and a bit years down the line, I can still nod and say yupp to nearly every sinlge one of them.

Perhaps it is a sing of distance successfully achieved though, that you can wonder if you dreamt it all.

Two years ago TheRealme, I was still counting in weeks and days the time passed since I left my x, and I was permanently anxious, agitated and unsettled.

You can cross off another day now, Robinson Crusoe Style!! You've done your first 'back to school' without him. Soon you'll have had your first Hallowe'en without him. Then your first Christmas. Then maybe your first birthday without him. All these landmarks build up, and like a barricade they put distance between you.

Just wondering, have you told friends in England? Was that hard? I got my Mum to deliver the news. I found that hard at first. It really tested me. SPlitting up was what I wanted but admitting to people that we had split, it burst open my Waltons facade, sometimes on the street, sometimes in Avoca café, in front of glossier, more confident genuine Waltons type Mums. SO hard. It is hard.

Mx

Squiggly very true. I sometimes feel sad about the time (and it was youth) that I wasted with my X, but I have another 38 years (of life expectancy) ahead of me, and I am very aware of that and grateful for it..

.

Hi therealme,
It is sad.
The sadness will be a part of us, the survivors, forever.

Sad that we were treated that way.

Sad that the NPD could not understand how hurtful their behavior is. (I was going to say was, but their behavior won't go away, it will never be in past tense.)

Sad that the NPD cannot see us as independent individuals who deserve respect. Sad that the NPD can only see his her its (let's dehumanize them for a change!) perspective without considering even the possibility that another's perspective may be more relevant.

Sad that the NPD cannot admit fault.
Sad that it cannot offer a genuine apology.
Sad that there does not exist an adequate apology for what we have endured. We can only apologize to ourselves for not fighting back- fighting for our own honor- sooner. And that apology takes its best form in the complete disconnect.

Yes, I am sad that I had to break away from my sister (17 months now). But I have made the best possible choice for me, and I have chosen to have that sadness instead of subjecting myself to the debilitating effects of the inevitable cycles of her emotionally abusive behavior. Having a little bit of sadness looks pretty damn good in the balance of things. I'll take it.

The time or years invested in the relationship is sad, too. But I find that sadness is easy to recover from, mainly because that time IS OVER. It is in the past. That was then, this is now. I am living in the present. Present and accounted for.

(((hugs))) to you, therealme. And I don't care that anyone feels negative about a virtual hug-I feel like giving you one, you need one, so there it is-

(((hug))) for yesterday
(((hug))) for today
(((hug))) for tomorrow

You are doing it! Hold your course, stay with it! You will make it!

Take care,
TMSB