Here

Here is where the victims of narcissists end up.

I feel like these days, narcissism has become this stereotype that’s used to describe people who are assholes. Someone is inconsiderate of someone else’s feelings and it’s BOOM- you must be a narcissist. Personally, I’m not a fan of the word, nor am I a fan of it becoming so glorified. When you really dive into uncovering the entirety of narcissism, the acts, the victims, the gaslighting, the conditioning, it’s not just something to call someone. It’s something and someone who quite literally ruins peoples lives and then blames those people for their own world crashing down around them while the narcissists are the ones driving the bull dozer. It’s intentionally hurting someone, telling them their reaction to your hurtful act is wrong and then dismissing the way you made them feel entirely. It’s emotional warfare and it gets so deep that it’s like holding someone under water until they almost drown, letting them fight to get back up for air and asking them why they put THEMSELVES in that position. Narcissism is conditioning someone into accepting your bullshit with small little things here and there that eventually add up to bigger things and become more frequent until the victim is sitting there questioning their entire life, their entire self and wondering how they got HERE. Where is here, you ask? Here obviously varies from one situation to the next, but there’s always the common denominators such as isolation. Here is alone and not just alone but lonely because you’ve been keeping the red flags from those whom you love the most. Sometimes those loved ones can read between the lines, but you’re told they don’t support you and even if you don’t necessarily believe that, you go along with it because it’s the ‘them or me’ mentality that enduces panic. Here is often financially dependent on the narcissist with the heavy weight of knowing you couldn’t afford to leave even if you wanted to. Here is not only isolated, but lonely and questioning EVERYTHING about yourself. Where did I go wrong? How can I fix this? What’s wrong with me? Oh and my personal favorite, why can’t I do anything right? Here is not where any of us expected to end up. After all, I just wanted to be loved. It felt perfect. Looking back, maybe I did overlook some red flags. Maybe I did begin to allow the disrespect. Maybe I did play a part in my own isolation. Maybe I did also become toxic myself, but I know that’s not who I am. Wait, no seriously, who AM I!? Nothing but a shell of who I used to be as I realize I’m here. Each instance of the emotional abuse has created a new layer of toxic coping mechanisms I’ll have to learn to shed one by one. People talk about all the abuse a narcissist puts you through, but I never see anyone talk about it quite literally becoming your internal dialogue. You spend years being manipulated and you finally see it for what it is, BUT IT DOESNT JUST END. You don’t get to just walk away. Once you leave, you are gifted with the self doubt, the fear of failure, the fear of being alone because after a while you begin to believe you are as worthless as you’re told. It’s easy to write this and it’s easy for you to read this but just sit there and imagine truly believing someone when they tell you that you are a waste of space. That nothing you do is right. That you do not matter. Sit with it and let it sink in and try to really envision what a hopeless place HERE is. I would say that most peoples reaction would probably be, “that’s crazy! I would NEVER allow someone to make me feel that way! Even if they tried, I wouldn’t believe them.” Then you WAKE UP one day and you’re HERE.