Not a Normal Break Up
Why Your Suffering Feels Worse This Time
This blog is written for female survivors of male perpetrators.
Break ups are hard. Every end is a kind of death. The sudden abandonment by a narcissistic sociopath (narcopath) is different from other break ups you’ve had before. Because it is a death of a thousand cuts. Not every victim will experience a psychic death - the death of the ego as a result of finding the foundations on which your life with him was built was a scam. But when you enter the divorce process and suffer the twisted truths, the omissions, the hiding of assets, the outright lies and character assassination that your ex is prepared to dish out to you to save his reputation and financial security, the thousand cuts come whether you like it or not.
Firstly, please give yourself a break if you feel utterly traumatised this time. It’s not like you haven’t had a break up before is it? But this one is different. Very, very different. This is not a normal break up. For a start, the person you loved and trusted most in the world carefully plotted the cruellest and most hurtful way to abandon you. Catch you off-guard. Pull the rug out. Just when he had your total commitment to the relationship and possibly the moment he had sufficiently disempowered you psychologically and financially to take away any tools you might have had to defend yourself. To stand on your own two feet and recover the way you have in break ups in the past.
If you’re one of the 30% or so of people who find themselves, sadly, traumatised by an all-pervasive life-crisis or life-threatening situation, then let yourself off the hook. Your confusion is common to all victims of sociopathic abuse (the idealise, devalue, discard cycle). Your shock and grief at a time of great loss are normal too. If they feel deeper and more pervasive than ever before, it is because of the enormous discrepancy between the mutual loving relationship you thought you had and the cool and callous disregard or simmering hatred of which you suddenly found yourself the subject. Be kind and gentle towards yourself.
If anger and rage arise in you to an extent you never believed possible, know that this too is a normal response to profound betrayal. Cultivate patience. If you have lashed out at your abuser, or others, be patient with yourself. Instead of hating yourself for being this reactive angry kind of person, remind yourself that this is not ‘who you are’. This rage is not a permanent condition that defines you. It will pass. It may take longer to pass than you would like, so again, cultivate patience. You are not stuck with being an angry resentful bitter person for the rest of your life. There is a way out. Take heart. Cultivate patience for yourself first and your patience for others will grow.
Work with the little things. The driver who cuts you off in traffic. Try calling a Government Bureaucracy. That’ll grow your patience. Wait a few minutes longer every day until you finally get through!
If you’ve always maintained good relationships with your exes in the past, and are putting pressure on yourself to find the forgiveness and understanding to foster a friendship with your narcopath, let it go this time. The longer you stay in contact, the more you open the door to his continued manipulation. Make more space for forgiveness and understanding of your own ordeal. You were effectively brainwashed. You were deceived, manipulated, and conditioned to be smaller than you are. You are not to blame for your devaluation of yourself and feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. Your weakness and vulnerability. This is conditioning and this can be changed. You can get back on top of things. You can recover. You are still the beautiful person you were before you were mercilessly devalued and discarded by an immoral and ruthless charmer. That will become clear to you soon enough.
Neuro-scientists can explain your extreme emotional and physical reactions to this break up if you prefer advice that comes from medical science …https://neuroinstincts.com/getting-over-the-breakup-lingering-pain-after-the-psychopathic-relationship/.
Whether you were co-dependent or not, your normal human reward system has taken a severe blow. All the compromises and sacrifices you made over time on the basis of his VOWS to catch you when he urged you to jump have been thwarted. When you jumped and he wasn’t there to catch you. He didn’t leave as a result of your personal failings; he left because he is compelled to do so by his own habitual inhumane treatment of others on his path to self-gratification. YOU ARE NOT TO BLAME. Your body is low on levels of serotonin along with many other physical responses to break ups or betrayal. There are simple effective free ways to increase your serotonin. Walk in nature. Lots of water water water. Loving relationships with your children and your pets. Sport. Sleep. Don’t punish yourself. Be kind to yourself.
If you succumb to the cognitive dissonance you may not yet recognise in yourself - convince yourself he has made a mistake and beg him to come back - that too, is normal. It is a normal stage of grief (bargaining), and normal reaction to that feeling that a part of you is missing now he’s gone. Your oxytocin and vasopressin levels – part of your human bonding system - are shot to pieces. Let yourself off the hook. Wanting him back is an illusory response to our drive to restore equilibrium. This chaos is not ‘the new normal’. It is not permanent. Restoring the finely-tuned balance you managed whilst walking on the eggshells of living with an narcopath is definitely not the way to go! You will find balance again, and you can break the ties that bonded you to him. This time it is with NO CONTACT.
You may feel anxious, hyper-aroused, constantly on red alert and other people might even be accusing you of being hysterical. (One of my male frenemies told me he’d like to ‘give me a good slap’) You may have lost the urge to eat and to sleep. Your startle response might be exaggerated and letters, emails, phone calls and other normal stimuli have become terrifying unwanted intrusions that fill you with fear and dread. Your stress systems – your fight, flight or freeze response – are in overdrive. It’s in your body. You aren’t losing your mind. You have been betrayed on a grand scale. It’s not a normal break up. Move away from blaming yourself for your own symptoms, and seek help to deal with them. Be with people who build you up not tear you down, if you can find them. Turn towards your stress symptoms with love compassion kindness gentleness. They are not here to stay, though if it’s PTSD, they might return for years to come. Try to accept it. You can’t bury-ignore-be stoic about it. Fear demands our immediate attention. And underlying that fear are a huge number of beliefs (attachments), dislikes (aversions), myths and unknowns (ignorance) that we can feel compelled to use as fuel for the fire of fear. It is fear itself that is your enemy now. The antidote to fear is courage. Cultivate courage. Have faith in your deep strength. Start feeding your courage not your fear.
Neuroscience is also starting to recognise the link between psychological and physical pain. ‘Alternative’ medicine has known about this for centuries, based purely on empirical evidence. You might be experiencing all sorts of aches and pains and illnesses now that your pain systems are also under duress. You might have had unexplained physical difficulties for some time during the devaluation phase. Go easy on yourself. Smile at your pain, whether you believe it is psychosomatic or not. And attend to your body with all the loving kindness you would show your child or your best friend. Nurture yourself with warming foods, warm baths, sweet aromas, soothing music, gentle words. Take your suffering body-mind in your own loving embrace and heal it, encourage it, reassure it, just as you would a child. And if you haven’t tried holistic forms of medicine before, perhaps now is the time to seek them out? Beware of shonks promising spiritual healing, or New-Age gurus promising a whole new you if you fork out a small fortune for a workshop on positive thinking. The ‘proof’ that these routes work is highly questionable, though the frequent use of affirmations will temporarily help to build you up. Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Chi Gung and other healing modalities have been around for thousands of years, recognizing the mind-body-emotion connection. Buddhist meditation is now accessible to Westerners and has specific practices for addressing sickness, despair, dying and death. http://insightmeditationaustralia.org
You may have difficulty with your emotional regulation system. You might be trying every trick in the book to calm down, stop losing your rag and telling people to fuck off - to help yourself out of this emotional nightmare. And failing. Let yourself off the hook. Your distress is a commonly reported response to the discard/destroy phase of a break up with a narcissist or sociopath. Again, this desperate reactive person is not who you are. Don’t beat yourself up for having difficulty keeping it all together. In fact, if you can let yourself fall apart, your recovery will come a little bit quicker than if you push it all down and bury yourself in work or addictions or entertainment or distraction. Sounds nuts, I know. Counter-intuitive. The very suggestion might make you angry! Let me refer you to much more skillful explanations of how falling to pieces is not such a bad thing…..
When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron with Oprah on Youtube (only 3 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEGVNAeKr2c&list=PLdLZMu-hnnVITzAH8gZkT8Bzj21aztklp
Losing It Completely, Pema Chodron on Youtube ( a few minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asRKEXq-Y3g
Working With Difficult Emotions, Robina Courtin on Youtube (half an hour)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Df4YLSMuM
You might also find, to add insult to injury (and by now you are starting to realise just how deep your injury goes), that your cognitive systems are also up the spout. You are having trouble remembering things, concentrating when people speak to you, paying attention when receiving important information, getting your brain to function the way it always has. This too, is a normal part of the suffering of break ups. And if you’ve experienced this break up or the relationship as abusive or traumatic, it could be even worse. If the trauma triggered earlier experiences of abuse, you might even be staring down the barrel of Complex PTSD. In which case, patience with your own impaired cognitive function will be needed. You might be stuck with it for a while, like any of the human system upsets already described in this article or the links provided.
You will need every bit of cognitive function available to you when you face the inevitable complex manipulation of the legal process and find yourself having to fight his bullying and perjury and deception in an intellectual context – the biased paradigm (in men’s favour, contrary to popular myth) of the family law court. Legal professionals see it all the time, and they probably all believe they are skilled at dealing with it. They aren’t. But you can cope with your fuzzy brain. Adjust your habits. Write things down. Keep lists. Express yourself in emails that you send only to yourself, let some time expire, then re-read and edit them. No rush. The rush is just another illusion our lawyers, manipulators and our own minds trick us into feeling. Take your time with everything. Everything. Walk slower. Eat slower. Rest more. Let yourself off the hook again. Forgive yourself for having the symptoms you now have. Forgive others for not understanding that this time, it’s different. The people who don’t get that you’re suffering covert abusive behaviour from your ex will never see it. Let those folks with small closed minds go. Focus on your own healing, your own recovery. Turn your gaze inwards and let it rest with compassion on the suffering of a lifetime. Suffering is a normal human experience, so don’t beat yourself up about it. There is a path out of suffering. Time will heal your wounds. Have patience. Have faith. Have courage.
One day you will look back on this nightmare and smile. It just could be the best thing that ever happened to you.
A BOOK TO MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER NOW
“When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times “, Pema Chodron, Shambala Classics, 2000
BUDDHIST THERAPISTS IN AUSTRALIA
http://www.buddhismandpsychotherapy.org/find-a-therapist
COUNSELLING FOR NARCISSISTIC ABUSE
http://www.compassionatecounsellingmelbourne.com.au
THE AFTERMATH OF PSYCHOPATHY AS EXPERIENCED BY ROMANTIC PARTNERS, FAMILY MEMBERS AND OTHER VICTIMS
