Another Word For

In the beginning things were pretty good. It was fun and I knew things were going faster then what I was comfortable with. Our first date we spent hours talking and we seemed to like the same things and had similar dislikes. Everything seemed amazing and went very well. I was happy that I had found a caring family man! Because of our age, we decided early in our relationship to start a family. After all, I did find my soulmate, as he called me. We moved in together and we became pregnant with our first child together, a son. He would text me several times and hour how much he loved me- I love you. I asked him nicely to stop the frequency and that was apparently a huge hit for him. I was working and I couldn’t keep responding to them all! He didn’t understand. Things progressed and as things were brought up, suggestions were made and I received pushback, more red flags started popping up. Random things that did not make sense to my over logical thinking.

Fast forward a few weeks into my pregnancy, when I was physically sick. I wasn’t able to keep up with certain behaviors I was able to before I felt like I was hit by a 16 wheeler. I no longer gave the same attention I was able to give before. Now I was being accused of things that were not true. My family was now being attacked because of the way I was raised, and that’s why I was acting the way I was. I was treated poorly by my broken family and raised by a “shitty mother”—that is why I cannot love or show emotions. I could feel myself spiraling, losing control of my body/mind and I could feel my heart beating in my throat. How could someone that stated that he loved me say what he was saying to me? How can someone accuse me of being a certain way and doing things I wasn’t doing? I was physically sick from carrying his child. I was working full time and caring for my other two children from previous relationships. I wasn’t playing the victim, I was just suffering from severe morning sickness. I was depressed during this pregnancy. Who knew you could be depressed while pregnant? I had no idea.

I would sit or stand during our arguments, depending on how bad the statements were being flung at me. Sometimes I’d be so angry that this man, who made all these proclamations of being a great man, who’d make a great father, would say that I don’t love him, that I had to sit. I felt like I was going to pass out. He says I don’t care about him or that he is unhappy. He would always tell me that I need to make up my mind on what I wanted. I was so confused by this. Make up my mind? On what? If I wanted this relationship to work? Things were fine just 40 minutes ago. Things were fine since the last argument we had just a few short weeks ago and I cannot even remember why we argued, but I know it was my fault. They are all my fault.

I wouldn’t know he was unhappy until we got into one of our brutal arguments. I was told I was wrong and I never take responsibility for my wrong doings. I have yet to receive an answer on what I am doing wrong. I have never received an answer to this day. If I am doing something wrong, as I am according to him, I need to know what it is so I can stop said behavior and make the necessary effort to make those changes. He did tell me one thing though. One thing I supposedly do wrong is that I always make comments. He started telling me that early on in our relationship and I am hyper aware of what I say now. It’s not me who makes all the comments, it’s actually him. He projects what he does onto me and that’s scary to me. It’s good that I have a few witnesses to that behavior because no one would believe me.

I can’t bring up anything he does that bothers me. All of a sudden it turns into this huge thing and I am supposedly calling him a monster or I’m accusing him of the most heinous acts. All I asked was if he would be able to help more around the house. He came from a family where he was catered to. He was taught how to do things, but the women in his life did them for him because they could and wanted to make him happy or whatever their reasoning was. What he was doing around the house did feel like a lot to him, because he didn’t do much of anything in the previous house he lived in. Like I said before, I work full time and I have other children to raise. I asked for help and that turned into me accusing him of not doing anything. How dare I not see how hard he busts his ass for this family and that he does everything around here. He pays for everything and he does everything for us and I am never happy. I never see anything wrong with my own actions and that I cannot see anything other then my own ways. I have no idea what he’s talking about and I ask for clarification. That turns into me getting the snide laughter and the just forget it statements. Just forget it, you’ll never understand anyway because you can’t see anything other than what you want to see. I get asked what I do around the house. I lose my mind because the question is just so asinine I want to throw things at him, but I don’t. I’m pretty sure he’s getting off on how upset I am. Just adds more fuel to his fire about how this is my mental illness talking.

I’m left exhausted and drained after each argument. I’m questioning my own mental capacity to understand what the hell just transpired. Did this just happen? Was this real life? Why am I so confused right now? What just happened? I feel like I’m losing my mind. I was just accused of things I wasn’t even doing or considering and sure didn’t feel. I was told I’m sick and need to get my head checked. Do I? Am I really losing my ability to comprehend others acts and feelings? I was told I need to check myself into a facility for mental health evaluations because my mental health was the reason why I was miserable and not able to see the way he busts his ass for this family. How I can’t see passed my own mental health issues and I’m taking it out on him. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety back in 2007. I didn’t realize what was truly happening to me until I confided in a counselor I was seeing after giving birth to our son. She then introduced me to a behavioral disorder called Narcissism.

Narcissism is a noun. Narcissism is the excessive or erotic interest in oneself and one’s appearance. Extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one’s own talents and a craving for admiration, as characterizing a personality type. Self-centeredness arising from failure to distinguish the self from external objects, either in very young babies or as a feature of mental disorder. (Google definition). From the Psychology Today website, the hallmark characteristics of NPD are grandiosity, a lack of empathy for other people and a need for admiration. People with this condition are frequently described as arrogant, self-centered, manipulative and demanding. Look it up—there’s so much more.

I was researching and reading anything about narcissism because it made sense to what was happening to me. I have over 50 articles saved to my phone and several more saved to my email. This is a diagnosable mental condition and I am not qualified to make that diagnosis, but I’m pretty sure I’m living with a narcissistic man or a man with narcissistic tendencies. Either way, I’m walking on eggshells and I am hyper aware of his physical queues and how his attitude is with me. I’m constantly asking him if he’s mad at me or if there’s something I’ve done wrong. I just want to be prepared for our next argument. I want to mentally arm myself and focus on what I need to do to protect myself emotionally.

He has never put his hands on me nor am I afraid of him ever physically harming me. The mental anguish I feel after we finish arguing leaves me feeling like I was physically beaten. My body hurts from tensing up, from me trying to control myself. I know I fail miserably at that. I do get more and more frustrated and my need to defend myself grows and his words cut me deeper and they get worse. The worse he gets, the louder I defend and yell. I know who I am as a woman, as a mother, as an adult who has grown exponentially over the last 22 years. I have succeeded and I have learned from my failures. I have never been told by anyone that I need to get my head checked, let alone a man that said he loved me. I fight so hard to control myself and I fail because I know I’m not crazy and my emotions are being toyed with. I have cried myself to sleep more nights than not. I have contemplated suicide because I had those moments of weakness listening to him tell me that I am the reason my older ADHD son is going to fail at life. That I am the reason my son will be in jail by the time he’s 13. That I make my boyfriend miserable and he hates his life because this is far from the ideal relationship he envisioned. He’s told me my baby boy hates me because I don’t spend any time with him and I focus all my time on my older son. Of course I do not, but being told something on repeat, even though you know the truth of what you do, makes you rethink everything and how you act. I have started writing things down. What I do around the house that day and how and what I do with each child. I’m obsessed with proving I spend good quality time with each child. I find myself laying in bed obsessing over things he’s said to me a year ago, a month ago and even a few days ago. I analyze everything and I break it down. Research is my friend and the reason why I have moved past those feelings of suicide. I would never leave my children anyway. They are the reason I breathe.

I started to continue our arguments via texting because I was able to record the things he says, the deflection and the actual narcissism was recorded on something other then my own verbal recant. I downloaded an app that will record conversations but haven’t used it yet because my phone is never near me when we start arguing and I always forget about it. Because of the texts, I was able to compare the negative things he’d say versus the complete opposite he would text me the very next day. The things that he uses the most against me are my children. He’s threatened to take them from me multiple times because he says I cannot handle them. He is projecting again. I handle my children and the house along with work just fine. He’s told me that he will do and say anything to get full custody of the kids because he’s not a part time dad. Yet the very next day he’d send me texts about how great of a mother I am and how fortunate they are to have me. He would text me that he wants to work on us and do I feel the same way? He admitted he needed to speak to a therapist but never made attempts to see one. Any attempt he did make was half-hearted. Just a see? I tried! He would always tell me he loves me and that he hates how we fight and how the kids deserve better and that we need to stop. I agree every time. I don’t want to argue or fight. I can sit and have a conversation about issues without getting my feather ruffled. Unfortunately for him, his pride gets in the way and starts slinging whatever he can my way. Anything and everything. Then I start defending myself and my actions. I try to explain why I do what I do, because I have been living on my own as a single mother since I was 19. I have a pretty good grasp on what is needed or not needed. I know what is more efficient or safer. I’m constantly told I’m wrong. Baffling to say the least.

Not that long ago he told me that I hate my baby boy because I never take him anywhere or spend time with him. I was 4 weeks postpartum after having our daughter. During that pregnancy I was not violently ill but my round ligament pain was crippling. For me to run after my beautiful toddler who runs like The Flash, was something I physically could not do. I was threatened by my doctor that if I didn’t take it easy I would be on bed rest and that I could possibly give birth early. Well, due to the stress of the situation and my body reacting badly, I did give birth to our beautiful girl 4 weeks early. This man lacks empathy and he exaggerates his own importance. Thank you narcissism and thank you to my body for failing me. He was upset after I gave birth and came home to do over 10 loads of laundry and clean the house now that I had my body back, that I didn’t give him more attention because he was feeling sick “for weeks”. He had an ear infection. I just gave birth and bled out and was severely anemic from the birth. But he had an ear infection and was upset because I didn’t care. I had a panic attack that night and needed to punch the cabinet I was leaning against for painful stimuli to kick me out of that situation. He told me during the panic attack that he doesn’t even know why he’s here and he doesn’t know why he tries. He kept walking back and forth from the living room to where I was crying on the floor in the kitchen and asking me what’s wrong. I couldn’t breathe let alone speak while crying, so that turned into him swearing and asking why he’s even here over and over. All I needed was for him to shut up and maybe hold me and support me. I never got that, nor have I ever. But if you ask him all he does is support me.

We are in therapy now, trying to hash out our differences. I told the therapist that I feel the father of my children and the man I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with has narcissistic tendencies. I also told him I’m afraid of retaliation from discussing my feelings. It does feel good to get some things validated and hashed out.

Narcissism is real and the behavior is abusive. It is a form of mental abuse. Please speak to someone you trust about what you are experiencing. Narcissistic people are loved by the many who do not know them the way we do. I am not perfect in my relationship, but I do know that I’m not anything close to what this man accuses me of. Not one person would ever believe me about my significant other because he really is a great guy to them. They aren’t in a relationship with him. They don’t experience what I do. If you can get out, please do. The sooner the better. Your mental health depends on the escape and therapy is needed. I do suffer from PTSD from this. I’m paranoid and I analyze everything. I’m a strong woman and I know who I am. I think that’s the only thing keeping me together. That and my beautiful babies.