Walking Away Is Necessary
After returning from the camping trip I took with Mr. Charm, I decided to cut ties with him. It was a painful decision which I made in the heat of the moments of the trip. I had taken enough of his narcissistic abuses. I just did not want to continue on with a friendship that lacked the reciprocity of kindness and safety.
I explained nothing to Mr. Charm. I did not tell him I wanted nothing to do with him, but I sensed that he knew. There was no contact between us for weeks until I returned home from work one evening to see an artifact he had been helping me to repair leaning against the gate post near my garage. I looked around me to check for other signs of his presence, but that artifact told me enough.
In the world of psychology regarding narcissistic abuse, any attempts by a narcissist to reach out after the target of abuse has gone no contact from the narcissist is called a hoover. A hoover is meant to suck one back into the vortex of the narcissist’s life. The hoover is a reminder to the target that the narcissist still exists and is thinking about the target. Sarcastically, I thought Mr. Charm should have been thinking about me. I pridefully believed that I had been the best female friend who was never a girlfriend that he had ever and would ever have.
Yet, the narcissist is not thinking about the target in the way the target might believe. No. The narcissist is not thinking about the target because the narcissist misses the target out of care or concern. The narcissist is thinking about the target because not having the target around means not having the narcissistic supply the target supplied to the narcissist. The narcissist hoovers to bring the target back to retrieve that continuous narcissistic supply that he or she was regularly receiving from the target.
Narcissistic supply is fuel for the narcissist. It is how the narcissist is able to keep going. Narcissistic supply gives the narcissist energy. Without the energy of narcissistic supply, some narcissists actually experience mental anguish. Out of desperation for that once tangible supply, they will often reach out to the target with small gestures of love bombing in an effort to pretend to make amends. If the narcissists does not love bomb, they stalk the target in various ways to announce their presence.
I scanned over the artifact. I found no attached notes. After weeks of no contact, I was hoping to move forward and to be free of the memory of Mr. Charm. Now that he had come to my space, I found that I wanted to hear something from him to make sense of things … to make sense of his bad behavior towards me. I felt that I was owed an explanation at least, but I knew that he had given me all that he wanted me to have: nothing! He wanted me to have absolutely nothing.
Walking away from the toxicity was necessary for my own sanity, but it was not easy. I was still tied to Mr. Charm via a trauma bond. I had connected with him on a deep level (or so I thought) as I always had with all of my friends, but I was rendered nothing but a broken heart as an end result. Inside of me, I knew that things were not completely over because I found myself doing things that I never have the desire to do when I completely walk away from a narcissist. I thought certain things would bring me peace or even a resolution.
Occasional Drive-Bys
When I was feeling a strong tug of emotion and found myself constantly feeling worried about Mr. Charm, I would take a drive and ride by his home. It was really a senseless activity. We live in the same area but several miles apart. I live in the city while he lives on the outskirts. There is never a reason for me to venture out into his area unless I am sightseeing for a driving cruise. So, I was going out of my way to soothe myself from the agony of the trauma bond I had not yet broken.
To be honest, I was in pain. I was in agony. I wanted and needed a resolution. Despite my prayers and attempts to have my feelings absolved, I was under the false notion that maybe I had deserted him knowing his background of experiences with abandonment. I figured that maybe I had not been completely understanding of his ways and why he operated the way he did with others. I was a pitiful empath who had not completely come into understanding the power I had that did not require me to absorb the emotions of others.
In reality, I drove by Mr. Charm’s home on occasion because it was my way of maintaining a sense of connection. A trauma bond without the actual physical connection of proximity is excruciatingly painful. Not seeing or talking to the person I have experienced trauma bonds with that are not severed from the onset of physically breaking ties with the person is difficult at best. I did not pray hard enough to break ties with Mr. Charm. I had to admit that I still wanted to be connected even though there were other narcissists in my life wreaking havoc upon me.
It’s Not Easy
It is not easy breaking away from a narcissist even when the trauma bond severs with them. There are always the residual effects of damage that the target is left with in regards to emotional pain and any other pain a narcissist has caused the target. I was reeling from emotional pain. Time spent with Mr. Charm had even set me back with all of the things in my own life that I needed keeping on track.
I had to reorient myself back to what it meant to take care of me. I re-instituted self-care. I got back into focusing more on my work and personal needs. I got back into exercising at the gym. I also attended better to my spiritual needs, and I attempted to make my life better by addressing my issues in therapy. The only issue with therapy was that I had a therapist who believed that Mr. Charm was actually good for me. She felt that he had opened me up to living a better life based on the experiences that kept me from what she called self-isolation even though I am an introvert.
It would take me years to comprehend that my therapist had no true understanding of narcissistic personality disorder. She had textbook knowledge but not lived experience. This made it hard for me to relate to her my experiences when I sometimes explained what I dealt with regarding narcissists. She might have seen how badly I hurt over those painful situations, but she really did not connect with how badly I hurt. Textbook knowledge regarding narcissistic abuse is not enough to help someone who has been suffering form the abuse … at least in my case. I needed someone who had walked at least an inch in my shoes to comprehend me. My therapist and very few others just did not get it.
It would not be until I went back to school to earn a master’s degree in mental health that I would begin to understand just how much my therapist lacked in her own understanding of how narcissists truly operate. I would also realize how deeply a target of narcissists is affected by narcissistic abuse. It is simply not enough to understand unless there has been experience. Experience is a great teacher for sure, but sometimes psychology omits this fact. I think that is why I found solace in talking to others who could relate to me about narcissists and narcissistic abuse. There are so many people with firsthand knowledge of narcissistic abuse that have treasures of information.
Nevertheless, I would work to ease my thirst for connecting with Mr. Charm by doing anything to take my mind away from him. Yet, there were a variety of situations that would always seem to be magnetic tools to draw me back into the vortex with him. The trauma bond had not been severed; therefore, my soul was still tied to him. This would all ring so very true when I was given the opportunity to reopen the door. When faced with a serious decision, I chose to open the door. It would prove to be a terrible mistake but one that would set me on the road to my forever freedom.
Stay tuned for what happens next.
My Voice Unchained 