Phase Navigation: Discard
Mr. Charm was navigating through the phases of his stroke recovery with a lot of anger. In fact, he was a towering inferno of controlled rage that was waiting to be unleashed. I could sense its presence in an ominous and foreboding way. The more time I spent around him, the less I began to like him as a person. Mr. Charm was just plain mean.
There were many instances in which his anger reached a fury with me. He had obviously become all too comfortable with me. I had obviously allowed him to overstep my boundaries. I had also allowed his anger to go unchecked with me. I excused it away because of his stroke. Yet, I knew that the way that he behaved around me would never be a way he would behave around the other people that knew him.
Yet, the more I looked around me, the more I realized that there were less people who seemed to be in his life. If he treated them in the way he treated me, I could understand the reason. However, I had obviously been blinded to the fact that his increasing devaluing treatment of me was carefully guarding a secret he released to me in spurts as preparation. He was preparing me for a time of discard because he no longer had use for me. He had found new narcissistic supply.
A New Supply To Calm The Anger
Mr. Charm did have one other friend that he met in a short-lived support group for stroke survivors. His newfound friend often provided me with a time of reprieve away from him. I did not know it at the time, but this new friend was Mr. Charm’s new narcissistic supply. This would explain the rate of frequency in which Mr. Charm’s devaluing comments and negative behaviors would flow against me. Plus, his new friend was someone who had experienced a stroke himself and was a better resource on how to cope. To be honest, I secretly welcomed the change; I needed a break.
When I was introduced to the new friend, I do not believe that Mr. Charm expected his friend and I to get along. I gathered the immediate impression that Mr. Charm had already shared details about me to his friend that painted me in a negative light. Mr. Charm, in turn, had also shared not-so-flattering details about his friend to me as well. Thankfully, neither the friend nor I accepted those unflattering details about each other as truth because when we met, we both immediately liked each other. In fact, Mr. Charm’s friend and I seemed to be a lot alike. He was an older man with a very gentle and kind nature. He had a light about him that seemed to beam brighter when he smiled.
Mr. Charm hated that his friend and me had made a connection. His anger was unhinged about it but hidden. There was no way that he could triangulate the friend and me against each other. So he had to attempt to find a new plan. I suppose his plan was to make me jealous of his new friendship by spending less time with me and more time with his new friend. However, I saw his discard of me as him actually becoming more mobile and less needy of my attention. Plus, I was in graduate school, working a demanding job, and trying to live my own life apart from him. I did not mind time away from him. I was exhausted!
Nevertheless, I saw some of Mr. Charm’s anger level out whenever his friend came around in the beginning. This makes sense because Mr. Charm was in the honeymoon or love bombing phase of his connection with his friend. He was certainly nice to his friend, but he was not so nice to me. There was something hidden underneath his half-smiles with me whenever his friend was around. It was almost in the form of a hateful looking smirk that showed how much disgust he actually had for me. I did not completely understand it, but time would reveal his anger-turned-to-rage sooner than I expected and in various ways.
Stay tuned for the next post to read about the ways in which Mr. Charm’s anger was unchecked and brewing into stone cold rage.
My Voice Unchained 