Back In The Fold
After basically being pushed into a temporary discard for three weeks, I soon found myself back in the fold with Mr. Charm again. He had contacted me. It was his usual rundown of needing some assistance and chitchatting about a whole lot of nothing as if nothing extreme had occurred between us. I chose to take the high road and apologized to him for my poor choice of wording as well as my assumption that he had a strong hatred for women. I could tell that an apology from me was what he wanted to hear.
For a segment of time, I had to listen to him preach to me regarding how he was a Christian who could not possibly hate anyone. He claimed it was me who had the problem since I was no longer affiliated with a church. According to him, I was lucky to have someone like him in my life. Imagine that! {insert sarcastic facial expression here if you will} He had a lot of nerve! In arrogance, he seemed to take pride in the fact that I was in the wrong. It was annoying to watch that narcissistic smirk on his face cast a shadow upon me.
To make matters worse for me was the fact that he never apologized for his negative behavior. He never even signified that there was anything wrong about his behavior. By now, however, I had grown weary of seeking for his apologies since he rarely gave them. Instead, I foolishly counted myself as fortunate to be back in his good graces. After all, if I could take back what I had said to him, I would have, but inwardly I knew that on some level what I had said to him was true. The fact that I had hit a nerve with him indicated that even he knew that what I said was true too.
Nevertheless, he was a man who evaded difficult conversations by his use of projection and deflection. If he was not throwing a temper tantrum against me to unleash his rage, then he was punishing me with the silent treatment. If he was not attempting to control or manipulate me, then he was devaluing me with negative comments to debase me in some form as if I had no value. I actually had to wonder how he treated his other friends, but I did not know since I never saw them. That was the thing with him. He only ever talked about his church family at this point, but I knew most of the main members, and I knew more about their character than he wanted to give me credit for. In many ways, some of those members were know different than him – particularly the leaders of the church.
I never heard anything else about the friend he made during his stroke recovery. He had now made a new friend. He had rotated out form his shelf of objects a new narcissistic supply. The woman he told me who invited him to dinner was someone who attended his church. I knew her and actually liked her personality. She was a high-power business woman and at least 15 years older than Mr. Charm and 20 years older than me. According to Mr. Charm, she had taken a liking to him, and although she was a bit older for his taste, she treated him well. (I bet so. {Insert sarcastic expression of laughter here if you will.})
One thing I have learned about narcissistic relationships is they have no discrepancy in age differences when it comes to their narcissistic supply . A narcissist is going to find his or her supply in anyone no matter what their age. Relationships for narcissists are not necessarily about romance or friendship. Narcissists will take narcissistic supply anywhere they can get it. So was the case with Mr. Charm. When he discarded me or anyone else for that matter, he always had someone he could take from his shelf to go spend some time with when he needed a refill of supply. I had to live with that. There was no sense in being jealous even though I often felt a bit insecure in my place based on how he would triangulate me with comparisons to others.
He always triangulated me with others – building them up while tearing me down in the process. I imagined that he did the same thing to others when I was not around too. Most times I could tell that he had placed me on his pedestal against others when I was formerly introduced to them. I think of his surrogate brother’s companion and any other female at his church. I knew would soon learn his patterns and knew when I was up for one of his discards the more he began talking about someone else he could devalue me against even if it was someone he claimed to not particularly like.
He would often showcase to these other suppliers that I was the one who was there for him during his hard times while he was struggling through stroke recovery. Admittedly, I was there for him. I was there for him more than anyone else I knew. It seemed to me that he had exhausted his welcome with others based on how much he complained that I was the only one who was there for him. However, I knew deep down that he was usually saying such things to bring someone under his judgments for not being there for him. I was a tool he used to both chastise and ridicule others, but he would also do the same to me in front of them or when he discussed them.
Needless to say, I was back in the fold with Mr. Charm and things did not progress very far before we had a fallout once again. This time it had to do with a situation at his church. He would briefly mention things to me about what was going on with specific members at the church. Notably, he was having problems with the church leader’s son. According to Mr. Charm, the church leader’s son was evidently treating him disrespectfully. Since taking a prominent role within the church, Mr. Charm said that the church leader’s son had let the role of prominence go to his head. He was basically telling Mr. Charm what to do and calling Mr. Charm out in front of others.
I knew this routine because I had experienced it myself from the church leader. I imagined that it had to be embarrassing for Mr. Charm to have been called out and treated with disdain in front of other members. According to Mr. Charm, the church leader’s son actually raised his voice at him as if he was a child. Mr. Charm said that he made light of the situation by laughing about it, but he was both surprised and embarrassed. As Mr. Charm talked about the situation, I could see the disappointment and hurt in his eyes. I could also tell that the situation made him very angry. He idolized the church leader and the leader’s family. In his eyes, the could do no wrong, and up until that point, he defended their every action.
Mr. Charm wanted to confront the church leader’s son, but he wanted to do it in the Christian way. He also did not want to be on the bad side of the leader in the process. So he asked me what he should do. He had already asked his new lady friend. He claimed he did not like her advice. She basically told him to just leave it alone. She reasoned that it was best not to say anything to ruffle the leaders’ feathers regarding the son. She had reasoned with Mr. Charm that he might find himself out of a church if he retaliated in any way.
(“Why was he asking me when he knew that I was going to be honest?” I thought.) I spoke my mind about the situation not knowing the trouble that was ahead of me. To be honest, part of me wanted him out of that church because I knew it to be a cult. That church had caused a lot of people an unsightly and untold amount of emotional pain. The spiritual abuse that I had suffered while a member of that church is one of the main reasons I sought therapeutic help. I hated to see what Mr. Charm was battling against. I was not going to lie to him, but I knew if his mind was set to stay, there would be nothing I could do to sway him. Nevertheless, I gave him the insight I had into the situation and hoped for the best.
Me: “Scripturally, you have the grounds to go before the pastor’s son and voice your thoughts. It’s clear to me that you feel that he wronged you. If you wanna confront him, let him know you wanna talk with him. If you want to do it the Christian way, then take a witness. It already sounds like your lady friend won’t be on your side. With that church, it’s best if your witness is another man in the church. Good luck with finding someone to stand with you though even if they know you are right. The pastor is someone that very few members confront unless they are pushed to their limits. If you can’t find anyone who will be your witness, then maybe you can write the leader’s son a letter explaining how you feel.”
Him: “That’s a great idea! I’ll write a letter. Cause if I meet him face to face, I just might say some things that will get me in trouble. I also might punch him in the face! That’s what I wanted to do then if I could. He’s a young guy wet behind the ears. He should know better talking to a grown man that way. In my sinful days, I would have settled things outside of the church. I don’t care who he is. He’s a momma’s boy anyway, and now that he’s got some power, he thinks he’s somebody big now.”
Me: “Yeah … write a letter. A fist fight on the church grounds is not a good look.” (We both laughed.)
Him: “You can be smart sometimes. I’ll need you to help me to word this letter. We can do this!” (He was excited for resolution. I watched an aura of relief fall upon him.)
So, I helped him draft a letter addressing the points that he wanted to cover with the leader’s son. He was to give the leader’s son the letter during their upcoming Bible study and let me know what happened. I was anxious about what might take place, and I made Mr. Charm aware of this. He brushed me off and said that he could handle it. I cautioned him, still, however. I reminded him that what his lady friend had said about finding himself out of a church might be something he needed to consider as a result of his lettered-confrontation, but he told me that I worried too much and that his situation was nothing like my situation from the past.
Him: “The people at the church actually like me, but they don’t like you because you don’t get along with the pastor. You need to work that out and walk in love and forgiveness.”
I was baffled by his response. He seemed to be a bit cocky now that he had some resolve for his issue. He did not know my past situation at all. In my attempts to share with him, he would always stope short of allowing me to finish because there could be no bashing of his pastor. That was the typical response from a cult follower. No cult follower or flying monkey ever wants to hear the bad things about their narcissistic leader.
Me: “That’s not the issue at all. I have extended my love and forgiveness to your pastor. I accepted the invitation to that trip overseas. If I didn’t have forgiveness, there is no way I would have ever taken that trip with that pastor or some of the members of the church. It’s your pastor who has a problem with ME. Your pastor doesn’t like being accountable for dirty deeds done to so many members that left or were driven out of that church. But you don’t know the story because you weren’t there.”
Him: “I’ve heard it, and that’s not how it was told. The pastor has preached sermons about it. You and the crowd that left were rebellious troublemakers.”
I was speechless. I was getting nowhere with the issue. He was going to have to learn the lesson of this church on his own the hard way. In fact, he was about to learn a major lesson when going up against the leaders of that church for any reason that painted them in a negative light. Things would not go the way that either of us would imagine either. No amount of Mr. Charm’s prayers for a peaceful outcome were going to stop what was about to occur. Instead, his lesson learned would culminate in a climatic showdown between the both of us and send me reeling into a long discard.
Stay tuned for more!
My Voice Unchained 