Breakfast Discoveries
I had very little sleep the night before the proposed breakfast that was to occur with Mr. Charm and me. In fact, a few weeks into the repair project with Mr. Charm I noticed that my sleeping patterns had gone into a major disarray. I had become riddled with increasing anxiety. Insomnia had become a constant friend. The night before this breakfast was no different. I was awake and aware. I was frantically worried with deep thoughts of how to get myself away from Mr. Charm.
I had a great burden to be free, and I realized that I had to do more than pray my way to freedom. I had to go to war against a strong demonic entity. I prayed that God would enable me to strip this dark entity of its power over me. I wanted my territory back. I wanted my peace back. I wanted my home to be restored back to its original state of tranquility. This transition back to peace could not happen unless I took a stand to fight for it. I could not be passive and hope for the best. Passivity against a narcissist had rendered me powerless.
I was going to have to fight to win back my peace from a narcissist I had allowed to enter into my home with only one agenda in mind – my destruction. Mr. Charm wanted to destroy me. He was on a mission to exact revenge for a perceived narcissistic injury. I have no doubt that an injury against him was caused when I told him that I was certain the church he attended was a cult and had control over him. My words against his church had in many ways crippled him for the man that he presented himself to be publicly. If his church was pointed out to be a disgrace, then he surely had been exposed for being no different.
Although it may seem outlandish and overexaggerated to some who read this, I can assure you that unless you have experienced a narcissist or any person that hates you to the core of your being, then you have no idea what it is like to look into the eyes of someone who hates you and seeks to devour you. The devil came to my home in the flesh of Mr. Charm, and there was nothing on his mind but my spiritual demise. He hated me, and over time it had become more difficult for him to hide his contempt of me. I often felt that he hated me so much that I could feel the passion of his hate. It was strong.
Mr. Charm intended to destroy me by inflicting torment upon me. He used harsh words to break down my spirit and self-esteem. He taunted me with mocking words and laughter. He beheld me as stupid in his eyes. I was beneath him. However, I counted myself as more than whom he had bargained for because I was and am resilient. He had no idea of my background – my past, my trauma, my story. He did not truly know me. He did not know that I was far more capable of enduring what he dished out until I had reached my limit. He did not know that I was a keg of power ready to unleash a mighty roar of ammunition.
Mr. Charm clearly did not know me well enough to know that I was not going to be taken down without a fight. I am a strong-willed warrior. I will not be forced to do anything I do not want to do. I will fight against being controlled. In many ways, I had fought him every step of the way. With his bellowing voice and intimidating stance, he desperately wanted me to allow him to symbolically push me around. He wanted me to bow to him, but I was stubborn and chose to head-butt him with my sharp wit instead. In fact, my silent but sometimes outspoken retaliation against his control beckoned him to bring it on even more. I knew that breakfast would possibly be no different.
Mr. Charm came to my home to pick me up, and together we travelled to the restaurant. On the way, he did all the talking. I remained silent. I was spent of all emotion. I simply had no energy to talk. I only responded when necessary and felt that I had exerted all of my energy just to do that. I was mainly in deep thought as his voice ebbed and flowed into my thoughts. My mind could not stop replaying his verbally abusive taunts against me over and over, and I wondered how he could drive so calmly and talk to me as if nothing had ever occurred between us. I wondered how he could behave as though he had not called me all kinds of disgusting names only hours before.
Although I was not afraid of Mr. Charm, I realized that this man had great potential to be dangerous. We were not even romantically involved with each other, but I felt that our so-called friendship showed all the signs of a couple in the throes of domestic abuse. He had not physically touched me, but he had threatened to do so. He had demonstrated that he had the potential for physical abuse. He had explosive temper tantrums that showed elements of violence behind his words. His outward display of emotions could not be predicted because he was like a loose cannon.
In retrospect, I saw the gleam of delight in Mr. Charm’s eyes when I was injured by the splinter. It was an injury that was caused by his outward display of anger when he broke a piece of wood in half. Instead of an instant apology for his actions, he behaved in a manner that showed he did not care about my safety nor the outcome of his actions upon me. His heart was not for me. I wrongfully perceived he was a friend who became my enemy at some point. I was wrong because a narcissist is an enemy from the start. A narcissist does not delight in anything about their target except for their target’s demise. So it was with Mr. Charm. He was my enemy, and he wanted to see my demise.
I felt a deep sadness as we arrived to the restaurant. I turned my glance away from him and stared out the window at the sights. I really wanted to cry. Instead of crying, I held back the tears and swallowed them. I held them within that pit that lies somewhere deep within my stomach. Within that pit was a huge ocean of tears mixed with all the grief, the sorrow, and the hurt I did not express. I had trained myself from a very early age not to cry. Even when I wanted to cry, I was often unable to do so. Nevertheless, I held back my tears and I tried not to show any outward emotions as Mr. Charm and me walked into the restaurant. I tried to be stoic and strong.
In the back of my mind, I wondered how often a victim of domestic violence desperately made attempts to yell out for help while remaining silent. I wondered if anyone around could see I was in distress. I wondered if anyone looked at me and thought about what they saw of me outwardly. Could they tell that I had cried myself to sleep the night before? Did they know the unbearable anxiety that I felt deep within me? Did they have a clue that the man walking next to me was my enemy? Did they see how much he hated me? Or were they blinded by both Mr. Charm’s and my outward appearances to deceive them into believing that all was well with us?
Before I could ponder more thoughts, Mr. Charm motioned me to a table in the center of the restaurant around people despite knowing that I preferred booths away from people. I knew that he had craftily chosen a table to put himself on display. It was a calculated move to win public points against me. He had to show that he was a gentlemen, and by seating us out in the open, it was his opportunity to shine. Who would believe he had a penchant for abuse? Despite there being plenty of available booths, he chose to seat us where he knew I would hate sitting because it was amongst the crowd. I would be less likely to say anything against him in a crowd if I needed to retaliate against him. Although I could have spoken up and requested a move, I remained silent. I could not talk. My voice was chained shut.
Breakfast Onward
Breakfast would have been tastier had I not felt an impending sense of doom over all that Mr. Charm had cast a shadow upon. He was upbeat but somewhat somber at the same time. I gathered that he was attempting to mirror my somber mood. I sensed that he was trying not to be so upbeat that he seemed careless and insensitive to the fact that he had been so mean and disrespectful to me just the day before.
Nevertheless, Mr. Charm seemed to try to escape the huge invisible elephant sitting in the room. Despite his mixed behavior, I did not feel that it was my place to address the invisible elephant since he was the one who was the reason for the elephant’s placement in the first place. He avoided the issues, but I avoided them too. There was no use in attempting to bring up any topic to cause friction in the restaurant. Yet, this was all by his design.
I reasoned that in his eyes the issue from the day before was settled because he had apologized for his behavior. His apology was increased by his invitation to treated me to a grand breakfast which I had accepted from him. I also reasoned that he wanted me to simply snap out of my sad mood, but for the life of me I simply could not. I did not have the ability to snap out of it as he would have wanted me to do so. I could not just move on pretending that nothing had ever happened between us. Then suddenly, like a bolt of lightening had struck me, I realized where I had seen this same display of behavior in relationships before.
I realized that I was experiencing a cycle of abuse with Mr. Charm. The cycle is usually that the abuser is physically or verbally abusive against the target. The abuser somehow realizes the error of his or her ways which s/he blames on the target so as not to accept full responsibility and blame. The abuser then apologizes to the target with a lot of excuses that genuinely do not add up to the abuser being accountable for his or her actions. Nevertheless, the target attempts to swallow the hurt in the best way possible but accepts the apology hoping that the abuser will change. The abuse then dies down a bit until the next round. Then the cycle of abuse repeats again.
I saw the so-called friendship I had with Mr. Charm for what it was, but I had recently felt that the friendship had crossed over into dangerous and fearful territory. I had the epiphany that the breakfast treat was the “honeymoon” part of the abuse cycle. It was then that intuitively grasped the concept of what it meant to be in an abusive friendship. It was then that I knew I had to get out. I had no choice. This was not the way I wanted to live. He had only spoken of hitting me, but it was only a matter of time before physical abuse might possibly materialize before me.
In hindsight, there was absolutely no reason for me to hang on to the friendship especially when I sensed how Mr. Charm truly felt about me. I needed it to be over, and I new in some way he may have wanted it to be over too. Before breakfast ended, I remember taking one more look at him. I scanned his features and then looked him squarely in his eyes. His eyes “kindly” searched mine, and for an instant I saw his fear. Within the depths of my being, I knew that he would never change. I looked away from him, and then I mourned within myself. I pushed down tears into the pits of that ocean of deep emotions inside of me. Now that I had the epiphany of what was, I knew relating to him would never be the same again. It was over. I was done.
As we left the restaurant, Mr. Charm turned to me and said that this day would not be a work day … that we would take the day off to just chill and that we would go back to working on the repairs the following week. Instead of accepting his invitation to hang out, I thanked him for breakfast. I had chosen to stay home and rest from exhaustion. In my thoughts, I knew it was time for me to strategize my exit from this so-called friendship. As I turned to get out of the car, I caught a sinister gleam within in eyes as he smiled at me. I instantly read his thoughts which uttered, “I’ve got her where I want her!”
He could not have been more wrong. I was on my way out of his life and he out of mine!
Stay tuned for what happens next.
My Voice Unchained 