Walking Right Into An Attempted Hoover
I could have ignored the Professional Gaslighting Narcissist (PGN) and pretended that I did not see her, but I just did not have it in me to be mean to her. She had followed me into a parking lot and parked her vehicle next to mine on my passenger’s side. She was talking to me before I even rolled down my window. Instead of having a conversation from car to car, I decided to face her. I needed to test my own feelings because in that moment, I felt absolutely nothing, and I was not so sure as to the reason.
When I got out of my car, I braced myself. I waited for the emotions of fear and anger to arise, but there was nothing. I wondered what she would possibly have to say to me. We had not spoken to each other in nine months! There had been nine months of absolutely no contact. Nine months prior, I had discerned for some time that she was planning to discard me. She had invited me for a brunch to celebrate my birthday, but intuitively, I knew that she would not follow through.
I knew the PGN was going to attempt to ruin my birthday by not acknowledging me as she had done a few times in the past, but I was ready. When my birthday came, I decided to finally treat myself by cutting her off for good. She never contacted me for my birthday. She never acknowledged me. I supposed she would do it after the fact claiming that she had forgotten as she had done in the past or even gaslight me altogether by pretending to give new dates to my day of birth, but I did not wait for any of her excuses. I blocked her access to me, and I never looked back.
In fact, I discerned that PGN harbored a long-held resentment against me. I am not particularly sure of the actual reason, but there was a shadow that constantly moved across her face whenever I saw her. Something within her eyes would continuously glare out at me. There was a fixation coming through her eyes that signified the amount of hatred she withheld from coming out towards me publicly.
Instead of reacting towards me in her hatred, she would instead give me the silent treatment or she would wait until no one was around before dispelling harsh words of criticism with such an undertone of silent stutter that I knew she whispered so no one would hear her. I knew she behaved this way to make it seem that I was hearing things. It was a method of madness she used to gaslight me and cause me to question my own sanity.
She had an invisible energy that I knew well. At times, she behaved as if she could not tolerate being around me because her hatred of me was so strong. Among other people, like her flying monkeys, she would always keep her back towards me so that she did not have to look at me. When I did interact with her, I recognized that glare through here eyes as the glare I had seen a gazillion times in my mother. It was the glare of hate and disdain for me and my own rebellion against her dominion over me.
Yet, here I was before this frenemy narcissist once again completely disbanding from a long time of no contact from her. I took a deep breath and made my way around my car in her direction. As I came face to face with her, I was stunned by her appearance. I noticed how the sunshine beamed upon her face, but there was no radiance. Her facial appearance had shown great signs of aging since I last saw her. I attributed her look to stress. It was all in her eyes. They appeared sad, but she seemed to be happy to see me.
During a love bombing phase, there was never a dark shadow on her face. She always appeared happy. I always knew when the devaluation or discard phase was on the horizon because her entire demeanor would change. She would stiffen up in posture, and the glow of sunshine would set away from her to reveal an overwhelming darkness that would overshadow any appearance of happiness. In the moment that I was now before her, I instantly thought that she must have been happy, but I could see past her mask from which she hid herself. I could see a mixture of contorted expressions that basically conveyed her wonder about me.
I felt like I stared at her a lifetime before I finally spoke.
Find out what happened next.
My Voice Unchained 