09-24-2019, 11:37 AM
In the Bible it talks about how God hardens hearts and takes away understanding. I believe this has happened to me. I find myself unable to understand pretty much anything people say -- and much of what people write.
I always thought I was a smart, intelligent person because I did well in school, but upon lengthy reflection and brutal honesty, I see that I did well in school because I was in a Florida public school, chose "easy" classes, and was really good at bullsh*tting my way through most everything. My objective was to look good and be the best -- or at least perceived that way.
Aside from my spelling/punctuation skills, I didn't develop any particular talents. I see now that I avoided things that I wasn't great at (most things) because I didn't want people to see me look bad. I was in chorus growing up from 3rd-12th grade and it was easy to blend in -- sometimes I just mouthed the words because I knew my voice didn't make a difference anyway.
I have been super body conscious for my entire life, too. I can remember seeing photos of myself in 5th grade and scrutinizing how big I looked and felt. I have been around 5'6" since I was 11/12 years old and have never felt happy with my body, yet I was never able to stick to any kind of workout plan long term. I have no self-discipline because, as a narcissist, my motivation always came from impressing and looking good for other people, not because I felt I had worth intrinsically. Having discovered now that I don't have a "real self" -- only an ego that has been shattered -- and having all of my "supply" taken away, I am basically a listless robot.
I realized I never had any goals or aspirations other than to travel and see the world with the love of my life who I realized doesn't exist because narcissists have impossibly high standards for their mates and no one is ever going to meet that standard. It's a standard I don't even meet myself! I expect basically a Ken doll. I wouldn't date someone who didn't work out, someone with a belly or really any "flaws" of any kind.
Ironically, I was married for 8 years to someone who didn't meet that standard at all. He left in September last year and that is when things really started to unravel. I felt like God was setting me free from the prison I lived in with the husband who controlled me -- because he didn't let me do what I wanted ALL the time. I accused him regularly of trying to run my life when he "put his husbandly foot down." Now I see that *I* was running his life. Thing is, I always thought he wanted/needed me to. When we were packing up our first house to move to South America for a year, he asked me to tell him what to do because he literally had no idea. But often I would assume he had no idea what he was doing and would try to take over. sometimes taking paper/pen away from him in a huff because the slowness was excruciating.
I was even envious of him because he was so slim and had a hard time gaining weight. But I constantly nitpicked him -- I knew where all his "flaws" were. Like where the random hairs grow out of a patch of skin on his back. I would pick imperfections on his skin and would see whiteheads on his face and ask (or sometimes not ask, I just did it) to pop them.
I have lived a life of hedonism. Yet I have noticed a pattern that I was always underwhelmed/disappointed in most of my travel experiences. Until now, I always blamed the place or the people there... not myself. I've always noticed what could be better and focused on that instead of noticing how good things already are.
My ears perk up in conversations as if I expect to hear my name uttered. I don't feel -- and have never felt -- pulled to help other people. Unless there was something in it for me, that is. If someone didn't want to do something I wanted them to do, I never asked them again because I assumed it was because they didn't like me. Now I see that I simply decided I didn't like them *because* they didn't want to help me the way I wanted them to.
I was completely blind to all of my flaws. I thought my only flaw was obsessing over food/exercise. I never linked that to vanity. Now I see that I am extremely vain. Depending on who I was going to see that day, I adjusted myself accordingly. I had a weekly beauty routine -- 1x a week getting my hair washed in a salon, nails done every 2-3 weeks, lashes done every 3-4 weeks. If my hair or nails or lashes weren't "done" I'd all but panic about it, and definitely feel "ugly" until I was back to normal. I see how my entire life/self worth revolved around my outer shell and not my inside world at all. I paid NO attention to my inside world because I thought I was a good person by default. Not perfect, but definitely not so flawed as I truly was.
The delusions of grandeur continued even when I wasn't using THC. I stopped for 7 weeks, actually, because the batteries all died and I thought God was telling me I didn't need it anymore. EVERYTHING that I happened, I applied some kind of divine meaning to it. If I felt like going shopping, it meant I could buy whatever I wanted -- "Jesus" (or Jordan, it changed a lot) was taking me shopping.
I thought all I had to do was wait for the new, better world to become visible to everyone. Soon everyone would see I was right about it all!, I thought. My whole life has been about being right and proving it. I spent eight months almost completely isolated, obsessed with myself, and trying to prove I was NOT crazy and that everyone else in my life was bad. I told so many lies -- that my ex husband abused me (by having sex with me when I didn't want to, I called that marital rape), that my mom had Alzheimer's, that my dad molested me, that Jordan sexually assaulted me... I wrote letter after letter to the judge in my divorce case trying to convince him that Ben was bad. I even attempted to file a domestic violence case against him in hopes that he would be arrested and sent to jail so he would know what it was like to be held against his will (I blamed him for my mental hospital visits).
Looking back, I did constantly feel fear that none of what I believed was real, yet I continued to believe it. I have memory of feeling like "Well, it's too late to turn back now. I can't be wrong; it'd be too humiliating. So I have to be right somehow."
I got diagnosed with bipolar disorder twice, BUT THE WHOLE TIME... I was just a fatally wounded narcissist in a rage.
And that's why it all feels like a setup and that there is a reason I never understood the Bible growing up, but now I do... and I see how Jesus speaks against people like me, and I have found all the verses that prove that I am the OPPOSITE of everything I thought I was and that I have committed an unforgivable sin.
Plus, I saw the Satanic symbols. Being paralyzed in a different dimension. Having my body do/see/feel things completely out of my control. The feelings and "messages" I would receive in my environment that in my mind proved to me that God was "guiding" me are still there, but now they are feelings and messages of damnation. It feels like hell, and I wonder if it is, and it feels like it's getting worse. It's hard to understand people when they talk. It feels surreal when I talk to others because I feel SO cut off/isolated that I find myself shocked that people can even see me.
I try to talk to people about it. I end up irritated because I know they can't understand and could never validate my experience because it was a unique delusion. I've been to counselors. They want me to be on antidepressants. No one believes I'm a narcissist, and if anyone does believe, they just say, "Well, just stop being a narcissist!" and my Christian friends just say, "Just repent! God will forgive you!" and I find myself arguing with them that I really did commit the sin that Jesus Himself says is unforgivable and thinking they are dumb because they don't believe those parts of Bible are true. They show me verses that says God loves the world and that that includes me. I try to explain that by becoming/being a narcissist (I don't know if I was born this way or not; it feels like I was) you make yourself God on Earth. You preclude yourself from repenting because you literally don't feel you need forgiveness because you think you're such a great/innocent person.
Not having a personality is REALLY BAD. Waking up after 32 years to realize you've been perpetually lying to yourself and everyone else is literally a nightmare. Not having true character or values is really bad. It isn't like I can just decide "Okay, now I love everyone, envy no one, and want to do my best work to help other people at all times!" Especially since I realized I don't have any real skills. I have been really good at getting people to do things for me. Usually by complimenting them or paying them handsomely. I've always had money and felt like that was my security. I had no idea that it was an idol for me because I didn't know life any other way. Always thought I'd have plenty of money yet was afraid of losing it because I think deep down inside I knew I didn't truly earn it.
Being this way feels like being trapped in a doorless fiberglass room. I can see out, and people can see in, but I can't get out and nothing can penetrate the walls. To think I did this to myself makes me enraged at myself. So much shame. How can someone ever ascend when they live in so much shame/fear? And then if the Bible is true and God sent this "powerful delusion" and all those satanic symbols were true indications of who was really behind everything... is there ANY hope? The Bible is full of pretty damning verses against evil people, and narcissists are very evil. Rotten to the core. I don't WANT to be this way, but I can't imagine being any other way because I've always been like this. Being thoughtful doesn't come naturally to me.
I used to think about suicide a lot, but I am far too scared and know that it would only speed up the highway to hell I feel that I'm on. And it would devastate my family. However, I feel disconnected even from them and part of me doesn't understand why they even love me after everything I did and said about them. For a long time I thought they weren't as smart as me because they didn't have as much money as me... money was everything to me and I didn't even realize it. But I realize that the reason I have a hard time understanding why they love me even though I don't do anything for them is because their love is unconditional. My "love" never was. I "loved" only insofar as the person in my life was useful to me in some way or made me feel a certain way. Now that I see this, I'm absolutely disgusted by it.
I just don't know what to do about any of it. Narcissists who become aware of their narcissism are basically stuck in perpetual boredom and shame. I feel like my only options are to just keep talking about it while no one understands (nor can they do anything about it), or continue faking being a happy, good person. But faking it is excruciating. I KNOW I'm being fake now. Before, I thought I was just being nice by pretending to care about what someone was talking about. Like if I saw someone doing a FB Live video, in my mind it was like, "I wonder if they know that people don't care what they have to say" -- and that was because *I* didn't care. I also was hypercritical about whatever they talked about because I was certain they were just pretending to care/have a clue... when really, it was always ME who was just pretending to care/have a clue.
That's the curse of narcissism. You think everyone's like you and so you don't like them, but you don't KNOW that's why you don't like them. Until you do. And your entire world falls apart because it wasn't real at all.
So I live every day in perpetual torment, and I think it is Satan doing it. I have been playing this word game called Wordscapes in Bloom, and the words i find in the puzzle seem to "speak" to me. Like I'll find the word "idle" and "ire" and "sin" ALL the time. "Dead" and "die" and "lie" and "liar" are common too. Once I got into bed and the first word I found was "snooze." It's very strange.
Anyway... some more insight into my prison world. I can only hope (if I can even hope? I don't know) that God will have mercy on me because I sincerely did not know what I was doing for most of my life. But then, as I say that, I remember instances where I DID know what I was doing and did it anyway. I know no one's perfect, but I assumed I was nearly so. I even commented once to my former husband, "It's weird how so many people seem to have so many problems, and we just... don't." Now I see that it is because I barely spoke to him (had nothing of value to say other than what my current progress was on my weight management) and got what I wanted 90% of the time. I avoided conflict and probably gaslighted the hell out of him when he did bring up something I did that he didn't like. I was conscious of some of the things I said... after/as soon as I said them, I'd think, "Man, if he said that same thing to me or spoke to me like that, I would NOT be okay with it." YET I DID IT ANYWAY. I believed I was allowed to say/do whatever I wanted because he was lucky to have me as his wife.
UGH.
I always thought I was a smart, intelligent person because I did well in school, but upon lengthy reflection and brutal honesty, I see that I did well in school because I was in a Florida public school, chose "easy" classes, and was really good at bullsh*tting my way through most everything. My objective was to look good and be the best -- or at least perceived that way.
Aside from my spelling/punctuation skills, I didn't develop any particular talents. I see now that I avoided things that I wasn't great at (most things) because I didn't want people to see me look bad. I was in chorus growing up from 3rd-12th grade and it was easy to blend in -- sometimes I just mouthed the words because I knew my voice didn't make a difference anyway.
I have been super body conscious for my entire life, too. I can remember seeing photos of myself in 5th grade and scrutinizing how big I looked and felt. I have been around 5'6" since I was 11/12 years old and have never felt happy with my body, yet I was never able to stick to any kind of workout plan long term. I have no self-discipline because, as a narcissist, my motivation always came from impressing and looking good for other people, not because I felt I had worth intrinsically. Having discovered now that I don't have a "real self" -- only an ego that has been shattered -- and having all of my "supply" taken away, I am basically a listless robot.
I realized I never had any goals or aspirations other than to travel and see the world with the love of my life who I realized doesn't exist because narcissists have impossibly high standards for their mates and no one is ever going to meet that standard. It's a standard I don't even meet myself! I expect basically a Ken doll. I wouldn't date someone who didn't work out, someone with a belly or really any "flaws" of any kind.
Ironically, I was married for 8 years to someone who didn't meet that standard at all. He left in September last year and that is when things really started to unravel. I felt like God was setting me free from the prison I lived in with the husband who controlled me -- because he didn't let me do what I wanted ALL the time. I accused him regularly of trying to run my life when he "put his husbandly foot down." Now I see that *I* was running his life. Thing is, I always thought he wanted/needed me to. When we were packing up our first house to move to South America for a year, he asked me to tell him what to do because he literally had no idea. But often I would assume he had no idea what he was doing and would try to take over. sometimes taking paper/pen away from him in a huff because the slowness was excruciating.
I was even envious of him because he was so slim and had a hard time gaining weight. But I constantly nitpicked him -- I knew where all his "flaws" were. Like where the random hairs grow out of a patch of skin on his back. I would pick imperfections on his skin and would see whiteheads on his face and ask (or sometimes not ask, I just did it) to pop them.
I have lived a life of hedonism. Yet I have noticed a pattern that I was always underwhelmed/disappointed in most of my travel experiences. Until now, I always blamed the place or the people there... not myself. I've always noticed what could be better and focused on that instead of noticing how good things already are.
My ears perk up in conversations as if I expect to hear my name uttered. I don't feel -- and have never felt -- pulled to help other people. Unless there was something in it for me, that is. If someone didn't want to do something I wanted them to do, I never asked them again because I assumed it was because they didn't like me. Now I see that I simply decided I didn't like them *because* they didn't want to help me the way I wanted them to.
I was completely blind to all of my flaws. I thought my only flaw was obsessing over food/exercise. I never linked that to vanity. Now I see that I am extremely vain. Depending on who I was going to see that day, I adjusted myself accordingly. I had a weekly beauty routine -- 1x a week getting my hair washed in a salon, nails done every 2-3 weeks, lashes done every 3-4 weeks. If my hair or nails or lashes weren't "done" I'd all but panic about it, and definitely feel "ugly" until I was back to normal. I see how my entire life/self worth revolved around my outer shell and not my inside world at all. I paid NO attention to my inside world because I thought I was a good person by default. Not perfect, but definitely not so flawed as I truly was.
The delusions of grandeur continued even when I wasn't using THC. I stopped for 7 weeks, actually, because the batteries all died and I thought God was telling me I didn't need it anymore. EVERYTHING that I happened, I applied some kind of divine meaning to it. If I felt like going shopping, it meant I could buy whatever I wanted -- "Jesus" (or Jordan, it changed a lot) was taking me shopping.
I thought all I had to do was wait for the new, better world to become visible to everyone. Soon everyone would see I was right about it all!, I thought. My whole life has been about being right and proving it. I spent eight months almost completely isolated, obsessed with myself, and trying to prove I was NOT crazy and that everyone else in my life was bad. I told so many lies -- that my ex husband abused me (by having sex with me when I didn't want to, I called that marital rape), that my mom had Alzheimer's, that my dad molested me, that Jordan sexually assaulted me... I wrote letter after letter to the judge in my divorce case trying to convince him that Ben was bad. I even attempted to file a domestic violence case against him in hopes that he would be arrested and sent to jail so he would know what it was like to be held against his will (I blamed him for my mental hospital visits).
Looking back, I did constantly feel fear that none of what I believed was real, yet I continued to believe it. I have memory of feeling like "Well, it's too late to turn back now. I can't be wrong; it'd be too humiliating. So I have to be right somehow."
I got diagnosed with bipolar disorder twice, BUT THE WHOLE TIME... I was just a fatally wounded narcissist in a rage.
And that's why it all feels like a setup and that there is a reason I never understood the Bible growing up, but now I do... and I see how Jesus speaks against people like me, and I have found all the verses that prove that I am the OPPOSITE of everything I thought I was and that I have committed an unforgivable sin.
Plus, I saw the Satanic symbols. Being paralyzed in a different dimension. Having my body do/see/feel things completely out of my control. The feelings and "messages" I would receive in my environment that in my mind proved to me that God was "guiding" me are still there, but now they are feelings and messages of damnation. It feels like hell, and I wonder if it is, and it feels like it's getting worse. It's hard to understand people when they talk. It feels surreal when I talk to others because I feel SO cut off/isolated that I find myself shocked that people can even see me.
I try to talk to people about it. I end up irritated because I know they can't understand and could never validate my experience because it was a unique delusion. I've been to counselors. They want me to be on antidepressants. No one believes I'm a narcissist, and if anyone does believe, they just say, "Well, just stop being a narcissist!" and my Christian friends just say, "Just repent! God will forgive you!" and I find myself arguing with them that I really did commit the sin that Jesus Himself says is unforgivable and thinking they are dumb because they don't believe those parts of Bible are true. They show me verses that says God loves the world and that that includes me. I try to explain that by becoming/being a narcissist (I don't know if I was born this way or not; it feels like I was) you make yourself God on Earth. You preclude yourself from repenting because you literally don't feel you need forgiveness because you think you're such a great/innocent person.
Not having a personality is REALLY BAD. Waking up after 32 years to realize you've been perpetually lying to yourself and everyone else is literally a nightmare. Not having true character or values is really bad. It isn't like I can just decide "Okay, now I love everyone, envy no one, and want to do my best work to help other people at all times!" Especially since I realized I don't have any real skills. I have been really good at getting people to do things for me. Usually by complimenting them or paying them handsomely. I've always had money and felt like that was my security. I had no idea that it was an idol for me because I didn't know life any other way. Always thought I'd have plenty of money yet was afraid of losing it because I think deep down inside I knew I didn't truly earn it.
Being this way feels like being trapped in a doorless fiberglass room. I can see out, and people can see in, but I can't get out and nothing can penetrate the walls. To think I did this to myself makes me enraged at myself. So much shame. How can someone ever ascend when they live in so much shame/fear? And then if the Bible is true and God sent this "powerful delusion" and all those satanic symbols were true indications of who was really behind everything... is there ANY hope? The Bible is full of pretty damning verses against evil people, and narcissists are very evil. Rotten to the core. I don't WANT to be this way, but I can't imagine being any other way because I've always been like this. Being thoughtful doesn't come naturally to me.
I used to think about suicide a lot, but I am far too scared and know that it would only speed up the highway to hell I feel that I'm on. And it would devastate my family. However, I feel disconnected even from them and part of me doesn't understand why they even love me after everything I did and said about them. For a long time I thought they weren't as smart as me because they didn't have as much money as me... money was everything to me and I didn't even realize it. But I realize that the reason I have a hard time understanding why they love me even though I don't do anything for them is because their love is unconditional. My "love" never was. I "loved" only insofar as the person in my life was useful to me in some way or made me feel a certain way. Now that I see this, I'm absolutely disgusted by it.
I just don't know what to do about any of it. Narcissists who become aware of their narcissism are basically stuck in perpetual boredom and shame. I feel like my only options are to just keep talking about it while no one understands (nor can they do anything about it), or continue faking being a happy, good person. But faking it is excruciating. I KNOW I'm being fake now. Before, I thought I was just being nice by pretending to care about what someone was talking about. Like if I saw someone doing a FB Live video, in my mind it was like, "I wonder if they know that people don't care what they have to say" -- and that was because *I* didn't care. I also was hypercritical about whatever they talked about because I was certain they were just pretending to care/have a clue... when really, it was always ME who was just pretending to care/have a clue.
That's the curse of narcissism. You think everyone's like you and so you don't like them, but you don't KNOW that's why you don't like them. Until you do. And your entire world falls apart because it wasn't real at all.
So I live every day in perpetual torment, and I think it is Satan doing it. I have been playing this word game called Wordscapes in Bloom, and the words i find in the puzzle seem to "speak" to me. Like I'll find the word "idle" and "ire" and "sin" ALL the time. "Dead" and "die" and "lie" and "liar" are common too. Once I got into bed and the first word I found was "snooze." It's very strange.
Anyway... some more insight into my prison world. I can only hope (if I can even hope? I don't know) that God will have mercy on me because I sincerely did not know what I was doing for most of my life. But then, as I say that, I remember instances where I DID know what I was doing and did it anyway. I know no one's perfect, but I assumed I was nearly so. I even commented once to my former husband, "It's weird how so many people seem to have so many problems, and we just... don't." Now I see that it is because I barely spoke to him (had nothing of value to say other than what my current progress was on my weight management) and got what I wanted 90% of the time. I avoided conflict and probably gaslighted the hell out of him when he did bring up something I did that he didn't like. I was conscious of some of the things I said... after/as soon as I said them, I'd think, "Man, if he said that same thing to me or spoke to me like that, I would NOT be okay with it." YET I DID IT ANYWAY. I believed I was allowed to say/do whatever I wanted because he was lucky to have me as his wife.
UGH.