Welcome to Rock-Bottom!

by Quercus


This week's therapy appointment was hard on me. I am struggling through the crisis of a friend, one I've alluded to before, and it has used up all of the tiny amount of 'resilience' I still had left inside. I had another "psychic suicidal tsunami", only this time it wasn't triggered by happiness (referencing the previous post "If You're Happy and You Know it, Punish Yourself").

My friend is relying heavily on me to "rescue" her from a very, very sticky situation with major (and I mean major) implications for many individuals. She avoids all responsibility (all of it, when it is clearly almost entirely her fault!). She has more excuses for her situation than I thought possible. Everyone and everything is to blame, but not her - she's the innocent victim. Unfortunately, my brain can't wrap itself around that delusion. She's gone too far this time, and this situation has the potential of being severely damaging to many people. And though she seems to have orchestrated the whole regrettable scenario, she still pleads innocent! "You've got to help me!".

I have long suspected that my friend is a narcissist. I didn't mention this at my appointment, though; I just lamented my role in this whole affair, my limited power and resources, and yet how I'm suddenly made responsible for her entire life! (And not only by her, but by her awful narcissistic-and-then-some NM, who thanked me profusely for "taking care of" my friend the last time I had the misfortune of crossing her path. I insisted that I don't "take care of" my friend, I'm just her friend, but the NM insisted that I was the 'guardian angel' of her daughter, and always have been there for her, and always will be, and aren't I angelic...). What did my friend's NM just do there? Manipulation. Note the flattery, too. If you didn't see it the first time, read through it again. What she did was make me responsible for the welfare of her daughter. Why she did it was to let herself off the hook, which she has certainly done.

"Your friend is displaying some extremely narcissistic traits." my psychologist said. He rarely makes such pronouncements. I think he was worried that I might have missed the giant red flags, but I hadn't.

Over the course of the session, it dawned on me what's happening... my friend is the VICTIM. Her NM along with many other people are the PERSECUTORS. Me, the sucker, is being called upon at all hours of the day and night to RESCUE her.

Ah, that loathsome triangle again!

Here's the thing - I've been swapped into the PERSECUTOR role again already, back and forth from RESCUER, when I'm not able to rescue her (and sometimes within the same text message!). Which, for complex reasons that I'm beginning to understand, makes perfect sense: Narcissists who play the VICTIM don't WANT rescuing! They won't let you save them, and when you fail (which you invariably will; can't meet their high standards, and that bar will keep getting raised higher and higher if you do!), you'll be yet another PERSECUTOR to blame.

Narcissists can't (won't?) accept responsibility for their negative actions. And they don't want you to rescue them, 'cause it would make you 'better/stronger' than they are. All they want is exoneration and absolution, and to come out smelling of roses despite their misdeeds (or worse)!

*

But my therapy sessions are about ME, not my friend, and so I talked about how this made me feel, how I didn't think I could cope, and how all hope for my future was gone again.

For various complicated reasons, I found myself bawling into the night to my DH about how hard this whole 'journey' out of ACoN-hood was, and how I didn't think I could do it anymore.

I'll repent openly to you all and say that for a brief period, I considered going back to my NFOO.

I thought about how I was on "the inside", and I pictured a darkness and a faintly luminescent blue 'scaffolding', like you'd see at a construction site, filling that void. That scaffold, the cold, metal, empty framework, is my NFOO.

Then I envisioned just an emptiness inside, where the scaffold had been taken down. I realised that I had no 'structural rigidity' in me. Just a void. I imagined a fragile and hollow shell, like that of a sea urchin's.

shellhorizons.com

The scaffold before was flimsy, and maybe 'radioactive' would be a good description. It was harming me in ways I didn't necessarily notice at first, but it was still something to lean on.

I wanted to take the coward's way out, briefly, and return to my NFOO. I could know that they'd never change and they'd always be toxic, but still find a way to survive, right? I could just accept the abuse in exchange for the delusion of perceived psychological integrity, even if the scaffold was only an illusion and there wasn't any actual support, but my brain didn't have to know that.......

Just the idea of having SOME SUPPORT was psychologically easier for me than removing it all so that there is NO SUPPORT in me. Nothing! What can I lean on? What will prevent me from caving in and breaking into a million pieces like a brittle hollow shell? (A hollow chocolate Easter bunny crushed in shipping was the other imagery I thought of).

I said I was scared. Massively scared. I didn't think I could go on! I thought I'd be crushed tomorrow, now that I had disassembled the NFOO's scaffolding in my mind. There was nothing left to hold me up! Even the ricketiest structure of their 'support scaffold', which burns and poisons, was still easier than nothing, NOTHING at all!

I have rarely seen my psychologist look so excited and engaged. This might have been one of my lowest points, and it seemed as if it was his happiest.

"This is a very important realisation. You have realised that where loving parents were supposed to be, you instead received a twisted metal framework. Removing that, there is nothing left. You will always have this void. Now you have reached the grieving; you will need to properly grieve that emptiness inside where love was supposed to be."

I'm not entirely convinced that this is a good thing. I'm glad someone is, because it feels awful to be perfectly frank. And dangerous. Really, really unstable and dangerous.

"But that is what your mother wants you to believe. These are her thoughts now. 'Stay with the family, despite the damage we cause, and you'll be fine. Leave the family and you'll never make it. You'll be cursed and empty for the rest of your life. Empty. Hollow. Alone. Vulnerable'. Do you see how she'd have you believe that?"

Yes. I do. It's hard for me to differentiate between my thoughts, and beliefs my NM implanted in me from my infancy. I didn't realise that my self-doubt was mostly put there by NM.

This is rock-bottom. This is where I start rebuilding from. I asked him what I could ever do to be able to "function" as a human being? I haven't got any resiliency left. I haven't got much hope at all to speak of. He said, and I will say it was unsettling:

"You'll never fill that void. It will always be there. Always."

I can't help but think that I need something to fill that void. "No one wants to parent me now that I'm a married woman in my thirties! Not even my MIL! I really need someone to parent me!"

"No one's going to, you're right. You missed that. You'll never get it."

(Is it just me, or is this NOT reassuring?!). "But what am I going to do? I can't function this way! Psychologically, I'm frail! I'm going to crack up and shatter! I need something to help me gain stability!"

"Well. I guess we'll just have to do good work here, then." he said with a smile. 

Sometimes I think he must be disappointed with my lack of faith in the process of therapy. I don't really know what the end-point of therapy is meant to be, or what it can accomplish. I do know it's saved my life, it's saved my sanity, and that I am immensely thankful for it. If it weren't for therapy, I couldn't have distanced myself to "Low Contact" with my NFOO. I wouldn't have had the strength, I really wouldn't have. I would have tried, had messy relapses, and just made a pig's ear of the whole thing. I'd be mired in their misery, and more aware of the reality around me (thanks to reading about NPD online, and reading ACoN blogs!), but just as incapable of getting myself out. I might have been worse off, in a way. I'd have lost the ignorance that was a protective factor to one who can't escape an NFOO.

There was more in this session, related to my involvement with my NFriend, that I think is worth sharing. But I'll follow that up in another post.

Right now, I'm at "rock-bottom". I have to grieve.

"Now you see that you can't go back - to go back to your family is death, and really, you were 'dead' before when you were with them."

(I had told him that when I was fantasizing about going back to the NFOO, retreating and surrendering, that I pictured myself committing suicide in various ways (variations on a theme), and interestingly, at my parent's house. Not me and my DH's place, but their house. I believe my mind, however conflicted, knows that going back means dying alone, miserably).

"But you also have realised that there is an emptiness in you that will never be filled. You see that your parents never filled that void and never will. Not only is it too late, you now see that they are incapable of filling that hole. So you must move onwards, away from them."

I'm throwing a little rock-bottom party here at my place today. In attendance - just me and my inner child (and my DH, when he's back from work). You're all invited (in spirit).

From this point on, QG can't go back. Before I wouldn't go back, but apparently now I cannot go back (says the shrink). From this point on, I only go forward. Bleakly, it seems. Forward with a great big emptiness inside of me.

I'm having a wake to mourn the love that never was. Raise a glass of cheer to me, or enjoy a piece of chocolate and think of your friend Quercus. I'll think of all of you, too. But mostly of the unconditional parental love that never was, and the great big hole I have received as an inheritance.