The Constant Struggle of Being Unable to Let Go

It happened a year ago. Has it been a year already? Back then it felt like an eternity. Every day was a struggle. A struggle to maintain no contact. A struggle to not miss AS. A struggle to keep my sanity. A struggle to be strong. Yet the days continued. I survived. A year later and I am still surviving.

I did break the no contact. I am still friends with AS. But this time I know what to expect. I know what to do and I know how to protect myself. I do admit there are still moments when I am caught off guard, when I revert back to my usual way of dealing with him. However, like the text book NPD person that he is, the minute he sees I am back to my old self he tries to strike. That’s when I wake up. That’s when I have to put a wall up again.

I know it sounds like hard work. To constantly be on guard. To constantly put my walls up. I don’t understand it myself. I wish I do. I wish I can explain why I am still friends with AS. Why I cannot get myself to walk away? I try to rationalize it by saying that I consider AS as my brother…as family. I am fiercely loyal to my family. I do not give up on them no matter what kind of shenanigan they do or trouble they cause me. Yes, technically he is not my brother but I have considered him as one for so long that it’s hard for me to separate that when I think of him. I know it has to stop at some point. He will never change. He will always find the opportunity to discard me. He is just waiting for that moment when I am vulnerable.

He moved again for his job. He found new friends and new people to be another potential supply for him. I already know who his next target is. I noticed the pattern. He starts with the social media “LIKE” bomb! He likes every single thing you post. Every picture. Every comment, regardless of how pointless and stupid it was. He did that to me before. Every.Single.One. Now I would be lucky if he likes anything I post. I can count it in one hand. Used to be I cannot post anything without him hitting the “Like” button. Ah social media and Narcissists…sigh.

After the “Like” bomb he would start inviting her to hang out. Every. Single. Day. He started that this week. I shall name this girl Laney for easier reference. He asked Laney to go hiking, then to go eat out, then to watch a movie, then to go swimming…every single day is a different activity. There are other co-workers but he singled her out. So typical. Like he did with me. She’s been posting on his wall about all the fun things they did. Same reaction as mine when he started singling me out and spending so much time with me. So weird because we’re different people, different women but yet we have the same reaction. We do the same things. As if we are programmed to be the perfect supply for his narcissistic needs. Strange.

I am waiting for him to invite her to an out of town trip. That’s what he did to me. That’s what he did to the supply after me, Beth. He invited her to go out of town with him. We were at No Contact phase that time but since I did not block or unfriend him from social media I saw all the post regarding their trip. The never ending praise they have for each other on how fun the trip was. It was mental torture. I cried. I remembered our fun times. I remembered being that girl. This was the moment that made me put him in a restricted section of my social media accounts. He’s there but I don’t see him.

He discarded Beth several months ago, right around the time when he went back to idealizing me again. My friend who was a friend of Beth said she was devastated. She did not know what happened. Why things suddenly changed. Why he suddenly started picking fights. I told my friend to give her some advice about what I went through but don’t say it was from me. The last I heard she’s still struggling but doing better. I wish I can talk to her and let her know she’s not alone. I tried one time to befriend her but she did not welcome my efforts. I know it’s because AS told her about me. I am pretty sure that she has heard what I heard AS was saying about me from the grapevine. I still remember the smear campaign that AS launched against me. It was awful. If she believed what AS told her about me, then that’s her choice. I cannot force myself on her or I would be creating more of a problem than a solution. So I let her be. I pray for her healing.

So now I am hoping Laney will realize what kind of person AS is before it’s too late. I do not wish for what I went through (and probably what Beth is going through) on anybody. I have learned my lessons the hard way and even though I am still exposing myself to the problem, I am facing it with my version of a bullet proof vest: knowledge of what kind of person AS really is and knowing what I need to do not to be victimized again.

Eventually I will retire from exposing myself to this kind of situation. For now, I am not yet ready. Every day is still a struggle.

Facebook and Narcissistic Friendship

The past weekend was quite challenging for me.  AS (my narcissistic former friend) came to town for a party. I found this out through a common friend’s Facebook post. He was very active in the comment section  (so unlike him as he rarely likes anybody’s post or even comment on any post other than his own) as if he wants to let me know that he is in town, having fun and not contacting me. A few weeks ago I would have been devastated to find out that he is blatantly ignoring me. However, when I read his barrage of post detailing how much fun he’s having with so and so, I just find myself laughing. He must be in massive need of narcissistic supply to travel from another town to our town for a birthday party of someone he just met a month ago.

The following morning I got an alert that he added 10 new people (all from the party) in his growing list of Facebook friends. All of his recent additions are girls. I find this interesting because he is gay yet he seem to prefer women to be his narcissistic supply. My husband asked me several times, when AS and I are still in good terms, if I am sure that AS is gay because he noticed how he seems to always surround himself with women. I think it’s because it is easier for him to manipulate women. After all, he has this sadistic way of singling out a woman from his pack, shower her with much attention and affection (or fake affection in this case) that the woman starts thinking hat maybe he’s not really gay and there is hope. He did this to countless of women that he used to be close friends with until they became obsessed with him ( or so he claims). He did this to me. Not that I hoped that he was not gay, nor did I even fantasize any romance between us, but I do admit there are moments during the idealization phase that made me wonder if he was in love with me. The attention was too much, the focus was intense and the way he treated me in the beginning was of someone who is interested in dating me. He wanted to know everything about me. He wanted to know what I like, what I don’t like, what makes me tick. He wanted to know my job, how much I make, where I spent my money, how much such and such cost. Then I noticed how we have many things in common, ranging from music, to nature, to taste in food (especially sushi and seafood). He always wanted me around. He wanted to spend almost every single day with me that I had to put my foot down on some days because my husband was complaining about the amount of time I spent with AS. The things we have in common plus the shower of attention was making me even doubt my own feelings. It was making me feel like a giggly school girl who is getting attention from her crush. He was making me doubt my love for my husband. He was making me doubt myself. Now I realized that this was all a part of the idealization phase and all the data gathering was to build his arsenal to be used against me when he is ready to discard me.

Almost everyone I talk to ask me why I still have him on Facebook as a friend. I know that I am doing no contact but they say having him on Facebook and seeing his information is still a little bit of contact in a way. Everyone has a different way of dealing with things and of interpreting things. I understand that to most people unfriending and blocking their N is the best way to do no contact. This is in the same vein as most people would rather deactivate their Facebook than just simply log off and disappear for a while. However, I have my reasons for keeping him on Facebook. It may not seem logical to most but at this moment it works for me. I keep him on Facebook (although today I set him to a spot where I don’t even see him in my news feed nor do I get any notification) because I want him to know that nothing he says or does affect me in anyway and that I am perfectly happy living my life without his presence. I know he thinks that my life would fall apart without him. He put himself in such high regard that he thinks I would be miserable and whiny whenever he post things that he knows would stir a reaction from me. I do admit, it does, but not the reaction he was hoping for. Every time he posts something that I know is meant to elicit a reaction from me, I laugh at his pathetic efforts then I do the exact opposite, I ignore his post and I don’t even bother posting anything for that day.  I have actually done this many times since his discard email, that it’s no longer an effort for me.

I know that people say Narcissist don’t really care about you. I do agree. However, I think that when he’s trying to get a reaction out of me by posting things that he knows will push my buttons it’s not because he truly cares about how I will react. It is more of a control issue. He wants to see if he can still affect me and make me react the way he expected me to. Right now, because I have not done anything he expected, I have a feeling that he’s doing all these extra efforts to gain back control over my emotions.  Sorry dear, I’m done giving you anything.

When he started devaluing me, I sensed that there is a new supply already available to replace me. Of course, at that time I didn’t know I was being devalued. I just thought I was being replaced as a friend. The funny thing was he convinced this new girl from the get go that I am psychotic and obsessed with him. I now realized that that’s the reason why when I used to work with this girl she would always give me the cold shoulder no matter how nice I am to her. I even complained to AS about it at that time ( I was completely unaware that him and his new supply nicknamed me “crazy” behind my back) and he said I was just reading too much into it and S (the new supply) is a very nice person. Even so, she added me to Facebook and I accepted her request. I figured that’s her way of extending an olive branch. Last weekend, when AS was here,  S started posting every single thing she and AS were doing and how he’s the best guy ever. I started rolling my eyes when I read that. I was thinking…oh boy, you are in for a ride my dear. Welcome to the Funhouse!

I think that AS picked her out of all the potential new supplies (he has several supplies available but he singles out one main one like he singled me out) as the main supply because he knew that I dislike her. It’s almost like hitting two birds in one stone, he gets a new narcissistic supply who worships the ground he walks on (I’ve heard this girl talk about him nonstop to anybody who would listen at work, even our supervisors) and he thinks it will piss me off. Sorry dear, all I feel now is pity for her because she didn’t know what she’s getting into and pity for you because you will never really have a true and lasting friendship.

I told my friend that I found a silver lining in my “AS Experience” (as I refer to our so called friendship). I realized that I need to establish strong boundaries. Know what I should and shouldn’t put up with when it comes to people. I should trust my gut instinct that if something does not feel right, I should walk away. I already felt something was amiss during the initial devaluation phase but I held on. I should have let go at that point. Silly me, I didn’t know I was holding on to a fantasy.

But the most important lesson I learned was that I married a wonderful man who will stand by me no matter how much I hurt him during this entire ordeal.

I may never fully understand why (out of all the women in his supply arsenal) he picked me. What’s important is that he is now gone from my life and that I am slowly, but surely recovering from this horrible nightmare.