With my new found reality, my desire for knowledge had become insatiable. I couldn’t help but think back on my childhood and wonder how else I had been affected by this “difficult” time in my life. Then one day, it happened. I stumbled across a link in a Pinterest post about something called narcissistic abuse. What, I wondered, was narcissistic abuse? I had heard of narcissists. Those were just really self-absorbed people, right? That one simple thought proved how little I knew. Down the rabbit hole I went. In my pursuit to understand narcissistic abuse I found the YouTube channels of Doctor Les Carter (and of course Gus, you can’t forget Gus) and Doctor Ramani Durvasula. Both of them are clinical psychologists and have spent years studying and helping clients affected by narcissism and narcissistic abuse. Every day I learned more about narcissism. I was shocked at how much of my life had been negatively impacted by it. I was amazed at how many strange and infuriating behaviors that I had been forced to endure at the hands of relatives were so easily explained by narcissism. My whole life finally made sense. It was as if someone had finally turned the lights on and I could see clearly for the first time. As this reality began to sink in, I had to be honest. It wasn’t just family members that I had seen behave this way. I was also guilty of thinking and acting in these despicable ways. And for a long time, my own actions troubled and perplexed me as well. When I was able to see that I had been oriented to see the world in a narcissistic way by my family of origin, I finally understood my own motivations and where they came from. Now I was able to make the choice to be free and no longer walk in someone else’s paradigm. This new level of self-awareness also brought immense gratitude. I was finally able to make sense of events and relationships that for the longest time made no sense and were a massive source of pain and trauma. I was finally able to move forward. At last I felt something that seemed to elude me for so long; relief.
