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By Sandra Brown

The main problem women have after leaving pathological men is obtrusive constant thoughts of the relationship and cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously.

The main part of these pathological men is that show up as one thing, but they are something entirely different. This is a disorder of social hiding. This is an individual that is PROFOUNDLY disturbed but looks normal. In a normal relationship you dont have 2 different people to deal with. Here you are breaking up with dark side and the charmer.

What you miss is the charmer. What you broke up with is the dark side (and only true side).

Their disorder is this called the mask of sanity for a reason. They appear normal (better then normal - sweet, charming, handsome) but they are something else all together. These men have known they were different since they were children they are experts at hiding their dark side. If they showed you who they were, you would have gone running into the night screaming.

Here are some examples of what happens in these types of relationships:

You receive both:

bonding and abandonment
loving and loathing
child like vulnerability couple with adult mystique
support and sabotage
fun and then rage
the most wonderful soul mate you could have imagined as well as the sickest relationship you could experience all in one package
calculated and impulsive
idolized and devalued
aloof and super connected
kind and sadistic
capable and helpless

We are ping ponging all over the place. No wonder I walked on egg shells during the entire relationship.

First things first, how did we got into this situation?  Any words that I inserted are in italics.

From Page 51 on How to Spot Dangerous Man:

It was shocking to see how women chose to get involved with dangerous or pathological men out of boredom.  Equally disconcerting was seeing how women continue to date dangerous men because they refused to evaluate their own histories.  What was most noteworthy was the overwhelming need of most of the women to not be alone.  There was an unspoken fear of long term abandonment, which turned out for most women to equate to not currently dating. 

For the women I interviewed, the idea of dating someone causally for a lengthy period was fairly obsolete.  These women were in a hurry to get into a relationship.  Most implied they were above dating for mere attention.  None wanted to admit they feared loneliness, abandonment, or the status of not dating; they exhibited these fears in the way they downplayed the behavior of the dangerous man. 

Women who got involved with dangerous men usually dated intensely and allowed the relationship to get sexual quickly.  They moved in with him within months of meeting him or married him impulsively during the first year of the relationship.  Others were knowingly and willingly available for married men.

Who He Is

Of course, he does not enter a womans life announcing he is a deceitful, pathologically-disordered, power mongrel incapable of

anything more than surface attachment and is so brain-challenged he can not love! They present themselves initially as intensely interested in her, passionately loving, abundantly caring, and almost suffocatingly so.

The illusion is that:

 He was normal

 He was in love with you

 He was what he said he was

 And he did what he said he did.

In pathology, thats never the case.
 

Their attachments are surface (which is not love)

They are mentally disordered (which is not normal)

They never present themselves as disordered/sexually promiscuous/and incapable of love (so he was not what he said he was)

And they harbor hidden lives filled with other sex partners, hook ups, criminality, or illegal/moral behavior (so they dont disclose what he is really up to).

What you had (that you cant possibly miss) is a pathological relationship. What you miss, is the ability to wrap yourself up like a blanket in the illusion to go back to the time before you knew this was all illusion.

In medieval times one of the worst tortures that a prisoner could endure was Death by a Thousand Cuts. The torturer would make one cut at a time to his victim. A thousand cuts were not enough to kill a person. He could continue living until all of his blood drained out of his body slowly. This rarely happened since a victim could be cured and tortured for months-or years.

I think of this image as it is related directly to victims of the narcissist, especially those closest to him: spouses, children, siblings. The narcissist constantly picks away at family members with ear and nerve shattering screams, recriminations, verbal threats, untrue criticisms, horrendous humiliations, lies that are created to destroy credibility and reputations. The narcissist is always cutting, picking even slicing away at his spouses, children’s sibling’s feelings of confidence, competence and self worth.

The narcissist is looking for ways to bring you to your knees, to weaken you psychologically so you will collapse under his/her ultimate control. Some narcissists are truly sadistic and take joy and triumph in your psychological and emotional pain.

I have witnessed the life stories of children taken by the narcissistic parent, convincing judges that they were the fit parent and the other spouse was mentally disturbed and irresponsible. I have heard often of narcissists seizing entire estates and financial entities and leaving the discarded spouse without any material resources. I have watched some non-narcissistic spouses become physically chronically ill as a result of overwhelming thousands of psychological cuts they endured to remain in the coveted role as the narcissist’s partner.

What is your life worth? Do you deserve emotional peace, a time to breathe full uninterrupted breaths, access to your creative gifts and unique energies, opportunities to envision your own life (not a false replica created by a consummate manipulator) ?

If the answer to these questions is a resounding Yes, do your research about the narcissistic personality disorder. If you have already studied and understand the character disorder in your life, it is time to make your decision. Some of those closely related to narcissists by marriage or family decide that they can carve out a life by detaching themselves from these individuals and developing skills to keep themselves from getting hooked into the narcissists many lures, traps and punishments.

Others make the break from the narcissist and reconfigure their lives to reclaim their individuality, creativity, physical and mental strength and stamina.

 
by Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D.

www.thenarcissistinyourlife.com

I think one of the most covertly abusive aspects of the narcissistic relationship is psychological and emotional invalidation. When the narcissist has NO reaction to us at all, it denies our humanity. Makes us feel like were worthless, invisible, unimportant, irrelevant. Its so dispiriting we cant believe its happening and so, we try one more time to see if we can get them to respond. If they dont respond, their silence reinforces the belief that were worthless. This is very similar to what a child feels when a parent neglects them and does not meet their emotional needs.

If the N responds though, we perceive it as validation that were living, breathing, human beings. That we do have impact on others even if it hurts us. Even if the N is angry, at least we feel seen and heard and validated. This is the Hook we feel when ending an abusive relationship. If the N had never acknowledged our existence, we wouldnt get hooked emotionally. The hook is called Intermittent Reinforcement. We had ALL the Ns attention, dedication and admiration at one point, so we KNOW its there. If we can just do things RIGHT, well be rewarded with a response of some kind.

The Ns acknowledgment of our existence temporarily fills an inner void that everyone experiences when an important relationship ends. 
The problem with thinking we can earn validation (reward) is that were blaming ourselves for doing something WRONG when were NOT validated. We falsely believe that their invalidation is and was our fault.

Invalidation is one of the most painful cruelties human beings can experience. Going No Contact is all about healing yourself. Its not about making the narcissist miss you so much that he acknowledges your existence with a reply. Wondering why or if hell respond is still giving him too much power to validate your existence!

I know this isnt easy and we all do similar things until we get through this painful grieving period. Ending a relationship is excruciating for n-survivors because we think we found the answers to our self-doubt and self-worth when we met the N. Then suddenly, we find out they didnt even see us as human beings. They loved us like people love KitchenAids.

If we had any esteem issues or doubts about our worth and value, the D&D (devalue and discard) intensifies those feelings. It may take years to overcome a dysfunctional childhood after the N awakens fears we may not have known were there. The first step towards healthy self-reclamation is to let the N go his or her merry way and begin a long journey of self-discovery, initiated by our grief. It sounds like youre feeling the loss right now and its probably overwhelming

Even years later, its unfathomable to me how Ns can pick up and move on as if we never even existed. I will never understand it and I dont have to understand it. All I have to do is ACCEPT it.

Remember, the narcissists lack of attachment says NOTHING about you. All it says is that Ns are incapable of emotional attachment to anyone. They are NOT suffering, though. We are. So even in the darkest of times when you dont think you can tolerate another moment of pain, remind yourself how marvelous it is to Feel and Feel Deeply. Even sorrow.

Above from CZ on WoN:

http://www.webofnarcissism.com/forums/index.php/topic,5676.0.html