The Narcissist and The Story Teller a Love Story?

Before I can begin this little story which today will not be a real "story" but the truth on my actual reality I think I need to give a little explanation of what the narcissist and the story teller really are....

First the Narcissist (His Illness)
Narcissists do not feel good about themselves so they need a perfect person to bring them to a higher level. They're terribly insecure and they cover it up with these grandiose fantasies. These are relationships that break up before marriage because the narcissistic one is afraid of making a commitment because the grass may be greener somewhere else. This is the person who comes on really strong, and then once you warm up they become all cool and critical and they have this unrealistic idea of how perfect someone has to be for them. They're so consumed with themselves that they're not loving anyone else.  They will pick apart every flaw and never let their partner forget that this imperfection is the reason the relationship will not move on to the next level.  When choosing a serious partner typically it can be based on beauty or wealth.  They will expect their partners to bend over backward while they contribute minimally to the relationship.  Often there is a pattern of breaking up and making up. In addition in most cases issues of an addictive personality in combination with narcissism are present. However if treated with therapy there can be resolve. Along with the support and understanding of a strong an loving partner.  It will take team work but can be conquered.

Next the Story Teller (Pseudologia Fantastica, My Illness)
A compulsive liar is defined as someone who lies out of habit.  Lying is their normal and reflexive way of responding to questions.  Compulsive liars bend the truth about everything, large and small.  For a compulsive liar, telling the truth is very awkward and uncomfortable while lying feels right.  Compulsive lying is usually thought to develop in early childhood, due to being placed in an environment where lying was necessary.  For the most part, compulsive liars are not overly manipulative and cunning (unlike sociopaths), rather they simply lie out of habit - an automatic response which is hard to break and one that takes its toll on a relationship. But with help the person can be healed. The first thing to do when dealing with a pathological liar is to confront them. Since you are threatening their fantasies, they would try to argue with you or act defensive. Do not expect them to agree with what you are saying immediately. Also, do not accuse them of something. Rather, be sensitive and understanding. Tell them that it is alright to be ordinary or less exciting rather than faking just to impress others. Tell them that you will love them even if they do not have anything thrilling to tell or lead an ordinary life. Since you are dealing with a personality disorder here, if things do not improve or change, you can take help from a psychiatrist. Therapy and your love can do wonders for your partner.

Okay enough of the psychology lesson but in order to tell a true story there has to be a little light shed on the dysfunction lingering in the background.  My relationship has never been completely perfect.  While there are many moments filled with so much happiness and laughter there are others where it's hit "rock bottom."  He has described it as a roller coaster which may be a fitting example. This is a love affair that happened by accident.  It was never planned out or wished for at all.  For years there was always some strange and unexplainable attraction but nothing that we ever jumped in on full force.  Then one day we were both at a point in life where we were self destructive and one night fate united us.  Lovers that is what we were and nothing more....nor did either of us want more.  But, life had other plans and with in a few months I discovered I was pregnant.  It was the scariest moment of my life at the time and nothing that I wanted. I had to tell him and the reaction was not positive, immediately I went into survival mode.  I became the story teller full force.  I would not let this man hurt me or our child.  But, the chaos of death surrounded and engulfed us, anxiety set in.  

So we came together.  We decided to do what was best for this little family that we were starting.  But, I don't think either of us was really committed to that idea.  He was more committed to his drinking and pulling me in.  Although, this was one of the few times I can remember him reflecting on how he felt as if he could love me.  I was still in defense mode, even while I was falling for him, I kept secrets.  I lied about doctors appointments, I didn't want him there 100%.  Yet, at the same time I was falling in love with him.  It was the most complicated feeling I have ever encountered.  More challenges were soon presented as he was arrested and I lost the baby.  That's when the real challenges began.  He wanted to conquer his vices and I well I was so afraid and desperate, the lying had already been done.  Thanks to that he began to doubt me.  He didn't believe he was ever going to have a son.

Yes that is a lot of negativity....but it wasn't all bad.  Whether you rewind or fast forward there are a couple things that have always been constant.  The amount of passion between us.  No matter how self loving he is or how desperate I get with my stories.  Every touch is like a magnetic force that makes you feel like you are melting. We can't get enough of each other and that part of us, the intimate part is beautiful.  There is no other way to describe it.  We care for each other so much that we would do just about anything to make sure the other is safe and taken care of.  I would do anything for him and he would do anything for me.  This element did not happen over night.  It has come over time.  It's taken everything in us, in our sicknesses to be able to be at that level with one another. But, it's there and I don't think it will ever go away.

We feel like home to each other.  A safe place, one where we can laugh and be ourselves.  One where we are happy just being in each others company.  A place where we can cry and not be judged.  You might all be thinking well what's the problem?  Why aren't you two so in love and married?  Because we have problems because he is a narcissist and I am a story teller.  No matter what he will find my faults, he will look at the negative, he will say it's too much for him, that he cannot deal with it.  I in turn will go into story teller mode not being honest with him or myself.  I don't want to think there are problems.  I just want us to carry on.  But, that is not fixing anything.  His solution is to run and mine is to hide in my fantasies.  But, the difference between him and I is I never leave him alone when he is down.  I carry him up, I take on his problems, because my illness allows me to love while his does not.

Now we are at a cross roads where neither of us can handle these illnesses anymore. I am tired of having to be the storyteller.  I am finally really making the changes.  I may have lied and said time and time again that I would stop being a storyteller, but this time it's different.  I started a treatment program for myself, for the people I hurt, for us. The hurt I have cause both him and others that has become apparent over the last two weeks is profound and today at church I cried.  How could I hurt someone that I care for so much?  He on the other hand his ideas of how things need to be handled are much different.  While he may have conquered addiction I don't know if he will ever conquer that attraction to his own reflection.  To seek treatment I don't think he believes in it. If he pushes me away he doesn't have to deal with any of the problems.  He's a narcissist, the grass is always greener on the other side. Now I sit alone when I need him the most he is absent. I think to myself, while our beginnings weren't perfect, we are not perfect.  God continues to bring us back together.  I don't think this is our ending, I feel like it's the opportunity for us to have a new beginning.  We have helped each other through so much and this is the final challenge. I see all of that finally out of honesty, a place that is both scary and foreign for me. Now if only there were an easy way to get the narcissist to open his eyes too.  For him to see that now is the time that we can really make a change and help one another so we can have a better tomorrow by holding each other's hand.  What I live may be complicated, biology may have made it so, but it's real and that is no fantasy.

The Depths of Despair

Rock bottom....they say everyone has to hit it once and a while.  Except for me I feel like once and a while is more like once every year.  Just a couple of weeks ago I felt like I was on top of the world.  I had money to buy the things I wanted.  I had time to spend with friends.  My heart was filled with love and excitement.  I began to rediscover myself, ready to change, ready to be a new and better person.  But, in a matter of 24 hours all of that changed. 

I suddenly was cast over in a cloud of darkness.  I had reached the gates to the depths of despair.  A long day of worked ended in rejection as my employer cast me off.  I had to put on my costume again and become a monkey dancing for peanuts.  I got home and thought everything will be fine because something better will come along.  It's just money and at least I still have a heart filled with love.  I committed to myself that I would get through it.  That as long as I had inner happiness nothing could bring me down.

I was mistaken.....as the next day started and I woke from my slumber I felt unsettled.  Something was wrong I could sense it.  I wasn't going to let it get to me.  I decided to contact my heart to bring a little cheer in life. But he was distant so I chalked it up as a bad day.  I went on to conquer a more simply task, but sometimes even the most simple things can be complicated.  I was so overwhelmed I needed him and when I sought comfort I did not receive a warm welcome.

Abandonment had come....I easily recognized the feeling as it consumed my soul.  It's something  I have felt countless numbers of times.  It had originated as a feeling I was exposed to by my very own family.  The people that you love the most, when things get hard or complicated.....they don't always want to deal with it or stick around.  There he was silent, unaffected by my sorrows, not looking at me.  He was preparing to abandon me.  I was officially in the depths of despair.  The change I was finally ready to create had come too late.  Nothing mattered to him, I didn't matter to him.  Suddenly the one thing that I thought I had in all the darkness that was bright it disappeared.

I feel like there is no point in anything I do.  It doesn't matter how hard I work.  I doesn't matter how much I love.  Some how happiness can only stay with me for short periods of time.  I wish I was a simple girl, with a simple life.  One with no complications and no vice.  But, I am not and so it is.  I am destined to be nothing, not worth being loved, abandoned.  I am not even good enough to be on the receiving end of a hug. 

Ya Gotta Faith

I live in a town where people wear their "faith" on their clothing like a bright red scarlet letter.  Where everyone belongs to a church and loves Jesus.  A place where the more Christian you are the more important you are in the cast system.  But, I think they've got it all wrong.  Faith isn't something bright and shinny.  It's not something that is virginal and white as a dove.  Faith is the absence of light.  Faith is absolute darkness.  Faith is going into a place where the sun doesn't shine because it is extinct.  Faith is the belief in something that no matter how scary the venture, how blind you maybe, you are not afraid to walk through it. 

Faith doesn't necessarily have to be about your belief in God.  Faith is about the way you approach life.  Your belief that everything, even those things that seem impossible, will turn out for the best.  Faith is believing in yourself.  Knowing that you are a beautiful and ever evolving human being; you are capable of anything.  Faith is taking a vice in your life, waking up one day, making the decision that you have had enough of it, and finally deciding to make a change.  The reason you can make the most complicated transition in life from the person you are now to the person that you are becoming is faith.

Faith is picking yourself up when you at rock bottom and knowing that things are going to get better.  It's when you let the tears out because you know the crying, it won't last forever.  Faith is when you see beauty in mishaps of life, accepting the past, and moving forward.  It's looking at your dog and understanding their unconditional love is there with out them verbally expressing it.  Faith is believing in love, the risks you take to find yourself in it's bliss, even when it seems as if hope is lost.  When you find perfections in another persons imperfections no matter how terrible they may be that is faith.  Faith is knowing deep inside there is a special reason a particular lovers kiss tastes so good.

I'm not an expert on faith and I am not a guru.  For a very long time I didn't have any faith in anything.  I was sure my life was doomed to be nothing but existing on Earth until the day would come that I died.  But, suddenly in the recent past I found myself thinking that I no longer wanted to believe that nothing would ever come to me.  I wanted to live in reality and not in a fantasy.  I decided that maybe there isn't a logical answer for everything and sometimes you have to just put on your blind fold to evolve.  So here I am at the edge of one chapter moving into the next. I am exited for the future, believing in myself, the ones I love, and the promise of the universe.  I am accepting the risks because I have Faith.

The Reindeer Games Are Over...There's a New Sheriff In Town

Offing Polly Pure would be like offing the wicked witch of the East.....period.  Some people would compare the nuisance that some people create in the lives of others as a pestilence.  Those people that fly around you, their opinions worthless like the life of a fly.  Their brains smaller than as snail, not able to form a single thought.  You think that you got them with your fly swatter but you were wrong.  Just as you felt you could finally sit down and enjoy that sweet quart of berries they come buzzing around again.

I don't actually know this plague in the flesh but yet it rots my soul.  Years ago there was a simple way to rid myself of such a pain in the ass and well that was simply by beating it's ass.  Which don't get me wrong if it weren't for maturity and the law I would love to have the opportunity. But, alas a more diplomatic way must be found.  So my solution to go ahead and dead the bitch.  In my house and in my world this stench of all that is disgustingly fake about the world does not exist.  It's as extinct as the doe doe bird.

I don't wish to have a disease in my world that I cannot fairly fight.  Some how the fake smelly ones are the ones that people feel pity on.  It's pretty much because they are good at playing the victim.  So I will banish it with modern medicine.  Away from my sterilized world.  I'm done with the reindeer games and if this plague should try to come back into my house I will inject the mother fucker with penicillin.  That way I can watch it shriveling up and disappear into the nothingness of darkness.

Requiem for a Dream

There is a force on this Earth more powerful than any storm and can only be undone by meeting death.  That is love.  It's powerful because at the same time it can lift you up while making you feel the most powerful anxiety.  But yet you crave it and you keep going back or more.  I thought that I would feel love but I never thought that I would be consumed by love.  I never thought that love would be something illogical and that I would never seek a way out when things got too hot.

Love is sneaky and it will catch up to you when you least expect it to.  It can make think without clarity and fill you with madness.  Some of us like Tom will fight that feeling of being out of control and walking into the dark.  Some of us, the romantic ones like myself embrace it.  It's like the sweetest aroma that you have ever encountered and you keep getting closer and closer.  You are playing a very dangerous game.

But if you are like me once you are diseased you don't care about the risk.  You just have to have more and more.  Love will be yours because you believe in it.  Just remember everything is good in moderation at first.  If you have a partner in fight or flight let them go but follow like a slow dance.  Nothing will stop love, nothing will stop your dreams from happening if you believe. So go ahead, what's the worst that could happen, you stop listening to your dreams?

There's Always Risk in the Game of Chance....

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.

Love can be one of the most confusing feelings we will ever experiance in life.  This is especially true when you fall in love with a complicated person.  One who's mind is only clear for short periods of time and can never decide if his love for you is the real thing.  If life were a fairytale this confusion would be cleared up with a magic spell and little birds would surround you as an embrace happens and you kiss.  I dream about that a lot.  I dream that a magic wand has come in my possession and I have magically answered every question in his head and he is finally able to make a final decision to just jump in with both feet.  He never looks back or thinks about the what if's because he has finally surrendered himself to love.  

Over the past five and a half years I have experianced moments of great joy and devestation with him.  I have experianced rebirth and loss.  We have laughed and we have cried.  We have been apart and we have been together.  Even though he broke my heart time and time again.  Each time he came back riding on his white horse to rescue me.....I fell deeper in love with him.  The world thinks we are crazy and no one wants to listen anymore.  We, him and I, exist in our own alternate reality and no one really understands.  He is often lost and cannot decide which direction he wants to take. He doesn't want anyone's help even though his mind is cloudy.  I stand watching praying each day for an answer for his mind to be completely open.  

My heart has a special place for him and at times I even question why?  Maybe it is because I once had a part of him growing with in me and when it was gone he was all I had left.  I can always hear his voice or remember his smell just by closing my eyes.  But the question has finally come up where I am asking myself....is love going to be enough?  I am at a place in life where just existing together isn't fofilling my soul.  I want to be more secure in what we are.....I am ready to be a wife.  I am ready to wake up together every single day and take care of one another.  I am ready to be a mother, to watch our children grow, and to celebrate them.  The romantic in me thinks maybe it's finally time and it's really going to happen for us.  But the reality is I am more unsure then ever.

He says that I know what I want because the truth is that I do.  I would give up essentially anything for life long happiness.  But, he is still unsure.....the boy may not be ready to be a man.  He says he cares for me more then he has cared for any other human being.  But, he still just can't give up his old life for me.  He wants to be sure, he wants to give me a 110%.  I guess knowing that he is really considering that maybe I am the one should make me happy and reassure me of his love. He sounds honest and genuine for almost everything he is trying to communicate. But, then that evil side has to say hello.....what if he takes another girl out, what if I am not what he wants?  What will I do?  Most people will say he is a man and trying to find reasons not to commit.  But they aren't living my life and that is one of the scariest things I have ever heard from a man who has never betrayed me in that way.  My gut says it's all nonsense but my street smarts say watch your back.

Now he says I have a decision to make to stay or to leave.  It would be an easy one to make if I had a crystal ball to tell me what was going to happen.  I have a mambo who tells me to always listen to the voice inside because that is my spirit guides telling me what to do.  The speech could have been a message from God who wants me to learn what it is to have Faith.  To have Faith that he wouldn't allow me to hurt again and that everything will work out.  That my fairytale will come true.  So now the question is do I take a risk on love with the world's biggest risk taker?  Is life really a gamble?

Slow Like Honey

 

Even the most bitter taste can be sweetened; all you need to do is add a little honey.   It's any easy fix and something that is given to us by a tiny creature who we get the privilege of sharing our existence with each day.  Life can make even the most even tempered person bitter.  Allowing them to wake up each day sulking about their imperfections of the soul, the heart, and the pocket book.  One would think that just as they would make their tea taste better that they would apply the same concept to life.  But, some times it takes longer for a person to realize the problems that are the biggest are those which have the simplest resolve.

I miss the train a lot on the ones that don't require much thinking.  That would explain why I have spent so much time over the last five years feeling sorry for myself and my situation in life.  What makes the whole thing even more ridiculous is that fact that I love honey.  Actually it's so much stronger and crazier....I am obsessed with honey!  Every event, every person that we encounter on our path to life's goal of being filled with love isn't going to taste like a perfect vanilla bean cupcake.  The majority of them are going to taste like a sour patch kid that you grabbed from the bottom of the bag because you weren't paying attention when you selected it.  

The moment you realize that every thing in life changes.  The world becomes a brighter and more vivid place to live.  Each day of your existence becomes more beautiful then the next. You feel like you could just reach out and with each grab at the air your fist is filled with teeny, tiny, magical, baby birds.  When you climb the stairs it's like walking on music notes.  There is no feeling that brings us closer to life consuming love then when everything becomes sweetened, as if were drenched in honey.

The secret to finally realizing what real love feels like isn't really that spectacular.  Yet it is impossible to ignore.  The things that used to keep you from really embracing love, the bitter things, are no longer there because you cannot taste them.  Everything around you looks as if is pulsing before your eyes....it's a little crazy but you don't care.  You want to dance circles on the uneven floor in it's center.  The sun is shining warm on your skin and the stars sparkle.  It's your life, you've prepainted the path with honey, it's sweet and smells of spring.  Love is in your heart and no one can take what is inside of you.