Nicole Barrett - Recovery from Narcissistic Abuse

Introduction

Are you feeling disturbed? Are you feeling constantly confused? Feeling disturbed or confused is a common feeling to those who are dealing with a narcissist in life, whether in an intimate relationship, in your family, in a work place, or in any other setting. This heavy feeling of disturbance can be even greater if you have been blinded, duped, conned, or manipulated in any way for several years, by the narcissist in your life. Such is the case with me. I met my ex-husband, X, in high school. Though we had classes together since sophomore year, we didnt start talking until the end of Junior year. He was in my Spanish class both sophomore and junior year. He sat right behind me in Biology sophomore year and right behind me again in Spanish class our junior year.

I first noticed his pretty blue green eyes with specs of brown right away. It seemed that his eyes had every color in them. Ive always been a sucker for beautiful eyes. I started talking to him when we sat next to each other in Spanish class at the start of junior year. I complimented him on his ability to draw a detailed Spanish ship. I later told my friend, Susan, that I liked him knowing that it would get around school and eventually back to him since Susan was a big gossip. Sure enough, his friend, Mark, who worked with Susans other friend, Laura, talked and X sheepishly asked me to sign his year book at the end of junior year. I had already planned out what I would write and filled a whole page from top to bottom making it clear that I was interested and leaving my phone number at the bottom.

At the start of summer, he supposedly called me and left a message with my younger brother who never relayed it to me. He also says that he stopped by my job, Little Caesars Pizza, to see me but I looked too busy to talk to him. Finally, it took a whole group of his friends, which included Susans then boyfriend, Ron, to haul him over to my house after an impromptu basketball game. Still, X was shy and still it took some time before he came back to my house again.

My first indication that something may be wrong with him was when I was witness to his road rage sometime later that summer between our junior and senior years of high school. Some other car was trying to make a left-hand turn from the other direction at a traffic light where he was going straight. Though she corrected herself and waited for him to go through the light, he screamed, You stupid bitch or it might have been whore. I cant quite remember. What I do remember is how struck I was by his anger, how he seemed to go from 0 to 10 in less than a second and how his anger seemed to be an overreaction of sorts.

The next red flag was also during that summer. I was introduced to his compulsive lying which I didnt know was compulsive at the time. My brother, Dominic, and I are 11 months apart and I had gotten him a job at Little Caesars. Dominic came to befriend another worker there named Nate who was dating a girl named Tessa who also worked there. So, the four of us decided to go to Kent Cornucopia Days after work which was a street fair with carnival rides that came to Kent, Washington for 2-3 weeks every summer in mid-July.

I suggested that we go see X at his work, Pisanos Pizza, since X worked pretty close to the fair. When we got to his work, I was informed that he was let off early that day. I was overjoyed and decided that we should go pick him up at his house so he could go to the fair with us. After all, I was driving and he lived with his mom not too far away. When we were approaching his house, I thought I saw him, still in his work uniform, in his driveway talking to his friend, Martin. But by the time we pulled into the driveway, he was missing. Martin said hi to me as I went into the house and was told by Xs mother that X wasnt there. I was confused and figured that my eyes must have been deceiving me. And why was Martin there without him? Shrugging, I let Xs mom know to let him know that we would be at the fair if he wanted to meet us there. With that, we drove away from the house and as we were driving away, Nate start to laugh from the back seat and said that X was hiding behind a bush. I said, nut uh thinking he was kidding. But my brother somberly said, yes, he is Nicole. I felt embarrassed and humiliated and didnt say anything.

It was awkward going to the fair in a foursome that including a couple and then me and my brother but as we rode the pirate ship ride, I had made the decision that I didnt want to be with X anymore. It was less than a year into the relationship and I could have saved myself the next 25 years of wasted time if I had stuck to my guns. X called later that night and I made sure not to answer the phone but my brother, Dominic, did. I told Dom to tell X that I was asleep. My plan was just to avoid him until he stopped calling. Dominic did just that but then came back and said, he said to wake you up. Dom must have felt my hesitation when he said, give him a chance, Nicole which to me meant, give him a chance to explain himself. I didnt want to put my brother in the middle so I got on the phone. I was astonished when X chose to lie and said, Martin was at the house and said that you stopped by. I responded, you know damn well you were there too. He was silent for a while until I asked, dont you have anything to say? He spoke of feeling ashamed and said that he wanted to come and see me. I agreed and he bummed a ride from his friend, Dan, and sat on my dads front porch crying like a baby talking about how he felt bad and wanted another chance.

The ego part of me demanded that I take pictures of him wearing make-up and the spiritual side of me insisted that he go to church with me the next day. Well, he did just that and things were back on track or should I say, the highway to hell. I just didnt realize that the track would lead me to and through years of torture. There were many other times throughout our relationship when I had caught him in a lie and many other red flags that I would chose to ignore. But I had no idea that he was a narcissist until after I did a bunch of research to try to make sense of everything I had gone through after I separated from him in July 2017 after finding out about his affair. If it had not been for his constant lying, I might have been able to work past an affair. But as a mental health therapist, I knew that a contraindication to both family and couples therapy is when there is lying going on. There is just nothing to work with when you dont know what the truth is.

Imagine my embarrassment as a mental health therapist that I had been totally blind to his narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). I had a Bachelors degree in psychology and had a Masters degree in the mental health track of Social Work for goodness sakes. I had been a counselor for years! I considered myself smart. He didnt seem to fit the mold of the classic narcissist who brags about themselves and their achievements. He was more self-deprecating and self-abasing than that. However, once I did the research in July 2017, I discovered that there were several subtypes of NPD that had been discovered, labelled and identified after I had graduated from undergrad in 1997 and grad school in 1999. Two subtypes were the Vulnerable Narcissist and the Compensatory Narcissist and he seemed to fit more with those types than the classic narcissist. Both of these types have a level of self-hatred that leads to a need to compensate by seeking narcissistic supply. I also read that it is important to not blame yourself, the person abused by the narcissist, but just as important to not overidentify with victimhood.