Self-care is never a selfish act—
it is simply good stewardship
of the only gift I have,
the gift I was put on earth to offer to others.”
Parker Palmer
A few weeks ago I came across an interesting video by Spartan Life Coach. It was about the false morality that sets some of us up for abuse by narcissists or those who don’t really have the capacity to care much about our feelings. Often they will initially approach us with some kind of painful story of how they were hurt or abused, in the end it turns out they were the one who was really hurting and abusing others, taking advantage of their kindness, empathy and good will.
In the talk SLC make the connection between certain traits which set us up to feel an inappropriate guilt or responsibility for people who are going through difficulties. He speaks of being naïve or overly conscientious, two traits which set us up for difficulties as we find it hard to believe that there are people out there who are deliberately nasty and will do us damage. If we naively believe that others always have the best of intentions and would never do us harm, we can be a sitting target for narcissists. If we are overly caring and giving we might be taken advantage of.
Luckily in life its never too late to wise up to this kind of situation. We can take steps to test out relationships and people to see if they are fair or unfair, real and genuine or fake and full of BS. We can wait for a while to work out who others really are. If we get consistently hurt or let down by someone who is not consistent we can set up boundaries in the future.
Its a dicey world at times, most especially if we have been traumatised. If we were let down a lot in childhood we may be overly defensive and find it hard to let down our guard with people who do care and wish to help rather than hurt us. Our fear of being hurt again can lead us to block out the love that someone is trying to give to us. If we have been badly hurt in the past it might take time for us to let down our walls again and let love in. On the other hand the hurt that lingers from childhood, the empty pit of need. also becomes a gravitational force field that sucks narcissists to us like iron filings to a magnet. The way to change the pattern is to realise and face up to the fund of deep hurt and disappointment we have carried from childhood that left us feeling so vulnerable, the raw wound that the narcissist awakens in us. We must begin to give to ourselves the love and care we still seek, that was never truly offered us in childhood. And we need to believe it isn’t all about us as the narcissist would have us believe, this too may be a pattern if our parents blamed and shamed us and caused us to turn against our true selves.
Part of being a mature adult is realising that we can take a chance to risk a new connection and that we will be strong enough to cope with any hurt or disappointment, strong enough to say “No” or “that hurt” when we need to. We can realise if and when we are setting ourselves up for more hurt due to a fear of hurting others. We can be an adult to the scared child who finds it hard to say no, and may have faced threats or expulsion for being real and strong. We can seek some therapeutic support to move through these kinds of issues.
One thing is for certain, if we have known a lot of childhood hurt we will always be sensitive. We will always have areas of scar tissue but with time and love and new opportunities we can move through to a place where these scarred places no longer dominate our lives. We can open our soft heart to those who are worthy and we can trust that our heart has the power to grieve when we need to, but as we grow we will no longer allow our heart to be hurt by those who are not worth it. There is nothing worse than suffering for years over someone who really never truly cared for us in the first place and was invested in us not being who we are or growing in the directions we need to grow. Better to stand alone.
If we have a kind heart we must also beware and be aware, not suckered in by every lame duck story that comes our way. I fell for this twice five years ago soon after I was discarded by my last boyfriend who had narcissistic traits. I was scammed for money by two internet hoover merchants who prayed on my good will and vulnerability and lingering pain over the ending of a relationship in which I was blamed for it not working when really it was all down to not meeting the narcissist’s needs. I had some healing to do and I have worked towards it in therapy over the past few years.
Recently someone approached me on a dating site with some out there story of how due to being scammed they had to go off line and could I link up with them there. I said immediately “this sounds really suss to me” needless to say I didn’t hear from them again.
There is no better cure for naivety and open trusting than to be hurt and used and to go through the nightmare of suffering and emptiness that is the narcissistic relationship. It is a wake up call, one that come into our lives for a purpose and teaches us essential lessons of self love and self care.
Emerging From The Dark Night 