This question has me pausing…I feel like there’s so much to say.
I definitely don’t relate to that version of me now. In fact, it’s almost impossible for me to believe the woman in the story is me. It’s as though I’ve written about someone else’s life. And I wonder how that woman survived it all.
Yet as much as I don’t identify with that version of me, I understand a little more now why she made the choices she did. I spent a lot of time going back to my childhood to try to see what life might have looked like through a little girl’s eyes. As she grew older, I can see the beliefs she unwittingly took with her, I can see she just wanted to love and be loved. There’s so much innocence.
I’m really aware, now that I’m outside of it, just how powerful the conditioning and daily manipulation was, and how real the psychological effects were. It’s quite unbelievable, really. But through it all, I’ve developed an incredible level of compassion…for myself, and for anyone who’s gone through hard things and survived.
I love the girl in the story, and I’ll always carry her with me. But I’m extremely grateful to be where I am now. I made it. I lived to tell.
No One in Their Right Mind is a revealing account of my 15 years with a narcissist.
This is part of a Q&A series I’m doing on Instagram, check it out at c.a.good and follow along!
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