I Have Something To Say

I've always been a daydreamer. As a kid, I spent hours in my own created worlds, whether it was swirling around in an inner tube on the lake, or staring out the car window, lost in some internal medieval landscape with fairies and unicorns. In fact, all of my "good" memories of my childhood are the dreamy ones. As an adult, I formed a career around the those worlds I created. Most of my friends are creative types who live in their own worlds, too. When I need to unwind from a long day, I can get lost for hours thinking about what it's like to live in other places and times. When I'm driving, I'm never actually on the freeway. I'm composing stories to be written until somehow I arrive at home. You could say I have an active imagination. You could say I live a creative life. You could also say that I dissociate. Dissociation is a coping mechanism, common among abuse survivors. When someone experiences an intense threat, the brain splits off from trauma...

Ending a relationship of any kind can be tough, but when someone tries to disentangle themselves from a narcissist, sociopath, or psychopath, the experience is a special kind of hell. From the beginning, partners are groomed to cater to the needs of the narc while denying all of their own. It's an insidious process of devaluation that happens so gradually, few recognize what's happening until it's too late. Eventually, the partner of a narcissist will feel guilty for having any needs or boundaries at all. The narc's constant requirement to be the center of attention at all times ensures that no one else can exist in that space. In the world of a narcissist, they are always right and everyone else is always wrong. If you don't go along with their program, they are always the victim and you are always the perp.  Anyone who does not feed the insatiable ego of a narc at all times will be punished, and narcs are experts at dreaming up ways to be particularly and int...