Getting off the Crazy Train roller coaster ride of relationships—Part I

Do you love amusement rides? When I was a girl growing up I loved roller coasters, the faster, more intense, the crazier the better. What a rush! What a thrill. I remember on my favorite, The Beast---I would get off and run to get back in line to do it all again. Pure adrenaline addiction. It was a teenage love affair between beauty and the beast. That was great when I was thirteen.

I mean, I really loved riding The Beast, but wouldnt want to do it every day for the rest of my life!

As an adult, I still have a need for excitement and thrills, so what is a girl to do? What everyone does for so-called excitement-- romantic relationships. By far, the wildest ride out there in Romantic Love Land is the infamous Crazy Train---where you will experience the thrill of excitement, anticipation, and expectation followed by the fall, where your stomach drops out, then you are racing through the darkness of the confusion tunnel, ending with the abrupt finish—all the while squealing with delight and fear.

A popular self-help definition of insanity is doing the same thing in the same way over and over expecting different results. Wow, is this ever true in many romantic relationships. We want love so badly that we are willing to ride a relationship out until it literally makes us sick. When we get used to the ups and downs of bad behavior and start to believe that is a normal way to have a relationship, we get a little crazy.

Modern love serves to help us grow and evolve---to raise our awareness/consciousness. If you feel stuck in a rut and can’t seem to move forward, or cannot feel peace and contentment---get off the ride and take a look around.

Chances are you got on the crazy train coaster instead of the smooth and peaceful looking one you saw in the brochure. This emotional roller coaster has lots of highs and lows, twists and turns, but yet just keeps running the same course again and again, never really evolving. You know you are in one if you have the reasons for fights and the scripts that go with them burned in your brain.

In other words, you are stuck on a ride you desperately want to change.

Beware
There is no changing it, only exiting from it.

***This is a 5 part series leading up to a Happy Valentines for YOU

The Cycle of Abuse in a Narcissistic Relationship

Continued from the special report I wrote in 2006 when I divorced the first NPD in my life.

Narcissistic men use the women in their lives to stay alive and feel good. In exchange for getting to be with them, you become a servant to His needs. He will want your complete submission to him, but you will hold back because you feel something is not quite right, and can’t seem to really trust him. You are right about these feelings, but are too far in the dark to see the truth. The cycle of abuse starts right you meet him and continues until you finally see the light.

The Seduction Stage
When you first meet him, the narcissistic man is quite mysterious. He has well- developed seduction techniques that can literally charm the pants right off you! The air of mystery adds to the excitement, as most women do desire to be taken and claimed by a real man. You blindly believe he is such a man, only to find out later and after much confusion, that he was only an actor playing a part.

Realize that you never really know a narcissist because he will only tell you what he wants you to know and reveals what is useful in winning you over. In the beginning, he will over-value you. He will make you feel like you are the most amazing woman. He will seduce you with dinner, massage, flowers, whatever it takes to get you under his spell. He will look right into your eyes and hypnotize you with sweet talk. Narcissists are masters at emotional manipulation, so it is easy to fall for it. Once you open and trust, you are in the lair.

The Abuse Stage
After awhile you will find that you are no longer seen as the chosen one, rather, you now receive the brunt of his constant frustration and anger about how life is not working out how he thinks it should be. You are the reason for everything that goes wrong. You are judged, blamed, criticized, made to feel inadequate, etc. Verbal attacks can lead to physical attacks.

A Narcissist man (and woman for that matter) is a master of manipulation and not capable of real human feelings. He studies human behavior and mimics emotions to get the desired reaction from other people. You will begin to think you are crazy or emotionally unstable because: 1). He tells you that 2). He can twist conversations around until you forget your initial concern.

You will be in shock and disbelief and wonder what you did to cause such mistreatment.

It is not your fault. He is an abuser. He has a disorder (Narcissistic Personality Disorder.)

The Sustenance Stage

At this point, you are trapped in the lair trying to get your bearings. The abuse continues but now you are de-valued. He feels justified for abusing you. When he sees you, he sees what is on his inner screen (and it is not pretty!). No matter what you do, you will never be the equal and radiant co-star at the beginning of the movie. In fact, in his mind you have been demoted to personal assistant. You exist to do his bidding. What you do as a human being is not important or valued.

For instance, you are in business for yourself and you share that you got a new client. Instead of a normal response of “hey that’s great, tell me more.” You will hear something like how much are they going to pay? Why can’t you get more clients? To get any kind of respect at all, you have to produce---more money, more attention, more admiration. By now his addiction to you has grown and he requires more from his supplier. You are his drug. He needs more of you and yet does not value what he takes from you.

The sad thing is you were never valued in the first place.

If you suspect, you are involved in an NPD I implore you to do more research on it and emotional abuse. The best thing you can ever do for your soul is to LEAVE and run to the light of a New Day.