The Wounded Healer

When John-the-Narc heard I was writing a blog, he started one too. But like all good ideas that Narcs have, there was no real follow through. I think he was either trying to impress me that he was also capable of creating a blog with a huge following (he told me he had already got a few followers who were commenting and debating with him online, giving him tips on how to 'manage' me, bullshit of course), or he was trying to find another way to wound and control me with his words. He never gave me the actual site address, but sent me excerpts, which I googled, and I found him within minutes. Which I'm sure he was counting on.

The words did wound. Hit the mark. Over the first few months I went to them often - it felt like the only safe way to engage with him without him knowing - I missed him so. The hilarious thing is that, if he ever went back to that blog, he would see all these hits, and think he finally had the following he imagined. But they would all have been me. Peering through the glass. Trying to get my fix of him without ever actually going near him. I think he used to stalk me too, on this blog. He's probably stopped now though - never could see something through to the end.

I read it again last night. Came up in conversation with a friend of mine about narcs, and she and I both read it. God. The words feel so very brutal now, these many months out. He swaggers so much. Projects so much. Makes up so much. It's so devastating to read about his picture of me which, after so long together, nowhere near resembled my truth. There's even one with this as the heading: "Do some spouses drive their partners into the arms of others?", somehow intimating that my behaviour was responsible for his cheating on me - even though he was cheating from the moment we began. I never cease to be amazed by the fantastical thinking the Narc needs to employ to protect themselves from the truth of their terrible choices, and the destruction they leave in their wake. And what a masterful way to try to inflict even more pain on me - punish me for finally having the balls to escape.

But that's not actually the purpose of this piece. I went to that blog again with a friend of mine. One of the few friends I have that have been tangling with Narcs over the years. And as we talked, as I have talked with other friends of mine over the months of becoming such a narc recovery specialist, I have begun to see another layer of purpose to my very wounding and healing journey. I am able to be next to her. To them. A companion on this journey into the light. Only those of us who have lived through that darkness truly understand the devastating pain that is part of that road. And the excruciating road of healing.

And so it's a different kind of healer that I am now. I used to be The Rescuer. See the plight of someone in my world and sweep in to make it all OK. I helped many people. Heroic stuff. And that made me feel safe in the long term. And very possibly robbed them of the ability to rescue themselves in the process.

But now I'm different. I know I no longer have the bandwidth or capacity or need to 'rescue' people. Thank goodness. But I am able to journey with a few. And those few and me, we choose each other for the comfort we can bring each other, and the wisdom we can share on our individual journeys. And even here, on this blog, is a place where I have invited you, my reader, to journey with me. I'll do my best to live and tell my truth here. And maybe that will help you feel less alone as you heal your own wounds. The wounds that brought you here to read. And if that helps you, then I will be achieving another layer of purpose for myself.

My shrink once told me that people with my history usually respond by becoming Mad, Sad or Bad. And that somehow I found a different path than that.

I became the wounded healer.