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Forgiving Yourself to Forgive Your Ex-Narcissist

Your attachment to your expectations is what’s keeping you stuck

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You lived through the devastation of loving a narcissist.

Now you’re out. It’s like standing in front of your recently incinerated home. Except, it’s your life.

You have to start over from nothing.

You will never live your best life if you skip the forgiveness necessary to release your ex-narc mentally and emotionally.

Getting stuck in the ruminating phase of why the f**k did I let him do that to me? and what the f**k is wrong with me? will never heal you.

“To forgive is to choose to release another from the perceptions you have projected on them”—The Way of Mastery

So, it’s an act of forgiving yourself for your projections and your perception that others must meet your expectations.

I’m not saying it’s unreasonable to expect your lover to be loving.

It is reasonable to expect your mother to have your best interests in her heart or for your dad to show up to one event in 12 years of school, because they loved you.

Those are reasonable expectations, and we all have them.

But if you loved a narcissist, you know what you received was not love.

Get Out

The profound relief after leaving your ex-narc of not having to argue and defend yourself or listen to hours of self-aggrandizing platitudes brings a renewed sense of joy.

A remembrance and hope of a soon-to-be happiness emerge from the rubble of your dead relationship.

But after sleeping through a few nights without being woken up to screaming accusations, it starts to surface. The self-incrimination.

The questions

Why didn’t I see it?

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ZZ Griffith
ZZ Griffith

Written by ZZ Griffith

Hi! I’m ZZ, writing about metabolic health. Join me as I share my journey from a plant-based diet to carnivore. My goal is to inform. I've been on both sides.

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