From the Mayo Clinic: Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others.
I came across this list called "Some Crazy Things Most Narcissists Do":
- Lie: lie to everyone, even themselves.
- Ruin holidays and special occasions.
- Make you feel inadequate or less than.
- Play word games, twist, deny, and make it impossible to communicate.
- Change how they treat you and how they feel about you. You are the best person, then you are the worst.
- Future faking, promise you all kinds of things, marriage, vacations, etc. And never follow through.
- Overwhelm you so you are burnt out, then blame you when you are not getting enough done.
- Make you feel lonely, unappreciated, and especially unloved.
- Destroy your trust in people, make you lose your innocence.
- Make you feel hopeless, helpless, and the saddest you have been in all your life.
- Exhaust you, mentally. physically, and emotionally.
My ex-husband, James, did all of these things. Every last one of them. He would lie about everything and anything and try to make you feel crazy if you told him, you knew he was lying. I have no doubt that he believed his own lies.
He would do his best to ruin holidays and special occasions and had several methods of doing this. Christmas and Thanksgiving were the worst - he didn't want to go to either of our families to celebrate, he wanted to keep us isolated at home. If we did go to my family's celebrations, he would partake in the alcohol and I would be a nervous wreck, unable to enjoy myself for having to stick to him like glue to try to avoid him making a bigger ass out of himself than he normally did. And I had to be super careful on the ride home, for if I got upset and told him that he "ruined" anything, he would either get violent or would threaten to jump out of the car while I was driving.
James would call me a "college educated idiot". That was one of his favorite insults to use. If something went wrong at work, it was always my fault. My position was eliminated at ASCAP, but he would always throw it in my face that I got fired because I wasn't smart enough to do the job. This batch of insults is sort of funny to me now, considering that he was functionally illiterate, yet had the gall to call me an idiot or stupid.
Word games, twisting words, and talking in circles was his favorite thing. You could not have a mature, adult conversation with him, for all of his games. I realize now that they were designed to hide the fact that he didn't know how to communicate, how to understand things, and that he was a narcissist and just knew no other way.
When we first started dating and up until we got married, he had me on a pedestal, treating me like a queen (for the most part). Once we were married, he turned into a monster, yelling at me, hitting me, verbally abusing me, etc. Afterwards, he would apologize and if I complained that it was all him, he would say that it "takes 2 to tango". That phrase became one that angered me to the point that had we stayed together any longer, I might have become temporarily insane and ended him once and for all.
Being married to and living with someone like him was exhausting and overwhelming. I would go through severe depressions and would have periods where I could barely function. The last few years we were married, he would actually act concerned when I would experience these periods, as I would just lay in bed and cry. I figure his concern was only that if I stayed like that and lost my job, he wouldn't be able to continue to live an easy life. I literally could not get out of bed except for work. I suppose it was my defense mechanism to avoid interacting with him when I'd have enough, but I would always make myself get through it so that I could go to work.
I'd never been a violent person, or one who would yell, but I learned to be that way from my treatment by him. Thankfully that didn't stick with me very long after the divorce, unless I was talking to him. He knew the triggers to make me respond to him with yelling, until I finally figured out that just hanging up on him worked better. I had to stop caring that I was right, and only care about my peace. That was extremely hard for me, as when I knew I was right about something, I didn't want to let it go until he knew I was right. Unfortunately, that would never happen with him, and I finally learned to give up making sure he knew I was right.
As for the violence - I would never hit someone first. I don't think I'd ever been in a fight in my life, other than twice in elementary school. I liked to use my words to argue with people when needed, but I would never have considered violence at the time. I did hit someone once - a college boyfriend's high school friend - because he was walking behind me and kept tripping me. I asked him multiple times to stop, he didn't stop, so I punched him HARD in the chest. He didn't like that at all but guess what - he left me alone. I didn't hit James back in the beginning, I guess the shock of being hit by someone that was supposed to love, honor, and cherish me kept me from defending myself. Once I knew he was going to hit me, it was on.
The last time he hit me was in October 2005. I was sitting in a chair in the bathroom, putting on my makeup for work. We were arguing, about what who knows at this point, and I said something to him about stinking like an ashtray. He claims he thought I called him one of the words that would set him off (SOB or bastard), but the why doesn't matter. He smacked me upside the head. I was DONE. I threw my makeup bag down, turned around and grabbed him around the throat, shoving him against the wall, and put both my hands around his throat. I outweighed him by more than 100lbs at that time and told him something to the effect of he was going to take a trip down the stairs backwards and would be leaving the house in a body bag, that I was done being his punching bag and he better NEVER touch me again. And he never did. I legally separated from him July 21, 2006, and our divorce was final in October that year.
