In the beginning of 2010, I was 18 and pregnant with my birth daughter Ruby. Had struggled through many different things in that last year but nothing prepared me for the rollercoaster of grief and emotion after giving birth and placing a baby for adoption. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t then or ever will doubt my decision to place Ruby with her family. However hormonal and chemical warfare after giving birth is a thing. We as women are supposed to nurture and care for our newborns after, and in this situation my body was not happy I denied it that responsibility. Everything hurt. My heart, my breasts, my stomach, my legs, arms, feet. Basically every inch of me. Giving birth is hard. It’s even harder when you don’t have the distraction of a newborn to force you out of it all. And the emotional pain of giving your daughter a better life while also losing her in a sense. I was left only with my own needs. My own pain. And my own thoughts. After going on vacation with my family shortly after I left the hospital, I shut myself in my house. I don’t think it was postpartum, but I had sunken into a pretty bad ‘numb state’. I’d graduated but had no friends left really. I didn’t want to go anywhere. Do anything.
Eventually my mom conspired with a family friend to get me to join institute choir. Against my better judgement, and despite the fact I can not sing even a little bit, I went.
The thing about narcissists are, they don’t usually know they’re narcissist. They usually look unassuming. They’re people, like everyone else, except the way they view themselves in the world is different then most of us.
It’s almost impossible to explain the draw a narcissist has to those who are vulnerable. We are drawn to the appearance of their confidence. They are drawn to our wide eyed uncertainty. He came out of no where, but in less than five words he had me trapped.
I met my narc at a time in my life when I couldn’t even begin to know who I was. Here was someone who seemed so sure of himself and also seemed to know how to define me. So I let him. He listened to the stories of my pain and hurt. My past traumas, and he told me what I always wanted to hear. We had things in common and he made me want to change those things about myself that didn’t match him. The thing that drew me in most, he was wounded, too. I’m not sure if it was the need to feel motherly, or just my empathy that made me want to care for him, even when I didn’t know how to care for myself. Or maybe the need to be around someone who was confident but also showed me he had been through hard things too.
I didn’t care that his pain seemed to always come before mine. I didn’t care that he gently encouraged us to do things against my better judgement. I didn’t care that he seemed to want to be a victim instead of a survivor. I was smitten. As the poems below show…I never really stood a chance.
Hello
You call me ‘beautiful’
Like it’s my name.
My heart never stood a chance.
I’m smitten.
Charming
Silly jokes and nonstop compliments
Oh, how charming you are
My mind never stood a chance
I’m smitten.
Passion
Roaming hands found my weakness
Oh, how passionate you are
My body never stood a chance
I’m smitten.
Now I know, I was a naive stupid 18 year old in this moment. Therefore it’s not like he could possibly be the only one to blame for the many many MANY bad decisions that would follow the months after we met. I was reckless and rebellious. Desperate for love like any hopeless romantic. And in the beginning I was truly convinced we were deeply in love so I did whatever I needed to stay with him.
When I was forced to face the fact that he cheated on me, not once, but multiple times. Not with just one person, but two. I grabbed hold to every begging word to forgive him that he gave me. And I did. I forgave him. He was broken. He was wounded. He was struggling and I knew how that felt. So I forgave him. And I offered to help him. I hadn’t even begun to heal myself, but I set that all aside, for him.
Not long after, it got too much and my mind was trying to make me SEE what was really in front of me. Doubts came and I tried to end it.
But then he proposed. And the hopeless romantic, the desperate little girl who wanted to be needed and loved, just couldn’t say no.
-to be continued-
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