How Do We Heal the Rage After Narcissistic Abuse?
I sometimes feel immortal because I walk with death. My dreams have always said so. But so has my body. I grow tired for no reason. Often, I do not have the stamina for a regular workday. The only relief I get from the constant pressure and pain of what happened to me is writing. I do yoga and meditate because the studies say that’s good for trauma, and I’m healthier than I’ve ever been, but lately, I pushed myself too hard, and I’m afraid I’m not recovering as fast as I should be, as fast as someone else might. I fear that’s just my state of being and I need to make money. I fear I just don’t know how. The pressure of this stops me and pushes me further from it.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; your rod and your staff; they comfort me.” These words from Psalms float up from the depths to taunt me. I feel no comfort and certainly felt no comfort from any God that should save children from a fate worse than death. But today, a new idea about those words emerged as I wandered a path taking photos. It isn’t the end of that Psalm; it’s the beginning that carries meaning for me. Pausing over the phrases emerging from my subconscious is important. Because I spent my entire life suppressing what occurred, I have to look closely at the paper slips that appear in the transitions of my day. Otherwise, they’ll haunt me with paralyzing repetition. That one started playing long before I left my mother’s home and was still deeply embedded in my faith — a faith I’ve long since abandoned.
Nevertheless, the trappings of it never leave you. I filled my empty spaces with Bible verses, church services, and countless hours of volunteering. My faith became a self by proxy. I secured no other identity and feared I’d die without it.
Then, one day, I recognized how toxic it was to bury rage beneath religion.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.” Today, these words refused to leave me alone. Then I saw it. I survived, and that’s the eternal mystery of my life. Why? Why me and not the millions of others who experienced similar horrors at the hands of a psychopathic mother and older brother? To be sure, I only survive because they let me live, and so there’s that. And they only let me live because they thought I’d remain their plaything. They never imagined I’d betray them. They never imagined me as a person. Perhaps because they do not imagine themselves as people, they do not imagine anything outside the satisfaction of their primal needs. They are the dumb beasts in my story, the fairy tale monsters only worth slaying, not saving.
That’s important to write because it’s the trauma bond that makes you feel guilty for abandoning your oppressors.
I’ve always looked for a force outside to save me, but it never comes, and aligning myself with those who promise it proves disastrous. I’m speaking, of course, of the scores of narcissistic relationships and friendships I’ve survived. Surviving comes at a cost. Integrating the trauma and all of its horrors, well, it means I’ll never be like anyone other than me. I’ll never know a normal life. And so it’s one more death to grieve.
But today, those words told me that I don’t fear death; I walk with it. I wear the scent of smoke and sorrow on my skin and send out the cry of it when I write. You’re hearing those words now; if you’re still, you can smell the smoke. What words can explain the abyss? Few. Precious few, and often, I use too many. But you comfort me. Your care and attention bring a witness to this process that reminds me I’m still here, long after I should be.
I think all the time about my oversharing. I’m deeply self-conscious about publishing my work on social media. I realize what people must think, and I worry it means they pull away. I can’t care enough to stop. The momentum of my survival carries me. I drift in every morning from the quiet River Styx, distant in a fog of haze and dreams. It’s Hade’s gift and its price. If it allows you passage back among the living, you smell of death. You’ll only partially engage with the living. Those are the rules. I am a prophet sounding the alarm or a madwoman shouting nonsense into the streets. That’s my identity now. “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil…” Depending on who you are, that’s how you’ll see me.
I won’t give you answers. I can’t point the way. Instead, I’ll show you what I see through photos, thoughts, and deeds.
At the tail end of my marriage, I got into magic and tarôt. I knew it wasn’t rational, but I needed to believe in wonder. I needed to think I could affect the forces of the universe and bend them to my will. I felt so powerless. I was losing everything all at once: my family, my ex-husband. The experience of the two are intertwined now.
The magic made me feel invincible. It was just like in childhood when I disassociated from the abuse because the pain was far too awful. I floated and lost myself in a prolonged dissociative state. That’s no way to be when going through a divorce, and there’s no one left to advocate for you. But here we are. We do not get what we deserve.
In childhood, I know I had a combination of what the DSM V identifies as Depersonalization/ Derealization Disorder and Dissociative Amnesia.
Depersonalization — experiences of unreality or detachment from one’s mind, self, or body. People may feel as if they are outside their bodies and watching events happening to them.
Derealization — experiences of unreality or detachment from one’s surroundings. People may feel as if things and people in the world around them are not real.
During these altered experiences, the person is aware of reality and that their experience is unusual. The experience is very distressful, even though the person may appear unreactive or lacking emotion.
Dissociative amnesia involves not being able to recall information about oneself (not normal forgetting). This amnesia is usually related to a traumatic or stressful event and may be:
localized — unable to remember an event or period of time (most common type)
selective — unable to remember a specific aspect of an event or some events within a period of time
Dissociative amnesia is associated with having experiences of childhood trauma, and particularly with experiences of emotional abuse and emotional neglect. People may not be aware of their memory loss or may have only limited awareness. And people may minimize the importance of memory loss about a particular event or time.
Whenever things get too stressful, I fall back into a fugue so I don’t have to feel the trauma of what’s happening. When I’d lose myself in magic, I was, in effect, anchoring myself to this other place of wonder. It’s what I’d do in childhood when I’d write. I lived in my books, continuing the stories as if I were a part of them. When I grew tired, I’d pass through my walls into another land where a black panther was my guide, and I was a powerful person, a girl with dark hair, dark eyes, and deep brown skin. I can see my bare feet; I wear beaded sandals as we run through the trees. The silver and gold bangles on my arms ring like bells, and I’m laughing. I can smell the wet soil and feel it squishing softly between my toes. My father is a wise and good king who protects me. My best friends are the animals. They teach me their power. My mother died before I knew her.
This memory is more vivid than any I can recall from childhood. My actual childhood feels much more like a dream of blurry images and terrible feelings like noxious gasses and sounds encased in cotton.
I could disassociate at will and be gone in a flash. It isn’t easy, even now, to remain anchored in reality. I’ve never told my doctors any of this. It wasn’t until now that I even thought of examining it. I guess I worry that they’ll want to medicate me and take away this superpower. And so often, the medications bring side effects that are much worse than whatever they’re treating.
I’m learning about myself. I’ve felt, of late, that I needed to be more uncomfortable to succeed. I’m teaching myself that discomfort does not equal pain or trauma. I’m often pulling myself back into this realm in pieces. But I’ve promised these pieces that I need them here to write. I need them to find my voice. I need to locate my true self within them.
As I’ve discussed, it takes creativity to heal. It takes the imagination to connect the dots of your own experiences. Psychiatrists and doctors don’t know that. They don’t care about that, and indeed, it scares them. They’re always trying to medicate my dreams away and, therefore, my magic. My real magic is my creativity; I need my dreams to inform my becoming.
The pieces I’m pulling back into reality are pieces of that other girl. She knows how to enjoy herself. She remembers her ancestors’ stories. It’s been a long time since I’ve met with her. I’ve now begun to ask her what she knows because, I suspect, it’s what I know.
But do you see? If I don’t respect the ways my imagination protected me in childhood and seeks to protect me now, I lose my only power and my connection to the parts I was protecting. Nestled in the dreams and fantasies are the fragments of truth I kept from my oppressors. They lay, like buried treasure in that jungle waiting for my return.
This, the work I’m doing, the expression I’m finding is the treasure map guiding me back to all I lost.
I believe my experience is not unique. I look at Gypsy Rose Blanchard, Tylee Ryan and J.J. Vallow and I know it isn’t. I’m ringing out a call to draw the living survivors back to me, with the intent of helping them reconnect to their essential selves as well, and end their suffering.
Moreover, though what I experienced was extreme, I hope that anyone with unresolved pain and rage can see me and recognize their path to healing.
©Punt On Point Media, Inc. Amy Punt 2024
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