I’ve had a similar situation and am similar in demographic, so maybe not a minority and just below average.
I felt as if I’d failed because over time she kept intentionally causing me pain, claiming she wasn’t and I was the one with the problem (which, ironically, was true heh.) And that repetitive cycle slowly made me feel hatred for her, which is ,I’d think, appropriate in response to consistent injustice and deceit.
But my self considered hatred to be a failure, I still do. If a situation has failed to such an extent that it controls what I feel and forces me to experience an emotion that indicates mutual existence isn’t acceptable then I’ve failed to understand the event, those involved and the goals of those participating. That’s why I feel it as a failure, because it indicates personal ignorance and helplessness.
As I started to develop an artificial perspective in which this person was so disgusting that they no longer deserved the respect given to humanity, and so become an acceptable target of my own hostility (unfortunately that happened anyway, but it’s as if they literally wanted it to happen and needed the wounding.), I also began to understand the separation between their actions, their assumed personality that was now so obviously different that they walked in different ways and the personality that I originally appreciated.
Seeing this entity separate into a scared pathetic thing, a hateful thing that sees itself in me and wants to defile it and make it into it’s ideal (destroy my acceptance of my own self and the original reflection it sees as weak and replace with hate which is strong) and the relatively pathetic attempts to hurt me which only ever had that power because I let it. I literally had to accept that their reality was more real than mine, their feelings more important, their respect And self image to be preserved with my acceptance of suffering.
The only way they could hurt me was by withholding the love that I felt for it.
So I decided I didn’t need their love, that I could love it and despise the actions as I could love a child and despise it’s diapers. That unless actual harm was done then their opinion just didn’t matter because it’s literally not a real thing. If they try to defame me or lie about my character to others that’s actual harm and at that point I address the fact that the things they say and the recorded evidence of reality aren’t the same and just because they feel like I’m a bad person doesn’t make it so and it’s their problem that (for example) they decided I’d abandoned them after being forced from my home from their constant abuse. Their abuse was a real thing, being abandoned is a fantasy that is easily disproved by my being here and having to explain why abandonment can’t happen when the one being abandoned is also the one causing the absence to happen.
So now that they can’t hurt me (mostly) I don’t get angry or need to defend against their constant distractions of claiming I’ve attacked them. I don’t need to explain why they are wrong, I simply tell them they know that isn’t true and they have nothing but the wound of not being worth defending against. They actually refuse to communicate with me. I’m still trying to get my bed back, just because it’s mine I don’t really want it, and they will run away before walking in the same grocery store because their fantasy narrative crumbles if I exist. They can’t be a victim if I refuse to be the antagonist. I love them and refuse to hate them and feel sincere pity that they exist in such a state of shame and fear of having all the effort in those years of lies wasted and they are left being responsible for all that failure.
Not all those they blamed, but them. I didn’t cause their home to fall to ruin, it happened because they made me leave and they couldn’t handle the responsibility and no one would live with them. Now they live and babysit someone’s kids and have no home of their own. And unless I’m the one that abandoned them then it’s their fault. And I didn’t leave, they pushed me out. Instant wound as I’m the reality they can’t exist in, and I don’t hate them. I’m their weakness that shamed them and they refused. They will literally beg me to love them, but they do it by needing to be forgiven.
The one time I got mad and hurt them I feel really bad about. They were so hurt that I didn’t ignore the accusations, and then I grabbed the person they were and reminded them they couldn’t both exist and so neither did and they melted. I really feel like I betrayed myself more than them, and while they certainly deserved it I didn’t need to do it. It won’t make me feel better because I don’t need hate to live, and it’s not justice to wound a cripple.
I’m sorry for the lengthy narrative, I haven’t had a chance to write that last part down. I usually write in various groups as a way to look at my own actions, well, as another person hah. My false self is an author 🙂
Anyway, I know anyone exposed to someone that lies to hurt because the power causes pleasure they need to distract from the pain of killing themselves every day will feel all the negative emotions from betrayal to fury. But you’re losing like that. You were attracted to the initial reflection of an ideal you, and that ideal was both loving and vulnerable. You loved your own weakness and they hated you for it. They stabbed you to explain why you should hate that person you loved so much, and they will keep stabbing because they can’t stop. You can control most of the interaction at that point, just assume they’ll do whatever you tell them hurts the most. How much watching them eat ice cream hurts, they’ll go get a tub.
It’s pathetic and at that point maybe you can pity them and so be able to ignore them.
This isn’t possible in every circumstance, some are much better at causing actual harm. Legal action using lies and criminal actions using their intimate knowledge.
This is just in the event of a reflection of yourself that’s not able to extract itself from the love it feels in forgiveness. Just forgive them and let it hate itself for needing it.
I can’t imagine the horror of having to wake up every morning knowing it must hurt someone because unless it’s forgiven then no one loves it. And everyone keeps going away and “not loving it” after eventually causing them to much pain to ignore. It is literally killing the love it finds because it needs to apologize and then watch it die.
And that’s better than what shamed it originally, what the fuck happened that this was the better choice?

Hi
It is nice to hear that someone actually was successful and did not loose all their belongings and had to start from 0 after being abused by one of them for a change! I lost everything and still working on getting my life back together. 31 and just started to learn to drive for example. But we are all in the same boat and strong! 🙂

Hi Evelyn,

you are so welcome.

No Evelyn its not – if anything they get worse.

Much love to you

Mel 🙏💕💚

Is it possible for the narcissistic to change as she/he grows older and to have true love .