Drained

“The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.” ~ Anonymous

Sometimes, I can’t help but find myself asking the same question over and over again, “How did I get here?” It is a dangerous thing to do, if I am not in a certain emotional state. Today, it is one of those days when I shouldn’t be asking myself that question. However, the answers are flowing one after the other one and at an incredible speed.

Life is like a maze. We all start in the same place. But depending on the decisions we make, we take the wrong or right turns. Sometimes we get to the other side, only to find yet another maze over there. And we can’t help our nature. Before we know it, we are once again staring at green walls with dead ends and too many options.

I doubted whether to write this particular post today. I am emotionally drained. It was not easy to drop my daughter at preschool today. Not so much from a mother’s stand point. My daughter did something that she had never done before. Yes, she has had meltdowns when she first started. Yes, she eventually started to look forward to attending preschool. But since the Christmas break, she became very clingy.

I am not saying it in a bad way. It is the reality. Her father got away with what he wanted: More days than he should have gotten. He didn’t get exactly what he wanted, but he did more than he should have.

I don’t want to sound petulant. Who am I anyway to deny a father of seeing his daughter? But we are not talking about a normal person here. We’re talking about someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) who has a daughter with both Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD.)

[Side note: Those were too many acronyms, even for myself.]

I’ve been trying to find resources for divorced NPD survivors who are also parents of children with disabilities. There’s not much out there. There are some resources for divorced parents who have survived NPD abuse and who are now trying to protect their children. But their children are neuro-typical.

I apologize if I am using too many psychological and medical terms. In case you are not familiar with them, a neuro-typical individual is one who does not have ASD or any other type of disorder. I am neuro-typical; my daughter is not. She’s very typical in other areas, but her brain operates under a different operating system than that of someone like me or her father. Gosh! I hope she does not operate like her father because that would be ghastly.

I got sidetracked and I probably used some of the dark sense of humor that gets me through some days. We all do what we can to survive, don’t we?

Going back to the break, he was able to keep her several nights in a row, something that I have been against since she was diagnosed and something that most people involved in our case have also been against after seeing that our daughter responds better to me than him. But he got away. Once again. He played one of his typical narc cards and duped people who make decisions in our case and he got what he wanted, not caring one bit for what was best for our daughter or the fact that I would have to miss days of work and put the rest of my working schedule upside-down. But why would he care? It’s not in his narc nature to do so.

By the time I got my daughter back, she had scratches, bruises, diarrhea, was in a constant state of anxiety, didn’t want me out of her sight, had trouble sleeping at night, eating, drinking, and the list goes on.

I was concerned about her going back to school after the break. If neuro-typical children her age have problems going back to a school routine, and if you don’t know much about ASD, then you don’t know how difficult it can be for a child on the spectrum to get back to any routine.

She resumed preschool this week. Today, I was dropping her. She didn’t want to get off the car. When I was finally able to convince her to get off, I could see how tense her little body was. And by the time we got to the classroom, it turned into a nightmare.

She didn’t want to let go of me. She is an incredibly strong little girl. She was holding my legs for dear life. She pulled me down so hard that I had to sit on the floor. She then gave me a big hug, with streams of tears coming down her porcelain cheeks, and held me around my neck, not letting go.

The teachers tried to convince her to let go of me with toys, books, all of her classroom favourite things. Nothing was working. I had never seen her do this before. It broke my heart. I could see that she was going to go into full autistic meltdown. I started to do all the things I normally do when I can see that she might go into one of those meltdowns, which does not happen very often, and they don’t happen when she is with me at all since I have been able to see them coming and do what she needs me to do to help her not get there. Her father, on the other hand, never knows what to do. When we were still living together and she would go into one of these meltdowns, he always washed his hands and pass the ball to me. I am wondering if the bruises and scratches I see her coming back to me are the result of meltdowns that he cannot handle. And his way of trying to handle them have always been by force, holding and pinning her down. Big mistake with an autistic person. Big mistake.

But a narc is never wrong. Don’t you dare point it out. I tried. I paid the price.

With my daughter holding me the way she was this morning, I just wanted to pick her up and get her out of there, most especially now that we have received the latest evaluation from the school, which states that our daughter needs services the school cannot provide, something that I have been saying all along since her father put her in the Early Childhood Education program and she completely failed and hated that program last year. We had already that precedent. I tried to get her in a place where they could provide what she actually needs. But her father knows better than anyone else, including the doctors, and he enrolled her behind my back.

Since we are still not divorced, there was not much I could do about it without looking like the controlling freak he was out to portray me. So I had to stick with it, support it, and put our daughter through something that not only has not helped her improved, but that has resulted in her regressing in many areas.

Now she’s been accepted at an incredible autism and children’s services center, one of the best in our state, if not the country. All he wants to do is put her in yet another public school. Our daughter is already attending the center a couple of times a week for an hour as part of her adaptation. She didn’t want to attend at first. Now she runs through the hallways trying to get as fast as she can to the rooms where she knows they have the therapy toys they use with her.

While I wait for her to come out of her sessions, I watch the other children coming and going and how they interact with the therapists. These children are happy! They love their therapists and the therapists love their jobs. You can tell.

I also take advantage of my idle time to talk to the other parents. Many of them have tried other places and they ended up there after failing at the previous centers. They are all very happy with the progress their children are making. They are all encouraging me to keep bringing my daughter to this place. I can see how their eyes light up when they share their children’s progress with me. And I can also see the looks of understanding, that silent language that parents who are going through similar things to what I am going can only understand.

There are many of them who are divorced, too. For many of them, the divorce was a result of the other parent not wanting to deal with the children’s disabilities. I can’t say that I am surprised.

I have not been attending the place long enough to know much about these parents’ stories. And I don’t go around asking, “Anybody an NPD abuse survivor? I would like to talk to you.” But I can’t help but wonder if any of them might have lived through what I had to lived and I’m still living through.

You may be wondering why am I taking my daughter there on my own. Or maybe you are not. Either way, if you tried to guess the truth, I’m sure you guessed it right: Because narc father does not want his daughter attending this place. The only way to get him to give in to at least the trial period was by scheduling the appointments on my days.

The court knows this and that he has done nothing about our daughter’s autism. My lawyer has made a point of reporting everything that I have been doing, from research to visiting the centers to reading books to joining support groups to taking our daughter to autistic- and sensory-friendly events to buying clothes that help her with her dislike of certain textures, etc., and how her father insists in keeping her at a school that has already said that they cannot provide the services she needs and that they need us to transfer her elsewhere.

Letting go of her today was very hard, most especially after seeing her how much she enjoyed her visit to the center yesterday evening. Her autism assessment is coming soon. I am concerned. Even though her father has agreed to said assessment because I don’t think he had much of an option considering that he had been court-ordered to visit the center, I am concerned that he won’t sign the necessary paperwork so she can start the therapies. Having agreed to the assessment basically implies that she will be attending the center. It’s in the contract. But he didn’t sign the contract, even though the court has said that he had to sign all contracts and anything pertaining to our daughter’s health. She cannot attend doctor’s appointments or receive any medical or psychological services without both our consents. I just don’t know how he got away with not signing this one particular contract. I think because he thinks that, in this way, I will get stuck with the bills.

Anyway, leaving my daughter at school today was emotional taxing on both her and me. She may have autism, but she’s very smart. She knows that her father picks her up from school when I drop her. The court has established that the school be the place for exchange.

Yes, our case got so bad that the court has arranged things in such a way that we see each other very little. I’m fine by it. I don’t want to see his face for the rest of my or his life. But our daughter is stuck in between us. The teachers are stuck in between us. The pediatrician, the therapists, everybody and everyone is stuck in between us and that is not fair for any of them.

We should be able to handle our problems ourselves, without triangulating. Grown-ups and mature people handle things themselves. They don’t bring third parties in to handle their problems. And that’s another reason why I am so exhausted emotionally speaking.

I never know where the blow is going to come from and through whom.

The next few weeks are going to be very busy. We have the assessment coming, another court day, doctor’s appointments, and more.

I know this post might have not been so much about NPD. But for me it is. Every aspect of my life is affected by my NPD. He is still exercising control over me, and now his daughter, through this entire divorce proceeding.

He has been delaying the whole thing as a way to control my life. He knows that, the longer we are still married, the longer I will have to wait to be able to make any financial decisions. Everything I possess is still attached to the fact that we are still legally married. I cannot sell my cars, refinance my home, ask for a loan, get a retirement fund, apply for life insurance for our daughter, start a trust fund for her, nothing without him knowing about it and him trying to get his claws in them. I can’t get a second job, either. I cannot find other ways of making an income without him being able to claim them as his, as well. I know, he is stuck, too.

And concerning our daughter, the same thing. If the divorce is final, then custody will be finalized, too. He is sure that he is going to get full custody. And for most part, seeing how our case has been going so far, I’m afraid that he will. He has done an incredible job of making me look bad. I have been trying to restore my image with the court since this while affair started. That’s why I beg other people who are asking me, file first.  The court will listen to whomever files first and you don’t want to be playing catch up. Discard your narc first. Do not let him discard you. If you cannot pay your attorney, find one that will work with you and come up with some payment plan. Ultimately, attorneys want to make money. It’s better for them to have a client that will pay at least a little bit every month than not having a client at all.

Now that I have been able to put my thoughts down on paper, I feel a little bit better. Going back to my questioning how I got here in the first place, I started to see a lot of things all of a sudden. Small things that I should have pushed for and that would have saved me the headache I’m in at this time.

I want to share one thing with all of you based on my own experience. If you are like me or had a similar experience to mine and so many other NPD abuse survivors out there, then you know that their M.O. is to isolate us. Without others to keep us grounded, the narc will create our reality, slowly, brick by brick, until we no longer know what is reality and what is narc fog.

Isolation is an incredibly powerful weapon in their arsenal. When I first started to go out with my husband, he would join me and my friends in our activities. But he slowly started to pull me away from my friends. I had a lot of other friends who were not part of my big group. What I’m trying to say is that I had friends with whom I would do outdoor activities. I had other friends with whom I would go to the cinema, concerts, and other music- and art-related activities. I had other friends I met through my jobs and, while we had different backgrounds, we enjoyed each other’s companies.

He first isolated me from my outdoor friends. And when I tried to get him to join me with the other friends I had for concerts, movies, hanging out at their place, go to a restaurant for dinner, or any other activity, he always had something else that prevented him from attending. I would either go on my own, or he would convince me not to join my friends.

The friends I made through my job are the closest ones I have. I am still friends with them. There’s three of them with whom we went through thick and mud. We survived layoffs, our employer’s bankruptcies, job changes, family problems, losses, so many things. I was stuck with one of them in a winter storm in Canada once when we were both sent over there for a project. With another one, we got stuck driving an incredible distance right after 9/11 because we couldn’t get a flight. Yet with another one, we had to help other people because of an abusive team member. And we all survived a corrupt boss. And the best thing about this friends of mine: They are all excellent judges of character, something that I am not.

Every time I tried to introduce my then boyfriend to them, he had an excuse not to show up or make me cancel the plans. And silly me, I was so much in love, I even made excuses for him. I was so tangled in his deceiving web.

When they attended our wedding, that was the second time they ever met him. Had they been exposed to him more, they would have not been duped and they would have eventually shared their doubts about him with me, saving me from a disastrous marriage. I know it. And I know it because these friends of mine were the first ones to stand by my side when I contacted them once again after a very long time, in some cases years, of not having contacted them.

They weren’t rude with me. They weren’t upset that I had not kept in touch. They were actually concerned and they lent me a much-needed ear. None of them could relate to my experiences with NPD. But they are smart people who know human nature and, most importantly, they provided me with the validation, forgiveness, and support I needed at the lowest of my life. They are the ones who are still standing by my side to this day.

In summary, if your narc does not show any intentions or willingness to meet those who are important to you, then something is wrong. Moreover, if once he does he says things about them that made you uncomfortable (it happened to me,) pay attention to your gut. You know those friends better than he or she does. Do not let him or her put doubts in your mind about the people you have known and trusted for years and who know and trust you and even better than you do yourself.

The reason why he or she does not want you to keep seeing them and most especially them seeing him or her is because your narc knows that your friends can see through his or her act. A narc will put as much distance between him or her and those who can see through his con ways as quickly as possible. They know they cannot dupe those people and, by trying to put doubts in your mind and heart about them and isolating you from them, they can and will control you.

So please, I beg you, do not make the same mistake. If your boyfriend or girlfriend or partner keeps on making excuses not to meet the important people in your life, or once they have met them they diminish them and point out to every flaw they say they have, listen to your heart. It’s a major red flag that many of us have already missed and paid for. Do not make the same mistake.

Your true friends have accepted you with flaws and everything. And they do not talk about you behind your back. If they have a problem with you, they will come to you. I never felt comfortable with the way my husband would talk about my friends and I should have listened to my gut feeling. I chucked it up to him not really knowing them. I even told him one day that, if he had nothing good to say about my friends, to stop talking about them. But I stuck with him. I shouldn’t have.

There is nothing I can do about the should have’s now. But maybe you can when it is still a should. Talk about it with your friends. Even talk about it with your partner. Ask him or her why he doesn’t like your friends, why he or she thinks this way or says this or that about your friends. One or two things could happen: Your partner can get defensive (bad sign,) or he may give you an eloquent explanation, even dodge your question and not give you a very straight answer. This is called a word salad. If you are more confused at the end of his or her explanation concerning your questioning of his or her feelings about those important to you, then something is off and you should proceed with caution.

Well, I definitely feel a little less drained now. I appreciate your taking the time to go through this ramble of thoughts with me. I also hope that, if my rambling helps someone from a possible heartache or headache, then it was worth it.