Quora: How do I forgive the narcissist for all he’s done to me?

 I have strugged with the idea of forgiveness for more than twenty years now, with various situations and people in my life….and I’m not there yet.

What I can tell you is this: if you and the narcissist/abuser are no longer interacting and he is not presently causing you harm, you are now on a healing path.

What that means is that you are no longer being directly harmed by that person. You are being harmed by the stories you keep remembering and re-telling that are causing you fresh hurt every time you speak and think about them. You are hurting yourself.

Forgiveness, as far as I can tell, is not about saying “What he did to me is OK,”

Forgiveness, from what I understand, is not you saying “I want this person back in my life,”

It’s not saying “I feel free to trust this man again,”

All forgiveness is, at its basic level, I think , is that you are going to stop hurting yourself by telling yourself (and others) these stories about the terrible things that were done to you. Forgiveness is you deciding to be a healthier, happier person, to choose better people to allow in your life, and let that painful story go.

And, yes, as others have noted, there will need to be some acknowledgement that you made choices which allowed this person to stay and hurt you, so part of forgiveness—maybe the most important part of forgiveness—is to forgive yourself for allowing the harm for as long as you did. Learn from your experience and allow it to protect you in the future. You have learned something. You have valuable tools and skills to bring to new relationships, you have a better idea of who you are, what you need, and what behavior you will not allow. That’s hard-won gold of wisdom. Cherish yourself, as a survivor with wisdom. The past is gone and there’s no need to let it hurt you anymore.

editing to add: Forgiveness is something you do. No other person is required. It would be really lovely if someone who hurt you would feel remorse, make amends, and say that they are sorry for their actions in a way that you can trust and believe. But narcissists do not apologize (at least not with any sincerity—an apology from a narcissist is just more manipulation). And expecting, asking for, or demanding an apology before you forgive is a waste of your time and energy. You cannot control the other people in your life, you cannot force a sociopath to feel empathy or compassion or remorse. Forgiveness is part of your own healing. It is within your control to give or not, as you see fit. No one can force you to forgive before you are ready, just as you cannot force someone into a genuine apology.

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 Posts tagged 'quora' were originally my answers to peoples' questions on quora.com.  They were monetized but I am giving them away for free here. 

If you feel inclined to support my writing, here's my paypal 

And if you prefer to pay it forward, I recommend Safe Place as an excellent place to support.

 

Quora: Is it possible for a narcissist to skip a devaluation? Or it is always going to be idealizati

Is it possible for a narcissist to skip a devaluation? Or it is always going to be idealization-devaluation-discard.

I would say that if a narcissist ‘comes on’ to you with the idealization, excessive praise, lavish attention, etc. and you don’t respond with the ‘right’ signs of being overly-empathetic, codependent, willing to discard others in favor of the narcissist’s time and company, then the narc may go ahead and cut you off in order to go looking for easier prey. And, believe me, this may hurt your feelings or feel as though you were ‘ghosted’ for no reason, but it’s honestly the best possible outcome when deaing with a narcissist. They tested your boundaries and self esteem, found that you were firmly grounded, and went on to a more likely target.

Another possibility is that they have several potential new sources going at the same time and they pass you over in favor of cultivating another source who has more of what they want or who seems more compliant with the narcissist’s wants. Think of this as someone at the grocery store who decides they’d rather have ice cream than cookies, so they leave the cookies (you) on the shelf and put the ice cream into their basket. They didn’t have the cookies long enough to tear up the wrapping and eat half of them and then decide that cookies are disgusting and throw them out. Lucky cookie! If you are unlucky, they may still come back for the cookies once they’re done with the ice cream. Hopefully you will be long gone by then!

A third possibility, though I haven’t seen it, is that the ‘devalue’ phase is done internally within the narcissist’s mind rather than outward acts of cruelty or debasement of the target. In other words, they idealize you, suck you in, then mentally devalue you without doing anything outwardly to tear you down, they just get tired and bored and discard. Again, usually because there’s another target that they think is a better source of supply— richer, prettier, more social status, or whatever it is that the narcissist wants at that moment. They may not let YOU know that they’ve devalued you, but you can be sure that they have.

What is most likely, if you aren’t able to spot the ‘devalue’ is that it is being done so slowly and in such a manipulative way that you aren’t able to identify it while it is happening.

As an example, I used to enjoy writing—fiction and poetry mostly, but other things as well. My friends, family, classmates, teachers, and college professors all told me I was a good writer and that my stories were imaginative and enjoyable.

I was in a relationship for 13 years that I eventually came to realize was abusive, and somewhere along the line I stopped writing. For the longest time, I didn’t even remember that I had once enjoyed writing. To my knowledge and memory, my ex never told me I was a terrible writer or anything like that, but he treated my writing as if it didn’t matter, never wanted to read anything I’d written, etc. And so gradually I came to believe that my writing was worthless, and that spending time writing was a waste of time. When he started dating a new woman and bought her a laptop to write her stories on, because she called herself a writer and he believed in and supported her writing, was when I realized how badly he had devalued my talent, over such a long period of time, and in such small ways, that I never noticed it.

The cycle is very predictable. Each narcissist may have a longer or shorter cycle of idealize-devalue-discard, or the cycles may vary with the ‘quality’ of their target—someone more patient, or in possession of more resources, etc. may take longer to drain. But it’s very predictable, and, in hindsight, quite obvious. It may be difficult to see when you’re in the middle of it but once you are free and have achieved clarity you will be able to see it all. The narcissist’s greatest victory is making you devalue yourself so they don’t even have to. 

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Editing to add:  Posts tagged 'quora' were originally my answers to peoples' questions on quora.com.  They were monetized but I am giving them away for free here. 

If you feel inclined to support my writing, here's my paypal 

And if you prefer to pay it forward, I recommend Safe Place as an excellent place to support.