Part 2 of 4:
I was being future faked
In support groups for narcissistic abuse, a word that comes up often is servitude. It took tremendous logistical energy to be with my partner: in a year and a half, he stayed at my place twice. Otherwise, I was covertly expected to stay at his (though not allowed to leave an overnight bag or have much say in household decisions), so I was increasingly living out of my car, rushing home to change for one of my three jobs or school (the program of which he couldn’t name to save his life), or rushing home to feed my pets (that he couldn’t have cared less about) and then back to him and his needs. I was allowed to regularly clean his home but was offered no equal support in my living space. Any protest was met with puppy dog eyes and sob stories that played off my body’s early-instilled disposition to please. I vividly remember hauling heavy rocks in a wheelbarrow in his yard. For a long while and the life of me, I could not remember why. In retrospect, I was being future faked.
This was also part of why I fell far below fighting weight, on top of the nerves: when I realized how weak I was and how unsustainable the living arrangement was, I attempted to recenter myself in my apartment, cooking at home and buying more groceries. Once he knew this, we instantly “had to go out to dinner,” or a series of plans would come up where he was able to control the payment and the food schedule (me being a working student and him living off of a recent inheritance, not the money he pretended was because his business was doing so well). Any objection on my part got me steadily disarmed and screamed at: how dare I doubt him. Wasn’t I grateful for the dinners he bought me?
Invisible enemies are hard to fight, particularly when the enemy strikes once
(For any well-adjusted person out there wondering why I would let myself be put in this situation, I am learning to agree. But I will also ask for you to remember that the grooming process is meticulous and intelligently customized. I was a frog in a slowly boiling pot. Additionally, invisible enemies are hard to fight, particularly when the enemy strikes once and then starts three other small fires to distract from the distraction. My body/mind/spirit had collapsed long before I was able to name this living situation as a source. There were always promises, and it took me longer than my body could afford to figure out what was happening. By then, he had figured out more of my weaknesses and whipped me into a solid panic.)
I would ask my significant other for a more structured schedule and a little planning ahead to ease my role. He would sweetly say, Of course, but the next day would have a very convincing “special circumstance” that made it so he “really needed my comfort,” but only at his place for some plausible reason. He was always keeping me off balance. My frustration of not being able to explain one circumstance without the caveat of the other (even if I knew in my bones that they were connected) was more exhausting than anything to which I will ever hope to “officially” point a finger.
Partly due to the chain-smoking of cigarettes that saw me through
I digress. In my body, my breathing was shallow, and yes, this was partly due to the chain-smoking of cigarettes that saw me through. Unable to hear myself think or feel my body, I found it impossible to limit the bad habit. This plausible dynamic was readily thrown in my face when I took myself to the emergency room during a respiratory attack, and my partner told me he was glad I hadn’t woken him up (though he played my sympathies like a flute to get me to take days off work when his body was sick or injured). I had also stopped taking a helpful asthma medication because my abuser named its steroids as the culprit for my erratic behavior.
Yes, I am a broken human who coped with smoking, but my shallow breathing was also because of fear. I constantly braced under intermittent rage and affection and then, confused, broke down more when he black-eyed raged at me that I was making him walk on eggshells. (Narcissists’ accusations are often confessions via projection.) Any bringing up of my discomfort with his behavior was quickly met with “How much longer am I supposed to deal with bad things other people did to you” rhetoric. His dog-whistling was particularly effective at keeping me on edge. Several times, scheduled check-ins for our deteriorating relationship were prefaced with terrifying road rage that I couldn’t prove was strategic but left my body on high alert while entering said check-ins, where I would be screamed at for not doing good enough for him.
I was slowly being disconnected from myself, and this left him as my only authority. Having been subtly isolated from my friends and family, I heeded his victimized pleas for me to keep his secrets, to keep things private. It couldn’t have been environmental; it couldn’t have been him. He never does anything wrong. Ever. Ever. When I had irrefutable proof of a single flaw, I got called dramatic and over-sensitive or told to be “objective about my feelings” while considering his more subjectively. It couldn’t have been the toll the relationship was taking on me and my inseverable body. (Months after he left me, I found solace in “The Narcissist’s Prayer”: That didn’t happen. If it did, it wasn’t that bad. If it was, it’s not a big deal. If it is, it’s not my fault. And if it was, I didn’t mean it. And if I did, you deserved it.)
Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash
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Bonni Benton is a multimedia artist and student. She has a BA in Theatre from Hunter College (CUNY) and will hold an MA in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from UNM at the end of this year. She put her roots back down in her home state of New Mexico in 2020, where she and her two rabbits currently live in a tiny house in the mountains.
