The wound is open again
A little glimpse into my healing journey after severe narcissistic abuse.
Today I gave an interview to a member of the Danish press about why we had to close Stedsans down so abruptly.
The talk led to the trauma we suffered in the early years in Sweden.
Trauma that still to this day is nowhere close to healed.
Something I moved very far away from Sweden to separate myself from. To heal the wound I have to put it completely behind me. Start over at a place where I am not constantly reminded of the trauma and don’t meet people who have well-meaning questions about it. Like this journalist had, with the result that my wound is now wide open spitting blood again.
What happened?
To even get my own story together I had to spend several years and hundreds of thousands of kroner on therapy. I had to isolate myself from all family members, even my husband, for long stretches of time, to find a place where it was my own voice and nothing but that I was listening to. I had to work on separating layer after layer of fear, guilt, shame and confusion from my true gut feeling - that I was a vicim of severe abuse and none of it was my fault. I know my truth and my story now, deeply. I have come as long as I can. My way forward is to move on and start my life over from scratch.
What happened was I ran into a hardcore, heartless narcissist, in the disguise of a helpful friend and close family member. With an enabler by his side in the form of my identical twin sister, the person I trusted above every single other person on this planet. Until that summer in 2018 when hell broke loose in my life.
‘Ah, should we not stop labelling everybody as a narcissist’, you may think. So did I. And I spent 3 years just trying to figure out if narcissism even existed. I truly believed everybody deep down want to be good and heal. That narcissistic traits are just signs a person is under stress or out of touch with themselves. I don’t believe so any more.
I know deep into the core of my being that narcissists do exist and that the only thing there is to do if you have them in your life is to turn around and leave or have as little to do with them as possible. I could get into details about what happened and why you should believe my side of the story but I will not (I will, at one point, but in a lot longer format than this).
I will not tell you the details because one of the main reasons why it’s so hard to have been involved in narcissistic abuse is not that it happened. It’s the reaction from everyone around you, who do not believe you. Like the girl who has been raped and is told she should have not flirted so much or put on a longer dress. Only, at least with rape there is usually a common understanding it’s wrong. Whereas narcissism usually gets rewarded and hardly ever punished.
Even those who were very close to me before are not close to me anymore. Because I will rather be alone than be with people who don’t acknowledge my story.
