Authors Note: Lilith is part of a series based on an exercise to isolate different aspects of myself. Lilith is a departure from my current writings. When I began my blog on Jan 1, 2020, my writing was very raw. Full of pain. Lilith is my 35th entry. There has been an evident trajectory of strength and healing in that time. Lilith sounds much more like the things I was writing in the beginning. It is an exorcism of sorts. It is closure for a time of life I am parting ways with. The only entry I have had trouble writing. The only topic that has filled me with fear. To assure you, I find myself very well these days and have not taken a turn for the worse.
Please be advised that Lilith contains strong language.
By the time you realize you are involved with a narcissist – it’s too late. It has taken most of my life to accept this painful truth. The most heartbreaking of life lessons.
Lilith, the unloved. Unwanted. Crazy bitch. Mentally ill. Troubled. Siren. Warrior. Psycho. Demon. Witch. Grief. Shame. Deranged. The scorcher of Earth. Woman scorned.
There are only four people in my life who have caused Lilith to awaken. Only four people who have come face to face with her. And me. I know her the best. I am the one she controls. When she wakes, it is first with a soft crying, a quiet keening. Then, like a match to gasoline, she consumes me. She grows in intensity. For as long as it takes. I have been to the thin razor’s edge of my life with Lilith. It’s happened more than once.
Trauma response is what she is. Technically speaking. Trauma, deepened over time. Trauma that has grown, exponentially, each time I have been re-injured. Our reactions to the things that scared us, humiliated us and changed us become bigger. We become less able to control them. Afterward, we feel a deep shame in them. A grown, sane, intelligent woman gone completely mad. A firestorm, ripping through me, making me behave primally. Beyond my breeding.
Lilith is nearly as old as I am. As a person who is normally articulate in the language of feelings – Lilith confounds me. The physical sensation of her is a full-body scream in the darkest night. It is horror. My inability to put descriptive words to her tells me that she was born before I had words. I have struggled to understand her – break her down. To have felt the force of her without being able to describe her, accurately, frustrates me. What does she scream? Something close to “I have been erased.”
Falling in love with a narcissist is the exact opposite of that feeling. You come to believe that you are magic. Someone, for once, sees all of you. Loves every bit of you. Desires nothing more than to be with you. They tell you they have never felt this way before. You have their full attention. They want to love you, marry you, spend every day of their life with you. They seem so sure of this they jump in, headfirst. In a time when you would be getting to know someone, warming up to someone, they want to discuss the rest of your lives together. To a person who’s deepest fear is being erased, to be admired in this way, to have someone validate the deepest part of you… I can’t think of an adequate enough word to describe it.
You are able to overlook so much about the person who provides you this feeling. How they speak of their past relationships. How interesting they are. The fact that they don’t have many friends. Physical appearance couldn’t bother you less. Do you actually love them? Or do you love the way they make you feel? The bright light of their adoration makes you whole. Invincible. You no longer struggle with your sense of self-worth. You have only to believe them.
I am fortunate to have loved a man who is not of this kind. My husband. I had no words for the pattern of other heartbreaks in my life. What I had experienced, I recognized the concept of it. I knew I wanted to avoid it. I worked on myself in therapy, trying to free myself from it. The word “narcissist” didn’t even catch my attention until a year and a half ago. I have practically earned a college minor in it since that time.
The names and locations changed, but the story is the same. Four times over. When it happens to you the first time, you aren’t carrying the baggage you later will. Each relationship past that initial time, though, begins with a verbalization of your past heartaches. The men you had loved. How deeply hurt you were. The time it took you to recover. How you believed you would never love again. How scared you are to trust. Mine all knew. They knew every detail of it, after the first time. It was a warning – this is my greatest fear. It was a prayer – please don’t do this to me. They did it anyway.
Devaluation is a transitionary period in a relationship with a narcissist. Clearly seen in hindsight, viewed as a bit of bumpy road as it takes place. When you have been in a relationship with a person for a period of years, lots of things happen in both of your lives. We go through periods of blatant un-sexiness. Our attention is diverted into other areas. In healthy relationships, you hopefully face these things together. If someone is feeling neglected, hopefully, they will say so. There is an understanding that these times will pass. To a narcissist, though, these times are much more sinister. The endorphins of new love are intoxicating. The challenge of winning a person’s heart is life-giving. They need it. They are unable to function without it. You become…erasable. You have served your purpose.
This is a decision made without your knowledge and it begins to intrude in subtle ways. You took the time to dress up, they don’t comment. They are busy this weekend. Your body, the most perfect body they had ever seen, is now criticized. Months after you changed your hair they mention they don’t like it. If it’s short, they mention they prefer it long. Things that were never a problem in the past, like your age or your weight, are raised. They are justifying leaving you. They are making it your fault. The list of grievances against you grows until the scale tips. Another female in their life is triangulated against you. You are set against each other in a love triangle to which only he is privy. There is a growing collection of younger females that he claims are interested in him. Does he know them? Not really. One of mine kept a bulletin board with the pictures of many younger women tacked to it. We were engaged at the time. Technology has transformed bulletin boards and school pictures into FB friends, followers and posed pictures of a middle-aged man with some female too pretty for the likes of him.
Did I pick up on something not being right as this transitionary phase progressed? Of course, I did. Instead of going to bed elated and in love I was concerned about my hair. My age. The fact that the man I planned to be with has a sudden attraction to younger Latinas. There’s a lot I can change about my appearance. That’s not one of them. The clothes I wore weren’t sexy enough. I began to be pushed over my comfort zone in what I would wear out, what I was sexually into, the type of attention I provided him. You feel expendable, he is being reckless with you. There is a tremor in the foundation of your confidence.
When the discard comes – Lilith wakes.
Loving a narcissist means seeing a person completely cold to your pain. It means seeing no emotion in them at all over ending things with you. It means seeing yourself replaced in days. It means living without closure, living without the answers you need. Loving a narcissist means never getting an apology. For anything. Because, in their eyes, it was you. It was all you.
Lilith. Crazy. Bitch. Demon. Suicidal ideation. Unbearable pain. Crazed. Her silent scream fills me. The terror of being wiped completely away. What did I do, please tell me what I did. Please tell me. I’ll be better. I promise I’ll be good. No answer. Too busy. Unanswered. Forever. Not worth – anything. Unable to find any validation because these assholes will never, never accept responsibility for what they have done. What they are still doing. I see the look in your eyes. You didn’t expect this. You are scared of me. You should be.
Not one of them let me go. Each discarded me, with no visible emotion. But this was not the end. It was only the beginning of a new chapter with them. The chapter of my destruction.
As I deal with the shock of this, as it is sinking into me the days following discard, they continue on with me as normal. A break-up is never a break-up with a narcissist. ‘Let’s be friends’ is never being friends with a narcissist. A discard changes one thing only, you now have no rights to them. They are now single. Free to date. You are too, I guess – I wouldn’t know, I never tried it. These relationships took months, even years of healing before I was able to date again. Only to have the process repeat itself.
You still sound like you. You look like you. You talk to me, almost as if nothing has changed. You say we will be as close as we ever were. That we will retain the deep level of emotional intimacy that we share. And then it occurs to me that there is someone else. I call you on it. You talk around my question. I call you on it. You deny it. I am destabilizing during this time, feeling as though I am starting to go mad because my intuition is telling me there is someone else but you brush this off. You then remind me that you are single, that I have no claim on you, that I am being possessive. And then finally, after perhaps weeks of this, time that I am being driven mad, time that Liliths’ roar is becoming louder and louder, the chosen one surfaces. And I am expected to understand this – because we are friends now. Really close friends, isn’t that what you said? We are SO fucking close. You can’t go on without me. You need me. You remind me that we were broken up so what am I upset about exactly?? What did I expect you to do when you were so dissatisfied with our relationship?
This is where I should have left you. Without another word, I should have left you. Weeks ago, months ago. I should have left you so much earlier than I did. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I still loved you. It felt like love, to me.
It feels like it will kill me to be without you. You had planned an entire future with me. You had filled my head with the images of it. You had told me I was your soulmate, implying this happens once in a lifetime. I’ve never met a person with so many fucking soulmates. I should leave now, but I am destabilized. I am no longer thinking for myself. Lilith is filling me, directing my actions, I don’t even think some of them through as I do them. I am unreasonable. I am unable to think through this logically. You had been my truth. You said I was too emotional, said I overthought everything. And I believed you. I believed you had the truth, about me, about us, about everything. I’m unable to let go – you are unable to let go of me even though you are now killing me. You are actively destroying me with your coldness and yet you cannot let go.
I’m not well. I am not myself. You approach me, gingerly. You have nothing but the most level of words, hoping you won’t set me off again. I could fly at you in rage. I could break down and start crying. I could start talking and it will all tumble out, all the pain I have tried to keep you from seeing.
I do terrible things during this time. Manipulative things. Things that will shame me in the after. I drive across town in the middle of the night to make sure your car is at home. I repress the urge to slash your tires. I pull strands of my long hair out and leave them in your bed for your girlfriend to find. I gain access to your dorm room while you are out and have a look around. I manufacture medical crisis’s that cause you to have to come over because I need you. I go missing for long enough to worry you. I write checks I know are bad to give you the perfect evening. I buy tickets for us to something a month from now. I don’t ask you about this. I tell you. I start thinking too much about suicide. If only you didn’t enjoy my pain so much. If only it didn’t fill you with a false sense of importance, seeing how much I can’t be without you. I re-read everything you ever wrote to me, looking for clues of when it all went wrong. I lose friends, who cannot deal with me anymore because I refuse to stay away from you. I refuse to hang up on you when you call. I say yes every motherfucking time you show up and ask me to do something with you. You give me just enough to keep my hopes alive, then you put me in my place. Be kind, spend an evening with me, have a conversation that feels like it was, before. I hear what sounds like love in your voice, we have been close for days – then you remind me you aren’t in love with me. You seem to hang on my every word, you look at me with enough adoration to raise my hopes. Thank me for the perfect evening. You kiss me. It is still early, we could still talk. I don’t want you to go. I don’t want it to be over. The mask of the former you falls. You turn and walk away from me.
I forgive. I make excuses for you. I shame myself for feeling so needy. I tell myself I will NO LONGER SHOW EMOTION FOR YOU. I will match your tone. I try to reset myself with Victorias Secret and spa nights. I try to do other things on the weekends. I try to be gone longer than you. I fear I am going insane to Lilith’s screaming. I am no longer in control of myself.
I tried to forgive you. I tried to forget your intolerable cruelty towards me. But Lilith wouldn’t. Lilith wouldn’t listen to me. There was a point. Each time, there was a point where the pleading ran cold. When she was done. When she said enough. When she drew her sword.
She would not let loose her grip on me, her grip of unrelenting pain and distress – until she forced me to let go of you. She forced me to run. She dodged your calls and the meaningless cards you sent in the mail. She packed every memory and sent them to you. She blocked you everywhere. She made me pack my things and we left in the middle of the night. She ripped the phone from the wall. She slept on the couch somewhere you could no longer harm her. She pretended not to see you. She deleted without reading. She forbade me from running after you. She moved three states away. She stopped me from buying those pills. She stopped me before your malice killed me. She smashed perfume bottles and broke heels off shoes. She tore every picture to shreds. She pulled the tape from cassettes. She turned dried roses to dust in her hands. She broke every dish in the house, she burned anything with the smell of you on it. She never let me speak your name again. You will never find me. You will never reach me. You will never hear from me. I’m NOT YOUR FUCKING FRIEND. Fuck you.
She was unbearable and she raged, without end, until I let you go.
Without you in my life, I healed. I deepened. Once the pain subsided I had periods of accelerated growth following each one of you. Everything became better. I cried my last tear for you, not even knowing that’s what it was. I stopped caring if you regretted losing me. I stopped wondering if you thought of me. I had hours, then days and weeks where I stopped thinking of you. I loved again. The real kind. I became so much more “me.” My strength doubled. Healing is hard work. I faced my bullshit. I didn’t run from it. And, in the end, I was the one who erased you.
Why didn’t he love me? This was my deepest wound. I have carried it since childhood. Each one of you opened this wound and doubled down on it. I learned to live around it. In spite of it. Alongside of it, while it never stopped seeping its blackness inside me. Why didn’t you love me? Because you DO NOT LOVE. Anyone.
I will never be erased by those who truly love me.
Lilith, the uninvited. The unwanted. Lilith, the one who drew her sword to save my life. The one who told the truth about you until I finally listened. Lilith, the one who would not rest until I let you go. It will never happen to me again. I will draw her sword long before she does. I am the one who protects her now.
One more thing. I do not apologize. For any of it. I do not take back a single word I said. I’m not sorry for the things I did to escape you. I don’t regret losing you. You deserved to lose me. You deserved all of it. You brought that on yourself.
You’re the one who woke her.
