Fear Of Loneliness From Narcissistic Abuse

Here is a great video from Ollie, that gets to the heart of an issue many ACONs struggle with. It is one I am struggling with in the present.

Why do I go silent when someone is doing something bad right then and there? Even with the autism woman I said nothing just one mild thing, "Well you are being kind of quiet today" and she ignored it. Now I am better in that I will cut someone off like that more immediately and not waste my time where the me of yesterday would beg "please like me". The me of yesterday would be thinking "I need this person so I am not alone". The me of today thinks, "I do not like you, you did not treat me right, and I am gone."  The time of "taking all comers" out of an inner lonely desperation is over. There is part of me right now even trying to train myself to BE ALONE and not need other people.

Certainly after years of disability and being housebound--remember my husband used to work 12-14 hours a day AWAY from me for years, I got used to being in solitude and living in a life of the mind so to speak where my hobbies became places of escape. My ability to entertain myself and never get bored even with hours of solitude is pretty strong but I still face problems in this area being discussed. He is right that the narcissists made us uncomfortable with ourselves, and I know even when I was younger, I had this neediness that would drive people away, that got better as I got older, but I still have too much self worth, tied up with other people.

My narcissistic parents used to torture me too saying "NO ONE LIKES YOU, and YOU WILL BE ALONE" and I know these things worsened this problem for me. There was a period of around two years too, right after college, where my college friends left town and during my first no contact where I faced having no one. I moved to Chicago too alone not knowing one soul. Those times stayed with me. ACONs need that time of learning to be alone and comfortable with themselves.  "I need to learn to be alone". When one can be comfortable in themselves and be alone and not base their worth on other people, they are in far stronger position.  They are less apt to be abused.

On many things this is not a problem. I spend hours alone, I have taken the bus alone, I have eaten out alone in the past. I can spend hours doing art, thinking and being alone happily enough. I prefer quiet and solitude quite a bit. I sometimes have husband drop me off and go to places alone but still there is this facing extreme yearning for "belonging" and a weird feeling of emptiness in that I have so few local friends. There seems to be some idea in my head even now, that I need more local friends and social ties to be a worthy person and underlying it is this fear of loneliness. This video by Ollie has helped me understand what is going on.

I even get smart and say to husband on occasion, "What would I do with all these would be local friends if I got them, my energy is so low?" When I am not in bed or online, there's endless things to take care of like medical duties, cooking, helping him, and more.  Writing this was broken by three phone calls, two medically related. Here I have to face the realities of my life and adjust the expectations.

Ollie says "We gotta learn to like ourselves and give ourselves a break". Wow he even mentions that feeling of being locked inside our own heads, telling ourselves how bad we are with the narcissists words going through our minds. It does make us open to narcissists. The NEED for other people, makes us vulnerable like prey where one is seeking the compassion of others to fill the hole inside that he mentions.  It leaves an opening for the toxic who see our need and pounce! Here we have to overcome the codependent training.

I am in a period of transition now where I am not putting up with things I put up in the past. How many ACONs, put up with way too much from people? We put up with a lot out of fear of loneliness. I even stayed VLC with the family for too many years because I feared being alone and "not having a family" but I never really did. This was even worse in my 20s, I would be friends with total jerks who were mean and nasty to me. And now I understand why. Even after going NC, I changed the last vestiges of this as I ended some friendships even one of 30 years duration. When I went NC, and was cutting off my entire family, that friend said to me before I knew I would be ending that friendship too, "You should not go no contact with your family. You are going to end up all alone" and I said, "I'd rather be alone then ever abused by anyone again." Many people stay in the narc pit for life, fearing loneliness, it is a tool used by them.

Ollie is correct about those after effects of after no contact. This video is right up my alley and then some. Thank you Q for showing me this video.