In my journey to understand what I have lived through with a narcissist, and my part in it, I read that I am called a codependent, I enabled the abuser to abuse me. It is bad enough to wake up and ask your self" how you could let this happen to you" and before you can think it through, you are confused even more by having these labels put on you. I am also told I did not have any self esteem to let this happen to me.
Trying to explain one day to a friend?? what I have lived through, I was met with, Why on earth did I stay, they would have never put up with it, again back to me and something wrong with me. Unless you have lived it, no one can understand how it happens, or that it could have happened to them, had they run into a narcissist. These people look and sound like normal human beings in the beginning, then, the slow process of brainwashing and conditioning starts, you get caught up in their twisted reality and don’t even realize what is happening to you. You have a clue something is wrong but you can’t put your finger on what it is. No one has told you or warned you that there are people like this in the world, and for feeling people this is beyond comprehension, unbelievable. that someone can not feel, So if I had this information and stayed with my partner, and put up with the abuse and torture, then you could call me a codependent and enabler, I would have then knowingly chose to put up with him and his abuse.
Another point is society has defined my role as a woman and genetics assign me a nurturing role, we have the children, we are the care takers, there are a few women that abuse but for the most part, we are caretakers and society also tells us that. Then when we do our jobs and take our marriages serious, we are somehow defective, we are codependent, lack self esteem, and enable the abuse, when it is the abuser that is the biggest problem to society. We need programs even as early as middle school, to inform young girls and boys about all the different kinds of abuse, and reenforce it before graduation from high school and college, not only educate and prepare them for the working world, but also about the kinds of abusive people they could encounter in their jobs and home life. Information is the key to saving many people from abusive lives.
I did not go into my adult life thinking I want to become a codependent, find someone to abuse me and rob me of my self esteem along the way. I may have chosen the fairy tale, fall in love ,have children and live happily ever after, did not know prince charming was a narcissist, that was not in any of the books. Yes it is good to look into yourself and understand how it happened, know the red flags so it can not happen to you agin.
Has any one else thought about this?