I had a conversation about narcissists with my nephew, James. It led to him saying to me that I attract them. This bothered me a little, partly because it is true but I realised that what is also true is that while I may attract them, I don’t have to keep them. Ten days ago I blocked all means of Gary contacting me again. I limit time with Tom as much as I can, considering I have to see him to drop Annie off to him, while Dad, and any other narcissists that I may come across, I spend as little time as possible with. I know, from everything I’ve ever read, that there is no way to ever win against a narcissist but this isn’t about winning, it’s about not lying down, rolling over and accepting the shit they try to bring to my life; the abuse, the insults, the damaging words and actions. And so, with that in mind, I dealt with Mo today. I told him that he was rude and insulting and that I would not be wasting any more of my time talking to him and that his behaviour is not the kind that I will tolerate and then I blocked him from contacting me again in any of the ways he could.
From now on, I’m taking a zero-tolerance approach and I will not falter from it because the right people – the nice, kind, normal people – do not need to do this. I don’t need to do this to others and I won’t accept anything less from anyone else again.
And this, this is progress. Because I have always attracted, kept and allowed this shit but now I’ve put a stop to it as soon as I was certain it was happening. No questioning if I’m imagining it, no worrying that maybe it’s me and not him, just a total non-acceptance of this kind of terrible behaviour, any more. And if I am wrong about Mo then it doesn’t matter. Narcissist or not, he still thought it acceptable to use negative words to describe me and that’s not something that I would do to others, or did do to him. Zero tolerance from now on.
