Portrait of a Narcissist

Portrait of a Narcissist

We all wonder how anyone can be involved with a narcissist?  We all think we are smarter than that.  We think our intuition is spot on, but keep your guard up we are all at risk.  Don't ignore the warning signs. Once a liar, always a liar.  

Trust God, trust the signs and for God's sake trust your gut.  My faith was rocked, I can't lie but slowly my faith has been restored.  

My ex once said....

I will never talk to her again.  We have babies, please don't ruin our family.

He then left his family in a car while he called her from a pay phone to arrange a meeting.  Turns out over 24 years of marriage she says they saw each other at the very least twice a year. 

My ex once said.....

I wasn't looking at her that way, I was just being kind.  

My son then brought it up at the dinner table and my ex said, don't be silly I am just her Pastor. 

He slept with many women that he "pastored".

My ex once said....

You are so suspicious, you must not trust God. (Spiritual blackmail)

He was banned from my hair salon for making a pass at the masseuse.

My ex once said....

I just like Subway.

Accusations were made because his car was so often in front of a "massage parlor".

My ex once said....

This is how everyone does business.

He was almost thrown in jail for not paying payroll taxes and spending money from peoples 401k withholdings. 

My ex once said.....

He was just joking, just using truck stop humor with the women.  It didn't mean anything. 

In the end there were too many inappropriate, fishing comments to count. 

My ex once said....

He couldn't talk very much while he was at his Pastors Conference.

He had taken another woman to the conference and therefor he did very little at the actual conference.

My ex once said....

The porn on his computer was not his, but my son Justin's. 

Turns out it was the woman he took to the pastors conference sending him porn videos of herself. 

My ex once said....

Your son is just trying to hurt you, I have not had an affair.

He had an affair and it had gotten to my son through a hair dresser at a ice cream store.  

My ex once said....

He was not manufacturing drugs at his business.

The accusation did not seem believable at the time.  Now, who can know?

My ex once said....

I can raise the money, and then he charismatically did.  I was frowned upon for not having the faith to believe.  

Turns out he jumped in and bought a facility that tons of work and was not approved by the city.  That eventually catches up with you....or with your congregation.

My ex once said...

I disrespected him.  

I stood up against him and tried to warn others and they said I was lacking faith and being disrespectful to my husband. 

My ex once said....Okay maybe a million times.

I was crazy.

It worked for a long time, I believed I was crazy jealous looking for things that I was apparently making up in my head.  I doubted myself and my sanity.  

Then God woke me up and told me to walk into his study and there he was talking to another conquest. 

Everything suddenly fell in place.  All of my suspicions were correct.  Turns out he was/is the crazy one.  Pathological liar and narcissist. 

My ex once said....

She is just a single mother that he was helping out.

He later told me that she began coming to the church because he was seeing her, and she was the "one" that he really could have left me for. 

My ex once said....

Yes, I was flirty but I never slept with anyone.  I swear it. I need you to stand by me and support me.  This is just an attack from the enemy.  

Then he admitted to at least 7 sexual affairs.

My ex once said....

Churches did this all the time.

Then I realized it was illegal to run money through the church for personal gain.  I took over the books. 

My ex once said...

He meant to send the sexual picture to me.

Funny, how he sent it to someone else first. 

My ex once said...

I was very critical and negative.

This was when the scales began falling off and I was confronting him about his lies. 

My ex once said....

I was the love of his life.

Myself and many others apparently. 

My ex once said...

Even though we are not together I will always take care of you. 

Funny.

My ex once said...

He wanted to die because all of his preaching had been removed from online.  This was the most upset I had ever seen him.

My ex once said....

None of what happened was my fault.  I was a wonderful wife and partner he was just broken. 

To this day he still lies and explains to others that I made him feel like he wasn't enough and that the accusations were not true they were just misunderstandings.  

My ex once said....

You can chose alimony or I will help pay for our sons college. 

I chose my son. He didn't pay his part. 

My ex once said....

He loved me and wanted me back.

He got married a year later. 

My ex once said....You loved our life but didn't like me.

Turns out he was right.  I don't like him at all.  

The truth is ugly sometimes

The Truth is Ugly Sometimes


It's been a minute since I blogged and I have changed.  I have changed and yet I am the same.  I see the past differently now.  I was in survival mode.  Here is the Readers Digest version.  In the last seven years, one of my sons was shot, one of my sons overdosed on heroin and my Pastor/ex husband confessed to having at least 6 affairs (in my count there are many more), I lost my son, church family, husband and job all within roughly a year and half.    During the last 5 years I have been a caregiver (short stints) for my stepmother who passed away from cancer three years ago and my Step Dad (alzheimers/Lewy Bodies Dementia).  I hate the word step, sounds so cheap and does not represent the depth of love I had for each of them, they  had each been in my life for close to forty years.  I have been gently pulling away the layers for the last five years.  Pushing through the trauma and trying to recover.  Leaning on my faith and at the same time at war with it.  I have been healing little by little but still have so far to go.  I could just ignore it, stuff it, stay busy and think I have overcome.  I could say all the right spiritual things, all the right counseling things, it comes very naturally to me but that would be inauthentic.  The truth is that I am still really messed up, still angry, still confused and still shocked.  Yes, all this time and I am still shocked.

So that is the short version of my trauma story, but today I want to write about the reality of my life.  The shocking truth I am beginning to see about me, myself and I. 

Let me preface this by saying, I am not a victim.  I don't want pity.  I want awareness and the ability to communicate my struggle in a vulnerable authentic way that can help others navigate through their pain.  I will not let this pain be wasted, I am a student of it and want to be a master of the pain not the other way around.  I just feel that maybe, hopefully my honesty can somehow redeem my pain so that it gives hope to others. 

That pain still cycles around in my head even though I thought I was over it.  Even though I know it was the best thing for me, I am left with questions and doubt.  How could I have not seen what was happening?  When is it right to stop believing the best?  What did I do to my children by living in this house built of lies.  My unforgiveness ravages my heart,  it is rarely directed outward but always inward.  My brain loops through all the signs I missed, all the comments and accusations.  It rest miserably on comments from my oldest boy who literally told me what a horrible person my ex was.  I chose to believe the ex over my child.  My Justin, who told me that my husband, his stepfather was a cheater and a liar.  He told me and I believed he was just a jealous teenager.  It caused a rift, that I never had the opportunity to repair. 
It is the greatest regret of my life. 

So now I am coming a bit out of the trauma fog, feelings and memories are stronger and memories string themselves together and begin to make sense to me.  That is the hard part, the sudden revelations of betrayal.  Betrayal of myself with my ignorant Pollyanna view.  Betrayal of myself when doubt and confusion rang out and I allowed myself to be gas-lighted, convinced that I was the crazy one.  I was the nonspiritual one.  Let that sink in....the wife that was believing the best and living in hope while the ex was leading a church and preying on it's vulnerable women.  That is what happens, he chose me because I was vulnerable and weak.  I idolized him and that fed his ego but I grew stronger as I grew in the Lord.  I learned about idols and traded my worship of him in for worshiping God.  He wanted a partner that would make him look good but not excel past him or call him on his sin.  As time went by I didn't need him enough, I didn't idolize him enough so he had to find other vulnerable women that he could try to rescue and therefore feed his ego.  It is so easy to see now.  The pattern, the pushing away and pulling me back. The years of deception, he claimed he didn't cheat for two years when my children were babies.

I was immersed in a pattern of lies and doubt for twenty three years.  You don't just shake that off.  I was a strong faith driven woman and yet this man had the ability to trap me with his lies and convince me that there was nothing going on.  I loved the Lord, gave of myself to the ministry and yet still was blinded to the truth.  How odd it seems to me that I could have lived in the light of Jesus and still been in the dark of deception.  Where was God my defender?  Is it that somehow all of this is making me a better person?  I wish that I could see behind the curtain, that I could understand why?  I want to scream sometimes just as Jesus did, "My God, why have you forsaken me?"

I know all the right things...There is no scripture to share with me that I haven't thought of.  Yet, the thorn in my flesh bleeds daily.  The pain sits quietly in the background.  The disappointment cloaks my mind in doubt of the creators love.  I do the right things and I say the right things but my heart is armored up and locked down.  I am unsure if I can ever love fully again, ever trust again.  I live in a low level panic of "when is the next shoe going to drop".  When will the rug be pulled out from under me.

Don't get me wrong, I love big when I feel safe.  I have made new friends, new relationships and I love them.  However, feeling safe is not easy anymore.  Feeling safe is work, it is tedious and exhausting because the reality is that we are never safe.  All I can do is trust God and that does not come that easily, when it comes to my heart.  I know perfect love cast out fear But I can't seem to figure out how to cast it out.  I want the Lord to cast it out, I want the Lord to untangle the web of memories, emotions, soul damage and unhealthy thought patterns.   I really do,  but the grip I have is so tight I don't seem to be capable of letting go. I am trapped in this dark, angry place and it is ugly, my anger is ugly and I am scared.

I wrote the above part almost three months ago.  I had to quit because it lead me into a deep dark place.  A desert place in my faith where I wandered for far too long.  That desert place that I honestly had never felt before.  I felt disconnected from my God, I felt that he had left me.  My faith was challenged and my heart was hard.  The darkness fell as hopelessness over my mind.  The battle in my mind raged and my identity was challenged.  I was deeply depressed, overcome with fear and doubt about everything in my life, including God.  It was perhaps one of the toughest mind places I have ever been, I was tormenting myself with circular thinking and fearful thoughts.  Punishing myself for being depressed, which is not at all helpful.  As always the darkness eventually gave way to light.

Who am I now? That is the question to ask when you find your way out of the desert place.  For so long I knew exactly who I was, but that had all been stripped away.  The tattered pieces of that life were no longer surrounding me and I found myself at a loss.  A great grieving came over me for the life that I had lost.  Why did it come so long after I left, I am not sure.  Maybe it was because so much was suddenly changing around me.  I suppose that could have been the trigger.  It also could have been the fact that Covid 19 halted my busy life and all I had for a while were my thoughts.  My mind fed on memories and the defeat of it all.  The darkness clouded out the love of God, the feelings of injustice raged in my heart and I forgot who I was.  I was not a Pastor's wife, that had never been who I was.  That had been my job, and I loved it.  Being a Pastor and a Pastor's wife was a honor for me but it was not who I was. 

I was a woman who loved God and loved others, I am a woman who loves God and others.  This darkness, this desert place did not kill me or convince me to give up on God instead what the enemy meant for my destruction became a springboard for me to level up in my relationship with God.  To once again feel the gratitude that God loves me no matter my attitude or awful anger towards Him.  My identity is solid, unchanging, beautiful and glorious for it is not me but Christ who lives in me. 


Whatever the cause, it has passed.  I did what I have always told others to do.  I reached out to others for help, I got counseling and I prayed.  I prayed authentic awful truth to my God who gently applied the balm of Gilead to my wounds.  I fell once again in love with Jesus as I realized He had not deserted me to the darkness, He had been teaching me in that darkness that being away from Him was intolerable.  He was showing me my own darkness and allowing me to feel how wretched my heart had gotten.  Yet, he was also revealing to me that even the ugliest thoughts,feelings, emotions and actions I had where not enough to drive Him away. 
I sit here weeping as I write, remembering how I first fell in love with Jesus and realizing I am once again in that place of awe and revelation. 
Nothing I can do will change who I am in Christ, my religion and judgement didn't help the cause of Christ it restrained it.  This new place is a continuing place on my journey to total freedom.  Not token freedom but true freedom.

This is a new place for me, that is true but I know exactly who I am.  I am excited about this new season, filled with hope for what's to come.  I have been through hell and I have come out different but I believe with all my heart I have come out more like Jesus,  though to the outer world it may not look like their definition or expectation.  In my heart I know it is true,  I can see Him laughing at me and calling me into deeper waters to ride waves of joy and laughter and in my heart I run to swim with him because once again I trust Him.  My judgement of myself is over, grace is my choice.  The old ways of rules and earning  love, they have passed away and I am once again a new creation.  I pray I can stay in this sweet spot, this love fest with the Lord for a long time.  However, I also know hard things come but I have learned how to walk through the desert I will not set up camp there again.  I pray to continue living and moving from glory to glory with less and less entanglement of this world.  Love myself and love others, that is my goal and in Christ I can do that.  Honestly that is enough.  I hope this fills your heart and can help guide you through a desert time to a higher level of grace and freedom.  For there is not freedom without grace.  

With much hope and love,

Debbie

Creating a new way!!

It's a funny thing, coming out of a life and creating a new one.  Of course when you walk through tragedy your life is forced to change.  The last few years have been intense change.  I am seeing myself from a new perspective, I look at my past as if I stand outside of it.  I suppose I do.  Like the rings of a tree I am developing and each ring looks somewhat different.  I am still that same tree yet this ring is far different from what I used to be.  The past was not bad and it has led me to this current season but the present is unfolding like the universe.  Showing me more than I can even absorb at times.  Truly seeing myself without all the bullshit that I have developed over the years to make me likeable, to hide my hurts, to hide my shame, to guard my heart and to be what others wanted in me.

This new me is focused on wellness, finding a path of holiness that is gentle and patient.  Letting go of religious beliefs and just focusing on God and the example of Jesus.  Seeking a path of self awareness and peace that I have never found in my life before.

Breaking off the old patterns and thoughts is hard work, I slip easily back into my natural thought patterns of chaos, defensiveness and self loathing.  However day by day I manage to find myself more, and in doing so I love myself more.  I am changing and some would say it is a bunch of "mumbo jumbo" and that's okay, I say it is an enlightenment of deeper understanding of faith and the healing power of belief to heal my mind, body and soul.  It doesn't mean I have it all together, in fact I am often overwhelmed as I try to grasp hold of change.  Just as often I am often happily surprised at how much peace I can feel about my life, my trust that all things are working together for the good.  I still battle fear and body image issues but somehow it is different, I have never been in this place before.  I have lost everything and survived and somehow that changes fear, you always know you will survive and even thrive.  I am still healing, I am still growing and I am still changing.  I hope I always change.

Change is the one thing we can count on in our lives, everything can change around us or we can choose to be the change within ourselves and in the world.  We can embrace change within and without.  I was never very adaptable but life has a way of changing that about us, if we let it.  I am adaptable now, a free spirit that can go with the flow.  Who knew that was possible?

Inside at my core I am still just me.  Same personality traits, same quirky personality, but I am trying new  things and more adventurous than ever.  I don't judge things as "unchristian".  I don't judge myself harshly.  I contemplate things, I think of what I know about Jesus, I think of what the Bible says about renewing our minds, believing the best and being healed and restored.  This is all right on track with yoga, mindfulness and meditation.  I dream of truly understanding the power of our minds as created by God.  I love others as an act of loving myself not as an act of earning love in return. 

I am trying to love myself well.  I used to think that was a ridiculous statement.  That we are all lovers of self, and I don't let myself go hungry after all.  On further thought what I recognized is that I have made choices that were starving my soul, not in my best interest at all.  I have learned to recognize there is a big difference in a survival mode self love and true self love that is driven by faith.  Self love should guide my decisions, challenge me and often brings me to tears as I recognize my betrayal of myself.  Self love is very integrated with my faith, and therefore faith factors into my decisions but not as rules but rather as relationship.   I have this guiding sense of love from the creator, if he can love me than surely I can love myself, and make the best decisions possible for myself in the light of grace.

It's not perfect, as a matter of fact sometimes I really "F" it up.  I still have some melt down moments.  However, I speak up about my emotions, apologize freely and ask for what I need rather than hope for it.  I pay attention to my triggers and try to dig into them to become free.  It is hard work.  Exhausting on some days but I believe it is necessary. I believe we can all grow and change and that is a scriptural principle.

If you have read this far, you must be interested so these are the goals I have added into my life.
Mindfulness practices:  Mindful eating when possible, practicing gratitude more, being self aware, listening to my inner dialogue and seeking to change it.  Intention, intention and more intention.
Yoga:  Finding peace and restoration through gentle restorative yoga.  I haven't moved to any hard stuff yet as I am still trying to hold onto my breath and just feeling my body without intrusive thoughts.
Writing:  As a form of self expression but also as a way to honor my story and keep my promises to myself.
Art:  Painting with passion.  I love teaching and it involves passion but often I am painting out of pleasing others such as commission work.  Developing mindful art journaling practices and teaching them to others.  Using art as a tool to help others feeds my soul.
Independence:  I am learning how to be interdependent while maintaining my autonomy.  Seeking to be interdependent(not dependent) with those I love and developing healthy boundaries.  If you know me well, you know this is not my strong suit.  I spent a lifetime being codependent and over invested in others.
Love:  Focusing on self love and grace.  I am intentionally feasting on love offered to me and the love of the creator.  Loving myself well on a daily basis actually includes all the items above as well.

This is all I can think of for now, but soon you will see some more changes in me and in this blog.  I hope you can embrace them, I hope they shed some type of light on your journey.  I hope they bring freedom and at the same time I hope you just DO YOU.  You are a beautiful soul, loved by the creator and are on your own very unique journey.  Pick up a little inspiration here (hopefully) but find your own way to strengthening and healing your body, soul and mind.

I can't thank you enough for reading this and joining me on this journey.  It's a new day.  Let's make it the best we can.

With much love and hope,
Debbie