Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started

Tag: narcissism

Job, resurrected*

A letter from Tara’s friend, Abby. Abby is a victim of narcissistic abuse by certain family members and has just found out about it.

(featured image is Job and His Three Friends by James Jacques Joseph Tissot)

Tara, dear,
I’m beginning to question why I am being alive at all. Is my purpose to be abused by my family? Did God put me here so that I can be the receiver of abuse? Is this why I was created? I get born, I get to be abused, and then I die without having rest from the abuse?

Just now I was listening to my housemates conversing over our morning cup and the conclusion is that they hope we’ll get together again, the family.

My God, they have no idea how this family destroyed my life, and they can only hope that I be “humble” enough so that we all get “reconciled.”

My God. I will never ever have the chance to have a life as me, Abby, I’m gonna die being used all the way. My being a good person, a good daughter, a good human, has trapped me in this abuse. There’s no escape from it. God Himself allowed me to get this abuse. I have always followed God’s rules and this is the outcome. Is God happy that I ended up like this, and only a decade or two before I die? And then, what, does heaven even exist? What is the sense of my consciousness? Why was I even allowed this awareness? Is God happy that I suffered because of my generosity and humility and understanding and kindness and empathy? I can’t believe it all. God does not make sense.

You know me, Tara. I don’t speak unless I mean it, so may God forgive me. He already knows my thoughts before I wrote down everything.

I’ll see you soon. Until then, take care.
Hugs,
Abby

* The Book of Job, in the Bible, tells of the character Job who suffered unimaginable loses despite his adherence to God’s rules as was taught in his day (this was around 4,000 years ago, as is believed by many scholars, in the Arabian region). Job expresses his hurt and existential questions to God in the hearing of his wife and friends. The book is so much worth reading and/or researching about. It tackles one of the most difficult questions of humanity: a suffering that does not make sense.

Tara’s friend, Abby, is experiencing a similar agony to Job’s, though not exactly. I thank Abby and Tara for sharing the core content of Abby’s letter. This letter, together with the thoughts and comments by the readers (that’s you, dear friend), which will eventually contribute to the overall content of this post, will surely help the many persons around the world who are undergoing a similar experience as Job then, and Abby now.

May the posters below be of help to those who are seeking answers. May God bless us all.

Thanks many times to the owners of the posters! (uhuh, I don’t own any of them) Be well, my friend.

Running Like a Fox

“Man ran through his life like a fox, with the dogs baying at his heels. They would get him by the throat in the end, nothing was more certain than that. The chase must always end in the same way—death was the final disaster, the final lonely defeat which came to all of us. There was no way of winning, but one could at least lose with dignity, and dignity meant fighting all the way, until the breath was out of your body, and then turning on the hounds, snarling and snapping, before they finally tore you to pieces. Only one sin was unforgiveable. That was to give up the struggle, to acquiesce in the determination of the world to destroy you.

He picked the bottle of barbiturates out of his pocket and dropped it down a convenient drain. He cared no longer about winning. He knew nothing waited him except defeat, whatever happened in the case. But he must turn and fight—the hounds must pay the price for their quarry.”

From the book, Hall of Mirrors by John Rowan Wilson. Doubleday and Co., 1966. pp. 232-3.

Original engraving by The Rev. Wm. B. Daniel [London], published between 1801 and 1813.

The field of narcissism and narcissistic abuse is such an overwhelming field for those who have just come to discover it—because of a reason or another—and are determined to understand it. I have been engrossed in finding out about it these past few days. Psychologists are saying that it is a major disease of society. Narcissism could be compared to a sucking vacuum, or a hopeless black hole, which lets nothing escape it up to the point of its boundary of influence. Persons who are within its influence will flounder around, willy-nilly, until they get to their senses (by the grace of God!) and re-claim their humanity by simply refusing to acknowledge the deadly force holding them back from freedom.

When I dug out the above excerpt from a book I read decades ago, I realized that the person in the monologue has feelings similar to those of who are in the willy-nilly situation, not understanding the mechanics of their victimization, yet still having that innate resistance from senseless annihilation. Or perhaps it is the narcissist who is having similar feelings, when s/he feels desperate after the loss of a fuel-source. The introspection of the character in the excerpt plainly feels desperation, and so a last bid at clutching on to what would constitute a healthy life: CHOICE.

%d bloggers like this: