Healing from my abuse journey has been long. It’s taken me far longer than I originally thought it would. As I work through each step and heal from it, a deeper level is revealed to me. Through it all has been an undercurrent of what I knew I would always have to get to- my lack of loving myself. My perfectionism issues, my feeling that I had to earn love to be loved, they’ve always pointed to this issue. It’s the reason why I struggled to let go after realizing I was being abused and it’s the reason I attracted a man who would eventually come to abuse me.
In a narcissistic or abusive relationship, there’s always love bombing. It’s an idealization stage where the abuser becomes your perfect mate. They are everything you ever wanted and needed. They manipulate their target into a relationship using a false persona. This stage is the first one they put their victim through, but it will cycle back on throughout the relationship when it’s needed, to keep their victim invested. It’s only been in the last few months that I learned about all this and realized that’s what was done to me by my ex husband and my recent ex.
This persona or mask they put on, is not just any mask. It’s a mirror of the person they are targeting. So, it was me. In this idealization stage, he took all my good traits and reflected them back to me. What is more appealing than seeing the idealized version of myself? When I met my most recent ex he was full of life, kind, energetic, fun, generous, and emotionally vulnerable. He made life fun again and made me feel safe. After all I had been through with my ex husband, it was just what I needed-or I thought it was. But in reality, he was none of those things. It was fake, a facade, a mask, it was not reality. By the end of the relationship I had come to realize he was not just emotionally abusive, he was boring, lazy, a liar, and incredibly emotionally immature. Once I was hooked into a relationship he had no need to reflect my positive attributes any longer. Learning all this, made my marriage make more sense than it ever had. They truly were the same man in different bodies.
I had been struggling with missing the good parts of the recent relationship. I missed how I felt while in it, at least while it was good. But the good was me, I was the good! It wasn’t ever him, he was wearing a mask. So that means I don’t miss him at all, I miss me. I miss the person he reflected back to me. I miss all the good I saw in myself and with no one to reflect it to me, I can’t see it anymore. In the past, I have always focused on my faults because of my perfectionism issues. I spent a year and a half in Celebrate Recovery working on accepting my faults and letting go of my need to be perfect. My lack of perfection and the need to strive for it is not something I really struggle with anymore, but I still can’t love my strengths. So I am not loving myself now, but I did while with my ex. He was a physical representation of the good in me and I loved him. Without it being demonstrated to me, I struggle to see the same good in myself. So, I miss loving myself.
Now for the good part:
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. ~ 1 Corinthians 13:12
I have read this verse so many times and every time I have understood it to mean that one day we will better understand the love God has for us, we will understand everything clearly. But today, when I read that verse it took on a whole new meaning for me; like God meant for me to read it today and know that it meant so much more than it had in the past. Today it meant that I don’t need someone to reflect the good in me, God already does it. I just have to look to God and see what He sees in me. He is reflecting back to me what He knows I am. I just have to trust that what He shows me IS who I am. I am fully known by God. I am fully seen by God. He knows who I am and is showing me, I’m just not looking. I need to keep my eyes on Him, the God who knows me better than I know myself, better than anyone. I need to focus on him so I can see all the good He gave me. He doesn’t just love me, He wants me to love me.
Finding The Good 