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Been Down So Long it Looks Like Up to Me

narcissistic abuse and fear

It’s a Tuesday morning in February. I’m in bed, awakening, and as consciousness returns I am tumbling off the cliff again. Over and over I fall and I can’t pull myself up and out. The fear increases, escalates as if shot through with steroids until I don’t want to live. This fear is too much. I ask to die.

Every day is the same. I didn’t know I could scream so much and ask for help and no one listened.

Tumbling over and over – one cliff after another and at each one I tried to stop but the force behind me was faster, stronger, shoving me. I clutched at other ledges, never getting a hold. Tumbling, screaming, and gasping, panic tearing at my center, I went down, until finally I hit bottom.

Then I got up and got dressed and waited for what they would do to me that day.

My worst fear was that I would still be alive by the end of the day. I was a whistle blower being bombarded with legal motions, threats of homelessness, starvation, and no access to medical care. I couldn’t die because I had a teenage son. There are some games you have to stay in for the duration.

I learned how to get out. One moment, one day, one self talk, one panic attack at a time.  One deep determination that there was a way to make them stop, to out them, to make them squirm.   Sometimes I go back and visit the cliffs to remember the lesson I learned: I can climb.

This is for you, Jeff. You pushed and I fell. And I learned the geography of fear and drew the maps that lead me out. Thank you, State Bar of California for being there to read bar complaints. Just when you think nothing can be done, you go to their place of fear and push the button. Go ahead, it isn’t evil. It’s a good thing.

 

This is an excerpt from  ARE YOU THE VICTIM OF A LIAR?    Click on the link to find out more.

Ann Bradley

One Comment

  1. I don’t want to veer off from our original post but I had to comment on this. This is reading my thoughts. It is crazy. I love quote sometimes I visit the cliffs to remember the lesson I learned. I can climb. The power in that statement has no bars. I can climb. This abyss will one day be a distant bad memory only to be bright up over girl talk and bottles of wine when I need a good cry it won’t consume my life anymore and I can’t wait until that day.

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