There is not in the whole you tube a better explanation for the whole situation of the disaster you feel because of a relationship with a narcissist. It makes all so clear. Sam, you are our rescuer, I lived for decades in the darkness of the unknown. Knowledge is POWER , but only the RIGHT Knowledge. Thank you for everything, you are the first and the last and it's a pity that not everyone knows about you and your amazing work in the narcissism. You initiated so many things and all the rest experts should first spelling your name with attention and honor. SAM VAKNIN first, narcissism best expert and inventor and then their bla bla bla. Sorry for my English, I am from Greece, I am a scientist and I can totally recognize your uniqueness Mr Vaknin.
It took me 3 years to mourn and go through the stages of grief. Sadly, there were very little people around me that understood me or wanted to support me. Some people even blamed ME for the abuse claiming that I was stupid, naive etc. Even psychologists could not really help me with my grief. Only time helped me.
@@parklady4233sorry to hear that. Can I know why do you say a child's discard? And how have you been trying to Cope? Did you have to fight trauma bond?
I have only been out two months of a 33 year marriage. The pain is so bad some days. I am glad that my spouse is happy I am gone. I makes my decision easier
"Accepting the demise of the shared fantasy is one of the most traumatic imaginable human experience" : Thank you mr Vaknin. Really, honestly, gratefully THANK YOU.
I could not get over the “shape shifting”, “fits you like a glove” description. My ex narcissist used to do something called “the octopus” where he would completely cover me with his body and, literally, move over every part of me like a “second skin”. It was intoxicating because I was so in love with him and I felt absolutely that we were becoming one. I can recall him holding my face and staring into my eyes with tears streaming down his face and professing such undying love for me. Such idealization! I recall him presenting me with 2 8x10 sheets of paper covered with positive adjectives and telling me I was every single one of them. He tattooed my name on his pelvis. And I fell for all of it. And he emotionally tortured me, devalued and discarded me over and over again for 17 years. My life became a nightmare. I am still in the process of “skinning myself” to get out of this and I hope I make it out alive.
I feel like I died but I am walking around watching my body exist. This is pain like I have never experienced. Thank You Sam. I am holding on to " you will be ok"...Oh God I hope that is true.
You will. I promise. One day you will be happy and be able to look back to see how terrible it was. I have been there and I didn't believe I would ever look back and not want him or us. It happened for me and now I am free. You will find yourself again. Just like they can never love and operate on so many functions they don't have control of - you do this too and one of those functions is reviving yourself. You can't mess that up. It will happen and one day you will go outside and it won't seem surreal, you will take a walk and it will feel normal and good - you will grocery shop and you'll be excited for new meals instead in a store with strangers and a feeling of being in the twilight zone. It is glorious. Your job then, is to protect you so that you never go through this again and that is by never attaching to a narc again.
This was so healing! I finally understand the bizarre dynamics. Every single word you said was exactly what happened to me. I think the hardest part was how euphoric i felt in the shared fantasy. He woke up parts of my soul i never knew existed. We would lock eyes and he would tell me "its all ok now Michele, your safe with me" I will love you and take care of you forever". I melted into his body and never felt so loved. My childhood wounds where finally healed for those years until devaluation emerged gradually. I spent 11 years in this confusion and he never discarded me or hoovered. Just long long silent treatments, moving away, blocking me. But i always begged to work it out. I even offered friendship as long as we could still be connected. I begged him with my life to not shut me out and he said ok and i remained in the fantasy. He was slowly disconnecting and i felt it. I panicked and told him im moving on please dont call me anymore. He said ok. Its been several months and im getting stronger everyday. No more abuse, no more confusion. I have a long road but i never want back into his world.
I also was never discarded (after 38 years married), so I was who left him, and only received two very soft hoovering episodes and silent treatment afterwards which I requested bcs it is certainly the best to me (I finally put me before him) but I am convinced that I lived a reverse discarding the last years bcs the emotional and verbal abuse made me feel as the shared fantasy became the hell. It was like a terrifying nightmare. I believe that the supply I gave my nx was so high that he didn't want to loose it but at the same time he wanted to have all the supply he was getting from other sources. At the end he was not able to control the anger he felt bcs of his lack of capacity to permanently conserve all that supply . He simply was unable to choose and had no other option than let me to do it. And it caused him more anger bcs of the lack of control involved. Thanks God I was permitted to go out from the shared nightmare. I see my grieving process as the last (or awakening) episode of that and I hope I'll pass it fast.
Nobody wants to be around a grieving person and the grieving person tends to isolate himself because he is ashamed of his prolongued grief. Grief is not accepetd in the society. "You should pull yourself together and move on as quyickly as possible"! Grief is considered to be a weakness and a flaw of character. I heard some people say to me "You just enjoy the state of grieving, you don't want to come out of it".
I’ve been binging your videos every day for the last few months since my breakup, and they have given me more clarity than anything I’ve read or listened to. And this video specifically has helped me more than any of your other videos. It is SUCH a lonely experience, because almost no one in my life has experienced this and fully understands what I mean when I try to describe it. The mental torment is unbearable. The loss of sense of self is acute. The depression and hopelessness nearly overwhelming. Thank you for simply reflecting my reality back to me.
Who I had to become to accommodate HIM! 😢 The depression is real 😢 The self inflicted betrayal is real 😢 The numbness 😢 The loneliness 😢 The trauma bond😢
The day after I had planned on ending my life I met her. I was skeptical but I quickly fell for her. Pure euphoria. On the day I said I would end my life instead we were in my apartment laughing and dancing and kissing on the couch. She looked in my eyes and said “you make my soul smile, I love you, and I hope you kiss me the same way when we grow old together.” That’s the moment I knew I was in love, and for the first time I said “I love you” to someone else. I thought I had found my person. Then the devaluation and discard began. I was right in a way. A part of me did die that day. But I’m free from the torture she inflicted on me and I’m learning how to enjoy life again
I am going through this right now. This process is the closest thing to feeling crazy that I could ever imagine. It is a lonely process that I battle daily. Thank you for this information. I am working so hard to overcome
Yes, it does make you feel insane. Because we try to understand it how we are, and cannot conceive of the type of person they are…they showed us they knew how to act loving, kind, loyal, and wonderful…so we know they know how…but then the way they devalue and discard us is the exact opposite of what love is. So it makes no sense. Listening to these videos and talking to a therapist helps me understand what they actually are, and though the pain is still very real, it’s the only thing that has helped.
I’m going through it right now too. It feels like I’ve died but somehow still just existing in space and time. The worst part that left me with cPTSD was the serial cheating and betrayal trauma. I found out that his first wife committed suicide and second wife escaped but ended up with cancer. I feel grateful that I didn’t become the 3rd wife, but mourning the last 5 years of wasted love and investment. These videos are the only thing that keep me feeling sane.
Thank you Dr. Vaknin. The others may steal your ideas, but you are the only one, the original. You have saved so many lives, including mine, thank you.
Yes, in total agreement. Sam’s the Godfather in this realm, and its irony that it in such a discipline, so called experts, claim another intellectual property. They know who they are!
"Breaking up with a narcissist is like skinning yourself alive." So horrible and true that I belly laughed. Someone please make this quote into a meme. 😂
It's embarrassing to admit that Vaknin's lectures and excerpts have helped me safely exit more than one narcissistically cursed dynamic. I purposely don't call them relationships anymore, to remind myself none of it was real. It felt real to me - but so do dreams, hallucinations and psychotic states, while you're in them. I have nothing to show for but misdirected anger, distrust, ruined friendships and a tainted reputation, not to mention the ineffable self-destructive cravings ever since the breakup. Since I no longer have a devil on my back, I tend to my own masochism by making bad choices that don't involve bringing the killed-off character back to (my) life 😂 The breakup itself is easy if compared to the uncomfortable commitment of never contacting them again, amidst the hurricane of feelings we're left with. Thank you Sam Vaknin for dedicating so much content to the aftermath of The Falseman Show. It's insulting how similar the shared fantasy's script is for everyone here, but it sure helps us feel less broken and alone.
The irony is when I met him he insisted I immediately give him a picture of me and my daughter. I thought it was sweet. Now I wish I'd never met him and could erase the last 24 years of HELL!
Griefing something and someone you lost that you never had, tolerating all this pain by being tortured by an illussion, my someone who never saw you, loved you or acknowledged your pain or the sacrificies you were willing to make for them just to be faced with a stranger, a horrible dirty aftermaths and left with nothing but bleeding wounds and no single nice memories, as they were all fake. The only REAL thing was your own pain and thats all what you are left with, while the person you had so much emphathy for moves on to suck the life out of the nect supply claiming on social media he was never happier!
I think you can grieve what you never had - even though there was no "real" relationship the breakup can help you face those original losses that drove the trauma bond in the first place.
After understanding, it was abuse and not love. It was tough to cry it out as love. I felt disconnected from my previous thoughts after breaking that trauma bond. Those gestures and words which felt sweet when I thought it was love. It felt betrayal and manipulation. With at most difficulty I processed those feelings. Writing helped a lot.
I felt someone else sharing my mind with me around 8 months after meeting him. I told him. I cried in front of him feeling I was losing control. I thought that person in front of me cared for me but I was looking at the devil’s eyes.
Oh I'm in the depression phase... my hollowness is swallowing me up! I drive my car at night for a good long hour looking at couples or families together, and wonderimg what was wrong with me! Why didn't he love me as others did! Why didn't he hold on me as others would do!? And now i know these are the wrong questions... My loneliness is cutting through my body and heart! I can almost feel it like a blunt knife through my ribs. He robbed 5 precious years and walked over my dead body and coldly threw it at my face: you can live your life now! Mission accomplished!... Can this much cruelty ever exist! Why do these people exist at all? They are worse than wars and hurricanes, worse than deadly viruses and plagues! They kill one's soul alive! You live dead. You're literally deadly alive!!!!
@@anniegallagher3177 it's been 6 months since I saw him, trying to gather my pieces, trying to understand more and let work and books distract me. But I drink bitterness with coffee and water. Questions are killing me. I'm alone, he made it in this part. I fail to attract the right person, I fail to love someone else. But wait... the ugly part of the story, and this of course because he definitely is a nasty pervert narcissist, every now and then ans whenever I regain enough energy to move on, he finds a way to send a provoking message, then many more to follow and I wouldn't respond for one day, one week, one month, two months... then I write back. And even if it is a single word I write, he enjoys the game. However... let me tell you my small victory here, I didn't let him see me. I didn't allow him to. I didn't give him the usual fuel. I didn't talk to him on the phone. I didn't engage myself all over again in that painful fight against my pride to satisfy him and get him to see me for who I am. I stopped doing that. So yes, I'm alone and lonely, and yes he's chasing me for whatever supply I can give, and a big YES, I didn't even give him the pleasure to see my face. And I hope I will make it this way for longer enough to let go forever...
Narc, destroyed my dream i thought i had hit the love jackpot with the love bomb only to know now it has been 1 month she discarded me, 12 years of roller coaster i feeling numb, she robbed me of the kindness of my heart she changed me I don’t even knowing who I am any more she done horrible things to me and I learned to cut off narcissistic supply without let her know that I new who she is she decided to go, left me with mixed emotions pain and the best way I can describe her she is a pure evil in a human body. Thank you Prof. Sam for all the useful explanation and advice to us abused victims .
Remember what it was like when you two were together. It wasn't like those other people you see out, you would want that even while in a relationship with the narc and still not ever get that. You've been starved of that for years. You invested into a person unable to give you love back. You can only go up from here.
Let out a sigh of relief listening to your introductory comments, Dr Sam. Realized almost immediately that I could walk off the narcissistic set. No need for tedious explanations, no questions, no interrogations, no hurt feelings. It’s just over. The play is over. Drop the curtain. His fantasy & my fantasy … done. What a terrific feeling of freedom to walk out of the cage, out of the mental prison. And to see my part in all of this craziness? It only makes sense so actually there is no one to blame. We both played our roles very well even though he acted like the director in charge of an asylum. An asylum he constructed while handing over to me my script, my role … which I tried to follow line by line. Thing is that he’s crazy and I’m crazy. He may want to continue the story but I’m tired of the fantasy. Just plain ol’ tired. What’s really neat is that there’s no one to blame! It’s been a shared fantasy, something we both constructed. Think I’ll just go take a nap now. What a sweet sense of release. Thank you, Dr Sam, thank you for giving me the keys that unlocked the doors of my shared delusion. Te agradezco ❤
I come back to your videos as soon as I find myself delving in past (shared fantasy)..... It really helps and gives an instant reality check..... The mind is something which has no control.... One has to keep control over emotions with help of knowledge and sharp understanding.... Or the mind can drag one to dark places.... At such times, revisiting your videos help. Ones brain has to be a strict master of ones mind. This has helped me so far. Don't know the rest....
This is so true. It was a photograph of me with a triangle over my head as his screen saver that he said he needed to do some adjusting to. It didn't make sense but now it does. From viewing every item of clothing prior to meeting to planning how I'd wear my hair. He made me what he wanted. My fault I fell into the trap. It was hell when I didn't conform to whatever he wanted. It was a nightmare! The grief & mourning is real. Eventually after he was established in this Country, he said he no longer loved me. I went gray rock and finally divorced him after 5 years of marraige, the last 2 just living under the same roof. Thank you for this! I will never be the same again. I break off all the soul ties in the name of Jesus.This is so messed up. Nobody understands why I keep mourning this. There's no closure and that's a hard concept to grasp. I will never go thru this again.
I guess everyone will understand (sadly I do!) who ever really had this absolutely confusing and odd experience that a person you think you´re in a relationship with (or affair or whatever it is exactly, often those people don´t even take the courage to name it) keeps telling you you´ll have to make efforts, change, really try harder to fit in and evth within this frame to be worthy of his (or her) love. It was no coincidence that when I was after 10 years finally able to go no contact with him it has been the same week that I could go no contact with my mother!! It was merely smbolic, because she could never see me as a person. But it took me an eternity to open my eyes that much that I was able to see her wrongdoings, all her neglect, how she trapped me emotionally so I had to suffer under my brother´s abuse of different ways. The brainwashing effect was too strong. They both used me to move on, to become successful and I wondered why do I feel even worse over time? It was because they were able to get their narc supply from other sources. It might not have been marriage and I definitely can´t know what it would be like under the same roof, but these underlying mechanisms you will see in every of these stories, it´s heartbreaking, it´s super cruel, because this is nothing a person should suffer from.
I have no idea how the narcissist is meant to do all these things …. You say he takes a snapshot, you live a shared fantasy .., examples of this type of behaviour would actualize?
Aloha🌺 from Kona Hawaii🌋 I’ve been educating myself daily for over one year now, listening to your lectures, and slowly, but surely I’m healing now that I know that I’ve been married to a narcissist for 29 years, and that there was nothing that I could have done to change this individual, and it had nothing to do with me. I have three grown adults with this individual going through a divorce right now and let me tell you it is mind. F*^%ery just craziness, and it doesn’t help that it was a police officer for the first nine years of our relationship then it became a sheriff officer, and now it’s an officer of land and natural resources, and so it knows how to work the system, and the law. here in Hawaii everything is half/half 50%.. it’s been over a year now and it knows how to drag the process you would think it would want to move on with its life with its next new intimate partner/victim that it was grooming for the last three years before my break down, discard… but nope it’s punishment and misery… it is so hard to find a lawyer attorney, who understands narcissism. And it doesn’t want to sell our home. It agreed to pay me out half of what our home is worth. But I doubt I’ll get anything because it Hass to refinance and over the years. I had to do everything adult around our home. I can’t imagine having to do all of this. Our home was beautiful once, but it has turned into a pig pen because it hoarded a lot of crap over the years and if I threw anything away, it would give me the silent treatment sometimes for a couple months, anyway I could go on and on I wish I had a lot of money so that I could hire you to be my attorney or at least just to talk with you in person but I guess that is magical thinking on my part (ha! I’m chuckling to myself) anyway, thank goodness for you, for sharing your knowledge with all of us Babetts & Guyettes ha! I like that we can learn and laugh at the same time🙂 Love & aloha AGAIN! Thank you……jody
I am at this point. i am in tears listening to this podcast. He left 10 years ago, i grieved for 7 years! his words were in my head. We never divorced , hope and his flying monkey mother contributed to this. I started feeling ME again, and He came BACK for 2 months , I went through the whole textbook cycle! he went back to the other woman, leaving me feel small, humiliated and angry at myself.. again. I will allow the grief. I was fighting it, trying to be strong. I need to find other people, who understand , I can trust myself to tell anyone my humiliation again. My physiatrist just medicates.. I need nature, get him out of my head.
I went thru 10 years of those cycles separated yet not divorced.... Now divorcing..... Now he is in revenge mode... Put criminal charges of child abuse on me...
"Ok bunnies and bunnets" ...what a sweet and humourous person you are professor!! Thank you for helping so many people who were ignorant about narcissism and were suffering patiently in silence..
So eye opening! I did not understand this was a shared fantasy. I recognized abusive behavior, but unsure why it was so much more complicated. Im in extreme pain. You are right. It is horrible. Terrifying 😢
The worst pain I’ve been through, but definitely being able to talk to friends really helps me and although I don’t always talk as much as I should, my mind clears once I’ve done it.. for a while anyway!
A person suffers - the grief - and it is because it is they want to avoid responsibility for their own life. They have become discouraged by an abusive individual. They need courage, something the narc can not ever have. Narcs are about power. "normal" people have courage and become ENcouraged or DIScouraged. Once a person begins to become responsible for their own life their courage will build.
I'm just so relieved he is gone ...and I am free to live my life. 😅 Sure there are sad moments. But the worst parts were when he was still around. Now every day is sweet and better day by day. Thank you for your videos.
Over and over my therapist told me "Mourn the loss of the mother you never had". It took 3 months for me to process that. I was so angry. That was 10 years ago. Mim, (not a mom) has since died. The trauma didn't die with her.
Everytime I start to doubt my limits, I come to your channel and it just works like wonders; never been able to connect with other content creators about this topic that romanticize every bit of data, you clearly know what you're talking about - not because you're a professional but because you explain so simply the logic behind it all, from childhood trauma to adult chronic behaviors
This is amazing and every word is a truth I have come to know. I have said goodbye to the person i was but I am still here and building from the ground up. The professor has been one of the biggest helps in this slow recovery.
I'm at either denial or depression... Or even more i feel like I'm going through all stages simultaneously. I'm losing my mind. I'm saying out loud that I'll never ever go back to his abuse... But i don't feel anything when i say it. Those words are empty. I'm betraying myself in the worst possible way... No self preservation instict.
Trying so hard not to text him. Only 5 months "together ", but he hijacked my mind. He has knocked the wind right out of me. It's all making sense listening to you Professor Vaknin. ❤
There is something very interesting about this snapshot explanation that make me think of dating apps and how everyone there have pictures of their ideal selfs and how the first interaction is with these pictures and descriptions.does it mean that the beginning of such interactions are like a shared fantasy 😅
The Narc I was together with repeatedly told me to stop thinking. "You are too rational!", he critisised. He only wanted me to FEEL. But I am a scientist with a sharp brain and realizing the reality frequently disturbed his efforts to keep me caged in his fantasy land. My brain had a very hard time to think me out of this confusing situation. No contact now for a month but my mind still wanders through wonderland. It just had been so wonderful there!
What a great reference video! I will be watching this often, when I begin to lose sight of myself, when I overly play the blame game with myself, when I begin again to lose hope. Thank you!
It’s ironic actually, that when we meet them, we believe we finally met the person who sees us the way we are, the way always wanted to be seen, only to have to face the reality, that we will jump through any hoop they hold out, no matter how foreign-feeling, or how much they require us to violate our “own morals”. The reality of adhering to the snap-shot fantasy that is not even you, is mentally consuming. I now see, I was always Perfect, not because of him, but because there is only 1 me, and only I know what makes me feel safe, happy and free. Getting out and physically away from that unreal idealized version he created was so necessary. I forced myself to remember my mind set the day before I ever met that person. I existed before I met him, and I continue to exist without his nonsense and negativity. The stress of being with them could never be described. And again, I hope you all come to realize the Perfect Person you are and have always been, because of You, not them. The day before you met them…….be the person you have always been and you will find your Happy Self🙏🏼
Madeleine here (Nigel is my deceased hubby - after him I landed a Covert Narcissist!). Sam Vaknin you are a Genius! My psychotherapist is most impressed too! You have almost single-handedly saved me from Narcissistic Abuse! I am Loving this latest one, as I was discarded (for the second time) in March. It’s true! I’m grieving my Idealised Self. I don’t LIKE my Idealised Self. It isn’t ME. My mother had CN traits and hence I have swung from feeling Special to Worthless all my life. Neither are the Real Me. Hey Sam I almost could say my ex covert narcissist did me a big favour. At last I can see my Idealised Self is no more real than the (co-dependent) Worthless One!
I think this is Sam's kindest message. Thank you. I agreed to many points aloud like a sermon. I admit and agree it is my own fantasy that died and I feel unalive without it and him. My experience was only a couple months and I want to be honest and admit, I am foolishly so jealous of people who had the fantasy for many years or who got repeatedly hoovered. I know, the narrative SHOULD be I was stronger willed, so I didnt 100% comply and so it ended sooner as sucessfully poor supply. Some time has passed with friends poorly understanding this devastating experience, myself too, until I found your youtube. I am wiser today due to this knowledge. I owe it to myself to live and spread this knowledge.
Dear Prof Vaknin, u are of great service to humanity. This is by far the best lecture on narcissistic abuse-the truth of it and how to heal from it that I have ever come across. ❤
I have been listening to your videos for about a year. This is the most vulnerable and empathetic lecture I have heard from you. Deeply resonating with your openness and humility. Thank you very much!
This is very much the path I have forged over the last year and I can vouch that this is the way to peace and freedom from attachment, and recognising self love.
You have so much insight. The way you explain the different phases etc matches my experience with him. It seemed as if he went into the delusional phase after failing to get a career he had been bragging about. . I admit I miss the fantasy because I had never experienced someone I felt had common interests and how we related at times . As you said it is dangerous as the last time I saw him he flipped out while I was driving him in my car and suddenly he punched me about 10 times in the head. I stopped the car and had to work diligently to get out of the vehicle. Two women intervened and offered him $20 to get out saying he didnt want to go to jail..He said he desired jail and had been voicing that other times..He has been out of my life for 5 months now. I hear he is not in good shape and has charges of Criminal Trespass 2 and Criminal Mischief 2 with 3 contempt of court charges. I still feel sad at times but have accepted the loss. Looking back it was a very brutal existence most times we met up. Thank you for what you do! Also his FB profile has a black hole. I turned him on to your talks a ehile before we parted.
I listen to you all the time. This has been most impactful on my journey…based on the stages, which I did not know, I am almost out of it but you have validated EVERYTHING I have went thru and experienced in my soul. Thank you Professor Sam🙏
Thank you so much for the video. You nailed what I'm going through to a tee. It's good to know that what I am feeling is normal and all part of the process. Thank you again.
I am a painter. After i met my narc i started painting faces with no face. One of this in the chest had a rogthen hear. In one of oir breaks ups i painted a demonic like creature with pointy teeth eating its own flesh, hands and legs and vomiting them in a pool of blood... This is how much the pain was.. Fits exactly to the "skin yourself alive" Metaphor... After him i stopped painting.. I am afriad the beings that will emetge... The colours seem to have no colour no more... I used to write poems.. Feelings and words cannot be expressed... Ita thia void that now only exists... Recently i went to therapy... What i said to the dr was. "I just want to be again... I want to be alive... She asked you are not? I said one that wals on auto and eats in autonis not alive.. Its just living"... Zombie mode... Slowly i am gettin out of it... Today i went to the market with no panic attack... Proud of myself... " Guves a pat on her shoulder and hug 🤗'" ❤if anything i am learning to slowly love myself back.. Andntey to embrace the new me coming... Old me dead and burried... Screaming and mourning in my sleep... Buy slowly it fades away... Love yourself people... I slowly learn to do that... ❤
@@slackingoffagain currently under medication for depression and panic attacks. Panic attacks gone but dissociation and agoraphovia is there. I am practicing tai chi that has exercises like these and helps. Also started Chinese acupuncture that helps a bit. Luck of concentration is there too and a lot of heavy heart paltantions. It has gotten a bit better but I think this is how it's going to be from now on... Glad you got better... Keep it up... 🙃🙏
@@slackingoffagain same here🙂. No tears for me today(yet.. XD). We got two words in Greece from ancient dramas. Tragelaughikoa and comikotragiko...they mean stg so tragic you can only laugh about it..and from tragic it becomes a comedy..of how upserd it is... XD. Started painting again slowly.. Nothing much. Only watercolors... But the creature is emerging is full of light and hope... Learning to trust my strokes again and identify colours from skratch...Stg deep inside our old self tries to emerge... It is not completely dead... Only altered... Changing skin... I trust my paintings... They tell me she is still here... And I need to stop mourning for her... We do not mourn them... We mourn us... Watched us die.. Arrange our own funeral and then watch us getting buried... Throwing the soil on top with our own hands... Now I am waiting patiently for the flowers to grow on top.. Nothing ever dies... Only recycled... I am watching myself slowly having a tiny smile on my face...its tiny But it's there... The flower eventually will become a garden again... And the smile will turn into laughter... For you as well... 🙏
@@slackingoffagain yes. It's a turning point in humanity and we are simply mirrors. Reflecting all others and ourselves as fragments of its all. Once the ego identity brakes there is nowhere to turn into. I remember one time not long ago I woke up and had the answer why we need to love and be loved. And the answer is quite simple. Out there in the realm of no body everything exists in unity. As a part of its all. No separation. And once we come here we are just trying to recreate this. Because we can be seen only by the lens of others thus gain existence. Love is the only power that can do this. All forms of it. Love for another, animals, nature, hobies, a job... Everything putting a little stone on our identity that keeps us going and reminding us of the unity existing outside. I think eventually this is what narc and eventually narc in the society does. Takes away everything as fake, everything we once were all believed in seizes to exist. From there on just the void. The other we loved never existed, the outside world is even more fake... And us as being a part of it we are fake too. In the end is existencial truths hitting us hard. Because if you don't trust yourself anymore and the others.. If you don't know what the others are then what are you? And at the end the mirror will show the horrible truth... That you are just a reflection of what once made sense.. But does not anymore... No tears again for me today... Only a void of deep sadness... No flowers for me today... Today they are part of my void... Part of the mirror... I am watching myself from outside... Refusing to continue a movie making no sense anymore... Maybe tomorrow... 🙃 Hope your day will be more hopeful than mine.. 🙂🙏
I lived in a shared fantasy and the grief is a shared fantasy. I feel as if I lived in some sort of Matrix. It's very dark to think about it. The bright side is all of it was just a hallucination. I dreamed for 31 years.
I two weeks since coming across your videos I have learnt so much. With every video of yours that I watch, the fog keeps being lifted and clarify is coming. I'm now making sense of the madness. I have since unsubscribed from all the youtue videos that left me with more questions than answers. I will take on board your very wise counsel.
I can't thank you enough for this video, it explains my grief & now I know what is actually going on& why it's so difficult to move on, it's been one year over & I didn't know why I couldn't move on, until now! Thank you so much Prof Sam I believe this will at least help me a little
This video is great because it pretty much sums up the entire cycle with the narcissist with emphasis on the end. The need to grieve the narcissist is so real. I love that you give Kubler Ross credit for her theory of stages of grief. Unfortunately many recent, most likely narcissistic researchers have been criticizing her theory. Sure it needed some tweaking and I love the addition of hope, but to criticize her is a shame. Thank you for this and all of your amazing videos!
Thank you for helping me understand what i am going through, i still have to deal with the abuser because of finances and it is total hell but at least i can comfort mysef better. I am in the anger stage bur trapped which makes me angrier
It's so sick. that these people are allowed to have children; I thought as a teenager certain people shouldn't be parents...Now looking closer at the lost years that I'm glad I left the sickness.
Thank you for the quality information. I searched but could not find that you had any videos on the difference between borderline and bipolar. As someone with BPII, I would love to see this because from what I understand, BP is a common misdiagnosis for someone with BPD. Thanks again!
I had not shared one single tear for weeks and felt absolutely horrible. Horrible. Beyond horrible. As I watched this lecture I felt as if I was sitting in front of you professor Vaknin and as you approached the reality, the detail, the shared fantasy being a lie, and more, I just began to feel the tears flow. I thank you for that. It is hard to hear but it was the only video or content or lecture that had such helpful information. You are an incredibly intelligent man and you have helped so many people. Thank you. It was a harsh reality check but, it was the first time I cried and understood what was and what was not part of my experience.
Professional Empath Professor Vaknin, you always adress my important topics. XD Yesterday I heard you mention the autism aspect again, right when I thought, I still can´t figure out if this topic is present in me or my family of origin or not and that it feels so close that it can be mistaken for each other in specific constellations. And now you´re talking about grief, grieving shared fantasies. I guess delayed grieving and solving complex trauma caused by ongoing enmeshment is one of my personal topics, and as the exhausted escapegoat I´ll have to do it alone. Not easy at all to even find the safe state to do this. In the past I cried so much alone already, but it never really seemed to be my own grief, it was those of my family who simply have handed me.
Thank you, I realize I only miss the fantasy, because the 14 years reality was mostly awful. I miss the fantasy but I'm alone and can't trust other men , feeling sad depressed and even suicidal at times. I have to clean the mess he left me in alone. He took so much from me. I don't know how to survive because he did a lot of things and took them out of my hands like finances. Now I'm fighting on my own because his web of lies made me almost homeless. Even i wanted to prevent this but he needed my money for " our" dream. That he ruined and hijacked. So I have to find a way through the lies. And try not to fall apart even like I feel like most of the time. Still standing. But letting this relationship go starts by realising it was fake. A fantasy, an image that we both fabricated and believed in for so long. So i made the dumbest mistakes. Believing in him , thinking I could fall back on him and that he really loved me. I'm on my own now alone and fighting for my existence,house, and money. What I'm about to lose all. I needed to hear this. To let the shared fantasy that was a nightmare in reality go.
Sam, I love your style. Keep up the good work. It took me 8 yrs (reverse discarded her 3 months ago and went no contacts; I gave her time to promote a new primary supply b/c I didn’t want her to be suicidal, that scared me; she told me she tried once with pain killers before I met her; that she used to cut herself) to find your education. She caught me, but sub-consciously, I recked her because of my strong sense of self and found myself behaving in ways and things you describe (like, how to break their mental image, their tactics and strategies); she couldn’t break me because I was using her. I didn’t discover your/ these narc videos until after we broke up; yours are by far the best! The other videos are third class. If you like contact me, I’ll let you know how it all went down. I met her in law school ( we took the same classes) as a rebound relationship, she targeted me, and I thought I was King Kong and I could do anything, until I found out there was something called a narcissist. Humbled. I want to actually thank her for making me a true monster now; I have ultimate self awareness. But you’re right, I have problems trusting anyone now and think most people are narcissists. So thank you and your humor, both are first class. But please dude, use the pronoun, her. Times have changed. As men simp and woman become men, the shift should be recognized. In fact, I am waiting for a female Sam Vaknin to come forward sooner than later.
I wanted to add. You talked about the 1970 Japanese robotics saying narcissist, when carbon forms are created are the future. No they are not. Reason, lay people and especially educated people like me, once we experience the narc, they have no chance. Ergo, we are the future. Enlightenment cannot be dimmed. “How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world." ~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice.”
The Twilight Zone theme 😊 . I use that expression. I watched that series in the 1960's. Your introductions are so darn entertaining. Ok, back to watching video 🌲
I´m born 1980, but it was boadcasted in the late evening when I was young in Germany. I actually watched this with my father a few times when he was still alive. XD I´ll have to look up the theme later.
How interesting your comparison of a narcissist to a black hole, and talk of super novas was. I know a narcissist who on several occasions, proudly have called himself a black hole, who gobble up stars and other inferior material. He also enjoys seducing women and then relish in their devastation and humiliation, when he tells them he is gay and it’s all been a lie. A fantasy
Oh, that´s good to know. So there are gay men otthere who would gain their narc supply by this. So far I only had one who was latent homosexual, the sex starving type who would throw you out of the bedroom when you dared to ask him for sex. I was so well prepared by my family I stayed with him for 5 years despite all of these crying in the night alone on the couch and things like that. He prophylactically acused me of things or just dropped a sentecne to make sure I would stay in this contant state of fear he would just leave me. I still don´t know if he´s too afraid for intimacy or maybe came out of the closet later or whatever. In the end I was convinced I must be transgender and that men are the only species who are worth to be adored. A total girl fag and for a long time I didn´t even understand how problematic these fantasies are. I drove myself more and more into this s...t and was neglected again and again by someone who has enough narc emapthy to understand how he could keep such a silly sheep on the long leash without ever exposing himself for any criticism. 🙈🙈
It’s beyond a death because it’s a shocking realization that the person you loved never even existed. Thanks for this video.
The next step in line that it was a warped version of yourself is even weirder.
Extremely heartbreaking.
And never really loved you in the idealization.😢
@@l3lackoutsMedia
There is not in the whole you tube a better explanation for the whole situation of the disaster you feel because of a relationship with a narcissist. It makes all so clear. Sam, you are our rescuer, I lived for decades in the darkness of the unknown. Knowledge is POWER , but only the RIGHT Knowledge. Thank you for everything, you are the first and the last and it's a pity that not everyone knows about you and your amazing work in the narcissism. You initiated so many things and all the rest experts should first spelling your name with attention and honor. SAM VAKNIN first, narcissism best expert and inventor and then their bla bla bla. Sorry for my English, I am from Greece, I am a scientist and I can totally recognize your uniqueness Mr Vaknin.
It took me 3 years to mourn and go through the stages of grief. Sadly, there were very little people around me that understood me or wanted to support me. Some people even blamed ME for the abuse claiming that I was stupid, naive etc. Even psychologists could not really help me with my grief. Only time helped me.
@@parklady4233sorry to hear that. Can I know why do you say a child's discard? And how have you been trying to
Cope? Did you have to fight trauma bond?
No Pun Intended - Good Grief! I needed this. Thank You!
So sorry to hear that. So sad that even professional therapists weren't helpful. Did you turn to any addictive behaviour to cope?
@@dreambig4557 Yes, compulsive eating.
I have only been out two months of a 33 year marriage. The pain is so bad some days. I am glad that my spouse is happy I am gone. I makes my decision easier
"Accepting the demise of the shared fantasy is one of the most traumatic imaginable human experience" : Thank you mr Vaknin. Really, honestly, gratefully THANK YOU.
I could not get over the “shape shifting”, “fits you like a glove” description. My ex narcissist used to do something called “the octopus” where he would completely cover me with his body and, literally, move over every part of me like a “second skin”. It was intoxicating because I was so in love with him and I felt absolutely that we were becoming one. I can recall him holding my face and staring into my eyes with tears streaming down his face and professing such undying love for me. Such idealization! I recall him presenting me with 2 8x10 sheets of paper covered with positive adjectives and telling me I was every single one of them. He tattooed my name on his pelvis. And I fell for all of it. And he emotionally tortured me, devalued and discarded me over and over again for 17 years. My life became a nightmare. I am still in the process of “skinning myself” to get out of this and I hope I make it out alive.
i had a uncannily similar situation
My ex did something so similar too!!
كن قويا 😢❤
Similar
Keep up the good work, researching and expressing yourself, you can do this, I’m praying for you 🙏💜
I feel like I died but I am walking around watching my body exist. This is pain like I have never experienced. Thank You Sam. I am holding on to " you will be ok"...Oh God I hope that is true.
You will. I promise. One day you will be happy and be able to look back to see how terrible it was. I have been there and I didn't believe I would ever look back and not want him or us. It happened for me and now I am free. You will find yourself again. Just like they can never love and operate on so many functions they don't have control of - you do this too and one of those functions is reviving yourself. You can't mess that up. It will happen and one day you will go outside and it won't seem surreal, you will take a walk and it will feel normal and good - you will grocery shop and you'll be excited for new meals instead in a store with strangers and a feeling of being in the twilight zone. It is glorious. Your job then, is to protect you so that you never go through this again and that is by never attaching to a narc again.
This was so healing! I finally understand the bizarre dynamics. Every single word you said was exactly what happened to me. I think the hardest part was how euphoric i felt in the shared fantasy. He woke up parts of my soul i never knew existed. We would lock eyes and he would tell me "its all ok now Michele, your safe with me" I will love you and take care of you forever". I melted into his body and never felt so loved. My childhood wounds where finally healed for those years until devaluation emerged gradually. I spent 11 years in this confusion and he never discarded me or hoovered. Just long long silent treatments, moving away, blocking me. But i always begged to work it out. I even offered friendship as long as we could still be connected. I begged him with my life to not shut me out and he said ok and i remained in the fantasy. He was slowly disconnecting and i felt it. I panicked and told him im moving on please dont call me anymore. He said ok. Its been several months and im getting stronger everyday. No more abuse, no more confusion. I have a long road but i never want back into his world.
I feel so confused too bc I was never discarded. He still wants to be with me and all this stuff. I’m like when did u discard me? It’s so confusing
I also was never discarded (after 38 years married), so I was who left him, and only received two very soft hoovering episodes and silent treatment afterwards which I requested bcs it is certainly the best to me (I finally put me before him) but I am convinced that I lived a reverse discarding the last years bcs the emotional and verbal abuse made me feel as the shared fantasy became the hell. It was like a terrifying nightmare. I believe that the supply I gave my nx was so high that he didn't want to loose it but at the same time he wanted to have all the supply he was getting from other sources. At the end he was not able to control the anger he felt bcs of his lack of capacity to permanently conserve all that supply . He simply was unable to choose and had no other option than let me to do it. And it caused him more anger bcs of the lack of control involved. Thanks God I was permitted to go out from the shared nightmare. I see my grieving process as the last (or awakening) episode of that and I hope I'll pass it fast.
Nobody wants to be around a grieving person and the grieving person tends to isolate himself because he is ashamed of his prolongued grief. Grief is not accepetd in the society. "You should pull yourself together and move on as quyickly as possible"! Grief is considered to be a weakness and a flaw of character. I heard some people say to me "You just enjoy the state of grieving, you don't want to come out of it".
I understand this very well 😢. I hope you are doing better now
I’ve been binging your videos every day for the last few months since my breakup, and they have given me more clarity than anything I’ve read or listened to. And this video specifically has helped me more than any of your other videos. It is SUCH a lonely experience, because almost no one in my life has experienced this and fully understands what I mean when I try to describe it. The mental torment is unbearable. The loss of sense of self is acute. The depression and hopelessness nearly overwhelming. Thank you for simply reflecting my reality back to me.
Perfectly stated.
Who I had to become to accommodate HIM!
😢
The depression is real 😢
The self inflicted betrayal is real 😢
The numbness 😢
The loneliness 😢
The trauma bond😢
Hope you're better now.
The day after I had planned on ending my life I met her. I was skeptical but I quickly fell for her. Pure euphoria. On the day I said I would end my life instead we were in my apartment laughing and dancing and kissing on the couch. She looked in my eyes and said “you make my soul smile, I love you, and I hope you kiss me the same way when we grow old together.” That’s the moment I knew I was in love, and for the first time I said “I love you” to someone else. I thought I had found my person. Then the devaluation and discard began. I was right in a way. A part of me did die that day. But I’m free from the torture she inflicted on me and I’m learning how to enjoy life again
I am going through this right now. This process is the closest thing to feeling crazy that I could ever imagine. It is a lonely process that I battle daily. Thank you for this information. I am working so hard to overcome
Yes, it does make you feel insane. Because we try to understand it how we are, and cannot conceive of the type of person they are…they showed us they knew how to act loving, kind, loyal, and wonderful…so we know they know how…but then the way they devalue and discard us is the exact opposite of what love is. So it makes no sense. Listening to these videos and talking to a therapist helps me understand what they actually are, and though the pain is still very real, it’s the only thing that has helped.
I’m going through it right now too. It feels like I’ve died but somehow still just existing in space and time. The worst part that left me with cPTSD was the serial cheating and betrayal trauma. I found out that his first wife committed suicide and second wife escaped but ended up with cancer. I feel grateful that I didn’t become the 3rd wife, but mourning the last 5 years of wasted love and investment. These videos are the only thing that keep me feeling sane.
Thank you Dr. Vaknin. The others may steal your ideas, but you are the only one, the original.
You have saved so many lives, including mine, thank you.
Yes, in total agreement. Sam’s the Godfather in this realm, and its irony that it in such a discipline, so called experts, claim another intellectual property. They know who they are!
I agree
"Breaking up with a narcissist is like skinning yourself alive." So horrible and true that I belly laughed. Someone please make this quote into a meme. 😂
It's embarrassing to admit that Vaknin's lectures and excerpts have helped me safely exit more than one narcissistically cursed dynamic.
I purposely don't call them relationships anymore, to remind myself none of it was real. It felt real to me - but so do dreams, hallucinations and psychotic states, while you're in them.
I have nothing to show for but misdirected anger, distrust, ruined friendships and a tainted reputation, not to mention the ineffable self-destructive cravings ever since the breakup.
Since I no longer have a devil on my back, I tend to my own masochism by making bad choices that don't involve bringing the killed-off character back to (my) life 😂
The breakup itself is easy if compared to the uncomfortable commitment of never contacting them again, amidst the hurricane of feelings we're left with.
Thank you Sam Vaknin for dedicating so much content to the aftermath of The Falseman Show. It's insulting how similar the shared fantasy's script is for everyone here, but it sure helps us feel less broken and alone.
Ditto on the not calling them Relationship’s. I’ve had far too many repeats! Listened to a great video on repeated, compulsions. Really helped me.
This Doctor is such a blessing to humanity!
The irony is when I met him he insisted I immediately give him a picture of me and my daughter. I thought it was sweet. Now I wish I'd never met him and could erase the last 24 years of HELL!
Griefing something and someone you lost that you never had, tolerating all this pain by being tortured by an illussion, my someone who never saw you, loved you or acknowledged your pain or the sacrificies you were willing to make for them just to be faced with a stranger, a horrible dirty aftermaths and left with nothing but bleeding wounds and no single nice memories, as they were all fake. The only REAL thing was your own pain and thats all what you are left with, while the person you had so much emphathy for moves on to suck the life out of the nect supply claiming on social media he was never happier!
I think you can grieve what you never had - even though there was no "real" relationship the breakup can help you face those original losses that drove the trauma bond in the first place.
After understanding, it was abuse and not love. It was tough to cry it out as love. I felt disconnected from my previous thoughts after breaking that trauma bond. Those gestures and words which felt sweet when I thought it was love. It felt betrayal and manipulation. With at most difficulty I processed those feelings. Writing helped a lot.
I felt someone else sharing my mind with me around 8 months after meeting him. I told him. I cried in front of him feeling I was losing control. I thought that person in front of me cared for me but I was looking at the devil’s eyes.
Oh I'm in the depression phase... my hollowness is swallowing me up! I drive my car at night for a good long hour looking at couples or families together, and wonderimg what was wrong with me! Why didn't he love me as others did! Why didn't he hold on me as others would do!? And now i know these are the wrong questions...
My loneliness is cutting through my body and heart! I can almost feel it like a blunt knife through my ribs. He robbed 5 precious years and walked over my dead body and coldly threw it at my face: you can live your life now! Mission accomplished!...
Can this much cruelty ever exist! Why do these people exist at all? They are worse than wars and hurricanes, worse than deadly viruses and plagues! They kill one's soul alive! You live dead. You're literally deadly alive!!!!
Same here word by word. How are you now?
@@anniegallagher3177 it's been 6 months since I saw him, trying to gather my pieces, trying to understand more and let work and books distract me. But I drink bitterness with coffee and water. Questions are killing me. I'm alone, he made it in this part. I fail to attract the right person, I fail to love someone else. But wait... the ugly part of the story, and this of course because he definitely is a nasty pervert narcissist, every now and then ans whenever I regain enough energy to move on, he finds a way to send a provoking message, then many more to follow and I wouldn't respond for one day, one week, one month, two months... then I write back. And even if it is a single word I write, he enjoys the game. However... let me tell you my small victory here, I didn't let him see me. I didn't allow him to. I didn't give him the usual fuel. I didn't talk to him on the phone. I didn't engage myself all over again in that painful fight against my pride to satisfy him and get him to see me for who I am. I stopped doing that. So yes, I'm alone and lonely, and yes he's chasing me for whatever supply I can give, and a big YES, I didn't even give him the pleasure to see my face. And I hope I will make it this way for longer enough to let go forever...
Same..😢
Narc, destroyed my dream i thought i had hit the love jackpot with the love bomb only to know now it has been 1 month she discarded me, 12 years of roller coaster i feeling numb, she robbed me of the kindness of my heart she changed me I don’t even knowing who I am any more she done horrible things to me and I learned to cut off narcissistic supply without let her know that I new who she is she decided to go, left me with mixed emotions pain and the best way I can describe her she is a pure evil in a human body.
Thank you Prof. Sam for all the useful explanation and advice to us abused victims .
Remember what it was like when you two were together. It wasn't like those other people you see out, you would want that even while in a relationship with the narc and still not ever get that. You've been starved of that for years. You invested into a person unable to give you love back. You can only go up from here.
Let out a sigh of relief listening to your introductory comments, Dr Sam. Realized almost immediately that I could walk off the narcissistic set. No need for tedious explanations, no questions, no interrogations, no hurt feelings. It’s just over. The play is over. Drop the curtain. His fantasy & my fantasy … done.
What a terrific feeling of freedom to walk out of the cage, out of the mental prison. And to see my part in all of this craziness? It only makes sense so actually there is no one to blame. We both played our roles very well even though he acted like the director in charge of an asylum. An asylum he constructed while handing over to me my script, my role … which I tried to follow line by line. Thing is that he’s crazy and I’m crazy. He may want to continue the story but I’m tired of the fantasy. Just plain ol’ tired. What’s really neat is that there’s no one to blame! It’s been a shared fantasy, something we both constructed. Think I’ll just go take a nap now. What a sweet sense of release.
Thank you, Dr Sam, thank you for giving me the keys that unlocked the doors of my shared delusion.
Te agradezco ❤
I come back to your videos as soon as I find myself delving in past (shared fantasy)..... It really helps and gives an instant reality check.....
The mind is something which has no control.... One has to keep control over emotions with help of knowledge and sharp understanding.... Or the mind can drag one to dark places.... At such times, revisiting your videos help. Ones brain has to be a strict master of ones mind.
This has helped me so far. Don't know the rest....
This is so true. It was a photograph of me with a triangle over my head as his screen saver that he said he needed to do some adjusting to. It didn't make sense but now it does. From viewing every item of clothing prior to meeting to planning how I'd wear my hair. He made me what he wanted. My fault I fell into the trap. It was hell when I didn't conform to whatever he wanted. It was a nightmare! The grief & mourning is real. Eventually after he was established in this Country, he said he no longer loved me. I went gray rock and finally divorced him after 5 years of marraige, the last 2 just living under the same roof. Thank you for this! I will never be the same again. I break off all the soul ties in the name of Jesus.This is so messed up. Nobody understands why I keep mourning this. There's no closure and that's a hard concept to grasp. I will never go thru this again.
I guess everyone will understand (sadly I do!) who ever really had this absolutely confusing and odd experience that a person you think you´re in a relationship with (or affair or whatever it is exactly, often those people don´t even take the courage to name it) keeps telling you you´ll have to make efforts, change, really try harder to fit in and evth within this frame to be worthy of his (or her) love.
It was no coincidence that when I was after 10 years finally able to go no contact with him it has been the same week that I could go no contact with my mother!!
It was merely smbolic, because she could never see me as a person. But it took me an eternity to open my eyes that much that I was able to see her wrongdoings, all her neglect, how she trapped me emotionally so I had to suffer under my brother´s abuse of different ways. The brainwashing effect was too strong.
They both used me to move on, to become successful and I wondered why do I feel even worse over time? It was because they were able to get their narc supply from other sources.
It might not have been marriage and I definitely can´t know what it would be like under the same roof, but these underlying mechanisms you will see in every of these stories, it´s heartbreaking, it´s super cruel, because this is nothing a person should suffer from.
I have no idea how the narcissist is meant to do all these things …. You say he takes a snapshot, you live a shared fantasy .., examples of this type of behaviour would actualize?
Aloha🌺 from Kona Hawaii🌋 I’ve been educating myself daily for over one year now, listening to your lectures, and slowly, but surely I’m healing now that I know that I’ve been married to a narcissist for 29 years, and that there was nothing that I could have done to change this individual, and it had nothing to do with me. I have three grown adults with this individual going through a divorce right now and let me tell you it is mind. F*^%ery just craziness, and it doesn’t help that it was a police officer for the first nine years of our relationship then it became a sheriff officer, and now it’s an officer of land and natural resources, and so it knows how to work the system, and the law. here in Hawaii everything is half/half 50%.. it’s been over a year now and it knows how to drag the process you would think it would want to move on with its life with its next new intimate partner/victim that it was grooming for the last three years before my break down, discard… but nope it’s punishment and misery… it is so hard to find a lawyer attorney, who understands narcissism. And it doesn’t want to sell our home. It agreed to pay me out half of what our home is worth. But I doubt I’ll get anything because it Hass to refinance and over the years. I had to do everything adult around our home. I can’t imagine having to do all of this. Our home was beautiful once, but it has turned into a pig pen because it hoarded a lot of crap over the years and if I threw anything away, it would give me the silent treatment sometimes for a couple months, anyway I could go on and on I wish I had a lot of money so that I could hire you to be my attorney or at least just to talk with you in person but I guess that is magical thinking on my part (ha! I’m chuckling to myself) anyway, thank goodness for you, for sharing your knowledge with all of us Babetts & Guyettes ha! I like that we can learn and laugh at the same time🙂 Love & aloha AGAIN! Thank you……jody
I am at this point. i am in tears listening to this podcast. He left 10 years ago, i grieved for 7 years! his words were in my head. We never divorced , hope and his flying monkey mother contributed to this. I started feeling ME again, and He came BACK for 2 months , I went through the whole textbook cycle! he went back to the other woman, leaving me feel small, humiliated and angry at myself.. again. I will allow the grief. I was fighting it, trying to be strong. I need to find other people, who understand , I can trust myself to tell anyone my humiliation again. My physiatrist just medicates.. I need nature, get him out of my head.
thank you .@@vickibazter3446
I went thru 10 years of those cycles separated yet not divorced.... Now divorcing..... Now he is in revenge mode... Put criminal charges of child abuse on me...
Abused for a shortwhile close to a year but the aftermath of it is taking forever to get over,Its like I have been abused a min ago damn.
"Ok bunnies and bunnets" ...what a sweet and humourous person you are professor!! Thank you for helping so many people who were ignorant about narcissism and were suffering patiently in silence..
So eye opening! I did not understand this was a shared fantasy. I recognized abusive behavior, but unsure why it was so much more complicated. Im in extreme pain. You are right. It is horrible. Terrifying 😢
The worst pain I’ve been through, but definitely being able to talk to friends really helps me and although I don’t always talk as much as I should, my mind clears once I’ve done it.. for a while anyway!
A person suffers - the grief - and it is because it is they want to avoid responsibility for their own life. They have become discouraged by an abusive individual. They need courage, something the narc can not ever have. Narcs are about power. "normal" people have courage and become ENcouraged or DIScouraged. Once a person begins to become responsible for their own life their courage will build.
Grief is real even if the fantasy is not.
This would have to be the best information out there about recovering from narcissist abuse .
Thank you Pro Vaknin for this episode🙏🏻
oh my god , u totally nailed it .. breaking up with my narc felt like my soul had ripped out of my body
I'm just so relieved he is gone ...and I am free to live my life. 😅 Sure there are sad moments. But the worst parts were when he was still around. Now every day is sweet and better day by day. Thank you for your videos.
😮mourning something that never existed 💡
Over and over my therapist told me "Mourn the loss of the mother you never had". It took 3 months for me to process that. I was so angry. That was 10 years ago. Mim, (not a mom) has since died. The trauma didn't die with her.
Everytime I start to doubt my limits, I come to your channel and it just works like wonders; never been able to connect with other content creators about this topic that romanticize every bit of data, you clearly know what you're talking about - not because you're a professional but because you explain so simply the logic behind it all, from childhood trauma to adult chronic behaviors
Why is this man the only one to make sense?! I want to learn under him!
Nobody understands as well as you Sam ! I feel listening to you I have become my own therapist! Thankyou ❤
This is amazing and every word is a truth I have come to know. I have said goodbye to the person i was but I am still here and building from the ground up. The professor has been one of the biggest helps in this slow recovery.
I'm at either denial or depression... Or even more i feel like I'm going through all stages simultaneously. I'm losing my mind. I'm saying out loud that I'll never ever go back to his abuse... But i don't feel anything when i say it. Those words are empty. I'm betraying myself in the worst possible way... No self preservation instict.
How are you?
@@anniegallagher3177 much better. I focused on myself and simple things: eating healthy, working out and sleep. Slowly I'm getting back on my feet
@@randomnickname2254 Glad to read this ♥️
move away or go visit new place. reset help me 1000%.
Trying so hard not to text him. Only 5 months "together ", but he hijacked my mind. He has knocked the wind right out of me. It's all making sense listening to you Professor Vaknin. ❤
This is medicine for me and gives me hope as I’m “skinned alive” Thank
You ❤
There is something very interesting about this snapshot explanation that make me think of dating apps and how everyone there have pictures of their ideal selfs and how the first interaction is with these pictures and descriptions.does it mean that the beginning of such interactions are like a shared fantasy 😅
YESSSSS
The dating sites are full of narcs. Run!!!!❤🎉😊
The Narc I was together with repeatedly told me to stop thinking. "You are too rational!", he critisised. He only wanted me to FEEL. But I am a scientist with a sharp brain and realizing the reality frequently disturbed his efforts to keep me caged in his fantasy land.
My brain had a very hard time to think me out of this confusing situation. No contact now for a month but my mind still wanders through wonderland. It just had been so wonderful there!
What a great reference video! I will be watching this often, when I begin to lose sight of myself, when I overly play the blame game with myself, when I begin again to lose hope. Thank you!
What a treasure to humanity you are Sam. Thank you for all you do ❤
It’s ironic actually, that when we meet them, we believe we finally met the person who sees us the way we are, the way always wanted to be seen, only to have to face the reality, that we will jump through any hoop they hold out, no matter how foreign-feeling, or how much they require us to violate our “own morals”. The reality of adhering to the snap-shot fantasy that is not even you, is mentally consuming. I now see, I was always Perfect, not because of him, but because there is only 1 me, and only I know what makes me feel safe, happy and free. Getting out and physically away from that unreal idealized version he created was so necessary. I forced myself to remember my mind set the day before I ever met that person. I existed before I met him, and I continue to exist without his nonsense and negativity. The stress of being with them could never be described. And again, I hope you all come to realize the Perfect Person you are and have always been, because of You, not them. The day before you met them…….be the person you have always been and you will find your Happy Self🙏🏼
Madeleine here (Nigel is my deceased hubby - after him I landed a Covert Narcissist!).
Sam Vaknin you are a Genius!
My psychotherapist is most impressed too!
You have almost single-handedly saved me from Narcissistic Abuse!
I am Loving this latest one, as I was discarded (for the second time) in March. It’s true! I’m grieving my Idealised Self. I don’t LIKE my Idealised Self. It isn’t ME.
My mother had CN traits and hence I have swung from feeling Special to Worthless all my life.
Neither are the Real Me.
Hey Sam I almost could say my ex covert narcissist did me a big favour. At last I can see my Idealised Self is no more real than the (co-dependent) Worthless One!
I think this is Sam's kindest message. Thank you. I agreed to many points aloud like a sermon.
I admit and agree it is my own fantasy that died and I feel unalive without it and him. My experience was only a couple months and I want to be honest and admit, I am foolishly so jealous of people who had the fantasy for many years or who got repeatedly hoovered. I know, the narrative SHOULD be I was stronger willed, so I didnt 100% comply and so it ended sooner as sucessfully poor supply. Some time has passed with friends poorly understanding this devastating experience, myself too, until I found your youtube. I am wiser today due to this knowledge. I owe it to myself to live and spread this knowledge.
I agree 👍
Dear Prof Vaknin, u are of great service to humanity. This is by far the best lecture on narcissistic abuse-the truth of it and how to heal from it that I have ever come across. ❤
"943 videos"... 😂
Thank you, Professor Dr Sam Vaknin.
Respect and love from India.🙏
I have been listening to your videos for about a year. This is the most vulnerable and empathetic lecture I have heard from you. Deeply resonating with your openness and humility. Thank you very much!
What a sweet and caring talk. Just what I needed tonight. Many thanks.
I had this experience in my life and its effect to my emotional life. Thank you so much Dear Professor ❤
This has been the best video I’ve watched to help overcome this living hell…thank you!
Thank you Prof. Sam Vaknin.
You are an absolute genius, Professor. Thank you SO much for all of this information.
This is very much the path I have forged over the last year and I can vouch that this is the way to peace and freedom from attachment, and recognising self love.
You have so much insight. The way you explain the different phases etc matches my experience with him. It seemed as if he went into the delusional phase after failing to get a career he had been bragging about. . I admit I miss the fantasy because I had never experienced someone I felt had common interests and how we related at times . As you said it is dangerous as the last time I saw him he flipped out while I was driving him in my car and suddenly he punched me about 10 times in the head. I stopped the car and had to work diligently to get out of the vehicle. Two women intervened and offered him $20 to get out saying he didnt want to go to jail..He said he desired jail and had been voicing that other times..He has been out of my life for 5 months now. I hear he is not in good shape and has charges of Criminal Trespass 2 and Criminal Mischief 2 with 3 contempt of court charges. I still feel sad at times but have accepted the loss. Looking back it was a very brutal existence most times we met up. Thank you for what you do! Also his FB profile has a black hole. I turned him on to your talks a ehile before we parted.
Gosh, Thank you so much Dr. Vaknin!!!
I listen to you all the time. This has been most impactful on my journey…based on the stages, which I did not know, I am almost out of it but you have validated EVERYTHING I have went thru and experienced in my soul. Thank you Professor Sam🙏
Oh yes and cheers 🥂
Thank you so much for the video. You nailed what I'm going through to a tee. It's good to know that what I am feeling is normal and all part of the process. Thank you again.
Best info on narcissistic behavior out there. Plus a sense of humor. Love this insight.
Thank you so much for the work you do 🙏🏽🙏🏽
This video really hit me hard- thank you professor Sam, this touched me in so many ways. Thank you!!🙏🙏
This is amazing! I want to try to live after that video! Thank you very much
Professor Vakin you really helped me with this one. I really needed to hear this as I work through the stages of my grief. Thank you
So deep and so true. Thank you professor for all this philosophy, it is very helpful for me in this complex journey of grief and loss.
Your work is invaluable.
Thank you for your wise counsel. You lectures are healing me day by day ❤
Me as well 🙂
I am a painter. After i met my narc i started painting faces with no face. One of this in the chest had a rogthen hear. In one of oir breaks ups i painted a demonic like creature with pointy teeth eating its own flesh, hands and legs and vomiting them in a pool of blood... This is how much the pain was.. Fits exactly to the "skin yourself alive" Metaphor... After him i stopped painting.. I am afriad the beings that will emetge... The colours seem to have no colour no more... I used to write poems.. Feelings and words cannot be expressed... Ita thia void that now only exists... Recently i went to therapy... What i said to the dr was. "I just want to be again... I want to be alive... She asked you are not? I said one that wals on auto and eats in autonis not alive.. Its just living"... Zombie mode... Slowly i am gettin out of it... Today i went to the market with no panic attack... Proud of myself... " Guves a pat on her shoulder and hug 🤗'" ❤if anything i am learning to slowly love myself back.. Andntey to embrace the new me coming... Old me dead and burried... Screaming and mourning in my sleep... Buy slowly it fades away... Love yourself people... I slowly learn to do that... ❤
@@slackingoffagain currently under medication for depression and panic attacks. Panic attacks gone but dissociation and agoraphovia is there. I am practicing tai chi that has exercises like these and helps. Also started Chinese acupuncture that helps a bit. Luck of concentration is there too and a lot of heavy heart paltantions. It has gotten a bit better but I think this is how it's going to be from now on... Glad you got better... Keep it up... 🙃🙏
@@slackingoffagain same here🙂. No tears for me today(yet.. XD). We got two words in Greece from ancient dramas. Tragelaughikoa and comikotragiko...they mean stg so tragic you can only laugh about it..and from tragic it becomes a comedy..of how upserd it is... XD.
Started painting again slowly.. Nothing much. Only watercolors... But the creature is emerging is full of light and hope... Learning to trust my strokes again and identify colours from skratch...Stg deep inside our old self tries to emerge... It is not completely dead... Only altered... Changing skin... I trust my paintings... They tell me she is still here... And I need to stop mourning for her... We do not mourn them... We mourn us... Watched us die.. Arrange our own funeral and then watch us getting buried... Throwing the soil on top with our own hands... Now I am waiting patiently for the flowers to grow on top.. Nothing ever dies... Only recycled... I am watching myself slowly having a tiny smile on my face...its tiny But it's there... The flower eventually will become a garden again... And the smile will turn into laughter... For you as well... 🙏
@@slackingoffagain yes. It's a turning point in humanity and we are simply mirrors. Reflecting all others and ourselves as fragments of its all. Once the ego identity brakes there is nowhere to turn into. I remember one time not long ago I woke up and had the answer why we need to love and be loved. And the answer is quite simple. Out there in the realm of no body everything exists in unity. As a part of its all. No separation. And once we come here we are just trying to recreate this. Because we can be seen only by the lens of others thus gain existence. Love is the only power that can do this. All forms of it. Love for another, animals, nature, hobies, a job... Everything putting a little stone on our identity that keeps us going and reminding us of the unity existing outside. I think eventually this is what narc and eventually narc in the society does. Takes away everything as fake, everything we once were all believed in seizes to exist. From there on just the void. The other we loved never existed, the outside world is even more fake... And us as being a part of it we are fake too. In the end is existencial truths hitting us hard. Because if you don't trust yourself anymore and the others.. If you don't know what the others are then what are you? And at the end the mirror will show the horrible truth... That you are just a reflection of what once made sense.. But does not anymore...
No tears again for me today... Only a void of deep sadness... No flowers for me today... Today they are part of my void... Part of the mirror... I am watching myself from outside... Refusing to continue a movie making no sense anymore...
Maybe tomorrow... 🙃
Hope your day will be more hopeful than mine.. 🙂🙏
Thank you for this talk. it is very helpful to understand. I always felt I was just caught up in lies.
This is the best UA-cam video I have ever watched! Thank you so much. I've been feeling so lost - I can now see there is hope.
This is something out of this world,am full of regrets.
I lived in a shared fantasy and the grief is a shared fantasy. I feel as if I lived in some sort of Matrix. It's very dark to think about it. The bright side is all of it was just a hallucination. I dreamed for 31 years.
I’m sorry to hear it went in so long for you. I have lost 17 years.
This channel has come to me at the right time
I two weeks since coming across your videos I have learnt so much. With every video of yours that I watch, the fog keeps being lifted and clarify is coming. I'm now making sense of the madness. I have since unsubscribed from all the youtue videos that left me with more questions than answers. I will take on board your very wise counsel.
@@allyettiene1730 check Understanding Narcissists though. Scott has lived it and got me out of the fog. Best channel on UA-cam 💯
Thank you Prof for helping me to understand and make sense of what i am experiencing.
"You fall in love with the way the narcissist sees you". This really helps in understanding mirroring. It's not even a real mirror, is it?
Watch the shared fantasy playlist.
I needed to hear this so much… Thank you for saving me a lot of time!
I can't thank you enough for this video, it explains my grief & now I know what is actually going on& why it's so difficult to move on, it's been one year over & I didn't know why I couldn't move on, until now! Thank you so much Prof Sam I believe this will at least help me a little
This explains so much! I think it's one of your best videos. I also appreciate your kind advice for moving forward.
This video is great because it pretty much sums up the entire cycle with the narcissist with emphasis on the end. The need to grieve the narcissist is so real. I love that you give Kubler Ross credit for her theory of stages of grief. Unfortunately many recent, most likely narcissistic researchers have been criticizing her theory. Sure it needed some tweaking and I love the addition of hope, but to criticize her is a shame. Thank you for this and all of your amazing videos!
Thank you for helping me understand what i am going through, i still have to deal with the abuser because of finances and it is total hell but at least i can comfort mysef better. I am in the anger stage bur trapped which makes me angrier
You're a brilliant man. Thank you
It's so sick. that these people are allowed to have children; I thought as a teenager certain people shouldn't be parents...Now looking closer at the lost years that I'm glad I left the sickness.
Thank you for the quality information. I searched but could not find that you had any videos on the difference between borderline and bipolar. As someone with BPII, I would love to see this because from what I understand, BP is a common misdiagnosis for someone with BPD. Thanks again!
I had not shared one single tear for weeks and felt absolutely horrible. Horrible. Beyond horrible. As I watched this lecture I felt as if I was sitting in front of you professor Vaknin and as you approached the reality, the detail, the shared fantasy being a lie, and more, I just began to feel the tears flow. I thank you for that. It is hard to hear but it was the only video or content or lecture that had such helpful information. You are an incredibly intelligent man and you have helped so many people. Thank you. It was a harsh reality check but, it was the first time I cried and understood what was and what was not part of my experience.
Professional Empath Professor Vaknin, you always adress my important topics. XD
Yesterday I heard you mention the autism aspect again, right when I thought, I still can´t figure out if this topic is present in me or my family of origin or not and that it feels so close that it can be mistaken for each other in specific constellations. And now you´re talking about grief, grieving shared fantasies.
I guess delayed grieving and solving complex trauma caused by ongoing enmeshment is one of my personal topics, and as the exhausted escapegoat I´ll have to do it alone. Not easy at all to even find the safe state to do this.
In the past I cried so much alone already, but it never really seemed to be my own grief, it was those of my family who simply have handed me.
Thank you, I realize I only miss the fantasy, because the 14 years reality was mostly awful. I miss the fantasy but I'm alone and can't trust other men , feeling sad depressed and even suicidal at times. I have to clean the mess he left me in alone. He took so much from me. I don't know how to survive because he did a lot of things and took them out of my hands like finances. Now I'm fighting on my own because his web of lies made me almost homeless. Even i wanted to prevent this but he needed my money for " our" dream. That he ruined and hijacked. So I have to find a way through the lies. And try not to fall apart even like I feel like most of the time. Still standing. But letting this relationship go starts by realising it was fake. A fantasy, an image that we both fabricated and believed in for so long. So i made the dumbest mistakes. Believing in him , thinking I could fall back on him and that he really loved me. I'm on my own now alone and fighting for my existence,house, and money. What I'm about to lose all.
I needed to hear this. To let the shared fantasy that was a nightmare in reality go.
Wow 14 years... I got off easy then
I laughed for several minutes after having read this video title. It is hilarious in a morbid way, my intuition that this tittle spoke truth
I just watch your video. Amazing how describes all that happened to me. Thank You! ❤
Sam, I love your style. Keep up the good work. It took me 8 yrs (reverse discarded her 3 months ago and went no contacts; I gave her time to promote a new primary supply b/c I didn’t want her to be suicidal, that scared me; she told me she tried once with pain killers before I met her; that she used to cut herself) to find your education. She caught me, but sub-consciously, I recked her because of my strong sense of self and found myself behaving in ways and things you describe (like, how to break their mental image, their tactics and strategies); she couldn’t break me because I was using her. I didn’t discover your/ these narc videos until after we broke up; yours are by far the best! The other videos are third class. If you like contact me, I’ll let you know how it all went down. I met her in law school ( we took the same classes) as a rebound relationship, she targeted me, and I thought I was King Kong and I could do anything, until I found out there was something called a narcissist. Humbled. I want to actually thank her for making me a true monster now; I have ultimate self awareness. But you’re right, I have problems trusting anyone now and think most people are narcissists. So thank you and your humor, both are first class. But please dude, use the pronoun, her. Times have changed. As men simp and woman become men, the shift should be recognized. In fact, I am waiting for a female Sam Vaknin to come forward sooner than later.
I wanted to add. You talked about the 1970 Japanese robotics saying narcissist, when carbon forms are created are the future. No they are not. Reason, lay people and especially educated people like me, once we experience the narc, they have no chance. Ergo, we are the future. Enlightenment cannot be dimmed. “How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world." ~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice.”
The Twilight Zone theme 😊 . I use that expression. I watched that series in the 1960's. Your introductions are so darn entertaining. Ok, back to watching video 🌲
I´m born 1980, but it was boadcasted in the late evening when I was young in Germany. I actually watched this with my father a few times when he was still alive. XD I´ll have to look up the theme later.
How interesting your comparison of a narcissist to a black hole, and talk of super novas was. I know a narcissist who on several occasions, proudly have called himself a black hole, who gobble up stars and other inferior material.
He also enjoys seducing women and then relish in their devastation and humiliation, when he tells them he is gay and it’s all been a lie. A fantasy
Oh, that´s good to know. So there are gay men otthere who would gain their narc supply by this. So far I only had one who was latent homosexual, the sex starving type who would throw you out of the bedroom when you dared to ask him for sex. I was so well prepared by my family I stayed with him for 5 years despite all of these crying in the night alone on the couch and things like that. He prophylactically acused me of things or just dropped a sentecne to make sure I would stay in this contant state of fear he would just leave me.
I still don´t know if he´s too afraid for intimacy or maybe came out of the closet later or whatever.
In the end I was convinced I must be transgender and that men are the only species who are worth to be adored. A total girl fag and for a long time I didn´t even understand how problematic these fantasies are. I drove myself more and more into this s...t and was neglected again and again by someone who has enough narc emapthy to understand how he could keep such a silly sheep on the long leash without ever exposing himself for any criticism. 🙈🙈
The dismal shared fantasy😢
Wisdom. I could have used this video ten years ago.