#walking on eggshells

[justbreakonme]

“M-Master?”

Whumpees soft voice pulled him out of his thoughts and into reality, where Whumpee was peeking around the corner to the office.

“Yes? Need something?” He tried to make his voice light, friendly, but noticed all too late the tear tracks down Whumpee’s face.

“May- May I ask for an indulgence, sir?”

“Of course,” he turned fully, now laser focused, a yes already waiting on his lips, “What would you like?”

“If-if you please, may I request a- an hour of-of-“ their voice faltered, tears starting again.

“It’s okay, sweet, it’s okay, you’re not going to be in trouble,” he coaxed, desperate for them to finish their request, “Take a deep breath, and just ask for whatever you like.”

They swallowed, nodding, and tried again.

“Master, may I request 1 hour without punishment?”

“Without- What?”

He had never punished Whumpee, ever. What did they mean?

“I-I know that you have been merciful- you have not punished me yet- I- I am sorry, I should not have asked, I am sorry Master, please forgive me-“

“You’re okay, hey, you’re fine, I just want to know what’s going on, alright?” he soothed, “So, you want a set time, without punishment? But- Whumpee, did something happen? Something that you think deserves to be punished?”

Whumpee frantically shook their head, crying harder now.

“Please, speak. You won’t be in trouble, I just want to understand, okay?”

“I-I know that- that I will fail you. I will always strive to meet your standards, but I know I will fall short and need to be punished,” Whumpee took a deep, shuddering breath, “But I haven’t yet learned all your rules, preferences, and standards… I- I have not been able to sleep for days, Master.”

He could tell that their courage was failing, and he couldn’t imagine how brave they were being to face him now… He was so proud of them…

“Oh…” it all made sense now, “You just want some time where you don’t have to watch your every move, right?”

Whumpee nodded, crying too hard to speak, and now he could see the deep circles under their eyes.

“Of course, sweet, of course…” he wasn’t going to punish Whumpee at all, he’d told them that already, but clearly they had a hard time believing that, “How about this? You go take a nap, and you’ll have no obligations or expectations till tomorrow at 10 am. No punishment, no worries, nothing. Just make sure you eat something, anything, for dinner and drink plenty of water, and get some sleep, okay? That’s all that I ask.”

He watched their face, hoping to have hit all the right notes, and for a sickening moment, they only sobbed harder.

“Th-thank you Master, thank you, yes sir, thank you-“ they managed, bowing deeply, their shoulders slumping in relief like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Okay,” he secretly breathed a sigh of relief, “Good. And thank you for coming to ask me, I’m very proud of you. You did a good job.”

Following the conditioning was also not ideal, but clearly ideal wasn’t an option at the moment.

Whumpee seemed to light up at the praise, a few breathless thank yous escaping but then they were gone, dashing away hopefully in search of food and water before a well deserved night of peaceful sleep.

After all, that was all they were asking for. A night of peace…

He sunk into his chair and let his head rest on the desk for a few minutes, before pulling himself together and writing down every detail of their exchange.

This might be the way to help them.

[unwelcome-ozian]

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

Whumpee trying to have a normal conversation with other people but feeling like everyone is walking on eggshells around them

and everyone thought they were helping whumpee, when in fact, they were doing the opposite.

they meant well, of course, but by treating whumpee differently — like whumpee was a glass that might shatter at any minute — they made whumpee feel like they (whumpee) were weak and broken, and the treatment was also a constant reminder that whumpee was broken, would never be normal again. and now everybody knew this.

it was... only a matter of time until whumpee actually broke down.

❝ why are you treating me like you think I might break? ❞

❝ what? you think I'm gonna sink down on my knees, curl in on myself and cry on the floor? ❞

❝ I just wanted to be treat normally. ❞

❝ stop treating me like I'm different, like I'm broken! ❞

❝ you can just say that word (what whumpee's friends believed is triggering to whumpee), I'm not gonna break down. ❞

❝ it will never be over, right? no matter what, I will never heal. I will never be whole again. and now everyone knows this. ❞

❝ everybody treated me like I was broken. sometimes I feared they might actually be right. ❞

[traumatizedjaguar]

[audreyrose7]

I feel incredibly called out 😅

[love-isthebestthingwedo]

I feel like I’m walking on eggshells. I can’t breathe. My anxiety and “always needing to know how things end or else I can’t truly enjoy it” is really kicking in. My heart genuinely has a faster resting rate this week than it usually does. I just need to know how it ends… And I need those boys to be happy (ideally together). Damn. Help me please.

[michaeldagaymerx]

[bassalien4444]

[soulinkpoetry]

There is this quote that says “ The best conversations are the ones where you don’t have to worry about what you say, you can just be you.” I don’t agree with it 100%. You certainly shouldn’t have to walk on eggshells around them, but being a good friend or a partner is when you take into consideration their feelings and vulnerabilities and don’t push every one of their buttons and expect them not to react because they love you.

.

.

[say-it-with-me-affirmations]

“I am allowed to set healthy boundaries. Boundaries do not make me a bad person.”

(source: our deities)

(this still hits too hard— and yet again, recovering people pleasers raise your hand ✋)

[traumatizedjaguar]

How you interpret my words is not my responsibility.

[inhindsightthatwaskindadumb]

"Hope is the thing with feathers,

That perches in the soul"

Well, mine must've been shot down,

I can't seem to find her at all.

I'm tired of saying "if only,"

Tired of waiting for my time;

I'm tired of being treated like a criminal for things

That weren't supposed to be crimes.

[bite-m3]

Why’s it more important that you’re right? “My intuition’s never been wrong.” Babe, it’s okay to admit you were wrong. 💕

Seriously though, this isn’t about being right or wrong. I wanted to express my thoughts, but I hate conflict so I kept my mouth shut.. I shouldn’t have though. I miss you.

Do you miss me?

[vizthedatum]

I am learning (thankfully now, even though I'm in my thirties) that I shouldn't be afraid to share my successes, good news, my love for my friends/partners, bad news, my insecurities, etc. with someone I'm in a relationship with.

I shouldn't be afraid that they will retaliate or throw a tantrum.

I shouldn't be afraid that they'll resent me or want something in return for supporting me.

THAT IS NOT A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP.

*sobs* Healthy partners support each other's successes or failures, even when they've had a bad day. Or they set personal boundaries when they don't have the capacity to support.

They won't turn on you.

The ones who do... are the ones who need major internal healing, and they're the ones who are not healthy for you.

[kindledmetaphor]

Do you feel like one day, these carefully crafted personalities I have created for each and every person in my life will collide and explode, demolishing my passive existence?

[otter1962crystalball]

Experiencing Narcissism 101 - Part 3

June 24th, 2024

Here we are nearing the end of Pride Month. I’ve challenged myself to write everyday and I’ve found it very useful in examining my past and realizing that I am actually very resilient. Yesterday I wrote about events leading up to the point of coming back from a trip with John. Today, the story continues.

I put my plan into action and began taking steroids above and beyond what I needed for Testosterone Replacement Therapy. I was taking injections because my testosterone was low due to my HIV medications. I supplemented with street testosterone as did John. In the course of my doing so, I put on more than 25 pounds and ended up at 250 pounds at my maximum. I continued abusing them up until 2013 when I moved to Nova Scotia with John.

John convinced me that I should be reducing the amount of time that I worked. At that time, I was a full-time teacher, a group fitness leader at a community centre and also a mentor for a master’s program at a university. The only real solution he suggested was to move from British Columbia to Nova Scotia. The reason was due to other cities didn’t seem inviting for either of us. I did suggest Montreal, but John didn’t speak French and thought it wasn’t a good idea. That summer, we jumped on a plane and took a quick trip to Nova Scotia. We explored a place called Annapolis Valley, which is fertile area of the province. We even looked at homes, but didn’t find anything that we liked. We returned home and made our decision.

We decided we would move to Windsor, Nova Scotia in October 2013. We also got married as it seemed the right thing to do. I resigned from the school board and put the house up for sale. It sold while we were enroute. We climbed into my truck with two dogs and a cat, travelling across Canada to Nova Scotia. During the trip, we argued a lot. The shouting continued and I decided that it was just part of my new life and bit my tongue. John did berate me for being quiet, which in my mind was better than screaming back at him. We found an apartment - literally on the fly - as we went across Canada. The hardest part was finding a rental unit that accepted dogs.

We lucked out and stayed in a place in Windsor until early 2015 when we found a house on the South Shore - which later became known as Otter Cottage. During the time in Nova Scotia, John had problems finding a job. I was accepted as a substitute and started working. He didn’t and that left him open to do other things. In fact, I caught him cheating on me several times. So, we negotiated an open relationship where we would explore together to fulfill everyone’s needs.

During our time there in Windsor, I got a phone call from my doctor. She told me to go to the hospital immediately because my bloodwork indicated that I had had a heart attack. We went to emergency immediately and I discovered that I had an enlarged heart due to the large amount of steroids. I spent four days in the hospital while they did tests. John visited everyday, but complained constantly about having to drive into the city. With supervision, I weaned myself off the steroids and reduced my testosterone to the appropriate level and quit the street steroids. It was clear that I had almost killed myself. I began kicking myself for having been so stupid to abuse steroids that much to satisfy the wishes of another person.

Once into Otter Cottage, I got a job in the Halifax and ended up with a permanent position teaching French Immersion. John then decided to become a real estate agent. So, I paid for his education. During the time of moving to the South Shore, our relationship was really strained. John was constantly getting angry at just about everyone - of course, including me. He constantly seemed frustrated and I did everything I could including buying antiques for him and giving him a room to decorate. That didn’t help and we argued constantly. Several times, I told him that I had had enough. Suddenly, John would turn back to a charmer and everything was great - for a few short weeks or month.

John finished his real estate school and managed to sell at least three properties, using a car that I had bought for him. At the same time, I discovered that he was still cheating on me. In late 2016, John mentioned that his former employer in Montreal had suggested offering him a job. I had had enough of all the nonsense. When I heard that, I told John that I wanted him to take the job and be out of the house by next week. So, he packed the car with everything he could and then moved everything he thought belonged to him into the antique room he had decorated. He went to Montreal and suddenly I felt a real relief - until the divorce proceedings started.

In the six years we were together, John paid rent three months in the time we were in my house in Vancouver. He bought groceries maybe twice. In Nova Scotia, he paid for nothing. I didn’t see any of the profits from the sales of the properties he had sold. I got a lawyer and proceeded with the divorce. We had to live apart for at least a year before we could legally divorce. That year was a year from hell for me.

John, now in Montreal, would contact me and screamed at me for not moving the stuff he wanted to Montreal. I told him that the lawyer told me to do that until we had settled the divorce.  His request was half of everything. I provided all my receipts for everything, showing that John had paid little. He never paid for heating, mortgage payments, gym fees, and much more. During that time, John began a classic narcissistic pattern - he tried to show me how he was a victim. He sent me pictures of him in the hospital. He sent me pictures of his empty fridge. He called me constantly asking for money. I had to continue to say no. He turned several local friends against me saying I was withholding his belongings. I told those local friends that they didn’t know what was really going on. Needless to say, I didn’t continue those friendships.

The calls continued along with emails, texts until I had to block him. He even called my school during a lesson and interrupted. He called me at the gym as well, asking an attendant to find me. I put a stop to all of that. At the end of the year apart, I made him an offer and let him know that he would get nothing more. He begrudgingly accepted it and immediately demanded his things sent. I had packed them into a pod as I was sick of seeing the pile of things in the living room. In typical fashion, he demanded that I allow one of his friends to sit and watch the pod be repacked so that his belongings would be safe. Ironically, the movers told me that I had done an amazing job and that repacking wasn’t necessary! At this point, I didn’t care; he had to pay for the moving costs.

Even after the papers were signed and we were officially divorced he continued to harass me with phone calls and texts on anonymous lines. I was so tired of it that I went to the local RCMP and lodged a complaint and asked the calls, texts and emails stop. The Sûreté du Québec (the provincial police in Quebec) paid him a visit and told him that if he contacted me again, he would be arrested. That was the last time I ever heard from him. In that year and a half, he contacted me more than 668 times by various methods.

In 2018 I was officially free of John. Otter Cottage was in my name, the car payments for John’s car were now his responsibility and I began my new life as a divorced gay man. As a side note, that fall as I was cleaning the gardens, I found a pile of broken mugs, coasters and John’s medication all thrown into the bushes. It seemed that whenever he was angry, he would throw things off the verandah - just like when he used to go out and scream at the top of his lungs at the people he hated.

So what was it like to live with a narcissist? Looking at the 9 points of Special Me, I saw countless examples of all 9 points and more from him. He always though he was the most important person at all times. He felt entitled to everything without having to work for it. He was exploitative, arrogant, lacked empathy and always showed off so that others could admire him. He also was easily able to play the victim and everything that he did was turned back on my so that it was all my fault. Anyone who didn’t agree with him immediately became the enemy - me included.

I saw a counsellor and learned to deal with the aftermath of living six years with John. The counsellor suggested I buy a book called “Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder.” All what was discussed in the book, I found in John. The only thing the book didn’t help me with was getting along with him and thankfully I never wanted to do so. In the end, I believe he was also obsessive compulsive as well.

During my counselling time, I came to acknowledge my part in those six years. I had been codependent and allowed him to do all of those things. I also discovered that I had to learn to love myself, always take care of myself first before helping others and learning how a narcissist latches onto a caregiver such as myself. I forgave myself for almost killing myself on steroids to please John. I watched my health and have not abused them since.

At that point, I was really sure that I knew what the signs were and vowed to never get involved with a narcissist. Did I succeed? I’ll leave that to tomorrow’s blog… For Pride, I am celebrating my inner self and my self love. Now that I have worked on myself, someone like John would never be able to pry their way into my life. 

Carpe diem, everyone.