I watched the long interview with this actress just recently and I instantly spotted a possible victim of Narcissistic Abuse.
I observed the body movements and facial reactions and took down notes while the devastated actress was sharing her piece over Social Media during the controversial one-on-one with the interviewer.
Many viewers sympathized to the actress who seemed to have obviously endured the torture of emotional and psychological abuses, while, at the same time, there were also some who expressed their disappointment with the way the interviewee answered most of the questions.
According to them, the woman failed to answer the questions directly and most of her answers even generated more questions and rooms for viewers to speculate due to lack of clarity and specific details.
Perhaps to anyone who never had even the slightest exposure to this kind of abuse, the story would have sounded like the usual “the guy cheated because he found a new one so he left his family for another woman”, which sadly has become a normal situation nowadays that it no longer creates a surprise whenever someone gives that as a reason for the break-up.
However, to anyone who walked the same path, carried the same cross, and had been to the land of “Smokes and Mirrors” — the woman’s message was clear.
She’s possibly a victim of Narcissistic Abuse because her ex-partner matched the description of a “conman”.
I’m not a Psychologist so I’m not in the right position to give any conclusions based on clinical diagnosis, hence, I’m putting the disclaimer “possibly”.
But as a former victim myself, what I can give are just my own interpretations and impressions based on the woman’s statements, her choices of words, body movements, and facial reactions.
Not to spoil anything but I have to admit that her interview crossed-out a lot of items in my own checklist back in the days when I finally decided to tell everyone about what I was going through.
DISCLAIMER: I did not write this article to judge people and relationships, rather, my main goal is to share perspectives coming from another person who also experienced the same in order to give more context to details that are vague to many and to raise awareness to those who are probably going through the same right now.
Here are the reasons why I believe that the woman was obviously a victim of Narcissistic Abuse:
1) She experienced the 3 stages of Narcissism exhibited by her ex-partner
Based on her story, she went through all the stages of Narcissistic Abuse starting from the Idealization stage (also known as the “Love Bombing” stage) wherein the victim experiences the overwhelming love and affection from the Narcissist. This is the stage when the Narcissist would secure his place in the victim’s life by convincing her that he’s her soulmate and that they should be together.
The victim would feel bombarded with attention and over-the-top admiration from the Narcissist who considered her like an achieved target. This is when the Narcissist would wear his mask of deception in order to get into the world of the victim and start with the manipulation.
Next is the Devaluation stage wherein the victim would start noticing and sensing that certain changes in the behavior of the Narcissist have occurred.
The man who used to be so in-love and affectionate now seems to be showing the other side of the coin. To the woman’s story, this was when she said that her ex would always stay out of the house even though he didn’t have any work to deal with outside. The man whom she’d always known as a “Home Buddy” would suddenly prefer spending his days away from them. Something’s obviously not right.
This is when the Narcissist is slowly showing cracks on his mask of deception because he’s already preparing to take-off and move out of the relationship after consuming all the Narcissistic Supplies that he got from his partner.
And the final one is the Discard stage wherein the Narcissist would completely drop the relationship like how he would dispose a trash. This is the most painful and confusing stage which usually sends a lot of victims into Depression or, worst, committing suicide.
To the woman’s story, this was when her ex bluntly said that he didn’t want the relationship anymore.
We can always give her ex the benefit of the doubt but one thing is for sure — No normal person could carefully pick you up like a flower and pretend to take care of you like the most precious human being only to throw you like a stinking pile of trash in the end.
Any normal person who sincerely invested emotions towards anyone would still show care out of respect to a partner even during the break-up.
On the other hand, someone who has Narcissistic Personality Disorder could cold-bloodedly drop anyone despite of how many years of being together and act as if nothing happened come the next day. This is due to the absence of Empathy, therefore, he doesn’t have the ability to reflect and think about the impact of what he’s done against other people. All he thinks about is himself and what would benefit him.
2) The woman said “…discoveries after discoveries”
This was an obvious indication that her ex had other sides of his personality unknown to her.
The way the woman would close her eyes while saying this line was enough to convey that the things she discovered about him were unthinkable and unacceptable, despite the fact that she’s known him as someone who didn’t have a good image to begin with.
That part of the interview made it really intriguing to a lot of viewers because she didn’t give at least one of the many discoveries. But one thing’s for sure — what she discovered was enough for her to have a 360 degree turn of emotions from pain to disgust.
My personal take on this is that this turn of event also gave her the courage to break her silence, speak-up, and stand-up for herself because she already realized that she was no longer going against the man she thought she knew and loved. Instead, she’s now calling out the behavior of the man who pretended to be someone and made a fool out of her for such a long time.
Per my experience, whatever I discovered about my ex-partner was enough for me to completely turn my back on him because staying together with someone like him would be like living in Hell that would seriously destroy my life and my daughter’s.
I felt that the woman had the same reasoning, especially when she said with full conviction that she no longer had any intentions of getting back with her ex, even when she’s not giving out any details.
3) She couldn’t answer the question “Do you still love him?”
A lot of us may think that she couldn’t answer the question whether she still loved his ex maybe because she’s still mad at him due to what her ex did to her and their family.
“Maybe because of anger. Maybe because of bitterness”, some might have thought.
But the possible reason behind this difficulty was the overwhelming confusion that’s still clouding her head.
Remember, she just discovered a lot of her ex’s other sides. This was enough for her to feel confused about everything, including her feelings for him.
I mean, it’s never easy to say you love someone whom you just met, right? Because that’s exactly how she felt — as if she just met this completely different person whom she thought she knew in the past many years they were together.
And in case you didn’t catch it, the woman also said, “If he were the man I knew I would definitely choose to migrate with him over a lead role.”
4) She couldn’t confirm if there was any 3rd party involved
Well, I’m not going to confirm this on her behalf but let me just share my thought process when I was also going through the same years ago when I was asked by some people if my ex and I broke up because of a 3rd party.
I also couldn’t give a straight answer because, apart from still feeling as if I was floating due to the shocking reality and confusion to which that brought me, I didn’t know how to properly answer that question while remaining accurate.
I mean, how could you even call it a 3rd party if there was a multitude of parties involved? Should I then say 4th party? 5th party? A Barangay party? A whole island, maybe?
How am I supposed to even put into words such a thing without worrying if anyone would believe something I was having a hard time believing?
That’s how complicated it was to simply put it.
I’m not saying that it’s the same case as hers, but I’m just giving you an idea how difficult it is to process things properly in order to explain it to people outside the relationship so they could easily understand what really happened.
It’s not easy and I commend the woman for managing her emotions during the entire interview as she stayed mindful with her choices of words. It was also commendable that she was able to show maturity despite the fact that everything which happened was still very recent and fresh. It took me months before I was able to open up while it was only barely a month for her and I admire her for showing the courage and composure.
5) She said that her ex was not abusing them physically but she took her kids away from him for their safety
Perhaps this statement was the most puzzling of all.
This was also probably that one thing she said during the interview which left a lot of rooms for people to speculate that she was a battered girlfriend and that her kids were also being physically abused by her ex.
I’m certain that a lot of us did not believe the woman when she said, “No, he did not hurt the kids physically and I don’t want the people to think that he’s that kind of a person because he’s not.”
It may not make sense because how could he then be dangerous to be around the kids if he’s not at all physically abusive?
Why did the woman make a decision of leaving the country with the kids and said that she didn’t want the kids to be near him ever again?
Hard to make sense, I know, so let me just give you my fair share of experiences to help you see the point. It’s easy for me to understand what she was trying to say despite the lack of details because it was the exact same thing I did for me and my daughter.
You see, my ex-partner also never physically and verbally abused us. To be fair, he was kind and he never showed any sign of being physically and verbally abusive even while we would have heated arguments when we were still together.
Actually, between the two of us, I was the one who would easily lose my temper and show my angry side that’s why I used to think that I was the one who really had a problem. Until I realized that it was also part of the process to manipulate me.
He also never had stolen anything from me (i.e. money, property, etc.) but, still, I chose to keep our distance and completely cut ties with him. I decided to do this after I discovered the truth behind the real him.
To put it simply, I discovered he was kind only when I was around but he turns into a completely different person whenever he’s away from us.
I had 2 main reasons why I decided to cut him off.
First, so he could stop using our daughter in any of his twisted intentions that would only benefit him. One of my discoveries was that he would always use our family to serve his needs. I have a lot scenarios and hard evidences but let me give you the simple ones.
I found out that my ex would use my daughter as an excuse to his other women for not leaving us (whenever his other woman would demand him to choose her instead of us). One of his responses was cringeworthy and I quote,
“Don’t get jealous. Nothing’s happening between Tine and myself anymore because we’re only staying together for the sake of our baby. You know how much I love our daughter and she’s the reason why I can’t leave them.”
Tsk! The audacity of this man to use “his love” for our baby as a reason when, in reality, he’d always been an absent father who would only take notice of our baby whenever someone is watching. Besides, I’ve always been open to him about my willingness to go on separate ways, especially whenever I wasn’t feeling his presence in the relationship anymore.
To be honest, I didn’t feel the need for him as a father but I just couldn’t ask him to move out because I cared for him. So you could just imagine my surprise when I found out that he’s making it seem as if our entire relationship was only under his mercy that’s why we’re still together.
Funny but not funny.
I also discovered a conversation between him and one of his superiors in which he was crying and using our family again to get what he wished for. Apparently, he was begging his superior to help him get assigned to another island because he said,
“I need to get out of this island because, otherwise, my wife and family would leave me. My wife wanted me to stay away from <name of the other woman he impregnated> and there’s a risk of our family breaking apart if I didn’t do what she said.”
Funny to think that he had that conversation months after I’ve finally ended our relationship and asked him to move out of my house. So, who’s that “wife” he mentioned who’s asking him to do that? Not me, for sure!
The real version of the story was that he really wanted to move away from the island to run away from his responsibilities with the other woman he impregnated — especially since the other woman was already threatening to file a case against him if he won’t give her money to support her pregnancy, childbirth, and provide child support.
Again, funny but not funny. It was like a scene from a cheap Teleserye.
I stayed away because of embarrassment and I decided to speak-up so that people would know that we’re no longer connected so that he could no longer use us as his convenient excuse.
The other reason I had for staying away was for safety.
Like I said, he’s not physically abusive but he’s putting our lives at risk because our family had become an easy target of those who wanted to retaliate against my ex-partner for all the disgusting activities he got involved in.
I remember receiving threats and malicious messages from random people harassing me because they wanted to take revenge. There was this man who pretended to be another policeman who’s just conducting a “background check” and wanted to ask for our home address. When I asked for details and told him to just ask my partner, instead, he insisted. Since it was really suspicious, I refused to give any details.
After a series of exchanges, to which the intruder got disappointed because I refused to cooperate, he finally dropped the act and revealed his real intentions.
Apparently, he’s the boyfriend of one of the women whom my ex-partner had an affair with so now he would like to seek revenge for the betrayal that my ex-partner did to him. He’s targeting to use me and my daughter to have an eye-for-an-eye, a tooth-for-a-tooth clapback. I got really scared for our safety that I wanted to move to another place. Thank God, we remained unharmed as of this writing.
The greatest irony I experienced then was not feeling at all safe despite having a policeman for a partner. Seriously, that man could’ve led us to our final destination I thought, so I decided to eliminate him from our lives before it’s too late.
Final Words
The woman also said, “If it were only me, I would have endured it. But things become different when there are kids involved.” — I’m in 100% agreement to this.
You see, the relationship lasted for how many years because the woman probably had ignored all the signs and red flags. Maybe a lot of things didn’t add up but she still continued to trust because of love and desire to keep the family complete.
Now, I acknowledge the fact that the woman was not at all perfect in the relationship and she definitely had her own shortcomings as well, similar with my case because I also had my own share of mistakes, however, there’s no valid reason for someone to experience such torture.
Some of us may think that she spoke because her pride was hurt due to the fact that her ex refused to take them back. But for me, I saw that action as a clear indication that she woke up from a nightmare that was meant to destroy her. Luckily, she was able to bounce back because she was given a rare opportunity to see the real person behind the man she loved and trusted.
Like what I always say, understanding what happened to you is always a good starting point when trying to heal after getting out of an abusive relationship. So despite the pain, heartbreak, and suffering which I witnessed during the whole interview, I still felt relieved because I also saw a strong woman and determined mother who found all the right reasons to start rebuilding her family even without a father figure.
Her eldest son said it perfectly, “You complete us, mom!” — nothing could top that. I shed some tears when I heard that.
Some might have felt bad for her for dropping her pride in an attempt to keep her family whole, but for me, it was the right thing to do because, at least, she could say that she gave her all before completely ending it. Therefore, there would be no what-if scenarios and regrets that would bother her in the future.
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