The Shell Of a Family

‘If you follow me at all on TikTok or Instagram, you will have seen me posting about narcissism. I know I had been pretty open after my divorce for a while, but then everything changed. I was scared to speak my truth, and then a new battle began in my life. That battle was to protect our youngest daughter from the emotional and mental abuse that her father was, has, and still does to all of our kids. I was able to get a court order, and he still, to this day, has not followed it, so it has been over five years since she has seen or been with her dad.

What many do not understand is that divorcing a narcissist is not a typical divorce, and when you throw kids into the mix, it is hell on earth, to put it mildly. For the last seven years, I have been healing my traumas from the 22 years of this abuse. But I also worked with my kids, talked to them about healing, gave tools, and tried anything and everything I could to make sure they could do the same: heal. We all know we can not make others see anything they do not want to, but when you put a narcissist into that mix, and the title of that person is Dad… Well it becomes almost like a war zone.

Each child goes through divorce in their own way, but again, when the parent is a narcissist, it makes it almost impossible for anyone to heal and to come together as a healthy unit. Each one views their own experience in a way that fits them. Right or wrong, it is theirs. I went over a year not talking to my older daughter, not because that is what I wanted, but because I had to have boundaries for myself. There is no handbook for life and how each person will respond to the same event, but I have tried to hold myself to move through it all in love. Love for myself being priority one and then for my kids.

I do not hate, for that takes energy. I have learned to love myself again and have empathy for this person who is unable to love.

I do want to say my ex has never been diagnosed as a narcissist, so I will say he has the behaviors of one. Twenty-two years of what I thought love was and what family meant has changed in these seven years. This group of people who sat around a dinner table every night is nothing but a shell of what a family could have been.