Eating disorder and more - need a shoulder ......

ohhhhhhhhhh my darling @Former-Member , sending youu lots and lots of hugs my awesome friend xoxoxo

hugs @Faith-and-Hope

thank you for the tag @Corny xxxxx

Hello @Smc , @Zoe7

Oh .... and they can return to that mirroring behaviour to throw you off-guard or off-track if they need to @Corny . If you have been trying to problem-solve issues in the relationship, that gives you the impression that the problem-solving or counselling has been successful, which re-secures your attention-supply for them for a while, until they flip the switch and turn it into a negative attention supply again by upsetting you in a new way ..... because the positive attention supply becomes unsatisfying after a while. It needs to be taken up a notch.

So clear in hindsight. Sooooo not gonna be missing any of this .....,

There's so much cross over @Faith-and-Hope @Former-Member with other conditions, and they can present as something else for some time. I read an article about a women who believed for years that her husband was on the autism spectrum and I think that he had been tested for it, only for her to realise that he wasn't, and that he was actually very narcissistic.

People with narcissistic traits find reciprocation in relationships really difficult. You are a function for their ego, and I am yet to meet one who is capable of monogamy. They get bored very easily, and they need constant validation. But having said that they can't live without a victim either, and they disintegrate if you try to leave them. All sorts of threats come flying.

In my father's case his SH probably fooled a lot of health professionals along the way who mistakenly believed that he could never have NPD or be a threat to us because he did SH.

I think they also assumed there couldn't be any family violence in the home because that doesn't align with your typical SH'er - but that is simply not true. People that learn about family violence at University in a book, or in a journal based on statistics - don't see the nuance and families like mine fly under the radar for decades.

So many hugs coming your way too @Corny ❣️

I had presumed on Aspergers here somewhere @Corny, and other things ..... this thing is a shape-shifter, as you well know. It will be different things to different people.

The "discard" is the final stage of a relationship with an NPD person, but even this can be on repeat ..... if you are not aware of what you are dealing with, they double back, apply the mirroring again, reel you in again, perhaps cheating on their new supply with you which makes you think you have won them back, only to have them discard you again, and if they can, again and again.

Once you understand how a person like this functions you can choose how, or if, to engage with them on your own terms.

It's hard to know if your ex's eating disorder was a guilty conscience or if he genuinely has an eating disorder that has nothing to do with the break down in your marriage @Faith-and-Hope . You must have so much resentment about that, I most definitely would, its a completely normal reaction when you have cared for someone so intensely and they throw it all up in your face. I resent my mother, and I can't get any of those lost years back. But you're a loyal person and unfortunately this can go against us. All you can do is move forward, and surround yourself with people that respect you and reciprocate. Not leeches that suck the life out of you.

Right on @Corny ❣️

Btw ..... he doesn't think he's eating disordered ..... despite the daily masses of evidence that he parcels up and discards in the bin ..... ???!!! Self-delusion is high on this radar .....

@Corny

Oh he's not well @Faith-and-Hope.

It's quite incredible he hasn't been hospitalised for a physical illness.

Some people still get really, really offended if you call an ED a mental illness. It still hasn't trickled down to all sections of society that it is one. I was talking frankly about ED's in the presence of some people that I know, and when I said that ED's are mental illnesses I thought they were going to get up and leave, they looked so angry. And then it dawned on me that they most likely had one, and with knowing that I had been in hospital for 4 months they didn't want themselves considered to be on par with the likes of me! I think some people still refer to it as 'a phase'.

As someone that has experienced delusions for real, I can say with some lived experience that a lot of mental illness involves every day brain tricks & functions, that we all do - but for whatever reason they become stuck and enhanced in a dysfunctional way. When you come out of your first psychosis, if you are one of the lucky ones, it is a very dangerous time, and coming to terms with having experienced societies most stigmatised illness, is no walk in the park. No-one warns you how slow and long the recovery time is, its easy peesey to lose 5 years.

A lot of people have deluded themselves when it comes to love. I guess our bodies can betray us that way, and sexual attraction doesn't do us any favours either. It's devastating when you go in with such sincerity, to come out and realise you've been played, there are millions of men and women out there in similar situations to you. I've been played Faithy, not for +35years, but I have had a little taste of your heart break over the years as a lady in this world, and I am a once bitten, twice shy kind of person. It may be too hard to ever trust again. And that's OK. In the broader context of your life maybe that is completely understandable.

Sirens going off here this arvo, and it is flooding!

❤️ @Corny .....

@Former-Member I have found you a shield to help protect you Hon ..... raise it high in your mind's eye when you need it, and know we stand with you .....

💜💜💜