The Post Discard Battle – Pt Three
When you have been discarded, you face three battles in order to secure your freedom. The first is the Emotional Battle which you always lose until you learn not fight it. The second is the Heart V Head Battle which must be fought many times until you finally overcome the powerful effects of emotion and allow your cool, hard logic to dictate. Once that battle has been won, you have managed to navigate a way through the emotional ocean and then you have reached dry land on the other side. This is where the third battle is joined. This dry land provides you with a firmer foundation and just like the discovery of the New World, boundless opportunities. You are no longer prone to the vagaries of the swelling and dramatic ocean of emotions. That is not to say that your emotions have been switched off. Far from it. Instead, the solidity of this land is a reflection of the greater control you now have over your emotions as you ally them with the logic that you have regained. No longer do you feel overwhelmed. You are not beset by anxiety. Fear does not maintain a near permanent grip on your stomach. You were repeatedly drowned as you tried to swim the emotional ocean alone in the first battle. You saw yourself swamped and capsized on numerous occasions as reach time you increased your intellect and understanding as you built larger and more seaworthy vessels until finally you navigated your war through that broiling sea of feelings and now you stand on firm, dry and solid land. Your critical thinking has increased, your sense of calm has bloomed and you have gained greater control.
You stand before a land of opportunities and this is where you are now able to make the decisions. In the previous two battles you were overwhelmed and then often on the back foot. Here, in this final battle, you have the opportunity to seize and maintain the upper hand. You have so many choices available to you now.
You may decide to build a large tower and secrete yourself inside. You have the sturdy foundation now on which to construct this edifice. You are safe and secure high up in this tower. You admit visitors but only those that you know can be trusted. Occasionally you hear a knock in the dead of night. You make your way to the balcony and look down from your towering height to see us stood outside knocking on the door and seeking admittance. You may feel the surge of those emotions once more but you have greater control now. You may call out and wave, issuing a polite greeting and no more. You may decide just to turn around and leave us to our ineffectual knocking. Either way in this battle you have seized control and you are far better equipped to make rational decisions which suit you and prevent you from being wholly governed by those turbulent emotions.
You may decide to forge ahead and seek out new adventures in this land. You meet new people and form fresh and lasting friendships, perhaps even finding someone with whom you can share intimacy and romance. As you trek through this land, gathering new friends and revisiting those who were conned into severing the ties with you, you remain vigilant for out of nowhere we might appear. We might strike, lurching through a crowd hurling insults. You are better armed this time and able to shield yourself before moving away, refusing to be drawn into responding and a war of words like you once might have done. It may be the case, as you embrace these new horizons that we appear, smiling and benign, sidling up to you and taking you by surprise. The risk always remains, for if you are abroad within this new land, you cannot place yourself behind sturdy defences. Thus, you remain exposed to ambush and approach. You remain better equipped than you were, as a consequence of your gathered learning, your increased understanding and ongoing recovery. You are in a better position to rebuff the ambush, refusing to engage and making your departure to safer ground. Sometimes you may be caught and those emotions wash about you as we try to haul you back across the sea to a time when you were alone and going under the lashing waves. This risk always remains.
You may opt to establish an estate where you do not take refuge in some tower, but instead you create a place of familiarity where everyone is known to you and you are known to them. You have your supporters in clear view and whilst you may not tread down the path less travelled in search of new territories you reduce your risk of us appearing out of nowhere. These familiar places enable you to maintain clear lines of sight so that if we do make an appearance you are able to take suitable evasive action.
This final battle takes the form of repeated skirmishes as we seek to catch you unawares and drag you back to an earlier battle where our prospects of success are maximised. Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes one of our devious ploys catches you unaware and we scale your tower and appear on your balcony like that once desired Prince Charming again and your defences are breached. Other times you repel our approaches, turning your back or cutting us down with new learned techniques which force us to withdraw. You may see no action for weeks, months and even years as new reaches you that we are fighting on other fronts, seemingly content to leave you be. At least for the time being. Then out of nowhere you may reduce your vigilance and we are by your side, seeking to snake our tendrils around you once again. In this final battle you now know what to look for. When we march on to the battle field you see and take heed of the red flags which stream behind us. You have learned methods by which you can counter and neutralise our manipulations. You have established safe territories to which you might retreat if the need arises. You have fashioned your own armoury in this new land of hope and promise. You now know how you can wound us and now, exerting greater control, you do so which gives us no option but to disengage from the skirmish and skulk away to lick our wounds and regroup.
This final battle takes place in a land where the battlefield, for the first time, is more of your choosing than ours. You have better equipped to fight this battle and whilst there remains a risk of defeat and you being ensnared once again, it is far less than in the previous two battles. You are battle-hardened and those scars are worn as badges of honour as you stand tall for the first time in, well, you cannot recall when that last happened, but it has happened at last.
Thus, this is the final battle post discard. The battle that takes place on dry land. Should you overcome the first two battles, this is where you will find yourself. Now you understand where you will end up as you deal with the fallout from being discarded. Now you are aware of what will happen, what to expect and how you are in a better position to keep winning the skirmishes in this final battle. This only leaves one question remaining. How long will this final battle last?
It will continue until one of us no longer lives.
38 thoughts on “The Post Discard Battle – Pt Three”
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Great read!! Im damn sure, death…..will become him.
The narcissist and codependent are drawn together to rebel against the rejection of their caregiver. Both know the other doesn’t love them for who they are and feel compelled to indulge in the fight and try to win.
Hoover attempt was an email
It simply said video but there was no video
I’m guessing this is a curiosity killed the cat Type of trick?
Correct FTF,he wants you to get in touch and ask where was the video?
thought so. My year anniversary of my discard is coming up (thanksgiving) when my narc ran off to Washington DC. 2 weeks ago I said fuck it and booked a trip to Europe for thanksgiving this year 🙂 London then off to Amsterdam. It’s kinda crazy but exciting.. staying with a British friend and a dutch friend. How do you think that makes my narc feel? One upped 😂
Good idea FTF in terms of creating a distraction. London is better than Amsterdam by the way, though I am sure you will enjoy both. I had an entertaining time in Amsterdam but found it to be a dirtier version of London until you get away from the centre and out to more of the canals and such like. Does your narc have any way of getting in touch with you?
I’ve been to both, but as a tourist many many years ago. this time around I’ll get the authentic experience so I’m super excited. Going to winter wonderland in London and to see the cliffs of Dover.. In Amsterdam starry night bike path and the mystic forest. Probably just spend a day or two in the cities.
Only by email. It’s been 3 days and I haven’t replied.
When you are in London and you feel a disturbance in the force, you know you have been near me. I you feel it in Amsterdam, you have been enjoying yourself too much in the coffee houses. I am sure you will have a super time on your travels.
Your failure to respond to him will eventually infuriate him. You may well want to keep it that way.
I just told mine he didn’t belong here (he is from another country) and that people were talking about him, and the relationship I had was an experience rather than falling in love with an equal but his brain is too tiny to get it.
i know how hard he tries to fit in – but i’m not sure if it caused narcisssistic injury.
He then retorted with all this garb about me playing games with him which I didn’t fully read and deleted.
As all of us want to know, did I hurt him?
And the answer is probably no.
If you delivered it without fuel, you will have wounded him as those comments would be regarded as criticisms.
How can you say that after discard we are erased from memory and never thought of again, and yet you also say you constantly monitor us and all of the stalking techniques etc. How are both of these possible?
Is it that we don’t exist until you feel an itch that must be scratched?
You are deleted when we focus on the new primary source but if you enter a sphere of influence our interest and the potential gain of fuel is activated.
His child died, I never told him only when he made contact from a fictious account was anything said about a child it was when “he” tried to convince me I should contact the father and tell him of her, i was very adament with no I did not need to. How i knew it was him
How am i to do that?
The child
Understood. This is the hoover trigger and will be a repeated one. You therefore need to raise the bar.
I thought I wasndoing a good job at it, yet he made contact, unless he was looking for an answer to a question
What was the question?
He knows where I work now that I got my store
Then the usual equation of there needing to be a Hoover Trigger and a Hoover Execution Criteria will apply DFA. Stay out of the spheres and look to raise the HEC bar.
Lol, yes he has but face to face.
It had no effect on me, I find this reassuring.
Yet the evidence he saw in my car, car seat, little girls stuff etc. Not mine but a relatives.
Will this cause him to acually come face to face with me? This is not something I desire, done everything to keep this from happening except the only thing I have no control on.
Presumably he has the means to meet you face to face DFA?
HG I have been watching several areas, and seeing things happening again.
Someone has been in my car, nothing missing, yet I smell him. New car and no one has been in it except me.
Will he be making an appearance?
Sounds like he already has.
It did snap me back to pay attention, for that thank you.
I have been called back to face the famliy, you dont walk back into the lions den distracted. I do hope this says just how grateful I am.
The last part, for way to long……
HG your accuracy is always frieghtening yet relieving at the same time. Many times I have to fight past the emotions from memories triggered. This has brought closure to many things.
Truth is hard to take when you dont want to listen. I am like that at times.
I once asked you why, your silence said many things.
Indeed it does DFA.
The only thing you can have over us is shame at what we did with you, and when that’s gone, you showing up is just sad and not necessary to acknowledge.
Absolutely magnificently described. The emotional battle was excruciatingly painful and the head vs the heart was exhausting and indeed, the final is an ongoing battle, never knowing if the victory had is the last. They remain out of site and even as years may pass, they appear in full armor and with your defenses down. Luckily, I stood my ground and remained unrattled and he left, but for how long?
Thank you Exhausted. There is always the potential for return and thus you should not let your defences down too far. Whether he will return is based on there being a Hoover Trigger and whether the Hoover Execution Criteria is met.
I have had a life changing moment this week in regards to the narc. He did his usual, vanished (which he knows is very triggering), and then bombarded me with emails, but by then I’d had enough and told him I didn’t want to do this anymore.
A quick back story, this all ended 3 years ago, but he continues to come and go from my life giving me hope and then crushing it. I’ve asked him to leave me alone, and he comes back, I assume because he wants to start things up again, but that doesn’t happen. He just blows hot, cold and copies me (which drives me mental).
Anyway, the epiphany, which is so blindingly obvious. HE DOESN’T OWE ME ANYTHING. Why should he email me daily when we’re not partners? I wouldn’t expect that from any of my other friends. I was so stuck trying to get what I believed was my due that I couldn’t move on. Once I realised that he owes me nothing, it helped me enormously to let go. Yes, he’s been rather misleading at times, but I am a big girl and should see through that.
I also put him onto a throwaway email account (told him my usual one was broken) recently, so he can email away there (should he choose to do so), and I’m not checking it. But even if I did check it, I don’t want to agree to the terms of the friendship and have the choice to walk away (which I am doing).
What a lightbulb moment. Unfortunately this probably won’t help most people who read this site, but I wanted to share…maybe it will help one person 🙂
I have to disagree with the untill death do us part. How about just the death of any emotions for the person?
Maybe this is what a narc thinks in his mind and this is all it is. But again this might be with the empaths they pick and they are predisposed to behave this way.
I just do not see it for myself.
Chilling ending. I feel I am here now. I hear the knocking, peek out the peep hole and g on with my business. Sure, some emotion arises in me, a combo of annoyance and fear of being stalked. And, I feel I have “seized the power” and drink the tears and pity plays like a warrior. Somewhat hardened, but still soft inside my new armor. Not looking for Prince Charming anymore. A fellow warrior perhaps, I will see when I’m ready.
I had a feeling you were gonna say that.. .ugh
This is where I am now. I worked hard to get here. NC & no hoovers for awhile.
Are you implying that it’s “ok” to break no contact and have contact with the N as long as you know how to be neutral with him?
I was thinking of this as it relates to social media. I really need to return for work purposes but blocking him seems obvious–many knew we were at least “good friends” not to mention it will enrage him. Yet if I don’t, the channel both ways remains open.
What should I do?
Hello Sail Away, all who read here are adults. I explain how we act,what we think and how you can understand and deal with that. No Contact is the holy grail and once achieved ought to be maintained. However, you know yourself well enough and once you have recovered AND armed with knowledge and understanding, you have the tools to deal with our kind, if you so choose. I am not advocating the resumption of a relationship whereby you put yourself back in the firing line, but if you have to have some dealing again because of work, family, children etc and so long as you now feel equipped to do so, you are in a far better position to do so. As you point out with social media, the best route is to come off social media when you start no contact but that may not be possible or you just may not want to for other reasons. Therefore block etc on social media as part of no contact until such time you feel that you can return to it in a fuller sense, rested, strength restored and armed with knowledge. Some people are best served by staying away and maintaining no contact for ever, others can have some interaction once they have tipped the balance in their favour and become equipped to handle the machinations from an arms length position. It is your call.
It sounds so beautiful. I picture myself in a tower and just waving to people. I can hear the seagulls and the waves.
I was smiling til I read that you showed up on the balcony. You always find a way in. I will need guards at the tower.
And then you throw in until one of us no longer lives. I am always reminded of Harry Potter and Voldemort. The final battle.
I didn’t know when I was trying to explain to her that love always wins that it was the lesson that the relationship lasts til one of us dies that I would have to learn.
HG
Does this never ending cycle continue regardless of the length of time the relationship.
If the victim wises up the first year or 18 years later, will this cycle continue with the same strength and will toward the victim.
Does it ever just turn to pure anger and vengeance if your rebuffed? Especially if you did not expect it in the first place?
It does but it is governed by the Hoover Trigger and the Hoover Execution Criteria. Being rebuffed is a criticism and ignites our fury. Dependent on the type of narcissist, the fuel we perceive to be available, the extent of current fuel levels, other obstacles and other considerations, we may continue and unleash that ignited fury against you or retreat and seek fuel elsewhere, or with a GReater we may harness it and keep pressing to draw fuel from you through that hoover.