Crossing the Emotional Sea (Post Disengagement/Escape Battle – Part Two)
The first battle that takes places post disengagement or escape is the battle of the Emotional Sea. That is a battle that you are always destined to lose. You will always fight at least one Emotional Sea Battle because you do not know any other way. In all likelihood, you will face several of these battles because you will keep being hoovered back into our grasp until such time as you learn to recognise what you are dealing with and understand what you must do. Eventually and this may take several Emotional Sea Battles before you realise this and are capable of achieving the appropriate response, you either evade the Emotional Sea Battle by escaping as opposed to being discarded, or you prepare yourself for the eventual discard in a manner which means you no longer have to ensure the Emotional Battle. Instead, you move on to the next post disengagement or post escape battle, that of Head versus Heart (“the HvH Battle”).
The HvH Battle (also known as the Logic v Emotion Battle) is a battleground where you stand some chance of victory. This battleground is one where you have gained understanding. It might be through your repeated exposure to our kind so that eventually something has “clicked” into place or more often than not it is as a consequence of an external agent who has explained matters to you. It might by a therapist, a friend, the content of a book, something you saw on YouTube or even something that I have written. Whatever has caused this understanding to increase, it is this which provides you with the fighting chance to win this HvH Battle.
You have been discarded and run the gamut of emotional fall-out thereafter. You may understand what we are. You may understand some of the things that we have done. You may be familiar with the fact that we will try to hoover you back into our grip. You may even be starting to comprehend that what has happened was all predicated on an illusion. The degree of understanding will vary but what is important for you is that you are allowing logical thought to be heard above the raw heat of your emotions. You once again will not just be battling against us but also yourself. We will be looking to hoover you in order to draw you back into our grip or perhaps we will be unleashing a malign hoover since we are unable to draw you back into our false reality and therefore we opt to keep extracting negative fuel by way of punishment for your treachery. You have us as an opponent, but you will also be fighting yourself as your emerging logic grapples with the still churning emotion. You have learned many things and you know you should apply what you have learned but still there is the emotional pull that you experience. You are not removed or detached from your emotions, they have not dimmed either, they are still there, raging away. The hurt, the love, the longing, the passion, the fear and the upset. An ocean of emotion which you once tried to cross but that was the Emotional Battle and you had barely taken four strokes as you began to swim before you were engulfed by the emotion and sank to the bottom of this sea, drowned by your own emotion. Now you have built a vessel. It is made from cool, hard logic. Critical thinking, once a stranger to you during your savage devaluation, has re-appeared. You can analyse and assess. It is unlikely you are able to do so at the level you once enjoyed before we came along but it is there. Whether this vessel is a tiny raft, a dinghy, a boat or a hulking great liner depends very much on the extent of your understanding. The choppy emotional seas will smash against your vessel of logic. A wave of sorrow will buffet you, a tsunami of longing will threaten to swamp you once again. Wave after wave of emotion will try and capsize your vessel as you try to navigate this emotional ocean. Chances are your life raft will be smashed to match wood and you will be tipped into the sea to drown once again as emotion subsumes you and you find yourself back in our hold. Your clipper may be holed beneath the waterline and you start to take on board more and more emotion as steadily you sink beneath the emotional waves once again. It is during this HvH Battle as you try to cross the emotional ocean, because what you must do is reach the dry land beyond and in effect put an ocean but you and us, you will be subjected to the push and pull of your emotions trying to guide you, to control your decision-making, your head will tell you one thing as your heart screams something else at you. This is probably the harder battle for you to fight. In the Emotional Battle, you do not stand a chance and your defeat is swift and total. During the HvH Battle you will make gains, suffer losses, seem to making a breakthrough and then out of nowhere a tidal wave will flip you from your boat and into the churning ocean and you drown once again. All the while we will be whipping up the waves, firing our torpedoes at you as we endeavour to cause you to sink into this emotional ocean yet again and you fail to cross it and win this battle. How might this HvH Battle manifest in the real world?
- You will know you ought not to contact us but you need to send a message to see if we respond.
- You will keep checking our social media profiles to ascertain if you are mentioned, if we are with somebody else and/or to find out what we are doing.
- You will ask about us to our coterie and lieutenants, often unwittingly doing so, so this is fed back to us.
- You will go on dates but find you are always comparing this new person to us and they are always found to be wanting.
- You know what the outcome will be but you just want one more night with us.
- You realise that we are unlikely to change but if you do not try you will never know, so it is worth one more attempt to talk isn’t it?
- You understand much of what we did and said was a lie, but surely it could not all have been an illusion? There must have been times where we really did love you and you need to ask us about this.
- You know we are bad for you, but you cannot help what you feel. Surely it would be better to stop this pain from being there all the time and just have it occasionally?
- You know you should not reply to our messages but it feels so good to have a conversation with us again. It has been too long.
- You know we are using you, but it feels so damn good.
- One kiss cannot hurt can it?
- You know better now, so going back will be different because you know what to expect. Armed with this new knowledge you can enter the lion’s den again but be better prepared.
- You know we are bad for you but you cannot bear the thought of someone else being with us and perhaps being the one to work.
- What if this time the apology is sincere and the desire to change is real? If you walked away from that, you would only be denying yourself happiness wouldn’t you?
- You understand engaging with us is dangerous but there are things you really need to tell us.
These and others besides are all examples of the inherent tension that arises in this tug-of-war between your cool intellect and your burning emotions.
Can you win this battle that rages post disengagement or post escape? Unlike the first battle, the Emotional SeaBattle which you can never win, you can be victorious. You may have to fight this HvH Battle many times before securing the win. In the beginning you may be clinging to little more than a log as you desperately try to sail the emotional ocean and you are swept from it. However, by reading and understanding, by disciplining yourself to apply logic, to prevent your emotions from engulfing you, by reading more and increasing your knowledge you will begin to increase your logic vessel. From log to raft to dinghy. Still you may be swamped and drowned again. But then it becomes a small boat, a yacht, a clipper, a steamer, a passenger liner, a frigate, a destroyer and a super tanker. Each time you rebuild, better, bigger and stronger as you learn more, making the vessel more seaworthy. You begin to chart routes so you avoid the most tumultuous emotional areas, finally beginning to steer through calmer waters until there it is, on the horizon, the sight of land and the final battle that occurs with our kind post discard.
The HvH Battle is not an easy battle. You will fight it several times, but each time you should be better prepared to cross the emotional ocean and improve your prospects of success. Sometimes you are taken unawares by some of our provocative tactics and dumped unceremoniously into the water once again, but it is a battle you can win through the dedicated application of knowledge and understanding.
26 thoughts on “Crossing the Emotional Sea (Post Disengagement/Escape Battle – Part Two)”
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I am fighting this battle now, feeling like I am well equipped with knowledge, so things will be different this time. I will be the one in control. 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 15 – wow, it’s like you’re reading my mind. I’m just not ready for dry land yet. Somehow, the raging seas still appeal to me. I want to turn the tables, I want to show that while I might only be treading water, his assault won’t make me drown.
I really need some support here guys, to distract my mind…I have escaped 2 weeks ago, blocked him everywhere except on skype since we work remotely together..he’s using it of course to hoover, but I ignored every one of his msgs…now we’re getting in the stage where benign hoovers turn to malign..”how long will you be sulking and playing this childish game”? Like, is he even aware that we are done? I am literally dyyying to respond with “the game is really over, if you haven’t noticed” but I know it will only engage me in further discussions… whats bothers me if he knows to distinguish silent treatment and “we are over”?? It’s like I am giving him silent treatment now, I’m sure he’ll turn it in his favor sooner or later by saying that I am the Narc…my God, I’m containing myself not to burst now!!
HG, what does a narcissist feel when a past primary starts to win the emotional battle, and no longer pins away?
Hello ANM, it depends on when this occurs. You may well be winning the emotional battle when the narcissist is in the golden period with a new IPPS and therefore we are unconcerned by you. If you are winning this when we are trying to hoover you and you resist the hoovers by applying logic, then this will wound us. Of course, most of our kind do not know that you are applying logic and winning the emotional battle, they will just think you are a terrible person for not responding.
Lol. That is exactly what he thinks, that I am a terrible person for not responding. I do believe he is in honeymoon phase with a IPPS. He tries to keep me very far away, and that is where I would like to stay anyhow. But it is the malign obsession. He is constantly trying to snoop into my business to see who i am dating, what i do with my spare time etc. He also is still punishing me. He is constantly calling CPS, the police, etc on me. He loves to try to ruin holidays and vacations as well. We share a child in common, and he thinks I vacation, socialize, and throw too many parties. My birthday was last saturday. Friday he kept claiming I was not to keep out child for a vacation because it was “his weekend”, yet i gave him the notice required by our judge. He threatened to call the police on me.
First, I never mentioned to the Narcissist it was my birthday. I just called it a fall break. Second, I called the police first, like a narcissist would, and told them he was harassing me and trying to ruin my birthday. When he called them, they wouldnt help him one bit. He finally called a police department out of his county to come harass me. The Narcissist came to my house, said he was going to put me in jail, and the Narcissist was on his way to take my child. I was calm cool collected. Because i already looked into the protocol, they could harass me, and right a report, but it would just end up going to family court, where my attorney can deal with what he was really doing. I made sure the officer knew the narcissist was not allowed on my property, whatever needed to be discussed, can be communicated through the officer being the middle man. The officer called 6 doffiferent people to try to get an ok to put me in jail for my birthday, but they all said no. They both ended up having to leave my property while i went on with my weekend. The Narcissist does this to see if i will pee my pants and cry. He gets angry and says “Live up your vacation. When you get back, you will be arrested from the attorney general!!”. Not a fat chance in hell.
Correction: police came to house. NARCISSIST had to sit outside of my property
HG—define winning.
As in GOSO/NC?
Thriving. Or …..
HG/ANM—we r terrible persons. idk why that made me laugh and i heard it in a redneck accent in my head. turrrrrible.
Anm
Sounds like your ex is a lesser.
I am only one week no contact, and this was the perfect reminder at the perfect time. It helps that I decided to go no contact and did it with no warning: I blocked him in every way I could, I made all social media private, and we live in different places. I can’t prevent him from calling me at work, or sending a letter, or hiring a singing gorilla or whatever, but he hasn’t, yet.
I know what the outcome of any contact would be, and its always the same. I don’t need him to sort through what was a lie and what was the truth — his answer itself would be whatever truth suited him. Before I went NC, I tried to suspend disbelief and assume his apologies and desire to change were sincere, and (as I knew he would), he proved what I already knew: it always ends the same. We had our one more chance dance. I wish the next person better luck, or better insight, whichever will hurt less.
But I can’t honestly say that my version of him is out of my head, completely. Some of it was wonderful, once, even though much more of it wasn’t. Thank you for the reminder, HG.
You are welcome, you have made a good start.
What I keep in mind is that I don’t know them. You may have thought so at a time in your life. They never existed, therefore engagement doesn’t have to happen. Nobody engages with every stranger they meet. They showed you what they are. At this point I know what this ones appearance is, I can steel up and deflect. No words are necessary even, not even eye contact. Even if the fury comes from their injury. Take the moral high ground and carry on with a real life. Do it!!!!
I saw my narc again last week casually in his car.. At the moment he is at top again. Suntanned, very good looking. Very attractive again. He looked through me. All I felt was anger, envy and deep hate. Nothing else. Envy, because I need a holiday trip too, deep hate and anger that he seems to be happy. That is all that I learnt by him – deep, dark feelings.
Thank God, that I do not feel them all the time.
I will drink a glass of champagne, when that all is over and I never have to see him again…
It is only a question of time…
Mona. that is not who you are. envy. hate. anger. it pulls that out of you like a scrap heap magnet. go NC. for your sake. not his. you do not need to spend your energy (precious). not to mention fueling him. but it’s not to stifle so much as to allow you to flourish. tan. brilliant. blah whatever. go. do. you.
This will always be a favorite for me HG. As I remember reading this for the first time 4 months ago with my jaw open and tears streaming down my cheeks, seeing my experience in writing was mind blowing. I was tossed into that ocean so many countless times, unable to breathe, unable to stand, think, perform, eat, drive, sleep, stay awake, work, relax, parent, think. I couldn’t think… I couldn’t decipher fact from fiction. Why, just why would he treat me so despicably? How could I fix it? What was I doing wrong… I was trying so hard to be good, be perfect, to be what he wanted me to be. No sooner would I catch a break and get on a raft, I’d be caught up in the worst storm yet… My God it was inhumane.
By the time I had read this, I had already learned to go NC. I knew I had made it to dry land for the first time in 5 years. You showed me the path to my tower and to beware my suitor offering his true love from outside my balcony. I remain safely inside my tower only admitting only those few I deem safe. Occasionally I will go outside the parameters of my tower. But always with a guard on hand. I don’t know when I’ll feel safe again. I will continue to read your works HG to remember the pain I suffered, as abuse amnesia is real…. and to continue to educate myself.
Grateful for my liberation and my tower.
Peaceful.
Peaceful
Cheering you on in your journey forward.
Totally depicts my struggle with this. I’m stuck at # 8 now. The pain is so bad all the time. The depression. The anxiety. I didn’t have that kind of pain when I was with him. I didn’t have any depression. I had alotbof moments of happiness where I felt adored. and a lot of moments that I was very angry and hated him and felt how dare he treat me like this. I deserve more of a partner something better. Then I get the depression so bad that I run back again.
So my heart tells me some angry pain is so much better than this depression pain. My logic is winning out now because I so much want to transcend this problem. I hate being alone.
But the life without emotions is so boring…
It is not about life without emotions, but about controlling the emotional thinking.
In what book can I read more about this kind of control?
It is addressed in part of Exorcism but the major work which tackles it will be Zero Impact which is in progress.
Amazing writing HG…extremely articulate and even poetic. You have a god given talent. But how do you know all of this and write it so well without having this true experience yourself?
Because I have watched it happen, I listen and I apply. By understanding one becomes more effective.
I was thrown in the water many times! Because of you HG and the knowledge you gave to me I finally made it to land!! It took along time! But I finally did it! Thank you kind sir! 😘xxx
Well done FM1T.
It was all about learning to control my emotions! I am and always will be a very emotional person, however I have learned that is what a narcissist wants us to do! They want the emotions I have to control me and what I say and do! It is part of the homework they do, looking for are weaknesses and using them to gain their in. I have learned to step back and look! If I see a red flag my emotions have to be set aside! It is still a work in progress, but with my ex I have reached land and will not ever be sucked back in! Thank you again! You are amazing!!