Back in 2016, I was so confused. My marriage was quickly unraveling, and I couldn’t breathe. My husband, my love, my friend of 18 years was apparently not who he seemed to be. We had laughed together, we had given each other romantic Valentine’s cards, we were good life partners. Was I living in a dream? Could this really be happening? Was I married to a compulsive liar and a con man? If he wasn’t real, then maybe I wasn’t either. Maybe I had imagined our life, our home and our three beautiful children. I found myself going outside onto my front porch to look at the sky to reorient myself to which way was up and which way was down. Also, it was easier to catch a few breaths if I just kept looking at the open sky.

This is how I felt when I stumbled upon YouTube videos about narcissism, and Coaching with Kaleah’s video ‘Did the narcissist ever really love me?’  I almost skipped over this video, thinking to myself ‘Of course he loves me. I already know this. This video isn’t for me.’ Besides, we were in therapy now and the therapists were helping me through my feelings of intense betrayal for the mind-boggling amount of cheating and lying I had uncovered about him, and him through his feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. The empathetic therapists were showing us how to communicate, and they were handing him tissues to wipe away his trickle of crocodile tears, and truckloads of tissues to wipe away my constant waterfall of tears. My husband was professing his love for me and our family, as he had always done. He was simultaneously pursuing yet another woman, as I realized, as he had always done. I had stopped eating and sleeping. I was also back to working full time and mothering my three children. My long hair began to fall out and I was losing weight rapidly, and not in a good way. I became singularly obsessed with trying to make sense of this man who loved me, and whom I loved in return. I was trying to save my marriage, myself, and foolishly, him.

I needed intense, rapid help which I wasn’t finding enough of in traditional therapy. I was getting more confused and more desperate for answers each day. What I needed was a sword wielding narcissist expert who was more like part therapist, part ninja, part vampire slayer, and part angel.

When I clicked on Kaleah’s video, her strong, calm, confident words washed over me and began to open my eyes. She was like a big sister, telling me firmly and clearly what I needed to hear. She helped me save myself. I took the liberty of paraphrasing her points below:

Narcissists form quick bonds with people but also have short term relationships. Their bonds are more intellectual than emotional. A narcissist may like how you look, what you do for a living, your accomplishments, your status, etc. (My husband saw his marriage to a ‘good girl’ like me as a checkbox to please his traditional mother. Once married, he could pretend to love me but still live like a single man with many women on the side.)

The more vulnerable one can be the more capable of love she is. (This made me feel less stupid and ashamed of being so devastated by his deception and callousness.)

Narcs may have a very high IQ but a low EQ. Their ability to empathize, have compassion and understanding for others is low. (This helped me understand how such an intelligent, charming, seemingly sensitive man could truly be so heartless underneath, by pursuing women while still pursuing me, the mother of his children, and not seeing this as a problem.)

They build themselves up by focusing on their strengths rather than their weaknesses, which is why they can excel and see themselves as superior and confident. Narcissists avoid feelings of inferiority by the use of grandiosity. Our ability to accept our own weaknesses allows us to accept weaknesses in others and have more compassion and empathy for others. Narcissists can’t accept their own inadequacy, so they deny it. (He was very hard on himself whenever he would make a mistake, and he also called me a ‘waste of space,’ and ‘another mouth to feed’ for being a stay-at-home-mom behind my back, I later learned.)

There is cognitive empathy and affective empathy. Cognitive empathy (like IQ) allows you to figure out the emotional states of others without being able to feel what they are feeling. Affective empathy (like EQ) involves being able to feel what another is feeling. He may say ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘sorry for your loss’ but be unable to feel sorry for your loss. This is why narcissists don’t learn from their mistakes. They don’t understand their mistakes, their apologies are superficial. Since a narcissist is dissociated from his own pain, he is also dissociated from your pain. He can’t understand the level of pain he’s causing. (He texted a friend how he was at his wits end with my reaction to discovering his double life. He was genuinely annoyed, not genuinely remorseful.)

Most people have the ability to self-reflect, so we tend to second guess ourselves and blame ourselves for the problems in the relationship. We feel like we’re going crazy. We may see how he can so easily detach and get back to business as usual. This can make us feel unstable. Your weakness is despised by the narcissist. He is likely to devalue you and discard you in favor of someone who is strong and confident. He is disgusted by what you are reflecting back at him. He moves on to the next relationship with no emotional downtime, while you have an emotional crash. (He asked if I’d like to renew our wedding vows, and when I politely declined, he then shortly thereafter expressed his deep love for this new woman.)

A narcissist needs to see himself as great and superior. He must therefore surround himself with people who see him as great and superior. If he surrounded himself with people who asked him to own up to his mistakes, be honest and emotionally mature, it would be difficult. So, he’s going to trash those who don’t mirror to him his own greatness. (He discarded some of his closest friends who were upset with his betrayal and went out and made all new friends.)

Kaleah finally asks a simple, elegant question again in her video. Her question sent me on a new path to self-discovery, growth, freedom. It even left me with gratitude for the pain that allowed me to see where I still needed to grow up:

So, did the narcissist really love you? What do YOU think?

Mali Ponday was a wife and stay-at-home mother in a peaceful, suburban neighborhood for eighteen years, dutifully silencing her own inner voice. Today, she has a job she loves and a home of her own where she lives with her sons, guiding them to trust themselves and to honor the peaceful warrior that dwells within us all.

Mali Ponday learned of the suicide during her senior year of college. Her beautiful, loving, complicated mother died instantly. Her father survived, but Mali’s own spirit had died long before.  Or so she believed.

Raised by a diagnosed narcissist, Mali had trouble imagining any future for herself. Like many such children, she suffered from a sense of learned helplessness, unable to trust her own gut or act on her own instincts for self-preservation no matter how hard they screamed at her.

Feeling profoundly unworthy of love or even friendship, she married a man who would cheat on her and lie to her for almost two decades. Every time she discovered the truth, she forgave him and repeated the cycle.

Until she finally found the courage to stop.

Quiet Little Mouse tells the bold, poignant truth about what it really means to trust yourself, sharing one woman’s lifelong journey toward three simple words: “I belong here.”  Get the Book!

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