Five minute weekend free write. Escape from a Narcissist.

Here is my post for #weekendfreewrite in which I free write for five minutes on three individual prompts. This is a work of fiction and I do not edit except for spelling errors as they arise.

First Prompt "How do you do it?" I asked her. "How do you go on?"

Her answer surprised me.

"I do not let my past define me. I have traveled so far in the journey back from that day, and I am not about to go back." She said.

She went on to explain that while she once relied on insipid flattery from other people to boost her own self-esteem, she now realized that she was the owner of her own reality. She didn't need anyone else to give it to her. She recognized her own strengths and knew from within that she alone held the keys to her success, not the narcissistic asshole that she once thought she was in love with. Even his attempts to hoover her back in to his embrace and be the source of his narcissistic supply.

Second Prompt: She looked at him and said, "Best not flirt with disaster, let it decide to commit."

I had wondered aloud how I could do the same, escape from the prison of my own making. I had been in a relationship with a narcissist for ten years. Well, can you really call it a relationship? I was feeding the narcissistic supply of my partner. Seems pretty one sided.

I thought about what she said, that it perhaps it was unwise to ghost my lover all together, to cut off those ties without a word as she had done. But in her situation, she wasn't in physical danger. Her narcissist was only in it to feed their own ego. My case was completely different, and I had to find a way to let it happen on its own - as if the relationship was its own entity all together. Perhaps she was right, but only time really could tell. I pressed for more details of how she broke it off.

Prompt 3: say hi to someone with a smile.

She told me that first came the realization that she was worthy of so much better than the emotional abuse she received. When that realization sunk in, it made the other steps that much easier. In the days after she dropped her lover without a word, she began doing yoga and meeting new people. She took time to just be with herself. She started seeing a therapist to work on her codependency.

I went home a renewed man with a purpose.

"Hello Chris," I said to my lover, with smile on my face. "I am going to have to move out."

In that moment, I knew was going to be alright.