Narcism I’m Trying to Escape From

The first time I encountered true, smack-in-the-face narcism I was in my early twenties. I was in Mississippi, USA, doing volunteer work for a christian organization. The organization had established housing, with roommate assignments.

For a six week period I was assigned a roommate that shared a one bedroom apartment with me. She was the life of the party, with a great sense of humor and so many good ideas!

There were mostly male volunteers that we worked with closely. A lot of her energy went into planning lunches and our day off to hang out with them. This felt counterproductive to me, but she put her energy towards these things and showed good face outside of our place.

At home when we were together I remember having some insightful-deep conversations, but the fun-loving side was never present there. What would more often happen as I tried having open dialog conversations her response wasn’t genuine. She would turn my words against me. They became daggers with that spin.

It wasn’t like the relationships that I had previous to ours. In the past I had opened up and told people what I was struggling with or had an open-ended conversation about how our relationship could improve as we enhanced our understanding of each other. This was not the case this time. I tried using all of the communication skills that had worked for me previously but the result and the end of our stay together didn’t go well.

As my young roommate had completed her volunteer time we drove to our volunteer headquarters in Jackson Mississippi. At headquarters she was invited to a nice dinner and low-key send off celebration. As we arrived at the house where the going away party was, I remember standing in the garage as the host welcomed us in. She kindly invited me to stay for dinner, I looked up at my roommate and she coldly insinuated, “You are not staying—you better get out of here”. Although I don’t remember her exact words—the message was clear.

There were more volunteers standing around, unaware of the quick interaction that had just occurred.

I turned to another lady in our group and asked if she wanted to go get dinner with me. I had met her before but we hadn’t had time to get to know each other, so we ended up eating chili at a Wendy’s down the street. We were able to relax and had a nice evening.

I didn’t disclose what had happened to me the last six weeks. I don’t think I had the ability to vocalize it then.

As I returned back to the small apartment with a newly assigned volunteer. After a week or so my body collapsed. I laid in bed ill with a fever for a week.

My new roommate was understanding and nurturing. We went to the doctor together to see what was wrong. They didn’t know what was happening. The swabs and labs they took all came back negative. After a week of suffering I was encouraged by the new roommate to take a cold bath. After a good hour-long cry and a cold bath my fever broke and was able to get back on my feet.

A Quick Overview of Narcism

Although there are different types of narcissistic personality disorders my intent is not to try justify my roommate as having a disorder. It is also not educate on all of the subtypes of this specific disorder. I would like to highlight a few behaviors for educational purposes and to create awareness.

I have found that as I have more understanding about another’s behavior I can learn to adjust and leave a situation or set a boundary to keep me feeling more secure. In my experience building vocabulary and understanding behind this specific behavior has been a source of protection and self care.

Labeling Feelings

Feelings I remember having at during that period of time:

Worn down. I was always afraid that I was going to say the wrong thing.

Pushing myself to keep up with my volunteer tasks.

Holding back truth and not letting others in on what was actually going on.

On edge, not knowing if my actions were approved.

Emotional Effects

I wish I could tell you that was the last time this experience affected me. After my time expired and I returned to the valley where I attended college. There were a lot of women in my volunteer group living within an hour of each other. When the group would get together to go out to dinner I wasn’t invited. This one pickle made it clear to everyone else that I wasn’t welcome, so I was never informed of a few of the gatherings.

When the group planned weekend trip to California, I again was left out and didn’t even get an invite to jump in on the adventure.

One day I saw the group of women in a photo on Facebook. They were all in a restaurant together, of course, I hadn’t been invited.

I brushed it off, thinking that it wouldn’t effect me, but later that day the emotion caught up to me. I remember sitting in the dark, in a parked car with my now husband Curtis, with tears streaming down my face. Again, I had the feeling that I had been isolated and left out.

Understanding Emotion and Physical Reaction

As I return to my feelings and get honest with them I have the ability to label how I felt at that time that we were assigned to live together.

I was afraid,

felt overworked, carrying the bulk of the workload,

holding back truth,

and on edge.

Which all culminated to a feeling of being alone.

Is there a wonder that the stress of feeling all alone shut me down for a week? Was too much for my self to independently hold?

Isolation

As I am reflecting on this condensed experience in my life, I have returned to the theme of isolation over and over again and I’m recognizing how these themes are still showing up in my life.

Fifteen years later as I am writing this down, I now see that this was a theme that occurred often in my life. It was a loop or a pattern that I have been caught in. It has hindered many of the adult relationships that I have been hoping for.

I wrote more of my origin story out in this post about how I tried to figure out my emotional pain alone, during my childhood years.

Now, with more truth coming forth, I am willing to hold more compassion in my space of healing.

Truth That Is Incredibly Healing

A true gift of grace can fall into place in a space of healing if I know these two things.

Number 1 Truth:

I’m human. I’m supposed to feel separate from another human. This is part of the process of having a body.

Number 2 Truth:

The expanse of the universe is so much bigger than I can see. There is power and forces for good that are working in my behalf. The feeling of I’m all alone is an illusion and there is a greater-grander connection for me.

Isolation carries the emotion of I’m all alone! This is just one of the seven connections that are illustrated in the following illustration.

With maturity and time I am approaching this page with the ability to name the isolated feeling that I have been suffering from for so long.

Often after we escape scenarios that we feel effected by the memories still haunt our minds. The following sentences connect me to this visual I have made. And link me to a growing community.

The Collective Human Experience

We Have a Brain

My roommate had experiences that formed how she thought. Some of her insights were really quite profound and I think about them often. It was clear that we didn’t see eye to eye on most things.

We Have Emotions

I’ve had time to reflect about how I was the odd one out that didn’t get along with this roommate of mine. Everyone else did well because they approached living with her with a lighter heart and more humor. There’s a lesson that I can learn from the emotional energy that could have lightened my load, had I had more experience with this specific behavior.

We Have a Body

I was raised with an underlying idea that my body is here to do physical work. I let this belief carry me for a long time.

With maturity, I am now experiencing more freedom to feel excited, to rest, to cry, and to honor how that body is feeling.

We Have Power to Create

With a task-oriented frame of mind, I think that I missed creative opportunities during this six weeks of my life. I have a strong creative force and not a lot of co-creation was happening at this time. I can hold this sadness and loss with a feeling of grief.

We Each Come From a Mother and a Father

As I have looked into my upbringing, there are behaviors that I have that are more like my Dad, and there are behaviors that I have that are more like my Mom.

Unfortunately throughout this story I displayed behaviors that were developed out of an insecurity. Pretending that nothing was wrong is an insecurity from my mom. Overworking and not knowing how to have a little bit of light-hearted fun is a flaw from my Dad.

We Each Have an Energy or a Power Source that Enlivens Us

My light comes from knowing that others feel that light through love. It is not my job to turn that on/off switch on for them. That is something that cannot be forced.

Conclusion

Through this experience I had a poise and stability that I cannot explain. And now I have incapsulated gratitude for being able to name what I went through.

The most powerful thing that I take from this story is: the challenge that I went through created opportunities for intimate connections after this experience.

When I was able to let down my shield that I was holding up, to protect myself, the tears came. And when the tears came I was in the presence of witnesses that could be there for me. That is when intimate connection was made.

At the end of the story I let down my guard and allowed my husband to be a witness to some of my pain. He was willing to sit with me while I cried. He didn’t understand my pain at the time, but I could feel his heart open as he shared time with me and let me cry.

Questions for Self Reflection:

Do I believe that there is a connection between the body, my feelings?

Have I felt isolated even in times where there were people around me?

Resources

I write more about my isolation during my chronic illness in this post: Broadening My Perspective Around Health

1. Source PhychCentral: https://psychcentral.com/disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder[↩]
2. Michele Lee Photography[↩]
3. Petersen, Cami, Feb 2023, Isolation Visual, https://rootsandtruth.com/narcism-im-trying-to-escape-from/[↩]
4. Petersen, Cami, Feb 2023, The Collective Human Experience, https://rootsandtruth.com/narcism-im-trying-to-escape-from/[↩]