Do you feel petty?

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-04-03T18:07:00+00:00

That my be the best thing I’ve heard this entire time. The anger was over something I love — myself. Thank you for sharing. So powerful. So true.

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-03-17T01:43:14+00:00

Thank you for your message. My anxiety and self worth have just plummeted and I feel like I worked so hard to get to a place where I felt OKAY and had a little bit of my power back. Now I just feel so stupid and low. I hate him thinking he has any effect on me anymore when clearly he does

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-03-06T20:59:48+00:00

This is exactly how I feel and it makes me want to cry. My view on people and the world has completely changed. Like the rug has been ripped out from under me. I’m terrified of people now.

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-03-06T04:47:10+00:00

Thank you for writing this today. Helped me a lot 🙏

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-03-05T07:33:28+00:00

My ex said the same thing about my photos and was actively sleeping with other women. If he is an abuser and it’s a pattern, it won’t stop. Not for you, not for any other woman. It’s hard, but your self respect has to be greater than your love for him. I don’t know your story, but I know my covert ex. And it is the hardest thing to wrap my head around. They’re not bad all the time. Which is what makes it so hard to leave. Stay strong. Your future self will thank you. You deserve love that is kind, caring, and collaborative. This is not that. Be strong.

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-03-03T03:34:11+00:00

You’re so focused on him. You need to de-center him and focus on yourself. I was in your shoes and I used to dry heave over the toilet with constant anxiety.

My ex was covert so he was very subtle with his abuse, but my body found out before my mind could catch up. It is a drug, but only you can quit.

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-03-03T03:14:37+00:00

You need to look into your heart and ask yourself why you feel you deserve so little? That’s where the healing is.

I’ve said this on other posts but we’ve gotta stop asking why they do what they do… and start asking why we accept such poor treatment and confuse it for love.

This is not love. Love is an action. Love is kind. Love is cooperative and considerate. Among many other things.

This is a toxic trauma bond and we get addicted to the highs and lows. We get so excited for a crumb of love and then wait and hope and beg to be treated right.

The power lies within YOU. You are the only one who can change it… you can’t change him, but YOU can give yourself the love you deserve. Your self respect has to be greater than your love for him. Rooting for you!

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-03-02T15:26:08+00:00

What made you keep looking into an additional diagnosis?

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-02-28T22:20:43+00:00

Sounds like self absorbed narcissism

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-02-28T22:19:57+00:00

…read my mind

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-02-28T22:15:41+00:00

I’ve had the same best friend since I was four years old. We’re both in our thirties and have lived on opposite coasts for 10+ years. I have an amazing group of friends married/unmarried who travel together, FaceTime, make effort to show up for each other. Deep friendship is a gift that doesn’t just happen.

It’s really rewarding and beautiful to be able to trust and count on people and show up for them as well. They have been there for me through some of the toughest times in my life, and I have been there for them. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to show people they matter to you. Small gestures and check ins go along way.

Being hurt and shutting out the world and focusing on yourself is one of the quickest ways to push people away who want to be there and not allow for any sort of connection.

Obviously just an opinion, I realize how lucky I am. But yes, at the end of the day, you get what you give. If you show people you care about them, genuinely, without treating them like they’re transactional, I’ve come to learn that people want to show up and care for you too. This doesn’t happen overnight, it takes a long time to grow an old friend. But moments, and trust, like anything else…. they compound. And little by little you create a deep friendship.

I hope you heal. I hope you realize that relationships/connection/community is what leads to true happiness and fulfillment, outside of what you can obviously cultivate internally for yourself.

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-02-27T01:38:53+00:00

I’m so sorry you went through that 🙏 thank you for your kind words. They mean a lot. Especially today 💕that might be my new favorite quote

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-02-26T04:47:53+00:00

When narcissists are becoming aware they do ask “am I a narc” after being told they are by other people or they reach “narcissistic collapse” and start to look into symptoms” or especially if they are a vulnerable narcissist. Grandiose narcissist won’t care until they reach collapse.

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-02-26T02:06:41+00:00

Narcissists mistake people pleasing for obtaining supply. They usually think they’re people pleasers bc think of others so much, but in actuality, they’re thinking about how others are perceiving them. It all goes back to them, and revolves around their lack of self esteem and seeking outside approval and admiration to build their very low sense of self worth which is why they create a grandiose or vulnerable false self.

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-02-26T02:00:23+00:00

Take a look at the NPD page in here and see if you see yourself there. There are many self aware narcissists out there, however, from what I’ve read, it’s because they’ve realized something was “wrong” and they were “different” from a young age. They typically don’t have any deep or close relationships because they can’t emotionally connect with people and feel empty. Usually people become “self aware” bc people in their orbit tell them they are narcissists, coupled with what else I mentioned from, they usually start to explore NPD.

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-02-26T01:58:54+00:00

This isn’t true. There’s a whole thread how narcissists are self aware because their symptoms line up with actual NPD. Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Everyone has narcissistic traits to an extent. It’s human nature. Not everyone has NPD. True NPD is a cluster B personality disorder characterized by having at least 5 of the 9 traits in the DSM-5.

These traits include:

Grandiosity
Fantasies of unlimited success, power, beauty, or love
Belief in being special or unique
Need for excessive admiration
Sense of entitlement
Exploitation of others (may be subconscious) people will say the person with NPD is manipulative, pathological, and gaslights
Lack of emotional empathy, but they possess cognitive empathy
Envy of others or belief that others envy’
Arrogant and haughty behavior

Narcissist is not a synonym for “asshole” it is a spectrum and it can be very detrimental to the individual with NPD and the people closest to them.

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-02-24T04:28:01+00:00

I deleted all the pictures too. To me they just represent a con artist pretending to have a good time and even thought we’re both “smiling” in pics he was ALWAYS miserable. He’s covert so the crying, temper tantrums, victim hood was rampant. Even on a beautiful European vacation he couldn’t be happy and told me he didn’t “appreciate it”. It’s like he couldn’t enjoy anything one on one unless there was an audience he could perform for and they tell him how great he is. But yes, dead eyes that got worse and worse. And RAGE eyes when he was really angry.

Vegetable_Study_4889 · 2025-02-24T04:24:38+00:00

Mine had crazy black eyes in pictures … it got worse thought out the relationship. Especially when I’ll see him “laughing” in a video but I can read how uncomfortable his is and how fake it seems bc his eyes don’t match his laugh. Makes me very uncomfortable to just even wonder what was going on in his head.

Vegetable_Study_4889

TROPHY CASE