new member with plenty of questions

[gj438]

Hello everybody !

I am a new member who'd like to understand better an experience that occured to me recently. I am 23 and I don't have a very big experience of life yet. I am not an English native speaker by the way. First a little context: I have some troubles with my family: boundaries are almost inexistant, and thus I struggle to set my own limits. There is also a lack of respect for one another's life choices, and mockery from my sisters, devaluating comments from my mother.

A few years ago I had a relationship with a man that ended very painfully, and after which I met several people who took advantage of my vulnerability.

Now the topic that brings me here: One year after all that, I had an internship abroad, I had to meet new people and start a life there. I was still pretty much in pain because of my previous experience. One of my co-worker, who was 14 years older than me, began to be very charming with me, with plenty of attentions, hugs and such things. I was overwhelmed but in an agreeable way, I felt drunk and I was really attracted to him. But soon, this stopped and he began to put me down. Each time that he was doing something painful to me and I was angry, he would put all the responsibility on my shoulders. He said to me he had feelings for me, but a few days later he claimed he had never said that, and said that if I treated him like a liar he would just go away. One day he said something so painful that I had a depersonalisation crisis which brought me to the hospital and it was followed by one month sick leave. After that he played nice, but after that he was mean to me again. Recently I met someone else, we fell in love and now we have a good healthy relationship. By comparing this relationship to the previous one, I understood that this coworker had an abusive behaviour, and when I told him that I had understood, he blocked me.

What happens to me now is that I often feel like I am the one who abused my co-worker, because I can't distance myself from what he said to me. And at the same time, I was the one who had to go to hospital, while he was pursuing his daily occupations.
I read a lot about narcissist personality disorder and it may be that, however I thought that narcissist people did not reject their "victim", but rather tried to keep them in order to satisfy their ego. In my case, it only lasted for a couple of months and the rejection phase occured very early. I find it difficult to understand what happened, and why ! Why would someone do something like this ?
I also have trust issues with my current boyfriend. Sometimes I interpret his behaviour as if he wanted to manipulate me, and it makes me angry at him. I also have panick attacks where I relive some events that occurred before, and I can't stop crying, which sometimes keep him up awake late at night. Therefore, I'm really scared of being abusive towards him.

So these are the questions that keep me busy. Thank you very much for having read !

[xredshoesx]

welcome to the forum gj438,

i am so sorry that you have been taken advantage of and victimized by both the former relationship and your coworker.  from what you have described your coworker most certainly took advantage of you and it's wrong but the only justice you may get on him moving forward is living your best life despite how cruel he was to you. 

it is horrible that it took such a toll on your health you had to have a hospitalization, and i am proud of you for standing up for yourself and trying to get his voice out of your head so you can continue to be in a healthy relationship with your current partner.

i can point you to some of the resources here, but i know in my own experience it helped when i put the advice from here into practice with the help of a therapist-  it made a difference because she would hold me accountable and gave me 'homework' to do to practice her suggestions.    in my experience, i've noticed that some uPD reject, some cling and behaviors can cycle between these states- often until they find another source of narcissistic supply.  either way it hurts to be treated so poorly by someone, especially someone who did not respect that you were coworkers and acted inappropriately for a work environment.

some parts of the forum that may help you heal are the common behaviors and working on us sections-  i think the article on fleas will help too.

Chosen Relationships

Working On Us

https://outofthefog.website/what-not-to-do-1/2015/12/3/fleas

be kind and gentle with yourself and we hope to see you on the boards soon-

[vijaykumari]

I spent a lot of time trying to understand why my ex (exes I should say) did things they did.  I found that after years of therapy and thinking about it, I still don't get it.  I have enough trouble understanding myself and that's all that matters anyway.  The hard part about it was realizing the role I played (not just being a victim, but also my own bad behavior at the time).  But then again, even if I had been a perfect person things wouldn't have been much different.

Give yourself time to sort out everything in your head.  I have found that just sitting and thinking by itself doesn't work, even if I read a lot and get the proper information.  Going out and living and taking action in spite of my fears seemed to help me understand a lot more.  I made a lot of mistakes but I learned from them and I have to forgive myself for anyone I hurt along the way.  I did the best I could.  Don't we all?