I found myself in a romantic relationship with someone that everyone loved, thought was amazing, told me that I was blessed to have in my life.....
At that time I was still a very trusting person. I thought people were..... who they showed themselves to be, at least for the most part.
I had no idea that the covert narcissistic relationships I would experience were with individuals that had two very distinct personalities - the one that everyone else saw..... and the one that only came out behind closed doors.
Because this behavior was familiar, it woke up a dormant fawning trauma response that my survival brain had adopted as a child. In childhood - a fawning response is smart - but in an adult, it can keep abuse alive!!
The fawn trauma response causes us to stifle our authenticity, to push down our true selves, our feelings, thoughts and perspectives and to socially engage with the other person in a way that calms THEM down. As Gabor Mate says - we sacrifice authenticity in exchange for 'safety'.
So, I found myself trying harder and harder to please this person. Amputating pieces of my personality in hopes of making the other person happy - because unconsciously I thought that then all would be well, I would feel connected and safe.
I didn't realize that this was the VERY same dynamic I had in place in childhood.
As children the thought of not being loved or worthy in the eyes of a parent is a survival situation. We cannot care for ourselves.... so as a coping skill we try to do, be, think, feel any way the parent dictates.
The whole reason our survival brain chooses the FAWN trauma response is because we are dependent on the very people that are abusing us, yet we are too young and small to fight or flee. Toxic family systems then condition you to STAY stuck in the fawn response and this becomes the template through which we enter ALL other relationships - romantic, friendships, co-workers, etc.
By fawning, the strategy we developed in childhood is - let's make the other person feel better so that.... we can feel safe and accepted.
When this mechanism kicked on once again - I began showing up this way in romantic relationships. It felt like life or death - gaining this persons love and acceptance. This was my childhood wound that was woken up and frantically pushing me to try harder and harder while simultaneously blaming myself for not being able to find the secret formula to make the other person happy.
After living like this for longer than I care to mention.... I became a shell of a person. I was a body.... that was surviving yet not living.
The only emotions I felt capable of feeling were.... fear, shame, rejection, unsafe, unworthy - and when I wasn't feeling that I was simply numb and detached.
I remembered the person I once was - and I wondered if I would ever feel like me again. I wondered if I would ever laugh again, feel joy, excitement, creative .... confident.
My body felt out of my own control.