Some people cannot move to your new location
So often, when we move away, people lose touch. Since lives no longer intersect, it makes sense that we wouldn’t be able to see or connect as often.
The same thing happens when you heal after leaving a narcissistic dynamic.
As much as it stinks to realize, some people cannot meet you in your new way of life. They are still stuck in their old ways and don’t have the urge to change.
Flying Monkeys Or Enablers
People can be both, but it’s not a requirement.
Flying Monkeys are attached to the narcissist. They swarm when you try to leave and attempt to wrangle you back toward your old way of life. They either have blinders on their eyes or ears, or they are perfectly aware of things, and they don’t want to take your old job. Either way, your leaving is a sign of change, and change is scary to them. They are comfortable in their space. When you refuse to stay in yours, they don’t know how to act.
What they do know is that this new development is going to upset the narcissist, and that is something that cannot happen.
Enablers may or may not be currently attached to someone narcissistic. These are the types to promote letting go of grudges, extend an olive branch, forgive and forget, and ask you to be the bigger person. They say it unironically, as if they don’t truly realize that someone has to be the smaller person for you to be bigger.
Enablers can’t tolerate discomfort to a degree that is pathological. They cannot fathom you holding a boundary or someone accountable for their actions. The problem isn’t the harm that happened to you; the problem is your refusal to accept it and act as if it never happened in the first place.
So they stay while you leave and move to a new zip code. They can’t move there until they decide to stop making excuses for narcissistic behavior.
Which means you may never see them again.
Narcissists in Disguise
Sometimes, certain members of your old friends and family shed their masks and show you that they are narcissists as well.
People who want to use your resources will not like what they see when you begin to form and hold boundaries. If you can do it to one of them, you could do it to all of them. That’s a terrifying concept.
You will notice the slips and see the manipulation attempts as they desperately try to hold onto some semblance of the version of you they had gotten used to. They don’t want to lose everything you did and could do in the future for them.
Unfortunately, you will lose them if you stick with your healing journey. You will leave them behind as you launch upward and navigate a new world.
New Neighbors
You moved.
When you move, you find a new community. New resources. New activities. You also get new people who are ok with living in your new area.
That’s what happens in post-traumatic growth. You can’t go back to the way things used to be because your eyes are fully open. You see how the soil was toxic, the fruit was poison, and the people are walking zombies.
Even if you love and miss them, they are still living in the old spots, and you can’t cross that border to rejoin them because it isn’t worth the consequences.
As much as it hurts to grieve people who are still alive, it hurts worse to be beside them, living in Hell.
Enjoy your new home.
