“In the green morning
I wanted to be a heart.
A heart...”
— Federico Garcia Lorca, Ditty of First Desire
You may already sense—as an observant human and certainly from your experience as a survivor of sexual trauma—that no matter how your violation occurred it is the perpetrator’s narcissism that has left its indelible imprint on your heart.
The perpetrator might have appeared to have all the power. Perhaps they even expressed interest and concern about you, the victim. But in fact, there was a specific self-centeredness that belied their own deep sense of emptiness and profound self-loathing. All of this was contained in an encasement of shame… creating a false self. For the narcissist, this view of the self may not always hit their own conscious awareness and can masquerade as high self-regard. But any threat to the false self will be responded to as if it were an assault to the "real self” inside, because it threatens their own primitive fear of abandonment and annihilation.¹
Perhaps it is only through this lens that you have a way to comprehend how you yourself can inherit a narcissistic injury from the perpetrator. You may have come to believe that even mattering at all was a transactional exercise, one of the tell-tale signs of the narcissist.
There always seemed to be a price to pay for love.
This profound injury leaves a wound which can make you feel that no matter how much you work to be loved and to matter, you doubt that the hole of love you crave will never be filled. It leaves an endless thirst for acknowledgement, validation, even adulation, so that others will somehow recognize that you have done enough, given so much, worked so hard. There may even be a sense of grievance if you are not seen for all you are. But your own story, your own drama, and that constant reference to your self results in a sense of shame. You may feel you can never get out of your own way, as the constant center of your own attention. It can be agonizing to fill that space with only yourself. Or perhaps, at the other end of the narcissistic injury, you might hear the constant drumbeat of self deprecation that would cause you to “smallify”—to hide or shut down, as if your own voice and your very presence should not matter.
But the true core of this wound in the heart is grief.
Sometimes the grief is unnamed and unaccounted for. Nonetheless, it is grief that is at the bottom of this maelstrom of self absorption and self doubt that plagues the mind. Grief for love lost, betrayed, diminished. Grief on this level may have been avoided or passed over for decades, but it no longer needs to be.
One way to heal the broken heart and mend the bottomless hole is to be tender to this grief. Indeed, it is a challenge to touch these wounds again. The deaths with no closure, the loves that were not given, the pain covered by defenses, and even some of the rituals for self improvement can hold some of the greatest impediments to doing this deeper work. It may be an ongoing challenge to repair yourself with kindness and respect. It requires honest, raw and compassionate truth.
Yet grief can be the medicine. You meet the losses, the regrets and perseverations and the longing for love that still encompasses the dark hole in the heart. You do this, not with words, but with the unspoken power of tenderness. Grieving like this can allow you to let go of your attachment to how it should have been or could be. Moving into your grief can enable you to gently push off from the shore of some of the hurt, the unmet hopes, the expectations, and the self pity. Actually bending into the sorrow of loss instead of covering it up is a way to let go of the wish that life should be otherwise without despair for what is.
Coming to terms with grief is itself a sacred task within your own heart. Even its darkness is a part of the process of deep healing. To befriend such a space need not pull you into an endless black hole. In fact, really allowing yourself this kind of grieving can mean a deeper recognition and respect for why the wounds are there, and perhaps open you to allow something else to fill the hole. You may begin to meet the sorrow in your heart another way.
...You look up.
You might fill the hole with members of your true community of recovery, who, even if their number is small, will see you in full as your authentic self. You experiment in letting those in your life truly see the real you. In so doing, you will see them in their truth as well. One of the best indicators of true recovery is when you become far more interested in seeing the other as they are, all the while respecting, sharing and honoring who and where you are right now, and what you have learned on the journey.
You can nourish your heart by letting beauty seep inside with song and music or whatever gives you joy, and with connecting to nature's movements. You can replenish the noise of the mind with silence, and with (what perhaps may be a challenge for some) the gift of solitude, which is different from isolation. Your heart is where the greatest gifts reside.
It is true that life can be a wild ride when you open your heart like this.
But today, during a windy fall day in New England, I watch the leaves fall from the trees. I think of these trees letting go of their foliage, with the awareness that they are still very much alive, even when bare.
Life continues inside your roots and branches-even when they are laid bare.
Let it.
And life will bloom again.
Today, I encourage you to find the sore bone one inch above your heart and press into it with care.
Here you are, touching your own heart, with the love and tenderness that has always been inside all along.
That is your home.
¹Maté, G. (2022). The myth of normal: Trauma, illness & healing in a toxic culture. Penguin Random House LLC.