So I posted a YouTube video today about “Dealing with a Narcissist”. You know, I’ve been….I guess you could say, chronicling my most recent breakup & in the process I’ve been reading & watching a lot of videos on YouTube. When a video about a narcissist showed up in my feed, it peaked my curiosity. That video led me to another video & I started to wonder if the man that I was in love with was in fact a narcissist. I mean, according to the vids that I viewed, I could see some similarities in his behavior, if I’m being honest.

I’m kinda struggling with this one, like I said in my video post, because my intent here is not to make him out to be a bad guy. Narcissist or not, he is someone that I fell for & I’d like to believe that there is some good to the man. I had a conversation with my sister today when, after I went on about, how he’s really a sweet person & blah say, blah say, she ended with, “I’m sorry, D. I still think he’s a bad guy.”

It hurt me. And it reminded me of why I stopped talking about my relationships to my girlfriends. And why I should probably stop talking about the details of my breakups, too. In any case, we had a real meaningful conversation about the difference of him being a “bad guy” rather than just “not good” for me. I began by explaining to her how good of a person he is (was to me). How he has a soft side that I believe not a lot of people see, a sensitive side. How attentive he was and how very much he loved his family. She then pointed out that none of this would’ve occurred to her because that’s not the side of him that she knew. She reminded me that all she knew of him was what I told her. And for the last several days all that seemed to be was how bad he’d hurt me.

SIDEBAR: Stop giving people the opportunity to have an opinion in your relationship. While it may seem like something to bond over, more often times, you’ll just really regret giving people access to your situation. Learn to employ emotional discipline. Trust me, you’ll thank yourself later.