My journey from Narcissistic Emotional Abuse to Self Healing.
“Every time he came home from work I felt fear. A suppressed feeling of will he peacefully neglect me or will it be a violent outburst of anger, control, and manipulation.”
Between my age of 10 – 23 I grew up with a emotional in-mature father. A man whose needs were never met. He grew up in a emotional abusive and violent way himself. Who created so much of insecurity and unworthiness about himself that he had to create a armor in order to survive. A mask that can hide his insecurities by showing the outside world a different image. And if he feels he his not getting his “needs” met he will use manipulation, control, blaming or shaming. He will make you feel like you are unworthy because then you can meet him at his “level.”
This my friend is how I will sum up a narcissistic personality disorder as it is. Without the judgement of good, bad, right or wrong. This will eventually become the challenge. To see it as it as, accept it, embrace it, recognize and forgive them for who they are. Become detached from them and stand in your own Truth.
It took me over a decade to heal from a emotional abusive childhood and I still can have my moments of emptiness, loneliness, isolation and separation. Moments where I can feel lost. Floating around with no steady ground below my feet.
Anyway let’s start from the beginning and my wish for you is that you can learn something from it.
I grew up in small town called Zierikzee near the coast of South West Holland in a province called “Zeeland.” My farther had a driving school in the “good old days” and we had it pretty good. He had several motor yachts and I got a small sailing boat for children called a “optimist.” My farther encouraged me to sell my old grandmothers stuff on annual markets when I was around 8 years old. My first year I remembered I payed for my own first radio cassette and the next year a radio with CD Player.
Before my age of 10 years old I don’t really remember that much of his behaviors. I think I was a pretty happy kid that loved to play outside and be creative. It’s only the stories of my mother that actually confirmed his behaviors. Behaviors like showing off with material things. Or disapprove my moms interest in other things then working for his business.
My life however turned completely around at the age of 10 years old. My parents went through a divorce and I resisted the change to live with my mother in a completely strange town. I walked away a few times and eventually my farther decided to hire a lawyer to win the custody over me. My first case in courthouse was when I was 11,5 years old and the second when I was 12 because the judge declared that someone from my age can’t or shouldn’t have a free will.
(Personally I think the reason I didn’t went with my mother was because of the fear she was sending out that I picked up as a young empath. The fear of living with a emotional immature man who seems to had traits of a narcissist. My mom gave me the impression that the world (her world) is not safe and secure. So maybe that’s why I resisted to live with her as my farther was way more attractive).
Eventually I was able to live with my farther but on the terms of a “child protection scheme” 
because they thought my farther wouldn’t be a good farther. My farther was in a constant never ending battle against my mother not only to fight against her ideas but also to win the custody over my younger brother. Case after case he lost. He wasted tons of money into his lawyer, his business suffered tremendously and I was a witness of several seizures. It was not just the financial devastation also the mental and emotional struggle was our day to day life.
From moments where I was thrown out on the street on new years evening because I said I am going to party after midnight. To moments of seeing him breaking chairs and other furniture for not getting what he want.
It was either a “peaceful” moment of neglect or catching up his very negative and toxic moods. It felt like I was the one who was constantly trying to meet his needs; like I was the one who was the “emotional care-taker” instead he was there for me. This is how I skipped my child-hood by trying to maintain the “peace” in the household.
I started with smoking when I was 12, working and drinking when I was 14 and I already worked 50 to 60 hours a week in a restaurant when I was 16 years old. Working was for me like a way to be away from home and to suppress my emotions. Also addictions are a way out when we are not “connected”.
I was full with anger and frustration because my emotional needs were never met. This expressed itself by becoming aggressive and violent in high school. Until I had to “pay the price” by beating other kids up and ending up in a fight against three others. This led me to practice Kick-Boxing in order to defend myself and express my anger.
First my farther disapproved this idea because he was afraid I could use this against him.
A bit more light on the darkness.
When I was 17 years old I changed my job from working in a restaurant to a local Mercedes-Benz company. That was the age where I got inspired by local entrepreneurs. I noticed that there were people doing actually very well so I wondered and asked how they did it. How they were able to afford such precious vehicles. I really enjoyed that job as I was eager to listen and learn to what they had to say. From cleaning cars I started to serve customers in the showroom when I was 17-18 years old with making test drives while the salesman was busy.
When I was 20 years old I figured that cleaning cars was something I could easily offer to local car companies as a Self Employed so I created a “Self Created J.O.B.” which was actually quite fun at that age. I invested over €1000 in car-cleaning equipment and offered my car-cleaning 
services to local dealerships and within 2 weeks I was break-even. Soon I had a few regulars clients such as another Mercedes-Benz dealer. I was able to drive a better car, bought a Catamaran sailing-boat and traveled to Peru (2007). Why I traveled to Peru is what you will find out in any second.
My first realization that something was “off.”
During my time on the water I kind of felt connected to the nature around me. However every time I got back to shore I started to feel a very deep emptiness and loneliness inside of me. It was 2006 and was around 23 years old. I still didn’t had a girlfriend, something must be wrong with me?!
That was my first realization that I was very far away from being connected to my True Self. I had very limited believes about the opposite sex because of the believes that were projected on me by my farther. His disappointments and fear of women became mine as well.
Believes like; “women can’t be trusted and they take your money” are just a few.
Anyway I blamed the women in my own country for the lack of connections I had. I said to myself that they are to “masculine” and independent and I couldn’t “connect” with that. I was looking for something that was a bit more feminine. But what I was really looking for was the feminine energy inside of me. (More about that later.)
I started my search on the internet. Long story short but eventually I got into a interesting conversation with a girl from Lima, Peru. After several months of chatting I decided to travel to Peru around Christmas time. This changed everything!
Unfortunately there was not really a “connection” with that girl who I first met. However it was more my travels to a developing country that really opened something up for me. The people were warm, open and happy with the things they had. Something I never experienced before.
Oh btw I was still in college… when I came out of High School I was sick and tired of the school system and I wanna to join the Dutch Marine Corps. My father convinced me to go to college so I joined the Shipping & Transport College in Rotterdam. I had actually no idea what to do but I saw a friend doing that so that’s why I went. (Another symptom of a Narcissistic Abuse Disorder is not knowing what you want for yourself because you are NOT connected with your own feelings).
5 years later and 3 very painful and boring internships at various logistic corporations I decided to sell my car cleaning equipment when I graduated. I applied for a corporate job in the shipping industry as a shipping agent. I couldn’t breathe a “normal 9-5” so that’s why I became a Shipping Agent so I could visit the ships in the port at unregulated times (24-7). I liked the flexible hours. But before I started this new job I first went to Spain to study some Spanish and date another girl (2008). That co-dependent relationship was actually the beginning of opening up emotionally. I came back to Holland with pain in my heart to start that new job. Within weeks I became depressed and felt I didn’t “fit in.” The feeling of not belonging is actually for common for empaths.
(Sept. 2009) 13 months later I decided to leave that corporate job and start my own online business so I could live happily all after in Spain. I attended a few internet marketing workshops, invested in a €3000 course, read a few personal development books such as Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Secret, Think & Grow Rich and many more and believed I could do this and be FREE! I started a drop-shipping business by reselling Led Lights. Long story short but early 2010 I was running out of all my savings and hit rock bottom. Had to give up my rent and had to go back to my father’s place. He thought I lost my mind and kicked me out to my mother. From that age (24) I began to heal my relationship with my mother. All that time before I had a very distorted view about my mother because of my father’s projections on me. I even blamed her for “leaving me” for over a decade.
I began with blogging because I believed the world needed to know about the wisdom of Robert Kiyosaki and called my blog “Hoederijkenrijkenworden” (How The Rich Get Richer). Also, I wrote a lot about personal development, did YouTube videos, and shared them on Facebook. After a while, I was generating around 2-5 leads daily (all organically).
As an inpatient I was and hunger to make money online I promoted all sorts of offers. From Affiliate to Network Marketing but didn’t get much of a response. Unconsciously I positioned myself in the “Make Money Online / Biz Opp Seeker” market and as you might know this is a type of audience that prefers “push-button solutions” instead of working a REAL BUSINESS. 2,5 years later (Sept 2011) I came across a guy who was making money with so-called Traffic Exchangers / HYIPs. In case you never heard about it; never mind and forget it. It’s crap!
Nevertheless I was hungry, didn’t care and wanna to have a quick fix for my money problems so I promoted a deal to my list which was already over 1200 subscribers. They dove all in and purchased a ton of traffic packs. Finally I was making money and I saw my income growing from a few thousands to €10,000 and even over €15,000 a month. Didn’t knew what was going on, quit immediately my job in the docks, purchased a new car and went on a European Road-trip with my new girlfriend (the women I still share my life with) in summer 2012. Times were great and I thought I “was all there.” Never have to worry about money again! But I think you can guess what happened?
End 2012 the end of the world happened. All these crappy programs collapsed and stopped paying out commissions. Lost the trust in my e-mail list and completely burned out my e-mail list by offering way too many other money-making programs. April 2013 – I did not only burn out my list but also myself.
What happened?
What I was doing was unethical and I had to pay the price for it. I was kinda narcissistic myself because all I care about was making money for myself. I didn’t really care that much about others. I mean why should you care about others if nobody ever cared about you? This was actually one of my beliefs I had.
New Chapter of my life – Cutting Cords.
I moved to London in April 2013 to live with my girlfriend and to start all over. I was so burn-out that I didn’t and couldn’t work for several months until I really HAD to. The pressure and unrest I brought to this relationship was pretty high and we definitely had our moments of almost breaking up several times. But we made it so far!
After a while I found a new job as a Internet Marketing Executive for a software company but within 2 weeks they realized I wasn’t the kind of marketer they were looking for so I was again with no job and income whatsoever (maybe I wasn’t a marketer overall).
Also I went to a few other Internet Marketing seminars and workshops. I always tried to network with the speakers. One of them noticed I wasn’t a beginner so he invited me to a VIP meeting with a investor in one of the London skyscrapers. There were also many other internet entrepreneurs making 5 figures a month. I didn’t, I pretended but was flat-broke and rock-bottom. I was feeling depressed, burned-out and I didn’t believe I was in the right place.
Long story short but my first 2,5 years in London I jumped from Taxi job to Taxi job to figure out that London wasn’t the place for me. Or was this another dis-empowering blame on something externally because I still haven’t found who I really am and my place in this world? The pressure in our relationship became even higher so we decided that it would be better for me to go back to Holland.
At the end of 2015, I got back in the shipping industry in Rotterdam with a flexible job, a new apartment near the beach, and time to recover. I continued my journey to Remember…
2015 was a slow but new beginning towards more Inner Peace. Obviously I was still feeling confused, frustrated and lost in a bank of fog but living near the coast helped me a lot to recover from my burn-out. One year later and my contract was ended so I decided to return to London because of my girlfriend. When arrived a tried a few jobs as a Online Lead Generation guy for a recruitment company in Central London and as a Yacht Charter Broker. Soon I found out that the owner of that company was also a narcissist so I got out within 2-3 weeks. I was finally able to recognize these very toxic people and learned to set my boundaries. Get out when you can!
Eventually, I found a job for a company that specializes in sourcing and finding the right car for car buyers. My role was to visit dealers all over the UK to make sure they deliver according agreements. A fun job as I enjoyed traveling and driving fancy cars. Very flexible hours and time to read and study or listening to good music/audios while traveling and being on my own.
In the meantime I also continued my spiritual practice under the guidance of a Shaman. From various workshops such as Soul Retrieval and Ancestral Healing, I came more in touch with my own Essence. Also completing Reiki 1, 2 and master helped me a lot to get more in touch with my own gifts of healing.
You are probably not going to believe this but in summer 2018 my father actually asked for a reiki session. During and after the session he became very emotional because of the death of his father. This really blew my mind! However during Christmas I met my father again and unfortunately I recognized again one his patterns. What happened is what you can read in this article about loneliness.
Now you know a bit of my story. What is your story, your dreams, and your goals?