I love the metamorphic dance of the butterfly. From slow, awkward, unattractive, caterpillar to elegant, graceful, beautiful, butterfly.  This dance is symbolic, illustrating our deep desire to shed the things that hold us back, spread our wings and take flight. It’s our collective hope, that we can start from where we are, and transform into our true potential. It can also represent a type of awakening, after a long slumber, or even a rebirth.

Many people walk through life asleep, never questioning what is, never aspiring to be more, or to grow. These people go through the motions and just accept what is. They are the walking dead. I know they exist, because I was one of them.

My deep slumber was the time that I had abandoned myself, when my life became all about someone else. I had forgotten about the little joys in life, the things that gave me pleasure and I had completely forgotten about all of the things my soul craved for its own growth and happiness. Those were dark times, when I lived in a fog, almost like something else had taken over my body. It felt foreign and unnatural, but little by little it was who I became.

The post-date analysis was one of my favorite pastimes. It was a special time, when my girlfriends and I would get together, usually over a meal, or coffee and we’d laugh about what colossal dating faux pas Savannah made this time. Throughout my various stages of emotional health, I have blundered my way through oodles of men, chalking up one epic dating failure after another, enough to supply RomCom writers with copious amounts of material for decades.

Through it all I have laughed, I have cried, but most importantly I learned. I’ve learned how to discern what certain behaviors and patterns mean, what to watch out for, when to proceed and when to climb out the bathroom window.  I know many of you are absolutely terrified at the prospect of dating and you’ve asked for a few tips, so I’ve compiled a few of my many hard learned lessons, to hopefully prepare you better and alleviate some of your anxiety. My first suggestion though, is to grab a pen and paper and write down exactly what you’re looking for in a partner. When you’ve got it out there – it means you’ve given it some thought, it’s in your conscious mind and you are more apt to notice it when it comes waltzing past you. So, without further ado:

Dating is tough, even at the best of times, but when you’re trying to get back out there, after an abusive relationship with a Narcissist, it can seem like a daunting task.  Through various emails and comments I’ve received, it seems that many of us are sharing the same, post Narcissist dating experiences and  the process is leaving many, feeling upset, frustrated and fearful.

Many months after my relationship ended with a boomerang Narcissist, I decided that I was ready to date again. I had read a ton of books, was seeing a therapist and I looked and felt great. I met a wonderful guy. He was attractive, had his own house, good job, seemed emotionally healthy and treated me better than anyone had ever treated me. I should have been on cloud nine, but I wasn’t. I remember sitting at home crying, missing my Narcissist and I kept wondering, why he couldn’t treat me that way and why I didn’t have the same feelings for my new Mr Wonderful.

Addiction:  a persistent, compulsive dependence on, or commitment to, a habit or practice, on a thing or substance, to the extent that its cessation causes trauma.

There are many definitions of addiction, but bottom line, it’s a dependence on something that causes one to have compulsive thoughts and behaviors, which they cannot control or stop.

Individuals can be addicted to many things such as, alcohol, nicotine, drugs, food, gambling, sex, but when we are talking about an addiction to a person, we usually use the word obsession.  When researches study addiction they often refer to certain neurotransmitters being present in the brain, or certain areas of the brain lighting up, or becoming visible on tests. At present there are no known studies to determine if the same brain patterns exist for an addiction to a person.

I was recently doing some research on addiction, for another publication, when I stumbled across something that fascinated me.

Alisa Valdes was living the dream. She did her undergrad at Berkley and received her Masters of Journalism at Columbia. She landed columns writing for The Boston Globe and later The Los Angeles Times. Her first novel The Dirty Girls Social Club was a huge success and landed her on the New York Times Best Sellers List. She was voted one of the top feminist writers under 30, by Ms Magazine and was even highly touted by feminist icon, Gloria Steinem. By all accounts Valdes’s career had taken off and the future was looking pretty bright…that is of course until she met him.

In 2013 Valdes released a memoir entitled The Feminist and the Cowboy: An Unlikely Love Story.

This memoir depicts the real life romance between Valdes and a rancher named Steve Lane. In it, she discusses the joy she found submitting to this alpha-male, which caused this feminist to make statements such as:

“Never expect anything; instead win him over ‘by giving and giving and giving until it hurts.”

“If an alpha-male cheats, let him. I would share him if I had to.”

“I would hate to have friends over, especially around dinner time. Before every meal my father would preach to us. This wasn’t simply the saying of Grace. He would go on a tirade for ten minutes and this ranting would always include a request for God to show my mother the error of her ways.”- D. Muniz

This ‘religious’ theme in Narcissism comes up a lot. I am often surprised by the copious amounts of messages I receive on the subject. While they may seem like opposite ends of the spectrum,  it does seem that religion and Narcissism really are a perfect match, but why is that?

We’ve all had break-up moments that we aren’t particularly proud of. You know, those scenes where we left the house, but forgot to take our dignity with us, those cringe-worthy moments where our behavior was, well….less than stellar.

Getting dumped hurts and if you’ve been unceremoniously tossed out on your backside, without a how do you do, and the person that ripped your heart out, trots off with someone else, it can stir up a lot of emotions.

You’re dealing with heartbreak, fear, abandonment, jealousy, betrayal, anger, outrage, indignation and all of these feelings are causing the ‘I’m not good enough monster’ to tear up your town in a Godzilla like fashion.