Re: Bittersweet...

Lakelight-

Of course you are sad, and of course you have a head cold! We are definately physically influenced by our emotions. Louise Hay has a book about that.

The grief that I still feel is really the futility of it all. All that effort to love someone with NPD, only to learn that you CAN'T - they really won't let you. And the sorrow of losing the fantasy - that they will somehow "come to" amd become an authentic person. But they won't. They go storming off into the night with their fist raised, cursing YOU because you won't "act right". My biggest heartache is the knowing that my dad sits somewhere feeling "deprived of his grandchildren" and unloved by me because I won't run to him in his old age. The combination of grief and guilt that I feel gives me some bad days sometimes, really bad days. But I try one day at a time to focus on other things and other people that love me in a healthier way. It's hard, but it can be done. Sometimes I make it through a whole day without that "twinge". Not trying to be discouraging, but honest. I do feel that when it's a parent situation as opposed to a spousal deal, that it is harder, you learn how to get through it. You can leave a spouse, and kind of dust your hands off over time, but the person that created you is literally connected to you by the thread of life itself. This makes it more difficult, in my opinion.

What I did was the most loving thing that I could have done for myself, and even for dad. He now has a chance, albeit a slim one, to change. Will he in time? Only God knows that one. What you did was the right thing to do. Sometimes the right things are the harder things.

I am with you...
keep in touch, take care of that cold, it is emotional detox.