Sept. 8, 2024

Overcoming Narcissistic Abuse: Martina Gruppo's Inspiring Journey

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In this episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, host Curveball sits down with English author Martina Gruppo, who shares her compelling story of living through and overcoming a relationship with a covert narcissist. Martina opens up about how her lack of boundaries allowed the relationship to persist for so long and how she ultimately found the strength to leave and rebuild her life.

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> Curtis Jackson>Welcome, to the Living the Dream podcast with curveball. if you believe you can achieve Chee Chee.

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> Curtis Jackson>Welcome to the living the Dream with curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today I am joined by english author Martina.

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> Curtis Jackson>She wrote a book about her life detailing her relationship with a covert narcissist. So we're going to be talking to her about her book and how she says her lack of boundaries allowed her to be in this relationship for so long.

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> Curtis Jackson>So, m Martina, thank you so much for joining me today.

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> Curtis Jackson>Thank you. I'm delighted to be here. Thank you.

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> Curtis Jackson>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

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> Curtis Jackson>Oh, gosh. Well, I am single. I am living in Italy, just south of Rome, on the coast, in a house that I have refurbished all by myself. Sorry. And, I write. I absolutely love writing.

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> Curtis Jackson>I have guests come and stay through Airbnb in my spare room, which is fantastic because it opens up a whole new world for me. You know, I meet lots of people socially that way.

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> Curtis Jackson>I love my garden. I love my indoor plants. And, What else can I tell you? I speak languages.

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> Curtis Jackson>I speak English and French, Italian and Spanish. yeah, I think that's about it. I can be. I love cooking. I absolutely adore cooking. And I love cooking for my guests. And, But I'm not very good at baking. I'm good at cooking, but I'm not great at baking. And generally speaking, yes, I. And sometimes, to supplement things, I teach English online to italian students.

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> Curtis Jackson>I have regular italian students. Can't think anything. I can't think of anything else, really. I love traveling around and going to places on my own. And that's. Yeah, that's a bit.

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> Curtis Jackson>That's about all, really.

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> Curtis Jackson>Well, kind of let the listeners know what made you to decide to become an author.

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> Curtis Jackson>I think I've always loved writing, right from when I was very, very young. It's a strange thing. I think I've always, adored words, language, that kind of thing. And because we used to go to Italy quite a lot when I was younger, I've always been open to languages and hearing them and words were another thing. Just putting sentences together, creating. Doing creative writing at school was a huge thing for me. So writing has always been a big thing for me. What I wasn't expecting was to end up publishing, self publishing a book about my relationship with a covert, narcissist. I think that's when things change and then it becomes. I can honestly say that wasn't the book that I was expecting to write.

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> Curtis Jackson>I kind of expected to write a huge, big love story about how wonderful things were and the relationship that I had. But it sort of turned out to be quite a much darker thing that I wrote about.

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> Curtis Jackson>Well, kind of tell us about that relationship, you know, to tell us how it began and how it ended and anything else you want to tell us about it.

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> Curtis Jackson>Well, I mean, it began the very first time when I was very young, in my early twenties. It began when I went to live in. When I came to live in Rome for the very first time. And the very first time I lived here, I fell for somebody who I.

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> Curtis Jackson>Who, when I first saw him, he kind of encapsulated my dream sort of man, I guess.

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> Curtis Jackson>And that very first time, I think when you fall head over heels in love with somebody, you don't look at anything else.

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> Curtis Jackson>You just, you know, you're just in the moment. You're young, and you're enjoying everything, and it's. It's unbelievable. And the relationship, which I write quite a lot about in the book, came to an end, or unfortunately for me, or at least that I took it on all the responsibility I felt it came to an end as a result of what I wanted to do, because I wanted to go to, I wanted to go back to England. I wanted to go back and live in England. I didn't want piecemeal jobs anymore. I wanted a career and a life and for us to be together. And so I decided that my idea of doing this would be to go back and study and have a degree. I just hoped and thought that he would come with me, but he had very different ideas. And so we broke up in our early twenties. So I went off and I had a very different life, and I did all sorts of different things, and I was never really happy. I think I always shouldered the blame for having gone my own way, if you like, and, going my own way brought with it sort of responsibilities in terms of.

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> Curtis Jackson>I always thought that it was my fault that that first relationship had finished. So when he contacted me the second time, which we're talking about nearly 20 years later, I felt that this was my huge opportunity to be able to do something to fix all the problems that had occurred beforehand. Do you see what I mean? To be able to go back and have the happy ending that we didn't have the first time around. And so I ended up in a relationship with somebody who then came over to England. Because I think, in retrospect, it suited him.

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> Curtis Jackson>And, that then started a complete downfall, which I wasn't really aware of for nearly eleven years. But I didn't realize that bit by bit he was taking me apart and I was losing myself. when you're in a relationship with a covert narcissist, you don't really know until you actually leave. During my time with him, all I was trying to do was to make everything good, make everything wonderful, make everything work. And, you can't do that by yourself. When you're in a relationship, it takes two. So that's really the story. And, that's what I wrote about in the book.

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> Curtis Jackson>Well, I know you mentioned that you were unhappy, so if you were unhappy, what made it hard for you to leave, you know, just because you were unhappy?

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> Curtis Jackson>Oh, it wasn't just a question of not being happy. I lost myself, I lost my personality. I was with somebody who I was covering for, even though I wasn't aware of it. I was covering for the way I wasn't being treated properly. I was paying for everything. Yet at the, same time, when he didn't find any work, he was using me as his wingman, if you like, I would defend him to everybody else. Yet there was a part of me that was really struggling with the idea that he didn't work, whereas I was working for jobs.

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> Curtis Jackson>He didn't like, where we were going on holiday, yet he wasn't paying for it. He criticized the fact that I was work obsessed, but he wasn't doing any work.

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> Curtis Jackson>In that sense. You start to go through your spiraling. You don't actually realize where you are or what's happening.

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> Curtis Jackson>And then if you try to leave, I did try to leave. I wanted to end it because I didn't feel like it was going anywhere. And of course, when he felt that he was losing what's termed as a supply, he pulled me back in. He fished me back in. No, no. With empty promises. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. This is going to make everything better. Don't worry about it. I'm going to get a job. And I believed him because I had constantly this feeling that beforehand it was all of my fault. So the idea that if I let it go again, it would be my fault again, stopped me from leaving.

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> Curtis Jackson>And also the question of why didn't you leave? Or why didn't you just walk away is a really tough one because ultimately you don't walk away because you are totally brainwashed by the person that you're with.

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> Curtis Jackson>And when you're brainwashed, nothing that you do or say or think about.

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> Curtis Jackson>Is.

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> Curtis Jackson>What you're really feeling. It's everything to do with what they want or how they perceive things. And, so you lose yourself. You're being destroyed, bit by bit, to try and make everything right. That's why you don't leave, because you're afraid.

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> Curtis Jackson>Well, is narcissism just a label, or, you know, give your definition of narcissism.

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> Curtis Jackson>Is narcissism just a label?

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> Curtis Jackson>Yes. It's so easy to generalize it, and it's been picked up by the media as something which is just used to describe bad behavior. But when you're with a malignant narcissist, you know perfectly well how bad things are. You know, because being in an abusive relationship, you don't just walk away from it. You don't just.

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> Curtis Jackson>You don't just leave. How can I explain this? I know that there are an awful lot of, labels out there which talk about the fact that narcissistic abuse or a narcissist is just somebody who is incredibly vain and entitled.

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> Curtis Jackson>But when you're in a relationship with somebody who is lying to you and, making you doubt who you are in your own reality, it's not just a label. And, in fact, if I was to call it a sort of coercive control, would that make it any better? Would that make people realize that it was something more serious?

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> Curtis Jackson>Because when you have somebody who manipulates you and everything that you do and every way that you behave, maybe that would make people sit up and pay more attention, because narcissism, as everybody is describing it, is almost used too easily just to describe bad behavior.

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> Curtis Jackson>Real narcissistic abuse by somebody who's covering it up all of the time, like a covert narcissist, is horrific. And if you're in the middle of it, you don't talk about it, you protect them.

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> Curtis Jackson>Wow.

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> Curtis Jackson>How has this relationship changed you? How are you different now versus before the relationship?

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> Curtis Jackson>I, I'm entirely different. I.

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> Curtis Jackson>Having left him. I have a video of my house when I was doing it up. and I have this on my, substack page. And I posted the video because it's so clear the difference in me between three years ago and now he took that video of me walking around this house, when I was talking about my plans to do it up, and I looked like a completely different person. Three years down the line, I look lighter. I feel like a huge weight's been lifted off me. I'm more confident. I've got my self esteem back. Of course, the first thing that you have to do when you leave an abusive relationship is you have to acknowledge what's happened. That took a lot of time for me to be able to acknowledge and say it was all a lie. It was. None of this was true. I was with somebody who I now have to look at everything in a completely different view, because everything I believed in was so wrong. Once you get that out of the way, and that takes a long, long time, you then start to allow yourself to be angry, allow yourself the times when you're happy. Allow yourself to really feel the peace. That's quite an incredible feeling, because the peace brings happiness.

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> Curtis Jackson>So, I did those two parts, and that has resulted in me building up my self esteem and reconstructing my personality. Not my personality, my confidence. My personality was always there. I just had to allow it to happen again. And now I am happier, and I am more at peace, and I'm more confident with who I am.

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> Curtis Jackson>But do you know what? There are times when sometimes somebody comes along and they break that, and then you realize how fragile you are and that you have to keep striving for that piece, because it's not. I am m a work in progress. I am constantly striving to be a better person and to be more confident and to be more me. But sometimes it just takes one person who comes along, and I don't know. You know, I can be right back there. It can be triggering, and I can feel like I'm walking on glass again. And that really makes me realize how. How brittle it is and, actually not how brittle, because I'm much, much better and much stronger now. But what it makes me realize is how deep the trauma is.

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> Curtis Jackson>You know, I don't know how to explain this, but. Because in the book, I've also talked about physical abuse, not with him, but with somebody else previous, a long, long time ago. Physical abuse is far easier to see, and, people feel sympathetic and, oh, my goodness, no, he shouldn't do that.

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> Curtis Jackson>Nobody should hit anybody else.

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> Curtis Jackson>But when the trauma is psychological, there is far less understanding. And, what ends up happening is that the person who's going through this pretends that everything's okay, but they're not okay because it runs really, really deep and manifests in different ways. So, yes, I am a much, much better person now, and I am trying my best to build up my self esteem, my self confidence, my strengthen, and, you know, keep the light shining that I, reignited, if you like. But don't let's muck around. It's hard because they do a lot of damage. It's not to be underestimated.

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> Curtis Jackson>Well, do you still believe in love after all that you've been through?

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> Curtis Jackson>Yeah, I do. But maybe I do because I see it and I've seen it around, but I don't believe I've had it necessarily.

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> Curtis Jackson>certainly not long term, unless it was from my wonderful dad. But no, I, haven't experienced it in terms of a long term relationship. But I do believe, and I really hope it will happen to me in the future. I really do.

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> Curtis Jackson>Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

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> Curtis Jackson>Well, I'm having, a. I'm constantly on my blog, which is on substack and writing about that. And I plan eventually, because I'm going to be leaving Italy.

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> Curtis Jackson>I don't think I can stay here forever. And I think my time is almost coming to an end here.

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> Curtis Jackson>And I really hope to write part two of the book because I'd really like there to be, you know, an acknowledgement of the person that you can become after such a traumatic relationship.

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> Curtis Jackson>And yeah, I really do believe that. I, ah, think that's what I would like to do. I would like to carry on writing because it seems that my writing is, is liked, which is really, really lovely. But, it's something that I would like to do as a, second part to the book, if you like the closure on everything.

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> Curtis Jackson>Well, tell the listeners the name of the book where they can get it. And throw out your contact info so they can check out your blog.

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> Curtis Jackson>Oh, wow. Yes. That would be amazing. the book is called hello Flower. It's by Martina Grupo. It's on Amazon and, available on Kindle as well. And, my substack is just simply enter my name so that, you'll be able to find me. And I've got all sorts of writing about, you know, various different subjects, whether it's just the writing process itself or, you know, how, how I am now. There's also a previous blog about when I went through breast cancer, which was ten years ago. But, you know, it's just keeping in touch and letting people know as well. You're not on your own. Anybody going through anything like this, you are not on your own.

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> Curtis Jackson>There are so many of us out there.

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> Curtis Jackson>Okay, we'll close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to touch on that you would like to talk about or, just any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

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> Curtis Jackson>The only thing that I would really like to say to anybody is trust your instincts. When you meet somebody, if there is something that feels off, trust your instincts. I'm still learning how to do that, but your body tells you far, far sooner. Your physical being tells you before your head does. And, lay down boundaries because the right people will stick around. You know, having boundaries in place isn't a selfish thing. Having boundaries in place is a good thing to do because it lets people know what you will and won't put up with.

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> Curtis Jackson>It's not a selfish thing. It's a, self protective aura, that you should have in place at all times.

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> Curtis Jackson>All right, ladies and gentlemen, lay down those boundaries and remember, you're not on your own. Check out Martina Guppo's book follow rate Review share this episode to as many people as possible.

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> Curtis Jackson>If you have any guests or suggestion topics, Curtis Jackson, 1978 at att.net is the place to send them. Jump on your favorite podcast app. Follow us. Leave us a review. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Martina, thank you for joining us and being so brave and courageous to share your story.

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> Curtis Jackson>Thank you very much for having me on your show. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you.

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> Curtis Jackson>For more information on the living the Dream podcast, visit www.djcurvefball.com.

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> Curtis Jackson>until next time, stay focused on living the dream. Dream.