The “Matrix” And Narcissistic Abuse

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” ~ Morpheus, The Matrix

If you’ve seen the movie The Matrix, you’re probably aware of the concepts of the blue pill and its opposite, the red pill. These are popular culture symbols representing the choice between embracing the blissful ignorance of illusion (blue pill) and the sometimes painful truth of reality (red pill).

The concept behind The Matrix has been around for centuries. The film was partly inspired by Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. 

If you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, you may have learned by now that all of their promises of love and vows of change are simply simulations. To continue on the path to the false future the narcissist promises, you may be taking the blue pill every day to make their betrayals seem less traumatic.

“The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.” – Morpheus

The Blue Pill

The blue pill helps you tolerate the lies. These can be around their infidelities or, their devotion, and love to you. The blue pill helps in rationalizing, in your favor, the many clues that they aren’t devoted to you or the relationship at all. 

The emotional pain that results from narcissistic abuse is all-consuming. In many ways, it is more damaging than the abuse itself because, by the time you discover you’re dealing with a narcissist, you’ve already internalized the lies, the blame, and the unbearable betrayals.

Your friends and family, who’ve never experienced this have no idea why it took you so long to leave them and seem to take you so long to get over it and move on.

“Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.” – Morpheus

The grief from narcissistic abuse is complex and difficult to overcome. It is multi-layered and it often easier to ignore than to cope with it. The blue pill helps with the recurrent, cruel events that create PTSD triggers. This happens when the subconscious mind cannot process the frequency and viciousness of the emotional trauma that occurs when you discover the person you’ve shared your life with, have believed in, and have forgiven numerous times has no intention of changing and has been taking you for a fool.

But taking the Blue Pill means less pain. 

However, you know something is very very wrong. You begin searching online why the person you care for lies all the time. Why they break up with you repeatedly, only to insert themselves back into your life. Why they disappear for days or weeks when you only tried to discuss the relationship. Why they’re so verbally abusive. 

Then, you come across the term “narcissist”.

“What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.” – Morpheus

The Red Pill

In The Matrix, Neo takes the red pill and awakens in the real world. He is forcibly ejected from the chamber in which he has been lying unconscious, unaware that he has been nothing more than a life force, a source of food for a computer brain created to make people submissive. 

The false reality of The Matrix was designed to keep humans from knowing they were being used. The people just carried on with their lives, oblivious to the fact that an abusive entity like the computer brain even existed.

Just like Neo, at some point in your journey through narcissistic abuse, you take the first red pill. You become aware of the scope and magnitude of narcissistic abuse.

The first red pill comes with a soul-shattering force which makes it hard to breathe. You wish you could take the “blue pill” again and erase this new knowledge that you’ve been burdened with. But, just like in the movie, once you’ve taken the red pill, the choice is irreversible. You can’t go back.

You discover that you were nothing but a source of supply to the narcissist. Everything they said and did was a campaign designed to keep you ignorant of the truth. But now, you are no longer living in the narcissist’s delusion. You’ve awakened to reality.

Life After the Red Pill

Life after discovering you are in a relationship with a narcissist is difficult to navigate. You’ll often fall back into behaviors you engaged in while under the influence of the narcissist’s matrix. You’ll want to keep dosing yourself with the blue pill. You’ll likely give in to the many hoovering attempts before you realize it’s nothing more than a cycle, a pattern of deceiving you to bring you back into their false world. They do this because they need your life force. You are their supply.

You may ignore the transition from having been their main source of supply to becoming their fallback. You’ll go from being their fiancé, partner, or spouse to being someone they sleep with while asking you to keep it hidden from their new partner. They’ll make it seem normal as if they are only trying to let their new partner down easily because they’ve fallen so deeply in love with the narcissist, that to break it off abruptly would put their new target in jeopardy. This is so they can keep both of you in the mix and set you up for triangulation. 

Knowing about the narcissist’s matrix means you now have to live the truth of narcissism. It means that you are aware they exist and not just a foreign entity you read about.

You’ll begin to read every article you can get your hands on about narcissism and watch hours of video looking for a loophole that shows your narcissist might be different and perhaps just misunderstood. That somehow your relationship is unique and there’s a chance to save it. That despite their meeting all the criteria of being a narcissist, maybe they’re just a wounded soul who needs your undying love.

This is what we all think. 

When you finally leave, you’ll miss the matrix. You’ll try everything in your power to go back to it, but it can’t be undone. You’ll juggle between the brainwashing you experienced in the narcissist’s matrix and new, empowering elements of living in your awakened state. At some point, however, you’ll realize the necessity of staying in your new reality. You’ll begin to comprehend that exiting the narcissist’s matrix is a matter of survival. And only through living in reality, will you come to discover that you do have power over your life, after all. 

You will see just how powerful a being you truly are and that the narcissist and the life you had with him were false.

This is almost impossible to deal with initially however you will after a time see that you are the real person who wants a real-life with a real partner. You can no longer accept the fake life you were in and know there is so much more. It is so freeing for you. Imagine no one lying to you, manipulating you, controlling you, and fighting constantly with you. You will gradually begin to enjoy your life and have your own opinions without ridicule and fear. You can shut off the stove without asking permission or change the radio station in the car without dealing with their rage. Your anxiety will start to dissipate over time and you will see the sun does shine. 

You have come a long way. The journey back to yourself has just begun.

Taking the Red Pill was one of the best decisions of your life. You can’t go back but you realize why would you want to. Moving forward to who and where you want to go is wonderful. It may feel scary at first but you will get the hang of it, believe me. I did have to do some work on myself which cleared the trauma from within that I knew would not go away over time. This was the work that changed me and my life forever. 

Let me know if I can help you.

The work I do with people who have suffered from narcissistic abuse is profound. Send me a message or comment and I will get back to you. I do not need to know the details of your past but I can guarantee your future will be changed and you will begin to live a life you have dreamed about. Set up a free consultation -we can do this via chat and you can get started. You may feel afraid but this too shall pass. 

“I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.” – Morpheus

Love 

Debbi