Tricked: Surviving Life With a Narcissistic Mate

By Lana Jenkins

 

DON'T LET THEM HURT YOU JUST BECAUSE YOU LOVE THEM

This book is about the different 'normals' in life. Normal for some people includes dysfunctional behavior that they are good at disguising. Normal for author Lana Jenkins was being kind, helping others, being a nice person. Lana was rather “low maintenance&r

• Language: English
• Publisher: Author Academy Elite
• Release date: Feb 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781946114976

Lana Jenkins

Lana Jenkins is an author and speaker who helps people reinterpret their past, move beyond the pain of manipulation and control in relationships, and experience a new future of peace and happiness. Lana is now married to Rod and they enjoy the wonderful life God promised them. Together they have five children and five grandchildren, and life is good. They live in Saskatchewan, Canada You too can have the peaceful life God has in store for you too.

Book preview

Tricked

Surviving Life with a Narcissistic Mate

Lana Jenkins

TRICKED © 2019 by Lana Jenkins. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

Published by Author Academy Elite

PO Box 43, Powell, OH 43035

www.AuthorAcademyElite.com

All rights reserved. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission from the author.

Identifiers:

LCCN: 2019917980

ISBN: 978-1-946114-95-2 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-946114-96-9 (hardback)

ISBN: 978-1-946114-97-6 (ebook)

Available in paperback, hardback, e-book, and audiobook

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations identified NIV, are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations identified as NLT are taken from the New Living Translation © 1996, 2004, 2015, by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All right reserved.

Scripture quotations identified as MEV are taken from the Holy Bible, Modern English Version, Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.

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Book design by Jetlaunch. Cover design by Firliefadilah.

Author Photo by Chris de Jong.

Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

DEDICATION

This book is for those people who have encountered life with a narcissist - that is, a controlling, manipulating person. You may have been married to one as I was. You may have worked with one, or gone to school or church with one, or watched your friend try to live with one. At any rate, if you have encountered the narcissist who thinks they can tell you what to do because they are more important than you, then I want to encourage you. You can change that situation.

I want you to learn how to recognize that behavior, and then learn how to deal with it. I discovered, in my marriage, the reasons I normally acted and reacted like I did to my manipulating husband. His idea of normal and my idea of normal, were two different normals - perhaps yours are too. Well, take your life back. This book may help you do that. I sincerely hope so.

PREFACE

I wrote this book to help others stop being fooled or abused. Simple as that. I originally called it Don’t Let Them Hurt You, Just Because You Love Them, but that title seemed too long. The truth is I was tricked into thinking that, because I loved them, it was OK for them to mistreat me, but it is not. Perhaps you’ve been there. Well, time to change that.

I have been thinking about putting what I learned on paper for a long time, and now is that time. I believe people could benefit from the lessons I learned before they go through the schooling I went through. I pray that’s the case. Hear my story and don’t go through some of the stuff I went through—it hurts too much, costs too much, and takes up too much of your life.

Though I didn’t plan to learn those lessons the way I did, I did learn—the hard way. I also discovered that nothing we go through should be wasted. Those hard lessons taught me a lot, and by the end of this book, I hope I can help enlighten you so you don’t have to endure all those experiences yourself.

I never thought that would be me, but I was wrong. I was the one caught in a marriage of neglect and another of abuse. How did this happen?

I would say I am just your normal kind of person—don’t want to hurt anyone, don’t want to be hurt. I think I am a nice person, not very demanding and easy to get along with—one of those ‘low maintenance’ people. That made me a target for some people, and perhaps that makes you a target too. That does not mean someone else gets to determine your outcome.

I had to look at myself. Why was I an easy target? What made me easy to discard or bully? Why did I respond the way I did and let myself be taken advantage of? I looked at things I never thought of on my own, hence this book to shed light on that for someone else. Perhaps I can give you some insight into what made you easy to manipulate and control and how to change that.

I discovered my upbringing had a lot to do with why I allowed others to treat me the way they did, even when I didn’t like it.

I discovered my sanguine, enthusiastic nature was a plus, except when dealing with those controllers who have to have everything their own way. In my naivety, I suppose, I did not have to have my way, so I went along with theirs until there was no other way, and I got lost in all that mess.

I discovered as life went on that previous circumstances and scenarios changed the way I saw myself and, therefore, the way I responded to situations.

I’m here to tell you it does not have to be that way. Discover who you really are, why God put you here, and that you do not have to be used and abused. No one has the right to manipulate and hurt you. The events in our lives should develop our character, not change us into something we were not meant to be.

The world is full of self-help books, courses, and counsellors. Experience is also a great teacher—use mine so you don’t have to endure the same things I did.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I: JUST ANOTHER NORMAL FAMILY

1. How It All Began

2. Our Normal Family

3. I Don’t Want This - It is Abnormal

4. Know Your Enemy - Don’t Be Fooled

PART II: THINGS I LEARNED

5. Pursuing God’s Normal

6. This Was Not Good, Not Normal

7. Losing the Battle - Wrong Normal

8. I Do, But What Do I Do?

WHO YOU ARE AND WHO YOU ARE NOT!

PART III: WHAT I LEARNED THE HARD WAY

9. The Real Enemy

10. Another Move

11. Heading Home—On the Right Track

12. Home at Last and Starting Over One More Time

PART IV: IS THIS FINALLY THE END?

13. We Start Over Again

14. Yes We Really Can Build a Better Home

15. So How Do We Get Our Normals?

16. We Must Teach the Next Generation What Success Is

APPENDICES

PARTING WORDS

THINGS TO CONTEMPLATE

RED FLAGS—the uneasy feeling you get when….

CONCLUSION

The world is full of self-help books, courses, and counsellors. Experience is also a great teacher—use mine so you don’t have to endure the same things I did.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, I have to thank the Lord for keeping me and leading me through difficult times. Writing this book allowed me to shed some light on maneuvering through messy places. In 1997 I was indeed in a messy place: messy marriage, messy move, messy everything. It’s taken me a while to understand what I learned in all that, and finally, it is on paper.

Since then, God has continued to encourage me not to give up and to do something to help others survive and change that mess in their own lives. We seem to live in an increasingly narcissistic world where many people only care about themselves, and it is hurting marriages, families, and society.

God put an I am not a quitter spirit in me, and finally, some of what I learned is in this book. I pray someone else can get some understanding and freedom for their life from my life of control and manipulation. Please don’t let someone else dominate you anymore. You have a great future. It is time to step into it.

The