Introduction.
I always thought that I was a strong person. I always prided myself on my resilience and my ability to handle life’s difficulties. I felt that I knew myself deep down, in ways that many others don’t. Over the years, like many of us, I had been tested by: abandonment, failure, betrayal, heartbreak, illness, loneliness, and by physical and psychological abuse in my formative years. Yet I had come through it all with a strong sense of self love, optimism, gratitude, friendliness, and confidence in myself. Yet despite all of this, when I found myself in a relationship with someone who has full blown narcissistic personality disorder, which was hidden from me at first, I discovered new depths to pain and confusion that I had never thought possible.
Leaving my narcissistic relationship isn’t about just stepping away from someone who has hurt me, I discovered that it’s about disentangling my entire perception of my self-worth and my perception of reality from a monster that I met that appeared human. It changed me in ways I never expected, and the road to recovery at times felt almost insurmountable.
The Relationship: A Descent into Darkness.
At first, my relationship with my narcissist partner seemed like the manifestation of all of my whispered wishes to the universe. A true whirlwind romance and discovering my soul mate. The love-bombing phase was intoxicating—endless attention, compliments, and affection. I felt on top of the world, as if I had finally found someone who could not only see me but also appreciate my worth. We shared our deepest secrets; we shared our stories of pain from our childhoods and we shared our hopes for the future. I did this willingly, openly and honestly, laying myself bare to my love. While my narcissist calculatingly fed me a false narrative of lies and half-truths; all the while coldly gathering data on my weaknesses, my fears, and my dreams to use against me to effectively break my mind down in the future. Love was never present.
I started to develop a sense of uneasiness within me even before the euphoric highs began to fade. I glimpsed what I felt were momentary flashes of red flags such as what appeared to be romantic interests in other men, when we would go out socially, periods of emotional unavailability which left me feeling confused as I was being told how important and special I was, flashes of temper over what seemed like trivial things which seemed out of character and also periods of what felt like punishment by the silent treatment when I was sure that I hadn’t done anything wrong.
Of course, we had made mutual promises to talk about anything that felt uncomfortable to either of us yet when I would express what was on my heart I would be met with one of three responses:
- Pretending not to know what I was talking about or that she could not understand me.
- Gaslighting and using my past against me; i.e. You are imaging things because of those incidents (which I had told her about) that happened to you in your childhood.
- Becoming so upset by my unfounded accusations, even though I had raised my concern in a loving sensitive way, that I felt that I needed to apologise to her for upsetting her so much
- Fury, blind rage, shouting and accusing me of never being happy and only saying it because I wanted to nag her, make her unhappy, or dominate or control her. She would also frequently say some variation of, “well If I’m not good enough for you, you can leave and reject me like my parents did.”
Each of the responses above would be followed by an extended period of punishment; coldness, emotional detachment, withdrawal of physical intimacy and the silent treatment. These were all thing that I had told her affected me badly so now my emotional triggers were being weaponised and used against me. The punishment would continue, sometimes for days at a time, until I would apologise for causing the problem. My initial concern was moot, clearly unimportant and I needed to promise that I would not bring it up again in the future.
I learned that once I had “done the right thing” by apologising even when I was in the right, there would be a renewed short period of love bombing; when I was again the centre of attention, special, loved and could do no wrong. Gradually I lost my self-confidence and my will to mention slights and mistreatment. Also, before saying anything slightly controversial, I would weigh up whether it was worth the argument and subsequent punishment or if I should just turn a blind eye to it. And so over time, I gradually lost my self-respect too.
Reality lost.
Of course, all the red flags and more were real all along, but I was so lost a that point that my mind was just holding on to the railings and waiting for crumbs of affection to fall. What once appeared to be admiration morphed into something sinister. My narcissist, now emboldened quickly turned to manipulation, gaslighting, and emotional blackmail. It was constantly defending myself against wild accusations of lining up future loving and holding on to old ones when I later discovered that, that was what she was doing all along. My mobile phone was constantly searched and I was ordered to break off contact with friends and confidants. It was as if I was caught in a finely spun web, with every thread intricately connected to my self-esteem and my identity.
I began to feel that my worth jumped and plummeted at my partner’s whim. One day, I was everything they desired; the next, I was unworthy of their love. I was constantly second-guessing myself, unsure of what was real and what was just a figment of their twisted narratives. My once confident voice became a muted whisper, drowned out by their demands and critical remarks. The mental gymnastics required to navigate daily interactions left me exhausted.
As the relationship moved into the third act. I found myself increasingly isolated. My partner would dictate who I could see, what I could do, and even how I should think. Friends became distant memories; my family were not good enough and my world shrank to the confines of my partner’s desires. It is said that we become the sum of the five people we spend our time with. Well, I had one voice in my head now, my narcissist’s, and it was increasingly critical, insulting and debasing.
I remember feeling a knot in my stomach every time I would think about trying to leave or speak up about my suffering. Deep down, I knew that my narcissist would retaliate in ways that would further break me down because the repercussions were designed to tap into the psychological weaknesses I had “foolishly” shared the beginning of the relationship. Increasingly as my narcissist received her supply from the other men that she always had in the background of our relationship (I found this out later), I would be humiliated or provoked into lashing out verbally and then I would have a huge sense of shame and guilt which would be exploited by my narcissist and would of course, provoke another cycle of punishment.
The recurring questions.
There are five recurring questions that still occasionally wake me in the night, fill me with a sense of guilt, shame and cause me to doubt in myself, my judgement, my sense of self-worth and my ability to make good choices in the future.
- Why did not have the self-respect to simply walk away?
- How could I have been so stupid as to ignore the signs when they are so obvious now?
- Why was I so weak as to rise to deliberate provocations and to lose myself of self so much that I would lash and cause me to feel ashamed of myself?
- How could I sink so low as to love someone who continually treated me like dirt scum?
- Why after leaving did, I sometimes want to run back to my abuser?
The Aftermath: Feeling Broken and Lost.
So, who the hell are you, I wonder to myself at times? How can I ever take pride in myself when I know that for all of my bravado and my life accomplishments, I met someone who was greater than me. I met someone who was strong enough to, dominate, trick, and manipulate me and someone who was not only able to turn me into a slave, but worse still, someone who turned me into a willing slave, eager to please and desperate for crumbs of affection?
My shameful truth is that I gave my all and I lost against someone who someone broke me, broke others before me and is already in the process of breaking others more as I write this.
So how do I recover after being unravelled psychologically? What do I recover having changed my nature to the point that I became someone I could not recognise in the mirror? Which then leads me to the question, am I even worthy of recovering, having allowed someone to manipulate me like a child and show me that I was not in fact the person I believed myself to be.
Yes, eventually, I mustered the courage to leave. However, the freedom I longed for came with a heavy price. I didn’t just walk away; I staggered into a landscape of emotional debris, dragging my shattered sense of self along with me. The toxicity of my previous relationship followed me and seeped into my new reality. Even into my newfound freedom, I found myself suffocated by anxiety and self-doubt at times. This PTSD still occasionally visits my mind reminding me that I am not yet fully free and that there is still more work to be done. My narcissist’s gaslighting had eroded my ability to trust my own thoughts. I sometimes I questioned whether my feelings are valid or if I am overanalysing.
Once I was out, I found that the once vibrant person I had been was obscured under layers of shame and self-blame. I was worried that I in a moment of madness I would willingly return to my abuser. I felt unworthy of love, unlikable at times, and, most painfully of all, I felt utterly alone. My narcissist’s voice and their valuation of me, even though it was negative, was gone and I was so lonely.
Social interactions became daunting as I worried about judgment and abandonment. With every compliment or friendly gesture, I would be suspicious of the thought that maybe that I was being set up again or that they saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself anymore. I was haunted by the voices of my past, the doubts that my narcissist had planted. “You are not enough,” they echo, rendering me both paralysed and desperate for connection and bizarrely at times wanting to run back to my abuser for validation and to check how I should be feeling.
What does recovery look like for me?
I have found that my recovery isn’t a simple matter of moving on; it’s more like peeling back scars, layer by layer. Learning to forgive myself, love myself and to reinvent myself, all while struggling with feelings of guilt and confusion. Sometimes I even question whether I had done something to deserve that level of mistreatment. I have found that educating myself about trauma bonding, narcissistic personality disorder and the systems that these monsters use to snare, trick, and manipulate have helped me immensely. I rarely spiral into panic and despair now and I can see that the webs of thought that made me feel so unworthy are falling away.
I do not forgive my narcissist. What she did to me didn’t happen by accident. She was fully conscious of what she was doing when she lied to me and gaslighted me. She intentionally tried to destroy me and all but succeeded. So no, she doesn’t require forgiveness but I do. I needed to find a way to forgive myself for the guilt that I felt and I needed to be kind to myself for falling in love with a façade of a human being. So that is where I focus my energy using affirmations, hypnotic therapy, CBT and all underpinned by study and educating myself about my dark journey into the light.
Conclusion: A Journey Worth Taking.
Healing from narcissistic abuse takes time courage and work but I wake happier each day, and each day presents an opportunity for growth it involves understanding, validating, and accepting all the parts of me that have endured and my story is still unfolding.
So how did I survive my narcissistic relationship? Well, the truth of the matter is that I didn’t, not completely, a part of me was shattered and lost forever, but I am healing. I have educated myself about narcissistic personality disorder and work every day on shifting my validation from outside of myself to internal self-validation. I push forward with my own projects taking pleasure in my own achievements. Most importantly the narcissist’s critical voice has all but gone. I have now calmed it to a lying whisper within my mind, unimportant and under control. I now have my own internal voice again, changed from the naïve voice that had before. Strong but wary, determined but cautious. There is still work to be done but I am doing it and that is how courage is, and after everything that has happened, I’m proud that I’m choosing to be courageous.
