A narcissist doesn't choose you because you are weak

Narcissists have a basic need to rid themselves of prevailing emptiness. They frequently achieve this by carefully choosing a victim who is then charmed, seduced and trapped. The victim’s energy feeds the stalker and provides what he lacks.

Being incapable of love, these narcissistic stalkers are ravaged by the furious envy they feel for those who truly enjoy life. We’re not talking of material assets, but of moral qualities: vitality, empathy, sensitivity, creativity, goals, and life projects. Besides, they’re not so easy to identify. They can easily switch their attitude from being charming and caring, to being ruthlessly critical and dismissive, feeding the victim’s confusion and self-doubt.

Narcissist stalkers frequently look for these 5 traits in their victims, some of which might surprise you (but are NEVER the victim’s fault):​

1. Above Average Intelligence.

Emotional stalkers seek very intelligent, really bright, highly skilled, well-trained victims. They look for enthusiasm and passion about their career.

2. Good Work Ethic and Personal Accountability.

3. Extreme Perfectionists.

Stalkers look for their victims to be very responsible and hard workers, always complying with an excellent achievement of responsibilities assigned.

4. Dependable and Always Ready to Help Others.

Victims tend to keep a low profile and have no wish to overshadow friends or work colleagues.

5. Underlying Low Self-Esteem and Low Self-Confidence.

Victims of emotional stalkers crave acknowledgement from their partner but can be humble and doubting their worthiness of it. 

A narcissist therefore is attracted to you because of your strength and good qualities and not because you are weak!

Trauma bonds a victim to their abuser

After everything that my ex narcissist boyfriend put me through emotionally and physically which far ouweighed the good times as well as the times he was being ok to me, not coming anywhere near to making his behaviour balanced or even close enough to compensate for his abusive behaviour, I still had deep feelings for him that would eventually mean that I would go back to him!

These feelings were not always there especially when he was dishing out his abuse and for the day or so after in which time I would feel hatred, anger and total disgust for him but no matter what he did, for some reason I would not hold onto these bad feelings towards him for long and would always revert back to feelings of loving him as well as inconsolable guilt for me abandoning him and for the hurt he was going through that had been caused by me leaving him.

This was something that I just couldn't understand let alone try to explain to my family and friends who were of the opinion that if it really was that bad then why did I keep going back to him and how could I possibly still love him unless of course I was somehow also to blame for his behaviour as afterall it takes two!

I knew without a doubt that I had done nothing to cause the abuse but I sadly couldn't explain why if that was the case, I still kept going back and not always due to fear but because I wanted to as I loved him and missed him when I was not with him to the point that I would feel so low and depressed until I was with him again!

I was fully aware that the relationship was toxic and I had in the past ended relationships with people who I loved  for a lot less reasons knowing that it was not quite right for me (all of which however were so much better for me than the relationship I now had for sure) but I  had not struggled to
end these relationships and stick to my guns in the past even when it hurt to say goodbye.

The relationship I was now in was so wrong and I had been subjected to just about everything that I thought I would  never tolerate and had never come close to tolerating in the past but I was bound to him for some reason and I felt helpless in my attempts to rationalise why this was!

That was until I stumbled across an article about trauma bonding that can occur when a victim is subjected to high levels of abuse which can cause extreme changes in the brain of the victim due to the intense pressure that they feel under to survive that actually causes a chemical reaction in the brain to produce high levels of cortisol as well as dopamine which put simply means that the victim becomes addicted to low levels of kindness
and safety shown by the abuser in the times when he is not inflicting the abuse even if only for a short time which can cause the victim to bond with the abuser in a very similar way that a drug addict becomes dependent upon a drug just to feel good. Those times when an abuser is not abusive and showing some kindness gives the victim the release from the heightened feelings of fear and anxiety so that the brain becomes wired to get pleasure in these times and also craves these moments much the same as an addict craves drugs.

This made sense to me and gave me the reason I was searching for to explain why I found it hard to get away from him for good despite being totally aware that what is was doing was not acceptable to me and wrong on every level!

I knew that he was the problem and not me

I have read many articles about victims of narcissistic abuse losing their identity and doubting their own mind so much  that they start believing that they are the person that the narcissist has constantly told them they are and so they start to blame themselves for the abuse thinking it is somehow their fault..

This did not happen to me as I knew exactly who I was and no matter how many times he would tell me that I was this or that, I always knew that he was wrong and that he was the problem! I never once doubted that either as he was the only person who I had ever met in my life that saw me in that bad light.

However I think that this made it harder for me as I would endure hours and hours on end of him constantly trying to brain wash me and break me into believing that I was all the awful things that he would tell me over and over again that I was and when I would not agree and accept it, his abuse continued and stepped up a gear. It was like torture!

In the early days I would constantly defend myself and express my thoughts on why I was not going to accept his opinions about me and justify myself in a non confrontational manner but it was draining.

After I had done this numerous times without any success,  I became more submissive in my response to his allegations and accusations and would no longer try to justify myself but I would still never relent and say that he was right.
As time went on and his abuse continued, I felt exhausted and so I did on occasions not even bother to justify or defend myself and just say nothing but I still would not submit and say he was right even though at times I felt that if I just agreed with him then he would stop his relentless torture in which he would repeatedly say over and over again in quick succession and in a way that he clearly was trying to provoke me as well as trying to confuse me by twisting the facts and my words.

I dont know how many thousands of times he told me that I was a liar, a cheat, selfish, manipulative, materialistic, egotistical, stupid and that I was fooling myself into thinking that I was someone that I was not. I did not however doubt for one moment that I was any of those things and although he was driving me crazy in other ways such as making me feel constantly anxious, in fear and resentful, I knew that he would never be able to make me doubt myself and who I was and he never did!

The value of writing about my experience

When I was in the relationship with my ex narcissist boyfriend I couldn't think straight as I was constantly in fear and anxious and in a state of high alert waiting for the next attack.

Also when in the relationship with a narcissist you are not able to express your true feelings and emotions for fear of the repercussions so I wasn't able to think or feel straight and in constant fear in the end.

It sends you crazy and your thoughts become disorientated and you start forgetting even basis things as your brain has to function in survival mode and therefore will make head space in order to do this.

I was living in fear that he was quite capable of killing me as I had felt close to being killed by him in the past when he had lost control and had raged like a wild animal when he was in a paranoid and delusional state and convinced himself that I was working for the ‘system' to destroy him so therefore felt he would have to kill me first!

Once I was out of the relationship and out of the danger in another country, my head was swirling around with a confusing mix of the many different terrifying events that had occurred and although I wanted to just shut it all out, I couldn't and these jumbled memories were all I could focus on and were still torturing me so I still wasn't free from him.
However because I was out of the situation, it was expected and presumed by my friends and family that I would be fine now as it was over and I should be happy to be back in England but I was not fine and I was not happy!

I had noone to discuss these things with and no desire to discuss them with anyone anyway as I felt noone understood.

I knew that I had to process these things in order for them to get out of my head and for me to start the healing process and that leaving him and returning to England did not mean it was over and I could forget all about it now which my family and friends were certain of.

I needed to try and understand what exactly had happened in order to get clarity and closure as I was in a state of disbelief and shock that this had happened to me and I couldn't understand why or how it had happened or exactly what I feeling about it all and him..

I just started writing down the bits that were in my head that were giving me nightmares and despite it being in just bits and pieces at first and I couldn't recall all of that particular event, I was able to roughly place these bits and pieces in the order in which they happened.

I was also able to remember the start of the relationship and of course me leaving him and before long more and more of the haze inbetween would come back.

It was just like doing a jigsaw puzzle and the more I got out of my head onto paper, the more space I made in my head to bring to the surface those memories that had been suppressed until I was able to complete the puzzle.

This process of writing about it I found to be very therapeutic and was the only way I had to help me get through it.

It gave me a sense of purpose to begin with and then clarity and closure as well as help me to heal by allowing me to see the whole picture when I read it all back as a complete story after the 10 months it had taken me to get everything down in writing that I felt like I needed to.

I was able to revisit this entire chapter of my life from a safe place and with total honesty and finally get peace and the strength to close the book on it and move forward.

I decided to put my story in the public domain so it can be read by all. 

It hasnt been edited and is as it was when  I first wrote it down  page by page as I wrote it for me and noone else initially so I apologise if there are parts that don't seem as clear as they could to the reader but neverless, I hope that it can be of help to others who have suffered from abuse or are still suffering.

Should you have any questions or would like more details or clarification about any part of what I have written then please do let me know and I will be happy to help...

Abuse is abuse by whatever name its called

You may not ever know for sure whether your abuser is a narcissist but thats not important! 

The one big lesson I had to learn the hard way by being in an abusive relationship with a man who turned out to be narcissistic was that there is no excuse for abuse, its not your problem and not your responsibility to fix his issues and certainly not for you to be used for him to take it out on! 

By all means you can support him if he decides to seek help but he has to do it to help himself and if he doesn't want to get help when knowing that he could lose you, he is certainly not likely to seek help while he knows that you will tolerate it and clearly doesn't care enough about what he is putting you through if he is continuing to behave that way towards you and hasnt tried to get help to stop! Therefore this may well mean he is a narcissist but it doesn't matter what label can be assigned to him as it doesn't make it right nor is it going to give him the excuse to abuse you or be a reason why you have to accept it!

Your life and wellbeing should not have to suffer to accommodate the issues of another person that you are not the cause of!

I believed my ex narcissist boyfriend was damaged by his past and that he would get better in time when the trust grew but he got worse. I then thought that he was suffering from mental illness and most likely schizophrenic so I excused his abusive behaviour and believed it wasn't his fault because he was ill and tried to get him help but he wasnt interested when it came down to it but would promise to do whatever it took for me to not abandon him when I had had enough but he was just keeping me sweet! 

When we separated for a while, in that time he was the perfect person and showed no signs of his abusive behaviour but as soon as I got back with him, it would start all over again…

 I tried everything I could to help him and as a result he destroyed my life by gambling away my life savings, smashing up my home and my personal belongings as well as beating me up and making me feel exhausted, fearful and full of anxiety, not to mention obligated to stand by him as he made me feel guilty that everyone else in his life had abandoned him!

I wrote about my experience so I hope others who are trying to work out whether their abuser is narcissistic or not, will read it and it may give the answers that you need to decide whether you are being subjected to narcissistic abuse or just abuse but above all will realise that you don't have to suffer from abuse of any kind!

I could understand why he was abusive but it didn't make it ok

When I was with my narcissist boyfriend and he had beaten me as well as mentally abused me to the point of me feeling that I was going crazy, I had so much anger inside me that I wanted to kill him, even contemplating for a split second about throwing an electrical device into the bath whilst he was in it as well as having thoughts of stabbing him if he hit me again which I couldn't actually go through with when it came down to it but I did on one occasion fight back and I did so as I believed he was going to kill me and it was either going to be him or me. However I did question after these events whether I was any better than him for allowing myself to be pushed enough to lose control and becoming quite capable of acting exactly how he was, especially when I was aware that narcissists are often the way they are due to some sort of abuse that had occurred in their childhood! My abuse was happening to me as an adult and yet still I had been pushed to the point where I too was quite capable of inflicting the type of revenge against him or even anyone who caused me to feel threatened at that time that he was inflicting on me even though I was not the person who hurt him and I was well aware that at that time in a moment of madness I too was more than capable of losing it with anyone who happened to get in my way or piss me off at that time or just cross my path and they would have most definitely beared the brunt of my aggression that would not have been their fault either. He had been damaged as a child and was angry and now saw danger everywhere because of it and therefore he was, in a way, protecting himself and only acting that way because of his childhood injuries that clearly had destroyed his life and now I was more than capable of acting that way too after suffering the abuse from him. In a strange way I could actually understand why he was like he was!

What I learned from being in an abusive relationship

I have been out of the relationship with my ex narcissist boyfriend for nearly a year now and I still have no desire to have a relationship with anyone at the moment. What I learned from being with my ex narcissist boyfriend was that I was stronger than I realised and that there is nothing that life can throw at me now that I don't feel like I could survive. I have been through hell and I have lost everything because of it and I was shown very little support from my family and friends during the abusive relationship and after I got myself out of it. I therefore have realised that the only person I can ever count on is me and knowing this has made me feel empowered and that I am enough. I also have learned that I will always put myself and my needs first now and will think twice about helping others in the future as when the time that I needed help came after I had done so much for others, there was noone there for me!

The extremes of being in an abusive relationship

My ex narcissist boyfriend was able to make me feel like the most important person in the world and was loving attentive and caring as well as romantic.

During these times, I felt blessed and I was totally in love with him and would have been happy to spend my life with him. When we spoke about marriage and having a family together I had no reservations whatsoever about this being part of our future together. Valeri would refer to me as his wife and would introduce me as his wife on meeting new people.

Valeri had the ability to make me feel like the star of my very own romantic movie and like the luckiest girl on the planet. He would arrange candlelight picnics on the beach in summer where we would swim and lay down under the stars. He would take me to remote beautiful places to watch the sun rise or set. He would come to my home and leave love notes or a flower on my pillow in the night when I was sleeping or built a fire so that I would wake up in the warm and there was so many other things that he did that showed thought and effort that made me feel loved and valued as well as safe and secure with him in a way that I had never felt before....

However Valeri was also able to make me feel like the person he hated most in the world and would insult me, criticise me, accuse me of the most heinous crimes as well as mentally and physically abuse me and I feared him more than I had ever feared anyone and at times I hated him with all my heart for what he would do to me and for how bad, worthless, disrespected and unloved he could make me feel.

The problem was that he wasnt always horrible and after an episode of inflicting the worst possible pain on me, he would go back to being the most amazing man in the world and I would forgive and forget what he had put me through until the next time it happened.

In the end however I was finding it harder and harder to forgive him and still felt resentful towards him even during his perfect boyfriend times but it got to the point that I was unable to express to him how I really felt about the abuse he had made me suffer with after it was over and had to go along with his romantic guestures and play the part of the loving girlfriend when in reality I was struggling to get past the last bout of abuse he had dealt me on top of all the other occasions and especially those times when he had beaten me up which I was constantly afraid he would do again if it came down to it so therefore now had to just be submissive when he started on me and just take it rather than defend myself and run the risk of making him more angry and more likely to end up with him hitting me.  

When I tried to explain this to him in his calmer moods, he would just brush it under the carpet and refused to discuss it by saying that he would never hit me again and wanted me to just let it go so if I carried on trying to make my true feelings known or acted in any way other than respond to him being the loving boyfriend by being the loving girlfriend, this would just end up triggering his rage again so I learned the hard way that it was safer for me to say nothing and just pretend I was over it and didn't hold a grudge against him when it was over and he was back to being nice which was not easy as not only did I feel abused in the bad times, I was now feeling abused in the good times by having to go along with being in love and appreciate the romantic things he did when I resented him for tarnishing them all now but I was also feeling resentment that I was unable to express my true feelings and emotions about how he was destroying the way I felt about him in the good times due to his abusive behaviour in the bad times.

I just had to be the way he wanted me to be which I had to pretend to be on some occasions especially towards the end.  

Eventually I fled the relationship with just the clothes on my back when I knew another episode of violence was coming and I just didn't have it in me to endure it again and have to then go through the romance period again especially when I felt more and more in fear of what he was capable of doing during the abusive episode as I was certain that he would no doubt end up killing me in the end.

I was not sure if it would happen this next time that was almost certainly coming and he was already building up to and past the point of no return so I knew it would and could happen at any moment now and I was on edge and anxious just waiting for the fallout.

I knew that I had to leave before he got the chance to do it again which I was sure would have been that night if I hadn't have left when I did. 

Whether or not it would have been that time or the next that he may have killed me was not a risk I was prepared to take!

Domestic violence in Bulgaria

My time in Bulgaria  where for over a year I was a victim of domestic abuse and violence at the hands of a Bulgarian man, I witnessed first hand the fear and helplessness of knowing there was nowhere to go and noone to turn to for help, not even the police!

Instead they saw me as the problem for constantly requesting them to do something about an issue that was nothing more than day to day life in their eyes, branding me a trouble maker trying to make a scandal out of nothing and presuming I was not normal and taunting me.  Subsequently warning me from calling them again with implied threats.

This following article sadly illustrates the domestic abuse and violence issues and the challenges in Bulgaria to change a mindset of an entire culture where not only does this occur frequently, most perpetrators and victims (or the police) are not even aware that its abuse or wrong and an infringement of their basic rights as a human being.

July 28, 2018
Yoan Stanev

Human rights groups in Bulgaria have blasted a decision by the country’s Constitutional Court declaring an international convention protecting women and children from domestic violence unconstitutional.

Bulgaria’s Constitutional Court ruled on July 27 that the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence and abuse Against Women and children Domestic Violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention, contradicts the country’s constitution and thus will not be ratified.