Why I tolerated the abuse

I knew early on in the relationship with my ex narcissist boyfriend that his behaviour was abusive but sadly I believed that he was suffering from mental illness and quite possibly schizophrenia as he would have episodes of paranoid delusions and it was then when he was abusive which I tolerated for a few reasons. These being that I felt he was ill and therefore not responsible for the abuse and that I could help him and not abandon him like he felt everyone else in his life had always done. I was living in Bulgaria at the time where domestic violence is not seen as a crime and therefore not a police matter so I had no protection or anyone to turn to for help. Bulgaria also has a very draconian attitude towards mental illness and therefore there is little to no help or support for that either.. I believed he was suffering unnecessarily from an illness that with the right treatment would enable him to stop having the paranoid delusional episodes and he would not be abusive. After these bouts of abuse he was always sorry and seemed desperate to stop! When it all got too much for me and I needed time out and I left him, he was distraught and broken and he would beg, plead and cry for me to not abandon him or give up on him as I was all he had. This would make me feel terrible about myself and extremely guilty that I had hurt him more when he was mentally ill and couldn't help it. This would be excruciating for me to bare and I could not live with myself for turning my back on him and so I would go back to him time and time again as I also loved him very much for the wonderful person he was when he was not abusive…

After I had done everything I possibly could to help him and I was out of options as nothing had worked and he was still mentally and physically abusive, I had to make the decision to leave him for good as my own mental health was starting to suffer as I was in a constant heightened state of anxiety and fear of what he was capable of in these episodes of abuse and I lived in constant worry about when the next attack would come which I knew would come and I could not be sure whether the next time he would actually kill me whilst out of control as he had threatened to do it and had been close to it in the past!

I still believed that he was mentally ill but I had come to the realisation that I was not responsible for his problems and I could do nothing more to help him and my life had suffered enough and I was in serious danger and I was not prepared to take the chance of him ending my life because of something that was his problem and not mine and I was not responsible for or obligated to help him with at the risk of my own life.

It was only afterwards that I realised that he was probably a narcissist and not mentally ill but regardless of that, I am aware now that there is no excuse for abuse!

How the abuse affected me

I was one of the lucky ones to a degree as my ex narcissist boyfriend was unable to shake my self esteem or make me doubt who I was despite his constant accusations, criticisms and mental abuse however he was able to make me feel constantly anxious and on edge and in fear of him being physically violent as he had been on previous occasions and I thought that he was quite capable of killing me when he was in these paranoid, delusional rages which would come from nowhere and at any time day or night! His mental abuse I could handle just about as his words did not effect me and everytime he called me a liar, bitch, whore, cheat, selfish, manipulative etc etc I knew without doubt that I was none of those things and he was unable to hurt me with his words as I saw it as his problem in that he had to result to name calling when he wasnt getting the attention he needed which I saw as childish especially when before and after he was telling me how wonderful he thought I was! What I had trouble dealing with was that he would be relentless in these times that he was insulting me and I would have to endure these abusive outbursts for hours on end which was exhausting as he would not let up and whatever I said or did he would not stop whether that be trying to explain myself which I did at first or just ignore him or try to walk away which I did in the end but he would see it all as a sign of guilt. He just got worse and worse when he was in these moods and even if I tried to go to bed and sleep he would not let up and was becoming more and more aggressive. At first he would slam doors and shout then it progressed to him smashing up things in my home or my personal belongings and finally it escalated into him hitting me and the violence got worse every time so I was constantly in a heightened state of panic and terror which over time would make me have full blown anxiety and panic attacks where I felt like I was having a heart attack. Due to being constantly on edge I was starting to feel like I was losing my mind as I would have trouble focusing on what I was doing and was forgetting things and misplacing things such as where I had put my keys! There were times when I was sure that I had left a document or something similar in a certain place only to find it wasnt there when I went to get it but I now believe that he was moving things to make me feel more confused and as if I was losing my mind. It was the fear of not knowing when he could turn and knowing that he could turn at any moment and escalate into full blown rage quickly where he could beat me up and possibly kill me like he had threatened to do before that gave me the strength to escape from him and flee the country with just the clothes on my back as I felt like I was living on borrowed time! I was living in Bulgaria where there are no laws against domestic violence and therefore there is no protection from the police as its not seen as a police matter! Personally I think that I realised that I was stronger than I thought having to deal with what I did without having anyone to turn to for help and still managing to get myself out of there and to safety with my life and self esteem still intact!

My outlook on any future relationships

Sadly I have lost faith in love and romance as the one time I thought it was the real thing and that I had finally met the one who was so perfect for me in every way he turned out to be a narcissist…. When he entered my life he was like the most perfect man in the world! He was kind, considerate and loving. He seemed to have the same morals as me as well as the same interests, intellect and outlook on life. He had experienced many hardships in life that I had such as having an abusive childhood and being cheated on by a partner which I had recently been through and so he was a breath of fresh air in that he was very understanding of how painful these things had been having experienced them himself. He wanted nothing from me at first and he would do whatever he could to make me feel special and to let me know he was thinking of me. He would pick fruit and leave it on my doorstep. He would take me to remote beauty spots to watch the sun rise or set. He would leave little notes for me that would be romantic or play a song that he wanted me to listen to the words of as they were perfect to us and how he felt! He would chop wood and make a fire and we would lie in front of it with a glass of wine just talking and laughing and cuddling up. He would come to my house in the middle of the night and whilst I was sleeping he would make a fire in my bedroom so that I awoke to it being warm and with a flower or some other token of romance left on my pillow to wake up to…. He was everything that I had ever dreamed of as well as so very handsome and he was in love with me. I felt blessed and like I was walking on air and the star of my very own romantic movie… Within months he started to be abusive although he remained to be this perfect man in the times when he wasnt being abusive so I just saw it as he was not perfect, nobody is and his good traits still outweighed his bad side so I just tolerated it. However his abuse got worse and his nice side I was seeing less but nevertheless I was still seeing it!

My ex narcissist boyfriend was the only person who had ever made me feel so very cherished but he was the only person who has ever made me feel so bad and worthless too…

I feel cheated in that the only person who had been the closest thing to what I had always hoped for also turned to be the one person who I hoped to never meet and be made to suffer by…

I doubt that I will ever meet anyone again who will be able to make me feel so happy but I also hope that I never meet anyone who can hurt me so badly and so I expect that if I ever have another relationship it will always be just mediocre…

Abused yet he became the abuser

It was the abuse that my ex boyfriend claimed to have suffered in childhood that made me feel a connection with him and the reason why I let him into my life as I felt like I could help him as I too had suffered from very similar abuse in childhood.

I had been fortunate enough to move on from this though by getting the necessary help to heal from it by putting myself through years of therapy which was by no means an easy road but worth it as subsequently I was finally able to put it behind me and go on to live a life beyond my greatest expectations in adulthood.

My ex boyfriend was still very much in pain and had not been able to process it and as a consequence his life was still being affected by his childhood which I felt certain that he could recover from with the right help and support which seeing as I had been through what he had and had come through the otherside, I was certain that he could too and that I was probably the best person to help him do this.

At first he was not abusive to me and he was infact very unsure of himself, very gentle and sensitive but clearly suffering with an inferiority complex as well as paranoia that everyone was out to get him which was not too dissimilar to how I was before I had years of therapy.

As a child he had been beaten regularly by his mother and his father was an alcoholic who wasnt there for his family, emotionally or financially and would regularly have affairs and would beat his mother.

His mother eventually left his father and fled to Italy when my ex boyfriend was in his early teens leaving him in Bulgaria where he lived with his grandmother who was strict, controlling and ruled him by fear rather than love.

Nothing he ever did was good enough and he had developed the belief that he was unloveable and that everyone would always abandon him in the end!

For these reasons I tolerated his insecurities which would often be shown by him constantly accusing me of lying and cheating on him as well as him thinking that I was plotting behind his back to hurt him as I didn't love him!

When he was in these episodes I would patiently endure his hours upon hours of interrogation in the hope that I could reassure him, thinking that he would not continue to do this forever if I was tolerant and just put up with it until he felt secure with me.

For months I would have to answer to the same accusations and calmly give him a second by second account of my actions pretty much on a daily basis for hours until he felt convinced that I was telling the truth.

He would also go over and over the events of his childhood pretty much on a daily basis too and I would just listen to the same stories over and over thinking that he had to get it off his chest and be heard in order to process it.

After a while I started to offer him my thoughts and opinion on how he could look at it differently through adult eyes as well as offer him suggestions about the things that had helped me to move forward in my life and what had worked for me.

At first he seemed appreciative and open to my help but he never did any of the things that he said he would try and just carried on going round and round in circles just going over the same things but without any desire to at least try to reach a solution that would end his constant torment of reliving the events over and over which I felt was keeping him in the pain and keeping the pain as raw as it was when these things happened which although was now over 25 years ago, to him it was like it happened yesterday!

I was also having to live through it all now too on a daily basis which I pointed out was not good for either of us as it was now consuming both our lives and preventing us from having the time together in the present moment to enjoy our relationship.

I spent months and months trying to help him move forward but instead of get better, it got worse and he started to become more aggressive in his episodes of paranoia when he would accuse me of lying and cheating.

He was also becoming more insulting to me by calling me dreadful things such as a whore and a bitch who was just like everyone else who had abused him in life.

He would also belittle the abuse I suffered from as a child and say that I was lying about that too as he had suffered far worse which I personally did not agree with but nevertheless I did not say that to him or let him provoke me.

Before long he was smashing up my home and my personal belongings when he was in a paranoid mood and when he was recounting his events of his past.

He was starting to make me feel frightened by his rage which I tried to explain to him when he was calmer as It was making me feel like I had as a child and I was on edge that he could possibly hit me which would happen when I was a child after my mother would rage and smash up the house. He laughed this off and said I had nothing to fear as he would never hurt me as he too had been beaten by his mother and grandmother and knew exactly how it felt.

He continued to be aggressive and smash my home up in these rages though but I tried to remain calm in the knowledge that he would never hurt me.

It was not long however before he started to hit me!

What makes it worse is that he was fully aware of my abuse as a child and how being beaten up by a person who claims to love you has the power to destroy you emotionally as it had happened to him too yet he was quite happy to inflict it on me and then would still go on about how much his life had suffered from the abuse of his childhood!

• I believe that instead of heal from it he prefers to live in the pain and to cause this pain and suffering in others that like him didn't deserve it too and so he feels fully justified to do so!

Narcissism is a term that is very misunderstood

Although the term has been around since it was first introduced by the ancient Greeks when according to Greek mythology, narcissus fell in love with his own reflection, narcissism is often misunderstood and is seen in general terms to mean a person who is selfish and self absorbed. Some may be more knowledgeable about the cause of this being due to underlying self esteem and an over inflated ego to compensate for it… thats as far as my understanding went and I too had often misused the term to describe the people who I had come across that were selfish and self centred and those who tended to feel the need to boast about themselves and their material riches in favour of acknowledging the qualities and riches of others! I had no idea how much more to it there was or how damaging these people could be until I ended up in a relationship with a narcissist boyfriend! In fact I was so ignorant to what a narcissist was that it wasn't until the relationship was over that I was to realise that his abusive behaviour was not because of his bad childhood which he had not yet processed in adulthood or because he was suffering from mental illness of which I was almost certain he was and most likely schizophrenia!

Sadly because of these reasons I tolerated more than I should have as although I was fully aware that his behaviour was abusive, I had the attitude of this being something that he was not responsible for as he was ill and with the right support from me, he could eventually overcome his problems in time and we could go on to live a happy life together! It was only when I had exhausted every possible option to get him the help I believed he needed and I had started to suffer with my own mental health problems as a result that I had no choice but to leave him and this was something I saw as temporary until I was back to full strength and I would be able to keep trying to help him! Whilst searching for answers I stumbled across the traits of a narcissist and I was horrified to find that he ticked every box of being a narcissist! I was so horrified that I then researched it more and more with the goal being for me to discount it as the reason why he was as he was. The more I learned the more I could not get away from the realisation that he was a narcissist and he was beyond my help and I have suffered from his mental and physical abuse for no other reason than the fact he was a narcissist!