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!

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...