After effects of an abusive Relationship !!!
The Aftershocks Of A Relationship With A Narcissist
“I think I should be better by now, that’s the problem.” I looked up at my therapist, the one I reluctantly finally made an appointment to see and shrugged…”I mean it’s been nearly two years.”
She jotted something down in her notebook and then asked me the one question I hate being asked “Do you still love him?”
“Love has nothing to do with what I feel now. No I do not still love him.” I tapped my fingers on the leather chair as I tried to verbalize the emotions. “I loved him, yes, once upon a time I loved a man I believed to be the person I would spend the rest of my life with. But that man was a myth. That’s the problem, how do I sort out the fact that he was not real, that he lied, that he abused me? Then…” I paused, hating to say the words out loud…”How do I understand that some of my greatest memories and moments came from that very person, real or not?”
“”He fooled you, you bought into it, of course you are confused.” She nodded at me as she jotted more notes down in her notebook.
“The good was good but the bad was worse, I know that. He was spontaneous, fun, we went on so many trips, I rode some of the best roads you can on a motorcycle and we laughed, so much… but he hurt me and my kids so greatly, it’s almost as if he were two people and in the long run I cried more than I laughed.”
“You will heal from this Erin, he was just a very bad con man. It happens to people all the time. And he was in actuality two people, the person you needed at the time and the same person who wanted nothing more than to use and abuse you.”
I left the session feeling just as confused as I was when it began, therapy is great, I recommend it but I feel as if no one, not even someone who specializes in such matters, truly understands unless they have lived it.
The aftershocks of a relationship with a Narcissist or Sociopath are sometimes harder to deal with than the relationship when it was going on.
When you are in the relationship you are so distracted by the abuse, the mind games and the constant drama, you barely have time to comprehend what is happening on a daily basis. When you are away from the relationship it sends ripples into every action you take, every relationship you try to be in, every moment you try to move forward. I have likened it in past posts to coming out of a coma.
This is nothing like healing from a normal relationship, you are healing from trauma and in some ways addiction. Sometimes it is hard to understand that. The flashbacks, the sleepless nights, the fear, the mistrust you offer every new individual you come across, nothing is believable anymore.
When I started my relationship with E I believed everything he told me, blindly, I followed his lead. He was in charge at all times and for some reason I was okay with that… until that became the control that hurt me and my children. He believed he owned me and I am willing to bet still to this day believes he owns me in some way.
When I left the relationship it was hard for me to understand that I am in charge of my own life. It took me a long time to not feel like I had to ask permission to just do simple things, for me to understand that if I was late I would not get yelled at, if I had a tiny mishap it would not be an argument and a way to make me apologize for days. That I did not have to fear having stuff thrown at me, being spit on… being raped or physically abused. I also had to begin to slowly trust people around my children again. To this day they have not met a man I have dated since E but I have begun to allow my friends to be in their lives.
Things I had buried below the surface of our relationship just to cope with them haunt me now, this is the aftershock effect. It will hit me randomly how many times he cheated on me, how many times he lied to me and just how much he used me for. It’s almost as if you are having a normal day and suddenly you lose your balance and your environment changes. You try to talk yourself out of the panic attacks but it is not as easy as it seems. You try to do the things you are supposed to do but some days you just want to hide away.
In my case it does not help that some of the people from his “camp” as we will call it still harass me. Yet it’s not them I fear, it’s him, the cold expressions, the constant drama, the way he so easily had me hooked. I fear meeting his match, I fear my choices, I fear my ability to see the Sociopath or Narcissist inside someone when I meet them.
I have become a very outspoken voice against this type of abuse but that does not mean I have healed entirely.
The aftershocks are inevitable. I tell anyone who writes or calls me that, when they ask what to expect after the relationship is over I tell them to expect to have to face a lot of what they did not understand while the relationship happened.
I tell them that they are almost going to have to relive each memory in order to heal from it. They will have to see the relationship for what it really was for the first time and it will bring them anger, depression and yet somehow in the long run strength.
E does not own me now, he has no say in my choices, yet he still ripples through my life. You can not forget the abuse, you just have to learn to balance your past with your future. By that I mean you have to open your eyes and mind and see the reality of who you are now and who you were then.
You have to learn to trust yourself again, this is something I am working on each day. I need to trust myself to make the right choices for my children and myself.
The aftershocks are going to come, steady yourself and hold tight to the beauty you bring to your life when you leave these monsters. And be patient with yourself, you are after all the victim of a disaster.
Erin James
27 thoughts on “The Aftershocks Of A Relationship With A Narcissist”
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confusion,starts to make Sense,in the after shocks”walking away from the war,leaving the scorched earth behind//
Thanks so much for your writing. You put words of what I have in my head!
I am going through hard time.
I hope to feel better and hope to never meet again a narcissistic person.
Love live life
The best “vengeance” is to live for yourself. do what you love to do. Don’t forget no one can protect you exempt yourself. Life is hard. We are in this planet not for so long. Don’t cry for man. If you are strong. And you love yourself you will feel better.
Take care.
I’m in a vortex of grief.
I pray that one day I will heal and be truly free of this pain.
It would all be so much easer if I hated him, I know I should and I want to but I don’t – I miss him, I miss him so much some days I have to remind my heart to beat and my chest to breath I just miss him ….. I don’t understand and it’s shit as all I’m ask to do is constantly explain it as in the surface family and friend and police and doctors see the perfect man I saw none of them see it’s not just one thing it’s the thousand one things he does to keep me in a constant state of panic and fear and confusion and powerless – so so very powerless. No one understands to the point it’s not even safe to try and explain it as I then an attacked again and told I’m crazy as they can’t see the relentless weight he puts on me or I’m the abusive one when I snap and yell at him or that is all my fault and I’m letting him have control and just need to move on as they can’t see the threats and how much control he has – it’s not even safe to ask for help or tell the truth…..
I wish I hated him – I wish I understood – I wish someone would believe me and help me …… I wish I didn’t miss him so much….. I wish I didn’t love him.
Thank you for this article. It shows me that one day.. Maybe not today nor tomorrow, but one day. This pain in my heart and soul will pass.
In a way, it is my fault, I was their mother after all. She wasn’t.
She was just a woman who, in a way, imposed herself to me because I was the one she wanted to have, to use, to dominate, to lie to, to betray, to humiliate, to step on and on and on…….
In the 5 years I had a relation with her, I totally repeated my childhood. That’s what I always said, and now it looks like I was so very, very right.
My mother was a narcissist, always playing the victim and always putting the blame on me for every rotten thing that happened to her, even before I was born.
So there I was, growing up with a narcissist, coming out of a marriage with a narcissist, searching for a way to cope and giving my children a better life I’d had………struggling with the realisation I was actually very attracted to women………….and there she was……………………
I loved her, hated her, feared her, tried to do everything to please her and nothing was good enough for her. She made me feel crazy, made me feel like I could do nothing right, she made me feel worthless, stupid, a very bad mother, a bad lover, even a worse person. She made me feel my mother was right, I had no right to be on this earth, no right at all.
O, how I struggled to give myself the right to be here on this very earth, to give myself permission for existance, to build up from scratch what she tore apart……with my kids and I did a dam good job………until first my daughter blamed it all on me, then my son, and now I have to face it all again without them, with the pain of missing them because this is something I can never explain to them without taking my own responsibility and guilt.
So maybe,someone can learn something from this, take good care of yourself and your children…….they never asked for anything like this to happen to them. Get out while you can, for them and for yourself.