I was strong-willed & stubborn, not one person could tell me what to do.
I clung to that mistake as if the more I held on the better it would get, that will and determination would get me through.
I don't give up easily, even on things that are bad for me it seems at times, in this situation this characteristic damaged me to an extreme.
When you're on the inside looking out, the idea of leaving seem invariably worse than staying.
And yes, it gets worse before it gets better. You have to take the most difficult steps from a place of weakness, confusion and self-doubt, and every step of progress is a fight. You will also be punished for acting as though you have human rights.
As you can see from pic 2, It felt as though I came close to being fully erased.
The torture had escalated after I left him, I couldn't understand why- he had a new girlfriend? Yet the treatment had become so much more inhumane and incomprehensible.
I'm a person with a large appetite and an olympic-level sleeper, yet I could eat nor sleep properly for several months.
My daughter used to say- "Mummy, what are YOU going to have for your dinner?" I'd make some excuse about eating on my own later...
My running friends asked what I had eaten that day...
The receptionist at work pulled me aside and asked if I was eating...
I hugged my brother and every bone hurt. I told him it hurt me, could he ease up, he said "put some &$%@ weight on then!"
It makes me shudder to think how 10 years of systematic psychological torture made me a shell of a woman, a friend, a mother, a daughter. There's no other term for it. I was told that every thought I had was plain wrong. Everything about me was "not normal". This was used as justification for treating me as a subhuman.
I can only liken the experience to running around in a mental institution, the more you try and state the facts the more unstable and problematic you are labelled. You feel very isolated, and convince yourself you are insane.
I had a friend calling me everyday, to offer "help", yet she worked with my abuser and was saying phrases that sounded like they came right out of his mouth, herself screaming at me often, yet claiming to support me, my reality was all wonky. (I doubt she was conscious of how she was used by him, the term for the people manipulated in this way's "flying monkeys").
At the lowest point, when he had no further use for me, I was discarded.
With no use for me, he had little interest in his children anymore.
An abuser will take everything you have and then berate you for having none of it.
I was left with Complex-PTSD and a feeling of concern I could never trust anyone, not my family, very few friends, even my own judgement and sense of reality I mistrusted.
I'm a long way from that now.
I feel better now than that over-confident, happy and trusting girl I was 10 years ago. I feel I'm wiser and I'm grateful to be alone.
PTSD taught me a lot and that taking care of myself in the ways I know how to, so that my children never nearly lose me again, is my highest priority. I'm tearing up to think of how losing me was what he wanted for his children.
I've never experienced anything as torturous and damaging as psychological domestic abuse, but the lessons made me such a more-rounded, kind, honest and able person I feel.
You can do or say what you like about and to me- and I will go for a run. I will get up and care for my kids and go to work regardless. I'm never again going to waste my precious time and energy endeavouring to convince vampires of my worth.
For now I write about my experiences here on steemit, as it feels benefiting others is the only way to make sense of what happened.
I sometimes do feel guilty I didn't know what I was in before I got pregnant, but I didn't know and my children give me the reason to be strong.
Regaining trust is still a work in progress.
So much of narcissistic abuse is actually hilarious when able to step back and see it objectively- people so broken their only option is to work tirelessly to hide it, rather than fix wounds and live a genuinely happy life- they put all that effort into deceptions and hurting people so they can feel a misguided sense of superiority and powerfulness.
There are a handful of people I feel I owe my life to for guiding me through when I thought everything was lost. They showed me that in fact, nothing was lost and all was gained.
Thank you for reading 🙂