The best thing that came out of my narcissistic abusive relationship was meeting and becoming close to his ex-girlfriend who he deemed as ‘crazy.’ Turns out she was not crazy at all. None of his exes were. I now see him as the common denominator. Narcissists will guilt you into thinking it was your fault the relationship ended, but you should know better. My therapist told me to make a list of all the bad things about my narcissist partner and I honestly filled up the entire page and then some. I barely could count on one-hand of all the good things. When you come to terms that your relationship with the narcissist was not real and that it was fabricated, then you are much better off.
I want you to be careful. I want you to look for the red flags in your relationships. All too often, we are so blinded by ‘love’ that we don’t even care about what might seem off about a person. I only wasted a year of my life, but it could have easily been 5, 10, or 15 years. I have heard of many women who have stayed with abusive men and people on the outside never fully get it–unless they have been through it.
The reason why most victims stay in these cycles is due to a trauma bond. The cycle truly addicts you because it alternates between loving and fighting. If you’ve ever observed a relationship that made you question whether it was love or abuse, then you’ve witnessed the toxic power of a trauma bond. This unique form of manipulation is characterized by repetitive behaviors, in which the narcissist operates within a cycle of abuse, resulting in a trauma bond that is strengthened with every repeated misdeed.
