It's only been two weeks since I fully committed to NO CONTACT and NO LOOKING BACK. I just felt like I'd finally had ENOUGH. I finally knew what he was (HALLELUJAH!) and I wanted him out of my life forever. I didn't want to spend any more time on an emotional LEECH and energy-sucking PARASITE.

Don't get me wrong, I've had times of NC that have lasted two or three months before I would break down and reach out to hear ... what? Just one last hollow promise or blatant lie.

The difference before was that I thought (I know this sounds ridiculous now) ... that we were star-crossed lovers, and that somehow fate had conspired to keep us apart. It turns out that fate wasn't cruel at all. She was kind enough to me that I never married this man or had a child with him. It turns out that he was the one who arranged things perfectly for his own hollow entertainment and pleasure.

The first time I broke up with him, I checked myself into counseling immediately. That was about two years ago. I think that the counselor lost patience with me, because I just couldn't get a handle on my self-destructive attraction to him and I kept going back for more psychological abuse. She told me to stick to no contact but she never once suggested that the man might be personality disordered.

It was only after LOTS of searching on the internet for answers that I came up with the possibility that he might be a sociopath. It was the total lack of empathy and the lies that made me think that was the case. It was only when I suggested this in an e-mail to my counselor that she wrote back ... "he sounds more like a narcissist to me" that it all fell into place.

Now I see myself as being in recovery. I don't have a lot of support because he had led me into a cult and it destroyed my social network. It took me so long to figure this bastard out that I even exhausted the patience of my counselor!!! I don't feel like I can go back to her still talking about how I'm still getting over this bastard two years down the line.

The last couple of days I have felt the old familiar ache creeping up on me again, the idiotic longing for that oh-so-temporary part of our relationship when I believed that I had re-discovered the love of my life.

It's frustrating. My feelings for a man with no feelings have stopped me connecting with the people in my life who really love me. I don't want to feel this ache. My desire for the illusion of the life we could have had together obscured the reality, the beauty of the present moment. In the past I have always returned to him for one more hit of the special, heart-wrenching hurt that only he could deliver.

I have blocked his e-mails but I know he's coming back to our home town soon. It's hard for me not to go looking for an e-mail, or wait for a text from him. There are times when I wish with all my heart that he was normal, or that I am just imagining/inventing his narcissism. But the more I read, the more I know that he is a hollow man. I always thought my self-esteem was pretty average. I don't consciously hate myself. In almost any situation I would never choose pain over healing ... and yet the ache for a dead love remains and hurts like a phantom limb.

This is really long. I came here and wrote all of this because I cannot live in his world of illusion and deceit any more. It will kill me. MUST choose myself, I MUST choose my family. I MUST choose NO CONTACT. Thanks for letting me share ...