Peacelily's Story

This is a personal reflection on the treatment I experienced whilst in a three year relationship. I am free and happy now and have travelled the path of self reflection in the hope that the mistakes won't happen again. I apologise for the very personal nature of this story but, as a female, I am now passionate about making others aware of the damage narcissistic abuse can cause and how devastating this personality disorder can be to the point where it blinds the one with narcissism and they do not seek help for their condition. I do not wish evil against my abuser now, I hope one day he seeks therapy and finds balance. I fear it may be too late for him but he has his life and I have mine and I am happier without him. I now campaign to raise awareness of domestic abuse and do charity work to help other women who have been affected by abuse of all forms.

I first met him three years ago. I had a great job, a flat of my own, a big group of friends and was also developing a second sideline career to pursue some creative talents of mine. I made a grave mistake and did a bit of online dating. I went on a few dates but nothing special then I was contacted by him. He seemed pretty cool, we seemed to share the same taste in most things, had a lot to talk about and he seemed to have a good career. He was also chatty and charming. So, a few weeks of emails and ‘phone calls went by then we decided to meet up. I was already excited about this guy. I was having a housewarming and he could DJ. I was thinking, "This is cool". A red flag appeared during the evening though - he introduced himself to all my friends, my girlfriends like he was a bit desperate. It was as if he needed to have control over the situation and make sure everyone knew him. He was talking a lot. I felt a bit put out by it and couldn’t really spend any quiet time with my friends without him being near me. My best friend came over to me and said she didn’t like him and that he didn’t seem to stop talking. But, dear reader, I ignored the red flag or rather chose to ignore it and just put his behaviour down to nerves. One thing led to another and he stayed the night. He wasn’t a good kisser, more like a pecker. But hey, I'd been celibate for a year since my surfer dude ex emigrated to the other side of the world and it had been pretty lonely. People had been asking me when I was going to start getting out these again. I ignored the lack of fireworks, thinking maybe it was just nerves. I had already thrown all my promises to myself of taking my time with someone out of the window.

The next morning I was putting my make up on and he sat near me and suddenly told me he was actually five years older than he said he was; that he was 40, not 35 but he really liked me and that "we have something good and do I mind?". I am an idiot and I try to be cool and say, "Hey, age is just a number". Deep down inside, something isn't sitting right with me but I ignore yet another red flag. In retrospect I look at this moment as the first betrayal. If he was prepared to lie to me from the very beginning and I let him get away with it, it set the path for many more lies and hidden truths in the future.

We go to a party of his friends the next day and he introduces me as a girl he met at a wedding last night, but doesn't mention that we've met online and been talking for weeks. Stupidly I go along with it but inside I'm wishing that I wasn't at this party. I feel people are judging me as some floozy he picked up. So, yet again, I have gone along with one of his lies and he has taken control of the situation by manipulating it.

We go back to his place, he runs me a bath, he cooks me, oh what was it? Ah yes, seafood linguine, a dish I later found out another ex had taught him to cook and it was pretty much the only thing he was able to cook. He's sitting watching me in the bath as if I'm some prize trophy. Read again girls...prize trophy! He is staring at me, grinning from ear to ear. I feel exposed. So why do I ignore my gut feelings? Why am I doing this to myself? Why? I do not know.

The next morning I'm fed smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, we watch a movie, it's all cozy cozy. He tells me he digs me and he hasn't felt this way about someone in ages. He never stops talking. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by all this stuff happening so fast. At this point I notice a photograph of a beautiful young woman on a bookshelf. I ask who that is and he tells me it's his ex. I'm sitting in the house of a man who still has a photo of another trophy girlfriend on a shelf. I ignore this red flag as well, thinking, "Oh that's sort of sweet that he still has that and maybe it all ended okay and they're friends". But I found out after the relationship that they weren’t still friends and she had run away. However, it's at this moment that I say we're going to knock down the shed in his garden. It's a rubbish shed, falling apart. I guess I'm feeling angry somewhere deep down inside me and I have this urge to make my mark somehow. He says yes let's do it next weekend. I say no, let's do it now! So we do. We knock a shed down. I have made my mark.

A few weeks go by and I'm texted several times a day by him and get emails every few days. He rings me loads and he's basically all over me. However, something is still not feeling right inside me. I can't figure it out but something feels fake? Like he doesn't mean it? Like he isn’t feeling it? How can a person process deep emotions so fast? I don’t. It doesn't feel like how it felt with my surfer dude ex. It feels sort of flat. It feels like he is a little needy boy. Not the cool DJ I thought he was. I put this down to it being a more mature relationship where maybe things will get better with time and now I'm older maybe I have more to consider and more at stake and maybe this is how love is when you get older? Can you see how I'm convincing myself here?! Idiot girl! But how can a 40 year old DJ be a genuine kind of person? The DJing should have been left behind in his twenties. I am in the company of a Peter Pan. I’ve been warned about Peter Pans before now; how they have magical thinking and they convince themselves that “this time it will be real and this person will love me.” They forget to do the love however. I didn’t fully appreciate this at the time, having never been in the company of a Peter Pan.

We plan a holiday. By this point he's managed to weedle his way into my life so much that he’s working from my flat two days a week and he's there when I get back but he doesn't help out around my flat, he hasn't made the bed or done the washing up, no that's left to me. I feel I can't say anything though because it's my flat and maybe I shouldn't ask things like that of someone I haven't known that long because maybe he'd be offended if I assumed he might have done those things? Duh! Wake up honey! He's a lazy so and so! This is the problem with whirlwind, unrealistic romances. No boundaries are implemented and if you did try to implement them, there would be offence and the romance would be gone. It’s a tough line. I’m realising that I’m being too nice, too kind, too bend over backwards. My friends are worried and they go silent when they can’t convince me otherwise.

He is a DJ. He thinks he's pretty special and that the town where he DJs was dead before he came along. He saved it. Just him. A bit like Jesus. He has concocted a story on his MySpace page of how he literally saved a certain music genre from near death and how its continuance is down to him and one other sad bloke who is now in possession of a Thai bride and cancer. We like music though, I love dancing and he even lets me DJ one night with him but sometimes I'm standing on my own in this club like Mary no Mates because he's DJing. I daren't look too attractive in case I get chatted up so I dance and hang out round the sides of the club. Of course I should also add that he has to "prepare" for DJing, sorting the records, playing the records way too loud, getting dressed in some yucky threads that are "so scene". He's a proper all out peacock. He takes longer to get ready than I do. Honest to god, the amount of hair wax in his house was unbelievable. I find out from another ex of his that it was “the same old story every weekend“, him preparing and Djing and sleeping it off the next day so she never really saw him. If she asked to do something on the Sunday, he would complain that she was asking too much. She ended up with depression and a year of intense anxiety caused by post-traumatic stress.

Anyway, this holiday. We plan to do a mad fly drive thing in the mountains. When I get back one day he's made a whole spreadsheet with an itinerary on it with hyperlinks and crazy stuff that actually is freaking me out. A lot! It's so controlling? Whatever happened to just going with the flow? Because that's usually how I roll. I don't plan much, don't do routines, hate being pinned down. So I take a big gulp and think, "Maybe if I'm to be truly accommodating here I should just be cool about this and say 'Well done honey, nice organisation'". He does look very desperate to please and he must have spent AGES making it. I'm also thinking however, "Just how much actual work did you get done today whilst you worked from my flat?". He’s also put an annoying little folder on the desktop of my PC titled Yer Man’s Stuff. He didn’t ask if he could do this. I’m really pissed off that he didn’t ask me. But I let that one slide too. Why am I letting this happen to me? Perhaps because I was so badly burnt and heartbroken the last time that I’m worried that if I act up I’ll lose this one too. Have I really become this low in self-esteem? I live in a place where there aren’t really many desirable men and the ratio of men to women is about 1:1.5 so there isn’t a lot of choice. I’m not sporty so that rules out rugby or football types. I’m into art and social history. I’m going to need someone with a brain who likes the same things as me but in a whole year, nobody has stepped forward with these types of interests. I’ve contemplated moving to a buzzier city. So why am I settling? Perhaps because this man says he likes art and history. Perhaps because suddenly I seem to have met someone with common interests. It is only about a year down the line into our relationship that I realise he isn’t into art and history. In fact he knows zero about either. He has been faking it to trap me. I am with a fraud.

Before the holiday, I celebrate my birthday. It's a weekday so I'm on my own in my flat, waking up to a fresh new year full of promise. On my birthday I like to spend a couple of hours in peace and quiet, just reflecting on the past year and meditating a bit. It helps me focus. I've turned my ‘phone to silent to enjoy the peace. So what do I find on my 'phone? 16 missed calls, from a rather desperate boyfriend. There's several voicemail messages and a few texts asking me if I'm okay and can I ring him because he is worried about me and he doesn't want me to be spending my birthday on my own. I'm a bit cross about this so I ignore the missed calls and texts and messages and go to work. It's at work that I find he's emailed me, saying he's texted a friend of mine to find out if I'm alright? How the HELL did he get her number or email address?? My friend, bless her, has said to him that I'm probably fine but having been out of relationship-land for a while, I'm probably still getting used to coupledom and that he shouldn't worry and that I'll probably ring him when I get back from work. I'm feeling really annoyed now and nearly end up having a tiff with my friend, someone I've trusted for years. I'm also now dreading ringing him later because I think I'm going to get the third degree. When I do ring him I am told I need to explain to him why it's taken me so long to get in touch. Can you believe I'm having to explain myself on my own birthday? This is a major red flag! He is controlling my birthday. I'm feeling pretty defeated. He drives over, he paces up and down outside like a stalker for a while until I feel like letting him in. It's alright. He gives me a tacky hand made card that is more about him than me and I can't remember what else, I think it was a book of folk stories, again more about him than me. I say to myself, "Don't be ungrateful, it's more about the thought than the gift" and don't say a word more and just pretend I am delighted with my gift. However I'm thinking most girls would probably have had their wish to chill out first thing in the morning granted and they wouldn't have had to explain their actions on their own birthday when they hadn't been dating their boyfriend that long. Why is that vital gut reaction in me suppressed? What am I doing to myself?

We go on this holiday. It's okay but I'm not feeling juiced up about this guy, my lust engine isn't firing. In fact I'm feeling a bit like I'm trying to constantly contain the over enthusiasm of a little boy stuck in the body of a grown up man. He's got all these grandiose ideas of meeting "the locals" and hanging out in pubs playing folk music and going off to explore ancient sites. He has this bloody banjo but it never gets played and when it does he is so crap at singing, cats would die from the sound of him. He wants to collaborate with me on loads of writing and "we'll be famous sweetie!".

We don't sleep together for the entire holiday. I can't bring myself to go there. He just isn't floating my boat and that feeling in my stomach? It isn't going away. I'm a career girl, got a good job, I like buying nice clothes and looking sharp so on a day when we're in a city I say I'm going to go off for a couple of hours and do some serious clothes shopping. Without him. He flares up suddenly, saying how could I just leave him and what is he going to do exactly? I say I'd just like some space, to do a little girly thing for two hours. He is NOT keen on this at all but I pursue the matter and leave him in a cafe heaving with discontent, saying I'll meet him at a certain time for lunch in a place we saw in a travel guide. So off I go and buy two pairs of shoes, some new jeans, perfume, just stuff that's making me feel a bit happier about the little tiff we just had. In my head I'm feeling a bit guilty that he's on his own with no plan but I stay strong, have fun and meet him at the time I said I would. He's still mad at me and there is silence on the way back to our holiday base. Why am I not realising that any normal, reasonable man would be cool with this? I have seen plenty of men absolutely fine with this. Have I announced my intentions too late? Am I out of order here? The very fact that I am questioning my actions shows me to be a reasonable person who can judge well but suddenly I am made to feel guilt for one little hour of “me” time. He is trying to control my time and how I spend it. Red flag.

One night on this holiday, a horror movie comes on; the Moth Man Prophecies. I HATE horror films. I get easily scared and upset by them and avoid them like the plague. I don’t know many women who like them. We're stuck in a hotel room and he insists he's going to watch it. I say I don't like horror movies but he's not interested. He's going to watch it anyway. So I'm stuck in a room and there are all these horrible screaming noises and scary music and I'm pretending to be asleep but actually I'm upset that he didn't respect me asking him to change channels. We could have watched a comedy surely or just talked or got a pack of playing cards out and had some whisky but no. RED FLAG!!! He's probably enjoying knowing I'm a bit scared and I have no way out. Yet again, he has control of the situation. I already know that if I challenged him he would have a tantrum. I haven’t yet seen this in him but I just get that vibe that he doesn’t like not getting his own way.

After the holiday I say I'm not happy with how things are and I want to end it. He seems quite accepting of that. It’s a bit weird. I thought he would be more upset especially after all the love-bombing I have had coming from him. I ask if we can still be friends as we do have lots in common, it's just that, well, I'm not feeling that big vibe. He seems cool with that and goes home. It seems so empty. I am confused. Did I mean that little? Have I mis-read this? It plays on my mind. I think back to past boyfriends and how I have shared the same emotions about splitting up; how it’s been raw and either I or they have asked the other party to re-consider. I put this down to this man being older. Maybe he’s seen more of the dating game than me and he can shrug it off. Little did I realise at the time that I had merely been an extension of him and that he would be perfectly happy to go off and find someone else who could act as supply to his fragile ego.

He makes no contact at all. My friends who didn't like him that much aren't calling me as much as they did and I'm feeling lonely. They all off on some big holiday and because I wasn’t around to be involved with plans, I'm not included. It’s back to stage one for me on the social scene. I consider the possibility of going out in my small town and dating and I throw my hands up in the air and say, “I quit this!“

It's going to be this guy's birthday soon and he's on his own, or so I think. I'm feeling a bit guilty. I call him. He's thrilled I got in touch. Then it's back to hundreds of text messages, phone calls, promises of great things, we even have great sex one night but it's just the one time but that's enough to hook me. We're back together. Like slotting a piece of jigsaw puzzle into the bigger picture. Only life isn’t that simple is it? This man makes it ‘seem’ that simple. I console myself that perhaps relationships are truly a series of compromises and that I need to start compromising more. I just didn’t fully understand that I would be the ONLY party in our relationship making the compromises every time. That only sinks in a year down the line.

I am seeing friends of mine take their boyfriends away on cool weekends and I decide I'm going to do that for this guy. I take him away to a funky hotel and it's quite a fun weekend, just the two of us going on coastal walks and drives and exploring like we always do. Then a bomb hits my life. I lose my job. The organisation I work for is bleeding money and cuts have to be made. Half my team lose their jobs overnight. But I'm told it's because I didn't do enough and it's probably all my own doing. I am floored by this. I love my job and a lot of my self esteem was tied into that job. It's also the only way I can afford my mortgage... So I've lost my job, I can't pay the mortgage. Where I live there aren't many jobs. I'm stuck. I'm going to have to sell my flat. I am lost for options as to what to do. I start to feel pretty depressed and lost. I consider moving to a city again and seeing what I can make of my life but where is my energy? I don’t seem to have any right now. I am literally stuck. But lo and behold, the knight in shining armour appears and asks me to move in with him. He seems to be so genuine at this moment, as if he has been thinking about it for a while. He says he was waiting to ask me to move in with him anyway it was just a question of choosing the right time to ask. I really can't see any other option and I really feel like I don't want to lose face here so I say yes to his offer.

You just know where this is going don't you?
My flat gets sold instantly. I'm lucky but I'm down to my last penny and things are desperate. I am numb and lost. My friends are in shock that I'm moving in with him. My closest friend begs me not to but I tell her I don't have a choice. I have to go where there might be work and that means moving away. She asks me to take some time on this one but I say I can't. Things aren't good with my parents either. For some reason I've been spending less time round at theirs. My mum has said I look rather unwell and I seem to be putting weight on fast and is everything alright? I tell her I'm depressed but she doesn't really know how to help so I go into a shell and start packing up boxes.

Moving day happens and my boyfriend helps me move into his. I notice he hasn't made space for anything. I have to ask him, item by item, if I could just "put that there" and would it be alright if "that goes there?" He is pretty non-responsive and I feel guilty arranging my things. Why am I feeling guilty about this? Does every girlfriend go through this weird crisis if they move in? At one point he says about a particular photo frame that "that isn't really in keeping with the house" so I pack it away again. It's got a photo of my granddad in it. There is nowhere to put my clothes and I have to ask for a bit of space to be cleared so I can hang my clothes up. He begrudgingly makes space in half a wardrobe and I'm told I can put my clothes in there. I feel guilty taking up so much room. There's also a load of junk of his that I can see he never uses and has hoarded but I feel like it's not my place to say anything so I make do with the space I have.

So there I am, jobless, with no self esteem, knowing hardly anyone in this new place. I don't feel like celebrating. There's also this irritating neighbour next door who he spends a lot of time with. She's much older and a busy body and he seems to look up to her and always takes her advice. I'm wondering why he never asks for my advice. About anything. I also notice he's getting angry about little things that happen outside of our relationship. Parking tickets, shop assistants, work colleagues, his boss. He doesn't seem to be able to rationalise things and see things from the perspective of another. It's a bit weird for someone his age. We go to a family wedding. At this wedding a relative of his takes me to one side and tells me to be careful of "his temper". At the same wedding a woman comes up to him and calls him "a nasty piece of work". He's laughing at her. I'm wondering why. I ask him why and he just calls this woman "barking mad" and "a nasty piece of work herself". It doesn't add up though. He refuses to say any more and I decide I probably need to appear to be the supportive girlfriend so I say no more about it but that relative telling me to watch "his temper"? That's still there in my head, gnawing away at me. I look a million dollars that day, in a sixties style coat, vintage handbag, new dress, high heels. Several people compliment me on how nice I look but my boyfriend doesn't. A photograph is taken of us. I'm looking straight into the camera with a shiny smile. He is looking slightly away from the lense, almost as if he's not part of the portrait. We are given this photo as a present a few weeks later. I put it on the mantelpiece. I keep looking at it, slightly confused and I feel empty when I see it. But I'm stuck with no money and I don't know anybody and this new town confuses me. I don't know where anything is. My boyfriend doesn't help orientate me either. In fact he seems to neglect my need to orientate and laughs when I get directions wrong. I'm feeling a little stupid. I'm feeling really useless. I'm feeling like I've lost all control.

I'm exactly where he wants me.

He tells me I should make a go at turning my creative talents into a career. He says he'll support me in this and I don’t need to look for a job just yet. We start writing a book together, me doing the illustrations. I ask him to get the story written out so I know how many illustration plates to do. I do a couple of plates and I'm quite pleased with them as a draft but he says nothing about them. He just patronises me, saying "Oh, they're nice." Nice? I just spent two days doing that plate! Nice?! I have to wait to get his attention all the time. It’s like I’m some puppy waiting to have a ball thrown at me. Deep down I am hating it.

He doesn't finish the story. He 'loses interest', says he's got too much 'real work' to do and I'll have to wait. I have already pinned a lot of hope on this book thinking it would be a good thing to get my self esteem back but I don't have a network and no creative contacts. I feel really useless and no matter what I do to make him notice that I'm trying to make an effort, he just doesn't quite make me feel like I'm beautiful, funny, talented, anything. I'm feeling like a blob. I'm feeling fat plus I'm starting to bleed really heavily when I have a period, passing blood clots with a lot of pain. I'm also rock bottom depressed. I haven’t ever had depression before so I don’t realise that I’m sliding into a cocoon. Less and less matters to me. Every street near me is grey and dirty. People in this new city are rude and others seem dangerous. This city feels as if it has no heart to it. I am lost. All my enthusiasm for anything is fading fast.

One Sunday we have gone out for a drive and on the way back my boyfriend tells me there's "some news" and that we need to get home. He says my sister is coming over, from 100 miles away to tell me. I start getting all excited thinking maybe my sister is expecting a baby or maybe she's moving closer to me. I can't contain myself in the car. It would be nice to get some good news after several months of the blues.

We get home and my sister is there and she tells me our dad has died. He had a heart attack. Nobody found him for several days. He was slumped over his PC writing a report. I haven't spoken to my father for years. He had beaten me up as a child and I hardly knew him. He was a very distant yet controlling character in my life, always unpredictable with a huge temper on him. At the age of four I had been rolled in the broken glass of a smashed milk bottle but I had resolved many of these past issues through my own personal reserves of strength. My mum and stepfather had been more than supportive in helping me regain myself. My father was a classic narcissist, contained in his own world and other people were just an interference in his gloriousness. He controlled by sulking or beating us up. He neglected me emotionally for the 11 years I knew him and was as cold as ice. But it is amazing how a child can grow beyond this emotional desert and still come out shining. I have a heart and I am kind. I am well liked by many. I have a cheeky sense of humour and I have inner strength many would be in awe of. However, they say that girls try to find their fathers within their lovers and resolve past issues.

I think you can say I was about to, how shall we say, 'meet my maker'?

I felt not very much when my sister broke the news about my father‘s death. I was understanding of my sister's grief although she admitted herself she didn't feel a huge loss and would much prefer to get on with sorting out the funeral and house sale. I got nothing in his will. Written off as the 'daughter who never made contact', even though I had been the one who had been abused, sometimes left unconscious with cuts and bruises on my body. I suffer alopecia to this day because of underlying shock.

So my boyfriend had known what news my sister was going to bring and the way he managed the situation was, I now see in retrospect, unnerving. He had 'kept' the information from me until my sister arrived, therefore controlling me and my emotions, then when my sister arrived, he literally sat back and watched the whole thing unravel. I think he was a bit disappointed to discover that I handled the situation with maturity and didn't fall apart. After all, what would be the point of crying over one's past abuser?

Over the next few days he prodded me and goaded me into a fit of emotional breakpoint. I wanted quiet time to reflect and decide if I wanted to go to the funeral to support my sister. He filled my head with worries about being written out of the will, my sister getting everything, why wasn't I crying? But more weirdly, he asked why I wasn't considering him in all of this? You know, because he had needs too and I was neglecting him and there were two people in this house and he was feeling like he was walking on eggshells round my mood. I exploded eventually. I think I threw a cushion across the bed at him when he had come in for the umpteenth time to have 'another go' at me and see if he could unwind me a bit more. I shouted at him to be left alone. Things were starting to come to the surface, mostly the fact that I would never get a sorry from my father now. Stupidly I had always lived in the hope that one day I might get back in touch with him, we'd meet for a civilised lunch and I would ask my father some 'real questions' about his behaviour towards me as a child. That day would never come now. In fact, even if my father had lived longer, that day never would have arrived. My father had a pathological ability to ‘forget’ his actions and behaviour and excuse himself of the abuse of a vulnerable child. I would never get the sorry I had wanted all these years. I had to grieve for my father and grieve for myself. But the very fact that this irritating, need-centred boyfriend of mine had told me he was walking on eggshells round me started to make me very angry inside. Suddenly all the little prodding comments, or shall we say, complete lack of fully realised, affectionate comments, the very fact that my boyfriend hadn't actually sat down next to me quietly and said those golden words, "Talk to me, I'm here for you, spit it out kid", got to me. It finally got to me and I crashed. I crashed headlong into a depression. I cried and I cried and I shouted a bit, then I walked around the house like a ghost then I went to sleep, exhausted. I went into an exhausted state. I wanted to shut my eyes and the whole world disappear. I thought I was starting to go crazy. I also had this nasty feeling that I was starting to go crazy because of a certain person. He just wasn't 'there' for me. He was happily carrying on doing his own little thing, probably DJing, surfing the internet (more on that later), still meeting up with his friends, telling me I should get out more and why didn't I spend time with my friends any more? Hey, why didn't I have a life any more? Why had I shut myself away?

Hey kiddo, why do you THINK?

Despite all of this, I managed to pull myself out of the initial turmoil. I didn't go to the funeral and that was a good thing in retrospect. Why go spend time near a narcissist, even if he was your father? Why go and re-enact your own pain? No thank you.

It was a few weeks after the initial turmoil that I decided to go to the GP, asking if I could have help for depression. My partner came with me. He said to the GP that he was 'caring for me' and that he 'didn't know what to do' with me any more. He was making out like I was some deranged lunatic. I was just depressed following the death of a parent, the loss of my job and the sale of my home. I wasn't a lunatic however, just a bit lost and needing some oomph back in my life so I could turn that dark corner and walk into some sunshine. My partner spoke for me, I hardly got a word in edgeways. He basically told the GP his account of events and didn't give me room to say much. I was so stunned by this situation I remember just nodding in agreement. I think I was giving up by this point, just giving in to how things were. I wasn't put on to anti-depressants though, not at this stage. That came later. I was put on to a waiting list for counselling however.

I felt like an absolute failure. For someone who had been such a high achiever, so bubbly and full of life, I felt like my life was spinning out of control. My partner was making things worse. I knew this but I wasn't at a stage where I could just leave and make my own way. I seriously thought I needed to make a go of things and I owed him that much to get myself happy again. I still wasn't working and that was killing me. I love being in a job, actually, let's define this properly, love having a clear career path with goals. I like feeling like an essential cogwheel in an organisation. I like having my opinion shared with others and I like managing others in the best way I know how, by leading by example. But I had also wanted to pursue a creative career and now I had the time to do it. Wasn't I lucky? Shouldn't I be embracing this time out and throwing myself into new beginnings? But I was surrounded by a house that was old, falling apart and dirty. I hate disorganisation and I hate dirt so when my partner was away working, I began to clear up the house and garden. It was a distraction away from all the mopiness. I re-landscaped the garden, I redecorated pretty much every room and I made things look nice. However it was at this time that I discovered something unnerving. I found my partner's dead mother's nightdresses and make-up under a bed. There were photographs of her all over the house. Everywhere you went there she was.

It was then that I finally realised something seriously wrong was going on. It wasn't me he was 'in love with'. It never would be. I was just a distraction, a play thing and I would never be better than mummy. Come to think of it, there was that next door neighbour, an older woman who came round a lot and gave him all that advice and he was always buying her presents and going round to see her. She was the replacement mummy.

I was the bland girlfriend, the blank canvas, the nubile whore. But since falling into a deep dark hole of numb depression, I was a useless blank canvas who couldn‘t serve his needs or be whore-like enough. Next door was replacement mummy, a Madonna. I was with a man who possessed the perfect Madonna-Whore complex. A true narcissist. I finally starting piecing things together. I started thinking about some of the comments he had made about previous girlfriends. They were never nice, respectful comments. He always dismissed them as psychotic, a bit lonely, too fat, too sensitive, in possession of a problem with their mothers, too needy. In fact, he even stated one day that “all girls seem to have a problem with their mothers”. I didn’t realise at the time that I was living with the biggest projectionist I would ever encounter. It was only a year after I had walked out from this relationship that I read that narcissists project their fears about themselves on to others so they can rid themselves of their guilt, anger and grief. Therefore, it could be said that he had a major problem with his mother; he had a very unhealthy relationship with her.

Now let's go back to the photograph of the girl on the bookshelf. The younger girl. In that photo, a slightly fuzzy photo, she was wearing a burlesque net hat, her eyes were cast downwards, looking away from the camera. And then I got it. She was the nymph, the ultimate young whore, innocent and perfect. I looked at the photo of the two of us on the mantelpiece and I already knew I was the white elephant in the room. This girl had been virtually deified. It was soon after this realisation that I discovered the receipt for an engagement ring. I knew it must have been for this girl. He had conveniently left it lying around almost as if he wanted me to discover it. I confronted him about it and he was so angry and stormed back home. We had a massive argument. It turns out this girl had been taught by him when she was five. She had been in his reception class. They had then met up years later and had a fling. He declared undying love for her, then she must have clocked he was loopy and disappeared, eventually marrying someone else. She was the inaccessible virgin. I was a blob on the landscape. I meant nothing. I was like a cheap second hand car to him and I knew it. The fact that he hadn’t got rid of the photograph of her was a very covert piece of abuse too. He had left it there so I would compare myself with her. I would fail at every attempt. You could say this man was very clever but I don’t think that’s true now. I think that he isn’t very intelligent at all. He’s just had years of practice at bending the truth.

I threw myself into painting a big picture. It was the best thing I had ever painted. I was so proud of it. I spent all day one day finishing it ready to show my partner when he came home. He came home. I showed him the painting. He looked at the painting, looked at me and then said, "And why didn't you call me to tell me you weren't making dinner? You should have let me know so I could make arrangements."
There it was. That was my place. In the kitchen cooking dinner, being his slave.
We started to have bigger and bigger rows. Everything was always my fault. He took my car one day to go out. He hadn't asked me. When he came back I asked him if he could ask me if he wanted to use my car as I might have needed it. I don't need to say that I was fuming. He then said a very strange thing. He said, "Oh if that's how you want to play, if I have to ask for your permission, I'm going to make you ask if you can borrow everything of mine in this house." To which I replied, "I think you'll find I already do." Which is what respectful people do. He had taken my car to try and impress his ex-wife. Yet another attempt of his to bend the truth and make his ex-wife believe it was his car and he was doing well financially no doubt. My car was all I had left after losing my job and home and it was a source of pride to me. He knew that and he walked all over my self-esteem by doing that. I realised pretty early on that his ex-wife viewed him for what he was which is why she didn’t become angry. She viewed him as a pathetic liar, to be given no compassion, no Father’s Day or Christmas card, to be given as little attention as possible. That was why she always seemed so calm. She knew him.

We were having worse and worse rows, me always trying to justify why I was angry. He always talked over me, never let me get a word in edgeways. It was clear he wouldn't let me speak out my opinion. My opinion meant nothing. He turned everything I said around until I would be trapped by my own words. He countered and re-countered. If I had said something was black he would have said it was white just to spite me and he would have said I had serious issues if I seriously thought something was black and I must be mad not to see it was white but yeah, that's right, I have father issues and mother issues and I have bi-polar disorder and I'm potty and losing my marbles and I'm a manipulative bitch and I'm so horrible to him, I'm so nasty to him, I'm such a witch and why don't I shut up! I had probably only been asking him to do a bit more round the house.

He started getting very aggressive, leering into my face, shaking with rage, chasing me round the house, continuing arguments into the night, waking me up in the middle of the night to start up an argument again, making me feel completely exhausted. I clung on to the fact that I knew in my heart of hearts that I was allowed to have an opinion. I felt too depressed to speak out loud to anyone. I had stopped trying to be creative. I put my paintbrushes away. I decided I needed an outlet and so I applied to work in a school.

This was the start of my new life. I won't go into great detail about this because there are identities of people I wish to protect but for the next two years I found much happiness and made many new friends plus I worked with some amazing children. I was a trusted member of a team and my work was praised by many. I was known for my patience and loving nature, my deep regard for some of the school's most troubled children. I was asked to work with the toughest children because I had a knack for turning them round and getting them back into the classroom. One teacher told me I should be really proud of myself. I started to confide in her about my home situation and she was gravely worried for me. She told me to seek advice as I was being, she said, psychologically abused. I had never heard this term before. I had never needed to know the term before. It was all new to me. I was starting to dread going home after work. I felt so happy and myself at work. I felt trapped and unable to be me at home. Each day I went home, put the key in the front door and walked back into a hothouse of control.

By this point he had got me into a routine through very careful emotional blackmail. I was preparing meals for him to take to work (he worked away for a few days each week), some weeks I was collecting him from the station, I was cleaning the house without him noticing whilst he did hardly any of the housework. I was doing all the food shopping using my own money. It was never said but he made me feel like I was less important. He never asked me how my day had gone, never seemed to take an interest in what I was doing, never sat and listened to me chatting happily about anything. If he did ask after me, it always seemed fake as if he knew the words but didn’t know the tune. We had stopped having sex. He just turned away from me every night. I went to bed later and later to avoid him. He was always complaining that he was so tired. I started dreaming about my ex, started thinking about other men in my head. I felt guilty for committing the crime of imagining other men next to me but I consoled myself with the fact that it was a sign my spirit was still alive and free and he would never have control over this part of me. So I dreamt on.
I felt starved, unloved, untouched, unwanted.

I felt barren and sexless and ugly and old.

Hollow.

Unattractive.

Pointless.

I felt like I was wasting the best years of my life and I knew in my head I would never want to marry this person or have their babies. The gene pool was seeming increasingly unhealthy. I had a choice and I made up my mind that I would make a get out plan, work my way towards building up enough strength to leave. One problem though. I was running out of money.

An interesting episode happened one day. I was listening to a programme on BBC Radio 4 about a woman who had become entangled with a sociopath. It was the Jon Ronson Psychopath series which he turned into a book (a very good one too!). This poor woman had been duped by a fantasist who told her he was an MI6 spy and she fell for it. He married her. He then swindled her out of most of her money and she lost her home. It was only when this man's ex-wife turned up on her doorstep and told her she was one of about 4 wives and this man had about 8 identities that the penny dropped. I was fascinated by the idea of sociopaths. I couldn't believe that people could be that screwed up and lacking in conscience. But apparently they constitute about 4% of the world's population. If you go to a restaurant for a meal one evening, it may be that one person in that restaurant is a psychopath. They are not all mass murderers. They are people who lack empathy, who have no ability to feel the full range of emotions that most human beings do. Their world is a hollow one. They feed off others to get to the top. They bleed people’s emotions and souls dry so they can experience a slice of real life. You could be in a room with one right now.
It was after this programme finished that my boyfriend suddenly said, "You know, you're intrigued by these people because you worry that you're one."

That's what he said. Just like that. In the cold light of day. Just dropped that comment like a bomb in the midst of my landscape. Bam!

“Could this be projection?”, I thought. I was starting to suss this man out. I sat calmly.

I think he knew that I was going to start rumbling him and he glibly dropped this comment to turn my thoughts on to myself rather than apply them to him. I now see this. If we look at this situation again, it was clear he had been planning to drop this comment right at the end of the radio show to twist my thinking. It was a callous act on his part. What concerns me more is why he would think it acceptable to make such a comment. It was a clear indication to me that I was living with someone pathological. Perhaps he was the sociopath narcissist. Perhaps he was feeding off me. Perhaps I really did need to get out sooner than I had anticipated.

There was clearly no love coming from him and it was breaking my spirit. I‘m not dumb enough to carry on loving someone who does not love me. I was starting to make decisions as callous as his. I decided it was convenient for me to continue living in that space until I could sort out different accommodation for myself.

I remember once, after an emotional breakdown of mine that I asked him why I felt as if he never truly loved me, why was he giving me this feeling? I remember him attempting tears and looking to one side, like he was completely lost, like the thing that I was asking of him was devoid of water and life, an emotional desert. I know this to be true now. There is nothing in him to give to another.

Women are born survivors and I'm not the first nor will I be the last. I knew I had to get out so I started to pool my remaining finances and keep a check on my spending. I started to do less for my boyfriend and started to regain contact with my friends and family. I went to my GP in confidence and went on to anti-depressants and arranged counselling privately which cost a bomb but started me on a journey to complete awareness. To this day I am indebted to my counsellor for helping me come out from the most unhealthy relationship I ever witnessed. I say witnessed because I wasn‘t really in a relationship with this man. It was all a fake act, an illusion. There was no US only HIM. And if the HIM didn’t get what he wanted, he played with my emotions, my brain, my words, my soul until there was hardly anything left.

It is fair to say that I had been in contact with my friends less and less as the relationship went into a black hole. I admit that I was ashamed of where I was headed and I was embarrassed by my partner who dominated conversation, talked strange rubbish, came up with weird manic ideas and had no real concept of who he was. I started to see through his glib talk about loving women who had 'emotional intelligence'. I'll tell you why he loved emotionally intelligent women. Because they're easy marks. They're easy to control because they're kind and they have a reserve of real emotional which he can feed off.

The next door neighbour continued to come round and he continued to go to hers to have little chats. It turns out they had been discussing me. Perhaps they were even having an affair. From what I know now, it seems feasible although it cannot be proven. There had been one incident when I had taken hours to cook us a lovely dinner and he was so ungrateful and unappreciative that I lost my rag and tossed a plate full of food in the air. This was not like me but I was starting to feel intense rage against my abuser and I remember picking up a cutlery knife in the kitchen as he threw himself towards me to have a go. He was in an intense state of anger and so was I. I kept hold of the knife. I have no idea what on earth was going on in my head at that moment but after months of emotional abuse and distortion of my thoughts and opinions, the very negating of my existence, I had reached point break. From that moment onwards he was able to justify all of his abuse towards me - "You're psychotic, you're violent, you have issues, you're a loser, you're a nasty bitch, you're too sensitive, you're too insensitive, you're too assertive, you think too much, you're vicious, you're manipulative, you need help, you're not the woman I fell in love with, you're a jealous hag, you're wasting your time trying to get me to feel sorry for you."
And so on...

If you ever find yourself in a situation of domestic emotional and psychological abuse, trust me when I say this, never pick up a cutlery knife. It will be used against you for eternity. That one little moment of absolute desperation will be used against you again and again and again. You think that if you make a statement like that, that the situation will be dissipated. It would be with most normal people. Most normal people would back off and real talking would begin and most likely a whole lot of crying and sorrys and sorting things out. Not with a narcissist with mental health issues. They see such an act as the prize they have been waiting for; the proof that you’re becoming as pathological as they are. You have successfully become their prize projection. You are now the mad one and they are excused of any future behaviour. You can pat yourself on the back and say well done for becoming what they wanted when all along you were so sure you wouldn’t fall into their trap.

He had been discussing me with his next door neighbour, he had fabricated and elaborated and had decided to tell this neighbour that I had some form of psychosis; some form of behavioural disturbance. He had been routinely adding to this information each time he saw her. He even apparently "had a chat" with a social worker friend of hers who had confirmed, he said, that I had "a behavioural issue that led to violent tendencies".
As you can imagine, my spirit was vanishing fast. Any form of retaliation or self defense I had been using as a means of keeping my spirit alive was now being sternly criticised and the final nail in the coffin banged in. I would have no outlets now. Any behaviour I displayed would be ticked off as yet another episode of my psychotic downward spiral.

This man is without doubt one of the most fascinating examples of human psychology I have ever encountered, bar the strange man who used to cycle round my seaside home town hurling verbal abuse at people when I was a child, whom everyone called The Character. I didn't know a thing about projection or mirroring or denial or covert abuse until I met this person. I know it all now, perhaps too much but at least I am armed with an array of awareness tools these days.

There are a few more incidents to relay which I hope will really drive home the pathology of this man.

We had been invited to a wedding of one of his friends. It involved a flight, drive and hotel stay. I usually organised these details in our lives but this time I let him do it as I couldn't be bothered any more and I was starting to come to full realisation about what a sorry-ass jerk he was. I thought "Let him screw it up, let's see what he can do when left to his own devices."
He booked the cheapest, earliest flights so we would have to get up at god knows what time. He booked a hire car but only put himself on the insurance to save money meaning I couldn't drive. He booked us into a youth hostel with bunk beds to save money rather than the hotel all the others were staying in.
The day before we were due to go, I cooked him a birthday meal as his birthday would be during the wedding. I cooked a wild mushroom risotto. Unfortunately for me, it had a very bad effect on my digestion and I couldn't sleep because I had to keep going to the loo. My digestion had been horrific for months anyway due to the stress of living with this man (when I left this problem disappeared overnight). So I got about one hour of fitful sleep. At 4.30am we had to wake up and get to the airport. I looked and felt awful. Anyone could see I didn't look well. Added to this was an underlying problem with my monthly periods which had become heavier and heavier and more and more painful as I started to pass thumb sized blood clots and was having cervical contractions akin to first stage labour to pass them. I knew I was about to get my period and I was dreading this.

We got off the plane, picked up the hire car and he said we were going to go on a day of sightseeing! He hadn't asked me if I was okay even though I looked terrible. He completely ignored my feelings. He hadn't even really said thank you for the birthday dinner I cooked the previous night. I was to now spend the day touring round looking for ancient ruins in the pouring rain. I had to make it very clear that the youth hostel was a 3 hour drive away, that I was tired, very tired and desperately needed to sleep and that I was asking if we could go to the hostel NOW. I was then subjected to the most monstrous strop known to mankind. There was probably verbal abuse and some shouting for good measure but I was so numb to this treatment now (like all good abuse victims we harden to it so the abuse has to escalate to have any effect on us...) that I just let it ride. I had no energy for the head games that day.

We got to the hostel and it was the direst hole. Nobody else was staying as it was the end of the season so I was totally isolated with him. I realise now that he probably wanted it this way so he could have fun abusing me for the weekend as a bit of a birthday present to himself.

I slept then we got ready to go to an evening party to meet the wedding guests. At this party, I sang and he played guitar. Whenever he plays guitar it is always too loudly. There is no sense of dynamics to his play. He just bashes a song out with little insight. You may remember me saying a narcissist knows the words but doesn’t know the tune. This couldn’t be more true. Whenever he played, there was no soul to anything he did. He mangled the life out of anything he touched. To add insult to injury, he sang and he was so out of tune that people were looking a little embarrassed for him. I had learnt to put up with this and to pay him compliments even when my ears were bleeding from the noise. Everyone has to be encouraged even if they are poor players. Another ex girlfriend and I have been able to laugh about his guitar playing and the three or four songs he plays ALL the time.

Then I sang. I used to sing in a band at university and I have a good voice - this much I know. I sang a couple of songs and the good looking brother of the groom tells me I have an amazing voice and that I should join a band again and record. After months of being put down at home, this was like an angel talking in my ear. Someone just paid me a compliment. I put the compliment in my heart and nurture it, feel its warmth. I can feel a little bit of my spirit waking up.

Reader, you can imagine the amount of hatred this caused. I was not paid a single compliment by my partner. It was not mentioned on the silent drive back to the hostel.
The following day I got my period. It was as bad as I had feared. I'm flooding, I'm in pain, my legs are shaking from the contractions. I get told we are going out for a day trip to the coast. I know I have no choice so I pad myself up and cross my fingers. When we arrive at the coast, I have flooded, we are nowhere near a loo and I have to endure the embarrassment of getting on to a public bus hoping that nobody will spot that my jeans are stained. I remember my ex ignoring my situation and having no empathy for what I must have been going through. I am numb to this by now however. It's just how things are. I know it’s hard for men to understand or be open about women’s monthly cycles and the problems we have. I fully respect that but I would imagine most men would take such a situation with a lot more care and consideration. Anyone in pain needs a hug or their hand held or a kind word whispered in their ear and a look of concern. These are things that human beings do for each other. They are unspoken little gestures that most humans do automatically. But for a narcissist or a sociopath, these actions do not exist in their behavioural vocabulary. They are unaware or unwilling to condescend themselves to these minor niceties. Because that would then mean someone else was stealing the limelight and their source of supply would have claimed a small victory.

The next day, it is the ogre's birthday. As we get ready to go out he asks if I could drive so he can drink. I think about it, initially agree then remember that I'm not on the car insurance so no, I can't drive. He'll have to.

Enter Satan.

He lies back on his bunk bed, hands crossed over his paunch and says, "You bitch. It's my birthday."

I calmly tell him again that I am not on the insurance, it's pouring with rain outside, it's dangerous and if we got caught or had an accident, he would be liable, so no, I can't drive.

"You manipulative little bitch, it's my birthday. How dare you!"

And so on and so on.

I refuse to give into this temper tantrum. I will not be coerced into doing something by a person who just called me a bitch. I will not commit an offence by driving without insurance.

I see through his words now and they do not bother me. I have hardened so much I can take it and throw it back at him un-moved. Sometimes I am aware I can wind him up and produce this reaction. I am aware that my spirit is coming back and she’s angry! I am alive, I can feel and I can say the right thing and do the right thing without being called a bitch. I don’t deserve this awful treatment and I’m going to get out, just as soon as it’s safe. I can be brave. Yes I can!

Eventually he drives and I drink. But I break down in tears later on in the evening and have to take myself off. Everyone around me is happy and I am trembling at the abuse constantly being hurled at me. It makes it worse when this man is all sweetness and light in public as if nothing ever happens and we are a perfect couple. I'm splitting at the seams however and almost feel like shouting down the pub and telling everyone in there what a nasty piece of work this man is. But would anyone believe me? I'm surrounded by his friends. He would just start telling them that I was a screw loose and on the verge of a breakdown and it's all in my head. Then he would do the caring, sharing boyfriend routine like he always does and everyone would think I was just a nutter. So I'm stuck.

The wedding happens the next day and he is asked to do that Corinthians speech about love? It is most sickening to hear him speak these words when I know the real man. I almost feel like throwing up. He pours out these words with utmost sincerity, like a pillar of the community. Every word is like a death knell to me. I shudder under my breath. The wedding reception is fine, I even enjoy myself. Then it comes to leaving the wedding and sleeping a few hours and driving to the airport. He hasn't filled up the hire car with petrol (the one in HIS name remember?). We have a 70 mile drive to the airport. It's 3am in rural Ireland.

I say nothing critical as this would lead to huge amounts of verbal abuse, panic, drama and stuff I can't be bothered with right now. So I just offer advice to drive as economically as possible on no petrol until we get closer to the nearest petrol station (wherever that is). It gets to the point where I am actually sitting in the passenger seat, silently praying. It is pouring with torrential rain outside the car and there is nobody around, not a soul. Then I suddenly spot a taxi driver turning in the road and I scream, "Stop!" Through the rain I ask the guy to wheel over to us and he points me in the direction of a petrol station that taxi drivers use that the public don't know about. I thank the man.

I don't get a thank you or a well done or even just "Nice work" from my partner. He just wheels into the petrol station, fills it with the barest amount of petrol to get to the airport then off we go.

We are dirt tired, I hate him. He is an ignorant, clumsy, arrogant, puffed-up, deranged, abusive, selfish, selfish, selfish excuse for a man. I hate him. Did I mention I hate him? These words do not seem heavy enough to describe how I felt about him that night and many other days and nights.

I don't dare tell anyone other than my family about the petrol incident. I already know that I'll get abuse from him if I jokingly mention it to anyone and say, "Oh my god, X was an idiot and forgot to put petrol in the car!!" Somehow I know it's not going to be okay to make a joke of it. If I did, I would get a response something along the lines of (you have to imagine this in a wimpy whiney male voice) "You know, other girlfriends wouldn't be so nasty about their boyfriends. Other girlfriends would support their partners and they would be able to shrug their shoulders and not make such a fuss about this. You're just such a nasty piece of work. You're a bitch. You're doing this to hurt me. Why do you have to hurt me?"

Total projection. I have to give it to the man - he is good at it.

It's then that I begin to understand that something has slipped from my personality. I've stopped being myself and I'm wary of what might come out of my mouth. I'm walking on eggshells. I'm thinking before I speak. I'm judging what is the best thing to say so that I don't cause a scene. I'm constantly told off for saying something controversial or mean or out of term. I'm such a spiteful bitch. I must be, I mean, look at how upset he is with me, look how he shouts and screams and tells me I'm a sociopathic whore?

I'm under control.

But I'm also becoming more and more angry.

A couple of months go by and nothing eventful happens in our life as usual. My life has become so desperately boring and numb. We hardly go out, we have nothing to say to each other apart from communicating basic instructions to each other. Communication is at an all time low. Expressing emotion is far too risky, he just ends up going off on one and then I get called a bitch, or a sociopath, or a manipulative witch, or a nasty piece of work, or a vindictive, spiteful, funny looking bi-polar disordered bitch.

Comments on my looks have become the latest thing. I am told I am quite funny looking and that most men probably wouldn't consider me attractive. This is the one that still hurts the most and brings tears to my eyes to this day, even though I know that I'm beautiful. Part of me believed him. Part of me acknowledged that yes, I wasn't conventionally pretty like women in magazines but I knew I had lovely Celtic looks and I looked healthy and well and had good bone structure. I look younger than my actual age and as I become older, people are more and more surprised when I tell them my age. I have good skin and beautiful green eyes.

Why was I justifying or even contemplating this comment from this abusive, hideous man?

Why?? Why didn't I just slap him into next week?

Because I had picked up that cutlery knife remember? And it had never been forgotten and I was 'marked' as a psychotic bitch, capable of physical violence (obviously, I mean look at me, I'm so on-edge!) which made me even more self-controlled and desperate to be proved wrong, that I wasn't going to slap him for dropping all this abuse on me. My entire personality was compromised.

I was cornered. I could see the game of chess happening all around me and my moves were becoming limited, day by day. I was aware that more and more triangulation was happening with the neighbour next door. He had been beefing her up with lies about me so that she didn't come round and just catch up with me over a herbal tea any more. She avoided me. I felt hurt and didn't understand why. If I walked out to the shops, he told me it wasn't safe and that he would come with me and I had to state my case that I wanted to go by myself. I went swimming on my own but that was about it. I was so exhausted from constantly being on edge and so down-hearted that I didn't have any energy left for forming new friendships and getting to know people. I mentioned wanting to join a walking group but that was turned down because, I quote, "I would have to mix with other people." I took him to the Buddhist Centre for a meditation class and he came out and said, "Those people are a bunch of wrist-slashers, I don't want to go again." I took him to an evening with a local art group and they were called wrist-slashers as well. When you come up against this kind of resilience and mockery, it makes it very hard to be strong and do what you want to do. I knew he would have started calling me unfaithful and would have accused me of sleeping with someone else if I had gone out once a week in the evening. I refused to give him that option. In terms of relationships, I will NEVER cause another human being that kind of damage even if the other human being is Satan. Infidelity I think, is the worst crime you can commit against another. I cannot even begin to entertain the kind of pain that causes someone. So, I stayed home, I stayed faithful. But in my head I realised I could go all sorts of places. I could dream and think and contemplate in whole other ways and worlds that my partner had no access to.

Sometimes he would be standing over me, screaming and shouting (sometimes just in his underpants with his bandy little white legs on show) and I would go off into my own little world in my head. His voice would fade out until all was quiet. I would imagine music and beautiful colours and the smell of a roast dinner and I would hear the laughter of my niece and nephew. I would be running on a beach with my hair full of sand and I was laughing. I would seem calm to this man who was just going mad in front of me. I learnt that I could look down my nose at him and he would go bananas. It became one of my defensive weapons. I would go quiet, think of my niece and nephew or something beautiful and I would look down my nose at him. It worked every time. He became like a Rumpelstiltskin character, jumping up and down in front of me. I was finding my core, my Qui, my energy.

It is so apt that the Buddha sits on a lotus flower. The lotus rose up from the mud into heaven and found true beauty. Whenever I thought of beautiful things that I had love for, I rose up out of the mud. I could not be touched. It was only when I came back down to earth with a thud when the stress hormones kicked in that I started to show signs of ill health.

The bleeding was out of control. The contractions got worse every month. I was ignored by my partner unless he could see that a show of sympathy would get him something or if there were other people to impress. On Christmas Eve, I had the first of two scans. It showed that my right ovary had become completely encased in skin. Multiple polyps were seen. The polyps had blocked off the normal release of hormones. At the meeting with the O&G surgeon, he didn't rule out pre-cancerous cells and advised that a biopsy would be done. My mother was with me because my partner had decided that having his child round for Christmas Eve was a priority and I could have made it to the hospital for the scan by myself, even though I was bleeding unpredictably and was in pain. So my parents drove 60 miles up the road to take me to the hospital for a 30 minute appointment. That's what love is. There it is, right there, people doing stuff for each other because it matters, not because of what they might get out of it. No big gestures or showers of affection. Just taking me to the hospital and holding my hand whilst I waited. I love my mum and dad more than anyone can know because they do stuff like this. We, as a family, do stuff like this. That's how we are.

I go back to the house with my parents and the TV is on loud and he rushes out with a look of overly-done concern on his face. He literally rushes up to my face like a crocodile might rush into the water after a duck. He is doing this because my parents are behind me and it's all for show. His lower lip is slightly dropped and when he pecks me on the lips, he tastes metallic. In fact he tastes metallic quite a lot. His skin is usually cold and bloodless.

It's past lunch and I can see that two bowls of pasta got made and eaten by him and his child. Nothing left for my parents or I. Am I expecting too much here? Sometimes I think maybe I am but then I think, "No, actually, he should have thought about you being at hospital and coming back hungry and got something in for your parents." Instead my parents have brought lunch over. A whole picnic chill-box full of food. Mum and I start to unpack it and get the table ready. The Wii is blasting out in the living room. Suddenly he rushes in, bringing his child along with him, holding them by the shoulders and says, "When is lunch ready because we need to know whether to start another game or not." Not would you like a hand with putting stuff on the table? Or maybe shall we go wash our hands? This little move is done to make me feel guilty for stopping his child halfway through a Wii game. They are the words of a child, not a man. A man speaking to a mother. Have I become the replacement mother? I hate him. So does my mother by this point. She is saying under her breath, "Are you sure you want to stick with him, he's a funny little man."

So we have Christmas Eve lunch. It is odd. It doesn't last too long. Nobody is there for the pleasure of it, although halfway through dinner mum holds my hand again and asks if I'm alright. We share a look and for two seconds, it's all cool. The world is alright. My partner is quietly seething. He hates what mum and I have. It eats away at him. He cannot have this love and he will not break it. I am not loved by my partner. I have become less than a woman. But I am still my mother's daughter and I will continue to love and be loved as a daughter.

In the evening, when his child has gone home, he bursts into tears on the sofa. I am in the kitchen making mince pies so I don't hear him at first. It is only when I hear abject sobbing that I go look to see what is happening. He is crying and crying, shaking with tears. I know this sounds awful but I have seen this display from him many times before and it is always done when he is worried he might slip under the attention radar or someone else (me) might steal his limelight. After all, let's remember that I had a scary hospital appointment in the morning and had my family over so much of the day has been about me. But he does look a sorry state so I go and console him. I pour him a sherry, light a fire, bring the cooked mince pies in and watch a programme about metal detecting with him. He sobs that he misses his child (who he saw this morning) and misses his mum (ok, understand that one, total respect, not going to comment, just listen). Again this is awful but I'm thinking, "This man is milking this a bit. He's 43. Can't he get a grip?" He gets a grip when all attention is 110% focussed on him. I don't even spot that he hasn't asked me a single question about my day, the scan, how I feel, am I scared, what did they say. Nothing. It doesn't occur to me because all attention is on him and I have my time cornered. I would not be allowed to cry right now because he just cried. I'm not allowed to be scared because he just showed his vulnerable side. I have to hold the sides up and act like everything is completely normal to stop this person going to pieces when inside, I am falling apart. What if I have the beginnings of cancer? What if I can't get pregnant? What if I never, ever have children and my one hope, the one thing I would desperately love to hold in my arms just never happens for me? What if they take an ovary away? What if I bleed more? What if the HRT they give me doesn't work? What if it does but it makes me a psychotic PMT laden bitch (oh, sorry, I forgot I am already that according to my partner!). What if - what if - what if...

I have this thought in my mind; the one where you grow old and fragile and ill and I wonder, just for a moment whether I would be loved by this man till my death. I know already that I would not be for I am not loved now.

We sleep. We do not touch. We do nothing. We just exist into Christmas Day 2009. We roll inhumanely towards it, one unfeeling, one scared to feel.

It is a grey morning. He drives us to a beach. I take it upon myself to collect the plastic bottles and cans along the beach and take them to a recycling centre. He has his metal detector. We look like two eccentric oddities but we do this to avoid the other. I do it to steal back a piece of myself. I do not wish to walk along the beach hand in hand. I do not want to hold my abuser’s hand. I do not wish to spend one more day under control. I look out to sea and think about whether I could stomach living on my own again and I know that I can. When you start to realise that life alone would be more pleasurable and more promising spent without your partner, you realise it is time to go. I do not wish to watch his child grow up to resent him, I do not wish to stick around for yet another lie, another mistake, another rage, another attack on my fragile self-esteem. My Qui was ready to take it to the next stage whatever happened. I collected my scattered thoughts, steadied my conscience and looked into the distance where my partner, a man who had lied and distorted my truth for three years, hobbled about over the stones looking for pennies. He looked lost in a little boy’s world but there was the truth. He was a little boy trapped in an adult man’s body. The world around him had moved on and he did not know how to engage with it. It had become clearer and clearer that I had no future with him. I felt intense sorrow for him. He had completely missed me for three years. He did not know me and I did not know him. I picked up a handful of sand and watched it slide through my fingers and thought how our relationship was on it’s last minute of sand time. We had become the empty bottle, a glass heart with nothing in it but stale air. He had become more and more of a little boy as I had lost my personality. He had bled me dry and now he was able to indulge his real emotional self whilst I looked on as a ghost. I realised that he only acted like an adult to trap his next prey. He could keep the act up long enough but now the mask had fully slipped and I could not love what I saw. He knew this I think. He knew that eventually I would not love him because of what he really was. I have never seen this in any other person. Most people you meet are who they are, they don’t change. They don’t have to create an illusion. They don’t have to screw up your mind and your truth to feel significant and powerful. I realised why he had chosen some of the friends he had in life. They were lackeys; people who wouldn’t question his behaviour or who were too lacking in confidence or awareness to stand up to him. I knew that he had been bullied as a child and he had then chosen to socialise with people younger than him so that he wouldn’t ever feel threatened. He was a lost soul on a beach searching for something he would never find. Meanwhile a woman looked on at him who he could have known, could have shared his life with and confronted his fears with her but he chose not to. He chose to throw this all away.

When we arrived home, he said he would cook Christmas dinner. I had cooked it last year and he said he would do it. I was a little stunned by this. I had assumed I would be cooking it. Maybe the events of yesterday had sunken in a bit and I would be allowed to sit down and put my feet up. But when you have been trained into not sitting down and putting your feet up, the prospect of this fills you with guilt. You are unable to do it. I now know, a year on from leaving this relationship, that I had been subjected to neuro-linguistic programming over a long period of time. It is what manipulative people do to ensure everything goes their way. You could also just label it guilt-tripping. Anyone can learn to do it but most would shun it for its out and out deviousness. Also, women are still more likely to take on responsibility for the lion’s share of domestic duties. Cooking Christmas dinner to many is a source of pride. So I feared that this move was two-pronged. One, it may have been done to set me up to feel guilt and two, it was to take away a source of pride. However, I don’t think he had thought it through this deeply. He just wanted to do something on his terms.

He put on music very loudly. It was too loud for me. It was too loud for the neighbours who shared our street. It was Christmas afternoon and nobody wanted their pleasure deafened. It was taking over. His music was always too loud. His voice would clatter on and on. It drowned out the peace and stillness of the world. This was the point. He never wanted to acknowledge the peace of the world because he was not at peace with himself. He had created a fake illusory persona and every day he had to make himself up. The little crushed real him, if he had ever existed was somewhere to be found amidst the silence. I believe silence was so unbearably heavy to this man, like a mirror being forced into his face that he ran away from it every day. If you talk incessantly, it is because you do not wish to listen to others for fear they may provide you with truth. If you have sound and fury all around you, you can delay getting to know yourself. Surely every person, if they are ever to become a well-rounded, self actualised human being should look into the mirror of silence, go within themselves to find out who they really are in order to come out stronger. To find inner stillness, you must confront each and every fear within yourself and resolve it. In silence. This has the potential to cause much pain and it is understandable why some avoid it their whole lives. But if you want to grow and learn from your past; if you want to shake off lifelong habits and take yourself to the next level of understanding and enlightenment, you have to go there. You have to enter the dark cave and crawl around in your own underworld that you made without much thought for years and years.

Whenever a fleeting thought enters my mind, I weigh it for its reason for being there. Some thoughts I dismiss, some I leave till later, some I act on. Some thoughts require silence so they can be worked through. As the music played on and drowned out the world, a very real thought fell into my head, demanding attention.

My father.

He demanded to be dealt with. Or rather, my consciousness was demanding me to think through his relevance to me two Christmases after his death. I had not really acknowledged his death the first Christmas. I had had other crises to work through. Now life was more mundane and soulless, there he was. My brain felt heavy, I could not see his image clearly. All I could feel was his icy silence. I was aware of his dark brooding eyes and his bulk but there were no words. Yet I felt more comfort from my father’s presence than I did in the company of the monkey flailing about in the room next door. My father was a representation of something; this much I knew. I turned to the monkey and asked for the music to be turned down. He rushed in, feet heavy. He stared at me, mouth gaping open. There were two seconds of eye contact. How I resented that face, a face that lacked insight, a face that regarded me like a puppet, a face that encased a spoilt boy who would have pulled off my legs if I were a spider, a face I could not honour, a face that did not acknowledge my power and strength as a woman, a face that feared me deeply for my resourcefulness, creativity, sexuality, humour, patience, forthrightness, steeliness, open-mindedness and ability to be silent. A face I was leaving behind for it was not the right face. I could not feel compassion and have an open heart right now. I had held an open heart for this man for too long. Now it was time to close my heart and keep it safe.

I asked for the music to be turned down. I told him I needed a bit of peace and quiet to think of my father, just for a little while.

He said, “Ah, so this is how you want to play it. All the things you did yesterday were to score points for today.”

He put his hands on his hips, like he always did whenever he needed to make himself look a bit more menacing. I saw through it. His mouth was still half open. His bottom lip curled into a thin snake of muscle. He looked so ugly and twisted, I felt sick. A face can be a million things. When you are truly aware of another’s intentions and regard for you, you see their ugliness whether it is physically manifested or not. You see the ugliness of another’s soul, the vapidity of their heart and you feel sick with fear. His eyes looked like two bullet holes and there was nothing but darkness there. His skin was as waxy as a mannequin’s. His hair was dead straw. His paunch belly rolled over his waistband.

I was ready.

“Please could you turn the music down a bit.”

“No.”

“Why?”

He laughed and threw his hands in the air in an action of despair.

“Because it’s Christmas darlin! I’m tryin’ to make us have a good time! I can’t do anything right can I! I take you to a beach for a walk, I say I’m going to cook dinner. I’m tryin’ to know what to say to you with all this stuff going on and I can’t ever get it right! You are so horrible to me, I deserve someone so much better!”

With that he took a coat from the stairs and stormed out of the house. He was mad with rage. I felt unsafe, very unsafe. I refused to let this carry on any more. I refused to live in a house with a man who didn’t know how to love, how to show regard for another through small gestures, how to turn the volume button to the left when asked. For three years I had never been looked at with real kindness. For three years I had willed myself to ignore the fact that he was empty of any ability to love as an adult. Now I had pushed him to show me real love in one small act of respect and he was unable to do it. It wasn’t a language he was familiar with. I went up to the front door and bolted it. I went upstairs and put my hand down the side of the wardrobe to pull out my escape bag. It had been there for a few months now, packed with the barest essentials for when the day came. This hadn’t been the first time. I had stayed overnight in B&Bs before now when a row had got too bad. I had run away for a night of peace and solitude when I could no longer cope with the screaming demons that rose up from his damned soul. Sometimes it had been so wonderful to lie on clean white sheets and look up at a ceiling I didn’t know and know that for 8, maybe 12 hours, I would have peace.

It is exhausting to live with a restless soul. They scrape away at your existence just to claim some life for themselves. They steal your passions and claim them as their own. They body snatch your ideas and suffocate your inspiration. They take on your personality and character, your history and opinions and become you. You are no longer you. You have been drained dry. You are washed out from tolerating the noise and the fury of a soul in Hell. You look up to find your signposts but they have been ripped down and the person who is now You turns their back and wanders off skipping towards new supply.

I came down the stairs holding my bag. I could hear his urgent footsteps stomping back. The footsteps stopped and he tried his key in the lock. He pushed the door but it was bolted. There was silence for a second, then more urgent key turning. Then banging. Shouting. “Open this door! Open it! You bitch! This is my house! Open this door now!”

I was done. I really believed that. I believed the next few seconds might be the end of me. It wouldn’t take him much to strangle me or kick me to the ground. I already knew that he was beyond seeing reason. I walked slowly to the door. I had my bank codes, my lap top, my phone and my jewellery in the bag. I had two pairs of knickers and some shampoo and toothpaste. I had a hair brush. A huge pang of worry speared through me as I thought of my cat. What would she do? Would he feed her? She was so wary of him. Perhaps she wouldn’t come home. What kind of carer would I be then? The stone of anguish slid across my guts and left a bleeding knot.

My cat…

My beautiful cat who had helped me get through the last 18 months. The day I got her, there had been a row. He was trying to delay collecting her. The lady at the kennels said she was ready to collect and her pen was needed for another cat. I had to collect her. I wanted to collect her. I was bursting with excitement. He was trying to control this as much as every other part of my life. His child wanted to meet her. I had counted the days till my cat would be with me. Nothing was going to stop me collecting her. As I drove all the way to the kennels, my mobile ‘phone was sat on the passenger seat next to me and this voice was screaming at me. He was out of control. He was calling me a selfish cow. His voice droned on and on. I was not prepared to listen. I told him that if he chose to behave like a 12 year old he would be treated like one and switched my ‘phone off.

I collected my cat.

Meg…

Meg is my joy. She is a blue and cream tortie and she is so pretty I burst with delight when I wake up to see her. I was so lonely in that relationship until she came along. She gave me a reason to keep going. She needed feeding, vaccinations, warmth, cuddles, patient care after a traumatic life herself. She kept me grounded and she kept me focused. I worried that my partner was pushing her around when I wasn’t there. She was wary of him and he never made any fuss of her unless I made him notice she was there. When he came home, she would come down the stairs and saunter towards his legs and wrap her tail quietly around him. He wouldn’t even notice her. She would look up at him to see if he had noticed but there was no connection. I asked him to notice her and he would attempt to make a fuss but I knew he was scared of her. He was scared she would scratch him and hiss and draw blood. He would not pick her up. He never openly commented on my confidence with animals, how I intrinsically knew what to do to make them calm in my presence. It isn’t a sixth sense. It is just kindness. It is the art of empathising with another species and understanding how they might perceive things. It is the ability to create a bond of trust and respect so that an animal will stay. Animals know when you fear them and they will react differently to you. They can smell your fear.

If Meg had been in the house with me at that moment she would have run from the smell of fear. Her ears would have shot back at the banging and shouting. Her eyes would be wide from confusion. She would have hissed in panic and all chaos would reign as she spat and scratched the women she dearly loved as if to say, “Please stop me feeling frightened! I don’t understand!”

I thought of Meg and I whispered, “I will come back to collect you. I promise.” Then I made my way to the door. I unbolted the door and let the latch go. Two hands pushed me back to the wall and two hands came closer and closer to my throat. The smell of metal breath and the coldness of winter skin clamped itself around my world. A voice, full of loathing and base evil said, “You’re not leaving, not today.” The hands pushed me back to the wall a little harder. “You can’t do this to me. It’s Christmas. You’re not going anywhere.” I stood stock still. I looked right into his godless eyes and I said, “I am leaving. Now you will let go of my shoulders and my neck. You will let go of me.” I was calm. Something was keeping me calm.

Nothing. He just stared at me and kept his grip. So I started yelling as loud as I could.

“ Let go of me, let GO of me, LET GO OF ME!!!!!”

I shouted and screamed and yelled and moved and twisted and punched and pushed and squeezed and elbowed and got out.

I got out.

I raced to my car and opened the door and slid in, throwing my bag on to the passenger seat. He was there holding the driver’s door open. He stood between me and freedom.

“You can’t do this. I’m not letting you go. You bitch!”

“Get away from my car! Get away from my CAR! GET AWAY FROM MY CAR!!!!”

I screamed and yelled and shouted and repeated, repeated, repeated until finally curtains moved and lights came on and neighbours came out. Then he moved away from my car. I drove to my parents with tears streaming down my face. I had no idea what I would do next with my life; whether I would keep my job, whether I would be able to afford a place of my own, whether I would get my possessions back, whether I would be let into the house, whether he would chase me here, whether I would be stalked. Nothing was certain but it was better than staying in that house on Christmas Day watching another wasted day of my life tick by.

He came the next day with a bag of clothes for me. He sat in the lounge and told my stepfather how he was deeply sorry for what he had done but was also worried about me and that he thought I had some sort of mental illness. I could not believe the lies I was hearing. How could someone sit calmly and say those things about another? How was it right that he had barged on in and been given a cup of tea by two polite, accommodating parents and then dirty their doorstep by saying he thought their daughter was mentally ill? How was that right? How did that happen? The level of social unawareness or perhaps disregard was either autistic or it was psychopathic. It was projection on a grandiose scale.

My mother asked him to leave. I stormed out of the house, unable to tolerate one more second of abuse in my own home. My mother was angry. She doesn’t get angry unless she is really pushed to the edge. Because of this, people have sometimes taken advantage of her good nature but they always regret it when they have pushed her too far. She is steelier than a samurai sword and her actions sharper. My mother sharply asked him to leave, again, or she would call the police. It was clear she had seen right through this ugly little dwarf and now he was to be thrown out. He stood up and made his way to the door in a sloping sideways move, she said later. He then went outside and tried to find me. Luckily I knew all the passageways in the neighbourhood better than he and despite him looking for me for an hour, he never did get to me. When he had given up, he went to his car and sat in it for another half and hour or so with all the lights on then he finally drove away.

I have no idea what was going through his mind as he tried to search for me and then, when he gave up and sat in his car but I think it goes along the lines of this.

Panic.

Not panic because of heartbreak or deep loss.

Panic because your supply has gone missing in action.

The supply that has as much significance as a toaster or second hand car or some half squashed insect on a pavement.

The supply that has mirrored back your sense of self-worth and told you you’re okay, that really, you’re right and that other person at work is being mean, and that honestly it was fine you openly had a go at someone in the office because that was the right thing to do. The supply who actually wished she could say, "You know what? I think you have an easy deal at work, maybe it's time you gave them a little more. Why don't you try to do one thing a bit differently and see if you get a positive response?"

The supply who always complimented you on the food you had cooked even though it was sometimes disgusting; too oily, too spicy, too salty, too full of fish paste. The supply who daren’t say anything else because of the rage she would receive if she had said, “Actually, I don’t really like this. Do you mind if I don’t eat it all?” The supply who was asked every time you cooked something whether she liked it. Did you ever notice your supply never did that? She never had to ask if the person tasting her food would enjoy it because she didn’t want to create a false situation with people left feeling awkward or having to lie.

The supply who had a female body but was never allowed to have a sexuality because the man she was with had no sexuality of his own, no sexual personality and no clue how to use his hands in the bedroom. The supply who slept next to you but didn’t dream about you and instead dreamt of other men much deeper and warmer and kinder and wiser. The supply who one night had a dream about a swimmer. All was blue and she kissed him underwater and in that dream she felt the most intense love possible. She knew she could love to the bottom of her soul.

The supply who gave you advice when you asked for it even though you chose to ignore it and who became increasingly frustrated with your childish outbursts and fits of anger when things didn’t go your way. The supply who listened to your endless angry conversations with customer service representatives. You shouted down the 'phone at them and demanded to speak to a manager, forgetting the fact that all call centres put people like you on loud speaker so the whole office can hear you whine. The supply who tried to show you another way of achieving what you want in life by having patience and by being calm and friendly and the supply who eventually gave up because she knew you were a lost cause.

The supply who became a heap of tawdry clothes as you bled her dry and she bled her way towards surgery, asking for help but never truly receiving any care from you. A supply who washed your clothes, decorated your home, bought you warm jumpers, made you nice dishes, hugged your child, dried her hair, kept your home looking nice, tried to liven up the bedroom even though her heart wasn’t in it because there was no love coming her way. The supply who looked back at the love she had experienced from every other lover and knew that she was with a loveless person. There was no heart. Why kid yourself? This man is in it for himself.

So, whatever it was that went on in that car was not an aching heart. It was panic at being left alone with his demons, the demons that wrapped themselves around his head and screamed like banshees whenever they could get an inch of time with him. They covered his eyes and smothered his mouth, sank down into his throat and beat his ears. They rattled his trees of discontent and showered his barren lands with seeds of desperation.

I am alone.

These are perhaps the most frightening words you can give a narcissist to say.

I am here by myself.

If you look closely, you will see them shaking and the hair on the back of their neck rising from the adrenalin.

I must face myself.

Watch them writhe in panic and terror. They writhe because to face themselves is too painful and too difficult. There is no original person there to face. They created a fake persona and they have forgotten who they really were in the beginning. Their real self is wasted, shrivelled and stunted. Their real self might have been bland, weak, quiet but somebody somewhere didn’t show any appreciation of them in this state so they decided to change themselves so they could prove they were worth something. Perhaps they were bullied. Perhaps they were beaten up at home. Perhaps they were never hugged or told that what they were doing was worthwhile as a child. Perhaps they went through trauma after trauma. Or perhaps they were allowed to get away with murder by their parents and perhaps they are just spoilt little children who never grew up. Perhaps their brains short circuited. Perhaps they didn’t develop emotionally. Perhaps they didn’t possess the cognitive capacity to further themselves. Perhaps there is little or no emotional intelligence and they are stuck. Perhaps they have a secret life and secret interests that are too base and disgusting to bring to the surface. Perhaps they are having an affair under your nose. Perhaps they are busy finding new supply as you dwindle under the pressure. This is why they writhe with panic. You just uncovered the spider’s nest and all the babies are crawling up your legs. You just chased a rat into a corner and now it is spitting and hissing. You just overturned a leaf and the scorpion underneath is rearing and rattling towards you.

Be careful dear child.

An angry narcissist has no boundaries around the damage he will do and the smear campaign he will master against you. He will concoct stories about you being psychotic, deranged, mad, imbalanced, jealous, violent. Some will believe him. Others won’t. Time is on your side as within a year it will all be forgotten anyway and people will have the pervading memory of you actually being a nice person who they liked and so whatever it was he says about you, do not worry. It’s bullshit. Audrey Hepburn once said that “You can learn more about a man by the words he uses to describe others than the words others use to describe him.”

Be careful dear child.

You will ride a stormy ocean and learn new phrases you never needed to know before. Cognitive dissonance will become your new companion. D&D will become secondary initials to you. You will fully ‘get’ and know what hoovering, mirroring, projection, magical thinking, conversational terrorism, gas lighting, countering and body-snatching mean and you will apply these phrases every time you experience cognitive dissonance.

Be careful dear child.

You will feel crushing lows and hideous highs as your brain calms down after several years of roller-coaster behaviour, living with a pathological narcissist. Your neuro-chemistry is like a cube of oil and water, swishing and peaking as you sail round the Horne to calmer waters. Your dopamine levels will be imbalanced for months. This is why it took you so long to leave. Your brain was exhausted, then high, exhausted, then high. You will have to baton down your portholes and just sail it out. No drugs will make you better. No amount of religious running is going to pump it out of you any faster. No amount of starvation will make him go away. No amount of contact with other people will stop the razor peaks of chemicals until you have resolved the cognitive dissonance and worked through the worst aspects of your confusion. You can take counselling as much as you like but in the cold dark of night, there is only you and YOU is what sorts you out in the end. Tough but necessary.

Be careful dear child.

At every turn there will be a memory and a trigger. You must get rid of the triggers and get rid of the memory of the illusion who never existed. Your narcissist was a fake image. He was never there. He didn’t love art and history like you. He envied your natural ability to dance, cook, paint, sing beautifully, be sexy, have original opinions and know what you didn’t like. He stole your music collection. He stole your interests. He copied you and body snatched you until you had nothing to say and nowhere to go. He was all over you because you were great emotional supply and he learnt which buttons to press to get the best reaction out of you. He fed off your emotions like a vampire, grinning as you bled for him. Sell all your memories, throw away his cheap, tacky presents, forget the grand gestures you had in the beginning for they were mere traps to snare you with. Take it all, put it in your car and take it to the dump. You will not be bought with grand gestures. You will no longer tolerate love-bombing behaviour. You will from now on, be wary of the man who professes undying love for you after four weeks and if you ever meet another one, kick him into next year with the number of a good psychotherapist.

Be careful dear child.

For there will be days when you are so angry you want to go to his new address and slash his tyres, cement gnomes to his garden wall, leave superglue on the windscreen of his car and bricks under the wheels. There are days when you would quite happily dig up every bulb in the garden you planted just so he would never have the pleasure. You will have to battle with yourself for days and days as you come to the full realisation that you meant nothing to him. Neither did the one before. Neither does the one now. He just creates an illusion for whichever woman it is he wants as supply and they fall for it every time. He is happy when everything is going his way at any given moment. He lives in the moment. He cannot remember the past and has no time to consider the future. Is this autism? Is this psychopathy? Is it pathological selfishness? Is it blind panic? Is it right that people could be so discarded by another? What is it that he fears in others? It seems chillingly robotic and inhuman. Chillingly lacking in self awareness or empathy.

Be careful dear child.

For you will not be strong enough to pick up where you left off. It will take you months to feel your true spirit rising back and coursing through your veins again. Your spirit did not die, it was compromised bitterly maybe, but it does not die for this is the part of you that lives beyond your body and connects you to the universe. You will never die, not truly. Take your time to reconnect with the things you love. Begin to feel forgiveness and compassion for the things you cannot change. Begin to know your boundaries and become aware of the warning signs that will help protect you in the future. You are worthy of real love. Do not be fooled by shadows in a cave. Feel compassion for the man you walked away from because he has no soul. He is dead. He has to feed off others in order to feel alive. Rejoice in your wholeness and know you are precious. Feel sorry for the ghost you spent a little time with. For it was only a little time when you measure it against the whole of your life. You are richer for the experience so rejoice in this and learn from it.

Be careful dear child.

Understand that you must never make contact with him again. It is your only way to heal. You must break the addiction. Your fluctuating dopamine levels make you susceptible but realise this; the narcissist thinks you are weak. He thinks people with emotional intelligence are weak. They are prey. He waits for a moment of weakness and then he will either hoover you back in or act in a way that damages you further. Turn your back on him and ignore him for this is the worst punishment you can exact on one so inhuman. He does not exist. He is less than slime on your shoe. Be strong and go live your life. Feel pity and compassion for the woman who has him now. She was once fearlessly proud and haughty of her love for him but by now she too will be beginning to realise the staleness within and she will bury her head in the sand for a while, just like you did. Feel pity for you know how she feels.

Be careful dear child.

For there will be another woman, and another, and another. They will follow on from you like a hall of mirrors. Some will be identical to you. Some will be trashier and sloppier than you. Some may be classier, or thicker, or more attractive or fatter than you but the one thing they will all have in common is that they are SUPPLY.

Supply, like a tube of Primula Cheese or a washing machine or a piece of salami.

No more, no less.

You know this, they don’t but then it is very hard to make any one of them understand how bad the ordeal they are about to go through really is. They simply refuse to believe you because they are drugged up to the eyeballs on oxytocin, the rohypnol of the narcissist. They are dopier than cattle and they just won’t see it. But know this; in two, maybe three, maybe five years’ time, they too will have had enough unless some freak lightning storm has zapped your narcissist’s head and he has developed empathy or she is such a doormat that she just doesn’t see how he is twisting everything in his favour whilst she becomes fat, depressed and devoid of attention from him. Remember that YOU escaped and you already have it better than her. YOU got out and you can be as glam, as cheeky, as sassy, as free, as choosy as you like. YOU are rich and she is poor. You are free and she is in prison. You can take your time and find your prince. You can create your own happiness on your terms, not create a happiness you think society wants you to have whilst behind closed doors you are as miserable as sin.

It was fitting that I made contact with an ex of his. She replied. We became pen friends and finally we met. We have a lot in common and we have healed together. She was lost for a year after leaving him. He tried to hoover her back with a cheap, tacky engagement ring and she kicked him into touch. She moved out of the county and thought no more of him. She said he was desperate to get her back but she knew it would be the old cycle of promises that never came true, glorified thinking that never went anywhere and half finished songs, stories and deeds. He is a half-person at the very most. He had told me that she was psychotic and that she had made him choose between her and his child. What a sad little liar.

We have wet ourselves laughing about the pixie, or the Hobbit as she likes to call him. I have kissed her brother, who punched the Hobbit after he had insulted this woman in front of her whole family. The Hobbit was punched and a lump came up on his head so large they thought of calling an ambulance. But didn’t. She told me all about him obsessively downloading porn and burning it to discs. She told me all about his large collection of photographs of girls in white knickers, sitting on swings or dressed as little dolls. She confronted him about his addiction. He told her it was perfectly normal and it wasn't a problem but she always knew it was bad when he lost interest in her sexually. She is a most gorgeous woman; stunning. I adore her personality, her vibrancy, her kindness. We are the same in many respects. It is fitting that one day he said I would probably have liked her. I do. Enormously. His loss is our gain.

A sick little man then? You bet. But the narcissist learns early on that he can get away with anything once he has learnt how to manipulate people. Never think you can go one better than a narcissist because you are playing against a skilled master. They may not be bright but they have been playing the manipulation game a lot longer than you and will stoop to the lowest levels to make sure the shit ends up on your shoes.

There is not much more to say other than since I left, my life has become better and better. I live in a beautiful place, am back doing a job I love, have gone out and found a great new circle of friends, am involved with some interesting charity work and am FREE to wander as I please in the company of whatever woman or man I choose. I love and I am loved. I feel and my presence is felt. I forgive and I am forgiven. I listen and I am heard. I speak for others and I talk for myself.

I am me and I love it!

As a footnote, I underwent surgery in April 2010 to remove part of one ovary. The biopsy revealed no signs of cancer. I quit smoking, quit alcohol, lost 10 kilos and practice meditation to keep me conscious and empowered. Meg and I enjoy the peace of a beautiful country cottage overlooking a valley. I have sat in my dark cave and faced my demons, the ones that kept whispering, "You are unworthy of love", the demons my father left for me, and now I know I am worthy, as worthy as the next person and always will be. I see my experience with this man as worthwhile, for his abuse made me begin to question the fabric of my psychology and I had to expose parts of myself I had not allowed to show to the world before. I am me, warts and all. I try to learn when I can, I have learnt to open and close my heart and I try to practice compassion. It is the hardest journey but it is necessary if you are ever to be connected to the beauty all around you. If you can look into the eyes of Satan and feel compassion for such a dead soul, you are human indeed.