My situation is very similar to many other stories. Push, pull, manipulation, lies, abuse and SA.

We've been NC for six months now and I still think of him everyday, I even miss him, or maybe Im missing the way I sometimes felt. I know Im battling a serious truama bond. I saw him as my best friend, lover, partner and soulmate.

(After getting back together after our first major makeup he told me he doesnt believe in Goe but he prayed for us to get back together and since we did he now knows that prayer get answered and that we're destined to be together) What was I supposed to do with that?

I feel like he hijacked my emotions, thoughts and reactions. I remember being unhappy, catering to him, managing his emotions and changing myself. After awhile everything he loved about me became the things he disliked. He made me feel insecure and jealous (telling me he told his female students that he was single???) First of all he was crossing a professional line but also why even tell me? Bc he wanted to make me feel insecure.

Anyway this is getting long and I apologize. The whole purpose of this post is that I know what type of person he is. I know the things he said and did were wrong. And I know Im healing from a truama bond although it feels more like a fight. I dont want to miss him and I dont want to thinknof him. Its like Im a junkie always craving another hit. How do I get past this? I often think if I were happy itd be much easier but how the heck do you become happy after your whole life has been twisted and torn? Please help me with advice.... Im feeling really helpless

Nobody falls for abuse first.

That’s the whole point.

Abusers are charming because they have to be. If they acted abusive right away, nobody would deal with them. Nobody would stay. The charm is the bait. It’s the part that gets your guard down.

You don’t sit there thinking wow, I fell for abuse. You think you fell for someone who made you feel seen, wanted, protected, understood. That’s why it messes with your head later. Because the bad part doesn’t show up first. The smile does.

I recently had to cut off a friend who I think is a narcissist. I took my distances over time once I realized something was very wrong with her, the first thing being : never apologizing. Never even thinking she’s in the wrong. DARVO in every single fight. Of course I received the most violent text when she understood I was gone and not negociating a conversation anymore. I was deleted everywhere, blocked, etc.

We have mutual friends. Most of them are just silent, either not really speaking to me anymore or hearing what happened but not « taking sides ». It’s slowly killing me. I already went through a major traumatic loss before this narcissistic friend because I was in a romantic relationship with a friend of her who had very abusive behaviors during and after the relationship. So losing everyone around her is affecting me very much. It makes me think I’m the problem of course.

Only one mutual friend told her she acted badly and it triggered an explosion of violence from the narcissistic friend. She was accused of harassing and intimidating her by saying to the narc that she should apologize to me. Everything blew up and took insane proportions. In many different texts the narc said I invented my traumas and was destroying everyone around me.

Another mutual friend is caught up in this and despite recognizing the violence of this narc friend, he doesn’t want to take sides. When I shared the texts with him (that are extremely violent) he said it was horrible but his answer was : « I’m not gonna hate her like you wish i did ». Something shifted for me. I understood her grip was so deep he was incapable to see her violence as the only real issue. I love this friend very much and he’s been very supportive but I feel that his incapacity to openly blame her is gonna cost us our friendship. It doesn’t matter how many proof I give him he still talks about « perceptions ». What can I do ? How do narc have such an influence on people ? I feel I’m gonna be the one who leaves again and will end up with almost no friends.

Posting here bc I’m driving myself crazy.. my ex and I separated last September. Divorce was finalized 6 weeks ago. We have 2 kids age 1 and 4. He is a high conflict/cluster b personality Type person. coparenting has been awful.

He messaged on the coparenting app 2 days ago that he’s getting engaged. I didn’t even know he was dating someone. My son certainly hasn’t said a woman has been around and he tells k everything. I responded saying if there is a Partner who is going to be in the kids lives please tell me who and let’s discuss how to inform the kids and the transition. He said I can’t control who he married and he will not tell me anything.

I know there’s nothing I can do about it but man I have so many feelings.

I still feel like I’m still very up and down with things even though it’s been over a year. I’ve made plenty posts now, but in short my ex I was with 6 years, reverse discarded me for a girl he’d known one week, made her his girlfriend a day after we ended and then got her pregnant 9 weeks in.

But I worry that because he got caught he’ll treat her perfectly, so I look like a liar and a crazy ex. It hurts knowing all of the lies spewed about me and that if he is treating her better I’ll look like a liar. They’ve built their home on my tears and I’m left picking up the pieces and in therapy. It also doesn’t help that I’m ASD/ADHD so I find it very hard after a horrible experience to not ruminate. Some days I’m fine but he sponged off me for years and moved into somebody else like I meant nothing, never mind the smear campaign. He had been so poorly, lived with me and got better and then as soon as he was better cheated. The new supply had suspicions of me but he lied and said we hadn’t been together since 2023, but when they’d met ( a week before our breakup) when we were still together. She said to him “ if you left her to be with me it’s fine we can work through it”. So she’s fully aware I was with him but either didn’t believe me or just didn’t care. really it’s already built on an unstable foundation and total lies, so that’s not a good start. But it just makes me feel some way that he might actually change now he has a kid when 10 weeks prior he was saying “ I want to live my life and go drinking”.

But I hate the fact I look like a crazy ex when he genuinely was not nice to me for ages, I’m left with PTSD and they’re living it up. I know I shouldn’t still be bothered now but sometimes it gets to me. I just want justice and moreover for people to believe me, because he put me through hell.

What Love Is Not

If your body is scared of them, it is not love. It is abuse.

If your stomach drops when you hear their car pull up, that is not love. It is abuse.

If you hear their footsteps and tense up, that is not love. It is abuse.

If you can tell what kind of night it’s going to be by the way they shut a door, walk into a room, or go quiet, that is not love. It is abuse.

If you’ve learned to read the temperature of the house before they even say a word, that is not love. It is abuse.

If you monitor their face, tone, silence, drinking, energy, or body language just to figure out whether you’re safe, that is not love. It is abuse.

If their name popping up on your phone makes your chest tighten, that is not love. It is abuse.

If you rehearse simple conversations in your head because you’re trying not to say the wrong thing, that is not love. It is abuse.

If you are always adjusting yourself to keep the peace, that is not love. It is abuse.

If peace only exists when you are quiet, agreeable, careful, and small, that is not love. It is abuse.

If you feel relief when they leave and dread when they come back, that is not love. It is abuse.

If you are always apologizing, always explaining, always trying to prove you didn’t mean anything by it, that is not love. It is abuse.

If the good moments only feel good because they are wedged between fear, tension, and chaos, that is not love. It is abuse.

If your body is bracing before your mind even catches up, that is not love. It is abuse.

People downplay this because there is not always a bruise at first. But your nervous system knows. Your body knows.

Love is not fear.

Love is not dread.

Love is not hypervigilance.

Love is not having to shrink yourself to survive someone else’s moods.

That is abuse.

Sometimes abuse starts long before anyone is ready to call it that. Sometimes it starts with the stomach drop, the footsteps, the silence, the shift in the room, the need to brace.

That is not love.

That is abuse.

I caught my husband of 4 years cheating with prostitutes in February. At first I didn't know the extent of it...and of course still probably don't. It seems he discarded me immediately after I found out. He first lied but with further information, he went into Silent Treatment mode and after I confronted the girl who provides him with the prostitutes, he left. Took a few things and left, came back when I left town and packed the rest of his items. Not only was he paying for sex with prostitutes, he also used my money to do so.

He used his Mom as his Flying Monkey and changed the narrative. She encouraged him to leave and he has done nothing for our son. He first tried to create the narrative that I was keeping him from his son by blocking him, yet at the same time he told people this..he was texting me and getting replies. I then suggested a coparenting App which he said he could not afford so the few calls he previously made, he stopped. Has only contacted me to ask me to find his brothers debit card, which I ignored and has not even asked about our son in weeks. He is staying 15 minutes away and only came to see our toddler when he was hospitalized. He never acknowledged or even looked at me...in fact he has not since the confrontation. My son asked for him again last night so I called, but he ignored the call and then posted to his snap chat movies he was watching lol.

In all of this the shocking thing is the discard of the child. Is that typical? Does this permit full custody or anything if someone isn't contacting or paying anything towards the childs care? I am not in need of his financial support but not caring about your child at all, after being with him continuously for three years is crazy. Of course everyone favors the "She won't let me see my son" narrative.

I’ve had a rocky relationship with my childhood best friend for many years. We live in different cities and mainly we talk on the phone and text message, only see each other in person every couple of years. Every time we meet in person she manages to ruin the experience by having a meltdown or being rude to me.

She is someone who always plays the victim. She nearly constantly has some kind of mental health crisis, she struggles with depression and anxiety. She has physical health issues as well. She constantly wants my sympathy and support. Often her problems are with her family and in laws, but I feel like she baits people into fights by making unreasonable demands, then gets incredibly upset and has a nervous breakdown when they push back on her. I think she loves conflict and seeks it out.

I would not mind being there for her when she needs me, but it’s always one way. I can never talk to her about what’s going on with me or my own life struggles. It always feels like she’s trying to one up me. If something good happened to me, something better happened to her, if something bad happened to me, something worse happened to her. When I do try to open up to her she acts judgmental and like I’m stupid or inferior to her. I can hear her smirk through the phone sometimes. I stopped even talking about anything in my life with her because she ends up using it to hurt me. When I got married I didn’t tell her until afterwards and I don’t think she even cared.

I recently had two miscarriages. I did not tell her about it. She happened to call me the day after my last one. I should not have answered but I thought I needed a distraction. At some point I brought up something sad I had seen on the news involving a child who was hurt. She started screaming at me that she could not hear about things like that because she was a mother and it’s too hard on her mental health, and that I would never understand because I’m not a mother. Those comments really stung because I had just lost my baby the day before. I had thought I was about to be a mom before we went to the ultrasound and saw the heart had stopped beating. She did not know about it, but I was still really angry.

I feel like I constantly have to walk on eggshells around her while she can completely disregard my feelings. I never know what will trigger an outburst from her. I’ve been ruminating on it for weeks now while also processing my grief over the loss of our baby. I think this might be the final straw for me after decades of growing apart from her. I’ve tried to keep her as a friend while keeping some distance to protect myself, but I realize I can’t control the situation and she’ll inevitably drain me emotionally and leave me with nothing in return.

My brain always gives me some reason to go see them, somehow forgetting all the pain and suffering and betrayal and abuse they’ve put me through, and then when we talk they know exactly why to say to make me melt, they know exactly which heart strings need to be plucked to get me to give them another chance, why do I keep putting myself in the position to be manipulated again?

I don’t understand why I keep doing this to myself, it’s like I crave their lies, their beautiful lies, the lies I desperately wish were true, I want them to be true so badly that I give them chance after chance after chance, but I know deep down that these chances are just going to enable them and ruin me even more, how do I stop this cycle?

I can’t even enjoy sex and yet I keep doing it with them, I mean it feels good physically but I can’t enjoy it mentally it makes me disassociate if I try too hard to enjoy it, I keep going back to the same old patterns, not even sure why when it’s not even fulfilling, how do o stop this, it’s like im addicted to them, and especially to having sex with them, it feels like their sex addiction has rubbed off on me but only towards them! It’s so confusing, and it’s so unfair, I don’t know how to control myself anymore, I beg them to leave me alone because I know that I can’t leave them alone

​

When I was trying to get out of a narcissistic relationship, certain YouTube channels blurred the line between real narcissistic abuse and unrelated behavior. It made everything confusing and slowed me down in recognizing what was actually happening.

The YouTube channel Narcdaily for example keeps pumping out low quality content by mixing some real narcissistic behavior with random behavior from his ex that have nothing to do with narcissism at all. It muddies the waters, spreads misinformation and makes it harder to recognize actual patterns. When I started to have questions, he banned me and the next day he uploaded a video where he also called out "narcissists" emailing him by mocking them for 20 seconds or so.

That channel even calls people that dont feel like talking all the time during a car trip: toxic narcissists. This really hurts because it was the narcissist in my life who even abused me for being an introvert, not allowing me to be myself.

Stay very cautious when using YouTube as a source, many channels blur the line between valid insights and outright nonsense, making it harder to tell what’s real.

Some background: our dad passed when I was 9. My sister was never academically inclined, she focused on men, relationships, fell out with most friends and cousins over time, and never held a job. I was the quiet one who studied, became a robotics engineer, and started working at 21. At that point she was 26, being financially supported by a boyfriend.

When I graduated, I took over household expenses entirely, made my mom (who wasn’t in good health) stop working, and supported both of them for years. My sister eventually married that boyfriend. He’s wealthy but only visits a few hours a day as he has another family. My sister is the second wife. My mom moved in with her partly to keep her company. I moved to the US for grad school the month she married and I kept sending significant money home, essentially co-funding a household I wasn’t living in. My sister told everyone her husband covered most of it and I barely contributed. I let it go. For years. Because her husband is 15 years older than her, she needs to justify her marriage to extended family and friends by showing off how wealthy he is.

Four months ago I came back to renew my visa and got stuck in processing. I’ve been living at her place since. Because my mom lives there. I could very much live alone or with my cousins but she says that wouldn’t be a good look on her so I stayed with her but she picks fights over small things and it’s worn me down.

I also took a financial hit during this period as I haven’t been actively working, so I decided to finally launch a skincare brand I’d been quietly developing for a long time. Science-backed, lab-tested, with documented formulations. I told my sister about it.

Before I could even register the business, she launched her own “organic skincare” line, targeting the exact same network of family, friends, and mutual contacts that would’ve been my first customers. She’s been actively telling them that “chemicals are bad, only use organic products, use mine.” Her products appear to be herb-based with no clinical backing. Mine has peer-reviewed studies and lab results behind it. Somehow she also told me that, “oh I thought of a skincare line first and you just got inspiration from me, right?” And I was so surprised because that’s not what happened. She has never worked a single day in her life or had any business and now all of a sudden she has started one but she thinks I took inspiration from her. I was launching two products in the beginning, an anti aging serum and a moisturizer and she started the exact two products.

I asked my mom to talk to her, just to ask her to let me get established first before directly competing in the same circle. And if not, only stick to an exfoliator and hair oil. My mom did ask her and she said, “no we are not competing, mine is organic, hers is chemical” but then it’s the exact same two products and she’s confusing my first customer base. My sister’s version of events, which she’s now spreading, is that I’m jealous of her organic brand and threw a tantrum.

I dropped the business launch midway because I couldn’t stomach the situation.

How do I actually deal with this?

That’s the one thing I can’t understand , how you can be in a romantic relationship for years and after they hurt you , they treat you badly , they abuse you emotionally and psychologically but they are the one who gets angry and decides to erase the relationship and erase you acting like none of it ever happened. The one you’d expect and understand doing that is the one who got abused you’d expect them to want to forget the whole relationship because they are so hurt. My ex not taking any accountability , not saying sorry and not feeling bad for everything he did to me that doesn’t shock me , it hurts so much but it doesn’t shock me because I know the type of person he is he’s a narcissist so of course taking accountability is something he will never do. What did absolutely break my heart and mess up my mind is him acting like all those years we were together ever happened he even said to me “what relationship? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” So cold hearted and cruel, I don’t understand why they do this it hurts so much

So I have a friend who I just found out recently was narcissistic. He will be rude and will never say sorry when he is in the wrong. Just yesterday I asked him what happened to his eye because he said his eye was hurting and he was being rude by saying “I have allergies duhh” then I told him you don’t have to be rude about it and then he said he have to. People who are like that are sad, and I can see why a lot of friends aren’t working well for him.

They are so used to having the control over me, blocking my way, grabbing me/moving me physically, manipulating me emotionally, getting me to bend to (almost)whatever they wanted, any amount of control I’m able to get back feels like control taken from them even tho it was never theirs to have in the first place, I was always meant to be mine, so when I finally take back my own control of myself and my surroundings they find it offensive, if I want to choose who’s in MY house then I’m controlling (but it’s fine if they say they don’t want certain ppl in their house, the house they weren’t even paying rent in and I’m very much paying rent at mine, and it’s fine for our friend to say he doesn’t want certain ppl in his house, ig I’m the only one who doesn’t get that right???) if I want to protect myself by getting distance from them then I’m manipulative

They actually told me that “it feels manipulative when you take my favorite person(me) from me” when I told my therapist about this he kinda laughed(i think cus it was such a ridiculous thing to say he wasn’t expecting it)and said that they were treating me like I was an object they own and not a person with a will of my own or something like that

They feel entitled to my choices, even making choices for me for other ppl without even asking me, just volunteering me for things like they are my owner or something, and when I show any amount of autonomy or go against what they want me to do it’s very easy for them to resent me, which is very painful, idk why it’s so easy for them to feel distain for someone making choices they have a right to make, it’s almost like they enjoy hating me 😔

I wouldn’t be surprised if they did because they made such a habit of it, to anyone who would listen, anything they could find to make me look bad, even straight up lying about me to ppl, making things up about me, or just letting other ppl misinterpret me and hate on me while they watched, never defending me because they preferred not being the bad guy for once, I’m getting off topic now cus I’m starting to feel sad about how the veiw me or think about me, I just wish I wasn’t held to such an unreasonable standard while everyone else seems to be to make “grown up” decisions with no consequences, meanwhile f I don’t do exactly what they want then that’s reason enough to talk shit, lie about me, betray me, and manipulate me all while saying I’m the controlling one somehow for having autonomy over myself

I’m gonna feel sad about this for a while, I wish they cared, but reading my posts usually just makes them angry for calling them out or hurting their ego, I wish they would just stop and have some empathy and self reflection and be a good person instead of immediately turning to scorn and pride, maybe that’s asking too much rn, but it just makes me sad, sad that ppls reaction to someone being hurt is to resent them for it, I just don’t really understand why that attitude persists in ppl, idk how someone can be so naturally unkind instead of wanting to be a better person for the ppl around them and for the goodness of their own soul to grow too

I have come to view my uncle as a narcissist. He has exhibited numerous traits. The most prevalent being becoming enraged and passing the blame through name-calling and belittling when given the slightest critique or inference of mistake. He has raged at everyone who has ever been close to him.

He was raised by a physically abusive father and an undiagnosed narcissistic mother. He has a history of physically abusing his little brother and older sister (my mom).

As the GC, he is now the trustee of his siblings' estates.

I live with my uBPD mother (80). She is in poor health mentally and physically. While I work part-time, we are dependent upon funds from the trust controlled by my N uncle.

Things are not set up in a sustainable way. When my grandmother died 9 years ago, we asked for copies of all of the trust documents. We still haven't received them. We asked for an accounting of all of the funds, how much, where the money is held, etc.

I ended up flying up to his home to try and get these things from him in person. When I told him we wanted this information - which we are entitled to by law and which he is bound by law to provide the beneficiaries - he bolted out of his chair and growled at me that the very fact we were asking him for this information meant that we didn't trust him. He stormed in and out of the room. We have never received this information.

We have asked for him to give us an annual or monthly budget so we can know what to expect and plan accordingly. The first time we asked, he said that was too difficult to figure out. We asked again most recently - omg! I'm just realizing it's been 2 years! - and still nothing.

We are told to just call him whether we need money. Then he complains that all we ever do is talk about money with him. There is no stability in this, especially since there have been times when it has taken him months to send money to us.

My mother would like to cut ties. My other uncle avoids conflict at all costs. Mom and I have talked about getting a lawyer to help us navigate/negotiate with my N uncle, but we are afraid of his rage and his resources. He has money and legal connections at his disposal.

We are afraid he will fight us, and we'll lose any money my mom has a right to to legal fees. We're afraid of the emotional fallout for other family members.

I'm very tired of negotiating this relationship.

When Love Becomes Oxygen

A memoir chapter draft

◆

What a Trauma Bond Really Is

Watching a trauma bond from the outside is one of the strangest experiences of my life, because this time I am not trapped inside the illusion. I am not the one gasping for air, trying to explain why the person hurting me also feels like the only person who can make the pain stop. I am standing outside of it now, looking straight at it, and it is somehow clearer and crazier at the same time.

From the outside, it looks unbelievable. It looks dramatic. It looks irrational. It looks like someone should just pack a bag, block a number, and be done with it by lunchtime. That is how people who have never lived through it tend to see it. They think it is low self-esteem. Weakness. Bad choices. Poor judgment. They think the answer is obvious because they are looking at it with an uninjured nervous system.

But from the inside, it does not feel ridiculous. It feels necessary. It feels biological. It feels like oxygen.

That is the part people do not understand.

A trauma bond is not just attachment. It is not just heartbreak. It is not just loving the wrong person too much. It is when your body starts associating the person hurting you with the only relief you can get from the pain they created. He becomes the one who wounds you and the one who soothes you. The injury and the morphine. The panic and the pause from the panic. The storm and the false shelter from the storm.

After enough highs and lows, enough chaos and reunion, enough cruelty followed by crumbs, your nervous system gets trained. The abuser does not become important because he is good. He becomes important because your body has learned to organize itself around him.

That is not romance.

That is conditioning.

Why Nobody Talks About It Honestly

And because it sounds insane when you say it out loud, most people never say it out loud.

Nobody announces, “I think I’m withdrawing from a person like he’s a drug.”

Nobody says, “I know he’s destroying me, but when he walks into the room, my body calms down.”

Nobody says, “I hate him, love him, resent him, crave him, and I know that sounds deranged.”

So instead people use softer language. They say they are heartbroken. They say they are struggling. They say things are complicated. They say they are emotional. They say they are trying to figure things out. They say everything except the ugliest, truest version, because the ugliest, truest version sounds like madness.

And in a way, it is.

Not madness in the dismissive way people mean it when they want to avoid understanding something. Madness in the literal sense that it scrambles reality. It splits you in half. Your mind knows one thing and your body screams another. The person is bad for you. The person is killing you. The person also feels like relief.

That contradiction is why trauma bonds are so hard to explain. If you have never lived through one, it sounds made up. I did not think it fully existed either until I lived it.

Then my body educated me in the rudest possible way.

The Cheap Version of Love

Trauma bonds are cheap versions of love.

That is the clearest language I have for it now.

They mimic love. They borrow its language. They dress themselves up in intensity, chemistry, soulmates, magnetic connection, passion, fate. They put on a costume that looks a lot like romance from a distance. But up close, it is counterfeit. A cheap knockoff sold under mood lighting.

The abuser plays the role of a romantic movie character, but the set is made of plywood and the script is manipulation. He is not some misunderstood hero. He is a man who learned that if he creates enough pain, his crumbs will feel like salvation. He is not your oxygen because he is sacred. He becomes your oxygen because he has slowly cut off every other source of air.

That is why people stay. Not because it is beautiful. Not because it is deep. Because it is engineered to feel necessary.

Real love does not require your destruction to prove its depth.

What It Felt Like in My Body

I remember what it felt like with Phil.

I remember how bad it got. I remember wanting relief so badly I thought I might actually die from the absence of it. I remember the spiraling. I remember the panic. I remember the feeling that I could not get enough air into my lungs.

And the craziest part, the part that still sounds insane even to me when I say it out loud, was that sometimes all he had to do was walk into the room and my body would calm down.

That was the trap.

Not because he was safe.

Not because he was loving.

Not because he was good.

But because my body had been trained to associate his presence with the end of immediate distress, even though he was the reason for the distress in the first place.

That is how twisted it gets.

You can hate him and still calm down when he enters the room.

You can know he is bad for you and still feel relief when he looks at you.

You can resent him, fear him, love him, and crave the return of equilibrium all at once.

It is not romantic. It is not proof that the bond is special. It is proof that your nervous system has been hijacked.

Withdrawal Is the Part No One Warns You About

The truth is that trauma bonds can feel like withdrawal.

Real withdrawal.

Not poetic heartbreak. Not sad playlist pain. Not “I miss him so much” sadness. I mean full-body, uncontrollable, chest-tightening, sobbing-like-someone-died, can’t-eat, can’t-think, can’t-breathe withdrawal. The kind that makes you feel like something inside you is being ripped out with no anesthesia.

There are no drugs in your bloodstream, and yet your body acts like it is detoxing from something powerful, because in a very real way, it is. It is detoxing from the cycle. From the adrenaline. From the intermittent reinforcement. From the terror-relief loop. From the hit of hope followed by the crash of rejection.

That is why it is so hard to explain to people who have never been through it. You sound dramatic. You sound unstable. You sound weak. But none of those words are true. You are in withdrawal from a system your body adapted to for survival.

I did not go around announcing that. No one does. No one says, “Just a quick update, I appear to be detoxing from a narcissistic psychopath and my lungs have filed a formal complaint.” You cry in private. You shake in private. You sound insane in private. Because if you say it out loud to the wrong person, they either minimize it or look at you like you have completely lost your mind.

And maybe for a while, you have.

At least temporarily.

That is what abuse does. It does not just break your heart. It distorts your body’s understanding of safety.

The First Two Weeks

The first two weeks for me were the worst of it.

That was the most violent stage of the withdrawal. It felt like I was dying. Not poetically. Not metaphorically. I mean my whole body was in revolt. My chest hurt. My mind spiraled. My nervous system acted like it had been ripped open. It was agony.

But looking back now, I do not think I was dying.

I think I was cracking.

It felt like destruction at the time, but maybe it was the first real breaking open. Like a cocoon splitting under pressure. Like the structure that had kept me trapped had to crack apart before I could become anything freer. Not gracefully. Not beautifully. Not in some delicate little inspirational montage. More like becoming through pain. More like the old self-silencing survival structure breaking so the real me could finally breathe.

That was the worst of the withdrawal.

But it was not the end of the bond.

What Happens After the Worst Part Passes

That is where people get confused.

They think if the panic settles, the trauma bond must be gone. But the worst of the detox passing does not mean the bond is dead. It just means you survived the sharpest part. The screaming part. The emergency part. The part where your body thinks absence is fatal.

After that, the long part begins.

For me, the trauma bond was still alive long after those first two weeks. The absolute agony flattened, yes. I could think a little better. Breathe a little better. Function a little better. But the bond itself lingered. It stayed in thoughts, comparisons, echoes, reflexes. I still wondered what he would think. I still compared new things to old things. I still carried pieces of his voice in my head longer than I wanted to admit.

That did not mean I was broken.

That did not mean leaving had failed.

That did not mean the bond was stronger than me.

It meant it had taken years to build.

Years of highs and lows.

Years of fear and relief.

Years of cruelty and crumbs.

Years of confusion and conditioning.

Of course something built over years was not going to vanish overnight.

That is the truth people need to hear.

The worst withdrawal may last weeks.

The bond itself can take years to fade.

And that is not failure. That is the depth of the injury.

Sobriety From Chaos

The closest thing I can compare it to is sobriety.

The worst detox may pass, but cravings do not politely disappear forever. They still come. You still have to fight them. You still have to choose, sometimes daily, not to feed the thing that once owned you.

That is what recovery felt like to me.

A kind of sobriety from chaos.

You can still crave it after the worst has passed. You can still miss it. You can still romanticize it. You can still feel pulled toward what hurt you, not because it was good, but because it was familiar. And every day after that becomes its own quiet act of refusal.

You stay sober from the fantasy.

You stay sober from the adrenaline.

You stay sober from the crumbs.

You stay sober from the urge to go back and touch the thing that once made your body light up and collapse at the same time.

That does not mean you are weak.

That means you are healing honestly.

Real recovery is not proven by never thinking about it again. Real recovery is proven by thinking about it and still choosing not to feed it.

Watching It Happen to Someone Else

This time, I watched it happen from the outside.

I got woken up to sobbing. The kind of crying that is not neat and feminine and movie-pretty. The kind where the body takes over and grief comes out like a flood. I felt the pain for her. I did. I know that pain. I know the desperation in it. I know the raw panic of believing one person is the answer to a pain that same person created.

And because I know the map now, I did everything reasonable.

I gave her access points out.

I offered what I could offer.

I talked to the guy.

He was willing to pay to get her out.

The logistics were there.

The doors were open.

The path existed.

Everything reasonable was sitting on the table.

And she still wanted him.

That is the part outsiders never understand. They think if the solution is available, the person will take it. They think once someone is shown the door, they will run through it. But trauma does not work like that. The body is not asking, “What is the smartest option?” The body is asking, “Where is the fastest relief?”

And when the abuser has become the source of relief, even the cleanest exit can feel less urgent than the chance to stop the panic for one more hour.

So I had to bow out.

Not because I did not care.

Because I cared enough not to play a role in the cycle.

I could not solve it for her. I could not drag her nervous system across a line it was not ready to cross. I could not make her want freedom more than she wanted the fix. And once he was ready to let go, once a real path existed, and she still wanted him anyway, that was my sign. That was where my part ended.

It is a terrible feeling, watching someone drown in a current you recognize and knowing you cannot swim it for them.

What I Know Now

Because I have lived it from both sides now, I know this much for sure:

It was never love.

Love does not leave you gasping.

Love does not train your body to beg for crumbs.

Love does not make relief feel holier than peace.

Love does not turn another human being into oxygen.

Trauma does that.

And surviving it means learning, slowly and painfully, that air was always supposed to come from somewhere else.

I want to share something, I had lots of dreams, ambitions, I had a whole bucket list of dreams, but now it feels like I'll never be able to achieve those things, I had a traumatic past of abuse, but after meeting a guy i felt like he's the one but turned out he is a narcissist and he damaged me in such a way that i feel like I'll never recover. I'm losing my memory, my health is deteriorating day by day and it feels like my brain is completely damaged. I also committed mistakes when I was a child, a teen, and those things still haunt me because I was scared of losing people and it made me say a few lies which haunts me. I've abandonment issues because my parents' love is conditional, whenever I used to achieve something they used to show that they're proud of me but still focused on those 2 marks which I lost. Since my childhood, I was being verbally and physically abused as well as emotionally, so i always used to find love outside my home and because of which I attracted people who weren't good. One of my exes with my childhood friend cheated on me twice and plotted against me that they will be in a relationship without letting me know. I was scared, deeply scared because losing people used to feel like losing a part of me, so I lied to them that I'm having a life threatening disease and that my mom is not my real mom, so that they feel pity and not abandon me, i was around 14 ig. Like since my childhood, I used to absorb people's emotions, their problems, it felt like it was my own problem. Although i felt really really bad about it, so i confessed to my ex 2-3 years later that i lied to him. Ik where those lies were coming from and I was a kid, still I feel bad about it. after that thing, i found this guy which I mentioned above, he made me believe that he's the one for me, and i believed it, never left his side, no matter what , and initially it felt like that I'm healing but after few years of dating I saw the real side of him, a monster side, still i don't hate him but having an ick sometimes. Whatever issues I have been buried inside in all those years, after meeting this guy, it got worse and it just came around even with more intensity. I've been diagnosed with several disorders, and along with this i tried to overdose myself and tried to commit suicide. I feel like crying, because the person i wanted to be, the dreams, the bucket list which I always thought of Will never be completed as my health is deteriorating with each passing day, blood comes from my nose and mouth and I'm scared of the diagnosis. Ik this is only life, but how can I do that when I'm not myself, right now I'm numb, my head is cold, and i tried to Put in what I felt like sharing.

Long and sexually addictive relationship with ex narc. We were involved for a long time, about 7 yrs on and off. He always kept it casual, surface level..our time together was light and fun and always very sexual. He had all the typical narc behaviour of hot and cold, stone walling, fear of intimacy etc. Initially I thought he and I could be together in a real relationship but after years I decided I could handle keeping him around purely for sex and fun.

I won’t get into what ended this casual thing we had but it was ugly. I did end up apologizing to him, fawning, but he won’t speak to me. He has blocked me everywhere. I started therapy last year and it’s been very helpful but I still feel so much yearning for him 10 months later. I long for the sex we had together, how desired he made me feel in those moments. I haven’t had sex with anyone since because I’m scared I’ll be let down and miss him all over. I feel like he chemically bonded me to him. He walks away no problem and I’m still left longing all these months later. I want it to stop.

Hey there,

I'm a bit new to Reddit so please bear with me. A friend of mine is currently in a really bad situation and I'm doing what I can on my end to get her out. However, we are worried about her parents possibly pulling legal bullshit to try and track her down after she gets out, as well as trying to accrue evidence while in the house for police.

Unfortunately, I am based in the US and just don't have enough information and knowledge about UK laws and policies to be able to help her in the way that I would like. I've been given permission to share about her situation and the extent of things that are happening to get better advice legally about what she should do and where she should go.

I've made a similar post in LegalAdviceUK, but the only response I've gotten so far has been someone telling me they don't believe my story and think I'm getting punked. Others don't understand how years of abuse and manipulation can skew the mind. And others, are bashing me for sitting on the sideline and not calling the authorities after hearing all of this, not realizing that if I do this wrong, it could hurt her worse.
So. Yeah. Very helpful. /sarc

Questions

Our main questions are:

• What all is happening in the home that would be considered illegal?
• What are things she can call the cops over and what should she try to get as evidence or record to turn over to them?
• How should she go about doing this/Is there a way in which she gathers evidence that could get it thrown out in court or seen as inadmissible?
• If she gets into a situation where her parents try to force or trap her within the home through leverage, coercion, or intimidation, can she call the cops?
• If the cops are called, is there anything she should specifically say or tell them to get them to help her and her underage siblings get out?
• What would happen to her and her siblings if the cops are called?
• She has an animal that she would like to take with her, however it is micro chipped in her parents names. If she tries to transfer ownership it will tip them off to her plan to leave. Is there anyway to transfer the name on the microchip to her without alerting them? Is there any way to prove her ownership over the animal, if they try to say that she abducted it?
• Are there any encouraging words you might have for her to help her through this?

Info About Her

My friend is a young adult in her early 20's and lives in a house with an abusive parents (bio mom & step-dad), an animal, and two underage step-siblings that also live in the home. Her bio dad was also abusive and he is not in the picture. She has mental health issues stemming from a childhood full of abuse, as well as a few chronic illnesses (auto-immune disorders) due to it that severely impact her ability to live. She has a driver's license and is finishing up course work. She'll be all done in early May.

Background Info of Abuse

TW/CW: This entire section talks about neglect, medical neglect, gaslighting, coercive control as well as, physical, financial, psychological, emotional, verbal abuse-- basically every single fucking type of abuse. Read with caution. Some are vague descriptions-- others are a bit more detailed.

Apologies in advance for how long this is, but I feel like it's better to give as much detail as I can to her daily experience and for clarity about the abuse. Some details may be purposefully vague for her safety.

• About Step-Dad: Her step-dad moved her family out to the middle of nowhere when she was very young and since then, his behavior has been horrendous. He's physically fit and trained in combat making him dangerous. He's a pot user and a smoker, both of which add a layer of unpredictability and volatility, especially when he's in withdrawal. She is terrified of being home alone with him and can't even go to sleep if no one else but him is in the home.
  • Physical: She's spoken about physical abuse where he's thrown dishware and a dishwasher at her and the others, slams doors, stomps throughout the house, and uses his physical presence as an intimidation factor. In terms of the pets they have in the home, he has gotten physically violent with them as well, hitting them. If she tries to sleep in past 8 am, due to the fatigue which is a side effect of her chronic illnesses, he will come into her room, slam the door open, and yell profanities at her until she gets up. He used to rip her blankets off of her and force her out.
  • Verbal & Emotional: At every corner he insults and belittles her-- making fun of her hobbies, calling her slurs, and shaming her weight (both skinny and plus-sized) and eating habits. He verbally and emotionally abuses by constantly demeaning her intellect and her interests (calling them childish and silly), and insulting every aspect of her on a daily basis. He yells at her to "act fucking grown" and "stop being so fucking sloppy." If she tries to ask questions about being an adult and real life things, he'll look at her as if she's stupid and say as such, "stop asking silly questions-- you're smarter than that."
  • Sexual: He's known for constantly commenting on her body and making lewd jokes about it a lot. Even as a child, her parents would talk to her about sexually explicit content, making crass jokes and skewing things she wrote as sexual too. Their room was right next to her room and she heard them every single time. Her step-dad would make it a point to ask and joke about it in the morning, almost finding pleasure in the fact that she could hear it. They still do that even with the younger ones in the house now. We don't have proof of this, but her undergarments have also been going missing at a steady rate. It's at the point where she is buying a new set every month or so.
  • Financial: There's some sort of shady shit going on. Every few months he'll hand her a wad of pounds and tell her to send him money digitally in exchange. If she doesn't? He intimidates her into doing so and drags the mother into the conversation. Also has forced/coerced her into selling her Pokemon collection of which she never saw a single cent of.
• About Bio Mom: Her mother is almost as bad with how much she enables and encourages the step-dad's behavior. If Mother Gothel had a more evil twin, it would be this woman. She uses my friend as a scapegoat so the target of abuse won't be on her. The worst part about the mom is that she is extremely controlling. The word doesn't even do it justice for how entangled she has made herself in every aspect. Trying to help her plan an exit strategy around this mother has been next level spy shit, I swear.
  • Physical: Her mother has never participated in as much of the physical abuse, she also has never stopped it and has even made excuses for it. The big aspect that her mother does participate in is forcing her to do strenuous activity while she is physically unwell all for the sake of "not being sloppy" and "you're grown-- act like it."
  • Verbal & Emotional: Her mother verbally and emotionally abuses her as well. I've taken note of a cycle that happens where they will rag on her, she'll try to stand up for herself, they will beat her down verbally and emotionally with guilt tripping and insults, force her to apologize to the point of humiliation and then love bomb her and pretend like it didn't happen. If her mom is the only one in the picture, the same routine happens like clockwork. Mom will blow up. She'll leave. She'll come back and emotionally dump and vent to my friend about why she acted that way because "work is just so stressful and its so hard to handle you when you act like this." and then my friend will dissociate and she'll say "dont you dare fucking look at me like that. its not like we abuse you. stop that." and then she'll force my friend in to a humiliation shame spiral of forcing her to apologize over and over again until she is satisfied. She'll end it by saying things like "I'm sorry but it's just so hard to handle you when you're acting so sloppy. We love you and that means tough love."
  • Sexual: Her mother has forced her to flash herself to family members to show off "the new bra she just got." All throughout her childhood and into adulthood, her mother walks around the house naked at times and will change with her door fully open. The family constantly walk in on her changing and in various states of undress and she welcomes it.
  • Financial: Her mother has full access to her bank account and all of her card details. I'm talking user name, passwords, every transfer and pound spent. And she tracks it meticulously. She knows how much she gets paid from her part-time job and if the money isn't in the bank account, she needles her about where it went. If my friend tries to order mail to the house, the parents have to and will go through it first. Her mother will buy things using my friend's card "for her" when she doesn't even want them or coerce my friend into buying things (Ex forcing her to redecorate her room with meaningless items or saying "Oh you'll like this." Buying clothes "for her" that my friend won't like so the mom can take them instead) Her mother makes her buy things to keep the step-dad placated and makes sure he has a steady flow of cigs and pot.
  • Coercive Control: Her mother is extremely controlling and paranoid. She tracks everything and is constantly suspicious of my friend's actions. She has tried to demand that my friend download Life360 to track her movements. If my friend leaves the house for more than 30 minutes and does not send a picture of where she is or tell her where she is going, her mother will throw a fit. Even when she does send pictures, she is constantly interrogated when she comes home for hours until she concedes in some way. If her mother gets it in her head that she's "seeing" someone, needles her for hours until she "fesses" up or calls her awful names when she doesn't. If there is a disagreement in the home, he immediately gets involved-- yelling at her and laying out threats of violence. She is the dog whistle and he is the dog.
• About the Daily Situation:
  • She is treated like a maid and a mini-mom:
    • She does all the driving for her siblings. She buys the groceries and constantly covers things monetarily out of her own pay check to the point she can't build up any savings. She's in charge of taking out her siblings for fun things and lunch. She is expected to clean the entire house everyday and has a time limit in which she must clean rooms. If they aren't done in time, she gets screamed at and demeaned. Even when the parents are on holiday from work, they will lounge while she works tirelessly on cleaning the whole place. On top of that, she is fully in charge of cooking all of the meals and is not allowed to bring a chair into the kitchen to help her with her disability.
  • If she tries to stand up for herself in any capacity, they start out by snapping at her, calling her "rude" and saying how dare she talk back to them. If she keeps going and holds her ground, they threaten her cat and threaten her with "back in my day, I would've already beaten you by now."
  • They have forced her to sell things like her card collection as well as comfort things from her childhood calling them silly and childish. Each time she sees none of the money from it. She's worried about leaving and coming back to all of her stuff being sold or thrown away.
  • They won't even let her have a lock on her door. She lives in an old farmhouse type where the door wont shut all the way and even someone walking past it makes it open. She has no privacy to the point she always wears undershirts and leggings while she's changing in case someone walks in.
  • She has no time to herself whatsoever. If she has to go to the bathroom at night, they'll yell at her for making so much damn noise. If she takes a break, even just 15 minutes, her parents will "sit her down for a chat" and then drill into her for 30 minutes to and hour about how lazy and sloppy she is. They won't even let her bring a chair into the kitchen so she can rest while she cooks, cleans, or bakes.
  • Neither of her parents have taught her anything about the world or how it works, and anytime she tries to learn they discourage it or call her naive, fully trying to make her only reliant on them and their perspective.
  • Medical Neglect: They don't "believe" she is as sick as she is (even with two official diagnoses) and forces her to work around the home with deep cleaning, cooking, baking, etc. There has been no discussion about this being in place of rent or anything. She has just been expected to do all of this. In fact, they are now having talks about her paying rent on top of everything. She spends a lot of her days constantly fainting or crashing from her illnesses and lack of care. Her physical disability is treated as a joke, something to shout at her about for "being sloppy," or as a way to make themselves look good and get praised for taking care of her when she was bed bound for a period of time.

Help

Thank you so much if you've read this far. Like I said, we desperately need help about how to best navigate this. If I'm in the wrong thread or if there are other threads I should post this on, please let me know. If there are any resources you can think of that would be helpful, we'd really appreciate it as well. I'm acting as her liaison since her mother has full access to all of her communication. We're taking everything and anything in terms of help right now. We've done a shit ton of research on our own, but it's just us two and two other friends, so we decided to get a community's help with this. Even if anyone has reassuring words or something to help encourage her, I'd really appreciate it. She's struggling to feel like she has a valid place in a DV shelter and that there are others that are more deserving of a spot.

hi everyone i’m new here:p i just came to the realization that i dated a narcissist for a few months this past year. for some context: it was short but intense and we’re both in our 20’s. i was raised by a family of narcissists (cut them off not too many years ago) i thought he’s an avoidant??hahaha i guess.

what finally made me 100% sure is the feeling i got from our last conversation which was recent. i finally responded to one of his attempt after discard to ask for something of mine back, when i didn’t engage in his delusions he became aggressive and spiraling over text with a very weird sense of entitlement he sounded actually crazy. it felt very dark and familiar… i blocked him. (he basically admitted to not wanting to give my thing back as punishment..)

i realize how malicious and intentional he was with so many things now. i also realize the times he was disappointed or even angry with me for not reacting to his triangulation or other one of his games. he never succeeded to make me insecure just confused and drained.

from the moment we stopped talking i never had intentions to go back and i think he didn’t expect that. the things he said over text he sounds so resentful im not sure how seriously i should take it.

the good thing is our lives were/are separate, different cities and we didn’t meet many times after the push and pull started. from little hints he dropped (red flags) his friends have no idea/enable him/ppl have gone back to him…

i just hope he will “let go” that i “saw his game”? maybe it’s a bit weird to to be worried about something hypothetical but resentful ppl scare me and i’ve been stalked in the past among other things so yeah