Hooked--Narcissist/socio/pathological liar *HELP*

[Lipsy21]

Hi all,
sorry for the length of this
I am feeling very emotionally broken at the moment. Please don't give me tellings off or tell me to just get out etc. It's never that easy.

I have to say that pre this person I was always very strong, independant and my previous serious relationship (8yrs) ended due to wanting different things/growing up, ended amicably etc. I had a good childhood and haven't ever tolerated abusive people. Kissed a few frogs but would swiftly never see them again. Until him.
I have wasted the past year on someone who (in first 7 months) was amazing. It was very intense at the start and I thought I'd finally found mr right.
The spanner in the works here is that he does have a neurological illness (ms), he also has episodes of poor mental health. However, I really do think he is sociopathic/narc and he displays a lot of the traits.
I have never felt like this before confused, baffled, hurt etc.
He switches between jekyl and hyde mode a lot now. I feel I am very much in the throws of the devalue stage. Pre 7month mark he was great I always seen this lovely, friendly, supportive nice guy who was coping with a chronic illness (as am I). We don't live together but had planned on doing that soon.
But now 13 months later, I am seeing nastiness, compulsive behaviour, ignoring me for days, picking fights then denying anything has even happened, shutting me out etc. My mental health has dwindled and I'm deeply unhappy. When I confront him I am being told "this is all in your head, you're being overly sensitive".
As soon as I decide "stuff him" and stop contacting him he will be back with the I love you, you're my world, im sorry it's the ms, im depressed etc, please come back.
Its quite scary the change in him and how quick it occurs.

Truthfully, I don't want to be with him anymore. But I don't feel strong, I have never felt weak at the hands of a man...never! Now I've turned into this weak woman who will allow him back in every time he treats me bad. I am unhappy, insecure and feel confused. I have never felt like this in a relationship, nobody has ever treated me this way. even though I feel this way why I am I finding it very difficult to let go and not text him back etc. He's ruining my life. My friends and fam despise him now too .
My family often say "we haven't trusted him from day one he's bad news".

I know another guy (known him since we were kids) who has told me he really wants a relationship with me, I've dated him before and he was lovely. He is very "normal"(whatever that is) which at the moment is so attractive. Yet I still keep crawling back to mr jekyl and hyde who can't build a stable future with me, he has a criminal record (drugs/driving), up to his eyeballs in debt, and now the personality issues.

As soon as we part I find myself worrying he will meet someone else. When I should be thinking good luck to the poor soul who ends up with him. I DONT UNDERSTAND MYSELF. I am clearly in love with him but I don't want to be. I'm losing weight, my illness is flaring and I can't even focus on daily life. Even doing dishes or.washing is a chore I've become despondant. However, if things are good between us im back to my old cheery self.

We are polar opposites, why am i so effed up that I'd want to even be with someone like this? I think I often feel bad for him due to his ms. As I have a chronic degen condition too and know how scary it can be.

Have any of you gone through this behaviour and how do you get rid?
Please tell me your own stories in great lengthy detail I need distraction lol.
Thanks in advance x

@PurpleVitality72 Thank you, glad you got rid!!!!!

@relevante - yep! hit a new low yesterday, I am just so glad the two women were civil to me. Thai escorts.....wtf!!!!! I know, how could we be so blinded! Seriously if I put a pic on here of him (Which I won't) you would all be like WTF?! He definitely isn't irresistible.

WOW just WOW. The plot thickens today ladies!!! A male friend (who we know mutually through him) of mine got in touch with me to say that he saw him today in a shop with another woman. He said....Just saw your ex/boyfriend with a new woman, wow he moves on quick!!!
As you can imagine, I was shaking, felt sick etc etc. I then phone the sociopath and get told from him its all a big lie. That this guy is saying this to me as he thinks this guy has always "fancied" me and liked me.
Usually I would believe it, but not today. I think today my suspicions have been confirmed. This guy didn't even know about my suspicions that I had, he did not have any idea what was going on between me and the narc. Plus he has a girlfriend!

I think that is well and truly the last straw for me now. I have always said if someone cheated on me I would never ever be able to forgive them.

@the7thmaude thank you, you're right

Stop contacting him!

Why the hell did you ring him?! Who cares if he was with another woman! Come on, get a grip love!

I agree with PP OP, you have to let this go. It does not matter what he does or says. You already have all the answers you need to walk away from this man.

No, the plot doesn't thicken. The plot stays exactly the same, ie: your ex is an abusive arsehole who you need to stay away from at all costs.

Don't try and unpick this thread of crazy - someone tells you they saw him with a new girlfriend (why did they bother to do that??) so you call him, he denies it, blah blah blah....

It doesn't matter if he has a new girlfriend or boyfriend or has just fallen in love with a hatstand. Don't let whatever game he's playing now suck you back in xx

^^
And others!
Who cares?! Don't feed him!

It's all games Lipsy. You deserve better.

Maude - you capture it all very eloquently. An addiction is exactly what it is.

I've just been through this too and have also felt broken inside. Mine has discarded me now and slowly my brain is clearing and the fear is lessening. I no longer want him back.

This will probably sound totally fucked up but I found myself deliberately playing into the games once they started (v quickly in my case). It was like, in one way my logical brain knew exactly what was happening so I decided to engage in some behaviours to speed the process up. Once he hit the discard phase I said to myself - if I act really needy and desperate then he will lose interest quicker and I can get this over and done with. I thought I was so clever playing him at his own game

Well I was right, it did speed it up - except he turned into an utterly cruel disdainful cold arsehole hell bent on using me as much as he could. I totally underestimated the overall impact on my emotional wellbeing of engaging in that shit and made a massive mistake in perpetuating it all. I've honestly never met someone so angry in that determined cold, punishing way. It frightened me that someone could be that cruel. He didn't care about anything but winning. This man is a 'caring' doctor with a massive following (500+k) on instagram! Mostly women!

I also discovered that feeling that intrinsically frightened of someone made me 'freeze' so I felt completely out of control and virtually unable to say or do anything. Awful feelings of a foggy brain and could hardly breathe. The whole thing has had a profound affect on me and I don't think I will go into any new relationship with quite the same level of naivety.

Fortunately he's moved onto to his next victim/s now so i can breathe once again. I don't think he will come sniffing around me again - I'm pretty sure he feels he 100% conquered me so I will be undesirable. Phew.

@AvocadoQueen I don't know if you feel like talking about things with someone but I had a similar experience, and would be happy to chat more privately. I didn't share all the cruelty and mental manipulation that occurred in detail on here due to feelings of strong embarrassment but I can 100% relate to what you've said. I think if the man is otherwise seen as an upstanding individual and respected professional it makes it even harder for us. There is more self doubt on the victim's part and more sophisticated mind games being played. Often you can't also define his abuse in clear terms as they don't take money off you nor beat you (though mine threatened me a couple of times and locked me out in the garden just for fun) you just know that you feel like shit most of the time in the relationship (with some occasional highs that keep you hooked.)

In hindsight I also felt I've been very naive and gullible wearing my heart on my sleeve for this guy when he abused and shat all over it.

@Lipsy21 I just had a thought - you said that person who called you is a "mutual friend" - would it be beyond your psychopath to ask him to get in touch with you? If he knows he can get get you worked up over another woman, it might be a twisted way to get you talking to him again.

Just PMd you Relevante

Avocadoqueen I totally see myself in your post too. I knew he was a horrible human being when I started hanging out with him (although I did not realize the extent of his mental issues) but I did it anyway because I liked the risk/ excitement and I thought I could handle it. I thought not having feelings of love for this man would protect me from getting hurt by his manipulations.

Turns out that when you engage with an abuser, there will always be a degree of psychological damage, whether you are in love or not. I was never in love with "my" abuser, in fact I pitied him on a rational level, but he destroyed my self-esteem and confidence nonetheless.

A male friend (who we know mutually through him) of mine got in touch with me to say that he saw him today in a shop with another woman.

I immediately thought that you've been set up by mutual friend & ex.
This is too perfect timing to be a coincidence. It's an attempt to make you jealous, insecure & scared. Unfortunately, you fell for it & showed him that you still care.

You need to cut both ex & so-called mutual friend off at the knees.

Either you block, delete and ignore for good, or you still want to be with him.
And now he knows it.

The opposite of love is not hate.
It is complete indifference.

Why does bad behaviour always have to have some ridiculous label on MN?

If you're going to jump to cod psychological/psychiatric analysis, then there needs to be some self analysis here too. Some of the shit people put up with because they are under the spell of an alleged ' narc' is ridiculous. I know there are genuine cases where people can get trapped in marriages/LTRs before the person shows their real character & it becomes difficult for the escape, but when you're still in the relatively early stages of a relationship and not living with them, no kids, just walk away.

If you can allow yourself to put up with despicable behaviour you need to ask yourself why - is it the drama, the buzz, the uncertainty, low self esteem? OP, you said you turned down a safe option, was that because he wasn't exciting enough, he didn't get the adrenaline pumping like the cruel guy?

If someone isn't treating you right, tell them to fuck off and find someone that does. If someone is an arsehole to you, and yet you start 'playing the game' or keep coming back for more (particularly when all around you are telling you the person is bad news), question how and why you do this to yourself.

This constant armchair psychiatry on MN is ridiculous and needs to stop.

If someone has been a cokehead, has a degenerative condition, depression, and a load of debt, as is the case with this arsehole, is it really a huge surprise that they are not a perfectly rounded human being?

Enough of this 'he's a Narc/sociopath/psychopath' bullshit, chances are they're just an arsehole. Unless you're a professional you cannot diagnose a psychiatric condition or disorder. However we can all 'diagnose' an arsehole. And if they're being an arsehole and you can walk away, stop with the tortured analysis, the game playing and the drama, walk & cut contact. You owe it to yourself to do so

When people are trying to make sense of a behaviour or experience, it's natural to start to try to put words on it. It may not be 100% accurate, however it describes a spectrum of specific behaviours which help people to pick it apart and to relate to each other. This enables people to speak up about it which in turn allows healing to start.

Totally agree, however, that anyone impacted should also take a look at themselves and their own set of vulnerabilities/emotional hooks which prevented them from walking away the minute the games started (myself included). This is actually the most empowering thing to do but also the hardest because it means facing your own reality. The fact is on some level I was attracted to my guy because of the weird behaviour at the beginning. This points to my own lack of self-esteem/emotional availability for a healthier relationship and also my willingness to engage in game playing which is not true emotional relating. Some part of me wanted to lose myself in the the adrenaline and the buzz so I could live in a fantasy world of 'what might be' and also I guess, retain some feelings of control because on some level I knew it would never work. It's all so fucked up - I played my part and got badly burned. I experienced a level of exposure and vulnerability which to be honest scared the shit out of me - but perhaps I had to go through that to get real with myself and stop living in denial that these relationships can ever work? Who knows.

The reality is there are no winners in these games. Even if I had 'won' this time I would be no further on in my own development.

@SucculentChineseMeal - totally agree about the self analysis. Believe me, I've done it, and am doing it daily. I have 2 kids who are living this with me, and I've been in part responsbile for this existence that they know as reality. In fact, I'm 8 weeks in to therapy about it. I found a diary I'd written in 1995, which highlighted quite a bit of the shit behaviour I've lived with for 24 years, but I also said how 'sweet, funny and kind' he was. That was how it started with accepting the bad bits. There was a hell of a lot of that sweet, funny and kind back then, very little for the last few years. It's so easy to get sucked in, and before you know it you are accepting a lot of shit which is totally out of order. And it is definitely an addiction to the drama. I'm still having to counsel myself to stop and think even now not to get drawn in to his chaos. I also agree with AvodadoQueen that the labels are to try to make sense of why this has happened.