The hurt after realising you were with a narcissist.

[Fightingback16]

Is it normal to be hurting so much. Since the shock has been wearing off and it’s taken 2 years the past few days I have been feeling so hurt and down.

To realise that all the feelings you had all along and was 10 years for me. The lack of connection you felt and was told that was my fault and I tried endlessly to get one but just thought I must be damaged was all him.

It was all him….I feel so betrayed and completely alone in my memories in my head, my poor former self what did he do to her, it is so sad. And now I feel it all, all the things I felt but never understood.

I know how you’re feeling.

I felt like I was the most monumentally stupid person who had ever walked the earth

It lifts my love, you can grow again, you can lift yourself back up and be the lovely warm person you are but were smothered by him.

We’re all here for you.

Yep me too. I can completely empathise.

My ex was a narcissist and I genuinely believe a sociopath.
I can't believe I stayed for so long. He was abusive. I can't believe I felt pain and wanted him back when he cheated and shacked up with the other woman.

Apparently they are still together and she's incredibly depressed and abused.
Just horrendous.

I can’t begin to tell you about how bad he made me feel about myself. I wished for him to die or for myself to not wake up and I beat myself up for feeling like that as it’s not normal but now I understand why but still feel the pain of that time.

to you op. I know how devastating it can feel, although it wasn’t exactly like that for me- I realised some months after our split and had probably gone through the worst part. It was an awakening, the fog suddenly lifted. Didn’t make it all alright but gave me some understanding of what had actually happened. I also spent a lot of time looking at myself, and how I contributed to the situation- I allowed my boundaries to be worn down. I carried on giving long after there was nothing coming back.

Counselling really really helped me through this, I managed to find a charity that offered very cheap sessions. Be good to yourself op. Try and see it as a lucky escape- I could have stayed with my narc for many more years for the abuse to only continue.

I know exactly what you mean @Fightingback16 although I wouldn't necessarily label my ex a narcissist - he was emotionally coercive and manipulative. We split 4 years ago.
When I first started seeing his behaviour for what it was it was like someone had cleared the mist from my glasses.
I now look back and see all the glaring bright red flags for what they were and I can't understand how I missed them when they happened. I feel so stupid. Also I can't even look back on the good memories I had - as now I wonder how real they really were - does that make sense?

Now trying to co-parent with him and I can't get past my anger towards him - even though we hardly ever see each other. I really hate carrying around this anger as it isn't really me.

Recovery has been really slow for me. I lost my dad at the same time I had a breakdown and left for some space not realising who he was. It took a long time for my head to be even able to entertain what had happened. He absolutely destroyed me.

I finally managed to get my narcissistic ex to move out four and a half years ago and for a long time afterwards I went through a cycle of disbelief that I had allowed him to treat me the way he did, then anger at myself for allowing it, and then embarrassment about it. I managed to break free of the cycle of negative emotions, but it took time.

I lost my dad at the same time too, and it was a really tough time for me. I can now look back on the time I spent with my ex and see him for what he was/is - a sad pathetic little man who gets his kicks out from making other people feel bad about themselves. He caused my self esteem to crash, and constantly gaslighted me. He made me feel as though he was doing me a favour by being with me. In truth he was nothing special and my friends and family all tell me now that they never thought he was good enough for me.

I started a new relationship 10 months ago with a lovely man. He is sweet and kind and makes me feel special. At times my insecurities have reared their ugly head, but I talked things through with a good female friend and she has helped me see why I sometimes feel insecure. I do at times look back and wish I had asked my ex to leave earlier, but I know that I can't change the past so I just feel thankful that I am finally free of him and his unpleasant manipulative ways.

I do hope that you find some peace from your unpleasant memories. Counselling might give you the space and opportunity to process it all in a neutral place and begin to feel better about yourself.

You can’t blame yourself
They spend their entire lives lying to everyone including themselves

What you will one day feel, is very sorry for them. Because they will never be whole humans. And every real connection you ever had or ever will have. They will NEVER experience that

It changes you fundamentally when you have been in a relationship with a Narcissist. Because of the cognitive dissonance caused by being told 'Black is White' 'Right is Wrong' 'Left is Right' you doubt your own mind and emotions. I paid for Counselling when we separated as I had spent 28 years with him (been married for almost 26). Basically the whole of my adult life had been worked around keeping him happy at my expense. Counselling can help you come to terms with the damage this has caused and enable you to move on, however, I have to say that whilst I no longer bother about the past I also feel that I have been damaged fundamentally and don't love or feel as deeply about anything now.

I still cannot believe that it happened to me OP. I didn’t realise people like that exist. It still blows my mind now.

It took me a while to fully understand what I'd be put through, but even after I could rationally see what he was really like it still hurt so much. I was in love with a person that didn't exist and while my head knows that its harder to convince the heart.

I recently had to see him in a social setting, I was able to look and see the person I know he is. But even then it was difficult because there is a charisma there that draws people in. People around him think he's great, for a second I started to question myself. It brought up a lot of the pain I'd been through and while its easier now it hasn't gone away. Unfortunately time is only healer. I knew he very quickly got a new girlfriend, but had managed not to think about. I found out who it was recently and that seems to affected me as well, they are living together in a house that this time last year I was going to be moving into. I have no feelings for him and wouldn't want to ever be with again but somehow how he treated me still has an affect.

I do feel embarrassed I fell for it and ignored so many red flags, but the love-bombing is designed to do exactly that. I'm recently in a new relationship and unsurprisingly all my many 'character flaws' haven't seemed to cause any issues. You're not the person he convinced you you were, so do anything you can to accept and believe that.

I go on about this all the time, and I apologise for anybody reading this repeat.
Google Quora. Click on Quora UK. Type in Narcissists.
There is an entire online community of people who are recovering from meeting and having relationships with narcissists. Thousands of posts. Hundreds/thousands of people who are trying to heal. Read their stories. Maybe share your story.
You are not the first, and you will not be the last to be sucked in and spat out by a narc.
Well done on getting away.

Questioning your own feelings is the reason you suffered so badly with a narcissist.

Your feelings are never wrong; your feelings are an unfettered manifestation of who you are, and who your heart is. Your feelings are the very real, true you - the you that needs to be respected by the people you spend time with, and, most importantly, by you.

Your feelings are all you have. Think about it; you can win the lottery and meet the perfect partner and have wonderful kids and an exciting fulfilling career, but none of it matters or makes life worthwhile if, emotionally, you feel like crap. You can have a low paid job and a tiny house and not be able to find a relationship match, but if you feel chirpy every day, who cares? The feelings are the only bit that matter.

Feelings are signposts. If somebody makes you feel bad, that's a 'keep your distance' signpost. If somebody makes you feel good, that's a 'move closer' signpost.

And your situation right now? You are feeling crappy, and that's a signpost that you need to be looked after and listened to and nurtured and loved. You don't need anybody to do this for you. You can do it yourself. Recognise that the you that says 'Am I normal?' is not listening to and caring for the you that feels things. In fact, she is looking at the you who feels things, and saying 'I think you might be a bit of a wierdo, actually.' That's not a kind attitude to have towards the true you.

Deep down, really, you know that you're a good person. A kind person. And, if there's anything unusual about you, that's not because you're wierd; it's because you're unique. We all have special bits! The asking of the question 'Is it normal to feel the way I do?' is actually asking the question 'Do I think that the me that feels is a wierdo?'

Look after yourself. Not by buying yourself flowers or indulging in a bubble bath, but by listening to and respecting your feelings. By not questioning whether the real you is normal for feeling what she feels. For offering her the acceptance that, ultimately, you were looking for when you met your partner in the first place.

I understand. I am furious and devastated that I gave him my youth and it has been wasted.

Yep. I'm 4 years on. And struggle to understand why anyone could treat the person they 'love' like that. It still baffles me.

I too have had my eyes open.

But ex is cosied up with new gf. And although I know he won't of changed. It Just makes me feel sad that I'm a good/kind person and I've yet to meet someone else and he has wormed his way into the life of another good sole who thinks they can 'mend' him. .

But I refuse to lower my standard for the sake of being in a relationship.

@TheFoundations what an excellent post!

It is such an enormous thing to come to terms with. I was a victim of an attack by an invisible man for over a decade. I have never seen myself as a victim I saw myself as the problem. It is a very scary place to be put back in my memories but with the realisation I was being attacked, now my memories are rather scary. Well not only are the scary but they are not me in them, I feel very disconnected from them and I know this is the dissonance. At the time I was convinced one thing but now I feel another thing, I believe myself now.

I was told by my IDVA last year my story was one of the worst she had heard and I was like no it’s not that bad….oh yes it really is and I believe her now.

I must remember now a lot of the things I feel like I hate my life was because when I was with him I hated it. A lot of the shame I feel he out there. I am at odds with my memories at the moment, I was literally brainwashed.

And I must absolutely must listen to myself. I hated this man, I couldn’t kiss him, having sex made me physically sick which obviously he convinced me was because I was mentally unwell and wanted me to go for sex therapy. And oh look I have sex since and no I wasn’t sick….I feel odd doing it because I remember zoning out.

My brush with a narcissist was the best thing that ever happened to me, OP. It didn't feel like it at the time. I don't envy where you are right now; you have my sympathy. It's truly awful.

But you are on a springboard. You can choose to view this as 'What's wrong with me, that I stayed with someone who treated me so badly?' or you can choose a more objective view. Narcissists choose people who like to take a rounded view of things. They choose people who view a problem and are willing to accept that they may be partly to blame for it. And then they manipulate that. It's inhuman. I didn't believe in evil until I came across it, but now I do.

Your narcissist chose you because you have a nice, accommodating attitude towards others.

You hurt and you hurt and you hurt because a part of you is still willing to believe that somehow, you were partly to blame; that it's something about you that allowed it all to happen.

It's like getting food poisoning and getting really upset with the prawn. It's pointless; the poison came into your life, you had (and are having) the normal emotional response to somebody treating you in a manner so evil you can barely recognise it as human, and you need to look after yourself and get better.

YOU ARE NORMAL. This could happen to any decent person. You got unlucky, like me and many other MN users who write about narcissists. You will recover, and you can use this hurt to make you a strong, boundaried, powerful version of yourself.

@TheFoundations you speak a lot of sense for my confused mind. What do I do about the stupidity of some things I did. For example he coerced me into marrying him with none of my family knowing. I know he did it to get a visa and then to keep me. But he used this and he twisted it telling me how can a person marry someone and not tell there family, you are disgusting and I believed it so I could never leave him as he said he would tell them all. I love my family and I’m ashamed I did that. I managed to divorce the bastard by myself and it cost me a fortune through the court and no one new.

1. Accept that normal people can be made to do anything under duress.

2. Accept that you were under duress.

3. Accept that you are a normal person.

Which one of these 3 do you struggle with? I think I know which one it is.

The past, and his behaviours and your behaviours is a whole mess of crap, made out of his evil and your vulnerability. You will have been trained as a kid to minimise your feelings, I expect, so it's not your fault you're vulnerable. Nobody taught you boundaries, and we're not born with them: we need examples to follow. Nobody just knows this stuff. It's why good parenting is massively important. Lots of people weren't parented well, and have poor relationships as adults, as a direct response. You did what you were meant to do: you learned from what you saw. It's what you saw that was at fault.

Fortunately, we can learn how to have boundaries at any age, so you can do it now, and this will never ever happen to you again. Your relationships with yourself and other people will be healthy from now on. It's a very simple lesson, but you have to understand that THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU. You are a normal person with a normal range of emotional responses and you behave in a normal way to those responses.

You did odd, out of character stuff, right? Stuff you don't like about yourself. But think of a healthy human body. An Olympian. The healthiest ever. And food poisoning. There's nothing wrong with the body, but when you put the old, old prawn into it, it quivers and sweats, it throws up, it overheats, it shits liquid, it truly cannot function in any normal way. And then it gets better. And it looks back and goes, 'Jesus, I was FOUL for a bit, just then!'

You are the healthy human body, and he (this is nice) is the old, old prawn

Does it make sense?

I've made inferences about your childhood, which I know nothing about. Was I right? My assumption is that for some reason, you were not encouraged to deem your emotions to be a priority, as a child.

No @TheFoundations you are spot on about my childhood and I suffer from complex-ptsd. My mum suffered abuse form her father and I am coming to understand has her own trauma. She did not see me as a child and I was scared and when I was I had no where to go just like when I was with him and I told him and he used it. I did not know then I had these issues. She struggled with her emotions and scared me so I learned to not listen to mine.

See? You are SO normal that it's perfectly easy to actually predict why you've behaved the way you have. There is nothing surprising in how you've responded to what happened to you.

In the nicest possible way, you are a textbook human being. Same responses that any other standard, average ordinary human would have had to the same stimuli. I'm sure there are many special things about you, but your response to your narcissist is not one of them.

How does that feel? Does it help to know that there's billions of other very nice people who would have done exactly the same as you?

Actually, leaving him, divorcing him, and being proactive about your recovery is a little more unusual. Lots of people stay in their private hell with their abuser.

So you have something to be proud of there. Even your user name is made of the sort of steel that narcissists can't overcome!

I want to thank you Foundations for those posts which have meant a great deal to me today.

I am nearly two years out and am having a very bad day. I keep thinking I’m better, but then having a bump…

Your posts have really helped. Thank you.