This is going to be long.
A highly narcissistic person seems to be holding all of the strings in my life and I can’t escape it. I feel like I can’t breathe anymore.
In the past she has controlled my time and what I did with it, stalked me, repeated information back to me that I only talked about in my own house and not to her, spread personal information about me, spread lies about me, twisted truths better than a trashy newspaper journalist, befriended my in-laws and turned them against me, befriended my friends and dropped poisonous seeds in their head about me, isolated me, gaslit me about my health and undermined my parenting. Criticised everything I did but in deniable ways. Tried to drive wedges between me and DH and tried to turn my DC against both me and DH. I was a very trusting, happy, and open person but after having her in my life I became the opposite of all the things I valued in myself.
I eventually cut her out of my life because my mental health was in tatters and I couldn’t cope with her anymore. I tried to rebuild myself but she had poisoned my support network. I have a serious health issue and she told people that someone she knew had checked my medical records and that I was lying. I’m not. But in this cancel culture world, people got sucked into her lies. I have very little support as a result. So I endure the horrible symptoms of my illness and all of the stress that comes with hospital appointments and procedures , and simultaneously the vilification that comes from the lies she told about me.
Despite the isolation I felt like I had finally shook her off. My confidence slowly started to grow and one of the parents at my DCs school started regularly speaking to me. I thought there was potential for a friendship. The parent then started asking a lot of personal questions without giving much information about herself back. I didn’t read too much into it and thought I needed to learn to trust again. She then started ignoring me for no good reason. Shortly afterwards I discovered by accident that this parent also has strong links to the narcissist. My DC is good friends with her DC and now I’m worried the narcissist is gaining information about me and my DC this way. The narcissist has also befriended my in-laws to the point that she spends more time with them than us and she also became close friends with our next door neighbour. I don’t know how she does it. She has consumed our life and controls the narrative and no one even seems to question it. She’s a larger than life narcissist which is how she reels people in, it’s how she reeled me in in the first place. Everyone thinks she is amazing and I am the thorn in her side, when she is actually slowly mentally killing me.
I can’t shake her off. I feel like I’ve lost control of my own life, I speak and no one hears and I feel unseen and like I’m wearing a filter that she has put on me.
How do I escape this? Moving will not help because of my DCs friends link to her through their mum. How can I rebuild my life when it feels like she is always there watching me? I can’t cope with this anymore.