It has been almost five years now since my entire world shifted. I know that sounds dramatic, but in reality, there is no other way to describe what happened. Five years ago, I had a family that I loved. I had numerous friends. I had a great support network. I had a salaried career. I had normalcy. I was, however, attempting to remove myself from a relationship was very emotionally abusive, financially abusive and while he had not yet hurt me physically, he had hurt my pets to frightening levels and the line toward physical abuse directed at me was moving closer and closer, daily.
Honestly, when he hurt my pets, it was a thousand times harder on me than if he had actually physically abused me. I know not all people understand that concept, but I do not have children; my pets are my children. When he would put my puppy in the trunk of his car and drive erratically; when he would beat her; when he broke a metal pole over her back and I couldn't find her for nearly an hour (I did not know if he had killed her or if he had broken her back)--these events were more traumatic than if he had done them directly to me. When he hurt one of my ferrets (I do not know if he hit her or bit her--he claimed not to remember; he claimed that he was "too mad and lost control")--her head and face were swollen for days and she was unable to even open her eyes during that time--people tell me these things were okay. He wasn't abusive because he didn't hit me. Had it been human children that he was doing these things to, people may have understood and may have been supportive when I left. But because it was my pets being physically abused, not me directly, I was "being childish". I was "running away from a great guy that just had a few anger issues". Of course, there was a lot more abuse during my time with him, but bottom line, I wasn't willing to stay with someone that hurt my pets--no matter what anyone else thought.
By the time I gathered the strength to leave, I was already an empty shell of my former self. When I left him, I thought that I would be regaining my life and my sanity. I expected to still have my family, my friends, my support network, my career. Normalcy. Normalcy would return, with time. I truly believed all that would change in my life is that he would be gone and I could go about returning to the person that I was before he entered my life. I thought that my world would basically return to what it was before I met him. That is how breakups normally work, yes?
Over the past months, I have been reading a lot of material regarding narcissists, leaving them and the commonalities that survivors experience while with them and when piecing their self-esteem back together. Today, I found a blog with an amazing list of previous posts that I have yet to read even a fraction of, but wished to pass on here so that others may benefit, as well. The blog is called Esteemology by Savannah Grey and in particular, the first posting that I discovered was: Breaking Free: Why Breaking Up With A Narcissist Is Not Your Average Break Up. Finally! Someone else that got it! Someone else that understood a piece of what I had lived through! However, it was this one: Tools of the Trade: A Narcissists Guide to Crazy Making that really hit home. These four "tools" were so much a part of my daily life that I would swear the author dated my ex at some point, too (and probably, like so many others, while I was still with him).
For those of you that know me in real life and for those that follow
this blog, you know that I wasn't just able to walk away. The more I
tried to remove him from my life, the crazier he got and eventually I
sought a PFA (Protection from Abuse) which meant that legally, if he
didn't stay away from me, he could face jail time. I was granted a
three-year PFA in April of 2010. Like everything else regarding that relationship, it wasn't that simple. He couldn't communicate with me due to the PFA, but he still had access to my family and friends. While he could no longer emotionally control me or abuse me--he could manipulate the others in my life and was still able to hurt me through them.
Since April of 2010, I have been estranged from my father and many other family members. My youngest brother, whom I had always considered more like a son and
whom I also considered my best friend, also sided with my ex and forbid
me to have contact with him or his children. We reconciled about a year later, but he said and did many hurtful things to me in that first year and I can't say that our relationship remained as close. In fact, my brother and his
children have since moved out-of-state and despite calls, I have not heard from him since sometime prior to October 2014. I am not sure of the reasons but am learning again, to live without them. The friends and support network that I believed to exist prior to April 2010 were never really mine, but I didn't realize that until I needed them.
The salaried position, I gave up by choice due to dealing with the
stress that came with this entire situation--honestly, I was not able to deal with
the amount of stress my career caused on top of what was occurring in my
personal life.
I
had one other experience that flipped my world over and shattered my illusions of reality--that was when my mother was murdered. I was nineteen when that happened and prior to her death, I felt that I had a lot of friends. I discovered that I had about three. Despite those three friends, I still felt more alone than I could tolerate and each day that I awoke seemed to be another bitter blow. I didn't want to live. I wanted to be with my mother, my best friend, the only one that truly understood me.
My father's actions in 2010 and the other events that occurred because I chose to walk away from a relationship that was more horrible and destructive than anyone will ever know, outside of him and me--I almost didn't recover from that blow, either. As I approach the five year anniversary of that madness, I can't help but look back and reflect on who I was, what I lost and where I am now. I know that living in the past prevents us from succeeding in the present and future, but I cannot blindly turn my back to it, either. There are simply some events that shape us more than others and that contribute greatly to who we currently are in life. My mother being murdered in 1993 and the events that resulted due to leaving an abusive ex in 2010 were, without doubt, full of more suffering than I thought possible to live through. I am sometimes still amazed that I made it...
