broken-n-discarded

[broken-n-discarded]

We loose ourselves

Over the last 2 months of being free of my narcissist and learning to comprehend what happened to me and how cruel he is, I have found it interesting just how much I changed myself to please him and be more of what I knew he liked than my actual self. The strange thing is that all the things I liked or I became were already in me or things that interested me, I just emphasized them more. The things that I liked that he didn't like I let fade into the background and just didn't pay attention to them anymore. For example, I love tea, hot, cold. Doesn't matter I love tea, its my preferred beverage. However, my narc didn't like tea it revolted him. So he would make fun of me or make a gaging sound anytime I mentioned that's what I was drinking or he saw me drinking it. Over time I just didn't drink hot tea at all and instead of ice tea, I picked up his soda habit. So it got to the point that all I really drank was soda aside from my morning coffee. I would drink some ice tea but no where near what I use to drink. Over this last month without him I have started to slowly find who I really am and what I really like again. Tea is one of the new things I've rediscovered and over the last few days I have a lot of ice tea and even some hot tea and I think, wow how did i stop drinking this, its so good. It is mind blowing how they chip away at who you are and get you to change more and more without actually telling you or asking you to. You sort of just pick up on it between the teasing and passing comments. Then when they stop you realize that you are where they want you and feel almost relieved that you have finally found a level that they seem happy with. It doesn't last that long though because they usually find something else to start picking act once you fix whatever they have been picking on you for. 

If its not that, then its the weird “I like this, oh now you do, ok I don't like it anymore” game. There was so many times that I would mention something that in the “love bombing” phase he loved too. All of a sudden he didn't like it anymore, simply because i did and it hurt, like I lost part of what made us, us. Which I think was the point. To make me feel like I had some how not grown in the relationship like he did, or that whatever it was had outlived its cool and now i was behind. He loves movies, especially horror films. Me on the other hand I only like the originals like Halloween, Nightmare on Elm street, Friday the 13th...to name a few. He loved these as well. Yet when I would mention them and want to watch them all of a sudden he didn't want to watch them, it had to be the remake or some random obscure horror film no one but die hard horror fans liked. He dismissed the ones I liked as ok. Where they use to be his favs like me. When we would watch some of the obscure ones, he’d premise it with you probably wont like it but its one of my favs. If i ended up liking it, then all of a sudden it wasnt his fav anymore it was just an ok film. It was hurtful and frustrating feeling like he was always looking for something to reject me with and make me feel bad. 

In this healing chapter of my life, I have finally decided that I am going to like what I like and do what I want to do and not care about what other people think, especially him. I have come to the realization that he will never like or approve of anything about me so I might as well stop trying. Hes gone and never coming back and its time I let it go and bury that horrible toxic relationship that I endured for 18yrs. Hes a horrible cruel monster who will never change because he thinks that its fun to tear women apart in order to make himself feel better. 

[broken-n-discarded]

Learning to function again

So every since my narcissist discarded me I have been struggling to function. Just basic things like getting out of bed and doing things I know I need to do is so difficult. I much rather stay in bed with my head buried under blankets fast asleep where I dont have to deal with all the pain. Everything when I am awake reminds me of him. Just breathing makes me think of him and I hate it. Its strange how you loose your identity in someone and when they are gone you feel like you dont even know who you are anymore, you morph yourself to be what they want and need. You dont even realize you are doing it till after they are gone and you are left not knowing what to do without them. The sad thing is that I actually would happily keep living my life that way if her would take me back. That I would be happy with my identity being what he needed and living for him if it meant he would always stay. I realize that it is not healthy, but if you cant be honest with yourself who can you be honest with? 

It got alot worse when he went public with his new gf, something that I was never allowed. For 2yrs I was his gf but in secret, he always had a reason or excuse. Always a promise of soon he would start to tell people, he just wanted to wait till it was closer to the time I would move there. Did I mention that I was suppose to move to another country for him? I was more than happy to fit into his life there and make him happy. I guess that was to much for him so he went with someone there. Just dropped me like nothing for someone easy. Now she gets to go on all the day trips we planned, meet his whole family and move into the house that we planned for together. She gets the life that was suppose to be mine and I am left lifeless and empty. All of who I was I poured into him and now its gone....I dont feel like i have the strength to build myself back up even though I know I need to. I hate when people tell me I should be grateful he left, because now I get to live the life I want....they dont understand that a life with him is what I want and so now i have to find a way to get by until I get to die. I dont feel like I will ever be happy without him because I never have been. The best and worst times of my life have been with him. People want to say that the ones that broke you cant fix you, but with him he could. He broke me when he left, but any time he came back I was magically whole again. Then the fear and anxiety of loosing him again would set in. Being an unknown narcissist victim I never understood why he kept coming back or why he treated me so poorly when he claimed to love or want me so much. Now that I know what he is, I understand he knew what he was doing and it was all a game, yet it was all real for me and I still love and miss him everyday. Every point in my life without him, I barely existed and survived. Now I have to live the rest of my life without him, because I dont think he will ever come back this time. I think this was his last round with me. Hes getting older and he just came out of a long unhappy marriage before we got back together and I have a feeling he will stay with this one. I hope he doesnt, I hope it doesn't last like all the others, but he sadly never looses. He always wins with his charm and fakeness. He actually treats people like crap but hes so charming his friends and family just think hes funny and let it go when hes actually belittling them on purpose. For once I wish he would loose it all and finally be forced to feel something. Forced to feel all the pain that he has caused me and I am sure others. 

Having to make a life for myself is not something I want to do, I am sure that to many that sounds awesome. I dont feel like I have the intelligence and strength to do it on my own, but I have no choice since he has left me and took with him the life that I wanted, dreamed of my whole life. How do you go on? How do you live knowing that another gets your dream that apparently you were not worthy of?

[broken-n-discarded]

Narcissists just keep moving

I was thinking about this lately, how narcissists keep moving like you don't exist while you are left wounded and struggling to keep going. Some days I find myself wishing that I could be as cold as my narcissist ex and forget he exits and keep moving. I also blame myself a lot for what has happened to me, I think I was too nice, to forgiving, to naïve, to deeply in love to see reason. I have been here before with him, broken and left behind for another woman. Over 16yrs ago when we were first in a relationship, he lied and manipulated me and then left me for another woman. I was young and had no clue what a narcissist was or that there was even such a thing as narcissist abuse. In fact if it had not been for joining tik tok, I would have still not know what he was or what he was doing. I was always so confused by the things that he did and his reactions and sudden disappearances. His words and actions never matched. Nothing made sense and he would explain away so many things. We even stayed in contact after the devastating break up the first time. My mind convincing me that it was better to have a little bit of him in my life rather than nothing at all. It hurt especially when he married the woman he had left me for. 

After he was married I did my best to stay away, I would hide myself online from him although I would check up on his social media from time to time to see what he was up to and looking for cracks that his life was not the fairy tale he wanted me to believe that it was. It was hard, I would hear from him out of the blue usually once a year until finally I got the courage to cut him off completely because he wanted to talk daily instead of yearly and I knew he was married and that nothing good could come from that. The 2 yrs without him in my life at all felt like I was treading water, hoping that he would find me. It was the weirdest feeling that I could not understand why I felt like I needed him to live even though I knew he was not the nicest person and had gone out of his way many times to put me down or make me feel bad about myself or anything that I perceived as an achievement. Those 2 yrs were so hard and finally I couldn't take the silence and not knowing anymore and I had to find him. It didn't take long, there he was on Instagram. I thought about it for a month before finally reaching out. He answered instantly and it felt like a hole in my heart was immediately filled and  I could breath after holding my breath for so long. He was so happy to have me back and he missed me so much and I missed him. I thought I had my friend back and that I was strong enough to keep it on a friend level, but I was not. I over estimated my strength and underestimated his charm and  within a month he had pulled me back in with confessions of a broken marriage and years of regret that he had not picked me. It all felt like a dream and I was shook. 

Not to long after he claimed to have left his wife and we started to talk more about us and if we really wanted to be together and get to know each other again after so long. It was a long distance reconnection because he lives in England and I live in California. I wish I had of known at this time that he was a narcissist and that I felt all the things I felt after years of being trauma bonded to him. That all those things were from his manipulation and charm, but I didn't know and what followed was 2 years of lies, future faking, cheating, disappearing, lots of anger on his part and finally him leaving me for a new woman. In the end I found out that the first year we were together that he actually was still very much with his wife (the time difference and distance made that easy I suppose) so he was carrying on a long distance relationship with me while still being a husband and father. He was so good at lying and covering his tracks, although I would question him a lot he always had a good answer or reason or excuse for everything. How I found out he had been lying it was by accident when his wife’s Instagram popped up on my suggestions list and I was curious and clicked. Suddenly I was flooded with pictures of him on trips with her and their kids all the times that he would disappear or be less talkative which he would blame on work or being a single father. When confronted he never once apologized but said instead that I should have known what he was doing and put all the blame on me for not being smarter. I should of cut him off then and there but something in me could not and we carried on as friends. Eventually he softened towards me again and for a month said that he was still in love with me and that he would leave his wife for me eventually I just had to wait. 5 months later however, his wife caught him messaging her sister and she ended the marriage because she didn't believe that it was only messages. He had told me about talking to the sister, but he had such a good story for that, or at least I convinced myself it was a good story. I warned him to not talk to her (embarrassingly more out of jealously than for his wife sake) but he didn't listen because he knew I was jealous and it eventually broke his marriage. I now see that he triangulated it that he would get caught so his wife could end the marriage and he could claim he was merely helping a woman in distress and his wife the “monster” wouldn't listen to reason. A week later we were back together because stupidly I let my eagerness for him to be mine overpower logic and reason. It was good 2 months of daily video chats, assurance that he was really split this time with picture proof and numerous phone calls (all things he denied me before). Sadly it did not last long.

After 2 months he started to be cold, mean and distant. He was always at his ex wifes house or at some new lady that he had claimed was a friend through his sons. The single mother of one of their friends to be exact. Suddenly I was accused of not trusting him and being paranode and crazy because he would spend the night at both ladies houses and shut off his phone or block me off and on to be with them. I was so confused how his love could disappear over night. After so much time of claiming I was the one and how much he loved me in spite of all the pain he was inflicting on me with lies and cheating. That month our 3rd and last together ended with him fighting daily with me for time alone with the new lady and me begging him to understand why that was wrong and to either let me go or act nice again. Finally he just ended it. I was devastated and so confused. The month that followed that was me asking what happened trying to figure out the lies and why he was doing what he was doing and keeping me around and in his life if he was going to be like this. No answers were really given and the ones that were made no sense. It was horrible I was broken trying to figure out what happened and he was running around with lord only knows how many women at that point. He would still disappear and block me on occasion and turn off his phone. 

Dec of last year was the worst part, he would still tell me that there was hope for us that he just need some time to think, so of course not really understanding and hopelessly in love I stayed around. Out of the blue after about 2 years of asking he finally let me follow his Instagram and low and behold there was a woman posting comments that made her sound like she was his gf. Apparently this was triangulation ( I didn't know that at the time) this of course set me off emotionally and hurt so much, he got mad that I was hurt and used that to disappear for a week to punish me for being upset that he had a new woman in his life after he swore he didn't. When we finally started to talk again I stupidly had to apologize for being hurt (he hated when I felt anything, was always angry when I would tell him he hurt my feelings). We started to talk like friends again and even discussed me going to visit him ( I failed to mention that he had claimed he wanted me to move to England to be with him from the beginning of him claiming to be separated from his wife and this last time we had looked at houses together so I could move to be with him in January). He made it seem like we were back on track all the way up to the day he cut me out of his life. He got angry with me on a Saturday because when I texted him after I woke up like usual he didn't answer and finally at like 2am his time he wrote back saying he had been driving all night to clear his head. I knew it was a lie because he had told me the day before how bad the roads were with snow and he always hated driving at night. I called him on it and asked if it was really a date he blew up and that was it. The next 2 days he would not reply to my texts and finally I asked what was happening that he was acting weird and he simply texted “sorry, busy, message later” and that was it. With those 4 words he was gone and I was devastated. 

Weirdly enough he still follows me on Instagram and I still follow him but he never posts, when I do he doesn't write or like them and when I try to comment on his or write him a message they go unanswered. I am pretty sure that I am restricted, why he doesn't just block me I don't know. He now has a new gf, the 3rd since me but this one is the one that gets everything he denied me and has been introduced to his family. I put it all together and figure that he cut me out of his life to avoid all the questions that would I would ask just like with his gf after me. Cutting me out saved him the annoyance of being accountable.

I found out about narcissist's on tik tok while scrolling to distract myself from the silence and everything they described sounded like him and made so many things make sense. Sadly knowing what he is doesn't make the pain go away. It was all real for me, and just realizing that it was all a game to him is devastating. The horrible thing is that even as write this and am aware that he is a monster and only cares about himself, I still very much love this man. I know that it is a trauma bond and for the last month I was franticly trying to find a way to reach him, but then I realized how crazy that did make me seem. Its weird how narcissist's can cause you to act and do things you would never have thought possible. That they rewire your brain and take away logic and reason so slowly and strategic that you don't even recognize yourself when they leave you. I tell myself some days that his new relationship wont last, they never do and when they end, he usually comes back looking for me, I think I do this to try and comfort myself some how. Before I knew what he was this always seemed romantic that he couldn't get over me like I couldn't get over him, sadly I now know that I am just an easy supply target for him and that is why he always came back. I want to heal from this and not be his target anymore but my brain still hears his words and promises echo like a ghost that haunts me and I feel paralyzed. Its not fair that a narcissist burns down you and your world and moves onto a next like nothing while you are left lost, confused, paralyzed and broken. Some days I still find myself questioning if he really is a narcissist, but apparently that is normal as a survivor who is still trauma bonded. I hope this trauma doesn't last forever. 

[broken-n-discarded]

To all the broken hearts out there

Hello, I am new here. I've never been on tumblr until today, but I have heard that its a great place to blog and meet other like minded people. Currently I am working through a particularly heartbreaking break up. Its basically an 18yr long saga that has come to an end and not by my choice. Our story is very long and I will write it all out in another post, but I am hoping that putting this all out here into the world and letting out all my feeling might help me move on and heal after 18yrs of ups and downs. 

I feel like I have died, my heart is so broken and I am having trouble functioning. He was my whole world. I loved him with all I had, gave him all my time and did everything I could to make him feel loved and cared for since he had just gotten out of a marriage that ended badly (from what he said). He had told me that he regretted letting me go when we were younger ( we had been together for 2 yrs when we were in our early 20s) and that I was the one and, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me an make up for all our lost years. It felt like a dream and I was so happy....but sadly life is not a dream and after 2 years it turned out that it was all a huge mountain of lies, gaslighting and manipulation. He now has a new girlfriend and has blocked me on everything but Instagram so that I can see his new life, yet im restricted from message or comments so I cant say anything. It seems a very extreme form of torture and sadly I don't have the strength to block him because I miss him so much even though it hurts to see him happy with someone new after all his lies that I believed. 

I was so confused and hurt and lost. I started to read about these sorts of things online and that's where I have come to realize that my ex is a covert narcissist. It all makes sense, why I could never get over him or keep him out of my life. Why he was always able to charm me into forgiving him and stay in each others lives. He has emotionally manipulated me and emotionally abused me and even as I write this and have become aware of what he is, I still miss him everyday. Knowing what he is and that it was never real for him, doesn't change that it was real for me and I am cant turn my feelings on and off like he can. Its been a month without him and I feel like I have died inside and like I will never love again. I loved this man for 18yrs and he promised me a whole life to make up for the one we lost and once again he lied and left me, and instead gave that life to another woman. Just like he did when we were in our 20s. He feeds on my love and weakness for him and seems to enjoy destroying me. 

I am sad that it took me so long to find out what he was because if I had of known 2 yrs ago I could have saved myself this pain and sorrow, but now I know to never let him back in again. Because when this relationship ends (because they always do) I will not be there to pick up the pieces like all the times before. Because now I know why I did (mental and emotional abuse and manipulation) and can stop myself from falling for that cycle again. Sadly being aware now doesn't stop all the pain or make the years of abuse and love vanish. So I am trying to cope with this extreme trauma bond I have with my ex and my overwhelming feelings of heartbreak and a the loss of what feels like a life long dream to be with him forever. At the time all the plans and promises seemed so real, but now I know it was all future faking and manipulation to keep me around until he found someone new there with him. I live in another country which of course made his lies and manipulation a lot easier. 

Here I hope to work through my feeling and hopefully find others that are trying to heal from this sort of abuse, along with trying to find myself again and build a life for myself. It seems common to lose yourself in a relationship with a narcissist along with losing your way. I feel so lost and hurt that there are many days that I pray I will not wake up because the pain I feel when I do is so unbearable that I cant get myself to do anything and then I feel worse because I know he is out living his best life with someone new, traveling and working his dream job. All things that he ended up with due to my encouragement and ideas that I would give him to get ahead and heal. He basically killed me in order to become his best and then left me behind. Are there any others out there going through anything like this or maybe have found their way through it and can give me advice on how to heal?