"The reason it’s so bad is because at the beginning they were tricking you. At least in my experience, I felt like I finally found someone who I could tell anything, he would never hurt me, he was totally into me, he loved being around me and spending time with me, he made me feel like no one else ever has, I truly thought to myself “this is the man I will love forever, and this is how it’s supposed to feel”. Etc.
But then suddenly things change. And all of sudden they don’t have time. They don’t put any effort in, they truly don’t seem to care at all. And you are left feeling abandoned and alone and scared, and when you turn to the one person you have (them)…they flip it around and make you feel even more alone and scared. They use your own fears and insecurities against you. That makes you even more insecure so you cling tighter to the idea of the person they pretended to be, just trying to “be good enough” to make that person come back again. Jump through the hoops, follow the ambiguous “rules”, try to listen to everything they say in hopes they will someday listen to you and the relationship can be happy again. All the while losing who you are and forgetting what you deserve.
It’s just constant turmoil, constantly being on edge, constantly worrying about when you might break the next unspoken rule or god forbid say you have any needs of your own!
No one understands narcissistic abuse unless they have lived it. It’s impossible to explain. It’s even harder because I’m sure you were “trained” that if you tried to reach out for help to friends or family you were punished for “making them look bad”. Etc etc. it’s a mind fu**. It makes you doubt reality, it makes you doubt yourself.
There are huge chunks of my life that I literally can not remember because of CPTSD from my relationship. It’s like it’s blanked out completely, and at this point I’m okay with that, it’s better than the constant stress and anxiety and fear that came with being in that relationship." -Anonymous
Survival Diaries
'Constantly Being on Edge"