Living with a narcissist involves a lot of trauma and drama. But it doesn’t have to. Here is one woman’s story of how she learned to live with a narcissist.

Living With A Narcissist: From Darkness To Light

By Cherlyn

The following are the stages that I went through as I progressed through the nightmare of being involved in a relationship with an abusive narcissist. My life did eventually evolve into a place of peace and clarity, but even now I sometimes have lingering symptoms of the horror of years past such as sleeplessness and anxiety. I hope you, the reader, are able to derive hope, strength, and courage from my story.

Stage 1: Something Is Wrong

The first stage involved an increasing awareness that something was terribly wrong. It seemed that there were “misunderstandings.” There was relentless conflict over the simplest, everyday things.

Sometimes my partner would insist that conversations we had the day before never took place. Or if we agreed that the conversation took place, then our recollection of how the conversation went was completely different a day or two later. [Get the free resource on 40+ tactics that narcissists use]

We couldn’t seem to communicate over the simplest things such as what we agreed to have for supper.

When we tried to travel together out of town there was confusion in everything we did, from the routes we agreed to take to when we said we would stop for meals or breaks.

There would be confusion regarding what times we said we would leave to go to a a local special event or occasion.

Challenging financial situations were difficult and painful to try to come to reasonable decisions together which, if we did, the next day he forgot what we discussed or that we even talked at all.

I was exhausted most of the time. Despite how hard I tried to anticipate problems and avoid them, be understanding, adapt myself to what he said he wanted, it only made things worse. It was like we lived on two different planets.

You, the reader, may already have a collection of your own examples of the craziness associated with trying to live a mature, sensical, and logical life with a cunning narcissist who tries to create confusion and chaos whenever possible.

Stage 2: Confusion

After I gained the awareness that something was wrong, confusion and a lack of clarity dominated my life. It was impossible for me to understand why someone would seemingly perpetuate constant turmoil, drama, and trauma whenever they could.

I spent a lot of time trying to understand and give my partner the benefit of the doubt and making excuses for him.

I tried to reason with myself that my partner was an intelligent and reasonable person, so I must be missing something in all of this.

It was like living in an episode of the twilight zone. Why does there seem to be an increasing disparity with what I knew was reality and what he claimed was happening?

When I confronted him about the craziness, he insisted that my memory was fading, that I was a poor communicator, and that I was mentally unstable. Yet, at work I didn’t have any problem planning, understanding, coordinating trips, or communicating with any of my co-workers or clients.

Stage 3: In It Alone

At some point I came to the realization that I was in it alone. I was aware that something needed to change as I was descending into darkness mentally and emotionally. It wasn’t long before I was having unidentifiable aches and pains and a lack of energy as my immune system was suffering from the relentless stress and emotional pain.

I tried reaching out for support and help. I felt continually overwhelmed daily by incident after incident. I tried to talk with friends and family and later counselors and pastors. Perhaps because I struggled with describing my experience, or the examples I gave sounded far-fetched and/or unbelievable, in each case, as I tried to describe my situation, it was clear that they had no idea what I was talking about and seemed to be unable to accept my experience as reality in any way.

Their responses included simplified and unhelpful suggestions such as: “You need to pray more and just trust God more,” and “He is your husband, so you need to just submit - you don’t need to pray about that,” or “You two just have communication problems.”

It was at that point that I had the most painful, hopeless, and desperate feelings. I had to admit to myself that I was completely alone facing something that was dark, evil, skillfully deceptive, sinister, and potentially deadly like I had never known before.

Stage 4: Taking Action

It was when I knew I was in it alone that I became a prolific journal writer. I logged each incident and experience. I summarized conversations I had with my partner sometimes using exact quotes and describing the surrounding circumstances in detail.

It wasn’t long before I could see similarities in his responses and re-occurring patterns of behavior. I did a google search for “verbal and/or emotionally abusive relationships” and was able to find books and information that, for the first time, seemed to resonate with my feelings and day-to-day experiences. I began to feel hope for the first time in years.

I was hungry for information and consumed everything I could by reading blogs, listening to podcasts, and viewing YouTube channels that clearly described what I was going through. It is here that I found relief and discovered that I was not alone, that I wasn’t isolated, and most importantly, I wasn’t crazy, losing my memory, or mentally unstable.

It was also in this stage that I began to “find my voice.” I developed language that allowed me to articulate what was happening. I learned about what love really is, and read about healthy boundaries. I learned to trust my gut instincts and responses. I became aware of my body which provided physical clues that some type of emotional or spiritual assault was, in fact, taking place. I noticed when my heart rate would shoot up, or my chest and head would become tight, or my throat would become dry and difficult to swallow. These were all signs which I had unknowingly ignored and forced below my consciousness… until now.

Stage 5: Courage

It was at this point that options had to be considered: Do I comply, emotionally hide, deaden any hope for life and bear it… for the sake of the family, the church, my marriage, the children involved? Or do I begin to position myself so I can spiritually and emotionally breathe again and move toward a healthier me.

Head knowledge and application of what to do are two very different things. Initially I choose the first option, but I quickly realized it was not sustainable as my mental and emotional health continued to escalate down into what felt like a death dive as trips to the doctor increased for migraine headaches, and emergency room visits and hospitalizations became more frequent as my immunity began to buckle under the stress.

It would take tremendous courage to develop and practice healthy boundaries and to find strategies to protect my emotions, mind, and spirit.

I had to learn how to create more distance, refuse to discuss problem topics without a third person present, take my own vehicle on any vacations or to any events, and secure a stronger financial position for myself as well as cut financial partnerships or ties with my partner so that I was not dependent on him or vulnerable to any of his threats.

But I did it. It was slow going with trials and failures, but over time I found and relied on effective measures to protect myself despite vicious and manipulative opposition.

Stage 6: Real Love

I came to understand that I was fighting for life with real love.

I continued to journal as much as possible and developed daily strategies to protect myself. Much was done by trial and error. I learned to fight back my delusions of what I wanted my spouse to be and what I believed my relationship was and instead choose to accept and embrace the realities of my circumstances.

My partner and I went to counseling again. But this time I was equipped with the documentation from my journal and the capacity to verbalize what was going on using clear language. I could now articulate how I was being affected emotionally – without getting emotional - and describe, with confidence, my thought processes as we sat in front of the counselor each giving “our side of the story.”

While no one could begin to understand the nightmare of living with a cunning narcissist unless they’ve experienced it for themselves, friends and counselors now listened to me with intent and received what I had to say. I gained credibility and the ability to provide insight into what was happening even though it was probably the first time that many had heard anything like what I was describing.

Whenever I needed to talk about what it was like living with my partner, I now looked forward to the challenge as I was equipped to dialog with anyone in a spirit of love, patience, and kindness. I no longer felt compelled or pressured to convince anyone of what I knew to be true. I no longer felt afraid or defensive. I didn’t mind if people disagreed with me. And I was free.

Conclusion

Those were the 6 stages on my journey from darkness to light. If you are reading this and wonder where you are in the stages, I want to encourage you to be patient with yourself and the process. While it is impossible to define the beginning and ending of my experience, and the stages cannot be clearly defined as I did here for the purpose of giving understanding, it was about 15 years from the beginning stage to the final stage. I stayed in some stages longer than others, and of course they overlapped most of the time. And really, there isn’t an end to it because it is a continual process of evolving and learning. The lessons that I had to learn to survive and thrive in a traumatic relationship are useful in all relationships, helpful in understanding myself, and provided insight into all facets of life. None of it was wasted time. What you are going through isn’t wasted time. It is extremely valuable. Run the race well and glean all that you can, and you will find that…

Hope isn’t found in our situation changing; it’s found in our situation…

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