The Lost Letters: The Dark World of Narcissistic Abuse

Dark, Darker, Darkest Times

You'll hide it. If you are in relationship with a narcissist right now, or are trying to figure out how to get out of one, you will know exactly what I am talking about. You have been made into your own worst enemy—have trained yourself to believe what is happening, isn't.

Deep inside, you internalise their awful narrative, that you are the problem—the cause of the stress, drama, their rage, and take all the blame, expect it. Even if it decimates you, you accept everything is your fault and no matter what you do, you will still be wrong—because there have been far too many painful consequences when you attempted to communicate, to be heard, to be understood. To matter. No. You have learned it is better this way. But still, neither can you live with the burden of such a terrible reality, one where there is no hope of you having any power to make things better without beginning to fragment into pieces.

So, you blinker your mind from the pain and focus on those rare times when things are good. And those times are good. So good. You feel grateful for them because they are so good. You might even post about your perfect partner who loves you so much they whisked you away on a luxury weekend break and treated you like a queen. You share the photos of your suite in the centre of Stockholm at the most expensive hotel, of the wine, food, intimate meals, the room service breakfast, how he poured your tea and arranged your plate with the best things to eat. The lovely things you saw wandering around the city. How happy you were.

It's a dream. You cling to it. Build it up. You make him a king. You want him to never stop being that man. You think if you enshrine it in digital pixels somehow all the bad will magically go away and the good times will stay.

You do this. Create rules. Dozens of them. Little deals you make with no one but your imagination, but somehow, it helps you cope, gives you a sense of control of the uncontrollable. If this, then that. 'If I write lots of nice things on social media praising him, he will be nice to me. I will be safe.'

Of course, it never works.

But you cannot help yourself. You create a false narrative. You believe it. You need to believe it. Because it hurts far less to live in self-deception than to accept the truth: That you are hated, and you will continue to be hated and hurt until you find a way to escape (which once you are backed into a corner and utterly dependant on them is extremely difficult) or you die. And at times, you do hope you will die. At times, you hope the next time they throw you around the house you will hit your head and it is the fatal blow. That you will never get up again.

Of course, it never happens.

Then again, you don't even know what's real anymore. Everything is a lie, the past a constantly shifting, changing thing dependant on his mood . . . so why not create your own lie, a beautiful one?

Deep in the broken part of yourself, on the other side of your fracture, the real you, the one you lost knows you are hiding the ugliness of your life from other people, that the existence you project of being a happy homemaker with a great, successful husband who dotes on you is an utter lie—and you are the biggest perpetrator of the propaganda.

These thoughts tend to be strongest in the dead of the night, when you wake and stare at the strip of white light shining across the ceiling and silence saturates the house and the truth escapes its bonds for a heartbeat and slides through you. Defies your lies, your constructs. Wills you to see what he has made you into and asks you to fight back. Begs you.

You sit up. Listen. Everything is clear. So clear. Yes.

And like a cruel plot twist, he wakes. He sits up filled with care and concern and puts his arm around you, asks if you have had a nightmare and to lay down beside him where he will protect you.