It was stormy outside, reminding me of the storm inside. My mind, body and spirit were in constant turmoil over my husband's frequent and frightening emotional meltdowns. He would often drag me into another one of his mental rabbit holes. He was like an active volcano spewing hellish fire. Then came the quiet time when he would rest and recover from his own self-inflicted exhaustion, staying in bed for days at a time. I was on guard, always ready to duck and cover. This grown man could not manage his own behavior and self-righteously defended his right to express his "anger." He didn't understand the difference between healthy expression of anger and toxic rage. He was oppositional. He refused to get any help. He didn't see any need. He was arrogant. I was giving up on my dream of ever having the life I'd envisioned with this man.

I longed for the days, years ago, when I felt for him. The days when my heart ached for him, for the little boy who had suffered such terrible trauma. I fell for that wounded child. I identified with him because of my own wounds from childhood. Classic trauma bonding.

But the time came when he no longer felt like that precious child to me. The angry woman inside of me who rarely came out was getting so sick and tired of this grown-ass man's escalations in to such hurtful behavior.

One day I had a full-blown panic attack and it shook me to my bones. The wiser part of me was trying to get my attention. My nervous system was shaking me violently, sending electric shocks through my body. About two years and many crazed episodes later, I had another massive panic attack. This time is translated into the deepest fear I think I'd ever known, as I realized I was married to an insane person and that there was really no hope of my dreams ever coming true with him. For the first time, I felt I was in danger. I was terrified. This is what it took to wake me up… the realization that this could only end badly for me if I stayed with him.

The man I had loved so much now looked and felt like a monster, a predator. A madman I could no longer afford to empathize with. Empathy fatigue had set in firmly, no longer able to muster any compassion for him. Instead I finally began to focus on some compassion for myself and it was long overdue.

This relationship was over. It was dead in the water and I had better get away from him before I was too. I drove off one day after yet another screaming fit in which he was attempting to tighten his control over me even more. That was the proverbial straw that broke this lady camel's back.

My departure sent him into narcissistic collapse, a psych unit week-long visit, followed by a months-long manic phase during which time he hyper-focused on winning me back. I was very confused, thinking the trauma bond between us was love and not knowing if I'd made the right choice in leaving. My self-doubt was at an all-time high after nearly a decade under his abusive thumb.

As our time apart gave me some space to regulate my nervous and endocrine systems and think, it only served to escalate my husband who was seriously unstable.

His efforts to win me back coincided with my efforts to figure out what was happening to me. I learned about narcissism in it's most lethal form, Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I learned of the intricacies of psychological abuse, what it meant to be trauma bonded, how it felt to have Complex PTSD, and the narcissistic collapse that had been unfolding before my eyes.

As I resisted his efforts, he went into narcissistic collapse, pushing me farther and farther away. As I gained more clarity, I could see the cycle of narcissistic abuse as it played out. His behavior started to appear predictable. Now I had to figure out how to get him to leave me alone. My boundary of less and less contact didn't phase him. He persisted, becoming more and more intense, alternatively rageful or pitiful, and threatening in his swirling madness.

One day after numerous boundary violations, I emailed him, telling him to stop stalking me. This really "hurt" him and something switched in him. He went no contact and I breathed in the relief. I'd been one step away from filing a restraining order.

My reading continued as I delved into my part in all of this. I knew I was onto something when I read about the dance between an empath and a narcissist. I knew myself to be high on the empath scale.

"Empaths are people who feel more empathy than the average person. Empathy is the capacity to understand and share the feelings of others.

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a disorder characterized by an excessive need for admiration, grandiosity, and a lack of empathy." — Medical News Today

Empaths… our need for connection outweighs our need to protect ourselves. We thrive on connection. We can easily walk in another person's shoes. Empathy helps build relationships.

All the empathy in the universe hadn't help me build healthy relationships with the narcissists in my life. We built relationships, yes, but these relationships were toxic. It was just really hard to see the toxicity in the beginning.

Narcissists are masters at the art of manipulation. They are transactional. They are schemers, strategizing to get their needs met and what they need is supply… someone to feed off of, someone who will provide the admiration they crave. Narcissists that are high on the narcissism scale are predators.

I was connecting the dots about my ex-husband's and my father's intense narcissistic traits. My father, my children's father, and my last ex were very high on the narcissism scale.

Empaths are in search of love and belonging while the narcissist seeks out control, superiority and supply.

That's how life felt with my ex only what he was truly after was camouflaged with the charms and love bombs any narcissist worth his salt performs.

When a narcissist gives an empath their undivided attention, the empath feels like they have found their soulmate.

I remembered how intoxicating it felt to be the center of his attention initially. How I quickly fell under the spell of feeling loved and like I'd found where I belonged. I felt like I'd come home to this man that I'd been searching for, for a thousand years. It was powerful. Seductive.

When something seems too good to be true, beware! The spells that highly narcissistic people cast are very powerful and it takes the right target to work. The right target is that highly empathic person who brings loving authentic attention to the narcissist, one who empathizes with them, one who exudes the lightness of being that the narcissist longs to have.

The empath will think that their dreams have come true, finally finding someone who they feel really sees them and has such sweet alignment with them. This feeling is so strong that it clouds the empaths ability to use good discernment.

When an empath and narcissist meet, it creates a perfect storm.

That was the summation of my life with the covert narcissists in my life. I had grown really, really tired of these storms.

Not knowing what grey rocking was, I intuitively began to grey rock him. When I grey rocked him I was accused of stonewalling. When I spoke up I got talked into corners and served more word salad. He prided himself on his emotional intelligence and inner work. I laugh now at the thought. What he was so good at was all the tools in his bag of narcissistic abuse.

I couldn't win and as time moved on, I was like a mouse in a lab experiment. No matter what I did, I couldn't find my way to safety. I couldn't get any of my needs met unless they lined up with his. I became more and more dysregulated.

I never considered myself to be a manipulative person. I was the one who was manipulated far more often. I was the gullible one. I was the one who placed my trust in people who weren't trustworthy because I grew up in a house of lies. Like my mother before me, I was the one with a bad picker.

As an empath who suffered my own traumatic childhood at the hands of a highly narcissistic, abusive father, I developed the typical strategies to survive… my go-to trauma responses were freeze and fawn. These survival mechanisms came rushing to my surface in this marriage. I was likely the best supply my narcissist husband had ever had because of this. His previous wives were more fighters than fawners. I was an easy mark. I made it so easy for him to drag me into the worst state of trauma I've experienced as an adult.

My redemption came as I set and held strong boundaries with the narcissists in my life. These boundaries were no contact if possible and low contact when communication was required. I learned how to recognize and not ignore red flags when they were flying. I learned how to be more boundaried energetically, not allowing any and everybody into my life, my home, my heart. You have to earn a place with me now. I take my time to observe and use good discernment. I am better now. I am grateful to have awakened to all of this so that I could move through it and past it, creating healing for me and my lineage.

I am here to share my stories, my realizations, and my recovery efforts after spending decades in relationships with abusive narcissists. I would flee one only to eventually find myself involved with another. Some of my stories involve people who are higher on the narcissism scale than I am, certainly. I experienced manipulation, betrayal and abuse to varying degrees depending on the person. In this story, I was dealing with full-blown, diagnosable narcissist.

I am writing a book about what happened to me as a result of narcissistic abuse. In it I will share the trauma I endured, my insights and my journey of recovery. I am a psychologist offering support group facilitation in a safe circle of women where we honor both the sacred and the scars in each other and together we heal. I share in the hope that you will read my story, and that it will be just the thing you need to shed some light on the darkness of your trauma, abuse, and grief… and light the fire of determination in you so that you can thrive, not just survive. I am here to offer hope.

Namaste

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