Narcissistic abuse recovery

[MrConfused]

Hello, I feel so stupid & pathetic & I just want to find some people who understand & I will listen to any advice.

I was with my partner for 7 years, I've been gaslit, manipulated, mentally and violently abused and cheated on and I just allowed it all to happen, for instance I caught her out on our security cameras cheating with 4 people at once, my neighbour told me, after I flipped out and wanted to harm myself the police who were taking me away said that when they surrounded my house that several neighbours and residents close by had told them of her frequent cheating and that's why I'd flipped out, hell the police told me not to go back but even after all that I let her gaslight me into thinking I was hearing things or that people were setting her up, all the arguments where I'd question her aggressive behaviour or insults of me and somehow it would turn out to be my fault or a tirade of everything id apperently done wrong and I believed it and I'd work on myself to be a better person, many times she hurt me physically and she rationed it out that it was ok because she'd had a hard life and it was my fault for not being more supportive.

Then when I left her she made up all these lies about me and tried to turn everyone against me including my own kids even.

How did I believe that she loved me? Am I stupid or just not equipped to be in relationships? How did I not leave all the times I knew she was cheating and or not say something? I was so pathetically in love with her and how in the hell did I think she was my soulmate? At times I thought she was so supportive and cared but it was just to throw in my face later or remind me of how weak I am and that I need her.

Now I'm alone in a caravan park, I've lost almost everything (my kids have seen it's lies now and a few friends as well) and I just can't make sense of it all. She's moved on to someone new so fast and I'm just sitting here feeling bruised and afraid of people to be honest, my trust for others is just gone.

I'm not perfect either and I lost my temper in arguments with her and said things I regret, at the end I lied to her to be other places because I was just so miserable at home and I couldn't take the confrontation anymore.

How do you navigate your way out of this? I just want to have some quiet in my head and get rid of this deep sadness in my chest.

To anyone who read this or replies thank you in advance, I'm sorry for dumping all this here but I'm alone and I'm lost and I just want someone to talk to.

[therising]

The warmest of welcomes to you at such a tormenting, stressful and deeply depressing time in your life. I'm so glad you've come here for support while also seeking ways to make sense of what's happened, as well as making sense of the best way forward.

I've found that while people speak of emotions such as sadness, anger, frustration etc, there can be a whole range of emotions that people don't often speak about unless they've felt them and can relate to them. They are the more intricate and complex emotions which can be challenging to feel and make sense of. 'Lost and alone in the dark' has a feel to it. 'Heartbreak' or 'heartache' has a feel to it. 'A repetitive soul destroying level disappointment' has a feel to it. With that last one, relating to disappointment, when we appoint someone the role of 'He/she who will be faithful' or 'He/she who will raise me to feel joy, excitement, a sense of evolution etc' and that person repetitively dis-appoints themself from such roles, we can feel their disappointment deeply. It's completely understandable that you'd have so much going on in your head, given that there are so many things to make sense of in hindsight over a 7 year period (with so many emotions included).

While I know it may not be of any great consolation right now, I think one of the things that hindsight can offer us in or after a relationship is a much clearer view of just how much we've grown over time, typically under challenging circumstances. The revelations can even be quite shocking in some cases. While you may be fully conscious of all the ways you worked to better yourself, have you also considered the level of tolerance you developed over time, the level of forgiveness you achieved and the amount of times you raised yourself to be a more open minded person? Have you reflected on how deeply you had to reach into yourself to find greater levels of compassion, understanding and a sense of vision when it came to having to develop a sense of direction? How many times over the years did you have to exercise tapping into the navigator in you, while considering ways forward under deeply challenging circumstances? This is something I've found on reflection, when it comes to my 22 year marriage to my husband. While I questioned on many occasions 'What's wrong with me?', what I was failing to see was just how hard I'd actually worked on the relationship over the years and how much I'd developed myself in the process. When my revelations came, so did my self esteem. While it's not a competition to see who's developed the most over time or who's changed the most (our self or our partner), it can be about developing a sense of pride when it comes to all the work we've actually done. We have to seriously love our self for having evolved in some pretty spectacular ways. 

[Ggrand]

Hello Dear Guest,

A very warm and caring welcome to the forums….

I am deeply sorry that you have gone through all that….I can relate to a lot of what you went through and it saddens me to know that you also went through similar….I am, like you a survivor of a narcissistic person….except I’m female….

I was told by my counsellor that I was made to feel by my (late) husband that I couldn’t survive life without him…Unfortunately I believed him and stayed in that abusive marriage for 38 years…until he passed away 11 years ago…Since his passing I have struggled with trusting people and feeling safe in this big world…tried to end my life which left me in hospital for 6 weeks…his words and actions of abuse are still constantly in my head even today….Loneliness is overwhelming at times..these are things I’m just guessing are happening to you…and I’m really sorry…. the thing to remember is that you are a survivor. away from all the abuse you had to endure I hope so much you will start  healing…

Sometimes speaking to a counsellor can help you to get through the memories of your hard times…triggers have a nasty way of interrupting our daily lives…and bringing us down and back to relive those abusive times….reaching out to your Dr…and talking to them about how you’re struggling with what you went through might help and if your Dr thinks you need one, they will set you up with a mental health care plan…which helps us to understand our feelings and they give us strategies on coping through them…

Please dear Guest, don’t be sorry for talking out your thoughts and feeling here….that’s what this wonderful place is here for..you can talk here anytime you feel up to it…we care about you and want to help support you the best we can…

My kindest thoughts dear guest, with a gentle caring hug…

Grandy.

[MrConfused]

Thank you for your reply, I hadn't even considered the thought of personal growth during that time or how I've grown as a person, I was firmly stuck on the why did it happen track of thought and after watching some very helpful videos on recovering from narcissistic abuse and reading your post I've got some new directions to point my thoughts in. Thank you so much for your reply I truly appreciate it 😊 

[MrConfused]

Thank you for your reply and especially for the empathy, it really helps knowing that others people understand. I got a mental health care plan a couple of days ago and I'm looking for a psychologist now (I'm rural and the selection is very few).  Your kindness and understanding actually helped alot and helped lift some of the black cloud I've been stuck in, thank you very much for your reply.