Are You Experiencing Narcissistic Abuse? How to Recognize the Signs
There’s up to a 50% chance you have.
Love with him was intoxicating, a 24/7 buzz without the come-down of a hangover or the slow bore of sobriety.
His touch on my bare skin felt right and good, and I couldn’t imagine being any happier. I hadn’t believed in soulmates until this man had put his hand on the soft nape of my neck and kissed me. I had never felt anything like it.
And never would again.
Thank fucking God.
What I didn’t know then is that I was in love with a fantasy, an actual made-up person.
I was in love with someone who was narcissistically abusing me. Someone who had carefully constructed and curated a beautiful image of himself that matched everything I’d ever wanted in a partner, only to rip it away when I least expect it and abuse me in a way that was stunning and annihilating.
The term “narcissistic abuse” is an actual misnomer. You don’t have to be a narcissist to narcissisticly abuse someone, nor is “abuse” by itself quite the right term for it either.
REACH: Beyond Domestic Violence defines abuse as, “a pattern of behavior used by one person to gain and maintain power and control over another.”
