“The floor is worn from my pacing, my soul restlessly distraught from incessant obsessing. My love, I want no more of you. When I found you, I was at peace. Now, you leave me in pieces. I resent what I’ve allowed you to do to me. I willingly gave you my all, only to be left with shattered and shadowy remnants of me. Devoured, you consumed me completely.”

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a more concise or succinct synopsis of what it’s like to have loved a narcissist. It’s been said that we learn our greatest lesson when we suffer our greatest loss.  As survivors of narcissistic abuse, we have most assuredly lost so much.  The multitude of minute pieces we envision as being enveloped by this corporeal shell which is us – our passions, pursuits, goals, dreams, fears, aspirations, self-respect, sanity, and inner peace are a mere fraction of the multiple facets which comprise the emotional and psychological construct we identify as our psyche and self.  Truly, the laundry list of individual components can seem infinite and will invariably vary from person to person if asked to break down and define that which is us.

But when you think about what we’ve weathered and how it has devastated us on so many of those different soulful levels, the end result is always the same: we are ineffably broken in just as many different ways as we are unique.  It’s surprising the multiple aspects of self we embody in a single vessel and just how deeply we reach inside ourselves to eagerly offer up all of those dimensions to the person or people whom we truly love, isn’t it?

Case in point: it was just over 18 months ago when my narcissist, Julia, gifted me with the final discard.  At the time, I was nothing short of devastated.  Little did I know, in less than a year, I would come to embrace her departure as the greatest gift she had ever given me.  Of course, if you’d have asked me at the time, I would have tearfully lamented how unbelievably empty, hollow, and unfulfilling life seemed, and that I didn’t want to go on without her in it.  Funny how our perspective changes with time and healing, isn’t’ it?

But then, having been involved with a narcissist, I wager I’m not sharing anything with you that you haven’t already discovered and experienced firsthand.  And hopefully, in the midst of the fallout that is the aftermath of loving a narcissist, you’ve had a good friend, a confidant, someone who was there for you that you could trust and rely on no matter what; someone who genuinely cared for you and your well-being.  There’s such undeniable truth in the axiom a burden shared, is a burden halved.  The thing is, I didn’t have anyone who was truly there for me when and how I needed them to be.  As such, it was a very long and desolate road.  I had no idea where I was going but the one thing I knew with certainty, most any destination was better than where I was at that moment.  So my journey began and, with it, my recovery.  And it was on that lone sojourn I grew stronger, more aware, and definitely much wiser. 

I share the fact of my solitary sojourn, not for pity or sympathy’s sake but rather so you would know if you are indeed alone in your journey and your healing, too, you can most assuredly still find closure and rediscover your lost inner-peace in that solitude.  That being said, having traveled this road and fallen into more than my fair share of psychological pitfalls along the way, I didn’t want you to be alone in what you were going through or fall prey to any of those same traps in which I very often found myself emotionally ensnared.  I wanted to be here for you, and I sincerely hope I have been.  Alas, I feel my journey of healing has come to its inevitable conclusion and, as such, so has our time together.  Interestingly, this is my 100 ͭ ͪ  post.  So, perhaps it’s also a fitting end to what was initially a tumultuous beginning.  For everything there is a last time, and this is ours, beautiful. 

In closing this chapter of my life, I will begin a new chapter free of my narcissist.  I would love to say I’m completely free but can you ever truly be completely free of a disease that quite literally bloody near killed you?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Either way, I’m free enough.  Yes, this is the end, at least for now.  But who knows?  Perhaps I might be moved to share some future shenanigans and experiences with you.  So, for now, I’m off to see what awaits in the great beyond of tomorrow and the unknown of the future.  Whatever tragedies and triumphs transpire in your life, know that you are never alone.  I’m always here for you if you should ever need me.  Fare thee well, my beautiful friend.