I wanted to start a new life, become a new person.

I even changed my name legally and have a variety of aliases on social media I go by. I like this, I like having multiple disguises, multiple personas I can try on.

I’ve always entertained the idea of acting, which would allow this behavior in a legal, non-mental health crisis context.

However, between stuttering, discovering I was a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and being introverted, it would be a stressful job. The filming schedules, interacting with different people, doing takes over and over, not to mention crowded press junkets and all that stuff. The nuisance of the paps and the tabloids, tearing your life to pieces, especially if you have some scandal.

The money, luxury clothes and trips would be something, though.

With the research I’ve done, one of many ‘symptoms’ of having lived with an emotionally immature and/or narcissistic mother is wanting to be ‘famous.’ Once, I posted something about the desire to be ‘famous’ in a Facebook group for adult children of narcs and many, many people responded with a resounding ‘yes!,’ that fame was on their agenda.

Like me, they didn’t know how or when they’d make it big, but they always had that desire to ‘be someone’ at the back of their mind. It wasn’t until I pointed it out that it made sense to them.

This longing is the result of not being ‘seen’ and ‘heard’ by your mother, who was likely wrapped up in her own troubles and woes of the past.

My mother was an Adult Child of an Alcoholic (ACOA) and, bless her for trying her best and providing a material life for me, she could have had a better emotional bond with me. Being a Highly Sensitive child, I was always catering to her emotional needs.

She parentified me, telling me all her childhood woes of living with an alcoholic father. I was also overly vigilant for a bad look or some subtle gesture that I’d done something wrong.

Now two decades later, in the long process of healing, I realize that was all on her. In this process, I realize I don’t know who I am, never having the opportunity to find myself as a child.

I’m working on trying to find out who this lost woman is. I’ve bought fake piercings. I have fake tattoos. I bought hair lightener. I bought a Brazilian bikini. I plan to try out the halo eyeshadow look.

It’s pathetic and sad to do this when I’m thirty and not in my twenties, but I don’t care. I’ve been playing a scripted role my whole life, it’s time to become someone real.

Olivia’s Bio:

A native of Ontario, Canada the author enjoys being a cat mom, a full time freelancer and fiction writer. She has written for plenty of blogs: The Canadian Stutter Society, The Haven, Aroga Yoga, The Hisdoryan, Women Writers Women’s Books, Visibly Affirming, Rebelle Society, Historic UK, A Tribe of Women, The Good Men Project, and Elephant Journal. She has also contributed to the No Shame Mighty newsletter and the pandemic made website View From My Window.  Visit Olivia’s website at https://linktr.ee/purrsnpens

The post The Role of a Lifetime by Olivia St. Louis appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

I preferred hanging with the adults, I used old sayings frequently, and on numerous occasions I could tell you what song was going to come on the radio next (which really freaked people out).

I chalked up most of the above scenarios to me growing up in foster care and having made adult decisions since I was about four–thanks to my alcoholic mother.  I just thought I was ahead of my time as I was constantly being told by adults to “stay in a child’s place,” which I had no idea where that actually was.

After many years of suffering, feeling like an outcast, and thinking I had a heavy case of déjà vu’, I discovered I am an old soul/empath.

Since discovering that, I also now know that I attract narcissists.

Here’s my track record: my Mother, my first high-school best friend, and my high-school boyfriend who I later married and divorced after 17 years were all narcissists, in addition to the three that I dated after my divorce and two best friends I accumulated as an adult.  It’s a real-life moth to a flame effect.

Throughout my marriage I always knew something wasn’t right about my ex-husband’s behavior. I remember constantly telling people, “Something just isn’t right about him. He shows no empathy, doesn’t cry at funerals or in sad situations and is very cold and mean-spirited.”

All of these years, I gave his bad behavior, emotional abuse, lack of emotion and empathy an extreme benefit of the doubt because we got together at such a young age and I thought he just needed to grow up.

He thought I would never leave due to my lack of a support system and the fact that we had such a good love story on paper–and to be honest I didn’t think I would ever leave either. Then one day I woke up and realized he was 33 years old and he was the same boy I had met in high-school when we were 14!

After living in what I can only equate to hell on Earth in a seventeen year-long marriage, I came across some random pins on Pinterest regarding narcissism and I was finally able to identify his odd behavior.

Once I was armed with what he was and the heavily supported statistics that narcissists never change, I finally found my will to leave and the decision was a cake walk!  Two days after my discovery and having my mind blown, I opened a P.O. Box, cancelled my auto-transfer to our bill paying account, packed my stuff and moved out while he was at work.

I knew I made the right decision when I felt an immediate rush of happiness I hadn’t experienced in years wash over me the minute I made the decision to leave.

After struggling with depression on and off for years, I could never pin-point where exactly it was coming from, but my epiphany hit me like a ton of bricks:  it was him! 

He was the root of my unhappiness. After years of extensive criticism, put-downs, belittlement
and lack of support, I was at my wits end.

A week before I left him I was heavily considering drinking a bottle of anti-freeze and taking my own life, and I whole-heartedly thought no one would miss me- I actually believed I was doing them a favor.

Despite overcoming the stigma of foster care, raising my four sisters, buying my first home at nineteen, paying for my own wedding on a golf course at twenty one, founding my own non-profit that helps youth transition to adulthood, and self-publishing a curriculum on Amazon- he still succeeded in making me feel absolutely worthless.

Weeks before I decided to leave I had no support system and few friends.

Then the most magical thing happened. 

The week I decided to leave, people who I thought were just acquaintances came out the cracks and began to rally around me and show me love that I had never experienced in my life.

I was so prepared to stay at a women’s shelter and completely rebuild my life in the trenches, if it meant I would be free from him, but I never had to do that, thanks to the real-life guardian angels that were sent to Earth to rescue me.

I am so happy to announce that I have been free from my dungeon for four whole years as I write to you all today!

In addition to escaping this torturous marriage, learning about his behavior helped me quickly identify all of the other narcs in my life as well as the new ones that popped up. I have eliminated all those people from my life and I am living 100% narc free!

Another sign that it was meant to be is that I have not wanted nor needed for anything throughout this entire process.  I immediately found a place to live and an inexpensive car through referrals, and my friends have drowned me in copious amounts of love and support.

Best of all, I feel like me again. 

I have goals.

I recognize the woman I see in the mirror and most of all- I WANT TO LIVE!!!

To all the beautiful people out there struggling with ANY kind of abuse, I would like to leave you with a few pieces of advice:

• No abuse is okay (and YES mental/emotional abuse counts)!
• Love should never hurt!
• You don’t deserve that treatment!
• There is someone out there who will love you the way you deserve to be loved!
• Don’t be afraid to tell your story and ask for help!
• Don’t be afraid to ACCEPT help (that was my biggest obstacle) and lastly;
• YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!

XOXO,
Chelsie O.

Chelsie’s Bio:

My name is Chelsie and I’m 36 years old. I was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, I have no kids or pets and I like to scrapbook and write on my free time. I’m the oldest of 5 kids, I grew up in foster care and I am a survivor of narcissistic abuse.  Visit Chelsie’s blog:  https://chelsieo.wordpress.com.

The post The Empath & The Narcissist by Chelsie O. appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

I was pursued by a married man, a colleague, who I connected with through playing music together. I’d liked him from afar for a long time but had no intention of acting on these feelings.  I was feeling strong and happy in myself at the time and looking back, I can’t say what led me to falling for his pursuit except that something in me was blinded by him from the start.

Initially, he began to text a little more than needed. We met to play music a little more than needed. He made subtle yet obvious comments, such as, “Time goes by so fast when I’m with you.”  I could write an essay on the subtleties of how it happened, but somehow I ended up in an emotional affair with this guy.

He said his marriage was over, they were only together for the kids and that he wanted to leave but hadn’t found the strength to be away from his children yet.  We texted, met up for walks, and he in particular expressed an overwhelming amount of feelings for me.  That I had reminded him how to feel, that he knew he could love me, adored me, felt like he could do anything when he was with me.

I feel so stupid looking back but I remember thinking that perhaps I had met my soulmate. I convinced myself that I wasn’t really doing anything wrong because we hadn’t been sexually intimate, and that now we had “found each-other,” he would leave his marriage and we would be together. I ignored every sign along the way that this wasn’t going to happen, because I thought I had fallen in love.

I distanced myself from friends because I felt I couldn’t talk to anyone yet about this connection. I stopped caring about my work and became obsessed with when I would see or hear from this guy. He was consistent, sweet and reassuring. I felt so safe and comfortable in his company.

After 4-5 months of this intensity, things began to subtly change. His contact slightly lessened and I began to feel insecure in myself. Out of nowhere I began to have a gut feeling that he had connected to someone else, even though I had no real reason to think this.

Soon after this, he moved out of his marital home for a short period of time. I visited him a few times, but he also wanted time alone because he said he needed to see how it felt. The next time I visited, I noticed he was sketchy with his phone… picking it up to text every time I left the room, taking it to the toilet with him soon after it buzzed, etc. He was suddenly colder, but when I questioned him he put this down to missing his kids.

I tried to believe this, but felt the pit in my stomach growing. We had been sexually intimate by that time, though hadn’t had sex.

Weeks later, he moved back into his marital home because he said he couldn’t afford a second place and wanted to be with his children for Christmas. I know this is the point I should have left. It’s hard to describe, but the subtle lessening in his connection with me had already plummeted my self-worth. I was desperate for things to return to the initial connection. I could see how addicted I’d become to his attention, but I couldn’t stop trying to seek the fix.

He began to stop being the first to text, became a bit more busy, a bit less reassuring, and the power-tables turned. I asked him what was going on. Had he connected with another woman? He was so much less available, never around at the times he used to be and took longer and longer to reply to messages.

The fog of confusion began to descend on me. Every response to my questioning of things made me feel like I was crazy. I don’t know how to explain it because it was so subtle. He never answered any of my questions properly, and started to put everything down to feeling depressed.

One night he told me he was in bed feeling poorly, and shortly afterwards drove past me in his car. I confronted him and he was incredibly defensive, saying at the last minute he’d realised he needed to tutor for money for his children’s Christmas. He was relentless until he thought I believed he was honest.

Shortly after this, he asked if we could meet for a walk. I knew something was coming, but he kept telling me not to jump to conclusions, like I “always do.” On this walk he told an elaborate story about going to the Doctor’s and them telling him he was severely depressed and that he was starting on medication. Eventually, he said that the situation between us wasn’t making him or me happy, that none of his feelings for me had changed, but he had realised he needed space for his mental health.

Every one of my gut instincts was telling me he was lying about the trip to the Doctor’s. I can’t explain why, but I felt it intensely. I felt like the world had been torn out of me, but there was nothing I could say. Everything had turned so quickly and I felt like I was living in a nightmare.

He said he couldn’t ask me to wait for him because he didn’t know if he would ever sort himself out, but he also refused to say things were over.

Two days later he texted asking how I was. When I didn’t reply, he texted again asking if he’d lost me and saying he couldn’t fathom his future without me.

I was so desperate to reinstate the connection, that I replied. By this time I was convinced he had connected to someone else because of several signs, but part of me was so desperate for him that I thought I could win him back.

I tried asking him for answers about what was happening, but they were all so confusing. He would say he didn’t have the words to explain “right now,” because of the medication, and how he’d lost his thoughts and was too tired to text.

I told him how much I was struggling with no closure or contact, and he knew I was alone with it all but wouldn’t give me any clear answers. I felt like I was going crazy. I genuinely began to question my sanity for the first time in my life, and I kept wondering what I’d done wrong.

I felt worthless in a way I never had before. How could someone “love” me and know I was hurting so much but do nothing to help? It was maddening and I felt in constant panic.

Some weeks later, he messaged asking again if I wanted to go for a walk. I was so desperate for some kind of closure that I agreed to meet him. I would never have described myself as a weak or gullible person in the past, but within ten minutes of me expressing to him how unhappy and confused he’d made me, I just fell back in to trying to believe that it had been the side effects of the medication and trying to get through Christmas that had made him shut me out. I looked at his soft eyes and just thought, “I love this man.”

He came back to me, but not in the way he had before.  He wanted to see and message me again, but not as much as we did before and with none of the same promises.  There were more and more excuses and I became more and more confused. 

I felt so empty. I still do. Like all of my power had been zapped away. I didn’t recognise myself in the mirror.

The best thing I did for myself was open up to some friends about what was happening. I was afraid they would hate me but they didn’t. I read them some of the recent texts between me and this guy, and they were shocked by how confusing and avoidant his replies where whenever I asked for answers/closure/clarity.

Having their perspective at least allowed me to claw back my sanity and to stop imagining it’s been me who’s been too needy/paranoid or intense. At the moment he’s gone back to coldness, and though it’s excruciating, I am here to accept that I’m never going to get the answers or love I deserve from him.

At the moment I feel so lost, but realising that his tactics fit so well with the traits of a narcissist is helping so much, because for a time I thought it was my fault and I felt so alone with it. For now I have to find a way to end contact, surround myself with the people that love me in a real way and basically detox from the high I was getting from his attention and “love.”

I’ve been so scared of letting go of the fantasy of a future of him, but I know it would be one full of mistrust and hurt. I also know I have to find the courage to tell his wife, because everything he said about his marriage being over appears to be a lie, and she deserves to know. This man seemed like the sweetest, gentlest soul when I met him, but when someone shows their true colours, trust what you see and don’t just hope they will go back to who you though they were.

Trust your instincts, you’re not going crazy!

Wendy’s Bio:

Eight months ago, I would have had a very different Bio. I felt happy, strong and content in myself. Right now I’m writing from a shell of myself, but with hope for recovery beginning to grow as I find others who’ve shared the experience of loving a narcissist.

The post You Deserve Better by Wendy Wren appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

Never in my life have I been suicidal, yet three times ( since I started Adderall, and now Ritalin) my covert narcissist husband has called 911 stating that I am. Once I was asleep when the EMT showed up.

On October 10th, he called 911. He’s 14 years younger, 250 pounds, and he was holding me face down on the ground outside. The police showed up and handcuffed me behind my back. One much younger and bigger cop had his knee in my back and kept me restrained to the ground for 40 minutes.

Having a history of trauma, I panic when I’m being held down. I was pleading for them to flip me on my back. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

They said, “If you are screaming, you are breathing.”

I have a pacemaker and weigh 110 pounds.

I was hyperventilating and when I tried to lift my chest off the ground they slammed me down

Two firefighters showed up. I begged them, told them flip me on my back. I’m not a threat to anyone. They just chitchatted until the ambulance arrived.

On the five minute ride to the hospital, they saw my shoulders. My hands were bleeding. I had a fat lip and was scared and hurting.

Six hours earlier I texted my advocate from the organization for prostitution survivors that I need a safe house and foster care for my three little dogs. I tried to tell the police, the EMTs then the hospital staff in the emergency department. Not one person showed me and kindness, no one would even talk to me.

I told them I’ve never been suicidal and I know my rights. I asked to call my advocate a hundred times. I told them I was scared for my dogs. They ignored me, barked at me, slammed the door in my face and when I put one foot out of the room, the “sitter” called a code grey!

They had huge security gloving up ready to restrain me because I disobeyed their orders to “shut up and sit down.” The doctor refused to take pictures of my injuries, did not ask any questions, did no assessment, and certainly no treatment. I had to ask for a bandaid.

They held me for 24 hours based on the lying husband’s smear tactics. Even the police report said I was not detained. The ” social worker” stood in my doorway after eight hours. Again, no assessment, no empathy, and said that my husband was calling over and over telling them not to let me out, so she was referring me to the mental health professional.

I have a degree in psychology and spent thirty years working with the mentally ill inpatient, outpatient, crisis response, and emergency crisis triage. I know mental health law, I know how to treat a person with dignity. I am skilled in de-escalation and patient-centered care. I was appalled at the lack of professionalism and the culture of discrimination and neglect towards the “psychiatric” patients.

No one heard me. No one wanted me to speak at all. They were bullies, from the cops to the nurses and the medical assistants. I was released by the mental health professional who sat down and determined that I was reliable, not a danger, and the abuser who tried so hard to have me detained drove me home.

As I was putting my key in the door, he casually mentioned that my 16 year old Yorkie ran away.

Twenty-four hours of being treated like a criminal, a hostage, and punitively ignoring me, I was beat up, and the very thing I was so scared of the entire time had happened. I spent four nights looking for him, two nights staying in the car freezing with my two remaining dogs.

I requested my medical records, 128 pages?

How does that happen when the only thing they did was re-traumatize me more?

Karen’s Bio:

Mental health counselor, thirty years. Married since 03…long history of bad relationships and trying to divorce a lying schemer.

The post Used 911 to Make Me Look “Crazy” by Karen McElroy appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

At nearly 70, I lived in a nearby forest in a cave for 9 months with no amenities, until one day my hair froze and I nearly died of hypothermia.

I was forced to flee to a victims of violence shelter, where 18 months later I am still homeless.

He continues to reside in my home with another woman. I have sought every avenue possible to get my home back to no avail.

I am okay and safe now and have gotten much therapy in regards to narcissistic behavior. I am better every day in understanding what happened to me. It isn’t easy starting literally from nothing at my age but I am doing it, one day at a time.

Tory’s Bio:

I am 67.  A “lady.” I was with my male life partner for 22 years. I am educated, healthy and well-traveled. I like to think I am spiritually evolved. I raised 3 successful, respectful, loving daughters.

The post Phoenix Arisen From the Ashes by Tory Lantis appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

How did I go from living in the most expensive area in my hometown, with one of the most privileged childhoods that I have known, to becoming a serious alcoholic, broke, incarcerated, evicted and suicidal?

I have always had an internal void within me, that I could never satisfy. I was insecure, fearful and had low self-esteem. The only solution I have ever had that made me feel better about myself, was to drink, and to drink a lot.

So, although my external life looked pretty good when I was a child, behind closed doors was another story. My childhood was full of violent abuse and terrible neglect. I was beat with baseball bats, fists, head-butts, threatened with knives, hit with cue-sticks and told I was stupid, ugly and not lovable every single day of my early life.

My parents never bathed me as a child, so I never learned about grooming. I would go to school with wrinkled clothes, not bathed and I would have nasty, greasy and nappy hair. I was not a popular child and was never included in groups for obvious reasons.

Faking My Identity

As I grew and aged, I was able to start being in more control of my life.

I started grooming myself and began to wear many different masks. I still hated myself very much on the inside, but you would never know this from my outside appearance.

I was personable, a good conversationalist and had many girlfriends over the course of my early adult life. Those relationships were all very shortly lived (my alcoholism at this point didn’t help).

I would always be with the person that wanted to be with me, regardless if I liked them or not. I did this out of fear no one would ever want to be with me, so “I better claim this person while I can.”

After a lot of broken relationships, loss of jobs and multiple DUI’s, I finally hit my alcoholic bottom and went looking for help.

The Most Beautiful Monster I have Ever Met

When I was finally able to quit drinking and get some sober time, I was on cloud 9.

It’s probably the first thing I ever accomplished to this point. But what I have found out is, that just because you take the drink or drugs away, doesn’t mean you are healthy and that void that I first talked about was still there. Now I needed to find another way to fill it.

I was at a local AA meeting one night (on a Sunday), and in walked literally the most beautiful women I have ever seen. I couldn’t keep my eyes from her.

I felt this instant connection, addiction, love or lust (whatever you want to call it), and it depressed me, because no way would a woman like this ever want to be with someone like me.

Now, I’m animated when I speak, and I had a lot of friends by this point in AA. So as time progressed and Kelly was able to hear me speak and see how I interactive I was with the other members, she started to become more friendly towards me. She also knew who my family was because of my father’s success. So, she thought because he was rich, that I must be as well (I was not).

The “red flags” were there immediately.

When Kelly and I started our relationship, she was going through a divorce (I found out later it was because of her multiple infidelity behaviors).

I received a call from Kelly during her divorce process that she swallowed a bottle of pills for a suicide attempt, so I rushed over to her house and took her to the suicide ward at a local hospital. This was our first date.

After that, the relationship went downhill. We moved in with each other almost immediately, I was her savior and if someone who looked like Kelly was with me, that must mean that I am ok or normal.

Well, it didn’t take long before the narcissistic rage came out. I was used to the verbal abuse, I was used to the physical abuse, so I stayed. It didn’t matter how bad things got, I wasn’t going to leave.

The Best Teacher I Have Ever Had

I stayed in this abusive, toxic, unhealthy and narcissistic relationship for seven years.

After relocating to Seattle, WA within the first two years of being there, Kelly’s narcissistic tactics came out once more. This time, it was my turn.

Kelly ended up having an affair with her much older, married-with-children President and CEO of her company. That is the good news. The bad news? At this point we had a child together who was two years old at the time. Kelly wanted me gone and custody of our child, so she called the police a day after Christmas in 2014 and reported me for child and spousal abuse. I was removed from my home with the clothes on my back and $2.00 to my name, in a new city where I didn’t know anyone.

I had two choices. Kill myself, or finally get healthy (internally). This is where my life completely changed.

I finally stopped looking for external factors to make me happy and healthy. I finally realized that the only way I was going to heal was to go very deep within myself and heal the past wounds that I suffered as a child.

I was open to anything. I got in to therapy, I learned how to meditate, I started eating better, working out, I stopped watching tv and started reading and I began to be of service to the local community and anyone that needed help.

Because of the work I have done over the last 4.5 years, I can honestly tell you, that I am truly happy with who I am. It doesn’t matter if I won a billion dollars or the world is coming to an end, I will have the same peace within me.

The best part of my healing process has been, that since Kelly and I share a child, we do have to communicate on a regular basis. I am able to be loving and compassionate to Kelly without letting her narcissism have any effect on me what so ever, and that is a miracle.

Jack’s Bio:

I have been called an inspiration, survivor and a great story. I think that description is a little exaggerated. I think every person in this world has it within them to wake up and take control of their story, it just depends on when you finally have had enough. I was a victim of terrible childhood abuse, that attracted extreme trauma from external situations (car accidents, broken bones, knife wounds), and coped by my addiction to alcohol. Which in turn, set me up for adult abuse from a narcissist and codependent relationship.

When I “woke up” by finally having enough pain, I had three choices: 1. Kill myself 2. Continue to suffer through life and expect the bad 3. Take my external trauma and heal it internally.

I chose option 3 and today, I am full of love and compassion towards all and for the first time accept and love myself truly who I am regardless of what’s going on around me.

Visit Jack’s addiction recovery website: https://www.ratcityrecovery.com/

The post External Factors Forced Me to Find Internal Solutions by Jack Mayo appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

This woman came to my home under the pretense of learning about nature. This woman was married at the time and she propositioned me with helping to put the “spark” back into her unhappy marriage.

I informed her that I would not touch another’s man’s wife. She said her husband was aware of what she was doing. I told her that I needed to look him in the eye and hear him confirm. Her husband met me at a local bar a few days later and told me the same. I had my fears and concerns about becoming involved in such a sordid business. I was worried about my reputation, their little girls.

They both asked for discretion and secrecy, claiming they did not want such an “unconventional” arrangement to stigmatize the children or the husband’s career. We live in a small town and these people are Mennonite. I am not from that background and have no ties to their subculture. In other words a perfect sucker!

I will admit that I let my judgment be clouded by loneliness and lust. I succumbed to my baser instincts. I became this woman’s “back door man.”

Within a month or so she declared her love for me. By three months, she had left her husband “for me.” She said she had been waiting her whole life for a man like me. “We were soulmates.” The universe had finally brought us together.

I was such a damn fool!

She was so good to me, so sweet, so kind. I had never had a woman treat me so well and seem to understand me. Like I said, I was a damn fool.

I fell for her! Head over heels.

I developed a friendship and love for her girls. We shared Christmas together. Easter at her father’s. I met siblings. She told me what a good influence I was in her and her daughter’s lives.

I did feel guilt towards her husband, but I was feeling such joy that I didn’t analyze what she had said and done to him.

We had a few disagreements.

They were strange…puzzling.

She made some remarks, slips of the tongue. Foolishly, I did not let any of the red flags register.

She came to me one day upset. She was pregnant.

I was not surprised  She was hypersexual and refused birth control other than the rhythm method.

She had stated earlier in the “relationship” that she wanted to have my child. She had even said that she wished that I was her daughters’ real father.

I told her that I was with her and I would always stand with her whatever her decision.

I took her to the clinic five days later where we were shown a picture of a six-week-old baby.

Twenty-four hours later she would not acknowledge my existence.

She claims that I am an abusive monster and went no contact.

I was never allowed to say goodbye to her girls. I was never allowed any honest reason or justification.

It turns out she wasn’t sure who the father of that baby she aborted was!

I admit that this entire nightmare has caused me to become unstable and hostile but I am only human.

I was a good man before I allowed this evil into my life.

Now my reputation is trashed and I am an abusive man. This has been a condensed version of events.

This nightmare is so much worse than I am capable of putting into words! Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to express my pain. I have no resources.

I have been shunned and declared a damaged and bad man. I swear on my mother’s grave and in all that is sacred to me that I have fabricated none of my story.
I will give my life in defense of my truth!

Matt’s Bio:

I am 45 year’s old and a self-employed carpenter. I am passionate about nature and natural history. I believe in the “Golden Rule.” I have tried to live my life by that principle. I do have my weaknesses. I will admit to them and I try not to allow them to negatively affect others. I have strong beliefs about morality, equality, and justice. I try to temper these ideals with compassion and understanding. If I believe that an injustice has been committed to myself, to another, to the earth, I am not afraid to stand and fight. I try to choose my battles wisely. I don’t know how to fight this battle wisely. The damage that this past “relationship” has left me with has broken me. I don’t know how to move forward. I am not the man I used to be. I can’t stand what I have become. Allowing this “force” into my life is the greatest mistake I have ever made. I was a fool. I didn’t know manipulation, cruelty, and deceit until I allowed this woman into my life.

The post Broken and Lost by Matt Gerome appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

I was lied to, betrayed, and traumatized by a horrible discard and he lied to a court. I had no clue was happening.

I was violently removed from my home and from my 1 1/2-year-old son by police, his lawyers and his mother. He was able to get a permanent protective order on me and I didn’t see my son for six years. I sobbed and was in a cruel fog unable to function.

After six years, my ex called me out of the blue. I ran back to him…only he was even crueler this time.

There is not enough space here to tell my story. I am in a limbo, unable to function today. I have nobody to talk to as everyone tells me to forget it and move on.

That is impossible.

I still cry to this day as if it happened yesterday. My son, now 19, does not understand me and tells me always to get myself together and move on.

I welcome any help as I’m alone and sucked dry of who I was. Thank you to anyone who will hear me.

Suzanne Ianieri’s bio:

I’m in my twentieth year of this hell and want to tell my story but I’ve hesitated thinking that no one would ever believe what I’ve been through. I’m frozen now forever.

The post Frozen Forever by Suzanne Ianieri appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

I met him online and he was charming, came all those miles to visit me then love bombed me, took me out for meals, told my mum he was going to marry me, charmed my family, gave me a dream of a life in paradise.

Fast track three years and here I am, discarded for a newer model but now trying to be hoovered back into his harem, the posse of exes I had to deal with–possibly to triangulate me with the latest.

I’ve read so much about this disorder that I could possibly write a book on it.

But here’s the thing. After a stint at counseling, we drew a conclusion that my dad was indeed a narcissist and I was kind of comfortable in that maelstrom of a relationship as I had lived it throughout my childhood. The walking on eggshells, the controlling aspect, the devaluation and discard, and finally, with my dad, the discrediting all who would listen or believe.

I will give one example of the relationship with the narcissist. It was my 50th birthday and he decided to take me to Venice for a couple of days, as he wanted to then go to Germany to visit his sister. We arrived, found our hotel, then decided to walk to a restaurant for lunch.

Towards the end of the lunch, I got my phone out to Google what was going on in Venice that night. All of a sudden he said something along the lines of  ‘on the phone to your boyfriend.’ I denied it and carried on then he got up and left, leaving me in the restaurant.

I had trouble finding the hotel on my own. Eventually, I arrived back and he was in the bath. We had a row then fell asleep. No plan was made for the evening so we eventually left for a wander around Venice in a foul mood with each other.

I said let’s at least get a peach Bellini in Harry’s bar, as it was my birthday. He took one look in and said it was too busy so I went in on my own and had a miserable 21 Euro drink whilst he waited outside.

The evening deteriorated from there. In a cheap tourist restaurant, we sat in silence. On the return to the room, he began to run me down when that had no effect he started to run my daughter down then told me to sleep on the floor. By this point, I had lost it and threw the nearest thing at him–a teapot. He threw me out of the room, in tears.

That was my 50th birthday evening: memorable for the wrong reasons.

Why is it that after I had left him I still wished I had given it one more go or been a bit more understanding?

It’s because he laid a well-greased carrot at my lap and played me for a fool, promising the world, delivering nothing.

Or is it that I somehow felt comfortable in this abusive cycle of idealise, devalue, discard, hoover type of relationship, as it was a blast from the past, a familiar pattern?

It’s only in hindsight that you can join the dots of your childhood to your adult brain and see patterns and relationships in a new light.

Rebekah’s Bio:

I am an ex-English teacher and journalist, now a business owner.  I am educated to the Master’s level and well-traveled.

The post Is This Really Happening to Me? by Rebekah appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

After going to a Chinese doctor for acupuncture, he said, “You will be ok if you get a job.” I was like, how can I work the pain is so severe? Now I understand him, he was very astute, he knew if I had a job I would get out of the toxic relationship. 

The relationship started 17 years ago after my first marriage had gone wrong and I had returned from the USA. Looking back I was pressured from day 1. He was an old Tai Chi student and asked if I would like to go out. For some reasons, my gut said no and so did I for many months. How I should have listened to my gut.

One night I was bored so said ok thinking, one night won’t hurt. This is how a psychopath has you, gently they draw you in. I believed his lies–why would he lie, this was always my logic. Looking back there doesn’t need to be a reason some people are just liars. Don’t get me wrong I am not bitter, it is all life lessons– just thought I would never be caught like that.

He pressured me into sex on the first date, saying he hadn’t had sex for 5 years and begging me. This was not me. Usually, I waited at least 6 or so months. I am not judging people that don’t. This was just my mentality. In retrospect again this is good manipulation as this put him in a stronger position to see me again. One night I said it was over after a couple of weeks and he said he would commit suicide if I left him. This was a consistent theme throughout the relationship. He asked a colleague to look after me and the girls because he was going to commit suicide. I later learned this was just an idle threat for manipulation.

Then the gaslighting began from the onset. In the house my daughter and I had moved into someone tried to break in, eggs were thrown at my car. He convinced me it was my ex-husband. Although on a previous break up with my ex nothing like this had occurred. When a convincing liar tells you something you believe it. On this basis, he convinced me to move in with him to escape the danger of the ex-husband with my daughter.

My health deteriorated and I stopped working, had another daughter. Interestingly I was not sick during my pregnancy but did get pre- and post-eclampsia. I believe on one of our first meetings he drugged me as I went home feeling very off -the-planet and I have never taken anything other than prescribed drugs.

My gut always told me to never leave either of my daughters with him. Only as a very last resort did I do this. I never felt like this with my previous husband. I guess people think they would know. That is one of the hardest things, you see I always thought I was a good judge of character. I knew he had depression and you see I don’t blame him as he had a traumatic childhood but living with a psycho has its price.

The gaslighting occurred regularly with things going missing and turning up after 6 or so months. I blamed my daughter or her friends but strangely never him, how foolish I feel now. We had a tree full of cherries, and he’d come back from the garden and said they had all disappeared and blame the old lady that lived next door? It was like he got a kick out of telling these tall stories and I foolishly believed them. Necklaces rings went missing and turned up after months. After moving to another house, things carried on. My friend’s bracelets turned up in the back of the food cupboard a few months after the visit. All the spades in the garden went missing for months and then reappeared. I had an argument with my Father and then I had a series of punctures which he blamed my father for.

If we didn’t agree with his views, the verbal abuse was awful to the point that both of my children admit to a bad fear of men now. Funny, four of us searched for his credit card to go on holiday for 3 days. My daughter, her boyfriend, me and my other daughter, we turned the place upside down, checked pockets, etc. It mysteriously turned up in his pocket after security in the airport. He went to the toilet, put his hand in his pocket, and there it was. He said it was the security services that he was convinced spied on us because of his important job. This was his excuse when I caught someone following me. He was so obsessed with his own grandeur.

The gaslighting extended to his brother that he took a dislike to. The brother would spend time with us and he got jealous. The brother ended up having a mental break down due to the gaslighting. Each day he would return and the fridge had been turned down, the boiler flooded, doors would be left unlocked. He had problems with his car.

You see he always followed a pattern. Quite often we would return home and the door would be open or left unlocked. He convinced us it was spirits or security services. Why not put cameras up? you ask. We spent hundreds on cameras and they had mysteriously been switched off when the incidences occurred. Again you can guess who was blamed.

This unsettlement and maybe what he put in the food had its toll on my health and both my daughters. My youngest later revealed she had hated her father since she was 7 and wished he would leave. It came to the point she was throwing up 3 times a week and had stomach cramps. My eldest also had bad stomach problems, both I believe to be stress induced. The dog went missing 3 times in a space of 3 months and found on a local dual carriageway 8 miles away after 20 minutes of going missing. He is a tiny Shitzu, not a racing dog.

The incidences are too numerous to name but the major problems started when I set up a meditation centre. They got to a point there was at least 1 a week. In 3 months I went through 8 tires with nails in. I went to the Mercedes garage when my wheel was making a funny noise. The mechanic was really worried and told me to contact the police as the car had had an old second-hand tire of a people-carrier put on it recently. He had told me when it was in the Mercedes garage 2 weeks previously it had had a new tire, but the guy checked the records and the tires were fine 2 weeks previous. This was a 6-month-old car.

He withheld money at Christmas or birthdays saying we were short to make the time less enjoyable. He punished us if we argued with him by switching the internet off.

I asked him to move out and he said he could not afford it even though he was earning 12k a month so he moved into the log cabin in the garden as both my daughters were very sick from stress.

We had one-way footsteps in the snow from the field next to our house to the back door. The next day we had them to the side door I awoke in the night to hear the shower going.

The final straw was the day the electrician came in as the sockets were not working. OMG, he said, “Who has touched your switchboard?” I was too embarrassed to say he had looked at it a few days ago. Please realise he had done an electrical apprenticeship in his teens and rewired several houses. The electrician said, “How you have not had a fire is beyond me and whoever it is would be up for manslaughter. Also, the smoke alarm was removed.” 

I don’t know why this incident but suddenly I realised we were going to die if he didn’t go. I reported it to the police after my daughter pleaded with me but he was very clever to never leave any evidence. Not sure what it is being an empath you feel you don’t want to bring shame on them and come up with excuses. It is very hard to accept or believe someone would do this to you or your children.

He was bullied by his elder sibling as a child so I guess this behaviour started as a way to punish him and moved on to others. He shows no remorse and denied his actions. He would throw out anything we liked as punishment.

People would say, “Put up security cameras that are secret,” but his job is IT security for the government.  It would be picked up a mile off.

Anyway, our health has improved and I wake up every morning grateful to be out of that toxic sinister relationship. He left me with a £7000 tax bill as he used my tax code, but, hey, a small price to pay for your peace.

Helen’s Bio:

I am a Tai Chi teacher and a Mindfulness teacher. This was my sort of being caught by a narcissist after a divorce. My empathetic nature and open-mindedness made me a target. It has been an amazing journey and without my training, I am not sure I would have come out so positive. I hope this article gives an insight into the mind of a narcissist and gaslighter and how easy it is to become prey to it. I am so grateful for my friends and my training to bring me out the other side.

The post Living with a Gaslighter by Helen Puk appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.