I’m so glad you took the time to write your experience down. Mine is almost exactly the same and I haven’t seen such a similar experience.

From blocking the phone for two weeks, then unblocking him so he wouldn’t show up at my door. EXACTLY THE SAME!

Outside of the well-known abuse you wrote about e.g. gaslighting, you made another point that has me stuck with his energy some six months later… the sex! The admiration, the adoring me, desiring me, the amazing physical connection. But, like you, I was a plaything, an object.

The only thing that is keeping me really away is that I found out he raped a woman while we were together. I found this out a month or so after I broke it off for the millionth time. He had raped me many times and showed up in my bedroom etc but there’s that self-doubt of ‘did that happen’ they have so well engrained in us.

Even though he committed such a heinous crime I still sexually yearn for him but also want to punch him in the face… even at the same time. Which is absolutely crazy… yet that’s what they do, they bring out the worst in us.

I find it hard to release his grasp (energy) from my life. I’ve never had this with an ex. Usually once it’s over I never look back. I wish I could just shake this off.

I also have fears over my ‘picker’ I’ve recently found out my mum is a narc with BPD so trauma bonds and being treated like shit WAS an acceptable behaviour for me.

I’ve done a lot of work on myself… but will be completely free once his energy is no longer in my sphere.

Anyway some five years after you’ve written your comment, a woman in the world (me) is grateful to have found it.

I hope you have experienced some healthy love/ sex in this time.

I want to know how you are doing now. I feel like you feel or felt. I hope you have found peace. It’s all im striving for.

I understand honestly, I’m the same 2 years just about holding it together, I’m no contact , but took me a long time to do that, I would just keep going back occasionally to him to get some weird relief from it all the pain would disappear but the next morning I couldn’t wait to be away from him , the messages I got kept me trapped, but the gaslighting was the worse feeling ever, no closure , just found it myself n stayed away, it’s the only way.

You’re welcome, Katie. There are already some really strong organizations and people working to group people together to make coercive control a recognized and illegal form of abuse within the United States, as it is in France, UK and other European countries. I’d like to have narcissistic abuse acknowledged as well (as would others). There are elements of it that overlap with coercive control, but are distinctive from it. We as survivors are at the threshold of recognition. See the website mission for more of how I hope to work with others to accomplish this over time. It’s a long process. Thank you for leaving a comment. -Kristen