Listen, I know it’s hard to leave a person who throws you incredibly strong and intense reels of love and affection.
As real as they may feel to you they are also fragmented. I know that might not be what you want to admit, but it’s the truth.
Because you feel that love intermittently, it makes up for all the times the narcissist is mean to you. So what happens?
You don’t leave.
There are reasons why they make it even harder, on top of everything else, but trust me when I say they all tie in together.
Let’s look at them.
“Why didn’t you leave sooner?”
A question I bet a lot of you are familiar with. Your loved ones; family, friends or even the people you work with might scratch their heads and wonder why on earth you didn’t just leave as soon as you realized they were toxic. May you’re still with them now.
Part of you doesn’t know, either. One thing’s for sure, though. You know it’s not a normal relationship, and if you’re reflecting on your old relationship, you’ll see the full picture.
It’s a difficult one, isn’t it? Where you thought your happy ending once existed is now nothing but a bad memory and experience you had with a liar.
So, why didn’t you leave sooner?
#1 They destroy your sense of self
When somebody comes along and fundamentally rips the core from you, they take your essence with it.
That essence is where all your sense of self lives. It’s what makes you, you. It’s where you feel you exist and have a place on this earth.
It’s where you understand who you are, what you want, and where your goals and hopes and dreams all sit harmoniously.
When a narcissist comes along, they will not hesitate in destroying every part of it.
It’s like they take a wrecking ball and smash it to pieces while simultaneously telling you they love you and it’s for the best.
It doesn’t make sense!
When you no longer recognize (or even like) who you are, all kinds of things can happen.
You’ll refuse your goals, admitting incorrectly that they’re above your remit. You’ll see each day as a way to just survive, rather than thrive.
You’ll forget what makes your heart skip a beat, and you won’t know how to celebrate yourself.
This isn’t an accident. This is narcissistic abuse. The narcissist doesn’t care about your sense of self, they just want to carve out an agreeable lapdog for them to train, and if your face fits, they will make it hard for you to leave.
Destroying your sense of self means you don’t trust your instincts, and even if you wanted to leave, you wouldn’t believe your own thoughts long enough to actually do it.
#2 You’re trauma bonded
Trauma bonds are intrinsically linked ways in which the narcissist manipulates you to feel an attachment to them that you don’t want to let go of.
You’re convinced by them that they were made for you, and no matter how much trauma they put you through, you never want to leave.
Trauma bonds lock in victims. They run so deep that the trauma can be feeling as though the relationship is about to end as much as it can be the actual abuse.
When you think the best thing that ever happened to you is finishing, victims say it’s like they’re losing their mind.
Yet the idea of staying is a comfort, even though it’s toxic and you’re not living the life you were made for.
It’s the perfect excuse to not leave the narcissist, right? Even though you don’t realize you’re caught up in a trauma bond, you still think you’ve met the person of your dreams and nothing will break that.
This is what keeps victims staying for so long, and admitting it was all a farce is so hard when you’ve got to lay what you thought were real feelings down to rest.
And that works both ways. What you felt wasn’t love, but instead a need to close a gap of insecurity within you that they filled with poison.
#3 They don’t let you go quietly
If a person makes it purposely difficult for you to leave, you are likely to be more inclined to not even bother trying.
After all, what state are they leaving you in? You’re down on yourself, you’ve lost all your confidence, there’s nothing in you to make you feel you want to battle.
So you don’t.
They yell and shout at you the minute you start taking steps toward the door.
They can’t stand to see you gather up the courage to be more independent, and to not need them.
That might even look like begging you to stay. The noise that comes from them is unlike anything you’ve ever heard, and because you live your life in hope, hope comes alive at this point.
Maybe they will change.
Maybe they mean what they say this time.
Maybe it will be different this time.
It won’t be, but you stay anyway just to find out for sure.
When you’ve learned from them not to trust your feelings or instincts, it’s natural to find it easier to stay and believe them.
What they do is override your urge to leave with more lies and more gaslighting.
Knowing this is all part of their manipulation and control tactics should help you start to see through the emotional distortion.
#4 They will rewrite the story
Then there’s the fuss of you leaving. They tell everybody what an abuser you are, or how you’re crazy, or jealous, or mentally unwell.
Narcissists can threaten to do all of this to you just so you feel too scared to even step outside of the dynamic.
You want peace, you want serenity, you want a quiet life. You don’t want to be talked about, so you stay because that is better than the alternative.
And the truth? You’ve done nothing wrong. You’re now faced with the reality that people may turn their backs on you as they’ve ‘heard’ things.
And some victims hate that. They want justice, not more abuse and lies.
Unfortunately, if you part ways with any narcissist, you will be the subject of negative conversation somewhere along your social line.
People will think things about you that aren’t correct, and you might want to stand up, scream and defend yourself. You can do that, but it won’t get you as far as you think.
That’s why their threat of rewriting the story is bigger than any urge you might have to leave.
Leaving is never immediate…
On average, it takes a victim of narcissistic abuse 7 attempts to leave their toxic partner before they really do leave. 7!
This is how many times the back and forth of familiarity versus freedom has the potential to capture you before you find your feet.
Leaving is complex, and for some where assets or children are shared, it’s even more complicated.
That never makes it impossible, and that’s where I want to end it today.
It’s always possible, in some way, for you to be free from narcissistic abuse.
