There comes a point in victim’s lives where, if they can ask themselves the following question, the answer would be the latter:
Do I feel more lonely alone, or with the narcissist in my life?
The reason you feel so lonely is because you’re living with somebody so detached from reality that you don’t even know which way the world is spinning any more.
You spend every day getting up, and robotically doing what you have to do to get to the end of it. That’s not thriving, that’s merely surviving.
It’s lonely living with a narcissist, and here’s why.
1 Life before the narcissist
If you could be honest with yourself, were you always lonely, even before you met the narcissist?
More victims than you think would say yes, and that’s why they would have felt so happy and relieved to have met the narcissist; who at the time would have said how lucky they were to have found you.
It’s as if all your dreams have come true at once, and for a brief moment in time, that level of loneliness will have been filled by the possibility of a fairytale-style true love.
Life before the narcissist might have been tough for those who ended up with one, and that’s the package the narcissist sells when you cross paths.
I promise to never hurt you. I love you so much. It’s you and me forever.
What more could you want?
2 The day you move in together
Moving in with the narcissist can feel like you’re happily nesting with the love of your life. It’s as if all the planets have aligned just for the two of you, I mean, who wouldn’t enjoy that feeling?
It’s far more enjoyable when it’s real, let me tell you. There’s not much real about a narcissist, and over time, as you learn to live under the same roof, that will become apparent to you.
The day you move in will, of course, feel like the best day ever. You make your house cozy, you giggle together, you start to carve out the life that you’ve only so far imagined.
And now? It feels real, and it feels beautiful!
3 Things start to get lonely for you
The length of time things start to turn sour can vary, but ultimately, it’s never long before you really begin to notice a shift in the house’s atmosphere, and it’s never a positive one.
You go from bouncing out of bed every morning to flick the coffee on and share a hug in the kitchen, to wondering what kind of mood the narcissist will be in when they get home from work at the click of a finger.
The art supplies you used to use to paint start to gather dust, as you’ve given them up, and your friends stop coming by, so you barely see anybody.
You haven’t been to the gym for months because it always creates arguments when you do.
When you try to stoke up a conversation about life or your day in general, you’re met with rolling eyes, a grunt, a scoff, or even plain silence.
Slowly, yet in all ways imaginable, life has become lonely for you.
How did you get here? What happened to that dream? Where did the person you first met go? Why does everything feel so different to how it was before?
4 Living with somebody nobody else knows
The only people who will understand what it feels like to live with a narcissist are those who have had to endure time behind closed doors with a narcissist they know, too.
You can try to explain what you have been through, and what a typical day may look like for you, but nobody will really understand the thousands of ways a narcissist can fracture your spirit and leave you feeling so lonely.
Even though you are technically living with another person, you still feel like you are all by yourself, as their game of ‘me vs. you’ becomes about how overpowering and toxic they are.
You also know the narcissist in a way that nobody else does. You see every last nasty mood that leaves you in pain.
You see all the ways they keep you small, stealing your joy and spark. You witness what they really think of everybody else, even though they leave the house and pretend to love them all.
You couldn’t even convince somebody else of what you have to go through, even if you tried your best.
For you, it’s a level of loneliness that you won’t find anybody else being able to relate to, until you start talking to other survivors of narcissistic abuse.
5 Isolated from connecting
Before those connections happen, you will notice that living with a narcissist comes with being unable to connect to anybody, especially those you have previously been close to.
They convinced me to stop seeing my mom because they told me it was doing damage to my mental health. I was told to work more, which meant I had less time to visit family.
He told me that I am the only one in my friendship circle who makes the effort and that I’m better than them, so I just believed him and cut contact. She managed to convince me that having social media was a waste of time, so I deleted my profiles and lost touch with so many people.
Does any of that sound familiar? I’d bet it does if you have lived with a narcissist.
Being prevented from seeing or speaking to a previous good, healthy circle of friends and family will hit you hard, making you feel more alone than you’ve ever felt.
Eventually, you’ll just get used to not speaking to them, and consider them all a part of your past.
You’ll be told by the narcissist that it’s not your fault, and that other people, if they truly cared, would have fought for you.
What comes after that is the painful and inaccurate belief that you aren’t worth fighting for.
6 Losing yourself in their negativity
I know you might want to punish yourself for believing their lies, but I want to remind you that these people have personality disorders. It’s in their characters to lie, and lie very well. As they lie, you take it all in and put it all on your shoulders.
Getting lost in their negativity comes from the way the narcissist guides you into that darkness, and that can be a huge problem if you can’t find your eventual way back out.
7 Living alone vs. living with a narcissist
Which one do you pick, in an ideal life? You’d be forgiven for initially thinking it would be more lonely living alone than living with a narcissist because, at least they provide company, right?
They don’t. Their presence is dark, and it stripes you of all the color in your life. Living like a hollow shell of yourself is worse, much worse, than living in color by yourself.
I ask you to consider that the next time you think about moving in with somebody who raises red flags.
