How My Narcissist Ex Was a Catalyst to My Healing and Self-Love

“It’s okay to let go of those who couldn’t love you. Those who didn’t know how to. People who gave up trying. It’s okay to outgrow them, because that means you filled the empty space in you with self-love instead. You’re outgrowing them because you’re growing into you. And that’s more than okay, that’s something to celebrate.” ~Angelica Moone

My dream was to marry the love of all my life. It was the strongest connection I’d ever felt. I was sure he was my soul mate, and I thoroughly believed he was my twin flame—my one and only.

I can’t even begin to tell you the horror that started to unfold after we got married. My beloved partner began to make accusations against me. That I didn’t care about him and I didn’t love him enough. He convinced me that I was having affairs under his nose, conspiring against him and out for his money.

Not only was I perplexed, but I felt utterly shaken. It was hard to believe that he didn’t realize that I loved him unconditionally without any question and that I would never consider having eyes for someone else. What about trying to get his money back? It was bizarre, because, contrary to what he claimed, he had very little.

Yet I didn’t care. He was my love. I tried to love him, and I was convinced that my love would be enough—that he would know that I loved him, and we would soon return to the comfort and the knowing that our love for each other was real, safe, and forever.

He was a terrible person, no matter how hard I tried to love them. I couldn’t be five minutes late from the supermarket without suffering his wrath. Life outside of “us” was getting smaller and smaller.

If I saw the outside, it was because I wasn’t thinking right or seeing things in the correct way. If I didn’t take his hand when we were together, I was advertising that I was single. Working outside the property or visiting friends became just as feasible as going to the moon.

It happened eventually: I quit trying to unite us and started fighting back. Initially to try to stop the despair that he didn’t trust me, then for my literal sanity, freedom, and autonomy. Without them, I was losing my heart.

It didn’t work. My attachment to him grew more desperate and panicked, and I lost control of my reactions. His abuse continued, and eventually, I knew I was on the brink of losing my life.

My post-traumatic stress disorder was complicated. I shake. I sweat. I couldn’t eat. It was impossible to get sleep. Everyone and everything that I was concerned about was turning their backs on me.

I was married to a narcissist. I didn’t realize it at first, because back then, fifteen years ago, not many people were talking about narcissism.

I had always believed that narcissists were arrogant people who were “up on themselves.” I had no idea that they were people who presented in our lives offering the love, total acceptance, validation, and “life” that we thought we had wanted our entire life. It was a surprise to me that someone such as this would enter my life, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they fell in love.

The day that the word “narcissist” popped into my head, and I googled it, I nearly fell off my chair. I was ticking every point that was so “him” off a list of traits and behaviors. My shock was overwhelming.

Entitled—tick. Can’t take personal responsibility for wrongdoings—tick. Has hair-trigger reactions to things that most adults don’t get bent out of shape about—tick. Argues in circles in ways that make your head spin—tick. Pathologically lies while looking you straight in the eye—tick … and on and on the list went. The punch line was what I wanted to find: Can someone like that be healed? Is it possible to get rid of this disease?

After searching high and low, I looked into every possible solution and did all of the research that I could. The answer was a flat “no.” Then, believing there is always a solution, I was determined to heal him, to fix our marriage, to return to the dream of the “one and only” that I just knew he must have been.

It didn’t turn out well. Actually, it was disastrous. My life was now impacted by mental and emotional abuse. I was subject to physical abuse, which made me afraid for my safety. I was subject to financial abuse, which caused me great distress. In times of crisis, self-preservation forced me to leave. I finally left him to move elsewhere.

But I wasn’t getting better away from him. It was a shock to feel so haunted. It was because he was there, seeing other women, living a wonderful life, all the while I was feeling so trapped and devastated that it hurt my ability to breath.

He was always there for me. Either because he would contact me and promise to change, or I missed him so much I couldn’t function.

It got worse every time I came back. It was shorter and more terrifying than the makeup times. Then, I broke. The adrenal crisis and complete psychotic episode caused me to become paranoid. It was said that I wouldn’t be able heal and I’d need to take three anti-psychotics in order to continue to function. But I knew I would never feel the same. My brain and nervous systems were now permanently damaged.

Of course, he didn’t care. He did what he had always done when I needed him—he discarded me. The moment I realized that it was time to go, I chose death. Then I tried to figure out how I could make this happen in the most loving way possible for my son and family.

My soul however had another idea. A voice in my head kept insisting, “No, there is another way.” I thought it was just my madness speaking. I argued with it, but it wouldn’t let up. In desperation I walked into my bathroom, fell on the mat, put my hands in the air, and shrieked, “Help me, I can’t do this anymore!”

The most amazing thing occurred in that instant. I felt like my mind was splitting and I saw the truth. This was the first time I’d ever experienced such clarity in all my life. Maybe you have to be “out of your mind” to really know the truth?

I heard a whisper in my head telling me my husband was a catalyst. He was never meant to grant me my “self” and my “life”; rather he had come into my life to show me the parts of myself that were unhealed, that I hadn’t healed yet, to generate my true self and true life.

I was overwhelmed by the number of facts and incidents that came to my attention. The ways I was so hard on myself and was always needing more, saying to myself, “Melanie, I can’t even like you (let alone love you) if you don’t get your to-do list all done, if you don’t lose ten pounds, if you don’t look like this or that … “ and how he had treated me the same—as not good enough, right, or acceptable.

How I had always kept busy rather than “be” with myself, care, validate, and love myself. How I had terminally self-avoided and self-abandoned my inner being, and how I had yelled at him, “You don’t even know who I really am!” yet had never taken the time to have a real relationship with myself.

The realizations were hard to come by. And I knew, he hadn’t treated me how I had treated him; he had treated me how I had really felt about and treated myself.

It was clear to me that I would be able to heal myself if I allowed him to go. It would save my soul, my sanity, and life. It was clear to me that I had the ability to heal, improve, and be better. It was clear to me that my love and life could finally be true and possible.

This was because I experienced a divine intervention that pushed me into an experience in which I saw the future and felt healed. What I had was revealed to me. What I was, and more importantly who I could be.

He wasn’t the healer of my wounds; he was the messenger of them instead.

I let go. I looked inward. I began to heal.

This I now know at the highest level of truth: A twin flame, as the nemesis who reflects back to us our unhealed parts in intensely painful ways, offers the greatest love of all—the returning home to ourselves. My life blossomed from that true connection with me, my family, and other people in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

I am love. Self-acceptance is what I’m. I am free.

About Melanie Tonia Evans

Melanie Tonia Evans, a worldwide expert in narcissistic abuse and recovery and creator of Quanta Freedom Healing and the Narcissistic Abusement Recovery Program (NARP), is Melanie Tonia Evans. Melanie’s leading edge healing methods have helped thousands of people make astounding full recoveries from toxic relationship abuse. Her book, Even after Narcissistic Abusive, You can Still Live—The #1 System for Recovering from Toxic Relationships.  For more information, you can view her website at https://www.melanietoniaevans.com.

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Tiny Buddha’s first post, How my Narcissist Ex was a catalyst to my Healing and Self-Love appeared on Tiny Buddha.

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