Diary of a lovelorn victim of narcissism: Lethargy and disenchantment

The numb of the pain that I am experiencing within my system is nothing compared to the hollowness that I feel within my body. My mind feels as if it has been disconnected from my being. My soul is like a scared child cowered in the inner most recesses of my existence. My future seem dim, I did not know that a shared tiny moment would have affected my entire life. I react in tears to displays of affection and my body recoils from embrace of love from the opposite sex. I have begun to see your face on all of them. I have used your behavior as a yardstick for their conduct. Why can’t you be like them?


He seemed to have moved on very easily. He pretends I do not exist while I am withering away in to my fantasies of me and him. I keep dreaming, desperate for a reconnection I know will not materialized and even if it transpires the experience will not be less harrowing.


What can I do? I carry one with hope that one day the pain will go away. I pray that I will feel whole again, alive and in tune with who I am. I salvage what’s left of my self esteem and I drag on. My joy has been taken away. I cannot have fun. I am in a crowd and I feel starkly alone. I am surrounded by love still I only feel hatred and revulsion. I want to run to a corner in my room and lick my wounds. But I get up. I dance, laugh and return gestures.


If you could stare into my eyes, you would see that there was not one sparkle there. If you stared closely, you would have noticed my tight, forced smile. If you pried deeper you would have seen that my joy is merely skin deep. Nothing on the surface has reached my soul. But I cannot force my problems on you. You empathy and sympathy might reinforce the dullness and pain I am feeling. Some may re-traumatized me and others simply will not understand. My wounds are not palpable and tactile, they are soulful and emotional. You wouldn’t understand. Therefore I drag on…


Yes I drag since my feet refused to lift of the ground. I am too lethargic. Some days I am too weak but still I carry on for fear I may vegetate and then the narcissist would have won. He would have laughed at me and his ego inflated taking comfort and joy in my despair. I must go on. I must pick up the pieces and find a way to mend them back together. I must find my soul. Soul where are you? I must go on!

How women allow emotionally unavailable men(narcissist) to destroy them

How women sometimes allow a narcissist to destroy them?




I can just imagine that you probably started reading this issue with your tongue sharpened to objurgate me for making such a statement. But let me share a personal experience with you before I delved into the central focus of my article.
There was a time when I was in a verbally abusive relationship with a narcissistic man who found great pleasure in ranting obscenities and profane invectives at me effusively. He would launch a tirade at me completely unprovoked. His bout of anger made me very apprehensive about calling his phone or even talking to him because of his labile rampages and tantrums. It was as if he had problems and he was using me as a valve to vent his frustrations. A psychologist friend of mine was very amused when he learned that we were only seeing each other for a week and he was behaving or rather our relationship sounded like we were together for years. It did not stop there. The more I got close to him and demonstrated my feelings for him. The more obnoxious he became.




I remembered his first attack. It was our second time conversing on the phone. I found his petulant response to my opinion of his professed single status as unbelievable and he had excoriated and shut me down for insinuating that I was a liar. Everything about the man was incredible. He was almost too good to be true and I fell in love with him, with most men I could decipher what their intentions were towards me but my ex narcissist was unreadable.



The signs were very clear I just kept overlooking and falling for his kind words, saccharine tone and the romantic text messages he sent. I saw his obnoxious behavior as a desperate attempt by him to act humble. I posit the first subtle obnoxious statement he made was just an overreaction to my questions or he had a bad day. I did not think that it was the real side of the man, slowly but surely emerging. I imagined his possessive attitude and portrayed insecurities as profession of his softer side. It felt good that a man of his caliber could be jealous of a woman he barely knew. I presupposed his jealous responses to my outings and dates with friends were proof that he was smitten, oh how naïve and paltry my masculine assessment skills were.


I thought he had feelings for me. I believe that he was truly lovesick when he was hasting to consummate our relationship even though I wanted to wait based on the fact that I thought our relationship was moving too fast and I wanted to get to know him more. But I gave in under the misconception that he wanted intimacy to reassure his place in my life and to cement his right to ask me questions about my life, whereabouts and companions. I found the idea intriguing, amused and sometimes frightening. A small voice in my head kept telling me there was something wrong with this handsome, successful man with a bad temper.



His paroxysms got worst and I could not placate him. I tried talking to him in a less confrontational attitude and attempted a docile approach to his advances. It was not sufficient. It was as if he had a wanton desire to insult and depreciate me. He excoriated me gushingly and it seemed the more abusive he was, the more I endeavored to emend my behavior to be the best possible spouse.



I validated his opinions to the point where I began to believe that I was annoying him. I began to embrace his confounded yet fragmented notions of my self worth. I began to think he was unhappy with my appearance or was it my financial status or level of education. I decided to cease from using technical jargons and erudite terms in his presence. I perceived that he saw my intelligence as a threat to his ego as I was considerably more trenchant than he was. I kept modifying my behavior and expressions but it was futile.



My narcissist ended the relationship and I was devastated because I had invested immensely in the relationship. I cried for months and I flung myself into a chasm of depression. I was slowly becoming a Limerant. I spent hours recollecting our moments together and analyzing every detail of our private moments to see if there were areas that could have been improved. I felt as if I had did him wrong in spite of the verbal abuse and insults that I was subjected to by this handsome, successful yet grandiose man.



It was six months later when i got my epiphany when the narcissist began to seek out my companionship again. I quickly realized that I liked him for what he represented and not for who he was. I realized that I was in love with a shell and how good it felt parading him in front of my friends and siblings as my partner. I realized that I liked the idea of the man and not the man himself. I saw in him the characters that I needed to develop and I assume that he saw in me what he is not and will never be. He was arrogant whilst I was unassuming. His self confidence was luminous and he had a commanding air about him that made me want to cower in his presence and do his every bidding. He was my match, the only man that intimidated me. I conceded that if he was perceivably poor and unattractive I would have dumped him at the first sign of trouble.


My point basically is that I am not a self righteous female who is here to accuse you of digging your own grave. I am not here to retraumatised you or lambaste you for remaining in an abusive relationship when all signs say that you should leave. I did not stay with him because he was not hurting; it is not that I did not care about myself. You will discover that ironically women stay in hurting relationships because they do care about themselves. They sometimes become an extension of their partner especially if he is a narcissist with the attendant wealth, power and clout. They do not leave because their image and social experience would be damaged. They do not leave because we live in a society that merits people based on aesthetics and financial standing. People who are considered wealthy and attractive are subjected to far more lenient social judgment and highly enhanced social experiences.

Why Women stay with Abusive men

Why women stay with abusive men

It’s a phenomenon that we are both intrigued yet repelled by and it is the idea of a successful, intelligent, good natured and ‘should know better woman’ that remains committed to a man that disrespects, abuses and ill treat her mercilessly and unrepentantly. We wonder what could compel a woman to want to remain with a man that only cost her pain and discomfort, yes I mean cost her and not cause her! A man that only seems to sap her energy, undermine her self worth and under rate her dexterities and competencies. A man that limits her physical and psychological freedom publicly humiliates her and beats her occasioning grievous injuries. We are appalled when a successful woman admits that she has been abused by her husband. We are outraged when a woman is murdered by the hands of her lover. We are incensed when a woman attempts to leave an abusive relationship but finds her self right back with the abusive lover because she feels that she can’t live without him or that he will hurt her if she leaves. We wonder why a man could do something to a woman that he claims that he loves.



The truth be told, an abusive man does not love anyone but himself. Abusers are frequently narcissistic. They are self absorbed, ego centric and egotistic. He is weak and lacks human compassion, feelings or even emotions. The only time he feels any iota of emotions is when he feels as if his being is somehow threatened. These emotions ranged from anger, guilt, self pity and ferocity. It is at the ferocious point that most women will get their asses slapped or neck slashed by an abusive man. I know it sounds grisly heinous but it is the truth. We have seen many headlines, many Dr Phil’s and Oprah Winfrey and even CNN headline. Abusive husband, jealous boyfriend, estranged lover murders his woman.



Women have a nurturing nature that is a characteristic of our evolutionary psychological development. Just as how a mother loves a delinquent son, it is the same analogy for a woman with a tyrant, inconsiderate irreverent husband. A woman feels love for her man even though pummels her every night. In spite of his abusive nature, he often has other great characteristics that overshadow his sadomasochist behavior. The wife believes that if she loved him more, harder over and over again, he will become a better man. She posits that she has sufficient love within her being to serve for both of them. Enough love to fill the void that his lack of expressive love has made. She loves for both of them, suffers for both of them and lives for them both. It’s a level of sacrifice that is unfounded and leaves the woman exhausted, an overwhelming emotional fatigue. It’s the same altruistic and self less, incessant, irrevocably love that a mother has for her disaffected child. She loves him no matter how bad he is.

But does she always love him. Sometimes we women believe that we love a man but what we are really enamored with is often what the man represents, the power that he has or his money. We are in love with a shell. You realize that you love the way he looks, the way he commands attention at a seminar, the fact that you feel proud to have a husband who is a corporative executive, drives a Pontiac and lives in Beverly Hills. The same husband that broke two of your ribs disrespects your mother and almost shot your daddy in the ass when he came for thanksgiving.


You love how he looks and what he represents and not necessarily the substance of the man. It’s like loving a bottle of crystal champagne. You like how it looks, you like showing it to everyone (yes I can buy an expensive drink and yes I have taste!) but you hate the damn contents, you never drank a sip from that bottle that you boast of every day.


She feels that she probably will never meet another man like him. He becomes indispensably to her. She needs to keep this man because she feels nullified without him. Her identity has become intersperse with his and she feels as if she will become no body or nothing without this man. Her sense of self has been eroded by his constant abuse and denigration. She has no autonomy, no singular personality or definition of self outside of her husband and his life. This woman is normally the one who is married to the governor or a very powerful man. This woman is afraid of losing her status in society and divorcing from her abusive man may well be the ramification.

Then there are the women who are trapped in their relationship with abusive men for personal reasons. The females remain with abusive men because they want to protect their children because she fears that the man might abuse the child or children. Most men that abuse women tend ill treat children because abusive men like to pound on people that are weak or perceived debilitating.


An abusive man suffers from malignant narcissism. He feels that he is above moral authority. He rarely feels any form of reproach. He sees no wrong in his violent actions and is incorrigible. He accepts violence and sees it as his only form of expression, be it verbal or demonstrative. He sees foul behavior as norm and expects everyone to accept it. It is quite normative that he was taught violence as a means of communication as a child. He has suffered abuse and therefore is only acting out what he was taught.


But this gives no man the right to bludgeon a woman to death or to loath her in any form. No woman deserves to be abused. No woman deserves to be disrespected. No woman deserves to be marginalized and isolated from her friends and family by an abusive husband. No woman deserves to be abused. No woman should remain in an abusive relationship. There is no reason to hang around saying that it will get better. The man can be encouraged to seek counseling but how many narcissistic men will be willing to admit that he needs counseling? How many sadistic men will see the vile and anomie in their actions. The best advice is to get out while you still can! Get out now!