It's reasonable to be hurt by how you were hurt, but always remember: IT'S A PATHOLOGY. A literal personality disorder. They can't not be like this. It's just how they are. If they were honest, you'd have been able to see the snake they are under the mask, but they're skilled liars and manipulators. You don't think like this, your brain isn't wired to recognize it when it's wrapped in a thick cloak of deception. You didn't stand a chance. Evil can be charming, and manipulation can look like generosity. Its' not your fault, and you're DEFINETLY not alone.

Sometimes life doesn’t politely tap you on the shoulder. Sometimes it rips the floor out from under you and then has the audacity to ask you to “be mature about it.” What gave was my marriage of 26 years. I had to face a reality I spent a long time trying to make less real, that I was living inside control that wore a calm face. A covert narcissist doesn’t need fists to do damage. They use silence, omission, image management, and slow, steady conditioning until the people closest to you start reacting to you like you’re not fully human. And here’s the part nobody tells you, the part that breaks you in a completely different way. When you finally start naming what’s happening, you don’t always get relief. Sometimes you get erased. My own child refuses to have anything to do with me, but won’t say why other than, “You’re an abuser.” No details. No examples. Nothing to repair. Nothing to take accountability for, nothing to work on. Just a label. A verdict. And people believe it. They don’t ask questions. They don’t look for clarity. They don’t ask what “abuse” means in this context. They don’t wonder why there’s no explanation, no specifics, no conversation, no willingness to address anything directly. They just accept the story, because it’s easier. And then they point to the cutoff as “proof.” “If she won’t talk to you, that must mean you did something terrible.” Do you understand how twisted that logic is? Silence becomes evidence. Distance becomes a conviction. And the person being accused is not even granted the dignity of understanding what they’re supposedly guilty of. But here’s what I decided, in the middle of the confusion, the pain, the absolute dehumanization. I did not want to die. I wasn’t going to take myself out. Not because it didn’t hurt. Not because I didn’t get lost in the fog sometimes. But because I realized something: survival is a form of rebellion. So I’m choosing life. I’m choosing truth, even when it’s unpopular. I’m choosing to rebuild my nervous system, my identity, my future, my voice.