Emerging from the shadows of narcissistic abuse, you’ve bravely stepped off that chaotic, toxic carousel. Now, as you stand tall, brushing off the remnants of a journey you never deserved, your eyes open to a horizon bursting with endless possibilities.
“Where to now?” you might wonder, gazing at the myriad paths unfurling before you.
Here’s the beautiful truth: The choice is entirely yours! Embrace your newfound power — you’re the captain of your destiny now! You are the boss! All you need to do is take one step forward.
How Did I Get Here?
There I was, nestled in a corner of the county’s women’s health center, a battered book in my hands – more a shield than a read – as I tried to camouflage the tears that slipped from my eyes to saturate the face mask covering my mouth and nose.
The clinic was decorated for Thanksgiving 2021, a deliberate cheeriness that melted the typical cold sterileness of a medical facility.
Around me, the waiting room was filling up with women of all ages and walks of life; one had a newborn bundled in a stroller, and another grasped a cane with gnarled fingers as she shuffled inside. Each with a story etched in their eyes. The whole center was a poignant reminder of our shared journey as women.
In the room’s vastness, with chairs spaced out for COVID-19 safety precautions (symbolizing our shared solitude,) a wave of isolation washed over me. The book lay closed in my lap, a silent witness to the numb shock gripping me.
“How did I end up here?” I wondered, barely recognizing the reflection of my life from just half a year ago.
Panic, like a storm cloud, threatened to engulf me. I fought for calm breaths beneath my facemask, a battle against the invisible yet overwhelming. I kept my face down, not meeting any gazes, afraid of seeing judgment in unsympathetic eyes.
Then, a gentle interruption – a tap on the shoulder, grounding me. A nurse standing over me offered a tissue box with a kindness that felt like a lifeline. “Here, hon,” she said with a warmth that melted through my numbness, “Everything will be alright.“
At that moment, a spark of something powerful flickered within me – hope, strength, the beginning of a new chapter. It whispered a promise of healing, of brighter days, of a story that was mine to rewrite.
The Timeline of My Narcissistic Abuse
Although this all seemed sudden to me, my journey to the realization that I had been emotionally abused had been a long time coming.
This is the haphazard timeline for the destruction of my carefully constructed paper dollhouse world:
- For 30 years, I had been in an emotionally abusive marriage where the walls of my world squeezed closer and closer each day, trapping me in a vice of manipulated isolation. Until one day, the walls that trapped me imploded.
- Five months ago, I learned that my husband had lied to me about nearly everything for as long as we have known each other.
- Six weeks ago, I discovered my narcissistic husband had done more than lie to me. He had also ruined me financially and destroyed me emotionally. My son and I left our home and went to stay with my cousin in a different state.
- One week ago, he finally admitted to cheating on me.
Not only did he cheat on me, he did so many times. Multiple, multiple times. And in seedy circumstances and places like strip clubs and backroom massage parlors. But even worse, he took so long to tell the truth.
Here is that timeline with a different perspective:
- Six weeks ago, I begged him again to tell me the truth. He swore he had never been unfaithful.
- Five months ago, I begged him to tell me whether or not he had cheated on me. He adamantly denied it.
- One week ago, after 20 long weeks of suspecting but never knowing, he finally came clean. Actually, clean is not an accurate word to describe his admission. It was more like an avalanche of garbage revealed to the light of day.
A Tally I Didn’t Want to Know
I sat on the floor in my tiny apartment with a notebook and pen in hand, scribbling down every dirty, sleazy, and freakish thing he admitted to doing.
He told me he had been at the massage parlor near our home around 4-5 times. He said he’d been to a strip club by his old work probably 10-15 times. One by one, he clicked off places and approximate times he’d been there. It had been too many times for him to have an accurate count.
I asked if he’d ever gotten down and dirty at the hair salon that also offered massages by our neighborhood bank — the place where I took our sons to get their hair cut — and he admitted he had. The idea of him engaging in illegal sex practices on the same property where I took his kids to get haircuts sickened me.
I felt nauseous while he seemed relieved. As if admitting his wrongdoings somehow erased them. I looked down at my notebook and did a quick mental calculation.
He had cheated on me over 50 times. Well, approximately. I’ll probably never know the whole truth.
What is the First Step?
“I want a divorce.” I was proud that my voice sounded somewhat calm as I uttered the words I never thought I’d say in my lifetime.
“I know.,” he said, “but my therapist says you should not make rash decisions right now. You need to wait a few months and try to work through this with me. Our marriage can be saved. I know it can. I know I messed up, but I swear I’ll never cheat on you ever again.”
“You promised that when you married me,” I muttered.
“But I messed up. I cheated on you, yes, but I haven’t done so in quite a while. It’s probably been six months…”
“Six months?” My cool disappeared, and my voice now sounded like a screech. “That’s just because of Covid. You’re scared to go out, or you’d be out there still!”
“Look, my therapist is disappointed that you went to California. He says we need to be together in order to work on our marriage. You need to come home.”
For the first time, I saw the jagged cracks in his confident demeanor.
His therapist was disappointed in me?
For so many years, he had pulled the wool over my eyes and blinded me to all of his wrongdoings with deflection and manipulative blustering. But that time was over.
“No, I’m not coming home.”
I had already taken the first step, and I didn’t even know it.
The Floodgates Open
The same nurse who had handed me the tissue box now called me to a triage room. As I sat in a hard plastic chair, she asked me an innocent, predictable question: “What brings you in today?”
I just stared at her, tears still glistening in my eyes. I couldn’t find my voice or form any coherent words. She looked at me, patiently waiting. I stared back in dumbfounded horror.
Finally, I whispered, “I don’t know.”
That’s it. That’s all it took. The floodgates crashed, and the anguished river of tears came pouring out.
The nurse, whose name I never did know, gently placed her hand on my shoulder. That touch, that tiny bit of shared humanity, was comforting and bolstering.
In my head, I could hear the whispered threats of my husband from over the years…
Don’t dishonor our marriage by talking about it outside of us.
Don’t let anyone else tell you what to do in our relationship.
Don’t ask for outside help.
I am the leader of this marriage.
Leaning on the strength of a stranger, I released the pent-up feelings of confusion and fear that victims of narcissistic abuse feel. We are programmed to be the ones at fault, the guilty party.
Away from the shadow of my abuser, I was able to voice my devastation over what had happened in my 30-year marriage, the pain of learning about all the lies, and now my real fear that the man I had loved had possibly exposed me to a sexually transmitted disease. Or worse.
Again, I heard the words that I didn’t know I desperately needed to hear, “Everything will be alright.”
The Loss of Power of Narcissistic Abuse
The nurse scooted a chair closer to mine and sat down.
“Are you in a safe place?” She gently asked.
“Yes,” I mumbled. “I moved in with my cousin. My husband is in an entirely different state.”
“Really?” She smiled and leaned in closer, conspiratorially. “Then you’ve already done the hard part.”
She then asked me several questions regarding my safety and what kind of help I might need. All I wanted at that moment was to know that I didn’t have some incurable disease my idiot husband transmitted to me from a prostitute. To think beyond that was impossible. I couldn’t see beyond the step I was on.
After her questions, she took all my vital signs and escorted me directly to an exam room, bypassing the general waiting room. She explained that I might have to wait a little while, but she didn’t want to send me back into the waiting room since I was in such an emotional state. I was very grateful.
Another nurse popped in.
“I wanted to check on you.” She explained. “The doctor will be here soon. I already know your story, and I just want you to know that you won’t have to go over it again unless you want to. I am so sorry this has happened to you, and I want to see if you need anything. Are you in a safe place? Do you have a support group? Do you need the number for abuse victims?”
I was dumbfounded.
Abuse victim?
It was the first time I fully let the label sink in.
I was a victim of abuse. I still am a victim of abuse. That will never go away.
But with that realization, the power of my abuser has been irrevocably broken.
The Hard Part is Over
That first nurse jumped into action and put everyone on alert. Every single person I came into contact with at the women’s center was informed of my situation, so I didn’t have to relive the trauma repeatedly. Instead, I had incredible women — complete strangers — going out of their way to visit me, hug me, and reassure me that everything really would be alright. I was treated with dignity and sensitivity; I felt I had an army of allies. I left the women’s health center fully armed with numbers for abuse hotlines and help centers.
However, the most empowering realization I left with was the conviction that the hardest part was over.
Admittedly, at the time, I felt stuck. I didn’t know which way to go or how to wade out of the pit of quicksand I felt I’d fallen into.
What step should I take next?
I was frozen with indecision. Should I move forward with a divorce? Should I give him a second chance? I never controlled the finances; how would I ever be able to support myself? What would my kids think of me if I left my marriage?
Despite all these thoughts swirling around my head, my focus always returned to that nurse’s new revelation: I’ve already done the hard part.
And do you know what that hard part was? It wasn’t just that I had already left my abuser, although that was a huge deal.
The hard part was taking a step forward, no matter what that step was. And for me, that step was realizing I was in a toxic situation and needed some help.
I felt frozen. Stuck. But I still took a step forward.
I left my husband, and I went to the women’s center to get a check on my health. I was taking steps towards a healthier me instead of letting the quicksand suck me under.
I’m the Boss!
Victims of narcissistic abuse often lack confidence. We self-blame and second guess. It’s what we’ve been programmed to do.
Once I realized that my narcissistic husband was abusing me, I decided I had to make a choice. I couldn’t go on and pretend like I didn’t know what had been happening. Once the blindfold was off, there was no going back.
The problem I faced was the fact that my abuser had been calling all the shots for over 30 years. I suddenly realized that I needed to make decisions for my future. This would be a step in a new direction that would reshape my life completely. My husband didn’t get to make this decision for me; I got to do it all by myself. I had to do it all by myself.
And so, right or wrong, I took that little step.
My cousin offered me a safe place to land, so I moved in with her temporarily (which ended up being much longer than that.) I left my marriage so that I would have room to breathe without my narcissistic husband trying to manipulate me constantly. Space and freedom were needed to clear my head.
I didn’t leave with the idea that I would be filing for divorce. The facts of the story were still unknown to me. I left with plans to return in a few months for Christmas.
That didn’t happen.
As Christmas approached, I knew I couldn’t subject myself to my husband’s power again, so I chose to stay in California even though it meant, for the first time in 24 years, I would not be spending Christmas with my oldest two children. I ended up leaving most of my possessions at my old house, and I doubt I’ll ever see them again.
And yet, that wasn’t the hardest part of this process.
The hardest part was just taking a step. Any step. Primarily, the step of recognizing an abusive situation for what it is.
My situtuation didn’t have to end in divorce to be successful. I could have reconciled with my husband while using therapy to make our relationship healthier. We could have separated for a while. It doesn’t really matter what the outcome was, the hardest part was taking that initial step.
Once I took that first step in a new direction, I discovered everything really would be alright. Because now I am the boss of my own life.
So, to answer the question of now what do I do? Anything I damn want to. That’s what!
By the way, I did end up getting a divorce. I am free and clear of all sexually transmitted diseases. My children didn’t get angry with me for leaving an abusive situation, and the new foundational bricks of my life are slowly being laid. The new story of Lilly Strong is slowly being written each day, and this time, I am the author.
If you feel like you are in an abusive relationship, get help. Reach out to a friend, doctor, therapist, or someone you trust. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline for help: 800-799-7233, or text START to 88788.
Here is an excellent article about How To Get Out of an Abusive Relationship
Be sure to check out 3 O’Clock Wednesdays on the Lillystrong.com blog and the YouTube channel iamlillyiamstrong.
Check out the whole series:
Unveiled Narcissistic Abuse: Never Again! Not Me!
Unveiled Narcissistic Abuse: #2 Now What? You’re the Boss!
From Victim to Victory: How to Triumph Over Narcissistic Abuse
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Welcome to a world where you’re not just surviving; you’re thriving!
