Tools for leaving your abuser
You’re getting there. You've started to see that Jerkface isn’t a normal person with a normal heart. It feels like their relationship with you is a game, a lie, a selfish arrangement. You wonder if they’ve lied to you just to keep you trapped in their web. And you may finally have had enough.
A healthy relationship is not a project. A relationship is something that gives you good things 90% of the time. A relationship adds to your life, instead of bringing you heartache or a lifetime of trying to change who you are, how you talk, or how you dress in the hopes that Jerkface will stop treating you badly.
When you're dealing with a narcissist, you need to set aside your common decency. You need to forget everything you've learned about being a decent human, including that people deserve to understand where you're coming from and that they need to be treated with kindness.
When I found myself in a toxic work situation last year, I was surprised and ashamed. How could I have let it happen? Why didn't I see the signs?
Most of the time I am a regular person with too much to do and too little time to do it and I forget that the way I feel now, the life I now live, was once a goal and a dream that seemed almost unattainable.
With a Jerkface, the "good times" are actually an essential part of the abuse. You haven't broken through to your abuser - you're getting played.
Therapy with Jerkface will most likely be unhelpful, and at worst it could be very hurtful - to you alone. Therapy must be based on trust and goodwill - neither of which a Jerkface is able to bring to the table.
My first Jerkface controlled my money, my looks, my words and even how I held my fork. My second Jerkface used rage and violence. It was different. But it was still bad.
One night shortly after I left Jerkface for good, I was sitting alone in my dark little apartment in the fog belt of San Francisco, and I actually missed him. Why? Who the heck knows, although I suppose it was a bit of Stockholm Syndrome.
Jerkfaces give you a preview into their messed up worldview. Listen to them when they tell you they're going to be trouble.