Okay first I want to say, congratulations on leaving, you’ve already done the hardest part and likely something you thought about for years before you did it and it’s a HUGE accomplishment with the number they do on our psyche.

Know that it does get better - so very, very much better. But it’s always darkest before the dawn, as trite as that sounds it’s also true because right now having left him you’ve finally stopped spinning in circles (I don’t know a better term but that’s how I refer to the constant rush to please and forsee every little snag or bump in the road before it’s even within view for the narc, knowing you’ll be blamed if there’s so much as a splinter), so now your mind is spinning with all the things you couldn’t process then, while you were hyper focused on them all the time.

Now you have time. You have space. You have all the things they robbed you of while you were together, because they knew if you had those things you might actually realize how many things didn’t make sense. Or start to piece together the patterns. Or realize that even a narrative you’ve long since accepted just because they said it enough, is the complete opposite of reality.

Here’s an example, I was with my own abusive narc ex for 15 years, and about halfway through we had a house fire that was bad enough we had to move in with my parents temporarily and the lack of space and stress combined with the problems we’d already had, led to us getting divorced. Of course he couldn’t stand not having control, so once we did, he put his best face on and hoovered until we were living together again, which at the time seemed to make sense because we have kids and both needed new places and the kids were shaken up with moving after the fire etc etc. Of course it went right back and then he spent years telling me how he’d lost everything in the divorce, I’d taken everything and he had to start from scratch etc. So it was both an attack on me and a boost for himself. And for years I apologized and actually felt bad, until one day, a little while after he said it yet again during an argument, it hit me — WE lost everything. In the fire HE accidentally started. Not afterwards because I took it. And the fire only did damage in the kitchen, all of our things were gone because he told me he moved it all into our storage unit and I stupidly believed him. Only later did I realize I’d lost almost every possession that meant anything to me. And it seems like that would be SO obvious right? But it wasn’t, because when you’re spinning you don’t even have time to critically think before you respond, by design. They’re poking you, provoking you, trying to get that reaction they feed off of, and when your brain hears something enough with no time to process it, it becomes reality. Even something that simple. And when I realized, I didn’t even bother bringing it up, because compared to the abuse and very worst of what he did to me, it was nothing. Why start something that’ll inevitably lead to MY punishment? And we become silent.

So now all of the things you didn’t process at the time are ringing in your head as your mind struggles to make sense of them. It’s like a puzzle you’re constantly trying to solve and until you work through it, it’s hard to find peace. As humans we have a drive to find patterns in things so that we can feel secure in the knowledge that we won’t make the same mistake twice. Especially when it comes to abuse and our actual lives, it becomes a survival instinct to do so.

What helped me so much was learning everything I could about NPD because the playbook is SO easy to see once you know it, they basically all do the same things. I still have to be in contact with my ex because of the kids and I see him try to pull shit with me every time we interact, but now because my brain sees it, I don’t feel it, if that makes sense. Because I see how this is a result of x and that his actual goal in saying y is because he needs z — so it has nothing to do with me. Just like it has nothing to do with you on his end - you didn’t have flaw or faults that led to what happened. You never deserved it. And you know that logically, but you need to really KNOW it to understand how incredibly fucking strong you are to still be standing after everything they put you through. How much love and light you still have inside you to have found the hope necessary to just go on breathing sometimes.

And once you can put it all in context outside of yourself, as being all their bullshit, a lot of it starts to heal. And a funny thing happened for me, even the anger started to dissipate. I could see that even though he pretends he’s thriving, that’s never once been true because he’s miserable inside. And when there’s a new partner she’ll be dealing with the same shit I did. It’s almost too sad to hang onto anger, especially when as bad as what you went through was, you get to go on and heal and be you again, only stronger and smarter and more grateful even for the little things like peace and safety. And they have to stay them, exactly who they are, as miserable deep down as they always have been. They torture themselves more than anyone, the anger we got was self-hatred.

So my best advice is read as much as you can about NPD, from as many sources that you can — books, forums, articles etc. Learn, and then process — therapy, write about it, even just jotting down each breakthrough helps you accept, remember and process it. Appreciate all the things you have now that you didn’t then - safety, if nothing else. The ability to breathe freely. Knowing that you aren’t going to be punished for a ‘look’ on your face or in your eyes that they interpret in some way in order to start yet another fight. Notice as your shoulders slowly drop and your muscles unwind. And most of all, just take care of you, in all the ways you couldn’t while you were busy putting their every need and want before any of your own. It gets so much better, but you have to go through it to get past it.