Dear Narcissist Ex

After healing and therapy, here's what I would tell you--

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Dear Narcissist Ex, B—

I write this letter for the same reasons that I journaled—because a break up with a narcissist isn’t filled with closure and maturity, but explosions, and ultimately, implosions of extreme drama.

I have needed to offer this closure and insight myself. And I have.

I look back and reflect on—

Both the hurt you caused me but oh, the lessons I learned because of your abuse and mistreatment of me. I survived this the ways that I know how: I educated myself on narcissistic personality disorder and grew from your abuse.

I also went inward to understand how and why I tolerated so much, because of my own trauma. I learned why I would find myself in a relationship with a narcissist and to be mistreated like this for so long.

The biggest difference between you and I, is this—

I will learn from these hard lessons in life, to go inward and self-reflect, to go to therapy, to heal and grow from them.

Because I am willing to look at my broken parts and do the hard work of addressing where I need work on myself, through therapy.

Whereas you—as someone NPD and an emotionally immature person, will never do so. The hard work of therapy—in order for it to work—requires self reflection and accountability, which you are unwilling/incapable of.

This is precisely why you weaponized therapy against me when we went—as though the problem was always me. Easy to do, of course, to blame me as the one messed up, because at that time, I was…scarred, in shock and traumatized from Jeremie’s suicide, my mother’s death and my miscarriage all in less than 3 months. My family’s history is heavy and you used and manipulated the situation to avoid any accountability on your own part.

When I think about the state I was in, at that point, I will forever recall what you said to me—

“You’re always going to be like this, aren’t you? The victim?”

As I was trying to learn and process not only the suicides but my childhood dysfunction and intergenerational trauma that lead me to that point.

But you had no tolerance for that, no emotional maturity, and used my family’s story and the way that I was processing it, against me.

I remember when I ended up in a state of hysteria, bawling and sobbing, because you—who I thought were my safe person, my sanctuary and safe harbor, had just shattered my illusion that you would support me through this. That you were capable. That you were kind, empathetic, emotionally supportive.

But you’re not. Those with NPD are incapable of that, as it doesn’t center you.

But what I think is so interesting about that now, in retrospect, is this—

The ultimate foundational truth that—With narcissists, all accusations are confessions.

I am not the victim, because even though I felt that way, I was doing the work to process through that. To move out of it. To get to claiming survivorship. To get to thriver.

I am there now.

Whereas you, two years later, would reach out to a co-worker to plan your hook up as soon as I left the state for temporary work. When you were found out, you were revealed/ I found out that you also portrayed yourself the victim to her. Because your ex, me, was “crazy” because of my family.

What a “victim” you are. I consider how often you presented yourself as a victim in regards to your ex-wife. You come full circle, woe is you, the man who uses and abuses women, and then labels the previous one crazy to the next one to try and lure her in.

But still, you were “innocent” and “the victim,” according to you.

It’s laughably textbook and predictable once you see the patterns:

All accusations are confessions.

When I have told the story of your Netflix-movie like affair, in what my best friend calls “cataclysmic betrayal,” to others, some say—

“The best way you can heal is to go on and to be happy without them.”

Oh, absolutely. Because narcissists would hate that that the ex is thriving without them (but I am). Because they’re so self important that they delude themselves into thinking that others cannot survive without them.

But, the bigger point is this—

I don’t do it for you. All this healing. I do it for me. You’re not on my radar anymore, dictating what I do or don’t do.

I was so hopelessly loyal and empathetic, because of my own core wounds, that I tolerated too much from you.

But I will say this—

Your drama, toxicity, betrayal and lack of accountability, when caught-red-handed, you really showed me what a truly selfish person you are.

Your assholery was astonishing and—

This made me choose myself, finally.

After all, I saw all the ways that you had done so.

I don’t “thank” you for your abuse or your betrayal, but I chuckle because like the story of my family, I took the shit and turned it to gold. I used the situation and healed myself, and learned and grew, and went to therapy, and evolved.

You did not. You will not. Because it demands humility and accountability and work and self reflection.

Narcissists are incapable/unwilling to accept any degree of accountability, self-reflection. They will never consider whether they have narcissism, which is the very definition of what a narcissist is. This is why you are so hard to treat in therapy and your relationships always end and are rocky and tumultuous after the honeymoon period wears off.

You tried to pin the failure of the relationship on me, your ex-wife. But that is your pattern. Not mine. 3 years gone, and then you go drifting and looking for others to stroke your ego and sexual desires, to make you feel fulfilled. As you are shame-filled and insecure.

I pity you. I pity others like you.

Human beings are meant to grow, to transform, to evolve, to become better. You are incapable of doing that.

But—I will say this, despite the tsunami of shit you threw at me, I prevailed.

And from that, I have used it. I’ve become a master composter—

And shit! (pun intended), you should see the flowers and all that I’ve grown from it.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash