Thriving After Narcissistic Abuse Story #8 Sherry

It’s time for another thriving after narcissistic abuse story! This is to inspire you, and show you that there is a way to recover, move on and thrive in a narcissistic free life.

This story is about a wonderful woman named Sherry.

I’m sure many of you will be able to relate to this story.

Sherry’s story illustrates how childhood plays such an important role in how we develop co-dependent tendencies, seek validation and approval from outside of ourselves, and ultimately become a target for narcissists.

Sherry had a difficult upbringing with her family. Her father was extremely work oriented and had little time for her.

Her mother was left at home to do everything and her stress and anxiety caused her to blame Sherry for everything.

Her brother resented her and often picked on her and made her feel unwanted.

Sherry ultimately felt unloved by her family and developed an unhealthy tendency to do too much for others and neglect herself in order to gain approval.

“I was waiting to find happiness outside of myself – in my relationships.”

This led Sherry to suffering a narcissistic relationship.

Please listen to the inspiring story of how Sherry healed her patterns of seeking love and approval outside of herself, built a solid foundation of self-love, self-approval and is now thriving after narcissistic abuse

Please tell about how your relationship started with the narcissist?

I originally met the narcissist in 1970. We met on the first day of school in kindergarten. We went to school together until 1980 and then we both went off living our separate lives. We never dated back then but he would go to extreme measures to get my attention.

He would beat up other kids in front of me, pulled my hair and bra strap. I even recall him grabbing my butt in grade 7. In high school he was always trying to pick at my boyfriend or male friends. In 2009 we reconnected on Facebook and met in person in February 2010 after not seeing each other for many years.

It was a whirlwind romance. He put me up on a pedestal continually saying I was really smart, the prettiest girl in school, and how much he had always had a crush on me. During the first part of our relationship it was amazing, but his Mother was palliative with Pancreatic Cancer and that definitely put the strain on our new re-budding relationship. In May of that year his Mother passed away and Mr Hyde appeared.

I remember the day. I was in Saskatoon and heading back home to Calgary (a week after the narcissist’s Mom’s funeral) when a friend of mine, Mike offered to give me a ride, as the airfare costs were adding up and it would help me out.

Little did I know about the hissy fit that would start from the narc in response to that act of kindness from a good friend of mine. This was the first time I witnessed the full blown jealousy, however in hindsight there were warning signs before that time frame. The narcissist had made comments (seemingly joking) about how I probably had lots of rich boyfriends in Calgary – these started about a month into our relationship.

What did the narcissist do when that happened?

The drive is 6 hours between the two cities and as per normal I texted him. The narcissist always wanted me to text because he had indicated he worried about me travelling on the highway between the two cities, but truly he had been pretty demanding about the constant communication right from the beginning.

He didn’t reply back to my texts. For the whole six hours nothing… When I got home I was worried so I phoned. I knew he was depressed about losing his Mom and then about me having to go back home until things could be figured out for me to move back to Saskatoon again. I still got no answer.

For days he ignored me and I had no idea why. When he finally answered me the accusations started – it was horrible. Where did my sweet loving man go to? Prior to this time there had been mini punishments of disappearing on me when I would say or do something he didn’t like. It could be something as simple as not answering a text right away or sharing a funny story about something that happened at work with a male co-worker. Even going to a movie with one of my sons and getting comments that I didn’t answer his messages because ‘I was on a date with someone else’. Until that day of the drive home I never really experienced a full blown episode of being punished by him, because he always seemed to snap out of his mood quickly prior to this incident.

I wrote it off as being the grief, and worked on getting him in to counseling for it. Even that early in the relationship I was trying to fix him. I kept telling myself “Give him a break he’s grieving and he doesn’t really mean it.” After a month’s separation I went back to Saskatoon and spent a month test driving our relationship to see how it was going to be. The month was phenomenal, and my dear sweet man was back. Wow life was good again. Then the other shoe dropped – his Dad got suddenly ill and was in ICU fighting for his life.

He was great up until the day his dad died. His dad was recovering and about to be moved out of ICU, when he suddenly had a major heart attack and died. This was Thanksgiving weekend just 6 months after his Mom had passed away. The other shoe dropped hard – again Mr Hyde came out and I thought again it was just the grief – but what I didn’t understand was this man who demanded commitment from me was not giving it to me. He spiralled down depressed, drinking a lot and suicidal, every chance he got he blamed me for not being there, although I was doing the best I could. He refused counselling, he blamed me for all the pain he was feeling and demanded “Why couldn’t I take it away?”

Did you believe the behavior was as a result of his grief – or that it was more than that?

There came the point where I really started to realize and acknowledge to myself that his behavior wasn’t just normal grieving – there was definitely more to it, and the light bulb came on a little more about the cycle of abuse happening in our relationship. I still hadn’t totally figured out it was narcissistic abuse. I suspected he was either manic or bipolar and that he needed to get in and see a doctor to get diagnosed with whatever mental health issue he was suffering from.

I spent as much time with him trying to help him but not taking care of myself – then the first major discovery happened at 9 months into the relationship. He asked me to help him with his computer one day as he had a virus on it. Oh boy I got a real eyeful when I discovered the dating and porn sites he had been on. I was in shock. I blew up in anger and was devastatingly hurt. The secrets he had been keeping from me were unraveling.

Thinking back I now realize that there were indicators prior to his Mom passing away on his addiction to porn. An instance comes to mind when his friend Paul stopped by to do some work on his computer and commented that he wouldn’t have so much trouble with his computer if he’d stay off the porn sites. I took that as a ‘guy joke’ – but again recall he was always pretty protective of his computer and I had offered to help him with it prior to that incident but he would never let me on his computer.

He apologized, we went for counseling, he swore off his computer and had me help him clean up his mess (that had hurt me so much) and stupidity I did. I helped him delete all the accounts he had set up on dating sites and porn sites.

I believed him when he said he would change, and honestly I wanted my ‘happily ever after’ so badly that I looked passed his bad behavior as I held on to that dream. I realize now I was scared to lose him, and I was fearful that I would never find anyone to spend the rest of my life with. At that time I was still looking for happiness outside of myself and not just being happy being me and loving myself.

Things seemed to get back on track after that – the counseling helped and things were good. We got engaged in March 2011.

This was 4 months after the porn incident and he was pretty good at acting like the totally devoted and loving partner – only going on his computer to listen to YouTube when he made Sunday brunch. I didn’t realize that early in the morning (about 5 am) when he was getting ready for work he was still surfing sites prior to me getting up.

What were some of the red flags that were still appearing before you got engaged and when did the bad behavior appear again?

The signs of jealousy were still present, although not as much as before. He would always apologize and say it was just because he loved me so much. He even stopped the disappearing acts in punishment for things he didn’t like. However happy I was during that 4 month time frame, I realize now it was the best acting performance he had done during our relationship. I was happy, we were happy…or so I thought!

He started the punishments and cycles approximately within a month after we got engaged – it was like he thought now that the ring was on that he totally owned and controlled me.

2011 was a year of more discoveries for me. Still seeing red flags that I ignored – his computer came out again, the accusations about me cheating started again, the ‘go away come here’ cycles started up again, and again the abuse circle was tightening.

Every weekend, without fail if we weren’t together, I had to be out and cheating. I heard that so many times. It seemed once the ring went on he figured he had to be in total control of everything in my life. My friends were no good, my sons were trouble makers, and my dog was poorly trained. I was cheating. It was like a broken record hearing it over and over again.

When was the first time you broke up?

When we split up the first time for real, he dropped me like a hot potato. No explanations or anything – we were just done. This happened just before Christmas 2011. I was utterly devastated, really not understanding what had happened and I was angry. I texted, I called, I begged until he finally relented and accepted me back after 2 months.

He talked to me during the 2 months apart but it was always to say I should be happy that he found someone to be happy with and to rub things in my face. He had ‘moved on’ immediately. When he agreed to reconcile with me he demanded I stay away from his ex-wife Laurie, saying she was causing all the trouble between us by spreading rumors, and he was angry at me for talking to her and believing her.

Since he had given me a second chance I relented and kept a healthy distance from her. He was also angry because I wouldn’t drop everything and move in with him and elope. I had always indicated I wanted a small family wedding at the gardens on the U of S campus.

When we reconciled I decided to stay more observant about the things that were happening in our relationship. I noticed his cell phone was never left accessible to me, not even for a second. The computer was hidden, and he made an excuse that it was not working properly so he wasn’t using it anymore (big lie). I did not realize how hooked I was.

We both committed to work on the relationship, or so I thought. We went back to counseling and things looked like they were going to turn around, but this time I re-entered the relationship with more critical eyes – observing everything, and little by little I started accepted the red flags as truth and there were no more excuses.

More secrets came out. He was severely behind on his maintenance and had been hiding that from me. His finances were in a disastrous state. More texts were coming through that were hidden, secret internet usage first thing in the morning before I got up. He was hiding his computer and cell phone and having coffees now with supposed friends. He was incredibly evasive if I asked him any questions about what was going on. There were cash withdrawals from our joint account with no explanations, and he was making more and more accusations about what I was supposedly up to. The abuse circle was tightening even more.

You truly must have been suffering badly emotionally at this point. How were you feeling?

I didn’t realize how much of a mess I was until June 2012 I ended up with a virus called Pitriasis Rosea – which is commonly known as Xmas Tree rash. It’s in the same family as shingles and the narcissist blamed my work and the stress I was going through there. He kept saying if I had listened to him and quit that job that I wouldn’t have gotten sick and that now I should quit and let him take care of me.

I was so broken by stress from both him and my job that I believed him, and asked if I could be laid off from my job. A few days after I returned to work full time my boss offered me a package and then hired me as a consultant to enable me to work at a distance and from any remote location I wanted to. I moved to Saskatoon the following month to live full time with the narcissist.

When did the relationship with him really start to crumble?

The relationship really started to crumble July 2012 when coincidently I decided to move in with him. I worked from home and he kept randomly dropping in – checking up on me. He followed me shopping to test if I was where I said I was, checked my cell phone and he was always asking me who I was talking to. He criticized everything I did and got mad over everything.

I went shopping with my sister in law one day and let him know I was going to be later because she and I were going to have dinner together, and he was furious about that. There’s much more that happened, and I realized I was going to be criticized and controlled – living in constant drama if I stayed and that’s not something I could live with – so I bolted and came home to Calgary.

What did he do? How did he follow up you leaving?

At this point a warning bell went off in me – my intuition was warning me that something was going to happen. I actually felt scared of the narcissist, not sad or mad, actually really scared. When I shared how I felt with him, he told me I couldn’t come back to get my things and that he was changing the locks on the house. I left it alone for a while because I just didn’t have the energy to deal with anything he was doing to try to punish me.

Thanksgiving was coming up (October) and the narcissist called and asked me if I would consider coming over as he was making a big turkey dinner. He said it was so we could spend time with family and then talk about what happened

between us and work things out. I went to Saskatoon with my son Shawn but decided to stay with my Mom instead of him – I was still very unsure of his behavior and wanted a safe place.

When he found out that I intended on staying there instead of with him he started a big fight and said I wasn’t welcome there. He stated I was causing too much drama (apparently by making this choice to protect myself). I saw him briefly one day to chat before I headed home again. The accusations and attacks from him continued.

The second attempt was Christmas time. He again wanted me to come and spend it there with him and his family. At this point I was still hopeful a miracle would happen and we would sort things out. When I told him I would be there Christmas morning because I wanted to spend Christmas Eve with my sons, as I traditionally do, he stopped answering all communication with me. I cancelled my flight to Saskatoon, stayed In Calgary. I was done in every way shape and form. I spent Christmas day in bed crying. I was devastated I had let this happen to myself again. December 28, 2012 was the grand finale, when I knew I would never ever go back again. That was the day I started No Contact for good.

When did you start getting some answers about what really did happen?

In 2012 I started getting a glimmer of sorting through what was going on – I looked up the definitions of what a narcissist and psychopath were along with a lot of other conditions like bipolar and paranoid schizophrenia. I knew something was severely wrong with this man and it was making me not just emotionally ill but physical symptoms were showing up as well.

In December 2012 when the same pattern of breaking up happened again, him devaluing and discarding me again for the umpteenth time, I reached out for help on the Internet and posted anonymously. I needed answers and I received over 200 responses to my story.

When I read through them I was drawn to a post that a lady named Phyllis wrote – and decided to take a chance and send her a friend request. Meeting her was no accident.

You discovered at this time of great pain some information about your inner patterns. What were they?

I realized I was living in a dream world and not reality – wanting to find happiness outside of myself (in my relationships to be exact). I gave way too much of myself to make it work – leaving my cup empty and turning me into someone I truly did not like at all!

I discovered I loved others too much and me not enough. Looking for acceptance and love from external sources left me with very weak personal boundaries. I had kept this pattern up for years not knowing how to break it. Before my inner healing journey I thought this was ‘normal’ in all relationships, not really understanding it wasn’t or how to get ‘normal’.

I realized how my childhood had certainly helped set me up to be a narcissistic abuse victim. I have two older brothers (8 and 10 years older than me) and it was pretty apparent from quite a young age that my middle brother resented me being there. He would pick on me all the time, making comments and beating me up (I thought it was just normal kid stuff).

My Dad was on the road (he was a trucker until 1981 when he passed away). And he left my Mom at home to do everything – the stress was tremendous on her and she suffered from a lot of anxiety because of it. Because her nerves were so fragile she always needed someone to blame for things which went wrong at home and at that time she drank too much as well.

I ended up being that scape goat, and no matter how good my marks where or how accomplished I was at sports it never seemed good enough. My Dad chose work over us kids – missing a lot of important events with us kids and my Mom – Graduations, birthdays etc.

My Dad passed away in 1981 (I was 16 years of age) just when I really needed that fatherly guidance. My Mom for the first time since marrying was truly left alone and decided to start dating. She met Herb that following year and basically left me to cope on my own. Herb was a narcissist, and I got to experience the trauma that created for my mother.

I guess I really never felt wanted by my family, and that is ultimately what led me to moving away from them later on. I wanted to live free of the drama and pain that my family represented.

I know so much of this led me to try to get love, validation and approval from outside of myself, rather than knowing how to provide that to myself.

What words of advice would you give to the people who are going through this, or are yet to get out but know that they need to?

Never give up if you want a better way of life. Be kind and gentle with yourself, and respect yourself.

On your journey you will have many steps forward and backward but as long as you are committed to healing and growing you will go forwards.

I was finally healing that inner child who was so broken and needed love (that self-love) so desperately. Woke me up to feeling after being so shut down emotionally – that after shock of what happened to me (and I let happen to me ) in the prior three years with the narcissist and in reality my whole life prior.

Fright or flight was a very realistic part of my life and since I have been progressing in my healing I rarely suffer from anxiety anymore. I live in the here and now for the most part and really truly love and accept myself for who I am now. I am not fooled, I know I am not totally over being a co-dependent – this will be a life time commitment to my recovery; however I know I have the tools to deal with whatever comes my way now.

As I got better and joined the gym I picked up speed on my recovery and I was able to start coming back out in to the world – in a really powerful and amazing way.

I have a lot of new positive friends around me and am busy working on developing my own business now. Truly life feels great now – it is like ‘night’ and ‘day’ compared to what it once was.

I Hope You Enjoyed Sherry’s Story!

Another wonderful story! It brings me so much joy to see so many people committing to their healing journey and getting real results.

Thank you for sharing your story Sherry!