But my nervous system knew.
It learned that freezing was safer than fighting, that surrender reduced consequences, and that peace was safer than protest. Over years, that conditioning does something profound. You stop trusting yourself. You question your memory. You doubt your instincts. You believe your needs are excessive. You feel anxious but can’t explain why.
On the outside, I looked functional. On the inside, anxiety tightened its grip. Depression crept in quietly. I developed compulsive patterns just to manage the tension I couldn’t name. And because there were no obvious headlines, I told myself I had nothing to complain about.
By the time my marriage ended after nearly forty years, I did not recognize the woman in the mirror. His abrupt abandonment didn’t just break my heart. It destabilized my entire nervous system. I had built my identity around maintaining him. When the relationship collapsed, so did I.
I was financially terrified and emotionally shattered, and yes, suicidal. Not because I was weak, but because trauma bonding wires love to survival. When that bond is severed, the body reacts like it’s dying.
That is the aftermath of narcissistic abuse. That is what a toxic relationship does to your sense of self.
Time alone does not fix it. You cannot logic your way out of subconscious conditioning or positive-think your way out of trauma wiring reinforced for decades.
I had to dismantle the beliefs I had been living inside: if I’m better, I’ll be safe; if I’m chosen, I’ll be worthy; if I keep the peace, I won’t be abandoned. I had to retrain my nervous system to tolerate boundaries, to say no without collapsing into guilt, and to experience peace without bracing for punishment.
My Story
I did not know I was being abused. That’s the part people don’t understand.
There were no bruises, no screaming neighbors, no broken dishes on the kitchen floor. There was a marriage, children, a home, and a life that looked stable from the outside. And inside, I was disappearing.
I married young. I moved when he moved and adjusted when he shifted. For nearly four decades, I learned to read the tension in his jaw before he spoke. I anticipated mood changes and measured my words carefully. When he pulled away emotionally, I didn’t see it as control. I experienced it as punishment.
Silence. Withdrawal. Affection withheld. Approval revoked.
When warmth disappeared, I searched for my mistake. When he grew distant, I worked harder to earn him back. I internalized the message that love was conditional and that maintaining it was my responsibility. Over time, the punishments didn’t have to be dramatic. A look, a tone, a weekend of coldness was enough.
I became hyper-vigilant. I calibrated constantly. I abandoned preferences before they could cause friction. I said yes when I meant no and apologized for things that weren’t mine. We moved often, and I became increasingly isolated. My financial world intertwined completely with his. My identity narrowed. I stopped asking who I was and focused instead on keeping the environment stable.
This is how narcissistic abuse often works when it’s subtle. It erodes you slowly.
There was no physical violence. But there were violations. There were times my body did not feel like my own, times when resistance felt more dangerous than compliance, and times when my discomfort did not stop what was happening. Because it occurred inside a marriage, inside a “good” life, I told myself it didn’t count.
And slowly, something changed.
I came back. Not the compliant version. Not the hyper-accommodating version. The real one.
Today, when a woman tells me she feels crazy, that she still misses someone who hurt her, or that she doesn’t know who she is anymore, I recognize her. Because I know what abuse does. It doesn’t just hurt you. It conditions you. It rewires you. And that wiring can be undone.
Reclaiming yourself after narcissistic abuse is not about becoming someone new. It’s about returning to who you were before you learned to abandon yourself for survival.
If you are standing in the aftermath of a toxic relationship, wondering how you lost yourself, hear this clearly:
You did not imagine it. And you are not crazy.
