Chelli Pumphrey

You didn't get this tired from the relationship. You got this tired from the job you were doing inside the relationship. That job had no title and no days off. You read moods. You rehearsed sentences before anyone spoke. Your body kept score too, and the physical effects of narcissistic abuse can show up as headaches and a heavy, run-down body that sleep doesn't touch.

Many of you already know the relationship is bad for you. That's not the question. The question keeping you up at 2 a.m. is why knowing that hasn't been enough to make you leave. This is the question I hear more than any other in my work with survivors of narcissistic and abusive relationships- usually followed by "what's wrong with me." Nothing is wrong with you. Here's a hill I will die on as a narcissistic abuse therapist

Here's what nobody tells you in the first six months after leaving: you'll miss them. Not the relationship. Them. And you'll hate yourself for it. I've sat across from hundreds of women in this exact spot. Smart women. Capable women, the kind who ran companies and raised kids and still ended up wondering what was wrong with them for "letting" this happen twice. It didn't happen because they were weak.