This is just the beginning
This Is Just the Beginning: Finding My Voice After Narcissistic Abuse
I need to be honest from the start. I don't have this all figured out. I'm overwhelmed by the sheer weight of what happened. But I know I have to share it. If I don't, he wins. If I do, maybe I can help someone else find their way out a little sooner, a little less broken than I was.
This is the first post in a blog series where I will piece together my experience. This is my attempt to break the silence.
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I left with less than a quarter tank of gas. No plan, no destination, no money. It didn’t matter. After eight years of being systematically erased, I just couldn't take it anymore.
This isn't a story about a bad breakup. This is about being utterly destroyed by someone I loved. He didn’t just break my heart; he murdered the woman I used to be and got away with it.
This blog is my attempt to piece her back together.
What This Series Will Be About: A Map of the Nightmare
I'll be breaking this down step-by-step, because the devil is in the details. In the coming weeks, I'll share the specific patterns so you can recognize them:
· The Love Bomb & The Blueprint: How he used "soulmate" intensity to learn everything about me. What feels like intimacy is actually data collection for future ammunition.
· The Projection Playbook: How everything he accused his ex-girlfriend of doing—stealing, lying, cheating—he eventually did to me. This is a classic trick I never saw coming.
· The Madonna Syndrome & Withholding Affection: How he moved me upstairs, separate from his life. How he made me his live-in caretaker for his home and his dogs. How the intimacy died: we only kissed in the beginning, and he hadn't kissed me or been intimate with me for the last 6 years of our 8-year relationship. The painful reality of complete emotional and physical abandonment.
· The Triangulation: How he used his ex-girlfriend to harass me, having her message me and laugh at me, confirming his lies and making me feel trapped and crazy. He created a hell where I was being tortured from all sides.
· The Theft of a Life: How he completely derailed my life during critical years. While I was stuck in a trauma-induced coma, I should have been focused on the sale of my home, taking my ex-husband to court for spousal support, and raising my youngest son through high school. He stole that time and those opportunities from me and my children.
· The Escape: How I finally found the moment to run, even when I had nowhere to go.
This is just a glimpse. The crime is in the conditioning—the slow, systematic unraveling of your very self.
The Woman Before the Storm
To understand the loss, you have to know who I was. I was “619mom” on Instagram—a divorced mother of three rebuilding her life in Ocean Beach, California. I had a great job as a corporate chef, I walked the cliffs by the ocean every day, and my eyes had a sparkle. I was strong, organized, and full of hope.
He saw that. He scanned for it. He needed my light to fuel his darkness.
He approached me with a simple request: cook him 10 pounds of chicken a week. It seemed so innocent. I wish I’d never made that deal. That was the first step into a nightmare.
Why I’m Writing This Now
I share this now because I am a shell of who I was. But I have to break the cycle. I have to put this out there, week by week, piece by piece.
If you see glimpses of your own relationship in mine—if someone is loving you to death while starving you of real love—please follow along. This is my story, but it might just be your warning.
This is just the beginning.
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