When Your Imperfections Hurt Others — The Cost of Being Accommodative in a Toxic Relationship

This is a page torn from my life, of a toxic relationship with a man having psychological disorders. In the six years I spent with him, I became a total mess both internally and externally. By sharing this experience of mine, I wish to throw light on the lives of those who have yet to take action for themselves.

I am the second child of a single-parent family, which made my younger self insecure and vulnerable to exploitation. As I joined college, my life became more miserable. I had absolutely nobody to relate to and thus had to keep myself secluded from the flock. While in college, when every other roommate and classmate thrived, I was shrinking inward. I longed for someone to be by my side and support me and finally got one, but the price I had to pay for that was huge.

From my previous experiences, I used to believe that I would have to pay back physically to get people to like me and do me the favour of supporting me. That was the idea society gave me from a very young age. Thus, when he suddenly appeared in my life, a part of me was expecting whatever he demanded. Though his entry was suspicious, I trusted him because I was so naive and badly wanted company. He immediately asserted himself as my boyfriend, knowing my helplessness, and started demanding things. Though I never liked it, I succumbed to the pressure of not knowing my options/rights or that it was not the right thing to do. I tried hard to meet his expectations but still was boiling from within out of shame, pain, and above all, his blame game. But things changed all of a sudden.

He always insisted on keeping our relationship a secret because, as he told me, he never wanted his family (who are orthodox, obviously) to be involved in it. I was so naive that I nodded to all such demands of his.
After a year, I realized the real reason behind this, and that was the beginning of everything.

One day, all of a sudden, I learned that he had been in another relationship with a girl from his alma mater for the past four years. I was shocked and almost died of the heartbreaking pain and humiliation that caused me. Although this incident in a normal case could have been the end of a relationship, an emotionally desperate and lonely me, didn’t have the option to quit. Meanwhile, the other girlfriend trashed him the moment she found out about his affair with me. He blamed me for his breakup and started demanding even more. I was abused physically, mentally, and sexually for the next 3 years and was forced to take multiple medications, some of which have very serious psychotropic effects. But I kept going.

He successfully detached me from everyone else who remained in my life, chopped off every other sphere of happiness, blamed me for almost everything, and glued me to him by loading guilt on me. I failed to realize the narcissism in him. I was not mature enough then. Fortunately, I later realized the way he mistreated me and escaped from him. In the meantime, some of his friends told me about numerous other relations he had alongside.

Sharing this was difficult because the cascaded trauma of six years is yet to heal. Even I chose to avoid certain words and incidents because recollecting those is traumatic. However, I had to share this story for three reasons:

1. Even today, there are many people trapped in such toxic relationships with narcissistic people. Realizing that you are trapped in one such relationship is the most difficult step.
2. It’s very difficult to overcome the trauma because society will blame the victim, and the victim will have to face the oppressor for a long time after coming out because such people always try to linger on for a long time.
3. Narcissists are humans with bugs in their source code, not demons.

But remember, not all toxic relationships are the same. There can be other reasons as well.

Is it important to come out of such relations?
The perspective may change from person to person; nonetheless, I can say that the relationship would be draining, and you may have to bear a lot.

As I mentioned, they are also humans, no doubt about that. They behave so because of the distorted personality they have, and it has nothing to do with who they are or their descendants. Simply their brains are unable to process everything in the same way as ours.

But burning yourselves in traumas like this by hiding and abiding will only worsen the issue! One should either, through giving the narcissist an idea that they have some sort of condition or by applying some force, make them take professional support. Nobody can magically change anything about their unconditional self-love and emotional draining toward victims without insight.

But before deciding to step in, you should first think about yourself. Are you in the right mental and physical condition to assume the role of a caretaker? If yes, then just go for it. If not, then you should sleep on it.

I am not qualified enough to give professional advice on this topic. However, my experience as a victim qualifies me to throw light on this very serious issue. Having awareness and recognizing such situations is very important for everybody. If you are at the receiving end of narcissistic personality, then try to realize the complexity of the situation. If you are at the rear end, look inward.

A good society begins with good households. A good household is the abode of healthy people. Remember, focusing on your mental health is not selfish. Let’s prioritize the mental well-being of us and our family along with physical health.