I Thought I Was the Problem

I didn’t wake up one day

and realize I was being harmed.

It didn’t start with shouting

or bruises

or doors slammed in anger.

It started quietly.

With a look that made me doubt myself.

With a joke that landed a second too hard.

With words twisted just enough

to make me wonder

if I had misunderstood.

I told myself I was sensitive.

I told myself love required patience,

and sacrifice,

and silence.

So I became patient.

I became accommodating.

I became skilled at reading the room,

anticipating moods,

adjusting my tone,

editing my thoughts

before they ever reached my mouth.

I learned how to disappear

without physically leaving.

Slowly, my inner voice grew faint.

The part of me that once knew what she felt,

what she wanted,

what felt wrong,

began to hesitate.

I asked questions and received confusion in return.

I raised concerns and was handed guilt.

I brought pain and was told I was imagining it.

Reality became slippery.

Conversations rewrote themselves overnight.

What hurt me yesterday

was denied today.

And somehow,

every ending circled back to me.

I apologized for emotions I didn’t choose.

For reactions born from provocation.

For surviving in a space

that demanded I shrink.

I walked on eggshells

and called it love.

I carried anxiety in my chest

and called it commitment.

I ignored my intuition

and called it maturity.

But my body knew.

It always knows.

The tightness in my throat.

The exhaustion that sleep couldn’t fix.

The fear that followed me into calm moments,

whispering, *don’t say the wrong thing.*

I didn’t feel safe,

yet I couldn’t explain why.

When I finally stepped back—

not physically at first,

but mentally—

I was left with one unbearable question:

*What is wrong with me?*

That question haunted me for months.

It kept me awake.

It convinced me I was broken,

difficult,

too much and not enough at the same time.

Then I learned a word

that changed everything.

Narcissistic abuse.

Learning that truth was painful—

but it was also the beginning of my healing.

For the first time,

the chaos had a shape.

The gaslighting had a name.

The guilt wasn’t random.

The emotional confusion wasn’t a personal failure.

It wasn’t that I was weak.

It was that I had been manipulated.

Understanding that didn’t erase the pain,

but it untangled it.

During that fragile phase,

I searched desperately for something—

anything—

that could help me understand what had happened

and how to move forward

without losing myself completely.

That’s when I found real support

in *Narcissistic Abuse – Recognize, Break Free, Heal*.

What changed me

wasn’t just feeling seen.

It was clarity.

Clear explanations

where there had only been fog.

Words that named behaviors

I had lived through

but couldn’t describe.

I learned that boundaries

aren’t punishments.

They are protections.

I learned that love doesn’t require

self-abandonment.

That respect doesn’t demand silence.

That healing isn’t about fixing yourself—

it’s about reclaiming

who you were

before someone taught you

to doubt your own worth.

Healing wasn’t dramatic.

It didn’t happen all at once.

It came in waves.

Some days,

I felt strong

and grounded

and sure of myself.

Other days,

I grieved

the version of me

who didn’t know what was happening

but still kept trying.

I learned to listen to my intuition again.

To trust the quiet signals in my body.

To stop explaining my pain

to people committed to misunderstanding it.

I stopped asking for permission

to feel.

And slowly—

so slowly—

life began to expand again.

If you’re reading this

with a familiar ache in your chest,

if something in these words

feels uncomfortably recognizable,

I want you to hear this clearly:

You are not crazy.

You are not weak.

You are not alone.

There is a way out.

There is a life beyond survival.

And with understanding,

with the right tools,

with compassion for yourself,

healing is possible.

For me,

everything shifted

the moment I stopped asking

“What’s wrong with me?”

and finally asked,

“What happened to me?”

That question didn’t break me.

It set me free. 💜