I'm grieving the younger version of me who took things she never should have had to take and then responded by giving more. The 11-year-old girl who already knew something about that story didn't feel right but couldn't explain why. The girl who was iced out and went home and hurt herself instead of getting angry at the person who had hurt her. The highly sensitive kid who learned that feeling hurt probably meant she was too sensitive, rather than considering that sometimes she was sensitive because something genuinely hurt. The woman who later gave and gave and gave because somewhere inside her was still that kid saying: See? I'm a good person.

The most lingering poison of a narcissistic relationship isn’t just what they did to us; it’s the shame we carry for "letting it happen." To heal, we have to stop viewing our past selves as accomplices and start viewing ourselves as the targets of a calculated psychological operation. if you take anything away from this, hope it’s these two truths:

• You didn't invite a "sick fuck" into your home; you invited a curated, mirrored version of a partner that he manufactured specifically to bypass your defenses.

• They hunt for empathy. Your willingness to see the good in him wasn't a flaw; it was a virtue that he weaponized against you