Many people ask this question; they wonder, what does this feel like?
It is a beautiful destruction. It doesn’t happen at all once. For some, it only happens later, once the final discard occurs.
The destruction happens ever so slightly; a rose petal – every day. Many people ask, what a narcissistic relationship feels like. But this is the wrong question, but you are here – and you are asking, and you are wondering, so I will answer it. And then I will tell you the right question
The Seduction
First, you must understand how it begins. Because if you do not understand the beginning, you will repeat it. And you will repeat it. And you will repeat it. Until you understand.
There is no answer.
There is only the question.
A narcissistic relationship does not begin with abuse. If it did, no one would stay. No one is going to subject themselves to this. The mind is not that stupid. Even the most wounded among us would walk away from someone who slaps us on the first date.
No. It begins with magic.
It begins with a feeling you have never felt before. This person sees you. Not the mask you wear for the world. Not the performance you have done over decades. You. The real you. The one you have hidden even from yourself.
They ask questions no one has ever asked. They remember details no one has ever remembered. They say things like “I have never met anyone like you” and “I feel like I have known you my whole life” and “you are the only one who truly understands me.”
And you believe them. Why wouldn’t you? It feels true. It feels more true than anything has ever felt.
This person feels like the one truth that has evaded you, it was always on the outer edges of your vision, something you were looking for. The ship on the horizon, coming closer to you.
This is the hook.
You do not know it yet, but you are being studied. The narcissist is not connecting with you. The narcissist is scanning you. Learning your wounds. Mapping your needs. Discovering exactly what you have been starving for your entire life.
And then they feed it to you.
If you were neglected as a child, they smother you with attention. If you were told you were too much, they tell you that you are perfect exactly as you are. If you have always felt unseen, they see you with an intensity that takes your breath away.
It is not love. It is a mirror. They are reflecting back to you exactly what you most want to see.
But you do not know this yet. You just know that you have found something rare. Something sacred. Something you would do anything to keep.
And so you do.
You do anything.
The Slow Erosion
The shift does not happen all at once. If it did, you would notice. You would leave.
It happens like water wearing away stone. So slowly that you cannot see the change until the stone is gone.
One day, there is a small criticism. Nothing major. A comment about your friends. A raised eyebrow at your family. A suggestion that you would be happier if you just did things slightly differently.
The Narcissist erodes you slightly. They say things around you, near you, to you, about those around you; with the intent to minimize. They do not do it so loudly that you would notice.
They leave open a door, where anyone who is blind, who is ignorant to their devices, would say – you just misunderstood the naracissist. Perhaps the issue is in you, the victim.
You adjust. Of course you adjust. You love them. Love means compromise. Love means growth. They are probably right anyway – you could be better.
Another day, there is a flash of anger. It comes from nowhere. You said something wrong. You do not even know what it was. But suddenly they are cold. Distant. The warmth you have become addicted to is gone, and you would do anything to get it back.
It is here, they condition you.
So you apologize. Even though you do not know what you did. You apologize because the distance is unbearable. You apologize, because the addiction to them is divine. You do not know how to live without it.
Does this sound right?
And the warmth returns. And you learn: when they are upset, you apologize. That is how this works. That is how you survive.
You do not see it yet, but you are being trained.
But it doesn’t get better.
The criticism increases. It is always delivered with love, of course. They always say, “I love you, I will always love you,” — BUT.
There’s always a but, at the end of the sentence.
You start to doubt yourself. Things you were certain about become uncertain. Memories you trusted become unreliable. Did you really say that? Did that really happen? Maybe you are remembering it wrong. They seem so sure. And they love you. Why would they lie?
This is called gaslighting. But you do not know that word yet. You just know that reality has become slippery. That you can no longer trust your own mind.
They will say things. Things that hurt. You are not allowed to react
There are good days. This is important to understand. If every day were bad, you would leave. The narcissist knows this. So they give you just enough good to keep you hoping.
A perfect weekend, full of love and laughter, followed by weeks of coldness. A moment of vulnerability where they show you their wounds and you feel closer than ever, followed by a cruel remark that cuts you to the bone.
You become addicted to the good days. You live for them. You tell yourself: this is the real them. The cruelty is just their trauma. If I love them enough, if I am patient enough, if I am good enough, the good days will become every day.
They never do.
But you keep hoping. Because the good days are so good. Because you remember how it felt in the beginning. Because you cannot accept that it was all a lie.
The Inversion
Here is the most insidious part. Here is where the true damage is done.
Slowly, imperceptibly, the relationship inverts.
You entered this relationship as a whole person. Perhaps a wounded person, but whole. You had a self. You had boundaries. You had a life outside of them.
Now, you are not sure where you end and they begin.
Their moods dictate your moods. If they are happy, you can breathe. If they are upset, you are in crisis. You check their face before you speak to calculate whether it is safe. You rehearse conversations in your head, trying to predict what will trigger them.
You have become a detective in your own relationship. Scanning for clues. Managing their emotions. Walking on eggshells so carefully that you have forgotten how to walk normally.
And here is the inversion:
When they hurt you – and they do hurt you, regularly, predictably – you feel guilty.
Not them. You.
You wonder what you did to cause it. You replay the conversation looking for your mistake. You think: if only I had said it differently. If only I had not brought that up. If only I were better.
They have trained you to take ownership of their abuse.
When you try to express your pain, something strange happens.
You say: “You hurt me.”
And within minutes, you are apologizing to them.
How does this happen? You are not sure. You entered the conversation as the wounded party. But somehow they are now the victim. Somehow your pain has become an attack on them. Somehow you have been so cruel, so unfair, so abusive for even suggesting that they are not perfect.
This is called DARVO. Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
But you do not know this word yet. You just know that you cannot bring up your pain without being punished. So you stop bringing it up. You swallow it. You bury it. You tell yourself it is not that bad.
Meanwhile, it is killing you.
The Isolation
A narcissist cannot tolerate competition.
Anyone who might see through them, anyone who might tell you the truth, anyone who might love you in a way that does not serve their control – these people must be eliminated.
It starts subtly. A comment about how your friend does not really have your best interests at heart. A suggestion that your family has never truly understood you. A hurt expression when you want to spend time with anyone other than them.
You start to pull away from the people who love you. Not because they asked you to – they are too smart for that. But because it is easier. Because you are tired of defending your relationship. Because every time you see your friends, you have to explain the bruises – not on your body, not yet, but on your soul.
Eventually, you are alone. Just you and them. No one to reality-check with. No one to remind you of who you used to be. No one to tell you that this is not normal, this is not love, this is not okay.
This is exactly what they want.
The Violence
Not every narcissistic relationship becomes physically violent. But the emotional violence is always there.
The silence that lasts for days. The look of contempt that makes you feel like an insect. The words designed to find your deepest wound and tear it open.
“No one else would put up with you.”
“You are lucky I am still here.”
“I hate you.”
And then, sometimes within hours: “I love you. You are my everything.”
This is the whiplash that breaks you. Not the cruelty alone. The cruelty followed by tenderness. The hate followed by love. Your nervous system cannot regulate. You are in a constant state of hypervigilance, waiting for the next shift.
Some days they hit you with words. Some days they hit you with hands. But every day they hit you.
And you stay.
Why?
Because you remember the beginning. Because you believe the mask is real and the monster is the aberration. Because they have isolated you from everyone who might help you see the truth. Because you have been trained to believe that their abuse is your fault, and if you could just be better, it would stop.
Because leaving feels like death. And in a way, it is. The self you have become in this relationship – the small, compliant, hypervigilant self – that self cannot exist outside of them. To leave is to let that self die.
You do not know yet that this death is the beginning of life.
The Discard
Here is the cruelest part.
After everything you have given. After you have shrunk yourself to fit their needs. After you have abandoned your friends, your family, your sanity, your self. After you have begged and pleaded and apologized and tried and tried and tried.
They leave.
Or they make you leave by making it impossible to stay.
And they do not look back.
The person who told you they could not live without you, who said you were their soulmate, their everything, their once-in-a-lifetime love – that person moves on as if you never existed.
You are in ruins. You cannot eat. You cannot sleep. You check your phone every thirty seconds. You replay every conversation looking for what you did wrong.
And they are… fine.
They are posting on social media. They are updating their profile pictures. They are living their life.
This is when you realize – truly realize, in your bones – that it was never real. You were not their great love. You were their supply. Their audience. Their mirror. And when you stopped serving that function – when you were too broken to reflect their glory back to them – they found a new mirror.
You were replaceable.
This is the wound that takes the longest to heal.
The Aftermath
You are free now. You should feel relieved.
You do not feel relieved.
You feel like you are going insane.
You replay the relationship obsessively. You gather evidence. You screenshot old messages. You build a case – not for court, but for yourself. Because some part of you still does not believe it was that bad. Some part of you still wonders if you were the problem.
This is normal. This is what trauma does. Your mind is trying to make sense of something that does not make sense. You are looking for logic in a person who operates without it.
You will not find logic.
You will only find more questions.
You want them to hurt. You pray for it. You fantasize about the moment when they realize what they lost, when they feel what you feel, when they finally understand.
That moment will never come.
They are not built for it. The wiring that would allow them to feel remorse, to truly see you, to understand the damage they have done – it is not there. It was never there.
You are waiting for water from a stone.
You check their social media. You monitor their activity. You notice when they change a profile photo, when they were last online, when they post something new.
You tell yourself you are looking for signs of suffering. But really you are looking for connection. Any connection. Even a painful one.
This is the addiction talking. The trauma bond. Your nervous system was wired to them, and now it is searching for the signal. It does not care that the signal was poison. It just wants the familiar frequency.
This will fade. But it takes longer than you want. Longer than seems reasonable. Longer than anyone who has not lived it can understand.
The Healing
So how do you heal?
Not by understanding them. You have analyzed enough. You could write their biography. It does not help.
Not by getting revenge. They will not feel it. They will only use it as proof that you were the abuser all along.
Not by getting closure. Closure is a myth. There is no conversation that will make this make sense, no apology that will undo the damage, no final word that will let you rest.
You heal by stopping.
Stopping the analysis. Stopping the contact, even the surveillance from a distance. Stopping the hope that they will change, that they will see, that they will come back and it will be different.
You heal by turning away from them and toward yourself.
Who were you before this? You have forgotten. You will have to discover yourself again, like a stranger.
What do you want? You have been so focused on what they want that you have no idea. You will have to learn.
What does your life look like without them at the center? You cannot imagine it. But you will build it, brick by brick, day by day.
You heal by grieving.
Not just the relationship. But the fantasy. The future you imagined. The person you thought they were. The love you thought you had.
None of it was real. And that is a death. Let yourself mourn it.
You heal by feeling the feelings you have been suppressing.
The rage. Let it come. You have swallowed your anger for years to keep the peace. It is still in you, rotting. Let it out. Scream into a pillow. Write pages of fury. Feel it in your body and let it move through.
The grief. Let it come. You have lost something precious – not them, but your own innocence. Your belief in love. Your trust in yourself. Cry. Wail. Let yourself be broken.
The fear. Let it come. You are terrified of being alone. Of being unlovable. Of this happening again. Sit with the fear. It will not kill you. It will pass.
You heal by building a life that has nothing to do with them.
Not a life designed to make them jealous. Not a life designed to prove you are over them. A life that is genuinely yours. That has your fingerprints on it. That you would want even if they never existed.
This takes time. Longer than you want. Some days you will feel like you are making progress. Other days you will be back at the beginning, checking their status at 2am, wondering why they get to be happy.
This is not failure. This is healing. It is not linear. It is not clean.
But one day – and you will not notice when it happens – you will realize you went a whole day without thinking of them. And then a week. And then you will struggle to remember their face.
They will become small. A chapter in a long book. A scar that tells a story but no longer bleeds.
The Gift
I promised you the right question. Here it is.
You asked: what does a narcissistic relationship feel like?
The right question is: what does it reveal?
Because here is the truth no one wants to hear:
You chose them. Not consciously. Not because you are stupid or weak. But something in you recognized something in them. Your wounds matched.
The narcissist could only get in because there was a door open.
What is the door?
This is the question that will set you free.
Perhaps you did not feel worthy of healthy love. Perhaps you were taught that love must be earned through suffering. Perhaps you learned early that your job is to manage other people’s emotions. Perhaps you believed that if you could just love someone hard enough, you could save them.
These are the doors.
The narcissist did not create your wounds. They exploited wounds that were already there.
This is not blame. This is power.
Because if the door is in you, then you can close it. You can heal the wound that made you vulnerable. You can learn to love yourself so completely that you no longer need someone else to validate your existence.
And when you do that – truly do that – the narcissist loses all power. Not just this one. All of them. Forever.
Because you will see them coming. You will recognize the love-bombing for what it is. You will notice when someone is scanning you instead of seeing you. You will trust your own reality instead of letting someone else define it.
You will be free.
The Truth
One final thing.
You are not special.
I do not mean this cruelly. I mean it as liberation.
You think your narcissist was unique. Uniquely cruel, uniquely deceptive, uniquely capable of destruction. You think your relationship was singular in its devastation.
It was not.
There are millions of people, right now, going through exactly what you went through. The same love-bombing. The same erosion. The same inversion. The same discard.
The narcissist is not a unique monster. The narcissist is a pattern. A type. Almost a template.
This means your pain is not special either. It is universal. It is human. It is shared by countless others who have loved someone incapable of love.
You are not alone.
And you are not broken.
You are wounded. There is a difference.
Broken means finished. Irreparable. Done.
Wounded means hurt. Bleeding. In need of care.
Wounds heal.
You will heal.
Not because time heals all wounds. That is a lie. Time does nothing. Wounds that are not tended fester.
You will heal because you are tending the wound. You are looking at it. Asking questions about it. Trying to understand.
This is the beginning.
The rest is up to you.
Stop touching the wound every day and wondering why it has not healed.
Let it rest.
Let yourself rest.
The one who hurt you is gone.
You are still here.
That is enough.
That is everything.