02/24/2026
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My Closure Letter to a Narcissist - From Victoria, The Author of Unmasking the Narc
To the Narcissist Who Shattered Me into a Million Pieces,
You came into my young life when I was in such a low place. We had loads of fun together, and it was amazing to finally have someone who truly saw me. We’d while the nights away having s*x and talking into the wee hours of the morning. It felt like we were really connecting on a deeper level. Then, when we weren’t together, you were messaging or calling me for more conversation.
Little did I know that you were studying me as I spilled all of my deepest darkest secrets, insecurities, hopes, and disappointments. In hindsight, you were very quiet, not really saying too much and letting me do most of the talking. I now know that you were cataloguing my precious wounds for later use and abuse.
“What I mistook for attentiveness was merely data collection.”
Being raised by a narcissistic parent meant that I was already a codependent people-pleaser with low self-worth. I was pre-primed to accept gaslighting, devaluation, silent treatment and other forms of narcissistic abuse as though they were a regular part of any relationship.
Not only did I spend twenty years accepting your emotional battery, but I even defended it to myself and to others who noticed it along the way. It’s not that I enjoyed your behaviour, it’s just that it was so familiar to me.
It breaks my heart to think that I actually believed many of your put-downs and harsh words. Whenever there was a problem within the relationship, you would project your own unhealed wounds onto me and I would take them on as my own. You actually had me believing that I was the one who had issues with intimacy and control!
As the years rolled on, I took on more and more of your trauma, thinking that I was a broken person who should be so lucky to have anyone at all.
Every time you flew into a rage about something not going your way, I’d stand beside you and funnel copious amounts of energy into you. Yet you never once acknowledged how much relief you gained. It just became the expected norm that when you had a tantrum, I was required to come running and make you feel better. Heaven forbid if I didn’t respond to your outbursts!
Yet, I’d still rationalise your behaviour because the reality was that I wasn’t ready to see the truth myself. The truth, which I’d known deep inside for the longest time and wasn’t yet ready to acknowledge. That you were an abusive husband who sucked me dry and who, at times, I actually hated.
I knew it wasn’t just me experiencing the shutdown as a result of your narcissistic ways. It became evident within the kids as they grew from babies to toddlers and then into their school years - The way they’d stop talking when you walked into the room or how they’d dim their light, just to stay small and remain unnoticed in order to stay safe. Things really hit home when our youngest child angrily said to me one day, “Dad’s a bully!”
As a mum, I knew that by staying with you, I was teaching our kids that your abuse was okay. My biggest fear was that they would go on to either become abusive themselves or get stuck with their own abusive partners, further perpetuating the cycle.
I remember our first anniversary as a couple was treated as a complete non-event to you since the love bombing phase had well and truly ceased. However, you did manage to belittle me in front of your friend and slip in a brag about a girl you used to sleep with, just to drive home how unimportant I was to you.
So, why did I stay beyond that first year when I was already so miserable and unhappy with you? The answer is simple. I had nowhere else to go and my self-worth was so dismally low that I actually thought my life consisted of you or no one.
Oh, how I wish I could go back to my 22-year-old self and have a great, big, loving chat with her!
Beyond the sh*tty first anniversary, which was a waving red flag, there were all of the other special occasions that you totally ruined. I’ll never forget how devastated I was on my first Mother’s Day, which you ‘forgot’ and ignored, even though the birth wounds were literally still fresh! Any other day that wasn’t about you was always destroyed by you with rage, devaluation, cruelt,y and disregard.
Slowly, as the years crept on, I knew I wasn’t happy inside, yet I still stayed.
By that point, the trauma bond was so deep, not that I even knew of that term until after I’d finally escaped you. But I was fully aware of how loyal I felt to someone whom I actually despised half the time. I’d known for the entirety of the relationship that I’d settled too soon and too young with someone who I wasn’t even attracted to, much less loved with all of my heart.
I knew that you were more than happy with the workings of our relationship, whereby I always acquiesced to your needs, while totally forgoing my own.
I knew you’d never leave me because you had it too easy. Plus, with your laziness and disowned low self-worth, you couldn’t be bothered looking for a new supply (typical covert narcissist).
So, there were only two tickets out of this hellhole of a relationship:
Either you died in a car accident (yep, I’d fantasised…)
Or, I was going to have to leave you.
All along, I thought your behaviour was unconscious. It’s incredible how often I would reason away your despicable words and actions.
“He doesn’t mean it.”
,
“He’s just had a bad day.”
“I won’t poke the bear, and hopefully he’ll calm down.”
“Maybe when we achieve [insert future goal], he’ll be less stressed and more caring and affectionate.”
Yet during our last days together you revealed yourself spectacularly:
When you asked if you could touch me because my energy felt so good to you – it finally clicked for me that you were always consciously aware of how much energy you gained from me.
When you tried to get me to stay by threatening su***de, making me feel worthless, telling me that no one else would ever love me – I realised just how key your manipulative behaviours had been throughout our entire relationship.
When you threatened me for s*x after I’d left – I could see that I was only ever a possession of entitlement to you.
When you had another woman in my bed just weeks after the break-up of our twenty-year relationship, I had to finally accept the truth that while I’d poured so much love into you, you’d never actually loved me at all.
So, dear narcissist, I know that you’re never actually going to read my closure letter, but if you did, you’d just deny, gaslight, and then turn around and accuse me of being the narcissist.
Because that’s what you do. You spew your garbage onto those around you in order to protect yourself from the fact that you’re just as flawed as the rest of us. In fact, I’d even go as far as to say you’re even more [messsed] up than the rest of us.
And that’s okay. Because you don’t exist in my world anymore. I’m finally free of you plugging into me and helping yourself to my life force energy.
In fact, I could even thank you for highlighting all of my deepest wounds. It has allowed me to acknowledge and shift them out of my own consciousness so that I can transcend your lower realm. But I won’t, because that would just feed you more supply.
The icing on the cake is that you are completely irrelevant to me now. If I was still playing your game, that would mean that I’ve won. But the real winning comes in stepping off your game board and following my own true path filled with authenticity, unconditional love, and being my own source of all the things.
My light effectively extinguishes you because you love to sit in the darkness.
,
Goodbye, narcissist and good riddance.
From,
~ The Ex Who Eclipsed You and Set Themselves Free
