After my break-up many, many years ago, I accidently-on-purpose, came across the Facebook profile of my ex’s new woman. I remember at that moment turning into Joan Rivers, “What a hideous troll beast- oh gag me with a spoon- what is he thinking – how on God’s green earth did he choose her over me? Can we talk?”

Then I saw pictures of them together. They were both smiling and they looked really happy and in love. There were pictures of them hugging,  you know the ones where their foreheads are touching – the ones that look so sweet and deeply intimate. There were even pictures of her hugging his mother – his mother….the same woman, who months earlier, thought of me as her daughter-in-law. I was beyond consolable. All I kept thinking about was how easy it was for him to replace me and ho

Why don’t you love me? After everything I’ve done – how could you not love me?

At some point, everyone that has been involved with a Narcissist has wondered these same thoughts. That someone, promised you the moon and the stars and delivered nothing, and then discarded you like a bad habit, is so hard to come to terms with. A Narcissist’s behavior defies reason. It doesn’t make sense, because it’s not logical. Instead, it’s cruel, harmful and unnecessary. It causes us so much turmoil, because we never saw it coming (at least not the first time). It wasn’t even on our radar, because that kind of thinking and behavior is so foreign to the rest of us.

There are thousands and thousands of stories from victims of Narcissistic abuse that are absolutely horrific and heart wrenching and it leaves us shaking our heads, wondering, ‘How could somebody do that?’ Many, when they discover that their partner has a problem, become expert detectives and scientists to try and learn all they can about it. They want to keep their mate so badly that they will go to any lengths to do so.

I love the metamorphic dance of the butterfly. From slow, awkward, unattractive, caterpillar to elegant, graceful, beautiful, butterfly.  This dance is symbolic, illustrating our deep desire to shed the things that hold us back, spread our wings and take flight. It’s our collective hope, that we can start from where we are, and transform into our true potential. It can also represent a type of awakening, after a long slumber, or even a rebirth.

Many people walk through life asleep, never questioning what is, never aspiring to be more, or to grow. These people go through the motions and just accept what is. They are the walking dead. I know they exist, because I was one of them.

My deep slumber was the time that I had abandoned myself, when my life became all about someone else. I had forgotten about the little joys in life, the things that gave me pleasure and I had completely forgotten about all of the things my soul craved for its own growth and happiness. Those were dark times, when I lived in a fog, almost like something else had taken over my body. It felt foreign and unnatural, but little by little it was who I became.

The post-date analysis was one of my favorite pastimes. It was a special time, when my girlfriends and I would get together, usually over a meal, or coffee and we’d laugh about what colossal dating faux pas Savannah made this time. Throughout my various stages of emotional health, I have blundered my way through oodles of men, chalking up one epic dating failure after another, enough to supply RomCom writers with copious amounts of material for decades.

Through it all I have laughed, I have cried, but most importantly I learned. I’ve learned how to discern what certain behaviors and patterns mean, what to watch out for, when to proceed and when to climb out the bathroom window.  I know many of you are absolutely terrified at the prospect of dating and you’ve asked for a few tips, so I’ve compiled a few of my many hard learned lessons, to hopefully prepare you better and alleviate some of your anxiety. My first suggestion though, is to grab a pen and paper and write down exactly what you’re looking for in a partner. When you’ve got it out there – it means you’ve given it some thought, it’s in your conscious mind and you are more apt to notice it when it comes waltzing past you. So, without further ado:

Dating is tough, even at the best of times, but when you’re trying to get back out there, after an abusive relationship with a Narcissist, it can seem like a daunting task.  Through various emails and comments I’ve received, it seems that many of us are sharing the same, post Narcissist dating experiences and  the process is leaving many, feeling upset, frustrated and fearful.

Many months after my relationship ended with a boomerang Narcissist, I decided that I was ready to date again. I had read a ton of books, was seeing a therapist and I looked and felt great. I met a wonderful guy. He was attractive, had his own house, good job, seemed emotionally healthy and treated me better than anyone had ever treated me. I should have been on cloud nine, but I wasn’t. I remember sitting at home crying, missing my Narcissist and I kept wondering, why he couldn’t treat me that way and why I didn’t have the same feelings for my new Mr Wonderful.

Addiction:  a persistent, compulsive dependence on, or commitment to, a habit or practice, on a thing or substance, to the extent that its cessation causes trauma.

There are many definitions of addiction, but bottom line, it’s a dependence on something that causes one to have compulsive thoughts and behaviors, which they cannot control or stop.

Individuals can be addicted to many things such as, alcohol, nicotine, drugs, food, gambling, sex, but when we are talking about an addiction to a person, we usually use the word obsession.  When researches study addiction they often refer to certain neurotransmitters being present in the brain, or certain areas of the brain lighting up, or becoming visible on tests. At present there are no known studies to determine if the same brain patterns exist for an addiction to a person.

I was recently doing some research on addiction, for another publication, when I stumbled across something that fascinated me.

Alisa Valdes was living the dream. She did her undergrad at Berkley and received her Masters of Journalism at Columbia. She landed columns writing for The Boston Globe and later The Los Angeles Times. Her first novel The Dirty Girls Social Club was a huge success and landed her on the New York Times Best Sellers List. She was voted one of the top feminist writers under 30, by Ms Magazine and was even highly touted by feminist icon, Gloria Steinem. By all accounts Valdes’s career had taken off and the future was looking pretty bright…that is of course until she met him.

In 2013 Valdes released a memoir entitled The Feminist and the Cowboy: An Unlikely Love Story.

This memoir depicts the real life romance between Valdes and a rancher named Steve Lane. In it, she discusses the joy she found submitting to this alpha-male, which caused this feminist to make statements such as:

“Never expect anything; instead win him over ‘by giving and giving and giving until it hurts.”

“If an alpha-male cheats, let him. I would share him if I had to.”