When I met my long-term Narcissist I was in my mid to late 20’s and after receiving my University degree I landed a job with the Government. My Narcissist, a high-school drop-out, was working in retail and didn’t have any aspirations for better.

Ten years ago, I tried to get back into the dating pool after being unceremoniously kicked to the curb by my Narcissist. I was new to dating, having been in my abusive relationship for almost a decade and I realized very quickly that I had a lot to learn.

I sat on my client’s sofa showing them the comps in their neighborhood and explaining why it was a good time to put their house on the market. I was a year out from my ten year relationship with my ex-Narcissist and I was putting my life back together again.

In that year, I got my Real Estate license. Now I was out to conquer the world of home buying. I took a sip of tea, from the beautiful bone china cup and my phone started ringing. I looked down and saw that it was the big muscley, Vin Diesel type guy that I had just broken up with.

I was reading comments on the Support Forum and several of the “victims” were discussing the telepathic connection they have with the narcissist, how they could “will” him to call, or how uncanny it was that he would call right as they were thinking about him. How they could feel him thinking about them and the pull of the connection they have with the narcissist.

Ingrid Roekke once said, “A child that is being abused doesn’t stop loving it’s parents, it stops loving itself.” A lack of self-love is the number one cause of toxic adult relationships. When something isn’t important to us we neglect it, we don’t treat it well and we don’t think much of it. But what happens when that thing is us?

Just follow your heart or the heart wants what it wants are phrases that get tossed around a lot, and it’s almost exclusively used to defend dysfunctional or toxic relationships. Selena Gomez had a hit song out entitled, The Heart Wants What it Wants. Halsey has a song out called, Bad at Love, where she describe the toxic relationship choices she’s made – as if love is to blame.

Wallet … check. Car keys … check. Cell phone … check. These items are just a few of the essentials that you make certain you have on your person before tackling the day. Your iPhone stores your entire life and helps you choose the nearest and nicest restaurants to boot — how lost would you be without your phone? How can you bare to live without it, every second of the day?