A few years back, I went through a major life crisis. My mother was fatally injured in a car accident and within a few short weeks of that, I had lost everything. I had no parents, no partner, no home, no car, no job and no friends. All of the things that make a person feel safe and secure were gone and I was in no man’s land. It felt as though the rug had been pulled out from under me and I sank into a deep depression.

During my struggle I travelled alone to South America and I stayed there for a long time. I learned to speak Spanish, I climbed the Andes and I tried to do anything and everything to make the pain bearable. Upon my return I immediately left for an Orthodox Monastery in Michigan and spent a few days with the most holy men I have ever met. Depression was new to me. I’ve always been a happy-go-lucky kind of person, but this experience, as horrific as it was, started me on a path of deep soul searching. I needed answers to how my life got so far off track and why I was so miserably unhappy.

Being caught in the haze of a Narcissistic relationship is being in a state of denial. It’s relative obliviousness to the subtle manipulations of a seasoned predator.

It’s a slow and subtle form of brain washing, where you know that you are unhappy and that feeling in your gut is telling you something isn’t right, but it’s also your lack of willingness to acknowledge it, or do anything about it. This haze makes us catatonic, unable to move and it brings us feelings of powerlessness and worthlessness.

I felt compelled to write on this subject, as I’ve received several emails from women this past week, describing how the light of truth is just starting to dawn on their relationship, how they’ve been caught in this funk for years, decades even, but they’ve been unable to describe it or put a name to it, or even dare to escape from it.

A man with a hard luck story and a broken wing is irresistible to a lot of women. Perhaps, it’s because we are hard wired to be nurturers and caretakers, or perhaps, the broken wing we see in others is a mirror of our own pain and need for comforting.

Not too many people come out of childhood emotionally unscathed. We all have some issue or another that shapes our current perception and behaviours.  Sometimes the dysfunction is overt and obvious and sometimes it takes a while to see it in another. But we can prepare ourselves by understanding what drives and motivates another’s behaviours so that we don’t fall victim to it.

Boundaries are more than just lines on a map. In relationships, they are mandatory codes of conduct that need to be respected. It’s where we draw the line on what is acceptable behavior and what is not.

It’s a fact that you teach people how to treat you and whether it’s with family, friends, co-workers, or lovers, everyone must have boundaries. They are necessary because, well let’s face it, not everyone is playing with the same moral deck. There are a lot of very unhealthy people out there, who make a habit of projecting their issue

Think of a Narcissist like a hoarder.  In the same way that a hoarder finds comfort collecting objects a Narcissist gains comfort collecting people. They don’t trouble themselves with mundane things, like right or wrong, or other people’s feelings. To him, people are objects. To a Narcissist you are either Narcissistic Supply, Potential Supply or you’re nothing.

A Narcissist requires excessive amounts of attention and admiration.  Consequently, he accumulates an assortment of people (Narcissistic Supply) he can turn to whenever he has a need for them. These people, also

For much of my life I believed that relationships hurt. I thought that love equaled pain, because when I was in love, it always ended up hurting. Somewhere, subconsciously, I believed that that’s how you knew you were in love – it hurt.

Not surprisingly, most if not all of my relationships, ended with me feeling that way, regardless of who did the leaving. Heartache was always my default setting and it went with me everywhere I went.

I had a reader tell me that a man she had dated had come back into her life. Years ago, this man moved into her home, never paid a dime in rent and never worked a day that they were together. He wasn’t kind to her two children so they left and moved in with her ex-husband. He wanted a new vehicle, but he had bad credit, so he got her to sign a 5 year lease on an SUV for him and within months, he cheated on her and left her for another woman. And now he’s back acting like nothing ever happened and she’s wondering why he’s back and what to do next.