My ex was a narcissist, it took me two years to recover from his abuse

Ronia Fraser, 41, from London, had a nine-month relationship with a man she later realised was a textbook narcissist. He left her feeling depressed, anxious and suicidal. She went on to retrain as a narcissist abuse recovery coach, helping women in a similar position. Here's her shocking story...

I really didn’t think much of Jake* when I was first introduced to him by a friend at a party. I was living and working in LA at the time and surrounded by good-looking men. I was working for a multi-million pound global music business, living in the Hollywood Hills and life was good. Jake and I said hello and I carried on chatting with my friend, without a second thought. He seemed quite confident and cocky but not really my type.

Yet within just a few days, I couldn’t imagine my life without him. It’s hard to explain how quickly our relationship snowballed. He lured me in with a story about his difficult childhood and his ex-wife who, he claimed, left him feeling neglected and unloved.

He had that seemingly rare combination of charm and also vulnerability and he really tugged at my heart strings. He lavished me with attention, compliments and affection. He told me I was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on and how different I was to all the other ‘crazy’ women he had known before.

He knew I was his soulmate, he said, and he couldn’t believe he had met someone like me. He made me feel like I was the only person in the world that mattered to him. I felt special, desirable and loved.

Whirlwind romance

Within a few days, he'd practically moved into my flat in the sought-after Hollywood Hills. We would spend hours pillow-talking and it felt as though we had so much in common – we bonded over music, travel, food – you name it, but also the fears and insecurities we shared, like being alone.

Yet within a few months, everything had changed. Jake went from being a great communicator to not responding to my text messages at all with no reason or explanation. He would disappear for days and nights on end. I would check his social media and see that he was out with other women. He didn’t even attempt to hide it.

When he finally got back, I would try to walk out, but that’s when the mask came back on and he would start crying and, once again, become the man I thought I knew so well – only to go and do it all over again. Almost overnight, I turned from a confident, successful woman into an anxious wreck.

Gaslighting me

When Jake started disappearing again then finally came back home, he would turn it all around to make it sound as though it were my fault. If I wasn’t so clingy, needy, crazy etc, he wouldn't have left, he said. Or if I was more attractive and more fun, he wouldn’t need to see other women. He also hated the fact I worked so much, in my job as a head of finance, and said it made him feel neglected.

He would come home very late at night or not come to bed, knowing how anxious I was, or he would start an argument and keep it going throughout the night to intentionally deprive me of sleep.

I realised later that he tapped into my unconscious belief I had of not being good enough and my, then unconscious, fear of abandonment. Although I’d had a very happy childhood, I had been adopted. Talk about a deeply ingrained unconscious belief of not being wanted.

Shattered self-confidence

For the longest time, I thought the problem was me. I couldn’t understand what was making me so irrational. I’d never been a jealous, crazy sort of person, but Jake took all my self-confidence and sense of self-worth in the blink of an eye, without me even realising it was happening.

I’d gone from juggling eight-figure sums at a large company to losing all sense of reality. My personal trainer was the first to notice something was seriously off. I was anxious, depressed and low on energy. It was all very out of character for me.

Soon after, Jake began withdrawing affection from me too. He’d gone from hugging, caressing and holding me all the time to keeping me at arms’ length or even pushing me away.

Addicted to love

I felt as though I had somehow become addicted to Jake and the love he showed me. I was desperate to get my next fix. I think I actually developed some sort of a chemical dependency on his love. When I had his full attention, I buzzed with oxytocin and serotonin. I felt loved, connected and on top of the world. When he took it away, I felt myself spiral into depression and anxiety.

Paradoxically, my job had actually been going really well and had become my safe place. I was doing 70-hour weeks and my MBA at the time. How could I be so successful at work and such a mess at home?

I developed a deep sense of self-loathing and began self-harming, tormented by suicidal thoughts. I just needed this pain to stop. In response to my mental state, Jake would make sure to ‘unintentionally’ leave box-cutting blades around the house, whenever he left after yet another argument.

That’s when my survival instinct kicked in. I don’t know what the catalyst was but I knew deep-down that if I stayed in this relationship, I wouldn’t make it out of there alive.

Escaping the relationship

I quit my job, cancelled my lease, sold everything I had and booked a flight back to England. I dropped everything I had built for myself in LA and ran for my life. Jake and I had only been together for about nine months at that point but it was enough time for me to lose everything. I still didn’t realise back then that I had been on the receiving end of narcissist abuse though. Not much was known about the subject back then.

My mental health was pretty bad in the aftermath and I knew I needed help to get better. I went to therapy religiously every week but grew really frustrated that, a few months in, I still hadn’t had any noticeable results. When my therapist told me that this would be my life going forward and all we could do was find ways to manage it, I couldn’t accept it.

I knew something had happened to me that turned me into this mess. So I went on a mission to find something that could undo the damage as effectively as it was caused.

Seeking self-awareness

There was no magic pill, no shortcut, I had to put the work in. But once I started looking within myself, following the different therapy programmes, both online and in person, while also training in them and focusing on my deep inner healing, everything started moving quickly. It took me about two years to heal properly from the trauma.

I started training in different types of therapies – coaching, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), hypnotherapy and Havening, a science-based therapy which uses touch. I probably spent around £20,000 on everything, with my earnings from LA.

That’s when I became interested in narcissistic abuse and had the idea to create a therapy programme specifically for it. I modified and refined the skills I had learned for managing complex trauma.

My own experience had given me a profound understanding of narcissistic abuse and the recovery, allowing me to support other women on their healing journey. I know the frustration, loneliness and hopelessness every survivor is experiencing. My ex cost me everything – my job, my house, my health and almost my life.

I have dated a bit since then but usually end up walking away from people. The thing is, after I began healing, I became very clear about what was and wasn’t acceptable to me. I won’t put up with the sort of behaviour I did before. A relationship isn't a priority for me at the moment. I'm very content to just focus on my work and ‘do me’. A relationship is more of a ‘nice to have’, than a ‘must-have’ for me now.

I have also learned that with the right practical solutions, support and self-care, women can find their way out of this nightmare. Narcissistic abuse doesn't have to be a life-long painful journey that it’s often made out to be.

My ex is now irrelevant to me. In fact, I'm grateful for the experience in some ways. Without it, I would never be leading the life I have today.

Ronia Fraser is an award-winning trauma recovery coach and clinical hypnotherapist in the field of narcissistic abuse recovery.

*Some names have been changed for privacy reasons.