As of August 10th, 2024 I’m 1 year and 9 months sober. While sobriety wasn’t intended, it was surviving a covert narcissist that used alcohol as a means to continuously assault me that inspired the journey. Among other things, getting my shit together was all I cared to do after experiencing the hell I endured.

Now almost 2 years later I’m alive and thriving. I’m navigating life with a sense of direction and everything I do comes from a place of love. I’m slowing down, giving myself time to process things, I’m trusting my intuition more and fearlessly pursuing my passions.

June 30th, 2024 I met someone at a concert. Instantly, we hit it off and started going on dates. It was followed by frequent texting, regular dates, breathtaking sex, conversations about the future and sharing bits of our pasts. Everything seemed well, until it didn’t. Even with me creating safe spaces to have open discussions about concerns, it resulted in me having to disassociate because my intuition and body started to warn me something was wrong.

For full context please refer to my previous, recent post (Listen To Your Body)

I trust in my decision more than anything to separate from whatever doesn’t positively serve me, however because I wanted to give myself closure, I caved and responded to the texts my now former romantic interest sent. I understand that closure might not be achievable in every conflict but possible, I’d like to give it to myself and whoever else.

Before reaching responding to the texts, I gave myself time to mentally and emotionally prepare. I wrote down questions like, “Why am I reconnecting?”, “What do I want to say?”, “What am I expecting to gain out of this interaction?”, etc. Once I gathered myself, I responded communicating my grievances and asked to arrange time for us to speak.

After scheduling everything, I went on to enjoy celebrating 21 months sobriety. It started with me waking up feeling refreshed. I spent 15 minutes cleaning my room, I showered, cooked myself breakfast and caught up on current events. Then I worked through my self care routine. I checked in with friends, gifted a stranger a handmade care package, played in the park, brought some protection charms I plan to give loved ones, and spent the evening relaxing at home.

This evening at 18:00, August 11th, he’s coming over to speak. I’ve already prepared and decided that I’m going to go no contact for good, but I want to give him a protection charm to wish him well. After everything, I don’t think that we’d be a great fit for one another and the conflict of interests would create unhealthy tension. Recognising this, I’d rather us work on ourselves/priorities until we find someone’s whose desires are in alignment with our longterm goals.

Initially acknowledging this hurt, but I’ve taken all the time to reflect so now I’m able to have this conversation from a levelheaded perspective. Even though everything was short lived, I appreciate getting to experience what I imagine healthy conflict in a relationship would look like. It gives me hope, and I’m glad I had this learning opportunity. My heart will hurt every now and then reflecting but it’s for the best.

My parrot suddenly died a week ago. Now I want to get another pet to replace my friend, yet I feel so weak. Losing them feels like losing family, even if it’s a parrot, or a hamster! On the other hand, there’s nothing like coming home and having someone waiting for you, always happy to see you, just to cuddle, sit on your shoulder, or beg for food. Our relationships with animals aren’t the same as with human friends. There’s no financial interest or intellectual aspect to it. Pets love us unconditionally, like children love their parents. We don’t have to pretend around them, we can be ourselves in our purest, most naked form. Vulnerable and sincere. When they leave us, it’s impossible to replace that void with anything; there’s nothing like it. The free and perfect love and joy pets bring us goes straight to the heart. Their only goal is to please us, to comfort in their awkward ways. They want very little and give much more.

I had a golden retriever for 9 years (before I got a parrot). She helped me through a lot of difficult times in my life. We moved from city to city, we went hiking together, she was always with me. I adopted a parrot weeks after her death and felt guilty about it for a long time. I physically needed to have a “replacement” in my home, I didn’t find the courage to adopt another dog. It felt almost like betraying my love for Romy.

And now I’m facing a similar situation. I’m not emotionally ready to have another pet, at the same time I hate waking up in an empty flat. Don’t know what to do. I can’t live without a pet, yet I can’t lose any more of my family members 😭

July 2022 was the year I decided to start doing things outside my comfort zone as an introvert, so it began with presenting more feminine and bar hopping. I brought two-tone wigs, revealing clothes and started wearing makeup. I began going on dates with people from media apps and was treated to tacos and margaritas every other day. Then, 2 weeks into August I met someone special. It was from that evening forward, August 17th, 2022, that my life would change in the most unexpected way.

It was half past 19:00 when I pulled up to a rooftop bar in my new, red and black two tone wig. I was dressed in all black; a cropped fishnet top with leather pants and eccentric punk makeup. I took a seat by the window and then… I saw him. My server. The man I briefly dated and the abuser who traumatised me. After placing a carafe of water at my table, he gave me a gentle smile and introduced himself. Post taking my order, I noticed his flirtatious expression in between passing, most to which I returned.

A few drinks later I worked up the courage to shoot my shot and asked for his number, after asking if he’d take a photo of me dining, both to which he surprisingly obliged. The next day we went on our first date. He picked me up at a nearby park early afternoon and we spent the evening getting to know one another over sushi and plum wine. Everything seemed fine at first but then his mask began to crack and before I knew it, the abuse began.

It started with the evening I initiated our relationship, August 24th, 2022, where we hopped bar after bar, and each time he’d force me to drink with him. It wasn’t long before my intoxication as he already had me drinking since 4pm; specifically Prosecco (11% alc.) and Geikkeikan Saké (15.6%). To spare details, once he noticed I was in a drunken stupor, he escorted me to his place and sexually assaulted me. To this day I have little to no recollection of the event; I only remember collapsing on the bed, wavering in and out of consciousness before passing out and coming to at the sight of him fastening his belt, telling me, “Come on, I have to take you home.”

It was that day moving forward this became a pattern; coercing me to drink until I’m drunk so he could assault me, but it didn’t stop there. I foolishly introduced him to my at the time best friend who he not only attempted to triangulate between us, but sexually harassed despite our protests and isolate me away from them and other members of support. Among trying to financially control me with encouragement to quit my at the time job and live with him, he simultaneously triangulated an at the time coworker of his. Whenever we were at bars, he’d blatantly flirt with other people. Additionally, he’d make racially insensitive about minorities despite being a minority himself.

Whenever I would hold him accountable for his inappropriate behaviour or inflammatory remarks, he’d gaslight me or play victim. He projected accusations of infidelity onto me despite cheating on me with his ex and several other people, then began badmouthing my loved ones. He’d purposefully arrange and cancel, deprive me of sleep, ignore text messages, violate my boundaries despite there being clear communication, and misgender me despite knowing I’m not a woman as he’s seen me without wigs and makeup.

Throughout all of the mistreatment I did my best to give him the benefit of the doubt because the moment I entered that “relationship”, I said to myself that I want to ensure I’m exercising all the proper avenues to ensure it works and that I’m practicing healthy communication. September 26th, 2022 was the day I had enough and blocked him on everything, effectively ending our relationship. At the time of us dating, for every “situation” that triggered me it was also communicated to a trusted loved one. September 26th is the day they spoke my truth on behalf of me. September 28th, 2022 is the day I came forth myself speaking my truth.

Not even a week later, I began finding myself descend into a state of despondency. I couldn’t get out of bed, I lost my appetite, I was impulsively spending to cope and I became incredibly isolated. Despite being fortunate enough to be met with support when coming out, it didn’t change I didn’t have a personal support system. I took legal action and spent the next 7-9 months fighting health complications and legal affairs. What made it hurt twice as worse is with coming out, several other people traumatised by my assailant approached me saying he did the same thing to me.

However throughout this time, I actively sought professional help. I chose sobriety, started volunteering, I picked up boxing, and dedicated the rest of my time to creating a better life for myself. Came September 22nd, 2023 I received justice in a way that felt good to me. Many of hardships have become a lot more manageable and I’m thankful for the connections I’ve built from them and are maintaining today. Now, it’s August 1st, 2024 and 2022 feels far away. I’ve been so preoccupied with continuously practicing kindness, self love and restoring my health that I sometimes forget that entire ordeal happened. August 2022 was a terrible period in my life that could’ve actually killed me, but I’m so glad to have survived and came out stronger.

My assailant traumatised the ever loving hell out of me, but he traumatised me so badly it made me want to get my shit together. Sometimes I never know whether to hate him or thank him, but I generally feel indifferent. While he’s a covert narcissist and they rarely never change, that doesn’t mean I can’t continue to change myself.

hi, all

I see most work abuse stories here are about colleagues and superiors. Why don’t we talk about abuse by clients?

My mother quit her job in healthcare after 9 years of work in a public hospital because levels of aggression and escalations from patients went just over the top. There are practically no formal ways to report abuse, disrespect, false claims, they’re being dismissed as “part of the job”. What part of the job? The job of medical workers is to take care of all of us. The recent couple of years should be an indicator of how badly we rely on nurses and doctors, even with all the risks they’re taking. But no one will act against a patient when they violate the hospital’s rules. Patients are ill, they don’t know what they’re doing, their relatives are stressed and didn’t mean it, etc,etc… The things my mother told me make me so angry! She believes nothing can be done about it. I think we can at least acknowledge that medical workers in public institutions must have the right to react to abuse accordingly. I don't know, make it a law, talk about it, punish it