By the time I was fifty, I had searched my soul and expanded my understanding to the point of knowing who I was, what motivated and inspired me, and mostly what I held close to my heart. Then my circumstances changed…and I was dragged back to a superficial, habit-driven existence that was propagated by someone with an entirely different world view, one focused on selfish, self-destructive & self-interested aims. It was downright painful. In every moment I experienced discomfort. I wondered where autonomy & freedom of thought & speech had gone. I railed against a patriarchal, materialistic system I had fought against, investigated and challenged for decades. I longed for equilibrium & harmony, which I no longer experienced in day-to-day interactions with my step-family. I did not, and do not belong in that particular corner of the world. It was a bitter thing to relinquish my identity & attempt to operate under that same superficial, disharmonious, egocentric world I had finally been freed from.

My new family was, as far as I could understand, damaged and dysfunctional because of personal tragedy. In an attempt to make sense of their world, they’d made it into an existence I found to be egocentric and narcissistic. It was a world in which no-one thanked me for my attempt to open their eyes & help them become everything they were meant to be. The situation was too complicated for us all to navigate and it ended in a separation that left me feeling traumatized.

Now I am finding my way back to a life of purpose & meaning, & while it is an exhilarating experience in many ways – a return to freedom that I want to share with the world – it is also sometimes sad, lonely and frightening. The journey to real empowerment is an ongoing process. On these pages I’ll address the insights I’ve gained over the past several decades, sharing what I have learned about the devastating effects of verbal, emotional and psychological abuse – insights gained from personal experience and from the many excellent teachers I have met in books and on web pages. With the ogre that is physical abuse now recognized and frowned upon by society, and punishable by law, abusers have gone underground to unearth more insidious forms of control. The effects of this covert abuse are just as destructive to those who are targeted, and are known to be longer lasting, farther reaching and more difficult to overcome than those of physical abuse. Many who have been targeted by emotional abusers say they’d prefer to take a hit. Me too. Despite my battle with fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I would have found it less painful to receive a bruise than to be on the receiving end of relentless verbal and emotional abuse. When one is already so ill, stress tips you over the edge and into a world of madness.

If you’re struggling in a situation with an abuser, or have removed yourself and are trying to regain your life and inner harmony, I highly recommend Melanie Tonia Evans’ program for recovery from what she terms Narcissistic Abuse. While abusers are not all narcissists, they do always possess narcissistic traits. To find out more, click on the following link:

Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program – Melanie Tonia Evans