Stuck in the Badlands
The Black Hole After Narcissistic Abuse
“Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
if I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
It’s been almost 2 years since the end of my marriage to a narcissistic psychopath. In the aftermath of his departure, I suffered a complete collapse of all systems that just shut down and went to black. Cognitive dissonance clouded my mind so that I was shrouded in a fog of torment and agony. Crippling panic attacks were disabling and unlike anything I have ever experienced. It was a full-body experience — mind, body, soul, spirit, heart, everything. Dysregulated brain chemicals, physiological symptoms, insomnia, panic disorders, intense anxiety. . . you get the picture. It was equivalent to withdrawal from heroin or fentanyl. The addiction was bigger than me and swallowed me up. He was a black hole, and I fell headfirst into the nothingness.
Stellar black holes form when the center of a very massive star collapses inwards upon itself. This collapse also causes a supernova, or an exploding star, that blasts part of the star into space. He was that shiny sparkly star until something happened to transform him. Black holes, those gravitational monsters so named because no light can escape their…
