Make it Stop | Living Through The Pain of Heartbreak & Covert Narcissist Abuse

I wanted the pain to stop.

More than anything.

I wanted silence in my chest.

Air in my lungs.

A single moment where my skin didn’t feel

like it was trying to crawl off my bones.

But it didn’t stop.

Not for a long time.

So I prayed.

To a god I wasn’t sure was listening.

Please, make it stop.

Please, please, please.

But the only way out

was through.

Not day by day.

Not even hour by hour.

Breath by breath.

Scream by scream.

Tear by tear.

I sobbed violently.

At the sink. In the shower. In bed. In my car.

I screamed into towels.

Curled up on the floor.

Clawed at the air.

I played music constantly—

songs that held me

when no one else could.

Songs that cracked me open

so the grief could pour out

instead of suffocating me from the inside.

I became an expert in betrayal trauma.

In covert narcissism.

In trauma bonds and gaslighting

and emotional manipulation so subtle

even my brilliant brain missed it at first.

Not because I wanted to.

But because I had to.

Because if I didn’t understand it,

I thought it might kill me.

That’s what people don’t get—

this wasn’t heartbreak.

It was psychological warfare.

And I was trying to live through it

with nothing but instinct,

faith,

and a playlist on repeat.

There were nights I begged,

not just prayed—begged—

for someone or something

to take the pain away.

And there were nights

where I almost reached for something

that would’ve numbed it.

But I didn’t.

I let it burn.

Because somewhere deep down,

even in the devastation,

I knew:

if I numbed the pain,

I’d never find the truth underneath it.

So I let the fire do its work.

Not because I’m brave—

but because there was no other choice

that didn’t cost me me.