“ The most devastating part of being with a narcissist is their ability to break down your sense of self.” 18:13 - Ashlee Levitch @thenarcandme

Breaking free from a manipulative narcissist is never easy but understanding why it takes longer to get out of a relationship can help you reach freedom faster.

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Our guest today shares the Unseen Struggle as a survivor With Escaping a Narcissist.  Ashlee Levitch, @thenarcandme is the Host of the Narc & Me podcast, Ashlee is a 5 year survivor of narcissistic abuse. With an audience of 50,000+ followers on TikTok, she educates on what narcissistic abuse looks like, the relationship dynamic, the severity of the abuse and how to heal through story telling and real life scenarios. 

Escaping and then being a survivor of narcissistic abuse can be incredibly difficult. Today we discuss what it means to be a survivor and how you can protect yourself and make a successful escape. 

Here are some key moments:

• Understand the Narcissist’s manipulative tactics : gaslighting, seeding insults and doubt, walking on eggshells, questioning your own reality, avoidant and neglect your existence, you have a hiding place, losing your voice.

"The person I loved and trusted the most, convincing me every day that I was losing my mind” 20:17

• Seek professional help , don’t isolate yourself and let them isolate you. 
• Establish healthy boundaries and keep them firm 

“ I was equally manipulated because of my level of trust, and he preyed upon that, which is what abusers.” 20:44

• Don’t worry about what others think: Radical Acceptance

“And the tough thing too is that you have to come to terms like my therapist all the time. I hate the phrase she uses like, well, today we need radical acceptance.” 44:40

• Don’t try to change the narcissist : Focus on your self change And losing people is part of the process and if they support the abuser they weren’t healthy for you anyways. 

“Change is inevitable, but especially as a survivor narcissistic abuse. ” 47:22

Music YouTube Library: Believe by Neffex

18.Escaping the Narcissist: Why we just don't see the narcissist at first ashlee

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Welcome to the Empath and the Narcissist podcast, where you regain your sparkle back after narcissistic abuse. I am your host Raven Scott,

a trauma informed spiritual mentor, certified meditation teacher, and human design expert. I'm empowering empaths three times a week in recovery and healing from narcissistic abuse, childhood trauma through human design, self-care, mindfulness advice, and expert interviews.

Ashley is survivor of narcissistic abuse with an audience of 50,000 plus followers On TikTok, she educates on what narcissistic abuse looks like, the relationship dynamic and the severity of the abuse and how to heal through the storytelling and her real life scenarios. escaping and then being a survivor of narcissistic abuse can be incredibly difficult. Today we discuss what it means to be a survivor and how you can protect yourself and make a successful escape. So let's get to it.

Hey Ashley, thank you for being here. It's so good to have you.

I really truly appreciate your transparency as well in sharing because. You still can have years afterwards, have some really difficult moments where things just trigger. So tell us before we dive in, what is your story? To give people reference cuz you can meet a narcissist anywhere and , your journey on exiting in a bit of that.

Now he's much. I don't know, personable and chatty, but at the time he was still actually very quiet, reserved, and my friends used to refer to him as cute Sheldon. Like he seemed very socially awkward, but for some reason he and I just clicked from the beginning. And so nothing happened for a while.

We worked together for a few months until the project launched, and then it was almost like we were an ad water couple. We knew each other so well, and we had what I had thought. Created some friendship or something, , some base for this relationship we were moving into.

And then after a little over a year, which the first year wasn't exactly smooth sailing. There were definitely some pretty bumpy moments. And when it comes to narcissism, I knew nothing about it. I didn't know what to look for. I didn't know the signs, which is why I think I've been so outspoken about narcissistic abuse because.

, we can't change the past, but do I wish I knew what to look for? Absolutely. Would it have changed the course of my life? Yes, it would've. I would've made different choices. But after about a year together, we ended up moving to Austin, Texas from Los Angeles. He's from Texas. He wanted to move back here.

I was really on the fence about it. I mean, I'd lived in LA for 25 years and I wasn't looking to move, but I was in love with him and so I gave up pretty much everything. I gave up my office. I eventually ended up selling my house in Los Angeles, left all my friends and family, and we moved here to Texas.

And then after about two years in Austin, we moved down to this very small town called McQueeney, which was beautiful and isolating , and I lived.

And we moved back into this house and then he ended up leaving one month after we moved into the new house.

.

Before we take our commercial break.

Because this is brutal. And it is. And we say all the time in the abuse community that it is not a normal breakup. It's not narcissists have a playbook at the end, after a discard or a forced discard, then. Unfortunately there is Hoovering, reverse Hoovering. They text you, they wanna know how you're doing, or they're viewing your stories or coming to a place that you would be.

And this continues to happen until you can scrounge up the last bit of strength to go no contact. And my trauma therapist always says, that's when the clock starts. You didn't start two years ago. You started one year ago when you went no contact so how am I now? I'm better. I don't cry every day anymore, which is a huge improvement. I don't even think I cry every week anymore. And for me, a big one was dreams. I dreamt about him every single night for the first year it was just brutal. My subconscious was battling me to figure all of this out. So it's been now about two, three months where I don't dream about him every. and quite often my day, the tone of my day starts with did I have a dream about him or not? If I didn't, then I can just have a normal morning.

Everything is fine. My day is great, and I don't think about it. But on those other mornings when I wake up and it's the first thing I think about, , those days can be a little bit tougher. I have noticed that I am less triggered. It was all the time. It was like being under fire in the beginning, and it is definitely slowed down.

I still have triggers. I do. And when they hit, they still hit hard, but they're less. And I have learned to a degree how to manage that and how to manage my emotions and how to talk myself down off that ledge when I'm on it. And so it does improve. I can tell you. Hang in there. You've got this.

I've included 20 plus healing resources such as guided meditations, exercises, and journal prompts to heal and to understand your human design and some astrology concepts as. You can buy your copy of my book, EMBA and the Narcissist, how to Overcome Narcissistic Abuse and Recover from P T S D Codependency, gaslighting Manipulation, and learn how to live your true Self with Human Design 1 0 1 on Amazon and listen on Audible.

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So, yeah, that's, that's an interesting question. It's always like, who left first? Cuz it's always different for every single person. But the heartache is always the same. Did he just decide he was moved on? Up and went or,

I don't know what's going on. This is madness. Or, I love you and you treat me like shit. And like we, I had all the different reason. And there were many times that I said, you have to leave. Or I would catch him on Tinder and say, you can't come home. And then of course he would love Bomb me and have a good reason for it, or there's never a good reason, by the way.

But

in the moment,

And that was when he told me, you're being abused by a narcissist. . I didn't know what that meant, and I had to Google it, and he asked me if I knew what gaslighting was and all these different terms, and I didn't know, and I Googled them all while sobbing hysterically. We were on the phone. I didn't go to his office that day.

We were on the phone. And so I said, well, he left. He's not here. He said he needed to make up his mind about what he wanted. , whether he was gonna marry me or not, because he'd asked my dad to propose three years before. It was always this constant elephant in the room. We would get in fights about it.

And so after that conversation, I decided I was done and I packed up all of his stuff while he was on a ski trip with his family, and he'd been gone for a couple of weeks figuring it out. Heavy quotes. and I said I was done. I was heartbroken. I was alone at the holidays in the middle of the country in the snow.

It was like a Hallmark movie, but in a horrible way

And then we moved into this house end of March and by then he'd started like ghosting me and the fertility clinic, whenever they had questions, he wasn't answering like is was he gonna go do the test he was supposed to do? He just, Was distancing himself. And then there was a day at the end of April, a year and a half ago when we were going to a family event and we ended up getting into an argument because I knew I'd spend all day with the whole family saying, when are you getting married?

Are you still trying to conceive, you still trying to get pregnant? Like all the stuff they would always ask me, which never made any sense to me. Cause like, why don't you ask him? Not me. and that turned into a fight. And accountability with a narcissist is never gonna happen. It's always challenging to even try and gain accountability from them.

So that ended up in a fight. And at the family event, he ignored me all day, which was not. did not go unnoticed by everyone. And we got home and when the fight continued, he just blurted out like, I'm out, I'm done. And then he went to sleep actually on this couch like he was gonna sleep here. And I said, no, you're not.

If you're out, you're out. So packed up his stuff. He left for good that night. However, it took nine months to go. No. He kept contacting me and then I would contact him and the typical unfortunate story with a narcissist. It took me changing my phone number, putting gates in front of my house, and basically in the end, I called him out as an abuser over email when he was emailing me, and that was the end, as soon as I used that word, which I knew was his trigger coming.

He came from an abusive household. , then that was it. I never heard from him again. And my Freedom Day is December 23rd,

This has happened to me too because I, you were sexually abused, so I was like, I'm in like totally hashtag me too. I'm ready to speak out. Like I legit, like, can say that I have a therapist who can affirm that. Right. And um, yeah, I got horrible blackmail threats, like just awful graphic pictures and videos that he took of us.

It's like this is gonna be out into the world. If you even defame my name, I'm like, I didn't mention your name, so obviously you feel guilty if you're

texting

telling on yourself right now. Yeah, to your point, , not to sound boastful, but like it's been a point of difference I guess I would say, because a lot of the people who do follow me on TikTok where I got started and then Instagram, first of all, I didn't start telling my story because I wanted to.

I, like I said, I own a digital marketing agency and we have a not IT policy, and none of my team wanted to learn the algorithm. And I was like, wait, I'm 10 years older than everyone. It shouldn't be me. And they're like, oh, yes, it should be you. You're the core demographic. So I started telling my story because I had no followers and I needed to put words to what happened to me.

And I was still in really in the thick of it. I mean, this was only a couple of months after I went, no.

And I was, I was a mess and I didn't have any followers and nobody was seeing it. And I was just trying to learn best posting times, best practices, and thought I would take the videos down and instead one of 'em like skyrocketed, like a hundred thousand, 200,000, and people kept asking me to share.

So I think the point of difference for a lot of people who do follow me is that we're healing together. because I still have some really tough days. I have a lot of green days, but I'm also, I mean, it's still so new one year, no contact in a year and a half of him not being here is

it goes next .

Yeah. This is why I started the Empath Healing community because it really is important to have community to help survivors to gain their power back. And I've put the link for you to learn more about that in show notes.

It goes by fast, but it's also very new and everything's still very fresh.

yeah,

It's beautiful. So what does a survivor of a narcissist abuse look like to you?

right? The, it looks like anybody, it looks like, a girl who owns a business who is doing well enough, and it also looks like a man in a low income area. It, it's everybody there. It's not limited.

And

it's, um, just, it's universal. Mm-hmm.

That it continues to happen because there's no consequence and it's behind closed doors and we protect our abusers and people are finally saying, I won't do that anymore.

they see them as this beautiful, of course, they probably enable them to even become this, but them and their coworkers and everyone sees them as this charming, good standing citizen, and then behind closed doors, they're emotionally berating you, neglecting you, and doing all these things that are just emotionally devastating.

Everyone else just thinks it's a comment.

I don't do it alone. I have a team of amazing, amazing women who work with me, but every day he would tell me how forgetful. , and I started to feel a little forgetful. And sometimes I would forget something we all do, right? But those moments were always called out really quickly, and he did it for so long and so frequently.

Anytime I would forget anything. And the one thing I've always been terrible with names, always. I'm terrible with names, so I don't know why, it's , a definite personality flaw for me. But if I would have a hard time remembering a name, you'd be like, , you forget everything. You're losing your mind. And after five years of it, I made an appointment to be assessed for early onset Alzheimer's because I thought I was losing my mind, the person I loved and trusted the most, convincing me every day that I was losing my mind.

But it was such a calculated, perfectly covert situation where he just kept chipping away. Oh,

Another guest. Season four episode one 14, Monica Rogers. In how to deprogram yourself from narcissistic patriarchy.

You know, it's just like,

, for me, I've done all , this processing, but there was still that attachment.

Why different things like a temperature, a smell, a sound, all of these random things , can bring out a trigger. So it's just really multifaceted in the most horrific way.

Like you said, every time he could throw a bullet towards you emotionally with his. He would, and you just keep catching him. And so you have all this, emotional, whole riddled body and it, like she said, it absorbs. And then you smell something, you see something, you hear something, and then your body goes into that like shock again.

And then as a survivor, how do you miss the person who abused you? How do you miss the good times? It's all very confusing. And like you, , of course my therapist is like, oh yeah, we checked that p t s box off. I mean, , I know approximately where he lives. And even, , for some time in Austin, I really didn't leave the house much.

I don't leave the house much at all, but I really, really didn't leave the house at all then because I would break into a sweat and I would see him from time to time in a car or something. And , she's like, it's the C P T S D and I didn't know what C P T S D was. Prior I like you thought, P T S D from a war vet, but there's P T S D and then C P T S D, the complex because the traumas have continued to happen over and over and over, and carry memories with them through years.

, unfortunately, as much as it's terrible, war vets can be at war for a couple of years. Right? But we talked to survivors who were in it for 30,

But yeah, it's, , very, Mixed for me in terms of it wasn't a hundred percent of the time awful. And that's what why I stayed. , I stayed cuz it was amazing and I loved him so much of the time, but when it was bad, it was typically pretty bad.

just named

So when someone's constantly gaslighting you in a relationship, their words don't match their actions. They're constantly making promises. They're not doing them, or they're trying to make you question your own reality. Like with mine, I would, he would say something and later if I would reference it, he'd say, I didn't say that.

You said that. See, you're losing your mind. I didn't say that. You're always forgetting everything. And that was a big tactic in my relationship that gaslighting. toxic behavior. If you, if you always feel like you're walking on eggshells and you can't express anything without it being an argument, you're never allowed to talk, like sit down and talk about how you feel, that's a problem.

And for me, if I said once, I was like, I feel like I'm walking on eggshells. And he said, I feel like I'm walking on eggshells. I just wrote you an email about.

But like, I'm sitting literally looking at his email , and we're in the middle of an argument and I'm like, it's not here. So again, it, that was me saying eggshells. And yet then he's gaslighting. , like they're all of these different tactics. If you're questioning your own reality, fights with a, a couple or in a couple in that scenario, whether it be same sex or , different sex, it doesn't matter who you're with.

Or even a family. Fights happen. People get mad, people storm out, but eventually they can calm down and have some conversation about it. A narcissist will never do. So it goes to level 10, and then they come down to like a level two. You're still at a level 10. And then that's when we have what's called reactive abuse.

When you just are like a boiling pot and you boil over, they go back down to a level two. And then for us, it would result in a lot of different things either. . He liked to sleep in a separate bed. Sometimes he would say the dogs night would wake him up. So either he would just go sleep in another room or he would go to his office and sleep at his office in San Antonio where he lived for like a year and a half after we broke up.

There would be a separation or he would not wanna go anywhere and. , I didn't really tell anyone this for a long time, but I used to take my three dogs, put them in the car when we were new to Austin, and I felt that gut feeling like I needed to run that fight or flight, like I wasn't safe and not that this is safe, but I used to sleep in the car with my three dogs in the parking lot.

And it would typically be running to the. and I would like do laundry and like, or pretend to be doing the laundry. And he'd be like, babe, how often are you doing the fucking laundry? Like, what's going on? You in the laundry? And I found out later that most survivors, whether they were cognizant of it or not, had a hiding place. And that was my hiding place. And I didn't know that that's what it was. But for some odd reason, I ran to the closet to feel.

to move forward. And then you actually see the actions that they do

versus the narcissist will not even apologize at all. They will storm off, they'll neglect you.

Like you said, he would go off wherever or you didn't feel safe. And they stay and they like command the.

And then you left.

Come on, let's go. Let's go on the boat. It's like they're just fine. And they put that on the shelf. It's done. It's over, and we have to suck it up. Because if we go back to, no, I'm not okay, because this happened, then we're starting a fight.

Then we're the problem. It's a.

And yes, it could turn into something physical as well, which would be very unfortunate, but that would also be a very good, obvious sign to you that this needs to end sooner than later. Like, stop holding on your dear life to this sinking.

fix them.

because , we also hold up this false reality, right? It's like this whole, our whole life is propped up on, , on toothpicks. And if we don't pretend that everything is fine, not only do we have punishment from them, but then how will everyone else see us? And then they'll try and push you into leaving before you're ready.

So I think there's a lot of isolation that happens on our part as well, and I definitely experience that. . There were people I was close to that I didn't talk to as frequently, because there were days where I knew they would say, how are you? How are you guys? How, how is he? And I was expected to be like, oh, he's great.

He's starting this new company and he's doing this and he's doing that. But I didn't feel emotionally up for it. And if you find that you're not able to have. Those conversations openly with your friends or being able to talk to your family members openly, that's a problem, , and, and you do get punished for being honest.

There was a time where I was telling a girlfriend about an argument we'd had, just cuz I needed someone to talk to and it was over and we were fine. I didn't know he was listening from the other room and I didn't say anything wrong. I really honestly didn't, I didn't say anything bad about him. I just talked about the fight and I also talked about my poor reaction and how I blew up and , I didn't get why I was being so emotional.

Now I know why after all the years of abuse, but , I talked about both sides of it. And he got really angry with me and said it was my job to make him look good, that it wasn't my job to, in his words, throw him under the bus to our friends.

And, and the questioning your reality because they do gaslight you, you start to question. , did I see that? Did I like, you questioned what you saw. You questioned what you heard. You don't trust yourself anymore. And when you get to a point where you can't even trust yourself anymore, then that is, that's your big red flag about what's going on with you versus, , red flags with your partner.

But I think for me, that's a really big one.

So now I had to unpack my own infertility

he knew you wanted that because that was at a very crucial moment where you packed his stuff up and you really, really, truly were over it. And then he pulled out that silver ribbon and was like, I have one more stop. And this is the stop. She wants a baby. , and that's why he kept putting it off, right?

Because he probably didn't really want.

He did all kinds of terrible things. At one point we slept together. Like, I mean, this is normal for adults and he really made it seem. , there possibly was a future for us, and that he was thinking about that, and we were starting to talk about that, and we expressed how much we loved each other. And then he ghosted me and just vanished, and I lost it.

And I was like, I'm not just some girl, like I'm the one you were trying to have a baby with less than a year ago. And all of this, it's like their behavior starts to unravel after the fact. Like even in the hoovering and all that stuff, their behavior gets worse. And it's like the portrait of Dorian. , like they start to get uglier, their behavior gets uglier, and the back and forth just got really just so tough for me.

And when I looked in the mirror one day after about nine months of it, and I could have easily been looking at you, I just couldn't anymore. Like there was nothing left of me. And so he emailed me. He went on the , family ski trip again, , the following year, the family

He couldn't call me or text me now, so he sent me an email and it was an email with a link to TikTok. Where it was some product for the dogs to wash their feet. I lost it because why? And so I just

his way in, right? It was like, Him that was gonna come in. It was again, the care for the dogs that was gonna bring him

Like, what are you doing? You don't even have my phone number. Like now you're emailing me and I keep asking you to leave me alone. Like, what the fuck? So we went back and forth a couple of times and I just couldn't. And so that's when I called out the abuse and was like, I have document. from the therapist that we saw.

You were my abuser. I've asked you to leave me alone and you won't. And I just outlined everything about the type of abuse , and I told him, I was like, I can't, , I'm a shell of myself, like, you broke me. I don't know what you wanted out of this, but you got it. Like, , I'm barely functioning.

And at that point I would say I was definitely suicidal. Like a lot of survivors are.

And once I did say I thought he was manipulative and he lost it, and I saw then that like, oh, I didn't mean to push a button, but that's a button.

I think I wondered if he got it because to your point, I expected something.

but I was not going to engage because I think no contact includes not engaging when you find yourself in person with them,

Yeah. That would've just shot my nerves into something crazy. And they do always come back to her view, no matter how many, they just always do. Mine would a couple times, and then even just recently, ironic, I won't reveal too much, but it was an email and it was like, Hey, in the subject line.

And I, and it was not from his name, and I was like, this seems like him, so I'm just gonna delete it. and I.

My people, the few people that I know, know him, know, I don't wanna know, but I, I do know that, or I have heard that he met someone within two months. They moved in together and, , jumped in very quickly and moved back to the same neighborhood we used to live in. And so he

I don't know how this even happened, but. , he knows I'm not an option, but normally you are correct. They, they don't give up. They do show up for years. Yesterday, I'm in a group chat with some other survivors and one of them is coaching someone and the ex that they went no contact with everywhere, sent them a dollar on Venmo just so they could send them a note.

So

have them blocked.

And that's where it gets really. , for me, I lost this for the most part. Not all of them. Some of the people are still in my life, as complicated as that is, but I lost a big chunk of a really large family that I became very close with and I loved deeply. I would do anything for them. And so all my friends, for the most part were his friends. , your circle gets really small and sometimes , there are those mutual friends that you're not super close with, but they'll still hang out with your ex. And to me, if they still hang out with them when they know what happened or even have an inkling of what happened, they're condoning the abuse.

And so I've gone on a blocking spree for all of them.

Some are his family and some see him for exactly who he is and are definitely on my side. And, , I hate that they have to navigate that complicated situation, but,

just never

I agree.

who didn't look at the world the way I look at it, who didn't suffer through any of the trauma. I wanna be that girl. But that's not possible. So how do you look forward and find who that new person is that you want to be? How do you carry on the lessons, but find your way to that person? I think for me, the only other thing that you have to do, a tip to heal is we all focus so much on.

breaking trauma bond, getting our independence, all of that. But you can't do any of that until you resolve the cognitive dissonance, until you stop looking at them as a good person who does bad things, and you can embrace the really difficult reality that they are a bad person who does some good things, then you can't heal.

that's, that's the first and most important step cuz everything else can fall in line behind that. But if you can't get your head around that, you can't heal.

taken care of over

there.

work out on its own too. I think people are very fixated on revenge and karma, but like don't, that's just more of them and their energy. Like, look at what's ahead of you and what do you want and how do you wanna get it? How do you wanna get there? The rest of it will all sort itself out.

Number four, don't worry about what others think. Number five, don't try to change the narcissist. And number six, losing people is part of the process. And if they support the abuser, they weren't really healthy for you.

don't forget to grab your free 10 ways in How to Overcome Pain and Live Narc free audio series. The link is in the blog page in the bio. Meditation can end your suffering from narc abuse Practice daily. Meditations in the free Luvo app. Download the Google Play or Apple App store. Now I am honored to be hosting live guided meditations in March for Sanjeep on this app.

Learn more in episode 12. Five powerful techniques for increasing your vibration to repel the. Grab all the links to everything I've mentioned on the blog page in the show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a screenshot and share it on your socials and tag me at Raven Scott Show And remember, always keep your unique light shining.