Holidays with an abusive narcissist were the worst. [L] and I got together in the summer of 2017. Christmas of 2017, he got me a pressure canner (I’m 24 going on 80 and I LOVE my pressure canner). That Christmas was good, it was great even. I went home for the holidays to spend it with family so we exchanged gifts after I came home but it was such a fun time together. The next holiday was of course Valentines day, This was our second holiday/significant day together….. and the last time in our relationship that he didn’t completely sabotage every happy day we had. That valentines day he got me a little stuffed animal and a heart “Mom” necklace from him and [BABY] (I still wear it today, because fuck him, he can’t take away that happy memory with my son). This was February of 2018, that was the last present….. I stayed with him for 2 years after this……
His Birthday was in March, I made a big deal out of it. I love holidays. I love special occasions in general, anytime I can be over the top and loving and make someone feel special I do my best. I’ll admit my depression sucks away some of that in the day to day life when things get bad but I always try to go big for special occasions to help make up for that. I never missed a birthday, anniversary, holiday, significant day of his. Not ever.
My birthday was a few months after his. He dumped me. He left me on my birthday and I went up to the bar where he was working and he was BELLIGERENT drunk…. he said I couldn’t leave, and then yelled at me to leave. So I did. Then he called to tell me I didn’t love him (on my birthday remember?) so I went back. Then he screamed at me and called me crazy and a psycho bitch and all sorts of horrible things. He was black out. I told him I’d just wait in my car until he was off. His boss (not the super loving type at all) told him off because of how he was treating me. Finally the bar closed and I was half asleep in my car still not knowing what to do when [L] came out and apologized and told me to go home he’d get a ride home from [BOSS] and see me soon. I obliged because I thought he had sobered up and come around, NOPE! He walked off as soon as I left and went to his ex-girlfriend’s house. On my birthday.
–you see [L] is a narcissist…. he can’t handle things that are about other people, if the center of attention or the point of the day wasn’t about him, he would sabotage it. I still don’t know if he did this knowingly or subconsciously….. but every single time without fail he tore me down.
The next christmas 2018 [L] called me so completely F***ed up that he was hallucinating. He screamed all sorts of horrible things into the phone earlier in the night, convinced I was cheating, convinced of God only knew what….. and then we had a phone call I’ll never forget. He was convinced Dr. Strange was after him (yes I’m talking about spiderman here) he had to leave me because they would use me to hurt him. **insert a lot of hysterical crying and some random mumbles about a gun** and then I couldn’t get a hold of him until the next morning. I was up all night freaking out and crying scared for his life but hours away in a different city on Christmas eve with my family so there was nothing I could do. When he woke up the next day he called me, He had woken up in my Son’s bed with my THANK GOD unloaded 357. I hid the guns when I got home.
Still that same christmas, we had agreed we were going to do presents after I got home from being with family like we had the year before, I spent a lot of time and money coming up with the perfect present, It was an assortment of things he wanted and needed all put together in a super cute stocking, Over $100 in total with everything in it, I had actually used some of the gift cards I received as christmas gifts to help pay for parts of it. Things were pretty tight money wise, I didn’t have much but I had been saving and collecting things over the past few months, plus I was paying his rent and my own at this time because he was no longer able to live with us and somehow never had the money by the time rent was due…. His present to me? He cleaned up some of my house….. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful here but He always had chew, he always had booze, he worked constantly, but he couldn’t afford a present? So his present to me was picking up around the house and helping out with chores. I was a “spoiled brat” and “proved I didn’t even deserve a present” when I cried because my feelings were hurt.
Christmas 2019, Our last christmas with contact I’m sure I’ll write more about in a different post…. I think that was the most hurtful christmas of all.
[NAME REDACTED] 