The Narcissism Chronicles: Real-Life Letters With A Toxic Manipulator — Vol. I

I see few personal stories from men — and I want to add my voice.

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There is no shortage of content on Medium about narcissists and toxic people, their motivations, their tactics, and their patterns. What I see less of are personal stories, especially from men. This is where I believe I can contribute to the discourse.

Rather than try to explain in an indirect way the kind of thinking, pleading, and rationalizing someone does when they’re in a relationship with a manipulative/toxic person, I want to share some of the real-life letters I sent her, unedited and unchanged — other than a few key details I obscured to protect the identity of the guilty, the manipulative, and the toxic.

Chronologically, this is the first letter I wrote, and it is also the letter that I most debated sharing with you. I don’t feel like it paints me in a particularly favorable light. It has mostly negative thoughts and feelings toward myself and it also has a lot of details that need additional context to be fully understood.

Plus, it’s really long.

Honestly, I’m amazed at how much I wrote in all of these missives. I didn’t labor over them; the words simply flew out of me.