I hid it well. For 16 years I lived with a narcisstic emotional and verbal abuser. I suffered in silence but was desperate for people to know of what I was enduring.

I hid it so well that when I left no one knew why; it was a surprise. Everyone looked to me as the bad one for leaving and surrounded him to console him. To this day those I once considered friends remain his and have shunned me.

If only people knew.