The Invisible Leech

Imagine your partner has an invisible leech latched onto the base of their skull. It feeds on their memories, self-worth, and joy. You can’t touch or see it, but you sense its presence draining them, day after day, thought by thought, hope by hope, bite by bite.

They feel it, too. They fill the silence talking about it and tell you how much it hurts. They tell you how it gnaws, how it whispers, how it never loosens its teeth. They tell you they want it gone more than anything. They fantasize about hurting it and cutting it off.

And you, the loving partner you are, would rip the damned thing off with your bare hands if you could. You’d burn it. Bite it. Tear it to pieces and send that foul piece of shit back to whence it came. Anything just to give them a moment of peace.

But you can’t touch it. You can’t do anything but stand there, watching this invisible thing eat away at the person you care about from the inside. So, you offer tools. Suggestions. Light. Language. Anything they might use as a weapon against it.

And they’ll nod and agree. They’ll assure you they want it gone as much as you do. But… they still allow it.

Not because they’re weak, or they enjoy the suffering. Not because they’re scared. Not because they believe the leech is a friend. Lord knows they’ve tried countless times before. No. They don’t try because they don’t see the point.

Removing the leech isn’t an immediate action. It takes effort. Risk. Hope… which leads to disappointment. The leech isn’t comfortable. It’s just familiar. Safe. Effortless in the way gravity is effortless; you don’t choose it, you just fall.

When you reach toward the wound, they flinch. They snap. Sometimes they bite you instead, because that pain has taught them to see every hand as a threat. And there you are, bleeding, confused, and still somehow holding a light for someone who keeps turning away from it.

Narcissistic abuse doesn’t end when they leave their abuser. After all the doors have slammed and the messages have stopped, and there are no bruises left to hide, it still echoes behind their eyes like a second consciousness, judging their every thought, feeling, and move.

Loving a survivor of narcissistic abuse is like waking up in a war zone. You arrive after the bombs have dropped and the smoke has cleared, only to find the buildings still crumbling, and they’re still checking the shadows for snipers.

You want to save them… Of course, you do. But you can’t pull someone out of this darkness. You can only light their way while they stare at the floor and swear there is nothing worth walking toward.

If you tell them they matter, they ignore you. You promise to help them rebuild, and you become a threat. A dare. Proof that failure is still possible. You tell them you love them, and they know deep down that you’ll get tired and leave like everyone else.

So, how do you help someone who has survived narcissistic abuse?

Support. Plain and simple. It’s not a rescue mission. It isn’t martyrdom. There is no secret cure. It’s standing beside them while they learn to remove their own leech. You don’t get to decide when that day comes, either. Or if at all. You just keep the light burning.

And keeping the light burning isn’t a passive act of endurance; it is an active, daily choice. You move forward not by focusing on the leech, but by relentlessly building a life outside its shadow. You create warmth even when they feel none. You carry hope like an ember, not a torch. You starve the trauma by creating new memories that have nothing to do with it.

But "standing beside them" also doesn’t mean circling the same pavement until you both turn to dust. That isn't support; it's a shared sentence. It’s letting the leech take two victims instead of one.

You are a lighthouse, not a life raft. You cannot sail into the storm, fight the waves, and drag their ship to safety. You will both be torn apart. Your only job is to keep your own light burning. To be a stable, unwavering beacon on the shore. You must protect your own foundation from the storm, because if your light goes out, you will both be lost to the darkness as well.

Being with a survivor of narcissistic abuse is a slow, patient, and defiant work of moving forward. You don't win by ripping the leech off. You win by building a life so full of new light, new joy, and new purpose that the leech and the darkness it feeds on simply have no place left to hide.