I lost myself for nearly two and a half years.

After I ended one unhealthy relationship with a person I almost married I unknowingly jumped into a relationship with someone else. I thought he was perfect. He seemed charming, intelligent and caring. At least that's what I saw. He was the epitome of a wolf in sheep's clothing.

As I sit here and write this, I'm having trouble forming the right words. Just thinking about what I went through fills me with anger, regret and sadness. I have to say something, though. I want to say something.

I was in an emotionally and mentally abusive relationship with someone who is a narcissist. Dating a narcissist is emotionally draining. It is mentally excruciating. I believed I was losing my mind.

I displayed many of the signs of someone who was being abused by a narcissist: I doubted myself, I was confused and I thought I was going crazy. He wanted me to believe I couldn't live without him.

We went to the same university and worked together for four years. We got along well, we conversed regularly. I thought we had so much in common. We both loved to write, we had the same interest in music and we liked the same TV shows. We came from similar backgrounds.

He knew the right words to say to rope me in just a little bit more.

He knew I was vulnerable and preyed on that vulnerability.

He knew how to get inside my head and stay there.

He had issues, but so did I. That's what I would tell myself.

My friends warned me about him and his ruthless mind games. I brushed it off, I refused to listen. I thought I was in love. I allowed his poisonous words to course through my veins.

I let him move in with me during my first year of graduate school. He didn't finish college for personal reasons that I still don't know to this day if they are true or another lie out of the many he told me. I worked and he could barely hold down a job for more than four months. He "couldn't work" because he was sick, but he refused to get help.

The longer we were together, the more I believed I was "crazy" and that everything was my fault. Some days I screamed, cried and wanted to crawl out of my own skin or simply disappear.

Everything was about him. If it wasn't, he would make it about him. I've witnessed him hijack entire conversations and belittle others. He isolated all of our mutual friends. He isolated his own family.

He became jealous and would make me feel guilty about hanging out with my friends. "Your friends are toxic," he would often tell me as a form of control and manipulation. He would purposefully engage in manipulative behavior and gaslighting to upset me and cause me to think everything that went wrong was my fault. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was in an abusive relationship and I felt trapped.

He even had the audacity to try to break up my best friend and I by hitting on her. I was angry and devastated. She showed me the disgusting messages he sent her behind my back and my heart sunk. I felt betrayed, furious and disgusted.

I wanted to break it off, but he sunk his claws even deeper into my damaged psyche by telling me, "It was a lapse of judgement and I was drunk." To this day I regret not breaking up with him right then and there.

I wasn't allowed to have guy friends. He would frequently look over my shoulder as I was texting and interrogate me on who I was talking to. I feared for my safety.

After my best friend tearfully expressed her concern for me and said, "If you don't leave him, he will kill you," I knew I had to put an end to this toxic relationship. My physical and mental health were going downhill fast.

I broke it off through a phone call when he was away at home. It was safer for me to do it that way instead of in person, since I didn't know if he would react violently. I didn't want to take a chance since he did physically assault me.

It took some time for me to move forward and it was grueling since he had planted so many lies in my head. With counseling and support, I am happy to say I am finally free and feel like myself again.

If you are in a relationship with a narcissist and want to end it, it is possible. It won't be easy, but it is for the best. Your wellbeing and life depend on it.

I've finally found myself again.

Author's Note: If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship and needs help getting out, please visit the National Domestic Violence Hotline or call 1-800-799-7233. You are not alone.