Do I need to realise I am the abuser and narcissist?
This is going to be a very vulnerable post and I have no idea if anyone will read this, but I'd love your input. When I was 24 I met a 32 year old man online who was a small streamer and we started texting privately relatively quickly. He asked me to do so. He was kind, so we quickly talked more and more. There were moments during the first few weeks that I ignored, such as him forcing me to describe how I want him to please me sexually over the phone or that he said he knows how to look at people/talk to them to make them like him. He told me he never felt like this with anyone before and confessed his love to me at the end of the year on new years. I'm asexual so I declined and we stayed friends. Over the years he told me he was disabled, raped and many other stories who later then turned out to be lies (or maybe not? Because I have no idea what to believe at this point). I was always supportive of him, used my creativity for presents and little suprises! And so on. I put a lot of effort into this relationship.
I have to say that I am quite sick. I have me/cfs, pots, anxiety and depression. So he was my only friend. Which he knew and I always told him it would be okay to leave if he couldn’t handle it. As time went on, he kept being supportive of my interests and even my gender identity but.. he also always left me hanging and ignored my needs, regarding my health especially. Whenever I told him he hurt me, he told me he doesn't believe in blame and that he would never hurt me/it was never his intention to hurt me. After my autism diagnosis, he started treating me like a child and when he hurt me, he told me 'this is what people do' in order to let me know that I just don't get it because I'm autistic. He also said he wasn't treating me any differently or like a child. On the other hand, he started buying me tons of gifts. Some he sent me, most he kept at home and never sent out. Including things I bought with my own money and sent to his address because it could only be delivered to his country.
He kept hurting me (emotionally), kept breaking promises, the lies kept confusing me that I.. broke. And I kept breaking until I broke nearly every single day. I always ended up crying, ended up begging for the truth and to be loved. He was always the only one who could stop the pain too. Though on the other hand I called him names in those moments and even hurt myself a couple times out of pure panic (not to punish him but in an attempt to make my pain visible because I wanted to be seen). In the end I also blocked him a lot and ghosted him for periods of time.. because I couldn't take the pain, I didn't want him to hurt me and I needed to calm myself down until I could fix it all again. I genuinely thought I was a monster which I told him, I told him I know I am at fault and I always begged for forgiveness. Which is what abusers do, right? He definitely has a lot of proof of how crazy I am while he always remained calm. And in the end, everything he did bothered me. As if my body was trying to tell me to run. He told me he needs me to be his friend and that I need to be a better person too. All while he never looked up any of my illnesses to make an effort because I was supposed to help him be good and if he made a mistake it was because I failed to educate him. Repeatedly. Yet.. I still always came back because it hurt to be away from him. He was my whole world while I was just a tiny part of his. It also hurt to be with him. I clung to the good times.. thought I could fix it if only I changed.
I've never acted liked this before and I am ashamed of myself. Just with one other person (not to this extent) in my teens who everyone said was abusive towards me. But maybe I was also an abuser back then? A lot of my friendships ended but never with a big fight. We just lost interest and stopped talking, I hate fighting, I hate discussions yet.. it kept happening and I hated it. All of it.