Why Unhooked and Healing Exists
For years, I knew something wasn't right in my marriage, but I couldn't explain what was happening.
There were wonderful times, but there were also times when I felt confused, hurt, and increasingly unsure of myself. I began questioning my reactions, my memories, and my own judgment.
I often wondered whether I was the problem. Was I expecting too much? Was I overreacting? Was it him, or was it me?
It wasn't until after I left my marriage of more than 20 years that I began learning about narcissistic behaviour.
As I learned more, I started recognizing patterns that had been present throughout the relationship. Experiences that once seemed confusing or unrelated began to make sense.
But understanding what had happened was only part of it. I also had to recognize how much the relationship had affected me and how far I had become disconnected from the person I used to be.
When I Began to Understand
After I left my marriage, his sister suggested that he might be a sociopath. The thought sent chills through me. Could I really have spent more than 20 years with someone like that?
I began researching the term, but not everything I read seemed to fit the man I had known. My search led me to the word psychopath, and many of the behaviours described sounded disturbingly familiar.
Eventually, I came across information about narcissism. As I read through the descriptions and patterns of behaviour, I could recognize almost everything I had experienced during my marriage.
The realization brought a mixture of relief, disbelief, anger, and grief. I finally had some answers, but the thought that I had been so misled for so many years, without understanding what was happening, was devastating.
"I wasn't trying to diagnose him.
I was trying to make sense of my own life."
What made that realization even more difficult was an occasion when he showed me a book he had been reading about narcissistic tendencies. It included exercises to help readers examine their own behaviour. During our conversation, he acknowledged that he knew what he was doing.
For me, that admission reinforced much of what I had been discovering. It was difficult to accept that behaviours I had spent years trying to understand were things he said he was aware of.
I was beginning to understand what had happened in my marriage, but I was also facing something equally difficult: recognizing how deeply those years had affected me.
Why I Wrote Unhooked and Healing
After everything I had experienced and learned, I wanted to help others who might be living through something similar.
I knew what it felt like to question my own judgment, to wonder whether I was overreacting, and to struggle to make sense of things that had happened. I also knew how devastating it was to discover, years later, how much I hadn't understood.
That became the reason I wrote Unhooked and Healing.
I didn't want to write a book filled with clinical terminology, diagnoses, blame, or judgment. I wanted to explain the behaviours and repeating patterns in ordinary language, using examples people could recognize from their own lives.
Most importantly, I wanted readers to understand that the confusion and self-doubt they may have experienced didn't necessarily mean they were imagining things or losing their minds.
My hope is that by recognizing these patterns, readers can begin to understand what happened, how it affected them, and why it was so difficult to see clearly while they were living through it.
That understanding was an important part of finding my way back to myself.
If you've ever questioned your own memories, your judgment, or whether the things you experienced really happened, I want you to know that what you felt and experienced matters. The confusion, the hurt, and the self-doubt were real. They weren't simply your imagination.
