Love Bombs and Bad Debts: A Narcissist’s Guide to Emotional Bankruptcy

It’s both astonishing and a bit scary how our bodies hold onto every trauma. They say the body keeps the score and mine has certainly taken notes.

Over the past few years, I’ve been on a rollercoaster with my mental health, bouncing in and out of psych wards, grappling with a bipolar diagnosis and even undergoing electroconvulsive therapy. It's been a tough journey but I’m here now.

Today, I want to get real about what triggered my mental breakdown. Sure, genetics played a part but a toxic relationship pushed me over the edge.

I was caught in a love-bombing whirlwind with a narcissist who seemed perfect at first. It felt like a dream but it was all an act. His constant love-bombing followed by sudden withdrawal of affection drove me crazy. I found myself questioning what I did to upset him, why he could be so warm one moment and cold the next. It turns out this was a tactic he used to control me. By keeping me off balance he maintained his power.

As the relationship progressed, he completely shut down, restricting all access to him because I was no longer beneficial to his agenda. I was spiraling mentally and he couldn’t use me anymore. I felt thrown away and abandoned like a used object, discarded when I no longer served his needs. It was textbook narcissistic abuse, according to my psychiatrist.

During one of my darkest moments, I ended up in the emergency department after self-harm and he was outside complaining to my friend. His words? “If I knew she was like this, I would have left a long time ago. It’s not my job to take care of her.” I had supported him in every way I could, and that was his response.

After our breakup, the truth unraveled. A mutual friend revealed that his intention was rotten from the start. He viewed me as someone that could give him access to more opportunities. I later found out that he owed a significant amount of money to several people, living a double life while racking up debts he had no intention of paying. Once he realised I wasn’t going to be his ticket to a better life, he vanished.

And this is only part one. In part two, I’ll share how I completely collapsed at the sight of someone who had hurt me far worse than my ex ever did. Stay tuned.