Released, Never Free: Living in the Crosshairs of a Narcissist

By Katie Anderson

Released, Never Free is the harrowing true story of my heart-breaking journey through life with a toxic narcissist who would stop at nothing to destroy me. I certainly didn't have an easy life to begin with, having survived a pretty tumultuous childhood, but that was

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: Nov 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781649901873

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Prologue

May 25, 2018. Who could ever have imagined that this would be the day that changed my life forever, that this would be the day I looked my biggest fear in the face, the day when everything suddenly became so clear, the day my new life began.

That Friday started off like any other, except there was a little added excitement in the air. It was a warm, sunny day in contrast to its dreary, overcast, oftentimes rainy counterparts that month. Opening day for the pool in our apartment complex overwhelmed us with zealous anticipation, leaving us counting down the hours until we’d all be together again that evening. My husband, Mark, and I were getting ready that morning for a pleasant hour-and-a-half drive to Richmond, Virginia, for a medical appointment he had. I was ecstatic to finally have some quality time with him to talk about our plans for the immediate future and the house we were building and to make a quick call to our 20-year-old daughter, Carley, about our upcoming family vacation. That Friday was the perfect, yet simple break from the reality of our everyday mundane lives…until it wasn’t.

Christine, our 19-year-old college freshman who was home for the summer, was all set to pick up our son, Mason, from middle school that afternoon. I had prepped her that morning with directions to his school and left her my car keys and credit card for gas and any other necessities they may need until we arrived home. She was also at the ready to pick up her other younger brother, Connor, at his friend's house after school if we still weren’t back in time. As we hurried ourselves along that morning, making sure every last detail was covered and that we had all the essential items in tow for our 10-month-old, Weston, we briskly gave Christine a jovial goodbye and headed out the door.

As I sat waiting alone in the hospital's unassuming cafeteria, feeding our infant son and interminably searching for cheap vacation rental car prices on my iPhone, occasionally I would pop my head up and stare at the people around me. Their conversations buzzed in my ear, although I found the content uninteresting and forgettable. I watched many passersby and wondered what their story was, why they were at the hospital. Nevertheless, I always focused back to my own little world of iPhone inquiries and entertaining the baby for what seemed like an eternity. The systematic texter I am, I let Christine know we had arrived and asked her if she was okay. No response. That didn’t faze me as she had a knack for dozing off or doing a myriad of other things that prevented her from promptly replying to me, or so I had convinced myself up to this point.

Yet another hour passed as I continued to wait and wait in the cold, unapologetic cafeteria booth with nothing but my own random thoughts and an unforgiving 10-month-old who was impatiently trying to squirm his way out of the stroller's harness. Realizing I had reached the end of my rope, I sluggishly walked back to the medical waiting room, hoping my husband would magically appear and rescue me from the woes of my loneliness. I texted Christine again, Yo, as I jokingly did from time to time to garner a reaction. Finally, she responded, and I could breathe a sigh of relief. Sorry. Ya, I’m good. Lol, she said. Ok, cool. Pool? I eagerly returned. Yes!! she replied with excitement. Seeking clarification, I asked, Did you go or are you waiting for us tonight? Feigning an ordinary conversation with me, she casually came back with, Probably gonna wait.

And in that fleeting moment, my only heartache being the agony of boredom overshadowed by my pitiful attempts at keeping the baby occupied, I had absolutely no inclination at all that Hurricane Christine was heading my way, lying in wait to wreak havoc on my life, sparing no one in her wake, giving us absolutely no chance to duck and cover. May 25, 2018, the day my life changed forever.

CHAPTER ONE

A Star is Born

September 28, 1976. I’ve often wondered if new parents look adoringly at their child and truly believe they are holding the next president of the United States or the first astronaut to walk on Mars. What did my parents think when they first held me on that sunny fall Tuesday in San Diego 43 years ago? After all, I was their first child. Did they vow in that moment to give me the best life possible? Did they plan on just winging it and hope I would turn out all right? Was I destined to a life of fame and fortune? Only a mere 18 years later, we’d have those answers. I would never see fame or fortune, but I would play the lead in the story of Revenge of the Narcissist, the starring role I never even knew I auditioned for.

I have vague memories of my early childhood in El Cajon, California. I remember our condominium. I remember having a homemade dinner on the table every night. I remember the never-ending days by the pool, using my dad as my personal float. I remember the fantasy worlds I concocted with my Barbies. I also remember my preschool and how I loved to play outside, yet I despised the ladies in charge of us. They were so mean because they forced us to take naps and were very stingy when it came to snack time. If only I could return to the days when that's what characterized someone as being mean. Nevertheless, my face would always light up like New York on New Year's Eve when my mom or dad finally showed up to take me home for the day. Home never felt so good.

Now, I do remember my dad, who was still somewhat fresh in the Navy, being gone overseas quite often, leaving my mom to take care of me by herself. During those times, I would visit my maternal grandparents frequently in Arizona. I have such fond memories of lunch outings with my grandmother, endless trips to Piccolo Pete's or Chuck E. Cheese, roller skating with my grandfather, and so on. They really helped fill the void of my dad being away from home so much.

As I entered kindergarten, though, I had never felt more alive. I had friends! I was having a blast! This school thing was actually pretty neat. The year 1982 catapulted me into first grade followed immediately by the birth of my sister, Carrie. Shortly after her arrival, my parents threw me a huge birthday party, and I had so many friends there. What a great feeling. A new sister, a ton of friends, life was great! My year in second grade was even better. I was so popular that even boys wanted to be friends with me. My teachers loved me. My parents loved me. I was either at a friend's house or they were at mine. I was on Cloud 9!

Little did I know then that this perfect world I had immersed myself in was about to crumble. My dad was transferred from San Diego to Long Beach the summer before my third-grade year. This placed our family in a little two-bedroom house about an hour and a half north and subsequently thrust me into the school of already-established friendships.

My dad continued to deploy overseas more often than not, and that took a huge toll on me trying to maintain a relationship with him. His perpetual absence had a huge, obvious impact on my mom, as well. I remember countless nights hearing the soft melodies of Kenny Rogers streaming so sweetly through the sound system, only to sneak out of bed to find my mom crying on a pillow on the living room floor. I know she did her very best to survive each sorrowful day without my dad, but I tend to wonder if that loneliness left her void of getting closer to me.

My sister was six years younger than me, and I was a big-shot third grader, so I couldn’t really turn to a two-year-old for companionship either. But at this point, my grandmother had separated from my grandfather and moved in with us, and I don’t know if I had ever been so happy, not because they were separated but because I got to see her every single day. At the same time, I was now able to start spending more and more time with my aunt, Melinda, my mom's older sister who lived about 30 minutes away. I will never forget the times I spent with her, eating chocolate chip cookie dough while watching the Wizard of Oz. Our weekends together always started out that same way. Occasionally we would throw in a drive-in movie or a day out by the pool, but there was nothing more special than just being with her doing nothing at all. I was so close to her, it was as if she was my mom.

Maybe this transition wasn’t going to be so bad after all. Well, hold that thought. Once I started third grade at my new school, I quickly realized that my popularity didn’t quite make it into the moving truck with the rest of us. My entire third-grade year consisted of a snooty teacher who didn’t seem to like me and classmates who barely gave me the time of day. I did venture to make a couple friends, though, who were equally low enough on the totem pole that we fell in good company. I tried my hardest to fit in, but I failed each time. I joined the band, I joined the glee club, I played on a girls’ softball team, and even did Pop Warner cheer and dance classes. However, nothing I did was enough to hurl me into the cool crowd.

Over the course of my remaining years in elementary and junior high school, I managed to muster up a few more friends in my circle, but I was never able to breach that merciless, unyielding, impenetrable barrier of popularity, let alone get any boys to notice me. Also throughout this period, life at home began to get increasingly more difficult. With my dad being away so much, my mom was carrying the load of running a household, working full-time, and taking care of two kids by herself all the while masking her undeniable sorrow through an outward show of strength.

When my dad was home, there was so much fighting and arguing that that soon became the norm for me. When we did have a good day together as a family, it was always shadowed with the inevitable certainty that the shoe was going to drop at any given second. We had plenty of good days, but they were always surface level for me; I knew they were short-lived. I never got comfortable with the good times. I never once thought that the arguing was just a phase or a temporary setback. I resigned myself to the fact that this was my life until I was old enough to change it.

And it was always the same pattern. My dad would come home and do something to make my mom mad, they would yell at each other, she would unleash Operation Silent Treatment on all of us, and then it was stand by for me. I was bound to do something, anything, that would make me a target. And like clockwork, sure enough, I always seemed to fall into the trap and screw up somehow. I was never abused to the point of broken bones, bruises, cuts, bodily harm, et cetera, but I did get my fair share of spankings and backhands. My dad was very quick to snap at me followed by a swift, forceful swing of his hand. In fact, he had a racquetball paddle he nicknamed Smash that my rear end had gotten to know very well over time. I don’t know why I was subjected to this form of punishment, although I will admit I was not exuding the best behavior at times.

In retrospect, I believe that his recurrent absence, although financially necessary, fostered a vicious cycle of inexcusable behaviors on all our parts and set us up for failure from the get-go. He was away so much that he was never truly able to parent me the way he may have wanted, nor was he ever able to establish that typical father/daughter connection with me. My mom appeared to have that metaphorical wall up that I could never seem to break through, and it was as though she was just surviving each day, doing what she had to do to get by. I also believe she had cultivated this pent-up anger and resentment towards my dad for being gone, leaving her to bear the weight of their burdens all by herself, which could explain all the contention when he finally was home. I, feeling the void of my mom and my dad and enduring the times when we were all together, definitely had pent-up anger and resentment towards both of them. As a result, I acted out through childish rebellion.

The dysfunction of my family was even more apparent when we would visit our close family friends who lived down south in Encinitas, California. We visited them often and usually spent the weekend at their house. We were so close that we have always known them as Uncle Shawn, Aunt Tina, and Cousins Taylor and Nathan. My parents had met Uncle Shawn and Aunt Tina in Lamaze class when my mom was pregnant with me and Aunt Tina was pregnant with Taylor. Taylor and I were born within three weeks of each other, and my sister and Nathan are also very close in age.

Although each get-together consistently competed for the Best Day Ever award, I always found myself overly jealous of the relationship between Aunt Tina and Taylor. There wasn’t ever a time that I didn’t see them smiling or sharing a hug or nicety or the occasional honey, sweetie, et cetera, and Uncle Shawn was always laughing and telling jokes. He thought he was quite the comedian. They showered their kids with love and attention, and I wanted that so bad. I also never saw Uncle Shawn and Aunt Tina so much as even look at each other in a negative way, let alone speak or act unkind to one another. I desperately wanted them to be my parents, but since that would never happen, I made a vow to myself that I would be just like them when I had a family of my own, a vow I still hold true to this day.

CHAPTER TWO

Casting Call

September 4, 1990. High school, the pivotal point in one's childhood when life truly begins, or so it seems, at least. I fell into this quintessential category. By the time I graduated eighth grade, I seemed to have built up this false sense of confidence and security in myself. I never lost sight of the fact that I was still not one of them, the cool kids, but I was happy with the friends I had and the possibility of good things in my future. After all, I was about to be a freshman, a high school student! Based on that alone, doors were going to start opening, cards were going to start falling into place, and the world was at my fingertips. That's what I truly believed, at least.

Keeping that spirit alive, I tried out for my high school's dance and drill teams. I succeeded in making the drill team; however, I just wasn’t good enough for dance. Admittedly, my newfound self-esteem took quite the blow when my friends made the dance team and repeatedly discussed it in front of me with uncontained enthusiasm. That was a hard pill to swallow, and that indescribable rejection and exclusion hit me hard. Still, I carried on and focused on the drill team and all the new friends I would surely make.

Being that high school is a colorful compilation of every new student from the surrounding junior highs, I thought this was my chance to start anew. This was my one-way ticket to popularity and maybe even a boyfriend! As such, I attempted to befriend a girl on my drill team who was very outspoken, had a larger-than-life personality, and who also shared the same undying infatuation with the New Kids on the Block as me. This was it. This was my chance. And to my utter shock and surprise, she actually entertained the idea of being my friend! We went to the movies once, and I hung out at her house a few times, of course having the New Kids on the Block obsession as our only common denominator. That friendship quickly met its maker, and she tossed me aside like so many had before her.

Freshman year kept me busy with drill team practices, halftime show rehearsals, football games, pep rallies, and the usual schedule of classes mixed in there somewhere. There was the occasional guy I had my eye on from time to time but no one who I thought would ever take me seriously, nor did any of them actually know I even existed. I kept to my close friends and never really ventured outside of my comfort zone again. I was who I was, and I would just have to face the fact that I just wasn’t one of them.

My home life continued on the same way it had since third grade. The difference was that now my dad had been transferred from the Long Beach Naval Shipyard back down to the San Diego area to the Naval brig in Miramar. Being that they had already uprooted us once and I was just starting high school, my mom refused to move back to San Diego. As a result, my dad ended up living in Miramar Monday through Thursday, driving two hours home every Friday, and making the two-hour drive back to Miramar early Monday morning to start the week all over again. That arrangement was a considerable improvement from his days at sea, but it still didn’t ease the frustration and tension in our family.

Be that as it may, at this point, he had roughly 16 years of a 20-year Navy career under his belt, and maybe the distance and time apart took a toll on him, too; in fact, I’m sure it did. I still had not really connected with him on a level deeper than, Can you help me figure out this math problem? He was definitely front and center when I screwed up and needed the What's it going to take? talk, which I now know means What's it going to take for you to change your behavior? But I don’t remember any honest-to-goodness quality time with my dad, having any heartfelt conversations or doing any father/daughter things together.

My mom tirelessly labored on as she always had, working full-time, ensuring we had new school clothes and supplies, drill team uniforms, dinners on the table, et cetera. I did have a stronger relationship with her versus my dad, but her frequent week-long silent treatment routines were more than I could bear. Every time I upset her, I would have to repeatedly apologize and practically grovel at her feet and beg for forgiveness only to face that all-too-familiar cold shoulder until she was ready to speak to me again. Her grudges wore me down every single time, thus increasing my anger and resentment towards her to the point where I just didn’t even care anymore. I kept my distance from her because I never knew when she was going to turn on me again, my defense mechanism, I guess.

Tenth grade was a mirror image of ninth, and I ended that year no worse for wear. Beginning my eleventh-grade year, I had finally made the dance team, my parents threw me an epic 16th birthday party, I got my driver's license, and they surprised me with a brand-new – okay, it was used – car! I thought, wow, maybe this is the year when everything changes. Oh, things changed all right…but not for the better. As with everything I had faced thus far, that good ol’ reliable reality check was about to knock on my door. I no sooner got to take my new birthday present out for a spin when I was told it wasn’t actually a present after all. It was my very own VIP pass into the world of debt, debt I never asked for. I now had a $120 car payment every month plus insurance payable to my dad, which meant I was about to join the workforce.

I wasn’t ready. I had barely turned 16 and still had so many activities going on at school, and I just wanted to hang out with the few friends I had. And besides, how embarrassing was it to go place to place asking for a job as if I was a beggar or homeless or something? At least that was my perception of it at 16. Luckily, I didn’t have to do that at all! (Note the sarcasm.) My mom knew the manager at our local McDonald's, and before I knew it, I was the newest order-taker at the Golden Arches. Cue the anger and resentment, please.

Yet, I persevered, relentlessly trying to keep my head above water. I was making a mere $4.25 an hour at a job I hated, working a full eight hours both Saturday and Sunday and sometimes a night shift during the week. And with none of my friends working yet, I was missing out on so much fun going out with them. I dreaded every single weekend. All the hours I had put in, all the fun I had been sacrificing only garnered me enough money every two weeks to cover the car payment. I didn’t even have enough to cover the insurance, let alone have any spending money left for myself. Hello, anger and resentment.

God, knowing I needed something at this point, anything to lift my spirits, brought Ethan into my life. Ethan was a drummer in our high school band. He was so cute with brown eyes, light brown hair, and a little grunge to him. I liked him so much. And, of course, when you secretly share that information with your friends, it's only a matter of time until he gets the message. To my sheer disbelief, though, I found out he actually liked me, too, and we had our first date shortly thereafter.

I was head over heels for Ethan. When I was with him, I had no care in the world. I could handle anything, I could tackle anything knowing he was in my corner. Home life wasn’t so bad after all because I was always out with him somewhere. Work was even doable because I knew I got to see him when I was done. We spent as much time together as we could, and my self-esteem was through the roof. For the first time, people at school looked at me with envy and commented on how perfect we were together. I actually began to have hope for my future.

Well, that lasted all of two months. When he arrived one night to take me to see The Bodyguard with Whitney Houston, little did I know I wouldn’t be seeing that movie. At least I wouldn’t be seeing it with him, that is. He somberly got out of his bright red vintage Mustang wearing his typical flannel and well-worn Doc Martens, leaned against the car as if preparing for an hour-long-talk-show-worthy discussion, looked me square in the eyes and matter-of-factly said, I don’t want to be with you anymore. Stunned, as time stood still while I suffered a complete loss for words, I managed to utter a measly, Okay, before running to my car and driving to my friend's house. Once there, I began to wail as if Niagara Falls had invaded my eyes as I struggled to tell my friend what had just happened. I later found out that Ethan's friends were jealous of our relationship and coerced him into breaking up with me, so he did. However, this wasn’t the end of his role in my life.

Trudging through the next few months at school without Ethan, yet seeing him ever-present in my travels, was, by far, the most difficult thing I had ever endured to this point. I was utterly crushed and unbelievably heartbroken. Still, I somehow managed to lumber on and eventually met someone else I liked, albeit not to the same degree as Ethan, not even close. That relationship, however, fizzled quickly, and I will admit I was a bit overbearing, expecting way too much from him right out of the gate, a little too clingy for his liking. In hindsight, I think I was trying way too hard to mend my broken heart way too fast.

It wasn’t too long after that, though, that I got the most colossal shock of my life. A friend of mine said to me out of the blue one day, Matthew likes you. I skeptically asked, Matthew who? She replied as if I should have already known, Matthew Roberts. What?? No. That's impossible. She had to be joking. Matthew Roberts was one of the most popular guys at school. There was absolutely no way he liked me. But, wait, he did. She wasn’t pulling my chain. I had actually won the coveted, once-in-a-lifetime chance of dating a popular guy! Did I finally break through that barrier? Was this the moment in my life when everything suddenly turned itself around and all that grief and anger and disappointment were behind me? Nope, not a chance. We did hang out for about a month, although I never even once got the slightest hint he was truly interested in me. To this day, I’m convinced that I must have been a bet or a dare among his friends. Why? I don’t know. Maybe just something popular guys do to torment geeky, unassuming girls who are too naïve to know any better, I guess. So long, Matthew. You weren’t the first; you won’t be the last.

By my senior year, I was still a member of the dance team, now captain of the drill team, and still working at McDonald's. I had met Brandon when he joined our team at McDonald's, and we soon hit it off. Brandon was a mix of Caucasian and Asian, and he was a junior at my school, a year younger than me. He was cute with a laid-back, California style to him, and he was very into health and fitness, something I didn’t really care about at the time. Brandon, however, was the first guy who gave me a chance beyond the standard month, two months I had become accustomed to. Despite our differences, I liked him a lot, although no one could surpass the feelings I previously had for Ethan. Brandon and I were always together, whether at school, at work, his house or mine. This was it. He was my future. My perfect family was right around the corner.

Conflict at home surged during my senior year. I was caught in the purgatory between I’m an adult; you can’t tell me what to do and We are your parents; you will do what we say when we say it. That was a lethal mix, and I was doomed. If McDonald's called at the last minute asking me to work and I had plans, my parents would make me cancel my plans and go into work. If I was needed for a babysitting job at the last minute and I had plans, I would have to cancel my plans in order to babysit. I had to miss school events in order to seek out additional employment or work or babysit. It seemed as though all my parents cared about was me working so I could pay for the car and insurance.

When I wasn’t working, I had to make sure our entire house was clean, including doing everyone's laundry, all the dishes, dusting, vacuuming, et cetera, none of which I thought was fair to put solely on me when there were four of us in the house. Tensions were high as their fighting and arguing continued, my anger and resentment kept me rebelling, and no one was connecting on a deeper familial level. I felt so disconnected from my parents, and I just couldn’t wait for the day I had my own family so I could love them and spoil them just like Uncle Shawn and Aunt Tina did.

At last, graduation day, June of 1994. Brandon and I had recently broken up, and I immediately entered into another brief relationship that was over as fast as it had started. Now, however, I was officially an adult and so very ready to start my life in the real world. I obtained a second job as a hostess at a local restaurant in our area, and I truly enjoyed it. Everyone made me feel welcome and treated me as their equal. The popularity contest was over. I was now one of them. Now all I needed at this point was a boyfriend who would eventually become my husband.

During one of my several other failed relationships that summer, Ethan mysteriously reappeared in my life, literally out of nowhere. I had finally overcome my broken heart and long-lasting feelings for him and had even just started another relationship at that point. Ethan asked for another chance with me, but I declined since I truly thought I had a future with the new guy I was seeing. Could that possibly have been the single-handed, biggest mistake of my entire life? I will never know. That new guy vanished within a month, I blew my chance with Ethan…and then I met him.

CHAPTER THREE

Screen Test

August 10, 1995, the day I unwittingly threw away any possible chance I had at having the perfect family one day. The old cliché insinuates that every little girl grows up fantasizing about her dream wedding with the perfect man, a beautiful white dress, and a ton of laughter, dining, and dancing until they sail off into the sunset and live happily ever after. My dream never quite seemed to involve me eloping to Las Vegas with just him and $200 to our name, but that's exactly what happened.

As with any graduating senior, I had aspirations of going to college and either pursuing a career in interior design or something involving dance. Despite having no computer and no internet at my leisure, I somehow managed on my own to apply for admission to Cal State University Long Beach and was elated to learn I had been accepted. What a dream come true! I was going to CSULB! I thought I was, at least. My parents, however, envisioned me first starting out at our local community college and, I guess, winging it from there. I insisted against that, but having no idea how to apply for financial aid, student loans, or scholarships, nor having any clue that those options even existed, I found myself begrudgingly mustering through the random city college classes I signed up for that fall.

I still maintained my employment at both McDonald's and the restaurant while feigning my way through academically. It had been some time since I last had a relationship, and I was desperate to meet the one. After all, I was 18 years old and had already been out of high school a whole six months. Time was running out for me. Alas, the one was about to enter my life stage right. Having been selected as one of McDonald's Santa's helpers, I traveled around that December 1994 assisting Santa during his several appearances at the various chain locations in our area. If only I had never volunteered for that job, if only I had called in sick just that one day, could those seemingly insignificant factors have been the key to, theoretically, saving my life?

During one of those special-event Christmas parties, I met him, Damon Alizadeh. Damon worked at the McDonald's location I happened to be at that evening. He was gorgeous, confident, funny, charming, extremely attentive to me, very flirty and complimentary. He played the right amount of hard-to-get to pique my interest. I was intrigued and wanted to know more about him. We exchanged phone