My life required a positive redirection towards another path, and it gave me only one option before I probed my psyche, dissected the life cycle, and uncovered the flaw. I grappled with myself to select a topic as I yearned for candidness and self-reflection regarding my life’s experiences. That’s when I pondered the possibility of divulging an excessive number of macabre occurrences in my retelling of a tempestuous romance with a man that showed a darker side of himself than I expected. Preceding the dawn of our love-hate relationship, it already captivated me how the blatant fatal accusations and severe harassment occurred before it all descended into complete chaos, similar to the experience of a life in Dante's Inferno.Greetings, I go by M. L. Stark and have always dreamed of writing a book about my life from the time I was born and until now. I was married for 20 years, and we had four lovely kids, and now we have some adorable grandkids, too. Can you believe I ended up with a psycho after my divorce? It was one of the things that made me want to share a certain time in my life when I wrote “Hugger-Mugger: The Con Man Smile - Part 1” where I used my own experiences as examples but changed all the names. Just so you know, it was like living in a dark hole when my life got stuck in a toxic and abusive relationship. At first, I was planning on not letting anyone know my secrets, but I wasn't sure if it was the right move to keep my pain bottled up. Some memories were good, but there were also a bunch of sad ones that for real messed me up. When I wrote this story, I wanted to see it from a bird's-eye view, because I had to be my old self again, hoping I had gained some wisdom from my life experiences. You bet it did. I found out that being too good to the wrong people can, in fact, bum you out. If you got the serious feel from the story, it's because it's based on actual stuff. It’s not a joke! The entire story was mind-boggling and messed me up because of what the narcissist did. And if you thought I was a pissed-off bitter ex--think again--well, you were dead wrong! And btw, at first, I didn't know the fancy words for psychopaths, sociopaths, and covert narcissism, so I was confused about which term to use. But let's be real, I was not a psychologist, but it was all about how awful it felt to be caught in his web of lies. So, I was just trying to see who he, in fact, was by comparing his actions to how he presented himself. I had to find out if he was hiding any dark traits. Will you believe this? He was just putting on a freaking show of being nice, but deep down, he was a heartless person with no morals. That’s when I began on my research about such evil people. Next, I wanted to talk about this topic because it meant a lot to me and to let others know they didn't have to go through the same things as I did. No doubt, I put my trust in those who refused to be oppressed. But did you know how many people actually need a hand with a lot of help to get out of an abusive relationship? I didn’t know it but realised it in the end. If I could make a difference in one woman's life by telling my story, then I'd say mission accomplished. I know it's easy for me to say: ditch that abusive relationship. It's for sure not stress-free, and a lot of women end up going back to their abuser. And it's always a total disaster, without fail. I realised lots of women are forced into exploitation by some crazy guy, but I also realised the opposite is happening. I'm sure we're on the same page; The culprit should be in the trash, not the victims and that’s why I wanted to share my own experience with you through this story. Abuse always leaves you feeling down, and I've gone through the same nightmare, too. It freaked me out when he screwed everything up for me and everyone else. Being abused was, without a doubt, not cool. It was freaking nerve-wracking. That’s when I finally bolted out of there. Even though my script overall focuses on male abusers, I want to give male readers hope as well. Women can also be abusive towards men, believe it or not, so the guys have every reason to be worried. However, the articles I found on psychopathic abuse mostly said it was men. Sorry, guys, I can't mess with the stats. Seriously, like, three out of four crazies were dudes, maybe even more.Brace yourself for this gripping story that had me hoping for a happy ending as well. Thanks for being interested in my story. Read more about this authorRead less about this author