This is part one of a two-part memoir: the shadow work that must be confronted before light work can emerge. It tells the truth of how I was manipulated and bullied into hiding after years spent living with a narcissist. It describes the paradox of living in what others perceived as a palace, which was, in reality, my prison. It is the truth of narcissistic abuse, and the reminder that no setting, not even the most disgustingly grandiose, can ease its pain. It is also the story of perspective: the ability to compare ten years in foster care to ten years in a castle, a vantage point few will ever know. At its core, this book is both testimony and cautionary. It exposes the signs of entrapment, the patterns of control, and the ways one can be trapped by another, or by oneself. And it asks the reader to learn from my scars so that they might avoid their own.