I ran into this article on Quora and thought of you, so I wanted to share it!!
When will I know, that I have completely healed from the narcissist abuse?
Serenity Pratt, Bachelor of arts Business & Human Psychology, University of the Bahamas (2010)
Answered Apr 19
Narcissistic abuse is, in many ways, the worst kind of abuse. It is an attack on all fronts: Mental, emotional and sometimes even physical. It undermines the person's confidence and can even cause them to question their own sanity.
Dealing with a narcissist is literally like being at war!!!! It is being under attack all the time with no let up, no time to heal, and no way to defend yourself.
Recovery doesn't end with the relationship. It begins with ending the relationship. Healing takes place after the recovery as a matter of course. And if you were physically abused, your body goes through changes and reactions when you are upset or when abuse happens.
Emotionally, you're likely to be torn. You hate the narc for what they have done and you feel angry but you also feel that you love the narcissist on some level. You may need to grieve the relationship. It may not have been what you thought it was, but it still deserves to be grieved. You lost something important to you, and the fact that it wasn't real to the narcissist doesn't even matter.
It was real to you!!!! It was important to you!!!!!
Don't be afraid to grieve for what you have lost. It's important if you want to truly heal. It's ok to say I love this person. I wanted to be with this person. I thought it could work or however you feel. In a real way something died. The realization that the narcissist is not who we thought they were can feel like someone did actually die.
Acknowledge those feelings and process them. GRIEF is how healing start. GRIEF does take time to go through and it does not start until there is a legitimate recognition that the relationship is truly over. Let go of the idea of it.
You may have become enmeshed with the narcissist and may be sharing what is called a trauma bond with them. Trauma bonding is very powerful. It is the Bonding of someone to another person through abuse or some other type of trauma. Bonding of any kind is not love or trust or affection, even though it feel strong. Unlike love and affection, a bond grows greater over time regardless of your actual feelings. You can have a trauma bond with a person you don't even like, and feel unable to leave or let the relationship go even though you dislike of even hate this person.
This is often what causes people to stay in all types of relationships even though everyone is miserable the push- pull of narcissistic relationships is one of the things that creates this dynamic. Your mind and body become hyped up and upset, hormones are released.
Your body and mind become accustomed to this roller coaster over a period of time and eventually begin to crave it, it is causing you a great deal off stress. The narc craves it to, it's often representative of the environment they were raised in and because of that they suffer from chronic boredom and feelings of emptiness.
This is one reason why they intentionally provoke fights and cause problems. Without all that drama and fussing, they just don't feel alive. It may be how you were raised too, and that's why you were susceptible to it. They and you also crave the affection and calm that follows the drama. Without war, you wouldn't know what peace is, right?
Because of trauma bonding and enmeshment , it is very difficult to walk away from these relationships, even when you truly dislike the person and truly recognize the relationship is abusive, empty or pointless.
This is why being discarded or abandoned is so painful. Not only is the relationship that you put your very soul into is over and your illusions totally shattered which is bad within itself but you have the war with no peace. Your body and mind is addicted to that cycle.
And when it is broken, it's extremely hard to deal with this person abused you, treated you badly and hurt you. You feel anger. Anger is important, as it is often the reason people leave relationships. However, holding on to anger or hatred for long periods of time is detrimental.
If anger is acknowledged and processed, it will work itself out naturally. Be careful to let that happen, rather than trying to hold onto it. It will fade over time, as it is suppose to. One of the way To work through your anger is to understand what happened. Emotions cloud everything they make things much harder to see and deal with. Sometimes emotions make things hard to understand. What help people be less angry is understanding that this is a disordered sick and truly miserable person who hurt you for reasons of their own that have nothing to do with you
Being angry at the narc doesn't punish them. It does nothing to them because they don't care how you feel. That's part of their disorder. It only hurts you and in time you will find that you are tired of hurting and you will let that anger GO!!!!
Once you have dealt with the recovery and all the emotions, HEALING CAN BEGIN!!!. These things are very important to the healing process and if they do not take place, healing will be incomplete or will not occur. People say they are healed, but they are still so angry, or so hyper vigilant in relationships. This is not healing.
One of the most important functions of healing is to learn why things happen and accept your role in what happened.
Of course, you had no role in the narcissist's abuse but you can learn why you did not leave the relationship when the abuse became apparent, or why you became ADDICTED to the chaos cycle in the first place so that you can prevent this from happening again.
THAT IS TRUE HEALING!!!!!
ITs AN ONGOING PROCESS BUT IT IS ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE. Narcissist cannot heal, they cannot acknowledge their responsibility in any situation and they cannot learn from their mistakes.
YOU CAN!!!!!
GAME OVER!!!!
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