Heal Narcissistic Abuse? 7 things you need to do to heal

I have been on that horrible and painful road of healing after my life was blown apart by a malignant narcissist.

I know exactly what it takes to make it to get through it, leave the darkness, and live in the light for good.

But this road isn’t an easy one to take. It is in fact, more like a roller coaster gone off the track. Mostly because narcissistic abuse is like psychological warfare, a horrible screwing with your mind that leaves you broken the heart and almost unrecognizable.

There are ways to get through your healing journey and avoid blockages that throw can stop you, delaying your healing and the freedom from your pain.

I know this because my journey was anything but a short one or quick, mainly because I traveled it mostly alone and had no map on how to go forward. This is why today I’ve committed my life to help those who are just starting on their road to recovery.

I did not have anyone to learn from when I was going through this process, so learn from me. 

Here are 7 Things You Need to do to Heal

1. Why do you need to empower and educate yourself? 2. Why dumping the people who are not on your side- 100 % is imperative to healing? 3. Why it is important to Block, Delete, Unfollow, Unfriend on social media? 4. Why you don’t block out the past? 5. Why do you need to be the gray rock around your ex-narcissistic partner. 6. Why do you do not begin dating or starting a new relationship? 7. Why it’s important to forgive yourself?

1. Why do you need to empower and educate yourself?

One of the main reasons so many victims of narcissistic abuse do not realize they are victims until much later or even after the relationship ends is because they do not have any knowledge about what abuse is and who narcissists are.

This was me. I did not know I was being abused. I had the belief that you had to be physically hit to call it abuse. I had no bruises or broken bones to show my pain. I knew what a narcissistic personality disorder was since I am a Clinician but I could not see that I was with a narcissistic abuser. I believed my partner was opinioned, had a strong personality, was suffering from anxiety and depression but I had no idea for years he was abusive. Because of what narcissistic abuse is he was extremely deceptive. 

My pain was very real and left me feeling alone and isolated. unable I was to figure out what was going on until I had some help from friends and a good therapist.

Once I began educating myself about what was happening to me, I began to learning everything about narcissists and the abuse they inflict. I could put a name to my pain and also realize that I wasn’t the crazy one after all but neither was he. They do wear the mask of sanity.

Educating yourself on your experience will name the problem then you can fix the problem. It’s also one more step to taking back the power from the one who hurt you, which means one more step forward and keeping yourself moving away from the abuse and to your freedom.

2 . Why dumping the people who are not on your side- 100 % is imperative to healing?

This is a hard one because it’s always the people we least expect to not be there for us. But the thing is, keeping people in our lives who are in any way, shape, or stuck is the absolute way to keep us stuck or we might even end up going backward.

When you’re healing, you are sensitive, emotional, vulnerable, and even initially fragile making you an easy target for those who don’t have your best interests at heart. So anyone who is enabling your abuser, anyone who is victim-blaming you is not a person you need around you. Perhaps you heard things like this:

“It’s not that bad, is it? “

“Why can’t you just move on? “

” He is a great father and income producer isn’t he?”

Anyone who doesn’t fully believe you, anyone who sits on the fence with the pathetic excuse of I don’t want to get in the middle of this, doesn’t deserve to be with you on this journey because they are only serving themselves.

I had one of my work co-workers say to me after I explained some of my ex’s abusive behavior say to me:

” you both just need a vacation away from the kids.”

It may not be clear how to figure out who exactly these people are who you need to stay away from but it could be your sister, your Mother, your closest friend, or another family member.

Ask yourself these questions: 

When you’re with them and you leave the conversation do you feel better about yourself or worse? 

Do you have to defend yourself? 

Do you feel safe with them? 

That’s all you need to know. Someone who is completely on your side will have your best interests at heart, not their own, and you will feel good when you’re around them. Those are the people worth holding on to. Those are the ones who have your back and who will be cheering you on.

3.Why it is important to Block, Delete, Unfollow, Unfriend on social media?

Social media can be very unhealthy for you while in your healing process. It’s not just your ex you need to stop checking in on but also anyone who is a fence-sitter, an enabler, or flying monkey. Anyone who could remind you of your pain and potentially ruin your day, week, month, or even year. It may be tempting to see what or who your ex is up to and with but this will only give you deep pain and suffering that will make you feel like you’ve driven your car right off a cliff.

Why? Because narcissists will do one of two things on social media: either they’ll post themselves and their fabulous new life showing how happy they are without you and with someone else, usually half his age (they’re not, they’re just trying to make their shame for being such a loser go away) or they’ll try love-bombing you again with begging you to reunite. They will promise to change (BTW narcissists never change, it is not possible, they only get worse). There is a simple way to avoid this nightmare: block, delete, unfollow, and unfriend.

4.Why you don’t block out the past?

I know you do not want to think about what happened and may feel like a very hard thing to do but it is important to spend time reflecting on the past and examine how you got to where you are now. 

This does not mean taking any blame for what happened to you by a narcissistic abuser because you did not deserve to be abused. You in no way asked for what happened but it may be important to your healing why you ended up with someone who did not treat you as you deserve to be treated and why did you put up with it?

This was hard for me to even look at and understand but I know now how our beliefs were inherited from our parents, grandparents, other relatives, and caregivers and downloaded into our subconscious minds. These affected our choices without knowing it. These beliefs were never ours, to begin with, but have affected our entire lives including why we ended up with who we did.

You may have had an abusive childhood which would have attracted a similar situation as an adult although you consciously would have said no way this would ever happen. It is in no way your fault. 

5. Why do you need to be the gray rock around your ex-narcissistic partner?

Gray rocks are the most boring of boring. This is who you want to be around your ex-partner. You pick up a gray rock because it is so very uninteresting. Which is exactly what you want your narcissistic ex to view you as. If you don’t do this it is most likely you will be pulled back in by your ex with his hoovering and love-bombing because he will not want you to leave. He may even stalk you or harass you if he wants to punish or destroy you for leaving him.

Narcissists need their narcissistic supply and drama. They want to suck everything which is their goal with anyone who is breathing. 

Being a gray rock will save you from going off the deep end and keep you going in the right direction as any contact with them will only cause you further pain. 

So don’t let them see you even breathe. Be the rock.

The gray rock. Be so boring that the narcissist will lose interest and go find someone else to target. Don’t give your narcissistic ex what they want, which is any reaction from you, no matter if it’s a positive or negative one.

Narcissists are not capable of caring. What they do care about is irritating you in any way they can, pushing your buttons, getting on your last nerve, and getting an emotional reaction that they can then make fun of you which is a win for them.

It may help to go and find an actual gray rock and when you do when you feel you want to contact him or he has contacted you or if you have a child together which requires some contact, it will remind you to be the gray rock.

6. Why do you do not begin dating or starting a new relationship?

It would be a great mistake to start a relationship because you are still trying to figure out what happened to you and untangle yourself from the web of this narcissistic abuser. Your perspective is most likely still skewed because of the conditioning that you have been subjected to. 

You are probably not thinking straight yet and we often have feelings of very low self-worth and self-respect if you have recently left your narcissistic partner so it is not the best time to begin any relationship.  

You will need time to yourself to think, grieve, mourn, cry, and rage at what has happened to you. 

This must be done alone because the truth is within you, not without and not within someone else, so that is where you must be spending your time. 

There is a risk that you will be attracted to the same kind of narcissistic abuser if you have not healed which would not be worth taking the chance of starting a new relationship before you are ready. 

7. Why it’s important to forgive yourself?

This can be a hard part of our journey as we have been programmed to not like ourselves anymore, the person we have become. Then we often take on the blame and shame for what has happened to us convinced that it is our fault. ( which of course my ex blamed me for everything that went wrong.) This is what you were told by your narcissistic partner most likely. 

Now is the time to forgive yourself and figure out why you are angry with yourself.

Is it because you believe you should have seen the abuse sooner than you did? Is it because you think you should have known better? Is it because you put up with the horrible treatment he inflicted on you? Is it because you thought it would get better and were determined to make it work?

I believed all of these about myself.

It may help to write it down whatever it is you’re mad at yourself for, write it all down. This is simple exercise is very powerful. Use a pen and paper which is more powerful than typing on the computer.

This is how you’re going to make it to your goal of freedom and healing from your experience of narcissistic abuse.

You’re in control of this.

You’re in control of your life.

You’ve also got self-forgiveness and self-worth along with understanding, patience, empathy, and compassion.

Love

Debbi

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