Marriages to narcissists are something I’m very familiar with.
I was married twice to narcissists, and the two divorces where 26 years apart. (And there were 11 years in-between that I was single.)
I never would have believed that it would happen again.
After all I was smart, college educated, and thought I’d done some work on myself.
Not to mention I became an intuitive life coach and mind-body wellness practitioner in-between).
But it’s through these tough life lessons that we learn and discover what it REALLY takes to heal layers of trauma to the point that it doesn’t happen again.
And when we get hit with it again (and even harder the second time), it becomes a wake-up call.
Then hopefully we figure out that it’s time to go deeper, because there’s something we missed.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen.
In most cases, enough healing occurs after a relationship with a narcissist to finally release the trauma bond. (Or maybe we were given tools to help us.)
And then we move on, trying to help ourselves heal further.
Because healing from narcissistic abuse is a time-consuming process: It doesn’t happen overnight, and unfortunately may not completely happen without the right help.
Not to mention the immense work that needs to be done to build a self-esteem that hasn’t existed since childhood.
It’s the old trauma wounds that gets us into the mess with the narcissist in the first place, because the love-bombing is an ointment over past trauma.
So after releasing the trauma bond, we often:
- Read self-help books in droves.
- Watch YouTube videos from anyone and everyone on the subject of narcissists.
- Journal about how we’re feeling.
- Find ways of channeling our anger.
- Try to work through the grief with various meditations or anything else we come across.
It becomes a patchwork quilt of self-help in an attempt to plug the holes in our self-worth: You know, the one that didn’t exist in the first place.
And this happens: We start to feel better, or perhaps allot better than we did before (which isn’t hard when we’ve been through hell.)
And that’s exactly what’s deceiving.
We go back to feeling mediocre at best, and depressed at worst.
Unfortunately, the general public isn’t an expert at knowing how to work through it, and we can’t “read the label because we’re inside the jar“.
If the foundation of our house is cracking, would we try to patch it ourselves when we know that it needs a professional to help shore it up? (Because when we try to do it ourselves and it doesn’t work, the entire house can fall down around us.)
Without targeted tools to work through the unique layers of issues, it becomes a losing battle.
So we continue on through life at the same level we were before the narcissist (which feels normal to us), but it’s a trap.
And what’s worse: It leaves us wide open to be sucked back in by a narcissist.
And once again, we’ll feel awesome compared to the numbness that we were used to feeling most of our life; before we ever met the narcissist.
I’m not calling out others, because I’ve been there too. I get it.
And that’s why I’m passionate about helping others to make the change that will finally end narcissistic abuse: When we recognize that we need to go deep to heal, even when we think we’re finished.
Because we’re all a work in progress, but getting a helping hand gets us results that are faster and more effective.
PS: Ready to heal, build your self-worth and live a life on YOUR terms? You’re invited to join the Facebook group and book your complimentary Clarity Call.