What does it feel like?

You probably feel like you’re going crazy. You used to feel powerful and have control over your life, but suddenly you either question everything – or everyone around you questions everything you do. You see things happening that feel deeply wrong, yet when you try to talk to people about it, they tell you it’s your fault, you’re imagining things or give you another explanation that you accept but still feel unsure about. It’s like everybody sees things differently from you. Even those closest to you encourage you to try different new strategies for making the relationship work better, and you try them all. You do your best, but you feel more and more abused, confused and numb. It’s like your whole world is turned upside down. You don’t know who to trust anymore, and the person you trust the least may even be yourself.

You finally realize it’s not you. You leave the situation but keep being pulled back into the drama. You try to heal but the wound keeps being opened. Everybody around you wants you to ‘just get over it.’ You feel lost, alone, deeply betrayed and helpless. You feel that everyone from your friends to your colleagues to the structures of society is on the side of the narcissist, encouraging them to just keep doing what they do.

You need help but it’s hard to find since only few, if anyone, seem to understand you.

The medicine

An encounter with a narcissist can be one of the most powerful rites of passage, but it can also easily lead to complete destruction. It takes willpower and determination to make it back to life and loads of softness and self-acceptance. For many, it takes turning to God.

The thing that makes narcissistic abuse extra hard to recover from is the lack of acknowledgement from society and those around you. Only very few – if any – understand what you have been through and how much you have been wronged. You want justice so much, but you must accept that you will never have it. On the contrary, you can easily end up locking yourself up at home while everybody else goes partying with your ex or your sister or still go to the job where you were bullied out by your narcissistic boss. Even your own kids or parents may believe the narcissist’s stories that you are the crazy one. There are lies being shared about you in town or maybe in the media or online. Even people close to you distance themselves from you. Everybody just wants life to continue as normal, and very few have the guts to take side against the narcissist, as their games are so difficult to understand. ‘There is some kind of misunderstanding between them’, most people probably think as they are watching the drama unfold from outside. You probably thought so too many times. ‘There must be something I did wrong, otherwise things wouldn’t be like this’, you think, while reality is there is absolutely NOTHING you did wrong. You are a different kind of person than the narcissist and you don’t see what’s happening because you play by a completely different set of rules than he/she does. And in this truth lies the medicine; first to be around people who can acknowledge your story and remind you of this over and over again. You did nothing wrong. You were abused for a game of power, prestige, control – and probably money or something else of material value – you did not know you were a part of. And then you integrate this truth as complete and full self-acceptance, no matter how much damage was done to you and those you love because you got entangled with a narcissist. It was not your fault.

The next steps on your healing journey are to recover from the severe damage that has been done to your self-esteem, your trust in people, your world-view and your nervous system. You most likely suffer from complex PTSD, which shows up in a range of different ways. You may have health problems, like rashes and digestive issues. Your once so big heart may be closed so you are afraid to give and receive love. To recover from narcissistic abuse is not something you do in a week or two, it will most likely take many years. The right kind of support is crucial, and you will need to get it from people who know what you have been through. Not many do.