Healing from narcissistic abuse is a very complex process. The bond that you have with your abuser runs very deep and it can be very difficult to untangle your life from the trauma bond you have with them.

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Table of Contents Solo Format show 00:04 - I’m going to try something a little different a do a solo show. This is going to be an episode of me talking to you directly without having a guest. So for episode #7 I’m going to give this a try.

Why Does this take so long to heal 00:30 - I was talking with Leslee and Debby about how hard it is so see hope and believe there is an opportunity to get your life back. When you are struggling with this even getting to the next moment can seem impossible. Every thought of every moment of every day feels like you are going to be trapped in this nightmare. With time, as you start to work on yourself you start to make progress. The frustrating part of this is how much time it actually takes to start making that progress. A lot of people think you should get over this quickly. I also felt that I should be healing faster and everyone else around me re-enforced those thoughts. I struggled with the thought that I should be making progress especially when I had a clearer view of what was going on.

When you look at the reason why this is taking so long the answer is simple, “trauma bonding”. Immediately following the breakup of a toxic narcissistic relationship you are still emotionally connected to your ex. The relationship is like a drug and it is like an addiction to that emotional “high” you experienced when you were with the person. All of this together makes it really difficult to get away and to start to get them out of your mind. The sad truth is that it takes a long time. It took me approximately 2 years to get to the point where I was really starting to feel better. Prior to that time however, things got considerably worse before they started to get better.

Although I feel there is a risk to make you more defeated and depressed about the length of time. The reason I bring this up is because I struggled with this and I felt I was going to feel this way forever. I think it is important to address the length of time so that you understand it is part of the process and it is normal. The message is there is a path through the darkness and you can get to the other side of this experience. For me there wasn’t anyone who I could relate to that could show me there was a path through this and that you can heal from it. Oftentimes when someone does heal from this they do not want to talk about it. Revisiting their past is painful and triggering especially if they haven’t truly healed from their emotional trauma. The only way it would work is if you knew the person when they went through it and you can see how their life has improved. Without that context its hard to relate someone else’s recovery with our own because “they must not have gone through the same thing”.

It's like a physical injury 04:17 - The analogy I like to use is a physical injury. If you injury yourself and you don’t do the physical therapy you will not truly heal. You may get your “life back” but you will not get the range of motion you once had. If you don’t heal the injury you will have those pains follow you throughout your life. As a result, when you do something to push the nerve the old injury will flare up. In the physical injury the physical pain will return, but in our case the emotional injury will be triggered. The result of this is as you’re talking to someone about your story it is triggering their old emotional wounds that are still there and never healed. Very seldom are they going to tell you that your story is causing them emotional flashbacks they will just recoil away and not want to engage with you. If you’re going to go through the pain you might has well put in the work to really heal from this. The secondary benefit from this is when someone else goes through this later you will be in a position to really help them through the process.

Depression can stalk you 06:42 - I was really depressed when I was married. When I was going through this I honestly thought there was something wrong with me. I actually felt as though I was “so lucky” to have this other person in my life that was “so amazing and wonderful”. I had put the my wife on a pedestal and I had wrapped my entire “self-worth” and validation on that relationship. Deep down I knew the relationship was flawed although I couldn’t see that then. As a result of this every day was a struggle. I can remember those long drives to work where I would struggle to make it to work and then just pretend everything was “alright”. I would put on the facade that everything was okay and I would work to just try to make “some” progress throughout the day. A lot of the times when I would get home I would be so emotionally exhausted that I would just want to sleep.

During one of the previously livestreams I had mentioned my “dark passenger”. This was a reference to the Showtime original program “Dexter” where the main character would often mention his “dark passenger”. For me it felt as though I had this inner critic that was constantly putting me down. So when other people would put me down it was validating that little voice in my head. I was surrounded by toxic and negative people and it became my “normal”. That feeling stuck with me for a really long time. Because of my profession seeking help wasn’t really encouraged and it could actually be determinate to your career. As a result this amplified the problem because I felt that I was tramped and couldn’t get any support.

There were times where the wife would do something and I would fall into the illusion that things were “okay”. As we all know this is apart of the love bombing, the trauma bond, and the manipulation to keep you under that illusion. They are in control of your emotions, they will allow you to be happy then crush you down and constantly get you to chase that emotional “high” that you are missing.

When I got to the point where the facade started to drop and the fog started to lift I started to realize that this relationship wasn’t good for me. At this point I realize that I deserved, and YOU DESERVE, the opportunity to find real peace, love, joy, and contentment. At one point towards the end I had a conversation with the ex I had said, “I want you do be happy but I don’t want it to be at the cost of my happiness. We BOTH deserve to be happy.” As you are already aware that type of conversation doesn’t go over very well with someone with strong narcissistic traits. When you have a conversation like this it demonstrates to them that they are loosing control.

When I decided it was time to pick “me” I was scared to death to make that leap of faith. In the back of my mind the inner critic was telling me that I wasn’t worthy and I wasn’t going to be happy, and things were not going to be better. I had that “fear” that if I walked away from this and stood my ground for myself that I would loose that relationship and the best thing that ever happened in my life. At the time I was so beat down and in a dark place that before I drove myself into the ground that I owed it to myself to at least try. This was the crux of the decision to walk away and try to get myself away from the chaos.

Initially leaving left great 12:40 - My initial response to leave it that it felt great. It felt awesome to stand up for myself and to feel like I was taking control of my life and making positive decisions. I felt excited to have the opportunity to demonstrate to my children a different way of living. The problem at this phase is that you don’t really know what you’re dealing with. At this point the narcissistic rage comes in, plus the false allegations, then the smear campaign and when you are not prepared for that it is devastating. If you are early in the process then you have a distinct advantage because you will not be blindsided by their actions.

The hard thing to deal with is that someone you loved is taking every thing that had been shared with them in confidence over the last 21 years of my life to try and destroy me. All just to try and prove in court that I was a piece of garbage and shouldn’t be allowed to be around my own children. When this happened in completely crushed me and I crashed emotionally as a result of this. I just couldn’t believe it was happening and all the progress that I had made evaporated in an instant. I was pulled back into the abyss and felt that I thought I could get away but now I was trapped in this nightmare forever. This is important for me to mention because if you’re going through this right now you need to know you are having a “normal” response to this trauma. What this means is the monster is starting to loose control and they are trying to regain it.

The important thing to remember is just because they say something doesn’t mean the family court system is going to believe it. It doesn’t mean they are automatically going to win. Sure there will be friends and family that may fall victim to their influence but it doesn’t mean the decision makers are going to believe them.

Circling back to the discussion of depression I struggled with this before the marriage. Coming from a toxic mother I always struggled with things not feeling right. So when this feeling came back I just assumed it was my “normal” and I just figured I would continue to struggle with this. At the time I didn’t even think about taking an external look and ask the question, “what is causing it” I just assumed it was me.

As I continued to work on myself things started to fundamentally shift. I started to see reality and I started to understand what was going on. This gave me some clarify, peace and closure. As a result of this work things really started to get better. I often say that my worst days now are what my good days were back when I was married. When I think back on it now it’s hard to believe that I spent 21 years in that environment. It is important to mention this because when you are in the midst of this you can feel that these feelings will never leave you. I now feel like my life is on track and I no longer feel these depressive moods and the anxiety I once did. I’m really excited about my life now and “what is coming next”.

You have to understand and respect the process 19:21 - It really does take a long time to heal from this. If you come from a family of emotional abusers or narcissists you can expect it is going to take even a little bit longer to heal from this. There is nothing “wrong” with it, other than it’s annoying, taking a year or two to get to the point to heal. My hope is that finding the information you will give you the skills and techniques needed to reduce the time it takes to recover. I have seen this work with followers of the YouTube channel where their transformation happened within a few months.

End of show wrap up 21:00 - It take a long time because there is a tremendous amount of trauma intertwined with your ex. This is also the reason why someone who doesn’t have children and may have only been in a short relationship still has to go through this process to heal. It is so insidious how they infect your mind, play your weakness against you, and your wants against you and become a mirror to be the person that you always dreamed of and then they rip it away. It is as if you were given an unknown drug that you became addicted too and then one day without warning they take it away. So if you are struggling with this just know there is life at the other side of this. Going through this process will empower you with the skills and techniques to identify and deal with toxic people going forward. That is the gift that is on the other side of this experience.