Taking a One-Year Dating Detox After Narcissistic Abuse

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The post Dating After Narcissistic Abuse: The One-Year Detox appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

You may have noticed a flood of books on Amazon over the last 12-18 months about narcissistic abuse, trauma, and related topics. 

A large number of these books are not what they appear to be.  The content is stolen or only loosely related to narcissistic abuse, or the title is misleading or intended to trick you into buying the book. 

Here is how to avoid being scammed.

Types of Fraudulent Books on Narcissistic Abuse Recovery

First of all, if you’re looking for a high-quality book on narcissism and narcissistic abuse, I keep an updated list on this website with the classics in the field, the freshest releases, and the highest-rated and recommended books by survivors and experts:

The Best Books on Narcissistic Abuse Recovery

Below is a list of what to look for in a fraudulent book. 

• Duplicative Titles of Popular Books

If you try to look up a popular book title and find more than one version, you may notice there are “study guides,” “workbooks,” “summaries” of the book. 

The author’s name may even be included.

The books are not, however, endorsed by the original author.

These titles are intended to trick you into believing that the original author either wrote or endorsed the books. They are actually copyright violations and the author doesn’t make any money off of them. 

The type that indicates they are summaries or study guides may even be in smaller type, and the seller may be hoping you don’t notice it’s not the original work. 

In addition, according to anecdotal reports, the text inside often has little to do with the original author’s work.

• Books written by authors with a prestigious but dubious title

An author adds their title to a book (for example, “Dr.”), but doesn’t reference and describe their credentials in their author description to tell you more about their educational background.

Or they don’t provide an author background at all.  You can’t seem to find any description that the author actually exists.  

• Books light on content with nothing new to add

These books generally have enlarged font to give the appearance of a book-length work instead of a handful of articles. 

The information provided is often a basic understanding of narcissistic abuse gained from compiling reading content from the Internet.  It appears hastily written and is often not copyedited.

• Books with only plagiarized content 

These books contain only plagiarized copyrighted material written by others that is partly or totally copied and pasted from other sources almost word-for-word. 

How Not to Judge Books on Narcissistic Abuse Recovery

So how can you tell if a book is legit?

Don’t just use reviews to verify if the book is a valid one.

The Amazon rating system is broken.

There are websites and forums across the Internet where an exchange can take place: those with products can offer their products to those who have signed up to try them.

The people who sign up to try them are paid to write five-star reviews, and the sellers ship out the products to random addresses so the paid review writers get the “verified buyer” tag by their name. 

It’s become a way for some people to supplement their income.  Up to 40% of five-star ratings on Amazon are fake.  

So what should you do?

How Can I Find a Good Book on Narcissistic Abuse Recovery?

Reviews can help, but don’t use them alone.  You need to do some research too.

The expression of an author’s ideas is what creates a book’s value. You buy and read a book because you like and trust the author and what he or she has to say. 

If you don’t know the author, something about the book has given you the idea that you can trust what’s inside. 

Here are some things you can try to see if the book is trustworthy.

1. CHECK OUT THE BOOK.

How long has the book been around (when was it published)?

Is “Look Inside” available? When you use it, does the book seem free of errors? Does the content seem original? Is the writer’s voice authentic and clear? Can you tell what the author is trying to accomplish with the book? 

2. CHECK OUT THE AUTHOR.

If the book is new, that’s not necessarily a reason to cross it off your list. You’ll want to check out the author.

Is the author who they say they are? Have they written other books? Do they have a website? How long have they had it? Do they blog about the topic? Do they have experience with or expertise on the topic? Are they on social media?

3. CHECK OUT WHAT OTHER EXPERTS SAY.

It’s also a good idea to see if others find this person credible. Have other authors or experts vouched for them elsewhere or recommended the book on the Internet?

Does the person have endorsements from other authors or experts in their Amazon description or in or on the book? Do you recognize any of the people–or are they people that you can verify exist and are credible themselves?

Not every box has to be checked in order for you to feel good about making the purchase.

If you open the book sample and like what the author has to say and you see that the author has an online presence, even though you’ve never heard of him or her, then the rest may not matter.

If you look at the book and see an error, but the book has been endorsed by someone you know, well, sometimes an error is just an error.

As an author, I can say that no one wants to have an error in their book, but even the most prestigious publications sometimes run stories with errors and then go back and correct them later. In this case, you should use errors as one clue to diagnosing fraud.

It’s not that all of these things have to check out in order for you to feel good about making the purchase.

But if none of them do? It’s a scam.

Join the community to get more articles like this one delivered straight to your inbox. 

If you like this article, you’ll also enjoy these:

• How to Recover from Narcissistic Abuse by Being “Whole Again”
• What is Gray Rock? How to Deal with a Narcissist
• Songs About Narcissism: Your Abuse Recovery Playlist
• Watch These Movies About Narcissists
• The Ultimate Narcissist Dictionary for Defining Narcissism and Narcissistic Abuse
• The Unlucky 13 Different Types of Narcissism

The post Books on Narcissistic Abuse Recovery: A Warning appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

Narcissists leave a part of themselves inside of us after they’re gone.

No matter how much you wanted to go no-contact, once they’re gone, it feels as if the narcissist has unceremoniously ripped out a part of your own body. [See The Ultimate Narcissistic Abuse Dictionary to review unfamiliar terms]

We’re left sitting in shock, bleeding, wondering how everything that just happened doesn’t affect them. 

Yet, despite their absence, it’s as if somehow, they’re not gone at all. In our minds and bodies, we can feel them with us as if they are telepathically reaching out to us.  

It feels as if this roller coaster of emotions will never end. [Read The Emotional Hell of Breaking Up with a Narcissist]

One of the worst parts is that, despite everything they do, we fear that a part of us will always be in love with that undefined piece of them that they leave behind.  

There are ways of moving past this fugue state and starting your narcissistic abuse recovery. 

7 Ways to Start Your Narcissistic Abuse Recovery

If you’re struggling in your narcissistic abuse recovery, here are seven things you can try to start purging him or her from your heart.

Even if some time has passed since the relationship ended and you went no-contact, these tasks can still give your recovery from the narcissist a boost forward.

It’s never too late to recognize our strengths, ease our pain, and put the narcissist even further in the past. 

1. Write out a list of all the things your narcissistic partner ever did to you that was damaging.

Make a list that’s as detailed as possible.

What insults did he or she hurl at you? How many times did he or she cheat?

What did they say when you weren’t around, and how did it contradict what they said when you were?

Did they threaten you? Was the narcissist in control of what you did or where you went? Did you lose friends?

Was your job in danger?

Was your life in danger?

Pinning down narcissistic abuse is hard. It unfolds slowly over time, and we often can’t quite put our fingers on what’s wrong.

A lot of what feels so wrong about the relationship is not just what they do, but the result that gets deposited in us. We feel utterly violated and defiled. 

That’s precisely why this task is so important. Pin down all those little things they did. Don’t forget the lies, the times they turned themselves into a victim, the code-switching between love and hate, and the denial, deflection, projection, and blame of their behavior onto you. 

It all creates a false reality for us that has left us standing where we are now, in this freefall, unable to cope with life. 

So write it all down. Nothing is too small. The invalidation, the smears, the lies, the gaslighting, the double standards, the verbal abuse, the physical abuse, the things they used against you, the silent treatments… it all goes on the list.

The Power of the List

You may begin to feel anger or vindication as you write. You may get an urge to contact your partner and tell him or her off or send them your list. 

Do not do this.

Reaching out to them will backfire and make narcissistic abuse recovery even more difficult. This list is for you. 

The goal is to start putting together a different narrative beyond the one your ex-partner wanted you to have. The urge will pass.

Don’t stop at writing the list.  Please read it.  Read it as many times as you need to until you can no longer deny all of those things you may have put out of your head or repressed.  

By actively reading and writing, with a consciousness you may never have done or been able to do with the narcissist present in your life, the pieces may start to come together differently.

You may feel less sad and more indignant–but this is a good thing.  That anger will build a wall in your heart and help you mentally “stand up” to the narcissist if he or she returns. 

The new insight can help you stop falling into the abyss. You may start to absorb some of the peace that comes in the narcissist’s absence. 

Please note that if you find your anger or other negative emotions increasing in intensity, then stop. Use another form of emotion management, such as a relaxing activity.

2. Write out a list of all the things you have survived in your life. 

Make a list as detailed as possible, and include anything you feel was challenging. You could have both positive and negative events on the list. 

You might include childbirth or finishing school.  Perhaps you were in a severe accident or were bullied as a child.  

Again, nothing is too small—every incident in your life matters. 

Narcissists think we can’t live without them. They need to believe that everyone is thinking about them, worshiping them. 

They love the thought that they created this “larger-than-life” soulmate idea in our minds. To them, it overrides everything else we have ever done or experienced. 

They imagine we will sit around pining over them forever.  

Maybe you even believe right now that you will. Yet those are the narcissist’s fantasies, not yours.

Look at your list.

You are strong. The narcissist is a blip on your radar, an unfortunate detour along the path of your beautiful life.

Their reality is not your reality, and you have the proof in your hands.

3. Avoid people who are victim-blamers.

You’re trying to make a significant life change by recovering from narcissistic abuse.  

The last thing you need right now is someone judging you or your emotional state. 

Victim-blamers have an image of you as someone who was “getting something out of” the abuse–or you would have left sooner than you did. They also define a pre-conceived role for you in their minds that colors their interactions with you.

You don’t need that negativity and their lack of support holding you back while you’re trying to break out of an old mindset and take the next steps to move forward.

You may also decide to avoid people who call you codependent for what happened.  At this point, you are still feeling connected to the narcissist. It may not be the best idea to examine what either led to that connection or held it together. [Read Don’t Say Survivors of Narcissistic Abuse are Codependent]

The narcissist used manipulation tactics that resulted in mind control. The tasks in this article are all about breaking it. [Read If You’re in a Relationship with a Narcissist, You’re in a Cult]

If any, sorting out any other mental health issues can come later after you have taken your mind back first. Anyone who doesn’t understand that doesn’t belong in your life right now.  

4. Get a brief session of Emotion Freedom Technique (EFT) Tapping therapy.

What if I told you that there was an evidence-based treatment you could learn in an hour from a trained therapist that could start immediately helping you feel better?

When I was in the early days of my narcissistic abuse recovery, I had Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. 

Narcissistic abuse survivors need immediate relief from the painful thoughts and feelings before any talk therapy can help us process it.

This therapy was so effective that I wrote about the unique ways I thought narcissistic abuse survivors could benefit from it. I wished every survivor of narcissistic abuse could experience it. [Read How EMDR Therapy Can Help with Narcissistic Abuse]

Survivors can now easily and quickly try something very similar, called Emotion Freedom Technique (EFT) tapping. 

What is Emotion Freedom Technique (EFT) Tapping?

EFT is a similar form of therapy to EMDR that combines cognitive therapy with the physiological response of tapping on our bodies’ pressure points.

Over 100 studies demonstrate its effectiveness, including a decrease in post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and an increase in overall well-being (Bach et al., 2019).

Since the fall of 2019, Stacey Vornbrock, MC, LPC, has been offering a one-hour $25 session of EFT that she developed specifically to help with narcissistic abuse recovery. 

Vornbrock tailored the session tailored to survivors to help them break the spell they have to narcissists and sociopaths. She specifically the tapping series to reduce the emotional pain caused by that connection: EFT Tapping to Break Your Addiction to a Sociopath.  

If you’re hurting right now and need something to help you stop the pain, I recommend giving it a try. It can take less than fifteen minutes for most people to start feeling better. Once you learn the techniques, you can practice them yourself. 

Yes, this item on the list has a small cost, but I decided to include it because it works.  I know this from my experience with EMDR, and many of my readers have let me know this particular session worked for them.  

5. Keep reading about narcissism and narcissistic abuse. 

The influence the narcissist had over your thoughts will fade away the longer you’re in no-contact. Yet continuing to read about narcissistic abuse will validate your experiences when you start to have doubts. 

It will remind you that nothing about what happened was normal or acceptable. You will see your own story reflected in other people’s stories over and over again.

The similarities between what you read and what happened to you will start to drain the narcissist’s spiritual residue out of your sphere. 

It will start to sink in that we are all feeling the same thing. There is nothing to miss because our stories are carbon copies of one another; we are missing ghosts.

6. Expose yourself to the work of narcissists. 

Seek out the videos, books, and articles created by narcissists themselves that explain their behavior (e.g., the works of H.G. Tudor).

When you start to see the world as they do and understand how very differently they think from you, it will begin to erode your desire for the narcissist. [Read How to Think Like a Narcissist and Why You Should] 

You will be so disgusted by the narcissist’s manner of viewing people and relationships that you will want no part of it.

You can start applying to your situation what you read about how narcissists think. Eventually, you can start giving yourself pep talks, reminding yourself what they did wasn’t personal. Putting yourself in their minds is particularly useful if you start to get nostalgic or miss the narcissist.

You will, maybe for the first time, be able to start rejecting the narcissist as you reject the narcissist’s way of thinking (instead of the other way around).

7. Take your space, time, and personal choices back.

Did you change or hide things about yourself to keep the peace and avoid the degrading accusations and questions? 

If so, change them back. Now. Do what you need to do to purge the narcissist’s influence. Take your power back. Let go of that stranglehold you had on yourself to keep him or her happy.

Anything you put on hold, left behind, put off, ignored, didn’t explore, or changed about yourself to appease the narcissist, drag it out and let it shine.

These things will take the place of that space in your life that the narcissist is squatting in.  That space belongs to you, and you can and should put in it whatever you want to without guilt, without fear.

If there are things in your home environment that remind you of him or her, get rid of them.

For example, you could get new sheets. Redecorate. Do it in colors you love, maybe ones that the narcissist would not have approved. Move furniture around.

Stock up on food the narcissist didn’t like that you love. Watch a series or a movie that the narcissist never enjoyed.

Do some things you had put on hold because he or she was dominating your life and that you never had time for, or you shied away from because he or she mocked them.

Take up a new interest that had always looked appealing or an old one you had given up. Invite a friend out that you haven’t talked to in a long time, especially if it’s someone from whom you were isolated because of the narcissist.

When you make these changes, these are the things that will help you start living your own life again in small steps, one day at a time. [Read Ten Ways to Start Living Again After Narcissistic Abuse]

Narcissistic Abuse Recovery is Possible

There may be a small piece of you that you can’t explain to anyone that doesn’t want to recover.

Narcissistic abuse recovery not only means letting go of some of the worst things that ever happened to you. It also means letting something fade away that sometimes felt like it contained all the beauty and goodness in the world. 

Maybe you’re afraid you’ll never see those things again. 

Because you have these conflicting emotions, you may have to force yourself to do things you know will take you further along the narcissistic abuse recovery path. 

In those moments when the pain of holding on is greater than the pain of letting go, use it to take some power back. Grab onto one or more of these tasks and use it to push forward and close to your new and beautiful destiny. 

Source

Bach, D. et al. (2019). Clinical EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) Improves Multiple Physiological Markers of Health. Journal of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine 24: 1-12.

Join the community to get more articles like this one delivered straight to your inbox. 

If you like this article, you’ll also enjoy these:

• 11 Things You Might Do Before Going No-Contact and Meaning It
• How Narcissists Use Cognitive Dissonance to Control Us
• How to Know When a Narcissist is Finished with You
• What a Narcissist Says About Breakups: They Never Let You Go
• 10 Things I Would Tell My Narcissist Ex If I Could

A version of this article appeared on Thought Catalog. 

The post 7 Things That Supercharge Narcissistic Abuse Recovery appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

We can only begin to heal when the realizations we have about our narcissistic ex-partner lead us to an enlightened view of the relationship.  

Yet, we can get stuck before we have these realizations if we do the wrong things. Below are seven things we should try not to do so we don’t get stuck on the way to a full recovery. 

What to Avoid as You’re Healing from Narcissistic Abuse

It’s tempting to fall into the traps below. Sometimes not doing them can even be painful. 

As you read, question whether you’re doing any of these things, how they’ve served you, and whether changing them might help you move forward in your healing journey.     

1. Avoid Hanging Around People Who Don’t Support You.

People who haven’t been through a pathological love relationship with a narcissist or psychopath don’t understand what we’ve experienced. That’s okay–as long as they can still support us as we recover from one.  

Supportive people should be empathetic to what you’re going through. That means they shouldn’t judge you or project what they think they would do if they were going through the pain (we know they wouldn’t).  

They shouldn’t give you advice unless you ask for it or tell you what to do, or make claims about who they think you are or why they believe you feel how you’re feeling. 

Supportive people listen to how you’re feeling. They may not always be available to listen 24/7 because they’re human. However, giving you the benefit of the doubt and accepting you and the situation for what it is should be the bare minimum. 

You don’t have to convince anyone to love and accept you. If they’re actively saying harmful things that undermine you, get away from them.  

2. Avoid Suppressing Your Emotions.

The roller coaster of emotions is one of the most painful things we will likely ever experience. It’s tempting to do anything we can to try to shut off the spigot.

Doing so will only prolong the pain, however.

When we sit with that pain, the intensity does begin to fade over time. I don’t know the biology behind why that happens, but it’s as if by allowing those emotions in, we desensitize ourselves to them. 

Eventually, new ones start to take their place. It may seem difficult to believe, but we may begin to feel amusement at the ridiculous things our partners did.

3. Avoid Beating Yourself Up If You Responded to a Hoover.

Narcissists are great at pushing our buttons. They learned how to control us and conditioned us to respond when they pulled out various tricks.  

They have a habit of popping up weeks, months, or even years later with a hoover attempt, and we may get caught off guard. [Read What is Hoovering? 23 Narcissist Hoovering Tactics to Watch Out For]

Maybe the narcissist pulled you into a web of conversation and you don’t remember how you got involved in it. If you found yourself in a place you didn’t want to be, recognize that this is another game they play. 

Either end the game as soon as you can or, if you can’t end it, at least understand what happened and go easy on yourself. 

 One day, there will be nothing they say to which you will care to respond. When you truly realize you have all the power, they will stop contacting you because they don’t want to interact with people who don’t hand over their power.

4. Avoid Blaming Yourself for What Happened.

Speaking of going easy on yourself, don’t get caught in the trap of blaming yourself for things that happened while you were in the relationship.  

There are all kinds of blame others may want to heap on you, and you will start to heap it on yourself.  

“I should have known when I first met them.”  (Why?)

“I should have recognized the red flags.”  (You sure about that? More on this below)

“I should have left sooner.”  (There are about two dozen reasons you didn’t, and none of them say anything about you or what kind of person you are)

“I shouldn’t have responded to them the ways that I did.”  (The volume of things we could dump into this “shoulda” statement is so large, it practically means we’d have to be superhuman–or a psychopath)  

We can keep having thoughts like those, but without understanding the psychological and social factors acting on us, we can’t see the full picture.  

The guilt and shame we heap on ourselves can never bring us to the closure that will lead us to recovery. 

5. Avoid Assuming You’re Codependent (or, if You Are Codependent, Avoid  Attributing the Situational Dynamics of the Relationship to Your Codependency). 

The idea that you’re codependent assumes that there were qualities about you before starting the relationship that made you attractive to the narcissist and made the narcissist attractive to you. 

This idea implies something inherent in you that may have led you to enter the relationship and stay in it.  

Of course, some people do re-enact past patterns in their relationships. 

Yet, there is a crucial missing piece in how we understand the relationship if we haven’t taken situational dynamics into account. 

What do situational dynamics mean? It means we haven’t fully considered the factors outside of ourselves that affected our behavior in the relationship.

Rhonda Freeman, neuropsychologist, says, “Narcissistic abuse is about the pathology of the narcissist damaging the well-being of their partner. No one will do great in these relationships – not even the securely attached. Why? Because narcissists have a disorder of impaired social neuro-networks of their brain. That is the key to the problem. The survivor is reacting to the narcissist’s limited emotional system.”

What are situational factors?

An example of a situational factor is how psychological manipulation can coerce a person to violate their morals and values. This coercion can occur in a lot of different circumstances.  Most people tend to react the same way, regardless of their personality or background. 

Other essential factors include isolation and our level of conscientiousness.  What was happening in our lives at the time we met our partners is also a crucial factor.  The chemical trauma bond we develop to the narcissist is also significant.

Taking these factors into account demonstrates that there was a change in us over time. Through our interactions with the narcissist, we become more compliant and dependent. 

If codependency were the only factor necessary to explain either the narcissist’s attraction to us or why we could not leave, there would have been no need for the narcissist to deceive us. 

He or she also would not need to psychologically manipulate us and break us down to make us compliant. Our codependent behavior would have been enough to bind us to the relationship. 

Our compliance made us valuable to the narcissist, and the narcissist induced that compliance in us gradually.  

Without understanding how the relationship changed us, authentic healing from narcissistic abuse is more difficult to achieve.   

6. Avoid Forgetting to Grieve.  

It wasn’t just the relationship you lost.  The narcissist put you in a position where you were easy to exploit. He or she took pieces of you under false pretenses.

You didn’t ask for this. All you wanted to do–all you tried to do–was love someone. 

Yet the narcissist stole things from you. You lost those pieces of yourself, and you’ll never get them back. It’s unfair. It’s tragic.  Nothing about this makes any sense.  

As part of not suppressing your emotions, you’ll have to grieve, but one of the things you’ll grieve for is you.

It’s okay to grieve. You’ll have to so you can become the “you” you’re now meant to become.

7. Avoid Letting the Relationship Steal Your Core Values From You. 

Sometimes people write to me and say, “Because of this relationship, I’ll never be the person I used to be.”

Yes, again, the relationship stole something from us. It forced us to change when we didn’t want to.  

It’s true that our experience forever changes us because we will never again see the world as a place where people will do the right thing if given a chance. 

We have seen that some people don’t care that they cause others pain and even enjoy the pain they inflict on others.  It’s an ugly truth to face. 

However, we can maintain our core values by reconciling this knowledge with the fact that most people are not like this.

It is an act of both resilience and defiance to maintain our trust in humanity despite the abuse we suffered. 

Going back to the way we used to be is not possible because we are not who we used to be.  Yet we also cannot stay stuck where we are.  

Instead of compartmentalizing who we used to be from who we are now, we can integrate our new knowledge with our core values to become our best selves.    

Growing into our best selves means developing the strength to move forward into a future that truly leaves the relationship’s pain with the narcissist in the past where it belongs.

Source

Freeman, Rhonda. n.d. “3 Possibilities to Consider Before Assuming You’re Codependent.” Neuroinstincts. Retrieved at https://neuroinstincts.com/codependency-narcissistic-abuse-the-brain/

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Other articles like this one:

• How to Get Over a Narcissist: You Absolutely Must Do This
• What a Narcissist Says About Break-Ups: They Never Let You Go
• Five Things to Help You Move On After Going No-Contact
• 5 Questions For Your Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program
• Coercive Control: The Domination of a Narcissist
• Why Linking Narcissistic Abuse and Codependency is Dangerous

The post Healing from Narcissistic Abuse: What Not to Do appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

Once upon a time, I thought the emotional hell of breaking up and going no-contact with a narcissist would scald me alive.  Then the intensity faded to a slow burn and now the entire relationship feels almost like a fever dream.  

Was that actually me back there?

Yes… and no.

Oh, if he could see me now.

Too bad for him — he never will.

A Letter to the Narcissist Who Destroyed Me

6. You Didn’t Win

I’ve had to claw my way back from hell, but I did it.

Yeah, you hurt me a lot. It felt like swallowing broken glass, but I was here on this earth long before you came along and I’m still standing strong and thriving without you.

I’ve not absorbed your unkind words about me to try to break me down.

I don’t have a general distrust of other people.

I haven’t sworn off relationships.

I don’t sit in my bedroom crying all day.

I haven’t given up my core sense of optimism and hope.

I’m sorry, but you just don’t have that kind of power. 

7.  I Was Too Strong For You

You were never going to be able to keep me.  But what this really means is that I’m not pliable and easy to control.

Yes, it’s true–I was for a time after you got close enough to me to learn which buttons to press.  Bravo! Nice work.

But you made a mistake — you wanted too much control.  You wanted to control everything about me. 

The same tools you use to control other women in your sphere–money, gender role shame, and religious doctrine–don’t work on me.

So instead you resorted to extreme cruelty and verbal and emotional abuse to try to beat me down so I wouldn’t have any self-worth.

What you never realized is that you were never going to take over and you were only breaking the spell you held over me every time you tried to break me down.  

You used to brag to everyone about how I was a “fighter,” because I’d been through so much, but relationships are all about domination to you and you started to figure out that survivors eventually rise up.

So if I wouldn’t fall in line, I will wear that as a badge of honor because I know exactly what that means.

8. I Feel Sorry For You

I have thought about what it must be like to be you, to have my mood so dependent on what other people think of me and to have to constantly seek out the most shallow of interactions or else I feel completely nonexistent.

You can’t get by without other people and yet you despise other people for needing them so much.

For some of us, our own solitude is a place of peace. For you, it’s a prison.

You’re constantly on the lookout for imagined disrespect, and yet you drive people away and cause your own suffering by raining down chaos and misery on everyone around you.

You desperately crave love, but feel contempt toward anyone who shows you any because anyone who actually loves you is, in your eyes, foolish. 

It must be exhausting to run through all these mental gymnastics to avoid having to feel so empty, or to be so anxious all the time that people will look at you and see an imposter.

Did I nail it?

9. It’s Your Loss 

If I ever come up in your thoughts or conversation, I’m sure I’m talked about as one of those disloyal exes in your past. 

I know what disloyal means to you now, and what you conveniently leave out about yourself.  As if somehow the dynamic was ever under my control and I wanted things to turn out this way– not that I’d expect you to understand that.

I was only valuable to you if I looked the other way while you did whatever you wanted, put myself in a box and ignored my own needs, and let you talk to and treat me however you wanted without speaking up.

In other words– an object. No one can live like that– at least not happily and with good physical and mental health.

So what, exactly, did I lose?

You, on the other hand, threw away love. 

It’s not even a fair trade. I get my life back and you destroyed a perfectly good relationship and lost someone who loved and cared about you.

10. The Next Guy I Fall In Love With Will Be Glad I Was With You First

I once thought you were the love of my life. 

Now I know you weren’t, because the love of my life would never have treated me the way you did. The “love of your life” can’t be a one-sided relationship. That doesn’t even make sense.

And yet, I learned a lot about love in my relationship with you.  

I also learned a lot of things about myself emotionally and physically while in a relationship and I gained knowledge about becoming a better partner. 

Most of all, now I know I’m capable of giving someone that much love.

So I guess I have to thank you for showing me what was possible. My next boyfriend is going to benefit from that and I’ll be a better woman for that man, so he thanks you too.

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Other articles like this one:

• To Get Over a Narcissist You Absolutely Must Do This
• What a Narcissist Says About Break-Ups: They Never Let You Go
• Five Things to Help You Move On After Going No-Contact
• Eleven Things That Can Happen Before Going “No-Contact” and Meaning It
• The Five Relationship Outcomes If You’re With a Narcissist: Which One Will You Choose?
• If You’re Having Trouble Going No-Contact With a Narcissist, Try Doing This

The post A Letter to the Narcissist Who Destroyed Me appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

There’s my story staring me in the face.

You know what I’m talking about.

Your story.

The story that explains why you do what you do.

Why your habits are your habits—even your bad ones.

Why you tell yourself the things you do to get through the day, even when a part of you knows those things are lies.

Why you can’t forgive yourself for some things, even when you’ve forgiven other people for worse.

Why no matter where you go, you follow yourself around like a shadow begging to be heard. Yet the voice that sometimes hisses in your ear like a wasp is so decrepit, you’ll do anything to shut it up, even if you nearly destroy yourself in the process.

Why one minute you thought you were on an upswing, that things were moving in the right direction, and then the next minute the room flips upside down again. All of a sudden, you’re right back in a fight for your life again that’s taking place in that escape room in your mind.

The Stages of Breaking Up with a Narcissist

We all have our own tales of horror and heartbreak, and yet there are the common threads that stitch them all together.

There are also the deeper shared traumas that we seek to unpack, the grief for our futures, and the unbearable pain of deep silence no one else understands.

There are so many stages of being in a relationship with a narcissist or of getting out of a relationship with one, and I’ve written about them many times elsewhere:

The lovebombing.

The discovery about who our partner is.

The gaslighting, crazymaking, and denial.

The horrific violations of our personhood that we endure, not all at once–but one shred of humanity at a time until we barely remain. 

The Stockholm Syndrome.

The phases of breaking up over and over again.

The immediate aftermath of freefall.

The obsession with reading about narcissistic abuse and trying to figure out what happened.

Then, at some point, there is a stage at which we all end up after a relationship like this one, and that’s where I was for the longest time, although I didn’t know it: Who am I?

“I’ll Never Be the Person I Used to Be After Narcissistic Abuse”

Hundreds of people have written to me some version of the following statement: “I’ll never be the person I was before I met the narcissist.” They may even add, “I’m getting better, but still, I’ll never be the same.”

If you look back at yourself in each of those snapshots, those stages above–the one bound to the narcissist by invisible chains; the shell-shocked one; the one split in two; the one desperately begging for answers; the one so sick with grief you wanted to die; the one being ground down into ashes and then dragged back out of them so many times you were crazy with not knowing yourself anymore… 

If you look back at all those versions of yourself, is it hard to believe that was you, that you made it out?

Yet you did. You did. You survived!

How could you ever be the same?

You’re not the same person you were before they came along, before their ugly violation of that “you.” 

So now that it’s over, if we will never be the same, then who are we now?

Who am I?

If You Are Not Who You Were, Then Who Are You Now?

When the dust settles and we are able to sever the tie and stop caring about what the narcissist does, we are left with ourselves.

But what the narcissist left us with is not who we started with.

Narcissists slowly blend their identities with ours until we lose something crucial.

They look inside of us and see what no one else sees. They find ways to get inside, and then they violate us, scrape out what they see, stripping out flesh and soul, and replace all of that core embodiment of who we were with themselves. 

After the relationship ends, they’re gone, but what they leave behind is still there: the voice that told us who they thought we were supposed to be. The life they promised to us has shaped what we believe to be possible. The presence they mirrored to use has distorted the world for what we thought it was.

The narcissist makes us believe so many cruelties about ourselves, direct and indirect, through their words and actions, we have to start unraveling them.

Our beliefs have been shaken to the core because of what we went through.

Yet we can take what happened and use it to empower ourselves beyond all measure of how we have ever been empowered in our lives.

That’s the “Who Am I” stage.  

There is no roadmap.

What the “Who Am I” Stage is Not

Let’s talk about what the “Who Am I” stage is not.   

Note the “I” in the “Who am I” stage.

The “Who Am I” stage is completely subjective in its conclusions.

It is not a stage for anyone to tell you what you must conclude.

No one can tell you what your experience in this relationship means in the larger context of your life–although many people may try. 

There are many tools available for you to try to see what works and doesn’t work. But it is you that must come to your own conclusions. As you sift through everything, only you will know what pieces to keep and what pieces to throw away. 

What is common to us all about the “Who Am I” stage are not the conclusions we will draw, but the emotions we may feel while in this stage and the methods we may use to try to move through it successfully and learn what it is we need to learn.

Yet at some point, I think we all get here and what we do here is everything. You find your story. Your story is not just about the past–it’s about your future.  Once you know where you’ve been, you can know what you want going forward.

It wasn’t until recently that I realized I even had a story. Not until a little over a year ago after I went to visit my father and some other things occurred right around the same time was I able to have a vertigo moment and realize that there was something bigger going on. 

Like constellations in the sky, I started to be able to pick out shapes among dead stars, but I couldn’t yet make out the pictures they formed.

Realizations about why certain things had happened to me began to dawn on me. Yet I felt as if I understood both more and less at the same time. I couldn’t comprehend how to apply the realizations reliably in my present life so that I could protect myself in a way that would keep me safe without going too far.  

So, I just… went dark and went inside myself and fell inside the layers. 

There were times I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around my story.  I would grasp just a small piece before it slipped back under the cold, wet water again.

I would read my truth in the words of others and there it was.  I would feel validated, vindicated, seen, and then I would feel myself crawling back out into the light again as if I knew who I was–or at least who I could be. 

That is why I write these words now. I hope that by writing my truth in this new stage of healing, that it will help others in some small way to feel seen. 

I still reside among those layers, but closer to the surface now. I’m starting to be able to sew together those layers into a quilt made of tears and hope, that can both cover and radiate warmth. 

I am not scared.

I am not extinguished.

If you’re reading this, neither are you. 

The post After Narcissistic Abuse: I’ll Never Be the Person I Used to Be appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

I’ve had many people, both readers and people in my personal life ask me questions about my own dating life: when I planned to… if I’m doing it… how it’s going… 

Yet dating after abuse isn’t something to be taken lightly. Experiences with narcissists have made us both targets and they have made us fearful.

Walking this line can put us in the crosshairs for many new pitfalls and perils, and also subject us to overwhelming new emotions we hadn’t yet experienced during our recovery. 

Dating for us will never be the same again, but I don’t believe narcissistic abuse has to be a shadow over every future relationship we may have forever.

Issues We Face in Dating After a Narcissist

1. Falling at One Extreme or the Other in the Dating World

For some, there is the tendency to jump into something right away or soon after the breakup. 

They make us feel inadequate or as if we aren’t good enough. We may even feel as if we have something to prove.

There is also the tendency to want to paste over that pain they left with someone new. Those intense emotions are difficult to deal with, and it may be easy to feel like a new person can lift us out of that turmoil and rescue us from hell.

Or… we may do the opposite. We may isolate ourselves from dating completely. We may feel so broken that we have adopted a belief that we never want to date again.

The emotional turmoil has instead pushed us to the fear that any new relationship will just end in feeling shattered again.

We never want to go through anything like that again and we may think it’s better to be alone.

2. Pressure from Other People to Date Again

Have you had people outside the relationship ask you when you’re going to get over it and start dating again?  

They think you’re hanging onto something about the relationship.

Or perhaps they’ve read your unwillingness to date at the moment incorrectly, and they think you’re isolating when really you’re just recovering and making sure you’re ready.

There’s the belief out there that recovery includes dating other people. That’s not necessarily true–especially when you’ve been in an abusive relationship. Some people outside the relationship may not understand that and pressure you to do it too soon.

Recovery has no timetable and pressure to date after narcissistic abuse can add to the emotional turmoil you feel after the relationship ends and the feeling that there’s something wrong with you that was implanted by the narcissist. 

3. Confusion Over What to Tell Potential Suitors

How much information do you give so that it doesn’t seem as if you’re keeping a secret, but it doesn’t seem as if you are still hung up on the relationship?

Being in an abusive relationship–particularly with a narcissist–is a big deal. As we know, it’s something that no one can understand unless they’ve been through it.

And yet, it’s something that is part of our history now and the person we choose to be with next will at least need to understand what a big deal it was.

So how and when do we talk about it?  

There is no right or wrong answer.  

We may feel that we definitely want to be wary about going into too much detail right away, but have no idea how to talk about this big thing that feels like the elephant in the room.

It can be a puzzle that makes us want to stay home.

4. Impaired Judgment Leading to a New Narcissistic Relationship

If we have not yet taken the time to understand the narcissist and ourselves and what happened in the relationship, we may start dating before we’re ready and end up with another narcissist.

Narcissists may leave a big black hole inside of us, and it may be difficult to admit, but they did it through careful winnowing out of our own identity over time. 

This is what keeps some survivors on the sidelines. They don’t trust themselves or anyone else, and are afraid of ever going through a relationship like that one again. On the flip side, not having taken the time for a full recovery can lead to a lack of understanding of how we are abused. 

We could end up in the same place with someone new.

8 Signs You’re Ready for Dating After Abuse

Indeed, the issues with finding someone new after narcissistic abuse can all offer clues for us about how ready we are. Here are some signs that we may be ready to move on. 

1. You don’t have strong feelings about the narcissist anymore.  

This doesn’t mean that you have forgiven the narcissist for what happened, but if you have a lot of anger, guilt, grief, or if your emotions swing wildly from one moment to the next about how to feel about what you went through, it’s a warning sign that you’re not ready for a new relationship.

They are signs that we are still traumatized and our judgment is impaired. 

Here are a few key things you might feel that may tell you this is a bad time to start dating:

• you feel hatred toward the narcissist
• you’re still in love with the narcissist
• you swing back and forth between the two
• you’re obsessively reading about narcissism and can’t stop thinking about him or her
• you’re feeling suicidal or as if you’ll never get your life back

If any of these things are happening, you are still in recovery, likely in the early stages. It’s not a matter of time–it’s a matter of where you are in your healing journey.

It is dangerous to date while in this stage. The narcissist did not harm us in ways we detected at the beginning of the relationship but manipulated us slowly over time and eroded our ability to detect harm to ourselves.

Someone can very easily come in and do it again.

Think about it like this:  if our house was hit by a tornado, our lives would be understandably thrown into chaos. We might lose everything and it would take time to rebuild.

We might wish for help or someone to come in and be by our side during this harsh time, but it’s a prime time for predatory strangers to step in and overcharge us to help get back on our feet because we are so desperate to get back what we had. Some may even try to walk right in and steal what we have left.

During this time, it’s better to rely on the people who care about us, whom we know we can trust. 

If you feel as if there is no one on your life right now that you can count on, begin with learning how to trust yourself again. One small step at a time. 

In this case, it’s better to slowly work through the chaos and rebuild on our own until we have our foundation back and can sort through who to trust again–as painful as it is.

2. Qualities that you used to find appealing about the narcissist are no longer attractive to you.  

Narcissists are often exciting, passionate, charming and confident and they’re positive traits to have–in and of themselves.

Everyone who has these traits isn’t a narcissist, however, because the traits aren’t tempered in narcissists by empathy, patience, generosity (without strings attached), or foresight, these qualities are often all the narcissist has to offer us.

We get tricked or confused into thinking that a relationship without respect, trust, or honesty is one based on love.

Once we recognize that there is more to love than a passionate declaration or that actions that we were told conveyed concern were actually control, we will start to reject the overt display of these qualities when there’s no firmer foundation beneath them.

The narcissist primes us for the idealization-devaluation pattern. Even when our emotions are no longer in turmoil, we may still compare everyone to the narcissist who was in our lives.

If we think that fast-talking people who love bomb us and flatter us incessantly when we first meet are the most interesting of our choices of dating partners after what we’ve experienced, this is a warning sign–for ourselves.

We need to stop and ask ourselves what’s happening and why.

3. You don’t have the urge to rush things.

If we have the urge to move things forward quickly, that is a sign that we may not be ready.  

As discussed above, narcissists may leave us feeling empty or hollow, due to the identity erosion they inflicted on us.

We may also feel the need to jump into something right away because that’s what the narcissist did or as some kind of “revenge” or proof to ourselves that we’re not the defective ones the narcissist tried to make us believe we are. 

With these emotions as our guide, how would we keep ourselves safe and from falling for another narcissist?  

4. You don’t have the urge to tell dating partners a lot about the relationship early on.

Sometimes it can feel as if we need to unburden ourselves, or worse, justify our own actions, when faced with the potential of a new relationship.

There could be many reasons for this. For example, maybe we are still caught in emotional turmoil and it’s difficult to stop thinking about it, for example. 

However, if we start having new emotions, such as a need to explain ourselves or justify ourselves, it could be a key sign that we are still working through the shame of being a victim.

5. You no longer feel tainted or broken by the relationship.

Many people have written to me to tell me that they’re recovering, but they’ll never be the person they once were. They feel forever broken by what happened, or as if they’re now flawed or tainted by the narcissist.

That feeling does fade with time and with therapeutic treatment. 

However, trying to date while feeling broken can be a recipe for someone who senses our brokenness to come in and offer a quick fix. We also can’t offer our best selves to someone else. 

6. You have forgiven yourself.

Narcissists heap shame and guilt on top of us for many things that aren’t even our fault. In addition, we may have acted in ways or done things that we deeply regret.

On top of all that, we have to figure out how to forgive ourselves for being and staying with someone who hurt us so deeply.

If we can’t do that, we’re just continuing the work of the narcissist. Compassion toward ourselves enables us to avoid acting out of fear, shame, and desperation–which can keep us out of unhealthy relationships.

7. You don’t feel confused by potential red flags in everyone you date. 

We’re armed.

We’ve spent hundreds of hours watching YouTube videos and read thousands of words about how narcissists act that we used to explain our abusive relationship in reverse.

Now that information serves as a filter for everyone we encounter. We can name all the signs of narcissism and we know what to look for this time. But, with this new knowledge, we may find that, everywhere we go, with everyone we meet, little red flags are raising. 

Everyone isn’t a narcissist, although narcissism is a spectrum and we all have some narcissism or else we wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the morning. Further, narcissistic tendencies in someone doesn’t necessarily mean they are a narcissistic abuser.

So what’s happening?

It could be that we haven’t adequately firmed up our own boundaries and we’re still unwittingly attracting those with sociopathic tendencies. It could also be that we’ve turned up the sensitivity rating so high on our narc-radar, that we are rejecting others with too little information for fear of being hurt again. 

But how can we know the difference?

Honestly, it doesn’t matter. If you can’t tell the difference and most dating partners you meet seem to be narcissistic, that’s a clear sign to get out of the dating pool. 

8. You can adequately sum up what happened to you in your own mind.

Do you understand what attracted you to the narcissist and what attracted you to him or her?

Do you understand how he or she was able to keep you in the relationship so long?

Do you understand that nothing you did was ever going to change the outcome? 

Can you think about these things without getting lost down a trail of “whys” and “what ifs?”

Can you accept the reality without becoming emotional about it?

Accepting what happened doesn’t mean that you agree with what the narcissist did or anything about the narcissist’s version of reality.

In fact, it means the opposite. If the narcissist had it his or her way, you’d be embroiled in emotional turmoil, bleeding over what they did forever. 

Accepting it just means that you are able to say, “It happened.”  And you get to define it so you can let it go.

These signs are not meant to be judgments about who any of us are or why or when we should be ready. In fact, they are meant to keep us safe from harm.

It’s not a checklist that can tell you that when you achieve all nine, something inside you will know it’s time. It also doesn’t mean that if you can say yes to one or two of these things, you’re ready. 

But if you’ve tried dating and it’s not working out or it’s making you feel worse, being unable to say yes to many of these signs may help explain why.

On the flip side, if you feel you can say yes to most of these signs and yet something is still holding you back, that might be a good place to examine more closely and continue your recovery.

This isn’t an exercise to take on to make you “dateable” or ready for a partnership. You are worthy of love and respect right now, as you are.

Examining these things, however, can help us return to normal life and become the best people we can be for ourselves.

Then we can have relationships again on our own terms.

Assistance with Recovering from a Breakup with a Narcissist

I’m always on the lookout for new and high-quality resources for survivors. Donna Anderson has a course on Recovering and Dating Safely after a Narcissist or Sociopath, which you can review here and see a preview. Lovefraud webinars on relationship abuse are presented by experts but also from the perspective of experience. Almost every instructor learned about the behavior of sociopaths in relationships the hard way. They’re affordable and offer practical information you can start using immediately. If you decide to try one, send me an email and let me know how it went!

Want more? Please take a moment to sign up to get all future articles delivered straight to your inbox.

Don’t forget to check out these resources on the website  while you’re here:

• Taking Your Life Back After a Relationship With a Narcissist (Free ebook)
• Comprehensive Narcissistic Abuse Dictionary
• Narcissistic Abuse Resources for Recovery

The post 8 Signs You’re Ready to Date Again after Narcissistic Abuse appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

It took me a long time to realize how my ex-boyfriend had dismantled the boundaries I did have. He was able to use to his advantage the confusing misconceptions I had adopted about boundaries.

What are Personal Boundaries?

Boundaries are our standards for what treatment we expect from others and the behavior that we will not tolerate because it violates our human rights.

For example, boundaries can include the rights to make independent decisions; to have our own thoughts, ideas, desires, and emotions and the freedom to express them; to choose with whom to spend time, how to spend it, and whether to say yes or no; to be treated with dignity and respect.

In a way, if you think about it, the concept behind what constitutes “boundaries” is inalienable. We are all born with an inherent personhood worthy of these things…

Read more on my HealthyPlace blog here:

https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/verbalabuseinrelationships/2019/6/setting-boundaries-after-a-verbally-abusive-relationship

Please note that this content belongs to HealthyPlace so the full article is published there exclusively. Thank you for taking the time to read it. I look forward to your comments!

Don’t forget to check out these resources:

• Taking Your Life Back After a Relationship With a Narcissist – Free Recovery Toolkit
• Comprehensive Narcissistic Abuse Dictionary
• The Best Resources for Narcissistic Abuse Recovery

The post Setting New Boundaries after a Relationship with a Narcissist appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

There is a saying about change, that there are two types:  change that you initiate yourself and change that is imposed upon you. 

Abusive relationships cause us to change in ways we didn’t ask for. However, I didn’t see or recognize how I was changing or needed to change at first because just stabilizing myself from the trauma of what I went through was the first priority.

The turmoil of emotions that accompanied that trauma I endured throughout the relationship was often a crushing weight that threatened to engulf every other belief I held about the world. When the relationship ended, that weight fell, and the emotions pushed me into a new daze that became the most important thing in my life. Still, I was suppressed all of the grief and fear about what it all meant as I started to process everything I had been through.

Only later, came the deeper wisdom about myself and the world.  These realizations come from a deeper place of healing that let me know I am moving to a more complete place of recovery. Much of it was knowledge I never would have been ready to accept until now. 

Ten Things I Am Ready to Accept about My Recovery from Verbal Abuse

1. I have a right to my emotions. It is perfecting understandable to have had overwhelming emotions while I was in the relationship, after it ended, and even now. Being able to let go of the secondary guilt I’ve been experiencing for having those emotions and accept them is a healthy part of my recovery. 

Read more on my HealthyPlace blog here:

https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/verbalabuseinrelationships/2019/5/hope-after-verbal-abuse-10-things-i-am-ready-to-accept

Please note that this content belongs to HealthyPlace so the full article is published there exclusively. Thank you for taking the time to read it. I look forward to your comments!

Don’t forget to check out these resources:

• Taking Your Life Back After a Relationship With a Narcissist – Free Recovery Toolkit
• Comprehensive Narcissistic Abuse Dictionary
• The Best Resources for Narcissistic Abuse Recovery

The post 10 Things I Am Ready to Accept after Leaving the Narcissist appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.

As a general rule, the answer I’ve come up with is “no,” but the reasons are many.  There are times, however, when I’ve found myself trying to explain aspects of it.  There are two primary factors I consider.

Two Factors to Consider 

The Empathy Factor

We can generally divide the people in our lives into the three categories below.  

1. People who want to be supportive and are open to understanding;
2. People who unknowingly say or do unsupportive things out of ignorance, but are generally empathetic and likely would not do these things if they had a better understanding;
3. People who re-victimize and/or re-traumatize you with their words or actions because of or due to what happened. They may not be interested in having an interactive conversation and altering the point of view they already have or they may just shut you down when you try to talk about it.

Does the third one sound familiar? Like the stonewalling, minimizing, or blameshifting narcissist?

Let’s be clear.  We should give up on ever trying to explain what happened to people in the third category.  People who do not attempt to listen actively and learn with an open mind, or try to put us off of talking about it are not likely to offer anything supportive and can make recovery more difficult. And people who kick others when they’re down are people you should just stay away from. They’re not interested in understanding.

So how can we tell the difference between people who unknowingly say or do unsupportive things and people who are not interested in understanding and don’t care if what they do causes us additional suffering?

Truthfully, it can be difficult, especially if we are still in the relationship or are traumatized by it and are unable to think clearly about who genuinely cares about us or has our best interests at heart.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• Does the person mostly respond to you empathetically in general, even when not about your relationship?
• Does the person use the information you have told them against you?
• Does the person keep details that they know about the relationship to themselves or have they shared it with others (e.g., spread gossip)?
• Is the person otherwise a good friend/supportive family member?
• Is the person a generally empathetic person toward other people?

In some cases, maybe it’s not clear-cut. Is someone giving you mixed signals about their level of support?  This is even more dangerous. If someone seems supportive, but you are not able to answer the above questions in a way that makes you feel supported, if something feels wrong or off about your interactions, your gut is trying to tell you something:  you are not supported.  

The Time Factor

If we have decided that someone is an empathetic person and may be open to hearing more, another factor to consider may be where on the timeline of our lives we met them.

A relationship with a narcissist is one of those incidents in our lives that has a “before” and an “after.”  When it happens, we are never the same.  The person we were before it happens is gone.

That is not necessarily a bad thing, but the transition marks a distinction in how we can and do interact and means that there are three potential categories of people in our lives:

• People who knew  us before we got into the relationship
• People we met while we were in the relationship or in the aftermath of recovering from it
• People we met after the relationship ended or will meet in the future

We will likely talk about it differently or want to talk about it differently with each group of people.

This factor may seem as if it concerns the degree to which we know people in each category, however, this is not necessarily the case.  For example, someone we meet in the future may become a very good friend or potential partner and we will have to decide what to tell them about the relationship. This factor has more to do with who we are to the people in each of these categories.

Those who knew us before we got into the relationship may have a totally different view of not only the relationship itself but of us. It seems fair to say that those who knew us before we got into the relationship will be the easiest with which to discuss our relationships.

Those who knew us before we met the narcissist had the benefit of knowing who we actually were before we were traumatized by the relationship. They witnessed the transition and know something major has happened to us.  

Those whom we met or will meet in the future will have the benefit of knowing us after we have gained some distance and had the chance to recover from it. They see our transformed selves. When we discuss it, we may not describe all of the details, however, our behavior is consistent.

Although I can’t tell you which combinations among these two groups you should tell or which ones will be the easiest in your particular situation, I would guess that the most difficult are probably individuals you meet or met while you were actually in the relationship.

Why?

They are witnessing you while you are in the midst of the chaos. 

Our behavior will be inconsistent. One day we will defend the narcissist and the next day, we will cry in the most heartbreaking manner over something he or she has done. We find ourselves having to explain how we can love someone so much who has wrecked our lives. The devastation is right there, ripped wide open for the people closest to us, some of whom may have just met us, to see. We are at our weakest, and no matter how strong or independent we have ever been, a part of us has been erased and the people we have just met don’t know that part of us.

That’s why we seek each other out, as survivors.  Because we understand all of these things. 

Of course, it’s so much more complicated than that, and how many more details we provide will depend on how well we know the person, how much we trust them, and how much of a role they will play or do play in our lives.

Other Thoughts About Opening Up

1. Open up slowly to new people about it. You don’t want to give other narcissists the key to open a door to exploit you by providing them with information they can use to blind you to their intentions.
2. Be wary of people you don’t know well who are very interested in knowing a lot of the details. Some people are only interested in learning details about your life in order to use them for their own purposes. They might not necessarily be narcissists, but they might be people who want a “project” and think they’re going to help you recover. If you don’t take their advice, they can get upset if you don’t follow their recommendations. There are all kinds of reasons people feed off of the misery of others for their own purposes. 
3. It’s your story and you can tell as much or as little as you want to about it. It is all about your own comfort level. 

It’s also important to remember that some people will never have empathy for or understand what happened because they won’t be able to identify with the fact that you were deceived (although experts explain that even they are deceived by narcissists and psychopaths). 

They also may believe that they would never become trauma-bonded in a similar situation– as if they have a special psychological mechanism that kicks in to transcend normal brain functions when those brain functions are manipulated for evil purposes. 

There is nothing you can do about that. You cannot control how other people perceive what happened to you. You can, however, own the story. You can be secure in your own narrative and keep people at a distance who want to flip that narrative in a way that disempowers you.

Don’t forget to check out these resources:

• Taking Your Life Back After a Relationship With a Narcissist – Free Recovery Toolkit
• Comprehensive Narcissistic Abuse Dictionary
• The Best Resources for Narcissistic Abuse Recovery

The post Should I Tell People I Was Abused By a Narcissist? appeared first on Fairy Tale Shadows.