Living with a narcissist is draining and overwhelming. They suck all the life out of you to consistently refill their supply and feel superior to others. You bounce between hope things will be different, happiness that things are actually going well, and then disappointment that they again are the abusive person you knew they were. You fantasize about the times things will be great again, but also fantasize about the moment you decide to leave them and free yourself from their abusive grasp.
Finally, you are able to leave the narcissist. You felt trapped in the relationship but were able to finally break free! The problem is, you aren’t as happy as you thought you would be. Despite being free from the grasp of the narcissist, you continue to feel hurt and confused, just as you did when you were in the narcissistic relationship. How do you recover after a relationship with a narcissist?
When you were in the relationship with the narcissist, it was all-consuming. The highs were very high and the lows were very low. Now that you are out of the relationship, the calm around you can be difficult to adjust to. You still anticipate the moments where you will do something wrong and aren’t quite comfortable with the calmness even when it was something you couldn’t wait for when you were in the narcissistic relationship. These moments of quiet just give your mind more time to think and you find you are repeatedly replaying what you could have done differently. You think about whether you are to blame for what happened in the relationship and for it ending. Even though the narcissist is out of the picture, you question all your actions and remain under the control of the narcissist.
You find you can easily remember the good times while quickly overlooking the bad times. You may even notice you were trauma bonded to the narcissist. The trauma bond develops between the abuser and the victim because there is a continuous pattern of abuse, devaluation, and then positive reinforcement. People hang on in hopes of returning to the positive reinforcement they have received so many times before. The bond is what helps keep you sane during a time of a lot of uncertainty. There was hope that things would get better, which made the bad times easier to deal with.
The healing process after leaving a narcissist can take time. You may still feel a great deal of uncertainty in your life about what your future will look like, but remember that you are in control now and the narcissist can no longer control you. The healing process will be hard but here are some things that will help make the process more manageable.
Acknowledge the abuse happened and you were not to blame: This one is hard because people don’t want to think they were the victim of abuse. They blame themselves for being in the relationship, letting the abuse happen, and the things they think they did to be abused. This is even harder not to think when the narcissist would always remind you that you were to blame for everything. No matter what the narcissist has told you, you were not the reason they were abusive or the relationship didn’t work. They are responsible for their actions just as you are responsible for your own. Acknowledge the abuse happened and that you were treated poorly by someone who only cared about themselves. This will help you recover and better be able to not think you are the reason things didn’t work out. When you make the narcissist responsible for their own behaviors, you can stop internalizing that responsibility.
Prepare to continue experiencing the roller coaster of emotions: Although you are out of the relationship with a narcissist, you might find your emotions are still all over the place. You go from happiness, sadness, anger, and grief, sometimes in the same day. You felt crazy when you were with the narcissist and now you feel crazy even when you are no longer with the narcissist. This is normal. You are processing a lot while trying to break free from any trauma bonding that was present. You are also trying to make sense of everything, but remember that not everything makes sense. Life doesn’t always give us answers to things that happened. Sometimes just accepting what happened and not trying to find a reason or answer is needed to help you get off the roller coaster of emotions.
Set your boundaries: When there is a narcissist in your life, you need to ensure you set boundaries and hold firm to them. Narcissists like to push your buttons to control and manipulate while also feeling better about themselves. Although the relationship has ended with the narcissist, this doesn’t mean they are done using you for supply. They may try to hoover as a way to bring you back into the relationship, or recruit flying monkeys to ensure you feel bad about the decision to leave them. The goal of the narcissist is to remain in control. When you set boundaries, you are taking the control back from the narcissist and not letting them into your life again. Setting and keeping boundaries is hard, but it is necessary to show the narcissist that they are no longer a part of your life and won’t be.
If you can leave a narcissist, that will always be the best decision. The narcissist doesn’t care about others because they don’t have the ability to. This is unlikely to change no matter how hard you try. Once you make the decision to leave the narcissist, you can start to recover and have your own thoughts and feelings that aren’t controlled by someone else.
At Mindset Therapy we provide mental health services in Texas and Washington from trained professionals, via telepsychology, which allows you to attend the appointment from the location most convenient for you. Visit Mindset Therapy at https://www.mindsettherapyonline.com/ to learn more about the services offered and make an appointment. Also visit our YouTube page, Mindset Therapy, PLLC, for the Mental Health Minute series that provides quick pieces of information for common mental health issues.