Podcast Ep. 2: Life After Narcissistic Abuse

So, you’ve left or they have left you. Now what? It is completely normal to feel that your life has been snatched for you. It’s normal to feel like you want to go back to the relationship, even after the last blowup that may have caused the separation. It is normal to suddenly get abuse amnesia and want to forget the bad stuff and look forward to the honeymoon phase, which is your abuser convincing you to come back by promising to do better and gift giving. 

No worries because you literally cannot help it. When we find ourselves in a cycle of narcissistic abuse, there are number of things that happens in our brains. It’s normal to feel like you aren’t able to make decisions or not being able to concentrate on anything longer than a couple of minutes. Our brains are responding to the trauma that you’ve endured and is trying to make sense of it. Your brain thinks your narcissist is a “drug” and now you are “detoxing”, due to the dopamine levels increasing during the honeymoon phase and decreasing during the separation phase.

The very first thing you need to do is reach out for support. Begin building a foundation of supporters that you can depend on. These people will help you find stability in this unstable moment in your life. For me, I first began repairing my relationship with God. During my relationship, I tried everything but God to help me get through what I was going through. I was skeptical about “God” because I believed the world when they told me, I could get through this myself. You may not believe in God right now. And that’s ok because it doesn’t mean that He has stopped working on your behalf. As Alcoholics Anonymous says, right now, choose a god of your own understanding. Some people choose to the Universe, others may choose Mother Nature, etc. And I’ll continue to pray that my God of Love, Compassion, and Understanding is reintroduced into your life.

the Bible says to: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” – Deuteronomy 31: 6

God also says that “The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” Deuteronomy 31:8

Right after my husband left, I was so mad at God! I didn’t want to believe in Him anymore. I wanted to give up on everything good I was taught about the Creator of the Universe. Shamefully, I would even curse and yell at Him. I blamed Him for what I was going through. Until, I learned it wasn’t His fault. During my healing and recovery, I realized the numerous signs Gos was showing me from the moment I met my husband up until now. He tried to save me. He tried to warn me, but I didn’t listen. I wanted to do my own thing.

#2 – If you can, you have to stop all communication with this person. If you have ties with this person, such as business or children, its important to act like a gray rock; bland, uninterested to what they have to say or what they have going on. I was told for a year and a half to do this and I didnt listen. I thought my circumstance was different. But, it ended up with me having to get an order of protection against my husband due to continued physical abuse after the separation.
#2a If you are currently in a situation where you are unable to escape right now, I would encourage you begin planning for an escape. Reach out to an abuse hotline to get information to your nearest women’s s shelter. Here is my town of St. Louis, we have a organization https://alivestl.org or 800.941.9144. Put together an emergency to go bag, which will include: important documents, a change of clothes, important phone numbers and people. Hid it in a place where they are unable to find it. So, if the next time they become violent, you can grab your bag and go. If you have children, do the same for them as well.

#3 Get couneling. Imagine this: the narcissist has been driving your car (you) for so long; abusing it by not keeping up with the maintenance, making sure it stays nice and clean, and making sure it stays in the condition that it was given to them or even including a few upgrades along the way. Now that you have your car back, its your turn to take the steps to get your car repaired. You were able to get it away from the narcissist before they completely killed it. Some of us that made it out are extremely blessed. There are many of us who do not survive; either we kill ourselves from the heartbreak and mind games or we become extremely mentally and physically ill, stuck in a prison of our own minds and bodies. 

My first year of liberation, it was so hard. There were so many days and nights I truly thought I wasnt going to makee it. I spent so much time, worrying about him and what he was doing. I spent so much time blaming myself for the toxicity that I allowed into the lives of my children. I spent so much time hating myself and sometimes God, trying to figure out what I did wrong and what I can do right so my husband could come home. As I stated in the last episode one, I was extremely confused because I didnt know why I wanted the abuse back. One time I even remember saying, “being with you hurts less than being without you”. How morbid is that? But then, my support system kept encouraging me, feeding me the truth because I clearly was still living in denial and not in my right mind. 

The truth is: it is NOT our fault, even if we stayed. Know that you did the best you could with what you had and how you felt at the time. Be kind to yourself. Work on forgiving yourself first, then the rest will follow with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Without Gods guidance, unfortuantely we are more prone to believing the lies and staying the situation. Also, have patience with yourself. Research states that it takes a person seven times to leave before they never look back. You may be on #1, #7, or #15. I encourage you never stop trying. Do not settle. You deserve so much more, whether you believe that or not. I’ve struggled with knowing what I deserve and what I dont. I just was recently in a situation where someone did something that made me uncomfortable and I had to question if this person valued my worth or not. I had to ask multiple people to get their perspective: I reached out to my spiritual mentor, and I even googled it. And amazingly, all of them said the same thing, which was “yes, girl! That was a complete violation and you need to run…RUN!” 

Right now, you are in a vulnerable place. Right now, while we are wounded, other narcissistic people can smell our suffering and they love it. You may have people coming to you saying they want to help you heal, and may even do things that show they “care”. Now is the time to heal. Now is the time to connect to people who can help you and be compltely honest with you. Not someone who is going to place you in the same predicament as your previous relationship.

If you have any questions, please do not feel hesitant to reach out to me. We can talk, we can cry, we can pray, or I can simply send you more information.

Thank you all so much for being apart of this journey with me. I love each any everyone one of you. Please remember to pray for one another!