One of the most difficult things that narcissistic abuse is bringing to victim´s life is a difficulty to trust people again after the abuse. In psychology there is a term for this and it´s called "betrayal trauma". The victims are asking themselves: "How I can trust people again when I have been betrayed by my closest people such mother, father, husband, wife, child, etc? How I can trust people when I can´t even trust myself or the people who are closest to me"?
During the period of healing, you will be suffering from hypersensitivity. In this stage of healing, you will be hypersensitive to slightest things and you will be
overly suspicious about every move of every person in your life (even the strangers walking around you on the street). You will be nonstop on hyper alert and it will be exhausting. You experienced a drastic shock of your system and now your feel like the world is a dangerous place to be. This is a normal response to an abnormal experience you went through. Being abused by an individual who suffers from cluster B type of personality disorder is very damaging and traumatic experience. You might feel paranoid thinking that everybody you meet is narcissistic and that normal people does not exist anymore, you will feel lonely on your journey of healing fearing everybody. You will find yourself isolating more and more and start to suffer from avoidance syndrome. This is completely normal process of healing and this will pass overtime. Once you will be fully healed, the symptoms of betrayal trauma will disappear.During the period of healing, you will be suffering from hypersensitivity. In this stage of healing, you will be hypersensitive to slightest things and you will be
How to trust people after the narcissistic abuse is a difficult task one can give himself or herself. Here are few tips on how to deal with the paranoia and trust issues:
You do not need to trust people. You only need to trust yourself.
The moment you start to trust yourself, you do not need to trust other people around you. On your healing journey, focus on finding the trust for yourself instead of trying to control your environment. The environment is very changeable and we can´t control others. The only thing we can have under the control is ourselves. Learn how to stay calm and collected in every situation. Focus on proper self-education on narcissism and codependency. Once you will be educated on narcissism, you will trust yourself much more in an interaction with other people because even the world is a mix of normal people and dangerous personalities, you will be able to recognize the red flags right away and you will be able to trust yourself enough to always remove yourself out of suspicious situations on the right time. You can´t control the dangerous people, but you can control yourself. Make a peace with a knowing that not everything we can have under our control and that is OK.
No matter what the behavior of people around you will be, you know you will take care of yourself and listen to yourself in every situation. Your feelings and mind will no more depend on people around you as you already broke the "trauma bond" spell and you see yourself as an individual, not as an extension of someone else. From that point you will be able to think and feel for yourself. The feeling of safety will not anymore come from outside but from inside of you. One of the greatest tools to trust yourself after the narcissistic abuse is a knowledge. Study narcissism till you will fully understand what this disorder is all about (books, Youtube videos, articles on internet, therapy). The knowledge is the power. It will protect you. Once you trust yourself, you can even find yourself sitting in the pool full of sharks and you will still keep your smile on your face. Educate yourself on codependency so you can start to work on "de-programing" from codependency as soon as possible. What attracts the predators to the preys is their bleeding wounds. The moment you heal your wounds and you will become strong, the predators will not see you as "eligible prey" and they will move onto someone who will be the less work for them. If you have no wounds, there will be no triggers.
No matter what the behavior of people around you will be, you know you will take care of yourself and listen to yourself in every situation. Your feelings and mind will no more depend on people around you as you already broke the "trauma bond" spell and you see yourself as an individual, not as an extension of someone else. From that point you will be able to think and feel for yourself. The feeling of safety will not anymore come from outside but from inside of you. One of the greatest tools to trust yourself after the narcissistic abuse is a knowledge. Study narcissism till you will fully understand what this disorder is all about (books, Youtube videos, articles on internet, therapy). The knowledge is the power. It will protect you. Once you trust yourself, you can even find yourself sitting in the pool full of sharks and you will still keep your smile on your face. Educate yourself on codependency so you can start to work on "de-programing" from codependency as soon as possible. What attracts the predators to the preys is their bleeding wounds. The moment you heal your wounds and you will become strong, the predators will not see you as "eligible prey" and they will move onto someone who will be the less work for them. If you have no wounds, there will be no triggers.
Listen to your intuition.
Sharpen your intuition by listening to it properly. If your intuition says to you that someone or something is off, its because someone or something is really off. You have actually two brains. The brain and your intuition. The intuition is much faster in collecting the data of your surrounding than the brain and also it is far more connected to your subconscious than the brain. Learn to listen to it. How many times you felt weird about some situation or some person but you brushed it off? Just to discover later on that your intuition was absolutely right? Actually, most of our actions come from subconsciousness rather than consciousness. In most cases we act out of our subconsciousness. The modern society repressed the intuition greatly but back in times when we used to live in caves, our intuition was very sharp because it helped us to survive the hostile environment.
Listen to your body.
Did you ever experience "that feeling" inside of your body when you stood next to some person with a very bad vibe? Your body can pick up on the energy of other people. Listen to your body what it has to say to you when you interact with certain people. Its never wrong.
Listen to your body.
Did you ever experience "that feeling" inside of your body when you stood next to some person with a very bad vibe? Your body can pick up on the energy of other people. Listen to your body what it has to say to you when you interact with certain people. Its never wrong.
Temporary isolation is healthy. Isolation is also a cure for codependency.
Isolation is helping you to reflect back on everything that happened to you and create a distance between you and chaos so you can evaluate any situation more efficiently. Oftentimes, when we spend enough time away from certain people, we actually realize that the life is much more peaceful, healthier and happier without them. Give your self a time and a space, take yourself out of the chaos into the isolation. Even Jesus Christ isolated himself for 40 days and moved alone to the desert to find the clarity. Buddhist monks isolate themselves often to practice meditation. The injured animals go back to their dark burrows to lick their wounds and they stay in isolation till they fully heal. The caterpillars spend a lot of time in the darkness and isolation before they become the butterflies. If you have a difficulty to be alone, then you most probably suffer from codependency. You know you are healthy when you are able to spend some time in your own company away from people and you will feel good about it. The codependency (the urgent need to be clingy to people that leads often times to unhealthy attachment to unhealthy people) might be another reason why you suffer. Work on healing your codependency during the isolation time. Codependent and narcissist is one of the most common combination when it comes to dysfunctional relationships. If you found yourself in the relationships with the narcissists too often, the chance you are a codependent is high. Practice self love, self care, self partnering during this period. Isolation is "me time". Move all of your attention from people to you. Turn inwards. Isolation is a perfect time to (re)build your life without any distraction. Reflect on who you are, where are you going, what you want from life. Journal a lot, meditate, go for a walk, discover yourself. The time in isolation is really all about you, your clarity about your life, your health, your feelings. Connect back with yourself. You will known you are ready to go out of your shell to meet people again when you feel connected with yourself. Not being connected to yourself will make you feel also disconnected from other people and it will make more damage than good.
It takes time to rebuild your life and inner circle, be patience.
Not everybody is your psycho ex. Not everybody is your cruel mother. Not everybody is your crazy coworker. Yes, there are lot of fucked up people out there, but there are also many amazing empathetic people out there too. Do not give up hope. Do not destroy the opportunity for yourself to meet amazing people who can make your life more rich and colorful just because you had few terrible experiences in the past. Living in the darkness behind closed doors is not the answer. Its not a protection, its a prison. Do not jump into any relationship for the wrong reasons (for example loneliness and fear) and do not allow new people to come into your circle while you are still bleeding. Otherwise there is a high chance you will end up in surrounded by another narcissists again. Take your time to heal. Everything extraordinary in our life takes time to build, be patience. The night is the darkest right before the dawn. It takes time to build a new circle of decent people so waiting some time in isolation is absolutely worthy. There are lot of stones out there, but only few diamonds. Do not rush just to have the stones because you will miss the diamonds. Meanwhile, during the lonely stage, use this transition time to build your new life, doing you, bettering yourself. The right people will come to your life in the right time,have no worry.
Be on temporary celibacy and do not date when you are vulnerable.
As the narcissists prey on people who are easily manipulated, the vulnerable people are the greatest target for them. Even in nature the predators are choosing on the weakest, the wounded of the pack. They are like sharks who smell your blood in the water and go after you.
Never date when you are bleeding - never date right after the divorce,
after break up, after the death of your beloved, in the middle of your
depression, crisis or when some traumatic event occurred in your life.
Also, very vulnerable are single mothers with small children. Make sure
you fully heal and become strong before you start to invite any new
people into your life. Thats the only way to keep sharks out of your
life. Narcs avoid strong healthy people with boundaries because they
have no use for them as they are not easily manipulated, its too much
work for them. The reason why narcissists are choosing codependents is
because codependents are very empathetic, giving and they lack of
healthy boundaries. Before you enter any type of relationship, make sure
you cured your codependency. Also, one of the greatest tools of the narcissists to lure the victims in is through sexuality as sex creates very strong bond between people and this is the reason why they rush intimacy too quickly in the beginning just after they freshly met you. When you start dating again, take your time to properly know this person, start to build healthy friendship first and let the time show you who belong into your life and who is not. Those who are seriously interested in you will wait for you when you are ready and if they are healthy enough too they will understand that the true connection is being created slowly and not over night. Only hard ticks are hurry to jump on people and suck them dry.
Not everybody who is smiling is a good person. Do not be naive.
Not everybody who is smiling is a good person and not everybody who is overly nice to you has a good intention for your life. It might be also a trap and a manipulation. In fact, the psychopaths, sociopaths and narcissists are known to be the most charming people you can ever meet. This is the reason why they so easily trap the victims and suck them into their dark world. If something or someone look too good to be true...its because its more likely fake. I am not writing this to make you paranoid, quite contrary, I want you from now own to trust yourself, be free but do not walk this Earth with naive pink glasses on your nose anymore. Be always rational. Be logic. Do not let people to over-write your logic with emotions. Keep healthy distance from people, especially in the beginning when you meet them. Always take a proper amount of time before you make any important decisions and do not let anybody to rush you or push you to decide immediately. This is responsible way of living as an adult.
This is a photo of a covert narcissist Chris Watts who murdered his pregnant wife and his two little daughters. Believe in your intuition because eyes can be sometimes blind. Sometimes what you see its not what it is.
This is Scott Peterson. Also a narcissist who killed his pregnant wife and then helped investigators to search for her pretending to be devastated mourning husband. Especially cover narcissist are very tricky to uncover as they are the most manipulative and charming people you can ever meet. They are often known as a pillar of the community or the perfect wife or perfect husband that everybody admires. There is a reason why they are being called "covert".
This is a serial killer Ted Bundy. A very intelligent and charming man who in his college years took on assignments
such as volunteering at a suicide-prevention hotline, as well as being
enrolled at the state’s crime-prevention task force, so as to prepare
for his career in law and politics. He also saved a child from drowning and got a commendation from the Seattle Police Department for chasing down a
purse thief. Everybody knew him as "the nice guy". He confessed to 30 murders, but his true body count is thought to be much higher — possibly 100 or more.
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